‘Actually,’ said Landerson, raising his hands and barely daring to move. ‘I think they’ve found us.’

  NINETEEN

  ‘Nobody,’ murmured Gaunt, ‘make any sudden moves.’

  ‘Should we drop our weapons, sir?’ Beltayn whispered.

  ‘No. But nobody aim anything. If your guns are on straps, let them hang.’

  ‘What are we doing?’ Rawne hissed, the outrage in his voice barely contained. ‘Are we surrendering? Feth that! Feth all of–’

  ‘Shut up, major,’ Gaunt told him through gritted teeth. ‘Can’t you feel it? They’re all around us.’

  Rawne fell silent and slowly turned his head. The members of the mission team were spread out across the pool. Grey shapes seemed to lurk and stir within every root ball and behind every tree surrounding them.

  ‘Dammit!’ he spat, and let his weapon swing on its strap.

  His weapons sheathed, Gaunt kept his eyes on the figure facing him, and slowly raised his hands to show his open palms. The figure stiffened slightly, the grip on its own aimed weapon tightening.

  ‘Pax Imperialis,’ Gaunt said. ‘We intend no fight with you.’

  The figure kept its las-lock raised. It said something, but Gaunt couldn’t make it out.

  ‘I’m not your enemy,’ Gaunt said, hands still open. Landerson shot him a look. From what the cell-fighter had told him earlier, that wasn’t exactly true. But the partisans – if that’s what these beings were – had them trapped and pinned down more completely than anything the forces of the Archenemy had managed since they’d arrived on Gereon. Talking was the only way out of this. Any attempt to fight would lead to two things and only two things: their deaths, and the end of their mission.

  ‘Pax Imperialis,’ Gaunt repeated. ‘We are not your enemy. My name is Gaunt.’ He tapped his own chest. ‘Gaunt.’

  The thing in the shadows still did not lower its aim. But it spoke again, more clearly now. ‘Hhaunt.’

  ‘Gaunt. Ibram Gaunt.’

  ‘Kh-haunt.’ The voice was glottal and wet, thick with a strange accent.

  ‘They say,’ Landerson whispered, slowly and very carefully, ‘that the Sleepwalkers still use the old tongue. Old Gothic. Or a dialect form of it.’

  Gaunt’s mind raced. The principal language of the Imperium was Low Gothic, with a few regional variations, and the stylised High Gothic was used by the Church, and other bodies such as the Inquisition, for formal records, proclamations and devotions. All strands had their roots in a proto-Gothic that had been the language of mankind in the early Ages of Expansion. Like most well-educated men, Gaunt had been required to study Old Gothic as part of his schooling. At the scholam progenium on Ignatius Cardinal, High Master Boniface had taken an almost sadistic pleasure in testing his young pupils on such Old Gothic epic poems as The Voidfarer and The Dream of the Eagle. So many things had filled Gaunt’s head since then, so many things, forcing the old learning out.

  Think! Remember something!

  ‘Histye,’ Gaunt began. ‘Ayeam… ah… ayeam yclept Gaunt, of… er… Tanith His Worlde.’

  ‘What the feth?’ Bonin muttered, glancing at his commander.

  Gaunt’s brow creased as he concentrated. He could almost see old Boniface now, smell the musty scholam room, Vaynom Blenner at the desk beside Gaunt, doodling cross-eyed eldar on the cover of his slate.

  ‘No looking at your vocab primer now, Scholar Gaunt,’ Boniface called. ‘Parse the verb form now, young man! Begin! “Ayeam yclept… Heyth yclept…” Come on, now! Blenner? What’s that you’re drawing, boy? Show the class!’

  ‘Histye, soule,’ Gaunt said, more deliberately now. ‘Ayeam yclept Gaunt of Tanith His Worlde. Preyathee, hwat yclepted esthow?’

  ‘Cynulff ayeam yclept,’ the partisan replied. ‘Of Geryun His Worlde.’ His voice dripped like glue in the sweaty air.

  ‘Histye, Cynulff,’ said Gaunt. ‘Biddye hallow, andso of sed hallow yitt meanye goode rest.’

  ‘Are you off your fething nut?’ Rawne whispered.

  ‘Shut up, Rawne,’ Curth spat. ‘Can’t you see he’s getting somewhere?’

  Gaunt dared another step forward. The marsh water slopped and bubbled around his boots. ‘Biddye hallow,’ he repeated. ‘Biddye hallow andso of sed hallow yitt meanye good rest.’

  The partisan gradually lowered his las-lock and took a step forward himself. He emerged from the mangrove shadows. Gaunt heard Curth gasp.

  The partisan was not, as Gaunt had begun to fear, some mutant hybrid of human and moth. At first sight at least, he appeared to be essentially human.

  That made him no less frightening. He was tall, a head taller than either Gaunt or Mkvenner, the tallest members of the party. He would have towered over even Colm Corbec or Bragg, Throne rest the both of them. But as much as he was tall, he was thin. Big boned and powerful, but starvation-lean, his long shanks encased in tight, fat-less muscle. What Gaunt had at first mistaken as the bulging multi-facet eyes of an insect were revealed to be oval arrangements of glittering scales, fixed like a mosaic around his kohl-edged eyes and spreading up across his shaved skull. The eyes themselves were tiny, glittering slits. His wings were a segmented cloak that appeared to have been fletched with masses of grey feathers. The cloak hung from a harness around the man’s throat and shoulders. His clothes were wound rags, and both these shreds and his skin itself were caked with some clay-like material that glowed a sheened, iridescent grey colour. Silver pendants were strung about his neck, and silver bands decorated his fingers and his long, slender arms. He had a long, lank moustache, also stiffened and slathered in grey woad, which resembled an insect’s mandibles and added to the impression that he was a moth in human form. His long, trinket-dangling weapon was not, as Gaunt saw it clearly, a las-lock. It was an actual musket of archaic design, as long as the partisan was tall. A wound-back hammer mechanism with a lump of flint in the claw served as a firing lock. The muzzle-end of the long, thin rifle had a dirty, serrated blade built into it.

  Holding the weapon steady in one hand, the partisan raised his other and opened his grey palm to Gaunt.

  ‘Cynulff ayeam yclept, of Geryun His Wolde, ap Niht. Biddye hallow Kh-haunt and otheren kinde, andso of sed hallow yitt meanye goode mett wherall.’

  ‘I…’ Gaunt began. ‘That is to say… I mean… I am… I mean, ayeam…’ He struggled, panicking, trying to think. High Master Boniface had, many times, told his students that ‘a lack of good learning will kill a man more surely than a thousand guns.’

  I hope you’re happy now, you old coot, Gaunt thought, because you’re about to be proved right.

  ‘Ayeam yclept Gaunt…’ he began again. No, already done that. Think. Think!

  The partisan stiffened, wary, and his open hand returned to its grip on the preposterously long musket.

  Feth, I’ve blown it, Gaunt thought.

  ‘Histye, Cynulff ap Niht,’ a voice suddenly called out behind him, ‘and so beyit akinn. Sed hallow seythee, yitt be wellcomen into thissen our brestas owne us, and of fulsave yitt be hered. Well mettye, Frater, wherall so withe yeall!’

  Gaunt looked to his side. Mkvenner had walked up to flank him, his long, makeshift spear trailing in the mire, his left hand held palm-up. The partisan nodded to him.

  ‘Ven?’ Gaunt breathed.

  ‘A moment, sir.’ MKvenner paused and then said, ‘Histye, soule, so beyit pace twine us eitheren kinde. Brandes setye aparte, withe rest alse, as yitt meanye goode mett wherall. Council yitt shall sey akinn, preyathee.’

  The partisan seemed to notice the Tanith warknife fixed to Mkvenner’s spear.

  ‘Preyathee, seolfor beyit?’

  ‘Yclept beyit so,’ Mkvenner nodded.

  The partisan lowered his rifle and splashed into the pool until he came face to face with Mkvenner. He studied the blade with great interest, and Mkvenner calmly allowed him to take the spear in his hand. They exchanged words, too fast and too complex for Gaunt to keep up.

  ‘I don’t like this at all,’ Bonin whispered to Gaunt. ‘What the feth is this about?’

  ‘At the moment, it’s about us not getting mown down in a hail of musket balls. Wait, just wait,’ Gaunt urged. He looked around. Rawne and Brostin were close to snapping, and ready to reach for their weapons. Cirk too, damn her. The others just seemed alarmed or confused. All except Feygor. He had sat down with his back to a treebole, up to his waist in the swamp, his head leaning forward.

  ‘Ven?’ Gaunt called.

  Mkvenner looked at him, and saw his gesture at Feygor. The tall scout exchanged some further words with the towering partisan and the fellow nodded.

  ‘Curth can look to him,’ Mkvenner called.

  ‘Thank you,’ Gaunt replied. ‘And thank him for me. Ana?’

  Curth slopped through the marsh water to reach Feygor and began to examine him. Beltayn went with her.

  Gaunt turned his attention back to Mkvenner and the partisan. They were still talking, fast and unfathomably.

  ‘Seolfor beyit!’ Mkvenner suddenly called out. ‘Show him your knives,’ he added. ‘Quickly!’

  The Ghosts quickly brandished their warknives. Some of them had to unfix them from the bayonet lugs of their rifles. Gaunt held his own up.

  The partisan – Cynulff – nodded, as if pleased.

  ‘Sheathe them now,’ Mkvenner ordered. He bowed his head to the partisan and splashed across the pool to Gaunt.

  ‘He’s agreed to a parley. You and his leader. It seems they are impressed with our silver.’

  ‘How safe is this?’ Gaunt asked.

  Mkvenner shrugged. ‘Not safe at all, sir. They’ll kill us in a second if we make the wrong move. We may even be walking into a trap. But I think it’s the best chance we’ve got.’

  Gaunt nodded.

  Cynulff made a sign, and almost forty partisans, clad just like him and just as tall, emerged from the smoky shadows. Grey and sinister, winged with articulated capes, they were armed with muskets and curious, crossbow-like weapons.

  ‘Aversye wherall!’ the partisan cried, gesturing with his rifle.

  ‘He wants us to move,’ Mkvenner said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Gaunt. ‘I actually got that one.’

  The pheguth submitted to the next transcoding session that morning, but when Desolane informed him that during the afternoon, instead of resting, he was expected to make a visit to Mabbon Etogaur, the pheguth refused.

  Desolane stared at him for a moment. ‘This is not for discussion, pheguth.’

  ‘I’m tired, and my head feels like it’s about to split, Desolane,’ the pheguth replied. He sat on the simple chair in his tower cell, trying to staunch a heavy nosebleed with some surgical dressing the life-ward had given him. ‘I want to cooperate, of course I do. But the transcoding is wretched enough as it is. You force me to take meetings, undergo interviews that are little short of interrogations. I think you should cut me some slack.’

  ‘Cut you some slack?’ The life-ward repeated the words as if they were unclean.

  The pheguth nodded. This was a dangerous game, and he knew it. He had a certain pull over Desolane now, but the life-ward was still quite the most dangerous being he had ever encountered. The pheguth had to test his new-won power, but not too far. There was a line even Desolane would not cross.

  ‘What use will I be to you if I’m exhausted, Desolane? Burned out? I am already weary to my bones. I feel sure the transcoding is taking longer because of my fatigue.’

  ‘That is possible, I suppose,’ Desolane said uncertainly.

  ‘Have I not been obliging in every way possible?’ the pheguth asked.

  ‘You have, pheguth.’

  ‘And I’m only thinking of the grand scheme of things. I know my potential value to you and your Anarch. Believe me, I’m looking forward to the day when I can offer my full help. But I have to consider my own health.’

  The pheguth let the words hang. He had deliberately not mentioned the attempt on his life, or made any reference to Desolane’s oversight in allowing the killers to get so close. But the implication was clear by its very omission. You owe me, life-ward. Because you failed me and I didn’t even punish you. Don’t push me.

  Desolane was still for a few seconds, and then nodded. ‘I’ll see what can be arranged,’ it said, and left the cell.

  The pheguth was allowed his afternoon of rest. Food was brought. In truth, despite the nosebleeds and a lingering headache, and despite the wounds the assassins had inflicted, the pheguth felt better than he had done in months. Clear-headed, calm, purposeful.

  The transcoding was finally unlocking the shackles that the psykers of the Imperial Commissariat had placed on his oh-so-valuable mind. The pheguth had known how much of his memory had been repressed by the mindlock, and very little of that had been recovered yet, but he hadn’t realised how much of his own self had been repressed too.

  That was what was returning to him now, with each passing day. His character. His personality. He felt like a man of distinction again. He felt like a leader, a commander, a lord general. He remembered what it was like to be respected and feared. He could taste the addictive flavour of power again.

  He relished it. It had been a long, long time. Years. He had been an officer of great import, a master of the Imperium. Hosts of men had charged into battle at his merest word. And then that bastard, that jumped-up bastard, had taken it all away from him and reduced him to this enfeebled misery.

  That bastard’s name had been the one thing he’d never forgotten. Even the mindlock had failed to dim its echo in his brain.

  Ibram Gaunt.

  The pheguth relaxed, and sipped some more tea. Fortune was turning to favour him again. He would rise once more, and become a master of armies. Different armies, perhaps, but power was power. Already Desolane was his willing pawn, and Mabbon, the pheguth fancied, his ally. He had a great destiny again, when for so long he had presumed his life over.

  Desolane returned near nightfall. ‘Pheguth. Once I appraised the etogaur of your weary state, and postponed your visit to him, he insisted he would visit you.’

  ‘That’s kind of him,’ the pheguth replied. ‘But I think I might sleep now. Give the etogaur my apologies. Like you, I’m sure, he knows how much Great Sek values my wellbeing.’

  Desolane took a step forward. Its cloven foot rang hard on the stone floor of the chamber.

  ‘Pheguth, there are some words I cannot allow you to speak with your heathen lips and tongue. The name of the Anarch, whose words drown out all others, is chief amongst them.’

  The pheguth sat up sharply. He realised immediately he’d gone too far. The life-ward was in his thrall only so much.

  ‘I apologise,’ the pheguth said quickly. ‘Please, show the etogaur through.’

  Appease the creature, win it back…

  ‘I will. Thank you, pheguth. I will warn him not to stay too long and tire you.’

  Mabbon Etogaur entered the chamber a few moments later. He shook the pheguth by the hand very formally, and then sat down on a second chair that had been provided by the footmen.

  ‘Your life-ward tells me you are indisposed, sir,’ he said, settling the tails of his brown leather coat.

  ‘A fatigue, no more. Thank you for your concern. I apologise for missing our appointment this afternoon. Was it something important?’

  ‘It can wait,’ Mabbon replied. ‘I had drawn up the first trainee regiment to parade for you. I thought you might like to look them over.’

  ‘By trainee regiment, you mean… the Sons of Sek?’

  ‘The Anarch, whose word drowns out all others, has charged me to establish the first training camp here on Gereon. It lies in the heartland bocage, about thirty kilometres from here. The men are doing well. They keenly anticipate your arrival to oversee training.’

  ‘I look forward to my first review.’

  The etogaur opened a despatch case and took out a sheaf of high resolution picts. He passed one to the pheguth.

  ‘Here you can see them in file order, sir.’

  The pheguth looked at the pict. He was impressed. It was a remote-view shot of some three hundred men in rank, to attention. They were all big brutes, shaven-headed but for a cock’s comb of hair across their skulls. They were wearing fatigues that were unmistakably Guard issue, but dyed ochre.

  ‘They seem a fine body of men, etogaur,’ the pheguth said.

  ‘They are. Hand-picked.’

  ‘By you?’

  ‘Naturally, sir.’

  Mabbon arranged some more shots and passed them to the pheguth. ‘When you called off your visit this afternoon, I decided to run an exercise instead. The men were armed, and given an objective. As you can see, they accomplished the task well.’

  The pheguth slowly turned through the pictures. His hands began to quiver slightly.

  ‘What–’ he began. ‘What objective did you give them, etogaur?’

  ‘A village in the bocage. It’s called Nahren Town. Population sixteen thousand. That’s consented, of course. Nahren is a known centre for the resistance and the unconsented.’

  ‘They… they really took the place apart, didn’t they?’

  Mabbon nodded. ‘Expertly so. In this shot, and in this, you’ll see the firefight that began when the resistance showed themselves. I think those poor fools were actually trying to stop the civilian slaughter.’

  ‘I suppose so…’

  ‘Bad tactics, in my opinion,’ the etogaur said lightly. ‘The resistance here has prospered by keeping its head down and remaining covert at all costs. The raid on Nehren brought them out like rats. An elementary combat mistake. Better to flee and retain your secrecy. They were outmatched. You see? Here… and here too.’

  ‘You killed them all.’

  ‘All of them. Fifty-nine resistance cell fighters. With no losses on our end.’