Gaunt nodded.
“They’d done three raids in three days. A Sons garrison, a vox hub, and a provincial governor. I was in contact, via the network. I sent to Ven he’d done too much and that he should burrow down for a week or two. He responded he would, said he was taking the Nalsheen west into the coastal Untill. I can only presume they were intercepted. A few days later, I got word that the Nalsheen had been slaughtered in an ambush by enemy killteams.”
“Confirmed?”
“Yes, confirmed. So we built the cairn.”
“You recovered his body?”
“No. We just built the cairn. That was the point. After Ven’s death, we kept attributing kills to him, as if he couldn’t die. That’s why we built the tomb up in enemy territory, so they’d know about it. The man they’d finally killed was still hurting them. It was propaganda. They became more afraid of Ven dead than they had been when he was alive.”
“He would have appreciated that,” Gaunt said. The irony. The economy. The—”
He stopped short. They were advancing through a glade where the trees had been stripped of their branches and rendered into stakes. The rotting heads of Nihtgane sat transfixed on the tops of the spikes.
“What the feth is this?” Gaunt asked.
“This is the edge of the real Untill,” Landerson replied. “This is the boundary the enemy makes. A warning… to us, to stay in, and to them, to stay out.”
Solemnly, respectfully, Gaunt walked past the first stake. “You never thought to take them down?” he asked.
“Why? They’d only want to put up more.”
There was a sudden commotion in the file behind them. Ghosts and partisans alike raised their weapons. A figure appeared, stumbling through the ruined woodland.
It was Dacre. At some point since they’d last seen him, he’d lost his right arm. He was clutching the shattered splinters of the limb’s bone and meat to his chest, his jacket soaked in blood.
“Feth!” Gaunt exclaimed.
“They were followed!” Dacre gasped, falling to his knees in front of Landerson. “They were bloody well followed!”
Landerson looked sharply at Gaunt.
“We were clean when we came in,” Gaunt said firmly. “By the God-Emperor, man, you watched us.”
“Dacre?”
“They brought something with them,” Dacre moaned. “I swear to you. Despite all our efforts, they were followed. Nine of my men are dead. And I—”
He stared down at his shredded arm and fainted.
“Pick him up!” Landerson yelled.
From a distance away, through the trees, there came a snort of exhaust.
Gaunt knew what that meant.
The beast still had their scent.
IV
“Cropper!” Landerson called out to one of his men. “Take the party forwards to Mothlamp. We’re doubling back—”
“No,” said Gaunt firmly.
“I’m not arguing about this,” said Landerson.
“Good,” said Gaunt, “neither am I. Take the main party on, and link Cirk and Mr Faragut with your people. Beltayn has unit command. I’ll take the rest and double back.”
“But—”
“This is my problem. We led it in here.”
“Ibram, let the Nihtgane—”
“You got a rocket tube, Landerson? The partisans still packing kit like that?”
“No.”
“Then do as I tell you. The mission is more important than any of us. We’ll deal with this and then swing back around. Post a watch to look for us and pick us up.”
Landerson looked at Gaunt for a moment, then saluted quickly.
Gaunt looked around. “Short straws… Criid, Larkin, Mkoll, Posetine, Derin. Let’s go!”
The selected Ghosts followed Gaunt back up the trackway. The soil was sticky and black from the overnight rain, and the grey sky above the perished trees was threatening a further downpour. By the time they had passed the grotesque markers of the staked skulls, the rest of the party had vanished behind them.
Except for Eszrah.
“Go with the others,” Gaunt told him.
Eszrah shook his head. Gaunt wanted to argue. Having a fluent native speaker with the contact party would be useful. But when Eszrah became so tight-lipped he didn’t even use his own language, there was no point debating with him. Gaunt knew he’d been dismayed at his sour treatment by the other Nihtgane, though such behaviour was hardly unexpected. Eszrah had been cut free of his roots, and had gone to places further away than any Nihtgane had ever gone. It wasn’t a matter of cruelty or prejudice, he was genuinely “unkynde” to them now. But it left him stranded and disenfranchised, adrift between worlds. The only place left for him was the place his chieftain father had given him: standing at Gaunt’s side.
They spread out, off the trail they had followed into the Untill, hoping to lure the beast around in a wide loop. There had been no further sign of it since Dacre’s appearance. They travelled silently, following the lines of ridges and the cover of stands of trees. It began to rain again, a fine, heavy torrent that twinkled in the sidelong light. Pungent odours of mud, mould, and woodrot were reawakened by the sudden rain. The air scent was cold and clear, and organic.
At last they heard sounds. From far away, the splash and spatter of movement in wet mud, the grumble of an engine revving to cope with mire. In the enclosed box made by the rain, the sound suddenly travelled much further than before.
Gaunt ranged them out in a wide line. Criid carried the tube. Gaunt signalled Mkoll and Larkin forwards to sweep and locate.
They had crossed about three kilometres of woodland since separating from Landerson’s party. The area they now slipped through was dense, dead forest that had been punctured in several places by artillery fire. They passed the charred wreck of a troop truck in one clearing. It had been there a long time, possibly since the original invasion. Further on lay the rusted shell of a light armoured car. Fallen tree trunks were rotting back into the mulch around the wrecks. Pieces of kit—buckles and buttons and the occasional gorget or helmet—showed up in the mud, all that remained of the bodies that had fallen in that place years before.
There was a signal tap on the micro-bead, and everybody got down. Gaunt waited a moment in a stillness where there was only the chirring of the drizzle. He heard a grumble up ahead, a wet purr. He smelled a hint of oil, a whiff of exhaust.
Larkin reappeared and ran back to Gaunt, head low, long-las like a spear at his side. He dropped into cover beside the colonel-commissar.
“Other side of that mound,” he whispered. “We caught sight of it, just for a moment. Fething thing is stalking us again.”
“Which way?”
Larkin pointed.
“Spot for Tona, Larks,” Gaunt said and signalled through the rain to Criid. Criid and Larkin immediately got up and took off, weaving in and out of the dead trees as they made their way up the slope, past the rusty chassis of another troop truck.
Criid ducked down behind some fallen logs just over the top of the slope. The rain was getting heavier. She could see down through a depression, thickly wooded, and into a clearing beyond. Larkin came up level with her, and she nodded. They took off again, heading down the slope and into the trees, slowing and crouching as they came through the black husks of ground vegetation.
Criid knelt down. Past the rot-black trunks of trees ahead, she saw into the clearing. The beast was partly masked by the woods behind it, a black shape against black shapes. She could just make it out through the rain, hull down, side on, as if it was waiting.
She glanced at Larkin. He had his scope raised, but the rain kept spattering the lens. He rubbed at it with a vizzy cloth and looked again. The view was poor, even with his optics. It was just a dark shape, but he could get a decent range for her. He had no wish to get any closer for a clearer look.
Thirty-two metres, he signed to Criid. She nodded, carefully loading one of the last two rockets into the tube.
>
The target wasn’t moving. Through the streaming veil of rain, she lined up on its shadow through the cross hairs of the tube’s aiming reticule.
Braced, she squeezed the trigger spoon. On a noisy streamer of smoke, the rocket arced across the clearing. It struck the tank in the side armour, detonated, and penetrated, flooding the interior of the hull with superhot gas.
Direct hit. Killing hit.
Even so, it was the worst mistake of her career.
V
Criid and Larkin rose up out of cover, staring at the burning wreck.
“Good kill,” he murmured.
“Made a strange sound,” she said, taking a step forwards.
“What?”
“It made a strange sound, when it hit.” She was walking towards her kill across the clearing. The sound of the impact had been dull and hollow, like a gong, like a hammer on scrap metal. Rain streamed off her as she closed on the blazing machine. She could hear the rainfall hissing and spitting off flames and hot metal. Steam and white smoke pumped out across the black mud of the clearing.
The tank was dead. The tank had been dead for years.
In the poor light, she had killed a rusted ruin.
“Of feth—” she began. She turned, and started to run. She saw Larkin’s face, wide eyed, mystified, wondering why she was breaking towards him so suddenly.
“Go! Larks, go!” she yelled.
The beast came through the trees to her left. The sudden howl of its raging engine shattered the rain-drenched quiet. Its treads were kicking up divots of mud and wet soil. The forward mantle of its hull shattered through the boles of the dead wood in its path. Entire trees folded and collapsed, ripping down through the relic canopy of the extinct forest. One crashed down across the beast itself, and fractured as it rolled off the moving armour. Another toppled away and fell into the burning wreck, where the lacy branches began to smoulder.
The beast left stumps, fallen timber and wood-debris in its wake. It hit some standing trunks so hard they disintegrated into flurries of rotten wood fibres. Bouncing, it thundered after the fleeing Criid. Larkin was finally running, plunging through the wet undergrowth and rot.
“Move! Move!” he voxed, his voice high with panic and jarred by the violence of his motion. “It’s on us!”
Plumes of angry smoke snorted out of the beast’s rear end as it clattered after Criid. It seemed intent on running her down, on crushing her into the forest floor. At some point since they had last seen it, it had lost one of its front lamps. Only one baleful yellow light shone from its hull. The other had been smashed and mangled, most likely by the rocket that Criid had smacked into it at Cayfer.
It moved like a half-blind thing. Did it know Criid was the one that had hurt it the night before? Was that why it was hunting her so intently?
She snapped right suddenly, turning faster than it could, leaping and sprinting into another break of trees.
Larkin was running parallel with her about fifty metres off. He could see the beast through the trees, and he could see her running, dodging between the decomposing trunks. Over the link, he heard the urgent voices of Gaunt and the rest of the squad, demanding information as they closed in.
“It’s ignoring me!” he yelled. “It just wants Criid!”
“Have we got a tank shell left?” Gaunt demanded, his voice close to incoherence over the micro-bead.
“One,” Larkin answered. “But Criid’s got it. She’s got the tube too.”
Larkin slithered to a halt and looked down the slope. He could barely see Criid. She was bounding through the dense wood, moving away from him. The beast had come to a halt. She was putting some decent distance between herself and it.
The tank gun boomed. Larkin fell to the ground even though he knew the shell wasn’t coming his way. The beast had fired its turret weapon at zero elevation. The tank round sliced through the woodland like a giant bullet, leaving a trail of atomised branches and pulverised boles behind it. It went off against a heavy, ancient tree five metres to the left of Criid. The blast smashed her off her feet. She went rolling over and over in the black mire.
“Tona!” Larkin yelled. “Keep running!”
He saw her get up, and head off to the left. She seemed all right. She was running as fast as ever.
The beast fired again. Larkin glimpsed the hissing, fibre-spraying track of the shell as it passed through the trees. There was a big blast of impact, big enough to tear down several small trees nearby. When the flash died and the smoke began to melt away, Tona Criid was gone.
“Oh no,” murmured Larkin. “Oh no no no.” He took a step forwards and began to slither back down the slope towards the beast. He was filled with an urge to do something, to obtain revenge, yet had no idea what that might be. He raised his long-las, aiming it at the tank as he skidded down the muddy bank.
With a surge of engine revolutions and an acrid belch of smoke, the beast began to roll again, and turned to meet him.
VI
Larkin saw the single yellow lamp swing round to regard him. He stumbled backwards, lowering his weapon for a moment. The beast came for him, spraying black mud out on either side as it hammered across the clearing. Larkin raised his long-las again and fired directly at it. The shot blew out the remaining lamp.
The beast shuddered to a halt, slewing around slightly. A high, strangled note rose from the thrashing engine, which sounded to Larkin like a gurgle of pain and rage. Had he blinded it, or was that just his imagination?
The beast lurched forwards once more, swinging the front of its hull from left to right. Its main gun came up above horizontal and the turret traversed back and forth. Larkin started to run.
The hard point cannon began to fire. Heavy gauge shots chopped the air behind the Tanith sniper. Dead vegetation was chewed up and disintegrated like mist. Larkin heard the shells smack into the mud behind him. He’d chosen to run back up the slope, and that was foolish.
Eszrah appeared from behind a tree trunk and dragged Larkin to the ground. Down low, they bellied through the leaf mould and dead branches. Eszrah put a finger to his lips so Larkin would be in no doubt. The beast came up the slope behind them, felling more decomposing timber. They crawled quickly between the trees, heading for the top of the rise.
They reached the ridge top about ten seconds in front of the lurching, squirming beast. With line of sight cover provided by the terrain, they both leapt up and started to run down the far bank towards the rusting troop truck.
They both felt the wet ground quiver beneath them as the beast reared up over the rise at their heels. It came at speed, angry, hungry. As soon as its huge bulk had flopped over the crest, its treads dug in and it slalomed down the muddy slope after them. Larkin and Eszrah had just passed the rotting truck when the beast fired its main gun at them.
Liquid mud fountained into the air in a gout like a hot spring. Larkin felt himself lifted into the air by the Shockwave. He landed hard, with dazing force, and in the blurry moments that followed, registered a terrible pain in his left leg.
He tried to snap awake. He felt the rain hitting his face and the ooze squelching beneath him. The snorting of the approaching beast was in his ears.
“Eszrah?” he called out, hoarse and choked by fumes. The blast had thrown Eszrah four or five metres away into the treeline. Larkin could see the sleepwalker, sprawled unconscious in the dead bracken. Larkin tried to get up and run to him. He wanted to drag Eszrah into better cover.
He couldn’t. Pain flared through his left foot and leg. Larkin struggled round to identify the source of the pain.
The blast that had knocked him flat and cast Eszrah across the glade had thrown the shell of the rusting truck too. The scabby metal bulk had rolled over and pinned Larkin’s left foot beneath it.
He tried to pull free, but the weight of the wreck was far to great. All he got for his efforts was a sear of agony from his damaged foot. He began to scrabble feverishly.
The beast was thundering d
own on him, in a direct line that would bring the truck wreck, and Larkin himself, under its crushing tracks.
* * * * *
Mkoll could hear the beast’s growling engine through the rain from the far side of the slope. He and Derin had cut around to the east as soon as Larkin’s urgent call had reached them. Mkoll knew they had nothing to kill a tank with, unless the last rocket Criid had been carrying had survived.
“Look around!” he cried to Derin as they struggled through the brittle undergrowth. One of the tank rounds had punched clean through the dead trees, leaving kindling and rotting fibre strewn in a path. Mkoll located the half-cup of a shell hole bored into the black soil. He saw part of a Tanith issue sleeve hanging from a branch. A boot.
“Feth!” he cursed to himself. The tank had hit her so squarely, she—
“Chief!” Derin called.
Mkoll ran across to him. Derin was dragging back some of the black, tangled ground cover. He’d found Criid.
She was alive. Her battledress was torn, and burned in places, and she had suffered several deep gashes from zipping wood splinters. The force of the blast that had thrown her and left her unconscious in the undergrowth had torn one of her boots off and buckled her lasrifle.
Mkoll checked her throat for a pulse. “Dress her wounds,” he told Derin. “Stay with her and get her ready to move as soon as she comes round.”
“What are you doing?” Derin asked.
Mkoll was rummaging through the undergrowth for the fallen rocket tube and the remaining shell. He found the shell quickly, half-spilled from its torn satchel. Then he found the rocket tube. It was twisted and useless. From up the ridge, the boom of a tank gun rolled.
Larkin cried out as he dragged at his leg again. The pain from the crushed foot was immense, but it was eclipsed by his desperate desire to get clear. There weren’t many ways Larkin fancied dying, but crushed under the treads of a predatory battle tank wasn’t one of them.
His pinned foot wouldn’t budge. He yowled again.