The signal to advance came over their microbead links, quiet and simple. Standing with C Company, Larkin felt the pip in his ear and picked up his weapon. It was new, an Urdesh-pattern mark IV long-las, finished in satin black with dark plastek furniture. Quite a nice weapon, all things considered, but he was still getting to know it. He’d left his own weapon—the old nalwood-fitted long-las that had seen him through every firefight from Tanith to Herodor—back on Gereon. In fact, it was still hard for him not to think they’d left three friends behind on that arse-end world: Ven, Doc Curth and his sniper rifle. It had been a simple thing, in the end. About six months into the Gereon tour, he’d run out of hot-shot rounds, run out of even the means to manufacture or recook hot-shot rounds. Dead, mute, his old long-las had become about as useful as a club. He’d switched to a simple, solid-slug autorifle that Landerson had found for him, an old hunter’s bolt-action.
As they moved forward down the trackway into the darkness, Larkin found himself walking beside a young Belladon soldier who was also carrying a long-las.
“Kaydey,” the youth said, offering his hand.
“Larkin.”
“Major Kolea’s asked me to travel with you. Wants us up the front with the point men.”
“Lead on,” Larkin said. They double-timed for a couple of minutes, moving up the file of troopers.
“So, you take some shots on this Gereon place?”
“One or two.”
“What was it like?”
Larkin looked at the boy. “Aim and squeeze, just like here.”
“No, I meant—” Kaydey began.
“I know what you meant.”
After that, Kaydey didn’t say much.
* * * * *
Kolea got his company moving north into the scrublands off the track. Dawn was still a while off, and most of them were using goggles, painting the world as a green image, as if they were underwater.
Kolea gave point to Derin and moved back, checking the company line, troop by troop. He saw Criid, and fell in step with her.
“You been avoiding me, Tona?” he asked.
“Yes, Gol. That’s why I went to Gereon, to avoid you.”
“I don’t suppose you got a chance to see the kids on your way in here?” he said.
Criid and her partner Caffran had rescued two young children from the Vervunhive warzone, and had been raising them as their own as part of the regimental baggage train of camp followers, support staff and non-combatants. It had turned out that the kids, in one of the more quirky examples of the God-Emperor’s sense of humour, were Kolea’s. The children he thought he’d lost back there. Kolea had let things be, left Criid and Caff in charge, not wishing to screw up the kids’ minds any more than they already had been.
Since the regiment had arrived on Ancreon Sextus, the kids, Yoncy and Dalin, had been in the care of the regimental entourage back at Imperial Command.
“No,” said Criid.
“You going to?”
“Eighteen months since I’ve been gone, Gol. You seen them yet? You been to them and told them the truth that daddy’s not actually dead?”
“No,” he said.
“You talk to Caff at least?”
“No,” Kolea said.
“Throne’s sake, Kolea! He knows! I told him all about it. Feth it all, eighteen months and the two of you haven’t even had a conversation? You’re as bad as each other!”
“Tona—”
“Don’t talk to me,” Criid said. “Maybe later, but now you don’t talk to me. We’re in the fething field here, you dumb gak. Shut up and choose your moments better.”
She walked on. Some of the men nearby looked at Kolea. They hadn’t caught much of the exchange, but they knew something spiky had just gone down.
That’s major dumb gak…” Kolea called after her.
E Company, along with Callide’s H Company, were the last to move out from post 36. In the bitter darkness, lit by lumen paddles and lamp-packs, the Kolstec units that would follow them were already forming up and filling the assembly areas vacated by the Eighty-First First.
As he waited for the off, Feygor kept looking back at the Kolstec assembling on the hardpan thirty metres behind them. He tutted silently and shook his head. The Kolstec were making a fair bit of noise.
Rawne stood beside him, huddled deep in his new leather coat. He’d spent some time in the last few days working at the coat with oil and wool to soften it, but the new leather still creaked slightly as he moved.
“Murt?”
“Fething craphounds,” Feygor whispered. “Zero noise discipline.”
Rawne nodded. He’d actually been fairly impressed with the manner in which the Eighty-First First had drawn together and moved out. Some noise, and some chat, but nothing too disgraceful. He had assumed the good practice of the Tanith had rubbed off on these Belladon people.
The Kolstec though, they just wouldn’t shut up. He could hear whining and complaining and occasional bursts of laughter. And even though they clearly had low-light goggles as standard, they were flashing lamps and torch paddles like it was Glory of the Throne Day.
Rawne saw the Belladon commissar—what was his name again, Novobazky?—talking with Captain Callide and several junior officers Rawne couldn’t name. He went over.
“Major Rawne? Good morning.”
“Commissar. I assume you’ll be doing something about that?” He inclined his head towards the Kolstec forces.
“I’m sorry?”
“The noise and light. It’s not acceptable.”
“They’ll settle once we’re underway.”
Rawne smiled. “Will they? Oh, that’s all right, then.”
“Besides, it’s a matter for their own commissars to—”
Rawne stared into Novobazky’s eyes. “It will be our matter when those fething idiots bring down the hurt on our heads by yabbering at our heels. If you just assume something will get done, it never will. And somebody else’s problem never stays somebody else’s.”
“Are you telling me how to do my job, major?” Novobazky said.
“Yes, I fething well am. Someone has to.” He turned and walked away.
“Major! Get back here!”
“I don’t think I will, fefhwipe,” Rawne said, still walking.
“Major Rawne!
Rawne ignored Novobazky and rejoined Feygor. “We just got the signal to move,” Feygor said.
E Company began to stir. Ayatani Zweil was moving down the column, issuing a few last blessings to troopers. He reached Beltayn and smiled, about to speak the simple prayer of protection.
“Save it, father,” Beltayn said.
“Son, I’m only—”
“Just save it. I’m blessed or I’m cursed. Either way, a few words from you won’t help.”
Zweil closed his mouth and watched the young trooper move away with the rest of the company. Dughan Beltayn had once been one of the most devout troopers in the regiment always amongst the first to arrive for the daily service. But the look in his eyes just then…
Meryn was near the head of the formation, leading the men off into the darkness. For all he’d nodded along with Wilder’s placement orders the previous day, he was twitchy and uncomfortable. He felt as if Rawne’s eyes were boring into him wherever he went. Before Gereon, Meryn had styled himself on the Tanith’s second officer, admired him, sided with him, and had benefited from being one of “Rawne’s men”. Now he was a captain and a company leader, and Rawne had come back from the dead, threatening to take that away. Meryn didn’t blame Rawne; ironically, the situation made him focus ever more intently on the skills and philosophies Rawne had drummed into him: self-reliance, cunning, the desire to protect what was his with brutal and exclusive efficiency.
He’d make nice, he’d nod along with Wilder. But there was no fething way Flyn Meryn was going to let Rawne come in and steal this command from him.
Jessi Banda was up ahead of him, moving forward with the marksmen taking po
int. There was another little sticky point. It hadn’t been common knowledge, but Rawne and the caustic, sharp-tongued sniper had been an item before the mission. Once Rawne had gone, Banda had chosen Meryn as a replacement partner. Meryn was no fool. He knew that Banda was an ambitious woman, who liked to keep the company of promising officers, or men on the rise. Like Rawne before him, Meryn was one of the sniper’s trophies. He knew she didn’t love him, and he didn’t much care. They were good together, and had a hard-nosed, volatile relationship that seemed to cater for their basic needs.
The trouble was, Meryn had become terribly possessive. He didn’t love Banda either, if he was honest, but he was intoxicated by her; intoxicated by her cruel wit, her laugh, her flirtatious manner, by the very heat and smell of her. She just had to look at another man—or another man look at her—and Meryn would brew up. Two days earlier, a Belladon sergeant called Berenbeck had wound up in the infirmary, badly beaten. Berenbeck was a loud-mouth, and it was presumed—even by Berenbeck himself—that he’d been jumped by Hauberkan tankers who had overhead him opining that a bullet had been too good for Gadovin. The truth was it had been Meryn, waiting for Berenbeck behind the latrine tents after dark with a sock full of stones. Meryn had heard the man telling his buddies how “hot the Ghosty sniper girl” was.
Banda hadn’t said anything about Rawne’s return, nothing to get Meryn thinking, at any rate. But Meryn could barely fight down the furnace in the pit of his gut. His command and his girl. Fething Rawne wasn’t going to take either one from him.
E Company, with H Company on their right flank, moved out across the scrublands, closing up on the Eighty-First First units already slogging up north through the compartment. Rawne thought they moved well. The Belladon were evidently a decent enough regiment. In all probability, the Ghosts were lucky to have been mixed with them. But Rawne felt empty and cold, and it wasn’t just the biting chill of the pre-dawn air. There was nothing about this he engaged with any more, no point, no purpose, no sense of loyalty. The Tanith First was gone, even though so many familiar faces were around him. There was no longer any intensity, no passion. The world had become empty, its lustre gone, and Elim Rawne was simply going through the motions.
North-east of post 36, the landscape of the compartment was downland scrub for three kilometres, a stubbled expanse of tumbling rough ground speckled with stands of lime and thorn-bush. At its lowest point, the scrubland gave way to marshes and oxbows of brackish water, thickly clogged with black rushes and reeds. East of the depression, past a vestigial trackway overgrown with moss, the land rose again, becoming bare and flinty, the scrub broken by ridges of quartz and ouslite that looked like the gigantic exposed roots of the compartment’s massive eastern wall.
Ridge 18, so marked on the charts, was a particularly high example, a hard-sided buckle of sharp rock that ran east-west for about half a kilometre, its upper surfaces thick with dogwood, bramble and flowering janiture. Kolosim’s recon unit was about halfway up the southern side.
Four recon units had set out ahead of the main advance, one to the west, two across the central basin of the scrub, and the fourth, Kolosim’s, around to the east.
It had taken them about forty-five minutes to move down country from the post. Dawn was still not yet a glimmer above the western wall.
Ferdy Kolosim, red-headed and bluff, was Mkoll’s equivalent amongst the Belladon. A recon specialist, he had risen to company command by dint of his experience and his leadership skills. He was well liked. Even the Tanith had warmed to him.
There were eight men in his unit. The Tanith Scouts Caober and Hwlan, the Belladon Recon Troopers Maggs, Darromay, Burnstine and Sergeant Buckren, and the newcomers Mkoll and Bonin. Already, Kolosim had made a mental note of the scary way the last two performed. He’d always believed the Belladon to be pretty good stealth artists, and it had been a wake-up call to witness the extraordinary abilities of the Ghosts when the regiments first amalgamated.
But Mkoll and Bonin were something else. Kolosim had to keep checking they were still there, and every time he did, neither Mkoll nor Bonin was where he’d last seen them.
It was to the Belladon’s credit, as a recon division proud of its skills, that there had been no ill will when the Ghosts first came along. Rather than resenting the way the Ghosts showed them up, the Belladon had got busy learning all the woodcraft and battle-skills the Tanith could teach them. They’d got rid of the netting shrouds they’d been using since their founding, and adopted Ghost-style camo-cloaks. They’d stopped using their clumsy sword-form rifle bayonets for close work, and got hold of smaller, double-edged fighting knives. The knives were nothing like as handsome as the Ghosts’ trademark straight silver, but they were far handier than the long bayonets. They’d even started dulling down their regiment pins and badges with boot black. Caober, pretty much the senior Ghost scout since Mkoll, Bonin and Mkvenner had gone, had taught Kolosim that himself. He’d pointed out the faintly ludicrous fact that the Belladon drabbed up buttons, blades, fasteners, bootlace eyelets, skin and uniform patches for stealth work, but still wore a shiny, scrupulously gleaming regimental badge on their tunics.
“It’s a matter of pride,” Kolosim had said. “Pride in our unit identity.”
“Pride’s great,” Caober had replied. “Great for a lot of things, except when it gets you seen and killed.”
Kolosim liked Caober’s frank and fair attitude, and the two were forming a decent working relationship. He wasn’t sure how things would sit now the famous Mkoll was back. Every tip and piece of advice Caober, or any of the other scouts, had ever imparted, came with a phrase like “as Mkoll taught us” or “like Mkoll always said”.
So far, Mkoll had said a dozen words to Kolosim, and six of those had been, “You Kolosim? Right. Let’s go.”
The unit reached the crown of Ridge 18 and slid through the bramble cover. From the top of the ridge, they got a decent view, via night-scopes, across the deep basin beyond, a steep-sided, scrub-choked vale that widened as it ran west. On the far side of the basin, parallel to them, ran Ridge 19, a lower and more jagged escarpment. At its western end rose Hill 55, and behind it, the broader, loaf-like bulk of Hill 56, where the Eighty-First First was meant to form up later in the day. Hill 56 was back-lit by a jumping, trembling light, brief flashes and bursts that lingered as after-images on their goggles. Even from half a dozen kilometres away, they could hear the crump and report of tankfire. The Rothberg armour had pushed the archenemy back up the compartment, but the fight was still in them, even at this early hour.
Kolosim studied the area and made a few jotted notes with his wax pencil.
“At least they’re where we thought they’d be,” he muttered. Buckren nodded. There had been a danger that the Rothberg would have been shoved backwards overnight, or worse, which would have made Hill 56 unviable as an infantry objective. One of the key objectives of the recon units was to make sure DeBray’s orders still made sense. Thanks to the high ground and the efficiency of their advance, Kolosim’s unit was the first to get a visual confirmation.
“Signal it in?” Buckren asked.
“Do that,” said Kolosim. Buckren crawled over to Darromay, who was carrying the vox-caster, and began to send in the details.
The other duty of the recon units was to assess the approaches. The tacticae advisors at the post reckoned there was a high probability that the archenemy might use the distraction of a drawn-out armour fight to sneak infantry down the eastern side of the compartment.
Mkoll stared northwards. He studied the charts in detail, but there was nothing like seeing the land first hand. Feeling the lie of it. And there were so many lies here. For all it seemed like a natural landscape, the compartment was artificial. It was a giant box full of dirt and rock. He didn’t trust any part of it. He turned his scope towards the far north end, and was just able to pick out the suggestion of the end wall, the great bastion enclosing the next massive gateway. That would be the real objective in the days
to come: burning a path to that monumental gate and breaking through. What lay beyond that none could say. Even orbital obs and spy-tracking had come up with nothing. The only thing anyone knew for certain was that the next compartment was another step towards the centre of this ancient puzzle, and that it was capable of launching forth armoured columns and companies of warriors to face them.
Hooting roars echoed up the ridge from the basin. Mkoll swung his scope to look down that way.
“You’ll never spot ’em,” said Maggs.
Bonin looked across at him. “The stalkers?”
“Yeah, you never see ’em. Not until it’s too late.”
“That so?”
Maggs nodded, and patted the butt of his mark III. “And one of these babies won’t stop one, not even on full auto. Even if you do see it first. Which you won’t. You never see “em till they find you.”
“You maybe, not the chief,” Bonin replied.
Wes Maggs frowned. He was a short, well-built man with a broad, swimmer’s back and heavy shoulders. His hair was cropped and brown, and he had a little vertical scar running down from the outside corner of his left eye. Maggs was one of Kolosim’s best scouts, known amongst the Belladon as a likeable rogue and joker, who sometimes had too many words in his mouth for his own good. Bonin hadn’t made up his mind about Maggs yet. Too much personality for his liking.
“I’d like to see your old man try taking a stalker…” Maggs began.
“Stick around,” said Bonin.
Kolosim was ignoring the quiet exchange. He was studying the ridgeways ahead of them.
“No way they’d bring a force this way on foot,” Buckren said.
“Too much like heavy going,” Burnstine agreed. The lateral ridges would slow them down. And if they got into trouble, they’d have no easy retreat.”
“The Blood Pact don’t often think of things in terms of retreat,” Mkoll said.
“You think they’d come this way?” Maggs asked.
“I think it’s possible. I think it should be checked,” Mkoll said.