Praetorian of Dorn

by John French

  ‘Ha!’ snorted Voss.

  ‘Something amuses?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Voss chuckled, and then shrugged under Archamus’ silent gaze. ‘You don’t see a contradiction in that? I mean you are a warrior created by mysteries of science, serving an Emperor whose aim is to unite mankind and illuminate it with truth and knowledge.’ He spread his arms wide, as though to encompass the land, sky and galaxy beyond. ‘We are all in the business of progress. But here is a warrior clad in technology, who could crush my head in his hand and can read a data-slate at a glance, using geometry and a wax tablet to set the walls of a fortress on an already conquered world.’

  ‘It is important to understand the basis of things,’ said Archamus carefully, then moved past Voss and began to fold up the theodolite. He had all the measurements he needed. The labour gangs would bring stone up in an hour and fifty-six minutes, once the day’s heat had begun to cool. He had two minor adjustments to make to this fortress’ plans, but he also needed to check the measurements from the other site across the river.

  He lifted the collapsed theodolite in one hand and looked at Voss. The human was frowning.

  ‘Is there something that I can help you with, emissary?’

  ‘No... I mean, yes, but not really.’

  ‘Then I would advise you to get into shade, and drink water.’

  Archamus took a step along the wall foundation.

  ‘It’s just not what I thought it would be,’ said Voss, before Archamus could take a second step. He turned and looked at the human. ‘I mean I thought I would see...’

  ‘More killing,’ said Archamus.

  ‘Yes!’ said Voss. ‘This is a crusade, after all, isn’t it? You are winning an empire by blood. That is what you are, crusaders. But here you are using equipment old before Old Night to build fortresses on a world which you took in a few hours.’

  Archamus nodded. He understood Voss’ puzzlement now.

  ‘What is conquest?’ he asked.

  ‘The taking of land, the expanding of a domain. That is obvious, but–’

  ‘How does a realm remain conquered?’

  ‘Through the compliance of the people who live there, and through the ability to hold it if they or someone else tries to take it back. That is obvious, and I understand that is why fortresses and strongholds are raised on places like this, but–’

  ‘Others could do it. Others could position this chain of fortresses, could raise them up and set warriors on their walls. Others could do that duty, and on worlds taken by other Legions they do,’ Archamus said, and paused. Voss had gone still, listening with total focus. ‘We come with blood and fire, we come from the void and from the sky, and we break any who would deny the destiny of mankind. But that is not enough. This world is the Emperor’s now, and will be long after we have left it. This world is the Imperium, these people are the Imperium, and they will remain as such. That is our duty, and we do our duty with our own hands, no matter if the deed is great or small. Every deed of war carries a burden. This is ours, and we bear it because it is right for us to do so.’ Archamus went silent. He realised that it was the single longest utterance he had made in a long time.

  The man was still staring at him, a strange look in his eyes.

  After a second Archamus turned his own gaze out to where the heat haze rippled the view of the mountains.

  ‘This world will hold no matter what,’ he said, as much to himself as Voss. ‘They will all hold. They are the foundation.’

  Voss smiled and nodded, and Archamus noticed something in the man’s air that he had not noticed before, something knowing and without the usual naïvety.

  ‘There is a beauty to that, you realise...’ began Voss.

  Archamus blinked. Something had changed in the tone of the light. He felt his skin prickle inside his armour. Voss was still talking, something about how he had seen the Imperial Fists at war in the Solar System decades ago, something about ideals and change, but Archamus was not listening. He was looking up at the sun. His vision dimmed as his eyes compensated for the blinding light. The sound of insects had vanished. Voss’ voice hesitated, and he looked around, suddenly aware of the shadow spreading across the ground. Archamus could see it now. A ragged bite was missing from the sun. A vast shape loomed across the sky, growing as it blotted out the light. Shapes glittered in the air beneath it. They glowed brighter and brighter.

  ‘What...?’ began Voss.

  Archamus lifted the man from his feet and began to run. Voss grunted as the air left his lungs. Archamus took two strides and dropped over the inside edge of the wall. They landed in the dust at its base. Archamus let go of Voss and pulled his helmet on.

  A sheet of light ripped across the sky. Voss was gasping. The world roared.

  Dust kicked into the air. The ground shook, and then shook again. The vox was a sea of static. Voss was screaming, holding his ears, eyes wide. Archamus had his bolter in his hands as the blast wave struck.

  II

  The ork rose out of the ditch. Water and slime poured off its muscle. Its blunt head hung low between its shoulders, its skin the colour of pond slime. Its mouth split wide beneath red eyes. It roared, bellowing between knife blade tusks. It leapt up the bank, axes swinging. Archamus put a bolt into its mouth. The explosion ripped its lower jaw and half of its face off. It kept coming, blood spraying from the ruin of its mouth. Its axes were two lumps of jagged iron. Archamus fired again, sawing the burst down the ork’s chest. It faltered, chunks of flesh ripping free. He snapped his aim up and put two shells into the remainder of its head. It jerked, but the axes kept slicing down. Archamus rammed his shoulder into its chest. The impact hammered through him. The ork fell, muscles clenching as it hit the ground. He stamped down, foot mashing into its chest. He glanced into the ditch.

  More orks were running down the channel, churning the water to froth. Bolt-rounds were whipping in from across the field. Dust exploded from the top of the banks to either side of Archamus. He could see the stone and earth parapet of the bastion on the other side of the field. Muzzle fire breathed from the walls. Yellow armour glinted in the sunlight. He looked behind him. The fields were churning, the stems and leaves of the crops whipping as the tide of orks surged over the plain. Their calls howled through the air, rising and falling like the boom of a storm tide.

  It had been twenty-five minutes since the first impact. He had covered the seven kilometres from the unfinished fortress in that time. The orks had moved just as fast. A single open field now lay between Archamus and Voss, and the bastion they were heading for. Fifty strides. Fifty strides that they would not get to take if they waited longer.

  ‘Move!’ shouted Archamus at Voss.

  The man was on the ground at the base of a tree, hands clamped over his ears, his face and clothes covered in dust and mud. Blood ran from a gash across his forehead. His eyes were wide in the staring mask of his face. He flinched at Archamus’ shout, but did not move.

  Orks were scrambling up the side of the water ditches. Bolt and autocannon rounds from the distant bastion smacked into them as the Imperial Fists on the parapet fired again. Chunks of flesh and blood puffed into the air. More orks surged from the ditch to replace the dead.

  ‘Move! Now!’ Archamus roared. The words pulled Voss to his feet, and he staggered forwards. Archamus pulled a grenade from his waist and tossed it into the cluster of orks coming out of a ditch. He caught Voss and yanked him with him. The explosion blew mud and limbs into the air. Bolt-rounds were buzzing beside and above them. The stalks and leaves of crops were whipped past them as they ran.

  Forty strides.

  Something whistled in the air behind him.

  Thirty-five strides.

  Lobbed explosive, he thought.

  Thirty-one strides.

  The bomb landed to his left. He twisted, shielding Voss from the blast, and kept run
ning.

  Thirty strides.

  Earth and pulped vegetation fountained up. The bellows of rage rose, closer and louder than he would have believed possible. A gun opened up behind him, something kinetic and heavy. Rounds bit into the earth and smacked into the bastion parapet in front of them.

  Twenty-five strides.

  More guns behind. A round slammed into his shoulder and gouged a furrow in the ceramite. He saw the line of bare earth just in front of him.

  Fifteen.

  He blinked his vox. Static screeched in his ears.

  Nine.

  His bionics hissed and thumped with each step. An Imperial Fist rose on the parapet. He recognised Katafalque’s black-striped helm, as his Legion brother pointed at Archamus and gestured at the strip of bare ground beneath the wall. Archamus saw, understood, and leapt over the strip of earth and mangled crops.

  Five.

  Voss gave a strangled cry as they landed just in front of the parapet. Archamus twisted over in time to look back across the field. A wall of surging muscle and wide, roaring mouths was flowing towards them. The orks in the lead were bounding over the ground, axes and cleavers rising like the crest of a wave.

  The mines laid at the field edge detonated. The orks vanished in a wall of fire and shrapnel. The sound rolled up and out, racing the dust cloud to the sky. Shreds of skin and flesh pattered against Archamus’ armour. The guns on the parapet opened up an instant after the explosion.

  Archamus looked up as Katafalque reached down from the parapet. He gripped his hand and pulled himself and Voss up and over, and dropped onto the firing step beyond. Katafalque looked down at him.

  ‘Just you, sergeant?’

  ‘And the emissary,’ he replied, as he came to his feet. Voss was a ball of limbs crumpled against the inside of the parapet. ‘Where is Seneschal Calev?’

  ‘He was en route to the northern cities. We have had no contact from him or his cadre.’

  Archamus absorbed the possibility that he was now likely to be the senior Imperial officer on a planet that was subject to a major xenos invasion. ‘What is our strength?’ he asked.

  ‘Twenty-six in this bastion.’

  ‘The rest?’

  ‘Nothing confirmed. The vox is disrupted, both surface and trans-atmospheric.’

  Out beyond the parapet the smoke of the mines was clearing. Hulking shapes were already running through it, blades in hand. He glanced to his left and right, and saw warriors brace their heavy bolters and start firing. The falling dust cloud churned with exploding rounds. Behind him on the bastion’s other walls, more fire teams opened up as a fresh wave of orks came from the murk.

  ‘Mining party is ready to go out,’ said Katafalque.

  ‘Good,’ said Archamus, stepping up to join the fire team. ‘Proceed.’

  At the edge of his eyes he saw a cluster of five legionaries move up behind the parapet. Each of the five held slab-like shields two-thirds their height. Their bolters jutted from firing slots cut into the shields. Each of them carried a thick coil of metallic cord on their backs, one side black, the other dull brown. Explosives ran down the core of the cord. The black side was plasteel weave and ceramite scales to channel and shape the blast. The other half was a layer of metal spheres. Detonated on, or beneath, the ground, the cord sent a cloud of shrapnel upwards. The Imperial Army units that Archamus had encountered had an accurate, if flamboyant, name for it: shredder-vine they called it. He had always liked the sentiment.

  ‘Sortie ready!’ called the sergeant of the shield-armed squad. Archamus, and the squad on the firing step, opened fire, spraying the field beyond with cannon and bolter rounds. The squad carry­ing the shredder-vine dropped over the parapet and formed a shield-wall.

  ‘Sortie advancing!’ shouted Archamus, as the shield-wall began to step forwards. Hard rounds whipped out of the smoke-covered field and rang against the tower shields. The sound was like the buzzing of wasps. He and the rest of the squad on the parapet angled their fire up and out so that it marched ahead of the advancing sortie. The shield bearers reached the torn ground where the first mines had detonated. A ragged wave of orks came at them, shedding blood from wounds, grunting with rage. The shield bearers fired, slamming the charging orks back with a synchronised volley.

  The warrior on the right-hand end peeled off and moved behind his brothers, uncoiling his shredder-vine behind the shield-wall. He reached the left-hand end, locked his shield next to his brother’s and joined his bolt-fire with the squad. The shield-wall moved left, as each of the squad broke off, laid their portion of the charge and rejoined the line at the other end. Then they were pulling back, firing as they moved.

  A wave of orks came across the field. Every gun on the parapet, and in the shield-wall, opened up. Rounds ripped flesh and limbs apart, and for a minute the ground in front of the wall was a churning blur of falling bodies and misted blood. The sortie squad reached the parapet and vaulted over. The guns of the Imperial Fists went quiet. Behind him, Archamus heard a last volley echo from the other walls.

  Quiet fell suddenly, blowing across the fields of the river plain with the smoke and dust. Above them the shadow of the ork hulk was dropping down towards a darkening horizon. Archamus reloaded his bolter and looked down at where Voss was panting and shaking against the parapet. His eyes were wide as he looked up at Archamus. It had been less than three minutes since they had reached the bastion wall.

  ‘Is this what you thought it would be like?’ asked Archamus.

  III

  The orks flooded Rennimar. Vast rocks fell from the sky as their space hulk base turned through the planet’s sky. Each rock was a hollowed asteroid, studded in crude boosters and armour. They glowed orange with heat as they punched through the atmosphere. Many did not survive their descent. Some fell into the oceans, sending pillars of steam into the air before sinking to the bottom. Others struck mountain ranges and shattered into burning chunks of stone and metal. But others thumped into the soft soil of river deltas and coastal plateaus. Even in those that landed whole, the casualties were huge. The impact force crushed hundreds of orks, and hundreds more burned in the heat of re-entry, or scattered into the atmosphere as parts of the rocks broke apart during the fall. But for every one that perished there were a hundred that emerged alive to bellow at the sky.

  They swarmed from the rocks. While the first of them had simply charged across the land in search of slaughter, the larger hordes moved with more purpose. Thousands of hands pulled the grounded asteroids apart. Metal was torn and reshaped into armour plating, cleavers, axes and tusked helms. From the core of the rocks came machines. Black engine fumes breathed into the air. Vast cannons swallowed shells into their breeches. Trios of copper orbs began to spin around the barrels of exotic energy weapons. Green-and-blue lightning crackled through the air, and the stink of ozone and static blended with the reek of oil and ork flesh.

  Archamus watched the horde grow in the eyepiece of his scope. The mountain air was cold on the skin of his face. The temperature in the valleys was scorching, but up in the peaks the altitude lent the wind a razor chill. He was crouched on the top of a rock crag above a wide dip between snow-capped mountain peaks. Bare slopes descended from the pass, running into foothills scattered with thorn trees. At his back the river plain, which had been the site of their first engagement with the orks, stretched down to the distant sea. This point was the only pass across the mountains for hundreds of kilometres.

  He breathed in, feeling the cold fill his lungs, and lowered the scope from his eyes.

  ‘If the orks decide not to come this way I assume it will be less than good,’ said Katafalque. The young warrior was crouched beside Archamus, eyes watching the slopes beneath them. The blue of his left gauntlet marked him as one of the intake from the Gobi Rust Hives, and he was a child of the dune clans through and through, from the tones of his Low Gothic voice to t
he wry humour in his words. He had joined Archamus’ squad just before they had come to Rennimar. He was blooded but untested by the full heat of a great battle, but he still walked, moved and spoke as though succeeding was inevitable. Archamus liked him.

  ‘They will come this way,’ said Archamus. ‘Twenty hours, forty-one at the most, but they will come.’

  He had locked the scope back onto his thigh plate, and was scratching figures and lines into the face of his wax tablet. The geology left much to be desired. The schist would fragment and slide under bombardment. That could of course be an advantage, but for fortification building it was not ideal. There were deposits of sedimentary rock further down the slope, but they did not have the manpower to move and site more than a few hundred tonnes. That meant that they were looking at using the natural features of the land to create the basis of their defence.

  He closed the cover on the tablet.

  ‘One need drives the orks – destruction,’ he said. ‘They want to fight us. They want to kill us. They will come this way because what they want is on the other side of the mountains. Like water they will find the most direct route. So they will come this way.’

  ‘And we will defeat them,’ said Katafalque.

  Archamus looked at the horde gathering beneath the mountains. In the two days since the first assault all the surviving forces they could contact had pulled back into the river plain. Archamus had consolidated most of them in the bastion that he had reached with Voss the day before. They had seeded the surrounding ground with mines, and reshaped irrigation ditches and banks to create a killing maze under the watch of firing positions. The bastion wall had grown upwards and outwards, swallowing a fresh water spring. Water channels had been diverted to carry waste out of the compound. Several hundred civilians now sheltered in the bastion, and those who could laboured alongside the Imperial Army and Archamus’ brothers. And it was not complete.

  Every hour without significant attack meant a new layer of defences and improvement. It was far from the chain of fortresses they had been raising, an ugly child of necessity, but it would grow and harden with every second that the orks gave them. They had held it against six attacks while they built. Most of the orks on that side of the pass had come in small and smaller waves as their numbers dwindled. They were still dangerous, though. They had lost five hundred and two Imperial Army auxiliaries and eleven battle-brothers since the invasion had begun.