‘What day is it? The date?’ I ask. I have no idea. The underhive has its own cycles and routines, divorced from the day and night cycle of the outside, and certainly not owing anything to the Ecclesiarchy or Astra Militarum calendars.
‘It would be Saint Sebastian’s day, perhaps,’ says Schaeffer, standing up. He is lost in thought for a moment, or perhaps caught up in the hymnal, but then his eyes find mine with fierce intensity. ‘There was an Adepta Sororitas bastion in this area. The Abbey of Saint Silva of the Holy Blade.’
‘Any luck finding any other broadcasts?’
‘No, this is it. I think it could be an automated prayer beacon. Nothing to suggest the abbey is still garrisoned.’
‘It’s all we’ve got.’ I turn to Orskya. ‘Do you know where this is? A fortress, would have lots of pictures of the Emperor, flags, women warriors in power armour.’
‘Not seen it,’ says the duneseer. ‘I not think any others have. Is type of place we not go close. Too dangerous.’
‘Colonel?’ I say with more hope than expectation. ‘Do you know where the abbey is?’
‘No. Your followers took my maps,’ he adds with a glare. ‘It was somewhere in the gamma sector of the Acheron battlefront, but that covers a hundred kilometres and more.’
Before I can say anything else, a scream outside has everybody racing for the door.
Eight
PLAGUEBORN
I dash out into the camp on the heels of Orskya, laspistol in my hand. At first I can’t make out what’s happening. There are underhivers and wasters everywhere, shouting and shooting, seemingly at each other. It’s only when I see a uniformed trooper lunging at one of the wasters that I see the bullet hole in the soldier’s head, her mouth lolling open. Unable to believe what I’m seeing, I stand rooted to the spot as my gaze flicks from one assailant to another and another. All wearing trooper uniforms or hiver gear, bloodstained and bullet-ridden.
‘Emperor protect us,’ I whisper, watching as Orskya opens fire, her bullets thudding into the chest of a dead Guardsman shambling towards us. A pus-like fluid leaks from the holes but the animated cadaver doesn’t stop.
I recognise the face of Harla as another of the walking dead heaves itself towards me with a rolling shamble, one foot scuffing through the ash, dead eyes staring right at me.
I open fire, putting a dozen las-bolts into the head and face of the dead thing, firing until it falls down, almost nothing left of its torso and skull. Others are doing the same, piling fire into the shambling creatures, screams of panic punctuating the gunshots. I see a couple of wasters lying on the ground close to the drag-sled, throats torn open.
One of them rolls its head towards me, glassy stare fixed on my face.
‘Emperor damn it,’ I snarl, shooting again as the corpse-creature clambers to its knees and then feet, ignoring the red blasts plucking at clothes and flesh.
Tormas appears out of nowhere, a long-bladed spear in hand. With him come several other wasters likewise armed. He slashes the head from the closest dead thing, then adjusts his grip to plunge the blade through the falling monster’s chest. His companions hack and slash at the remaining corpse-walkers, screaming in anger and fear as they chop them down. With a roar, Nazrek plunges out of the ashen gloom, its choppa burying itself deep into the neck of the first dead walker the ork comes upon.
Even as I’m just starting to take in the bizarre scene a handful of wasters dash into view from the left, shouting their lungs out and gesturing out into the fog. I can’t understand a word of what they’re saying but their actions speak far louder.
I don’t wait for a translation but duck back into the elders’ tent, noting that the Colonel hasn’t come out. I find him crouched by the vox-set, twisted piece of wire aerial in hand, moving it left and right.
‘The reception is better in some directions than others,’ he says, lifting the aerial. ‘We can use this to follow the broadcast back to its source.’
‘The dead are coming back to life,’ I pant, not quite able to believe the words I’m saying. ‘And I think the camp’s under attack too.’
‘The dead…?’ The Colonel stands up and grabs the vox-set under one arm, artificial protest shrieking from the speaker grille. He flicks it off and heads towards me. ‘The daemon influence is spreading.’
Outside, the elders and Orskya are rallying the wasters while my people and the remaining troopers are gathering, some of them armed, others wandering with dazed expressions, unable to cope with trauma after trauma.
‘You all need to come with us,’ announces the Colonel, striding up to Tormas. ‘It is no longer safe in the wastes.’
‘This how we live,’ replies Elg, waving a hand to take in the tents, people and sleds. ‘You not want us. No home for us in army.’
‘I am a colonel of the Astra Militarum, I am empowered to make you authorised auxilia.’ His next words are directed at Orskya. ‘This incursion may be too much even for the armies of the Emperor. Your best chance of surviving is to get off-world. I can arrange that.’
‘Why would you?’ she asks.
Schaeffer is forced to step back as a group of wasters bustle past, carrying armfuls of more weapons for their companions.
‘I swore an oath to defend the realms and servants of the Emperor,’ he says. ‘Do you believe in the might of the God-Emperor and the majesty of Terra over all things?’
‘We are loyal,’ Orskya replies. ‘Not loyal to hivers but we praise Emperor same as you.’
‘Then you are under His divine protection.’ The Colonel turns his stare to me. ‘And right now that protection takes the form of an Adepta Sororitas battle abbey.’
‘We go, we go!’ snaps Tormas, waving for Elg to be quiet as the other elder opens his mouth. ‘Run now, argue later.’
That’s a philosophy I can definitely agree with.
‘Company, firing line!’ I bellow, striding towards the cluster of armed men and women milling around.
Some are from the underhive, some came with the Colonel, but all of them hold themselves in a way that marks them out as Astra Militarum trained. I’m not surprised. Underhiver scrappers and uphiver duellists have got nothing on raw survival instinct compared to your average Imperial Guard trooper. Even so, they’re slow, almost out on their feet though it can’t have been more than half a day since the first alarm was raised in Acheron.
The thought stops me, mid-stride. Half a day? I go over everything that’s happened and figure it’s got to be true. From gloating over the Colonel to the brink of being eaten alive by walking corpses in about half a rotation of this Emperor-forsaken hole.
‘Quicker, quicker,’ I bark, unimpressed by their lacklustre drill, starting forward again.
Muffled cracks of gunfire and muzzle flashes in the fog betray the nearness of whatever is attacking the camp. Around us, a swarm of children has emerged from thin air, as far as I can tell, and are breaking down the tents and loading the sleds. There’s a lot of talking and nervous glances, but they apply themselves to their tasks with stoic determination while the adults form into groups and head out into the murk.
Shoulders heaving, breath disturbing the fog in great gusts, Nazrek stomps through the remains of the rising dead. It wipes its gore-coated cleaver on a sleeve and leers at me.
‘You seem better,’ I say.
‘Bit of fight good,’ it says. ‘Make green rise fasta.’
I can only guess what that might mean and don’t ask. There are far more pressing matters. I spy the Colonel pacing back and forth with the vox, trying to get a bearing on the transmission.
‘This way.’ He signals with his hand when he sees me looking at him. I look for some landmark that I can fix on in that direction but it’s just dunes and then the fog of distance and pollution.
I cast about for Orskya or one of the elders, but they’ve all moved away
to defend the camp or deal with the breakdown. To my inexperienced eye it seems that almost half the encampment has already been packed up, leaving telltale holes and hollows in the packed ash. Some of the smaller children are kicking grit and dust into them, hiding their presence.
I almost tell the Colonel to lead the way. Almost. He’s got more of an idea what to do, or pretends he has. But that’d be it, all over for me as the boss. Never mind Nazrek and what happens there, the moment I give the Colonel a single degree of authority he’ll take it all. His plans, his way. Goodbye Burned Man, hello doomed penal legion scum.
‘Hold this line,’ I tell the ad hoc platoon that’s eventually formed up beside me. I turn to the rest of those that escaped Acheron; some of them have weapons but don’t look too prepared to use them. ‘Stay behind us.’
A tug on my sleeve draws my attention down to a boy no taller than my waist. I can see the fear etched in his face but he stays there, fighting back his terror, eyes glistening with tears. He points to a sled just behind. Karste is lying on it, legs tied down with straps, a bundle of rags under her head.
‘Blanket,’ I say slowly, giving him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. The boy frowns and I say it again, miming the action of wrapping myself up. He nods and runs off.
‘Mark your targets, I don’t want anyone shooting the wasters,’ I tell my small band of soldiery, turning my attention back to the sounds of gunfire and erratic flashes around us.
Shapes in the fog resolve into robe-clad allies, moving through the ash with distinctive, deliberate strides that seem ridiculously slow but are probably quicker than just thrashing through up to your knees in the stuff.
I recognise Orskya even with scarf and mask, leading a band of her kin back into the camp over to my left.
‘Ready with covering fire,’ I shout out, bringing up my pistol.
The Colonel has stowed the vox on one of the sleds and takes up position next to me. I give him a glance but his eyes are fixed ahead, on the vague shapes following the wasters out of the smog banks.
About forty metres away an eddy of wind kicks up, clearing a patch of ruddy mist. Its passing reveals a knot of enemies, carrying a stench of rotting meat and shit to us. I hear cursing and gagging as I fight back the urge to retch. I remember the mask and pull it up, others doing the same as we peer into the parting murk.
The sight makes me want to rip off the mask again to throw up. Seven or eight monstrous figures advance through the swirling fog, accompanied by their own dark miasma, which blends with the fog banks. Each looks and walks like a person, in the broadest terms, but they are far from human.
Their skin varies from dark, leathery brown to pale green, with patches of mould and warty growths dotting it. Each has only one eye in the middle of the forehead, beneath cracked and broken horns. Most with just one, others with two, three, and one of them with a crown of sharp antlers. Mouths with needle teeth move constantly and the sound of murmuring carries to us, monotonous and dreadful. Pox marks and livid scars mark their flesh, which in places is torn open, skin hanging in flaps to reveal wet muscle and glistening organs, intestines threatening to burst from punctured guts, hanging like coiled rope.
Their limbs are like those of famine victims, wasted of flesh, skin brittle and taut over bulging joints. Movement writhes under this sickly covering, occasionally bursting out of cuts and lesions to reveal itself as flesh beetles and maggots.
Knuckle-heavy fists hold rusting, serrated blades. The corroded metal weeps with noxious fluid, running over the gripping hands and dripping to the ash. A noisome, oily vapour lifts from the unnatural weapons, the dark smoke becoming a cloud of tiny flies that gathers over the advancing Neverborn.
Bullets and las-blasts hit unnatural flesh, leaving grievous holes and slashes that would fell a living soldier. The abyssal servants pay no heed to their injuries, black blood oozing from their wounds, almost instantly forming slab-scabs.
The scrape of runners on ash briefly draws my attention to the camp. Adults and older children have dragged on pull-slings and are starting to haul the sleds away, though a few tents and boxes still remain.
‘Swiftness is best defence,’ calls Orskya, pointing out into the haze. ‘Save bullets.’
More shadows follow the cankerous daemons, dozens more following, fog darkened with fly swarms around them. I can hear the maddening buzzing, a constant drone that accompanies the monotone chanting, penetrating through my hood and the sounds of gunfire. Everything is cast in pale brown by the filter of the goggles, giving it an even more otherworldly air. Sparks of laser and gunfire cast brief flashes in the gloom.
I pull down my mask to order the retreat and immediately regret exposing myself to the foetid air. I start coughing, the corpse-stench clogging my nostrils and coating my throat.
‘Re… Pull back!’ I manage between heaving inhalations, trying to keep down the meagre contents of my stomach. I’ve breathed in my fair share of death’s rank breath, but the effect of the Neverborn is like every charnel pile, rotting wound and suppurating pox stench combined. I start to stumble back, pulling my mask on, checking that the others follow.
Along with the wasters we turn our backs and press on into the clouds, glancing behind to check on the daemons. They haven’t increased their pace at all, ploughing through the drifts of ash with regular strides, as relentless and inevitable as an outbreak of red flux.
Soon we put enough distance between us that our pursuers fade with distance and mist, becoming dark sketches of shapes before finally disappearing. Nobody says anything, all effort bent to pushing onwards through the fatigue and fear.
It starts to get darker and I wonder what fresh hellish malaise is about to befall us when I realise that it’s simply dusk. As we advance into the closing gloom, I can’t stop feeling that the night will bring new horrors.
The wasters mount torches on high poles on the sleds, but the fitful blue light from them does little but exaggerate the coils of fume and shadows that surround us. Those of us from the underhive advance in pairs and threes, one carrying a lantern, the others with weapons at the ready. Peering into the gloom it seems that every movement could be a Neverborn or ork, the darkness of every rocky outcrop or jutting boulder a fresh horror waiting to attack.
I walk with Olesh, who was so quick to volunteer for the duty I thought he was going to attack anyone else that tried to join me. A little older than me, Olesh is one of the most recent arrivals to the fellowship of the Burned Man, but harbours no regrets about joining my people, as he tells me over and over on the trek. His son, Denas, is a babe-in-arms that rides on a nearby sled with his older cousin, Farann. Along with Olesh’s profuse gratitude I learn of this and a far more extensive (but recently dead) family tree as I peer with suspicion at every eddy of fog and shadowy patch of ash.
The lights ahead reflect off something sparkling in the dunes and our waster vanguard alters course, turning us to the right so that we crest a broad hill rather than head into the valley beside it.
‘I’d say we’re going the long way round,’ someone says loudly behind me. I think it’s probably Fredas or Crast but don’t look back to check.
‘Better longer walk than silversands,’ says one of the wasters from the other side of the sled. ‘Swallow quicker than sweeper eel.’
‘Sweeper eels?’ says Olesh, staring fearfully down at the ash and then back to the waster. ‘Do they come out at night?’
‘Mostly,’ the waster replies.
My hips are aching, trying to copy the swinging gait of the wasters, at the same time trying not to make too much sound that would attract subterranean predators. Sweeper eels are not the worst of it from what I’ve heard. There are ash serpents big enough to attack battle tanks in the deep wastes, but thankfully we’re not heading that way. The Imperial lines are dug into higher, firmer ground to the south and west of Acheron, with only armoured patrols an
d skimmer forays into the harsher climes in the east.
After about half an hour Orskya signals a stop and comes back down the line, Tormas and the other elders gathering around her.
‘Wait at the sled,’ I tell Olesh and make my way over to them, the Colonel joining from the other flank of the column. The duneseer darts me a look that says I hadn’t been invited to this little conference but I ignore her.
‘What’s the delay?’ I ask.
‘Ork sign,’ she replies, pointing to the head of the group. ‘Ork rok fort few kilometres north of here. Old, empty but we find tracks. Many orks ahead moving to fort.’
‘Between us and the abbey?’ asks the Colonel.
‘Yes,’ Orskya tells us. ‘Must go south to avoid.’
‘So, what’s the problem? We go south.’
‘South dangerous,’ says Elg. ‘Old city, ghosts.’
‘Ghosts?’ There’s a hint of derision in the Colonel’s tone but with just enough of a concerned edge that suggests our recent encounters are forcing him to re-evaluate what he believes.
‘Not dead ghost,’ explains Orskya. ‘Waste ghost. Is like ash river. Moves. Nearly invisible. Very hard to cross in day. Deadly at night. Streets in old ruins full of ghosts.’
‘Ghosts or orks? That’s the choice?’
‘Or walk for whole day,’ says Orskya. She jabs a thumb over her shoulder. ‘With rotting ones follow?’
‘Ghosts it is,’ I say with a forced smile. ‘I’m sure you’ll steer us right.’
As the duneseer and some of her scouts start to discuss the finer points of the challenge ahead, the Colonel signals for me to move aside and join him. We stroll a little distance from the ongoing discussion and the Colonel talks as we walk, voice low.
‘It is imperative that we rejoin the Imperial effort to face the coming madness.’
‘Those warpborn are just going to get stronger and stronger, aren’t they?’
‘Yes. But I am not talking about survival, I am talking about something more telling and important. There is a place for the Last Chancers in this coming war.’
Armageddon Saint - Gav Thorpe Page 11