‘The shadow?’
‘The bad shadow, silly.’
Dalin gritted his teeth. ‘Please stop it with the baby-talk, Yonce,’ he said. He remembered a dinner on board the Highness Ser Armaduke, now genuinely years ago, and a drawing she’d made for Gol Kolea. She’d talked about a bad shadow, like it was her new bogeyman.
Of course, she had just been a child then.
Yoncy looked at him.
‘It’s not baby-talk, Dalin,’ she said. ‘You know. You know what Papa says too.’
‘What’s that on your neck?’ he asked, reaching forward. She flinched back.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
He could see a sore patch of skin around the base of her throat.
‘Is that the eczema again? Yoncy? Has it come back?’
Before the mission to Salvation’s Reach, Dalin had given her a medallion, a souvenir of the Saint. She’d proudly worn it around her neck until it had been lost. The metal of what had undoubtedly been a cheap, mass produced medal had caused a reaction and given her eczema.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t hurt.’
‘Come inside,’ Dalin said. ‘We’ll find some food.’
‘I have to wait here,’ she replied firmly. ‘Papa told me to wait here for him. It’s time, and he wants to talk to me. You should wait too, Dalin. He’ll want to talk to you as well.’
‘Gol may be a while yet,’ Dalin said.
‘I don’t mean Gol. Not Papa Gol. I mean Papa.’
‘Who… who is Papa, Yoncy?’
She looked at him so fiercely it made him recoil slightly.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you listening to him too?’
Dalin raised his hands and backed away. She’d clearly been much more upset by the incident than he thought. He’d ask someone about it. Maybe Doctor Curth when she returned. It was some kind of trauma. He’d seen it in soldiers before.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right. You stay here and wait for… for Papa. I’ll go and get you some soup.’
She nodded.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘I love you, Dalin.’
‘I’m your brother. You’re supposed to.’
She smiled.
‘I do what I’m supposed to do,’ she said, and then turned back to stare at the steps.
Four: Vapourial Quarter
The shots came again. Las-rounds, a short burst.
Down in cover, Wes Maggs glanced at Caober.
‘Building down at the end of the street,’ he said. ‘Second or third floor.’
The chief scout nodded. ‘Discouragement fire,’ he said. ‘They haven’t got a target, but they’ve spotted us moving up.’
Hugging the wall, Gansky scuttled up to their position, and dropped down beside them.
‘Word from Fapes,’ he said. ‘He’s done a vox-check. There are none of ours in this area.’
‘Not Helixid stragglers, then,’ said Maggs.
‘More Sek bastards,’ said Caober. ‘Cut off when they fell back. We have to flush them.’
He peered past the heaps of rubble that was suffering them limited protection. Visibility was poor. Heavy rain was still falling, and three days of constant downpour had raised a thick mist through the Millgate and Vapourial quarters. A lot of it was steam from the countless fires and burned-out buildings, the rest was smoke streaming in from the blazing mills and well-fires on the Northern Dynastic Claves.
‘Take a squad,’ Caober said to Maggs. ‘Move off to the left there.’
Maggs nodded, and slid out of cover. Caober tapped his micro-bead link.
‘Larks, this is Caober. You got eyes on this?’
‘Stand by,’ the vox crackled back.
On the far side of the mangled street, Larkin and Nessa moved, heads low, across the third floor space of a merchant house that had been gutted by tank shells. They picked their way through broken furniture and partly burned piles of inventory paperwork, and set up at one of the windows. There was no glass. Concussion had blown it out like an eardrum. Rain dripped steadily from holes in the ceiling as though a tap had been left on somewhere.
The marksmen lined up with their long-las rifles, and adjusted their scopes.
‘Chief?’ Larkin whispered into his micro-bead. ‘Definitely third floor. Whup! Yeah, that was muzzle flash.’
‘Can you angle from there?’
‘Stand by,’ Larkin replied. He moved to another window. Nessa had also repositioned herself further along the gutted office space.
‘I can’t get a clear shot,’ she signed. ‘I can’t see in.’
‘And the wall’s too thick,’ Larkin agreed, signing back.
‘If we moved down,’ Nessa suggested, ‘to the next building along…’
Larkin shook his head. ‘There is no “next building”, Ness,’ he said quietly, echoing the words with gestures. ‘Just a heap of bricks that used to be a hab before said hab had a life-changing encounter with aerial munitions.’
‘Ah,’ said Nessa Bourah, remembering. She was tired. After three days, one hab shell looked like the next.
She settled back against the wall for a moment, and wiped the rain off her face, an action which did little more than rearrange the dirt on it.
‘This sucks,’ she said.
‘Agreed,’ said Larkin.
‘When are they going to pull us back? We were at the sharp end of it. The fething Helixid have gone.’
‘We’re specialists, aren’t we?’ he grinned. ‘They want this area cleaned out. Our expertise is in demand.’
Nessa explained in clear, anatomically precise terms what high command might do with their expertise. Larkin chuckled, and slid along to the next window gap.
‘We’ll get relief,’ he said, ‘sooner or later.’ He set up again, training his weapon, peering with an unblinking eye through the powerful scope.
‘Caober?’ he voxed.
‘Go.’
‘We can’t deliver from here.’
‘Understood. Maggs is moving left of the target.’
Larkin adjusted his aim.
‘I see him, chief,’ he whispered. ‘Tell him if he follows that alley, it’ll bring him around to the back of the walled court behind the target site.’
‘Keep your eyes on him,’ Caober replied over the link.
The alley was high-walled and almost ankle-deep in water and debris. Maggs moved at the head of his team, lasrifle up to his cheek and aimed. He made a series of quick, clear hand signals to the Ghosts behind him.
Gate. Go around me. Either side.
They stole around him, weapons trained on the old wooden gate in the yard’s high wall. The gate was the only access. Going over the wall would draw fire from the building.
Maggs pointed to Gansky, signalled ‘kick it in’ and then raised three fingers to count him down.
‘Maggs, hold position!’
Maggs froze. He adjusted his micro-bead.
‘Larkin?’ he whispered.
‘Hold position,’ Larkin replied over the vox-link. ‘I’ve got a view into that yard. Definite movement behind the wall.’
‘I read that,’ said Maggs. He glanced at his squad, and pulled a grenade from his musette bag.
‘I request, not for the first time,’ said Rawne, ‘permission to withdraw the Tanith First from this line.’
‘I’m not unsympathetic, colonel,’ said Major Maupin. ‘But the lord general’s orders are specific. The Tanith must hold here for a while longer.’