“What’s up?” Wheln asked, panting.
Milo blinked again. The doors were arched nal-wood in the Tanith pattern again, the Elector’s insignia clearly marked.
Feygor and Mkendrik dropped a long bar across the door loops to lock it tight. Beyond the thick barrier, they could hear muffled explosions and the rasp of flamers as the enemy tried to unblock the corpse-packed tunnel.
The eight Tanith men were exhausted. A day ago, at the Founding, none of them — with the possible exception of Rawne and Feygor — had ever fired a weapon in anger, let alone killed. Now they were truly baptised. There was no counting the dead they had piled up.
Gown sank to his heels against the wall, fighting for breath. “Are we lost?” he asked. “Is Tanith lost?”
Rawne turned to face him, fire in his eyes. “Are we alive? Is Tanith living? Get up! Get up and move! Only that feckless off-worlder Gaunt seems to have given up on Tanith! Withdraw? Abandon? What kind of leadership is that? He’d make world-less ghosts of us!”
“Ghosts…” murmured Larkin, leaning slackly against the far wall, cheek and shoulder pressed against the cold stone. “Gaunt’s Ghosts…”
“What did you say?” Milo asked directly, blood racing in his ears. It was like a dream was breaking in his head.
“Ignore him!” Feygor ordered. “Fething fool is weak in the head. But for his good eye, I’d have shot him as dead-weight before now.”
“No,” began Milo, “This isn’t right… it…”
“Of course it’s not right!” Feygor snarled into Milo’s face. Milo winced as spittle hit his cheek. “The Imperium comes to Tanith when it needs men, but where is the Imperium now when Tanith needs it? They’re leaving us to die!”
Caffran pulled Feygor back from Milo sharply. “Then we’ll die well, Feygor! We’ll die fething well!” The young trooper’s face was bright with passion. The thought of Laria burned in his mind. She was out there somewhere and he would fight and kill and kill again to save this place and be with her once more.
“Caff’s right, Feygor,” Mkendrik said. Wheln and Cown both nodded in agreement. “Let’s die well so Tanith can live.”
“And feth any off-world commissar who says otherwise!” spat Cown.
Feygor, subdued, turned and nodded, deftly exchanging the power cell of his lasgun for a fresh one.
Rawne had been absent for a few moments and now strode back into view. “I hear fighting down the hall, maybe three hundred spans away. Sounds like another group of our boys in defence. I say we move in to support.”
Mkendrik nodded. “Bolster our numbers. Maybe they know where the Elector is sheltering.”
“If we could get him to the transport stables, we could maybe fly him to safety in a cutter,” Cown added.
Rawne nodded. “Feygor, make the door a surprise.”
Feygor grinned and took out a brace of tube-charges from his pack. He strapped them with quick, practised diligence to the door bar. Anything that broke in here now after them would snap the trigger wire and bring the hallway down on top of them.
“Let’s go!” Rawne ordered.
Milo fell into step with the others as they hurried on down the long palace hallway, boot-steps resounding from the stone flags. He wished with all his heart and soul he could work out what was wrong with… with reality. There was no other word. Reality itself seemed wrong and dreamlike and it was making his stomach turn. It must be the Chaos daemons, Milo thought. Maybe Major Rawne knew wh—
Milo paused. Major Rawne? In the tents of the Founding Fields outside Tanith Magna, Rawne had bivouacked with the common soldiers. A trooper, nothing more. No rank, no seniority. Since when had he got the collar pins and the promotion?
Have I forgotten something? Milo wondered. Have I…
Another flicker in his mind. An image of… of a cramped cabin on a starship. Rawne, Corbec, Milo. A deputation. A tall, powerful, lean-faced man that could only have been Commissar-Colonel Ibram Gaunt, rising to meet them. How could he know what this Gaunt looked like? He’d never seen him. He could hear Gaunt speaking, making bold, confident field promotions: Colonel Corbec, Major Rawne.
Another dream?
There was no time to think about it. They were almost on the fighting. Gunshots. Screaming, just ahead.
That wasn’t las-fire, Milo thought to himself as he and all the platoon checked stride and raised weapons. He’d heard enough lasgun exchanges in the last half an hour to know the distinctive snap. This was an eerie, singing shrill; a shrieking, a buzzing, like the saw-note of a wasp, amplified and broken into harsh, serried blasts.
What the feth was it?
“You hear that?” he gasped to Larkin beside him. Larkin was tuning the night-scope on his long gun, stabbing a slender target beam of porcelain blue light up at the roof.
“What? Lasguns on full auto? Yeah… someone’s having a busy day.”
It’s not a lasgun, thought Milo, it’s not…
Third platoon rounded a corner in the hallway, moving in tight overlap formation, and broke into a wide audience hall of dark, volcanic stone. Shattered stained glass windows depicting anroth, the household and forest spirits of Tanith, lined one side of the vaulted chamber. Nal-wood pews, many shattered or overturned, filled the main body of the room. The banner of the Elector hung in smouldering tatters over an oriole window at the far end. Three Tanith troopers, their backs to them, were in position behind the pews, blasting with lasguns down at an arched door under the oriole. Chaos spawn were battling to get in through the door, their dead sprawled all around the entrance, five or more other Tanith troopers lay dead amid the wooden wreckage.
Without question or hesitation, the Third fell in beside their brethren and took up the fight, blasting at the doorway and cutting into the advancing enemy. The three Tanith holding the chamber glanced around in surprise at the newcomers. Milo didn’t recognise any of them, though the colonel was an unforgettable giant with a mane of white hair riven with a red streak, a long noble face and the blue tattoo of a scythe on his cheek.
“For Tanith! For the Elector! For Terra!” Rawne yelled as he blasted.
The big colonel hesitated again, then returned his attention to the killing. “As you say,” he boomed melodiously, his accent strange, “for… Tanith!”
Muon Nol, of the Dire Avengers Aspect, had been holding the green onyx vault with a squad of his warriors, seeing them cut down one by one as Chaos forced their way into the chamber via the diamond-shaped prayer chute at the end, under the rosette of spirit stones set high in the wall beneath the wraith-silk standard of Dolthe.
The only cover was the tangled mess of psycho-plastic benches which had once lined the celebrant vault, benches that had been splintered or wilted by enemy fire. To the side of them, slender pointed windows paned with translucent wraith-bone showed images of Asuryan, the Phoenix King, Khaine of the Bloody Hand, Vaul, the crippled smith-god, Morai-Heg the fate-crone, and Lileath the Maiden, goddess of dream fortune, backlit by Farseer Fon Kull’s warp-storm outside. It was Lileath who Muon Nol most worshipped, that beautiful diviner of futures and possibilities. He wore her rune on a thread around his neck, under his jade-blue aspect armour.
Muon Nol’s white crested helmet was dinted with black las-scores, and the red plume crest was singed. Still Uliowye, Lord Fon Kull’s holy buanna, spat whickering onslaughts of jagged, flickering star-rounds at the foe, slicing them to pieces, a thousand rounds in each tight burst. The stabilising gyros whirred as the great, ornate shrieker cannon bucked in his mesh-gloved hands. The accelerator field shimmered around the muzzle base, Uliowye, the Kiss of Sharp Stars. He had perhaps six rods of solid ammunition left; he would make them count. For Lileath, he would make them count. For Dolthe.
Suddenly, eight humans in drab, muddy uniforms fell in beside him, blasting their lasguns at the enemy. They were resilient and fierce, and seemed to show no shock or surprise at their surroundings or sudden, new-found comrades-in-arms.
Psychica
lly, Muon Nol ordered his remaining men to accept them and fight on. This was undoubtedly Lord Eon Kull’s work — and Lord Eon Kull’s deceit.
And, Khaine, but these mon-keigh fought! Like they were fighting for their own homeworld it seemed, fighting for everything they loved!
In under five minutes the reinforcement of the human soldiers had driven the Chaos spawn back. They pushed forward together down the prayer chute and killed the last of the attackers, closing a great stone hatch shut to block the rest.
The Master of the Bodyguard turned to the slim, dark-haired human who appeared to be the newcomers’ leader. He searched for his grasp of Low Gothic, as he had learned in the training symposiums of Dolthe craftworld.
“I am Muon Nol, of Dolthe, of this Way Place. Your Intervention and aid is greeted with welcome. Lord Farseer Eon Kull will thank you for it.”
“Colonel Munnol, from Tanith Dale. Good to see you boys, and no mistake. The Elector needs all the men he can get right now.”
The tall Tanith officer with the mane of white hair turned to the Third as the shutter hatch closed. The exploded carcasses of Chaos troops lay all around them.
Rawne nodded. “Glad to help. I’m Rawne, Major, commanding… well, what’s left of Third platoon. Place us where you want us, colonel.”
Munnol nodded, but he seemed bewildered somehow, Milo thought. Come to that, he’d never seen a Tanith man with anything but black hair. Not only were Munnol’s white locks odd, but both his men, who seemed uneasy now he noticed, were white haired too.
Colonel Munnol nodded to a doorway to the left. It was a strange gesture. And what kind of weapon was he holding? A lasgun… but long and extended, longer and thicker than Larkin’s sniper gun. Milo felt something tugging anxiously at his mind.
“If you’re willing, Rawne human, the western emplacements need support desperately,” Colonel Munnol was saying.
“Lead on!” barked Rawne, changing his energy cell and dropping the spent one to the floor. Munnol shrugged and nodded, beckoning them after him.
Rawne human? Had he misheard? Milo followed, unnerved. Human? The nightmare refused to slip away. He hated the terrible nauseous feeling of confusion.
At a fast pace, Munnol led the Third and his own men down a black granite corridor. Ahead of them, through an archway, they could see two dozen more Tanith troopers lining a battlement, firing lasguns down into the stormy night. Except that the noise was the shrieking chatter of something odd and otherworldly, not the reassuring snap-return of las-fire.
Rawne hurried beside the tall colonel, Feygor at his heels. “Can you believe this luck?” he laughed. “Chaos attacking us on the very day of our founding?”
“No… indeed,” Munnol replied.
“I’ll be honest with you, Munnol… I almost didn’t sign up,” Rawne went on. “What kind of life is it, fighting your way through the stars for the love of some fething uncaring Emperor, no hope of ever going home again?”
“Not an enticing prospect, Rawne human,” Munnol agreed.
“feth, but I had a nice life back in Tanith Attica. A nice little business, if you understand me. Nothing too illegal, but, you know, on the wrong side…”
“I understand…”
“Feygor was with me back then. Weren’t you, Feygor?” Rawne said, nodding at his comrade.
“Aye, Rawne, aye.”
“Nice work, good returns, didn’t want to give it up… but, feth take me for a chulan… I’m glad I did! feth the Golden Throne… thank the anroth I’m armed and ready to stand for Tanith at this dread hour!”
“We all thank the anroth for that, Rawne human,” Munnol replied.
They were out on the battlements now, enemy fire ripping over them. Colonel Munnol called to his Tanith soldiers, who looked around from the loopholes and crenellations where they had been firing down at the foe. White hair, streaked with red, thought Milo with a shudder. They all have white hair.
He thought he was going to be sick.
“Men of Dolthe!” Munnol exclaimed.
Dolthe? Dolthe? Where was that? Milo wondered.
“Our Kin arrive to fight with us! Major Rawne and other humans! Treat them well, they are resolute and with us to the end!”
A rousing cheer greeted Colonel Munnol’s words.
Rawne ordered the Third in alongside the Tanith already in place, taking position and firing down into the stormy dark over the jagged lip of laser-chewed stonework.
Milo was about to take his place when he saw Larkin was cowering behind them all, crouched in the corner of the battlement away from the fight, clutching his sniper rifle and shaking uncontrollably.
Milo crossed to him. “Larkin? What is it?”
“T-took a look through my scope… B-brin… they’re not human!”
“What?” Milo felt his guts clench, but he wasn’t going to give in.
“I know what I saw! Through my… my scope. It never lies. This big bastard Munnol and the rest! They’re not… not Tanith!”
Milo snatched the sniper gun out of Larkin’s wavering hands, and sighted it at Munnol, looking through the scope. The bead of the blue light beam kissed Munnol’s drab camo-cloak like a tiny spotlight. Milo looked through the scope viewer, seeing Munnol as a ghost of blues and shadows.
Munnol, as if sensing the beam on him, turned to look back at Milo. Through the scope, Milo saw Munnol as he swung slowly around, his eyes hooked and slanted in his cold pale face. A second more, and those eyes became the visor slits of a great sculpted helmet of gleaming white armour, backed by a towering crest of red feathers. Munnol’s grey fatigues became a tight suit of blue armour that locked majestically about his huge, powerful frame. The lasgun in his hands became a long, fluted lance weapon with a ridged, coiled pipe, silver vents and a beautiful inlay of chased pearl and gold. Munnol became quite the most frightening thing Milo had ever seen.
“Oh my Emperor…” he breathed. “They’re eldar!”
Lilith’s brigade broke from the gorge into a fan of lowlands where the jungle had vanished under sculptural folds of mud which had slid in vast curls down the slopes and obliterated everything in their path. The going was slower, the troops wading waist-deep in ochre slime in some places. Above the roar of the storm, the forward scouts could now pick up the sounds of massed combat from the valley beyond. Hashes of light backlit the hilltop, and it wasn’t lightning.
Gaunt ordered battle readiness via an encrypted vox-burst, marshalling the Volpone heavyweights up the flank of the hill under Gilbear’s lead and funnelling the Ghosts in two detachments led by Lerod and Corbec along the edge of the mud slip below. Gaunt and Lilith moved at the front of Corbec’s band.
Mkoll had led them true. Round the curve of the hill, they got their first sight of the mound and its ruin — and the massed forces of the enemy surrounding it. Even prepared by Mkoll’s description, Gaunt found the scale was immense. Thousands of enemy troops, some with heavy weapons, were swarming the mound’s slopes and bombarding the great, dark edifice with a force stone had no right to resist. The entire scene was a flickering mess of fire-flashes and explosions. The wet air was pungent with blood and thermite.
The Guardsmen were engaging before they realised it. Gilbear’s Bluebloods had come into the rear positions of enemy heavy weapons emplacements, and the crews were turning, startled, counter-attacking with close-quarter side arms. A moment later, and both detachments of Ghosts were hemmed in by Chaos units that peeled back from the main assault to face this surprise rear contact. Las-fire and bolt rounds seared a miserable light-streak criss-cross over the smooth mud flats.
Blasting with his bolt pistol, Gaunt saw a tiny opportunity: break and fall back now, or become locked irrevocably into the fighting.
He saw Gilbear’s unit spill down the rise and fall upon the enemy weapon stations with a ferocious and admirable grace, overwhelming and slaughtering them in a matter of a minute or two. The powerful hellguns, supported by two grenade launchers and a plasma rifleman, r
ipped into the hindquarters of the guncrews’ position and cut them down.
Gilbear haughtily voxed his success as his men took over control of the enemy weapons, turning missile launchers and field artillery on the ranks of the chaos army beyond. The Volpone Tenth Elite were damn good, Gaunt had to admit. Rotation training on all combat disciplines meant that they could take a gun post and then man that gun as surely and deftly as if they were dedicated artillery troops.
Gaunt knew the moment had gone. To break now would have left the Volpone alone. His choice was made for him. Battle was truly joined and there would be no respite.
The twin prongs of the Ghosts punched into the rear of the besiegers. Gilbear, tactically astute, turned the aim of captured guns down the turn of the valley and covered the Ghost push, creating huge breaks in the enemy’s makeshift flanking manoeuvre. Shells whistled down under Gilbear’s direction, pin-point accurate, throwing ribbons of mud, strands of foliage and pieces of Chaos troopers into the air not twenty metres in front of the advancing Ghosts.
The fighting was close range and white hot. Incredibly, but for a few grazes and glancing burns, Gaunt found his men suffered no casualties.
Within five minutes of first contact, the Imperials had cut a wedge into the enemy rearguard, made up half a kilometre of ground and slaughtered upwards of two hundred enemy troops, at no mortal cost.
Gilbear held the line as long as he could, but there came a point, mutually agreed between him and Gaunt over the vox-link, when the separation of the two small Imperial advances would become too great.
When the signal was given, the Bluebloods mined the gun emplacements and pushed on, scything a double-time advance to swing themselves in behind the Ghosts. Limed explosions, staggered and staggering, set off the emplacement munitions and excavated a new valley where a small plateau had been.
Into the heat now, on the lower slopes of the mound, the Imperial expedition force slicing a break in the foe as a spearhead formation, Ghosts to the right, Volpone to the left, with Gaunt and Corbec at the tip.