Season of Shadows - Guy Haley Read online

  ‘My men will fight to their last,’ said Ghaskar. ‘All you must do, my lord, is give the word.’

  ‘It will not come to that,’ said Brusc.

  Once more, he thought, the decision falls to me. The last time, Osric fell. The thought caused his shoulders to twitch involuntarily.

  My laughter will be a long time in returning, he thought. So many of us have died, and yet I remain? Why, O Emperor? What are your plans for me?

  ‘Brother?’ prompted Sunno. ‘What are your orders?’

  Brusc looked ahead. The air had grown hazy again. On the foreshortened horizon, he could make out a bar of caramel hills. A shadow intimated a cleft in the barrier, surely the river valley. He called up overlays from his suit’s logic engine that confirmed this.

  Sunno was correct. This would be their last moment of peace.

  ‘We go on,’ he said.

  An hour later, the Salamander failed to make its routine notification call.

  ‘Here they come!’ voxed Sunno.

  Dozens of light vehicles came leaping over the dunes’ ridges. Ork attack buggies, half-tracks, junkers – all equipped with heavy weapons, no two the same. Bikes, ridden by wild-eyed monsters, formed a surging arrowhead around them that constantly threatened to break apart. Four light transports, bursting with xenos, came behind. They were so caked in dust and ash that it was impossible to see which sub-grouping they belonged to. Brusc suspected speed cultists, but ultimately it did not matter.

  ‘Ignore the bikes, and prioritise the transports,’ he ordered the others.

  The orks were on them quickly, driving at reckless speed. He snapped off a bolt, catching an ork biker square in the chest. Its ribcage exploded, making it flop like a gutted fish. The bike continued on for a dozen metres, before falling and tumbling over and over in a ball of scattering scrap. Cackling ork outriders skidded around it, bike engines howling. They leaned over in the saddle, firing pistols. The Jopali replied, ruby las-light stabbing out from cabs and containers. The socket stubbers on the cabs rattled. The Chimeras either side of the convoy belted out multi-laser and heavy bolter-rounds, while Doneal covered the front of the convoy with Cataphraxes’s storm bolter, and the Taurox covered the rear.

  An ork bike went hurtling away from the line of trucks, rearing up as it hit the valley sides. Another exploded. But the riverbed was rough, the orks fast, and many of the Imperial shots went wide.

  A line of heavy calibre solid shot stitched holes along the top of Brusc’s trailer, punching through the thin sheet metal. The bullets tracked upwards, streaking off Brusc’s armour. The Jopali were not so lucky. One was kneeling to get a better aim. He was caught in the shoulder and sent screaming from the rooftop. Another, lying flat, was pierced by bullets coming from below. He jerked twice, his lasgun clattering over the side of the truck. His body slid after it, dangling from his safety rope.

  The ork gunner snarled, bashing his driver on the head. He gestured at Brusc. The buggy wobbled as the driver warded off the gunner’s blows and glanced up to see what his comrade was so angry about.

  ‘You will make no trophy of me,’ said Brusc. He levelled his boltgun. His first shot missed, his aim spoiled by the hauler’s sudden jolting. His second went true, decapitating the driver. The headless corpse slumped over the steering wheel, sending it caroming away from the convoy. It slammed into the valley side. The gunner recovered, and traversed his gun for a parting shot. He never made it, falling dead over his own weapon, felled by a sniper rifle.

  ‘A good shot, Marcomar,’ said Brusc.

  The orks pursued undaunted. More bikes came out of the hills to run alongside the convoy, looping far out so that they could come at the trucks again and again with guns spitting. There were so many now that they were swirling around the giant trucks like flies around cattle. Three buggies and a half-track were harrying the last hauler but one, riddling the sides of the trailer with holes. It drove on, but Brusc doubted there would be anyone left living within. The Taurox Prime rearguard cleared wide areas of the dead river of hostiles, only for them to flood back.

  Two of the rickety transports swooped down on a Chimera, chased by a couple of buggies. The tank’s turret tracked round, shooting a barrage of fire from its multilaser, and a brave gunner added to the weight of fire with the vehicle’s pintle stubber. A fusillade of rockets hammered into the human tank. Poorly fashioned, most clanged off the armour without detonating, but one flew true and exploded against the Chimera’s turret. The crewman was obliterated, the turret lifted half off its mount. The buggies closed in on the wounded vehicle.

  One buggy went cartwheeling away, its tyres blown out. Another of the transports exploded in an orange fireball, destroyed by shots from the trailing Chimera, but the other drew alongside, easily keeping pace. A dozen orks were crammed into it, hanging from handholds along the outside. A broad gangplank crashed down, hooks on the end catching on the tank’s fittings. Ball-mounted lasguns along the side blasted at the xenos, but the gangplank was in the way and they could draw no good lines of fire. With a war cry Brusc could hear over the racket of battle, the orks clambering onto the tank, shoving at each other so hard in their eagerness that one tumbled from the locked vehicles. The Chimera swerved from side to side, trying to shake the orks off, but they only laughed at such entertainment. Within seconds, they had the upper hatch up and were slaughtering every man inside. The linked Chimera and buggy stopped, the orks dancing madly on their prize.

  ‘How much further, Brother Sunno?’ asked Brusc.

  ‘Another seventy kilometres until we reach the outermost Imperial line. No guarantee there’ll be anything there to greet us, Sword Brother. I’m getting nothing on the vox.’

  Brusc blasted an ork from the back of a buggy. The roaring of ork engines was deafening. Black smoke billowed around the trucks.

  ‘My lord!’ cried a man of Jopal. He pointed to the south side of the valley.

  Seven more trucks laden with orks were coming down the slope, swelling the number of greenskins. Orks swinging grappling irons and the boarding ramps held high on both sides of all the trucks left no doubt in Brusc’s mind as to their intentions. In the Rhino’s cupola, Doneal swung round and gunned for them with Cataphraxes’s storm bolter. His aim was good: the bolts raking across the bed of one of the trucks, slaughtering orks. Brusc added his fire, killing more. Marcomar slew a driver, sending a truck into a swerve that toppled it, spilling orks all over the valley floor. Others were too well protected and his las-shots were halted by iron plating.

  ‘Brother!’ warned Marcomar.

  A buggy was driving right by the hauler that followed Brusc’s. The tractor unit’s heavy stubbers could not reduce their elevation enough, their bullets raising tracks in the desert a good metre out from the buggy. Men gesticulated, their shouts inaudible as they leaned out from the container roof. One slipped and fell, hanging helplessly by his ankle cord. Another two stood to help him and were shot down. Brusc switched targets, targeting the buggy. He missed twice, a third round bringing a plume of steam from the buggy’s engine block to no noticeable effect.

  Its gunner had abandoned his gun. He reached down. When he stood upright he held a large bomb.

  A daring jink from the driver brought the buggy between the two haulers. The gunner attached the bomb to the radiator grille of the tractor unit. The driver of the hauler accelerated, trying to crush them, but with a flurry of obscene gestures from the gunner the buggy was away.

  ‘Get down!’ Brusc screamed.

  To the credit of the driver of the second hauler, he realised his fate and turned sharply, taking the vehicle out of the convoy. A selfless move, but too late.

  The bomb exploded, hollowing out the tractor unit. It bounced as it came to a halt, jackknifing into the path of the remaining north flank Chimera. The tank ran into it at speed, clanging to a sudden stop against the flaming wreck. The trailer detached, rolling over the towing bed of the tractor, and reared up. Men flew from it, helpless as rag
dolls. It twisted, carried forwards by its own momentum, to land diagonally across the river bed.

  The third hauler ploughed into it, sending men skidding off its roof. The stricken vehicles were immediately assaulted. The amount of return fire from them was inadequate. Brusc held his breath, but the other haulers avoided the smash, swerving around the wreckage. A small measure of retribution was earned when one ran over a careless buggy, crushing it under massive wheels. The Taurox gunned down a good number of the orks attacking the survivors as it sped by.

  ‘Do not stop! Drive on! Drive on!’ ordered Ghaskar. ‘If we stay to aid our comrades, we shall all die!’

  ‘We lost two,’ said Brusc to Sunno.

  A gleeful howling drew his attention. Two of the fresh ork trucks had survived and were running hard by his trailer. Orks slammed hooked lines into the thin sides of the container, catching the access ladders with others, and swarmed up onto the roof.

  They were quick, roaring with battle lust. Two were dropped by lasgun shots and fell back, knocking another ork from his purchase, then the rest were on the roof. The four remaining men of Jopal were dead before Brusc could shout at them to get behind him. Marcomar went on as if nothing were happening, coolly sniping high-value targets away from the truck. Commendable, thought Brusc.

  Brusc dropped his boltgun. It clattered on the metal, skittering across the bouncing roof. His chainsword and bolt pistol were in his hands in an instant. He had no time to attach their lanyard chains to his wrists.

  ‘No pity. No remorse. No fear!’ bellowed Brusc. In truth, there was no need for such words; he could feel none of these things for the greenskins, they were vermin to be slaughtered. His hatred of them constricted his throat, strangling his battle-hymns. He stood firm, locked to the roof, as the orks attacked.

  The first died from a bolt-round to its thick skull. The second fell screaming from the roof, holding its entrails into its belly. Marcomar drew his bolt pistol, shooting down orks trying to crawl up the rear of the truck. To the front, Sunno pulled Cataphraxes clear of the convoy, allowing Doneal to target the orks still aboard their trucks next to the hauler. He shredded the rearmost with a concentrated burst of fire, and it came away smashed to nothing by the convoy.

  ‘Die!’ screamed Brusc, his spittle coating the inside of his visor. His fury was unbounded. ‘You will pay for the death of Brother Osric! You will pay for the lives of every human your miserable kind has taken!’

  An ork managed to get a blow past his guard, slamming down a crudely fashioned axe into his pauldron. The force behind it was phenomenal and he swayed back, with only the maglocks of his boots holding him in place. His sensorium buzzed his system with pseudo-pain, informing him that his pauldron was cracked. The ork did not get a chance to strike again. Brusc blew its guts out of its back. It was still snarling as it fell away.

  Something landed at his feet. He caught sight of a fizzing stick grenade before it exploded and the roof collapsed beneath his feet.

  He landed hard on his back, looking up at a hole in the ceiling of the trailer container. Panicked men were packed into bunks lining the inside. Medicae personnel reached for their sidearms. Brusc got to his feet as a pair of monsters jumped in after him. The first landed on Brusc’s chest. He caught its foot and sent it sprawling backwards. It crashed back into a rack of bunks, the weight of it alone enough to kill the injured men lying there. The second landed behind him. Before the first could rise, it died, its face blown apart. Sister Rosa nodded at Brusc from the far end of the container, a small calibre bolter in her hand.

  He had no time to thank her. The second ork was on him, wrenching at his power pack with huge grasping hands. Brusc and the ork staggered backwards. He reached over his head, slapping at the plasteel of his armour before finding the flesh of the ork’s hand. He grasped it in a crushing grip, tearing it free of his battleplate. Turning around under the ork’s arm, he yanked hard, pulling it off balance and locking its arm. The ork was a mass of knotted muscle, stronger in truth than Brusc, but Brusc was the more skilled warrior. A blow of his forearm bent the thing’s elbow the wrong way, shattering it. The ork roared, maw revealing a wealth of yellow fangs. Its uninjured hand went for a big knife at its belt. Brusc smashed the knife from its fingers with his fist, his returning swing throwing the ork’s arm wide and exposing its torso. Brusc knocked it down with a kick to its sternum. Such a blow would have pulped the chest cavity of a man, but the ork was not even stunned. Brusc leapt onto it before it could get up again, pinning it to the floor with his knees. He held its good arm down and closed his other hand around its throat.

  ‘Suffer not the unclean to live, suffer not the alien, suffer not the usurper of worlds!’ The ork thrashed about, but Brusc would not be dislodged. His armoured fingers dug deeply into its throat. Dark blood ran over them. He wrenched backwards, ripping out its throat. ‘O lord Emperor!’ he cried, holding up the scrap of flesh. ‘Accept this token of blood!’

  Incredibly, the ork still lived. Dirty talons scraped at its opened neck, blood bubbled between its teeth, but its eyes gleamed still with hateful life.

  ‘My lord,’ called Marcomar from above. ‘A brother should guard his wargear with his life.’

  Marcomar let Brusc’s bolter fall. The Sword Brother stood and caught it in one movement. He levelled it at the ork’s head. Unthinking fury glared back.

  ‘I grant you release from your unclean existence.’

  The double report of the bolter and the bang of its munition blasting apart the ork’s skull killed all sound in the container.

  Brusc stared at the thing’s ruined face, only vaguely aware of his surroundings.

  A massive detonation outside snapped him back to his senses. Brusc’s vox crackled into life.

  ‘The orks are retreating, Sword Brother,’ said Sunno matter of factly.

  ‘Praise be,’ said Brusc, and felt some of the shadow retreat from his heart.

  ‘We should save our thanks, brother,’ said Sunno. ‘There’s a storm coming in.’

  Armageddon had not quite finished with its convulsions. One last wall of razored ash blasted across the wastes and into the hives. All across the twinned continents of Primus and Secundus the fighting stopped again.

  The convoy drove on through the furnace winds laced with cutting ash. The vehicles slowed to a crawl, the remaining haulers rocking on their suspension in the wind.

  ‘Visibility’s down to twenty metres,’ said Sunno. ‘I’m driving blind.’

  ‘Keep on,’ ordered Brusc.

  ‘I never said I would not. I trust Cataphraxes,’ said the dour initiate, his vox roughened by the storm’s static.

  Brusc sat alone in the damaged trailer. The wounded had been crammed into the other containers as soon as Sunno reported the storm. The Jopali had fixed a tarpaulin over the rent in the room, but it had been torn away as the storm strengthened. Wind whistled through the teeth of the gash. Already ash was building up on the floor, and the air was grey-yellow with suspended particles, coating Brusc’s armour.

  ‘Brother,’ said Sunno. ‘There is an abandoned facility upon my cartographia, very old, but it might give us somewhere to wait this mess out.’

  ‘Head for it,’ said Brusc. ‘We shall die if we do not.’

  A cleft in the rock appeared, wide enough to take the trucks. Brusc stood on loose gravel, eyeing it thoughtfully. After a moment’s consideration, he ordered Sunno forward and he walked alongside. Crags materialised out of the haze, tall and wind-worn. He checked the poorly detailed map imagery projected by his helmet. The sole large building and open pit it sat in on the far side of the canyon were unlabelled. ‘Is this a mine?’

  ‘Must be,’ said Sunno. ‘Even if not, we’ll be out of the wind. Hidden. No orks are going to be out in this. The humans need their rest.’ An edge of derision crept into Sunno’s voice.

  ‘That they do,’ said Brusc. He did not upbraid Sunno for his tone; it was a sentiment all of the Black Templars expressed. Their cr
usading spirit, the desire to head ever onward and to destroy the enemies of the Emperor bred into them a certain impatience with weaker men. Brusc was well aware that he felt it; indeed, he had said something similar only days before when they had come to the hospital. Osric had picked him up on it. He always had more patience for the unenhanced, for citizens. Contempt for the weakness of common men was not something Brusc was proud of feeling, but feel it he did. Osric had always been the better man.

  He voxed back to Lieutenant Ghaskar, telling him to follow Cataphraxes in.

  ‘I will go first,’ said Brusc. ‘Follow me slowly. Marcomar and Doneal, cover me as best you can.’

  Brusc unclipped his bolter. Holding it up to his eyeline ready to fire, he walked into the cleft.

  According to his auto-senses, the way through was twelve metres at the nearest widest point. Stone walls rose up either side of him, trammelling the sky into the semblance of an ash-grey river. In the upper reaches of the canyon the wind moaned over the fluted strata of the rock, booming where it encountered cavities. But at the base of the canyon where Brusc walked, the air was unnaturally still. Cataphraxes’s engine bubbled behind him, a mechanical chuckle quiet enough that Brusc could still hear the dust falls hissing down from the wastes above. Visibility in the canyon was better than it was in the maelstrom outside, but he still could not see the end. Bulges of rock loomed in the murk, semblances of trees or mythical giants. The red tint of his helmet lenses intensified the effect, making them eerie despite its efforts to delimit the objects it saw for him.

  If we are going to be attacked during the storm, it would be somewhere like here, he thought.

  He proceeded carefully, gun up, reticule flicking to every dark place in the canyon’s wrinkled sides. None proved to be anything more than shadows. The deepest crack was a metre and no more – a simple faulting of ancient stone. The wrong kind of rock for caves, the wrong kind of environment. There was nowhere for anything to hide. Even so, he could not shake the feeling that they were being watched.