The Tallarn tribesmen hesitated, but eventually, they sheathed their weapons. Rezail and Tyrell,
however, did not.
“Colonel, lieutenant-colonel, you two stay,” Rezail said. He nodded to Tyrell to leave with the
others.
When the three men were finally alone, Rezail said, lightly tapping the pistol against his thigh,
“Any other unit… any other unit, and I would have you both executed for that pitiful display of
soldiery.”
“Nobody insults my father,” Nisri began.
“Both your fathers are dogs,” Rezail snapped, “and they should have mounted better mongrels
than your mothers.”
Both Nisri and Turk looked at the commissar aghast, their faces working through the insult.
“Now that we’ve dispensed with the petty idiocies,” Rezail continued, “you will not interrupt me
again. Make no mistake, gentlemen, we commissars have executed generals before now for
dereliction of duty and gross incompetence. Rest assured, neither of you would be the first
regimental officers that I’ve shot.”
Nisri and Turk both bit their tongues, but some of the colour had certainly left their faces.
“In this case, I choose not to plant a las-bolt in your collective skulls,” Rezail said, almost
sneering at them. “I need you both to keep your mutts in check. If I shoot one of you, I might as well
kill every member of your tribe, but, make no mistake, I brought enough clips for the task. Cross me
once more, just once, and I swear your men will suffer the consequences of your pitiful leadership.”
Rezail remained quiet for a moment, waiting to see if they still had any defiance left in them.
They didn’t appear to, however, their tempers cooled for the moment, and their duties as soldiers
remembered.
“I want you to speak to your men,” Rezail said calmly. “Remind them of their duty to the
Emperor. When the supply ship comes, and it will come, I want the fleet to find a proper, by-thebook
operation. They will not find a rabble of men ready to kill each other. They will not find our
faith in the Imperial Fleet, or the Emperor, lacking, is that understood?”
Nisri straightened and brushed the creases from his tan uniform. “Perfectly, commissar.”
“Yes, commissar,” Turk said, regaining his composure. He still looked haggard, his thick frame
winnowed by the rations, but his eyes were clear. “Do you also wish to speak to the men?”
Rezail tapped the laspistol against his thigh. “No,” he said, finally, “I leave that to you.”
3
The winds pushed at the sand, sending small ribbons across the compound. The camp appeared
deserted; the Guardsmen stayed out of the heat or, if on sentry duty, sat in the shade of the covered
watchtowers along the walls. Kortan could see the broken, distant gaze in the eyes of the
Guardsmen. They were going through the motions, their actions mechanical. They’d grown
anaesthetised. There was little to draw them away from the hunger lingering in the pits of their
souls.
So much for the grand mission to investigate the mortis-cry, Kortan thought. For a month, the
camp had been paralysed under the heat and restrictive rations. The med-hall was already filled with
soldiers suffering from chest colds, fevers and even pneumonia, in one case. The rigours of rationing
had weakened men to the point where ordinary ailments became extraordinary problems. The
32
medicae were coping, but barely. Medical supplies had run out, and without water to help clean and
sterilise the med-hall, the number of infections soared.
Kortan walked past the med-hall, into the assembly ground where rested the self-propelled
Basilisk artillery piece, a massive gun fitted to the frame of a Chimera. Four recoil braces extended
from the coiners of the Basilisk, each anchored to the plateau rock with heavy pins. Kortan glanced
into the vehicle stables on his way past; the giant sliding hangar doors were open and the vehicles
inside covered by tarps. They’d been sitting quietly for weeks now, to conserve fuel. That didn’t
stop Captain Abantu from keeping his men busy with regular vehicle maintenance.
Kortan continued for the orange door of the supply shed. The shed was made of plascrete and
provided some cool relief from the sunlight. He walked through the door, anticipating the flush of
cool air of the storage facility, but instead came face to face with Captain Anuman and two startled
Guardsmen. They stood near one of the stacked crates, its lid torn open, stuffing rations into a
rucksack. Sabaak was on the duckboard floor between two metal shelving units, lying face down,
and bleeding from the head.
Anuman was the first to react, and drew his laspistol. Kortan barely had time to duck behind a
metal container before the las-shots peppered his location.
4
“Where are they?” Chalfous asked. The dunes had subsided into a ribbed plain of sandy-grey loam,
broken by mounds of weather smoothed white limestone. “I’m starving. I could do with a bit of rat.”
“Here,” Ballasra said, holding out his hand. A thumb-sized insect with a black and red carapace
struggled between his fingertips, its legs high in the air.
Chalfous made a face and waved off Ballasra. “Too bitter,” he said. “They make me thirsty.”
Ballasra shrugged and peeled off the insect’s carapace before sucking out the meat and entrails.
They continued moving between the limestone mounds, Chalfous pulling at the dromads, and
Ballasra searching the ground for tracks. He motioned to a large formation of limestone, a series of
soft-faced pillars measuring at least ten storeys high.
“Was this ocean once?” Chalfous asked, staring at the limestone around them.
“No, perhaps a sea or a mighty river near the ocean. But, there was life here once. She must have
been a beautiful world, rich and green, like Tallarn of old.”
Chalfous nodded, half interested in Ballasra’s meanderings, if the fatigued expression on his
face and stifled yawn spoke of anything else. Ballasra shook his head. He hated the “domesticated”
Tallarn, those who’d eschewed their tribal ways to live in the hives. They’d grown soft and easily
distracted.
Without another word, Ballasra continued forward, towards the formations. The sign of
limestone was good, as were the multiple tracks in the sandy loam, far more tracks than the family
of rats they followed. There was life here, more life than they’d seen on Khadar before, probably
tucked into the niches of the shady outcrop-pings. While the others searched the small cluster of
shrubs for signs of water, Ballasra preferred to listen to the rocks. The loam seemed fat with
moisture. If nothing else, solar stills built here might pull more water from the ground. It was a pity
they were so far from camp. It would take them half a day to return, weather permitting.
“What’s that?” Chalfous asked, staring at the formation. He was standing to Ballasra’s far left,
which gave him a better vantage of the limestone clusters.
Ballasra sighed and wished the boy would keep his mouth shut. He joined Chalfous, just to see
what had his subordinate gawking. He stopped short of chastising Chalfous, however, when he
found himself staring at something completely unexpected.
“Well, well,” Ballasra said with a smile. “This planet is far more interesting than we
anticipated.”
33
“We should go back and report it?”
“Report what, boy?” Ballasra asked. “No, we find out what ‘it’ is first. Then we go back.”
Chalfous didn’t seem eager, but Ballasra was already moving forward, a grin on his weathered
face.
5
Sergeant Raham was running for the supply shed and the sounds of fighting when the orange door
burst open. A Banna Guardsman stumbled outside, firing his laspistol back inside at someone. He
dragged a heavy rucksack along the ground, and turned to flee. He spotted Raham and fired wide in
panic.
Raham dived for the ground, laspistol in hand, and fired back. The Guardsman took the blow to
the upper chest, and fell silently to the ground.
Everything seemed to go quiet at that moment. Raham barely had time to pick himself off the
ground when he heard the shouts.
“He killed Barakos! The Turenags killed Barakos.”
The fury of two months found its crack in the disciplined but flagging wall of soldiers, and the
crack spread like a lightning bolt. A handful of men quickly surrounded Raham, all of them Turenag
to the sergeant’s relief, all of them trying to protect him, regardless of the reason. Before Raham
could order anyone to stand down, several Banna tribesmen rushed Raham and his defenders.
It only took Raham a second to realise that he was in a brawl. All the ugly, tribal, sectarian
violence spilled out in shouts of anger and clenched fists. This wasn’t the kind of fight where
punches were thrown, it was the kind of violence where centuries of hatred found howling release.
Men strangled each other, driving their thumbs into eye sockets, biting, smashing heads into the
rocky ground.
Nubis was leaving the vehicle stables and trying to reach the commotion at the supply shed when
someone leapt on him. Nubis reacted, throwing the Turenag off his back. As quick as a flood, the
fight had overtaken him. He backed away, trying to put some distance between him and the mob of
grabbing hands. Somewhere, he heard the whine hiss of laspistol fire followed by bolter fire.
Daggers and sabres flashed in the light, and Nubis saw Turenag and Banna fighting. Men screamed
and fell to the ground, where boots silenced their cries.
Nubis hissed a curse. A Turenag brandishing a curved dagger lunged at him. Nubis grabbed his
wrist and moved to the side, exposing the man’s elbow long enough for the master gunner to break
it.
The next two adversaries didn’t have the opportunity to attack. Nubis darted forward, driving a
fist into one man’s nose and breaking it flat. The second man earned one boot to the gut, and a
second to the jaw.
More Turenag tribesmen advanced on Nubis, all intent on satisfying old debts.
Rezail, Nisri and Turk all emerged from the command bunker, into the full onslaught of chaos
unfolding in the centre of camp. It was all a blur, a horrific vista of tribal violence and anger. At this
moment in time, it did not matter who had started the fight or the rightness of it. A dozen men
already lay on the ground, and Guardsmen, both Banna and Turenag struggled in each other’s grips.
More men were trying to rush in to help their compatriots, the reason for the skirmish unimportant.
Turk and Nisri immediately began pulling men back or off each other, but only Rezail knew a heavy
price was demanded of the moment.
“Protect my back,” Rezail said calmly.
34
Turk and Nisri both nodded, their faces pale. They both knew what came next, but neither could
do anything against its inevitability.
Rezail drew his chainsword, and revved the spinning links into a roar. Those who heard and
stopped, scurried away at the sight of a commissar hell-bent on enforcing the law. Those who didn’t
were locked in deadly combat. Rezail moved past them, decapitating the arms of those wielding
weapons, or firing a las-bolt in the heads of those standing over dead bodies.
“I am the Emperor’s dark angel!” Rezail shouted, his voice carrying above the noise, as he
executed one soldier after the other. Those Guardsman who heard and stopped were spared. All
those who watched were stunned into silence, their mouths open.
“I dispense the will of the High Lords of Terra. I am the keeper of the regiment’s fire, and I
alone can spill the regiment’s blood. Those of you who murder your fellow soldiers are no better
than dogs! And I excel at executing dogs.”
“Stop fighting!” Turk roared, winging a couple of his own men for emphasis.
Silently, Nisri did the same, with gritted teeth.
The fight was quickly breaking up, but there was a cluster of men still brawling near the supply
shed. Rezail knew that bloodlust had overtaken reason. There was only killing to be had.
Nubis heard the commissar and Turk shouting, but he could not disentangle himself from the fight.
He seemed surrounded by
Turenag. One bearded man charged, but Nubis sidestepped him and sent him headfirst into the
ground. Three more converged on him, two with knives, and one with a laspistol. Nubis tried to
mutter a prayer, but the pistol came up too quickly.
Suddenly, the hissing whine of a las-bolt rang out. The tribesman with the laspistol fell to the
floor, his face blackened. The remaining men turned to run. Another shot caught one in the back of
his head, cratering the skull and punching through the other side. The acrid scent of burnt hair and
meat filled the air. Nubis turned to find a wild-eyed and bleeding Captain Anuman pointing a
laspistol at the fleeing men. Before the master gunner could stop him, Anuman fired wildly into the
crowd, killing kinsmen and allies alike in battle lust. More men fell. Some tried to fire back, but
Anuman seemed possessed and felled opponents one after the other. Others scrambled for the door
or dived out of windows.
Nubis grabbed him by the wrist, pushing his arm up.
“Stop!” Nubis snarled. “Stop!”
Anuman struggled with him, his face contorted in a pitch of rage. “Let me kill them! They’re
dogs! They’re dogs!”
Half of Anuman’s face vanished under the flash of a las-bolt, and Nubis stumbled back, his front
painted in blood and viscera. He turned, expecting the next shot to end him, but Commissar Rezail
was staring down. Nubis followed the commissar’s gaze, until it came to rest on Sergeant Raham’s
body at his very feet. His blond hair was matted with blood and a knife was lodged in his chest.
Anuman’s rampage and death undid the knot of fighting, but Nisri seemed intent on revenge. He
strode forward, his pistol pointed at Nubis.
“You killed Sergeant Raham,” Nisri said, his voice shaking.
“I did no such thing,” Nubis said, staring with fierce defiance. “I tried to stop the fighting, and
my knife is still sheathed.”
“You lie,” Nisri said.
“Colonel,” Rezail shouted, “stand down.”
“I want satisfaction for Raham’s murder.”
“Over my dead body,” Turk snapped back. “Nubis had no—”
“That can be arranged!” Nisri shouted.
35
A bursting roar came from the commissar’s chainsword, and links sparked and skipped over the
rocky ground.
“Battalion Commander Iban Salid!” the commissar said. “You will take First Company and
retire to your barracks. I want details on what happened. Tyrell, escort Second Company to their
