‘And what does it mean?’ Wilder asked.

  ‘We don’t think Sparshad Mons is what it seems to be. It’s not just an old ruin with the Archenemy hiding inside it. Something else is going on. Think about the stalkers. Where in the name of feth do they keep coming from at night?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wilder.

  ‘No one does. Gaunt suggested it was high time someone did. He contacted me because he thought it was a job ideally suited to the Tanith scouts, to Mkoll and Bonin especially. If they can’t track these things to their source, no one can.’

  ‘And what does he expect you’ll find?’ asked Baskevyl.

  ‘Let’s hope lairs and dens,’ Mkoll said. ‘Burrows, maybe. Natural hiding places that no one has yet detected.’

  ‘But your inkling tells you…’ Wilder began.

  ‘That they’re getting in a different way. That this place isn’t what it seems.’

  ‘If that’s true,’ said Novobazky, ‘it could change everything.’

  ‘All right, you’ve convinced me,’ Wilder said. ‘I’m not happy, but you’ve convinced me. Assemble a team, Rawne. Not just Gereon survivors, though. Include Novobazky and at least a couple of Belladon scouts.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And keep checking in with me.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Rawne saluted and walked away. Wilder turned to Baskevyl and Novobazky.

  ‘That was right, wasn’t it?’ he asked.

  Baskevyl nodded. ‘If there’s even a shred of truth,’ Novobazky said, ‘this is important.’

  ‘And if there’s not, at least it gets Rawne out of my face for a few hours.’ Wilder grinned. ‘Who knows, we might get lucky. Something might eat Rawne.’

  The hunting party left the Eighty-First First position half an hour later, and headed south into the broad scrub of the compartment’s centre. Rawne had brought Mkoll and Bonin, Varl, Criid and Beltayn, and left the choice of Belladons to Commissar Novobazky. Novobazky selected Ferdy Kolosim, Wes Maggs and two recon troopers Rawne hadn’t met called Kortenhus and Villyard.

  They moved south in a wide circle, through thickets of gorse and thorn-rush, and across fields of loose flint and ashy soil. Three times in the first hour, Mkoll announced he’d detected a trail, but each one was at least two or three days cold, in his opinion, and too vague to bother with.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ Maggs complained each time.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ muttered Bonin.

  Mkoll led them on through a belt of dead trees: leafless, desiccated costers, bleached by the elements, clawing at the sky with gnarled branches. Massive boulders slumped between the trees every few dozen metres, mossy blocks of misshapen granite that looked as if they might have tumbled down from the compartment walls generations before. Mkoll and Bonin studied each one.

  ‘What’s the interest in the rocks?’ Novobazky asked Rawne.

  ‘Gaunt told me he’d tracked a stalker in the third compartment, and its trail seemed to go dead at the foot of a large rock.’

  ‘He tracked one?’ the commissar queried.

  ‘Actually, the tracking was done by Eszrah Night, a Gereon partisan who kind of attached himself to Gaunt. Excellent tracker, mind you. Quite brilliant.’

  ‘If this Night fellow is so good,’ said Novobazky, ‘why has Gaunt got us doing this?’

  ‘Gaunt wants to support his theory with clean evidence,’ Rawne said. ‘If you were high command, Novobazky, who would you trust? The heathen claims of a primitive hunter, or the authenticated findings of an Imperial Guard recon expedition?’

  ‘Point,’ said Novobazky.

  ‘Here’s something!’ Mkoll called.

  They hurried over. Criid, Varl and the Belladons formed a perimeter.

  ‘It’s getting dark!’ Varl called out, weapon raised.

  ‘I know,’ replied Rawne. Mkoll was crouching beside the foot of a large rock.

  ‘Trail here,’ Mkoll said. ‘Pretty fresh too. It seems to go right in under this rock.’

  ‘How can that be?’ Kolosim asked.

  Maggs bent down beside Mkoll. ‘I see it this time. Throne, Mkoll, your eyes are good. No doubt about it, it runs right in under this rock.’

  ‘Here’s another!’ Bonin called.

  The main group moved across to where he was kneeling in an open patch of rush-grass. The troopers on watch moved with them, rifles steady.

  ‘Really, getting dark now!’ Varl called.

  ‘I know,’ said Rawne.

  ‘Just saying,’ said Varl.

  ‘Fresh. Moving that way,’ Bonin said, examining the trail. ‘Maybe last night or this morning, early.’

  Mkoll nodded. ‘This way.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Kolosim. His voice had an amusing lisp to it because of the swelling around his split lip. ‘I thought Bonin said it was moving that way?’

  ‘I did,’ said Bonin.

  ‘So… why are we going in the opposite direction?’

  ‘Because we don’t want to know where it went, Ferdy,’ Maggs said. ‘We want to know where it came from.’

  ‘Say what you like about Maggs,’ Bonin said to Mkoll, ‘he’s a quick learner.’

  ‘He is,’ Mkoll agreed. ‘He really is.’

  Criid suddenly held up her hand. The party froze. From not too far away, a whooping roar rang through the dead forest.

  ‘Oh, tremendously not good at all,’ said Varl.

  ‘Full auto,’ Rawne said. ‘Safeties off.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Novobazky said. He drew a pistol from under his coat. Heavy, matt-black and ugly, it was unmistakably a plasma weapon. ‘Hark lent me this. Thought we could do with the extra oomph.’

  ‘I’ve always loved Commissar Hark,’ Varl said. Beltayn grinned.

  Criid signed. Something moving, thirty metres.

  Mkoll nodded, and signed the party to move on anyway. Criid and Varl brought up the rear, walking backwards, rifles aimed into the gathering dark.

  The trail led into another clearing. At the centre lay yet another big rock, a three tonne ovoid, gleaming with a varnish of glossy green lichen.

  ‘Stay back,’ said Mkoll. The party halted at the edge of the clearing.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Novobazky.

  ‘You feel that?’ Mkoll asked.

  Bonin and Beltayn nodded. ‘I sure as feth do,’ Rawne said. ‘It’s faint, but it’s there. A tiny buzzing.’

  ‘Like a glyf,’ said Beltayn.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Rawne. ‘Exactly like the sound a glyf makes.’

  ‘What’s a gliff?’ asked Kortenhus.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ said Bonin.

  ‘Damn, it’s making my skin crawl,’ said Rawne.

  ‘It’s making my tongue itch,’ said Varl.

  ‘I can’t feel anything,’ said Novobazky. ‘Except… except a sense of unease. Is that just me?’

  Rawne shook his head.

  ‘Not the first time I’ve heard this on Ancreon Sextus,’ Mkoll said. ‘You heard it last time, Maggs. You too, Major Kolosim.’

  ‘That buzzing?’ Kolosim replied. ‘That was deafening.’

  ‘This is much more low level, but it’s the same thing,’ Bonin said.

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Villyard. ‘Look!’

  The Belladon scout was pointing towards the boulder in the clearing. Something wrong was happening to it. It was distorting: bending and twisting, as if they were seeing it through a ripple of heat haze. The buzzing increased in intensity until all of them could hear it.

  There was a noise like cloth tearing, the sudden pop of a pressure change, like an airgate opening, and the lifeless trees around them shivered in an exhalation of cold wind.

  The boulder was no longer there. Occupying its precise space and shape was a doorway. A gate. A simple, impossible hole in the fabric of the world.

  The hole shimmered. Mist, frost white, slowly drifted out of its dark, yawning gulf. Reality had somehow folded up on itself to allow this hole to be.

  ‘There’s Gaunt’s answer,’ Bonin said.

  ‘I don’t understand what I’m seeing,’ Novobazky murmured.

  ‘What you’re seeing is a very bad thing, commissar,’ whispered Mkoll.

  ‘Hate to correct you, chief,’ Varl began.

  The stalker, thrice-wrought, eight hundred kilos, emerged from the hole as if it was sliding out of the surface of a mirror. It prowled forward on its knuckles, shoulders hunched and rolling loose. It sniffed the air.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Varl. ‘See, now it’s a very bad thing.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  18.01 hrs, 198.776.M41

  Fifth Compartment

  Sparshad Mons, Ancreon Sextus

  ‘Novobazky!’ Rawne yelled

  ‘What?’ the commissar stammered.

  ‘Novobazky! The weapon!’

  Genadey Novobazky, quite unmanned by his first glimpse of a mature stalker, slowly remembered who and what and where he was, and started fumbling with the plasma pistol Hark had given him.

  ‘Hit it!’ Kolosim bellowed. The stalker was coming forward, increasing speed. Its throat sacs puffed out like bellows, and its vast jaws opened to allow the steel teeth to engage.

  The hunting party opened fire. Ten lasrifles on full auto lit up the clearing with a blitz of laser fire.

  Shrugging it off, the monster came on, turning its bounding progress into a pounce.

  The Guardsmen scattered in desperation. Maggs managed to smash Novobazky over in a side-tackle that saved both of their lives. The stalker went over them, and caught Villyard in its mouth.

  The Belladon screamed the most appalling scream any of them had ever heard as the stalker’s massive bite sheared him apart. Varl turned and began firing at the huge brute. Varl was no fool. He knew full well he couldn’t kill the creature with his mark III. He was trying to hit Villyard. He was trying to spare the poor bastard any more agony.

  Busy with its kill, the stalker lashed out with its left paw and smacked Varl into the air. He hit a tree, snapped it, and tumbled onto the cold ground.

  Maggs rolled off Novobazky. ‘The plasma gun! The plasma gun!’ he yelled.

  ‘I can’t work the safety!’ the commissar babbled, fighting with Hark’s favourite weapon. ‘I can’t get it to–’

  Maggs snatched the pistol out of Novobazky’s hands. He slid the toggle and aimed it at the stalker.

  The huge beast turned, its muzzle slick with Villyard’s blood. It hooted and roared, and began to charge the Belladon scout like a fighting bull.

  ‘Eat this,’ said Maggs, and fired. The searing beam from the pistol vaporised the stalker’s enormous skull in an astonishing burst of blood and bone chips.

  But the sheer momentum of the thrice-wrought’s attack carried its mammoth, headless carcass on. It slammed into Maggs, and knocked him backwards through the air.

  Limbs flailing, a look of despair on his face, Maggs fell backwards into the hole and vanished. The headless stalker collapsed onto the soil in front of the shimmering gate.

  ‘Maggs!’ Bonin shouted, and ran towards the hole. Mkoll was behind him.

  ‘Feth!’ Bonin said, coming to a halt in front of the hole. He reached out his hand and the light rippled like water around his finger tips. ‘Maggs! Maggs!’

  Bonin looked at Mkoll.

  ‘Never leave a man behind,’ Mkoll said, and leapt through the portal.

  ‘Mkoll! No!’ Bonin roared.

  There was a shout from behind him. Criid had opened up. A second stalker, the one that had been trailing them, exploded out of the treeline and came lumbering across the clearing towards Bonin.

  The Tanith scout dived away, coming up to spatter las-shots into the thing’s flank as it turned. It wasn’t as big or mature as the beast that had come out of the hole, but it was still big enough. Three hundred kilos plus, thick with muscle, its plated skull half a metre long, its teeth the size of fingers.

  It made for Bonin, roaring. Rifle fire smacked into it from the left and forced it to turn away. Kolosim and Criid were coming forward, firing at it, trying to distract it from Bonin.

  Their efforts worked. It went for them instead.

  Dughan Beltayn landed on its back. He stabbed his straight silver down into the rear of the monster’s skull. Black blood burst up across his hands and forearms. The stalker convulsed and bucked, throwing Beltayn off its back like an unbroken horse.

  Hurt, panting, its throat sacs swelling in and out like a respirator pump, the stalker took a few, unsteady steps. Beltayn’s dagger was still buried in the back of its head.

  Rawne stepped towards it. There was something in his hand.

  ‘Hello, you,’ he said. The beast turned, blood dripping from its gigantic mouth. It gurgled and opened its jaws, slotting its teeth in and out of position as it tasted a new target to bite.

  Rawne threw the tube-charge into its wide open smile.

  The stalker’s jaws closed. There was a brief rumble, and then it blew apart, showering the whole clearing with greasy blood and lumps of meat.

  Rawne wiped the hot, rank gore off his face. ‘All right, Mach?’

  Bonin got to his feet and nodded.

  ‘Criid? Kolosim? Bel?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Beltayn. He looked at Bonin. ‘Back of the skull, that’s what you told me. Back of the skull, you said.’

  ‘You did fine,’ Bonin replied. He wasn’t really interested. He was gazing at the boulder.

  The gate had closed. It was just a boulder again.

  ‘Mkoll? Come back. Maggs? Respond.’ Beltayn delicately adjusted the dials of his vox-caster. ‘Mkoll. This is hunting party. Do you receive?’

  ‘Maybe you broke the caster jumping on that thing’s back?’ Bonin suggested.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have done an idiot thing like that if you hadn’t told me the back of the skull was the weak spot,’ Beltayn snapped.

  ‘It worked for me,’ Bonin said.

  ‘Children, hush,’ said Rawne. ‘Bel? Any joy yet?’

  Beltayn shook his head. ‘Something’s awry. I’m not picking up Maggs or the chief, but they’re close. I mean, I’ve got their signals. I’m picking up their micro-beads.’

  ‘Why can’t we talk to them?’ Kolosim asked.

  Beltayn shrugged. ‘Micro-bead links have a range of about ten kilometres, tops, major. This baby–’ he patted his vox-caster set, ‘well, she’s good for global work. The point is, look here.’

  Beltayn indicated a particular gauge on the vox-set. ‘That’s the range finder. We call it the booster. See, see how it’s hunting?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Criid asked.

  ‘It means… it means something’s awry,’ Beltayn replied. ‘I’ve got signals from their micro-beads, which suggests they’re somewhere within a ten-kilometre spread from here. But the set is hunting madly for a fix. Like they’re also out of range.’

  ‘Out of range?’ said Rawne. ‘Out of global range?’

  Beltayn shook his head. ‘I can’t explain it. They’re close by… but they’re also not actually on…’ his voice trailed away.

  ‘Not actually on Ancreon Sextus any more?’ Rawne finished.

  ‘Um, yes, sir. I said it was awry.’

  Rawne turned away. ‘How’s Varl?’ he asked Kortenhus.

  ‘Sore,’ said the Belladon. ‘He’ll live.’

  ‘All right, Novobazky?’ Rawne said.

  ‘I froze,’ Novobazky said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I still can’t–’

  ‘No blame,’ Rawne said. ‘That was a shock to us all.’

  ‘Sir!’ Beltayn cried. ‘I have something. Throne, it’s coming through like it’s on a delay. Why would it be on a delay?’

  ‘Speaker!’ Rawne demanded.

  Beltayn threw a switch on the vox-caster. They all stood silently as the crackling, distorted voices breathed out of the vox-set.

  ‘–shit hole now!’

  Crackle. ‘It’s not good, is it?’

  ‘Is this what you meant? The shit you could get me in if you really tried?’

  ‘Shut up, Maggs.’

  Indistinct garbage followed for a while.

  ‘–the sky? What the hell’s wrong with the sky?’ That was Maggs. ‘–the frigging stars are wrong. They’re just wrong. It’s so frigging cold.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘So cold. Look at the roof.’

  Crackle.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s like a roof. I mean, a ceiling. Stones. Huge stones. What’s holding it up?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Crackle.

  ‘Mkoll, Mkoll, we’re picking you up,’ Beltayn said. ‘Respond!’

  Crackle.

  ‘–are we? I mean where the f–’

  ‘–swear Maggs, if you don’t shut u–’

  Crackle.

  ‘Beltayn? Beltayn? Is that you? This is Mkoll. I can read you, but you’re not clear. Say again.’

  Beltayn keyed the send button. ‘Mkoll, this is Bel. We’re reading you, over.’

  Crackle.

  ‘–can no longer hear you. If you can hear me, get Rawne to the set.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Rawne said.

  ‘–getting nothing over the micro-beads. I hope you can hear me. Tell Rawne we’re not on Ancreon Sextus any more. Tell Rawne–’

  Crackle.

  ‘–place is like a vast chapel. There’s no supports for the roof. Stones hanging in the air. It makes me want to cry. It’s all so impossible. Maggs has lost it. There are stalkers here. All around us. Hundreds of them, climbing the rocks towards us. I think they have our scent.’

  Crackle. A long whine of distortion.

  ‘–me the pistol! Give me the fething plasma pistol, Maggs! They’re coming for us! Give me–’