Lotin fired again. His whoop of success was quickly cut short by a perfectly aimed las-round from the Spoil below. The Zoicans had been watching for a repeat flash.
Lotin toppled back and slumped into the rubble scree on the floor, his face gone.
This war just got interesting.
The night was on them now and the moons, two large and cream and one tiny and livid red, climbed slowly into a purple sky. Rain clouds, black and woolly, chased along the eastern skyline. Distant thunder rolled out in the grasslands.
The air was sultry and unseasonable, and at Hass East Fort, Varl was sweating freely into his black fatigues. The discomfort was made worse by the static build-up generated by the vast Shield behind them, fizzing and crackling in the dark, a glowing hemisphere of energy.
The plating of his lasgun and his bionic arm tingled with electricity. Varl yearned for the threatening storm to break over them and clear the stifling air.
There was a brutal flash from the north-east and then an ear-splitting bang, followed by an impact that threw Varl off his feet. Voices were shouting in the night, alarms were ringing and someone was screaming in agony.
The sky lit up again. Explosions were rippling along the entire stretch of Curtain Wall between Ontabi Gate and the Hass.
Varl got up, blinking. There was no sign of shelling. That had been… mines.
He ran down the parapet, yelling into his vox-link as more explosions shook the wall. Detonating mines meant one thing only: the enemy was right on top of them, close enough to set charges.
Men were milling all around, confused. Equally useless barks of vox-traffic answered Varl. Varl grabbed the wall for support as another explosion went off close by, flame slicking upwards in a tight ball inside the Wall.
Inside the Wall?
“They’ve penetrated! They’ve penetrated!” he bellowed, not understanding it but desperate to get the message out. Almost at once, he came under fire. Las-shots flicked the air around him, coming up from the nearest Wall access stair.
Varl returned fire, rallying the Vervun Primary troops nearest to him. Crackling autoguns began to support him. He saw Zoican storm-troops spreading out onto the battlements from the stair access, their ochre armour dulled by dark, tarry stains.
Varl shot down one or two before realising many more were storming the battlement behind him too. How in the name of feth had they got inside?
A huge blast shook him to his knees. An entire section of Hass East collapsed with a roar and brick dust billowed into the sky, underlit by flame. Further detonations sliced through the top of the wall.
Varl saw gun emplacements ripped apart and exploded and he watched as entire sections of wall-defences blew outwards as mines set off ammunition silos and autoloader hoppers.
Like the wrath of a ruthless god, the war had come to Hass East at last.
DARKNESS FALLS
—Macharius, Lord Solar, from his writings
Distant thunder woke Ibram Gaunt from a dreamless sleep.
His bedroom, part of a small suite of rooms disposed to him, adjacent to House Command, was dark except for the dull amber glow of rune sigils on the small codifier by the desk.
He turned on the lamp and slid off the bed where he had lain down only a couple of hours before, fully clothed. Sleep had overtaken him in an instant.
By the light of the lamp, he crossed to the desk, where stacks of ribbon-bound papers and data-slates were piled up. He took a sip of last night’s wine from a glass on a side table.
The thunder came again. Somewhere, deadened by the thick walls, an alarm was ringing.
He activated the call stud of the intercom set into the marble facing of the wall, blankly regarding the great framed portrait over the bare grate opposite. Its thick, time- darkened oils portrayed a pompous-looking man in the Vervun Primary uniform of an older age, bedraggled with braid, one foot raised to rest on a pile of human skulls, a scroll in one hand and a power-sword in the other.
“Sir?”
“What’s going on?”
“Reports of a raid at Ontabi Gate. We’re waiting for confirmation.”
“Appraise me swiftly. I have men at Hass East.”
“Of course, sir. There is… a visitor for you.”
Gaunt checked the clock. It was nearly two in the morning. “Who?”
“He bears the Imperial seal and says you requested him.”
Gaunt sighed and said, “Allow him in.”
The suite’s outer door slid open and Gaunt went into the sitting room to meet his visitor, activating the wall lamps.
A gnarled, elderly man in long, purple robes shuffled in, peering at Gaunt through thick-lensed spectacles. His hair, where it protruded from under his high-crested, red, felt cap, was grey and unruly, and he leaned on an ebony cane. Behind him came a tall, pale young man in grey cleric’s coat, laden down with old tomes and sheaves of paper.
“Commissar… Gaunt?” the old man wheezed, studying the officer before him.
“Colonel-commissar, actually. You are?”
“Advocate Cornelius Pater of the Administratum Judiciary. Your request for legal assistance was received this night and Intendant Banefail directed me to attend you with all urgency.”
“I thank the intendant for his alacrity and you for your time.”
The advocate nodded and wheezed his way over to a leather couch, leaving his assistant in the doorway, swaying under the weight of the manuscripts and volumes he carried.
