‘I can do wirewolves,’ Curth retorted. ‘They don’t scare me.’

  Gaunt decided not to mention the fact that the reason Curth had beaten the wirewolf was long gone.

  ‘A vox-base? Are you sure, Cirk?’

  She shrugged. ‘Last time I checked.’

  Gaunt smiled. To Rawne, that twisted the witchmark into even more obscene shapes.

  ‘Leafering’s the one,’ Gaunt announced. ‘Definitely.’ He paused. ‘Varl, where’s Feygor?’

  ‘I left him sleeping, sir,’ Varl said.

  ‘Good advice,’ Gaunt said. ‘Let’s all get some decent sleep and move in the morning.’

  Night fell over the hamlet, cool and black. In the various dwellings, the Ghosts had found beds and were sleeping deeper than they had since planetfall. Nobody cared about the musty smell of the cot sheets, the dampness. Compared with the grey ooze of the Untill, it was luxury.

  Eszrah ap Niht didn’t sleep. He took off his sunshades and hooked them carefully over his belt. It was night now, something he understood.

  He saw movement in the hamlet’s narrow street and followed it. It was the man called Rawne. He was slipping between the houses, a silver knife in his hand.

  Eszrah slid an iron quarrel into the mouth of his reynbow.

  Gaunt had chosen a bed in the upper floor of a cottage. The sheets were rank and mildewed, so he lay down on top of them and slept in his clothes.

  He was vaguely aware of the chamber door opening. He looked up, into the dark, and saw a woman framed against the starlight from the window.

  ‘Ana?’

  She took off her jacket and dropped it onto the floor. Then she sat down on the end of the bed and yanked off her boots. The rest of her clothes quickly followed.

  ‘Ibram,’ she whispered. He took her in his arms and they kissed. They both laughed as she struggled to pull off his clothing.

  ‘Ana...’ he whispered.

  ‘Shhh...’ she said.

  His straight silver in his hand, Rawne edged up the cottage stairs in the dark. From above him came faint noises. He trod up the next few steps. Now he could hear orgasmic cries through the thin lathe walls of the cottage.

  Then silence.

  Rawne went up the last few stairs, quiet as a shadow, and carefully opened the chamber door.

  He looked in.

  Naked, sleeping, Gaunt and Cirk lay wrapped in each other, their limbs entwined. Just like the symbol Rawne had seen in the Untill mists.

  He shut the door and went downstairs again. The business end of Eszrah ap Niht’s mag-bow suddenly loomed in his face.

  Rawne sheathed his warblade.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he told the partisan. ‘Just go to sleep,’

  Gaunt woke with a start. It was early, dark still. He had been dreaming that he was sharing his bed. Confused memories flooded back. He reached his hand out and found the mouldering sheets were still warm to the touch.

  Someone had been there with him. He had vivid recall now of soft skin. Of urgency. Of heat.

  ‘Ana?’ he called out. ‘Ana?’

  They left Thawly as the sun rose, hazy and red, above the fields. Decent rest and the chance to wash out clothes and kit at the village pump had lifted their mood. Even Feygor seemed a little better, with some colour back in his face.

  Mkoll set a brisk pace. They followed the village track until it joined a lane between fields, which in turn linked to a country road. For the first two hours of the day, they saw no one, but as the sun climbed higher, a few transports came up and down the road, so they left it and cut out across the fields, making a direct line for Leafering.

  The heartland fields were in a much better state of repair than the farmlands around Ineuron had been. The invaders had maintained horticulture, and there was evidence of extensive planting programs and the use of pesticides. The bocage was a resource the Archenemy intended to use to keep its Occupation force fed, perhaps even generate food supplies that would be shipped off-world to help feed their front-line hosts.

  As they got closer to Leafering, they saw signs of more disturbing land use. Huge field zones, some created by the systematic clearance of the old hedgerows to join smaller fields together, had been turned into industrial plantations. The air stank of fertilisers, and the fields were coated with a thick crust of pinky nitrates. Out of this grew row after row of thick, black, fleshy stalks on which millions of bulbous mauve fruits were developing.

  ‘These aren’t local production measures,’ Cirk said.

  ‘Nor a local crop, I’ll bet,’ Gaunt replied. Over the years, he’d read many reports of the Archenemy mass-planting xeno-crops on captured agri-worlds like Gereon. Highly resistant to disease and climate, perhaps hybridised for accelerated growth, these plantations rapidly tripled or quadrupled the planet’s crop yield, but at huge cost to the planet’s eco-sphere. After a few decades of xenoculture, the planet would be left barren and infertile, all the organics stripped from the topsoil. He wondered if Cirk had any idea what these plantations would mean for the future of her world.

  ‘If you ever get the chance,’ he said, ‘advise the resistance to target these plantations. You don’t want them here, even more than you don’t want the Archenemy.’

  She regarded him with a strange expression. There’d been an odd look in her eyes all morning, come to that. Gaunt was about to ask her about it when Bonin raised a warning and they all sought cover in the thick hedges that ran along the length of the plantation. A machine was approaching down the field. It looked a little like a stalk-tank, its central body-sections propelled on eight arachnoid limbs. But these limbs were more than twenty metres tall, so that the vehicle towered over the ground, as if on stilts. It straddled the plantation rows, a set of feet on either side of the planting line, so its body hung above the crop. As it walked, it exhaled noxious clouds of pesticide from ducts in its belly.

  The Ghosts slipped away through the hedge, along the quiet roadway, and crossed the next plantation field instead.

  They made their way through at least ten kilometres of plantation land. Gaunt wondered just how many thousand square kilometres of the heartland had been infested with the alien crop. The team avoided the other stilted sprayers, and what seemed to be mechanical cropper machines at work in the distance.

  Leafering was less than half an hour away now. It looked like a big place with old, grand stone buildings. Once they were close enough, the scouts would conduct a quick appraisal and they’d decide how to move in.

  The roads were now quite busy with traffic, mostly transports and tracks, so they kept to the hedge paths, crossing in the open only when they had to. During a rest stop under a copse of talix trees, when the sun was high and hot, Gaunt sat down next to Curth.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Today? Better. Not feeling quite so overwrought.’

  ‘Me too, I think,’ Gaunt said. He took a drink from his water bottle. ‘You left.’

  ‘I left what?’ she asked.

  ‘You left. This morning.’

  ‘What the feth are you talking about?’ she asked. ‘Have you been out in the sun without your cap on again?’

  ‘Never mind,’ Gaunt said. He decided there was no point pushing it when Curth was quite so vulnerable and prone to mood swings. He got to his feet.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he called. ‘Let’s get this done.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Three excubitors wandered down the yard, the long barrels of their slantwise las-locks swinging. They exchanged a few words, then turned right through the gate arch and disappeared up the flagged street towards the commercia.

  Bonin waited until they were well clear, then slipped out of the shadows, ran the length of the yard and ducked down behind a tall stack of paper bundles. Some of the loose papers were sticking out, and Bonin pulled one free and read it. It was a crudely printed leaflet encouraging ‘citizens of the Intercession’ to become proselytes and convert. Bonin stuffed it back where he’d found it.

  It was early evening in Leafering, and the street lighting was beginning to flicker on, though the streets themselves were still quite busy. Another hour and the curfew would sound, ordering all those consented only for day to their habs. From his vantage point behind the stacked propaganda leaflets, Bonin had a good view along the rear of the yard. The large ouslite building to his left was being used as a station house by the Occupation forces. Around the front, there was a lot of troop activity, and a line of half-tracks was parked in the thoroughfare.

  But this small yard area, enclosed by a high stone wall, ran around to the rear of the building. There were several smaller annexes out here, one of which had a roof festooned with vox-masts and aerials.

  No one in sight. And no sign of any nasty glyf-like surprises either. They’d had to shrink past wirewolf gibbets in the outskirts to get into the town, and at least once had seen the shimmer of a glyf behind a nearby row of buildings. The sight had made Feygor shake.

  But this little yard was clean enough.

  Bonin made the signal.

  Mkoll and Mkvenner came in over the wall, dropped down and crossed to the far side of the yard until they had overlapped Bonin. All three had their suppressed pistols drawn.

  As Bonin backed up the yard, his weapon hunting left and right, Mkoll and Mkvenner reached the annexe with the masted roof. Mkvenner covered Mkoll as he ducked inside.

  Thirty-five seconds later, he came out and gave the all clear.

  Bonin nodded, and keyed his micro-bead.

  ‘Silver,’ he said.

  A door in the back of the main building suddenly opened onto the yard. Mkoll and Mkvenner had slipped inside the annexe doorway, and Bonin threw himself back into the shadows along the outer wall. A uniformed sirdar, accompanied by a junior officer and four excubitors, emerged and began to walk down the yard.

  ‘Bragg! Bragg!’ Bonin hissed.

  In the shadows of an alleyway on the far side of the yard wall, Gaunt listened hard to his earpiece.

  ‘Bonin? Bragg or silver? Which is it?’

  A long pause.

  ‘Bonin?’

  ‘Bragg,’ the whisper came back.

  Rawne and Beltayn were all set to go over the wall.

  ‘Hold it,’ Gaunt said. ‘It’s not clear.’

  ‘I heard Bo call “silver”,’ Rawne said.

  ‘Well, he’s changed his mind,’ Gaunt said.

  ‘I’m going anyway,’ Rawne said, gesturing for Varl to cup his hands and boost him over the wall. ‘We’ll be here all night otherwise.’

  ‘Can’t you control your people?’ Cirk hissed.

  ‘There’s been no evidence of it so far,’ Gaunt replied.

  ‘Silver. Silver!’ Bonin called.

  ‘Right, go,’ Gaunt said.

  The sirdar and his escort had gone out through the gate. Bonin signalled again, and Rawne and Beltayn appeared over the wall and slithered down into the yard. They ran towards Bonin, who ushered them up to the annexe, where Mkvenner was waiting at the door.

  The annexe was the vox office for the station house. Inside, in a dingy room lit by yellowed glow-globes, sat a large, non-portable vox-caster unit. Coils of trunking and sheaves of cable sprouted up through the roof to connect it to the mast array. It was part of the Occupation’s principal communications network, tuned to the Archenemy’s main command channels and data relays. Most important of all, it was equipped with a cipher module that decrypted the network’s confidence codes. Two operators had been staffing the annexe. Mkoll had left their bodies in the corner of the room.

  Beltayn hurried in, and swung his vox-set off his shoulder. He pulled the cover off, and unlatched the door of the cable port in its side.

  ‘Fast as you can,’ Rawne urged.

  ‘Don’t fuss me when I’m working,’ Beltayn answered without looking up. He’d unbuttoned a pouch of tools, and was playing out a connector cable. Then he turned his attention to the enemy machine.

  ‘Sonegraph 160. Really, really old, and clearly modified. I haven’t messed with one of these in a long time.’

  ‘Fascinate me further, why don’t you,’ Rawne growled. He glanced at the outer door where Bonin and Mkvenner were watching for interruptions.

  Beltayn test flicked a few of the switches on the big caster, and studied the wavelength display. Then he used a watchmaker’s screwdriver to remove the pins holding an inspection plate in place. The plate came away, exposing loops of wire and small plug-in valve shunts. Using small pliers and a voltmeter from his kit, Beltayn tested and then exchanged several of the wire connectors and took out one of the valves. Then he attached one end of the connector cable to his set and the other to an output socket on the caster.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Rawne said. He was getting jumpy. The cluster of wires Beltayn had exposed precisely formed the shape of the stigma. He looked at something else.

  Beltayn switched on his set’s power pack, made an adjustment to its dials, then crossed back to the big machine. He tentatively pressed several keys on the main console and, as gauges glowed amber and needles quivered, he started to scroll down through a column of data presented in trembling graphic form on a small sub-screen.

  ‘Got it,’ Beltayn said. ‘Yep, I’ve got it. The transmission log. How much do you want?’

  ‘How much is there?’ asked Rawne.

  Beltayn scrolled down some more, peering. ‘Mmm… about eight months at least. It’ll take a while to get all that.’

  ‘How long are we talking?’

  Beltayn shrugged. ‘Probably five, ten minutes per week.’

  ‘Feth!’ said Rawne.

  ‘Take the last week,’ Mkoll said. ‘We don’t have time for more. Let’s just pray there’s something usable in it.’

  Beltayn looked at Rawne.

  ‘Do as he says,’ Rawne agreed. Beltayn set the device, pressed activation keys on both the main caster and his own portable, and information began to stream down the connector into the set’s recording buffer.

  ‘Quiet!’ Mkvenner called from the doorway.

  Outside, two Occupation troopers had wandered out into the yard and were loitering, smoking lho-sticks. They were making idle conversation.

  ‘Come on,’ whispered Bonin. ‘Smoke up and get lost.’

  Beltayn got up and crept over to his set, studying the small display.

  ‘Something’s awry,’ he whispered.

  Rawne felt his heart go cold. ‘What do you mean?’

  Beltayn reset his vox and hurried back to the main caster to do the same.

  ‘It’s transferring, but the data’s encrypted. I’ll have to start over. What I’ve got so far is useless.’

  ‘Feth it!’ Rawne hissed.

  The troopers in the yard were still smoking and chatting.

  ‘Think, think…’ Beltayn said to himself. He located the cipher module and examined it. ‘Why aren’t you working? Why the feth aren’t you working?’

  He turned to Rawne and Mkoll. ‘It’s got a security lock-out. The cipher needs a key to start it running.’

  ‘A code?’

  ‘No, an actual key. Goes in here.’

  Mkoll went over to the bodies of the operators. He searched their pockets and finally found a small steel key on a thin chain around the neck of one of the dead men.

  ‘This it?’

  Beltayn tried it. As the key turned, the cipher module began to hum. Two monitor lights came on.

  ‘We’re back in business,’ he said, and set the transfer going again.

  Bonin was pretty sure the two troopers were close to leaving. Then the yard door opened again, and a uniformed junior ran out with a sheet of paper in his hand. He was heading for the annexe. A runner, bringing an urgent message for the operators to send.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Mkvenner said.

  ‘Here?’ asked Rawne.

  ‘Right here,’ Bonin replied.

  Mkoll came towards the door. ‘Let him in,’ he said. ‘Let him right in and then take him. No noise.’

  The runner came up to the annexe door. Then he did the one thing they weren’t expecting. He knocked.

  The Ghosts looked at each other blankly.

  The runner knocked again. Waiting at the door, bouncing eagerly on his toes, the runner turned and grinned at the two troopers. One of them called out something. The runner replied and laughed. Then he knocked again.

  ‘Voi sahn, magir?’ he called out.

  Everyone was looking at Rawne. ‘I don’t know!’ he mouthed indignantly. How the feth did you say ‘Come in’? All Rawne could think of was that Cirk would have known.

  In desperation, he called out some made-up sounds, deliberately strangling them into an unintelligible bark.

  It did the trick. The runner opened the door and stepped inside. His smile melted. He saw three enemy troopers in filthy black fatigues grouped around the main caster. He didn’t see the other two either side of the door behind him. Bonin closed the door. Mkvenner’s left hand clamped around the runner’s mouth before he could utter a word and his warknife punched. He held the wide-eyed runner tightly as he twitched and shook. When the twitching had stopped, he lowered the body soundlessly to the floor with Mkoll’s help.

  Bonin gently reopened the door a crack and peered out. The troopers were leaving.

  Mkoll looked down at the runner. ‘He was in a hurry. He may have been expecting to take back a quick reply. I’d lay money he’s going to be missed within the next fifteen minutes.’

  Rawne looked at Beltayn. ‘How long?’ he asked.

  Beltayn was watching the set display. ‘It’s slow. Ten, maybe twelve minutes more.’

  Those minutes tracked by painfully slowly. Bonin and Mkvenner crouched by the door. Mkoll sat, perfectly still, in one of the operator chairs. Rawne paced, drumming the fingers of his right hand against the knuckles of his left. He became aware that Mkoll was staring at him, his eyes narrowed. Rawne’s fidgeting was really getting to the calm, quiet chief scout.