And back to me again.

 	This is my third and final ‘current Ghosts continuity’ story for this anthology. It is set three weeks after Salvation’s Reach, relates directly to my two previous stories in this volume, and also to Nik’s, and is a must-read if you’re going into The Warmaster next. Basically, and forgive me if you disagree, I don’t believe that anthologies should be optional extras. This story, like the others listed above, informs the ongoing storyline directly. You need to read it (and them) to fully appreciate The Warmaster. This isn’t an optional side order, this is essential. I hope you appreciate and agree with that philosophy. If I’m going to ask you to buy a Ghosts story, it had better matter. It had better be crucial. It had better not be skippable or disposable.

 	This isn’t. No matter what you think is going on by the end of the story, you’re wrong. But this is going to come back and bite arses everywhere. 

 	I’ve been building towards this for a long time. A long time. When was Necropolis published (2000? Well, tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999)?

 	I like long-term plot plans.

 	I like Gol Kolea a lot.

 	I also like turning mistakes into story points.

 	When you’re writing a long series of novels, you make mistakes. I’m sorry, but even the most thorough author slips up. When I make a mistake, I recognise my failing and seek to correct it (Space Wolves style). I turn the mistake into an asset. Merrt was shot in the mouth in Ghostmaker and ‘died’ (though I didn’t say so), but I wrote about him afterwards, forgetting his death. Realising that, I gave him an augmetic jaw, had him lose his marksmanship skills, and turned him into a major character. A compelling character, I hope. Through a continuity mistake, I found a great character (I fething miss him).

 	Bonin fell to his ‘death’ in Necropolis. I put him into the books after that, realised that I’d fethed up, and thus developed him into ‘Lucky Bonin’ and made my mistake an asset. Another character brought to life by authorial incompetence.

 	I made another mistake regarding Gol’s kids in the books following Necropolis… You see? A pattern emerges. I am turning yet another clumsy mistake into a plot point.

 	And a big one.

 	Truth is, I really shouldn’t be telling you all this. Revealing my mistakes and my frantic efforts to make them right, I mean. You should have a sense that an author is in complete control, that he knows everything, that he has been planning for a long time in intricate detail. I really, really shouldn’t be showing you how the sausages are made.

 	In writing this introduction, I was torn between two approaches. Pretend I was an infallible genius who had been developing secret subplots for years, or show you the craft (ha ha! ‘The craft’? Abnett, get over yourself!).

 	I opted for the latter. In writing comics, I have often deliberately seeded ideas and notions, without knowing where they would go, and come back to them when I’ve decided, making it appear as though I had a grand scheme all along. Organic narrative. It’s a beautiful and adaptable thing.

 	In novels, it’s much more about owning your mistakes and making the best of them. Merrt, Bonin… Lijah Cuu (who appeared without warning when I was desperately trying to rewrite a lost manuscript at short notice… and look what kind of plot he turned into! For that story, if you haven’t heard it, look online. I tell it a lot).

 	I’m taking the risk of showing you how this actually works. I hope you’re interested, and that you’re not disappointed. I build plots, sub-plots and storylines very deliberately, but sometimes something takes you off guard (no pun intended). You see that you’ve made a mistake, and you rectify it in the most creative way you can imagine.

 	To be fair to Gol and his kids, this is a mistake I recognised years ago, and I have been deliberately building upon it ever since. It has become a main thrust of the fourth arc. The correction of a mistake turned into a long-term plan. Don’t make me use the term ‘craft’ again.

 	I love Gol Kolea. I love all of my characters. You may not believe it, but when I do shitty or fatal things to them, I suffer. Even if it is vitally expedient to the story. Merrt? Dorden? Caffran? Bragg? Corbec?

 	‘Why did you kill Bragg?’ is still the single most often-asked question I get.

 	Because it mattered to you. 

 	Write about war, nameless war, who cares? Write about characters locked in war, make the readers care… Then it matters.

 	My high horse is becoming uncomfortable, so I’ll get off it.

 	To all of you out there, I hope you enjoy this dark little story, which, oddly, is more about friendship and laughs than darkness. Until it gets dark.

 	To Gol… I’m so sorry. What happens next, to you and yours and the Ghosts as a whole, is going to be truly awful. 

 	Organic narrative. The ‘craft’ (ha ha).

 	Get ready. Nothing is ever going to be the same again. For, as Aaron Dembski-Bowden always says, really reals.

 	Sorry. Gol, I’m really sorry…

 	Dan Abnett

 
 
    
Ghosts and Bad Shadows
Dan Abnett


 	Aigor 991, twenty-one days out from Salvation’s Reach, 782.M41 
(the 27th year of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade)

 	I

 	For the second time that day, they were making a hole in the forests.

 	The first hole had been made just before dawn. The Highness Ser Armaduke, once a proud Tempest-class frigate, now an old workhorse saved from the breaker’s yard for one last, suicidal run, had dropped out of the warp six hours earlier. The ship had limped into a low orbit above Aigor 991, and hung there for a while, nose down, while the Officer of Detection mapped the northern landmass, compared the geophysical profile to Battlefleet charts, and then plotted the target resolution. As the first rays of the rising sun began to hardlight the warship’s battered starboard side, the Armaduke fired its principal batteries at the surface. 

 	The strike – from the Armaduke’s perspective just a brief flash of light on the nightside below – annihilated six acres of rainforest, and left a smoking patch of earth that was geologically stable and operationally close enough to the destination. Then the Armaduke launched six drop-ships: four long-pattern Arvus landers, and two Falco boats.

 	Aigor 991, a small, uninhabited world, was almost entirely swathed in dense rainforest across the northern continent. The forestation grew very rapidly, so any sections cleared or burned back did not stay clear for long. Aigor 991 had last been visited by a Battlefleet supply tender twenty-one months earlier. No sign of that mission’s landing clearance remained.

 	In the pale, rising light, the six landers had thundered in over the forest canopy and made landfall on the steaming, scorched turf the Armaduke had opened for them.

 	II

 	Through the trees, Gol Kolea could hear the rasp of flamers and the whicker of industrial blades. He could smell hot smoke, which had an acid bite to it, and a reek of sap so sharp that it smelled like disinfectant.

 	He turned, eyeing the dense forest around him. Slivers of sunlight, slender as las-beams, speared down through the canopy. Everything else was a deep emerald gloom. He was standing in shadow.

 	The shadow of trees. Gol didn’t know much about trees, as he had not been closely acquainted with them in the rockcrete halls of Vervunhive. Ironic that he, a Verghastite, and Baskevyl, a Belladon, had been chosen to head up the surface detail; any Tanith would have loved it. Maybe that’s why Gaunt had made the selection. Probably didn’t want some Tanith officer getting all misty-eyed and nostalgic about forests instead of keeping his mind on the job.

 	‘We’re in the right zone?’ he asked Fapes, Baskevyl’s adjutant. 

 	‘Yes, sir,’ Fapes replied. ‘And that’s the third time you’ve asked.’

 	‘We’re here for a resupply,’ Gol snapped back. ‘Promethium and munitions. Seeing as we’ve precious little of either, it would be a feth-fool waste to use up tanks of prom clearing the wrong zone.’

 	‘Definitely would, sir,’ Fapes replied. He raised his auspex and squinted. ‘I’ve got a hard bounce off stone in there, and the coordinates are matched and confirmed. It’s the silo.’ 

 	Remote Depot Aigor 991. Secret. Hidden. An emergency cache that the Navy kept stocked and supplied to provide for out-haul missions beyond the range of secure Navy bases and planetary yards.

 	The mission profile was twofold. Burn off a landing strip from orbit, and then, from there, move in to manually clear the silo location proper with flamers and servitor teams. It was too dicey to try to clear the silo location directly from orbit: a slight miscalculation could risk vaporising the cache, even given the surgical precision of Shipmaster Spika’s gunnery officers. Once the silo was opened up, freight landers could come in and start loading.

 	‘This is the zone, right?’ asked Major Baskevyl, approaching them through the green shadows.

 	‘He just asked that,’ said Fapes.

 	‘I just asked that,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Because it would be a feth-fool waste of prom if we were clearing in the wrong place,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘A point already well noted,’ said Fapes.

 	They had six platoons between them, essentially composed of three from Kolea’s C Company, and three from Baskevyl’s D. The rest of the surface team was made up of worker servitors from the ship’s engineering and cargo divisions, plus a few Battlefleet officers as supervisors. 

 	A squad of men from one of Baskevyl’s platoons struggled past through the undergrowth, carrying fresh promethium tanks up from the landing strip. A Navy officer, impeccable in his dark blue uniform with its silver brocade, walked with them. He was carrying precisely nothing at all, probably because he had urgent dabbing-his-brow-with-a-silk-handkerchief and smoking-a-lho-stick duties to perform. Kolea didn’t know the man’s name.

 	‘Guard gets to do all the hard work,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘That, my friend, is the entire story of the galaxy,’ replied Gol.

 	‘At least we get to breathe some fresh air,’ Baskevyl shrugged.

 	‘This is fresh?’ asked Kolea, wrinkling his nose.

 	‘Well, not now we’re torching the place, no,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Still, better than ship air. That’s like living in an armpit.’

 	‘Or a sock that someone’s still wearing,’ said Fapes. They gazed at him.

 	‘I’ll carry on with the… checking things, sirs,’ Fapes said.

 	Bask’s micro-bead beeped. He exchanged a few words, then looked back at Kolea.

 	‘Maggs says he’s found the silo,’ he said.

 	‘Let’s go take a look,’ said Kolea.

 	III

 	They walked through the trees together. The occasional spears of sunlight made the green shadow all the more oppressive. Insects hummed. There had been birdsong earlier, but the roar of the flamers and the chatter of blades had sent them bursting from the canopy in startled flocks.

 	‘It has two moons,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘What does?’

 	‘Aigor 991. Two moons.’

 	‘How do you know that?’ asked Kolea.

 	‘Because I read the briefing packet.’

 	‘Why are you telling me this?’ 

 	‘Because you didn’t read the briefing packet?’

 	‘I read the bits that Hark highlighted,’ said Kolea. ‘It was forty gakking pages long. I don’t need to know about annual rainfall, highest elevation and the lesser-spotted wood-gargler.’

 	‘The real reason is you can’t read long words, isn’t it, Gol?’

 	Kolea glared at him, then saw Baskevyl’s grin.

 	‘Funny man,’ said Gol.

 	‘So, anyway, it has two moons–’

 	‘Why? Why are you telling me this?’

 	‘Because you can’t read.’

 	‘Bask–’ Gol growled.

 	‘Because we’re getting a day out, that’s why,’ replied Baskevyl, ‘and I want you to enjoy the sights and natural wonders of the world, and I want to be able to explain them to you in painstaking detail.’

 	‘Couldn’t you just club me to death with a log?’

 	‘Two moons. I want you to appreciate the sights.’

 	Kolea halted and stared up at the sky. Baskevyl did the same. All they could see were soaring tree trunks, coils of creepers, and a sea of green leaves, all locked in shadow.

 	‘Sights?’ Kolea said. ‘It’s not going to really fething matter if there are two moons, is it?’

 	IV

 	The stink of smoke and promethium grew stronger. Kolea felt the wet of sap vapour in the air. 

 	The work teams had cleared a decent stretch. Kolea saw Lyse and Zered moving into the dense undergrowth, hosing curls of yellow flame from their burner units. The noise of other flamers roared from nearby. Servitors hacked into foliage with whirring cutting blades or raked away cut or burned greenery.

 	Kolea’s adjutant Rerval was waiting for them at the edge of the clearance area, with Luffrey, the sergeant in charge of Baskevyl’s second platoon, and Caober, Kolea’s chief scout.

 	Rerval flipped out a data-slate, slapped it to stabilise the flickering screen, and then scrolled open a schematic. In the shadow, the screen underlit his face.

 	‘Definitely the right zone, sirs,’ he said.

 	‘Fapes will be delighted,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Beg pardon, major?’ asked Rerval.

 	‘Go on,’ said Kolea with a ‘never mind’ gesture.

 	‘The silo is here,’ said Luffrey, leaning in to point to the slate. ‘Large structure. Out front is a broad rockcrete apron, the landing platform. That’s what we’re clearing now.’

 	‘Estimates?’ asked Baskevyl.

 	‘Providing we don’t hit any snags,’ said Caober, ‘and the tanks don’t run out, I think we’ll have it open by nightfall.’ 

 	‘You’ll get to see the moons after all,’ Baskevyl said to Kolea.

 	‘Moons?’ asked Luffrey.

 	‘There are two–’ began Baskevyl.

 	‘Don’t get him started again,’ warned Kolea. He looked at Caober. ‘Let’s get a look at this silo.’

 	‘Maggs is waiting for you,’ said Caober.

 	‘Luff,’ said Baskevyl, ‘lead us over. Caober, go find the senior Navy man and bring him to join us at the silo. He’s got the access codes.’

 	‘Which one is the senior Navy man?’ asked Caober.

 	‘Tall,’ said Kolea. ‘Dark blue tunic, silver brocade, walks like he’s got an RPG lodged in his rectum.’

 	‘Pretty much describes them all,’ said Caober.

 	‘Well, he probably isn’t doing very much except standing around,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Still much of a muchness,’ said Caober.

 	‘Then use your improbably acute Tanith scouting skills and locate him,’ said Kolea.

 	‘On it,’ said Caober.

 	V

 	Led by Luffrey and Rerval, Kolea and Baskevyl headed into the clearance area. They passed Lyse, kneeling to connect up a fresh promethium tank, her goggles pushed up onto her sweaty forehead.

 	‘How are you doing?’ asked Kolea.

 	‘It’s fething hot,’ said Lyse. ‘Hot and wet and nasty.’

 	‘Good to see morale at a high,’ said Kolea.

 	‘And the shadows–’ began Lyse.

 	‘The what?’

 	‘The shadows, sir,’ she said, snap-fitting the last hose and rising to her feet. ‘The shadows here are really dense.’

 	‘Dense?’

 	‘I don’t know. It’s creepy here, isn’t it?’

 	‘It’s verdant,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘What does that mean?’ asked Lyse.

 	‘It’s lush and green and beautiful,’ said Baskevyl, ‘and the shadows are just part of its dark, primordial grace. Also, it has two moons.’

 	‘The feth?’ asked Lyse, blankly.

 	‘You got that from the briefing packet, didn’t you?’ Kolea said to Baskevyl.

 	‘No indeed,’ said Baskevyl. ‘As a man unafraid of long words, I composed it myself, in order to reassure Trooper Lyse here that this isn’t the kind of death hole we usually end up with as a working environment.’

 	‘To be truthful, it didn’t really work,’ said Lyse. ‘And now I think you’re creepy as well.’

 	‘Don’t worry,’ Kolea told her. ‘Major Baskevyl will be dead by nightfall. By my hand. With a log. Carry on with your work.’

 	‘Yes, sir.’

 	The quartet moved on as Lyse started burning again. They passed two hacking servitors, then reached the lip of the stone apron Luffrey had mentioned. It rose about two metres above the forest floor, and the ancient rockcrete was scabbed with lichen, as well as scorch marks from flamers.

 	Kolea wondered how long the place had stood, and which long-dead Navy architect had commissioned it. The Navy had been building remote depots and supply drops for thousands of years. They were like ancient reliquaries. Like tombs. 

 	Now I’m creeping myself out, Kolea thought.

 	They hauled themselves up onto the apron. Baskevyl, first up, reached out a hand to haul his friend Kolea. More flamer teams were working up there, led by Neskon, Dremmond and Lubba, brought in from other companies because of their fire expertise. Kolea raised a hand to Neskon, and the flame-trooper nodded back as he hosed liquid flame into the undergrowth. They had cleared part of the apron, and Kolea could already see some of the chevron markings on the platform emerging.

 	Caober’s estimate had been generous, though. There was a lot to clear. They would be working into the night, until morning perhaps, as the vegetation was so thick. 

 	Now they were standing in a cleared patch, with hard sunlight falling on them, it made the shadows of the forests and undergrowth seem darker. Creepy, just like Lyse had suggested. Bad shadows. Where had he heard that phrase? Bad shadows. Too dark. Too dense. The air was bright, the sun was strong, and the sky was pale blue, but where the forests stood, the shadows were as thick as Old Night.

 	‘Hey, Gol,’ said Baskevyl. He pointed up at the soft, blue sky. ‘I told you.’

 	Two moons, vague as smudges of white chalk dust, one larger than the other, were just visible in the daylight sky, faint as ghosts.

 	‘I imagine you’re feeling terribly pleased with yourself right now,’ said Kolea.

 	‘It’s a moment I’m going to cherish,’ said Baskevyl grinning. ‘Me and my old pal, under the ghost moons, contemplating the natural glories of the universe.’

 	Kolea sighed.

 	‘Do they have names?’ he asked.

 	‘What?’ asked Baskevyl.

 	‘The two moons? Do they have names?’

 	‘I don’t know,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Does it matter?’

 	‘A sight so beautiful, one should know the names.’

 	Bask paused.

 	‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?’ he asked.

 	‘He really is,’ said Rerval, sniggering.

 	‘I really fething am,’ growled Kolea. ‘Now let’s get on with the job.’

 	VI

 	They moved across the cleared part of the apron and back into the overgrowth. It was like stepping behind a curtain, from a lit room into a lightless one. Bad shadows surrounded them again. They seemed darker than before, deep green and black like the abyssal depths of an ocean, but Kolea reminded himself their eyes had become accustomed to light out in the cleared space. 

 	‘This way,’ said Rerval, and immediately tripped over a creeper root. He picked himself up, and had to slap the data-slate a few times to get it to relight.

 	‘Classy,’ said Luffrey.

 	‘This thing,’ said Rerval, brandishing the data-slate, ‘works even better when it’s been pushed up someone’s arse sideways.’

 	‘Classier,’ laughed Luffrey.

 	Kolea ignored the banter. Luff and Rerval were good friends. They often sparred like this.

 	‘Give yourself a moment,’ said Baskevyl quietly. ‘Let your eyes get used to the darkness again. Just a moment, and then no more falling down like an idiot.’

 	They paused.

 	‘See? Better, right?’ asked Baskevyl.

 	‘Sure,’ said Kolea, but he didn’t think it was. The shadows seemed just as dark as before. 

 	Bad shadows. Who had said that?

 	Kolea pulled out a lamp pack and switched it on. The lance of white light illuminated tree boles and snaking creepers as he played it around.

 	‘Come on,’ he said.

 	They crunched and clambered through the undergrowth. After a few minutes, they came upon the rusted skeleton of a Valkyrie gunship, entombed in a tangle of branches and leafy suckers. 

 	‘How long’s that been here?’ Luffrey wondered.

 	‘Can’t be since the last supply drop,’ said Rerval. ‘It looks ancient.’

 	‘We’ll need to clear it, too,’ said Kolea. He looked at Baskevyl. ‘You think the servitors can move it?’

 	Bask shook his head.

 	‘I’ll vox up and have some heavies transported down,’ offered Rerval.

 	‘Yeah, do that,’ said Kolea.

 	Rerval pulled the vox-caster pack off his back, set it down, and began to nurse it to life. 

 	‘Armaduke, Armaduke, this is the surface team, copy?’

 	Static buzzed.

 	Rerval repeated his call.

 	‘Nothing,’ he said, looking up at Kolea. 

 	Kolea moved his lamp beam so as not to blind his adjutant.

 	‘This happens,’ said Baskevyl. 

 	‘Yeah, all the time,’ said Kolea.

 	‘No, here,’ said Bask. ‘It was in the briefing packet. Vox-links can be disrupted from time to time by atmospheric magnetics.’

 	‘Let me guess,’ said Kolea. ‘The two moons?’

 	‘Uhm, yes, actually,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘Yet they were so beautiful,’ Kolea snapped caustically. He looked at Rerval.

 	‘Try again in a few minutes,’ he told the adjutant.

 	‘Sir.’

 	Rerval rose and reslung the ’caster.

 	VII

 	‘You took your time,’ said Wes Maggs.

 	‘It was dark, and some of us fell over,’ said Kolea.

 	‘By some of us, he means Rerval,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Hey, Wes.’

 	Wes Maggs was the lead scout of D Company. He was also a rare example of a non-Tanith making the scout grade. He was crouched, gun flat across his thighs, his back against an ancient rockcrete wall. He rose, threw the majors a casual salute, and looked at Rerval.

 	‘You fell down?’

 	‘There was a creeper-related incident,’ said Rerval.

 	‘Try the vox again,’ Kolea told Rerval.

 	‘This is the silo?’ Baskevyl asked Maggs.

 	Maggs looked up into the dense darkness. 

 	‘Pretty much. Right place, right ref. Big place, though you can’t see much of it.’

 	Kolea approached the rockcrete wall and placed a hand on it. It was wet with moss and lichen.

 	‘It slopes,’ he said.

 	‘Schematics say the depot is underground,’ said Maggs. ‘The cap, this part, is a pyramid.’

 	Like an ancient tomb, Kolea thought.

 	‘What’s up?’ Baskevyl asked him.

 	‘Nothing.’

 	‘Your face just then.’

 	Kolea drew Baskevyl to one side. 

 	‘I’ll be honest, Braden,’ Kolea whispered. ‘I don’t like this, not one bit. There’s something about this place. Like Lyse said. It’s creepy.’

 	‘It’s just a depot, Gol.’

 	‘I know, I know, but the whole thing… the shadows… the trees… It’s just hitting all my alarm buttons.’

 	‘I thought you were a bit jumpy,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘Sorry. I can’t explain it. Something…’

 	Baskevyl placed a reassuring hand on his friend’s massive shoulder.

 	‘I’ll tell you what it is, shall I?’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘Yeah, please do.’

 	‘Salvation’s Reach.’

 	‘What?’ asked Kolea.

 	‘We just went through fething hell.’

 	‘We’ve been through worse. I’ve been through worse,’ whispered Kolea.

 	‘The last time is always the worst,’ Baskevyl replied. ‘It’s the freshest. At the fething Reach, we lost friends. We lost good men. You’re still all wound up. You’re still on… what is it that Hark calls it?’

 	‘Fight time,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Yeah, right, fight time. You’re expecting the worst, and this isn’t it. You’re wound up tight.’

 	‘Maybe. And you’re not?’ asked Kolea.

 	‘Of course. I just don’t let it show like you do.’

 	‘Because you’re a professional soldier and I’m some scratch company lout?’ asked Kolea.

 	Baskevyl paused. He withdrew his hand.

 	‘No,’ he replied. ‘Because I’m Braden Baskevyl and you’re Gol Kolea and we do things differently, according to our characters.’

 	Kolea nodded.

 	‘Yeah, sorry. That was terrible of me. Sorry, Braden. I… Sorry.’

 	‘It’s fine,’ said Baskevyl.

 	‘It’s not,’ said Kolea. ‘That was out of line. I’m sorry. I just want you to know… There’s something about this place that has been freaking me out since we arrived. And it’s not just the fact we’re only three weeks out of combat.’

 	Baskevyl shrugged.

 	‘I know,’ said Baskevyl. ‘I felt it too, the moment I got here. I was trying to ignore it. It’s the shadows. Under the trees. The shadows are just… bad shadows. Like–’

 	‘What did you say?’ asked Kolea.

 	‘When?’ asked Baskevyl.

 	‘Just then. You said “bad shadows”.’

 	‘So?’

 	‘Where did you hear that, Bask?’

 	‘I didn’t hear it anywhere. I just said it. With words.’

 	Kolea looked away.

 	‘What’s the matter?’ Baskevyl asked him.

 	Kolea unslung his rifle.

 	‘Bad shadows. I don’t know why, but that phrase means something. I wish I could remember why.’

 	VIII

 	‘Vox?’ Baskevyl asked.

 	Rerval shook his head. He’d been trying for five minutes.

 	‘Keep the cans on, Rerval,’ Baskevyl advised. ‘You might hear something.’

 	Rerval nodded, and hooked the headphones back over his ears. He gathered up the vox set.

 	‘Let’s get working,’ said Kolea. ‘Let’s find the access point.’

 	‘What?’ asked Rerval, too loudly, headphones on.

 	Maggs dumb-signed him, Verghast style.

 	‘All right. The entrance,’ Rerval said, consulting the data-slate. He slapped it a few times. ‘Eighteen metres that way.’

 	He pointed.

 	‘Let’s move,’ said Kolea.

 	‘What?’ asked Rerval. ‘No, you’re all right,’ he added. ‘I see what you’re doing.’

 	IX

 	Maggs had brought a machete. It was probably a meat cleaver from the Armaduke’s cook rooms, but it served as a machete. He hacked back the vines and creepers that blocked their route along the wall. It was ridiculously dark. The shadows were upon them like a weight.

 	In the distance, Kolea could hear the rush of flamers. He kept his weapon tight and ready.

 	‘What was that you said?’ asked Rerval from behind him. Kolea turned. His adjutant was pulling off his headphones.

 	‘You get a contact?’ Kolea asked.

 	‘No, no. You said something.’

 	‘No one said anything,’ said Luffrey.

 	‘You said “eagle stones”. One of you did,’ Rerval said.

 	‘What the gak are “eagle stones”?’ asked Maggs.

 	‘No one said anything,’ said Kolea.

 	‘But I heard it, sir,’ said Rerval.

 	‘Just keep moving,’ Baskevyl advised.

 	They continued. There was no sound except the squelch of their boots in the muck, the hack and chop of Maggs’s blade, and their panting. It was hot. They were all sweating hard.

 	‘All right, stop fething me about,’ said Rerval suddenly.

 	They looked back at him.

 	‘What?’ asked Luffrey.

 	‘Someone said it again. Just then,’ said Rerval. ‘“Eagle stones. I want the eagle stones. Bring them to me.”’

 	‘You heard that?’ asked Kolea.

 	‘Like a whisper, sir,’ nodded Rerval.

 	‘Honestly?’

 	‘Swear by the Throne.’

 	Kolea looked back at the others.

 	‘A joke’s a joke, but that’s enough,’ he said. ‘Tell me, right now, which one of you is pissing this boy about?’

 	In the green-black gloom, they all shook their heads.

 	‘Then I’m going to abort this mission immediately,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Shit!’ said Baskevyl. ‘Gol, we can’t do that! After the Reach, we’re down to twenty per cent munitions and fifteen per cent promethium! We need this resupply.’

 	‘Yeah,’ said Gol, ‘but more than that, we need to stay alive. Something’s here. Bad shadows, Bask. Bad fething shadows.’

 	‘Come on, Gol,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Another few metres and we’ll be at the door. By nightfall, we’ll have the apron cleared. We need this.’

 	‘No. I’m calling it,’ Kolea said firmly.

 	‘Gol,’ said Baskevyl, ‘if we don’t make this resupply, we’ll be down to the dregs the next fight that comes along. Las-packs. Bolter shells. Promethium. Feth, we need them.’

 	Kolea looked at his friend’s shadowed face.

 	‘All right,’ he said. ‘Keep going. I want to know where Caober is with that fething Navy man. Rerval? Cans on. Keep hailing the ship.’

 	‘Sir.’

 	‘If I find out any of you is playing tricks,’ Kolea warned the rest of them, ‘know this. I have a log. With Baskevyl’s name on it. But names can easily be changed.’

 	X

 	‘And behold,’ announced Maggs, wiping sap off his blade. ‘The front door.’

 	It was a huge cargo hatch, double-overlocked and festooned with creepers and vines. It lay at an angle, recessed into the pyramid’s slope, as if attempting to bathe in a sun it would never see for long.

 	There was a crunch. Kolea turned hard, gun at his hip, ready to fire. Maggs was a microsecond behind him.

 	‘Easy, easy!’ Caober called. ‘Feth, you’re jumpy.’

 	‘Shit,’ murmured Kolea, lowering his rifle.

 	Caober approached. There was a Navy officer with him. The man was clearly not used to doing anything except standing on a steel bridge shouting orders and sipping amasec. Each step he took was a gingerly attempt to avoid getting filth on his shiny boots. He had an augmetic monocle implant. His hair was silver, and oiled back. He wore a dark blue uniform with silver brocade. He walked stiffly, upright. Like he had a concealed warhead up his back passage, Gol thought.

 	‘This is–’ Caober began.

 	‘I am Senior Fedrush Arskil, Master of Materiel for the Highness Ser Armaduke,’ the man said.

 	‘Arskil?’ whispered Luffrey. ‘That’s a joke just waiting to happen, isn’t it?’

 	‘Stow that, Luff,’ Baskevyl hissed.

 	‘Who is in charge here, I wonder?’ Arskil enquired, leaning forward, his monocle whirring to focus.

 	‘I am,’ said Kolea and Baskevyl at the same time.

 	‘He is,’ Baskevyl added, looking at Gol. ‘He is.’

 	‘Your ruffian here,’ said Arskil, indicating Caober with a dismissive gesture, ‘led me through these vile woods in the belief there was something to inspect.’

 	‘Sorry about the vile woods and the ruffian, sir,’ said Kolea. ‘We have located the access hatch. Do you have the codes?’

 	‘Naturally,’ said Arskil, producing a sleek data-slate.

 	‘I’m not a ruffian,’ Caober observed quietly.

 	‘We will revisit that issue when we haven’t got people around,’ Kolea told him. ‘You hear anything coming in?’

 	‘Like what?’ Caober asked.

 	‘Dunno. Voices?’

 	‘I did not, sir,’ Caober replied.

 	‘Hatch codes as requested,’ Arskil said, handing the data-slate to Kolea.

 	‘Thank you, sir. One thing. That eye of yours…’

 	‘I lost my eye in the last Battle of Khulan,’ Arskil declared, as though everyone was interested. ‘Shrapnel from the desk of the Master of Artifice as it exploded. He died, poor soul. I mourn him still. Warp torpedo through three decks, just beneath the bridge of my ship. Took out the entire deck plating of the bridge and–’

 	‘Terrible, sir, terrible,’ said Kolea. ‘But that eye? The augmetic? It can see in the dark?’

 	‘Why of course, young man. I have worn it since Khulan and it has never failed me.’

 	‘Tell me then,’ Kolea asked, gently turning the Navy officer to look out into the undergrowth. ‘Do you see anything?’

 	‘Such as what, good fellow?’ asked Arskil.

 	‘I don’t know. Anything?’

 	‘Trees. A great deal of them’ said Arskil. ‘Creepers, vine. The heat-swell of your flamer units, in the distance. Woods from here to the rim of the apron, eighty-nine metres away. Fifty-one metres that way, I see the ruined chassis of a Valkyrie gunship.’

 	‘Well spotted. Nothing else?’

 	‘No, my good man,’ Arskil replied.

 	‘Nothing at all?’ Kolea pressed.

 	‘No, nothing. Why do you ask me so repeatedly? It’s just shadows out there. Bad shadows, mark you, but still.’

 	‘Bad shadows?’ Baskevyl asked, seizing on the phrase. ‘Why would you call them that?’

 	Arskil looked surprised. ‘Serious and unusual levels of light depletion. It quite foxes my augmetic. Sometimes the old eye can get a little stiff.’ 

 	Bask looked at Kolea.

 	‘Open the hatch, sir,’ Kolea said to the Navy man.

 	‘Ah, can’t you do it, my good man?’ Arskil replied. ‘I gave you the slate. I don’t want to get my gloves dirty.’

 	XI

 	Gol raised the slate and studied the access codes. He slunked back the heavy metal weather-cover of the hatch controls, exposing the keypad.

 	‘Weapons set,’ he told his team. They all stood ready.

 	‘Why are you Astra Militarum devils so wary?’ Arskil asked.

 	‘Because we’ve danced this dance before, more than once,’ Caober replied. ‘Besides, we’re ruffians.’

 	Kolea began to punch the code into the old, worn keypad. A yellow light glowed, and then turned green. The massive hatch opened, ripping root tendrils and creepers aside.

 	A sigh breathed. Ancient air. Stale air.

 	Kolea turned suddenly.

 	‘I heard it that time,’ he stated. ‘“Bring them to me.” Someone distinctly said “Bring them to me.” Which one of you was it?’

 	Rerval, Caober, Maggs, Luffrey and Baskevyl looked at one other.

 	‘Nobody said anything, Gol,’ Bask replied.

 	‘You really are quite agitated, sir,’ remarked Arskil. ‘I wonder why you–’

 	His head came off. 

 	One moment it was attached to his body, the next it was spinning away into the shadows, slack-mouthed, trailing a corkscrew spray of blood.

 	Arskil’s severed neck vented arterial spray. His headless body sank to one knee, as if he were about to be decorated or promoted, and then fell over. Copious amounts of blood darkened his dark blue tunic and stained his brocade.

 	‘Wait,’ said Rerval, almost baffled. ‘His head just came clean off. How the feth did that happen?’

 	Kolea and Maggs were already firing, loosing wild shots into the trees. Baskevyl, Luffrey and Caober swiftly followed suit. Rerval found his weapon and started shooting too.

 	‘There’s something in the trees!’ Maggs yelled.

 	‘There’s something in the fething shadows!’ Kolea yelled back.

 	‘Keep shooting!’ Bask cried.

 	‘At what?’ Kolea shouted. 

 	The air was full of sap and shot-torn leaves. Vines burst and snapped. Creepers spurted juice.

 	‘What’s happening?’ Rerval yelled, firing on full auto.

 	Bad shadows, Kolea thought, bad shadows.

 	Something uncurled from the darkness to his left. A squiggle of malicious blackness. 

 	It looked like–

 	Gol Kolea remembered. He remembered. The memory stabbed into his head like a warknife. 

 	Tona’s cabin. Dinner. Just a precious few nights before.

 	Yoncy. His baby girl Yoncy.

 	A drawing. He still had it in his pocket. It had shown an anguished, heartfelt black squiggle of chalk made by his child’s hand. The squiggle had been ground into the paper. The chalk stick Yoncy had used had broken several times during the furious effort. There had been something desperate about the marks, as if the child had been trying to destroy the paper and erase an image so terrible that she hadn’t wanted it to take form.

 	‘I was going to draw more trees,’ Yoncy had explained, ‘but I picked up black instead of green by accident, and it made a bad shadow shape, and I didn’t like it so I scribbled it out.’

 	He could hear her saying it.

 	Bad shadow.

 	Bad shadow.

 	Kolea pump-ejected a spent clip and slammed home a fresh one. He kept firing at the bad shadow.

 	The picture had been done in coloured chalk. There had been spiky things, several figures, and two sickle shapes in what Gol had presumed was the sky. The sickle shapes had made no sense at the time. Now they did. Two moons. Two crescent ghost moons, just as he had seen them with Baskevyl. There had been something else, too, a triangle. A pyramid. The depot pyramid.

 	‘Are these trees?’ Gol had asked, pointing. 

 	‘Yeah,’ Yoncy had agreed, eating her stew with relish.

 	There were trees every fething where around him.

 	‘Who’s this?’ Gol had asked, pointing to the figures.

 	‘That’s you, silly. You and Uncle Rerval and Uncle Bask and Uncle Luffrey.’

 	They were all present. All of them.

 	‘How can a shadow be bad?’ Kolea’s son Dalin had asked, at the table.

 	Yoncy had wiggled her hands and picked up her dolly.

 	‘A bit like a monster.’

 	She had leaned over on her seat and pointed at the drawing in Gol’s hands.

 	‘See? Look? You’re killing it. Those jaggy lines? Per-chew chew chew chew chew! You’re shooting it with your gun. Per-chew chew! I used yellow chalk.’

 	That might as well be all I have, Gol thought, and switched to full auto.

 	Beside him, Luffrey shuddered and dropped, eviscerated by a blade of shadow. Coils of pink, wet intestines squirted out of his belly onto the black mulch like paste from a tube.

 	‘Holy Feth!’ Gol cried. 

 	His voice made no sound. He couldn’t hear himself.

 	The world had fallen silent. It had been muted.

 	It had frozen, hushed, in shadow.

 	In the sudden silence, Gol Kolea felt cold breath against his cheek.

 	‘Who are you?’ he whispered. ‘What are you?’

 	‘I am here,’ a voice replied. Each word sounded like a slow scrape of chalk on paper.

 	A black shadow prowled around him in the darkness, angular, impossible, anti-geometric.

 	‘What are you?’ Gol repeated, frantically.

 	‘I,’ the black shadow whispered, ‘am the Voice of Sek.’ Again, the awful dry scrape of broken chalk. The thing’s voice was impossibly loud, but Gol was sure only he could hear it. 

 	‘Bring me the eagle stones,’ scraped the shadow, at his side and yet far away at the same time, ‘or your child will perish.’

 	‘You bastard!’ Gol snarled. ‘Leave her alone!’

 	Something scratched in the darkness. A chuckle. A scribbled shadow circled him.

 	‘You think you can have your damaged mind healed by the touch of a weakling Imperial saint,’ the shadow scratched, ‘and not become, by the same process, a conduit for daemons?’

 	‘Get out of my head!’

 	‘Bring them to me!’ the voice dry-scraped.

 	‘I don’t know what you want from me!’ Gol declared. He could smell chalk dust.

 	‘You will, Gol Kolea. You will come to understand. Do it, or the bad shadow will fall upon you once more. I will fall upon you and your offspring.’

 	In the darkness, a black mouth open and smiled.

 	‘You bastard!’ Kolea yelled, and resumed firing.

 	XII

 	They had blown the undergrowth to pieces with their gunfire. Sap dripped from broken and torn shoots.

 	‘Cease fire,’ Kolea said.

 	They were all spent anyway.

 	‘What just happened?’ Baskevyl asked, looking at the two corpses tangled on the ground. One was gutted, the other had no head.

 	‘Luff!’ Rerval cried, falling to his knees beside his friend’s body. ‘Oh no! Oh fething feth! No!’

 	‘Abort this mission,’ said Kolea. ‘Abort it right now.’

 	XIII

 	The old lamps set into the walls of the Highness Ser Armaduke’s stark debrief room hummed and fizzled, their shades yellowed with age.

 	Ibram Gaunt scrolled through the data-slate again, and then set it down.

 	‘So, you aborted the mission, major?’ he asked.

 	‘I did, sir,’ Kolea replied, standing to attention in front of the metal table.

 	‘Do you consider that a prudent command choice, major?’ asked Commissar Hark, sitting at Gaunt’s left.

 	‘I do, sir,’ Gol replied. ‘It should have been routine, but two deaths. A thing–’

 	‘You describe it as a daemon, sir,’ said Shipmaster Spika, sitting at Gaunt’s right.

 	‘I know no other word for what I saw and sensed and felt, shipmaster,’ Gol replied. ‘It spoke. It killed. It had no form except shadow. We shot at it, with multiple barrages. It did not die.’

 	Silence. Gol felt he should add more.

 	‘Sirs,’ he said, ‘I appreciate with full concern our lack of munitions. I really do. We stand in a bit of a fix without resupply. Do not suppose for a moment that I would have aborted lightly. But in all good conscience, I could not continue. Lives were taken, and I supposed that more lives would have been taken if I had tried to continue.’

 	‘That is reasonable,’ said Hark.

 	‘One of yours, one of mine,’ Gaunt said to Spika. The shipmaster nodded.

 	‘Sir,’ Gol said to Spika. ‘If I could have in any way protected your man, I would have. It was so sudden. It came upon us so suddenly. Also, if I may say, I aborted because I did not dare risk bringing it back aboard with us.’

 	‘This thing,’ said Gaunt, ‘it said it was the Voice of Sek?’

 	‘Yes, sir.’

 	‘And it wanted something from you?’

 	‘Yes, sir.’

 	‘It wanted… what was it? Eagle stones?’ Gaunt asked.

 	‘Yes.’

 	‘What are they?’ asked Hark.

 	‘I have no idea, Commissar Hark, sir,’ said Gol Kolea.

 	‘Do we have any data on that?’ Gaunt asked Hark. ‘Eagle stones?’

 	‘Nothing, Ibram.’

 	‘Major Kolea,’ said Gaunt, ‘is there anything you’ve left out or omitted from your report?’

 	Gol paused. Of course there is, he thought. The fact that it knew my name, and that I had children. The fact that everything matched Yoncy’s drawing. The fact that it called me a conduit for daemons. How can I tell you that? How can I tell you those things and not have you execute me where I stand? I cannot speak of them, because if I am dead, executed for heresy, who will protect my children? Or will you just execute them, too, or hand them to the Black Ships? Who will know enough to protect the Ghosts? I will deny this darkness, this shadow. I am strong. I am Gol Kolea. The Saint herself has touched me and blessed me. I will protect my family and the regiment from this. It will be my personal, private duty, and I will not fail.

 	‘No, sirs,’ Gol said.

 	Gaunt glanced at Hark. Hark nodded. Then Gaunt looked at Spika, who shook his head.

 	Gaunt looked up at Kolea.

 	‘Despite the parlous state of our operational supply levels,’ he said, ‘we support your decision. Given the circumstances, it was right to abort. Major Baskevyl has vouched for you, and we take that seriously. We also respect your command choices on the ground. No charges will be pending.’

 	‘Thank you, sirs,’ Kolea said.

 	‘You made the best decision, Gol,’ said Hark, ‘under terrible circumstances. We’re backing you. There will be no mark on your service record.’ 

 	‘I am gratified by your support, sirs,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Shipmaster?’ said Gaunt, turning to Spika. ‘Supply depot Aigor 991 is no longer viable. Have your gunnery officers annihilate the site, and process that information through Battlefleet channels.’

 	‘I will,’ said Spika.

 	‘Full batteries,’ Gaunt advised. ‘Burn that site.’

 	‘I’ll raze the whole damned landmass, sir,’ Spika replied. ‘For my man Arskil, if nothing else.’

 	‘He was a good man, shipmaster,’ Kolea said.

 	Spika paused. ‘Really? I always thought he was a bit of a pompous fool.’

 	‘I was just being respectful,’ said Gol.

 	‘And I should too, major,’ Spika said, rising. ‘The man’s dead. He was crew. I shouldn’t bad-mouth him.’

 	‘He died well, in the service of the God-Emperor,’ said Gol.

 	‘Did he?’ asked Spika.

 	‘No,’ sighed Gol. ‘He didn’t.’

 	‘He was slain by darkness,’ sighed Spika. ‘Pompous fool or not, he didn’t deserve that.’

 	‘Nobody deserves that,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Dismissed, major,’ said Hark.

 	Gol Kolea made the sign of the aquila, turned smartly, and left the cabin.

 	XIV

 	He was halfway down the companionway outside when he heard Gaunt call his name. Gol stopped and turned. Gaunt approached him.

 	‘Gol?’

 	‘Sir?’

 	‘Are you all right?’

 	‘It was a bad situation, sir,’ Gol said.

 	Gaunt put a hand on Gol’s shoulder. It was reassuring, but oddly uncomfortable. Gaunt seldom showed connection like this.

 	‘Gol,’ said Gaunt quietly. ‘Gol, we’ve been together for an age now. Since Vervunhive. I think you’re… You’re the most foursquare and dependable officer I have in my command.’

 	‘Sir–’

 	‘I mean it, Gol,’ said Gaunt. ‘I am blessed with fine company officers. Bask. Daur. Kolosim. Obel. Sloman. Elam. Shoggy. Rags. Theiss. Arcuda… Rawne.’

 	‘Even him, sir?’

 	Gaunt smiled.

 	‘Of course, even him,’ he said.

 	‘Of course.’

 	‘But you,’ said Gaunt, ‘you are the rock. The core. The foundation. You have, in a way, filled the void Corbec left. You are rooted. You are true. I depend on you more than I depend on any other company commander.’

 	‘I am honoured that you say that, sir,’ said Kolea.

 	‘So if you need me,’ said Gaunt, ‘if you want to talk to me, off the record. If there’s anything, anything at all, I need you to know that you can come to me with it.’

 	‘I appreciate your words, sir, very much,’ said Kolea.

 	‘Good,’ said Gaunt. ‘Gol, is there anything else about the circumstances of Aigor 991 that you want to tell me about? Man to man, not subordinate to commander? Just two men talking? Two friends?’

 	Gol Kolea thought about the drawing in his pocket. He wanted to take it out, unfold it, and show it to Gaunt, whom he loved and admired above all other men.

 	But the consequences. The consequences. To those he loved most. The inevitable outcome. The inevitable Imperial outcome.

 	‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your frankness, but no, sir.’

 	Gaunt nodded.

 	‘Sir,’ said Kolea. ‘May I enquire… where are we headed next?’

 	‘Urdesh,’ replied Gaunt. ‘The forge world.’

 	‘Urdesh,’ Kolea echoed. ‘Well, I look forward to serving you there, sir.’

 	Gaunt patted him on the arm, and nodded.

 	‘All right,’ he said. ‘Carry on.’

 	Gaunt turned and walked away.

 	Gol began walking towards the troop billets, his head down, a weight upon him that he wasn’t sure would ever lift. He had a battle ahead of him, and the battle wasn’t Urdesh.

 	In the patchy ghost light of the companionway’s glow-globes, he cast a bad shadow behind him.