“I can’t feel anything,” said Novobazky. “Except… except a sense of unease. Is that just me?”
Rawne shook his head.
“Not the first time I’ve heard this on Ancreon Sextus,” Mkoll said. “You heard it last time, Maggs. You too, Major Kolosim.”
“That buzzing?” Kolosim replied. “That was deafening.”
“This is much more low level, but it’s the same thing,” Bonin said.
“Oh shit,” said Villyard. “Look!”
The Belladon scout was pointing towards the boulder in the clearing. Something wrong was happening to it. It was distorting: bending and twisting, as if they were seeing it through a ripple of heat haze. The buzzing increased in intensity until all of them could hear it.
There was a noise like cloth tearing, the sudden pop of a pressure change, like an airgate opening, and the lifeless trees around them shivered in an exhalation of cold wind.
The boulder was no longer there. Occupying its precise space and shape was a doorway. A gate. A simple, impossible hole in the fabric of the world.
The hole shimmered. Mist, frost white, slowly drifted out of its dark, yawning gulf. Reality had somehow folded up on itself to allow this hole to be.
“There’s Gaunt’s answer,” Bonin said.
“I don’t understand what I’m seeing,” Novobazky murmured.
“What you’re seeing is a very bad thing, commissar,” whispered Mkoll.
“Hate to correct you, chief,” Varl began.
The stalker, thrice-wrought, eight hundred kilos, emerged from the hole as if it was sliding out of the surface of a mirror. It prowled forward on its knuckles, shoulders hunched and rolling loose. It sniffed the air.
“Yeah,” said Varl. “See, now it’s a very bad thing.”
TWENTY-TWO
18.01 hrs, 198.776.M41
Fifth Compartment
Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus
“Novobazky!” Rawne yelled.
“What?” the commissar stammered.
“Novobazky! The weapon!”
Genadey Novobazky, quite unmanned by his first glimpse of a mature stalker, slowly remembered who and what and where he was, and started fumbling with the plasma pistol Hark had given him.
“Hit it!” Kolosim bellowed. The stalker was coming forward, increasing speed. Its throat sacs puffed out like bellows, and its vast jaws opened to allow the steel teeth to engage.
The hunting party opened fire. Ten lasrifles on full auto lit up the clearing with a blitz of laser fire.
Shrugging it off, the monster came on, turning its bounding progress into a pounce.
The Guardsmen scattered in desperation. Maggs managed to smash Novobazky over in a side-tackle that saved both of their lives. The stalker went over them, and caught Villyard in its mouth.
The Belladon screamed the most appalling scream any of them had ever heard as the stalker’s massive bite sheared him apart. Varl turned and began firing at the huge brute. Varl was no fool. He knew full well he couldn’t kill the creature with his mark III. He was trying to hit Villyard. He was trying to spare the poor bastard any more agony.
Busy with its kill, the stalker lashed out with its left paw and smacked Varl into the air. He hit a tree, snapped it, and tumbled onto the cold ground.
Maggs rolled off Novobazky. “The plasma gun! The plasma gun!” he yelled.
“I can’t work the safety!” the commissar babbled, fighting with Hark’s favourite weapon. “I can’t get it to—”
Maggs snatched the pistol out of Novobazky’s hands. He slid the toggle and aimed it at the stalker.
The huge beast turned, its muzzle slick with Villyard’s blood. It hooted and roared, and began to charge the Belladon scout like a fighting bull.
“Eat this,” said Maggs, and fired. The searing beam from the pistol vapourised the stalker’s enormous skull in an astonishing burst of blood and bone chips.
But the sheer momentum of the thrice-wrought’s attack carried its mammoth, headless carcass on. It slammed into Maggs, and knocked him backwards through the air.
Limbs flailing, a look of despair on his face, Maggs fell backwards into the hole and vanished. The headless stalker collapsed onto the soil in front of the shimmering gate.
“Maggs!” Bonin shouted, and ran towards the hole. Mkoll was behind him.
“Feth!” Bonin said, coming to a halt in front of the hole. He reached out his hand and the light rippled like water around his finger tips. “Maggs! Maggs!”
Bonin looked at Mkoll.
“Never leave a man behind,” Mkoll said, and leapt through the portal.
“Mkoll! No!” Bonin roared.
There was a shout from behind him. Criid had opened up. A second stalker, the one that had been trailing them, exploded out of the treeline and came lumbering across the clearing towards Bonin.
The Tanith scout dived away, coming up to spatter las-shots into the thing’s flank as it turned. It wasn’t as big or mature as the beast that had come out of the hole, but it was still big enough. Three hundred kilos plus, thick with muscle, its plated skull half a metre long, its teeth the size of fingers.
It made for Bonin, roaring. Rifle fire smacked into it from the left and forced it to turn away. Kolosim and Criid were coming forward, firing at it, trying to distract it from Bonin.
Their efforts worked. It went for them instead.
Dughan Beltayn landed on its back. He stabbed his straight silver down into the rear of the monster’s skull. Black blood burst up across his hands and forearms. The stalker convulsed and bucked, throwing Beltayn off its back like an unbroken horse.
Hurt, panting, its throat sacs swelling in and out like a respirator pump, the stalker took a few, unsteady steps. Beltayn’s dagger was still buried in the back of its head.
Rawne stepped towards it. There was something in his hand.
“Hello, you,” he said. The beast turned, blood dripping from its gigantic mouth. It gurgled and opened its jaws, slotting its teeth in and out of position as it tasted a new target to bite.
Rawne threw the tube-charge into its wide open smile.
The stalker’s jaws closed. There was a brief rumble, and then it blew apart, showering the whole clearing with greasy blood and lumps of meat.
Rawne wiped the hot, rank gore off his face. “All right, Mach?”
Bonin got to his feet and nodded.
“Criid? Kolosim? Bel?”
“I’m fine,” said Beltayn. He looked at Bonin. “Back of the skull, that’s what you told me. Back of the skull, you said.”
“You did fine,” Bonin replied. He wasn’t really interested. He was gazing at the boulder.
The gate had closed. It was just a boulder again.
“Mkoll? Come back. Maggs? Respond.” Beltayn delicately adjusted the dials of his vox-caster. “Mkoll. This is hunting party. Do you receive?”
“Maybe you broke the caster jumping on that thing’s back?” Bonin suggested.
“Well, I wouldn’t have done an idiot thing like that if you hadn’t told me the back of the skull was the weak spot,” Beltayn snapped.
“It worked for me,” Bonin said.
“Children, hush,” said Rawne. “Bel? Any joy yet?”
Beltayn shook his head. “Something’s awry. I’m not picking up Maggs or the chief, but they’re close. I mean, I’ve got their signals. I’m picking up their microbeads.”
“Why can’t we talk to them?” Kolosim asked.
Beltayn shrugged. “Microbead links have a range of about ten kilometres, tops, major. This baby—” he patted his vox-caster set, “well, she’s good for global work. The point is, look here.”
Beltayn indicated a particular gauge on the vox-set. “That’s the range finder. We call it the booster. See, see how it’s hunting?”
“What does that mean?” Criid asked.
“It means… it means something’s awry,” Beltayn replied. “I’ve got signals from their microbeads, which suggests the
y’re somewhere within a ten-kilometre spread from here. But the set is hunting madly for a fix. Like they’re also out of range.”
“Out of range?” said Rawne. “Out of global range?”
Beltayn shook his head. “I can’t explain it. They’re close by… but they’re also not actually on…” his voice trailed away.
“Not actually on Ancreon Sextus any more?” Rawne finished.
“Um, yes, sir. I said it was awry.”
Rawne turned away. “How’s Varl?” he asked Kortenhus.
“Sore,” said the Belladon. “He’ll live.”
“All right, Novobazky?” Rawne said.
“I froze,” Novobazky said. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I still can’t—”
“No blame,” Rawne said. That was a shock to us all.”
“Sir!” Beltayn cried. “I have something. Throne, it’s coming through like it’s on a delay. Why would it be on a delay?”
“Speaker!” Rawne demanded.
Beltayn threw a switch on the vox-caster. They all stood silently as the crackling, distorted voices breathed out of the vox-set.
“—shit hole now!”
Crackle. “It’s not good, is it?”
“Is this what you meant? The shit you could get me in if you really tried?”
“Shut up, Maggs.”
Indistinct garbage followed for a while.
“—the sky? What the hell’s wrong with the sky?” That was Maggs. “—the frigging stars are wrong. They’re just wrong. It’s so frigging cold.”
“Shut up.”
“So cold. Look at the roof.”
Crackle.
“Why?”
“It’s like a roof. I mean, a ceiling. Stones. Huge stones. What’s holding it up?”
“Shut up.”
Crackle.
“Mkoll, Mkoll, we’re picking you up,” Beltayn said. “Respond!”
Crackle.
“—are we? I mean where the f—”
“—swear Maggs, if you don’t shut u—”
Crackle.
“Beltayn? Beltayn? Is that you? This is Mkoll. I can read you, but you’re not clear. Say again.”
Beltayn keyed the send button. “Mkoll, this is Bel. We’re reading you, over.”
Crackle.
“—can no longer hear you. If you can hear me, get Rawne to the set.”
“I’m here,” Rawne said.
“—getting nothing over the microbeads. I hope you can hear me. Tell Rawne we’re not on Ancreon Sextus any more. Tell Rawne—”
Crackle.
“—place is like a vast chapel. There’s no supports for the roof. Stones hanging in the air. It makes me want to cry. It’s all so impossible. Maggs has lost it. There are stalkers here. All around us. Hundreds of them, climbing the rocks towards us. I think they have our scent.”
Crackle. A long whine of distortion.
“—me the pistol! Give me the fething plasma pistol, Maggs! They’re coming for us! Give me—”
Crackle. Distort. Whine.
“—come on! Move! Don’t—”
“—this way! Keep—”
“—right behind us! Keep moving now for feth’s sake or we—”
A hideous roar burst out of the vox-caster speakers. Then the channel went dead.
Flat noise droned out of it.
“Oh, Throne,” Criid said.
All of them winced as a bomb went off three hundred metres west. With Rawne in the lead, they started running towards the blast, weapons raised.
Varl, Bonin and Criid fanned out ahead, scouring the woodland, rifles at their shoulders.
“Clear!”
“Clear this way!”
“Over here!” Bonin cried out. The hunting party ran to him.
He was hunched over in another clearing, beside another huge stone. Mkoll and Maggs were sprawled at his feet, lifeless, caked in frost. The corpse of a stalker lay nearby, its skull destroyed by a tube-charge.
Rawne knelt down beside Mkoll and cradled his head.
“Chief?”
Mkoll’s eyes opened, slowly blinking. “Gaunt was right,” he gasped. “Gaunt was right.”
TWENTY-THREE
01.05 hrs, 199.776.M41
Third Compartment
Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus
Gaunt woke to find Eszrah shaking him by the shoulder. For a moment, he thought he was still on Gereon, in the gloom of the Untill. But this was a different kind of darkness. He remembered where he really was.
He peered at his chronometer. Its glass had been shattered some time during the previous two days. It was still the dead of night. He’d been asleep in the back of the Salamander for less than three hours. He remembered climbing in to rest for a minute, and then nothing. Exhaustion had overwhelmed him.
“What is it?” he asked.
Eszrah pointed. A young Binar corporal was waiting beside the command tread. His uniform was torn and blotched with mud.
Gaunt slid down from the tread’s bay. Every atom of him ached, and some pieces of him hurt a great deal more than that. He was slightly dizzy and disorientated.
“Yes?” he said.
The corporal saluted. “Commissar Gaunt?”
“Yes.”
“A message for you, sir. It came through to my vox station. It says it’s urgent.”
Gaunt nodded and rummaged for his cap. He followed the young soldier back down the rutted trackway.
A kilometre behind them, the battle still raged. It was just entering its third day. Somehow, they had endured thus far, somehow they had held that narrow, precious line and kept the enemy at bay. The previous afternoon, reinforcements had begun to arrive. By the evening, the Fortis Binars and their allied units had finally been able to retire from the front and rest.
Gaunt glanced back as he walked down the track. The blackness of the night had been thickened into an almost solid mass by the smoke, and this darkness was underlit by a throbbing orange glow from the vast firezones along the front line. The crackle and shriek of munitions continued to echo up from the fenland positions. Gunships swirled through the murk overhead.
All down the long trackway, men slept or rested in the jumbled troop trucks and fighting vehicles. Most of them were Binars, many of them were wounded. The worst of the injured had been evacuated out in slow-moving processions to post 10.
Gaunt and the corporal reached the vox station, set up in one of a cluster of habi-tents beside the trackway. Figures, mainly junior officers, milled about, dead on their feet from fatigue.
The corporal showed Gaunt over to one of the casters, where the operator made some deft connections, and handed a headset to Gaunt. He removed his cap and slid the set on.
“This is Gaunt.”
“Rawne. We’ve got what you need, over.”
“Confirm that, Rawne. You have proof, over?”
“Corroboration, Bram. It’s solid, over.”
“Where are you, over?”
“Post 36, fifth compartment. That’s 36 in the fifth, over.”
“Stay there. I’m coming to you. Gaunt out.”
Gaunt handed the set back and left the tent.
Eszrah was waiting for him outside. Despite the fact that he’d been in the thick of battle for as long as Gaunt, the Nihtgane seemed untroubled by any sign of fatigue.
“Come on,” Gaunt said to him, and began to walk south down the track, away from the boom of war.
“Restye!” Eszrah called out. Gaunt turned. The partisan was hanging back, glancing behind him up the track.
“What?” Gaunt asked.
“Ludd?” Eszrah said. The last time Gaunt had seen Ludd, the young man had been unconscious from exhaustion in the seat of a cargo-10 parked off the road.
Gaunt shook his head. “Not this time. Come on.”
They followed the track for about a kilometre, stepping out of the road from time to time as heavy transports and armoured cars went by, moving up towards the
line. The landscape on either side of them was clogged with troop trucks and munition freighters, along with tanks and Chimeras preparing to advance. A broad patch of bare earth was being used as a forward landing strip for gunships and Valkyries. Six of the machines were on the ground, surrounded by prep crews and fuel bowsers.
Gaunt led Eszrah past a team of bombardiers offloading tank shells from the payload bay of one battered Valkyrie, and approached the next in line. The pilot, who had been resting on the ground beside his machine, jumped up when he saw the commissar approaching.
“You fuelled and prepped?” Gaunt asked.
“Yes, sir, but—”
“But what?”
The pilot explained that his Valkyrie and the three next to it were on standby for Marshal Sautoy and his senior officers. Sautoy had finally graced the front line with his presence four hours before, to “oversee the reinforcement phase”.
“The marshal, who’s a personal friend of mine,” Gaunt said, “will have to spare you. I need transit right now. Urgent Commissariat business.”
“It’s… irregular, sir,” the pilot said.
“Look around, my friend,” said Gaunt. “Everything’s irregular right now. I can’t exaggerate the importance of this. If I hang around and try to go through proper channels to get a bird assigned, I’ll be here the rest of the night. If it helps, I’ll sign off on a k46-B requisition slip to say that I’ve commandeered you. You can always show that to your flight controller.”
The pilot studied Gaunt for a moment. There was no doubting his rank, but the commissar was a mess. His clothes were ragged and filthy, and he had fresh scratches and contusions on his dirty face and an agony of fatigue in his pale eyes. He also appeared to have a shoulder wound. The pilot concluded this was probably not a man to cross.
“I’ll clear off the fitters and get us up, sir,” the pilot said, buttoning up his flight suit. “Destination?”
“Fifth compartment,” Gaunt told him. “Post 36.”
From the air, Sparshad Mons was a sprawling, monstrous shadow twitching with ten thousand spots of fire. They flew through reeking banks of smoke that blotted everything out, forcing the pilot to fly by instruments. In clearer patches, once they were over the second compartment, Gaunt could see the columns of troop and armour advance threading up into the step-city: long, winding rivers of lamps and headlights flowing through the dark. Everything was coming. Van Voytz had committed everything he had.