Running full tilt, Gaunt and Posetine slammed against the wreck beside him and immediately put their shoulders into moving it. The beast was almost on them, the roar of its engine quivering the air.
Gaunt grunted in effort. The truck wreck weighed several tonnes. They weren’t even going to rock it far enough to yank Larkin free.
The old sniper was frantic. “Don’t let it crush me!” he stammered. “Don’t let it! Please, sir! Finish me quick! Finish me quick, I’m begging you! For the time we’ve served together, I’m begging you for this!”
Posetine’s mud-spattered face was pale with fear. He glanced at the oncoming beast. “Sir!”
“Please! Please!” Larkin was wailing.
“Oh feth,” Gaunt snarled. He wrenched out his power sword, activated it, and slashed down in a single stroke.
Larkin screamed. Gaunt and Posetine grabbed him under the armpits and hurled themselves towards the trees, dragging him between them. Not even a full second later, the beast went through, flattening the truck wreck like wet flakboard.
Gaunt and Posetine fell over into the wet undergrowth. Larkin had passed out. Gaunt scrambled around, his power sword still ignited. He stripped the remains of the boot and sock off Larkin’s truncated leg and quickly pressed the flat of the blade against the stump to cauterise it. Larkin woke with a cry and then passed out again.
“Oh shit,” said Posetine.
The beast had overshot them, but now it was coming about, ripping through the weeds and stringy brambles.
“Carry him!” Gaunt said. Posetine nodded and hoisted Larkin up in a shoulder lift. “Go that way! Into the trees!” Gaunt ordered. Posetine started to run, hauling Larkin’s loose body into the darkness of the deep wood.
Gaunt ran to where Eszrah lay. The Nihtgane woke as Gaunt dragged him up.
“Come on!” Gaunt hissed. They struggled a few metres, and dropped into cover behind a pair of fungus-caked trees.
The beast had turned. It stood its ground, its engine throbbing. With an electric whine, the main gun rose slightly, and then the turret traversed slowly to the left with a dry squeal. It stopped, and traversed slowly back to the right. Rainwater streamed back down the raised gun.
Curled in cover, Eszrah looked around for his reynbow, but he’d lost hold of it when the blast overtook him. It was lying in the mud in the middle of the rain-dimpled clearing. Not far away from it, beside the flattened truck chassis, was Larkin’s long-las, bent almost in half by the weight of grinding tracks.
Neither weapon would have done them any good anyway. The only chance they had lay with the power sword. Gaunt realised he had to kill the beast’s engine the way he had tried to do on the moor land outside Cayfer.
Gaunt signed for Eszrah to stay put, and then began to crawl along the tree line. He was partly obscured by the truck wreck. The beast continued to sit where it was, rumbling and panting.
Gaunt had got about five metres. It was going to be a long, arduous crawl to get himself behind the thing. His left boot caught against something, a stone or a piece of bark, and made a slight sound.
The beast’s turret tracked in his direction instantly and fired.
Gaunt dropped flat. He felt the air-burn and the shock of the round as it went over his position, heard it zip and punch and slice through the canopy. The round struck the exposed root-ball of a tree further up the slope and exploded. Debris pattered down in the fine rain.
The beast’s gun tracked to and fro, edgy, wary. Its engine flared with revs and it jumped forwards a metre or two before it slammed to a halt again, rocking on its springs. The hissing rain steamed off its engine cover. Grey smoke lifted from the muzzle brake. It started forwards again violently, slewing slightly to its left, and then stopped once more, engine chuntering.
A small noise sounded off to its right, and the beast swung around, turret tracking, both sets of tracks driving in opposite directions to turn it around on its own body-length. The main gun swung slowly to cover the area of trees where the offending noise had come from.
Gaunt peered out. Eszrah was where Gaunt had left him, well hidden. He’d scooped some iron quarrels from his pouch, and was hurling them one by one into the trees behind the beast. It had already half-turned to face the sound. He was trying to make it turn right around.
Eszrah threw another dart. It thunked off a tree stump. With a snort of exhaust, the beast lurched around further, and swung its weapon. It fired. Water droplets jumped off its armour as the gun thumped. A large fireball burst through the trees on the far side of the clearing. Gaunt was already moving. He knew he wouldn’t be able to reach the rear of the tank in one go, but he was sure he could get as far as the truck wreck, which now lay behind the beast.
He flopped into cover as the echo of the gun’s blast rippled away. Eszrah threw another quarrel, but this time the beast did not respond to the lure. Slowly, it began to track its turret around to the left, gun raised, as if it was cocking its ear to listen to something behind it. Gaunt couldn’t help anthropomorphising the machine’s behaviour. It had behaved like a wild animal from the very start of their conflict. Blinded, it was hunting by sound, and by smell.
It had his scent. He was close to it, and it had his scent, or else it could hear him breathing, or simply feel his presence. Eszrah tried another dart, but it wasn’t interested at all. Gaunt wondered if he had the time to break and run, or if it was simply toying with him, waiting for him to make a move.
He decided to try it. He tightened his grip on the power sword.
The beast’s engine roared and it lurched backwards at speed to crush the truck wreck a second time.
VII
Gaunt threw himself headlong to the side as the beast ploughed into his cover. Already mangled, the wrecked truck twisted and sheared under the tank’s weight, the metal screeching and pinging as it deformed. Gaunt rolled, praying that he would have time to manoeuvre back behind the enemy vehicle before it swung at him again.
It was already moving. Slipping in the ooze, Gaunt tried to get a footing and dash in close beside it. He reignited his power sword and plunged forwards. The tank bellowed and wheeled around on him. He had to dive and roll again to avoid its swinging track guard.
There was a clang. Gaunt looked up. Mkoll was perched on top of the tank, right on top of the turret. Gaunt didn’t know if the scout had dropped out of a tree or had run up the beast’s back while it had been busy with him. Mkoll clung on tight, his left hand clamped to a hand rail. The last tank rocket was in his right hand. He tapped the side of the rocket two or three times against the top hatch cover, as if he was knocking on a door.
The beast halted sharply, rocking on its springs once more. Mkoll fought to cling on and rapped again. The turret traversed one way then the other, with increasing vigour, like a man trying to turn his head to see something pinned to his back. The main gun came up. The muzzle of the hard point weapon jerked around blindly like a mole clawing up from the ground.
Mkoll rapped with the shell again. The beast’s top hatches were armoured and locked. There was no way in, but there was no way it could get him off its back without one of the crew coming outside. He rapped again, deliberately goading it.
Gaunt got up, circling, waiting for a chance to lunge closer. The beast lurched forwards, stopped sharply, and then did it again, braking so hard the second time, it almost threw Mkoll forwards and off the hull.
He held on.
The tank abruptly powered backwards, spraying up mud, throwing Mkoll’s footing the other way. He kept his grip and knocked again.
As if demented, the beast braked, and then threw itself forwards, picking up speed. Gaunt ran out of its path. The sudden acceleration threw Mkoll onto his chest, but he looped his elbow around the hand rail.
He clung on as the tank left the clearing and tore into the woods, demolishing a path as it went. Twigs and boughs raked and clawed at Mkoll as he was carried along. It was trying to scrape him off its topside.
Gau
nt and Eszrah ran after it, following the trail of splintered stumps and exploded logs into the dead forest. Black leaf matter and wood fibres swirled down in the rain around them.
Deep in the tract of dark trees, the beast slewed to the left and scraped its starboard side against the mass of a big, old tree, like a hound scraping its flank against a post. The tree, soft and corrupted, folded over and crashed down onto the tank. Mkoll saw it coming down at him, and let go of the hand rail. He rolled sideways off the turret and landed on the top of the engine compartment as the dead tree broke like brittle honeycomb across the tank’s topside.
The beast took off again, dropping nose-first into a hollow that bounced the rear end up and bucked Mkoll into the air. He grabbed the edge of an armour plate as he landed, and barely avoided a tumble off the side.
The enemy tank was nose in, gouging up the far side of the hollow in a spattering sheet of mud. It lurched to the left to find a better path, and churned through the undergrowth ahead of it, taking down another lifeless tree. Mkoll clambered back up onto the rocking turret top, and rapped the side of the missile against the hatch.
The beast thumped to a violent halt, unable to shake off its tormentor. Gaunt came sprinting out of the trees behind it, Eszrah close at his heels. Gaunt didn’t break stride, but simply leapt up onto the tail plates of the big machine, clambered from there onto the engine compartment, and ran on up the engine cover to the turret.
Without hesitation, Gaunt sliced the power sword around and cut through the armoured lock and hinges of the top hatch. Sparks, a billow of steam, and a stench of burning metal accompanied the blow. Beside him, Mkoll kicked the severed hatch away with the heel of his right foot, jerked the detonation tape out of the rocket, and lobbed it in through the open hatchway.
Neither of them ever saw what was inside the beast. They got a quick impression of a lurid, infernal gloom, and a smell like an abattoir.
They leapt off the beast into the air, side by side, arms outstretched as the fireball gutted the tank and rushed up out of the hatch to chase them.
VIII
They trekked back into the Untill to the north-east, past the defining, warding line of partisan skulls on stakes. Criid had recovered well enough to limp, but she was battered and dazed. Posetine and Derin supported Larkin, who faded in and out of shock and consciousness.
“I’m sorry,” Gaunt told him. “It was the only way.”
Larkin muttered something, but he was too woozy on the field kit shots Posetine had stuck him with to be coherent.
The rain cleared, and then came back with driving force. The sky darkened like wet cloth. Behind them, a ragged trickle of black smoke marked the beast’s grave in the deep forest.
About two hours after the brawl with the tank had ended, they were met by partisan scouts in a glade at the edges of the marsh. Nightfall was beginning to add to the storm’s darkness.
Silently, the Nihtgane led them on, into the swamp groves, along tracks and trails between the root masses and the filthy water, into a darkness that was darkness no matter the time of day or the weather.
In there, in the true Untill, Gaunt at last saw some remnant of Gereon as he had known it. The Untill, that most inhospitable and treacherous part of the world was now the only part that showed any sign of life. There were insects, small animals, some fish and lizards. The trees, and matting frond plants and climbers, were alive. The moths fluttered. It did not look so green and fecund as he remembered it—it was greyer and paler, and life was less abundant—but the Ruinous Powers had not encroached enough to kill it yet.
They trudged on into the green darkness, clouds of moths trailing them like confetti at some great triumph. Birds called in the canopy, and amphibians croaked and splashed in the marsh ways.
Mkoll paused at one spot, listening.
“What?” Gaunt asked him.
Mkoll was staring into the twilight distance of the Untill glades beyond them. “I could have sworn,” he began. “Something familiar, like…” he shook his head. “No, there’s nothing there.”
Some time later, they arrived at the partisan encampment that Landerson had chosen for the operation. It was a large place, partly a Nihtgane village, partly a prefab camp, populated by underground soldiers and partisans alike. All told, some sixty people lived in the huts and habitents raised in clusters around a small island in the middle of the swamp, its limits extended by platforms and walkways. The division between Nihtgane and Gereonite, already eroding in Gaunt’s time on the planet, had vanished. This was simply the resistance.
Landerson had brought the rest of Gaunt’s section to the camp. Faragut, it seemed, had already begun discussions about shared tactical data. Cirk was present, helping to smooth the conversation between the commissar and the wary underground.
Landerson greeted Gaunt’s party.
“We’d almost given up on you,” Landerson said.
“I thought you’d have learned not to by now,” Gaunt replied. He helped Criid onto the camp platform, and then made way for the two men carrying Larkin.
“It wasn’t easy,” Gaunt said. “It would be good to get a medic for Larkin. Do you have a medic?”
“Of course they have a medic,” said a voice from further up the platform. Ana Curth pushed her way down to reach Larkin.
“Ana?” Gaunt blinked.
“What did this?” Curth asked, examining Larkin. She was dressed in rags and scraps like all of Landerson’s people, and was so thin that he barely recognised her.
“My power sword,” Gaunt said, staring at her.
“What?”
“His leg was pinned.”
Curth glanced at him. Whatever else had changed in her, changed or faded or perished, the fierce look in the eyes had not.
“Throne, Ana—” he began, taking a step forwards.
“Talk to me later,” she snapped. “I’ve got to patch him up. Criid too, by the look of it. Talk to me later when I’ve finished.”
She gestured, and Posetine and Derin hoisted Larkin up and carried him after her into the camp.
“Ana Curth…” Gaunt murmured. “I always hoped she’d make it and always feared she wouldn’t.”
“She was always tough,” said Mkoll. “A Ghost after all.”
And looking more like a Ghost now than ever, Gaunt thought. He followed Landerson into the camp.
“This Faragut’s keen,” Landerson remarked.
“Cut him some slack,” Gaunt said. “He doesn’t know any better. Where’s Beltayn?”
Landerson glanced around. “I told him you had caught up. I don’t know where he’s got to.”
“Over in the hut there, sir,” said Garond.
Gaunt hastened over to the dwelling that Garond had indicated. It was a makeshift comms room and repair shop for weapons. By the light of a small prom lamp, Gaunt saw cannibalised rifles and two or three battered vox sets. Beltayn had his own, customised voxcaster up on a bench and was studying it.
“Bel?”
“Sorry, sir. I was about to come and meet you when I noticed something.”
“Something?” Gaunt asked, joining him.
“Yes, sir. Something’s awry. I’ve been trying to raise Cantible or Command on the vox, but the conditions are as bad as ever. My guess is it’s because of the storms kicked off by the invasion.”
He was fiddling with the back plate of his vox unit, using a dirty screwdriver to prise off the cover of the enhanced aerial.
“What are you doing, Bel?” Gaunt asked, peering closer.
“Well, last time I tried the set, I noticed there was a slight power drain, as if I’d left the channel booster on, which I hadn’t.”
“So?”
“So there’s a little power light here, at the base, that wasn’t on before. There’s some kind of system hidden in my caster that I didn’t know about, and it’s been switched on for about the last hour or so.”
“Wait a minute,” said Gaunt. “Are you talking about sabotage?”
>
“I don’t think so,” Beltayn replied. “I hope not,” he added with a grin, “or poking around with this screwdriver is going to be a bad idea.”
The backplate came away, and Beltayn pulled out some acoustic padding. They both stared into the small cavity. The device was about the size of a tube-charge, with activation lights glowing around its top end.
“Throne!” Gaunt spat. He wrenched the device out of Beltayn’s caster and carried it outside.
“What is this?” he yelled. Underground fighters and members of the section alike looked around at the raised voice.
“What the hell is this?” he yelled again.
“Gaunt?” Landerson said, coming over.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Faragut as he strode in across the boards.
“This is what’s the matter with me,” Gaunt said, holding the device out.
“That’s a locator,” said Mkoll. “That’s a damn locator. High power, pulse-beam beacon. Feth, it’s on. How long has it been on?”
“Since I switched it on,” Faragut said.
“What the feth have you done?” Gaunt snarled at the younger commissar.
There was a sudden, glittering blue light around them, and it expanded to fill the entire glade. Many of the underground, especially the Nihtgane, cried out in alarm. Long shadows fell across the camp and the waters of the swamp, cast by the sudden radiance.
The flare of the mass teleport beam died away. Gaunt stared at the squads of armed personnel ringing the camp. They wore black and gold armour, and the symbol of the Inquisition.
“My job,” Faragut replied.
RIP
I
About half an hour after Caff spoke to him the second time, the Imperium loosed another deluge of wrath on Gereon.
It happened a long way away from Dalin, but he saw the flashes. Long-distance blinks of white light lit the sky, and he felt the hot wind pick up and brush his face a few moments later. A forest grew along the eastern horizon, a glade of giant, dark trees composed of smoke.