Vainglorious, p.19
Vainglorious, page 19
That still troubled me. Despite Vorspung and Norgard’s best efforts we still didn’t have a clue what had affected the renegade units, or why, although I’d have been willing to bet a substantial chunk of my stipend that the presence of the necrons had something to do with it. (Which I would have been right about, as it happened, but not in any way I could have anticipated.)
The light and noise levels grew steadily as we made our way towards the welcoming yellow glow ahead, but I slowed my pace as we neared the tunnel’s end, Jurgen doing likewise as always. As before, we flattened ourselves against the wall, peering out into the bustling cavern, and I began to regret discarding our makeshift disguises so casually; flimsy as they’d become, they’d have stood out a little less glaringly than our uniforms. Well, if there was one thing I was good at it was running and hiding, and I supposed we’d faced worse odds than this – at least we’d be trying to get past tech-priests and artisans intent on their own affairs, instead of dodging orks and genestealers like I’d had to aboard the Spawn of Damnation, and if the worst came to the worst and we had to fight our way out, I couldn’t see them putting up much in the way of resistance.
‘There’s hundreds of ’em,’ Jurgen said, as though pointing out some mildly interesting piece of scenery, underlining the observation with an emphatic expectoration. ‘Do you want to go back the way we came?’
‘I’d rather not,’ I said, with what I felt under the circumstances to be a commendable degree of restraint. I scanned the echoing chamber in search of our quarry. ‘Besides, we still don’t know what Tezler’s up to yet.’
‘No, we don’t,’ Jurgen agreed, adding something like ‘treacherous little gretchin-fondler’ in a muttered undertone.
As I’d already surmised from the echoes reaching us down the tunnel, the cavern was vast, easily the size of the one in which we’d abandoned the train that had brought us here, what was beginning to feel like a lifetime ago. Unlike any of the ones we’d seen so far, though, it appeared to be an active mining face; the walls were a series of tiers, some five or six levels high, the miners and servitors swarming all over each one chewing away tenaciously at the precarious footing of their compatriots immediately above. Chunks of ore rattled down chutes and along conveyor belts, missing most of the toiling workforce most of the time, ending up in a heap in one corner. Several other tunnel mouths gaped around the chamber’s perimeter, ranging in size from small ones barely large enough for a couple of people to have walked along abreast, to a couple even higher and wider than the one we were lurking in.
‘This way,’ I said, spotting a somewhat safer refuge behind a pile of crates someone had considerately stacked close to the cavern wall a handful of metres away; once we were behind those we could lurk unseen for as long as we liked, although that in itself was a far from attractive option – the more I saw, the more convinced I became that running for the surface and calling in the Reclaimers was the only sensible thing to do. Not that that was going to be particularly easy; we were quite literally off the map now, and while I was sure my innate sense of direction could get us back to the railhead, doing so unobserved with so many people about would be almost impossible. Not to mention the obvious difficulties of boarding a train again, given that the mineral wagons would now be full, leaving little space to stow away without the risk of being crushed by the shifting load.
To my faint surprise we made it to the refuge I’d spotted without being challenged or shot at, and I raised the amplivisor again, scanning the cavern for some sign of Tezler. Just when I’d given up all hope of spotting them again, my eye was caught by a gleam of metal, reflecting the overhead luminators, near the entrance to one of the larger tunnels.
‘There they are,’ I muttered. The metal magos seemed in no hurry to depart, loitering by the tunnel mouth, and occasionally glancing into it deeper than I was able to see from this angle. ‘And they seem to be waiting for something.’
Something went crunch close to my ear, and I flinched reflexively, lowering the ’visor. Jurgen had prised one of the crates open with the blade of his combat knife, and was peering into it curiously, no doubt wondering if the contents might ‘come in handy’ at some point. His brow furrowed.
‘What do you make of this, sir?’ he asked, burrowing inside the receptacle for a moment before lifting a dull metallic ingot into view, which I stared at in equal perplexity.
‘That shouldn’t be here,’ I said, checking the sigils on the crate. ‘Processed materials are supposed to go straight to the manufactories, not brought back down to the mine workings.’ I’d been quite diligent in maintaining my pretence of interest in such things, and had acquired a reasonable working knowledge of the procedures and protocols. If I was reading the stencilled information correctly, this entire batch should be in the process of becoming munitions for the Imperial Guard even as we sat here.
‘That’s why they’re not making enough kit,’ Jurgen said, with a contemptuous sniff. ‘Tezler’s been nicking stuff instead of sending it where it’s supposed to go.’
‘Evidently,’ I agreed. ‘The question is, why?’ Personal profit didn’t seem like much of a motive for a cogboy, even if they had managed to find some way of smuggling the resources they’d appropriated off-world. ‘And how much of it they’ve taken.’ Which must have been a hell of a lot, given that the shortfall in output their pilferage had created had managed to attract the attention of the lord general himself.
‘Movement, sir. Over there.’ Jurgen pointed in the direction of the tunnel mouth almost directly across the cavern from us, where the presumably larcenous tech-priest was still loitering, and I raised the amplivisor again. A quartet of cargo-8s, identical to the ones I’d pictured venturing into the tomb behind us, were chugging into the cavern, laden with more crates like the ones we’d taken refuge behind. The lead one halted, and Tezler approached it, apparently exchanging a few words with the occupant of the driver’s cab; although, since they had no lips to move, the gist of the conversation eluded me, even if they had been considerate enough to converse in Gothic rather than their own twittering argot.
‘Time we were moving,’ I said, as the convoy started up again, and began edging its way across the crowded cavern floor. Its progress was slow and erratic, the leading vehicle having to halt or change direction periodically to make way for servitors oblivious to its presence, and the occasional miner too tardy or bloody-minded to get out of its path in time; not to mention the machinery and other obstacles impeding its progress. Nevertheless, it would be here in a matter of moments, and one of two things would subsequently happen: either my worst fears would be realised, and the trucks would sweep on past into the tunnel behind us, their drivers about to do enough damage to the tomb to bring the wrath of its occupants down on us all, or the crates they carried would be added to the pile behind which we lurked, leading to our inevitable discovery. Either way, somewhere else was beginning to look like the best place to be.
‘Right you are, sir,’ Jurgen agreed, following my lead as always, and glancing around for better cover. ‘D’you reckon we can make it to the train over there?’ I followed the direction of his gaze, and felt a sudden surge of relieved optimism. While my attention had been on Tezler, a line of tramway cars like the one we’d hitched a lift on before had coasted into the cavern, coming to a halt beside the ore pile. If we could get to it, it should take us back to the surface as quickly as we’d descended – with any luck we might even beat Tezler back to the main complex, and alert Morie to his treachery before the treasonous bag of bolts had a chance to respond.
‘We can give it a damn good try,’ I said, casting around for the next patch of cover between us and the tramway, and finally settling on a rattling conveyor belt running towards it no more than a score of metres away. No doubt if I were really the swashbuckling hero the picts and printsheets like to portray me as I’d have vaulted on top of the bloody thing and swept across the cavern in style, but if I tried it I’d be pureed almost at once by the tumbling chunks of rock bouncing around on it – not to mention making my presence blindingly obvious to an awful lot of people, many of whom quite possibly wished me dead, so on the whole my natural inclination to hiding behind it and sneaking along in its shelter seemed a great deal more sensible.
‘You go first, while I cover you?’ Jurgen suggested, and I nodded; if I attracted any hostile attention, the melta would discourage it a great deal more effectively than anything else we had with us, and if I didn’t my aide could cross the relatively open ground with reasonable ease while I returned the favour with my laspistol.[120] As it happened, though, we both managed to make it to our new refuge without being spotted, crouching behind the rattling belt, and trying not to choke on the pall of dust being raised by its energetically bouncing contents.
And not before time. The trucks were drawing abreast of the heap of crates behind which we’d been crouching a few minutes before; there was no doubt about it, had we remained where we were, we would have been spotted within seconds. I raised the amplivisor again, and brought the lead vehicle into focus. For a moment I thought it was about to nose into the tunnel, and tensed, ready to flee for the ore train the moment the coast was clear, but to my heartfelt relief it slowed to a halt a few metres clear of the opening. It seemed no one was about to go and poke the necrons with a stick, at least until we’d had time to get out of here.
‘Looks like they’re delivering more contraband,’ I said, and Jurgen nodded.
‘Seems a daft place to put it, though,’ he said.
‘It does,’ I agreed, a shiver of unease running through me at the thought. Cogboys are nothing if not scrupulously rational, and if Tezler had chosen to stockpile the crates there they would have had a very good reason. ‘Maybe they’re just hoping no one will disturb it away from the main ore face.’ Now I could observe their movements more fully, the workforce did seem to be avoiding that corner of the cavern, which I could hardly blame them for if they had the remotest inkling of what lurked at the other end of the tunnel; but on the other hand they seemed to be productively engaged in whatever tasks they’d been assigned. I doubt if I’d have been able to keep my mind on the job knowing what the darkness concealed. Perhaps Tezler had simply declared this part of the mine workings off limits, and that was that.
The drivers disembarked, accompanied by a servitor apiece, and the constructs immediately began to unload the boxes, adding them to the pile behind which Jurgen and I had so recently sought refuge. To my surprise, each of the drivers was a tech-priest, their russet robes and abundance of visible ironmongery leaving their identities beyond any reasonable doubt, instead of the minimally augmented artisans I would otherwise have expected.
‘They’re cogboys,’ I said, and Jurgen nodded.
‘Makes sense,’ he said. ‘They won’t trust the workers to shift the stuff. Someone might talk. Or help themselves.’
‘Good point,’ I agreed, deferring to his greater expertise in the field of pilferage. I focused the amplivisor image as best I could through the clouds of dust being thrown up by the rattling conveyor belt in front of us. ‘The fewer who know the better.’ Then the driver of the lead truck, who’d stopped to converse with Tezler, came fully into view, and I felt the world take another lurch beneath me. It’s a truism that all cogboys look alike once they reach a certain level in the Mechanicus hierarchy, in that the metal to flesh ratio moves decidedly towards the ferrous side of the equation, but there’s a great deal of variety among them for all that; and this was a face I’d grown very familiar with, from its depiction in my briefing slate and my keeping a conscious eye out in the hope of glimpsing it since my arrival on Eucopia.
There was no doubt about it: I’d finally discovered the whereabouts of the disconcertingly absent Clode.
TWENTY-ONE
‘Are you sure, sir?’ Jurgen asked, understandably enough when I voiced my astonishment, and I nodded, before refocusing the amplivisor on Clode and his companions.
‘Certain,’ I said. The more I observed the tech-priest, the more convinced I was of his identity. I must admit that, now my first rush of surprise at finding him still alive, rather than rusting away at the bottom of an abandoned shaft somewhere as I’d been assuming up until now, was diminishing, my predominant emotion was one of righteous indignation – accompanied by the impulse to march over there, grab him by the front of his robe, and ask him what the hell he thought he was playing at. An impulse, needless to say, which I was far too sensible to give into.
‘Do you think he’s joined the heretics?’ Jurgen asked, and I nodded again.
‘It’s the only explanation that makes any sense,’ I agreed, at which point my aide began to exude an air of smugness almost as dense as his body odour. It was just possible, of course, that Clode was playing some kind of double game, still sticking to his original commission from the magi on Coronus while worming his way into Tezler’s confidence, but I didn’t think so. If that were the case, he would have contrived some kind of meeting with me to pass on what he’d learned, rather than remaining hidden for so long. My presence here would be known to anyone with access to the blizzard of information constantly swirling around Eucopia, so he could hardly have remained in ignorance of it. Far more likely that he was up to his neck in whatever conspiracy Tezler seemed to be orchestrating, a willing participant in treason, no doubt as dazzled by the techno-sorcerous baubles they were hoping to plunder from the necrons as any other cogboy aware of what lay under their feet would be.
Or perhaps he was under the influence of whatever had corrupted the rogue skitarii. In which case trying to bring him back alive would be our best hope of finding some kind of defence against it; a prospect I was, as you can readily appreciate, less than enthusiastic about. I was confident that we could subdue him, along with all his companions if we had to; the real problem was what to do next. Getting him back to the surface, through thousands of potentially hostile miners and cogboys, would be tricky at best – we could hardly shove him in an ore bin and expect him to cooperate, which ruled out the train, and right now that was looking like Jurgen’s and my best chance of returning to the upper levels unobserved and unopposed.
I took another look at the unloading operation. The servitors had been busy while I deliberated, emptying three of the trucks quickly and efficiently, and adding the crates from their flatbeds to the stack behind which we’d so recently been lurking. Only the first, Clode’s, still had some of its load left, and that had no more than a quarter-dozen boxes remaining. The quartet of tech-priests seemed to be conferring among themselves, in binharic unfortunately, so once again I had no opportunity to try to follow the course of the conversation.[121] The gist of its conclusion was clear enough, though; Clode’s hand gesture was unmistakably dismissive, at which point the other three tech-priests climbed back into the cabs of their cargo-8s and fired up the engines.
‘They’re pulling out,’ I said, as they reversed, turned and began to make the same slow and meandering progress back towards the tunnel mouth they’d initially emerged from. Only Clode remained, supervising the stowage of the last of the crates.
An idea began to form. Ridiculous, far too risky for my liking, but undeniably sound – and, if it worked, it would not only get me back to a vox-set as fast as possible, but also potentially secure Norgard’s skitarii against any further subversion. ‘Do you think you can drive that other truck?’
‘Of course, sir,’ Jurgen said, his typically phlegmatic tone stopping just the right side of expressing exactly how stupid a question he thought that was. ‘Doesn’t look too different from the one we borrowed before.’
‘Excellent,’ I said, as the last of the crates joined the stack, and three of the servitors plodded away, apparently in search of whatever the next thing on their to-do list was. ‘But we’ll have to move fast.’ Now there was no reason I could see for him to linger, I fully expected Clode to follow his compatriots.
‘Right you are, sir,’ my aide agreed, leaving our rattling refuge and sprinting for the cargo-8 as though he’d just spotted an unattended platter of finger food. I had intended being a little more cautious, retaining the element of surprise for as long as possible, but I certainly couldn’t fault his enthusiasm. In the event it didn’t matter; most people found Jurgen’s appearance startling to some degree, even at the best of times. Clode simply stood there, boggling visibly,[122] as my aide bore down on him, brandishing the melta and bellowing something that might have been a Valhallan war cry, but which sounded to me more like an orkish insult.[123] With a quick glance round to make sure we were still unobserved, and thanking the Throne for the echoing din surrounding us, I followed hard on his heels, grateful for the additions to the rampart of boxes which concealed us from the workforce again within a handful of paces.
‘What he said,’ I snarled, waving my chainsword through a series of impressive-looking flourishes intended to convey that I was strongly minded to use it, and bringing the humming teeth to rest a centimetre or two from his neck. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
‘Successfully, it seems,’ Clode said, in the familiar even monotone of one of his calling. Both his eyes were augmetic replacements, but they blurred momentarily, as though blinking in mild perplexity. ‘I take it you’re Cain?’
‘Unless you know of any other commissars on this benighted rock,’ I said, and Clode shook his head, almost severing his chin as it passed my whirling blade.
‘None are known to me.’
‘If you know who I am, then you know why I’m here,’ I said. Clode started to nod, thought better of it in the interests of keeping his face intact, and froze into immobility again. The servitor, its job done, and mindlessly indifferent to the drama unfolding in front of it, turned away, and began to follow its fellows into the maelstrom of activity surrounding our tiny, secluded enclave.
