The Warmaster

Three: And Back

They had so very nearly got away with it. Got away with it and survived to tell the tale.

So very nearly.

Hell and back. That’s how someone had described the Salvation’s Reach mission. It sounded like the sort of thing Larkin or Varl would say.

Hell and back. They’d gone into hell and come out on the other side, and not for the first time. But after everything they had endured, it seemed as though they weren’t going to make it home after all.

Four weeks out from the Rimworld Marginals, and the target rock known as Salvation’s Reach, the doughty old warship Highness Ser Armaduke had begun to limp.

‘How far are we from the intended destination?’ Ibram Gaunt asked the Armaduke’s shipmaster.

Spika, leaning back thoughtfully in his worn command seat, shrugged his shoulders.

‘The estimate is another fifteen days,’ he replied, ‘but I don’t like the look of the immaterium. Bad patterns ahead. I think we’ll be ­riding out a proper storm before nightfall, shiptime.’

‘And that could slow us down?’ asked Gaunt.

‘By a margin of weeks, if we’re unlucky,’ said Spika.

‘Still, you’re saying the storm isn’t the real problem?’ Gaunt pressed.

‘No,’ said Spika. He held up a finger for quiet. ‘You hear that?’

Gaunt listened, and heard many sounds: the chatter and chime of the multiple cogitators ranked around the warship’s bridge; the asthmatic wheeze of the air-circulation system and environmental pumps; the hum of the through-deck power hubs charging the strategium display; the deranged murmuring from the navigator’s socket; the voxed back-chatter from the crew; footsteps on the deck plates; the deep, deep rumble of the warp drives behind everything else.

During the course of the Salvation’s Reach mission, he had begun to learn the multifarious ambient running noises of the Armaduke, but not enough to become an expert.

‘Not really,’ he admitted.

‘Not really?’ asked Spika. ‘No?’ The shipmaster sounded disappointed. Though the life and the lifetime expectations of a Navy man were, quite literally, worlds away from those of a Guard officer, the two men had bonded during the mission tour, and had both gained insight into operational worlds quite alien from their own. They were not friends, but there was a measure of something that, nurtured, might one day resemble­ friendship. Clemensaw Spika seemed rather let down that Gaunt had grasped less shipboard nuance than he had expected.

‘It’s quite distinct,’ Spika said, sadly. ‘Number two drive. There’s an arrhythmia in its generative pulse. The modulation is out of step. There. There. There. There.’

Like an orchestral conductor, he beat his finger to a pattern. It was a ­pattern that Ibram Gaunt did not have the experience of practice to discern.

It was Gaunt’s turn to shrug.

Spika adjusted the brass levers on his armrests, and swept his command seat around. The entire chair, a metal-framed throne of worn leather with banks of control surfaces and levers set into each arm, sat upon a gilded carriage that connected it to a complex ­gimbal-jointed lifting arm. At a touch, Spika could hoist himself above the entire bridge, incline to share the point of view of any of the bridge stations below, or even raise himself up into the bridge dome to study hololithic star-map projections.

This more gentle adjustment merely turned the seat so he could dismount and lead Gaunt across the bridge to the bank of stations occupied by the Master of Artifice and his key functionaries.

‘Output display, all engines,’ Spika requested.

‘Output display, all, aye,’ the Master of Artifice answered. His hands – busy bionic spiders that dripped spots of oil and were attached to wrists made of rotator struts and looped cables jutting from the fine double-buttoned cuffs of his duty uniform – played across the main haptic panel of his console. Each finger-touch caused a separate and distinct electronic note, creating a little musical flurry like an atonal arpeggio. The Master of Artifice was not blind, for Gaunt could see the ochre-and-gold receptors in his enhanced pupils expanding and contracting his irises, but his attitude was that of a sightless pianist. He was not looking at what he was doing. His picture of the universe and the ship, which were, after all, the same thing, was being fed to him in a constantly updated flow through aural implants, and through data-trunks that ran up his neck like bulging arteries and entered the base of his skull through dermal sockets.

A hololithic display sprang up above the man’s station. Side by side, in three dimensions, the rising and falling graph lines of the Armaduke’s engines were arranged for comparison. Gaunt’s limited expertise was not found wanting now.

‘I see,’ Gaunt said. ‘Clearly a problem.’

‘Clearly,’ replied Spika. ‘Number two drive is operating at least thirty-five per cent below standard efficiency.’

‘The yield is declining by the hour, shipmaster,’ the Master of Artifice said.

‘Are you examining it?’ asked Gaunt.

‘It’s hard to examine a warp drive when it’s active,’ replied Spika. ‘But, yes. Nothing conclusive yet. I believe this down-rate is the result of damage we sustained during the fight at Tavis Sun on the outward journey. Even a micro-impact or spalling on the inner liner might, over time, develop into this, especially given the demands we’ve made on principal artifice.’

‘So this could be an old wound only now showing up?’ asked Gaunt.

Spika nodded.

‘The Master of Artifice,’ he said, ‘prefers the theory that it is micro-particle damage taken during our approach to Salvation’s Reach – ingested debris. This theory has some merit. The Reach was a particularly dense field.’

‘What’s the prognosis?’ asked Gaunt.

‘If we can effect repair, we’re fine. If we can’t, and the output continues to decline in this manner, we may be forced to exit the warp, and perhaps divert to a closer harbour.’

Gaunt frowned. They’d travelled non-stop since departing the Reach, except for one scheduled resupply halt at a secure depot, Aigor 991, a week earlier. It had not gone to plan. Resupply was urgently needed: the raid had expended a vast quantity of their munitions and perishable supplies, but they’d been obliged to abort and press on without restocking. Gaunt was reluctant to make another detour. He wanted to reach their destination as fast as possible.

‘Worst case?’ he asked.

‘Worst case?’ Spika replied. ‘There are many kinds of worst case. The most obvious would be that the drive fails suddenly and we are thrown out of the warp. Thrown out of the warp… if we’re lucky.’

‘Is there anything,’ Gaunt asked the shipmaster, ‘which suggests to you that luck follows the occupants of this vessel around on any permanent or regular basis?’

‘My dear colonel-commissar,’ Spika replied, ‘I’ve lived in this accursed galaxy long enough to believe that there’s no such thing as luck at all.’

Gaunt didn’t reply.

Spika walked back to his command seat and resumed his station.

‘I will begin running assessment variables through astronavigation to see if there are any viable retranslation points,’ he said. ‘I intend to give this condition twelve hours grace. Twelve hours to correct itself or to be repaired. After that, I will be effecting the neatest possible real space translation in the hope of finding a safe haven or fleet support.’

Gaunt nodded.

‘I take it this is all for my information?’ he asked.

‘Colonel-commissar,’ said the shipmaster, ‘if we are forced to terminate this voyage prematurely, or if the drive fails, it is more than likely we will find ourselves adrift in hostile space. There will, very probably, be no safe haven or fleet support. It is likely we will have to protect ourselves.’

He adjusted some armrest levers, and rotated his seat up into the navigation dome and the eternal glow of the star maps.

‘I am telling you this,’ he called down over his shoulder, ‘so that you can ready your Ghosts.’

Gaunt walked aft from the warship’s bridge, ignoring the salute of the Navy armsmen. He clattered down two companionway staircases and entered Port Primary, one of the ship’s main communication corridors. There was a general bustle to and fro; servitors and crew, and the occasional Tanith First trooper who threw him a salute.

The sounds and the smells of the ship were all around him. Warp stress was pulling at the Armaduke’s frame, and deck plates creaked. Wall panels groaned. Ice had formed in some places, glazing the walls, and unexpected hotspots trembled their haze in others. Blast shutters, which stood at twenty-metre intervals along Port Primary, ready to slam shut and compartmentalise the long thoroughfare in the event of a hull breach or decompression, rattled in their frames, temporarily malformed by the tensions of the warp.

If it’s visibly doing that to the metal structure of the ship, thought Gaunt, what’s it doing to our bodies? Our cellular structures? Our minds? Our souls?

He exited Port Primary and entered the tighter network of halls, ­companionways and tunnel ducts that linked the habitation levels and cargo spaces. Ceilings were lower, and the corridors were more densely lined with cabling and exterior-mounted switching boxes and circuitry. It was in these levels, less-well lit and claustrophobic, that the ancient ship felt more like a hive. An underground hive.

The light strings, glow-globes and wall lamps flickered at what seemed like a too infrequent rate, as if power was intermittent or struggling to reach the extremities of the ship. Bad odours gusted like halitosis from the air-circ vents: the rank stink of oil and grease, of sump water, of stagnant hydraulics, of refuse and badly draining sanitation systems, of stale cooking, of unwashed flesh, of grilles overheating because they were clogged with lint and soot and dust.

The Armaduke should have been scrapped long ago. It had been spared from the breaker’s yards to perform the Salvation’s Reach run, with little expectation it would be seen again.

Gaunt knew how it felt.

The mission had been a success – an astonishing success, in fact, given the odds. As had happened so often before, Gaunt took little satisfaction from that, because of the cost. The cost was too great, every time.

Gaunt passed the door of one of the mess halls, and saw Viktor Hark sitting alone at one of the long, shabby tables, nursing a cup of caffeine. A cold smell of boiled cabbage and root veg lingered in the hall. The room was too brightly lit. From the back, Gaunt could hear servitors prepping food for the next meal rotation.

‘Viktor?’

Hark started to rise.

‘Easy,’ Gaunt told him. ‘Briefing. In thirty minutes. Can you scare up the company officers and particulars for me?’

Hark nodded.

‘Everyone?’

‘Just those you can find. Don’t pull people off duties. This is informal for now, but I want to get the word out.’

‘The word?’

‘Could be trouble ahead.’

Hark got to his feet and plonked his cup on the cart for empties and dirties.

‘Ibram,’ he said, ‘there’s always trouble ahead.’

They met in the wardroom. Hark had rounded up Ludd, Fazekiel, Mkoll, Larkin, Baskevyl, Kolea and most of the company commanders. The ­notable absences were Blenner, Rawne, Meryn, and Daur and Major Pasha, both of whom were still in the infirmary. Captain Nico Spetnin was standing in for Pasha, and Adjutant Mohr and Sergeant Venar for Daur.

‘No Criid?’ Gaunt asked Hark as he came in and the officers rose.

‘Criid?’ Hark replied. ‘Tona’s not company or particular level.’

Gaunt hesitated. His mind had been all over the place since–

He’d forgotten he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even Criid.

‘All right, as you were,’ he said, with a gesture to ‘easy’ themselves that they all recognised.

‘Something awry, sir?’ Baskevyl asked, pre-empting the standard comment of Gaunt’s adjutant.

Beltayn, sitting up front, data-slate in hand ready to take notes, rolled his eyes at the trickle of laughter.

‘Yeah, Bask,’ Gaunt replied. They settled down quickly.

Gaunt took off his cap and unbuttoned his coat. The air got close in the wardroom when you packed it with bodies.

‘It may be nothing,’ he told them, ‘but we need to come to secondary order as of right now.’

‘Secondary order?’ Kolosim repeated.

‘Combat ready?’ asked Kolea.

Gaunt nodded.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘We’re only four weeks out of that shitstorm…’ Obel murmured.

Gaunt looked at him. The intensity of Gaunt’s unblinking augmetic stare pinned Obel to his seat.

‘Sir, I didn’t mean–’ he began.

Gaunt often forgot how hard his new eyes could be. He hadn’t meant to discomfort an officer as loyal and dependable as Obel.

‘I know, Lunny,’ Gaunt said. ‘We’re all still licking our wounds. And I’m aware of our piss-poor supply levels. But the war works to its own schedule, not ours. I need the First to come to secondary order in the next twelve hours.’

There was a general groan.

‘Any specifics you can give us, sir?’ asked Bask.

‘Shipmaster Spika informs me that the Armaduke is experiencing drive issues. It might not bring us home. If we fall short or explosively de-translate, I want the fighting companies ready for protection duties.’

‘Shipboard? Counter-boarding?’ asked Kolea, his voice a growl.

‘Anything, Gol,’ Gaunt replied. ‘Just make sure your squads are ready to deal with any kind of contact. Anything they might reasonably be expected to counter.’

Kolea nodded.

‘And make it generally known to all that in the event of action, munition conservation is essential.’

The officers took note.

‘Ludd?’ said Gaunt.

‘Yes, sir?’ Commissar Ludd answered.

‘See to it that our friends are informed,’ Gaunt told the company’s youngest commissar.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ludd.

‘Hark?’

‘Yes, sir?’ Hark replied.

‘I’ll leave it to you to bring Rawne and B Company up to speed.’

Hark nodded.

‘Well,’ said Gaunt, ‘that’s all. Thanks for your attention. Get to it.’

On the way out, he caught Baskevyl’s arm.

‘If you see Criid, send her my way will you?’

‘Of course,’ Bask said.

Gaunt wandered back to his stateroom along Lower Spinal Sixty. He had a stop to make along the way.

He paused to look into one of the company decks, the hold spaces of the ship that served as accommodation for the retinue. This was home for the souls that had signed the accompany bond to travel with the regiment: the wives, the children, the families, and the tinkers and traders that made up the Tanith First’s vital support network. Salvation’s Reach had been a perilous venture, but every one of the regiment’s extended family had signed the bond to come along. They had decided they would rather risk their lives and die with the Ghosts than stay behind on Menazoid Sigma and perhaps never catch up with them again.

Gaunt thought that showed more courage and faith than any soldier had. Guard life was made better by the constant strength of family, but it was a hard existence. He’d had to consider carefully before approving the issue of the bond.

He watched the children play, the women work, the lines of washing drifting overhead from the chamber’s rafters. Their faith had seen them safely past the dangers of the Reach, but there were always new dangers. The implications of the drive problem troubled him, and the aborted re­supply on Aigor 991 played on his mind. Major Kolea had encountered some form of the Ruinous Powers that seemed to be hunting for them. It had claimed to be the voice of Anarch Sek, and it had demanded the return of something called ‘the eagle stones’. It had murdered several members of the landing party. Gol Kolea had done well to abort the resupply, but Gaunt had a lingering feeling that Gol hadn’t told him everything about the encounter. Perhaps it had just been the terror of the experience that had made Gol seem unforthcoming.

No one had a solid idea what ‘the eagle stones’ might be, but if Sek’s power had touched them at Aigor 991, then the Archenemy was closer on their heels than Gaunt liked to imagine. Against the odds, they had survived the Reach mission. Was an unforeseen and greater threat lying in wait for them all? Could he safeguard the families a second time? It was not the dispassionate concern of a commander. Gaunt had always been alone, but now he had family aboard too. His son…

He shook the thought off. One problem at a time.

Ayatani Zwiel was up on a bench, preaching the love of the God-Emperor to the family congregation. The old chaplain saw Gaunt in the doorway, and paused his sermon, climbing down from his perch with the aid of steadying hands.

‘You look grim, Ibram,’ he said as he hobbled up to face Gaunt.

‘You noticed, ayatani.’

Zwiel shrugged.

‘No, you always look grim. I was making a general observation. Why? Is there new trouble to keep us awake at night?’

Gaunt glanced aside to make sure no one could overhear.

‘There’s a drive fault,’ he said. ‘It may be nothing, but if we are forced to break shift to deal with it… Well, it could cause alarm and distress among the retinue. As a favour to me, stay here and keep watch. If the worst happens, try to calm fears. They’ll listen to you. Tell them we’ll be safe soon and that there’s no reason to panic.’

Zwiel nodded. Since the loss at Salvation’s Reach, his spirits had been lower. The old firecracker spark had grown dimmer.

‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll get them singing hymns. Hymns are good. And warm too, on a cold night.’

‘Do you mean hymns?’

‘Possibly not,’ Zwiel replied, thinking about it.

Something cannoned into Gaunt’s legs.

‘Papa Gaunt! Papa Gaunt!’

Gaunt looked down. It was Yoncy, Tona Criid’s little girl. She clutched his knees and grinned up at him.

‘Hello, Yoncy,’ Gaunt said. He scooped her up in his arms, and she gleefully took off his cap and put it on. She was so small and light.

‘I’m Papa Gaunt!’ she declared fiercely to Zwiel, glaring out from under the brim of the oversized cap. She threw a stern salute.

‘Well, young lady,’ said Zwiel, ‘what you’ve just done is an abuse of uniform code, and Papa Gaunt will have you shot for it.’

‘He will not!’ Yoncy cried, defiantly.

‘Not this time,’ said Gaunt.

One of the women hurried over.

‘There you are, child,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wondered where you’d run off to!’

She took Yoncy out of Gaunt’s arms.

‘I’m ever so sorry she bothered you, sir,’ she said. ‘I was supposed to be watching her.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Gaunt. ‘She was no bother.’

‘Papa Gaunt’s going to shoot me, Juniper!’ Yoncy laughed.

‘Is he now?’ the woman said.

‘Papa Zwiel said so,’ Yoncy told her.

‘I’m really not,’ Gaunt told the woman.

‘Uniform infraction,’ said Zwiel, mock stern, and scooped the cap off the child’s head. ‘A firing squad at the very least!’

‘I think we can let this one go with a reprimand,’ said Gaunt as Zwiel handed him his cap.

‘You best consider yourself lucky this time, child,’ Juniper said to the girl in her arms. She did a clumsy little bow and hurried off. Yoncy waved to them as she was carried away.

‘She calls everyone “papa”,’ Zwiel said. ‘It used to be “uncle”, but now “papa” is the favourite.’

‘A legacy of her curious upbringing, I suppose,’ said Gaunt. ‘She seems happy enough.’

‘Does she…’ Zwiel began. ‘Does she seem small to you?’

‘Small?’

‘I was thinking it the other day,’ said the chaplain. ‘Just a child in pigtails, as she’s always been. But Dalin is a grown man now, and there can’t be too many years between them. She acts very young too.’

‘Is that a defence, do you think?’ Gaunt asked. ‘Her life has never been safe. Maybe she plays on her childlike qualities to make sure we protect her.’

‘You think it’s an act?’

‘Not a conscious one, no. But while she’s an innocent child, everyone is her father or her uncle or her aunt. It’s how she copes. How she feels safe.’

‘Well, I imagine she’ll sprout soon enough. Girls develop later. Overnight, she’ll be a petulant teenager.’

‘And we will protect her just the same,’ said Gaunt. He reset his cap.

‘Our children always need our protection,’ said Zwiel, ‘no matter how much they grow up. How is your offspring?’

‘I’m still coming to terms with the fact,’ said Gaunt. ‘I have to go, father. I’ll keep you advised.’

‘And I’ll stand ready,’ said Zwiel.

Gaunt left the company deck and resumed his journey aft.

He suddenly heard music. It was jaunty music. It was cheerful. It rolled and echoed along the dismal connecting tunnel.

He approached the entrance to a side hold. The Belladon Colours band had assembled there, and were mid-practice. It was clearly an informal session. Most of them were not in full uniform code, and they were spread across the big, galvanised chamber of the holdspace, sitting or even sprawling on packing material, blasting out their music. Those not playing had got up and were dancing a sprightly formation polka in the mid-deck. Most of the dancers had discarded boots and jackets.

High above, the company’s mascot, the ceremonial psyber eagle, flew from roof girder to roof girder, squawking from both beaks.

The music died away unevenly as the bandsmen noticed Gaunt in the hatchway.

‘It’s cheerful in here,’ Gaunt remarked.

Captain Jakub Wilder wandered over.

‘It’s the Belladon way, sir,’ he said. ‘We celebrate the living and the dead. It’s the best way to shake off a hard tour.’

Gaunt pursed his lips.

Commissar Vaynom Blenner had got himself up off a roll of packing material to join them.

‘My idea, Ibram,’ he said, hurriedly. ‘Just a little loosening of the old collar, you know?’

Gaunt looked at his old friend. Blenner seemed remarkably relaxed.

‘I’m sure we can all use some downtime,’ he said.

‘I was going to suggest a formal,’ Blenner said. ‘Get some decent food and wine out of stores. Everyone invited. The band can play. Dancing, eh? We can cast aside this mood. The First deserves it, Ibram.’

‘It does,’ Gaunt agreed.

‘Good.’

‘But now’s not the time,’ Gaunt said. ‘We need to come to secondary order.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since now, Vaynom,’ Gaunt said.

Blenner swallowed.

‘Secondary order?’ he asked.

‘Yes. “Prepare to fight”. Is that a problem?’

‘No. No, no. Not at all.’

‘My troopers are ready,’ Wilder said.

‘Good. Expect hazard within a twelve-hour threshold,’ Gaunt said. ‘If fighting starts, conserve your ammunition.’ He turned and left the hold.

‘Let’s… let’s finish up here,’ Blenner said to Wilder. He needed a cup of water.

There was a pack of pills in his jacket pocket and he suddenly felt the urge to take one.

Gaunt paused outside the infirmary and hesitated before entering. He knew he had a good reason for the visit, and that it wasn’t the real reason. The real reason Gaunt kept visiting the infirmary was that he was trying to get used to the place without Dorden.

He took off his cap and entered. Internal screen walls and shutter partitions had been rolled back to extend the space and accommodate the regimental wounded after the battle of Salvation’s Reach. It was still pretty full. Several of the casualties, like the sniper Nessa Bourah, attempted to sit up and salute when they saw him.

He raised a hand.

‘Stand easy, everyone, please,’ he said.

He moved down the rows of steel-framed cots, pausing to speak to as many of the wounded as he could. He signed How are you? to Nessa, and she grinned back and replied with her voice.

‘Ready to fight,’ she said. Like many Vervunhivers, she’d lost her hearing during the Zoican War, and the sign language they had developed had proved vital to both their scratch company operations against the Zoicans and, later, to the stealth manoeuvres of the Tanith First. Chief Scout Mkoll had long ago adopted Vervunhive scratch-signing as the regiment’s non-verbal code.

Recently, though, in personal circumstances, Nessa had been trying to use her voice more again. The words came out with that slightly nasal, rounded-out quality of a speaker who can only feel the breath of their words, but they touched Gaunt immensely.

‘I know you are,’ he replied, without signing.

She read his lips and answered with another smile.

Gaunt stopped at Major Pasha’s bedside and talked for a while, assuring the senior officer of the regiment’s new intake that her companies were in good order.

‘Spetnin and Zhukova have things well in hand,’ he said, ‘and they are meshing well with the established commanders. Spetnin is a good fellow.’

‘Not Zhukova, then?’ Pasha asked.

Gaunt hesitated.

‘She’s an excellent officer.’

Pasha sat up and leant forwards, beckoning Gaunt close with a conspiratorial gesture made with hands that had choked more than one Zoican throat in their day.

‘She is an excellent officer, sir,’ Pasha agreed. ‘But she is ambitious and she is beautiful. Not beautiful like her.’

Pasha nodded her chin towards Nessa, who had gone back to her reading.

‘No?’ asked Gaunt.

‘The dear, deaf girl does not know she is beautiful. Ornella does. That is why your dear deaf girl is a marksman trooper, and Ornella Zhukova is a captain.’

‘What are you saying?’ Gaunt asked.

‘I’m saying, Zhukova’s a brilliant troop leader. Just treat her like any other cocksure ambitious male. Don’t be fooled by her lips and breasts.’

Gaunt laughed. He liked Major Yve Petrushkevskaya immensely. She was a tall, strong, haggard veteran. He hadn’t known her long, and it couldn’t be said that they’d served together. Pasha had been miserably wounded in a hull-breaching accident before the Salvation’s Reach fight had begun in earnest.

But Gaunt was sure she brought something to the Ghosts that was yet to be properly valued. A powerful, presiding, maternal force. A different wisdom.

‘In truth, sir,’ she said, settling back on her pillow, ‘I feel… ashamed.’

‘Ashamed?’ he asked in surprise.

‘Taken down before I could fire a shot in anger,’ she replied, her mouth forming an almost comical inverted ‘U’ of a frown. ‘Not a distinguished start to my service under your command.’

‘You’ve got nothing to prove, major,’ he said.

She tutted at him.

‘Everyone always has everything to prove,’ she replied. ‘Otherwise, what is the purpose of life, sir?’

‘I stand corrected. But enough of this “sir”, please. You’re one of the seniors and particulars. “Sir” in front of the troops, but “Ibram” to my face like this.’

‘Dah,’ she replied, holding up her hands in distaste. ‘Formality is discipline.’

‘Gaunt, then?’ he said.

Her mouth made the doubtful, inverted U shape again.

‘Maybe that.’

He could tell she wasn’t comfortable. He’d tried to be open, but the sentimentality was not to her liking. He changed tack.

‘Listen, major,’ he said quietly. ‘I need to be able to count on you.’

‘Yes?’ she whispered, craning forwards.

‘We have a drive problem. A bad one. We may not get home. In fact, we could pop back into real space at any time.’

He kept his voice low.

‘If we do, we could be at risk.’

‘Attack?’ she asked.

‘Yes. If we’re boarded, we may have to protect ourselves section by section. Will you run the infirmary for me? Rally all able-bodied­ to the defence?’

‘Will you send a crate of rifles down here?’

‘Supplies are limited, but yes.’

She nodded.

‘Of course. Of course, I will,’ she said. ‘Count on me.’

‘I already do,’ he said.

She blinked in surprise and looked at him. He held out his hand and she shook it.

‘Keep it to yourself, but get ready,’ he said.

He got off the edge of her bed and turned to go.

‘I will, Gaunt,’ Pasha said.

A few cots down, Elodie was playing regicide with her husband. Ban Daur still looked very frail and weak from the injuries he’d taken. They had been married en route to the Reach.

‘Captain. Ma’am Dutana-Daur.’

They looked around. Elodie started to get up.

‘I’m just saying hello,’ Gaunt said. ‘Don’t let me interrupt.’

‘It’s kind of you, sir,’ Daur said.

‘If I can’t stop in on one of my best,’ Gaunt said. ‘How is it, Ban?’

‘I’m doing all right. I’m still bleeding inside, so they say. Some mending to do.’

‘You’re strong, Ban.’

‘I am, sir.’

‘And she makes you stronger,’ Gaunt said, looking at Elodie. ‘I know love when I see it, because I don’t see it very much.’

‘You flatter me, sir,’ said Elodie.

‘Ma’am,’ Gaunt began.

‘Elodie,’ she said firmly.

‘Elodie,’ he corrected. ‘As you stand by and progress with this regiment, you will quickly come to know that I never flatter anyone.’

Towards the end of the first compartment, Gaunt encountered Doctor Kolding, who was conducting rounds. He was checking on Raglon and Cant, who were both recovering from serious injuries.

‘I’m looking for Curth,’ Gaunt said.

‘I believe she’s in the back rooms,’ Kolding said. ‘Can I help with anything?’

‘No, she‘ll brief you,’ Gaunt replied. He paused.

‘Kolding?’

The albino turned to him.

‘Sir?’

‘Support her.’

‘I am doing so.’

‘The loss of Dorden is massive.’

‘I barely knew him and I am aware of the magnitude,’ Kolding replied. Gaunt nodded, turned and walked into the offices behind the ward.

In the first, he found Captain Meryn, stripped to the waist, sitting forwards over the rail of a half-chair as Curth’s orderly Lesp went to work on his back with his ink and pins.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Lesp said, getting up.

Gaunt shook him a ‘no matter’. Lesp was well known as the company inker, a man of skill and, as an orderly, hygiene to match. Gaunt had long since stopped trying to curtail the non-codex efforts of the Tanith to decorate their skin with tattoos.

‘My apologies, sir,’ said Meryn curtly, reaching for his shirt. ‘It was downtime and I thought–’

‘There was a company officer call, just informal,’ Gaunt said.

‘I wasn’t aware,’ Meryn said, and seemed genuinely contrite.

‘It’s fine. It was informal, as I said. But get Kolea to brief you. There may be trouble coming.’

‘Of course,’ said Meryn.

‘What ink are you having?’

Meryn paused.

‘Just… just names,’ he said.

‘Names?’ Gaunt asked.

‘The Book o’ Death,’ Lesp said, half smiling, then regretting it when he saw Gaunt’s expression.

Gaunt signalled with a rotating finger, and Meryn turned to present his back. Meryn’s torso was tough and corded with muscle. Down the left-hand side of the spine, Lesp had been noting a list of names in black ink. They were the names of the men in Meryn’s E Company who had fallen at Salvation’s Reach. Meryn had lost a lot, too many perhaps, to the Loxatl during the final evacuation.

Lesp had got halfway through the name ‘Costin’, a name that particularly troubled Gaunt. Before the raid, Trooper Costin, a chronically unreliable soldier, had been found guilty of death-benefit fraud through the Munitorum’s viduity allowance. It had seemed an especially repellant crime to Gaunt. Someone had made large amounts of money by exploiting the regiment’s dead and fallen. Costin had been killed before his associates in the fraud ring could be identified.

‘I’m honouring my dead,’ Meryn said quietly.

Gaunt nodded. The ‘Book o’ Death’ was a common and popular ­tattoo among the Tanith officer class, so popular it had been adopted by several Verghastites too. Out of respect, a field officer had the names of men who had died under his command inked onto his skin.

Gaunt had considered it more than once. He wanted to show respect for Tanith tradition, and he felt that certain names – Corbec, Caffran and Bragg, for example – should never be far from him. He’d felt it even more for Dorden.

But it was not seemly for a commissar to break uniform code, he kept telling himself.

‘It seemed only right, sir,’ Meryn said.

It did. It really did. Except it didn’t for a snake like Meryn, a man who had previously displayed absolutely zero company sentiment or sympathy for his troops. It didn’t sit comfortably with Gaunt. Why now? Had Meryn really woken up to something after the knock his company had taken at the Reach? Or was this compensation? Was he trying to look like the grieving commander?

Was he trying to distance himself from a crime by having the name of the culprit inked on his back out of ‘respect’? Costin had been killed before his associates in the fraud ring could be identified…

A common rule of law was that you didn’t mess with or question the feelings of an officer grieving for his men. Gaunt wanted to say something, but genuine pity and sympathy checked him. If this was Meryn being odiously clever, then it was very, very clever.

And Meryn was very, very clever.

‘Doctor Curth?’ Gaunt asked Lesp. Lesp pointed to the second office.

Gaunt went in and closed the door behind him. Ana Curth was sitting at Dorden’s desk, reviewing med files. She had grown a little thinner. There was a tension in her. Gaunt could smell alcohol that he hoped was medicinal.

‘Can I help you, Ibram?’ she asked.

‘Can I help you?’

She shrugged. She seemed tired. Gaunt had heard from various private sources that she had taken the loss hard, and had been working too much and then drinking in order to sleep. The same sources said that Blenner had been looking after her.

Such selflessness hardly seemed likely from Vaynom Blenner.

Gaunt felt a sting of jealousy, but he could hardly complain. His own nights were filled with another woman, and Ana knew it. If there had ever been any sense of them waiting for each other, Gaunt himself had crushed it.

He’d always held back from Ana Curth, partly for reasons of regulation and decorum, and partly because he believed that he wasn’t really the sort of man any decent woman would need or want.

‘I keep coming in here,’ Curth said, gesturing to the desk and the office. ‘You know what? Each time, he’s still dead.’

‘Ana…’

She waved him off.

‘Ignore me. I just can’t get used to it.’

‘Do you need–’

‘I’m fine, Gaunt.’

‘Ana–’

‘Fine. Fine. All right?’

He knew that tone, that firmness, that ‘don’t push it’ attitude. He’d known it from their first meeting at Vervunhive.

‘What do you think of Meryn’s ink?’ he asked briskly.

‘Meryn’s a grown-up,’ she said.

‘I just wondered,’ Gaunt began.

‘Wondered what?’

‘If he was compensating in some way?’

‘For his dead men?’ She had returned to her files, half listening.

‘All right,’ Gaunt said, ‘compensating was the wrong word. Deflecting.’

She looked at him.

‘Deflecting what? With what?’

‘Guilt, with a notion of honour.’

‘What now?’

‘Costin, and the viduity scam. I think Meryn’s complicit. Costin was not smart. He needed clever co-conspirators. Conveniently, Costin died before he could turn them over. And now Meryn’s in mourning and untouchable.’

‘So, what?’ Curth asked. ‘Meryn killed Costin before he could roll?’

‘No, of course not–’

‘You’re a piece of fething work, you really are!’ she spat out, tossing the file in her hand aside so forcefully it knocked a glass over.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m a commissar. I know what men are capable of.’

She got up and took off her smock. Then she turned away from him and pulled her crew-issue grey tee shirt up above her shoulders. Her back was slender, beautiful, the line of the spine–

There was a dressing just below her left shoulder blade. With the fingers of her right hand, she ripped it off.

Dorden.

One word, still raw and seeping blood from the needles.

‘Silly of me,’ she said. ‘Sentimental. Against uniform code? I’m sure. Fething did it anyway.’

‘Ana–’

She pulled her shirt down again, turned and sat back down.

‘Forget it,’ she said.

‘The Book o’ Death,’ he said. ‘You know how many times I’ve thought about following Tanith tradition and doing the same? Getting Lesp and his needles at my skin?’

She looked at him.

‘What’s stopping you? No, I can guess. Uniform code. Unseemly for a commissar to decorate his skin.’

‘There’s that. As a commissar, I take both uniform code and setting an example very seriously, funnily enough. But that’s not the real reason.’

‘What is?’

‘The available area of my flesh.’

‘What?’

‘Dorden. Corbec. MkVenner. Bragg. Caffran. Colonel Wilder. Kamori. Adare. Soric. Baffels. Blane–’

‘All right…’

‘Muril. Rilke. Raess. Doyl. Baru. Lorgris. Mkendrick. Suth. Preed. Feygor–’

‘Gaunt…’

‘Gutes. Cole. Roskil. Vamberfeld. Loglas. Merrt–’

He stopped.

‘I just don’t have enough skin,’ he said.

‘You just don’t have enough heart,’ she replied.

‘All right,’ he said, but he wasn’t all right at all.

‘I came down to tell you that we might have trouble coming,’ he said. ‘A drive issue. Possible boarding. Be ready.’

‘I’m always ready,’ she said, blowing her nose loudly.

He nodded, and turned to leave.

Gaunt walked out through the first office area. Meryn was getting his back swabbed by Lesp. The smell of clean alcohol again.

‘I’m just on my way now, sir,’ Meryn said.

‘Stay, Flyn,’ Gaunt said as he walked past. ‘Get the names done properly. All of them. All of the Ghosts. I miss them too.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Meryn.

A long walk took Gaunt back to his stateroom. Maddalena Dare­beloved was waiting for him.

Since joining the regiment, Maddalena had spent some portion of her time in Gaunt’s cabin suite and the rest of it protecting Felyx Meritous Chass, the son Gaunt hadn’t known he had. Felyx was integrating into the Tanith Regiment under the watch of Dalin Criid. Felyx’s mother, Merity Chass of the Verghast House Chass, had insisted that he follow his father into war and learn the trade and value of combat from someone who excelled at it.

Excelled. Not the right word, Gaunt thought. Someone who was entirely devoured by it.

Maddalena was a lifeward, one of House Chass’ most formidable body­guards. Beautiful and supple, she carried her sidearm shrouded by a red cloth, as was the Vervunhive custom.

As he came in, she was cleaning her sidearm. Gaunt knew something was wrong. Their relationship had been generally and robustly physical. He understood his attraction to her. Her face had been augmetically modified to resemble that of Merity Chass, so as to reassure Felyx. Gaunt had responded to that on an instinctive level.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘You tell me,’ she replied.

‘You’re strip-cleaning your sidearm,’ he said.

She nodded, and rapidly slotted and slapped the weapon back into one piece. It was a .40 cal Tronsvass she’d taken from stores to replace her original weapon.

‘There’s trouble coming,’ she said, checking the pistol for balance, and returning it to her holster.

‘Why do you say that?’ he asked.

‘Are you mad, Ibram?’ she replied, looking at him. ‘The engines are making the wrong noise.’

He hesitated.

‘That’s very impressive,’ he started to say.

But the words didn’t come out right because, very suddenly and unpleasantly, the world was pulled inside out.