[Gaunt's Ghosts 08] - Traitor General

by Dan Abnett

  The partisan gradually lowered his las-lock and took a step forward himself. He emerged from the mangrove shadows. Gaunt heard Curth gasp.

  The partisan was not, as Gaunt had begun to fear, some mutant hybrid of human and moth. At first sight at least, he appeared to be essentially human.

  That made him no less frightening. He was tall, a head taller than either Gaunt or Mkvenner, the tallest members of the party. He would have towered over even Colm Corbec or Bragg, Throne rest the both of them. But as much as he was tall, he was thin. Big boned and powerful, but starvation-lean, his long shanks encased in tight, fat-less muscle. What Gaunt had at first mistaken as the bulging multi-facet eyes of an insect were revealed to be oval arrangements of glittering scales, fixed like a mosaic around his kohl-edged eyes and spreading up across his shaved skull. The eyes themselves were tiny, glittering slits. His wings were a segmented cloak that appeared to have been fletched with masses of grey feathers. The cloak hung from a harness around the man’s throat and shoulders. His clothes were wound rags, and both these shreds and his skin itself were caked with some clay-like material that glowed a sheened, iridescent grey colour. Silver pendants were strung about his neck, and silver bands decorated his fingers and his long, slender arms. He had a long, lank moustache, also stiffened and slathered in grey woad, which resembled an insect’s mandibles and added to the impression that he was a moth in human form. His long, trinket-dangling weapon was not, as Gaunt saw it clearly, a las-lock. It was an actual musket of archaic design, as long as the partisan was tall. A wound-back hammer mechanism with a lump of flint in the claw served as a firing lock. The muzzle-end of the long, thin rifle had a dirty, serrated blade built into it.

  Holding the weapon steady in one hand, the partisan raised his other and opened his grey palm to Gaunt.

  “Cynulff ayeam yclept, of Geryun His Wolde, ap Niht. Biddye hallow Kh-haunt and otheren kinde, andso of sed hallow yitt meanye goode mett wherall.”

  “I…” Gaunt began. “That is to say… I mean… I am… I mean, ayeam…” He struggled, panicking, trying to think. High Master Boniface had, many times, told his students that “a lack of good learning will kill a man more surely than a thousand guns.”

  I hope you’re happy now, you old coot, Gaunt thought, because you’re about to be proved right.

  “Ayeam yclept Gaunt…” he began again. No, already done that. Think. Think!

  The partisan stiffened, wary, and his open hand returned to its grip on the preposterously long musket.

  Feth, I’ve blown it, Gaunt thought.

  “Histye, Cynulff ap Niht,” a voice suddenly called out behind him, “and so beyit akinn. Sed hallow seythee, yitt be wellcomen into thissen our brestas owne us, and of fulsave yitt be hered. Well mettye, Frater, wherall so withe yeall!”

  Gaunt looked to his side. Mkvenner had walked up to flank him, his long, makeshift spear trailing in the mire, his left hand held palm-up. The partisan nodded to him.

  “Ven?” Gaunt breathed.

  “A moment, sir.” MKvenner paused and then said, “Histye, soule, so beyit pace twine us eitheren kinde. Brandes setye aparte, withe rest alse, as yitt meanye goode mett wherall. Council yitt shall sey akinn, preyathee.”

  The partisan seemed to notice the Tanith warknife fixed to Mkvenner’s spear.

  “Preyathee, seolfor beyit?”

  “Yclept beyit so,” Mkvenner nodded.

  The partisan lowered his rifle and splashed into the pool until he came face to face with Mkvenner. He studied the blade with great interest, and Mkvenner calmly allowed him to take the spear in his hand. They exchanged words, too fast and too complex for Gaunt to keep up.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Bonin whispered to Gaunt. “What the feth is this about?”

  “At the moment, it’s about us not getting mown down in a hail of musket balls. Wait, just wait,” Gaunt urged. He looked around. Rawne and Brostin were close to snapping, and ready to reach for their weapons. Cirk too, damn her. The others just seemed alarmed or confused. All except Feygor. He had sat down with his back to a treebole, up to his waist in the swamp, his head leaning forward.

  “Ven?” Gaunt called.

  Mkvenner looked at him, and saw his gesture at Feygor. The tall scout exchanged some further words with the towering partisan and the fellow nodded.

  “Curth can look to him,” Mkvenner called.

  “Thank you,” Gaunt replied. “And thank him for me. Ana?”

  Curth slopped through the marsh water to reach Feygor and began to examine him. Beltayn went with her.

  Gaunt turned his attention back to Mkvenner and the partisan. They were still talking, fast and unfathomably.

  “Seolfor beyit!” Mkvenner suddenly called out. “Show him your knives,” he added. “Quickly!”

  The Ghosts quickly brandished their warknives. Some of them had to unfix them from the bayonet lugs of their rifles. Gaunt held his own up.

  The partisan—Cynulff—nodded, as if pleased.

  “Sheathe them now,” Mkvenner ordered. He bowed his head to the partisan and splashed across the pool to Gaunt.

  “He’s agreed to a parley. You and his leader. It seems they are impressed with our silver.”

  “How safe is this?” Gaunt asked.

  Mkvenner shrugged. “Not safe at all, sir. They’ll kill us in a second if we make the wrong move. We may even be walking into a trap. But I think it’s the best chance we’ve got.”

  Gaunt nodded.

  Cynulff made a sign, and almost forty partisans, clad just like him and just as tall, emerged from the smoky shadows. Grey and sinister, winged with articulated capes, they were armed with muskets and curious, crossbow-like weapons.

  “Aversye wherall!” the partisan cried, gesturing with his rifle.

  “He wants us to move,” Mkvenner said.

  “Thanks,” said Gaunt. “I actually got that one.”

  The pheguth submitted to the next transcoding session that morning, but when Desolane informed him that during the afternoon, instead of resting, he was expected to make a visit to Mabbon Etogaur, the pheguth refused.

  Desolane stared at him for a moment. “This is not for discussion, pheguth.”

  “I’m tired, and my head feels like it’s about to split, Desolane,” the pheguth replied. He sat on the simple chair in his tower cell, trying to staunch a heavy nosebleed with some surgical dressing the life-ward had given him. “I want to cooperate, of course I do. But the transcoding is wretched enough as it is. You force me to take meetings, undergo interviews that are little short of interrogations. I think you should cut me some slack.”

  “Cut you some slack?” The life-ward repeated the words as if they were unclean.

  The pheguth nodded. This was a dangerous game, and he knew it. He had a certain pull over Desolane now, but the life-ward was still quite the most dangerous being he had ever encountered. The pheguth had to test his new-won power, but not too far. There was a line even Desolane would not cross.

  “What use will I be to you if I’m exhausted, Desolane? Burned out? I am already weary to my bones. I feel sure the transcoding is taking longer because of my fatigue.”

  “That is possible, I suppose,” Desolane said uncertainly.

  “Have I not been obliging in every way possible?” the pheguth asked.

  “You have, pheguth.”

  “And I’m only thinking of the grand scheme of things. I know my potential value to you and your Anarch. Believe me, I’m looking forward to the day when I can offer my full help. But I have to consider my own health.”

  The pheguth let the words hang. He had deliberately not mentioned the attempt on his life, or made any reference to Desolane’s oversight in allowing the killers to get so close. But the implication was clear by its very omission. You owe me, life-ward. Because you failed me and I didn’t even punish you. Don’t push me.

  Desolane was still for a few seconds, and then nodded. “I’ll see what can be arranged,” it said, an
d left the cell.

  The pheguth was allowed his afternoon of rest. Food was brought. In truth, despite the nosebleeds and a lingering headache, and despite the wounds the assassins had inflicted, the pheguth felt better than he had done in months. Clear-headed, calm, purposeful.

  The transcoding was finally unlocking the shackles that the psykers of the Imperial Commisariate had placed on his oh-so-valuable mind. The pheguth had known how much of his memory had been repressed by the mindlock, and very little of that had been recovered yet, but he hadn’t realised how much of his own self had been repressed too.

  That was what was returning to him now, with each passing day. His character. His personality. He felt like a man of distinction again. He felt like a leader, a commander, a lord general. He remembered what it was like to be respected and feared. He could taste the addictive flavour of power again.

  He relished it. It had been a long, long time. Years. He had been an officer of great import, a master of the Imperium. Hosts of men had charged into battle at his merest word. And then that bastard, that jumped-up bastard, had taken it all away from him and reduced him to this enfeebled misery.

  That bastard’s name had been the one thing he’d never forgotten. Even the mindlock had failed to dim its echo in his brain.

  Ibram Gaunt.

  The pheguth relaxed, and sipped some more tea. Fortune was turning to favour him again. He would rise once more, and become a master of armies. Different armies, perhaps, but power was power. Already Desolane was his willing pawn, and Mabbon, the pheguth fancied, his ally. He had a great destiny again, when for so long he had presumed his life over.

  Desolane returned near nightfall. “Pheguth. Once I appraised the etogaur of your weary state, and postponed your visit to him, he insisted he would visit you.”

  “That’s kind of him,” the pheguth replied. “But I think I might sleep now. Give the etogaur my apologies. Like you, I’m sure, he knows how much Great Sek values my well-being.”

  Desolane took a step forward. Its cloven foot rang hard on the stone floor of the chamber.

  “Pheguth, there are some words I cannot allow you to speak with your heathen lips and tongue. The name of the Anarch, whose words drown out all others, is chief amongst them.”

  The pheguth sat up sharply. He realised immediately he’d gone too far. The life-ward was in his thrall only so much.

  “I apologise,” the pheguth said quickly. “Please, show the etogaur through.”

  Appease the creature, win it back…

  “I will. Thank you, pheguth. I will warn him not to stay too long and tire you.”

  Mabbon Etogaur entered the chamber a few moments later. He shook the pheguth by the hand very formally, and then sat down on a second chair that had been provided by the footmen.

  “Your life-ward tells me you are indisposed, sir,” he said, settling the tails of his brown leather coat.

  “A fatigue, no more. Thank you for your concern. I apologise for missing our appointment this afternoon. Was it something important?”

  “It can wait,” Mabbon replied. “I had drawn up the first trainee regiment to parade for you. I thought you might like to look them over.”

  “By trainee regiment, you mean… the Sons of Sek?”

  “The Anarch, whose word drowns out all others, has charged me to establish the first training camp here on Gereon. It lies in the heartland bocage, about thirty kilometres from here. The men are doing well. They keenly anticipate your arrival to oversee training.”

  “I look forward to my first review.”

  The etogaur opened a despatch case and took out a sheaf of high resolution picts. He passed one to the pheguth.

  “Here you can see them in file order, sir.”

  The pheguth looked at the pict. He was impressed. It was a remote-view shot of some three hundred men in rank, to attention. They were all big brutes, shaven-headed but for a cock’s comb of hair across their skulls. They were wearing fatigues that were unmistakably Guard issue, but dyed ochre.

  “They seem a fine body of men, etogaur,” the pheguth said.

  “They are. Hand-picked.”

  “By you?”

  “Naturally, sir.”

  Mabbon arranged some more shots and passed them to the pheguth. “When you called off your visit this afternoon, I decided to run an exercise instead. The men were armed, and given an objective. As you can see, they accomplished the task well.”

  The pheguth slowly turned through the pictures. His hands began to quiver slightly.

  “What—” he began. “What objective did you give them, etogaur?”

  “A village in the bocage. It’s called Nahren Town. Population sixteen thousand. That’s consented, of course. Nahren is a known centre for the resistance and the unconsented.”

  “They… they really took the place apart, didn’t they?”

  Mabbon nodded. “Expertly so. In this shot, and in this, you’ll see the firefight that began when the resistance showed themselves. I think those poor fools were actually trying to stop the civilian slaughter.”

  “I suppose so…”

  “Bad tactics, in my opinion,” the etogaur said lightly. “The resistance here has prospered by keeping its head down and remaining covert at all costs. The raid on Nahren brought them out like rats. An elementary combat mistake. Better to flee and retain your secrecy. They were outmatched. You see? Here… and here too.”

  “You killed them all.”

  “All of them. Fifty-nine resistance cell fighters. With no losses on our end.”

  “No, I mean… you killed everyone.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. The entire population was accounted for. A fine showing, do you not think?”

  The pheguth stared for a moment more, then shuffled the picts back into a block and handed them to Mabbon. “Excellent. Excellent work. Simply excellent.”

  Mabbon smiled. “The men will be so pleased when I inform them of your pleasure, sir.”

  “Sixteen thousand…?”

  “Yes sir, and the bodies are burning now. The Sons made a pyre of them. Dedicated it to our beloved Anarch.”

  “Whose word drowns out all others…” the pheguth said.

  “Indeed so. Pheguth? Are you all right?”

  “Just… just a little weary. Don’t mind me, etogaur. That’s quite a… quite a display your men put on today. Very… ruthless.” The pheguth looked up and met Mabbon’s eyes. “I’m very impressed,” he said.

  Mabbon seemed pleased. “I’m ordering another exercise for the day after tomorrow. A town called Furgesh. Population forty thousand. Does that meet with your requirements?”

  “That would be perfect,” the pheguth sighed.

  Mabbon slid the picts back into his case and got to his feet. “I thank you for your time, sir. I know you’re tired. I… I was told about the attack. Are your wounds troubling you?”

  “Not at all,” the pheguth replied.

  The etogaur nodded, and turned to go.

  “Mabbon?” the pheguth called out. The warrior paused and turned back.

  “Sir?”

  “My life-ward told me that the assassins were not Imperial agents. Why would that be?”

  “Sir, I’m not at liberty to—”

  “Tell me, Mabbon.”

  Mabbon walked back and resumed his seat. His voice was low. “The assassins were men from the Occupation force, sir. Men whose loyalty to the Archon exceeds their loyalty to his lieutenant, Great Sek. You are considered by some to be a heresy and a monster of the enemy that should not be entertained in any wise. In short, sir, you are still an Imperial general to them, and that makes you a target.”

  “I have renounced the Imperium of Man. I am a traitor general.”

  “I know that, sir. But many believe… what’s bred in the bone. Some individuals loyal to the Archon fear you’ll betray him by aiding the Great Sek. Others simply cannot understand why a man who has made a career out of fighting us can now be watered and fed as a friend.�
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  “But you understand, don’t you, Mabbon?” Mabbon nodded. “Yes, sir. I understand, because I am a traitor myself.”

  The Sleepwalkers’ encampment covered over an acre of marshland, but very few parts of it touched the ground. It had been built in a glade of particularly old and massive mangrove trees, and was essentially a series of wooden platforms suspended like stages between the trunks. The lowest were supported on root balls, or wedged onto islets of land that rose from the stewing bog, often with a tree or two projecting from their tops. Others, the larger stages, had been constructed between the tree boles, some two metres above the surface of the mire. They were supported by a mix of stilt-beams sunk into the ooze and heavy wooden brackets dovetailed into the living tree trunks. Higher up, smaller platforms depended from the heavy branches on frames of rope. Plank walkways connected the lower stages, and woven ladders ran up to the higher platforms. Their dwellings dotted the stages, domed tents woven from some pale fabric and articulated like the partisans’ cloaks.

  The encampment had an eerie glow to it. Braziers were burning to light the place, and the glow reflected back off the water and the foliage gave the place a grey-green cast.

  Brostin smiled when he saw the brazier flames. He sniffed the air. “Promethium…” he said.

  The nearest Sleepwalker glared at him to be quiet. Brostin shrugged.

  It had taken more than three hours to reach the encampment, and they had trudged in forced silence. Gaunt was dying to speak with Mkvenner, but the partisans made it clear they would tolerate no talking, so he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to antagonise them now.

  Besides, they were outnumbered almost four to one. The Sleepwalkers had allowed them to keep their weapons, but there was no mistaking who was in control. And Gaunt was certain that the partisans’ weapons, however primitive, would be quite lethal. He was particularly interested in the crossbows which, on closer sight turned out not to be crossbows at all. In structure, they bore a superficial resemblance to machine bows, but they were not strung in any way. Each one was handmade and individual, though they all followed the same basic pattern: a long, hollow tube of metal or hardwood with a trigger grip set behind it, and a shoulder-stock behind that. As far as Gaunt could tell, there seemed to be a power cell built into the shoulder stock. The arms of the bow coiled back sharply on either side of the tubular barrel, more sharply than any crossbow’s, even under tension, and were made of metal, with metal weights on the end of each arm. The weapons were a puzzle. A lack of visible hammer or lock suggested they were not firearms, not bows either. Some form of energised launcher, perhaps. The Sleepwalkers who bore them were also slung with what looked to Gaunt like satchel quivers.