‘Should have been back long since. We’ve a reconnoitre to report.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Fevrierson. ‘Thank you. Emperor bless you.’

  ‘These are good men,’ said Mkoll, nodding to the mud-spattered infantry all around them. ‘Keep them tight and you’ll keep them alive.’

  ‘I hope I never see you again.’ said Fevrierson. ‘I’d never wish this shit-hole on anybody, especially not for a second time.’

  Mkoll nodded. Bonin grinned.

  ‘What will you tell this commander of yours?’ Fevrierson asked.

  ‘The truth,’ said Mkoll. ‘The front’s everything he was afraid it would be.’

  THREE

  A.S. HQ Rhonforq

  ‘…and to the general disposition of auxiliary support elements, officers of said elements are to answer to (i) the primarycommander of their given area/sector, and (ii) the ranking Alliance officer in their specific line subdivision.’

  – Aexe Alliance General Order Book, 772th edition, section 45f, paragraph iv, ‘Command Protocol’

  From Rhonforq, you could see the massive smoke spume rising from the Peinforq Line ten kilometres away to the east. During the night, the old chafstone buildings of the town had vibrated to the distant symphony of the guns.

  Dawn was at 04.37 Imperial. The sun rose, dull and veiled, over the woods towards Ongche, and mist fumed over the strand meadows and market gardens west of the town. The Tanith First had slept for about five hours in poor billets on the southern edge of the town, but most of their motor pool staff and armourers had been up all night. They’d laid off from the trains at 21.00 the previous evening, along with two companies of Krassians and a motorised battalion of Seqgewehr coming up from Seronne.

  Gaunt rose at 05.00, stiff and sour. All night, despatch riders and material transports had rattled by down the street under his window. He’d been billeted in a pension off the town square. Daur and Rawne occupied rooms there too, along with five of the Krassian officers and a number of Aexe Alliance staffers. Corbec had elected to billet with the Ghosts.

  Gaunt’s room was small and spare, with low, sloped ceilings and a window that wouldn’t close properly. Beltayn knocked and brought him a canister of caffeine and a bowl of lukewarm water.

  ‘Mkoll back yet?’ Gaunt asked, attempting to shave using the tepid water. Beltayn was laying out Gaunt’s service uniform on the bed.

  ‘On his way, sir.’

  ‘Delayed?’

  ‘Something was awry.’

  ‘For instance?’

  ‘You heard the shelling, sir. The whole place is buzzing with it. New super-siege guns. The line took a pasting last night.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Gaunt . ‘I wo–oow!’

  Beltayn looked up. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Nicked myself,’ said Gaunt, raising his chin to study the razor wound on his throat in the mirror. ‘This water’s almost cold, Beltayn.’

  ‘That water’s as warm as it gets unless it decides to be caffeine,’ Beltayn said. He brushed the crown of Gaunt’s cap and set it on the bed. Then he came over to Gaunt and peered at his cut. ‘You’ve had worse,’ he said.

  Gaunt smiled. ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘What you want is a needle,’ said Beltayn.

  ‘A needle?’

  ‘Old family trick. A needle. Excellent when it comes to shaving nicks.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘When you cut yourself with the razor, you take the needle and poke it into your gums.’

  ‘That works?’

  Beltayn winked. ‘Sure as feth blots out the pain of the nick.’

  Dressed, and with a tab of Beltayn’s cigarette paper stuck to his shaving wound, Gaunt took his caffeine outside. The day was clear and promisingly warm, though the stink of fyceline was everywhere. He stopped on the pension’s terrace to chat with a Krassian major and two officers from the Seqgewehr, and saw Rawne and Feygor demolishing a fried breakfast in the small dining room.

  A column of tanks clanked past through the square. Gaunt finished his drink, put the empty cup on one of the terrace tables, and walked across the road to the Chapel St Avigns where the Allied staff headquarters was sited.

  Rhonforq was one of the Octal Burgs – eight high church municipalities that sustained the authority of the See of Ghrennes through Mittel Aexe. Its church and cloister had been built in 502, ten years after the first colony footing at Samonparliane, and before the war its chief activities had been wool-carding, button manufacture and cheese making. Visitors were invited to throw a coin into the fountain of Beati Hagia or, if they were sound of limb, take in the hike to the Sheffurd Hills to view the birthplace of Governor-General Daner Fep Kvelsteen, whose autograph and seal were included in the famous four at the bottom of the Great Aexe Declaration of Sovereignty.

  Gaunt knew that much from a dog-eared, obsolete touring guide he’d discovered under his bed the night before.

  Allied staff headquarters was thronging with activity. In the inner cloister, a rank of despatch riders waited on humming motorcycles. Sheafs of telegraph and vox-cable trunked out of windows and noodled up into the dish arrays anchored to the rooves. A shield mast attached to a portable generator dominated the quadrangle, the grass beneath it brown and dead from radiation.

  Gaunt hurried up the front steps of the main chapel, accepting the salutes of passing Alliance officers.

  ‘Where’s Van Voytz?’ he asked an adjutant at the desk.

  ‘You mean General Van Voytz?’ the adjutant replied testily without looking up.

  ‘If we’re going to be formal, you say “Lord General Van Voytz, colonel-commissar”, sir,’ Gaunt growled, snapping his fingers so that the adjutant would look up. He did and gulped.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir. The lord general has gone ahead to Meiseq, but he’s expected back tomorrow night.’

  ‘I want to vox him.’

  ‘Vox-lines have been cut by last night’s barrage, sir.’

  Put another way, something’s awry, Gaunt thought.

  ‘What about Lyntor-Sewq?’

  ‘The supreme commander has been called away, sir.’

  ‘Feth it!’ snarled Gaunt. ‘I need to be briefed. I need to see charts! I need–’

  ‘One moment, sir. I’ll ring through.’

  The adjutant hurriedly lifted the receiver of his field telephone and cranked the handle. ‘Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, for briefing,’ he said and paused.

  ‘Wait one moment, sir,’ he told Gaunt, replacing the handset.

  ‘Colonel-Commissar!’ the voice echoed around the hall. Gaunt looked round to see a tall, pale, ginger haired officer in a dark red uniform advancing towards him across the paved hallway.

  Gaunt saluted him.

  ‘Gaunt, Tanith First-and-Only.’

  ‘Redjacq Ankre, Kottstadt Wyverns. I’m acting authority for the Alliance in Lyntor-Sewq’s absence. Follow me.’

  Gaunt fell into step with the taller man, and they walked down towards the doors of the main situations room. There was something about Ankre, something in his bearing and manner, that made Gaunt bristle. But he ignored the feeling. He’d been Guard long enough to know that you often didn’t like the men you had to count as allies. Stifling personal opinion usually helped get the job done.

  ‘I met some of your men last night,’ Ankre said, apropos of nothing.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘A scout party.’

  ‘Ah yes, I sent them ahead.’

  ‘You didn’t trust our intelligence reports?’

  Gaunt stopped and made eye contact with the big red-head. ‘I’m sure they’re fine. I haven’t actually seen one,’ he said venomously. Ankre paused, not sure how best to deal with the criticism. Before he had time to make his mind up, Gaunt smoothed past the remark by saying, ‘So, you were at the front last night?’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ the colonel replied stiffly.

  ‘It seemed like you took a bruising. New heavy siege weapons, I hear.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d read a briefing,’ Ankre said, enjoying the slyness of his retort.

  ‘I have eyes and ears. So… new enemy tactics, then? New weapons?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ankre. A sentry in green Alliance fatigues saluted and held the door for them.

  The nave of the old chapel had been converted for military use. The windows were taped and blacked, though Gaunt could make out the lead ridges of the old stained glass. Flakboard baffles lined the room, banked with sandbags, and the air was dry and warm and smelled of electricity. Glow-globes floated beneath the rafters, illuminating a central area busy with technicians, aides and officers. Portable codifiers and high-gain vox-casters had been uncrated and set up on trestles. There was a constant murmur of voices, a chatter of machines, the occasional whistle of tuning vox-channels, background static. A pair of hooded acolytes from the Adeptus Mechanicus were blessing the servitors that were being installed at the new Imperial vox-units.

  The situations room was a confidential area. Inside the door, Gaunt had to give his name and serial code to a clerk and was issued with a small green pin-badge. High Command wanted a thorough record of everyone who came and went.

  Ankre led Gaunt across to a chart table, which Gaunt studied keenly. It was a complete mess of over-mapped gibberish. Ankre gave him a blurred, low-detail map showing only a small field section. It had been printed on flimsy paper.

  ‘Your regiment is to move up to the 55th sector along communication line 2319 at dusk tonight and take position along the front to secure stations 287 to 295. Your chain of command is to Major Neillands at station 280 and then to General Hargunten at Area/Sector. Here are the day’s challenge codes and vox frequencies.’ Ankre handed Gaunt a data-slate. ‘Familiarise yourself with them and then erase the slate.’

  ‘My chain of command runs through a major?’ asked Gaunt.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘This Neillands will relay orders from area/sector?’

  ‘Of course, in the event that you can’t receive them yourself… if, say, vox is down.’

  ‘What if Neillands can’t receive orders from area/sector… if, say, his vox is down? I answer to him?’

  Ankre shrugged as if he still couldn’t see what the problem was. ‘Yes, as I have said–’

  ‘I heard what you said, colonel. I just don’t believe it. You are saying that, in certain circumstances, most likely the kind of circumstances when it really matters, I am supposed to answer to a junior officer? I am expected to put my command… my regiment… into his hands?’

  Ankre frowned. ‘Get me the General Order Book,’ he told an aide. The man returned in a few seconds bearing a fat, red-sleeved folder stamped with the Alliance crest and the words ‘Most Secret – Destroy in Case of Jeopardy’. Ankre leafed through it. Gaunt could see that most of the pages were typewritten inserts, pasted or stapled in. ‘The supreme commander has this arranged in black and white,’ he said, unamused. ‘His tactical staff working party drew it up once we’d been advised of your approach. Here… chain of command as I said.’

  ‘Let me see that,’ said Gaunt. Ankre seemed reluctant to let the book go, but handed it over after a pause. Gaunt read down the badly typed order docket. ‘This says nothing about our position. No specifics. It simply says that we are to answer to the primary officer of whatever sector we are sent to–’

  ‘That’s General Hargunten.’

  ‘And secondarily to the senior Alliance officer in our line area.’

  ‘Exactly what I said. The senior Alliance officer in your line area is Major Neillands of the Feinster Highlanders.’

  Gaunt shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I think rather that Major Neillands should answer to me. In the event that we lose contact with area/sector, that would be the best protocol.’

  ‘Well, that’s unfortunate,’ said Ankre. ‘The word you seem to be ignoring is “Alliance”. You are to answer to the Alliance chain of command. The supreme commander is merely following the will of the high sezar. He has made it clear that the Aexe Alliance forces are to remain in control of this war. If that means you have to swallow your pride and answer to a major, then deal with it. You have come here to fight for the Alliance.’

  ‘I have come here to fight for the Emperor,’ Gaunt hissed. ‘We stand together against Shadik. We of the Guard are now part of the Alliance.’

  ‘Not technically,’ said Ankre, taking the folder out of Gaunt’s hands and thumbing to another page. ‘Here. It is quite specific. The Imperial expedition is termed “auxiliary support”.’

  He closed the folder and smiled as if to suggest he had won the short debate. Gaunt knew there was absolutely no point arguing with him. He’d met men like Ankre before. He’d go over his head.

  Gaunt turned to the chart and found, with some difficulty, the station points Ankre had mentioned.

  ‘This is the front line?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My men are light infantry, specialising in covert action. It’s a waste to put them there.’

  ‘We do not have the luxury of being choosy. Stations 287 through to 311 were overrun last night by the enemy, the largest breach in the Peinforq Line. The enemy has been driven out, but reinforcement is essential in that area. Vital. A brigade of Krassians will move forward to fill stations 296 to 311, to the north of you.’

  ‘I repeat my objection.’

  ‘Are you afraid your men will be unable to hold a trench line?’

  Gaunt took off his cap and his gloves and set them down on the edge of the chart table. This action gave him a few seconds to breathe deeply and still his rage.

  ‘I am afraid of nothing except the stupidity of a blinkered high command system,’ he replied.

  Ankre stepped back a pace and lowered his head slightly, aggressively. ‘The supreme commander selected the Tanith for this position entirely on the basis of the good account your scout party made of itself last night. The whole of 55th sector is talking about it this morning. A handful of men, but they turned the tide at station 143. That’s the kind of expertise the commander wants at the line, especially at a stretch that is weak and vulnerable.’

  ‘Even if we are merely auxiliary support?’

  Ankre handed the folder back to the waiting aide. ‘I think we’re done here, colonel-commissar,’ he said.

  ‘I want a copy of the field charts,’ said Gaunt.

  ‘Why?’ asked Ankre, now clearly beginning to lose his patience.

  Gaunt held up the flimsy field map. ‘Because this shows only my immediate position.’

  ‘Your point?’

  ‘How can I effect optimal command if I only get to see the specific vicinity? How can I appreciate the battle as a whole?’

  ‘You don’t need to. You have a specific duty. That is what you must perform. That is all you should be interested in.’

  Gaunt slid the map and the data-slate into his coat and put his gloves and cap back on. ‘I can’t believe that in this day and age you’re still fighting wars like this,’ he said. ‘Have you never read Macharius? Solon? Slaydo?’

  ‘None of those fine warriors are here on Aexe,’ said Ankre.

  ‘More’s the pity,’ snapped Gaunt. He strode away, then turned and glared back at Ankre. ‘I’ll mobilise my troops. But I will not move them up the line until I have met with an Alliance commander – any Alliance commander – who can verify these orders more satisfactorily than you. Make that happen, colonel. Make that happen fast.’

  Ankre’s look was murderous. ‘This is tantamount to insubordination. I could have you–’

  ‘Word of advice,’ said Gaunt, cutting in sharply. ‘You do not ever want to mess with me. Bite your tongue, find me someone more useful than yourself, and never threaten me again. Are we clear?’

  Ankre said nothing. The whole situations room had fallen silent. Gaunt turned his back on them all and marched out.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ sighed Dorden. ‘Hold the feth still, eh?’

  Trooper Caober shrugged. ‘It’s sore as a scalded shoggy, doc,’ he moaned.

  ‘You’re a big boy. Shut up. Do you see Ven making a fuss? You do not. He’s bleeding like a stuck hog, but do we hear a whimper? We do not at all. So shut up.’

  Caober sighed and gritted his teeth. He was sitting up on a wooden table in the Ghosts’ temporary medicae station, a derelict woollen mill on the southern fringe of Rhonforq. The mill was big and old, built from flinty, black stone, and straddled a gushing stream that the wool-workers had once used for washing excess lanolin from the fleeces. There was a damp, fatty smell, and every surface was sticky with grease. The orderlies had offered to scrub it down with bristle-brushes, but Dorden didn’t suppose they would be there long enough for it to be worth the elbow. Midday sunlight, hard and yellow, stabbed down through ventilator panels in the high, tiled roof, and lit the hall with a sickly light. Most of the mill equipment had been shifted out long since. Tiny shreds of wool fibre still clung to nicks in beams and rough brick edges.

  Mkoll’s team had arrived back in Rhonforq at 11.30 that morning, and Mkoll, Caober and Mkvenner had reported immediately to the medicae station. Dorden was tending to Caober’s wrenched ankle while Lesp dressed Mkvenner’s ear-wound. Mkoll had said his own injuries could wait. An adjoining mill hall had been occupied by the Krassian medics, and many voices echoed through from the Krassian troops lining up for inoculator shots.

  ‘How did this happen again?’ asked Dorden, examining the scout’s bared foot and ankle. The flesh was puffy and lilac with bruising.

  ‘It – ow! – it got stood on. There was a fight.’

  ‘So Mkoll says. A good one?’

  ‘So-so. You know.’

  Dorden glanced up at Caober. ‘No, I don’t. Tell me about it. Allow me to live the war vicariously through your bravado while I stay back here soaking bandages.’