Old Soldiers Never Die - Sandy Mitchell Read online

  “All clear, sir?” he asked, and I nodded cautiously, failing to hear anything immediately threatening.

  “I think so,” I said, and followed him out into the tunnel, keeping my weapons handy nevertheless; after our little diversion, I wasn’t planning to sheathe either of them until we reached the artillery park. Despite my apprehension, nothing made a grab for me in the darkness, and I kindled my luminator.

  An action I instantly regretted. An agitated shuffling immediately began behind us, and, glancing back, I saw the revenant pack which had pursued us before still clustered around the shaft leading down to the sewers. Becoming aware of our presence, they began to sham­ble in our direction as quickly as they could; which, fortunately, was a good deal slower than either of us could manage.

  “Come on!” I urged, breaking into a trot, despite the urge to move a lot more quickly than that. The faster we ran, the sooner we’d tire, and over the kind of distance we still had to go, exhaustion was going to be the real enemy. Slow the revenants might have been, but they had a definite edge in endurance, and once we began to falter they’d begin to close in again.

  “Right behind you, sir,” Jurgen assured me, and we began our long, lonely run through the darkness. The going was reasonably good, with few obstructions, and the unsettling shuffling sound behind us quickly began to recede; but it never faded away entirely. In fact, after a while, it was beginning to grow perceptibly louder again, even over the rasping of the breath in my lungs. I risked a quick glance over my shoulder, and saw an unmistakable flicker of movement in the depths of the tunnel.

  “They’re catching up,” I warned, and my aide turned, loosing off a couple of melta blasts into the gloom.

  “Not for long,” he said, although truth to tell I doubted he’d have had much effect at that range, and picked up his pace a little. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, slowing down again. I could hear movement ahead of us as well, and gripped the hilt of my chainsword a little tighter. Then I caught sight of a glimmer of light too, far distant, and bobbing a little, as if it was moving fast. Given my last experience of unexpected lights down here, that wasn’t much of a comfort either. Just as I was beginning to feel distinctly spooked, a familiar voice echoed in my vox-bead.

  “Cai? Is that you? We can see a light up ahead.”

  “Toren?” I asked in astonishment, trying not to let the sudden surge of relieved elation colour my voice too much. “What the hell are you doing down here?”

  “We got a little worried when we noticed you were overdue,” Divas explained, a moment or two later, while the squad of storm troopers he’d brought with him hurried on past us to deal with the revenant pack; a job which, judging by the sudden eruption of lasgun fire, they took to with a will. “So I rounded up an escort and came to see what had happened to you.” His expression suddenly changed as I took a couple of steps towards him. “Throne, Cai, you smell like you’ve been wading in—”

  “Long story,” I interrupted, holding out the satchel; if I didn’t recall him to business quickly, I’d still be explaining while the last of the 597th were being ripped to shreds. “Are the shells ready?”

  “Payloads already removed, to take these,” Divas assured me, accept­ing the bag a little cautiously, and keeping his fingers well clear of some prominent stains.

  “Good,” I said, falling into step beside him. “Then there’s only one more thing I need to make sure of.”

  “Which is?” Divas asked, with his usual expression of eager expectation.

  “Did Colonel Kasteen pass on the message about the tanna?” I asked.

  Editorial Note:

  In the absence of any further comment from Cain about the matter; I fed obliged to insert the following. My apologies.

  From Like a Phoenix on the Wing: the Early Campaigns and Glorious Victories of the Valhallan 597th by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 101. M42.

  Though pressed hard, our stout defence of the governor’s palace, and of the Emperor’s anointed representative housed within it, never faltered, wave after wave of the abominations of nature which besieged us being thrown back throughout the night. About an hour before dawn the atypical sense of purpose which had seized them, driving them ever and anon against our guns, seemed to leave them as inexplicably as it had first arrived; only later, when Com­missar Cain returned, with a typically self-effacing account of his exploits in the tunnels beneath the city, did it become clear that this must have been the moment when he won his duel with the Cha­otic sorcerer whose foul arts had goaded the carrion army against us. With their unholy master’s control broken they reverted to being driven by instinct, many turning against others of their kind in their insensate feeding frenzy.

  Shortly after dawn the barrage began, shells bursting in the air overhead to release the sanctified vaccine, which rained down on liv­ing and dead combatants alike. For my part, I must own, I breathed deeply, seeming to feel the very essence of the Emperor Himself being drawn into my lungs, and, at that moment, I felt as though no foe of Him on Earth, however powerful, could stand against me if I fought in His holy name.

  Though the revenants battled on, the fight seemed to seep out of them, a lassitude of both will and limb gradually becoming appar­ent; until, at last, they sank to earth, as inert as all things without life should be, and the natural order returned at last to this troubled outpost of the Emperor’s realm.

  ELEVEN

  “Well, that’s about it,” I said, flinching involuntarily as one of the nearby Earthshakers lived up to its name. With the city all but cleared of revenants there was little need to keep firing off vaccine shells that I could see, but it kept the gunners out of mischief; and there may have been the odd pocket of infestation the clearance teams had missed, so another few rounds probably wouldn’t hurt. “All the infected Guardsmen have been purged, the rest vaccinated, and there seem to be enough militia survivors to maintain some semblance of order once we’ve gone.” A job I didn’t envy them in the least. The capital had come off worst, but enough of the conta­gion had spread to other parts of the world to ensure that Lentonia wouldn’t be properly back on its feet for a couple of generations. Probably even longer, if Jona’s relatives got their collective arses back on the throne, now an appropriately heroic tale of his death in the front line of the defence of the palace had been discreetly nudged into circulation.

  “Thanks to you,” Divas said, a trifle indistinctly. With the crisis past, I’d found the time to take him up on his invitation to get together for a meal and a drink, and a chat about old times, most of which he seemed to remember a great deal more fondly than I did; but then he’d been lobbing shells at a far distant enemy, for the most part, while I’d been a lot closer to them, and generally fleeing in terror.

  “Thanks to us,” I corrected. “If you hadn’t come looking for Jurgen and I, it could all have turned out very differently.”

  “Now you’re just being modest,” Divas said, which was only par­tially true; given some of the perils my aide and I had faced together over the years and survived, we might well have fought off the revenant pack, but the time we’d have lost in doing so could easily have cost the 597th their lives. His intervention had been decisive, from where I was sitting. But if he wanted to hand me all the credit, I’d be happy to take it.

  “Makes two of us, then,” I said, pretending reluctance, and pushed my empty plate aside. “Heard where you’re going next?”

  “Coronus,” Divas said. “On the Word Eternal”.

  I pricked up my ears at the name of the troopship. “Us too,” I said, smiling broadly, as I picked up my goblet of amasec. “So it sounds as though I’ll be having the pleasure of your company for a while longer than we thought.”

  Divas was a terrible tarocchi player, with a tendency to bet far more heavily than his hand justified; and if that didn’t amount to a pat on the back from the Emperor for a job well done, I don’t know what did.

  [On which uncharac
teristically pious note, this fragment of the Cain archive mean­ders to an end.]

  About The Author

  Sandy Mitchell is one of Black Library’s best loved authors, and has written fiction set in both the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes. He is best known for the nine books of the Ciaphas Cain series, along with a plethora of associated short stories and audio dramas. Also known as Alex Stewart, he writes screenplays for film and television.

  For Judith, who’s also rare and special.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  Cover illustration by Clint Langley

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  ISBN 978-1-84970-471-7

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  FOOTNOTES

  [1] The typically Valhallan fur caps, like the greatcoats Cain has already alluded to, generally being donned only in sub-zero temperatures.

  [2] When Cain joined what was to become the 597th, in 931.M41, the two former regiments making it up were practically at one another’s throats; typically, his account of that period of his career glosses over the credit that he undoubtedly deserves for welding them into an effective fighting unit, concentrating instead on what he per­ceives as his self-interested motives for doing so.

  [3] Like many seasoned warp travellers, Cain tended to use the term ‘Arbites’ colloquially to refer to local law enforcers as well as actual members of the Adeptus Arbites; which, given the bewildering variety of nomenclature on different worlds, he can hardly be blamed for. Where actual members of the Adeptus are present, however, he is usually punctilious about the distinction: since he doesn’t mention any Arbitrators in the course of his narrative, it seems safe to assume that the handful one would normally expect to find on a populous Imperial world were either too busy to socialise or had been killed in the fighting.

  [4] And because the CO and second-in-command of an Imperial Guard regiment would never travel in the same shuttle, to ensure accident or enemy action would be unable to cripple it by their simultaneous loss.

  [5] Wives and husbands, if the rumours are true, but not the livestock. Probably.

  [6] A well-regarded local printsheet.

  [7] A colloquial contraction of ‘Basilica Concilium,’ the meeting place of the governor’s advisory council, and de facto seat of government.

  [8] The real target being the local Arbitrator, who’d sent his car for Cain as a courtesy.

  [9] The very reason Cain had had for contriving his assignment to them at the begin­ning of his career.

  [10] Not quite that many, though several were certainly present.

  [11] And everyone else’s; contrary to Cain’s usual opinion, not everything was about him.

  [12] Kasteen’s given name.

  [13] So distinctive a fashion that they almost constitute part of their uniform; indeed, it has been suggested, not entirely facetiously, that the size and degree of grooming are at least as reliable a signifier of status as the official insignia of rank.

  [14] More likely it was simply air or the gases of decomposition passing over the vocal cords.

  [15] Highly unlikely, as revenants genera
lly act purely on instinct.

  [16] Not entirely true, as the world was still technically under martial law, and he could have been overruled at any time; but the population were more likely to listen to edicts issued in the governor’s name, and the Imperial Guard more than had its hands full.

  [17] A mildly disparaging term for enginseers, and by extension tech-priests in general, often used among the Imperial Guard.

  [18] Where Cain became so familiar with Tallarn custom isn’t clear, although some portion of the Archive yet to be edited may throw some light on the matter.

  [19] Regimental headquarters.

  [20] Since commissars are outside the chain of command, troopers aren’t technically obliged to salute them, although a substantial minority do so anyway; probably from a sense of prudence for the most part, although in Cain’s case it generally seems to have been motivated by genuine respect.

  [21] Jonas predecessor as governor having been far too unpopular to be granted any posthumous honours.

  [22] The scions of local noble houses, for the most part, of insufficient status to be accorded the privilege of eternal rest directly alongside Lentonia’s ruling dynasty, and those rising merchant families wealthy enough to pay back a lifetime of snubs from their self-ascribed ‘betters’ by defiantly crashing their final party.

  [23] A gesture in which the thumb is pressed into the palm of the hand, so the fingers resemble an aquila wing, intended to ward off misfortune or invoke good luck, com­mon on many worlds in the Damocles Gulf and adjacent sectors.

  [24] Presumably her helmet had been removed in his presence, though he didn’t bother to mention the fact.

  [25] It’s unclear here whether he means two squads in particular, or enough troopers in total to make up that many units.

  [26] In fact all the regimental commanders were attending the meeting, but the oth­ers were so depleted by this point that only the Valhallans and Tallarns were able to assign soldiers to actively hunt the revenant packs instead of simply holding the ground they occupied.