“All right. You keep moving that way. I’ll take anyone from G Company with me and head back to east seven.”
Meryn nodded. “See you in the happy place, Daur.”
Daur took his men back down the tunnel. They heard a flurry of rapid fire behind them. Meryn’s group had met something coming the other way.
Haller looked at Daur. They’d known each other for a lifetime, since their days in the ranks of the Vervun Primary. Daur understood what the look meant.
“We keep moving,” he told Haller. “They have to handle it.”
They emerged onto lower seven, a stretch of hall that connected a row of overlook casemates. Sounds of shooting rang out of each casemate hatchway. Peering into the first, Daur saw Ghosts at the slot, firing down at sharp angles.
“Spread out,” he told his men. “Go where you’re needed. Keep them out.”
III
“Can I just say how much I’m not enjoying this?” Larkin remarked. “No,” said Rawne.
Along with Banda, they’d been holding the overlook for a full ten minutes since the ladders first came up. It was nasty work. They had to lean right out of the gunslit to fire at the raiders below or knock ladders off with charges. Leaning out made a person vulnerable. Snap shots kept screeching up past them from the base of the cliff. Larkin had been creased twice, and Rawne had taken a deflection in the front of his chest armour that had split the plate in half.
In the last few minutes they had been joined by two of Rawne’s men and a Belladon from Sloman’s company. That allowed them to rotate at the slot and reload, and still keep the pressure on.
“I think they’re losing momentum,” Rawne said.
“You think?” replied Larkin.
“A storm assault needs momentum, otherwise it just fizzles out. If they’d had us in the first few minutes, they’d be in control now, but they didn’t.”
“They look like they’re still trying to me,” Banda put in, pausing to reload. “We need more ammo. The bag’s almost empty.”
Larkin limped towards the door of the casemate. He’d called twice in the last ten minutes for a runner, but there had been no sign of Ventnor, or anyone else. All the other overlooks and boxes on their level were packed with Ghosts free firing from the slits, and the ammo drain was considerable.
“Ventnor?” he yelled. “Ammo here! Runner!”
He waited for a moment, and then Ventnor came into sight, lugging a heavy canvas sack.
“What do you need?”
“Standards and specials, and a few barrels.”
“No barrels,” Ventnor replied, pulling a few clips of standard from his sack. “I sent Vadim down to the stockpile ten minutes ago for barrels, but he hasn’t come back. There’s a lot of fighting in the lower levels. The bastards got inside.”
Larkin nodded. “I trust we booted them back out again?”
“It’s a work in progress,” Ventnor replied.
“What about up top?”
Ventnor shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything, except that it’s hell on legs. Someone said—”
“Someone said what?”
“Nothing, Larks.”
“Someone said what?”
Ventnor sighed. “I dunno. Someone said Gaunt was down.”
“Is that a joke?”
“No. There was a major frenzy in upper west sixteen, that’s what I heard. Gaunt was in the meat of it, as usual. And, well, he didn’t walk away.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“Ammo runner I know on eight heard it from a bloke who’d heard it from this other bloke who’d been on stretcher duty coming down from the summit. One of the wounded had told this bloke and—”
Larkin held up his hand. “That kind of story, eh? Don’t spread it, Ventnor. It’s wrong and it’s bad for the men. Now get on. I hear other boxes calling for you.”
Ventnor nodded.
“No barrels?” Larkin added as Ventnor moved off.
“Sorry.”
“Then you’d better find me something to shoot with!” Larkin yelled after him.
Clutching the ammo packs in his arms, he turned to re-enter the overlook.
“He is dead,” said a voice. Larkin froze. He knew the voice, and it made him gulp in fear. He forgot how to breathe. He shut his eyes. “Gaunt, he is dead,” the voice went on, low and soft. “We know, because we are the ones who’ve been sent to get him. Sure as sure.”
Larkin opened his eyes. There was nobody there. Shaking, he backed into the overlook.
IV
Dorden took a second to breathe deeply. The field station was in a state of pandemonium. The rate of casualties coming in through triage was way beyond their capacity to cope. It broke his heart to see these broken men, the last of his kind, carried in alongside the comrades they had made in the years after Tanith.
Foskin’s last estimate was two hundred and seventy-two injured, of which thirty-eight were critical. The number was rising with every passing minute. Men were going to die because Dorden couldn’t help them fast enough. They’d already had to open up a second chamber to accommodate the waiting wounded, and a third to house the dead.
I am too old to witness this, Dorden thought, so old, this is too painful to bear. I should have died years ago, with Mikal, with my dear son. That would have ended this pain before it overcame me.
A stretcher arrived in front of him, and Dorden shoved his anguish aside.
“Where do you want her, doc?” asked one of the bearers, panting and sweating with effort.
Dorden looked down. Tona Criid lay on the stretcher, unconscious, the side of her head matted with blood.
“Oh Throne,” Dorden said. “Here, over here!”
The bearers slid Criid onto a bunk and hurried away with their stretcher rolled up. Going back for more, Dorden thought.
He checked the side of Criid’s limp head carefully. It wasn’t as bad as it had first appeared, thank the fates. She’d be all right, provided the wound was cleaned and properly tended.
“Tolin! I need you here!” Curth yelled frantically from the other side of the station. A man was screaming a deep, dire pain-scream.
“A moment!”
“Now, Dorden!”
“Can I help?” asked a voice beside him.
Dorden glanced around. Zweil stood there. Like the medicaes, the old ayatani priest had been brought to the station for the usual duties. He had a flask of blessed water in his thin hands and a look of grief burdening his eyes.
“There are men who need your rites, Zweil,” Dorden said.
“The dead will stay dead until I get to them. The living need more urgent help. Is there anything I can do?”
Dorden nodded. “Take this and this. Bathe her wound and clean away all the blood and dirt. Do it gently, and use that stuff sparingly. We’re low on fluids.”
“Tell me about it. I’m quite parched.”
Dorden hurried away. Zweil knelt down and began to clean Criid’s head wound.
She stirred.
“You’re all right, Tona. You’re all right now,” Zweil crooned.
“He’s dead,” she murmured.
“Who is?”
“He’s dead.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Gaunt,” she breathed.
“What did she say?” called the trooper in the next cot along. “What did she say, father?”
“She’s delirious, Twenzet, calm yourself.”
“She just told you Gaunt was dead, didn’t she?” Twenzet cried.
The noise in the station dropped away. Heads turned in their direction. Muttering began.
“Get on with it!” Zweil growled. “She’s delirious.”
Activity resumed, but there was an undercurrent that hadn’t been there before.
“How delirious is delirious?” Hark asked.
Zweil looked up. Hark stood behind him, wrapped in a sheet. He was not entirely steady.
“I’m not a doctor,” Zweil replied. “Shoul
d you be up?”
“You’re not a doctor,” Hark said.
“She said Gaunt was dead,” Twenzet said.
“You can shut up,” Hark told him.
Zweil rose to his feet stiffly and looked up into Hark’s eyes. “She’s delirious,” he said quietly, “but if she’s also right, well, Viktor, we knew this day would come. We will manage. We will cope. We thought Ibram was dead on Gereon for a year or more, but he came back. He’s hard to kill.”
“But not immortal.”
Zweil nodded. “Then you’d better start preparing what you’ll say to the men.”
Hark was breathing hard. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. You’re right. We thought he was dead on Gereon, and the regiment grieved and moved on. It won’t be that easy a second time. Not if there’s—”
“If there’s what?”
“A body.”
“Ah,” said Zweil.
“Missing presumed dead on Gereon was one thing. There was always hope, and that hope was fulfilled. But here…”
Zweil looked at him. “It will break us, won’t it?”
“It will break us,” said Hark, “and we will die.”
V
Maggs could see her, moving amongst the Blood Pact raiders at the far end of the hall, her long black skirts swishing through the smoke. The old dam with the meat-wound face had come to them. She had come to claim someone. Maggs prayed it wasn’t him.
The fire fight along the cloche tunnel was frenetic and fast. Maggs was low on ammo and had been forced to switch from his favoured setting of full auto to conserve. He hugged himself against the bottom of a short flight of steps and rattled away at Blood Pact storm troops, ten metres distant, obscured by drifting smoke. He aced one, that was certain, maybe a second.
His skin crawled. He’d lost sight of the old dam in the black lace dress, but he could still hear her footsteps above the gunfire, and feel the chill of her breath.
Leyr dropped in beside him and started to fire.
“How many?” Leyr asked.
“I counted eight, but you can bet your arse there’re more,” Maggs replied.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Ten minutes ago on upper west sixteen. Gaunt.”
“What about him?”
“They got him, Wes.”
“Shit, are you sure?”
“It’s what I hear,” Leyr said. “It was murder up there, and he was right in it.”
“Who saw it?”
Leyr shrugged.
“It’s wrong,” said Maggs. “They’re wrong.”
They began firing again.
They got him. Leyr’s words circled Maggs’ head. No, they hadn’t. She had. That was why she was here. She only came when a truly great man was destined to fall.
The old dam with the meat-wound face had made her kill and they would all suffer as a result.
VI
Dalin threw himself into cover behind the heaped pallets of the water drop. He hated to do it, because it would only draw fire onto the drums, but there was nowhere else to go in the courtyard. He fired back at the crimson raiders scurrying along the rooftop. He kept missing. He was being too hasty with his aim.
Coir was dead, dead on his back on the courtyard stones with a black pool of blood surrounding his head like a halo. Bonin was dead too.
Hwlan and Beltayn had dragged themselves behind the water canisters with Dalin and were hammering off return fire.
The worst part of it all, it seemed to Dalin, was the spatter of water leaking out of the punctured drums.
Hwlan rose a little, took a decent line, and smacked two of the raiders off the roof with squeeze-bursts. Another turned, exposed, and Dalin caught him with a group of three shots.
There was a loud bang. Dalin looked around, wondering where the noise had come from. He saw that a smoking hole had appeared in the tiled roof beside the south-east corner of the courtyard buildings. Blood Pact warriors were dropping into it.
They’d blown the roof with grenades to gain entry. They were inside the buildings.
“Watch it!” Dalin yelled. “They’re in! They’re going to be coming from the yard doorways now!”
“I see it!” Hwlan called back.
Five Blood Pact raiders emerged from the yard’s corner doorway, firing and running out into the open. Their shots forced Dalin, Beltayn and Hwlan to duck. Rounds smacked soundly into the drums of the precious water cargo. Water spurted.
Gunfire ripped into the raiders from the side, dropping three of them. Ludd, Eszrah and Scout Trooper Mklane appeared at the rear archway, blasting away. One of Eszrah’s reynbow bolts took a raider right off his feet. Hwlan, Beltayn and Dalin immediately resumed their shooting from behind the water cargo.
A vicious gun battle kicked off between the two groups of Ghosts and the Blood Pact on the roof and inside the corner buildings. Las-shots criss-crossed and deflected off walls.
“Can we rush them?” Ludd asked Mklane in the shadow of the archway.
“Rush them? And you’ve been insane since when?”
“That water is vital!” Ludd protested. He paused. “Where’s Eszrah?” he exclaimed.
The Nihtgane had run out into the open. Ignoring the fire coming his way, he dashed to a wall and scaled it, hand over hand, his fingers and toes gripping the edges of the stones. He hauled himself up onto the roof and began to run along it straight towards the enemy.
They fired at him, bemused by his efforts and his native appearance.
Still running sure-footedly across the tiles, Eszrah swung his reynbow up and shot it. A raider went down, and slid clumsily off the roof. Eszrah reloaded, still running, and shot again. Another raider doubled up and fell backwards. Eszrah had shot two more of them dead before he reached the hole in the roof.
“He’s making us look useless!” Hwlan roared, and got up, blazing away at the enemy. Dalin joined in, and together they shot another three Blood Pact raiders off the roof line. By then, Eszrah had dropped down into the hole.
“Come on!” Hwlan cried.
They left cover and ran towards the far corner of the yard. Ludd and Mklane quit the archway and came with them. In the corner doorway, they met two Blood Pact, but Mklane and Hwlan dealt with them quickly.
“Stay back!” Hwlan spat, looking at Dalin, Ludd and Beltayn. “Guard the water!”
“But—”
“Guard the water!”
“May I remind you—” Ludd growled.
“No, you may not!” Mklane replied.
Ludd’s head sank. “Just go, then,” he said, bitterly.
Hwlan and Mklane pushed on. Dalin, Ludd and Beltayn returned to the water dump.
Bonin suddenly got to his feet.
“What did I miss?” he asked.
They stared at him.
“What?” he asked, reaching round to touch the back of his neck. His fingertips came away bloody.
“Oh. I got shot, didn’t I?” he asked, and sat down again hard. Dalin ran to him and pulled out a pack of field dressings.
“That’s nasty. Why aren’t you dead?”
“I dunno, boy. Lucky?” Bonin suggested and passed out.
Dalin tried to make him comfortable.
“What about Coir?” he called out. Ludd was bending over the other scout. He shook his head. “He’s gone. Poor bastard.”
“Something’s awry,” announced Beltayn behind them.
“What did you say adj?” Ludd asked, searching Coir’s pockets for his tags.
“Move!” Beltayn was yelling. “Get into cover!” Dalin and Ludd turned, struggling to rise.
Four Blood Pact warriors were charging out across the courtyard towards them, roaring death cries in their ghastly alien tongue. They were big brutes, their shabby clothes stained with blood, their masks curved in cruel grins. They were already firing.
Ludd felt the super heated shock of a bolt hiss past his cheek. He was fumbling with his weapon. Beltayn, defiantly s
tanding his ground, was shooting his autopistol at the oncoming raiders, apparently oblivious to the squall of las-rounds that miraculously streaked past on either side of him. Dalin saw the adjutant kill one of the raiders, and knew with sad certainty that it was the last thing Beltayn would ever do.
Dalin tried to squeeze off a burst, but was lurched violently sideways as a las-bolt splintered off his chest plating. The shocking impact knocked him off his feet and punched the air out of his lungs. He was on his back, looking back up at the colourless sky. Las-rounds whipped past above him. Rolling, gasping, he heard the brittle crack of sustained las-fire, accompanied by a bark of pain. That was Beltayn gone, surely Ludd too. Dalin tried to get up, gulping air into his winded body, braced for the kill shots he knew were about to find him.
He rose in time to see one of the raiders flopping over on his back, a hole through his chest. A second was already down, drumming his heels spastically against the flagstones as the life left him.
The remaining raider turned in time to meet a streaking las-round face on. His head blew apart in a cloud of blood and metal, and his body dropped.
“Any more for any gn… gn… gn… more?” Merrt inquired, walking out of the archway with 034TH in his hands.
Ludd nodded at him. “Never thought I’d be pleased to see you, trooper,” he said, wide-eyed and pale with shock.
“No one ever is, sir,” Merrt replied, “in my gn…gn… gn… experience.”
“You old bastard,” Beltayn chuckled, slowly lowering his pistol and blinking in stunned disbelief as he realised that not a single part of him had been shot off.
“Good timing, Merrt,” said Dalin with a broad grin of relief.
Merrt nodded back and patted the stock of his weapon. “That’s more like it,” he whispered.
VII
They were all dead. Every single Blood Pact trooper that Hwlan and Mklane found was stone dead, with a crude iron quarrel transfixing him. As the two scouts advanced through that unexplored part of the old house, they counted thirteen kills.
“Got to hand it to the Nihtgane,” Hwlan said.
“You fething have,” Mklane agreed.
A shadow twitched in front of them. Hwlan and Mklane brought their weapons up.