• GAUNT’S GHOSTS •

Dan Abnett

THE FOUNDING

BOOK 1: FIRST AND ONLY

BOOK 2: GHOSTMAKER

BOOK 3: NECROPOLIS

THE SAINT

BOOK 4: HONOUR GUARD

BOOK 5: THE GUNS OF TANITH

BOOK 6: STRAIGHT SILVER

BOOK 7: SABBAT MARTYR

THE LOST

BOOK 8: TRAITOR GENERAL

BOOK 9: HIS LAST COMMAND

BOOK 10: THE ARMOUR OF CONTEMPT

BOOK 11: ONLY IN DEATH

THE VICTORY PART ONE

BOOK 12: BLOOD PACT

BOOK 13: SALVATION’S REACH

BOOK 14: THE WARMASTER

BOOK 15: ANARCH

More tales from the Sabbat Worlds

SABBAT WAR

An anthology edited by Dan Abnett

SABBAT CRUSADE

An anthology edited by Dan Abnett

SABBAT WORLDS

An anthology edited by Dan Abnett

• URDESH •

Matthew Farrer

BOOK 1: THE SERPENT AND THE SAINT

BOOK 2: THE MAGISTER AND THE MARTYR

BROTHERS OF THE SNAKE

A novel by Dan Abnett

DOUBLE EAGLE

A novel by Dan Abnett

TITANICUS

A novel by Dan Abnett

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

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14.

15.

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17.

18.

19.

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The Founding’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind. By the might of His inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.

Yet, He is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so that His may continue to burn.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.

This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.

There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

‘Now entertain conjecture of a time

When creeping murmur and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,

The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other’s watch.

Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

Each battle sees the other’s umbered face…

…and their gestures sad,

Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-torn coats,

Presenteth unto them the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts. Oh, now, who will behold

The royal captain of this ruined band…’

– Shakspire, the Fifth Henry

1.

The question isn’t how he died. A close-focus anti-personnel mine, Militarum issue, had been rigged under the seat, arming via a pressure pad when he sat down. And then he got up to leave.

The question isn’t who killed him. Insurgents have been targeting Imperial infrastructure and staff for nine weeks.

The question is, how did they get in?

Ibram Gaunt stands at the window and looks down. The street, Clavis Street, a main thoroughfare, is twelve storeys below. There is no ledge, no hand-hold, no toe-hold. Nests of razor wire clump every buttress, at every floor, around upturned crowns of spikes.

It’s hot. The city smells of hot plastek and burning fuel. There’s a breeze from the east that brings the noise of traffic and worship-horns, but it’s as dry as leather.

Gaunt stands a moment longer, hands behind his back. He makes like he’s observing, but he’s seen all he needs to see. An unscaleable wall. An absence of answers. But he stands, gets some air on his face, dry as it is. Gets it in his lungs, imagines it’s borne from some cooler place in the hills, not sandpapered by heat and smoke.

There’s an awful, hacking gurgle coming from the room at his back. Shrapnel, maybe spalled casing from the device, maybe bone shards from the victim, has punctured the room’s climate system. Pipes have ruptured. It’s still running, but it’s drowning in its own coolant. Blue fluid drools down the wall from the grille. The air gusting from the vents is no longer cold, and it stinks of ammonia. He wants to turn it off, because it sounds like a wet death rattle, but he knows how unbearable it’s going to get without the unit.

One moment longer with the open air, at a window stripped of glass by overpressure.

‘Do we have a name?’ he asks.

‘Talaxin,’ someone says. ‘Intendant, third grade. Payroll and, uhm–’

Someone checks their notes.

Gaunt turns. The office is generally the way this Talaxin must have seen it when he arrived that afternoon. Shelves, files, two charts pinned up. The front of the desk is marvellously intact, but it has no back, and there’s no chair.

‘Payroll?’ Gaunt says.

The Administratum aide, whose name Gaunt has not been told, is still checking his data-slate.

‘Payroll and provisioning,’ the aide replies. ‘Materiel requisition, answering to Intendant Fallastrine and Provision-slash-Audit.’

Gaunt nods, as though this means something. Militarum and Administratum speak different languages.

‘Security check on all other offices,’ Gaunt says.

‘That’s been instructed, sir,’ says the aide.

‘But is it being done?’ Gaunt asks.

The aide’s data-slate doesn’t tell him that, so he nods and steps out to check. The office air is filmed with motionless smoke. There’s a halo of cooked blood, black as baked treacle, coating the remains of the desk, across the floor, up the walls and the bookcases, across the ceiling. A few ceiling tiles, scorched, have started to dip. Gaunt looks at the Tanith corpsman at the door. Chayker has brought a body bag. There’s nothing to put in it.

Gaunt takes another look out of the window. Twilight’s falling. Far below, an impossible climb below, he can see figures on the street, lit by the headlamps of Militarum trucks and carriers.

The climate unit chugs, splutters and dies, aspirating its own coolant. The sudden lack of noise is oppressive. Nothing remains except the muted wash of city noise, and the hum of the flies. Breathless heat comes instantly. Gaunt feels the sweat break on his back before he’s even out of the room.

Trooper Raglon follows him down the stairs.

‘That’s what? Six?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Eight, sir,’ Raglon replies, consulting his slate. It’s not a slim steel tablet like the aide’s. It’s Militarum issue, sturdy, with a vulcanised cover for field-wear. It’s slow, perhaps defective. Or perhaps Raglon is. He hasn’t got the hang of it yet.

‘I thought it was six,’ says Gaunt. They’re taking the stairs because the building’s elevators have been locked down during the sweep. Red emergency lighting has come up, thanks to tumblers shaken by the blast. Raglon’s trying to walk and work.

‘Six in the last twelve days,’ says Gaunt.

‘Oh, yes,’ says Raglon. ‘Yes, six, in that period. Two others, but at the back end of last month.’

Gaunt pauses, turns, takes the slate from Raglon. He taps the surface quickly, closing data blocks.

‘Clear the sub-panels,’ he says. He’s been using slates since the start of his career. ‘See? This and this? They auto-archive and you can recall them with that icon. If you clear them, there’s more cogitation power available for the work at hand.’ He hands it back.

‘Thank you, sir,’ says Raglon. He hadn’t noticed the icon. No one’s even told him about the icon. The colonel-commissar’s had him working as adjutant for three weeks, since Kosdorf. Raglon hopes it’s not going to last. He’s a vox-trooper. He’s got the patch for it on his sleeve. He did basic on casters and comm-ops, not this kind of duty.

It should have been Cluggan.

‘So, six,’ says Gaunt. He starts walking again, taking the stairs at a pace. ‘Eight total. That’s since securement. All minor, low-tier Administratum.’

‘Yes, sir,’ says Raglon. ‘Except one. One was a local tithe collector seconded to the occupation council.’ Raglon remembers that. He doesn’t have time to check it. But he’s pretty sure.

‘Litus B.R.U. had security responsibility for this building,’ says Gaunt. More a statement than a question.

‘Yes, sir. Do you want to revise that?’

‘I want to talk to their C.O., certainly. I want the sentries quizzed. I want a review of procedure, and a look at any security feed. Set me up with a meeting, their C.O.’

Raglon pauses, concentrating on the slate.

Gaunt stops, and looks back at him. ‘You can schedule it via the Militarum message annex,’ he says.

‘Yep,’ says Raglon, opening a sub-panel in error.

Gaunt bristles very slightly.

‘I’ll just send a runner, Rafflan,’ he says, and starts walking again.

‘Raglon, sir,’ says Raglon.

‘What?’

‘It’s Raglon, sir.’

Gaunt thinks about it, nods.

‘Right,’ he says. He’s generally good with names. Raglon, Rafflan. Both vox-troopers. Easily done.

Raglon hesitates for a second, then follows. It’s not the first time. It’s as if they all look alike. All Tanith. All lasmen, interchangeable. Gaunt remembers Cluggan well enough, because he mentions him from time to time, but that’s no good to anyone because Cluggan died at Voltis. It’s a name Gaunt should erase. More cogitation power available for the work at hand. Feels like they’ve got to be dead before they’re remembered.

2.

Rawne’s waiting outside on the street in the early night. Waiting, but not necessarily waiting for Gaunt. Rawne always seems to be waiting for something. An opportunity. A dark alley.

He’s standing with some of the men from First Section, chatting, smoking a hand-rolled lho-stick. They’re starkly side-lit by the headlights of a Militarum cargo-10. Their shadows, lean and black like them, fall across the wall behind them, and across a brand new tin sign that reads ‘Officio Departmento Administratum (Occupation Council)’. It’s been pressure-bolted to the facade over an older brass sign that read ‘Department of Taxation, Vincula City’.

Gaunt steps into the fierce pool of light from the vehicles. Moths and other dark-adapted insects are milling in the glare like wheat chaff.

Rawne sort of straightens, and sort of salutes.

‘Got the building secure,’ he says. ‘First, Third and Fifth sections. Pulled the Litus out.’

No ‘sir’. He doesn’t put his smoke out, either.

‘The Litus?’ asks Gaunt, not caring.

‘Got them all in a mess hall across the street,’ says Rawne, pointing vaguely. ‘Feygor’s taking statements.’

‘All of them?’ Gaunt asks.

Rawne nods. ‘Especially those who were ground level door-watch, perimeter, or freight access. But I thought you’d want them all pulled anyway.’

‘Correct,’ says Gaunt.

‘It’s what Corbec would have done, so…’

Gaunt nods. ‘Marksmen?’ he asks.

‘Oh, yes,’ says Rawne. He glances up, non-specifically, at the invisible tops of buildings overlooking Clavis Street. They are soot-black against a sky that’s been soot-black and starless every night since they arrived, six days earlier. ‘Scoped up, watching, but there’ll be nothing.’

‘Long gone?’

Rawne nods.

‘Or here the whole time,’ he adds.

The idea hasn’t eluded Gaunt. A maraud could have got in, then slipped away again. But the Litus B.R.U. is a solid regiment, experienced, and they had perimeter watch on the Administratum building. Gaunt will interview them, but an insurgent – a maraud, according to jargon – would have had to be more than just cunning to slip by. Paperwork, accreditation, a knowledge of scheduled deliveries or message-runner protocols. It’s unlikely.

Gaunt looks up at the face of the blocky government building. Above the pool of headlamps, it’s a black cliff. Flush granite, armoured windows. He can just make out the pockmarks of a few shell holes and small-arms impacts near ground level, but still nothing that could serve as purchase.

‘Could you go up that?’ he asks.

Rawne frowns. ‘Do I look like a fething larisel?’

Gaunt has no idea. He doesn’t know what one of those is.

‘A scout, then? Could one of the scouts?’

Rawne considers this long enough to show that it’s not an entirely ridiculous question, then shakes his head.

As expected. The maraud didn’t slip in, and he didn’t free-climb up the outside for twelve floors. Almost seventy per cent of the staff working in the building, and the government compound, are locals: local bureaucratic infrastructure, clerical, cleaners, catering, maintenance. Someone who was supposed to be here, who was authorised to be here, brought a Militarum-issue K10 anti-personnel mine and a pressure trigger to work with them this morning.

Gaunt looks back at Raglon.

‘Get a full list of personnel,’ Gaunt tells him. ‘Security checks, validations, work roster. We’ll go through it all, and see if there’s any crossover with the other incidents – workplace, residential addresses, routes to work…’

Raglon nods.

‘We’re doing that, then?’ asks Rawne.

‘We’re doing that,’ Gaunt confirms.

‘I just thought it might fall to Military Intelligence,’ Rawne suggests, with a shrug. ‘More their speed.’

‘Well, there are two Mil-Int officers in Vincula,’ says Gaunt, ‘and they are hands-full with the general insurgency review so, yes, ideally it would be their job, but we’ll be doing it.’

‘I just thought,’ says Rawne, ‘now there are more of them here…’

Gaunt looks at him, his frown asking the question.

‘Arrived just now,’ says Rawne indifferently, gesturing to a large group of figures waiting by the transports on the forecourt. ‘Convoyed in from Voltis.’

‘You didn’t think to tell me?’

‘I didn’t think you’d want them in the building until it was secure,’ says Rawne, ‘and you were busy.’ He says all of this in a flat tone that’s supposed to sound reasonable, but his words might as well be, ‘the elevators were locked down and I couldn’t be bothered to haul my arse up twelve flights to find you.’

Rawne shrugs, scratches his neck, a gesture which only serves to draw attention to his micro-bead earpiece, which has been pulled out and is dangling over his collar.

Gaunt calls to Adare and Baffels, and tells them to oversee the lockdown.

‘Let’s go and present our compliments,’ he tells Rawne. It’s not a suggestion.

‘Really?’ asks Rawne.

‘It’s what Corbec would have done.’

There are about seventy-five of them, standing listlessly beside the transports. They’re chatting, kitbags at their feet, brushing aside the moths that come blundering into the light. Most look like Administratum officials, robed and dusty from the road. They have their all-weather slickers on, hoods up, zips drawn up to their noses, individual cooler pumps humming. A few are Ecclesiarchs, or Militarum officers in badgeless kohl-black uniforms.

‘Colonel-Commissar Gaunt?’ calls out one of the latter as Gaunt and Rawne approach.

‘My apologies I wasn’t present when you arrived,’ says Gaunt, returning the sign of the aquila.

‘Major Glin Severt,’ the man says, with professional good humour. He’s got red hair, close cropped, and a craggy face. ‘Perfectly understandable, sir. You had your hands full. Can you speak to what occurred?’

‘Insurgency,’ Gaunt replies. ‘Explosive device in a twelfth-floor office. One casualty, an Administratum intendant. We’re beginning our investigation, and a full security review.’

‘There have been a number of hostile actions, we understand?’ asks another man, also an intelligencer. He’s shorter, with wire-framed glasses, and an augmetic implant under his left ear.

‘Vincula Province hasn’t yet got the message it isn’t a warzone any more,’ says Gaunt.

‘It will take time,’ says the shorter man. ‘Re-education, pacification, restructuring of local governmental systems, redoctrination.’

There it is. Gaunt had wondered how long it would be before the intelligencers used one of their non-words.

‘The city is essentially secure,’ says Gaunt, ‘provided one doesn’t take stupid chances. But the province as a whole… There’s a lot of farmland, grazing scrub, woodland. After Chanthar fell at Voltis, a lot of the Archenemy went to ground, and they’re doing their best to hamper the occupation programme.’

‘Well, I hope we can be of some assistance,’ Severt starts to say, genially enough, but a woman next to him cuts him off. She’s Administratum, her dust slicker done up with the hood raised so Gaunt can’t see her face.

She says, ‘What kind of Archenemy?’

‘The kill-you-dead kind,’ says Rawne. He’s just a bystander, arms folded. The sarcasm drips off his words more freely than leaking coolant from a punctured climate unit.

The man in glasses ha-ha’s at this.

‘Chanthar’s supporters,’ Gaunt says to her, briefly and directly, then turns back to Severt.

‘Chanthar’s support came from the Aezyr and Bishrabi tribal groups, predominantly,’ she says firmly, ‘but with some elements of Waeshist and Magmeta groupings. The ethnic mix of the northern provinces, including Vincula, is strongly Bishrabi.’

Gaunt looks at her. He’s not sure what to say.

‘Seventy-two per cent, at the last census,’ she adds, as though this is being helpful.

‘They’re Archenemy,’ says Rawne. ‘Archonate feth-heads. The locals are Imperial.’

‘Not precisely,’ the woman replies.

‘Of course they fething are,’ says Rawne. ‘Voltemand is an Imperial world. We’ve just liberated it. Us, actually, in person.’ He taps his chest bone with the tips of both sets of fingers. ‘They’re not fething bish-bang whatever you’re talking about, or what would the point be?’

‘The point,’ she says, very calmly, ‘is to properly understand who we’re fighting for, and who we’re fighting against.’

‘I think I’ve got a fething handle on who we’re fighting against,’ says Rawne. ‘And if you haven’t, I’m not sure what the feth you’re doing here.’

The intelligencer in glasses ha-ha’s again, but it’s a nervous bark this time.

‘Rawne,’ Gaunt says, sidelong, low.

‘The fething Archenemy–’ Rawne says. He’s on a roll now. Gaunt’s seen this before. It’s partly the frustration of loss, partly fighting spirit, and partly just Rawne’s basic nature as a bastard.

‘Major Rawne,’ Gaunt says. ‘As you were.’

Rawne steps back.

‘We have to scrutinise local demographic composition,’ says Severt smoothly. ‘That’s one of the reasons Intendant Eiwolt is with us. The Sabbat Worlds have been in Archonate hands for a number of centuries. The Sanguinary Tribes are not just enemies we need to unseat and drive back. In many – perhaps too many – instances, they also, in a non-militant sense, form the population of many of the worlds we’re liberating.’

‘Thorough assessment is necessary,’ says the man in glasses. ‘These worlds won’t just return to the Imperial fold overnight. In some instances, they may never acquiesce, even after reconquest and pacification. Psychological resistance will endure, and will return to haunt us.’

‘If nothing else,’ says Severt, ‘in the short term, a detailed understanding of cultural disposition will help us root out and quash the insurgents, their sympathisers, and those who shelter them.’

‘And if they don’t?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Don’t?’ Severt echoes, puzzled.

‘Acquiesce,’ says Gaunt. ‘These worlds. If they remain hostile, in their psychological make-up? If that outlook endures?’

‘More profound action would be necessary for non-compliant worlds where the problem is endemic,’ replies the man in glasses.

‘You mean… fleet action?’ says Gaunt. ‘You mean V-notice?’

The man in glasses laughs. ‘That’s not our place to say, sir,’ he says, ‘that would be a high command referral.’

Severt looks at Gaunt. ‘And we don’t like to talk about it in those terms,’ he says.

Gaunt hesitates. He wants to pursue it, but Intelligence is notoriously slippery with its answers, and this isn’t the place. He has seventy-plus Mil-Int, Ecclesiarchy and Administratum specialists to house and log in. They will all have orders and instructions: Militarum Command (Voltemand) has sent them all, with packet orders, to oversee the occupation and get Vincula on its feet as an Imperial provincial capital.

And he, he has his orders too. After Kosdorf, he was assigned to oversee the occupation initiative here. He’s the senior Militarum officer in the region. It’s not what he expected to be doing. Kosdorf wasn’t either. He and the Ghosts were supposed to have shipped off Voltemand weeks ago, after Voltis City, on their way to the new front. It’s politics. A perceived snub to the honour of Lord Militant General Noches Sturm. Sturm, who has taken credit for the Voltemand reconquest and is now en route to further glories, has left a task force behind to tidy up, which is why Gaunt is policing a backwater agrarian province.

‘Do you have instructions for me?’ he asks. He hopes he doesn’t sound too eager. ‘We’re awaiting re-route orders. Has a permanent provincial governor been appointed?’

‘This is the advance,’ says Severt. ‘Administratum Governor Balgrada arrives day after tomorrow to take up his post.’

‘At which point I’ll be relieved?’

‘The governor will need a senior Militarum officer to oversee zone security,’ says the man in glasses.

‘But that’ll be someone else? Someone up from rearguard? My unit and I will be reassigned?’

‘I’m sorry,’ says the man in glasses. ‘We don’t know anything about that.’

‘Forgive me,’ says Severt. He gestures to the man in glasses. ‘This is Captain Daybell, who runs Interception and Ciphers for me.’

The man in glasses makes the sign of the aquila.

‘I’ll introduce you to the others,’ Severt continues. ‘They’ll be key personnel for the occupation effort. Intendant Vyce, tithe administration. Intendant Gorlye, water and sanitation. Intendant Kashea, transport infrastructure. Sub-intendant Lota, trade tariffs oversight. Intendant Eiwolt, you’ve just met.’

‘Xeno-ethnology,’ she says.

‘I would like to continue our conversation when the opportunity presents,’ Gaunt says.

‘Of course,’ she replies. ‘I think it’s crucial material.’

There are other introductions. The intendant for this. The advisor for that. The sign of the aquila is made and returned. Gaunt doesn’t log names. He hopes he’s not going to be around here long enough to need them.

He says a few words, the sort of thing expected from the acting provincial commander. There’ll be a briefing tomorrow. Prep for the governor’s arrival. He’ll find them accommodation. Security levels are heightened. He’ll assign troopers to them to act as liaisons and guides until they’re familiarised. He’ll have to put Tanith on it, because the Litus is stood down during the security check. Most of them will be working out of the municipal building that’s just had a bomb go off on the twelfth floor. Some will be out at Memnon House in the eastern Low Quarter. The intelligencers are setting up a station in Vincard Quarter.

He steps away. The night is already heavy with a sweltering dry heat, and it’s going to be long. He has the interviews, the investigation to run, and he’s lost time on that already.

He thinks, Twelve floors up. Inside. It’s got to be from the inside. Local staffer. Like the woman said, one of these tribal loyalties. He needs to learn more.

He starts relaying all this to Raglon, Rawne, Adare and Baffels.

‘I’ll liaise with the xeno-ethnologist,’ Rawne says.

Gaunt looks at him. He can’t read this. Is Rawne trying to make up for his outburst? Has he suddenly been struck by some sense of duty to match his hastily designated rank?

Gaunt sees the woman, Eiwolt, across the forecourt. She’s with the others, collecting her travel bags. She’s unzipped her slicker and pulled the hood down. Her hair is short and very blonde, and her skin is even fairer. She’s from Khulan, a guess he’d made when he heard her accent. She’s uncommonly striking.

‘Really?’ Gaunt says to Rawne.

‘Extending courtesy,’ says Rawne. ‘From the overseeing regiment.’

‘Really?’ says Gaunt.

Rawne grins. ‘It’s what Corbec would have done,’ he says.

3.

Corbec says, ‘I don’t really want to do this,’ to no one in particular. Himself, maybe.

He can’t see the city because it’s swathed in fog. The fog’s come up every day, apparently, for the last nine weeks. He can’t see the city, but he stares at it anyway.

Dorden hears him murmur. He knows it wasn’t addressed to him, but he’s the only other person in the room. He pulls on woollen mittens while he waits for the caff pot to heat. He wants to say something encouraging. Perhaps remind Corbec that Gaunt told him to do this, that responsibility has been placed on him. That Gaunt sees this as an opportunity for Corbec to learn the duties that fall to a senior regimental officer away from the battlefield.

But the best he can manage is, ‘Well, you’re here now.’

Corbec looks at him over his shoulder.

‘Wise words, Doc,’ he says.

The room’s cold, and almost empty. It was something once, something grand. You can tell that by the high ceilings, the moulded plaster cornices, the brass carnodon door handles, and the chandelier. But the chandelier doesn’t work, and the room’s been stripped to its brown floorboards and beige walls. The only furniture is a sideboard for the caffeine machine, and an armchair that Corbec isn’t using. It feels colder than it is. That’s due to the light. It’s bright outside, strong daylight, but the white fog is dense and the light falling through the grand windows is diffuse, as if it’s coming through paper.

They can both hear the men in the room next door, having breakfast. Domor is telling a story. Someone laughs.

Dorden puts his hand against the caff pot. It’s barely warm. He decides the element’s broken.

‘You’ll mention the supplies?’ Dorden asks.

‘Of course,’ says Corbec.

‘We need them,’ says Dorden. ‘Counterseptic. Wadding. Lots of wadding. Swinepox shots. Wound packs–’

‘I’ve got the list. You gave me the list.’

Dorden nods.

‘So, how do I look, then?’ Corbec asks.

It’s hard to tell. Corbec is just a black bulk against a black grid of window bars against paper-white light. Dorden ushers him over. Corbec ambles into the centre of the empty room and stands, as if to receive parade inspection. He’s wearing his number one dress uniform.

The colonel is impressive, but it’s hard to say why without sounding impolite. He’s big and bearded, and the uniform doesn’t suit him. He looks like an outsized child who has got into a dressing-up box. He looks as if he’s reluctantly attending a wedding. The collar can’t disguise his tangled beard. The sleeves are insufficient to contain his forearms, thick as hams. Some tattoos are visible. The formal dress gear has failed to tame his barbarian demeanour. That’s what it is. It’s not that he’s unusually smart. It’s that the smartness isn’t winning.

Dorden licks the pad of his thumb, and rubs dirt off Corbec’s regimental pin. The dirt had been applied deliberately.

‘Can’t have that,’ says Dorden.

‘Certainly not,’ Corbec replies, giving himself a double chin as he squints down to watch what Dorden’s doing.

‘Spick and span,’ says Dorden.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Cap?’ asks Dorden. The cap’s under Corbec’s arm.

‘Doesn’t fit,’ says Corbec. The colonel’s tied his mane of black hair back. Trooper Meryn has supplied some sort of pomade that’s supposed to slick down hair, but it seems to have added volume, and now Corbec smells faintly of lavender.

‘You’ll do,’ says Dorden, because it’s true. ‘You look commanding.’

‘What’s the time?’

Dorden’s about to check, but the bell tower across the square starts sounding the quarter. The chimes come flat and dull through the fog.

‘I’d best be getting down there,’ says Corbec.

‘You know the way?’ asks Dorden.

He does, of course. The fog’s thick in the square outside. The city remains invisible, but Corbec knows it. The Tanith have that knack. They don’t get lost. Corbec doesn’t believe the Tanith are any better than the next bugger when it comes to finding their way around. It’s just a myth, a traveller’s tale about the wild and wandering woods of Tanith. Corbec knows the way because he knows the city, and he knows the city because he’s been here before. Nine weeks before. Ousting the demagogue Chanthar from Voltis City. The Tanith First’s second deployment. Should have been the second citation on their regimental record, but some bigwig took the credit. Corbec knows the Mirewoods out west, the Bokore River, the Metis Road running in from the crossroads at Pavis. He knows the walls, the southern hub, the marketplace, the old mills, the Bokore Bridge, the Voltis Watergate. He knows the ground they fought for, the streets they cleared, the sites of little victories, and the insignificant corners where they left their dead.

Corbec didn’t want to be a colonel, but the job came begging, and someone had to take it. The men looked to him, he’s not sure why. He didn’t want the burden, but he’d rather they were led to their deaths by someone who cared about them than by someone who didn’t give a shog’s arse who they were.

Gaunt seemed like that kind of someone at the start. Typical officer class, with the bitter taste of the gentry about him, and the added hard edge of Prefectus. And a war hero, apparently. If Corbec’s opinion of Gaunt had been solicited at the start, it would have been, ‘Tall bastard. Toff.’ Now it would be, ‘Tall bastard. Toff. But seems all right.’

Kosdorf had helped, a little, even though Kosdorf had been a thankless pile of swine flop. Corbec had seen that Gaunt was trying, trying silently, trying to do right by them and do his duty at the same time. He’d seen it in Gaunt on Blackshard, and at Voltis Watergate, and at Kosdorf, so he’d started trying too.

Not that there was much alternative besides ‘give up’. Hey-ho.

His dull footsteps follow him through the fog like there’s someone tailing him. The Royal Sloka sentries at the gatehouse salute him, belatedly, when they notice his pins.

Corbec doesn’t like being a colonel. Some bits of it especially. He’s comfortable on the line, in the mud, where decisions matter, but he doesn’t care for the polite stuff, the formal stuff. He doesn’t like getting gussied up. He doesn’t like the salutes and the dignified solemnity. He doesn’t like having to watch his language, and not say things like ‘feth-wipe’ or ‘cock-handed’ in a room full of toffs in jodhpurs. He doesn’t do politics. Or jodhpurs. He doesn’t like having to ask for things.

He knows these are the exact reasons Gaunt has sent him to Voltis City. If there are things you’re bad at, you get better at them by doing them.

He’s on time. Two minutes early. There’s no one else there. He waits in a room that’s as forsaken and high-ceilinged as the one he came from, except that this one seems to be a museum for vases full of dead flowers on jardinières.

He waits. He looks at the backlit fog out of the window. Two men come in, carrying a table. They look at him. He looks at them. They leave. Corbec hopes they’re coming back with chairs.

They’re not.

After five minutes, a Slokan subaltern enters, dragging an easel that she sets up beside the table. She pins a chart to it, standing on tiptoe to reach the top corners. She looks at Corbec.

‘Not long, sir,’ she says.

‘Never is,’ he replies.

Her face shows that she has no idea what to make of that comment, so she nods and exits. After another minute, the top right-hand corner of the chart curls and pings the thumb tack across the room.

He’s picking it up when the first of them arrives.

A Ketzok colonel. Corbec knows a few of them, but not this one.

‘Tanith?’ the man asks.

‘Corbec,’ Corbec nods. ‘Colonel,’ he adds.

‘Sardoza,’ the man replies. ‘My friend Ortiz spoke well of your boys.’

‘Ortiz is a fine fellow,’ says Corbec.

‘The finest,’ Sardoza agrees. They stand in awkward silence. Corbec wonders whether he should push the pin back into the chart. He thinks it might make him look inferior. Officers don’t pin up their own maps.

‘Damn fog,’ says Sardoza, removing gloves that fit him really well. Corbec makes a noise that suggests sympathy and agreement.

‘Couldn’t find my way here,’ says Sardoza. ‘Got lost on, uh… on Voltine Street. Went the wrong way. Damn fog.’

Corbec nods. ‘It’s a b… burden to us all,’ he says, managing to make ‘burden’ out of ‘bugger’ just in time.

The doors open again. They both turn. General Hadrak sweeps in, flanked by several officers: Slokans, Litus, Tavians, some others. Sardoza snaps to attention. Corbec does too, but it’s not so much a snap as an uncomfortable shudder. He’s relieved that Sardoza has already removed his cap and has it tucked under his arm, because it makes it less obvious that Corbec’s doesn’t fit.

‘As you were,’ says Hadrak, commanding, genial. ‘My apologies, my apologies! You’d think a damned militant general could be on time for his own damn briefing!’

Everyone laughs.

‘I blame the fog, my lord,’ says Sardoza.

‘The fog indeed, Teto,’ Hadrak agrees. First names. They know each other. They all know each other. ‘We got lost on the way here. Filthy morning again. Couldn’t see my arse in a shaving mirror.’

Everyone laughs again.

‘Shouldn’t have been shaving your arse,’ Corbec doesn’t say, and then wonders if he has accidentally said it, because the general is looking at him.

‘Colonel Corbec,’ says Hadrak. He’s smiling. Corbec’s never met him, but he knows him because Hadrak had zone command on Blackshard. He’s a small, neat man. Everything about him is immaculate: his silver buttons, his braid, his black dress uniform, his boots. His jodhpurs. He’s precision in human form, right down to the rhythm of his speech and the soft hiss of his ‘s’ sounds.

‘A pleasure,’ he says to Corbec. ‘Your men did me a fine turn on Blackshard. A fine turn. Locked up the citadel, neat as you please. Good job.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ says Corbec. ‘I was hoping–’

Hadrak’s already turned away, clapping his hands.

‘Which is how I come to be here,’ he’s telling the rest of them. ‘Blackshard’s secure, may the Emperor smile upon our work, so I take over sphere command here to oversee the occupation and establish lines of supply for the prosecutions at Caligula and Monthax. That’s the top and bottom of it. I’ve been on Voltemand for two days, so I am very much running to catch up. My old friend Noches Sturm did not… How can I put it?’

‘Tidy up his office behind him, sir?’ suggests one of the Royal Slokans.

Hadrak laughs, so everybody else does too.

‘Delicately phrased, Nikolai,’ says Hadrak. ‘Noches is glory-oriented. Always has been. Keen to get on. Eyes on the prize. But, my friends, there is always drudge work. Conquest is just the start of a soldier’s job, as my friend Barthol Van Voytz always says.’

His tone drops, from hearty to solemn. The practised ease of a trained public speaker.

‘Let’s make no mistake about it, my friends,’ Hadrak says. ‘Voltemand is a vital world. Vital. And it will be a proud Imperial world again, ’ere long. Therein lies the task. The Archenemy is vanquished. The population liberated. But canker remains. Pockets of resistance. Archenemy survivors run to ground. Revolt and uprising are distinct possibilities. Voltis City is secure, and Kosdorf put to rest, thank the Throne. But Metis, High Voltar, Pavis Province, the mountain region, Vincula Province. These all remain areas of concern.’

He delivers this last part looking at the chart on the easel.

‘Now, my main oversight is of course installing the interim government, and supporting the Administratum’s initiative as they move in to take control of this world’s vital organs of governance and management. Work that, I know, elicits an inward groan from all career soldiers present, but it is necessary. Provincial governors have been appointed, and we need to make sure they are in place and protected while they take up their duties.’

Hadrak looks at the map again.

‘Bloody corner of this thing…’ he mutters. ‘Does anyone have a tack? A pin?’

Corbec has a pin. He has the pin. He doesn’t want to say so.

‘Allow me, my lord,’ says a Slokan officer. He’s wearing the impressive uniform of the Royal Fifth. He steps up, and stabs the corner of the chart in place with a little sleeve-dirk.

Everyone laughs. Hadrak claps.

‘Very good, Kurt,’ he says. ‘And by way of illustration, what Kurt’s done there is demonstrate versatility, quick-thinking and improvisation. Those things need to be our watchwords here on Voltemand. Working with the Departmento Munitorum, I will, of course, make every effort to keep you all supplied with everything you need to get the job done. Nikolai, I know Metis is woefully short of field munitions. Vassily, you were urging me about transportation deficiencies in High Voltar–’

‘Medical supplies,’ says Corbec.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Vincula Province,’ says Corbec. ‘We’re very short of medical supplies. For the troops and the population.’

‘Quite so,’ says Hadrak.

‘I have a list,’ Corbec adds, reaching for his pocket.

‘Yes, you can hand that along to one of my staff in a bit, colonel,’ says Hadrak. ‘My point is, I’ll give you the tools for the job, wherever I can. Ask and you shall receive. But we’re going to be short in many areas until the supply lines are running at optimal levels, so it’s versatility, quick-thinking and improvisation until then. We become ingenious. We make do. If we don’t have the flakboard and composables to build forward bases, we use local brick. If we don’t have food shipments, we use regional produce. If we don’t have the tractor units to clear highways, we use gun-carriages–’

‘What do we do about seeing in this damn fog?’ asks one of the Tavians. Everybody laughs, including Hadrak.

‘I hear it’s the Tanith’s fault,’ says the Slokan Fifth officer.

‘I’m sorry?’ says Corbec. Everyone’s smiling.

‘The enemy opened the city sluices when you assaulted the watergate,’ says the Slokan. ‘Then you mined the western outfalls. Major flooding, right along the valley. The Bokore broke its banks. That’s why we’ve been fogbound for weeks.’

Corbec nods. The pause is slightly the wrong side of comfortable.

‘Well, Voltis was taken,’ says Hadrak. ‘That’s the main thing, Kurt. A little fog never hurt anyone. My point is, we use what we can to make do.’

‘What about medicae resources?’ asks Corbec. ‘What do we use for those?’

‘Well,’ says Hadrak. ‘I, uh–’

There’s a clatter behind him. The curl of the heavy chart has plucked the Slokan sleeve-dirk out and thrown it onto the floor.

Corbec picks it up. It’s very light. The blade is barely the length of his index finger. He hands it back to the Slokan officer. Then he smoothes the curling corner of the chart out and punches his straight silver through it. Six centimetres of blade stick out the back of the easel’s board.

‘Sometimes an improvisation doesn’t hold for long,’ he says.

4.

They call them woods, but they’re not woods, not like Tanith had.

Scrappy, jagged trees with white bark and limp grey leaves. ‘Weeds,’ Larkin remarks, so that’s what they call them. There’s a stand of them above the road bridge, and then denser woodland shrouding the valley beyond the meadows.

Dawn, just after. The light’s low and hard, and they’re out beyond the eastern end of Vincula, where the town’s road system meets the country highway. If the insurgents fled town this way, then they’re long gone. It’s open country, rolling. The locals know the tracks. They know the farmsteads, the barns, the feed silos that sit, alone and isolated, on the skyline. They know where to hide.

But Gaunt called for sweeps, so they’re out before dawn. Three open-top Tauros runners, caked with dry mud, gunning up the road, single file. It’s just a track. It doesn’t live up to the name ‘country highway’ any more than the woods are woods.

Sergeant Bray has patrol command, but Varl is driving the lead runner. He’s gleeful, driving too fast, despite Bray’s disapproval from the side-seat, and that’s why they come to an abrupt halt at the bridge.

There’s a herd on the bridge, and spilling into the paddocks on either side of the slow river. Varl pulls up hard in a spin of dirt. The grox are placid, a sandy colour, but they’re big. They’d walk away from the sort of impact a Tauros might not.

The Ghosts dismount. Local herdsmen watch them, barely curious. The herdsmen wear the bound leggings and laced coats of the regional style, and big sun hats. Bray observes them for a minute. The herd looks like it’s been halfway across the bridge since the beginning of time. There is no sign of flow. It’s impossible to tell in which direction they’re supposed to be crossing.

‘Have a word,’ Bray tells Varl. Varl nods and walks up the track. Bray signals, deft gestures. The Ghosts fan out, either side of the road. A couple slip over the drystone walls to cover the fields.

Bray points at Larkin, indicates the stand of trees. Larkin hoists his long-las and jogs off in that direction, tailed by Baen, the section’s scout.

The scrub’s thorny. The ground’s baked dry. The trees are even more disappointing up close. They’re brittle and dead-looking. Larkin scopes up, and scans the valley ahead. Baen pulls out field glasses, and does the same, but standing, with the glasses braced against a low branch. They can hear the gurgle of the river, the lowing of the livestock. There’s a stink of dung that pinches the throat.

‘Open,’ says Baen. He means the land’s open, right up to the next treeline, half a kilometre away over the pasture.

Larkin grunts. ‘What’s that?’ he asks.

Baen looks where the marksman points. ‘Track,’ he says. ‘Sunken track.’ It runs like a seam from the far woodline down the edge of a pasture spread, almost to the river west of them until it loops and gets lost in reed beds.

Larkin’s got his map out of his thigh-pouch, folding it back to keep it small, but get the right bit.

‘Drover trail,’ he says.

‘The area’s full of them,’ says Baen. He remembers it from the briefing. ‘This is grazing land.’

It is. Cattle country. The pastures are vast, like moors, dotted with the dry patties of grox dung. The locals use the old trails to drive their herds up-summer and down-winter. Only occasionally do they use the highway, like when they need a bridge to cross a river.

The trail’s not dug. Larkin can see it’s not a ditch. It’s a groove, worn by centuries of plodding livestock.

‘I get down in that,’ he remarks to Baen, ‘I could get all the way up to the treeline without you seeing me.’

Baen nods. He doesn’t doubt it. He could do it himself. So could anyone, and they wouldn’t have to be a Tanith scout.

‘I’ll take a look,’ says Baen.

Larkin shakes his head. He’s got his scope on the treeline at the top of the trail. It’s a lot higher magnification than Baen’s glasses.

‘Movement,’ he says.

‘Treeline?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Baen waits. Flies buzz. Insects chirrup in the dry grass. In the background, the snorting of cattle taking eternity to cross a bridge. The dead tunk of neckbells on the lead steers.

‘Well?’ asks Baen.

‘Can’t see it now,’ says Larkin. ‘But something.’

‘Ambush?’

‘No, too far up. But tell the sarge.’

Baen rubs his nose and trickles back down the slope to the road.

‘Larks has seen something,’ he tells Bray, and points where. Bray brushes a persistent grox-fly away from his face and checks his map.

Varl wanders back. ‘They’re coming this way,’ he says. ‘Into town. Market or something.’

‘Can they speed it up?’ asks Bray.

‘I think this is them doing that,’ says Varl. The low sun’s at the wrong angle, right in his eyes. Hot already. He takes a swig from his canteen.

Bray looks at his map. He walks over to the lead Tauros, and lays it out on the hood. The engine cover’s hot as a stove top. He checks the patrol routes, marked in grease pencil. He double-checks their own position off the vehicle’s auspex unit, which is bolted to the dash, but there’s only one river, and only one bridge.

He reaches into his breast pocket, and pulls out his code book. Brown paper, easy to burn. The pages are like tissue. He checks the day’s assigned numbers.

He adjusts his micro-bead. Rafflan will have to set up the caster if the range is too poor.

‘Two-two,’ he says. ‘Two-two, this is One-six-five.’

He repeats it. Three digits for a full mobile section. Two digits for a scout unit.

Up in the stand of trees, Larkin feels his earpiece buzz. Comms active. He keeps his scope on the treeline.

Mkoll feels the tap in his ear. His micro-bead is set to silent. He doesn’t respond immediately.

Two-two is a four-man scout section. They’re in woodland, on a spur that the maps mark merely with a gradient number. Sunlight’s coming in at a low angle, shafting between the bone-white tree trunks, dappling through the scrappy canopy, casting long, starved shadows. The day’s heat is already building, but the hill spur is high enough for them to feel a breeze coming across the pasture land, across the river. Leaves stir and tremble, like dry paper decorations.

They’ve been silent for two hours, the first ninety minutes out of operational habit, the last thirty because they’re actively hunting.

Doyl spotted something as they were coming up the hillside trail from an abandoned farm, where they’d been checking sheds and outbuildings for boltholes or signs of recent occupation. The sunlight caught something, metal, glass. Maybe nothing, but Doyl’s eyes are good, always have been. And there should be nothing up here. Just a long, deep stand of woodland crowning a hillside, overlooking pasture, about a kilometre above the highway and the bridge.

It takes them slightly off their planned patrol sweep, but they agree without words. They reach the treeline, and melt into the angular shadows. Doyl has point, then Mkoll and Caober, then Mkvenner in the tail. No more than twenty metres apart, but they can’t see each other. Yet each man knows exactly where the others are.

Another tap.

Mkoll stops. He doesn’t want to. They’re on to something. They haven’t seen anything since they started their uphill trek, but there’s been a hint of voices, and a faint smell. But he stops, hand signs. The others stop too. They’ve felt the tap.

Mkoll backs in behind the bole of a large, withered tree. Its bark is like chalk. Its aged limbs are creaking in the breeze. He checks the volume and takes his comms off silent.

‘Two-two, this is One-six-five.’

Bray’s patrol. Mobile section. Mkoll pinches the clicker on the cord of his earpiece. Acknowledge.

‘One-six-five, at the bridge H-54, cityside. Holding here, local activity. Spotter reports movement.’

Bray gives a bearing. Mkoll checks it against his mapbook. It matches. Whatever Bray’s spotter – Larkin, Mkoll guesses – has seen, it’s the same thing his team is stalking.

One pinch. Acknowledge. Two more. Stand by.

‘One-six-five, copy.’

Mkoll looks around. He can’t see the pasture from where he is. He makes another gesture, then ducks around the tree and slips through the scrub and leaf litter. Insects buzz, drawn to resin weeping from knots in the trees. Leaves rustle. He makes no sound.

Twenty metres, then down, behind an old stump, among briars. Check lines of sight. No visible contacts. Still no trace of whatever they’re hunting.

From his new position, he has a better view beyond the treeline. The fold of the hill beneath him, steep in places, deep in shadow. Below that, the wide, undulating slope of the pasture, sunlit. Beyond that, a kilometre away, the glint of a river, mostly hidden by its banks and reeds. The squiggle of the highway, like a thread scar across the dry pasture. A scrappy stand of trees on a low rise. His maps says that’s close to the crossing.

He takes out his scope, a compact monocular, built for rail-mounting on a weapon. He scans, adjusting focus, panning. Yes. The bridge. Magnification shows him the old bridge. A big herd of livestock blocking it, on the bridge and either side. Locals, herdsmen. One of them shakes a stick at a grox. Mkoll sweeps right, overshoots, goes back. Three Militarum runners at the roadside, pulled up on the far side of the bridge, waiting for the cattle to pass. That’s Bray. He can see the sergeant beside his Tauros. There’s Varl, Rafflan, Loell, Roskil.

He adjusts again, pulls to the stand of trees. He can’t see anyone, but that’s where the spotter will be. No, there he is. Larkin. Well hidden, but not perfect. Mkoll can see the flash suppressor of his long-las, and by extension, a patch of scrub between two trees that’s actually Larkin.

He pans sideways. River, beds of reeds, pasture. Wide open, bare to the sun. But there’s a line, just a smudge. He consults his chart. Drover trail. He looks back, follows it. It’s not completely visible, but he can trace sections of it. It comes right back up to the treeline, entering the woods about seventy metres ahead of where he is.

He puts the scope away. He retraces his steps to his original position, shadow to shadow, head down. A papery fidget of breeze. Caober’s waiting for him.

The details are beyond the ambit of Tanith hand-signs. If they ever have time, they’ll have to develop a better, more complex system. Mkoll uses his mapbook, and marks the specifics with his wax pencil. Here, here, here. An arrow shows his intention. Caober nods.

Mkoll pinches again. Stand by.

He and Caober move, low. Mkoll makes one hand signal, drawing Doyl and Mkvenner after them. The trees are more closely packed, the ground cover thicker. Thorn, more bramble. No further sign of voices, but there’s that smell again. It’s hard to catch, hard to separate from the dry odours of the woodland: bark, resin, pollen, dust, the decomp of leaf-litter. But Mkoll can tease it out, like identifying one particular herb or spice in a stew, because it’s not natural. It’s man-made. It’s grease. It’s oil, but not promethium.

He stops. Caober stops. They’re invisible to him, but Mkoll knows Doyl and Ven have stopped too. Wait.

He can see something. Half a something. Looks like a body. No, a bedroll. No, a tarp. A tarp or agricultural sheeting. Thirty metres up, among brambles under a tree.

He starts to move, stops again. Here we go. One more step was all he needed. Mkoll half-rolls onto his side to peer out under a low branch.

Yes. Twenty metres away, to his right, ten metres shy of the tarp. There’s someone in cover behind a pair of gnarled trees. He can see a foot. Part of a knee. Leather bindings wrapping cloth.

He could take the shot, probably make the kill, but that would be noise. That would kick it off. There will be others. He signs Caober to stay low and provide cover. Caober takes aim. Mkoll edges back and then goes the other way around the tree. Four metres, five. Duck, wait. He can see a shoulder now. No, it’s the brim of a sun hat that’s been set against a tree. He draws his warknife.

He moves as if time is slow, as if the air is glue. Every motion slow and silent and considered, lingering, a centimetre at a time, like an indulgent mime.

Two metres more and he’ll make the lunge. It’ll be quick, and soundless.

Something slams into him from the side, bringing him down into the undergrowth. There’s a fierce triple-crack of las-fire.

Mkvenner’s on top of him, pushing him down, keeping him low. On his back, Mkoll sees another las-bolt flash over them. He feels the pressure-pop of its passage.

They roll apart. The tree bole behind them is holed and smouldering. If Ven hadn’t tackled him…

His intended target is active, surprised by the gunfire. He swings out. A local, a drover, holding an antique laslock. A single shot from Caober drops him like a sack. More shots spit over them, coming the other way. Doyl, from the far side, trying to target the source of the gunfire. A branch splinters. Dead leaves billow. Mkoll and Mkvenner belly forward. Another shot whines over them, but it’s from a different angle.

‘Shooter, left, forty metres,’ Doyl says over the link.

Mkoll can’t see him. More shots, zipping through the trees, but from yet another angle. They’re aimed at Caober, because Caober’s revealed his position by firing. Mkoll hears Caober yelp, but it’s surprise, not pain.

Where’s the shooter? Where the feth is he?

Mkoll and Mkvenner break, making low sprints to reach the closest of the larger trees. A shot explodes bark from the one Mkoll’s chosen. That’s not a laslock.

There’s a shot from his left, a little wild. That is a laslock. A heavy snap-crack. Another drover, like the one Caober dropped. He’s pumping off single shots at Mkoll and Mkvenner with his long-barrelled weapon. His aim is poor.

Mkoll’s opportunity for refined aim is also woeful. But he’s got a Mk III las, Militarum grade, in perfect order. He rips off a burst that levels the drover and riddles the tree beside him. Behind him, Ven takes a shot, then another, firing into tree-shadow.

Silence. Broken leaves flutter down. Threads of fyceline smoke drift.

Mkoll moves. Ven goes with him. He can hear Bray’s tiny, tinny voice on the link. No time to answer. No shots chase them. Nothing. The shooter’s withdrawn, or he’s waiting.

They drop in beside the tarp. Mkvenner’s aiming, switching, left, right, low left.

‘Gone?’ Mkoll asks.

Mkvenner nods.

Mkoll lifts the tarp. It covers two metal crates, Munitorum issue. The lid’s off one of them. Munition crates, K10 anti-personnel mines, cased individually like little galvanised ration boxes. The boxes are packed in straw and wadding that’s been lubricated with anti-spark machine oil. That was the smell. No mistaking it.

The case lids are stamped ‘ORDNANCE K10 AP – TOP TOWARDS TARGET’. The crates are marked ‘Astra Militarum – Voltis Depot’. There are six mines missing.

Doyl joins them, weapon aimed. Caober calls to them. He’s moved ahead, onto an old, snaking path that leads out of the woods.

‘Tracks,’ he says. ‘Four or more adults, moving fast. No attempt to cover.’

There were others. They’ve fled.

‘Direction?’ asks Mkoll.

‘Downhill,’ says Caober. ‘I think there’s a drover’s trail.’

Mkoll gets on the link, starts telling Bray that someone’s coming their way. He looks at Ven. Ven is looking uphill, into the thicker woods.

‘They’ve gone downhill,’ Mkoll says.

Mkvenner nods, but he doesn’t look convinced.

5.

Varl cocks his head.

‘Contact,’ he says, listening. ‘That’s contact.’

They can hear it. Sharp cracks, like sticks breaking, and some deeper thumps, like someone striking an empty barrel with a hammer. Distant. It’s coming from the woods, just over a kilometre away.

The section moves. Some are already in position. Bray gets on the comms.

‘Two-two, Two-two? Report. Two-two? Advise status.’

More cracks. It’s sporadic. Then nothing.

‘Saw flashes,’ reports Larkin, from the stand of trees.

‘Hold and watch,’ Bray replies. He tells Rafflan to get on the main caster and call it in, then tries the ’bead again.

Loell’s reversing the second Tauros off the road, so it’s side on to the bridge and he can track around the .30 mounted on its roll-cage pintle. He shouts for a loader. Someone runs over.

Varl’s got his lasrifle out of the lead runner. He checks its load as he strides up the track towards the bridge.

‘You have to get clear!’ he shouts. The drovers stand and look at him as if he’s stupid, which is a familiar feeling for Varl. One flicks the brim of his sun hat with a stick to shoo flies.

‘Clear!’ Varl shouts, gesturing. ‘Get yourselves clear! Get the livestock off the bridge!’ The grox don’t seem to have moved at all, except for a few at the lead that have ambled down the roadside slope beside the bridge and are grazing on the lush grass at the near bank.

‘Come on!’ Varl yells.

He hears a gunshot, loud and really close. It makes him start. He looks left, in time to see another muffled blink of light in the tree stand. Larkin’s shooting, single shots.

‘Movement in the trail,’ Baen says, over the link. ‘Drover trail, far side. Sixty metres west of the bridge.’

Varl starts to move towards the trees, then stops. He looks at the drovers. They’re still idling, watching, unperturbed, except a couple who have started tapping the flanks of their grox with their sticks, calling out.

‘You’ve got to move,’ Varl says. He walks over to the nearest one. ‘Astra Militarum,’ he exclaims in the man’s face, over-pronouncing each word. He taps his uniform patch. ‘You have to clear the bridge now! By order! You’re not safe!’

The man looks back at him. His face is lined and very tanned. He looks concerned, but not scared. He looks like someone’s told him there might be a storm later in the day. He looks confused.

Larkin fires again. Twice, quick succession. The deep and heavy slap of a long-las.

‘Larks can’t tag them,’ Baen reports. ‘They’re low in the ditch. In the drover’s trail. High banks. Can’t get an angle.’

The long-las bangs again.

Bray runs up from the vehicles. ‘Mkoll confirms contact,’ he tells Varl. ‘Marauds. Brief contact, now they’re heading our way down the trail.’

‘They’re already here,’ says Varl. ‘Does Mkoll have numbers?’

Bray shakes his head. He starts giving orders via the link, refining their position. There’s a reason he’s sergeant. He’s cool. He’s working with a sober purpose. He’s one of the best-trained men in the regiment, with militia experience.

Varl’s always had a more suck-it-and-spit-if-necessary approach to life. He’s a clown. He acts up, and likes to be liked. A few have commented that he’s displayed unusual courage in the actions so far, but Varl wouldn’t say that. He thinks it’s stupidity. Chances are standing around in the thick of it, out of cover, because you’re stupid and haven’t fully appreciated the battle dynamics can look like courage.

Stupidity looks like courage from the outside, just like death looks like sleep.

Bray’s heading for a corner of drystone wall that will give him an angle on the river. Roskil’s prone behind a tip of loose stone the road-menders have left behind. Neskon and Derin are wading down from the roadside into the bankside thickets; Varl realises he’s the only man in the section standing in the open, like he’s a fething drover.

There’s a ripple of cracks, fast and fierce, like someone doing a fast rebound roll off a taut snare drum. It’s a split-second thing, but Varl can parse the sound. It’s different from the heavy slap of Larkin’s sniper-gun, and not just because it’s a different weapon. It’s the way the sound seems to be shaped. Larkin’s shots are hard cracks that fade. These are the reverse, a whine-snap.

It’s moving the other way. It’s not outgoing fire.

It’s incoming.

Varl goes to move left, stops, goes to move right instead, stops again, stands there like a fething dick. There’s another ripple of brittle, slapping cracks. Varl hears impacts, like slaps. His face is suddenly damp.

It’s blood. He’s hit.

He’s not hit. It’s aerosolised blood.

The huge grox two metres from him has a hole in its flank, a big round scorch mark, and there’s blood dribbling from its centre. The animal’s still upright, a tonne and a half of meat, but it’s snuffling.

Varl drops to the dirt. ‘Down!’ he shouts at the drovers. ‘Get the feth down!’

He actually sees the next hits come in. Quick needles of light almost invisible in the hard sunshine. He sees grox shudder, and puffs of pink mist. One starts to trot forward, lowing a guttural distress. It’s not moving fast, just a plod, but that’s fast by grox standards. Others start to follow it. Herd instinct. One’s trailing blood like water from a tap, blood and bright green soup, the semi-digested contents of one of its multiple stomachs. Another wanders off, abruptly, making a squealing sound more like a hog than bulk cattle. It goes a different way from the others, off to the left. Varl can see the wound in the side of its head, see white bone where the flesh has blown away. It falls on its side just off the bridge with an impact he can feel through the ground. Its legs kick and mill.

The drovers have finally started to move. Most are running for the meadow behind the parked vehicles, holding their hats on their heads. A few are yelling at the cattle, beating at them, trying to drive them off the open bridge.

Another grox falls over, as though its legs have forgotten how to work. A drover turns. Varl sees him take the hit. He sees the las-bolt remove his jaw, his right ear and part of his scalp. Somehow, his sun hat stays on.

‘The reeds! The reeds! The reeds!’ Varl yells, flat on his belly in the dirt. He can read it now. What’s the word? ‘Appraise’? The rest of the section’s around the roadside walls or the dip of the riverbank, except Larkin and Baen in the tree stand, but they’re popping shots at the drover trail.

That’s not where the enemy is. Not any more. The hostiles have come down the drover trail, but they’ve left it, right at the very end of it where it snakes, and gone into the reeds on the far bank. Varl can see this. He’s the only one who can see this, because he’s the only idiot out in the open on the bridge approach.

He can see the muzzle flashes in the reeds. Two, maybe three shooters. He can see the las-rounds whip up across the slow river into the herd, into the banks, and chop along the fold of earth and dry grass where Neskon and Derin are. They can feel the incoming fire. They can’t track the source.

‘Fething reeds!’ Varl yells. ‘Tight under the bridge! For feth’s sake!’

No one answers. He rolls on his back. A shot burns over him, a dagger of light heading for Vincula. He fumbles with his ear. He’s pulled the ear-bud out. He’s pulled the bud out of his ear and the other end of the cord out of the compact vox-box strapped to his chest.

He curses himself. He tries to replug it. The plug’s bent. He rolls over. He keeps yelling ‘Reeds!’ but no one can hear him.

He gets up, shots passing either side of him. He has to mark it. He’s got a good arm. He hoists the tube charge in a long, overarm throw. It spins end over end, like a throwing axe.

It falls short, hits the water. There’s a pause, then it detonates. A circle of river convulses, booms like a peal of thunder, and hurls up a water spout that drenches the left side of the bridge.

The air’s full of drizzle. Now he’s marked it. The section’s looking his way with what-the-feth faces. Bray’s looking his way.

‘The fething reeds!’ Varl yells, pointing, almost jumping up and down. He sees Bray shouting into his micro-bead.

The section starts shooting at the reeds.

Varl sees the herd. The cattle haven’t enjoyed the tube charge. They are moving towards him, and they’re starting to move faster than grox should be able to. They’re raising dust. There’s a lot of bellowing. Deep, bass notes of distress. The ground is quivering.

Varl starts to run.

He runs back down the bridge approach. The grox, hundreds of tonnes of agitated mass, are right behind him. He meets Tauros 2 coming the other way. Rafflan’s driving. Loell’s standing on the backboard, manning the .30. Bray’s called them in to hose the target Varl’s marked. Varl sees Rafflan’s horrified face as he slams on the brakes. Varl goes belly first over the hood.

‘Keep rolling!’ he yells, over the storm of hooves. Rafflan edges them forward, eyes wide. Varl is scrambling up the hood, holding onto anything he can grab for purchase. He starts to pull himself through the front of the roll bars, over the dash, into the side seat. A jarring thump. The first impact. The grox are streaming past them, barging the Tauros. There’s dust everywhere. The vehicle shudders, then jolts to the left, then to the right, bouncing on its springs. A fender crumples. One headlamp array shatters. Water cans lashed to the side are torn off. Varl turns himself almost upside down trying to squirm into the seat the right way up. The runner’s shaking. He hears Loell growl, ‘Feth this.’

Then they’re moving again, trailing the cowling of a wheel arch. They’re still passing grox coming the other way, but the main mass has passed. Rafflan veers hard to avoid a head-on collision, and the animal shunts them in passing. Varl is nearly thrown out.

They come up the bridge approach.

‘Here! Here!’ Varl yells. Rafflan brakes. Loell’s cranking the support weapon around.

‘Spot for me!’ he shouts. Varl can do better. He clambers up, out and over onto the backboard, grabs the gun’s handles from Loell.

‘Get ready to reload,’ he says. Loell nods. The heavy-calibre weapon glides on its well-oiled mount, slides like silk. Varl’s got it lined up, lined up on the reed beds blanketing the far bank. The section’s still pinking rounds into the area, even Larkin from the trees.

Varl thumbs the red cover off the fire-stud, and squeezes.

A dancing cone of flame surrounds the muzzle. The gun roars, a long howl of rapid fire and whining loader mechanism. Spent cases fly up in a horsetail, and clatter around their feet, and into the driver’s section, and bounce off the roll bars and the footplate. Rafflan curses and swipes hot brass off his lap.

The heavy fire doesn’t flatten the reed beds. It doesn’t mow the reeds down. It vaporises them in a steaming cloud of spray, of sap, of fibre, of leaf-shred, of broken shoots. A green mist curls out over the water.

Varl empties the first box. When the .30 clacks dry, he takes his thumb off. Loell releases the empty box and slams the new one in its place. He feeds it, locks the belt, slams the cover down, touches Varl’s arm, and Varl opens up all over again.

By the time the second box is empty, there are no standing reed beds on the far side of the water, and nothing standing in them.

6.

She says stuff about the clan and ethnic dispersals of the Sabbat Worlds. She says a lot of stuff. She has supporting intel too, on three data-slates she produces from a carry-bag. Rawne doesn’t really listen. He didn’t sign on to attend lectures. Then again, he didn’t sign on full stop. Not for this. He leans in the corner of the kitchen and lets it wash over him. He’s not listening, but he likes the tone of her voice.

They’re in Memnon House, in the Low Quarter of the city. That’s where she’s been assigned. But there are no offices or workspaces cleared yet, and the building’s still being swept. So Gaunt finds an empty kitchen in the basement, a throwback to the days when Memnon House was a trade delegation facility, and takes her briefing there.

There are no chairs. It’s just grubby tiled walls, a rockcrete floor, rusted sinks and stove units, and long steel counters. The overhead lights seem to have trouble staying on. They fade and flutter. There’s no air-circ either, not down here.

Eiwolt sets up at a food-prep table, and stands there saying things, as if she’s addressing a lecture theatre. Gaunt rests against a line of immersion cookers, arms folded, and listens. Rawne can tell he’s tired. Gaunt hasn’t slept yet. He’s been up all night interviewing Litus personnel and Administratum staffers. There’s a look in his eyes that says he wants to sleep, or at least sit down, but there’s also a determination to hear her out and understand her material. Rawne stands to one side, letting the tiled wall take his weight. He knows it’s possible to sleep standing up. He wonders if they’ll notice.

The air’s stuffy and warm. Her tone is relaxing. Rawne tries to keep track of the things she’s talking about – ‘Bishrabi’, ‘Waeshist’, ‘Magmeta’ and the rest – hoping that the mental exercise of following her argument will keep him alert. But it doesn’t.

He’s beginning to slide away when Gaunt asks a question and it wakes him up.

‘How long have they been here?’ Gaunt asks. Rawne can tell Gaunt’s asking the question to stay awake too, but not because he’s bored. He’s keen to understand, he’s just dead on his feet.

‘Define “they”, sir?’ Eiwolt says.

‘The original population, the core population,’ asks Gaunt. ‘Colonists, I presume.’

‘In excess of twelve thousand years,’ she says. ‘And, of course, they are colonial in origin.’

‘Of course? That’s verified?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She looks surprised, or amused. Rawne’s not sure which. ‘By systematic and thorough bioscan and genetic census. A number of them, in fact, periodically, going back at least a thousand years. We also have earlier records. Did you think there was any doubt?’

Gaunt shrugs. ‘There are a number of theories,’ he begins.

‘Not really,’ she says. ‘Historically, there have been many claims made about human origins. Some are popularly believed. But none have any scientific backing. The evidence is clear, sir. Everyone comes from Terra. That surprises you?’

‘No,’ says Gaunt. ‘It’s what I was taught at progenium. Just making sure the model hasn’t changed since then.’

There’s a knock at the door. It’s Trooper Caffran.

‘A word, sir?’ he says. Gaunt nods quickly to Eiwolt, and goes to the door.

‘Not the caff I was hoping for,’ Gaunt says. ‘We requested some about an hour ago.’

‘Still working on that, sir,’ says Caffran. ‘There doesn’t seem to be a pot in the place that works. Or a heating element. Or water.’

‘Keep trying,’ says Gaunt. ‘What can I do for you?’

Caffran hands him a field report on flimsy punch-paper. He’s one of the youngest troopers, but his youthful face can’t hide his chronic bitterness. Loss runs through him like the rings in a tree. It runs through all of them, but Caffran’s young so it probably hurts more. There was a girl. Rawne’s been told the story, but he can’t remember her name. First love, sharp as a silver knife. For Caffran, carrying that must be like living with a sucking chest wound every day.

Caffran’s been assigned as Gaunt’s adjutant for the day, probably to give Raglon a rest. Rawne doesn’t know why Gaunt can’t stick with one poor fether, and build a working relationship. But every few weeks, it’s some other bastard’s turn. No one likes it. Maybe Gaunt hasn’t found the right person yet. It should have been Cluggan, probably. In Rawne’s opinion, which has never been solicited, the boy would be the best option. The poor feth has nothing else to do. He’s not even Guard. And Rawne knows for a fact that the boy’s been doing the job behind the scenes for weeks, since Kosdorf at least, mending uniforms, polishing boots, making sure everything’s where it should be. Trying to find a place for himself where there is no place. Gaunt has to know. He should just give the boy a brevet rank, or at least read him in on command codes so he can run the daybook.

Gaunt leaves Caffran waiting in the doorway and comes back to them, re-reading the field report.

‘Adare’s finished the interviews,’ he says, ‘so the Litus can resume duties. Except nine of them who were on door watch duties, and some Administratum staffers. They’ll be interviewed again.’

‘The Litus C.O. won’t like that,’ says Rawne.

‘The Litus C.O. can wear it,’ Gaunt replies. ‘Someone fethed up, or saw something, and his men had responsibility. And last I heard, he answers to me.’

Rawne nods. It amuses him when Gaunt uses Tanith dialect. He can’t decide if Gaunt’s doing it to blend in and sound like one of the lads, or if he’s just adopted ‘feth’ unconsciously because it’s so useful and multipurpose. Both, maybe. It sounds wrong coming out of his mouth. Rawne has decided not to be insulted by it. There are far more meaningful things to be insulted by.

‘And I’m afraid I have to go,’ Gaunt adds. ‘We’ve just got word of a hard contact on the eastern highway shortly after daybreak. One-six-five mobile engaged possible marauds.’

‘One-six-five is Bray,’ says Rawne.

Gaunt nods.

‘Casualties?’ Rawne asks.

‘Doesn’t say much here,’ says Gaunt. ‘They’re on their way back in, so I want to meet them and get a full after-action in person.’

He looks at Eiwolt.

‘Sorry to break this off,’ Gaunt says. ‘I appreciate it’s significant, and I have some follow-ups. Major Rawne will sit in for the rest of the briefing, take full notes, and pass them along to me. Then I’ll come back to you when time permits.’

‘I will?’ says Rawne. Gaunt doesn’t even spare him a glance.

‘Of course, colonel-commissar,’ Eiwolt replies. Gaunt pauses, looks at the report again, then makes the sign of the aquila.

‘Carry on,’ he says and walks out of the kitchen after Caffran.

Eiwolt looks at Rawne, a slight raise of her eyebrows.

‘Where were we?’ she asks.

‘Everyone comes from Terra,’ says Rawne. It’s the only thing he remembers. He hesitates. ‘What does that even mean?’ he asks.

‘What do you mean what does it mean?’

‘I mean…’ He trails off.

‘Human life originated on Terra,’ she says gently. ‘All human life. The genetic profile of every human being in the Imperium and beyond derives from Terran stock.’

‘Well, not all of them, clearly…’ says Rawne.

‘Yes, major, all of them. Where were you educated?’

He doesn’t answer that. It would be a long and unflattering list of minor scholams, reform schools, correctional institutes and one expensive academy that didn’t really suit him. Or the academy.

‘The Sanguinary Tribes…’ he says.

‘Are human,’ she replies.

‘The Archonate, the Archenemy–’

‘Human. For the most part, and originally. Genetic surveys prove it. Haven’t you been listening?’

‘I have, I… I have,’ Rawne says. He’s suddenly having a very hard time getting his head around it. ‘I thought there were separate lines of human gene-stock? Terran bloodline, Eastern Fringe bloodline–’

‘Culturally, that’s true,’ she says. ‘But that’s a very common misconception. I’m frankly dismayed I come across it so often. Human life did not arise, independently, at multiple locations across the galaxy. It rose on Terra. We’re going back a long way, of course. There were ancient periods of expansion, colonisation and outward progress that spread mankind through the stars. This is pre-Imperial, pre-Unification. The historical record is very sparse, but we know it happened, and we have the genetic evidence to prove it. Humanity spread out from Terra, perhaps by its own means, possibly through xenos influence. Then contact was lost, for a very long period. The Great Crusade, and subsequent phases of Imperial expansion, re-contacted lost colonies, lost outposts… indeed whole civilisations. In numerous cases, these civilisations had little or no awareness that they had originated on a parent world. We’re still finding this in the modern age… In the Sabbat Worlds, the Sanguinary Tribes, the feral stars… They’re all human, major. The people you’re fighting, with their inhuman beliefs and alien customs, they’re all human. Didn’t you know that?’

Rawne opens his mouth, then closes it again. He pulls himself up onto the immersion cookers where Gaunt had been leaning, and sits there, staring at the floor.

‘I’d never really thought about it,’ he says.

‘You understand now why an advanced understanding of tribal and ethno-cultural connections could be useful? We can’t just liberate human worlds and assume they think the way we do. Many human cultures in the Sabbat Worlds have been under Archonate influence, directly or indirectly, for thousands of years. Some have changed hands many times. The cultural impact is immense. And the Archonate itself, discounting xenos allies and abhuman strands, is human. You’re from Tunusk?’

‘Tanith,’ says Rawne.

‘I’m sorry, yes. I’m tired. Where did Tanith history begin, major? Where did its people begin?’

‘It’s always been there. We’ve always been there.’

‘For at least six thousand years, possibly much longer. But the fierce and proudly independent Tanith came from Terra. And they have lived in the shadow of the Archonate for… well, for as long as they can remember.’

She picks up a data-slate and scrolls through it.

‘The latest research says that the Tanith belong to a human gene-stock branch called the Magmeta, which is an ethnic strand that displays multiple genomic markers, suggesting initial derivation in the Old Terran regions of Albia and Europa.’

Rawne gets down off the cooker.

‘We need a drink. Caff or something,’ he says.

‘That young soldier didn’t seem to think there was any available in the building,’ says Eiwolt.

‘So we leave the building. We’ll dehydrate down here.’

‘There is still a lot of material to get through.’

‘Bring it with you,’ he says. ‘Gaunt said to take notes. I don’t even have a pen. So we’re going for a walk.’

She looks at him, dubious.

‘I’m your assigned liaison,’ he says. ‘It’s my call.’

7.

The facade of the Occupation Council Building is stark with hard morning sunlight, but the transport pool in its side yard is swathed in shadow. The day’s heat’s coming up really fast, faster than the climbing sun, and the yard’s thick with the exhaust fumes and the smell of refuse. Brin Milo stands under the tin slope of the workshop roof, with the constant whizz of power-drivers behind him. Fitters are speed-changing wheels on the spare transports, getting more of the surplus serviceable. Trucks are lined up in the yard, engines running, waiting for despatch notices. Drivers loiter. There’s still a bunch of the newly arrived Admin staffers needing rides to their billets, or to satellite workspaces. Few have been moved because of the overnight security sweeps. There are also local workers waiting for transport, payloads of equipment, and document boxes ready for transfer.

Milo looks like one of the Tanith troopers, black kit, cloak, knapsack. But if you look at him close, you can see he’s not. He’s younger than the youngest, a boy, though he’s already beginning to fill out into the bigger man he’s going to become. No weapon, no patches, no crest or rank pins.

No purpose. No role. He hangs around, helps out, tries not to get in the way; tries to make it seem to everyone, including himself, that there’s a valid reason for his presence.

The Ghosts, even Gaunt, seem to like him, but there’s an edge to it. Doc Dorden says that’s because, as the lone civilian, Milo reminds them all too keenly of what has been lost. There’s something to that, but it’s not the whole story. Milo has a knack for insight, for anticipation, that makes people uncomfortable. He’s good at guessing things before they happen. And he dreams a lot. He’s sure everybody does, but his dreams have a special quality to them. He’ll often dream about something, some detail, and the next day, or the day after, or in a week or so, it’ll happen. Milo’s only told the old medicae about these dreams, and he didn’t care for the look on Dorden’s face when he did.

So he’s listless, floating, his life a sort of limbo. Not a lasman, not a Ghost, but not a civilian either, because there’s no civilian life to live. Nothing to do, officially or unofficially. More like a mascot, a thing the Tanith are obliged to lug around with them. He’s an inconvenience, but they can’t bring themselves to admit it and leave him behind. As a result, he tries to fill his days, and not become a problem for anybody. He spends most of his time with Dorden, but the doctor’s away with Corbec on a procurement run to Voltis City.

So he waits. He’s not sure for what.

He sees a Munitorum work crew coming in through the yard gates lugging plastek sacks, brooms over their shoulders. They’ve been out front, sweeping up the glass strewn by the blast damage. Milo watches them dump the clinking sacks into garbage barrels. The missing window on the twelfth floor is a little dark spot in the sunlit facade, like a lost tooth, or the eye socket of a bleached skull. He sees Litus troopers, sour faced, trudging in to relieve Tanith at the yard’s high armoured gates and wall nests. Grudging exchanges. The Litus B.R.U. know they fethed up, or that it’s on them, at least, and they know the Tanith know.

Except they didn’t. Milo doesn’t think so. It was an inside job. Security’s tight, well run. It had to have been someone who didn’t raise attention. Someone invisible, who looks like they’re meant to be there. A cook, a clerk, a junior rubricator. Someone who can walk in, flash a tag.

Milo has figured this out because he’s invisible too. No one questions his presence. Just another Tanith, right? If Milo had a mind to strike a blow for the Archenemy, he could do it. He could walk in. He could get into the building, without a challenge or a second look. The interior security hatches would be harder, but just from where he’s standing, he can see one Munitorum driver’s code tag hanging off a wing mirror, and another lying on top of a kitbag while the man changes his vest. Just walk past, pocket it, be gone again before anyone notices the tag’s been lifted.

Maybe not even that. Two of the work crew aren’t wearing badges, or at least aren’t wearing them visibly. Nobody stopped them at the gate.

Of course, he’d need munitions. But there are pallets of them in the yard. Stacked crates of field mines. Canisters of grenades, waiting for the next free servo-lifter to hoist them into the back of a cargo-6. Everyone’s busy, or tired, or both. No one would notice.

Milo has no intention of doing any of that. But he can see how it could be done. He can see it very clearly. He wonders why others don’t. Maybe it’s because he spends his time waiting, waiting and watching, because he’s got no orders to follow and nothing better to do.

He hears men laughing. Tanith troopers, standing near the transports. All of them have pulled driver jobs. Mktane, Feygor, Mktalla, Guheen, Bragg. Most obviously Bragg. Bigger than all of them, louder than all of them. Happier than anyone.

Bragg’s keen, and strong, and he works hard, but he can be clumsy, as if he’s living in a world that’s not built to the right scale for him. He’s got a nickname, because it usually takes him two goes to accomplish a given task. But everyone likes him, because it’s hard not to, and it turns out he’s got a genuine talent as a driver, especially on the bigger transports.

Bragg sees Milo looking his way, and gives him a shout and wave. Milo wanders over.

‘Brinny boy!’ Bragg smiles, and ruffles Milo’s hair. Anyone else would get a slap for that, including Rawne, but somehow there’s only affection when Bragg does it.

‘What’s the story?’ Milo asks.

‘Oh, transport duty, all day,’ says Bragg. ‘Motor pool… motor pool… stuff.’ He pulls a crumpled docket out of his jacket, as though he’s going to consult it, then waves it idly and puts it back. ‘Stuff,’ he repeats. ‘Got to drive some Admin types to billets in West Town, then pick up something from the stock compound on the way back. Tyres, I think. Tyres and prom canisters. Hot out, isn’t it?’

Milo nods.

‘Not hot,’ Bragg qualifies, thoughtful for a moment. ‘But wrong hot, you know? Hot’s fine, but this is humid. Claggy.’

‘Muggy,’ says Milo.

Bragg looks at him, narrows one eye, waggles a truncheon finger in the boy’s direction.

‘That is the exact word. Muggy. So, you?’

‘Not much,’ says Milo. ‘Thought I might get in the storerooms, get some kip where there’s air-circ.’

‘That’s a much better plan than mine,’ says Bragg.

‘Don’t have a pass, though,’ says Milo.

‘No pass?’

‘Never got issued one. Non-com.’

Bragg frowns. ‘You can borrow one. Borrow mine.’

‘I don’t think that’s how clearance works,’ says Milo.

Bragg nods his head, noting the wisdom. He pulls a ceramic flask from his thigh pouch. It’s wrapped in hessian up to the neck. He offers it to Milo.

‘Bit early,’ says Milo.

‘Bit late,’ Bragg corrects him. ‘Never too early. I’ve been on since, what, yesterday night? What day is it?’

He takes a swig. Milo can smell the sacra briefly, as much a smell of Tanith as nalwood sap. And the best, too. Bragg’s homebrew is justly famous.

‘You’ll dehydrate,’ says Milo.

‘No, no,’ says Bragg. ‘I got it all worked out. A system.’ He pats his other thigh pouch. ‘I alternate with water. Hydration, then a drop of sacra to keep me sharp. Hydrate, sharp, hydrate, sharp.’

He utters the words like a mantra, with a little rocking swivel of his arms and upper body. Milo can’t help but laugh.

A siren sounds, briefly blocking out the noise of worship-horns, engines and power-drivers.

‘Oh, I’m up,’ says Bragg.

‘See you later,’ says Milo.

Administratum staffers and other personnel are coming out into the yard, along with some Litus and Munitorum drivers. A senior aide starts shouting despatch orders, reading off a data-slate. People group up, and head towards the waiting trucks. Drivers heel out lho-sticks. Milo sees Bragg head towards one of the cargo-6 units, a closed-body truck with grilled windows around a passenger space. Bragg talks to two Administratum clerks and a Litus subaltern waiting beside it. They all have bags.

Then Bragg turns and gives Milo a wave, beckoning.

‘What’s up?’ Milo asks, crossing back to him.

‘Gutes is meant to be my oppo,’ says Bragg. ‘Read the map, you know.’

‘So?’

‘He’s been pulled, last minute. Apparently he’s got to drive Gaunt up to East Gate. You want to cover?’

‘Ride along?’

‘Yeah, and read a map. You can read a map?’

‘I can.’

‘Good, ’cause I can’t,’ says Bragg.

‘I’m not authorised. Not tagged.’

‘Well, I know you,’ says Bragg, ‘and you’d be doing me a favour, ’cause otherwise I’ve got to sit here for another two hours, and that’s not going to make anyone happy, especially me.’ He looks at the boy. ‘Help me out,’ he says. ‘What else are you going to do? Wait around here all day?’

Exactly that, thinks Milo. Exactly and completely that, today, and the one after, and the one after that.

He turns it over for a moment. Something, the instinct he is still learning to trust, tells him he shouldn’t say yes. Not because it could get him and Bragg in trouble for bending operational protocol, though there’s that, but because of a deeper, vaguer unease. But the same instinct also tells him that’s exactly why he should go.

‘All right,’ he says.

Royal Bokore House is some kind of palace. General Hadrak’s using it as his command centre and residence. It sits in sunlight on a cleft hill above the main sprawl of Voltis City. The liberation war didn’t really touch it, just like the fog, which blankets the city but never quite makes it all the way uphill to the palace.

So it’s easy to find, even though Corbec’s never been there. He’s got an invitation, for luncheon no less, and he doesn’t know how he feels about that.

He could walk up the hill road in plenty of time, but Dorden says that alone and on foot is no way for a regimental colonel to arrive, so Meryn scrounges a Tauros from somewhere, and Domor drives him. Corbec has told Dorden a little about the morning meeting, but left out the old boys’ club feel of it, the first-name terms, and how uncomfortable he felt. He assures Dorden that Hadrak has pledged the medicae supplies.

But Dorden’s no fool, and he can read between the lines. He knows how trustworthy high command ‘pledges’ can be, and he knows there still isn’t a solid answer on the regiment’s deployment, which is what really matters to Gaunt. That’s why Dorden insists on transport and a driver, and why he tells Corbec to keep his dress uniform on.

Which is all probably sound advice, but Corbec’s his own man. If he’s going to be a fething colonel, he’s going to be a fething colonel his own way. So he caves on the transport, a concession to the old medic, but switches to clean field dress, with his rank pins on his chest and his camo-cape around his broad shoulders.

The hill road winds like a snake, with a rough cliff on one side, and a low stone parapet on the other, the only thing between the road and the sheer drop. That doesn’t bother Corbec, riding in the back, relaxed, his sleeves rolled up, and neither does Domor’s driving, until they suddenly come up out of the fog layer into the fierce sunlight and he can actually see the drop.

‘Something wrong, chief?’ Domor asks.

‘No,’ says Corbec.

‘You made a noise.’

Corbec tells him it’s the view. And it’s quite a view. The city’s invisible below them, under a bright, white blanket of fog that fills the entire Bokore Valley to the distant blue hills. Above and ahead, the imposing red-stone sprawl of Royal Bokore House, where there are probably working caffeine machines, and all the chairs missing from the rest of the city.

Inside the walls, there’s a courtyard the size of a city square. Neat rows of tanks and artillery pieces fill the western end, like a bumper crop ready for harvest. Militarum personnel mill around, mostly officers, mostly Tavian and Royal Sloka. A Slokan sentry checks their papers, then points them to an area on the east side of the yard where they can park up. The sentry salutes as they pull away, which pleases Corbec. He’s not sure if it’s the fact that he’s being driven around like a high muckity-muck, or the combination of colonel pins and huge tattooed forearms, but it’s a better reaction than he got from the gate guards when he was in number one dress pomp.

He’s twenty minutes early. Domor pulls up, and they wait by the vehicle for a few minutes for a smoke. Corbec’s pretty sure he won’t be allowed to do that inside.

‘So what’s luncheon all about, then?’ Domor asks.

Corbec’s been wondering that himself. He’s wondered if it’s code for something. Perhaps the chance to break bread, so that Hadrak can get to know the seniors under him. Or the chance to break bad news. Has it been decided that the Tanith are going to stay here, stuck in Vincula? That’s not an agreeable prospect. Paramilitary policing and occupation duties are not their forte. Then again, the allegedly glorious meat grinder of the front line is pretty charmless, but Corbec knows which Gaunt would prefer. He knows what he’d prefer too.

There are transports rolling in and out of the gates all the time, delivering and collecting officers and command staff. Every few minutes, an Arvus buzzes over the yard to put down on the palace landing field. Busy. This is Voltemand High Command. There are toffs in jodhpurs everywhere, and senior Administratum intendants, and Munitorum chiefs, and even officers of the Navy and support fleet. Corbec can spot them a mile off, and not just because of their distinctive uniforms, so un-Militarum in their dark blues and silvers. The Navy boys all have a slight rolling gait because they’re accustomed to shipboard gravity states. Surface-side is not their element.

Corbec finishes his cigar, tells Domor to stay put and mind the transport, then strolls up to the main building. Huge columns, big as mature nalwoods, flank an entrance like the portico of a templum. Inside, it’s like a templum too – a huge nave with a marble floor, and a constant ambient hush of footsteps and voices. There are people everywhere, tiny in the immense space.

He presents his credentials at the desk, and is asked to wait. Someone will be sent. He waits. He catches a few looks from passing officers and adjutants, because he’s by far the most informal, shaggy, rough-edged figure present. The biggest too. He doesn’t care. He’s the only person in this mighty nave who looks like he actually fights for a living. He considers taking out another cigar and smoking it, just to show how much he doesn’t care, but there’s a line and he’s content not to cross it.

As he’s waiting, he sees a Navy officer strut past.

‘Kreff!’ Corbec exclaims. The man stops. He recognises Corbec with some surprise.

‘Colonel,’ he says, and comes over, making the sign of the aquila. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Serving the Throne. You?’

Kreff’s the executive officer on a frigate called the Navarre, which has been the regiment’s conveyor up until now. Battlefleet boys are a breed apart, and most seem to regard the Astra Militarum with, at best, disdain, or, at worst, as luggage. Fleet and Guard, bonded by duty, divided by service, rivals since forever, like alien cultures trying to get along. But Kreff, he seems all right. Almost human.

‘We’ve been on station for weeks,’ says Kreff. ‘High anchor, some minor picket duties. I presumed we were on hold waiting for you to embark.’

‘Presumed?’ asks Corbec.

‘I don’t know,’ says Kreff. ‘No load orders have come through. I was summoned to attend a fleet briefing. We’ve been told to prepare to make shift, sometime in the next week.’

‘To where?’ asks Corbec.

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Picking up or dropping off?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

Corbec sighs.

‘I have a feeling you’ll be going without us,’ he says. ‘I have a feeling we’ll be staying here.’

The first thing General Hadrak says to him comes as a surprise.

He says, ‘Colm! Delighted you could make it!’

Corbec’s just been led into an anteroom by a Slokan adjutant, and the first-name terms take him off guard. So, it’s a thing now. He’s one of the boys. Or it’s a thing Hadrak does to emphasise a caring familiarity.

There’s amasec. There’s some fancy buffet food served by polished, silent servitors. They sit in comfortable chairs in front of a high window through which the sunshine streams. There’s no desk dividing them.

Corbec expects small talk – small talk, or the usual empty guff – but Hadrak is animated, and speaks for some time, informally, about certain security problems in the Voltemand provinces, displaying considerable and specific knowledge. He’s the first senior officer Corbec’s met who seems to have as much grasp of what’s actually going on as Gaunt. Then talk turns to the Tanith First, and Hadrak seems to know a lot. He’s done his homework, read up, and that impresses Corbec.

‘Gaunt’s an interesting fellow,’ says Hadrak. ‘I mean, fantastically effective in the field. A real rising star. After Balhaut, well… He could have had the pick of posts. There was talk…’

He pauses. Corbec’s finished his finger food, and is holding the empty side plate awkwardly, not sure what to do with it. Hadrak has balanced his on his thigh, effortlessly, and is gesturing as he speaks without apparent fear of it sliding off. Corbec’s not convinced he can do that, but there’s nowhere to put the plate down. Where once there was a lack of chairs, there is now a lack of side tables.

‘Talk, sir?’ he asks.

Hadrak frowns.

‘Oh, it was all politics, really. With Slaydo dying. Regime change, you might say. Those officers who were in were suddenly out, and vice versa. Macaroth, may the Throne bless his efforts, wanted high command peopled with his own. It’s always the way of it.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘A shake up, Colm. After all, we’re a good few years into this campaign. It’s a healthy thing to freshen things up, and stop the entire Militarum engine stagnating. Gaunt was very much one of Slaydo’s boys, so his face didn’t fit. But there were quite a few command-level officers, Gaunt among them, who were simply too good, too effective, too competent to be sidelined. Politics is one thing, but there’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. Macaroth wasn’t going to get rid of him, or demote him to the rear echelon. So a role was found. For him, for others like him.’

‘Like you, sir?’ Corbec asked.

Hadrak shoots him a look, a little sharp, but it’s not unfriendly.

‘Very much,’ he says. ‘You know, I appreciate your frankness, Colm. It’s very welcome. So many of my juniors are too eager to please, too mimsy and timid. They have their eyes on the brass ring, it’s all about advancement, so they don’t speak their minds, they don’t ask questions, they simply say what they think is expected of them. I call them the “yes, sir” men. You know the kind I mean?’

‘Yes, sir,’ says Corbec.

Hadrak laughs. He calls for a servitor to bring more amasec, and tells it to either offer Corbec more food or take his plate away so he can relax.

‘Yes, I was one of Slaydo’s too,’ says Hadrak. ‘A little senior to Gaunt. I had the insulation of a generalship. Macaroth wasn’t going to put me into the front tier, but it would have caused a stir if he’d tried to shunt me out. So here I am in senior second-tier deployment. Following the main battle line, not leading it. My duties are the consolidation and securement of regained assets and territories. It’s important work, of course, though lacking in glory. It’s distinguished enough not to be an insult to my rank, but it keeps me out of Macaroth’s eyeline.’

‘So the same is true of Colonel-Commissar Gaunt?’ Corbec asks. The servitor has just taken his plate and presented him with another glass of amasec. It’s clearly high quality stuff. No sacra, of course, but Corbec imagines he might get a taste for it.

‘Very much,’ says Hadrak.

‘It always seemed to me, sir,’ says Corbec carefully, ‘that being handed my bunch was a bit of a demotion. I mean, a proper demotion, not a cosmetic repositioning.’

Hadrak nods.

‘Well, you see, Colm, my problem was that I was a senior Macaroth didn’t want to work with. Gaunt’s problem was that he was a rival. Balhaut made him a hero, and gave him a gloss and a reputation far above his rank. Macaroth, may Terra watch over his fortunes, likes to be the only hero in town. But Tanith wasn’t a demotion, no sir. You see, Gaunt’s got that curious split rank, one foot in the Prefectus. Slaydo’s doing, of course. Macaroth used that skilfully. It made perfect sense for a line officer with Prefectus training to head up a foundation drive. But it was also, and this is key, it was also Slaydo’s wish. Even before Balhaut, recruitment was essential. We needed to bolster troop numbers. And after Balhaut, most certainly. Slaydo had made it a priority that a programme of Militarum foundations was urgently overdue. So Gaunt was, essentially, following Slaydo’s orders. He was seeing Slaydo’s wishes through to fulfilment.’

‘I see, sir,’ says Corbec.

‘Interesting fact though,’ Hadrak adds. ‘Gaunt requested it.’

‘He requested it?’

‘Tanith? Yes. That’s what I heard, anyway. He actually had a senior position in the overall recruitment programme, but he elected to get on the ground and take personal charge of a founding. You may think you were just some rabble he got lumbered with, but he requested it.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Colm.’ Hadrak chuckles. ‘I would suggest… because he sees potential in you.’

‘We’re hardly first division ground troops,’ says Corbec. ‘Hardly heavyweights. Hardly… anything.’

‘No, you’re not heavyweights. Leave that to others. The Militarum is not one size fits all. War is won in different ways. You Tanith, you have singular skill sets. You’ve already begun to demonstrate that. You should focus. Build on what you have, what you have and others don’t. I know it’s not ideal, given the losses you took at founding. Hard to come back from that in any meaningful way at… what… a third of your intended scale? But I’d venture that’s why he requested to run the Tanith foundation himself.’

‘He’s never given any sign of that. He acts like he’s a man in the “disappointing downward slide” part of his career.’

‘Well, same reason, I’d imagine. He’s getting sidelined by Macaroth, and steamrollered by Macaroth’s lackeys, like Sturm. And he’s ended up with a fragment of the unit he hoped for.’

‘Is that why we’re stuck here?’ asks Corbec.

‘I’d say so,’ replies Hadrak. ‘And you shouldn’t be. It’s a waste of your talents. I mean, the Sloka can easily spare a few regiments to police a back-world, but you’re specialists, and there are very few of you. You should be line, Colm.’

‘We’d like to be. Can you make that happen?’

Hadrak smiles. He changes the subject.

‘You had issues, this morning? Issues about medicae supplies, resources?’

‘Yes, sir. They’re quite urgent.’

‘You had a list too, I seem to remember?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Hadrak holds out his hand. ‘Give it me, Colm,’ he says. ‘I’ll get it sorted immediately. My direct authority. If you’re stuck in this role, you ought to be able to perform it properly at least. I’ll deal with this, and any other resource requests you have. Come direct to my staff, do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir. I appreciate it. So, are we?’

‘Are you?’

‘Stuck here?’

The general seems about to answer, but there’s a knock at the door. A Slokan warrant officer enters, holding the door open for a tall woman dressed in the severe black of the Military Intelligence Division. She has two aides with her, both men, both smaller than her, identical twins.

Hadrak rises. So does Corbec.

‘Colonel Marsus,’ says Hadrak. ‘Glad you could make it. Colonel Colm Corbec, Tanith First, this is Colonel Elka Marsus, Military Intelligence.’

Marsus salutes them both. Her expression is nothing like as genial as Hadrak’s. She’s surprisingly tall, almost as tall as Corbec, and powerfully built. Her skin is as black as her uniform, and her hair is cropped to her skull, with a slight tinge of grey to it, but it’s impossible to tell her age. She exudes a kind of calm permanence, a stillness, that suggests she has been around for a very long time and has weathered a lot without even blinking, like a mature nalwood or a mountain peak.

‘My apologies, sir,’ she says. ‘Delays on the road from the landing grounds. The fog. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting?’

‘Not at all, Elka, we were just getting to know each other.’

‘My aides,’ Marsus says, gesturing to the boyish, identical men behind her. ‘Stoimenov and Stoimenov. All right if they stay for this?’

Hadrak nods.

‘For what?’ asks Corbec.

‘We wanted to take this opportunity to ask a few questions, Colm,’ says Hadrak. ‘Informally. Didn’t want to make a thing of it.’

‘I’m sure, sir,’ says Corbec. ‘Of what?’ He’s feeling uneasy suddenly, wrong-footed. He’s felt this way before, and every time it was during an ambush.

‘Well,’ says Hadrak. ‘I’d like to get you Tanith on your way. As I said, you’re wasted here. And I can authorise that, but my hands are tied a little. Just some matters to square away. If we can get them done, in a way that makes Elka here happy, we can put some wheels in motion.’

The intelligencer holds out her hand, without looking, and one of the twins places a folder in it. It’s green, with high-clearance clasp seals. She pops them with her thumb, and slides out a sheaf of glossy picts.

‘Some recently gathered intelligence, colonel,’ she says. ‘Confidential, naturally. We’d appreciate your take on it.’

She starts showing Corbec the images, one by one. He takes them, looks at one, looks at the next. High-resolution captures, close-ups taken in hard light. A morgue, he imagines. A medicae suite. They show a naked body, male. Not in full, just parts. The images exclude any details of the wounds that killed him, as though they, like the face, are inconsequential. They’re just close-ups of dead flesh: an arm, part of a belly, a thigh. The flesh is very white, with a little livor mortis and some yellow bruising. It looks like the skin of a plucked game bird. There are marks…

Corbec suddenly becomes very conscious of his rolled-up sleeves and his bared forearms.

‘So, Colm,’ says Hadrak. ‘Have you ever seen tattoos like those?’

Corbec starts to speak, and has to clear his throat so the words don’t come out hoarse.

‘Yes, sir,’ he says.

8.

They walk a few streets from Memnon House in the harsh, late morning heat. It’s the Low Quarter, and the scars of recent war are here, as everywhere. Road surfaces crushed and cracked by heavy armour, pockmarked walls, shell holes that have become windows, piles of rubble, piles of refuse. The streets are busy, a makeshift market. It’s not clear what anyone’s got to sell, or what they’re buying it with. Rawne glimpses a few cartons of Militarum food packs changing hands. The locals, mostly shaded by their big sun hats, pay them little attention.

Or are they deliberately not looking? A Militarum officer, armed, and an Administratum official with a cooler pump running inside her slicker, both relatively clean, relatively well fed, obviously off-worlders. Does it not pay to stare? Is it safer not to look?

They smell food, and find a dining house tucked away in a side-yard. It used to be bigger: half of the building has gone, the roof replaced with a scaffold of poles and canvas. It looks like the living space of someone’s hab. Rawne decides it probably is.

Food is cooking in big pans on a stove beyond a small arch. They can hear the gurgle of boiling pots and the hiss of fat. The smell is savoury, and almost intoxicating. Rawne’s not sure of the last time he ate a meal that wasn’t out of a Munitorum foil-pack or a Militarum canteen.

The place is full of locals, eating lunch from earthenware bowls. They stop talking when Rawne leads Eiwolt through the bead curtain. It feels like they all want to bolt and run.

‘We’re intruding,’ Eiwolt whispers to him.

‘No, this is a dining house,’ Rawne assures her. He looks around. No one meets his eye.

Then suddenly, an older woman comes forward. She’s in a laced smock, and her sun hat is dangling on her shoulderblades from a string around her neck. She looks flushed, as if her face has been too close to a stove for a while. She doesn’t make eye contact either, but she beckons them urgently, murmuring something in the local language. She clears a small table, and wipes it, so they can sit down. She mutters other things. Rawne doesn’t understand, but he nods, tries to look like he’s trying, and points to a water jug on a nearby table, a bottle on another, and generally to the bowls that people are eating. Then he pulls some Imperial currency out, just a few coins, and puts them on the table. The older woman doesn’t pick them up. She doesn’t even seem to look at them. But she mutters something, then calls something out.

Then she’s gone again. The talking around them slowly resumes.

‘What did you order?’ asks Eiwolt.

‘Not the faintest fething clue,’ says Rawne.

‘I requested a servo-interpreter,’ she says, ‘but apparently there’s only one for the department. Not enough for individual issue.’

‘Resources are stretched,’ he says.

‘This is another world,’ she says oddly.

‘Meaning?’

‘My first deployment,’ she says, and laughs slightly, embarrassed. It’s the first time he’s seen her face do anything other than deadpan. ‘Three years at Sector Administratum, San Velabo, then two at Historiographic Research, Cociaminus. All theory, major. All desk work. I wanted practical.’

‘Why?’

She laughs again.

‘Uhm, now I’m here, I’m not sure. No. Wrong. Now I’m here, I am sure. My work is about people, and if it’s taken seriously, it will have a great impact on the population centres of this sector. So I think I need first-hand knowledge, rather than book learning.’

‘Book learning’s overrated,’ he says.

‘It’s really not,’ she says.

He lets that go by.

‘So, will it?’ he asks.

‘What?’

‘Have a great impact?’

‘Yes,’ she says, with quiet certainty. She unzips her hood, and pulls it down, undoes the top of her slicker. Rawne sees that people are looking now: her hair so very fair, her skin so pale. She is even more of an off-worlder with the hood removed. She exhales, almost panting.

‘It gets so steamy in these things,’ she says, fanning her face.

‘Yeah, I don’t like those cooler suits. Better just to get used to it,’ he replies. ‘The heat, I mean. The thing with those suits is condensation. Keep one sealed and running all day, you’ll end up wringing out your drawers at bedtime.’

She looks at him, stony.

‘Just saying,’ he says.

‘So, it’ll have a great impact?’ he says, because the pause is too long.

‘Yes. It’s not my work, you understand. It’s a general programme of information that the Administratum has prioritised, in response to some of the feedback received from occupation forces. But high command believes it’s useful, and I’m committed to it. So I applied for practical deployment to get involved with the briefing process. And I am. I am sure. This is what I wanted to do.’

She looks at him. Her eyes are very blue.

‘Where I worked,’ she says, ‘San Velabo. I didn’t have a window.’

‘They don’t have many here,’ he says. ‘Not any more.’

‘I’m outdoors, major.’

‘I assumed that lack of sunlight explained how pale you were. Everything about you.’

She frowns.

‘No,’ he says. ‘You’re from Khulan. I know. That was a joke.’

‘Don’t you believe that practical outweighs theoretical, major?’ she asks.

‘In most things,’ he nods. ‘In almost everything, in fact. Except in my line of work, where the practical part sucks excessively.’

The older woman returns, and places things on the table between them: heavy bowls filled with some kind of stew, a small plate of flatbread cut into ribbons, a dish of spiced and fried vegetables, two small glass tumblers, and a bottle. It’s hard to tell what the food is. The woman says a few words, but once again, the local dialect passes them by. Immediately, she’s gone again.

‘I think that’s gelshahe,’ says Eiwolt, peering at her bowl. ‘I think that’s the word she said. It’s a grox-tail stew. Typical Bishrabi cuisine.’

Rawne doesn’t really care what it is. It smells good. He reaches for the bottle. It’s an old Munitorum-issue water canister, but it’s been recycled and it’s not water in it. The liquid is clear and sappy, with a whiff of fennel. He pours a little into their glasses.

‘That’s not water,’ she remarks.

He takes a sip. It tastes a little like sacra, if sacra was weaponised.

‘It’s not,’ he says, covering a cough.

‘Bahu,’ she says, amused. ‘Local grain mash.’

She sits back, not touching her food or her glass.

‘This is hardly breakfast,’ she says. ‘Or water. Or caff. And we have no idea of the hygiene protocols, except that they’re probably lax. We need to hydrate and get some meal-packs–’

Rawne shovels up some stew with a piece of flatbread. The flavour is full and highly spiced, probably to disguise the poor quality of the ingredients, and it’s very alien to him. It’s also the most delicious thing he’s eaten in months.

He wolfs some more, then takes a proper sip of the mash. ‘Resources are stretched,’ he says to her.

‘Yes, but–’ she says, dubious.

‘This is practical,’ he says. ‘That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

She stares at him for a moment as he eats. Then she picks up her glass.

‘Pax Imperialis,’ she says, toasting him with it, and then knocks it back in one.

One-six-five mobile is waiting for Gaunt at a command post at the edge of the city, just a few hundred metres from the East Gate. It’s just a bunch of battered rockcrete warebarns requisitioned for purpose, but it offers some shelter from the day’s heat. Gaunt brushes road dust from his cap as he walks in.

‘Items recovered, sir,’ says Sergeant Bray, gesturing to objects laid out on ground sheets on the pitted floor. There are some weapons, some of them mangled, and two munition crates.

Gaunt crouches and takes a look at one of them: a metal munition crate, Munitorum issue. K10 anti-personnel mines packed in straw. The crate is marked ‘Astra Militarum – Voltis Depot’.

‘Six missing,’ he says.

‘Yes, sir. The other’s full.’

Gaunt thinks about the attack the night before. A K10. The insurgents have got their hands on Militarum devices.

‘Contact Voltis, my authority, and get them to run an inventory check,’ he says. Bray nods. ‘I want to know how long these have been missing,’ Gaunt adds. If they were already issued, then the Archenemy might have acquired them in the field during the final days of the liberation war. He has a nasty feeling they’re still meant to be on a shelf somewhere, and that occupation security is piss-poor.

‘You got these at the bridge?’ he asks Bray.

‘No, sir. They were taken by Two-two during the exchange.’

‘On a map?’

Bray pulls out a chart and shows him. ‘We engaged here, sir. Bridge H-54. Two-two were up in the woods here. They engaged first, and the marauds tried to run, and came up against us. Mkoll’s team recovered the crates there, and some of these laslocks. The rest we picked up after the firefight at our end.’

‘The broken items?’

Bray nods. ‘Varl squared it all away with a support weapon. These are the bits we found.’

There are three intact laslocks, old weapons and non-standardised. There are parts of three more, twisted and blackened by heavy fire, plus what looks like the stock and partial trigger assembly of a Mk III.

‘They were armed with both?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Yes, sir,’ says Bray. ‘I guess a few of them have got their hands on war spoils.’

Chanthar’s supporters used anything they could get. Gaunt’s men have seen a lot of laslocks since they arrived on Voltemand, local-pattern guns, crude but powerful. Maybe a few acquired trophy weapons during the fighting. A good gun is a good gun, and the Mk III is a good gun.

‘You think they were heading out of the city, or back in?’ Gaunt asks.

‘I think Mkoll’s got a better read on that than I have, sir,’ says Bray.

Gaunt straightens up. Mkoll, the chief scout, is waiting nearby.

‘Mkoll?’

‘I think it was a cache,’ says Mkoll. Gaunt already has great admiration for him. The man is a first class specialist. But he’s so still and quiet, and he speaks like words are on ration. Gaunt has learned to prompt him.

‘Expand on that.’

‘Wooded area, secluded,’ says Mkoll. ‘Good distance from city limits, so less chance of being discovered on a security sweep, but close enough for the munitions to be accessed and run into town, a few at a time. We only turned this up by chance.’

‘I think one of these went off in the city last night,’ says Gaunt. ‘So there are five more somewhere.’

‘Probably more,’ says Mkoll. ‘Because there’s probably more than one cache. A network of dumps. They wouldn’t stockpile them in the same place in case of discovery. Standard insurgent operational tactics.’

‘Standard?’

‘Mkoll means that’s what he’d do if he was running an insurgency here,’ says Bray.

‘I know what he means,’ says Gaunt.

‘Limited resources, reduced numbers, against a much larger enemy,’ says Severt, the intelligencer, walking into the barn. Gaunt had told him to wait with the vehicles. ‘Insurgency forms into cellular structures for added redundancy.’

‘We’ve all been briefed, major,’ says Gaunt. ‘This country is big. We can’t fingertip it all. And even if we could, the marauds would know to move their stockpiles to avoid sweeps.’

‘Then you heighten city watch, sir,’ says Severt.

‘We’ve all been briefed,’ Gaunt says again. Bray fakes a cough so he can cover his smirk with a hand.

‘Since you’re here,’ says Gaunt, turning the sarcasm up a notch further. ‘Comments on the provenance of these weapons?’

‘Local weapons–’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And salvaged weapons.’

‘Salvaged directly from a Munitorum depot?’

‘I doubt that, sir,’ says Severt.

‘I don’t,’ says Gaunt. ‘There’s been turmoil since Voltis fell. Security is paper-thin. You know we’re stretched, here and in other provinces.’

‘Here is your purview, sir,’ says Severt politely.

‘Yes, but if security is lousy in another province – Voltis, for example – and stuff is being brought in, it becomes my business. I wonder if we should delay the Administratum governor’s arrival.’

‘Inadvisable, sir,’ says Severt immediately.

‘We can’t guarantee security in the zone, not even in Vincula itself.’

‘Find a way to,’ says Severt. ‘It’s your job.’ He smiles, broadly, artificially, knowing he has just spoken out of turn. ‘Balgrada’s arrival cannot be postponed,’ he says amiably. ‘And frankly, the sooner he’s installed, the sooner things will tighten up. Provincial management becomes his responsibility and the burden’s off you and the Militarum a little.’

‘We’ll still be running security for him,’ says Gaunt. ‘He’s a high-value target, and there are people out there with K10s.’

‘He’s a high-value target, as you put it, for a reason,’ says Severt. ‘Bringing Vincula… and the whole of Voltemand… under Imperial control is vital work that we must achieve swiftly. This world needs to be operational again, productive, the people living without fear. Tithes must be evaluated, the rule of law reimplemented. The Pax Imperialis must once again be declared, after too long an absence.’

‘I’m not arguing with the principle, major,’ says Gaunt. ‘But there are a lot of people on Voltemand who do not welcome the restoration of Imperial control. They fear us, and despise us, and will not simply fall in line.’

‘Those aren’t people,’ says Severt. He frowns, as if annoyed with himself. ‘No, look… I appreciate–’

‘That intendant… Eiwolt,’ says Gaunt. ‘You seemed to support her remit. You did last night, anyway. She seems to think there are complexities regarding this reoccupation. Indeed, to the reoccupation of any Sabbat World that has been in the Archonate’s influence for any length of time. Grey areas, major. Changing mindsets and cultural standards. Differentiating between the lapsed Imperial citizen, and one who considers the Imperium to be a transgressor, an invader.’

‘The terms of a Pax Imperialis are very precise, sir,’ says Severt, ‘as are the rubrics of the Civitas. Those two hypothetical individuals you describe may be distinguished, one from another, by redoctrination, the application of law, and the faith of the Lectitio Terra.’

‘Those two hypothetical individuals,’ says Gaunt, ‘are both citizens of Voltemand, both look alike, and both live here in Vincula City.’

Gaunt walks outside, into the dusty sunlight. He puts his cap back on. Ghosts are lounging beside the parked Tauros runners. They straighten up, but he waves them back.

It’s not about conquering worlds. Slaydo taught him that. The fighting, Ibram, an endeavour all of itself, is only the start. The worlds of the Sabbat Region, like so many outward sectors, are Imperial territory in name only. Some have stood, proud and defiant, as beacons of the Imperial flame for thousands of years. But the fortunes of others have fluctuated. Centuries of frontier wars, conquest and reconquest. Worlds have changed hands dozens of times. The Archonate has controlled some of them for hundreds of years, or has allowed them to function as client states, or has provided protective pacts and lines of trade. Eiwolt was right. The Archonate culture may have its roots in the sordid monstrosity of the True Archenemy, and in warp-occluded faith, but the war is not binary or straightforward.

For a moment, Gaunt misses the simplicity of his early career, with the Hyrkans, warring against the greenskin mobs. There were no doubts there. But since the day he walked out of the schola progenium and took up his duties, he’s been aware that war is a shadow in which things are hard to recognise. Slaydo once told him that, of the thousand-plus wars that have raged in the Sabbat, Khulan and Harkoss regions in the past millennium, the vast majority have been, in effect, internecine. Border wars, dynastic disputes, rebellions, feudal conflicts. Imperial worlds at war with Imperial worlds, each believing they have the authority of Terra at their side. The waters here in the Sabbat Worlds are muddier and bloodier, but the same applies.

The enemy is everywhere, Ibram, and he looks like us and, in many cases, he is us.

Gaunt wanders over to Bray’s squad, who are resting in the sun beside their runners. Two of them – he thinks their names are Loell and Rafflan… yes, that would be Rafflan – are trying to make good some dents and damage on one of the runners. A skinny, older man slides off the hood of a Tauros where he was basking. Gaunt knows him well enough. Larkin, the regiment’s best marksman, but with a reputation for waywardness and insubordination. Nevertheless, Corbec vouches for him. Larkin’s slither off the hood is ostensibly an effort to stand and be presentable in the presence of his commanding officer, but Gaunt can see it’s also a bit of business that allows Larkin to deftly tuck away the flask he was holding. The sly misdirection of a huckster.

‘Any injuries our side?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Not a scratch, sir,’ says Rafflan.

‘Well, good work stopping them,’ says Gaunt.

‘That was mostly Varl,’ Larkin chuckles. ‘We couldn’t get a line on them, but Varl found an angle and mowed them down with the vehicle mount.’ Larkin’s tongue vibrates against his palate and his lips tremble as he mimics the sound of a .30.

Gaunt looks at Varl. He knows him too. Varl stands out because he’s a joker and doesn’t know when to button it. Now he stands out for being effective.

‘Sounds almost courageous,’ Gaunt says.

Varl shrugs, uneasy. ‘Could just as easily have been the actions of a very foolish man, sir,’ he replies.

‘In the field, that’s often the same thing,’ says Gaunt. ‘The only difference is how the after-action report remembers it. So let’s consider it courageous.’

He looks at Larkin.

‘Something to celebrate,’ says Gaunt, ‘and there are feth-few opportunities for that on this tour. You should reward him with a swig for his efforts.’

Larkin looks uncomfortable for a moment.

‘Once I’ve had one, obviously,’ says Gaunt.

Larkin grins and fishes out his flask. He wipes the lip and hands it to Gaunt. Gaunt takes a hit of it. He’s not sure he’s ever going to develop appreciation for sacra, though Larkin’s supply allegedly comes from Trooper Bragg, and Bragg’s is allegedly the very best. But he lets it scorch his throat without wincing, because this is about showing he’s in it with them, and is one of them, something Corbec has been telling him since Kosdorf. The flask passes on, making its way to Varl.

‘They were hard to hit,’ Larkin remarks, now at ease, his guard down.

‘For you? That’s saying something,’ says Gaunt.

Larkin grins. His teeth look like neglected grave markers in a forgotten Militarum plot.

‘They were down in the drover trails, see?’ Larkin says. ‘The old cattle ways. High banks, like ditches. Couldn’t get a line.’

‘Drover trails?’ says Gaunt.

‘There are lots of them, sir,’ says One-six-five’s scout. Baen, his name is Baen. ‘They thread the landscape. They’re old, worn down. Routes used for centuries, I reckon.’

Gaunt nods. They’ll have to look at that. It’s the sort of detail that might have been left out of a basic contact report. Low-visibility pathways might explain how the marauds are staying so fluid in wide, flat cattle country.

‘I don’t think they were local,’ says Varl.

‘Meaning?’ asks Gaunt.

Varl hesitates, and considers what he’s trying to say. He takes a sip from the flask. ‘Well, maybe they were,’ he says. ‘Local, I mean. Native to Voltemand. To Vincula. But not on the same side. They were so keen to feth us up, they were shooting up some locals. Herders, cattlemen. Poor feths didn’t know what was going on.’

‘Just desperation?’ asks Gaunt. ‘Bray says they were on the run from Two-two and found you lot waiting.’

Varl purses his lips. Beside him, Trooper Neskon is patiently waiting for his pull, his eyes on the flask in Varl’s hands. But Varl’s just holding it, thinking. He wants to get things straight in his head before he says anything.

‘No, sir,’ says Varl. ‘Might’ve started out like that, but that’s not how it played. The cattlemen, the fething grox… they weren’t caught in crossfire. The marauds were firing on them. Into them. They didn’t matter to the marauds at all. They wanted kills. Us, the locals. Anything they could get a line on.’

Gaunt nods. Terror tactics. Not just Archonate strategy, but the vicious behaviour of the True Archenemy. Disrupt, destroy, punish the Imperial foe and any who stand with them. Sow fear, sow despair, light a fuse on the unstable bulk-charge of a fragile community under occupation.

Gaunt becomes aware that Mkoll has appeared at his side.

‘A word, sir?’ Mkoll asks.

Gaunt tells One-six-five to carry on, and walks with the scout to the fraying chain link at the edge of the compound. Through the fence, they can see the highway, busy with local foot traffic, the fortified city gate, the sprawl of the town’s eastern quarter with its shell-hole windows and missing roof sections. Prayer-horns blast in the heat, the scriptural lessons of the Imperial Creed gritty, distorted and echoing.

‘Didn’t want to bring it up in front of the intelligencer,’ says Mkoll.

‘Go on.’

‘The insurgents we ran into were local types,’ says Mkoll. ‘Which matches the insurgency reports filed in Vincula during the last few weeks. But you saw the mix of weapons recovered.’

‘They’ve got their hands on Militarum-grade kit.’

‘More than that,’ says Mkoll. ‘In the woods, one of them was good. Really good. One, or two of them maybe. They were the ones using the Mark threes, not laslocks.’

‘The cells give their best weapons to the most proficient warriors.’

Mkoll nods.

‘How good?’ Gaunt asks. It’s a stupid question. If Mkoll rates them good, they’re better than good. But he asks it anyway.

‘Good,’ Mkoll replies. ‘Didn’t even see them. The rest were easy to spot and knock down. Just guerrillas, basic skills. But these others, or this other one–’

‘You can’t even tell that?’

Mkoll shakes his head. ‘Full-on military training. Conceal and deny. Fast, hidden movement. Top-flight Militarum grade.’

‘Specialists?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, that’s primer handbook stuff,’ says Gaunt. ‘Seed a few specialists into a contested zone to mobilise and organise the local sympathetics.’

He pauses. He can already see the hole in his logic.

‘Since when did the Archonate have a handbook?’ Mkoll asks. ‘Since when did they have decent military training? Since when were they any more than cult-feths or zealots?’

Gaunt considers it. The crusade’s encountered a lot since it began in ’55. The Archenemy’s strengths have always been sheer numbers, fanatical devotion, and brainwashed depravity, supplemented by nightmarish, heavyweight warp-spawned horrors. It’s a feral, tribal adversary, fuelled by bloodlust and a psychopathic mindset. It’s never shown precision, or evidence of rigorous combat training. It’s never displayed discipline or Militarum-level skill sets.

‘You didn’t see them?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Any of your squad glimpse them?’

Mkoll shakes his head. ‘I think they got away,’ he says. ‘Or he did. I think they sent the rest of the group down the trail to the bridge to cause a commotion and cover their exfil.’

‘Cannon fodder?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘This is your evaluation, Mkoll?’

Mkoll hesitates. He looks across the compound to the other members of Two-two scout: Doyl, Caober, Mkvenner. Doyl and Caober are chatting, heating a food tin on a fuel brick. Mkvenner’s sitting alone, putting an edge on his straight silver.

‘Yes, sir,’ Mkoll says. ‘That’s my evaluation.’

9.

The transports bunch up as they leave the Occupation Council Building compound. Clavis Street is busy, and the central district of Vincula is framed by a series of concentric checkpoint rings that watch the major junctions. Stop and search at the various checkpoints backs the traffic up. For a while, the vehicles form a crawling convoy, though they will part ways for different destinations once they’re clear of the centre.

Milo sits up front in the cab beside Bragg. He takes the time to check the map, and read the route to the billets in West Town, their first drop-off. In the back, the two Administratum officials sit and talk, their bags on their laps or in the footwells. Milo can’t hear what they’re saying. The Litus subaltern dozes in the seats behind the cab space. He looks like he’s been awake all night. He has a drum-mag heavy autogun on the seat beside him, and he keeps a hand on it to stop it sliding even when he’s asleep.

It’s baking hot in the cab. Bragg’s got the blower on, but it’s only pushing hot air. The windows are down, to afford a little air movement, but all that comes in is more heat, dust and noise. The street is bustling with crowds, mostly locals, who seethe in between the slow-moving vehicles. There’s the sound of engines, the stink of exhaust, the clamour of voices and moving feet, the jab of impatient hooters. From above, the Ministorum’s prayer-horns blast the tenets of the Imperial faith, their volume so high Milo can’t distinguish sacrament from commandment. It’s an industrial noise, brutally distorted by ageing speaker systems that were repurposed by the missionary division, or newer units that have been hastily erected and not checked for acoustic balance. Just noise. Milo presumes that for some, for the faithful, there is a little comfort even in that: you can’t make out the words, but you know you are hearing the endless expression of Terra’s divinity.

Bragg remains cheerful enough, despite the heat and the stop-start. He natters on about this and that, apparently glad of Milo’s company.

They reach the end of Clavis, where Tantalus crosses it. The traffic slows again. There are checkpoints: rockcrete gunboxes choking the road, flanked by razor wire and slab barriers. A four-lane thoroughfare constricts into two channels, one in, one out. Each vehicle is being checked, each set of papers. Litus sentries in long dusters are manning the check, dust goggles down, heavy weapons prominently displayed. The gunboxes have support weapons on brackets. Milo can just see the gunners panning their weapons along the traffic line, shadows inside the gunbox slits.

Beyond the barriers, and the thickets of vox-masts on the tops of the boxes, he can see Tantalus Circle, and the dry remains of a once-magnificent fountain. It’s hard to tell what was once galloping through the water. Horses, perhaps, or stags. The statuary is long gone. From the map, Milo knows they turn west at the Circle, along Kalodin Street.

Eventually, it’s their turn. Bragg pulls up at the checkpoint, and Litus troopers study their papers. Bragg chats to them amiably. Their faces are stony, sweat sheening unshaven cheeks below their tinted goggles. Hard eyes. One man circles the cargo-6 with a mirror-plate on a metal pole, inspecting the underside.

Milo starts to feel a tension, the gut feeling that is special to him, the anticipation that makes others uncomfortable. It makes him uncomfortable too. Something is off. Something is wrong. The air suddenly feels heavy, beyond its already stifling quality, as though sound has dulled. He becomes keenly aware of pinpoint details: a fly crawling on the collar of a Litus trooper; a dented hubcap left leaning against a slab barrier; shards of broken glass; the way another Litus guard, watching the inspection, has his finger resting on the trigger of an autogun, contrary to firearm discipline regs. His weapon’s strapped across his body, but his finger’s inside the guard, a man scared of being too slow, a man stretched by exhaustion and nerves, a man expecting the worst, an accident waiting to happen.

All the while, Bragg chats happily, makes a joke. Milo feels like he’s starting to shake, to radiate some kind of light that doesn’t belong to him, but which shines out of him anyway. His instinct lurks somewhere under his breastbone and seems to pulse like a heartbeat. He feels dizzy. Noises are too loud and fat. Smells are too strong. He has a taste in his mouth like ditchwater. What’s going to happen? Something’s about to happen. Something–

The duty guard waves them on. Bragg shouts his appreciation and rolls them through the barrier line. They’re moving, joining a fresh circulation of traffic. Someone honks them. Bragg gives them the finger, eases the heavy truck across two lanes.

‘You all right?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ says Milo.

‘You went quiet,’ says Bragg.

Noises are normal again. The taste is gone.

‘Go around the circle,’ he says. ‘Second exit.’

Bragg nods, changes gear. The cargo-6 judders. Milo feels foolish.

They churn up Kalodin Street, the sun now in their eyes. They’re catching up with four other trucks that left the compound with them, all heading for the same part of the city.

Milo sits back and controls his breathing. Larkin showed him how. Marksman technique to reduce tremble, but it helps with nerves too. Now they’re moving again, now there’s air blowing in through the cab windows, now his pulse is steadier, Milo can see what just happened for what it was.

No premonition. No sixth sense that will get him detained and expunged. Just the guilt of being himself. He’s been an outsider since the fall of Tanith, an outsider to everything. He doesn’t fit or belong, not even in the regiment. He keeps waiting for the inevitable moment when someone is going to point that out, and catch him as an imposter. At the checkpoint, it was his papers. He was waiting for the Litus to question his presence, to notice he had the wrong stamp, the wrong permit code. Not even a civilian, just something forever unclassifiable.

Guilt. That was all it was. Guilt and shame.

‘Do you ever think about it?’ he asks.

‘About what?’ asks Bragg.

‘Tanith,’ he says.

Bragg nods.

‘What do you think?’ Milo asks.

‘Sad thoughts,’ says Bragg. He glances over at Milo quickly, and finds a spare smile from somewhere. ‘You know, Brinny, when I enlisted, I knew I’d never see it again, so there’s that. But I always thought it would be there.’

They drive on. The traffic is slowing again. Bragg’s huge hands are barely resting on the spokes of the large steering wheel, the lightest of touches.

‘You have something to do, though,’ says Milo.

‘How’s that?’

‘You’re a trooper. A lasman. You have a role to play, a purpose, even if Tanith is gone. You get to move forward… carry on, do something else. You get to–’

‘Try again?’ asks Bragg.

‘I wasn’t going to say it.’

Bragg thinks for a moment.

‘I suppose,’ he says. ‘There’s always some task, some slog. I signed up to serve the Throne I love, and that doesn’t diminish. I guess I’m blessed that I’m alive to do something else. Something worthwhile, in His name. I mean, look at me. I’m driving a dirty truck down a dirty street for the glory of mankind, so I got no complaints. You suggesting you don’t have something?’

‘Not so much.’

‘I get that. But you’re just a lad. Something will come along. I mean, here you are, reading my map.’

They’re crawling now. Another checkpoint. The transport ahead is coming to a standstill. More Litus sentries, more truck-stopping slab barricades, another pair of gunboxes. They’re checking traffic coming both ways. There are pedestrian checks too, single-file walkways on the kerbside of the gunboxes, men waiting to study papers and faces. There are queues of people, all locals, lugging sacks and possessions, carrying children, heading for market or aid stations. Milo sees tired faces, troubled faces, eyes that look to the pavement and avoid Imperial personnel.

Bragg stops. The engine idles.

‘Must get me one of those hats,’ he says, nodding to the locals in the line with their broad-brimmed headwear. ‘What do you think?’

‘Very fetching,’ says Milo. He tries to sound light, but the tension’s coming back.

The subaltern in the seat behind them splutters awake. ‘Are we there?’ he asks, confused.

‘Not yet, friend,’ Bragg says over his shoulder.

There’s another cargo-6 in front of them, and ahead of that, a cargo-8 at the barrier line. The Litus are sweeping it, asking the driver questions. Milo tries to control his breathing. He tries to find something to look at. The people in the queue. Farmers, drovers, market workers. They’re all tense, brims down. Those sacks they’re holding, those baskets, probably contain everything they own, or everything they can spare to sell. Most keep a tight grip on them, despite the weight, despite the heat. They are too precious to let go of. A few have set their loads down at their feet as they wait to pass scrutiny. Too heavy to carry when they don’t have to. Someone’s being frisked. Someone else is pleading in the local dialect, because the Litus are turning them away.

The tension’s a knot behind his breastbone. Milo refuses to let it swamp him this time. He’s got the measure of it. It’s nothing.

It’s just guilt. It’s just guilt.

‘So I’m… what was it you said? “Magmeta”?’ Rawne asks.

‘No, you’re Tanith,’ says Eiwolt. ‘But the Tanith settlement was made by people who derived from what we classify as Magmeta gene-stock. Culturally–’

‘We’re not much on culture,’ says Rawne.

‘Culturally,’ she says, ignoring him, ‘there are markers that show the Tanith descendance from Terra. Even your accent.’

‘I don’t have an accent.’

‘You completely have an accent. And there’s the ink.’ She looks at his face, at the tattoo across his right eye.

‘Just local custom.’

‘My point exactly,’ she says. ‘The tattoos must mean something. They must have meant something originally, at least. Family or clan connections, caste, class, regional associations, professions and trades, rites of passage. What do yours mean?’

‘Family line, I think,’ says Rawne. He uses the last of the flatbread to scoop the food dregs from his bowl. ‘The sunburst has connections with Tanith Attica, which is where I was born. I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know much about the history of your world?’

‘Never really grabbed my attention. And it would be pointless knowledge now, because there is no world.’

‘What does grab your attention?’ she asks.

He looks at her. She looks away.

‘I got this,’ he says, pointing to one of his tattoos, ‘when I was eight, on my baptism. This one, when I was twelve, but that was a dare. I don’t know what this one means. We all get them. I mean, it was a thing. It was part of–’

‘The culture?’ she asks with a pointed smile.

He shrugs. ‘I’m saying, we don’t know what they mean,’ he says, ‘if they ever meant anything. These symbols, the circles, the stars, the snakes, the knots, what have you… They’re just Tanith signs. You could see them on buildings. You could once see them on buildings. On bottles and glassware, on the standing stones. Carved into wood. There was a lot of wood. And getting ink, well, that was a custom. Tanith people were inked.’

‘But the symbols persist,’ she says. She gestures to his jacket. ‘They recur in your regiment’s emblems and insignia.’

He glances where she points, the patch on the shoulder of his jacket. A standard Tanith infantry patch, with a smaller woven squad tag under it.

‘I suppose,’ he says. ‘I hadn’t really noticed.’

‘And in your coins,’ she says. The currency Rawne left on the table still hasn’t been taken by the old woman. Eiwolt drags a fingertip through the coins to separate them: a few large, silver Imperial crowns, and the smaller, copper Tanith-issue ones. She holds one up.

‘Circle,’ she says, ‘like on your patch.’

He shrugs.

‘Don’t you want to keep these?’ she asks.

‘What?’

‘The Tanith coins?’

‘They’re legal tender,’ he says. ‘Perfectly good.’

‘No, I meant as mementos.’

‘I’m not sentimental,’ he replies. She lets the coin slide from her hand onto the others.

‘Anyway,’ she says. ‘My point is, there’s meaning in them.’

‘Not that we were aware of.’

‘Some of the Tanith must have been. Old families. The people who worked the tattoo tradition, for a start. Did you have a priesthood? A clergy?’

‘Yes. Growing up, it was all pretty much Ministorum, standard stuff. But there were old traditions. Feast days, the Rites of the Elector, season days, rituals that went back to the days of the High Kings, and the Nalsheen, and the war with the Huhlhwch Dynasty.’

‘What was that?’

‘Couldn’t tell you. A folktale thing, from the very old days. An evil king, finally overthrown by the Nalsheen.’

‘And they were?’

‘The wood-warriors. Legendary heroes of mighty prowess and great skill, the usual sort of stuff. A brotherhood, a secret order…’

‘Do they still exist?’

‘Nothing still exists,’ he says.

‘Not even within your regiment? A warrior tradition?’

He thinks about that. The mash has done its work. His belly is warm and he’s at his ease. She is very good to look at.

‘Well, they say that–’

‘What?’ she asks.

Rawne shakes his head. ‘They say the Tanith scouting skills are passed down from the Nalsheen. From the old hunters of the flowing woods. The Nalsheen are long dead, long gone. Although the joke is that Mkvenner–’

‘Mkvenner what? Who’s Mkvenner?’

‘Forget it,’ he says. ‘I don’t know this stuff, this tradition stuff. You might want to ask Lesp. He’s a corpsman, and the only one left with any decent inking skill. He might know what the symbols mean.’

He feels a little unsettled. He wants to impress her, engage her, and she wants to know the mysteries, but he doesn’t know any of the old lore. It never interested him. He grew up in Attica, and he’s always been a chancer. He realises, awkwardly, that he wants to look good to her, and that means hiding the fact that he grew up on the criminal fringe, mixing with the wrong types, wasting his life, disappointing his family. He feels ashamed. He wants to spin her haunting stories of Old Tanith, but he never learned them, because they were stupid. She knows more about Tanith than he does.

‘The symbols,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if it interests you, but some of the motifs I’ve seen on Tanith Guardsmen have a lot in common with ancient Magmeta tribal patterns. I have documents. Not here. Back at Memnon House. I can show you.’

He nods.

‘We should get back, I suppose,’ she says. ‘The food was good.’

‘I still haven’t found a pen,’ he says. ‘I haven’t taken down these briefs of yours.’

She stares him right in the eyes, and holds the stare for a long time.

‘I can print out the documents at Memnon House, or provide them on a slate,’ she says. ‘You can give them directly to your commanding officer.’

‘Well, that’ll save some time,’ he says.

She’s still staring. He’s finding it uncomfortable.

‘You are trying very hard,’ she says. ‘You are very obvious and unsubtle, Major Rawne. I presume you think you possess some kind of charm. It is a mistake to think that way. You are reasonably good looking, and you have a confidence that is appealing, which I presume succeeds for you often enough to make it worth persisting with. But your agenda is quite transparent. The objectification, the constant drip of lewd and suggestive remarks. It’s relentless and clumsy. I suppose you got yourself deliberately assigned to me, and that makes me as uncomfortable as your manner. I’m curious, does your technique actually work? Do you notch up many conquests? I shudder to think who might be susceptible to your calculated predation.’

‘Well,’ he says. ‘That’s me told.’

The older woman arrives to scoop up their empty plates. ‘It was very good,’ Eiwolt tells her. Rawne puts his hand on the bottle when the woman tries to take it.

‘We haven’t finished that,’ he says.

‘Oh, please,’ says Eiwolt. ‘I’ve made things very plain. Now you’re just being persistent.’

Rawne sits back. He sighs.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. We can go back. Of course. I was being crass, and I apologise. You know, I honestly thought I was being smooth? How sad is that?’

‘Desperately,’ she says. ‘Swagger and innuendo are rather unpleasant, major. They’re superficial. They don’t show any respect for me, or for anyone else, including you. I get the impression you’re quite interesting, but the really interesting things about you are the things you keep hidden.’

‘There’s nothing hidden,’ says Rawne. ‘That’s the really sad part.’ He feels deflated, and he knows he deserves it. He pours himself another glass, but leaves hers empty. ‘I’m just a basic feth who acts like a dog, chases pretty girls, and fights when he’s told to.’

‘Really, major,’ she says. ‘Are you trying to go for sympathy now? Is that your new line of approach?’

‘Definitely not,’ he says. ‘Can we just draw a line? I genuinely apologise. Can we just go through the work? Tell me what I need to tell Gaunt. Let’s just do that. Just act professional.’

‘Here or at Memnon?’ she asks.

‘Whichever you like. We can stay and finish our drink.’

Eiwolt frowns.

‘Feth,’ he says, ‘you’ve cut me right down to size. You’ve got the measure of me, so I’m not going to try anything now. We could just sit here a while longer, enjoy this muck. More comfortable than that damn kitchen. I’ll see if the old woman can lend me a pencil and piece of paper.’

Her frown deepens.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘My shitty… technique, as you put it, has crashed and burned. It only really works, feth help me, if the subject is not aware. You are fully aware, and you’re going to give me shit if I try it again. So let’s draw a line. Gaunt keeps telling me I should be professional and act like an officer, so give me a chance.’

The older woman returns, and puts down a large bowl of pitted soft fruit and two beakers of steaming caff.

‘Have you got a pen?’ he asks her, miming the act of writing. Off she goes again.

‘Tell me about Gaunt,’ says Eiwolt.

‘What about him?’

‘What do you think of him?’

‘As little as possible,’ he says.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning… I hate his living guts and I’ve wanted to kill him since the day we met.’

He watches her face for a reaction.

‘You see?’ he says. ‘I told you. There’s nothing hidden about me at all.’

Bragg rolls them forward. The line moves up. The cargo-6 in front has reached the check line. Litus crowd in around it. The knot in Milo’s chest, right behind the sternum, is like a hot coal, and there’s a pulse to it, a throb. He thinks he might be sick.

The crowd at the foot-pass is moving as slowly as the vehicles. He watches as people are stopped. They put their wares down, their sacks and baskets. They raise their arms and stand like supplicants as the guards frisk and search. He watches, concentrating on them, rather than the way he’s feeling.

‘You all right?’ Bragg asks.

‘Yeah.’

‘Sure? You’ve gone quiet again.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘This is taking forever,’ calls one of the Administratum officers from the back.

‘Security,’ says Bragg, turning to look back over the seat with a grin and a helpless shrug. ‘Nothing I can do about it.’

A farmer lowers his arms. He’s given his papers back, and his sun hat. He picks up his basket and hurries on through the walkway. The Litus sentry beckons the next. An old man with a flour sack, his sun hat frayed. He puts the sack down, hands over his papers, and raises his arms. Sunlight winks off the sentry’s buttons. A prayer-horn wails, a street away. Engines rev. The cargo-6 in front lets out a black cough of exhaust. Waste water drips from the hem of the sentry’s long coat as he pats the old man down, condensation from the cooler unit running under the trooper’s duster. It leaves dark black spots of wet on the dry, baked ground. Milo stares at the dots. How fast will they evaporate in this heat? Will they still be waiting at the line when all trace of them has gone?

A vehicle behind them honks, frustrated. A Litus officer calls out abuse in reply, and walks back down the line. People shuffle forward. The sentry finishes his pat-down. He hands the old man his papers. The old man lowers his arms, takes them, and hurries on.

The black spots are still on the baked rockcrete. Are they smaller now?

Milo stares at them. A little trail, like oil drops from an engine block. He fights to focus on them, to shut the rest out. Just look at the spots. Ignore the feeling rising up inside. Ignore the knot. Ignore the swirl of nausea. Just look at the spots.

The spots. Right there on the ground. Right there next to the old man’s flour sack. Just focus on them.

The sack.

The old man has left it behind. He didn’t pick it up. He’s forgotten it. He’s just left it there, right beside the gun-box. He–

‘Back up,’ says Milo.

‘What?’ says Bragg.

‘Back up. Back up! Back up!’

There’s something in his voice that scares Bragg, scares him enough to take it seriously. It scares Milo too. Bragg rams the stick into reverse.

Soldiers shout. The officer’s yelling at Bragg. There’s a thump and a tinkle of headlamp glass as they ram into the truck behind.

‘Feth,’ says Bragg.

‘Back up!’ Milo yells at him. ‘Shunt it!’

The sun comes out, but it was already out. The light trembles, and then is instantly, overwhelmingly bright. Everything vanishes into it. The light becomes boiling flame, rushing in a wall. The wall is solid, because it slams into the side of the cargo-6, and the transport lifts, and tilts, and keeps tilting, and then it’s on its side with an impact as if it’s hit a second wall, and there are glass chips filling the air, and the air is on fire.

And then the noise comes, a concussion, a boom like a vault door slamming, and the vault steals the light away and everything is black.

Rawne stands up, scraping his chair on the ground. He looks at the sky.

‘What was that?’ asks Eiwolt.

‘Come with me,’ says Rawne. He scoops his lasrifle up off the table.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Come with me now, Intendant Eiwolt,’ says Rawne.

She looks at him. She’s really scared. He grabs her hand.

‘Was that a bomb?’ she asks. Rawne can see a section of sky through the makeshift awning. Black smoke is climbing into it, west of them.

‘Yes,’ he says. People in the dining house are scattering, fleeing into the streets. Panic. Shouting. Crying.

‘Come right now,’ he says.

Gaunt exits the warebarn into the compound yard, Severt and Bray at his heels. He heard the boom, and knows instantly from the depth of it that it was a significant military-grade detonation.

In the yard, the men of One-six-five and the other squads are on their feet, looking west. A shuddering ball of black smoke is rising into the sky beyond the rooftops.

‘Where’s that?’ asks Gaunt.

‘West Town, west of Tantalus Circle,’ says Mkoll immediately.

‘Get the transports,’ Gaunt says. ‘Where’s my driver?’

There’s another deep boom, deeper than the last. More smoke appears, closer than the first blotch.

‘Low Quarter,’ says Mkoll.

‘Raise vox!’ Gaunt yells. ‘Signal lockdown, all points, all gates. Nothing gets out of Vincula. Security condition red.’

He adjusts his gunbelt, the weight of his bolt pistol. He slides the chainsword hanger around so it’s on the front of his hip and won’t get in the way as he takes his seat in a Tauros.

‘One-six-five, Two-two, Three-three-one, with me! Mount up and follow on! Where’s my driver? Move!’

10.

When he wakes up, he’s pinned. He’s been put in an oven and weighed down with an anvil. There is no sound.

Milo moves his head, which was resting on sandpaper, and spits the sand out of his mouth. But it’s not sand, it’s lumps of windscreen glass, and it cuts his lips. There’s no sound.

The anvil is crushing his hip. He can’t move. His shoulder’s pressed at a funny angle. It’s very hot. He can smell smoke, but he can’t hear burning. The lack of sound is so strange.

It’s not an anvil. It’s the bench seat of the cab. The cargo-6 is on its side, and he’s sprawled at the bottom of the cab, on the door, his cheek against the broken ’crete of the road. The bench frame has collapsed on him, pinning him to the cab struts. Everything’s orange, orange light, orange air, a dense fog of orange dust. It’s in his throat. He coughs, and can’t hear his own coughing.

Nothing is the right way up. He sees Bragg. Bragg is the wrong way up too. The big trooper is bleeding from a head wound, and is caked in dirt. He’s yelling at Milo. He’s yelling Milo’s name. Milo can see Bragg’s lips moving, forming the shape of his name, but there’s no sound.

Bragg’s standing on the road outside the cab. The cab has lost its windscreen. Bragg must have crawled out that way. He’s standing there, yelling at Milo, reaching in to get him. Wafts of heat keep washing over Milo’s skin.

At last, a sound. A drumming, a thumping, like a pulse. The beat of his own blood. He knows he should move. He can’t remember how. Bragg leans in, grabs hold of him. Now there’s a slippery sound too, the sound of wet fingertips rubbing plate glass. Bragg’s voice. All he can make of Bragg’s voice, a muffled, sliding, submerged noise.

Bragg pulls at him. Something hurts, Milo doesn’t move. Bragg yells something else, and turns his attention to the bench seat. He’s trying to move it. He’s trying to bend the actual frame and get it off Milo. Heat comes in gusts. Milo feels each one singeing the hair on his scalp and neck. The street’s on fire. No one’s going to move that bench seat, not even Bragg. Milo sees huge arm muscles clench right in front of his face. Nothing moves.

Then everything moves. And everything happens. Sound returns in a rush that stuns him: the sound of roaring flames, of klaxons, of screaming, of Bragg shouting. The anvil’s no longer on him.

Bragg pulls him through the empty mouth of the cab’s windscreen.

‘Get clear!’ Bragg yells. ‘Get the feth clear!’

The checkpoint’s vanished. One gunbox is a crater, fuming smoke; the other has been stoved in and has collapsed on itself. Smoke swathes the street. The light’s orange because of the flames pouring from the buildings either side, and from the cargo-6 that was ahead of them, which is upside down and mangled. The ground’s covered in dust, glass chips, lumps of rockcrete, scraps of metal, fronds of torn wire, and pieces of meat. The people closest to the epicentre have been vaporised. Those not quite so close have been dismembered. There are two bodies nearby, Litus men. They are hard to look at. Across the street, three more, and several civilians, and they are just as difficult to see. There’s screaming everywhere. Some of it’s coming from their rig. Bragg is trying to get back inside.

Milo turns to help him, unsteady and numb. The back end of the cargo-6 is on fire, and the Administratum officials are shrieking, trapped by bent metal and a rear axle that has punched up through the floor plates. They are burning alive.

Bragg drags the Litus subaltern clear. He’s only done it so he can get at the intendants in the back. The subaltern is dead. A metal fence spar has punched his face in and is sticking out of the back of his head. Somehow, the man is still holding onto his autogun, and it clatters out with him.

‘You can’t go in there!’ Milo yells.

‘The feth I can’t!’ Bragg bawls back, and tries to squeeze his bulk in over the seatbacks.

A man runs up. The Litus B.R.U. officer. His yellow-tinted goggles are cracked, and one of his coat sleeves is missing.

‘Move away!’ he yells. ‘Move the hell away!’

‘Bomber,’ Milo says to him. ‘Old man. Local. Frayed sun hat. It was in his sack.’

The officer glances around wildly. There’s no one nearby who isn’t dead, or lying down, or crouching to help someone who is dead or lying down.

The officer pushes past Milo, either to help Bragg or pull him out, it’s not clear which. The shrieks of the Administratum staffers are no longer human. They are just a noise, like the shrill scream of an industrial drill.

Something lands behind Milo. It hits the ground hard, lifting dust. It’s the heavy metal speaker of a worship-horn that’s toppled from the facade of the building behind him. Milo looks at it blankly, oblivious to the fact that it nearly crushed him, puzzled that it’s not making a noise any more. The voice of Terra has had its throat cut. They are on their own in the fire.

Milo drops to his knees. He’s not sure why. It’s not in shock, or in fear, or in prayer. The knot inside him, which has never gone away, seems to think it’s a good idea, so he does it.

There’s a popping sound. A snapping of dry bones. Milo knows that noise. Gunfire. Maybe hard rounds cooking off in the flames. The edge of the speaker-horn in front of him deforms and perforates. He sees the holes appear.

Someone’s shooting. It’s not rounds cooking off. Someone’s actually shooting.

Milo sees a man coming through the billowing smoke and dancing sparks. A local man, a farmer, a drover: sun hat, bound leggings, laced tunic, a dirty cloak. He’s young, not much older than Milo.

He’s got an autorifle. He’s shooting it from the hip. He’s shooting at the dead, the dying, the rescuers and first responders. Crouching figures look up, then topple across the bodies they were fighting to save.

He’s shooting at everyone. He’s shooting at Milo.

And he would have hit him, if Milo hadn’t already been on his knees behind the speaker-horn. Rounds spark off the speaker’s metal bell. They rip over Milo’s head. They strike the cab of the overturned cargo-6, and they hit the Litus officer in the back. He’s hit three times between the shoulders, and he falls inside, onto Bragg, and only his body and his body armour have stopped Bragg getting hit too.

The gunman comes right up to the fallen horn. He sees Milo, but he’s out. Very calmly, he ejects his mag and reaches into his satchel for a reload.

Milo rolls. Again, it’s not him, not consciously. It’s the knot in his sternum, pulsing, urging him. He rolls in the dust, bangs into the subaltern’s sprawled corpse, and comes up on one knee, smeared in the subaltern’s blood and aiming the subaltern’s trusty heavy autogun.

The gunman slams his mag home, raises his weapon. Milo is quicker. The autogun barks, jerks in his grip. It’s as heavy as feth and it’s got a brutal kick, much more than a lasgun. But Milo leans into it and unloads a burst. The drum-mag vibrates. The gunman jerks twice, smacked by invisible sledgehammers, then falls back against the bowl of the horn.

Milo waits a second, listens. There’s more gunfire nearby.

He reaches out to the subaltern’s corpse, and pulls the musette bag off him, clumsy, one-handed. He hears the clink of two, maybe three drums in it.

Then he rises.

He drags the dead officer out of the cargo-6 by the ankles. Everything’s heavy: the man, the gun strung around him, the ammo bag, the air.

‘Bragg!’

Bragg is peering out of the wreck at him, spattered in blood, baffled.

‘Get out!’ Milo shouts at him.

‘But–’

‘They’re gone!’ Milo says. The screaming from the back of the vehicle has ceased. There’s just a sheet of flame streaming out of the twisted body shell.

Bragg clambers out. Milo pushes him down. More shots rip in their direction. Hard rounds that clip and ping off the road. The fat light-blade of a laslock bolt that punches through the roof of the cargo-6.

‘Get down, stay down!’ Milo yells.

In the churning smoke and flying sparks, he’s seen the next gunman, striding in, firing bursts.

Milo raises the heavy drum-cannon and blazes back.

The streets are narrow, the low habs of East Town giving way to the higher-rise central districts. At the wheel, Trooper Gutes keeps leaning on the horn to scurry crowds out of their path. People are moving the other way, in a dazed panic.

‘Detonation, Kalodin Street Checkpoint, West Central,’ yells Caffran from one of the rear seats, fumbling with the data-slate. The runner is lurching over the broken street and potholes, snapping them all backwards and forwards. ‘Detonation, Memnon Road Magistratum Annex, Low Quarter.’

‘Casualties?’ Gaunt snaps over his shoulder, one hand braced on the roll bars.

‘No data, sir,’ replies Caffran. Gaunt’s sure there is. Caffran seems as hopeless with a strategy slate as Rafflan was. No, Raglon. It was Raglon. Or has he got them reversed again? It doesn’t matter. Why can’t he find a junior who can act as a decent adjutant?

That doesn’t matter either.

‘Low Quarter’s closer,’ says Gaunt. Gutes nods and takes the next right hard. Almost immediately, he slams on the brakes. The Tauros shrieks to a halt, slaloming, bashing its wheels sideways off a deep kerb with an impact that jars the entire chassis.

The other vehicles in the convoy screech up behind it.

Ahead, Ivinder Street is throttled with stationary vehicles, and streams of people fleeing eastwards. Ivinder feeds Clavis, main thoroughfares. To reach Low Quarter, they’ll have to cross it, and they’ll have as much chance crossing that flow as they would a river in spate.

Gaunt dismounts.

‘Give me that,’ he says to Caffran, snatching the data-slate. He studies it as he strides back towards the rest of the runners. Caffran wasn’t being entirely incompetent, it turns out. Several major data sources are down, including Standardised Militarum Local. Are the city’s comm-nets disabled? But Caffran’s missed a side feed on the regimental link. Adare and Baffels have got six squads en route to Low Quarter, with B.R.U. support.

Caffran’s running up behind him.

‘That’s what you missed,’ Gaunt snaps, handing the slate back without looking. ‘I need vox up,’ Gaunt says as he reaches the first vehicle. ‘Quickly, please, Rafflan.’

The trooper’s wedged in the back of the runner, with his vox-caster set up. Gaunt hopes it’s Rafflan. It bothers him too much that he might be getting it wrong. He doesn’t want the Ghosts to see him making careless errors under pressure.

‘Link is up, sir,’ the trooper replies, headset over one ear and not the other. ‘Some disrupt, possible jamming.’

‘Repeat orders,’ says Gaunt. ‘City lockdown, all gates, all points. Condition red. I want confirmation from individual gate stations, please.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Thank you, Rafflan,’ Gaunt says. There’s not a hint in the man’s expression that Gaunt’s somehow got his name wrong.

‘Gate lock is confirmed, sir,’ says Severt, heaving himself out of the third Tauros in line. The engines are all still running. Severt’s holding a small, matt-black personal vox-unit. ‘Casualties at Kalodin estimated at twenty, climbing. Reports of gunfire, Kalodin and surrounding.’

‘Where are you getting this from?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Ah, Mil-Int Intercept Protocol,’ replies Severt.

‘Your own discrete comm system?’

‘No, just a surveillance overlay–’

‘Does it occur to you that you sieving the tactical feeds to scavenge data might be why our links are partially jammed?’

Severt starts to argue, the sort of argument that Gaunt knows will be framed as mild and reasonable, and include phrases like ‘wider intelligenced spectrum’ and ‘high coordinational ops’. Gaunt pushes past him.

‘Back it up!’ he yells, gesturing with both hands as if he’s guiding a Valkyrie into land. ‘Back it up! We’re moving direct to Kalodin! Cut through Central South! Gunfire reported, possible insurgents. I want scouts and marksmen in first! Let’s get it suppressed. A bottle of Bragg’s sacra for any man who takes one alive for interrogation!’

He pointedly says ‘insurgents’. He’ll be damned if he uses the Mil-Int non-word ‘maraud’.

The runners, and the two trucks behind them, start to reverse, piecemeal. Gaunt catches the eye of Mkoll, who’s riding in the fourth runner. They exchange nods as the Tauros starts to wheel backwards. A mutual understanding of the priority captures.

Gaunt runs back to his ride. As he passes the second runner, he calls to Rafflan, tells him to inform city command that they are diverting to Kalodin. He climbs into the lead runner, Caffran piling in behind him. Gutes selects reverse.

Rawne has Eiwolt’s right hand in his left, and his rifle braced in his right, stock against his hip. The dining house has emptied. Even the older woman that served them has run away. Seething pots have been left to boil over on the stove top, and a few sun hats have been forgotten. Everyone fled at the sound of the second blast. It was much closer, just a few streets away, more a concussive thump than a sound, that shook the ground and the tableware and the awning and the bead curtain, shivered dust from the beams, and pinched their eardrums.

He leads her onto the street, watching the angles. He doesn’t want to scare her, but too late – she’s already scared. The ragged Low Quarter street is empty, sun-baked. The makeshift market has gone. He sees a few locals running in fear, heads down, hugging the walls, trying to reach homes or families or nearby shelters. The people of Vincula – the people of this whole miserable world – have known war too much and too often in the last decades. The last year’s probably been the worst. The fear-and-flight response is burned into them, coded deep as an instinct. It’s like an old wound that won’t heal. It scabs over when things calm down, but the moment there’s a sudden noise, a reminder, it splits open again and the fear bleeds out. They run and hide because they have been taught to run and hide, they have learned to run and hide. It doesn’t require instruction.

The hot breeze stinks of fyceline, but Rawne doesn’t need the smell to tell him that it’s a munition detonation. A huge horsetail of dirty brown smoke is pluming into the sky just a few streets away, and he can see flames dancing beyond the roof line. He can hear sirens. He can hear triggered alarms singing on automatic.

It looks close. Is that Memnon House? Close to Memnon House? He can’t tell for sure. He doesn’t know Low Quarter well, another briefing he should have paid more attention to. His personal comms are down. The bead’s dead. Units need high-gain vox-casters out in Low Quarter. Also a detail he didn’t really think about earlier. He can’t call in help.

‘Follow me. Walk behind me,’ he tells her.

Eiwolt’s face is paler than ever. She’s struggling with her heavy carry-bag, and is trying to put her slicker back on. One arm’s inside out.

‘Never mind that,’ he snaps.

This is a bad place. It would be bad enough for him, a Militarum officer on his own. It’s worse because he’s got a civilian in tow, a civilian with zero combat-zone experience. If feth happens, she’s going to get him killed. He’s fairly certain of that.

The sun’s high. There are very few shadows to hug. He thinks about leaving the street and using the back lanes and alleys between dwellings, but that’s just asking for a bottleneck ambush.

‘It’s an attack,’ she says.

He nods. ‘Insurgents.’ He wants to let go of her hand so he can get both on the rifle, but he doesn’t want to let it go either. He wants to know where she is.

‘We should go to the official assembly point,’ she says. ‘Gallis Station.’ She lets go of his hand and points. ‘That way, major. Fourth street over, at the junction with Amfortas Road.’

She knows it. Of course she knows it. She’s memorised the security briefs, and a map of the quarter.

‘We’re not going that way,’ he says.

‘Protocol insists we must,’ she replies. ‘Security provision MVO thirty-three. In the event of a maraud strike, occupation personnel must report to the nearest assembly point without–’

He looks at her.

‘We’re not going that way,’ he says. ‘What’s your name?’

‘What? I’m Intendant Eiwolt–’

‘No, not your job, not your title. I don’t want to talk to Intendant fething Eiwolt. I want to talk to you.’

‘Inge,’ she says.

‘Right, Inge. I’ve been in situations like this and you haven’t, so I need you to trust me. We’re going to head back to Memnon House.’

‘But that’s where the bomb was.’

‘So they’re not going to waste another one on it. Insurgents stagger attacks. They want to kill people and spread terror. If they’ve got another device, the next one will be at an assembly point, because that’s where everyone’s supposed to go. Maximise casualties. All right?’

She nods.

‘Memnon may have been hit, but it’s safer now. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you manage your bag?’

‘Of course.’

‘Just dump that fething slicker, or sling it over your bag. We have to move, and there’s no time to feth around while you put your coat on. Stay right behind me, do as I say.’

She nods again. She looks scared, but strong. Heat, or fear, or the local mash, has put a flush of colour in her cheeks. He hasn’t got the balls to tell her the rest. Insurgent tactics. Bomb one target, then bomb the safety stations twenty minutes later. That’s one, the obvious one. But another is bomb a primary target, then put gunmen on the ground to pick off survivors.

If that’s what they’re facing, it doesn’t matter which fething way they go.

11.

Milo crouches behind the fender of an abandoned cargo-8. The weapon’s getting heavy, and his arms are aching from the weight and kick of it. He’s emptied two drums. He thinks he’s killed four men. The street is still blanketed with swirling smoke, and some of the habs are fully ablaze, pouring flames from every window. The sky’s lost in blackness. The heat’s intense. Everything is still orange, like he’s seeing it through Litus dust goggles.

He unslots the second drum, pulls out the third, and snaps it in place. It feels lighter. He thought there were three in the dead man’s bag, but there were only two.

Shots whine past him out of the smoke. Behind him, two Litus men are out in the open, hurrying with a stretcher. The shots hit one, and the body on the board. The man drops, taking the stretcher down with him. The other one turns, letting go of the stretcher handles, reaching for his weapon. More shots hit him in the chest and face, and knock him backwards.

Milo swings out, staying low. He sees two gunmen advancing, autorifles raised. He rips off a burst that smashes one of them to the ground. The other returns fire. Hard rounds punch the bodywork, chip paint, smash sidelights, spin off a wing mirror. Milo fires back. The cannon seizes, dry. The third drum was almost empty.

He gets down, as low as he can. He rummages frantically in the musette bag for another spare, or for loose ammo he can load manually. Gunfire hammers into the cargo-8, blowing out the cab windows, and hacking divots out of the road surface. Milo pulls his feet in. No ammo. No ammo at all. The hot coal in his chest urges him to slide in under the vehicle, to roll out on the far side, to keep it between him and the gunman.

He hears the sting-crack of a lasgun. Two, three shots. From under the wheel arch, he sees the gunman go over. The man falls, rolls, lies still. His sun hat tumbles away and comes to rest, the brim flopping like an injured bird.

‘Brin!’

Bragg runs up, ducks down, yells at him under the fender. Bragg’s got a Mk II lasrifle. It’s got ‘B.R.U.’ stencilled on the stock.

‘Come on, come on, come on!’ he yells. His face is ruddy, bathed in dirty sweat, running with blood from his scalp.

Milo squirms backwards to him. Bragg grabs his leg and drags him out the rest of the way.

‘You’re a fething crazy person, Brinny,’ he says, and laughs, though there’s nothing to laugh at. Bolts from laslocks sear into the road close by. One destroys a window across the street. Bragg hunkers down, and aims the lasgun around the shot-up wing of the transport. The weapon, a main battlefield rifle, looks far too small in his giant hands.

He starts to bang off shots. Cowering behind him, Milo takes a look. Bragg’s not hitting anything.

‘Feth’s sake,’ Milo says. ‘Try again.’

‘Shut your fething mouth!’ Bragg replies. He shoots some more. His aim is a little better this time.

While the big man’s laying down fire, Milo looks around. There’s an old building behind them, as yet untouched by the uncontrolled blaze of structures nearby. Built in the old grand style, colonial Imperial, it’s shuttered and closed. Might have once been a counting house or a clerical office. It hasn’t been used in a while.

‘In there!’ Milo shouts. He’s ditched the useless weight of the cannon and the musette bag. He runs towards the portico. Bragg squeezes off a few more shots, then runs after him, head down, arms flailing, like a skittish grox.

The portico is four stone pillars, not much in the way of cover. The main doors are locked, and braced with old metal bars.

‘Get it open!’ Bragg yelps. The bars won’t budge. Bragg yanks Milo out of the way, hands him the lasrifle, and grips the bars. Milo wants to watch, but he covers their backs instead, rifle aimed. He sees a figure move in the smoke, and fires a shot in its direction.

The bars slowly wrench away in Bragg’s hands, shearing rivets out of the hardwood. Bragg groans with the effort, his huge back and shoulder muscles stretching his uniform. He throws the bars aside, and kicks the doors open. They duck inside. Bragg shuts the doors, and looks around for something to wedge them with.

It’s oddly quiet inside, oddly still. The noise outside becomes distant. An old counting house, unlit, with dark panelled walls, a high ceiling, old hardwood counters, dust thick as snow on the floor. It kicks up as they move, filling the air like smoke, catching the orange glare coming in through the big, frosted-glass windows. Bragg finds a rubricator’s chair and shoves it against the doors to keep them shut.

‘That’s not going to hold them,’ says Milo.

‘Shut up, we’re not staying,’ says Bragg. ‘Let’s find a back way out. There’s got to be one.’

Milo nods. He holds the lasrifle out to Bragg. Bragg takes it, then pulls his pistol from his holster. Assigned to transportation, Bragg wasn’t carrying his rifle, just a sidearm. He hands it to Milo. It’s compact, matt-grey, regimental service issue.

‘Back way,’ says Bragg. He starts nosing around. Milo checks the laspistol, and flicks off the safety.

‘How did you know?’ Bragg asks, trying a back door that turns out to be a stationery cupboard.

‘Know what?’

‘The bomb?’

‘There was an old man,’ says Milo. ‘He put a sack down, then didn’t pick it up again. It was–’

He wants to say hunch. He wants to say gut instinct. He wants to admit he may have had a dream about it, not even when he was asleep.

Instead, he says, ‘It seemed odd.’

‘Don’t think we’d be here if you hadn’t got me to reverse,’ says Bragg. He’s found a door. Beyond it, a narrow, gloomy, tiled corridor leads to rear offices.

He looks over at Milo.

‘I won’t forget that,’ Bragg says.

Milo thinks he’s going soppy on him. ‘What?’

‘The men, the Admin men,’ says Bragg. He looks sick, like he’s going to vomit. ‘The Litus bloke, he wouldn’t have felt a thing. But them two, poor fethers. I won’t forget that screaming. I couldn’t get to them. I tried…’

‘It was too late,’ says Milo.

‘Shouldn’t have brought you along,’ says Bragg. ‘Put you in this.’

‘Done now.’

‘Going to get strung up for doing it. Then again, I wouldn’t be alive to get strung up if I hadn’t brought you along, so… quandary.’

Milo can tell Bragg’s crashing. The adrenaline, the combat-rush, is draining out of him, Milo feels as clear and sharp as a high-definition pict. The tight knot behind his breastbone is still there, and it’s pulsing again. They both have to stay sharp. It’s not over.

‘Wake up,’ says Milo. ‘You’re in charge.’

He says it because he hopes it will snap Bragg around. A reminder of responsibility to jolt back some focus. It doesn’t. But both frosted-glass windows detonating in a cascade behind them does.

The windows blow in, smashed by gunfire. Glass sprays, twinkling like chips of ice in the pall of dust. Chunks of the panes slide and collapse like glaciers calving. Multiple rounds from laslocks burn in through the windows, hitting the stone walls, the plaster ceiling, the wooden counters, the back wall panelling. Bragg snags Milo by the collar and almost throws him into the back corridor. He follows him, moving backwards, rifle aimed, but he doesn’t shoot because he knows it’s a waste.

More rounds blast in. Each laslock bolt, fat and power-heavy, blows a wound in the old wood panels the size of a dinner plate. They smoke like little meteor craters. Splinters and wood fibres join the dust swirling in the air.

Bragg and Milo start to run, looking for a back exit, or at least a defensible position. The corridor is narrow, so that’s a start. A potential kill-box. The doors of the side offices are locked. Bragg kicks one open. He hurts his foot with the first kick. His second kick, angry, busts it so wide it flies on its hinges and bangs against the inside wall.

In the main chamber of the counting house, the doors push open, sending the rubricator’s chair skidding away. Smoke and heat billow in. The first of the gunmen enter, weapons raised. They are local farmers, men of Vincula province in almost every respect, with their sun hats and leggings and laced tunics. Even their antique laslocks are farmers’ guns, for hunting vermin or protecting property. But their hard expressions, the set of their shoulders, the practice of their slow approach, weapons raised and panning, is entirely military.

They stalk forwards. Broken glass crunches under their boots.

Kalodin Street is blocked by abandoned vehicles. Gaunt notices several Militarum and Munitorum transports with code tags that say they came out of the Occupation Council Building compound that morning. The Ghosts dismount, and advance on foot.

It’s a mess. They can see a serious fire zone ahead, at the checkpoint site, and smoke wash is coming their way. There’s the sporadic sound of gunfire. Gaunt gets Three-three-one, under Sergeant Mkadeen, to move building to building. It quickly becomes clear a lot of civilians and Imperial personnel have taken shelter in the buildings nearby. Bonin, Mkadeen’s scout, finds three Administratum intendants hiding with a mix of occupation officials and locals in a linen merchant’s. They report gunmen, dressed as locals, moving in after the blast.

One-six-five, led by their scout Baen, moves ahead, towards the seat of the fire. Mkoll’s scout section, Two-two, melts into the side streets, to run parallel.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ says Caffran.

‘Where the feth should I be?’ Gaunt replies.

‘I mean, visible,’ replies the young trooper.

‘He’s right,’ says Severt, close behind them. Gaunt doesn’t dignify that with a response. He draws his bolt pistol, appreciating the weight of it. He draws his chainsword, his old and much-repaired chainsword, and lets it cycle. A gun’s going to matter more in this, but a chainblade is an officer’s weapon. It’s a sign of intent, a mark of authority.

The nearby gunfire’s getting more ferocious. A sudden volley. Hard rounds, and the slower, heavier, cycling thumps of laslocks.

They start to see the dead. Some civilian, some service. They are all over the street, sprawled between empty vehicles that were too wedged in to move or back up. Some were already hurt when they were shot dead. Others were cut down as they ran. It’s a systematic slaughter, an execution levelled on a panicked and unfocused mass.

‘Intercept reports Litus support units moving in from West Town,’ says Severt, clutching his vox-set. ‘They may reach the checkpoint before we do.’

And there won’t be anything there, thinks Gaunt, except a hole in the ground. The killings rolled this way. No, he’s reading it wrong. The killers came this way, moving in the same direction that the Ghosts are moving. Meeting the survivors as they fled east from the blast. What was it? Too big for another K10. Maybe more than one, strapped together. And an incendiary component too, from the burn spread. The top end of Kalodin is ablaze. A mine, maybe? Throne help us if they’ve got their hands on K25 anti-tanks too.

The Litus have taken a bad hit. They were manning the checkpoint, running security in the quarter and crewing most of the vehicles. There are a lot of them dead on the road. Some have weapons. Gaunt sees three, killed beside a shot-up cargo-4. One was in the process of reloading when he died. The killers were among them, in the crowd, not presenting as targets until they were too close and it was too late. Marauds, damn that word. Insurgents, dressed as Vinculan provincials.

He hears the fast-crack of las-fire ahead. One-six-five has engaged.

Rawne says her name. He says, ‘Inge.’ She flattens herself against the stucco wall. They wait.

He was right. It was definitely movement. The street seems so empty, so sun-bleached and deserted, but he can hear footsteps.

He keeps her in the shadow of the arch, an old doorway bricked up in the wall of a low hab. People run past them, two, three, then three more. Locals. Local dress. One woman carries a basket of belongings, another trails a child. They’re scared, running to find a hiding place. They don’t even see Rawne and Eiwolt.

Why were they running? It’s been ten minutes since the blast, and the streets emptied almost instantly. Why aren’t these people in hiding already, unless they were? Unless they were, and the place they were hiding in isn’t safe any more.

He doesn’t move. He waits. You wait, you learn things. He glances at Eiwolt, and she’s about to speak, so he puts his palm flat over her mouth. Her eyes grow wide.

Wait. Be quiet.

More footsteps. Two men, following the first bunch. Two men. No, an older man and a youth. A father and his son, perhaps. A drover, and the boy who’ll inherit the herd when he’s gone. That won’t be long. The older man’s been shot. His laced tunic is soaked with blood. The younger man is trying to support him and run at the same time. He’s hissing words in the local dialect. Rawne wonders what he’s saying. The usual things. The same things everyone says. Encouragement. Reassurance. Keep moving. It’ll be all right. I’ll get you help. I love you, father.

As they draw level, the older man stumbles. The youth steadies him, and as he does so, he sees Rawne and Eiwolt in the shadow of the arch, looking back at him. The youth flinches: a man with a gun. Rawne wants to tell him it’s all right. I’ll get you help. The usual things. But he doesn’t, because he knows he mustn’t. He has Eiwolt to protect. She’s his priority.

And he’s right not to. The youth stares at him for a second, with terrified eyes, and then he starts to spin, to twirl, as if he’s decided to dance. A bolt from a laslock has caught him in the shoulder so hard, it’s whirled his body away, out of his father’s grip. He stops spinning, and remains standing, his arm almost completely torn off. He’s looking the wrong way, not at his father, not at Rawne, but at the wall on the other side of the street. The older man, clutching the wound he carries, takes a step towards him, then another las-bolt hits him in the small of the back and drops him on his face in the dirt. He doesn’t even raise his hands to break his fall.

The youth turns at the sound of the shot, swaying. He looks down at his father’s body, and it’s the last thing he sees. A hard round burst catches him across his chest, and flicks him off his feet.

Eiwolt is shaking hard. She’s accidentally bitten Rawne’s palm. He looks at her, a fierce look that tries to say everything. I’m going to take my hand away because I need it. Do not make a sound.

He takes his hand away. His blood is on her lip. She makes no sound. She even manages to suppress her frantic breathing. He can see her trying. He gets both hands on the rifle.

Voices, more footsteps, coming closer. Three drovers appear. They stop and stare down at the bodies. They’re not drovers, of course. One has a long-barrelled laslock, another has an old autorifle, the third a Navy-issue revolver, old pattern. They look at the bodies, exchange a few words. The one with the pistol seems to be deciding which way they should head next, where they will find more people to kill.

Don’t look up, thinks Rawne. Don’t look up. Don’t look this way, please Throne…

He’s tempted to flick over to full-auto. Just a single flip of the selector beside his right thumb. Quickest way to finish all three. But the quickest way to expend power too.

The feth with the pistol points to the mouths of nearby streets and breezeways, deciding which one is most promising. The feth with the laslock makes a suggestion. The feth with the autogun adjusts the brim of his sun hat, squints, looks up. Looks around.

Looks Rawne straight in the eyes.

There’s a slight lag of reaction, the half-second it takes to make sense of something you weren’t expecting to see. The time it takes to form the word ‘There!’ and start to say it.

Rawne’s rifle is already up. Two bolts into the one who’s seen them. Two into the one with the laslock. The one with the revolver is bringing it up when two shots find him too.

They won’t be alone. They definitely won’t be alone. But Rawne’s hand’s been forced, and their lousy cover is no longer enough.

‘Move!’ he snaps, and they run across the street. Eiwolt comes with him without hesitation. They’re in the open for three seconds, just time for Rawne to glance up the street and see other marauds, four of them, at the next junction. They’re already coming, sprinting, weapons raised, drawn by the rapid volley of Rawne’s shots.

Rawne and Eiwolt plunge into a narrow breezeway as the gunfire starts coming their way, loose shots that bracket the lane’s archway and spit up clouds of pulverised plaster. The breezeway is a narrow channel between habs, high walled, partly roofed with fibre mats. It’s also too fething long. Rawne can see a junction ahead, where it meets another breezeway channel, but even flat out they won’t reach it before the marauds arrive at the archway behind them.

Rawne makes his choice. Eiwolt’s right behind him. He sidesteps and turns, pushing her past him, and at the same time he rotates, lifting the barrel of his rifle so it doesn’t rake or snag on the narrow walkway’s wall. His thumb has also flipped the selector.

The marauds reach the archway, slamming in, skidding, in high pursuit. Rawne’s halfway along the breezeway, and he’s facing them. He rakes a quick burst of full-auto. He can hardly miss in a tight channel like this. They’re framed as a target. He chops down the first three in a welter of impacts. A fourth, clipped, stumbles back into the daylight with a shriek.

Rawne hoists his weapon upright and turns again, running after Eiwolt. She’s close to the junction, and she’s had the sense to slow down. Anything could be around the corner. He slides in beside her. There’s just enough space. There’s no way of calling it. He swings out left, weapon levelled, then right. Nothing in sight, in either direction, just more of these meandering, makeshift walkways, more high walls. He starts moving to the right, and she follows. They are just beyond the junction when a laslock shot whines the entire length of the breezeway they just ran down and explodes against the wall.

They sprint. He leads. She loses her slicker, but she keeps up. The alley jinks left, then right, then opens into a small yard with two exits. He takes the left. Footsteps behind them, voices shouting. The insurgents have seen enough to know they have valuable targets in reach: trophy targets.

They reach another yard space, hemmed in between slumping habs. High walls, the overhanging ridge of a roof. Some feed boxes stacked against a wall. Two exits, both into other alleyways. A wooden door in the wall.

He stops. She looks at him, frantic, but says nothing. Her eyes ask all the questions. Rawne listens. Footsteps behind, but other movement. Feet, voices, in an adjacent alley ahead.

He tries the door. It opens. No lock. He pulls her inside, and closes the door. Another yard, smaller, partly roofed. Sacks of grain. A stink of grox dung. An archway with an open half-door leading into a barn or stable, or some kind of pen.

They go through. It’s dark out of the direct sunlight. The air is close and reeks of animals. More feed boxes, some wire baskets. A low, beamed roof. The tin roof of a low lean-to overlapping the adjoining wall. A door, bolted, that probably leads into another alley.

Just seconds to decide.

He looks at her. He points at the stacked boxes, then at the side wall, then at the roof. She nods. She starts to clamber. He crosses to the alley-side door, draws the bolts, then gently takes the door off the latch. When he turns back, she’s made it from the boxes to the wall, and is almost on the roof, her carry-bag swinging from her arm.

He follows her. Up, fast. Up, now.

They’re on the lean-to roof in the sunlight. He motions her to move up, onto the long slope of the main barn roof. She scrambles onto it, and he signals her to lie flat. He drops prone on the lean-to roof, his rifle beside him. He can still see into the barn.

Running footsteps. A door kicks open. Voices shout at each other.

It feels painfully exposed out on the roof, roasted by sunlight, in the wide open. But there’s nothing up here, only sky, only other roofs. Everything that’s looking for them is below, in the maze of alleys and yards.

Two men bang through the half-door into the barn below. They look around, maybe curse each other. One goes to the alley-side door, finds it unbolted and ajar, and calls out. They both exit through it, then one comes back, shouting for others to follow. Three more men come through the barn, the man who came back showing them the way to go. They rush on, into the alley. Rawne can hear them, running, spreading out into the breezeways on the far side of the barn. They are shouting to each other. Rawne doesn’t understand the words, but the intent is clear. They’re confounded. Which way did they go? This way? There’s no one down here!

He lets his grip slacken on his warknife. He wasn’t even conscious that he’d drawn it.

He keeps his head flat, but looks over at Eiwolt. She’s on her front on the barn roof just three metres away, staring back at him. She’s as slack and flat as she can make herself. It’s almost as if she’s sunbathing, but for the all-weather clothes and the tears in her eyes.

Rawne waits. They could move, but he waits. These men, these marauds, these insurgents, they’re not stupid. They’re fething bastard killers, but they’re not stupid. They live like he does, they fight like he does. They hide, they stay low, they strike by surprise, they disappear again. It’s the only way they survive under Imperial occupation. They’re hunters, so they know the rules. They know about misdirection and concealment. If they’re half the bastards he thinks they are, it’s not going to take them long.

He looks around. There’s a chunk of broken roof tile half a metre from his face. He reaches for it. He gets up on one knee, slow as hell so the tin roof doesn’t creak, and then lobs it as hard and as far as he can.

It’s a good throw. He hears it hit something, and something shatters. Tiles? A window? Grain pots? It doesn’t matter. It has the desired effect. He hears voices again. The footsteps change direction, heading for the source of the sound.

He drops flat again. Wait, wait…

He hears gunfire, to his left, muffled by the walls. They’ve found someone else. Some other poor bastards. He looks at Eiwolt and raises one finger. Ready.

She nods. Then he holds up his hand again.

No.

The maraud who came back into the barn has come back yet again. He’s looking around. He’s not convinced. He knows he’s been fooled somehow. He looks up at the beams, at the pile of wire baskets. He looks at the stack of feed boxes.

He’s got an autorifle. He puts it over his shoulder on its sling, pushes back the brim of his hat to look up, then looks at the feed boxes again.

Don’t do it. Don’t make the guess.

The maraud walks towards the feed boxes. He tests the lowest one with his foot to see if it’ll take his weight. He pushes the sun hat off his head so it hangs by its drawstring. Rawne’s fingers close on the hilt of the warknife again. If it happens, it’s got to be quiet.

The bastard starts to climb. He clambers up the feed box stack, groping for the top of the wall. He gets one hand on it, then the other. He hauls himself up. As his shoulders clear the top of the wall, Rawne grabs his hair and rams his head forwards into his blade. The straight silver skewers his neck, front to back. Blood rains out. The maraud opens his mouth, but no sound escapes, only more blood. He starts to twitch. Rawne maintains his grip, teeth gritted. The man’s hands let go. Rawne takes the weight, basically holding the man by the hair, and on his knife, until the convulsive spasms have ceased.

Then he has to let go.

The body slides off the blade and flops back into the barn. It makes some noise. Rawne hopes it’s not too much.

The marauds will find the body when they sweep back this way. No fething doubt. Rawne gets up. He crosses to the barn roof, and gets her on her feet. They pick their way up the shallow slope of the roof and over the ridge line. Beyond, another gentle slope of roof runs down to a yard full of open pens.

He hears a shout behind him, from below. Someone’s found the body.

They start to scramble, half-sliding down the roof. It’s a drop into the pens, but they can do it. She’s proven capable of everything so far.

He glances back. A maraud has appeared, climbing onto the barn roof via the lean-to, the way they came. He raises a laslock. Rawne swings up his rifle and fires first. It’s still on auto. The burst shreds the maraud’s torso and he plunges backwards off the lip of the roof, falling out of sight, leaving a brief haze of red mist in the air behind him.

‘You have to jump,’ Rawne tells Eiwolt.

She nods, swallows. She’s perched on the gutter, looking at the drop into the yard.

‘Now,’ he says.

She hesitates. He looks back. Another maraud has come into view, climbing up the same way as the first. He’s got something in his hand, a pistol perhaps.

Rawne flicks to single, and fires as the man winds his arm back to throw. The shot hits body-mass and takes him off the roof. But he’s made the lob.

Who throws a pistol?

It’s not a pistol. It’s a little drum, the size of a caff cup. It’s an anti-personnel grenade.

The throw is poor, jerked off true by the impact of Rawne’s body shot. The grenade clips the ridgeline of the barn roof and spins up into the air like a wayward ball. Rawne turns his back to it, embraces her from behind, and shields her with his body as they jump.

In mid-air, the spinning grenade detonates.

12.

Turns out, there is no way out. The back office leads into another back office, and a storeroom, all caked in dust, and then to a door that Bragg forces with his shoulder, which leads into a wide courtyard at the back of the counting house. The courtyard is surrounded on all sides by high brick walls, with taller buildings beyond them. There’s a street gate, but it’s armoured and rusted shut. This was a counting house, and this courtyard was where the treasury trucks delivered tithe payments. Of course the walls are high. Of course the gate is armoured. Not even Bragg will get through it. He starts to try anyway.

Milo looks around, getting frantic. He can hear gunfire still, from the main street beyond the buildings. Smoke from the nearby inferno is streaming across the yard, forming a blanket at second-floor height like the belly of a black storm cloud. Sparks whirl in it. Flakes of ash are falling on the yard. Bragg keeps throwing himself at the gate, dislodging showers of rust from the seams with every thwarted impact.

There’s a low rockcrete loading dock. The rusted carcass of a cargo trolley, weeds growing between the corroded wheels. Nothing else. The walls are too high. They can’t climb them. Milo wouldn’t reach the top of the lowest one even if Bragg gave him a boost, and even if he did, he’d never haul Bragg up after him.

Bragg slams into the gate again, and reels back clutching his shoulder. If he keeps going, he’ll break something, and not just the Imperial record for futile effort. He just wants to save the boy. He doesn’t care about himself. He just wants to get the boy out of this. Milo knows that’s all that’s driving the big man.

Milo stands, gazing at the back door they came through. The pulse is in his chest still, throbbing inside his ribcage. It urges him that the enemy is close. There’s not enough time to figure anything out, even if there was something to figure out, and there isn’t.

‘Bragg,’ says Milo.

Bragg’s about to take another run up.

‘Bragg, get your fething gun,’ says Milo.

Bragg glances at him, panting. He reaches for the lasrifle he put down on the cobbles.

The first insurgent appears at the back door. Milo lifts the pistol Bragg gave him and fires three shots. He wings the insurgent with one, damages the door frame with the other two. The maraud ducks back inside. Gunfire starts to come at them from the shadows of the back doorway, more than one weapon. Glass breaks, and shots start coming from a rear window too. Laslock-fire and auto-rounds chop across the courtyard. They hit the back wall and the gate, and clip the cobbles.

Bragg and Milo get down behind the edge of the loading dock. Bragg pinks back return fire, to little effect. His aim is characteristically lousy, but it’s not just that. The angle’s poor. They’re too tight to get a decent shot into the doorway. The window’s an impossible target altogether.

Milo keeps low. He looks across at the rusted cargo trolley. It’s on the other side of the courtyard, and the firing angle from it to the door is much better. But the knot inside him lets him know that he’d never make the dash.

The fire rate increases. Shots pummel the top of the dock, and fill the air with rock dust and grit. A laslock bolt misses Bragg’s head by centimetres.

The big man’s angry now. He doesn’t get angry much. It’s frustration, the inability to do anything effective. He gets the lasrifle up and blazes at the doorway. He’s burning through the rifle’s cell. It hardly seems to matter any more. Milo starts to fire too. If they can get them ducking, maybe he can make that dash.

And if he does, how many shots will he have left? Has Bragg got a spare mag for the pistol? He certainly doesn’t have any for the rifle.

They hose the doorway, and speckle the area with shot holes.

‘I’m out,’ groans Bragg, and flops back into cover. Milo’s still got a few. He braces himself. First insurgent out of the door gets one. Second one out gets one. The marauds will have to enter the yard to reach them, and each one that shows his face will get a round in it.

The firing coming their way eases, then stops. Milo hears voices, call and response. Weapon smoke, white as winter cloud, ribbons across the yard.

A foot stirs broken glass. Here they come.

The first maraud edges out of the doorway. Milo fires, a double-handed grip, and plugs him squarely in the neck. A second one is right behind him, and fires a burst that goes wide of Milo. Milo blows his jaw off, and drops him in the doorway.

A third appears. A fourth is climbing out of the fething window. Milo aims at the third, but his mag is out. The pistol clacks. The third maraud fires his laslock, and the passing heat of the bolt scorches Milo’s cheek.

Then the third maraud disappears back inside the doorway. He doesn’t step back inside, or duck back inside. He flies, as if there’s a hook around his waist and it’s been yanked by a tow-chain. His feet leave the ground. Blood splatter coats the doorway.

A discharge boom echoes around the courtyard. Something with punch, more than a laslock. The fourth maraud, halfway out of the window, reconsiders his options, and starts to scrabble wildly to get back inside. Another ringing boom, and the maraud is helped back through the window by a single, thunderbolt impact.

The shots are coming from outside. Milo looks up, searching. What the feth?

There are sudden bursts of gunfire from inside the counting house. Hard exchanges, muffled by the thick walls. Burst, burst, burst. Militarum discipline, room clearance. It carries on for about forty seconds, then cuts off. Everything goes quiet. Smoke evacuates through the back door.

Milo hears a whistle. He looks up. Someone shouts his name. On a flat roof, overlooking the courtyard, Larkin pops up, long-las in hand. He throws Milo a cheeky salute and vanishes.

‘In the yard!’ a voice yells from inside the counting house. ‘Imperial? Identify!’

‘Imperial!’ Milo yells back.

‘Where we can see you!’ the voice yells. Milo and Bragg get up and step out from behind the loading dock.

Baen and Sergeant Bray move out of the back door, weapons ready.

‘Feth me,’ says Bray.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ says Bragg.

13.

Trooper Caffran runs back to him through the smoke.

‘One-six-five reports area secure, sir,’ he says.

Gaunt nods. Mkoll’s just returned with the rest of Two-two and has reported the same.

‘No more active shooters,’ says Severt. ‘If there are any still alive, they’ve gone to ground.’

Because they’ve done more than enough, Gaunt thinks. They have achieved what they set out to achieve.

‘Litus main units have the crossroads and checkpoint secure,’ says Severt. ‘Moving this way to sweep all buildings.’

Gaunt deactivates his chainsword and sheathes it. He’s almost disappointed. He wanted to bury it in something, bury it deep and twist it, to vent his anger at the murdering enemy. At the enemy, at Noches Sturm, at the miserable mess of Voltemand, at the insoluble grief of Vincula, at Severt and his type, at high command politics, at needless loss, at wasted opportunities, at squandered potential, at holding orders, at unprofitable tasks and ill-fitting duties, at lack of sleep, at death.

But mostly at the enemy.

He looks at Mkoll. The chief scout’s face is unreadable, unless grim has a specific meaning. Behind him, just as dark-eyed and solemn, wait Caober, Doyl and Mkvenner.

‘It’s not that I don’t trust the proficiency of the Litus,’ Gaunt begins.

‘But you don’t trust the proficiency of the Litus?’ asks Caober.

‘Safety counts more to me than trust,’ says Gaunt. ‘I want another sweep. Not just Kalodin, but the adjoining streets.’

‘I can pull in some more scout units,’ says Mkoll.

Gaunt nods to that. ‘If there are any of them still alive, they’re hiding, or they’re trying to exit the target zone.’

‘They won’t get out of the city,’ says Severt.

‘They may not want to,’ says Gaunt. ‘They may not need to. Look at them.’

There’s a dead maraud on the ground ten metres away, crumpled between two civilians. Only the gun in his hand marks him out as different. Gaunt remembers what Varl said. He remembers every page of the Prefectus counter-insurgency manual.

‘They can blend in,’ he says. ‘They can go to ground. Cache weapons and just walk away among the real survivors. They’ll have hiding places. Basements, attics, safe-habs. They’ll have friends to take them in, sympathisers. Or they’ll force locals to hide them, on threat of retribution. Let’s lock up Kalodin, then radiate outwards. We’re going to find them, if we have to dismantle Vincula and put it back together again. This isn’t going to happen again.’

Mkoll nods, and turns to his scouts. They start to decide how to split the search.

‘One-six-five has found more survivors in hiding,’ says Caffran. ‘They report some of ours among them. Trooper Bragg and, uh, Brin Milo.’

Gaunt takes that in. He’s not even going to begin to ask what the fething boy is doing here.

‘Bring them up,’ he says. ‘I want to know what everyone’s seen. Locals too. Any detail can help.’

Down the street, the first of the Litus support elements are appearing. Gaunt sees Captain Ronus, the B.R.U.’s second officer in the province. The man looks shell-shocked. He’s seen too many of his regiment dead today. He’s a good solider, Gaunt has no complaints, but the Litus need to up their game. How did they miss a device at a checkpoint? How did they miss the mine at the Occupation Building? They have to work harder, and they have to work with the Ghosts. The Litus have superior numbers and heavier support. He braces himself to speak to Ronus. He’s already had a blazing row with Ronus’ superior in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Low Quarter?’ he says, looking at Severt.

‘Bomb at the Memnon Road Magistratum Annex,’ Severt says. ‘Comparable size to this. Fewer casualties, because it wasn’t so busy, but heavy enough. Litus and Tanith elements are locking the area down, same drill as here.’

‘Gunmen following after the bomb?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Yes,’ says Severt. ‘Some still active. There are a lot of rat-runs in Low Quarter, alleys…’

‘I want it secure in the next hour.’

Too many deaths today. The insurgents have made a serious play. Two mass targets, identical tactics. That’s escalation. Until now they’ve gone for individual strikes, at individuals, low-level targets. Are they ramping up in advance of Balgrada’s arrival? Are they trying to scare him off? Or have they suddenly got their hands on fresh stocks of munitions they’re itching to use?

It’s cost them a lot. Gaunt doesn’t know how many marauds were killed here today, or how many at Memnon Road, but it’ll be in the dozens. That’s a high price for generating terror. But that’s how they operate. For insurgents, for zealots, there’s no coming back. It’s the glory, the moment, the effect. They don’t commit these atrocities thinking they’ll walk away. That halves the planning and the support they need. They expect to die. They prep simply to take as many lives with them as they can and leave fear in their wake.

Fear makes a city slippery. Fear makes a population unruly and hard to manage. Fear wins a war. It neuters authority and corrodes control.

‘These bastards lost a lot today,’ says Severt. ‘Serious losses. That’s something, at least.’

‘They were all dead when they woke up this morning,’ Gaunt tells him. ‘And they knew it. And they didn’t care. And that’s what makes them so fething dangerous.’

Severt seems about to reply, to frame something stoic and well crafted with reassuring non-words, but he’s smart enough to read Gaunt’s face and keep his mouth shut.

Sergeant Bray’s approaching, with Rafflan and Baen. Bragg and the boy are trudging behind them. Gaunt holds up a hand to have them wait. Ronus has arrived.

‘Sir,’ he says, saluting Gaunt. He’s wearing a long, quilted ballistic coat, and he’s pushed his tinted goggles up onto the front of his gloss-red helmet. There’s a tube-fed volley gun slung on a rig brace across his back. His accent is thick, and his tone funereal.

‘Bad day, Orman,’ says Gaunt. ‘We mourn your losses.’

‘Don’t even know what they are yet,’ Ronus replies. ‘Damn this place, eh? This city, this world. It’s a shit-heap task they’ve lumbered us with.’

Gaunt nods. He’ll get into it later. Ronus is in no state to deal with operational criticism.

‘Secure?’ Gaunt asks.

‘From the West Town line to here,’ Ronus says. ‘We’ve got a perimeter, bringing in some light armour. Search teams in motion. Then we can get medicae and fire-suppression teams in.’

Gaunt’s about to answer when someone yells his name. His name, ‘Ibram’. Not ‘sir’ or ‘Gaunt’ or ‘colonel-commissar’. It’s the fething boy. Milo. He’s broken past Bray and is running right at him, his eyes wild, his hands reaching and clawing.

That’s when the first hits come. A burst of las-shot, daggers of fire. Every bolt hits a soft target except one. Only one goes wide and impacts the wall behind them.

Caffran folds up, like he’s been gut-punched. Ronus turns sideways, his face exploding inside his helmet. Severt rocks, jerking, headshot, blood bursting from his ruptured skull.

Gaunt hits the ground at the same time as Ronus.

There’s no time to check if either of them are hurt. Rawne gets up, head swimming, and drags Eiwolt upright. She’s dazed. There’s a graze on her cheek. She landed face down in the yard, and he pretty much landed on top of her.

He gives her a shake. She blinks, as though she’s just waking up, or has been distracted out of a daydream.

‘Move,’ he says. He looks around for his weapon. It’s on the floor of one of the pens. As he stoops to pick it up, he feels a pinch of pain in his shoulder, and another in the small of his back. The skin of his back is hot-wet under his tunic. His neck is wet too.

The air still smells of grenade charge, a sour odour of burned chemicals. He makes his way to the yard gate. Every step he takes, he’s aware of how unsteady he is. His limbs feel light, like they’re made of balloons. His bones feel soft and twitchy. His ears are ringing.

He listens at the gate, trying to detect voices or footsteps over the aftershock humming in his ears. He beckons her to follow him. She’s not behind him. Wobbling slightly, she’s stopped to pick up her carry-bag. Data-slates have spilled out of it. She’s trying to pick them up and stuff them back in. He wants to tell her to stop, to leave them, but he knows they can’t leave that kind of thing behind. He goes to help her, then he leads her back to the gate.

He can hear voices now, urgent exchanges, but they’re coming from the other side of the barn. He opens the gate, and sneaks out, pulling her after him. The breezeway is dark, shaded from the harsh sun by slat-matting, but it’s also empty.

They start to move. Then he stops, makes her wait, and checks his weapon, checks the load, the setting, checks for damage. He loops the strap over his right shoulder, cinched tight, so the gun’s resting across his chest.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she says.

‘Shhhhh!’

‘Your back, Rawne…’

‘It’s nothing. It’ll keep.’ He looks at her. ‘We’re almost there,’ he whispers. ‘I’ll manage.’

They follow the snaking breezeway to the end. The sound of voices recedes. They cross a junction with another shadowed alley, then sneak through the rear yard of a ramshackle hab, stepping between pots and pitchers where herbs had once been cultivated. They’re just full of dry earth now.

Dead windows stare at them. He opens a side gate, and they enter another alley, which leads to the street. The street seems so bright, wide and open. It feels like the sun is aimed directly at him. He tries to get his bearings. Smoke from the bomb attack is still staining the sky, so that’s his fix.

‘Felika Street,’ she says. ‘Leads to Memnon Road. We’re close.’

‘I know that,’ he says.

‘I know you do,’ she replies.

He pulls her back into the shadows. There’s a rattle of automatic gunfire from a couple of streets away. He hears the clatter of treads, the thump of a light gun-mount. Something takes a shell, and white smoke and dust curls up from behind the buildings across the street from them, clutching at the sky like a grasping hand.

‘Securement forces,’ he says.

His micro-bead is still popping soft static. Low Quarter is unsupported, and they’re way too far out for general comms. He should have thought of that. He should have–

He should have stayed in the fething kitchen, that’s what.

West of them, a kilometre away, two Valkyries turn in, canopy’s winking in the glare. They circle, low level. They’ve cornered something. One pops a marker flare. The other, nosing sideways, ripples with light under its snout. It takes a moment for the crackling sound of the rotary cannon to reach them.

They leave the shadows and hurry left, along the street, hugging the wall. Behind them, there’s another crump from a vehicle-mounted gun, then a voice blaring over a loudhailer system. Public address. It’s too tinny and distorted to make out the words, but he knows it’s the usual bombast. Stay in your homes. Report enemy movement. Brush your teeth and say your prayers.

They’ve gone about a hundred metres when the marauds appear. There are six of them, all running. They come around the corner from Memnon Road towards them. Two start shooting immediately.

Rawne shoves her into a doorway and blocks her with his body. Weapon up, he fires back, controlled bursts. He feths one up, but then has to duck himself. Shots whack into the wall beside them. A wooden shutter is blown off its hinges.

There’s a savage rip of heavy fire, a blurt of noise. Two of the insurgents disintegrate in terrible smears of blood and meat. The others turn. Rawne tries to get a line on them.

A B.R.U. Chimera rocks around the corner, growling exhaust fumes. Its tracks chime like defective bells as it pulls the turn, and the twin autocannons on its low turret track around. The remaining marauds scatter, fleeing for street-side alleys and breezeways. The Chimera stops, hull lurching, and mows down two of them, muzzle flash flickering around its cannons. They die instantly, and the sweep of heavy fire rakes a furrow across the road.

The last one, who had the sense to switch right, comes right at Rawne. He unloads into the bastard’s central mass, and the insurgent tumbles and flops, his body carried by his own momentum.

The Chimera’s gun-mount swings around, and sprays fire diagonally across the street, peppering the faces of habs and homesteads. Swathes of plaster dust billow out.

Rawne drops. Eiwolt’s already down, scrunched in a foetal position with her arms over her head.

‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’ Rawne yells. ‘For feth’s sake! Imperial! Cease fire!’ The light tank’s guns lock them up and the servo-loaders chatter.

Mkoll identifies the source of the shots in an instant, but Mkvenner fires first. The pair of them blaze away, aiming at a second-floor window in the building opposite. Caober and Doyl are already sprinting across the street towards the building’s entrance.

Mkoll fires another burst. Suppressive fire alone is important. That first salvo raked them. The street is full of people, though everyone’s scattering for cover.

It was las-fire. Not hard round, not laslock. Las-fire. A careful target-burst, not wild. Mkoll’s pretty sure it came from a Mk III. A military weapon, certainly.

Mkvenner’s taken off after the other scouts. Mkoll glances back.

‘Go! Go!’ Bray yells.

Mkoll wants to stay. He doesn’t know who’s dead. He realises it doesn’t matter, because they are dead. What matters is the shooter. How did they miss someone so close?

He runs to the building. There’s no more gunfire from above. It’s an engineering workshop, derelict, open-plan on the ground floor. He enters through the door that Doyl has kicked open. There are two flights of stairs. Doyl and Caober are sweeping up one to the first floor, covering each other. There’s no sign of Ven.

Mkoll takes the other flight of stairs. Everything’s dusty, mouldering. The first floor is another open work hall, lined with old benches, each one mounted with a rusted vice. Tool racks on the wall. Blinds collapsed beneath each large window, the piles of fabric fraying and sun-rotted.

He checks left, then right. He hears Doyl and Caober moving up to the second floor on the other stairs. The building’s so old, so dry, everything creaks, everything shifts.

He listens. Nothing from above him. Not even a trickle of dust. The shooter’s gone. He would have gone out the back the second he’d taken the shots.

Mkoll moves to the rear windows. There’s a junkyard of scrap metal below, bright pink and orange with rust. The yard extends past a dilapidated freight bay to a high rear wall. Smoke from the street fires is gusting across the yard.

He sees Mkvenner. Ven is sprinting down the yard from the rear of the building. He’s onto something, something Mkoll can’t see. Maybe a false trail. The shooter could still be upstairs.

The shooter is calculating. Precise. He’s a hunter. Mkoll feels it in his blood, the same thing he felt back in the woods. The shooter’s no zealot, no inspired insurgent. He’s a soldier. A specialist. Well trained, highly motivated. He’s got a Mk III. This bastard is the priority capture, the one that Gaunt really wants, the one he offered a whole bottle of Bragg’s sacra for. Mkoll doesn’t want the sacra. He wants the man. He wants the bastard who got the upper hand in the woods that morning and nearly killed him. The one who gave four Tanith scouts the slip. That man, that bastard, or another one just like him. Who are they? Who are the specialists running the insurgent foot-sloggers?

Is Gaunt dead?

Mkoll shakes off the thought. Concentrate on the quarry. Would he stay? Try for a second bite?

He might. He wants to kill. It’s what Mkoll would do, because it’s the unexpected. He’d use his stealth to get behind his pursuers, and let them over-run. Then he could pick his kills: his original target group, or his pursuers, in the back.

But Mkvenner is never wrong. Never. He wasn’t wrong in the woods, and he’s not wrong now.

‘Rear yard! Move!’ he yells to Doyl and Caober over his ’bead. He smashes out a cracked window and jumps down, crunching onto the tin roof of a shed, then onto the ground among the rusting junk. Mkvenner’s vanished again. Mkoll heads for the end of the yard.

He reaches the end wall, hugs it. Catches his breath. For a moment, it feels like there are eyes on him. As if he’s in crosshairs. Like in the woods.

Mkoll’s a hunter. That’s probably the worst nightmare a hunter can have. To feel like the prey.

He goes through the gate. An industrial back alley, dark with soot. He’s in time to see Mkvenner scaling a high wall twenty metres away. He sprints after him. He knows Doyl and Caober are just five or ten seconds behind him. Scuffs mark the sooty bricks where Ven went over. Ven’s tall, as tall as Gaunt. He made it look easy. It takes Mkoll a little more effort. There’s barely any purchase. He bellies over the top of the wall.

Another broad yard. The open depot of a fabrication merchant. Stacks of bricks, piles of rockcrete blocks, never used, probably never will be. The stockpile of some construction effort dislocated by war.

Where the feth is Mkvenner?

Mkoll moves fast and low, cape up. Again, the burning sensation of a gaze on him. Shake it off!

He crosses the yard. He ducks down and, in a whisper, ’beads Doyl and Caober to loop around to the front of the building merchant. Maybe they can box the bastard in.

Then he spots Ven. Ven’s down, in cover, stalking. He’s almost invisible against the brick stack sheltering him. What’s he seen?

Mkoll pans, sight up. Mkoll’s a hunter. The shooter, whatever else he is, is a hunter too. Mkvenner… Mkoll’s never known quite what to make of him. He’s the best scout in the regiment. Better than Baru, better than Caober, better than Mkoll himself. Ven was a woodsman back on Tanith, very quiet and contained. He just turned up at the Founding. No one knows much about his past, except for the stories. He’s… unnaturally gifted. Supernaturally gifted. The story goes he’s got Nalsheen blood, and he learned his craft from… feth only knows. Depends who you ask.

Mkoll never has. He counts Ven as a friend, and Ven doesn’t seem to need many of those. But they never talk, not about the past. Just the regular stuff about operations or what’s for dinner. Mkoll respects him enough not to ask. True hunters are solitary in every way. It’s what gives them focus. Even their thoughts roam alone, and they make no sound.

Yet again, Mkoll feels that there are eyes on him. His flesh crawls. Instinctively, he checks the angles. Are there eyes on him from above, from the side? Is someone lining up?

Nothing. What’s Mkvenner seen? What did he sense this morning in the woods that made him tackle Mkoll down before a shot could end him?

Mkvenner knows Mkoll’s there. He doesn’t look. He raises a hand, slow and low, and indicates position and direction so that Mkoll can see. Something on the far side of the brick stacks, against the far wall of the depot yard. The wall is tall, sheer, ten metres, blocking off neighbouring properties. Not even Ven could go over that. In another half-minute, Doyl and Caober will be on the other side of it, probably Bonin and Baen too.

They’ve got him.

Ven signals again. Mkoll nods, and bellies left to the next pile of slabs. Then he prowls to the far end of them, almost on all fours. Ven moves up in parallel, weapon trained. Mkoll still can’t see the quarry, but he can see where Ven is aiming at.

He sidles around, takes a look himself. Bricks, stacked. More bricks. The shadow of the high wall. It’s airless and deathly silent. Even the crackle of the flames consuming Kalodin seems to have dropped to nothing.

Ven starts moving forward, a fluid surge. Mkoll does the same. Pincer. There’s nowhere to go. Ven takes a shot. It booms in the open yard. Almost instantly, a shot rips back, right along the same line as Ven’s.

Ven drops. Is he hit? Feth!

No, he’s vanished, rolled into cover. Something, that fething Nalsheen blood of his, told him to drop, told him he was tagged.

Mkoll sprints forward. He won’t give the shooter a chance to reposition. He swings around the end of the brick stack and blasts full-auto, raking everything in the gulley below the wall.

Which is precisely nothing.

Mkoll eases forward, gun up. There’s nobody there. There’s nothing at all. There’s nowhere for anyone or anything to go, nowhere to hide. What the living feth? Did he go up? Did he go up onto the fething brick stack? Mkoll swings up, aiming at the top of the stack, braced for a round to hit him.

Nothing. As if to prove it, Ven appears. He’s on top of the brick stack, aiming down.

‘Feth’s sake!’ Mkoll hisses, lowering his aim.

Ven’s got the higher vantage. He looks around, then back at Mkoll. He shakes his head.

‘Where the feth is he?’ Mkoll mouths at Ven. Mkvenner shakes his head again.

It’s just not possible.

Mkoll exhales. Tension is choking him. He looks at Mkvenner again. Mkvenner is looking up at the towering wall. Ten metres. No fething way.

‘Doyl?’ Mkoll says into his link. ‘Where are you?’

‘Building front, far side of the depot wall,’ Doyl clips back.

‘You have eyes on him?’

‘How? Who?’

‘Do you have eyes on him?’

‘There’s nothing here, chief.’

‘Someone came over that wall,’ says Mkoll.

‘Not possible,’ says Caober. ‘We’ve been here four minutes. We heard the shots. We’ve been waiting. We’ve got the alley covered, and Baen and Bonin are blocking the far end.’

Not possible. Not fething possible.

Mkoll leans against the brick stack. What did they miss? Another track out? Between the stacks? They had that covered. A what, a fething trapdoor? A burrow? A drain? The ground is solid, layered rockcrete. There’s nobody here, and there can’t have been anybody here.

Except someone behind these stacks almost made a kill-shot on Mkvenner.

Ven drops down beside him, and leans alongside him.

‘Well?’ Mkoll breathes.

Ven shakes his head.

‘You got an explanation?’

‘No.’

‘You… you want to tell me about it?’ asks Mkoll. ‘Tell me about anything?’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ says Mkvenner.

14.

The lights are too bright.

Glin Severt’s dead. Orman Ronus is dead. Trooper Caffran’s got a las-burn across the flesh of his belly, and he only isn’t dead because the data-slate he was holding took the main force of it.

And, as Bray has stated several times, because Caffran wasn’t a target. Gaunt’s got bruised ribs and a bruised elbow thanks to Brin Milo’s flying tackle, and the rounds that hit Caffran and the wall behind them had been meant for him.

Two high-value kills. Might have been three. Might have been the biggest scalp in the province. Daybell, who’s visibly shaken by the news of Severt’s death, keeps insisting this was the object of the day’s attack. Flush out officers, the higher ranking the better. Get them in the open, and kill them.

Gaunt doesn’t think he’s right. He’s told Daybell as much. It’s a lot, too much, too many variables. Two bomb attacks, all of that insurgent manpower thrown into the grinder and expended? To achieve three prize kills? No, it’s nonsense, even by Archenemy standards. The maraud objectives were broader and plainer: fear, panic, infrastructure damage, the highest death toll they could get. Three high-value targets were simply opportunistic. A seized moment. The unexpected icing on a toxic cake.

‘I think you’re wrong, sir,’ says Daybell.

‘I think Military Intelligence is an oxymoron, but here we are,’ replies Gaunt. His mood’s poor. His ribs are bothering him. The lights are too bright.

Everything is bothering him.

‘Apologies,’ he adds quietly. Daybell nods, as though he perfectly understands.

They’re still getting stats. Fifty-seven Litus dead, twenty more injured. One hundred and thirty-eight civilians dead, across both strike locations, surviving casualty figure unknown, but likely to be more than two hundred. Thirteen Administratum or occupation force personnel dead, including three of the intendants who arrived last night, nineteen more injured. Plus Severt, plus Ronus. Severe damage to the Kalodin Street district. Significant damage to the Magistratum Annex in Low Quarter, plus collateral in the surrounding township. Power down in two districts. Data systems down in others, with patchy coverage elsewhere. Some comm jamming that no one can source. Curfew. Lockdown. A state of fear. Citywide unrest. Remaining active forces, Tanith and Litus, stretched to the limit closing security, sweeping the streets, and running aid and recovery.

Forty-four known insurgent dead. The number is subject to change, because Low Quarter is still simmering. None captured. Not one.

‘What’s that as a proportion, do you suppose?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Forty-four?’ asks Daybell. ‘In a province this size? That must be almost all of the membership of regional cells. The marauds have squandered the lion’s share of their manpower and resources achieving what they’ve achieved today. We will rebuild and recover. They will not.’

Gaunt sniffs.

‘Is it possible, captain,’ he asks, ‘that the Astra Militarum has underestimated insurgency strengths in Vincula Province? On Voltemand generally?’

‘Do you think that?’ asks Daybell.

‘I do,’ says Gaunt. ‘I don’t think they’d throw everything at us in one go. That’s simply not terrorist tactics. I think forty-four is a fraction of their true size.’

Daybell looks at his slate, pondering.

‘And why today?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Timing–’

‘Balgrada arrives tomorrow. Why not tomorrow, if it was an all-or-nothing?’

‘They wanted to scare Governor Balgrada off.’

‘Is that more effective than killing him?’

‘When Governor Balgrada arrives tomorrow–’

‘If he arrives,’ says Gaunt.

‘He will not be put off–’

‘I might order a delay.’

‘You cannot,’ says Daybell. ‘You don’t have the authority.’

‘This province is my remit,’ says Gaunt. ‘Here is my remit. Security here.’ He remembers Severt telling him that, what seems like weeks ago.

‘Governor Balgrada will arrive tomorrow–’

‘Governor Balgrada is an idiot, then,’ says Gaunt. He gets up. The lights are really too bright. The light is caustic. It makes him feel sick. He was assigned these chambers in the manse behind the Occupation Council Building when he arrived. They are simple, spacious, appropriate. More than he needs, yet inadequate. When night falls, and night has now fallen on a long, bad day, the lights come on automatically. They’re either on, or he turns them off. Pitch black or too bright.

He takes off his coat, and puts it on the table beside his cap. The coat’s shabby with dust across the sleeves and back. He unbuckles his weapon belt, and lays it beside the coat, resting the sheathed chainsword carefully. He slides his bolt pistol from the holster, clears it, removes the magazine, and puts them down beside the belt.

Daybell watches him. Gaunt wants him to get off the couch and just leave. Has the man no sense of when he’s surplus to requirements? Gaunt wants to be alone. Daybell just perches there, data-slate in hand.

‘You can discuss any operational misgivings with the governor when he arrives,’ says Daybell.

‘Any more on the jamming?’

‘No, sir.’

‘And it’s not you? Not Mil-Int?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So they have jamming devices, and they’re keyed to our tech, which probably means it’s our tech too. Just like the explosive devices, and some of the weapons.’

‘We have not yet identified the type of devices used–’

‘They were anti-armour mines, Daybell,’ says Gaunt. ‘K25s, or K27s. I saw the crater at Kalodin Street. I’ve seen the overheads from Memnon. They’re using our weapons against us. I want to know where they’re getting them from. Mines, tank mines, Mark threes…’

‘You say you suspect the insurgents are being coached?’ asks Daybell. ‘Trained in military techniques? The cells run by experienced warriors?’

‘Doesn’t it look that way to you?’

‘I wonder what you’re basing it on?’

‘I’ll share that when I have decent evidence.’

‘Colonel Farek of the Litus is waiting to see you,’ says Daybell. ‘He wants to discuss the events of–’

‘I’m not in the mood for another shouting match.’

‘The colonel is troubled and aggrieved by the losses his regiment has suffered today, and by the blows struck against the city and the Throne. He wishes to coordinate with you–’

‘And I’ll have to tell him how to run his regiment,’ Gaunt replies. ‘How to coordinate with other Guard units. How to run basic fething security details at street level. How to do his fething job. Which is why I don’t want another shouting match today.’

‘I see.’

‘Be on your way, please, Daybell. I have some things to do.’

Daybell starts to explain that there are several more items to be discussed. Gaunt has picked up his pistol. It’s unloaded, but a threat is implied. Daybell gets up, bids him good night, and exits the suite clutching his data-slate.

I’ll need a new data-slate, Gaunt thinks. A new adjutant too. A dimmer setting for these chambers. A new posting, if there’s one going. A way out of this mess. Or someone sane who will listen to my recommendations if a way out is not available. Gaunt doubts that’ll be Balgrada. He’s met the man in passing, back at Voltis City. Smart enough, diligent, but pompous. Too concerned about his career advancement in the Administratum, in which a full provincial governorship is a decent step, rather than any actual responsibility involving real lives.

He looks at the bolt pistol in his hands. He didn’t mean to threaten Daybell, the poor feth. He didn’t even mean to imply a threat. It’s habit. He strips and cleans his bolt pistol every night, even on days like today, when he hasn’t used it.

And he wishes he had been given the chance.

That’s the only reason he picked it up. He was about to clean it. The simple, methodical routine. A practical focus for the mind, and a distraction. He wonders where his cleaning kit is. The manse staff come in when he’s out, and make his bed, and clean things, and move stuff. They’ve put it somewhere. Probably the same place as the elusive dimmer switch. And the climate control. The manse has got good coolant systems, but they’re set too low, as though to defy the daytime heat of Vincula. It’s too bright and it’s too cold.

He exhales. He’s in a foul mood, and he knows it.

There’s a knock at the outer door. If that’s Daybell back. If he’s brought Farek anyway…

‘Yes?’

It’s Sergeant Baffels.

‘Sir.’

‘Updates?’ asks Gaunt.

‘No, sir.’

‘Messages from Corbec?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Location of Major Rawne?’

‘Still nothing, sir.’

‘The knock on my door wasn’t worth much, was it, sergeant?’

‘Chief Mkoll’s waiting outside, sir. Also, Sergeant Bray has brought Trooper Bragg and the boy.’

Gaunt nods. ‘Very good. Send them in, Baffels. All of them.’

He puts the gun down and walks to the windows. Blackout drapes are closed. He considers pulling them aside. He wants to look out at the city. But the lights of the city aren’t going to tell him anything. Vincula’s going to keep its secrets. Staring at it won’t help. He wants to identify the enemy. Understand the enemy strengths. It’s a whole city, an entire province. How much of the population is hostile? Back in Kosdorf, it was all of them. But at least you could tell.

He wants to hear from Mkoll. It seems that Two-two nearly got a priority target at Kalodin. That might’ve told them who the top-tier are, the military specialists running the marauds. But Two-two failed. Mkoll, Mkvenner, Caober… they botched it. He has no idea how that could even happen. His best men. Of all the losses they’ve suffered today, all the setbacks and the hard knocks, this somehow feels like the worst of all.

The Ghosts enter. Gaunt waves Mkoll over to him, and makes the others – Bray, Bragg and Milo – wait by the door. The boy stands with his eyes downcast, reserved. Bragg stands to attention, chest out, as smart as possible, despite the dried blood and the dirt on him. He’s expecting the worst, and he’s going to meet it proudly.

By the window, Gaunt speaks quietly to Mkoll.

‘What happened?’ he asks.

‘We thought we had him. We didn’t.’

‘And how does that happen?’ Gaunt asks.

Mkoll wavers. It’s the first time Gaunt’s seen him bothered, by anything. Is it embarrassment over failure? Or is it fear?

‘The subject was skilled. He managed to evade us. My apologies. He got away. The circumstances were–’

‘Were what?’

‘You’ve read my report, sir.’

‘It’s thin, chief,’ says Gaunt. ‘You had him cornered. He went over a wall. You had men on the other side, but he avoided them too.’

Mkoll looks at him. ‘The subject was highly skilled, sir.’

‘This the same… individual you encountered at the cache this morning?’ Gaunt asks.

‘I can’t say,’ says Mkoll. ‘Similar display of ability and tactics. If it wasn’t him – or her – it was someone schooled in the same techniques. High-level stealth training.’

‘Militarum?’

‘High Militarum levels, certainly. I’d say an elite grade. But the Militarum isn’t the only source of skilled soldiery. There are a dozen worlds in this region alone that maintain robust standing armies, defence forces, independent–’

Gaunt nods. ‘So we have one or more Militarum or professional military-level specialists operational here, coordinating the insurgency? Stealth specialists. Disruption specialists. Voltemand never had a standing army of that calibre, so we’re talking off-world. Imported talent.’

‘Unless the Archonate has suddenly developed professional military disciplines, as we would understand them, that would be my opinion.’

‘Or is suddenly revealing it has that capacity?’

Mkoll purses his lips. He doesn’t want to commit. ‘That seems unlikely, sir,’ he says. ‘Surely we’d have met them before. The crusade would have encountered hostiles of that standard before. At Long Halent or Balhaut.’

‘Well, Balhaut was a turning point for both sides, Mkoll. A regime change for our side, a change of command, a change in the way we do business. Their Archon died at Balhaut. Maybe the Archenemy has undergone a similar shakedown. New blood, new leaders, new tactics, new philosophies of warfare, new operational approaches.’

‘But they’d be getting those approaches from somewhere, sir,’ he says. ‘You don’t just wake up and think of them. You learn them. Years of experience. Generations of–’

‘You Tanith had those skills when I came to you.’

‘I’m not sure what point you’re making, sir.’

‘Neither am I,’ Gaunt admits. ‘Except to say that if I accept your opinion, and I think I should, you’re talking about off-world specialists, and a high likelihood that those specialists are turncoats. Traitors. Ex-Imperial, ex-Militarum, or ex-Imperial allied.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Mkoll?’

‘Yes, sir?’

Gaunt’s voice drops even lower. He doesn’t want the others to hear.

‘Is it possible you were wrong?’ he asks. ‘You, and the rest of Two-two? You went the wrong way, took a wrong turn. There was a lot going on. Did you just miss this hostile? Did he just evade by luck? You were looking in the wrong place, and he’d already gone, thanking his lucky stars?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Look, I’m not going to rebuke you,’ says Gaunt. ‘That happens.’

‘It didn’t happen here,’ says Mkoll. ‘There was someone there. He got a shot off at Mkvenner. Then he vanished.’

‘Over a high wall?’

‘One we couldn’t get over. I can’t explain it.’

‘And didn’t appear on the other side of it?’

‘Again, I–’

‘That’s not just a good soldier, is it?’ Gaunt asks. ‘That’s uncanny. Post-human. Do you think we’re dealing with something that possesses post-human abilities? Xenos? Augmetics?’

‘I couldn’t comment.’

‘All right,’ says Gaunt. ‘I want you to mobilise the scout units and continue a close and prejudicial search. Report anything to me. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. The idea there’s something like this in Vincula… The idea that there’s more than one thing like this…’

‘And when I say report anything to me, I mean anything.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Carry on.’

Mkoll salutes and exits. He doesn’t often salute. It troubles Gaunt that Mkoll felt the need to. A sign of formal respect. A measure of the fact he feels like he’s fethed up. Or an indication of how concerned he is by the situation.

‘Now you,’ says Gaunt, gesturing to the others. Bragg and Milo step forward, Bray waiting behind them.

‘It’s not Brinny’s… Brin’s… Milo’s fault, sir,’ says Bragg, so fixed at attention it’s comical. He’s staring at the far wall.

‘The boy’s not sanctioned for any official duty, Trooper Bragg. He hasn’t got any clearance.’

‘No, sir. I lost–’

‘Just answer the questions, Bragg,’ snaps Bray.

‘You lost what, Bragg?’ asked Gaunt.

‘My navigator. I lost my navigator, sir,’ says Bragg. ‘You borrowed him, sir, Gutes, sir. I just needed a map reader. And Brinny… Milo, he’s got nothing better to do, sir. He never has. So I asked him to cover. I’m the one who deserves punishment duties, sir, not him. He’s just never got anything to do, which I think is a crying shame. He ought to have some duties, I think, so I didn’t suppose it would do any harm–’

‘Bragg!’ Bray barks.

‘It’s my fault, sir,’ says Bragg, in a voice too small for his big frame.

Gaunt looks at Milo.

‘You saw the bomber?’

Milo nods.

‘Speak up,’ warns Bray.

‘Yes, I did,’ says Milo. ‘A local. A farmer. He had a sack, and he put it down. At the checkpoint. No one noticed–’

‘But you noticed,’ says Gaunt. ‘You warned Bragg. He reversed just prior to the blast. How did you notice?’

‘I was just staring out of the window–’

‘Just that?’

‘I had a feeling,’ says Milo.

Gaunt frowns. ‘A feeling?’

‘A hunch. It just felt wrong.’

Gaunt rubs his chin. ‘Definitely a local?’ he asks.

Milo nods. ‘An old man. No one would give him a passing look.’

‘No one did,’ says Gaunt. ‘Except you. I think it’s a pretty poor reflection of Militarum performance when a non-com spots something that everyone else in the area, trained military responsible for spotting things, misses, don’t you? The Litus security, Trooper Bragg here? It was their duty to spot threats.’

‘I think it’s because it wasn’t my duty,’ says Milo. ‘I didn’t have a duty. I had time to look, to watch. I didn’t have duties. I…’ He trails off, shrugs.

‘It seems you both made an effort to suppress the attack,’ says Gaunt. ‘Improvised resistance. I hear you both made kills. A fair number.’

‘Sir,’ says Bragg. ‘Milo was on it first. Did a bang-up job. Deserves a medal, in my opinion–’

‘No one asked for it, trooper,’ says Bray.

‘All right,’ says Gaunt. ‘You broke regs. That’s clear. But you somewhat redeemed yourselves by acting fast to reduce the effect of a bad situation. It could have been a feth of a lot worse if you hadn’t cut their numbers at the very start. Bragg, you’re not on a formal charge. Return to duties. Don’t feth up again.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

‘One punishment for you, trooper,’ says Gaunt. ‘Bring me a bottle of your best sacra. That’s your fine.’

‘Sir?’ Bragg murmurs.

‘It’s for a raffle, Bragg.’

Bragg nods. ‘Permission to speak, sir,’ he says.

‘No. Get out,’ says Gaunt. ‘You too, sergeant. Go find out if ordnance has been able to identify the type of device used at Kalodin.’

‘Yes, sir,’ says Bray, and he ushers Bragg out of the room.

Gaunt looks at Milo.

‘People keep telling me I should find something for you to do,’ he says.

Milo nods.

‘But you do quite a lot, of your own volition. You find things to do.’

‘I get bored,’ says Milo. ‘In the early days, at the start of… of things. After Tanith went. You suggested I could work as your aide. Your bag-man. But that never really came to anything.’

‘An aide or an adjutant is a military position,’ says Gaunt. ‘The regulations are clear. You’re a civilian. So, my hands are tied.’

‘Meanwhile, I get bored,’ says the boy.

‘You found something today,’ says Gaunt. He wanders over to the table. ‘We’re keeping you along,’ he says, ‘because it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Where else would I go?’ asks Milo.

Gaunt shrugs. ‘A schola progenium? A foundling school? Do you want to stay with us?’

Milo nods.

‘Well, then it’s a waste for us to carry you, and waste for you to do nothing. Just hanging around like a… a–’

‘Mascot?’

‘Throne, yes. I’ve seen too many regiments look ridiculous because they parade out with some regimental wolfhound or eagle on a stand.’ He glances at Milo again. ‘And I owe you,’ he says. ‘Personally. Back on Tanith–’

‘I was just there,’ says Milo.

‘And now you’re here.’ He looks over at the boy. ‘Can you strip and clean a bolt pistol?’

‘Yes,’ says Milo.

‘Clean this one,’ says Gaunt.

Milo looks at the weapon on the table.

‘Yes, sir,’ he says. ‘Can I use the cleaning kit in the cupboard?’

‘How did you know it was there?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Isn’t that where you put it?’

‘No,’ says Gaunt.

‘It’s in that cupboard over there,’ says Milo, pointing. ‘The one below the switch for the lighting controls. I don’t know why you have it so bright in here.’

The lights are too dark.

Just portable glow-packs and a few candles. Power in the building is intermittent. The room is nocturnal and, without active air-circ, it’s sweltering too.

‘These your quarters?’ asks Rawne. Eiwolt nods. A large room, with adjoining bedroom and washroom. Rawne could billet six men in here. But it’s also spartan, and everything’s worn and dirty.

‘I haven’t even had time to unpack,’ she says. Through the bedroom door, he can see her carry-bags still sitting at the foot of the made but grubby bed. ‘I was called down to the meeting with you and your commander…’

She trails off. The three of them, standing in that airless kitchen, trying to discuss strategic theory. It was only this morning, but it feels far longer ago.

Rawne puts down the carton on the small desk in the main room and looks around. He checks the crude, empty closets, the washroom, and under the bed.

‘Cautious?’ she asks, watching him.

‘After the day we’ve had?’ he replies. He walks to the window. He’s got an uneven gait, the pull of the wound in his lower back.

The Litus security teams picked them up, and brought them back to Memnon House. The ride took them past the burning ruins of the Magistratum Annex, and down streets where the dead had been lined up on the ground. According to the Litus, there’s been another attack in the centre of the city. Vincula is on high alert.

Memnon House and its surrounding compound have been put on lockdown. The complex is high on the list of potential targets. Gates and ramps have been shut, sentry systems engaged. The building’s power plant is working for about half an hour in every three, but the water supply is reconnected. Brackish liquid that looks like caff dregs sputters out of the taps.

Rawne uses the manual crank to raise the blast shutter on the window of the main room. Cogs screech. The window glass is fogged with dirt, and it takes him a moment to release the locks. Finally, a breeze starts to stream in, offering some relief from the contained heat.

The air, evening-warm, smells of smoke and burned dust. Outside, it’s getting dark. Sirens are shrieking occasionally, and every now and then there’s a shout from the yard below. Rawne leans out. The sky’s purple, like a bruise. No stars. He can see Litus personnel and transports in the yard ten floors below. Floodlights running from portable generators are lighting the compound security wall and wire fences in pools of cold, neon-white glare. He hears the bang and dying throb as someone tries to restart the building’s main plant again.

‘Are we safe here?’ she asks.

‘Safer,’ he replies. He looks at her. He can smell both of them, the sweat, the dirt, the body heat. ‘There are over three hundred Litus B.R.U. holding Memnon,’ he adds. ‘They’re heavy troops. And the building is modular and reinforced. It’s a safe location. That’s why it’s one of the key Administratum sites. It’ll hold.’

She looks at him, and nods.

‘All too real,’ she says. ‘Too practical.’

She unloads the carton. When they were brought in, Munitorum staffers were handing out supplies for the residents. Bottled water, ration packs, more candles. Enough to keep everyone provided with basics until building services were working again. Rawne’s also snaffled a bottle of the local hooch from a Litus driver.

‘What’s this for?’ she asks.

‘Can I use your washroom before I go?’ he asks.

‘You’re going?’

‘Just downstairs for a while,’ he replies. ‘I’ll be close enough. Keeping an eye. But I have to check in with command, and make a report.’

‘The Litus commander said the vox was being jammed,’ she says.

‘I have to try, anyway. Keep trying.’

She nods, and gestures to the washroom. He takes the bottle and a portable glow-globe with him. The washroom is very small and stuffy. There’s a stained shower stall, a sink, and a dirty mirror. He strips off his jacket and his vest. The undershirt’s got holes in it, and the back is stiff with dried blood. He tries to peer at himself in the mirror. The light is poor. There’s a gash at the back of his head above the hairline, just a crust of blood, and he can see a splinter of shrapnel in the puckered wound on his shoulder blade. He turns on the sink tap and lets the water flow until it starts to run clear, then tries to clean up the dried blood with one of the washroom’s threadbare towels, peering over his shoulder. The shoulder wound is sore to the touch. With some effort, he pulls the splinter out. A piece of black grenade casing the size of a woodtack. The wound starts to bleed. He staunches it with the wet towel and stands there for a moment, breathing slowly. Not too bad. Superficial.

The wound in the small of his back is harder to deal with. He can’t really see it, not even craning in the mirror. He can’t turn enough. His back is aching stiff from the detonation bruising, but he doubts he could contort that far even at his best. He gropes blind and finds the epicentre of the pain, which flares furiously as his fingertips touch it. Another fragment of shrapnel, a piece the size of a toenail, but it feels bigger by touch alone. He tries to get a grip on it. His fingers are slippery with fresh blood.

‘Can I help?’ she asks. She’s standing in the doorway of the washroom, watching him.

‘No,’ he says.

‘You can’t reach it.’

‘I’ll do it,’ he says.

She shrugs, but doesn’t leave. He grapples with the splinter.

‘You have other ink,’ she says.

‘Yeah,’ he grunts.

‘Do you know the meanings?’ she asks.

‘Like what?’

‘The one on your ribs. The concentric circles around a cross.’

‘That’s Tanith Attica,’ he replies, then bites his lip. He’s just slit his fingertip on the sharp edge of the fragment.

‘Your home city?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It was a walled city, so that’s the rings, but it was a port town too, so that’s the cross. A trade crossroads.’

‘And the one on your shoulder? The circle?’

‘That’s the Robby Ross,’ he says.

‘The what?’

‘The Robby Ross,’ he says. He’s got a grip on the fragment now. He pulls.

‘Is that a figure from folklore? From myth?’

He drags the fragment out. He feels hot blood trickle down into his waistband, and down the crack of his arse.

‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘Maybe it was someone’s name. A woodsman. It’s the symbol of the Tanith warrior. A snake. Biting its tail.’

‘Ah,’ she says, as though understanding something. ‘The mark of a warrior?’

‘That’s what they say,’ he says, leaning on the sink with both hands for a moment. ‘An old symbol. Most of us had one done at the Founding. A kind of bonding.’

A kind of boasting. They’d all done it, out on the fields of Tanith Magna. A crude Robby Ross to prove they were warriors. None of them deserved it, not back then. It was just a mark, like all the others, its meaning half forgotten or misunderstood, like all the others. Soldiers acting tough and showing off.

‘Why a snake?’ she asks.

Rawne takes a deep breath. His back is throbbing, and he’s hardly in the mood, though her questions are taking his mind off the pain.

‘Silent, hunter,’ he says. ‘Moves without a sound or a trace. Kills with a fast strike. Gets in places no one can go. I think it’s in a circle as a sign of protection, like the circle walls on the city one. A circle, guarding from all sides, protecting what’s within. Why?’

She shrugs, indifferent. ‘Symbolically, the snake usually means other things,’ she says. ‘In most cultural references. Medicine and healing sometimes, sometimes fertility. Usually knowledge, especially sacred or divine knowledge, the sort of higher knowledge transmitted from gods to mortals. As a coiled circle or spiral, it’s usually a symbol of the cycle of life, or renewal, or… Well, anyway, it’s unusual for it to be the symbol of warrior-hood. Of course, it recurs in your regimental patch.’

‘Does it?’

‘The circle with the dot.’

‘I suppose. Don’t ask me,’ he says, straightening up. ‘I got it done with a half-crown, and for a laugh. It was sore as feth, too. Sorer than the others. Poked with a pin, so the pin was probably dirty. And it’s faded, look. Not quality ink like the other pieces on me.’

‘You need to dress those wounds,’ she says.

‘Ideally,’ he agrees. He’d asked for field dressings, but the Litus had told him reserves were low, and what little was stocked at Memnon House had been taken out into the field by the medics.

He picks up the bottle of bahu, uncorks it, takes a long draw, then wipes his mouth and wads the towel up. He sluices it liberally, and then applies the soaked ball of cloth to his shoulder. The wound stings like a bastard. Grain alcohol. Not exactly counterseptic, but it’ll do.

He lets it sit for a minute, until the stinging subsides, then re-wads the towel, douses it again, and then applies it to the small of his back. That hurts much more.

‘You can’t really reach,’ she says. ‘Let me–’

‘It’s fine,’ Rawne says.

The stinging eases to a raw throb. He tosses the sodden, dirty towel into the sink, and looks at her.

‘You weren’t hit, were you?’ he asks.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t think so.’

He shoos her backwards into the better light of the main room, and makes her turn on the spot. There’s blood on her clothes, but he’s sure that none of it’s hers, except for some that’s oozed from light grazes.

‘I don’t feel any pain,’ she says, awkward that his gaze is on her. ‘I mean, tired and bruised, but–’

‘You may not feel it,’ he says. ‘You’ve been running on adrenaline since it started. You might not even feel shrapnel yet. Let me check.’

‘I hope you don’t think I’m going to strip off so you can inspect me for wounds,’ she says.

‘No,’ he says. ‘You’re all right, I think.’ His undershirt is ruined. He pulls his jacket on over bare skin, his back making him wince.

‘I’m going down to see if the vox is working,’ he says. ‘I’ll come back. Will you be all right?’

She nods.

At the door, as an afterthought, he says, ‘Getting you to strip off to check for wounds would be a cheap trick. A dog’s pretext. I’m sorry you think that of me.’

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Besides,’ he says, ‘there are simpler and more honest reasons to strip off.’

‘I agree,’ she says.

Afterwards, it’s not entirely clear who kissed who first.

The lights are too sickly.

The anteroom is bathed in a sickly violet glow, and it’s the first thing Dorden notices when the Slokan guards usher him in. The guards tell him to stay put and close the hatch behind them as they leave. The violet light makes him feel nauseous almost instantly.

The old medic has no idea what’s going on. Domor suddenly turned up and said the colonel had sent him to fetch Dorden up to Royal Bokore House. Domor didn’t know any more than that, and he wasn’t allowed into the main command levels with Dorden.

An inner hatch purrs open, and Corbec appears. He looks solemn and bothered.

‘Doc,’ he says, and beckons.

‘What’s this about, Colm?’ Dorden asks.

‘I needed an expert,’ says Corbec.

‘On what?’

‘Tanith,’ Corbec says.

He leads Dorden through the hatch. The chamber beyond is larger, a briefing chamber with a long table and Militarum-issue metal chairs, but it too is drenched in the obnoxious violet glare.

‘This is Colonel Marsus,’ Corbec says.

Marsus rises from her seat and nods to Dorden.

‘Doc Dorden,’ says Corbec. ‘My regiment’s chief medicae. I appreciate you pausing things while I had him fetched.’

‘You will have questions, I’m sure,’ says Marsus.

‘First of all, what’s wrong with the lights in here?’ Dorden asks.

Marsus glances at the two identical men seated with her at the table. One gets up and brings Dorden a glass of water and a small pill.

‘Discretion fields,’ says Marsus. ‘Counter-surveillance measures. Harmonic resonances and doppler-shifted light. They can have an unpleasant effect on a person’s equilibrium. Take the pill. It should ease the nausea.’

Dorden takes the pill.

‘Counter-surveillance?’ he asks.

‘We use this suite for high-level briefing, and for interrogation,’ says Marsus.

‘Which is this?’ asks Dorden.

Marsus takes her seat and looks at him. There is an odd serenity to her, a compelling calm. To Dorden, she seems like an Imperial saint, wise and noble and sublime, who has somehow far outlived the hour of her martyrdom.

‘This is level Obsidian (Esculis) confidence-coded,’ she says. ‘Please sit.’

He sits, and Corbec sits beside him.

‘You were a medical practitioner, on Tanith?’ she asks.

‘My whole career, until the Founding,’ he replies.

‘Colonel Corbec suggests that may give you an insight he lacks,’ she says.

‘Into what?’ Dorden asks.

‘Tanith culture, Doc,’ says Corbec. ‘Tattoos, symbols, whatnot. I mean, I know a few things, but I figure you might know more.’

‘I know tradition and folklore,’ says Dorden. ‘I was an area medic in a small county. But the traditions were dying out, even when I was young.’

‘Talk about the symbols, if you would,’ she says. ‘The concentric circles, or circle motif?’

‘Usually a city sign,’ says Dorden. ‘Representing community, and the defensive walls. As ink, it’s usually marked on the chest, over the heart, or on the ribs. Each city has its own variations. And the placement varies a lot. There’s no hard and fast rules, and people I knew just had them done because they liked the designs.’

‘The upright bar?’

‘Usually a tree, the nalwood, representing Tanith and strength. Marked over the eye, or on the hand, or on the back. The spine.’

‘Just that?’ asks Marsus.

‘It’s sometimes done as an actual, figurative tree, or an upright bar with a knot at the top. As a cross, it represents trade or a meeting place. If the top is rounded at the tip, then it’s more probably a standing stone, the symbol of permanence and support, and also another indicator of birthplace or region.’

‘That’s what I told you,’ says Corbec.

‘You did,’ says Marsus. ‘Corroboration is good.’

‘I could be more useful if you told me what we were talking about,’ says Dorden.

She slides a green dossier across the table to him. He looks at the picts inside.

‘Comments on anatomical placement?’ she asks.

‘Legs and waist, those are usually ancestral markers,’ says Dorden. ‘They indicate the old clans and regional groups. I was told they are usually on the legs because they are the things that carried us here.’

He clears his throat, and looks at another pict.

‘Arms, forearms particularly, and faces… that’s bloodline. Those are baptismal inks. Baptism and official names are given… were given… to children around the age of eight. Sometimes older, never younger. Naming children at birth was considered premature. The Tanith believed people grew into the names they needed. Grew into what they would be.’

‘Upper arms and shoulders?’

‘Trades and professions,’ says Dorden. ‘The left hand or left shoulder was usually used for marks of betrothal, or of love mementos. Right shoulder sometimes for offspring.’

‘Trades?’ she asks.

‘The knot for the woodsman, the spiral for the tracker or pathfinder, the axehead for the timber-cutter, the furrows for the farmer, the sail or mesh motif for the fisherman. The pointed bar, very narrow, often with a spiral, is the sign of a hunter. It symbolises the long knife, or the hunting staff.’

‘The circle?’

‘That’s the warrior,’ says Dorden. ‘Usually caps the left shoulder. It’s one of the oldest, and many people, especially young men, had them done for show. A posturing thing, even if they weren’t actually warriors. Boys like to boast.’

‘I’m sure,’ says Marsus.

‘It’s not a circle, though,’ says Dorden, ‘though it’s sometimes represented simply as that. It’s meant to denote a snake, the warrior-symbol. People called it the Robby Ross.’

‘A snake biting its own tail?’ Marsus notes.

‘Yes.’

‘An ouroboros?’

Dorden nods. ‘That’s clearly the origin of the phrase. Bastardised as folklore. I doubt many Tanith could tell you where “Robby Ross” comes from.’

Marsus sits back.

‘So, regarding the pictures?’ she asks.

‘What do you want to know?’ Dorden asks.

‘Colonel Corbec said he recognised the marks,’ says Marsus.

‘Now, now,’ says Corbec with a warning smile. ‘I said I’d seen tattoos like them. That’s all. They are very Tanith in their designs. The inking style, the colours, mostly black and blue and green. And the application style, pricked in. But I don’t know the actual designs. None of them.’ He looks at Dorden. ‘I mean, they look quite Tanith, right, Doc? I mean, they could be.’

‘They could,’ says Dorden. ‘This is why you asked me here?’

‘You’ve seen a fair sight more tattoos than me, I’m guessing,’ says Corbec.

‘Probably,’ says Dorden.

‘And you know more about the lore,’ says Corbec.

‘Possibly. There’s not much lore left.’

Dorden looks at Marsus.

‘Colm’s right,’ he says. ‘These seem very Tanith. But I don’t know the designs either. Not these specific ones. There are spirals and bars, but the arrangement is different. The placement. They’re not city marks, not that I know. They’re not clan marks, or trade, or figures of baptism or family. This spiral here, it goes the wrong way. The coil goes in the wrong direction.’

‘So they’re not Tanith?’ asks Marsus.

‘I didn’t say that. Like Colonel Corbec, I find them very familiar, but not specifically so. Except this one.’

He taps one of the picts.

‘The circle?’ Marsus asks.

‘It’s very like a Robby Ross, and it’s on the cap of the left shoulder from the look of the pict.’

‘A warrior mark, then?’

‘Except it’s open,’ says Dorden. ‘It’s got some fine detail… it’s hard to see. But it’s an actual snake, and it’s not biting its own tail. It’s released its tail, and its jaws are open and turned outwards. The circle is no longer completed.’

‘So not your ouroboros mark,’ says Marsus, ‘but you know it?’

‘Where did these come from?’ asks Dorden.

‘Answer my question, please.’

‘Are these picts of a Tanith corpse?’ Dorden presses.

‘Doctor, I would appreciate your answer.’

Dorden sighs. The pill hasn’t helped much. The light is still making him feel bilious.

‘The Robby Ross is the warrior mark,’ he says. ‘A closed circle, biting its own tail. A symbol of defence, like the wall circle motif. It is protecting all within. This open version is very old. I’ve never seen it, not on skin. I’ve seen it in books, and heard it spoken of. The jaws are open. It is no longer protecting. It has released its tail so it can strike outwards, so it can attack. It is a mark of an attacking warrior, not a defending one. It is the mark of the Nalsheen.’

15.

His men are taking very heavy fire from the Oligarchy Gate, and from the emplacements on the south side, and from the treeline. It’s so heavy, everyone has to lie down, flat on the ground, because if you even crouch or kneel, you’ll be hit. Gaunt lies on his back, talking to his officers, and they all lie on their backs too, as the las-fire scores the air above them. The Archon’s men have them caught on two sides, but Gaunt thinks he can see a way through. He starts to describe his idea to his men, but he’s worried about the trees burning, and his men say there are no trees, but they’re wrong, because he can see the trees. The trees are huge, taller than Titan engines, and they’re swaying as the inferno howls through them, immolating branches and leaves, and filling the black sky with whirling spirals of sparks. Someone starts knocking at the gate, and Gaunt wonders who would be knocking to get out, and he starts to get up to investigate, even though his men say he shouldn’t, but the knocking gets louder.

And it’s coming from the door of his quarters, and he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, where he fell asleep fully clothed, trying to remember where he is. Vincula, on Voltemand. Not Balhaut.

He rises, trying to clear the sticky fog of dreams from his head, but by the time he’s on his feet, someone has answered the door. He hears low voices, then the sound of the door closing again.

He walks out of the bedroom area. The boy turns to look at him, holding something.

‘What are you doing here?’ Gaunt asks.

‘You didn’t dismiss me, so I stayed,’ replies Milo. ‘There were some things to do.’

The quarters were tidy before. Now they seem tidy in a way that makes sense. His bolt pistol, stripped, cleaned and reassembled, is set out on the table.

‘Who was at the door?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Sergeant Baffels,’ says Milo. ‘He wanted to give you this. He says there are urgent items for your attention.’

Milo holds out a leather case. Gaunt takes it, unclasps it. A replacement command-cadre data-slate, a robust field-issue model, sent up from the Munitorum. He adjusts his signet ring, applies his authority code via a brief flash of laser, and starts it up. Magenta (Cryptox) level message frames appear immediately.

‘Damn,’ Gaunt murmurs to himself. Balgrada is on his way. He was originally expected at noon, but he’s brought the arrival up to just after dawn. ‘What’s the time?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Small hours,’ replies Milo. ‘Just after midnight. You weren’t asleep long.’

Gaunt notes a side transcript by Daybell, placing on record his strenuous advice that Balgrada delay his arrival. The recommendation has been overruled by Balgrada’s officio. A wasted effort, but Gaunt’s surprised to see Daybell’s attempt at intervention.

‘I need a meeting of section leaders in thirty minutes,’ Gaunt says, and then stops. He looks at the boy.

‘I need an adjutant,’ he says. ‘We are pulled woefully thin, and there’s not a man to spare, but you appear to have nothing to do, and a willingness to be given duties.’

‘Yes,’ says Milo.

‘So?’

‘I thought it was counter to regulations.’

‘I seem to be learning bad habits from the Tanith,’ says Gaunt. ‘I am starting to perceive rules and regulations as flexible. Besides, last time I checked, I was in charge.’

‘All right,’ says Milo.

‘Then I need an adjutant,’ says Gaunt. He sits at the table and starts tapping instructions into the slate. ‘Temporary assignment, we’ll see how it goes. But there’s a lot of work to do tonight.’

‘Because the governor’s coming?’ asks Milo.

‘How do you know that?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Doesn’t everybody know that?’ Milo replies. He shrugs. ‘Also, I’m in a lot of rooms where things get said. No one pays me particular heed.’

‘He’s coming just after sunrise,’ says Gaunt. ‘He’s revised his schedule. Probably a show of authority. Go down to the security office. I’ve just instructed them to issue you with a pass and a clearance code. That code will also allow you to operate this slate. Come back as soon as you’ve got it. Is there caffeine?’

‘In the pot,’ says Milo.

‘When you get back, I’ll need my number one dress prepared.’

‘It’s already done,’ says Milo, gesturing to the wardrobes.

Gaunt nods. ‘Quickly, then,’ he says.

The boy turns to go.

‘Milo?’ Gaunt says. ‘How did you know about the bomb at Kalodin? Or the shooter?’

‘I keep my eyes open,’ says Milo. ‘I pay attention.’

Gaunt gestures, and the boy leaves. He goes to the pot on the hotplate and pours himself a cup.

To no surprise at all, it’s fresh.

Rawne wakes up because he’s thirsty. Her quarters are dark, for all but one of the candles have burned out, but there’s mauve light spilling in through the open window in the main room. He gets up and limps out of the bedroom towards it, grabbing a bottle of water from the desk on the way. Eiwolt remains asleep.

He looks out of the window. It’s the stillest, quietest part of the night, the part he has always considered most dangerous. Nothing is stirring beyond the compound perimeter. The city seems suspended in darkness, like a patient in pain who’s been anaesthetised for their own good. The sky is smeared charcoal and purple, and is starless. In the yard, ten floors below, he can see Litus sentries patrolling the wire in the frosty glare of the lamps. The evening air is warm on his face, laced with the smell of ashes and dust.

He looks for his clothes in the gloom. He should go down, try the vox again. In the bedroom, Eiwolt says something in her sleep, and rolls over. He looks in on her for a minute, then gently pulls the dislodged sheet across her naked back. Turned out, there wasn’t a mark on her, besides some minor abrasions. He checked, twice.

He finds his boots. On the side table are the data-slates she was showing him before they fell into bed the second time. He picks one up, opens it with the code he watched her use, and flicks through the images. Tribal emblems, the clan marks of the Sanguinary Worlds, the symbols she called Magmeta and Bishrabi, and all sorts of other words. Some of them are uncomfortably familiar: versions of symbols he’s known his whole life, carved on wooden doors and over mantelpieces and on the low tie-beams of taverns in Tanith Attica.

‘Are you leaving?’ she asks.

He glances at her. She’s still lying down, but her eyes are open, watching him in the gloom.

‘Just going to check the vox,’ he says.

‘I was having a dream,’ she says.

‘Was I in it?’ he asks.

‘You were,’ she replies. He sees a flash of white in the darkness, her teeth as she smiles. ‘But it was about yesterday. The marauds–’

‘That’ll fade,’ he says, putting the slate down. ‘You have dreams after something like that. We all do. They call it the torments.’

‘Who does?’

‘People,’ says Rawne. ‘It’s trauma, whatever. You relive things a lot. But they fade. Trust me. They go away.’

She sits up.

‘I’m sure,’ she says, ‘but listen to me. The insurgents who were hunting us, we heard them talking. In the street and the alleys. When we were on the roof.’

‘And?’

‘They weren’t speaking Bishrabi.’

‘In your dream?’

Eiwolt shrugs. ‘Yes, but also yesterday. I didn’t really notice at the time, but now I’m sure. I remember it. It wasn’t Bishrabi, or the local Bishrabi-derived dialect spoken here. It was Gaurin, or Aezyri.’

‘Do you speak those languages?’ he asks.

‘No,’ she says. ‘Nor do I know much more than a smattering of Bishrabin words, but I know enough to know the difference. The local dialect is a sub-form of Gothikan-Bishrabi, and this was very different.’

‘I think you’ve dreamt this,’ he says softly.

‘No, Eli,’ she says. It’s the first time she’s used his name in a conversation. ‘That’s maybe how I remembered it, but my recall is good. It was Archonate Gaurin, or perhaps Archonate Aezyri.’

‘They were from off-world?’ he asks.

‘Or they were using it deliberately,’ she says. ‘As a private language.’

‘Like… battle-tongue? A combat cant?’

She nods. She gets out of bed and stands up.

‘I wish I was better at accents,’ she says. ‘Tell the difference between a native Vinculan speaking Gaurin and a native Gaurin speaker.’ She looks at him. ‘We need translators,’ she says.

‘You need to put some clothes on, or get back in bed,’ he says.

‘This is significant,’ she says. ‘We need translators–’

‘You know there aren’t any,’ he says. ‘Not many, anyway–’

‘I’ll put in a priority request–’

‘What would we translate?’

Eiwolt sits on the bed. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘if any are taken alive. In interrogation, we could–’

‘None have been taken alive,’ says Rawne. ‘They’re not likely to be taken alive.’

She glances at him.

‘It is important,’ she says. ‘Gaurite and Aezyr are hard line Archonate. Sanguinary Tribes. If their languages are being spoken here, it means outsiders. Infiltrators. If they’re being spoken by locals, then the interconnection of ethnic groups is more complex than we thought. Loyalties and affiliations will be harder to discern. There are known Bishrabin elements on the Archonate side, especially rimward in the Sabbat territories. But also large portions that are regarded as pro-Imperial, or vouched for as Imperial subjects.’

‘We may not even have vox yet,’ he says. ‘If we have, I’ll forward a formal request via Gaunt for translation teams from Voltis.’

He starts pulling on his clothes. He’s clumsy, his back still hurts.

‘I want to get you out of here too,’ he says. ‘Moved to a more secure location.’

‘You said this was secure,’ she replies, following him into the main room.

‘It is,’ he says. ‘More secure. City central. Once transportation is cleared active again, I’ll get that done. You need to talk to Gaunt.’

‘All right,’ she says. ‘But I like it here.’

‘You do?’ he says.

‘Pleasant memories,’ she says. ‘Besides, look’ – she gestures – ‘I finally have a window.’

Corbec leans forward and taps Dorden on the knee. The old medicae has fallen asleep on the couch. He wakes with a start.

‘What is it?’ he asks.

Corbec gestures. The Stoimenov twins have just stepped out of Hadrak’s chambers, and one is beckoning to them.

‘They’ve kept us waiting long enough,’ says Dorden as he and Corbec get to their feet. ‘Do you think they’re going to tell us anything?’

‘We’ll find out,’ says Corbec. They cross the landing together. Royal Bokore House is as quiet as a mausoleum. In the vast atrium below, only a few personnel are visible, and they are mainly janitorial servitors polishing the marble floors. But the lights are still on, even in the very depths of the night. The Astra Militarum does not sleep.

Hadrak’s at his desk in his immense office, with Marsus standing nearby. A chandelier hangs like a chained star. The Stoimenovs close the doors behind Corbec and Dorden.

‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long,’ says Hadrak. ‘Elka and I have been reviewing the material.’ He rises, and comes over to shake their hands. ‘Doctor, a pleasure to meet you,’ he says.

He crosses back to his desk, and takes a sip of caff. Late night. His collar is unbuttoned.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Let’s square this away. ‘You’re both, I’m sure, disconcerted by the line of questioning. I can assure you, it’s intelligence gathering. The Nalsheen–’

‘My lord,’ says Marsus. A soft note of admonishment.

‘Ah,’ says Hadrak, and motions to the twins. One turns to a wall panel and turns a dial. The chandelier changes colour. A sickly violet light falls across the office. It’s not as strong as it was in the interrogation suite, but it still makes Dorden queasy.

‘I dislike this,’ says Hadrak, frowning in disgust at the altered ambience. ‘Turns my stomach, so I try not to use it unless it’s necessary.’

‘Why is it necessary, sir?’ asks Corbec.

‘I’ve decided to have you read in, Colm,’ says Hadrak. ‘You and the good doctor, because he’s here and he’s been a resource in terms of formal identification. Understand, please, this is high clearance. Obsidian level.’

‘And against my recommendation,’ says Marsus.

‘I believe the Tanith regiment is a fine asset that shouldn’t be bound up here or compromised,’ says Hadrak to Corbec, ‘so I have taken an executive decision, as is my purview. You may share what I’m about to say with your superior officer. No one else. Are we clear?’

Corbec nods. Dorden’s not sure if he should or not. He’s medicae, not command echelon. This is pretty much the closest he’s been to a senior officer.

‘The picts Elka showed you,’ says Hadrak. ‘Post mortem shots of an enemy hostile.’

‘Here?’ asks Corbec.

Hadrak shakes his head. ‘Blackshard. My last regional command. We had trouble in the zone there.’

‘Plenty,’ says Corbec. ‘I remember it well.’

Hadrak smiles. ‘I’m sure, Colm. But I’m not talking about field combat. I’m talking about trouble that started before your regiment arrived, and persisted after you were gone.’

‘When we shipped out of Blackshard,’ says Corbec, ‘it was an Imperial holding again. There shouldn’t have been any trouble left to have.’

‘Like here?’ asks Hadrak wryly.

‘Insurgency,’ says Dorden.

‘Quite so, doctor. Insurgency. The formal occupation of Blackshard has been troubled by insurgent activity. Marauds. Just like here on Voltemand. And not just on these two worlds. At least four others taken by the crusade in the last three years.’

‘I think specifics are outside the remit here, sir,’ says Marsus.

Hadrak muses, nods. ‘The issue is,’ he says, ‘we’re seeing significant maraud activity. Resistance to occupation efforts. We’ve generally identified this as Archenemy forces run to ground. The last holdouts, survivors of the compliance actions, doing their best to subvert before they’re brought to book. Low impact, the picking off of minor targets. Same old story, really. The inevitable aftermath of liberation efforts. But our friends in Intelligence are concerned that it may be more than that.’

He looks at Marsus. She realises he is expecting her to speak, and she does so with reluctance.

‘Conquered worlds are our supply lines, feeding the main crusade front. Without them, we can’t advance. In two instances, Blackshard being the most well documented, we believe that the maraud activity is systematic and organised. Not just the impulsive efforts of those hostiles left behind. Subversion programmes directed by insurgent leaders, perhaps specifically brought in from off-world. Perhaps using maraud elements deliberately held in reserve.’

‘Not just survivors?’ Corbec says.

‘Sleeper cells,’ she says. ‘Their aim is disruption to facilities that are now, in effect, behind our lines.’

‘To break the chain of supply?’ Corbec says. ‘To stall the crusade?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘The marauds on Blackshard could never take that world back from us. They don’t have the numbers or, we believe, the popular support. But they could significantly impair Blackshard’s ability to service the front-line advance.’

‘This dead hostile,’ says Corbec. He motions to Marsus. The green dossier has been under her arm since they walked in. ‘The picts…’

‘Killed on Blackshard,’ says Hadrak. ‘We’re identifying a two-tier structure to the maraud cells. Local insurgency manpower, and off-world mobilisers. These latter are highly trained and highly motivated. They are few in number, perhaps one for every one or two hundred insurgents. They are the facilitators, and the strategists. They excel at stealth work.’

‘And they have tattoos,’ says Corbec.

‘They do,’ says Hadrak. He takes the dossier from Marsus, opens it, and looks gravely at the images inside. ‘This is the only one we’ve managed to take down. The only body recovered, certainly. Despite superficial similarities, such as clothing, his corpse was very different from those of other marauds slain on Blackshard. His complexion and ethnic derivation. His body art…’

‘You think he’s Tanith?’ asks Dorden.

‘There’s a case to be made,’ says Marsus.

‘We left no one on Blackshard,’ Corbec begins.

‘No one’s saying you did, Colm,’ says Hadrak. ‘We’re not talking about Tanith the regiment, we’re talking about Tanith the world. A world proud of its skilled hunters–’

‘A world that doesn’t exist any more,’ says Corbec.

‘I did not identify that body as Tanith,’ says Dorden quietly. ‘Quite the opposite. There’s a similarity of ink technique, but hand-poked work is not unique to Tanith. The designs are reminiscent of Tanith motifs, but are not any I’ve ever seen.’

‘Except for one,’ says Marsus. ‘The open snake you identified as the mark of Nalsheen.’

Dorden glances at Corbec. He’s quite upset. Corbec shoots him a broad smile and squeezes his arm. Then he looks straight at Marsus.

‘You see,’ says Corbec gently, ‘that’s all well and good, but that mark? One mark? I’ve seen ink on plenty of enemy feth-wipes, and on plenty of lasmen too. You bring me more dossiers, I’ll have a leaf through. I bet you I’ll find numerous marks in common in ten minutes of looking. One thing does not mean another thing.’

‘We’ve done our homework, colonel,’ says Marsus. ‘The variations and similarities are, as you suggest, commonplace. But that particular mark, on a maraud facilitator, a stealth specialist? Confirmed by a Tanith-born man to be the very mark of Tanith-born stealth specialists?’

‘I don’t like your inference,’ says Dorden. ‘You’re insulting my world and my people. I feel you’ve manoeuvred me into saying something I didn’t mean. That mark could be anything.’

‘I’m with the doc on this,’ says Corbec. ‘The suggestion’s fething stupid and pretty offensive.’

‘Where is this cadaver?’ asks Dorden. ‘Did you autopsy it? Did you run any bio-testing?’

‘No,’ says Marsus.

‘The hostile was killed in an outlying region of Blackshard,’ says Hadrak. ‘The body was incinerated. Picts are all we have.’

Dorden shrugs broadly, to suggest the whole thing is moot.

‘We don’t mean to cause offence, doctor,’ says Hadrak.

‘Well, you’re managing to,’ says Corbec.

‘The Nalsheen, the old warrior-caste of Tanith–’ Marsus begins.

‘Well, that’s the real thing, isn’t it?’ Corbec says. ‘There are no Nalsheen.’

‘It’s a dead mark,’ says Dorden. ‘Long dead.’

‘The Nalsheen are ancient history,’ says Corbec. ‘There haven’t been any of them around for a long time. Hundreds of years. There are no Nalsheen. Not that Nalsheen would do this kind of shit, but there are none.’

Hadrak closes the dossier. ‘But if there were, Colm,’ he says, ‘isn’t this exactly how they would be used?’

Corbec glares at him.

Hadrak smiles.

‘Look, Elka, I’m satisfied,’ Hadrak says. ‘These gentlemen have been extremely forthcoming. They’ve entertained your line of questioning with great patience. I believe the Tanith regiment is beyond reproach, so I’m going to go ahead and push the release orders.’

He glances at Corbec. ‘I’m afraid, Colm, we were holding you here long enough for Marsus to arrive on-world and pursue her enquiries.’ With a sad smile, he adds, ‘I’m afraid there aren’t many Tanith left for her to ask these questions of.’

‘Sir,’ says Corbec, ‘I’ll tell you two things. For free. I’m sold on your appraisal of the maraud activity. Two-tier structure, locals run by specialists. Makes sense. Stuff we’ve been seeing in Vincula Province… that’s some orchestrated fethery. So there’s a line here that Colonel Marsus needs to pursue. The enemy wants to disrupt us, even on worlds lost to them. They want the crusade to flounder. If I was your enemy, sir, and I had the Tanith boys at my disposal, that’s exactly what I’d do. I wouldn’t have the numbers, but I could make your lives hell.’

He pauses. He sniffs.

‘Of course, I’m not. I am a sworn son of the Living Throne, and so is every feth in the Tanith regiment, loyal and true. We gave our world up for this war, and we won’t be dishonoured by this kind of talk, nor have the memory of our people shamed. But I understand why the questions must be asked, and you’ve done it here, to my face, and in private. In a discretion field, no less. So the implied insult will not be broadly known. The second thing is… I know what this is.’

‘You do?’ Hadrak asks.

‘The enemy steals our weapons, sometimes our kit, and operates in disguise,’ says Corbec. ‘The insurgency actions you’ve described, well that’s the work of some smart bastards. Not just killers. Thinkers. Plotters. That’s cunning. Chew us apart from the inside, disrupt safe worlds. That’s what this is. And if they’ll steal a gun to use it against us, then they’ll steal a mark too. Steal a mark from a proud world’s warrior tradition and use it for their own ends. Adopt it, maybe? Or just use it, so that you don’t trust me, and I’m offended by you, and conversations like this take place. Insurgency isn’t just about blowing up roads and food dumps, it’s about blowing up trust and ideas.’

There’s a moment’s silence.

‘Well said, Colm,’ Hadrak says. ‘It’s in fact a suggestion my aides and I made to Mil-Int early on. The Archenemy using symbols and disinformation as much as it’s using conventional weapons. Colonel Corbec, feel free to return to your unit. I’ll have an order packet ready for you in half an hour. You should know that since you’ve been here, there have been attacks in Vincula City.’

‘Details?’ Corbec asks.

‘Patchy,’ says Marsus. ‘Signals are being disrupted. We suspect jamming.’

Corbec frowns, and scratches behind his ear.

‘I need to brief Gaunt,’ he says.

‘Well, that will have to be done in person,’ says Marsus.

Hadrak sees the look on Corbec’s face. He raises a calming hand.

‘I’m afraid I agree, Colm,’ he says. ‘With regard to the content of the conversation we’ve just had, I was perfectly plain from the start. It is high confidence. Obsidian, Colm. It will not be transmitted by vox or data-squirt.’

‘A secure channel–’ Corbec begins.

‘The jamming problem is an issue,’ says Marsus simply. ‘Until it’s resolved, we are obliged to operate on the basis that nothing is secure.’

‘The issue is highly sensitive,’ says Hadrak. ‘A quiet word with him when you see him, but nothing else. No transmissions. We can’t risk showing our hand. As a senior regimental officer, Colm, you have a responsibility to maintain strict security. You’re well aware of that, I know. I knew from the moment we met that you were the sort of officer I could count on.’

Hadrak crosses to them, and shakes them each by the hand.

‘Thank you for your time, Colm. Doctor,’ he says. ‘Please pass my respects to Colonel-Commissar Gaunt when you see him.’

‘Yes, sir,’ says Corbec. He leads Dorden out.

The twins close the doors. One of them reaches for the dial on the wall.

‘Leave it on,’ says Marsus, as she turns to Hadrak.

Dorden follows Corbec across the vast atrium. The place is still echoey and empty. A buffer hums in the distance: a servitor polishing the plaques on a row of statues.

‘Find Domor,’ says Corbec. ‘Go back to the billet, get the others awake and haul them back here with the transport to pick me up. We’re heading back to Vincula now.’

Dorden nods. ‘You’ve got to wait for the order packet?’

‘Yes,’ says Corbec. ‘Thought I might find the vox-station while I waited.’

‘The general was very clear,’ says Dorden. ‘I mean, very clear indeed. You can’t–’

‘I know what I can’t do, Doc,’ says Corbec. He looks around at Dorden, smiles reassuringly, and pats the old medic on the shoulder. ‘Hadrak was clear as plex. It’ll just be a routine contact. I’m not going to do anything daft.’

16.

They walk from the manse to the Occupation Council Building at first light. Through the mesh fence, past the guard towers and compound wall, the lower rim of the sky is bleaching white. It’s going to be another hot day. Gaunt can already feel the burden of heat in the air.

‘The governor has touched down at Vincula Field,’ Daybell is saying, consulting a data-slate as they walk. ‘He’s moving here under escort, armoured convoy. Expected here in an hour.’

Gaunt nods. The rockcrete gravel crunches under his polished boots.

‘Installation ceremony here at noon,’ says Daybell. ‘Attendance mandatory for all Administratum staff.’

‘He knows what he’s walking into?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Yes, sir.’

Gaunt looks at the tower of the council building ahead. ‘He might as well be painting that with a giant target tagger,’ he says.

‘I have strongly advised him of the security issues,’ says Daybell.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Will you overrule?’ asks Daybell.

‘I don’t see how I can,’ replies Gaunt. ‘He’s clearly intent on wielding the full force of his mandated authority.’

He stops walking and looks at the intelligencer. Daybell’s glasses are white discs reflecting the dawn glare. He can’t see the man’s eyes.

‘The insurgency has been piecemeal since the start of occupation,’ says Gaunt. ‘Low-level targets, public targets, picking off anything they can get at.’

‘Opportunistic,’ Daybell agrees.

‘Any kill is a good kill for them,’ says Gaunt. ‘Any mindless outrage. Breaks morale, saps confidence–’

‘Spreads fear,’ says Daybell.

‘But Balgrada is a big trophy,’ says Gaunt. ‘I think they’ve been waiting for him. I think they’ve been running attrition hits until they have something worth focusing on. I think they’re going to up their game. Would that be your assessment?’

‘It would, sir,’ says Daybell.

‘Good, because we haven’t been in step before,’ Gaunt says. ‘You, me… Severt.’

Daybell seems to wince slightly.

‘He was a good friend?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Yes,’ says Daybell in a soft voice. ‘The best. Glin was… We–’

He stops, and clears his throat.

‘Major Severt was a career officer, though,’ he says. ‘Liked to run the board according to regulations, and keep his sheet clean. He was keen to apply the Pax Imperialis according to the strictures Governor Balgrada had set down.’

‘And you backed him?’

‘He was my superior, sir.’

‘I think he was more than that,’ says Gaunt.

‘We were good friends,’ says Daybell.

Gaunt starts walking again. ‘My friction with Intelligence is born of experience,’ he says. ‘Mil-Int often meddles, and functions clandestinely, sometimes in ways that conflict with regular Militarum operations. When you arrived, I was brusque, and my attitude reflected my prejudices. I apologise.’

‘Sir, no need.’

‘I expected you to be devious, Daybell, and Severt simply wasn’t. I’ve always considered Mil-Int to be a more subtle and ingenious weapon.’

‘I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at, sir,’ says Daybell.

‘I believe you’re beginning to appreciate the complexity of the situation here, Daybell. See it for yourself, not just as Severt presented it. You’re out of his shadow, tragically. My point is, if I try to overrule Balgrada, we’ll get dragged into a departmental clash, Militarum, Administratum. That’s not going to make matters any easier. It occurs to me there might be a way of following his orders and yet not following them.’

‘Go on,’ says Daybell quietly.

‘We agree Balgrada’s now the primary target. I believe we can protect him here, though it’s a logistical nightmare I could do without. I see no value in placing all the intendants in the crosshairs along with him. They’re secondary targets. They always have been, in truth, but now Balgrada’s here they are relegated. He wants them to attend the ceremony to magnify his own importance. We can vox out the transportation orders, and divert manpower to escort the intendants here for the ceremony.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But the orders don’t necessarily have to be received.’

Daybell frowns slightly.

‘Because of the… jamming?’ he asks innocently.

‘Yes,’ says Gaunt.

‘The daybook would show the orders issued,’ muses Daybell, ‘but they might not get through. Not in time. The ceremony might not be very well attended.’

‘Balgrada would complain,’ says Gaunt. ‘But the logs would show we followed his instructions.’

‘And we don’t create one big target,’ says Daybell.

‘I’m sure Mil-Int Intercept Protocol will do its best to overcome the jamming problem,’ says Gaunt. ‘Wait… That’s your division, isn’t it, captain?’

Daybell nods. His smile is small and nervous.

‘Yes, I’ll get right on it, sir,’ he says. After a pause, he says, ‘I forget you were a political officer before you became a career soldier, sir.’

‘I have a little game in both departments,’ says Gaunt, ‘and I’ll use either, without compunction, when there are lives at stake.’

They reach the security annex at the rear of the council building. The Ghosts manning the defences throw salutes.

‘I wasn’t in Glin’s shadow,’ says Daybell. ‘Well, perhaps I was. But I was happy there.’

Gaunt nods.

‘Carry on, captain,’ he says.

The sun’s still low, and the light’s long. The shadows are black and stretched, but it’s already as hot as a foundry. Larkin adjusts his scope settings to try to accommodate for the harsh light contrast. He wipes a drop of sweat from the end of his nose.

‘You think he’ll come?’ he asks.

‘It’s what I’d do,’ says Mkoll quietly.

They’ve started to call him ‘he’. Not just marauds and insurgents. They’ve been watching for them since day one, boots on the ground. But Mkoll’s briefed the squads detailed to overwatch on the council building. He kept it simple, and left details out, but they know enough to understand that there’s one particular bastard out there presenting the most significant threat.

One-six-five is holding a tariff hall across the street from the council compound. They have good angles on the building’s northern face, and the motor pool sheds, and the run of fence. According to Bonin, who did a walk-around just before dawn, this is the most vulnerable section of the council’s perimeter. Three-seven-nine is set up in an adjoining hab block, watching the upper end of Clavis Street. There are sixteen squads in the vicinity, all told: along Clavis, which runs in front of the compound; Envara, which runs behind; in the slum alleys beyond the fence line behind the residential manse; and on the Matterine Road. Scout units like Two-two are running patrols between the watch positions, and checking vehicular and foot traffic, though the militia is keeping the streets as empty as possible. Inside the council compound are another two hundred Ghosts, and almost four hundred Litus.

‘I don’t know how he’ll get over that wall,’ says Varl, from a position nearby. The motor pool ring wall is seven metres high.

Mkoll does. He doesn’t know precisely how, but he knows, just like he knows that they’re talking about a ‘he’ but it could be more than one. He hasn’t yet seen a figure, or a face. The shooter on Kalodin might be the same as the shooter he crossed in the woods yesterday morning, but he can’t even say for sure if that was just one. And he can’t say if they’re the same individual. It’s a long way from the woods to Kalodin, and the hostile would have had to pass back into Vincula City after lockdown. Mkoll’s not sure which possibility is worse: that there’s more than one, or that there’s only one and he is capable of an insertion like that.

‘What will he look like?’ asks Larkin. Derin snorts a muffled laugh.

‘He’ll be wearing a badge, Larks,’ says Rafflan. ‘Big fething badge.’

‘Funny,’ says Larkin, pouting.

‘Nothing’s funny,’ says Mkoll.

He walks out of the long room, into the back hall. Third floor. Rear windows, glazed in dirt, look down on the alleys of the sprawl behind the tariff hall.

‘Lot of shadows,’ he observes. At a nearby window, Caober nods.

‘Doyl, Bonin and Baen are doing a circuit,’ says Caober. ‘Baru and Hwlan are crossing south sector. I moved Rilke from that rooftop to the gantry of that water tower. Better angle on the street.’

Mkoll nods his consent. ‘Where’s Ven?’

A worship-horn calls in the distance. Heat haze is shimmering everything that’s more than a street away.

Caober looks upwards, and jerks his head.

Mkoll walks to the end of the hall, and follows the dirty stairwell up to the roof. Sixth storey. The heat on the open roof is like a wall, the light intense. It’s like being on the wrong end of Brostin and his flamer. There’s no sign of Mkvenner.

Mkoll circles the roof, and looks behind a pair of air-circ vents. Just dust, and a heap of sun-frayed tarp. He’s about to key his micro-bead when Ven is suddenly standing beside him.

‘Where were you?’ Mkoll asks, his voice low.

Mkvenner gestures to a part of the roof behind them that was empty when Mkoll crossed it.

‘Anything?’ Mkoll asks.

Ven shakes his head.

‘Thoughts?’ Mkoll adds.

‘He’s not coming here,’ says Ven.

‘Why not?’

Ven shrugs.

‘I’m not taking a shrug to Gaunt,’ says Mkoll.

‘He’s just not.’

‘The biggest target in the hemisphere is going to be entering that compound in twelve minutes,’ says Mkoll. ‘He’s not going to miss that.’

Mkvenner squats. He puts his Mk III down, and slowly rubs his hands together to wipe perspiration away as he thinks.

‘It’s not what I’d do,’ he says.

‘Big target,’ says Mkoll.

‘Balgrada will still be a big target tomorrow, and the day after,’ replies Ven. ‘We’ve got this place tied up. He knows that.’

‘We’ll keep it tied up,’ says Mkoll.

‘This tight?’ asks Ven. ‘How long? A week? Two weeks? How long before we slacken, deliberately or accidentally? He’s patient.’

‘The longer he waits, the greater the chance we take him in a sweep,’ says Mkoll. ‘He can’t afford to wait.’

Ven shrugs again. ‘It’s not what I’d do,’ he repeats.

Mkoll’s eyes narrow.

‘Feth’s sake, Ven,’ he whispers. ‘Talk it out. What are you thinking? What do you mean, “It’s not what I’d do”?’

Mkvenner looks up at Mkoll. There’s never been a way to read his expression, or tell anything from his eyes.

‘We’re both hunters,’ he says. ‘Have been long before we started hunting men. What would you do?’

Mkoll hesitates. He thinks about it. He’s been trying not to think about it since yesterday. Trying to work out a way of explaining an instinct to Ibram Gaunt.

‘Well,’ he says finally, ‘I wouldn’t go after Balgrada at all.’

Ven keeps his eyes locked on Mkoll’s. He nods, once, very slowly.

‘They’re not going to listen to that,’ Mkoll says. He’s about to go on, but his ’bead pips.

‘Mkoll?’

He crouches down.

‘Rilke. Sighted a local crossing Rote Street, turning west behind the tannery towards Clavis.’

‘Eyes on him?’ Mkoll replies.

‘For now,’ the marksman crackles back. ‘He’ll pass out of sight in about twenty seconds. Looks normal.’

‘So?’

‘Five-five swept Rote Street two minutes ago, and they didn’t report any contacts. I don’t know where he’s come from.’

‘Stand by,’ says Mkoll. Mkvenner’s pulled out his chart. He traces a line on it with his finger for Mkoll. Mkoll studies it for a second, and works out the watch-point overlaps.

He adjusts his micro-bead. ‘Logris? Mkoll.’

‘Go.’

‘Pedestrian, local, about to come into view for you. Moving west on Syprus Lane.’

‘Stand by, chief.’

They wait. The second marksman comes back on the link.

‘Logris. Nothing.’

‘Confirm that.’

‘No contact, chief. Adjusting position to get a better look east.’

Another brief pause.

‘Nothing,’ Logris fizzles. ‘I have eyes on Syprus Lane behind the tannery, and Clavis. No contact.’

‘Stand by,’ says Mkoll. He takes the chart from Mkvenner. ‘There’s no way off that lane,’ he says.

‘Except over the tannery wall,’ says Mkvenner.

Mkoll feels a pulse in his temple. The wall’s too high. He saw it for himself this morning. And the contact would have had to know it was a blind spot between sniper fields. Which means he knew where the Ghosts were.

‘You were wrong,’ he says to Ven, tossing the chart back to him. ‘We both were.’ He’s already moving.

‘Alert signal?’ Mkvenner hisses after him, scooping up his weapon to follow.

‘If we adjust the perimeter watch, he’ll know we’ve made him,’ says Mkoll. He starts climbing down the rusted fire ladder bolted to the side of the tariff hall. ‘No signal. Just you and me.’

The main hall of the Occupation Council Building is on the ground floor. It’s large, generally empty. There’s an immense chrome aquila suspended over the podium and stage, and servitors are adjusting the set of the wall drapes. A Litus colours band is setting up. Brass instruments parp and trill. There’s a smell of fresh caff from the buffet in the room next door.

A small crowd is gathering. Six Administratum intendants of senior grade, who are only here because the building is their station, and about forty junior clerks, most of whom have been made to wait in the corridor. Colonel Farek of the Litus comes up to Gaunt the moment Gaunt enters.

They exchange salutes.

‘Surprised to see you here,’ says Gaunt. The Litus had escort duty for the convoy, and Farek was supposed to meet Balgrada at the landing field.

‘The governor’s brought a detachment of Royal Sloka with him,’ says Farek. ‘The heavy mob. So I sent my brigade chief to do the handshake, and pulled back onto street patrol and overwatch.’

‘That’s useful,’ says Gaunt. ‘More concentration where we need it. Good. Royal Sloka?’

‘The Gallant Fifth, no less,’ says Farek. He looks uncomfortable in his bulky, semi-plated dress uniform.

‘Balgrada pulls the right strings,’ says Gaunt.

‘I think it demonstrates his opinion of the local occupation forces,’ says Farek. He laughs, but it’s got a grim note. ‘Are you well, sir?’

‘Entirely,’ says Gaunt. ‘Orman Ronus was a genuine loss.’

‘Appreciate you saying so,’ replies Farek. ‘This place, eh?’ He doesn’t mean the hall, or the building. He means Vincula, or possibly the whole of Voltemand. ‘This isn’t war,’ he says. ‘Not the kind the Litus were made for. Like trying to catch oil with wet hands.’

‘When I leave,’ says Gaunt, ‘if I ever get that luxury–’

Farek chuckles.

‘–my hand-off report will in no way reflect poorly on your regiment. I wanted you to hear that from me. This is a new kind of war. Makes you yearn for the meat grinder.’

‘I hear you,’ replies Farek.

‘Intelligence is supportive of my summary. They’re taking steps to revise security policy moving forward.’

‘Will Balgrada listen?’ asks Farek.

‘It’s his funeral if he doesn’t,’ says Gaunt.

‘Speaking of,’ says Farek, ‘I’ve been to better attended wakes.’ He casts his eyes over the notably empty chamber. ‘I thought Administratum attendance was mandatory.’

‘Oh, it is,’ says Gaunt. ‘But there are persistent vox issues. I’m afraid the instructions may not have been received in all parts of the city.’

They look up. A Vulture gunship has just buzzed the west side of the building. They hear its engine tone fading, then coming back loud.

‘He’s on his way in,’ Farek remarks.

‘Convoy is three minutes out,’ says Gaunt.

He spots the boy waiting by the door.

‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he says to Farek.

They step into the corridor, past the clerks filing in. Nearby, there’s the sound of outer blast shutters opening, shouts exchanging.

‘Anything?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Litus honour guard in position on the ramp, sir,’ says Milo. He’s checking the data-slate, sliding data boxes aside deftly. Since the regimental briefing first thing, he’s been wearing his security pass.

‘Street watch?’

‘No contacts reported, sir,’ says Milo. He’s been doing that too. He started to add ‘sir’ to his responses. ‘Message from Captain Daybell,’ he says. ‘Reads “Orders issued as per instruction, advise some transmit disruption, possible jamming.” Do you want to reply, sir?’

Gaunt shakes his head.

‘Message from Colonel Corbec, also,’ says Milo.

‘Sealed?’

‘No, open-general. He reports he is returning today from Voltis City. Expected tomorrow morning. There’s a personal comment in addition.’

Gaunt takes the slate and reads for himself. The typical Corbec flippancy makes him smile. He hands the slate back.

‘Right,’ he tells the boy. ‘Step back, no talking. I want you nearby, but I’m going to be busy with the ceremony. Any contact from overwatch, especially Mkoll, I want it in my ear, even if I’m shaking Balgrada’s hand at the time.’

Milo nods.

‘So I can hear you, please?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Gaunt looks at him for a second. ‘Here,’ he says. He reaches to his chest, above the tight bar of service medals. ‘I’ll get you a sidearm issued tomorrow. For now, this is all you’re missing.’

He’s unpinned the Tanith regimental badge. It’s polished chrome, and all three blades still surround the skull.

‘That’s yours,’ says Milo.

‘It’s the one off my dress coat. I have another. Balgrada’s not going to notice it’s missing. He’ll be too busy staring covetously at my Balhaut campaign star.’

He pins it on the boy’s tunic. He salutes.

The boy salutes back. ‘First and Only,’ says Milo.

‘Better late than never,’ says Gaunt. ‘Now, step back.’

The hatches are screeching open and daylight is flooding into the entranceway. The band strikes up, a sudden blast of the most pompous march Gaunt’s ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

He strides into the main hall, and takes his place beside Farek.

17.

Rawne knocks on the door and enters when she calls. Eiwolt is working at the little desk in the main room, and Rawne is pleased to see that this hasn’t required her to put on very many clothes.

‘Vox is still down,’ he says.

‘Is it?’ she asks. ‘Or is that just an excuse for you to stay here?’

‘Can’t it be both?’ he asks. He’s brought two cups of hot caff. ‘Actually, intendant, I am affronted at your suggestion I’m not performing my duties properly. Protecting you.’

She smiles, takes a cup from him. It’s hot, even with the window open. A breeze tugs at the dirty blind. Outside it’s even hotter. The compound’s baking in the hard sunlight.

‘There’ll be proper food soon,’ he says. ‘The staff have got the galley running. I’ll go down and fetch some in a bit.’

He looks out of the window. Far away, over the city centre, he sees dots in the air. Aircraft, moving low. Too far away to make a type, but gunships from their movement patterns. Something’s happening. Probably the governor’s arrival. He seems to remember that was on the schedule.

‘This afternoon, I’m going to see if I can arrange some transport,’ he says. ‘Get you up to the council building. Proper secure.’

‘This was my posting,’ she says.

‘You need to go over all of this with Gaunt. All of it, and the stuff you were saying about dialects. So you need to be there.’

‘Where it’s safer?’

‘Where… Where you can get your job done,’ he says.

‘Look at this,’ she says. She slides a slate towards him. There’s a pict displayed.

‘Robby Ross,’ he says.

‘Just like the one on your shoulder.’

‘Where’s this from?’ he asks.

‘Balhaut,’ she says. ‘A war banner in the Museum of Antiquity. Twenty-nine hundred years old. A Magmetan clan symbol. The Magmeta settled regions of Balhaut too.’

‘Well, fancy,’ he says.

‘And this one,’ she says, flicking to another image.

‘Another snake biting its own arse.’

‘I’m showing you that the symbol repeats. It’s very old. It’s common to Magmeta culture-bases. Not just them, in fact. This one’s about four thousand years old, from the feudal archives of Manzipor. A war chief’s emblem.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Manzipor? Far edge of the Khulan Sector, virtually Harkoss, actually. A very long way from here. I thought you might have heard of it.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s where your commanding officer grew up,’ she says.

‘Why would I care about that?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know,’ she says, with a shrug. ‘Perhaps it demonstrates some old affinity? A shared legacy?’

‘Maybe,’ he says.

‘I’m just saying, the image is very common, really.’

‘Are you going to spend all morning looking at pictures?’ he asks.

‘I have a policy report to finish, don’t I?’

‘There are other things we could do,’ he says.

They run down Syprus Lane. The tannery wall is as high as Mkoll remembers it. The top half is caught in fierce sunlight, the bottom deep in shadow from the habs behind them. No one’s on the lane. From beyond the tannery, loud martial music is playing out of speakers on the council building, so loud it’s distorting.

They move along, fast. Mkoll feels his link tap.

‘Mkoll.’

It’s Logris. ‘Have you in sight,’ says Logris. ‘West end.’

‘No one’s come this way?’

‘Negative, chief.’

Mkoll looks at Mkvenner. They take the next side lane, moving alongside the tannery. Music booms, the echo rolling between the high buildings. He’s gone through. He’s gone through the tannery, and onto Clavis Street. But no one’s picked him up there. How can he appear and vanish? It’s not like the open country. There are no woods, no sunken drover trails.

They’re in front of the tannery. The council compound is across the street. The tannery, then a market house, then the mess hall where they detained the Litus after the bomb attack.

Mkvenner looks at the council building.

‘He’ll want to get in,’ he says.

‘How?’

It looks like a fortress. No cover, no woods, no sunken drover trails…

‘Sewers,’ says Mkoll. ‘Drains.’ The centre of the city is relatively modern. It has sub-ground sanitation networks.

‘The council building has its own system,’ says Mkvenner. ‘Discrete. Not linked to city infrastructure. I checked.’

‘But if an old sewer line or waste chute runs close,’ says Mkoll.

There’s no further debate. They kick open the gate of the tannery and go in. They’re both thinking like him now. Do the prep. Know the ground. Check archive schematics to see where an old or forgotten outfall runs close to a section of modern, Munitorum substructure. Show the enemy you can go over impossible walls and then go under them.

The tannery’s a huge ruin, standing derelict. Stone structure with wood-boarded walls. Everything’s rust brown. Beams of sunlight hang down into the main chamber from high window lights and the holes in the ruined roof, as heavy as the dangling, corroded chains.

Nothing’s moving. The music’s still echoing. They spread out, weapons up, not even moving the dust. They move between roof-support pillars and old wooden stretching racks. Insects glint and tumble in the bars of sunlight. The place smells of old blood, a tang of iron. A tannery will have drains, sluices. They circle, looking for grates, looking for inspection plates, looking for run-off channels to follow.

Looking for footprints in the dust, but Mkoll knows there won’t be any.

The band finishes, which seems merciful to everybody present. Balgrada has stepped up to the podium and is beginning his address. It’s clear he’s pissed off at the lack of an audience. Gaunt holds his place. The governor starts to drone. He’s going to go through with it anyway, as if there were hundreds present. The Royal Slokan commandant in charge of the governor’s escort detail, who was briefly introduced as Kurt Vacheri, is looking daggers at Gaunt, as though the whole thing is a shambles and a disgrace, and Gaunt is entirely to blame.

Gaunt wonders how Corbec got along with these types up in Voltis. He imagines there will be stories later. He tries to suppress a smile.

He thinks of Corbec. Corbec’s informal message.

‘Where are you going?’ Farek whispers to him.

The governor reaches some magnificent, conclusive point, and the enthusiastic but thin applause of the audience is lost in another barrelling swirl of music from the band.

‘Gaunt?’

Gaunt’s pushing his way out. Balgrada’s stepping down from the podium, shaking hands, greeting some staffers he knows.

Milo’s outside, in the hall.

‘Show me that again,’ says Gaunt. He takes the data-slate from the boy, locates Corbec’s message. It is exactly as he remembers it.

To C.O. Tanith 1st; Corbec, Colonel. Leaving Voltis HQ now, with packet orders. Expect arrival tomorrow before noon. Vincula still sucking arse? Good thing we only have to hold the place. Imagine having to take it. Imagine what the Ghosts would have done [ends]

Corbec’s often disrespectful. Informal, almost always. He’s starting to talk to Gaunt like a comrade, a friend. By why say this? Corbec would say it to Larkin, to Rawne, to any Tanith. But it was sent to him. C.O. Tanith. Why take the time to make that point? Why the repetition, ‘imagine… imagine’?

For emphasis. He’s saying something. Something specific.

Feth you, Corbec… What…

There’s a moment. Something connects. Gaunt sees himself standing in the warebarn at East Gate the day before. He hears Sergeant Bray saying, ‘Mkoll means that’s what he’d do if he was running an insurgency here.’

‘I need a vox,’ he says to Milo. ‘I need a vox now.’

Dust motes float in the beams of light. Mkoll pans around slowly. He just got that feeling. Being watched. Just like the woods.

He’s in here.

Mkoll turns. He sees Mkvenner. Ven signs him over. He’s found a grate. Heavy iron, in the floor. Drain cover. There’s a slight scuff mark in the dust on one side.

Mkoll nods. Ven puts up his rifle, and crouches to lift the cover. Mkoll aims his weapon. Anything moves down there will get…

Mkvenner gets a grip. The grate’s heavy. Hard for one man to lift. Their quarry had to work hard and fast, that’s why the scuff marks in the–

But he leaves no mark. He hasn’t before. He moves like a phantom. If he can move invisibly and pass through walls, why was he seen at all? Unless he let himself be seen. By Logris, by Rilke. Let himself be seen so they’d know where he was going. Leave a scuff mark in the dust to really make it clear.

The grate starts to rise. Mkoll throws himself forward, and cannons into Mkvenner, tackling him off the grate and sprawling them both on the tannery floor. The grate slams down again like a cage closing.

But the K10’s pressure pad had armed the moment the grate was first rested on it.

‘All channels, Tanith and Litus elements, now,’ Milo shouts as he leads Gaunt into the vox-centre.

The vox-officers look at him.

‘Now!’ Milo orders.

They start scrambling, selecting Militarum traffic channels.

‘What is it?’ Milo asks him.

Gaunt shakes his head. He had a gut feeling, and he ignored it. He made logical decisions. Textbook. They’ve all been ignoring gut feelings. The insurgents aren’t after Balgrada.

‘Sir?’ says a vox-officer, holding out a speaker-horn for him. Gaunt takes it.

‘This is command, register five seven five one. All security forces, all mobiles. Step up protection on Administratum personnel. Effective now. Priority. Expect attack. Expect ambush attack on Militarum targets. I repeat, full alert, maximum vigilance.’

That’s what the Ghosts would do. That’s how he’d use them. You don’t take a system like an Imperial occupation down by knocking off the head. You cripple administrative infrastructure. The low-tier targets weren’t opportunist. The marauds weren’t just getting what they could get. Low tier. Advisors. Junior intendants. The cogs that do the real work. The specialists who protect them. That’s how you smash a system. That’s how you mire a crusade for decades.

And they’ve focused their security on one building and one man.

Gaunt adjusts channels. ‘Mkoll? This is Gaunt. Mkoll! Break off and report to me now. Priority.’

He waits for a reply.

‘Repeat my first transmission, all channels,’ he tells the vox-officer.

Milo’s in the doorway. Sergeant Baffels has just come in. They’re talking, hushed, urgent.

‘What?’ says Gaunt.

‘Report of a device detonating,’ says Milo. ‘The tannery across the street.’

White fire spears up from the floor drain. The blast is deafening. The shockwave blows dust up in a circular wave around the drain, creaks rafters, shivers hanging chains like the boughs of trees. Chips of stone rain down, tiles from the roof, glass from already broken windows.

Then the grate itself, buckled, tossed like a celebratory cap high into the air. It rebounds off a rafter, tumbling. Mkoll rolls, tries to drag Mkvenner with him, but the grate catches Ven across the shoulder and head as it lands.

Mkoll reaches for his rifle. The only thing that saved them was the fact that the K10 was inside the drain. The chute funnelled the detonation force upwards.

He swings around, bringing his weapon up. Mkvenner is still prone, crumpled under the bent grate.

He’s still here. He can’t have set the mine and got clear, not that fast. He’s still here. He–

A shadow moves, Mkoll takes a kick that doubles him up, another that spins his Mk III into the air. There’s no one there. Just empty air between hanging, swaying chains; just shadows, just beams of light.

Dust moves. Mkoll takes another kick. Falling, he sees a blade coming at him. Long, straight. He blocks, feels an arm, a limb. Turns the blade aside. Something pivots, throws him sidelong. So strong. Mkoll crashes through a curtain of rusted chains, lands, rolls, rises. Keeps low, stance spread. He’s got his own knife. Straight fething silver.

Nothing to see. He closes his eyes. There, a scent. Packing oil. Anti-spark machine oil, from the device. Hard to get that smell off.

He lunges to his right. Hits something. Chains swing, flicking out like braids. A shadow slants. Mkoll swings again. Solid contact. He feels something, grips cloth, fine weave.

Stabs.

Something tears. Something hits him in the face with immense force. He feels blood pouring down his cheek and jaw. He stumbles back. Turns. Turns again. Wild, frantic.

Shred of cloth in his hand. Synthetic, tough, fine weave. He casts it aside, spins and stabs behind him. A kick finds him first, boots him forward, onto his face. Air knocked out of him. A weight on his back.

A hand around the back of his neck, strong, grip tight enough to twist and snap his spine.

A blade.

18.

‘Device detonation, West Town residential,’ says Milo, reading off the slate. ‘Device detonation, Mercy Road habs. Device detonation, Vincard. Device detonation, Polaris Road.’

‘Give me that,’ says Gaunt. He looks at the list. All locations assigned as billets for Administratum intendants, or as satellite Administratum or Munitorum worksites. The list is growing.

Farek’s at the door of the vox-centre. Balgrada’s behind him, with the Slokan commandant. Both are shouting.

‘Get them out of here,’ Gaunt barks at Farek. ‘Protection bunker.’

Farek nods. Despite everything, it’s possible Farek is about to enjoy following an order.

‘I need my section chiefs,’ Gaunt tells the vox-officers. ‘I need Daybell on a link, and I need direct voice with my chief of recon.’

They’re trying. He can see they are. Three more items on the list. Bisarti Market. Another detonation at Vincard. The comms relay station on Ivinder Street. Signal displays start going blank. Channels are collapsing to dead air.

They’re good. They’re very good indeed. They’re specialists.

‘Where are you going, sir?’ Milo asks.

Gaunt doesn’t answer. He’s not going to get a response on the vox. He’s heading for the door, drawing his chainsword.

Mkvenner uses the buckled grate as a weapon. It smashes the tall figure off Mkoll’s back. The killer tumbles, comes up on his feet. Tall, dressed in a torn blue bodyglove, full head-mask. Just a glimpse. Hard to see. Camo-sleeving, active camo material with a slightly gleaming sheen, like snakeskin. He comes at Mkvenner, blade first. Mkvenner knows this is him. The one. This is the specialist, the priority target. Mkoll wants him taken alive. Gaunt wants him taken alive. Mkvenner uses the heavy grate as a shield, blocks, catches the raking blade in the grille of the grate, twists and rams at the same time.

Tears the blade out of a tight grip. Hears it clatter onto the floor. Drives the killer back with the weight of the grate.

The killer meets the drive, grips the grate, shoves back. Slams Mkvenner backwards into a roof post. Rust and dust shower down. So strong, ridiculous–

Mkvenner lets go. If the killer wants the grate, he can have it. The killer tosses the grate aside as though it was something feather-light, like a wide-brimmed sun hat, turns back to finish his work–

Meets Mkvenner’s fist. Meets it again. Then for a third time, each blow smashing into the masked face. He tries to punch back, meets a forearm block, so throws himself forward, piling into Mkvenner. They crash over, locked together, wrestling to get the superior grip. The killer’s impossibly strong. The idea of subduing him seems laughable. The killer’s not fighting on those terms. He wants Mkvenner dead. It’s all Mkvenner can do to block the killer’s hands and prevent them from snapping his neck. He can’t take him alive. The only way of surviving this fight is to finish it with a kill.

Mkvenner tries to pin him. A weight crashes into both of them, clawing. Mkoll’s back on his feet. He’s piled in beside Mkvenner, trying to anchor the killer’s neck and shoulders with his crooked arm.

‘Alive!’ Mkoll snarls. He’s applying full strength and bodyweight, but somehow his fingers are being pulled back, his grip slowly unpeeled, by the killer’s hand, a hand that seems to draw blood from Mkoll’s flesh. He digs in an elbow, and shifts his weight until he has the killer by the fabric of his form-fitting tunic instead. Mkvenner rolls, manages a partial leg-press, and Mkoll pulls with both hands and drags the killer’s tight camo tunic up around his shoulders. He twists, gasping in effort, trying to pull the tunic further, to use its tight, tough fabric to bind up the killer’s arms and block his vision. Mkvenner pivots and tries to improve his leg-press. He can see bare skin, knotted with muscle, sheened in sweat, the killer’s skin from waistband to shoulder blade. Mkoll yanks harder. If he can pin the arms with the tight top, Mkvenner can free a hand to drive in a solid throat-punch.

The killer rotates under Mkvenner somehow. It’s hard to understand how. Mkvenner loses what little balance and purchase he had. The killer suddenly straightens his arms, so Mkoll’s pull meets no resistance and the tunic yanks free. Mkoll flops backwards, leverage lost, gripping the discarded tunic. The killer stamps a kick that throws Mkvenner backwards.

Mkoll rolls and rises. He’s twisting the tunic in his hands to form a cord or a lash, but the killer catches him in the ribs. Mkoll stumbles, and the killer hammers him with a spin kick. Mkoll flails into hanging chains, tries to remain upright, then sprawls as another kick connects. He blacks out.

Mkvenner’s on his feet, rushing the killer before he can finish Mkoll. The killer turns. Hood still on, one eye-lens cracked, but stripped to the waist. Blood leaks out from under his hood and trickles down his bare neck.

Mkvenner sees the ink.

The spirals and the bars. The sunburst. A skull. A star with eight points. The snake, coiled, but turning to strike.

Old, old marks.

The killer dances aside, one hand open, the other clenched to strike.

‘Serpenti,’ says Mkvenner.

Rawne’s scored two ration packs and some bottled water from the ground-floor commissary, but he leaves them on the counter, forgotten, when the alarms start to sound.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks one of the Litus officers. Someone’s shouting. Litus reserve squads are rushing out to the compound and the main gate.

‘Attacks in the city,’ the Litus officer says.

‘What sort of attacks?’ Rawne demands.

‘It’s hard to know. Vox is still mangled.’

Rawne runs to the windows, peers through the dirt and reinforcing blast-wire. He can see fresh smoke in the distance, rising from multiple points on the city skyline. A second wave.

‘This place have bunkers?’ he yells over his shoulder.

‘Yes, sir. Sub-basement level.’

Rawne turns. ‘Let’s get key personnel down there and secure,’ he says.

‘Key personnel?’ the officer asks, as if he’s stupid.

‘Administratum intendants. Occupation staff. Round them up.’

‘Nothing will get in here,’ the man says. ‘Memnon House is locked tight. The gates and wall-watch–’

‘Just fething do it!’ Rawne spits. He pushes past the man, and starts running towards the stairs. Eiwolt’s in her quarters. He left her to shower and dress while he fetched food. Behind him, the officer starts shouting orders, telling troopers to find all Administratum staff and escort them to the bunkers.

Rawne takes the stairs two at a time.

The killer falters for a split second, as though the word Mkvenner has spoken has surprised him. It has surprised Ven too. He said it involuntarily. It just came out, like an old part of him woke up and uttered something he never thought could be uttered again.

But it’s only a moment. Not even a split second. The killer lunges with an open-hand strike, twisting the balance of his upper body to drive palm first. It’s a clever move. It telegraphs its coming from the right, but it comes from the left hand instead. Mkvenner hasn’t seen it executed in a long time, but he reads it, and meets it with a forearm block.

Even blocked, it wounds him. It jars the bones of his forearm and elbow, rips the sleeve of his uniform and tears the skin beneath, just an open palm but lashing like woodthorns. Mkvenner dodges the follow-up, and smacks a side-kick into ribs. As the killer twists away, Mkvenner tries to press into the opening guard by sweeping the legs as he drives a fist into the sternum.

But the killer rotates on one leg, and the heel of his scything kick catches Mkvenner in the side of the head and hurls him backwards into a ceiling post. He slides down, tries to rise, sags again. Not enough time. The killer’s got him, a dagger-punch coming at his neck.

A shot booms out. The echo seems to vibrate the whole of the tannery. A mass-reactive round misses the killer by less than the length of an adult’s index finger, and detonates against the ceiling post.

Flames and debris shower from the impact. The killer dives aside. A second shell howls past and explodes the wooden frame of a stretching rack.

Gaunt is advancing through the main doors of the tannery, bolt pistol raised, aimed with a straight arm. Two squads of Ghosts are following him, weapons up. He is striding, relentless, swift, but contained enough to keep his aim as steady as possible as he moves. He fires again.

The killer takes off. He breaks and bolts so fast, Mkvenner can’t grab him. It’s the reaction of an animal: the startled blur of a larisel in the deep nalwoods darting into leaves, the snap-break of a vulpa flushed from a thicket by hunters. Head down, inhumanly fast. He dodges around stretching racks, behind posts. Hanging chains swing and chink in his wake.

He reaches the back wall of the tannery, in shadow, grabs a heavy hoist chain, and goes up as if it was a climbing rope, hands and feet in the heavy links as though they were rungs. Gaunt, still advancing, fires again, and the Ghosts open fire too, spreading out as they enter the tannery.

Shots hit the back wall. The killer’s trying to reach the window lights at the very top, but they’re twenty metres up. Impacts blow out the wooden wall around him, letting hard sunlight spear through in pencil-thin beams. A bolter round takes out the hoist chain in a spray of sparks.

The chain falls, heavy, slack. The killer doesn’t. He’s somehow on the wall, hands and feet finding grips on the old, blackened wood where none should be possible. He’s still climbing, scaling an impossible vertical surface.

Gaunt stops walking, and braces to improve his aim. The bolt pistol roars. Mass-reactives blow huge holes in the wall, sunlight glaring in, but he can’t fix his target. Lasrifles crack and snap, stippling the wall, peppering small holes around the massive, smoking gaps his bolt pistol is making. The killer evades, still climbing. Gaunt corrects. His pistol is a fine weapon, more than accurate enough, despite the distance. His Ghosts are trained men with Mk IIIs. The killer should have been dead and falling off that wall a dozen times already.

He isn’t. He smashes out a window light and vanishes into the glare.

Outside, Tanith watch units open fire. Overwatch from half a dozen neighbouring buildings fire on the back of the tannery, chasing the target emerging into the daylight.

Above the rattle of standard weapons, Gaunt hears the distinctive boom of five different Tanith marksmen as their waiting long-las rifles open up.

Rawne enters her quarters. There’s no sign of her. Her carry-bag is on the desk, with the data-slates stacked beside it. There’s no one in the bedroom. A hot breeze stirs through the open window.

‘Inge?’

The washroom door opens, and he turns, rifle raised. Eiwolt looks at him in horror. Her hair’s wet. She’s pulling on her top.

Rawne lowers his rifle.

‘I was getting washed,’ she says.

‘Grab your things,’ he says.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Grab your things. Get your boots on. I’m taking you to the bunker.’

She looks at him, concerned.

‘There’s another wave of attacks,’ he says. ‘Insurgents. I want you secure, down in the house bunker.’

She nods. She goes into the bedroom, grabs her boots, and sits on the bed to pull them on. Rawne goes to the window, peers out. In the bright haze, he can see columns of smoke staining the sky. Mass attack, multiple strikes across the city.

He senses movement, and looks down. Straight down. Ten floors down to the yard. He sees a figure on the wall, three storeys off the ground. It’s just a shape, hard to properly resolve, but it’s on the wall, on a sheer surface that shouldn’t be scalable.

‘The feth…’ he murmurs. He drags his rifle up over the sill, trying to get an angle down. The figure, just a smudge, some kind of camo, looks up and then jumps, clearing the last two floors. It lands in the yard and almost immediately vanishes against the dusty hardpan.

In the bedroom, Eiwolt hears Rawne curse. She stands up, one boot on, the other in her hands.

‘Eli? What is it?’ she asks. But her weight, which armed the pressure plate when she sat down, has been removed.

The K10 under the bed goes off.

19.

By nightfall, there’s no body. No body the next day, either, despite scout searches of the roofs and alleyways around the tannery. The Litus B.R.U. even bring out cadaver dogs.

No body, no nothing, despite Larkin, Rilke, Logris and three others with marksman lanyards reporting clean shots at a moving but visible target on the tannery’s back roof. No body, no nothing, except a long, straight combat knife recovered from the tannery – a decent but cheap warknife that could come from any world in the spinward Sabbats including Voltemand – and a shred of camo-cloth that turns out to be standard Militarum weave.

Gaunt sits in his quarters at the manse, preparing his report for the governor. A full revision of security strategy, an overview of countermeasures, a focus on close protection for Administratum personnel, even the minor grades.

There’s a knock at the door. At a nod from Gaunt, the boy answers it. It’s Corbec.

‘I was expecting you this morning,’ Gaunt says.

‘Hold-ups,’ says Corbec. ‘Fog.’

‘You got lost?’ asks Gaunt.

‘We didn’t get lost,’ says Corbec. ‘All the other idiots did. Road traffic backed up for hours.’ He hands an order packet to Gaunt. ‘I hear it’s been busy,’ he says.

Gaunt nods.

‘Not in a good way,’ Corbec adds.

Gaunt looks at him. ‘Not at all in a good way,’ he says. He tears open the packet.

‘You got my message?’ Corbec asks.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Useful?’

‘Insightful and useful. But belated. You saw the right way to look at the situation before I did. Why is that?’

‘Because I’m not an idiot?’ Corbec ventures.

‘I know that part,’ says Gaunt.

‘I was briefed by Hadrak,’ says Corbec. ‘There’s some stuff to go over, just you and me.’ He glances at Milo, waiting nearby.

‘I can step out, sir,’ says Milo.

Corbec looks him up and down. ‘You the adj now or something?’ he asks.

Milo nods.

‘Makes sense,’ says Corbec. ‘You all checked out with clearance codes and whatnot?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well,’ says Corbec. ‘Get yourself to stores and get a fresh undershirt. That one’s got holes in it. Actually, get yourself breeches and a jacket too, and sew a patch on the arm, standard trooper emblem. You’re technically a lasman now, lad.’

Gaunt rises, studying the unfolded order dockets.

‘Routing orders,’ he says. ‘Direct from Hadrak. We’re relieved here. Instructed to prep for orbital lift, five days’ time. We’re being deployed.’

‘Front line?’ asks Corbec.

‘Yes,’ says Gaunt.

‘Where?’

‘Doesn’t say, but Caligula would be my guess.’

‘You don’t look so pleased,’ says Corbec. ‘Thought you hated it here. Thought you disliked this occupation duty with a passion.’

‘I do,’ said Gaunt. ‘But we’re not done. There’s still… I mean, the situation is still bad. The marauds are still active. I wanted a little longer so I could implement some proper changes to the security plan.’

‘Well, it’s some other fether’s problem now,’ says Corbec. ‘You’re a funny bugger, sir, if you’ll allow me to speak out of turn and all that… First you want to go, then you want to stay.’

‘I like to finish a job,’ says Gaunt. ‘An assigned duty.’

‘Some duties don’t ever end,’ says Corbec.

The air stinks of counterseptic wash. Aid teams are still ferrying casualties in from the various insurgent attacks. There’s bloodied wadding heaped on the floor of the corridor, and piles of clothes that have been cut off bodies.

Fastening his smock, Dorden pushes the glass door open with his elbow.

‘Where will I be useful?’ he asks.

Lesp looks up from the laceration he’s suturing. His patient is a local man, dull-eyed with shock, gazing at nothing as he allows the Tanith corpsman to work. His laced tunic and crumpled sun hat lie on the consulting bench beside him.

‘One of ours waiting, Doc,’ says Lesp, nodding to the back room.

Dorden heads through, passing Chayker, Foskin and some Litus corpsmen tending to walking wounded. Some burns. Shrapnel splinters mostly.

‘Good to have you back with us,’ says Chayker.

In the back room, Dorden examines Mkvenner’s forearm. It’s not the scout’s only injury, but it’s the worst.

‘Why didn’t you get this looked at yesterday?’ Dorden asks, as he washes the wound.

‘There were more urgent cases,’ replies Ven.

‘This isn’t clotting,’ says Dorden.

‘I know. That’s why I came back. Otherwise, I’d have bound it up myself.’

‘I hear you and Mkoll got knocked about.’

Mkvenner nods.

‘A maraud?’

He nods again.

‘Feth, what did this?’ asks Dorden. ‘The bruising is impact, but the cuts? Looks like you were thrashed with thorns.’

‘Blocking a blow,’ says Mkvenner.

‘From what?’

‘His hand.’

‘His hand did this?’

Mkvenner doesn’t make eye contact. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Like his palm was hardened. Or scaled.’

‘Glove?’

‘No.’

‘You reported this?’ Dorden asks.

‘Everything we saw,’ says Mkvenner. ‘Which wasn’t much. He had active camo. A bodyglove.’

Dorden starts spraying counterseptic, then wound sealant. He preps a dressing.

‘Did he have marks?’

‘Marks?’

‘This maraud,’ says Dorden. ‘Did he have any ink?’

Now Mkvenner looks at him. An odd look.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Tribal icons. Archonate tribal. I put it in my report.’

Dorden applies the dressing and binds it tight.

‘All right. Come back and see me tomorrow and I’ll change the dressing.’

Mkvenner gets up off the exam bed. He pulls the sleeve of his undershirt back down to cover the dressing, and leans over to gather his uniform jacket from the floor.

As the scout bends, Dorden sees him reflected in the wall mirror behind him. He sees the hem of the vest ride up and, just for a moment, glimpses the tattoo in the small of Mkvenner’s back. Small, old and faded, right at the base of the spine.

He can’t be sure, but it looks like a coiled snake, head extended to strike.

‘Something the matter?’ Mkvenner asks.

‘No,’ says Dorden.

‘You can go,’ says Commandant Vacheri. The Royal Slokan continues to study his data-slate and then looks up, raising an eyebrow to suggest mystification that there’s anyone still in the room.

‘You’ve read my recommendations?’ asks Gaunt.

‘Yes, yes. They’re here somewhere.’ Vacheri sits back and motions vaguely at the files and slates on his desk.

‘I strongly suggest–’ Gaunt says.

‘I strongly suggest, sir,’ says Vacheri, ‘that you get on with your business and leave me to mine. You have routing and embarkation orders. Vincula is no longer your purview. Or yours, colonel.’ He looks at Farek, standing beside Gaunt.

‘The Litus are commencing withdrawal,’ says Farek. ‘Handover in two days.’

‘Good,’ says Vacheri, rising to his feet. He’s wearing his dress uniform, the ornate garb of the ‘Gallant’ Fifth. ‘My regiment is taking over here. I am responsible for province security and peacekeeping. At the governor’s direct request.’

The last part is unnecessary, but he says it anyway, with relish.

‘Look, Kurt,’ says Farek. ‘I urge you to pay close heed to Ibram’s recommendations. His insight into insurgent activities is crucial. They ran rings around us–’

‘They made you look like fools,’ says Vacheri. ‘How many dead is it now? How many has the Militarum lost? The Administratum?’

‘And the people of Vincula?’ Gaunt asks.

‘Come on, Kurt,’ says Farek.

‘The Fifth has it covered, colonel,’ says Vacheri. He’s making a point not to use first names. ‘I have it covered.’

‘I don’t think you know what you’re walking into,’ says Gaunt. ‘The threat is still live. You’re going to make the same mistakes we did.’

‘I don’t think so,’ says Vacheri, with a sniff of disdain.

‘My recommendations illustrate the two-tier structure of the insurgent network,’ says Gaunt, ‘the tactics of their specialists, and their target prioritisation. My report is supported by Captain Daybell of Mil-Int–’

‘Mil-Int’s operation in this province is under review,’ says Vacheri. ‘Too many mistakes. I don’t want them underfoot, frankly. Their intel is discredited. I know how to hold a city. I know how to keep a population in line.’

‘Are you pursuing their munition sources?’ asks Gaunt. ‘They are lifting equipment, including mines and jamming systems, from Munitorum depots in other provinces. To do that, they may have people on the inside. You don’t just walk into a Guard depot–’

‘I think that’s all for now,’ says Vacheri. ‘May the Emperor protect you, out on the front line, gentlemen. Duty calls you.’

‘I want to speak to Balgrada,’ says Gaunt.

‘He is busy,’ smiles Vacheri. ‘So much to do, taking over a shambles like this. The Pax Imperialis must be enforced.’

‘You’re not really listening, are you?’ says Rawne. He’s standing behind Gaunt and Farek, his arms folded. Gaunt’s never seen him with such a bleak expression, not even after Tanith, and it’s not just the pain in his lower back.

‘Are you addressing me?’ Vacheri says.

‘You need to look at the tribal affiliations,’ says Rawne. ‘The cultural connections. You need translators fluent in Archonate Gaurin and Archonate Aezyri. You need to run interviews – not interrogations – in the community here. There are people who know things, people who are too scared to speak out. There are family and clan connections that go beyond provincial or global borders. Tribes inside tribes. You–’

‘Oh, I’ve seen the initial xeno-ethnological report,’ says Vacheri carelessly. ‘It’s not really applicable. No practical use. Just fatuous, book-learning nonsense.’

Rawne takes a step forward. Gaunt puts a hand on his arm to stay him.

‘Besides,’ says Vacheri, ‘the intendant responsible for that line of research isn’t in a position to support it. The Administratum has put in a request for a replacement, and we’re expecting one to arrive in six weeks.’

‘You can read her fething report,’ says Rawne.

‘I’ve read it.’

‘You’ve seen it. You can read it properly. You can do your fething job now she’s done the hard part for you.’

Vacheri’s cheeks flush. He looks at Gaunt.

‘I won’t have your man speak to me like that, Gaunt,’ he says. ‘Chastise him. I don’t even know why he’s here. He’s a unit leader. A lasman.’

‘I’ve listened to him,’ says Gaunt. ‘He was able to observe things during the Low Quarter attack. Observe them close hand. He has valuable intel, Vacheri. I recommend you listen to him.’

‘I won’t listen to anybody who addresses me with such flagrant disrespect.’

‘Then over the next few weeks, you’d better watch where you sit,’ says Rawne.

‘Steady,’ warns Farek.

‘Checked under your chair today?’ Rawne asks Vacheri, almost spitting the words. ‘I’d get in the habit. Those K10s are easy to conceal. Pressure trigger under your comfy fething cushions.’

‘No maraud will get the better of me,’ snaps Vacheri.

‘Who said anything about marauds?’ asks Rawne. Farek turns, concern in his eyes, and puts his palm firmly against Rawne’s shoulder to stop him shoving forwards.

‘That’s insolence,’ says Vacheri. ‘Gaunt? Chastise your man now, or I’ll have him up on a charge.’

‘You shouldn’t speak to Commandant Vacheri like that,’ Gaunt says to Rawne.

Rawne glares at him.

‘He’s clearly too stupid to understand you,’ Gaunt says.

Outside, Royal Slokans are unloading equipment crates from their transports. The heat of the day throbs with engines, with voices, with the distant threnody of the city’s worship-horns.

Gaunt speaks to Farek for a minute or two, then shakes his hand and walks over to where Rawne is standing. Rawne’s in the shade, leaning on the door post of one of the workshops. Power-drivers whiz and whir behind him. He’s lit a smoke.

‘Have I got to apologise?’ he asks.

‘Not to me,’ says Gaunt.

‘Good.’

‘Have I got to apologise?’ Gaunt asks him.

Rawne looks at him in surprise. ‘For what?’

‘I know you have a list, major,’ says Gaunt. ‘Like so many of the Ghosts. We’re about to go to war. Front line. We have to work together. So I’m trying to find an accommodation with you.’

‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ says Rawne.

Gaunt shrugs, and looks away at the Slokans manhandling crates out of payload bays.

‘I don’t have to like you to do my job,’ says Rawne quietly. ‘Sir.’

‘That’s true,’ says Gaunt. ‘You liked her, though.’

Rawne says nothing.

‘You listened to her,’ says Gaunt. ‘Heard out what she had to say. Realised it was important. She was better looking than me, of course.’ He looks at Rawne. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘What about?’

‘That Eiwolt died. That you couldn’t prevent it. That Tanith was lost. Take your pick.’

Rawne takes a drag on his smoke.

‘You grew up on Manzipor?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ says Gaunt. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Someone told me.’

‘Why do you ask?’

Rawne shrugs.

‘Officer briefing in three hours,’ says Gaunt. ‘Try not to be late.’

He walks away across the yard. Rawne watches him go, then he wanders to a stack of ammo boxes and sits. He takes the data-slate out of his pocket.

The screen is cracked. He handed all her possessions to the Administratum clerks, all her work and files. All except this. He opens the image archive, and goes through the picts, one by one, the bars and spirals, the blocks and lines, the circles and the snakes.

Milo sees Gaunt from across the yard, heading for the manse. He knows he’s got a few minutes before he’s needed. He’s carrying the fresh kit Colonel Corbec told him to pull from stores.

He ducks into the main building, showing his code tag to the door guards. He finds the washrooms beside the basement billets, enough space to get changed.

He strips off his threadbare, dirty kit, and pulls the new kit out of its paper cover. He’ll have to sew the patches on later, standard trooper patches – the three dagger bars inside a stylised Robby Ross – just like Corbec told him. He unfastens the gleaming Tanith crest from his old jacket. He mustn’t lose that. With a little effort, he snaps the side daggers off it, the way the other men in the regiment do. One warknife, for the Tanith First, the Tanith Only. Lose the two that represented the regiments lost.

He sees how dirty his hands are. Dust, soot, boot-black from shining the colonel-commissar’s boots. He needs a wash before he puts on the new kit. He’s not an orphan boy any more. But before he does, he grinds the pads of his dirty thumbs over the crest, drabbing it down, removing the buff and the gleam so it won’t catch the light. Ghosts need to be invisible, and he’s been good at that up to now.

He runs water into the metal sink, and washes his face, neck, arms, hands and chest. The water’s cold, and the building’s fierce air-circ raises gooseflesh on his arms.

He looks at his reflection in the washroom’s foxed mirror. A skinny, pale boy, not a man yet, but on the way. His black hair is as shaggy as Corbec’s. He looks at the tattoos on his white flesh. The blue fish over his eye: that’s for Tanith Longshore, where his family came from, a baptismal ink he got when he was eight. The Robby Ross on his left shoulder that he got the week before Founding. The concentric circles of Tanith Magna on his ribs to show the place he lived.

And the oldest one, the smallest, the one he was given first. He doesn’t remember when or why exactly, because it happened when he was very young, too young to recall it properly. It’s an open serpent, head striking outwards, the body coiled in a ring on his breastbone.

He pulls on the black uniform, and pins the crest to his jacket.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Abnett has written over fifty novels, including Anarch, the latest instalment in the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series. He has also written the Ravenor, Eisenhorn and Bequin books, the most recent of which is Penitent. For the Horus Heresy, he is the author of the Siege of Terra novel Saturnine, as well as Horus Rising, Legion, The Unremembered Empire, Know No Fear and Prospero Burns, the last two of which were both New York Times bestsellers. He also scripted Macragge’s Honour, the first Horus Heresy graphic novel, as well as numerous Black Library audio dramas. Many of his short stories have been collected into the volume Lord of the Dark Millennium. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.

An extract from The Founding.

They were walking by lamplight, finding their way by the criss-crossing beams of their lamp packs. They were deep underground, so of course it was going to be dark.

Except it seemed unnecessarily, extravagantly dark. Lightless. As though some kind of anti-light, an un-light, had been poured into the gloom to thicken it.

Every few seconds, and to no particular rhythm, the earth shook.

Ibram Gaunt could feel it through his boots. He swapped his lamp pack to his right hand, and placed his left palm against the tunnel wall. He felt the rough surface transmit the vibrations. At every subterranean quiver, dirt trickled down from the ceiling, or spilled from loose sections of the old, decaying arches.

The men in the advance squad could feel the shaking too, and it was putting them on edge. Gaunt could tell that by the way the beams of their lamps jerked and shifted at every tremble. Gaunt knew someone should say something. That someone was him, a part of his duty.

‘Shelling,’ he said. ‘The Warmaster has focused the artillery divisions on Sangrel Hive. It’s just shelling.’

‘Feels like the world’s moving,’ muttered one of the troopers.

Gaunt tilted his lamp to find the man’s face. Picked out starkly by the lamp’s beam, Trooper Gebbs shielded his eyes at the glare.

‘It’s just shelling,’ Gaunt assured him. ‘Concussion from the shelling.’

Gebbs shrugged.

The ground shook. Pebbles skittered.

‘Why are we here?’ asked another man. Gaunt’s lamp beam moved to identify Trooper Ari Danks.

‘You getting all philosophical now, Ari?’ Gebbs asked with a chuckle made throaty by the dust in the air.

‘I just wondered what the Throne we were supposed to be doing?’ Danks replied. ‘There’s nothing out here. Just these endless, pitch-black bloody ruins…’

‘So you’d rather be hacking your way through Charismites in the hive-stacks, would you?’ asked Trooper Hiskol.

‘At least it wouldn’t be as black as up my–’

‘Enough,’ said Gaunt. He didn’t have to raise his voice, and the troopers didn’t have to turn their beams to see his face and read its expression. They ceased their chatter. Some of them had served long enough to remember when Gaunt had just been ‘the Boy’, Oktar’s cadet, but none of them were about to forget what that young cadet had become. Gaunt was the commissar. He was discipline.

The ground shook again. Gaunt heard a little river of grit spill down the curve of the tunnel wall. He had to admit that Trooper Danks had a point. What were they doing here?

Gaunt understood the mission parameters clearly enough, and frankly, given the intensity of the hive-war, this advance detail was a blessed relief.

Even so, he’d calculated the journey time that morning, overestimating to allow for detours where the maps didn’t match the navigable reality of the undersink, and they should have reached their destination two hours ago.

Gaunt told the men to wait, and used his lamp to pick his way along the unlit tunnel. The officer in charge of the detail was standing at the next bend, checking his charts.

Major Czytel glanced up at the lamplight bobbing towards him.

‘That you, Gaunt?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We may have taken a wrong turn back there, Gaunt,’ Czytel said. ‘At that junction where the tunnel split.’

He turned and twitched his beam back the way they had come, partly as an indicator, partly to pick out Gaunt’s face.

Gaunt nodded. He’d presumed as much. Galen Czytel was old school, and most definitely remembered the time when Gaunt had merely been ‘the Boy’. Unlike the rank and file, he had never really got over the idea that Ibram Gaunt was an over-educated, over-privileged scholam boy with too much book-learning and not enough actual soldiering. Czytel liked what he called ‘honest men’. He seemed to be allergic to anybody who had an air of the officer class or entitlement. Czytel had ‘dragged himself’ up through the Hyrkan ranks. He’d freely tell you that, possibly several times in the course of one regimental dinner.

In fact, when Gaunt received his full promotion at Oktar’s deathbed on Gylatus Decimus, Czytel had been one of a group of officers who had formally requested that Gaunt be transferred out of the Hyrkan Eighth to another unit. They felt that it would ‘undermine morale’ because the men ‘would not take seriously the authority of an individual who had previously been the regiment’s mascot’.

General Caernavar had thrown the request out quickly. Ironic then, it was officers like Czytel, and not the regular troops, who had found such difficulty in accommodating Gaunt’s maturity.

Gaunt, for his part, had learned that it was best not to correct Czytel unless absolutely necessary. An officer’s mistake could be carefully smoothed over by a diligent commissar. An open argument between an officer and a commissar had potentially devastating effects on discipline.

‘We’ll go back,’ Gaunt said. ‘It’s not far. Or we could go on to the next intersection, and move east.’

‘The next intersection?’ asked Czytel.

In the lamplight, Gaunt could see that Czytel was looking at him with a sort of sneer. ‘You haven’t got your chart out. You just remember that, do you?’

‘I reviewed the route this morning,’ Gaunt replied. ‘I don’t have my chart out because–’

He stopped. He had been about to say ‘because you, as officer in charge, were leading the route’.

‘I will double-check,’ Gaunt said. ‘I could be wrong.’ He reached for the data-slate pouch attached to his webbing, but Czytel just handed over his own slate. It looked like impatience, that Czytel didn’t want to wait while Gaunt produced his data-slate and woke it up. But it was actually a small concession, one which allowed for the idea that Czytel might have made a navigational error. The major wanted to keep the peace too.

Gaunt reviewed the screen.

‘Yes, you see, sir? The next intersection seems to allow access to this sinkway here. That should lead us directly to the shrine.’

‘If it is a shrine,’ said Czytel.

Which is the point of us being here, Gaunt thought, but did not say it. He just nodded.

Czytek turned the squad.

‘Pick it up! Let’s go!’ he called into the darkness.

The Crusade had finally begun.

The Crusade.

The top brass had been talking about it for years, and received wisdom was that the region known as the Sabbat Worlds was past saving. It was a vast territory at the rimward edge of the Segmentum Pacificus, a major Imperial holding that had, in the course of two bloody centuries been overrun by the marauding armies of the Sanguinary Worlds. Some worlds had fallen to the Eternal Archenemy. Others, like Formal Prime, had struggled on, surrounded by the barbarous foe, fighting to maintain their Imperial identities. The Sabbat Worlds deserved the protection of the Throne, their seneschals and governors pleaded for it, but liberation was a monumental task. Few thought that High Command would ever sanction the massive expenditure that a crusade war would require.

Until Slaydo. Lord Militant Slaydo was a persuasive beast, and with the victories of the Khulan Wars on his honour roll, he had been declared Warmaster and allowed to prosecute the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

It was the biggest Imperial mobilisation in the segmentum for three centuries. The Departmento Tacticae Imperialis estimated it would take a century to successfully complete the campaign.

Ibram Gaunt had no real interest in looking that far ahead. The fighting to retake Formal Prime’s ancient and crumbling hives had been some of the most brutal and intense he’d experienced, and his career with the Hyrkans had not been lacking in bloodshed. Eight years since he’d joined the Imperial Guard as a Commissariat cadet, and he’d seen plenty of action, but nothing like this.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2021.
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