Landerson nodded.
“Say to him what you said to me,” Mkoll instructed.
“Tanith Magna,” Landerson said quietly.
“Tell him your name.”
“Landerson. Major Landerson.”
“And address him as sir,” Mkoll added.
“Sir.”
The tall man in the cap made the sign of the aquila and then saluted. “Major,” he said. “My name is Gaunt. I have command of this operation. You’re in the right place at the right time and you’ve given the correct code, so I’ll presume for the moment you’re the man I’ve come to see. You’ve been instructed to meet us by the commander of the Ineuron cell.”
Landerson swallowed. “I have liberty to discuss certain things, sir. They don’t include the possible activities, movements or even existence of any resistance cells.”
“Fair point,” said Gaunt. “But the next stage of our business involves establishing contact with a colonel called Ballerat, or any of his chief officers.”
“Regard me as such, and then we’ll review,” Landerson replied.
A man appeared at Gaunt’s side. He was shorter than Gaunt, but a little more robustly proportioned, as dark as Gaunt was fair. There seemed to Landerson something sleekly cruel about the man’s face.
“Want me to beat the crap out of him, sir?”
“Not at this stage,” Gaunt replied.
“Just to loosen his tongue, you understand.”
“Wouldn’t want you to get your hands dirty, Rawne.”
The man smiled. It was not a little chilling. “I wouldn’t. I’d get Feygor to do it.”
“Full marks for delegation. Now step off, Rawne.”
The man shrugged and walked away. Landerson could see the others now, quite plainly. There were seven of them, apart from Mkoll, Rawne and the commander, all dressed in black camo-gear and packs. Most of them were tattooed. A large, rough-looking man hefted an autocannon; a slight, older fellow carried a marksman’s weapon. The four other troopers had lasrifles. The seventh, Landerson realised, was a female. She too was clad in pitch-black combat gear, but the only weapon she carried was a compact autopistol in a holster.
Gaunt looked at Landerson. “Major, in your estimation, how long can we remain here safely?”
“Another thirty minutes would be pushing it.”
“Do you have secure fall-back positions?”
“I know a place or two where we could avoid the patrols.”
“And they’re safe?”
Landerson stared at him. “Sir, this is Gereon. Nowhere is safe.”
“Then let’s get on with this,” Gaunt said. “Doctor. Check them out, please.”
The woman moved forward, pulled off her pack and produced a small narthecium scanner. She began to play it across Landerson.
“Lily of Thrace,” said Landerson.
“What?” she asked, stopping and looking at him.
“Your perfume. Lily of Thrace. Am I right?”
“I haven’t used perfume or cologne for three weeks,” she said firmly. “Part of the mission prep—”
“I’m sure you haven’t,” said Landerson. “But I can still smell it. That, and counterseptics, and sterile rinse. The fetch-hounds would have you in a second.”
“That’s enough,” said Mkoll. The woman shook her head at the scout and stared at Landerson. These… hounds. They’d detect my scent even though I have been scrupulous not to use anything that might give me away?”
“Yes, mamzel. You’re too clean. All of you.”
“These hounds would find me because I don’t smell like shit, like you?”
“Exactly, mamzel. Gereon gets in the pores. Into the flesh. The smoke, the dust, the taint.”
“Speaking of taint,” the woman said, reading her scanner. You have elevated B-proteins and a high leucocyte count. What exactly has been bonded to your metabolism?”
Mkoll immediately raised his rifle and aimed it at the side of Landerson’s head.
“I’m going to show her my arm,” Landerson said, very aware of the gun barrel pointing into his ear. He raised his left sleeve and revealed the bandage. The archenemy brands all citizens with an imago. I’ve had mine removed, so have Purchason and Lefivre. Can they get up, by the way? I’m not really happy with the way you’re depriving my men of their liberty at this point.”
“Want me to get Feygor?” Mkoll muttered.
“No,” said Gaunt. “Is he clean, Curth?”
“Clean is a strong word. In so many ways,” said the woman. “But… yes, I’d say so.”
“Check the other two. If they’re clean, get them up. Major Landerson, walk with me.”
Gaunt led him back into the prefab, down to the room where the candle still burned.
“Have a seat,” he offered.
“I’ll stand, sir.”
Gaunt frowned, and sat down himself.
“What is your rank, sir?” Landerson asked.
“Colonel-Commissar.”
Landerson felt his heart skip slightly. “I see. You’re very cautious.”
“I’m landing a mission team on a Chaos-held world, Landerson. Do you blame me?”
“No, sir, I suppose I don’t. How did you reach the surface?”
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you that.”
“Uh huh. Can you tell me your force disposition?”
“I shouldn’t do that either, not until I trust you a little better. But you can count.”
“I’ve counted a dozen of you.”
Gaunt said nothing. The candle fluttered.
Landerson nodded to himself. The advance party. “I understand that. I also understand you’re not going to tell me anything about the main force, where they’re concealed, what armour they’ve got, but—”
“But?”
“At least tell me when it’s going to start.”
“When what’s going to start, major?”
“The liberation, sir.”
Gaunt looked up at him. “Liberation?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gaunt sighed. “I think,” he began, choosing his words, “I think perhaps the understandably tortuous lines of communication between the Gereon resistance cells and Guard Intelligence have been even less adequate than we’d hoped.”
“I don’t understand,” said Landerson.
“Twelve mission specialists, major. Twelve. You’ve seen them all, you’ve counted them yourself. We’re not the advance. We’re it.”
“Sir?”
“No one else is coming. We’re not meeting here tonight to pave a way for a triumphant liberation army.
“Your priority is to link with my team and get us underground so we can achieve our mission parameters.”
Landerson felt a slight buzzing in his head. A dizziness. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down heavily.
“I don’t understand,” he repeated. “I thought—”
“I realise what you thought. I’m sorry to disabuse your hopes. We’re all that’s coming, major. Now I need you to do your part and get us inside. Can you do that?”
Landerson shook his head.
“Is that a no?”
“No, no.” Landerson looked up. “I just… it’s not what I was expecting. It’s not what anyone was… I mean, we assumed. The colonel said… I…” He tailed off. “What mission?”
“I’m not going to tell you that either, Landerson. Not even going to hint until I know you better. Even then, maybe not. I’m as scared of what you might be as you are of what I might be. Let’s not fight about it. Right now, I need you to do as you were instructed so we can get on. I can tell you that I need to establish face contact with Ballerat, or his proxy, or with the leader of another cell in the Ineuron Town region. I can also tell you that, unless any senior resistance contact can inform me otherwise, I’m going to need a clear and secret line of deployment to the Lectica heartland. And I can tell you that my mission parameters were given to me directly by Lord General
Barthol Van Voytz of the Crusade Fifth Army, as ratified and instructed personally by Warmaster Macaroth himself.”
“This is so much shit,” snapped Landerson, rising.
“Sit down.”
“This isn’t what we need! This isn’t what Gereon was waiting for—”
“Sit. Down.”
Landerson turned to face Gaunt, his fingers curled like hooks, tears in his eyes. “You come here with this crap?
“Some half-arsed stealth mission that you can’t breathe a word of? Screw you! We’ve suffered! We’ve died! Millions have died! Do you know what those bastards have done to us?”
“Yes,” said Gaunt quietly.
“I don’t bloody think so! The invasion? The slaughter? The extermination camps? The things they buried in our flesh to keep us tame? The foul propaganda they blast from the speakers every hour of the day and night? The few of us left who can think straight, the bloody few of us, risking our lives every day to keep the resistance alive! A raid here, a bombing there, comrades massacred, dragged off for interrogation or worse! What kept us going, do you suppose? What the hell kept us going?”
“The thought of liberation.”
“The thought of liberation! Yes, sir! Yes screw-you sir! Every day! Every day for six hundred and four days! Six hundred and bloody five now! Days of Pain! We have a calendar! A bloody calendar! Six hundred and five days of pain and death and torment—”
“Landerson—”
“Do you know what I do?” Landerson asked, wiping his mouth, his hands shaking. “Do you know what the bloody ordinals make me do? I am consented to work in the Iconoclave! Do you know what that means?”
“No,” said Gaunt.
“It means I am allowed to go to what was the town hall for twelve hours every day and use a sledgehammer to break up any symbols of the Imperium that the bastards drag in! Statues… plaques… standards… insignia… I have to pound them to scrap and rubble! And they allow me to do this! They permit me! It’s seen as a special honour for those of us consented to do it! A perk! A trustee’s luxury! Because it’s that or file into the maws of the meat foundries and, you know, somehow I’d rather splinter a statue of Saint Kiodrus into chippings than be dragged off there!”
“I understand—” Gaunt began.
“No, you don’t!”
Gaunt raised his black-gloved hands. “No, I don’t. I don’t begin to understand what that’s like. I don’t begin to understand the pain, the misery, the torment. And I certainly don’t understand the choices you’ve had to make. But I do understand your disappointment.”
“Yeah?” laughed Landerson, bitterly.
Gaunt nodded. “You wanted us to be your salvation. You thought we were the front markers of a crusade force come to free you. We’re not, and I can understand why that hurts.”
“What do you know?”
“I know I left a world to Chaos once.”
“What happened to it?” Landerson asked quietly.
“What do you think? It died. But the few men I saved from it have now spared a thousandfold more Imperial citizens from suffering than I would have managed if I’d stayed there.”
Landerson stared at the candle flame.
“Some of those men are with me here tonight,” said Gaunt. “Look, major. This is the Imperium of Man. There is only war. It has edges and corners, and all of them are hard. If I could save Gereon, I would, but I can’t and that’s not why I’m here. Gereon must continue to suffer. In time, there may be a liberation effort. It’s not for me to say. Right here, right now, I have a mission. Its success is important to Lord General Van Voytz, to Warmaster Macaroth, and to the Imperium. Which means it’s important to the God-Emperor himself. What I have to do here is bigger than Gereon.”
“Damn you to hell.”
“Very likely. But it’s true. If my team fails here, we’re talking about the possible failure of the entire Sabbat Crusade. One hundred inhabited systems, Landerson. Would you like them all to end up like Gereon?”
Landerson sat down again.
“What,” he whispered. “What do you want me to do?”
“I’d like you to—” Gaunt paused and put his hand up to the micro-bead vox plug in his ear. “Beltayn, this is one. What do you have?”
He listened for a moment, then rose to his feet. “We’ll have to finish this later, major,” he said.
“Why?” asked Landerson, getting to his feet too.
“Because something’s awry.”
Outside, everyone had disappeared. Landerson felt a slight rise of panic, but Gaunt strode out into the yard. As if conjured by some sorcery, Mkoll appeared from nowhere.
“Report?”
“Movement on the road. Perimeter is secure.”
“Have we made them?”
“I’m waiting for Mkvenner and Bonin now, sir,” Mkoll whispered.
“Where are the—” Gaunt paused. Landerson knew he’d been about to say prisoners. “Where are the major’s associates?”
“Varl’s moved them to the shed there,” Mkoll pointed.
“Take the major to join them,” Gaunt instructed.
“I can be more use here,” said Landerson.
“Major, this is n—”
“Do you know what you’re facing?”
Gaunt breathed deeply. “All right, with me. Stick close. Do exactly what Mkoll and I tell you.”
They headed for the gateway. Landerson realised that two of the visitors—the man with the marksman’s rifle and the devil who’d offered to beat him up—were concealed by the fence stakes, wrapped in their camo-capes. He didn’t see them at all until he was right on them.
Landerson ducked low and tucked in behind Gaunt and Mkoll as they went up the ditch to the road wall.
The vox pipped. Mkoll listened and replied softly.
“Two carriers, coming this way. Ven counts twenty-three heads. Dogs too, in a chained pack.”
“Standard mechanised patrol,” whispered Landerson. “It wasn’t on my expected schedule.”
“They know we’re here?” asked Gaunt.
“I doubt it, sir. If they knew there were insurgents at this location, they’d have beefed up the numbers. We staged a diversion in the town tonight to distract from this meeting, but there was always the chance they’d step up the patrols as a consequence. The enemy is not stupid.”
“That’s been my experience too,” said Gaunt darkly.
“You don’t want an open firefight with a patrol,” Landerson said.
“Delighted to see you grasping the meaning of the phrase ‘stealth mission’,” said Gaunt. “We need to peel out and find a back door. What’s that way?”
“Agricultural land. Field systems. Too open.”
“That way? Over there?”
“Open ground for about five hundred metres, then woods.”
“We’ll take the woods,” said Mkoll.
Gaunt nodded.
“Make it fast,” said Landerson. “Once the fetch-hounds have your scent—and they will get your scent—we’re screwed.”
“Let’s get going,” said Gaunt, and Mkoll turned and simply vanished into the night. Landerson followed Gaunt back down the ditch to the gate.
“Up and out that way, Rawne,” Gaunt said. “Lead them out. Head for the woods.”
“On it.”
“Larks?” Gaunt said, turning to the marksman.
“Sir?”
“You’ll be out last with Ven. Cover us. But remember engagement rules. Keep your finger off that trigger unless there’s no other choice.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Emperor protects, Larks,” Gaunt said and moved Landerson into the yard. Purchason and Lefivre were coming out of the shed escorted by two of Gaunt’s troopers.
“I request you return our weapons,” said Landerson.
“I will, if you promise not to use them,” Gaunt said.
“Still grasping that meaning, colonel-commissar.”
“Good,” said Gaunt.
“Varl?”
One of the troopers came over. His broadly grinning face was smeared with filth.
“Fall on your face?” Gaunt asked.
“Pig dung,” said Varl. “I fething hate dogs. I’d rather they smelled you first.”
“Your loyalty knows no beginning, Varl. Give these men back their weapons.”
“Sir.”
Landerson immediately felt more confident with his muzzled autorifle back in his hands. He followed Gaunt and the others to the perimeter fence, climbed it, and dropped into the waste ground beyond. They all started to run towards the dim treeline half a kilometre away.
The ground was rough and scrubby, thick with ground vine and fronds of cupwort. Landerson glanced back. Beyond the fence and the silhouette of the agri-complex, he saw the twitching radiance of lights on the road.
He should have been looking where he was going. The loop of ground vine yanked his ankle and he went down on his face.
“Get up, you clumsy gak!” a voice hissed at him, and Landerson was pulled to his feet. It was the other trooper who’d been guarding his men with Varl. He was a she.
“Move it or I knife you and leave you!” the female trooper snarled.
Landerson ran after her.
They reached the trees. The thick canopy cut out what little ambient light the night sky provided. It was as dark as the void. The woman made no sound as she moved through the knee-deep vegetation. Landerson felt like he was making as much noise as a charging foot patrol.
“Down!” she said.
He got down. There was silence, apart from the breeze in the leaves, and a distant engine note coming from the agri-complex.
As his eyes adjusted, Landerson saw Gaunt’s team was all around him, in cover, weapons raised.
“How long before your point men pull out?” Landerson whispered.
“They already have,” said Gaunt. Landerson realised the marksman and the tall, thin scout were with them. How in the name of Holy Terra had they done that?
They heard the sound of dogs on the night air. Eager, frantic, whining and howling.
Landerson knew that sound.
“They’ve got the scent,” he whispered, his heart sinking.
“Feth!” spat Gaunt.
“Lily of Thrace, I suppose,” said the female medic.
Landerson shook his head. “No. Blood. Blood is the one thing they fix onto more than anything else.” He held up his hand. His fall had torn the bandage off the bindings, and blood was weeping again from the bite in his palm.