Legion (22 page)

T
HEY CROSSED THE
upper courts of the palace, through bustling streams of servants carrying sacks of manioc and blondleaf to the kitchens, past a marching band rehearsing on a small quad, past a group of artillery officers being briefed on a sunlit terrace. They hurried up the stairs to Rukhsana’s quarters.

The day’s heat was building, and the warmth was beginning to ooze from the brickwork. Slaves were soaking the reed window screens with water.

They knocked sharply at the door of Rukhsana’s accommodation.

An aide answered the door, and called for her uxor as soon as she saw who it was. Uxor Rukhsana came at once.

‘What’s this about?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘So sorry to disturb you, uxor,’ said Soneka. ‘I think there’s been some kind of clerical glitch. I’ve just been issued temporary command of the Clowns, and I’m on my way up the line to meet with them. The thing is, there’s a been screw up. The warrants I’ve been given say that the Clowns have been transferred to your purview.’

‘That’s not right,’ Rukhsana said. The Clowns come under Honen Mu’s ’cept.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Soneka, shrugging, ‘but she’s off somewhere, and I need to get this sorted urgently. If you wouldn’t mind accompanying me, you could authorise the warrants, and I could get on with my job.’

Rukhsana frowned. ‘Soneka isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, uxor.’

‘And Bronzi?’

‘Good day to you, uxor,’ Bronzi smiled.

‘Something’s obviously gone very wrong,’ she said.

‘Would you mind?’ Soneka asked.

‘Of course not,’ she said. She fetched a long desert shawl from the anteroom and told her aides to wait. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ she said to Tuvi.

The hets escorted Rukhsana along the upper colonnade of the palace, overlooking the terraced yards. The sun was biting through the slow, unwinding clouds.

‘So much confusion these days,’ she said, pulling on her shawl.

‘Oh, it’s terrible,’ Bronzi agreed.

‘It’s the scale of the operation, I suppose,’ Rukhsana said. ‘I sometimes wonder if Tactical and Provisional is entirely on top of the job.’

‘Must be a nightmare, logistically,’ Soneka said pleasantly. ‘Look, I really do appreciate this, uxor.’

‘I heard about the Dancers, het,’ she said. ‘I am truly sorry. They were a great company.’

‘War happens,’ Soneka replied, with an appreciative nod. ‘I’m just glad to be getting back on the horse. Gives me a sense of purpose. Besides, we’re going to need every unit on top form in these coming days, and without Shiban, the Clowns are unravelling.’

‘Peto will whip them into shape,’ Bronzi grinned.

She hesitated. ‘Forgive me, Het Bronzi, I’m not entirely sure why you’re here?’

‘Moral support,’ Bronzi said, making a polite namaste. ‘Peto was anxious about disturbing you this morning.’

She looked at Bronzi, as if not entirely convinced. ‘Strange,’ she began, ‘he doesn’t look like the sort to lack—’

She fell silent. Something had caught her eye. She pushed past them both, went to the stone rail of the colonnade, and gazed down into the terraced yards below.

‘What’s going on down there?’ she asked quietly.

They joined her at the rail, and looked down. Below them, on the far side of the upper yard, eight figures in black armour were hurrying up the staircase to the summit levels, rushing like shadows in the shade of the tiled mantle roof.

‘Some nonsense, I’ll be bound,’ said Bronzi.

‘Those are Lucifer Blacks,’ she said.

‘Yes, I think they are,’ said Soneka. ‘Sorry, could we get along? My driver’s waiting.’

‘They’re heading towards my quarters,’ she said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Bronzi replied confidently. ‘They’re probably responding to an alert from the watch station up in the tower.’

‘No,’ she said, firmly. She turned to stride back the way they’d come. Soneka was blocking her, a calm, reassuring smile on his face.

‘It’s nothing, uxor. Let’s go, shall we?’ he said.

She glanced to her right. Bronzi had closed in too. ‘What is this?’ she asked, realising that she was trapped between two very capable geno hets. Soneka looked at Bronzi. Bronzi nodded quickly. ‘What the hell is this?’ she demanded. ‘Heniker,’ said Soneka. Rukhsana froze.

‘Heniker sent us,’ said Bronzi. ‘The companions are on to you. He sent us to get you out.’

‘Please,’ said Soneka. ‘There’s very little time.’ She stared at them both. ‘Heniker?’ she asked.

Bronzi nodded. Without hesitation, she allowed them to lead her away down the colonnade. The three of them began to run.

T
UVI AND THE
other girls flinched as the doors to the chamber flew open. Lucifer Blacks burst in, training their weapons.

‘I demand to know—’ Tuvi began.

‘Shut up,’ said one of the companions, pointing his weapon directly at her.

Dinas Chayne entered the room, moving forwards between his braced and aimed men.

‘Rukhsana?’ he asked, his voice issuing from his grim helmet’s loudspeaker. The aides cowered in terror. The youngest of them whimpered.

‘Where?’ Chayne hissed.

They were all too scared to reply. Chayne made a quick gesture, and four of the companions broke forwards to search the adjoining rooms.

Chayne looked directly at Tuvi, who was comforting the youngest aide, a girl, barely thirteen years old.

‘You are the leader. Where is your uxor?’ he asked.

Tuvi swallowed and returned his gaze defiantly.

‘She’s not here,’ Tuvi said. ‘She was called away on geno business.’

‘Called away?’ asked Chayne, taking a step towards her and lowering his weapon.

‘A het came. A het who needed her authorisation or something,’ Tuvi replied.

‘Which het?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Tuvi.

‘It may have been two hets,’ said one of the other girls.

‘It may have been,’ said Tuvi, ‘I didn’t really see.’ Tuvi was an ambitious girl, but she was also careful. Until she understood exactly what was going on, she didn’t want to give out any more information than necessary. Despite her youth and her hunger for command, she also firmly believed in the adage
Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene.
She had been raised that way.

Chayne reached out with his left hand, and took hold of her face. She moaned quietly and closed her eyes. It looked as gentle as a lover’s touch, but the compression pain he was exerting was immense.

‘How long ago?’ he asked quietly.

‘Ten minutes. N-no more than ten.’

‘Who did she go with?’

The grip had made Tuvi quickly re-evaluate her priorities. ‘S-Soneka,’ she said.

A
T GROUND LEVEL
, to the east of the palace sprawl, Army pioneers had excavated a deep ramp, and removed the side wall of a giant ceremonial chamber to provide a vast depot for vehicles. The excised wall section had been replaced by load-bearing, pneumolithic girders, and fortified with flakboard and ballistic pumice. Trucks and transports toiled in and out along the ramp all day long in a haze of dust, under the direction of artificer banksmen and other security personnel. The engine fumes gathered in the roof space, slowly sucked away by powerful vent systems that had been bolted under the vaults. Lumen rigs hung from brackets all the way down the chamber. The place echoed with rivet guns and pressure drivers.

‘That one,’ said Bronzi, hurrying back to them. Soneka and Rukhsana came out from behind a turreted trans-trak painted in Thorn livery, and crossed with him to an armoured scurrier dressed in desert pink. Bronzi popped the hatch and they climbed in. Bronzi clambered forwards into the tight cockpit space.

Bronzi had checked the vehicle out for use at the depot station. If he’d used his own biometric key, or Soneka’s, or even the uxor’s, klaxons would have been sounding already. Instead, he’d used the key they had given him.

Soneka closed the hatch behind them, and strapped in beside Rukhsana. She was pale with panic, but containing her agitation.

‘Go, Hurt,’ Soneka said.

Bronzi gunned the engines and brought the scurrier to life. It rose on its twenty sets of calliper legs and spurred forwards, leg units running in syncopation, racing it across the earth floor like a giant centipede.

They passed out under the gate. A banksman flashed their biometric signature, and waved them enthusiastically on with his luminous wand.

They ran up the ramp, followed the rampart wall to the west exit, and headed out into the desert.

T
HE SCURRIER
’
S MODE
of ambulation provided a soft, rolling sensation of travel, despite the high speeds Bronzi was making across the dunes. The wind was raising a spume of fine dust from the crest of every slope. Bronzi checked the navigation display. It was only a kilometre or two. Not far, not far at all…

‘Is Konig all right?’ Rukhsana asked Soneka.

‘Konig?’

‘Heniker,’ she said.

‘Oh, sorry. I only really know him as Heniker.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘Yes, he’s fine.’

‘Really fine?’

‘Yes.’

She thought about that. He could tell she didn’t trust him at all.

‘How are you involved?’ she asked.

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘I think you can,’ she insisted.

‘I can’t, really’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, uxor, it’s an Army intelligence thing.’

She stared at him hard. ‘Army intelligence? Is that so?’

‘Yes.’

‘But—’

‘But what, uxor?’

It wasn’t an Army intelligence thing. It was a Cabal thing.
She realised that she was going somewhere to die. She tried to swallow the dry knot in her throat.

‘I’m only doing this because I love him,’ she said.

‘Heniker?’

‘Yes, Heniker.’

‘I didn’t realise,’ Soneka said. He looked bothered and uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, I really didn’t. Look, we—’ he began.

‘Get set, we’re there!’ Bronzi called out.

The scurrier rippled down a bank of soft sand into a deep wadi, and came to a halt. The sun was at its zenith, burning like a low-set las. The light was hard and there were no shadows.

‘What were you saying to me?’ asked Rukhsana.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Soneka, ‘that’s all. There’s no time to say anything else. We’re out of time.’

‘So am I, I think,’ she replied.

He watched her as she unbuckled and got up.

‘I never meant to hurt you, Rukhsana,’ he said. ‘Please, this is for the best.’

‘I hope so.’ She smiled at him, a brave, intoxicating smile despite the shadow of terror in her expression. ‘But I don’t hold out
much
hope,’ she added.

Bronzi opened the hatch, and they climbed out into the baking hole of the wadi basin. There was no one around. Bright sunlight burned the sand and the tops of their heads.

‘Come on,’ said Bronzi, glancing around impatiently.

‘While we’re waiting,’ said Rukhsana, ‘why don’t you explain that lie you sold me? As a last favour, so to speak. I’d like to know what I’m getting into. Tell me about Konig. How do you know Konig?’

‘It’s like I said,’ Bronzi replied, awkward and unsettled.

‘Oh, Hurtado, please credit me with some intelligence,’ she said. ‘It’s
nothing
like you said.’

There was a soft, sifting sound, the sound of sand pouring away onto sand.

Four Astartes, concealed beneath the dunes around them, rose to their feet, the sand sliding off the contours of their armour as if they were rising up out of concealed trap doors.

‘Is this her?’ asked one.

‘Yes, lord,’ Bronzi replied.

Soneka realised that Rukhsana had begun to tremble badly.

‘We’ll take her from here,’ said another of the Astartes.

‘Oh, glory,’ Rukhsana whispered. ‘Please…’

‘It’s all right,’ Soneka told her urgently. He looked at the giant warriors coming towards them. ‘It will be all right, won’t it?’

‘You’ve done your job, friend,’ one of them told him, ‘and we thank you for it. We’ll take it from here.’

‘But—’ Soneka began.

‘We’ll take it from here, operative,’ the giant reassured him. The Astartes put out a huge paw around Rukhsana’s tiny shoulders, and led her away across the sand.

She looked back, once. ‘Peto!’ she called. ‘I’m sorry. I—’ he called out.

But she was gone in the deep shadows of the wadi’s base.

One of the Alpha legionnaires strode over to them. ‘Good work,’ he said. Bronzi nodded.

‘Will she be all right?’ Soneka asked. ‘Of course,’ the Astartes said, his voice deep. ‘She’s with us.’

‘That’s not what I was asking,’ Soneka said. ‘Will
we
be all right?’ Bronzi asked, looking up at the giant.

‘Did you do what we told you to do?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you use the biometric?’

‘Yes,’ said Soneka.

‘Then stick to the story, and it will be fine,’ replied the legionnaire. ‘Trust me, and thank you.’

He turned to go, and then looked back, his huge form stark in the sunlight. ‘You did the right thing. If things turn bad, we’ll get you out. You’re us now.’

He walked away. In under two minutes, the Alpha legionnaires had vanished into the desert, leaving no trace.

Bronzi looked at Soneka. He grinned, but Soneka could tell the grin was forced. ‘Scary bastards, right?’

‘Scary bastards,’ Soneka agreed. They began to trudge back to the scurrier.

‘Something on your mind?’ Bronzi added.

Soneka shook his head.

‘You don’t like this, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t,’ Soneka said.

T
HEY GOT BACK
into the scurrier and headed back towards the palace. Half a kilometre from the west exit, a shadow flickered across them, and the scurrier’s target alarms started to ping.

‘Scurrier, scurrier,’ the vox crackled. ‘Come to a halt and open hatches. We have you at weapons lock.’

Bronzi threw the leg brakes and killed the spinal drive. The scurrier rocked to a standstill.

‘Get out. On the deck. Now!’ the vox demanded.

Bronzi looked at Soneka. ‘Sure you know how to play this?’ he asked.

Soneka nodded.

They unlocked the hatch and got out, falling on their faces in the glaring sunlight, a few metres from the vehicle with their hands behind their heads. A blizzard of sand was being kicked up around them by a circling Jackal gunship. A second gunship settled nearby on roaring turbofans, like a giant skeletal raven. Its occupants ran towards them.