Soldiers of the Imperium, page 38
Flet fed, the Tracker turned to the Shaper and spoke. The notes, to the ears of any listeners ignorant of the semantics of song, sounded like trills and runs and squeaks. To the kroot, it was more than language, but it served as language too.
‘He is close. I can smell him.’
And it was true. Although Cirict had naturally consumed the greater part of the warhound’s flesh and communed most deeply with the animal’s spirit, all the surviving members of the Kinband had partaken too, that they might each have a small share in the gifts of the rest, and Tchek could taste something of what the Tracker sensed upon the wind.
It was the smell of man.
A rank smell, of turbid flesh and violent mind, with tangs of metal and chemical and underlying it all, the distinctive smell of tumour.
For humanity smelled like cancer.
Then Cirict whistled again, the notes trilling alarm. ‘There are more. The smell is too strong for one.’
‘How many?’ Tchek whistled back, the harmonics telling Cirict the calmness of the questioner while also offering ritual thanks to the Huntress, Vawk, for bringing blessing before them.
‘Shaper, I can taste them on the wind – there are many. Ten perhaps.’
‘How far?’
The Tracker pointed. ‘Beyond the next rise and the one after.’
The Shaper’s crown quills rustled. The quills of the Kinband rattled in answer, subtle colours fluting through and up and down the quills, like light broken upon iridescent feathers.
‘Keep Flet on the arm – I do not want the humans to suspect any living creature draws near.’
Tchek signalled and the kroot Kinband spread out, rifles ready, taking their positions. Shaper Tchek stepped aside as a rangy kroot moved up beside him, muscles cording beneath his skin. Slung upon his back was the standard kroot rifle, the wicked barb turned carefully away from its head, but in his hands he held a fighting staff, made of the light, hard, flexible wood of the jagga tree. The light glittered upon the cutting axe at its tip, and split upon the spear point at its base.
‘Chaktak, stay with me.’
The Cut-skin’s quills rattled in answer, splitting white light to red.
Shaper Tchek looked back. The last of the Kinband followed behind, as was his place: the Bearer, Kliptiq, carrying upon his back the pot from which the Kinband would feast following the hunt, the pot that told the tales of all their hunts, each one leaving its trace in their communal memory.
Kliptiq’s rattle flashed his knowledge of the Shaper’s regard. The Bearer lifted his rifle: although he carried the communal pot, he was not without a weapon, but Shaper Tchek had put before him meals of beasts of burden sufficient for him to both bear his load and not to cavil at being required to do so.
‘Put it down,’ said Tchek, pointing at the rifle. ‘Before you shoot something you should not shoot.’
Kliptiq’s quills drooped but he did as he was told: the Bearer, fed upon beasts of low intelligence, was only of use in battle to fire at something that was pointed out to him.
‘Follow me,’ said the Shaper. ‘Do not fire at anything unless I tell you. Do you understand?’
Kliptiq’s quills flared. This was something he could understand.
‘To live is to hunt,’ said Chaktak. ‘For what does not hunt is prey. I am glad I am a Cut-skin. Not the Bearer.’
‘We are all the Bearer,’ said the Shaper. ‘Until we have tasted all.’
‘When the Chained shall be loosened,’ said the Cut-skin.
‘The Wind Lord return.’
‘And the Free will fly to Him and leave this universe behind.’
As Shaper Tchek spoke the words, he felt his old, tearing, familiar flight yearning. Part of him wished to return to the air, but he knew well that without the right material the Feast would reduce him to the state of Cirict’s pech’ra: a brain bright with fierce desire but stripped of everything else. The tremors and colour flashes upon the quill crests of the Cut-skin and the Bearer told the same for the other two kroot. The secret language of the kroot was sound and light, harmonics and spectrals, in which syntax and semantics were all but united: for the kroot, the meaning was the sound and the sound was the meaning.
The Creed spoken, Shaper Tchek whistled his instructions to the Kinband, using the ultrasonic frequencies that allowed the kroot to communicate over long distances without machines. Few other species in the galaxy could hear in that range, so the communication was doubly secure: ultrasonic and in a language indecipherable to any outsider. Not even the t’au knew the secret language of the kroot.
Tchek sent Stalker Krasykyl higher, instructing him to look for the humans from the heights. He told Tracker Cirict to continue towards where he smelled the humans, advancing with caution, with Long-sight Stryax flanking him. He would follow, with Cut-skin Chaktak flanking him and the Bearer, Kliptiq, at the rear.
It was the usual search-and-contact formation employed by the kroot; it should have enabled the Shaper to acquire the necessary intelligence about the humans before issuing instructions on whether to consume, to fight or to fly. It should have worked.
But the sun had sunk the space of only a single quill in the sky, still high and fierce, when the standard plan of approach moulted and the feathers came out.
The squad was in standard advance formation. A few words over the squad vox-channel had been enough: the ’kin knew what to do. Obeysekera had checked – visually, the auspex was still useless – that the men were in the right places and then signalled the advance. He was following, with the general and the commissar, behind a screen of the best troops in the Imperium. Chame was helping the injured Uwais, far enough behind the command group that they would not all be killed by any but the largest ordnance. Fifty yards further back, Gunsur was rearguard.
A few steps along the way back down the mountain to the waiting Venators, General Itoyesa signalled Obeysekera closer.
‘Yes, general?’ asked Obeysekera. They were close enough not to need the vox.
Itoyesa gestured to the screen of Kasrkin making their wide way down the Tabaste.
‘Cautious.’
‘Yes,’ said Obeysekera. ‘Having found you, general, I don’t intend on losing you.’
Itoyesa shook his head. ‘Too cautious. I must get back and this formation slows us down.’ He pointed at Lerin, who had moved into the lee of a redstone outcrop to assess the way ahead. ‘Look at her. She’ll take three minutes checking everything is clear before voxing us to move up. We need to move faster.’ He turned back to Obeysekera. ‘Switch formation – we can march out of here.’
Obeysekera shook his head. ‘Such a formation leaves too much chance of us walking into a trap.’
‘A trap?’ Itoyesa snorted. He swept his arm wide, taking in the whole expanse of redstone sloping down before them. ‘There’s nothing here. I’ve been stuck on this rock for three days and I haven’t seen anything bigger than a sand fly. Unless you’re worried about being ambushed by sand flies, we need to get moving.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, general.’
Itoyesa snorted again. ‘Do I have to remind you who is the ranking officer here, captain?’
‘Do I have to tell you who is in operational command of this mission, general?’
Itoyesa stared at Obeysekera, then looked away, shaking his head. ‘The men who will die because you took your time shall be on your conscience then, Captain Obeysekera.’
‘The men who have died because of my decisions have always weighed upon my conscience, General Itoyesa.’
Itoyesa waved Obeysekera away. ‘At least go and check on your advance line, try to speed them up.’
Obeysekera paused, looked towards Roshant, then nodded. ‘Very well, general. I will see if we can move a bit more quickly. Commissar, stay with the general, please.’
Obeysekera caught the tail of Roshant’s protesting expression but ignored it. He was already moving ahead, scuttling down the mountain towards the forward scouts, keeping low and breaking up movement by periods of stillness and watching. It was the standard movement pattern for traversing enemy territory.
Stopping in the partial shade of a dry gulch, Obeysekera scanned for movement, but saw nothing. His own wayfinders were still for the moment, fanned out to either side of the main party with Ensor on point. Backed into the shade, Obeysekera took a moment to appreciate the lifting of the sun’s weight from his head and shoulders. The shaded stone felt cool against the back of his neck.
Obeysekera turned his head and looked down the gulley. It was in shadow, and going down it would shield them from the sight of any watchers. He took a bearing on its direction against his compass. It was only ten degrees from their direction of travel. But the wayfinders had passed it. Looking back, Obeysekera could see why. The gulley sloped upwards, dying away, and from the higher level it must appear as nothing more than a brief break in the redstone.
‘Hold your positions.’ Obeysekera voxed the scouts on the channel he had set apart for them, then started down the gulley. There was no point calling the scouts back if the gulley petered out within a few hundred yards.
It was blessedly cooler there. The floor of the gulley alternated between scoured-clear rock and deadfalls of accumulated stones, pebbles and larger rocks. Having scrambled past the first two deadfalls, Obeysekera stopped at the third.
The only thing he could think of that could sweep the sand and rock down the side of the Tabaste and into the gulley was rain. But he had heard no reports of rainfall within the Great Sand Sea from any of the Imperial forces on Dasht i-Kevar: so far as the soldiers of the Emperor were concerned, it never rained on the Sand Sea.
Standing in the lee of the deadfall, Obeysekera scraped away some of the sand at its base. Human skin is sensitive to tiny concentrations of dampness. Having scraped a pit into the sand, Obeysekera propped his gun against the wall of the gulley and pushed his fingers into the compact sand, feeling, feeling. If there was water there, hidden under the surface, it could be important, both for him and for future expeditions.
The sand scraped at his skin as he wormed it deeper. Was that it?
Yes. He could feel the sand change. He reached a little deeper, grasping, and pulled a handful out, raising it to his face. It was dark, darker than the other sand, and he sniffed the water on it, feeling the sublimation of the water molecules as the fierce heat pulled them out of the suddenly exposed sand.
Water. He smiled and looked up, over the deadfall, further along the gulley.
Movement.
Movement.
Tchek threw himself towards the deadfall in the gulley while pulling the long barrel of his rifle round to bear on the human. As he juddered into the ground, he loosed off rounds, the slugs splintering off the rocks around the human, the kick of the recoil nearly jerking the rifle from his hands.
‘Contact, contact!’ Obeysekera spun behind a rock as the rounds chipped the redstone around and in front of him, rock splinters flying into bare skin and bouncing off his carapace armour.
‘Enemy, enemy!’ Tchek whistled, the frequency high above the low thud of his rifle as he pushed up above his sheltering rock and loosed more rounds to keep the human down. As he lay behind the deadfall, reloading his rifle, Tchek thought again how right his old kill-broker had been. No plan ever did survive contact with the enemy. He had intended to watch the humans from a distance until he had determined which of them was his target, then plan an ambush to kill the others, consume any who had been particularly worthy foes, before returning with the human the t’au wanted. Now, he was scrunched behind a deadfall that was slightly too small to cover all of him while the human did the same to him that he was trying to do to it: keep him pinned down while the rest of its squad arrived.
Hunched in behind a deadfall that was too small to cover all of his body, Obeysekera cursed while calling his men back to flanking positions and at the same time shooting, almost blind, over the top of the rock to try to keep the xenos down.
‘Malick, Roshant, Amazigh, get the general down to the Venators.’
As the hotshots sizzled against the rock, Tchek suddenly considered whether the human firing at him was the one he sought. It was unlikely. He was valuable to the humans too. They would be trying to get the general down the mountain while maintaining a screen to delay pursuit.
‘Krasykyl, Cirict, wide flank down the mountain. The humans will be trying to get their general to safety. Cirict, fly Flet.’
There would be a few more seconds before the xenos could call further rifles in upon him – any flanking shots would find his body behind its inadequate cover, and at these short ranges even carapace armour would not stop the rounds.
‘Gunsur, Ensor, Lerin, cover fire, I need to move.’
In response, hellgun fire came sizzling through above him, well above, for the men were still too far back to get direct line of sight on him, but their concentration would make the approaching xenos stay low.
The human was calling in suppressing fire, trying to keep him pinned down. If he was the human commander he would be trying to roll out and get away, down the mountain, keeping a screen to protect the general. Time to get clear.
Time to roll clear.
Shaper Tchek crouched behind the deadfall, pushing himself down, compressing the muscles in his legs, folding both leg joints, tightening.
Captain Obeysekera crouched behind the deadfall, holding the hellgun round the redstone and shooting off more rounds blind as he got his balance.
Shaper Tchek released his sprung muscles, jumping into the mouth of the defile.
Captain Obeysekera pushed off, scrambling back up the gulley.
Cut-skin Chaktak was running up. Tchek stopped him, hauling the Cut-skin back when he tried to push past him, the fight blood rising.
‘Round, cut them off,’ said Tchek. ‘They are trying to get down the mountain. Stop them.’
Chaktak, his staff in his hands, his eyes livid with fighting blood, shivered, quills rattling. He could smell the Feast that would follow battle, taste the worlds that waited. The Hunger was upon him. It was upon them all. But Tchek was Shaper because he could still think and plan when the Hunger rose, and the Kinband would listen.
‘That way.’ He pointed, left, towards a downward-folding defile. ‘Listen for Cirict and Krasykyl – they are moving round to cut off the humans.’
Chaktak raised his quills in answer, the light splitting upon them, and bounded off in the direction Tchek pointed, whistling his position to the rest of the Kinband.
Tchek whistled for Long-sight Stryax. ‘Pick the humans off. But for your soul do not touch the general.’
The Long-sight, hidden in the rock folds, whistled his reply, and began to hunt, the Hunger building within him as it was in the others. They must feed soon or the Kinband would turn upon itself.
The Shaper turned back to the Bearer, Kliptiq, the last to answer his summons.
‘You come with me,’ he said.
The Bearer held up his rifle: its barrel was cut shorter than those carried by the rest of the Kinband. ‘Shoot?’
‘Soon,’ said Tchek. ‘When I say. Follow.’
The Shaper, with the Bearer following, started down after the human, moving at an angle to its descent. It would not be long before they caught up with the human rearguard. The plan was to engage it while the other Kinbandlings killed the humans escorting the general. Then they would feast, and assuage the Hunger, before bringing the general to those who wanted him.
Tchek’s quills rattled. No plan survived contact with the enemy, but a good general adapted.
Obeysekera scramble-rolled down the slope, tumbling to a stop up against the redstone and pulled himself round, hellgun pointed up the mountain, as he scanned for the xenos.
Silence.
He looked, listened, put his senses and experience into the red-rock world, while checking his auspex. It was scrambled, putting up ghost notes and noise, even his own squad flicking in and out and transposing positions. A distraction. Obeysekera keyed it off, the display disappearing from before his eyes.
Better. Eyes and ears, wit and craft against these xenos.
Kroot. The label came up from his hypnocache. T’au allies and mercenaries. Low technology in comparison to their masters. That was why the t’au had sent them in after the general. Neither the anomaly nor the desert would disable their simple weapons; they did not rely on complex equipment to track and find their quarry, only sight and sound and smell.
Obeysekera grinned, baring his teeth. It was going to be a good fight.
‘Gunsur, Ensor, Lerin, hold your positions. I am pulling back past you.’
As the troopers acknowledged, Obeysekera started making his way further down the slope, working his way from one piece of cover to another.
‘Report contacts.’
The xenos had disappeared. Obeysekera saw Gunsur, tucked in behind an outcrop, peering through the sights of his hellgun as he scanned the higher ground. Looking past him, Obeysekera saw Ensor and Lerin in covering positions.
Where had the enemy gone? More to the point, why were the xenos here?
Lying on the sun-warmed rock, Obeysekera realised that he was facing a snatch team, sent by the t’au to find and capture General Itoyesa. He had sent the general on down the mountain with Malick, Roshant and Amazigh to get him to safety, thinking this was a simple enemy contact. If the kroot were after the general, they might bypass him and go after Itoyesa. Still, so long as Malick and Roshant got the general down to the Venators, the twin-linked multi-lasers and lascannons mounted on the vehicles should be enough to drive back any attack these xenos could launch with only light weaponry.
