[Gaunt's Ghosts 09] - His Last Command

by Dan Abnett

  “I know he did,” said Wilder. “All right, all right… Rawne’s still the problem. Leave that with me.”

  The microbead link pipped. The three officers looked at each other.

  “This is it,” Wilder said. “Come with me, please, both of you.”

  “You think I’d miss this?” Kolea said.

  The north end of post 36 was strangely quiet. As the puff of dust on the highway track from the gateway slowly approached, the Ghosts got up from their sunbathing, their card games and their habi-tent cots and gathered around the roadway.

  The trucks approached. Four cargo-10s carrying medical supplies and munitions, and a fifth one stripped out for troop transfer. Changing down into low gear, they grumbled up the escarpment into post 36, kicking walls of dust out behind them.

  Wilder, Baskevyl and Kolea arrived a few moments before the trucks rolled to a halt. They joined Hark and Dorden, and stood waiting. Ayatani Zweil appeared, and scurried to join them, holding up the skirts of his robes.

  “You lied to me, colonel,” the old priest said.

  “What, father?”

  “You swore blind to me the other day that you didn’t have the power to bring people back from the dead. You were lying.”

  Wilder chuckled and shook his head to himself.

  The dust slowly billowed away and settled. Wilder looked around, felt the electric expectation in the air. He saw the Ghosts: Domor, Caffran, Obel, Leyr, Meryn, Dremmond, Lubba, Vadim, Rerval, Daur, Haller, DaFelbe, Chiria… all the rest.

  Eyes wide. Waiting. Waiting.

  The tailgate on the fifth truck slammed down. Dark figures jumped clear onto the track. There was a moment’s pause, and then they began to stroll down into the post, in a loose formation, black-clad figures slowly looming out of the winnowing dust. Walking in step, slow and steady, weapons slung casually over their shoulders.

  Rawne. Feygor. Varl. Beltayn. Mkoll. Criid. Brostin. Larkin. Bonin.

  Their faces were set and hard. Their new uniforms, displaying the pins of the Eighty-First First, were bright and fresh. A slow smile dug its way across Lucien Wilder’s face. He’d seen some bastards in his time, and many of the best were in the Belladon’s ranks.

  But he’d never seen such a casual display of utter cool. He liked these troopers already. Coming home when they were believed lost. Coming home, asking for trouble. The slow pace, the lazy stride. Throne damn it, they were heroes before they had even started.

  Wilder heard a sound, a sound that started slowly then grew. Clapping. The Ghosts around the post were clapping and it became frenzied. Without really knowing why, the Belladon joined in, applauding the heroes home. Shouts, whoops, whistles, cheers.

  Rawne and his mission team didn’t react. They came striding in out of the dust towards Wilder, faces set hard and stern.

  They came to a halt right in front of Wilder. The clapping rang on. The newcomers made no attempt at an ordered file, they just came to a stop in a ragged group. Then they came to attention in perfect unison.

  “Major Elim Rawne, and squad, reporting for duty, sir,” Rawne said.

  Wilder took a step forward and saluted. “Colonel Lucien Wilder. Glad to meet you. Welcome to the fifth compartment.”

  THIRTEEN

  14.01 hrs, 196.776.M41

  Post 12, Third Compartment

  Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus

  The contrast between posts 10 and 15 could not have been more striking.

  They’d spent a couple of days in the relatively civilised and ordered environs of post 10, orientating themselves, but it had felt much longer to Ludd. Gaunt had insisted on conducting extensive interviews with company leaders, tacticae advisors, Munitorum seniors and Commissariat officers, and Ludd had become a little bored with either sitting in as a silent observer or waiting around. Ludd had been looking forward to beginning actual fieldwork as Gaunt’s junior, but there seemed to be no particular direction to what they were doing. Gaunt moved with a purpose, but he didn’t share it with Ludd. Ludd wasn’t really sure what Gaunt was looking for, and when he pressed the commissar, Gaunt had a habit of replying in oblique riddles.

  “We’re looking, Nahum, for men carrying empty boxes and not bending their legs.”

  Gaunt had also spent a long time in the stockade, talking with the prisoners. Ludd had expected some hard interrogations, but Gaunt had been very low-key and relaxed. He’d interviewed the Kolstec they’d rounded up on the first afternoon. Several of them had almost broken down as they confessed their fears to Gaunt.

  “Just frightened boys,” Gaunt told Ludd. Totally without strong leadership, lost. They saw a chance to sneak out under cover of a faked freight run. It was all a little desperate and sad. I’ve arranged for them to receive eight days lock-up here, and then be transferred back to Frag Flats for basic support duties.”

  “Shouldn’t they just be… shot?” Ludd asked.

  Gaunt pretended to search his coat pockets. “I don’t know. Should they? I can’t find my Instrument of Order.”

  “You know what I mean, sir.”

  “If we start executing,” Gaunt said, Van Voytz will be fighting this war on his own. From what I’ve seen and what I’ve been told, the Imperial forces of the Second Front are plagued with fear and lack of resolve. Punishment has its place, Ludd, but what’s needed here is a way to give the Guard some focus. Some resolve.”

  “Because they’ve lost it?”

  “Because they’ve never had it. These boys have no experience of war, nothing to insulate themselves with. Under other circumstances, the officer class and the commissars would whip some spirit into them and get them through the first weeks of doubt and fear until they found their feet. But the officers are no more experienced, and there aren’t enough commissars. Summary execution is a commissar’s most potent tool, Ludd.

  “Used to effect in a situation involving a veteran unit, it reminds the men of their commitment. Used on units of fresh-faced boys, it destroys what little spirit they have. Worse, it confirms their fears.”

  When, on the second morning after their arrival in the Mons, Gaunt announced it was time to visit post 15, Ludd had perked up. Fifteen was right inside the hot zone, close to the fight for the gate into the ninth compartment. They might even see some action.

  As they drove down to post 15, Ludd realised the prospect of action was making him twitchy and nervous. Suddenly, he understood how the young Guardsmen had felt.

  Ironmeadow had kept a transport and driver on standby for Gaunt’s use, and came with them to act as liaison. The transport was a battered, open-top cargo-4 that had seen better days. Its engine made the most desperate clattering sound, as if there were stones in the manifold. The driver was a short, tanned Munitorum drone called Banx who had a slovenly attitude and bad hygiene.

  “Only the best for us, eh?” Gaunt muttered to Ludd as they climbed aboard. Ironmeadow rode up front beside the driver, with Ludd and Gaunt in the rear seats. Eszrah, whom Gaunt insisted was to come along, sat sideways in the truck-back, leaning against the column of the roll-bars.

  Post 15 lay some nine kilometres north-east of 10, in the sickly woodland around the mouth of the ninth compartment gateway. Ironmeadow insisted they could only make the journey in daylight, and had to get travel papers signed off by Marshal Sautoy.

  The trip seemed to drag. The up-country trackway wound around the wide pools and lakes that characterised the third compartment, and passed through wide plains of ill-looking sedge and broken rock, and sudden gloomy forests of black larch, lime and coster.

  There were signs of war everywhere: burned-out wrecks, cratered earth, and pieces of tarnished and forgotten kit beside the road. Three or four times, they had to pull over to allow a transit column to go by: big dark trucks and small freight tanks trundling south towards post 10. Once, about halfway to 15, the cargo-4 overheated, and they had to linger on the roadside while Banx nursed some life back into the tired engine. They had a good view of the towering compartme
nt wall, and the massive gateway into the seventh compartment. Somewhere over there was post 12. Beyond the gate, an entirely new phase of warfare was going on.

  Post 15 announced itself robustly before they even arrived. Above the grim, undernourished trees, they caught sight of thick smoke and fuel vapour, half-cloaking the massive cliff of the compartment wall and the contested gate. On the wind, Ludd heard the heavy report of energy artillery, and the dull thump of shell-launchers. His guts tightened. He realised he was afraid.

  Then they noticed the smell. A rank, sick, organic odour that clung to the gloomy woodland like bad luck.

  Banx slowed as perimeter guards appeared and demanded to see paperwork. The guards, hard-edged men with jumpy, nervous dispositions, became a little more obliging when they saw Gaunt.

  “Go right on through, sir,” one said. “We’ll vox the post commander to let him know you’re inbound.”

  “Do me a favour, trooper,” Gaunt said, taking a couple of fresh cartons of lho-sticks out of his kit-bag and passing them to the men without any fuss. “Let it be a surprise, all right?”

  The men nodded. Banx drove on.

  Post 10 had been a smart, regimented place, swept and formal, wound like a well-maintained watch. Fifteen was a hellhole. Sitting low in a spongy hollow under the gate, it was waterlogged and damp. The truck-ways were rutted mires, and the latrines had evidently become swamped. The place stank, and clouds of biting flies swirled in the wet air. They drove past rows of habi-tents that had become sodden with groundwater, huge scabs of mould and fungus caking the limp surfaces of the canvas. Dirty cooking smoke was thick in the air, and carried the gorge-raising hint of rancid meat and fat. All the men they passed were pale and hollow-eyed, tired and strung out. They stared at the passing transport with fretful, sullen expressions. Ludd began to feel still more anxious.

  The north end of the post was a ring of artillery positions, actively hammering fire at the vast gate facade and washing fyceline fumes back over the post. The constant earth-shaking thump of the guns was enough to put a man on edge. And it was like this every hour of every day.

  Ludd jumped as a flight of Vultures went over them, turbojets screaming. The gunships banked wide and shot into the dark mouth of the gateway, disgorging their rockets in a blitz of sparks and smoke.

  “Calm down,” Gaunt said.

  “I’m calm,” Ludd said. Very, very calm.”

  Gaunt had particular concerns at 15: the drastic desertion rates and the virulent sickness. The feel of the place reminded him unpleasantly of Gereon and the taint there. He felt his skin itch. It made him think for a moment of Cirk. He wondered what eventual fate had befallen her, and was surprised to realise he didn’t care. He doubted he would ever see her again.

  He spent a brief twenty minutes with the post commander, a harried colonel who was standing in for the marshal and had far too much on his mind. Ludd saw the medicae tents—five times the size of the infirmary complex at post 10; extra sections had been added on in the last few days to accommodate the Guardsmen stricken by illness. The chief medicae had wanted to ship the sick back to facilities away from the frontline, but the request had been denied for fear of spreading the infection to “dean” posts.

  “They say it’s a Chaos taint,” Ironmeadow said to Ludd as they waited for Gaunt outside the command station. “Something in the water, something in the air.” Iron-meadow had tied a neck scarf around his nose and mouth. Ludd thought the captain looked like a bandit.

  He was not at all surprised that sickness had blighted the post. The conditions were dreadful: the damp, festering conditions alone could have incubated the infection, and Ludd was grimly sure that the leaking latrines had a lot to answer for.

  Chaos taint? The answer didn’t need to be anything like that fanciful. Even so, Ludd had the crawling sensation that infectious microbes were burrowing all over him. He wished he could stop jumping every time the massive cannons at the north end of the camp banged off.

  Gaunt reappeared. “What a hole,” he muttered. “I’d run away from it myself.”

  “I know what you mean,” Ludd said.

  “I’ll go and arrange some billets for us,” Ironmeadow said.

  “Why?” asked Gaunt.

  Ironmeadow shrugged. “Well, sir. It’s mid-afternoon already, if we leave in the next hour or so, fine. But if we leave it much later, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “Because?”

  “Marshal Sautoy’s orders, sir. Under no circumstances are we to travel after dark.”

  Gaunt glanced at Ludd. “We won’t be here long, Iron-meadow,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What do you know, sir?” Ludd asked.

  “I have a hunch. I hope I’m badly wrong,” Gaunt replied.

  Before he could explain in more detail, an especially violent explosion ripped into the air away at the gate mouth. The detonation shook the ground and threw curls of flame up at the sky.

  “Holy Throne!” Ludd grunted. “Shouldn’t we be—”

  “What, Ludd?”

  “Running, sir?”

  Gaunt shook his head. “That was just a tank. A tank’s munitions load cooking off.”

  “How do you know?” Ludd asked.

  “I’ve heard it before. Poor bastards. May the Emperor protect their souls. Right, let’s head for the mess.”

  Ludd stared quizzically at Gaunt. “You want to eat?”

  “No.”

  “Sir, I’ve arranged for you to speak with the chief medicae.”

  “That can wait, Ludd.” Gaunt had a dataslate in his hand. The post commander gave me this and I’ve made a quick scan. Hence my hunch. I want to check it out first. Ironmeadow?”

  “Yes, commissar?”

  “I want to apologise, captain.”

  Ironmeadow looked baffled. “What for, sir?”

  “I think in the next half-hour I might wound your pride considerably.”

  “I don’t follow you, sir.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just accept my apology now. Remember it was nothing personal.”

  Ironmeadow looked at Ludd, who simply shrugged.

  “This way, gentlemen,” Gaunt said, and headed towards the mess tent.

  The long row of open-sided mess-tents was busy with troopers chowing down, spooning stew out of dented tins. Smoke welled under the canvas awnings, and the smell of meat was ripe and heavy.

  At the back of the main tent, a mix of Munitorum workers and Guard service workers ladled out the day’s offerings onto the trays of waiting men, stirred the heavy vats sitting on the burners, mashed vegetables that were past their prime.

  “Ludd?” Gaunt said. “Go ask some questions. Engage the staff. Get some basic answers.”

  “To what, sir?”

  “To anything you can think of. Ironmeadow? Cap and coat, please.”

  “What?”

  Gaunt took off his commissar’s cap and heavy leather stormcoat and swapped them for Ironmeadow’s canvas jacket and bill-cap. “You’re pretending to be a commissar now. Say nothing, look aloof, and let Ludd do the talking.”

  “Sir, this is highly irregular…”

  “I’m highly irregular,” Gaunt replied, pulling on the bill-cap. “And lose that fething bandana. You look like a bandit.”

  Ironmeadow put on the coat and hat, and followed Ludd into the mess. They lost sight of Gaunt.

  “Hello, there,” Ludd called across the vats of food.

  “Meal for you, sir?” returned one of the line workers.

  “No, thank you. I just wanted to ask a question or two. Actually, my senior here did, but he doesn’t like to talk much.”

  Ludd indicated Ironmeadow, who made an effort to appear remote and intimidating. Gaunt’s coat was a littler too large on him, and it made Ironmeadow look like he was a ghoul or vampire, lurking, about to strike.

  “Doesn’t he like the food?” asked the menial.

  “Do you?” asked Ludd, having to raise his voice abov
e the drone and clatter of the busy kitchen.

  “Me? No, sir. I eat dry rations, me.”

  “Who’s staffing this canteen?”

  The menial, a heavy, lumpy man in stained aprons and vest, thought about this. “Munitomm, mostly. The charge cooks are from the local regiments. First Fortis Binars.”

  Ludd looked at Ironmeadow, but the captain was so busy getting into character and frowning that he hadn’t picked up on the mention of his kindred unit.

  “Point me to one of them,” Ludd said.

  The menial looked around. “Hey, Korgy! Over here!” he yelled.

  Another server approached. He was very solidly made, beetle-browed. He wiped his hands on his greasy apron and looked Ludd up and down. Ludd saw the Fortis pin dangling from the man’s undershirt.

  “Commissar? What can I help you to?”

  “Just reviewing. You’re Korgy? Something like that?”

  The man nodded, wary and, to Ludd, far too defensive. “Regiment Service officer, first class, Ludnik Korgyakin. Korgy for short. Is there a problem?”

  “You run these kitchens?”

  Korgy nodded. “Me and Bolsamoy,” he said, indicating a tall, portly, bald-headed man hurrying past with a full kettle of stew.

  “Any problems?” Ludd asked.

  Korgy shrugged. “Like what, sir?”

  “I don’t know. Camp’s down with the fever, but you guys seem all right.”

  “We eat well and we live clean, what can I tell you? The Commissariat’s never been down here before, nosing. You got an issue?”

  “No,” said Ludd.

  “You got a warrant for this?” Korgy added.

  “No,” said Ludd. “I don’t need one.”

  “Well, you’re backing up the queue,” Korgy said.

  “Yes, we are rather backing up the queue,” Ironmeadow put in.

  “Shut up and stay in character,” Ludd hissed.

  “Only saying…” said Ironmeadow.

  “He speaks,” noted Korgy.

  “Ignore him. He’s battle-damaged,” said Ludd. The queue can wait for a second. Why are you defensive, Service Officer Korgyakin?”