Storm of Iron

Vauban pushed his thoughts of the damned arch magos and his scheming underlings from his mind, forcing himself to concentrate on the job in hand.

'Have you heard from Kristan and Anders yet?' he asked Leonid.

Leonid nodded. 'So far everything is proceeding as planned. Weapons, ammunition and demolition charges have been distributed to the soldiers taking part in the mission and the storming parties are gathering at the rally points.'

Vauban looked up into the crimson sky just as the day slipped from afternoon's warmth into evening's twilight. 'I wish it was already dark. I can't abide this waiting.'

'They say the waiting is the hardest part, sir.'

'And are they right, Mikhail?'

'No,' chuckled Leonid. 'Not by a long shot. Give me the waiting any day.'

Vauban checked his pocket chronometer and frowned. 'Any word from Hawke?'

'Not yet, sir, no, but we should give him time to get there.'

'He'd better get there soon or that magos you sequestered will be missed by his brethren and spill his guts. I'm keen to avoid that, at least until it is too late for them to interfere, Mikhail.'

'We should give Hawke a little more time, it's a tough journey,' pointed out Leonid.

'Do you think he can do it even if he does get there?'

'Yes, I think he can. His profile has him as above average intelligence, and he's come a long way from the disgrace of a man we once knew as Guardsman Hawke. He's a soldier now.'

'Any idea why he's not coughed up his lungs yet? He claims to have ran out of detox pills over a week ago.'

'Not yet, sir. I asked the Magos Biologis how long we could expect Hawke to keep going, but he was pretty vague, and claimed it wasn't possible to predict exactly.'

Vauban shook his head. 'Emperor preserve us from the meddling of the Adeptus Mechanicus.'

'Amen to that, sir,' agreed Leonid. 'What of our new arrivals? Are they in agreement with our plan?'

Vauban smiled, though there was no warmth in his expression. 'Oh yes, they are wholeheartedly with us.'

Leonid nodded, but said nothing, noting the way the castellan gripped the hilt of his power sword. Both officers were arrayed for battle and had taken pains to appear so for their men. Vauban had put on his dress uniform jacket and wore his silver breastplate over it, the bronze eagle at its centre polished to a brilliant sheen. Leonid's breastplate was bronze, but also gleaming. The dent in its centre where he had been shot had been repaired and the armour was as good as new.

'How long now?' asked Vauban.

Leonid looked at the darkening sky and said, 'Not long.'

Goran Delau turned the drained vox-battery and ration pack in his hands as though trying to gain some deeper understanding of his prey by touch alone. His early admiration for this man had diminished as they had closed in and discovered the detritus of his passing. The man had not even bothered to cover his tracks, leaving his waste in the open where any half-competent tracker would easily discover it.

He guessed that his prey could not be more than an hour or so ahead of him and Delau was irritated by his foe's lack of savvy. The challenge of the hunt had now been reduced to reeling in the man and then killing him.

The men who followed him now only numbered six. One had fallen to his death down a wide ravine they had been forced to leap; the other three Delau had killed himself because of their lack of skill and stamina. They were irrelevant and he knew he could kill this man on his own anyway.

Wherever this man was going, he seemed to be making his way there with real purpose, since his course had kept true this last few hours. Whatever lay at the end of this chase, Delau was certain of one thing.

It would end in the prey's death.

Hawke checked the direction finder to check he was in the right place, unable to see anything much in the encroaching darkness. He stood on a flat plateau, in part of the highest reaches of the mountains, the constant thunder of the invaders' artillery nothing more than a distant rumble from here. His breath caught in his throat and he wiped sweat from his brow. He was exhausted, but pleased to have arrived here - wherever here was - before darkness had fallen.

There wasn't much to see, just a spill of rocks lying against a flat, vertical slice of the mountainside, though the ground looked pretty churned up, as though someone had set off a bunch of explosives. He shucked off his pack and pulled out the portable vox, cursing as he saw he was down to his last battery.

He slotted the battery home and pressed the activation rune, breathing a sigh of relief as the front panel lit up with a reassuring glow. He lifted the handset, spun the dial to the correct frequency and thumbed the talk button.

'Bastion, this is Hawke, do you copy?'

The vox crackled for a second before a voice came on the line. 'Receiving you loud and clear, Hawke. This is Magos Beauvais, are you at the specified co-ordinates?'

'Yeah, but aside from the view I don't see anything that makes the climb worthwhile.'

'Describe what you can see,' ordered Beauvais.

'Not a hell of a lot. It's pretty damn flat here, aside from a pile of rocks, but not much else.'

'Go over to the pile of rocks and tell me what's there.'

'Ok'said Hawke, lugging his pack and the vox over to the rocks and peering through the gloom. He stepped forwards and brushed away a thick coating of dust.

'There's a door behind here! The rock fall's covered most of it, but there's definitely a door.'

'Is there a panel with a keypad visible to the side of the door?'

'Yeah, it's a bit dusty, but looks alright.'

'Good, here's what you have to do,' explained Beauvais. 'Using the keypad, enter the following code: tertius-three-alpha-epsilon-nine.'

Wedging the handset between his shoulder and ear, Hawke punched in the code and stepped back as the door juddered open on buckled rollers. A faint wind brushed past him, like the exhalation of a dead thing and he shivered.

'Ok, door's open. I guess I'm going in,' said Hawke.

'Yes, go inside,' confirmed Beauvais. 'And follow my directions. Do not deviate from them at all.'

'What the hell do you think I'm going to do, go on a tour?'

He ducked his head below the rocks and entered a gloomy corridor. He stepped forward, stumbling as his foot met resistance then tripped as he trod on something soft. He swore as he hit the ground and rolled onto the floor of the corridor, finding himself face to face with a corpse, its mouth twisted in a rictus mask of death. He yelped and pushed himself back towards the dim light at the door where he saw another three bodies slumped on the ground.

Their fists were covered with dried blood. Looking at the door, Hawke saw bloody handprints smeared over its inside surface.

'Imperator! There's dead bodies here!' shouted Hawke.

'Yes, the orbital bombardment was slightly off-course, and hit the mountains instead of the facility. We believe the explosions threw enough debris up to cover the oxy-recyc units and the men within choked to death.'

'Choked to death? Then why are their hands covered in blood?'

'It is logical that the men stationed here would have tried to exit the facility when they realised their air supply was cut off,' said Beauvais, his voice devoid of any compassion for the dead.

'But why couldn't they get out?' wheezed Hawke as his breathing returned to normal.

'Facility staff do not have access to the codes that allow the exterior doors to open. It would constitute a security risk were one to be compromised.'

'And for that, they died. You cold bastards!'

'A necessary precaution and one all staff are aware of when stationed in these facilities. Now, if we may continue? The facility commander should have a bronze key around his neck? Take it.'