[Imperial Guard 05] - Ice Guard

by Steve Lyons - (ebook by Undead)

  Steele nodded, accepting that his sergeant knew the situation better than he did at the moment — and the Ice Warriors set off again. Gavotski lingered behind, to help first Mikhaelev and then Anakora down from the cellar. As Anakora’s first foot touched down, Gavotski saw the muzzle of a bolt pistol poking through the entrance hole above her, and he threw himself at the startled trooper, flattening them both against the side of the tunnel.

  A hail of bolts rained down at their backs, and churned up the black water below them. They waited for a lull in the firing, then they hurried after their comrades. The last of them, Mikhaelev, was just disappearing through a hole in the wall — and as Gavotski reached the hole, he heard a heavy thud behind him, and he turned to look, and found his worst fear realised.

  The Chaos Space Marine had just dropped into the tunnel, and was turning to follow them. But there was something else too, something in the water.

  And the water erupted, and a monster filled the tunnel, looming over the new arrival, its jaws darting for his throat: a sewer creature, perhaps attracted by the Chaos Space Marine’s own bolter fire — a creature like the one the Ice Warriors had fought earlier, only Gavotski thought this one might have been even larger.

  The Chaos Space Marine was trying to bat its thrusting head away from him, swiping at the creature with his chainsword, carving into its scales, drawing black blood. But Gavotski didn’t wait to see the outcome of their battle.

  He slipped away from there, and he kept on running.

  There had been rubble on top of the manhole cover.

  Palinev had been unable to shift it. Blonsky had volunteered to climb the ladder instead, to put his shoulder to the task. By now, of course, they had all been worried about what they might find out there, in the chapel, on the surface. Steele had listened for a moment, and assured his squad that he could hear nobody. No foes. But no friends either.

  The cover had yielded at last, and Blonsky had been the first to climb through it, to stand blinking in the unexpected light, though the others had soon joined him.

  The Chaos forces had done a more thorough job, this time.

  They had left no walls of the chapel standing. They had demolished its columns, brought down its roof. They had burned what was left of its pews, and smashed its altar beyond all hope of reclamation. The smell of cordite still hung heavy in the air, as did the altogether more rotten stench of death.

  Blonsky jabbed at the nearest corpse with his toe, turned it over to inspect it properly. He didn’t want to stoop, didn’t want to get closer to it than he already was. It was a mutant, of course. Its grey fur was matted with dark blood, beneath its torn blue smock. It might have been one of the loyalists they had met, one to which they had talked. He couldn’t tell. They all looked the same to him.

  “What happened here?” asked Steele. Gavotski told him about the mutants, their chapel and their apparent desire to help. Steele frowned and said nothing. Blonsky guessed that he was unhappy about his men allying themselves with the impure, but he didn’t want to question his sergeant’s judgement, not in front of the troopers.

  “Anyway,” sighed Gavotski, “it seems they got what they wanted. They died, fighting. For the Emperor.”

  “It must have happened just after we left,” said Palinev. “Maybe just a few minutes after. Do you think any of them escaped?”

  Gavotski shrugged. “Without a full search of the rubble…”

  “Either way,” said Steele, “it looks like we are on our own after all.” With a sidelong glance at Gavotski, he added, “And perhaps it’s best that way.”

  Blonsky couldn’t have agreed more. “The only good mutant,” he muttered with some satisfaction, “is a dead mutant.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Time to Destruction of Cressida: 01.29.22

  The spaceport lay at the eastern edge of the hive, on one of its mid-levels. Steele knew the way, of course, thanks to his brief inspection of the city maps the day before.

  And so, for the second time, he found himself in the back of a rickety old truck, pressed in against his comrades. Grayle and Barreski had taken the cab, still in their black robes — although Steele doubted whether the disguises would do them much good, not with every heretic in the hive on their trail.

  They had been driving for some time when he felt the truck swerve, heard its tyres squeal, felt an impact with its front bumper. “What’s happening up there?” he yelled.

  “We’ve been seen, sir,” Barreski’s voice came back through the partition that separated them. “A bunch of cultists. Grayle tried to run them down — got a few of them, too — but two more escaped.”

  “And they’ll run to the nearest vox-caster,” sighed Mikhaelev.

  Steele feared that he was right. Until now, he had been banking on the hope that their enemies didn’t know where they were heading, didn’t know they had lost their own transport. The bulk of the Chaos forces, with luck, would be guarding the hive’s exits, leaving a clear run to the Ice Warriors’ real objective. Now, that hope was lost. Now, all they could do was try to reach the spaceport first.

  Steele hammered on the partition, and shouted to Grayle to put his foot down.

  Confessor Wollkenden had woken half an hour ago, looking nauseous. He had stared at the faces of each of the Ice Warriors in turn, before drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his forehead on them, shutting out the world. Steele had collected dry rations and water from his troopers, and the confessor had consumed them greedily, but he hadn’t moved since nor spoken a word.

  He looked up now, though — and in a loud, clear voice, he said, “Is this transport appropriate for a war hero? I will have somebody’s head for this. This engine should be silent. We don’t want him to hear, to come down here. Is it almost time to eat? They’re waiting for me to address them. They need me to give them hope, and the strength to resist.”

  The others were looking at each other, at the roof, anywhere but at the confessor. Steele shared their discomfort. He had been worried about Wollkenden since he had found him in the dungeons, had feared that whatever Mangellan had done to him had broken his mind. He had pushed that fear to the back of his thoughts, concentrated on the job at hand. Now he had no choice but to face it.

  “You’re free, confessor,” he said. “Mangellan isn’t coming. He can’t hurt you any more. Do you remember me? I’m Colonel Stanislev Steele. I rescued you. I just need you to be patient, to be strong, and we’ll get you out of here. We’ll get you to a doctor. They can treat your… fever.”

  “I still have some water left,” offered Palinev, “if you think that might… I mean, if the confessor…”

  Wollkenden looked Steele in the eye, and he said, “I’ll say a prayer for us.”

  Steele smiled. “I’m sure we would all appreciate that, sir.”

  “And you will kill him for me, won’t you?”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, confessor. In a few hours’ time, there will be nobody alive on this planet. Mangellan will be—”

  “I don’t mean him, not the one with the words. I mean the big bruiser in the cloak, the one who punched me in the face. You will make him suffer, won’t you? You will make him pay for presuming to lay his hands on a holy man.”

  Steele was saved from having to answer that, as, again, something smacked into the truck and made its frame judder. “What the hell has Grayle hit now?” complained Blonsky, who had been caught unawares and banged his head. But Steele and a couple of the others had felt that this impact was different from the first — and his enhanced hearing confirmed it.

  It wasn’t the front of the truck that had hit something this time, rather that something had landed on its roof… something that was moving about up there. Something with a roaring chainsword…

  The tip of the sword came slicing through the roof of the cab, above Grayle’s head. He let out a cry, and slid down in his seat until he could only just see through the windscreen, barely see where he was going. He spun
the wheel hard right, left, right again, and pumped the pedals furiously. Beside him, Barreski was tossed back and forth, and Grayle could hear muffled protests from the rear compartment.

  But he could not shake his unwanted passenger.

  The Chaos Space Marine clung on, and his sword cut deeper. It was rising and falling, in a sawing motion, scoring a seam across the roof. Then the sword was withdrawn, and Grayle saw gauntleted fingers scrabbling at that seam, widening it.

  Barreski fired at those fingers — he had replaced his lasgun with one taken from a dead Traitor Guardsman in the street — and the hand was withdrawn, stung. A moment later, it returned, looking for and finding fresh purchase. And then, with a terrible, nerve-jangling wrench, the Chaos Space Marine peeled back the roof, and Grayle gaped up into his leering face, could smell his fetid breath.

  “Everybody, brace yourselves!” he yelled, and he stamped on the brake pedal.

  This time, the Chaos Space Marine was taken by surprise. He was reaching for Grayle when the truck jolted to a halt and catapulted him forwards. He hit the windscreen, shattering the plexiglas, and then slid sideways across the bonnet and disappeared from sight. Feverishly, Grayle slammed the engine into reverse. He felt his front right wheel bouncing over an obstacle in the road — the monster’s head, he hoped, although whether this was the case or not it seemed to make little difference.

  The Chaos Space Marine was already back on his feet, his head down, charging towards the retreating truck like an enraged bull. He looked a mess, his black armour barely clinging to his battered body. His left arm had been amputated at the elbow, presumably by the teeth of the sewer creature. One of his eyes was missing. He had dropped his chainsword, but he was wielding his bolt pistol.

  Grayle couldn’t outpace him, not driving backwards. He forced his back wheels around, made to set off along another street. He was too late. The Chaos Space Marine had caught up to them. He braced himself against the bumper so that no matter how hard the engine strained, or how fast the wheels spun, they couldn’t gain headway against him.

  And now the Chaos Space Marine stooped, took the truck by its axle, lifted it, one-handed, and Barreski was banging on the partition, yelling, “Everybody out!” and he and Grayle kicked open their doors, and leapt as the Chaos Space Marine flexed a powerful shoulder and gave the truck one final twist…

  Blonsky and Mikhaelev had been the nearest troopers to the back doors, and thus the first two out of them. Steele had made sure that Wollkenden went next, helping him along with a push to the back when he had hesitated. The confessor had fallen awkwardly, landing face first in the street, and Steele had leapt down beside him and hoisted him to his feet.

  All of which had left Anakora, Gavotski and Palinev in the back of the truck as it was flipped over.

  Anakora had been in the doorway, poised to jump, when the world had spun in front of her. The next thing she knew, she was on her back, tangled up with her comrades, on a plasteel surface that had been upright a moment ago. She had bumped her head, and black spots were crowding her vision, threatening to close in, to enshroud her in their darkness. She would not give in to them.

  She could hear las-fire, and the answering bark of a bolt pistol. She couldn’t just lie there, letting the others down.

  Palinev was the first to extricate himself and crawl away. Anakora watched as his blurry shape was swallowed by a fierce white light — streetlights, she realised, shining in from outside. The truck was on its side, and one of its back doors — the higher one — had fallen shut. The lower door had been snapped from its hinges. Its frame had crumpled a little, but there was still room to squeeze through it.

  “Are you OK?” asked Gavotski, waving a hand in front of Anakora’s eyes.

  She gritted her teeth and gave a determined nod. Gavotski followed Palinev through the bright white square. Anakora blinked, wishing her eyes would clear, and forced herself up onto her hands and knees and made to follow him.

  Then she heard a strangulated cry, and Gavotski was whipped away from her — and she caught her breath at the sight of a pair of black armoured boots through the exit hole. Gavotski had crawled right into the Chaos Space Marine’s clutches.

  She could see his boots too, half a metre off the ground, kicking furiously. He was pinned to the back of the truck, doubtless having the life squeezed out of him, and the desperate las-fire of the other Ice Warriors was doing little to change that situation. But from down here, up close, Anakora could make out cracks in the Chaos Space Marine’s black armour. She could see the flesh beneath them.

  She pulled her knife, thrust it into an exposed ankle, twisting it around and burying it deeper, hoping to sever a tendon. She couldn’t tell if she had been successful in this — but she had certainly had some effect. The Chaos Marine gave a howl of fury and flung Gavotski aside. Then he gripped the truck’s remaining door and tore it free, to expose his attacker.

  It was only now that Anakora saw how damaged he was. She couldn’t believe he was still standing, still fighting. But she didn’t doubt that he was still more than capable of killing her in a second.

  She scrambled away from him, until she was backed up against the partition to the driver’s cab and was cornered there. The Chaos Space Marine dropped to his haunches, down to her level, blocking out the white light, and he screamed obscenities at her, and brought up his bolt pistol. Her head was still pounding, and she closed her eyes and yelled to her comrades, “Go! Get out of here while you can!”

  Just as Steele had yelled at her when they had last fought this monster.

  But then: she heard a mechanical scream, and her would-be executioner stiffened. His eyes glazed over, blood spewed from his mouth, and he turned, he made to rise, but the effort was too much for him and he toppled and fell — and Anakora saw a chainsword embedded in his back, sputtering and sparking.

  Palinev helped her out of the truck, and she stood unsteadily in what now seemed to be a rather faint light after all. And like the rest of the Ice Warriors, her eyes were drawn to her commander, his face and his chest still painted with vile symbols from the ceremony — although he had tried to scrub them off with sewer water — and his right hand held away from his body as if he considered it unclean.

  It was with that hand, Anakora realised, that he must have lifted the Chaos Space Marine’s own weapon, his augmented muscles giving him the strength to do so.

  But there was no satisfaction in Colonel Steele’s eyes at his victory. Just a look of deep-seated disgust.

  They remained on foot after that. Steele didn’t want to waste time searching for another working vehicle — and the spaceport, he said, was only just over a kilometre away. They formed up in two ranks and advanced at double time. The effort of keeping pace with each other, of maintaining formation and step, helped to spur on these soldiers, to overcome the fatigue they were all feeling. It helped them feel more in control, like they had imposed a little order of their own upon this chaotic world — and even Wollkenden responded well to this. He said nothing as he marched at Steele’s side, although he stumbled now and again.

  Palinev could tell they were approaching their goal, because the buildings grew a little taller, a little more proud. Eagle crests began to appear over the doorways of customs and shipping offices, and the streets grew wider and brighter, more like those on the upper levels.

  Steele brought his squad to a halt and ordered them to break step, to proceed with caution. He appeared to be worried — and a minute later, Palinev learned why.

  There were people ahead of them. He could hear them — they could all hear them now — talking and laughing. The Ice Warriors took cover in a narrow alleyway, and Steele sent Palinev ahead to see what they were facing.

  The spaceport was a magnificent, circular building of white stone, studded with dark windows. Evidently, there had been small-arms fighting here, and the front wall was pock-marked but unholed. Laid out in front of that wall was a wide forecourt, in which broken fountains br
immed with frozen black water. Lifter tubes had been shattered, and trees — real organic trees — had withered and died. Once, this area would have been a welcoming first sight for visitors to Iota Hive, maybe to Cressida itself. Now, it gave an entirely different impression.

  Palinev looked down on all of this from a gantry between two buildings. Below him, a wide flight of steps swept down from the street where the rest of his squad hid, to the forecourt and the enticing open gates beyond it.

  At some point, a sleek, black grav-car had come speeding this way, its driver presumably hoping to ferry an important passenger to safety. It had lost control, had maybe come under fire, and had smacked into a pillar at the top of the steps, crumpling its front end. The car was empty now; Palinev wondered if its occupants had escaped or been dragged from the wreckage.

  There were more grav-cars down on the forecourt, most of them burnt out or turned over, or both. There was also a dirty old bus — transport for the less privileged — leaning against a fountain, its windows broken, its tyres slashed.

  And there were heretics: cultists, Traitor Guardsmen, mutants, even a few spawn, spread out as far as Palinev could see, almost certainly surrounding the whole building, and more of them arriving with each moment that passed. The encounter with the Chaos Space Marine had cost the Ice Warriors dearly. Their enemies had beaten them here.

  Palinev slipped away from his vantage point, dispirited, and returned to the others. Steele listened to his report in grave silence, and Palinev knew that he was only confirming what the colonel had expected to hear.

  “We have less than an hour before the virus bombs drop,” said Steele. “We don’t have time to find another escape route, even if we had somewhere to look. Our only hope, however small, lies in that spaceport, and the sooner we make our move the fewer enemies will be standing between us and it.”