Ailly had not managed to fire a single shot. His feet were planted heavily and his arms were limp at his sides. Everything was happening very slowly, and he thought it had been hours since they’d left the kitchens.
Somehow, the animals had managed to separate the boy from Mallet and Bedlo. The more experienced resisters had moved slowly to the right, away from the stage and the worst of the fire that was being returned by the enemy.
Bedlo didn’t know what he was hitting, if he was hitting anything, but he knew that he wasn’t being hit. It was as if they were missing him on purpose. Bedlo and Mallet wove to the right. The boy didn’t move.
The enemy formed around Ailly, almost ignoring the two older men. They started to laugh and point. They got very close to him. The boy thought that he was going to stop breathing. They wanted him to move; he wanted to oblige, but he couldn’t.
Someone took a potshot at the floor. At least, Ailly thought the foe was shooting at the floor, but then he felt something in his foot. It was wet and hot. He didn’t dare look down, and he couldn’t fall down. What were they saying? Why couldn’t he see their mouths move, but could hear their strange grunts? Nothing would come into focus.
Then one of the foe picked Ailly up, over his shoulder, and took him up the steps onto the platform. He stood the boy back on his feet, and jumped off the stage, back into a pack of his comrades.
Ailly was mute, terrified and incapable. His eyes were blurry and he still couldn’t hear properly. He wasn’t terrified anymore, though. He couldn’t possibly stay so terrified for so long.
He wanted to do what they wanted him to do, but he didn’t know what that was. He didn’t know that Shuey had danced and convulsed for them. He didn’t know they’d had their sport before they’d killed him. He should be dead already.
There was a square of light, suddenly, in front of him. Two dozen enemy beasts were silhouetted, back-lit by the door that opened out into the daylight. Everything came back to Ailly in a rush. He could hear the howls and jeers of the crowd, and see the enemy as they turned to face the intruder. He could smell the blood that Shuey had left on the stage. He could feel the pain in his wounded foot. He could feel the muscles in his gut clenching around his stomach, and the heave in his oesophagus as his body reacted to the situation.
His movement still wasn’t voluntary, but whatever was compelling Ailly’s body to react forced him to lean over before he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the stage. He could not stand after that.
Whether bored or exasperated, or simply reactive, someone shot the man that had opened the external door to the playhouse, more than one someone. The tall, grizzled old man went down under a hail of fire. He died, instantly, from one of the seventeen shots that found ways into his torso before he fell.
Ailly didn’t recognise the man who had come to their aid; he only saw his dark outline jolting against the light with the impact of las-fire. He was conscious now, more conscious than he had been since entering the kitchens, and it was his conscious state that killed him. The boy dropped slowly, silently to the floor, without a single shot being fired in his direction, and without any fanfare or any sign that he was about to die. It didn’t matter what had killed him. It didn’t matter whether it was a stroke or a heart attack. It didn’t matter whether an aneurysm had erupted in his fragile body.
Ailly died without a fight, without firing a shot, and with only a flesh wound in his foot to show that he had been in any danger. There was no dignity. There was never any dignity.
Bedlo and Mallet turned as the playhouse door was thrown open to the scene. For a split-second, Bedlo thought that someone was coming to the rescue, perhaps the cell that had armed them. For a moment, he had hope. Mallet felt nothing, but simply kept on shooting at the enemy, glad of the extra light, once he had squinted the suddenness of it out of his eyes.
He did not wonder why the enemy was not shooting at them. He knew why.
After killing the last man in, the enemy returned to taunting Mallet and Bedlo. The boy had pissed them off by dying before he’d done anything to entertain them, and they wanted their revenge. They wanted something so badly that several of them had embarked on pitched battles between themselves, and three had died at the hands of their comrades. Bedlo and Mallet had injured several others between them, but both of their kill-rates increased dramatically with the extra light that was coming in through the door that no one had bothered to close.
Mallet kept shooting all the time that no one was shooting back to kill. He wanted to give them a dose of their own medicine, and started to aim at legs and arms instead of heads and chests.
The beasts started to work on separating Mallet and Bedlo. It didn’t matter anymore. They were very close. Mallet watched one of the animals swing at the boss’ head, making him stagger. Then, another swung at his knees, and Bedlo was having trouble standing. Then two more started shooting at the floor, close to Bedlo’s feet, and Mallet saw the boss’ head bobbing up and down to his left. It looked for all the world as if Bedlo was dancing.
Mallet kept aiming and kept shooting, all the time keeping one eye on Bedlo’s progress. Soon Mallet was looking up at his boss as he stood on the wooden stage, beaten and bloodied. Mallet swung his las over his shoulder and took the three paces required to pick up the flamer that Bedlo had shrugged off several minutes earlier.
He’d never done what he was about to do. He’d seen it done, once, by some psycho fool in the Guard who’d known what he was doing, and whose actions had made them all cheer and whoop. He didn’t know if he could do it. He knew that doing it inside was suicide, so, he’d be dead, either way.
Most of the enemy beasts were facing the stage, watching their macabre little show. Mallet took hold of the flamer’s strap, and felt the weapon’s weight in his hand. The tank wasn’t full, by any means, but there ought to be enough.
Mallet took his autopistol in his right hand, and started to swing the flamer in his left. Once he’d got the momentum up a little, he turned to face the stage, and, using the weight of the flamer’s tank, he swung the weapon through the air, letting go of it at the top of its arc. He didn’t have time to aim the autopistol in the confined space, and fired it almost as soon as he’d loosed his missile. The flamer had gone almost straight up, and bounced off one of the tie-beams that held the building together. It plummeted back down, exploding a very little above head height, spraying great gouts of flames out over the heads of the enemy. Above was never a good place.
The flamer had gone up almost vertically, and come down the same way. Mallet was standing directly beneath the explosion, the autopistol still pointing roughly in the direction of the fuel tank. He was the first to die, but he took half a dozen of the enemy with him. The beasts’ attention was torn away from the unfortunate man limping around in circles on the stage in front of them, most of it.
Those still involved in skirmishes furthest from the stage heard the explosion and felt the building shake, but they were close to the door left open by the intruder, and tumbled out laughing and hooting, forgetting what they’d been squabbling over.
Several more of the enemy managed to pick themselves up in the first moments after the explosion began to subside, and made their way out of the building, staggering, limping and complaining.
One of the last survivors looked around for a minute or two, dazed by the explosion. He finally found what he was looking for. He bent over a tall body with bulbous joints in the mismatched fatigues and body-armour that the foe wore, and hefted the thing over to look at its face. He took the dead head in his hands and gently knocked foreheads with it. Then he looked up at the man still staggering around on the stage. He aimed his laspistol at the wretch a total of seven times. Six of the bullets maimed. When the last came, Bedlo was going insane, wondering if his end would ever come. The final round detonated one of the grenades in his chest, and then another, making his corpse jolt and squirm on the stage, too late to entertain the troops.
T
he fire did not burn for long. There was no one to make repairs on The Drum, and no supplies with which to make them. Some of the under-slum dwellers made a crust or two cleaning out the blood, shit and bodies. It was a good day, and the show went on again the day after, despite charring to the stage and a few new stains to the ceiling.
When Logier paid off the cleaners, he took evidence of all the dead cell members, including the old ayatani priest, Revere, who’d come through the front door, bold as brass. The Archon wouldn’t be too impressed by the number of his troops that had gone down at The Drum, but it had to be worth it to take out a cell, and break the morale of resistance fighters everywhere. He’d proven his worth as a collaborator, and made a fool of the old man.
Ozias stood in the entrance to the alley at the rear of The Drum, watching Logier complete his transactions with the low-lifes that had done his bidding. He pressed his back against the wall of the alley as Logier passed him, tossing something up into the air and catching it. Ozias tucked in behind him where he couldn’t be seen. He would move fast, before they’d left the under-slum.
Two or three minutes later, Ozias got his chance. Logier turned down a narrow alley between overhanging buildings, little more than a dim corridor, the light at the end several hundred metres away.
Before Logier had a chance to turn and see who had followed him into the alley, Ozias moved up quickly behind him and put his bolt-pistol to the back of the traitor’s head, taking it off with one shot. He caught the body as it fell, and laid it down close to the wall of the alley. He preferred to be face to face with the enemy, but saw no advantage in taking that chance with Logier.
Ozias had learned a long time ago never to trust anyone, but, in a pinch, he might have trusted Logier. He would have been wrong. It was impossible to know whether the remaining members of his cell were faithful, but he sincerely hoped so. This clean-up operation had cost him weapons, and men had died; however reckless the men of the hive-cell had been, however much of a liability, resistance fighters had died.
Ozias emptied Logier’s pockets, taking the evidence collected from Bedlo’s, Mallet’s, Shuey’s, Ailly’s and Ayatani Revere’s bodies. He would give them to the priest, Perdu, to inter.
Ayatani Perdu could feel the damp sod of the floor beneath his feet. These little rooms with floors that never dried out were havens to the half a dozen worshippers that came to his services. Sometimes he wondered how that could be.
They had died. They had all died. The two men, the two boys and the tough old ayatani had all perished, and for what?
They were supposed to be fighting for the same thing, for the preservation of some form of the Imperium on Reredos. They were supposed to be fighting against the enemy, for the people. The factions had been exposed. Their lives had proven to be as disposable as they had ever been to the foe. Perdu looked from one face to another. He did not recognise any of the congregation. He thought about feeling fear, but he couldn’t. The only emotion available to him now was resignation.
Perdu let his eyes fall to the prayer book that he held open in his hands. He did not need to look on the words, they were engraved indelibly in his mind, but he looked at them anyway. He looked for comfort in them, but found that he felt only that the inevitable would happen, and that maybe it was better in the end.
Perdu finished his prayer, but remained standing with his head bowed over his book. As he looked at the words, a button appeared in the spine-fold of the open pages. It was domed and heavily engraved, with a thick ring shank on it. He could read a single word encircled by the shank. It read, “pray”.
He did not look up, and was not surprised when a second button dropped onto the pages of the book, a pair to the first. The shank encircled the word, “mercy”.
Within moments a third button had been dropped onto the book, and then a fourth, a fifth and a sixth. The room was empty.
Ozias and the five remaining members of his cell left the young ayatani priest to his musings. It was the first and last time that they ever attended a service together with someone other than their own priest, but these were unusual times. This was the beginning of something; this was the beginning of a plan to rescue the entire planet.
Perdu looked down at the buttons scattered on the pages before him, their shanks gleaming bright gold in the dim light, casting highlights and shadows on the pages; the shanks circling some words, and the domes of the buttons covering or overshadowing others.
Perdu read the six words in their golden rings. “Pray to the lady for mercy.”
He took up one of the buttons between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and realised that the light wasn’t shining off it, but was emanating from it. He looked at the domed surface of the ring, and saw, among the deep engraving and the glistening gems, not only a thing of great beauty and value, but something of worth beyond anything that he could comprehend. The button bore the sigil, crest and arms of the Lady, the Beati, Saint Sabbat.
She had worn the buttons on her breast, had blessed them with her association. The Lady had found a following on Reredos because she had been part of its history, and must now represent the better part of the planet’s importance to the Emperor. How could the God-Emperor forsake His daughter? How could He forsake them?
Nick Kyme’s gripping novels, including his dwarf-filled Warhammer adventures and his forays with the saturnine Salamanders for 40k, have won him armies of fans. Given the subterranean and volcanic themes present in both of the above, it’s no wonder there’s a whiff of the combustible and petrochemical to this muscular, take-no-prisoners tale, which reacquaints us with an Imperial Guard regiment, high-born and imperious, who have often been a thorn in the side of Gaunt and his Ghosts. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s nice to see them again, especially as they’re moving up from their supporting role and stepping out into the limelight. Or should that be the firing line?
Dan Abnett
BLUEBLOOD
Nick Kyme
“We were there. We were there on Vigo’s Hill.
It was to be our end.
Our final hour.
Our last stand.
Until She came and everything changed.”
—“Last Stand of the Longstriders”,
a transcribed account of the
Vigo’s Hill Massacre, M41.
(Circa 774. M41, in the nineteenth
year of the Sabbat Worlds campaign.)
The pillar of fire exploding from the desert forced the gunship to bank sharply. A series of warning runes flashed in the cramped cockpit alongside the Valkyrie’s steering column. While the pilot fought to control the vessel, the rest of the crew felt the sudden thrust of motion in the tightening of their grav harnesses. Somewhere, a muffled emergency klaxon droned. In the troop hold men were scattered like debris, amidst vocal curses and angry shouts of pain.
Major Regara stood defiantly in the open hatchway of the Valkyrie, Warbird, with one hand on the guard rail, the other snapped to behind his back. Framed by the hold’s exit hatch he cut a stern, precise figure, the epitome of Volpone starch and sturm.
“Have you ever seen the Euclidian Squalor-Pits, lieutenant?” he declared to the burning air outside. The fire-flare tinged his grey-gold armour a ruddy orange and the squalls from the explosion seared his tanned features with a prickling heat.
Regara didn’t flinch. The role of imperious officer, master of war was one he played to military perfection.
The plume of fire died away to a trickling smoke that carpeted the landing zone in a grey fog. They were coming in hard—ninety birds touching down in minutes, scorching the sand to glass with the roar of descent jets.
“No sir, I haven’t.” Lieutenant Culcis clung to the guard rail opposite the major and stood just behind him.
Regara looked down into the dispersing smoke, through the growing dust cloud created from the Valkyrie squadrons’ downthrust.
“It’s like a Volponian bathhouse compared to this hole.” He scowled and the gestur
e pulled at a scar running from his smooth-shaven chin to the edge of his collar.
There were troops below, a few kilometres from the landing zone, getting closer by the second. It was an encampment, several encampments in fact. Together they were more like a city, hundreds of disparate regiments, all part of the Crusade reserve, billeted in tents, prefabs, re-appropriated local structures or simply gathered in the open with only a few windbreakers to impede the sandstorms. Like borer-ants at this distance. Millions of them.
“Tell me again, lieutenant,” said Regara as they approached their final landing vector. By now the chatter over the inter-company vox, comprising, in the main, barks of dissatisfaction from the other Volpone officers at the explosive welcome they’d received, had ceased. Nine companies. Nine hundred men. A full battalion of the Volpone 50th awaited landfall in silence.
All except Regara. “What do we know about this hole, other than it’s at the arse-end of nowhere?”
A tremor of mild turbulence shook the ship’s hold, forcing the major to shift his footing. The bionic leg he wore in place of the organic one he lost on Nacedon whirred and groaned. Compared to most Guard prosthetics, it was a work of art.
“Sagorrah,” Culcis began, regaining his footing after he’d stumbled with the sudden bucking of the gunship. “A collection world. Approximately one hundred and fifty-two separate regiments are in residence, of varying strengths and fighting viability. A depot, sir—Sagorrah has over three hundred promethium wells, a reserve of several million tonnes, vital fuel for the conquest of the Sabbat Worlds.”
Regara discerned the depot’s central hub, a vast factorum structure attended by a multitude of vast sunken silos.
Another explosion, farther out this time from a distant well, thrust a lance of fire into the hot sky.
Regara turned, uninterested. His eyes were like flint as he regarded the young Culcis.