[Imperial Guard 05] - Ice Guard Read online

  Steele had heard it said that he could count the snowflakes in a storm, although he had never been quite bored enough to try.

  And of course he had the strength of three men in his right arm — enough, he had been told, to slice through two armoured heretics with one swing of his power sword.

  It must have sounded amazing, in theory, and Steele’s new-found abilities had certainly helped him to rise through the ranks. But, as Trooper Borscz would no doubt have reminded him, Imperial technology wasn’t always reliable — and far less so in conditions like these, on ice worlds such as Valhalla and the world that Cressida had become. Steele’s eye, his acoustic enhancers, the olfactory sensors in his nose, even his right shoulder, they were all prone to intermittent failures. They could let him down at any moment.

  And so, nine years after he had been reborn, he was still trying to work out what the medics hadn’t been able to tell him. He still didn’t know which of his thoughts were entirely his own, and which had been influenced by the augmetics that had oh-so-subtly insinuated themselves into his consciousness. He had to second-guess his every instinct, in case it was based on flawed information.

  He couldn’t tell where the real Stanislev Steele ended and the augmetics began.

  They were nearing the edge of the ice forest, at last.

  Steele knew this because his augmetics had calculated that the mean distance between the ice trees was a little greater than it had been a few minutes ago. He quickened his pace, knowing that his squad would fall into step beside him without being ordered to do so. There had been no signs that anyone was on their tail, but still he couldn’t dismiss that possibility.

  At last they emerged into the open, and Steele could see that the others were as happy about it as he was. Borscz let out a deep groan of relief, and took the opportunity to stretch his arms and legs and work out the cricks in his neck.

  A great, snow-blanketed field stretched ahead of them — and in the distance Steele could see the spires and towers of Iota Hive. They had made good time, all things considered. The crash site was only a few more kilometres away, and the going looked set to be a lot easier from now on. The open terrain would bring its own problems, however. The Ice Warriors’ bottle-green greatcoats would stand out like beacons to anyone who overlooked the field from any number of surrounding hills. And they would leave tracks in the grey snow, but there was no way around that.

  Fortunately, the sky was beginning to darken. Steele considered waiting for a while, until the night had drawn in completely, but he concluded that the risks of so doing outweighed the advantages. His internal chrono was ticking away, impossible to ignore. It was counting down the seconds to the end of this world, making him acutely aware of the passing of each one.

  It was only when Gavotski had a quiet word in his ear that he realised how hard he had been pushing his squad, how exhausting the ice forest had been for them. He conceded that they should take a short rest, while they had some cover. The Ice Warriors set themselves down on the ground, broke out their rations and their water bags, and relaxed for the first time in a good few hours.

  The break buoyed their spirits, and Mikhaelev and Grayle were soon engrossed in a conversation about the relative merits of Lightning and Thunderbolt fighters. Grayle was enthusing about the time he had got his hands on the controls of one of the latter, during a short secondment to the Imperial Navy.

  Gavotski, in the meantime, was reciting old war stories to an attentive Pozhar and Palinev, while Barreski and Borscz had resumed their good-natured bickering.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” said Barreski. “When this mission is over, we will have a contest: my flamer against your hands, and we will see which is the more deadly.”

  “Then you had best hope your flamer does not jam,” said Borscz cheerfully, “or run out fuel, and that you do not miss with your first shot, because one is all you will get. After that, my hands will be around your throat, and there will be no doubt about the outcome then — because my hands, I can rely upon.”

  “Oh, I never miss,” Barreski assured him, “you can count on that.”

  The Validian captain had warned Steele about the lake.

  He had led his company around it — but it had taken him the better part of a day to do so, and they had run into more than one small Chaos encampment in the process. Steele had decided that, if it was at all possible, he would take his squad across; the lake, according to the Validian, was far narrower than it was long.

  And so it was that, after a short, uneventful trek from the forest, the Ice Warriors came to the nearest bank of the lake and stumbled to a halt. Steele dropped to one knee, drew a long-bladed knife and held it so that its tip rested on the frozen surface. He pushed it down slowly, measuring the resistance it encountered, feeling when that resistance ended, when the knife tip had penetrated the ice and emerged into the water beneath it. By the time it did, he was pleased to note that the knife was buried almost to its hilt. The ice, he judged, was more than thick enough to support ten men.

  Even so, the heavy Borscz was understandably apprehensive. He let the others get a short way ahead of him before he gingerly placed one foot on the ice, and then slowly, carefully eased his great bulk onto it. By the time he had taken four or five steps in this manner, however, he was beginning to grow in confidence, and he soon caught up with his comrades.

  The Ice Warriors had fanned out so as not to concentrate their weight in any one spot. They moved slowly, focusing on their feet, mindful of the likely consequences should any of them slip and fall. Steele kept his ear attuned to the cracking, creaking sounds of the ice under pressure, hoping that those sounds would warn him in time if the pressure became too great.

  The lake, he had been told, was a kilometre across, but it took his squad almost half an hour to reach the halfway point. By then, he could see the far bank, a black mass in the gathering gloom.

  And it was shortly after that, when the Ice Warriors were at their most exposed, their most vulnerable, that the first shot rang out.

  “Sniper!” yelled Palinev as a section, of the ice exploded a few metres to his right.

  Steele replayed the last second in his mind, and found that his bionic eye had picked up something that he hadn’t noticed at the time: a muzzle flash, coming from the dark, rounded shape of a hill to the north-east. He relayed this information to the others, and tried to zoom in on the spot in question.

  His eye’s Heads-Up Display flagged up the outline of a man’s head and shoulders, and identified the weapon he was holding: a long-las.

  Fortunately, the sniper wasn’t a very good shot, at least not at this range. Unfortunately, he didn’t have to hit the Ice Warriors, not when he could shoot the ground out from beneath them. Two more beams punched through the ice, and blew up jets of water. The Ice Warriors returned fire, dropping into defensive crouches in the absence of cover to minimise their profiles. Their own lasguns, Palinev’s excepted, didn’t have the range of the long-las — even if they hit their target, it would be with half-strength beams. Still, they could encourage the sniper to keep his head down.

  Palinev looked surprised when Steele came up behind him and snatched his long-las from his hands. “No offence, trooper,” he muttered, “I just think my aim might be a little better than yours.” Gavotski saw what Steele was doing, and ordered the rest of the squad to withdraw, to keep up the covering fire but to make for the far side of the lake as they did so — and to sacrifice caution now for speed.

  Steele was trying to focus on the sniper again when another beam hit the ice directly in front of him, and the ensuing eruption threw him off his feet.

  He landed heavily on his back and was winded, almost dropping his weapon. The frozen surface beneath him cracked, and for an instant Steele thought he might crash right through it. His relief when this didn’t happen was short-lived. The twin impacts of las-beam and Ice Warrior had begun a chain reaction in the ice, and he could hear the fault lines widening and spreading.r />
  And then the rest of his squad saw it too, as great fissures began to appear around Steele, and met to carve out little floating ice islands.

  He couldn’t stand. His weight was only supported because it was evenly distributed, and this wouldn’t help him for much longer. His comrades couldn’t reach him without sharing his fate, and they had their own problems anyway.

  Unable to save himself, Steele did the only thing he could to save them.

  He shouldered the long-las, lifted his head, and willed his bionic eye to work for him. He smiled as his HUD locked onto the distant sniper, and he squeezed the trigger and felt the recoil of his weapon driving him down, down, down…

  There were some things in life, Steele thought, that it was best not to know.

  He didn’t need to know the exact temperature of the freezing water into which he had been plunged, nor the combined weight of the armoured greatcoat and the packed rucksack that were dragging him towards the lake bed. He would rather not have been able to hear the ice re-forming above him, sealing him in this flooded tomb.

  And yet still his augmetics insisted on seeking out such information, presenting it to him as if he might draw some useful conclusion from it, as if he didn’t already know what the only conclusion could be.

  Any other man would have been blissfully insensate by now, his brain numbed by the cold. Any other man would have been at peace. Not Steele.

  His head was awhirl with numbers. They filled it to bursting point, demanded his attention, demanded that he must know everything, every tiny detail of his impending fate. And, above it all, that damned internal chrono was pounding at his temples, counting down to a new, more imminent, deadline now…

  …ticking off the few remaining seconds of Colonel Steele’s life…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Time to Destruction of Cressida: 35.14.56

  Gavotski’s first impulse, as Steele fell through the ice, was to dive in after him. Holding himself back was the hardest thing he had ever had to do, but he could not have survived immersion in the freezing lake. The only thing he could do for the colonel now was to lead his squad for him, and bring honour to Steele’s name by ensuring the completion of his final mission.

  After all the noise and the frenzy of the past few seconds, the silence that fell now felt unnatural, dreadful. It seemed that Steele’s dying shot had struck true, because the sniper fire from the hill had ceased — but no one was thinking about that now. The Ice Warriors were standing, gaping at the jagged ice hole that had swallowed their leader. A hole that was rapidly frosting over again, resealing, until there was no trace that it, or Steele, had ever been there.

  They were well-used to death, these soldiers. They had lived in its shadow all their lives, knew it could strike at any moment and from any quarter. But Colonel Steele had seemed like the strongest of them, somehow the least mortal, and his passing was a shock to them all.

  “Everyone, get back!” growled Barreski — and his flamer flared, and melted a fresh hole in the ice, making the water beneath it steam. If Steele was somehow still conscious down there, trying to surface, then he had another chance, a few more seconds, in which he could do so — and as unlikely as it seemed, the Ice Warriors clung to that hope, staring, waiting, hoping…

  …until, to Gavotski’s astonishment, a gloved hand broke the surface, fumbling, reaching, flailing, finding purchase — and Colonel Stanislev Steele hauled himself up, losing strength halfway, collapsing face down with his legs still dangling in the water. Everyone started forward at once, but Gavotski threw up a warning hand, and beckoned only Palinev to follow him onto the weakened ice where the colonel lay. They gripped Steele under his shoulders, dragged him clear of the danger area, and brought him back to the others. His skin had a pale blue tint.

  It was Anakora who noticed that he wasn’t breathing.

  Gavotski knelt by Steele’s side, blew air into his lungs and gave him chest compressions until he jerked back to life. Steele sat bolt upright, so suddenly that it made everyone jump, and he spat water from his mouth. His head turned as he surveyed the concerned faces of the comrades gathered around him. This close up, Gavotski could see the lenses tilting and turning in Steele’s bionic right eye. The left eye, Steele’s real eye, was open but dead, staring blankly.

  “How is he alive?” breathed Blonsky.

  “He shouldn’t be,” said Gavotski. “His brain should have shut down in that water. I think some parts of it did, but… but the colonel’s brain isn’t entirely organic.”

  Barreski grinned, and nudged Borscz in the ribs “You see? His augmetics, the machines in his head, they have saved his life!”

  Steele’s eyes, both of them, rolled back into their sockets. Gavotski caught his head before it could fall, and lowered him down gently. “We must dry him off,” said Anakora, “and take him someplace warm.”

  “Look around you,” said Mikhaelev. “There is no such place.” However, he joined the other Ice Warriors in searching his rucksack, finding spare items of clothing. In fact, as the trooper with the closest build to Steele’s, he donated his greatcoat, swapping it for the colonel’s sodden one.

  Other than that, there was little anyone could do.

  “The colonel will be OK,” said Gavotski, as much to convince himself as to raise the troopers’ morale. “He was only in the water for a couple of minutes, and I’ve seen people survive after ten times that long. He’ll wake up when he’s ready.”

  There were voices coming from the far side of the rise.

  Palinev dropped onto his stomach, scrambling the rest of the way up on his elbows. Cautiously, he raised his head — and his heart leapt into his throat.

  The night had well and truly fallen, over an hour ago. There was no moon in the sky, and few stars. Even Palinev could barely see his hand in front of his face. Still, Gavotski had insisted they press on. It was what Steele would have wanted.

  Gavotski had asked his troopers to carry the colonel two at a time, in shifts. Instead, Borscz had volunteered to do the job alone. He had slung Steele’s unconscious body across his shoulders and hefted him with apparent ease.

  And now they had reached their goal at last.

  At least, their scout had reached it. The ship lay beneath him: an Aquila lander, its red wings proudly unfurled like those of the two-headed Imperial eagle after which it had been designed and named. But this eagle’s back was broken, its legs buckled. It sagged in the middle, listing to one side, and it took Palinev a minute to locate its detached and half-buried tail fin through his field goggles.

  This, then, was the ship in which Confessor Wollkenden had been travelling, the ship that had been shot down, the ship that Colonel Steele and his squad of Ice Warriors had been dispatched to find. And, in confirmation of their paymasters’ worst fears, there had been a battle here. A battle that the Imperium had lost.

  The ground was strewn with burnt and broken bodies. Bodies in red and gold. Palinev swept the goggles over them, searching for a hint of Ecclesiarchal robes among them. There was still a chance that Wollkenden had escaped the carnage, and let his willing guards lay down their lives for him. Without a closer inspection, though, it was impossible to tell for sure.

  And for now, Palinev was more concerned with the living.

  Chaos cultists. The area in front of the lander teemed with them: ordinary men and women, once, most likely born on Cressida itself. They had probably worked in its mines, served the Emperor in exchange for His shelter and His succour. Until their minds had snapped. Until they had succumbed to the infection of their world. Now, they dressed in robes of black and prayed to a different pantheon. Some had even had their faces tattooed with the obscene eight-pointed star of the Chaos gods.

  The cultists had built a fire, and gathered around it to warm themselves. Its bright orange flames ruined Palinev’s night vision, but on the plus side they cast a spotlight on his enemies while deepening the darkness around him.

  The cultists had been looting
the stricken lander — or rather, they had been directing a number of grovelling mutant slaves to do the job for them. Two especially deformed specimens appeared in the hatchway, struggling with a bashed equipment locker. It got out of their control and hit the ground with a crash, and an enraged cultist yelled in the mutants’ faces and assaulted one of them with a lasgun butt.

  One thing was clear in Palinev’s mind: if Confessor Wollkenden was indeed alive, then he was a long way from here.

  Gavotski concurred with that assessment.

  “We need to capture a few of those men alive,” he considered, “make one of them talk. Have they seen the confessor? Are they holding him?” He spoke in a low voice, because the enemy camp was only a few hundred metres away.

  “How many did you see, Palinev?” Pozhar asked eagerly.

  “It was hard to tell,” said the scout, “in the dark and with all the activity. At least ten cultists, maybe four or five mutants, although there could have been more inside the lander. They didn’t seem too well-equipped.”

  “From the way you describe it,” said Mikhaelev, “we have the terrain on our side this time. We can take cover at the top of that rise, start shooting and have half of them down before they know where we are.”

  Palinev nodded. “There’s nowhere for them to run.”

  Gavotski had been worried about leading the squad into combat again today. They were clearly exhausted, although none of them would have admitted to it. He was feeling the effects of his exertions himself. But Mikhaelev was right, this seemed like it would be an easy victory for them — and maybe they needed that right now.

  And then there was the ship, of course. If the Ice Warriors could recapture it, then it could provide them with shelter and some warmth for the night. They would all benefit from that, Steele in particular. Borscz had set the colonel down while they talked. He had settled into what seemed like a comfortable sleep, his breathing deep and regular, and his colour was improving.