by Dan Abnett
Gaunt shook his head. “Whatever I say, you’ll just reply ‘That’s what a heretic would say’, won’t you?”
“Of course he will,” coughed Mabbon.
Gaunt turned. Jaume and Kolding were helping Mabbon to rise. The etogaur was clearly determined to get up and face his adversary.
“I don’t even want to look at you,” sneered Rime. “Archenemy scum.”
“It isn’t just Gaur’s Blood Pact that wants me dead,” Mabbon said to Gaunt, swaying against Kolding’s support. “The Anarch’s forces want me silenced too. They’re rather more subtle.”
He looked at Rime.
“You’ve changed your face a thousand times, but I still know you, Syko Magir.”
“This animal is talking nonsense!” Rime declared.
“Is he?” asked Maggs.
Rime raised his weapon to shoot the etogaur. The split second he did so, Gaunt realised it was snowing.
Indoors.
The blood-scream knocked them all flat, and blew out the huge skylights of the Honorarium. Howling, the witch came for them, surrounded by a coruscating ball of warp-lightning. She was demented and raving. She was screaming vengeance for the death of her beloved brother. She came at them across the floor of the Honorarium like a typhoon, driving an arctic blizzard before her. Dry lightning tore the air.
All Wes Maggs saw was the old dam who had haunted his mind since Hinzerhaus. All Wes Maggs wanted was to be free of her phantom torment.
He opened fire, screaming, on full auto, and discharged the lasrifle’s entire energy reservoir.
His shots exploded the witch’s cocoon of warp-energy, and shredded her. She took nearly two hundred hits, and by the time her body struck the paving stones, it was pulped beyond any semblance of articulacy. The last few shots lifted her veil for a second as she fell back. Maggs saw her face, a face he would never forget. His weapon misfired, and began to chime repeatedly on charge out. He killed the alert, and lowered the gun. “Feth me,” he stammered. “Did I do that?”
Gaunt slapped Maggs on the back. “Yes, you did. Makes me glad I didn’t kill you.”
Maggs smiled a half-surprised smile.
“Wake up, trooper, and help us carry the prisoner to cover,” said Gaunt. Beyond the walls of the Honorarium, they could hear sirens wailing and gunships thundering in. “Oh, shit,” said Kolding. Gaunt turned.
Rime was back on his feet. He had a gash across his scalp, and what lay beneath looked more like augmetic artifice than flesh and blood. His face was half hanging off. He was aiming his pistol at them. “You’re not going anywhere,” he announced.
Gaunt heard footsteps running out across the echo-space of the vast temple. Troops were deploying into position around the confrontation, weapons trained. He realised they were his.
“Glad you could join us, Major Rawne,” Gaunt said, his eyes never leaving Rime’s.
“Apologies, sir. Got a little waylaid.”
“Who’s with you?” Gaunt called.
“Varl, Meryn, Daur, Banda, Leyr and Cant, sir.”
“All aimed at this lunatic as opposed to me?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“Even Cant?”
“Locked and blocked, sir,” Cant called out.
“See?” said Rawne, “Sometimes even he can.”
“Well,” Gaunt said to Rime. “This is a proper stand-off, isn’t it? Toss down your weapon.”
Rime smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tell your people to surrender. This facility will be overwhelmed in another five minutes.”
“My people don’t work like that, inquisitor, especially not when the man they’re facing has been identified as an agent of the Anarch.”
“That’s preposterous! The ravings of a heretic who’d do anything to save himself!”
Gaunt shook his head. “Mabbon was certain. He identified you, Syko Magir.”
“The man is insane,” Rime scoffed. “Put up your weapons. Come on, Gaunt. I know how straight-laced you are at heart.”
The bolt pistol was still in Gaunt’s hand. There was one round left in its clip.
He raised it, and aimed directly at Rime.
“No,” he said, “I have reason to believe that you are an agent of the Archenemy, and I demand that you drop your weapon, now.”
“Or what, Gaunt?” Rime grinned. “You’ll shoot me? I know you. I’ve studied your dossier. Without unequivocal proof, you’d never act against the Throne. Ever.”
Gaunt hesitated, and lowered his weapon.
Rime glanced over as Rawne stepped forward.
“We’re done, thank you, trooper,” Rime said. “Step back.”
“My boss doesn’t trust you,” said Rawne.
“He’s got no actual proof,” said Rime. “And he won’t act. I’ve read his dossier.”
“Yeah,” said Rawne, “but you’ve never read mine.”
Rime brought his pistol up, firing, screaming.
Rawne took him down with two kill-shots to the chest.
TWENTY-NINE
Exit Wounds
“Take a seat, Ibram,” said Isiah Mercure. They were meeting in a room in Section, one of the wings that hadn’t suffered smoke damage.
So, I’m Ibram now suddenly, am I?
“Full marks for this, sir,” Mercure said. He was busy at three things at once: a data-slate, a letter, and some reports. “Seriously, man, good work. We’re going to run with this. Edur tells me your regiment is prepared to lead the way with the operation? Is that right?”
“The Tanith First is happy to serve, sir,” Gaunt replied.
“Well, I can tell you,” said Mercure, flashing a quick grin as he finished and closed the data-slate report, “that’s good news. It’s great to get good people on your side. You think you can handle it?”
“My regiment is mobilised, sir. We’ll be heading towards Salvation’s Reach within the week.”
“A lot depends on this, Ibram,” said Mercure, “and I won’t be there to hold your hand all the way.”
“I understand, sir,” said Gaunt. “I have just one question. The Inquisition, what has it been told?”
“Just that the valiant Inquisitor Rime was lost in action during a Chaos uprising,” replied Mercure.
“I see. I’d rather not have the holy ordos on my back, on top of everything else.”
“Understood.”
“And I want Blenner and Criid released to my jurisdiction.”
“Agreed.”
“You can fix that?”
“You have friends in high places, Ibram,” Mercure mocked. “And you have friends in very low places too. How’s the etogaur?”
“Stable. Eager to help. He’s—”
“What?” asked Mercure.
“A good man,” said Gaunt.
“I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that,” said Mercure. He stood, and walked to the side table. “A drink? A toast?”
“Why not?” replied Gaunt.
Mercure poured two sacras and handed one of them to Gaunt.
“You do realise that you won’t be coming back from this one alive, don’t you?” Mercure asked.
“That’s what they tell me every time I ship out,” Gaunt replied.
“Really? Damn,” said Mercure, and chinked glasses. “Cheers anyway.”
“We’re shipping out in a week,” said Ban Daur. “I think you should come with us.”
“Oh, right, yeah. Why?” asked Elodie.
“Because I can’t kiss you like this if you’re light years away,” he replied.
“Like what?” she asked.
He showed her.
“Right,” she nodded, “I’d better come with you then.”
The vast space of the Honorarium was full of faint echoes and a sense of eternity. On their last day on Balhaut, the Tanith First marched into the temple for a special service of benediction. It was a warm, bright day, the snow long gone, and most of the damage done to the building during the final battle had been repai
red. They wore their number one uniforms, and their marching was impeccable, even though they had been stagnating in turnaround for two years.
Once the service was done, and the platoons had filed out, Gaunt walked with Dorden around the rim of the great temple, pausing to look into the side chapels. The bandsmen of the ceremonial brigades were packing up. Drums were being muffled and rolled into their boxes. Buglers and horn blowers were cleaning their instruments, the chin straps of their caps still hooked up over their noses.
Gaunt hadn’t realised how old Dorden had got. The walk was slow.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Dorden said.
“Yes?”
“It’s not an easy thing, and you won’t like it,” Dorden added.
“Let me show you this first,” Gaunt said.
He led the way into one of the side chapels.
“Oh, great Throne,” Dorden gasped.
“All the satellite chapels have been dedicated to the worlds lost in the first years of the crusade,” Gaunt said. They sat down together on one of the pews in the side chapel. “This is the memorial chapel dedicated to Tanith. This is what Jaume wanted me for, to make a portrait of me to sit on display in here. Can you imagine?”
“I can’t,” Dorden replied. He had tears in his eyes.
“I know. Look, I wanted you to see this, Tol. Of all people, you needed to know this place existed.”
“Thank the Throne you did,” Dorden replied.
They sat back, side by side, on the new, waxed pews, and gazed up at the hololithic projection of Tanith.
“It was a pretty world, wasn’t it?” Dorden asked.
“It was,” Gaunt agreed. “Oh, something else. It seems, I’m dead.”
“What?”
“According to the guides who work around here, I died during the Famous Victory. You can pay to visit my death venue.”
“That’s funny,” Dorden chuckled.
“No one remembers anything properly,” said Gaunt. “Everything gets twisted and forgotten.”
Dorden nodded. “Except the things we care to remember ourselves.”
Gaunt sighed. “When they told me about it, I wondered for a moment if I had died here. I wondered if I had died at the Gate and become a ghost, and had been a ghost for all the time I had been with the Tanith.”
“I can see how you might have arrived at that conclusion,” replied Dorden. “Who am I to deny it?”
Gaunt smiled, and nodded.
“I need to tell you something,” Dorden said, turning to look at Gaunt.
“A bad something?” Gaunt asked.
“I said you won’t like it.”
“All right,” said Gaunt.
Dorden sat back.
“I did the examination. I tested that old bastard.”
“Zweil?”
“Yes. I did all the tests.”
“Something’s come back, hasn’t it?” asked Gaunt.
Dorden nodded. “Leukaemia. Blood cancer. It’s all through him.”
“Oh, Throne. How long?”
“Zweil? That old bastard will live forever.”
“But—”
Dorden sighed. “He doesn’t like the blood tests, does he? Old Zweil doesn’t like needles. I had to show him how to do it.”
“So?”
“When my back was turned, he switched the samples.”
“So… oh no. No. No!”
“Hush,” said Dorden.
“My eyes won’t let me cry,” Gaunt said, looking at his old friend.
“It’s probably best that way.”
“How long?”
“Six months, if I’m lucky. But I want to keep going. You know, and Ana knows. Don’t tell anyone else. I want to fight to the end. I want to serve to the end.”
Gaunt nodded.
“And I’d like to rest here when I’m done,” said Dorden.
Gaunt looked up at the roof of the Tanith chapel. The dead had a knack of finding their way back to Balhaut.
“I’ll make sure of it,” he said.
EPILOGUE
The Ninth Day
The Oligarchy Gate, on the afternoon of the ninth day, at Slaydo’s left hand. Ahead, the famous Gate, defended by the woe machines of Heritor Asphodel. Mud lakes. Freak weather. The chemical deluge triggered by the orbital bombardment and the Heritor’s toxins. Molten pitch in the air like torrential rain.
Gaunt kept his head down as the shells rained in.
Wire barbs skinned the air. The thuk of impacts, so many impacts. Clouds of pink mist to his left and right as men were hit. Ahead, below the Gate, the machines whirring again.
They were dug in opposite a small gatehouse with distinctive finials shaped like aquilas. The bombardment was so severe that Gaunt doubted the building would be standing in another day, or even another hour. It would be erased from the world and from his memory.
His sergeant, beloved Tanhause, yelled out over the onslaught. Formation moving up!
Gaunt looked back. PDF units were advancing to the front, scurrying, heads down. He had to admire their resolution. Often, they had little more than bolt-action rifles and bayonets, but still they threw themselves into the front line.
“How are we doing?” the young PDF officer yelled over the roar of the bombardment as he ducked into cover.
“Pretty decently,” Gaunt yelled back. “If we can rally here and press on, we may have a good day yet!”
He looked up. The Tower of the Plutocrat was the most massive structure he’d ever seen. Nothing in the universe could topple it.
“Ah, who knows what we can do,” the young PDF officer returned. “We might even bring that terrible big bastard down!”
“I like the sound of that,” Gaunt grinned. He held out his hand.
“I’m Gaunt,” he said.
The young PDFer grasped Gaunt’s hand and shook it.
“Jaume.”
Gaunt smiled.
“Good to know you,” he said. “Let’s finish this.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Abnett is a novelist and award-winning comic book writer. He has written numerous novels for the Black Library, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, and, with Mike Lee, the Darkblade cycle. His Black Library novel Horus Rising and his Torchwood novel Border Princes (for the BBC) were both bestsellers. His Black Library novels have sold over one million copies worldwide. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent. Dan’s website can be found at www.DanAbnett.com
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