Ghostmaker (3 page)

The cutter rose from the tower bay hard and fast, lifter jets screaming as they were jammed into overdrive. Aerial laser fire exploded the brass orchid-shutters around them and clipped a landing stanchion. Hovering, the cutter wobbled. Below it, Tanith Magna was a blazing inferno.

Forgetting fuel tolerances, flight discipline, even his own mother’s name, the pilot hammered the main thrusters to maximum and the cutter fired itself up through the black smoke like a bullet.

Left to die, the forests burned.

Gaunt fell against a bulkhead and clawed his way to a porthole. Just like in his dreams — fire, like a flower. Blossoming. Pale, greenish fire, scuttling like it was alive. Eating the world, the whole world.

Ibram Gaunt gazed into his reflection, his own lean, pale, bloody face. Trees, blazing like the heart of a star, rushed past behind his eyes.

High over the cold, mauve, marbled world of Nameth, Gaunt’s ships hung like creatures of the deep marine places. Three great troop carriers, their ash-grey, crenellated hulls vaulted like monstrous cathedrals, and the long, muscular escort frigate
Navarre,
spined and blistered with lance weapons and turrets, hooked and angular like a woodwasp, two kilometres long.

In his stateroom on the
Navarre,
Gaunt reviewed the latest survey intelligence. Tanith was lost, part of a conquered wedge of six planet systems that fell to the Chaos armada pincer which Macaroth had allowed to slip behind his over-eager war-front. Now Crusade forces were doubling back and re-engaging the surprise enemy. Sporadic reports had come in of a thirty-six hour deep-space engagement of capital ships near the Circudus. The Imperial Crusaders now faced a war on two fronts.

Gaunt’s ruthless retreat had salvaged three and a half thousand fighting men, just over half of the Tanith regiments, and most of their equipment. The cruellest, most cynical view could call it a victory of sorts.

Gaunt slid a data-slate out from under a pile of other documents on his desk and eyed it. It was the transcript of the communiqué from Macaroth himself, applauding Gaunt’s survival instinct and his great feat in salvaging for the crusade a significant force of men. Macaroth had not seen fit to mention the loss of a planet and its population. He spoke of “Colonel-Commissar Gaunt’s correct choice, and frank evaluation of an impossible situation”, and ordered him to a holding position at Nameth to await deployment.

It made Gaunt queasy. He tossed the slate aside.

The shutter opened and Kreff entered. Kreff was the frigate’s executive officer, a hard-faced, shaven-headed man in the emerald, tailored uniform of the Segmentum Pacificus Fleet. He saluted, a pointless over-formality given that he had been covering as Gaunt’s adjutant in Sym’s place, and had been in and out of the room ten times an hour since Gaunt came aboard.

“Anything?” Gaunt asked.

“The astropaths tell us that something may be coming soon. Perhaps our orders. There is a current, a feeling. And also, uhm…”Kreff was obviously uncomfortable. He didn’t know Gaunt and vice versa. It had taken Sym four years to get used to the commissar.

Sym…

“What is it?” Gaunt asked.

“I wondered if you would care to discuss our more immediate concern? The morale of the men.”

Gaunt got up. “Okay, Kreff. Speak your mind.”

Kreff hesitated. “I didn’t mean with me. There is a deputation from the troop-ships—”

Gaunt turned hard at this. “A what?”

“A deputation of Tanith. They want to speak to you. They came aboard thirty minutes ago.”

Gaunt took his bolt pistol out of the holster slung over his chair back and checked the magazine. “Is this your discreet way of announcing a mutiny, Kreff?”

Kreff shook his head and laughed humourlessly. He seemed relieved when Gaunt reholstered his weapon.

“How many?”

“Fifteen. Mostly enlisted men. Few of the officers came out alive.”

“Send three of them in. Just three. They can choose who.”

Gaunt sat down behind his desk again. He thought about putting his cap on, his jacket. He looked across the cabin and saw his own reflection in the vast bay port. Two metres twenty of solid bone and sinew, the narrow, dangerous face that so well matched his name, the cropped blond hair. He wore his high-waisted dress breeches with their leather braces, a sleeveless undershirt and jack boots. His jacket and cap gave him command and authority. Bare-armed, he gave himself physical power.

The shutter clanked and three men entered. Gaunt viewed them without comment. One was tall, taller and older than Gaunt and built heavily, if a little paunchy. His arms were like hams and were decorated with blue spirals. His beard was shaggy, and his eyes might once have twinkled. The second was slim and dark, with sinister good looks that were almost reptilian. He had a blue star tattooed across his right eye. The third was the boy, the piper.

“Let’s know you,” Gaunt said simply.

“I’m Corbec,” said the big man. “This is Rawne.”

The snake nodded.

“And you know the boy.” Corbec said.

“Not his name.”

“Milo,” the boy said clearly. “Brin Milo.”

“I imagine you’re here to tell me that the men of Tanith want me dead,” said Gaunt simply.

“Perfectly true,” Rawne said. Gaunt was impressed. None of them even bothered to acknowledge his rank and seniority. Not a “sir”, not a “commissar”.

“Do you know why I did what I did?” Gaunt asked. “Do you know why I ordered the regiments off Tanith and left it to die? Do you know why I refused all your pleas to let you turn and fight?”

“It was our right—” Rawne began.

“Our world died, Colonel-Commissar Gaunt,” Corbec said, the title bringing Gaunt’s head up sharp. “We saw it flame out from the windows of our transports. You should have let us stand and fight. We would have died for Tanith.”

“You still can, just somewhere else.” Gaunt got to his feet. “You’re not men of Tanith anymore. You weren’t when you were camped out on the Founding Fields. You’re Imperial Guard, servants of the Emperor first and nothing else second.”

He turned to face the window port, his back to them. “I mourn the loss of any world, any life. I did not want to see Tanith die, nor did I want to abandon it. But my duty is to the Emperor, and the Sabbat Worlds Crusade must be fought and won for the good of the entire Imperium. The only thing you could have done if I had left you on Tanith was die. If that’s what you want, I can provide you with many opportunities. What I need is soldiers, not corpses.”

Gaunt gazed out into space. “Use your loss, don’t be crippled by it. Put the pain into your fighting spirit. Think hard! Most men who join the Guard never see their homes again. You are no different.”

“But most have a home to return to!” Corbec spat.

“Most can look forward to living through a campaign and mustering to settle on some world their leader has conquered and won. Slaydo made me a gift after Balhaut. He gave me the military rank of colonel and granted me settlement rights to the first planet I win. Help me by doing your job, and I’ll help you by sharing that with you.”

“Is that a bribe?” Rawne asked.

Gaunt shook his head. “Just a promise. We need each other. I need an able, motivated army, you need something to take the pain away, something to fight for, something to look forward to.”

Gaunt saw something in the reflection on the glass. He didn’t turn his head. “Is that a laspistol, Rawne? Would you have come here and murdered me?”

Rawne, grinned. “What makes you put that in the past tense, commissar?”

Gaunt turned. “What do I have here then? A regiment or a mutiny?”

Corbec met his gaze. “The men will need convincing. You’ve made ghosts of them, hollow echoes. We’ll take word back to the troop-ships of why you did what you did and what the future might hold. Then it’s up to them.”

“They need to rally around their officers.”

Rawne laughed. “There are none! Our command staff were all on the Founding Fields trying to embark the men when the bombardment started. None of them made it off Tanith alive.”

Gaunt nodded. “But the men elected you to lead the deputation? You’re leaders.”

“Or simply bold and dumb enough to be the ones to front you,” Corbec said.

“It’s the same thing,” Gaunt said. “Colonel Corbec. Major Rawne. You can appoint your own juniors and unit chiefs and report back to me in six hours with an assessment of morale. I should have our deployment by then.”

They glanced at each other, taken aback.

“Dismissed,” prompted Gaunt.

The trio turned away confused.

“Milo? Wait, please,” Gaunt said. The boy stopped as the shutter closed after the two men. “I owe you,” Gaunt told him baldly.

“And you paid me back. I’m not militia or Guard. I only got off Tanith alive because you brought me.”

“Because of your service to me.”

Milo paused. “The Elector himself ordered me to stay with you, to see to your needs. I was just doing my duty.”

“Those two brought you along because they thought the sight of you might mollify me, didn’t they?”

“They’re not stupid,” noted Milo.

Gaunt sat back at his desk. “Neither are you. I have need of an adjutant, a personal aide. It’s dogsbody, gopher work mostly, and the harder stuff you can learn. It would help me to have a Tanith in the post if my working relationship with them is going to continue.”

Before Milo could answer, the shutter slammed open again and Kreff entered, a slate in his hand. He saluted again. “We’ve got our orders, sir,” he said.

Distant, rumbling explosions seemed a constant feature of the deadzone on Blackshard. The persistent crump of heavy gunnery drummed the low, leaden sky over the ridgeline. An earthwork had been built up along the ridge’s spine and, under hardened bunkers, a detachment of Imperial Guard — six units of the 10th Royal Sloka — were readying to mobilise.

Colonel Thoren walked the line. The men looked like world-killers in their ornate battledress: crested, enamelled scarlet and silver warsuits built by the artisans of Sloka to inspire terror in the enemy.

But perhaps not this enemy. General Hadrak’s orders had been precise, but Thoren’s heart was heavy. He had no relish for the approaching push. He had no doubt at all it would cost him dearly. To push blind, unsupported, into treacherous unknown territory in the hope of finding a wormhole into the enemy positions that might not even be there. The prospect made him feel sick.

Thoren’s subaltern drew his attention suddenly to the double file of sixty men moving down the covered transit trench towards them. Scrawny ruffians, dressed in black, camo-cloaks draped over them, plastered to their bodies by the rain.

“Who in the name of Balor’s blood…?” Thorne began.

Halting his column, the leader, a huge blackguard with a mess of tangled beard and a tattoo — a tattoo!—marched up to Thoren and saluted.

“Colonel Corbec, 1st Tanith. First-and-Only. General Hadrak has ordered us forward to assist you.”

“Tanith? Where the hell is that?” asked Thoren.

“It isn’t,” replied the big man genially. “The general said you were set to advance on the enemy positions over the deadzone. Suggested you might need a covert scouting force seeing as how your boys’ scarlet armour stands out like a baboon’s arse.”

Thoren felt his face flush. “Now listen to me, you piece—”

A shadow fell across them. “Colonel Thoren, I presume?”

Gaunt dropped down into the dugout from the trench boarding. “My regiment arrived here on Blackshard yesterday night, with orders to reinforce General Hadrak’s efforts to seize the Chaos stronghold. That presupposes co-operative efforts between our units.”

Thoren nodded. This was Gaunt, the upstart colonel-commissar, it had to be. He’d heard stories.

“Appraise me, please,” said Gaunt.

Thoren waved up an aide who flipped up a map-projector, and displayed a fuzzy image of the deadzone. “The foe are dug in deep in the old citadel ruins. The citadel had a sizeable standing defence force, so they’re well equipped. Chaos cultists, mostly, about seventeen thousand able fighting men. We also…” he paused.

Gaunt raised a questioning eyebrow.

“We believe there may be other abominations in there. Chaos spawn.”

Thoren breathed heavily. “Most of the main fighting is contained in this area here, while artillery duels blight the other fronts.”

Gaunt nodded. “Most of my strength is deployed along the front line. But General Hadrak also directed us to this second front.”

Thoren indicated the map again. “The foe are up to more than simply holding us out. They know sooner or later we’ll break through, so they must be up to something — trying to complete something, perhaps. Recon showed that this flank of the city might be vulnerable to a smaller force. There are channels and ducts leading in under the old walls, a rat-maze, really.”

“My boys specialise in rat-mazes,” Gaunt said.

“You want to go in first?” Thoren asked.

“It’s mud and tunnels. The Tanith are light infantry, you’re armoured and heavy. Let us lead through and then follow us in support when we’ve secured a beachhead. Bring up some support weapons.”

Thoren nodded. “Very well, colonel-commissar.”

Gaunt and Corbec withdrew to their men.

“This will be the first blooding for this regiment, for the Tanith First-and-Only,” began Gaunt.

“For Gaunt’s Ghosts,” someone murmured. Mad Larkin, Corbec was sure.

Gaunt smiled. “Gaunt’s Ghosts. Don’t disappoint me.”

They needed no other instructions. At Corbec’s gesture, they hurried forward in pairs, slipping their camo-cloaks down as shrouds around them, lasguns held loose and ready. The hybrid weave of the hooded cloaks blurred to match the dark grey mud of the ridgeway, and each man stooped to smear his cheeks and brow with wet mud before slipping over the earthwork.

Thoren watched the last one disappear and then span the trench macro-periscope around. He looked out, but of the sixty plus men who had just passed his position, there was no sign.

“Where in the name of Solan did they go?” he breathed.