‘I asked you not to say that,’ H’an said.
Ch’an looked down into his lap and the cadet put a hand out to the older warrior’s shoulder. ‘Forgive me. It is a veteran’s sense. They found this place before. They will find it again. The silence always shatters.’
There was a pause. ‘It’s late,’ H’an said. He stood, but Ch’an did not move.
After a long pause the veteran said, ‘H’an. Will you do something for me?’
‘What?’
‘Will you bond with me?’
H’an hesitated.
‘They are coming,’ Ch’an said. ‘We must be ready. If we are to fight, then we must be bonded.’
‘But we were forbidden from bonding until our pairings have been selected.’
‘You have to stop thinking like a cadet,’ Ch’an said. ‘You are about to go to war. Do you know how many of the last cohort are still alive? Less than half. Mu’gulath Bay is a thirsty planet. We have trained each day together. If we are to serve together in a Stormsurge, then we should bond.’
It went against all the theory that H’an had learnt in the Auspicious Warrior Graduate School on Bork’an, where the ceremony was held at the time of graduation, as a rite of passage, but he saw the look in the old warrior’s eyes and the beads of sweat about his head, and inclined his head in a respectful gesture. ‘If you wish, Shas’vre. I do not have a knife. May we use yours?’
Ch’an nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. He lifted the bundle in his lap, and H’an saw a bonding knife there. ‘Good. I have all that we need.’
‘Where should we go?’
Young warriors had such ideas. Ch’an laughed. ‘Here will do as well as any,’ he said.
Ch’an dimmed the red lume-strip. He lit a candle, took out his bonding kit and unrolled the ceremonial cloth which held the knife. He lifted it in both hands.
Most of the knives that H’an had seen were new, freshly issued to newly appointed Shas’vre, but this one had a worn scabbard, with knotwork of red cord about the top and a handle that had been held many times. It looked ancient. It looked like a knife from the tales of old.
Darkness added a certain solemnity to the occasion. ‘It is ready,’ Ch’an said, and laid the wrapping cloth over his wrist. He handed one scarf to H’an and took one for himself. They were old as well, and had the scent of cordite about them.
‘They have been used,’ Ch’an said, by way of explanation.
They tied the scarves of bonding about their heads, and then Ch’an started the ceremony of ta’lissera. There was none of the formal standing and bowing and ritual chanting that H’an had learnt in graduate school, but it felt much more real despite this. It felt like the ceremony his ancient forebears had carried out as they prepared for battle. Earnest, full of meaning, solemn unto death. At the end, Ch’an held out his palm and touched the knife to it. He clenched his fingers about it, and then drew the knife so that it cut the grey skin of the open palm. His face was drawn and tight. His life blood dripped out, purple droplets falling to the floor at their hooves.
‘Though the suns shall be sundered, though the mists of destruction shall blind us, I shall stay true to you, to ourselves, and to the Greater Good. So I swear by this line on my palm,’ he said. ‘I shall fulfil my bond to you, unto death and beyond, brother in arms.’
Ch’an handed the knife to H’an. He held the blade, drew in a deep breath, then put the edge to his palm, clenching his own fist around it. At that moment H’an understood why this ceremony had been held on to by his people when so much else had been let go. He understood what it meant to look another warrior in the eye, and pledge to him your brotherhood. He understood that they would fight and die together, if need be.
He spoke the words and began to pull the ancient knife through his clenched fist. The pain made him feel sick. He felt clamminess on his brow. He kept pulling the knife until the whole thing was smeared with his blood.
Ch’an held out his bloody hand, and H’an grasped it. ‘Blood to blood, my brother, we shall fight as one for the Greater Good.’
‘Now,’ Ch’an said. ‘When the time comes, we shall be ready.’
H’an slept fitfully that night. His palm throbbed, and he only seemed to fall asleep moments before suit drills began at the fourth dec.
It was dark outside as they crossed to the suiting dome. Flecks of snow were falling hard against H’an’s cheeks.
‘How is your palm?’ Ch’an asked.
‘It is fine,’ H’an said.
Ch’an nodded and they did not speak again until they were inside the suiting dome, their Stormsurge standing silently waiting for them.
Ch’an was brusque and business-like as they went through the suiting rituals. H’an dropped into place and the earth caste technicians closed the suit hatches up, and he found himself scrambling to keep up with the opening checks.
‘Generator. Check. Guns armed. Check. Shield engaged. Check. Ready for combat, shas’vre.’
Ch’an grunted in reply, and they paused for a moment at the opening of the firing range. ‘Commencing Mu’gulath Bay simulator seven-eight-four,’ he announced.
‘Simulation seven-eight-four beginning,’ an earth caste technician answered, with just a hint of excitement in his voice. Earth caste could be so, well, earth caste.
‘Let’s go,’ Ch’an said. He sidestepped and lumbered forwards.
The veteran seemed calm and focused in a way that H’an had not seen before. ‘You are different this morning,’ he said at last.
‘Focus,’ Ch’an said as their suit stomped across the open tundra. A decoy Titan’s head appeared over the top of the rocks, miles to their right. On Mu’gulath Bay they reckoned you had six seconds to kill a Titan before it brought its own weapons to bear.
‘Enemy sighted,’ Ch’an’s voice rattled through the routine announcements with all the slick, practised air of the ace that he was. ‘Engage,’ he said, bending the legs and bracing the feet.
At four seconds H’an fired. There was a glorious burst of energy from the secondary generator, a flash of incandescent light that spanned the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. A first time hit. A hole ripped through the decoy, a steaming crater burned into the ice-cliff behind.
At the end, as they climbed out of their suits, the earth caste’s voice sounded excited. ‘The suit did not malfunction?’
‘No,’ Ch’an said. ‘Nor the pilot.’
Fio’ui K’or bowed to them both. ‘Full marks on firing.’
‘We achieved full marks?’ Ch’an said.
The earth caste nodded.
Ch’an frowned. ‘We shouldn’t have. Don’t look so pleased with yourself.’ H’an’s pigmentation darkened. ‘This course should be made harder. Attrition rates among new crews are too high. I have been on Mu’gulath Bay. We should train for that. Real war.’
H’an watched Ch’an limp away with a sense of deflation. He shared a look with K’or.
‘He is very brave,’ the earth caste said.
‘He is,’ H’an said.
After the noontide meal, H’an made his way down to the sunken garden.
‘Shas’ui H’an,’ a voice called out.
Shas’el Sham’bal was sitting cross-legged against a rock. ‘I see that you have bonded,’ he said.
H’an held up his bandaged hand, and nodded.
‘It is a great honour to be joined with Shas’vre Ch’an.’
‘It is,’ H’an said. ‘Believe me. I understand that.’
‘But it is dangerous too,’ the older warrior said.
‘What do you mean?’
He took H’an’s bandaged hand in his own. ‘Look at your hand. It has one scar. Ch’an’s hand has many lines. Ch’an’s life-thread is strong. It is like a thread of steel that rubs against those that are bonded with it. It wears the other threads out,
and breaks them, though it does not mean to.’
H’an lowered his head. ‘I understand that, Shas’el. But if that is my fate, then so be it. I shall accept it. It will be for the Greater Good.’
Sham’bal nodded. ‘The Greater Good.’
Chapter Twenty
For two days Moaz had been making good time. It was too easy, almost. But a sense had grown on him. He paused, low in the broken ice field, and tried to remember what it meant. It came back to him slowly… It was like having a shadow. Something behind him, just out of sight: a presence. It came to him that this was what it felt like to be hunted.
The Raven Guard looked back, his helm-enhanced vision scanning the tundra for heat traces or movement. Nothing, just miles of icy waste, broken here and there by black boulders and places where the grox herds had scraped the ice away. Just flat snow and ice-fields, and the distant passing of a grox herd moving slowly south to better grazing.
They were a hardy winter variant, with shaggy long red hair, wide horns and thick, tough necks. The bull was a thick-necked beast. Ten cows around him. The bull snorted, and swung its horned head about, but it was looking away from him, back along the way that Moaz had come.
The bull had sensed the same thing. Whatever was tracking him had swung wide to come in under the glare of the sunset. He found a ledge under an ice-crag to sit and wait, combat knife loose in its scabbard and a silencer round in his stalker-pattern bolter. An hour later Moaz spotted it, five miles behind him, a low shape, nose pressed to the ground, following the route that he had taken – a kroot hound. It was some kind of tracking beast with beak and claws. He held his fire, needing to know if there was more than one.
It took half an hour for them to show themselves. The kroot hound led, sniffing the air for a moment, then lowered its head to the ice once more. Then another kroot hound appeared, and a third, and then a craggy kroot hunter, bent almost as low as his hounds, taking long loping strides. The pack master had a shaggy white pelt, a hunting rifle and a bandolier of skinning knives across his back, and a black beak and narrow, yellow eyes. He lowered his head to sniff in a manner just like the hounds.
Moaz watched the creatures for a long while. He could shoot, of course, but he was not sure that he could kill them all. Bodies would betray his presence.
He scanned ahead. There was a valley opening ten miles to the north west. It would be a short detour but it would hem his pursuers in, and then he could destroy them.
It took Moaz three hours to reach the valley mouth. It was narrow, with steep, snow-covered slopes: the perfect killing zone. He headed straight along the bottom, then doubled back, scaling the left-hand slopes, looking for a place where he could count his pursuers.
He found a ledge and dug his feet in for good purchase. He loaded hellfire rounds into his stalker-pattern boltgun as the pack of kroot hounds entered the mouth of the valley, the hunter loping after them. Seven hounds, he counted, with one pack master. As the hounds bounded up the defile, Moaz lifted the muzzle, found the head of the pack master, and traced as he bent to sniff the ground. Just a little further.
The shaggy beaked head turned towards where he was sitting. It was as if he could hear the Space Marine. Moaz saw the beaked head in the crosshairs of the bolter, the blinking yellow eyes – which turned and stared straight up to where he was sitting.
Moaz understood his mistake.
The pack master’s narrow yellow eyes were not looking at him, they were looking behind him. A low grunt gave Moaz a bare moment’s warning.
The blade missed him by inches. It hit bedrock as Moaz twisted and turned. A second blade slammed down. Moaz’s boot connected with a thin, hard shin, then the kroot was on him, beak scraping against his armour. He got both legs under it and kicked out, but it was stronger than he had imagined. His boltgun was knocked out of his hand. Thin, hard fingers scrabbled for his throat. He caught one leathery neck in a fist. He felt it snapping at his arm, the razor sharp teeth cutting through to the flesh beneath as he ground his fingers together.
They slid down the slope. The kroot flailed at him in a mad flurry of blows. Moaz kneed it in the head to make it let go, dragged his arm out of its beak, grabbed his gun from the snow, and fired. The stalker-pattern boltgun was much too long for hand-to-hand combat. It gave a low thud and hiss as the round fired at the first assailant. If he hit, it had no effect. He fired again and the other kroot jumped on his back, knife scoring lines in his armour as it searched for his jugular.
Moaz threw it over his head and fired into it. The mass-reactive hellfire round hit the thing in the neck, the explosive bolt ripping through the tight tendons as toxins sent the kroot’s muscles into spasms.
Moaz ducked the other kroot and fired a round into its belly. The hellfire round exploded in a mess of gore.
Moaz saw a blur of movement and skidded down the ice cliff, using a hand to steady himself. Snow tumbled down about him as he descended in an avalanche of his own making. He saw his foe scrambling along the bottom of the ice cliff. A shot rang out. He felt it hurtling past his ear and slowed himself for a moment. Four more shots rang out. He was getting a sense of their numbers now. He was the one who had been driven into an ambush.
He had to kill them all, or the whole mission would be thrown into jeopardy. He took one out from the other side of the crag. It fell back against the snow, and then slid down the slope, hitting the ground in a dark, crumpled heap. Something whizzed past his ear again. All around him kroot were standing and firing.
He counted three more kroot warriors on the slopes nearby, six more on the slopes opposite. One of them was kneeling to fire. Moaz took it down with a shot to the head. He scrambled higher, fired again. Another kill. The kroot hounds were bounding up the slopes towards him. Moaz needed more time. He scrambled higher up the steep slopes. Just as he reached the top he ran into something huge. He found himself staring into a great yellow eye. A vast black beak opened in a hiss.
Krootox, he cursed. It did not look friendly.
Chapter Twenty-One
Moaz put a second hellfire round into the krootox as it snapped at him. It slowed for a moment and he fired twice more. The acid began to work at once, seeping into wounds that the shrapnel had already blasted through the creature’s internal tissues. A shot to the eyeball finished it off, but a second creature bounded towards him. The rider’s spear slammed into his face, crazing his visor. He ducked as the creature crashed into him with the force of a hammer. His visor was a blur of ice and snow and feathers, and the krootox stood over him, pecking and squawking even as he pumped hellfire rounds up into its body.
The rider was on him. Moaz twisted out of its grasp, slammed a foot onto the kroot’s spear shaft, and then drove the muzzle of his bolter into its gut. He fired. There was red all over the snow as he pulled his boltgun free of the remains, and turned.
Seven kroot hounds, and five more warriors. He took the warriors down as they tried to flee up the valley wall opposite. The hellfire rounds were deadly. Even a miss could cover a target in a spray of bubbling acid. Nothing could survive a direct hit.
He was moving for a better vantage point when he spotted a blur in the corner of his eye. He ducked as a savage blade glanced off his helm. His head rang with the blow. He came at it from the side. It was taller than him, with a serrated beak, round yellow eyes and a heavy rusted blade that looked like it had been looted from a greenskin. It swung at him again and he stepped inside the blow and caught the kroot hunter with an uppercut. It let out a grunt as he slammed it back against the ice wall.
It rolled to the side, and came back with a backhand blow, followed up by an overhead swipe and a third savage blow. The blade hissed through the air in front of him, scoring a deep graze across the aquila on his chest-plate. He dropped low and drew his combat knife, and drove into the thing, hitting it low in the gut and knocking it backwards.
Its torso was skinny a
nd slippery in his hands, the arms and legs long and incredibly powerful. He drove it back against the ice wall and they rolled on the ground, tearing and clawing at each other.
Moaz felt them slide towards the lip of the ledge and threw his weight over the edge, dragging the kroot with him. Its beak was clamped on his shoulder. He turned so that the kroot hunter cushioned his fall as they bounced off the first crag, took the second bounce on his back, and then they were tumbling down the lower slopes.
Moaz tore through the rest, until there was only one kroot left.
Half an hour later Moaz found its trail. It had escaped through the mouth of the valley and headed west with two hounds. The hounds gave the hunter’s location away. Moaz shot one in the shoulder as it leapt over a rock.
The other was sniffing the pool of blood when the next shot hit it in the head. The hunter laid low for over an hour, and Moaz slowly circled in for the kill.
It knew he was there, unblinking yellow eyes turning to face him as he looked through the scope. The strangeness of having the prey look you in the eye had thrown him last time. This time he was ready.
It was a xenos. It had to die.
When at last he found the body, Moaz stood over the hunter to check that it was dead. The hellfire round had caught it in the back, and his quarry had kept going for nearly half a mile.
He bent down to touch its arm. He flinched back as the head turned towards him and the yellow eyes opened.
It seemed to be speaking to him.
He bent down, trying to hear what it was saying, but could not. He took off his helmet and felt the icy touch of the planet on his cheek, and the kroot blinked and spoke again.
Moaz did not know the tongue. He did not care about what language it spoke, but bent and put the stalker-pattern boltgun to its head. ‘The Emperor hates you,’ he said and put a bolt into its skull.
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