The Warmaster

Eleven: Forge World Urdesh

Thunder rolled across the Great Bay of Eltath. It was high summer, and the air was dull with a haze that made the low, wide sky a bright grey. Cloud banks running out across the wide bay and the sea beyond stood like inverted mountains, dark and ominous as phantoms. Lightning sizzled like trace veins in the dead flesh of the sky.

It was not a summer storm breaking, though changes in the weather were anticipated before nightfall. It was the electromagnetic shock wave of a large magnitude ship entering the atmospheric sheath.

Descending at speed, the Highness Ser Armaduke sliced through the cloud cover, emerging into the hard sunlight in a squall of rain. It left a long furrow in the cloud system behind it, like a stick drawn through old snow, a trail that would take several hours to fade.

It came in low over the sea. It was running fast, the vents of its real space plasma engines shining blue, but it was limping too. It was a patched survivor, sutured and soldered, its broken jaw wired shut from the fight. It had taken six weeks to reach Urdesh, and that voyage had been made thanks to frantic running repairs, constant coaxing, desperate compromises and sheer willpower.

In atmosphere, it made a terrible noise: a droning, vibrating, clattering howl of breathless engines, weary mechanicals and straining gravimetrics. The sound of it boomed out across the bay like ragged thunder, like a bass drum full of lead shot being kicked down a long staircase.

Its bulk was ugly, blackened and scorched. Three massive wounds scarred its heat-raked flanks and one of the four real space drives was unlit, a black socket leaking tons of liquid soot and water. It left a long, filthy plume of vapour and oily black smoke behind it, smoke that puffed and popped from exhaust cowlings like the fume waste of a steam locomotive. Slabs of dirty ice peeled from its hull as the air shaved at it, taking paint and hull coating with it. The chunks scattered away, dropping like depth charges into the ocean below, so that to shore­side observers, the Armaduke looked like it was performing a low-level saturation bombing run.

Vapour clung to its upper hull, swirling in the slipstream, and traceries of wild static sparked and popped around its masts.

It came in across the bay. To the west of it, grav-anchored at a height of one-and-a-half kilometres above the sea, the battleship Naiad ­Antitor sat like a floating continent, half shrouded in sea mist, an Imperial capital ship nine times the size of the relentless Armaduke.

The three Faustus-class interceptors that had guided the Armaduke in through the fleet, packing high orbit, purred down out of the cloud in formation, and resumed their station as an arrowhead, chasing ahead of the Armaduke, their running lights winking. The Naiad Antitor pulsed its main lanterns. Vox-links squealed with the ship-to-ship hail. Crossing the Naiad Antitor’s bow at a distance of ten kilometres, the Armaduke blazed its lamps, returning the formal salute. On both ships, the bridge crews stood and made the sign of the aquila, facing the direction of the other vessel as the Armaduke crossed beside its illustrious cousin.

A squadron of Thunderbolts, silver and red in the livery of the Second Helixid, scrambled from the Naiad Antitor’s flight decks and boiled out of its belly like wasps stirred from a nest. They raked low across the grey water, leaving hissing wakes of spray, and rose in coordinated formation on either side of the racing Armaduke, forming an honour guard escort of a hundred craft.

Ahead, the Great Bay began to narrow into the industrial approaches of the wet and dry harbours and the vast shipyards of Eltath. The mound of the great city, dominating the head of the peninsula, rose in the distance. Sunlight caught the flags, standards and masts that topped the Urdeshic Palace at its summit.

The clattering Armaduke came in lower, reducing its velocity. Its ship­master reined in its headlong advance, easing back the power, sensing it was finding a last burst of acceleration like a weary hound or horse in sight of home and shelter.

It passed over the harbour, bleeding speed. Beneath, watercraft left white lines in a sea that glowed pink and russet with algal blooms. The south shore approach to the harbour was lined with derelict food mills and the rafts of rusting bulk harvester boats that had once processed the algae and weed for food. Scores of Astra Mili­tarum troop ships, grey and shelled like beetles, were strung on mooring lines at low anchor over the harbour slick. Tender boats scooted around them on the water or flitted around their armoured hulls like humming birds.

Then they were over land, the foreshore of the city. The immense dry docks like roofless cathedrals, some containing smaller warships under refit. The endless barns and warestores of the Munitorum and the dynast craftsmen. The towers and manufactories of the Mechanicus, clustered like forest mushrooms around the base of the volcanic stack. The huge foundation docks and grav yards of the shipyard, like cross sections of sea giants, structural ribs exposed, each one an immense, fortified socket in the hillside, waiting to nest a shiftship. Watchtowers. The bunkered gun batteries at Low Keen and Eastern Hill and Signal Point. The tower emitters of the shield dome and their relay spires, thrusting from the craggy slopes like spines from an animal’s backbone. The skeletal wastelands of the refinery, extending out over the sullen waters of the Eastern Reach, one hundred and sixty kilometres wide.

The Armaduke slowed again. Its real space drives began to cycle down, their glow dying back, and the clattering noise of the ship abated a little. Gravimetrics and thrust-manoeuvre systems took over, easing the impossibly huge object in slowly above the ­towers of Eltath. The sound of the ship, even diminished, echoed and slapped around the walls of the city. Windows rattled in their frames.

The Faustus escort peeled away, winking lamps of salute as they banked into space on higher burn. The Helixid Thunderbolts stayed with the slowing bulk of the Armaduke a little longer, dropping to almost viff-stall speed. Then they too disengaged, curling in lines like streamers as they broke and ran back to their parent ship.

Guide tugs, lumpen as tortoises, lumbered into view, securing mag-lines and heavy cables to harness the warship and man­handle it the last of the way. The Armaduke was crawling now, passing between the highest spires of the city, so close a man might step out of a hatch and onto a balcony.

Horns and hooters started to sound.

The southern end of plating dock eight, a gigantic portcullis, groaned as it opened wide, exposing the interior of the dock – a vast, ribbed cavity open to the sky. Rows of guide lights winked along the bottom of the dock. The air prickled as the dock’s mighty gravity cradle cycled up and engaged. Air squealed and cracked as the grav field of the crawling ship rubbed against the gravimetric buffer of the dock. The Armaduke cut drives. The guide tugs, like burly stevedores, nudged and elbowed it the final few hundred metres.

Lines detached. The tugs rose out of the dock, and turned. The dock gates were closing, re-forming the end wall of the coffin-shaped basin that held the ship.

The Armaduke settled, slowly releasing its gravimetric field as the dock’s systems accepted and embraced its weight. The hull and core frame groaned, and weight distribution shifted. Plates creaked and buckled. In places, rivets sheared under the pressure, and hull seams popped, venting gas and releasing liquid waste that poured down into the basin of the dock.

With a final, exhausted shudder, the Armaduke stopped moving and set down, supported on monolithic stanchion cradles and the gravimetric cup of the dock. Massive hydraulic beams extended from the dock walls to buffer and support the ship’s flanks. Their ­reinforced ram-heads thumped against the hull with the bang of heavy magnetics, taking the strain.

Quiet came at last. The engine throb and drone of the ship were stilled. The only sounds were the dockside hooters, the clank of walk bridges being extended, the whir of cargo hoists rolling out on their platforms and derricks, and the spatter of liquids draining out of the hull into the waste-water drains of the unlit dock floor.

With a long gasp of exhaling breath, the Armaduke blew its hatches and airgates.

Then the storm broke. Thunder peeled across the bay, across Eltath and across the Urdeshic Palace. Above Plating Dock Eight, the sky ­curdled into an early darkness, and rain began to fall. It showed up as winnowing fans of white in the beams of the dock lamps illuminating the ship. It sizzled off the cooling hull, turning to steam as it struck the drive cowling. It buzzed like the bells of a thousand tiny tambourines as it hit the invisible cushion of the grav field, and turned into mist.

It streamed off the patched and rugged hull of the Armaduke, washing off soot and rust in such quantities that the water turned red before it fell away.

To some on the dockside and ramps of the bay, it seemed as though the rain were washing the old ship’s battle wounds, ­bathing its tired bones, and anointing it on its long, long overdue return.

The heavy rain drummed off the canvas roofs of the metal gangways that had extended out to meet the ship’s airgates. Gaunt stepped out onto one of the walkways, feeling its metal structure wobble and sway slightly. He saw the rain squalling through the beams of the dockside floodlights that illuminated the Highness Ser Armaduke. He tasted fresh air. It smelt dank and dirty, but it was fresh air, ­planetary air, not shipboard environmental – the first he had breathed in a year.

Ten years, he corrected himself… Eleven.

There was activity on the dock platforms at the foot of the gangway. He began to walk down the slender metal bridge, ignoring the dark gulf of the dock cavity that yawned below.

A greeting party was assembling. Gaunt saw Munitorum officials, flanked by guards with light poles. An honour guard of eighty Urdeshi storm troopers had drawn up on the dockside platform in perfectly dressed rows, holding immaculate attention.

Gaunt stepped off the gangway onto the dockside. The wet rockcrete crunched under his boots. Now he was beyond the gangway’s canvas awning, the rain fell on him. He was wearing his dress uniform and his long storm coat.

Someone called an order, and the Urdeshi guard snapped in perfect drill, presenting their rifles upright in front of them in an unwavering salute. An officer walked forwards. He wore the black-and-white puzzle camo of Urdesh, and his pins marked him as a colonel.

‘Sir, welcome to Urdesh,’ he said, making the sign of the aquila.

Gaunt nodded and returned the sign formally.

‘I’m Colonel Kazader,’ the man said, ‘Seventeenth Urdeshi. We honour your return. As per your signal, agents of the ordos and the Mechan­icus await to discharge your cargo.’

‘I will brief them directly,’ said Gaunt. ‘There are specifics that I did not include in my signal. Matters that should not be contained in any transmission, even encrypted.’

‘I understand, sir,’ said Kazader. ‘The officers of the ordos also stand by to take your asset into secure custody. That is, if he still lives.’

‘He does,’ said Gaunt, ‘but no prisoner transfer will take place until I have met with the officers and assured myself of their suitability.’

‘Their…?’

‘That they are not going to kill him, colonel,’ said Gaunt. ‘Many have tried, and they have included men wearing rosettes.’

Kazader raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘As you wish, colonel-commissar,’ he said. ‘You are evidently a cautious man.’

‘That probably explains why I have lived so long,’ said Gaunt.

‘Indeed, sir, we presumed you dead. Long dead.’

‘Ten years dead.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the Urdeshi.

‘I never lost faith.’

Gaunt turned. The voice had come from the shadows nearby, under the lip of the dock overhang. A figure stepped out into the rain, flanked by aides and attendants. Guards with light poles fell in step, and their lanterns illuminated the figure’s face.

Gaunt didn’t recognise him at first. He was an old man, grey-bearded and frail, as if the dark blue body armour he wore were keeping him upright. His long cloak was hemmed in gold.

‘Not once,’ the man said. ‘Not once in ten years.’

Gaunt saluted, back straight.

‘Lord general,’ he said.

Barthol Van Voytz stepped nose to nose with Gaunt. He was still a big man, but his face was lined with pain. Raindrops dripped from his heavy beard.

He looked Gaunt in the eyes for a moment, then embraced him. There was great intent in his hug, but very little strength. Gaunt didn’t know how to react. He stood for a moment, awkward, until the general released him.

‘I told them all you’d come back,’ said Van Voytz.

‘It is good to see you, sir.’

‘I told them death was not a factor in the calculations of Ibram Gaunt.’

Gaunt nodded. He bit back the desire to snap out a retort. Jago was in the past, further in the past for Van Voytz than it was for Gaunt. The general had been a decent friend and ally in earlier days, but he had used Gaunt and the Ghosts poorly at Jago. The wounds and losses were still raw.

At least to Gaunt. To Gaunt, they were but five years young. To Van Voytz, an age had passed, and life had clearly embattled him with other troubles.

Van Voytz clearly did not see the reserve in Gaunt’s face. But then Gaunt’s eyes had famously become unreadable.

Eyes I only have because of you, Barthol.

Van Voytz looked him up and down, like a father welcoming a child home after a long term away at scholam, examining him to see how he has grown.

‘You’re a hero, Bram,’ he said.

‘The word is applied too loosely and too often, general,’ said Gaunt.

‘Nonsense. You return in honour and in triumph. What you have achieved…’ His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.

‘We’ll have time to discuss it all,’ he said. ‘To discuss many things. Debriefing and so forth. Much to discuss.’

‘I was given to understand that the warmaster wished to receive my report.’

‘He does,’ nodded Van Voytz. ‘We all do.’

‘The office of the warmaster will arrange an audience,’ said the aide beside Van Voytz.

‘You remember my man here, Bram?’ said Van Voytz.

‘Tactician Biota,’ Gaunt nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Chief Tactical Officer, Fifth Army Group now,’ Biota nodded. ‘It’s good to see you again, colonel-commissar.’

‘I wanted to be the one to greet you, Bram,’ said Van Voytz, ‘in person, as you stepped onto firm land. Because we go back.’

‘We do.’

‘Staff is in uproar, you know,’ said Van Voytz. ‘Quite the stir you’ve created. But I insisted it should be me.’

‘I didn’t expect my disembarkation to be witnessed by a lord general,’ said Gaunt.

‘By a friend, Ibram,’ said Van Voytz.

Gaunt hesitated.

‘If you say so, sir,’ he replied.

Van Voytz studied him for a moment. Rain continued to drip from his beard. He nodded sadly, as if acknowledging Gaunt’s right to resentment.

‘Well, indeed,’ he said quietly. ‘I do say so. That’s a conversation we should have over an amasec or two. Not here.’

He looked up into the rain.

‘This is not the most hospitable location. I apologise that the site of your return is not a more glorious scene.’

‘It is what it is,’ said Gaunt.

‘Not just the weather, Gaunt.’ Van Voytz turned, and placed a hand on Gaunt’s shoulder, as if to lead him into the interior chambers below the lip of the dock. ‘Urdesh,’ he said. ‘This is a bloody pickle.’

Gaunt tensed slightly.

‘When you use words like “pickle”, Barthol,’ he said, ‘it is always an understatement. A euphemism. And I immediately expect it to be followed by some description of how the Ghosts can dig you out of it with their lives.’

There was silence, apart from the patter of rain on the dock and the awnings.

‘I declare, sir,’ said Kazader, ‘a man should not speak in such a way to a lord general. You must apologise immediately and–’

Van Voytz raised his hand sharply.

‘Thank you, Colonel Kazader,’ he said, ‘but I don’t need you to defend my honour. Colonel-Commissar Gaunt has always spoken his mind, which is why I value him, and also why he is still a colonel-commissar. What he said was the truth, emboldened by hot temper no doubt, but still the truth.’

He looked at Gaunt.

‘The Urdesh War will be resolved by good tactics and strong command, Gaunt,’ he said. ‘It requires nothing from you or your men. The real pickle is the crusade. Fashions have changed, Bram, and these days are perhaps better a time for truth and plain speaking. This is a moment, Bram, one of those moments that history will take note of.’

‘My relationship with time and history is somewhat skewed, sir,’ said Gaunt.

‘You suffered a lapse, did you not?’ asked Biota.

‘A translation accident,’ said Gaunt.

‘You’ve lost time,’ said Van Voytz, ‘but this time could now be yours. It could belong to a man of influence.’

‘I have influence?’ asked Gaunt.

Van Voytz chuckled.

‘More than you might imagine,’ he replied, ‘and there’s more to be gained. Let’s talk, somewhere out of this foul weather.’