[54]

Enemies behind and in front. No possible cover from both directions at once. And I felt suddenly sure that I knew what had flipped their switch. It wasn't combat. They had responded to combat like servitors. Something had seen us through their eyes. Something had chosen to let them loose.

Behind us, something was crashing through the bushes, bellowing. Hana had shot her Whisper magazine empty and was discarding it with a quick-reload.

"In," I said. "Inside, go!"

We spilled from the antechamber into the building interior. There were only six or seven Orks in sight but it felt like they were everywhere. The one that I had shot from the third floor balcony was picking itself up on broken legs, roaring its war-cry. Two were vaulting the barricade of desks, huge axes held over their heads. Another one burst from the third-floor door to the right and leaped. Bolters thundered. A rebar crossbow-bolt zipped past my head. I couldn't hear or see shard-fire.

Verity and I were pivoting to the right. An Ork lunged out from the dead space right of the antechamber—he had waited patiently there throughout the whole exchange of fire. Verity shot him point-blank with the last of her Whisper bolts, five or six .75 caliber slugs ripping through him on full-auto. He was just a juvenile, half the bulk of an adult Ork, but he still stayed up. He swung. She dodged to the side. His backhand caught her and she was slammed into the wall. I shot him in the pelvis. The explosive bolt shattered the bone and he dropped. I shot him in the head. Sparks of electricity and flares of green fire joined the flash of explosive and the spray of reeking Ork-matter.

"East, east, east!" I shouted.

The east wall was clear. No cover, but the antechamber would protect our flank. If we could dominate the north half of the room and the three vertically stacked east doors, we could hold.

Verity was still in the fight, moving with me, firing at some enemy I hadn't seen. I had to trust that Hana and Tara would come to us. The Ork that had jumped from the balcony was up, charging like his ankles weren't both broken. He burst through a heap of damp scrolls and charged with an axe in one hand and an empty crossbow in the other.

I shot at him. He was lunging from side to side as he ran and my shots missed. He was screaming, they were all screaming, incoherent bloodthirsty rage—"Waagh, waaagh!"

He leaped the last few meters. I shot again and his arm blew off. The whole thing, axe and arm together, hit me square in the chest. I staggered back, breath gone, my vision full of stars. I raised my bolter one-handed and he slammed it aside with his crossbow. It tore out of my hand and the sling yanked me forward and down. He swung his stump at me, splattering my visor with the thick liquid Orks use instead of blood.

He looked at his stump as though he was surprised his arm was missing and he hadn't just cleaved my head off. He raised the crossbow like a club. Someone hit him with a pair of bolter shells and his torso came apart. Three bolters were firing. Endless, body-shaking thunder, crashing off of walls and bouncing back at us. I couldn't even hear the Orks.

I got to my knees and gripped my bolter. I tried to breathe, but I couldn't draw breath. I found a target, an Ork from outside, barreling around the corner from inside the antechamber. I pressed the trigger. Nothing. I hammered my hand into the magazine and ripped the action back in hopes of clearing the malfunction. He was one pace from Hana, swinging his axe two-handed. I couldn't call out. I was still on my knees. I pressed the trigger again. The bolter answered its duty. I meant to aim for his center chest, but my shot blew his leg off. He ended up face-first at Hana's feet. She stepped back, shot him in the head, and resumed putting slow, methodical shots through the barricade at some enemy I hadn't seen.

Tara shouted, "East door, east door, go!" She grabbed my backpack and started dragging me. I tried to say "No, fight here!"—but I still could barely breathe, I couldn't shout over the bolterfire and the bellowing Orks. I think she thought I was dying. My armor was scored like I'd been split open. There was red all over me from the Ork blood.

Still—it wasn't a bad idea. Maybe it was the better idea, even. I coughed. After a few seconds of Tara dragging me, I breathed. I shouted, "Good, I'm good, let go!" Spots danced in front of my eyes again and I was coughing and gasping for breath from the effort, but Tara let me go and I staggered to my feet.

There still wasn't any shard-fire. Maybe the others had prioritized the shard-gunners, like I had. Or maybe the Orks were avoiding friendly fire, even with Eldar tech-blasphemy and their own innate blood-lust saturating their minds. The shards were a poor weapon against power-armor, but any hit would penetrate and poison an unarmored Ork.

We reached the wall. Tara said, "Frag!" I had my bolter aimed almost straight up and was shooting through the balcony at a glimpse of green flesh. The grenade exploded on the other side of the door. Scrolls tumbled from the shelves, unspooling and fluttering down to land in puddles of Ork-blood on what had once been a beautiful mural-tiled floor.

Verity and Tara pushed through the door. Beside me, Hana said "Reloading!" and I turned to fight her sector. The floor was littered with green bodies and thick red blood. More Orks were coming. I fired the rest of my magazine, killing one and wounding another. I tried to eject the empty magazine but it was stuck. I ripped it out and moved to follow through the open door. "Hana, go!"

On the other side of the door, I heard Tara screaming, forcing words through agony. "Hit! Hit! Arm, arms! Both arms! TQ, TQ on, did, did."

I thumped a new magazine into the well and went through the door. Hana was right behind me, firing back into the main room. I saw Verity standing over Tara. There was a mangled Ork with a shard rifle in either fist, his legs ripped off and belly torn open by the frag grenade, his head gone from a bolter shot. There were shards all over the floor and stuck glimmering evilly in the wall behind Tara. Verity had the hallway covered. I primed a grenade.

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"Frag!" I threw it back into the room we had just left, where it could explode amidst the Orks. I primed another one and threw it a few seconds later. For a few seconds, at least, it stopped the Ork charge.

I said, "Hana, door, close it, weld it. Verity, move and clear, find a room so we can work on Tara."

I went to get Tara. Her arms were shivering with uncontrolled spasms. I forced her over and checked her backpack indicator. Both arm tourniquets were deployed, like she said. I grabbed her backpack and began to drag her after Verity, who was advancing down the corridor. I held my bolter one-handed, supporting Verity's advance.

There was a bright flare of blue-white light from behind us—Hana's melta-gel, welding the iron door to its frame. It wouldn't hold Orks for long.

Verity stopped at a door. "Cover me," she said. I did.

She put a frag grenade into the room and followed it in after it exploded. "Clear!" We followed her in, me dragging Tara, Hana bringing up the rear. There were pieces of mildewed scroll everywhere. Overturned desks and chairs. I think it had been one of the places they wrote or copied the scrolls. The room had two doors—the one we came through, south, and one opposite it, north. The north door was closed, and Hana slammed the south door behind us. We would be near the east wall of the building. Probably just one hallway away. I could hear the Orks pounding on the welded door, and other Orks elsewhere in the building, running and bellowing.

I knelt by Tara. Her whole body had started convulsing. She had her arms held together in a guarding posture in front of her, even though they were shaking. She was making little strangled whimpering sounds. I fumbled open her self-aid kit and found the autoinjectors.

"Hand," she gasped. "Elbow."

I checked. I found the hand wound easily. There was a shard sticking out of her glove between her last two fingers on her right hand. It looked like a tiny green splinter. I forced myself to take three deep breaths and wait for my fingers to stop shaking. I pinned her arm to the ground with my knee and forced her hand flat with my left hand. She screamed.

"Quiet!" I hated myself for saying it. I got my fingers around the shard and drew it carefully out. It was a little over a centimeter long. No wider than a pin. Death, smaller than a grain of rice.

I fit the autoinjector through the pinprick hole the shard had made and activated it.

I couldn't see the shards that had hit her left arm, but I found three tiny punctures in the flexible armor that protected the inside of her elbow. I forced her arm down and knelt on it. Tara didn't scream. I fit her other autoinjector's tip through the largest hole and activated it.

A group of Orks thundered past outside the room's south door.

In hushed voices, we took stock.

Verity and I didn't think we were really hurt. Hana hadn't been hit.

Hana still had all four of her grenades. I had used two. Tara and Verity had both used one. I took two of Tara's grenades and gave Verity the other one.

We had all used our full magazine of Whisper bolts. Battle had surprised us loaded for stealth, and now the option was gone. Counting those, we had used about a quarter of our ammunition. I thought about taking Tara's.

Tara stopped spasming and whimpering. She said, "Open my visor." Her voice was weak but it didn't sound like agony. I worried about shard residue, then I realized how stupid that was. I opened it. She spat thin vomit. I tried to wipe her face with a clean scrap of scroll.

"Good?" I asked. She nodded. I closed her visor.

"Can you fight?"

"I think so. A little. Right arm. Left is… is bad."

I took three of Tara's magazines. I passed one each to Verity and Hana, who were guarding the doors. I helped Tara position her arm against her chest and lock it in place with the armor-servos. I made sure she had a fresh magazine in her weapon and that it was ready to fire. If she could really use her right arm, she would be able to reload, slowly.

(The drill for the Godwyn-De'az bolter is: press the release. Let the weapon hang. Remove the magazine. Get the new magazine and fit it into the well. Grip the weapon. Strike the magazine against your hip to seat it firmly. If necessary, release the weapon again, and use your chin to block the stock while cycling the action.)

But I could see her hand was still shaking. One-handed, her accuracy would be terrible. Even if she could find a firing support it would be bad. I wanted our ammunition where it would hit something.

"Can you stand?" I said. She tried. She let out an involuntary keening sound but she didn't fall down.

I had to assume that an Eldar quick response force was already on the way. Maybe in the building already, hunting us. Treating Tara had taken two or three minutes.

I didn't think the Eldar base could be in this structure. They wouldn't surround themselves with Orks. But the base must be within a few hundred meters. How long would it take Eldar to cross a few hundred meters at a sprint? Thirty seconds? Less?

For a minute now, I hadn't heard the bellowed "waagh" or the thump and slap of bare Ork feet. And I hadn't heard shouting, or arguing, or axes crashing against doors and walls.

Whatever had permitted them to behave like Orks during the fight wasn't permitting it now.

I thought we might be able to break contact and retreat to the building to the east. If either of my relay drones had escaped, reinforcements would be on the way already. If we could leave the Eldar hunting us through this building for fifteen minutes—while we were already somewhere else—it wouldn't be us alone. Help would come. Maybe not at exactly fifteen minutes, but soon.

I said, "We're going to—"

The south door opened. Hana fired two quick shots, her bolter-report blotting out my order. Bits of green flesh and red blood flew back through the doorway.

I said, "North—"

And I felt Fear.