Lasrifle raised, Caffran edged down onto the mud. Leyr and Wheln followed, then Raydee and Mkard. Caffran waved the others out into firing positions along the edge of the rocks, then gestured Neskon up. The flame-trooper slithered down the rocks to join them, gently pumping the stirrup of his burner. The little naked trigger light hissed blue in the gloom.
The state of the bodies was chilling. None of them was intact. Limbs had been stripped of flesh, torsos emptied. Bloody stumps of ribcage poked through torn, soaked cloth.
Leyr made a quick hand signal for stillness. Caffran moved up close to his scout until he could hear what Leyr had heard. A snuffling, a wet crackling. Until now it had been indistinguishable from the pop and crack of the burning Chimera.
Round there, Leyr indicated. They raised their weapons to their shoulders, and edged on. Deftly, silently, Wheln and Neskon followed them. Mkard, and the Belladon, Raydee, moved around to cover the other side of the burning wreck.
The once-wrought had not learned from the example set by the mature bull he had followed. Crookshank had attacked, slaughtered, fed quickly and savagely, and then vanished into the dark again. The once-wrought had killed nothing. He had whooped and roared plenty as he charged in, but Crookshank had already finished the work. Hungry, and twitching with the huge adrenaline rush, the once-wrought had lingered to feed on the parts of the kill Crookshank had spurned and left behind.
He was sucking on the marrow of a Hauberkan officer. Vaguely humanoid, with stunted legs and vast arms and shoulders, the once-wrought weighed around four hundred kilos. The raw, pink flesh of his broad chest was smeared with blood, and tatters of meat dangled from his huge, under-biting snout. Patches of long, black hair trailed from a flat, almost indented scalp that still showed the healing scars of surgery, and hung down across tiny, pig-eyes that glinted behind an implanted iron visor. He raised his massive head as he detected movement.
“Holy feth!” Caffran gasped. He and Leyr began firing immediately, full auto bursts of las from their mark III carbines. The stalker was already coming for them, powering forward on knuckles like tree-roots, jaws opening. It roared a wet, choking roar, gusting a mist of blood and saliva from its slack throat tubes.
Caffran and Leyr saw their shots cutting into the spook’s hide, but it didn’t even flinch. Blood streaked down it from the multiple puncture wounds.
They feel no pain, Caffran thought. How do you stop a thing like-It was just three metres from them when Neskon caught it in a long, howling spear of flame. The beast fell back, thrashing at the living fire that engulfed it. Neskon kept the pressure on.
Wild, demented, the once-wrought turned and lurched away around the other side of the wreck. Raydee and Mkard met it head on.
Raydee almost managed to get out of the way. He went sprawling, and the once-wrought trampled him, crushing his left foot into the mud and snapping his ankle. The monster grabbed Mkard around the body with its gigantic left hand and slammed him back against the rear-end of the burning Chimera so hard it pulped the Tanith-born’s torso.
The flames had died down. The once-wrought’s hair was burned off, and his skin bubbled with fat blisters. He roared, his throat sacs vibrating.
A hot-shot round exploded his cranium. The shot had been aimed right down the once-wrought’s yawning gullet. There was a stringy burst of gore that left nothing behind except the heavy lower jaw, and the nightmare pitched over dead.
“Move in! Move in and secure the area!” Caffran yelled.
Meryn’s troop began to emerge from the rushes. In cover, Jessi Banda lowered her long-las and ejected the spent hot-shot pack.
“Nice shot,” Meryn said, and kissed her roughly on the mouth. Their faces were cold against each other.
“I aim to please,” she smiled.
Meryn grinned and hurried forward to join the others.
Dawn was coming up fast. Light was creeping down the eastern wall of the compartment. The wind was picking up too.
Wilder felt the breeze against his face, like the cool decompression rush of a flooding airgate. No one in Guard Logistics or Intel had yet been able to explain why the winds picked up in daylight, though Wilder had sat through three or four lengthy briefings filled with talk about ambient cooling, rapid-rise solar heating, pressure change and inter-compartment windshear effects.
In the grey light, Wilder saw the stands of thorn-rush and lime swaying and hissing. The landscape ahead, split by outcrops of granite and a quartzy rock, looked like wet hair. Through it, the black figures of his men advanced in a wide fan.
Good spacing, good unit protocol, Wilder thought. Excellent noise discipline. Mongrel or not, he was growing proud of the Eighty-First First (recon), with its proud battle-song of—
Well, that was the sort of area where things weren’t perfect. He doubted any of the influx would be happy learning the words to “Belladon, Belladon, world of my fathers’, and he couldn’t blame them. Likewise, he was sure, the Tanith and Verghastites had songs of their own that would not easily swell the breast of a true-blood Bel-boy. Where it was relatively easy to combine regimental titles, things became clumsy when it came to songs and traditions. And warcry mottos. “Fury of Belladon, for Tanith, for the Emperor, and, by the way, remember Vervunhive!” Full marks for effort, but still dead in a slit-trench before you’d said it all and actually started fighting.
Things would come, evolve, but it would take time, and it certainly wouldn’t be forced. Braden Baskevyl, Wilder’s number two and a keen promoter of esprit de corps, had spent most of the last evening in camp encouraging a little improvisation between the regimental musicians. Belladon fifes and Tanith pipes. It sounded like a disenchanted cat being elaborately stabbed in a sack.
Wilder smiled to himself, but it was not smiling weather.
“Coming up on the Hauberkan line,” Captain Callide reported over the vox. “Got them in sight, fifty metres.”
“Pull in slow,” Wilder ordered on the wide channel. “Make yourselves known. The tankers are going to be jumpy. Anyone touch off a black cross, I’ll kick their arse. Even if they are dead.”
Black cross. The mark made in Munitorum ledgers to indicate a Guard-on-Guard firing accident.
Major Baskevyl hurried up out of the gloom. He’d pushed his low-light goggles up onto the brim of his helmet.
“How can you see?” Wilder asked.
“It’s an accustomisation thing, sir,” Baskevyl said. The Tanith scouts reckon it’s best to let your eyes adjust as soon as possible.”
Wilder frowned, then took of his own goggles, blinking hard. It had been his experience so far that the Tanith knew what they were talking about, especially the ghostly scouts.
“Got a signal from E Company,” Baskevyl said. “Meryn’s secured the contact. A spook had ambushed some treads that had been stopped by a stray mine.”
“They get the bastard thing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Casualties?”
“No details yet.”
The officers turned as they heard a flutter of polite, whispered greetings from the men behind them. The commissars were approaching, and as they moved up the line, the troops were greeting them with formal respect.
“Over here,” Wilder called.
Commissar Genadey Novobazky had been with Wilder and the Belladon for five years. Grizzled and lithe, he was a stern man, a fair man, and one disapproving glance from his grim demeanour was usually all that was needed. When it wasn’t, Novobazky really came into his own. He was the best talker Wilder had ever met, the best rabble-rouser, a real burning det-tape when it came to igniting battlefield spirit: funny, loquacious and inspirational. His predecessor, Causkon, had been a real sap, which hadn’t mattered much as the Belladon had never needed much field discipline, but Wilder had counted himself lucky to have an asset like Novobazky assigned.
The other commissar, Viktor Hark, he’d inherited from the Tanith. Bulky, heavy-set and impassive, Hark seemed a decent sort, and his augme
tic arm spoke of heroic effort on the field of war. Hark had proved good at sorting out matters of petty theft, uniform code violations and mess-hall spats, but he’d yet to reveal any true potency as a commissar. There were the odd hints that Hark had some subterranean strengths, but he seemed to Wilder to be curiously reserved and hesitant, as if used to a subtler style of command. A legacy of the Great Lost Commander, Wilder supposed. Big boots to fill, and Wilder’s own boots were quite tight enough, thank you. He pitied the Tanith First for the body-blows it had taken on Herodor and afterwards, but sometimes he was secretly a little glad the other guy was dead. His job would have been so much harder if any hope had remained.
“I want to get the armour moving,” Wilder told them.
“And they’re not moving why?” Novobazky asked.
“Mines,” said Baskevyl.
“Nerves,” Wilder corrected. They’ve had a little hiccup, and now they’ve frozen up.”
“We can impress them with orders,” Novobazky said. “It was perfectly clear last night. Ridge eighteen is the objective, with an open, covered corridor for the second wave. We’re a long way short of that, and Gadovin knows it.”
“He’s saying the orders are void because the orders supposed the zone had been cleared of mines,” Baskevyl said.
“Mine. Singular,” Wilder said. “Boo hoo, that’s war. Gadovin is overreacting. And if he sits there much longer, he’ll be inviting all sorts of hurt.”
“And you’re not happy about that?” Novobazky asked.
“How do I sound?”
“Let’s have a word with him then,” Hark said. Hark didn’t say much, and when he did, it was low-key, but this was one of those hints that Wilder had learned to pick up on. A muted suggestion that Hark was quietly polishing something large and spiky.
Wilder nodded. “This they then do,” he said. He turned to Baskevyl. “Get F Company moving onto that rise around the right flank. And tell Varaine to pick up L’s pace before we leave them behind.”
A vox-officer ran up. “Colonel Wilder, sir. Signal from Frag HQ.”
Wilder took the message wafer and started to read it. Some business about a personnel transfer.
There was the sudden suck-hiss of an inbound ballistic object. A hot, hard fireball burst amongst the line of stationary tanks. Two, three more fell, then a sustained salvo, ground-bursts erupting furiously along the Hauberkan position, throwing soil up into the air. The wind blew the grit back across Wilder’s advance.
“Shit!” Wilder cried. He started to run forward. “Into it! Into it!”
As he ran up through his scrambling troops, Wilder shoved the wafer, half-read, into his coat pocket.
EIGHT
07.56 hrs, 193.776.M41
Fifth Compartment
Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus
Wilder led the charge up the slope, through the rushes and the sickly limes, into the wind, into the concussion of the falling shells. He saw at least three Hauberkan vehicles on fire. The quivered air was full of blown soil, dust and fragments of rush-stem. None of the tanks had begun firing, but at least some were restarting their engines. Wilder heard starter-motors whining and coughing. They’d been sitting in the cold for forty, fifty minutes. Some of these old treads would need a lot of nursing and blessing to get going again.
The shells continued to drop—brief shrill whistles, followed by heavy, splattery detonations. Some of the Eighty-First First had reached the spaced formation of tanks and got in between them, firing down across the brow of the slope into mist and shell-vapour.
“Auspex!” Wilder yelled over his link, panting as he struggled through the wet undergrowth.
“No fix yet, working.”
“Faster!” Wilder barked.
He was coming up behind a Chimera that had its turbines running. It was snorting plumes of blue vapour out of its exhausts. An Exterminator, three vehicles to his left, took a direct hit, and went up in a prickling sheet of flame. The concussion jarred Wilder’s innards against his ribs. He almost fell.
“Open fire!” he yelled up at the Chimera. “Open fire, damn you!”
For a second, Wilder thought his shout had actually penetrated the machine’s thick armour and made some sense. The Chimera revved its engines hard.
And started to reverse.
Wilder was so amazed, it nearly ran him down. He threw himself out of the way.
“Scatter! Scatter!” he yelled at the men nearby. Other Hauberkan tanks were starting to back violently down the shallow gradient. The men of the Eighty-First First, drawn up between and behind the fighting machines, struggled to avoid them, some falling, some crying out.
Wilder heard a high-pitched scream that could only mean one of his men had been caught under treads.
Colonel Lucien Wilder, Belladon born, proud and decorated commander of the Belladon Eighty-First since Balhaut, was known as a genial, humorous soldier: a soldier’s soldier. He had an infectious wit that often earned the disapproval of his superiors, and a track record that had won him nothing but plaudits. Well-made, dark haired, clean-shaven, he had a wry, handsome face and a sort of permanent, knowing, lady-killer squint. When he raised his voice, it was so orders could be understood, or so that the troopers at the back of the mess-hall could hear the punchline.
And, occasionally, when fury drove him. Like now.
As the Chimera reversed past him, splashing him with cold mud and twigs of reed, he hammered against its sponsons and track guards with the butt of his autopistol and screamed “Halt! Halt, you bastard! Halt!”
It did not.
Raging, Wilder grabbed a netting hawser and scaled the side of the moving vehicle. Up on top, rolling with the lurch of the Chimera, he kicked at the squat turret. A shell went off nearby and threw dirt and debris across him.
“Halt! Halt!” His voice had become a scream. He saw that the top-hatch cover was loose. Wilder yanked the hatch wide open, let it fall with a clang, and lunged inside. In the dim, instrument-lit interior, the pale face of the vehicle commander looked up at him in dismay, and reached for a sidearm.
“Bastard!” Wilder shouted and slapped the gun away. Then he grabbed the tanker by the hair and slammed his head repeatedly against the metal bars of the roll-cage. “Bastard! Bastard! Tell your driver to halt now! Now!”
“Do it! Do it!” the commander yelled, wincing at the tearing grip on his scalp. The Chimera bounced to a stop.
“Vox-link!” Wilder demanded, and ripped the headset out of the man’s hands. Then he smacked him in the mouth for good measure.
The headset was crazy with nonsense traffic, panic-calls, hysteria. The Hauberkan had broken completely.
“Gadovin! Gadovin! This is Wilder! Cease your retreat now! Now, Throne damn it! Gadovin!”
The squealing nonsense was all that answered.
“Gadovin, so help me, stop your line moving and throw down some fire or, by the Emperor, I will hunt you to the ends of everywhere and shoot you a new arsehole! Gadovin! Respond!”
Nothing. Wilder threw the headset back at the dazed commander. “Use your pintle mounts,” Wilder told him. “Fire into that mist bank. I have a gun and, so far, you look like the enemy to me.”
The tanker nodded furiously. He activated turret power, wound up the autoloader, and then the heavy linked bolters in the low-profile turret began to blaze away, gouting flame-flash from the muzzle baffles.
Wilder switched his commlink to the wide channel. “Wilder to troop leaders. Be advised that the Hauberkan should now be regarded as without line of command. I am assuming control. Their orders are to hold and fire. Do whatever you can to impart that order. Any refusal must be considered a failure to follow officer directions.”
The shells were still raining down. More than a dozen armour units were ablaze, destroyed, and the undergrowth at the crest of the rise was burning too. From his raised vantage point, Wilder saw that half a dozen tanks had already retreated right back down the slope to the lower trackway. The noise of
the barrage was deafening. Wilder wondered how much of his order had been heard.
Nearby, the six crew members of an Exterminator had abandoned their machine and were fleeing down the slope. Wilder was about to leap down after them when he saw Commissar Hark appear out of the smoke wash. Hark had drawn his sidearm, a plasma pistol.
“You men!” he yelled, the loudest thing Wilder had ever heard him utter. “Get back to your stations!”
The tankers hesitated, then continued to run.
Hark turned away.
Wilder jumped down. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.
Hark glanced at him. “If they’re scared enough to ignore me, my rank and my weapon, then they’re too scared to be of any use. Why? Would you like me to have shot them?”
“Hell, yes!”
“What, to assuage your current anger?”
“You and I are going to have a conversation, Hark.”
Hark nodded. “As you wish, colonel.”
“Now rally the men!”
Wilder ran down the left wing of the broken line. Some of the Eighty-First First were in place at the crest of the slope, sniping into the mist. He passed Novobazky, who had expertly grouped most of D Company’s first troop into firing positions and was delivering a variation on one of his favourite themes. The Shores of Marik.
“On the Shores of Marik, my friends,” Novobazky declaimed, head-high as he walked the line, oblivious to the whizzing shells, “the fathers of our fathers made a stand under the flag of Belladon. Shells fell like rain. Were they afraid? You bet they were! Were they trepidatious? Absolutely! Did they break and run? Yes! But only in their minds. They ran to friendly places and loved ones, where they could be safe… and then, by the providence of the God-Emperor, they saw what those friendly places and loved ones would become if they did not stand fast, and so stand fast they did! How do you feel?”
There was a throaty murmur.
“I said, how do you feel?”
Louder shouting.
“Belladon blood is like wine on the Emperor’s lips! Belladon souls have a special place at his side! If we spill our blood here today, then this is the soil He has chosen to bless and anoint! Oh, lucky land! Rise up and load, my friends, rise up and load! If they’re going to have our precious blood, then they’ll find the cost is dearer than they can afford! Fury of Belladon! Fury! Fury!”