[Gaunt's Ghosts 08] - Traitor General Read online

  The pheguth was simply stunned. He blurted, “God-Emperor of Mankind!”

  The words saved his life. The would-be assassin, already hyped up on adrenaline, flinched at the sound of the heretical phrase and took a step back, raising his hands to his ears. In that moment, the pheguth felt his own adrenaline surge. He swung his fist and broke the man’s nose with an audible crack.

  The assassin fell to one knee, snorting blood. The pheguth turned and ran.

  “Murder!” he shouted. “Murder!” There was a door to his left. He threw it open and ran through as the first las-bolts spat after him. The assassin was on his feet again, running after him, firing his pistol and spitting blood.

  The room was a well-appointed retiring chamber, dressed with many pieces of antique furniture and elegant floor-length wall-tapestries. There was an open door on the far side of the room, but the pheguth knew he’d never reach it and clear it before he came into the firing line again. Instead, he threw himself down and crawled behind a chaise on his hands and knees.

  The assassin ran into the room making an ugly gurgling, panting noise through his split nose. He crossed to the far door and peered through. The pheguth could see his feet from under the chaise.

  The assassin turned back from the door and began to search the chamber. From his hiding place, the pheguth watched the man’s feet as he pulled back chairs and peered behind tapestries. In another few moments, he’d turn his attention to the other side of the room.

  A second set of feet entered the chamber, booted like the first.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “He ran in here,” the first man replied, agitated.

  “You fired. Did you kill him?”

  “He ran in here!” the first man repeated. “I wounded him…”

  The newcomer cursed. His feet disappeared from view. The pheguth heard a heavy sideboard scrape on the floor as it was pulled out.

  “You mean he’s hiding?”

  “Yes! Help me look for him!”

  The second man mumbled something else. A chair moved. “Look. Look! Is this your blood? Here, on the rug?”

  “No.”

  “He’s behind that chaise,” the second man said.

  The pheguth dropped flat on the floor and pulled his arms around his head. Two laspistols fired, and multiple shots perforated the back of the chaise, punching through the fabric into the tapestry and the wall behind, puffing out blossoms of kapok stuffing. One shot, low, kissed across the pheguth’s left hip and made him squeal in pain. He writhed forward, scurrying from the cover of the chaise until he was behind a hand-painted spinet.

  But one of them at least had spotted him moving. Now the shots renewed, tearing into the instrument. Strings burst and broke in weird jangling discords; box panels splintered, and pieces of the keyboard flew into the air.

  A weird howl filled the room and the rain of las-shots stopped abruptly. A man cried out. Then there was a bright shriek of pain. Something was switching the air like a whip. The pheguth raised his head, hearing solid impacts and muffled weights striking the floor. Liquid spattered across the tattered spinet, as if shaken from a loaded sponge.

  A final las-shot. A final scream. A final wet impact.

  Shaking, the pheguth looked out from under the spinet’s stand. He saw a pair of hooves. He rose, and peered out over the top of the broken instrument.

  Desolane faced him. The life-ward’s arms were extended. Blood dripped from the fighting knives brandished in each hand. The smoke-cloak wreathed about Desolane’s torso like a swarm of insects. A few tiny dots of blood glinted on the bronze mask.

  Through the mask slits, the life-ward’s watery blue eyes fixed on the pheguth. “You can come out now,” Desolane said.

  The pheguth blinked. He got to his feet. To say that the two assassins were dead was as much of an understatement as saying that a supernova is the end of a star’s life. It conveyed nothing of the catastrophic violence involved.

  The room was wet with great quantities of blood that had been spilled with explosive force. It soaked the tapestries and the soft furnishings, ran down woodwork and pooled on the floor. The rug was drenched crimson. The two killers had been dismembered with such sharp frenzy that not even their skulls remained intact. The pheguth had seen his share of horror, but even so he decided not to look at the surgically split and severed remains. He focused instead on a bloody laspistol that had been cut cleanly in two.

  Desolane sheathed the twin ketra blades. “Pheguth, my humble apologies,” the life-ward said.

  They reached the village Plower called “Wheathead” in the early part of the afternoon. It was dark and cold, with a constant threat of rain from the east. The sky churned in sulphurous, lightless patterns. Cirk led them down through a sparse copse of trees towards the hedge-line that flanked the main road into the place. To either side lay raw fields of decaying vegetable crop and rows of collapsed incubation cloches.

  From the trees, Gaunt used his scope to study the village. “I see two troop trucks,” he said.

  “A search will be underway already,” Cirk replied.

  “There, by the granary. What are those masts?”

  Cirk took a look. “The local excubitor house. The vox links belong to them.”

  “I have a plan in mind,” Gaunt said. “I’ve been discussing the practicalities with my adjutant, Beltayn. We’ll need your help to make it work.”

  “What sort of plan?” Cirk asked.

  “You won’t like it. Not at all. We need a diversion.”

  Cirk snorted without much humour. “I’ve seen what you and your kind do as a diversion, colonel-commissar. Set half the world alight. No wonder you think I won’t like it.”

  Gaunt shook his head. “I mean a real diversion. One to put the enemy off the scent. Otherwise, it’s not going to be long before they figure out why we’re here.”

  “Go on,” she said, dubiously.

  “In a moment.” Gaunt adjusted the scope’s focus. There, to the north of the village. That space there. What is it?”

  He had pinpointed a wide acreage of freshly-turned earth surrounded by a long chain-link fence. Clusters of hooded figures moved slowly about the broken ground.

  “A boneyard,” Plower said. There’s one in almost every settlement. Thousands died during the invasion. Many were left to rot on the battlefields, but in towns and villages, the enemy heaped the dead in mass graves.”

  “Those people look like mourners,” Gaunt said.

  “That’s right, sir,” Plower replied. The archenemy understands that certain allowances must be made to placate a conquered population and keep it in check. They permit the consented to visit the boneyards, provided they do not break any laws governing religious worship. Of course, no one knows who exactly is interred in any given pit, but it helps some people to be able to pay their respects at a graveside.”

  Gaunt closed his eyes briefly. Once again, the abominable foe had surprised him. It was almost an act of humanity to allow public mourning at the mass burials. Or was it merely another way of reminding the people of Gereon how little their lives were worth?

  “Let me get this straight,” Rawne said quietly. The fething enemy forces allow people to come here and visit the grave?”

  “Yes,” said Cirk.

  “That’s our way in,” said Rawne. “Posing as mourners, I mean.”

  “I thought that,” Gaunt replied.

  “Our first priority is to try and establish contact with the resistance here,” Cirk said.

  “Agreed,” said Gaunt. “My other plan can wait.”

  An influx of mourners had gathered around the head-road into the village. Most were dressed in filthy travelling robes. A few rang hand bells, or rattled wooden beads. Lost in their own little worlds of misery, they paid little attention to the clutch of shrouded mourners who joined them from a side path.

  Cirk and Acreson—with their damnable consented imagos—led the group. Rawne followed with Bonin, Criid, Feygor a
nd Lefivre.

  There had been what Colm Corbec had once called “robust discussion” about who should make up the team. Gaunt insisted on being part of it—this was his show, after all, and every Ghost knew it. But Rawne had been sidelined at Ineuron, and didn’t want to be left waiting again. He and Gaunt had argued fiercely.

  “One leader goes, one stays!” Gaunt had said. “We must maintain the viability of the mission. If both of us die—”

  “Then Mkoll takes over! You treat him like a fething senior as it is, and we both know he can do the job. I want to be part of this! I want to know what’s going on!”

  Gaunt had looked at Rawne coldly. Maybe it had been a mistake bringing him in the first place.

  “With respect to Mkoll, that’s not an option. We do this by the book.”

  Rawne just nodded. “In that case, sir, it’s my turn.”

  Rawne had picked Feygor and, on Cirk’s advice that women were less frequently checked than men, Criid.

  They’d been all set to go when Lefivre asked to join them. Gaunt and Rawne had both said no at first, but Lefivre, looking stronger and more determined, had insisted. It seemed to Gaunt that the cell fighter desperately wanted to prove himself to the Guardsmen after his foul-up at the causeway.

  “There is another thing,” Lefivre had said quietly. “I come from this region originally. There’s every chance my mother, father and both my brothers are buried in that boneyard.”

  Not even Rawne could argue with that.

  From the trees, Gaunt watched their slow advance through his scope.

  “You can trust Rawne, you know,” Mkoll said quietly.

  Gaunt looked round. “I know. I just wish he could trust me.”

  Mkoll smiled. “He does, sir. In his way.”

  “Sir?” Larkin’s call was no more than a whisper. He was laying the sight of his long-las across the low roofs of the dismal village. “What the hell are they?”

  Gaunt adjusted his own scope. Near the central crossroads of the village, there rose several talix trees, shorn of their branches, transformed into gibbets. A pair of broken, puppet-forms dangled from them, swaying in the breeze.

  “Landerson?” Gaunt handed the cell fighter his scope and pointed.

  “What are those?” he said.

  “Wirewolves,” said Cirk. “Don’t look at them.”

  Rawne turned his gaze towards the muddy track. He had a lasting memory of puppets, two life-size mannequins loosely made of metal parts, strung together on wires.

  “They’re dormant now, but don’t look at them,” Acre-son whispered. “It provokes them.”

  Fine by me, Rawne thought.

  They moved on. A glance told Rawne that Bonin and Criid were doing fine, heads bowed under their hoods. Feygor too, if he’d only relax his fething shoulders. He was the most damn upright and rigid mourner in the history of grief.

  Rawne looked at Lefivre. He inwardly cursed Gaunt for his decision to allow the man into this play. Gaunt had even had the brass balls, before they left, to draw Rawne aside and tell him “vouchsafe” was not an option as far as Lefivre was concerned.

  “You want this lead, Rawne, all right. I’m giving it to you. But Lefivre comes back alive if any of you do. Got me? I owe them this much.”

  The mourners with them moaned and rang their bells.

  You and me both, Rawne thought.

  Wheathead was a miserable place. They passed what had once been an inn before an artillery shell had closed it down. Only the sign still swung.

  Loose, in the wind, like the wirewolves.

  The procession of mourners drew to a halt. Up ahead, excubitors were checking the line. Rawne reached in under his cloak and took hold of his mk III.

  He heard the rank voices of the grim excubitors. They barked and cursed in their foul language, not even bothering to let their voice boxes translate.

  He saw them check Cirk’s imago with a funny, paddlelike device.

  “You are a long way from home, consented,” one excubitor said, suddenly translating in a delayed crackle.

  “I am come to visit my dead, magir. I have walked a long way, and paid the tariffs,” he heard Cirk reply.

  The excubitors waved the rest of them by. Rawne could smell the excubitors. Sweat, grease, and some other odour too rank to describe. The mourners trudged on up the hill towards the boneyard.

  Cirk dawdled until she was alongside Rawne. “There is a house off to our left. I think we can contact the cell there.”

  He nodded.

  They slipped away, leaving the road and the plodding mourners. Behind them, the excubitors at the checkpoint showed no sign of noticing. Hugging the shadows, the mission team hurried along the side street and stopped at a stone porch. Acreson reached up and turned one of the loose stones in the gate post around.

  “We’ll go to the boneyard now,” said Cirk. “If the resistance is active here, there’ll be a feather under that stone by the time we come back.”

  “All right,” Rawne nodded.

  They began to climb the hill towards the boneyard. Rawne kept looking back. He could see the parked troop transports, and the Occupation troopers going from house to house.

  And then he saw something else.

  “What the feth is that?” he asked.

  Cirk turned. She uttered a low gasp. “It’s a glyf,” she murmured. “Look away. For the God-Emperor’s sake, look away!”

  “I’ve lost sight of Rawne’s group,” Gaunt said. “I think they went down that street there, left of the main road. But the buildings are blocking my view.”

  “Be patient,” said Mkoll.

  “Is that a lantern? What is that?” Larkin murmured.

  “Where?”

  Larkin suddenly jerked back, as if he’d been stung. He pulled the sniper scope down from his eye. Larkin was deathly pale and his eyes were wide with fear. “Emperor protect me! Feth! What did I just see?”

  Gaunt panned round. He saw the light, a glowing mass, bright as neon, the size of a trooper’s backpack, drifting along at the height of the eaves. It made no sense. But it seemed to have some kind of glowing structure. He—

  The scope went black.

  Gaunt looked up. Landerson had clamped his hand around the end of Gaunt’s scope, blocking his view.

  “What the feth are you doing?”

  “It’s a glyf,” said Landerson. “Believe me, the last thing you want is a good, magnified view of it.”

  “What the feth is—” Rawne began.

  “Shut up, Rawne!” Cirk hissed. “Keep walking. No one look at it!”

  “But—”

  “No talking!”

  Rawne did as he was told. He turned back to make sure everyone was following, struggling to keep his eyes off the strange, curling light that lingered over the street behind them.

  Everyone had obeyed Cirk’s order. Everyone except Feygor.

  Murtan Feygor stood transfixed, gazing at the illuminated symbols that coiled and chittered against the sullen sky. So bright, like words written in lightning, and such words! He did not understand them, but they made his flesh crawl.

  In his head, the sound of scuttling insects grew louder and louder.

  “Murt!” Rawne called as loud as he dared. There was an edgy pitch to his voice. Everyone turned.

  “Oh shit!” Cirk gasped as she saw how the Guardsman was transfixed.

  Rawne reached Feygor’s side and pulled at his arm. Feygor was frozen like a statue. His eyes were wide and almost glazed. His mouth lolled open and drool hung from his slack lips.

  Rawne dragged harder. He was panicking. The worst part of it was he wanted to look too. He wanted to tilt his head and understand what his old friend was staring at. There was a buzzing sound in the air, like the burr of the swarms they’d found in the Shedowtonland fields.

  Bonin appeared, his eyes also deliberately turned towards the ground. He grabbed Feygor too, and together they heaved at the rigid man. Feygor refused to budge. Without thinkin
g, Bonin slapped his hand across Feygor’s eyes.

  Feygor let out a strangled moan as his view was blocked. He staggered backwards into their arms and there was a sharp stink as his bladder let go. He began to struggle, shake, like an obscura addict in the throes of withdrawal.

  “Come on!” Cirk called. “Carry him if you have to!” She had a hand raised to blot out the glyf as if she was shielding her eyes from bright sunlight. The team began to move again.

  But now Lefivre had looked at the glyf too.

  “Explain to me what it is,” Gaunt said to Landerson bluntly. Landerson shrugged.

  “I can’t… I mean, I’m no magister, no sorcerer. I don’t understand the workings of Chaos.”

  “Try!” Gaunt snapped.

  “It’s an expression of the warp,” Plower said. That’s what I was told. The archenemy has branded our world in every way, even the atmosphere. A glyf is the way Chaos makes its mark on the very air. A glyf is a thought, a concept an idea… an utterance of the Ruinous Powers somehow conjured into solid form. Some say they’re sentient. I don’t believe that. Glyfs are Chaos runes, sigils, symbols, whatever you want to call them. The ordinals summon them into being and release them to watch over the populace. They drift, they patrol, they lurk…”

  “Great,” cut in Curth sourly. “But what do they do?”

  Plower looked at her. “I suppose you could describe them as tripwires. Sensors. Alarms. They react to human activity. I’ve no idea how. Certainly, they respond to imagos. If they detect anything unconsented, they… they react. They summon.”

  * * * * *

  The first sigil was hooked like a crescent moon, but also coiled somehow. The second was like the pattern a spider’s steps might make in dust. The third, like the valves of a human heart. Bright. So bright. So cold. There was no order to the sigils, no arrangement, because they constantly switched places or transformed. There were more than three. Less than one. A thousand, twisted into a single light.

  Lefivre knew he should be doing something other than looking at this wonder. He tasted acid reflux in his mouth. The sore wound on his forearm where the imago had once been buried ached and throbbed.