So far, Mkoll had said a dozen words to Kolosim, and six of those had been, ‘You Kolosim? Right. Let’s go.’

  The unit reached the crown of Ridge 18 and slid through the bramble cover. From the top of the ridge, they got a decent view, via night-scopes, across the deep basin beyond, a steep-sided, scrub-choked vale that widened as it ran west. On the far side of the basin, parallel to them, ran Ridge 19, a lower and more jagged escarpment. At its western end rose Hill 55, and behind it, the broader, loaf-like bulk of Hill 56, where the Eighty-First First was meant to form up later in the day. Hill 56 was back-lit by a jumping, trembling light, brief flashes and bursts that lingered as after-images on their goggles. Even from half a dozen kilometres away, they could hear the crump and report of tankfire. The Rothberg armour had pushed the Archenemy back up the compartment, but the fight was still in them, even at this early hour.

  Kolosim studied the area and made a few jotted notes with his wax pencil.

  ‘At least they’re where we thought they’d be,’ he muttered. Buckren nodded. There had been a danger that the Rothberg would have been shoved backwards overnight, or worse, which would have made Hill 56 unviable as an infantry objective. One of the key objectives of the recon units was to make sure DeBray’s orders still made sense. Thanks to the high ground and the efficiency of their advance, Kolosim’s unit was the first to get a visual confirmation.

  ‘Signal it in?’ Buckren asked.

  ‘Do that,’ said Kolosim. Buckren crawled over to Darromay, who was carrying the vox-caster, and began to send in the details.

  The other duty of the recon units was to assess the approaches. The tacticae advisors at the post reckoned there was a high probability that the Archenemy might use the distraction of a drawn-out armour fight to sneak infantry down the eastern side of the compartment.

  Mkoll stared northwards. He studied the charts in detail, but there was nothing like seeing the land first hand. Feeling the lie of it. And there were so many lies here. For all it seemed like a natural landscape, the compartment was artificial. It was a giant box full of dirt and rock. He didn’t trust any part of it. He turned his scope towards the far north end, and was just able to pick out the suggestion of the end wall, the great bastion enclosing the next massive gateway. That would be the real objective in the days to come: burning a path to that monumental gate and breaking through. What lay beyond that, none could say. Even orbital obs and spy-tracking had come up with nothing. The only thing anyone knew for certain was that the next compartment was another step towards the centre of this ancient puzzle, and that it was capable of launching forth armoured columns and companies of warriors to face them.

  Hooting roars echoed up the ridge from the basin. Mkoll swung his scope to look down that way.

  ‘You’ll never spot ’em,’ said Maggs.

  Bonin looked across at him. ‘The stalkers?’

  ‘Yeah, you never see ’em. Not until it’s too late.’

  ‘That so?’

  Maggs nodded, and patted the butt of his mark III. ‘And one of these babies won’t stop one, not even on full auto. Even if you do see it first. Which you won’t. You never see ’em till they find you.’

  ‘You maybe, not the chief,’ Bonin replied.

  Wes Maggs frowned. He was a short, well-built man with a broad, swimmer’s back and heavy shoulders. His hair was cropped and brown, and he had a little vertical scar running down from the outside corner of his left eye. Maggs was one of Kolosim’s best scouts, known amongst the Belladon as a likeable rogue and joker, who sometimes had too many words in his mouth for his own good. Bonin hadn’t made up his mind about Maggs yet. Too much personality for his liking.

  ‘I’d like to see your old man try taking a stalker…’ Maggs began.

  ‘Stick around,’ said Bonin.

  Kolosim was ignoring the quiet exchange. He was studying the ridgeways ahead of them.

  ‘No way they’d bring a force this way on foot,’ Buckren said.

  ‘Too much like heavy going,’ Burnstine agreed. ‘The lateral ridges would slow them down. And if they got into trouble, they’d have no easy retreat.’

  ‘The Blood Pact don’t often think of things in terms of retreat,’ Mkoll said.

  ‘You think they’d come this way?’ Maggs asked.

  ‘I think it’s possible. I think it should be checked,’ Mkoll said.

  ‘You’re crazy–’ Maggs remarked.

  ‘Pin that lip,’ Kolosim snapped. He rose to his feet and stood beside Mkoll. ‘I was going to have us follow the line of this ridge west until we hit the open tableland, then hike up the escarpment to Hill 56. Something tells me that’s not what you want to do.’

  Mkoll shrugged slightly. ‘Your unit. You call it.’

  ‘We’re meant to be getting to know one another, Mkoll. I’d like to hear what you have to say.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mkoll. ‘The ridges break the terrain along this east wall. It wouldn’t be the approach of choice. The enemy would be better off trying to cinch an infantry column around Hill 55, and come in on the trackway. But I think we should stop thinking about this like normal open country. We’re boxed in by walls. We’re enclosed. If I wanted to outflank us, I’d send in troops this way.’

  ‘Over the ridges?’

  ‘Over the ridges. They’re steep, but we made the top of this one in, what? Under an hour from the post? It’s well covered too. The densest undergrowth in the compartment. It would be hard going, but it would pay off. Besides, we don’t know what’s down there or behind the next ridge…’ he gestured down into the basin. ‘And we don’t know how much better our enemy knows this place.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ asked Caober.

  ‘Meaning tunnels. Meaning trenches. Meaning sally-ports we can’t see. It’s artificial.’

  ‘There’s been no sign of any tunnels or anything so far,’ said Hwlan.

  ‘Doesn’t mean there aren’t any there,’ said Mkoll.

  Kolosim pursed his lips. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  ‘You’re kidding me!’ Maggs grunted.

  ‘Darromay,’ Kolosim said, ignoring Maggs. ‘Signal post command we’re moving onto Ridge 19. Maybe another hour. We’ll vox them again when we’re on site, and take it from there.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Down in the dark, overgrown basin between Ridge 18 and Ridge 19, in a dank glade between lichen-heavy lime trees, Crookshank Thrice-wrought paused. Something was coming, something moving down the steepness to the south of him.

  Other, lesser wrought ones, once-wrought or twice-wrought, were hunting in the damp groves nearby, but they all knew to give Thrice Crookshank a wide berth. The sun, and the time of going back, was a long way off.

  Crookshank puffed breath through his floppy throat tubes and made a dull, idle rasp. He clambered forward, rolling his gait through all four, powerful limbs, head low.

  He sniffed the air. He could smell it now for sure.

  Something was coming, and it was called meat.

  SIXTEEN

  05.26 hrs, 197.776.M41

  Fifth Compartment

  Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus

  Even in daylight, the basin would have been dark. An off-set bowl between the two long ridges, it was choked with undergrowth that blocked out the sky. Back on Tanith, it was what the woodsmen would have called a combe.

  The southern slope was steep, almost sheer in places. The ground was a mix of loose, flinty loam and exposed quartz. Thick gorse and bramble spilled down the slopes, hanging like frozen waterfalls. Resilient lime, and some form of tuberous, gnarled tree species, sprouted from the thicker deposits of soil, and provided handholds for the recon unit to brace against as they descended.

  A musty smell of damp and mud and leaf decay welled up from the basin below. It was several degrees warmer out of the open.

  The men moved with their weapons strapped over their right shoulders, right hands on the grips, left hands free to grip and grasp. Distant noises came up out of the darkness below. Scrabbling, snorting, the occasional half-heard grunt. Mkoll had no doubt there was at least one stalker loose down there.

  Mach Bonin was listening carefully. The other members of the recon unit were making precious little noise, but it still sounded loud and clumsy compared to the total silence he and Mkoll were managing. It wasn’t just the Belladon. Even Caober and Hwlan seemed to him to be heavy footed, and they were two of the Ghosts’ best scouts. Had their technique really slackened off in Mkoll’s absence?

  No, he realised, watching them for a moment. They were as good as ever. The difference was with him. Heading to Gereon, Bonin hadn’t thought he could get any sharper. The place had proved him wrong about that, like it had proved them wrong about so many things.

  About halfway down the slope, Mkoll perched on a jutting crop of quartz and held up his hand for a silent halt. The others arrested their descents quickly, and waited, watching him.

  Mkoll paused for a moment, listening, breathing in the air, working out what was there and what wasn’t. No birds, no insects to speak of. Possibly burrowing worms and beetles, but nothing flying. Nothing chirruping and stirring. No small rodents, no lizards. Just the still, damp, stringy undergrowth.

  He smelled wet stone, bark, musky leaves, humus. He smelled free flowing water, and he could hear that too: rills and rivulets gurgling down the slope below.

  The noise of the stalker or stalkers had receded for a while, and the few louder sounds he heard were actually the echoing thumps from the distant tank battle beyond the hills, which were hard to screen out.

  But he could smell blood. The rank sweat, body odour scent of blood, as from a poorly healing wound. The smell of rotting meat between the teeth that a carnivore carries with it.

  He signalled them to move again. As they got up and carried on, Maggs shook his head, as if amused by Mkoll’s painstaking manner.

  Kolosim reached the bottom of the slope, where the depth of the basin began to round out, and was glad to have both hands back on his weapon. He began panning round, then jumped in surprise to find Mkoll right beside him.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Let’s spread that way,’ Mkoll whispered.

  In a lateral line, they moved out across the basin floor, their boots sinking into the thick black mud, dense bramble and branches pushing in around them. Bonin could smell the blood scent too, and glanced at Mkoll.

  The smell had changed a little, as far as Mkoll was concerned. It had become more like sweat, dirty human sweat.

  Something moved up ahead. A tree shivered and there was a snort.

  Weapons came up.

  Mkoll took a step forward.

  Crookshank Thrice-wrought salivated at the air’s taste. He was close now, moving with astonishing grace and care for something so big and heavy, delicately parting gorse stems and saplings as he slid forward.

  Nearby, off to his left, a lesser wrought one, a twice-wrought, was active, snuffling. Much longer, and the lesser thing would spoil it.

  Crookshank opened his jaws and unslid his steel teeth. His dark-sight stained red. He could see the meat at last, twiggy shapes of pink heat in the red darkness.

  His teeth locked into place.

  Rifle up to his cheek, Mkoll waved Maggs and Bonin to his left. Caober and Burnstine were just away on his right-hand side, and the others were coming in behind.

  Maggs moved through the undergrowth as instructed, sliding his body this way and that, so it barely touched a twig. He’d had enough of the newcomers’ showboating. They weren’t the only ones who knew how things should be done.

  Maggs came in under a twisted lime and looked back for Bonin. There was no sign of the man. Where the h–

  A hand clamped over his mouth. Maggs stiffened in terror and then realised it was the Tanith.

  Bonin took his hand away. Somehow, he’d come up around Maggs without Maggs noticing. How the hell did a man do that, unless he was a–

  Ghost.

  Maggs glared at Bonin. Bonin ignored the acid look, and pointed ahead. There was something there all right. Something stalking them as surely as they were stalking it.

  Maggs swallowed. This was insane. The truth was, and Maggs wasn’t about to admit this to Mr Know-it-all Bonin, he’d never actually seen a stalker. But he’d heard plenty of stories since the Eighty-First First had moved into the Mons. Horror stories of the bogeymen that stalked the compartments after dark. Bestial ogres that refused to drop, even when you were hosing them with full auto fire and saying please nicely. Everyone knew you didn’t go looking for stalkers, even when you were part of a fire team. Kolosim should have turned back from the ridge, not come down here, not down here where–

  Bonin was slowly lifting his weapon. From the dense, black undergrowth ahead, there came a wheezing snort. The crack of a root breaking under a great weight.

  Maggs raised his rifle too. He toggled it to full auto anyway.

  Crookshank Thrice-wrought tensed, muscles pulsing, his breathing short and sharp. He began to puff up his throat tubes. His fighting spines rose erect. Saliva oozed from the long, dagger-toothed line of his jaw.

  With a lung-bursting howl, the wrought one tore out of the undergrowth and ploughed towards Maggs and Bonin. Maggs began firing at once, loosing a bright cone of energy flash as his weapon discharged at maximum sustain.

  Twenty metres back, Mkoll started running forward, and the rest of the unit came after him. Mkoll couldn’t see anything of the situation ahead, apart from the bright, flickering wash from the las-fire backlighting the undergrowth. He could hear the shooting, and the roaring.

  Maggs kept firing as long as he dared. He had made a real mess of the stalker’s armoured face and throat. His furious shots had chewed at it, ripped and stippled the flesh. But still it came on, bawling aloud, trailing flecks of blood and saliva into the air. You never see ’em, he heard himself saying, not until it’s too late. It was too late now. The thing was a freaking nightmare…

  Then Maggs realised something else. He was alone. Bonin had vanished. Somewhere between the thing bursting out at them and Maggs opening up, the Throne-damned runt-head spineless Ghost had just disappeared, without even firing a blessed shot. He’d run, and left Maggs to face the music.

  ‘You lousy shithead bastard!’ Maggs yelled, his voice all but drowned out by the whooping roar of the monster’s throat tubes. He turned and ran. Maggs got about five metres, tripped on a root in his terror, and fell.

  The wrought one came after him.

  Maggs looked up, screamed, tried to untangle himself from the brambles. The thing was right on him, right on him, mouth agape, those teeth, those teeth, those f–

  The wrought one abruptly flailed, and fell hard on its face, as if it had tripped too. It landed so suddenly that its lower jaw smashed into the loam and slammed its gaping mouth shut. It had come down less than a metre from Maggs’s outstretched feet.

  It wasn’t even slightly dead. It thrashed and roared, reaching with its huge arms, its maw snapping and slicing the air. Maggs screamed again, and scrabbled backwards, out of reach. He fumbled for his lasrifle. Why had it fallen down? Why the hell had it fallen down?

  And why in the name of the God-Emperor had its roaring, bellowing sound become so shrill and wretched?

  Like it was… in pain.

  The wrought one heaved itself forward again in a mighty surge, rising up on its massive arms, muscles bulging, veins prominent like cables. Curds of foam glistened around its drawn lips. It lunged at Maggs.

  He found his weapon and fired into its gullet, glimpsing the scorched punctures his shots made in the ribbed, pink roof of its mouth. Then he rolled aside hard, lacerating his face and arms on spine-gorse and thorny bramble.

  Bonin suddenly appeared in mid-air behind the wrought one, propelled by a leap that must have needed a run up. He was no longer holding his lasrifle. In one outflung hand, he clutched the Tanith trademark weapon, the straight silver fighting dagger. The blade of Bonin’s dagger was black-wet with blood.

  Bonin landed astride the wrought one’s hunched back with a grunt of effort, and grabbed hold of the raised fighting spines for purchase with his free hand. Maggs realised that the stalker was half-prone on its belly, dragging its rear limbs.

  The monster shook and bucked, trying to shake the man off its broad back. Bonin clung on, and thumped his dagger down into the base of the stalker’s skull.

  Thirty centimetres of straight Tanith silver punched into its brain case. Thick, dark blood squirted out, hitting Bonin like a pressure hose. He wrenched the knife out and stabbed again.

  The wrought one quivered, spasmed, convulsed, and then fell over on its side with a jolt that seemed to rock the ground. Bonin was thrown off.

  An almost silence fell. The only noise was the last, tremulous breathes rattling phegmatically in and out of the dead stalker’s throat tubes, the gurgle of the blood weeping out around the hilt of the embedded knife.

  ‘Holy Throne…’ Maggs said.

  ‘You all right, Maggs?’ Bonin asked, getting to his feet and slicking the thing’s blood off his face with the palm of his hand.

  ‘Yeah, I’m dandy…’ Maggs said.

  ‘Bonin?’ Mkoll said. He had suddenly appeared beside them, weapon raised. Kolosim and the others arrived a moment later.

  ‘Golden Terra…’ Kolosim murmured, gazing in astonishment at the stalker’s huge corpse. ‘I mean… Golden bloody Terra…’

  ‘Was that you, Mach?’ asked Hwlan.

  ‘Oh, none other,’ Caober chuckled. ‘See the silver?’

  ‘Yes. Good work, Bonin,’ Mkoll said. He was still stiff, as if uneasy.

  ‘Good work? Good work?’ Maggs stormed. ‘He left me to face it! He left me to deal!’

  Bonin walked over to the stalker and plucked out his dagger. When he turned, Maggs was in his face. ‘You ditched me, you bastard!’