engulfed by an avalanche of body parts.
‘Stay tight and follow me,’ Sica repeated. His low, steady voice on the vox‐link pierced the jostling, teetering confusion.
Looking over the swarm of undead, Barsabbas watched solitary figures crest the sand dunes on a far horizon. They were more walking dead, attracted by the brilliant contrails of their descending drop‐pod. Some sprinted, other walked stiffly, others still seemed to follow in confused huddles. Beyond them, the red ferric peaks surrounded them like lowlying mountains, impervious to the furious fight below.
THE STRATOSPHERIC WIND had blown them wide off course. The landing zone of Squad Besheba had been locked for the infected north, just twelve kilometres away from the sealed city of Ur. Instead, they had been inserted deep into the south, beyond the 51
demarcation of infection, where the black wilt, according to reports, had not yet developed into a contagious threat.
It was not a portentous beginning to their deployment.
Barsabbas set himself upon a rock, fanning out the great trunks of his legs. He unlocked his helmet and a trickle of sweat sheeted down from the neck seal. Running his thick metal fingers through his damp locks, he sighed wearily as Sica reported.
‘All squads were blown off target by the storm. All of them except Squad Shar‐Kali experienced a mass assault by the dead.’
‘Maybe these walking corpses were attracted by the falling lights,’ Bael‐Shura offered.
Under the orange light of sunset, Barsabbas could see tiny scratches over the surface of his power armour. The undead had literally clawed their fingers to bloody stumps in an effort to break him open. Barsabbas imagined he looked much the same.
‘Or maybe our arrival was anticipated and they were sent to find us,’ Cython said in a rare moment of insight. The usually loud, boorish Cython and his bond Hadius were placated for once by the post‐adrenal slump. Despite their superhuman metabolism and delayed onset of lactic acid build‐up in their muscles, the exhaustion of hand‐to‐hand fighting could be felt in their bones. Every fibre in Barsabbas’s body, particularly his forearms, was sour with strain. Squad Besheba had managed to travel six kilometres from the crash site, pursued by the undead relentlessly. Scattered, broken bodies were left in their wake. Barsabbas counted one hundred and ninety‐six kills by hand, bested perhaps only by Sergeant Sica. They had finally been forced to climb the canyon in order to shake off their pursuers.
‘We will press on to Ur when the temperature permits. It is far, but that is our objective and no orders were issued to deviate.’
As Sica spoke, Barsabbas was already analysing their situation. According to tact‐maps they were rock‐marooned almost eleven hundred kilometres from their intended dropsite.
The local geography was predominantly arid with a high density of ferrous metals in the dirt. To their immediate south lay a bee‐hived range of sedimentary formations, the sandstone and clay appearing ominously scarlet. Barsabbas chose to interpret the red as a good omen, a sign of angry retribution.
Sargaul was crouched a little further away, his bolter wedged vigilantly against a rock ledge. By the set of his jawline, Sargaul’s conscious mind was shut off, stripped bare of thought. For now, his body was reduced to cardiac, respiratory and autonomic functions and he knew nothing except the scope of his weapon and the trigger finger of his right hand.
Barsabbas settled on a rock next to his bond. Sargaul turned his head slowly to regard him, before nestling his face back behind the weapon. Together they sat in silence, watching the suns leapfrog each other as they slunk beneath the horizon. For a while, nothing was said as they seeped in the sticky, chest‐heaving glow of post‐combat.
Finally Barsabbas turned to Sargaul. ‘What were they?’
‘They were the dead.’
‘But I’ve never seen corpses do that before. It is… is it common?’ Barsabbas asked. He often tried not to ask Sargaul too many questions. Barsabbas was conscious of the fact that he was the youngest and his combat experience had been limited to raids and squad‐level deployments. Questions were weak, grasping things and he often avoided them.
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Sargaul shook his head. ‘Once, I saw dead men possessed by the puppet strings of an alpha‐psyker. They were much the same.’
Barsabbas thought about this. Sargaul had seen many things throughout his service, but something about the corpses had put the veteran on edge. He could feel that his bond was agitated, of that he was sure. ‘You are disturbed by this?’
Sargaul did not try to hide it. He nodded, almost to himself.