PART FOUR

CRACIA CITY, PYRITES

One

THE IMPERIAL NEEDLE was quite a piece of work, Colonel Colm Corbec decided. It towered over Cracia, the largest and oldest city on Pyrites, a three thousand metre ironwork tower, raised four hundred years before, partly to honour the Emperor but mostly to celebrate the engineering skill of the Pyriteans. It was taller than the jagged turrets of the Arbites Precinct, and it dwarfed even the great twin towers of the Ecclesiarch Palace. On cloudless days, the city became a giant sundial, with the spire as the gnomon. City dwellers could tell precisely the time of day by which streets of the city were in shadow.

Today was not a cloudless day. It was winter season in Cracia and the sky was a dull, unreflective white like an untuned vista-caster screen. Snow fluttered down out of the leaden sky to ice the gothic rooftops and towers of the old, grey city, edging the ornate decorations, the wrought-iron guttering and brass eaves, the skeletal fire-escapes and the sills of lancet windows.

But it was warm down here on the streets. Under the stained glass-beaded ironwork awnings which edged every thoroughfare, the walkways and concourses were heated. Kilometres below the city, ancient turbines pumped warm air up to the hypocaust beneath the pavements, which circulated under the awning levels. A low-power energy sheath broadcast at first floor height stopped rain or snow from ever reaching the pedestrian levels, for the most part.

At a terrace cafe, Corbec, the jacket of his Tanith colonel’s uniform open and unbuckled, sipped his beer and rocked back on his black, ironwork chair. They liked black ironwork here on Pyrites. They made everything out of it. Even the beer, judging by the taste.

Corbec felt relaxation flood into his limbs for the first time in months. The hellhole of Fortis Binary was behind him at last: the mud, the vermin, the barrage.

It still flickered across his dreams at night and he often woke to the thump of imagined artillery. But this – a beer, a chair, a warm and friendly street – this was living again.

A shadow apparently bigger than the Imperial Needle blotted out the daylight. ‘Are we set?’ Trooper Bragg asked.

Corbec squinted up at the huge, placid-faced trooper, by some way the biggest man under his command. ‘It’s still early. They say this town has quite a nightlife, but it won’t get going until after dark.’

‘Seems dead. No fun,’ Bragg said drearily.

‘Hey, lucky we got Pyrites rather than Guspedin. By all accounts that’s just dust and slag and endless hives.’

The lighting standards down each thoroughfare and under the awnings were beginning to glow into life as the automated cycle took over, though it was still daylight.

‘We’ve been talking–’ Bragg began.

‘Who’s we?’ Corbec said.

‘Uh, Larks and me… and Varl. And Blane.’ Bragg shuffled a little. ‘We heard about this little wagering joint. It might be fun.’

‘Fine.’

‘’Cept it’s, uh–’

‘What?’ Corbec said, knowing full well what the ‘uh’ would be.

‘It’s in a cold zone,’ Bragg said.

Corbec got up and dropped a few coins of the local currency on the glass-topped table next to his empty beer glass. ‘Trooper, you know the cold zones are off limits,’ he said smoothly. ‘The regiments have been given four days’ recreation in this city, but that recreation is contingent on several things. Reasonable levels of behaviour, so as not to offend or disrupt the citizens of this most ancient and civilised burg. Restrictions to the use of prescribed bars, clubs, wager-halls and brothels. And a total ban on Imperial Guard personnel leaving the heated areas of the city. The cold zones are lawless.’

Bragg nodded. ‘Yeah… but there are five hundred thousand guardsmen on leave in Cracia, clogging up the star-ports and the tram depots. Each one has been to fething hell and back in the last few months. Do you honestly think they’re going to behave themselves?’

Corbec pursed his lips and sighed. ‘No, Bragg. I suppose I do not. Tell me where this place is. The one you’re talking about. I’ve an errand or two to run. I’ll meet you there later. Just stay out of trouble.’

Two

IN THE MIRROR-WALLED, smoke-wreathed bar of the Polar Imperial, one of the better hotels in uptown Cracia, right by the Administratum complex, Commissar Vaynom Blenner was describing the destruction of the enemy battleship, Eradicus. It was a complex, colourful evocation, involving the skilled use of a lit cigar, smoke rings, expressive gestures and throaty sound effects. Around the table, there were appreciative hoots and laughs.

Ibram Gaunt, however, watched and said nothing. He was often silent. It disarmed people.

Blenner had always been a tale-spinner, even back in their days at the Schola Progenium. Gaunt always looked forward to their reunions. Blenner was about as close as he came to having an old friend, and it strangely reassured him to see Blenner’s face, constant through the years when so many faces perished and disappeared.

But Blenner was also a terrible boast, and he had become weak and complacent, enjoying a little too much of the good life. For the last decade, he’d served with the Greygorian Third. The Greys were efficient, hard working and few regiments were as unswervingly loyal to the Emperor. They had spoiled Blenner.

Blenner hailed the waiter and ordered another tray of drinks for the officers at his table. Gaunt’s eyes wandered across the crowded salon, where the officer classes of the Imperial Guard relaxed and mixed.

On the far side of the room, under a vast, glorious gilt-framed oil painting of Imperial Titans striding to war, he caught sight of officers in the chrome and purple dress uniform of the Jantine Patricians, the so-called ‘Emperor’s Chosen’. Amidst them was a tall, thickset figure with an acid-scarred face that Gaunt knew all too well – Colonel Draker Flense.

Their gaze met for a few seconds. The exchange was as warm and friendly as a pair of automated range finders getting a mutual target lock. Gaunt cursed silently to himself. If he’d known the Jantine officer cadre was using this hotel, he would have avoided it. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation.

‘Commissar Gaunt?’

Gaunt looked up. A uniformed hotel porter stood by his armchair, his head tilted to a position that was both obsequious and superior. Snooty ass, thought Gaunt; loves the Guard all the while we’re saving the universe for him, but let us in his precious hotel bar to relax and he’s afraid we’ll scuff the furniture.

‘There is a boy, sir,’ the porter said disdainfully. ‘A boy in reception who wishes to speak with you.’

‘Boy?’ Gaunt asked.

‘He said to give you this,’ the porter continued. He held out a silver Tanith ear hoop suspiciously between velveted finger and thumb.

Gaunt nodded, got to his feet and followed him out.

Across the room, Flense watched him go. He beckoned over his aide, Ebzan, with a surly curl of his finger. ‘Go and find Major Brochuss and some of his clique. I have a matter I wish to settle.’

GAUNT FOLLOWED THE strutting porter out into the marble foyer. His distaste for the place grew with each second. Pyrites was soft, pampered, so far away from the harsh war-fronts. They paid their tithes to the Emperor and in return ignored completely the darker truths of life beyond their civilised domain. Even the Imperium troops stationed here as a permanent garrison seemed to have gone soft.

Gaunt broke from his reverie and saw Brin Milo hunched under a potted ouroboros tree. The boy was wearing his Ghost uniform and looked most unhappy.

‘Milo? I thought you were going with the others. Corbec said he’d take you with the Tanith. What are you doing in a stuffy place like this?’

Milo fetched a small data-slate out of his thigh pocket and presented it. ‘This came through the vox-cast after you’d gone, sir. Executive Officer Kreff thought it best it was brought straight to you. And as I’m supposed to be your adjutant… well, they gave the job to me.’

Gaunt almost grinned at the boy’s weary tone. He took the slate and keyed it open. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘All I know, sir, is that it’s a personal communiqué delivered on an encrypted channel for your attention forty–’ He paused to consult his timepiece. ‘Forty-seven minutes ago.’

Gaunt studied the gibberish on the slate. Then the identifying touch of his thumbprint on the decoding icon unscrambled it. For his eyes only indeed.

‘Ibram. You only friend in area close enough to assist. Go to 1034 Needleshadow Boulevard. Use our old identifier. Treasure to be had. Vermilion treasure. Fereyd.’

Gaunt looked up suddenly and snapped the slate shut as if caught red-handed. His heart pounded for a second. Throne of Earth, how many years had it been since his heart had pounded with that feeling – was it really fear? Fereyd? His old, old friend, bound together in blood since–

Milo was looking at him curiously. ‘Trouble?’ the boy asked innocuously.

‘A task to perform…’ Gaunt murmured. He opened the data-slate again and pressed the ‘Wipe’ rune to expunge the message.

‘Can you drive?’ he asked Milo.

‘Can I?’ the boy said excitedly.

Gaunt calmed his bright-eyed enthusiasm with a flat patting motion with his hands. ‘Go down to the motor-pool and scare us up some transport. A staff car. Tell them I sent you.’

Milo hurried off. Gaunt stood for a moment in silence. He took two deep breaths – then a hearty slap on the back almost felled him.

‘Bram! You dog! You’re missing the party!’ Blenner growled.

‘Vay, I’ve got a bit of business to take care–’

‘No no no!’ the tipsy, red-faced commissar said, smoothing the creases in his leather greatcoat. ‘How many times do we get together to talk of old times, eh? How many? Once every damn decade it seems like! I’m not letting you out of my sight! You’ll never come back, I know you!’

‘Vay… really, it’s just tedious regimental stuff…’

‘I’ll come with you then! Get it done in half the time! Two commissars, eh? Put the fear of the Throne Itself into them, I tell you!’

‘Really, you’d be bored… it’s a very boring task…’

‘All the more reason I come! To make it less boring! Eh? Eh?’ Blenner exclaimed. He edged the vintage brandy bottle that he had commandeered out of his coat pocket so that Gaunt could see it. So could everyone else in the foyer.

Any more of this, thought Gaunt, and I might as well announce my activities over the tannoy. He grabbed Blenner by the arm and led him out of the bar.

‘You can come,’ he hissed, ‘just… behave! And be quiet!’

* * *

Three

THE GIRL GYRATING on the apron stage to the sounds of the tambour band was quite lovely and almost completely undressed, but Major Rawne was not looking at her.

He stared across the table in the low, smoky light as Vul-nor Habshept kal Geel filled two shot glasses with oily, clear liquor.

Even as a skeleton, Geel would have been a huge man. But upholstered as he was in more than three hundred kilos of chunky flesh he made even Bragg look undernourished.

Major Rawne knew full well it would take over three times his own body-mass to match the opulently dressed racketeer. Rawne was also totally unafraid.

‘We drink, soldier boy,’ Geel said in his thick Pyritean accent, lifting one shot glass with a gargantuan hand.

‘We drink,’ Rawne agreed, picking up his own glass. ‘Though I would prefer you address me as “Major Rawne”… racketeer boy.’

There was a dead pause. The crowded cold zone bar was silent in an instant. The girl stopped gyrating.

Geel laughed.

‘Good! Good! Very amusing, such pluck! Ha ha ha!’ He chuckled and knocked his drink back in one. The bar resumed talk and motion, relieved.

Rawne slowly and extravagantly gulped his drink. Then he lifted the decanter and drained the other litre of liquor without even blinking. He knew that it was a rye-based alcohol with a chemical structure similar to that used in Chimera and Rhino anti-freeze. He also knew that he had taken four anti-intoxicant tablets before coming in. Four tabs that had cost a fortune from a black market trader, but it was worth it. It was like drinking spring water.

Geel forgot to close his mouth for a moment and then recovered his composure.

‘Major Rawne can drink like Pyritean!’ he said with a complimentary tone.

‘So the Pyriteans would like to think…’ Rawne said. ‘Now let’s to business.’

‘Come this way,’ Geel said and lumbered to his feet. Rawne fell into step behind him and Geel’s four huge bodyguards moved in behind.

Everyone in the bar watched them leave by the back door.

On stage, the girl had just shed her final, tiny garment and was in the process of twirling it around one finger prior to hurling it into the crowd. When she realised no one was watching, she stomped off in a huff.

IN A SNOWY alley behind the club, a grey, beetle-nosed six-wheeled truck was waiting.

‘Hocwheat liquor. Smokes. Text slates with dirty pictures. Everything you asked for,’ Geel said expansively.

‘You’re a man of your word,’ Rawne said.

‘Now, to the money. Two thousand Imperial credits. Don’t waste my time with local rubbish. Two thousand Imperial.’

Rawne nodded and clicked his fingers. Trooper Feygor stepped out of the shadows carrying a bulging rucksack.

‘My associate, Mr Feygor,’ Rawne said. ‘Show him the stuff, Feygor.’

Feygor stood the rucksack down in the snow and opened it. He reached in. And pulled out a laspistol.

The first two shots hit Geel in the face and chest, smashing him back down the alley.

With practiced ease, Feygor grinned as he put an explosive blast through the skulls of each outraged bodyguard.

Rawne dashed over to the truck and climbed up into the cab.

‘Let’s go!’ he roared to Feygor who scrambled up onto the side even as Rawne threw it into gear and roared it out of the alley.

As they screamed away under the archway at the head of the alley, a big dark shape dropped down into the truck, landing on the tarpaulin-wrapped contraband in the flatbed. Feygor, hanging on tight and monkeying up the restraints onto the cargo bed, saw the stowaway and lashed out at him. A powerful jab laid him out cold in the canvas folds of the tarpaulin.

At the wheel, Rawne saw Feygor fall in the rear-view scope and panicked as the attacker swung into the cab beside him.

‘Major,’ Corbec said.

‘Corbec!’ Rawne exploded. ‘You! Here?’

‘I’d keep your eyes on the road if I were you,’ Corbec said glancing back, ‘I think Geel’s men are after a word with you.’

The truck raced on down the snowy street. Behind it came four angry limousines.

‘Feth!’ Major Rawne said.

Four

THE BIG, BLACK staff-track roared down the boulevard under the glowing lamps in their ironwork frames. Smoothly and deftly it slipped around the light evening traffic, changing lanes.

Drivers seemed more than willing to give way to the big, sinister machine with its throaty engine note and its gleaming double-headed eagle crest.

Behind armoured glass in the tracked passenger section, Gaunt leaned forward in the studded leather seats and pressed the speaker switch. Beside him, Blenner poured two large snifters of brandy and chuckled.

‘Milo,’ Gaunt said into the speaker, ‘not so fast. I’d like to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible, and it doesn’t help with you going for some new speed record.’

‘Understood, sir,’ Milo said over the speaker.

Sitting forward astride the powerful nose section, Milo flexed his hands on the handlebar grips and grinned. The speed dropped. A little.

Gaunt ignored the glass Blenner was offering him and flipped open a data-slate map of the city’s street-plan.

Then he thumbed the speaker again. ‘Next left, Milo, then follow the underpass to Zorn Square.’

‘That… that takes us into the cold zones, commissar,’ Milo replied over the link.

‘You have your orders, adjutant,’ Gaunt said simply and snapped off the intercom.

‘This isn’t Guard business at all, is it, old man?’ Blenner said wryly.

‘Don’t ask questions and you won’t have to lie later, Vay. In fact, keep out of sight and pretend you’re not here. I’ll get you back to the bar in an hour or so.’

I hope, Gaunt added under his breath.

RAWNE THREW THE truck around a steep bend. The six chunky wheels slid alarmingly on the wet snow. Behind it, the heavy pursuit vehicles thrashed and slipped.

‘This is the wrong way!’ Rawne said. ‘We’re going deeper into the damn cold zone!’

‘We didn’t have much choice,’ Corbec replied. ‘They’re boxing us in. Didn’t you plan your escape route?’

Rawne said nothing and concentrated on his driving. They were flung around another treacherous turn.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Corbec at last.

‘Just asking myself the same thing,’ Corbec reflected lightly. ‘Well, truth is, I thought I’d do what any good regimental colonel does for his men on a shore leave rotation after a nightmare tour of duty in a hell-pit like Fortis, and take a trip into the downtown districts to rustle up a little black market drink and the like. The men always appreciate a colonel who looks after them.’

Rawne scowled, fighting the wheel.

‘Then I happened to see you and your sidekick, and I realised that you were doing what any good sneaking low-life weasel would do on shore leave rotation. To wit, scamming some local out of contraband so he can sell it to his comrades. So I thought to myself – I’ll join forces. Rawne’s got exactly what I’m after and without my help, he’ll be dead and floating down the River Cracia by dawn.’

‘Your help?’ Rawne spat. The glass at the rear of the cab shattered suddenly as bullets smacked into it. Both men ducked.

‘Yeah,’ Corbec said, pulling an autopistol out of his coat. ‘I’m a better shot than that feth-wipe Feygor.’

Corbec wound his door window down and leaned out, firing back a quick burst of heavy fire from the speeding truck.

The front screen of one of the black vehicles exploded and it skidded sharply, clipping one of its companions before slamming into a wall and spinning nose to tail, three times before coming to rest in a spray of glass and debris.

‘I rest my case,’ Corbec said.

‘There’s still three of them out there!’ Rawne said.

‘True,’ Corbec said, loading a fresh clip, ‘but, canny chap that I am, I thought of bringing spare ammo.’

GAUNT MADE MILO park the staff-track around the corner from Needleshadow Boulevard. He climbed out into the cold night. ‘Stay here,’ he told Blenner, who waved back jovially from the cabin. ‘And you,’ Gaunt told Milo, who was moving as if to follow him.

‘Are you armed, sir?’ the boy asked.

Gaunt realised he wasn’t. He shook his head.

Milo drew his silver Tanith dagger and passed it to the commissar. ‘You can never be sure,’ he said simply.

Gaunt nodded his thanks and moved off.

The cold zones like this were a grim reminder that society in a vast city like Cracia was deeply stratified. At the heart were the great palace of the Ecclesiarch and the Needle itself. Around that, the city centre and the opulent, wealthy residential areas were patrolled, guarded, heated and screened, safe little microcosms of security and comfort. There, every benefit of Imperial citizenship was enjoyed.

But beyond, the bulk of the city was devoid of such luxuries. League after league of crumbling, decaying city blocks, buildings and tenements a thousand years old, rotted on unlit, unheated, uncared for streets. Crime was rife here, and there were no Arbites. Their control ran out at the inner city limits.

It was a human zoo, an urban wilderness that surrounded civilisation. In some ways it almost reminded Gaunt of the Imperium itself – the opulent, luxurious heart surrounded by a terrible reality it knew precious little about. Or cared to know.

Light snow, too wet to settle, drifted down. The air was cold and moist.

Gaunt strode down the littered pavement. 1034 Needle-shadow Boulevard was a dark, haunted relic. A single, dim light glowed on the sixth floor.

Gaunt crept in. The foyer smelled of damp carpet and mildew. There were no lights, but he found the stairwell lit by hundreds of candles stuck in assorted bottles. The light was yellow and smoky.

By the time he reached the third floor, he could hear the music. Some kind of old dancehall ballad by the sound of it. The old recording crackled. It sounded like a ghost.

Sixth floor, the top flat. Shattered plaster littered the worn hall carpet. Somewhere in the shadows, vermin squeaked. The music was louder, murmuring from the room he was approaching on an old audio-caster. The apartment door was ajar, and light, brighter than the hall candles, shone out, the violet glow of a self-powered portable field lamp.

His fingers around the hilt of the knife in his greatcoat pocket, Gaunt entered.

Five

THE ROOM WAS bare to the floorboards and the peeling paper. The audio-caster was perched on top of a stack of old books, warbling softly. The lamp was in the corner, casting its spectral violet glow all around the room.

‘Is there anyone here?’ Gaunt asked, surprised at the sound of his own voice.

A shadow moved in an adjoining bathroom.

‘What’s the word?’ it said.

‘What?’

‘I haven’t got time to humour you. The word.’

‘Eagleshard,’ Gaunt said, using the code word he and Fereyd had shared years before on Pashen Nine-Sixty.

The figure seemed to relax. A shabby, elderly man in a dirty civilian suit entered the room so that Gaunt could see him. He was lowering a small, snub-nosed pistol of a type Gaunt wasn’t familiar with.

Gaunt’s heart sank. It wasn’t Fereyd.

‘Who are you?’ Gaunt asked.

The man arched his eyebrows in reply. ‘Names are really quite inappropriate under these circumstances.’

‘If you say so,’ Gaunt said.

The man crossed to the audio-caster and keyed in a new track. Another old-fashioned tune, a jaunty love song full of promises and regrets, started up with a flurry of strings and pipes.

‘I am a facilitator, a courier and also very probably a dead man,’ the stranger told Gaunt. ‘Have you any idea of the scale and depth of this business?’

Gaunt shrugged. ‘No. I’m not even sure what business you refer to. But I trust my old friend, Fereyd. That is enough for me. By his word, I have no illusions as to the seriousness of this matter, but as to the depth, the complexity…’

The man studied him. ‘The Navy’s intelligence network has established a web of spy systems throughout the Sabbat Worlds to watch over the Crusade.’

‘Indeed.’

‘I’m a part of that cobweb. So are you, if you but knew it. The truth we are uncovering is frightening. There is a grievous power struggle underway in the command echelon of this mighty Crusade, my friend.’

Gaunt felt impatience rising in him. He hadn’t come all this way to listen to arch speculation. ‘Why should I care? I’m not part of High Command. Let them squabble and backstab and–’

‘Would you throw it all away? A decade of liberation warfare? All of Warmaster Slaydo’s victories?’

‘No,’ Gaunt admitted darkly.

‘The intrigue threatens everything. How can a Crusade force this vast continue when its commanders are at each other’s throats? And if we’re fighting each other, how can we fight the foe?’

‘Why am I here?’ Gaunt cut in flatly.

‘He said you would be cautious.’

‘Who said? Fereyd?’

The man paused, but didn’t reply directly. ‘Two nights ago, associates of mine here in Cracia intercepted a signal sent via an astropath from a scout ship in the Nubila Reach. It was destined for Lord High Militant General Dravere’s Fleet headquarters. Its clearance level was Vermilion.’

Gaunt blinked. Vermilion level.

The man took a small crystal from his coat pocket and held it up so that it winked in the violet light.

‘The data is stored on this crystal. It took the lives of two psykers to capture the signal and transfer it to this. Dravere must not get his hands on it.’

He held it out to Gaunt.

Gaunt shrugged. ‘You’re giving it to me?’

The man pursed his lips. ‘Since my network here on Cracia intercepted this, we’ve been taken apart. Dravere’s own counter-spy network is after us, desperate to retrieve the data. I have no one left to safeguard this. I contacted my off-world superior, and he told me to await a trusted ally. Whoever you are, friend, you are held in high regard. You are trusted. In this secret war, that means a lot.’

Gaunt took the crystal from the man’s trembling fingers. He didn’t quite know what to say. He didn’t want this vile, vital thing anywhere near himself, but he was beginning to realise what might be at stake.

The older man smiled at Gaunt. He began to say something.

The wall behind him exploded in a firestorm of light and vaporising bricks. Two fierce blue beams of las fire punched into the room and sliced the man into three distinct sections before he could move.

Six

GAUNT DIVED FOR cover in the apartment doorway. He drew Milo’s blade, for all the good that would do.

Feet were thundering up the stairs.

From his vantage point at the door he watched as two armoured troopers swung in through the exploded wall. They were big, clad in black, insignia-less combat armour, carrying compact, cut-down lasrifles. Adhesion clamps on their knees and forearms showed how they had scaled the outside walls to blow their way in with a directional limpet mine. They surveyed the room, sweeping their green laser tagger beams. One spotted Gaunt prone in the doorway and opened fire. The blast punched through the doorframe, kicking up splinters and began stitching along the plasterboard wall.

Gaunt dived headlong. He was dead! Dead, unless–

The old man’s pistol lay on the worn carpet under his nose. It must have skittered there when he was cut down. Gaunt grabbed it, thumbed off the safety and rolled over to fire.

The gun was small, but the odd design clearly marked it as an ancient and priceless specialised weapon. It had a kick like a mule and a roar like a Basilisk.

The first shot surprised Gaunt as much as the two stealth troops and it blew a hatch-sized hole in the wall. The second shot exploded one of the attackers.

A little rune on the grip of the pistol had changed from ‘V’ to ‘III’. Gaunt sighed. This thing clearly wasn’t over-blessed with a capacious magazine.

The footfalls on the stairway got louder and three more stealth troopers stumbled up, wafting the candle flames as they ran.

Gaunt dropped to a kneeling pose and blew the head off the first. But the other two opened fire up the well with their lasguns and then the remaining trooper in the apartment behind him began firing too. The cross-blast of three lasguns on rapid-burst tore the top hallway to pieces. Gaunt dropped flat so hard he smashed his hand on the boards and the gun pattered away down the top steps.

After a moment or two, the firing stopped and the attackers began to edge forward to inspect their kill. Dust and smoke drifted in the half-light. Some of the shots had punched up through the floor and carpet a whisker from Gaunt’s nose, leaving smoky, dimpled holes. But Gaunt was intact.

When the trooper from the apartment poked his head round the door, a cubit of hard-flung Tanith silver impaled his skull and dropped him to the floor, jerking and spasming. Gaunt leapt up. A second, two seconds, and he would have the fallen man’s lasgun in his hands, ready to blast down the stairs.

But the other two from below were in line of sight. There was a flash and he realised their green laser taggers had swept over his face and dotted on his heart. There was a quick and frantic burst of lasgun fire and a billow of noxious burning fumes washed up the stairs over Gaunt.

Blenner climbed the stairs into view, carefully stepping over the smouldering bodies, a smoking laspistol in his hand.

‘Got tired of waiting,’ the commissar sighed. ‘Looks like you needed a hand anyway, eh, Bram?’

Seven

THE GREY TRUCK, with its single remaining pursuer, slammed into high gear as it went over the rise in the snowy road, leaving the ground for a stomach-shaking moment.

‘What’s that?’ Rawne said wildly, a moment after they landed again and the thrashing wheels re-engaged the slippery roadway.

‘It’s called a roadblock, I believe,’ Corbec said.

Ahead, the cold zone street was closed by a row of oil-can fires, concrete poles and wire. Several armed shapes were waiting for them.

‘Off the road! Get off the road!’ Corbec bawled. He leaned over and wrenched at the crescent steering wheel.

The truck slewed sideways in the slush and barrelled beetle-nose-first through the sheet-wood doors of an old, apparently abandoned warehouse. There, in the dripping darkness, it grumbled to a halt, its firing note choking away to a dull cough.

‘Now what?’ Rawne hissed.

‘Well, there’s you, me and Feygor…’ Corbec began. Already the trooper was beginning to pull himself groggily up in the back. ‘Three of Gaunt’s Ghosts, the best damn fighting regiment in the Guard. We excel at stealth work and look! We’re here in a dark warehouse.’

Corbec readied his automatic. Rawne pulled his laspistol and did the same. He grinned.

‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

Years later, in the speakeasies and clubs of the Cracian cold zones, the story of the shoot-out at the old Vinchy Warehouse would do the rounds. Thousands of shots were heard, they say, mostly the bass chatter of the autogun sidearms carried by twenty armed men, mob overbaron Vulnor Habshept kal Geel’s feared enforcers, who went in to smoke out the off-world gangsters.

All twenty died. Twenty further shots, some from laspistols, some from a big-bore autogun, were heard. No more, no less.

No one ever saw the off-world gangsters again, or found the truck laden with stolen contraband that had sparked off the whole affair.

THE STAFF-TRACK whipped along down the cold zone street, heading back to the safety of the city core. In the back, Blenner poured another two measures of his expensive brandy. This time, Gaunt took the one offered and knocked it back.

‘You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, Bram. Not if you don’t want to.’

Gaunt sighed. ‘If I had to, would you listen?’

Blenner chuckled. ‘I’m loyal to the Emperor, Gaunt, and doubly loyal to my old friends. What else do you need to know?’

Gaunt smiled and held his glass out as Blenner refilled it.

‘Nothing, I suppose.’

Blenner leaned forward, earnest for the first time in years. ‘Look, Bram… I may seem like an old fogey to you, grown fat on the luxuries of having a damn near perfect regiment… but I haven’t forgotten what the fire feels like. I haven’t forgotten the reason I’m here. You can trust me to hell and back, and I’ll be there for you.’

‘And the Emperor,’ Gaunt reminded him with a grin.

‘And the bloody Emperor,’ Blenner said and they clinked glasses.

‘I say,’ Blenner said a moment later, ‘why is your boy slowing down?’

Milo pulled up, wary. The two tracked vehicles blocking the road ahead had their headlamps on full beam, but Milo could see they were painted in the colours of the Jantine Patricians. Large, shaven-headed figures armed with batons and entrenching tools were climbing out to meet them.

Gaunt climbed out of the cabin as Milo brought them to a halt. Snow drifted down. He squinted at the men beyond the lights.

‘Brochuss,’ he hissed.

‘Colonel-Commissar Gaunt,’ replied Major Brochuss of the Jantine Patricians, stepping forward. He was stripped to his vest and oiled like a prize fighter. The wooden spoke in his hands slapped into a meaty palm.

‘A reckoning, I think,’ he said. ‘You and your scum-boys cheated us of a victory on Fortis. You bastards. Playing at soldiers when the real thing was ready to take the day. You and your pathetic Ghosts should have died on the wire where you belong.’

Gaunt sighed. ‘That’s not the real reason, is it, Brochuss? Oh, you’re still smarting over the stolen glory of Fortis, but that’s not it. After all, why were you so unhappy we won the day back there? It’s the old honour thing, isn’t it? The old debt you and Flense still think has to be paid. You’re fools. There’s no honour in this, in back-street murder out here, in the cold zones, where our bodies won’t be reported for months.’

‘I don’t believe you’re in a position to argue,’ said Brochuss. ‘We of Jant will take our repayment in blood where it presents itself. Here is as good a place as any other.’

‘So you’d act with dishonour, to avenge a slight to honour? Brochuss, you ass – if you could only see the irony! There was no dishonour to begin with. I only corrected what was already at fault. You know where the real fault lies. All I did was expose the cowardice in the Jantine action.’

‘Bram!’ Blenner hissed in Gaunt’s ear. ‘You never were a diplomat! These men want blood! Insulting them isn’t going to help their mood.’

‘I’m dealing with this, Vay,’ Gaunt said archly.

‘No you’re not, I am…’ Blenner pushed Gaunt back and faced the Jantine mob. ‘Major… if it’s a fight you want I won’t disappoint you. A moment? Please?’ Blenner said holding up a finger. He turned to Milo and whispered, ‘Boy, just how fast can you drive this buggy?’

‘Fast enough,’ Milo whispered, ‘and I know exactly where to go…’

Blenner turned back to the Patrician heavies in the lamplight and smiled. ‘After due consultation with my colleagues, Major Brochuss, I can now safely say… burn in hell, you shit-eating dog!’

He leapt back aboard, pushing Gaunt into the cabin ahead of him. Milo had the staff-track gunned and slewed around in a moment, even as the enraged troopers rushed them.

Another three seconds and Gaunt’s ride was roaring off down the snowy street at a dangerous velocity, the engines raging. Squabbling and cursing, Brochuss and his men leapt into their own machines and gave chase.

‘So glad I left that to you, Vay,’ Gaunt grinned. ‘I don’t think I would’ve have been that diplomatic.’

Eight

TROOPER BRAGG KISSED his lucky dice and let all three of them fly. A cheer went up across the wagering room and piles of chips were pushed his way.

‘Go on, Bragg!’ Mad Larkin chuckled at his side. ‘Do it again, you fething old drunk!’

Bragg chuckled and scooped up the dice.

This was the life, he thought. Far away from the warzone of Fortis, and the mayhem, and the death, here in a smoke-filled dome in the cold zone back-end of an ancient city, him and his few true friends, a good number of pretty girls and wager tables open all night.

Varl was suddenly at his side. His intended friendly slap was hard and stinging – Varl had still to get used to the cybernetic implant shoulder joint the medics had fitted him with on Fortis.

‘The game can wait, Bragg. We’ve got business.’

Bragg and Larkin kissed their painted lady-friends good bye and followed Varl out through the rear exit of the gaming club onto the boarding ramp. Suth was there: Melyr, Meryn, Caffran, Curral, Coll, Baru, Mkoll, Raglon… almost twenty of the Ghosts.

‘What’s going on?’ Bragg asked.

Melyr jerked his thumb down to where Corbec, Rawne and Feygor were unloading booze and smokes from a battered six wheeler.

‘Colonel’s got us some tasty stuff to share, bless his Tanith heart.’

‘Very nice,’ Bragg said, licking his lips, not entirely sure why Rawne and Feygor looked so annoyed. Corbec smiled up at them all.

‘Get everyone out here! We’re having a party, boys! For Tanith! For us!’

There was cheering and clapping. Varl leapt down into the bay and opened a box with his Tanith knife. He threw bottles up to those clustered around.

‘Hey!’ Raglon said suddenly, pointing out into the snowy darkness beyond the club’s bay. ‘Incoming!’

The staff track slid into the bay behind Corbec’s truck and Gaunt leapt out. A cheer went up and somebody tossed him a bottle. Gaunt tore off the stopper and took a deep swig, before pointing back out into the darkness.

‘Lads! I could do with a hand…’ he began.

MAJOR BROCHUSS leaned forward in the cab of his speeding staff-track and looked through the screen where the wiper was slapping snow away.

‘Now we have him! He’s stopped at that place ahead!’

Brochuss flexed his hand and struck it with his baton.

Then he saw the crowds of jeering Ghosts around the drive-in bay. A hundred… two hundred.

‘Oh balls,’ he managed.

THE BAR WAS almost empty and it was nearly dawn. Ibram Gaunt sipped the last of his drink and eyed Vaynom Blenner who was asleep face-down on the bar beside him.

Gaunt took out the crystal from the inside pocket where he had secreted it and tossed it up in his hand once, twice.

Corbec was suddenly beside him.

‘A long night, eh, commissar?’

Gaunt looked at him, catching the crystal in a tight fist.

‘Maybe the longest so far, Colm. I hear you had some fun.’

‘Aye, and at Rawne’s expense, you’ll no doubt be pleased to hear. Do you want to tell me about what’s going on?’

Gaunt smiled. ‘I’d rather buy you a drink,’ he said, motioning to the weary barkeep. ‘And yes, I’d love to tell you. And I will, when the time comes. Are you loyal, Colm Corbec?’

Corbec looked faintly hurt. ‘To the Emperor, I’d give my life,’ he said, without hesitating.

Gaunt nodded. ‘Me too. The path ahead may be truly hard. As long as I can count on you.’

Corbec said nothing but held out his glass. Gaunt touched it with his own. There was a tiny chime.

‘First and Last,’ Corbec said.

Gaunt smiled softly. ‘First and Only,’ he replied.