The Relentless Dead, page 18
He felt relief, which rapidly turned to guilt. The ghosts of Maximus Arkanos were not haunting him as he had feared. But four more members of his regiment were dead, which brought its end a little closer.
They didn’t stop to bury the four bodies. They laid them out side by side in the cavern, watched over by its silent skulls. Graven led a short prayer for them: that, despite the desecration of their material remains, these soldiers might find their deserved rest.
Gruesome though the task was, he had their brain stems severed by shovels, ensuring that they would not rise again. He resolved to do the same for any Korpsman falling on Oleris in the future, if the corpse could not be burnt.
He could do nothing more, then, but turn back. His engineer had inspected the demolished exit tunnel, agreeing with Graven’s own assessment that there was no way through without heavy machinery. ‘We could get a Termite down here,’ he suggested.
The colonel shook his head. ‘Unnecessary.’
Above ground, the fighting had ended too.
The watchmaster made one final circuit of the hamlet, ensuring that no zombies were left standing and no more incoming from the fields. Finding one crawling on broken arms and legs, he had his horse stamp on its head until it stopped. He saw Attilan riders taking similar precautions.
Workers emerged from the barn, blinking in the evening light, grateful if shell-shocked to be alive. They looked at the decomposing bodies piled up around the building with trepidation and disgust. Some still had arms or even heads stuck between the wall slats.
Trotting up beside the watchmaster, Sergeant Batu muttered, ‘All need examining for bites and scratches.’
He nodded. ‘And those who have them quarantined.’
Another two Attilans were approaching him on foot. One was clearly wounded, supported by the other. With a pang in his stomach, the watchmaster recognised the one he had left bleeding, the one whose horse he rode. It is good that he is walking, he had to tell himself. Having seen him, the Attilan was all but dragging his ostensible escort towards him.
Reluctantly, the watchmaster relinquished his saddle. Once more, his feet were dragged down by Oleris’ mud. He handed the reins back to their rightful holder, who snatched them from him, scowling. Muttering something darkly under his breath, the Attilan led his horse away.
The watchmaster turned to see that Batu had dismounted alongside him. She regarded him with something like pity in her eyes. Brusquely, he said, ‘We must contact command headquarters.’
‘Already in hand,’ she assured him. Then, disarmingly, she asked, ‘Glad you stayed with us now?’
‘Thankful that I was where the Emperor needed me to be.’
‘Must’ve felt good to ride again,’ she pressed him, ‘feeling the wind in your… um, feeling the wind. No shame in admitting it, you know. Trouble with you Krieg is that you’re uptight. So rigid you could break at any moment.’
Bristling, the watchmaster drew breath to respond. The Death Korps, he would have pointed out, has the lowest desertion rate in the Astra Militarum. Nothing breaks us. But what, he asked himself, would have been the point?
‘It felt good,’ he conceded.
Batu grinned her toothy grin again. ‘Good for you, Watchmaster No-Name.’
A worker emerged from a nearby hut, at that moment, calling for her.
‘Sounds like they’ve got through on the vox,’ she said, all businesslike again. She tethered her horse to a hitching post and rushed away.
The watchmaster considered whether to follow her or not.
Then, from inside the barn, he heard a shriek.
Colonel Graven had returned.
His Korpsmen looked weary and, though an outsider couldn’t have told, dejected. Six more emerged from the drain, however – the same number as had gone down there – so, whatever their setbacks, they had their lives to give yet.
Their appearance had startled the few workers left in the barn, who still regarded them with trepidation. One had a shovel ready to defend himself, much good it would have done him. They have been underground for hours, the watchmaster thought. Anything could have happened in that time.
Graven took in the damage to the barn, the dismembered limbs, the sallow heads poking through its walls. ‘Zombies?’ he asked, his unsurprised tone telling its own story. ‘Any casualties?’
‘None apparent yet, sir.’
Graven understood. His gaze turned to Idelax, still slumped against his pillar with his Krieg guard at his side. The inquisitor made no attempt to stand. ‘Any word on that flyer yet, watchmaster?’ the colonel asked.
‘Sergeant Batu is on the vox to headquarters as we speak.’
‘What… happened?’ It was an effort for Idelax to speak, but his blue eyes blazed with determination. ‘The witches?’
Graven stood his kill team down and they dispersed in silence. Looming over the witch hunter, he began his report. The watchmaster’s moment had passed. He could have had his colonel – the other Korpsmen too – recite the Emperor’s Prayer. If nothing else, it would have eased the workers’ fears. Some had already slipped out of the barn, uncomfortable with the Krieg’s presence, but then that was hardly unusual.
Graven would have understood. Approved, even.
It would have been an accusation. It would have felt disloyal. The idea that one could have fallen to a spectre without the others knowing… Less still, that all could have been so defeated. Colonel Graven least of all of them. Watching him now, so self-assured, regretful that his foes had escaped him, sure that they would not get far, the watchmaster saw no reason to doubt his commander.
No reason whatsoever.
Idelax listened to Graven’s report in grim silence.
He became more troubled as the story neared its end, as the colonel related his encounter with a Chaos Space Marine. ‘A Tallyman!’ he hissed.
Graven cocked his head. ‘Inquisitor?’
Before he could muster the breath for explanations, an Attilan sergeant – he had seen her before but hadn’t asked her name – appeared in Idelax’s field of vision. She addressed him directly, making an effort to suppress her broad accent.
‘Your transport is on its way, inquisitor. Colonel Petrakov sends apologies for the delay, but there has been trouble at the compound.’ She anticipated Graven’s question. ‘Not zombies. I don’t know details, but no zombies reported anywhere but here.’
Graven recalled, ‘Just before we encountered them, we felt something. Like a physical force, a wave of evil, passing through the tunnels. It made the ossuary bones tremble. It can only have been witchcraft.’
‘An incantation,’ said Idelax, ‘to raise… the dead, but only…’
‘Only in our vicinity, because we were getting too close.’
‘Even so, it shows our enemies are more… powerful than we might have… prayed. And what was wrought once can be… wrought again. How many bodies… lie in this world’s… soil? They must number in the…’
‘Billions,’ growled Graven.
‘Hundreds of… billions.’
‘Each one now potentially a foe.’
‘The Tallyman,’ wheezed Idelax, ‘accompanies the Plague Marines of the… Death Guard Legion. His creed is… numerology. He catalogues the… woes inflicted upon man by… by the followers of… Nurgle, in tallies of…’
‘Seven,’ finished Graven.
Idelax glared at him, but he didn’t seem to know what he had said. ‘Yes, always seven. If such a… demagogue has made the journey here…’
Graven spared him further effort. Unexpectedly, he squatted beside Idelax to look him in the eye. ‘Down in those catacombs an hour ago,’ he said, ‘my worst dreams were made manifest. The dead of my regiment returned to claim my life, but I did not falter.’ What would have sounded boastful from anybody else, and therefore suspect, the witch hunter accepted as plain fact.
‘I care not how powerful the witches of this world have grown,’ the Krieg colonel continued, ‘nor how advanced their plots. I have faith that, thanks to your diligence, inquisitor, they have been discovered in time. We have these witches on the run, and forced them to act in haste.’
‘I… concur with your… assessment.’
‘What is more, I now know where to find them. I believe I know where the high priests of their coven must be hiding. And I no longer doubt that, with my regiment behind me, I can weather any plague of mind or body inflicted upon me, and wreak the holy vengeance of the Emperor upon them!’
A rare smile tugged at the corners of Idelax’s lips. ‘I believe you,’ he said, and then he closed his eyes for what he knew would be the final time.
The flyer sent for Idelax was an Aquila lander.
Absent of a landing pad, it lowered itself into an already churned-up field north of the hamlet, and began sinking into the mud. Its Naval pilot was keen to load up quickly. A pair of Korpsmen stretchered the inquisitor aboard.
The passenger compartment was well appointed, for high-ranking personnel, but cramped. Graven had hoped for something large enough to accommodate his full squad. He boarded the Aquila with a single Korpsman – the rest would have to make their own way back to headquarters.
Idelax lay on his stretcher across a row of cushioned seats. He hadn’t stirred since the barn, not even when manhandled. His face was pale, his breathing hoarse and shallow. Someone had crossed his hands over his chest. His overburdened heart had lost its struggle against his ailments of body and soul both. Had he been Krieg, by now Graven would have granted to him the Emperor’s Mercy.
Rain pattered on the shuttle roof as rocket engines strained to extricate it from the clinging planet. Their flight time was mere minutes, still too long for the patient to endure. Graven was not surprised when Idelax drew his last, shuddering breath and then fell still.
He prayed for him, his Korpsman standing by him, both with heads bowed and hands clasped in front of them. Then the colonel leaned in closer and whispered a private thank you into Idelax’s ear.
Straightening, he spoke aloud again: ‘Your strength will be missed, but your example has made us all stronger. Rest easy in the Emperor’s embrace, and know that your life counted.’
XIII
Two ground vehicles pulled up to the landing pad as the Aquila settled on it. One was a Krieg Centaur for Graven, the other a Samaritan medical transport.
Gruffly, the colonel informed a medicae that she was too late. He left her to deal with Idelax’s body, no longer his concern.
Wrapped in thought, he rode in the Centaur’s passenger compartment with his Korpsman rather than its turret. This meant he had no view of the outside world until the vehicle braked and the hatch was yanked open from without.
With night drawing in, the command compound was floodlit. Emerging, blinking, into the actinic glow, Graven found two Vostroyan lasguns trained upon him. Their wielders flanked their colonel, who ordered them tartly, ‘Disarm him!’
A Guardsman approached him, keeping his weapon trained. He reached for Graven’s power sword. Instinctively, Graven blocked him with his elbow.
‘Shoot him in the leg if he resists,’ snapped the glowering Petrakov.
He cursed himself for a novice. Trouble at the compound. He had assumed it dealt with. He had assumed an Imperial victory.
If spectres possessed them, he told himself, I would be dead already. Nor did he read malice in Petrakov’s expression, only tired apprehension.
There had been fighting here. He saw the bodies – Vostroyans and Attilans, all fresh as far as he could tell – along with walking wounded, applying salves and bandages. An overturned Samaritan lay by the burnt remains of what had been the medicae hut. It wasn’t hard to guess what must have happened.
He snapped to attention. ‘Adore the immortal Emperor, for He is our protector.’
‘What are you doing?’
Graven continued to recite the Emperor’s Prayer, until first the Guardsmen and then the reluctant Petrakov joined in. When they were done, the Vostroyan colonel scowled. ‘What does that prove?’
‘I understand your caution,’ said Graven. ‘My own kill team encountered spectres attached to three of your Firstborn.’
‘There were six of them,’ said Petrakov, ‘their mission evidently to assassinate me. They arrived on the pretext of requiring medical care. Just as you have.’
‘Were any of them Krieg?’ asked Graven, mildly.
Petrakov’s lip curled. ‘Not this time. Nor had I prior cause to doubt their faith.’ Graven caught the implication, but deemed it unworthy of response. Let him say what he means. He met Petrakov’s glare with his own blank-eyed gaze, knowing its unsettling effect.
‘Inquisitor Idelax,’ said Petrakov, at length. ‘You know our medicaes advised him against returning to duty?’ Graven had not known, but he was unsurprised. Clearly, Petrakov had learned of the witch hunter’s passing. His Samaritan crew would have voxed him straight away. Clearly, too, he had much more to say on the subject, but he took a breath and held his tongue.
With a gesture, Petrakov dismissed his Guardsmen, who seemed relieved to escape that situation. Graven’s Korpsman too relaxed somewhat, stepping from the Chimera behind him. ‘We need to talk,’ the Krieg colonel said.
‘My office.’ Petrakov pivoted on his heel and led the way.
Graven lingered, having instructions for his Korpsman. By the time he had outlined them, Petrakov had disappeared inside, having not looked back to see if he was accompanied. Graven supposed he ought not to keep him waiting. His sword still slung at his hip, he followed the commander-in-chief of Oleris’ forces, rehearsing an argument in his head that he knew would most likely fall on deaf ears.
The engineer had managed to get an old farm vehicle running.
It was an open-topped truck with space for eight Korpsmen on its cargo bed. A residue of fuel sloshed in its tank, which he topped up by draining the few unused promethium bombs, even wringing their cloth fuses. At last, he proclaimed that it should – just – make it as far as the command compound.
The watchmaster had considered riding with an Attilan to recover their Chimera from the hamlet where they had left it. This way, to his chagrin, would be quicker. He loaded his squad onto the truck. He took the passenger seat in the cabin beside the engineer at the control wheel.
They left the residents of Sanctuary in moderate spirits. The horrors of the zombie attack behind them, most felt proud to have survived it. It helped that a second Attilan squad had arrived to bolster their defences. They were building a pyre for the corpses and pieces thereof, wearing – at the watchmaster’s suggestion – gas masks so as not to inhale lingering spores.
Sergeant Batu had addressed the workers. ‘You’ve all seen the Death Korps of Krieg and their Colonel Graven. Who’d want to be a witch today and have to face their fury?’ They only had to hold out a little longer, she had insisted. Colonel Graven would deal with the witches.
Her motive, of course, was to raise morale, but still it made the watchmaster all the more determined to justify her faith in his people.
The truck’s exhaust coughed up smoke as they set off from the hamlet. Its suspension was shot, and the watchmaster’s bones felt every pothole in the boggy tracks. Through a cracked windscreen, in the glow of a single working headlight, suddenly he saw something strewn across their path. Another ragged corpse, and it was stirring. Not again, he prayed.
‘Watchmaster?’ the engineer queried.
‘Keep driving!’ he said grimly, and the engineer stamped on his accelerator pedal.
The zombie was struggling to stand. It lacked its lower left leg, which was probably the reason it had never reached the hamlet. The witches haven’t cast their spell again, I would have felt it. This is a remnant from their previous effort.
Surging forwards, the truck crashed into the zombie and through it, demolishing its brittle skeleton – but the watchmaster saw more dark shapes rising from the fields about them. From behind his head, through a thin partition, he heard las fire cracks. His comrades back there had seen them too. He drew his own weapon. He looked for a way of opening the window in his door.
A broken body sprang out of the dirt, as if from nowhere. It leapt at the speeding truck, and though the watchmaster was already past it, he felt its impact with the rear fender. In a cobwebbed mirror, he saw the zombie clawing its way up and over the sideboards of the cargo bed.
Another creature loomed ahead of them. It was on the track’s edge, at a sharp bend for which the engineer had to slow down. Tyres spinning in mud, the truck just clipped the zombie, apparently dislocating its right shoulder – in the same moment that it jumped and spread-eagled itself across the windscreen.
Its pale eyes fixed upon the watchmaster through the glass. Ordinary glass, not armaglass as any Krieg vehicle would have had. Cracked glass. The zombie drew back its good arm.
The watchmaster realised that the green scraps clinging to it had been an Imperial uniform, though he couldn’t identify the regiment. Sergeant’s stripes decorated a fluttering, torn epaulette. He spared a thought for a fallen comrade, brought here from his last battlefield to rest.
The zombie’s fist punched through the windscreen.
The engineer threw up an arm to fend off flying glass, which caused the truck to veer. The watchmaster pumped three bolts into the zombie’s head. Its flesh melted, sloughing from its skull as, straddling the dashboard, it clawed at his throat. The engineer wrestled the truck back under his control and picked up speed. Wrenching his wheel around, he slammed the watchmaster hard against the door but also tore the zombie’s grip from him.
The watchmaster glimpsed a body falling from the cargo bed, reflected in his mirror. He couldn’t think about that now.
