[Gaunt's Ghosts 10] - The Armour of Contempt

by Dan Abnett

  What was it doing? What was it waiting for?

  The turret began to traverse again, turning slowly to the beast’s left. The metal turret collar made a laborious screech of unoiled joints, like a stone slab being dragged off a tomb. The turret stopped, facing the hill slope where the hamlet sat. There was an electric whine and the tank barrel elevated slowly until it was twenty-five degrees off the horizontal, aiming directly at Cayfer.

  Not aiming. Gaunt raised his head out of the grass and risked a look. The beast sat thirty metres away, its heavy back end towards him. The main gun wasn’t aiming at Cayfer, Gaunt thought. It was… sniffing, scenting the hamlet. Scenting the wind, like a cat.

  Slowly, Gaunt drew his power sword. While it was occupied, maybe he could crawl towards its hindquarters and get in really close at its blind spot. Armour plating or no armour plating, the power blade of Heironymo Sondar could stab in through a vent grille or an exhaust slot and cripple the engine.

  Providing someone was smiling down on him from a golden throne…

  He edged forwards. He didn’t activate the blade, for fear that the energised hum might give him away… for fear that the tank might hear it. The idea would be funny if it weren’t so horribly real. To his right, he saw Mktass, still down in the grass, signalling frantically that Gaunt shouldn’t try it. Too much of a crazy risk, said Mktass’ gestures and wide, staring eyes. You’ll get yourself killed. You’ll get us all killed.

  Gaunt kept going. He flexed his fingers around the grip of the power sword, down low beside his thigh. His nostrils were assaulted by the exhaust wash of the idling beast, the rank oil and soot, the smell of dried blood from the grisly battle trophies strung about it.

  He was ten metres from the beast’s rear when things changed. He saw a little flurry of sparks light up on the slope directly below the ruined hamlet, coming from behind one of the tumbled pasture walls. From a distance, it looked like tinderbox sparks. In a second, las bolts sang overhead. Someone on the slope was firing a lasrifle at the beast on full auto.

  The range was poor, and even point blank, a lasrifle couldn’t penetrate tank armour. Gaunt knew what it was. It was somebody’s attempt at distraction. It was somebody’s attempt to draw the tank off them. Gaunt recognised this with a mixture of warmth and annoyance. Someone in the section was risking their life to distract the tank, and that was selfless. In the section, Trooper Gonry had been carrying a tread fether and, presumably, whoever was shooting was hoping to lure the beast into range for a rocket kill.

  Gaunt was very close, however, and this was spoiling his chance.

  He broke cover and began to run, igniting the power sword in the hope that he could get a crippling thrust into the beast-machine before it moved.

  The engine blitzed into life, pumping out a torrent of black exhaust, and the beast spoke again.

  It spoke three times. Sledgehammer-anvil-howl. In dismay, Gaunt saw the three shells land in the slopes below Cayfer, shredding a wall line into a rain of stones, demolishing a pair of dead trees, and blasting a raw scab of earth out of the grass.

  The beast started to surge forwards, tracks chattering like fast percussion. Dirt and stones and tufts of grass like small scalps spattered up and out from its rear as it moved, and Gaunt had to shield his face. He couldn’t reach it. It was pulling away.

  “No!” he spat.

  The beast heard him.

  VI

  The beast swung right around, chewing the ground as it dragged its dark tonnage about. Exhaust smoke farted upwards in a sudden blurt of effort as it turned. It turned to face Gaunt. Its staring headlamps pulsed with yellow light.

  Gaunt was gone. There was no one behind it.

  The beast revved its engine, sounding like an angry growl. The hard point clattered and let off a burst of shells that raked the grasses ahead, and caused a cloud of shredded plant fibre to waft into the wind.

  The beast sped forwards, grinding back across the track of flattened stems that it had left in its wake.

  Something had knocked Gaunt flat just as the beast began to turn. Where Mkoll had come from, Gaunt wasn’t sure. Stay flat, Mkoll had signed.

  They lay on their backs in the deep grass, hearing the snorting, growling frustration of the beast nearby. They heard it fire its hard point, and heard the close whip and slice of the shells. Then they heard it start forward, coming closer.

  Gaunt twitched involuntarily, but Mkoll put a firm hand flat on his chest. Stay flat. Don’t move.

  The din of engine and treads got louder and closer. It was increasing speed.

  Don’t move.

  The beast passed by less than three metres from Gaunt’s left side. Its noise receded behind them. They waited for what seemed like an eternity for the noise to change, for the beast to make its next turn, but the noise simply faded away.

  Mkoll and Gaunt lifted themselves slowly and took a look across the nodding grass.

  There was no sign of the beast. No sound. No smoke.

  They rose to their feet. Garond and Mktass appeared, from different points in the weed cover.

  “Where the feth did it go?” Gaunt asked.

  “That way,” Garond pointed. A trampled path of pink grass led away down the slope, following the base curve of the hill on which Cayfer stood. Already, the stiff pink grass stalks were beginning to spring back up.

  Mkoll ran forwards a short way and leapt up into the lower branches of one of the dead trees. He pulled himself up to get a good view.

  “It’s gone,” Larkin said.

  Mkoll looked down. Larkin was curled up against the bole of the tree, sheltering behind its withered trunk. The sniper pointed down the slope. “Last I saw it, it was rolling down into cover again. Past that cairn of stones into the small valley.”

  Mkoll leapt down out of the tree. “I’ll go after it. Track it,” he said.

  “And do what when you find it?” Gaunt asked. “No, we regroup. We know it’s out here and we know how it moves. We’ll keep watch, and when it shows itself again, we’ll be ready.”

  They worked their way back up the hill to the fringes of Cayfer, past the three still-burning shell pits that the beast had scarred the slopes with. Criid appeared to meet them.

  “That you shooting?” Gaunt asked.

  She nodded.

  “Brave. Maybe foolish, but thanks.”

  “I wanted to pull it close so Gonry could slag it with the fether,” she said, pretending her actions had had nothing to do with pulling Gaunt’s skin out of the fire.

  “Decent idea.”

  “Where did it go?” Criid asked, following him up the slope.

  “It didn’t,” said Gaunt. “It’s still out there. Post a watch. Feth, what’s this?”

  They had rejoined the main group, which had been sheltering in the dusty yard behind a row of outbuildings. Faragut was bolt upright against a pen wall, his pistol at his feet. Eszrah was patiently aiming his reynbow at him. The rest were grouped in, watching, many amused at the commissar’s discomfort.

  “There was an incident,” Criid said lightly.

  Gaunt walk up to Eszrah and gave a nod. The Nihtgane raised his bow and stepped back. Gaunt looked at Faragut.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “The bastard was going to shoot Criid,” Beltayn snapped.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Faragut snorted. “Hear them tell it. That’ll make for an accurate picture.”

  “You tell me then,” said Gaunt. “Did you threaten my sergeant with your weapon?”

  “I drew my pistol for emphasis because she refused a direct order.”

  “Your order?”

  “A direct order. I told her I would be forced to shoot her if she persisted in insubordination, as per the Instrument of Order, paragraph—”

  “Oh, please don’t, Faragut,” Gaunt said. “What was the order?”

  “She intended to fire upon that tank. I told her not to. I ordered the section to hold fire and stay in cover.”

>   Gaunt nodded. “I see. You had the tank rocket up here, and Criid wanted to bring the enemy in range, but you saw it differently?”

  “I saw it realistically!” Faragut replied. The chances of us taking a tank were slim. Very slim. The chances of that tank destroying this team before it could achieve its mission objectives were greater, in my judgement. Contacting the resistance is vital. I could not permit anything to prejudice our chances.”

  “Even if it meant leaving me and the others to die?” Gaunt asked.

  “Even that. You know the stakes, Gaunt. You know what necessary sacrifice is.”

  “You fired anyway?” Gaunt asked Criid.

  “With you and Mkoll down there, I had section command at that point. The tank needed to die, in my judgement.”

  “She fired. I went to reprove her,” Faragut said. “I may have had my gun in my hand at that time. Then your partisan aimed his weapon in my face.”

  “Eszrah’s only got a few friends in the whole universe, Faragut,” Gaunt said. “Aiming your gun at one of them is a bad idea. Let’s get on. Pick up your damn gun.”

  “Watchposts!” Mkoll called. “I want a lookout spread along the rise in case that tread shows again!”

  “Gonry, get the tube ready,” said Criid. “Someone stand by to load him.”

  Everyone was moving. Gaunt walked up through the farm buildings towards the air-mill. He realised that Cirk was walking with him.

  “Gaunt?”

  “Yes?”

  “Faragut is—” she began.

  “Faragut is what?” he asked.

  “There is a broad agenda,” she said. Her voice trailed off.

  He stopped walking and turned to look at her. “I don’t know quite what you’re trying to tell me,” he said.

  Cirk shook her head sadly. “I don’t know either. I haven’t been told anything. You haven’t been told. They don’t have to tell us. We’re just pawns.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Gaunt asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know that either.”

  Gaunt snorted. “You’re not doing much except sound terribly paranoid, Cirk.”

  She smiled. She had hugged her arms around her thin body, as if she was cold. “I know. Listen, have you ever wanted something so much you’d give everything to have it? Have you ever prayed for something that much?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’d know if you had. You want something so much it hurts. You give everything, everything, away just to have it. Only… when you gave up everything, you gave it away too and so there’s nothing.”

  The wind caught her hair, and she screwed up her eyes while she brushed it aside and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  “Cirk? What can’t you tell me?”

  “It cost the resistance dear to get us off Gereon.”

  “I remember.”

  “A lot of time, a lot of materiel and a lot of lives, but it was worth it, because we swore that if we got away, if we got back to Imperial space, we’d return. We’d bring liberation back with us. That was the deal.”

  “That’s right. That’s what we’ve done.”

  “Just remember that’s all I’m saying. Just remember that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

  Gaunt frowned, and was framing another question when he heard Beltayn shouting. He looked round. His adjutant was standing at the top of the yard beside Criid and some other troopers. He was pointing, pointing up over the low, broken roofs of the hamlet, towards the air-mill.

  In the rising wind, the vanes were beginning to turn.

  VII

  Rawne strolled back across the quad to join Kolea and Varl. He looked back at the high wall, and the small black door that he’d just emerged from.

  “I think they’re dead,” he said. “Just junk hanging there.”

  “But—” Kolea began.

  “Last time we were here,” Rawne said smoothly. “Those things would go live at the slightest provocation.”

  “I know. You briefed us,” Kolea replied.

  “Well, they didn’t wake up when we hit this place, and they haven’t woken up yet. I don’t know why they’re dead, but that’s what they are.”

  Varl scratched his scalp behind his left ear. “Yeah, but given they’re not actually alive, there’s a chance that’s not a permanent state.”

  “There’s a chance,” Rawne agreed. “For now, we cordon this whole area, put a round the clock watch on it, and level it with everything we have if something so much as twitches. There’s been another signal from the Inquisition forces. They’re on their way. They can deal with it when they get here.”

  Rawne turned and looked up at the dark clouds chasing across the pearly sky. There was a wind in the air. Gaunt was overdue signalling, although the old blight of Gereon’s atmospherics could explain that. “For what it’s worth,” Rawne said, “I think they are dead. I think they’re dead for the same reason that there are no glyfs around. Set up a cordon here and let’s get on with the sweeps.”

  Rawne left the quad to rejoin his party. Varl put Chiria’s section in charge of watching the grim, walled secret.

  Kolea had something on his mind. He stayed apart, sitting on a chunk of fallen masonry in the corner of the quad, musing and turning something over in his hand.

  “Ready to move?” Varl asked once the place was secure.

  “I suppose so.”

  “What?”

  “That was dumb,” said Kolea.

  “What was?”

  “What I just did. I just walked in there. We found the door and I just walked in there. You were getting a cover team ready, but I didn’t wait. I just walked in.”

  “No harm done,” said Varl.

  Kolea looked up at him. “No actual harm, but there could have been. It was real enough. The wire-wolves were there. We’ve been briefed. We’d been told what to look for and how careful we had to be, and I just walked in. I might as well have been whistling.”

  Varl grinned. “And your point? “Cause I know if I stand here long enough, you’ll eventually make one.”

  Kolea stood up and brushed off the dusty legs of his battledress pants. “We take a lot of risks,” he said.

  Varl pursed his lips as if stifling amusement. “We’re soldiers. We’re the Emperor’s Guardsmen, true and faithful. Risks are the job.”

  “I know. I just don’t think sometimes. I charge in. I take the plunge…”

  “That’s your style,” said Varl. “You led from the front, which is why you’re a major and I’m not. At the moment.”

  “It’s going to get me killed. That’s what I’m saying. Nearly has more than once.”

  “Life’s going to get you killed,” said Varl. “Come the feth on with you.”

  They wandered back across the dusty quad to where Domor had the search team waiting in the street archway. A dry wind chased eddies of soot and sand around the quad flagstones.

  They started to head down the street, past the derelict faces of burned-out habs and slopes of rubble dotted with nodding weeds. Meryn’s section was ahead of them, leading the way into the tattered produce barns of the old town commercia.

  “Know what I’ve been doing since we started on this?” Kolea asked Varl as they walked along in the breeze-stirred quiet.

  “Getting on my wick?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “Since we dropped, all I’ve thought about is the lad, how he is, if he’s safe, how gakking unfair it is that he isn’t with us. He must be scared, wherever the gak he is. The big zones must be bad.”

  “That’s natural enough.”

  “I’ve never once wondered… is he alive still?”

  “Well, you can’t think that way.”

  “I know.” They had reached the gates of the produce area. Kolea fanned the section out in support of Meryn’s advancing Ghosts.

  “It just occurred to me, there’s something else I should think about.”

  “What?”
Varl asked.

  “When we’re all done with this place, maybe I’ll see the lad again, and that will be fine, but what if I die? What if I do something dumb and just die? How will that be for him?”

  Varl shrugged.

  “I left it too late before this started. My fear was, I’d left it too late full stop. Because the lad might die, I’d never get the chance to put things right. Never occurred to me it might work the other way around.”

  It was anyone’s guess how long the excubitor had been holed up in the outhouses behind the silent, boarded habs. The area was a maze of small yards and narrow alleys, dotted with store huts and privies, and it stretched all the way down to a row of market gardens inside the town wall.

  Osket, Wheln and Harjeon had just shifted left, and Kalen, Leclan and Raess to the right. Caffran moved his fingers and gestured Leyr and Neskon up behind him.

  “We’ll go through that way,” he said, pointing to a dingy alley.

  Neskon shifted his flamer tanks higher onto his shoulder. “This is a waste of time.”

  “I’ll tell you when it’s a waste of time,” Caffran advised. “Now stay sharp.”

  The whole place was too enclosed and too dirty to be anything but oppressive. They jumped at shadows, or shrank back from tiny pieces of horror. Bones were common, and so were the daubings and scratchings of the enemy. Glass pots of blood had been left in various locations as offerings, and their contents were starting to putrefy and separate. Not for the first time, Caffran saw evidence of vermin eating vermin. That was a testament, if one was needed, of how low Gereon had slipped. It was so spent and exhausted that the only thing left for the rats to eat was other rats.

  They’d gone about ten metres along the narrow alley when the sound of a las-lock boomed to their right and the shouting started. There were several bursts of las fire.

  “Report!” Caffran yelled into the link.

  “Man down!” Leclan crackled back. “Hostile came out of hiding. He’s coming your way!”

  Leyr and Neskon immediately raised their weapons. Caffran ran forwards a little way and looked around. He could hear footsteps echoing in all directions, but the alley walls and the sides of the outbuildings were too steep to see over.