Necropolis

the brute back over into the rubble and pushed his blade in, trying to find a space between the ochre armour plating.

It went in, just below the neck seal of the battle-suit. Foul- smelling blood began to spurt out over Larkin’s arm and hand, and it stung like acid.

The Zoican thrashed and spasmed. Larkin fought back, clawing, kicking and wrenching on his blade’s grip.

He and the Zoican rolled twenty metres down the rubble slope. At the foot, Larkin’s frantic efforts ripped the Zoican’s helmet off.

He was the first person in Vervunhive to see the face of the enemy, square on, naked, shorn of armour or mask or visor.

Larkin screamed.

And then stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.

A torrent of las-fire cut across the gate from the west. Zoicans crumpled, falling on their banner poles, loudspeakers exploding as they died. Corbec and his men, amazed, pushed around to support, hammering into the halted storm force with renewed vigour.

Nine platoons of Vervun Primary troops funnelled in across the open gate from the west with Commissar Kowle at the head.

Kowle had headed for Veyveyr Gate from House Command the moment the action began at dawn and it had taken him until now—almost noon—to reach the front. Unable to reach Modile or any Vervun command group, he had grabbed Vervun troops by force of authority and personality alone and led them towards the gate flanked by Bulwar’s men and armour.

Kowle was singing an Imperial hymn at the top of his lungs and firing with a storm bolter.

Bulwar’s NorthCol units pressed in behind, and Bulwar had the sense to spread them east to reinforce the failing Tanith line.

Corbec couldn’t believe his eyes. At last, a co-ordinated effort. He rallied his remaining men and scoured the eastern flank of the gate for signs of Zoicans. His support helped Kowle reach the gate itself, a gate that had been held by the Tanith alone for more than an hour.

The three prongs—Tanith, Vervun and NorthCol—pushed the Zoicans back out into the outer habs and the torrential rain. Kowle moved his units aside to allow Bulwar’s armour to finish the job and block the gate, though not before the commissar had posed for propaganda shots that were quickly relayed across the entire public-address system of the hive: Kowle, victorious in the blasted mouth of Veyveyr; Kowle, blasting at the enemy; Kowle, holding the Vervun banner aloft on a heap of rubble as Vervun Primary troops mobbed to help him plant the flag-spike in the ground.

By early afternoon, the gate was held fast by fifty tanks of the NorthCol armoured. Kowle was once more the People’s Hero. The battle for Veyveyr Gate was over.

At Croe Gate, as news of the overturn reached the Zoican elements, the fighting diminished. Nash sighed in relief as the enemy withdrew from the smouldering gate- hatches. He ordered the wall guns to punish them anyway.

None of the victorious public-address messages mentioned the losses: 440 Vervun Primary and 200 Roane Deepers at Croe Gate, 500 Vervun “Spoilers” along the Spoil, 3,500 Vervun Primary, 900 NorthCol and almost a hundred Tanith at Veyveyr. They had a victory and a hero, and that was all that mattered.

Gaunt and his small reinforcement group reached Veyveyr just as the battle was ending. Gaunt was hot with anger and determination.

Daur led him down a trench to the Vervun Primary Command post where Colonel Modile was rallying men and directing vox-links.

Modile looked around as Gaunt strode into the culvert shelter, stony-faced.

“The battle is over. We have won. Vervunhive is victorious,” Modile said blankly into Gaunt’s face.

“I’ve been listening to the vox. I know what occurred here. You balked, Modile. You lost control. You hid. You shut down the vox-channels when you didn’t like what you heard.”

Modile shrugged vacuously at Gaunt. “But we won…”

The Tanith troops stepped into the command post around Gaunt. Even Daur, grim-faced, had a weapon drawn.

“Round up all the officers and detain them. I want a transcript of all vox-traffic,” Gaunt ordered. The Ghosts fanned out to do so and the Vervun Primary staffers blinked in confusion as they were jostled around.

“What are you doing?” Modile asked haughtily. “This is my gakking command area!”

“And you’ve commanded what, exactly? A bloodbath. You dismay me, Modile. Men were shrieking for orders and support, and you ignored them. I heard it all.”

“It was a difficult incident,” Modile said.

“I have a reputation, Modile,” Gaunt said, “a reputation as a fair, honest man who treats his soldiers well and supports them in the face of darkness. Potentially, that reputation makes me soft. It seems I understand failure and forgive it.

“Some, like Kowle, believe me to be a weak commissar, not prepared to take the action my rank demands. Not prepared to enforce field discipline where I see it failing.”

Gaunt removed his cap and handed it to Daur. He stared at Modile, who still wasn’t sure what was going on.

“I am an Imperial commissar. I will enflame the weak, support the wavering, guide the lost. I will be all things to all men who need me. But I will also punish without hesitation the incompetent, the cowardly and the treasonous.”

“Gaunt, I—” Modile began.

“Commissar Gaunt. Do not speak further. You have cost lives this day.”

Modile backed away, suddenly, horribly realising what was happening.

Gaunt took his bolt pistol from his holster. “For courtesy, choose: a firing squad of your own men or a summary execution.”

Modile stammered, lost control of his bowels and turned to run.

Gaunt shot him through the head.

“Have it your own way,” he said sadly.

TEN

CASUALTIES

“There came a point, a few years into my career, when I knew I had seen enough. Since then, I have seen a lot more, but I have Mocked it out. The soul stands only so much.”

—Surgeon Master Goleca, after the

Exsanguination of Augustus IX