Caves of Ice, page 12
Before anyone could move, though, hulking silhouettes could be discerned through the swirling snow, charging towards us with the berserk fury of their kind. By some freak of the weather conditions the eddies of snow were lighter here, affording us an uncomfortably clear view of them as the visibility increased. Crude bolters barked, and chips of stone flew from the outcrops of stone surrounding the cave mouth. Grifen levelled her lasgun.
‘Fire at will,’ she said.
‘Wait!’ I ordered, an instant later, and thank the Emperor everyone had the presence of mind to obey. ‘Just stay down and don’t move!’ It had suddenly struck me they weren’t firing at us; the bulk of the bolter impacts were off to our left, and it seemed to me that they weren’t charging the cave so much as fleeing towards it. And that, my tingling palms and a sudden spasm of the bowels told me, probably meant only one thing. The Valhallans froze, melting into the icy landscape in the way only they could, and even knowing where they were I found them hard to pick out.
A second later my worst suspicions were confirmed, as a vivid green beam, the colour of a festering wound, ripped through the air with the all too vividly remembered sound of tearing cloth, striking one of the orks full on. In less than a second he seemed to dissolve; skin, muscle, and skeleton whipping away to vapour, leaving only the echo of a howl of inhuman agony to mark his passing.
‘Emperor on Earth!’ Grifen breathed, horror suffusing her voice, and I have to admit to trembling with terror myself. The beam swept on, transfixing another victim, and was joined by another, then another.
The orks scattered, and began to fire back, a little more accurately now that their assailants had so considerately revealed their positions. The swirling snow parted, revealing the sight I had so dreaded, and yet had dared to hope I might be spared after collapsing the entrance to the tomb: eerie metallic warriors, striding silently forward, their carapace sculpted to resemble skeletons. These were surely death incarnate come to claim us all.
‘So that’s what they look like up close.’ Jurgen, imperturbable as ever, his faith in the Emperor’s protection still absolute despite taking a bolt to the head on Gravalax, raised the melta, sounding no more than mildly curious. Then again, given some of the horrors we’d faced together over the years, I suppose he just thought it was business as usual. One thing I can say for Jurgen, despite his unprepossessing appearance, he had reserves of courage greater than any man I’ve ever met. Either that, or he was just too stupid to understand the magnitude of the dangers threatening us[45]. I raised a hand to forestall him.
‘Wait,’ I breathed. ‘Our only chance is to avoid being seen.’ That I could attest to from personal experience, my natural propensity for running and hiding being the only thing that had saved me on Interitus Prime when everyone else had been slaughtered. To my relief Jurgen nodded, but kept the heavy weapon aimed, ready for use if it should prove necessary.
The orks had gone to ground by now, taking cover behind the nearest rocks, shooting back at the necron warriors with their usual lack of accuracy. Inevitably the sheer weight of firepower began to tell, however, a number of shells finding their targets regardless. As I’d seen before, the implacable metal warriors simply shrugged off the impacts, the detonations against their metal hides seeming to do no more than discolour whatever unholy alloy they were made of.
A few of the shots were more effective than the rest, though, more by luck than judgement. As we watched, one of the ork bolts detonated against the power pack attached to the weapon of the leading automaton, and an instant later an explosion ripped apart both the weapon and the necron carrying it.
At this the orks set up a great roar of triumph, and a few of the more incautious broke from cover to race forwards, apparently intent on tackling their gleaming metal assailants in hand to hand combat. Inevitably most died, ripped apart by the gauss flayers, but incredibly a couple closed the distance, swinging their crude, heavy axes as they did so.
One was unlucky, or too slow, his target turning with eerie precision to spit him on the combat blade mounted on the end of its weapon. Thick brackish blood poured from a gash which opened the creature from groin to shoulder blade, and the necron shook the eviscerated body from the end of its weapon with an air of weary disdain. The gutted ork fell heavily to the snow, where a slowly-spreading pool of blood began freezing into a thick, icy scab.
The other greenskin parried the blow aimed at it, and whirled around to strike at the necron’s neck. Crudely-forged metal met aeon-old sorcery in a blinding flash of discharged energy, and the unliving warrior’s head fell heavily to the snow. The ork’s triumph was short-lived, however, as the concerted beams of the two surviving necrons ripped it to vapour in a heartbeat.
‘Never thought I’d be rooting for the greenies,’ Magot said quietly, sentiments I imagined we all shared. The surviving orks stood their ground with the brutish defiance of their kind, pouring inaccurate small arms fire into the area around the skeletal metallic figures, blowing gouts of snow and ice up around them for the most part, but still inflicting a number of hits which, for the first time, appeared to give the walking nightmares some pause for thought. More distant weapons fire could be heard over the wind now, speaking of other, equally desperate battles, and I allowed myself to feel a surge of hope.
‘Everyone pull back,’ I ordered quietly. ‘Stay under cover. With any luck we can disengage while they’re too busy to notice us.’
‘Confirm that,’ Grifen said, with heartfelt relief evident in her voice. The other troopers began to retreat deeper into the safety of the cave, crawling backwards for the most part, keeping their weapons trained on the unequal battle in front of us.
While the two necrons had concentrated their fire on the orks behind the boulders they’d maintained their position, a big mistake, as I would have been happy to point out if anyone had asked me. Orks are remarkably resilient creatures, driven purely by rage and aggression, so I was scarcely surprised when the one left sprawling in a sorbet of its own blood suddenly grabbed the ankle of its erstwhile assailant and yanked hard on it with all its feral strength. Mortally wounded as it was it clearly had no intention of dying with unfinished business left behind, and the necron fell heavily, its right shin now detached from its knee joint.
Bellowing in triumph the ork began belabouring the fallen warrior with the stump of its own leg, raising a clangour like a peal of cathedral bells (if they were horribly out of tune) and inflicting a remarkable array of dents on its torso and skull. I was under no illusion that this would be enough to incapacitate the hideous thing, though, so I was unsurprised when it swung its combat blade around with the same unhurried precision I’d seen before and sheared through the greenskin’s neck. A brief flicker of bewilderment seemed to enter the creature’s eyes as its head detached from its shoulders, with the concomitant geyser of gore, and it slumped across the battered metal torso of its murderer.
Abruptly the distant firing we’d heard since just before we first saw the orks ceased, to be followed at once by a howl of barbaric euphoria. It seemed that the main body of the greenskin force had won their battle, though no doubt at a terrible cost. (Not that it would bother them in the slightest, of course, they’re not a particularly sentimental species by any stretch of the imagination.) The two necrons before us stopped moving abruptly, as though listening to something, and then simply vanished, along with the remains of their fallen comrades. No doubt their departure was marked by the same crack of air rushing in to fill the sudden vacuum I’d noticed when Amberley was teleported to safety by her displacer field, but if so I was unable to hear it over the howling of the wind.
‘Emperor’s bowels!’ Grifen shook her head, clearly trying to comprehend what we’d just seen. ‘Where did they go?’
‘Straight back to hell, I hope,’ Magot said.
‘Close enough,’ I confirmed. Even now they’d be reporting what they’d seen, and drawing up their plans for a major incursion, I knew that for a stone cold certainty.
The remaining orks were emerging from cover now, stamping about where the necrons had vanished, and looting the bodies of their fallen companions. Guttural expressions of surprise and confusion drifted towards us on the wind.
‘What about the greenies?’ Simla asked. I hesitated. They weren’t our most urgent priority now, and with any luck would divert any necron attention from us as we scuttled back through the tunnels to warn Kasteen and the others. But then again they’d already found the mouth of the cave, and would be too close behind us for comfort if they felt the urge to do any exploring.
Abruptly the decision was taken out of my hands. The biggest ork in the group, who I took to be the leader[46], pointed straight at the mouth of the tunnel and bellowed an order of some kind. With a last look back at the bodies of the fallen, half a dozen greenskins started moving towards us. I had no choice; the security of the mission, and more importantly myself, demanded it.
‘Kill them all,’ I ordered.
TEN
That was an order the Valhallans were eager to respond to, and they did so with alacrity, opening fire on the greenskins while they were still caught in the open. We took them by complete surprise, the first couple falling under a hail of lasfire before they even had a chance to react.
The others were quick, though, assessing the situation with remarkable acuity for such imbecilic creatures[47], and scattering again to make themselves more difficult targets. A couple of them went to ground behind a tangle of rocks, and began to shoot back at us. Fortunately their marksmanship was no better than usual so they inflicted no casualties, but they managed to come close enough to make us take full advantage of our own cover, their bolts bursting uncomfortably close to our position. Something stung my cheek, and I wiped away a smear of blood where a chip of stone had caught me. That was too near for comfort and I retreated further into the darkness of the cave, bracing my laspistol against a convenient outcrop of rock to improve the accuracy of my retaliation.
Seeing that we were effectively suppressed the four remaining in the open ran forwards brandishing their blades and screaming at the top of their voices in the way that they do. As they closed with us they fired their hand weapons sporadically, without even bothering to aim, which made a lot of noise but had little practical effect other than making even more sure that we kept our heads down.
‘Lunt!’ I yelled. ‘Take the ones in the rocks!’
‘Commissar.’ His acknowledgement was crisp as he raised the barrel of his flamer cautiously over the outcrop he was sheltering behind. I directed a flurry of lasbolts at the snipers, if the perpetrators of such inaccurate shooting could be dignified with such a term, and to my relief Hail and Simla followed my lead. Grifen and Magot concentrated their fire on the charging orks in front of us, slowing them momentarily as the big ork in front with the horns on his helmet[48] took a las-bolt to the knee. He stumbled, falling face down in the snow, and a couple of his subordinates tripped over him. For a moment the hail of incoming fire dwindled as the fallen greenskins flailed at one another, exchanging guttural profanities and blows which would have stunned a grox, before floundering to their feet again.
The delay was enough for Lunt, however; he rose to his full height, and directed a searing jet of burning promethium at the tangle of rocks which concealed the shooters. With a roar which sounded more like rage than pain the two orks burst out into the open, like living torches, charging towards our position. Four lasguns spat as one, targeting them as they moved and the trailing one fell, but the one in front just kept coming, wreathed in steam from the snow which evaporated about him, charred bone becoming visible through the sizzling flesh.
‘Emperor’s guts!’ Lunt swung the barrel, trying to line up another shot, then fell back, an expression of pained surprise on his face as a bloody crater exploded in his chest. I swung my gaze back to the main group of orks, who were now on their feet again, their crude weapons kicking up a flurry of snow and debris around the fallen heavy weapons trooper. Typically for their kind they concentrated only on the most visible threat, ignoring the rest of us for the moment; a fatal mistake.
‘Jurgen!’ I ordered, gesturing to the group which was now close enough to be a target for the melta. Smiling grimly, my aide took careful aim, sighting directly at the limping leader, who was still snarling in triumph at the death of our fellow trooper. (I’d seen enough bolter wounds in my time to know that such a hit would have been instantly fatal, smashing through the flak armour beneath his greatcoat to detonate inside his ribcage. There was nothing to be done for Lunt now other than avenge his demise.) The heavy weapon hissed once more, flashing the intervening curtain of snow into vapour, and reducing the ork leader and the two standing next to him to a rank pile of gently steaming offal. The sole survivor turned, blinking in what looked like stunned stupefaction, its left arm hanging limp and charred from flash burns, then turned and bolted (which just goes to show that at least a few of them aren’t as stupid as they look.)
I rose fully to my feet and took careful aim, bracing the laspistol in my hand across my left forearm as though I were on the firing range, and trying to still the trembling which seemed to have taken control of my body. Whether it was a delayed reaction to the terror the sight of the necrons had inspired in me, anger at Lunt’s sudden and brutal death, or simply my abused body starting to respond to the relative rise in temperature I couldn’t say, but I was grimly determined to slay the foul creature myself in spite of it. I squeezed the trigger, thankful for the steadiness my augmetic fingers imparted to my aim, and was rewarded with a gout of ichor from between the greenskin’s shoulder blades. Grifen and Magot joined in as it stumbled, bellowing in pain, and between us we dispatched it like the beast it was.
It was only as I stood there, exhaling slowly as the tension eased from my aching body and the trembling gradually came under control, that I noticed the burning ork was still stumbling towards us, its steps faltering now as it staggered drunkenly to the left and the right, but still forging forward, fixated on reaching its tormentors. It was a ghastly sight to behold, I must admit, and I was on the verge of ordering the troopers to finish it off when it dropped abruptly to the ground in a gout of steam from the melting snow around it and at last lay still.
Silence descended, save for the relentless keening of the wind, and the rasping of my breath in my throat.
‘Lunt?’ Grifen asked, the flatness of her tone already answering her own question.
‘Dead,’ Hail confirmed, standing over his broken body, the spilled blood and viscera already glazed with ice. I forced myself to join her, looking down at the dead trooper, feeling I knew not what. (Other than my usual sense of profound relief that it wasn’t me lying there, as it so easily could have been, of course.)
‘He did his duty,’ I said, the highest praise I could think of, and everyone nodded soberly. Grifen gestured to Hail and Simla.
‘Bring him,’ she said. ‘We’ll take turns.’ I shook my head, conscious of how she must feel losing a trooper under her command for the first time. It never gets easy, I can tell you that, but after a while you learn to accept it. Despite what they say, the Emperor can’t protect everyone, which is why I take such good care to do the job myself.
‘I wish we could,’ I said, as gently as I could manage. ‘But we don’t have the time. We have to get back as fast as possible.’ I half expected her to argue, but she nodded, reluctantly.
‘We’ll come back for him later then,’ she said. I shook my head again.
‘I’m afraid we can’t,’ I said, explaining as tactfully as I could. I was suddenly aware of four pairs of eyes boring into me. (Jurgen, of course, would simply go along with whatever I said without argument, his dogged and unimaginative deference to authority being foremost among his well-hidden virtues.)
‘Why not?’ She wasn’t challenging my decision, I was pleased to note, just asking for an explanation, which I supposed they were all entitled to.
‘We can’t leave any trace of our presence here,’ I pointed out. ‘Right now, the necrons are only aware of the greenskins.’ At least I hoped they were. ‘Our best hope of making it back to warn the others is by sneaking past while they concentrate on the threat they know about.’
‘The orks.’ Grifen nodded in reluctant understanding. ‘But if they find Lunt’s body they’ll come after us too. I see.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘But it’s the only way.’ I motioned Jurgen forwards, and he readied the melta. I briefly considered trying to salvage the flamer, but it would be more trouble than it was worth; the tanks were too bulky for anyone to add to their kit, and the firing mechanism looked damaged by bolter fire anyway. I checked Lunt’s pockets for any personal effects which his family back on Valhalla might want (if he actually had any, I had no idea really, just taking comfort in the familiar routine), and collected his laspistol as an afterthought, giving it to Jurgen to carry. He might as well get the benefit of something less dangerous to the rest of us in case we found ourselves in close quarter combat again. Then I nodded to my aide, stepped back, and he pulled the trigger. Lunt’s body boiled into vapour in a matter of seconds, helped by the volatile promethium left in the flamer tanks, and I led the others in a few ritual words commending his soul to the Emperor.
We were a sombre group as we turned away, you can be sure of that, the drifting snow already beginning to obscure the scar in the rock where the heat of the melta had sent our comrade to join His Majesty. Sometimes, when I sit in my study here at the schola and watch the flames in the grate through a glass of amasec, I can’t help thinking of all the brave men and women I’ve seen fall on a battlefield somewhere without even a grave marker left behind to show they were ever there, and reflect that I’m probably the last man alive who even remembers they existed, and that when I’m gone the last trace of them will fade with me. Then I thank the Emperor that I’ve lasted as long as I have, and that I’ve seen my last war, and I might just defy the odds long enough to die in bed after all (someone else’s, with any luck[49].)
