Straight Silver, page 18
‘What look?’ asked Van Voytz.
‘The look that told me he saw you Imperials as brand new toys… toys that he would use in just the same way as the old ones. I had hoped that the Alliance might learn things from the Guard… new ways of fighting… things like fluid field orders and unit-level decision making…’
‘You’ve been reading your Slaydo,’ said Gaunt with a smile.
Golke nodded. ‘I have. I think I’m the only man on Aexe Cardinal who has. To no avail. The Alliance is still living in the glory days of the great sezars. They will not change.’
‘A dutiful father,’ said Biota softly, ‘is distressed to find his son mourning the death of the family pet, a feline. The boy complains that he looked after it, groomed it, fed it, and yet it passed away despite his care. Anxious to please, the father purchases a new pet for his son, a hound. He is horrified when he catches his son pushing the hound off the balcony of the family house to its death. The son is distressed once more. “That pet wouldn’t fly either,” he tells his father.’
Biota looked around at them. ‘We are the hound,’ he said.
Dawn fog from the Upper Naeme shrouded Meiseq the next morning when Gaunt rose. He had made sure Beltayn woke him early for the return trip to Rhonforq. While he was shaving in the cold, new light, a messenger arrived and asked him to attend Lord General Van Voytz.
Van Voytz was taking breakfast in his staff apartments, along with Biota and a small group of aides. At Van Voytz’s instruction, a steward brought caffeine and fried fish and egg mash for Gaunt, so he could eat with them.
‘You’re starting back to Rhonforq today, Ibram?’ Van Voytz said, eating heartily. He was dressed in an embroidered cape and a linen field suit of dark red.
‘I’ve been away too long as it is, sir. And you?’
‘North. Lyntor-Sewq awaits me at Gibsgatte to address the Northern generals. It’s a mess up there. We’re deploying our Urdeshi units there tomorrow. I’ve good news for you, however.’
‘Sir?’
Van Voytz dabbed his mouth with his napkin and munched, taking a sip of fruit juice. ‘Well, it was good news until five-thirty this morning. Then it simply became interesting.’
‘Go on.’
‘Our friend Count Golke has been working his influence on the Alliance GSC planners for the last few days, and after last night’s dinner it paid off. The First is to be reassigned, in keeping with their scouting abilities. Right over to the west, an area called… what is it, Biota?’
‘The Montorq Forest, sir.’
‘That’s it. Orders will follow. But you’ve got your way. The Tanith will be used to its strength at last. Don’t let me down.’
‘I won’t, sir.’
‘Me or Golke. It was the devil’s effort to convince them.’
‘What’s the interesting part, sir?’ Gaunt asked.
Van Voytz paused, chewing, and emptied his mouth. Then he picked up his glass. ‘Come with me, Ibram.’
Van Voytz led Gaunt out onto a verandah overlooking the river. The landscape below them was barred with chalky mist.
‘There’s a rider,’ Van Voytz said. ‘Golke talked your mob up, emphasising how terrific they were as stealth scouts so the GSC would agree to reassign them. Trouble is, he may have talked them up too well. They’ve taken the idea to heart. Suddenly, they like the idea of scouts. They see uses of their own.’
‘Right, and what does that mean?’
‘It’s a give and take thing, Ibram. Fifty per cent of your force gets to scout the Montorq Woods. In return for that, the other half gets deployed into the Pocket.’
‘The Pocket?’
‘The Seiberq Pocket. Front line. Their job is to penetrate the Shadik defences and locate… and maybe disable… these new super-siege guns. They reckon if you’re so good at recon…’
‘Feth!’ said Gaunt. ‘There’s a word for a deal like that.’
‘I know. “Ironic”, I think it is. I’m pretty sure Martane and Ankre had something to do with it. Give and take. You get to play to your strengths in the west… provided you show the same skills at the blunt end. I’m sorry, Ibram.’
‘Sorry? I play the odds, my lord. All of my men on the front or half of them.’
‘Good lad. One hand gives, one hand takes, as Solon used to say.’
Overnight bag in hand and his mind full of troubles, Gaunt walked out of the military hall into the Meiseq sunlight. It was 08.30. Imperial personnel threaded between the Alliance sentries as they loaded Van Voytz’s transports.
Gaunt looked around for Beltayn and the car. He found only Beltayn.
‘What’s up? Where’s the car?’
‘It’s really weird, sir. Something’s awry. I think the car’s been stolen.’
‘Stolen?’
‘It’s not where we parked it.’
Gaunt put his bag down. ‘Give me the keys, then. I’ll find it.’
Beltayn grimaced. ‘That’s the other weird part, sir. I can’t find the keys either.’
‘Feth! What’ll I tell her?’
‘The old woman?’
‘Yes, the old wo–’
Gaunt sighed. ‘Don’t bother, let’s not waste any more time. Scare us up some transport… or at least get us tickets on the next southbound train.’
Beltayn nodded and hurried away.
‘A problem, colonel-commissar?’
Gaunt turned and found Biota behind him.
‘Nothing much, nothing I can’t deal with.’
Biota did up the neck clasps of his red, tactical division body-glove and nodded.
‘That story last night. About the feline and the hound. Very pertinent. Very sharp,’ said Gaunt.
‘I can’t presume credit,’ Biota said, off-hand. ‘One of DeMarchese’s fables.’
Biota walked away towards the waiting vehicles.
‘Tactician Biota! A moment!’
‘Gaunt?’
‘DeMarchese? You said DeMarchese. Who is that?’
Biota paused. ‘A minor philosopher. Very minor. You know the name?’
‘I’ve heard it.’
‘DeMarchese served as an advisor to Kiodrus, who in turn stood at the right hand of the beati during the First Crusade. His contribution is rather eclipsed by Faltornus, who was the real architect of Saint Sabbat’s strategy, but still his homely fables have some merit. Gaunt? What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ said Gaunt. ‘Nothing.’ He looked up at the pale sun and then said, ‘Elinor Zaker. Does that name mean anything to you?’
‘Elinor Zaker?’
‘Of the Adepta Sororitas Militant, the order of Our Martyred Lady?’
Biota shook his head.
‘All right. Never mind. Good luck at Gibsgatte. May the Emperor protect.’
Gaunt walked off to find Beltayn. He had seldom felt so uneasy. He had finally identified the pervasive flower-scent from the previous day.
Islumbine. The sacred flower of Hagia.
SEVEN
Poaching
‘And this, my friends, is what they call sweet.’
– Murtan Feygor
The forest beckoned.
They could smell it. From Ins Arbor, coming off the transports, they could see it. Rolled like green fur around the uplands east of them. Big. Silent. Inscrutable.
It wasn’t as if the Tanith hadn’t seen forest since the Founding. There’d been plenty. The thick rainwoods north of Bhavnager, the tropical groves of Monthax, the Voltemand Mirewoods. But there was something about this forest, something temperate, old and cool, that reminded them all achingly of the lost nalwoods.
Ins Arbor was a shabby dump of a town, ill-supplied and stinking in the summer heat. There were no proper billets, virtually no water, and the worst rations they’d yet experienced.
But morale had improved overnight.
The forest beckoned.
Corbec could see the renewed spirit in the faces of the men around the camp. He sat back on the fender of a half-track, and made a last few adjustments to squad lists he was drawing up. Each ten-man detail needed a good mix of scouts and fireteam, and Hark had requested Corbec spread the scout-trainees evenly.
Corbec sucked on the big cigar smouldering between his teeth. A gift from Gaunt. He’d been going to save it for a special occasion, but the smoke was doing a fine job of screening out the odour of the Ins Arbor latrines.
Gaunt’s real gift had been this mission. Half of the First taken out of the Naeme meatgrinder and given something useful to do. That was what had lifted morale, despite the grim facilities of the staging town. Anything was better than the line, and the prospect of forest work was better than anything. Tanith were smiling. Verghastites, who had no special affinity with woodland, were smiling too, simply lifted by the mood and the last minute reprieve from trench postings.
He called Varl over and sent him to round up the troops for the first details.
The forest beckoned.
Brostin kept going on about it. Thuggish, brutal, tattooed, one of the most barbarian of all the enlisted Tanith, he would not shut up about the wonder of it all.
‘Smell that!’ he said. He paused, cocking his head, wistful. ‘Not the leaves. The smell of wet earth beneath trees. Hmmmmm.’
‘All I smell is your gakking p-tanks, Tanith,’ Cuu said mildly.
‘You’ve got no soul, Cuu. No soul at all.’
‘So they say, sure as sure.’
‘Here’s an idea,’ said Feygor, his voice a quiet hiss through his throat-box. ‘Why don’t the two of you shut up?’
Brostin shrugged and smiled, and picked up his sloshing fuel tanks again. Cuu melted away into the bracken.
Feygor raised his right hand and swept the fingers round twice in a paddling motion. The members of nineteen detail fanned forward through the underbrush.
It was late afternoon. The sun was a yellow dapple to the west behind the leaf cover. The glades of the forest were misty hollows pillared by black trunks. Wild birds called aloud through the wood spaces, and the air smelled of damp bark, wood-poppy and beythorn.
Nineteen detail had been out now for three hours, having left the company command at Ins Arbor with the other details after Corbec’s briefing. On the hike up through the villages, the details had separated, one by one, each striking off towards their own designated patrol. Nineteen had been ordered to sweep the Bascuol Valley as far as the pass road down to Frergarten. Two, maybe three days, out and back. They’d made decent time, moving in country. A gentle stroll into the woods.
‘I thought Brostin was born and raised in the slums of Tanith Magna,’ whispered Caffran.
Gutes shrugged. ‘Me too. I guess even the city-boys amongst us get sentimental once in a while.’
Caffran nodded. He didn’t begrudge Brostin’s enthusiasm. These were dark pine woods, the nearest thing to Tanith they’d experienced since the loss. The spark of recognition he himself had felt at the landing zones was magnified here. Forest. Trees. Aexe Cardinal felt enough like home to please him.
The Verghastites in the detail were less settled. Muril and Jajjo, children of the hive, were jumping at shadows, moving their weapons to cover every last mysterious creak and crack the forest made.
‘Cool it down,’ Caffran whispered to Muril as she snapped round, her lasrifle aimed.
‘Easy for you to say, tree-boy,’ she said. ‘This is spooky.’
Feygor raised his hand to signal a stop and turned back to face his scout-team.
‘Feth!’ he said, ‘I’ve heard quieter beer-dances! Could we act professionally? Could we?’
They nodded.
‘And tell me… ’ Feygor added, ‘isn’t this better than slogging it at the front?’
‘Yes, Mister Feygor,’ they all agreed.
‘Good. Excellent. Now come on.’
Feygor turned and walked smack into Mkvenner.
‘Feth me backwards! Ven! Damn!’
Mkvenner looked at Feygor dourly. He had no love for Rawne’s adjutant. A speck of feth, if you pressed him for an opinion, and few dared.
‘Way’s clear,’ Mkvenner said. ‘Through to the big oak at the dip. Want me to spread forward?’
‘Yeah, why don’t you do that?’ Feygor said, recovering his composure. ‘And take one of the fething wannabes. That’s the idea of this, isn’t it?’
‘So I’m told,’ said Mkvenner. He glanced back at the spread out members of the detail. ‘Trooper Jajjo! Front to me!’
Jajjo tumbled forward to join the lean, scary Tanith scout. Jajjo was one of the few Verghasts to show potential as a scout.
‘Ahead and low, fan south. Calls are standard,’ Mkvenner said to the eager Jajjo. ‘Go!’
Mkvenner and Jajjo forked away ahead of the detail. Feygor kept his eyes on them. He could still see Jajjo’s creeping, hunched shape after two minutes. Mkvenner had vanished almost immediately.
Rerval made a vox-check to make sure they were still in range. He looked up and saw Muril with a grim expression on her face.
‘What’s up, Verghast?’ he said.
‘Nothing. Nothing…’ she answered. Rerval shrugged. He knew what was bothering her. Muril and Jajjo had both signed up for scout training, and this tour in the woods was meant to be their proving ground. So far, only Jajjo had benefited from Mkvenner’s expertise and tutoring.
It’s a female thing, Rerval thought. Just like Rawne, though I’d never have expected that kind of prejudice from Ven.
‘Let’s pick it up!’ Feygor called back down the line. ‘Moving on!’
They advanced, spread out, through the dim forest space: Feygor, Gutes, Brostin, Muril, Caffran, Cuu.
Cuu paused to look back at the tenth and final member of the detail.
‘You with us?’
‘Sure,’ said Hlaine Larkin. ‘Sure as sure.’
Feygor was pretty pleased with himself. He’d made the cut into what had become known as the ‘lucky half’ of the First, and now here he was with command of a foot patrol. Minimal effort, a little walk-and-look job, and open ended. And if they found somewhere nice, maybe an old farm or something, then a two-day patrol might turn itself into three or four days of R and R.
He’d have preferred to pick his own detail. Nineteen was a mixed bag, but Brostin, Rerval and Gutes were okay, Cuu had his moments, and Caff was all right in his way. Larks was a nut, but what else was new? He could shoot. Maybe he’d bag them something for supper. Feygor acknowledged to himself that he had no idea what sort of wildlife lived out here, but he was pretty sure there would be something with a mouth at one end, an arse at the other, and decent eating in between.
The Verghasts he could do without. Jajjo was a stiff, and in Feygor’s opinion, no Verghast was ever going to cut it as a scout. It wasn’t in the genes. The girl was better. Decorative. Maybe he’d get really lucky and bag another kind of game out here in the wild woods.
The real pain was Ven. Sure, Feygor respected the scout, everyone did. But everyone was afraid of Mkvenner too. He was straight as a die. Feygor knew he’d have to plan very carefully if they were going to have any fun without Ven getting in the way.
Of course, there was meant to be a job to do, too. The Montorq Forest covered upwards of three thousand square kilometres and ran down from the Toyre, bearding the western flanks of the Kottmark Massif, a wall of mountains that split the eastern provinces of Aexegary from Kottmark. Most of the Montorq terrain was steep, thick woodland slopes, pretty much impassible unless you were on foot or had time to scout out a decent track.
The Shadik Republic lay to the north. The nominal border was about eighty kilometres away, beyond the headwaters of the Toyre. During the long years of the war, Shadik had pressed Aexegary and Kottmark along all viable routes, gradually establishing the pattern of the front line. Seen on a tactical map, the forest uplands were the one break in that line. West of them lay the Seronne Line, the Naeme Sectors and Meiseq, tight as a drum. North and east, the so-called Ostlund Shield Line that blocked the Shadik thrusts into Kottmark. Shadik had never touched Montorq. It had been spared the war because of geography. Just a few hours’ walking in the skirts of the forest showed how hard the going would be. Only a fool would try and push an army through the forest. Feygor had heard the Republican commanders called a lot of things, but fool wasn’t one of them.
However, times change. The Alliance had become concerned with the idea that Shadik was about to change tactics in an attempt to throw the deadlock. Instead of directly assaulting Frergarten, the Alliance’s great eastern bastion, they might push elite infantry with light support down through the Montorq, and encircle Frergarten, achieving by stealth where three previous assaults had failed. They could take Frergarten, Ins Arbor, snap the Seronne Line and be marching into the Eastern Provinces in under six weeks.
It was unlikely, but it was possible. The Ghosts’ orders were to assess enemy disposition and communication routes in the Montorq area. To bring early warning, if necessary. And, Corbec had suggested during the briefing, work out the feasibility of the Alliance pulling the trick in reverse. By the autumn, maybe an Alliance force would be heading through the forest, marching north…
Feygor didn’t care. He didn’t actually care who won, who lost. He wouldn’t give a feth if the Shadik President came along and took a dump in the high sezar’s ear. Just as long as Feygor was left alone. He was tired. It had been a long fething road from Tanith, and they’d been through plenty.
Rawne always said that Gaunt led them like he had something to prove. Well, they’d fething well proved it enough, hadn’t they? It was some other bastard’s turn. Maybe when they were done with this feth-hole, the First would get rotated back to regimental reserve for a few months. Six, maybe. A year. Feygor had seen other companies get the call back out. The fething Vitrians, for instance. They’d gone back into crusade reserve about eighteen months earlier and as far as Feygor knew they were still there, sitting with their fething glass boots up on a table, smoking someone else’s lhos, playing at garrison. The Bluebloods too, those bastards had been pulled to the rear after Vervunhive.
