Königstiger: Odin's Warriors - Book 3

by Aeryn Leigh

  He spoke into his throat microphone. "Panzer A and B companies go left. C and D, flank right. The rest, with me." The groups split, and peeled away either side. The suns were starting to get low on the horizon, but enough for another two hours before dark.

  They shouldn't need two hours.

  Furtive eyes checked each part of the refinery in turn, then scanned the surrounding area.

  Nothing.

  Where was the enemy?

  Surely this entire town could not have been abandoned.

  The farms flashed by through precise spacing of the planted trees lining the road. The same trees in the forest, but fifty feet apart, no more, no less. Sergeant Bismarck had checked. The trees on their own, separated from the forest, provided no protection from aerial observation, their impossible height and the general sparseness of the vast farmland meant that unless the enemy pilot flew directly along the line of the road, anything else would reveal their presence.

  Halfway there. They were reaching that dangerous zone of complacency, from no opposition. Not yet. Lull them into a false state of security, let them draw in ever closer, let them feast upon their overconfidence, for it is an insidious killer.

  Plenty of modern artillery could penetrate the forward armour of a Panzer IV, and even a Tiger II, given a short enough distance. But his heart still sang. It felt good to be charging across open countryside, no snow, mud, or constantly retreating, abandoning one position after the other, always bitterly engaged in rearguard action.

  One kilometre. Wolfgang briefly ran through solutions, problems, and scenarios his head. No circling birds overhead to indicate the presence of corpses. Wherever there were dead bodies, nature feasted. Was the refinery like the fort they'd landed in, empty, yet still the scene of some kind of battle?

  If there was anybody alive in that refinery, they would have to be completely deaf, dumb, and blind not to noticed thirty-nine tanks, a dozen halftracks, twenty-five trucks clanging their way straight for them.

  No movement at all. Smart. I'd be playing dead too.

  Three-hundred yards out, Wolfgang halted. The flanking companies continued, and the three half- tracks moved past, still giving Wolfgang and the forward tanks clear shots to the bunkers. The pincer movement finished.

  Wolfgang deliberately seeded the new recruits within their attacking formation, wanting to give them as much experience as possible. But no more than two per infantry squad, or one each tank. No way were they having a repeat of that Panzer IV rookie crew going mad on the ship. The oldest member of that dead crew was eighteen, the youngest sixteen. Nazi Germany truly had reached the scraping dregs of the barrel.

  The halftracks rolled right up to the waist-high stone bunkers, covered by Panzer IVs, as panzergrenadiers disembarked and swarmed to the side and rear of the first fortification, the muffled pops of grenades being thrown into gun slits. Heartbeats dragged by, then short blasts of the whistle.

  The all clear. Wolfgang moved his formation forward and into the oil refinery.

  Yet again, no signs of life. Unlike the fort, nothing was burning. Whoever cleaned this place out wanted it intact for future use. Wolfgang and the others had never seen oil or other petrochemicals stored in wooden barrels. The Major examined an empty barrel, in the refinery's main yard. Watertight barrels used for oil and petrol. They all stood around the main working area, where fifteen-foot high iron tanks loomed overhead, the smell disgusting, the tang of fish oil on the outside to prevent rusting.

  Haplo found a small container of oil, and dipped his index finger in, tasting it. He rolled the oil around between his teeth, and spat it out. "Low quality," he said. "It's rough. I mean real rough."

  "Will run in our engines?" said Wolfgang.

  "It will," said Haplo. "We'll need to be cleaning and swapping out oil and fuel filters every hundred kilometres or so." He unscrewed the lid of his canteen and poured water into his open mouth, swirling it around, rinsing his mouth out.

  The bunkers were empty. No need to waste their grenades in the end, for they were empty. The luxury of hindsight. Unlike the coastal forts, more clues. Whoever assaulted this refinery didn't want to take a chance of fire spreading so nothing had been burnt. Yet everything of logistical food value had been smashed. There were no tins, no modern preservatives. Just lots and lots of salted meat and fish. Pork, beef sides, and what looked like an enormous tuna, upended sacks of flour, barrels of water, all laid in a jumbled, pounded mess.

  "No one touch nothing," said Sergeant Bismarck. His advice was aimed at the rookies, not so much the experienced soldiers. The Russians loved booby-trapping things, poisoning food and drink and water. And especially brandy and cognac. More than one German soldier's life had ended choking on their own guts as result of surreptitiously drinking fancy food and drink generally reserved for privileged officers.

  "Any bullets or blood, Sergeant?"

  "No, Major."

  "Very well. I want squads in all the bunkers. Two MG 42s up on that tower with as many snipers you can fit. I'll check in with the Seventh." Wolfgang walked back to his tank, and admired the sunset. Long, layered swathes of reds and oranges and burnt yellow. All the while, set against the backdrop of that supervolcano reaching up, out over the horizon. It must be enormous.

  He clambered up the rear of the tank, past Hans, and radioed in. All quiet at the coast and tree line. He took a proffered cigarette from the driver, then continued with his duties. Wolfgang found the entrance to the stone tower, and started clambering up the circular steps. The inside was gloomy, especially with the setting sun. Wolfgang refused to entertain the possibility there were two suns. It's an optical trick of the Allies, he reminded himself the umpteenth time, and by the shape of it, it would be another umpteen million times.

  He plodded up the master craftsman masonry, and reached the top. Two MG 42s sat ready, and one panzergrenadier with a scope attached Kar 98. "Evening gentleman," nodding at them, waving away their attempt to salute.

  High up on the tower, Wolfgang's objectives changed. Behind them, out to the south, was the great volcanic plain they'd just transverse the corner of. But to the north, starting with the refinery, the land sloped down into a valley.

  "Huh," said Wolfgang, slumping back just a fraction.

  Down the valley was nothing but factories and industry big enough to rival Berlin, obliterated in palls of smoke.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  AND THAT WAS THAT

  MERRION BLACKHEART SCOWLED. His First Reconnaissance Legion, ceased to exist that black day of the truce accords. Only a handful of his soldiers survived capture and the Inquisition experiments, the last remaining members and their wretched existence brought to an end by his own dagger, ending their misery.

  So, with the help of Volfango and his security team, he'd assembled thirty of the nastiest, murderous, lowlight thieving buggers he could find, but all shared the same trait. An unbridled, pathological hatred of the Inquisition.

  Then knew most likely it was a one-way trip. No one landed on Inquisition soil and just wreaked havoc and murder and destruction without being decapitated or executed on the spot. The nineteen men and eleven women checked their equipment yet again. They all carried captured Inquisition MP 40s, for at this time on Elysium, there was no greater personal assault weapon. It positively made flintlocks and muskets seem prehistoric. Sure, a blunderbuss or elephant rifle could knock a man clear off their feet, but once you fired one, you had better proceed to your next weapon as the loading duration was atrocious.

  But not with the MP 40. Thirty-two bullets, being able to fire the entire clip in seconds if one held down the trigger, or single shot by single shot. The MP 40s, and the black and brown charcoal mixtures smeared all over exposed skin the teams only constant. Some had daggers and pistols as well, others bristling like porcupines with bladed weaponry. Eight of them carried small sacks, bags full of crude gunpowder. Plus a few other tricks Merrion had thought helpful.

  Merrion asked Beowulf and r
eceived a longship for the mission, its shallow draft perfect for what they needed. They all knew what stakes were. And also knew, Merrion would blow the entire longship rather than being captured by an Inka naval patrol.

  But it hadn't come to that yet.

  Three days of rowing and sailing south-east, unattended away from the main Republic fleet, should have brought them around the tip of the Inquisition mainland and the main industrial heartland, heading around to the east coast, in the shadow of the great volcano.

  In the last segments of the moon before sunrise, Merrion lifted up Amor Fati, and could barely see the crossbow, even with his eyesight. Two days out of every moon cycle, Elysium went pitch black.

  They'd already lost one day from atrocious headwinds, and heavy seas, but after an entire day of backbreaking work, the Inquisition coast could just barely be seen, a nautical mile away. He lifted up Marietta's binoculars, and immediately started frowning.

  The coastal port, two miles off to their right, was just a dark outline. No signal fire.

  A war footing.

  The Inquisition was all about ceremony, and appearances, to match their brute overwhelming force. With an abundance of natural resources, signal fires ran all day, and all night. Stretched in a daisy chain around the mainland perimeter, each tower visually connected to the next before the cusp of the horizon, the entire Inquisition mainland should have been one, long chain of light signalling all is okay.

  Blackness. A major reason the Inquisition was so dangerous, because of their ability to be so nonchalantly oblivious to stealth by painting big, fat markers on their back saying, we are here. They didn't care, because there was nothing on Elysium that could touch them.

  Merrion lowered the binoculars, and rubbed his chin, considering the state of the world from the prow. If Merrion hadn't seen those multi-legged creatures nor the tremendous, awe-inspiring sight of Ella Gruder in that Nordic set of armour obliterate all and sundry, if he had not seen them with his own very retinas, he would have called the bearer of such a story a true, worthy, bullshitting bard.

  Less than one day from now, the Republic armada would be landing in the industrial centre and port hub of Inquisition territory. In a little more than a few hours, the RAF would be launching their gas attack.

  Only one thing could cause so much damage to Inquisition morale, the memory of that fleeing Inka battalion at the Emperor's Lair ignoring point-blank weaponry against them, screaming about daemons as they ran for their very souls.

  There was nothing for it now. He debated telling the others. Inwardly, he shook his head. He wondered when he became so fatalistic. Was probably in the stronghold. Killing those he called friends. Ah bugger it.

  He spun around, and cleared his throat. Got their full attention. "The Inquisition's gone dark."

  "Since when does the Inquisition do that?" said the rough voice of Mary Sue, a short, stocky woman, whose warm, friendly visage masked the ruthless, wanton murderer lying within.

  "Remember those big insect creatures I was telling you about yesterday?" Knowledge of the spiky alien daemons was on a strict need-to-know basis. Given the sheer terror they could afflict on battle hardened, indoctrinated Inka Marines, Merrion agreed with both generals that for the time being, it would be best left to the courthouse of innuendo and gossip.

  "What about them?" said Bob, a former legionnaire who'd broken one too many First and Proud rules, before the Truce Accords, and was kicked out.

  "Got a hunch they're responsible for that," said Merrion, jabbing backwards in the direction of the mainland.

  "You said they can be killed right?" said Mary Sue. A grinning Mary Sue. Sweet as pie, unkillable Mary Sue.

  Merrion considered the question for a moment. He thought about the sheer amount of weaponry required to kill just one of those things. Plus, he only had three more dials of the necro-deathadder venom, enough to kill six maybe seven of them. Given how quickly they could swell their numbers, no way would it be enough.

  The question was, can they be killed?

  Truthfully, plainly, Merrion answered, "Yes."

  "No problem," said Bob. The rest of them turned back to what they were doing, cleaning and sharpening weapons by rote memory, blindfolded by the lack of moonlight.

  And that was that, thought Merrion.

  IN THE ALMOST UTTER DARKNESS, each oar dipped carefully into the water to minimise splashing, they traversed up the little estuary, surrounded by deep, impregnable thicket. They passed underneath the coastal gun tower not long ago, a black ship carrying black hearts, it passed unseen and so far, unnoticed. The shallow river curved around a few more bends, until the river became nothing more than a stream.

  They pulled the longship up and out onto the muddy, flat riverbank. Silently, they began unloading the longship, lifting up the pieces of equipment merrily Merrion had specially commissioned for his new commander raid. On the long mission to the Emperor's Lair, in those thirteen weeks at sea, he listened to Ella bang on about motorcycles, an engine-powered derivative of something called a bicycle, catching Merrion's attention instantly. A transportation device that used human power, had two wheels, was light and simple and best of all silent, and could transport a man a great distance in a short amount of time, much faster than walking or even on horseback. As opposed to a horse, they didn't need feeding, but even Merrion had to admit, after his first solo flight on a bicycle prototype, where he reached the end of the engineering shed and couldn't work out how to stop before crashing into the rear wall, a horse was a lot more suitable for varying kinds of terrain.

  The Inquisition highway system was extensive and well maintained. Needing to carry the sheer number of troops and industrial material from one breadth of it to the other, Merrion decided to use it to their advantage. Against them. The ability to make and manufacture pneumatic rubber tubes to go around the wheels was beyond their technological grasp, the ability to dip steel rims in molten liquid rubber was not. Cast-iron pedals, cast-iron crank, a steel triangle frame with two forks welded to it, all done under Daniel's engineering workshop, and the black man from North America had come through for the Republic yet again, perilous as his mental state was after the telescope incident.

  A small metal seat sat over both front and rear wheels, enough to carry two passengers. They removed the ten bicycles, and the remaining gear, before covering the longship in cut branches and undergrowth. They moved up the steep embankment, and sure enough, soon came across a paved coastal road. The industrial heartland and secondary army barracks laid off to their right. To their hard left, the volcano and beyond that, the capital city, and if they followed the minor road in that direction, all these secondary and minor roads would eventually trickle into the main Inquisition highway and lead straight to the Gate of God, the Inquisition great wall and checkpoint, the only way in or out of the capital city.

  But first things first, time to investigate that blackened castle.

  They left the bicycles in a side culvert, and observed the opposite. They proceeded in groups of three across the road, sprinting across the open ground, paying attention to where their footfalls landed, their backs against masonry, machine pistols ready.

  A short time later, Merrion's recon team hopped back on the bicycles, pedalling hard for the main highway, the road that would take them into the interior, and the southern end of Inquisition industry.

  Merrion led the way, now totally convinced it would take a miracle like Ella to get out alive.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  MEIN GOTT

  IT TOOK THE ENTIRE DAY, for the Seventh and 501st to move up and establish a secure base of operations in the small oil refinery. By Haplo's estimation, they had travelled twenty kilometres due east from the seaport, along small hills, the road carved out of the very ground, embankments on both sides, the entire way lined with trees. Upon the top of the embankments, scouting companies shadowed the military procession, visibility open for a good number of kilometres.

  The engin
eering and supply end of the Seventh just reached their objective when it started raining, great wads of rain pouring like upturned buckets from the sky. The air was still warm, humid before it started raining, now the air became muggy. Shirts clung to backs as soldiers set up camp, and established a defensive perimeter.

  The clouds grew ever darker. The already heavy rain became a torrential downpour. From the refinery tower Wolfgang could just make out the outer edge of their perimeter, rain squalls lashing the men mercilessly. The Major drew into his German army trench coat even more, yet still rain found its way inside, trickling down the side of his neck, running down his torso.

  Night fell. The tropical thunderstorm, for there was no other word for it, swept by, leaving warm fog and cloud. Sticky, wet air. A light rain fell, but at least visibility had increased a couple hundred yards or so.

  The men were no doubt miserable, thought Wolfgang. Under strict orders to maintain blackout, they ate lukewarm rations, huddled under whatever shelter they could find.

  In what looked likely refinery's main office building, visible light wasn't a problem given the stone room had no windows and a blanket covered door.

  The battalion commanders all sat on the floor, or on crates, all the furniture in this room stripped. Scattered all over the floor, more sheets of the curious English and pig Latin, production reports of some kind. Wolfgang finished the meeting with the commanders, ignoring the elephant in the room, and left the temporary HQ to check on his battalion, leaving aside the makeshift German army blankets over the doorway, out into the night sky.

  The rain stopped, a medium wind blowing from the west.

  He made light chat with the men he encountered on the way, joking that things are looking up, for no matter the strangeness of this place, at least it wasn't another Russian winter.