Kabanov’s father, on the other hand, had never advanced beyond the rank of major, but was somewhat famous in his own right. His mastery of the ossbohk-vyar—the brutal Vostroyan close-quarters combat art—had earned him regimental honours year after year, and Kabanov was keen to follow in his footsteps, though he was far less inclined to talk about it.
Glory or not, he didn’t like the look of Mount Megidde. Its slopes seemed filled with threat, steep and jagged like the serrations on a cruel blade. It stood alone, tall and grim, utterly dominating the broad, open farmland that surrounded it. The troopers, he’d heard, had nicknamed it Black Tooth because it chewed up every man who tried to ascend it.
This whole region had been one of the most productive agri-zones on the planet. Now, between the constant shelling and the torrential rain, it was a blood-soaked quagmire, and all too many of the bodies that covered it were Vostroya’s sons.
Vlastan seemed oblivious to that. “If the general wants this mountain, sir,” he said, “rest assured that we’re the men to take it. Both Lieutenant Kabanov and I intend to make our mark early on.”
Tyrkin’s smile was more polite than genuine, for he knew how many lives Mount Megidde had reaped since Third Army’s advance had faltered here, but he said, “That’s the spirit, lieutenant. Your fathers would be proud, you know. I had the honour of serving alongside both of them before they passed over to the Emperor’s side.”
“You did, sir?” prompted Vlastan eagerly.
“Indeed, and they were great men, both. Your father, Vlastan, was a real force among the officer class—a strong traditionalist and much missed.” To Kabanov, he added, “And your father inspired us all with his prowess in the regimental tournaments. If you’ve any of his martial skill, I shall enjoy seeing you compete.”
Kabanov bowed gratefully at the compliment. Vlastan, he noticed, had turned to face the mountain again. Tyrkin, though, wasn’t quite finished.
“Since neither man lived to see you take your first battlefield commissions, I feel some responsibility in passing on the wisdom they would surely have imparted themselves. The vast majority of new officers, you see, are apt to make the same mistakes. They may feel ready to face foul greenskins, insidious eldar or unspeakable mutant scum, but few are prepared for an enemy that strikes at the heart. Few are ready to wrestle their own conscience.”
Vlastan and Kabanov listened while the rain drummed steadily on their hats and shoulders. One at a time, the captain fixed them with his gaze. “This may sound distasteful to you, given any youthful idealism you may cling to, but you must remain objective in putting the proper value on the lives of your men. We officers are noble-born and must bear the requisite burden of our class. We live to command, elevated to it by birthright. The troopers, however, were born to die serving the Divine Will. Understand that from the beginning. Your fathers would have impressed this upon you most strongly.”
From the corner of his eye, Kabanov saw Vlastan nodding in wholehearted agreement, but his own reaction was markedly different.
His father’s letters and journals betrayed Tyrkin’s lie. Major Urien Kabanov had been a humanist and squandered no man’s life, guided firmly by the core precepts of the ossbohk-vyar. Back on Vostroya, Kabanov’s mother had fondly corroborated this.
Tyrkin, Kabanov realised, was watching him closely, waiting for some cue that said the lesson had been absorbed, so he nodded grimly despite his inward thoughts.
It was enough to satisfy the older man. He mumbled to his adjutant and, together, they turned back towards the shelter of their Chimera armoured transport. Over his shoulder, he called out, “Come, gentlemen. I’ll drop you at the barracks. It’s time you briefed your men on the specifics of the assault.”
Mount Megidde (West Face, 696m)
“Keep pushing, you worthless dogs,” roared Vlastan. “By the blasted warp, what’s gotten into you. This is the Emperor’s work, for Throne’s sake!”
His sergeants immediately took their cue and began shouting the men onwards, pressing them up the mountain metre-by-metre, though stubber-fire stitched the rocky ground all around them.
He’d lost four men already taking this ridge—the first men to crest it. Taking the brunt of the enemy’s defensive fire, they’d jinked and shuddered for a moment in the withering barrage, then tumbled backwards, falling past him and out over the cliff towards the jagged lower slopes.
An infuriating loss.
Screams of agony sounded from left and right now as the enemy’s bullets found other unfortunates. Mud-splashed suits of carapace armour protected vital organs, but some of the whining slugs bit deep into unprotected arms and thighs, ripping open the arteries there.
The wounded went down howling, blood pumping out over the cold ground. Their plaintive cries for aid further angered Vlastan. That they were all boys of his own age mattered not a bit.
Selfish fools, he cursed. We’re in the middle of a firefight! Should I ask the blasted mutants to take a caffeine break while we patch you up?
He and his Fourth Platoon had been charged with storming the mountain’s western face—one of the hardest ascents and, for that very reason, the least mined and defended. He wondered bitterly if Kabanov’s ascent was any easier. RHQ believed the mountain’s natural defences had made the mutants complacent on the western and south-eastern sides.
As more enemy fire peppered the rocks around the ascending Vostroyans, it certainly didn’t seem so to Vlastan. Every metre he won was bought with blood.
Once at the base of the citadel walls, Vlastan was to throw his force against the defenders, drawing their reserves to the western battlements so that Kabanov and his platoon could penetrate the south-eastern defences with minimal resistance.
He was far from satisfied with the plan.
It’s a load of rot, he cursed. A man of House Vlastan charged with leading a diversionary force? Nothing less than a damned insult!
A pale, stooped figure with overlong arms and huge, bulbous eyes lunged from cover up ahead and levelled a stubber at the advancing line. Before the mutant could pull the trigger, however, Vlastan’s laspistol found him. There was a sharp crack and the acrid smell of ozone. The mutant’s body toppled forward, trailing steam from the large, cauterised hole that had appeared in his face.
“Nice shot, sir!” voxed Vlastan’s comms officer, Corporal Korgin.
Seeing the kill, other mutants vented their rage from higher ground, leaning out from shielding rock to send deadly volleys down the mountainside.
“Blast them, Firstborn!” yelled Vlastan into his vox-bead’s microphone. “Squads Borgoff and Gurelov, flank left. Sergeant Niriev, I want suppressing fire front-right! Move up, move up, damn you! Any man who falls behind will be shot!”
Swept up in the noise and madness of the fight, the men didn’t hesitate to follow Vlastan’s every word. More fell screaming to the concentrated fire of the enemy, but the Vostroyan advance was inexorable. The mutants on the slopes were a rabble, relying on sheer numbers to see them through. They lacked the lifelong training of the disciplined Firstborn. With confidence overfed by earlier success, they were unprepared for such a continuous, determined assault on ground they had presumed secure.
Pausing momentarily behind good, solid cover, Vlastan slid a new cell into the grip of his pistol and looked up the slope towards the summit.
There, up beyond the next ridge, he saw the colossal black walls of Megiddzar. They seemed so mighty he could almost believe they were propping up the storm-heavy sky. Misshapen figures moved to and fro on the parapets and, from the right, he heard the rippling boom of the enemy’s heavy artillery, unmistakably near. The mountain trembled under his feet.
I’m sorry, Maksim, he thought. I know you’re counting on me for your diversion, but I can’t pass up this chance to make my mark. You’ll have other chances, my friend, but this day is mine.
Troopers surged past him, yelling and roaring as they ran. One was struck hard in the face by a stubber-round and knocked fro
m his feet. He died instantly, lasgun clattering to the ground.
Vlastan felt a sudden, wet warmth and looked down lo see his clothing and armour splashed with fresh gore. He felt a moment’s panic before he realised it was blood from the young trooper, not his own.
His relief soon turned to anger. “Slaughter those mutant freaks!” he bellowed, careful to stay in cover for the moment. “Show them no mercy, Firstborn! Charge!”
Mount Megidde (South-east Face, 802m)
Kabanov’s men were having no easier time of it on the south-eastern ascent. The steep cliffs, sharp rocks and tangled lines of razor wire were bad enough, but every time the young lieutenant sent men forward to cut a way through, there were screams of agony as yet another died or was horribly wounded.
We’ve come too far, thought Kabanov, to be waylaid by their blasted snipers and stubber-nests. The citadel must be less than a hundred metres further up.
But a creeping nausea was slowly taking hold of him. Each loss twisted his guts tighter and tighter. He felt each death, each howl of agony, keenly. These men were following his lead, depending on him. The orders they obeyed were his.
And they were hardly men at all, he reminded himself. Most of the dead were from his own platoon—teenagers just as he was.
Father, he thought, did you suffer such doubts? How can I prevent their slaughter and still do my duty? It seems… impossible.
Had Tyrkin been right after all? Was he being an idealistic fool? Had he read too much into his father’s writings?
If he thought his subconscious mind might answer the question for him, he was disappointed.
The only answer was the rattle of gunfire from further up the mountain, followed by the earth-shattering boom of the citadel’s long guns.
Behind him, about two kilometres to the south, on the flatlands of the Sambar Basin, great fountains of earth and flame burst majestically into the air. The enemy was shelling the town of Sambariand.
At least here, thought Kabanov, momentarily glad to be on the mountainside, we can strike back at our foes. The Guardsmen dying down there have no such chance.
The thought lent him further purpose. Megiddzar simply had to fall today.
A stubber-round ricocheted close to his head and he pushed himself flat against the cold, wet surface. “Holy Throne!” he spat.
Sergeant Sergiev rose from cover, returned fire, then hunkered back down.
“Mind yourself there, sir. Those bastards will be keen to bag any man with stripes.”
Through the vox-bead in his ear, Kabanov heard his comms officer hailing him on the platoon’s command channel. “Message from RHQ, sir.”
“Let’s have it, Pitkin.”
“One word, sir: Orpheon.”
“Orpheon,” Kabanov repeated. “Excellent, corporal. Keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Orpheon?” asked Sergiev. “As in the Flaming Saint?”
“It’s the go-word, sergeant. Our comrades on the western face have initiated their diversion. We’ll give the Valisians some time to be drawn away. And then the real work starts.”
Mount Megidde (West Face, 962m)
Vlastan looked to left and right, making sure his men hadn’t revealed themselves. They kept down, tight behind jutting spurs of rock on the final ridge. The citadel’s defenders certainly knew that attackers had come, but Vlastan had been careful not to show his full numbers as he’d neared the citadel’s curtain wall. Moments ago, he’d sent false confirmation of his attack to RHQ. His vox-man, Korgin, had protested. “I thought you said, sir, that we were to create a diversion?”
“No plan remains intact on the battlefield, Korgin. Don’t you even know that much? Diversionary forces have a nasty habit of getting obliterated. Is that what you want, soldier?”
Korgin gulped and the blood drained from his face. “But Sixth Platoon, sir… Lieutenant Kabanov and his men—”
“Have no better chances of taking out those anti-air batteries than we do. No, simultaneous attacks on two sides will double the likelihood of operational success.”
Korgin didn’t look satisfied, but he caught the dangerous look in Vlastan’s eyes and said, “Understood, sir.”
“Excellent,” said Vlastan. “Trust me, Korgin. There will be decorations for this. Now, get my sergeants over here. It’s time they received new orders.”
Mount Megidde (South-east Face, 951m)
“Khekking hell!” growled Sergiev as he threw himself prone and rolled into the lee of the nearest boulder. Stubber-fire blazed out in torrents from atop the rain-slicked citadel wall. He called over to Kabanov. “Are you sure about that transmission, sir? This doesn’t seem like much of a reduced defence to me.”
The citadel towered over them, ancient, dark and utterly menacing. A utilitarian structure, its only artistry was in its solid construction. It was not a fortress built to inflate some warlord’s ego. It had been built for a single purpose only—to resist assault. But its architects had lived in the days when even basic las-technology had seemed lost forever. No matter how thick its rough-hewn walls of black stone were, they could not resist the modern Imperial Guard for long.
Still, Kabanov’s expression was grim. The wall was one matter, the godless mutants were quite another.
He was sure he’d held his men back long enough for the enemy’s defensive focus to shift west. Had Third Army intel got it wrong? Was the enemy garrison far larger than expected?
Either way, he thought, we’re committed now. We breach that wall and take out their anti-air, no matter what.
“Squads Tolgin and Zunelov,” he voxed, “move into position. Mortar teams, deploy behind those outcrops on the left and right. When I give the word, I want coordinated fire section-by-section. Herd the defenders towards the centre. They’ll get a nasty surprise when the whole damned thing collapses under them. Lasgunners, help keep the bastards occupied while the sappers work.”
A series of short acknowledgments broke the static.
“Sapper-team, move under cover of smoke only. I don’t want you taking unnecessary risks. Is that clear? If we lose you now, we might as well pack-up and go home.”
“And everyone would hate that, sir,” quipped Sergeant Ivanenko.
On hearing his voice, Kabanov could picture the man’s wry grin. The nineteen year old Ivanenko was a gambler, a notorious risk-taker. That made him a natural choice for a sapper-team leader, but it also made him unpredictable.
“I mean it, Ivanenko,” voxed Kabanov. “Your sappers are no good to me dead. Just open me a nice big hole in that wall.”
“We’ll get it done, sir. You’ll see.”
Squads Tolgin and Zunelov were in position now and raking the battlements with las-fire. Kabanov saw the bodies of careless defenders fall from the heights like stricken birds. There was a sickening crunch every time one of them struck the rocks.
“Mortars ready,” crackled the vox.
“Sappers in position, awaiting your go, lieutenant,” voxed Ivanenko.
“Mortars are cleared to fire,” said Kabanov. “I repeat, mortars are cleared to fire.”
There was a familiar, almost musical whoomping sound from left and right as the mortar tubes spat explosive loads up onto the parapets.
Kabanov watched with satisfaction as the old stone defences exploded outwards in a rain of shattered blocks and dust. Pale bodies were thrown outwards too, smashing open on the mountainside like sacks of raw meat.
“Let’s have that smoke, sergeants,” voxed Kabanov. Squads Tolgin and Zunelov immediately began lobbing their smoke grenades into the mossy depression between their cover positions.
“Sappers, move up!”
“Yes, sir!” answered Ivanenko.
Kabanov watched the sergeant and his men race forward from their cover into the protective shroud. They wouldn’t have much time to wire the charges. He ordered his lasgunners to standby with another round of smoke grenades.
The mortars were traversing their
fire inwards, bunching the surviving defenders into an increasingly small space atop the wall and keeping them too busy to pour significant fire on the smoke-shrouded sappers below.
Soon enough, however, they noticed the smoke below. Worse still, the rain and wind was stripping it away faster than Kabanov had expected. One of the mutants shouted something and others leaned over the top of the wall to fire straight down.
There were howls from within the smoke as some of the sappers were hit.
“Ivanenko,” voxed Kabanov. “Report!”
“Two of my lads down, sir. Where the khek is our covering fire?”
“Mortar-teams, keep the pressure up,” Kabanov barked. “We’ve men dying out there.”
The mortars could only fire so fast, however. The protective smoke dissipated further, laying the sappers naked to fire from directly overhead.
“More smoke, now!” roared Kabanov over the vox. Another sapper cried out, struck hard in the thigh. He went down. Kabanov saw one of the man’s comrades turn to aid him. Ivanenko shouted furiously, and the sapper reluctantly turned back to the matter of the explosives.
Squads Tolgin and Zunelov lobbed the last of their smoke, and the remains of the sapper team enjoyed cover once again. Kabanov prayed they’d have enough time to finish up. There was little he could do for them once the smoke cleared for the last time.
The wall was vast and wide, and the mortar-teams were overwhelmed with targets. Kabanov’s lasgunners did all they could, but the crenulated parapet offered the mutants outstanding defensive cover. Having watched their fellows fall screaming to the rocks, few of the mutants were careless enough to present viable targets now.
Instead, they poked out only briefly and, when they did so, they fired directly downwards again. Kabanov saw that the last of the smoke had cleared.
“Ivanenko,” he voxed. “Status!”
From a team of eight, only three sappers remained, working frantically at the base of the wall. “More time, damn it. I’ve lost too many. I need more time!”
Even as Ivanenko said this, another of his men crumpled soundlessly, shot through the top of his hat.
03.1 - The Citadel Page 2