The Unforgiven

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘How do you propose we locate a suitable target for capture?’ asked Calatus. ‘We could round up dozens of these scum and not find one who knows Sabrael’s whereabouts.’

  ‘Though she overstated her position, Kamata knew, and clearly had some authority over her group,’ said Tybalain. ‘A lieutenant in the wider scheme. We shall locate an enemy force, identify the leaders and extract them for interrogation.’

  ‘That should be simple enough,’ said Annael. ‘It is the reason for our existence.’

  ‘As you have it, brother,’ said Tybalain. ‘Casamir, I want you to coordinate with the Implacable Justice to identify the most significant enemy presence in sector twenty.’

  ‘And if they ask why I want to know? We are supposed to be embarking on a mission in sector fifteen, Huntmaster.’

  ‘Remind the strategion that you are a battle-brother of the Chapter and his superior. The Chaplains will be interested to hear of his reluctance. I do not think he will require further encouragement.’

  ‘It seems unworthy to threaten serfs, Brother-Huntmaster,’ said Casamir.

  ‘We are disobeying the orders of our Grand Master, brother. It is too late to quibble about the details.’

  ‘Of course, Huntmaster. I shall find us a good fight to pick.’

  The invasion and subsequent Dark Angels counter-attack had encompassed nearly the whole city, so that as the Black Knights rode westward through the battle­ground there was barely a street or building that did not show some scar from the fighting. In places whole districts had been flattened, either by the orbital bombardment or the Tharsians shelling their own homes to drive out the occupying enemy. Elsewhere there were little las-burn or bolter marks to show that a war had been raging for the fate of the metropolis.

  With most of the fighting having moved away from the centre, survivors emerged, some clearly shocked by what had occurred, watching dumbly as the Black Knights rode past. Some of the citizens had started trying to clear up in the aftermath of the brutal exchanges, picking through the rubble, trying to piece together lives as broken as the buildings they had lived in.

  Dusk was coming, the daylight fading quickly to twilight in this part of Tharsis. Some parts of Streisgant were lit by the phosphorescence of street lamps, others dark except for lanterns and candles glowing fitfully through dirty, cracked windows and broken shutters.

  There were groups of scavengers roaming the darker streets, like those that had been slain by the terminus detonation of Sabrael’s steed. Though they skulked in the ruins and shadows, Annael’s auto-senses picked them out as clearly as noon sun. The looters and leeches scattered at the sound of the approaching Space Marines, disappearing into cellars and sewers like startled rats.

  Gunfire crackled in the distance, the boom of bombs and artillery lessened now that the enemy columns had been shattered and only isolated pockets remained. Fires burned from broken energy lines and incendiary ammunition, patches of orange against the deepening purple sky, lighting the underside of the thick smoke clouds that swathed the city.

  Annael could hear the staccato rhythm of heavy bolters and the burr of assault cannons as Ravenwing Land Speeders heralded the attack gathering momentum to the east. Though he could see nothing of the battle, by sound alone he recognised the hiss of tornado missiles and the particular thump of Thunderhawk battle cannons.

  That the sounds were in the distance when he should have been in the thick of the fighting gave Annael a few seconds of regret. He cursed Sabrael for his headstrong nature and for lacking the decency to get killed by his foolishness. The Ravenwing rider kept his momentary reservations to himself, knowing that they would pass when the squadron located a clear quarry to pursue and he had something else on which to focus his energy.

  Hit And Run

  While much of the city had been quiet after the cataclysmic events of the day, the approaches to sector twenty were busy with people still fleeing from the foe. Tybalain led the Black Knights from the main road into one of the side streets but after another two hundred metres the press of people made it impossible to proceed any further.

  ‘The crowd extends for over a kilometre,’ reported Casamir. ‘Nearer thirteen hundred metres, across sectors nineteen and twenty-one.’

  ‘Clear us a path,’ growled Tybalain. ‘We have no time for a detour.’

  ‘Clear a path, Huntmaster? You want me to open fire on Imperial citizens fleeing for their lives?’

  Annael was not sure if the pause that followed was due to Tybalain reassessing his intent or surprise that Casamir might think he should issue such an order.

  ‘Use your external address, brother.’ The Huntmaster’s tone became more exasperated. ‘Get the crowd to disperse from your position and we will come to you.’

  The Huntmaster activated the clarion of his steed and the other Black Knights followed his lead. The blare of an ascending siren split the crowd for a few metres, the breach opening like a tear in fabric as the riders advanced. The refugees stared at the passing Space Marines with a mixture of hope and resignation, fear and happiness. Many were bloodied, their clothes ragged. Faces were smeared with grime from their desperate escapes. Those that had been worst affected shuffled out of the path of the Dark Angels with stumbling, listless steps, their vacant gazes following the armoured Space Marines without comprehension.

  After a few minutes the mass of humanity ended abruptly, leaving empty streets and buildings. Seven hundred metres ahead a broad perimeter roadway divided the bulk of Streisgant from the industrial zone that formed most of sector twenty. The broad encircling highway was like a cut across the suburban landscape. On the inside rose tall, windowed towers of hab-blocks, steepled Administratum cloisters, Ecclesiarchy temples and many-domed tithe chambers. On the periphery stood a forest of smoke stacks and steam vents, raised transitways and roads on ferrocrete legs, arching plasteel bridges and fuming furnace works.

  Like the city the riders left behind, the industrial zone had not escaped the fighting, though the full vengeance of the Emperor’s warriors had not yet descended upon the area. A refinery blazed, belching a noxious black cloud into the sky. Fire from ruptured gas pipelines lit arcing travelways with a cerulean gleam. Warehouse windows were shattered and the roofs of storage depots several hectares in size had gaping holes from the random fall of shells. The surface of the road was littered in places by debris and glass – little hindrance to the heavy bikes of the Ravenwing except where whole facades had toppled, and in one place where a shell or rocket strike had severed a bridge support and brought several thousand tonnes of ferrocrete down on a railyard.

  Annael saw a bright spark of bluish-white lighting up the sky half a kilometre from their position. Simultaneously Black Shadow’s auspex sounded a tone to alert him to a considerable energy discharge and Casamir was on the vox.

  ‘By the Lion’s shade, that was close!’ A stutter of heavy automatic weapons fire and the zip of laser blasts could be heard, both over the vox-link and echoing down the factory-flanked street. ‘I have some enemies. I was not expecting them to have a plasma cannon. Withdrawing to await orders. Transmitting target data.’

  ‘That rules out approaching undetected,’ said Nerean.

  A schematic of three buildings appeared on Black Shadow’s screen. One was an open depot, much like the marshalling yard where they had rooted out Kamata. The two flanking buildings, one to the north-east and the other to the north-west, were smaller, Casamir’s scan showing each had a dozen or so internal rooms over three floors. Heat data was vague, but showed a concentration of enemies on the upper floors of the two outbuildings, with little in the warehouse itself. A bright spot in the eastward tower showed the position from which the plasma cannon had fired.

  ‘Remember the mission,’ said Tybalain. ‘We are not here to conquer, but to extract. Swiftclaw, suppressive fire on the western structure. Operational centrepoint will be the east
ern tower. Calatus and Nerean, perimeter and containment. Annael and I will conduct the extraction.’

  The Ravenwing warriors confirmed their orders and Annael added his own affirmative response. Another thirty seconds brought them in sight of the Swiftclaw as Casamir brought the Land Speeder rising up over the roof of a building neighbouring his target. A torrent of fire burst from the assault cannon and heavy bolter, ripping along the uppermost row of windows. When the first lasbeams and bullets of counter-fire erupted from the lower floors, the Swiftclaw dived quickly, obscured from the view of the enemy in a matter of moments. Strafing sideways the Land Speeder adjusted position by a few metres and then rose again, targeting a different part of the facade for several seconds before using the intervening building to shield itself from the redirected fire of the enemy.

  The Black Knights squadron swept along the road beneath the Land Speeder, travelling on from the target for half a kilometre before turning along a connecting road to come back at the objective from a perpendicular angle of attack. Calatus and Nerean accelerated and took the lead by twenty metres. They opened fire with their plasma talons the instant they were within range, sending sparkling blasts into the lowest storey. Braking hard, they added salvoes from their bolt pistols while their bike weapons recharged.

  Tybalain and Annael sped past, moving towards the target building at high speed. Annael sent another ball of plasma through the ruins of the main door, its detonation star-bright in the darkened confines. For an instant Annael saw the figure of a mechanically-augmented woman with a large-calibre rifle at an adjoining window. The apparition disappeared as the searing plasma cloud vaporised the rebel sniper.

  The Huntmaster veered in front of Annael and activated his steed’s grenade launcher. The projectile arced up into the second storey and for a second nothing happened. Bringing their bikes to a screeching stop in front of the door, the two Ravenwing Space Marines dismounted in one fluid motion, pulling free their corvus hammers as they did so.

  Above them the stasis grenade erupted, a flickering field of non-time engulfing the room over the entrance.

  More plasma from Calatus and Nerean accompanied them into the building, the shots directed on both sides of the stasis grenade’s effect. Inside, Annael found himself in a narrow hallway, a set of steps leading up at the far end, two doors to either side of the corridor. The walls were covered with a pallid green, the floor tiled with large brown ceramic squares. It was dark inside, whether by design or accident. Annael’s auto-senses adjusted, turning the world into a ruddy swathe of dark reds and muted oranges.

  ‘Up,’ barked Tybalain. ‘We seize the high ground and if we do not find what we seek, we shall search on the descent.’

  Annael offered no comment and pounded towards the steps. Glancing through the first door on the left, he saw the charred remains of the sniper, the tiled floor melted into ridged sworls, the walls bleached white. He passed some kind of workshop to the right, with lathes, vices and die-presses. The next chamber was an archive storage room filled with shelves and boxes, and on the opposite side the open door revealed a food preparation area. Annael assumed that the building was some kind of shift house for the workers in the depot.

  His armour-boosted legs took the stair in three strides, bringing him to a landing that ran back to the front of the building. It was decorated with the same paint and tiles as the ground floor, but only two doorways came off the landing, both of them shut with white plastek doors.

  The stasis field was shrinking, but in its grip crouched at the window were two robe-clad rebels, a tripod-mounted anti-tank gun held between them. One had a bionic limb, a crude claw more than an arm, the rifle held fast against his shoulder. The other was leaning forward looking out of the window, his astonished look visible through the eyeholes of a grey mask sculpted in the likeness of a leering face.

  ‘Keep going,’ said Tybalain. He took two steps along the landing and vaulted over the banister onto the next flight of steps. As Annael followed, the metal rail bending slightly in his grip, a fragmentation grenade bounced down the stair past him. He glanced back to see it clatter across the landing and then stop mid-bounce as it met the edge of the temporal effect.

  A group of foes were emerging onto the uppermost landing as Annael reached the top step. He was accustomed to the strange mixture of chemically-altered bodies, crude exoskeletons and stimulant-fuelled stares that met him. Tybalain was already halfway to the nearest door. His bolt pistol shattered the leg of the woman stepping onto the landing, the detonation twisting the bracing wired into the joint.

  The sound of the frag grenade going off below announced the collapse of the stasis field, followed by the screams of the anti-tank rifle crew as shrapnel ripped into them. Annael had no thought to spare for them, his attention focused on the enemies at hand.

  Tybalain moved past the woman he had injured, thrusting his hammer into the chest of the next foe. Annael followed his Huntmaster, his boot connecting with the chin of the wounded traitor as she toppled forward. Her head twisted violently and her eyes glazed before she hit the floor.

  ‘Search right,’ Tybalain commanded, smashing his bolt pistol across the face of another rebel soldier. The man fell backwards, a gash of blackish blood opened across the green-tinted skin of his forehead.

  Annael ducked a chainsword swung at his head and blocked the return blow with his arm, his attacker’s exoskeletal frame clanging against the ceramite of the Dark Angel’s war-plate. Annael struck the man in the chest, sending him into one of his companions. The Black Knight followed up, punching another foe into the wall to clear space to the door on the right.

  Someone grabbed him from behind, throwing their arms around his helm, legs wrapping around his thigh like a constricting serpent trying to crush him. Alchemically boosted muscles strained against Annael’s armour to little effect.

  Turning, Annael threw himself backwards and he crashed through the plasterboard wall with his assailant attached. Dust and debris fell around the Space Marine as the dazed rebel’s grip slipped. Holstering his pistol, Annael grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him free, slamming him to the floor, a massively over-muscled shoulder dislocated by the throw. The man howled and tried to roll away. Annael’s boot came down on his thigh, shattering the bone.

  In an instant, Annael took stock of his surroundings. An overseer’s office. Ahead the wall had half-collapsed, a picture frame broken beneath the remains of the plasterboard. To his right, a desk below the window at the front of the building, which had been upturned to create a barrier. Two men were at the window with blunt-nosed lasguns, returning fire at Calatus and Nerean.

  Behind him the wall had a long shelf stacked with regulation tomes, personnel data-files and order books. Incongruous given the current situation, a brightly coloured blown glass bauble was used as a paperweight to hold down a sheaf of transparencies at one end of the shelf.

  On his left were a pair of glass-fronted wooden cabinets containing more gaudy ornaments and a delicate set of shoddy, mass-produced porcelain Ecclesiarchy figurines depicting various saints in their grisly martyrdoms – shot, decapitated, disembowelled and otherwise gratuitously violated. Annael was struck by their contented smiles and cheerful colours, in particular the obscenely bright red of splashing blood.

  He almost didn’t see the figure crouched between the display cases, his body heat masked by a head-to-toe bodysuit armoured with flexible plates, face concealed in a helmet fashioned in the likeness of a wolf’s head.

  The figure snarled and leapt as Annael registered the danger, a gleaming power knife in one hand, the fingertips of the other sheathed in serrated blades.

  Annael stepped into the attack and caught the traitor in a bear hug, the power knife and fingerblades rasping against his backpack. He spun with his assailant’s impetus, grip tightening until he felt his foe’s ribs buckling, air pushed from his lungs. With his free hand Annael broke the m
an’s wrist, the power knife clattering to the floor. Manoeuvring to get a better grip, Annael crushed the man’s other fingers in his fist, breaking every bone and tearing ligaments. His captive howled and writhed but could no more break free than a truculent infant could escape the grasp of a parent.

  ‘Possible target secured!’ Annael told Tybalain. He smashed his head into the face of his struggling captive, cracking open the wolf-mask and crushing the nose of the pale-skinned warrior within.

  The soldiers at the window turned, only now reacting to Annael’s surprise entrance. One of them pitched to the floor, half her head missing from a bolt fired from outside. The other raised his lasgun as Annael broke into a run.

  ‘Rapid extraction with target,’ Annael announced to his companions. ‘Cease fire!’

  The rebel at the window did not open fire, perhaps realising he might hit Annael’s prisoner. The accelerating Space Marine barrelled into him like a locomotive, all three fighters crashing towards the window together.

  Annael jumped at the last moment and plunged through the glass feet-first. He landed heavily but safely just a couple of metres from Black Shadow, with the prisoner couched in his arms. The lasgun-wielding rebel was less fortunate, hitting the unforgiving ferrocrete headfirst, his skull popping and neck snapping. Annael smashed the butt of his hammer into the side of his captive’s head, dazing him further. As he swung a leg over the saddle of his steed, the crash of more splintering glass heralded the arrival of Tybalain. Stowing his corvus hammer, the prisoner dragged across his lap, Annael grabbed the handlebar and accelerated away, glancing back to see that the Huntmaster was empty-handed. The squadron leader vaulted onto his bike and followed, barking an order for the Ravenwing to withdraw.

  Las-fire and bullets followed them along the street until they were out of range. The Swiftclaw’s guns covered their exit, the tempest of fire from its heavy bolter and assault cannon dissuading any foe from pursuit. They covered half a kilometre and then Tybalain called the squadron to a halt in the shadow of a huge water tower.