Taavi fired. The las-bolts hit the Volscani in the thigh, chest and shoulder before he went down. But then another Volscani rose. Then two, then five.
A Cadian appeared, loping over the ruins. Half his head was missing, but he stood shakily and turned towards them.
‘Gunnel?’ Minka called.
The thing that was Gunnel snarled like a beast and started forward. A hand caught Minka’s boot. Its nails raked the leather, catching for a moment on the heavy steel buckle. She stamped down hard and felt the crunch of bone. The fingers were broken and misshapen but they still clutched for her. ‘Rath!’ she shouted. ‘We have to get out of here.’
Rath was fumbling with his knife.
Minka pushed her knife back into its sheath. ‘They’re dead,’ she said. ‘They’re all dead.’
She pulled Rath up and they half fell down the slope towards the river.
Taavi covered them. Another torso burst out from the rubble slope in a shower of rockcrete and dust. ‘Taavi!’ Minka shouted. She grabbed a piece of wood and swung. It crunched into the thing’s skull and knocked it from its feet.
Suddenly they were all shouting and firing. Rath found a gun and tossed it to Minka. She caught it and fired two shots into the back of the thing clawing upwards. In the corner of her eye, she saw something right itself and turn towards her, low and hunched like an animal.
It might have been Naul. She couldn’t tell. He’d died a while ago. His corpse was swollen with death, rags of guts hanging through the torn uniform. The stench made her eyes water. Minka fired. The putrid flesh burst as each round struck it, like a pustule popping.
A living man would be dead three times over, but the cadaver kept coming towards her, mouth hanging open, eyes rolled up into its head.
‘Taavi!’ she shouted. Another Cadian, like the first, head bandaged and bloodied, the stump of one arm waving as it struggled to come towards her. Minka fired. The second blasted part of the thing’s skull, but it did not stop. Then two more figures appeared. They had been dead for months. The flesh was dark, bones showing through where the guts had rotted away, the hollows of their eyes empty.
One was a civilian woman, and the other a child, weeping pox-marks on its dust-grey face, dark eyes glittering with malevolent intent. Minka fell back. All she could hear was her own panicked breath and the thunder of her heart beating loudly as another two cadavers appeared before her.
Minka fired into each of them at point-blank range, even though she knew it was useless. Las-bolts burned holes into the rotting flesh, but the corpses’ bodies did not flinch. Her foot skidded on rubble and blood. She saw the flash of steel. She and Rath were back to back.
‘We have to get out of here,’ she hissed.
‘Taavi!’ Rath shouted, but Taavi was down and unmoving.
Rath cursed as he decapitated one of the dead, kicked another over with the flat of his boot, swung wildly at the one with the bandaged head. His knife opened it up from sternum to navel. There was a dull pop as the skin and muscles of its front parted and the grey snakes of intestines flopped out. A man would have screamed, but this thing came on regardless, its booted feet trampling on its own grey and bloated entrails. It slowed for a moment, then toppled forward, its legs hopelessly entangled, and fell onto its face.
Minka was too terrified to scream. Rath had her by the shoulder and was pulling her back. ‘To the river!’
Rath hacked through the arm of one, took the head off another, and heel-kicked a third out of the way. They skidded down a scree slope and hit the bottom as rocks tumbled down upon them. Minka’s jacket caught on barbed wire. It tore as she pulled it free.
As more undead crested the slope behind them, one fell forward and skidded face-down after them, arms reaching over its head.
It was carrying an auto-pistol. Rath bent to rip it from the dead hand. ‘Here!’ he said, and tossed it to Minka.
‘Come!’ he said, and took Minka’s hand and pulled her down towards the river.
The water was foul with scum and oil. They pulled each other into the shallows. The river banks were choked with flotsam that lapped the ruined banks. Minka grabbed a piece of wood and threw herself on it, as Rath caught a floating drop-canister and held onto the end. The dead splashed down to reach them, but they kicked out into the middle of the river.
Rath was having difficulty keeping his head above the water. The cool water soothed the burn on Minka’s palm. She used her belt to tie him to the canister, and then lashed herself to it as well and put her hand back into the water.
‘There,’ she said, as they bobbed out into the middle of the river and started to drift downstream. The current swept them around the exposed wing of a crashed Marauder. The wing had caught trailers of barbed wire and wood. Where the city wall crossed the river there was a black tunnel.
They were carried swiftly towards it by the flood. ‘Look!’ Rath said.
Minka turned. Behind them, shambling figures were throwing themselves into the water.
‘They’re following,’ she said, and looked ahead. Figures were coming down to the water before them. She saw a child standing on the wall above the tunnel entrance. It hit the water with a splash. She cursed as she felt a hand grasping at her foot and she kicked out wildly.
She closed her eyes and prayed as the black hole of the river tunnel swallowed them.
Twelve
Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke
Naval Subaltern Grannus had had little personal experience of the Astra Militarum, but from what he had heard from other Naval officers in the amasec bars of Port Maw Cypra Mundi, the average Guardsman was only one rank above the feral world savages.
On the eighteenth upper deck of the Claymore-class corvette Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke, Grannus clipped his ceremonial carapace breastplate into place and drew in a deep breath. Before this had all started, he’d spent the last twenty years touring the wilder reaches of the Scarus Sector, collecting tithes of meat and furs and grain from feral worlds whose unkempt populations needed to be cowed into submission with a show of force and ceremony.
Six months earlier he’d been enjoying amasec on the agri world of Black Lake. They’d spent three weeks loading their hull full of grox-slab and were supposed to be moving on to the next planet of Connat’s Guard, but received new orders to make all haste to the Cadian System.
The Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke had barely begun to deliver its load of grox-slab to the planet when the augury scanners showed a solid mass of contacts reaching from Vigiliantum to Solar Macharius. Enemy hunters. The rumour had gone through the ships, and the air on the bridge was tense.
There had been three days of urgent unloading before they’d been forced to disengage from orbit and seek shelter in the solar flares around Prosan, a bare and blasted rock close to the Cadian sun. The solar radiation had wreaked havoc with their systems and three machine-spirits had given up the battle, plunging large sections of the ship into darkness as the maintenance engines spluttered and failed. But that failure had probably saved them from detection by the sleek Black Legion Idolator-class raiders, whose precision targeting systems were even able to pinpoint ships that were sheltering closer to the solar flares.
For the last three months, they’d been playing a deadly game of hide and seek. The stress of being hunted had taken its toll on all the Naval crews. They’d been surviving on a mix of stimms and slab. Grannus himself had not slept well for weeks.
And then the Phalanx had arrived, and under cover of the vast warship, Imperial ships began to shelter. It was commonplace craft such as these that answered the call when the evacuation of Cadia came. Third-rate officers, like Grannus, who found themselves involved in a deadly military operation.
There was a knot in Naval Subaltern Grannus’ shoulder. It had been getting tighter all morning.
The last time he’d taken on Imperial Guardsmen was fifteen years ag
o, and he’d never quite forgotten the experience. The Catachans had broken every rule in the book. They had lit fires in their hangar, killed seventeen canteen servitors and beaten Subaltern Reln and his fire-suppressant teams to within an inch of their lives.
He adjusted his ceremonial cravat, lifted his shoulders to his ears, and then rolled them back. He remembered the consternation the Guardsmen had caused.
There was a time when embarked troops who killed members of a ship’s crew would have been quietly vented in the outer reaches of a planetary system, but the intercession of a three-hundred-year-old Mordian general with an unusual sense of humour had persuaded their captain to impose ‘lock-down’ instead. The Catachans had been given bare rations and water, and then they had been sealed within their hab-hangars for the whole month of warp travel.
It was Grannus who had drawn the short straw that trip and was sent to see if any were still alive, to tell them to prepare for embarkation. He still bore the scars of that encounter, both physical and mental, and they weighed on him now as he paused for a moment before the full-length mirror on the back of his polished nalwood door, drew himself up to his full six foot three and tilted his hat to a severe angle that exaggerated his long, hooked nose.
Savages, he reminded himself. Cowed by a smart dress uniform and a polished breastplate.
He adjusted the angle of his tricorn hat, lifted the duelling sword off its peg and checked the straps of his father’s brass-hilted hot-shot laspistol. He flicked off the safety catch, set the charge to full and puffed out his cheeks.
He was ready.
Grüber’s left leg was bandaged above the knee, but otherwise the hundred-and-eighty-year-old warrior was unharmed as he awaited the arrival of the ship’s captain with an honour guard of majors. He saw the doors to the crew-lift grind slowly open and took in the movements of the shotgun-wielding Naval ratings with ill-concealed dislike.
He had not forgotten the indignity of his treatment on the lander. He would never get over the shame of losing his planet to the enemy.
As the Naval officer walked towards him, Grüber drew himself up to his full six feet. He had spent long enough on board ships of Battlefleet Cadia to know the many ranks that the Navy kept, and how they were indicated, and he took in the red tricorn hat, the gold-worked duelling sword and the epaulettes of this officer, and knew that the man was no captain. He did not wait for the customary greeting from the Naval officer but took a painful step forward.
The Navy ratings lifted their shotguns. Grüber refused to be cowed. ‘I am General Grüber, of the Cadian Shock Troopers. I must complain about the way that we have been treated! We have received neither food nor medicine. You must rectify this at once!’
The subaltern smiled apologetically. ‘General Grüber. My name is Grannus. I am subaltern on this craft. I apologise. My only excuse is that this is a time of war.’ He paused and collected himself. ‘First, I should welcome you aboard the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke. But I must remind you that our ship has not been used as a troop transport for over fifteen years. We do not have the rations to feed you all.’
Grüber took another step forward. ‘I have thousands of wounded and hungry men. Heroes, each and every one of them.’
Grannus flustered for a moment, bearing himself up. ‘I repeat, general. What you ask is impossible. We are doing the best we can. I repeat, the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke was not provisioned for troop transport. We are making arrangements now to have you moved to another ship.’
Grüber stepped forward. ‘Why has your captain not come to greet us?’
Grannus fumbled clumsily for an answer. Grüber cut him short. ‘I demand that you allow me up to the bridge. I have to make contact with the forces of the Imperium that have escaped from Cadia. It is imperative that someone takes command. Is that understood?’
Anyone who had lived as long as General Grüber knew how to blend rank, gesture and threat into one heady mixture. Grannus had spent too long intimidating feral-world savages. There was nothing about him that Grüber found anything but comical.
Five minutes later, the bridge doors of the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke opened, and Grüber entered with thirty of his Cadians.
On the bridge of the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke there was a hush.
All eyes were on the green sweep of the augury scanners.
The blips of the Phalanx flashed brightest, and about it the small pinpricks of Battlefleet Cadia and the evacuation fleet. But it was the empty spaces around them that everyone was concentrating on. They all knew that the Black Fleet was out there. None of them doubted that the enemy ships would make another attempt on the fleet – the massive guns of the Phalanx would deter the enemy – but the lure of bait would prove too strong. Not even the Phalanx would keep them off.
The augury flared green as it swept round with a low beep at each circuit.
Captain Zabuzkho was concentrating so hard he had quite forgotten about Subaltern Grannus.
When the bridge doors opened he looked up, his expression turning to surprise as he saw an Imperial Guardsman enter. The man shouldered past the astonished ratings and came to a halt just inches from the ship’s captain. Zabuzkho could not remember the last time a Guardsman had stood on his bridge. The image was strangely incongruous. It was typical of these times. Things were falling apart.
‘What is this?’ Zabuzkho demanded. ‘Grannus, what is happening?’
‘Captain,’ the Guardsman said, addressing him directly.
Zabuzkho took in the other man’s bearing. He was tall, fit, lean. ‘I am General Grüber,’ the man said, and put out a hand. He had clearly been through rejuvenate treatment, perhaps thirty or more Terran years ago. His skin was slackening, and the pinched scars gave his mouth a slight sneer, but nothing could take away from his grim black eyes. ‘I am General Grüber, Cadian High Command. I am commandeering this ship.’
Zabuzkho stiffened. ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ He turned to face the man before him. The dais he was standing on gave him a good five inches on the other man.
‘You are still within the Cadian Sector. This is a state of war. As a surviving member of Cadian High Command I am taking over control of your ship,’ Grüber said. ‘I shall return command to you when I am done. But in the meantime, you will obey me. Is that understood?’
Captain Zabuzkho did not answer. He took in the thirty Cadian Shock Troopers who had followed Grüber out of the lift, and he gave Grannus a withering look.
At last, he said, ‘My ship is yours, sir.’
‘Good,’ Grüber said. ‘My men need feeding. Please arrange whatever food you have to be distributed among them. And bring the vox officer. We need to find the Lord Castellan.’
A staircase wound down from the bridge to the communication chamber of the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke. The vox servitors on the Berwicke were a trio of mind-slaved torsos, set into a seat of wires with tubes running from their eye sockets and mouths, their servo-hands leaving a scrawl of minuscule Gothic on the pink vox sheets.
‘Grannus,’ the captain said, and the subaltern escorted Grüber and his command staff down. They took in the wires, the servitors and the long sheets of Naval communications that fell in folds to the floor. Lalinc, one of Grüber’s aides, lifted the vox feed and scrolled through it. It listed Naval engagements, ships lost, page upon page of Battlefleet Scarus communications.
On the planet, he’d heard little of the Naval battles, but now he took in the list of lost and missing ships of Battlefleet Cadia, the scale of the fighting seemed overwhelming.
‘Any mention of Creed?’
Lalinc stirred himself. ‘No, sir.’
It had been a long time since Grüber had been so hands-on. He looked at the crude communication array. ‘How do we work these things… Grannus!’
The subaltern stepped forward. ‘Let me know what you want, sir.’
Grüber looked
at the servitors. They were almost skeletal, and they had a mouldy scent.
‘I want a message sent out. I need to find Creed.’
Grannus had the orders relayed to the other ships in the fleet. Answers came back over the next four hours. Each ship’s captain had their own peculiar manner. Some of them offered condolences in formulaic phrases, congratulated Grüber on the courage of his warriors or – from the battleships – sent offers to have Grüber transferred to their craft.
But as to Grüber’s question, each of them replied in the negative. They had interrogated the soldiers in their care, asked for rumours of Creed’s presence. No one had seen the Lord Castellan. As far as anyone knew, Ursarkar E. Creed had not escaped the planet.
For years before this moment, Grüber had been just the sort of old guard to have opposed Creed’s rise. Creed had snubbed him a number of times, and Grüber had complained many times to Warmaster Ryse about him.
But now, as Lalinc read out each message starting with a negative, Grüber found his spirits flagging. He did not want command. He had been part of defeated army groups before and knew what was required. The troops needed rousing. They needed their broken spirits restored. The scale of the defeat was such that it needed a master to reforge the Cadian spirit.
Grüber knew that he was not up to the task. If ever there was a need for a maverick like Creed, it was now. It was typical of Creed, he thought, to disappear at a moment like this.
He turned his back and felt all the eyes of his men upon him. Servitors scratched on the slow-ravelling message scrolls. Grüber closed his eyes. ‘Well, until he can be traced – or until another member of Cadian High Command can be found – relay the message that I shall take command of the forces of Cadia.’
The evacuation fleet was scoured for all the surviving staff officers of Cadia’s High Command. On the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke, Grüber gathered officers from seventeen different regiments, different uniforms, wounded, dirty, bandaged. Tenders shuttled back and forth as Grüber set up the Cadian Command-in-exile. Surviving generals, adjutants and orderlies shuttled to the bays of the Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke.
Cadia Stands Page 16