It was anarchy.
Regara turned away to shield himself as Culcis was engulfed by the explosion.
“Corporal, report! What by the Eye just happened?” he bellowed against the roar of the missile’s detonation.
Speers was nonplussed. “Don’t know, sir. The Harpine…” his gaze tracked across the plaza to their allies, “…they just started shooting one another.”
Captain Trador was moving out of cover to try and restore order. His bolt pistol was in hand and his command squad were in tow. The Harpines with the missile tube waited uneasily, unsure what they should do. Meanwhile, Jedion’s former regiment were tearing themselves apart.
“This is unconscionable!” spat Regara, reaching for the vox cup offered by Crimmens. He was about to try and raise Trador when he noticed the glint of metal in one of the towers. There was no time to shout a warning before the Harpine captain and his men were chewed up by heavy bolter fire.
In a few seconds the Harpine command was reduced to a visceral mist by the chugging cannon. Regara ordered retaliatory fire into the tower but it was too late and largely ineffective. The cultists were too heavily defended.
From the left flank, just north-west of the beleaguered squad of Harpine, twenty cultists armed with autoguns and mesh-carapace filtered from their hiding places. These men were not the rabble the Volpone had encountered earlier, they were military-trained and well-equipped. They advanced in a staggered formation, the front ranks firing snapshot while the rear ranks stopped to kneel and aim. Three of the Harpine went down before they could even muster a counter.
Bellowing orders to hose the tower with las-fire, while repelling the fresh wave of attackers, Regara got a closer look at the enemy.
As well as the military-grade kit and training, the cultist-elite wore half masks that divided their faces down the bridge of the nose. The left side was open, showing off the purple cataract and their scar-ravaged flesh; the right was covered by a dirty powder-blue mask split by a savage klown-like grin.
Despite the efforts of the Volpone, the Harpine were swept away under a furious assault of blades and close-range automatic fire. As the cultists continued their assault, some laying back to occupy the dead Guardsmen’s defensive position, several were cut down by salvos from Pillier’s squad.
“All Volpone, pull back to my position,” Regara shouted into the vox as the heavy bolter in the tower started up, chugging overhead.
More cultists were spilling from the opposite side of the plaza, another twenty advancing in five-man kill-teams, heads low and hugging cover.
“We were drawn in,” said Culcis. Whickering las-fire from the cultists split the air around him, making him duck behind the chunk of broken column.
Varper took a bolt to the throat, slumped back and never moved again.
Regara wasn’t listening. He was bawling at Siegfrien down the vox, demanding he bring in his troops as a matter of urgency. As the major slammed down the receiver cup, drawing a wince from Crimmens, he sighed. “They’ll never make it in time. We’re too far advanced.”
The las-fire was intensifying. The cultists had got into an enfilading position and seemed content to hold it. Meanwhile the heavy bolter continued to disintegrate the scant cover the twenty-something Volpone had left to hide behind.
“This was an ambush, sir,” Culcis persisted. “And what about the Harpine? There is something seriously wrong here.”
Regara didn’t answer, he was thinking. Hard. Trying to find a way out of the crap-storm the Volpone were embroiled in. Their return fire was admirable. Every man jack of the 50th shot in disciplined bursts, never giving in to panic, conserving ammunition. In a few minutes, it would matter for nothing.
“Sir!”
“I know, lieutenant,” snapped the major, “but what use is it to us, now?”
“We need to warn Captain Siegfrien, tell him to turn back.”
“We are unaffected,” Regara countered, but his gaze straying to the vox showed he was listening. “For now.”
Regara gritted his teeth, eyed the tower where the muzzle flash of the cannon flared like an angry star. “If we could just take out that gun…”
As if the Emperor was listening and had answered his prayer, another flash lit up the tower, silencing the heavy bolter. A few seconds later, a cultist slumped forwards against the firing lip. Even from distance, Culcis could tell half the man’s head was missing.
More shots streaked from the shadows, their firers unseen and unknown. Six more cultists fell dead with burn holes through their heads and necks. Not to turn up his nose at an opportunity, Regara ordered his squads to redouble their fire, picking off the cultists as they were thrown into sudden confusion. Without the heavy bolter pinning them down, the Volpone could move.
They advanced in small teams, four and five men strong, flanking left and right across the plaza. As one team came forwards, another held back providing covering fire until they were in position. Then the forward team took over fire support and so they crept outwards until they were pincering the cultists.
“Where’s that fire coming from? Did Siegfrien have advanced units already in position?” asked Regara, snapping off tight, accurate bursts with his hellpistol. He spun a cultist on his ankle, burning a shot through his abdomen and shoulder.
“Negative, sir,” said Speers, advancing alongside the major. “The Castellians are still inbound.”
The las-bolts from the shadows continued, both behind, in front and to the flanks of the rapidly crumbling enemy force.
“Douse that tower!” Culcis pointed to where the dead heavy bolter gunner was still slumped. Drado and two others filled it with las-beams, shredding the fresh team of cultists who’d sneaked in to retake the gun. “Take it out. Permanently.”
Trooper Henkermann was brought up, flanked either side by Drado and Lekke. Two incendiary rounds from his grenade launcher burned the tower completely and collapsed in the roof. The heavy bolter would no longer be a threat.
“Forward the 50th!” roared Regara, as the Volpone stormed the slowly retreating cultists. Gone was the enemy’s military discipline, eroded in the face of a superior foe that now had the tactical advantage.
The major was first in, parrying a bayonet blow with his sabre. He kicked, breaking the cultist’s shin with his bionic leg, and rammed the blade through the traitor’s face when his defences crumpled in pain.
Culcis shot another enemy in the chest, almost point-blank, before shouldering the wretch over to engage a second.
Speers lobbed a pair of frag grenades into the midst of a fleeing group, who disappeared in a storm of fire and shrapnel a few seconds later.
And it was done.
The cultists were slain to a man. Upon investigation, each was revealed to have a purple cataract blighting their left eye like the others the Volpone had seen. And they wore the same sigil upon their armour as had been daubed on the brickwork.
Regara ordered Basker and his flamer up to burn them. The Volpone were dragging the bodies into a pyre to be immolated when their mysterious allies showed themselves.
“I don’t believe it,” Drado articulated what they were all thinking.
Major Regara kept his reaction behind a mask of aristocratic arrogance.
With little choice, Lieutenant Culcis came forwards to receive the Guardsmen that had saved the Volpone’s collective arses. The taste in his mouth was bitter when he acknowledged the leader of the ragged regiment they’d met on the road. Just over thirty men emerged from the shadows, all told. They moved in pairs and teams of three and four, from all across the plaza.
“Hauke,” said the leader, slapping his chest. Like his kinsmen, the ragged officer was dressed in dark tan fatigues, cut off at the knees and elbows to reveal even darker skin. Blue and grey whorls, jagged teeth and concentric circle tattoos daubed his body. A feather earring hung from his left lobe—some of the others had bones or necklaces of teeth and bird feet.
Hauke had a lasgun looped
on a strap across his back. In his belt he carried two long knives and a bandolier with spare ammunition. He grinned, showing perfect teeth and warm eyes ringed with a sort of kohl. An aquiline face framed thin, reddish-brown lips and an angular nose not unlike a beak. His captain’s rank pins were bright and well-polished but the rest of his uniform was dishevelled.
“Lieutenant Culcis, Volpone 50th.” Culcis saluted but didn’t shake Hauke’s hand when it was offered.
Hauke let it fall. He tapped his chest again. “We are Kauth, last of the Longstriders.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the trooper carrying the scrap of banner Culcis had seen them with earlier. A small cadre of men had fallen in next to Captain Hauke, whilst the rest fanned out amongst the enemy dead that Basker and the rest had yet to collect for the pyre.
To Culcis’ repugnance, he realised the Kauth were cutting trophies off the dead: fingers, ears, teeth—anything they could carry and thread on a piece of twine.
Regara saw it too. The major wasn’t best pleased.
“Desist at once!” he raged. “We’re men of the Imperial Guard, not savages!” He looked quickly to Vengo who was loitering nearby, his gaze lost in the middle distance. “Sergeant, impede those men.”
Like a switch had been flicked in his head, Vengo moved in to intercept the Kauth with a small combat squad from the Volpone nearest to him.
There was arguing immediately. Not all of the Kauth could speak Gothic and ranted back in a feral tongue.
A clipped command from Hauke, more like a squawk, halted the Longstriders in their tracks. He frowned.
Before he had a chance to speak, the major was on him.
“I am appalled, sir,” he said. “Butchery is the province of the Archenemy, not good Emperor-fearing men of the Imperium. This is not the jungle or some arse-end backwater bereft of order”—Culcis raised an eyebrow at that remark, that’s exactly what it was—“it is the sovereign soil of the Imperium.” Regara was incensed and working himself up. The near miss with the cultists had affected him, maybe something else too. He wasn’t done and looked Hauke up and down with an aggressive sneer. “And you call those uniforms? You are a disgrace to the Imperial Guard. I do not recognise you, sir. No, I refuse to recognise you.”
Hauke was nonplussed, even a little amused, though he kept it veiled in case of more reprisals. “We saved your life, brother.”
“You did not. And I have the sworn testimony of over twenty men that will attest to that. The record will show the Volpone’s courage in this combat action.”
“Sir?” Culcis felt he should intervene. The Kauth did save their lives, whether Regara cared to acknowledge it or not.
The major turned on him, crimson with rage. He hissed through gritted teeth. “They are a rabble, lieutenant. Less than that, they are tantamount to animals. I will not recognise them.”
“Seems you’d be better with an eye rather than a new leg, eh, brother?” said Hauke, genuinely. “Man who can’t see truth at end of nose is poor indeed.”
Regara didn’t even look at him, instead spitting his words candidly at Culcis. “Get them out of my sight, lieutenant. Do it now, or I shall order Sergeant Vengo to open fire.”
Culcis bit his tongue. These men were savages, yes, but they had saved the Volpone. He also didn’t trust Vengo not to turn this altercation into a bloodbath. “At once, sir,” he said at length. Regara stalked away to let his second-in-command get on with it.
“You need to get your men to stop doing that, captain,” Culcis addressed Hauke.
“It is right of Kauth to trophy-take from slain.”
“Not when you’re fighting alongside the Volpone, not when you’re fighting for the Guard. Do it now, sir.”
A shrilling cry issued from Hauke’s lips, a sign to his men to desist and gather. Some frowned, wanting to resume cutting, but they obeyed and converged on the banner bearer.
“Very good,” said Culcis. “Is that your regimental standard?” he asked, noting the scrap of cloth the Kauth had flocked to.
“Blessed by the beati,” Hauke replied. “On Vigo’s Hill where Longstriders stood their last, or so we thought until She came.”
“Saint Sabbat?” Culcis couldn’t keep from scoffing. He regained his composure quickly. “You were blessed by Saint Sabbat.”
“Aye.” Hauke was solemn as a priest. He believed it. Judging by the stern expressions of his men, they all did.
Culcis shook his head, his incredulity obvious to all but the unassuming Longstriders.
“Here, brother.” Hauke offered Culcis a pair of cigars. The leaf was dark and thick, and redolent of liquorice. No doubt Hauke had won, stolen or been gifted them by another regiment in the reserve.
Culcis hesitated.
“Good,” said Hauke, pushing the cigars onto the lieutenant. “Take them.”
Grudgingly, Culcis accepted the offering, swiftly pocketing the smokes before Regara could see, and politely asked the Kauth to return to camp.
Hauke nodded. He gave another shrill cry, almost avian, to his men and they departed the plaza quickly. In a few minutes they’d blended back into the slums and it was like they were never there.
Culcis rejoined the major who was conversing with Corporal Speers.
Siegfrien had just raised them on the vox and Crimmens was handing over the receiver cup.
“Give me that,” Regara snapped at the vox officer, his ire obvious and enflamed. “Negative,” he barked down the cup at the Castellian captain. “Pull back, we’re returning to camp for an immediate debrief and mission post-mortem.” He thrust the vox at Crimmens, punching it into his chest, and stalked off.
Regara never made eye contact with Culcis once. It was going to be a long walk back to the deployment zone and an even longer drive back to Sagorrah.
Grim. That was how Regara had described the situation on their return to camp. Culcis was forced to agree with him. The major had requested a private audience with Commissar Arbettan to discuss what went wrong during the mission and his concerns regards “warp taint” evident in the slums. Culcis wasn’t so sure it was only confined to that area. At least they hadn’t seen the Kauth again. Either the Longstriders were keeping a low profile and they’d just missed them in the throng or they’d never gone back to Sagorrah. In any event, it was a small mercy as far as Culcis was concerned.
Sitting at one of Refectorum B-62’s benches, idly fingering his Guard-issue mess tin and knife, Culcis was lost to his thoughts.
Drado snapped him out of it. “Mind if I sit, sir?” he said, setting down opposite the lieutenant.
“Looks like you already have,” Culcis answered dryly. “What’s the word in the camp?” he added, watching Drado attack the Guard chef’s slop with too much gusto. Sometimes Culcis wondered whether the corporal was Volpone at all, that perhaps he’d been switched with another regiment for some Munitorum clerk’s amusement. Not so. Drado’s blood was as blue as any of them.
The Royal 50th had their own chef, of course, their own small army of retainers and staffers in fact. Culcis had chosen to slum it in the ranks. Something wasn’t right and he wasn’t about to discover the source by staying in the regiment. Most of the men were disgruntled at having to lower their standards. Drado, despite his fierce aristocratism, was actually coping rather well.
There was a low hubbub of aggression pervading throughout the mess hall, several disparate regiments jammed together in its hot, sweaty confines. The men were on edge, the Harpine especially. Losing one of their captains, though the circumstances had been covered up, was chaffing at what little fortitude they had left.
“If I might be so bold,” ventured Drado. “What do you think happened out there?”
Culcis shook his head slowly. “Fegged if I know, corporal.”
“That Harpine—what was his name again? Jedion, that was it—he just seemed to lose his mind. And then there were the glyphs…” Drado let his theory trail off, as if fearful that voicing it out loud would give it power.
&
nbsp; “I’ve heard of combat stress taking men to the brink, but I’ve never seen a trooper shoot his own regimental sergeant over a petty squabble.”
“Undisciplined dogs,” Drado muttered, shooting daggers at a belligerent group of Harpine who’d just bustled their way inside. “Sir…”
Culcis had seen them too. His gaze was weary. The atmosphere was on a knife-edge. When the Harpine had settled into line, the lieutenant relaxed the grip on his hellpistol, snug in his belt and concealed beneath the mess table.
“No sign of that feral mob?” he asked Drado.
“None at all. Speers reckons they never came back to camp. How would we find them if they did, anyway?”
“Why would we want to?” asked Culcis, though he still had the cigars given to him by Captain Hauke. Didn’t feel right to discard them. Perhaps he was the one who’d swapped regiments when he wasn’t looking. They were all different since Nacedon. Even Regara, though the major fought it with every aristocratic fibre.
Drado leaned in close. “I did hear about another sixteen scheduled executions this morning. And the number of violent acts of misconduct has doubled since yesterday.”
After their disastrous foray into the slums, the Volpone had returned through the night. By the time they’d made reports, broken down kit and secured it in the armoury at their billets, it was approaching another arid Sagorrah morning.
“Only sixteen?” Culcis remarked dryly.
“Apparently, Arbettan has a long list of offenders he’s working through,” Drado replied. “Hold on…” he added.
Culcis followed his anxious gaze to the mess line where Corporal Speers had just cut in.
“Stinkin’ glory boys, what gives you the right?”
Evidently, the Harpine weren’t pleased. One, a big fellow as broad as the Volpone’s Colonel Gilbear, advanced on the corporal.
“Step back, dreg,” Speers replied, with an arrogant side glance at the disgruntled Harpine trooper. His tags read: Maggon.
“I say again, what gives you the right?” This time the Harpine trooper got in the Volpone’s face, determined to make his point. He prodded the corporal’s arm with his finger.