by Dan Abnett
Two hundred metres away, a little way down a slope in the hill, Sergeant Varl's platoon reacted fastest, turning their rocket launchers on the nearest two towers and toppling them in earthy crumps of dirt and flame. Folore and Lerod's platoon's quickly followed suit to the left of Corbec's position. Seven or more of the towers were demolished in the near vicinity. Sergeant Curral's platoon, guarding the rear of the main defence, set to blasting towers further down the slope with their missile launchers. Stone dust and burnt bracken fibres drifted in the scorched air.
There was a report from Sergeant Hasker, whose platoon had lost all of its heavy weapon troops in the first exchange. Hasker was sending men up close to the towers in his sector to mine them with grenade strings and tube bombs.
By Corbec's side, Mahan was about to say something, but stopped short in surprise, suddenly wiping fresh blood from his upper lip. Corbec felt the hot dribble in his own nose too, and sensed the sickly tingle in the air.
'Oh—' he began.
Mahan shook his head, trying to clear it, blood streaming from his nose. Suddenly he convulsed as catastrophic static noise blasted through his headset to burst his eardrums. He winced up in pain, crying out and tearing at his ear pieces.
He rose too far. A barbed round found him as he exposed his head and shoulders over the cover, and tore everything above his waist into bloody spatters. The comms unit on his back exploded. Corbec was drenched in bloody matter and took a sidelong deflection of shrapnel in the ribs, a piece of the barbed round that had fractured on impact with Mahan's sternum.
Corbec slumped, gasping. The pain was hideous. The broken leaf of metal had gone deep between his ribs and he knew it had ruptured something inside him. Blood pooled in the bracken roots beneath him.
Fighting the agony, he looked up. The air-sting and the nosebleeds could only mean one thing – and Corbec had fought through enough theatres against Chaos to know the cursed signs.
The Primaris target had activated its towers.
Almost doubled up, clutching his side with bloodstained fingers, Corbec looked down the length of the assault line. His warning had come just in time. The Ghosts had demolished enough of the towers to break the chains. Fetid white energy billowed out of the necropolis, swirling in grasping tendrils that whipped forward to find the relay towers that were no longer there. Corbec's orders had cut the insidious counter-aces of the enemy.
Unable to link with the tower relays, the abysmal energy launched from the necropolis wavered and then boiled backwards into the city. In an instant, the enemy's own thwarted weapons did more damage to the dty facade than Corbec's regiment could have managed in a month of sustained fire. Entire plateaux of stone work exploded and collapsed as the untrained energy snapped back into the dead city. Granite shards blasted outwards in choking fireballs, and sections of the edifice slipped away like collapsing ice-shelves, baring tunnelled rock faces beneath.
Down the Tanith line, Hasker's platoon had not been so lucky. Their mining efforts were only partially complete when the defence grid activated. The better part of fifty men, Dorain Hasker with them, were caught in the searing energy-fence and burned.
But Hasker had his revenge at the last, as the tower energy set off his munitions. The whole slope shuddered at the simultaneous report. Crackling towers dissolved in sheets of flame and great explosions of earth and stone. The feedback there was far greater. The flickering, blazing fence wound back on itself as the towers collapsed, lashing back into the necropolis and scourging a new ravine out of the mountainside.
As if stunned, or mortally crippled, the enemy gunfire trailed away and died.
Corbec rolled in the belly of the foxhole, awash with his own blood, and Mahan's. He pulled a compress from his field kit and slapped it over the wound in his side, and then gulped down a handful of fat counter-pain tablets from his medical pouch with three swigs from his water flask while reciting a portion of the Litany for Merciful Healing.
More than the recommended dose, he knew. His vision swam, and then he felt a strength return as the pain dulled. His ribs and his chest throbbed, but he felt almost alive again. Alive enough to function, though at the back of his mind he knew it was no more than a bravura curtain call.
There were eight tablets left in his kit. He put them in his pocket for easy access. A week's worth of dose, and he'd use it in an hour if he had to. He would fight until pain and death clawed through the analgesic barriers and stopped him.
He hefted himself up, recovered his lasgun and keyed his microbead.
'Corbec to all the Ghosts of Tanith… now we advance!'
NINE
Over the vale beyond them, Colonel Draker Flense and his Patrician units saw the flicker of explosions that backlit the hills and underlit the clouds. Night was falling. The concussion of distant explosions, too loud and large for any Guard ground-based weaponry, stung the air around them.
Trooper Defraytes, Flense's vox-officer, stood to attention by him and held out the handset plate on which the assimilated data of Command flickered like an endless litany.
Flense read it, standing quite still in the dusk, amid the bracken and the soft flutter of evening moths.
The Tanith had met fierce opposition, but thanks to the warnings from the other target sites, they had broken the Chaos defence grid and blasted the opposition. Those thunderclaps still rolling off the far hills were the sounds of their victory.
'Sir?' Defraytes said, holding out his data slate. A battle-coded relay from Dravere was forming itself across the matt screen in dull runes.
Flense took it, pressing his signet ring against the reader plate so that it would decode. The knurled face of the ring turned and stabbed a stream of light into the slate's code-socket. Magenta clearance, for his eyes only.
The message was remarkably direct and certain.
Flense allowed himself a moment to smile. He turned to his men, all six thousand of them spread in double file swirls down the scarp. Nearby, Major Brochuss stared at his commander under hooded lids.
Flense keyed his microbead.
'Warriors of Jant Normanidus Prime, the order has come. Evidence has now proved to our esteemed commander Lord General Dravere that the Colonel-Commissar Gaunt is infected with the taint of Chaos, as are his so-called Ghosts. They, and they alone, have passed through the defences of Chaos which have halted Marshal Sendak and Marshal Tarantine. They are marked with the badge of evil. Lord General Dravere has granted us the privilege of punishing them.'
There was a murmur in the ranks, and an edgy eagerness.
Flense cleared his throat. 'We will take the scarp and fall upon the Tanith from behind. No longer think of them as allies, or even human. They are stained with the foul blackness of our eternal foe. We will engage them – and we will exterminate them.'
Flense cut his link and turned to face the top of the scarp. He flicked his hand to order the advance and knew without question that they would follow.
TEN
The light died.
Gaunt tore the lamp pack off the muzzle of his lasgun and tossed it away. Dorden was at his side, handing him another.
'Eight left,' the elderly medic said, holding out a roll of surgical tape to help Gaunt wrap the lamp in place.
Neither of them wanted to talk about the darkness down here. A Guard-issue lamp-pack was meant to last six hundred hours. In less than two, they had exhausted the best part of twenty between them. It was as if the dark down in the underworld of the necropolis ate up the light. Gaunt shuddered. If this place could leach power from energetic sources like lamp-packs, he dared not think what it might be doing to their human frames.
They still edged forward: first the scouts, Mkoll and Baru, silent and almost invisible in the directionless dark, then Larkin and Gaunt. Gaunt noticed that Larkin was sporting some ancient firing piece instead of his lasgun, a long-limber rifle of exotic design. He had been told this was the weapon Larkin had used to take down the Inquisitor Heldane, and so
it was now his lucky weapon. There was no time to chastise the man for superstitious foolishness. Gaunt knew Larkin's mental balance hung by a thread as it was. He simply hoped that, come a firefight, the strange weapon would have a cycle rate commensurate to the lasgun.
Behind them came Rawne, Domor and Caffran, all with lamp pack-equipped lasguns at the ready. Domor had his sweeper set slung on his shoulder too, if the need came to scan for mines. Dorden followed, unarmed, and then Bragg with his massive autocannon. Behind them came Fereyd, with his anonymous, still visored troops as their rearguard.
Gaunt called a halt while the scouts took fresh bearings and inspected the tunnels ahead. Fereyd moved over to him.
'Been a long time, Bram,' he said in a smooth voice that was almost a whisper.
He doesn't want the men to hear, thought Gaunt. He doesn't know how much I've told them. He doesn't even know what I know.
'Aye, a long time,' Gaunt replied, tugging the straps of his rifle sling tighter and casting a glance in the low lamplight at Fereyd's unreadable face. 'And now barely time for a greeting and we're in it again.'
'Like Pashen.'
'Like Pashen,' Gaunt nodded with a phantom smile. 'We do always seem to make things up as we go along.'
Fereyd shook his head. 'Not this time. This is too big. It makes Pashen Nine-Sixty look like a blank-round exercise. Truth is, Bram, we've been working together on this for months, had you but realised it.'
'Without direct word from you, it was hard to know anything. First I knew was Pyrites, when you volunteered me as custodian for the damn crystal.'
'You objected?'
'No,' Gaunt said, tight and mean. 'I'd never shirk from service to the Throne, not even dirty clandestine shadowplay like this. But that was quite a task you dropped in my lap.'
Fereyd smiled. 'I knew you were up to it. I needed someone I could trust. Someone there…'
'Someone who was part of the intricate web of friends and confidantes you have nurtured wherever you go?'
'Hard words, Ibram. I thought we were friends.'
We are. You know your friends, Fereyd. You made them yourself.
There was a silence.
'So tell me… from the beginning.' Gaunt raised a questioning eyebrow.
Fereyd shrugged. You know it all, don't you?'
'I've had gobbets of it, piecemeal… bits and scraps, educated guesses, intuitions. I'd like to hear it clean.'
Fereyd put down his lasgun, drew off his gloves and flexed his knuckles. The gesture made Gaunt smile. There was nothing about this man, this Tactician Wheyland, that remotely resembled the Fereyd he'd known on the city farms of Pashen Nine-Sixty, such was the spy's mastery of disguise. But now that little gesture, an idiosyncrasy even careful disguise couldn't mask. It reassured the commissar.
'It is standard Imperial practice for a warmaster to establish a covert network to observe all of his command. Macaroth is cautious, a son of the Emperor in instinct. And glory knows, he's got a lot of shadows to fear. Slaydo's choice wasn't popular. Many resent him, Dravere most of all. Power corrupts, and the temptation of power corrupts even more. Men are just men, and they are fallible. I've been part of the network assigned by Macaroth to keep watch and check on his Crusade's officers. Dravere is a proud man, Bram, he will not suffer this slight.'
You've said as much before. Hell, I've even paraphrased you to my men.'
'You've told your men?' Fereyd asked quickly, with a sharp look.
'My officers. Just enough to make sure they are with me, just enough to give them an edge if it matters. Fact is, I've probably told them all I know, which is precious little. The prize, the Vermilion trophy… that's what has changed everything, isn't it?'
'Of course. Even with regiments loyal to him, Dravere could never hope to turn on our beloved warmaster. But if he had something else, some great advantage, something Macaroth didn't have…'
'like a weapon.'
'Like a great, great weapon. Eight months ago, part of my network on Talsicant first got a hint that Dravere's own covert agencies had stumbled upon a rumour of some great prize. We don't know how, or where… we can only imagine the efforts and sacrifices made by his operatives to locate and recover the data. But they did. A priceless nugget of ancient, Vermilion level secrets snatched from some distant, abominable reach of space and conveyed from psyker to psyker, agent to agent, back to the Lord High Militant General. It couldn't be sent openly of course, or Macaroth would have intercepted it. Nor was it possible to send it directly, as it was being carried out of hostile space, far from Imperial control. On the last leg of its journey, transmitted from the Nubila Reach to Pyrites, we managed to track it and intercept it, diverting it from Dravere's agents. That was when it fell into your hands.'
'And the General's minions have been desperate to retrieve it ever since.'
Fereyd nodded. 'In anticipation of its acquisition, Dravere has set great wheels in motion. He knew its import, and the location it referred to. With it now in our hands – just – we couldn't allow it to fall back into Dravere's grasp. But we were not positioned strongly or closely enough to recover it. It was decided… I decided, in fact… that our best choice was to let you run with it, in the hope that you would get to it for us before the Lord General and his coterie of allies.'
You have terrifying faith in my abilities, Fereyd. I'm just a footslogger, a commander of infantry.'
You know you're more than that. A loyal hero of unimpeachable character, resourceful, ruthless… one of Warmaster Slaydo's chosen few, a man on whom the limelight of fame fell full enough to make it difficult for Dravere to move against you directly.'
Gaunt laughed. 'If the attempts to kill me and my men recently weren't direct, I hate to think what direct means!'
Fereyd caught his old friend with a piercing look. 'But you did it! You made it this far! You're on top of the situation, close to the prize, just as I knew you would! We did everything we could, behind the scenes, to facilitate your positioning and give you assistance. The deployment of the Tanith in the frontline here was no accident. And I'm just thankful I was able to manipulate my own cover as part of the Tactical Counsel to get close enough to join you now.'
'Well, we're here now, right enough, and the prize is in our grasp…' Gaunt began, hefting up his rifle again and preparing to move.
'May I see the crystal, Bram? Maybe it's time I read its contents too… if we're to work together on this.'
Gaunt swung round and gazed at Fereyd in slow realisation. You don't know, do you?'
'Know?'
'You don't know what it is we're here risking our lives for?'
You thought I did? Even Macaroth and his allies don't know for sure. All any of us are certain of is that it is something that could make Dravere the man to overthrow the Crusade's High Command. As far as I know, you're the only person who's decoded it. Only you know – you and the men you've chosen to share it with.'
Gaunt began to laugh. The laughter rolled along the low stone tunnel and made all the men look round in surprise.
'I'll tell you then, Fereyd, and it's as bad as you fear—'
Mkoll's hard whistle rang down the space and cut them all silent.
Gaunt spun around, raising his rifle and looked ahead into the blackness, his fresh lamp-pack already dimmer. Something moved ahead of him in the darkness. A scrabbling sound.
A barbed round hummed lazily out of nowhere, missing the flinching Larkin by a whisker and exploding against the stone wall of the corridor. Domor started screaming as Caffran held him. Shrapnel had taken his eyes and his face was a mask of flowing blood.
Gaunt seared five shots off into the darkness, and heard the chatter of Bragg's autocannon starting up behind him. The party took up firing positions along the rough-hewn walls of the tunnel.
Now the endgame, Gaunt thought.
ELEVEN
The medics, trailing their long red scrubs like priests' robes, thei
r faces masked by gauze, moved silently around the isolation sphere in the belly of the Leviathan. They reset diagnosticators and other gently pulsing machines, muttering low intonations of healing invocations.
Heldane knew they were the best medics in the Segmentum Pacificus fleet. Dravere had transferred a dozen of his private medical staff to Heldane when he learned of the Inquisitor's injury. It mattered little, Heldane knew as a certainty. He was dying. The rifle round, fired at such close range, had destroyed his neck, left shoulder and collarbone, left cheek and throat. Without the supporting web of the medical bay and the Emperor's grace, he would already be cold. He eased back in his long-frame cot, as far as the tubes and regulator pipes piercing his neck and chest would allow. Beyond the plastic sheeting of his sterile tent, he could see the winking, pumping mechanisms on their brass trolleys and racks that were keeping him alive. He could see the dark fluids of his own body cycling in and out of centrifuge scrubs, squirting down ridged plastic tubes supported by aluminium frames. Every twenty seconds, a delicate silvered scorpion-form device screwed into the bones of his face bathed his open wound with a mist of disinfectant spray from its hooked tail. Soothing smoke rose from incense burners around the bed.
He looked up through the plastic veil at the ceiling of the sphere, lucidly examining the zigzag, black-and white inlay of the roof-pattern. With his mind, the wonderful mind that could pace out the measures of unreal space and stay sane in the full light of the Immaterium, he considered the overlaid pattern, the interlocking chevrons of ivory and obsidian. The nature of eternity lay in their pattern. He unlocked it, psychically striding beyond his ruined physicality, penetrating the abstract realms of lightness and darkness, the governing switches on which all reality was triggered.
Light interlocked with dark. It pleased him. He knew, as he had always known, that his place lay somehow in the slivered cracks of shadow between the contrasting white and black. He entered this space between, and it embraced him. He understood, as he was sure the Emperor himself did not understand, the miraculous division between the Light of mankind and the Darkness of the foe. It was a distinction so obvious and yet so overlooked. Like any true son of the Imperium of Man, he would fight with all his soul and vigour against the blackness, but he would not do so standing in the harshness of the pure white. There was a shadow between them, a greyness, that was his to inhabit. The Emperor, and his heir Macaroth, were oblivious to the distinction and that was what made them weak. Dravere saw it, and that is why Heldane bent his entire force of will to support the lord general. What did he care if the weapon they hunted for was made by, or polluted by, Chaos? It would still work against the Darkness.
