Anton shot me a scared look.
‘I think they wanted to take us alive,’ I said. ‘Though we might not stay that way for long afterwards.’
‘Any time might be too long,’ said Ivan.
‘What we going to do?’ Ivan asked. As usual, when the chips were down, the other two were looking to me for guidance. I turned our options over and over in my mind. We could not stay here. We had very little water in our canteens, and sooner or later we were bound to be spotted by one of the eldar. If they had not already spotted us and were just letting the suspense build before they took us…
‘We wait until it’s dark and then we try and sneak through their lines,’ I said.
‘You mad?’ Anton asked.
‘You got a better idea? If we stay here, it’s only a matter of time before they find us.’
‘Our own sentries will shoot us,’ Ivan said.
‘We’ll just need to risk it. It would be better than falling into the hands of those xenos scum.’
‘No arguments from me there,’ said Ivan. More screams sounded, echoing down the valley. They appeared to be amplified. Maybe the eldar were broadcasting them to break the morale of our men. Maybe it was just something they did for relaxation.
Anton looked me right in the eye. His face was pale. ‘If it looks like they are going to take me alive, shoot me…’
‘It will be my pleasure,’ I said, but the joke did not seem so funny any more.
Chapter Twenty-One
A tall shadow fell into the rocks where we crouched, telling us that one of the alien warriors was standing there. It seemed like all he would need to do was turn his head and see us. I kept the shotgun clutched very tight in my hands, not sure whether I would use it on him or myself. I felt Anton and Ivan tense beside me.
I glanced sideways. Sweat dripped from Anton’s pale, narrow face. The scar was visible on his forehead. I felt my muscles coil. Part of me suspected that the xenos might be able to hear the drops of perspiration falling on rock. After what felt like an aeon, the eldar finally moved off. Even as it did so I wondered if it had seen us, and was now toying with us as a felid toys with a nest of vermin.
As the day wore on the butcher shop stench of the battlefield drifted to my nostrils. I wondered whether eldar corpses smelt like ours when they died. I wondered whether anybody back in our camp had noticed we were not there. I wondered about Anna and about a thousand other things I could do nothing about but which all suddenly were very important to me.
Darkness came very slowly. My stomach felt as though it were full of acid. My heart pounded against my ribs. My mouth was dry. I wanted to empty my bladder but found I could not. All around us, I could hear the strange sounds of the eldar army moving. I noticed the eerie whine of their vehicles moving less than ten strides away. I felt currents of air displaced by the motion swirl of their sails. Sometimes I caught the scent of cinnamon and some sour-sweet perfume, sometimes what smelt like incense, sometimes something that smelt like an accident in an abattoir.
Eventually, the stars glittered coldly overhead like the eyes of watching daemons. The sounds of combat continued in the distance. I decided it was time to risk a glance out.
I looked down into a sea of shadows on the reverse side of the slope. The eldar were still there. I could see their strange landships and something else, something massive and vaguely scorpion-like. I knew it was another of those monstrous life-drinking beasts. I spotted movement as dim, humanoid outlines moved with inhuman speed, their elongated forms suggesting shadows and daemons and things from fever-induced nightmares. Nearby were a few metal poles with crossbars. Flayed forms hung from them. The stench of blood and raw meat and opened bowels hung in the air, the scent of an operating theatre where the patients were sent to be painfully killed rather than to be healed.
I studied the concentration of forces. There were scores of vehicles and thousands of eldar, and those monstrous things with claws, whatever they were.
Something flickered at the corner of my eye and I realised there were other xenos, far closer to us than those in the camp, scouts or pickets. It was pure chance that they had not picked our hiding spot as their own sentry post.
I froze on the spot, hoping that I would not be noticed. A warm form popped up beside me, and I looked around to see Anton. He was scanning the area beneath us through the scope of his sniper rifle. It had a night-sight attachment. Crouched beside him was Ivan. I could catch the faint glimmer of moonlight even on the dirt-smeared metal of his cheeks.
A long straggling line of Lion Guard stretched along the perimeter wall below us. Here and there weapons emplacements bulged. At various gaps in the walls, armoured fighting vehicles were used as makeshift gates.
We had only a few hundred metres to go to reach our camp. Looking at that force it might as well have been a thousand leagues. The ground between the two forces was a killing field.
I dropped down again and the other two fell into position beside me. I kept my ears pricked up, waiting to hear the telltale sound of a weapon barrel against rock or stone slithering against stone. All I heard was my own soft breathing. It was almost drowned out by my drum-beat heart.
‘You still want to try for our lines?’ Ivan asked. His voice was flat and emotionless as ever.
‘You got a better idea? We’ve been lucky so far. I wouldn’t count on that luck holding a second day.’
Anton let out a long sigh. ‘We’d better get it over with then.’
‘We climb down out of here and we circle left,’ I said. ‘It looks like there’s a gap in the eldar line in the direction of the eastern heights. We’ll head for the gate made by the Baneblade.’ I liked the sound of that. Call it superstition but Baneblades always gave me a feeling of security, even after I had one destroyed underneath me.
Ivan shrugged. One direction seemed as good as another to him. Anton nodded. ‘I could use a lho-stick,’ he said. It had the sound of a man making a last request.
‘Yeah, go on,’ I said. ‘Maybe you’d like to smoke it as we sneak along.’
‘I’m not that stupid,’ said Anton.
‘We could try a few marching songs as well,’ Ivan suggested helpfully. ‘Gone for a Soldier or The Cadian Boot Song. A few rousing choruses would certainly raise my morale.’
‘Maybe you’d like to set off a flare,’ I said. ‘We could see better that way.’
‘A torch is what we really need,’ said Ivan.
‘I just said I would like a smoke. There’s no need to make a meal out of it.’
We fell silent. We had just been spinning it out to put off making a start.
Suddenly the sound of shooting came from off to the east. Explosions as well. The turrets along the wall had opened up, blasting at the ridge below us.
‘Looks like our lads are trying a counter-strike,’ Ivan said.
‘Good news for us,’ I said. ‘A bit of a distraction. Emperor watch over you!’
With that I sent myself diving out of cover before I had a chance to think and regret my action. I slithered down the rocks, half crawling, half scrambling, praying to the Emperor that the sounds of that distant attack had gotten the eldar’s attention. As soon as I was off the rocky island, I threw myself flat on my belly and wriggled down a narrow gulley.
Off to my right, not twenty strides away, were a group of xenos. They had their backs to me, but for all I knew that meant nothing. They might have sensors on those battle-suits capable of three hundred and sixty degree scanning. Hell, maybe they had senses we did not know about that would let them spot us without ever seeming to look in our direction. Who knew what the alien bastards were capable of?