‘Me too,’ said the old priest.
Hark sighed. ‘I bloody knew you’d say that,’ he said.
‘You’re not going either, are you?’ asked Zweil.
‘No,’ Hark admitted.
He turned back to the doorway.
‘We make a stand here,’ he said.
‘I was already planning to,’ rasped Auerben. She had a lasrifle in her hands.
Hark nodded. He pulled out his hold-out gun.
‘We make a stand with that?’ Laksheema asked, looking at the small weapon dubiously.
‘It’s not about size,’ said Hark. ‘No, I’m lying. Right now, a tank would be good. I feel you’ve got something effective up your sleeve, inquisitor. And I don’t mean that metaphorically.’
Laksheema raised her right wrist. The lamplight glittered off her ornate bangle.
‘Antimat disruptor,’ she said. ‘Xenos manufacture. Very small, but size isn’t everything, as you say. I used to believe these could stop anything. But I burned out the other one on the first machine.’
‘It’s better than nothing,’ said Hark.
They took up station in the doorway. The wailing swish of blades was coming closer.
Merity backed away from Meryn very slowly. The candles in the chapel flickered.
‘What did you tell her, eh?’ he hissed. He glanced down at Fazekiel. ‘Don’t worry, I know. I’m a Ghost. I read lips for a living.’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Merity.
‘Taking advantage of an opportunity,’ Meryn replied. ‘You heard Bel. Many, many are the dead, like the old song goes. All cut up to ribbons. Death’s everywhere. Who knows what the final body count will be? Who knows what dirty little secrets will die with the dead tonight?’
‘Meryn… Flyn…’
‘Don’t Flyn me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got me good. But some secrets are meant to stay secrets, you see.’
‘I think you might have gone fething mad, captain,’ Merity said.
‘I think I’m perfectly sane,’ he replied. ‘I’ll take my chances. I’m quick on my feet. A little straight silver, and my secret’s safe. I’ll be gone, out there, in a destrier, running clear. What are two more corpses in a bloodbath like this?’
He stepped closer. She backed up. He smiled. Her eyes darted around. Relf’s carbine lay on a cot nearby.
He saw where she had looked.
‘Don’t even,’ he said.
Merity faked right then darted left for the cot. Meryn lunged at her, missing by a slim margin.
Merity forward-rolled across the cot, just as she had been taught in the relentless basic training drills aboard the Armaduke, back when she’d been a novice trooper called Felyx Chass.
She came up gripping the carbine. She aimed it at him with a grin. Then her face fell.
Meryn was aiming back at her. He’d snatched up Fazekiel’s pistol from the medicae cart.
‘Drop the carbine,’ he said. ‘I’d rather do this quietly. People might question gunshot wounds.’
‘Let them question,’ said Merity. ‘You bastard.’
Meryn fired. The gun clacked, empty. I don’t think I can protect you again. He remembered Fazekiel saying that, down in the undercroft.
The stupid bitch had meant she’d used up all her ammo.
He threw himself at Merity, the war-knife slicing in.
The carbine bucked in her hands. The muzzle flare was intensely bright in the gloomy chapel.
Rapid fire shots tore into Meryn, puncturing his torso six times and shredding off his left arm at the elbow.
The final two went into his face, destroying his look of indignant surprise.
‘Gunfire,’ murmured Hark.
‘Las,’ agreed Auerben.
‘It was close,’ said Hark. ‘Sounded close. Throne, it must be nearby now.’He glanced back at Curth and Zweil, vigilant at the Saint’s side. He smelled, very faintly, the scent of islumbine. He put it down to his frantic imagination. But the idea reassured him.
‘I can hear it wailing,’ said Laksheema.
‘I told you it was close,’ said Hark.
‘Very close,’ the inquisitor replied. ‘So why can’t we see it?’
‘What are you showing me?’ asked Marshal Tzara above the din of a war room seething with activity as it tried to rebuild its strategic overview of the Eltath zone.
‘Pict capture,’ replied Biota. ‘It has just come in. Vox operation received it two minutes ago, so I brought it to you directly.’
‘What is it?’ she asked. She stared at the on-screen image. It looked like a fuzzy map of an island. Graphic enhancement had compensated for the nocturnal view.
‘Well, it could be a breakthrough,’ said Biota.
‘It is an island, sir,’ snapped Tzara. ‘An island in a sea. My concern is the Eltath theatre. Bring me data on that!’
‘Please look,’ said Biota. ‘These images were captured by the battleship Naiad Antitor during a routine orbital sweep ten minutes ago. That’s Coltrice Island, a cone atoll west of the Eltath Peninsula, at the southern end of the Sadimay archipelago. It’s a dead volcano, hollow inside. Used in ages past as an agri-town and safe harbour, thus sometimes called the Fastness–’
‘Your insistence on detail bored me yesterday and it bores me today, tactician,’ Tzara warned. She kept glancing at the station chiefs who were holding signals in the air. ‘I’m coming!’ she cried.
‘Observe here,’ said Biota, enlarging the image with his fingertip and enhancing the thermal contrast. ‘On the last routine sweep, twenty hours ago, the island was cold. No heat read. No human activity. Look at it now, Marshal. We think it was cloaked by some form of masking field or cloak device, which has recently failed.’
‘This is heat?’ asked Tzara, peering in.
‘Indeed, a venting plume.’
‘Volcanic?’
‘The cone is extinct.’
‘So what?’
‘We think it’s a ship fire, mam,’ Biota said. ‘An engine fire or significant internal heat damage.’
‘A ship…’ said Tzara. She frowned and peered again.
‘Quiet!’ she yelled over her shoulder at the war room bustle. The noise subsided. ‘A ship, tactician?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Biota. ‘If I enlarge again… like so… you’ll see the shadow here. I’ll enhance contrast. A shadow, under the projection of the cone lip. That’s a shift-ship of considerable tonnage. A fast cruiser.’
‘Is it one of ours?’ she asked.
‘We’re waiting for confirmation,’ he replied. ‘A damaged vessel might have run to cover there and been unable to signal its position. But…’
‘But?’
A hand reached in past them, and enlarged a spectrographic code in the side-bar of the main image.
‘That plume is venting high levels of iridium matroxon,’ said Macaroth.
‘My lord,’ said Tzara, pulling herself upright.
‘You are quite correct, my lord,’ said Biota.
‘That’s fuel burning,’ said Macaroth. ‘Our ships burn a standard antium-beronel intermix. That’s an enemy ship, and it’s been hiding as close to Eltath as it can get.’
‘Is it him?’ Tzara asked.
‘We’ve searched for the bastard everywhere,’ said Macaroth, ‘and he’s cowering on our very doorstep. Marshal?’
‘My great lord?’
‘Link me to the fleet,’ said Macaroth. ‘I wish to call in an annihilation strike in the next thirty minutes and wipe that island off the face of Urdesh.’
Merity lifted Fazekiel up, and wiped the blood off her face and out of her mouth.
‘Luna? Luna?’