And still, there is the fascination in that spectacle.
And the fear that it may draw close, until the eyes of the beast are at the very door.
Riedling gulped back his wine. His hand shook a little. Roiling smoke from the burning hive-scrapers of the city made a carpet of black cloud below, and in that carpet bright flashes came and went, the boom of them coming here to the palace several seconds later. It had been going on for weeks now, a monsoon of artillery.
Dietrich’s men would be making their assault round about now – such hopeless, fruitless bravery. He raised a glass to them.
The citadel was the only place on the planet where they could hope to hold out now. Upon these heights, guarded by the heaviest calibre guns on the world, they would sit tight, repulse the enemy, and await relief. Ras Hanem was too important to let slip away. Cypra Mundi must see that – it was elementary logic. Help was probably thundering through the warp towards them even as he stood here.
Government must survive; the core of authority must survive, Riedling told himself. Otherwise what is left is the merest anarchy.
My family have ruled this planet for a hundred generations. The Emperor himself entrusted my forebears with its care. I will not be the one to betray that trust.
He spilled his wine as he drank. The ground-fire was intense out there today. He looked down on it like some detached god. It seemed so far away, almost irrelevant.
And then from close by there came the massive rippling boom as a salvo of the citadel’s heavy guns opened up. Riedling felt the vibrations of their firing tremble through his boots as the entire citadel echoed to the massive concussion.
What in the world? His face clouded with anger.
Again, another salvo, this time from the heavy plasma batteries whose dwindling energy banks they had been conserving for days. Augur-guided bolts of light lanced out from the sides of the mountain-fortress upon which he stood and streaked down into the ruin of the smoke-choked city below.
And then the anti-air batteries started up, rattling and cracking in a streak of gunfire that sounded like nothing so much as the ripping of a great piece of linen cloth.
The sky filled with fire, and soaring in to meet it came squadrons of the enemy’s ground-attack craft, century-old Doomfires by the score. The citadel’s guns caught them at their bombing runs and lit them up in long lines of flame-bright destruction.
Every gun in the citadel was firing, as though there were ammunition aplenty, as though suddenly all his orders about conserving it had never been issued.
Riedling tossed his crystal goblet to the floor, where it shattered. He set his palm on the hilt of his ceremonial chainsword and let the anger throb through him.
Men would hang for this. He would see it done here, today.
‘Gardias! In here at once!’
The chamber doors swung open straight away, and in came his old chamberlain, who had served his family all his long life. But he was not alone. With him came Marshal Veigh, and half a dozen troopers of the Hanemite Guard.
The soldiers looked like creatures from another world. They stalked into the opulence of the governor’s chambers bringing the reek of smoke and blood and death with them, ash falling from their boots, their lasguns the only thing about them that was not smeared with filth.
Veigh had his hand on Gardias’s shoulder. His face was as lean as a skull and he had carbonised pockmarks on one cheekbone. He had his laspistol unholstered and there was a bright light in his eyes, almost as though there were tears hovering there.
He spoke not to his lord, Governor Riedling, but to the old chamberlain, Gardias.
‘Are you sure you want to do this, my friend?’
The chamberlain looked at him with something approaching contempt. ‘I know my place. I am no traitor. I will not bite the hand which has fed me all these years.’
He shrugged off the marshal’s hand and walked across the chamber with the firm stride of a much younger man. When he came to the astonished governor he knelt before Riedling and kissed his hand. ‘Lord, know that I would never betray you, and that I had no part in this.’
Riedling raised his eyes in bafflement to Marshal Veigh. ‘What in the seven hells do you think you are doing, marshal?’ Then he raised his voice. ‘Guards!’
‘Your popinjays have been redeployed where they can be of some use,’ Veigh said grimly. ‘They are on the battlefield below, even now, earning their pay at last. There is no one else here who will lift a finger to help you now, my lord governor.’
Riedling took a step backwards. ‘What is this, Veigh, mutiny? Revolution? You will burn for this, you and all those who stand with you – you know that!’ His voice shook. Gardias rose and stood beside him as though they were comrades-in-arms rather than master and servant.
‘He has taken over the citadel, my lord,’ the old man said with a snarl. ‘He has usurped your command and ordered every battery in the fortress to support the attack going on below.’
‘Yes, I have,’ Marshal Veigh said quietly. He gestured with his pistol. ‘I will not let brave men die unaided. Dietrich is assaulting the spaceport as we speak. If he is successful then our forces will be linked up at last, and the munitions our guns need will be available in untold quantities.’
‘I vetoed that strategy,’ Riedling grated. ‘The attack cannot succeed.’
‘Then we will all die fighting, my lord. That is our duty.’
‘Do not talk to me of duty, Veigh. You have disobeyed my direct orders. You are hereby relieved of command. Consider yourself cashiered – a court martial will consider your fate once the relief expedition arrives. I will watch you die for this.’
Veigh raised his pistol. ‘I don’t think so.’ And he shot Riedling in the head.
The governor fell to the shining marble of the floor, eyes still open, a half-formed word still on his lips. His temple smoked where the las-bolt had entered it, and steam squirmed out through the hole as his brain boiled inside his skull.
‘Gardias?’ Veigh said. ‘You do not have to do this.’
Gardias was looking down at the twitching body of his master. ‘Let me die with him,’ he said. ‘I know what he was, but I can do no other. There must be some loyalty left in the world.’
Veigh’s face clenched in regret. ‘So be it.’
Two rounds to the chest, and Gardias went down without a sound.
A moment they all stood there, the troopers staring heavily. Two more bodies, piled upon a hecatomb of millions. What did it signify?
‘Throw the corpses over the balcony,’ Marshal Veigh said, holstering his pistol. ‘And be quick. I am needed in the command centre.’
They hesitated a moment, even so.
‘Comrades,’ Veigh said, ‘this is all on me. Let it be on my head alone.’
One of the troopers, a sergeant, slung his lasgun upon his back and bent at Riedling’s body. ‘Give me a hand, you dozy bastards – you heard what the marshal said. Like as not we’re all dead men anyway, but at least now we don’t have a coward leading us.’
The soldiers gathered at once about the bodies and lifted them up like two boneless sacks. They hoisted them shoulder high and then one by one they tossed them over the railings of the ornate balcony so that they plummeted down into the smoke and fire of the battle far below, as insignificant, it seemed, as if they were nothing more than crumbs of rubble.
Marshal Veigh stared down at the city below for a few moments, his men around him. He passed a hand over his red-rimmed eyes.
‘Now, Dietrich,’ he muttered. ‘Make it worth it.’
The Baneblade lurched and shuddered as it rode over the ruins of the spaceport terminal buildings. Dietrich clutched a ceiling rail and stared intently at the tactical readouts on the screens along the vehicle’s command compartment. Blue arrowheads were advancing steadily, sometimes coming together as his companies congregated to wipe out a particularly stubborn enemy position, then opening out again as the assault ground on.