by Guy Haley
The glaive-wielder, Kellenkir, bowed hesitantly at the claw master.
‘Contact Lord Krukesh, tell him the station is mine–’ The claw master frowned, and corrected himself. ‘His.’
He looked around at the devastation.
‘Too many losses. If this continues, Krukesh will have his desire and I will be dead. What are you waiting for? Take that one away!’ he snapped imperiously. ‘His defiance cost us too much.’
Kellenkir leaned down and slapped something onto Adallus’ battleplate. It discharged a massive burst of energy into his armour. Supplementary muscles jerked, his helm display flickered out. The thrum of his power pack whined away to silence. His battleplate was dead.
‘Now is the time for you to witness my other skills, Ultramarine,’ said the glaive-wielder. He motioned for two others to drag the captain up.
In the end, Adallus’ death was neither quick nor heroic.
SIXTEEN
A city sacked
Horror squared
Unexpected rescue
From the shelter of an abandoned farm, the Sothan First watched their city burn.
Gunfire crackled around Sothopolis, the awful banging of bolters unmistakable even so far away. Cannon fire strobed the legionary castellum. Fires had taken in the city’s centre and were sweeping through the agricolum fields around it. Crescents of flame, fanned by the sea wind, tore rapidly through the dry crops.
‘They’re burning everything,’ said Bolarion. ‘Why would they do such a thing?’
Vitellius stared through his field glasses at Sothopolis. ‘This isn’t conquest. This is destruction.’
‘I’ve heard the traitors want to kill, not secure compliance. What if it’s the World Eaters?’ said Govenisk shakily. ‘They slaughter everyone they come across, for sport.’
‘They’re not even the worst of them,’ muttered Bolarion.
‘What’s the plan, lieutenant?’ asked Mericus. ‘We can’t all go down. We’d be spotted.’
The officers watched from the main house of the farm, a long, single-storey building with an attached barn for livestock. It had taken a long time to persuade the Sothans to live in the new city, and the farm had been abandoned perhaps five years back.
Sotha had taken the land back greedily. Most of the pasture was already swamped by quicktree growth. Stands of the vegetation swayed in outbuildings reduced to roofless squares. Others grew from piles of rubble, their roots bursting the walls and bringing the buildings down. But the house still stood, the roof of split shale in place, precious glass in the windows. The perimeter wall was also mostly sound. The farm occupied a broad shelf low down on the mountainside. A tall cliff bounded the back, the mouth of one of the Pharos’ caves gaping in it. More cliffs fronted the slope. A trail led up from Sothopolis to the plateau, coming up the cliffs via steps cut into the rock. The cliff to the fore was high enough to give them a good view over the city, the edge overgrown enough to keep them hidden. It was, all told, a fine natural defensive position, and the platoon were dispersed around it, silently waiting.
‘We should have stayed on the mountain. Dwelling in a town makes us vulnerable,’ said Govenisk. ‘I’ve always said it.’
‘Power, water, hot showers. Plenty of food. People who complain about that are deluded by nostalgia,’ said Bolarion.
‘Yeah? Well, when this is over, I’m coming back to live up here,’ said Govenisk.
A mushroom cloud of flame burst upwards from the city generatorium, the boom of its detonation rolling from cliff to cliff and onwards over the forests. Wildlife screeched in agitation, then settled back to an unsettled nocturnal drone.
‘There won’t be a city left,’ said Vitellius. ‘We might have no choice.’
‘Are we just going to sit here and watch?’ said Bolarion.
‘Lasguns aren’t going to stop legionaries,’ said Govenisk. ‘What else can we do? We should wait here.’ He looked nervously out of the window. ‘Yeah, that’s what we should do.’
‘You’d think they’d have given us better weapons,’ said Bolarion. ‘In case this happened. Only, it wasn’t supposed to.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it. They give us the weapons we have for exactly the reason that they are useless against battleplate,’ said Govenisk angrily. ‘We little people were always the weak link in the Emperor’s vision, weren’t we? Quarrelsome as children, always more likely to turn on our saviours. Not like the Legiones Astartes, conquering sons of the Emperor. They were loyal! They were strong! The galaxy is saved!’ he said with mocking pomposity. ‘I never believed it. I knew no man can be right all the time.’
‘You almost seem happy about it,’ said Mericus.
‘It’s always uplifting when your worldview is confirmed, especially if it’s a miserable one,’ said Bolarion. ‘Nothing is more satisfied than a cynic proved right. Saying “I told you there were phantines in this thicket” while they’re being trampled to death is a fine, bitter wine for them.’
‘Cynic or not, he’s not been proven right, not yet,’ said Mericus. ‘We’re not helpless. We have them.’ Mericus nodded his head at the platoon’s three heavy bolters. ‘A lasgun isn’t going to scratch legionary battleplate, but they will.’
Vitellius bit his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘We’ll use this as a temporary base of operations. Bolarion, you’re in charge. Get the heavies set up, give me a good intersecting field of fire down the trail. You know what you’re doing. Mericus, Govenisk and I will head downwards, direct any civilians we come across there back up here. I’ll leave you the gunners, and a demi-squad. We’ll put three more men down at the foot of the steps as sentries. Make sure you post lookouts in good positions.’
‘I should be coming with you,’ said Bolarion. ‘My family’s down there.’
‘That’s exactly why you’re not. I don’t want anyone taking risks that might hurt us all.’
‘But–’
‘No risks,’ repeated Vitellius. ‘Any civilians we send your way, take them into the mountain.’
‘Some of the older ones won’t like that. They’re afraid of the mountain ghosts.’
‘It’s better than the alternative,’ said Vitellius. ‘Are we all clear?’
‘Yes, lieutenant,’ said Mericus.
‘Aye,’ said Bolarion. ‘If you say so, lieutenant.’
Govenisk blinked eyes bloodshot and wide.
‘Very well. Gather your men. We leave in five minutes.’
Mericus, Vitellius and Govenisk led a group of twenty-two down the cliff-cut steps in silence. The men ducked into the trees every time a gunship roared overhead. One circled not far from their position, shredding the forest with its armament before flying off to some other target. The platoon hid, until Vitellius was certain it had passed on for good.
The descent from the mountain took an age of sweating palms and frayed nerves, and yet it was too soon they were down the last scarps and onto the agricolum on the plain. They crept from the forest fringes into dark fields, and passed by a heavy plant depot whose tractors and agri-walkers they mistook for lurking legionaries more than once.
Deep in a field of maize, Vitellius called the men together, and split the platoon further. Mericus’ squad, supplemented by four of Bolarion’s, he sent towards the city. Vitellius took the nervy Govenisk with him towards the shore and the road there to intercept any refugees fleeing along the coast. Mericus didn’t ask to go towards town, but Vitellius looked a silent request that he go with the braver men, and he accepted without blinking.
The sounds of fighting were frighteningly close now. The men crouched in total silence while Vitellius divided them up, and then sent them on their way.
Not long afterwards, Mericus came upon the first of the civilians. Fifty men, women and children stumbling through the dark. He knew all of them, naturally. Sotha’s colony was tiny. Many were
in a state of shock too profound to leave them alone, so he detailed Martinus and Aelius to guide them. ‘Get them safe, and don’t come back,’ he said. The two men were happy to oblige, having found family in the refugee band, although they took their leave of the others with guilty glances.
They came across two more groups in quick succession. All had evacuated at the first sound of the sirens and had seen none of the enemy. Mericus had not anticipated meeting so many people so soon, and assigned single men from Bolarion’s command to the second and third groups, with the same orders not to return.
Each successive group was more battered and fearful than the last. A while passed until the fourth, and they were the worst. These had encountered the enemy. They were blackened by smoke, their nostrils and eyes pale smears in the soot. Many were covered in blood; not their own. There were no wounded. Boltguns rarely left a normal man alive.
He saw Bolarion’s wife, her face blank with horror. She gripped the hand of her son so tightly that her knuckles were white.
‘Andradea?’
She turned to him without recognition.
‘It’s me, Mericus Giraldus.’
‘Mericus?’
‘Yes. Mericus.’
She looked over his shoulder. Her pretty face was slack with horror, giving her an idiot’s expression. Mericus took her shoulders gently and turned her back to him.
‘Bolarion… Kolom is safe.’
She blinked and stared past Mericus as if looking at something she couldn’t believe she was seeing. So intense was the expression that Mericus found himself glancing over his shoulder.
‘Did you hear me? Your husband is fine. Andradea?’
‘I got Pratus away,’ she mumbled. ‘They’re killing indiscriminately. They set fire to the medicae with the… with the people still inside.’
‘How many are there?’ asked Mericus softly.
‘They shot down the alderman, just like that. It was horrible.’
‘How many are there, Andradea?’ he repeated.
‘Hundreds? Thousands? Space Marines in dark armour, and lightning, some with faces playing on the armour like picts. There were so many. They had skin hanging from their shoulders… the faces of… the faces of men, peeled from their flesh, and bones… The bones…’ Her voice dropped into a mumble, and she shook her head repetitively.
‘Mama!’ said Bolarion’s son, clearly terrified. She blinked at him and squeezed his hand, and seemed to come back into herself a little.
She shuddered. ‘How can they act like that? They’re Legiones Astartes. I don’t understand.’
One of Mericus’ men whistled sharply. The fire had taken hold on the crops not far away and a wall of flames was moving obliquely towards them. The night was orange with the burning, brightest over the town. The baleful sky seemed invigorated by it, and shone more redly than ever.
‘They’ve always been this way,’ said Mericus, turning back to Andradea. ‘They took back the whole galaxy in two hundred years. How do you think they managed that? We’re seeing them now how they really are.’ He realised then that he sounded like Govenisk.
‘Our lords are not like that.’
Mericus smiled reassuringly. ‘No, they aren’t,’ he said, but he was not so sure. The Ultramarines had conquered thousands of worlds. A good many had been human cultures. Were the sons of Ultramar any less ruthless when ordered to lay their mercy aside? How many men and women had the legionaries he knew slaughtered because their leaders had dared to turn the offer of Imperium down? Whole civilisations had been purged. They’d heard it all from the newscriers. The remembrancers of the Ultramarines had been diligent in their reporting.
It all seemed so blindingly obvious now, that weapons with minds can turn against their masters.
‘Go, Andradea. Get up the mountain, all of you. Follow Klavius and Demethon here, they’ll take you somewhere safe. And go quietly!’
‘What about you?’ said Andradea. Klavius shouldered his gun and gently led her away. ‘Mericus!’ she cried, and was gone.
‘Yeah, what about you?’ said Tiny Jonno.
‘What about us, you mean,’ said Mericus. ‘We’re going in to have a closer look.’
‘What?’
‘Will everyone please stop saying “what” to me?’ He gathered around his men as the refugees stumbled on towards the mountain. ‘I can’t make you do this. I refuse to order you. Come with me or don’t, the choice has to be with you, and let no man judge you poorly. But if we can get an idea of what exactly we’re up against, we’ll all stand a better chance.’
His squad looked at him in silence, reflected flames dancing in their eyes.
‘Don’t all speak at once,’ said Mericus. ‘Either that means you’re all coming with me, in which case I’m touched by your display of solidarity, or you’re waiting until someone else is brave enough to tell me where I can go.’
‘Mericus!’ said Tiny disbelievingly. ‘Course we’re coming with you!’
The others looked at each other shiftily. ‘Great. Thanks, Tiny,’ said Hasquin. ‘I was going to run, but if Tiny’s going I can’t do that. I’ll never live it down.’
‘That decides it then,’ said Morio. ‘We’re all in.’
‘I’m not,’ said Pontian firmly. ‘I’m no coward. I’ll fight, but I’m not committing suicide. I heard Bolarion’s wife.’
‘Fine,’ said Mericus. ‘Go with Klavius and Demethon. No one will think the worse of you.’
‘I will,’ muttered Hasquin.
Demethon spoke up from where he was organising the people of Sothopolis. ‘If it’s good with you, sergeant, I’ll trade places with Pontian. You’re only sending us back because we’re not in your squad. I don’t see why that should be. I’ll go.’
The remainder of Mericus’ squad slapped Demethon on the back as he joined them. They were no less generous in bidding Pontian farewell.
That left Mericus with a demisquad.
‘Then we go quietly, and we go quickly. No shooting. You draw a bead on a Space Marine and act on it, you’ll only annoy him and tell all his friends where we are. Recon only, you got that?’
‘You know sarge, quite a few people say you’re crazy,’ said Tiny.
‘Quite of few of them are right,’ said Mericus. ‘Come on.’
Closer in to the city they passed the first of the drop pods. A tall craft, its petal doors blown out, the shape of it reminded Mericus of the large nuts they grew on the beachside plantations. The soil of the plain was soft. The pod’s weight had forced it into the ground, and it leaned off-centre. Burnt grass ringed it. They passed by too far away to see any Legion insignia on its surface, but Mericus was taking no chances; the whir of motors told him its sentinel gun was still active, so they passed it on the side tipped up towards the sky.
‘Who do you think it is?’ said Hasquin. ‘Sounded like Night Lords to me, from what Andradea said. Heard some bad things about them. Skin you as soon as look at you. Terror troops. No wonder they went bad.’
‘How much of that stuff is true?’ said Morio.
‘Enough is,’ grumbled Hasquin.
‘Shh!’ said Mericus. He dropped low, gesturing his men to do the same. Another drop pod was ahead. It had come down on its side. The squad fanned out and approached.
‘This one was hit,’ said Mericus.
‘Let’s go then!’ said Tiny, jogging ahead.
‘Tiny!’ hissed Mericus. He cursed him for a fool and followed after him.
Large holes had been blasted through the pod’s armoured doors. Half the thruster units were missing. The pod had come down hard and the part pressed into the mud was ruptured, the metal wrinkled as easily as cloth by the impact. Fires guttered in places, burning blue in a pool of spilled fuel. The crash site smelled of petrochem fumes and blood. Most of doors had been forced half-open. Dead legionaries
hung in their restraints inside. One door on the far side had blown its explosive bolts. Mericus took a deep breath, pulled his lasgun tight into his cheek and poked his head into the craft. Some of the harnesses were empty. He risked his flashlight, and shone it over the dead. All of them were horribly wounded, large wet craters in their armour.
He lingered on those least damaged. They were Space Marines unlike any he had seen. He’d heard the stories about the VIII Legion too, but nothing prepared him for the vile fetishes adorning their armour…
He snapped the light off and pulled back. He was light-headed from more than just the fumes, and gulped for air.
‘Any alive?’ asked Demethon.
‘Long gone.’ Mericus pointed to boot tracks, deep in the Sothan earth. ‘The rest are dead.’
‘The fall must have killed them.’
‘I don’t think a fall even like this could kill legionaries,’ he said. ‘They’ve all got wounds.’ He glanced to the sky. There was a brightness coming into it, turning the Ruinstorm pink on the horizon. ‘Damn it! The fire’s masked the dawn. We’ve not got long. A couple of hours.’
‘We should take their boltguns,’ said Hasquin. ‘That’ll level the odds.’
‘Don’t be stupid, it’d take two of us just to lift one,’ said Demethon.
‘Don’t call me stupid,’ said Hasquin.
Jonno scurried out of the dark unexpectedly, making the others jump. ‘Sarge, come quick. There’s more of them.’
The rest of the squad lay in a ditch by a hedge of quicktrees and thornbush. On the other side was a huge field, the crops whipping in warm breezes coming off the fires. Tractor trails cut deep tramlines through the crops.
‘There,’ said Jonno. ‘About a dozen.’
Three thunderous booms sounded from the castellum. They were close to the Space Marine fortress, although they could not see it from their position.
‘Twelve drop pods,’ said Mericus flatly. ‘And all intact.’
‘Can you see any legionaries?’ asked Demethon.