‘This might help,’ said Milo. He’d spotted a battered crate on a lower shelf, and dragged it out. It was heavy, but he lifted it clean to the table. Mkoll watched him. Milo wasn’t the boy piper any more. He was strong, and he was tall. He handled weapons with complete familiarity. He had become a seasoned warrior in the years after the Ghosts. And that had been more years than Mkoll could accept. Thanks to the warp incident that had broken the Armaduke’s return voyage to Urdesh, Milo was ten years older, relative. That made him over thirty standard. Mkoll knew he had to stop thinking of Milo as some boy, some eager but harmless adolescent lasman like Dalin Criid, or the Belladon bandsman Arradin. He wondered if that, in part, was why the regiment had welcomed Dalin when he became old enough to pledge in. A little of Boy Milo about him. A return to the early days.
He wondered where they were now, how they were faring. Had they held the batteries that night? Was the retinue safe in a new billet? He hoped Dalin was safe. He’d grown fond of him. A brave lad. Just like Milo had been.
All those years, he’d thought of Milo often, and prayed he was safe at the Saint’s side. He’d never pictured him as a grown man.
Milo unlatched the crate.
Anchor mines, wrapped in wax paper, packed in plastek beads. Imperial issue, salvaged by the Sons from some overrun depot. Each one was the size of a ration tin. They packed a fyceline/D60 mix that could blow a hole through a ceramite bulkhead.
Milo took them out, handling them with care and expertise.
‘Mechanical timer,’ he said. ‘Contact-fusion anchor pad on the flat side.’
‘I know bombs, lad,’ Mazho snapped, picking one up.
‘Good,’ said Milo. ‘Then you’ll know to treat them gently. Not to snatch or shake them. They’re volatile.’
‘I know that,’ said Mazho. He put the mine down again carefully.
‘Two each,’ said Mkoll.
‘Three if we carry fewer cells,’ said Milo.
‘Heavy pockets,’ said Mkoll.
‘Bigger punch,’ said Holofurnace.
‘Because straight silver won’t be enough,’ Mkoll nodded, conceding.
Holofurnace found a musette bag and emptied out the hard round clips it contained. ‘I can take four. Maybe five.’
‘Load up,’ said Mkoll.
They stepped out of the locker, and the V’heduak sealed the door with his keys.
‘Everything’s in order,’ Mkoll said to the packsons. ‘Lucky for you.’
They followed the main spinal towards the Oratory, Brin, Mkoll and Mazho forming an honour guard escort behind the cowled Iron Snake. The whispering buzz of voices was getting louder. It vibrated their ears and made their skin crawl.
The hallways were busier in this part of the ship. Crowds seemed to be gathering: packsons, Sekkite officers, even other V’heduak magirs.
‘What is this?’ Mazho whispered.
Mkoll listened, catching snatches of conversation from the crew they passed.
‘A summoning,’ he told them. ‘The Anarch is calling them. He’s going to speak.’
‘He’s speaking all the time,’ Mazho whispered.
‘No, this is a formal declaration,’ said Mkoll.
‘Of what?’ asked Milo.
Mkoll kept listening.
‘Of victory,’ he said.
The Oratory was a spherical chamber that occupied a socket through three deck levels. The exterior was ribbed with iron-plate armour, and wrought from a pale brown, polished material.
As they came closer, Mkoll realised it was human bone. Thousands upon thousands of gleaming skull caps bonded together. The entrance was a huge doorway accessed via the middle deck. Two rows of abominable excubitors with power lances stood guard outside, forming an avenue that channelled the gathering officers inside. The low murmur of the gathering was drowned out by the rasping whisper in the air.
‘Once we’re in there, there’s no coming back out,’ whispered Holofurnace as they watched from a distance.
‘Agreed,’ said Mkoll. ‘But we knew that.’
‘Yes,’ said Mazho, clearing his throat. Mkoll could see the colonel was sweating behind his leather mouth guard. Mazho was a brave man who had served the Fourth Light ‘Cinder Storm’ with distinction. But this was no battlefield. This required another type of courage.
‘We can do this,’ Milo said to the colonel. ‘For your world. That’s all you’ve ever fought for.’
Mazho nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid. Not of death. Just centring my mind.’
‘You do it for Urdesh,’ Holofurnace said.
‘I do it for all worlds, sir,’ Mazho replied. ‘Fourth Light. Cinder Storm. Light on the breeze, then burning all around you.’
‘Cinder Storm,’ nodded Holofurnace.
Milo looked at the Oratory sphere again.
‘It’s a shame we can’t–’ he began.
‘I was thinking that,’ said Mkoll. ‘We might have time. It’s going to take a while for them to file inside.’
He looked at Holofurnace.
‘Give me the bag,’ he said.
Holofurnace handed it over.
‘Stay here,’ said Milo. ‘You and Mazho. Stay right here.’
‘We could all–’ Holofurnace began.
‘No, leave this to us,’ said Milo. ‘We’re Ghosts.’
They dropped a deck, keeping to the shadows, and skirted around the vast base of the bone sphere. Brin Milo hadn’t forgotten the old Tanith craft. He was silent, a shadow in the shadows.
They paused under a stanchion arch, and waited as a Sekkite platoon passed by. Mkoll opened the bag. Holofurnace had packed six mines inside it.
‘All of them?’ Milo asked.
Mkoll nodded. ‘And one from your pockets. Keep two back. We’ll see if we can set them inside, along with the ones Mazho’s lugging.’
‘Long timer?’
‘What’ll that give us?’
‘Thirty minutes. Give or take. They’re not accurate, or reliable.’
‘Longest mark, then. Go.’
They darted low between pools of shadow, running side by side, and slithered in under the curve of the sphere. The Oratory sat on huge shock gimbals, and thick trunks of cable sheaves and power ducting sprouted from its south pole into the deck.
Milo placed the first charge, using the fusion anchor to fix it to the bone. He removed the steel pin, and flipped the activator. They ran on a few metres, then fixed the second, trying to space the mines fairly evenly on a line of latitude near the sphere’s base. The fifth one wouldn’t stick, its anchor plate too old and corroded. Mkoll switched it for one of the mines in his coat pockets.
‘Hurry,’ Milo whispered.
‘I’m hurrying gently,’ Mkoll replied.
‘What’s taking so long?’ Mazho whispered. The procession of Sekkite seniors had almost finished filing into the Oratory, and the excubitor vanguard was preparing to unhook the doors and swing them shut.
‘They’re coming,’ Holofurnace assured him.
‘What if they’ve been taken?’ Mazho asked.
Holofurnace looked grim. ‘Then it’s down to us,’ he said. He beckoned Mazho, and they stepped out of the shadows and joined the last of the officers gathering before the doors.
They fell into line, the queue advancing slowly. Mazho kept looking back. He couldn’t see anyone behind them except enemy staff officers and V’heduak magirs.
‘Stop doing that,’ Holofurnace whispered to him. ‘If they’re not coming, they’re not coming.’