“Yes, marshal,” Ironmeadow nodded.
“Ironmeadow here can be your liaison, if you’ve no objections?”
“None,” said Gaunt.
“Well, I won’t keep you from your work,” Sautoy said. He held out his hand again, and Gaunt shook it as briefly as he had the first time. “My senior staff dines at twenty hundred local, if you’d like to join us. I’ll make sure there’s a seat if you make it.”
“Thank you, marshal.”
“By the way, Ibram?” Sautoy said. “What happened to that unit of yours? You had command for a while, didn’t you?”
“I lost them, sir,” said Gaunt.
Behind Ironmeadow, with Eszrah in tow, Gaunt and Ludd headed to the logistics office at the far end of the house.
“Just wait here, sir,” Ironmeadow said. “I’ll get a billet assigned for you.” The captain disappeared into the office.
“You didn’t drink all your water,” Gaunt said to Ludd.
“I wasn’t that thirsty.”
“Drink it next time. All of it. Every chance you get. Water debt in this heat is going to be high, and I want you sharp, clear-headed and reliable.”
“Yes, commissar.”
They waited. “You said you know the marshal, sir? He certainly acted like you were friends,” said Ludd.
“You’d be better off reading my body language than his. Yes, I know Sautoy. Back on Fortis Binary. I was serving under Dravere then. Odious bastard, cruel as a whip. Sautoy was a colonel back then, part of Dravere’s oversized general staff. Toadies and runts, the lot of them. Sautoy was a desk-soldier, as I knew him, and I doubt he’s matured. He’s inherited his old commander’s habit of wearing medals that mean little. And he’s anxious to show himself well in with combat veterans like me. You heard how he kept using my first name, like we were pals? That was all for Ironmeadow’s benefit. It’ll get back to the rank and file.”
“You don’t like him?”
“Sautoy’s probably harmless enough, but that’s just it. He’s harmless. Toothless. He was so keen to impress on us how green the Guard strengths are here. Fresh-founded, draughtees, kids, most of them, getting their first taste of a real combat zone. What Sautoy neglected to mention was that the same can be said of the officer cadre, even the senior staff. Oh, there are exceptions… Van Voytz, naturally, and Humel and Kelso… but for the most part, Macaroth’s taken the cream with him to the front line. This Second Front’s being fought by children, commanded by inexperienced or unqualified commanders. No wonder the desertion and taint rate is so high.”
Ludd tried to look thoughtful, hoping that the conversation wouldn’t come round to his own utter lack of combat experience.
“Damn,” said Gaunt suddenly. “I completely forgot to ask Sautoy the key question.”
“Which one, sir?” asked Ludd.
“The one you asked.”
Ironmeadow returned. “I’ve arranged a billet. It’s alongside the Binar section. I’ll show you to it.”
They stepped out into the bright sunlight. Ludd reached for his glare-shades.
“I wonder if you can answer a question for me, Ironmeadow?”
“I’ll try, sir.”
“Why is the Guard prosecuting the step-cities this way? Why haven’t they been neutralised from orbit?”
Ironmeadow frowned. “I… I never thought to wonder, commissar,” he said. “I’ll find out.”
Ironmeadow led them a short way across the busy post into the neat files of the Fortis Binar billet area. In the row upon row of habi-tents, young troopers in beige fatigues relaxed and chatted, smoked, kicked balls around, or simply lay out of the sun in their cots, the sides of their habi-tents rolled up and secured. Many of the young men made to greet the captain, then backed off warily when they saw who was with him.
“Will this one do?” Ironmeadow asked, indicating an empty habi-tent near the end of one of the rows. It was a four-man model designed for officers.
“That’ll be fine, captain,” Gaunt said, nodding Eszrah inside to deposit the kit. The habi-tent was close to the main through-camp truckway, and only five minutes’ walk to the Command station.
“All right, captain,” Gaunt said to Ironmeadow. “Give us an hour to settle in here. Go scare me up some transport. And get some water brought here.”
“Yes, sir,” Ironmeadow nodded, and went off.
Gaunt took off his coat and cap, and sat down on one of the small camp chairs inside the tent. He was flicking his way through the disposition list Sautoy had given him.
“Throne,” he said after a while. “They weren’t lying about the desertion rates. Nineteen troopers sequestered in the last week alone for suspected corruption and taint.” He looked at Ludd. “Know how that feels. And look—”
Gaunt held the slate up so Ludd could see it. “There’s sickness too. Above the normal rate, I mean. There’s an especially bad case at post 15. A serious attrition of manpower.”
He put the dataslate down. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.
“Where to?”
“Just around,” Gaunt replied. He looked over at Eszrah. “Restye herein, soule,” he said.
The Nihtgane lay back on one of the cots.
Outside, Gaunt turned to two Fortis Binar troopers playing cards under the awning of their own habi-tent.
“You men.”
They jumped up. “Yes, sir!”
“No one goes to that tent or disturbs the man inside, got that? I’m counting on you both.”
“Yes, sir!”
They strolled their way around the limits of post 10. It was a typical large-scale Guard encampment, the kind Gaunt had seen so many times before. The large prefab structures that housed mess halls, the stores and workshops, the canvas drum-tents of field stations, the ordered aisles of the billets, the rows of parked vehicles. Transports and light armour grumbled down the roadways, troopers hurried about their duties. On parade areas, companies were being drilled. Ludd saw a mob of newly-arrived infantry disgorging from a line of trucks while power lifters unloaded their equipment crates. There was a smell of cooking, and the chemical tang of well-maintained latrines. In front of one large tent assembly, a platoon of Guardsmen in full battle dress were kneeling to receive the benediction from a robed ecclesiarch.
“Hardly the horrors of war,” Ludd remarked.
“Those await up-country in the hot zones,” Gaunt said. “And in here.” He tapped his own chest. The single most likely reason a man has to desert is fear of the unknown.
“In new recruits, that fear means everything. They’ve not seen combat, they’ve not seen injury or death. They’ve probably never left their home worlds before, and certainly not ever been this far away from their families and all things familiar. This post looks decent enough, but to most of them it’s probably a lonely, alien place. And their dreams are full of the horrors to come. So they break and they run.”
“My heart bleeds,” Ludd muttered.
Gaunt smiled. “For such a young man—and, forgive me for saying so, such an inexperienced person—you’re quite a hard sort, Ludd. Are you past this, or were you always made of stern stuff?”
Ludd shrugged, delighted by the sort-of-compliment. “I understand what you’ve said about these young men, sir, but I’ve never known those sentiments myself. I never had much attachment to any home. Since I was very young, I’ve wanted to do nothing except follow in my father’s footsteps. And you seem to forget, I am a product of Commissariat training.”
“You know, somehow I do seem to forget that. Which scholam?”
“Thaker Vulgatus, like my father. You, sir?”
“Ignatius Cardinal, more years ago than I care to remember.”
They had paused on the edge of the vehicle pound, at the west end of the post site. Gaunt took off his cap, mopped his brow and gazed out at the granite outcrops and shimmering lakes of the third compartment.
“What a strange place to fight a war,” he said.
“We
should be getting back,” Ludd noted, checking his time-piece. “Ironmeadow will be checking back, and I doubt you’ll want him left alone in Eszrah’s hands.”
The thought made Gaunt chuckle. He checked his own chronometer, and then started reaching down the sleeve of his coat.
“Sir?”
“Fething thing,” Gaunt grumbled, wrestling with his sleeve. He finally fished out his wrist chronometer. The primitive band had come loose and it had fallen back inside his cuff. He retied the instrument to his wrist.
“We should have—”
“Don’t say it, Ludd.”
They started to retrace their steps to the Binar billets. Ludd suddenly realised he was walking alone. He looked round. Gaunt had moved into the shadow of a depot shed and was standing quite still, staring at something.
“What is it?” Ludd asked, joining him.
“Those men there,” Gaunt said. Across the truckway, which was busy with passing traffic, Ludd saw a hard-stand where several cargo-8’s were parked behind a Munitorum storage prefab. Seven troopers in khaki fatigues, the sleeves of their jackets rolled up, were loading ration boxes onto the back of one of the trucks.
“What about them?”
“They were doing that when we passed by ten minutes ago,” Gaunt said. “How long does it take seven men to load a pile of boxes?”
Ludd shrugged. “I don’t see—”
“Then try, son. What exactly do you see? As a commissar, I mean?”
Ludd looked again, anxiously trying to identify whatever it was Gaunt’s practiced eye had seen.
“Well, Ludd?”
“Seven men…”
“What company?”
“Ah, Kolstec Fortieth, Forty-First, maybe.”
“What are they doing?”
“Loading ration packs onto a transport.”
“Is that all you see?”
“They look… relaxed.”
Yes. Nonchalant, almost. As if trying to look relaxed.”
“I don’t think—”
“Where’s the Munitorum senior, Ludd? In a depot, you can’t move for a grader or a senior checking things off. And since when did combat troops load field supplies? That’s servitor work.”
Ludd looked at Gaunt. “With respect, sir, is that all? I mean, there could be hundreds of reasons to explain the circumstances.”
“And I know one of them. Stay here. Right here, Ludd. Come only if I call you.”
“Commissar…”
“That was an order, junior,” Gaunt snapped. He stepped into the road, paused to let an ammo carrier sweep past, then swung in behind it into the middle of the truckway, skirting round a dusty cargo-12 grinding the other way, and arrived on the hardstand before any of the men had seen him approach.
“Hot work, lads?” he said.
They stopped what they were doing and stared at him. All of them were wearing glare-shades, but Gaunt read their body language quickly enough.
“I said, hot work?”
“Yes, commissar,” said one of them, a thick-set man with the stripes of a gunnery sergeant. “In this weather.”
“Tell me about it,” Gaunt said, removing his cap and making a show of wiping his brow. “Does it need seven of you to shift these cartons?”
The sergeant tilted his head slightly, good-humoured. “They’re heavy, sir.”
“I’m sure they are.” Gaunt eyed two of the other men, who were still hefting a box between them. “Please, lads, put that down. You’re making me sweat.”
Uneasily, the men set the box down. The others stood around by the open tailgate of the cargo-8, watching.
“Oh, look, I’m making you jumpy,” Gaunt said apologetically. “I know, I know, the uniform does that. Relax. I’m new at the post, just settling in. I came over because I recognised the uniform. Kolstec, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which outfit?”
“Forty-First, True and Bold,” the sergeant said. Some of his men grunted.
“I served alongside the Hammers. At Balhaut. Great soldiers, the Kolstec Hammers. Big old boots for you young men to fill.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How are you finding it?” Gaunt asked. He started patting down the pockets of his storm coat. “Damn it, where did I leave my smokes?”
The sergeant stepped forward and plucked a pack out of the rolled-up cuff of his fatigue jacket. Gaunt took a lho-stick and let the sergeant light it with his tin striker.
“Thanks,” Gaunt said, blowing out a mouthful of smoke. He took a step backwards, and his heel kicked the box the two men had set down. It slid back across the dry earth lightly. Gaunt back-kicked it again without looking. It slithered another good half-metre.
“Here’s a tip,” he said. “When you pretend to load heavy cartons, bend at the knees and make it look like it’s an effort. Break a fething sweat. Just so you know, next time.”
He looked at the sergeant. “Not that there’s going to be any next time.”
The sergeant lunged at Gaunt. Gaunt slapped the approaching fist aside and stabbed the man in the cheek with the lit lho-stick. The sergeant staggered back with a yelp. The other men were moving. One swung at Gaunt, missing him entirely as the commissar ducked, and got a fist in the mouth. He stumbled back, spitting blood and fragments of tooth, and Gaunt spun round, his coat-tails flying out, to deliver a side-kick to the man’s belly. Doubled up, the trooper slammed over onto the empty carton and crushed it flat.
Three more rushed in. One had a tyre iron in his hands.
On the far side of the truckway, Ludd started forward. “Oh Throne!” he murmured. “Oh Holy Throne!”
He ran out into the street, then jumped back, narrowly avoiding a personnel carrier that blared its horn at him. Ludd waited for it to pass, then ran out, dodging between transports and mechanised munitions carts. Halfway across, he was forced to stop dead to let a massive tread transporter grumble by the other way.
“Come on!” he yelled at the crawling load. “Come on!”
His cap flying off, Gaunt ducked low and punched a trooper hard in the chest, grabbed him by the front of his tunic, and punched him again. As the man fell away, paralysed and winded, Gaunt swung round and kicked the legs out from under the next man running at him, then rose to tackle the trooper with the tyre iron. This man was big, big and young. For a second, he reminded Gaunt of Bragg, big, dumb and eternally innocent.
Gaunt crossed his arms to meet the youth’s double-handed swing, and caught him in a tight, scissoring block. The trooper struggled back, trying to use the advantage of his size, but Gaunt had already kicked him in the kneecap and spilled him over. As the trooper slumped sideways, Gaunt wrenched him sharply around with his scissor grip, and the flailing blunt end of the tyre iron smacked into the face of the next attacker so hard his legs went up in front of him like he’d run into a tripwire.
“Come on!” Ludd yelped. The tread transporter was taking forever to move by.
A fist caught Gaunt’s jaw, snapping his head hard round. Gaunt tasted blood on his tongue where he’d bitten his own lip. He feinted left, dummied the man, and then felled him squarely with a socking straight-armed jab that Colm Corbec had once taught him. The old Pryze County Number One feth-your-face.
The Kolstec fell over, rolling up in a ball, wailing. Gaunt turned to the last one. The remaining trooper fell down onto his knees, shaking. “Please, please, sir, please… they said it would work. They said we’d get out of here… please… I only wanted to…”
“What?” Gaunt snapped.
“My home, sir. I wanted to go home.”
Gaunt squatted in front of the blubbering boy and slapped his clumped hands away from his face. “Look at me. Look at me! This is home now, trooper. This is the zone! It doesn’t make friends and it doesn’t like you, but by the Throne, it’s where you are! The Emperor wants you, boy! Did no one ever tell you that? The Emperor wants you to make his glory for him! How can you ever do that if you run for home?”
br /> “I’m scared, sir… they said it would be all right… they said…”
“You’re scared? You’re scared? What’s your name?”
The boy looked up at him. His eyes were red and wet. He was no more than seventeen years old. Like Caffran, Gaunt thought. Like Milo, Meryn, Cader, on the Founding Fields at Tanith Magna.
“Teritch, sir. Trooper third-class Teritch.”
“Teritch, if you’re scared, I’m terrified. The archenemy is no playmate. You’re going to see things, and be expected to do things your poor mother would have a fit at. But the Emperor expects and the Emperor protects, all of us, even you, Teritch. Even you. I promise you that.”
Teritch nodded.
“Get up,” Gaunt said, rising. The boy obeyed. “I thought you were going to execute all of us,” he whispered.
“I should,” said Gaunt. “I really should. But I think—”
“Lie still! Right where you are! No moving! Not a flinch!”
Gaunt looked round. Ludd was hurrying forward across the hardpan, head low, his laspistol aimed in a double-handed grip at the men sprawled and moaning on the ground.
“Not one move, you bastards!”
“Ludd?”
“Yes, sir!” Ludd replied, switching his aim from one supine form to the next, diligently.
“Put that weapon away, for Feth’s sake.”
Ludd straightened up and slowly returned his gun to its holster.
“Everything’s under control,” Gaunt told him. “Call up the post watch and get these men put into custody. I’ll deal with them later.”
Ludd nodded. He gazed at Gaunt’s handiwork. One boy, sobbing fretfully into his hands, and five able-bodied troopers rolling and groaning in the dust. Gaunt had taken on and felled seven men with—
One plus five equalled—
“Sir, where’s the other one?”
Gaunt looked round at Ludd. “What?”
“There were seven of them, sir.”