[Gaunt's Ghosts 04] - Honour Guard

by Dan Abnett

  The fire splash of the tank wave rippled through the Old Town all the way up to the base of the Citadel. Twenty thousand homes and businesses burned or were flattened by shelling. The Chapel of Kiodras Militant was blown apart. The public kitchens and the studios of the iconographers were blasted through and trampled under churning tracks. The Ayatani Scholam and the subsidiaries of the esholi were destroyed, and their brick litter toppled into the holy river. The ancient stones of the Indehar Sholaan Sabbat Bridge were hurled a hundred and fifty metres into the air.

  The Pardus armour ploughed on, directed by Colonel Furst and Major Kleopas. They were one of the best armour units in this segmentum.

  Old Town, and everything and everyone in it, didn’t stand a chance.

  FOUR

  THE COLONEL AT BAY

  “Lay a fire within your soul and another between your hands, and let both be your weapons.

  “For one is faith and the other is victory and neither may ever be put out.”

  —Saint Sabbat, lessons

  The room shook. The walls and floor jarred slightly. Dust dribbled from the rafters. Onion-flasks full of water clinked against each other.

  No one seemed to notice at first, except Corbec himself. He was sprawled on the floor, and he could feel the flagstones stirring under his palms and fingertips.

  He looked up, but none of the Infardi had felt it. They were too busy with Yael. The boy was dead now; for that much Corbec was thankful, though it meant it would soon be his own turn on the bench. But the Infardi were still finishing their ritual butchery, adorning the corpse with shunned symbols while they muttered verses from polluted texts.

  The room shook again. The bottles clinked. More dust trickled down.

  Despite the gravity of his situation, perhaps even because of it Colm Corbec smiled.

  A shadow fell across him.

  “Why do you smile?” Pater Sin asked.

  “Death’s coming,” Corbec replied, spitting a wad of bloody saliva into the floor dust.

  “Do you welcome it?” Sin’s voice was low, almost breathless. Corbec saw that Sin’s metal teeth were so sharp they cut the inside of the bastard’s own lips.

  “I welcome death all right,” Corbec said. He sat up slightly. “Takes me away from you for one thing. But I’m smiling ’cause it’s not coming for me.”

  The room shook again. Pater Sin felt it and looked around. His men stopped what they were doing. With curt words and gestures, Sin sent three of them hurrying from the room to investigate.

  Corbec didn’t need anyone to tell him what it was. He’d been close to enough mechanised assaults in his time to know the signs. The hard shocks of shells falling, the background vibration of heavy armour…

  The room shook yet again, and this time there was a triple-peal of noise loud enough to be clearly identified as explosions. The Infardi were gathering up their weapons. Sin stalked over to one man who had a light vox unit and exchanged calls with other Infardi units.

  By then, the shaking and the sound of the explosions was a constant background noise.

  Sin looked over at Corbec.

  “I expected this, sooner or later. You presume it’s taken me by surprise, but in fact it’s precisely what I…”

  He paused, as if unwilling to give away secrets even to a half-dead old foot-slogger.

  Sin made several guttural noises — Corbec decided they must be command words in the Infardi’s private combat-code — and the gunmen made ready to leave en masse. Four of them grabbed Corbec and dragged him up with them. Pain flared through his torso, but he bit his lip.

  His captors pulled and shoved him along dirty hallways and across an open courtyard behind the main body of the Infardi gunmen. In the yard, the sunlight was harsh and painful to Corbec, and the open air brought the sounds of the Imperial assault to him with greater clarity: the overlapping, meaty thump of explosions, the swooping air-rush of shells, the clanking grind of tracks, the slithering collapses of masonry.

  Corbec found himself almost hopping along, trying to favour the foot with the boot on it. The Infardi punched and jabbed him, cursing him. They wanted to move faster than he could go. Besides, keeping one hand on him meant they each had only one hand free to manage ammo satchels, las-rifles and their other accoutrements.

  They pressed on through the interior of a stonecutter’s workshop where everything was coated thumb-deep in white stone dust, before emerging through a set of wooden shutters into a steep, cobbled street.

  Above, not more than two kilometres away, rose the Citadel. It was the closest Corbec had been to the building. Its bleached cliff edges, fringed in mauve mosses and feathery lichens, thrust up above the skirt of roofs and towers formed by Old Town and the eastern hill quarters of the Doctrinopolis, supporting the ashlar-dressed pillars and temples of the holy city’s royal precincts. The monumental buildings were flesh-pink against the blue of the sky. Sin’s men must have taken him and Yael a good way north through the Old Town.

  Looking the other way, the street swept down through the jumbled old dwellings and massy stoneshops towards the river plain where the Old Town started. The sky that way was a whirling haze of black and grey smoke. Fire licked through the town’s flanks. Corbec could see series after series of shell-strikes fan in ripples through the streets. Geysers of flame, smoke, earth and masonry blew up into the air.

  His guards pulled at him again and forced him up the slope of the street. Most of the other Infardi had already disappeared into the surrounding buildings.

  The gunmen jostled him off the street, through a cast-iron gate into a level yard where stones and tiles were stacked ready for use. To one side, under an awning, sat three flat-pan work barrows and some cutter’s tools; to the other, a pair of heavy old-pattern servitors that had been deactivated.

  The men pushed Corbec down on the barrows. Pater Sin reappeared with eight other men, moving from an inner door across the yard, and words were exchanged.

  Corbec waited. The barrows were covered in dusty sacking. The masons’ tools were nearby: four big adzes, a worn mallet, some chisels, a diamond-bladed trowel. Even the smaller items were not small enough for him to conceal.

  A whistling scream shook the yard as a shell passed directly overhead. It detonated in the neighbouring building and blew brick chips and smoke back over them with a boneshaking roar. Corbec pressed his head down into the sacking.

  He felt something under the sacking, reached for it.

  A heavy weight, small, about the size of a child’s fist or a ripe ploin, with a cord attached. A stonecutter’s plumb-line; a hard lead weight on the end of four metres of plaited silk string. Trying not to let them see, he tugged it out of the sacking on the barrow and wound it into his hand.

  Pater Sin barked some more orders to his men, and then engaged his body-shield, effectively vanishing from view. Corbec saw his hazy shape, crackling in the dustclouds kicked up from the near-hit, leave the yard by the far side, accompanied by all but three of the men.

  They turned back to him, approaching.

  A salvo of tank shells fell on the street around with numbing force and noise. Luck alone had caused them to bracket the yard or, Corbec realised, he and his captors would have been pulped. As it was, all three Infardi were knocked over on their faces. Corbec, who had a more experienced ear for shelling times and distances than the cultists, had braced himself at the first whistle of the incoming shells.

  He leapt up. One of the Infardi was already rising groggily, lasrifle swinging up to cover the prisoner.

  Corbec spun the looped plumb-line in his hand quickly, letting the lead soar free on the third turn. It smashed into the gunman’s left cheek with a satisfying crack and sent him tumbling back to the floor.

  Corbec now spun the line over his head at the full length of its cord. He had built up enough force by the time the second gunman jumped up that it wrapped four times around his throat and cinched tight.

  Choking, the cultist fell, trying to g
et the tough, tight cord off his throat.

  Corbec grabbed his lasrifle, and managed to roll with it and fire off a pair of shots as the first Infardi got up again. He was firing as he rose, the dent of the plumb-weight braising his face. Corbec’s shots went through his chest and tossed him over on to his back.

  Clutching his captured weapon, Corbec stood up. More shells fell close by. He put a shot through the head of the Infardi who was still trying to get the line off his neck.

  The third was face down, dead. The close blast had buried a piece of tile in his skull.

  The rolling thunder of the barrage was coming closer. There was no time to search the bodies for ammo or liberate a replacement boot. Corbec figured if he headed up the Old Town hill he could get around the side of the Citadel plateau and perhaps stay alive. It was undoubtedly what the Infardi were doing.

  He went through the doors on the far side of the yard, in the direction Sin had taken. He kept hopping as shards of debris dug into the sole of his unprotected foot. He passed down a tiled hallway where the force of the blasts had brought the windows and blinds in, then on into a bay area where iron scaffolding was stored near to a loading ramp.

  Between the beat of explosions, close and distant he heard voices. Corbec crouched and peered through the loading area. The outer doors, tall and old and wooden, had been levered open, and a pair of eight-wheel cargo tracks had been backed in. Infardi, about a dozen of them, were loading sheet-wrapped objects and wooden crates into the rear of the vehicles.

  There was no sign of Pater Sin.

  Corbec checked the power-load of his appropriated weapon. Over three-quarters yield. Enough to make them sit up and take notice at least.

  The burning streets were alive. Humans, locals, fleeing from their devastated homes and hiding places with bundles of possessions, driving thin, scared livestock before them.

  And vermin… tides of vermin… pouring out of the inferno, sweeping down the hill streets of Old Town towards the river.

  Kolea’s team moved against the tide.

  Chasing uphill at a ran, with rebreather masks buckled over their faces to shut out the searing smoke, they tried to head away from the blast front of the encroaching armour brigade while steering a path towards the masons’ district.

  Now and then, shells fell so close they were all thrown off their feet by the Shockwaves. Torched dwellings collapsed across streets to block their route. In places, they waded through living streams of rodents, guard-issue boots crunching on squirming bodies.

  The eight Ghosts sprinted across another street junction, wafer-shreds of ash billowing around them, and took shelter in a leather worker’s shop. It had been gutted by shells, just an empty ruin.

  Dorden pulled off his rebreather and started coughing. By his side, Trooper Mkvenner rolled onto his side and tried to pull a shard of hot glass shrapnel out of his thigh.

  “Let me see to it,” Dorden coughed. He used his medicae kit tweezers to tug the sliver out and washed the deep cut with antiseptic from a spray bottle.

  Dorden sat back, mopping his brow.

  “Thanks, doc,” whispered Mkvenner. “You okay?”

  Dorden nodded the question away. He felt half-cooked, wilted, choked. He couldn’t draw breath properly. The heat from the burning buildings all around was like an oven.

  By an exploded doorway in the far wall, Kolea and Sergeant Haller looked out.

  “It’s clear that way,” Kolea muttered, pointing.

  “For now,” Haller conceded. He waved up troopers Garond and Cuu and sent them dashing over to secure the premises next door.

  Dorden noted that Haller, a Verghastite recruit himself, and a veteran of the Vervun Primary regiment favoured the troops he knew from his homeworld: Garond and Cuu, both Verghastites.

  Haller was a cautious soul. Dorden felt the sergeant sometimes had too much respect for the heroic Tanith to give them orders.

  The old medic eyed the other members of the squad: Mkvenner, Wheln, Domor and Rafflan, the other Tanith men. Harjeon was the only other Vervunhiver. A small, blond man with a wispy moustache, Harjeon cowered in the shelled out corner of the premises.

  Dorden noted he could see a pecking order now. Kolea’s in charge, and he’s a war hero, so no one argues. Haller’s ex-hive military, and so’s Garond. Cuu… well, he’s a law unto himself, an ex-ganger from the lowest hive levels, but no one doubts his mettle or his fighting smarts.

  Harjeon… An ex-civilian. Dorden wasn’t sure what Harjeon’s calling had been in pre-guard life. A tailor? A teacher? Whatever, he rated lowest of all.

  If they ever got out of this alive, Dorden knew he’d have to talk to Gaunt about evening up the prejudices that the new influx brought with them.

  Volcanically, shells splashed down across the end of the street. They were showered with debris.

  “Let’s move!” Haller cried and took off after Cuu and Garond. Kolea waited, waving Harjeon and the Tanith past.

  Dorden reached the doorway, and looked at Kolea as he adjusted his rebreather mask.

  “We really should go back…” he began.

  “Into that, doctor?” Kolea asked, gesturing back at the firestorm that boiled up through Old Town after them.

  “We’re out of options, I’m afraid,” Kolea said. “Just to stay alive, we’ve got to keep ahead of the shells. So we might as well keep on and see if we can find Corbec.”

  They ran through a wall of heat into the next ruin. Dorden saw the bare skin on his wrists and forearms was blistering in the crisping air.

  They darted into the next building. It was remarkably intact and the air within mercifully cool. From the window, Dorden watched as shells slammed down close by. The building across the street seemed to shunt sideways, whole and complete, before disintegrating.

  “Close, huh, Tanith?”

  Dorden glanced round and met the eyes of Trooper Cuu.

  Trooper Cuu. Lijah Cuu. Something of a legend already in the regiment. Just under two metres, slim, corded with muscle. Lean with a face like a bad lie. That’s how Corbec had described him.

  Cuu had been a ganger in Vervunhive before the war. Some said he’d killed more men in gang fights than he had in battle. He was tattooed extensively, and sold his ability with ink and needle to appreciative Verghastites. A long scar split his face top to bottom.

  Trooper Cuu called everyone “Tanith”, like it was a scornful insult.

  “Close enough for me,” Dorden said.

  Cuu flexed around and checked over his lasrifle. His movements were feline and quick, Dorden thought. A cat, that’s just what he is. A scarred and ragged tomcat. Even down to his chilly green eyes. Dorden had spent the last odd years in the company of exceptionally dangerous men. Rawne, that ruthless snake… Feygor, a soulless killer… but Cuu…

  A casebook sociopath, if ever he’d seen one. The man had made a life of gang-fights and blade-wars long before the crusade had come along to legitimise his talents. Just being close to Cuu with his vivid tattoo gang marks and cold, lifeless eyes made Dorden uneasy.

  “What’s the matter, doc? Got no stomach for it?” Cuu chuckled, sensing Dorden’s unease. “Better you stayed at your nice safe aid station, huh?”

  “Absolutely,” Dorden said and moved across to a place between Rafflan and Domor.

  Trooper Domor had lost his eyes on Menazoid Epsilon, and augmetic surgeons had rebuilt his face around a pair of military gauge optic sensors. The Tanith men called him “Shogg”, after the bug-eyed amphibian they decided he now resembled.

  Dorden knew Domor well, and counted him a friend. He knew that Domor’s implants could read heat and movement through stone walls and brick facades.

  “You see much?”

  “It’s all empty ahead,” Domor replied, the milled focus rings of his implants whirring as they moved around on automatic. “Kolea should put me up front. Me and Mkvenner.”

  Dorden nodded. Mkvenner was one of the Tanith’s elite scout troopers, trained by the
infamous Mkoll himself. Between his senses and Domor’s augmetic sight, they could be moving ahead with a great deal more confidence.

  Dorden decided to speak to Kolea and Haller about it. He moved forward towards the bulky shape of the big miner and the lean figure of Haller, who still wore his spiked Vervun Primary helmet as part of his battledress.

  A Shockwave threw him off his feet into the far wall. Plaster smashed and slid away as he hit it.

  For a fleeting, peaceful second, he saw his wife, and his daughter, long gone with Tanith itself and his son Mikal, dead these last few months on Verghast far away…

  Mikal smiled, and detached himself from the embrace of his sister and his mother. He stepped towards his father.

  “Sabbat Martyr,” he said.

  “What?” Dorden replied. His mouth and nose were full of blood and he couldn’t talk clearly. The joy and pain of seeing his son was making him cry. “What did you say?”

  “Sabbat Martyr. Don’t die, dad. It’s not your time.”

  “Mikal, I…”

  “Doc! Doc!”

  Dorden opened his eyes. Pain shuddered through his waking body. He couldn’t see.

  “Oh feth,” he gurgled, blood filling his mouth.

  Rough hands yanked his mask off and he heard liquid pattering on the rubble. He blinked.

  Wheln and Haller were bent over him, anxious looks on their faces. “W-what?” Dorden mumbled.

  “Thought you were fething dead!” Wheln cried.