Sabbat War Read online

  ‘Oh, shit,’ said Domor.

  ‘I know,’ said Bray. ‘So Cant came to me. Asked where we could get another. And we can’t because, you know…. I mean, who’s got one of Bragg’s actual, original bottles left any more?’

  ‘Larkin?’ said Elam.

  ‘Oh, probably,’ said Bray, ‘but he’s not going to give his up, is he? So Cant came to me. He’s made this promise. I said I’d help. Look, here it is. I knew I’d seen one. This won’t take a moment.’

  He ran down some pavement steps to the low parade of a small commercia.

  ‘But we are going for a drink?’ Elam called after him.

  ‘Oh, feth you!’ Bray called back over his shoulder.

  ‘Uh, “Feth you, captain,” if you don’t mind,’ Elam replied as he and Domor followed Bray down the steps.

  ‘So you can’t fix it?’ said Bray.

  The ceramicist’s workshop was small, and low, and dark, and smelled of glazes and kiln dust. The ceramicist, an old Urdeshi man, looked down at the bundle that Bray had unfolded on the counter.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ asked Bray.

  ‘It’s broken,’ said the old man. The shattered pieces of the sacra bottle were spread out on the gun-cloth Bray had wrapped them in.

  ‘Oh,’ said Bray. ‘I thought you could… put it on your wheel thing?’

  ‘You don’t really get how ceramics work, do you, lad?’ observed the old man.

  Elam leaned in over Bray’s shoulder and whispered, ‘This is a waste of time.’ Bray shushed him. Domor was waiting in the doorway, leaning on the jamb, smoking a lho-stick.

  ‘I thought there was a technique…’ Bray said.

  ‘There is,’ said the old man, ‘I suppose, if you have most of the pieces. I could reassemble it. But it wouldn’t hold anything. You couldn’t put liquid in it.’

  ‘But it’s for sacra,’ said Bray.

  ‘I don’t know what that is,’ said the old man.

  ‘Well, this was a bottle given to my friend by Bragg…’

  ‘I don’t know who that is.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. This is a traditional bottle. A traditional style, you see? It’s a sacra bottle, from Tanith.’

  ‘I don’t know where that is,’ said the old man.

  ‘What I’m saying is,’ said Bray with such patience Elam was beginning to smile, ‘they don’t make them any more. Anywhere. So I need to repair this one.’

  ‘Can’t you just get a different bottle?’ the old man asked. ‘I have many.’

  ‘Yeah, but it won’t be a sacra bottle from Tanith. It won’t be this one. Because this one is special. It was given to my friend by my other friend–’

  ‘I can repair it,’ said the old man. ‘But I’m telling you, you won’t be able to put this sacra stuff in it.’

  ‘Give it up, Darra,’ Elam whispered to Bray.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Bray to the old man, ‘they don’t make these any more–’

  ‘Well, they could,’ said the old man, sorting through the pieces. ‘I could. It’s not a complicated shape.’

  ‘You could?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it would look like this?’ asked Bray.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you could put sacra in it afterwards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bray looked at Elam. Elam laughed out loud at the earnest, harried look in Bray’s eyes.

  ‘Do you think he’d notice it wasn’t the same one?’ Bray asked Elam.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Domor from the doorway behind them. ‘A shed fell on him.’

  Nessa finished her drink and slammed the glass upside down on the table. The crowd, filling the liquor-house to capacity and pressed in all around, exploded in wild cheers and laughter. Nessa executed a mocking, modest bow and wiped her lips.

  Maggs sat back in his seat, coughing.

  ‘Every time,’ said Caober, taking money from those who had wagered.

  ‘You shut up,’ said Maggs, blinking hard to clear his vision.

  ‘How many times is that?’ Lubba asked, patting Maggs on the back. Nessa grinned and held up seven fingers.

  ‘You shut up,’ said Maggs. ‘And your fingers too.’

  ‘You don’t drink like a scout, Wes,’ said Raglon.

  ‘Feth off,’ said Maggs.

  ‘Another round?’ asked Vadim of the crowd, to shouts of approval.

  ‘I don’t think Wes is up to it,’ said Lubba.

  ‘I think a real scout should show us how it’s done,’ said Caober. ‘I’ll be fethed if the sniper cadre takes recon eight in a row.’

  Nessa, watching his lips, laughed.

  Mach, she signed. I’ll whip his arse too.

  ‘Right,’ said Vadim. ‘That’s a challenge. Ladies and gentlemen, a new contestant will take on our reigning champion! Wagers, please!’

  Raglon glanced around.

  ‘Where is Bonin?’ he asked.

  Night was beginning to fall, and the first of the skyrockets were banging and fizzling above Princeps Avenue. The crowds had not dispersed. Taverns had opened their shutters to the street, and grox were roasting on spits. The festival would last into the small hours.

  Mach Bonin kept off the main thoroughfares. He walked through the back lanes of the old quarter, through quieter, narrower streets where the smell of roast meat and woodsmoke hung in the air, and the crowd was a dull background roar, and the light flickered, multicoloured, as fireworks went off overhead.

  At Brackett Street, there was another gibbet. Two bodies, both Sekkite troops. They’d been hacked about, mauled before and after death. He stood and looked at them. He looked at the faces. He looked at the mouths.

  Same thing. And done recently.

  He had to be close.

  A long, grim day was coming to an end, but there were still a few hours left to get work finished.

  The mortuary was a chilly space of stark white tiles. There was row after row of wheeled metal trolleys. Ana Curth didn’t think she’d ever seen a charnel house of quite such capacity. The coloured flash of rockets came and went against the darkening sky in the small, high windows. From below their feet, they could hear the clank and rumble of hatches as Militarum crews wheeled in more bodies from transports in the yard.

  ‘Let’s get it done,’ she said. She had the data-slate.

  Ayatani Zweil nodded.

  ‘No one thinks about this part, do they?’ he remarked, toying with a sprig of islumbine.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, this is not an aspect of victory that anyone ever considers. They’re all out there, hullabalooing and what have you, because the wretched Anarch is dead, and Urdesh is free, and everyone will live happily ever after. They don’t think about the cleaning up. The taking stock. The sober accounting of the price we paid.’

  ‘We do,’ said Curth.

  ‘We do, ah yes,’ said Zweil. ‘The priest and the doctor. Forever the same.’

  It was a simple process. They checked each trolley in turn, folding back the shroud sheet to reveal the body. Curth cross-checked the death list, confirmed identity, and sealed the death notice with her medicae authority. As she did, the ayatani blessed each body, murmured a few words, and performed the last rite of benediction.

  A last five minutes spent with each of the fallen. The Munitorum would handle the burials. One trolley, then the next. It didn’t take long before they found a face they recognised. There would be others. Curth wondered how many more. No one knew the exact figure yet. There would be some impossible to identify, and there would be some, like Gol Kolea or Elodie Dutana-Daur, who weren’t there at all.

  They worked methodically, row after row, trying to ignore the aching cold of the mortuary air, trying not to react when a shroud folded back to reveal a particularly ghastly mutilation.

  ‘How’s the blessed Beati?’ Zweil asked after a while.

  ‘Stable,’ Curth replied, shifting the cold and heavy flesh of an Urdeshi s
torm trooper to locate his tags. ‘Sleeping still. But I think she’ll recover.’

  ‘As much as any of us, eh?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘How do you think she is?’ Curth asked.

  ‘My prognosis, Ana, is much the same as yours,’ Zweil replied. ‘She is not quite so loud in my dreams these days, not quite so bright. But she has not gone away, not yet. And there is islumbine blooming everywhere, between every cobblestone and in every gutter. I take that as a good sign.’

  Curth pulled the shroud back over the waxy face. Zweil had turned to the next cart along.

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  She wouldn’t have to check the tags. It was Meryn.

  They stood and looked at the body for a moment.

  ‘What a vile little feth-wipe that man turned out to be,’ said Zweil.

  Curth nodded.

  ‘You heard about his exploits, I take it?’ Zweil said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘Luna Fazekiel told me all about it.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Zweil, ‘we treat him the same as everyone else. Judgement is not our place. That’s the purview of another authority.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I mean the God-Emperor,’ said Zweil. ‘When I said “another authority”, you see? I meant–’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh. Good. Sometimes I wonder if, as a doctor, all you see is the flesh.’

  ‘No, I see the rest. But the flesh is my profession and the spirit is yours.’

  Zweil smiled sadly.

  ‘Shall we?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She put her seal on the death notice, and they moved to the next cart.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Zweil, ‘I think it’s a shame that there are no rites for the living.’

  ‘The living?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Ana. The ones who don’t end up in a bag or on a trolley. The ones who survive. Who get to deal with tomorrow. I often think it’s harder for them. Harder than death.’

  ‘Harder than death?’ Curth frowned at him.

  ‘Of course,’ said Zweil, ‘I might be barking mad, but that’s how it’s always struck me. Those who serve the Astra Militarum pay with their lives. All of them. It’s just that some do it in one moment, and others do it for the rest of their days.’

  ‘Why bring it to us?’ asked Ree Perday.

  ‘Well,’ said Haller. He’d laid the ruined jacket out on a table in V Company’s gloomy rehearsal room. Some of Perday’s fellow band members were looking on. ‘Well, because V Company… that is… you’re good at this sort of thing. Mending and fixing and sewing on buttons… you’re good at costumes…’

  Perday fixed him with a glare.

  ‘Costumes?’ she asked.

  ‘Did I say costumes? I didn’t mean costumes,’ said Haller rapidly. ‘I meant… ceremony. And, uh, tradition.’

  ‘I think the sergeant’s suggesting we’re not a fighting company,’ said Zef Erish, the hulking standard bearer. ‘I think he’s suggesting that all V Company knows is how to march and play, and maintain regalia, and sit around sewing…’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that,’ said Haller.

  ‘I think you were,’ said Migol Gorus from the woodwind section.

  ‘No, you’re a fighting company, like all the others,’ said Haller. ‘I just know that you’re good at this kind of thing because it’s part of your work.’

  ‘Absolute bloody insult,’ said Erish.

  Haller exhaled.

  ‘Look, who’s in charge?’ he asked.

  ‘No one,’ said Perday. Haller closed his eyes and nodded. Wilder. Of course, Wilder. And he was dead. V Company, which was principally the colours band and, to many, the laughing stock of the regiment, unwanted and unnecessary, was yet another section lacking a senior officer.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Haller said. ‘I didn’t mean to come here and insult you. I just seem to have a knack for it. Honestly, I was just trying to get Major Pasha out of a fix. My apologies.’

  He picked up the jacket and walked to the door.

  Then he stopped and looked back at them.

  ‘You do realise,’ he said, ‘that you’re about to become the most important part of this regiment, don’t you? The front line? The vanguard?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Erish.

  Haller stepped back towards the bandsmen, who regarded him dubiously.

  ‘The Tanith First,’ he said, ‘is about to be transformed. We’re about to become the personal honour guard of the Lord Executor. That probably means we’ll never see the field of war again. From here on out, it’ll be parades and receptions, reviews and ceremonies, pomp and circumstance. And that’ll be down to you. Because I can tell you right now, none of us lot know how to do it. Us lasmen don’t do ceremonial. Feth, most of the Tanith couldn’t march in a straight line if you gave them a map. We’re good at many things, excellent at a few things, but Holy Throne, we are utter shit at the things we’re going to be doing from now on. We’ll all be looking to you. You lot know how it works. You know what cap to wear, which foot to start on, how to keep time, how to carry a fething flag. How to turn, in marching ranks, on the spot. I have no idea how that shit works. You make it look easy. I’m telling you, your hour has come. From this day forward, the honour of the Tanith First and Only rests on your shoulders. We’ll all be counting on you. We’ll be trying, desperately, to learn how to do what you do. We’ll be begging you to show us how to do it. All of it. I don’t even know what the feth that is.’

  He pointed.

  ‘It’s a hautserfone,’ said Nikodem Kores.

  ‘Right,’ said Haller. ‘See? Who the feth knew? V Company, your moment of glory is here. You’re Gaunt’s Ghosts now. So buckle up. Anyway… I just wanted to say that. Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Look, we… we do know how to mend a jacket,’ said Perday. Haller halted in the doorway and looked back. Perday glanced at the other band members. Some were glaring at her.

  ‘Well, we do,’ she said.

  ‘We do,’ said Erish. ‘We’re always having to fix stuff up.’

  ‘We have to look our best every time,’ said Kores. ‘Not just special occasions. Every gakking day.’

  ‘Sergeant Major Yerolemew has us for breakfast if there’s a stitch out of place,’ said little Witt Arradin, the woodwind player, who was no more than eighteen.

  ‘We’ve got thread machines,’ said Perday. ‘Spoolers. Stitchers. And boxes of buttons and trim. And bolts of cloth. You can’t rely on the Munitorum. Give us that here.’

  Haller handed the jacket to Perday. She spread it back out on the table, and the bandsmen gathered to take a look.

  ‘Oh, that’s ruined,’ said Erish.

  ‘It really is,’ Perday agreed. ‘But we can use it as a pattern. Cut it up. Make another one.’

  ‘I’ve got some good lining silk,’ said Gorus.

  ‘Can we match these buttons?’ asked Perday. ‘Nikky?’

  Kores nodded.

  ‘Who’s this for?’ enquired Erish. ‘Is it the right size?’

  ‘I told you, Major Pasha,’ said Haller.

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Erish. ‘The placket’s the wrong way around.’

  Haller screwed his face up, confused.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘This is a man’s jacket,’ said Perday. ‘It buttons left over right. A woman’s buttons the other way. See?’

  She unbuttoned the top of her own jacket to demonstrate.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Haller with greater emphasis.

  ‘It’s just the way it’s always been,’ said Arradin. ‘A tradition.’

  ‘Men dress themselves, women dress each other,’ said Perday. ‘That’s where it comes from. That’s what I was always told. This is a man’s jacket.’

  ‘Well,’ faltered Haller. ‘Pasha’s never been… I mean, she doesn’t make a thing about being a woman. She prefers to be taken on merit, not… you know… Maybe it’s
a choice, is what I’m saying. Maybe she doesn’t want to be seen as different to the male officers.’

  Perday shrugged.

  ‘Might be worth checking,’ she said. ‘When does she need it?’

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ said Haller.

  ‘Well, we can get started,’ said Perday. ‘But you’d better go and check. We can always switch the placket over, but we don’t want to be doing that at the last minute.’

  ‘I’ll check,’ said Haller.

  Bonin crossed the old box girder bridge that spanned the Underclade Air Canal, and reached the edge of Vapourial District. The main noise of celebration was behind him, now, back in the old town, but the streets were still busy. Colours flashed from detonations overhead. The fireworks made plosive, popping sounds.

  Vapourial had been part of the main fighting zone. The Ghosts had been deployed nearby. Many buildings were shuttered and derelict, and the further he walked, the more the fingerprints of war became clear. Broken windows. Shattered tiles and spills of brick. A burned-out truck.

  He was entering ghost streets, where the living, celebrating part of Eltath ended, and the broken zone began – the part that war had dug its fingers into, the part that had been abandoned in a hurry, and to which no one had yet returned.

  There were more gibbets here, set up by looters, most likely, or roaming militia patrols. The sorry dead of the Archonate’s finest, hanging silent in death, filling the night air with the queasy scent of corruption.

  He looked at the faces. The mouths.

  Same as before.

  He was pretty certain he had the trail. A scent of the wretched living was much more distinct now there were only the dead around.

  Haller knocked on the door, and an aide answered. Pasha was in a meeting with six Helixid officers, laboriously running through a sheaf of patrol lists.

  ‘I have a question for Major Petrushkevskaya,’ Haller whispered to the aide. ‘A question about the placket…’

  ‘Left over right,’ Pasha called without even turning her head.

  ‘Gotcha,’ said Haller, and stepped back out.

  Movement, on an upper floor.

  Bonin eased the sagging door open in the darkness. An old fab building, broken down, part of a clade division complex. In the gloom, he could see stained walls, broken glass, brick dust. Enough brick dust to show a scuff mark.