‘Kill that witch,’ Regara told him. ‘Speers and I will deal with the Blood Pact.’
The kill-team split into two, Regara and Speers going for the Blood Pact officer whilst the others, led by Culcis, tackled the witch. Percussive las-fire echoed behind them, the rest of the Volpone keeping the traitor forces at bay.
Two narrow pathways fed off from a platform immediately in front of the archway and led around the edges of the chamber towards the hideous lagoon. It was here that the two groups diverged.
Whickering las-fire, the beams an unwholesome red compared to the purity of Guard blue, snapped at the earth around the advancing Volpone and their allies. Racing down the right-hand channel, Culcis returned fire and lanced one of the Tongues of Tcharesh across the torso. The wretch staggered, grasping at the wound, and fell from the pathway into the bloody mess. He sank immediately, as if weighted down, as if something had... dragged him. The witch shrieked in delight. Another offering to the Ruinous Powers.
Drado caught a las-bolt to the knee before they’d reached the end of the pathway. He went on for a couple more steps before slamming against the wall, his face awash with agonised sweat.
No delays, the words of the major came back to Culcis, even if someone falls.
The lieutenant carried on. A lasgun shot, fired from the hip by Hauke, took a traitor in the throat, avenging Drado’s wounding.
Both her guardians down, the witch was left vulnerable. Or so Culcis believed.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
He glanced across at Regara. He and Speers had dispatched the lackeys and were engaging the Blood Pact officer. Though Culcis only caught a snapshot, the fight was brutal and close-quarter. Speers had gone to his bayonet, whilst Regara drew his sword. Adamantine steel flashed against Chaos-infused iron. Only the fact it was two against one kept both the corporal and major alive for more than a few seconds. They were holding their own, but only just.
Culcis focussed on the witch. He was flanked by Hauke and his banner bearer. The two Longstriders had pulled ahead. The banner bearer took aim with his lasgun but never fired. The witch extended an emaciated claw in his direction as a fountain of blood erupted from the Kauth warrior’s mouth. The lasgun slipped from his nerveless fingers, falling uselessly to the ground. The banner bearer followed, tipping off the edge and plunging to his doom in the blood pool. Hauke reached for the banner itself before it joined him, snatching the weathered shaft like a lifeline, and dropping his weapon to do it.
Smiling, the witch advanced upon them both. She was preceded by an invisible veil of cold. Culcis felt daggers of ice puncturing his chest over and over. Needles of pain speared his forehead, and he clutched at it. Somewhere during this torture, he lost his pistol and fell to one knee.
‘Emp–’ he began, seeking benediction, when a froth of blood bubbled up from his throat. He choked then gagged. It was filling up his mouth and nose, a reservoir of vitae fattening his lungs with hot fluid.
Hauke was still moving, the banner clenched in his whitened fist giving him resolve. Culcis watched him draw his hatchet and close on the blood-soaked harridan. He swept the blade towards her head but incredibly she moved, far faster than any living thing should. Culcis couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just the fact he was dying and had started to hallucinate, but she... blurred, as if sliding from one plane of existence into another and back again. A needle-like punch-blade had also materialised in her grimy claw. She thrust it gleefully into Hauke’s exposed neck. It went all the way through. The Longstrider captain lost his grip on the hatchet, before even realising what had happened and that he was dead, and crumpled into a heap. He shuddered once, the banner falling from his grasp, and was still.
She was near to him. Culcis could hear the witch’s ragged breathing. He caught an impression of her withered form through his blood-filmed eyes. He felt the needle-blade closing rather than saw it. But as the witch threw back her foul head in exultation, something rolled against the lieutenant’s clenched fist. As it touched him, his vision cleared, like a cloth wiped over glass, and some of his strength returned. Acting purely on instinct, Culcis seized the banner pole that had rolled down to him from Hauke’s dead hand and shoved it upwards into the witch.
Her cackling turned to screaming horror when she saw the banner pole jutting from her torso. Culcis roared, as much to banish his fear as to focus his anger, and thrust deeper.
‘Hell-bitch, die!’
Convulsing once, the witch was done, her power extinguished.
Culcis braced the pole and snapped it off halfway, leaving the harridan impaled. He salvaged the end with the blessed cloth before kicking the witch into the promethium morass with his boot.
‘Major!’ he cried, aiming his recovered hellpistol across the hideous blood-filled chasm where the machine was pumping like a grotesque heart.
Culcis fired, and Regara ducked, opening himself to attack. Speers was already down and not moving.
The shot took the Blood Pact in the shoulder. It wasn’t fatal but the sudden change in position, the attempted death blow when Regara had opened himself up, put him off balance. The major thrust upwards with his power sword. The Blood Pact officer’s riposte and parry were a fraction too late and the humming blade sank into his chest. Regara wrenched it free, forcing the traitor to stagger and pitch backwards. The major didn’t give him time to recover. He cut the bastard’s head off with one swipe.
‘Nearly done,’ bellowed a weary Regara across the crimson gulf. He went into his webbing to retrieve a pair of krak grenades. The entire kill-team was carrying them. Culcis had made it as far as the machine already and was mag-locking his explosives to the engine’s superstructure.
‘Prime them for a ninety-second delay,’ Regara told him when they met up where the two pathways converged.
Culcis nodded, working at the detonation stud to give them the ninety seconds to effect an escape. He’d ripped the scrap of cloth off the pole completely now and stuffed it in one of his combat pouches.
Both men bolted from the chamber. Regara had Speers slung over his shoulder like a meat sack; Drado clung to Culcis as the two of them hobbled out urgently.
Back into the narrow defile and the Volpone were finishing off the ambushers. At the witch’s death, most of the traitors had fled or cast themselves over the edge. Her hold upon the insurgents had been strong, so her demise sent psychological shockwaves through her puppets.
The Volpone had reached halfway down when an explosion shook the caves. An incendiary flare erupted behind them in a bright orange bloom as the promethium lagoon went up in conflagration. The rest of the way upwards was frantic. In his panic to escape the sundered caves, Culcis caught their flight in flashes only. Smoke wreathed his world, together with the stink of burning. Darkness smothered his thoughts and senses.
Then there was light and the oppressive heat of the desert sun.
‘Vox,’ snapped Regara when they were out. Several of the men were rolling onto the sand, their minds and bodies near exhaustion.
The major took the receiver cup as it was offered and raised the Munitorum bastion.
A flustered, anxious Ossika answered.
‘It’s done,’ Regara told him. ‘The insurgents are finished.’
‘Emperor’s mercy,’ breathed Ossika. Culcis was standing close and could overhear the conversation clearly. It sounded like the Munitorum clerk was crying.
‘The fuel, Ossika,’ said Regara. ‘It’s in the fuel. That’s what’s turning the men. It has to be destroyed.’
Ossika didn’t sound so sure. ‘What? All of it?’
‘Every damned drop.’