Leontus: Lord Solar, page 6
‘I’m going to get some air,’ he said after a moment. ‘Send Belgutei to see me, then get some food and some rest, Arnetz. We will have further need of your skills before this is over.’
Still wiping the dripping water from his face as he walked away, the Lord Solar left Arnetz at the waterside and made for the dimming light of the cave mouth.
FOUR
Belgutei’s leg throbbed with each hobbling step he took towards the cave mouth, the movement tugging at the staples holding his wounds closed. Nomak and Rugen’s words still rang in his ears, begging and imploring him to speak to the Lord Solar and make him see sense – they were Attilans, bred to fight and die beneath an open sky, not the dead-eyed Krieg who fought in lightless trenches and tunnels dug beneath the earth.
As he had sent them away to feed and water the horses, he’d regretted not silencing their protests as soon as they had begun. Do-Song would have ended any talk of defying their orders at its outset. The old man could diffuse a raging conflict amongst his men the same way that water extinguished a lit candle, and yet still leave every man willing to die for him.
But Do-Song was dead. So were his honour guard, as far as Belgutei knew, alongside so many of the other Rough Riders who he had fought and bled alongside all his adult life. They would still be on the fields where they had fallen, their bodies unburied and unmourned, save for the few prayers he had made to the God-Emperor before his men had come to petition him.
A small part of him wanted to believe that there might be others who had forced their way free, escaping to the plains where he had made for the mountains, but his dim mood had smothered the embers of that vain hope. His comrades planetside were dead or, worse, captured. He could only pray that the Lord Solar hadn’t committed the entire regiment to the initial landings – that there might be some who had never even made it to the surface.
That thought called forth the sickening image of burning troop landers streaking down through the clouds, the men, women, and horses within dying in flames…
He took a deep breath to calm himself, then stepped through the shadows of the cave’s mouth and out into the slot canyon beyond, and made for the figure in gold.
The Lord Solar stood on a rocky outcrop at the centre of the river, surveying the canyon, his boots just clear of the foaming water. Thin shafts of light cut down from the summit high above, rays of pure luminescence that gave Leontus a golden radiance as they reflected from his armour.
‘You wish to speak to me,’ Belgutei said as he approached the Lord Solar.
‘I do,’ Leontus said, beckoning for Belgutei to join him. ‘I need to know what the mood is amongst your men. I have spoken to each in turn, but I can’t claim the kinship you have with them.’
‘As well as can be expected,’ Belgutei said, wincing as the staples pulled at his flesh. ‘They… We survived today when so many did not. We will grieve for those lost when there is time, but they are still ready to fight at your command.’
‘And you?’
‘I can still ride. If an Attilan can ride, then they can fight.’
‘I don’t just need you to fight, I need you to lead,’ Leontus said, his tone even. ‘In order for that to happen I need you to think clearly.’
‘With due respect, my lord, I am thinking clearly,’ Belgutei said, swallowing the lie even as he realised what it was. He still felt strangely detached from himself, as if he was both within and outside of his mind at the same time, but couldn’t communicate that to the Lord Solar.
‘Indeed?’ the Lord Solar said with a raised eyebrow. ‘And the fact your men want you to petition me to ride north?’
Belgutei’s teeth ground together as he realised what the Lord Solar must have overheard.
‘You speak Attilan,’ he said. It wasn’t a question but a statement, one that was laced with accusation.
‘Some. A people’s language is a useful tool to help understand who they are.’
‘And you understand us, my lord?’ Belgutei asked, emphasising the last word.
‘I understand that today’s events are still fresh in all of our minds, but we shouldn’t allow them to colour our decision-making,’ the Lord Solar said. ‘Nor should we give in to fear.’
‘Fear? My lord, my men aren’t giving in to fear – we would be safer on the move. A moving target is harder to hit, and out on the plains we have room to manoeuvre. Here we are trapped, like caged grox awaiting slaughter.’
‘If we run now, we will always be a target, forever looking over our shoulders for the orks in their foul wagons and flying contraptions,’ Leontus argued. ‘Here we have shelter, a supply of water, and even food if there are fish in the lake or local wildlife to trap. Out on the plains, every moment would be laced with fear until we were found and slaughtered.’
‘I am no coward. I do not fear death, and nor do my men,’ Belgutei said defiantly. His leg throbbed as his body tensed, caught between his growing anger and deference to the Lord Solar. He stood arguing with a man who had fought the God-Emperor’s enemies for over a century, wielding armies the same way Belgutei did his lance – with unerring, devastating precision. He had only ever seen the Lord Solar’s noble features carved from marble or cast in hazy monochrome on a vid-screen, but no sculptor or pict had ever captured the sheer force of his gaze – the will that defended the Imperium’s heart.
‘You are no coward,’ Leontus agreed after a few moments’ pause, during which Belgutei’s resolve cracked beneath the Lord Solar’s attention. ‘But you have lost your clarity of purpose, and I would help you find it again.’
‘My lord?’
It was hardly the response he had expected, not from so senior an officer. He had anticipated a curt order to get himself in line, to follow where he was led, and to trust in his superior’s judgement. At worst, he expected the Lord Solar to draw his famous pistol and end his life, putting him down the same way that commissars ended any dissension within the ranks. The Lord Solar sounded as if he almost understood the bleak mood that had gripped Belgutei since they had stopped running, not to mention the aimless anger and clouded judgement that dogged him even then.
‘Why are we here, Belgutei?’
‘On Fortuna Minor, my lord?’
‘Yes. Why did I drag us all halfway across the segmentum to an ork-held agri world?’
‘Because we are to liberate it from the xenos,’ Belgutei said warily, repeating the scant information that he had been given in transit to Fortuna Minor, alongside the rest of the Attilan contingent.
‘Yes, but why?’
It was a trick or a test, it had to be. Superior officers did not invite open thinking like this, not least from those beneath them.
‘Because you ordered it, my lord. It is the will of the God-Emperor,’ Belgutei said, and made the sign of the aquila over his heart as he hoped his words would mollify the Lord Solar.
‘It is His will,’ the Lord Solar said, ‘but let me tell you why.’
He stepped down from the stone and led Belgutei from the water over to a patch of dry earth covered in rounded river stones, and took a seat on one of the boulders.
‘Fortuna Minor itself is almost worthless – an agri world of open plains that supported a struggling livestock tradition. At least, before the orks came,’ the Lord Solar explained, indicating for Belgutei to sit beside him. ‘It became significant when the growing Waaagh! of Warboss Iron Tooth – or “Irontoof”, to use the ork parlance – chose to take its meagre resources to fuel his campaign.’
‘So we came to Fortuna Minor to liberate it?’ Belgutei asked.
‘In part. It is only a small section of a larger tapestry,’ Leontus said. He scooped up a trio of smooth river stones and set them out in a shallow curve on the rock beside Belgutei. ‘The centre is the Fortuna System, and Waaagh! Iron Tooth. To the galactic west is the Ullanax System, which lies in the path of Waaagh! Blue Tongue, and the Tegron System to the east is under attack by Waaagh! Dead Eye. Each is a minor threat to the security of the Segmentum Solar alone, but were their forces to combine…’
The Lord Solar raised an eyebrow, allowing Belgutei’s mind to finish his sentence for him.
‘I understand,’ Belgutei said, leaving the threat unspoken.
‘If we stop Waaagh! Iron Tooth on Fortuna Minor, it increases the chances that the two other Waaagh!s will pass one another like ships in the night,’ the Lord Solar said, and kicked away the centre stone to emphasise his point. ‘Their forces never combine and can be dealt with individually.’
‘A bold strategy, my lord,’ Belgutei said.
‘Bold, but backed up by the Collegiate Astrolex. They studied the tarot a thousand times, reading fates and interrogating the weft of destiny’s shadow in the warp. In every foretelling, our victory here ensured the orks’ paths would never cross.’
Belgutei shuddered involuntarily as the Lord Solar mentioned the Collegiate Astrolex, his personal coterie of seers, psychics and tarot readers – witches all, in Belgutei’s opinion.
‘They did not foresee what happened today?’
‘They did not,’ Leontus said with a bitter grimace, ‘and neither did I. But we are in a better position than you might realise.’
‘How so, my lord?’ Belgutei asked.
‘Because Warboss Iron Tooth was killed nine days ago aboard his ship, alongside the majority of his forces in orbit.’
Belgutei found himself staring as his understanding of the warzone they were trapped in shifted.
‘But if their warboss is already dead…’
‘Then the lieutenants will fight for dominance amongst themselves, leaving them scattered and vulnerable. It is behaviour we have observed before, and thought we could capitalise on here.’
Belgutei thought back to the landing fields, to the screaming hordes of orks that had apparently been waiting for them as their landers crashed down in flames, pursued by xenos aircraft even as they burned. He remembered fighting through a ring of bare-skinned savages and the lines of black-armoured Goffs beyond them, two distinct forces that battled on despite the attentions of the Speed Freeks.
‘We were dropped into the middle of a battle,’ Belgutei said as he realised how doomed they had been.
‘One that should have been cleared by lance and orbital bombardment before a single trooper set foot on Fortuna Minor,’ Leontus agreed, his body language changing subtly as his expression darkened. ‘The landings and the bombardment should have begun simultaneously, one clearing the ground for the other. As I was part of the first landing wave, I was on my lander when I received word from orbit – the orbital strikes had to be abandoned to protect the troop ships from an incoming force. I enacted one of my contingency plans should this exact eventuality occur – the fleet are to stage a fighting withdrawal to the edge of the system and regroup before attacking again.’
‘You ordered them to retreat rather than fight to the death,’ Belgutei said, though his own thoughts were far darker in tone. The Lord Solar had ordered the fleet to withdraw and to leave every soldier on Fortuna Minor to die, including himself. They were alone on this world, with no prospect of rescue in the foreseeable future.
‘I abandoned a failing strategy in favour of one that had a higher probability of success,’ the Lord Solar said. ‘The fleet will return.’
‘That could take weeks, my lord.’
Leontus nodded. ‘If not months. I don’t know what forces came upon them in orbit, but they must not have been insignificant. What matters is that we are ready to meet them when they do return.’
A black thought crossed Belgutei’s mind, though he didn’t give voice to it – what if the fleet hadn’t been driven off, but destroyed? What if they were truly alone on Fortuna Minor?
‘You have a plan then?’ he asked instead.
‘Several. But they all end with us taking the space port back from the orks.’
‘So we can get off-world and back to the fleet,’ Belgutei said, a flicker of something like hope stirring in his gut.
He became aware of the Lord Solar watching him, his dark eyes inscrutable in the dim light as Belgutei considered the different paths ahead of him.
They could ride north and likely die to the mobs of Speed Freeks scouring the continent. If the Lord Solar refused to join them, they could leave him here, where orks hunting through the hillsides would eventually find him. That would mean death on the plains too, or a summary execution by firing squad if they were lucky enough to survive until the fleet’s return. Or they could remain, under the direct command of a man who was said to be the tactical equal of Saint Macharius himself, and fight their way free of the xenos…
There was only one decision that called to him.
‘I am with you, my lord.’
‘Good. Very good,’ the Lord Solar said, and he offered his hand to Belgutei.
Belgutei wiped his palm on his coat before accepting the handshake, though the rough material did little to clean the dirt, dust, sweat, and ork blood that had congealed on his skin. Leontus took it all the same, and shook it in a surprisingly strong grip. Belgutei pushed aside the thought of what he would have to tell Nomak, Rugen and Csaba, who had all made their opinions clear.
‘We will ride out at first light to see what we are up against,’ the Lord Solar said. He pushed himself to his feet, his eyes drawn to the dark skies just visible through the canyon’s upper reaches. Streaks of white slashed across the darkness visible between the canyon’s high walls, falling stars that had once been ships, Belgutei thought, though it was impossible to tell if they were of human or xenos origin.
‘It doesn’t seem fair, taking on a world with four Attilans, a Catachan medicae, and a one-armed Krieg,’ he said with a sad smile. The Lord Solar looked at him like a statue carved of cold marble, every inch the inspiring leader that the artists and sculptors made him out to be.
‘And one Lord Solar.’
‘Well? What did he say?’ Nomak asked as Belgutei returned, limping over to where Gori’s saddle had been laid on the cold stone floor. The horse was hitched with the others against the cavern wall, the animals’ faces enclosed within their feed bags.
‘We stay,’ Belgutei said as he pulled out Do-Song’s bedroll and set it out by his saddle; his own was likely lost wherever Nomi had escaped to, and he didn’t think Do-Song would much care in any case.
‘And you agreed?’ Nomak said.
‘It’s not for me to agree or disagree. He’s the Lord Solar.’
‘And that’s enough for you?’
‘Is it not for you?’ Belgutei asked with a sigh. For a few blessed moments, the only sound was the babbling of rushing water and the occasional clatter of hooves as the horses rearranged themselves, and Belgutei almost had time to relax.
‘Belgutei is right. He is the Lord Solar, we should listen–’ Csaba began, but Nomak’s laughter cut across him.
‘Ha! And what would you know about it? You’ve barely broken your twentieth lance.’
‘I am a rider,’ Csaba hissed. ‘Just as much as you are.’
‘I think,’ Rugen said, his deep, calm voice lent a slight sibilance by his scarred lips, ‘that whatever we do, it must be together. Attilans are strongest as a group – alone we are just prey.’
All that Belgutei wanted was to close his eyes and escape into his dreams, to leave the pains and fears of the waking world behind and find some measure of peace in the darkness, but it would have to wait.
‘We could run, and if we do we will never stop,’ Belgutei said. ‘Or we could remain here with the Lord Solar, and find a way off-world.’
‘The Lord Solar has a plan?’ Csaba asked. There was hope in the young man’s eyes then, a brightness that Belgutei struggled to feel himself.
‘He does. But he needs us all to see it done.’
He looked from Rugen to Csaba, confident that he had won them around at least. Nomak was harder to read, his shadowed features inscrutable in the darkness.
‘Tomorrow is another day. Let us see what it brings,’ Nomak said, and rolled over to face away from the other Attilans.
‘Csaba, you take first watch,’ Belgutei ordered, his eyes lingering on his second-in-command.
He lay back against Gori’s saddle and tried to find the peace he yearned for as Csaba made for the cave’s mouth, but it slipped through his fingers like sand. Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was an old friend reaching down to him from the saddle, before whirring blades tore him in two.
FIVE
Whilst the others slept, Leontus prayed.
He’d set the Radiant Helm on the folded cloth of his cloak alongside his pistol, Sol’s Righteous Gaze, and his power sword, Conquest, in the deep recesses of the upper level of the cavern.
He prayed first for those who had died on the landing fields, that their souls might fly quickly across the tempestuous heavens and find true peace at the God-Emperor’s side. He thanked Him for His mercy in allowing so many into His golden radiance, and for granting them their final rest.
Then he prayed for the men and women of the fleet, that they fight their way clear of the ork menace and return swiftly to Fortuna Minor to continue the righteous cleansing that was vital to the Segmentum Solar’s continued security.
Then he prayed to the saint that he had taken as his own, to guide him through the infinite perils that faced humanity.
‘Sainted Macharius, I beg your guidance,’ Leontus whispered to the Radiant Helm, as if it were an improvised shrine. There was no sudden revelation nor holy sign; his faith was something more intimate and far more subtle than such overt miracles. He did not rely on holy lightning to strike down his foes, but on sound tactical planning and the judicious application of artillery. The coming days would show if the saint had heard his plea.
