The citadel had weathered the fortnight of war well. For some reason that angered Dietrich.
He could not face eating, despite his hunger. In the city, there were civilians living on half-putrid rats and cockroaches, gnawing out their existence behind his lines in cowed, starving mobs. Soldiers had to eat first – that was the merest logic. But the thought of those desperate crowds made him refuse the offered food all the same.
Their ears popped as they rode up the mountain in one of the great lifters. These were open to the floors and levels they passed, and Dietrich was able to glimpse the gun-caverns with their hundreds of crews, whose work had won his gamble for him, and the endless store-rooms, magazines, dormitories and barracks, all thinly populated but running as smoothly as the workings of a clock. He marvelled at it, and for a moment could understand why Governor Riedling had thought to sit out the war in here. The citadel was set apart, not untouched by the fighting, but in comparison with the wreck that was now the city of Askai, it had barely suffered at all. Small wonder a man as insulated as Riedling had closed his eyes to what was going on outside.
They changed lifters, Dietrich yawning to try to get his ears to pop after the swift ascent, and travelled through a tech-level where the priests were incanting their prayers and the air was redolent of incense. They were blessing a series of massive shells larger than a man – some of the ammunition which had come up from the Armaments District in the last hours. As soon as the priests had made the holy prayers and anointed the shells, the ammunition was trundled off on low-loaders, to be taken to the gun-caverns. Another kind of food for the war.
Dietrich was staggering with tiredness, whereas beside him Von Arnim seemed a creature sculpted out of tireless bone and leather. He was watching and noting everything, and he questioned the young lieutenant who was their escort constantly. Questions Dietrich should have asked perhaps, about ammunition levels, casualty rates, food supplies, generator power.
But Dietrich was saving his questions for one who might be able to answer them more fully than some flustered lieutenant of militia. Ismail might seem as impassive and unperturbed as a snake, but his impatience and apprehension showed in the way he interrogated the young man until the lieutenant had to beg utter ignorance and apologise profusely.
The elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and they stepped out.
‘Feel better?’ Dietrich muttered to Von Arnim.
‘It was that or butt my head against the wall, Pavul.’
‘I hear you, brother.’
They were in the palace, that gaudy scrap of tinsel at the very summit of the citadel. It was less opulent than it had been – one could see by the state of the floor that real soldiers had been coming and going.
‘At least we know the way,’ Dietrich said. Although it seemed a very long time ago now that he had trod the corridors of this place in a time of complacent peace, with gaudily uniformed bodyguards at every corner.
These were gone now. In fact, the whole place was eerily deserted. Waiting for them, Marshal Veigh stood alone in the Audience Room in an old-fashioned soldier’s grey cloak, and with a laspistol in a weathered leather holster at his waist. Under the cloak, he wore not the battered fatigues of a field officer, but the rich ceremonial uniform of a marshal of Ras Hanem, the decorations glittering at his ribs and throat, catching the light of the overheads. An odd combination of campaign and parade ground which made Dietrich raise his eyebrows.
The marshal had aged twenty years in as many days.
I suppose we all have, Dietrich thought, and he strode forward with his hand outstretched. Veigh’s grip was clammy, skeletal. He almost outdid Ismail in the cadaverous stakes, but whereas the commissar radiated energy and impatience and passion, Veigh seemed like a coal burned past flame and holding together only as an outline of ash.
‘It is good to see you, general,’ Veigh said with the ghost of a genuine smile. ‘And you, commissar. I am particularly glad to see you here.’
Von Arnim bowed slightly, his forehead creasing in a moment’s puzzlement.
‘Gentlemen, I would appreciate it if you indulged me in a glass of wine. It is a good vintage – the last from Cypra Mundi itself. I should like to toast our recent successes against the Great Enemy.’
He led them to a large table, which judging by the marks on the floor, had been dragged here from an antechamber. Upon the table were heaps of cogitator readouts and data-slates and a large map of soiled plasment – and a crystal decanter surrounded by glasses.
Veigh filled these, and offered them to his guests.
‘To the Emperor, may he guide us always.’
‘To the Emperor,’ Dietrich and Von Arnim echoed. Dietrich downed his wine in one gulp, though the commissar merely sipped at his before setting the glass firmly down again.
Veigh looked at the map on the table.
‘Old-fashioned, I know, but when I plot the locations of our forces, it sticks in my mind better to draw them myself, rather than let a signaller plot them on a pict screen. I just updated it, general – the positions and strengths marked here are accurate as of one hour ago.’
Dietrich bent over the table in sudden interest, scanning the plasment. It was the outline of Askai and all the land up to the Koi-Niro Mountains in the east. Marked out in red and blue, like the monitors in his Baneblade, what he saw thereon made him whistle.
‘Are you sure of these positions?’ he asked Veigh.
‘Our augurs here, on these heights, are far-ranged and exceedingly precise, general.’
‘And the enemy strengths?’
‘As accurate as my technicians can make out.’
‘Ismail, look at this.’
But Von Arnim had ignored the map. He was watching Marshal Veigh closely.
‘According to this,’ Dietrich said, scratching his bald scalp, ‘the enemy is currently present in far less strength than we had supposed.’
‘He has been sending formations out to the west for several days,’ Veigh said. ‘Transports have landed and taken off by the dozen, out in the western badlands. I believe he has been shipping the best of his troops off-world, back up to his fleet.’
‘That’s why the attack yesterday was successful,’ Dietrich said, straightening. ‘He’s just holding us here, keeping the pressure on – he has other fish in a pot elsewhere. But this is the last Imperial presence in the system, here in Askai, and this city is the key strategic objective. What else could he be planning?’
‘Did Governor Riedling know of this?’ Von Arnim asked suddenly, as sharp as a viper.
‘Yes,’ Veigh said. ‘He knew. It was another reason for him to hole up here and await events, rather than try and aid you and your men in their assaults on the ground below.’
‘What happened to Governor Riedling?’ Von Arnim demanded.
Veigh looked very tired. He looked back and forth at the general and the commissar who now both stood watching him.
‘I think you know,’ he said simply.
Dietrich sighed and rubbed his eyes. ‘I had hoped it was otherwise.’
‘There was no other way, general. He would have sat here and watched you fail, seen you and all your command destroyed. I could not let that happen. I am a soldier too. I am a soldier first and foremost – it may be I have not seen the battlefields you have, but it has been my calling also, and I have followed it all my life.’
‘Then you should know how to obey orders,’ Von Arnim said harshly. ‘The Imperium is built on loyalty and obedience. Without those, we are nothing. Without those, the Emperor turns his face from us.’