Gaunt knew that much from a dog-eared, obsolete touring guide he’d discovered under his bed the night before.
Allied staff headquarters was thronging with activity. In the inner cloister, a rank of despatch riders waited on humming motorcycles. Sheafs of telegraph and vox-cable trunked out of windows and noodled up into the dish arrays anchored to the rooves. A shield mast attached to a portable generator dominated the quadrangle, the grass beneath it brown and dead from radiation.
Gaunt hurried up the front steps of the main chapel, accepting the salutes of passing Alliance officers.
“Where’s Van Voytz?” he asked an adjutant at the desk.
“You mean General Van Voytz?” the adjutant replied testily without looking up.
“If we’re going to be formal, you say ‘Lord General Van Voytz, colonel-commissar, sir,’” Gaunt growled, snapping his fingers so that the adjutant would look up. He did and gulped.
“Beg pardon, sir. The lord general has gone ahead to Meiseq, but he’s expected back tomorrow night.”
“I want to vox him.”
“Vox-lines have been cut by last night’s barrage, sir.”
Put another way, something’s awry, Gaunt thought. “What about Lyntor-Sewq?”
“The supreme commander has been called away, sir.”
“Feth it!” snarled Gaunt. “I need to be briefed. I need to see charts! I need—”
“One moment, sir. I’ll ring through.”
The adjutant hurriedly lifted the receiver of his field telephone and cranked the handle. “Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, for briefing,” he said and paused.
“Wait one moment, sir,” he told Gaunt, replacing the handset.
“Colonel-Commissar!” the voice echoed around the hall. Gaunt looked round to see a tall, pale, ginger haired officer in a dark red uniform advancing towards him across the paved hallway.
Gaunt saluted him.
“Gaunt, Tanith First-and-Only.”
“Redjacq Ankre, Kottstadt Wyverns. I’m acting authority for the Alliance in Lyntor-Sewq’s absence. Follow me.”
Gaunt fell into step with the taller man, and they walked down towards the doors of the main situations room. There was something about Ankre, something in his bearing and manner, that made Gaunt bristle. But he ignored the feeling. He’d been Guard long enough to know that you often didn’t like the men you had to count as allies. Stifling personal opinion usually helped get the job done.
“I met some of your men last night,” Ankre said, apropos of nothing.
“Indeed?”
“A scout party.”
“Ah yes, I sent them ahead.”
“You didn’t trust our intelligence reports?”
Gaunt stopped and made eye contact with the big redhead. “I’m sure they’re fine. I haven’t actually seen one,” he said venomously. Ankre paused, not sure how best to deal with the criticism. Before he had time to make his mind up, Gaunt smoothed past the remark by saying, “So, you were at the front last night?”
“Yes, I was,” the colonel replied stiffly.
“It seemed like you took a bruising. New heavy siege weapons, I hear.”
“I didn’t think you’d read a briefing,” Ankre said, enjoying the slyness of his retort.
“I have eyes and ears. So… new enemy tactics, then? New weapons?”
“Yes,” said Ankre. A sentry in green Alliance fatigues saluted and held the door for them.
The nave of the old chapel had been converted for military use. The windows were taped and blacked, though Gaunt could make out the lead ridges of the old stained glass. Flak-board baffles lined the room, banked with sandbags, and the air was dry and warm and smelled of electricity. Glow-globes floated beneath the rafters, illuminating a central area busy with technicians, aides and officers. Portable codifiers and high-gain vox-casters had been uncrated and set up on trestles. There was a constant murmur of voices, a chatter of machines, the occasional whistle of tuning vox-channels, background static. A pair of hooded acolytes from the Adeptus Mechanicus were blessing the servitors that were being installed at the new Imperial vox-units.
The situations room was a confidential area. Inside the door, Gaunt had to give his name and serial code to a clerk and was issued with a small green pin-badge. High Command wanted a thorough record of everyone who came and went.
Ankre led Gaunt across to a chart table, which Gaunt studied keenly. It was a complete mess of over-mapped gibberish. Ankre gave him a blurred, low-detail map showing only a small field section. It had been printed on flimsy paper.
“Your regiment is to move up to the 55th sector along communication line 2319 at dusk tonight and take position along the front to secure stations 287 to 295. Your chain of command is to Major Neillands at station 280 and then to General Hargunten at Area/Sector. Here are the day’s challenge codes and vox frequencies.” Ankre handed Gaunt a data-slate. “Familiarise yourself with them and then erase the slate.”
“My chain of command runs through a major?” asked Gaunt. “Is there a problem?”
“This Neillands will relay orders from area/sector?”
“Of course, in the event that you can’t receive them yourself… if, say, vox is down.”
“What if Neillands can’t receive orders from area/sector… if, say, his vox is down? I answer to him?”
Ankre shrugged as if he still couldn’t see what the problem was. “Yes, as I have said—”
“I heard what you said, colonel. I just don’t believe it. You are saying that, in certain circumstances, most likely the kind of circumstances when it really matters, I am supposed to answer to a junior officer? I am expected to put my command… my regiment… into his hands?”
Ankre frowned. “Get me the General Order Book,” he told an aide. The man returned in a few seconds bearing a fat, red-sleeved folder stamped with the Alliance crest and the words “Most Secret — Destroy in Case of Jeopardy. Ankre leafed through it. Gaunt could see that most of the pages were typewritten inserts, pasted or stapled in. The supreme commander has this arranged in black and white,” he said, unamused. “His tactical staff working party drew it up once we’d been advised of your approach. Here… chain of command as I said.”
“Let me see that,” said Gaunt. Ankre seemed reluctant to let the book go, but handed it over after a pause. Gaunt read down the badly typed order docket. “This says nothing about our position. No specifics. It simply says that we are to answer to the primary officer of whatever sector we are sent to—”
“That’s General Hargunten.”
“And secondarily to the senior Alliance officer in our line area.”
“Exactly what I said. The senior Alliance officer in your line area is Major Neillands of the Feinster Highlanders.”
Gaunt shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think rather that Major Neillands should answer to me. In the event that we lose contact with area/sector, that would be the best protocol.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” said Ankre. “The word you seem to be ignoring is ‘Alliance’. You are to answer to the Alliance chain of command. The supreme commander is merely following the will of the high sezar. He has made it clear that the Aexe Alliance forces are to remain in control of this war. If that means you have to swallow your pride and answer to a major, then deal with it. You have come here to fight for the Alliance.”
“I have come here to fight for the Emperor,” Gaunt hissed. “We stand together against Shadik. We of the Guard are now part of the Alliance.”
“Not technically,” said Ankre, taking the folder out of Gaunt’s hands and thumbing to another page. “Here. It is quite specific. The Imperial expedition is termed ‘auxiliary support’.”
He closed the folder and smiled as if to suggest he had won the short debate. Gaunt knew there was absolutely no point arguing with him. He’d met men like Ankre before. He’d go over his head.
Gaunt turned to the chart and found, with some difficulty, the station points Ankre had mentio
ned. “This is the front line?”
“Yes.”
“My men are light infantry, specialising in covert action. It’s a waste to put them there.”
“We do not have the luxury of being choosy. Stations 287 through to 311 were overrun last night by the enemy, the largest breach in the Peinforq Line. The enemy has been driven out, but reinforcement is essential in that area. Vital. A brigade of Krassians will move forward to fill stations 296 to 311, to the north of you.”
“I repeat my objection.”
“Are you afraid your men will be unable to hold a trench line?”
Gaunt took off his cap and his gloves and set them down on the edge of the chart table. This action gave him a few seconds to breathe deeply and still his rage.
“I am afraid of nothing except the stupidity of a blinkered high command system,” he replied.
Ankre stepped back a pace and lowered his head slightly, aggressively. “The supreme commander selected the Tanith for this position entirely on the basis of the good account your scout party made of itself last night. The whole of 55th sector is talking about it this morning. A handful of men, but they turned the tide at station 143. That’s the kind of expertise the commander wants at the line, especially at a stretch that is weak and vulnerable.”
“Even if we are merely auxiliary support?”
Ankre handed the folder back to the waiting aide. “I think we’re done here, colonel-commissar,” he said.
“I want a copy of the field charts,” said Gaunt.
“Why?” asked Ankre, now clearly beginning to lose his patience.
Gaunt held up the flimsy field map. “Because this shows only my immediate position.”
“Your point?”
“How can I effect optimal command if I only get to see the specific vicinity? How can I appreciate the battle as a whole?”
“You don’t need to. You have a specific duty. That is what you must perform. That is all you should be interested in.”
Gaunt slid the map and the data-slate into his coat and put his gloves and cap back on. “I can’t believe that in this day and age you’re still fighting wars like this,” he said. “Have you never read Macharius? Solon? Slaydo?”
“None of those fine warriors are here on Aexe,” said Ankre.
“More’s the pity,” snapped Gaunt. He strode away, then turned and glared back at Ankre. “I’ll mobilise my troops. But I will not move them up the line until I have met with an Alliance commander — any Alliance commander — who can verify these orders more satisfactorily than you. Make that happen, colonel. Make that happen fast.”
Ankre’s look was murderous. “This is tantamount to insubordination. I could have you—”
“Word of advice,” said Gaunt, cutting in sharply. “You do not ever want to mess with me. Bite your tongue, find me someone more useful than yourself, and never threaten me again. Are we clear?”
Ankre said nothing. The whole situations room had fallen silent. Gaunt turned his back on them all and marched out.
“Do me a favour,” sighed Dorden. “Hold the feth still, eh?”
Trooper Caober shrugged. “It’s sore as a scalded shoggy, doc,” he moaned.
“You’re a big boy. Shut up. Do you see Ven making a fuss? You do not. He’s bleeding like a stuck hog, but do we hear a whimper? We do not at all. So shut up.”
Caober sighed and gritted his teeth. He was sitting up on a wooden table in the Ghosts’ temporary medicae station, a derelict woollen mill on the southern fringe of Rhonforq. The mill was big and old, built from flinty, black stone, and straddled a gushing stream that the wool-workers had once used for washing excess lanolin from the fleeces. There was a damp, fatty smell, and every surface was sticky with grease. The orderlies had offered to scrub it down with bristle-brushes, but Dorden didn’t suppose they would be there long enough for it to be worth the elbow. Midday sunlight, hard and yellow, stabbed down through ventilator panels in the high, tiled roof, and lit the hall with a sickly light. Most of the mill equipment had been shifted out long since. Tiny shreds of wool fibre still dung to nicks in beams and rough brick edges.
Mkoll’s team had arrived back in Rhonforq at 11.30 that morning, and Mkoll, Caober and Mkvenner had reported immediately to the medicae station. Dorden was tending to Caober’s wrenched ankle while Lesp dressed Mkvenner’s ear-wound. Mkoll had said his own injuries could wait. An adjoining mill hall had been occupied by the Krassian medics, and many voices echoed through from the Krassian troops lining up for inoculator shots.
“How did this happen again?” asked Dorden, examining the scout’s bared foot and ankle. The flesh was puffy and lilac with bruising.
“It — ow!—it got stood on. There was a fight.”
“So Mkoll says. A good one?”
“So-so. You know.”
Dorden glanced up at Caober. “No, I don’t. Tell me about it. Allow me to live the war vicariously through your bravado while I stay back here soaking bandages.”
“There was a fight. Ow! A fight. In the trench. Enemies came in, so we fought them. I — ow!—got my ankle stood on.”
Caober faltered and his voice tailed off. He was a fine scout, but his story-telling ability left everything to be desired.
Dorden continued to wind bandages tightly around Caober’s ankle. “Somebody fill me in. Ven?”
Mkvenner looked up, his ear packed with gauze. “Pardon?”
Dorden laughed, and so did everyone else — Lesp, washing his hands in a tin bowl, Chayker and Foskin sorting surgical tools. Even Mkoll, sitting on a chair in the corner.
“What’s funny? I can’t hear,” growled Mkvenner. The laughter stopped. No one wanted Mkvenner to think they were taking the piss out of him. Mkvenner was one of those Ghosts you respected, every second of the day.
“When the barrage started, they tested the line with trench raiders,” Mkoll said as he got up. Dorden could tell at a glance he was holding himself stiffly as he moved. “It got very messy. The locals weren’t at all prepared.”
Dorden tied off the bandage and called over to Foskin. “Get Caober’s boot back on, loose, and find him a crutch. Stay off it for a few days and you’ll be good to go.” He wiped his hands and moved over to Mkoll. “Let’s take a look,” he said.
Mkoll started to take off his webbing and jacket, but it clearly hurt him to lift his arms, so Dorden helped him strip down to the waist. The bruise across the pale flesh of his chest was ugly and black.
“Feth! You been playing smack-stick again?” asked Dorden.
“Rifle round. Took it last night. Didn’t notice it at the time. Adrenalin, I suppose. Been hurting like a fether since dawn, though.”
Dorden tutted and sprayed Mkoll’s wound with counter-septic. By his side, Foskin clucked in amazement. He’d been folding Mkoll’s clothes and kit. He held up a mangled large calibre round. “Your chest armour stopped this,” he said. “It was buried in your breast-guard. You want me to throw it away?”
Mkoll took it and put in his trouser pocket. He had his own battlefield superstitions.
“I see the war’s started without me,” said a voice from behind them. Gaunt had entered the mill. “Carry on,” he added, before they all started throwing salutes. He peered at Mkoll’s hefty bruise. “First blood to them, I take it?”
“We gave a good account,” said Mkoll.
“So I hear. I met your fan club. A Colonel Ankre.”
“Who?” murmured Mkoll. “Oh, him. The red-head. I didn’t think he’d taken to us much.”
“You’re the heroes of the line, my friend,” said Gaunt sarcastically. “The locals are so impressed, they’ve given us a whole front trench to hold.”
“Feth,” Mkoll said.
“You told them—” Dorden began.
“Oh, I told them all right. I don’t think they were listening.” Gaunt sighed. He handed the flimsy map to Mkoll. “This is what we’re taking on, if they have their way.”
Mkoll looked over the slip. ?
??Bad place. Took the worst of it last night. The very worst The river comes in close here, you see? The parapet is low and waterlogged. Ideal for storming. I wasn’t sure they’d even got it clear.”
“Tell me what you saw up front,” Gaunt said, sitting down as Dorden dressed Mkoll’s nasty wound.
“The Alliance soldiers we saw were tired and over-stretched. Ill too, most of them. Low sanitation, low hygiene. What’s worse, they have precious little discipline. They fight well enough when they’re ordered up and controlled, but there’s no sign of initiative.”
“They panicked when the raid started,” said Caober.
“To be fair,” said Mkvenner, “they panicked when the shelling started. They’d never seen that before, not like that. I think they were fairly fit as front-line infantry, but when those new super-guns opened up, they were milling and broken and scared. And the enemy raiders punched right in through them.”
Gaunt nodded. “The enemy?”
“Good, tight professional. Solid ammo weapons, some body armour. The grenadiers are their strength. Simple explosives, but effective, and in large numbers.”
Gaunt listened to his chief scout and then said, “So… what does Lord General Mkoll think?”
It was a private joke. Gaunt trusted Mkoll’s tactical mind absolutely, and often voiced this hypothetical question. If Mkoll was supreme commander here, what would he do?
“This fight’ll go on till doomsday,” said Mkoll, once he’d considered things. “It’s been going on forty years. A deadlock. You might think that Guard reinforcements like us might overtip the balance in favour of the Alliance, but then so might these new super-guns, in favour of the enemy. What I’m saying is it’ll take something new, something lateral, to break this. Can’t say what with only this fething map to go by.”