Slowly, the men of the recon unit straightened up.
“What the hell was that?” Caober asked.
“Some kind of call,” Kolosim said. “Right, Mkoll? Some kind of call?”
Mkoll nodded. “It reminded me of something,” Bonin said to him quietly.
“Yes, you too?” Mkoll asked, picking up his lasrifle and reloading it.
“It reminded me of the sound the glyfs made, back on Gereon.”
“That’s what I thought,” Mkoll said. He turned back to the others.
“We have to find Burnstine,” Kolosim was saying.
“Burnstine? Burnstine?” Buckren began yelling.
“Shut up!” Mkoll spat. He looked at Bonin. “Why would they call their monsters off, I wonder?”
Mkoll paused. He could smell it again. The smell of dry, soured blood that he had detected from higher up the slope. He had supposed the reek belonged to the stalkers, but now he knew different. The stalkers stank of sour-sweat, human meat.
This dry, blood smell was different.
Familiar.
“We need to move,” he said.
“What about Burnstine?” Kolosim asked. “Dammit, Mkoll, what about Burnstine? And Darromay? We can’t just leave the poor bastard’s body there.”
“We can and we will. Forget him, captain, forget Burnstine. I’m not joking around here. I think the enemy’s close. Very close. Just like we suspected.”
“What?”
“Let’s go take a look, then get the word out if I’m right.”
“Without a vox?” Buckren said. The unit’s caster had died with Darromay.
“We’ll find a way,” Kolosim said. “Do as Mkoll says.”
They clambered through the dense vegetation, heading north-east, cutting away fronds of strangling gorse that blocked them. Behind them, in the west, the first light of dawn was hazing in over the far wall, slowly turning the sky red.
“What’s that?” Kolosim asked, coming to a halt, whispering.
“Machine noise,” Hwlan responded.
Clack-clack-clack the noise went, drifting through the vegetation. There were footsteps too. A lot of them, crunching and squishing on mud and grit. Kolosim waved the unit into cover. They dropped down, fast and obedient, skulking in behind tree boles and dense thorn, their weapons gripped ready.
Into view, into the realm of their lambent night vision, figures appeared, advancing through the tangled undergrowth of the basin, a column of men moving down from the northern ridge.
Men wearing dark grotesque masks. Men sporting the signs of the abominable and the forbidden.
Mkoll knew he had smelled that dry-blood aroma before. Too often before, in fact.
It was the stink of the Blood Pact.
From his vantage point, Mkoll estimated at least a hundred Blood Pact infantry, probably more. With them—clack-clack-clack!—came stalk-tanks, rattling along on their calliper legs, light and nimble enough to manage the steep terrain of the ridges.
Kolosim signalled the unit to stay low and silent. They didn’t even dare dropping back.
Nice and quiet, let them go by, then slip away and—
“Captain? Captain? Respond, please…” Burnstine’s anxious voice suddenly crackled over the intercom. Kolosim quickly muted his mic, but the damage was done.
One of the stalk-tanks shuddered to a halt, its body raised. The head turret tracked round until it was pointing towards the undergrowth where the scouts lay concealed. They could see the tank’s operator, a surgically augmented human, prone in the fluid-filled blister cockpit under the tank’s tail, making adjustments to his controls. The cannon mounts on the tank’s head clattered as they autoloaded.
“Voi shet tahr grejj!” The command echoed out of the stalk-tank’s external speakers. Immediately, two squads of Blood Pact troopers broke formation and began moving towards the scouts’ hiding place, weapons ready. Almost at once, one of them spotted Buckren.
The warrior called out. As he raised his weapon to fire, a las-shot took him off his feet.
“Concealment’s no longer an option,” said Mkoll, firing again and taking down two more troopers. “Hit and run.” The rest of the recon unit joined in his gunfire.
In reply, the Blood Pact began shooting, blasting into the undergrowth with their rifles as las-bolts began to rip into their ranks.
And then the stalk-tank’s cannons opened fire too.
SEVENTEEN
06.10 hrs, 197.776.M41
Fifth Compartment
Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus
At first light. Wilder allowed himself a little, satisfied glow of contentment. The bulk of the Eighty-First First was still advancing across the tableland scrub, but Hill 56 was less than a kilometre away, and Baskevyl’s company had already reached it. They were well ahead of schedule.
It was going to be a cold, grey start to the day. Mist still lingered in the lowlands. Beyond the soft curve of Hill 56, the thumping drone of the tank fight echoed like distant thunder. Occasional flashes lit the sky.
Wilder called up his vox-officer and got himself patched through to Baskevyl. He walked along beside the vox man, talking into the speaker horn.
“Tell me what you’ve got, Bask.”
“…see some business…” Baskevyl’s voice came back, chopped and sliced by atmospherics. Sunrise did that sometimes, though this seemed worse than usual.
“Say again, Bask. You’re phasing on me.”
“I said I think we’ll see some business this morning, sir. The Hill’s secure. I can see the Rothberg line, and I’ve had a brief connect to their commander. It’s a hell of a tussle down there. The—”
“Repeat that last, over.”
“I said it’s a hell of a tussle. The armour’s holding, but from what I can see, the enemy’s throwing a lot this way. The Rothberg mob have brought the Hauberkan in to support them now.”
“Are they behaving, over?”
A wash of static.
“Baskevyl? Baskevyl? Come back, B Company lead.”
“…me now? I repeat, are you hearing me now, Eighty leader?”
“Check on that, Bask. The air’s bad today. I asked how the Hauberkan were doing.”
“According to the Rothberg commander, the Hauberkan have raised their game. I can see a line of their treads over to my north-west, guarding the trackway. Lot of smoke, lot of dense smoke. The trouble seems to be that the Rothberg have been at this for the best part of three days. The crews are dog-tired. A signal’s gone to post command for more armour to relieve them. I understand some Sarpoy treads are due to join us around noon. That will be the critical time. The enemy may try to push for the advantage if they see the Rothbergers breaking off.”
“Understood,” Wilder replied. That would be when a picket line of well dug-in infantry would come into its own. Anticipating armour, both the Eighty-First First, and the Kolstec Fortieth behind them, had come loaded for a spot of tank-hunting. Every fireteam unit had been issued with at least one anti-tank launcher, devices which Wilder had learned the Tanith referred to as “tread-fethers”. He consulted his chart again. They’d have to hold the hill and the adjacent trackways, and also the watercourse along the west side. Tread-fethers, crew-served weapons. They had about six hours to dig in effectively. That was doable.
“You still there, Eighty leader?”
“Reading you, Bask. I want you to start scoping the land there for good, defensible positions. I want a breaker line, you understand me? A breaker line to stop anything we don’t like the look of.”
“Understood. I’m on it,” Baskevyl’s voice crackled back. A “breaker line” was Belladon shorthand for a defensive position constructed to maximise crossfire support, so that every element was backed up by the enfilading cover-fire of its neighbour.
“Bask, any sign of foot advance?”
“Not at this time, sir, but like I said, dense smoke. Likelihood is they’ve got infantry massing in the wings to storm up once the tank fi
ght’s done.”
“You got the recon units there with you?”
“Two of them. Raydrel’s unit’s still over in the west, circling through the marshes. He checked in about ten minutes back and says there’s zero chance of the enemy trying anything that way.”
“Like we supposed. What about Kolosim?”
“Negative on Ferdy, Eighty leader. Nothing from him since the routine check over an hour ago.”
“Understood. Get to work. I’ll be with you in about twenty minutes. Eighty leader out.”
Wilder handed the speaker horn back to the vox officer, who shrugged the harness of the heavy caster set on his back to make it sit more comfortably.
“Get Kolosim for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Still walking, the vox officer adjusted his earpiece and began to tune through the channels using the caster’s secondary control panel, which was strapped around his left forearm. Wilder heard the man test-calling for Kolosim on the channels reserved for recon forces.
Wilder turned and looked east across the tableland towards the distant compartment wall. Beyond the dotted lines of his men trudging north, long-shadowed, through the broken scrub, the land fell away and became jagged and jutting along the steep rock ridges. The woodland was deep there, dark pockets still smoking with mist. Somewhere over in that direction, Ferdy Kolosim’s recon unit was supposed to be cutting around west towards Hill 56.
Wilder tried to shake off the nagging feeling that had entered his head. It wasn’t like Kolosim to miss a check, and he should have been on or near the hill by now.
“Nothing, sir,” the vox-officer reported. “Zero return from the captain’s designated channel.”
“Try the other bands. He may be having reception trouble.”
“I have, sir. Nothing. Post command says he voxed in just before five and reported his position as Ridge 18. He told them he was going to scout the next ridgeline before turning west.”
Wilder nodded. He scratched the corner of his cheekbone where two hours of wearing low light goggles had started to chafe.
“I want you to keep trying him, every five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Before that, get me the Kolstec commander. Then I’ll want a general patch to our company leaders.”
“Yes, sir.”
The field commander of the Kolstec Fortieth was a man named Forwegg Fofobris. The Fortieth was a fine bunch of experienced heavy infantry, packing some serious crew-served support pieces, which would be useful come noon. However, Fofobris had come across as a bit of a blowhard to Wilder in the brief encounters they’d had. Baskevyl and Wilder had taken to referring to Fofobris as “Foofoo Frigwig”, which was a bad habit, because it was all to easy to slip and call a man by his nickname to his face. The pair of them had once developed the name “Jonny Frigging Glareglasses” in reference to a archly posing Volpone officer they’d had to deal with on Khan III. When Wilder had called the man that by accident during a briefing, he’d been challenged to an honour duel.
He’d got out of it, thanks to Van Voytz. A formal apology and a case of amasec. Funny thing was, Baskevyl, who usually coined these derogatory terms, never slipped. It was always Wilder. Wilder wondered if Baskevyl had a nickname for him too.
Most probably.
Foofoo Frigwig came on the line. “Wilder, is that you, sir?”
Wilder suddenly got a fit of the giggles. He remembered a moment in the post 36 billets, several nights earlier, when Gol Kolea and Ban Daur had introduced the Belladon officer cadre to the mysteries of homebrewed sacra. A Tanith tipple, evidently. One sip made you smile like a lovely bastard. It was during that little session that Baskevyl had come up with the name “Foofoo Frigwig”, adding that the “foofirst class arsehole” was in command of the “Kolstuck Foofortieth” fighting “foofor the Golden fooFrigging Throne.”
Ah well, it had been foofrigging funny at the time, and such childish humour had a habit of sticking in places where it was no longer funny or appropriate. Unless you’d been there.
“Fofobris? This is Eighty leader.”
“What’s the matter with this link, man? It sounds like you’re giggling.”
Wilder covered the vox horn and looked at the comms officer. “Slap me real hard, Keshlan.”
“Sir?”
“Across the cheek. If you don’t mind.”
“Sir… uh, what?”
Wilder shook his head. “Never mind.” He looked out east towards the ridges and the thought of Kolosim straightened his face pretty quick.
“Sorry, Kolstec lead, the atmospherics here are bad. You’re at our tail, I understand?”
“Affirmative, Eighty leader. Forty minutes from the hill at this time.”
Fooforty minutes. Really, still funny.
“The Rothberg are going to be pulling out around noon, Fofobris. By then, we’re going to need to be providing serious ground cover. Are you good for that?”
“As soon as we’re on site, Eighty leader.”
“That’s good to hear, Kolstec lead. We’re going to need tread-fethers and—”
“Say again?”
Throne, how easy to fall into slang. I’m my own worst enemy, Wilder thought. “Anti-tank, Fofobris. A lot of it. Expect heavy shit. Patch to my number two, Baskevyl, on 751. He’s scouting the terrain now. I want you placed as per his recommendations.”
“Not a problem. Understood, Eighty leader.”
Wilder handed back the horn to vox-officer Keshlan. “Now the company leaders, please.”
Keshlan hooked him up, and Wilder briefed the officers of the Eighty-First First on the bare bones of the gig ahead.
All the while, he stared east.
Where are you, Ferdy, and what’s the problem?
C Company had reached the foot of Hill 56. “Double time it, you slugs!” Kolea shouted. “Up the slope now. You can rest when you’re dead.”
The troopers began jogging up the scrubby incline.
Kolea turned, and saw Varl. Varl had stopped moving. He was standing on the slope, looking west, his hand to his left ear.
“Varl?”
It took a moment for Varl to look round. When he did, there was no hint of the man Gol Kolea had once known.
Varl adjusted his microbead plug. “You hear that?”
“What?”
“It’s clipping in and out. Through the static.”
Kolea shook his head. “Atmospherics, Ceg. Just atmospherics. The weather’s bad for that today. Solar radiation, or something.”
“No,” said Varl. “It’s the chief. He’s in trouble.”
“Mkoll?”
Varl looked at him.
“You know, you’re going to have to tell me some stories, sometime, Ceg,” Kolea began gently. “I mean, you and me. We were friends once. And the Ceglan Varl I knew was the biggest blabbermouth story-teller I ever met. I’m beginning to think the archenemy sent us back a copy that looks all right, but is actually—”
“That some kind of joke?” Varl growled. His eyes were suddenly hard.
“Gak, yes!” Kolea said, taking a step back, mortified. “A joke, Varl. A fething joke. You remember them, right?”
Varl breathed deeply. A tiny smile crossed his face. “Sorry, Gol. Sorry, man. It just seems like everyone I meet suspects me. Thinks I’m tainted, because I was there so long. I had the fething Inquisition on me, you know.”
“I know.”
“We all did. How fething right is that, after what we did? A tribunal? I served, for Throne’s sake! I fething served!”
Kolea blanched. He held out his hand. “Gak it, Ceg. What happened to you? What did they do to you on Gereon?”
Varl laughed. “Nothing, Gol. They did nothing. I did it all to myself. Just to survive…”
Varl’s voice trailed off. He looked at his old friend. “Sometimes, you know…”
“What, Ceg?”
Varl shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just that sometimes I wish my old Ghos
t buddies had the first fething clue about what we had to deal with on Gereon.”
“So tell me. Then I will.”
Varl laughed again. It pained Kolea to see his old friend so conflicted. “Tell you? There’s nothing I can tell you. Gereon didn’t make for anecdotes and war stories. Gereon was fething hell on a stick. Sometimes I want to scream. Sometimes I just want to cry my heart out.”
Kolea smiled. “Either. Both. It’d just be between you and me.”
“You’re a good man, Gol. How are the kids?”
“The what?”
“Tona told us all about it. You have to see your kids, Gol.”
Kolea turned away, bruised with anger. “You better watch your lip, Varl.”
“All right. Whatever you say, poppa. Stings, does it? Close to home? I tell you what, Gol, Gereon’s closer than that to me. To all of us that were lost. It fething hurts, it’s so close.”
Varl looked east again. “The chief. He’s in trouble. I know it.”
Captain Meryn ran back down the scrubline and summoned his troop leaders out of the advancing mass of E Company.
“Coming up on 56 now,” he told them as they huddled around him. “Wilder wants us into a line, with close support to the front. Fargher, Kalen, Guheen, Harjeon, that means your teams. Into position, quick smart, and listen for Baskevyl’s instructions.”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused.
Meryn paused and looked around. “Where’s Major Rawne?”
Guheen pointed back to a gaggle of figures down the slope.
“All right,” said Meryn, “move it up. I’ll be there in a minute or two.” He hurried back down the slope towards Rawne.
Rawne was standing with Feygor, Caffran and Beltayn. The vox-officer was fiddling with his set’s dials.
“Is there a problem here?” Meryn demanded.
Rawne looked at Meryn as he approached them. “I think so, captain.”
Throne, how Meryn hated the way Rawne said “Captain.
“And it is?”
Beltayn looked up at Meryn, fiddling still with his caster dials. “Something’s awry.”
Meryn managed a smile. It had been a Throne-awful long time since he’d heard that refrain.