From the corners of his eye Larn caught glimpses of the others around him. He saw Bulaven, a lasgun in his hands taken from another fallen Guardsman. He saw Davir. Scholar. Zeebers. He saw Chelkar, his expression cool and detached, working the slide of his shotgun to send round after round into the enemy. He saw Vladek. Medical Officer Svenk. The cook, Trooper Skench, a laspistol blazing in his one remaining hand as he stood beside the others. He saw their faces: Scholar drawn yet steadfast, Bulaven dutiful, Zeebers nervous, Davir spitting obscene and angry oaths at the advancing orks. He saw steely determination and a refusal to go easily to death. As he saw it, Larn felt a fleeting shame that he had doubted these men when he had first met them. Whatever their manner they were all what a Guardsman should be. Brave. Resolute. Unbending in the face of the enemy. These were the men on which the Imperium had been built. The men who had fought its every battle. Won its every victory. Today, they were hopelessly outnumbered.
Today, it was their final stand.
“I’m out!” Davir yelled, pulling the last expended power pack from his lasgun and flinging it towards the orks as his other hand went for the laspistol on his hip.
All about him, it was the same for the others. Around him, Larn saw the Vardans draw pistols or fix bayonets, while he wondered how many shots he had left in his own power pack. Five? Ten? Fifteen? Then, just as he rejected the idea of saving the last shot for himself, the question was answered as he pulled the trigger and heard a final despairing whine from his lasgun as it died.
This is it, he thought, his hands moving with nightmare slowness to attach his bayonet to the lasgun as an ork raised a bloodstained cleaver and charged towards him. Merciful Emperor, please! It is so unfair. I can’t die here. You have to save me.
Abruptly, as though halted in its tracks by his silent prayer, the ork stopped and raised a bestial face to look up towards the sky. For an instant, Larn was left dumbstruck. Then, he heard a sound and suddenly knew what had given the ork pause. As from the sky above them, there came a cacophony of shrill and strident screams which at that moment sounded to Larn every bit as sweet as the voices of a choir of angels.
Shellfire, he thought, recognising the sound. Hellbreakers. They are giving us artillery support at last! We are saved!
“Into the dugout, new fish,” he heard Bulaven’s voice beside him. “Quickly! We have to get to cover!”
Racing to the entrance of the dugout with the Vardans, Larn stumbled down the steps to safety just as the ground began to shake with explosions. Breathing heavily and bolting the door behind them to prevent the orks from following, they stood there for long minutes of silence. Listening, as shells shrieked and roared and boomed above them.
“It makes a refreshing change don’t you think, new fish?” Davir said, after a while as the bombardment continued. “For our own side to be shooting at the orks rather than us, I mean. Now, assuming Battery Command keep this up long enough, I would say that is the last we will see of this particular ork assault.”
He was right. Hearing the shelling finally end after several minutes, the Vardans cautiously emerged from the dugout with Larn beside them to be greeted by the sight of a battlefield now left deserted save for the mounds of the sundered bodies of the dead. The orks had fled. The battle was over. Looking out at the scene of carnage and devastation before him, Larn felt a sudden dizzying sense of joyful exhilaration.
Against all expectation, he was still alive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
22:35 hours Central Broucheroc Time
The Corpse-Pyres — Matters of Disposal and the Varied Uses of an Entrenching Tool — To See a Perfect Sun
By necessity, he had long ago become inured to the stench of burning flesh.
Sweating at the heat, Militia Auxiliary Herand Troil used the hook of the long pole in his hands to push another ork body into the enormous burning mound of corpses before him, then stepped away for a moment to catch his breath. Finding it difficult to breathe through the charcoal-filled filtration tube of his gas mask, he pulled it back from his face, opening his mouth wide to gulp at the smoky air around him. Inadvertently swallowing a drifting fragment of ash he coughed, retching at the taste as he tried to summon enough spittle to clean his throat, before hawking up a greasy wad of brown phlegm and spitting it towards the fire.
I am getting old, he thought. I’ve only been working my shift three hours now, and already I’m exhausted. Ten years ago I seem to remember having more staying power than that.
Ten years, he thought again. Has it really been that long? Can it really have been so long since I came to work on the corpse-pyres?
Weighed down by a sudden sadness, Troil looked around him at the place where he had spent virtually every waking moment of his life since being press-ganged into service with the militia at the age of sixty. He was standing on a hillside, the ground beneath his feet barren after so many fires, surrounded on all sides by tall mounds of burning ork corpses. Through the smoke and ash he could see other auxiliaries in masks tending to the pyres with long hooks, their figures little more than silhouettes through the burning haze. Looking at it, he was struck once more by grief. Grief not for the orks, but for himself. Grief for the life he had lost. Grief for his family and his loved ones long dead. Grief for his days spent working on the corpse-pyres. Most of all though, he felt grief for the city of Broucheroc and the horror the war had made of it.
It was a beautiful place once, this city, he thought. Not beautiful as most people think of these things perhaps. But it was alive and vital with an energy, an industry, a character all its own. All that is gone now though. Gone and lost for good, taken away by the war. Now it might as well be a city of the dead.
Sighing, finding his eyes starting to water at the smoke, Troil pulled his mask down back in place and began to walk towards the corpse-pyres to resume his labours. As he did, he spared a last glance down the hillside towards the endless lines of other auxiliaries dragging ork bodies up the slope towards him. He did not linger on the sight though because he expected it.
The flow of bodies for the pyres never stopped. This was Broucheroc. Here, there were always more corpses.
“You need to put your spade here, new fish,” Bulaven said, standing over the body of a dead ork and pressing the blade of his entrenching tool against its throat. “Next, you draw the spade head back and forth a bit to cut through the skin. Then, you put your weight on it. Here, let me show you how it is done.”
Standing beside him, Larn watched as Bulaven stamped down to push the sharpened spade head partway through the thick muscles of the ork’s neck. Then, occasionally wriggling the spade around to slice through the worst of the tendons and break the spinal vertebrae, the big man stamped down on the spade several more times until the creature’s head had been completely severed.
“There. You see? Granted, ork skin can be tougher than reptile hide - especially on the big ones. But if you keep your spade head nice and sharp, and remember to let your body weight do the work, their heads come off pretty easy. All right, new fish. Now you try one.”
In the aftermath of battle came the clean-up. Around them, while other Guardsmen tended to the wounded or repaired the shell-damaged emplacements and militia auxiliaries carried in new ammunition and supplies to replace those expended in the fighting, Larn and Bulaven had been detailed to the task of beheading fallen orks. Dubiously, Larn picked an ork at random from the dozens of bodies lying nearby and placed the sharp end of his entrenching tool across its neck. Following Bulaven’s earlier example he drew the blade back and forth, feeling the resistance as it cut through the skin and into flesh. Then, raising his foot he stamped down on the spade head, pushing the blade perhaps a quarter of the way into the ork’s neck. Readjusting his position to put more force into it he stamped again, harder this time, then again, until at the fourth blow the ork’s head finally came free to roll away across the frozen ground.
“That’s good, new fish,” Bulaven said. “Try to make sur
e you are standing right over the spade though when you stamp on it. That way you will put more of your weight behind it. It makes the work easier and takes less effort. We have a lot more corpses to do before our job is done.”
“But why do we need to do it?” Larn said to him. “They are dead already, aren’t they?”
“Maybe,” Bulaven said. “But is always better to make sure with an ork, just to be on the safe side. They are tough bastards. You can shoot one in the head and think he’s dead, only for him to suddenly get up and start walking about a few hours later. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen.” Then, noticing Larn casting worried glances at the bodies lying all around them, he smiled. “Ach, you needn’t worry about these ones, new fish. If any of them were capable of moving, they’d be trying to kill us by now already. We’ll have their heads off long before any of them that are still alive have had time to heal. Then, the militia auxiliaries will take the bodies away for burning to get rid of the spores.”
“Spores?” Larn asked.
“Oh yes, new fish. Orks grow from spores. Like mold. Leastways, that’s what Scholar says. I can’t say I’ve ever seen it happen myself, mind. But I’m prepared to take his word for it. You should ask him about it later. He’ll tell you all about it. You know Scholar, he loves telling people about things.”
Apparently satisfied that Larn now knew what he was doing, Bulaven turned away quietly whistling a cheerful tune to himself as he began to deprive more dead orks of their heads. In his wake, Larn set to the same task of decapitation. It was gruesome and tiring work, and Larn quickly found his boots and the spade head were stained black with viscous alien blood. Soon, he was sweating under his helmet; the salt of his sweat irritating the head wound he had sustained during the battle.
In the aftermath, telling him he was lucky and it was only a scalp laceration, Medical Officer Svenk had bandaged it for him while Corporal Vladek had supplied him with a new helmet — something for which Davir had been particularly scathing. What is it with you and helmets, new fish, Davir had said. First, you use one to heat a gretch’s brains in. Then, you go and get yourself shot in the head. What will you use the next one for? A soup bowl perhaps, or a planting pot for some flowers? But, much to his own surprise, Larn found he was longer irritated by Davir’s constant complaints and insults. He owed him a debt now. No matter how much the runtish trooper might protest to him that it had all been a mistake, even an accident, Davir had saved his life.
Then, pausing in his work to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Larn noticed a gathering redness in the sky. Turning to face the ork lines in the east, he saw the sun was setting. He saw it, and he was amazed.
It was beautiful. Extraordinary. More breathtaking and vivid even than the sunset he had seen on his last night at home. The sun that had so often seemed cold and distant above him had at last grown to become a warm red orb, the sky once grey around it had transformed and given way to a dazzling symphony in flaming shades of scarlet. Watching it, Larn found himself enraptured by awe. Moved to the very depths of his soul, he stood there transfixed. Hypnotised. Who knew there could ever be such a sun, he thought in wonder. Who knew there could be such beauty here? And no sooner had that thought occurred than it seemed to him it had all been worth it. All the things he had been through. The fear. The hardship. The danger. The isolation. All the carnage he had seen and all the horrors he had witnessed. All of them now seemed worthwhile. As though by right of his passage through hell he had paid the price that had allowed him this brief perfect moment of quiet and reflection.
“Are you all right, new fish?” he heard Bulaven say beside him. “Is your head wound bothering you? You have been standing there a long time now, just looking at the sky.”
Turning, Larn saw Bulaven facing him and felt moved to tell him about the sunset. There were no words for his epiphany, no way to communicate what he was feeling to another. Unable to express his emotions, for a moment he was silent. Then, seeing Bulaven staring at him in concern and curiosity, Larn felt he should say something — anything — lest the big man should start to think he had lost his mind.
“I was just struck by how strange this place is,” he said, forced to retreat to more commonplace matters. “To have a sun that sets so late in winter.”
“Winter?” Bulaven asked in good-natured confusion, looking around at the frozen corpse-covered battlefield around them. “But it is summer hereabouts, new fish. Good thing, too. In winter, life in Broucheroc can really start to get nasty.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
23:01 hours Central Broucheroc Time
A Visitor from General Headquarters — The Reconnaissance Mission — Expressions of Disquiet Among the Ranks — Into No-Man’s land — Alone in the Darkness
“You have done well, sergeant.” Lieutenant Karis said. “By holding out against that last assault you have delivered a crippling blow to the activities of the orks in this sector. And you may be assured your efforts in that regard have been recognised and will be rewarded. It is not official as yet, of course, but between you and me I understand you are to be decorated while your unit is to receive a citation.” In reply, Chelkar was silent. Five minutes ago he had been supervising the repairs to the company’s defences when Grishen had voxed him with the news an officer had arrived and was waiting to see him in the command dugout. Hurrying tiredly to meet him, Chelkar had found himself confronted with a fresh-faced junior lieutenant, all spit-shine boots and folded creases, a swagger stick poking out at a jaunty angle from beneath his arm. Though Chelkar had at first wondered if Sector Command had finally got around to sending them a new CO, it quickly became apparent the lieutenant had come here on behalf of General Headquarters. A situation that, to Chelkar’s experience, was unlikely to bode anything but ill.
“Did you hear me, sergeant?” the lieutenant said. “They are going to give you a medal.”
“I will have to remember to put it with the other ones, lieutenant.” Chelkar said, feeling so exhausted and bone-weary he no longer cared if his tone was properly diplomatic. “But I am sure you didn’t come all this way and dragged me away from my duties just to tell me that.”
Stung by his bluntness, the lieutenant’s face briefly tightened into a look of displeasure. Then, abruptly, his mood softening and becoming patently false, he adopted a more conciliatory manner.
“You are right, of course, sergeant. And may I say what a pleasure it is to hear some plain speaking for a change. That is why I was so happy to get this chance to come to the front. Not that I find my duties at General Headquarters in any way irksome, you understand, but at GHQ one can so often forget the realities of frontline life in the Guard. We are soldiers, you and I. We don’t do what we do for honours and medals. We do it selflessly in the name of duty and for the greater glory of the Imperium.”
I don’t know what is more sickening, Chelkar thought bleakly. The fact that someone has obviously told him an officer should try to strike up a rapport with the lower ranks, or the fact that he is so inept and insincere in trying to do it. Why is it whenever you hear one of these rear echelon heroes talk about selflessness you always know they are desperate to win a medal? This one’s a glory hound, all right, you can see it in his eyes. He probably heard about some suicide mission at GHQ and volunteered right away.
“Yes, lieutenant,” Chelkar said, hoping that at last the pipsqueak pedant before him might get to the point. “And, talking of duty, I am assuming there is some matter with which you need my company’s assistance?”
“Not the whole company, sergeant,” the lieutenant replied blithely. “I just need some men to accompany me into no-man’s land on a mission towards the ork lines. A five-man fireteam to be precise. Of course, I leave it entirely up to you which fireteam to pick. Though I have always considered three to be a lucky number.”
“We will be going into no-man’s land tonight,” the lieutenant said, while Larn heard a sharp intake of breath from the other members of the fireteam beside him. “General
Headquarters wishes to know whether the orks’ hold on their territory has been at all weakened by their recent losses. Accordingly, we are ordered to advance by stealth to within sight of their lines and scout out their defences and dispositions under cover of darkness. Then, we will return to our own lines before the orks are any the wiser. A simple and straightforward enough mission, I am sure you will all agree.”
Going about their duties as the clean-up proceeded outside, Larn and the others had been summoned to the command dugout to hear a briefing from a stiff-necked young lieutenant called Karis. Now, standing before the sector map pinned to the wall behind him, the lieutenant pointed at something on the map with his swagger stick as the briefing continued.
“Let me make it clear this is strictly a reconnaissance mission,” he said. “And, as such, it relies entirely on stealth. We are not to engage the enemy unless forced to do it by the direst circumstance. With that in mind we will maintain total light and noise discipline at all times and follow a route through no-man’s land designed to aid us in our attempts to stay unseen. If we are spotted by scouts or lookouts, we will attempt to dispose of them in as quick and quiet a manner as possible — only withdrawing from no-man’s land if it is clear our mission has become untenable. Now, I think that about covers everything. Are there any questions?”
No one answered and looking at the faces of the men about him — Davir, Bulaven, Scholar, Zeebers — Larn saw a subtle disquiet among them. As though they were every bit as uneasy at the prospect of a mission into no-man’s land as they had been earlier when it seemed The Big Push might be upon them. Watching them, Larn was gripped by a sudden revelation that he realised would have seemed quite commonplace to the others. In Broucheroc the danger never ended: there were always new battles to fight. New ways for a man to get himself killed.
[Imperial Guard 01] - Fifteen Hours Page 20