Dan Abnett - Necropolis

With a resounding, fulminating crack and a reek of ozone, the Shield was reignited.

Ibram Gaunt left the audience hall of House Sondar and walked up onto an enclosed roof terrace that overlooked the entire hive. Fires burned below, thousands of them, and streaks of constant shelling lit the air. The Shield overhead glowed and crackled.

Now the Last Ditch had begun.

FIFTEEN

DAY THIRTY-FIVE

Target and deny! By our deaths shall they know us!

General Coron Grizmund, at the start

of the Narmenian counterattack

Overnight, between the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth days of the war, Vervunhive had come to the brink of destruction. Now, like a clenching muscle, the Imperial forces tightened and backed through the inner habs and elite sectors, resisting the encircling foe. For all their massive numbers, the Zoicans could only attack by land with the Shield reactivated. The dense streets, city blocks, habitats and thoroughfares favoured the defenders, who could dig in and hold the Zoican push.

Corday and Rawne dragged their forces back from Veyveyr into the worker habs a bare half hour before they could be encircled by enemy forces reaching upwards from Sondar Gate. NorthCol and Vervun Primary battalions pushed west to support the retreating Roane, still resisting street by street as they fell back from the Croe and Ontabi Gates. Colonel Bulwar had nominal command of that front.

Five thousand Vervun Primary troopers under Captain Cargin still held the Hass West Fort fast, though looping columns of Zoican infantry were beginning to bracket them through the chemical plant district.

Throughout the inner habs south of the Main Spine, Imperial units tried to stem the advance. Sergeant Bray directed the Tanith in the wastes north of the chem district. Volpone, NorthCol and Vervun Primary sections strung out to his east, where Corbec's remaining Tanith and a force of Roane Deepers under Major Relf had consolidated a wide area of manufactories.

The fighting there was thick, as thick as any in the hive. Guild Githran Agricultural had been held since the small hours of the morning. Corbec's platoons had precious little ammo left and no food. They had been fighting all-out for six hours straight. Enemy flamer-tanks holding the north-south arterial highway rightly were preventing the Tanith from obtaining munitions from the better-provided Roane, just half a kilometre away to the east. The Tanith were forced to scavenge for ammo, running out of cover in twos and threes to loot the fallen Zoicans. At least with the Shield reactivated, they were spared the worst of the shelling, though the enemy armour and field pieces now set up inside the Shield dome were unrelenting.

Baffels whistled a command, and Milo, Neskon and Cocoer dashed from the cover of a derelict abattoir and scurried towards a burning textile mill. Dremmond covered their run with spurts from his flamer. The three Tanith had bayonets fixed. They were all out of ammo, except Cocoer, who had only a handful of shots left.

Six Zoicans lay dead behind the rear wall of the mill. The trio descended on them and stripped them of las-cells. Each corpse had six or seven as well as musette bags filled with stick grenades.

Milo looked up. The air throbbed with las-fire and though the Shield had shut out the rain, the ground was slick and muddy. Me pulled Neskon down into cover. Enemy fire chased down the mill wall, cracking holes in the plaster facing and puffing out brick dust.

A fireteam of Zoican stormtroopers was advancing through the ruins to the west of the mill. Cocoer now had a fresh clip in his Guard-issue weapon and he fired twice, missing his targets but causing the Zoicans to duck and cover.

We're pinned! Milo hissed into his microbead.

Stay down, the voice of Sergeant Baffels crackled back.

They did. Neskon poked his head up long enough to be shot at.

Come on, Baffels! Milo added urgently. They could hear the crunching footfalls of the Zoicans barely ten paces from their cover.

Just another moment, Baffels reassured his friend.

Loud las-shots cracked over the ruins, single shots, high-powered.

You're clear! Go! Baffels squawked.

Milo led the way, Neskon and Cocoer on his heels. He got a glimpse of the Zoicans behind him, sprawled dead from clean head-shots.

Milo smiled.

The trio slid into cover in the agricultural manufactory, safe behind a solid ceramite wall. Baffels and other Tanith crowded round them as they shared out the clip-cells and the stick-bombs.

Milo looked across the roofless factory-space and saw Larkin dug in high up near a vent hatch. The Tanith snipers, along with the Spoilers, had drawn back from the Spoil. Milo had known that the precision killing of the Zoicans had been the work of marksmen.

He flashed a grin up at Larkin. The weasely sniper winked back.

Milo handed a cell to Baffels. Your turn next time, he joked.

Of course, said Baffels. Hours before he had ceased to recognise the humour in anything.

Colm?

Corbec looked up out of the loophole he was holding, his shaggy head coated in soot and grime. He shot a beaming grin when he saw Mkoll.

About time you got here.

Came as fast as we could. The bastards have the Spoil now. We left it to them.

Corbec got up and slapped Mkoll on the arm. You all make it through?

Yeah, Domor, Larkin, MkVenner all the boys. I've spread them out through our lines.

Good work. We need good marksman coverage all along. Feth, but this is ugly work.

They looked round, hearing angry voices down the burned-out hall. Vervun Primary troops with long-barrelled lasguns were moving in to join the defence.

The Spoilers, so called, Mkoll explained to his colonel. Dedicated to protecting the Spoil. Took a while to convince them that falling back was the smart choice. They'd have held the slag-slopes forever. It's a pride thing.

We understand pride, don't we? grimaced Corbec.

Mkoll nodded. He pointed out the leader of the Spoilers, a bulky man with bloodshot eyes who was doing most of the shouting and cursing. That's ˜Gak' Ormon. Spoiler commander.

Corbec sauntered over to the big Verghastite.

Corbec, Tanith First-and-Only.

Major Ormon. I want to lodge a complaint, colonel. Your man Mkoll ordered our withdrawal from the Spoil, and

Corbec cut him short. We're fighting for our fething lives and you want to complain? Shut up. Get used to it. Mkoll made a good call. Another half an hour and you would have been surrounded and dead. You want a ˜spoil' to defend? Take a look! He gestured out of a shattered window at the wasteland around. Start thinking like a soldier, and stop cussing and whining. There's more than unit pride at stake here.

Ormon opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish. I'm glad we understand each other, Corbec said.

In the north-eastern corner of the hive, Sergeant Varl and Major Rodyin had command of one hundred and seventy or so men holding the burning docks. Half were Tanith; the rest, Vervun Primary and Roane. Zoican stormtroops were blasting in along the Hass East Causeway under the Hiraldi road-bridge, and the Imperial forces were being driven back through the hive's promethium depots. Several bulk capacity tanks were already ablaze and liquescent fire spurted from derricks and spout-vents.

Firing tight bursts, Varl crossed a depot freightway and dropped into cover beside Major Rodyin, who had paused to fiddle with the cracked lens of his spectacles.

No sign of support. I've been trying the vox. We're on our own, the Vervun officer remarked.

Varl nodded. We can do that. Just a few of us should be able to keep them busy in these industrial sectors.

Unless they move armour our way.

Varl sighed. The hiver was pessimism personified.