by Guy Haley
Rather than head back to the road, Bannick opted to traverse the land to the north of hill seven-beta and meet up with the advance on the main highway to the north west.
They cut back across country. The elevation grew steadily higher until it became a moorland plateau cut with numerous ravines and dotted with stony tors.
The men put their tank in order, taking it in turn to rest, while Shoam drove them overland. The Savlar refused to relinquish his sticks, and Bannick did not have the energy to challenge him. Instead, Bannick kept a constant line open to Shoam’s compartment. The hiss and click of his nitrochem inhaler provided a steady, soporific beat to the day. Bannick was dead tired, but would not rest. The high moors were colder still than the lower plains. No arable agricolae were there, but rough stone walls divided the landscape into huge tranches of land dotted with lumbering grazing beasts. They saw only one deserted village, a rough place whose crude dwellings collapsed when the tank rumbled through it. On a few occasions, Bannick spied men watching from the far side of ravines, but they made no move against them. Relying on their physical maps, Bannick directed the tank towards a railed transit way. Once on this, the Baneblade used its white rockcrete bridges to traverse several deep valleys.
This broken area of the moors was small in extent. In the first hours of night, the wrinkled nature of the terrain smoothed out, and they came again to an area that was flat, although the elevation of the land continued to increase. A cold mist fell, so thick they were forced to slow their advance, for without the tank’s augur systems they had to rely on one of the crew scouting ahead for hazards on foot.
Bannick dozed in the turret as his men worked. He was so tired not even the opening and slamming of the gunnery hatch as the crew took it in turns to guide the tank woke him, and no one had the heart to disturb him. An hour before dawn bright flashing in the viewing panes of his cupola woke him up.
‘Col?’ said Meggen, who was sleeping in his gunner’s chair. ‘What was that?’
‘What?’ said Bannick. His mouth was furry with dehydration.
‘The light!’ said Meggen.
They both watched as the outside world blinked. The tank was moving very slowly.
Bannick got up and flung back the turret. Freezing mist greeted him. The tank’s running lights and search-lights refracted in the mist, lighting up the space around them but limiting visibility as surely as if they were in a white-walled room.
‘Kill the lights!’ hissed Bannick into his vox.
Meggen switched off the search-light. A second later the headlights went out.
Grey dark engulfed Bannick suffocatingly.
Above, where the mist thinned, the flashes came again. Quiet sonic booms, muffled by the cloying fog, reached his ears. Meggen popped his head up.
‘What’s that? Orbital bombardment? There’s nothing out here.’
‘The highway’s not far,’ said Bannick.
‘Why would we fire on our own men?’
Bannick was quiet, thinking. The rumble and squeaking of the tank was loud in the mist. ‘We’re one hundred and eighty minutes from our goal. Perhaps someone in the column has an idea what’s happening.’
They hit a steep slope. Shoam pushed on. On the map the contour lines marked out the moors as a huge bulge that stopped suddenly at an escarpment, down which they now went. It levelled off quickly, and the rough pasture of the higher ground gave way once more to fields, hedges and small roads. The Baneblade rolled over them all. The mist thinned, but did not lift. When the sun rose it came as a blur in the east, becoming a pale circle as it climbed. In its light, the mist changed, taking on strange hues.
‘Can anyone smell perfume? Ganlick said the air filter here was bust, didn’t he?’ said Kalligen.
‘Probably some local phenomenon – plant pollen, something like that,’ said Meggen.
‘Put your respirators on, just the same,’ Epperaliant ordered. ‘Leonates, you distribute them.’
The crew groaned. Leonates got up from his station and pulled the respirators from the net slings around the tank’s walls. One was passed up through the turret ring to Meggen and on to Bannick.
‘We should be coming up to the road in a moment,’ Bannick said.
Sure enough, the gantry of a road sign loomed flatly out of the fog. The road was significant, four lanes built onto an embankment that raised it over the level of the fields. It was empty of traffic.
With the sun finally burning off the last of the mist, Bannick scanned the revealed view with his magnoculars. A deserted, agricultural landscape spread out into the distance. The dome of the higher land stepped up almost imperceptibly to the southwest. There was a bombed-out factory complex off a slip road a mile away. Further still a small town squatted in the black soot of its own ruination. A few broken-down groundcars and personal possessions scattered all along the road indicated that a flood of refugees had passed by, but the land was devoid of human souls, military or civilian.
‘Epperaliant, try the short-range vox. Keep me patched in.’
‘Cortein’s Honour, Seventh Paragonian super-heavy, requesting contact. Come in.’ The vox clicked. Only a hiss replied.
The second lieutenant tried several times while Bannick ran the magnoculars all around them.
‘The column should have been here by now,’ said Bannick.
‘Maybe we missed them,’ said Kalligen. ‘They may have moved on.’
‘There’s no sign of them at all,’ said Meggen. ‘Usually our boys make a bit of a mess. All this is civilian junk. Col, sir, can we take these respirators off now? I hate them.’
‘No. Leave it on. There’s something on the air, gas maybe.’
Bannick let his magnoculars fall to his chest. ‘There’s a bridge two miles back down the road. Maybe it fell. Let’s check it out. Shoam, about one hundred and eighty degrees. The rest of you, weapons free. There’s something about this that’s not right.’
Chapter Sixteen
Hunted
RIVER DRAVA CROSSING, HIGHWAY 4
GERATOMRO
087598.M41
Cortein’s Honour proceeded at cautious pace towards the river. According to the maps, this was the same valley that ran beneath the western edge of hill seven-beta, but it had grown large. Fed by the many small gullies cutting into the high moor, where the main highway to Magor’s Seat crossed it, the Drava had become a shallow river three hundred yards wide on a gravel bed. The road ran straight over it on a level deck supported upon plascrete piles, the escarpment that marked the beginning of the moors brooding over it all.
‘All halt!’ called Bannick. They stopped at the edge of the bridge. He leaned forwards. ‘The middle’s gone.’ At the far side he saw vehicles standing idle. A look through his field glasses revealed them to be wrecks surrounded by bodies.
‘Back back!’ he called. He looked for movement across the river. ‘Ambush.’
‘There might be survivors, sir,’ said Epperaliant.
‘Get Cortein’s Honour off the bridge. We’ll ford the river.’
Shoam guided the tank off the road, crushing its barriers, and down the embankment. The river was edged with rockcrete near the bridge, so they drove to where sandy banks took over, the tank jolting as it dropped down onto the gravel of the bed. ‘Secure all lower hatches!’ ordered Bannick. Shoam never cracked his so much as an inch, but Kalligen liked his open. It clanged shut.
Peaty water surged over the Baneblade’s glacis in a blunt wave as it pushed on to the far side. The bridge had been blown in the middle, a neat job that had collapsed twenty yards of it into the water.
Meggen emerged from his hatch to look it over.
‘Demo charges,’ he said. ‘That’s too clean for a cannon hit.’ He grasped the heavy stubber’s handles lightly.
They emerged on the far side, the tank heaving itself up the bank and
coming down hard.
‘Halt!’ said Bannick.
‘Emperor’s Throne,’ said Kalligen.
Across the highway were hundreds of dead bodies, already beginning to swell in the warm sun. Black-feathered avians hopped and squabbled over the choicest morsels. Knocked-out tanks and personnel transports were all over the road.
‘Forwards, Shoam, three hundred yards. Take us parallel to the highway.’
There was not one survivor. Many had been blown apart.
‘Mass-reactives killed these men, not las-beams,’ said Meggen.
‘Gollph, Vaskigen, with me. Bring your small arms.’
Meggen ducked back into the tank. He came back a moment later with a lascarbine that he handed to Bannick. Bannick unfolded its stock and checked the powercell.
Gollph and Vaskigen climbed out of the rear hatch.
‘Now can we take our respirators off?’ asked Meggen.
Bannick nodded. After the foul smell of the breathing mask, the air was gloriously sweet. There was no scent upon it, however.
‘Keep your eyes open,’ Bannick said. ‘If you see anything suspicious, obliterate it.’
‘Aye, sir,’ said Meggen.
Bannick clambered off the tank. Its engine idled quietly behind them. The turret motors whined as the cannon tracked across the river and back. The three tankers ducked low and ran along in the shelter of the embankment. They stopped and risked looking over the barrier. The road surface was hidden by an unbroken slick of sticky blood. Flies rose in clouds at the tankers’ movements.
‘Ambush, for sure,’ said Vaskigen. ‘Look, lead and rear tanks taken out. Blocks the road. Then they killed the ones in the middle,’ he said, pointing out the vehicles wrecked in the act of driving off down the embankment. ‘I saw this a lot fighting the eldar back before Kalidar. You know, it wasn’t that much different to fighting them on Agritha. Hit and run. I can’t see any of theirs.’
‘Who do this?’ said Gollph. ‘Geratomrans not fight well, except yellow men.’
‘Could it be the eldar?’ said Vaskigen. ‘Word is they’ve been raiding this whole sub-sector, taking advantage of the crusade drawing off so many men and all. Agritha wasn’t alone.’
Bannick looked over the dead men’s cratered flesh. ‘I don’t know. These wounds look like bolt blasts, like Meggen said. We’re not going to know until we find an enemy corpse.’
‘Maybe they took them all back. When eldar win, that’s what they do.’
‘Eldar bad men?’ asked Gollph.
‘Eldar aren’t men at all,’ said Vaskigen.
They went further. Bannick checked their distance to the tank. Sixty yards now. He was on the verge of ordering them back when Gollph touched his arm and pointed.
An outsized, armoured hand stretched out from behind a Chimera’s hull.
Bannick put his fingers to his lips and beckoned them forwards.
They crept round the edge of the Chimera.
A giant lay slain on the far side. It was seven feet tall, clad in violently pink-and-purple armour, an archaic looking boltgun decorated with leering faces lying at its side. A ring of dead men surrounded it. Bannick raised his gun and pointed it at the giant’s helm lens. Bolt casings tinkled across the road as his feet nudged them.
‘Adeptus Astartes!’ said Vaskigen. ‘Have you ever seen one in such armour? What’s he doing here?’
They looked around, fanning out without consultation.
‘Here is another,’ said Gollph quietly.
‘And a third,’ said Bannick. ‘There, one of their transports, a Rhino.’ He nodded towards a squat armoured personnel carrier, whose lurid paint had been stripped away by fire.
‘That looks like it’s been hit by a battle cannon,’ said Vaskigen. ‘I don’t understand. Were they fighting our men? Is this some kind of mistake?’
‘The fire of brother on brother. I have heard of it happening,’ said Bannick. He approached one of the corpses. ‘I do not recognise these symbols. And look, this one bears a necklace of skulls.’
Gollph looked at them. ‘We tell story on our world. Time when Sky Emperor make His mightiest son chief of all the others, and is rewarded by betrayal. Heaven shook for many years, and when it was done, the Emperor’s son was dead and many worlds lost. Is why Bosovar alone for so long, so the elders say.’
‘The legend of Horus,’ breathed Bannick.
‘Traitor Space Marines? Legiones Astartes?’ said Vaskigen, his ordinarily bluff manner replaced by horror.
‘Come on,’ said Bannick. ‘Let’s get back. We should leave this place. Now.’
They jogged back, scaring up flocks of cawing avians from their meals.
‘Listen!’ said Gollph.
They halted. Bannick heard nothing but the chuckle of the river over its stony bed, laughing at the slaughter.
Gollph darted off towards a mound of dead men. He waved frantically. ‘This one alive!’
They ran away from the road. A man lay close to death, his face bloody and all four limbs crooked at unnatural angles. He was saying something, but his lips were cracked and his words were so hoarse as to be inaudible.
Vaskigen leaned in close. Gollph’s eyes widened and he grabbed his arm. ‘No.’
‘What?’ said Vaskigen angrily. ‘This man needs help! He’s a son of our world. Let go.’
Gollph gripped him hard. ‘On our world, bad men leave bad presents on bodies of captured braves. We be careful.’
‘I thought you were changing, Gollph. I thought you weren’t such a savage feral basdack any more,’ said Vaskigen harshly. ‘Looks like I was wrong.’
He shook Gollph off.
‘Vaskigen!’ shouted Gollph.
Vaskigen stepped forwards. Gollph jumped back and knocked Bannick off his feet as an explosion blasted the first loader into pieces.
‘No, no, no!’ said Gollph.
Close by, Bannick heard engines revving.
‘Come on, come on!’
‘He was my friend!’ said Gollph. ‘Why did he not listen?’
‘Come on!’ said Bannick.
He grabbed the feral man’s wrist and tugged him to his feet. The engine noise grew louder.
‘Run!’ Meggen shouted from the top of the tank. ‘They’re coming!’
‘We’re leaving!’ said Bannick into the vox pick-up of his headset.
Cortein’s Honour’s engines rumbled. Another engine answered, then another.
Gollph and Bannick scrambled up onto the Baneblade as three light tanks burst onto the road half a mile away, moving at speed.
‘Get in!’ he shouted, throwing himself up onto the turret and diving head first into the cupola as bolter fire rang off the front of the Baneblade. ‘Three Predator-class Adeptus Astartes light battle tanks coming in fast. Shoam, full reverse! All weapons, open fire! Keep them back.’
Bannick turned around awkwardly and put his head up out of the turret. Bolts buzzed past, one blowing apart on the open hatch and peppering his skin with microshrapnel. He yanked the turret hatch down and peered out of the glass viewing blocks set all around the hatch ring.
‘Back up, back up!’
The Predators were smaller than Cortein’s Honour, but they were much faster. They fired as they came, lascannons decorated with leering gargoyle mouths spitting ruby light. They were terrifyingly accurate, the las-fire scorching the armour of Cortein’s Honour all around the turret. Two of the tanks split, heading for the wounded side of the Baneblade. The Paragonians’ remaining lascannon turret fired, but went well wide. ‘Calm down, Leonates! Take your time. They’re trying to pull the tank’s fangs and trying to flank us. Don’t let them, Shoam.’
‘No, sir,’ said Shoam, the first Bannick had heard from him in a day and a half. ‘Savlar like to die just about as much as you do.’
Bea
ms pumped out from the enemy lascannon as Leonates tried to home in on the tanks, but he kept missing.
‘Do not fire so wildly,’ said Kolios. ‘You risk the power shunts.’
Bannick could taste it, the fear on them. They were not facing other men, or orks, or eldar, but the Emperor’s finest creations, creatures bred for war. To be in combat against them was a man’s worst nightmare.
Bannick looked back. The river was a hundred yards away from them. The tank reversed as quickly as it could towards it. It shook as it barged a vehicle wreck out of the way.
‘Right stick, right stick!’ shouted Bannick. ‘You’re taking us up the embankment. If we get caught on the bridge we’re dead. Get us in the river! Let the water slow them down and even things up.’
‘I am disengaging the safety guard on the reactor. Diverting extra power to the engine. Be warned, this will anger the spirit of Cortein’s Honour,’ said Kolios. There was fear in him too, no matter how hard he attempted to mask it.
The metal of the tank vibrated. Cortein’s Honour roared.
The thwack-boom of the demolisher sounded. A cone of soil burst in front of one of the Traitor Space Marine tanks.
‘Basdack!’ shouted Kalligen as the tank rolled neatly around it, guns unswervingly tracking the Baneblade. Besides the two lascannons mounted in their turrets, the tanks all had another pair in sponsons. They were dedicated tank hunters, outfitted to destroy enemy armour.
‘Dammit,’ growled Meggen. ‘That’s a lot of lascannons.’
‘Heavy bolter! Take out their sensors! Aim for their targeting arrays,’ yelled Bannick. ‘Buy some time! Meggen! Hold fire! We’re damaged, let’s make them think our cannon is malfunctioning, draw them in. When we drop down the bank, they’ll have to follow if they want to be sure of catching us. I want you ready to blast one of them apart.’
‘Aye, sir! Gollph, send us up an AP shell, double quick.’ He slammed the eject, shunting the unfired shell out of the breach. The shell lift wound up, bringing up a quartet of blue-tipped shells. Meggen helped the auto-loader slam the round home. Leonates shouted in triumph as his weapons hammered a Predator’s sponson-mounted augur array. The soulless glass eye shattered in its housing, spewing sparks. The lascannon sagged in its cowl, caught on the ground and was ripped off.