Mallet kept aiming and kept shooting, all the time keeping one eye on Bedlo’s progress. Soon Mallet was looking up at his boss as he stood on the wooden stage, beaten and bloodied. Mallet swung his las over his shoulder and took the three paces required to pick up the flamer that Bedlo had shrugged off several minutes earlier.
He’d never done what he was about to do. He’d seen it done, once, by some psycho fool in the Guard who’d known what he was doing, and whose actions had made them all cheer and whoop. He didn’t know if he could do it. He knew that doing it inside was suicide, so, he’d be dead, either way.
Most of the enemy beasts were facing the stage, watching their macabre little show. Mallet took hold of the flamer’s strap, and felt the weapon’s weight in his hand. The tank wasn’t full, by any means, but there ought to be enough.
Mallet took his autopistol in his right hand, and started to swing the flamer in his left. Once he’d got the momentum up a little, he turned to face the stage, and, using the weight of the flamer’s tank, he swung the weapon through the air, letting go of it at the top of its arc. He didn’t have time to aim the autopistol in the confined space, and fired it almost as soon as he’d loosed his missile. The flamer had gone almost straight up, and bounced off one of the tie-beams that held the building together. It plummeted back down, exploding a very little above head height, spraying great gouts of flames out over the heads of the enemy. Above was never a good place.
The flamer had gone up almost vertically, and come down the same way. Mallet was standing directly beneath the explosion, the autopistol still pointing roughly in the direction of the fuel tank. He was the first to die, but he took half a dozen of the enemy with him. The beasts’ attention was torn away from the unfortunate man limping around in circles on the stage in front of them, most of it.
Those still involved in skirmishes furthest from the stage heard the explosion and felt the building shake, but they were close to the door left open by the intruder, and tumbled out laughing and hooting, forgetting what they’d been squabbling over.
Several more of the enemy managed to pick themselves up in the first moments after the explosion began to subside, and made their way out of the building, staggering, limping and complaining.
One of the last survivors looked around for a minute or two, dazed by the explosion. He finally found what he was looking for. He bent over a tall body with bulbous joints in the mismatched fatigues and body-armour that the foe wore, and hefted the thing over to look at its face. He took the dead head in his hands and gently knocked foreheads with it. Then he looked up at the man still staggering around on the stage. He aimed his laspistol at the wretch a total of seven times. Six of the bullets maimed. When the last came, Bedlo was going insane, wondering if his end would ever come. The final round detonated one of the grenades in his chest, and then another, making his corpse jolt and squirm on the stage, too late to entertain the troops.
The fire did not burn for long. There was no one to make repairs on The Drum, and no supplies with which to make them. Some of the under-slum dwellers made a crust or two cleaning out the blood, shit and bodies. It was a good day, and the show went on again the day after, despite charring to the stage and a few new stains to the ceiling.
When Logier paid off the cleaners, he took evidence of all the dead cell members, including the old ayatani priest, Revere, who’d come through the front door, bold as brass. The Archon wouldn’t be too impressed by the number of his troops that had gone down at The Drum, but it had to be worth it to take out a cell, and break the morale of resistance fighters everywhere. He’d proven his worth as a collaborator, and made a fool of the old man.
Ozias stood in the entrance to the alley at the rear of The Drum, watching Logier complete his transactions with the low-lifes that had done his bidding. He pressed his back against the wall of the alley as Logier passed him, tossing something up into the air and catching it. Ozias tucked in behind him where he couldn’t be seen. He would move fast, before they’d left the under-slum.
Two or three minutes later, Ozias got his chance. Logier turned down a narrow alley between overhanging buildings, little more than a dim corridor, the light at the end several hundred metres away.
Before Logier had a chance to turn and see who had followed him into the alley, Ozias moved up quickly behind him and put his bolt-pistol to the back of the traitor’s head, taking it off with one shot. He caught the body as it fell, and laid it down close to the wall of the alley. He preferred to be face to face with the enemy, but saw no advantage in taking that chance with Logier.
Ozias had learned a long time ago never to trust anyone, but, in a pinch, he might have trusted Logier. He would have been wrong. It was impossible to know whether the remaining members of his cell were faithful, but he sincerely hoped so. This clean-up operation had cost him weapons, and men had died; however reckless the men of the hive-cell had been, however much of a liability, resistance fighters had died.
Ozias emptied Logier’s pockets, taking the evidence collected from Bedlo’s, Mallet’s, Shuey’s, Ailly’s and Ayatani Revere’s bodies. He would give them to the priest, Perdu, to inter.
Ayatani Perdu could feel the damp sod of the floor beneath his feet. These little rooms with floors that never dried out were havens to the half a dozen worshippers that came to his services. Sometimes he wondered how that could be.
They had died. They had all died. The two men, the two boys and the tough old ayatani had all perished, and for what?
They were supposed to be fighting for the same thing, for the preservation of some form of the Imperium on Reredos. They were supposed to be fighting against the enemy, for the people. The factions had been exposed. Their lives had proven to be as disposable as they had ever been to the foe. Perdu looked from one face to another. He did not recognise any of the congregation. He thought about feeling fear, but he couldn’t. The only emotion available to him now was resignation.
Perdu let his eyes fall to the prayer book that he held open in his hands. He did not need to look on the words, they were engraved indelibly in his mind, but he looked at them anyway. He looked for comfort in them, but found that he felt only that the inevitable would happen, and that maybe it was better in the end.
Perdu finished his prayer, but remained standing with his head bowed over his book. As he looked at the words, a button appeared in the spine-fold of the open pages. It was domed and heavily engraved, with a thick ring shank on it. He could read a single word encircled by the shank. It read, ‘pray’.
He did not look up, and was not surprised when a second button dropped onto the pages of the book, a pair to the first. The shank encircled the word, ‘mercy’.
Within moments a third button had been dropped onto the book, and then a fourth, a fifth and a sixth. The room was empty.
Ozias and the five remaining members of his cell left the young ayatani priest to his musings. It was the first and last time that they ever attended a service together with someone other than their own priest, but these were unusual times. This was the beginning of something; this was the beginning of a plan to rescue the entire planet.
Perdu looked down at the buttons scattered on the pages before him, their shanks gleaming bright gold in the dim light, casting highlights and shadows on the pages; the shanks circling some words, and the domes of the buttons covering or overshadowing others.
Perdu read the six words in their golden rings. ‘Pray to the lady for mercy’.