VIII
“You know what this is?”
“A royal pain, mister?” answered Cullwoe.
“Feth, yeah,” Dalin smiled, though his smile was not confident. Exploring and securing the new-found sections of the house was taking longer than projected: empty rooms opened unexpectedly into other empty rooms, and then into more besides, just when they were expecting to find a dead end or an external wall. The crump and rattle of falling shells simply added to the nervous tension.
Lamp-packs, fixed on the lugs under the barrels of their weapons, hunted through the amber gloom. The come and go of the soft white lights in the rest of the house, a detail that had been disturbing to begin with, seemed infinitely preferable to the low, steady orange burn of the wall lights in the new section.
Their microbeads clicked.
“Confirm click,” said Dalin into his mic. Atmospheric distortion had been causing false signals on the intervox all day.
“Confirm,” said Wheln. “Can you get down here?”
They followed his signal along a boxy corridor that joined a larger hallway at right angles.
“Down here!” Wheln called, seeing their lights.
The robust, older Tanith was waiting for them at the southern end of the hallway. His search partner, Melwid, was with him.
“What have you found?” Dalin asked.
“Take a look, adjutant,” Wheln said. It was so odd. Wheln, like many others, seemed to have no hesitation whatsoever in accepting Dalin’s new role, despite the age gap.
The hallway opened out into a wide flight of steps, eight deep, that descended onto the brown satin floor of a large, oblong chamber. There were no other doors or spur-exits. It was a dead end. Amber wall lights glowed along the side walls, but the wall facing the steps was just a panelled blank.
“End of the line,” said Cullwoe.
“Maybe. Look at that,” Wheln replied. He raised his hand and pointed out the carved wooden archway over the steps. It had been eaten away in prehistory by worms, and the carved figure work was impossible to read.
“So what?” asked Cullwoe. “Are we making a note of interesting architectural features now?”
Melwid shook his head. Wheln ignored Cullwoe and looked straight at Dalin. “Seen anything like it?” he asked.
Dalin nodded. “Twice,” he replied. “There’s one at the end of the hallway between the main gate and the base chamber.”
“And another on the way into this part of the house, just as you’re coming into the courtyard,” Wheln agreed.
Cullwoe shrugged. “So?”
“Shush for a minute, Khet,” Dalin said.
“But—”
“Don’t you get it?” Dalin asked. “The other two arches like this mark entrances.”
Dalin crossed to the far wall of the dead end chamber, and ran his hand across the brown satin panelling. Then he struck his knuckles against it. The sound was dull.
“No echo,” said Melwid.
“Even so,” said Dalin, and clicked his microbead. “Captain Meryn? Criid here, sir…”
IX
No sentries had been posted in the windcote. The belfry had been deemed, by everyone including Mkoll, too inaccessible for a scale assault. The shutters had been wired down and secured. It was an empty, gloomy roost where the wind got in through slits and crevices.
Eszrah ap Niht sat on the deck with his back to the metal tree and carefully applied wode to his face. When he had finished smearing the grey paste on, expertly banding it across his skin without the need of a mirror, he took another little gourd flask out of his tunic pocket and unscrewed the cap. One by one, he took up the iron darts laid out on the floor beside him, and dipped their tips into the flask, charging them with the lethal moth venom of the Untill. Then he wrapped the poisoned darts back up in their quiver, put the flask away and sat for a while in silence. Four items lay on the decking in front of him: a spool of rope, a bag of climbing hooks and pins, his reynbow and Gaunt’s sword.
The moan of the wind outside was easing slightly, as if the gigantic storm was finally running out of power. Eszrah ignored the sporadic rumble of shell fire that echoed up from the southern face of the house behind him.
He rose to his feet in one smooth, unsupported uncrossing of his legs. He strapped the sword to his back and tied the reynbow over it, crosswise, to balance the weight. The bag went over his body so it hung down on his left hip. He put his right arm through the spool of rope.
The loose dust in the windcote air slowly began to settle. After several minutes, the faintest hint of pale daylight began to show around the lips of the brass hatches.
Eszrah walked over to a north-facing hatch, undid the wiring and opened it. He looked out into a cold twilight, a violet sky, smeared by cloud, hanging above a thick yellow blanket of slowly calming dust cover that obscured the mountainside below him and stretched out over the immensity of the badlands to the north.
The storm had ended. Daylight was fighting to take its place.
Eszrah slid out through the shutter without hesitation and let it flap shut behind him.
X
“Storm’s dropped,” Daur was informed.
“Gate here,” he said, activating his intervox. “Overlook? Anything?”
High in the house above, the spotters and lookouts were returning to their posts, and opening the shutters they had sealed against the storm to look out into the bruised half-light across a landscape that had not yet properly recovered its form.
“Nothing, gate. Will keep you advised.”
Daur took a swig of water.
“I don’t like this,” he heard one of the troopers nearby murmur.
I know what I don’t like, Daur thought. I don’t like the fact that the moment the storm died back, so did the shelling.
In the base chamber, Rerval adjusted another dial and said, for the umpteenth time, “Elikon M.P., Elikon M.P., this is Nalwood, this is Nalwood, do you receive, over?”
“Nalwood, this is Elikon, this is Elikon,” the voxcaster replied.
Rerval clapped his hands together. “Someone tell Rawne!” he shouted. “We’ve got a link!”
XI
Splintering and cracking, the old brown panelling came away. Wheln and Dalin levered at it with the pry-bars Meryn had brought. The void behind the satin brown panels was packed with dust and grit, and everyone was coughing and pulling their capes up over their mouths.
“It’s just bare rock,” Meryn spat, “just bare rock. It was worth checking, Dalin, but—”
Wheln reached into the space behind the partially demolished panelling. He pulled out a large chunk of dirty stone. “It’s not bare rock,” he said. “It’s loose rock. It’s spoil packed in.”
“Clear it,” Meryn ordered.
They didn’t have to clear much to see what was behind it. There was a metal hatch behind the wall, caked in crusts of earth-mould and dust, a hatch virtually identical in size and design to the one in the main gatehouse.
“A second gate,” said Dalin.
“Yes, but sealed up,” Meryn said.
“On this side, captain,” Dalin said.
“We didn’t know this place had more than one gate,” Meryn said. “Why would the enemy know any different?”
“Because they seem to know a lot more about this place than we do,” said Dalin.
“The boy’s right,” said Rawne appearing in the hallway behind them. “So we have to be sure. Captain, get three squads assembled in here, three squads with at least one flamer.”
“Sir.”
“On the double, Meryn. I want this hatch open.”
They all looked at Rawne.
“Anybody else know a way to find out what’s behind it?” Rawne asked.
XII
Hark let out a low whistle as he slowly turned the loose leaves of the folio over one by one.
“Important, right?” Baskevyl asked.
Hark nodded.
“Rawne didn’t seem th
at impressed,” Baskevyl added.
“He’s got more immediate problems,” Hark said. The images he was looking at were so astonishing, he’d almost forgotten about the throb of pain in his back.
He looked up at Baskevyl and Berenson. “These need to be taken to Elikon M.P. as soon as possible.”
“Yes, commissar,” Berenson replied. “I think it’s vital.”
“Taken?” Baskevyl said.
“There’s no other way of communicating them,” said Hark. “We can’t upload them.”
“No way of converting them at all?” Berenson asked.
“We may have a few pict-readers, but it would take weeks to scan all of the volumes. The quality would be poor.” Hark sighed. “And our uplink isn’t secure enough to transmit it, certainly not in this quantity. No, gentlemen, this is going to have to get to Elikon the old-fashioned way.”
“Rawne won’t like it,” said Baskevyl.
“Major Rawne’s going to have to lump it, then,” said Hark.
XIII
Mkoll crept up the wooden stairs into the windcote. His keen senses were not mistaken. The Nihtgane was up there, or he’d been up there.
The dome space was empty. Mkoll looked around. There wasn’t much to see. One of the brass shutters rattled in its frame as the breezes knocked at it.
He saw a faint grey smudge on the floor. He bent down, touched it, and sniffed his fingertip.
Wode, the smell of the deepest Untill.
He rose to his feet and went over to the rattling shutter. It had been unwired.
He stood for a long time, deep in thought.
XIV
“Stand by, gate,” the vox-link said in Daur’s ear.
“Come on,” Daur fretted.
“There’s still a lot of dust, gate,” the overlook observer said. “Terrain is still obscured.”
“But you thought you saw something?”
“Can’t confirm. Stand by.”
Daur breathed out. He was about to speak again when the hatch behind him shook. A deep, reverberative clang rang around the gatehouse.
“Never mind, overlook,” Daur said grimly. “Rise and address!” he yelled to the men.
The ram resumed its steady beat against the other side of the hatch.
Elikon M.P., Elikon M.P., this is Nalwood,
this is Nalwood. Request urgent munition
resupply. Request urgent vox-to-vox link with
field commander at earliest practical
opportunity. Please advise soonest.
Nalwood out. (transmission ends)
—Transcript of vox message, fifth month, 778.
SIXTEEN
The Third Assault
I
“Clear it there! There!” Rawne called out. “No, those rocks. They’re jamming the hinge!”
Melwid scrambled into the gap and dug the rocks out of the way with both hands, strewing them back into the chamber behind him like a burrowing animal.
“Good!” Rawne yelled. “Pull it now!”
The dry metal hinges of the hatch groaned in protest at being forced to move after such a long time. A shaft of grey daylight speared in around the edge, and white dust blew in with it.
“Squads ready!” Rawne ordered.
“Ready to address!” Meryn relayed.
The hatch opened to a gap of about half a metre and the cold outside light leaked more comprehensively into the chamber.
“Enough!” Rawne called. He held up his hand for quiet.
No one moved. No one spoke. The only sounds were the trickle of disturbed dirt, the soft hum of the wind outside and the hiss of Neskon’s waiting flamer.
Using gestures, Rawne pulled Wheln, Melwid and Dalin back from the hatch, leaving Cullwoe and Harjeon behind the bulk of the door, ready to heft it shut again at a moment’s notice.
Nothing came from outside, no sound of movement, no shots.
Rawne looked over at Bonin with a nod.
Bonin moved forwards, followed by his fellow scouts Livara and Jajjo. They reached the gap. Bonin took a quick look around it using one of the little, makeshift stick mirrors that Mkvenner had developed.
He signalled clear. Jajjo slipped past him, then Livara. Bonin followed them.
Rawne was the fourth man at the hatch. He was about to follow the scouts out when Meryn put a hand on his arm.
“Sir, I don’t think—” Meryn whispered.
“Not now, Meryn.”
“We can’t afford to lose two commanding officers in as many days.”
Rawne met Meryn’s eyes for a moment, then he slid through the gap anyway.
Outside was a bleak place. The air smoked with lightly blown dust and the sky far above was stained the colour of an old bruise. The hatchway opened into a gulley, a high-sided ravine with slopes made of loose scree and tumbled boulders that centuries of gales had brought down the mountainside.
Rawne picked his way down towards the bottom of the gulley. He could see the three scouts moving ahead of him, low and careful. He turned slowly. He could see the craggy shelves of the house and the cliff face rising behind him, above the hatchway. The hatch itself was half-buried in scree. Before the hatch had opened, there would have been no obvious clue that there was a gate there at all.
The gulley was quite broad at the mouth, and it evidently lay adjacent to and separate from the main pass leading to the gatehouse: a side entrance, a secondary port. The enemy clearly didn’t know about it, or they’d have used it during the last assault instead of climbing up and coming in over the roofs.
Rawne’s bead clicked.
He moved down the gulley towards the mouth, where the scouts were waiting. He had almost reached them when the intervox in his ear shouted, “Contact! Main gate!”
Rawne didn’t reply. He started to run, and joined the scouts. They’d bellied down amongst the jumbled stones at the end of the gulley, looking right.
Rawne got down with them. Bonin handed him a scope and pointed.
As Rawne had surmised, the gulley opened out into the eastern side of the dust bowl in front of the main gate. The approach pass, grim and high-sided, lay to their left. The gatehouse was about five hundred metres west of them.
It was under attack.
Despite the sobbing moan of the wind and the curious acoustics of the pass, Rawne had been able to hear the noise of the attack from the moment he cleared the end of the gulley, the steady, gong-like beat of a ram against metal, intoning like a bell, the snarl and shout of men, the batter of drums.
More than a hundred Blood Pact warriors had gathered around the main gate, chanting and shouting as the ram-team heaved and swung their heavy device. Banners flapped in the mountain air.
Additional packs of enemy warriors were trudging in across the dust bowl to join the mass. Rawne could see the spiked ladders they were carrying, or dragging, across the dust. They were preparing for another scale assault.
Rawne opened his intervox. “This is Rawne. Any contact from the top galleries? Anything from the north?”
“Negative, sir. It’s quiet up there.”
“Keep watch. Full alert. They may come at any time. Be advised, the enemy is about to mount a scale assault of the south face. All defences are ordered to open fire only when they have clear targets on the wall. No wasting ammo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean it.”
“Sir.”
Rawne paused. “This is Rawne again. Who’s commanding the gate?”
“Captain Daur, sir.”
“Get him some support, another company at least. I think he’s about to need it.”
Rawne glanced at the three scouts.
“We could move in around them,” Bonin said.
“Go on.”
Bonin gestured back down the gulley at the new gate. “Bring a company or two out this way, we could be into them from the right flank before they know it, and do a lot of hurt.”
Rawne nodded.
“Well?” asked Bon
in.
Rawne took a deep breath. The idea was deliciously tempting. He could imagine how much damage a surprise counter-strike might do.
“No,” he said.
“No, sir?”
“No, Bonin. We hit them like that, they’ll know we’ve found another way out. They’ll come back this way and find the other gate.”
“But—”
“That second gate is our little secret. It’s an advantage we didn’t know we had, but we’re only going to get one use out of it, so we’ve got to make it count. We have to use it at the right moment, for the best effect.”
“Isn’t this the right moment, begging your pardon?” asked Jajjo.
“Feth, I wish it was,” said Rawne. “I’d like to get my silver wet today. But I think we need to save it. Tactically, it could be much more important later.”
The three scouts nodded, but they didn’t seem convinced.
“It’s how Gaunt would have played it,” Rawne said.
“Really?” asked Bonin sceptically. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because if he was here, he’d be telling us to wait, and I’d be the one telling him he was a fething idiot.”
There was a sudden burst of noise from the main gate. The first ladders had hooked up the walls, and the Blood Pact storming up them had been met with gunfire from the casemates and the overlooks above. Las-bolts spat down from the gunslots like bright rain, and many red-clad figures jerked and tumbled back down the lower cliffs, rolling and bouncing limply. Explosions began to bloom like desert flowers, brief gouts of fire that left fox-tails of black smoke nailing off into the sky when they had gone. Two spiked ladders, laden with enemy troopers, tore free and went slithering and cascading down the steep revetment of the lower house. Rawne could hear screams and yelling, voices raised in both pain and war cry. The firing grew more intense. Rockets banged off from the ground outside the gate and curled in to strike the upper casemates. Blood Pact crews with mortars and bomb-launchers had set up outside the gatehouse, and began to crank their machines to lob explosives up the walls. Fire and shrapnel skittered back down the cliff.