The Relentless Dead, page 26
The ghastly apparitions circled at a distance, ironically beset by doubts themselves. Then, one by one, they faded.
Sergeant Batu witnessed the fire witch’s fall, one last bolt from his fingers immolating an unfortunate Death Korpsman before his flesh was shredded. She wished her own sabre could have reached him, but her mounted squads were better employed on the battle’s edges. Any beastman pushed this far was liable to have its skull cracked by mauling hooves.
Just once, through the melee, did she glimpse a Krieg watchmaster. My watchmaster, she felt certain, whom she had pursued here. He was fighting a simian beastman. Fighting for the Emperor, as fiercely as any other soldier. She felt relieved, but still angry and confused. Conflicting emotions burnt in Batu’s breast, her arm aching from his bolt. For now, they appeared to be allies again – but later?
Whatever my orders, I follow them, she swore to herself, clenching her teeth. I don’t need to know the reasons – and whoever is deemed to be my enemy, they had best beware!
Finally, Sister Superior Serafina gained a moment to look around her. She judged that the threat out here was being handled. So, she gathered her Battle Sisters to her – four were able to answer the call – and they marched up the steps across which the hulking carcass of the Tallyman lay sprawled.
Serafina fixed her eyes ahead of her as she stepped over Elvana’s body on the mausoleum’s threshold. The sight of the sundered crypt within, although expected, hurt her heart. She picked her way through scattered rubble. She listened, but heard nothing from below.
With much trepidation, she clambered down into the sacred space. A broad enough route had been cleared by the Tallyman’s exit. She had thought she might find witches down here yet, regrouping to conduct more profane rituals. A part of her, still itching to mete out bloody vengeance, hoped so.
She found only bodies crushed by falling stones and the rest of the witches – if indeed there had been more – fled along a hole gouged from a rockcrete wall, leading no doubt to the ossuary tunnels.
And one more thing, the very worst of all.
Colonel Graven knew nothing of any of this. Not until later, when he woke in a hospital bed.
After slaying the Tallyman, he had staggered down the mausoleum steps, but had no recollection of reaching the bottom. An overwhelming tiredness had washed over him, as if a dam holding it back had burst. He had fought it, there still being work to do, but darkness had again enshrouded him.
This time, it had felt different. This time, he had not fallen far. No pit of despair had yawned beneath him. He had been left to rest.
Three days had passed. Graven woke with stitches pulling at his skin, attached to monitors and drips. A Vostroyan chirurgeon impressed upon him the extent of his good fortune. Sister Elvana’s dagger had only nicked his vital organs. The concoction of drugs with which his respirator laced his air and water had slowed his bleeding long enough for help to reach him.
He said nothing. Let him have his rationales.
Graven sent for his watchmaster, who was at his side in minutes, updating him on all that he had missed. ‘Even the Vostroyans are calling you a hero, sir,’ he said, ‘for exposing the witches before they were fully prepared. That would not have been possible had we waited as Colonel Petrakov insisted.’
He waved the praise away. ‘How many casualties?’
‘Still being tabulated, sir, but close to forty. Including four from our own squad. A small price for what we have achieved here.’
Graven didn’t disagree. In any other regiment, forty Korpsmen would be easily replaced. For his regiment, their deaths – no matter how well they had counted – were another significant stride along the path to dissolution.
The watchmaster added, ‘Perhaps a handful more to come.’
The colonel’s eyes narrowed behind his mask. ‘The plague?’
‘The victims have been quarantined in tents out in the fields, staffed by our own medics, as they are best protected. Some are recovering, others not. The good news is that the disease hasn’t spread beyond those scratched by the zombies’ nails.’
‘Good news indeed.’
‘Like the witches themselves, it cannot yet have reached full potency.’
‘What of the witches now? Some must remain.’
‘If so, they cower underground. Petrakov has sent squads back into the tunnels, but so far they’ve had little to report. In the meantime, grave workers have been returning to the hamlets. Most claim they were compelled to serve the witches, or never did but hid out from them.’
‘Yes, no doubt they do.’
‘The Ordo Hereticus will weed out the guilty from the innocent. They sent an astropathic message. On Inquisitor Idelax’s recommendation, they will purge Oleris III once and for all, so that no trace of its blight remains.’
‘Timescale?’ asked Graven, warily.
‘Within weeks.’
‘Could anybody on this world remain untainted?’ the colonel mused.
‘We collected our original Chimera from the hamlet where we left it. On our way back, we called in on Sanctuary. Its refugees have not laid down their arms. Only those whose recent whereabouts are proven may rejoin them. Some, who attempted to force entrance, are now staked out in the fields.’
‘They may be the only ones spared.’ Graven sighed. ‘Either way, I expect the work will take months or even years.’
‘The Vostroyans will remain to see it through.’
‘Petrakov has decreed this?’
‘He disbanded his army and officially released its other regiments. Captain Graff contacted the Departmento Munitorum. We have a new assignment, and a troop ship will arrive in four days’ time to take us to it.’
Graven was surprised, but pleased. Months spent underground in a labyrinth of bones, excavating heretics from their hiding places! Most commanders with a Death Korps regiment available to them would have considered them the perfect fit for such a task. Not this time.
Not the 401st Krieg Regiment. No longer.
The chamber lay in deathly silence.
Evening prayer was over, the chapel emptied out. The Grand Mausoleum’s custodians slumbered in their cells, with only a handful of cleaning servitors awake to shuffle around the high galleries.
Sister Superior Serafina had not slept. Not tonight. Nor for any of the five nights prior, but in fitful dozes. She had not visited the temple, had not wanted to face her Sisters. She had locked herself away with her guilt and her prayers.
She had sent word of her failure to her Palatine, who would decide her punishment. This morning, the thought had occurred to her that she was being cowardly. There was someone else she had to face. She had waited until she could do so alone.
She was not happy, then, to find another person in the chamber, even less to recognise him. Graven. The Krieg colonel knelt before Saint Josefina’s statue. The hole in the side of her crypt had been braced and the rubble from it shifted. The damage was still glaring. The candles behind the saint burnt, but the light with which they suffused her no longer seemed holy, but desultory.
Serafina considered turning back, but Graven had seen her.
He stood. ‘Sister Superior. I feel I must apologise.’
‘No,’ she cut across him, harsher than intended. He had destroyed everything she ever loved. Her heart still hated him. She knew that was unjust. Would I rather have remained in blissful ignorance? She channelled her hate inward, upon the part of herself that would have. ‘You have naught to say to me.’
Graven inclined his head and said nothing.
‘Why are you here?’ asked Serafina, picking at the wound.
‘I was granted permission.’
‘I’m sure, but for what purpose? In hope of seeing me?’ To taunt me?
He paused as if puzzled by the question before answering, ‘To commune with the sainted Josefina.’
‘Then your time has been wasted, for she is not here.’
‘I beg to differ.’
‘Did you step into her crypt, Colonel Graven?’ Serafina snapped. ‘Did you see down inside it as you blasted your way through its wall?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘If you had, then you would know. You would have seen.’ The memory of it almost choked her. The ornate casket smashed to pieces. A black altar planted in its wreckage. The rubble had been sifted since, but no fragment of bone recovered. The Sister Superior took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Nothing remains.’
‘Saint Josefina saved me,’ said Graven.
‘She cannot have.’
‘I had been dealt a mortal blow. She bathed me in her holy light. She healed me as she healed the victims of the Chaos plague.’
‘Your own strength saved you, Colonel Graven. The rest was a mere trick of the mind as you lay bleeding. I feel nothing.’
But he was relentless. ‘So what if the witches burnt her bones? They are only remains. Sister Superior, I feel Saint Josefina’s presence. In this monument devoted to her memory, I feel sure I have her blessing. A delusion that may be, but if I draw strength from it, from the example of her life, then what matters the distinction?’
Serafina ached to believe him, but how could she? It was said that, on Oleris III, the veil between life and death was stretched thin…
‘I feel nothing,’ said Serafina, bluntly.
She had come here hoping for something, but she couldn’t fool herself. So, either Graven is mistaken or our saint bestows her blessing upon him and not me! Instinctively, she knew which option she preferred, and that choice made her even more wretched.
‘I feel nothing,’ she repeated, and she turned and marched back to her cell with its four plain walls and holy symbols and its waiting scourge.
The Krieg prepared for their imminent departure. They pulled their artillery platforms back from disused trenches. They serviced and refuelled muddy vehicles.
Striking their storehouse, they loaded their dwindling supplies into armoured carriers. The effort of unloading them, just half a month before, seemed almost wasted. They were still getting used to these shorter engagements.
No hands were left idle, as spare Korpsmen joined work parties, repairing the Ecclesiarchal Tower for its forthcoming occupants. The skull that glared down from its side might now have approved of what it saw.
Captain Graff assumed command with Graven indisposed. The watchmaster didn’t know him – such was the atomised nature of his regiment’s new structure – and the officer spared no time for him. Perhaps he felt slighted that Graven had kept his plans from him but confided in his lower-ranking squadmate.
Skarangard and her fellow commissars spoke often with Graff, as they did with the Vostroyan and Attilan colonels. The watchmaster was happy not to be included in those meetings. Let the commissars do what they do best.
The Attilan Rough Riders shipped out just two days before the Krieg did. As they mustered in the command compound, the watchmaster spent the day indoors. He busied himself filling out reports and maintaining his personal equipment. The background whickering and snorting of warhorses reminded him of old times, but he resisted the urge to look out at them.
By morning, the Attilans, along with their horses, were gone. The compound was left looking empty, strewn with heaps of fresh manure. Too late, the watchmaster regretted his diffidence. He should have sought out the ally he had shot – betrayed? – and ensured there was no misunderstanding.
For what purpose? Away from the battlefield, what did it matter if Sergeant Batu trusted him or not? She understands, he told himself. By now, she knows the truth and must see why I acted as I did, so what more is required? Had she needed to discuss the matter with him – had she any wish to see him – she could easily have found him. So, why didn’t she? He would likely never know as they would never meet again.
The watchmaster wished he had told her his name.
It was raining on Oleris III as the drop-ships descended upon it.
A column of artillery platforms and armoured vehicles ground along the muddy tracks to greet them. Inside the command compound, the final Krieg Chimera idled in the fading evening light, awaiting its final passenger.
Graven had been summoned. Colonel Petrakov wished to speak with him before he left the planet. The pair had not met in over a week. Only yesterday had Graven been discharged from the medicae hut – more accurately, discharged himself. Only his watchmaster and Commissar Skarangard had visited him there.
Petrakov stood at his desk, hands clasped behind his back. He wore his tall fur hat. His greatcoat’s brass buttons gleamed.
Graven felt as apprehensive as on any battlefield. The Vostroyan had had time to stew over recent events. Technically, he was duty-bound to report Graven’s flouting of his orders, regardless of later revelations, and he was nothing if not a stickler for rules. A second tribunal, whatever the outcome, would surely end Graven’s career – and then what of the 401st?
‘I don’t believe he’ll do it,’ Skarangard had said. ‘He knows now, everybody knows, that you were right. He’d be the one facing court-martial but for you – or dead. He is ashamed to face you, only honour demands that he does.’
Petrakov faced Graven now, his hooded eyes offering no clue to what he might be thinking. His thin moustache twitched.
‘Colonel Graven,’ he said, stiffly. He leaned forward, extending his right hand across the desk. ‘Thank you for your valuable service.’
Nonplussed, Graven took the hand and shook it. That appeared to be all the Vostroyan had to say. The two colonels stood until the silence between them grew awkward. Graven wondered if Petrakov knew how lucky he had been. Soldiers of three regiments had died for his misjudgement, but relatively few. His dreams, for the most part, would be haunted by the ghosts of might-have-been.
They would be haunted all the same.
It would only help a little that his reasons had been valid. Who could blame him for siding with the Adepta Sororitas over an officer with Graven’s chequered history? For erring on the side of caution when all around him spectres seeded doubt?
Graven could have told him this, but he did not. Enough people had tried to tell Graven, only he had never listened. Like him, Colonel Petrakov would have to work through his issues for himself.
Without a word, he turned and left the room.
An hour later, Graven was aboard another troop ship. Assigned to a cabin like all the other cabins. Feeling the adjustments of the artificial gravity as the great vessel hauled itself out of Oleris’ orbit.
He laid out his bedroll on the floor beside his bunk. In the process, he caught his own reflection in a small, cracked mirror pasted to the bulkhead above a small, cracked basin. Something about it drew his eye. Something looked wrong. Of course! The claw marks on the cheek of his rebreather mask, inflicted upon him by a dead man in an underground charnel house. He had forgotten about them.
His gaze lingered on the image in the glass. Graven couldn’t have said why. He traced the three scars with his fingertips. ‘Even the Vostroyans are calling you a hero.’ He was certainly no hero. He failed to see how any Krieg Korpsman ever could be. Our founder, perhaps. We others only follow in his footsteps.
Tomorrow, he would find a quartermaster, have the mask replaced. If he had time. Its scars seemed almost fitting, matching how he felt inside. His people never showed their scars, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have them.
Tomorrow, there would be plans to make, briefings to give, squads to reorganise, resources to reallocate. The day after that, his regiment would reach its destination, where its next test already waited.
Graven needed rest, but even as he lay and closed his eyes, he felt the troop ship’s lurch into the immaterium. Warp space. The domain of the dead. He felt its horrors scratching at his mind and, wearily, resigned himself to his nightly battle. As the dreams came upon him, however, the voices of his fallen comrades, even those burnt on Maximus Arkanos, were unusually muted.
He had not been forgiven, not entirely, but no longer were they quite so angry with him. His actions on Oleris III had helped to rebalance the scales. They were optimistic now that Colonel Graven and his regiment, the Relentless Dead, could do more, so much more. They urged him to fight on, for their sake. They offered him hope that, in time, he might even gain atonement.
Graven’s ghosts were giving him a second chance.
The prisoner was held deep underground.
The witch hunter made the winding descent down worn stone steps into the foetid cold. The servitor jailer unlocked a cell for him. The light of sconce-mounted torches in the passageway spilled over the crumpled form therein.
The manacled prisoner looked up at her visitors pleadingly. ‘Thank you,’ she croaked. ‘Thank you for deigning to hear my plea.’
‘Speak only when Interrogator Layne demands an answer from you!’ barked Colonel Petrakov, raising his lasgun in threat. The prisoner nodded. Though dressed in a grave worker’s simple smock, she had blurted out her true identity when captured.
‘Lady Emelian has been here before, interrogator,’ Petrakov explained to his companion. ‘Inquisitor Idelax sentenced her to death five months since, but before she could be–’
‘I am aware of what transpired.’ Layne crouched before the chained dignitary. ‘Your fellow witches freed you.’
‘No,’ the lady protested feebly, ‘not my fellows.’
‘They freed you when they stormed this tower.’
‘I went with them, yes. They gave me no choice. I even… Emperor forgive me, I professed to serve them, but as soon as I saw my chance I slipped away. For months, I hid out in the ossuary tunnels until…’
