They had the look of refugees mostly. Their clothes were dirty, their faces had a starved appearance; more than that, there was fear there, a haunted quality that made them look frail and fragile. I thought of what I had seen of the eldar, of how they had tortured and maimed for pleasure, and I tried to imagine what it was like to have been driven out of hearth and home by such creatures and to lie awake at night, under a planetary sky, fearing their return.
‘See anything interesting, Lemuel?’ Macharius asked. He was standing beside me on the field, looking around with the intense interest he always had when he set foot on a new world. He seemed to be testing the air and the gravity as if they contained information vital to victory. Who knows, perhaps for him they did.
‘Refugees, sir, unless I miss my guess. I doubt they are any threat to us.’
‘It tells us something, though, Lemuel.’
‘Does it, sir?’
‘It tells us that the Tyrant and his regime are not terribly well organised or they would have set up shelters and encampments for such people.’ For Macharius, a problem could always be solved by logistics. Or almost always.
‘Perhaps he has, sir. And perhaps those folk just don’t want to stay there. Or perhaps they have come simply to take a look at us. To see what we are like. There might not be much other entertainment for them.’
‘Is that what you think we are for them, Lemuel? Entertainment? We are protecting them, and bringing them the Emperor’s Law.’
‘Of course, sir. That too.’ I wondered if Macharius had ever known what it was like to be poor and have no other entertainment save what you saw in the street. The answer was obvious.
‘I will have the quartermaster disburse some ration tabs to the crowd,’ he said. ‘It won’t do any harm to get some of the locals on our side.’
It was typical of him to turn a gesture of charity into a military action. The charity was genuine, I think. But still it was propaganda.
An alien-looking craft, all predatory lines and curves swept over the horizon, ignoring the clouds of anti-aircraft fire that tracked it. I wondered if it was the first of many, but it was only a scout.
Some of our own Lightning fighters scrambled to intercept it. They swept away beyond the mountains and were lost to our sight.
The humans are transporting a force down to the planet’s surface. They have already established a beachhead. Observers have noted a large contingent of their primitive but powerful armour. There is a practiced precision about what they are doing that suggests competence and experience. These warriors will not be like the planetary defenders, easy prey to our superior tactics and technology. The warriors appear to be wearing the same green uniforms as those on the ship that escaped. Is it possible that their commander, this Macharius, has returned seeking vengeance? I must see some prisoners are taken and interrogated.
In truth, I would welcome his presence. I like my prey to be challenging. It will help stave off boredom while I wait the last few days for the gate to open. I will take any amusement I can find at the moment, no matter how petty.
I toy with ordering a strike against them now. It would mean concentrating my force at one point and attacking them when they most expect it, at a place where they would have plenty of human allies to act as cannon fodder. It would mean revealing the true strength of my force, which is smaller than the humans’, although doubtless infinitely superior in morale, firepower and tactical ability.
The alternative is to wait. Time is on my side. The longer I wait, the closer I get to the gate opening and the secrets of the ancients entering my grasp. I doubt the humans will arrive before that happens.
Am I willing to defer gratification for so long? I am. Unlike Sileria and Bael and the others I need not give in to the first impulse that enters my mind. That is what makes me a leader and them followers.
Chapter Seventeen
Long lines of Imperial armour rumbled along the old road from Kha towards the distant mountains. The tracks churned up the ancient stonework, which had not been made to take the weight of super-heavy battle tanks. I found myself wondering what purpose this road had served. Perhaps it had been a trade artery linking this city-state with another. Perhaps it had provided pilgrims with an access route to the holy valleys. Perhaps there were mines up there and this was a trade route. I studied the road looking for clues, but if there were any I never saw them.
I had plenty of time to think about such things because I was standing behind Macharius in the turret of the Baneblade. He was surveying our surroundings through his magnoculars. He liked to get a feel for the terrain. I worried about the fact that we might see eldar aircraft moving to attack us. On these narrow roads any flyer with sufficiently powerful weapons could wreak terrible havoc. I did not have much fear for the Baneblade. This ancient monster would be proof against most such weapons. But there were other vehicles, packed with troops, which might be vulnerable.
This was good terrain for an ambush. There were many smaller valleys and gulleys leading off from the one that the road ran through. Huge boulders marked the hillside. There were caves up there, and I was sure there were people watching us. I sometimes caught the glitter of the sun on magnocular lenses. I saw signs of stealthy movement that set the hairs on the back of my neck to rising. It might have been some mountain predator, but I did not think so. I thought there were men in those mountains who were watching us pass through their land.
I thought of what the Tyrant had said, about bandits. That did not imply any love was lost between the mountain people and the city-dwellers, and they would know where we had come from. I doubted we had anything to fear from hill-bandits unless we were beaten at the Valley of the Ancients. Irregular troops could make our line of retreat very unsafe indeed. I thought of the effects of demolition charges on these mountain roads, of man-made landslides, of all the things a few determined men could do against an armoured convoy.
I wondered what was going through Macharius’s mind. Was this what he had expected to find when he set out? I doubted it. How could he have expected to encounter a force of xenos. He had come prepared for some trouble, though, and I was glad. This was not the usual sledgehammer world-conquering army he would have brought to bear during the course of a normal campaign, but there were enough troops to give me some sense of security and the idea that we would achieve our goal.
I was especially glad of that when I thought about the insanity of the eldar we had encountered, their unending, unrelenting malice and cruelty. I found that despite my horror I was looking forward to reaching our objective. I was looking forward to another chance at killing them.
I looked up at the sky. It was reassuring to think that somewhere in space overhead was a company of Space Wolves ready to drop in and reinforce us. I would have been happier with a Chapter, but you can’t have everything.
I wondered what they were thinking. Most likely they planned to drop on the site under cover of our attack and reclaiming the Fist. It appeared to be what Macharius expected, and he was usually right about such things.
It seems certain the humans are advancing towards the valley. They have ascertained our position and are moving against us with their cumbersome vehicles. Despite the primitive nature of their tanks, it is nonetheless a formidable force, made all the more so by the presence of the warship in orbit.