‘Don’t fret, Rawne,’ Gaunt told his number two. ‘I’m right here. Just resting my eyes.’
‘It’s Curth, Ibram.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course.’
‘You were a long way away from me then.’
‘I’m just tired, Curth. Just napping for a moment.’
‘Try to stay with us. We’ve got to close this artery and cross the bridge.’
‘Before nightfall.’
‘Exactly,’ she replied.
‘Let’s get this done, then,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to the flamers.’
The flame troopers gathered around him. Brostin, Dremmond, Lubba, Lyse, Nitorri and the rest. They stank of promethium fuel, their stock in trade.
‘Where the Throne are your flamers?’ Gaunt asked.
‘Well, we left them outside,’ said Lubba.
‘Outside?’ Gaunt asked.
‘Lubba meant back on the track over there, sir,’ Dremmond said quickly. He nudged Lubba with a heavy, grubby arm. ‘Idiot.’
‘Our tanks are being topped up just now,’ said Brostin, with a broad grin. ‘We’re all ready to go. You give the word.’
‘You understand the objectives?’ asked Gaunt.
‘Why don’t you run through them, just for us?’ Dremmond suggested.
‘Haven’t the company leaders briefed you?’ asked Gaunt.
‘Well, of course they have,’ said Brostin.
‘Immaculately,’ said Lyse.
‘We just, uhm, like to hear it from you in person, sir,’ said Brostin.
Gaunt chuckled. ‘Very well. We have to get across this bridge by nightfall. Ten units of blood. Blood Pact. You’ve got to cauterise this artery right now.’
‘Artery?’ asked Lubba.
‘This river.’
Lubba nodded.
‘Not a problem,’ said Brostin. He took out a lho-stick.
‘Not here!’ Curth called out.
‘I’m not going to light it, doc,’ Brostin protested.
‘They’d see the spark,’ said Gaunt.
‘Who’s that, sir?’ asked Brostin, sucking on his unlit lho-stick.
‘The Blood Pact down on the river.’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ Brostin replied. ‘That’s why I’m being careful. We’re ready to go as soon as you want.’
‘Then get to it,’ said Gaunt. ‘And Brostin?’
‘Sir?’
‘Say hello to Mister Yellow for me.’
The iron star throbbed. The bridge waited. It seemed all too close to nightfall.
Gaunt adjusted his cap, brim first, checked the load of his bolt pistol, and drew out his power sword, the famous blade of Hieronymo Sondar. It purred as he switched it on.
He rose up, the mud squelching around his boots.
‘First and Only!’ he yelled.
Whistles blew, and line officers called out orders for readiness.
‘Straight silver!’ Gaunt instructed. Clicks and clatters sounded down the Ghost formation as the Tanith fixed their warknives to their bayonet lugs.
‘Flamers advance!’ Gaunt called.
The flame-troopers climbed up out of the forward dugouts they’d crawled to. As they rose, their tanks thumped, and spears of liquid flame spat down across the river’s edge. On their hastily constructed siege platforms, the Blood Pact troopers screamed as inferno engulfed them.
Mortar charges, carried over the dead river on pontoons, began to catch off and explode. Bodies and fragments of splintered wood were hurled up into the air on ferocious spurts of fire.
‘Advance!’ Gaunt ordered, and the line officers repeated the call. He began running. Sword raised, he slipped and slithered in the mire. He heard the Ghosts behind him, the crack and fizzle of lasrifles, the roar of voices.
Enemy fire began to whip his way. It was so bright and quick, it hurt his eyes.
‘Keep on them!’ he yelled.
‘Steady, Ibram,’ Curth warned.
‘Get into cover, medicae!’ he shouted at her.
‘I’m staying right with you,’ Curth whispered.
He ploughed on into the billowing smoke. The air smelled of fyceline, blood and slime. Stray shells whumped in and kicked up mud that spattered across him. Blast concussions made the smoke eddy and swirl in curious patterns, like ripples on water. The noise was overwhelming.
He saw shapes moving towards him in the smoke ahead. Blood Pact troopers loomed into view, charging up from the river to meet them. Feral sounds and inhuman heresies issued from the screaming mouth-slits of their iron masks. Grim human trophies, like finger-bones and ears, jangled from their webbing and their munition belts.
Some of the Blood Pact carried lasrifles, with bayonets fixed. Others brandished spears or billhooks, or spiked hammers made for trench fighting. Their howls rose in intensity as they caught their first glimpse of the Imperial troops.
‘Into them! Break their backs!’ Gaunt shouted. ‘The Emperor Protects!’
He didn’t falter in his stride. If anything, he ran faster, raising his bolt pistol to shoot, swinging his sword back. For a beautiful moment, the weariness left him. It just lifted off him. He felt as if he could take on the Archenemy single-handed. He felt the way he had done as a young man, with the whole galaxy before him.
He fired two shots and knocked down a pair of charging Blood Pact troopers, who went over as if they had been demolished by wrecking balls.
Then he was in amongst the rest. He swung the power sword, and the blade went clean through a throat. A billhook sang towards his face, and he chopped it away and then drove the sword, point-first, through the billhook-owner’s torso. Shapes whirled around him. This was the killing time, close combat, face-to-face, without quarter or compunction. Gaunt had tangled with the Archon’s Blood Pact often enough to know that they fought like wolves, and seldom relented. Many were hard-bred Imperial Guardsmen, who had defected, or who had been seduced away from the power of the Throne by the perversions of Chaos. The Blood Pact was one of the few forces in the Archenemy’s host with proper military training and discipline.
Ghosts slammed into the brawl around him, black shapes stabbing with glittering silver bayonets. Lasweapons went off point-blank, thumping bodies off their feet into the mire. Figures wrestled and grappled.
Gaunt shot another Blood Pact trooper who was charging at him with a spear, and then ducked as a trench-mace came down to crush his skull. He kicked out the legs of the trooper with the mace and, as the man fell, Gaunt cleaved his sword through his shoulderblades and spine. Another came close, at Gaunt’s elbow, and Gaunt made a quick back-turn and rammed the pommel and grip of his sword into the man’s throat. The Blood Pact trooper stumbled backwards, choking, and Gaunt finished his work with a fencing master’s thrust. Two more hurled themselves at him. A rusty bayonet grazed Gaunt’s arm, ripping the sleeve of his storm coat. He fired wildly, instinctively and, though wild, the bolt-round blew a leg off at the hip. The other enemy trooper swung his billhook down, but Gaunt blocked it with his sword. The powered blade cut the billhook in half. Gaunt sliced his sword-arm backwards, and ran the blade in a slash across the man’s chest. Blood exploded from the massive wound. The trooper dropped to his knees, masked face tilted up at the sky, and Gaunt took his head off.
‘Tell your heathen masters the Ghosts have come for them!’ he yelled into the darkness.
Las-bolts rained down through the smoke cover like incandescent drizzle, and made sucking, sizzling punctures in the mire. Gaunt heard the rasp and belch of flamers from nearby. Further off, mortars were grunting like bullfrogs at the river’s edge, and autocannons were rattling like infernal mill engines.
Gaunt looked around, trying to assess the fight, but the smoke was shrouding everything. All he could see was blurred figures mobbing in the half-light. Someone lobbed a star-shell into the sky, where it wobbled and bobbed like a second, brighter iron star, but it did nothing to improve visibility.