The grenade splintered the front of the service shed and obliterated the steps. The blast rolled Brostin hard across the rockcrete, and shrapnel whickered into his flesh.
He lay for a moment, deaf and dazed. Then he tried to rise.
My turn again, you fethers–
The front wall of the wrecked service shed collapsed, and the entire roof gave way. An avalanche of slabs and rockcrete roof tiles buried Aongus Brostin.
Dust billowed off the heap of rubble. It was piled up like the rocks of a tribal grave on some lonely hillside. Just one hand protruded, caked in dirt.
Hadrel leapt down from the roof and landed on his feet. Jaghar emerged from cover and walked to join him.
They clutched their lasrifles and advanced side by side.
‘Just the last of them now,’ said Hadrel.
‘Gol? We have to go up now,’ Baskevyl said gently. ‘Can’t stay down here all night.’
Kolea didn’t reply. He was staring at the burned thorns.
‘Gol?’
‘I made a promise,’ Kolea said at last. ‘Swore it, Bask.’
‘It was a promise you couldn’t keep,’ said Baskevyl. ‘They don’t count.’
‘I should have known.’
‘None of us knew, Gol.’
Kolea looked at him.
‘I did, though,’ he said. ‘I thought it. I considered it. I even… I even took it to Gaunt. I told him what I feared.’
‘I’m sure he–’ Baskevyl began.
‘He reassured me,’ said Kolea. ‘He talked me down, said it was a mistake.’
‘Nobody could have known the truth,’ Baskevyl said. He glanced over his shoulder. Gaunt and Blenner were standing a few yards away, watching them. He could see the expression on Gaunt’s face. Guilt. Guilt for brushing Kolea’s fears aside.
They all felt the guilt. Baskevyl certainly did. Odd nagging doubts that he’d cast aside as stupid. Then the things Elodie had said to him–
He clenched his eyes tight shut. She’d known, but just like Gaunt had done with Kolea, Baskevyl had allayed her fears. Because it just couldn’t have been true.
Now she was dead. Now so many were dead. Nobody had listened. Daur’s wife was dead because Baskevyl hadn’t taken her seriously.
Kolea got up suddenly.
‘Gol?’ Baskevyl rose, and put his hand on Kolea’s arm.
‘I’ve still got a son,’ Kolea said, and pulled his arm away. He walked over to Dalin, who was hunched against the wall.
Baskevyl joined Blenner and Gaunt. They watched Kolea approach the boy.
‘He just needs time,’ Baskevyl said quietly. Gaunt nodded.
‘What did he say?’ asked Blenner.
‘What do you think?’ Baskevyl replied.
‘I don’t know. I was just wondering.’
‘He can’t believe it, even now it’s happened,’ said Baskevyl. ‘He blames himself. He blames everybody. That part’ll go. But he’ll never stop blaming himself. He’s not making much sense at all, to be honest.’
‘Well, he wouldn’t,’ Blenner nodded. ‘I mean, a shock like that. A tragedy. It’d shake a man to his core. It’s shaken all of us. I doubt an ounce of sense will come out of him. Just… just a lot of old nonsense.’
‘What?’ asked Baskevyl.
‘I just meant,’ said Blenner, awkwardly, ‘we can’t expect him to make any sense. Not at a time like this. He’ll probably say all sorts of things, rant and rave, you know, until that pain eases. A trauma like this, that could take years.’
Baskevyl stared at him.
‘Are you trying to make some kind of point?’ he asked.
‘N-no,’ said Blenner.
As they watched, Kolea knelt down facing Dalin. He reached out and put his trembling hands on the young man’s shoulders.
‘Dal.’
‘Leave me alone,’ said Dalin.
‘I don’t know what to say, Dal,’ Kolea said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything anyone can say–’
‘She said plenty,’ said Dalin quietly. ‘All those weird things. She was always so strange. But she was my sister.’
He paused.
‘I thought she was,’ he added.
‘Dalin, let’s go up. Get out of here, eh?’ Kolea said.
‘She was always so strange,’ Dalin said, staring at Gol. ‘Growing up, all her games. All her stories. I used to love them. Now I remember every one of them and I see how creepy they were.’
‘Come on, now.’
‘Then the things she said tonight. When I found her. The things she said. They didn’t make any sense. But then her stories about bad shadows didn’t make any sense either, and they were true. She told me there was a woe machine. That was true. What if all the things she said were true?’
‘Like what?’ Kolea asked.
Dalin shook his head.
‘Look, son, none of us could have known–’ said Kolea.
‘I’m not your son.’
‘Dal, listen. None of us could have known. Not me, not you, not–’
He stopped. There was still a burning anger inside him. He hated himself for it, but the anger was directed at Ibram Gaunt. Kolea had laid it all out, exposed everything that had plagued him, and Gaunt had just talked him out of it. He’d brushed all the fears away, found ways to account for every strange detail, and swept it all out of sight.
If he’d listened–
But no. He’d had an answer for everything. Your mind’s confused, Gol. The Ruinous Powers play games. Even the Archenemy wouldn’t lay a plan that elaborate. They couldn’t see the future and be that many steps ahead.
A brother would know his sister.
Kolea looked at Dalin.
That had been the clincher. The one that had really changed Gol’s mind.
A brother would know his sister.
‘What did she say to you, Dalin?’ he asked.
Dalin shook his head again, lips pursed, fighting back tears and daring not to speak.
‘Dal? Dalin? What did she say to you?’
‘It was all true, wasn’t it?’ Dalin sobbed. ‘It was all true and I didn’t know.’
Kolea pulled him close and wrapped his arms around him. Dalin wept against his chest.
‘Easy, Dal, easy,’ he murmured. ‘What was it she said to you?’
Dalin whimpered a response that Kolea couldn’t hear with the boy’s face buried in his chest. He eased Dalin back, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and looked him in the eyes.
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘You can tell me. I’ll protect you.’
‘You can’t,’ whispered Dalin.
‘Of course I can. I made that oath, remember? The Kolea oath? Walk into hell to protect you.’
‘You couldn’t protect Yonce.’
‘Well, I couldn’t. Because she wasn’t mine, was she? But you. You are. You’re my son.’
‘Not really. I’m not really.’
‘Ah, so our road through life’s been an odd one. So what? That’s all right. Blood is blood. So come on, what did she say that upset you so much?’
Dalin stared at him.
‘She said there were two of them, papa,’ said Dalin.
Eighteen: In the Slow Hours
As a younger man, a mere colonel in the Calahad Brigade, Barthol Van Voytz had acquired a distrust of the night that had never left him. He was not afraid of the dark, and like any good soldier he knew that darkness could be an ally and a weapon. And back then, there had been a concrete reason. During the gruelling campaign through the Fenlock Forest, night had been the most dangerous time. The Drukhari butchers had always struck between sunset and sunrise. Ninety per cent of Calahad casualties had been taken after dark.
But it was the night itself. A part of it, specifically. Past middle night,
there was always a period of particular blackness, with dawn just a hope. It was the worst time. He called it the slow hours. It was a time when a man might feel most lost, his very mortality at its most vulnerable. A man, say a young colonel, might fret away those creeping hours, awaiting almost certain attack, knowing his men were at their coldest and slowest ebb, aching for the dawn. A man might dwell upon the darkness, knowing it promised only ill. A man might have far too long to contemplate his own small soul, his human weakness, and the meaningless measure of his little life.
Standing in the war room of the Urdeshic Palace, that young colonel now just an old pict in a regimental archive, Van Voytz knew the slow hours were upon him again. The power had been down for over an hour. Fear clung to every surface. The palace, perhaps the most impregnable stronghold on Urdesh, was wide open. Eltath was under attack, and there was some unknown danger here, even here, inside the fortress.
And no solid data. They were blind, deaf and dumb. The shields had fallen. A grave moment for any commander to handle, but fate had decreed it should happen now. Past middle night, with sunrise still too far away: that particular heavy, slow and silent chapter of the night that took too long and was no friend of man.
He’d never checked – he was sure some rubricator or archivist could compile the data if he asked – but Van Voytz was sure that the Astra Militarum had lost more battles in the slow hours than at any other point in the diurnal cycle.
Lamps had been lit in the five storey chamber, candles in tin boxes. For all their sophistication, they had been reduced to candles in boxes. Personnel moved with stablights, conversing in low voices, working at repairs. The hall’s great windows were just paler blocks of darkness.
‘Any word?’ he said to Kazader.
‘Nothing from below, my lord,’ Kazader replied. ‘Last I heard, the Lord Executor, via Colonel Grae, requested full troop support to the undercroft.’
‘Which I approved,’ said Van Voytz.
‘Indeed, my lord,’ said Kazader, ‘but there is conflict. To maintain effective watch-security on the palace and precinct, we cannot afford to move companies from the walls or–’
‘Dammit, man. What about the evacuation?’
‘It continues as best we are able. Again, it is slow, of course, in these conditions.’
‘The warmaster?’
‘I have not had word, my lord.’
‘Has Urienz got him off-site or not?’ Van Voytz asked.
‘I’ll despatch a runner to find out.’
‘Do that. Kazader?’
‘Sir?’
‘Has any support been sent to the Lord Executor?’
‘Orders have been posted, my lord. With respect, I stress again that under these circumstances, it takes a while for men to be redeployed, and sufficient cover maintained along the bastion–’
‘How much has been sent?’
‘I believe Colonel Grae has three platoons of Urdeshi with him, sir.’
‘That all? I gave the damn order almost an hour ago, Kazader.’
‘My lord, as I explained–’
‘Screw your excuses,’ Van Voytz growled. ‘I’m a lord militant general, Kazader. I have theatre command here! I give an order, I expect–’
He fell silent. He could see Kazader’s expression in the candlelight. It was contrite, attentive. But it said Look around, you old fool, you have command over shit.
‘My lord?’ an adept called out.
‘Yes?’
‘We’re ready to test again.’
‘Do it.’
Van Voytz heard orders being relayed, and the clatter of main connectors locking into place. There was a pause, then a deep, bass-note thump of power engaging.
The glass tables of the strategium stations underlit with a flicker. The light throbbed, as unsteady as the candle flames, then stations lit up, followed by the main monitors, repeater screens and sub-consoles. The war room lights came back on at emergency levels. Cogitators began to chatter as operative systems refreshed and rebooted, and backed-up data began to scroll up the screens at an alarming rate, as though some information dam had broken.
There was a ragged cheer and some small applause from the war room staff.
‘Decorum! To your stations!’ Van Voytz yelled. ‘City reports to me in two minutes! I want an active read of Eltath security, and tactical appraisals in five. Vox?’
‘Systems up but limited, my lord.’
‘Live links to all company and division HQs in the Eltath theatre as soon as possible,’ Van Voytz demanded. ‘I want Zarakppan too, priority, and get me the fleet!’
The vox station coordinators hurried to obey.
‘Eltath overview on strategium one, please!’ Van Voytz ordered.
‘Compiling data composite now, sir.’
‘Shield status?’
‘We have power to the war room and battery defences, my lord,’ replied an adept. ‘Power supply will be restored to the rest of the palace in twenty minutes, barring further interrupts. Estimate void shields to power in forty-seven minutes.’
‘Make it thirty,’ snapped Van Voytz. He cracked his knuckles. Now they were in the game again.
‘Circulate the formal evacuation order,’ he said. ‘All stations.’ The power-break had gagged the order digitally. So far, he’d only been able to have it circulated by word of mouth and paper flimsy. ‘I want a progress report in three.’
He paused, and scratched his cheek, thinking.
‘Request you confirm that,’ said Marshal Tzara. ‘You wish evacuation to proceed?’
‘Yes,’ said Van Voytz.
‘Then you still believe the situation in the undercroft–’
‘The power died for a reason, Marshal,’ he replied. ‘It wasn’t a random bloody fault.’
‘We don’t know anything,’ she said calmly.
‘Exactly,’ he replied. ‘Except we do, because Gaunt told us that shit was happening.’
He glanced at Kazader, and then back to the Keyzon Marshal.
‘Marshal Tzara?’
‘My lord general?’
‘I’m committing theatre control to you as of now. You have my orders and my objectives. Follow them.’
‘With discretion?’ asked Tzara.
‘With the dedication of a Throne-damn bloodhound,’ he replied. Then he nodded. ‘You have discretion, of course, Tzara,’ he said, ‘but use it sparingly. Are we understood?’
‘Perfectly, lord general.’
He straightened formally, and made the sign of the aquila.
‘I commit theatre command to you at this time,’ he said. ‘Let it be so recorded.’
She returned the salute.
‘I accept and receive this duty,’ she replied. ‘Let it be so recorded.’
Van Voytz turned to Kazader.
‘Get your storm troops, colonel,’ he said. ‘You’re with me. And find me a damn gun.’
‘Is that lights?’ asked Hark.
The wardroom they had been taken to was lit with small lamps and candles, but its large windows looked out across the Hexagonal Court towards the main keep.
Inquisitor Laksheema was standing at the windows, staring out. She was a tall, slender phantom in the twilight.
‘I believe so,’ she replied. ‘It looks as though they have restored power to the main keep.’
‘That’s something, then,’ he replied. ‘Felt like we were sitting here with our pants down.’
‘Something you often do, Commissar Hark?’ she asked.
‘I’m a soldier, mam,’ he replied. ‘We get up to all sorts.’
Hark was lying back on a couch. A Keyzon corpsman had just finished swabbing and stitching the gashes on his throat and face, and now had turned to the stump of his augmetic and was sealing the shredded wires with a fusing wand.
Hark wondered if she had any significant organic parts, anything that could feel pain. Feel anything.
She was pacing before the windows. The digital weapons inlaid in the golden cuff of her left wrist had been destroyed in the ordeal. She kept adjusting the still-functional ones built over her right wrist like an elaborate golden bangle.
She crossed to the doorway of the adjoining room and watched the Urdeshi surgeons working by candlelight to repair the grievous wounds Sancto had received. The Scion had long since slipped from consciousness. He’d been laid out on a dining table, and the floor around it was littered with parts of his body gear and blood-soaked surgical towels.
She observed impassively for a moment, then walked back through the wardroom and stepped out into the corridor.
Hark glanced at the corpsman.
‘Enough,’ he said.
‘Sir?’
‘You gonna re-fit me with an arm tonight?’
‘Sir, I’m just a–’
‘Thought so,’ said Hark. He got up off the couch, and tossed aside the surgical smock that had been draped across him. ‘Thanks for your duty,’ he said to the corpsman.
Hark walked out into the hall. He was sore as hell. Every joint. He couldn’t have been more thoroughly bruised if Brostin had come at him with a mallet. The arm he didn’t mourn. The augmeticists would fix him a new one. His plasma pistol, though. It had been a beauty. He’d miss that.
He sighed. There were many more important things to miss and mourn.
The corridor was wood-panelled and grand. Old paintings hung in gilt frames, though it was impossible to see what they depicted. Layers of age-darkened varnish and the weak glow of the lamps in the hall conspired to make them impenetrable. There was almost a warmth to the hall with its dark wood and dim yellow light. The Urdeshic Palace had been a fine, grand place once. He would not, he felt, remember it fondly.
Several doors along was the entrance to the prayer chapel where most of the Tanith survivors were being ministered to. He could hear Zweil, leading them in a deliverance blessing.
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