“Aye, let us through!” bellowed a worker beside Soric. Ozmac, probably, but it was impossible to tell under the soot. Other workers jeered and agreed.
“Do you understand what a State of Emergency is, old man?” Bownome asked.
“Understand? I’m gakking living it!” Soric blurted. “Stand aside!” He tried to push past the VPHC officer, but Bownome pushed back and Soric fell off his crutch onto the debris-littered paving.
There were shouts of disbelief and anger. Workers surged forward. Bownome backed away, pulled out his autopistol and fired into the approaching mass.
Ozmac fell dead and another collapsed wounded.
“That’s it! Enough! Be warned!” yelled the commissar. “You will all stay where—”
Soric’s axe-rake crutch shattered Bownome’s skull and felled him to the ground. Before any of the troopers could react, the workers were on them like a tidal wave. All of the troopers were killed in a few seconds.
The smeltery workers gathered up their weapons. Worker Gannif handed the commissar’s pistol to Soric.
“I’ll see you right!” Soric barked. He waved for them to follow him down the transit channel. They cheered him and moved on, at his heels, into the city.
“Marshal Gnide is dead,” High Master Sondar told the Legislature. The hall had remained silent as the High Master’s floating throne ascended to the main dais with its stone-faced VPHC vanguard. Sondar’s throne had locked into place above the High Legislator’s dais and the master of Vervunhive had spent a long moment looking out at the assembly before speaking. He was dressed in regal robes, his face masked with a turquoise ceramic janus.
“Dead,” Sondar repeated. “Our hive faces a time of war—and you, noble houses, low houses, guilders, you decide it is time to usurp my position?”
Silence remained.
Sondar’s masked visage turned to look around at the vast swoop of the tiered hall.
“We are one, or we are nothing.”
Still the nervous silence.
“I believe you think me weak. I am not weak. I believe you think me stupid. I am not that either. I believe that certain high houses see this as an opportunity to further their own destinies.”
The High Master allowed Noble Anko to rise with a wave of his hand.
“We never doubted you, High Lord. The Trade War fell upon us so suddenly.”
You witless weakling, Chass thought. Sondar has led us to this blind and you reconcile sweetly. Where is the fervour that had us vote to take executive action this afternoon?
“Zoica will be denied,” Sondar said. Chass watched the High Lord’s movements and saw how jerky they were. It’s not him, he thought. The wretch has sent another servitor puppet to represent him.
“We have sent word to the Northern Foundry Collectives and to Vannick Magna. They will bolster us with garrison troops. Our counterattack will begin in two days.”
There was delighted commotion from the commons pit and the guild tiers.
Chass rose and spoke. “I believe it is in the interests of Verghast as a whole to send to the Imperium for assistance.”
“No,” responded Sondar quickly. “We have beaten Zoica before; we will do it again. This is an internal matter.”
“No longer,” a voice said from below. The assembly looked down at the benches where the officials of the Administratum sat. Hooded and gowned, Intendant Banefail of the Imperial Administratum got to his feet. “Astropathic messages have already been sent out, imploring Imperial assistance from Warmaster Macaroth. Vervunhive’s production of ordnance and military vehicles is vital for the constant supply of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The warmaster will take our plight seriously. This is a greater matter than local planetary politics, High Lord Sondar.”
Sondar, or rather the being that represented him, seemed to quiver in his throne. Rage, Chass presumed. The balance between hive and Imperial authority had always been delicate in Vervunhive, indeed in all the nobilities of Verghast. It was rare for it to clash so profoundly and so visibly. Chass well knew the fundamental strategic import of Vervunhive and the other Verghast manufactory dues to the crusade, but still the magnitude of the intendant’s actions amazed him. The Administratum was the bureaucratic right hand of the Emperor himself, but it usually bowed to the will of the local planetary governor.
Our plight must truly be serious, he realised, a sick feeling seeping into his heart.
Holding the infant and pulling the small boy by the hand, Tona Criid ran through the burning northern section of the Commercia. The boy was crying now. She couldn’t help that. If they could make the docks, she could get them clear across the river and to safely. But the routes were packed. As fast as refugees came into the hive from the south, inhabitants were fleeing to the north.
“Where we going?” asked the boy, Dalin.
“Somewhere safe,” Tona told him.
“Who are you?”
“I’m your Aunt Tona.”
“I don’t have an aunt.”
“You do now. And so does Yancy here.”
“She’s Yoncy.”
“Yeah, whatever. Come on.” Tona tried to thread them through the massing crowds that filled the transit channels down to the docks, but they were jammed tight.
“Where are we going?” asked the kid again as they sheltered in a barter-house awning to avoid the press.
“Away. To the river” That was the plan. But with the crowds this thick, she didn’t know if it was going to be possible. Maybe they’d be safer in the city, under the Shield.
The baby began to cry.
He couldn’t breathe. The weight and blackness upon him were colossal. Something oily was dripping into his eyes. He tried to move, but no movement was possible. No, that wasn’t true. He could grind his toes in his army boots. His mouth was full of rockcrete dust. He started to cough and found his lungs had no room to move. He was squashed.
There was a rattling, chinking sound above him. He could hear voices, distant and muffled. He tried to cry out, but the dust choked him and he had no room to choke.
Light. A chink of light, just above as rubble was moved away. Rubble moved and some pieces slumped heavier on him, vicing his legs and pelvis.
There was a face in the gap above him.
“Who’s down there?” it called. “Are you alive?”
Hoarse and dry, he answered. “My name is Ban Daur—and
