by Gav Thorpe
‘No,’ I replied. ‘We need to pull back to better ground.’ I didn’t have time to go over this argument again. On paper Leclair outranked me and oversaw the local militia, whereas I was in charge of an actual regiment of the Astra Militarum. That alone gave me seniority. It had been a contention between us since the day we first arrived on their world. Leclair had expected that we would fill the gaps in his depleted force and not usurp control of it completely.
The major, who had been trained in a comfortable local academy rather than a Whiteshield youth auxiliary program, quoted a passage from the Tactica Imperium: ‘The offensive alone can give victory, but the defensive gives only defeat and shame.’
The Zhenyans nodded, and I heard at least one ‘hurrah’ from somewhere nearby.
But I too was familiar with the Astra Militarum’s encyclopedia of sage advice: ‘If the enemy comes on in a great horde, try to direct them into a narrow defile or enclosed space, so that their numbers work against them…’
‘Yes, yes. I’m familiar with that one,’ he replied.
‘Then you agree that our priority is to defend this point.’
The corner of Leclair’s right eye twitched with disappointment. ‘Yes, sir.’
Without another word, and considering the matter closed, I turned and began running down the length of the bridge. Lantz remained almost joined to me at the elbow, and Velez fell in as fast as his left leg would allow. He had broken it during our first campaign together, and the knee joint had never been quite right afterwards. On the far side, behind sandbag barricades, my Cadian brothers and sisters were standing with their weapons at the ready.
‘Firing line,’ I shouted. ‘Form a firing line, on the double!’
The rearguard scrambled into two ranks. Lasgun safeties clicked off in unison. Only when the psyker, the priest and I were safely behind the barricades, did I realize that Leclair and the Zhenyans had failed to follow us.
At the far end of the bridge, Leclair raised his sword towards the cultists. ‘For glory and honour!’ he cried.
‘For Zhenya!’ the soldiers yelled, their spirits buoyed up immeasurably by the major’s infectious bravado.
They sprinted forwards, blades and rifles held up like spears, with Leclair in the lead, and plowed into the foe. For a moment it seemed as if their exuberance alone would carry the day. They stabbed the ogryns again and again, and pummelled them with the butts of their rifles. Sprays of blood formed a red mist in the air. Then, the hulking creatures roared and struck back. Things went very badly after that.
These ogryns were like nothing I’d ever encountered. Not only did they seem to ignore the multiple, gaping wounds inflicted upon them, but also their already formidable strength seemed to have increased. The ogryns lashed out with their weapons and the bodies of Leclair’s men crumpled and fell in an instant. Limbs went cartwheeling through the air, and cries, which moments before had been patriotic, turned bloodcurdling.
Velez gripped his long psyker staff with both hands. The cultists were surging around the ogryns now. They hit Leclair and his men on their flanks, chanting and screaming in tortured tones. Blood drooled from their mouths and turned their eyeballs red, covering their clothing and dripping on the ground.
‘Damned fool!’ I spat. The major had doomed not only himself but all of his men with his rashness.
I dropped to one knee and unlocked a nearby metal storage box. Inside were a selection of frag grenades, satchel charges and a remote detonator. I withdrew this last item, extended a stubby antenna and let my thumb hover over the single, red button on its side. With the smallest of motions, the explosive compounds wired into the bridge’s support structures several months previously were ready to be activated – a contingency against a situation just like this.
Eight months ago, everything in this star system had suddenly fallen apart. Blood-thirsty cults had swept through the cities, and there had been daily mass murders in the agricultural areas. It was an insurrection on a massive scale, and local forces, like Major Leclair’s, were quickly overwhelmed. As a result, we, the sons and daughters of Cadia, had been brought in to help restore order. Still, with every battle we fought, the chaos only became compounded. The system’s infrastructure had broken down to almost nothing and interplanetary communications were virtually non-existent. We hadn’t actually received orders from anyone in system command since last summer, but the commands we did receive had been quite clear. We were told to establish a containment perimeter around the Rycklor manufactorum district, to protect all bridges and roadways leading into and out of said district, to annihilate anything from within the city that attempted to stage a breakout, and to wait for further reinforcements.
Now it was early winter – the ground was hard and jagged and the wind was damp and cold. Thick banks of unnatural, rust-coloured fog roiled in the skies and obscured the city. Reinforcements had yet to appear and supplies were running dangerously low. Still, we held our position as we had been told to do, trusting that a column of Leman Russes would come trundling down the road to lead us to victory. If this bridge disappeared by the time they arrived, our heavy armour could end up stranded on the wrong side of the Solray. More than that, the eventual recapture of the city of Rycklor might be crippled by the loss of a major thoroughfare.
I looked up at Velez. ‘Maybe it won’t come to this,’ I said quietly.
Looking down the bridge once more, I saw that Leclair’s men were still alive and fighting valiantly. An impressive number of bodies lay sprawled on the ground at their feet, but it was obvious to me that their cause was lost. They were outnumbered nearly three to one and, what’s more, the cultists seemed enraged beyond mortal understanding.
I searched the whirling melee and at last caught a glimpse of a silver sabre as it was thrust through the chest of one of the ogryns. The hulking corpse toppled forward to reveal the major. The hem of his greatcoat was soaked in the blood of traitors and he had taken a nasty wound to his left shoulder, to which he seemed to pay no mind.
I was impressed. Again, he was no Cadian, but his valour couldn’t be denied. It was possible, I thought, that in the years to come his actions here, during the Siege of Rycklor, might find their way into the teaching manuals of the Departmento Munitorum.
Another of the ogryns rose up behind him, its face covered by some kind of metal plate or welder’s mask, and in its hands it carried what appeared to be the bottom half of a street sign or lamppost with a chunky wad of rockcrete at one end. He hefted this impromptu club over one shoulder and swung it with all his might, striking Major Leclair in the side of the head. The handsome face was obliterated, and his body fountained blood before it collapsed to the ground.
The Zhenyans had failed. Now, it was up to us.
‘When they funnel down the deck of that bridge,’ I shouted, ‘open fire and don’t stop until I say so. First rank, take aim. Second rank, at the ready.’
Our priest unchained a thick tome from his belt, opened its yellowed pages and began to read aloud. I recognised the passage at once as being taken from the Book of Saint Ollanius, the patron saint of the Astra Militarum.
‘Let me preach His name!’ he cried out. ‘Praise be to the Emperor, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.’
At the end of the bridge, the last of Leclair’s men cried out and fell in a heap. The cultists cheered and began to surge towards us. The remaining ogryns were in the lead, once more acting as living shields for the rest. I watched them rush headlong towards us, becoming dimly aware of a high-pitched howling in the distance.
‘Part the heavens, Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains, so that they smoke. Send forth lightning and scatter our enemy.’
I raised my free hand and clutched the detonator tightly with the other. ‘First rank, fire!’
With a loud crack, twenty-five beams of searing light struck the brutes. Two of the monsters st
umbled and fell face first onto the bridge deck plating. The cultists scrambled over their dead bodies.
‘Reach down your hand from on high…’
‘Second rank, fire!’
Twenty-five more shots struck the oncoming foe. Another ogryn went down, steam escaping from the holes in his chest. Still, the horde kept coming and the howling sound grew louder.
‘Intercede on our behalf…’
‘Fire at will!’
My soldiers loosed a last, desperate volley that felled one more of the ogryn. By my count there were still nine left, and behind them perhaps three times our number in cultists. We were about to be overrun.
I put my thumb on the detonator.
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