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Without Honour - Nick Kyme

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An Extract from ‘Volpone Glory’

A Black Library Publication

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WITHOUT HONOUR

Nick Kyme

Dank water seeped into his shirt and breeches, its touch like ice. Henryk's eyes snapped open onto a heavy gloom where darkness enfolded him like a cloak and where the air was redolent of chalk. He ran his hand experimentally through swirling dust motes, a sound like distant thunder trembling the walls, loosing cataracts of displaced earth in infinitesimal spills. Stone felt cold and solid at his back, the chamber it defined layered in shadow thick as grave dust. Shafts of pallid grey light pierced a cracked ceiling, his sight adjusting, revealing a half-drowned underground world.

And with it, a vague remembrance of danger.

Henryk reached for a gun he no longer carried, the empty holster as drenched as his ragged uniform. He still had the knife secreted inside his boot and that would function wet or dry. He drew it, a sharp ring of metal grinding against leather, but there was no one in the dark waiting to kill him.

Not yet.

He was not alone, though. Bodies floated in the water, lifeless as old empty barrels and stirred by a gentle current that carried along canteens and bell packs like disconsolate little rafts. Volpone soldiers and their trappings. They had been stripped of useful equipment, ammunition. Left for dead. Left without honour. Like Henryk. He rubbed the side of his head at the thought, at the circular wound of sore flesh on his left temple.

At least I am alive, he reasoned.

Henryk recognised men he had served with amongst the slaughter, crushed, broken, prostrate in a murky pool that had thickened with all the fallen dust and grit. He cast his gaze upwards again at the cracked ceiling, realising it wasn't a ceiling at all but rather rubble, the evidence of the subsidence also jutting from the water like an improvised reef.

Another bombardment struck nearby, closer than before, shaking the roof of the world, and Henryk stood, alert, poised to run.

Memories, tough to grasp at first, coalesced from tire smoke of recent trauma.

Beltane… a clarion ringing out across the southern quarter of the city. On his knees when the thunder came, then fire as the Tower of Spears collapsed, crushing men hapless enough to be in its shadow. Some ran, one with hands still tied, the others left screaming as the ground gave way, a vicious crack splitting the pavers, and then only the fall into darkness.

The enemy must have blown the tunnels, taken out the tower's footings and most of Odivere Plaza with it. Henryk dredged his mind as he dredged the soupy water for a better weapon, finding nothing and reckoning on at least fifty men in that region before the ground tore open its maw and devoured them all. He did find a compass and a half-full canteen, a barely dented breastplate he slipped over his uniform.

There must have been at least fifteen dead in the water. Hands shaking as they made the sign of the aquila, Henryk murmured a prayer to the God-Emperor for His salvation.

That's when he heard the cough from the other side of the room and the knife swept up again, steady in his grip but his heart thudding like a war drum.

A man lay slumped against the cistern wall, deep enough in shadow and so still that Henryk hadn't noticed him at first. Another left for dead. Dank water rode up as high as his lap. His rank pins gleamed in the soft light and Henryk thought he recognised him. The knife lowered, but only a little.

'Sir…' he croaked, surprised at the roughness of his own voice. 'Major,' he tried again, louder, more firmly. His rugged baritone echoed off the walls and carried to the man sitting on his arse.

'Who's there?' asked a tremulous voice. A laspistol that had no hope of firing with its power pack so thoroughly crushed appeared in his hand. There was blood on his fingers, red running to pink and finally clear as the water cleansed them.

'Trooper Henryk, sir,' answered Henryk, sheathing the knife as he waded over to the stricken officer. Henryk knew he was an imposing figure, solidly built like most Volpone, with a slab of a jaw, close-cropped scalp and a badly set broken nose. The major balked at the sight of the raven-haired apparition coming for him out of the dark, eyes like pitiless storm clouds.

He looked pale, did the major, gaunt like an old ghost unwilling to admit it was dead. The pistol lowered almost of its own accord when he saw the uniform. An errant light shaft caught the other man's face, making it even more haggard, his dark beard edging to grey like burnt wood turning to ash. He squinted, his blue eyes adjusting to the dark. His helm had been displaced, lost amongst the morass of debris and bodies, dented to the hells and back, but Henryk was certain he knew him now.

'Major Farren?'

He nodded weakly, the effort paining him.

Henryk forced his quivering hand to still, his next question almost a futile one. 'Are you injured, sir?'

'Leg I think,' answered Farren, wincing as he tried to rise. 'Reckon it must be broken.' He was about to go on when Henryk heard a noise from above and thrust a large hand over the major's mouth.

Farren fought at first, the insult lending him vigour he might not ordinarily possess, then he caught Henryk's wide, urgent eyes and stopped struggling.

Voices came through the cracks, harsh and grating like rusty saws and blunt knives. They spoke in a language neither man could understand because it wasn't Volpone, it wasn't even Imperial.

Henryk mouthed Blood Pact, and the major nodded slowly. He unmuzzled Farren but otherwise they remained completely still, their eyes trained upwards at the shadows flitting back and forth. A lamp beam intruded through one of the larger cracks, no more than a hand's width, a hazy jaundiced light strafing languidly across the ruination, close to where the anxious Bluebloods hunched together. It searched the water with agonising slowness, lingering over the dead. Henryk heard chuckling and felt his heart and his fists harden.

A rat attracted by the carrion in the water, surfaced atop one of the bodies. A harsh flash of light preceded the smell of cauterised meat and the vermin disappeared below the waterline only to rise again a moment later, dead.

Cruel laughter echoed down into the cistern but quickly bled away, the voices fading into mirage.

Henryk allowed himself to breathe out as silence fell across the chamber.

'Apologies, sir, but when I heard—'

Farren shook his head, dismissing Henryk's concerns. 'Not necessary.' They both kept their voices low, still uncertain of their exact circumstances. Farren cast his gaze around the room. 'What is this place, the damnable sewers? It's rank enough.'

Now he'd had a little time for his eyes to adjust, Henryk made out columned arches in the dingy room, leading off in several directions.

'I think it's the underground water supply. Cistern north-eastern, if I had to guess.'

'Wherever is it, I'm as cold and damp as a Valhallan's fart sitting here. Help me up, trooper.'

Henryk got his shoulder under Farren's arm and tried to lever him into a standing position. It took three attempts, the major stifling a cry of pain on each occasion before they managed to manoeuvre him against one of the columns for support.

'Shitting saints,' hissed Farren through clenched teeth, 'I'm not sure I can walk…' He eyed the shadows fearfully, as if expecting them to harbour enemies.

Henryk found a rifle, smashed nearly to pieces but the stock felt sturdy enough and would serve as a crutch.

'Here, try this.'

Farren wedged it under his armpit, then waddled experimentally. He nodded. 'It'll have to do.' He turned his gaze on Henryk, eyes narrowing. 'Do I know you, trooper?'

Henryk stifled a flutter of unease, but kept his face neutral. 'I doubt it, sir, but you may have seen me around the camp.'

'I expect so. You infantry? Certainly big enough.'

'Forty-Ninth Volpone, sir, medicae division, though I'm just a corpsman.'

Henryk fashioned his best salute.

'Stitcher, eh? Any combat training?'

'Guard basic, sir. I am good with a knife, however.'

Farren nodded, but his attention was already drifting. Henryk wondered how much of it was distracted by the man's pain.

'This is a bad bloody business,' the major said eventually. 'Southern quarter must have fallen. The bastards have us overrun. Curse those heathen scum. Undermining, eh? A coward's approach. No honour.'

Farren tossed the laspistol desultorily. 'About as much use as pissing in the wind…' He gestured to the dead. 'What about our former comrades?'

He said it coldly, as if the deaths of the troopers meant nothing beyond their capacity to harbour something useful.

'Nothing I can see, sir,' said Henryk knowing this was just the way of the officer class, but he could already tell any weapons would be thoroughly waterlogged or crushed into disfunction. The rest, anything useful, had been taken. He wondered if Vandane had been amongst the survivors and hoped against.

'Blades it is then,' said Farren, and drew a jewel-encrusted short sword from the sheath at his waist. It was worth more than everything Henryk owned. 'Henryk...' he mused absently, hand quavering with the sword's weight. Henryk doubted he'd be much use in a fight if it came to it. 'Are you of the Bauer-Vorstan Henryks?'

'I can't say I am, sir, no. We are of the lower aristocracy. My family could barely afford my commission.'

Farren nodded as if filing that away for later use. 'Nothing to be ashamed of. Gentry is still gentry, after all. It's an honourable charge, if a lowly one.' He cast around, as if absorbing their surroundings.

The cistern was a large oval-shaped chamber that had several exits. Farren limped to the middle, beneath one of the arches, shin-deep in water as he joshed around.

'Which way shall we go?'

'North-eastern is one of the major underground conduits. East lakes us further into Beltane, north is a dead end and west brings us to the sewers and city's edge. Eventually.'

'Well,' said Farren, wincing as he shifted his footing, 'we're already knee deep in shit, so a little more can't hurt.'

The catacombs stretched on for miles and Henryk elicited a shallow groan from Farren when he explained the journey beneath the city could take several hours, days if they got lost.

'This place will be our tomb…' the major muttered to himself.

An endless parade of columns where every channel looked the same made that a distinct possibility, but the compass Henryk had taken from one of the dead still worked and, he hoped, would guide them unerringly.

Their progress had been slow but drew to an unexpected halt when Farren gasped, his foot snagging on a piece of submerged debris. He almost fell before he caught himself against a pillar, clinging to it like a rock in a storm-tossed ocean.

'I'm all right,' he said, staving off any help, but the man had the pallor of a revenant. He needed a medic. And soon. Henryk had enough on his conscience without the officer's death adding to it. 'Just need a moment to catch my breath.'

Henryk eyed the shadows nervously, the walls rippling with light reflecting off the water.

How long before the Pact realise there are survivors? How long before they come for us?

'We can't linger too long, sir. Could be anyone or anything down here.'

He spied a grating, little more than a slit, high up on one wall and sloshed over to it for a look. If he could get a bearing on their position, navigation would be easier. He clambered up a shallow ramp, gaining enough height to peer through.

Blood Pact marched through the streets in their mismatched scraps of armour, iron grotesks masking their faces, gangs of the cultish bastards, jeering and crowing. Fires lit the darkness in jagged red streaks - Throne, when had it turned to night! - the air softened with smoke. In the distance, he saw a soldier crucified on an iron frame crudely wrought into the shape of an eight-pointed star. Other prisoners hung from towers and lamp posts, swaying as rangy carrion feeders pecked at their eyes and soft flesh. One lived, strung up by his arms rather than his neck, and mumbled incoherently. A sirdar, a Pact officer, swaggered over to him and drew a cleaver from a fat leather sheath. The rusted metal caught embers of torchlight, and made the blade seem infernal as the sirdar pulled it back.

Henryk turned away, looking down into the water and beseeching it to drown his horror.

'Anything?' asked Farren, betraying a false hope.

'Pact are everywhere,' he said, voice thick and low.

'Any of ours?'

Henryk shook his head. None living, he thought.

Farren's expression became grave, defiant. 'I won't die down here,' he said. 'Not here, honourless, amongst the filth.'

Henryk was already looking towards the way ahead. 'We have to get moving, sir.'

'Those bastard cultists up there, Henryk, they take the officers for interrogation…' He lurched back onto his feet and started to stumble towards Henryk. 'It isn't quick.' Fear soured his eyes, though he tried to master it. Farren's gaze hardened, grew sharper in that moment. 'If it comes to it and I can't, you have to make sure of it… I won't be made to betray the Imperium.' He glanced at the knife. 'Promise me that. You do what's necessary and—'

He stopped short at the sudden muffled clank beneath his foot and Henryk realised the Pact had not only collapsed the tunnels beneath the least quarter, they had also mined them.

'Don't move…'

Farren was already shaking with the effort of holding his body still. 'It's nothing,' he said, 'just a bit of metal.' The doubt in his eyes gave the lie to his words.

'Don't. Move,' Henryk reiterated, edging forwards carefully, not knowing if there were more submerged charges in the water. It was like staring into fathomless ink.

'Why mine the damn tunnels if you're planning on blowing the footings?' snapped Farren. His leg was trembling. Crouching onto his haunches Henryk reached out and steadied it.

'In case anyone followed them or…' he said, before sharing a dark glance with the major, 'to kill any survivors from the initial attack.'

The murky water foiled any efforts to locale the device by sight so he took to gently probing it with his knife and soon heard metal glance off metal.

'Is it armed?' Farren asked, anxious. 'Throne, I've seen men lose a leg and worse to these bloody things.'

'Afraid so, sir.' He had his hand in the water, exploring. 'Feels like a pressure plate.' Henryk glanced around, found a pack drifting on the current that had somehow ended up at this end of the tunnels. A strap had snagged on a piece of exposed iron rebar and it tugged against the water like a paddle boat moored to a jetty. Sheathing his knife, his other hand still on the charge so he could find it again, he reached out and tugged on the pack. It came free easily enough. A hunk of girder jutted up like a metal island from the floor and swinging the pack over his shoulder, he reached for it. Metal screeched against the cistern floor as the girder dragged, sweat gleaming on Henryk's face until he had lugged it close enough to hump into the pack.

'Throw yourself clear when I give the signal, sir.' he uttered, a little breathless.

Ashen-faced, Farren could only nod.

Henryk shuffled the pack off his shoulder, dragging it a little closer and preparing to heave it onto the pressure plate the moment it was vacated. He reckoned on maybe three seconds at most before the mine triggered.

'Now!'

Farren flung himself bodily to the side, ungainly but determined, as Henryk heaved the laden pack and fell back too.

A few seconds lapsed, both men lying on their backs in the water, Farren's face pinched with subtle agonies. The tension in his jaw eased. 'Did it work?' he asked from the other end of the chamber, relieved.

'I think, perhaps…'

An audible thunk resonated from below, deadened by the water as the pack slipped loose and the mine triggered.

'Down!' warned Henryk, his bellow coalescing with the explosion in a roar of angry light.

For the second time in recent memory, Henryk awoke to the shock of cold and being partly underwater. The blast from the mine had torn chunks from the nearby columns and arches; water still swirled with dirt and further debris, but it was nothing worse than that. The roof held, the walls held.

Farren was screaming.

Coughing back the upsurge of dust in the air, Henryk half crawled, half staggered over to him. The major was on his back, thrashing in the water, a piece of shrapnel like a dagger lodged in his arm.

'Get it out,' he snarled, eyes white, a barricade of teeth filling his mouth.

'Hold still…' Henryk wrapped a piece of cloth torn from the shredded pack around the razor-edged shrapnel, and pulled. His fingers were shaking and he slipped on the first try, eliciting screams from the major that echoed dangerously. On the second attempt, it came loose, a spurt of blood jetting into the water, turning it red before diffusing into inky black.

Farren had to bite his hand to stop from crying out again, and teeth marks were visible in his flesh after he unclamped his jaw and let go. He looked even paler, if that was possible.

Henryk found another scrap of cloth and used it to tie off the wound. His hands shook as he did it, the ever-present palsy in his fingers forcing a frown across his brow.

'I thought you were a medic,' hissed Farren, deathly.

'I was a chirurgeon, but a Pacter tried to cut off my hand.' He held up the scar between his left thumb and forefinger to the dingy light. 'Nerve damage, they said. Couldn't do much by way of surgery after that. Corpsman was the next obvious route.'

'Demotion?'

Henryk's expression darkened. 'At first.'

He finished the bandage and helped Farren back to his feet.

'I'll see you reinstated,' promised the major.

Henryk paled, a soft shake of the head. 'I can't. I simply can't any more. I…'

'Then you'll advise. A man of your training shouldn't be a damn stitcher.' He gave a wan smile. 'Looks like you'd be a bloody poor one anyway.'

Henryk didn't answer. His ears pricked up instead and the sudden fear worming into his gut must have manifested on his face for Farren asked, 'What is it?'

He turned gravely to the major. 'I think someone heard us.'

Farren stared blankly, still dazed from pain.

'The Pact. They know we're down here.'

Faint at first, but if he listened hard enough Henryk could hear them. Voices like old knives on the breeze, eager and bloodthirsty.

Farren's jaw hardened. 'How far?'

'Let's go,' said Henryk, leading them off. 'Right now.'

A guttural cry reached out across the flat expanse of the reservoir. It had taken maybe an hour of stumbling and slipping before they had found them. Shots cut the air, shrieking jags of crimson, flashing against the water.

Henryk grabbed on to Farren and hurled the major around the side of a column, water spilling steam as it doused las-bolts meant for the Volpone. Farren was breathing hard, a dark stain blossoming on the bandage around his arm. Edged grey, he looked ready to collapse.

'Bastards! What do we do?' he breathed.

Another bolt whipped through the shadows, caroming off the side of the column and ripping up stone splinters. Henryk hissed as one lodged in his hand. Small but sharp like a pin. He swore, bit down. The knife in his hand fell like a poor substitute for those lascarbines cracking and fizzing lethal heat his way.

He thought about bolting. The next archway into the tunnel ahead wasn't far, but Farren wasn't running anywhere. He could barely stand. The reservoir looked ancient, deeper than the first cisterns, the ceiling vaulted. Statues looked down on them, huge and glowering, old robed servants too lowly for the upper world but forbidding all the same, despite the years of gentle erosion.

One of the statues, hooded and carrying a book on a long chain, was making the sign of the aquila.

'We'll have to fight,' Henryk said, pulling the knife close to his body and pressing his back against the column. 'Let them get close.'

Farren drew his short sword, taking three attempts to get it out of the scabbard. He held it low, the tip hovering above the water.

'How many, do you think?'

Henryk had caught the briefest glance before he knew their pursuers had found them. Following the sound of the explosion, hunting the screams that came after. Banking on the mines to slow the Pact down had been a false hope.

'At least two,' he said. 'Maybe more.' He glanced across to a second column parallel to their own, twenty feet between them.

Farren grasped Henryk's arm, his grip firm. 'Remember what I said.'

Henryk nodded. 'Hold here,' he said, and ran.

Las-beams chased him, slow and unready for his sudden appearance. A few seared close, singeing cloth and hair, but he made it well enough, heart pounding, breathing like an asthmatic. He readjusted the grip on his knife as he heard the Pacters close. His hand wasn't shaking now.

Confident of culling their prey, the cultists advanced heedlessly through the water, sloshing noisily. The dank of the underground couldn't hide their smell either, the odour of copper and old sweat reaching Henryk well before his assailant. So when the first Pacter rounded the column with savage abandon, Henryk had slipped away, crouching in the darkness, and sprang like a vengeful wraith at his attacker.

The knife went deep into the neck and he twisted it. Nothing fancy, just a quick kill: sever the carotid, yank out the blade. A second Pacter was already moving on the first and Henryk held the one whose throat he had slit like a shield, a dead weight like a sack of sand thrust forwards as a flurry of las-beams stabbed it relentlessly.

Farren threw himself at the second attacker, stumbling from cover and leaping at the surprised Pacter, who yelped as the short sword cut him. But the major was weak from his injuries and dislodged easily, sent sprawling in the murky water.

Henryk was already moving lifting the dead Pacter in his arms with a grunt of effort, his cheek touching the bloodstained iron of the man's grotesk charging with the body like a battering ram. Thudding into the second Pacter, who had only just flung off Farren, he bore the cultist to the ground. Both men collapsed, Volpone and corpse atop the cultist, the latter thrashing against the first. A serrated blade long enough to be considered a sword shimmered dully in the flickering firelight before frenziedly stabbing.

It made no difference to the first Pacter, his corpse already cooling. Henryk straddled his opponent, pinning the cultist's arms with his knees and jamming his knife in the mouth slit of the grotesk, forcing them down until they were submerged beneath the water. The masked head came up twice, spitting and frothing, Henryk's knife drawing blood as he sawed through rusty iron, but he thrust the Pacter back each time until the last time when the body thrashed, once, twice and was still.

He sagged, exhaustion and relief stealing his feverish strength, and heard the telltale whine of a lascarbine charging to fire. As he looked up to face his killer, it gave him no comfort to realise he had been right about there being more than two cultists.

Slighter than the others but no less savage in her patchwork armour and spiked helm, she held her weapon steady, the finger bones hanging off the stock swaying as she took aim. Farren was prone, agony written over his face. And anger. The Pact sirdar spat something in her rough dialect then suddenly spun back, a bright beam cutting into her shoulder. A second beam struck her in the chest and she fell face forward into the water.

The scent of ozone lingered, violence and urgency fading into the dulcet dripping of the reservoir. Henryk was still trying to figure what had happened when a handsome man calmly emerged from behind a column.

'Evening, gentlemen.'

Blond-haired, blue-eyed, he had the thick brow and heavy chin of the Volpone officer class, and wore a dented grey breastplate with one arm greave. A lasgun hung loosely in his grip, its killing work done. A dirty bandage wrapped around his head covered his left eye. Two other soldiers followed in his wake: one dark-eyed and sly-looking with an oversized helmet and a long-barrelled lasrifle; the other burly with a thick neck and bald head, his arm in a sling and burdened with a full backpack

'Are you lost, Henryk?' said the handsome man, staring down at Henryk, who felt his features tighten. He never thought he'd see Vandane again.

'I thought you were dead, sergeant.'

'Oh, I'm very much alive,' Vandane replied, something savage in the gleam of his eye. 'Greff…'

The sly-looking soldier advanced on Henryk in a blur, slamming the butt of the rifle into the side of his head, and everything went black.

Vandane watched Henryk across the flickering fire, crouched down like the others, his eye gleaming fiercely with reflected light. It was cold in the underground, colder now he was damp and wet, so he found a little begrudging gratitude for the fire. Henryk tensed at his bonds, but Greff had tied them tight around his wrists and he could barely move. Arms pinned behind his back, he jutted forwards, his gaze leaving one man only to alight on another.

The major scowled back at him, skin as pallid as a corpse, face etched in a perpetual grimace.

Vandane tossed an ammo pack into the fire, regaining Henryk's attention. The heat of the flames gave a little recharge, boosted longevity.

'So, what was the plan, doc?'

'I am not a medic any more,' Henryk replied. His hands began shaking, drumming insistently into his back.

'Is that right?' said Vandane archly, 'the way you cut up that lieutenant… well. Until you nicked him and he bled out.'

'I told you I shouldn't have operated on him. I couldn't with my damn hands…'

'Mind over matter, Henryk.' Vandane glanced at the major. Farren was trussed up too, but little threat. The man edged nearer to death with every strained intake of breath. His failed heroics against the Pacter in the reservoir had taken it out of him. 'Does he know what you are?' asked Vandane. 'Why you're here?'

Henryk didn't see but felt Farren's withering regard, deciding he'd faced enough accusation for one day.

'I'd say he does now.'

'Always trying to save everyone but never yourself.'

'Do no harm is every medic's code.'

'That didn't work out so well, did it?' said Vandane with a mocking wag of the finger. 'And you still haven't answered my question.'

'The sewers,' said Henryk. 'They branch west, towards the city's edge. If we can find an outflow…'

Vandane's face brightened, an ugly look on a venal man. 'Then we'll escape this hellhole. The army is camped west, we'll need to be careful.'

'And what then?'

Vandane let the question linger. He was thinking.

Greff had some smokes tucked in the band around his helmet and pulled one out to light it the bright flare of the matchstick drawing Henryk's attention. Henryk used to smoke. He found the tabac calming but was trying to be better, less reliant on drugs to stay level. He practically salivated at the brittle aroma, filling the space between his question and Vandane's reply.

'Then we do what we tried to do before Northald fragged it all up. Run. Find a ship, leave this bloody awful war behind. You're welcome to join us, Henryk. Not much left for you here.' Vandane's features had darkened, the shared pain of his comrades reflected in them. They darkened further. 'Not him, though.' He jabbed a thumb across the crackle of the fire. 'He stays.'

Farren was a stern officer, by the book. He had high standards but some of the vanity of the privileged. That put him at odds with a man like Vandane, who came from middle-tier aristocracy.

'Man has more portraits on his wall celebrating his own self-aggrandizement than the regimental priest has statues of the Emperor,' he remarked snidely.

'You're deserters,' accused Farren by way of retort, his voice a spare rasp. 'Dishonourable curs.'

Vandane turned his body to face him. 'Trying to be. And I saw no honour out on those battlefields, major. You're fooling yourself if you think there is.'

The major sneered, forcing a little steel back into his demeanour. 'What about the armour? Condemned men are stripped of the grey.'

'This old thing,' answered Vandane, showing off his battleplate, nonchalant. 'Let's call it a tactical resupply.'

'It's dead men's armour,' said Farren and swivelled his stablight gaze onto Henryk, simmering with indignation at the corpsman's betrayal. 'Even you?'

'I didn't murder its former owner.' It fell like a small compensation for what was still a dishonourable act.

Vandane went one better.

'Well, the man I took this from wasn't breathing when I pulled it off his body. Does that count?'

Henryk ignored him, focused on Farren. 'I tried to save him. Lieutenant Northald. I didn't know what they were doing, had done, until it was too late.'

'You killed a man,' snapped Farren, 'and abetted deserters into the bargain. I have no pity or leniency for the likes of you, trooper.'

Henryk didn't blame him; he hadn't said it in the hope of exculpation, but to assuage some of his guilt. He had accomplished neither.

Throne… the chaos of it all after they brought in Northald. Henryk knew, he knew what kind of men they were. He could have refused, could have fought, shouted for a guard patrol, but he had helped them. He had tried to save a man, and failed, condemning himself in the act.

A trial had followed, cursory, swift. Officers of the Prefectus, the ones who had caught them, presiding. Commissar Derova preparing to dispense justice, the muzzle of her pistol so hot from the first execution it seared Henryk's flesh. That had been Reyner, Vandane's old corporal and closest confidant. Farren observing too.

Then came the explosion. The Tower of Spears collapsed. Derova gone, most of the Prefectus storm troopers gone. Crushed to death. Pandemonium after that. He ran, firstly to avoid being crushed, then to avoid being shot. Everywhere, soldiers running. Then the ground gave way as secondary explosions rippled up from below and the drowned underworld beckoned…

'Northald should have kept to his own business,' said Vandane, dragging Henryk back to the present. 'He wasn't supposed to get hurt that badly, but Yenny has a temper when provoked and he really wanted to leave.'

The ox-necked Yenny smiled at the mention of his name, having been rummaging through the pack for rations and other supplies. He had laid out a belt of grenades, a few ammo clips for the lasguns, even a chainsword, which looked intact and definitely the former property of Commissar Derova. The spoils of a scavenger, a carrion feeder. Henryk imagined Vandane had taken great pleasure prising it from her dead hand.

'Have you nothing to say for yourselves?' said Farren, bitterness and anger lending him strength. And there was some of that pride, puffing up his chest. 'No remorse?' His eyes swept the group, stopping on Yenny.

'He doesn't speak, major,' Vandane replied. 'Bit off his longue when the bomb hit. Severed clean through like a piece of pork.'

As if on cue, Yenny opened his mouth to reveal the ruined red maw within. He looked unperturbed at his mutilation. Even savage.

They all were. Soldiers gone feral.

Farren said as much.

They ate largely in silence after that, apart from a few muttered asides, the rations shared between the sergeant and his conspirators. Farren soon faded again, his anger smouldering but its heat long spent. Henryk lowered his eyes, and listened to the fire, trying to smother his thoughts.

'This would be a lot easier if I had proper use of my hands,' griped Henryk. They had re-bound his wrists so they were in front of him, a compass cupped between his outstretched hands like a supplicant making an offering.

He supposed he was, in a way, an offering of his penance to the God-Emperor for safe passage out of the tunnels. Since dousing the fire and leaving the ashes behind, they had trawled through the dark confines beneath Beltane, stopping every hour or so when Greff thought he heard a sound or detected some sliver of movement in the shadows. The scout was nervous, a face beaded with sweat telling the story of his torments. They knew the Pact would send search parties as soon as the dead cultists had been found. Greff had complained several times of how they needed to 'up the pace' and that the major was slowing them down.

He wasn't wrong, Farren shuffled like a reanimated corpse, a ghost in an officer's uniform. Henryk had offered to carry him but Vandane wanted him out ahead. He had always had a good nose for direction and even with a compass to guide them, the tunnels were labyrinthine.

'You're doing just fine as you are, Henryk,' said Vandane from just behind him. He felt the sergeant's lascarbine at his back. The sergeant was a fine shot, and he took no chances. Greff roamed a little way in front, loitering at each junction for Henryk to give a new heading, the two men effectively bracketing him. Yenny acted as pack mule, taking up the rear, and as warden for Farren, who he shoved along with the flat of his hand if the major tarried.

They were a sorry group, filthy, ragged and desperate. Even Vandane's cocksure swagger had ebbed as the chances of getting out of the tunnels alive diminished.

'Why not let him go or end his suffering?' said Henryk, his voice low.

'I want him to suffer.'

'He will if he's left in these tunnels. Why bring him along at all?'

'I might still need him,' said Vandane. 'An Imperial officer, a major at that. He has currency. Even for the Pact.'

'Are you sure about that?'

'They're not as savage as we once assumed. What happened to the southern quarter is proof of that, if any was needed.'

'That doesn't negate the fact that they are still barbarians.'

'Granted, but let's put it this way - a man doesn't have to be the fastest to outrun a carnodon, just not the slowest.'

'So, you'd offer up Farren like a sacrifice. He was right. You have no honour, Vandane.'

'I'd hand him over, cut open like a stuck pig and lead the predators to the blood. It all ends the same way… A few more seconds of breathing time. It's remarkable what a man can accomplish with a few more seconds. And don't speak of honour to me. Where was Reyner's honour when he was shot in the damn head for wanting to live a little longer? And what about the other poor bastards, rotting in nameless towns and fields. Will they be honoured? No, they'll be fed into the machine, next in line for some lonely ditch on an arse-end world. Honour is a fiction, Henryk, created by our betters to keep us pliant. And if any man dare speak otherwise…' He mimed a gun being pressed to the side of his head.

'Anyway,' he said, after a pause, and lowered his voice, 'it doesn't much matter, we have to kill him regardless.'

'We?'

'Or I have to kill you both. Though I would prefer having a medic around, even a defective one.'

Henryk didn't answer but the compass trembled in his grip, and not from fear of death.

Twenty feet ahead, Greff had stopped. He raised a clenched fist and the others stopped too, Vandane silently relaying the order to Yenny, who damped a meaty hand on the major's shoulder to keep him still.

'Something up ahead…' he hissed in a fearful whisper. He shone a stablight and the beam fell across a piece of iron seemingly floating in the air about thirty or forty feet away, a strange glyph-like device.

'What in the hells is that?' Vandane mused to himself, then louder to Henryk, 'Suspension field, do you think? Something else?'

Henryk had heard stories, but nothing more than that, of ritualism and warp sorcery. The Pact had magisters, it was said. They courted dark powers. Gnostes had been contested for years, Agria just as long, before the Volpone had showed up expecting a swift victory. That had been a bold claim, in retrospect, given by General Deviers. We're the Royal Volpone, he had declared during a vox-cast address to the troops at the landing zones. The lord militant hasn't sent us to Gnostes to take part. He's sent us to win the war.

It was more than enough time for a few ghost stories to percolate amongst the ranks but Vandane didn't believe in the bogeyman. He was the bogeyman, feared and loathed in equal measure but always abiding the muzzle of a Prefectus pistol.

'I think it's something else,' said Henryk.

'Could be a trap, sergeant?' ventured Greff, from up ahead. He still hadn't budged an inch when he glanced over his shoulder at the others. 'Can you hear that?'

Like faint whispering or bad static. It made Henryk's teeth itch and he willingly sank to the rear of the party with Yenny and the major when Vandane stepped up.

Farren gave him a scything look as Henryk rejoined them, as deadly as any blade. 'You'll hang for this,' he said. 'All of you.'

'We have to live this out first.'

Yenny's face contorted into an ugly smirk and shoved Farren on.

Greff was edging forwards too, urged by Vandane. 'Emperor's mercy.' he complained, 'can't you feel that? It's like razor wire running over my head.'

Henryk felt a buzzing migraine-bright agony, and knew it must be worse for Greff. Vandane's teeth were gritted like a shield of ivory.

'We should turn back,' suggested Henryk. 'I can find us another path.'

'This is the damn path,' snapped Vandane, the mask slipping, 'and I give the orders.' He levelled his lascarbine, calling out to Greff. 'Whatever that bloody thing is, it's in our way. Shoot it.'

They opened fire together, a fusillade of blazing las-cracks, until the floating piece of iron was destroyed. The headaches ceased.

'Not so hard,' uttered Vandane, a thin smirk on his face that didn't quite land. He turned to Greff. 'Check it.'

The scout looked about to complain until Vandane aimed the lascarbine at him. He ran the fifty feet or so to the wreckage of the device, boots sloshing in the calf-deep water. When he reached it, what Henryk had assumed to be a piece of broken metal, above where the device had been suspended, unfolded from the ceiling like an arachnid from its web. It fell upon Greff, ensnaring him with segmented metal limbs, an infernal flame blazing between the joints. He fired once, twice, and then he couldn't stop screaming.

The limbs were blades, slashing up and down, raining blood, culling Greff apart like a piece of meal in a thresher. Henryk backed away, limbs moving of their own volition, but couldn't take his eyes off the creature, a many-legged scrap-metal monstrosity held together by wire and bits of bone, swathed in patches of old leather and cloth. That black furnace heat burned in its every joint and orifice, animating it.

'Kill it!' roared Farren in a strangled rasp.

Vandane was pale as ice, clinging to his resolve as he watched Greff dying and thrashing in the monster's embrace. His voice, when it finally came, was a tomb-dry rasp. 'There's no killing that thing.' He called out 'Yenny…'

The ox-necked trooper barged forwards, face blanched to the colour of alabaster, but holding the belt of grenades.

Henryk found his voice too, plucking it from the ocean slowly drowning him. 'What are you doing?'

Vandane flashed him a glance, something like madness in his eye.

'Bringing the damn roof down on it.'

'You could take out the entire tunnel, and drown us into the bargain, if we're not crushed to death first!'

'I'll take our chances.'

Henryk proffered his wrists, still clutching the compass like it was some talisman that could ward off evil. 'Then at least cut our bonds. How can we swim if we're bound?'

Vandane didn't hesitate. 'Clever man like you, Henryk. You'll find a way.'

The creature was almost done with Greff, who resembled little more than offal at this point, and Henryk made to shout but Yenny had already primed the grenades and hurled the belt.

Henryk only had enough time to throw his body over Farren as the explosion tore the tunnel apart. A deafening crescendo of splitting rock and fire filled the tight space. Between glimpses of bright hot light, he thought he saw the ceiling cave in but that wasn't the only breach as a wall collapsed too, releasing a ferocious torrent of grimy water. Henryk clung to Farren's belt as the surge pushed them against the standing wall then hauled them as it reflowed. Henryk had no choice but to submit, sputtering for breath, flashes of iron and grey as the tunnel walls rushed past in a flood, white water roaring in his ears. He felt his body lurch, the ground suddenly falling away and his grip on the major's belt failing as he grasped only air. A heavy splash, a few moments of panicked submersion and Henryk rose to the surface of a dank and foul-smelling reservoir, battered but alive.

It took him a few moments to regain his senses. Lumbering to his feet, Henryk realised they were in the sewers. The air was thick and noisome, and he grimaced at the stench, trying not to think about the foulness clinging to his clothes, his skin, his hair. He shut his mind off to it, fighting the urge to vomit, and cast around the large chamber for the major.

Yenny had survived. He looked exhausted, hurling up his guts, coughing out reams of ingested filth. The pack dangled off his arm, though he seemed not to notice, and he had lost the sling but didn't appear troubled. Worse things to worry about now.

'Farren?' Henryk called out, but Yenny shook his head, threw up some more.

He saw him, lying on his side in the sewer filth, half his face covered by the stinking water. Slogging through the pool of filth, Henryk turned the major over and managed to prop him against the wall.

Not breathing… He couldn't do much with his hands tied.

Catching sight of a length of rebar jutting from a piece of the debris, Henryk waded over and was about to cut through his bonds when he felt cold metal pressed against his temple.

'No funny ideas, Henryk.'

Vandane had survived too.

'Then cut me loose, so I can save him.'

'Now why would I want that?'

'Leverage, a diversion, your bloody conscience, man! I'm more useful to you with both arms against that thing.'

'That thing isn't coming back.'

'You and I both know that isn't true. Now cut me loose.'

Vandane hesitated then released the gun from Henryk's head.

It took a few seconds to saw through his bonds then he was dragging Farren out of the filth, heaving him bodily onto a walkway alongside the river of shit, all the while Vandane looking on.

He pumped Farren's chest. On the fourth try, Farren came back around, spewing up all the filth in his lungs, breathing again. Alive.

Henryk sagged, bone-tired, though his hands didn't tremble.

As Farren came to properly, he opened his eyes. For the briefest moment, his anger ebbed when he saw Henryk and realised what the ex-medic had done, he gave a curt nod of gratitude and then fell back, exhausted.

'Now we know…' breathed Henryk, trying to marshal his strength.

Vandane was wading over to Yenny, belatedly checking on his pack mule. 'Know what?'

'Why they didn't send any more Pacters. That thing is a K-weapon, designation 'wirewolf'. I've seen it on the briefings. So have you, Vandane.'

The sergeant shook his head as he helped Yenny across the foetid pool and to the edge of the walkway where Henryk sat with Farren.

'Doesn't matter if it is, or isn't. Yenny buried it.'

He climbed onto the walkway, and started to check his kit.

'Think you can still get us out?' he asked Henryk, then said to Yenny, 'Leave the pack, take only what you can carry. We travel light, fast.'

Henryk still had the compass, his fist clenched around it as he had ridden the white water.

Now they had stopped and Farren was out of immediate danger, he took stock of their surroundings.

They had arrived at some kind of conduit for the sewer drains, a shallow basin where all the filth collected to then be redistributed around the system. It had three exits, including the pipe that had dumped them here. Of the other two, one went east, back into the city, and the other west. Henryk noticed an old portcullis gate above both the east and west egress, raised and chained in place. A forgotten mechanism, half rusted and designed to lock off the tunnels in case of enemy infiltration. A pity the Militarum surveyors had not paid more attention to the city's old workings.

Henryk gestured to the west exit, back across the foetid pool.

'That way… West gets us out of the city.'

Vandane was getting ready to pack up and ship out and Henryk subconsciously edged his body between the sergeant and Farren.

Vandane checked the slide ejector on his lasgun. The charge was good. 'I think time's up, don't you?'

Henryk clenched his fists, unarmed, three feet between them. It might as well have been a mile.

'Don't do it. Forget about honour, think of the mark on your soul, Vandane.'

'I have no use for either,' the sergeant replied, raising the weapon to fire. 'I'll cut you down first then him, if you force me to.'

Then Yenny yanked the pilfered chainsword from the pack, ripped it from its straps and gazed up at the pipe like a hound that had suddenly caught a scent.

Vandane must have felt it too, because he turned and aimed his lasgun at the darkness in the maw of that pipe, where a gentle scratching of metal against stone echoed. He murmured under his breath. Henryk didn't catch the words, but they sounded like a prayer. Or a curse.

'Give me a weapon,' he said urgently, flicking a glance at the west exit, which was only a few feet away.

The scratching grew louder, like an arachnid climbing through the pipe. It put Henryk in mind of an old wet-nurse's rhyme sung to Volpone children, the mind conjuring nonsense like a barrier against abject terror.

Old blood and spoiled meat stink suddenly filled the air, overwhelming the sewer reek, one corruption overpowering the other.

Vandane was backing away even as Yenny stepped forwards, the chainsword clenched in a firm grip.

'A weapon. Vandane. Now,' Henryk hissed, knowing no blade or gun they possessed could kill this enemy but at least he would die fighting.

'It's not possible. That was an entire belt of grenades…' the sergeant breathed.

'A pistol, anything.'

Vandane pulled Henryk's knife from his belt, the one he had taken from him when they had first been reunited.

'You can have this,' he said with a backwards glance.

'It's all I need,' muttered Henryk, and something in his voice made Vandane turn again, the lascarbine swinging around in his grasp.

Henryk slashed the knife against his arm, severing tendons, then swept it low, taking out a leg. Vandane collapsed into the water with a grunt, eyes wide and uncomprehending at first. Wondering what had happened to his lasgun, and realising slowly it had sunk into the mire of filth surrounding him.

Keeping the knife between himself and his prey, Henryk backed off. Yenny was oblivious, and had begun stripping off his trappings, all the way down to his vest and breeches, the chainsword held two-handed like a religious icon. The engine spluttered as he gunned it, died then turned over. Savage teeth whirred in a blur of angry metal.

A condemned man strode willingly to his fate as the wirewolf emerged almost tentatively into the light. An indescribable thing, a machination of a diseased mind given form.

Henryk had picked up Farren, slung him bodily over his shoulder like a grain sack.

'You bastard,' snarled Vandane, fishing around in the murk for his weapon, a tremor in his voice that hadn't been there before.

'You don't have to be the fastest to outrun the carnodon,' Henryk replied, passing under the portcullis arch, 'just not the slowest. A few more seconds of breathing time. It's remarkable what a man can accomplish with a few more seconds.' He smashed the chain, the links well rusted, and the gate crashed down between them. In the background Yenny advanced towards the monster as it unfolded its many-bladed arms to receive him. Vandane snatched up the lasgun, filth sluicing from its stock and barrel. He fired, bright bolts lashing the portcullis gate but none getting through. Then, as if remembering his plight, he turned awkwardly and raised the weapon in his offhand.

Henryk backed away a few more feet before he turned and ploughed into the shadows beyond.

A few moments later, he heard a wordless scream, the kind a man who was missing his tongue might make. A long, ululating almost bestial sound, primordial in its terror. Then a flurry of las-blasts, shrill and forbiddingly ephemeral. Six shots, one after the other, as Henryk hoofed down a narrow tunnel, deeper and deeper into the foulness. A pause in the las-barrage, before one final quick report. Then nothing.

He carried on, wading ever further, pressing west, trying not to breathe, to think, to comprehend. Just driving on, into the dark, hoping the devils of Old Night weren't coming for them. The last sound he heard was Farren, a croaked rasp in his ear, 'I misjudged you…' before he fell unconscious

The tunnel wound on and after another few hours, though time had ceased to have meaning by that point, Henryk emerged into a wider space and the blessed oval light of the outflow. Sick to his stomach, his puke befouling the front of his armour where he hadn't been able to stop it, a bone-weary tiredness threatening to fell him where he stood, Henryk wept.

He didn't know what to expect. His hands had stopped shaking over a week ago. In truth, they had stopped in the tunnels, his experiences overwriting whatever psychosomatic programming had been afflicting him. Henryk stood in the corridor outside the major's office. Beltane went on, the city still contested, but reinforcements were inbound and it was rumoured Horator Deviers himself would be taking charge of the siege. He had dressed appropriately in a freshly pressed and cleaned uniform, its brass buttons gleaming. Ominously perhaps, not in the 'grey'. His armour remained in his billet. He had shaved, and smelled a damn sight better than he had several days ago.

A subaltern in sharp Volpone attire appeared at the door to the major's office, a hefty-looking synth-wood affair, beautifully engraved with the gryfon rampant.

'He is ready for you now.'

Henryk nodded, saluting the other man, who returned the gesture and stepped aside to admit him.

A plush, well-appointed room wrapped itself around him with warm russet hues and the smell of actual wood. Farren stood in the middle, his back to Henryk, admiring a gallery of paintings on a panelled wall of red-oak. A fire crackled in a stone hearth, the effect dulling but not unpleasant.

'A far cry from the sewers, eh?'

'It is, sir,' said Henryk, half expecting an execution squad to emerge from the shadows at any moment, but the two men were alone as he stepped up to greet the major. 'May I say, you are looking well rested.'

Farren turned sharply. 'I am haggard, cut and bruised to the hells and back.' He tapped his leg, and a dull metal echo came back. 'Seems to be all the rage amongst the officers,' he remarked drily. 'Can't say it doesn't ache like the Nine Devils though.' He smiled, but Henryk saw the pain through his levity. 'At least I am alive.'

Something else lurked in his eyes too, that telltale look that spoke to scars that went beyond the flesh. As a former medic, Henryk knew some breaks could never be mended.

'I am reinstating your medicae credentials,' said Farren, 'and expunging your Militarum record of any accusation or black mark.'

Henryk opened his mouth but no reply came out. Moistening his lips, he tried again.

'Sir, I have to say I am surprised, but extremely grateful. I had thought… well, I don't know what I had thought.'

'That I would pick things up where we left off in Odivere Plaza?'

'Frankly, yes, sir. Exactly that.'

'Then perhaps we've both earned a reprieve.'

Henryk agreed with the sentiment but didn't answer. Instead his gaze was drawn to the gallery as the major's attention turned from him to it.

A dozen or so beautifully rendered oil paintings flickered sumptuously in firelight that fell upon scenes of great victories and heroic moments. Not of Farren, as Vandane had claimed, but all Volpone. A soldier with a banner upraised, the gryfon rampant rippling proudly. A grand charge of Bluebloods across a desert plain, swords and voices raised. A portrait of a famous Volpone general standing upon the chassis of a tank, holding forth to the stoic troops below.

One caught Henryk's eye. It looked fresher than the rest, its place at odds with the others as if it had just been added, the frame newer, the oil pigment a little brighter.

'Is that supposed to be…?'

Farren cleared his throat. 'Vandane was both wrong and right about honour being a fiction.'

'I didn't realise you had heard that, sir.'

'I have good ears, and a better memory. This,' - he gestured to the painting - 'is fiction. It's necessary. Prestige matters. Appearance matters. It wins hearts, gives me courage. Something to believe in, aspire to. Vandane never appreciated that.'

The painting was of Henryk, albeit a somewhat more heroic and exaggerated version of him. A sword in hand, pistol in the other. Such glory in his defiance. He had an officer with him, steering the other man by his arm as he also fought with blade drawn. Farren, of course. Both war-torn, but dramatically so, emerging through reams of razor wire, across the blasted cityscape of Beltane.

Almost back to back, they were shooting their way through the enemy, Blood Pact falling around them in droves. No sewers, no filth and shit, no desperate murder or the fear of death.

'Honour isn't always clean, out here it's often blood,' said the major, turning to face him, turning away from the propaganda on his wall. 'It's wading through filth. It's standing in the face of horror. It's risking your life to save a man who would almost certainly have taken yours. That sort of thing is seldom pretty or worthy of a song but we know differently, don't we?'

Henryk nodded, transfixed by the lie but understanding its necessity.

'Yes, sir. I believe we do.'

INTRODUCTION

by Dan Abnett

Volpone Glory Limited Edition

When are the bad guys not the bad guys? Well, sometimes, it depends on where you're standing.

When I started writing the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, I began creating other Astra Militarum regiments to operate alongside them, mainly to illustrate the wild variety of the Emperor's Own Imperial Guard. Some units were just 'there', side by side with the Ghosts or in the same theatre of operations, while others, like the Pardus, the Narmenians and the noble Vitrians, became friends and proper allies.

And some - and I'm not ashamed to admit it - were created to be rivals. To be adversaries. To be, quite simply, the bad guys. Not all Imperial Guard units are created equal, and some come with their own agendas, or chips on their shoulders, or have been beguiled, willingly or otherwise, into less than honourable activities. Not everybody gets along in the Astra Militarum, and sometimes, for the sake of story and variation, it's fun to have the 'enemy' on the wrong side… i.e. yours.

This was the case with the Jantine Patricians, and it was definitely the case with the Royal Volpone, the so-called 'Bluebloods', especially their celebrated 50th regiment.

Like the Jantine, the Volpone were aristocratic and haughty. They were proud and overbearing. They came from privileged worlds and sported the very finest equipment and weapons. They were obnoxious, boorish and unbearable. They looked down their noses at everybody, considered no one worthy enough to lick their boots, and generally treated other regiments as peasant scum, particularly the rough-and-ready Ghosts of Tanith.

I made them that way deliberately and without much subtlety. The Volpone were simply odious, highborn arseholes, established with the explicit purpose of making the reader hate them. They were the bullies, the rich-kid frat-boys, the suave thugs, the Iceman to Gaunt's Maverick, the Elves to the Tanith's Halflings, the Slytherin… you get die idea.

The Volpone filled that role effortlessly. Sneering and regal, they treated everyone, but mostly the Tanith, like dirt, and acted like they were the God-Emperor's gift. And they weren't just overly proud soldiers: the Volpone were downright snakes. What with certain 'accidental' friendly fire incidents, conspicuous black-heartedness, and siding with the notorious traitor General Sturm, they were your actual boo-hiss villains, and everyone was frankly delighted when they got their comeuppance. (Side note - on reflection, I think it's interesting that the two 'bad' regiments I built, the Jantine and the Volpone, were both aristo and privileged. That happened so easily, so effortlessly, so automatically, it probably says a lot about the good old British class system. Or me. Or both.)

Later on, several Gaunt novels in, we started producing Sabbat Crusade anthologies where other writers were invited to play in the Gaunt's Ghosts sandpit. These writers were encouraged to pick the bits of Sabbat Crusade continuity that most appealed to or interested them, and run with them. This has led to three volumes (so far) of terrific short stories, which I encourage you to seek out and read.

So I was very surprised when Nick Kyme, my friend and long-standing co-collaborator on all things 40K, announced that he fancied taking a swing at the Bluebloods. I thought he meant smack them about a bit, but no. He wanted to make them the focus of a story. I wasn't sure how that would work. Though the Volpone were interesting and colourful, I had devised them with little nuance. There was very little to like about them. Would we be rooting for the bad guys?

Nick's approach was the steady and thoughtful strategy of an editor, well versed in managing and balancing the sweep of broadscale continuity. He argued, reasonably, that the Volpone couldn't be bad guys through and through. They were a legitimate Astra Militarum regiment, with a long and illustrious war record. If they were all irredeemably villainous, the Prefectus would have probably shut them down years ago, with high-velocity prejudice, for being a threat to the stability and honour of the Imperial Guard. Yes, there were definitely some bad apples (I'm looking at you, Colonel Gizhaum Danver De Banzi Haight Gilbear), and some absolute fethbags who needed to be weeded out, but the regiment itself had to be fundamentally sound and decent.

Nick wanted to write about these 'other' Volpone, the ones who were okay really, the ones we didn't want to punch in the mouth with a chainfist for simply existing. I figured this might be a good idea, if he could pull it off. It would offer some much needed depth and dimension to a regiment that had been, until then, a bunch of snobby, cardboard, moustache-twiddling arsehats.

What Nick did, and I applaud him for it, was to make them the heroes of their story. We got to sympathise with them, root for them and see that they were, when all was said and done, just soldiers too: playing their part, doing their best, being brave and loyal and courageous. But the clever part was, he didn't alter their character.

Nick's Blueblood stories are not about some 'nice' Volpone. They are not about a few 'actually quite decent' guys in the regiment that we'd never seen previously, a refreshing contrast to the utter blowhards the Ghosts had encountered. Nick's Volpone are very much cut from the same cloth as Gilbear: they are superior, they are arrogant, they do come from a very privileged background, and they are blithely unaware of how spoiled and advantaged they are. They have the same regal bearing, the same prejudices, and they enjoy the same gorgeous high-spec weapons and wargear (take a look at their entry in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade background book to get an idea of the ridiculously ornate and luxurious kit they have access to).

I loved Nick's take on them in that first short story, and I have enjoyed his development of them since then, especially through characters like the noble Regara and the stalwart Culcis. Now, at long last, we get a feature-length outing with them, a full novel, set firmly in the bloody mayhem of Sabbat Crusade continuity.

I think it's a tremendous book. It explores, in some really interesting ways, the ultra-stratified hierarchy of Volpone society, and it succeeds because it shifts our viewpoint as readers. We are no longer looking up at, and despising, their aristocratic faces from the point of view of the plucky common lasmen in the mud at their feet. We are up there beside them, alongside them, immersed in their activities and traditions, seeing the galaxy from their perspective. Their culture, while as silver-spooned as ever, now makes sense because it is set in context. We see them struggle and seek to achieve, we see them fight and act with courage, we see them die for noble rather than ignoble reasons.

Volpone Glory is something of a powerhouse, and immensely entertaining. It shows us the brutal struggle of the Sabbat Crusade from an entirely new angle. It adds a dimension to something that was previously a flat caricature. More than anything, it fills out the world, as all good 40K fiction should, putting meat on bones and creating fascinating complexity, showing us that there's more to everything in the Warhammer 40,000 universe than first appears. Detail, flavour, colour, lore and unexpected depth are the things that make 40K so compelling, the idea that there's always more to find out, or more to develop. That's the core of the hobby, after all, the whole point of building and inventing your own army: the joy of a deep and rich dive into a particular faction to fill out their finer details. Warts (or should I say beauty spots?) and all.

All of that is here in abundance, and expertly handled. I tore through this book in very short order, and relished every minute of it. I think you will too.

I think, maybe, I even like the Volpone now. Kinda. They're… okay. They're impressive. They're worthy of honour (except you, Gilbear). I wonder how they'll get along with the Ghosts, next time they meet? Who knows, maybe they'll be friends?

Maybe not. Old wounds, and all that.

But make no mistake, the Volpone are heroes. Some of them. The ones in this book, may the Emperor protect them, anyway. They're not cartoon bad guys, they are loyal warriors of the Throne, no matter where you're standing.

But they probably think you're scum. Hey, privilege has its privileges. No one ever said this universe was fair.

Dan Abnett

Maidstone

January 2021

AFTERWORD

Volpone Glory Limited Edition

Like most writers I know, I have a bucket list. That is to say, the series or franchises (or characters) I've always wanted to write about professionally - and I say 'professionally' because there's nothing stopping me or you or anyone else from wilting about any character or in any franchise and nothing wrong with that either.

But yes, I have a list. I'm very lucky to have ticked off several items on that list but one of the big ones (aside from the Horus Heresy, of course) was to write a novel set in the Sabbat Crusade. That is the wonderful 'Daniverse', and inhabited by none other than Gaunt and his Ghosts.

It was actually First and Only - the first book, but thankfully not the only, set in the Sabbat Crusade - where I got my first glimpse of what 40K fiction could be like. To the surprise of no one reading this afterword, I loved it. I still do. It holds up as an exemplar of the best in 40K military science fiction and Dan Abnett, the author, is a master of his craft. Naturally then, ever since my first foray into the Sabbat Worlds, I'd always wanted to write a novel in this setting.

I actually first met Dan over fifteen years ago. Back then I was working for White Dwarf magazine as a journalist and we were doing a piece celebrating his many achievements with Black Library. I still have fond memories of that interview (I was extremely nervous but held it together well enough to write a decent article - and Guy Haley was my boss, believe it or not. Small world and all that!). Fast forward fifteen years (or so…) and Dan and I are working together as author and editor, and have done for most of those years. It's incredible to think that someone I had held in such awe (and still do, to be honest) is now a firm friend and collaborator. What wonderful turns and twists life can take.

It was through Dan, and by his blessing, that I was able to write two short stories featuring the eponymous Volpone Bluebloods of the novel you hold in your hands. Those stories, called 'Blueblood' and 'Tempest', featured in the anthologies Sabbat Worlds and Sabbat Crusade respectively and were to be the start of a journey for me, the continuation of which is Volpone Glory. It's a story I've had stuck in my head for years, I mean years, before I'd even really considered the possibility of the Bluebloods being the protagonists. Back then, it was just an idea, something nascent in my brain that I wanted to write. The Volpone part of the equation came later, partly fuelled by those two aforementioned short stories, and through them the cast that would drive the plot I'd been nurturing for such a long time. And even then, even when I knew what my idea was, it still took another four years for it to become a reality. Dan was very gracious, of course, and I have a lot to thank him for (and do), as well as my editor, Kate Hamer, who saw the potential in this book and the characters in it, and guided it through the sometimes choppy waters of the acquisitions process. Hurdles jumped, flaming hoops leapt through, I was underway on Volpone Glory.

I think I always imagined the Volpone Bluebloods as having a bigger role than they actually do in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels: they appear a lot in the third book of The Founding arc, Necropolis, and show up in the earlier anthology novel Ghostmaker, but beyond that aren't really a regular fixture. They are the archetypal aristocratic bastards. The villains, for want of a better word. And that's certainly true in those books but they had always struck me as interesting, a privileged, flawed (yet noble) regiment, and therefore worthy of exploration. I used the short stories as a kind of primer to feel my way around the Bluebloods and their various characters. Could they be more than the bastards they had been cast as? The answer was yes, and so then came the novel. Through it, I wanted to take a deep dive into what it meant to be Volpone, how that privilege and excellence drives them (how it haunts them too), and add some dimension to expand the paradigm beyond them being the villains of the piece. Now, don't get me wrong, there are bastards in this book (I'm looking at you, Shiller), and the idea and origin of the Bluebloods is very much preserved, but we also get to see the world and the war through their eyes.

It surprised me how the characters evolved, what they wanted, how they saw the world. I hope it has surprised you too.

I really have to thank Dan (again) for allowing me to write this book, but it's more than that. He encouraged me every step of the way, answered my annoying queries and suggestions, and let me play with some of the wonderful texture and regiments of the Sabbat Worlds. I took that trust very seriously, careful to remain true to the spirit and flavour of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels that had so inspired me when I was growing up.

I also want to express my sincere gratitude to Aaron Dembski-Bowden, another talented author, who I am fortunate to also consider a friend, for reading the first draft and letting me talk at length about my ideas and thoughts. His encouragement and regular feedback kept me going during the rough patches.

To finally see a novel you've had bubbling away inside you realised in print is a special feeling. To write a novel set in the Sabbat Crusade is a rare privilege and one only a few authors can claim. I am honoured to be on that list and delighted that I get to share it with all of you.

Nick Kyme

Nottingham

February 2021

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Old Earth, Deathfire, Vulkan Lives and Sons of the Forge, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio dramas Red-Marked, Censure and Nightfane. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, as well as the Cato Sicarius novels Damnos and Knights of Macragge. His work for Age of Sigmar includes the short story ‘Borne by the Storm’, included in the novel War Storm, and the audio drama The Imprecations of Daemons. He has also written the Warhammer Horror novel Sepulturum. He lives and works in Nottingham

An extract from Volpone Glory .

If he wanted to live, Darian knew he should take the pistol. The dead man had no use for it, but the lowborn were not permitted to bear arms. They would likely hang him for taking it. Or whip him to death. He’d seen a man take five hundred lashes before finally expiring. Darian didn’t want to die like that. He didn’t want to die at all.

But death was coming all the same. And it wore a devil’s face.

Maybe he could hide it, wedge it beneath the belt. He might need it. In a last-ditch moment of desperation, a pistol would be useful. The east flank had collapsed. That was the word rushing down the line like a sea of hellfire. Panic rode its waves.

The earth shook again, spilling clods of dirt into the trench as the barrage pounded the Ankish line and the air grew thicker with aerosolised blood and soil. It was like pitching through fog, only adhesive, and it caked the body like a second skin. A heavy cannonade answered the barrage, drumming in staccato. Our guns, their bombers. An impasse about to be overcome. Our forces would prevail, they had said, those men in the finely tailored uniforms with metal clinging to their chests like it was any sort of guarantee.

The blood cults were coming, this much Darian knew. Just like he knew he should take that Throne-damned pistol and put it to use. The enemy had broken the flank and soon the line would be overrun. He might be very glad of a lasgun then.

Darian regarded the weapon clutched in a dead hand and the blank-eyed officer with half his face missing. The gun remained, but he could not. He hefted the belt of canteens across his shoulder and trudged on.

It had been a decent trek back to town and from there a return to the trench, its long and winding course like an arterial vein poised to be severed. Darian passed the burnt-out shells of tanks in the mustard camo of the Pardus Armoured, slumped like lonely metal bunkers, distant islands in the fog, eerily still and inert. A Ministorum priest murmured solemn words over a row of quiet men lying on their backs, seemingly unconcerned with what was coming. A band of Tunnel-Rats in dirty ochre fatigues and bucket-shaped helmets ran the other way. They were grinning. Darian looked back despairingly as he watched them disappear into the fog. He hastily made the sign of the aquila to the priest to show that he was pious and hurried on.

As he worked his way deeper into the trench network he passed other men: some in the rugged drab of the Diggers, others in plainer uniforms wearing the caducei of medics. A second platoon in ragged forest green came his way, stern-faced and swarthy. Darian didn’t recognise the regiment as they trailed past, headed towards the sounds of a distant skirmish. There were so many auxiliaries, reduced to bits and pieces in an ill-fitting puzzle. He saw spotters and riflemen, a few crew-served heavy stubbers and missile tubes, a voxman tinkering with a boxy comms unit but eliciting only static. As the bombardment persisted and the guns answered, most of the troopers with more mediocre weapons hunkered down. And waited.

Few paid Darian any heed. As a mil-serve, he was largely beneath their notice, a servant and a non-combatant. Most didn’t understand his purpose but no one reached for his canteens, they all knew not to do that. His cargo wasn’t for them; even the burly Diggers, fearsome and headstrong as they were, knew the pecking order. And the Bluebloods sat at the top. The ‘bastard’ Royal Volpone.

They didn’t stir as Darian entered the Volpone part of the trench, not the sentries who had been posted there should the enemy get this far into the trench, nor the ranks who kept their hooded eyes forwards, waiting for something to materialise out of the fog. Standing in line, their finely made laslocks gleaming, their grey uniforms pressed and nigh-pristine, their fine armour and iconography shining – what proud popinjays they were. But rigidly focused. No casual chatter here, or fatalistic camaraderie.

Darian kept his eyes down nonetheless.

The trench opened out, chambers breaking up the labyrinthine monotony, the edges reinforced with additional steel revetments and flakboard. It delineated the entire southern edge of Lodden, the fortified town they had occupied for the last six months. Several firing holes had been cored out, tripod-mounted heavy bolters sitting snugly within. All Praxis-pattern, well made. Three more gunnery nests were in process. Diggers hacked at them with shovels and picks, dark sweat patches under their armpits like old bloodstains. The Volpone watched but did not participate. Menial work was not for the Bluebloods, though a few of the sergeants congratulated the Diggers on the quality of their labour and had stronger drink brought down the line to them.

A phonograph was playing, the sound tinny and the needle scratching. The rousing strains of ‘Volpone, On To Glory’ led Darian to the officers’ bunker where some of his lords had amassed.

An ornate electro-sconce hung over the room, swaying as motes of dirt spiralled from the ceiling like dying moths. The light flickered, illuminating a map table, three chairs and several charts affixed to the wall. A sweaty-faced adjutant was pulling files from a cabinet and stuffing them hastily into a large pack. Another mil-serve stood nearby, ready to receive it. Lenna. She gave Darian a quick smile and he felt warmer despite the chill air, returning the smile when he thought the officers weren’t looking.

The officers stood together. There were three of them surrounding a vox, listening intently to a scratchy broadcast. A cadre of silent adjutants attended them. All had grim faces.

‘It’s done then,’ uttered one as the broadcast concluded, leaning across the map table to switch off the vox. ‘We’re giving up the town. We’ve lost the guns.’

Fair-haired like many amongst the Volpone, with a sharp nose and clear grey eyes, he was the youngest of the three and the least scarred. A lieutenant called Armand Culcis. He had a strong bloodline, and a good family history. Fourth generation Blueblood. His family were amongst the middling nobles of the Volpone aristocracy, hence his officer’s rank.

Darian knew the history of all of the officers in the 50th. Not an insignificant number, but it was wise for a vassal to know his kings and which of them he should be wary of.

‘Shitting hells,’ Shiller growled, and started pacing. ‘I need a damn drink…’

A slab of a man, Isaac Shiller had the hooded eyes common to the Volpone aristocracy, with shoulders like the bulwarks of a fortress and a red beard that framed a portcullis of a mouth. Shiller was sixth generation, a captain, and from a long line of high-ranking military men. He had lofty aspirations, but bad habits.

As he paced, Shiller looked up and caught sight of Darian. His expression changed from disconsolation to annoyance.

‘Ah, you’re here at last. Just in time for our disgrace.’ Shiller glared, taking in Darian’s dishevelled appearance. ‘And look at the state of you. A bloody shambles. I should have you reprimanded.’

Darian murmured apologies into his dirt-caked boots as he gave a canteen to the red-haired officer. Shiller took a swig, swallowed and then scowled.

‘What’s this piss?’ he snapped, and tossed the canteen back at Darian, who caught it. This only irritated Shiller all the more. ‘Give me spice wine, you useless deg.’

In the background, Lenna looked afraid. She had been on the receiving end of Shiller’s temper before. Darian raised his hand surreptitiously to signal it was all right.

A bomb hit close, shivering the walls, and sent a decanter crashing. Glass shattered. Shiller swore. He was still righting himself when Darian offered the wine.

‘Fegging deg…’ Shiller spat, his gaze like a lance thrust.

Culcis interjected. ‘Is that strictly necessary, captain?’

Turning his ire on the lieutenant, Shiller looked about ready to unleash another barrage when the third officer, Major Regara, took an interest. He had been reviewing the map table intently, lost in thought, stoically bracing himself against its sides when the room shook.

‘Decorum, Captain Shiller,’ he warned, and glanced at the canteen. ‘And also a modicum of restraint. If that explosion and the snap-fire I can hear not so far away is any indication, our withdrawal is imminent. I need you sober. I’ll have good order when we leave.’

Shiller cooled immediately, his respect for the major ingrained. Some of the colour returned to Lenna’s cheeks.

‘Of course, sir.’

Where Shiller was thick, Regara was trim and sharp as a knife-edge, with greying hair that made him look distinguished rather than old. He also wore fine armour and carried an artisan sabre. His left leg was a chrome-plated bionic. Darian didn’t know how Regara had lost it, possibly the same war that gave him the scar across his face. Vasquez Regara was thirteenth generation and could trace his lineage back to the Macharian Crusade. Upper-tier nobility.

‘And give that man a drink, will you,’ he snapped, turning his attention back to the map table. ‘He looks like he’s run ten miles.’

Darian blinked.

‘Well, go on then,’ urged Shiller when Darian didn’t immediately partake. ‘Take a pull. Of the water, mind you. Can’t have the degs rolling around drunk now, can we.’

The word ‘deg’ meant ‘degraded’ and was a slur some of the officer class used to describe the mil-serves. It was frowned upon, but had yet to be stamped out. Darian declined with good grace, though he was parched as a dry desert wadi.

‘Suit yourself,’ said Shiller with an irked glare and drained the wine, supping it like milk from his mother’s teat.

Culcis stepped into Regara’s eyeline. ‘Sir… what is our course of action here?’

Regara took a calming breath. A vein pulsed in his neck. ‘We have no choice. This position has become untenable.’

‘We’ll reoccupy the town,’ said Shiller, the Blueblood in him reluctant to accept defeat.

‘They’re in the bloody town, captain. All over it. We have to withdraw from Lodden entirely and retreat, as per Voke’s order, to marker nine.’

‘That’s Ankishburg, sir,’ Culcis interjected.

‘I know where it bloody well is, lieutenant. Marker nine,’ he repeated. ‘Platoons to fall back along the town outskirts. Keep them in staggered formation and do it by degrees.’ He muttered an expletive. ‘Stretched across the length of the damn map… And have the Agrians mine the trenches. I want the damned Archonate writhing in blood and earth when they retake it.’

‘And the guns, sir?’

‘Can they be spiked? Do we have time for that?’

‘The magos reports that we can wreck the turning mechanism and limit their function, but that’s all.’

Regara swore under his breath again, then said, ‘Have the Martian do it. We don’t really have authority to destroy them anyway, or the time to seek approval. I want us long gone before the Pact get them facing in our direction. Shiller, you’ve got Lance and Shield Company, the second and third auxiliaries and the Pavis. Have the tanks maintain a barrage for the rank and file to retreat under. Put some heavy metal on the east flank. It might slow the collapse and give us more time. And get the bloody platoons back together, for Throne’s sake.’

Shiller gave an ugly smile. ‘I’ll have them pounded to the hells and back.’

‘See that you do, captain.’

Regara stood up straight from the map table. They were spread out, too far. Voke had tried to match the Archonate line, to engage on every front. It had left them vulnerable and the town at risk.

‘The entire Ankish line.’ Regara shook his head. ‘It won’t stand,’ he said bitterly. ‘It won’t bloody stand.’

Then he walked over to Darian, took a canteen of spice wine and drained it.

The leg ached. Despite the fact it hadn’t been there for years, it ached. Old memories returned, of Nacedon and everything Regara had lost there. Some pains didn’t go away. Not really.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked Culcis.

The major waved off his lieutenant’s concern, though he knew he must look grim. His eyes drifted to the sky and the silhouette of the Arvus lighter slowly disappearing as it spirited away General Voke and his command staff. Regara had declined a seat, preferring to see out the retreat on foot with his regiment. Besides, Major Pallard was dead, and an officer of rank was needed to coordinate the withdrawal of the other Volpone companies and the auxiliaries. It had seemed a noble gesture at the time. Now, with his leg hurting like a bastard, he couldn’t see past the folly of it.

They were half a mile from the extraction zone, Lodden well behind them, and trudging through sodden earth and persistent rain. It was sparse terrain, a few farms and outhouses the only structures. Chimera transports trundled past, fighting through the mud and flanked by teams of Agrian 22nd sappers, in case they needed rescuing. Regara watched the armoured carriers with undisguised longing. He had also refused the offer of a ground transport when Culcis had managed to scrounge it up, leaving it solely for the ferrying of the dead and injured. Even then, the armoured carriers weren’t enough and trains of stretcher-bearers trailed through the ever-worsening conditions.

The entire regiment was strung out, weary and defeated. They kept good order, even the auxiliaries, though most had been reduced to scraps.

‘Damned leg,’ he admitted, scowling at the state of his boots as he lumped through the mire. ‘Martian forged, chrome plated, but doesn’t like the damp. Or maybe I don’t.’

Regara cast a glance to the eastern flank. Now they were out of the trench and well on their way, he could fully appreciate the guns. The weapon they had been forced to abandon.

‘Throne above, Culcis,’ he rasped, ‘what have we allowed to happen?’

Godsword, the men called it, because it was said that the effect where its power fell was like the sword of the Emperor Himself. It was well named. Its four long macrocannon barrels stabbed into the sky like huge funnels tilted on their axis, their ends blackened by explosive expulsion. Lesser but still-devastating weapon batteries surrounded it, a defensive measure, but Regara couldn’t see these.

It had anchored the line, conjoined with the fortified town, a marvel of Martian engineering that was supposed to have been the key to unlocking the way south into Archenemy territory. The Pact had let them raise it, even fire it, and then they had taken it. Six months and Godsword was theirs.

‘Reinforcements are incoming, sir. The guns will be retaken.’

Regara didn’t comment. Through a magnocular, he watched as red-plated ants scurried across the macrocannon battery, the Pact feasting over their hard-won prize. He didn’t know how long it would take their engineers to fix the rotatory mechanism that enabled the immense machine to turn; he only hoped it would be long enough for the Volpone and their auxiliaries to get out of range.

He lowered the magnocular and the weapon grew far away again, a towering spear thrust into the smoke-choked air above Lodden.

Distant booms revealed that the main enemy forces had met the trench line and the mines left by the Diggers. A score of lesser detonations undercut it as the Pardus kept up their barrage but the tanks were pulling out now to join the rest of the retreat, wary of the massed infantry headed their way.

Setting off again, Regara noticed the mil-serve from earlier floundering with his heavy belt of canteens.

‘Culcis,’ he said to his lieutenant, indicating the other man. The mil-serve was young, maybe twenty-five Terran standard, though war made men look older than they really were. Dark stubble covered his head like a skullcap from where his hair had been shaved. Despite his lowborn provenance, he had a strong profile and fierce blue eyes.

‘Sir?’

‘Tell him to leave it. No one falls behind, not even the servants. I’ll have every man and woman accounted for, by Throne.’

Culcis nodded, then turned and raised his voice. ‘Cut the strap, deg,’ he yelled. ‘And move your arse. Quickly now!’

The mil-serve nodded, unbuckling the canteen belt and letting it fall. At once, his pace increased.

‘And, lieutenant…’ Regara added, a hard glance at the mil-serve slogging across the earth.

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t call them that. He is either mil-serve or you learn his name. Bad enough that Shiller is an ignorant swine with no breeding without having to put up with it from you too, lieutenant.’

‘Sir,’ answered Culcis, suitably contrite.

The mil-serve suddenly stopped and turned. Something had made him look up, and then he started waving frantically at Regara, shouting, ‘My lord, my lord!’

The major followed his gaze to a growing speck on the horizon. A low buzzing materialised on the breeze, audible above the general retreat with the conclusion of the tank barrage. Several of those tanks, those with enough elevation on their primary armaments, angled their long cannons skywards.

The speck became several, and then the forbidding shape of a fuselage and wings, pregnant with a bulky payload underneath. The Pact had few bombers, and hoarded them jealously, but without Godsword to worry about the Archenemy could afford to be bolder.

Over five hundred men tramped this stretch of earth alone, with hundreds more strung out along the line. A few had stopped to prime rocket tubes and launchers, hastily effecting firing positions.

‘Get those men down!’ Regara roared as the buzzing grew into a nerve-shredding whine.

He threw himself to the ground as the first of the bombs hit, mud and bodies thrown upwards in a spray. A spatter against his cheek felt too hot to be rain. A stone struck his helmet, the metal ringing in his ears. Something warm and syrupy oozed from his ear as vertigo overwhelmed him, and Regara lost all sense of direction.

The bombs kept coming, and he found himself crawling, bellowing for his men to follow but he didn’t know which way he was headed. Pushing with his elbows, half sinking in the mud, Regara knew with cold finality that he was lost. He needed to stop and get his bearings but the barrage shook the earth, rattling his senses.

Then a strong hand wrapped around Regara’s wrist and at first he thought it was Culcis, but then the face of the mil-serve appeared.

He shouted, ‘This way, my lord…’ And then he pulled.

Regara let him, a blind man led away from peril, churned earth raining down. The mil-serve had found an old foxhole and they scrambled inside. A half wall surrounded it, the foxhole a basement room of a ruined outhouse partially filled with rubble. The frantic grip on Regara’s jacket was Culcis, the lieutenant hauling Regara to him.

Gratitude would need to wait. Teeth gritted, they hunkered down as fury reigned above and the world turned white with fire and thunder.

Click here to buy Volpone Glory.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Volpone Glory in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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