Trooper Graves was nursing a fresh wound. Snatching his hand from his temple, I saw the familiar red welt of a glancing las-beam hit.
‘What the hell’s been going on here?’ I shouted.
I pushed my way into the hall, where I found the remains of my platoon in disarray – and two of them dead on the floor.
Standing over these two, with his laspistol drawn, was General Farris – and as he turned to me with a regretful slump of his shoulders, I realised what he must have done. He had shot them. A tense silence filled the hall before Farris leapt to defend his actions: ‘I had no choice. They were lashing out, screaming, firing everywhere. This one, he came at me with his knife. He was saying crazy things, calling me a monster. I think… I think the cultists must have got to them.’
‘No!’ The protest came automatically to my lips. ‘No damned way!’
It was one thing to see a comrade cut down in battle, dying for what he believed in. This… This was senseless. I felt cold inside. I felt numb.
I felt angry.
I remembered how Myers had fought so well that morning, laughing as he’d sunk his knife arm up to the elbow in cultist guts. I remembered how Wallenski had been so proud, last week, when the men had honoured him with an earned name. ‘Nails’, they had called him.
‘They were good men, my men. You had no right.’
Farris’s eyes darkened.
‘Do I have to remind you, colonel, that I am the ranking officer here? You weren’t even present. You don’t know what—’
‘I knew them, sir. I know my men, and they were two of the best.’
A heavy silence had fallen upon the hall. All eyes were fixed upon the general and me. Still, my words provoked a ragged, defiant cheer from the dead men’s comrades.
‘Either one of those soldiers would have given his last damned drop of blood for the Emperor.’ I continued. ‘It must have been… They must have come down with some virus. A fever. It made them see things.’
‘Whatever the cause of their behaviour, they were threatening us all. I had to act.’
‘You didn’t even know their damned names!’
And the silence returned, almost a physical force between us.
It was broken by a quiet voice. Kadence Moonglow had entered the hall, and walked right up to my shoulder without my being aware of him. That, as much as any of the night’s events so far, disquieted me.
‘The covenant has been broken,’ the boy said.
‘What the hell does that mean?’ I rounded on him.
‘Blood has been shed. Now, they will not rest until they have blood in return.’
‘Who will not rest? The cultists?’ Farris asked.
Kadence shook his head. ‘The jungle has bred far worse than those misguided souls. There are monsters out there. Monsters that the eye cannot see, but whose presence is felt nonetheless.’
‘Yeah, well, thanks for the warning,’ I said, ‘but those “monsters” of yours already tried to blow me into chunks.’
Kadence shot me a sharp look – and, for a moment, his calm facade slipped and I caught a glimpse of something darker beneath it.
‘They would not have attacked you except in self-defence.’
Then, composing himself, he continued.
‘We welcomed you into our village, our home, because we sensed that you were noble souls. We only prayed that, in return, you could leave your war at our doors.’
‘I don’t know if you’re aware of this, kid, but your monsters have this village surrounded.’ I replied.
‘And now they are free to enter it as they please. By sunrise, all we have built here will be ashes. No one will survive.’
‘In a grox’s eye!’ I spat. ‘Those things out there, whatever they are – they aren’t dealing with a bunch of tree-hugging pushovers any more. If they want this village, they’ll have to go through us to get it.’
‘Colonel Straken has a point.’ Farris cut in. ‘We will do everything in our power to protect you.’
‘There are less than thirty of you. Their numbers are legion.’
‘But we have the defensive advantage,’ I said. ‘My boys can keep those hostiles at bay till dawn, or I’ll want to know the damned reason why.’
‘And once the sun is up, we’ll be able to lead you – all of you - to safety. We have an army, not twenty kilometres from here.’ Farris said.
Kadence bowed his head.
‘As you wish.’
The next half-hour was given over to frenetic activity.
I trebled the guard around the village, this time counting myself out of the assignments. I wanted to be free to go where I was needed. I sent Barruga and Stone around the huts, telling people to pack their things and move to the central hall. They would be safer there, harder to reach. General Farris stayed in the hall, too – his choice. Someone had to organise things in there, he claimed.
I debriefed Kopachek. His story was similar to my own – except that, in his case, the enemy had fired first. Like me, he hadn’t managed to get a good look at them. I sent him, along with MacDougal, Vines and Greif, to grab an hour’s sleep in one of the vacated huts. Farris had been right about one thing: my men were the toughest damned sons-of-groxes in the Imperium. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that they didn’t all have chests full of replacement parts to keep them going.
I hadn’t forgotten about Wallenski and Myers. There would be a reckoning for their deaths, and soon. Meantime, I had warned every man to keep an eye on his watch partner – and to call for a medic if he felt the jungle sweats coming on.
The quiet of the night was broken only by the occasional squawking bird, and the deeper cries of much larger and much more dangerous jungle creatures. Trooper Thorn was sprawled on his stomach, alongside a small, square hut, his wiry body masked by the long grass. His lasgun barrel rested on a mound of dirt, waiting for a target. I hurried up to him, keeping my head down, and dropped to my haunches beside him. He gave me a situation report without my even asking.
‘Nothing, sir. Not a sign of the hostiles. Perhaps you made them realise what they’re facing, and—?’
‘They’re out there.’ I interrupted. I had rarely been more sure of anything in my life.
‘Do you think…? That boy, sir, what he said… was he right? Are we facing… monsters? Daemons, or…?’
‘Trust me, kid, I’ve seen enough monsters in my lifetime, and nothing – not a damned one of them – would last two minutes in a scrap with a Catachan Devil, or make it through a patch of spikers alive. So, don’t you dare start shaking in your boots just ’cos you’ve seen a few drops of blood today and heard some damned fairy tale.’
‘No, sir. It’s just that… Colonel Straken, sir, is something wrong? You… you’re sweating.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I asked.
‘What… what did you say?’ asked Thorn.
Suddenly he was clawing at the ground with the bandaged stump of his left arm, pushing himself away from me and to his feet. His eyes had widened with fear, and his voice was loud – too loud. He had blown our cover for sure.
‘Trooper Thorn, to attention!’ I snapped. ‘You’re behaving like a damned newborn yourself. Hell, I know you’re not long out of nappies, but—’
‘Take that back, sir. Take it back!’
‘I beg your damned pardon, trooper?’
We were both standing now, and Thorn had managed to grab his lasgun and was pointing it shakily at my head. I had brought up my shotgun in return – an instinctive reaction - but the image of a comrade in its sights shocked me to my core.
I lowered my gun, brought up my hands.
‘Listen, kid.’ I said. ‘You’re not yourself. You’re sick. Like Wallenski and Myers, they were sick. But you can fight it.’
‘I don’t want to believe… This is a test, right? Tell me it’s a test. Don’t make me–’
‘Why do you think you’re here? Do you think I make a habit outta taking every snot-nosed bra
t fresh out of training into my command platoon? “Barracuda” Creek back at the Tower reckons you’re the next damned Sly Marbo. You gonna prove him wrong?’
‘The fever!’ he cried and, for a moment, I thought I’d got through to him.
‘It must be the fever, making you say those things. Please, sir, just… drop your weapons. I don’t want to have to shoot you – not you – but I swear in the Emperor’s name, if I must–’
His sentence was broken by a barrage of las-fire, which provided just the distraction I needed. I tackled Thorn before he could say another word, and the lasgun fell from his grip as we hit the ground together. I’d saved his life, my instincts and a keen ear keeping me a half-second ahead of the fresh salvo of enemy fire that had just erupted from the jungle.
In return for that favour, Thorn was trying his damned best to kill me.
I had him pinned with my knee, keeping him from drawing his knife. But the fingers of Thorn’s one hand were locked tight about my throat. He was stronger than he looked.
No match for my augmetic arm, of course. I fought out of his grip, breaking a few bones in the process. Thorn was screaming curses, thrashing about wildly as he tried to unseat me, foaming at the mouth. In the meantime, I knew the hostiles wouldn’t exactly be sitting around making daisy chains. They couldn’t have asked for a better distraction, or easier targets, than these two damned fools brawling in the open.
I had no choice but to finish this. Fast. I could already hear my men returning fire, and this one was going to get ugly, and quick.
I twisted my shotgun around, trying to jam the barrel up beneath Thorn’s chin. I had no intention of shooting him, of course. If he’d been in his right mind, he’d have known that. Instead, he fought with all his strength to push the gun away from himself. I let him succeed, even as I blindsided him with my metal fist.
The punch knocked Thorn spark out, and left a dent in the side of his skull that would probably take a metal plate to straighten out. The way this kid was going today, he was liable to end up like me.
While we had been grappling, the hostiles had made their move.
They came running, screaming, firing out of the jungle, somehow managing to evade all of our traps. My men were shooting furiously at them, but Thorn’s little turn had left a gaping hole in our defences – and the hostiles knew exactly where our blind spots were.
I was a damned sitting duck. I didn’t know why I wasn’t dead already – but, seeing as I wasn’t, I figured I could spare another second to hoist the unconscious Thorn across my shoulders before I ran for cover. No one gets left behind if I can help it.
My men were closing with the invaders, yelling for the rest of the platoon to back them up. I deposited Thorn on the ground behind a hut. I didn’t stop to check how he was. No time for that. I had a battle to get back to. I raced back to join my men, running at the hostiles with my shotgun blazing. Emperor’s teeth, but they were ugly! It was all I could do not to puke at the sight of them.
They had been human once, that much I could tell. Cultists, no doubt, some of them still wearing the tatters of their black robes.
Kadence had been right about them. They were monsters, now, no two of them alike. Their flesh had run like wax, set in revolting shapes. Arms had been fused to torsos, fingers melted together, heads sunken into chests. Some of the monsters – the mutants – had sprouted new limbs, from their ribs, their spines, even out of their heads. Some of them had six eyes, four noses, or mouths in their bellies. They were bristling with clumps of short, black hair, with blisters and blood-red pustules.
And they outnumbered us about five to one. There was no way we were going to survive without some discipline, so I started spitting out orders.
‘Barruga, aim for the slimy one’s eyes. No, its other eyes! Emperor’s teeth, this one has a face like a grox’s back end, and it stinks as bad. Greif, wake the hell up, you’d have lost your damned head if I hadn’t shot that one behind you. Move it, you slowpokes, I want you up close and personal, right in their damned faces. Marsh, stop holding that knife like you’re eating your breakfast. It only takes one hand to hold in your guts, so keep the other one fighting. Kopachek, where’s that damned flamer? I want the smell of burning mutants in my nostrils!’
One thing I have learned about mutants over the years: they might be strong – damned strong, some of them – but it’s rare that they’re fast. They’re clumsy, unwieldy. Comes from fighting in bodies they hardly know. That, and having the brain power of a blood wasp on heat.
And, at first, it appeared that these mutants were no different.
I was right in the thick of them. It was safer that way. It made it impossible for their snipers, on the edge of the melee, to keep me in their sights, or to use their grenades without decimating their own ranks.
So, the mutants were swiping at me with poison-dipped claws, straining for my throat with misshapen fangs, and I can hardly deny it, this is one battered old warhorse who has started to slow down himself. I always figured that, what I’ve lost in speed, I make up for by having a tougher damned hide than most. Even so, in a fight like this one, I’d have expected a few cuts and bruises. Not this time, though. This time, it felt like I was charmed. Like those damned freaks couldn’t lay a hand on me.
And yet…
And yet, somehow, my knife thrusts weren’t hitting home either. The mutants were ducking and weaving like experts. And whenever I thought I had a clear shot at one, as I started to squeeze my trigger, my target was gone, spun away, and there were only comrades in my sights instead.
My men were faring no better than I was. They’d slashed at a few of those melted-wax faces, cracked a few twisted skulls, but no more than that. And they’d taken surprisingly few wounds in return, just a shallow cut here and there. It was almost like… like the mutants were playing with us.
Insulted, enraged, I lashed out with my feet and my elbows, widened the arc of my knife swipes, turned my shotgun around and used its butt as a cudgel, but nothing got through. So, I took a calculated risk. I did what every nerve in my body was screaming at me to do.
I leapt at the nearest mutant and I slashed its throat, my frustration bursting out in a cruel bark of laughter as its hot blood spattered my face. My first kill of the night. But to make that leap, I’d had to drop my guard, leave my right flank exposed.
I expected to feel a talon in my ribs, to die in agony, but no such blow came. My instincts had been right. The mutants weren’t trying to kill us. It was worse than that.
‘They want to take us alive!’ I shouted. ‘Well, they can’t have met a Catachan Jungle Fighter before. Time to step up your game, you goldbrickers. Show these mutant scum that we don’t lie down and roll over till we’re damn well stone cold dead!’
With a roar of enthusiasm, the men followed my lead. They fought with abandon, not caring what risks they took with their own safety as long as they hurt the enemy.
The switch in tactics took the mutants by surprise. They were thrown off balance, reeling, falling like tenpins. I knew it couldn’t last.
They must have identified me as the leader, because now they were swarming me, grasping at me with filthy hands. I landed a few good blows, but then strong arms encircled me from behind, and a cold, clammy tentacle seized my left wrist and twisted it almost to breaking point. My shotgun fell from my numbed fingers. My knife hand… that was stronger than my opponents had bargained for.
For a moment, it looked like the struggle – my augmetic arm against three of those freaks – could have gone either way. But then, a flailing limb – or a tail, I suspected – whipped my legs out from under me, something blunt and hard struck the back of my head, and I was toppling backwards.
And the first thing I realised, as I blinked away stars, as I fought to keep awake and on my knees at least, was that my blade – my Catachan Fang – had indeed been wrenched from my grip.
Someone was gonna pay for that!
The mutants were looming over
me. Seven of them, I counted. Or maybe just six; I wasn’t sure if one had two heads. They were shouting at me in a language I couldn’t understand, but one that made my every nerve jangle like the strings of a grox-gut harp. I had no doubt that they were screaming blasphemy of the vilest kind, and all I longed to do was to shut them up, to stop those awful, hateful words escaping into the world.
The grenade felt cold in my hand, and reassuringly solid. It gave me strength, put me back in control. I knew it would rip my body apart. I knew that this time not even the most skilled surgeon would be able to stitch me back together. But a glorious death was far preferable to defeat. And a death that took six – or seven – of my enemies with me…
Then, just like that, the mutants were gone. Withdrawn. Swallowed up by the jungle once more, with hardly a ripple to mark their passing. The quiet rhythm of the jungle settled in again as I unsteadily picked myself up. I saw a number of my men doing the same, looking as confused as I felt.
‘How many wounded?’ I asked.
There were only a few, and nothing a can of synth-skin couldn’t fix. It didn’t make any sense. The mutants had been winning!
They had left a handful of misshapen bodies behind them. I glared down at one as if it could tell me in death the secrets it had kept in life. The mutant was lizard-like in appearance, a forked tongue lolling from its open mouth, a thorny tail tangled about its ankles. It hurt my eyes to look at it. I blinked and shifted my gaze along the grass until it found a more welcome sight.
I didn’t dare believe it at first. My knife. My Catachan Fang. Half a metre of cold steel, its early gleam dulled through a lifetime of use but still the most precious thing in the damned world to me. An extension of myself, a part of my soul. And the mutants had left it, standing upright in the ground. Almost… respectfully.
I spent a long time kneeling beside that knife, looking at it, before I picked it up, wiped it down and returned it to its sheath.
I spent a long time thinking about what it might mean.
Twenty minutes later and I was back in the central hall butting heads with Farris.
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