As the rest made ready, Bragg pushed off the side of the trail and lumbered into the glades. Birds called and piped in the leafy canopy at the tops of the tall, bare trunks. The place was full of sunlight and striated shadows.
“Vambs? Where’d you go, Vambs?” Bragg had taken a proprietorial interest in Vamberfeld’s welfare since the stone skipping. The colonel had asked him to keep an eye on Vamberfeld, but to Bragg it wasn’t an order he was following anymore. He was a generous-hearted man, and he hated seeing a fellow Ghost in such a bad way. “Vambs? They’re all waiting!”
Through the glade, the land opened out into a wide, banking pasture dotted with wildflowers and heaps of stone. In one corner, against the line of the trees, Bragg saw the min of an old lean-to, a herdsman’s shelter. He made his way towards it, calling Vamberfeld’s name.
There were many chelon in the pasture, Vamberfeld noted. Not enough to be worth the drive to market, but the basis of a good herd. The cows were nosing together piles of leaf mulch ready to receive the eggs they would lay before the next new moons.
The girl sat cross-legged outside her lean-to, and sprang up warily the moment she saw Vamberfeld approaching.
“Wait, wait please…” he called. The words sounded funny. His tongue was still swollen from the bite he’d put through it in his fit, and he was self-conscious about the way it made his voice sound.
She disappeared into her hut. Cautiously, he followed.
The hut was empty except for old leaf-litter and a few sticks. For a moment, he thought she might be hiding, but there was nowhere to hide, and no loose boards at the rear through which she might have slipped. A couple of old jiddi-sticks lay on the floor inside the door, and on a hook on the wall hung the head-curl of a broken crook. It was very old, and the jagged end where it had snapped was dirty and worn. He took it down and turned it over in his hands.
“Vambs? Vambs?”
It took him a minute to realise the voice outside was calling his name. He went back out into the sunlight.
“Hey, there you are,” said Bragg. “What were you doing?”
“Just… just looking,” he said. “There was a girl and she…” He stopped. He realised that the pasture was empty now. There were no lowing chelons, no leaf-nests. The field was growing wild with weeds.
“A girl?”
“No, nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Come on, we’re ready to go now.”
They walked back to the sooka and rejoined the Chimera. Vamberfeld felt strangely dislocated and confused. The girl, the livestock. He’d definitely seen them, but…
It was only when they were underway again that he realised he was still holding the broken crook. He suddenly felt painfully guilty, but by then it was too late to go back and return it.
Despite Curth’s best efforts, another of the casualties had died. Kolea nodded when she came to tell him and made an entry in the mission log. Night was falling over Bhavnager, the fourth since the honour guard had gone ahead. No vox contact had been made with them since then, though Kolea was confident that they might be well up into the Sacred Hills by now.
He’d just come back from an inspection tour of the stronghold. They’d made a good job of securing the town. The two Hydras Gaunt had left him guarded the approach highway where the Ghosts themselves had come in. The armour waited in the market place, ready to deploy as needed, except the Destroyer Death Jester, which was lurking on watch in the ruins of the temple precinct. Both south and north edges of the town were well defended by lines of Ghosts in slit trenches and strongpoints. Available munitions had been divided up so there was no single, vulnerable armoury point, and the emptied Chimera carriers retasked as troop support. The Conquerors had used their dozer blades to push rubble and debris into roadblocks and protective levees, drastically reducing the possible points of entry into the town. Chances were, if an attack came, they would be outnumbered. But they had the fabric of the town itself working for them and had made the best use of their weapons.
“When did you last sleep?” Kolea asked the surgeon, offering her a chair in the little ground floor room of the town hall that he’d taken as his command post. A long-gain vox-caster set burbled meaninglessly to itself in the corner next to the sideboard where his charts were laid out. Grey evening light poked in through the sandbags piled at the glass-less window.
“I can’t remember,” she sighed, sitting down and kicking off her boots. She massaged her foot through a threadbare sock and then realised what she was doing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was very undignified.”
He grinned. “Don’t mind me.”
She sat back and stretched out her legs, gazing down over her chest at her toes as she wiggled them. The socks were worn through at the toes and heels.
“Gak! Look at me! I was respectable once!”
Kolea poured two generous glasses of sacra from a bottle Varl had given him and handed one to Curth.
“That’s where you have me beat. I was never respectable.”
“Oh, come on!” she smiled, taking the glass. “Thanks. You were a star worker back home, respectable mine worker, family man…”
“—Well…”
“Gak!” she said suddenly, through a sip of the liquor. Her heart-shaped face was suddenly serious. “I’m sorry, Gol, I really am.”
“What for?”
“The family man thing… That was really very crass of me…”
“Please relax. It’s alright. It’s been a while. I just think it’s interesting, the way war is such a leveller. But for war, you and I would never have met. Never have spoken. Never have even been to each other’s sectors of the city. Certainly never sat down with a drink together and wiggled our dirty toes at each other.”
“Are you saying I was a snob?” she asked, still smiling at his last remark.
“I’m saying I was an out-habber, a miner, lowest of the workforce. You were a distinguished surgeon running an inner hab collective medical hall. Good education, decent social circles.”
“You make me sound like some pampered rich kid.”
“I don’t mean to. I just mean, look at what we were and now look at where we are. War does some strange things.”
“Admittedly.” She paused and sipped again. “But I wasn’t a snob.”
He laughed. “Did you know any out-habbers well enough to call them by their first name?”
She thought hard. “I do now,” she said, “which is the real point The point I have a feeling you were making anyway.”
He raised his glass to her and she toasted him back.
“To Vervunhive,” he said.
“To Vervunhive and all her hivers,” she said. “Gak, what is this stuff?”
“Sacra. The poison of choice for the men of Tanith.”
“Ah.”
They sat a moment more in silence, hearing the occasional shouted order or chatter outside. “I should be getting back to the infirmary,” she began. “You need rest, Ana. Mtane can manage for a few hours.”
“Is that an order, Sergeant Kolea?”
“It is. I’m getting quite the taste for them.”
“Do you… think about them still?” she asked suddenly.
“Who?”
“Your wife. Your children. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”
“It’s alright. Of course I do. More than ever, just these last few days in fact.”
“Why?”
He sighed and stood up. “The strangest thing has happened. I haven’t told anyone. I haven’t been sure what to say, or do for that matter.”
“I’m intrigued,” she said, leaning forward and cupping her glass.
“My dear Livy, and my two children… they all died in Vervunhive. I mourned them. I fought to avenge them for a long time. Just that vengeance took me through the resistance fighting, I think. But it turns out… my children aren’t dead.”
“They’re not? How? How do you know?”
“Here’s whe
re it gets strangest of all. They’re here.”
She looked around.
“No, not in the room. Not on the planet now, I hope. But they’re with the Ghosts. They’ve been with the Ghosts ever since Vervunhive. I just didn’t know it.”
“How?”
“Tona Criid. You know her?”
“I know Tona.”
“She has two children.”
“I know. They’re with the regimental entourage. I gave them their jabs myself during the medical screening. Healthy pair, full of… of… oh, Gol.”
“They’re not hers. Not by birth. Bless Criid’s soul, she found them in the warzone and took them into her protection. Guarded them throughout the war and brought them with her when she joined up. They regard her as their mother, unquestioningly now. Young, you see. So very young. And Caffran, he’s as good as a father to them.”
She was stunned. “How do you know this?”
“I found out by chance. She has holos of them. Then I asked around, very circumspectly, and got the story. Tina Criid rescued my kids from certain death. They now travel with our regiment in the support convoy. The price I pay for that blessing is… they’re lost to me.”
“You’ve got to talk to her, tell her!”
“And say what? They’ve been through so much, wouldn’t this just ruin what chances for a stable life they have left?”
Shaking her head, she held out her glass for a top-up. “You have to… They’re yours.”
He poured the bottle. “They’re content, and they’re safe. The fact that they’re even alive is such a big deal for me. It’s like a… a touchstone. An escape from pain. It messed me up when I first found out, but now it… it seems to have released me.”
She sat back thoughtfully. “This goes no further, of course.”
“Oh, of course. Doctor-patient confidentiality. I’ve been doing that my whole career.”
“Please, don’t even tell Dorden. He’s a wonderful man, but he’s the kind of medic who’d… do something.”
“My lips are sealed,” she began to say, but a vox signal interrupted. Kolea ran out into the square, leaving Curth to pull her boots back on.
Mkvenner, his unit’s chief scout hurried up to him.
“Outer perimeter south has spotted movement on their auspex. Major movement. An armoured column of over a hundred vehicles moving this way.”
“Gak! How far?”
“Twenty kilometres.”
“And… I have to ask… Not ours, by any chance.” Mkvenner smiled one of his lightless, chilling smiles. “Not a chance.”
“Make ready,” Kolea said, sending Mkvenner on his way. Kolea adjusted his vox-link microbead. “Nine to all unit chiefs. Respond.”
“Six, nine,” replied Varl.
“Eighteen, nine.” That was Haller.
“This is Woll, sergeant.”
“All stations to battle ready. Prime defenses. Arm weapons. Deploy armour to a southern line, plan alpha four. The Infardi are coming. Repeat, the Infardi are coming.”
THIRTEEN
ERSHUL IN THE SNOW
“More snowflakes fall on the Holy Depths in a day than there are stars left for me to conquer.”
—Saint Sabbat,
Biographica Hagia
They were halfway up the pass when the enemy began firing on them from the rear of the column.
It was ten o’clock on the morning of the seventh day, and the honour guard had been slow getting started. Snow had blown in all night and lay at least forty centimetres deep, drifting to a metre in the open wind. Before dawn, with the Ghosts and Pardus shivering in their tents, the snow had stopped, the sky had cleared and the temperature had plummeted. Minus nine, the air caking the rocks and metal with first frost and then hard folds of ice.
The sun rose brightly, but took none of the edge off. It had taken over an hour to get some of the trucks and the old Chimeras started. The men were slow and hangdog, grumbling at every move. Reluctantly, they tossed their packs up into the troop transports and leapt up to take their places on ice-cold metal benches.
A heated oat and water mix had been distributed, and Feygor brewed up a chum of bitter caffeine for the officers. Gaunt tipped a measure of amasec into each cup as it was handed round, and no one, not even Hark, protested.
Thermal kit and mittens had been brought as standard. The Munitorium had not underestimated the chill or the altitude, but the biggest boon to all the Ghosts was their trademark camo-cape which now served each man as a cold weather poncho. Zipped up to their throats in their fleece-lined crew-jackets and tank-leathers, the Pardus looked at the Ghosts enviously.
They had broken camp at eight forty, and extended their column up through the snow-thick pass. Occasional flurries whipped across them. The landscape was featureless and white, and the snow reflected the sunlight so fiercely that glare-shades came out before the issue-order was even given.
No trace of the phantoms from the night before could be found on the auspex. The convoy moved ahead at less than ten kph, churning and sliding as it groped for a track that was no longer identifiable.
The first few shells kicked up glittering plumes of snow. Near the head of the column, Gaunt heard the distinctive crack-thump, and ordered his machine to come around.
There was still no visual contact with the chasing enemy, and nothing on the auspex, though Rawne and Kleopas agreed that extreme cold made the sensor systems slow to function. It was also possible that the snow cover was bouncing signals wildly, cheating and disguising the auspex returns.
Gaunt’s Salamander, bucking and riding over the snowfield and kicking up a wake of ice crystals, approached the back end of the file in time to see a salvo of high explosive shells thump across the rank. One of the heavy Trojans was hit and exploded, showering the white field with shrapnel and flaming scraps.
“One, four!”
“Four, one, go ahead.”
“Mkoll, keep your speed and pull the column ahead as fast as you can.”
Mkoll was riding a Salamander at the head of the line. “Four, one. Acknowledged.”
Gaunt exchanged voxes with the Pardus, and four tanks peeled back to support him: the Heart of Destruction, the Lion of Pardua, the Say Your Prayers and the Executioner Strife.
“Full stop!” Gaunt told his driver, the heat of his breath billowing in clouds through the freezing air. As the light tank slid to a halt. Gaunt turned to ayatani Zweil, who, with Commissar Hark and the Tanith scout Bonin, was riding with him.
“This is no place for you, father. Bonin, get him down and escort him to the rear trucks.”
“Don’t fret Colonel-Commissar Gaunt,” said the old man, smiling. “I’d rather take my chances here.”
“Honestly, I would.”
“Right. Fine.”
More shells whoomed into the snow cover. A munitions Chimera trundling slowly towards the rear of the van was hit a glancing blow but continued to struggle on.
“Auspex contact,” reported Hark from the lower level of the crewbay.
“Size? Numbers?”
“Nine marks, closing fast.”
“Roll!” Gaunt told the driver.
The command Salamander moved off, churning through the virgin snow. The three Conquerors and the old plasma tank were circling round from the convoy after them.
The enemy came into view through the mouth of the pass. Four fast-moving SteG 4s, the six-wheeled light tanks, fanning out ahead of three AT70s and a pair of Usurpers.
Their bright green paint jobs made them stand out starkly against the general white glare.
The SteGs, their big wheels wrapped in chains, were firing their light 40-mil weapons. Hypervelocity tank rounds whistled over the command Salamander.
Gaunt heard the deeper crump of the 105-mil Reavers and the even deeper, less frequent thunder of the big Usurpers.
Explosions dimpled the snow all around them.
“Tube!” Gaunt yelled to Bonin. Since Bhavnager, he’d kept a tread-feth
er in his machine The scout brought it up loaded.
“Take us close,” Gaunt told the driver.
An AT70 made a hit on the Say Your Prayers, but the shot was stopped by the Conqueror’s heavy armour.
The Heart of Destruction and the Lion of Pardua fired almost simultaneously. The Heart overshot but the Lion struck a SteG squarely and blew it over in the air.
With distance closing, Gaunt rose and aimed the tube at the nearest SteG. It was surging towards his bucking machine, turret weapon firing.
“Ease!”
Gaunt fired.
His rocket went wide.
“You’re a worse fething shot than Bragg!” cursed Bonin. Zweil started to laugh uproariously. “Load me!” instructed Gaunt.
“Loaded!” Bonin yelled, slamming the armed rocket into the breach.
The sky, mountainside and ground suddenly exchanged places. Gaunt found himself tumbling over and over in the snow, winded.
A round from the SteG had hit the side of the Salamander, jerking it over hard. It had righted itself, but not before Gaunt had been thrown clear. The wounded Salamander chugged to a halt, a sitting duck.
The SteG galloped up, swivelling its little turret to target the listing Salamander.
Spitting out snow, Gaunt got to his feet dazed. He looked about. The rear end of the missile launcher was jutting out of the snow ten metres away from him. He ran over and pulled it out, feverishly tapping the packed snow out of the tube mouth and the venturi.
Then he shouldered it and took aim, hoping to hell the fall hadn’t dented the tube or misaligned the rocket. If it had, the tread-fether would explode in his hands.
The speeding SteG closed on the Salamander for the kill. Gaunt could see Hark standing up in the crewbay, firing his plasma pistol desperately at the attacking vehicle.
Gaunt braced and put the crosshairs on the SteG.
It exploded, kicking up an enormous gust of snow and debris.
Gaunt hadn’t fired.
The Heart of Destruction roared past him in a spray of snow, smoke fuming from its muzzle break. “You okay, sir?” Kleopas voxed.
“I’m fine!” Gaunt snapped, running towards the Salamander. Hark pulled him aboard.