by Dan Abnett
They stalked down into the docking terrace, ignoring the efforts of the choir.
Leger stepped forward. “On behalf of the people of—”
The man with the augmetic implant turned, smiled, and put a finger to his lips. Behind him, the female completed her sight check of the area and raised a hand to her headset.
“Site’s clean,” Biagi heard her say. “Come on out.”
A silhouette appeared in the hatchway, back lit at first by the vapour. An imposing figure in a long coat and a peaked cap. First Officiary Leger breathed in expectantly.
The figure walked into the light. He was a tall, lean man in the field dress of a commissar, but his epaulettes showed the rank of colonel. His face was as hard as a knife. He came down the ramp to face the trio of dignitaries, knelt before the first officiary and took his cap off.
“Ibram Gaunt, Tanith First, reporting as ordered,” he said.
So this was the famous Gaunt, thought Biagi. He wasn’t especially impressed. Gaunt and his men, so the briefing files had said, were front-line grunts. They certainly had that mad dog smell about them. Not house-trained. Biagi had serious doubts they were suitable for the task they had been chosen to perform.
Gaunt rose.
“Welcome, welcome, colonel-commissar,” said Leger, taking Gaunt daintily by the shoulders and kissing him on the cheeks. He had to stand on tiptoe to do this. Gaunt seemed to tolerate the custom the way a guard dog tolerates the occasional brisk rub between the ears. Leger began to make a fuller and longer speech of welcome in High Gothic.
“You arrive cautious of your own safety,” Biagi cut in, nodding at the pair of troopers who had preceded Gaunt out of his lander. Gaunt narrowed his eyes and looked at Biagi questioningly.
“Marshal Timon Biagi, commanding the PDF and civic regiments.”
Gaunt saluted. “My sergeants here insisted,” he said, indicating the waiting pair. “During our descent, we were informed that a raid was underway.”
“In the city fringes, not here,” Biagi replied. “My forces have it contained. We have a minor ongoing problem with heretic dissidents. There was no threat to your safety.”
“We prefer to check that sort of thing for ourselves,” said the female sergeant addressing Biagi directly.
“Criid,” Gaunt scolded softly.
“My apologies,” she said. “We prefer to check that sort of thing for ourselves, sir.”
Biagi grinned. Seemed this famous pack leader couldn’t even keep his dogs in line. He looked the female — Criid, was it?—up and down and said, with a mocking tone, “A woman?”
She fixed Biagi with an unblinking stare and then repeated his head-to-toe appraisal. “A man?” she said. The male sergeant with the augmetic limb sniggered.
“Zip it, Varl,” said Gaunt. He faced Biagi. “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot, marshal,” he said. “I won’t reprimand my people for being dutiful.”
“What about for speaking out of turn?” Biagi said.
“Of course, the moment I hear one of them do so.”
“Well, it’s quite wonderful to have you here!” the first officiary said with a rush of false enthusiasm, clearly desperate to brush over the awkwardness. “Isn’t it? Quite wonderful?”
“I’m here because I was ordered to be here by the Warmaster himself,” Gaunt said. “It remains to be seen what else is wonderful about it.”
“May I say, colonel-commissar,” said Kilosh, speaking for the first time, “that remark disturbs me.” Though tall, he was a very old man, yet his gaze had more strength and confidence in it than that of either the marshal or the first officiary. “It might easily have been mistaken for heresy.”
Gaunt stiffened and said carefully “No such offence was intended. I was not referring to the wonder that has taken place here, rather I meant the grave consequences that might be set off by such a thing.”
Kilosh nodded, as if appeased. “We have met before,” he began.
“I remember, Ayatani Kilosh,” said Gaunt making him a small, formal bow. “Three years ago, sidereal. In the Doctrinopolis of Hagia. A brief meeting, but it would be rude of me not to recall it. Your king, Infareem Infardus, was dead, and I was the bearer of that ill news.”
“That was a dark moment in the history of Hagia,” Kilosh agreed, rather flattered by Gaunt’s precise recollection. “And a bleak time for my holy order. But times have changed. The miracle has happened. The galaxy is a brighter place now, and you deserve thanks for your part in that.”
“My part?”
“The efforts of your regiment. You protected the Shrinehold and drove away the enemy. That’s why you’re here.”
“You requested it?”
“No, colonel-commissar,” Kilosh smiled. “She did.”
Gaunt hesitated, and stroked his fingers down one side of his lean chin thoughtfully. “I look forward to talking with you more on this subject, ayatani-father,” he said. “First, I would like the permission of the first officiary… and the honourable marshal… to dispose my men.”
Leger nodded eagerly, and made another little bow. Gaunt turned away and walked back towards the docking hatches.
“What do you make of him?” Kilosh whispered.
“Not enough to care about,” said Biagi.
“He seems like a decent fellow,” said Leger brightly. “Doesn’t he? Decent sort?”
“Oh, I think he is,” said Kilosh. “Almost too decent. And that’s where we might have a problem. It almost seems to me he doesn’t believe.”
“Then he must be made to believe,” said Biagi. He paused as he saw a thick set man in the uniform of a line commissar emerge from one of the hatches. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked away.
Tanith personnel poured out onto the assembly floor. As he strode down the metal deckway, Biagi could see hatch after hatch opening along the ornamental terrace. Men and, in places, women, clad in the same dirty black and draped with camo-capes, were exiting the fleet of drop craft, lugging munition boxes, stow crates and kitbags. They had a smell to them. The smell of dirt and fyceline and jellied promethium that no amount of bathing could scrub out. The shadows of other landing ships flickered across the terrace skylights, and there was the thump — and dank of landing clamps engaging. Steam vented through the floor grates.
The newcomers gave Biagi a courteous wide berth. He was a senior officer, and also an imposing figure. Shaven-headed, with dark olive skin and amber eyes, he wore the ceremonial battledress of the city regiment: gleaming brown leather embossed with gold-wire detailing. His left arm and chest were covered with polished, segmented armour plating and, on his back, under the fold of the scarlet sash, his accelerant tank was locked in place.
Biagi stopped as he came on three troopers hefting a pallet of promethium tanks out of a landing hatch.
“You. What is this?”
“Sir?” said the nearest, a bear-like oaf with a shaggy moustache.
“What are your names?” asked Biagi.
“Trooper Brostin, sir,” said the bear. He gestured to his fellows. “This here’s Lubba and Dremmond.” The other two men saluted quickly. Lubba was a short, heavy brute covered in the most barbaric tattoos. Dremmond was younger and more plainly made, his hair short and dark.
“You’re flame troopers?”
“Sir, yes sir,” said Brostin. “Emperor’s own. He puts the fire in us and we put his fire into his enemies.”
“Well, you can put those tanks and those burner pumps back on the lander, trooper.”
“Sir?”
“City bye-laws. Only the officer class of the Regiment Civitas Bead is permitted flamers in battle.”
“Begging your pardon, your sir-ship… why?” asked Lubba.
“On this world, water is power, and the enemy of water — flame — is a privilege exercised only by the high-born warrior class. Do you require more of an explanation?”
“No, sir, we don’t,” said Brostin.
Biagi moved on. “Commissar
Hark?”
The commissar turned, and quickly saluted.
“Biagi, Marshal Civitas Beati. Welcome to Herodor,” Biagi said, returning the salute and shaking Hark by the hand. “I was asked to look out for you.”
“Really?”
“The general would like a word in private.”
“I thought he might,” said Viktor Hark.
Gingerly lowering his aged frame, Ayatani Zweil prostrated himself and kissed the metal deck, murmuring prayers that he had known most of his days but which only now seemed to have meaning.
There were Ghosts all around him, off-loading from the landers. Many knelt down around him, producing their own green silk faith ribbons and kissing them the way he had taught them. They were faithful, these boys and girls, these soldiers. It was a glorious thing to see. He unwound his own beaded green ribbon from around his wizened knuckles and began to recite the litany.
Gaunt appeared beside him and gently raised him to his feet.
“I must finish—” Zweil began.
“I know. But you’re in the middle of a landing deck and liable to be crushed underfoot if you stay there.”
Zweil huffed but allowed Gaunt to lead him out of the way as Obel and Garond manhandled a crate of rockets out onto the docking terrace with an anti-grav hoist.
“Are you all right?” Gaunt asked.
The imhava ayatani stared up at Gaunt with ferociously beady eyes. “Of course I am! How could I not be?”
“You are over-tired, ayatani-father. The long voyage has drained you.”
Zweil snorted. If Gaunt had suggested such a thing back on Aexe, he might well have agreed. Back there, he’d tried to ignore the signs, but there had been no denying that his great age was catching up with him. He had honestly begun to wonder how much longer fate was going to give him.
Then, the news had come. And new vitality had filled his arthritic joints and dimming mind.
Zweil looked at Gaunt and regretted his sharpness. “Ignore me. I’m old and wishful and I’ve spent the last few months on a Navy packet ship dreaming of what awaits us here. I expected…”
“What?”
Zweil shook his head.
“A smell of sweet uncorrupted flesh permeating the entire planet? A scent of ishunbine?”
Zweil chuckled. “Yes, probably. All this long voyage from Aexe Cardinal, I’ve been wondering what to expect.”
“Me too,” said Gaunt.
“Ibram… I almost can’t believe it’s true.”
“Nor I, father.”
There was something in Gaunt’s voice that made Zweil pause. He glanced at his friend the colonel-commissar and saw from the look on his face that Gaunt had let something slip in the tone of his reply.
Zweil stared at him and frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Skip it.”
“I will not. Gaunt? If I didn’t know better, I’d take you to be a doubter. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, like I said.”
“On Aexe, she spoke to you—”
Gaunt’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Please, ayatani-father. That must remain between us. It’s a very private thing. All I meant was…”
“What?”
“Has anything ever seemed too good to be true to you?”
Zweil grinned. “Of course There was a rather limber girl on Frenghold, but that matter is even more privy than your incident on Aexe Cardinal. I understand doubts, Ibram. The Beati herself warned us against false idols in her epistles. But the divinations cannot lie. Every Ecclesiarchy church in the sub-sector has been sent signs and prophesies. And you… you have more reason to trust than any living being on this world.”
Gaunt breathed deeply. “I trust in the ministry of the Saint and the inscrutable workings of the God-Emperor. It’s men I don’t trust.”
Zweil was disconcerted, but he managed a smile and patted Gaunt on the arm. “Forget the frailties of men, Ibram. On Herodor, there is emphatic wonder.”
“Good. If you see Ana… never mind, there she is.”
Gaunt left the old priest and edged through the press of disembarking Ghosts.
“Ana?”
Surgeon Ana Curth looked up from a shipment of sterilised theatre tools she had been itemising. She rose, tucking her data-slate under her arm and smoothing her short, bob-cut hair away from her heart-shaped face.
“Colonel-commissar?”
“The matter we spoke of during the voyage…”
She sighed. “You know what? I was humouring you, Ibram. All those weeks stuck with you on a transport. It was easier to nod along than speak my mind. Well, we’re here now, and I’m speaking my mind. You should be talking to Dorden about this.”
Gaunt winced. “The chief medic and I aren’t getting along at the moment.”
“Well, that’s because you’re both stubborn fools and I for one—”
“Shut up, Curth.”
“Shutting up, sir.”
“I want you to do this for me. Please. Privately. Quietly.”
“It’s a matter of faith—”
“You may question me on anything, surgeon, except faith.”
She shrugged. “Okay. You win. I’ll get my kit, even though… even though, mind… I don’t like it.”
She moved away, and then turned and called back: “You understand I’m only doing this because you’re so amazing in bed.”
The Ghosts around them came to a sudden halt. Several dropped their kitbags. Curth scowled at them all. “A joke. It’s a joke. Oh for feth’s sake, you people…”
She disappeared into the press. Gaunt looked at the staring troopers around him. “As you were,” he began and then sighed and made a dismissive gesture.
“Sir?”
It was Beltayn, Gaunt’s adjutant. Gaunt didn’t like the look on his face.
“Out with it.”
“Sir?”
Gaunt tipped his head down and looked at Beltayn. “Something’s awry. I can tell.”
Beltayn grimaced toothily and nodded. “We’re… we’re missing a couple of landers.”
“A couple?”
“Three or so.”
“Three or so?”
“Well. Four actually.”
“Which ones?”
“Two, three, four and five.”
“Corbec, Rawne, Mkoll and Soric I know I’m going to regret asking this, Beltayn, but do you have any idea why that might be?”
“They diverted during descent, sir.”
“Diverted? On whose authority? Let me guess… Corbec?”
“Yes sir.”
“And they are now where?”
“As I understand it, sir, they were alerted to the action at the city perimeter and Colonel Corbec — as it were — decided they should…”
“Should?”
“Muck in, sir.”
“Oh feth,” said Gaunt.
Major Udol rolled. Fire from the stalk-tanks was smashing up the terrain all around him. The high-pitched whoop-whoop of their pumping guns was all he could hear. He was bleeding from a scalp wound. The scorched remains of one of his men was hanging from a semi-collapsed tentframe in front of him.
A shadow passed overhead, and he saw from the dust the wind had changed again. It was blowing a gale suddenly. Grit pattered against him.
What the hell was that?
Udol looked up and froze. Thrusters flaring and sunlight glinting off its hull, a drop-ship was coming in right on top of them. A second was dropped down not five hundred metres away, and there were two more besides, falling like giant beetles out of the sky.
They were standard pattern Imperial Guard landers. Bug-nosed, bulk-made delivery ships. The Imperial Guard. He’d been praying to the Saint for deliverance. What kind of answer was this?
Udol felt the ground shake as the first drop-ship zeroed, bouncing hard on its hydraulic landing struts. Men leapt out of the drop-ship’s opening hatches. Men in black fatigues and body armour. Men wrapped in camouflage
capes. Guardsmen. They were spreading out into the barrens of the obsidae, laying down a fire pattern against the advancing hostiles, facing them down, and the damn stalk-tanks too. The dust-filled air was thick with rapid las-fire.
Udol got to his feet in time to see the closest stalk-tank re-aim and fire on the first drop-ship as it dusted off again. The impact slewed the nose round hard and made the engines wail with protest, but it lifted clear, right over his head, gear still down and hatches still wide open.
There was a puff of smoke from the newcomers’ hasty file and a rocket spat at the first stalk-tank. Another followed it. A fireball bloomed around the tank’s forebody, and it came to a standstill, its leg frame rocking back and forth. It hesitated, took another step, and another rocket smacked it in the snout. A blast-flash lit the glass field for a moment, and when it was gone, so had the stalk-tank, and hot fragments of Chaos-fashioned engineering were raining down out of the smoke.
Udol tried to raise his men on the vox, but an alien signal washed through the channel. He only caught snatches of it. Something like “…fething waiting for?” followed by “…live forever!”
He ran forward, rousing his men. The Guard had the phalanx of raiders on the turn. Another fireball briefly lit the sky, bright like a rising sun. A second stalk-tank had gone up.
The air was full of ashy debris. Through it, the soldiers in black poured forward, guns crackling, only half-visible in the haze.
They were like ghosts, Udol thought.
Whoever they were, they seemed insufferably pleased with themselves. As Udol approached, the black-clad troopers were whooping congratulatory exchanges as they jogged back to recover the heavy packs and bergens they’d ditched in haste as they’d come out of the landers. The hostiles, those few that had survived, had fled away into the dusty distance of the obsidae. The third and last stalk-tank was a burning mass on the glass field. Corpses in red uniforms littered the ground.