Soldiers of the Imperium, page 83
Tarvarius replaced the chain onto his broad, scarred shoulders. ‘Your past is either a shackle or an inspiration. You will make mistakes. And your soldiers will die for them.’
He pointed a massive finger towards the gleaming silver bar inlaid on her shoulder guard. ‘But that is the weight of the silver on your shoulders. That is the weight of the iron on mine. The Emperor has no perfect servants, and so he must make do with broken ones like us.’
Slowly, with unexpected grace, the living war machine rose and strode towards the door. ‘Say your prayers, lieutenant, but do not linger on your knees. Your Emperor needs your leadership more than your repentance.’
Olemark’s glaring eyes flashed in Aerand’s vision. ‘What if I lead and they don’t follow, my lord?’
‘Then move alone,’ the Space Marine replied.
From the portico along the citadel’s western wall, Aerand watched a storm roll into the valley. Somewhere beyond the black clouds and peals of thunder, the Cadian 900th was closing in on its target. She should have been with them – her soldiers should have been with them – but instead, they lingered here.
Aerand reached her hand out from beneath the ancient shelter, drops of half-frozen rain splattering into her palm. She shivered slightly as she surveyed the fortress before her. Apex Inruptus had stood for a thousand years, built in the dark ages before the Imperium returned to Ourea in order to secure one of the few passable routes through the titanic summits that blanketed the planet. As she studied its pinnacled, razor walls, nestled into the mountain like just one more peak, she knew it would stand for a thousand more, regardless if anyone remained inside to defend it.
In the three soaring towers along Apex’s outer wall, squads held vigil beneath needle-like spires, pairs of soldiers manning the autoguns mounted within. Twelve troopers to watch the narrow mountain pass, while the rest of her platoon took shelter inside.
As she stared into the approaching storm, a flash of lightning struck a high peak nearby, toppling snow and stone into the valley below. When the light faded, Aerand felt the hair on her neck rise, her skin prickling just as it had the night before.
She took a deep breath and willed her racing heart to slow. Had she become so fragile that even a simple storm could leave her on the brink of terror?
Aerand sighed and turned back towards the barracks, but as she passed beneath the portico, two dark forms hurried down the corridor towards her.
‘Lieutenant,’ Corwyn said, ‘Lord Tarvarius is calling with word from the regiment.’ Beside him, Maresh held out the receiver attached to the vox-caster on his back.
Aerand nodded. If Tarvarius was reporting back, that meant the battle was already won. She should have been relieved, but instead, a wave of trepidation washed over her.
‘They are gone,’ Tarvarius said the moment she lifted the receiver.
‘Praise the Throne,’ Aerand replied, feeling anything but joyful.
‘You mishear,’ said Tarvarius, the first hint of something other than confidence in his tone. ‘Your intelligence was deceived. We have scoured the sector and there are no cultists here. What is your status?’
As he spoke, the prickling along Aerand’s neck grew, memories of the night before washing over her like a wave. Her mind spun with a sudden imbalance, and the taste of bile rose in her throat. Suddenly, the air smelled of smoke, and her arms grew heavy as she raised the transmitter to her lips.
‘Fine,’ she whispered.
But they were not fine – she was suddenly confident of that. The cultist army had not simply vanished; if they’d abandoned Noravis Opum, it was for some other target. A target like the fortress she currently held.
Tarvarius broke back through the static. ‘Are you certain?’
Aerand heard her breath begin to race, shallow and rapid like the night before. Her armour settled heavy on her shoulders as Corwyn stared at her, confused, untouched by the terror that burned through her bones.
But it wasn’t just terror she felt anymore. Something even stronger grew beside her fear. She was angry and determined. Whatever was coming, she would meet it this time.
‘No,’ Aerand replied. ‘But it will be.’
‘You feel it,’ Tarvarius said. Not a question, but a statement. ‘The same presence as during the ambush.’
She paused. If she said yes and was wrong, she’d be a fool once again. If she said yes and was right, that could mean something even worse.
‘I do,’ she replied, staring at the soaring citadel above her head. Apex Inruptus had not fallen in a thousand years, and she would not let it tonight.
There was silence, then a muttered curse over the vox as Colonel Yarin shouted orders in the background.
‘We are coming,’ Tarvarius replied. ‘Hold the fortress.’
The door slammed open before Aerand, Corwyn and Maresh stumbling in at her heels. Soldiers lingered throughout the barracks, most lying on bed rolls cleaning dusty lasguns or checking power packs before it was their turn to hold watch.
It was obvious, now that she could see it. Noravis Opum had never been the cultists’ true goal. The settlement was exposed, practically indefensible, vulnerable from both the ground and the air. Even if the cultists had captured the spaceport, they never could have held it. But if their feint allowed them to take Apex Inruptus, they could cut off reinforcements and resupply from Noravis to a dozen other settlements, then take any they wished after starving them to the bone.
‘All bodies on the wall in five minutes,’ she called. ‘Full battle gear and loadouts, ready to fight.’
As Aerand stormed into the room, they should have risen to attention. Instead, the few closest to the door stood slowly and leaned up against the wall while the rest continued their business, unbothered. In the back of the room, circled around steaming rations, Olemark and his veterans stared at her, unimpressed.
‘The sky is falling out there,’ Olemark replied, turning back to polish his lasgun’s barrel. ‘If you wanted to get the rest of us killed, you could find a faster way to do it than making us catch rot.’
Aerand bristled at the contempt in his voice. She could make a show of force. She could shout or fire her laspistol into the ceiling. Throne, she could drag those still sitting onto their feet and demand at gunpoint they show her the respect her rank merited. But what good would that do? She had lost their trust, though she desperately needed it now, and no amount of anger could bring that back.
‘I made a mistake,’ Aerand said, her voice cool and level. Her father may have been brash, but he understood his soldiers, and for those who were accustomed to screams and berating, a quiet tone was often harder to ignore.
Never let a failure hide, because they have a way of growing in the shadows, and if you let a mistake fester long enough, you may find it has rooted too deep to correct.
‘I made a mistake last night and two of us are dead because of it.’
Throughout the room, all eyes turned towards her, the exhausted, dirty faces of her soldiers awash with frustration and lingering hope.
‘I don’t have an excuse for that, but I do have a reason.’ Aerand motioned to the open door behind her, where rain and lightning poured down in a deluge, out on the saw-toothed peaks and plummeting valleys rising and falling like the teeth of some unholy maw.
‘I felt something last night – something I’ve never felt before, not on a dozen missions on half as many worlds. I’m not certain what it was, or why I alone felt it, but I feel it again tonight.’
Olemark scoffed. ‘What you felt was fear.’
Aerand’s fingers drifted slowly towards her laspistol. He was bordering on insubordination. She could kill him for that, and Throne, she wanted to.
But she needed Olemark. She needed his veterans. She needed every soldier in this room with their eyes locked on her every movement.
Violence can never ensure discipline. Executions do not inspire loyalty.
‘A storm is coming,’ she said resolutely. ‘Who will stand with me against it?’
One by one her soldiers’ gazes drifted away, and not a foot budged from their positions.
‘Very well,’ she muttered and stepped out into the night.
Aerand climbed the steep steps alone, rain drumming across her helmet and armour, seeping through to her skin and chilling her bones.
Her legs burned as the stairs fell away behind her, the yawning abyss at the base of Apex’s walls a constant reminder to watch where she stepped. Flashes of lightning bathed the craggy pass in light. The doubt she felt in the barracks evaporated like smoke as she inspected the dozen tired soldiers on her wall. Twelve troopers to hold the most important fortress on the planet. If the rest would not stand with her, then these would have to do.
As she stared out into the shadow-strewn valleys, the slow stomping of bootfalls reached her ears. She turned to see a group of green-clad figures, the dull sheen of their helmets glimmering in the rain as they ascended the dark stone stairs behind her.
Corwyn reached the tower first, an embarrassed smile stretching across his sun-darkened face. ‘We couldn’t let you freeze to death out here alone,’ he mumbled, then pointed to the group of soldiers behind him. ‘First squad will man the northern wall.’
As they passed, twelve fresh bodies took their place, Artus grasping her arm with a slight bow. ‘If you say you sense something, then we sense it, too.’
In piecemeal fashion, the rest of her soldiers trickled out of the barracks and took up positions along the walls, until only Olemark’s veterans remained inside. Finally, their dented, cracked armour ambled up the staircase with more grace and speed than any of the others.
Olemark paused before her, his eyes still sharp. There was no apology, no admission of guilt, merely the slightest of nods and a stiff salute. ‘Where do you want us?’ he asked, unflinching in the rain.
‘West wall,’ Aerand replied, too certain of the coming evil to make issue of his prior disrespect. Beneath her armour, her skin burned like fire, each breath laden with the scent of charred air. ‘Hold the gate and the bridge however you must.’
The sergeant nodded, then marched off along the rampart, rain beading silver on his helm like the stars above.
‘Sergeant,’ she called, staring out at the storm. ‘I think you should hurry.’
As she spoke, a bolt of lightning lit the canyon, arcing between dark clouds before striking the citadel’s spire. As the valley burned blue, dark forms burst from the mist, and a hail of lasfire tore through the night towards the fortress.
‘Incoming!’ Aerand shouted, dropping below the crenulations. The blistering volley crashed against Apex’s walls as her troopers dropped with her, some not rising again.
‘Return fire!’ Aerand rose to a knee and aimed her lasgun over the wall, pulling hard on the trigger.
Far below, a wave of bodies rushed towards the fortress, shrouded in the smoke of roaring weapons, but even at this distance she could see their enemy was well-armed and determined.
Beside scores of cultists, rows of silver-armoured Ourean guards marched with traitors in Imperial armour. At their head rolled three Eradicator battle tanks, patched and precarious, but functioning well enough to heave shells straight at the western gate.
‘Vox-caster, on me!’ Aerand bellowed over the din of the firefight, sprinting along the slick rampart and scanning the silhouettes of her soldiers for Maresh.
‘Corwyn,’ she roared, sliding into place beside the sergeant and pulling him back from his post by the shoulder. In the tower above them, a turret lay empty, a heavy stubber jammed between the rampart and a charred body, firing aimlessly into the valley below. ‘Get that weapon back in service.’
‘On it, sir,’ he called, pulling two troopers in his wake. ‘Looks like we’ll be in the fight, after all.’
‘Indeed,’ she replied grimly, as a salvo from the Eradicators burst against the northern wall. As she sprinted along the rampart, she spotted the chevrons of Delaver’s armour lying still on the stone in a puddle of rain. Beside him, a section of the wall had crumbled, casualties of the Eradicators’ ordnance.
Next to the rift, troopers poured fire at the approaching force, one bearing a corporal’s insignia on her shoulder. Their las-rounds streaked red and brilliant through the rain.
‘Maltia,’ Aerand shouted, crouching beside the corporal. ‘Where the hell is the rest of second squad?’
‘You’re looking at it.’ Maltia pointed her weapon over the precarious ledge. A cluster of bodies lay broken on the rocks in the valley below, Maresh’s vox shattered beneath his still form.
‘Throne,’ Aerand swore.
The oncoming swarm was now close enough to see clearly, but far too large to count. A group of scarcely clad men and women surged forward ahead of the main assault, crude weapons in their hands and madness in their eyes.
From the turret above, Corwyn’s stubber dropped dozens in seconds, but the rest did not slow. It was only then that Aerand noticed the symbol carved across one man’s chest. The same flame and eye she’d seen at the homestead.
An image of the dead woman’s open, black eyes flashed into her mind, that same weight returning to her limbs. Maltia stared in confusion while her soldiers’ weapons roared out into the night.
‘Any orders, sir?’
Aerand’s mind raced with a sudden terror. Not again. Not now. Not when they needed her more than any moment in her life.
She froze and stared down at the weapon in her hands. A thin streak of blood rolled down the handle of her lasgun, from the spot on her palm where Tarvarius’ chain had bled her.
The Emperor has no perfect servants. So he must make do with broken ones like us.
Aerand breathed deeply and snapped her eyes back to Maltia. ‘Aye,’ she replied. ‘Hold this damned wall, and make those heretics sorry they came here tonight.’
‘Will do, sir,’ Maltia replied with a grin.
Aerand darted towards the north gate as two missiles blazed from the tanks along the path, crashing into the gatehouse, and shaking its massive stone doors. Atop the building, Olemark ran between his soldiers – lasfire was pouring from their weapons towards the horde gathered below.
All along the wall, her soldiers were fighting bravely but dying fast. Attack groups closed on all three gates, and her platoon was barely slowing them down.
The army outside was far too large. Far too many for a simple cultist uprising. Bolstered by Astra Militarum deserters and the forces of at least one traitor feudal lord, it was only a matter of time before the approaching darkness overwhelmed them. Their only hope was to hold until the regiment returned.
Aerand clambered down a set of shattered stairs, careening over rubble and dancing beside the mind-numbing precipice. Apex hung on the wall of the mountain, and three bridges were all that connected the fortress to the world outside. Perhaps her soldiers could not stop the approaching army, but without a way to cross, they’d have no way to take the fortress.
The roar of krak missiles tore past Aerand’s face as two bright streaks of metal darted down from Corwyn’s tower towards the Eradicators below. The first tank crumbled into a cloud of smoke and glowing metal, while the second missile detonated along the valley wall, dropping a heap of stone onto a platoon of Ourean guards.
Up ahead, Olemark’s men were following suit, a pair of troopers loading a krak missile into its launcher and positioning themselves at the edge of the gatehouse. Aerand leapt the rest of the way down the steps, sprinting across a small stretch of open ramparts, lasfire and bolt rounds soaring past her head. She dropped to her knees beside Olemark just as he raised the missile launcher.
‘Wait!’ she shouted, lungs heaving with each beat of her heart.
Olemark turned in surprise.
‘The bridges,’ she panted, pointing over the ledge.
Only a few hundred yards from the edge of the wall, the vanguard of cultists streaked towards the gate, the two remaining Eradicators loosing another salvo. Beneath them, the gatehouse shuddered, and with a horrible crash, one of its stone doors toppled open.
‘Blow the bridges,’ Aerand ordered, lifting her lasgun slowly, uncertain if she’d be firing over the wall, or at a target much closer.
Olemark stared, then nodded in understanding. ‘It’d be my pleasure, sir,’ he replied, and a streak of flame darted over the wall.
As the missile found its mark, a promethean crack pierced the night, and the northern bridge toppled into the chasm. Moments later, two matching explosions echoed across the courtyard as Corwyn and Maltia directed their soldiers to follow suit. Aerand smiled and breathed a sigh. Only then did she notice the searing pain in her leg and the blood oozing from the hole through her thigh.
Nearly an hour later, and the fortress still stood. Blowing the bridges had stalled the assault, and the fever pitch of the initial battle had faded into a steady siege. Corwyn, Olemark, and Aerand huddled in the courtyard, Apex’s scorched, splintered citadel overshadowing the trio as they stooped over Aerand’s map.
‘Noravis Opum is nearly two hours away,’ Olemark said. ‘Even if they left the moment you voxed Lord Tarvarius, we’d still have the better part of an hour before they return.’
Corwyn nodded. ‘Then we hold the wall for another hour.’
Aerand shook her head and surveyed the heap of stone beside them, leaning up against a crumbling staircase to hold the weight off her injured leg.
Toppling the bridges had stalled the cultists and forced the Eradicators to stay out of krak missile range. But even at a distance, they’d nearly razed Apex’s walls and had taken another dozen of her soldiers. Now, without towers or autoguns and only a handful of troopers, her platoon was doing all it could to keep the army from finding a way across the chasm.
