by Various
‘There’s no point in pining over lost things,’ Kou’to chided. ‘We will simply overcome, and make do.’
‘Of course, shas’ui.’ The young warrior patted the metal cylinder on his belt containing his rolled up flex-screen. ‘It’s just that without them, I feel that I am not contributing my full share toward the mission’s success.’
‘Do not doubt yourself,’ Kou’to said paternally, then added sharply, ‘and do not go begging for compliments.’ His eyes flicked to Shadowsun and back to Sabu’ro. The youth looked away sheepishly.
Shadowsun had been silent for a long time, lost in thought. She was aware of the others speaking around her, but their words were distant and half-heard. As she trudged slowly between the snaking roots, Hollett’s jibe turned around and around in her mind, seeking purchase until, at last, she found she was engaging in conversation with herself.
Do I have anything more to live for, she wondered?
Let’s examine the record, another part of her replied.
Memories played out for her like a holovid. She recalled her initial military schooling. Her selection for special command training following an unprecedented inspection visit by Aun’va. Battling greenskin barbarians in the jungles and deserts of the planet K’resh. Engaging the spore ships of the ever-devouring Y’he in deep space. Arriving in orbit of il’Wolaho.
Wait, she told herself. That’s just a list of military achievements.
She sifted through them again and again, trying to find an alternate theme with increasing desperation. But there was no escaping it. Her career and her life were one and the same. And why shouldn’t they be? She was a member of the fire caste. An exemplary member. A marriage partner, children, a home of her own; all these trappings and trivialities of everyday life she had sacrificed in order to become a paragon. In her, Kiru’s legacy and that of all his progenitors had been elevated to glorious new heights. Her actions served the Greater Good for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tau. Wasn’t that enough?
Obviously you have nothing better to live for.
She had spent nearly twenty years, a full half of her life, at war. One day, her memorial would grace the Walk of Honour outside the Mont’yr Battle Dome, and future generations would speak her name with reverent whispers. But the awe would come from the children of strangers, for Kiru’s line would be at an end. She couldn’t let that happen. She had a familial duty. But what then of her career, of the Empire that depended on her so? What of her duty to it?
This burden was never supposed to fall to me.
No?
No! I had my own plan. I worked harder than anyone and I achieved it. I upheld father’s legacy. It was left to Oru’mi and Ty’res to carry on his line.
But they’re dead now.
And left me to do everything.
It is your duty.
Duty here, duty there, she thought. We have no lives. Just obligations. We’re never allowed to simply do what we want.
Then the question is obvious. What do you want, Shadowsun?
I don’t know, she snapped.
The answer that came back was so gentle in its tone that she stopped in her tracks, certain that it hadn’t come from her. But it had. Yes you do, it said.
‘Commander, what’s wrong?’ Kou’to asked. He and the others had likewise ceased walking.
‘Are you picking up something?’ Sabu’ro pointed anxiously at her battlesuit collar.
She looked at the two of them. ‘You should be made aware,’ she said slowly, ‘that I have sent a reply to T’au informing them that, following our rescue from this planet, I am considering the Taal Saal’Y.’
Their faces went slack, except for Hollett who looked on, confused at their words.
Kou’to nodded and lowered his head mournfully. Sabu’ro however, swiftly removed his helmet and stared Shadowsun in the eye.
‘You can’t!’ he exclaimed.
Kou’to barked at the insolence. ‘Shas’la, mind your place!’
Shadowsun waved a fusion blaster to quiet him. The young warrior’s face was despondent, she could see, and perhaps rightly so. After all, he had just been told that one of his heroes was thinking about quitting her job.
‘Considering, I said,’ she told him. ‘But strongly considering.’
Sabu’ro looked as if he were on the verge of tears. He blinked rapidly, and then put his helmet back on. He squared his shoulders manfully and said, ‘I understand. Thank you for telling us.’ Then he added, ‘If I may say so, commander, you will make an excellent mother.’
Shadowsun’s face broke into a weary smile, and she began moving forwards again. Sabu’ro followed by her side, step for step, but Hollett paused.
‘Taal Saal’Y’, he asked Kou’to. ‘What’s that?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ the shas’ui said curtly.
Hollett stared at him, waiting for a more satisfactory answer. Kou’to sighed at his obstinacy, and continued.
‘How would you say it?’ he rolled a hand in the air, searching for the right translation. ‘“To preserve one child”. It’s a policy we have wherein the last surviving member of a family may be excused from dangerous service in order to carry on the line.’
‘And she’s going to take it?’
‘She hasn’t made up her mind.’
Hollett gazed down the hill. A tiny laugh escaped his lips.
‘Is something funny?’ Kou’to growled threateningly.
Hollett shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said earnestly. ‘No. Someone like her, that’s not funny at all. That must be one hell of a tough choice.’ He began walking again.
Eventually, the land levelled out once again. The ground became progressively more wet, and the composition of the forest began to change. Instead of the towering, twisting trees and delicate flowers, there instead grew short, ugly trees with foliage like spider silk and bark the colour of rusting metal. Water began to pool in their tracks. By late afternoon, they were in sucking mud halfway to their knees. A fine, white mist began to settle all around them.
‘Did your Emperor weep when he saw the beauty of this swamp?’ Kou’to asked Hollett.
The Guardsman paid the slight no heed. He looked around, eyes wide. His skin was clammy and beaded with sweat. ‘Just make sure you all walk slowly and gently. No sudden moves. And tell her that as well.’ Hollett gestured towards Shadowsun. ‘Her armour’s way too heavy to be stomping around in here.’
‘Why?’
Hollett coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his bound hands. ‘You can’t smell that, can you, with your helmet on?’
Kou’to shook his head no, but Shadowsun called back over her shoulder. ‘I can. Smoke. Ash. It’s been getting stronger all day. I would guess that the highlands we’ve passed through are all burning fiercely.’
Hollett surveyed the air. ‘Yeah, we’re pretty much surrounded by it now.’
She stopped and leaned heavily against a blotchy orange trunk. ‘Perhaps Colonel Falkens should focus more on fighting fires and less on fighting me.’ She took a long drink from her water container and then sighed. She felt fatigued down to her very bones.
‘Never happen,’ Hollett said.
Kou’to sat wearily on a fallen log and massaged the knee plates of his armour. His rule to Hollett about never addressing the commander directly was apparently forgotten beneath a burden of weariness. ‘Why say you so?’ he asked.
‘Because he’s got something to prove, I suppose.’ The Guardsman shrugged. ‘He’s a Mountain Man.’ He struggled to clear his throat and surveyed his captors. He could see that many of them were nearing the breaking point. This march was pushing them to the limits of their endurance. It was for him as well.
‘Ah, yes,’ Shadowsun recalled. ‘Your sept’s unflattering identification.’
Hollett’s lip curled. �
��Double-edged nickname, I said.’
Shadowsun was suddenly intrigued. It was the first time she’d seen any hint of backbone in her prisoner. ‘Explain it then.’
The wisps of smoke were beginning to irritate Hollett’s eyes. He rubbed them, smearing mud across his face. ‘The Emperor gave it to us,’ he began. ‘It’s an old name, dating back to the lost times before the Great Crusade. The original Mountain Men lived in pristine wildernesses, far from any cities. They were very tough and self-sufficient. They were able to recognise what creatures to eat and which to leave alone. They could manoeuvre through the thickest forests and knew how to use the land to their advantage. But the more civilised people of the day, the ones who lived in cities and such, didn’t see them in the same light. To them, the Mountain Men were wild, unkempt, uneducated.
‘We’re a lot the same. To the rest of the Imperial Guard, we’re something of a laughing stock. I mean, our regiment is relegated to this one planet. It’s a beautiful planet, mind you, a genuine treasure of the galaxy. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re committed to an eternity of guard duty. We aren’t sent to fight in major conflicts, and no major conflict ever found its way to us.’
‘Until now,’ Shadowsun said softly.
Hollett looked at her. ‘Yesterday was the first time anyone could recall the defence laser being fired. Ever. The soldiers on this planet have been dreaming all their lives for someone like you to come along. They can’t wait to fight you. They can’t wait to kill you, all of you, in the most brutal ways possible. Because, finally, they get to show the Imperium what they’re made of. And if the cost for doing so is the worst wildfire in recorded history, then so be it.’
‘What about you?’
Hollett’s eyes narrowed as he considered his answer. Something in the distance seemed to catch his attention and his head snapped away. ‘I know what’s important,’ he said cryptically.
One of the fire warriors on the perimeter threw his fist up into the air, a signal that something was amiss. Pulse rifles clicked to readiness. Shadowsun pointed from Kou’to to Hollett, and the shas’ui nodded once. The air carried a mixture of snapping, crashing, honking, and screeching. And the sounds were coming closer. Shadowsun took a few steps forward, and was nearly run down.
The herd was hundreds strong and seemed to come out of nowhere. It rushed forwards, pouring over the tau like a living, liquid thing. Shadowsun lost sight of everything else as she became surrounded by a flood of brown flesh. The beasts whipped past her in a blur, but she could make out their general shape. They ran on four, comically elongated legs. Their bodies were long and thin, and covered by tan fur and white spots. Some of them had heads crowned by a ring of twisting horns, while others had a pair of tails that lashed back and forth. Their eyes were huge and wild. They frothed at the mouth. The sopping ground was being ferociously churned up with their passing, and their trampling was like thunder.
Shadowsun was grazed several times by their passing, each blow dizzily spinning her around. Then, one of the creatures ran blindly into her at full speed. Her battlesuit possessed one final shield projector, and there was a blue flash as it reacted to the sudden impact. The creature spun away. Shadowsun landed face-down in the mire. An arm’s length from her, another of the creatures became hopelessly mired. As it brayed and struggled to get back up, its fellows paid it no heed whatsoever and trampled it into bits of red meat and broken bone. Then, as suddenly as they had come upon her, they were gone, crashing their way through the swamp with terrified abandon.
The mud felt cool against her face, and Shadowsun had to fight the urge to simply fall asleep where she lay. Her arms and back were bruised where the stampeding creatures had slammed the plates of the battlesuit into her flesh. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the moans and shouts of the others. She was dimly aware of someone kneeling down next to her.
Through fluttering eyes, she saw the tau boy crouched beside her, still dressed in his cadet uniform. When he saw her face, covered with its mask of brown slime, he giggled. Shadowsun attempted to lift herself, but her arms were like rubber. ‘Who are you?’ she muttered weakly, and then collapsed again.
‘Commander, it’s me,’ a voice said gently. ‘Sabu’ro.’
She opened her eyes to find no trace of the boy. Rather, the young shas’la was kneeling beside her, helmet off, his brow furrowed with concern. When he struggled to help her up, she wobbled slightly.
‘Commander, are you all right?’
She surveyed the scene to make certain that no one else had been seriously hurt. Fire warriors were helping each other up from out of the mud. She wanted to tell him no, that in fact she felt as if she were falling apart. But it was a commander’s duty to elevate and maintain the morale of those under her, and so for the Greater Good, she lied.
‘Never better,’ she told him.
‘Oh no, no, no, no no,’ Hollett was muttering. ‘Stupid, damned bovids.’
‘What were they running from?’ Sabu’ro asked, trying to ignore the panicking human.
She cleared her burning throat. ‘The fires, I would think. Perhaps there’s enough moisture in this place for it to be a natural refuge...’
Her voice trailed off as the ground began to shake. In the mud puddles around their legs, the water began to ripple. Something was smashing its way through the trees in pursuit of the fleeing herd. Something huge.
Kou’to trudged out into the middle of the bog. ‘Ires shas’ka momyu!’ he shouted. Raising a fist, he signalled the fire warriors to ready weapons and arrange themselves into ranks around him. ‘Sabu’ro,’ he snapped, ‘guard our prisoner.’
The young shas’la slogged back towards Hollett, pulse rifle in hand. The Guardsman was glancing at the ground, his face stricken with panic. The surface of the bog seemed to be boiling now. He looked to Kou’to and screamed, ‘Get out of there, you idiots!’
‘Sabu’ro!’ Kou’to barked. ‘Quiet him!’
Sabu’ro’s fingers squirmed uncomfortably against his rifle. ‘Please, Hollett-la,’ he hissed.
Hollett ignored him. ‘Then give me back my gun!’ he shouted.
Kou’to was bowled over by the audacity of the request. ‘Shas’la, I ordered you to quiet the prisoner!’
Whatever was coming was nearly upon them.
‘At least give me the chance to defend myself!’
Shadowsun glanced over to Sabu’ro, and noted his reluctance. With augmented strides she stomped over to the tree against which Hollett had pressed his back. Sabu’ro stepped aside as best he could. The commander wound back to deliver a brutal bludgeoning, but she never got the chance. The trees behind her splintered amidst a thunderous crash, and a creature, one of the largest any of them had ever seen, strode into their midst.
It was larger than a tank and stood on four, broad legs. Vast, solid antlers sprouted from its head. Its long fur was a mass of dark brown, broken only by a peculiar V-shaped patch of light tan across its neck. Something was impaled in its flesh: a long metallic rod that trailed wires. Its blue eyes were tiny in comparison to the rest of its features, but they stared brightly from underneath a colossal brow. It lifted a titanic paw up from the mire, and swiped the air with five curved talons. When it bellowed, the creature’s face seemed to open wide enough to swallow a person whole, and the sound rattled the branches.
‘Ursaloth,’ Hollett whispered.
The beast lowered its face, and the antlers became a shield wall as it charged forward. Kou’to’s men fired their rifles as it came on, but to no effect. The ursaloth seemed to deflect or absorb their every blast. It plowed into the fire warriors like a runaway monorail, and reared its head. Half of the tau went flying, smacking into nearby trees and falling limply in the mud. Shadowsun whirled around and leveled her fusion blasters, but Kou’to and the remaining warriors were trying their best to hold the beast in place. They beat at its legs in
a flurry of pathetic blows, and blocked her line of sight. She couldn’t fire without the risk of killing one of her own, and il’Wolaho had already claimed enough of her people’s lives.
‘Get clear!’ she hollered.
Something stirred beneath her hooves. Hollett’s yells were lost in the din as the swamp erupted from below. The swarm of things that emerged from the mire were vaguely serpentine, and twice the size of her battlesuit. Their heads were their most prominent feature, with spherical eyes perched high atop their skulls and a mouth that occupied the rest. A pair of bony flippers protruded from behind their jaws, tipped with wickedly curved claws. Their mouths gaped. Their teeth were tiny needles, ineffectual for biting or chewing. They were covered with soft, rubbery, greenish-grey skin. They began pouncing and crawling over the fire warrior teams, over the ursaloth, over Sabu’ro and Shadowsun.
‘What are they?’ Sabu’ro cried.
‘Fen skulks,’ Hollett replied. ‘Oh, Throne…’
Shadowsun ignored him and fell into combat mode immediately, firing her blasters. A pair of skulks burst disgustingly as if their bodies were nothing more than taut bags filled with water and blubber. Their guts sprayed in all directions, painting her suit in grey ichor.
There was no time for anyone to notice Hollett. As he scrambled up the tree beside him, the razor-edged bark tore his overcoat in many places and slashed his arms and legs. With a grunt, he hoisted himself up into a notch between limbs and looked at his hands. Blood was pouring down his sleeves from the cuts he had suffered across his palms. Suddenly, he had an idea. While the tau fought their multitude of assailants, he began to saw his restraints back and forth across the branch between his thighs. A moment later, the bands popped, and he was free. He reached down to his belt, and depressed a button on one of the innocuous metal boxes attached there. There was a crackle all around him as his refractor field leapt into place. He had free hands, and protective shielding. Now all he needed was a weapon. Elevated above the carnage he scanned the scene.
Far to his left, the second team of warriors quickly tried to bring their guns to bear on the new threat. But their barrels were long and awkward, and the fen skulks’ reflexes were faster by far. They snapped off a flurry of pulse blasts. Their targets twisted and writhed out of harm’s way. Energy bolts wildly tore through the razor trees and vaporised the spider silk fronds above. Kou’to and his diminishing number of men could not even be seen for the writhing mass that covered them. Above them, the ursaloth gave a mighty swipe of its talons, cleaving several skulks in half.