by Dan Abnett
She smiled.
“I’ve been waiting for this, Ibram. Haven’t you?”
“Yes,” was all he could say. He realised he was weeping, but he didn’t care.
She raised her arms wide. A green cloak unfurled from her back and became wings. A perfect aquila form spread out around her, five metres on either side, not silk but shimmering green light. Behind her head, the double-heads of the Imperial eagle clacked and hissed, encircled by the skull drones.
Gaunt got to his feet. He was so intent on her he knocked his head against the rear fender of the carrier, but his eyes didn’t waver from the vision before him.
He drew his sword and held it out to her, grip first.
“You’ll need that Ibram,” she admonished quietly, and drew her own blade. It was slender, silver and well over a metre long. Islumbine garlands were looped around the hilt and jewelled pendants dangled from the pommel. She activated it and the blade thrummed into life.
“Let us educate the archenemy of mankind,” she said.
“What lesson do we teach?” Gaunt asked.
“The Emperor protects,” she said.
She raised the sword and pointed it at the enemy. The unseen driver slammed the Salamander forward but she didn’t even stir. On either side, Imperial warriors surged forward towards the recoiling foe. Flamers hissed, cannons barked, lasguns cracked and the heavy tank guns roared. The Imperial banners fluttered.
Sword in hand, Gaunt ran after her.
FIVE
TRIUMPHS AND MIRACLES
“Where there is an enemy, rage! Where there is a victory, rejoice!”
—Saint Sabbat, Epistles
There were crowds everywhere.
It was barely daybreak, but the streets were packed. Teeming masses of chanting pilgrims, celebrating soldiers and rejoicing citizens dogged the transitways and boulevards of the Civitas Beati, united in a raucous and unstinting expression of triumph. The wounded city had woken up to find it was, miraculously, still alive.
Wide slicks of black smoke stained the early daylight, wiping deep smudges across the flat cold whiteness of the sky. Outlying northern sectors of the city were still-burning ruins littered with wrecked war machines and the uncounted bodies of the dead.
An early estimate suggested hundreds of military personnel and citizens had perished. The pilgrim community had suffered the most. Thousands had not made it through the gruelling night.
But the body count and the serious destruction inflicted on the Civitas seemed to bother no one in the crowd. They were as abnormally excited now as they had been inexplicably deflated in the small hours of the night. Easy to explain perhaps, for humans are simple things: they were alive, they had won, and they were rejoicing in that fact.
The greatest concentration of people was mobbing in around Beati Plaza, hundreds of thousands of exhilarated human beings, all of them chanting and whooping and dancing and cheering. Banners were flapping in the dawn air, white petals swirling like confetti from the garlands the people wore Soldiers, their grinning teeth white against the caked dirt on their faces, were hugged and kissed, and lifted up on shoulders. Drums pounded. The ancient prayer horns of the city boomed. Fabricatory sirens wailed.
People had got up on roofs and balconies, or waved eagerly from upper floor windows. Streamers and fireworks flashed in the sky. On several street corners approaching the plaza, infardi preachers had climbed up onto the carts of their clock shrines and were leading prayers and hymn singing. Eccesiarchy processions, led by choirs, carried reliquaries from the hive shrines through the streets. Ministorum workers scattered petals and flower heads harvested at random from the agriponic farms.
By the time Gaunt reached the heaviest crowds in the plaza area, he had garlands of islumbine and irridox around his neck, and had been kissed and hugged more times than he could count. His clothes were ragged and torn and he was covered in cuts and bruises. He still carried the aquila standard that he’d picked up from a fallen RCB trooper in the thick of the fighting before daybreak.
He felt strange, dazed, dislocated. The noise of the jubilation around him seemed louder and more oppressive than the bitter warfare of the night. Everything felt like a dream, but that was just his fatigue, he was sure.
On the cold, flinty plain of the Great Western Obsidae, as dawn came up, he had helped undertake the extinction of the enemy forces. There had been no quarter, and that was all right, for the Blood Pact were devoted and sworn servants of the archenemy of mankind.
But they had slaughtered them. All of them.
The glass fields beyond the city’s north-western perimeter were scattered with corpses and with the smouldering hulls of fighting vehicles. Faced with the Beati, and with the renewed vigour she had inspired in the warriors of the Imperium, the Blood Pact had snapped and run. Biagi and Kaldenbach, the acknowledged victors of the fight, had led the pursuit and annihilated the enemy in the obsidae Now the winds of the ice-desert, gusting in over the Western Ramparts, would shrivel the Blood Pact bodies, and the ground frost freeze-dry their flesh, and they would remain as fragile mummies amidst the litter of their ruined armour, a testimony to the brutal zeal of an Imperial army inspired by faith.
Gaunt reached the plaza. The crowds were packed fifty deep, but they parted to let him through. Pilgrims and citizens reached out to touch him or to clap him on the shoulders. He was limping and using the banner for support.
She was at the centre of the plaza, standing on top of a Chimera, raising her hands to the exulting crowds.
“Sir! Sir!” Gaunt glanced around and was almost knocked over by Raglon’s enthusiastic hug of a greeting.
“We feared you were dead, sir!” Raglon cried.
“I’m not, Rags.”
“I see that, sir. God-Emperor, it’s good to see you! What a day this is! What a moment!”
Gaunt smiled a tired smile. Raglon’s excitement was contagious. Too seldom had he seen his men filled with the simple joy of victory.
“How’s your platoon. Rags?”
“In fine shape, sir.”
“They came through it all right?”
Raglon nodded eagerly. “We came through. No losses. But we gave them hell. I’ll be filing a report… recommendations…”
“I look forward to it.”
Raglon turned and looked towards the centre of the plaza. “I can’t believe this, sir,” he said. “I mean… she’s here. Really here.”
“Yes, she is, Rags,” he said. “She really is. Enjoy this moment. They don’t come often in our walk of life.”
Gaunt looked at the Saint as Raglon pulled away, laughing. She seemed to be staring directly at him.
“I’m happy and all, but I wish she’d stop doing that.”
“Doing what?” asked Feygor, raising his voice to be heard over the din.
“Looking at me like that,” replied Rawne. Third platoon were in the crowd on the far side of the plaza from Gaunt. “She won’t stop looking at me.”
“It’s me she’s looking at,” Feygor said. “Not you. Why would she look at you?”
“Well, I don’t know…” Rawne said, rolling his eyes.
“I do,” said Banda. “The major’s sex on legs, real catnip for us womenfolk.”
Feygor laughed. Rawne looked at Banda with disdain.
“But I hate to disappoint you,” Banda continued. “Her holiness the Beati is actually looking at me.”
“It is a good day,” said Gol Kolea quietly.
“Yes, Gol, it is,” Criid replied. She patted him on the arm. Around them, the crowd was going mad with chants. The Beati was a distant figure at the heart of the packed square.
“A good day,” Kolea repeated. “She looks at me and sees me and sees I’m happy that it’s a good day.”
“Who does, Gol?”
“The sainty-woman.”
“Uh huh.”
“Hey, sarge.” Criid looked round and saw Jajjo shouldering his way through the press. “Found him,” he sa
id, with a grin.
Caffran appeared behind Jajjo and grabbed Criid in a tight embrace.
“Thought I’d lost you!” he breathed, kissing her cheek and neck. He raised a hand and gently touched the bandage around her head.
“You’re hurt.”
“Nothing that won’t mend. Kolea got me to a medic.”
“I din’t think I’d ever see you again, Tona,” Caffran said.
“It’ll take more’n a few Blood Pact to keep me from you,” she replied and met his mouth with hers.
“Yeah, yeah… not in front of the troops,” said Lijah Cuu as he wandered past.
“See her?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then be thankful,” said Colm Corbec, “your little nightmare was just that… a little nightmare There she is. Alive and well and… saintly.”
Milo nodded. “Yes, I suppose so. She’s amazing. She seems to be looking right at me.”
“At you? At me, more like. Right at me.”
Milo smiled. “Believe what you want, colonel.”
“I believe I will.”
“That she’s looking at you?” scoffed Mkoll dryly. “I think she’s certainly looking at me.”
The vast crowd around them suddenly sent up a booming cheer and the Ghosts in their midst joined in.
“Me, definitely,” murmured Mkoll.
Larkin stared. It was like he had her in his crosshairs and she had him the same. If it had been a kill-sight, it would have been tough. Ninety metres, with a crosswind and hundreds of cheering bodies between him and her. But he’d have made it. Larkin was sure.
And even more sure that she’d have made it too. The way she looked at him. Like a marksman.
Hark pushed through the crowd. He almost fell over Daur, who was sobbing his heart out, and then bumped into Meryn, who was just staring.
“Meryn?”
“She’s real.”
“I think that’s the idea, sergeant.”
Beside them, Sergeant Varl had climbed up on a clock shrine cart and started to dance, putting on a beret plumed with struthid feathers and pulling it down comically over his ears.
Hark laughed despite himself.
“Chief?” Vivvo handed Soric the brass message shell.
“Thank you,” Soric said, and nodded Vivvo away. The crowd around them was going crazy. The cheering was so loud it was making him twitchy.
Soric undid the shell’s cap and used his fingers as tweezers to fish the note out.
It said: It’s you she’s looking at. She knows.
Soric dropped the paper scrap and pushed the message shell into his pocket.
A moment later and Vivvo re-emerged from the bustling crowd.
He held out a message shell.
“This yours, chief?” he asked.
Soric patted his pant pockets. They were empty.
“Must be,” he said.
Vivvo handed him the shell and turned away. He glanced back over his shoulder. Soric knew Vivvo was catching on.
Soric opened the shell. This one said: Tell Gaunt. Nine are coming. Nine are coming.
The handwriting was hasty. Really rushed and badly formed, like he’d been writing in a hurry.
Despite the celebration around him, Soric felt his heart sink.
The little glade was quiet. It was a spring morning, early, the first rays of sunlight gleaming through the leaves. A vague mist covered the path to the chapel door.
Each step he took sounded too loud in the cool silence. There were no birds singing. That seemed odd. His boots crunched on the stone pavers.
His pulse was racing. There was nothing to be afraid of, but he was afraid anyway. Why was that? He wanted to be here. He wanted to go inside, but his heart was thumping.
He reached the door. Dew glittered on the iron handle. He reached out to take hold of it, but the door began to open of its own accord. It began to open and behind it he saw—
Gaunt woke with a start. He had to fight to catch his breath. The room around him was dark and over-warm. He had no idea what time it was.
He got up off the bed and started to walk towards the windows to open the shutters. Only then did he feel the terrible aches of his tired body. Every step was painful.
He opened a shutter, and white light shafted into the small chamber. Outside it was late afternoon, and the sweep of the cityscape below showed that the celebration was still going on. He could see banners, the occasional spark of a firework, and crowds still streaming along the narrow streets.
He fiddled with the climate control vents built into the window sill, but no amount of jiggling eased the oppressive heat. He wished he could open the chamber window, but it was a hermetically sealed unit. This level of hive tower three was too high above the city shield and the Civitas’ atmosphere envelope.
Gaunt tried to remember the dream he’d been having. It had been so vivid, but it had melted away the moment he woke. Aexe Cardinal. He had been back on Aexe Cardinal, at the chapel. More than that, he couldn’t say.
He caught sight of his own reflection in the heavy dressing mirror in the corner of the room. He was dressed only in his under shorts, and his lean, muscled flesh looked unnaturally pale and white. The dark furrows of old scars looked like relief features on the surface of a chalky moon, especially the long, ugly rip across his belly that Dercius had left him with so many years before.
The newer wounds, the ones Herodor had given him, were more livid. So many abrasions and scratches he didn’t care to count, scabbing black with blood. Bruises too, dark black and sickly yellow. The most serious were the las-burn across the top of his left shoulder and the gash in his right calf. Lesp had cleaned him up pretty well, dressed the worst and sutured a few of the deepest cuts.
He limped out of the bedchamber into the outer room. His personal effects had been set out on the dresser and his spare uniform was laid out over the back of the chair.
“Beltayn?” he called out There was no sign of his adjutant.
He was dressing when the door opened and Rerval came in.
“Sorry, sir. I should have knocked. Thought you were asleep.”
“As you were.”
Rerval, Corbec’s signalman and adjutant, entered and closed the door. He was carrying a musette bag.
“Where’s Beltayn?” Gaunt asked.
“He was bushed, sir. Corbec ordered him to billets and asked me to cover. I hope that’s all right.”
Gaunt nodded, buttoning up his dress jacket.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“About four hours, sir. Everything’s calming down a bit. Captain Daur’s running things in operations.”
“Have we got any numbers yet?”
“Not for me to say, sir. Lugo’s throwing a banquet tonight, which you’re expected to attend.”
“Do you mean Lord General Lugo, Rerval?”
Rerval blushed. His cheeks went red apart from the white puckering of the long scar he’d taken across the face on Aexe. “I do, sir.”
“I don’t honestly care what you call him… except a bad habit might get you into trouble.”
“I’ll remember that sir.”
Gaunt finished buttoning his jacket and started to look around for his cap. Rerval reached into the musette bag he was carrying.
“Looking for this, sir?”
The cap was a little dusty and the worse for wear, though Rerval had done his best to clean it up.
“Colonel Corbec sent a scout back to the hab to find it, sir. No sign of your bolt pistol though, I’m afraid, so I requisitioned you this for the time being.” Rerval produced a brand new laspistol in a black leather holster.
“Thank you, Rerval,” said Gaunt, strapping it on. He buckled on his sheathed sword and warknife too and then put on his cap. Then he paused. “I… I must have lost my cape somewhere along the way,” he said ruefully. He felt ashamed to admit it.
Rerval took off his own camo-cape. “Take mine, sir. Please, it’d be an honour. I�
�ll get myself another.”
Gaunt took the trademark Tanith garment and nodded his thanks. Rerval’s gift was astonishingly generous, given how fiercely the Tanith protected their knives and capes.
“How do I look?” Gaunt asked.
“Like a conqueror of worlds, sir.”
“Very kind. How do I look really?”
“Tired, sir.”
The operations centre was quiet. Only half the console positions were manned, and in most cases it was Munitorum clerics who were on duty. Daur was sitting in the side annexe, working his way through a stack of data-slates.
He started to get up when he saw Gaunt enter, but Gaunt waved him back into his seat.
“Long night, Ban. How’re you holding up?”
Daur smiled reassuringly. “I came through pretty much intact. Feel like a million credits now. You?”
“Weary, but a victory is a victory. Puts fire into even the most exhausted bones.”
“Not just that, though. Not just victory. I mean… after everything you said to us in here yesterday. You were wrong, weren’t you?”
Gaunt sat down beside him. “About the Beati?”
Daur nodded. “I saw her. We all did. In the fight and afterwards, down at the triumph. That was no fraud.”
Gaunt sighed. “No. No, I can’t think it could have been. The moment I saw her I was sure… as sure as I had been yesterday she wasn’t real.”
“You must have been mistaken yesterday, sir,” Daur said.
“Do me a favour, Ban? Keep an open mind. The girl I met yesterday was not the Martyr. I know that in my heart as well as I know anything. For all her passion and conviction and self-belief, she was not the real thing. The woman who appeared last night… well, she was everything the other had not been. I don’t know what happened… but something very strange took place as the battle was raging.”
“Thank the God-Emperor for that!”
“Indeed, the Emperor protects. But keep an open mind.”