He reflected on this for a moment as he stood, staring down. ‘We shall rock the enemy back. We shall hit them so hard that their teeth rattle!’ he said, shaking the aquila in the air, copying a painting he had once seen of Macharius, but even when he quoted Creed’s own words he did not seem to have the knack of delivery that Creed most clearly had.
This was a sadness that Grüber had been struggling with in the past hundred days, when everything he had known, the solid ground that he had placed his booted feet upon, had proved transitory, ephemeral, uneven. His long career had been based on assumptions that were no longer relevant, and a young orphan upstart named Ursarkar E. Creed had risen to the height of military power.
Grüber stiffened and drew himself up a little higher. He took in a deep breath.
‘This morning, I spoke to Lord Castellan Creed.’
Just the mention of Creed’s name was like a magic charm that summoned his spirit.
In an instant, he felt the mood of the room change. Officers whose shoulders had started to slump – from exhaustion, or boredom, or a general war-weariness, ground down by death, lack of supplies, the constant pummelling from the enemy – sat a little straighter, their shoulders thrown back, their chins lifted high, eyes bright with hope and expectation.
The change rippled down the room. Grüber found, much to his own chagrin, that even he was standing a little straighter, if that was at all possible. He found strange emotions rising within him. He pursed his thin lips for a moment, then took another step to the centre of the stage.
He repeated Creed’s name and changed the sentence to put himself at its core. ‘Lord Castellan Creed called me this morning and asked me how your spirits were. I told him that you were eager to assault. That you were desperate to take the war back to the enemy. I told him, men of the Seventeenth Army, that you were ready to begin the long-awaited counter-attack.’
He could see their attention beginning to wane, and knew he had to return to Creed again. ‘The Lord Castellan commanded me, commanded us all, to launch attacks upon the enemy.’
There was a ragged cheer that started at the back of the room and rippled forward. ‘Today is that day!’ he declared, and put his hand out for silence.
‘Creed wanted me to relay his own words to you. His very own words.’ He paused as he looked down at the paper in his hand and began to read. ‘“The future of Cadia hangs in the balance. We are to make war upon the enemy. To bring destruction and death to each and every one of them.” I am to lead the Seventeenth Army to the Elysion Fields.’ He paused, his last words drowned out as the officers in the room all leaped to their feet.
The fight back had begun.
Bastion 8 lay a hundred and thirty miles from the first pylons of the Elysion Fields. In that gap, there were at least seven armies of the enemy, and yet Creed had demanded that he reach the Elysion Fields within three days.
‘Get there with all haste,’ Creed had told him.
Grüber liked to fight in a plodding, ponderous, unstoppable manner, typical of generals of the Astra Militarum. ‘I cannot get there within a month.’
‘I need you there in two days. Two days, Grüber, understand. Two days! That is an order.’
‘I understand,’ Grüber had said, even though he knew that with the troops he had, the supplies that they did not have, and the strength of the enemy before them, there was no way they could fulfil Creed’s wishes.
Grüber looked down at his commanders and wondered if he should give them the timeline that Creed had given him. It was impossible, he knew, and he feared that asking the impossible of them might break their fragile courage.
The general wavered in a rare moment of indecision. He had promised, he reasoned, and so he should honour his word. He coughed to clear his voice. ‘Lord Castellan Creed needs the strength of the Seventeenth Army at the Elysion Fields within nightfall, two days from now.’
They could never do it. He felt that their morale would break as he asked this of them, but the reaction of the officers astonished him.
A thrill went through the room. They were being asked to achieve the impossible. They smiled and laughed and turned to each other with wry comments. If that was what Creed asked of them, they would do it.
Grüber took in a deep breath. ‘Two days, men of Cadia. Two days and we shall be in the Elysion Fields!’
There was a roar as the commanders rose to their feet. ‘Two days!’ they shouted back. Grüber found himself swept up with the mood in the room. ‘To the Elysion Fields!’ And then shouts of ‘For Creed! For Cadia!’ and ‘Cadia stands!’ General Grüber breathed this moment in deep.
He had spoken to his commanders, and they were inspired.
Two
The Myrak Salient, Highway 4
His orders were to move forward at all speed and engage the enemy with ferocity, but Colonel Lars Heni of the Cadian 662nd Mechanised Brigade was hours from his starting point and already his column was bogged down on Highway 4, ten miles short of Bastion 8.
He punched the cupola in fury, slid from the cabin – cursing the awkwardness of his augmetic leg – and marched up to the half-track in front of him. In the glare of torchlight, he saw a row of gap-toothed abhumans looking down on him, their eyes lit with a crude mix of frustration and animal intelligence. He threw open the driver’s door. The air stank of musk and cheap gun lubricant but the driver’s seat was empty. He shone his torch around to find someone to talk to. ‘What the frekk is the hold-up?’ Lars shouted up to the abhumans.
One of the ogryns roared back. If there were words there then Lars didn’t understand them, but he could tell they felt as annoyed as he did. The pistons in his augmetic leg hissed as he limped forward. The queue of armour stretched before him as far as he could see, their shaded headlamps casting low spears of light in the gloom.
Twenty tanks up, there stood a young Cadian at a roadblock, arguing with the driver of the front ogryn half-track. ‘We’ve been stuck in this queue for three days,’ he was saying. ‘I’ve got ogryn here. I don’t know how long I can keep them calm for.’
‘No,’ the officer said.
Lars pushed forward. ‘I’m Major Lars, 662nd Mech Brigade.’ The officer took Lars in, from his augmetic leg to his lean build and brass honour gorget. ‘We’re to be at Point Sixty-Seven in three hours’ time. Creed’s orders.’
The officer looked at him. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The way is blocked. I have my orders too.’
‘It’s imperative that we are let through.’ Lars showed his rank but the warrior was unconcerned.
‘The way is closed,’ he said. ‘Nothing I can do about it. Orders from Grüber himself.’
Lars cursed. ‘Creed called me personally this morning. He insisted that I lead this attack.’
‘Yeah, right,’ the other man sneered.
Lars’ fist caught him square on the chin. A sound, solid blow that felt exquisite to deliver. Any normal Guardsman would have gone down under a blow like that. The man Lars had just hit shook his head, put a hand to his lip and held it out to check if there was blood. ‘I’ll give you that shot free, colonel, but next time I’ll forget your rank.’
Lars didn’t like to do this, but it got things done. He pulled the gorget aside for a moment to show his medals. Medals worked better than shouts or threats. The officer took the line of honours in. The triple skull badge, the Merit of Terra and, lastly, the gold badge of a Ward of Cadia.
The other man’s manner changed. ‘I wish I could help,’ he said. ‘But look. You can see. Everyone is moving. The big attack is coming. I’ll do the best I can.’
Lars gave the man a look. ‘Thanks,’ he said, but he was already looking for another way out of this mess. He didn’t think the officer’s best was going to be good enough for him.
Lars cursed as he climbed stiffly back up to his tank. ‘We’re not going to make it,’ he said a
s he dropped into the commander’s seat. ‘At least not this way.’
His crew looked tired. Their eyes were rimmed with dust, their cheeks were dirty. ‘The roads ahead are blocked.’
The driver, Hesk, took out two lho-sticks and offered one to Lars. He hadn’t smoked for years, but sometimes nothing else quite worked. He pulled out a Munitorum-issue igniter, flicked it open and lit both. It was unlucky to light a third. The time it took to light a third lho-stick was all that a sniper needed to aim and fire. He blew out the flame, flicked the igniter closed and slipped it into his breast pocket.
‘So,’ Hesk said, puffing smoke from his mouth and nostrils. ‘We’ll have to go off-road.’
Lars sighed and nodded. The map was unfolded. It was too big for the cramped space inside the tank. Hesk positioned it under the light so that Lars could read it clearly.
Lars put his fingers to the map, marking out lines before him. Creed’s orders were all in his head. Creed had insisted upon that. ‘There are too many spies,’ Creed had warned him. ‘But be there,’ he had said. ‘Promise me.’
And Lars had promised.
‘So which way?’ Hesk said.
Lars checked the coordinates in his head. ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to the place. ‘We’re relieving Kasr Myrak.’
‘I thought it had fallen.’
‘Apparently not.’
‘You’re sure?’
Lars gave a short laugh. He wasn’t sure of anything except that Creed had given him personal instructions and they were all in his head. Lars smoothed out the map and refolded it. ‘If we go off-road we could go along the Myrak Valley.’
‘As long as we don’t run into the enemy.’
‘The idea is that we do run into them.’
Hesk took the map and opened it up again. ‘It’s rough ground there.’ He spoke with authority. ‘I did my winter training there.’
‘Got a better idea then?’
‘Yes. If the land has not been broken up too badly. There’s a line of dry land down here, in the valley bottom.’
Lars nodded. It was rough terrain but he didn’t see that they had any choice. He climbed up into the cupola. His driver got the machine-spirit warmed up, and then slammed the Leman Russ into gear. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Here goes.’
Lars took his vox-control as they slewed off the road. ‘All crews,’ he called. He gave the coordinates and each of the squadron leaders confirmed, all the way down the line of tanks, supply vehicles, fuel carriers and ammo trucks.
The ground began to tremble as the entire brigade swung round and turned off the highway into the trackless wastes of Cadia Prime.
They headed north-east, bounding over the ploughed-up tracks of what could only be Leviathans and the distinctive mark of Warlord Titan footprints. It was exhilarating to be moving again, with the wind in their faces.
They passed burned-out tanks, the crater in which a Warlord had exploded, the scattered shapes of dead men, lying where they had fallen – in heaps at times, five or six deep. The bodies had been dead for months. As the tanks rolled over them they bobbed and bounced on the corrugated surface. The stench of old, burned human flesh was horrible. Only the cold kept the flies down. Who knew whether they were heretics or loyalists – the tanks ran straight over them, barely pausing: war had come to Cadia in all its scale and horror. Lars had seen it as bad as this before, but not many times. As the land levelled out, Hesk changed up the gears and pressed his foot on the accelerator.
Lars felt the engine begin to hum as they changed out of third gear for the first time in three days. Despite the stink, it was good to feel the wind through the windows. Good to be moving at speed once more. Good to be delivering the counter-blow, at last.
When they reached Point 67, Lars Heni brought his column to a halt.
‘This is it,’ he said.
Hesk opened his hatch and looked out. ‘So what do we do now?’
Lars checked his chronometer. ‘We wait,’ he said.
Hesk sniffed. All of Cadia looked pretty much the same these days: a burned, barren wasteland. All that differed was the wrecks, which showed where battles had been fought.
‘How long?’
‘Two hours.’
‘And then?’
‘We attack.’
Hesk nodded. There was a long pause. ‘What if you get killed? What do we do then?’
Lars gave his driver a stare. He patted his augmetic leg. ‘They’ve tried killing me before,’ he said. ‘It didn’t work.’
Hesk half smiled. ‘No, really. What will happen?’
‘Keep moving forward,’ Lars told him.
Point 874, Trench System B, Myrak Salient
The sandbagged bunker had a well-stamped earth floor, a simple field chart-table, and a rack of lasrifles stacked in the far corner. Colonel Jan Vetter of the Cadian Earthshakers paced back and forth. He cursed better than anyone in the combined regiment of the Cadian 290th/340th Artillery and he was in full flow as he raged down the vox at the Munitorum clerk in charge of resupply.
‘Where are my shells?’ he shouted, and added a long line of expletives. ‘We’ve had nothing for two days. My entire battery, silent!’ He slammed his open palm down on the chart-table. There was a pause before he started again. ‘You told me that yesterday! I need shells. The assault is supposed to start in ten minutes, and I still don’t have my shells!’
One of his staff officers, Yastin, touched his elbow and pointed. Headlights were arcing through the gloom. It was a Chimera chassis, Salamander command vehicle. Vetter’s staff looked hopeful. ‘I think they’ve arrived,’ Yastin said.
‘They frekking better have,’ Vetter cursed as he climbed up out of his sandbagged bunker, standing up and raising a hand so he could be seen in the gloom.
The five-hundred-mile-long and three-hundred-mile-wide Myrak Salient had been gradually shrinking back as Volscani armoured divisions had thrown themselves against the base of the salient, attempting to entrap the 17th Army within.
Six miles ahead, in the last lines of trenches, there was a terrible slaughter going on.
You could smell smoke and cordite and rotting bodies even here.
Vetter’s regiment had been pummelling the attacking columns until their supplies of ordnance had run out. High Command, as always, seemed oblivious. They had issued new targeting coordinates and a strict deadline for the bombardment to start, and Jan Vetter had been swearing ever since. On the vox, to his staff, and in a long and one-sided conversation with General Grüber, which had gone on mostly in his head.
‘Maybe the rumour is true,’ Vetter’s adjutant, Yastin, said as they waited for the Salamander to arrive. ‘Maybe we’re going to attack.’
‘Well, we need frekking Earthshaker shells first,’ Vetter said. ‘We can’t fire orders at the enemy. Throne take them all! If Creed was here he wouldn’t let such a shambles go on.’
The thought of Creed made them all feel a little better.
The Centaur’s lights cast long beams, illuminating the swirling dirt and ash that swilled continuously up in the breeze. ‘Here!’ Vetter shouted, though he could not be heard. He waved his torch and the Centaur’s tracks slewed it towards him. Before it had even stopped a comms officer was out, running low to the ground.
‘Are you the–’ the officer started, but Vetter shouted over him.
‘Yes,’ he called out. ‘You’re late, and this frekking bombardment is supposed to start in five minutes.’
The man’s face showed a mixture of apology and resilient defiance. ‘It was tough getting through,’ he said. Vetter didn’t look for an explanation, but the man gave it anyway. ‘A maniple of Warhounds broke through.’
Vetter had seen the explosions and felt the earth tremors. He’d guessed something like that had happened, but that was someone else’s problem, not his. ‘Well, I’v
e got an artillery barrage to send!’
The other man nodded. Fighting was starting up to the west. He could feel the tremors through his Cadian-issue leather boots. ‘Right!’ Vetter said. ‘There’s four hundred Basilisks along this line. They’re three deep…’ he started, but the comms officer knew his business as well as Vetter, and already his supply train of half-tracks and Trojans were peeling off and finding the dug-in Basilisks.
Within less than a minute the first ordnance trucks were reversing into position behind the dug-in Basilisk tanks. Neat lines of artillery shells were stacked five deep. The ammo carriages groaned under the weight of high explosives and cast metal. Crude clawed servitor arms slowly began to pile the Earthshaker shells onto the ground behind each gun. The whine of hydraulics seemed almost too loud.
‘Come on!’ Vetter urged, but the supply crews were already at work, lifting the wooden pallets of Earthshaker shells into position. ‘Grüber’s going on the offensive!’
‘I thought he could only walk backwards,’ a young gunner said between breaths as he slid an Earthshaker shell into the loading breech. Just the idea that they were going to go on the attack at last. It was intoxicating. There was giddy banter among the men. Vetter realised he hadn’t heard anyone joke for… well… months.
‘Yes indeed, Guardsman!’ He grinned. ‘Grüber wants us to move forward. We’ll be in Kasr Kraf by midnight.’
His vividly violet eye ran over the activity as the empty ammo trucks pulled away and others reversed in to take their place. A whistle blew. Vetter checked his chronometer. There was less than a minute to go. ‘Load!’ he shouted, though the breeches were already loaded. He realised he’d been gripping the torch too tightly, and flexed his hand. The nerves were getting to him. He cursed himself. Human, but Cadian.
An air raid alarm sounded. At the end of the line, his anti-air turrets were swivelling to the west. Vetter couldn’t see what was coming. The first Hydra started up, four lines of tracers streaked up into the sky. A direct hit into this mass of ordnance could blow them all to the Golden Throne. The fact didn’t scare him. Vetter had seen death on thirty-seven planets and despite the steel plates in his femur and scapula, and the ache in his left shoulder, nothing had quite managed to finish him off.
Cadia Stands Page 9