‘I believe you have just described an abiding principle of the Imperium,’ said Sar Af.
‘The order is to withdraw,’ said Ludd. ‘Please follow it.’
They turned their backs on him.
‘What? That’s it? You’re just going to carry on? Are we supposed to wait for you?’
‘Leave us,’ said Eadwine, without looking around. ‘We expected this. Our commanders expected this when they sanctioned our collaboration in this effort. The Guard may leave when it wishes. We will keep going until this place is obliterated.’
‘Really? And then what?’ asked Ludd.
‘If we have survived to that point, we will endure in the debris field until such time as a vessel detects our signal.’
‘That could be years,’ said Ludd.
‘We are more patient than you,’ said Eadwine.
‘Go,’ said Sar Af.
‘I won’t,’ said Ludd. ‘I am an officer of the Commissariat, responsible for discipline and correction. We don’t want this place obliterated. That’s the whole point. We want there to be traces left behind. We want to leave clues. We want the enemy to know. If you keep going, you will undo and undermine the entire purpose of this endeavour. You will be breaking orders and the authority of the Imperium. You will be in breach of duty and your sacred trust, and–’
‘Silence,’ said Holofurnace. He looked at his brothers. The blood of his enemies trickled down the dented gold fittings of his helm.
‘The boy has a point,’ he said. ‘The logic is solid. To continue would be counter-productive.’
The other two nodded. All three turned and walked away, their massive boots crunching over the scattered debris.
Side by side, they began to trudge back towards the distant hangar bays.
Sar Af turned and looked back at Ludd.
‘Hurry up, now,’ he said.
The landers were coming in as fast as they could. The problems of space that had affected the original drop remained. Only a few at a time could set down, and most had to ditch their payloads of munitions once they had. They had all been making a restock run when the orders changed.
Baskevyl and Kolea were supervising the dust-off, getting as many lasmen into each Arvus and Falco as they could.
Kolea saw Dalin.
‘Where’s Meryn?’ he asked. ‘Where’s the rest of E Company?’
‘They’re coming,’ said Dalin.
‘From the looks of it, Meryn pulled back too fast,’ said Baskevyl, checking the tactical display on Rerval’s vox-caster. ‘He’s let enemy units get in behind him. They’re coming out of the depot under enemy fire. Not the neatest extraction I’ve ever seen.’
‘Meryn’s not the neatest soldier,’ said Kolea.
Kolea looked at the chart.
‘If we force open these hatches, his mob can get out and clear without having to come through the breach.’
‘Makes sense. Let’s go.’
‘Keep the pull-out moving, Bask,’ said Kolea. ‘I’ll do it.’
Kolea took a squad with him back to the edge of the engineering depot where the Caestus had finally come to rest. Last groups of F and H companies were making a solid and dignified withdrawal through the huge ram-wound in the depot doors.
Kolea’s squad could hear the gunfire beyond the doors. The whine of las-shot and the thump of flechette blasters. Meryn’s company had got themselves into trouble all right.
‘Come on!’ Kolea yelled. ‘This way!’
He led his unit down to the passenger hatches set in the far corner of the depot’s vast vehicular shutter. It took a few moments to locate the lock mechanism and cut through it with a plasma torch.
Kolea opened the hatch.
‘Meryn. Meryn! Fix on my signal and move this way!’ he voxed. ‘We’ve got an exit for you. Come on!’
‘Read that, Kolea. Nice work.’
Meryn’s troops quickly appeared, running across the littered floor of the depot towards the hatch. Some were turning and firing from the hip as they ran. Enemy fire chased them.
Kolea’s squad laid down a little covering fire and then pulled back as Meryn’s men started to reach the doorway.
‘Get through. Go on!’ Meryn yelled. His men dashed through the hatch in twos and threes. Weapon fire spattered off the shutter. Meryn stayed outside to see his men through. He yelled through the hatch to Kolea.
‘Get them up to the landing zone. I’ll get the last ones out!’
Kolea nodded and headed off.
‘Come on!’ Meryn bellowed at the stragglers. ‘This is not a good place to be!’
He fired off a few shots. Some Sons of Sek had appeared in the distance, and he could smell mint and milk again.
Gendler reached him, unfit, red-faced and out of breath.
‘Here come the last of us,’ he panted.
Meryn took a look. The last four or five. Eklan. Mkgain. Fozol. Rozzi. Costin.
Meryn wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
‘No, Didi,’ he said. ‘You know what. I think we’re all here.’
They stepped through the hatch.
‘Captain!’ Eklan yelled, the closest of them, running as fast as he could to reach the door.
‘What are you doing?’ Costin yelled. ‘Where the feth are you going?’
‘You’re right,’ said Gendler to Meryn. ‘I don’t see anyone left unaccounted for.’
Meryn and Gendler shut the hatch and slid the manual bolt across.
The last few members of E Company reached the hatch and began to hammer their fists against it.
‘What are you doing?’ Costin wailed. ‘What the feth are you doing? Open the hatch. Open it! Open the hatch, you bastards!’
On Meryn’s side of the door, the banging fists made the faintest of sounds.
Costin staggered back from the unyielding hatch. He was so scared he threw up. Eklan and the others were caught in a blind and disbelieving panic.
‘You bastards. You bastards!’ Costin screamed at the door, his fists balled at his sides.
He turned slowly. The loxatl had reached them. He heard their alien chir and chatter. He smelled their milk and mint, and threw up again. Rozzi howled in terror. Eklan fired at the xenos monsters.
The reptiles were closing in from all sides, chattering, slipping across the deck. Their dewclaws were extended.
They had no need to waste blaster shot on these kills.
Costin began a scream that he never finished.
The Sons of Sek were getting closer. Merrt could hear them approaching along the tunnel.
‘Gn… gn… gn… get behind me, doc,’ he murmured.
Dorden took a long time to reply.
‘Don’t be daft, Rhen,’ he said, his voice as thin as upper atmosphere. ‘Get up. You can walk. Get after Haller. Leave me.’
‘I can tell when you’re lying, doc,’ said Merrt. ‘Be truthful now. This gn… gn… gn… wound I’ve got here. It’s not one you come through, is it?’
Dorden looked at him. He shook his head.
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Then I’m gn… gn… gn… gonna stay here with you, aren’t I?’ Merrt said. He reached out with a bloody hand and turned Dorden’s head to look into the old doctor’s eyes.
‘It’s all right. I know you can’t tell, but I’m smiling,’ Merrt said.
The first of the Sons had appeared. Their lamps bobbed as they came closer. There were dozens of them.
Merrt took the saline round out of the old rifle, and chambered a hard round instead. He pushed Dorden back against the wall behind him and sat up, aiming his rifle at the approaching enemy soldiers.
‘You’ve only got one shot, Rhen,’ murmured Dorden.
‘I gn… gn… gn… know,’ said Merrt. Blood dripped over his metal lip. ‘And I’ve used up the last of those gn… gn… gn… muscle injectors too. Can’t shoot for shit now.’
‘Just make sure it counts,’ said Dorden. He was clutching a loop of votive beads Zweil had given
him.
Merrt took aim. The Sons brought their weapons up.
‘Hey!’ Merrt yelled, snuggling the rifle in. ‘Hey, you bastards! You know what? I used to be a gn… gn… gn… great marksman. I had a fething lanyard. Not any more, though. These days, I aim at something, I miss it every time! You understand? I’m not a very gn… gn… gn… good shot!’
Merrt fired. The round passed through the Sons of Sek fireteam without hitting a single one of them. Nor did it strike the firing pin of the massive barrel charge twenty metres behind them. It missed the pin socket by the distance of a middle finger, and punched into the side of the barrel just above the red chalk marks Haller had made when they disarmed it earlier.
The hard round punctured the metal shell of the container.
There was a spark.
TWENTY-THREE
Out of Reach
Shipmaster Spika nodded the instruction to execute to his steersmen. With a grinding shudder, the Highness Ser Armaduke pulled away from the mangled skin of Salvation’s Reach. All the lighters and landing ships were aboard, and the hatches of the lateral holds had been shut. The ship’s departure broke the atmospheric seals around the boreholes cut by the Hades drills. Explosive decompression ripped up through the lower and uncharted cavities of the Reach, voiding vacuums and collapsing compartments like eggshells.
Parts of the vast structure were already on fire where massive explosions had torn through them, the blasts of carefully laid satchel charges, or of ditched munition loads ignited by departing landing ships.
Some of the damage was the result of booby-trap devices in the lower depths spontaneously detonating.
Tiny cavities in the Reach glowed from within like the heat inside a coal. Explosions and firestorms continued to rumble through the habitat for several days.
Shields up, the Armaduke powered away from the target zone, plotting a hard acceleration line through the dense junk fields towards the nearest viable Mandeville Point. It continued to broadcast the streams of chatter, accusation and insult in Blood Pact battle code until the moment it translated.
Two hundred thousand kilometres behind it, cloaked and hidden in the debris field of the Reach, the monstrous and night-black daemon ship watched the Armaduke depart. It listened to the vox-chatter the Imperial ship had scattered in its wake.
It lit its weapons and its drives and sped forwards, tracking its prey.
As it moved, it whispered its name, a sonic crackle like a hushed curse.
Tormaggedon Monstrum Rex!
‘I will do everything I can,’ Curth said. ‘The prognosis is good. Haller brought him into the infirmary in decent time.’
Elodie nodded.
‘Thank you,’ she said. The beds of the infirmary chamber were full. There were so many injured personnel that some of the crew infirmary facilities had been co-opted by the Ghosts too.
Only one bed concerned Elodie. She sat down at the side of Daur’s cot and held his hand. He was very pale against the old, poor quality bedding. He did not stir.
‘With rest and good care, he will recover,’ said Curth. She was exhausted and empty inside, but she stayed with Elodie until the woman seemed calmer.
Curth went back into the medicae offices. Dorden’s desk was as he had left it, his instruments laid out the way he liked. Lesp had done that, as he did every morning. The familiarity of the work area was almost unbearable.
She sat down in the chair that had been Dorden’s since they had boarded for the mission. On the desk, in an old, worn frame, was a faded pict of a young man and his pretty young wife. She was pregnant. He was a newly qualified county doctor. Behind the smiling couple, sunlight shone through a stand of handsome nalwood trees.
Curth wiped her eyes.
The door opened. Blenner came in. He shut the door behind him and looked down at her.
‘I don’t know what to do now,’ she said.
‘Then we’ll have to think of something,’ he replied.
‘The silly old feth,’ she said. ‘He was never going to die in bed, was he? In bed, being cared for, where he belonged.’
‘I don’t think that’s where he actually belonged, do you?’ said Blenner. He plonked a bottle of sacra and two small glasses on the desk, opened the bottle and poured shots.
He handed one to her and took the other himself.
‘I’m no good at this,’ she said.
‘At drinking?’ he asked. ‘By the Throne, lady, the other night that certainly wasn’t true.’
‘At saying goodbye,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ he nodded. He raised his glass.
‘To the best of us, who leave us too early,’ he said, ‘and to the worst, who outstay their welcome.’
‘You look sad,’ said Felyx.
Gaunt did not reply. Slowly, carefully, he cleaned and oiled the blade of his power sword.
‘I thought we… won. We won, didn’t we?’ asked Felyx.
‘The mission was accomplished,’ Gaunt said quietly. ‘There is every decent prospect that we achieved something of lasting value.’
‘Then why do you look sad?’ asked Felyx.
‘I lost men. A lot of men. They gave their lives to become Ghosts. That’s always painful for a commander to bear, even in victory. And some of them… one especially… was very dear to me.’
Gaunt looked at Felyx. Gaunt’s quarters were quiet. Maddalena was sitting in the outer room, reading. She appeared to be studying Gaunt’s copy of The Spheres of Longing. Gaunt watched her turn a page.
‘There’s a reason you like her,’ said Felyx.
‘I’m sure there is,’ said Gaunt.
‘The most valuable lifeguards of House Chass receive very sophisticated body modification. Maddalena’s face and voice, they were designed to resemble my mother’s. The similarity was supposed to reassure and comfort me. I imagine it has an effect on you too.’
‘I imagine so.’
‘Is that the sword of Heironymo Sondar?’ Felyx asked.
‘It is. Would you like me to tell you how I came to own it?’
Felyx shook his head.
‘I saw you use it today,’ he said. ‘That’s all I need to know.’
Rawne checked that Mabbon’s shackles were in place and locked to the deck pin. He took one last look at the prisoner and moved to the cell door.
‘A good day’s work, pheguth,’ he said and closed the hatch.
By the light of the single lamp he was permitted, Mabbon sat back in his chair and allowed the tension to slip out of his muscles.
For the first time in a long while, he smiled.
In dress uniform, with the power sword strapped to his hip, Gaunt walked onto the excursion deck. The place was silent. The ranks drew up to attention. The regimental retinue looked on, wordless and still. Outside, warp space scratched against the hull, but inside there was a solemn hush.
The band, in full ceremonial finery, stood ready to play the memorial march of the Imperium.
Gaunt got up onto the podium. Zweil stood there already, ready to conduct the formal service. The ayatani looked old and tired and sad.
Gaunt had a list in his pocket, but he didn’t need it as a prompt. He knew it by heart. He looked down at the regiment and at the three Space Marines ranked at the front, side by side and impassive. They had returned their battered boarding plate to the storage caskets and donned the power armour they had been wearing when he first met them. Silver, Snake and Scar.
‘We gather to commemorate the end of this undertaking,’ said Gaunt in a strong, clear voice, ‘and to acknowledge the contributions and sacrifices made. At my discretion, a number of decorations have been recommended. Some of them are awarded posthumously.’
He took off his cap and began to announce the list of names. The Ghosts bowed their heads. Holofurnace raised his spear up straight in a salute to the fallen.
High above, looking down from its perch on a cargo gantry, the psyber eagle listened to the roll of honour.
A per
fect aquila, it spread its wings.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to
Ead Brown, Richard Dugher, Nik Vincent, Nichola Loftus, and Bruce and Michelle Euans.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Abnett is a novelist and award-winning comic book writer. He has written almost forty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies. His latest Horus Heresy novel Prospero Burns was a New York Times bestseller, and topped the SF charts in the UK and the US. In addition to writing for Black Library, Dan is highly regarded in the comics industry for his work for both Marvel and DC, and has written a number of other bestselling novels, including Torchwood: Border Princes, Doctor Who: The Story of Martha, Triumff and Embedded. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent. Dan’s blog and website can be found at www.danabnett.com
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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover by Stef Kopinski.
© Games Workshop Limited 2011. All rights reserved.
Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2011, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-85787-239-5
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.