The Relentless Dead, page 23
‘I no longer recognise Petrakov’s orders as lawful. I find his judgement suspect.’
‘On what basis? Merely that he disagrees with you? You are the one whose judgement is impaired. Perhaps you have become possessed.’
In response, Graven voiced the Emperor’s Prayer. Serafina looked perplexed at first, then angry. As he reached the part about the begetting of daemons, she screamed at him, ‘Be silent!’ Ignoring her, he continued to the end.
‘It proves nothing,’ grumbled the scowling, brawny Sister who stood, brandishing a chainsword, by the Sister Superior’s side.
‘I have evidence and reason,’ said Graven, ‘to believe that witches hide within this structure.’
‘Impossible!’ Serafina spat. ‘I reject your “evidence and reason”. What is either, compared to our faith?’
‘Sister Superior, I would not take these steps if my faith weren’t equally strong. I believe the threat, if not soon obviated, may reach beyond Oleris.’
‘Precisely why the Emperor requires you, Colonel Graven, to hunt these witches down through the ossuary tunnels and break them on the anvil of His vengeance. Repledge yourself to this duty, turn around, and your transgression here tonight may be forgotten.’
‘Then we have a difference of opinion, simply settled by a search of the mausoleum.’ Graven drew in a breath before adding, ‘And the crypt beneath it.’
From the Battle Sisters’ scandalised reactions, he may as well have cursed the Emperor Himself. The chainsword-wielder started up her weapon and, pumping its throttle, made it roar. The Sister Superior’s raised hand stayed her. She warned Graven, ‘One step forward and you prove yourself a traitor.’
Implacably, he stated, ‘No Krieg will raise arms against the Adepta Sororitas – but in self-defence.’
The time for words was all but done. He wished he knew how the Korpsmen at his back were reacting to all they had heard. Unlike the Sisters, they kept their feelings cloaked. They will follow me, he told himself. I have faith in them.
He continued, ‘I intend to make that search.’
‘One. Step. Forward,’ Serafina hissed, drawing her boltgun.
‘On my mark,’ he commanded, ‘we break down the mausoleum gates. Allow no one to obstruct you. That said, harm the Sisters of Battle only as much as you must. They remain faithful servants of the Emperor, who have merely lost sight of His way.’
Serafina’s nostrils flared. She raised her gun.
‘Sister Superior,’ said Graven, ‘out of respect for you and your exalted position, I must ask you a final time to step aside.’
‘My position has been stated clearly,’ she said, ‘as has yours. Your orders have been given. Why hesitate to put them into practice? Unless, deep in your heart, you doubt yourself?’
Her question could hardly have been more ironically timed. From around the back of the mausoleum came the distinctive whoomph of a krak grenade implosion and a shattering of stone. The Sisters meant to be on guard there, who had turned their backs, whirled, horror-struck, and raced towards the sound.
Graven responded as quickly, if not more so, to a cue he had expected. Engaging an instant before his throat, his feet propelled him forwards, his fingers flying to his sword hilt.
‘Charge!’ he yelled.
The krak grenade had blasted through the mausoleum wall.
Before the dust had settled, the building’s vengeful-looking guardians appeared, two from one side, one from the other. They would certainly have captured any would-be intruder attempting to squeeze through the hole – which was why none had tried.
Krieg Korpsman 319-938-25549-04 – the former engineer – had attached the explosive and primed it, before racing its fuse back to cover.
‘Defilers! Cowards! Show yourselves!’ a Battle Sister screamed.
The engineer peered around a corner of an ostentatious tomb. By chance he caught a Sister’s eye, and with lightning reflexes she unloaded her weapon in his direction. Her bolts blew a chunk out of the tomb’s elaborate stonework as the engineer hurriedly withdrew.
So, it’s true, he thought. The Sisters of Battle stand against us. He hadn’t quite been able to believe it until now, but hearing the bark of his watchmaster’s bolt pistol and the answering fire of larger boltguns made it certain.
The engineer shouldered his own weapon, palms sweating into his gloves. He edged back up to the corner. The three Sisters had converged to barricade the mausoleum’s breach with their own bodies. Their black power armour would easily shrug off shotgun shells. Their raised bolters likewise protected their faces. Just as well he had no wish to hurt them.
Colonel Graven had sent three members of his squad to circle the Grand Mausoleum, threading their way between the tombs to approach it from the rear. He had briefed them out of earshot of the rest – and with good reason, as the engineer had realised.
Never had he questioned orders, even privately, but these orders had unsettled him. He was thankful for his watchmaster’s reassurance. ‘Do either of you have a problem with our mission?’ he had asked, as the trio had parted from their colonel. ‘Speak now if you do.’ The engineer had answered that as long as the watchmaster didn’t, then why would he?
Now, however, with a Sister in his sights, his trigger finger froze.
He gritted his teeth, reminding himself that doubt only served the spectres. It was almost inconceivable that these holy warriors worked against the Emperor, but his colonel? Even more so. Still, the engineer adjusted his aim a fraction. When he fired, it wasn’t at black armour, rather at the wall behind it.
His slugs were joined by las beams from two more directions. The Sisters weathered the assault, unflinching, and their bolters barked again, forcing him back into cover. He heard a short, muttered conversation, and when he looked again, one Sister had planted her feet in the mud, the others striding out towards the tombs – one of them heading straight towards him.
The engineer ran, but not far. He waited at the back corner of another tomb. The Sister rounded his old corner without pretence of caution. Her fearsome visage bearing down on him, this time he aimed for the chest, but his shotgun failed to fire. Guns often jam, he told himself. It isn’t – it can’t be – a sign.
He ran again, ahead of the inevitable bolts. He took three turns at random, at full pelt. His pursuer could easily outrun him, unless he used these narrow thoroughfares to his advantage. Earning a moment’s respite, he rattled his shotgun’s magazine and worked its action. In desperation, he slammed its butt into the ground, risking its detonation in his face.
The live round popped out of his barrel, to the engineer’s relief – even as the Sister reappeared behind him.
‘You will beg for the Emperor’s forgiveness before He lets you die!’ she roared.
Don’t let her feed your doubts!
He plunged into a dark passageway, not very long. He wished he’d had time to check it first, because he found its far end blocked. A zombie in front of him, a vengeful Battle Sister to the rear. His eyes lit upon a rotten wooden door, which he shouldered off its hinges. It led into a maintenance shed, about six feet across. The engineer stumbled over buckets and shovels. He had taken the only chance he had, but now was well and truly cornered.
He could only pray that – Yes! – the zombie and the Sister had clapped eyes on each other. The latter was shooting at the former, screaming at it, ‘Fall, you abomination, the Emperor commands it!’
The engineer hid behind the door as the zombie shambled past the shed, jerking as each bolt round ripped through its body. He waited two more seconds before leaping out behind it and resuming his headlong run. At the passageway’s end, he stopped and turned in case the Sister required his assistance.
She didn’t, of course. The zombie, having almost closed with her, collapsed spitting at her feet. Recoiling in disgust, still she maintained the presence of mind to loose off a shot past it. A bolt grazed the engineer’s left shoulder, tearing armour, and he ran again.
Long campaigns underground having honed his directional sense, he knew he was heading back towards the mausoleum. As planned. That would give the Battle Sister little option but to keep after him. He didn’t know how long he could elude her grasp, but for as long as he did – one Korpsman tying up one Battle Sister, and hopefully his two comrades doing likewise – he could make a difference.
The watchmaster’s team had served its purpose, luring three guards away from the mausoleum gates. The odds were now sixteen to seven in the Krieg’s favour. Two Korpsmen to each Sister – two to spare.
Graven had made straight for the Sister Superior. He had never reached her, nor had he expected to. The krak grenade’s detonation had provided a distraction, but it was one from which the Sisters had swiftly recovered. As the leader, most deadly and foremost of their foes, he had naturally drawn their fire.
He had thrown himself onto his stomach in the mud, bolts whistling over his head. Fifteen pairs of boots had thundered past his ears. For a second, despite himself, he had thought they might not.
He sprang back to his feet, advanced again. His Korpsmen had closed with the Sisters, silencing their guns. In fact, the Sisters had turned their guns around to use as cudgels, with which they were brutally effective. The Krieg, as instructed, fought defensively but were outclassed by their power-armoured foes. Two lay unmoving in the mud, shot down on their approach. The rest were being beaten like sandbags in training, their opponents’ frustration growing as they weathered rains of blows with stubborn pride. Still, the battle wouldn’t last long at this rate. It was up to Graven to see that it too served its purpose.
He set his sights on the gates.
A cloaked figure reared up in his path. One with a chainsword. Serafina’s constant companion had kept herself clear of the melee – waiting for him. Mechanical teeth gnashed at and barely missed his stomach.
Graven swiped back with his sword, trailing blue light in its wake. The Sister had been overconfident and he sliced into her breastplate. She swung for his neck, the blow deflected by his shoulder plate. My weapon is superior – and lighter, offsetting her greater strength – but Emperor, she’s fast!
Her next attack, he parried. He felt its force jolting through his bones, but struck sparks off her blade, which shrieked indignantly. A second such clash made it sputter, spitting oil. Ducking under it, Graven tackled his opponent round the midriff. She gave two steps but braced herself.
She drove her pommel, two-handed, down into his helmet, making his head ring, loosening his grip on her. He reeled back, trying not to fall, as she thrust for his heart, her chainsword chewing at carapace armour but choking. Smoke spewed from its motor. In the second it took to cast aside the useless weapon and draw a bolter, Graven’s sword cut through his foe’s gauntlet, into flesh. The pain made even this stalwart Sister gasp, her gun dropping from numbed fingers.
He feinted, and, dodging his anticipated blow, she provided him an opening. He took it, but was thwarted by her speed again. The Sister leapt on his back, hooking his throat with a brawny arm and choking him. He couldn’t shake her off. His eyes teared, and through a misty veil the Grand Mausoleum filled his vision, its gilded holy symbols scornful of him.
Suddenly, Emperor be praised, a wiry black figure mounted the steps beneath those very symbols. Graven heard an anguished cry – Serafina? – as a Korpsman clamped a magnetic krak grenade to wrought iron. He was cut down by a fusillade of bolt rounds, but he had done enough.
Dealing with him had split the Battle Sisters’ focus, and the previously under-pressure Krieg were able to regroup and gain ground. Meanwhile, a pair of Sisters detached themselves from the melee altogether. Racing across the forecourt, up the steps, they trampled the triumphant Korpsman’s bloodied corpse.
The first to reach the gates tried to pry the grenade from them, but it blew as her fingers brushed it. Its shaped charge hurled her into her sister behind her, but shattered the great gates’ bolts and hinges.
One of us still must make it through them!
Graven stabbed blindly over his shoulder with his sword, praying that he could discourage the Sister on his back without killing her. Better one life lost than many. Any Korpsman would make that calculation. But this life would weigh especially heavy on his conscience. One more for my nightmares. He heard his attacker’s grunt of pain, smelled burning flesh, felt her grip on him loosening. Managing to shrug her off, at last, he didn’t pause to look back.
A running jump carried him over the low, railed wall into the mausoleum’s forecourt, which already heaved with combatants. Under Serafina’s barked orders, Battle Sisters were trying to regroup on the steps, obstructed by their remorseless opponents. Spying a Sister duelling with a losing Korpsman, Graven struck her from behind, slicing through robes and armour, withdrawing as she rounded on him, allowing his comrade to recover his footing and his breath.
He focused on the gates again, the sundered gates, but could see no way to them. ‘Squad Delta Four,’ he commanded, ‘remember, the rear wall is also breached, and only three Battle Sisters guard it.’
That caused an immediate disruption to the melee’s ebbs and flows. Several Sisters backed up to the building’s corners. ‘No traitor must pass you!’ Serafina bellowed, fending off three opponents simultaneously.
They had fallen for the feint. The Krieg surged into the spaces thus abandoned, continuing their press forwards. Now there were Korpsmen on the steps themselves, with only the Sister Superior and one other in their way.
There was no Squad Delta Four.
Graven hung back, awaiting his moment, which came soon enough. Serafina stumbled under the weight of increasing opponents – one the lieutenant commanding the other Krieg squad. A Sister came at Graven from his left, but a swipe of his energy-wreathed blade fended her off.
And he was running. Taking the broad stone steps three at a time. Sparing not a glance for the fighting, the carnage around him. Dimly aware of warning shrieks and a single hand clutching at his greatcoat, quickly wrenched from him. He only had eyes for his goal, the broken gates and the aperture between them.
His last, his only chance to save a world.
‘Faster!’ yelled Petrakov, fully aware that his driver was giving him all the speed he could.
His Salamander bounced over rough tracks towards the mausoleum’s shining spires. He had been woken by news of the zombie outbreak there. He had thought he had more time. My Firstborn are controlling the situation, he insisted to himself. For now, at least, the Krieg are fighting with them. Still, he couldn’t calm the grumbling dread in the pit of his stomach.
The Salamander’s vox-set flared to life, its incoming message relayed to the micro-bead cradling his cheek beneath his fur hat’s earflaps. A nervous-sounding aide to the Adepta Sororitas announced the very news that the colonel had prayed not to hear. The news he had expected since Graven had been sighted en route to the mausoleum too.
Operating the micro-bead with his tongue, he addressed every Vostroyan soldier within range. ‘The Krieg have been corrupted and lay siege to the sacred shrine. Its defence is your highest priority. Any Korpsman standing in your way is now your foe. Their commander, Colonel Graven, is a traitor to be shot on sight.’
Sergeant Batu heard the news from a Vostroyan captain – one already training his laspistol upon a Krieg watchmaster.
The watchmaster’s squad had also snapped up their weapons, aimed at the captain. His Guardsmen’s finely crafted lasguns were trained on them in turn. The standoff was one nervous twitch away from escalating into slaughter.
‘I repeat,’ intoned the officer as Batu and her mounted squad arrived on the scene, ‘by order of Colonel Petrakov, commander-in-chief of this world’s Imperial forces, lay down your arms.’
‘Sir, what is going on here?’
‘Mutiny, sergeant! This soldier refuses to obey a lawfully given order.’
‘Captain, I have cause to suspect you may be under the influence of spectres,’ said the Krieg watchmaster. ‘Therefore, your orders are invalid.’
‘Sergeant,’ the Vostroyan captain snapped, ‘you know your duty.’
‘This Vostroyan pulled his weapon on an ally.’
‘Sergeant, execute this traitor!’
Uncertainly, Batu drew her lasgun from its sling beside her saddle.
The watchmaster challenged the captain: ‘Pray with me. Adore the immortal Emperor…’ His Korpsmen joined in the recitation. The captain’s nostrils flared, but first he and then the rest of his squad joined in too.
Just minutes ago, they had been fighting together. The Attilans had ridden down dozens of zombies in the fields, while the Krieg with their flamer had held the necropolis’ northern perimeter against them. Just as the flamer had run dry, the arrival of a Vostroyan Chimera with its bolters and in-built lasgun arrays had been extremely welcome.
At some point, mercifully, the earth’s trembling had ceased. The waves of zombies had stopped coming. The other Attilan squad was still out there, dealing with their remnants. Most of the Krieg, Batu only now realised, had melted away between the tombs, only this squad remaining. No cause for suspicion if they calculated that they could be more use elsewhere.
Ten Vostroyans had leapt from their transport – to help with the mop-up, she had assumed at first, but they had had something else in mind, surrounding their supposed allies.
The prayer was almost done, and no one had stumbled. Batu wasn’t sure if she ought to be relieved. The captain’s eyes told her he wouldn’t back down. She had a decision to make. Which of these allies did she trust?
She had heard of Vostroyans possessed, but not of Krieg – which didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. ‘Not so different from us, once you get to know them,’ she had said herself, mere hours ago, and hadn’t her colonel sent her here to watch the Krieg, or so she had inferred? Not to mention the Vostroyan captain’s rank and the fact that he had given her an order.
