V2 Chapter 85: Prepare to Close the Trap
When the Blood Pact army pushed back into the northwest corridor, an Iron Warrior stood beside a modified command carrier and watched the Imperial defensive line withdrawing in the distance.
His power armour was covered in dark rust and old battle marks, the iron skull device on his shoulder plate obscured by smoke and grit. Several Blood Pact vox operators and tactical thralls stood behind him. None of them dared hurry him toward a decision.
In the distance, the Krieg soldiers in their heavy greatcoats were vacating the forward positions.
They were withdrawing far too cleanly.
Before each infantry element left a position, combat engineers swept it for remaining demolition charges and communication lines.
The transport vehicles and armoured carriers pulled back along their designated routes without congestion, without competition for road space. The artillery positions fell silent one after another up until the final moment, as though someone were counting the time and holding the entire line to a single tempo as it contracted rearward.
This was not a rout.
The Iron Warrior understood that clearly.
He was the siege master attached to this force, the war advisor assigned to oversee the Sveren encirclement system.
Blood Pact officers could direct infantry charges, could drive slave-workers to dig earthworks. But the person who had determined where the trench lines sat, where the fire emplacements went, the angles of the anti-armour positions, and the deployment of the siege guns: that had been him.
He did not like what he was looking at.
The Imperial forces' withdrawal from the relief corridor was too clean, clean enough to look like a tactical pullback that had been rehearsed in advance. But he understood equally well that the Blood Pact army had very little choice at this point.
If the temporary relief passage outside Nev City was allowed to remain, the lackeys of the false Emperor would move ammunition, clean water, medical personnel, and heavy artillery into the city in steady streams. Over time, Nev City would no longer be an isolated surrounded position. It would become a spike driven into the core of Sveren's primary combat zone.
The flanks of Colchis city and the Lamerly assembly point would both be exposed.
At that point, the Blood Pact's counter-offensive on Sveren would be torn open from the middle.
So regardless of whether the route was bait, they had to attack.
Moreover, he did not believe the Imperials' plan could actually trap them. In his understanding, traps and defensive positions were only structures. Find the load-bearing points, and any structure could be disassembled, regardless of how solid it appeared.
He raised his head. The vox-amplifier in his helmet carried a voice that was roughened by time and by something that had replaced whatever warmth had once been there.
"Notify the commanders. Forward regiment, continue the advance."
The mortal thralls behind him lowered their heads and began routing the commands.
"Armoured reserve, follow up. Siege gun battery, move to second firing position. All commissar-troopers, advance into position along both sides of the corridor."
He paused. His gaze settled on the chained slave-workers in columns behind the main formation.
"Drive all previously captured slave-workers to the front. Use them to strike the enemy's defensive line. Any unit that ceases its advance is to be executed immediately."
The mortal thralls did not hesitate.
The orders went out.
Behind the lines, the crack of whips and the shouting of Blood Pact officers followed. The slave-workers, their expressions hollowed out, their eyes showing nothing, were driven forward. Among them were workers from the outer city of Nev City and mortals seized by the Blood Pact from surrounding settlements.
They were pushed toward the front.
The commissar-trooper units took position on both sides, weapons trained on the backs of the column.
The first group of slave-workers stumbled toward Nev City, and toward the Krieg lines still pulling back. Anyone who stopped was hit by laser fire through the back. Bodies fell, and the people behind them were forced to step over them and keep moving.
Blood Pact forces followed in their wake.
Elite Blood Pact infantry advanced along shattered roads and old communication trenches. Heavy carriers pressed through the mud. Heavy towed siege guns moved slowly behind tracked prime movers. Chaos warbanners opened in the smoke and grit, and more forces converged on the northwest corridor from the Colchis and Lamerly directions.
The Iron Warrior watched the corridor being refilled with Blood Pact and slave-workers, and closed his hand slowly around the chainsword at his side.
"Continue the advance."
He said it.
"Let the lackeys of the false Emperor see what becomes of the road they gave up."
---
On Nev City's high plasteel walls, General Petrov raised his observation scope and looked at the enemy flooding back into the positions in the distance.
He knew this was Duvette's plan.
But when he actually watched the Blood Pact forces reclaiming the ground that had been bought at significant cost a few days ago, something tightened in his chest. The sacrifices that had opened this corridor had not been small. And now the corridor was being refilled by the enemy.
What made it worse was that the people at the front were not Blood Pact.
They were civilians.
Those people were being driven forward by Blood Pact commissar-troopers, the column ragged, the pace slow. The distance was too great for Petrov to see their faces, but he understood where they had come from.
When the outer city had fallen, a large number of people who had not made it into the inner city had been taken by the Blood Pact. Now they were being pushed back toward Nev City again.
Only this time they were walking in front of the Blood Pact's weapons.
Petrov lowered the scope. His expression went dark.
Behind the barricades, the 112th assault company had completed its assembly. Petrov's remaining garrison soldiers, Nev City PDF troops, and wounded who could still hold weapons had been distributed to different street junctions. Ammunition crates had been opened again. Heavy weapons had been brought to their designated positions. Machine-gun teams were checking their feed belts.
Thirteen Black Shields stood in the shadow of the gate.
Their power armour still carried the marks from the fighting of several days ago. Markus Sevian stood at the front, head down, checking his power sword and bolter. He said nothing and did not look up toward Petrov on the wall.
Those black-armoured giants appeared to already know what was coming.
Petrov's interior was considerably less settled.
He raised the scope again and looked at the civilians being driven forward. The slave-worker column was getting closer. Blood Pact soldiers were still keeping pace behind them, using these people as screens against the incoming fire. Further back, heavy carriers and the siege gun batteries continued pressing into the corridor.
A staff officer stood beside Petrov, his voice low.
"General. Are we really going to open fire on them?"
Petrov did not answer immediately.
If they did not fire, the Blood Pact would advance alongside the slave-workers all the way to the gate. Once they reached effective range, the demolitions soldiers, assault elements, and heavy weapons hidden within the column would open up. Duvette's plan would begin to fracture.
If they fired, they would be killing innocent civilians with their own weapons.
Petrov closed his eyes.
Several seconds later he opened them again. His voice came out low.
"Open fire."
The staff officer turned to look at him.
Petrov said it without wavering. "This is the sacrifice we have to bear."
He paused briefly, as though saying the next words as much to himself as to anyone else.
"May their souls find rest at the Golden Throne."
Then he put the scope down and turned toward the gun crews and machine-gun teams along the wall.
"All fire positions ready. Priority suppression on the Blood Pact formation behind the slave-workers. Heavy weapons to target the commissar-troopers and the armoured carriers. Do not let them reach the gate."
The staff officer drew a breath and ran to pass the orders.
Along the wall, a sequence of bolts being charged and chambers being loaded. The soldiers began carrying out the order in silence.
In the distance, the dense column of slave-workers continued moving closer.
Behind them, the Blood Pact commissar-troopers had spread into formation. Elite infantry were moving through the gaps in the column. Further back, the heavy carriers and siege gun batteries continued pressing into the corridor.
Petrov gripped the chainsword at his hip. His voice came out rough.
"This plan cannot fail."
The first heavy stubber opened fire, and the entire wall shook.
The barrage swept across the stumbling slave-workers, cutting them down the way a blade cuts through a field. Petrov understood that Duvette had made Nev City the bait in this trap.
Now the bait was beginning to bleed.