Being thrown in a cage and forced to watch members of his flock endure hideous, sickening torture had quickly divested him of that misconception. And, if even Rynn’s World was not safe, then surely nowhere was.
By a miracle alone, by the intervention of the Emperor, who had sent his warrior sons to deliver them from evil, Dasat and the rest of the party lived. But for how long?
He walked silently, deep in thought, and the other survivors followed behind him. They, too, were quiet, cowed by the figures up ahead who hacked and slashed their way through the dense forest without ever resting or talking. In fact, their silence unsettled Dasat. It seemed almost as if these blue giants communicated mind-to-mind, but more likely they were just using some kind of communication system installed in their helmets. They never took those helmets off. In fact, only the Chapter Master did so, and only when addressing Dasat and the rest of the pilgrims, as if it were important they see his human features. Then there was the woman, Jilenne, and her young. The Crimson Fists had rescued her from a farming commune somewhere to the south-east, or so she said. Dasat was pleased to see his flock fussing over her children. Even in the face of all they had seen, their humanity endured. His heart sank as he remembered the children who had set out from Vardua with his group. There had been nine of them. All had been trampled to death in the ork attack. At least they had been spared the horrors to which the survivors had been subjected. Surely they were with the Emperor now.
Glancing again at the broad backs of the Crimson Fists up ahead, Dasat wondered that they allowed him and his party to tag along at all. Surely they would make better time by abandoning their tired charges. He knew they were pushing for New Rynn City. At first he had thought his party would never be able to keep up. He had even considered suggesting to the Chapter Master that he leave them all behind, for surely nothing was more important than for the Crimson Fists to reach their goal and begin the task of repelling the invaders. But the idea of addressing the Chapter Master, or indeed any of these massive, stony warriors, filled him with cold dread. They were not like the murals or the statues. Those images had been warm, glorious things wrought by the hands of normal men.
These beings were living breathing myths come to life. They were angels of death, bred to kill. He could not begin to imagine what went on in their minds, though he suspected he knew what a few of them were thinking. The body language of two of them seemed downright hostile. Had they not been wearing helmets, Dasat could imagine them spitting on the ground in disgust whenever they looked at the helpless refugees. He made a special effort to keep his followers away from those two. He did not want to give them any excuse to express their impatience. One of them had been introduced by name, the famous Captain Cortez. He did not know the name of the other.
If Dasat had imagined his people would slow the Crimson Fists down, he was wrong. The Azcalan was managing that quite well enough and, in fact, by presenting such a troublesome obstacle to their progress west, it allowed the pilgrims to keep up. The Chapter Master hadn’t explained himself, and Dasat didn’t expect him to, but he steered his Space Marines away from the few beaten paths that led through the forest. These paths followed the course of the River Rynn for the most part, and Dasat wondered if the reason the Crimson Fists avoided them was because the orks might be making use of the river and the paths to move troops. It made sense.
As Dasat was thinking about this, Molbas Megra, a cattle-hand in his thirties and one of the most outspoken members of the group, hurried his pace until he was walking by Dasat’s side.
‘They are not as I had imagined them,’ he said to Dasat in hushed tones. ‘Most of the women are terrified of them, even though they saved us. They are so… different from us.’
You mean you are terrified, thought Dasat. And of course they are different. They are the Space Marines, the Emperor’s sons.
Megra had always thought himself brave and strong, and had never been shy about telling others so, but he had wept openly when the aliens caged him. Dasat did not judge him too harshly for that. He had wept himself when the cage door had closed on them, believing a long, painful death was his imminent fate.
‘There is a highway just south of here,’ said Megra. ‘It runs all the way to the capital. Why do they not lead us down onto the road? Surely it would be faster than this. Safer, too, I imagine. I don’t think we should stay in the forest. Do you?’
Dasat resisted the urge to turn and scowl at Megra. ‘You would have us all exposed to the invaders? Trust in our lords. They did not save us only to have us die on the journey toward sanctuary.’
Dasat could feel Megra’s eyes on him, staring hard, a sharp retort forming on his lips. But the retort never came. From the thick greenery up ahead, a deep voice called back, ‘Danger will find us sooner or later, farm-hand. Pray only that we see it before it sees you.’
Now Dasat did turn to look at Megra, and saw that he had gone utterly pale. The voice from the trees ahead did not sound friendly. It was the voice of Captain Cortez.
‘H-he heard me?’ stammered Megra in disbelief.
Dasat scowled. Of course he heard you, he thought. Do the legends not tell of how their senses are far beyond our own?
No doubt they could see farther and with much greater acuity, too. What other feats were they capable of? Could they read minds after all? He had heard that some of them could. Did they realise, then, how afraid his people were, stumbling through the thick jungle in the wake of demigods dedicated to war? Megra was foolish enough to voice his thoughts, but none of the others were. They limited their sporadic talk to the comforting of Jilenne’s children.
Perhaps time will remedy our fear, thought Dasat. As they say, familiarity with a thing removes the fear of it.
It was something he had read in an old book a long time ago and he had taken it as great wisdom back then. Now the lesson seemed pathetically naïve and utterly false.
After all, he was more familiar with greenskins now.
And his fear of them had increased a hundredfold.
Twelve
Zona 3 Commercia, New Rynn City
Captain Alvez stood on the upper gallery and looked down at the ground floor of the Menzilon arcade. The arcade was a massive structure, a great open space, the arched glass ceiling of which rose some fifty metres above the colourful mosaic of the marble floor. Before the arrival of the alien horde, it had been an enclosed market, a place where the burgeoning Rynnite middle-classes came to spend their time and spare centims. Now, it was an emergency refugee centre, serving as such since the outer districts had first been evacuated. The mosaic on the grand marble floor was bloodstained in places. Elsewhere, it was covered with dirty white sheets beneath which lay the wounded and the desperate. Not all those who sought shelter here had suffered injuries. Many simply had nowhere else to go. Their homes had been burned or blasted to rubble. Beside them, Alvez saw bags of possessions, usually not very large. These people had had only moments to grab what they could before the Rynnsguard herded them from the unprotected, unwalled outer settlements. Judging by their wretched attire, they probably hadn’t owned all that much anyway. There were children among them. Those young enough to remain ignorant of the true threat chased each other around the thick stone pillars that supported the ceiling and the galleries.
Alvez could smell human blood, lots of it. His hyper-sharpened hearing could make out every moan, every plea for water, for food, for something to dull the pain. He heard women weeping, crying out the names of their lost sons and daughters. Men wept, too, calling out to the Emperor, asking what they had done to offend him, why he had removed his protection from his faithful servants.
Fools, thought Alvez. The Emperor helps those who help themselves. He has not forsaken anyone. He created Rogal Dorn, and the primarch created us. No ork will overcome us. Whatever the odds, the Crimson Fists will win out in the end, even if we are the only living things left standing on this planet. We will triumph, and we will reclaim this world.
‘Huron,’ he said. ‘What kept you?’
‘The greenskins, naturally, my lord,’ said the sergeant. He stepped up onto the landing and crossed to Alvez’s side.
‘And your squad?’
‘Awaiting us on the Verano wall to the north, as per your orders. The trucks have arrived to evacuate these people.’
‘Good,’ said Alvez.
Grimm looked down towards the lower floor, and said, ‘A pitiful sight, this.’
‘Indeed,’ said Alvez. ‘Look to the south-east corner where no lights are lit. From there, the worst of the stench emanates. That is the dying place, for those beyond help.’
Grimm nodded. ‘Can the medicae do nothing for them?’
‘Short of euthanising them,’ said Alvez, ‘no.’
‘Then that is what they should do, and spare their attentions for those that can be saved.’
Alvez snorted. ‘You know the medicae healers as well as I, Huron. Even when the obvious is right in front of them, they do not give up, not even on a single soul. Our Apothecaries are much the same.’
‘I wish the Rynnsguard and the civilian militias were as stoic.’
Alvez frowned. ‘The commissars will keep them in line. There were more executions this morning. Desertion rates will fall for another few days, though I doubt it will affect the suicide rate.’
‘Their fear of the orks is so great that they take their own lives.’ Grimm shook his head. ‘It bewilders me. If they will not grit their teeth and stand strong…‘
He let his sentence hang unfinished. Stepping forward, he placed his hands on the sculpted baluster, and leaned out over the edge. Beneath him, he saw minor ecclesiarchs, their beige cassocks trimmed with black and white check, moving among the displaced and the desperate, offering words of consolation from the Imperial creed and its innumerable supplementary tomes.
‘Are they ready to evacuate, my lord? There is no telling how long we will have.’
‘Now that the trucks are here,’ said Alvez, ‘the senior medicae will start the process. Those with the best chance of survival will be moved first.’
Outside, gunfire was constant. The closest section of defensive wall had fallen less than thirty minutes ago. Two regiments of Rynnsguard infantry and a company of Leman Russ tanks were punishing the orks that were pouring through the breach, but the Crimson Fist captain knew it was only a matter of time before the defenders were forced into a retreat. The orks would keep coming, a ceaseless tide that gained ground little by little, until the entire district fell. One section of the city at a time, the orks were slowly, inexorably, pressing the Imperial forces back towards the Silver Citadel. All the Crimson Fists and the Rynnsguard could do at this stage was slow them down as much as possible. Retaking lost territory was beyond them. The cost in life and materiel would be far too high.
As movement increased on the floor down below, and the first of the wounded were taken to the north exit to board the waiting trucks, Captain Alvez found himself thinking of Ceval Ranparre, the Master of the Fleet. Had he been able to get a ship out in time? Had any of the Crimson Fists’ spacecraft escaped into the warp? He hoped so. Though his pride protested bitterly against such thoughts, the reality was this: without significant outside intervention, all he and his Crimson Fist brothers could hope to do was to hold the line, to last out as long as they could. Beyond that…
From somewhere outside the arcade, a battle-brother transmitted an update on the situation at the breach. Alvez listened. It was a Devastator Squad sergeant called Lician. The sergeant’s squad had been charged with providing heavy fire support to the Rynnsguard 12th Infantry Regiment. Judging by Lician’s tone, things were not going well.
‘My lord, Colonel Cantrell has ordered his men into a staggered retreat. The wall is lost. Xenos are spilling into the streets now.’ Almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘These men fought hard, brother-captain. We gave them all the support we could, but I’m afraid their eventual loss was inevitable. The greenskins are pouring through like floodwaters.’
‘Were the habs evacuated in time?’ Alvez asked.
‘Many were,’ answered Lician, ‘but just as many were not. The orks are torching everything in their path.’ His voice took on a bitter tone. ‘I have never heard such screams.’
‘What is the position of your squad now, brother?’
‘We are moving back with the Twelfth Regiment. Currently, we are three kilometres east of–’
Lician stopped mid-sentence. Alvez could hear him conferring with another battle-brother. Then, addressing the captain again, Lician said urgently, ‘My lord. You need to get out of the arcade! There’s a–’
Alvez never heard the rest. The far wall of the arcade exploded inwards in a great cloud of stone, steel and glass. Deadly debris flew in all directions, and those closest to the south wall were crushed to death. Something huge and dark rumbled in the great cloud of dust that shrouded half the arcade now.
Grimm, still standing at the stone baluster, bellowed down to the floor beneath him. ‘Get everyone out of here!’
Even though his helmet’s vox-amp was set to full volume, no one heard him over the roar and splutter of whatever had just demolished half the building.
As the cloud of dust thinned a little, the shadow within took on clearer form.
‘Move!’ barked Captain Alvez, and he shoved Grimm violently aside just in time.
There was the sound of a cannon firing, and the baluster where Grimm had been standing only a second ago exploded in fire and shrapnel.
Alvez raised his storm-bolter and fired at the black behemoth now emerging from the dust, but his storm-bolts rattled off its armour. Engines spluttered and rumbled, and the thing lurched out of the cloud, its great treads crushing wounded men and women who were unable to roll clear.
It was a massive ork battlewagon, a mishmash of looted tanks and APCs welded together on a vast track-mounted chassis. Twisted black spikes covered its armour, and fat cannon swivelled from a cluster of armoured mantlets.
Those guns swung towards Alvez now and, with a stutter of thunder, launched a volley of explosive shells his way.
Had Alvez not been wearing Terminator armour, the proximity of the detonating shells would have blasted him apart, but it would take nothing less than a direct hit to fell him.
Under the cover of the smoke and debris that the exploding rounds had kicked up, Alvez retreated, ordering Grimm, who had narrowly missed being blasted apart himself, out of the arcade in front of him.
Outside, all but one of the trucks had left at speed, carrying the Rynnites who had made it out alive. No one else would emerge from the building now. In the driver’s cabin of the last truck, a terrified man in Rynnsguard fatigues waved frantically at them.
‘My lord,’ he yelled over the sound of the arcade’s destruction. ‘Please, hurry. Get in the back.’
The truck was military issue, a big, tough six-wheel drive affair capable of handling three tonnes of cargo. The back was unshielded. Alvez looked at it dubiously. Grimm jumped up into the rear, and the suspension compressed with a groan. Alvez followed quickly, and the driver put the truck in gear. It struggled to accelerate at first, but soon they were roaring away from the arcade, abandoned shops and hab-blocks whipping by them.
Alvez and Grimm watched from the back as the Menzilon arcade finally collapsed in a great mushrooming cloud of dust and smoke.
‘Do you think, perhaps…?’ Grimm asked.
‘No,’ said Alvez. ‘It’ll take more than that to stop it.’
A new sound was intruding on his thoughts, just audible above the rumble of the truck. It was a distant angry buzzing noise, and it came from the south-east. Actually, it was s
everal noises merging together.
‘Damn it,’ cursed the captain. ‘We’ve got ork copters coming in!’
He was right. The copters swung out of the sky, guns blazing, the insane greenskin pilots laughing with delight. Stubber-fire stitched the back of the truck and rattled off the armour of the two Space Marines. Alvez targeted the lead copter and fired a quick burst from his storm-bolter. The machine dipped for a moment, but stayed in the air. A second later, when the pilot’s torso blew outwards, the shells inside him detonating, the buzzing one-man craft went into a wild spin and exploded on contact with the corner of a tall hab.
There were still two copters. Grimm fired his bolter and blew out the gas tank of the second, turning the whole machine into a blinding yellow fireball that crashed onto the road behind them.
‘Keep moving,’ Alvez roared at the driver. Turning to look ahead, he could see the Verano wall looming into view. The other trucks from the arcade were already well beyond its great gates.
‘Almost there,’ said the Rynnsguard driver.
He spoke too soon, of course. The last of the ork copters dived towards them and, before either Grimm or Alvez could open fire, launched a volley of rockets right at them.
Most of the rockets went wide, but one screamed straight in under the vehicle and struck the ground. The explosion tossed the truck into the air, its back end spinning over its cabin. Grimm and Alvez were thrown out and hit the ground hard, but, saved from grievous injury by the armour, they were soon up and moving towards the Verano Gate.
The Rynnsguard driver was not so lucky. His broken body lay still, soaked in blood, half in, half out of the crumpled cabin.
Grimm was at Alvez’s side now, pacing him, slowing his own steps to match those of the far heavier Terminator suit.
‘Damn them,’ spat Alvez, looking to his left and right.
From the streets on either side, a tide of orks was boiling towards them, weapons firing, blades raised, a wall of green flesh and sharpened metal. The two Crimson Fists immediately opened fire, cutting down dozens in the front ranks.
The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee Page 24