“Eszrah’s ytis,” the Nihtgane insisted. “Soule Gaunt, daeda he. So walken thys daeda waeg Y go, bludtoll to maken.”
“Blood toll? Do you mean vengeance?”
Eszrah shrugged. “Not ken Y wyrd, soule.”
“Revenge? Retribution? Payback? You’re going to take lives for Gaunt’s life?”
“Lyfes for Gaunt his lyfen, bludtoll so,” Eszrah nodded.
There was a long silence, broken only by the mournful song of the desert wind. Mkoll felt sudden, immeasurable sorrow: for the partisan, for Gaunt, for himself. This was how it was all going to end, and a poor, messy end it was. Loyalty and devotion, duty and love, all stretched out of shape and malformed until they were unrecognisable and tarnished.
“You think you failed him, don’t you?” Mkoll asked quietly.
“Seyathee true, sidthe soule.”
Mkoll nodded. “I know. That’s how I feel too. I should have been there. I should have been there and.
His voice trailed off.
“Feth!” he said. “Throne, how he’d have laughed at us!”
Eszrah frowned. “Gaunt laffen he?”
“Yes, at us! Two idiots in the middle of nowhere, both of us thinking we’re doing the right thing! He doesn’t care! Not now! He’s dead, and we’ve made fools of ourselves!”
Eszrah was still frowning. “The daeda waeg yt is the last waeg.”
“The what? What is the daeda waeg?”
Eszrah thought for a moment, struggling to find the words.
“Corpse. Road,” he said.
“And where does that lead?” Mkoll asked.
Eszrah gestured out towards the dune sea beyond them.
“Out there?” Mkoll asked, looking around. “Forever?”
The partisan shook his head. “Closen bye, sidthe soule. Bloodtoll wayten.”
Mkoll looked at Eszrah. “Will you let me take the sword? Will you let me take Gaunt’s sword back to the house?”
The Nihtgane shook his head. “Yt must…” he began, wrestling with his words again, “…yt must be his sword. His weapon. For the bludtoll.”
Mkoll sighed. He had no wish to fight Eszrah ap Niht. He wasn’t entirely sure he would win.
“All right. Then will you let me walk the daeda waeg with you? Will you let me help you make the blood toll?”
Eszrah nodded.
“Good, then.”
Side by side, they clambered down through the rocks onto the desert floor.
“How many of them do we have to kill?” Mkoll asked. “To make the blood toll, I mean?”
Eszrah grinned. “All of them, soule,” he said.
Day thirteen cont.
Under attack from two sides. Munition carrier lost, and our hopes with it. Heavy casualties at second gate, Basic estimates put the enemy numbers ten to one in their favour.
Ammunition virtually exhausted. Even R. acknowledges this is the endgame. I had always imagined a last stand to be a heroic thing, but this is just brutal, senseless. I suppose heroism and glory are things perceived later by those who did not have to endure the circumstances. We are going to die in the next few hours, one by one, in the most violent manner. They will not show us—nor do we expect—any mercy.
Once they get in—
I am wasting time with such self-serving remarks, I may not get the chance to record this later, so let me commit this to the record now. It has been my honour to servethe serve the Tanith First and Only. Every man and woman has my respect, Tanith, Verghastite, Belladon. I hope this record survives us. I want the masters of this crusade to know how dearly the Tanith cost the Archenemy, when the time came. They are the best and the most devoted soldiers I have ever seen. I stand beside them with pride.
I pray my master, Viktor Hark, has made it clear of the house with the material from the library. It has been reported to me that several men saw a Valkyrie taken out by a surface to air rocket over the Banzie Pass earlier. If that is true, then our deaths here will ultimately mean nothing.
—Field journal, N.L. for V.H. fifth month, 778.
TWENTY
The Lost
I
As the thirteenth day began to end, they went into the fire with no hope or expectation of seeing another sunrise.
The sky had gone dark with smoke. Even in the depths of the house, there was no escape from the constant thunder of weapons and the howl of voices.
The Archenemy had descended upon Hinzerhaus in a force over ten thousand strong. In a drab, red mass like an old blood stain, they spread down out of the cliffs and the pass and filled the dust bowl, pressing in at the main gate and southern fortifications. They brought hundreds of light field guns and auto-mortars with them, and bombarded the fracturing rockcrete bulwarks with shells and rocket-propelled munitions. A large assault force, spearheaded by warriors carrying long, stave-flamers, drove in against the main gate. Spiked ladders and extending climbing poles clattered up against the lower earthworks, and raiders began to scale the walls. Some of the raiders, equipped with a spiked mace in each hand and toe-hooks on their boots, came up the walls without the need for ladders, hacking and gouging their own foot- and hand-holds like human spiders. The drums and horns in the host made a din that echoed down the pass.
There was no shortage of targets for the Ghosts. Firing from the casemates, overlooks and gunboxes, the Tanith First made hundreds of kills, but the Blood Pact was not going to be deterred. Oath-sworn warriors of Archon Gaur, the elite storm troops of the Great Adversary, they were too far gone with bloodlust to care about individual lives. They had been goaded and roused to berserker pitch by their sirdar commanders, until they had achieved a feverish state of zealous devotion and feral glee. Gol Kolea had been quite right—the Blood Pact intended to make the Imperial forces pay for their defiance. Some of the raiders had cast off their helmets and grotesk masks to reveal the ritual scars cut into their faces and scalps. They wanted the marks of their dedication to the Archon to be plainly visible to their victims.
“That’s right, you mad fether,” murmured Larkin, “take your shiny hat off. That’ll make my job easier.”
Either side of him in the overlook, Banda and Nessa matched his rate of fire. Banda had already been forced to switch to a standard pattern las. There were no fresh barrels for the long-form variants left. Their ammo bag was alarmingly empty too. Out in the hallway behind the gunboxes, Ventnor and the other ammo runners had set up braziers to cook some life back into spent cells. It was risky work, and they could never hope to juice enough back into operation in time.
Kolea had placed the bulk of his flamers in the lowest level of embrasures, so that their weapons, short-range at best, could roast the scaling parties off the walls. In one gunbox, where the air was eye-stingingly acrid with promethium fumes, Brostin speared squealing gouts of flame down out of the slot while Lyse coupled a fresh tank to her set.
Brostin ducked back inside as las-bolts chipped off the lip of the gunslot.
“They seem awfully eager to say hello to Mr Yellow,” he said.
Lyse answered his grin with a thin smile.
“What’s the matter?” Brostin asked.
“That was the last tank,” she replied.
Four floors above, Kolea rushed along a busy, smoke-swamped communication hallway, coordinating the repulse. A mortar shell had just penetrated one of the casemates on seven, slaughtering the five Ghosts inside. Another gunbox had been blown out by grenade work, though thankfully without fatalities. Its defenders were now firing from the cover of the ruptured rockcrete socket.
The volume of fire striking against the outer walls sounded like a rotary saw eating through lumber. Corpsmen hurried by, carrying the wounded. Kolea saw Ludd.
“Is the gate holding?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Ludd replied numbly. Kolea saw the dazed look in Ludd’s eyes. Everyone around him was beginning to look that way. It was the seeping shock of the noise trauma, the inexorable destruction of nerves and focus wr
ought by the constant aural assault.
“Get with it,” Kolea hissed to Ludd. “You’re no use to the men unless you’re sharp.”
Ludd blinked. “Yes, yes of course.”
“You know how you feel?” Kolea asked. “Every last one of the Ghosts feels like that. You need to help them forget it, ignore it, shut it out, or this fiasco is going to end a lot sooner than it has to.”
Ludd summoned some reserve of willpower. He hadn’t realised how far he’d flagged.
“I’m sorry, major,” he said.
“Don’t apologise,” Kolea replied. “Didn’t Hark teach you anything? Commissars never apologise. That’s why we hate them so much.”
Ludd laughed. It was the last laughter Kolea would hear that day.
Part of China’s company surged down the hallway, sent to reinforce the gunboxes. Ludd moved away smartly to oversee and direct their deployment.
The intervox suddenly clicked. “Contact! Contact! Upper galleries!”
So they’re coming in from the north side too, Kolea thought. Fething fantastic.
II
“Pick your targets!” Varl shouted, firing from one of the cloche slots. “Conserve your fething ammunition or we might as well hold the shutters open and invite them in!”
The first Blood Pact grotesks had appeared over the cliff lip about two minutes earlier. Now all the cloches and casemates along upper east sixteen, east fifteen and west sixteen were busy firing on the raiders swarming up over the edge of the precipice.
“Seems a shame,” remarked Maggs, snapping off a shot that knocked a Blood Pact warrior twenty metres away back off the drop. “Poor bastards have climbed such a long way.”
“My heart bleeds,” replied Varl.
He jumped down off the fire step and yelled down the hallway. “Stay sharp! Don’t give them a chance to establish a foothold!”
Kamori appeared, running down the hallway at the head of twenty men.
“Varl! Where’s Baskevyl?”
Varl shrugged. “I ain’t seen him, sir.”
“But he’s got command of this level!” Kamori exclaimed.
“Maybe he got a better offer,” Varl suggested. Kamori was not well known for his humour. Varl turned away quickly. “Cant! Go and find Major Baskevyl!”
“Where will he be?” Cant asked, jumping down from the step.
“If I knew that, he wouldn’t need finding, would he?” Varl replied. Cant hurried away down the hall. “And don’t come back if you’re still an idiot!” Varl called after him.
“How’s it looking?” Kamori asked him.
“Sunny, some cloud,” Varl said.
Kamori’s eyes narrowed.
Varl sighed. “Oh, come on, Vigo. If you can’t make light in the face of certain death, what can you do?” he asked.
“Punch you in the face,” Kamori proposed, and pushed past Varl to the firestep. He got up and looked out. Maggs and the other men in the cloche were firing sporadically, but the hits ringing off the cloche dome were growing more persistent.
“They’re on the cliffs right below us,” said Maggs. “You can bet they’ve come in force. They’re pushing over the top a few at a time, but all they need is one lucky break.”
“Or one lousy mistake,” Kamori replied. He jumped off the step and clicked his microbead. “Commander? Kamori, topside. It’s holding here, but it’s going to get hotter.”
“What’s Baskevyl’s estimation?” Rawne came back.
“We can’t actually locate him at the moment, sir.”
“Say again, Kamori. For a moment there, you sounded like a fething halfwit.”
“I said we can’t locate Major Baskevyl at this time, sir,” Kamori stated flatly, grimacing at Varl.
“Not what I want to hear, Kamori,” Rawne replied. “Take charge up there and keep me advised.”
“Looks like you get to do the shouting, then,” Varl said to Kamori. Kamori nodded. He turned to the men he’d brought with him. “Fill some gaps! Come on, shift! Sonorote, get each of the cloches on this level and the one below to sound off with a situation report. Make it fast, man.”
Cant reappeared, looking glum.
“I can’t find Major Baskevyl, sir,” he said.
“Oh, you can’t, can you, Cant?” asked Varl.
“Go feth yourself, Varl!” Cant snapped.
“Shut up, both of you!” Kamori growled. “Get to a hole and start shooting out of it!”
A gritty blast blew down the hallway as Blood Pact grenades found an open slot on a nearby cloche.
“Move!” Kamori yelled. “Hold the line and deny them!”
III
“Ludd! Ludd!” Rawne yelled, striding through the smoke of lower east six.
“Yes, commander!”
“Major Baskevyl has deserted his post.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me, Ludd!” Rawne snapped.
“Sir, I’m sure there must be some explanation. Major Baskevyl is—”
“Does this look like a game to you any more, Ludd?” Rawne yelled. “I don’t want to hear you make excuses! I just want you to nod! Can you do that?”
Ludd nodded.
“Good. Major Baskevyl has deserted his post. Deal with it.”
Ludd nodded.
IV
Baskevyl paused at the top of a stairway to let a fire-team race past him, double-time, heading towards the upper level. As he stepped to one side, he set down the heavy kit bag he was carrying.
He was about to make his way down when another squad hurried up the staircase towards him.
“I need one of your men,” Baskevyl told Posetine, the squad leader.
“We’re all directed upstairs, sir,” Posetine said apologetically. “Commander’s orders.”
“Well, I understand that, but here’s one of mine. I need the help of one of your men.”
Posetine looked awkward, but he guessed he would be in trouble if he tried to argue with the senior Belladon officer. He looked back at his men reluctantly.
“Merrt, step out and go with Major Baskevyl.”
Merit glowered and stood to one side. He knew Posetine had picked him because he was no bloody good.
“Thank you, Posetine,” Beskevyl said. He hefted up his kit bag and ran down the stairs past the troops. “With me, Merrt.”
“Major!” Posetine called out after them. “Major, do you know they’re trying to reach you on the link? They’ve been calling for a few minutes now.”
“I know!” Baskevyl yelled back. He’d taken his microbead off and stuffed it into a pocket precisely so he couldn’t hear the intervox. “Carry on, Posetine!”
“But—” Posetine began. Baskevyl had vanished.
“Shift it,” Posetine told his squad and they began to move again. Posetine adjusted his own microbead. “Squad eight six moving up to west five. If you’re looking for Major Baskevyl, we just saw him heading down into the basement levels.”
“What are we gn… gn… gn… doing?” Merrt asked, jogging to keep up with Baskevyl.
“I’ll explain when we get there.”
“What’s that book?”
“Just follow me, Merrt.”
Merrt hesitated. “This leads down to the gn… gn… gn… power room,” he said dubiously.
“Come on man!”
No one had been left to guard the power room. The chamber was as Baskevyl remembered it. He could smell energy, and feel the slow pulse of the glowing iron power hub. Baskevyl put his kit bag down, took a few steps forwards and touched the warm metal.
“Major?”
“Wait,” Baskevyl said, holding a hand up. He pulled the black-bound book out from under his arm, set it on the floor and knelt down over it, turning the pages.
He looked up abruptly. The scratching sound was quite loud. It was coming from just below them and through the walls around them.
“Merrt?” Baskevyl whispered. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah,” Merrt replied. “Do you
see that?” He pointed.
Baskevyl saw the faces that had been drawn in the dust on the walls, eyeless faces with open mouths. He knew they hadn’t been there when he and Merrt had entered the room.
“This place is cursed,” he said.
“I know it,” Merrt replied.
“There’s something here. It’s been here forever. It’s trapped us here.”
“It wants us dead,” said Merrt.
Baskevyl shook his head. “I think it wants us to stay. I think it wants company.”
“Forever?” Merrt asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then isn’t that the gn… gn… gn… same thing?”
V
She was standing on the cliff edge, right out in the open, staring in at the cloche hatches. The desert wind was tugging at her black lace skirts.
Maggs shot at the next few Blood Pact warriors attempting to rush the dome.
“Why don’t you take them instead?” he yelled out of the shutter at the old dam.
“Who the feth are you yelling at, Maggs?” Varl shouted from the neighbouring slot.
“Her,” Maggs replied.
“Oh, don’t start with the—” Varl started to say. He shut up. “Feth me, Wes.”
“You can see her?”
“Shit, yes.”
“Then it must be time. Throne, this must be it.” Maggs leaned forwards and yelled out of the shutter at the dark figure waiting silently at the edge of the cliff. “Is that it, you old witch? Is it time now? Is this the end of it all? Is it?”
Very slowly, the awful meat-wound face nodded.
VI
When Nessa took a hit to the shoulder, Banda dragged her out into the hall to find a corpsman and left Larkin alone in the gunbox. His long-las had finally given up and he was using a standard pattern rifle. Looking out of the slot, it was distressing to see how far up the outer walls and bulwarks the Blood Pact had managed to climb. They were attacking the lower casemates. Larkin heard grenades and the bitter zing of nail bombs. The enemy would be inside in minutes, if they weren’t already.