by Dan Abnett
‘Tell him to get over here!’ Macaroth shouted back.
Gaunt turned back to Van Voytz. Van Voytz glared for a moment more, then pushed his way through the staff to the warmaster’s side.
‘Sir?’
Gaunt looked around and found Beltayn standing beside him.
‘What is it?’
‘Um, signal from transfer section, sir. Our retinue has just entered the safety of the palace precinct, with two companies in escort. Major Baskevyl asks to report to you at the earliest possible opportunity.’
‘Baskevyl? Tell him I’ll see him as soon as I can. In fact, send Captain Daur down to admit him and take his brief. Any word on the main Ghost force?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ said Beltayn. ‘Vox-control suggests there may be signal jamming in their sector.’
Gaunt nodded, and pushed through the press towards Biota.
‘Do we have an update on the Tanith First?’ he asked the tactician.
Biota took him aside to one of the hololith plates, and wanded through data.
‘They log as still in position, as per orders,’ he said. ‘Tulkar Batteries defence, at the east end of Millgate.’
‘They’re holding?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Contact?’
‘Heavy jamming, sir,’ Biota replied with a shake of his head.
Gaunt looked at the data display. ‘Throne,’ he murmured, ‘that’s a bloodbath. They’re right at the heart of it. I sent them right into the heaviest fighting in the zone.’
‘My lord,’ said Biota. He hesitated. ‘My lord, we have an unconfirmed report that a significant enemy advance is pushing along the south shore into Millgate. Your Ghosts, sir… They are the principal unit standing in its way.’
The transports rumbled in through the gatehouses, and entered the compound of the Urdeshic Palace. It was almost dawn, but the sky was choked with smoke plumes running north off Zarakppan and the burning mills. Munitorum staffers with light poles guided the vehicles to parking places on the hard standing, and cargo crews moved in to help the retinue unload.
‘How many are you?’ a Munitorum official asked Meryn. Meryn handed him the manifest list.
‘We have accommodation assigned in the west blockhouses,’ the man said. ‘The crews will show you the way.’
‘I need a medicae,’ said Meryn. ‘We have a concussion injury.’
The official waved over a medicae. Meryn pointed him to Fazekiel and Dalin, who were helping Felyx out of one of the trucks. He had a bedroll and a combat cape wrapped around him like a shawl, and looked pale and unsteady.
She, Meryn reminded himself. She.
‘Looks like you escaped the worst of it, captain,’ the Munitorum official said lightheartedly. ‘They say it’s a living hell down in the zones.’
‘Yeah,’ said Meryn. ‘We got away with it, all right.’
He looked across the crowd of off-loading personnel, the women and children of the retinue and the Ghosts escorting them. He saw Blenner, and tried to catch his eye.
But Blenner determinedly did not look back.
Elodie moved through the busy crowd in the half-light. She was still shaken. She wasn’t sure what had happened at the billet, but fear and shock still clung to her like a camo-cloak.
‘Yoncy? Yoncy?’
The girl was standing alone behind the trucks, away from the rest. Her shaved head seemed very pale and fragile in the gloom. They’d sponged the blood off her, but her shift dress was dark and caked with bloodstains. She hadn’t said much since she’d recovered consciousness.
‘Yoncy?’ said Elodie. ‘Come on, honey.’
Yoncy was staring at the fortress gatehouses, apparently fascinated by the sight of the massive gates as they slowly closed on their hydraulic buffers.
‘Yoncy?’ Elodie took her hand. ‘Come on, it’s cold out here.’
‘We’re home now,’ said Yoncy softly. ‘Home and safe. Just like Papa told me to be.’
‘That’s right,’ said Elodie. For a second, she heard the bone-saw shriek, an echo in the night. She shuddered. Just a memory. Just a sharp, brief recall of the night’s horror.
‘Come on,’ she said.
The gates slammed shut with a resounding boom. Yoncy sighed, and turned as Elodie led her away to join the others. The officials with light poles were leading processions of new arrivals across the compound.
As she was led along, Yoncy glanced over her shoulder at the thick darkness under the high walls of the yard. She frowned, as if she had seen something or heard something.
‘Bad shadow,’ she whispered. ‘Naughty shadow. Not yet.’
The fire rate coming at them was breathtaking. The whole sky over the shore was on fire, and las-rounds rained in like a neon monsoon. Two Ghosts directly beside Rawne had just been cut down.
‘Medic!’ Rawne yelled over the deafening hail of fire. There was blood on his face that wasn’t his.
‘We have to get closer!’ Pasha yelled to him, down in cover nearby.
Rawne knew they did. But they were outgunned at a ratio of about five to one. The agriboat fleet was swarming with Sek’s warriors, and they were laying down so much fire, Rawne couldn’t get any of his units past the sea wall. There was no way to call in air support, and the promised armour had never arrived. Runners from Ludd had brought him word that Criid’s companies were facing a meat-grinder in the throttled streets around Turnabout Lane.
‘If we could just get a foothold on those boats,’ Rawne growled.
Beside him, head down, Oysten nodded. But she had absolutely no idea what to suggest.
‘You’ll have to pull back!’ Curth snapped as she struggled to patch one of the fallen troopers. There was blood all over her too.
‘Yeah, right,’ Rawne replied. ‘Do that, and we basically open the city to the fethers.’
‘Have you seen our casualty rate?’ Curth yelled back. ‘Much more of this and you won’t have any troops left to pull back!’
‘What the hell?’ said Spetnin suddenly.
Rawne looked up. The fire rate had just dropped dramatically. The withering storm of las-bolts had reduced to just a few sporadic shots.
Rawne waited. A last few cracks of gunfire, then something close to silence.
He started to rise.
‘Be careful!’ Pasha snapped.
He rose anyway, and took a look over the chipped and splintered lip of the sea wall. A haze of gunsmoke lay across the rusting agriboat fleet. Some of the vessels were burning, and they all showed signs of heavy battle damage.
There was no trace at all of the enemy force that had been hosing them with shots a few minutes before.
‘The feth..?’ Rawne muttered.
‘It’s a trick,’ warned Pasha.
‘What kind of trick?’ Rawne replied. ‘One squad, with me. Pasha, reposition our units. Get them in better order in case this starts up again.’
Rawne slithered over the sea wall, surprised to find that no one shot at him. The rockcrete was dimpled with shot holes and wafting smoke. The settling fyceline was so thick it made him cough. Ghosts slipped over the wall with him. Weapons up, they scurried towards the dock and the condemned fleet.
His regiment’s gunfire and rocket assault had damaged all the boats in the vicinity. Rawne could hear water gushing in and filling hulls holed by tread fethers. He saw the enemy dead on upper decks, or hanging over broken railings. More corpses choked the low-water gap between the dock wall and the hulls.
‘Where the feth did they go?’ asked Brostin, his flamer ready.
Rawne clambered onto the nearest hull, stepping over enemy dead. Where the feth had they gone?
‘We have to listen,’ said Zhukova.
‘What?’
She moved past Rawne, and slipped down a through-deck ladder. He followed. Down inside the dark, stinking hull, she got on her knees and pressed her ear to the deck.
‘Movement,’ she reported. ‘Like I heard before.’
She
looked up at Rawne, and wiped grease off her cheek.
‘But moving away from us,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘They’re retreating, back through the hulks. Back the way they came.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Brostin, on the ladder behind Rawne. ‘Why’d they do that? They ’ad us dead.’
Rawne shook his head.
‘The only reason you’d call a withdrawal is if you’re losing,’ he said. He paused. ‘Or you’ve already won and got what you wanted.’
‘Colonel! Colonel Rawne!’
Rawne, Brostin and Zhukova looked up. Above them, Major Pasha was peering down through the deck hatch.
‘What is it, Pasha?’ Rawne asked.
‘You must come,’ she said.
Rawne hauled himself back up the ladder onto the deck.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘There’s a great mass of corpses down in the hold space here, colonel,’ Pasha said, pointing to the rim of a rusty catch-tank nearby. ‘Caober and Vivvo have climbed down to search, but most are too burned and disfigured to–’
‘Stop. Why did they go down?’
‘Because I found this on the deck,’ she said.
She held out a bloody object for him to see. It was a Tanith warknife, the blade broken.
Mkoll’s.
‘There is an old rank,’ said Macaroth. ‘From back in the days of the first crusade. Saint Sabbat’s crusade…’
‘My lord?’ asked Bulledin.
Macaroth shook his head and raised his hands dismissively.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Take your seats. I was just musing to myself. I have spent a long time alone with history books. A long time musing over the details of the old wars, of Urdesh, of the Sabbat Worlds. I find myself thinking out loud.’
The lords militant took their places around the table in the Collegia Bellum Urdeshi. There were more than thirty of them present, and additional seats had been placed along the straight side of the vast wooden semicircle. Chairs scraped across the polished black floor with its golden inscriptions. Thousands of candles and lumen globes had been set to light the chamber, and the warding cyberskulls floated and murmured overhead.
‘Yes,’ said Macaroth, sorting through the reports and files placed in front of him, ‘a long time alone with history books. Too long, I’m sure you will agree, Cybon?’
Cybon coughed awkwardly.
‘Let’s review,’ Macaroth said. ‘Together, as a group, as staff. Further evidence, I hope, that I am eager to refocus my manner of command.’
‘My lord–’ Lugo began.
‘Don’t fawn, Lugo,’ said Macaroth testily. ‘Now, would anyone care to explain what occurred in the last two hours?’
‘The Archenemy has withdrawn into the Zarakppan basin,’ said Kelso. ‘And also has fallen back from the southern edge of Eltath. Mass withdrawal. Immediate and focused. They are outside the bounds of the city. They are present and more than ready to resume assault. But they gave up ground.’
‘More than that,’ said Urienz. His face was still speckled with petrochemical dirt from the journey back to Eltath. ‘They gave up significant advantage. They had us by the throat, and they let go.’
‘I said explain not describe,’ said Macaroth. ‘The enemy let us go. Sek let us go. Another few hours, and they would have been into the southern hem of the city, and the east. We would have fallen to them… or at least been caught in a fight so disadvantageous it would have cost us bitterly just to survive.’
‘I believe we would have had to call in the fleet,’ said Grizmund. ‘I appreciate that’s a sanction we wish to avoid, but it would have been necessary. We would have had to begin sacrificing the forge world’s assets to purge the enemy.’
Macaroth nodded.
‘We would, I fear,’ he agreed. ‘But something changed. Something turned the enemy back, despite his gains and advantage. With respect to the valiant Guardsmen fighting this action in all zones, it wasn’t us. Not our doing. We didn’t win. We survived because they allowed us to live. Chief tactical officer?’
Biota stepped up to the table. He was one of a number of senior tacticians waiting in the candlelit shadows beside them.
‘My lord?’
‘Does tactical have any wisdom?’ asked Macaroth. ‘Any data at all to explain the change of heart? Did we do something we’re not aware of? Did we, for example, take down a significant senior commander and cause–’
‘My lord, there is no evidence of anything,’ said Biota. He cleared his throat. ‘Except that… it is postulated by a number of parties that the enemy had… achieved his goal. Whatever Sek wanted, he got.’
‘For now,’ said Cybon. ‘They’re still out there.’
‘If Sek got what he wanted,’ said Macaroth, ‘we have no idea what it was. I’ve read the reports concerning the trophies Gaunt recovered from Salvation’s Reach. The so-called “eagle stones”. Intelligence and the ordos believed those were his primary objectives, yet they remain in our custody. The enemy never even got close to the site where they are secured.’
Macaroth looked at his staff.
‘I want answers, my lords. I appreciate our stay of execution, but it troubles me deeply. I want answers. I want to understand this, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s an absence of fact.’
A Tempestus Scion entered the chamber and handed a message slate to the warmaster.
‘Hmm,’ said Macaroth, reading. ‘A link has finally been established with our beloved Beati in Ghereppan. Perhaps she and her lords can furnish us with some information.’
He looked at the Scion. ‘I’ll be there directly,’ he said. The Scion hurried out, and Macaroth rose to his feet. The lords militant began to rise too.
‘No, as you were,’ he said. ‘I want you thinking. I want ideas. I want theories. We need something. The fight for this world isn’t over.’
He started to walk out, then paused and turned back.
‘There is an old rank,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Back in the day. The warmaster or his equivalent was aided by a first lord. An executor who formed a link between the supreme commander and the command staff. Sabbat herself had one. Kiodrus, you know? Now Saint Kiodrus. History tells us this. Books, Cybon. I fancy I will reinstate this role. It will help mend and facilitate my connection with you great lords. I am not good with people. I don’t like them. I feel I shall let someone do that job for me. Someone to keep you informed and keep you in line on my behalf. Keep me in line too, no doubt. He will be defacto leader, and my chosen successor should the fates take me. Warmaster elect.’
He looked at Cybon.
‘When will you announce this post, my lord?’ asked Cybon.
‘Now,’ Macaroth replied. ‘And you know who it is, because you chose him yourselves. He’s the ideal candidate, for no better reason than he doesn’t want to do it. Ambition can be such an encumbrance.’
He looked at Gaunt.
‘First Lord Executor Gaunt,’ he said. ‘Kindly proceed with this meeting while I am gone. I want answers, remember?’
He strode away. The thousands of candle flames shivered in his wake.
Gaunt sat back. He looked up and down the table at the faces staring at him. Bulledin, Urienz, Kelso, Tzara, Blackwood, Lugo, Grizmund, Cybon, Van Voytz…
He cleared his throat.
‘Let’s begin, shall we?’ he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Abnett is the author of the Horus Heresy novels The Unremembered Empire, Know No Fear and Prospero Burns, the last two of which were both New York Times bestsellers. He has written almost fifty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, and I am Slaughter, the first book in The Beast Arises series. He scripted Macragge’s Honour, the first Horus Heresy graphic novel, as well as numerous audio dramas and short stories set in the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer universes. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.
For Isaac Eaglestone.
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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
First published in Great Britain in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Aaron Griffin.
The Warmaster © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. The Warmaster, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78572-768-9
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
One: Corpse
Two: Ghost
Three: And Back
Four: Dead In The Water
Five: V’heduak
Six: Pick Our Bones
Seven: The Line
Eight: Bad Shadow
Nine: Blood Price
Ten: Visiting Death
Eleven: Forge World Urdesh
Twelve: A Place Of Safety
Thirteen: Good Faith
Fourteen: Line Of Fire
Fifteen: Staff
Sixteen: The Inner Circle
Seventeen: Eagles
Eighteen: And Stones
Nineteen: Weeds
Twenty: Offensive
Twenty-One: Lice
Twenty-Two: The Tulkar Batteries
Twenty-Three: The Warmaster
Twenty-Four: I Am Death
Twenty-Five: Executor
About the Author
A Black Library Publication
