[Gaunt''s Ghosts 08] - Traitor General

  Then had come the ascent up the shoulder of the Untill’s deep bowl, through blasted uplands thick with scrub and loose stone. The trees here were bare and dead, thorny antlers of desiccated wood breaking from the steep ground. They saw emaciated grox and other livestock turned feral that had clearly run free from the adjacent heartlands and were now foraging in the flinty heath. One made a good supper, the best they’d yet had on Gereon.

  Beyond the heath land, the ground became grassy and they entered the boundary forest of old woodland that fringed the western edge of the Untill. Gaunt could see how unnerved Eszrah ap Niht had become. He kept stopping to sniff the strange new air, and sometimes lingered behind, blinking up at the sky.

  “He’s never seen it before,” Mkvenner advised Gaunt.

  “I realised that.”

  “He’s crying all the time,” Mkvenner added.

  “It’s just the light,” Curth said. “He’s not used to the light. His eyes are watering.”

  Varl raked through his battered pack, and produced his prized sunshades. He liked to wear them to look cool off duty. Throne alone knew why he’d brought them.

  He gave them to Eszrah.

  “There you go, Ezra Night,” he said. “Take them. They’re yours, mate.”

  The partisan was puzzled, and kept trying to give them back, until Mkvenner slowly explained their purpose. Eszrah put them on. An odd smile flickered across his face. More than ever, with the dark, gleaming lenses masking his eyes, he looked like a human moth.

  “Ven, tell him he can go back now. He can go back and rejoin his kind. Thank him for me, carefully. He’s done more for us than I could ever have expected.”

  Mkvenner came back a few minutes later. “He won’t go, sir,” he said.

  “Why not?” Gaunt asked.

  Mkvenner cleared his throat. “Because he’s yours, sir.”

  “What?”

  “He’s your property, sir.”

  Gaunt went over and talked to Eszrah himself. Mkvenner had to join them to help out. The Sleepwalker was quite definite about it. In return for the efforts made by Gaunt and his team in defending the partisan camp, Cynhed ap Niht had given them one of his sons. It appeared that the partisans were terribly literal people. When Gaunt had originally asked them for a guide to lead them through the Untill, Cynhed had understood him to be requesting permanent ownership of a Sleepwalker. No little wonder he had refused.

  But Eszrah’s father had felt duty bound after the battle with Uexkull’s murderers. He’d given them the guide they had been asking for. Literally given Gaunt one of his sons. Forever. As a gesture of thanks.

  “You go back now,” Gaunt told Eszrah. “You’ve done all I asked of you. Go back to your father.”

  Mkvenner translated. Eszrah frowned and queried again.

  “Please, go back,” Gaunt said.

  Eszrah made to take off the sunshades.

  “He can keep those,” Varl said.

  They left Eszrah ap Niht standing alone in the skirts of the forest.

  But he followed them, at a distance.

  “He’s not going away,” Mkoll said.

  “Ven, go talk to him again,” Gaunt said. “Make him understand.”

  When Mkvenner came back, Ezra Night was with him, wearing his sunshades like a trophy.

  “He won’t be told, sir,” Mkvenner said. “I think it’s a cultural thing. A matter of honour. His father told him to come with you and guide you, and that’s what he’s going to do. Quite possibly forever. Don’t ask him to go back again. He’s never been this far before, and he’s not entirely sure of the way. Besides, asking him to go back is the same as asking him to disobey his father’s strict instructions. He loves his father, sir. He’s made a vow. I don’t think you should expect him to break it.”

  Gaunt nodded. He turned to Eszrah and held out his hand. Eszrah ap Niht took it gently.

  “You’re one of us now,” Gaunt said. Eszrah seemed to understand. He smiled.

  It was a strange moment of union that Gaunt would remember for the rest of his life.

  So, at dawn, under the hem of the woodland, Gaunt gathered his battered team around him. Beyond, the bocage beckoned, tranquil. He knew that the tranquility was an illusion. Briefings had reported the heartland to be the most securely held territory on Gereon.

  And also, the location of their target.

  “We need good rest, food and resupply,” Gaunt began.

  “There’s a village about three kilometres north-west of here,” Mkoll said. “It appears to be deserted.”

  “We’ll start there. More importantly, we need to find out where we are exactly. Cirk?”

  She shrugged. “Lectica, the eastern fringe. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

  “Mr Landerson?” Gaunt asked.

  “That town in the distance could be Hedgerton. But then again, it could be half a dozen heartland communities. I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s head for the village,” Gaunt said.

  The place was no more than a clutch of abandoned farmhouses, a farrier’s shed, a grain store and a small templum. All of it was overgrown, the windows shattered, weeds festering around the doorposts.

  They approached cautiously in the warm sunlight. Insects buzzed. The scouts spread wide, circling the place. There was no sign of life. The village had been vacated months before, probably at the time of the invasion, and no one had visited it since.

  They split up and searched a few of the dwellings, recovering some dried goods, salted meats and jars of preserves from the pantries. Beltayn found an old shotgun and some kerosene lanterns. In one upstairs room, Curth discovered a doll in an empty cot. It made her cry again. She swore and raged against the weakness that the taint had bred into her. Criid found her and tried to calm her down. Then she saw the empty cot and began to cry too. It was a blessing for Curth. She forced her emotions into check so she could comfort her friend.

  Feygor and Varl searched another house. As soon as they were inside, Feygor saw an old bed with a ratty straw mattress. He laid himself down on it.

  When Varl came back to find him, Feygor was fast asleep. Varl sat down on the end of the bed and watched over him.

  Rawne pushed his way into the next farmhouse and found a table set for dinner. Six places, cutlery, plates. A charcoal mass sat in the pot on the cold stove. Dinner had been abandoned in a hurry.

  Rawne sat down at the head of the table and gazed at the settings. They made the shape of an oared boat. Here was the shape of a rising sun. Rawne reached out and rearranged some of the cutlery, and pushed plates into new positions.

  That was better. Now they made the mark of the stigma.

  In the farrier’s shed, Larkin and Bonin found a half-empty tank of promethium that had been used to fuel the smithy furnace.

  “Go get Brostin,” Bonin said.

  The big man appeared a few moments later and, with a delighted chuckle, began to replenish his canister tanks.

  The micro-bead pipped.

  “One,” Gaunt acknowledged.

  “Mkoll. Come to the templum, sir. Bring Landerson.”

  Gaunt and Landerson walked into the gloom of the village templum. Like all the buildings in this remote farm community, it was little more than a wooden shack. Sunlight pierced in through holes in the wallboards and lit up the dust the visitors were disturbing. Rough wooden chairs were arranged in rows, facing down the nave to the brass aquila suspended over the altar. Gaunt walked forward and knelt before it. He made the sign of the eagle, and began to utter the Renunciation of Ruin.

  There was a good chance this was the last undesecrated Imperial shrine on the planet.

  Gaunt closed his eyes. In the last few nights, he had started to dream again, for the first time since his arrival on Gereon. These recent dreams had been so vivid; they played back now across his mind. Sabbat, always beckoning him, although sometimes she looked like Cirk. That was fine. As long as the beati was with him, it didn’t matter what guise she took.
br />   But there were noticeable absences in these renewed dreams. Some of his long-lost friends were no longer coming to him during slumber. Slaydo was still there, though faint and transparent. Gaunt had seen Zweil too, and the wizened priest had been laughing. But there had been no sign of Bragg. No Vamberfeld either. And Gaunt couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Colm Corbec’s face.

  Worst of all, Brin Milo still hadn’t appeared to him. Gaunt still hadn’t seen Milo in his dreams since leaving Herodor. But, and this made him uneasy, there was always the screaming. The man screaming in the void. Who the hell was that? He was quite certain he knew the voice..

  Ibram Gaunt took dreams seriously. He believed they were the only conduit through which the God-Emperor could make his purpose understood to the common man. Gaunt hadn’t always thought that way, but the visions that had led him and the Ghosts to Herodor had been so real, he now regarded every single dream as a message.

  He was glad they had come back at last, no matter how disquieting they seemed.

  “Sir?”

  Mkoll called him over to a massive book he was leafing through.

  “What is this?”

  “Parish records, sir,” Mkoll replied. “Look here.” He opened a dusty page and tracked a dirty finger down the copperplate entries. “Births and deaths. Marriages.”

  “This is what you wanted me to see?”

  Mkoll folded shut the heavy, brass-cornered volume and then reopened it on its title page.

  “See?”

  “Parish registry of Thawly Village,” Gaunt read. “Landerson?”

  Landerson hurried over to them.

  “Thawly? Know it?”

  Landerson shook his head. “Sorry, sir. I don’t. I could ask Cirk…”

  “Never mind that,” said Mkoll. There’s more.”

  He unfolded the page and spread it out. It was a flaking chart of the parish boundaries. It showed Thawly and the nearby bocage towns.

  “Great Throne…” Gaunt said. “We’ve got a map.”

  They gathered in the porch of the templum, and Gaunt showed them the old chart. “Mr Landerson was right. The town over there is Hedgerton. And that’s Leafering. Take a look. We’re located now.”

  “So, where’s the target?” Rawne asked.

  “Just off the map this way, beyond Furgesh, here. You see?”

  Rawne saw all too well. He saw the way their shadows made the shape of a mantis on the porch floor.

  And he saw the mark on Gaunt’s cheek, the one Uexkull’s knuckles had gouged, and which Gaunt had refused to allow to be bandaged. It was scabbing over now, but the shape was unmistakable. The witchmark of Chaos. The stigma. Just like the one that daemon-beauty Cirk wore so proudly.

  Gaunt had been branded.

  “Isn’t it about time you let us in on your mission, sir?” Cirk was asking.

  “Soon, major. Very soon,” Gaunt replied. “Look at the map, tell me what you know.”

  Landerson bent forward. “Hedgerton is a small place. All we’re likely to find there are glyfs and excubitors. Leafering is more important. Its a large community, and last I knew there was a cell faction active there. Major Cirk?”

  “Landerson’s right.” said Cirk. There’s a good chance of making a connection in Leafering. But it’s garrisoned. A well-maintained hab, with a vox base and lots of Occupation troopers. Not to mention wirewolves.”

  “I can do wirewolves,” Curth retorted. They don’t scare me.”

  Gaunt decided not to mention the fact that the reason Curth had beaten the wirewolf was long gone.

  “A vox base? Are you sure, Cirk?”

  She shrugged. “Last time I checked.”

  Gaunt smiled. To Rawne, that twisted the witchmark into even more obscene shapes.

  “Leafering’s the one,” Gaunt announced. “Definitely.” He paused. Varl, where’s Feygor?”

  “I left him sleeping, sir,” Varl said.

  “Good advice,” Gaunt said. “Let’s all get some decent sleep and move in the morning.”

  * * * * *

  Night fell over the hamlet, cool and black. In the various dwellings, the Ghosts had found beds and were sleeping deeper than they had since planetfall. Nobody cared about the musty smell of the cot sheets, the dampness. Compared with the grey ooze of the Untill, it was luxury.

  Eszrah ap Niht didn’t sleep. He took off his sunshades and hooked them carefully over his belt. It was night now, something he understood.

  He saw movement in the hamlet’s narrow street and followed it. It was the man called Rawne. He was slipping between the houses, a silver knife in his hand.

  Eszrah slid an iron quarrel into the mouth of his reyn-bow.

  Gaunt had chosen a bed in the upper floor of a cottage. The sheets were rank and mildewed, so he lay down on top of them and slept in his clothes.

  He was vaguely aware of the chamber door opening. He looked up, into the dark, and saw a woman framed against the starlight from the window.

  “Ana?”

  She took off her jacket and dropped it onto the floor. Then she sat down on the end of the bed and yanked off her boots. The rest of her clothes quickly followed.

  “Ibram,” she whispered. He took her in his arms and they kissed. They both laughed as she struggled to pull off his clothing.

  “Ana…” he whispered.

  “Shhh…” she said.

  His straight silver in his hand, Rawne edged up the cottage stairs in the dark. From above him came faint noises. He trod up the next few steps. Now he could hear orgasmic cries through the thin lathe walls of the cottage. Then silence.

  Rawne went up the last few stairs, quiet as a shadow, and carefully opened the chamber door.

  He looked in.

  Naked, sleeping. Gaunt and Cirk lay wrapped in each other, their limbs entwined. Just like the symbol Rawne had seen in the Untill mists.

  He shut the door and went downstairs again. The business end of Eszrah ap Niht’s mag-bow suddenly loomed in his face.

  Rawne sheathed his warblade.

  “Go to sleep,” he told the partisan. “Just go to sleep.”

  Gaunt woke with a start. It was early, dark still. He had been dreaming that he was sharing his bed. Confused memories flooded back. He reached his hand out and found the mouldering sheets were still warm to the touch.

  Someone had been there with him. He had vivid recall now of soft skin. Of urgency. Of heat.

  “Ana?” he called out. “Ana?”

  They left Thawly as the sun rose, hazy and red, above the fields. Decent rest and the chance to wash out clothes and kit at the village pump had lifted their mood. Even Feygor seemed a little better, with some colour back in his face.

  Mkoll set a brisk pace. They followed the village track until it joined a lane between fields, which in turn linked to a country road. For the first two hours of the day, they saw no one, but as the sun climbed higher, a few transports came up and down the road, so they left it and cut out across the fields, making a direct line for Leafering.

  The heartland fields were in a much better state of repair than the farmlands around Ineuron had been. The invaders had maintained horticulture, and there was evidence of extensive planting programs and the use of pesticides. The bocage was a resource the archenemy intended to use to keep its Occupation force fed, perhaps even generate food supplies that would be shipped off-world to help feed their front-line hosts.

  As they got closer to Leafering, they saw signs of more disturbing land use. Huge field zones, some created by the systematic clearance of the old hedgerows to join smaller fields together, had been turned into industrial plantations. The air stank of fertilisers, and the fields were coated with a thick crust of pinky nitrates. Out of this grew row after row of thick, black, fleshy stalks on which millions of bulbous mauve fruits were developing.

  “These aren’t local production measures,” Cirk said.

  “Nor a local crop, I’ll bet,” Gaunt replied. Over the years, he’d read m
any reports of the archenemy mass-planting xeno-crops on captured agri-worlds like Gereon. Highly resistant to disease and climate, perhaps hybridised for accelerated growth, these plantations rapidly tripled or quadrupled the planet’s crop yield, but at huge cost to the planet’s eco-sphere. After a few decades of xenoculture, the planet would be left barren and infertile, all the organics stripped from the topsoil. He wondered if Cirk had any idea what these plantations would mean for the future of her world.

  “If you ever get the chance,” he said, “advise the resistance to target these plantations. You don’t want them here, even more than you don’t want the archenemy.”

  She regarded him with a strange expression. There’d been an odd look in her eyes all morning, come to that. Gaunt was about to ask her about it when Bonin raised a warning and they all sought cover in the thick hedges that ran along the length of the plantation. A machine was approaching down the field. It looked a little like a stalk-tank, its central body-sections propelled on eight arachnoid limbs. But these limbs were more than twenty metres tall, so that the vehicle towered over the ground, as if on stilts. It straddled the plantation rows, a set of feet on either side of the planting line, so its body hung above the crop. As it walked, it exhaled noxious clouds of pesticide from ducts in its belly.

  The Ghosts slipped away through the hedge, along the quiet roadway, and crossed the next plantation field instead.

  They made their way through at least ten kilometres of plantation land. Gaunt wondered just how many thousand square kilometres of the heartland had been infested with the alien crop. The team avoided the other stilted sprayers, and what seemed to be mechanical cropper machines at work in the distance.

  Leafering was less than half an hour away now. It looked like a big place with old, grand stone buildings. Once they were close enough, the scouts would conduct a quick appraisal and they’d decide how to move in.