Dan Abnett - Know no fear. The Battle of Calth

What Krank can see doesn’t look like Bale Rane’s young bride at all.

The tunnel system opens out on the perimeter of Leptius Numinus. For the last few kilometres, the subsurface structure is fractured, and the tunnels are flooded to knee-height. Liquid from the dislocated water table and sewage from city treatment plants has seeped up and washed out the tunnel system. They are obliged to wade.

Ventanus leads them out into the palace grounds, flanked by Arook’s primary squad. They’ve added to their force during the journey. Several squads of skitarii have joined them, swelling the Mechanicum numbers to close to one thousand. They’ve also connected with about thirty Ultramarines from various decimated units, and four hundred men from the Neride Regulators 10th, nominally under a Colonel Sparzi.

The palace is elegant, a rectilinear villa complex. It reveals its stately lines slowly through the thick mist. The gardens of the estate are tumbledown. Shockwave winds and blast scorching have denuded the ploin, haps and pistachio orchards, and turned the vines into charred ropes. Ornamental walls have spilled over. Carp ponds are dry basins, the water evaporated. They find the cowering, burned skeletons of gardeners and groundsmen behind splintered trees.

The palace is closed for the winter. The city governor was in residence at Dera Tower in the city. Ventanus reflects that the governor is probably dead by now. All the casements, apart from armourglas and crystalflex reinforced sections, have been blown in by the savage transcontinental winds. The rooms, most of them filled with furniture covered by dustcloths, are littered with broken glass and snapped muntins.

Outside, the valley and the plains beyond are dark under a blanket of fog. There is no wind. Everywhere is eerily tranquil. A calm that recalls the obligatory stillness of death.

To the north-west, the Mountains of Twilight form a grey limit to the fogbound plains. To the south and south-east, the dark shape of the Shield Wall hems the city. A rugged natural formation, the back of the ridge rises above the languid, unctuous fog. Its famous forests are spines of tattered wood, stripped of limbs and leaves.

Numinus burns, a giant haze of golden light. It is not the only massive blaze they can see. Others show up in the distant fog in almost every direction, and the brutalised sky is speckled with them. Every now and then, something falls down the back of the heavens, trailing a tail of flame, and crumps into the hidden landscape with a distant tremor.

They move into the palace, breaking down doors where necessary. Some of the halls and chambers are littered with broken masonry where walls or ceilings have fallen. Ventanus sees fragments of moulded plasterwork, some of it painted. He sees shattered heroes from the early days of the Five Hundred Worlds. He sees the Ultima symbol, the one they all wear on their armour, broken in pieces.

Tawren assembles a working party of magi to locate and prepare the palace’s data-engine and the high-cast vox array. Ventanus, in consultation with Selaton, Arook, Sparzi and Captain Sullus, a survivor from 39th Company, prepares the defences. Though its perimeter wall and ditch are quite considerable, the palace proper is not designed for military resistance of any appreciable magnitude. Sparzi’s men find some tractor guns and light field pieces in a stable block to the west, and set them up facing the plains.

‘If they find us here,’ says Sullus, ‘they will punish us.’

‘If they find us here,’ replies Ventanus, ‘I will kill them.’

Sullus nods. A half-smile crosses his mouth. He has lost most of his company brethren since dawn. He has seen other sections of the XIII cut down by troop fire or obliterated by heavy weapons. Ventanus knows that, to keep Sullus effective, he has to spur him out of his despondency. Ventanus has already considered putting Greavus, Sullus’s sergeant, in his place in the chain of command. Sullus is old, a veteran. It is as though the wind has been struck out of him.

Greavus walks over to them. He is carrying his helm under his arm. There is chalky dust on his face and in his hair. Greavus’s close-cropped fair hair is red, like dirty gold. The dust makes him look as though he is prematurely aging.

‘Report from the server, sir,’ he says, addressing Ventanus not Sullus. ‘They’ve found the vox-caster system. There are some power issues, but they hope to make a test broadcast within the hour.’

‘Good. The data-engine?’

‘Nothing on that yet, sir,’ replies Greavus.

Arook suddenly moves, raising his main weapon limb.

‘Contact,’ he reports. ‘Two kilometres from the north gate, coming this way out of the fog.’

‘Identity?’ asks Ventanus.

‘Concealed.’

Ventanus picks up the standard.

‘Selaton, cover the south line. Colonel Sparzi, the north-east. The rest of you with me.’

They head for the gate, crossing once-ornamental lawns. Fireteams of Army troopers are setting up in hastily dug foxholes. Ventanus notes good practical distribution of the few crew-served weapons and mortars. Sparzi has read a manual or two. Probably some of Guilliman’s.

They pass the field guns and reach the gate. Outside, the approach bridge spans the earthwork ditch. Beyond two obelisk mile marks, the road stretches off across scrub, the beginnings of the famous and majestic Plains of Dera. Fog and murk spoil the view.

‘We’ve got heat-sources,’ reports Arook. ‘Warm bodies.’

‘Confirming that,’ says Greavus, using a hand-held auspex.

‘They’re using the fog as cover,’ says Sullus dourly. ‘That can’t be good.’

‘If I was leading reinforcements here from Erud Station,’ says Ventanus, ‘I’d be using the fog as cover too.’

He looks at the skitarii master.

‘Vox signals?’

Arook shakes his head. The light in his damaged red eye is fading slowly in and out.

‘You mentioned a code term,’ says Arook.

‘Yes,’ says Ventanus. ‘Wait.’

A slight breeze stirs. Leaf litter rattles amongst the rubble at their feet.

‘A signal,’ says Arook. They can all hear the muted background binarics. ‘Attention palace,’ he translates. ‘Identify occupation.’

‘Is that Mechanicum?’ asks Ventanus.

‘I can confirm the signal code source is Mechanicum,’ says Arook. ‘Not that it proves anything. If it’s Gargoz, he’s being circumspect.’

‘Again,’ says Ventanus, ‘I would be if I were approaching this location hoping to find friends and fearing I was about to find enemies.’

‘The signal has repeated twice,’ says Arook.

‘Answer it,’ says Ventanus. ‘Request identity.’

Arook makes a quick blurt.

‘Reply reads,’ he relays. ‘Support elements from Erud muster, seeking shelter.’

Ventanus sticks his standard point in the earth so he can clamp on his helm.

‘Too easy,’ he says. ‘No one from my company would expose himself that readily. Not on a day like today. No one from my company, or any other company. Ask them the question.’

‘The number of the painted eldar?’ asks Arook.

‘That’s the one.’

They wait for a second.

‘No response. They repeat the claim that they are support elements from Erud muster.’

‘Ask again,’ says Ventanus. He glances at Sparzi. ‘Get your boys up,’ he says.

The colonel nods and hurries off.

‘Response,’ says Arook. ‘A request for confirmation of xenos activity in this zone. Confirm, eldar forces?’

‘They don’t understand the question,’ says Ventanus.

‘I don’t understand the question,’ remarks Arook.

‘The point is, Sydance would,’ replies Ventanus. ‘And so would any other officer of the 4th Company. Ask them to verify their response. Tell them we will stand by.’