Gaunt looks around for his cap.
‘Why didn’t you do that?’ he asks Mkoll.
‘You wanted to conserve ammo,’ says Mkoll.
‘In all fairness, he probably could have taken them all with his knife,’ says Corbec.
From up ahead, towards the east boulevard, they hear lasrifles starting to cut loose on full auto. The chatter is unmistakable.
‘Ah. I’ve set a bad example,’ says Corbec.
Gaunt moves forward, shouting orders. He heads towards the front of the advance force, trying to restore firing discipline. Right away, he realises how badly broken their formation is. The ambush to the midsection of the spread has almost cut the advance in two. It’s the beginning of the end. The enemy is exploiting their flaws, breaking them down, cutting them into manageable parts, reducing them. He knows the signs. It’s exactly what he’d do.
It’ll be over in minutes.
The back of the party is lagging too far behind. Gaunt tries to get the forward section to drop back and rejoin it, or at least hold position and not extend the break. It’s still pushing ahead to try to reach the arterial route. Corbec’s hollering at men, calling them by their first names, names Gaunt’s never heard, let alone learned. Full auto fire is clattering away up ahead. Some PDFers loom over the rubble line, and Gaunt drops them with support fire from Domor and Guheen.
‘Single shots! Single shot fire!’ he’s yelling.
He sees the Tanith fanning towards him, firing on full auto. At least one of his orders has got through, he thinks. At least they’ve swung back to keep the unit whole.
Then he’s eyes-on, properly. These Tanith aren’t members of the advance.
Rawne rakes a couple of bursts into the rubble line, and then approaches Gaunt as reinforcements pour in behind him.
‘Major?’
‘Sir.’
‘Surprised to see you.’
‘We ran into Caffran,’ Rawne says.
‘You ran into him?’
‘We saw his flare. He was heading home, but we were already on our way out.’
‘Why is that, major?’ Gaunt asks.
‘Concern was expressed to me by the medical chief that the advance was overdue. A support mission seemed prudent, before it got dark and out of the question.’
‘It’s appreciated, Rawne. As you can see, things are a little lively.’
Rawne keeps looking at his timepiece.
‘Let’s keep falling back apace,’ he says. ‘Let’s not outstay our welcome.’
Gaunt nods. ‘Lead the way.’
Rawne turns and yells out to the men running his flanking units. Varl and Feygor get their fireteams to interlock firing patterns. They lay down a kill zone of las-fire that moves with the Tanith like a shadow. It burns through ammo, but it covers the retreat off the east boulevard and onto the main arterial route. They leave spent munition clips behind them, and the pathetic corpses of the enemy.
Adare and Meryn distribute ammo to Blane and the forward portion of the advance. Gaunt sees Caffran with Varl’s squad. He tosses his rifle and his musette bag back to him. Caffran catches them and nods.
Rawne’s still glancing at his timepiece.
‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ he shouts. It’s really getting dark. The fluttering, stammering barrage of the gun battle is lighting up the whole city block.
‘We’re going as fast as we can,’ Gaunt says to Rawne.
Rawne looks at him, and sucks in a breath between clenched teeth that suggests that there’s no such thing as too fast.
Gaunt hears a noise, a swift, loud, rushing hiss, the sound of a descent, of a plunge, of an angelic fall from grace. It ends in a noise shock that quakes the ground and nearly knocks him down. It feels like the lightning has found its voice at last.
Then it happens again and again.
Light blinds them. Bright detonations rip through the eastern boroughs of Kosdorf, some as close as a block or two away from their position. Blast overlaps blast, detonation touches detonation. It’s precision wrath. It’s bespoke annihilation.
‘The Ketzok,’ yells Rawne to Gaunt. ‘A little early,’ he admits.
Gaunt watches the heavy shelling for a moment, hand half-shielding his eyes from the flash. Then he turns the Tanith out of the zone with a simple hand signal.
It’s too loud for voices any more.
Dorden cleans his head wound.
‘It’s going to mend nicely,’ he says, dropping the small forceps into an instrument bath. Threads of blood billow through the cleaning solution like ink in water.
Gaunt picks up a steel bowl and uses it as a mirror to examine the sutures.
‘That’s neat work,’ he says. Dorden shrugs.
Outside, in the morning light, the Ketzok artillery is still pounding relentlessly, like the slow, steady movement of a giant clock. Munitions resupply is an hour away, the bombardiers report. A huge pall of smoke is moving north across the sky over the hills.
‘Rawne says you were instrumental in urging him to mount a reinforcement,’ Gaunt says.
Dorden smiles.
‘I’m sure Major Rawne was simply following standard operational practices,’ he says.
Gaunt leaves the medicae tent. There’s still rain in the air, though now it’s spiced with the stink of fyceline from the sustained bombardment. The camp is active. They’ll be striking soon. Directives have come through, order bags from command. The Tanith are being routed to another front line.
He’s got things to think about. A week spent getting the regiment embarked and on the lift ships will give him time.
‘Sir.’
He turns, and sees Corbec.
‘Caligula, I hear,’ says Corbec.
‘That’s the next stop,’ Gaunt agrees. They fall into step.
‘I don’t know much about Caligula,’ says Corbec.
‘Then request a briefing summary from the Munitorum, Corbec,’ says Gaunt. ‘We have libraries of data about the Sabbat Worlds. It would pay the regiment dividends if the officers knew a little bit about the local conditions before they arrived in a fighting area.’
‘I can do that, can I?’ asks Corbec.
‘You’re a regimental colonel,’ says Gaunt. ‘Of course you can.’
Corbec nods.
‘I’ll get on it,’ he says.
He grins, flops back his camo-cape, and produces one of his cigars and a couple of lucifers from his breast pocket.
‘Thought you might enjoy this now we’re outside field discipline conditions,’ he says.
Gaunt takes the gift with a nod. Corbec knocks him a little salute and walks away.
Gaunt goes into his quarters tent to spend an hour packing his kit. The rain is tapping on the roof skin.
His spare field jacket is hanging on the back of the folding chair. Someone’s sponged it clean and brushed up the nap. They’ve taken off the Hyrkan badges and sewn Tanith ones on in their place.
There is no clue at all as to who has done this.
Gaunt takes off the muddy coat and jacket he’s been wearing all night and slips the spare on, not even sure it’s his. He strokes it down, adjusts the cuffs and puts his hands in the pockets.
The letter’s in the right-hand hip pocket.
He slides it out and unfolds it. He’d been so certain it was in his number one field jacket. So certain.
He reads it, and re-reads it, and smiles, hearing the words in Blenner’s voice.
Then he strikes one of the lucifers Corbec gave him, and holds the letter by the lower left-hand corner as he lights the lower right. It burns quickly, with a yellow flame. He holds on to it until the flames approach his fingertips, and then shakes it into the ash box beside his desk.
Then he goes out to find some breakfast.