Cain's Last Stand, page 25
For a moment I thought they might argue, but they complied straight away, disappearing through the gap into the darkness beyond. I followed, not needing to look to be certain that Jurgen was hard on my heels, and glanced back into the room. Enough light fell through the portal to illuminate the closing mechanism, which my aide triggered with the butt of his melta, keeping the weapon aimed through the narrowing gap as it started to swing shut behind us.
The last sight I had of the room beyond was Donal and Trevellyan levelling their weapons, and shadows moving in the doorway beyond them, too bulky to be anything other than what I’d feared. Then the hidden panel thudded into place, and darkness swallowed us completely.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Fortunately, as I’d expected, Jurgen had a luminator somewhere about his person, and a moment later, to my pleased surprise, Kayla produced another one from the pocket of her greatcoat, enabling us to get our first clear view of our surroundings. The hidden room adjacent to the Governor’s chambers turned out to contain nothing but a spiral staircase, to my vast relief too narrow for anyone in power armour to negotiate, which descended vertically for a dozen metres or so, before opening out into a passageway just wide enough for us to hurry along in single file, our shoulders almost brushing the walls, and our footsteps echoing from the bare brick hemming us in.
Jurgen led the way at a rapid trot, the luminator he’d found among his profusion of webbing pouches attached to the bayonet lugs of his lasgun, and the butt of the hastily-shouldered melta thudding rhythmically against the crumbling masonry. Every time it struck the wall, a cloud of dust and powdered brickwork stung my eyes and scratched the back of my throat; clearly the Governor hadn’t been exaggerating about the length of time that had passed since the passageway had last been used. I followed hard on my aide’s heels, then Kayla, with Nelys bringing up the rear, the bulk of his body obscuring the lights we carried from any pursuers behind us. I strained my ears for any indication that the wall panel had been breached, but either Donal and the Governor were managing to hold off the enemy for longer than I’d expected, or the hidden portal had been strongly reinforced against just such a contingency as this.
After a few minutes we entered the undercity proper, a warren of service ducts, sewage tunnels, and built-over cellars from long-forgotten structures, which felt reassuringly like the lower hive levels I’d played in as a child. Once or twice we even found ourselves running along recognisable streets, the porticos of ancient buildings, now metres below the dwellings of their builders’ descendants, crumbling around us.
‘I never knew there was anything like this down here,’ Kayla said, a tinge of awe entering her voice as she swept the beam of her luminator along the entablature of a sagging chapel, from which the dust-shrouded image of Him on Earth glowered down at us, as though cranky about being disturbed. Nelys bowed his head and made the sign of the aquila as we passed, but the rest of us just kept going as quickly as possible. I still hadn’t heard any signs of pursuit, just the usual scufflings of rodents and the occasional human outcast, both equally startled and keen to avoid a group of people carrying weapons with evident purpose, but that didn’t mean Varan hadn’t dispatched a search party after us; just that they hadn’t caught up yet.
‘You’ll find something like it under most Imperial cities,’ I told her, more to keep my mind off the worrying possibility of potential pursuit than anything else, but if it gave her and Nelys something to think about other than the loss of Donal and Briel that would be no bad thing. At least her curiosity about the unfamiliar environment was an encouraging sign that she was staying focussed. ‘As they grow and develop over the millennia, the lower levels get built on and forgotten about. Some of the places I’ve been have undercities more than a kilometre thick.’
‘It’s amazing to think no one ever goes down there,’ Nelys said.
‘But they do,’ I told him. ‘You’ll find tech-priests and maintenance workers in the upper levels, of course, looking after the infrastructure of the city, and all sorts of lowlifes too: gangers, illegal gambling dens, crims on the run, anyone whose business is better carried on out of sight. Below that, you come to the deep levels, where things get really bad. That’s where you’ll find the mutants and heretic cults, fugitive psykers, and worse.’
‘What could be worse than that?’ Kayla asked, and I silently reproved myself for spooking her any more than she already was. Pushing away the sudden mental image of blank-faced metal killers, I shrugged.
‘Plenty. But I doubt you’ll find anything like that below Havendown, even at the bottom levels.’ I tried to make my voice as reassuring as I could. ‘Besides, I grew up in the deeps of my old hive before the schola took me in, down near the sump, and I survived. Got off-world, too, which is more than most tunnel rats can say.’ I injected a note of slightly forced levity into my tone. ‘This is all quite homely, really.’ Then I broke off, suddenly aware of a change in the echoes around us. ‘Down here, and douse the lights.’
I led the way into a narrow cleft between two slabs of fallen rockcrete, which a faint draught had already informed me concealed a wider space behind, and the others followed at once, Jurgen and Kayla clicking off their luminators with commendable promptness. In the sudden darkness I heard the faint susurration of sliding fabric as Jurgen unslung his melta, holding it ready for use, and I drew my laspistol.
‘What is it?’ Nelys whispered, then subsided as Kayla elbowed him in the ribs.
Even if I could have answered him, there was no need to; a faint glow was approaching, accompanied by a scuffling of footfalls, which sounded somehow wrong, as though the legs they were attached to weren’t working properly, which in many cases they weren’t. As the crowd came into view, both cadets gasped, audibly, but fortunately not loudly enough to give away our positions. Many of the individuals comprising it looked like people, more or less, but others didn’t, too hideously deformed to even bother trying to conceal the way their flesh had revolted. Some carried weapons, a few firearms visible in the baleful glow that illuminated their progress, but most carried far cruder armaments; crossbows fashioned from scavenged fragments of metal and wood, serrated blades, and heavy clubs.
All told, they didn’t look like much, and I had no doubt that we could have slaughtered the lot of them with little difficulty if we’d been so inclined, but I refrained from ordering the others to open fire. For one thing, if Varan really had dispatched a kill team after us, the gunfire would draw them to our position like flies to Jurgen on a warm summer morning, and, for another, there was that eerie blue glow lighting their way. It had no visible source, hovering over their heads as they shuffled along, and the only explanation I could think of for that was the obvious one; somewhere among the crowd of abominations was a psyker, with Emperor alone knew what other abilities. Of course, whatever they were, Jurgen would neutralise them, of that I had no doubt, but it would only take one mutant to escape and report what had happened to the enemy for Varan to know that there was a blank at large somewhere on Perlia, and the longer I could keep that particular Emperor up my sleeve, the better I liked it. If the warmaster was really as reliant on psykers as I’d deduced, Jurgen’s peculiar ability could turn out to be crucial. (In this I was right, but in a manner I couldn’t possibly have predicted at the time.)
So we stayed put, hardly daring to breathe (which in a confined space with Jurgen was an activity best kept to a minimum in any case), while the eldritch glow and the arrhythmic shuffling faded away into the distance.
‘I thought you said the mutants were confined to the lower levels,’ Nelys said, in a faintly aggrieved tone, and I nodded, having determined that it was safe to kindle the luminators again.
‘They usually are,’ I said, grimly. ‘They must have heard about the invasion, and come up to join in the fun.’
‘Then we need to get that information to Commander Rorkins as soon as possible,’ Nelys said, and I nodded again.
‘My thoughts exactly. So let’s get on with it.’
Despite my obvious anxiety about the matter, we didn’t encounter any more warbands, emerging from the undercity on the outskirts of Havendown towards the end of the afternoon. Without the voxes in the Salamanders to relay a message, our comm-beads didn’t have anything like enough range to get through to the schola, so we ended up commandeering a truck from an understandably nervous PDF squad who’d been left to man a roadblock the previous day, and who’d received no new orders since Rytepat was destroyed. Under the circumstances I told them that they might as well stand down, and go to ground in preparation for the guerrilla stage of the war, which I was certain was about to start; perhaps that saved their lives, or perhaps not, but as I never saw any of them again, I have no idea how they fared[75].
The drive back was as uneventful as a trip with Jurgen at the wheel was ever likely to be, and as we approached Salubria Parva, and I caught my first glimpse of the schola standing proudly on the slopes above the rooftops of the village, I found myself beginning to hope that the worst was behind us. But in that, of course, I was woefully over-optimistic.
‘You took your time,’ Rorkins greeted me, as I entered the command post. I’d filled him in on the results of our attempt to rescue the Governor as soon as we’d got within vox range, so there was no need to go through it all again. Instead I shrugged, affecting nonchalance for the benefit of anyone who might be watching.
‘We ran into a little hitch,’ I said. ‘As I’ve already explained.’
‘Well, your friend the Governor’s been making a lot of trouble for a dead man while you’ve been out enjoying the scenery,’ Rorkins said shortly. ‘You should have finished him off yourself while you had the chance.’
‘Excuse me?’ I asked, feeling the old, unpleasant sensation of events beginning to spiral out of control again. Julien glanced up from the other side of the hololith, and grinned at me sympathetically.
‘Things have moved on a bit since your last message,’ she said. That had been barely half an hour before, and I’d hurried straight to the command post as soon as Jurgen had parked the lorry we’d taken from the PDF troops. There had hardly been time for Varan to mount another major attack anywhere, but I couldn’t think of anything else that would have left Rorkins so obviously out of sorts. ‘This came in about five minutes ago.’ While I was still on my way up from the vehicle pool, in other words. That went some way towards explaining the colonel’s mood; the shock of whatever it was hadn’t had time to wear off yet.
‘What did?’ I asked, but even before I’d finished speaking, the Celestian had activated the hololith. Trevellyan’s face appeared, looking almost as gaunt as the last time I’d seen him, and I felt as though I’d been kicked hard in the stomach. Varan must have got a medicae to him in the nick of time, and there was only one reason why he would have bothered to do that.
Sure enough, when the Governor spoke, it was to confirm my worst fears. ‘Citizens of Perlia,’ he began, ‘I speak to all of you, in the hope of preventing further unnecessary bloodshed. The forces of liberation recently arrived on our world are not our enemies, despite the lies and propaganda you’ve been fed to foster that impression. They bring freedom to all of you willing to embrace it; freedom from the stifling rule of the Imperium, which crushes any flowering of individual talent under the dull grey mantle of conformity, and which ripped so many of our loved ones from our embrace to feed the insatiable maw of the tyranid juggernaut. Lay down your arms, and welcome our new friends, so that together we can go forward into a new and more glorious age.’
‘Treasonous bastard,’ Rorkins said, his jaw clenching. Trevellyan was still mouthing off, and I gestured to Julien to cut the recording; I’d seen and heard more than enough.
‘That’s on every pict and vox channel they can reach,’ she said. ‘Our tech-priest friends are jamming it wherever they can, of course, but it’s still getting through.’
‘Of course,’ I echoed, still trying to take in the magnitude of this reversal. ‘I’ll make a broadcast myself, denouncing him as a traitor. I’ve still got my reputation as the Liberator to trade on; a lot of Perlians will respect that.’ However hollow it was in actuality.
‘Worth a try,’ Rorkins said. ‘Record something as soon as you can, and we’ll get Visiter to transmit it from space. They’re controlling most of the civilian vox and pict nets, but we should be able to bypass them with an orbital relay.’
‘Better find that niece of his as well,’ I added as an afterthought. ‘Get her sworn in as the new Governor, and we’ll undermine whatever’s left of Trevellyan’s authority.’ Most Perlians would feel a sense of allegiance to the office, not the incumbent, so if we could mount a swift enough counter-coup with a plausible candidate of our own, we should be able to prevent a lot of them from going over to the enemy. I hoped.
‘I’ve already got a shuttleful of stormtroopers on their way to her hunting lodge,’ Rorkins said, nodding in agreement. ‘She’s at the arse end of nowhere, so we might as well leave her there for now. At least if Varan makes an attempt to grab her too, we’ll have enough warning to do something about it.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ I said, the palms of my hands suddenly beginning to itch as though I’d inadvertently brushed against Jurgen. For a moment the reason for this sudden rush of apprehension eluded me, and then the coin dropped. ‘But we need to get the schola evacuated right away. If Trevellyan’s told Varan he missed the real centre of resistance when he lanced Rytepat…’
‘Strangely enough,’ Rorkins said, with a slightly strained smile, ‘you’re not the only man around here able to draw the obvious conclusion. Visiter’s people are inbound already, so you’d better get that pict made fast.’
‘Luckily for us, the debris belt forced the enemy flotilla into a low polar orbit rather than a geostationary one over the capital,’ Julien said. ‘The warships won’t be in position for an orbital strike on these co-ordinates for about an hour. More or less.’
‘Then let’s hope it’s more,’ I said, and hurried off to find Jurgen and a tech-priest capable of sorting out the pict recording. That took longer than I would have liked, of course, but I was pleased to see that the first phase of the evacuation was already going well as I emerged into the fading light of the main quadrangle, the youngest progeni marshalling under the nominal control of their instructors. All were carrying bedrolls and survival packs, which struck me as a little odd, and I was considerably surprised to see Brasker helping to round them up, a similar bundle slung over his own shoulder.
‘Ah, commissar,’ he said, glancing in my direction. ‘Come to see us off?’
‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘I’m looking for a cogboy with a functioning pict recorder, but I’m pleased to see you’re getting to safety while there’s still time.’ To my vague astonishment, I found I meant it.
The bursar smiled affably, every inch the faintly absurd bureaucrat everyone else (apart, presumably, for Julien) still took him for, and shifted his burden in a vain attempt to carry it with some semblance of dignity.
‘I’m afraid that’s something of a relative term at the moment. But you’ll hardly want our younger charges getting underfoot in a battlezone, I’m sure.’ He had no idea of my reasons for choosing the Valley of Daemons for another last stand, of course, but he was astute enough to realise that wherever the bulk of our forces went, the enemy would be sure to follow.
I nodded, soberly. ‘I’m sure they’re in good hands,’ I said, and Brasker smiled wanly.
‘Apart from mine, you mean. I’ve always detested the outdoors, you know; it’s draughty, damp, and damnably untidy. But needs must, as they say.’ There could be no question of using our meagre stock of shuttles to evacuate the juvies by air. By the time they’d turned around and come back for the rest of us the schola could well be a hole in the ground, so Rorkins had fallen back on Visiter’s contingency plan. Those of us in any condition to fight would be airlifted to the Valley of Daemons as soon as the shuttles arrived, while the non-combatants hiked up into the mountains surrounding Salubria, hoping to go to ground there until the noise stopped.
Nowhere on the planet was particularly safe, of course, but we were hoping the enemy would have better things to do with their troopers than chase children through an inhospitable wilderness. Of course we might very well be wrong about that, the forces of Chaos are never exactly rational even at the best of times, but if we were, at least it would divert some of their resources from an assault on the Shadowlight.
‘The Emperor protects,’ I said, doing my job by reflex, and hurried off to try and convince the rest of the planet not to surrender in droves.
By the time I’d got that little chore out of the way, and an earnest enginseer had bustled away with the pict recording to transmit it to Visiter, things were getting tight for time, so I made my way back to the command centre again, Jurgen at my heels. Somehow he’d managed to find me a mug of tanna, so I was feeling almost my old self again by the time I rejoined Julien and Rorkins.
Needless to say, my sense of revived wellbeing lasted just long enough for me to get a good look at the hololith, which was now showing an ominously detailed orbital track, counting down the time until Varan’s flotilla was in a position to open fire on us. By my reckoning there could only be a handful of minutes to go, and I glanced nervously at the contact icons. There was still no sign of any incoming shuttles that I could see.
