Lords of Blood, page 73
Ahead, the gold of the Sanguinor’s armour winked, drawing him further into the storm.
CHAPTER THREE
ESCAPE FROM RONENTI
‘For the love of the Emperor, keep firing!’ Chattay Ebasso led by example, loosing a couple of shots from his lascarbine at the fanatics pouring up the stairs towards them. He blew a fan of feathers from his eyes. The uprising had come so quick they’d been caught wearing their ceremonial uniforms. But they were safe, more or less. The steps swept down a knife-edge ridge towards the palace. There was no way up to the landing circle but those stairs. There was room for a firing line five wide on the top step. It was a good position to hold. The fanatics had few real weapons, only repurposed tools. A rivet gun would put a hole in a man’s head, but they lacked range and accuracy. The rebels got little further than lascarbine maximum range before they fell down dead, holes burned through them by the Shieldguard Gubernatorial. They wavered a bit, then came on again, pushed by the men and women behind, obligingly presenting the next line to be gunned down.
‘Ten men! That’s what I said I’d need to hold these stairs to General Than. Do me proud, boys, drive them back, make me right and not a liar!’ Ebasso’s voice was deep and musical. Women liked his voice. He liked women. If they asked, he’d sing for them. That was usually enough to get what he wanted. Looking at the ragtag army of masked insurgents climbing towards the landing platform, he thought it likely he’d never sing again. The landing was used for show and official occasions, so the populace could see their lord ascend to the stars when he must leave Ronenti. It wasn’t in the best of places to achieve orbit, but all things considered, Ebasso was glad it was there.
The rebels had set fire to the palace. Thin blue smoke was coming from the windows. Little licks of flame followed quickly. The fire was a surprise and spread fast, like the uprising.
‘Vox-man, give me status on aerial clearance!’ He had to shout loudly – the screaming of the worker horde drowned out even the snap of lasguns going off inches from his face.
His vox-operator was crouched back from the stair top, face screwed up in concentration. The whites of his eyes were slits in the dark skin of his face. Sele was a good soldier. Ebasso fervently hoped he’d live, and not solely because if he did, Ebasso himself would probably survive. He liked his men, and they liked him. He knew all their names, not like some officers, and they did what he said because they wanted to. Damn it if he hadn’t had a good career ahead of him, before the uprising surged out of nowhere and threatened to bring the war with the south to a shock conclusion.
‘Fourteen fliers inbound,’ Sele said. ‘Notification from Bandan Port air control. They can’t tell if they’re friendlies or not. Maybe a mix.’ He twisted the dial on the backpack set that he’d placed on the landing-pad decking. ‘They’re saying we should retreat, regroup there. Elements of the Third Army hold the perimeter. They say they’re safe.’
‘Fine words for people hiding behind high walls!’ Ebasso fired as he spoke. He kept the gun tight in to his cheek, even though the heat from repeated discharge was starting to burn his skin. ‘They haven’t seen this, and they’re sure to be the next target for the Djesseli dogs. We’re getting our lord off the planet. We’ve lost this war, I won’t lose him.’
He jerked his head back over his shoulder at the youth cowering behind the platform’s retractable shielding.
‘Aha! They are coming!’ Sele said. ‘Radiant Day is in contact. Estimated time until shuttle arrives, fifteen minutes or less.’
‘Thank the Emperor the enemy have no voidships. Your excellency!’ Ebasso shouted at the boy king. ‘Good news, eh?’
The governor’s response was drowned out by the howl of engines as the fourteen fliers roared down at them. Ebasso recognised the markings of the turncoat Sixth Tier squadrons. Not the best the Djesseli Combine had, but not the worst.
‘Incoming!’ screamed Rusto Divani. Another good man, one made dead in the next second.
The Sixth Tier squadron opened up, strafing up the stairs and catching many of their allies as they zeroed in on the Shieldguard’s position. Ebasso’s men dove in all directions to avoid the bullets. The lucky ones got behind the pad shields. The pieces of the unlucky ones were spread liberally about. The Sixth Tier roared overhead, close enough that he could count the teeth in the swamp tiger emblems on the wings. There were eight aircraft, a number that became unexpectedly seven as one of the Swamp Tigers came apart delicately in the air, like a paper lantern catching fire.
‘The others! The others, they’re ours!’ Sele said. ‘Ident codes confirm.’ A less experienced man would have smiled, but Sele was focused on his job. Ebasso took only the best for his command.
Five fighters loyal to the governor howled on the Swamp Tigers’ tails, lancing the air behind them with lascannon fire and lines of tracer bullets. Another of the rebels’ craft took a hit with a bang like a hammer striking a metal crate, and it peeled away trailing smoke and fire. The rest split and fled in all directions. Their pursuers divided up to chase them down.
The roar of the jets rumbled off over the hills to the north. There was still snow up there, undisturbed, pristine, untouched by the summer or by the war. Ebasso stared at it, momentarily lost in the gleam of white on dark rock, when renewed shouting from the horde drew his attention back to the earth.
Blood ran down the steps. Two of his warriors had been obliterated. Lucky, really, so few had died. But it made a lot of mess. Further down the blood flowed in a sticky river. The Swamp Tigers had carved a line of red into the horde, and many had died, more trampled by their fellows as they panicked and fled.
Ebasso wrinkled his nose at the stink of opened guts. It was shocking what an autocannon hit would do to a man. That was all he thought. He’d become inured to death a long time ago.
‘Sixth Tier aren’t any match for First Tier pilots,’ said Kole Nanda, as the aircraft vanished over the horizon, still duelling.
‘That’s true, but are we going to be any match for them?’ said Demeni Tarassi drily.
‘Sele! See if you can get them back, I don’t want to live this out only to get shot down before we make the Radiant Day.’
‘The rebels are picking themselves up. They’re coming again,’ said Huntu Ha. He knelt, unbothered by the bloody mess soaking into the feathers of his court uniform.
The horde were coming again; they were slow, they were unsure now, but it wouldn’t take them long to get their enthusiasm back. There were over a thousand of them against the seven Shieldguard Gubernatorial left. Ebasso’s men faced death with a lack of concern. They would go to the Emperor. This was a worthy end.
‘Fifteen minutes is all we need,’ Ebasso said.
While the horde wavered, his men cleaned off the focusing arrays of their guns and swapped out power packs. Their conversation was punctuated by hard snaps and businesslike clicks.
‘Can we kill that many, to hold them off for that long?’
‘I can, but you don’t shoot as fast as me, Demeni,’ said Nanda.
‘I hit more than you do.’
Fele Retass took up a lascarbine from one of the dead, made a half-hearted attempt to wipe the gore from it, and whistled sharply. ‘Hsst! Your excellency!’ he said.
Governor Jemmeni uncurled enough for Retass to toss him the gun. The governor caught it awkwardly.
‘Best use this, every shot is going to count.’ Retass said, with a dazzling smile. They were a handsome band, chosen for their looks as well as their ability.
‘I don’t know how!’ said the governor. He looked appalled by the blood getting onto his hands from the gun.
‘It’s easy, your excellency. Point it, squeeze the trigger. Light your target. Think of it like a stablight,’ said Retass.
‘Only a lot more stabby,’ said Nanda.
They grinned, all except Sele, who was pressing the earpiece of the vox-set so tightly against his ear it looked like he wanted to push it into his head, and the governor, who was too scared to do anything other than blink.
‘Twelve minutes,’ said Sele. ‘They’ve got a clear run. No other craft in the sky.’
‘Twelve minutes?’ Huntu Ha sucked air through his teeth. ‘It’s only three minutes since you told us fifteen?’
‘Excitement like this stretches time,’ said Ebasso. ‘Now still your tongues and look to your guns. They’re coming in again, and this time they mean it.’
Huntu Ha was the first to fire. Then they were all at it, silent with concentration, aware that each missed shot was another step closer for the enemy.
The twelve minutes were the longest of Ebasso’s life. The enemy rediscovered their fighting spirit. Slipping in the blood of their own and clambering over their corpses on the steep steps did not dishearten them, but seemed to give them strength, so that by the time they were a few hundred feet away, they were frothing with battle lust. His men fired and fired, but the weight of the horde pushed the rebels closer, until their makeshift weaponry was in range, and rivets and nails began to zing off the stone of the stairs. Huntu Ha swore colourfully as a nail buried itself in his thigh. Nanda fell with a soft moan as a rivet punched through his eye and into his brain. The horde came closer and closer. Ebasso measured time in charge count. The gun’s pack swiftly drained. He ejected it, and slapped in another, keeping the carbine aimed as he did, and firing the moment the gun’s simple spirit sang out acceptance of the battery. The horde tumbled down, their bodies bouncing off both sides of the ridge. The Shieldguard prioritised those wielding ranged weapons. A few of them had actual guns. These died first.
The thin scream of aircraft engines came as the horde were within striking distance.
‘They’re here!’ Sele shouted.
A burst of heavy bolter fire followed his announcement, driving back the horde. Bodies exploded into nothing. Jetwash buffeted them all. Retass was furthest forward. He was the first to fight hand to hand, fending off a length of spiked pipe with the butt of his gun and bayoneting the bearer in the throat.
The lighter’s engines roared. Heat curled the feathers of Ebasso’s cloak. Voices shouted through the engine howl. The horde pushed forward. Huntu Ha fell. Chiki Natassa was suddenly fending off three at once. The steps were narrow, but the crowd had weight, and they pushed the Shieldguard back.
Behind him, Ebasso heard landing claws connect with rockcrete.
‘Now,’ he shouted. He loosed a final shot, burning off a man’s face, mask and all, grabbed one of Governor Jemmeni’s arms and hauled him up. It didn’t look like he’d fired his gun.
Aircrew reached for the governor and yanked him through the open slide door of the lighter. Rivets and nails clattered off the side of the ship. Ebasso followed. He stood on the deck and looked out. He didn’t feel much safer there.
‘Men! Men! Get aboard! Now, now!’
Sele made sure to grab his vox-set and shove it into the transit bay before he got on himself. The rest were swamped by an enemy who had recently been friends. Ebasso wondered if his neighbours, even his family, were out there in the seething crowd. He could not see. Hidden by masks and bloody robes they all looked the same, and they all shouted the same thing:
‘The Emperor protects!’
‘We’ve got to go! We’ve got to go now!’ the flight officer shouted, his voice grinding out of a vox amplifier.
Only two of the Shieldguard were left outside the lighter. One turned back to look at Ebasso, and there was resignation on his face as he vanished under a swarm of flashing knives. Hands reached for the ship. Men tried to pull themselves in. Ebasso shot people that were so close he could have embraced them. They fell shrieking. He stamped on hands. He bludgeoned with his gun butt.
‘Up! Up! Up!’ called the flight officer.
The heavy door slammed, taking fingers off. The engines roared. The crowd’s voices were cut dead by plasteel walls.
None too gently, the ship jerked up into the air, nails, rivets and bullets rattling from its sides like rain.
‘You’re hit,’ said Jemmeni. He had to shout. The lighter crew were wearing vox-sets against the engine noise. The ship was a utilitarian model, without even the comfort of acoustic baffling.
Ebasso looked at his shoulder. A nail head pinned his feather cloak to his flesh. He pulled it out. After that it began to hurt. Ebasso threw the nail on the floor. He glimpsed the governor’s gun. Full charge lights, full shot count.
He looked away, out of the small door portal. Thick, scratched glassite afforded a poor view, but it was enough to see they’d done the right thing in fleeing. The lighter tilted, showing him the blazing palace and the city. More fires had been set in the streets. The horizon glowed with greater conflagrations. The rumours said the Djesseli were burning all the cities they captured. Ebasso had seen the intelligence reports. The rumours were wrong; what was happening was far worse.
They passed the cloud layer. The ground vanished. They were going up rapidly. Acceleration weight crushed at him. He slid down the door into a sit before the black of space showed itself at the edge of Ronenti’s sky.
‘What do we do now?’ Jemmeni said.
‘We do what your father would have done,’ said Ebasso. Jemmeni shrank back from his glower. Ebasso regretted his anger. Jemmeni was a boy still, not yet grown into power.
‘I don’t know what he would do!’ said Jemmeni. ‘Please tell me!’
Engine roar diminished. The ship vaulted out of Ronenti’s gravity well into the heavens.
‘We go to Baal,’ said Ebasso, more gently. ‘We shall seek out Commander Dante. If we can survive the trip, we shall ask his counsel.’
Jemmeni nodded, still terrified. ‘Baal. Dante,’ he said. ‘Yes, yes, the Blood Angels.’
CHAPTER FOUR
WARPFALL
Juvenel waited by the shipmaster’s quarters where the admiral resided. Four iron skulls stared at him with sapphire eyes. Two armsmen stood at attention either side of the doors. Their energy pikes glimmered with active power fields. The pistol grips of their shotguns protruded from the holsters upon their backs. Reflective void visors hid their faces. He could have snuck in the back way, up through the maintenance shafts and past the admiral’s private salvator pod bay. That wasn’t the done thing.
‘Did the admiral receive announcement of my arrival?’ he asked of the machine lurking behind the blue eyes of the skulls.
‘I have waited for four minutes.’
‘He is in there, isn’t he?’ Juvenel asked one of the guards.
‘I have not seen the admiral leave his quarters since his arrival shortly after watch change, sir,’ the man said.
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘Nothing, flag-lieutenant,’ said the man.
‘How did he look?’
The sentry didn’t reply immediately. ‘Preoccupied, sir.’
‘Then he didn’t ask not to be disturbed.’
‘No, sir.’
‘In that case…’ Juvenel cleared his throat. ‘Override code number three-three-nine, Flag-Lieutenant Juvenel, Arran, ident number 78899021-12, first officer Imperial battleship Dominance.’
‘Then open the way,’ said Juvenel.
Locks disengaged within the doors. They slid back, revealing an unlit hall.
‘Stay alert, men,’ Juvenel said sarcastically. ‘The admiral may need you to protect him from my concern.’
He passed inside. His boots thumped on rugs whose patterns were meaningless in the gloom. The high chandeliers were unlit. A few electro-flambeaux showed the way. Juvenel strode on.
Soft footsteps padded out of a side door hidden behind a statue.
‘First officer?’ The admiral’s steward hurried after him. ‘What are you doing here? How may I assist you?’
Juvenel turned briskly on the spot. ‘I’ve come to pay respects to the admiral.’ He smiled at the man pleasantly. Steward Fresne was a small, gentle-looking fellow in feminine robes, but he was anything but soft. He had a network of spies throughout the fleet, and an uncompromising attitude to business. ‘I am sure you already knew that.’
Fresne neither denied nor confirmed, but left Juvenel to guess. ‘You are concerned about our lord?’
‘I am,’ said Juvenel.
Fresne nodded. ‘Come with me,’ said the steward. The pair of them continued on together. ‘If I was not also worried for him, there is no way I would let you in here without his permission. I did not see you, is that clear?’
‘Understood.’
They stopped before a tall door. A pair of giants stood on plinths either side, weighed down by voidships carried on their backs. A huge brass aquila hung from chains between them.
‘“Carried on the backs of mortal men,” that’s how the fleet motto goes.’ Juvenel frowned. ‘A ship’s keel may break, so might a man’s spirit. Then who carries the burden?’
‘I have come to find the motto ironic,’ said Fresne. ‘Lord Danakan has not been himself for some months. The combat at Teleope took its toll. Were it not for your support, flag-lieutenant, I fear the mask would crack.’
‘It is not my role to protect the admiral, but I will help him. The man’s a hero. There are few men I admire. I admire him. Or I did.’ Juvenel looked up at the door. ‘I will do what I can.’
‘He is inside. Please, if you can, help him. If news of his condition reaches the wrong ears…’
‘I might be the wrong ears, Fresne,’ said Juvenel. ‘I have a lot to gain if he loses his nerve. Lord Dante risked much to bring us out of the Tardin Sector. We would have been stranded forever if the Blood Angels hadn’t received our astropathic distress call. It’s a miracle they came at all. Dante needs these ships for his new fleet. He’ll need a competent commander. The admiral’s losing his mind. I’d say I was fairly high up the list for Danakan’s replacement.’
