Larkin lowered the gun, breathed out and snapped the safety.
“Just getting my eye in,” he said.
Heqta Jajjo couldn’t get the gakking leaf to bend. Every time he looped it, it sprang back, and when he’d finally got the stalk pushed through the leaf, it tore. “Problem?” said a voice.
Jajjo looked up. Mkvenner was standing over him. “Gak, you made me jump.”
“That’s a good thing because I’m a scout. And it’s a bad thing because that’s what you want to be too.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Be better. What’s the problem?”
“You told me to leave a sign here. I can’t get it to make the shape.”
Ven hunkered down and plucked a fresh leaf from a nearby clump of beythorn. “You’re trying too hard. It’s just a twist. It has to look casual.”
Mkvenner made a perfect loop and set it on a crop of white stone.
Jajjo sighed.
“You’ll get it,” said Mkvenner, almost encouragingly. “You think we’re wasting our time, don’t you?” said Jajjo. “Why?”
“Because we’re not fit. Not fit for scouting.” Jajjo didn’t have to qualify the “we’re”. They both knew he meant Verghastites.
“If that’s what you think, then the only thing I’m wasting is my effort. Take the point.”
“Only if—”
“Take the point Jajjo. Show me you can work terrain.”
Jajjo picked up his Mark III, and advanced, head low They’d reached a long, curved valley of pine wood with a steeply tilted rake that was thick with last year’s needles. The wind was up now, and the trees swayed and shushed over him.
The air was cold. The sunlight had died off and plunged the forest floor into twilight. Jajjo tried to make as little sound as possible. His foot cracked a piece of dead bark, and he looked back guiltily towards the place where he’d left Mkvenner.
The scout had gone. How the gak did he do that?
Jajjo worked the cover all the way down to a thick copse of link-alder. Halfway down, he knocked his rifle-stock against a sapling. Then he realised he hadn’t draped himself with his camo-cape properly. Gak on a flakboard, was there anything else he could get wrong?
The sound of the wind in the trees was mesmeric now. Like a sea, Jajjo thought. His family had come from Imjahive originally, down in the archipelago, one of Verghast’s tropical cities. He knew what the sea sounded like. He’d missed it when his family had moved to Vervunhive, the year he turned six.
Jajjo stole past the copse, and crossed a spread of swishing ferns. The first spots of rain started to come down, smacking hard impacts into the leaves of the ground cover. Jajjo tried to stick to the shadows. Through the stand of pines ahead, there seemed to be something, he couldn’t tell what. He switched cover, making short runs between trees, the way he’d been taught in scout preparation. Now the sounds he made were being masked by the gathering rainstorm and wind. He kept his Mark III tucked up under his right armpit barrel down, so it wouldn’t catch on anything.
The rain got heavier. The drops beat down like a non-stop drum roll on the leaves. The temperature immediately rose by a few degrees, lifting skeins of mist from the ground and choking his nose with a damp, mulchy reek.
Jajjo reached the pine stand, and slid through the trees. What the hell was that up there? There was definitely some sort of clearing. A break in the trees. He could tell that simply from the light.
He got down in the ferns and crawled for the last twenty metres to the edge of the clearing, pushing his weapon in front of him. He raised his head, and saw, through the rain, what lay beyond.
“Gak!” he stammered. He turned to rise and work back, but Mkvenner was crouched right behind him.
“Good work,” said Mkvenner quietly. “Look what you found…”
It wasn’t on any of the maps. Mainly because it was old, and the maps were new. Ven and Jajjo back-tracked to meet the detail, and led them forward.
It was a house. A big house. A retreat. Rerval described it as a manse, and the name stuck. Derelict and overgrown, it occupied a cleared stretch of hillside within the forest, facing west. Lime-washed grey stone, black slate. Two storeys and maybe an attic. Blind windows looked out across an unkempt garden from the front. There was a weed-choked path leading to the front porch, and the signs of an old wall and gate in the overgrown hedges. Gutes and Caffran circled round the rear and found a single-storey wing extending from the back, and a clutch of outbuildings clogged against the back garden wall around a paved yard. Beyond that, a wild garden and lawn stretched up hill to the edge of the pine woods. There was an old wall at the top of the lawn, against which sat several more dilapidated outhouses.
The rain was torrential now.
“Let’s check it,” Feygor said.
They split. Feygor, Gutes, Cuu and Brostin to the front door; Caffran, Rerval, Jajjo and Mkvenner to the back.
“Armed,” Feygor said on the front steps. The dripping Ghosts with him nodded. Gutes and Cuu dropped in either side of the big, old doors. Paint was flaking off the panels. Feygor peeked in through ground floor windows, but saw nothing except dust and shadows.
“Going in,” he said over his micro-bead.
“Read you,” crackled Caffran.
Feygor nodded. Brostin stepped up and put his shoulder into the doors. It took two shoves, but the wood splintered and the doors swung open.
Gutes and Cuu, lasrifles aimed, screwed in behind him.
The hallway was dark and the air was stale. Mildew. Old carpets. Damp. They edged into the gloom, making out a staircase and several doors off the hall on the ground floor. Water dripped from the ceiling and the stairwell. Feygor crept inside, his rifle at a hunting tilt.
He snapped his fingers and he, Gutes and Cuu turned on lamp-packs. They slung them from the bayonet lugs of their weapons and played them around the hall. The spots of light revealed a lacquered sideboard with cobweb-strung candle stands, a massive gilt-edged mirror that threw their inquisitive lights back at them. A coatstand, hung with a single, lonely raincoat. An embroidered rug. Dried flowers in a dedemican vase. A console table with a brass letter rack.
Cuu tried the wall switch. The big chandelier remained dark. “No power,” he said.
“Yeah,” Feygor smiled, but it’s a roof.
The rain pelted down. Thunder rolled. Feygor worked his way over to the left hand door off the hall.
Brostin hand-cranked the feeder reservoir of his flamer’s broom, and clicked the lighter flint. There was a wet cough, and then a hiss as the flamer came to life. Brostin had it turned right down, so that just a cone of blue-heat sizzled around the nozzle. The hiss of the burner filled the air. They could all smell promethium.
Brostin edged his way over to Feygor, using the barely-lit flamer like a lamp. “After you,” he said.
Feygor opened the inner door and pushed it wide, keeping his back to the doorpost. Brostin went in, revving the flamer up into little, quick flares of hot yellow flame.
“Dining room,” he said. Feygor prowled in, sliding his lamp beam off the walls. Old oil paintings, grim faces. Vases and porcelain. A long, dark-varnished table lined by twenty chairs. A single plate at one setting, decorated with a pair of fruit stones, and a small paring knife.
Feygor went back out into the hall. Gutes and Cuu had opened the room on the other side. Some kind of sitting room, with armchairs and sofas covered in dust sheets. A big fireplace with a basket of logs. More cobwebs.
Feygor moved through the space to another door at the end. He pushed it open, aiming his lamp and gun through the slit. A small room, lined with empty shelves. Dust. A library? A study? He edged inside, covered by Gutes. There was a desk and a captain’s chair on brass castors. Racks and hooks on the walls that had once held something. He swung his beam right.
Framed by his light-beam, the monster loomed out of the darkness, its lips pulled back from its huge teeth, its clawed paws raised to strike.
/> “Holy feth!” squeaked Feygor and shot it.
He hit it in the belly and there was a loud burst of fur and dust. Gutes, startled by the sudden shot, rolled round through the doorway and blasted off a burst himself.
“Stop! Stop!” Feygor shouted over Gutes’ fire. The monster continued to snarl at them. The micro-bead link went wild.
“Who’s shooting?” That was Caffran.
“Confirm contact! Confirm contact!” Jajjo.
“Feygor? Sign back.” Ven.
Feygor was laughing, his giggles rolling flat and dry from his voice box. “Relax. No contact.”
Gutes was sniggering with relief too.
“What the feth?” said Brostin, shouldering in through the door and raising his flamer. He gunned the torch and the flare lit up the room. The huge beast in the corner was starkly lit, poised on its plinth, paws raised to strike. Sawdust dribbled from its shot-open gut, and the flames reflected in its glass eyes.
“Feth!” said Brostin. “Are you trigger-happy or what?”
“I thought it was a real fething thing!” Feygor protested and chortled. “Took me by surprise.”
“Well,” said Brostin, “you pair sure killed it.”
Feygor walked over to the stuffed trophy. It was quite a beast. Raised on its hind legs, three metres tall, covered in black fur and sporting teeth the length of his fingers.
“What the feth is it?” asked Piet Gutes.
“Some kind of ursa,” said Feygor, truculently punching it in the chest. It was hollow.
“It’s a behj,” said Cuu, from the doorway. “Big deal here on Aexe. The totem animal, the king predator. I heard the sezar wears a pelt, and the locals barter the claws as lucky charms.”
“How the feth d’you know that, Lijah?” asked Brostin.
Cuu smiled. “I made a cred or two playing the trench markets. It always helps to have local knowledge. A struthid feather is lucky, but a behj-claw—”
“Always got your eye on the main chance, eh, Cuu?” admired Feygor.
“Sure as sure,” said Lijah Cuu.
Caffran had led his team into the back kitchen. “Odd,” Mkvenner said. “What is?”
“Everything’s clean and put away… except that cup and dish by the sink.”
“Someone left in a hurry,” said Rerval. “This whole region is supposed to have been evacuated.”
“Then why do I smell garlic?” Ven asked.
Aiming his lamp beam into the shadows, Caffran edged through the scullery and an empty, damp-smelling washroom. Jajjo followed him.
Jajjo found a door off the kitchen that came free with a lack. It was a walk-in pantry, the shelves lined with fruit pickles and jars of preserved vegetables. Four haunches of salted meat hung from the beam hooks.
“Gak me, my mouth is watering,” said Jajjo. They’d been on lousy rations since landfall.
The vox chimed.
“Come see what I’ve found, boys,” said Feygor.
Caffran’s team found Feygor’s in the cellar of the house. A short ran of stone steps let down into it via a door in the hall. Labelled by vintage, the wine racks were arranged in five rows of shelves.
Feygor took a bottle off one of the racks, cracked its neck off against the cellar wall, and splashed a large measure into his upturned mouth.
“Gutes, Cuu,” he said, belching and licking his lips. “Go light the fire. Stoke it up, mind. We’ve found our billet.”
“We should secure it,” said Mkvenner.
“Okay, so secure it,” Feygor snapped. They could all hear the wind and rain beating down outside. “Do what you want.”
Mkvenner glared at Feygor for a moment. Then he turned to Jajjo. “Come on.”
The pair of them left the cellar.
Feygor took another knock from the bottle and glanced over at Caffran. “It ain’t sacra,” he said, “but I think I’m gonna like it here.”
EIGHT
THE POCKET
“The worst day of my life. The worst part of the line. I wouldn’t wish it on any bastard. I don’t ever want to go back there.”
—Count Golke, on the Seiberq Pocket
In silence, they waited until the guns had stopped. Then they went out. Up over scaling ladders, up over the parapet. Into the blackness and the mud. Into little, individual worlds of suffocating gas-hoods.
It was just before 03.30 in the morning, and day seemed a whole lifetime away.
“Keep it tight,” Criid granted into her micro-bead, the sound of her own breathing resonating inside her canvas gas-mask. Her platoon was straggled out. Somewhere to their left was five platoon, Soric’s band. Somewhere to her right was seventeen, Raglon’s. Somewhere around her was her own gakking platoon, not that she could see them. The damn hoods: blindfolds, gags, earmuffs all rolled into one.
There was a kind of light. It twinkled through the imperfect plastic lenses of her hood. Amber, dull. Just enough to pick out the landscape of no-man’s land. Smoggy vapour fumed from the craters. It hid the wires. Pools of chemical water in deep shell holes gave off a leery phosphorescent glow.
This was a game. Not a fun one. Nobody had been looking forward to it. Not since they’d been transferred to 58th sector.
Criid missed having DaFelbe with her. Word was he was recovering from the face wound. She’d had to move Mkhef up as her adjutant, and she didn’t get on with the lanky Tanith as well.
The ground was wet and sticky. It was like striding through caramel. All she could hear was the muffled pant of her own lungs inside the hood.
“Wire!” said a muffled voice. She turned her head. It was Mkhef, waiting while Kenfeld and Vulli came up with the cutters.
Criid crouched down. All around her, anonymous, hooded ghosts were slipping in, just shadows in the bad light. Everyone was cloaked up, shrouded in their camouflage capes.
“Breached!” Kenfeld reported, his voice sounding like it came from a box. He stood up, pulling the broken strands of wire aside with his gloved hands.
“Move up, with me,” Criid whispered.
Barely fifty metres to Criid’s left Soric guided his platoon ahead. Despite the proximity, he couldn’t see any of Criid’s bunch, or Obel’s, which was allegedly running to his left flank.
Agun Soric was sweating inside his hood. He hated hood work. He was blind and stifled, his already reduced vision cut down to a pathetic scrap.
The mud was hell. Wet-soft and deep. It sucked at boots, pulled feet down at every stride, like the earth was hungry. Soric had to pause to cover Trooper Hefron, who hadn’t secured his boots well enough and had therefore lost one to the grab of the ground.
“Get your gakking boot back on!” Soric barked, panting in the humid darkness of his hood. “I’m sorry, sarge, I’m sorry…” Hefron was repeating.
“Shut up and get it tied!” Soric stood back, trying to let his lungs fill. All he could taste was damp, hot air. Perspiration was running into his one good eye. He couldn’t wipe it.
“Gak!”
Hefron got back up and Soric sent him on his way with a cuff to the back of the head. He’d gone a pace or two himself when he tripped on something hard buried in the muck and went down.
Liquid mud drowned his hood’s visor. He couldn’t see. He could taste filthy water pouring in through the gauze filter. Hands grabbed him and pulled him up. “Sarge? You okay?”
It was Vivvo, his voice crackling over the link. “Yeah.”
“You hit?”
“No. I fell.”
“Gak, I thought you were hit.”
“Wipe me gakking eye slits, for god’s sake,” Soric said. There was a squeak and vision returned. Vivvo was scooping the mud from Soric’s hood-lenses with his fingers. “You hurt?” he asked.
“No. Yes, bruised my leg. Fell on something.” It was even harder to breathe now. Soric had never felt so stifled. The infernal hood…
“Give me a moment, Vivvo. Step on. Get the platoon focused before they ran too far ahead.”
&nbs
p; Soric trudged forward, feeling his leg for the braise. Something had smacked into it hard when he fell.
There was something in his pocket. Blindly, he took it out and held it up. It was the brass message shell.
Soric’s heart began to race even harder. He was sure he’d left that fething thing in his dugout.
Fumbling with muddy, gloved fists, he unscrewed the cap. There was the folded sheet of blue tissue paper he’d been expecting.
It was hard to read through the smeared hood visor. It said. “Air’s clean. No need for hoods. Warn ten about mill house.”
Something else was written underneath that he couldn’t make out.
Soric tore open the buckles and pulled off his hood. He took big lungfuls of the cold exterior air, air thick with the taste of fuel and mud and water.
But not gas.
He pulled off his gloves and wiped his good eye, shoving the sweat back into his hair. “Signals! Signals!” he called.
Mohr, his vox-man, came stumbling over the mud-plain towards him and started visibly when he saw Soric bareheaded.
“Feth, sarge! Orders was hoods!”
“Air’s clean,” Soric told him. “Vox it out. Air’s clean and you have my word on that.”
Mohr knelt down in a shell hole and adjusted his set, removing his gas-hood as he did so. His young face was flushed and beaded.
“Give me the mic,” said Soric. “This is twenty, twenty to all. The air is clean, repeat, clean. Ditch the hoods.”
Soric sat down, still holding the vox-horn to his mouth. He twisted the paper scrap until the feeble light caught it so he could read.
“Twenty, ninety-one.”
“Ninety-one, twenty. You certain about the hoods?”
“Certain. Trust me, Tona.”
“Read that, twenty.”
“Twenty, ninety-one. I think you’re coming up on some kind of mill house. A building.”
“Ninety-one, twenty. Not on the maps.”
“There’s nothing on the maps, Tona. Just watch it, okay. You see a structure, be wary.”