“No,” responded Sondar quickly. “We have beaten Zoica before; we will do it again. This is an internal matter.”
“No longer,” a voice said from below. The assembly looked down at the benches where the officials of the Administratum sat. Hooded and gowned, Intendant Banefail of the Imperial Administratum got to his feet. “Astropathic messages have already been sent out, imploring Imperial assistance from Warmaster Macaroth. Vervunhive’s production of ordnance and military vehicles is vital for the constant supply of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The warmaster will take our plight seriously. This is a greater matter than local planetary politics, High Lord Sondar.”
Sondar, or rather the being that represented him, seemed to quiver in his throne. Rage, Chass presumed. The balance between hive and Imperial authority had always been delicate in Vervunhive, indeed in all the nobilities of Verghast. It was rare for it to clash so profoundly and so visibly. Chass well knew the fundamental strategic import of Vervunhive and the other Verghast manufactory dues to the crusade, but still the magnitude of the intendant’s actions amazed him. The Administratum was the bureaucratic right hand of the Emperor himself, but it usually bowed to the will of the local planetary governor.
Our plight must truly be serious, he realised, a sick feeling seeping into his heart.
Holding the infant and pulling the small boy by the hand, Tona Criid ran through the burning northern section of the Commercia. The boy was crying now. She couldn’t help that. If they could make the docks, she could get them clear across the river and to safely. But the routes were packed. As fast as refugees came into the hive from the south, inhabitants were fleeing to the north.
“Where we going?” asked the boy, Dalin.
“Somewhere safe,” Tona told him.
“Who are you?”
“I’m your Aunt Tona.”
“I don’t have an aunt.”
“You do now. And so does Yancy here.”
“She’s Yoncy.”
“Yeah, whatever. Come on.” Tona tried to thread them through the massing crowds that filled the transit channels down to the docks, but they were jammed tight.
“Where are we going?” asked the kid again as they sheltered in a barter-house awning to avoid the press.
“Away. To the river” That was the plan. But with the crowds this thick, she didn’t know if it was going to be possible. Maybe they’d be safer in the city, under the Shield.
The baby began to cry.
He couldn’t breathe. The weight and blackness upon him were colossal. Something oily was dripping into his eyes. He tried to move, but no movement was possible. No, that wasn’t true. He could grind his toes in his army boots. His mouth was full of rockcrete dust. He started to cough and found his lungs had no room to move. He was squashed.
There was a rattling, chinking sound above him. He could hear voices, distant and muffled. He tried to cry out, but the dust choked him and he had no room to choke.
Light. A chink of light, just above as rubble was moved away. Rubble moved and some pieces slumped heavier on him, vicing his legs and pelvis.
There was a face in the gap above him.
“Who’s down there?” it called. “Are you alive?”
Hoarse and dry, he answered. “My name is Ban Daur—and yes, I am alive.”
His family house was deserted. Guilder Worlin strode inside, leaving a sticky tread of blood in his footprints. His clan was at the Legislature, he was sure. Let them go and bow and scrape to the High Lord.
He crossed the draped room to the teak trolley by the ornamental window and poured himself a triple shot of joiliq. Menx and Troor waited in the anteroom, whispering nervously.
“Bodyguard! To me!” Worlin called as the fire of the drink warmed his body. He waved an actuator wand at the wall plate and saw nothing but cycling scrolls of Imperium propaganda. He snapped the plate off and dropped the wand.
His bodyguard approached. They had both shrouded their weapons again, as was the custom inside guild households.
Worlin sat back on the suspensor couch and sipped his drink, smiling. Outside the window, the sprawl of Vervunhive spread out, many parts of it ablaze. The green, Shield-tinted sky contorted with the constant shelling.
“You have served me well tonight,” Worlin told them.
The bodyguards paused, uncertain.
“Menx! Troor! My friends! Fetch yourselves a drink from the cart and relax! Your master is proud of you!”
They hesitated and then turned. Troor raised a decanter as Menx found glasses. As soon as they had their backs to him, Worlin pulled the needle pistol from his robes and fired.
The first shot blew Menx’s spine out and he was flung face first into the cart, which broke under him and shattered. Troor turned and the decanter in his hand was shattered by the second shot. The third exploded his face and he dropped backwards onto the cart wreckage.
Worlin got up and, drink in hand, fired thirty more needles into the twisted corpses, just to be sure. Then he sat back, sipping his drink, watching Vervunhive burn.
“The road is blocked, sir!” the tank driver yelled through the intercom to Kowle. Chasing up the Southern Highway, through the wrecked outer habs, with shells still falling, Kowle’s column had reached the rear of the queue of refugees tailing back from Sondar Gate.
Kowle sat up in the turret, looking ahead, taking in the sea of milling bodies before them.
Shells fell to the west and lit up the night.
Kowle dropped into the turret and said, “Drive through.”
The driver looked back at him in amazement.
“But commissar—”
“Are you denying a direct order?” Kowle snapped.
“No, sir, commissar, sir, but—”
Kowle shot him through the throat and dragged his twitching body out of the driver’s seat.
He settled into the blood-slick metal chair and keyed the intercom. “Armour column. Follow me.”
Just outhab wretches… worthless, he decided, as he drove the tank down through the masses, crushing a path to the distant gates of Vervunhive.
“After this, all battles will be easy, all victories simple, all glories hollow.”
—General Noches Sturm,
after his victory on Grimoyr
The bombardment continued, both day and night, for two and a half weeks. By the close of the twelfth day, day and night were barely distinguishable, so great was the atmospheric smoke-haze hanging around Vervunhive. The Shield held firm, but the southern outhabs and manufactories became a fire-blown wasteland, fifty kilometres square. Some shelling had also been deliberately ranged over the Shield, catastrophically wounding the unprotected northern districts and large sections of the Hass docklands.
On the afternoon of the sixth day, Marshal Edric Croe, the Legislature’s appointed successor to Gnide, ordered the closing of the southern hive gates. The new marshal, brother of Lord Croe of that noble house, had been a serving major-colonel in Vervun Primary and his election was ratified by seven of the nine noble houses. Noble House Anko—who were sponsoring their own General, Heskith Anko, for the post—voted to deny. Noble House Chass abstained.