The Armour Of Contempt by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

IV

Criid threw himself at the dying soldier, clawing at its hands to win ownership of the grenade. Lying on its side, the enemy trooper cried out, and blood gushed from its mouth. It struggled with Criid for a moment more, and then suddenly expired.

It had pulled the pin out.

There was no way to put it back. Criid simply snatched the stick grenade out of the dead thing’s hands and threw it through the open doorway opposite. There was some vague hope in his head that the wall of the room would take the brunt of the blast.

In the two or three seconds it had taken for Criid to wrestle the bomb away, Merrt had fought with the other soldier. Locked together, grappling face to face, they had struggled frantically until Merrt butted the enemy in the face with his augmetic jaw. The soldier reeled away, finally, by accident, tearing Merrt’s rifle out of his hands, and staggered backwards through the doorway a fraction of a second after Criid had hurled the grenade in that direction.

The blast was dull and flat and rough, and filled the air with spinning tatters of debris and clouds of dust.

Coughing hard, Criid rose and looked around. Merrt’s attacker was half-visible through the smoke gusting out of the room. He’d taken the force of the mangling blast. The room’s door was stoved in. Merrt himself had been thrown back as far as the stairhead.

“Are you all right?” Criid called out, still coughing. Merrt nodded and began to pull himself up.

Voices were calling out from below. “Clear?” a voice was calling. “Clear?”

“Clear!” Merrt yelled back.

“Make way! Who’s up there?” the voice asked. Merrt and Criid realised it was Sobile. Sobile was on the stairs. He was coming up. His boots were thumping on the steps.

Merrt had no rifle.

Criid looked at Merrt, and then put his foot on his own lasrifle, which was lying on the ground, and slid it as fiercely as he could across the landing to the Tanith.

Merrt grabbed it.

“Report? Who’s taken this building?” Sobile demanded as he came up the final flight to join them with his pistol drawn. Criid looked from side to side and snatched up the nearest fallen lasrifle.

“Report!” said Sobile. He looked at Criid. “You clear this?”

“Yes, commissar.”

“What’s above?”

Criid shook his head. Sobile shouted to the gaggle of troopers coming after him to sweep the upper floors. He looked at Criid again. “Don’t just stand there!” he snapped.

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