I asked myself, what would happen if he was wrong? What would happen if the lava was simply flowing into some random pattern and he had simply perceived something that was not there? I realised that the truth of the matter was that it didn’t matter. If Macharius was wrong, we were no worse off, and if he was right, we would soon be in a position to take the fight to the heretics.
I looked at Ivan and I looked at Anton and I could see that they were both feeling better. The dread had departed from their faces and they looked as ready for action as I had ever seen them. Even Drake had perked up; he did not look quite so sick. He walked over to a comm-board and began typing in odd combinations on the runic keyboard. I guessed he was getting in touch with his agents within the army. In the midst of all this chaos, I was surprised when Macharius walked over to us. He placed his heavy hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Go outside, take a break. There will be a few hours before the preparations to advance are complete. I want you all with me when the final attack begins. You’ve brought me good luck this far and I’m not taking the chance of losing it before the end.’
I was at once touched and frightened. I was touched by the fact that Macharius seemed to have some faith in us. I was frightened by the fact that even the great general seemed to believe that he was in need of all the luck he could get.
People will tell you that the great commanders make their own luck, and there is a freighter-load of truth in that statement, but even Macharius seemed to feel he had to do everything he possibly could to stack the odds in his favour. Sometimes, luck is the only difference between victory and defeat. It was strange to see that even a man as confident as Macharius felt the need of some lucky talisman. It was even stranger to look at Anton and Ivan and the Understudy and think that that was what we were to him.
We stepped outside. The dust had settled. As far as the eye could see were armoured vehicles. To the north an eerie glow lit the sky. Far, far off, the hive of Irongrad loomed, a shadowy mountain pierced by caverns of light. At its tip, a fire-winged angel stood ominously waiting. I knew it was not going to wait for long.
‘Well, we’re going with Macharius,’ Anton said.
‘I can tell you’re excited,’ said Ivan. He eyed the distant hive with a certain gloomy satisfaction, pulled out his hip flask and took a swig. He offered it to me.
‘I bloody well am, and so are you, don’t lie about it!’ Anton said. He knew Ivan too well to be fooled.
I drank the fiery liquid. It tasted like Oily’s coolant fluid. I fought back the wave of memories the taste brought with it.
‘Well,’ Ivan asked, sad eyes gazing at me out of his ruined, half-metal face. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘About all this. You think we have a chance?’
‘What does it matter what I think? We are going in.’
‘So you don’t then.’ His voice was flat and calm, a man discussing the chances of a dust storm coming in tomorrow morning.
‘I never said that,’ I said.
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Tell me,’ said Anton, ‘when we were back in the cathedral, did you think we would ever get out alive?’
I shook my head. Ivan did the same.
Anton banged his chest with his fist. ‘We’re still here.’
‘You know,’ said Ivan, ‘the idiot is right.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Anton. His mouth shut like a trap when he realised he had just agreed he was an idiot. He paused for a moment, then pulled out a lho stick and lit it. He coughed wheezily and said, ‘Maybe Macharius is lucky for us. Maybe it’s not that we are lucky for him.’
‘He wasn’t lucky for Hesse,’ I said.
‘I said for us,’ said Anton. There was an edge of desperation in his voice, as if he was looking for something to believe.
‘Go read your prop-nov, Anton,’ I said, not unkindly. ‘It’ll take your mind off things.’
The bastard took me at my word. He sat down right there in the gritty sand, pulled the book from his chest-pocket, licked his finger and began flicking through the pages until he reached his favourite part. He squinted in concentration. Strange as it may sound, just looking at him and his dumb book gave me hope. Somehow he had managed to preserve the bloody thing through all the madness.
He ran his finger along the lines, squinting with childish concentration, lips moving as he read the long familiar words. I was not sure I had his faith in Macharius but I had faith in him and Ivan. They would do what needed to be done.
The Understudy emerged from the tent. He walked over to where we were and we saluted him and he saluted us but we did not say anything and neither did he. He simply walked a little further and stood there, back to us, staring into the distance, seemingly unaware of the fact that he was making us uncomfortable. Obviously he just did not care. He was entirely self-sufficient, completely on his own even in the teeming swarms surrounding the headquarters. For all that though, even he had chosen to come outside and stand in the proximity of his comrades.
Perhaps there was still something human in there. Perhaps he simply needed that small crumb of comfort. Or maybe I am wrong, maybe he simply picked a random spot to stand and observe the great enemy in the distance. I am in no position to tell.
Ivan took another swig from his flask and offered it up to Anton, who shook his head, so Ivan passed it on to me. While I was drinking, Ivan produced his magnoculars and focused them in the direction the Understudy was looking. I do not know what he saw. I never asked. I just took another sip of the cooling fluid and felt it burn its way down my throat.
The Understudy stood there, still as a statue, his arms behind his back, his right hand clutching his left wrist. His head was tilted to one side as if he did not quite understand what he was seeing. Maybe he felt that way about the whole world. It had certainly changed for him. Eventually, he turned and walked back towards us.
‘You better turn in then,’ he said in his strange, rasping voice. ‘We’re going to have an early start tomorrow and the Lord High Commander wants us all to be ready.’
‘We haven’t been assigned quarters, sir,’ said Anton.
‘Then I suggest you make a billet here.’ He said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Maybe, for him, it was. He sat down by the edge of the great flexi-metal tent and closed his eyes and went to sleep with the ease of a machine after it has been switched off. Anton shrugged, read a few more pages, then just altered his position so that he was lying down flat with his head pillowed on his arms and then he too was asleep. I looked at Ivan and handed him back the flask. He kept looking off into the distance and drinking. I’m sure he was tired but he did not seem to want to rest.
‘We’ve come a long way from Belial,’ Ivan said. He looked up at the sky, at the stars glittering coldly so far above. One of them might have been the sun around which Belial swung but I was damned if I could pick out which one. ‘A bloody long way.’
I looked at his ruined face. The metal reflected the distant flames dully. I could remember times on other worlds when he had to put boot polish on it so we would not be spotted by the reflection when scouting.
‘Do you regret it?’ I asked. Of all of us, he had the most reason to. He had given more of his flesh and blood to the Emperor than any of us. He laughed softly and shook his head.
‘No. What would we be doing now if we were still on Belial? Working in a guild factorum?’
‘We’d most likely be dead,’ I said. ‘Those gangers wanted our hides.’
He nodded. ‘Just think what it took to get us here. We pissed off the Big Man and his cronies and because of that we joined the Guard. If I hadn’t got you and Anton into this, none of us would be here.’