Read Online Necropolis by Dan Abnett - Free Book Online Page B

water. The eastern horizon blazed with a midnight sun.
    “What was that?” Mincer cried. A commotion rose from the troops.
    Gaunt raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare as a heat-wash rolled down the river. He knew the blast-effects of a nuclear detonation when he saw it.
    “That was the beginning of the end,” he said.

FOUR
HIVE DEATH
     
    “Insanity! Insanity! What kind of war are we fighting?”
    —Marshal Edric Croe, on hearing
    the news from Vannick
     
    Kowle went directly to House Command when the news was voxed to him. He had been touring the South Curtain and it took him almost an hour to cross the hive back to the Main Spine.
    The control auditorium was a chaotic mess. Munitorum clerks, regimental aides and other junior personnel hurried about, gabbling, panicking, relaying reports from the operators manning the main tactical cogitators banked around the lower level of the large, circular chamber. Many Vervun Primary officers and even some VPHC troops were clogging the place too, anxious to find out if the rumours were true.
    Kowle pushed past the onlookers at the chamber door and sent many back to their stations with curt words. None argued. They saluted and backed off from him quickly. He crossed the wide floor and then hurried up the ironwork staircase onto the upper deck of the auditorium, where the chiefs of staff were gathered around the vast, luminous chart table. Junior aides and technicians, many bearing important vox reports, made way for him without question.
    Marshal Croe presided over the group at the chart table. His eyes were blacker than ever and he had removed his cap, as if the weight of it was too much now. His personal bodyguard, Isak, dressed in an armoured maroon body-glove and carrying a shrouded gun, hovered at his shoulder. Vice Marshal Anko, wearing a medal-heavy white ceremonial uniform, stood glowering nearby. He had been attending a formal dinner thrown by House Anko to welcome the Volpone. Sturm and his aides stood alongside him, clad in the impressive dress uniforms of the Volpone. Also present were Xance of NorthCol — looking tired and drawn, along with several of his senior staff — the Narmenian Grizmund and his tank brigadiers, Nash of the Roane Deepers and his adjutants, and a dozen more senior Vervun Primary officers, as well as Commissar Tarrian of the VPHC.
    “Is it true?” Kowle asked, removing his cap but making no other formal salute.
    Croe nodded, but remained silent.
    Tarrian coughed. “Vannick Hive was destroyed ninety minutes ago.”
    “Destroyed?”
    “I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept, Kowle,” Croe said flatly. “It’s gone.”
    “Zoica has levelled it. We have no idea how. They got inside the Shield somehow and used a nuclear device—”
    Croe cut Anko off mid-sentence. “How is not the real issue here, vice marshal! There are any number of ‘hows’ we might debate! The real question is why.”
    “I agree, marshal,” General Sturm said. “We must consider this may not have been deliberate. I’ve known emplacements destroyed accidentally by the over-ambitious actions of those attacking. Perhaps Zoica meant to take the hive and struck… too hard.”
    “Is there any other way of striking when you use atomics?” a calm voice asked from the head of the stairs. The group turned.
    “Gaunt…” Colonel Gilbear of the Volpone hissed under his breath.
    The tall newcomer wore a commissar’s cap and a long, black leather coat. He stepped towards them. His clothing was still flecked with dust from his journey. He saluted Marshal Croe smartly.
    “Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, of the Tanith First. We arrived to reinforce you just as the event occurred.”
    “I welcome you, Gaunt. I wish I was happier to see you,” the white-haired giant replied respectfully. “Are your men billeted?”
    “They were proceeding to their stations when I left them. I came here as soon as I could.”
    “The famous Gaunt,” Anko whispered to Tarrian.
    “You mean ‘notorious’, surely?” Tarrian