But the Word Bearers did not make the clean kill they intended. They fumbled it, or they underestimated the effort required. They made a bloody mess, and left a wounded foe that could still move and fight; a wounded, mangled foe that was fuelled by pain and hatred and vengeance, and by the bright shock of moral outrage.
Always make sure your enemy is dead.
If you must fight an Ultramarine, pray you kill him. If he is still alive, then you are dead.
You are dead, Lorgar. You are dead. You are dead.
‘Did you say something?’ Arook says to Ventanus.
Ventanus wonders if he did.
‘No,’ he replies. He unbuckles his helm, removes it, and wipes a smear of blood off the pitted, chipped visor. Much of the cobalt-blue paint has been scratched or spalled off. Arook Serotid, similarly, is covered in metal scrapes and dents, his ornate golden armour battered and streaked with blood and oil.
Around them, wounded, weary, filthy men gather to watch the brutal fighting on the far side of the earthwork. Army, Ultramarine and skitarii alike stand together, weapons lowered. Residue smoke coils under the chewed-up arch of the gate. Broken pieces of stone slither down from the wall, some of it jarred loose by the earth-trembling assault of the armoured vehicles. The precious few medical personnel among Ventanus’s force take advantage of the suspended fire to move up and tend the injured and dying. Virtually every single one of the palace defenders has taken an injury of some kind. There are nothing like enough dressings or drugs to go around.
‘Why the code?’ asks Arook.
‘What?’
‘The number of the painted eldar?’
‘The war against Jielthwa Craftworld,’ Ventanus replies quietly. ‘Eight years ago. Sydance had the main assault. A privilege. During the charge, he was briefly cut off and made a personal stand, taking on a dozen eldar warriors. It was an outstanding achievement. He was decorated for it. I arrived to relieve him just as the fight was ending, and he was finishing his last opponent.’
Ventanus glances at the skitarii master.
‘The primarch decorated him for twelve kills in one accelerated bout of combat. Twelve of the painted eldar. But there were thirteen eldar dead on the hall floor when I reached him. I came in firing, anxious for his welfare. It is a high probability that my shots, loosed into the smoke, killed the thirteenth. So it is a standing joke between us. He famously slew twelve and was decorated for it. I slew one. But that one may have been crucial. It might have been the one who, at last, overcame him. Sydance might have died at the hands of the thirteenth, and never lived to celebrate his glory and prowess. So which was more important, his twelve or my one?’
Arook stares at him.
‘This is the sort of thing you joke about?’ he asks. ‘This passes for humour among your kind?’
‘I thought you might understand,’ says Ventanus, shaking his head. ‘Most humans would not.’
Arook shrugs his mighty shoulders.
‘I suppose I do. We skitarii enjoy similar boasts and rivalries. We just do it in binary and keep it to ourselves.’
The force of the armour battle has become so intense the field of fog west of the palace is rippling and churning like a troubled sea. Fierce beams of light flash and burn in the murk. A troop transport, hoisted by a considerable explosion, bursts out of the mist like a breaching cetacean. Debris and fragments shower off its burning carcass as it flops back into the vapour sea.
Closer at hand, at the edges of the mist, Ultramarines are locked in hand-to-hand fighting with Word Bearers. Loyal blue against traitor red. No quarter given or taken.
Ventanus reloads his boltgun, checks his sword, and gathers up the standard. Its haft is streaked with runs of blood, and badged with bloody palm prints.
‘I’m rejoining the fight,’ he tells Selaton. ‘Secure the palace.’
He hears a buzz from beneath his left ear, and responds instinctively before he realises what it is.
‘Ventanus? This is Sullus.’
‘Sullus?’
‘I’m in the palace sub-basement, Remus. She did it. The server did it. Vox-link is live. Repeat, vox-link is back and live.’
Ventanus acknowledges. He turns to Selaton and the other officers.
‘Change of plan,’ he says. ‘I’m returning to the palace building. Hold the line, and let me know the moment the nature of the fight out there changes.’
He turns and begins to walk away, through the gate, across the cratered gardens, towards the battered facade of the summer palace.
Blue smoke wreathes the air, and there’s a stink of fycelene from the artillery emplacements.
He has hope. For the first time since the day began, Ventanus has decent, proper hope in his heart.
Ventanus enters the sub-basement. He can feel the soft heat of the working machines. Mechanicum magi stand around, observing, monitoring. A few work at exposed circuit integrators, making final adjustments.
Tawren stands in the stack room, connected to the chattering data-engine by an MIU umbilical. She looks serene.
She glances at him as he approaches, but is too busy reconfiguring a data-transfer structure in her head to speak.
Sullus glances at Ventanus.
‘4th Company just relieved us,’ Ventanus tells him.
‘So she said,’ Sullus replies, nodding towards the server. ‘She’s constructing a tactical overview. I don’t understand the details, but I gather she’s collecting and collating strategic data from every system and information source she can link to.’
‘Across the planet? Orbital?’ asks Ventanus.
‘Not yet, captain,’ says Cyramica, the server’s aide. ‘For now, it is just on a local, continental level. Because it was dormant and isolated, the data-engine was not infected with pernicious scrapcode. The server is extending her reach one step at a time, maintaining code-protected cordons, so that she does not contaminate herself by infected data-transfer. There is also some doubt that this engine will be powerful enough to coordinate a full, global noosphere.’
Ventanus nods. He appreciates the way the Mechanicum have of never sugar-coating any news.
‘What about taking control of the planetary weapons grid?’ asks Sullus.
‘No,’ replies Cyramica bluntly. ‘The active grid is under enemy control, and it is infected with their invasive scrapcode. All the server can do is gather data in passive mode. The engine is not powerful enough to wrest grid control from the enemy-operated data-engines, and even if it were, such a process would require active MIU function, which would allow the scrapcode a viable cross-infection route. As was demonstrated today, we do not have a code-protection cordon or “killcode” powerful enough to eliminate and cleanse the scrapcode.’
‘So Tawren’s forced to remain passive?’ asks Ventanus.
‘To protect the integrity of what we have here,’ says Cyramica.
‘But she can assemble and compile tactical data for us?’
‘Extensively. Her magi are already assembling the first databriefs.’
Ventanus looks at Sullus. ‘She can prep us with material to formulate proper theoreticals. We can then use the vox to coordinate the practicals.’
‘Any coordinated reprisal is going to be bloody welcome,’ says Sydance, walking into the chamber. He wrenches off his bloodstained helm and grins at Ventanus. ‘Thought you were dead, Remus,’ he says.
‘Hoped you might be,’ Ventanus replies.
‘Hope all you like,’ says Sydance.
They embrace with a clatter of armour.
‘There’s always a thirteenth eldar, Lyros,’ says Ventanus.
‘Twelve, only ever twelve,’ Sydance replies.