Текст книги "Vulkan Lives"

Автор книги: Ник Кайм

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CHAPTER NINE

Honouring the dead

‘Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.’

– From ‘The Rhym of the Ancyent Starfarer’

by the bard Colwrit

Twenty-three legionaries comprised Numeon’s company, himself included. It was barely more than two squads. The majority were Salamanders, mainly line warriors with a few Pyroclasts, as well as himself and Leodrakk from the Pyre Guard. A pair of battle-brothers and Codicier Hriak represented the Ravens. And of the Iron Hands Legion, there were only Domadus and Pergellen. Ever since the evacuation from the Isstvan killing fields, there had been no contact with any other Legion force.

Their vessel, the Fire Ark, had been badly damaged in the exodus from Isstvan V. Some weapon systems were still functional, though these were insufficient to last long against a fully operational ship of the same calibre. Life support, power for lighting on certain decks, the engines and warp drive still worked, albeit at a reduced and unreliable capacity. Communications were another matter, however. Shipboard vox worked well enough but long-distance augurs and the sensorium arrays were beyond repair and use. Even ship-to-surface vox was extremely patchy. Captain Halder had achieved the near-impossible in effecting a successful escape, but they had limped on ever since and knew nothing of the greater war. Or even if there was a greater war. For all they knew, everyone was dead and Horus had won.

Numeon refused to believe that. Just as he refused to believe that Vulkan had died along with Lord Manus. He hadn’t seen the primarch fall, but the news from their fellow survivors who had was as compelling as it was grim. They fought on, hoping that others did too.

In the vehicle yard, his broken company were currently stood down.

Some were sitting on storage crates, checking weapons, aligning targeters or reloading. He recognised Daka’rai, K’gosi and Uzak huddled around a fire. The three Salamanders weren’t keeping warm, they were speaking oaths and blackening their gauntlets in the flames to seal each pact. More than ever, the different legionaries fell back on their native rituals and customs to give them resolve and purpose.

Others were less clandestine and spent their downtime making battlefield repairs on armour, or testing and refocusing retinal lens resolution, or running biometrics. One legionary, a Salamander called Helon, was performing field surgery on one of the Ravens who’d been injured when a gunship had crash-landed during planetfall. The gunship was no longer operable, but Shaka would live. Helon was not a trained Apothecary, but in the absence of such a specialist he had adapted.

The Raven’s rookery brother, Avus, was squatted atop an iron gantry that overlooked the yard, keeping watch. Hriak was nowhere to be seen, but Numeon knew that the Librarian would be close by if he were needed.

Leodrakk had been waiting for Numeon to appear, and left his guarded conversation with Kronor to go and speak with him.

‘Pyre captain,’ he said, crafting a small bow. ‘How fares our prisoner?’

‘He lives, no thanks to you.’

Leodrakk had removed his battle-helm. It was sitting in the crook of his arm, so Numeon saw him lower his eyes at the mild reprimand from his captain.

‘You have heard Pergellen’s news,’ he offered, changing the subject.

‘I have.’

Leodrakk smiled coldly. ‘I wished for this moment. We will finally get our deserved revenge.’

‘We’re leaving, Leo.’

‘What?’

‘We can’t stay here, not now our enemies have learned of us.’

‘What does it change? Let them come. We shall be waiting.’ He clenched his fist in emphasis.

‘No, brother. We won’t be. They have many times our numbers. This place is hardly a fortress. We could not hold it against an army, and besides, we did not come here to die a vainglorious death.’

Leodrakk stepped forwards, prompting Numeon to do the same until their breastplates almost touched.

‘Yes, brother?’ asked Numeon levelly, breathing in the scent of hot ash drifting from Leodrakk’s mouth.

For a moment Leodrakk looked as if he were about to say or do something foolish. Numeon had to remind himself that Pyre Guard were not like other Salamanders. They were forged of a fierce, independent spirit; it was how Vulkan had shaped them.

‘I have Ska’s blood on my hands,’ Leodrakk whispered, but backed down. ‘ Literally, brother.’

In the face of his brother’s grief, Numeon relented. He gripped Leo’s shoulder guard as Pergellen had done for him.

‘I know, Leo. I was there.’

Numeon glanced down at the vambrace and gauntlet on Leodrakk’s left arm and hand. It was still stained with Skatar’var’s blood.

‘Then tell me what else other than revenge are we fighting for?’

‘A greater purpose.’

‘What purpose? To kill a cleric, and achieve what?’

‘No, not just that. I am talking about the Eighteenth, the Legion.’

‘There is no Legion, Artellus.’ Leodrakk gestured agitatedly behind him. ‘We are all that remains.’

Numeon saw the anger and doubt in Leodrakk’s eyes. He’d seen it mirrored in his own many times since their escape. Something else filled them now, though. Hope.

‘Vulkan lives,’ Numeon said.

Sighing ruefully, Leodrakk shook his head. A little mirthless laugh passed his lips.

‘This again. He is dead, Numeon. He died on Isstvan like Ferrus Manus. Vulkan is gone.’

Numeon’s eyes narrowed with certainty. ‘ He lives.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I feel it,’ said Numeon, tapping two fingers against his left breast, ‘in here.’

‘I want it to be true, brother. I want it more than anything, but he’s dead. So is Ska, so are all of them. We are the only Salamanders that now live and I would rather die in vainglory, killing our betrayers and those that murdered our kin in cold blood, than wither away and run like cowards.’

Leodrakk walked away. Numeon let him go, having no argument with which to recall him. Belief and the desperate testimony of an already proven liar were no grounds to convince anyone of proof of life.

‘Not like him to lose his temper,’ said Domadus, having just come from where they had been keeping the prisoner. He came into step beside Numeon. Numeon looked at him askance. ‘Are you sure you’re Tenth Legion?’

‘My overly augmeticised appearance suggests otherwise?’

‘Your sarcasm does.’

‘We all have our coping mechanisms, brother-captain.’

‘Seems Leodrakk’s is rage,’ Numeon murmured, watching the other Salamander storm out of the vehicle yard and into the city street beyond.

‘He would not be alone.’

‘Aye, a fact of which I am all too aware, Domadus.’

‘Then let us put these warriors to purpose. Pergellen informs me we’re striking camp.’

Numeon nodded. ‘Yes, the Word Bearers know we are here and are coming. We need to be gone when they arrive.’

‘Ah,’ said Domadus, realising, ‘and hence the stoking of Leodrakk’s ire.’

‘Indeed.’

‘How long?’

‘Ten minutes. Pergellen thinks he and Shen were followed. I won’t take chances.’

‘It will have to be light arms only then. Spare ammunition, grenades, anything that can be carried easily. We’ll need some firepower, though.’

‘Take the heavy bolter – suspensors should make it light enough to bear at speed.’

‘To be honest with you, captain, I hadn’t considered leaving it behind. Besides, it will make an excellent mess of those traitors.’

Numeon allowed himself a wry smile as he caught the flash of amusement in Domadus’s eyes.

‘Aye, that it will, quartermaster. Det-cord everything else. No weapon we leave behind will fall into enemy hands.’

‘Or we could cache the spares close by,’ Domadus suggested. ‘An ammo dump could prove useful against numbers. Strike and fade, resupply then repeat?’

‘A valid tactic, but no. It’ll take too long. Disable anything extraneous.’

‘Very well.’ The quartermaster nodded his understanding. ‘You want me to pass the word to the others?’

‘No, I will do it.’

Numeon mounted a storage crate. Some of the other legionaries were already turning towards him when he began.

‘Gather…’ Numeon’s powerful voice carried across the vehicle yard with strength and authority, demanding attention. The legionaries drew in to listen. ‘Brothers, the Word Bearers are amassing a large force in this part of the city. Needless to say, we are not equipped to engage such a force. If they discover this location we’ll be overrun, so we’re moving out. Immediately.’

Numeon’s announcement provoked mutterings from some quarters, but none gainsaid him.

‘Domadus will redeploy weapons and kit. No heavies unless it’s suspensored. Only what can be carried. Rifles, pistols, blades, grenades. Anything else, leave behind. Our mission is unchanged. Killing the enemy cleric is our primary. Secondary is to cause as much damage as possible then egress off-world.’ He raised his fist. ‘For the blood of our fallen.’

‘We remember them and their sacrifice,’ twenty-one legionaries replied, mirroring Numeon’s salute.

‘And vengeance for Lord Manus,’ muttered Domadus, slamming his gauntlet against his breastplate. ‘You’ll need to talk to Shen’ra.’ He gestured to the back of the vehicle yard.

Numeon looked at the Iron Hand as he was climbing down. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Not yet. But there will be.’ said Domadus, before heading in the opposite direction to carry out his orders. ‘As his commanding officer, he’s less likely to hit you,’

Numeon exhaled a long, calming breath.

‘Vulkan grant me strength,’ he muttered, and went over to the Techmarine.

Shen’ra was stooped over a long, rectangular packing crate inspecting the contents as Numeon approached. The box was gunmetal grey and Munitorum-stamped. Like his brothers, he wore emerald-green battle-plate but his right shoulder guard was red and carried the icon of the Cog Mechanicum to show his allegiance to Mars. He had no helmet; the left hemisphere of his skull had a plate bolted to it which interfered with the armour sync-up, and he was bald-headed. Over his left shoulder hung the stump of a servo-arm that had been wrecked during the massacre. Some of the tools in the lower branch still functioned, however, so he had yet to dismantle it.

Shen’ra still felt the pain of its loss. It woke him sometimes during meditation, together with the after-image of a dark dream. He was beset by phantoms, the memory of his cleft servo-limb and the remembrance of dead brothers killed in front of his eyes.

‘Do you know what’s in this crate?’ Shen’ra asked as Numeon came to stand behind him.

‘A tracked weapons mount.’

Shen’ra straightened up and ran his hand over the barrel of the cannon contained within.

‘It’s a half-tracked, up-armoured, Rapier semi-automated heavy weapons platform with onboard targeting systems and power generators.’ He half glanced at Numeon over his shoulder. ‘This one carries a laser destroyer array. It is one of the single most devastating mobile weapons in the entire Legiones Astartes arsenal. We have it at our disposal, and you want me to leave it behind?’

The Techmarine turned to meet Numeon’s gaze, his armour’s servos growling in mechanised empathy with their wearer.

Shen’ra was a Nocturnean, native to the Sanctuary City of Themis. He was a giant; broad-shouldered and a head taller than Numeon. But the captain of the Pyre Guard was undaunted as he looked up at the Techmarine.

‘We’re striking camp. Anything larger than a bolter stays behind, and in no fit repair. Our enemies won’t be able to use our own weapons against us.’

‘Look around, Numeon.’ Shen’ra gestured to the vehicle yard.

Every warrior was being strapped up with grenade bandoliers, their belt pouches rammed with spare clips. They looked determined, well armed, but they were few, and a ragged few at that.

Shen’ra spoke in an undertone. ‘This is no Legion, and according to Pergellen that is what faces us.’

‘I know you’re not suggesting we abandon this world,’ said Numeon, his tone dangerous.

‘I’m insulted you’d even mention it,’ Shen’ra replied.

‘Apologies, Techmarine.’

‘I can have the Rapier assembled and armed in under thirteen minutes. Let me take it with us. The half-track can easily match our ground speed and we’ll need its killing power if we’re to have any chance of achieving our mission.’

‘Ranos is a labyrinth, Shen. What if it gets snared in wreckage? Speed it might have, but there are places we can go where a weapons mount cannot.’

‘Let that be my concern. If we have to leave it then so be it. I’ll wreck the weapon myself, and we’ll have lost nothing. What we scavenged from that drop-ship is all we have, Numeon.’

‘Each other, Shen, thatis all we have.’

‘Agreed,’ said the Techmarine. ‘All the more reason to bolster that with a track-mounted cannon.’

Numeon shook his head at Shen’ra. Between Leodrakk’s petulance and the Techmarine’s tenacity, he wondered which would get him killed first.

‘You have ten minutes,’ he said, and went to assist Domadus in coordinating the rest of the breakdown.

‘They are leaving,’ Dagon hissed over the vox.

Narek had the vehicle yard under surveillance through his scope. As suspected, remnants of the three Legions they had helped decimate on Isstvan V had been responsible for the deaths of four of his brothers.

A reinforced gate separated the vehicle yard from the street. It was roofless but walled. Beyond it there was an outer yard, a tarmac apron upon which traffic could be logged in and out. It too was walled, but peaked around waist height and crested by a wire mesh that wouldn’t stop an arrow, let alone a mass-reactive shell.

He’d just seen a Salamander slam through the gate. He looked unhappy.

‘Tempers are fraying,’ he muttered to himself, before answering Dagon, ‘Someone must have spotted us at the ambush site and guessed we’d follow.’ Narek remembered the cooling tower, and the sense of someone watching. Now he knew his instincts hadn’t been lying. Perhaps he was not as blunt as he first thought.

‘ Do we engage?’ Dagon asked.

‘Not yet. I’ll advance, get a closer look. You stay high and maintain overwatch.’

Narek reattached the scope to his rifle, slung it over his shoulder and began to move. Just before entering the street, he cast a quick glance at the smoke stack where Dagon was positioned far above him and then headed out.

Crouched low, Narek moved quickly and stuck to the shadows. The enemy might have sentries, or the one that had seen them earlier might be watching. Having gained a distance of two hundred metres up the street, he ducked into a side alley and from there a domicile, breaking in quietly through a back door.

There were bodies inside. Dried blood painted the walls, dark and shiny. The lights were out, smashed. Furniture was upturned. An elderly man and a young woman had been cut open. Viscera glistened in the ambient light flooding in from outside through a smashed window, the blinds designed to shroud it bent and broken.

A marking was described in the blood. The octed – a star with eight points.

Elias had ensured that the cults were well secreted until their calling came. Narek could see the look of surprise and horror still etched on the young woman’s face. The older man wore a death grimace. Heart attack, he presumed.

Staying low, Narek advanced to the broken window. Vantage was good. Nothing in the way of line of sight. He had an uninterrupted trajectory to the vehicle yard. Cover in the room was satisfactory too. He pulled over a section of the broken blind to further conceal his presence. Then he crouched on one knee, bracing the muzzle of his rifle on the window lip, and aimed down the scope. The errant Salamander slipped straight into his crosshairs.

He reopened the vox-link.

‘In position.’

‘ Orders?’

‘Four kills for four kills. Wait until they make egress out onto the street, then I’ll give the signal.’

‘ Confirmed.’

Dagon cut the link.

Now all they had to do was wait.

The shot, when it came, was muffled by the explosion from the det-cord.

At first it appeared as if the medic had slipped, but for the geyser of blood erupting from his ruined gorget.

The Salamander crumpled to his knees, gurgling and frothing through his vox-grille, the warrior nearest to him reaching for his comrade’s flailing arm and simultaneously alerting the others to the attack.

Grammaticus felt a strong pressure against his back as the psyker, Hriak, pushed him to the ground.

The assertion that time moved slowly during a crisis was actually true. It was the way that the brain managed to order and cope with the ensuing trauma, enabling the body to react as quickly as it could to protect itself from harm.

In the glacially slow seconds that elapsed between Grammaticus being upright and then taking stock of his new situation, several things happened at once.

Numeon shouted the order to grab cover, pointing to the low wall surrounding the tarmac apron where the company had assembled. A data-slate on which he’d been reviewing a secondary base location was mag-locked to his thigh plate, whilst the other hand reached for a sidearm holstered at his belt.

Domadus went into a brace position, slowly turning his heavy cannon so it faced outwards towards the street and the buildings beyond.

Pergellen had been on point with the Techmarine. Both stayed down, the former scanning the darkened city for suppressed muzzle flash; the latter putting his back against the wall and lighting up a control panel on his gauntlet. The two were exchanging curt responses but, deafened by the shouting and the strange, almost subterranean filter his brain was putting on his hearing, Grammaticus could discern none of it.

He hit the ground a fraction later than the shot Salamander. The legionary dropped hard, like a felled tree, spitting blood, a pool of which was expanding from the shattered artery in his neck.

‘ S-t-a-y… d-o-w-n…’

Hriak shouted at him, the pysker’s words slowed by sensory distortion.

As soon as he felt the earth beneath his hands and elbows, time resumed at its normal pace for Grammaticus.

‘Don’t move from here,’ said Hriak, drawing a weapon as he moved up to support his brothers. Grammaticus watched him, followed him all the way to the low wall where another Salamander was hunkered down.

The Salamander popped up, bolter flaring in an effort to provide covering fire. A second shot pinned him as he rose, jerking his aim and piercing his chest. He fell back, perforated and unmoving.

More shouting, this time from Numeon to Leodrakk, who was edging closer to the end of the wall, shaping like he was going to attempt a dash across the street into deeper cover and then seek out their attackers from there.

‘Hold!’ Numeon bellowed at him, his voice tinny and urgent through his vox-grille.

Domadus was still scanning, the concentric scoping rings in his bionic eye whirring as they focused and refocused on different targets.

The Salamanders medic was being dragged away by two other legionaries when a third shot came from the darkness. It pitched one of the Raven Guard over, spinning him with the force of entry, ripping a death shriek from his lips.

‘Stay down,’ called Hriak, putting out his hand, telling Grammaticus not to move.

‘No arguments from me,’ muttered Grammaticus, and threw himself flat.

‘Glint of metal. I see him, on the rooftop. Thirty degrees east. Range, eighty metres.’

Pergellen’s assessment came through Numeon’s vox.

There were seven metres between them, and Numeon saw the scout was dirtying up his scope, trying to hide the tells that had exposed the enemy sniper.

‘Difficult to get line of sight in this warren. We’ll come around, take his blind side.’

‘ Wait,’ warned Pergellen. He glanced at the three dead legionaries, now alone and bleeding out in the open. ‘ Trajectories suggest two firing positions.’

‘Two gunmen,’ Numeon replied grimly.

Pergellen nodded.

‘Permission to return fire,’ shouted Domadus. He was standing against a pillar just inside the vehicle apron, heavy bolter primed for auto-fire.

‘Negative. You’ll be cut down before you can engage the trigger.’

‘We can’t stay pinned like this,’ snapped Leodrakk, six metres from Numeon on the opposite end of the wall.

‘ I have the other one in my sights now,’ Pergellen returned, scope pressed against his eye. He relayed coordinates, turning again so his back was facing the wall, and began to prep his rifle.

Numeon peeked above cover to gauge the snipers’ relative positions but was forced back when a bolt shell clipped the wall.

Breathing hard, furious at their impotence to do anything, he opened up the vox.

‘Hriak.’

The Librarian shook his head. ‘ They’re too far away, and without a target I can see, there’s little I can actually do.’

Numeon snarled. ‘Damn it.’

He noticed Shen’ra working at the panel on his gauntlet, his haptic implants making the data connection between the Techmarine and his Rapier.

‘ Get me a precise vector for both targets,’ he voxed.

Leodrakk overheard and called to Pergellen.

‘If I draw them out, can you track them?’

The scout nodded, ditching the rifle but keeping the scope.

Realising what his brother was about to do, Numeon shouted, ‘Leo, no!’ and began to move just as Leodrakk stood up with bolter ready.

Grammaticus had his head down as instructed, facing the Techmarine and the scout.

He heard Numeon shout his brother’s name, felt the tremor of motion as both rose to their feet.

Two shots followed in rapid succession, a carbon copy of the ones that heralded the deaths of Varteh and Trio.

A half-second later, he read the following words on the Techmarine’s lips, ‘ Engage forty-seven point six by eighty-three. Strafe.’

The churn of servos activating cut the tension as the Techmarine’s tracked cannon cycled up. A burst of incandescent light from its weapon array was pre-empted by a hot flare of pain and the searing white magnesium flash that accompanied being shot.

Grammaticus knew he was hit even before he felt the blood seeping through his clothes, and the chill as his frail human body was torn open.

The cityscape erupted in a series of explosions as domiciles, manufactorums and other structures were ripped apart by the Rapier’s laser destroyer mount. Debris cascaded in chunks like heavy hail from shattered facades, ruptured pillars and thoroughly gutted interiors.

Emitting a high-pitched, staccato drone, the laser destroyer stabbed a continuous barrage of beams into the area designated by its operator. It didn’t stop until the Rapier powered off for emergency cool-down.

Dust clouds were still dissipating, the odd section of debris belatedly collapsing onto the street below by the time Numeon and the others surfaced from cover.

Helon, Uzak and Shaka were all dead, their bodies littering the apron outside the vehicle yard.

Domadus stomped forwards through the narrow gap between the outer wall sections. His bionic eye was still scanning, exothermic and motion detection.

‘There’s nothing out there. No visible threats.’

Pergellen agreed, snapping his scope back onto his rifle, but adopting overwatch all the same.

‘Keep eyes on, both of you,’ said Numeon, going over to help Leodrakk to his feet.

Numeon had tackled him to the ground when he’d tried to bait the shooters, sending them both sprawling.

Leodrakk had a mark down the flank of his battle-plate where something had scored a shallow groove into the metal.

‘Ricochet,’ he said, grunting as he got up with Numeon’s assistance. ‘Lucky.’

‘Luckier than them,’ said Numeon, and as he turned to gesture to their dead comrades he noticed the prone form of John Grammaticus.

The human was lying with his face to one side, clenched in a mask of pain. He clutched his side, his hand and most of his arm drenched in blood.

Numeon scowled, realising where the errant shell had deviated.

‘Damn it.’

Narek yanked Dagon clear of the rubble. It looked as if several storeys had collapsed on top of him whilst the sniper was making his escape.

‘I warned you not to linger,’ Narek told him, letting go so that Dagon could dust off his armour and cough the grit up out of his lungs. His helmet was wrecked, dented by a stone slab or a girder. Both retinal lenses were smashed, Dagon had a deep gash above his left eye where the impact had pushed inwards, and the vox-unit was in pieces. Taking a last look at the snarling, daemonic visage on the faceplate, Dagon discarded his helmet.

His true face, Narek decided as Dagon looked at him, was entirely more disturbing.

The brow, nose and cheekbones were raised, the skin in between sunken as if drawn in by age. It had a slightly coppery tinge, but not like metal – more like oil, and the colour changed subtly depending on how the light struck it. Most disturbing of all, though, were the two bony nubs either side of Dagon’s forehead. In their infancy right now, Narek knew they would only grow, the longer Dagon was in Elias’s presence.

Here, on Traoris, in Ranos, he felt the shifting of reality. It trembled, affecting him on an internal level, like maggots writhing beneath his skin.

Narek betrayed none of this to Dagon, who smiled, revealing two rows of tiny fangs instead of teeth.

‘Four kills, you said.’

Narek checked the load in his rifle before slinging it back over his armoured shoulder.

‘I counted a tally of three,’ he replied.

‘The human was caught by a stray.’

‘You should have killed the legionary as instructed.’

‘He shifted.’

‘Then compensate,’ said Narek, and headed out of the wreckage.

‘He was ripped open, brother. No human could survive his injuries. Four for four.’

‘No, Dagon. We scratched three. Even if the human dies, it’s blood for blood. Legionary for legionary.’

Dagon nodded and followed his mentor back through demolished streets.

‘We’ll be back for the fourth,’ Narek called over his shoulder. ‘And then we’ll take the rest.’