Aaron Aaron Dembski-Bowden - Cadian Blood

As recon missions went, this one was looking to end pretty badly. Vertain looked at his auspex display again, checking where the rest of his patrol group was. It looked fine. It felt like they were screwed, because Vertain was damn sure this night was going to end in bloodshed, but tactically speaking, his Sentinel squadron were in perfect formation as they stalked and scouted the abandoned streets.

Ahead, the colossal monastery still burned. The captain had warned about this, damn it. He’d said the Janus 6th was walking into their deaths.

And now the vox was bitching around again. Nothing ever worked right on this damn planet. The city’s silence amplified the rattling clank of his Sentinel’s ungainly stride, and that didn’t exactly help Vertain’s hearing, but the comms being screwed to the Eye and back were the main issue. Vox-ghosts, lost signals, channels slipping, vox-casters detuning… Hell, they’d seen it all on Kathur so far.

“Insurgency Walker C-Eighty-Eight Primus-Alpha,” the voice came over the vox again in a tone of agonising calm. “Repeat, please.”

This was a problem. The only half-reliable vox-channel Vertain had been able to use through Kathur’s interference was a route back to main headquarters. Main headquarters was three dozen kilometres away in the wrong direction. Help wasn’t coming from there, and they weren’t the ones that needed to be told about this development just yet—even if they couldn’t already tell from orbital surveillance. Other ears needed to hear it now.

To make matters worse, they apparently had an idiot manning the forward recon channel tonight. So far Vertain had managed to relay his ID code, and that was about it. He’d been trying for over five minutes. “Interference or not… You’d think they could’ve boosted the signal by now. I’ll bet a year’s pay this bastard isn’t Cadian.”

“This is Scout-Lieutenant Adar Vertain of the Cadian 88th. I am leading the recon mission to assess the progress of the Janus 6th. Put me through to Captain Parmenion Thade.” He spilled out the rough coordinates where the rest of the regiment was based in the city for the night.

“Repeat, please.”

Vertain brought his walker to a halt. It stood in the dead street, juddering as its engine idled. The spotlight beamed forward into nothingness, slicing into a dark alley between two silent buildings. This city was a tomb.

“In the name of the Emperor, the Janus 6th is up to its neck in it. Get me a vox-link to my captain, immediately.”

“Insurgency Walker C-Eighty-Eight Primus-Alpha. Your signal is weak. Repeat, please.”

Vertain swore, and killed the link. “I hate this planet.”

Control sticks gripped in gloved hands, Vertain pushed forward and set the noisy Sentinel clanking ahead in a slow stride of graceless machinery. The searchlight bolted to the cheek of the walker’s pilot pod tore left and right in the darkness, cutting a harsh white glare through the deserted streets.

Abandoned buildings. Bodies here and there. Nothing but silence.

Vertain was unshaven, as if he’d spent so much time hiding within his Sentinel’s cockpit that he’d not had the opportunity to shave in a week. This wasn’t too far from the truth.

“Vertain to Dead Man’s Hand. Acknowledge signal.” Four voices came back in turn as each member of the Sentinel squadron voxed to their officer. No one was dead. That was something, at least. “Form up in parallel streets and proceed to the main plaza ahead. Stalking pattern: Viridian. Tonight we’re the Emperor’s eyes, not his fists.”

“Acknowledge pattern: Viridian,” came three of the four voices.

“Copy that. No heroics,” came the last.

The Sentinels, scattered but each within scanner range of all four others, strode towards the burning monastery. Occasional gunfire rang out as they annihilated small groups of plague-slain, destroying the tainted dead that clung to false life, roving the streets in packs.

Splayed claw-feet of battered, blessed iron stomped on the smooth stone roads. Vertain rode with the gentle side-to-side motion of his Sentinel’s gait, as familiar to him as standing in his own boots.

The capital city Solthane was built in worship of the Emperor and His great saint, Kathur. Its one purpose was to look beautiful: a purpose hundreds of planetary governors and ranking Ecclesiarchs had been building on for thousands of years as new shrines, places of pilgrimage, monuments and chapel-habs were erected. All sense of the original layout was centuries lost, buried and distorted in the ever-expanding mass of new construction.

Solthane now, torn back metre by metre by the Imperial Guard, was a labyrinth of winding and meandering streets populated only by abandoned traders’ carts still filled with cheap wares and false relics. Deserted promenades were punctuated by marble statues depicting Kathur, lesser saints, and the nameless Raven Guard heroes who had originally served in the war to take the world, ten thousand years ago in the Great Crusade. Shortcut alleys twisted in the shadows of the towering chapel-hab blocks, all of which were encrusted with granite angels staring down at the dead city.

In his opinion—and as lead scout for the Cadian 88th, his opinion counted in every planning session he bothered to speak it—Vertain believed the chapel-habs were the worst aspect of the city’s current state. The habitation towers dominated the skyline, thrusting up at random wherever there had been space to house the vast numbers of pilgrims forever moving through the city. Solthane was beauty turned to ugliness in its rich excess, and it gave enemy troops a million places to hide. The chapel-habs now stood as great apartment spires filled with the dead. No regiment wanted to draw the duty of cleansing those places, seeking out agents of the Archenemy lurking among the plague-slain. No one wanted to risk walking knee-deep in bodies only for the plague-slain to rise again.

Ahead of Vertain, the monastery burned, filling his viewing slits with orange warmth. His scanner choked in bursts through static, but he could see the walls lining the edge of the holy site’s grounds rising up at the end of the street. His walker stomped closer, iron feet thudding onto the stone road. No enemies were visible outside the thirty-metre high walls, but at this range Vertain could hear the faint crack of countless lasguns and the heavy chatter of bolt weapons. The Janus 6th was fighting a losing war within the temple grounds. He clicked his vox-link live and was about to try for the captain again, when another voice crackled over.

“Sir, I’ve got… something.”

The vox was hellishly distorted even at close range, so the other pilot’s voice was garbled, rendering the speaker unidentifiable. It took a glance at the scanner display to see Greer’s placement beacon flashing. He was three streets to the west, close to the front gate of the monastery’s grounds.

“Specifics, Greer,” said Vertain.

“If I had specifics, I’d give you them. My vox keeps detuning to another frequency.”

“You told me Enginseer Cuius fixed that two nights ago.”

Now was not the time for instrument failure. The enemy could easily pick up stray vox on insecure frequencies. Greer’s instruments had been the subject of repeated repair since he’d taken a rocket hit on the cockpit pod a year ago, fighting heretics in the cities of Beshic V. The scorched and twisted metal that had blackened his walker’s cheek was gone, but the missile’s legacy remained.

“He did fix it. I’m saying it’s shaken loose again. I’m hearing… something. I’ll pulse the frequency over. Listen for yourself.”

“Send me the frequency.”

“Can… hear… at?” Greer asked in a surge of vox crackle. Vertain tuned his receiver and narrowed his eyes. In his headset, a whispering voice hissed the same three words in an endless monotone.