Caves of Ice, page 13
We paused in the mouth of the cave, and Grifen started to take a quick inventory of our remaining stock of explosives.
‘There’s no time for that now,’ I said, urging our party on without, I hoped, too obvious a show of impatience. ‘Every minute counts.’
‘Right.’ She fell into step beside me. ‘And there’s no point in tipping off the tinheads, is there?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. Not only would collapsing the passage alert the next necron patrol to our presence, it would close them off from the orks, and the last thing I wanted to do was redirect their attention to the rest of the tunnel complex. Of course they could have found their way into the mines by now in any case, but I was betting that once they’d discovered an exit, and an enemy waiting beyond it, they’d ignore everything else until they’d exterminated the greenies; or at least as many of them as they could find in the vicinity. I explained this to Grifen, and she nodded.
‘Makes sense to me,’ she said.
‘What I don’t understand,’ Jurgen said slowly, ‘is how they got out of the tomb in the first place.’ That had been worrying me too. I thought we’d brought down enough of the roof to keep them penned in for a great deal longer than this, but they had access to technosorceries which made the tau look like stone-age barbarians, so it never paid to underestimate them.
‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ I said, apprehension settling across me like a shroud.
Normally I would have been profoundly relieved to have returned to the tunnels where I felt reasonably at home, but the knowledge that there were necrons abroad, possibly even sweeping the same narrow passageways we were so cautiously navigating, knotted my stomach with fear. I would have preferred to move on in the dark, relying on the eerie green glow given off by their gauss weapons to warn us of their presence, but none of the others had the advantage of my hiver’s tunnel sense; they’d have been stumbling blindly in the darkness, and making more noise than a grox in a ceramics emporium to boot. So we moved at the double, the easy loping stride of the veteran trooper which eats up the kilometres without dragging you down with exhaustion, our luminator beams reflecting just as brightly from the frozen walls as before.
‘There’s something up ahead,’ Simla said, a couple of kilometres later, taking his turn on point. My palms tingled with dread anticipation as the formation slowed, weapons coming to bear down the tunnel.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’ His voice on the comm-bead sounded puzzled rather than alarmed. ‘There’s a lot of blood.’
Well that was something at least: if it bled it wasn’t a necron. We closed up into a tighter formation, moving ahead a couple of hundred metres to join him as he walked cautiously forward, his luminator playing on what looked like a large pile of butchered meat. The ice around it was crimson, slick with frozen blood as he’d said. Absently, I realised there was too much there for the body to be human, then as we got closer the full size of it became apparent.
‘It’s an ambull,’ Hail said, surprise suffusing her voice.
‘Not any more,’ Magot added helpfully.
‘Where did it come from?’ Jurgen asked, as ever displaying his talent for the obvious question. Grifen shrugged.
‘Cogboy must have got his head count wrong.’ That much was clear, of course. I was more concerned with how it had died. I moved closer to examine the cadaver, and almost immediately wished I hadn’t. Beneath its glaze of ice, raw, bloody wounds slashed across its body. Whatever killed it had done so in close combat, wielding razor-sharp blades with surgical precision.
‘Where’s its hide?’ Simla wondered aloud. Grifen shrugged.
‘Do necrons use hearth rugs?’
‘Not that I ever noticed,’ I said, getting everyone moving again. Something about the dead animal spooked me, I don’t mind admitting it. The necrons I’d seen before had killed efficiently and dispassionately, but this mutilated carcase spoke of a refined and gleeful sadism of the kind I associated with the eldar renegades who prey on their own kind with as much abandon as they do upon humanity[50].
As we left the grisly trophy behind us, all trace of it soon swallowed by the suffocating darkness which closed in around the tiny refuge of light cast by our luminators, my apprehension grew even greater. Every step we took was taking us closer to that hidden tomb, and whatever horrors it might conceal. (I had a better idea than most, after my experiences in the depths of their catacombs, so you’ll have to forgive me if I confess that taking those steps became progressively harder as I had to exert every iota of willpower I possessed not to turn and flee, screaming, towards the daylight.)
At length a fatalistic numbness settled over me. Retreat was clearly impossible in any case, as the orkish armies would kill us just as surely as the necrons if we tried to go back the way we’d come, and our only hope of safety lay in returning to the refinery complex and the protection it afforded. (Meagre as that looked right now, caught between a gargant and who knew what terrors from the dawn of time.)
My sense of direction, reliable as always, was telling me we should be almost on top of the entrance we’d found by now, and I urged my companions to even greater caution. To my relief they needed little urging, the oppressiveness of the tunnels and the knowledge of what awaited us no doubt weighing on their minds as heavily as it did upon my own. I’d kept my laspistol in my right hand ever since the firefight with the orks, and I reached across with my left to loosen my trusty chainsword in its scabbard. Like the pistol I’d carried it for more years than I cared to remember, so long that it had ceased to exist in my mind as a weapon, or even an object in its own right; now when I drew it the humming blade was simply an extension of my own body[51]. Knowing it was there was curiously reassuring, and I breathed a little easier as we rounded the last bend in the tunnel before the roof fall we’d caused.
We’d doused all the lights except Simla’s, allowing our eyes to get a little more used to the gloom and covering him from the concealing darkness as he advanced, and at first all seemed well: the tumbled heap of rock, stone and ice lay across the tunnel, narrowing it to half its width as I remembered. The palms of my hands were tingling though, usually a reliable indicator that something my conscious mind hasn’t picked up on yet isn’t quite right, so I slowed my pace, scanning the pile of debris in the light from Simla’s luminator, and waited for my tunnel rat’s instincts to provide the missing clue.
The rubble seemed undisturbed, however hard I stared at it, so it couldn’t be that. My gaze flickered across a deep patch of shadow a few metres from it, and then on to the dimly-seen texture of the tunnel wall, where the light of our luminators bounced back in the sparkling reflections we’d grown so used to by now they scarcely registered...
‘Simla. Tunnel wall, about five metres from the cave-in,’ I directed, and waited for our point man to swing his luminator round.
‘Emperor’s bowels!’ Grifen brought up her lasgun, her shocked exclamation putting all our reactions into words. The shadow was no such thing, of course, the texture of the tunnel wall should have been visible there too, as my subconscious had been trying to tell me. A fresh passageway was now gouged out of the rock, leading off Emperor knew where. The work, presumably, of our butchered ambull.
‘Claw marks,’ Simla confirmed, shining the beam of his luminator around the mouth, and then into the depths of the new tunnel. His posture altered suddenly, the lasgun the luminator was taped to coming up into the firing position. ‘Golden Throne!’
We ran forward to join him, anticipating Emperor knew what, and clustered at the tunnel mouth. At first it seemed no different from the other ambull runs we’d been travelling through. Then I followed the beam of light, saw what was illuminated by it, and swallowed hard.
‘Orks,’ Jurgen said, as phlegmatically as if he were handing me a fresh bowl of tanna leaf tea.
‘You think?’ Magot chipped in, with grisly relish. ‘Kind of hard to tell without their skins.’
There were six of them in total, all dead, all flayed the way the ambull had been. Beneath their thin glazing of ice they looked for all the world like anatomical models, laid out for the instruction of apprentice medicae (if the greenskins ever bothered with such niceties as chirurgery, of course)[52].
‘What killed them?’ Hail asked, paling as much as she was able to. At that point I was past caring, to be honest. Their presence here was a strong indication that at least one group had made it into the tunnels ahead of us, and that an indeterminate number of the brutes might even now be wreaking havoc behind our defensive lines. Not to mention standing between us and safety. All I knew was that the necrons must somehow be responsible, and that whatever tomb-spawned horror had killed them like this was something I didn’t want to meet. With a premonitory tingle I realised that the new tunnel was running almost parallel to the necron one we’d blocked, and suddenly felt a violent urge to be somewhere else as quickly as possible.
‘Look at this, sir.’ Jurgen held up one of the crude bolters the orks had carried, an expression of mild curiosity on his face. It had been sheared clean through, the metal bright where a blade of unimaginable sharpness had sliced it in two, along with the hand that had held it if the amount of blood frozen to the stock was anything to go by. Automatically I scanned the scattered equipment around the bodies, looking for some kind of clue as to what their purpose had been. It was hard to be sure, but something about the weapons they carried and the few pieces of rag which hadn’t been stained with blood reminded me of the scouts who’d shot down our shuttle.
That was a logical inference, of course, but quite disturbing in its way. It meant we could be up against orks who, untypically for their kind, were skilled at moving quietly and waiting in ambush rather than announcing their presence with loud voices and indiscriminate weapons fire.
‘Shouldn’t we see what’s at the end of the tunnel?’ Grifen asked, reluctance audible in her voice. I shook my head.
‘No.’ It took all the self-control I could muster to sound calm and collected, instead of screaming the word. ‘Nothing’s more important than reporting back what we’ve found.’
‘Besides,’ Magot chipped in, indicating the mutilated orks with a casual wave, ‘that looks like a pretty definite Keep Out sign to me.’
‘Then let’s take the hint,’ I said. Grifen nodded.
‘You’ll get no argument from me.’
‘Hold it.’ Hail had moved back to the main tunnel, and was now guarding our rear, standing next to the rockfall which had buried the entrance to the tomb. (And which, thanks to our stray ambull, had turned out to be a complete waste of time.) ‘I think I can hear something.’
‘Can you be a little more specific?’ I asked, lowering my voice instinctively, even though no one else would hear it through the comm-bead in her ear.
‘Movement. Beyond the rockslide.’ Her voice was equally hushed. Simla scuttled forward to support her, dousing our last remaining luminator, and plunging us into darkness. I’ve never been prone to claustrophobia, a consequence of my upbringing I suppose, but at that moment the weight of the gloom around us seemed crushing. I found myself obscurely grateful for Jurgen’s familiar odour, which reassured me that I had at least one ally down here I could trust, and drew my chainsword from its scabbard.
I strained my ears, listening for any change in the ambient noise around me, tuning out the sounds of my own breathing and my hammering heart. At first I heard nothing except the susurration of the lungs of my companions, and the faint rustling of their clothes as they moved into positions of readiness. Then it came to me, rising up out of the echoes: the sound of boots crunching on hoarfrost, and guttural voices whispering in orkish.
‘Let them get close,’ I sub-vocalised, hearing the reassuring murmur of response from the rest of the team, and hunkering down to present the smallest possible target. ‘Take them when they come round the rockslide.’
It was a good strategy, and probably would have worked, except for my companions’ inexperience of tunnel fighting and moving stealthily in the dark. I never knew if Hail or Simla was to blame, but as they settled into the shelter of the tumbled heap of rubble one of them dislodged a small piece of debris.
I held my breath as it skittered away across the ice, and the advancing footsteps halted. A loud sniffing sound echoed through the dark, followed by a muttered conversation in what, for greenskins, were hushed tones. I picked out the word, ‘humiez,’[53] which I’d heard often enough before to be sure of, and knew that our ambush had been discovered.
A glimmer of orange light was now visible behind the rockslide, flickering like fire, and a sick presentiment gripped me. One of the approaching greenskins apparently had a flamer, the pilot light providing illumination for the group as well as heavy support, and a vivid mental image of the immolated orks Lunt had killed rose up unbidden in my mind. I determined to make the bearer my highest priority target; of all the ways to die I’d seen on the battlefields of the galaxy, burning to death looked among the least pleasant.
‘Stay back,’ I sub-vocalised, probably unnecessarily, as I’m sure the others were all thinking the same. Then I levelled my laspistol at the constriction in the passageway where the greenskins must surely appear, and waited.
To my surprise, however, they didn’t charge blindly forward into combat as I’d expected. A couple of small objects flew through the gap, bouncing on the frost-covered floor, and skittering wildly in random directions.
‘Grenade!’ Simla yelled, just before they detonated, and a storm of shrapnel ripped through the air. He fell backwards, ugly wounds peppering his body. Even the flak armour beneath his greatcoat couldn’t stop all of the shards, and crimson stains began seeping across it as he tried to get to his feet. Hail was luckier, her partner taking most of the blast, but I could see her left arm was bleeding heavily and hung limply at her side. She leapt forward into the gap, screaming in anger, and fired her lasgun one-handed on full auto at the no doubt surprised greenskins beyond. She must have hit at least one, too, judging by the howls of rage and pain which echoed round the confined space.
‘Hail! Get back!’ Grifen shouted, but she was too late; a volley of bolts tore Hail apart in a rain of blood and viscera, and then the orks were among us. Simla tried to raise his lasgun as the first bounded through the narrow opening, but before he could pull the trigger a massive cleaver swung down to bisect his skull. The greenskin bellowed in triumph, but it was short-lived as Magot and I shot it almost simultaneously, and it dropped, most of its head blown away. Grifen kept up a steady suppressive fire against the opening through which they had to come, attempting to dissuade any more from following, but it was a futile hope. When the blood of an ork is up they have almost no sense of self-preservation, seeming happy to die if they can take a few of their enemies with them. Another greenskin dived through the choke point, spitting bolts from the crude pistol in its hand, and to my horror the flickering glow of the incendiary weapon was growing brighter, indicating that its operator would be the next to emerge.
‘Jurgen!’ I shouted, pointing, ‘take out the flamer!’ He nodded, and sighted the melta carefully. I had no more time to consider his actions after that, or anyone else’s for that matter, because the greenskin was upon me, swinging its heavy blade at my head.
I ducked, bringing up the screaming chainsword to block it instinctively, and felt the sturdy mechanism shudder as adamantium teeth met crudely forged metal. Sparks flew, miniature orange suns melting tiny craters in the ice which coated the floor, before I turned my body, deflecting the brute’s headlong charge into the wall. It roared as its head impacted with the unyielding ice-coated stone, and turned back towards me, thick ropes of drool hanging from its tusks. Now it was really hacked off.
Good. I cut at its leg, slashing a wound that would have disabled a human, but which seemed to affect it little more than a scratch. It brought its cumbersome blade down to block the strike, as I’d anticipated, and I slashed upwards, taking the loathsome creature in the neck. It looked startled for a moment, as if wondering where all the blood was suddenly coming from, and dropped heavily to its knees. With any other species this would have been a mortal blow, but I’d faced greenies too often before to underestimate their resilience. I swung the blade again, laterally this time, and took its head from its shoulders.
The whole fight could only have lasted a second or two. As I turned away my eyes were stabbed by the searing flash of the melta.
‘Got him,’ Jurgen confirmed, as I tried to blink my retina clear of the dancing after-images, and cursed myself for my carelessness. That degree of disorientation could cost me my life down here.
‘Look out!’ The breath was suddenly driven from my lungs as Magot dived forwards, catching me around the waist, and barging me out of the way of a large and unfriendly rock which had become detached from the ceiling. It crashed to the ground where I’d been standing less than a second before.
‘Thanks,’ I said, still trying to pick out the image of the redheaded trooper from the bright green haze which seemed to float between me and the rest of the world. I thought I could make out a grin, and realised she’d switched her luminator on again.
‘Any time,’ she said.
‘The whole roof’s coming down!’ Grifen yelled, and I became aware of the creaks and rumblings which told me she was right. Apparently the explosion we’d touched off here earlier had left things even more unstable than we’d realised, something I suppose an old tunnel rat like me should have spotted if I hadn’t been too busy being terrified of the necrons.
