Dan Abnett - Necropolis

You you need to see this, sir, he stammered.

Croe snatched the slate out of the man's hands and read it quickly. What he read arrested his attention, and he went back and re-read slowly, his eyes narrowing.

Croe thrust the slate to Gaunt. Read it yourself, he said. Our observers along the South Curtain have been picking it up since daybreak.

Gaunt looked through the transcripts recorded by the wall-guards as they scrolled across the glowing screen.

Heritor Asphodel, he murmured. He looked round at Croe. I suggest you release Grizmund now. We're going to need all the men we can get.

* * * * *

Gaunt and Croe left the retiring room together and strode down the short hall into the great control auditorium of House Command. Both the lower level and the wrought-iron upper deck of the place were jostling with activity. Hololithic projections of the warfront glowed upwards into the air from crenellated lens-pits in the floor, and the air throbbed with vox-caster traffic, astropaths' chants and the clack of the cogitator banks.

A gaggle of Munitorum staffers, Vervun Primary aides and technical operators hastened forward around the marshal as he entered, but he waved them all away, crossing to the ironwork upper deck, his boots clanging up the metal steps. Vice Marshal Anko, General Sturm, Commissar Kowle and General Xance of the NorthCol were already assembled by the great chart table. Silent servitors, encrusted with bionics, and poised regimental aides waited behind them. An occasional vox/pict drone bumbled across the command space. Gaunt hung back at the head of the stairs, observing.

Kowle? asked Croe, approaching the chart table.

No confirmation. It is impossible to confirm, lord marshal.

Croe held up the data-slate. But this is an accurate transcript of the enemy broadcasts? They're chanting this at the gates?

Since dawn, replied Sturm. He looked bleary-eyed, and his grey and gold Volpone dress uniform was crumpled, as if he had been roused hurriedly. And not just chanting.

He nodded and a servitor opened a vox-channel. A chatter of almost unintelligible noise rolled from the speaker.

Vox-central has washed the signal clean. The name repeats on all band-widths as a voice pattern and also as machine code, arithmetical sequence and compressed pict-representation. Sturm fell silent. He reached for a cup of caffeine on the edge of the chart table, his hand trembling.

A blanket broadcast. They certainly want us to know, Gaunt said.

Kowle looked round at him. They want us to be scared, he said snidely. Just hours ago, you complimented me on my ability to control information. We can presume the enemy are similarly efficient. This could be propaganda. Demoralising broadcasts. They may simply be using the name as a terror device.

Possibly but we agreed it would take a force of great charisma to turn a hive the size of Ferrozoica. Heritor Asphodel is just such a force. His fate and whereabouts since Balhaut are unknown.

Anko looked away from Gaunt deliberately and turned to Kowle. You were on Balhaut, Kowle. What is this creature?

Kowle was about to speak when Gaunt cut across. Both Kowle and I served on Balhaut. I believe the commissar was deployed on the southwest continent, away from the main battle for the Oligarchy. I encountered the Heritor's forces personally.

Kowle conceded. He could barely hide his bitterness at the memory. The colonel-commissar may have more experience than me.

Croe turned his hooded eyes back to Gaunt. Well?

The Heritor was one of Archon Nadzybar's foremost lieutenants, a warlord in his own right, personally commanding a force of over a million. He was one of the chief commanders Nadzybar gathered in his great retinue to form the vast enemy force which overran the Sabbat Worlds, Emperor damn him. Despite the notoriety of the other warlords filth like Sholen Skara, Nokad the Blighted, Anakwanar Sek, Qux of the Eyeless Heritor Asphodel remains the most notorious. His sworn aim, both before and after Archon Nadzybar co-opted him into the pact, was to ˜inherit' Imperium world after Imperium world and return them to what he saw as the ˜true state' of Chaos. His ruthlessness is immeasurable, his brutality staggering and the charismatic force of his personality as a leader cannot be underestimated. And with the possible exception of Sek, he is probably the most tactically brilliant of all Nadzybar's commanders.

It almost sounds like you admire the bastard, sniffed Sturm.

I do not underestimate him, general, Gaunt said coldly. That is different.

And he could be here? It could be more than an enemy lie? Anko asked, failing to disguise the wobble in his voice.

The Heritor fled Balhaut along with all the surviving warlords after Warmaster Slaydo slew the Archon. This may be his first reappearance. The Zoican forces have encircled us well and swiftly, and they have used both waiting and surprise to great effect. Both are tactics I know the Heritor favours. Furthermore, he delights in war machines. With access to Ferrozoica hive's fabricating plants, the baroque war machines we have seen are precisely the sort of things I would expect him to send out at us.

Croe said nothing as he took it in. Suggestions? Gaunt?

Astutely, Gaunt deferred to Kowle, aware of how the commissar was bristling at what he would no doubt see as the colonel-commissar's grandstanding. I would invite Commissar Kowle's ideas on how to deal with this information.

Kowle greedily accepted the scrap thrown to him. We can't shut out blanket broadcasts, so we must refute them. All military, municipal and guilder institutions in Vervunhive, along with select representatives of the citizenry and the Legislature, must be clearly and emphatically briefed that this is hollow propaganda. We should prepare statements for the public address plates to repeat denials of this. I also urge we counter with broadcasts of our own. Simple repeats of the statement ˜the Heritor is dead' should suffice for now.

Begin the work. I want regular updates. Croe waited as Kowle saluted and left, then faced Sturm and Xance. Battle standby remains in force, but I want all military resources moved into position now. No reserves. We must meet the next thrust with absolute power.

Both generals nodded.

I trust the revisions you ordered to the communications net have been affected, General Sturm?

New channel settings and new codes have been issued to our forces. The confusions of the last storm should not recur.

Gaunt hoped Sturm was correct. He had reviewed the general's revisions and they seemed sound, though they favoured the Volpone Bluebloods and the Vervun Primary with the most accessible bands.

Have you yet considered my proposal to engage them outside the Wall? asked Xance.

Impractical, general, replied Croe.

We saw how the Vervun Mechanised were destroyed in the grasslands, Sturm added.

But now they are dug in and restricted by the streets of the outer habs. The policy vouched by Nash, Grizmund and Gaunt early on would seem more attractive now. The NorthCol and Narmenian armour could sally out with infantry support and shake them from their forward line.

Gaunt listened, fascinated. This was the first he had heard of Xance's plan. Clearly Sturm, Anko and Croe had made efforts to suppress it. It could not be coincidence that Xance was voicing it now in Gaunt's presence.

No! barked Sturm, anger getting the better of him for a moment. We will not dilute our resistance here by wasting manpower and machines in an external raid.

Xance shook his head and left the upper auditorium without saluting.

Sturm looked over at Gaunt with a scowl. Don't even begin to think about supporting Xance, Gaunt. The Imperial Forces here at Vervunhive will not go on the offensive now or in the foreseeable future.