Commissar Hark led an attack on the second weapon, determined to stop it before it reached the Eighty-First First’s position. Despite the loss of four of the troopers bold enough to go with him into the reach of the lethal device, Hark blasted shot after shot into it with his plasma pistol, and managed to kill the operator. Directionless, the stumble-gun rocked to a halt, smoking.
Caffran, Guheen and the Belladon Gespelder, each of them armed with a tread fether and supported by anxious teams of loaders, used up fourteen rockets between them stopping the third. One of the last two rockets managed to penetrate the heavily armoured sphere deeply enough to touch off its plasma vats or cause some kind of critical weapon failure. The stumble-gun exploded like a miniature star. Guheen and Gespelder argued amiably over which of them should claim the kill.
The Eighty-First First line rippled with mingled cheers at the sight of the last stumble-gun’s demise, but the relief was short-lived. With stalk-tanks and modified cannon platforms to the fore, the Blood Pact main assault came in.
Three hours of intense fighting followed. More than once, Wilder was afraid they would be overrun and slaughtered, but Hark and Novobazky, along with the company leaders, kept the position firm. Even Rawne, Wilder noted, with a mix of satisfaction and annoyance, led from the front, spurring the Guardsmen on.
lust before noon, a phalanx of Hauberkan treads, part of the reserve element from post 36, arrived in support. The formidable range and effect of their main weapons crippled the coherence of the Blood Pact front, and forced it into retreat.
Wilder was amazed. He’d never thought he’d be glad to see a Hauberkan tank.
After the battle, an uneasy lull settled. Keeping a careful eye on the ridge, the Eighty-First First took advantage of the quiet spell to eat rations, service weapons, and even catch a few, quick minutes sleep. Though it was long past the middle of the afternoon, conditions had not improved. The day was still lightless and dismal, the air bitter cold, and the ground hard as lead. Wrapped in camo-cloaks and bedrolls, troopers huddled down beside boulders or nested in patches of stiff grass. Some just sat, looking out across the scrubland, where hundreds of corpses, and the wrecks of fighting machines, lay scattered all the way back to the jagged quartz of Ridge 19.
The Hauberkan treads had taken up position on the left flank of the Eighty-First First position, and Wilder went to liaise with the crews, leaving Baskevyl to supervise munition distribution from a pair of Valkyries that had just arrived from post 36.
“I think we should go now, while it’s still quiet,” Mkoll said. “If we leave it much later, it’ll be dark.”
Rawne nodded. They’d found a place to talk away from the others, behind some broken lime trees about thirty metres away from the E Company slit trenches. Criid, Varl, Feygor and Larkin were with them.
“All right. Everyone gather what you need and meet up out beyond those rocks in fifteen minutes,” Rawne said. “We—”
Varl suddenly made a brusque, throat-cutting gesture with his finger and Rawne shut up. Gol Kolea and Ban Daur were approaching.
“Everything all right?” Kolea asked.
“Fine,” said Rawne.
“Just taking a breather,” Varl said.
Kolea glanced at Daur. “See? They’re just taking a breather. I told you there was nothing dodgy going on.”
“You’re right,” said Daur, leaning against the trunk of a lime and folding his arms.
“And you said they looked conspiratorial,” Kolea said to Daur.
“I did. I did say that.”
Kolea looked at Rawne. “There’s nothing conspiratorial going on here, is there?”
Rawne said nothing. Kolea looked at Mkoll instead. “Is there, chief? Just a bunch of comrades, taking a breather, hanging out. I shouldn’t read anything into the fact that all of you are lost souls who went to Gereon?”
Mkoll held Kolea’s gaze without any sign of discomfort. “There’s nothing going on, Kolea,” he said.
Kolea pursed his lips and looked up at the sky for a moment, as if watching the black clouds chase. “I got roasted a little bit,” he said at length. “For siding with you yesterday, Rawne. Wilder was pretty gakking pissed off we pulled C and E out of the line without his say so, even though it turned out we had a good reason. I don’t blame him, either. If I was Wilder, I’d be mad as hell. This is a good unit, and most of that is down to his hard work pulling it together.”
“Noted,” said Rawne. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’d hate to see that happen again,” Kolea replied. “It’s a great thing all of you made it back to us, but if you refuse to settle, it’s going to cause problems. If you’re chasing secret agendas, for instance. It’ll be divisive. How will Wilder maintain authority if you constantly refuse to work with him? The Eighty-First First will suffer. And everything and everyone that used to be the Tanith First will suffer too.”
“I understand that,” Rawne said. “But there are just some things…”
“Like what?” asked Daur.
Rawne inhaled deeply before replying. “Some things that won’t fit into your nice, ordered boxes. Gut instincts. Feelings. I don’t dislike this man Wilder. And I honestly have no intent to damage this unit. But there are just some things.”
“Are they important?” Daur asked.
“Feth, I think they are,” Rawne replied.
“So bring Wilder in. Get him on your side, instead of sneaking about behind his back, pissing him off, and undermining his command.”
“Wilder won’t—”
“How do you know what Wilder will or won’t do, Elim?” Kolea asked. “Have you asked him? Have you given him a chance? Ban’s right, Wilder’s a good man, and when us Ghosts thought you and Mkoll and Gaunt were all dead and gone, we counted ourselves lucky to get him as a commander. I say you go talk to him.”
Rawne looked at the others. None of them made any comment.
“Gereon really messed you lot up, didn’t it?” Kolea said softly. “I think you all got so self-reliant, you’ve forgotten how to trust anyone.”
“You don’t know what it was like,” Feygor growled.
“No, I don’t. You bastards still won’t tell me. But I think I just hit a nerve, didn’t I? You’ve forgotten how to trust.”
“We trust each other,” Rawne said. “And we trust Gaunt.”
“Is this about Gaunt?” Daur asked.
“Perhaps,” Rawne said.
“So where do your loyalties lie?” Kolea demanded. To this regiment or to Gaunt? Because if the answer’s Gaunt, this isn’t ever going to work.”
“Do you remember his last command?” Criid asked. They all looked at her. The wind gusted and lifted her long hair away from her face, and they all saw the ugly scar across her left cheek, the blade wound she’d grown her hair to hide.
“His last command to the Tanith First,” she repeated. “Before we left for Gereon, Gaunt told the Ghosts that if he didn’t come back, they were to serve whoever came in his place as loyally as they had served him. We should tell Wilder, Rawne. As soldiers of the Imperium, we’re obliged to, because that’s what Gaunt ordered us to do.”
“Good news,” Baskevyl said to Wilder and Novobazky. “We just got a signal from 36. We should expect some serious reinforcement by dawn tomorrow. Van Voytz has committed the entire Frag Flats reserve to the front line.”
“Everything?” Wilder said.
“The full works,” Baskevyl confirmed. “I guess he’s getting as tired of this place as we are.”
“Don’t look now,” Novobazky said. Rawne, Mkoll and Kolea were walking across the scrub towards them.
“Great,” said Wilder. “Don’t go far, either of you. I’ve seen friendlier looking mutinies.”
He took a few steps forward, and Kolea and Mkoll fell back a little so that Rawne came up face to face with Wilder.
“Major?”
“Colonel. I think there’s a good case to be made for us starting over.”
r />
“Really?” Wilder raised his eyebrows.
“The situation is difficult, and the return to this regiment of the Gereon mission team, particularly myself and Sergeant Mkoll, must have unsettled loyalties.”
“You could say that.”
“My actions yesterday can’t have helped much.”
That brought a smile to Wilder’s face. “All right, Rawne. And don’t think I’m not appreciating you making this effort, but I get the feeling there’s something more to it.”
“You’d be right. There’s something that has to be done. I was just going to go ahead and do it, but Major Kolea took the trouble to remind me that I am an officer of the Imperial Guard and have a responsibility to clear things with my commander.”
“Bonus points for Major Kolea,” Wilder said. “All right, shoot. What’s this thing?”
“It’ll be dark soon,” Rawne said. “After last night’s experience, we should form a secure rearward perimeter to prevent any stalker trouble.”
“Agreed. Absolutely. See, that wasn’t too hard, was it Rawne?” Wilder said. He paused and saw the look on Kolea’s face. “There’s more, isn’t there?” Kolea nodded.
“Sir,” Rawne said. “I’d like to take advantage of the current lull not only to set up a perimeter, but also to try tracking these stalkers.”
“Tracking them?”
“Mkoll’s pretty sure he can do it.”
“Tracking them?” Wilder repeated.
“To find out where they’re coming from,” Mkoll said.
“You mean dens or lairs or whatever?”
“Or whatever,” Mkoll agreed.
“Why?”Wilder asked.
“That’s the part you’re not going to like,” Kolea said.
“We’ve not had that already, then?” asked Wilder.
“I received a message from Gaunt,” Rawne said.
Wilder took a casual step backwards and looked sidelong at Novobazky and Baskevyl. “You know that feeling?” he asked them. When you find out your girl’s still writing letters to an ex-lover?”
Baskevyl sniggered.
Wilder looked back at Rawne. “Rawne. Rawne, I couldn’t feel much more undermined if you… if you got hold of a frigging land mine and… and put me under it.”
“That probably sounded better in your head, didn’t it?” Rawne said.
“Yes,” said Wilder. “Really, much, much better.”
“Listen to me, Wilder,” Rawne said. “As everyone—including high command, the Commissariat, the Inquisition, and our old comrades in the Tanith First—has been quick to point out, the team that went to Gereon came back different. You don’t spend that long on a Chaos-held world and not have it affect you. It changed the way we fight. It changed the way we live and think, the way we trust. All of those changes were alterations forced on us by the simple need to survive. Gereon left its mark on us.”
“Like a taint?” Novobazky asked. He was only half joking.
“Yes,” said Rawne. “But not the kind you mean. Just to stay alive, we developed a… a hunch. An instinct. What would you call it, Mkoll?”
“A sensitivity,” Mkoll said.
“Yes, a sensitivity. A little inkling that rang alarm bells when things weren’t right. When the ruinous powers were playing tricks or about to strike. I’ve got that inkling now. So’s Gaunt. We’ve had it since we first set foot in this place.”
“And what does it mean?” Wilder asked.
“We don’t think Sparshad Mons is what it seems to be. It’s not just an old ruin with the archenemy hiding inside it. Something else is going on. Think about the stalkers. Where in the name of feth do they keep coming from at night?”
“I don’t know,” said Wilder.
“No one does. Gaunt suggested it was high time someone did. He contacted me because he thought it was a job ideally suited to the Tanith scouts, to Mkoll and Bonin especially. If they can’t track these things to their source, no one can.”
“And what does he expect you’ll find?” asked Baskevyl.
“Let’s hope lairs and dens,” Mkoll said. “Burrows, maybe. Natural hiding places that no one has yet detected.”
“But your inkling tells you…” Wilder began.
“That they’re getting in a different way. That this place isn’t what it seems.”
“If that’s true,” said Novobazky, “it could change everything.”
“All right, you’ve convinced me,” Wilder said. “I’m not happy, but you’ve convinced me. Assemble a team, Rawne. Not just Gereon survivors, though. Include Novobazky and at least a couple of Belladon scouts.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And keep checking in with me.”
“Yes, sir.” Rawne saluted and walked away. Wilder turned to Baskevyl and Novobazky.
“That was right, wasn’t it?” he asked.
Baskevyl nodded. “If there’s even a shred of truth,” Novobazky said, “this is important.”
“And if there’s not, at least it gets Rawne out of my face for a few hours.” Wilder grinned. “Who knows, we might get lucky. Something might eat Rawne.”
The hunting party left the Eighty-First First position half an hour later, and headed south into the broad scrub of the compartment’s centre. Rawne had brought Mkoll and Bonin, Varl, Criid and Beltayn, and left the choice of Belladons to Commissar Novobazky. Novobazky selected Ferdy Kolosim, Wes Maggs and two recon troopers Rawne hadn’t met called Kortenhus and Villyard.
They moved south in a wide circle, through thickets of gorse and thorn-rush, and across fields of loose flint and ashy soil. Three times in the first hour, Mkoll announced he’d detected a trail, but each one was at least two or three days cold, in his opinion, and too vague to bother with.
“I don’t see anything,” Maggs complained each time.
“Why am I not surprised?” muttered Bonin.
Mkoll led them on through a belt of dead trees: leafless, desiccated costers, bleached by the elements, clawing at the sky with gnarled branches. Massive boulders slumped between the trees every few dozen metres, mossy blocks of misshapen granite that looked as if they might have tumbled down from the compartment walls generations before. Mkoll and Bonin studied each one.
“What’s the interest in the rocks?” Novobazky asked Rawne.
“Gaunt told me he’d tracked a stalker in the third compartment, and its trail seemed to go dead at the foot of a large rock.”
“He tracked one?” the commissar queried.
“Actually, the tracking was done by Eszrah Night, a Gereon partisan who kind of attached himself to Gaunt. Excellent tracker, mind you. Quite brilliant.”
“If this Night fellow is so good,” said Novobazky, “why has Gaunt got us doing this?”
“Gaunt wants to support his theory with clean evidence,” Rawne said. “If you were high command, Novobazky, who would you trust? The heathen claims of a primitive hunter, or the authenticated findings of an Imperial Guard recon expedition?”
“Point,” said Novobazky.
“Here’s something!” Mkoll called.
They hurried over. Criid, Varl and the Belladons formed a perimeter.
“It’s getting dark!” Varl called out, weapon raised.
“I know,” replied Rawne. Mkoll was crouching beside the foot of a large rock.
“Trail here,” Mkoll said. “Pretty fresh too. It seems to go right in under this rock.”
“How can that be?” Kolosim asked.
Maggs bent down beside Mkoll. “I see it this time. Throne, Mkoll, your eyes are good. No doubt about it, it runs right in under this rock.”
“Here’s another!” Bonin called.
The main group moved across to where he was kneeling in an open patch of rush-grass. The troopers on watch moved with them, rifles steady.
“Really, getting dark now!” Varl called.
“I know,” said Rawne.
“Just saying,” said Varl.
“Fresh. Moving that way,” Bonin s
aid, examining the trail. “Maybe last night or this morning, early.”
Mkoll nodded. “This way.”
“Hang on,” said Kolosim. His voice had an amusing lisp to it because of the swelling around his split lip. “I thought Bonin said it was moving that way?”
“I did,” said Bonin.
“So… why are we going in the opposite direction?”
“Because we don’t want to know where it went, Ferdy,” Maggs said. “We want to know where it came from.”
“Say what you like about Maggs,” Bonin said to Mkoll, “he’s a quick learner.”
“He is,” Mkoll agreed. “He really is.”
Criid suddenly held up her hand. The party froze. From not too far away, a whooping roar rang through the dead forest.
“Oh, tremendously not good at all,” said Varl.
“Full auto,” Rawne said. “Safeties off.”
“Never mind that,” Novobazky said. He drew a pistol from under his coat. Heavy, matt-black and ugly, it was unmistakably a plasma weapon. “Hark lent me this. Thought we could do with the extra oomph.”
“I’ve always loved Commissar Hark,” Varl said. Beltayn grinned.
Criid signed. Something moving, thirty metres.
Mkoll nodded, and signed the party to move on anyway. Criid and Varl brought up the rear, walking backwards, rifles aimed into the gathering dark.
The trail led into another clearing. At the centre lay yet another big rock, a three tonne ovoid, gleaming with a varnish of glossy green lichen.
“Stay back,” said Mkoll. The party halted at the edge of the clearing.
“What is it?” asked Novobazky.
“You feel that?” Mkoll asked.
Bonin and Beltayn nodded. “I sure as feth do,” Rawne said. “It’s faint, but it’s there. A tiny buzzing.”
“Like a glyf,” said Beltayn.
“Exactly,” said Rawne. “Exactly like the sound a glyf makes.”
“What’s a gliff?” asked Kortenhus.
“You don’t want to know,” said Bonin.
“Damn, it’s making my skin crawl,” said Rawne.
“It’s making my tongue itch,” said Varl.