He signalled his men down into the abandoned trench. At the very least, it offered his platoon a means of pushing east out of sight.

  The trench was littered with dead. Old dead. The unidentifiable remains of men who had fallen out here perhaps years before, their bodies never recovered. Brown bones stippled the mud like broken twigs.

  Seventeen moved single file, heads down, occasionally having to crawl on their bellies to pass sections where the trench walls had caved and filled the ditch.

  Raglon had ordered Lukas, his vox-operator, to rig his set for headphones only, so that the caster wouldn’t suddenly blare into life and give them away. It was a smart move, the sort of thing that another novice team leader might have overlooked. But Raglon had come from signals and knew about these things.

  Where Raglon lacked experience, it was in character judgement. Since taking command of seventeen, his primary efforts had been to establish authority. Seventeen had been Lhurn Adare’s platoon, and Raglon was all too aware of the fact he had nothing of the mourned sergeant’s charisma. He’d just never be popular the way Adare had been.

  So he’d decided the best way to run seventeen was to let them function the way they had under Adare. He didn’t want to mess around with habits and established routines. If seventeen had evolved field practices they were happy with, who liked to buddy who in fire-teams for instance, he didn’t see the point in changing things. He thought arbitrary changes would make the platoon resent him, and that was true, up to a point. But some habits stemmed from sloppiness.

  When they reached the dead trench, the men formed a file automatically, as they saw fit, and Raglon didn’t question it. So it was that they advanced now with Suth, the scout, in the lead, and Costin right behind him. Raglon fell into place about four men back.

  It was his first command error.

  Suth was a good scout. Costin, his buddy, was a drunk.

  Adare had known that Costin drank too much. He’d tried to keep a lid on it. Costin was a nice guy, despite his carousing, and a decent trooper if kept away from the sacra. In a situation like this, Costin would inevitably want to get in beside his friend Suth. Adare would have stopped him, pushed him back down the file, just to be safe.

  When Costin moved up eagerly with Suth, Raglon hadn’t thought to object. Everyone knew Costin liked the drink. Raglon didn’t realise how much Costin had been knocking back since Adare’s death.

  The abandoned trench had actually been constructed by the Alliance during an early phase of fighting, before the full bulk of the Peinforq Line had been built. The Shadik, to whose lines it was now closest, had never filled it in, because it afforded them excellent cover for raid-teams and wire-cutting parties. Indeed, they had extended its eastern end into the verges of their own fire trench system.

  As Raglon’s platoon advanced along it, a raiding squad was coming the other way.

  Suth stopped, and signalled back down the line for a halt. He’d heard something, and wanted to check it.

  ‘I’m coming with,’ hissed Costin.

  Suth shook his head. He could smell the liquor on Costin’s breath. Stay put, he mouthed. Costin was making too much damn noise.

  ‘Fine!’ said Costin, and sat down, glancing back at Azayda, the next man in line with a ‘what can you do?’ shrug.

  Angry, Suth took hold of Costin by the jaw and gave him a sharp slap on the cheek. Be quiet! he mouthed, urgently.

  Glowering, Costin sat back.

  Suth turned, and began to edge forward along the watery swill of the trench pit, then levered himself out of the trench on his belly and started to crawl.

  Costin stared after Suth for a moment, his pride wounded. He wiped his hand across his mouth, and then spat the slime he’d inadvertently deposited there. It tasted foul.

  He leaned up to see how far Suth had got, but the scout was out of sight.

  Costin sniffed, and then took a flask bottle out of his fatigue pocket. He took a swig, but it was virtually empty and he tasted only fumes. So he tipped it back. Tipped it right back to get at the dregs.

  The glass bottle flashed as the background light caught it.

  Costin wailed as a rifle round exploded his hand and the bottle it was holding. A second later, and another shot tore open his tunic across the right shoulder.

  Costin began to whimper as he fell into the bottom of the trench.

  Azayda leapt forward, desperate to quieten Costin, and a third round burst the Verghastite’s head like a ripe fruit.

  Back down the line, Raglon heard the cries and the sudden shots, and cursed aloud. He tried to push forward, but his men were being driven back by furious sniper fire and quick bursts of semi-automatic shooting. Zemel dropped, killed outright. Tyne took a hit in the knee and another through the arm. Lukas lurched over with a yell as a shot smashed his vox-caster.

  Suth was down, alone, out in the open. He could see the glitter of shots cutting up the trench towards his platoon. He could see the shapes of the raiders as they hurried forward.

  He felt the worst possible feeling a Tanith scout can ever feel: that he had led his comrades into danger.

  He didn’t hesitate. He got up, and ran the trench from the side, his lasgun blazing, assaulting the stormers from the flank.

  He made several kills before their massed firepower cut him down.

  To the north, Soric’s platoon froze and dropped as they heard the gunfire start up. Agun Soric heard solid fire, and then las-rounds.

  ‘Gak,’ he said, ‘Some poor bastard’s engaged.’

  And though he hated to admit it, he knew for certain who that poor bastard was.

  Raglon.

  The abrupt gunfire just a half kilometre south startled Criid and made her lower her aim for an instant. She’d been about to take the gakking shot.

  She saw the spotter on the second floor of the mill get up and hurry over to the other side of the building, stepping expertly over gaps in the planks. She heard voices in the rear room of the obs post.

  Do I wait or do I go for it, she asked herself?

  She took aim again.

  ‘Bets are off,’ she said into her link and fired.

  Her shot punched through a floorboard from below and severed the right shin of the spotter. He screamed out, fell, and came crashing through the rotten planks, bouncing off a jut of girder-post on his way down.

  Vril, Mkhef and Hwlan ploughed in, killing the others below with quick, merciless shots.

  Criid ran in to join them, ordering the rest of her group to hold position. The sounds of a serious firefight was rolling in from the south. Vril and Hwlan stood cover as Criid and Mkhef searched the obs post area. Cooking pots, boxes of ammo for a .45 cannon set up in a broken window, cans of processed meat, a field telephone. A strange, ugly statuette made of painted clay that Criid smashed against the wall the moment she saw it.

  ‘Check around!’ she said.

  ‘Here!’ Mkhef called.

  At the back end of the chamber, corrugated metal sheets roofed in the entrance to a tunnel. They peered in. It was dark, but well shored up with flakboard.

  Chances were it ran directly back to the Shadik lines.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Vril.

  Criid ignored him. She was looking at the field telephone. The light on top of it was blinking.

  Feth.

  ‘We can’t stay here. They’ll either close this tunnel when they don’t get an answer or they’ll start coming through in force.’

  Away across the no-man’s land they could hear cannons and mortars opening up from the Shadik front.

  She looked back at the tunnel mouth. Such a great chance to reach into the enemy lines. But not tonight.

  ‘Fall back!’ she ordered, her micro-bead set on the platoon channel. She was last out of the mill. Pausing as she left, she tossed a tube-charge into the mouth of the communications tunnel, closing it off in a flurry of mud and earth spoil. If they couldn’t use it, neither would the Shadik.

  Daylight came early over the Peinforq Line, dirty and hazy. It had begun to rain again, and an early bombardment was thumping to the north.

  Gaunt waited in his dugout station, toying with an almost empty cup of caffeine.

  The gas curtain was pushed back and Daur came in.

  ‘What’s the story?’ Gaunt asked him curtly.

  ‘Five, ten and eleven came back in. Ten just a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Losses?’

  Daur shook his head. ‘They didn’t make much contact, they just dropped back when things got lively.’

  ‘Anything useful?’

  ‘Criid did well. Her gang reconnoitred some old mill structure that isn’t on the maps. Obs post. They picked off the troopers manning it. It had a dugout run back to the enemy line. Criid sealed it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Tube-charge. She’s annoyed. I think she’d have taken a team down it to see what was what if things hadn’t woken up.’

  ‘She did the right thing.’

  Daur nodded.

  ‘Seventeen?’ asked Gaunt.

  ‘Nothing yet. No sign. Zero on the vox. Soric and Criid both confirm the commotion came from Raglon’s area.’

  Gaunt put the porcelain cup down on the table carefully because he was aware he’d been about to throw it. He’d sent four platoons out on this first night to play the Alliance’s new game, and he’d only got three back. Raglon. He’d been Gaunt’s vox-officer for several years. He’d been so proud to get his pins and his command.

  ‘What do we do, sir?’ asked Daur.

  ‘We do it by the book,’ Gaunt replied. ‘Stand everyone down. Tomorrow night, four more platoons, four new areas. Haller, Bray, Domor, Arcuda. Get them ready. Tell them–’

  ‘What, sir?’

  ‘Tomorrow night, I’m going with them.’

  Daur paused. ‘As your XO, sir, I have to recommend you don’t.’

  ‘Noted.’

  ‘Just for the record, you understand, sir.’

  ‘I do. Thank you for observing your duty, Ban.’

  ‘I’d like to go too, sir.’

  Gaunt managed a thin smile. ‘You know I can’t allow that. Not both of us.’

  ‘Then let me go in your place.’

  ‘Not this time, Ban. I won a decent operation for half the Ghosts. I’m damn well going to stand by the ones who got the lousy half of the deal. Maybe you go the night after. Deal?’

  ‘Deal, sir.’

  Daur had been gone for some minutes when the gas curtain was pulled back again. It was Zweil.

  ‘I hear we’re missing some people,’ said the old Hagian cleric, setting down without being invited.

  ‘Raglon’s platoon.’

  ‘I want to go out tonight. If there’s a chance we find them, I’d like to be there.’

  ‘We won’t even be covering that area again, father. There’s no point.’

  Zweil frowned. ‘You won’t even go back to look?’

  ‘We are obliged to try other areas, father. Not the zones where the Shadik are expecting us. Standard field policy.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Zweil. He sat down facing Gaunt. ‘Tough job you’ve got here.’

  ‘It’s always a tough job.’

  ‘Yes, but sending your platoons out into that… wasteland… hoping you’ll find a gap in their lines. Why would that be again?’

  ‘You know damn well, Zweil. Don’t pretend Daur hasn’t told you.’

  Zweil grinned. Gaunt had always liked that grin, from the moment he’d first met the old priest on Hagia. It was confident, wise.

  ‘Very well, Ibram. Pretend I’m Daur. Confide in me your plans.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You haven’t got the clearance.’

  ‘I could have the clearance, if you allowed it.’

  ‘No, Zweil.’

  The old man held out his hand, knuckles bunched, palm down. ‘Play you for it. Knuckles.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake…’

  ‘Unless you’re afraid an old priest’ll beat you?’

  Gaunt turned round smartly and put his bent knuckles against Zweil’s. ‘Never taunt a Guard officer,’ he said.

  Zweil nodded. In a flash, he’d cracked Gaunt’s knuckles with a blow from the right.

  ‘Ow!’ cried Gaunt. ‘I didn’t think we’d started!’

  ‘Now you do. Best of three?’

  Gaunt paused, then rapped down, missing as Zweil’s hand pulled away.

  In reply, Zweil snapped his hand round in a feint, and then smacked Gaunt’s knuckles again from the right.

  ‘Best of five?’ asked Zweil, grinning.

  ‘No. Enough.’

  ‘So you’ll grant me clearance?’

  ‘No.’

  Zweil sighed and sat back. ‘Got you twice.’

  ‘Yes, yes–’

  ‘Both from the same angle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The same angle.’

  ‘Do you have a point?’

  Zweil nodded. ‘I caught you because you didn’t think I’d try the same thing twice. What if the Shadik think the same way?’

  ‘Very clever. Now get out.’

  Zweil got to his feet. ‘Promise me something. I think that’s the least you can do seeing as how I won.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If you decide to go out into the same zones again tonight, take me with you.’

  Gaunt hesitated. ‘Yes, father.’

  ‘Bless you,’ said Zweil.

  Gaunt had called Criid to his dugout. He wanted to know more about this mill she’d found. But when the knock came, it wasn’t Criid. It was Count Golke.

  He was wearing battledress.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ Gaunt asked.

  ‘When you head out again tonight, I’ll be with you.’

  ‘Why would you do that, sir? You’re liaison. Front-line work is behind you.’

  ‘I know the Pocket, Gaunt. I served here. I got you into this mess, though it wasn’t my intention. I think I can help you.’

  ‘Really?’

  Golke nodded.

  ‘So… what about the mill.’

  ‘I’m guessing it’s the old Santrebar watermill. I didn’t know any of it was still standing.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gaunt. ‘You’ve given it a name. But I don’t think–’

  ‘I was a soldier, Gaunt, before I was anything else. Before I got drawn into the political nonsense running this war. I think I’ve outlived my usefulness as a staff officer. Let me be a soldier again.’

  There was a knock.

  Criid entered. ‘Reporting as ordered, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Sit down, sergeant, and tell me and the count about this mill…’

  NINE

  The Manse

  ‘Haunted? Well, there are ghosts here, that’s for certain.’

  – Trooper Brostin

  The storm that had begun the previous evening showed no sign of easing up. Rain drummed the roof of the manse and pattered against the windows all night. Past midnight, peals of thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning had made it seem like they were still back at the line, enduring shelling.

  By dawn, the electrical tumult had stopped, but the rain had got harder. It was as if the vast, black thunderheads were too heavy to clear the peaks of the Massif and had hooked there, deluging the forest like dirigibles trying to shed ballast.

  From the streaming porch windows of the manse, Caffran could see out onto the gloomy garden at the front. Already overgrown by the time they’d pitched up the night before, it was now littered with torn leaves and broken boughs brought down in the night. Swirling rivers of rainwater gushed from the higher slopes of the rear gardens, via a hedged ditch on the east side of the manse, to the gate. A lower part of the lawn was actually underwater.

  He went back down the hall to the kitchen. It was early still. From the drawing room, he could hear loud, bellicose snoring. No point disturbing those sleepers, he decided. Various pots and pans from the kitchen shelves stood on the floor of the hall and up some of the stairs, pinging and beating as they caught steady drips coming in from above. Caffran nudged one around with his foot, so it was more completely under a particularly busy trickle.

  Mkvenner, Jajjo and Muril were in the kitchen. Ven was sitting at the table, studying the map and chewing on a C-bar ration. Muril was occupying the window bench, sipping a can of caffeine. Jajjo greeted Caffran and offered him a cup from the pot on the stove. He was munching on some leftovers from the previous night’s meal.

  Muril and Larkin had caught up with them about an hour after they’d entered the manse. Soaked through, they were carrying a knife-trimmed branch from which hung a plump buck. Nineteen detail had eaten well. Some of them had drunk well too.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Caffran asked, sitting down opposite Mkvenner.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Mkvenner replied tersely, without looking up.

  Caffran held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Only asking,’ he said.

  Mkvenner sighed and sat back. ‘Sorry, Caff. Didn’t mean to snap.’ He folded up his map, got up, and pulled his camo cape around him. ‘I’ll be outside, checking the perimeter.’

  He stepped out into the torrential downpour and closed the door after him. The old latch fell with a clack.

  ‘Feth!’ said Caffran. ‘What bit him on the arse?’

  ‘He seems pretty normal to me,’ muttered Muril. Her tone was as dreary as the daylight.