Shadow Captain - David Annandale Read online

  The Thunderhawk was moving west, tracking the train’s progress. Krevaan looked to the north. From this height, it seemed that the eldar had lured the orks into cracks in the land. Both armies had vanished. It occurred to Krevaan that this invisibility might give the Saim-Hann dangerous opportunities.

  He contacted Behrasi. ‘Brother-sergeant,’ he said, ‘I have a task for you that I don’t think you will welcome.’

  ‘I welcome my duty in whatever form it takes, Shadow Captain,’ Behrasi answered.

  ‘You have fought well from the shadows, and justified my faith in you. I need you to act as observer for the moment.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Track the progress of the eldar campaign.’

  ‘Are we providing assistance?’

  ‘No. Surveillance only. Keep me informed of its success or failure. More particularly, watch for any behaviour that is not about killing greenskins.’

  ‘We are tasked with watching our eldar allies,’ Behrasi said to Rhamm.

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘For now.’ He looked towards the lowlands of the gullies. The ground to the west levelled off, becoming dryer and cracked by jagged cleavages. There must once have been aggressive streams carving out such deep beds. They were long gone, leaving behind a maze of rock. There was no way of monitoring the entire network of crevasses, though that wouldn’t be necessary. The struggle itself would be a guide.

  He addressed the full squad. ‘We’ll have to spread out,’ he said. ‘Cover as much ground as you can. If the eldar are any sort of tacticians, they’ll be leading the greenskins into multiple gullies. Stay with the larger struggles. Relay what you see.’

  They moved out onto the broken terrain. The gullies were a sudden drop in the dry plain extending east and north. They were narrow and very deep, easily twenty or thirty metres and more. Behrasi thought their depth and the complexity of the network was a bit too remarkable to be entirely natural. From the position of the squad as it moved from the south-west corner of the system, the interconnections resembled the radiating pattern of a spider’s web. It was too artistic. In this, it was in keeping with what he had seen of the planet’s geology. It was too precise, too pleasing to the eye. The quick shifts from one region to another felt like an arrangement rather than the lucky chance of natural processes. He wondered again about the eldar interest in the world.

  Perhaps Krevaan’s suspicions were justified. And yet he felt uneasy in his task as he took up a position at the edge of a gully that pointed straight as a clawed finger. Partway down, he saw a large skirmish. The eldar were fighting hard. They had fought honourably, and their actions, as far as he had seen, had been the same. They were keeping faith with the agreement.

  We are the ones who are not, he thought.

  He lowered himself amid the rocks at the top of the cleft. He found shadow, and made himself part of it. He stood with perfect stillness. He waited, and watched, and wished he was boarding the train. He would have preferred the honest directness of that action. What bothered him was not quite that the Raven Guard might be betraying a xenos race. This was not about being more accepting of species whose existence was an affront to the sight of the Emperor. It was about being true to what the Raven Guard should be. They fought from the shadows. They became shadows. That did not mean becoming infected by shadow.

  We are not the Night Lords.

  He hoped that when he was next called upon to act, he would be confident that he did so with honour.

  Alathannas was alone again. He had been in a squadron of four other jetbikes, but had split off from them at a Y-junction of gullies. He had sensed opportunity down the left-hand one. It was extremely narrow. It looked like a cleft made in the bedrock by a giant axe blade. Its course was a series of switchbacks. He was mad to take it at this speed. He hoped the orks were proud enough and foolish enough to follow him.

  They were.

  Four bikes followed him. The excited hoots of their riders echoed up the rock walls.

  So, Alathannas thought, we find common ground in madness.

  He flew even faster. He skimmed over the broken bottom of the gully. He was surprised the orks were able to maintain control of their vehicles over such a surface. The air rushed hard against his skin. A cliff face loomed ahead of him. He waited until the last second to throw his jetbike into a hard left turn. The wall came at him so quickly, and was so close, the wind itself seemed to turn into stone. The jetbike screamed. Momentum wanted him to wreck himself against the stone. Instead, he shot away and rounded the next corner.

  He looked back as he took the turn. The leader ork drove straight into the cliff without even trying to turn. The bike exploded. Flames washed back over the other two. They managed to stay upright even as they had to make a ninety-degree course correction. Alathannas left them behind for the few moments it took them to reach the turn. They came around it firing. The bullets shrieked past him. He pulled ahead, the jetbike flying over the land with grace while the ork vehicles gouged the earth. They pursued him with power and brute aggression. That would be enough to keep them in the race, but no more. If he wanted, he could lose the ork bikes.

  He wanted them to follow. He wanted the orks certain that his fall was imminent.

  There was still a hundred metres before the next sharp turn. He risked a glance back. The orks were falling too far behind. He slowed down a fraction. Just enough to give them the illusion of closing. Then he was at the turn.

  The orks wouldn’t fall for the same gambit again. Even they would slow down enough to negotiate the turn. That gained him another couple of seconds. He looked ahead, saw that the next switchback was barely thirty metres distant. He accelerated, flew hard right at full speed. Now there was another long, narrow stretch before the cleft in the rock closed entirely fifty metres on. He was in a dead end.

  He saw all this, and the moves open to him, in a fraction of a second. For all his time as a ranger, for all the distance that existed between him and the greater community of his fellows, at this moment, he was one with them. He was living at the speed of the Saim-Hann. The world was a blur, the past non-existent, the future compressed into a present of lightning decisions and consequences. Battle was the wind against him, the wind created by his own velocity. The experience was more profound than exhilaration. It was the expression of the deep truth of his being. It was a summation.

  The orks thought they could use speed against the Saim-Hann. He would prove them wrong.

  He turned the jetbike around and rose a few metres higher above the ground. He flew back the way he had come. He lowered the aim of his shuriken catapults. The orks came around the corner at the same time that he did. He fired down, strafing the riders as they passed beneath him. The shuriken severed the right arm of the lead pilot. His bike jerked left and started flipping. The others couldn’t avoid it. They drove into a collision.

  Alathannas’s lip curled. The orks were becoming very good at killing each other through their own love of speed.

  Alathannas left the orks behind. He returned to the junction and made his way through the maze of connections towards the sounds of war. He shot through a passage so narrow that the walls brushed the wings of the jetbike. He came out in one of the larger gullies. It was wide and long. The orks used the greater room to their advantage. They filled the space with their strength. Infantry and bikes were here in numbers. There was also a battlewagon. It struggled to find traction in the soft earth of the former riverbed. It advanced in irregular lurches. That was dangerous enough. The combined ork forces filled the gully with a torrent of fire.

  It worked. No amount of speed or manoeuvrability could escape that storm. As he entered the gully behind the orks, Alathannas saw an entire squadron of jetbikes smashed and blown apart by bullet and shell.

  Three jetbikes still flew, jinking hard, flying straight at the orks in a desperate attempt to punc
h a hole in their fire. The excited laughter of the orks rose over the hammering roar of their attack.

  Alathannas flew down the centre of the gully. He passed over the orks’ heads, once more firing down on them, drawing part of their attention away from the other attackers. Some of the orks assumed he was not alone, and retaliated against phantom enemies to the rear. The confusion was the edge the attacking eldar needed. They lost another jetbike, but they also cut a swath deep into the ork infantry and took out two riders. The tank advanced unharmed.

  Alathannas joined the other two. One was a Fire Dragon named Kuthalen. The other was the autarch. Eleira reversed direction and led them away from the enemy. The remaining bikes ran over their own foot soldiers in their eagerness to give chase. One collided with a walker, destroying both. The rest of the orks advanced at the pace of their tank.

  The gully had a gradual curve to the right. The jetbikes moved beyond the line of sight of all but the bikes. Eleira turned around again. ‘Stay a few lengths behind me,’ she ordered. As Alathannas had done earlier, she sped back to meet the bikes.

  Instead of flying above the orks’ heads, she stayed at ground level. The bikers, four of them, found themselves on a collision course with her, shuriken volleys cutting into their vehicles and their flesh at eye level. The bikes veered off to either side. While the orks fought to regain control, they were easy prey for Alathannas and Kuthalen.

  They had gained a breathing space for the few minutes it would take the other orks to arrive. Ahead, another channel joined from the right. The sound of more combat came from the far side of the rock face. Alathannas heard what he was sure was the growl of another large engine. He pointed to the junction and said, ‘We could well have tanks on either side of us very soon.’

  ‘If we can foresee that result,’ said Eleira, ‘be assured that Passavan does, and is doing what he must. The timing will need to be precise.’ She took them towards the junction.

  ‘For what, autarch?’

  ‘Bringing the tanks together.’

  Alathannas pictured two battlewagons following them into the channel before them. It was still wide enough for the heavy vehicles to enter, but their movements would be even more restricted. Despite the increase in firepower, two tanks would be a liability, one that, with the right lure, the orks would be unable to resist.

  ‘We want the tanks following us here,’ Eleira said. ‘The farseer has determined that this path will give us what we need to destroy them.’

  She did not add, Before they destroy us. Alathannas understood the implication all the same. ‘How many of us have fallen?’

  ‘Too many.’

  Deep rumbling from behind, approaching from two angles. Alathannas looked back. He saw Passavan’s bike and the Vyper racing their way, firing shuriken and exterminating energy into the pursuing army. The timing would be as Eleira had ordered.

  As the other two eldar skimmers arrived, and all five headed down the channel, there was a moment when the combined fire of the two ork forces reached for them. The sinuous turns of the gully gave the eldar cover after the first few seconds, but by then, the damage had already been done to Kuthalen. Her jetbike’s starboard wing was reduced to a ragged stub. Its flight was uneven. She leaned forward, her back arched with pain.

  Alathannas flew beside her. Her helmet turned to face him. She nodded, then dropped back. She was giving the uninjured a clear path. And preparing to give the orks a bitter triumph when she could no longer fight.

  The gully’s curves came quickly. Around each, Alathannas hoped to see the salvation that Eleira and Passavan expected to find. It remained invisible. To the rear, the ork bikes kept pace, racing ahead of the battlewagons. Their fire was continuous. They appeared to have unlimited supplies of ammunition.

  ‘Now,’ Passavan said as the Saim-Hann hit the next corner. The channel kept curving, turning north and east. Part way in, Alathannas saw the trap they needed. Ahead, a rocky arch spanned the gully. The Vyper passed under it. Its gunner turned the lance’s beam on the ends of the arch, alternating shots, working symmetrical weakness into the stone.

  ‘Slow them down,’ Eleira ordered, heading back towards the orks. ‘Bunch them up.’

  Kuthalen shot ahead of her. ‘Let the first blow be mine, autarch,’ she said. Her jetbike’s flight was even more erratic. The strain in her voice was mortal. Will alone was keeping her alive and aloft.

  ‘Granted,’ said Eleira. ‘With our thanks. Safe journey, Fire Dragon.’

  Kuthalen dropped low, her hull almost kissing the river bed. She held her fire. Over the din of their own engines and guns, the orks had no warning of her coming. They met in the curve, less than a dozen metres separating them. Their relative velocity was blinding. The orks appeared, and Kuthalen ploughed into them. She fired at the last second, and decapitated the leading ork. Kuthalen turned her skimmer as she hit. She crashed into two of the enemy at once even as her shuriken sliced through engines and fuel lines. Tangling metal and wraithbone erupted in flame.

  Alathannas was startled by the size of the explosion. Kuthalen’s vehicle appeared to be the source of the blast, and it blew up too easily, with too much force. At least its death hurt the orks. The remaining eldar skimmers steered around the burning crash, Eleira and Passavan on the left, Alathannas on the right. They strafed the flanks of the orks. The enemy’s charge stumbled. The orks turned their bikes towards the attackers, and now they were colliding with each other, driving at cross purposes, firing across the gully. Within seconds, six bikes were caught in the confusion.

  The hammering roar of the battlewagons drew closer. The delaying tactic had served its purpose. Alathannas raised his bike over the heads of the ork riders and followed the other two eldar back around the curve. A cannon shell hit the cliff wall on his left. He was buffeted by the blast. A wind of stone shards hit him and his jetbike, shredding his cloak as he drove on.

  Behind him came the sound of crumpling metal as the tanks drove over the wreckage. Bullets and shells shrieked past him as the orks moved forward again.

  The arch was just metres ahead. Eleira and Passavan went underneath. They kept on going, drawing the orks’ attention beyond the natural bridge. Alathannas reached it. Just as he did, another shot from one of the big guns hit the stone. He winced, expecting the rock to fall on his head and disarm the trap, but the arch held.

  He was past it now. He kept moving forward, maintaining the lure, but slowed down just enough to look back.

  The two battlewagons arrived. The bright lance struck the arch one more time.

  From a distance, there was something almost gentle about the touch of light against stone. The effect was massive. The bridge collapsed. Thousands of tonnes of rock fell on the ork tanks. The thunder of avalanche mixed with the grind of crushed metal. The ground shook with the compressed blast of ordnance exploding. Dust rolled in both directions down the gully. Alathannas turned around again and headed into the cloud. As the echoes of the rock fall faded, he saw the stony heap that marked the grave of the tanks. From the other side came the frustrated howls of orks. Their heavy armour was destroyed, and their way forward was blocked.

  Alathannas prepared to take his jetbike over the rubble and into the ork mass. The dust was an opportunity. It was perfectly suited to the path that had long been his. He would strike the orks as a phantom from the white limbo. But before he could descend, Eleira and Passavan had joined him.

  ‘No, ranger,’ Eleira said. ‘Your battle here is finished.’

  ‘Autarch?’ He could not keep the disbelief from his voice. His battle here was just beginning, he thought. The field of struggle had transformed. It had become his domain.

  ‘We have hurt the orks,’ Eleira told him, ‘but we are a long way from defeating them.’

  ‘Our losses elsewhere in this network are severe,’ Passavan added.

  ‘Our victory is uncertain.’
Eleira paused, letting her words sink in. ‘A loss against the orks here is far more serious than our deaths.’

  ‘The mission,’ Alathannas said.

  ‘We might fail here. There is the possibility that the humans will fail against the land train.’

  Alathannas looked at Passavan. The farseer was difficult to make out in the billowing dust. His silhouette nodded. ‘The skein is tangled,’ he said. ‘I can discern the paths we must follow, but the outcome of any of them is very uncertain. Our best course is not much better than a hope.’

  ‘What would you have me do?’ Alathannas asked Eleira.

  ‘Return to the city. Your skills are suited to more than combat. Find what we seek. If we fall here, you might yet have a chance of preventing the greater evil.’

  ‘Even if I find it, what can I do alone?’

  ‘You won’t be alone. We will spare who we can to join you. If you succeed that far, then nothing else matters. We will abandon the struggle here, and do what must be done.’

  ‘I see.’ He did. He didn’t have to walk the path of the seer to know what the consequences would be. No matter what happened, none of the Saim-Hann on this planet would live to the next dawn. Their doom was a certainty. His heart felt heavy with the weight of his race’s tragedy. The Fall continued to echo in every death, in every lost cause.

  Perhaps this cause was not yet lost. The success of the mission would be worth his own death.

  He used the cover of the dust to rise out of the gully.

  Behrasi heard the huge rumble to the north-east of his position. A few moments later, the dust cloud billowed into the air above the gullies.

  ‘That could have been the work of either side,’ Rhamm said.

  ‘True.’ He watched the cloud. After a minute, an eldar bike emerged from the dust. It headed west. Back to Reclamation.

  ‘They can’t have won already,’ Gheara said.