by Henry Zou
Silverstein was running point, his bioptic pupils dilating and contracting as they tracked for targets. His autorifle was braced loosely against his shoulder, the camouflaged weapon blending hazily with his long coat of reptilian hide. Crouched and running as he was, Silverstein resembled a hunting hound seeking his quarry.
Fifteen paces behind, Roth and Celeminé followed. Roth looked long and lean in his fighting-plate and obsidian scale, his most favoured regalia of war. He ran with long loping strides, the fighting-plate seeming to facilitate, rather than hinder, his grace of movement.
Beside Roth, Celeminé gripped a bulky two-shot flame pistol in both hands. Extra fuel canisters were secured to her chest webbing, along with her med-kit and other utilities.
Bringing up the rear was Captain Pradal, lasrifle held at the hip, spike bayonet socketed in its lug. The weapon was CantiCol-pattern, distinctly longer yet thinner than standard, with a stock and grip of low-grade comb wood. His uniform was Cantican standard issue – a brown cavalry jacket and widely cut grey breeches, tapered around the calves by canvas binding. Upon his swarthy head was the distinctive regimental kepi cap with its circular flat top and forager’s bill.
The captain turned around and panned his rifle at the empty marshalling square every few paces. He held a wad of tabac in his lower lip. His eyes were wide and wired as he chewed slowly.
Inquisitor Roth had researched the Cantican Colonials prior to entering the star system. It would have been rude of him not to. Although a little-known regiment, the CantiCol were the Medina Corridor’s primary troop formation. According to census, four hundred thousand Guardsmen were garrisoned thinly across the Medina system alongside indigenous PDF elements. But like the planets they defended, their heritage was swathed in antiquity. The regiments had been raised six thousand years ago from the Cantican loyalists of the Reclamation Wars. They had been the few warring dust tribes to aid the Imperium during the Reclamation and were thus the only regiment granted the right to defend the entire region. Unified under Imperial colonisation, these soldiers had only seen intermittent actions against frontier raiders and minor xenos incursion on the Eastern Fringes. Nothing in their long and lengthy history had prepared them for an absolute war against the millions-strong legions of Chaos.
Of Delahunt, there was no sign. The main barracks block of the inner bailey was empty. The team crept into the blockhouse, silent except for the grinding of broken glass beneath their boots. There was no movement there, nor had there been any signs of life anywhere in the compound.
Inside the barracks, slashes of dried blood stained the walls and congealed in the corners and crevices of the tiled flooring. Spent casings and power cells littered the area. Ranks of bunk beds had been toppled over, some had evidently been used for defensive cover, their metal frames twisted and scorched. The fighting had been heavy here. In one corner of the housing unit, nestled behind an improvised barricade of granary sacks, a heavy stubber had fired its last rounds. The barrel was heat-warped from continuous firing and a bed of brass casings covered the area around it. Evidently, the Guardsman here had put up a dogged resistance.
Roth looked out the broken window into the outer courtyard. He saw the bodies of the entire garrison company, a hundred and twenty men in all, strung up across the battlements. As a member of the ordos, Roth had seen brutality before but he was thankful that he had not yet become inured to it. The massacre was painful to see and he knew it wounded Captain Pradal even more. Those were his men up there, swinging in the humid breeze. Even though the captain had not known them personally, they were his brothers in arms nonetheless. It saddened Roth immensely.
‘Live target! South-east corner of the compound,’ Silverstein called. Immediately, the four of them dropped to their stomachs.
Roth hit the tiles with a clatter. His cheek pressed against the semi-dried blood. Some of it was still viscous and felt like oil on his skin. Cursing softly under his breath, he leopard-crawled towards Silverstein, who had been watching from the window.
‘How many?’
‘Three movement signatures, at least. Maybe more. Want me to look again?’ Silverstein asked.
‘No, I will,’ said Roth. The plasma pistol in his gauntlet began to vibrate as he thumbed it off safety. He hazarded a peek through the sepia-stained shards of the glass window.
Sure enough, the huntsman had been correct. Roth spotted a ghost of movement, darting between two squat storage sheds no more than fifty metres away. Then another flicker of movement, this time closer still, heading for their barracks block. Roth had seen enough; he ducked back down and gestured to the others.
‘Enemy. They’ve got us cornered. We can either make a break from the barracks across the open marshalling grounds. Or we wait.’
‘I say wait, at least until we know how many of them there are. They’ll flush us out and cut us down otherwise,’ replied Captain Pradal fearfully. The others nodded in agreement.
‘Fine. Celeminé, Pradal, cover that window. Silverstein, with me.’ Roth said as he scrambled behind an upturned bed frame. He made a quick assessment of the entry points to the barracks. Besides the main door, and a central window on the courtyard-facing side of the housing unit, there were no other entrances.
The four of them settled into a tense silence, eyes darting, jaw muscles clenching. Roth kept his eyes fixed to the main entrance. It was a thin metal door, so warped and perforated by small-arms fire it tilted on its hinges, unable to close. It hung there, slightly ajar, as Roth waited for the slightest creak of movement. To his left, Silverstein had stabilised his rifle on top of a storage trunk. He had settled into a pattern of rhythmic breathing, slowing his pulse and easing out his muscles. He aimed down the scope of the weapon and briefly closed his eyes before opening them again to check for realignment. Roth wished he too had the same hunter’s poise.
‘Do you hear that?’ Celeminé whispered. Her voice suddenly seemed so loud, Roth flinched inwardly.
Sure enough they could hear the scuffling crunch of boots on a dirt floor. They were barely audible at first, but increased in pitch and rhythm rapidly. Something was starting to sprint towards the barracks block. Several somethings.
Then the door began to swing outwards. Roth’s index finger slipped into his pistol’s trigger guard. He raised the weapon with both hands. A figure appeared in the doorway, a dark silhouette framed by the harsh sunlight that flooded into the room and haloed around it. Roth aimed for the centre of mass, his synapses firing the impulse for his hand to squeeze the trigger.
‘Hold fire! Hold fire!’ Silverstein screamed. At the same instant, the huntsman had instinctively made his shot. He shifted the weight of his rifle at the last moment, bucking the aim upwards and unleashing his round into the ceiling. The noise was deafening.
Roth faltered, paralysed with confusion. His brass-plated plasma pistol wavered in the air. He paused… drew a breath. Slowly his vision adjusted to the influx of light, and the figure in the doorway swam into focus. It was a Cantican soldier.
The Guardsman stared back at him, frozen in the doorway. At that moment, Roth imagined their expressions of shock would have mirrored each other. The soldier was no more than seventeen or eighteen standard; dirty and dishevelled as he was, he was not old enough to have nursed a growth of beard. His brown felt jacket was missing a sleeve and his grey breeches had no leg wraps, so they flapped voluminously. Roth noted the sash around his abdomen denoted him as a corporal.
‘I’m a friendly,’ the young Guardsman finally stuttered. He lowered his CantiCol lasrifle. Several other men appeared behind him, tired and ragged and all dressed in Cantican uniforms. Another soldier slowly nudged the surprised corporal out of the way. He was a much older man, with a thick handlebar moustache. The rank sash stretched taut across his abdomen denoted him as a sergeant major. He looked at Roth, unsure what to make of the situation until he spotted the Inquisitorial rosette emb
ossed on Roth’s left shoulder guard. The sergeant expelled a soft gasp of hope.
‘Praise the Emperor. You are inquisitors,’ he muttered under his breath.
Roth holstered his pistol back in its shoulder rig and rose up to his full height. He was an impressive head and shoulders taller than all the Canticans. Several of the Guardsmen retreated a step or two.
‘I am Inquisitor Obodiah Roth of the Ordo Hereticus. This is my field team,’ he said. As he spoke, Roth noticed in the periphery of his vision that Silverstein and Pradal had not relaxed their weapons. It was a necessary precaution considering the circumstances.
‘I am Sergeant Tal Asingrai. Formerly of the Cantican 6/6th Infantry.’
It was Captain Pradal who spoke next, rising from his position by the window. ‘Sergeant. Are you deserters?’ he asked with his lasrifle gripped in both hands.
The sergeant’s jaw hardened visibly. ‘No, sir. We still fight.’
‘Cantica fights? Cantica has fallen,’ Captain Pradal stated flatly.
‘Cantica has fallen, yes. But some of us still fight. Resistance cells have formed in the under-ruins. We don’t do much, but we do what we can,’ the sergeant replied.
The reaction in Captain Pradal was overwhelming. He dropped his rifle, letting it droop on its sling, and squeezed the old soldier in a heavy bear hug. Roth could only guess how it must feel for the captain to realise his home was not dead, that its people still lingered. Perhaps they had a fighting chance yet.
The Cantican Colonials surged into the room, exchanging names and handshakes; it was unusual for an officer to act with open candour with enlisted men, but this was an unusual situation. Roth allowed the atmosphere of jubilation to wane before he spoke.
‘Gentlemen, this is the first glimmer of positive news I have heard for weeks. The Archenemy, have they subjugated the surface?’
Sergeant Asingrai stole a furtive glance out into the courtyard where the garrison company had been butchered, and over the walls into the enemy-held city beyond. ‘It’s not safe here. Follow us to the under-ruins. We can talk there.’
Chapter Four
When men had colonised the Medina Worlds so very long ago, they had raised cities from the arid plains. These were ancient structures of clay, mortared with the crushed sea shells of long-extinct ocean-dwellers. Over the centuries, these cities were eroded by the seething dust storms and relentless suns until new cities were raised over the skeletons of the old. This natural cycle of construction had continued over the course of millennia, strata upon strata of ossified structures, growing as vertically as it did laterally, forming a mantle of architectural under-ruins, a labyrinth of archaeology that went five kilometres deep.
It was here, driven four kilometres underneath Upper Buraghand, that Inquisitor Roth came upon the isolated pockets of Imperial resistance. Down through an arterial maze they descended, groping their way through structures so old that natural rock growth and man-made construction had fused into one organic cavern. Crops of fungal growth grew wilder and more monstrous the deeper down they went.
Roth lit his way by the dull blue glow of his activated Tang War-pattern power fist. At one stage, Roth tripped and pushed his power fist through an ashlar wall. He found himself peering into a house that had not been visited by a human presence in at least seven thousand years. The structure was empty but for the petty ornaments of everyday living that lay undisturbed under swathes of dust and white mould – ceramic urns and plates, a crumbling copper-framed cot that had verdigrised to deep turquoise. The thing that seized Roth’s attention, however, was an aquila shrine mounted on the far wall. A stylised double-headed eagle of black ore, housed within a shrine box of porous, flaking wood.
Roth was seized by a desire to brush the cobwebs from the shrine but thought better of it. If something had remained such a way for millennia, it was not up to him to disturb it.
After two hours of black, dusty, claustrophobic descent, Roth assumed they had reached their destination. He saw a stratum of ancient structures that had collapsed, forming a natural valley two hundred and fifty metres in length. The shoulders of the ravine were clustered with buildings so old and ossified they had fused with the planet’s geology into a honeycombed warren. Overhead, rock pillars supported another stratum of ruins like the buttressed ceiling of a cathedral. As they entered the underground valley, Roth smelt rather than saw the signs of a camp first. He smelt boiling broth, chemical fires and the stale warmth of humans.
‘This is it,’ Sergeant Asingrai said as he gestured at the rock cubbies that rose up around them.
Judging by the number of drumfires and the refugees that huddled around them, Roth estimated there were over a thousand people seeking shelter in that small underground enclave. Men, women and children shuddered in the subterranean cold, swathed in blankets and rags, their faces hollowed by starvation. A small-bore autocannon, bronzed and ageing, was manned by a Cantican Guardsman and an armed volunteer. Sandbagged within a nest overlooking the mouth of the valley, it provided the enclave’s only defensive hard point.
Roth rubbed his face wearily with his hands. The situation was woeful. He had hoped for something more, perhaps an underground command bunker, or at the very least some semblance of effective resistance. As far as he was concerned, his mission to gather intelligence on the Cantican warfront was over before it had begun. Cantica was utterly defeated.
‘Sergeant. I don’t want to waste any more time. I need answers about the nature of the defeat on Cantica. I need you to tell me what you know,’ Roth said.
‘You look disappointed, inquisitor. But we haven’t been defeated, not like that,’ Sergeant Asingrai replied. ‘There will be a time for questions once you speak to our senior. I know he would like very much to talk to you.’
He led them through the settlement, and as Roth walked amongst the people he began to see what the sergeant meant. Despite the almost sub-zero temperature and lack of nourishment, women in beaded shawls danced and clapped on tambourines. Tired-looking men warmed their hands over drumfires while sharing the ashy stubs of tabac sticks. Although their clothes were shredded and greased with dirt, the people still carried themselves with an air of quiet dignity. As they walked, a boy of no more than fourteen ran alongside Roth. His cheeks were hollow and his hair was matted but a stern fury smouldered in the boy’s eyes. Although he wore no shoes, he cradled a lasrifle in his arms.
‘Cantica lives!’ the boy shouted, hoisting the rifle above his head.
‘Indeed it does,’ Roth smiled. He was beginning to understand.
They finally came upon a man ladling broth to refugees. He was an elegantly dishevelled fellow, especially so with his leonine mane of hair and sternly ferocious eyebrows of black. A neatly trimmed beard edged the determination in his jaw line and when he met Roth’s gaze, his eyes were a flinty grey. The man reminded Roth of the sort of rough face an Imperial propagandist might model for a conscription poster.
‘This is our elected senior, Shah Gueshiva.’
Roth had expected a military man, but Gueshiva was a civilian. A civilian who nonetheless wore a leather jerkin slung with ammunition belts and slung a drum-fed autogun across his chest with accustomed ease. Upon seeing the newcomers in his camp, Gueshiva carefully passed his pail and ladle to a nearby woman. He approached Roth slowly, his face furrowed with incredulity. It was as if Gueshiva did not believe the inquisitors to be real. He first scrutinised Roth up and down before turning his attentions to Celeminé, studying them both from odd angles. He shook his head and ran a hand through his snarling mane.
‘Master Gueshiva, I am of flesh and blood and so are my colleagues. You have my word on it,’ Roth said, proffering a hand in greeting.
‘Doctor. Doctor Gueshiva. I was a physician before this, but please, just Gueshiva will do,’ he said as he gripped Roth’s forearm. ‘It is good to know the Imperium has not forsaken us,’ he said
, more to himself than Roth.
Roth bowed. ‘I am Inquisitor Roth of the Ordo Hereticus. This is my colleague, Inquisitor Felyce Celeminé.’ In turn, Celeminé also bowed low, smiling her bow-shaped smile.
‘This is momentous indeed. Please, I have so many questions and need so many answers. Will you and your companions join me for tea?’
‘Lead the way,’ said Roth. His only concern was that Gueshiva did not have unrealistic expectations. Expectations that two inquisitors, a huntsman and a good captain could not hope to meet.
Doctor Shah Gueshiva’s tent was nothing more than a tarpaulin erected over a rock shelf on the valley gradient. Hooded sodium lamps powered by a ballast generator kept the perpetual night at bay.
Roth slid cross-legged onto a sandbag. His team did likewise, settling down onto sandbags arranged around a plank of wood set across an ammunition crate. A taut sheet of canvas had been erected overhead, strung with beards of hemp and medicinal sundries. As was the custom, Gueshiva began to set out food for his guests – hardtack boiled with water into a creamy sludge, a ration tube of salted grease and tinned fish.
They were desperate rations and Roth hesitated, unwilling to erode their evidently dwindling supplies of food. Although he was hungry Roth nonetheless considered declining the meal, until he saw Gueshiva smiling broadly at him.
The man made shovelling motions with his hands towards his mouth. ‘Eat, eat!’ Gueshiva bade enthusiastically. He himself did not eat and looked like he had not done so for several days.
Roth reluctantly added a smear of salt grease to his cup of tack porridge. He exchanged a concerned glance with Celeminé, who clearly shared his sentiments. She sipped softly on her battered tin mug. Nobody touched the prized tin of fish. The team ate what was in their bowls appreciatively but did not reach for seconds. Roth swallowed the last of his cereal and nodded his thanks. When they had finished the Cantican custom of breaking bread, Gueshiva cleared his throat.