‘A thudd gun’s a significant target,’ said Lex. ‘We must hope that a battle cannon or a big beam projector is used to assail it; soon, and devastatingly!’ He scanned the unreinforced arches ingeniously holding up the roof of slabs. ‘We should shelter just inside the webway portal, and pray for a direct hit.’
Before intoning such a prayer, Jaq thoughtfully unrolled his mesh armour. He cast off his robe, drew on the flexible armour, and resumed the robe again. All four sat within the webway and bowed their heads, in the posture of people awaiting a missile attack. Rakel’s teeth chattered. Grimm’s utter silence went unremarked, since Imperial prayers were never of any account to a squat.
T
HE THUNDEROUS DETONATION
of a prayer being answered rocked the whole crypt as if it were a crib in the claws of a carnosaur. The deafening roar continued, increasing in volume. Some edifice was collapsing overhead, ramming tonnes of rubble downwards. The arches of the crypt groaned mightily – then snapped inwards. Choking dust billowed into the webway.
W
HEN THE DUST
had cleared enough to see through, a slab was half-blocking the portal. Enough gap remained for even a Space Marine to squeeze through.
From somewhere up above, hazy natural light filtered down. Fortunate, indeed, that the masons of this world built massively. Great slabs and blocks were canted upon one another in vast vertical confusion – up which, through fissures and chimneys, it would be possible to clamber... towards the pandemonium of conflict.
S
UCH A SIGHT
greeted their eyes.
The demolished stronghold, which had been a firing platform for the now-disintegrated thudd gun, was atop a precipitous hill overlooking a sweeping valley. The hill might be the core of an ancient extinct volcano, with the remnant of a crater. The crypt had been built in the crater. Above had been piled the stronghold, now reduced to a jumble of jagged stone teeth like some orkish idea of battlements. Ideal location for a thudd gun, which lobbed shells high in the air. From here they would travel further than usual and descend with a more devastating armour-splitting impact.
Some corpses had been hurled against tilted slabs. Others must have hurtled down the precipice. No signs of life in the immediate vicinity.
Yet the immediate vicinity was of no account whatever compared with the vista!
A rolling sea of men and machines were at war! A multitude of mites were in muddled combat. Such vehicles were in their midst. Battle tanks and superheavy tanks, mobile battle cannons, specialist artillery carriages, four-barrelled lascannon on motorized track-units. Dwarfing all these were numerous Titans, gargantuan war machines with autocannon and plasma cannon and chainsword arms, their energy shields flushing as they soaked up a surfeit of incoming fire.
A thin drizzle drifted down from a uniformly grey sky. Together with the drifting smoke and fumes this drizzle bestowed a pastel impressionism upon the prodigious spectacle.
Those Titans were like stalking, upright tortoises, striding ponderously, their cleated feet crushing whatever infantry were in the way, whether friend or foe. The auto-cannon arm of one hung crippled. Another’s leg was rigid, so that it must swing its way slowly forward. A great glowing crater in the distance marked where the reactor of another Titan must have overloaded.
Mites fought mites. Tanks fought tanks. Titans fought Titans. Rapier lasers targeted Titans, trying to bring their four thrusts of energy to converge exactly upon the void shield of a lurching target. Titans blasted at the track-units carrying the massive rapiers. All was in convulsive conflict. Wreckage and corpses littered the battlefield like so many crushed ants. A thousand minor fires burned. If there had ever been villages or fields or orchards in this valley, no trace of those remained.
The ruined stronghold vibrated with shock waves. The air thrummed. How the hordes of humanity struggled. How potent and ingenious the weaponry. Some of the Titans were Carnivore class, armed with multiple rocket launchers and turbo-laser destructors. Some were Warhounds with plasma blastguns and mega-bolters. Oh the cannons and battle claws, oh the gatling blasters and power fists. After an encounter with tyranids, this sight of regular human conflict filled the soul, almost, with the boon of blessed familiarity – rather than with horror. The sight almost restored faith in human endurance.
Rakel whimpered.
Considerably overtopping any other Titan was a red castle mounted upon two flaring rounded bastions. Smoke had veiled it. Now it became more clearly visible. From its topmost spires, plasma cannons and lascannons jutted. Two of the four spires were ablaze. Human mites had taken refuge on the ornate battlements below. Those battlements were borne upon vast metal shoulders. A glaring skull could swivel upon a neck-dome. On either side were two massive pivoting weapons arms – a multi-melta and a plasma cannon, from which flapped the smouldering remnants of battle banners. That dome was set directly upon a horizontal and cylindrical pelvis. Great pistons, surely of adamantium, plunged into the great boot-like bastions. One of the bastions was wreathed in flames.
An entire castle, humanoid in general appearance, and wondrously ornamented all over with golden skulls and double-headed Imperial eagles, with fleurs-de-lys and fylfots!
One vast red boot of the castle moved. It grooved a wide pathway. The whole edifice lurched forward a step. No mere castle that, but a Titan amongst Titans! At the base of the moving boot were wide stairs resembling claws. From an arched doorway troops streamed down the claws.
‘Bloody hell,’ swore Grimm, ‘the Adeptus Mechanicus have been busy!’
Even so, that Titan of Titans was in trouble. Its spires and one huge foot were ablaze. Its plasma cannon was seemingly disabled. The multi-melta arm still beamed infernal heat, reducing tanks to puddles of glowing slag. Even as they watched, one of the lesser yet redoubtable Titans scored a plasma hit in the castle’s groin. Although the scene almost eluded analysis, it seemed that Imperial forces were suffering a set-back.
A groan drew attention to what they had assumed was a corpse nearby. The golden epaulettes of the man’s high-collared greatcoat were like fronds of a sea anemone. Sleeves and breast were adorned with pious icons and honour braids. Miniature steel skulls studded wide gauntlets. The man’s face was flash-burned. His legs had been shattered. Very likely his pelvis too. Blood seeped. His groan, of recovered consciousness and of revival to pain, became a defiant growl of fury at his inability to move. Was his spine broken too? He shifted his head and inhaled.
‘In the Emperor’s name, assist your commissar!’ he ordered. Was the man hallucinating that the giant and the abhuman and the robed man and the quivering woman could possibly be members of the Imperial Guard? Regiments of the Guard were a motley recruited from many worlds, preferably from the cream of planetary defence forces, though often from violent gangs and barbarians. A commissar’s duty was to impose obedience and unity and purity of purpose.
How could these four well-armed persons be here upon the obliterated stronghold unless somehow they were participants? If they were rebels – as must seem probable – the injured commissar appeared determined to browbeat them into obedience through awe at his sheer strength of purpose. A plea, or surrender, was inconceivable.
Then Jaq realized: the explosion which destroyed the gun emplacement had blinded the commissar as well as crippling him. The man was guessing that if he had survived then there might be other survivors too. Any such must help him at whatever cost.
Jaq made his way to the ruin of a man and knelt.
‘I am an Imperial inquisitor, commissar,’ he declared.
‘At last,’ snarled the man. ‘At last!’
‘I would show you my palm tattoo, except that you are blind—’
‘At last!’
Wondrously it seemed the commissar had been praying for an inquisitor to arrive. Thus what was happening here was no simple rebellion – but some pernicious heresy! That heresy appeared to be triumphing on the field of battle.
This commissar must be disoriented by pain and blindness. Yet one could not take such a dedicated man for granted.
‘We were captured soon after we landed,’ lied Jaq. ‘We succeeded in escaping only recently. We have been searching for you. Those officers of the Guards whom we have encountered hitherto are not exactly subtle men. In your own words, commissar, how would you define the nature of the heresy?’
‘Why, the rebel Lucifer Princip claims to be the Emperor’s son, and heir to the Imperium. His rank followers believe that this world of Genost will become the new Terra. This is simple enough, and foul enough—’ Pain wracked the commissar, and he bit into his lip deliberately.
The news staggered Jaq.
An Emperor’s Son! One, moreover, who seemed fully aware of his origin – unless this Lucifer Princip was merely an opportunistic and persuasive liar who had concocted a bogus story.
If Princip was not a liar, had roving Harlequins identified him at some time in the past? Had Harlequins enlightened him? If so, the man had evidently avoided further involvement with the eldar. Had sensei knights found him and informed him of his true nature? Princip was hardly engaged in any secret long watch... What might this Princip know about those knights or about Emperor’s Sons? If those did truly exist, and were not a fabrication!
‘Is this not simple enough?’ repeated the commissar. Was there a growing suspicion in his tone? Commissars were trained to detect deviancy and to root it out.
Simple? How very far from simple!
Said Jaq: ‘It is the experience of the Inquisition, commissar, that simplicity may often mask deep deceit and corruption. Tell me, does Lucifer Princip claim to be immortal?’
‘Of course he does! Yet no one is immortal, except for our beloved God-Emperor.’ A cough wracked the commissar, tormenting his broken bones. He bit his lip again.
Jaq’s next question was: ‘Is Princip originally from this world of—’ For a moment the name eluded him. ‘This world of Genost?’
‘That’s unknown. How did you escape, inquisitor? Who else is with you? My name is Boglar Zylov. What is yours?’
Jaq simply asked, ‘Do you know of a mysterious misty blue tunnel, Zylov, within say thirty kilometres of here?’
That other portal, which Jaq must find, may have been used by the eldar to visit Genost, and to discover Princip – if Princip was a native of this world, and if the eldar were at all involved.
Supposing that Princip was indeed immortal, and genuine, how very unlikely it was that he would still be on the planet of his birth over ten millennia after the Emperor had scattered his seed! These enigmas vexed Jaq almost as much as Zylov’s broken bones and blindness must vex him.
‘No blue tunnel,’ growled the commissar, confused. ‘What is it? Why?’
The portal beneath this stronghold had been painstakingly sealed in the distant past. The other portal must likewise have been hidden and fastened away in a similar fashion.
‘Do you know of any ancient structure resembling this one within say thirty kilometres?’
Zylov’s head inclined towards the valley where the war continued to thunder. ‘Your questions mystify me, inquisitor!’ Jaq replied, ‘I sincerely hope that the intention of our Imperial forces is to capture the rebel alive.’
‘The intention right now is simply to survive.’
‘Tell me: how many other commissars apart from yourself are with our forces?’
‘Three. No, Gryphius was killed. Two – plus myself.’
Gently Jaq said, ‘I fear you are no longer fit for duty, Commissar Zylov. Would that you could see my palm tattoo. I need to adopt the mantle of commissar to aid my inquisitorial inquiry. I shall try not to hurt you unduly while removing your greatcoat.’
That ornamented coat, although soiled, would immediately identify Jaq to the Imperial forces as someone requiring absolute obedience.
‘Certain inquisitors prefer to work in secret,’ Jaq confided to Zylov. ‘Thus we learn more, and Princip’s heresy requires—’
‘Eradication!’
‘That is a commissar’s commendable view. I must take a wider view,
in nomine Imperatoris
.’ Zylov was confused, and agonized. He submitted.
‘G
RUB
!’
CRIED
G
RIMM
.
While Jaq had been interrogating the commissar, and while Lex had been watching the progress of the battle from behind a slab, the little man had discovered some scattered ration packs and canteens of water amongst the ruins.
Hands full, Grimm eyed Jaq attired in decorated greatcoat with epaulettes.
‘How posh. How ruthless looking. What’s the idea, boss?’
To mention Emperor’s Sons right now might confuse Grimm, as well as wasting time. It was a supreme priority to discover the true nature of Lucifer Princip. Princip would be utterly protected. It would take a true assassin – not a bogus one – to reach Princip. It would take an assassin of the Callidus temple, whose hallmark was cunning! How utterly Jaq needed Meh’lindi for this mission. She was not really too far away by now. Merely dead, temporarily. Her resurrection – which would cause such a psychic quake, devoutly to be desired as another supreme priority – was merely a dozen or so more avenues distant through the webway.
Jaq said, ‘We must find some place resembling this one here. The place may already have been wrecked by battle, and the portal exposed. If not, we shall need to wreck the place ourselves. We require transport and protection and perspective and heavy weaponry. Therefore we are going to commandeer an Imperial Titan.’
Lex cleared his throat. ‘Along with my comrades,’ he said darkly, ‘I once hijacked a heretical Titan.’
Dropping the ration packs, Grimm clapped in morose applause. ‘How fortunate for us. Now we can really jump into the frying pan.’
‘To know how to operate the Titan,’ continued Lex, ‘it was necessary for my comrades and me to eat the fresh brains of the crewmen we killed.’
Rakel swayed, aghast.
‘It is pointless,’ said Lex, ‘for any of you to eat brains in the hope of acquiring new skills. You lack an Astartes’ omophagea organ. That is essential for digesting the facts of a person’s life from their flesh.’