[Caiphas Cain 03] The Traitor's hand

by Sandy Mitchell

  'If they made it any easier they'd be on our side,' Jurgen said, triggering his melta for the third or fourth time and bringing down what seemed like most of a squad. The snow around them was littered with steaming chunks of meat where their predecessors had fared little better.

  'Blood for the Blood God!' A red-uniformed trooper came screaming out of the endless night at me, his old-fashioned autogun held across his chest like a pole arm, apparently intent on using the wickedly-serrated bayonet clipped to its barrel. I assumed at the time that he was out of ammunition, but for all I know he was just carried away by bloodlust.

  'Harriers for the cup!'[80]I riposted, shooting him in the face. His head liquefied under the impact of the las bolt and he fell heavily to the snow at my feet. I looked around, feeling that things were getting a little out of hand here.

  'Captain Detoi, report.' Kasteen sounded calm enough, so at least none of the fanatics had made it as far as the command bunker yet. 'What's going on out there?'

  'The captain's down,' Sulla reported. 'I've taken command.'

  Wonderful, I thought, as if we weren't in enough trouble already. But she had the seniority, and interfering now would be seriously counterproductive, so I just cut in with some encouraging platitudes. 'We're containing them, but they're persistent little frakkers.'

  'Well, we won't have to hold them much longer,' I pointed out, drawing my chainsword in time to bisect a persistent enemy trooper who was trying to interrupt me with a rusty-looking combat blade. His movements were slow and sluggish, the flesh of his face and hands pinched and blue. 'The cold's going to finish them off for us pretty soon.'

  After that I shut up and let Sulla get on with it, just keeping an ear on the vox channel to make sure she didn't do anything too stupid, although to be fair she did a reasonable job of co-ordinating the different platoons and had the sense to put Lustig in charge of her own. By this time trooper Smith had been carted off to the medicae receiving station, so I couldn't see any reason not to return to the command centre and let things play themselves out without me.

  I tapped Jurgen on the shoulder. 'We're heading back inside,' I told him. 'It's all over out here bar the clean-up.'

  I should have known better, of course. Sometimes I think that the Emperor's listening to me just so he can spring a little surprise every time I say something like that.

  'Second squad, say again,' a voice was shouting in my earpiece, one I recognised as Lieutenant Faril, the officer in charge of fifth platoon. It was one of a dozen routine exchanges I'd barely noticed in the course of the battle, but there was an edge of alarm in his tone which sounded new. 'Second squad, report.'

  'It's unstoppable!' another voice replied. 'Heading for the perimeter…' The report choked off with a scream. I flicked my head around, certain I'd heard the sound overlapping in the way that means the source of a vox transmission is close enough for the noise to carry naturally through the air almost simultaneously, and sure enough, the intensity of lasgun fire in the immediate vicinity was growing.

  'Get some backup to them,' Sulla ordered crisply, and Faril dispatched another couple of squads.

  Well, that was enough to persuade me that I needed to be back in the command centre right away, where I could find out just what the hell was going on, and I hurried around the disassembled Chimera intent on nothing more than getting back inside as soon as I could. Abruptly, though, I found myself surrounded by running troopers, as by great bad luck my path intersected with the reinforcements Faril had just ordered in.

  'Commissar!' One of the sergeants glanced over in my direction, his face a mask of delighted surprise. A ripple of resolve shivered almost visibly along the score of troopers double timing in his wake and I cursed under my breath. I couldn't duck out now without denting their morale and doing who knew what damage to my reputation. I nodded a genial greeting and dredged the man's name up from the depths of my memory.

  'Dyzun.' I shrugged. 'I hope you don't mind me sticking my nose in, but it sounds as though something interesting's going on.'

  'Glad to see you, sir,' he said, with every sign of sincerity, and Emperor strike me dead if I'm exaggerating, but the whole lot of them started chanting my name like a battlecry.

  'Cain! Cain! Cain! Cain!'

  Maybe it was that which took our opponent off-guard for a moment, mistaking it for the chant of the followers of his own blasphemous god, because he turned his head slowly to look at us, drawing his attention reluctantly from the corpses of second squad which lay all around him.

  Only a few survivors still stirred, trying feebly to raise weapons or crawl to safety.

  'Emperor on Earth!' I said, my bowels spasming. The man, if man he still was, was a giant, towering over us all. My months as the Guard liaison to the Reclaimers had left me familiar with the superhuman stature of the Astartes and with a healthy respect for the strength and durability of the armour they wore, but this was no paladin of the Emperor's will; quite the opposite. His armour was blood red and black, like the uniforms of the cultists still dying in droves around us, and chased with vile designs in burnished orichalcum. He carried a bolt pistol holstered at his belt, but apparently distained to use it. His hands, encased in massive gauntlets, gripped a curious weapon, like a battleaxe, but surrounded with whirling metal teeth like my own trusty chainsword.

  'You swear by the corpse god?' The thing's voice was gutteral, from a throat constricted with rage, and so deeply resonant that I felt it reverberate through my very bones. 'Your skull will grace the throne of the true power!'

  'Big red thing, five rounds rapid fire!' Dyzun ordered, remarkably calmly under the circumstances, and the troopers snapped out of their astonishment to comply. But the twisted parody of a Marine was fast, at least as agile as one of the true heroes he aped, and leapt aside, avoiding most of it. The few las bolts which struck his armour scored it, adding to the pockmarks already inflicted by the luckless second squad, and I felt vindictive laughter resonating through my bones. As ill luck would have it, his leap carried him over the heads of most of the troopers, to land almost at my feet. I felt a bolt of sheer terror arc through me as the metal-clad giant tilted his head forward to look down at where I stood, and swung his chain axe with lightning speed. Which was his first mistake. Had he made any other attack he might well have killed me where I stood, still paralysed with fear, but the whining chain blades triggered my duellist's reflexes and I parried the blow with my own gently-humming chainsword without a second's hesitation. That snapped me out of it, you can be sure, and I began to fight for my life in deadly earnest.

  'Is that the best you can do?' I taunted him, sure that in his arrogance he had expected an easy kill, and hoping to goad him into making a mistake. Not that I had any serious hope of besting him in a prolonged fight, of course; my unaugmented muscles would tire quickly, even without the strength-sapping cold, and his already superhuman endurance would be boosted by the power armour he wore. But if I could keep him pinned long enough for the troopers with me to line up a good shot and somehow disengage before they took it, I hoped I could wipe the smile off his face… if he still had one under that grotesque helmet.

  I slashed at his chest, raising a shower of sparks from the abused ceramite. 'I thought the acolytes of Khorne were supposed to be warriors, not a bunch of pansies.'

  'I'll feed you your own entrails!' the giant roared, slashing down again with his cumbersome weapon. This time I deflected it so that it struck his own leg, raising another shower of golden sparks and a cheer from the surrounding troopers.

  'Like I've never heard that before,' I sneered, following through and getting right under his guard. I rolled in the snow, making as much distance as I could, seeing him turn out of the corner of my eye and raising the axe again.

  He never completed the motion. The actinic light of Jurgen's melta stabbed the darkness, vaporising the middle of his chest, and he stumbled, dropping slowly to his knees. I scrambled hurriedly to my feet, having no desire to be crushed
to death under all that falling metal, and holstered my weapons.

  'Thank you, Jurgen,' I said, brushing the accumulated snow from my greatcoat.

  'You're welcome, sir.' My aide lowered the cumbersome weapon as our defeated enemy slumped to the permafrost with a sound like an accident in a bell foundry. 'Will there be anything else?'

  'Now you come to mention it,' I said, conscious of the rapt attention of the troopers surrounding us and straightening my cap with all the insouciance I could muster, 'I think now would be a good time for that tea.'

  Editorial Note:

  There were other engagements, equally hard-fought, across most of Adumbria, although naturally Cain doesn't think they're worth more than the most casual of references. Indeed, the attack on the regimental headquarters in which he was involved was arguably a minor sideshow to the main battle for Glacier Peak, in which the bulk of the regiment and the focal PDF garrison acquitted themselves most creditably.

  So once again we must rely on other sources to fill the gaps, and once again Tincrowser's populist account does a workmanlike job of sketching in the bigger picture.

  From Sablist in Skitterfall: a brief history of the Chaos incursion by Dagblat Tincrowser, 957.M41

  TO THE SURPRISE of many, Skitterfall itself saw relatively little action during this first incursion. In retrospect, this was almost certainly due to the presence of the warships in orbit above it, space. But the damage had been done and several thousand enemy soldiers had landed by the time their transports had been repulsed.

  The overall strategy of these raids, if there even was one, has been the subject of much speculation over the last twenty years. In very few cases did the enemy mass in sufficient numbers to pose a serious threat, and it seems most likely that they were there simply to allow their masters aboard the main fleet to gauge the strength of the resistance they were to expect when they arrived in force. Any damage they were able to inflict by these hit and run tactics would have been a welcome bonus, of course, and it cannot be denied that the psychological effect of their arrival was considerable; the panic and civil disorder in many of the major population centres certainly increased for a time, although this was followed by a period of relative calm, the populace no doubt reflecting that the worst of their fears had now come to pass.

  As has previously been noted, relatively few of the enemy landed in Skitterfall itself, the defences around the starport proving a formidable deterrent for those few who tried. Indeed, so strong was the resistance here that the few shuttles which made it through were forced to land in the suburbs, far from the city centre, where the local PDF, ably assisted by the Valhallan tanks and Kastaforean infantry elements of the Imperial Guard, were able to repulse them in pretty short order. Rumours at the time of patriotic citizens forming ad hoc militia units to meet the threat can now, with the wisdom of hindsight, be seen for the wishful thinking they undoubtedly were, but such tales undoubtedly played a part in boosting the resolve of the civilian population to resist the invader.

  The largest battles of the first incursion occurred in the most unlikely of places: the town of Glacier Peak on the coldside and an area of wilderness on the hotside of note only for the fact that the Tallarn element of the relieving task force had established their headquarters there in the remains of an old botanical testing station.[81] Given that Glacier Peak was the headquarters of the Valhallan 597th, it seems probable that part of the reason for the incursion was an attempt to inflict damage on the two Guard regiments most isolated from their fellows. If that was indeed the case, the traitors were to be sorely disappointed.

  The Tallarn 229th were to prove their reputation for the mastery of desert warfare was richly merited, driving off and slaughtering their attackers with almost contemptuous ease. In this they were undoubtedly assisted by their familiarity with the harsh environment they found themselves in, as the heretics were to find the conditions there debilitating in the extreme. Indeed, one contemporary account suggests that almost as many were to die of dehydration and heatstroke as at the hands and weapons of the Guardsmen.

  The same could be said of the contingent which attacked the cold-side, many of them succumbing to the freezing temperatures as readily as to the martial zeal of the Valhallans, who, as natives of an ice world, found them no handicap. The town of Glacier Peak offered many refuges from the killing cold, however, and the struggle there became one of prolonged attrition, driving the invaders out street by street, building by building. And, despite the best efforts of the Guard troopers, many civilians were to suffer and die in the crossfire. Their sacrifice was not to be in vain, however, as at length the last of the heretic scum were hunted down as they attempted to flee the town on foot, braving the freezing temperatures of the wilderness. This, above all else, points to their sheer desperation, as there was undoubtedly no shelter to be found there.

  FOURTEEN

  'Things can always get worse.'

  - Valhallan proverb

  'WELL, THAT WAS unexpected.' Zyvan nodded gravely in the centre of the hololith.

  His head, about a quarter life size, was surrounded by others, orbiting around him like the moons of a gas giant: the commanders of the other Guard regiments, their commissars, Maiden, Kolbe and a couple of other faces I didn't recognise but who probably had something to do with the PDF. To my vague relief there was no sign of Vinzand, so things would probably go a little more smoothly; no doubt Zyvan felt we were getting into things no civilian, however exalted, needed to know. I noted the absence of the lady Dimarco with slightly mixed feelings, she was decorative enough and her presence would have been a welcome distraction from the collection of military men, but her corrosive personality went a long way towards negating that.

  And talking of corrosive personalities, Beije was there, along with Asmar of course, trying desperately to look as though he understood what was going on. Well, I supposed I could always amuse myself by needling him if things got too tedious.

  'Are you absolutely positive about this?' True to form, Beije couldn't resist sticking his nose in, heedless of the opinions of anyone else in the conference link.

  'Not that I doubt Commissar Cain's veracity for a moment,' his tone quite clearly implying the opposite, 'but I'm sure I'm not the only one here who finds this story a little hard to swallow.'

  Asmar nodded in agreement, although most of the others remained stone-faced and a few visibly bristled, especially the CO of the Valhallan tankies and his commissar. 'I know he has something of a swashbuckling reputation,' Beije prattled on, cheerfully oblivious to the reception he was getting, 'but the idea of any man defeating a member of the Traitor Legions in single combat has to be difficult to credit.'

  'Indeed it would be,' I responded, 'if that were the case. But I can hardly take the credit for the actions of others.' Not if there was a chance I wouldn't be able to get away with it, anyway. 'I simply exchanged a couple of blows with the fellow. The kill was made by my aide and a couple of squads of our troopers. Who, incidentally,' I added to Zyvan, 'I would like to recommend for commendations.'

  I was rewarded by a projection field full of nodding heads and benign smiles.

  That was the trick which had always worked best for me: appearing to be modest about my supposed heroism. Now the legend would grow out of all proportion, until half the troopers on the planet would indeed be convinced that I'd bested a tainted superman in a contest of blades. The only exceptions, of course, were Asmar and Beije.

  'Are we even convinced that it was one of the accursed traitors?' Beije asked, worrying at the argument like a kroot with a bone, completely unable to grasp that the more he tried to undermine my supposed achievement the more he consolidated the fact in everyone else's mind. 'It could just have been one of the cultists of unusual stature.'

  'Pretty convinced,' Zyvan said dryly, the image in the hololith changing to show the corpse of the dead Chaos Marine. I didn't need to see the expressions on the assembled faces at that point, as the collective intake
of breath was perfectly audible. There was absolutely no chance of mistaking that monstrous corpse for anything else. After a moment the image returned to the mass of heads. 'We've positively identified him as a member of the World Eaters Legion.'

  'Are we to infer, then, that the next stage of the attack will be carried out by a Traitor Legion?' Kolbe asked, managing to keep his voice steady with an effort someone less adept than I was at reading people would have found hard to spot. Zyvan shook his head. 'With Chaos, of course, nothing is certain, but I doubt it. Were that the case, we would be facing a far greater fleet and the World Eaters would be proclaiming themselves openly rather than hiding behind the banner of the Ravagers.'

  'Not very big on subtlety, Khorne cultists,' I chipped in helpfully, underlining the fact that with the possible exception of Zyvan, I probably had more experience of facing the various factions of Chaos than anyone else on the planet. Kasteen looked at me curiously. 'I thought you said they worshipped something called Slaynish?'

  'The heretics we've been fighting so far seem to be Slaaneshi cultists,' I said, emphasising the correct pronunciation almost imperceptibly. 'Which is odd, to say the least.'

  'What's the difference?' Beije asked impatiently. 'A heretic's a heretic. We should just kill the lot of them and let the Emperor sort them out.'

  'I quite agree,' I said, enjoying the brief flicker of astonishment and uncertainty which crossed his face. 'But it may not be as simple as that.'

  'Quite.' Zyvan nodded. 'What Commissar Cain is aware of, and some of you appear not to be, is that Chaos is not a single, unified enemy. Not very often, anyway, thank the Emperor.' The few in the conference circuit who knew what he was talking about looked visibly perturbed, no doubt visualising the Gothic War or the last Black Crusade. (Perhaps mercifully, none of us was even able to guess at the magnitude of the next one, lurking a mere sixty years or so in our collective futures.)