“It does look bleak, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so. We’ve lost the Termite. Our escape
route through the ice has closed behind us, so that even if we do find Confessor Wollkenden, we’ve
32
no way of getting back to Alpha Hive with him. We must be at least twenty kilometres from his
crash site, and it seems our enemies know we’re here.”
Steele couldn’t have summed up the situation more succinctly himself.
“We should get back to the others,” he said. “We have a great deal of work to do.”
33
CHAPTER SIX
Time to Destruction of Cressida: 40.42.39
Pozhar was beginning to wonder what he was doing here.
He was a front-line fighter, not a scout. Stealth was no more a virtue of his than was patience.
Bad enough, he thought, that Steele had had the Termite flee from a single artillery unit; bad enough
they had let the enemy have that victory. At least, he had thought, when they got to where they were
going, when he was able to climb out into the open again at last, he would have the chance to flex
his muscles.
The mutated snow leopards had been a welcome diversion — and Pozhar felt confident,
although it was impossible to know for sure, that his las-beams had finished off two of them. But
then Steele had directed his squad into the ice forest and warned them of the overriding need for
caution.
And Pozhar had come to realise that the ice forest was almost as constricting, almost as
claustrophobic, as the inside of the Termite had been.
The further they had ventured between its vile, warped trees, the more densely those trees had
become packed. Already Pozhar had been scratched three times by their sharp edges, and he was
starting to ache with the effort of walking with his elbows damped to his sides, his head bowed,
checking the ground for the treacherous purple fungus before he dared to take each step.
Still, as bad as this was for him, he thought, it was far worse for Borscz, who was visibly
straining to rein in his massive form, and who let out an aggrieved yelp every few minutes. Borscz’s
greatcoat was so crazed with cuts by now that Pozhar was expecting great squares of its fabric to
start falling away.
He longed to set eyes on another snow leopard or two, something against which he could cut
loose — but the ice forest seemed sterile, devoid even of birds, an entire area scoured of life, given
over to the creeping rot that was destroying this world.
Pozhar shivered at the thought, and decided that on reflection this was far worse than being
cooped up in any vehicle. Out here, he could feel the Chaos corruption in the air, pressing in on him
like a physical force, battering him. He wanted to yell defiance at it, to fight back. He wanted to
hack, slash and burn this accursed place down.
“Just give me a couple of flamers,” seethed Barreski, who had obviously had the same thought,
“and I guarantee you there’ll be nothing left standing here in ten minutes. We’d be wading through
water the rest of the way to the crash site.”
“And the Chaos forces would hear us coming ten kilometres away,” said Borscz.
“Just making a point, that’s all,” said Barreski. “I’d put my faith in Imperial firepower over
anything Chaos can muster any day, no contest.”
“Forgetting what happened to the Termite, are we?” asked Mikhaelev wryly.
Anyway, there were no flamers — only the one that Barreski had been carrying, and it was out
of fuel. There had been no time for the Ice Warriors to salvage anything more than their standard kit,
worn or carried in their rucksacks, from the stricken Termite. Mikhaelev in particular was mourning
the loss of his missile launcher, being now a heavy weapons expert with no heavy weapons.
Pozhar heard a noise ahead of him, glimpsed a moving shape and reacted with lightning speed.
By the time he recognised Trooper Palinev, he was already staring at his comrade’s slender form
34
through his lasgun sights. An instant later, and Pozhar would have pulled the trigger. He chafed at
having to hold himself back.
Palinev had adapted to his surroundings with enviable ease. He moved between the ice trees like
a ghost, seeming to know instinctively where to step, and when he had to twist or hop to avoid a
grasping branch or a protruding root. “I’ve scouted two kilometres ahead, sir,” he reported to Steele,
“but there’s nothing, nothing at all. The ice forest stretches as far as I’ve seen.”
Gavotski’s lips tightened with disappointment. “Maybe we should have tried to go around it
after all. If it gets any thicker—”
Steele interrupted him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, sergeant. In the meantime,
assuming that the forest does reach all the way to our destination, if we maintain our current bearing
and speed and encounter no further hostile life… assuming all that, we should be able to reach the
crash site in…”
He hesitated for a second, and his eyes — both the real one and the augmetic — glazed over.
Pozhar stared at his commander in fascination — but then Steele’s eyes cleared and he concluded,
“Approximately four hours and forty-seven minutes’ time.” And Pozhar wanted to scream.
Palinev was alone again.
He didn’t mind that. He had become used to solitude, welcomed it even. It was a long time since
he had been in an environment as quiet as the ice forest was, far from the sounds of battle or even
from the thrum of an engine. He knew he had to be careful not to let the quiet fool him. Likewise, he
was sure to examine every ice tree that came into his view, even though the aberrant shapes had
long since lost the power to fascinate or even to repel him, had begun to take on a monotonous
quality.
Palinev couldn’t take anything for granted, couldn’t drop his guard for a second. The others
were depending on him. The information he could gather, alone and unseen, could prove vital to
them. But it came with a risk attached. If he were to walk into an ambush, if he were to be captured,
then the enemy would know that his comrades were behind him, and they would be prepared.
One mistake, and Palinev knew he could take his entire squad down with him.
He had left them almost an hour ago. It was time to drop back, he thought, and report in to
Steele again, just to reassure the colonel that he hadn’t run into trouble, that the way ahead was still
safe. Cradling his Guard-issue compass in his palm, Palinev reoriented himself. He was confident
that he could retrace his steps by memory, but there was no harm in a double-check. If he strayed off
course by even one half of a degree, he was likely to miss his comrades altogether.
He was about to set off when a sound made him freeze.
It had been almost nothing — the tiniest of scrapes, perhaps a rustle of fabric — and yet, it had
not been a natural sound. Palinev knew this because he had taken the time to attune himself to the
natural sounds of the forest, such as they were: the faintest warbling of the wind between the trees,
the occasional pops and cracks as a newly frozen shape settled, or perhaps even grew?
As quickly and as quietly as he could, taking only one careful step, Palinev tucked himself in
behind the nearest ice tree, and dropped to his haunches. He drew his combat knife from his boot,
recited the Litany of Stealth, made sure that his breathing was as soft as the breeze, and waited.
As he had expected, a figure came into view. It was a man, as slight of stature as Palinev was.
He was wearing an armoured helmet and a tight-fitting flak jacket, also like Palinev’s, except that
where his was a bottle green in colour, the stranger’s was a bold red with gold highlights. It was
hardly good camouflage material.
Palinev thought that he recognised the colours, though he couldn’t name the regiment to which
they belonged. Evidently, though, this man was an Imperial soldier — or at least, he had been once.
He was holding a lasgun, keeping it ready as he crept from one tree to another: a scout. The question
was, for whom was he scouting? There were no visible signs of Chaos mutation on the stranger, but
that didn’t prove anything.
35
Palinev waited until the man had drawn almost level with him, waited for his questing eyes to
turn away from him. Then he slipped out from behind his tree, and into the shade of another. He
repeated this manoeuvre twice more, each time drawing closer to his unsuspecting prey, and moving
further around behind him.
When at last he was close, almost close enough to reach out and touch the nape of the other
scout’s neck, then Palinev pounced. His prey heard him coming, too late, didn’t even have time to
spin around. Palinev was on the man’s back, his left arm locked around his shoulders, his right hand
holding his knife to the man’s throat.
“A friendly warning,” he hissed. “If you try to shout to your people, if you speak at all other than
to answer my questions, I will slit your vocal cords.” He would have done it by now if only he had
been sure, if he had seen any proof that this man was a traitor. “Who are you?” he asked. “Answer
me!”
“Trooper Garroway,” the other scout spat defiantly, “of the 14th Royal Validian regiment of the
Imperial Guard. Kill me if you like. Kill us all, but it won’t save you. They will send a hundred
thousand more like me — a million more — and they won’t rest until this world is scoured clean of
your filth, reclaimed for the Golden Throne!”
“You’re Imperial Guard?” queried Palinev. “What are you doing out here? This is Chaos-held
territory.”
His prisoner relaxed a little in his grip, and this told Palinev more than words could have said.
Garroway was relieved, not afraid, to have found himself in the hands of a fellow Guardsman. He
was telling the truth.
“There are just under four hundred of our company left,” said Garroway. “We were helping
civilians out of Iota Hive to the north-west of here. When it fell, we were ordered back to Alpha, but
the glaciers closed in front of us, blocking our path. We don’t have a vox-caster any more, so we
couldn’t call for assistance. We have no maps. We’ve just been trying to find a way through, but the
Chaos army is behind us. We were forced to take cover in this… this forest, whatever it is.”
Palinev let go of him. “Palinev,” he introduced himself, “Valhallan 319th.”
Garroway turned to face him, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re an Ice Warrior?”
“Don’t let the lack of a greatcoat fool you. I move a lot better without it.”
“Yeah? I can’t say I’d turn down the chance of a little protection. When my regiment first came
to Cressida, sure it was cold, but not like this. Maybe it’s different for you, coming from an ice
world, but we’re losing men by the hour. But… but you’ve found us now, they sent someone for us
at last!”
“Ah,” said Palinev, “no, I’m afraid they didn’t. We’re on a mission of our own.” He frowned.
“And if the enemy is behind you, that’s going to mean trouble for us.”
“You can guide us out of here, at least,” said Garroway. “You found your way past the glaciers,
you can tell us how to get out… can’t you?”
“We should report back to our commanders,” said Palinev. “I should think they’ll want to talk.”
They came together not long after that: the Valhallans in green, the Validians in red, their paths
converging in the heart of the white forest.
They had been expecting each other, of course, thanks to their respective scouts. A few of the
troopers exchanged strained pleasantries, and Colonel Steele and the Validian commander, a freshfaced
young captain, sought each other out and moved to one side for a private conference.
The rest of the Guardsmen took this as a cue to relax, to recharge themselves as best they could.
Their surroundings, however, offered them scant comfort. It was almost impossible for a man to sit
down without touching the deadly tree trunks or roots — and after trying for a time, holding
themselves in unnatural positions until their muscles ached, many of them gave up and stood again.
36
Few of the Validians could sit still anyway. They stamped their feet, rubbed their arms, did all
they could to stave off the biting cold. Mikhaelev watched them, their bright colours spread through
the forest as far as he could see, and he shook his head and sighed. Here they were, these brave men,
doing the Emperor’s work, and their leaders couldn’t even equip them with the right clothing for the
job.
In a perfect Imperium, of course, the Validians wouldn’t have been assigned to this frozen world
at all, unused as they were to such conditions. Somewhere, no doubt, a low-level clerk had looked at
his slate, seen how many Guardsmen were dying from hypothermia on Cressida, weighed this
against the cost of a few million armoured greatcoats and chosen to do nothing.
Mikhaelev was standing with three of his comrades, Anakora, Borscz and Pozhar.
“What do you think they are saying?” Borscz asked, inclining his head towards Steele and the
captain.
“They’ll be making plans to fight,” said Pozhar with more hope than certainty. “According to
Trooper Palinev, the Chaos army is on the Validians’ heels. That puts them in our path. We’ll have
to shoot our way through them.”
Anakora shook her head. “This is meant to be a stealth mission. If we start a full-scale battle
here, it will lead every heretic in the area to us. Even with the Validians’ help, we would be
hopelessly outnumbered.”
“I’m talking about a lightning strike,” said Pozhar. “Take the Chaos scum by surprise, and be
long gone before the reinforcements arrive. The heretics think they’re safe here, cowering behind
their walls of ice. We can teach them different.”
Borscz grinned at that. “We can be like our ancestors, no? We can strike at our enemies’ very
heart, as those mighty heroes did against the invading orks.”
“We can teach them to fear us!” said Pozhar, his eyes gleaming at the prospect.
“Yeah,” said Mikhaelev dryly, “a lesson that will stay with them for all of about a day and a half
before they’re virus bombed out of existence.”
“Trooper Mikhaelev is correct,” said Anakora. “There is no purpose in our fighting and perhaps
dying when it would not advance our cause.”
“Then what do you suggest?” asked Pozhar. “That we turn tail and run?”
“Colonel Steele will find a way,” asserted Borscz loyally. “He has not brought us this far to give
up on our mission just yet.”
“No,” said Mikhaelev, with a tight smile, “I should think not.”
