Blood Pact, page 33
‘Then it is Golguulest,’ he was saying, ‘then it is Nyurtaloth.’ Naeme was ebullient. He knew in his heart that the mission his philia had been sent on was almost done, and he knew his rite was nearly done too. There were only a few of death’s names left to be recited.
‘Then there is Djastah,’ he said.
‘Then there is Rime,’ said Rime.
Naeme hesitated, and stared at the inquisitor in amazement. There was no denying it. Rime was certainly one of the last names of death.
‘You,’ Naeme breathed. ‘You are–’
Rime raised his hand and caught Naeme by the throat. He snapped the Blood Pact warrior’s neck with an effortless flick.
‘Yes,’ said Rime, allowing the body to fall. ‘I am.’
Karhunan Sirdar knew that the philia was losing bodies fast. The running gun battle through the High Palace was costing both sides dearly. He’d just seen his brother Barc fall, his brains splashed up the wall. The area ahead of the sirdar was littered with Imperial dead.
Ever the strategist, Karhunan reckoned he had enough men left to cut across the line of Imperial assault, and hold it long enough for his beloved damogaur to make the kill.
Yelling the Gaur Magir! war cry of the Pact, he ordered what was left of the philia forward. It had begun to snow quite heavily. The light had gone, the blue of the sky turned to zinc. Karhunan could smell blood and snow.
They had reached the end of their last mission.
He sprayed fire, and cut down three Commissariat storm-troopers, who were trying to advance along the contested colonnade. From cover, Captain Tawil took a shot that hit Karhunan in the gut. The sirdar fired back, instinctively on auto, and shot Tawil to pieces.
Karhunan could smell his own blood.
He winced, and tried to remain upright. He waved his men forward.
The last of his men: Gnesh, Samus and Lusk.
Gnesh led the way, hosing the colonnade with fire. S Company troopers, screaming for want of cover, burst like meat sacks. Gnesh was laughing. There was blood aplenty for all the thirsty gods of the Consanguinity.
Gnesh fell.
Karhunan didn’t see what hit him, but the big man fell with an awful and final certainty, a death fall.
Karhunan screamed in rage. He saw several figures in black fatigues flanking his line along the outside of the colonnade’s wall. He fired at them, chipping stonework.
Mkoll swung up, and fired back. His first burst slew Lusk, and his second winged Samus. Jajjo, at his left-hand side, aimed over the colonnade wall, and nailed Samus with a squirt of full auto.
Howling, Karhunan ran for them.
A tall figure in nightmarish war paint stepped out of the shadows of a pillar in front of him, and fired some kind of powered bow.
The bolt hit Karhunan Sirdar in the forehead, and crashed him over onto his back, dead.
‘Clear,’ Eszrah ap Niht yelled to the Tanith fire-teams.
‘Advance!’ Mkoll bellowed.
‘It’s a dead end!’ Gaunt yelled.
‘No, this way,’ Jaume cried. ‘This leads through to the Honorarium.’
‘Are you sure?’ Gaunt asked.
‘Of course I am. I’ve been coming up here every Friday for the last six months.’ Jaume yelled.
Gaunt didn’t even think to ask the portraitist why.
‘Maggs!’ he yelled. ‘Move Jaume and the doctor into cover in the Honorarium!’
Mabbon had fallen behind. His strength had held up well, but he was flagging now, slowed by the returning pain of his wound. Snow was swirling around them.
‘But–’ Maggs protested.
‘That’s an order!’ Gaunt yelled.
Maggs turned, and scooted Kolding and the terrified Jaume away in the direction of the vast Honorarium.
Gaunt got his arm around Mabbon, and supported him.
‘Not far now, magir,’ he said.
‘You’re a good man, Gaunt,’ wheezed the etogaur.
‘If they take us, please don’t say that to anyone. Tell them I’m your sworn enemy.’
An RPG shrieked down the colonnade, and blew out the roof. The concussion dropped Gaunt and Mabbon hard.
Malstrom stalked forwards through the coiling smoke and the random snow, slamming another fat shell into the launcher. Dust from the blast had given the air a gritty, grainy quality.
Up ahead, the two bodies lay amongst the rubble, swathed in stone dust. Both looked dead. One of them was the pheguth. Malstrom tossed his launcher away, and drew an autopistol. They had done it. The philia had won. All he had to do was confirm the kill.
Coated in stone dust, and looking like a statue come to life, Gaunt sat up abruptly. His bolt pistol was in his hand.
‘Not today,’ he said, and fired.
The bolt blew Malstrom in half, and painted the cloister wall with a terrible quantity of blood. There were no gore mages of the Consanguinity present to read the blood mark, but the prognostications were nothing but violent death.
Mabbon was dazed and woozy. His wound had started to bleed again. Gaunt hoisted him upright, and got his arm under the enemy officer’s armpits. Both of them were covered in stone dust and blood, and both of them were a little deaf from the concussion.
‘Come on. Stay with me!’ Gaunt yelled. He stared up into Mabbon’s face, and slapped his scarred cheek. ‘Stay with me!’
He could hear whining. He thought it was just his ears. Snowflakes touched his face.
The muzzle of a pistol rammed against Gaunt’s temple.
‘I will give you credit,’ Baltasar Eyl said, panting hard. ‘You have been a worthy adversary. You have led my philia a proper dance. But now, we end this.’
His voice was full of accent, of outworld accent. In the extremity of the moment, it had become hard for Eyl to maintain his civilised veneer.
‘One last thing you might want to consider, damogaur,’ Mabbon said in the Archenemy tongue. ‘When you’ve got the bastard, kill the bastard. Don’t talk about it.’
Gaunt threw a savage elbow that smacked Eyl away. The damogaur reeled, his teeth broken, and his mouth bloody, but he still had the gun. Gaunt kicked him in the belly.
Eyl still had the gun.
‘We’ve got targets! Out in the open!’ Bonin yelled.
‘Take them! Take them all!’ Rime was shouting over the static heavy line.
‘Feth that, there’s smoke and snow all over the place!’ Larkin replied, snuggling up his aim as the Valkyrie bucked and wallowed.
‘Big boss says take the shot, Larks,’ said Bonin.
‘Wait…’ Larkin advised. ‘Wait… get the pilot to level us out! All right, I have three targets. Repeat, three hot. What’s the advice?’
‘Instruction is take the shot,’ Bonin repeated over the roar of the cycling turbofans.
‘I aim to please,’ Larkin replied, the long-las banging in his hands.
There was a crunch of overpressure and punctured vacuum. Blood vapour drenched Gaunt and Mabbon, caking their dust-covered faces.
Eyl’s skull had just detonated. His headless body fell against Gaunt. A gunship wailed in overhead, tossing and pluming the rising smoke and the billowing snow. A second later, its shadow went over them,
‘Holy Throne,’ Gaunt stammered.
‘Hit! Hit!’ Larkin yelled.
‘Yeah, but what did you hit?’ Bonin demanded, leaning down over Larkin in the doorway.
‘I only ever see what’s real and true through my scope,’ Larkin replied. ‘I got the bad guy, of course. Didn’t I?’
Gaunt and Mabbon ran towards the Honorarium. Leaking blood, Mabbon was getting slower all the time.
Behind them, vicious fighting was ripping through the great quad’s cloisters as the last of the Blood Pact philia made their stand.
The Honorarium was huge, a massive, gloomy dome of cold, echoing air and silence. Lights illuminated displays at floor level around the vast rim of the building. The skirts of the huge temple housed individual chapels, dedicated to certain heroes or campaigns. In the centre of the floor space was the giant basalt crypt housing Warmaster Slaydo’s remains.
Halfway across the immense open floor space of the Honorarium, Mabbon’s legs gave out, and he fell. Gaunt turned back to scoop him up.
Jaume, Maggs and Kolding had been hiding behind the front rank of pews. They ran out to help Gaunt.
‘We need to get him into cover,’ Gaunt said.
‘He’s bleeding pretty badly,’ Kolding said, opening his kit.
‘Pack the wound. Pack the wound, then!’ Maggs urged.
‘Let’s carry him somewhere quiet and out of the way,’ Gaunt said. ‘Come on. These side chapels look good to me.’
‘Your chapel is just over there,’ said Jaume, pointing.
‘My what?’
‘Your chapel,’ Jaume repeated.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Gaunt snapped. ‘What chapel?’
‘For Throne’s sake,’ Jaume replied. ‘It’s why I was commissioned! Didn’t you even read the letter? I was commissioned to make your portrait for the dedicated chapel here!’
‘I don’t believe Ibram Gaunt is going to be commemorated anywhere in Imperial circles after this,’ said Handro Rime.
He walked towards the group across the broad, sunlit floor space. Snowflakes were tapping against the skylights far above their heads. Rime had his weapon aimed at them, a laspistol.
‘A heretical monster and his enablers. You have fallen a long way from the greatness you once achieved here, Gaunt.’
Gaunt stood up, and faced Rime.
‘And you’re the worst kind of fanatic, Rime. You’ve got this so wrong. You should be thanking me.’
Rime grinned a smile that all of his Sirkles could copy.
‘I don’t think so, you despicable traitor.’
Gaunt shook his head. ‘Whatever I say, you’ll just reply “That’s what a heretic would say”, won’t you?’
‘Of course he will,’ coughed Mabbon.
Gaunt turned. Jaume and Kolding were helping Mabbon to rise. The etogaur was clearly determined to get up and face his adversary.
‘I don’t even want to look at you,’ sneered Rime. ‘Archenemy scum.’
‘It isn’t just Gaur’s Blood Pact that wants me dead,’ Mabbon said to Gaunt, swaying against Kolding’s support. ‘The Anarch’s forces want me silenced too. They’re rather more subtle.’
He looked at Rime.
‘You’ve changed your face a thousand times, but I still know you, Syko Magir.’
‘This animal is talking nonsense!’ Rime declared.
‘Is he?’ asked Maggs.
Rime raised his weapon to shoot the etogaur. The split second he did so, Gaunt realised it was snowing.
Indoors.
The blood-scream knocked them all flat, and blew out the huge skylights of the Honorarium. Howling, the witch came for them, surrounded by a coruscating ball of warp-lightning. She was demented and raving. She was screaming vengeance for the death of her beloved brother. She came at them across the floor of the Honorarium like a typhoon, driving an arctic blizzard before her. Dry lightning tore the air.
All Wes Maggs saw was the old dam who had haunted his mind since Hinzerhaus. All Wes Maggs wanted was to be free of her phantom torment.
He opened fire, screaming, on full auto, and discharged the lasrifle’s entire energy reservoir.
His shots exploded the witch’s cocoon of warp-energy, and shredded her. She took nearly two hundred hits, and by the time her body struck the paving stones, it was pulped beyond any semblance of articulacy. The last few shots lifted her veil for a second as she fell back.
Maggs saw her face, a face he would never forget.
His weapon misfired, and began to chime repeatedly on charge out.
He killed the alert, and lowered the gun.
‘Feth me,’ he stammered. ‘Did I do that?’
Gaunt slapped Maggs on the back. ‘Yes, you did. Makes me glad I didn’t kill you.’
Maggs smiled a half-surprised smile.
‘Wake up, trooper, and help us carry the prisoner to cover,’ said Gaunt. Beyond the walls of the Honorarium, they could hear sirens wailing and gunships thundering in.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Kolding.
Gaunt turned.
Rime was back on his feet. He had a gash across his scalp, and what lay beneath looked more like augmetic artifice than flesh and blood. His face was half hanging off.
He was aiming his pistol at them.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he announced.
Gaunt heard footsteps running out across the echo-space of the vast temple. Troops were deploying into position around the confrontation, weapons trained.
He realised they were his.
‘Glad you could join us, Major Rawne,’ Gaunt said, his eyes never leaving Rime’s.
‘Apologies, sir. Got a little waylaid.’
‘Who’s with you?’ Gaunt called.
‘Varl, Meryn, Daur, Banda, Leyr and Cant, sir.’
‘All aimed at this lunatic as opposed to me?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘Even Cant?’
‘Locked and blocked, sir,’ Cant called out.
‘See?’ said Rawne, ‘Sometimes even he can.’
‘Well,’ Gaunt said to Rime. ‘This is a proper stand-off, isn’t it? Toss down your weapon.’
Rime smiled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Tell your people to surrender. This facility will be overwhelmed in another five minutes.’
‘My people don’t work like that, inquisitor, especially not when the man they’re facing has been identified as an agent of the Anarch.’
‘That’s preposterous! The ravings of a heretic who’d do anything to save himself!’
Gaunt shook his head. ‘Mabbon was certain. He identified you, Syko Magir.’
‘The man is insane,’ Rime scoffed. ‘Put up your weapons. Come on, Gaunt. I know how straight-laced you are at heart.’
The bolt pistol was still in Gaunt’s hand. There was one round left in its clip.
He raised it, and aimed directly at Rime.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I have reason to believe that you are an agent of the Archenemy, and I demand that you drop your weapon, now.’
‘Or what, Gaunt?’ Rime grinned. ‘You’ll shoot me? I know you. I’ve studied your dossier. Without unequivocal proof, you’d never act against the Throne. Ever.’
Gaunt hesitated, and lowered his weapon.
Rime glanced over as Rawne stepped forward.
‘We’re done, thank you, trooper,’ Rime said. ‘Step back.’
‘My boss doesn’t trust you,’ said Rawne.
‘He’s got no actual proof,’ said Rime. ‘And he won’t act. I’ve read his dossier.’
‘Yeah,’ said Rawne, ‘but you’ve never read mine.’
Rime brought his pistol up, firing, screaming.
Rawne took him down with two kill-shots to the chest.
TWENTY-NINE
Exit Wounds
‘Take a seat, Ibram,’ said Isiah Mercure. They were meeting in a room in Section, one of the wings that hadn’t suffered smoke damage.
So, I’m Ibram now suddenly, am I?
‘Full marks for this, sir,’ Mercure said. He was busy at three things at once: a data-slate, a letter, and some reports. ‘Seriously, man, good work. We’re going to run with this. Edur tells me your regiment is prepared to lead the way with the operation? Is that right?’
‘The Tanith First is happy to serve, sir,’ Gaunt replied.
‘Well, I can tell you,’ said Mercure, flashing a quick grin as he finished and closed the data-slate report, ‘that’s good news. It’s great to get good people on your side. You think you can handle it?’
‘My regiment is mobilised, sir. We’ll be heading towards Salvation’s Reach within the week.’
‘A lot depends on this, Ibram,’ said Mercure, ‘and I won’t be there to hold your hand all the way.’
‘I understand, sir,’ said Gaunt. ‘I have just one question. The Inquisition, what has it been told?’
‘Just that the valiant Inquisitor Rime was lost in action during a Chaos uprising,’ replied Mercure.
‘I see. I’d rather not have the holy ordos on my back, on top of everything else.’
‘Understood.’
‘And I want Blenner and Criid released to my jurisdiction.’
‘Agreed.’
‘You can fix that?’
‘You have friends in high places, Ibram,’ Mercure mocked. ‘And you have friends in very low places too. How’s the etogaur?’
‘Stable. Eager to help. He’s–’
‘What?’ asked Mercure.
‘A good man,’ said Gaunt.
‘I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that,’ said Mercure. He stood, and walked to the side table. ‘A drink? A toast?’
‘Why not?’ replied Gaunt.
Mercure poured two sacras and handed one of them to Gaunt.
‘You do realise that you won’t be coming back from this one alive, don’t you?’ Mercure asked.
‘That’s what they tell me every time I ship out,’ Gaunt replied.
‘Really? Damn,’ said Mercure, and chinked glasses. ‘Cheers anyway.’
‘We’re shipping out in a week,’ said Ban Daur. ‘I think you should come with us.’
‘Oh, right, yeah. Why?’ asked Elodie.
‘Because I can’t kiss you like this if you’re light years away,’ he replied.
‘Like what?’ she asked.
He showed her.
‘Right,’ she nodded, ‘I’d better come with you then.’
The vast space of the Honorarium was full of faint echoes and a sense of eternity. On their last day on Balhaut, the Tanith First marched into the temple for a special service of benediction. It was a warm, bright day, the snow long gone, and most of the damage done to the building during the final battle had been repaired. They wore their number one uniforms, and their marching was impeccable, even though they had been stagnating in turnaround for two years.
