Barreski’s horror, its red eyes never flickered from him. Somewhere in its disturbed little mind, the
mutant must have known it was finished, and it was determined not to be distracted from its prey,
determined to take at least one of its foes down with it.
Palinev saw what was happening and flung himself at the mutant, heedless of the danger of
incoming las-beams. He bought Barreski a second, but no more than that, before the mutant flung
him aside with an almost casual shrug.
And then it pounced on Barreski, and although he was prepared for its weight he was still driven
down onto one knee, struggling to push the rancid creature away from him. It raised its talon and he
knew that this would be the killing blow.
And then the air itself exploded. The mutant stiffened and crumpled and Barreski was left
gaping at its blackened corpse, wondering what had just happened.
His nostrils were filled with the stink of burnt ozone, and he glanced to the sky and wondered if
somehow, through some incredible twist of fate or perhaps even through divine intervention, he had
been saved by a thunderbolt from on high.
Then he saw Steele, standing unaided, looking down at the dead mutant with an expression of
grim satisfaction — and Barreski saw that the colonel’s right eye was black, smouldering a little.
“A small enhancement I had made on Pyrites a few years back,” explained Steele gruffly, seeing
that Barreski, Mikhaelev and Grayle were all staring at him. “A one-shot electrical weapon of last
resort. It will take about twenty hours to recharge now, and my right eye will be useless until it
does.”
He looked down at the mutant again, and smiled. “Still, some things are worth a little
inconvenience.”
50
CHAPTER NINE
Time to Destruction of Cressida: 33.16.04
Borscz was dead.
It wasn’t easy to tell, at first. He was covered in blood, but much of it was from the mutant that
he and Pozhar had slain. The Ice Warriors had to shift its carcass before they could get close to him,
close enough to tell that he was no longer breathing.
Anakora wanted to bury him, but Gavotski pointed out that they lacked the tools to dig in the
frozen ground. They could do it, but it would take them most of the night.
“And it’s not as if a normal-sized hole would do,” Grayle muttered.
Anyway, they all agreed that it would make little difference at this point. Below ground or above
it, Borscz’s body would be liquefied by the imminent virus bombs, reduced to a protoplasmic slime.
And after all, the last thing any Guardsman expected when he went to war was a decent burial; his
remains, he knew, were far more likely to be trampled into the mud of the battlefield.
So, in the end, they gathered around their fallen comrade and Gavotski said a short prayer for his
soul, and that was that — although Anakora still insisted they take Borscz onto the Aquila with
them, and seal him into its hold, sparing him at least the attention of passing predators.
“If only he’d been a better shot,” said Barreski with a shake of the head. “If he hadn’t been so
keen to go toe to toe with that thing…”
“Then it would have been Pozhar lying there instead of him,” Anakora pointed out crisply. “You
saw how resistant the mutants were to our las-fire.”
Apart from the loss of Borscz, casualties were mercifully light. Palinev had a mild concussion
from where the last mutant had backhanded him, and Gavotski had a couple of second-degree burns,
which he had dressed. And Pozhar’s firing arm was in a sling, which aggrieved the young trooper no
end.
Steele was back on his feet, but he seemed deeply tired — and, although no one would have said
it to his face, even a little shell-shocked. Gavotski covered for him by taking charge again. He sent
Anakora, Barreski and Grayle onto the lander to ensure that no one was hiding inside. Grayle was
also to report back on the state of the engines. Two cultists remained alive, and so Blonsky and
Mikhaelev were detailed to bind them with tent ropes from their rucksacks.
Steele examined one of the mutants’ corpses.
“It looked like this,” he said to Gavotski. When the sergeant looked puzzled, Steele expounded,
“The creature I saw in the forest. It had grey fur, like this one does. Some sort of adaptation to the
cold, I expect. But if it was a mutant I saw, then where did it go? The cultists didn’t know we were
coming until I… until they heard us.”
“So, who did it report to?” Gavotski concluded the thought. “Who knows we’re here? And how
many more mutants like this one are still out there?”
Steele didn’t need to ask what had happened while he had been unconscious, since he had plunged
into the lake. His bionic eye had recorded all the details — every visual detail, at least — and stored
them for his later inspection.
The whole episode had left him feeling deeply uneasy. The organic parts — the real parts — of
his brain had shut down in the water, but the mechanical parts had kept him going. He was grateful
51
to be alive, of course — but the thought that his augmetics could function without him, even in a
limited capacity, chilled him to the marrow.
The two prisoners had started to come round. Mikhaelev and Blonsky had carried them to the
camp-fire, and were standing guard over them. Despite his weariness, Steele had chosen to conduct
the interrogation. He deliberately started with the toughest-looking of the pair, the one least likely to
break. He was a heavy-set man with a tattooed face and a broken wrist — this latter courtesy of
Blonsky — who returned the colonel’s glare with mute defiance.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Steele. “You think you have nothing to gain by answering
my questions because I won’t let you live anyway. You’re right. But you can die quickly, and as
easily as possible, or I can make you suffer.”
The cultist spat in his face.
Steele nodded at Blonsky, who took the man s wrist and manipulated it, grinding the shattered
bones into each other. The cultist suppressed his screams for almost a full second. By the time the
Ice Warrior had finished with him, there were tears in his eyes. Still, he hadn’t said a word.
Nevertheless, the technique was having an effect — not on this cultist, maybe, but on his fellow.
The other man was smaller, younger than the first, and abjectly horrified by what he had just seen.
“Very well,” said Steele calmly, “it looks like this one has made his choice. You may as well
dispose of him, Blonsky. We’ll talk to his friend instead.”
Blonsky knew what was required of him. He planted his boot in the larger cultist’s back, and
propelled him face first onto the fire. He started to scream again, and struggled to stand — but
whenever he came close to so doing, Blonsky’s foot was ready to kick him back into the flames.
It took the cultist a long time to die, and by the time he did the air was rank with the smell of his
burning flesh. His smaller comrade was so afraid that he was shaking, and he had vomited into his
lap. He looked like he might be about to do this again, as Steele turned to him with the smile of a
wolf.
“I… I didn’t want to join them,” the cultist bleated, “I swear. It’s just that, once it started, it
spread within days, and soon…”
“Mangellan?” prompted Blonsky.
The cultist nodded, seeming glad that the Ice Warrior knew the name, that he hadn’t had to
reveal it himself. “No one knew where he’d come from, he was just… suddenly, his followers were
everywhere, in the streets, and no one seemed able to stop them, and my family, my friends, they
were saying that Mangellan was right, that we owed the Emperor nothing, that He couldn’t protect
us. Then they were banging on our doors, dragging us outside, putting guns to our heads and making
us swear allegiance to them, and we had no choice.”
“There is always a choice,” growled Blonsky.
“When this ship landed here,” said Steele, indicating the Aquila behind him, “it was carrying an
important member of the Adeptus Ministorum. He could have helped your people, could have
guided them back to the path of righteousness.”
The cultist nodded eagerly. “I did hear something, that they’d found someone… a religious man.
Is that why you’re here? Are you looking for him?”
“Do you know where he is?” asked Steele.
“He… he’s dead,” said the cultist.
Steele saw the look that passed between Blonsky and Mikhaelev, but he kept his own gaze fixed
on the prisoner. Normally, his bionic eye would have enabled him to count the beads of sweat on the
cultist’s face and hands, his acoustic enhancers would have tuned in to the skip of the man’s
heartbeat and Steele would have been able to tell if he was lying or not. With his eye out of action
and only the heartbeat to go on, it was harder to make that judgement. Despite the inconvenience, he
felt oddly liberated.
“You saw him die?” Steele asked.
52
“I just thought,” said the cultist, “I mean, he must be by now. The confessor was brought into the
hive, Iota Hive, three days ago. I saw him being marched up the steps of the Ice Palace. Mangellan
has him.”
“Where is it,” asked Steele, “this Ice Palace? Can you take us there?”
The prisoner blanched at the prospect.
“Please,” he stammered, “I’ve told you all I know. Don’t make me… I can’t go up against him,
he’s too… he’s too strong. You can’t beat him. It took Mangellan less than a month to drive the
Imperial Guard out of Iota Hive, hundreds of thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of men
dead, and you… There are only a handful of you.”
Steele had made up his mind about the cultist now, but still he glanced up at Blonsky and
Mikhaelev for a second and third opinion.
“Do you believe him?” he asked, and the troopers confirmed that they did. “Good,” said Steele.
“I do, too.”
He drew his laspistol, and shot the young cultist through the head.
The Aquila had been gutted. Even its seats, once luxuriously appointed for the carriage of
dignitaries, had been torn out, and the mutants had left their slobber everywhere. Still, once the
passenger compartment had been cleaned up a little and blankets laid out, it made an adequate
shelter for nine dog-tired soldiers.
Much more than that, the ship could not offer. Grayle had been unable to start the engines, to no
one’s surprise, and the comms were fried. Barreski, however, had found a portable vox-caster, not
too badly damaged. The only thing it lacked was power — and a few hours of sunlight, even
through Cressida’s grey clouds, would provide that. He thought he could have it working by midmorning.
Steele could then contact a naval vessel, report the loss of the Termite and arrange an
airlift for after they had found Wollkenden.
For the first time in half a day, Grayle could see a way off this world, and the prospect cheered
him — almost enough for him to overlook the small fact that an army of Chaos worshippers stood
between the Ice Warriors and their goal.
He and Barreski had taken the first shift of the night watch, being in better condition than most.
Grayle sat in the Aquila’s hatchway, alert for any sign of an approaching foe, hearing only the deep
breathing of the sleeping men behind him. Barreski was over by the embers of the campfire, laying
out a number of broken machine parts in the scant light. It was unlikely he’d be able to salvage
anything more of use, but he wanted to be sure.
It was Grayle, then, who saw it: a movement, behind the rise on which the Ice Warriors and the
cultists had fought. He had only glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye, couldn’t be sure that there
had been anything at all. But Barreski had picked up on his body language, and ceased his tinkering.
They watched the dark shape of the rise for a while, but saw nothing, heard nothing. At last,
Grayle signalled to his fellow tanker that he was going to take a closer look.
While Barreski covered him with his lasgun, Grayle crept forward, keeping low. As he climbed
the rise, he lowered himself onto his stomach and crawled the final few metres. He lay there for a
few minutes, overlooking the field through which his squad had so recently marched, feeling the wet
snow seeping into his greatcoat, letting his eyes adjust to every shadow in the darkness until he was
sure it was no threat.
There it was again!
It had just disappeared behind another natural contour: a grey-furred figure with an odd
shambling gait. Quickly, Grayle weighed up his options. If this was indeed a mutant, and it was
alone, then he and Barreski could handle it. They had no need to wake the others — and anyway, by
the time they had done so, it might have escaped, might have gone to fetch more like itself. But
then, what if it was not alone? What if it had been sent to lead him into an ambush?
53
He didn’t think that was likely. It was trying too hard not to be seen.
With a quick warning gesture to Barreski, to stay where he was, Grayle plunged down the rise
and went after the creature.
“Colonel Steele. Colonel Steele, sir.”
Steele was sitting up before he had opened his eyes, some inbuilt danger sense putting him on
the alert. Immediately, he checked his internal chrono, which told him that he had been asleep for
just under three hours. He was still blind in his right eye. Palinev was beside him, had just shaken
him awake, and around them five more Ice Warriors were beginning to stir.
Something was burning, but Steele couldn’t pinpoint the source of the smell.
“I heard a shot,” reported Palinev, and Steele could tell from his comrades’ body language that
Gavotski, Blonsky and Anakora had been woken by it too. It irked him that he had not, that his
acoustic enhancers had apparently failed him again.
“It sounded close,” said Anakora, “maybe just outside.”
“And I don’t see any sign of Barreski or Grayle,” added Palinev.
Gavotski and Pozhar had drawn their lasguns and were making for the open, empty hatchway.
They peered around its frame, and Pozhar reported that there was nothing out there. A second later,
he added, “No, no, wait, I can see someone, running towards us. It looks like… It’s Barreski, and
here comes Grayle. It looks like they’re okay.”
“Maybe they were just taking pot-shots at rats,” said Mikhaelev.
“I don’t think so,” said Blonsky. “I think Trooper Anakora was wrong. I don’t think that gunshot
came from outside the ship at all.”
Everyone turned to look at him, and Steele saw that he was holding the vox-caster, now a
