Dead Men Walking

by Steve Lyons

  Delta Company’s section of wall was already down, as were several of the buildings and the skyways behind it. It was the turn of the foot soldiers now to move in and to start to haul the debris away, to clear a path for their engines to advance. They were constructing fresh dugouts for the Medusas, only fifty metres ahead of their old positions. At this rate, the demolition of Hieronymous City would be a painfully slow process, but one thing was for sure: it would be an exceedingly thorough one.

  Costellin wondered how much longer the necrons would wait, how much closer they would allow their attackers to come, before they responded in some way.

  The answer came more suddenly than he had expected.

  Guardsmen were turning from their work, staring past Costellin to a point some distance above his head, reaching for their weapons. The Medusas were falling silent one by one, and now the reports of las-fire reached the commissar’s ears. He whirled around, snatching his plasma pistol from its holster. He found himself facing a giant, at least ten metres tall. It was hovering impossibly above one of the Medusas, about a hundred metres away from where Costellin stood.

  It was a skeletal figure, its ribcage and its vertebrae on proud display, but for all that it wasn’t lacking in bulk. Its bones were armour-plated, or perhaps entirely metallic. It was wrapped in the tattered remnants of a royal blue cloak, and it wielded an arcane staff almost as tall as itself, a pair of curved prongs extending like horns from the tip. The giant wore an ornate, blue and golden headdress, beneath which green fires burned in the eye sockets of an impassive silver skull. It was translucent, shining with an internal glow, like a hololithic image, and the Guardsmen’s las-beams passed through it to dissipate harmlessly in the air. Costellin wondered if it was just an image, but something about the way the giant held itself, the way it scanned the amassed ranks of the Krieg regiment before it with a fractional turn of its head, spoke to him of a keen intelligence lurking behind those blazing eyes.

  He had trained his own pistol upon the apparition, but he held himself back from squeezing the trigger. After a few more shots, the Guardsmen too stayed their fire, conserving their power packs. The giant hadn’t yet made a move, seeming content to wait for the activity and the noise to die down. When at last it did, the giant opened its mouth, but its speech was like nothing Costellin had heard before.

  The sound reminded him of machine-cant, a high-pitched squeal, but with a hateful, raucous edge to it. It grew to a deafening volume, hammering inside the commissar’s head, and he threw his hands to his ears but he couldn’t block out the sound.

  Then, suddenly, the giant was gone and a blessed silence fell.

  As Costellin stepped out of his half-track at the space port, he once again became a target for the refugees there, mostly women and children and the lame after Hanrik’s PDF draft. It seemed that they had heard the necrons’ voice too.

  He collared a Krieg lieutenant, who confirmed that the image of the giant had appeared floating above the space port ramp even as Costellin had encountered a similar image some ten kilometres away. Furthermore, reports from the other Krieg regiments suggested that more images had been sighted to the north, to the south and to the east of the city simultaneously, with each group of observers convinced that the eyes of the giant had been trained upon them specifically.

  An hour later, Costellin was seated once more before Colonel 186’s desk, while Hanrik hovered by his window, gazing out at the continuing activity on the ramp. Enginseers had been at work running translation matrices over the necron giant’s message, and Colonel 186 was now able to play the results back to his fellow officers on an archaic recording device. The words emerged in a flat, mechanical monotone, in perfectly accented Gothic: ‘This world is mine,’ they said. ‘I am its lord and master. My people trod this soil millennia before your upstart race was born. You built your cities over ours as we slept, but we have woken now to reclaim what was ours. Leave this world now, or we will destroy you.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the colonel, breaking the long silence that followed, ‘the Death Korps of Krieg will not bow to this overt display of aggression.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Costellin, ‘and I concur that, in this case, intimidation was the object of the exercise. I doubt we’re expected to take much note of the content of this message. The delivery was all.’

  ‘The clearest indication yet that the necrons fear us.’

  Costellin wasn’t so sure about that, but he chose not to argue. Hanrik, however, turned from the window, looking even more flustered than he usually did. ‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘but didn’t you just tell me yesterday that the chances of saving Hieronymous Theta are negligible?’

  ‘The odds are unknown,’ said the colonel. ‘Never before have we been in a position to meet a necron force before–’

  ‘“Get on to Naval Command,” you said.’ Hanrik jabbed an accusatory finger in Costellin’s direction. ‘“Get a rush on those rescue ships.” Only you know how long that takes, and we have a population of almost nine billion people here.’

  Colonel 186 clenched his fists. ‘What are you suggesting, general?’

  ‘I… I’m just saying that perhaps we should consider all our options. This… this necron lord has told us to leave. Perhaps, if we were to–’

  ‘We will make no deals with the enemy.’

  ‘Golden Throne, no, I wasn’t suggesting… Of course we can’t… But it seems, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but that message was heard in at least six other cities, and people… people are afraid. The proctors are reporting rioting worldwide.’

  ‘That is hardly my concern,’ said the colonel.

  ‘And the PDF too… There have been over a hundred desertions in the past hour alone – that we know of, it’s impossible to keep track under these circumstances.’

  ‘Then I trust you have made an example of those hundred.’

  ‘What I am saying, colonel, is that a lot of those people, those nine billion people, they are asking why we can’t… There are so few rescue ships available. I just think, if we could buy a little more time, time to save a few more of them…’

  ‘We will buy that time,’ said Costellin, ‘by keeping the necrons contained.’

  It wasn’t that he didn’t sympathise with the Governor’s position. Perhaps he was even right, if the necrons saw that a full-scale evacuation of Hieronymous Theta was under way, then perhaps this would satisfy them. It could mean the salvation of some nine billion souls, and there was always the option of scorching the planet once the exodus was done, as indeed Costellin had initially counselled, so the necrons wouldn’t have gained anything. It was an attractive proposition.

  He knew, however, that neither the Krieg colonel nor his generals would see things that way. Even if such an exodus could have been organised, they would consider the price to be paid for those nine billion souls too high – and, much to his regret, Costellin couldn’t disagree with them. Hanrik’s cause was a lost one – and, if he continued to advance it, he risked Colonel 186 shooting him on the spot.

  ‘I believe,’ said the colonel, ‘that the first of your rescue ships is due to enter the solar system within the hour. How goes your mission to find… Arex, was it?’

  ‘It’s… I’m waiting for a report,’ said Hanrik, wrong-footed by the change of subject. ‘The flyer only left about fifteen minutes ago, it won’t yet have… Thank you, by the way, for the loan of your grenadiers. I’m sure they will make all the difference.’

  ‘Your niece could be safely off this planet by nightfall, General Hanrik,’ said the colonel, ‘as could you.’

  ‘No,’ said Hanrik firmly. ‘No, I thought I had made this clear to you, colonel, I am not going anywhere until this fight is done.’

  ‘It is reassuring to hear you say that,’ said the colonel quietly. ‘I had begun to question your commitment to this operation.’

  Hanrik regarded the Krieg officer through narrowed eyes, evidently unsure how to interpret that comment. F
rom where he was standing, he couldn’t see what Costellin could: that the colonel had moved his hand to rest lightly upon the butt of his holstered plasma pistol.

  Chapter Eleven

  The climb back up to the higher floors was slower and more taxing than the descent had been. However, the thought of Arex, the fear that she might be in danger, had kept Gunthar moving even when it had meant leaving his fellow refugees behind.

  He had to find her. Nothing else mattered, he just had to find her.

  He was still climbing when he heard the noise, muffled by the staircase walls. He thought there was something in this hab-block with him at first, and he froze, sizing up his escape routes, until he realised that the noise was distant, amplified. Vox feedback, he thought hopefully? The emergency broadcasting system? Was it possible that power had been restored to Hieronymous City?

  No, if that had been the case, the staircase would have been lit. A rescue flyer, then? Or a convoy of Imperial tanks with loudhailers to round up stranded civilians?

  He raced along a hallway, threw open a window, and winced as the noise drilled into his skull and drove him to his knees. It seemed to go on forever, but then Gunthar realised that, in fact, it had stopped, leaving only a horrible echo of itself inside his head. Not a hope of rescue, then, but only further evidence of his world’s damnation.

  Dead beat, he laid his forehead on the cool windowsill and his borrowed lasgun on the floorboards beside him, and he wallowed in despair until the thought of Arex prompted him to pull himself together. Nothing had changed, Gunthar told himself. She was out there somewhere, his reason for going on.

  He stepped out onto a skyway, and retraced his steps towards the PDF half-track he had seen earlier. He had decided to take it after all, to take that risk for a chance of finding Arex before nightfall. He knew something was wrong when he heard shouting and glass breaking and saw smoke drifting along the skyway junction ahead of him. He thought about turning back, but his prize was so close… He crept forward, faltering at the sound of a small explosion somewhere to his right, but finally reaching the corner and peering cautiously around it.

  There was a riot in progress. It must have been the noise that had sparked it. The zombies of this morning were now vandals and looters and arsonists, railing against the injustice of their fate by striking at the only targets they had, their own homes and each other. Gunthar could see the half-track, a short dash away from him, but it lay with its wheels upturned, its engine burning.

  There was only one thing to do. Gripping his lasgun tightly, bending almost double, he hurried across the junction. He reached the far corner, trembling and panting, but relieved not to have been spotted. Then, focusing his mind on what was important to him, picturing Arex’s face, Gunthar continued on his way, on foot.

  As he moved deeper into the city, he found more towers still standing, more skyways intact. He followed a straight course along one such skyway, and, without the diversions and delays of his outward journey with the PDF convoy, he made better time than he had expected. He did encounter more rioters but, with the exception of one torch-wielding mob that pursued Gunthar for three blocks, few of them showed any interest in him and he became quite adept at avoiding them.

  He was hungry and thirsty, but he couldn’t spare the time to scavenge for food and water. He was chasing the daylight. The sun, however, was sinking in the west, and, not having yet seen a landmark he recognised, Gunthar resigned himself to the encroaching night. To make matters worse, he was starting to see new gaps in the skyline, evidence that the destruction hadn’t been confined to the city’s outskirts. Soon, he found himself once again treading carefully through a world of rubble and holes where hab-blocks had once stood and skyways that led to nowhere.

  And it was shortly after this that he encountered the monsters again.

  They were three floors below him, striding along a skyway that looped under his. There were four of them: cadavers forged from metal, like the ghouls in the rubble, but these creatures walked fully upright and they didn’t wear the ghouls’ macabre skin cloaks. In their bearings, in their movements, they were more like the soldiers he had seen last night, intelligent – and, like the soldiers, they were armed.

  Their guns were huge, unwieldy, requiring two hands to lift them. Unholy energies roiled in their transparent chambers, glowing with the same putrid shade of green as had the stone column in the mine tunnel.

  Gunthar dropped onto his stomach and waited for the cadavers to pass below him, praying that they hadn’t seen him. He waited for a minute or two, then he raised his head tentatively until he could see through the railings beside him. To his relief, the skyway below was empty. However, his heart fluttered at the sight of a sign down there, a sign he hadn’t noticed before. An obscene slogan had been daubed across the proud image of the Imperial Eagle, but beneath this, in bold black letters, were still displayed the familiar words 201st Floor Emporium.

  Gunthar knew where he was now: too close to his goal, to Arex, to surrender whatever the obstacles in his path. So, he pushed himself to his feet, raised his lasgun determinedly in front of him, and started walking again. Then, as soon as he could, he slipped into a network of alleyways, which he knew he could follow around to the rear of his own hab-block, remaining mostly concealed in the process.

  That was the theory, at least. In practice, as Gunthar turned a sharp corner, the walls to each side of him dropped away and he stood on the edge of a precipice.

  He couldn’t believe it, at first. He had been so worried about the creatures, he had never stopped to think about this… He clung to the slim hope that he might be wrong, that his tower might have been one of those few still standing; from this vantage point, without the reference points of the surrounding towers to guide him, he couldn’t be entirely sure… but it had to be so, he thought stubbornly because if it wasn’t…

  He turned and pelted back to the skyway, needing to know.

  In his haste, he didn’t see the four cadavers until he had almost run into them.

  They turned their expressionless skull faces towards him, brought up their green-glowing guns, and Gunthar raised his weapon in return, but he fumbled with the grip and it flew out of his hands and clattered away from him. He dropped to his knees and fumbled after it, but it was too late now, so he just covered his head as best he could with his hands and he whimpered and he waited to die.

  Gunthar was still waiting some twenty seconds later when at last he dared open his eyes and look up, to see the cadavers stalking away from him. They had spared his life. No, more humiliating than that, they had ignored him, like he was nothing to them: a worm, unworthy of the effort of crushing beneath their heels.

  He reached for the lasgun, but hesitated. If he hadn’t dropped it, if the cadavers had judged him to be a threat to them… No, he told himself sternly, he couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t let himself be paralysed by the thought of what might have been. He picked up the gun and he started forward, but he didn’t get far.

  He could deny it no longer. The skyway stretched ahead of him as it always had, but the towers that had lined it, most of them, had crumbled. What had once been a road was now an unstable bridge, and Gunthar recognised the white sign for the autocab embarkation point that had stood outside his door, now teetering on the brink of the abyss, twisting in a soft breeze.

  Arex, he thought. What did this mean for Arex? He had been so sure he would find her here, but if she had been… No, he thought. She must have escaped in time. His mind simply wouldn’t accept any other possibility. Arex couldn’t have been inside his hab-block when… But then, what would she have done next, when she couldn’t find him? Where would she have gone? Gunthar didn’t know, he couldn’t guess.

  He surrendered to fatigue, then, and sat down on the skyway, his knees pulled up to his chest. He thought he might cry, but his tear ducts proved dry. He had gone beyond mere misery. He felt desolated. He had spent a day grasping at hopes, and now the last of those ho
pes had trickled through his fingers. He had no purpose, no reason to move from his current position, so he sat where he was beneath the darkening sky, and if the patrolling cadavers or the ghouls had returned and decided that, this time, they would snuff out his meaningless life, then Gunthar would almost have welcomed them.

  The droning of an engine pricked him out of his torpor. He had been hearing the sound for some minutes, he realised, and now a harsh, white light played over his face. Gunthar squinted upwards, saw the squat, black shape of a PDF flyer low above him, but by the time he thought about signalling to it, the vehicle and its searchlight beam had passed on. Why would it have stopped for him, anyway?

  Gunthar was cold. He hadn’t felt it before, hadn’t noticed as the night had well and truly taken hold around him, but now he started to think about finding shelter.

  The night was green, another thing he hadn’t registered until now. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, still scarred by the searchlight, but when he looked up he could see it: a strobing green light in the sky to the north-north-east. Green like the artefact in the mine tunnel, green like the cadaverous creatures’ guns. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

  The sound of the flyer was growing louder again. It had banked around and was returning, even lower than it had been before – and as it passed over Gunthar’s head for a second time, he realised that something inexplicable was happening.

  It was coming in for a landing.

  The flyer set down, at last, about two hundred metres away from Gunthar, back along the skyway, and he was running towards it before its engines had powered down.

  Then the first soldiers emerged from the troop compartment, and he came to a startled halt. They were skull-faced creatures, like the ones he had seen through the window last night, with their black greatcoats and breathing tubes. But then, thought Gunthar, what were they doing in a PDF vehicle?