Piet Anders lifted his eyes from his slate and asked, 'And who will lead us?'
'I will,' replied Vauban.
THE RUINS OF listening post Sigma IV had long ceased smouldering as Goran Delau squatted by its entrance, his servo-arm sifting
through the wreckage.
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
He and ten soldiers clad in red overalls had searched the mountains these last few days without finding another living soul and
Delau was beginning to believe that Honsou had sent them on a fool's errand. A body without a face lay beside the buckled
doorway, its bones gleaming through the torn fabric of its uniform and Delau kicked it aside as he ducked inside the listening post,
remembering the battle they had fought to take this place, the roar of assault cannon fire and the storm of shells as it tore through
them.
Inside, all was darkness, but Delau's enhanced vision easily pierced the gloom. Shattered equipment and blackened metal lay
strewn about, the walls peppered with grenade fragments. A body lay against one wall, the little flesh that remained on its skeleton
was scorched and black. This body's face was blown away, and Delau remembered the two shots Honsou had fired to kill these
men.
Where then was the body of the third?
As he scanned the deserted listening post, he saw the open footlocker and the discarded items that lay strewn about it. He fell to
his knees, examining them all in turn. All were useless trinkets and, to a man trapped on the mountain, worthless.
So, one soldier had somehow survived and salvaged everything of value from the bunker.
Where had he gone?
Delau marched from the listening post and examined the dusty ground outside. The corpse on the ground had no rifle and Delau
guessed that the survivor had taken it before moving on.
Delau sniffed the air and knelt beside the decaying corpse, noting a patch of discoloured rock beside its feet. Without needing to
taste it, he knew it was blood and, from its patterning, that it had not come from the corpse's wound.
So Forrix was correct. There was someone still alive on the mountains. A resourceful man as well, if Delau's reasoning was
correct.
Scanning the surrounding environment, he knew there was only one way a man determined to strike back at the Iron Warriors
would have gone: north-west across the knifeback ridge to a position of observation.
Swiftly he gathered the indentured soldiery to him and set off up the mountainside.
Goran Delau grinned within his helmet at the thought of facing this worthy foe.
HAWKE SCRAMBLED ACROSS a jagged outcrop of rock, breathing heavily as he traversed the steep slopes of the mountain. He had
travelled three kilometres across exceptionally difficult terrain and had another two kilometres to go before nightfall, but he was
determined to make it.
Despite the weary exhaustion filling his limbs, he was filled with real purpose. He pulled himself onto a relatively flat slab of rock
and took a moment to get his breath back. He checked his location on the direction finder, knowing where he had been ordered to
go, but not knowing exactly what he would find when he got there. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid himself had given him his mission
on the vox earlier that day and Hawke had assured him that he would not let them down.
'You cannot,' Leonid had said, 'all our hopes rest upon you.'
Hawke had felt that was kind of melodramatic, but hadn't said so. He was too pleased by the fact that he was being trusted with
something so important.
'Well, Hawke,' he chuckled to himself, 'It's a commission for you when you get back home.'
He mopped his brow with his sleeve and unwrapped one of his last ration packs, chewing on the remains of a high-energy bar.
Hawke groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. He was amazed at how good he felt, despite not having taken any detox pills for
over two weeks. He had become lean and his muscles, especially in his legs, had become well-defined. He smiled as he realised he
was in better shape than he had been for years. His spreading midriff was gone and his lungs felt clearer than ever.
True, his food and water supplies were all but exhausted, but Lieutenant Colonel Leonid had assured him that they were working
on that even now. He wolfed down the last of the food bar and tossed the wrapping aside as he squinted into the afternoon sun.
'Well, you ain't gonna get there just by standing here, Hawke,' he said, climbing further along the rockface.
Hawke set off again through the afternoon's heat.
VAUBAN AND LEONID stood watching the rainbow flares of energy rippling above their heads, as enemy shell impacts slammed
into the invisible energy field that protected the areas within the curtain wall.
Observers in the blockhouse on the northern slopes scanned the shield for breaches, as some shells were slipping through where
coverage was incomplete, and detonating within the citadel's supposed safe areas. The warning they could give was probably too
short to do any real good, but it was better than nothing and, once again, Vauban felt his anger mount towards Arch Magos
Amaethon.
When the shells had first breached the shield he had spent an infuriating hour waiting to be hooked up with the Machine Temple
on the holo-link. He knew he would be wasting his time attempting to see the arch magos in person.
'Why is the shield not holding?' he had demanded.
'It is… arduous work to maintain such a… a prodigious energy barrier,' explained the arch magos in stuttering, halting speech. 'To
maintain all other systems at peak efficiency as well as the shield… requires great strength.'
'Then let the other systems go to hell,' raged Vauban. 'If you allow the shield to falter, then very soon there will be no other
systems to maintain!'
'That cannot be,' snapped Amaethon as he shut off the link, and no matter how desperately Vauban petitioned the arch magos, he
would not re-establish it.
Perhaps Naicin was right, perhaps it would be better for them all if Amaethon were to be got rid of. Indeed, Naicin had contacted
him personally not long after his brief conversation with Amaethon and had insinuated that such an event might not be too hard to
contrive.
Vauban pushed his thoughts of the damned arch magos and his scheming underlings from his mind, forcing himself to concentrate
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
on the job in hand.
'Have you heard from Kristan and Anders yet?' he asked Leonid.
Leonid nodded. 'So far everything is proceeding as planned. Weapons, ammunition and demolition charges have been distributed
to the soldiers taking part in the mission and the storming parties are gathering at the rally points.'
Vauban looked up into the crimson sky just as the day slipped from afternoon's warmth into evening's twilight. 'I wish it was
already dark. I can't abide this waiting.'
'They say the waiting is the hardest part, sir.'
'And are they right, Mikhail?'
'No,' chuckled Leonid. 'Not by a long shot. Give me the waiting any day.'
Vauban checked his pocket chronometer and frowned. 'Any word from Hawke?'
'Not yet, sir, no, but we should give him time to get there.'
'He'd better get there soon or that magos you sequestered will be missed by his brethren and spill his guts. I'm keen to avoid that,
at least until it is too late for them to interfere, Mikhail.'
'We should give Hawke a little more time, it's a tough journey,' pointed out Leonid.
'Do you think he can do it even if he does get there?'
'Yes, I think he can. His profile has him as above average intelligence, and he's come a long way from the disgrace of a man we
once knew as Guardsman Hawke. He's a soldier now.'
'Any idea why he's not coughed up his lungs yet? He claims to have ran out of detox pills over a week ago.'
'Not yet, sir. I asked the Magos Biologis how long we could expect Hawke to keep going, but he was pretty vague, and claimed it
wasn't possible to predict exactly.'
Vauban shook his head. 'Emperor preserve us from the meddling of the Adeptus Mechanicus.'
'Amen to that, sir,' agreed Leonid. 'What of our new arrivals? Are they in agreement with our plan?'
Vauban smiled, though there was no warmth in his expression. 'Oh yes, they are wholeheartedly with us.'
Leonid nodded, but said nothing, noting the way the castellan gripped the hilt of his power sword. Both officers were arrayed for
battle and had taken pains to appear so for their men. Vauban had put on his dress uniform jacket and wore his silver breastplate
over it, the bronze eagle at its centre polished to a brilliant sheen. Leonid's breastplate was bronze, but also gleaming. The dent in
its centre where he had been shot had been repaired and the armour was as good as new.
'How long now?' asked Vauban.
Leonid looked at the darkening sky and said, 'Not long.'
GORAN DELAU TURNED the drained vox-battery and ration pack in his hands as though trying to gain some deeper understanding
of his prey by touch alone. His early admiration for this man had diminished as they had closed in and discovered the detritus of
his passing. The man had not even bothered to cover his tracks, leaving his waste in the open where any half-competent tracker
would easily discover it.
He guessed that his prey could not be more than an hour or so ahead of him and Delau was irritated by his foe's lack of savvy. The
challenge of the hunt had now been reduced to reeling in the man and then killing him.
The men who followed him now only numbered six. One had fallen to his death down a wide ravine they had been forced to leap;
the other three Delau had killed himself because of their lack of skill and stamina. They were irrelevant and he knew he could kill
this man on his own anyway.
Wherever this man was going, he seemed to be making his way there with real purpose, since his course had kept true this last few
hours. Whatever lay at the end of this chase, Delau was certain of one thing.
It would end in the prey's death.
HAWKE CHECKED THE direction finder to check he was in the right place, unable to see anything much in the encroaching
darkness. He stood on a flat plateau, in part of the highest reaches of the mountains, the constant thunder of the invaders' artillery
nothing more than a distant rumble from here. His breath caught in his throat and he wiped sweat from his brow. He was
exhausted, but pleased to have arrived here - wherever here was - before darkness had fallen.
There wasn't much to see, just a spill of rocks lying against a flat, vertical slice of the mountainside, though the ground looked
pretty churned up, as though someone had set off a bunch of explosives. He shucked off his pack and pulled out the portable vox,
cursing as he saw he was down to his last battery.
He slotted the battery home and pressed the activation rune, breathing a sigh of relief as the front panel lit up with a reassuring
glow. He lifted the handset, spun the dial to the correct frequency and thumbed the talk button.
'Bastion, this is Hawke, do you copy?'
The vox crackled for a second before a voice came on the line. 'Receiving you loud and clear, Hawke. This is Magos Beauvais,
are you at the specified co-ordinates?'
'Yeah, but aside from the view I don't see anything that makes the climb worthwhile.'
'Describe what you can see,' ordered Beauvais.
'Not a hell of a lot. It's pretty damn flat here, aside from a pile of rocks, but not much else.'
'Go over to the pile of rocks and tell me what's there.'
'Ok'said Hawke, lugging his pack and the vox over to the rocks and peering through the gloom. He stepped forwards and brushed
away a thick coating of dust.
'There's a door behind here! The rock fall's covered most of it, but there's definitely a door.'
'Is there a panel with a keypad visible to the side of the door?'
'Yeah, it's a bit dusty, but looks alright.'
Graham McNeill ?Storm of Iron?
'Good, here's what you have to do,' explained Beauvais. 'Using the keypad, enter the following code: tertius-three-alpha-epsilonnine.'
Wedging the handset between his shoulder and ear, Hawke punched in the code and stepped back as the door juddered open on
buckled rollers. A faint wind brushed past him, like the exhalation of a dead thing and he shivered.
'Ok, door's open. I guess I'm going in,' said Hawke.
'Yes, go inside,' confirmed Beauvais. 'And follow my directions. Do not deviate from them at all.'
'What the hell do you think I'm going to do, go on a tour?'
He ducked his head below the rocks and entered a gloomy corridor. He stepped forward, stumbling as his foot met resistance then
tripped as he trod on something soft. He swore as he hit the ground and rolled onto the floor of the corridor, finding himself face
to face with a corpse, its mouth twisted in a rictus mask of death. He yelped and pushed himself back towards the dim light at the
door where he saw another three bodies slumped on the ground.
Their fists were covered with dried blood. Looking at the door, Hawke saw bloody handprints smeared over its inside surface.
'Imperator! There's dead bodies here!' shouted Hawke.
'Yes, the orbital bombardment was slightly off-course, and hit the mountains instead of the facility. We believe the explosions
threw enough debris up to cover the oxy-recyc units and the men within choked to death.'
'Choked to death? Then why are their hands covered in blood?'
'It is logical that the men stationed here would have tried to exit the facility when they realised their air supply was cut off,' said
Beauvais, his voice devoid of any compassion for the dead.
'But why couldn't they get out?' wheezed Hawke as his breathing returned to normal.
'Facility staff do not have access to the codes that allow the exterior doors to open. It would constitute a security risk were one to
be compromised.'
'And for that, they died. You cold bastards!'
