“Just wait,” Mkoll told him.
The five-man scout detail, led by Hwlan, reappeared from the hallway ahead.
“There’s nothing there, chief,” Hwlan said, wearily.
“But the chart—” Beltayn began.
“Maybe it’s hidden, a hidden door,” said Dalin. “We could try tapping on the walls.”
“Oh, not you too,” said Mkoll. “You’re as bad as fething Baskevyl.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Beltayn said. “This is east eight central, right?”
“East nine central,” said Bonin.
“No, east eight,” Hwlan objected.
“Shut up, shut up!” Beltayn cut in. “Look here, match these two up.” He held out two of the charts for their inspection. “There should be a junction right here, to the south.”
“There’s nothing!” Mkoll growled.
Dalin flinched. He hated the idea of getting the chief of scouts riled, and this had all been his idea.
“Nothing!” Mkoll barked again, slamming his fist against a satin brown panel. “See?”
“Er, chief?” said Bonin.
Mkoll turned slowly and rapped his knuckles against the satin brown wall panel again.
It gave off a hollow sound.
“Oh, Holy Throne,” Mkoll said, swallowing hard. “I don’t believe it.”
“Pry bars!” Bonin called out. “Pry bars, right now!”
IX
Five thirty-three. Larkin went to the shutters of overlook six and raised one of them. Outside, the wind had dropped to a vague murmur. The dust was gone. He played his scope around. He could see right down the approach pass clearly, the crags backlit by a cold, rising sun. Everything was hard shadow and as still as ice. Down there, something-Mo, just the remains of the water drop, left in the open from the day before. And some bodies, the frozen corpses of friends and comrades.
Larkin limped back to the doorway of the gunbox and looked out, left and right. An empty hall, the lights coming and going softly. No Bragg. No Colm Corbec. No ghosts at all.
He picked up his long-las, clacked his scope into place on its foresight lock, and kicked Banda.
She stirred.
“Get up,” he said.
“Gak off.”
“Get the feth up. It’s coming. I can feel it.”
“Uh-huh, feel this.”
Larkin pulled out his water bottle, sloshing around the last of his ration from the previous night. He tossed it to her. “Drink that, for feth’s sake. You need to hydrate. I need you sharp.”
She drained the bottle and got up. Larkin was already at the shutter.
Banda slid her long-las up next to his and unpopped her scope’s cover.
“What did you see?” she asked, huskily.
“Nothing yet. Just keep watching.”
X
West three central, just off the base chamber, was quiet. Merrt crept his way along the hallway to the junction, 034TH in his hands.
It twitched suddenly.
Merrt snapped around sharply and aimed his weapon from the shoulder.
“Gah!” cried Ludd, appearing around the corner and coming to a sudden, startled halt. “What the bloody hell are you playing at?”
Merit’s bulky, augmetic jaw made a guttural sound as he quickly swung his rifle away.
“Gn… gn… gn… sorry, sir.”
Ludd took a step backwards, blinking. “I asked you a question, trooper. What the feth did you think you were doing?”
“I gn… gn… gn… heard something.”
“Yes, me,” snapped Ludd, tapping his own chest with an index finger. “Trooper, who gave you permission to stalk the halls with a lasrifle… an armed lasrifle, I notice… at fething daybreak?”
“I heard something,” Merrt repeated.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ludd exclaimed. “You could have shot me.”
Merrt knew he could have. Or, at least, 034TH could have. “I was concerned there was some gn… gn… gn… activity. I was investigating.”
“And you didn’t think of voxing it in straight away?”
Merrt stood up straight and lowered his weapon to his side. It twitched again. “No. That was remiss of me, I realise.”
“Trooper Merrt, right?” asked Ludd. He knew full well who Merrt was. Ugliest bastard in the regiment with that jaw. During transit to the Gereon liberation, Ludd had worked alongside Commissar Hark to get Merit out of gambling troubles on the troop ship’s swelter decks. As a result, Merrt had ended up on RIP duties.
Ludd had always felt sorry for Merrt, sorry for his injury, sorry for his bad luck, sorry for the RIP detail and the inflexible ordinances of the Commissariate that had demanded that punishment.
Ludd didn’t feel particularly sorry now.
“I could discipline you for this, Merrt,” Ludd said, summoning up some force of anger into his voice. “I could. Right now, summary discipline.”
Merrt stared at him. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m acting commissar, Merrt! You will address me correctly and with respect!”
“Oh, shut up, you’re just a gn… gn… gn… boy.”
Ludd felt a singular rage. He’d left Hark’s side full of buoyant confidence. Merrt had picked the wrong moment to disrespect him. If Ludd had thought about it, he would have recognised the irony of Merit’s unerring bad luck. But Ludd wasn’t thinking. He was fired up. He pulled out his pistol. “Get up against the wall, trooper!”
Merrt didn’t move.
Ludd aimed his pistol. What was it Hark had said? Be firm? Exert and emphasise his authority? You’ve got to get up in their faces and keep them tight. As a commissar he had every right to shoot this man where he stood. The list of charges was more than enough: Lack of respect for a senior officer. Failure to obey a direct order. Demeaning a senior officer. Endangering a senior officer with an armed weapon. Carrying an unsafe weapon in post without permission. Failure to signal a suspected alert… more than enough. But—
“You’re not gn… gn… gn… gonna shoot me, boy.”
That last “boy” did it. Ludd snapped. “By the authority of the Holy Throne, I—” Ludd began.
Eszrah swooped out of the shadows behind Ludd and pinned him against the wall. Ludd squirmed, but Eszrah somehow managed to pluck the pistol from his hand.
“Ow! Ow!” Ludd cried.
“Be thee quiet, soule,” Eszrah said. “Lysten…”
XI
Baskevyl turned and walked back down the hallway. The scuffing, scraping sound was growing louder. It was coming, burrowing up under him.
The worm in the dark that—
Shut up! Baskevyl willed. He drew his laspistol anyway.
* * * * *
XII
“Now can you see them?” Larkin said, squinting into his scope.
“Oh yeah,” Banda replied.
“Poacher one, poacher one,” Larkin said into his microbead. “Poacher one to all watches. Contact main gate. Time is five thirty-seven. Move your arses.”
He glanced at Banda.
“Shall we? On three?”
XIII
The tripwire pulled tight, and the cloche shutter slowly lifted open, prised up from the outside. A face peered in at them. For a moment, it looked like the meat-wound face of the old dam in the black lace dress.
But it wasn’t. It was the cruel, glaring iron grotesk of a Blood Pact warrior.
Wes Maggs shot it anyway. The face exploded.
XIV
Mkoll stepped over the shredded strips of satin-brown panelling and peered into the hole.
“I smell air,” he said.
“So? Let’s go,” said Beltayn.
“He gives the orders around here, Bel,” Bonin told the adjutant.
“It’s open air,” remarked Mkoll. “Dust.” He looked at Dalin. “I think you might have found it, lad.”
Dalin smiled.
His elation was short-lived. Mkoll brought his lasrifle up to his chest suddenly and l
ooked at the roof.
“That was las-fire,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, without a doubt,” Bonin said.
“Move!” yelled Mkoll.
XV
“Here they come,” Larkin murmured, settling himself in for his first shot. “Oh Throne, there are so gakking many of them!” Banda gasped. “Just take them down one at a time,” said Larkin, and fired.
Day ten, continued
I heard the pipes again. It’s five thirty-six. I think we are about to be Hacked attacked.
Please, Throne, make me wrong.
—field journal, V.H. fifth month, 778.
ELEVEN
The Second Assault
I
In the cold, early light, the Blood Pact hit the House at the End of the World on two fronts. A force of over three thousand men came pouring out of the crags on either side of the approach pass and charged en masse towards the gatehouse and the southern elevation. Simultaneously, an assault force numbering at least four hundred attacked the cloches and casemates of the summit galleries from the north side, having scaled the steep cliffs behind Hinzerhaus.
Waking rapidly from a light sleep, Gaunt pulled on his storm coat and assessed the situation as rapidly as Kolea’s adjutant, Rerval, could feed it to him.
“C company forward to the gate,” Gaunt ordered. “H and J to the upper west line. Any spare support weapons to the southern casemates.”
Rerval relayed the orders quickly into his voxcaster. Streams of running Guardsmen thundered through the base chamber, heading for both upper and lower levels. The house was waking up with a jolt. There was a lot of shouting.
From outside and above, there was a lot of shooting too.
“Conditions?” Gaunt asked.
“Clear, sir. Dust dropped away just a few moments before the attack began,” replied Rerval.
“Why the hell did they wait for a clear patch?” Gaunt asked out loud. “The dust is their main advantage. They could have moved up under cover and jumped us.”
“I believe that may have been their intention, colonel-commissar,” Karples said, arriving in the base station with Berenson.
“Explain?”
“The principal attack on the gate was probably scheduled to commence only when the assault elements scaling the northern cliffs had signalled they were in position and ready,” said the tactical aide in an off-hand tone. “Scaling the cliffs may have taken longer than predicted because your scouts cut away their lines and ladders. By the time the assault elements had achieved position, the sun was up and the dust had died. They evidently decided to press on anyway.”
“Let’s hope that compromise costs them,” Berenson grinned. He was clutching a brand new, short-pattern lascarbine with a bullpup grip. “Where do you want me?”
“Where I can see you,” Gaunt replied distractedly. “Kolea?”
“Moving!” Kolea yelled back from the floor of the base chamber.
“Rawne?”
“Units heading to station!” Rawne replied with a shout from the main staircase.
“You’ve got the front door, Eli!” Gaunt cried. “I’ll take the attic!”
“Live forever!” Rawne called back as he vanished up the stairs with his men.
Rerval was packing up his caster to follow Kolea.
“Where’s Beltayn?” Gaunt asked him.
“I don’t know, sir. His caster’s here, though, where he set it up.”
“I need a vox with me,” Gaunt said, exasperatedly.
“I can manage that,” said Karples.
“Good. Grab that caster and move with me. Criid!”
“Sir!”
“Scramble your company and follow me up top!”
II
Deep in the heart of the house, Mkoll stopped running and turned.
“Go back,” he said.
“Gaunt needs me,” Beltayn objected.
“I’ll square it with Gaunt,” Mkoll said. “No matter what’s going down, we need to secure that water. Take Dalin and go find that fething courtyard while we take care of business. Bonin, go with them. Hwlan, Coir, you too.”
Beltayn and Dalin turned with the three scouts and headed back the way they had come.
“Let’s move with a purpose!” Mkoll told the remainder of the team.
They reached a stairwell and ascended two levels. On the second landing, the roar and chatter of gunfire from above them became alarmingly loud.
“Upper west,” Mkoll said. “Attic levels.”
They ran on, taking the stairs two at a time. When they reached the landing that linked with the spur of west three central, they met L Company moving upstairs. They stood aside to let the troop body move up.
Mkoll saw Ludd, Merrt and the Nihtgane tagging along behind the unit.
“Commissar!” he called.
Ludd ran over, dodging in and out of the hurrying stream of troopers.
“Sir?”
“I’m going aloft,” Mkoll said. “Beltayn may have found the water drop we’ve been searching for. Might I suggest you back him up and make certain?”
“Of course,” said Ludd. He was secretly pleased that the chief of scouts was addressing him with proper respect. There was no question in Mkoll’s manner that Ludd was anything but the regiment’s commissar. “Where is it?”
“Mklane!” Mkoll called to one of his scouts.
“Chief!”
“Show the commissar the way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We need that water,” Mkoll said quietly to Ludd. “Men can’t fight dry.”
“I understand,” said Ludd.
“Excellent news, sir.”
Ludd smiled and hurried after Mklane.
Mkoll nodded to Eszrah as the Nihtgane whispered past him. “Look after Ludd,” Mkoll hissed.
“As a certayn thing, soule,” Eszrah breathed back with a look of mutual understanding.
Mkoll turned and gestured to his remaining scouts to follow the deploying company up the house.
“Where should I gn… gn… gn… go, sir?” a voice asked.
Mkoll looked over his shoulder. He saw Merrt.
Mkoll shrugged. In his experience, there wasn’t much the poor bastard was good for, these days. “Stick with the commissar. He could probably use some muscle shifting water drums.”
“Yes, sir,” Merrt replied.
Merrt turned. Mkoll and the scouts had already disappeared up the staircase, and the last of L Company was following them.
He was alone. The sound of distant gunfire echoed down the empty hallway. Merrt raised his rifle and headed down the stairs the way Ludd had gone.
III
The southern casemates and towers of Hinzerhaus were lit up wildly with discharge flashes. Torrents of concentrated shots streamed down from the firing slits in the cliff face fortifications and hammered into the oncoming infantry ranks.
The Ghosts exacted their price for the surprise assault. In the first four minutes of action, the marksmen, gunners and support teams positioned inside the defence buttresses mowed down the charge. Hundreds of Archenemy troopers fell. Crew-served weapons, pumping and chattering out of casemate slots, cut down entire platoons. Bodies toppled and sprawled onto the pure white dust. Launchers spat squealing rockets down into the wave assault, and those rockets tossed burning figures into the air every time they struck. The hot shots of the expert snipers zipped into the charging host and took out warriors one at a time, blowing the running figures apart.
For about ten minutes, the fortress of Hinzerhaus performed its role admirably. Secure inside its ancient casemates, the Ghost defenders made a killing ground outside the front door, and slaughtered each wave that came rushing in.
“I’m out!” Banda cried, dropping back from the firing slit. “Ammo!”
“Use mine,” Larkin spat, dropping down too. His long-las had just refused to fire. Time to change barrels.
Banda grabbed four of Larkin’s clips and slammed the first one home. She r
esumed her fire position and banged it off.
“Shit!” she said.
“Miss?” Larkin asked, rummaging in his field bag for a fresh barrel section. “Focus, you silly bitch. And learn… don’t drink on watch.”
“Shut the gak up!” Banda replied, clacking in another hot shot load.
She fired again. “Oh shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“You’re wasting ammo,” Larkin snarled as he slid a fresh barrel into position. He wound it tight. “Don’t be so useless, or I’ll strip you of that lanyard.”
“Gak you, Larks,” she returned, reaching for another clip. “I can do this.”
“So show me,” Larkin replied. He checked his weapon. Ready to go. “Ammo here!” he yelled, over his shoulder. “Barrels too! Move it!”
He loaded from one of the handful of specialist clips remaining, and swung up to the gunslot. He took aim and dropped his breathing rate.
The long-las bumped at his shoulder. A howling standard bearer, far below, jerked backwards and fell spread-eagled on the dust.
“That shut him up.”
“Bang!” Banda announced beside him. She slid her weapon back in through the slot and beamed at Larkin. “See? See that? Clean kill.”
They both reloaded.
Trooper Ventnor, who was acting as ammunition runner on level six, burst into the overlook through the hatchway behind them. He was panting, out of breath. He dumped a heavy musette bag on the floor. “Clips!” he announced.
“And barrels?” Larkin asked, taking aim and not looking around.
“No,” replied Ventnor.
“I need barrels! Move!” Larkin ordered. Bump. Another fine headshot.
“Keep your fake foot on,” Ventnor spat, exasperated, and disappeared.
“Bang!” said Banda with a great deal of satisfaction. “See that? See him go over?”
“Yeah,” Larkin replied, slotting in his next clip and chasing for targets through his scope. “Good.”
“Gak. My barrel’s carked,” Banda announced, dropping back from the slot.
“Two more in the bag there. Get one,” Larkin replied. Bump. Over went a Blood Pact officer, sword raised, mid-yell. No amount of labour would ever piece that iron mask back together.