wasn’t it?”
Gilbear nodded and fired two shots through the portal window. Filthy green water rushed out in torrents, flooding the floor. Steam rose from it.
Gilbear leaned down once the force of the outrush slackened, and he watched the twitching, spasming form of the High Master trembling in his draining tank. He fired a grenade in through the broken port and turned away.
A dull crump and the sheet of steam that billowed out of the window hole marked the end of Salvadore Sondar, High Master of Vervunhive.
Daur had carried Chass over to the brass console in the wall and he helped the enfeebled lord punch in the override settings. Chass mumbled the codes to Daur just in time. The noble was dead by the time Gaunt reached them.
The runic sigils on the console plate asked for a noble geno- print. Gaunt simply lifted one of Chass’ limp hands and pressed it to the reader-slate.
“Sic semper tyrannis, Lord Chass,” Gaunt whispered.
“Did he see victory, sir?” asked Daur.
“He saw enough. We’ll find out if this is a victory or not.”
Automated systems cycled and whirred. Deep in the bowels of Vervun-hive, field batteries throbbed. The pylon crackled and the anchor stations that remained intact raised their masts.
With a resounding, fulminating crack and a reek of ozone, the Shield was reignited.
Ibram Gaunt left the audience hall of House Sondar and walked up onto an enclosed roof terrace that overlooked the entire hive. Fires burned below, thousands of them, and streaks of constant shelling lit the air. The Shield overhead glowed and crackled.
Now the Last Ditch had begun.
DAY THIRTY-FIVE
—General Coron Grizmund, at the start
of the Narmenian counterattack
Overnight, between the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth days of the war, Vervunhive had come to the brink of destruction. Now, like a clenching muscle, the Imperial forces tightened and backed through the inner habs and elite sectors, resisting the encircling foe. For all their massive numbers, the Zoicans could only attack by land with the Shield reactivated. The dense streets, city blocks, habitats and thoroughfares favoured the defenders, who could dig in and hold the Zoican push.
Corday and Rawne dragged their forces back from Veyveyr into the worker habs a bare half hour before they could be encircled by enemy forces reaching upwards from Sondar Gate. NorthCol and Vervun Primary battalions pushed west to support the retreating Roane, still resisting street by street as they fell back from the Croe and Ontabi Gates. Colonel Bulwar had nominal command of that front.
Five thousand Vervun Primary troopers under Captain Cargin still held the Hass West Fort fast, though looping columns of Zoican infantry were beginning to bracket them through the chemical plant district.
Throughout the inner habs south of the Main Spine, Imperial units tried to stem the advance. Sergeant Bray directed the Tanith in the wastes north of the chem district. Volpone, NorthCol and Vervun Primary sections strung out to his east, where Corbec’s remaining Tanith and a force of Roane Deepers under Major Relf had consolidated a wide area of manufactories.
The fighting there was thick, as thick as any in the hive. Guild Githran Agricultural had been held since the small hours of the morning. Corbec’s platoons had precious little ammo left and no food. They had been fighting all-out for six hours straight. Enemy flamer-tanks holding the north-south arterial highway rightly were preventing the Tanith from obtaining munitions from the better-provided Roane, just half a kilometre away to the east. The Tanith were forced to scavenge for ammo, running out of cover in twos and threes to loot the fallen Zoicans. At least with the Shield reactivated, they were spared the worst of the shelling, though the enemy armour and field pieces now set up inside the Shield dome were unrelenting.
Baffels whistled a command, and Milo, Neskon and Cocoer dashed from the cover of a derelict abattoir and scurried towards a burning textile mill. Dremmond covered their run with spurts from his flamer. The three Tanith had bayonets fixed. They were all out of ammo, except Cocoer, who had only a handful of shots left.
Six Zoicans lay dead behind the rear wall of the mill. The trio descended on them and stripped them of las-cells. Each corpse had six or seven as well as musette bags filled with stick grenades.
Milo looked up. The air throbbed with las-fire and though the Shield had shut out the rain, the ground was slick and muddy. Me pulled Neskon down into cover. Enemy fire chased down the mill wall, cracking holes in the plaster facing and puffing out brick dust.
A fireteam of Zoican stormtroopers was advancing through the ruins to the west of the mill. Cocoer now had a fresh clip in his Guard-issue weapon and he fired twice, missing his targets but causing the Zoicans to duck and cover.
“We’re pinned!” Milo hissed into his microbead.
“Stay down,” the voice of Sergeant Baffels crackled back.
They did. Neskon poked his head up long enough to be shot at.
“Come on, Baffels!” Milo added urgently. They could hear the crunching footfalls of the Zoicans barely ten paces from their cover.
“Just another moment,” Baffels reassured his friend.
Loud las-shots cracked over the ruins, single shots, high- powered.
“You’re clear! Go!” Baffels squawked.
Milo led the way, Neskon and Cocoer on his heels. He got a glimpse of the Zoicans behind him, sprawled dead from clean head-shots.
Milo smiled.
The trio slid into cover in the agricultural manufactory, safe behind a solid ceramite wall. Baffels and other Tanith crowded round them as they shared out the clip-cells and the stick-bombs.
Milo looked across the roofless factory-space and saw Larkin dug in high up near a vent hatch. The Tanith snipers, along with the Spoilers, had drawn back from the Spoil. Milo had known that the precision killing of the Zoicans had been the work of marksmen.
He flashed a grin up at Larkin. The weasely sniper winked back.
Milo handed a cell to Baffels. “Your turn next time,” he joked.
“Of course,” said Baffels. Hours before he had ceased to recognise the humour in anything.
“Colm?”
