“What are we doing here?” Rawne growled. “Our duty,” Gaunt told him.
The bar owner returned with a pathetically dented tray on which sat three shot glasses of different sizes and a bottle of amasec.
He set the glasses down in front of the trio. “My apologies. These are the only glasses I could find that haven’t been broken.”
“In that case,” Gaunt assured him, “they will be perfect.” The owner nodded, and filled each glass up with the strong liquor.
“Leave the bottle,” Zweil advised him.
Rawne turned his glass slowly, eyeing the serious measure of alcohol. “What are we drinking to?” he asked.
“The glorious liberation of Cirenholm in the name of the God-Emperor!” Zweil declared, smacking his lips and raising his shot.
Gaunt arrested his rising arm with a hand. “No, we’re not. Well, not really. At battle’s end, Colm Corbec would have sniffed out the nearest bar and done just that. Today, he can’t. So we’re going to do it for him.”
Gaunt took up his glass and studied it dubiously, like it was venom.
“Colm Corbec. First-and-Only. Would that he was here now.”
He knocked back the shot in a single gulp. “Colm Corbec,” Rawne and Zweil echoed and sank their shots.
“How is he?” Rawne asked. “I’ve been at the front until now… not had a chance to… you know…”
“I went by the infirmary on my way here,” Gaunt said, playing with his empty glass. “No change. He’s probably going to die. The medics are amazed he’s lasted this long.”
“Won’t be the same without him…” Rawne muttered.
Gaunt looked round at him. “Did I just hear that from Major fething Rawne?”
Rawne scowled. “There’s no shame in admitting we’ll be poorer without Corbec. Now, if it was you that was at death’s door, I’d be buying drinks for the whole fething regiment.”
Gaunt laughed.
“Speaking of which,” Zweil said, refilling their glasses.
Gaunt held his glass but didn’t drink. “I made a point of seeing Raglon earlier. Gave him brevet command of second platoon. He’s got the chops for it, and as Corbec’s adjutant, he’s the obvious choice.”
Rawne nodded.
“And, on the record for a moment, I hereby give you second command, major. Until further notice.”
“Not Daur?” asked Zweil.
“Feth Daur!” Rawne spat, knocking back his drink. “No, ayatani. Not Daur,” said Gaunt. “Any reason it should be?”
Zweil sipped his drink and shrugged. “The divide, I suppose.”
“The what?” asked Rawne, refreshing his own glass.
“The divide between the Tanith and the Verghastites,” Zweil explained. “The Vervunhive mob feel like they’re always in second place. In terms of morale, raising Daur to second would have pleased them.”
Rawne snorted. “Fething Verghasts.”
Gaunt looked round at Zweil. The priest’s remarks had reminded him forcefully of Hark’s comments on the observation deck a few days before. Had Hark and Zweil been talking? “Look, ayatani-father… I admire you and trust you, I use your advice and seek your council… spiritually. But when it comes to regiment protocol, I trust myself. Thank you for your opinion though.”
“Hey, I was just saying—” said Zweil.
“The Tanith First is the Tanith First,” said Gaunt. “I want to make sure there’s a balance, but when it comes to second officer, it has to be a Tanith in the role. Elevating Daur would give the wrong message to the men.”
“Well, you know what you’re doing, Ibram. Be careful of that balance, though. Don’t lose the Verghasts. They already feel they’re second-class Ghosts.”
“They are,” said Rawne.
“Enough, Rawne. I expect you to use the Verghastites as well as you use the Tanith.”
“Whatever.”
“How’s Soric?” Zweil asked.
Gaunt raised his drink. “Dying, like Corbec. Faster, perhaps.”
“Here’s to the soul of the Verghasts, then,” said Zweil. “Agun Soric.”
They toasted and drained their shots.
Rawne made to top up their glasses from the bottle. “And a toast to the next action, God-Emperor save us. Ouranberg. May it be half of Cirenholm.”
“It won’t be,” said Gaunt. He covered his empty glass to stop Rawne filling it. One for Colm, one for Soric. That would do. “It will be hell. The lord general’s struck with some idea involving the Ghosts that he won’t explain. I have a bad feeling about it. And it’s been confirmed that Sagittar Slaith is in personal command of Ouranberg.”
“Slaith himself?” muttered Rawne. “Feth.”
“There is some good news,” Gaunt said. “A drogue arrived from Hessenville this morning with twenty thousand size three clips in its hold.”
“Praise be!” said Rawne humourlessly.
“Praise be indeed,” Gaunt said. “The invasion drop is imminent and I’m just glad the Ghosts will be going in well supplied.”
“I just hope the business with Caffran is done by then,” said Rawne.
“What business?” Gaunt asked.
“Oh, the murder thing?” said Zweil. “That was just ghastly.”
“What ‘business’? What ‘murder thing’?” Gaunt growled.
“Oh dear,” teased Rawne. “Did I say too much? Has Hark been keeping it from you?”
“Keeping what?”
“The First-and-Only’s dirty laundry,” said Rawne. “I’m surprised at Caffran, actually. Didn’t think he had it in him. Son of a bitch has plentiful grazing in that Criid woman without looking elsewhere. And murder? He has to be really fethed up to do that sort of shit. Heyyy!”
Gaunt had pushed Rawne off the end of the bench to get past him.
“Gaunt? Gaunt?” Zweil cried. But the colonel-commissar was running up the steps into the street and gone.
Viktor Hark backed across the room, bumped into a filing cabinet and realised there was nowhere left to retreat to.
“Wben were you intending to tell me, Viktor?” asked Gaunt.
Hark rose slowly. “You were busy. With the lord general. And politically, I thought you could do with being distanced from it.”
“I brought you into this unit to serve as a political officer I could trust. Play all the spin you like, Viktor. But don’t you ever dare keep me out of the loop again.”
Hark straightened his jacket and looked at Gaunt. “You don’t want this, Ibram,” he said softly.
“Feth that! I am the Ghosts! All the Ghosts! If it affects any one of them, it affects me.”
Hark shook his head. “How did you ever get this far being so naive?”
“How did I ever think to trust you that you don’t know that?” said Gaunt.
Hark shook his head sadly. He reached to the desk and handed Gaunt a data-slate. “A hab-wife called Onti Flyte was butchered three nights ago. Stabbed with a Tanith knife. Witnesses saw a Ghost running from the premises. The victim’s son positively identified Caffran. Case closed. I didn’t bother you with it because it was just a minor incident. That’s what I’m here for, sir. Taking care of the crap while you focus on the bigger picture.”
“Is that so? What will happen to Caffran?”
“Commissar Del Mar has ordered his execution by las-squad at dawn tomorrow.”
“And it didn’t occur to you that I’d question the loss of a trooper as valuable as Caffran?”
“Given his crime, no sir.”
“And what does Caff say?”
“He denies it, of course.”
“Of course… he’ll deny it particularly if he was innocent. I take it at least a routine investigation is being carried out? Witnesses can sometimes be mistaken.”
“Del Mar’s staff is running the case. A Commissar Fultingo is lea—”
“You’ve just washed your hands of it?” Hark fell silent.
“Local, civil law enforcement and the task force Commi
ssariate have jurisdiction, of course. But this is also squarely a regimental matter. A matter for us. If there’s a chance Caffran is innocent, I’m not going to let it go. Leave me the slate and get out of here,” Gaunt said.
Hark tossed the data-slate onto the table and walked out. “Sir?” he asked, pausing in the doorway. “I know Caffran’s been with you from the start. I know he’s well-liked and that he’s a good soldier. But this is open and shut. The Tanith First are a remarkably well-behaved group of soldiers, you know. Sure, we get to deal with brawling and drinking, a few feuds and thefts, but nothing compared to some units I’ve served with. Summary execution for capital offences is almost routine in other regiments. Murder, manslaughter, rape. The Guard is full of killers and many of them can’t help themselves. Dammit, you know that! Strict, rapid discipline is the only way to maintain control. I repeat, this is just a minor incident. It is nothing compared with the vital nature of the holy war we’re undertaking. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on this.”
“I’m wasting my time, Hark, precisely because it is so uncommon in this regiment. Now get the feth out of my sight for a while.”
Varl found his way to the infirmary by following the scent of disinfectant It was confusing at first because almost every hallway and access in the secondary dome smelled of the stuff. There were Munitorium and civil work gangs all over the city hosing down floors and scrubbing away the reek and filth of the enemy.
But the infirmary had a stink of its own. Disinfectant. Blood.
The taskforce medicae had occupied an apprentices’ college on one of the mid-level floors, close by the dome skin. The walls and roofs of some of the larger rooms demonstrated the gentle curve of the city’s shape. Flakboard and shielding raised by the enemy had been stripped away from the windows to let in the cool light. Outside, through thick, discoloured armourglas, the pearly cloudscape spread away as far as the eye could see.
The place was busy. Varl edged his way in between weary nurses and arguing orderlies, bustling corpsmen resupplying their field kits from a dispensary, cleaning crews, walking wounded. Every chamber he passed was full of casualties, mainly Urdeshi, supported in crude but functional conditions. The worst cases were screened off in side wards.
The smell of pain was inescapable, and so was the low, background murmur of groans.
Varl slid his back to a wall to allow two medicae orderlies hurrying along with a resuscitrex cart to pass, and then entered the gloom of an intensive ward. The lighting was low-level, and trained around the individual beds. There was a steady, arrhythmic bleep of vitalators and the asthmatic wheeze and thump of the automatic respirator bellows.
Corbec lay on a rumpled cot, half-tangled in khaki sheets, like a shroud-wrapped pieta in an Imperial hero shrine. His limbs were sprawled, knotted in the fabric, as if he had turned restlessly in his dreams. Drips and monitor cables were variously anchored into his massive arms and chest, and his mouth and nose were plugged with larger, thicker tubes. It looked as if they were choking him. Corbec’s eyes were sealed with surgical tape. Through his thick, black body hair it was possible to see the yellowing bruises and the hundreds of little, scabby cuts that marked his skin.
Varl stood looking at him for a long time and realised he couldn’t think of anything to say or do. He wasn’t even sure why he’d come.
He was halfway down the corridor on his way out when Dorden called out to him.
“Looking in on the chief, Varl?” the old doctor asked, coming over, his attention half on a data-slate he was reviewing.
Varl shrugged. “Yeah, I—”
“You’re not the first. Been Tanith in here all morning. In ones or twos. A few Verghastites too. Paying their respects.”
Varl breathed out deeply and stuck his hands in his pockets of his black combat pants. “I don’t know about respects,” he said. “I don’t mean that nasty, doc. I mean I… I think I just came to see.”
“To see Colm?”
“To see if it was true. Corbec’s dying, they say. But I couldn’t picture it Couldn’t see it in my head to believe it.”
“And now?” asked Dorden, handing the slate to a passing nurse.
“Still can’t.” Varl grinned. “He’s not going to die, is he?”
“Well, we should all keep hoping and praying—”
“No, doc. I wasn’t looking for no reassurance. If he’s going to die, I hope you’d tell me. I just don’t feel it. Standing there, I just don’t. It doesn’t feel like his time. Like he’s not ready and he’s fething well not going to let go.”
It was Dorden’s turn to smile. “You saw that too, huh? I haven’t said that to anyone because I didn’t want to get hopes up unfairly. But I feel it that way as well.”
“Doesn’t seem hardly fair, does it?” said Varl. “Corbec takes some punishment He almost missed the show on Hagia and I know those injuries have only just healed. Now this.”
“Colm Corbec is a brave man and he takes risks. Too many risks, in my opinion. Mainly because, like all good officers, he leads by example. You know he got messed up this way saving Muril’s life?”
“I heard.”
“Take risks, Varl, and sooner or later you get hurt. In Corbec’s case sooner and later.”
Varl nodded, threw a half-salute, and turned to go. Then he hesitated.
“Doc?”
“Yes, sergeant?”
“About taking risks. I, uh… look, if I tell you something, it’s just between us, right?”
“I can offer standard medicae confidentiality, Varl, providing it doesn’t conflict with Guard security issues. And… I’m your friend.”
“Right, good.” Varl drew Dorden to one side, off the main corridor, into the entrance to one of the critical wards. He dropped his voice.
“Kolea.”
“Shoot.”
“He’s a fine soldier. One of the best”
“Agreed.”
“Good leader too.”
“No arguments.”
“We’d never have pushed the assault as far as we did if it hadn’t been for him. He really… he did a real Corbec, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. You men pulled off a great victory. Getting in as far as the mill to support Domor and Haller’s squads. Lucky break for us all. I hear Gaunt’s going to commend a bunch of you. Don’t tell him I told you.”
“It’s just well… Kolea was taking risks. Big risks. Crazy risks. Like he didn’t care if he lived or died. I mean, he was insane. Running into enemy fire. It was a miracle he wasn’t hit.”
“Some men deal with battle that way, Varl. I refer you to our previous conversation about Corbec.”
“I know, I know.” Varl struggled for the words. “But this wasn’t brave. This was… mad. Really fethed up. So mad, I said something to him, said I’d tell Gaunt what a crazy stunt he’d pulled. And he swore me not to. Begged me not to.”
“He’s modest—”
“Doc, Gol lost his wife and his kids on Verghast. I think… I think he doesn’t care anymore. Doesn’t care about his own life. I think he’s looking for the reunion round.”
“Really?”
“I’m sure of it. And if I’m right, he’s not only going to get himself dead, he’s going to become a risk to the men.”
“It’s good you told me this, Varl. Leave it with me for now. I’ll be discreet. Let me know if you catch any more behaviour like it from him.”
Varl nodded and made his way out.
The canvas curtain behind Dorden slid back and Curth came through, peeling off bloody surgical gloves and tossing them into a waste canister.
“I didn’t know you were there,” Dorden said.
“Assume I wasn’t.”
“That was a confidential chat, Ana.”
“I know. It’ll stay that way. I’m bound by the same oaths as you.”
“Good.”
“One thing,” she said, moving across to a trolley rack and sorting through data-slates. “What’s a reunion rou
nd?”
Dorden shook his head with a sigh. He scratched the grey stubble of his chin.
“Guard slang. It means… it means Kolea doesn’t want to live without his lost loved ones. His dead wife, kids. He wants to be with them again. And so he’s throwing himself into every fight that comes along without heed for his own safety, doing whatever he can do, until he finally catches that reunion round he’s praying to find. The one that will kill him and reunite him with his family.”
“Ah,” said Curth. “I had a nasty feeling that’s what it was.”
“What did you do?”
Caffran slowly rose to his feet mystified. The shackles linking his wrists clanked and drew tight where they ran down to his ankle-hobble. He’d been stripped down to his black vest and fatigue pants. His boot laces and belt had been removed.
“What do you mean?” he asked. His voice was dry and thin. The air in the dingy cell was damp and the light bad. A hunted look on Caffran’s face showed that he was still dealing with the shock of the accusations.
“I mean what did you do? Tell me.”
“I didn’t do anything. I swear.”
“You swear?”
“I swear! Nothing! Why… why have you come here, asking me that?”
Kolea stared at him. The shadows made it impossible for Caffran to read his expression.
Kolea was just a furious, threatening presence in the little cell.
“Because I want to know.”
“Why?”
Kolea took a menacing step forward. “If I find out you’re lying… if you hurt that woman—”
“Sergeant, please… I didn’t do anything!”
“Sergeant Kolea!”
Kolea stopped a few paces from Caffran. He turned slowly. Silhouetted, Gaunt stood in the cell doorway.
“What are you doing here, Kolea?” Gaunt asked, stepping into the cell.
“I—” Kolea fell silent.
“I asked you a question, sergeant.”
“The men in my troop were… concerned… about what Caffran had done… I—”
Gaunt held up a hand. “That’s enough. You’re out of line being here, Kolea. You should know that. Get out. Tell your men I’ll talk to them.”