Caves of Ice
Backlist
More tales of the Astra Militarum from Black Library
• CIAPHAS CAIN •
by Sandy Mitchell
Book 1: FOR THE EMPEROR
Book 2: CAVES OF ICE
Book 3: THE TRAITOR’S HAND
Book 4: DEATH OR GLORY
Book 5: DUTY CALLS
Book 6: CAIN’S LAST STAND
Book 7: THE EMPEROR’S FINEST
Book 8: THE LAST DITCH
Book 9: THE GREATER GOOD
Book 10: CHOOSE YOUR ENEMEIES
OMNIBUS: HERO OF THE IMPERIUM
(Contains books 1-3 in the series: For the Emperor, Caves of Ice and The Traitor's Hand, as well as the short stories 'Fight or Flight', 'Echoes of the Tomb' and 'The Beguiling')
OMNIBUS: DEFENDER OF THE IMPERIUM
(Contains books 4-6 in the series: Death or Glory, Duty Calls and Cain’s Last Stand, as well as the short story 'Traitor’s Gambit')
OMNIBUS: SAVIOUR OF THE IMPERIUM
(Contains books 7-9 in the series: The Emperor's Finest, The Last Ditch and The Greater Good, as well as the short story 'Old Soldiers Never Die')
• GAUNT’S GHOSTS •
by Dan Abnett
Colonel-Commissar Gaunt and his regiment, the Tanith First and Only, struggle for survival on the battlefields of the far future.
THE FOUNDING
(Contains books 1-3 in the series: First and Only, Ghostmaker and Necropolis)
THE SAINT
(Contains books 4-7 in the series: Honour Guard, The Guns of Tanith, Straight Silver and Sabbat Martyr)
THE LOST
(Contains books 8-11 in the series: Traitor General, His Last Command, The Armour of Contempt and Only in Death)
Book 12 – BLOOD PACT
Book 13 – SALVATION’S REACH
Book 14 – THE WARMASTER
WARHAMMER 40,000
It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
EDITORIAL NOTE:
This, the second extract from the Cain archive which I have prepared and annotated for those of my fellow inquisitors who may care to peruse it, is in much the same format as the first. The astute among you will realise that it follows my previous selection, Cain’s account of the Gravalax incident, quite closely chronologically although with his usual disregard for such niceties it was actually recorded at an earlier point in the archive itself. I have chosen this section of his memoirs not only because it is relatively self-contained, requiring little background knowledge of his earlier exploits to appreciate, but also because the records of the Ordo Xenos contain quite a bit of detail about events on Simia Orichalcae that year and anyone with cause to consult them is certain to find the only complete eyewitness account of considerable interest. (Not least because it confirms the suspicions many of us have long harboured about the part played by certain members of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the affair, which may be useful in future dealings with them.)
It may be argued that Cain is not the most reliable chronicler of events, but I am inclined to accept his version of events as absolutely true. Here, as throughout the whole archive, he rarely gives himself credit for what, to any unbiased observer, appear to be acts of genuine courage and resourcefulness (however few and far between).
As before I have been largely content to let Cain tell his story in his own words, confining myself to annotating the original text to clarify occasional points and expand upon the wider background to the events he describes since typically he tends to concentrate almost exclusively on things that affected him personally without much regard for the bigger picture. I have also, as before, taken the liberty of breaking his account down into chapters to facilitate reading, although Cain himself didn’t seem particularly bothered by such stylistic niceties. Where I’ve drawn on other sources they are credited appropriately; all other footnotes and interpolations are mine alone.
Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos
ONE
Warp knows I’ve seen more than my fair share of Emperor-forsaken hell-holes in more than a century of occasionally faithful and dedicated service to the Imperium, but the iceworld of Simia Orichalcae[1] stands out in my memory as one of exceptional unpleasantness. And when you bear in mind that over the years I’ve seen the inside of an eldar reaver citadel and a necron tomb world, just to pick out a couple of the highlights (so to speak), you can be sure that my experiences there rank among the most terrifying and life-threatening in a career positively littered with hairs’-breadth escapes from almost certain death.
Not that it seemed that way when our regiment got its orders to deploy. I’d been serving with the Valhallan 597th for a little over a year by that point, and had managed to settle into a fairly comfortable routine. I got on well with both Colonel Kasteen and her second-in-command Major Broklaw; they appeared to consider me as much of a friend as it was possible to be with the regimental commissar, and the kudos I’d earned as a result of our adventures on Gravalax stood me in good stead with the men and women of the lower ranks as well. Indeed most of them seemed to credit me, not entirely wrongly, with having provided the inspirational leadership which had allowed them to prevail against the vile conspiracy that had unleashed so much bloodshed on that unhappy world and provided them with an initial battle honour to which they could all point with pride.
At the risk of seeming a little full of myself, I did have some cause for satisfaction on that score at least; I’d inherited responsibility for a divided, not to say mutually hostile, regiment, cobbled together from the combat-depleted remnants of two previously single-sex units who had disliked and distrusted one another from the beginning. Now, if anything, I was faced with the opposite problem: I was charged with maintaining discipline as they became comfortable working together and the new personnel assignments started bedding in. (Quite literally in some cases, which only made matters worse of course, particularly when acceptable fraternisation spilled over into lovers’ tiffs, acrimonious partings, or the jealousy of others. I was beginning to see why the vast majority of regiments in the Imperial Guard were segregated by gender.) Fortunately, there were very few occasions when anything harsher than a stiff talking-to, a quick rotation of the protagonists to different squads, and a rapid palming off of the problem to the chaplain were called for, so I was able to maintain my carefully-constructed facade of concern for the troopers without undue difficulty.
Being iceworlders themselves, of course, the Valhallans were overjoyed to hear we were being sent to Simia Orichalcae. Even before we made orbit the viewing ports were crowded with off-duty troopers eager for a first sight of our new home for the next few months and a chatter of excited voices had followed Kasteen, Broklaw and myself through the corridors towards the bridge. My enthusiasm, needless to say, was rather more muted.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Broklaw said, his grey eyes fixed on the main hololith display. The flickering image of the planet appeared to be suspended in the middle of the cavernous chamber full of shadows and arcane mechanisms, surrounded by officers, deckhands and servitors doing the incomprehensible things starship crewmen usually did. There must have been a dozen at least of them buzzing about, waving data-slates at one another, or manipulating the switches inlaid into the age-darkened wood of the control lecterns which littered the main deck below us. Captain Durant, the officer in charge of the old freighter that had been hastily pressed into service to transport us from our staging area on Coronus Prime[2], shook his head.
‘If you like planets I suppose it’s allright,’ he said dismissively, his optical implants not even flickering in that direction. Of indeterminate age, he was so patched with augmetics that if it hadn’t been for his uniform and the deference with which his crew treated him I might have mistaken him for a servitor. It had been courteous of him to invite the three of us to the bridge though, so I was prepared to overlook his lack of social graces. It wasn’t until some time later that I realised that doing so was probab
ly the only way he would ever meet his passengers, as he showed every sign of being as much a part of the ship’s internal systems as the helm controls or the Navigator (whose quarters were presumably behind the heavily shielded bulkhead which loomed ominously over where we stood.)
Cynical as I was about such things, I had to concede that Broklaw had a point. From this altitude, as we slipped into orbit, the world below us shone like an exotic pearl, rippled with a thousand subtle shades of grey, blue and white. Thin veils of cloud drifted across it, obscuring the outlines of mountain ranges and deep shadowed valleys which could have swallowed a fair sized city. Despite the poor resolution, I couldn’t help searching for some sign of the impact crater where a crudely hollowed-out fragment of asteroid had ploughed into the surface of this pristine world, vomiting its cargo of orks out to sully it.
‘Breathtaking,’ Kasteen murmured, oblivious to the exchange. Her eyes were wide like a child’s, the blue of the iris reflecting the projected snowscape in front of us. The clear light struck vivid highlights in her red hair, and like her subordinate she seemed lost in a haze of nostalgia. I could readily understand why: the Guard sent its regiments wherever they were needed, and the Valhallans rarely got the chance to fight in an environment where they felt completely at home. Simia Orichalcae was probably the closest thing to their homeworld either officer had seen since they joined up, and I could sense their impatience to get down there and feel the permafrost beneath their boot soles. I was rather less eager, as you can imagine. I’ve never been agoraphobic like some hivers, and quite enjoy being outdoors in a comfortable climate, but where iceworlds are concerned I’ve never seen the point of having weather, as we used to say back home[3].
‘We’ll get you down as soon as possible,’ Durant said, barely able to hide his enthusiasm for getting nearly a thousand Guardsmen and women off his ship. I can’t say I altogether blame him; the Pure of Heart wasn’t exactly a luxury liner, and the opportunities for recreational activities had been few and far between. The crew clearly resented their facilities being swamped by bored and boisterous soldiers, and the training drills we’d devised to keep our people busy in the few cargo holds that weren’t stuffed with vehicles, stores, and hastily-installed bunks hadn’t been enough to let them blow off steam completely and there had been some friction.
Luckily the few brawls which had broken out had been swiftly dealt with, Kasteen being in no mood for a repeat of our experiences aboard the Righteous Wrath,[4] so I’d had relatively little to do beyond telling the freshly-separated combatants that they were a disgrace to the Emperor’s uniform and dish out the appropriate penalties. And of course when you have several hundred healthy young men and women cooped up in a confined space for weeks on end many of them will find their own ways of amusing themselves which raised the whole range of other problems I’ve already alluded to.
Despite the constant irritation of dealing with a host of minor infractions, I wasn’t particularly eager for our voyage to end. I’d fought orks before – many times – and despite their brutishness and stupidity I knew they weren’t to be underestimated. With numbers on their side, and the orks always had superior numbers in my experience, they could be formidably difficult to dislodge once they’d gained a foothold anywhere. And by luck or base cunning they had found a prize on Simia Orichalcae worth fighting for.
‘Can we see the refinery from here?’ Kasteen asked, reluctantly tearing her eyes from the hololith. Broklaw followed her lead, his dark hair flicking against the collar of his greatcoat as he turned. Durant nodded, and apparently obedient to his will a section of the gently-flickering planet in front of us expanded vertiginously as though we were plummeting down towards it in a ballistic re-entry.
Despite knowing that it was only a projection my stomach lurched instinctively for a second before habit and discipline reasserted themselves and I found myself assessing the tactical situation before us. The slightly narrowed eyes of my companions told me that they were doing the same, no doubt bringing their intimate knowledge of the environment below us into play in a fashion that I never could. Within seconds we were presented with an aerial view of the installation we’d been sent to protect.
‘That valley looks reasonably defensible,’ Broklaw mused aloud, nodding in satisfaction. The sprawling collection of buildings and storage tanks was nestled at one end of a narrow defile, which would be a natural choke point to an enemy advance. Kasteen evidently concurred.
‘Place a few dugouts along the ridgeline there and we can hold it until hell thaws out,’ she agreed. I was a little less sanguine, but felt it best to appear supportive.
‘What about the mountain approaches?’ I asked, nodding in apparent agreement. The two officers looked mildly incredulous.
‘The terrain’s far too broken,’ Broklaw said. ‘You’d have to be insane to try coming over the peaks.’
‘Or very tough and determined,’ I pointed out. Orks weren’t the most subtle tacticians the forces of the Emperor ever faced, but their straightforward approach to problem solving was often surprisingly effective. Kasteen nodded.
‘Good point,’ she said. ‘We’ll set up a few surprises for them just in case.’
‘A minefield or two ought to do it,’ Broklaw nodded thoughtfully. ‘Cover the obvious approaches, and lay one here, on the most difficult route. If they meet that they’ll assume we’ve fortified everywhere.’
They might not care, of course. Orks are like that. Casualties simply don’t matter to them. They’ll just press on regardless, especially if there are enough of them surviving to boost each other’s confidence. But it was a good point, and worth trying.
‘How far have they got?’ I asked. Durant swept the hololith display round to the west, skimming us across the surface of the barren world with breathtaking speed. The broken landscape of the mountain range swept past, the higher peaks dotted with scrub, lichen, and a few insanely tenacious trees – apparently the only vegetation which could survive here. Just as well too, or there wouldn’t be an atmosphere you could breathe. Beyond the foothills was a broad plain, crisp with snow, and for a moment I could understand the affection my colleagues had for this desolate but majestic landscape.
Abruptly the purity of the scene changed, revealing a wide swathe of churned-up, blackened snow, befouled with the detritus and leavings of the savage horde which had surged across it. A couple of kloms[5] wide at least, it resembled a filthy dagger-thrust into the heart of this strangely peaceful world. The resolution of the hololith wasn’t good enough to make out the individual members of this barbaric warband, but we could see clumps of movement within the main mass, like bacteria under a microscope. The analogy was an apt one, I thought. Simia Orichalcae was infected by a disease, and we were the cure.
‘Seems like we got here just in time,’ Kasteen said, putting all our thoughts into words. I extrapolated the speed of the ork advance, and nodded thoughtfully; we should have the regiment down and deployed roughly a day before they reached the valley where the precious promethium plant lay open and defenceless. It was cutting it fine, but I was just thankful we’d get there ahead of them at all. Fortunately they’d crashed in the opposite hemisphere, and that had given us just enough time to make the journey through the warp to oppose them.
‘I’ll get everyone moving,’ Broklaw offered. ‘If we get the first wave embarked now we can launch the shuttles as soon as we make orbit.’
‘Please yourselves.’ Durant somehow managed to make his immobile shoulders convey the impression of a shrug. ‘We’ll be at station-keeping in about an hour.’
‘Are the datafeeds set up?’ I asked, while I still had some measure of his attention. He repeated the gesture.
‘Not my department.’ He inflated his lungs, or whatever he used instead of them. ‘Mazarin! Get up here!’
The top half of a woman almost as encrusted with augmetics as the captain rose on a humming suspensor field to join us on the command dias. The cogwheel icon of a tech-priest hung from a chain around her neck. As we spoke she hovering roughly at my head height, the tunic she wore stirring unnervingly in the faint current from the air recirculators at what would have been level with her knees if she’d had any. ‘The one in the fancy hat wants to know if you’ve wired up his gadgets.’