He took another shot, but missed. He fired again, and missed a second time. His eyes were so foggy and the pain so almighty. Pink, oblong stars. Firecrackers. Firecrackers…
A hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the window sill. Larkin squealed in pain and passed out briefly.
Lijah Cuu held him by the back of his head, fingers pressing like iron tongs into the damaged region of the sniper’s skull.
Larkin writhed, tears of pain rushing down his ashen cheeks.
“What…? What…?” he mumbled.
“We’re dead now, Tanith, sure as sure. They’re in at the doors and windows. We’re finished. Except I’m not finished. I’m not going anywhere, even all the way to hell, without set-ding my business.”
“Feth!” screamed Larkin, trying to struggle free. Cuu’s hands twisted at the fracture in the back of his skull and he gagged and howled. Blood spurted from Larkin’s nostrils. “You crazy bastard!” he spluttered. “This isn’t—”
“What? What, you little Tanith gak-face? The right time? That’s funny, sure as sure. You have to pay, and if this isn’t the time, there’ll never be another.”
Cuu wrenched at Larkin’s head again, and the sniper threw up. Cuu shoved him off onto the mattress.
Larkin tried to move, but the oblong pink stars filled his vision, merged into one huge firecracker that blasted through his mind.
He went into spasms. His back arched and his eyes rolled back until they were just bloodshot whites. Blood spattered as he bit his tongue. As the seizure smashed through his stringy body and limbs, he made an unearthly groan.
Cuu stepped back for a second in disgust. He drew his blade. Tanith straight silver, thirty centimetres long.
“You animal,” he growled, avoiding Larkin’s thrashing limbs. “Looks like I’ll be doing you a favour, you freak.”
He raised the knife.
“Get off him, you bastard!” Muril spat. She stood in the doorway of the bedroom, her lasrifle aimed at Cuu’s scar-split face.
She edged towards him. “You shit. You little shit.”
Cuu rose, grinned his grin. “I was just trying to help him, girly. Look at him. He’s spazzing out. Let’s help him before he bites through his gakking tongue.”
“Leave him alone! I saw you, Cuu. I saw what you were doing.”
“I wasn’t doing nothing.”
“You were going to kill him. Like you killed Bragg. And God-Emperor knows who else. You piece of shit.”
“So what are you going to do, eh? Eh, girly? You gonna shoot me?”
“I might.”
“We’re all dead anyway. Listen to the crap out there. They must be into the kitchen by now. Go ahead, shoot. It won’t matter.”
“It’ll matter to me, Cuu. I’ll die happy.”
There was a stunning flash and a noise that sounded like thunder but wasn’t. The bedroom wall exploded in, strewing bricks and plaster across the room. Another mortar shell came in through the attic overhead and blew out the landing behind them.
Muril tried to get up in the choking dust and smoke. There was no sign of her weapon in the debris, so she drew her warknife. Covered in shreds of plaster and curls of wallpaper, Larkin was still alive, and still convulsing and groaning on the mattress by the window.
Muril stumbled towards him, searching for Cuu’s body in the rubble.
He was behind her, his blade in his hand.
With a cry, she swept round, as fast as any Tanith scout had ever moved, before or since.
Straight silver punched through flesh and bone and didn’t stop until it had impaled the beating heart.
Part of the roof collapsed. Piet Gutes ducked as falling rafters tore through the ceiling of the dining room, crushing the long, polished table. The vases and precious porcelain tumbled off the shelves and smashed. The oil paintings had caught fire.
Gutes got up, spitting out dust. The ceiling was open right to the sky and rain drizzled down. He took a look up through the smashed window hole he had been defending. A red-painted light tank was rolling down the back lawn from the trees, enemy troops surging around it. It raked up the overgrown grass and knocked over the sundial. When it fired again, Gutes felt the manse shake. One of the pictures fell off the wall.
For the first time, he wondered who they were. Those solemn faces, dark with age, looking out from the frames. Staring at him from so far away.
The pictures burned, despite the rain.
Gutes saw movement at the window and fired. An iron mask lurched back. Shots came in, ripping into the floor. Gutes backed down the dining room, rainwater pattering off him, avoiding the smashed furniture and firing at the gap. Multiple points of gunfire tore through in reply.
A single dining chair had survived the collapse of the rafters. Gutes sat down on it and continued to fire at the window until his cell ran dry.
Haifa dozen Blood Part troopers scrambled in through the window, aiming their weapons at the lone figure sitting on a chair at the end of the room.
They started to shoot.
Gutes wondered if the old woman would make it. He hoped so, though he doubted it. But it didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing matters if you’re far enough away. That’s what Piet Gutes had always told himself. And now, at last, he was as far away as he could possibly be.
SEVENTEEN
FIRST AND LAST
“There can be honour in life, and honour in courage, and honour in action, but the most certain honour of all, to man’s regret, is the honour in death.”
—Iaco Bousar Fep Golke,
from his diaries
Smoke wept out of the forest like blood from a wound. The storm had passed, heading out at last across the peaks of the Massif, but the air was still damp and the sky still black.
The sound of warfare continued to drift back through the pine stands of the Montorq. Small-arms, vehicle-mounted cannon, grenades.
Colm Corbec jumped down from the eight-wheeler APC he’d been riding in and called out to the unit groups ahead.
“Are we clear?” he yelled.
“Clear!” Varl shouted back.
“Go get me a sit-rep!” Corbec hollered.
“Sir,” said Jajjo, rising from his seat in the APC. “I’d like to—”
“I know you would, son,” said Corbec. “But I think maybe you should stay here for now.”
“I—”
“That’s an order, lad.”
Corbec wandered up through the trees towards the smoking shell of the old, lonely house. “The manse”, Jajjo had called it.
To his left, light tanks and clanking sentinels of the Krassian Armoured ploughed up the valley through the trees, lending fire support to the First fire-teams Corbec had sent in ahead of him. A fairly serious firefight was occurring in the woods behind the house.
Commissar Hark trudged back to meet him. He was swinging a helmet in his hand.
“Trooper Jajjo was right,” Hark said, showing Corbec the helmet’s iron mask. “Blood Pact.”
“I never doubted Jajjo’s word for a moment,” said Corbec quietly. “The vox messages were plain enough.”
Hark nodded. “Just so, Corbec. I’m just glad we mustered up and got here in time.”
“Did we, but?” Corbec said wearily.
“We’ve driven the Blood Pact force right back into the woods. Major Vikkers of the Krassian armour says they’re in retreat, falling back up the valley to the high pass. Looks like the Krassian tanks scored a good few kills against enemy armour pieces and—”
“We’ve won, for today. I know that, Hark. I meant… did we get here in time for our own?” Corbec fell silent, looking at the smoking ruin of the manse.
“Nine platoon’s checking it now. We—”
“Round up the rearguard and send them through,” Corbec told him abruptly. “I’m going to see for myself.”
Varl was waiting for him at the battered porch of the manse. Enemy dead littered the lawn. An old woma
n — Corbec had no idea who the feth she was — was kneeling on the gravel path and weeping over the body of a young Alliance soldier. On the steps of the porch, a Krassian corpsman was treating a Tanith trooper for multiple injuries. He was shouting out for a medic as he worked. The Tanith man was so covered in blood he was unrecognisable at first. A bad leg wound, a gut shot, a scalp wound, something messy through the left shoulder.
Corbec ignored Varl and knelt down beside the man. Only then did he realise it was Mkvenner.
“Feth, Ven! It was only meant to be a patrol!”
“That’s all it was,” said Mkvenner, weakly blinking blood out of his eyes.
“You’ll be okay,” Corbec said. “Make him okay, feth it!” he said, looking up at the frantic corpsman.
“You got our signal then?” Mkvenner whispered.
“If you’re going to waste talk, don’t state the fething obvious. We got it, Ven, we came. We kicked their arses back into the woods. You did a fine job, you and the rest.”
“Commendations,” Mkvenner sighed.
“Just shut up now,” said Corbec.
Mkvenner shook his head. “I may not get another chance to say this, Colm. I commend them all. All of them. They were true to the last. First and last. If Jajjo made it, then he deserves scout rank. Muril too, no question. Make sure she knows I commended her. And I want a special mention put in to Alliance GSC. Will you do that for me, sir?”
“Of course I will.”
“Private First Class Rufo Peterik, Sixteenth Brunsgatters. For valour. Can you remember that name, Colm?”
“I will, but I won’t have to, Ven. ’Cause you’re fething well not going to die.”
Krassian medicae ran up the front lawn to assist the corps-man. Corbec rose and turned to Varl.
“Tell me. How bad?”
“Piet Gutes is dead in that room there. Looks like he gave a good account of himself. Rerval’s alive. Took a hit to the face in an earlier phase of action. Docs are with him now.”
“That’s something,” Corbec sighed. He’d missed his vox man these last few days.
“Brostin, Feygor and Caffran made it too, though Brostin and Caff are hurt bad. Somehow Feygor came out without a scratch.”
“Luck of the devil,” Corbec said. “What about the rest?”
“Larkin’s touch and go. Doc Mtane’s with him. Head wound. The doc doesn’t know if he’ll make it. Says we have to get Larks back to Ins Arbor for surgery.”
“Feth,” said Corbec.
“I—” Varl began. “What?”
“I found Muril upstairs with Larks. The bastards had bayonetted her.”
Corbec closed his eyes. He felt a pain worse than any injury he’d ever received. “I want to go see her,” he said.
“Chief—” Varl tried to stop him. “You don’t want to see that.”
“I need to, Varl. I need to.” Corbec pushed past the sergeant and walked up the steps into the house.
In the doorway, he paused and glanced back at Varl.
“What about Cuu?”
“Oh, he made it,” Varl said.
There was a lot of commotion around the house. Not the same sort of commotion that had all but demolished it, but still. Troop carriers were gliding up. Krassian tanks were churning up over the lawns and into the woods.
There was a gak of a fight going on up there in the trees.
Not his problem anymore.
Lijah Cuu sat on an old bench at the side of the front lawn and watched it all.
He licked the blood from the straight silver of his warknife and slid it away into its scabbard.
EIGHTEEN
ENDING IN THE MIDDLE
“When I speak of a body in this way, I mean the body as a figure for an armed force. To the leader, that force becomes his body. He must care for it and drive it and feed it and see to its well-being and its ills. It thuswise becomes his limbs, and organs of life and sense, the body militant. Thus the scale magnifies. All commanders and their men are bodies in war, fighting and falling in the way of things as sole men fight and fall and shew their woundings.”
—DeMarchese, On The Use of Armies
A week later, in the dismal streets of Gibsgatte, more rain fell.
Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, still limping slightly from the rifle-round that had scraped him during the six-hour break-out from the Shadik lines, came up the steps of the Sezaria, a gold-domed building that dominated the skyline of the dirty northern city.
Bande Sezari sentries at the door checked his papers and then bowed to admit him, the struthid plumes in their caps touching the floor.
Gaunt nodded to them with genuine respect. He knew who the Bande Sezari were now. He’d seen several of them fight to the last.
An Alliance adjutant escorted him up three flights and along a splendid corridor of gilt-framed paintings. The adjutant knocked at a set of painted doors and announced him.
“Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, sir.”
Gaunt stepped in, the doors dosing behind him, and saluted.
Supreme Commander Lyntor-Sewq rose, and came round his desk to greet Gaunt. “Good to see you, Gaunt”
“Sir.”
Lyntor-Sewq was a thin, bald man with a plucked moustache and limpid eyes. “How are you, sir?” he asked.
“Well enough.”
“Leg troubling you?”
“Not so much, thank you for asking.”
“Rough ride you must have had, getting out from the enemy lines that night.”
“Indeed, sir. It took us a day and a half, all told, laying low, moving when it was clear.”
“Your stealthing arts. Why, they’re the talk of the General Staff! You ran into trouble, though?”
“Yes, sir. Twice. The last time when we were almost clear. I lost a few good soldiers there.”
“A terrible shame, Gaunt Drink?”
“I’ll take a small amasec, sir.”
Lyntor-Sewq poured two drinks into priceless crystal glasses. He handed one to Gaunt. “Here’s to your efforts, sir,” said the supreme commander.
“And my dead,” returned Gaunt.
“Quite so.” They sipped.
Lyntor-Sewq led him over to a chart table on which the full expanse of the Aexe Cardinal war was laid out.
“Many doubted you, Gaunt. You and the Imperials. Of course, we were grateful for your intervention. But still… I won’t ever mention your name to Redjacq Ankre.”
“If I never see him again, sir, I will not be forlorn.”
Lyntor-Sewq chuckled. “We got the guns. The siege-guns. I’m sure you’ve been told. They were stuck right where you’d stranded them. A flight of marauder aircraft destroyed them the following night. Those marauders. Fine vessels. I’d dearly like a few to bolster the Alliance Air Corps.”
“I’m sure General Van Voytz will oblige. Actually, I expected to see him here today.”
Lyntor-Sewq smiled. “He’s gone south. To Frergarten. We’re pushing up through the Montorq now, you know. And that’s where I must thank you again. Your scout units, stemming the tide, calling a warning. Alerting us to the presence of the arch-enemy elite on Aexegarian soil. My plans have changed, of course. Radically. But I’m focusing on the new initiative, and I think we may have turned a corner. The war will be over by Candlemas.”
Gaunt finished his drink. “I hope so, sir,” he said. “Either that, or this war will last forever.”
Lyntor-Sewq looked down into his glass grimly. “It takes as long as it takes,” he said.
Gaunt nodded. He’d been reviewing battle reports for the last week. They’d killed the super-guns and fronted the invasion through the Montorq and even so both actions seemed like tiny pieces of a whole Sarvo had been lost. The Meiseq Box punctured. The lower Naeme Valley overrun. The Ostlund Shield broken in two places. For every victory, a loss. For every metre taken, a death. The war simply ground on, like a furnace fed by manpower.
“I presume you’ll be deploying my units to new locations?” br />
“Actually, no.” The supreme commander handed Gaunt a data-slate. “New orders. From the Warmaster, relayed by the Astropathicus. Your regiment is being retasked. Navy transports are moving in system to collect you.”
Gaunt looked at the slate.
He felt a peculiar sense of shock. He’d never been pulled out of a warzone before the fighting was done. In his opinion, there was still a year or more of bloodshed to go on Aexe Cardinal before the Imperium could claim victory. Macaroth was pulling the Tanith First out. It was like ending in the middle of things. According to the slate, elements of the Second Crusade Army were moving in to replace them and finish the job.
And his heart skipped when he saw the destination the Ghosts were heading to.
“The Emperor protect you, where you’re going,” Lyntor-Sewq said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I only asked you here today to give you this.”
He reached into his desk and produced a slim, oblong box covered in gold-flecked blue satin. Lyntor-Sewq opened it.
A Gold Aquila, pinned to a white silk ribbon, lay in the cushioned interior.
“This is to acknowledge your devoted service to Aexe Cardinal. The Order of the Eagle. The greatest honour it is in the high sezar’s gift to bestow.”
Gaunt had seen one before, pinned proudly to Iaco Fep Golke’s coat. He dearly wanted to take the medal and stuff it into Lyntor-Sewq’s throat until he choked. Or at least refuse it. But he knew the trouble that would follow if he did either.
He allowed the supreme commander to pin it on him, and saluted. He’d wear it now, and never again.
As Gaunt strode out through the echoing hallway of the Sezari, an officer of the Bande Sezari raced up to him with a package wrapped in brown paper.
“Sir,” he said. “Tactician Biota said to expect you and give this to you with his compliments.”
Gaunt took the package with a vague nod.
Beltayn was waiting outside, sitting behind the wheel of a huge black staff car. His thumb was better. He could do gears now.