“Get on your feet!” he yelled. “Get back to the slits!”
“They’re shelling us, sir!” a trooper protested.
“I am fething well aware of that, you idiot! Get back to your position!”
He clambered into another overlook gunbox. The roofline above the gun-slot was sagging loosely, internal steel reinforcement exposed through the broken rockcrete. Trapped smoke swirled around the tight confines of the wounded casemate.
“Larks?”
“I’m all right!” Larkin called back. He was dragging Banda’s limp body back across the floor of the gunbox.
“Feth! Is she—?” Rawne began.
“Stunned. Just stunned. She’ll be all right.”
“Are you all right?” Rawne asked, catching Larkin’s arm and helping him move Banda. Blood was streaming from a wound across Larkin’s scalp.
“Yes, I’m all right.” Larkin looked at Rawne. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?” he said. “We can’t fight this.”
They ducked down as another shell whined in and exploded, perilously close.
“Forget the fething shells,” Rawne said. “It’s the foot troops we need to worry about.”
“Oh, right,” said Larkin, almost laughing.
Rawne ran towards the damaged gunslot and peered out.
“You think I’m kidding?” he asked.
The shelling stopped suddenly. Larkin joined Rawne at the slot and peered out.
“Oh, feth,” he said.
VIII
The enemy was coming up the south face of Hinzerhaus, swarming like ants. The distant artillery had been suspended so that it wouldn’t vaporise its own assault troops.
The Blood Pact raiders were equipped with spiked, folding ladders, like coils of barbed wire that they shook out before them as they came. The thin anchor-teeth of the ladders bit into the stern, rock face of the house and held firm. As soon as each ladder was secure, crimson-clad raiders came grunting up them towards the lower casemates and gunslits. The ladders squealed and jangled as they dug into the stone beneath the weight of the men mounting them.
Blood Pact warriors clambered up to the first few gunboxes and stormed them. Their buck-tooth axes and sabre-knives made short work of the few, dazed Ghosts they found inside. Gore dripping from their weapons, the raiders began to press in through the lower casemate halls.
Initially deafened and baffled by the shelling the Ghosts rapidly woke up to the intrusion. Fire fights lit up along the lower halls as outraged Ghosts responded to the masked killers surging into their midst. Daur’s company found itself in the thick of the brutal close action, killing raiders as they loomed out of the smoke and attempting to drive them back out through the casemate slits.
“Contact and intrusion!” Daur yelled into his microbead. “Contact and intrusion, level four!”
He pushed his way along the support tunnel, coughing smelling blood and las-smoke. He was half blind. His eyes were wretched with tears from the fyceline stink. “Come on, you men!” he bellowed at the figures around him.
They weren’t all Ghosts. A scowling grotesk came at him out of the haze and an axe swung towards his throat.
IX
Rawne peered down out of the gunslit. Through the grey pall of smoke, he could see the red-clad figures clattering up the spiked ladders towards him. He reached out and attempted to push one of the ladders away. It was too deeply dug in, held in place on its spikes by the bodies struggling up it. Las shots whined past him, fired vertically.
“Larks!” he yelled.
Larkin appeared beside him, throwing the top half of his body out through the damaged gun slot. Larkin aimed his long-las down and fired. The shot punched through the chest of the Blood Pact warrior climbing towards him, and the corpse fell back, knocking the two Archenemy troops below it off the ladder as it dropped. Larkin reloaded and fired again, hanging right out of the slit. He’d aimed his second hot shot at the spiked ladder, and had blown through several rungs and one side of the ladder frame. The remaining upright broke under tension with a loud ping, and a large stretch of the ladder tore free. Eight raiders tumbled away into the smoke below.
Larkin had over-extended himself. Arms thrashing he began to slide. “Grab me! Grab me for feth’s sake!” he cried.
“I’ve got you,” said Banda, wrapping her arms around his legs and pulling him back through the slot.
“There’re more!” Larkin cried.
“I know,” replied Rawne, moving to the slot’s lip with a tube charge in his hand. He leaned out and pulled the det-tape.
“Thanks for coming!” he called, and dropped back into cover as the tube charge fell away.
It bounced off the helmet of the Blood Pact warrior uppermost on the second scaling ladder and went off as it spun over his shoulder. The searing blast killed three of the ascending raiders outright, and sheered through the ladder, so that it broke and fell away like an untied rope, casting a dozen more raiders down to their deaths on the rocks below.
Rawne looked at Larkin. “Is your link working?”
“I think so.”
“Send for me. Authority Two/Rawne. Kill the ladders. Priority.”
Larkin keyed his microbead. “Listen up, you lot…” he began.
X
Upper west sixteen. The name would, in time, be added to the roll call of the Tanith First’s most hard-fought and savage actions, and take its place alongside the likes of Veyveyr Gate, Ouranberg or the Fifth Compartment as a name to be remembered and honoured by those who came later.
Gaunt was right in the thick of it. Tunnel warfare was the worst discipline a soldier could know. It was claustrophobic, insane, uncompromising. The confines of the location drove foe into foe, whether they wanted to engage or not. Reaction times dropped to the merest fraction of a second. Everything depended on instinct and reflex, and if either of those things failed a man, he died. It was that simple. There was no margin for error, no space to correct or try again. More than once, Gaunt glimpsed a Ghost miss his first shot or first blow at an enemy foot soldier and die before he could manage a second.
There were no second chances.
Fighting in a box added its own hazards. Not only was there fire, there was deflected fire. Ricochets danced their lethal dance in and out, often caused by the nerve spasm release of a dying man, firing as he fell. Obeying their own occult dynamics, shots also hugged the walls or slid around corners, in apparent defiance of the laws of ballistics.
Gaunt’s bolt pistol had serious stopping power and he used it to full effect. Those raiders who came at him were hurled backwards by his bolt rounds, knocking down the raiders at their heels like bowling pins. Where the flow of the fight descended to its most barbaric, the level of straight silver and trench axe, his power sword sliced through arms, blades, helmets and grotesks.
His Ghosts had one advantage. The enemy had effectively penetrated at two points in the summit galleries, which meant they were boxed in with Ghosts on either side of them. As best he could, given the frenetic circumstances, Gaunt pulled his defenders tight, trying to pin and crush the insurgencies. It was a task beyond the limits of his microbead, but Karples relayed his commands via Beltayn’s powerful caster.
Not that there was much time or opportunity for orders. Gaunt remembered that Hark had once observed a phenomenon he had called fight time. That state ruled now. Gaunt fired, moved forwards, hacked with his blade, and allowed others to come forwards with him and blast at the enemy surge as he reloaded.
Fight time was relentless, breathless, barely any time to think or move, but also slow, like a pict-feed set on frame capture. It was almost hypnotic. Gaunt saw las-rounds glide by him like paper aircraft. He saw arterial spray hanging in the air in undulating droplets. There was no sound any more except the beating of his own heart. He felt a las-round crease his left arm. He watched a bolt-round he had fired centuries before meet a grotesk between the eyes and fold it up like a closing book, pulped flesh and pulverised bone expa
nding out around it like the petals of a ghastly pink flower. He witnessed a las-round, fired straight up by a man falling on his back, glance off the roof and then walk away down the hallway, deflecting ceiling to floor, ceiling to floor, like a bouncing cursor on a cogitator screen, until it finally buried itself in the neck of a raider.
Crimson beasts, stinking of blood, ran at him, ponderously slow, it seemed, wet tongues poking out of their leering metal lips, blades flashing in the furnace gloom. He cut a head in half with his sword, and shot another raider in the chest.
Then he realised, quite calmly, that this was how he was going to die.
XI
Tona Criid had lost sight of her commander. The fight had become such a storm of confusion she barely had any idea which way she was pointing.
“Gaunt? Where’s Gaunt?” she yelled.
The trooper beside her smiled at her and didn’t reply.
“Where’s Gaunt?”
Still smiling, the trooper slumped against her, his body falling open where it had been split by a fighting axe. She stumbled backwards, spitting rounds from her lasrifle into two raiders who had come out of nowhere. They jerked back, arms flailing, and dropped. Ghosts moved past her. She looked down at the dead Guardsman and wished she could remember his name.
“Forwards! Forwards!” she yelled at the men shoving up around her, and then tagged her microbead. “This is Criid! Where the feth is the commander? We have to protect the commander!”
It was useless. There was no way of imposing order on this madness. The two Ghosts ahead of her crumpled and fell on their faces, killed so fast they hadn’t even been able to scream or utter a word. All Criid could see was the grotesk coming for her, sabre-knife raised.
She brought her rifle up and impaled the raider on her straight silver. The raider took a flapping, quivering moment to die, dragging her gun down under his weight. Criid put her left foot against him to try and pluck the blade free.
Something struck her on the side of the head.
It struck her so hard, she slammed sideways into the hallway wall, and bounced off the blood-speckled brown satin panelling.
Her vision went. She tasted iron, heard wild, dulled sounds, knew she was on the floor but—
“Get up!”
“What?” she murmured.
“Get up, girl! Get up! They’re all over us!”
“What?” Tona still couldn’t see. She knew she ought to be moving, but she’d forgotten how her legs worked.
“Oh, come on!” the voice yelled. “Is that how a Vervunhive gang-girl fights? Get up!”
Her vision returned. The side of her head felt sticky. She heard the chatter of a lasrifle on auto.
Caffran was standing over her, guarding her, spraying las from the hip into the enemy.
He picked off the last two with perfect aim and bent over her.
“Tona? My love?”
“Caff—”
“Gonna be all right, girl. You took a knock there.”
“Caff?”
She looked up into his eyes. They were as kind as she remembered, as kind as they had been when she had first seen them all those years ago on Verghast.
“You died,” she said, simply.
“How’s Dalin?” he asked. “I’ve missed him. How’s Yoncy?”
You died,” she insisted.
“Sergeant? Sergeant Criid?”
“Caff?”
Berenson was bending over her. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
“Major?”
“I said you’ve taken a knock. You’re dazed. Fall back.”
“I saw Caff,” she said.
“Who’s Caff?” he asked. “Look, fall back. Get yourself to the field station. Criid? Criid?” Berenson looked around. “Trooper! Someone! Help me here!”
* * * * *
XII
“Down here!” Dalin yelled. He ran down the short flight of steps towards the glow of morning light. Firm hands grabbed him from behind.
“Don’t just rush out there, you little fool!” Bonin hissed in his ear.
“Sorry,” Dalin replied.
“Weapons?” Bonin asked.
“Check,” said Hwlan.
“Check,” said Coir.
“Uh, check,” added Dalin. The three scouts ignored him.
“Let’s go, gentlemen,” Bonin invited.
Dalin glanced at Beltayn. “Follow them,” Beltayn advised.
From the old, worn steps, they advanced out under a carved wooden archway into the open air. The courtyard was paved with grey stones, and surrounded on two sides by wings of the house. The face of the cliff formed the yard’s other two sides. The archway they had emerged from was built into a cliff face.
The tinny whine and flat crack of fighting echoed through the open air. Despite that, it was almost tranquil in the courtyard.
“Feth me backwards,” Bonin smiled. “See that?”
They had all seen it. Nine pallet loads of water drums sat in the middle of the yard. They hadn’t arrived cleanly; there was evidence on part of the tiled roof opposite that suggested the heavy cargo load had bounced at least once on its way down. Some drums in the lower part of the cargo had burst on impact, and the courtyard floor was soaked with their run out.
“It’s mostly intact,” Beltayn cried.
“Glory fething be,” said Bonin. He ran to the side of the heap, pulled a drum free and unscrewed the cap.
“Drinks on me,” he grinned.
They all came forward. “Canteen cups, one at a time, come on,” Bonin said.
They each produced their tin cups in turn and Bonin filled them all, careful not to spill a drop from the heavy drum.
The water was the most delicious thing Dalin had ever tasted. He drained his cup too fast.
“No more,” Bonin told him. “We’ve been on short rations so long, I let you guzzle and you’ll be shitting yourself silly come evening.”
“Besides which,” said Hwlan, “this has to be shared out.”
“Of course it does,” Beltayn smiled, treasuring his cupful.
“Good job, you two,” Bonin said to Beltayn and Dalin. Then he fell over.
He fell on his face and landed hard across the heap of water drums. He lay still.
“Bonin?” Dalin asked, baffled.
The second shot blew the canteen cup out of Dalin’s hand. The third punctured a drum beside Hwlan.
“Contact!” Coir yelled out, raising his weapon. His lasrifle was almost to his shoulder when he abruptly jerked backwards and fell.
Dalin looked up, fumbling for his rifle.
Blood Pact raiders were scurrying over the red-tiled roofs towards the courtyard. Some of them were standing up to shoot. Las-rounds whistled in at them. Dalin heard the dull thukk as more drums punctured.
“Oh no you don’t,” he growled, and returned fire.
Day ten, continued,
All hell is breaking loose without me. Casualties are flooding in. Someone just told me we were under attack from both sides of the objective.
I can’t stand the helplessness. Tried to get up just now, but A.C. ordered me back into my bed. In truth, I don’t think I would’ve got very far. Pain more than I can manage.
I believe A.C. may have stuck me with something to keep me quiet. Feeling quite
—field journal, V.H. fifth month, 778.
TWELVE
The Last Bloody Minutes
I
The ram beat against the outer hatch, heavy and relentless. Through the gatehouse and along the entrance tunnel, the assembled Ghosts waited. There was no chatter, no whispering. The men sat in cold silence, every one of them flinching slightly at each beat that rang against the hatch. The house lights faded and came back, faded and came back.
Baskevyl realised they were doing so in time to the beat of the ram. Though the shelling had ceased, dust and grit continued to dribble down from the roof in places. The little falls made scratching, scuttling sounds, sounds that were unpl
easantly familiar to Baskevyl. A little voice in his skull told him it wasn’t a ram beating at the gate. It was the worm, flexing and striking with its massive, armoured head, trying to dig its way in.
Kolea had brought the flamers to the front. The gatehouse reeked of stirred promethium. The small blue ignitor flames burning at the snout of each weapon made a serpentine hissing. Baskevyl could see the tension in the flame-troopers, the slight twitch and shiver in their limbs.
The ram struck again.
“The frame’s buckling!” someone cried from the front of the gatehouse.
“Hold the line!” Kolea called. “Keep your formation and stand ready!”
“It’s definitely buckling!”
Baskevyl looked at Kolea. “Don’t let them past you,” he said quietly.
“I won’t if you won’t,” Kolea replied.
II
Daur’s gun was dry. He’d drained the entire cell with one long pull on the trigger. There was no one left alive in the support tunnel except him. The bodies of raiders lay all around him, including the bastard that had nearly taken Daur’s head off. He’d just experienced the most intense fifteen seconds of his life.
He shook himself out of his daze, ejected the clip and slammed in a fresh one. Gunfire rattled and cracked around adjacent halls and chambers. He moved forwards.
The tunnel joined a main hallway. That too was littered with bodies and fogged with smoke. The ugly, jumbled corpses were Ghosts and Blood Pact, side by side in death. Only in death, Daur thought.
He snapped around as figures appeared. He saw Meryn moving up the hall with men of his own company and some from Daur’s.
“Daur!”
“What’s the situation?”
“I was about to ask you that,” Meryn snapped. He was filthy and there were beads of blood across his cheek. “Where have you been?”
“Busy,” Daur replied.
“They’re coming up the fething walls,” Meryn said. “Rawne wants every man available to the gunboxes to keep them off. We’ve just cleared lower eight and nine.”
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