THE WARMASTER

by Dan Abnett

  ‘Their…?’

  ‘That they are not going to kill him, colonel,’ said Gaunt. ‘Many have tried, and they have included men wearing rosettes.’

  Kazader raised his eyebrows slightly.

  ‘As you wish, colonel-commissar,’ he said. ‘You are evidently a cautious man.’

  ‘That probably explains why I have lived so long,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘Indeed, sir, we presumed you dead. Long dead.’

  ‘Ten years dead.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the Urdeshi.

  ‘I never lost faith.’

  Gaunt turned. The voice had come from the shadows nearby, under the lip of the dock overhang. A figure stepped out into the rain, flanked by aides and attendants. Guards with light poles fell in step, and their lanterns illuminated the figure’s face.

  Gaunt didn’t recognise him at first. He was an old man, grey-bearded and frail, as if the dark blue body armour he wore were keeping him upright. His long cloak was hemmed in gold.

  ‘Not once,’ the man said. ‘Not once in ten years.’

  Gaunt saluted, back straight.

  ‘Lord general,’ he said.

  Barthol Van Voytz stepped nose to nose with Gaunt. He was still a big man, but his face was lined with pain. Raindrops dripped from his heavy beard.

  He looked Gaunt in the eyes for a moment, then embraced him. There was great intent in his hug, but very little strength. Gaunt didn’t know how to react. He stood for a moment, awkward, until the general released him.

  ‘I told them all you’d come back,’ said Van Voytz.

  ‘It is good to see you, sir.’

  ‘I told them death was not a factor in the calculations of Ibram Gaunt.’

  Gaunt nodded. He bit back the desire to snap out a retort. Jago was in the past, further in the past for Van Voytz than it was for Gaunt. The general had been a decent friend and ally in earlier days, but he had used Gaunt and the Ghosts poorly at Jago. The wounds and losses were still raw.

  At least to Gaunt. To Gaunt, they were but five years young. To Van Voytz, an age had passed, and life had clearly embattled him with other troubles.

  Van Voytz clearly did not see the reserve in Gaunt’s face. But then Gaunt’s eyes had famously become unreadable.

  Eyes I only have because of you, Barthol.

  Van Voytz looked him up and down, like a father welcoming a child home after a long term away at scholam, examining him to see how he has grown.

  ‘You’re a hero, Bram,’ he said.

  ‘The word is applied too loosely and too often, general,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘Nonsense. You return in honour and in triumph. What you have achieved…’ His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.

  ‘We’ll have time to discuss it all,’ he said. ‘To discuss many things. Debriefing and so forth. Much to discuss.’

  ‘I was given to understand that the warmaster wished to receive my report.’

  ‘He does,’ nodded Van Voytz. ‘We all do.’

  ‘The office of the warmaster will arrange an audience,’ said the aide beside Van Voytz.

  ‘You remember my man here, Bram?’ said Van Voytz.

  ‘Tactician Biota,’ Gaunt nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Chief Tactical Officer, Fifth Army Group now,’ Biota nodded. ‘It’s good to see you again, colonel-commissar.’

  ‘I wanted to be the one to greet you, Bram,’ said Van Voytz, ‘in person, as you stepped onto firm land. Because we go back.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Staff is in uproar, you know,’ said Van Voytz. ‘Quite the stir you’ve created. But I insisted it should be me.’

  ‘I didn’t expect my disembarkation to be witnessed by a lord general,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘By a friend, Ibram,’ said Van Voytz.

  Gaunt hesitated.

  ‘If you say so, sir,’ he replied.

  Van Voytz studied him for a moment. Rain continued to drip from his beard. He nodded sadly, as if acknowledging Gaunt’s right to resentment.

  ‘Well, indeed,’ he said quietly. ‘I do say so. That’s a conversation we should have over an amasec or two. Not here.’

  He looked up into the rain.

  ‘This is not the most hospitable location. I apologise that the site of your return is not a more glorious scene.’

  ‘It is what it is,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘Not just the weather, Gaunt.’ Van Voytz turned, and placed a hand on Gaunt’s shoulder, as if to lead him into the interior chambers below the lip of the dock. ‘Urdesh,’ he said. ‘This is a bloody pickle.’

  Gaunt tensed slightly.

  ‘When you use words like “pickle”, Barthol,’ he said, ‘it is always an understatement. A euphemism. And I immediately expect it to be followed by some description of how the Ghosts can dig you out of it with their lives.’

  There was silence, apart from the patter of rain on the dock and the awnings.

  ‘I declare, sir,’ said Kazader, ‘a man should not speak in such a way to a lord general. You must apologise immediately and–’

  Van Voytz raised his hand sharply.

  ‘Thank you, Colonel Kazader,’ he said, ‘but I don’t need you to defend my honour. Colonel-Commissar Gaunt has always spoken his mind, which is why I value him, and also why he is still a colonel-commissar. What he said was the truth, emboldened by hot temper no doubt, but still the truth.’

  He looked at Gaunt.

  ‘The Urdesh War will be resolved by good tactics and strong command, Gaunt,’ he said. ‘It requires nothing from you or your men. The real pickle is the crusade. Fashions have changed, Bram, and these days are perhaps better a time for truth and plain speaking. This is a moment, Bram, one of those moments that history will take note of.’

  ‘My relationship with time and history is somewhat skewed, sir,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘You suffered a lapse, did you not?’ asked Biota.

  ‘A translation accident,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘You’ve lost time,’ said Van Voytz, ‘but this time could now be yours. It could belong to a man of influence.’

  ‘I have influence?’ asked Gaunt.

  Van Voytz chuckled.

  ‘More than you might imagine,’ he replied, ‘and there’s more to be gained. Let’s talk, somewhere out of this foul weather.’

  TWELVE: A PLACE OF SAFETY

  Below him, through the heavy rain, Gol Kolea watched the Armaduke discharge its contents.

  He was standing on an observation platform high on the ship’s superstructure. The platform had extended automatically when the ship’s hatches opened. Down below, like ants, slow trains of people processed down the covered gangways onto the dockside, and the dock’s heavy hoists swung down pallets laden with material and cargo.

  He smelled cold air, faintly fogged with petrochemicals, and tasted rain. He felt the cold wind on his skin. It wasn’t home, because he’d never see that again, but it was a home. It reminded him of the high walls of Vervunhive.

  In his life there, he’d only been up onto the top walls of the hive a few times. A man like him, a mine worker from the skirtlands of the superhive, seldom had reason or permission to visit such a commanding vantage. But he remembered the view well. His wife had loved it. When they had first been together, he had sometimes saved up bonus pay to afford a pass to the Panorama Walk, as a treat for her. He’d even proposed to her up there. That was an age ago, before the kids had come along.

  The thought of his children pained him. Gol hated that he registered fear and pain every time they crossed his mind. Though it didn’t feel like it for a moment, it was ten years since he’d led the drop to Aigor 991 for the resupply. Ten years since he’d heard the voice. Ten whole years since the voice had told him he was a conduit for daemons, and that he had to fetch the eagle stones or his child would perish.

  The terror of that day had lingered with him. He tried to put it out of his mind. When you fought in the front line against the Archenemy, the Ruinous Powers tried to trick
you and pollute you all the time. He’d told himself that’s all it was: a warp trick. He’d made a report to Gaunt too, about the voice and its demand, but not about everything. How could he report that? For the sake of his child, how could he admit he had been condemned.

  Then there had been the incident in the hold during the boarding action. Baskevyl had told him all about it. It seemed likely they knew what ‘eagle stones’ were now. Bask’s theory, and the related accounts, had all been classified to be part of Gaunt’s formal report to high command. Now they were safe on Urdesh, the whole matter would be passed to the authorities, to people who knew what they were doing, not front-line grunts like him.

  If the wretched things in the hold were the eagle stones, then they were apparently precious artefacts. It made sense that the accursed Anarch Sek would want them, and would try manipulation to get them. According to initial data, Sek was here on Urdesh, leading the enemy strengths. Well, you bastard. I’ve brought the stones to you, like you asked. You can leave me be now. Leave me and my children be. We’re not part of this any more.

  ‘Besides,’ he growled out loud at the rainy sky, ‘it’s been ten years.’

  Kolea sighed.

  He was high enough on the ship to see beyond the walls of the dock and out towards the city and the bay. It was a grey shape in the rain, a skyline dotted with lights. He didn’t know much about Urdesh, except that it was a forge world, and famous, and it produced good soldiers, some of whom he had fought alongside at Cirenholm. They hadn’t been the friendliest souls, but Kolea respected their military craft. The Urdeshi had been stubborn and proud, fighting for the spirit of this world, a world that had changed hands so many times and so often been a battleground. He got that. He understood the pride a man attached to his birth-hive.

  It was a good view. A strong place. A landscape a man could connect with. Livy would have loved it, standing here in the rain, looking out…

  ‘Gol?’

  He turned. Baskevyl was stepping out of the hatch to find him.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Kolea.

  ‘About two-thirds discharged,’ replied Bask. ‘The Administratum has issued us with staging about ten kilometres away. The regiment and the retinue.’

  ‘Barrack housing?’ asked Kolea.

  Baskevyl checked his data-slate. ‘No, residential habs.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Apparently the main Militarum camps are already full of troops waiting to ship out to the front line, but the city has been largely evacuated of civilians, so we’ve been assigned quarters in requisitioned hab blocks.’

  ‘Where is the front line?’ asked Kolea.

  Baskevyl shrugged.

  ‘All right, let’s send some company leaders on ahead to check out the facilities. Criid, Kolosim, Pasha, Domor.’

  ‘Captain Criid, you mean?’ asked Bask.

  ‘Damn right. About time. Tell them to look the place over and draw up a decent dispersal order, so no one starts bickering about their billet. And let’s get Mkoll to sweep the venue and give us a security report.’

  ‘This isn’t the front line, I know that,’ Baskevyl smiled.

  ‘Never hurts,’ Kolea grinned back. ‘How many times have things changed overnight and bitten us on the arse?’

  ‘Gentlemen?’

  They looked up from the data-slate as Commissar Fazekiel joined them. She pulled up the collar of her coat against the rain.

  ‘Medicae personnel have arrived to ship off our wounded. Those still not walking anyway.’

  ‘That’s not many is it?’ asked Kolea.

  ‘About a dozen. Raglon. Cant. Damn glad to have Daur back on his feet.’

  ‘Major Pasha too,’ said Kolea.

  Fazekiel nodded. ‘I gather Spetnin and Zhukova are crestfallen. They were just getting used to running Pasha’s companies.’

  ‘What about the shipmaster?’ asked Baskevyl.

  ‘They’re moving him off to the Fleet infirmary at Eltath Watch,’ she said. ‘I’m frankly amazed the fether’s still alive.’

  ‘I’m amazed any of us are still alive,’ said Baskevyl.

  ‘There’s that,’ Fazekiel agreed. ‘Can you two spare a moment? We’ve got visitors, and I’d appreciate the moral support of some senior staff.’

  ‘Thoust leaving, soule?’ asked Ezra.

  Sar Af glanced at him briefly, then finished instructing the servitor teams handling the equipment crates of the Adeptus Astartes. There was no sign in the hold of Eadwine or Holofurnace.

  ‘Good as gone,’ said Sar Af, walking over to Ezra once his instructions were given. ‘Duty is done, and I never stay put long.’

  ‘Gaunt, he will–’ Ezra began.

  ‘Eadwine sent him notice of our departure,’ said Sar Af. ‘We’ve tarried far too long on this mission. It was supposed to last six weeks.’

  Ezra nodded.

  ‘Eadwine’s already gone,’ Sar Af added. ‘Gone to see the warmaster in person. The Snake’s left too. Apparently his brothers are engaged in the war here, and he’s gone to find them. He will be glad to see them again, and join with them in a new venture.’

  ‘And thee, soule?’ asked Ezra.

  Sar Af grinned.

  ‘The Archenemy presses close,’ he said. ‘I smell killing to be done.’

  He gestured at the reynbow strapped to Ezra’s shoulder.

  ‘Found your weapon, then?’

  ‘Broken, but I made mend of it,’ said Ezra.

  ‘Should get yourself a proper piece,’ said the White Scar. ‘Something that will stop a foe dead.’

  ‘This stops the foe,’ said Ezra.

  Sar Af peered at him.

  ‘I’m not good at faces. Are you sad, Nihtgane?’

  Ezra shook his head.

  ‘Uh, that’s good. Men can be too sentimental. They place unnecessary emotion on leave-taking and such. Parting is not an ending. Life is just the path ahead, so sometimes you leave things behind you.’

  ‘No sentiment,’ said Ezra. ‘It was a journey and we walked it.’

  The White Scar nodded. With a twist, he uncoupled the lock of his right gauntlet and pulled the glove off to expose his bare hand.

  ‘That’s right, Nihtgane,’ he said. He held his hand out and Ezra clasped it.

  ‘Follow your path, Eszrah Ap Niht,’ Sar Af said. ‘Only you can walk it.’

  He clamped his gauntlet back on, donned his war-helm with a hydraulic click, and followed the servitor team out of the hold without looking back.

  ‘You can show me the paperwork all you like,’ said Rawne, ‘S Company isn’t handing him over until I get word from my commanding officer.’

  ‘Your tone is borderline insolent, major,’ said Interrogator Sindre of the Ordo Hereticus. A heavy detail of Urdeshi storm troops filled the brig hatchway behind him.

  ‘Not for him,’ Varl told the interrogator. ‘There was definitely a silent “fething” before the word “paperwork”.’

  Sindre had a very thin, pale face and very blue eyes. His black uniform was immaculate, unadorned except for the gold and ruby rosette on his back-turned lapel. He smiled. In the close, gloomy confines of the armoured brig, his soft voice sounded like a slow gas leak.

  ‘I appreciate the seriousness with which you uphold your duties, major,’ he said. ‘Custody of the prisoner is an alpha-rated duty. You are commended. But crusade high staff and the office of the ordos have agreed to his immediate transfer to secure Inquisition holding. The order was ratified by two lords militant and the senior secretary of the Inquisition here on Urdesh six hours before you even touched down.’

  ‘Gaunt didn’t signal anyone that the prisoner was still with us,’ said Rawne. He spoke slowly and sounded reasonable. His men knew that was always a warning sign. ‘I know for a fact,’ he said, ‘that the information he broadcast on approach in-system was extremely limited and contained no confidential information.’

  ‘A sensible move,’ replied Sindre. ‘The Archenemy is close, and it is
listening. In fact, there is some consternation among upper staff that details of your extended mission have not yet been supplied. They are awaiting your superior’s full report.’

  ‘Which he will deliver in person for the same reasons of security,’ said Rawne.

  ‘We, however, made an assumption,’ said Sindre. ‘If Gaunt is alive after all, then the prisoner might be as well, etcetera, etcetera…’ Sindre shrugged and smiled. He seemed to smile a lot. ‘So,’ he said, ‘on the presumption he was, preparations for immediate handover and securement were made and authorised in advance. Just in case the animal had survived.’

  ‘Move aside,’ said Viktor Hark. He entered the brig chamber, pushing past Sindre’s security detail. They glared at him at first, then stood out of his path.

  ‘Gaunt has signed off, Rawne,’ said Hark. ‘He’s had assurances.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Rawne.

  Hark handed him a data-slate. Rawne read it carefully.

  ‘You know they’re just going to kill him,’ said Varl.

  ‘Varl…’ Hark growled.

  ‘Oh, but they are,’ said Varl. ‘He’s no use any more. He’s done what he was supposed to do. They won’t let him live, not a thing like him. They’ll burn him.’

  Sindre smiled again. The Suicide Kings began to feel his smile was quite as alarming as Rawne’s reasonable tone.

  ‘Is that sympathy I hear?’ he asked. ‘One of your men sympathising with the fate of an Archenemy devil? If security is such a concern to you, Major Rawne, I would look to my own quickly.’

  ‘The prisoner is an asset,’ said Rawne. ‘That’s all my man here is worried about.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Sindre. ‘On that we agree. We’re not going to execute him. Not yet, anyway. Eventually, of course. But the ordos believes there is a great deal more that may be extracted from him. He has been cooperative so far, after all. He will be interviewed and examined extensively, for however long that takes. Whatever other truths he contains, they will be learned.’

  ‘Bring him out,’ said Rawne.

  Varl stood back with a shake of his head. Bonin, Brostin, Cardass and Oysten walked back to the cell, and threw the bolts. After a few minutes spent running the standard body search, they brought Mabbon Etogaur out in shackles. With the Suicide Kings around him, Mabbon shuffled his way over to Rawne’s side.