Chapter 4: Silent Death
Farrak IV was a vast agricultural world, a single major continent covering most of its surface. The planet had been seized by a large-scale uprising. The cult called the Skull Crushers had taken virtually every major settlement on the continent and consecrated them in blood. Only a handful of cities remained unoccupied.
The agricultural output of this world was substantial enough to feed dozens of surrounding systems. Its strategic value required no elaboration.
It also happened that the tithe was nearly due. The administrative response had come faster than anyone might have expected for that reason alone. Several regiments stationed in the subsector had been redirected to provide relief.
Duvette led the forty-three remaining soldiers of 6th Company through an expanse of farmland that stretched to every horizon. Two large moons hung overhead, and their combined light made the open ground almost as clear as early morning. The crops ran out ahead of him in every direction, stalks rising to two meters or higher, an unbroken wall of rustling gold that blocked sight in every direction. He had not taken the flat paths between the fields. Under this much moonlight, walking a clear road would have been an efficient way to die.
Farrak IV was moving into early winter, and the terrain reminded him of the great continental plains of his previous life. Cold air moved across the land without interruption, and Duvette pulled his grey greatcoat tighter. His breath came out in white drifts under the moonlight.
He signaled a halt and took a moment to get his bearings. The crops swallowed nearly every landmark within range. The only reliable navigation points were the grain elevators rising hundreds of meters above the fields at intervals, their silhouettes visible from a considerable distance.
Far away at the horizon's edge, a hollow, rhythmic percussion. The traitors had started another assault somewhere.
Duvette studied the map in the dim light. He had no intention of returning directly to the regimental defensive line. Walking into an active frontal engagement with forty-three soldiers was not a plan, it was a casualty count. His intention was to take the company around behind the enemy, use the light infantry advantage in irregular terrain, and find a position where they could hit the traitors hard from an unexpected direction.
A soft rustle from ahead. Stroud materialized out of the crop rows without any sound that should have been audible. Whatever the man had been before the Astra Militarum, the Legion's Blade had sharpened it into something precise. He moved through these fields as if he had been born in them.
"There is a village ahead, sir." Stroud closed the distance to Duvette's position, voice low. "Lights. I think it is one of their strongpoints."
"Numbers?"
"Forty visible from the outside. There will be more inside the buildings. I would estimate a hundred in total."
"Equipment?"
"Mostly crude close-combat weapons. Some rough-made automatic firearms mixed in."
Duvette frowned. "A hundred men, this far from the main engagement." He kept his voice quiet. "What are they doing here? Anything unusual?"
"Bodies." Stroud's rough face went flat with contempt, his voice carrying a low, controlled anger. "Bodies everywhere. I watched a column of them dragging corpses toward the central threshing ground. Civilians. Some of our own. The atmosphere around that place is wrong."
Duvette said nothing for a moment.
In the 40K universe, cultists piling up bodies had nothing to do with disposal. That was a blood ritual. An offering to one of the Ruinous Powers. If they completed it and actual servants of the Blood God came through from the Sea of Souls, this planet would be beyond the capacity of any standard Astra Militarum force to salvage. There would be no one left to save.
He could not leave this alone.
"We are running low on supplies." He looked back at the soldiers behind him. The exhausted men were watching him with an intensity that was not entirely rational. "But we cannot leave this."
He turned to Anderson. "Have the men set their lasguns to medium power, semi-automatic. We conserve what we have." He looked at Stroud. "You are on point."
"Understood." Both men acknowledged and moved.
In the moonlight, forty-three grey figures advanced through the golden fields. When a gust of wind came through and set the crops rolling in long waves, they stopped and crouched, watching in every direction, then moved again when it passed.
Duvette was not concerned about whether his people could handle the cultists. Focused Volley had a three-hour cooldown and ran for fifteen minutes when active. More than enough for a small engagement. What mattered was doing this quietly.
They had not gone far when the orange-yellow glow of firelight became visible through the gaps between the stalks.
The village was close. Two hundred meters ahead at a crossroads, three cultists were on patrol, their bodies smeared with dried blood, serrated machetes hanging from their hands. Their eyes had that particular vacancy, the look of something that had replaced a human mind with something it was not designed to contain.
They seemed to sense something. All three began drifting toward the edge of the field.
Duvette's hand came up and his finger moved toward the trigger.
A large, calloused hand settled lightly over his barrel.
Stroud showed him a grin. "No need for that, sir. Watch."
He dropped a series of quick, practiced hand signals to the veterans beside him, and then all of them slid into the shadows without a sound.
A few seconds passed. Then, from somewhere inside the field, the sound of a bird calling.
The cultists stopped. They looked at each other. Two of them exchanged words and moved off the path into the crops to investigate, leaving one standing watch at the crossroads.
The moment the two disappeared into the rows, a throwing knife caught the moonlight for less than a second. The last sentry took it through the throat and was already dead when Stroud came out of the crops in a low sprint, caught the body before it could fall, and pulled it back into the shadows behind him.
Duvette had not expected that kind of speed out of Stroud's lean frame.
Stroud came back a short while later, grinning widely enough to show a row of badly stained teeth, three small, blood-wet, misshapen ears held loosely in one hand. "Make sure you mark that down for me, sir."
Duvette nodded once. He spoke quietly to Stroud and Anderson together. "Take half the men to the fields on the far side. Signal me when you are in position. On my first shot, both flanks open up together."
"Understood."
Without hesitation Duvette took the remaining twenty across the road and into the firing position directly opposite the village.
Under the cover of the two-meter crops, the cultists inside had no awareness of them at all.
Through the firelight, Duvette could see the threshing ground at the village's center clearly. Eight mounds of corpses had been piled there and were being doused with thick, viscous oil. The walls of the surrounding buildings had been painted over with the eight-pointed star of Chaos in dried blood, the lines crude and enormous.
Dozens of mutants in ragged robes were moving around the corpse mounds in a twisting, irregular dance, shouting profanities in a rhythm that was almost liturgical. At the center of them stood a figure in a bone-white mask, a staff raised above their head. The ritual officiant.
The air pressure had dropped. Under the smell of the crops, something like sulfur was becoming noticeable.
A new prompt appeared in Duvette's vision.
[Warp disturbance detected. Current Chaos contamination flux: 15%.]
[Quest: Destroy the Cult Ritual. (0/5)]
[Reward: 300 Emperor's Wrath]
In the darkness, a single clear bird call sounded from the far side of the village.
Stroud was in position.
Duvette drew one slow breath. His finger tightened on the trigger.