Ghostmaker

by Dan Abnett

  The next round. Gilbear and a Deeper, each three holes away from the winning aperture, split the now considerable pot.

  The next round. Playing was Gilbear, three of the Slammabadden, two Deepers, Caffran (now subbing from a worried-looking Raglon, Brostin having exited in a convincing rage) and Milo. A huge pile of wagers.

  Caffran came out two off the mark, a Slammabadden was one off. Gilbear was on the other side of the censer. Milo was spot on.

  Howls, anger, jubilation, tumult.

  'He was just lucky,' Varl said, collecting up the winnings. 'Are we done?'

  'The boy got a fluke,' Gilbear said, ordering his subalterns to empty their pockets. Another big wager was assembled. The Deepers had dropped out, and so had Caffran, leaving the chamber with Raglon. The Slammabadden mustered their strengths into one wager.

  Milo turned the censer and set it down.

  Silence.

  The bug ticked and bounced against the inside of the metal ball. It emerged.

  Milo had it again, spot on.

  Pandemonium. It seemed like a riot would overturn the troop bay. Varl collected the winnings and the censer and pulled Milo out of the chamber by the scruff of his tunic. Men were shouting, milling around, and a fight had begun over the outcome of one of the side-bets.

  In the companionway that led back to the Tanith troop deck, Varl and Milo rejoined Caffran, Raglon and Brostin. They were all laughing, and Caffran seemed suddenly sober. He would have to wash his tunic to get the stink of sacra out of it, of course.

  Varl grinned at them and held up the bulky pouch containing their winnings. 'Spoils to be divided, my friends!' he announced to them, slapping Milo across the back with his bionic arm. He had never got used to its strength and Milo nearly fell.

  Caffran uttered a warning. Dark shapes loomed down the companionway behind them. It was Gilbear and four of his men.

  'You'll pay for that trickery, whore's-son,' Gilbear told Varl.

  'It was a fair game,' began Varl, but realised at once that his silver tongue was useless now.

  There were five on each side, but each of the Bluebloods towered over Brostin, the largest of the Tanith present. In a close-quarter brawl, the Ghosts might score, draw even perhaps, but it would be bloody.

  'Is there a problem?' asked the sixth member of the Tanith scam team. Bragg pulled his vast bulk into the light behind his comrades, squinting in a relaxed way down at the five Bluebloods. He seemed to fill the corridor.

  The Ghosts parted to let Bragg lumber through. He adopted the slow gait Varl had trained him in, to emphasise his power. 'Go away, little Bluebloods. Don't make me hurt you,' he said, repeating the cue Varl had also given him. It came out stilted and false, but the Bluebloods were too amazed at his size to notice.

  They turned. With a final scowl, Gilbear followed them. The Ghosts began to laugh so hard, they wept.

  Below him, Monthax, green, impenetrable.

  Gaunt gazed down through the arched viewports of the hexa-thedral Sanctity, studying the distant surface of the planet that, within a week, his forces would be assaulting, from time to time, he referred to a data-slate map in his hand, checking off geographical details. The dense jungle cover was the biggest problem they faced. They had no idea of the hidden enemy's strength.

  Advance reports suggested a vast force of Chaos filth had retreated from a recent engagement at Piolitus and dug in here. Warmaster Macaroth was taking no chances. Around the huge bulk of the orbiting hexathedral, a colossal towered platform designed as a mustering point for the invasion forces, great legions massed. Over a dozen huge troop-ships were already docked around the crenellated rim of the hexathedral's skirt platform, like fat swine at the teats of their obese mother, and tugs were easing another in now to join them. More were due. Further away, Imperial battlecruisers and escort ships, including the frigate Navarre on which Gaunt and the Ghosts had been stationed for a while, sat at high orbit anchor, occasionally buzzing out clouds of attack squadrons heading off for surface runs or patrol sweeps.

  Gaunt turned from the windows and stepped down a short flight into the cool, echoing vastness of one of the Sanctity's main tactical chapels, the Orrery. A vast circular dial was set flush in the centre of the chamber's floor, thirty metres across and made of intricate, interlocking, moving parts of brass and gold, like a giant timepiece. As it whirred and cycled, the three dimensional globe of coloured light it projected upwards altered and spun, advancing data, chart runes, bars of information across the luminous surface.

  Trim uniformed Guard officers, robed members of the Ecclesiarch and the Munitorium, Navy commanders in their Segmentum Pacificus deck dress, and the hooded deaconal staff of the hexathedral itself, prowled the edges of the great fight Orrery, consulting the data and conferring in small groups. Skeletal servitors, emaciated, wired into the machine banks via cables from their eyes, spines, mouths and hands, hunkered in booth-cribs, murmuring and chattering. Around the sides of the great chamber, under cloistered roofing, great chart tables were arranged at intervals, each showing different sections of Monthax. Staff groups stood around every table, engaged in more specific and detailed planning sessions. The air chimed with announcements and updates, some of these overlapping and chattering with data noise. The Orrery turned, whirring, and new details and deployments appeared.

  Gaunt walked a circuit of the chamber, nodding to those fellow officers he knew, saluting his seniors. The whole place had an exceptional, expectant hush, like a great hunting animal, breathless, coiled to pounce.

  The commissar decided it was time he took a walk down to the Ghosts' troop-ship. The men would be restless, awaiting news of debarkation and deployment, and Gaunt knew well that trouble was always likely to brew when guardsmen were cramped together in transportation, idle and nervous.

  And bored. That was the worst of it. In any Guard regiment, disciplinary matters rose in number during such times, and he and the other commissars, the political enforcers of the Imperial Guard, would be busy. There would be brawls, thefts, feuds, drunkenness, even murder in some of the more barbaric regiments, and such disorder quickly spread without the proper control.

  Across the chamber, Gaunt saw General Sturm, the commander of the Volpone 50th and some of his senior aides. Sturm did not seem to see him, or chose not to acknowledge Gaunt if he did, and Gaunt made no effort to salute. The crime of Voltemand was still raw in his mind, despite the interval of months. When he learned that the Volpone Bluebloods and the Ghosts would encounter each other again at Monthax, for the first time since Voltemand, he had been apprehensive. The action on Menazoid Epsilon had shown him personally what a long-standing feud between regiments could do. But there was no chance of redeployment, and Gaunt comforted himself that it was only Sturm and his senior staff he had a problem with. The rank and file of the Ghosts and the Bluebloods had no reason for animosity. He would keep a careful watch, but he was sure they could billet side by side safely enough until the assault sent them their separate ways.

  And, unlike on Voltemand, Sturm wasn't in charge here. The Monthax offensive was under the supreme command of Lord Militant General Bulledin.

  Gaunt saw Commissar Volovoi, serving with the Roane Deepers, and stopped to talk with him. It was mostly inconsequential chat, though Volovoi had heard some word that Bulledin had consulted the Astropathicus. Rumours of psyker witchery on the planet below had started to spread. There was talk that auguries and the Tarot had been consulted to deter mine the truth of the situation.

  'Last thing we need,' muttered Volovoi to Gaunt. 'Last thing I need. The Roane are the very devil to keep in line. Good fight ers, yes, when they're roused to it, but damned idle for the most part. A few weeks of transportation confinement like this, and I'll have to kick each and every one of their arses to get them down the drop-ship ramp. Languid, lazy – and this makes it worse: they're superstitious, more than any band of men I've ever known. The rumours of witchcraft will get them spooked and that will make my w
ork twice as hard.'

  'I sympathise,' Gaunt said. He did. His old regiment, the Hyrkans, were tough as deck plate, but there had been times when the thought of psyker madness had balked them in their tracks.

  'What of you, Gaunt?' Volovoi asked. 'I hear you're taken up with a low-tech rabble now. Don't you miss the Hyrkan discipline?'

  Gaunt shook his head. The Tanith are sound, quietly disciplined in their way.'

  'And you have actual command of them too, is that right? Unusual. Tor a commissar.'

  'A gift of the late Slaydo, may the Emperor watch his rest. I resented it at first, but I've grown to like it.'

  'You've done well with them, so I hear. I read the reports on that campaign in the Menazoid Clasp last year, and they say your men turned the key that opened the door at Bucephalon too.'

  'We've had our moments.'

  Gaunt realised Volovoi was studying something over Gaunt's shoulder.

  'Don't turn, Gaunt,' Volovoi went on, without changing the timbre of volume of his talk. 'Are your ears burning? Someone's talking about you.'

  'How so?'

  The Blueblood general. Sturm, is it? Arrogant piece of yak flop. One of his officers just came on deck and is bending his ear. And they're looking this way.'

  Gaunt didn't turn. 'Tet me guess: the newcomer is a big ox with hooded eyes?'

  'Aren't they all?'

  This one's a piece of work even by the Volpone standards of breeding. A major.'

  That's what his rank pins say. You know him?'

  'Not particularly, though even that is more than I'd care for. Name's Gilbear. He and I and Sturm had a… difference of opinion on Voltemand eighteen months ago.'

  'What sort of difference?'

  They cost me several hundred men.'

  Volovoi whistled. 'You'd think it would be you whispering about them!'

  Gaunt smiled, though it was dark. 'We are, aren't we, Volovoi?'

  Gaunt made to leave. Crossing the Orrery deck, he was afforded a better view of the Volpone staff. Gilbear was stood alone now, staring at Gaunt with a burning look that did not flinch. Sturm, escorted by his aides, was heading up the long flight of steps to the Tord Militant General's private chambers in the spire above.

  Walking the troop decks with Gaunt, Corbec brought his commander up to speed.

  'Quiet really. There was a fight over some rations, but it was nothing and I broke it up. Costin and two of his pals got falling down tipsy inhaling paint thinners in the armour shops and Costin then fell down for real, breaking his shin.'

  'I've warned the armouries to lock that sort of material up…'

  They did, but Costin has a way with locks, sir, if you get me.'

  'Put him and the others on report and punishment detail.'

  'I'd say Costin's paid for his ill-gotten—' Corbec began.

  'I won't stand for it. They've got rations of grog and sacra. I can't use men with fume-ruined heads.'

  Corbec scratched his chin. 'Point there, sir. But the men get bored. And some of them use their sacra rations up in the first few days.'

  Gaunt turned to his second, anger flickering in his eyes. 'Let it be known, Colm: the Emperor grants them recreational liquor and smokes. If they abuse that privilege, I'll take it away. From all of them. Understand?'

  Corbec nodded. They stopped at the rail and looked down into the vast troop bay. The air was laced with smoke and rank sweat. Below them, bench cots by the hundred in rows, men by the hundred, sleeping, dicing, chatting, praying, some just staring into nothing. Priests walked the rows, dispensing solace and benediction where it was requested or simply needed.

  'Is there something on your mind, sir?' Corbec asked.

  'I think trouble's brewing,' Gaunt said. 'I'm not sure what yet, but I don't like it.'

  There was someone moving in the outer room.

  Gaunt awoke. It was night cycle on the troop-ship and the wall lamps had been doused by the automatic control. He had fallen asleep on his cot with a weight of data sheets and slates on his chest.

  Movement from the ante-room beyond his bed quarter had roused him.

  Gaunt rose silently, placing the data sheets on a wall shell His boltgun and chainsword were slung over a wooden statu! in the outer room, but he pulled a compact laspistol from his foot locker and slid it into the back of his waistband. He was dressed in his boots, trousers, braces and an undershirt, He thought for a moment about re-donning his jacket and cap, but cast the idea aside.

  The cot-room door was ajar. The light of a tight-beam flash light stabbed the darkness beyond. Someone was going through his things.

  He moved in an instant, kicking open the door and grabbing the intruder from behind, turning him, twisting his arms, and slamming him face first into the round observation port of the outer room. The man – robed, struggling – protested until the moment of impact. His nose broke against the glass and he lolled unconscious.

  The lights went on. Gaunt sensed there were two others behind him. He heard the whine of charging las-packs.

  He spun and threw his unconscious prey at the nearest, who tumbled under the weight. The other tried to take a bead with his gun, but Gaunt dropped, slid sideways, and broke his jaw with a heavy blow. Only then, a few seconds after the whole thing had begun, did he see the man he had dropped was a security trooper dressed in the brown armour of the hexathedral. His comrade, scrambling up from under the weight of the fallen robed man, lunged forward, and Gaunt turned, catching his probing hands, breaking an elbow with a deft twist and then flooring him with a straight punch to the bridge of the nose.

  Gaunt pulled out his compact and covered the room. Two hexathedral troopers and a man in long robes lay at his feet, twitching and moaning.

  The door opened.

  'Many would look with disfavour at such violence, commissar,' the figure who entered the room announced softly.

  Gaunt kept the gun trained at the intruder's throat. 'Many look on intrusion and burglary in a similar way. Identify yourself.'

  The figure moved into the light. She was tall, dressed in a simple uniform of black: boots, breeches, jacket. Her ash-fair hair was pinned tight up around her skull. Her face was calm, angular, lean, beautiful.

  'I am Lilith. Inquisitor Lilith.'

  Gaunt lowered the pistol and set it down on the side-table. 'You have not requested my seal of office. You believe me then?'

  'I know of you. Pardon, ma'am; there are few females holding your rank and duty.'

  Lilith moved forward into the room and gently kicked one of the troopers. He moaned and roused. 'Get yourself out of here. These two as well.'

  The bloodied trooper clambered to his feet and dragged the others out.

  'I apologise, commissar,' Lilith said. 'I had been told you were in a planning session. I would not have sent my men in if I had known you were sleeping here.'

  'You'd have had my rooms searched had I been absent?'

  She turned to him and laughed. It was attractive, confident – and hard. 'Of course! I'm an inquisitor, commissar. That's what I do.'

  'What, precisely, is it you're doing here?'

  'The boy.' She pulled out a chair and sat back, leaning against the back rest with relaxed ease. 'I need to know about the boy. Your boy, commissar.'

  Gaunt stayed where he was and fixed his gaze on her. 'I don't like your tone, or your methods,' he growled. 'If I continue not to like them, I can assure you the fact you are a woman won't—'

  'Are you really threatening me, commissar?'

  Gaunt breathed deeply. 'I believe I am. You saw what I did to your lackeys. I won't stand for this unless you show me good reason.'

  Lilith sighed and steepled her long, pale fingers. Then she pointed the compact laspistol right at Gaunt.

  He started, amazed. She had not moved, but now she held a gun which had been lying right across the room from her.

  'How good a reason do I need?' she ask
ed, smiling. Gaunt stepped back.

  'That little demonstration would seem good enough…'

  Lilith smiled and dropped the gun into her lap. She clasped her hands together again and set her head back.

  'Good. We'll begin. By the proclamation of the Most High Emperor, governed as I am by His will, in totality, till the end of all days, as a servant of the Inquisition, I require you to furnish with me with answers of complete truth and veracity to your best knowledge. The penalties for deception are manifold and without limit. Do you understand?'

  'Get on with it.'

  She smiled again. 'Hike you, commissar. ''The very devil'', they said. They were right.'

  'Who's 'they'?'

  Lilith didn't answer. She rose, holding the pistol loose in her left hand. She circled Gaunt. He was unnerved by her masculine height and her unblinking stare.

  'Skipping further formalities, as you suggest, why don't you tell me about the boy?'

  'What boy?'

  'So coy. His name is Brin Milo, a Tanith native, part of your cadre but a civilian.'

  'What do you want to know, inquisitor?'

  'Oh, everything, Ibram; everything.'

  Gaunt cleared his throat. 'Milo is… here by chance. The regimental piper, mascot… my aide.'

  'Why?'

  'He's smart, sharp, eager. The men like him. He can do the jobs I ask of him quickly and efficiently.'