Anarch - Dan Abnett Read online

  Low Keen. The very thought of that place made her tense. Aside from the Gendler case, there had been the incident with Daur’s wife and the girl, Yoncy. Fazekiel had been one of the first on the scene. Something had torn bodies apart. Some monster.

  She’d heard it too. She’d heard the shrieking sound it made. Fazekiel was a strong soldier, but that sound had shaken her to an extent that troubled her. It had been more than a hazard – they faced those all the time. It had stirred some primal response in her.

  She hadn’t slept. The memory of the shrieking sound was playing on her nerves, and she was afraid it might unlock some of the old anxieties she had spent so many years learning to contain and control.

  The unknown made her worry. Data comforted her. Solid facts gave her a way to understand the world and retain agency. The Gendler case was reassuring. It helped take her mind off the mysteries she couldn’t address.

  She sat down, and brushed invisible dust off the lip of the desk. The picts were telling her nothing. There was no inconsistency of evidence, no clash of accounts. She’d run each interview again – Merity, Blenner, Meryn, Dalin – perhaps twice more, to see if anything shook loose. But she was already sure how her report would run. The data upheld the story Meryn and Blenner had given.

  The overhead lamps flickered.

  Fazekiel sighed. She wished she’d brought some food with her from the canteen. That was the second time in two days she’d forgotten to eat.

  The lights flickered again.

  She stood up to fiddle with the lumen element and halted. She suddenly had a really uncomfortable feeling, as though something was scratching at her eardrums and her sinuses.

  She coughed and tried to clear her nose. Probably just the damp down in the undercroft getting to her–

  The lights went out.

  Blackness. The lights didn’t flicker back on. She groped her way to the door, and peered out. The hallway was pitch black too. She could hear voices from other chambers raised in complaint.

  The damn circuit fault had finally become terminal.

  She fumbled her way back to her desk, reached down, and fished her stablight from her kit pack. It wouldn’t switch on. She slapped it against her gloved palm and the beam speared into life, lighting a frost-blue disc on the far wall. She panned the beam around quickly. Her ear drums itched again.

  The beam passed over the open doorway. For a second, it starkly lit a face staring in at her.

  Fazekiel jumped in surprise.

  She played the beam back.

  Yoncy stood in the doorway, hands at her sides, her face expressionless. She was staring right at Fazekiel.

  ‘Yoncy, you scared the shit out of me,’ Fazekiel said.

  The girl didn’t answer. She stared at Fazekiel for another few seconds, then just turned and walked away.

  Fazekiel got up quickly, stumbling slightly against her chair.

  ‘Yoncy?’

  She reached the doorway, and stepped out into the hallway. More voices of protest and complaint were echoing through the undercroft. The scratchy sensation in her ears was worse. She played the beam to the left, then to the right. There was no one there.

  ‘Yoncy?’

  She started to move to her left. The overhead lights suddenly buzzed and came back on. Alarms whooped for a second, then cut off. Fazekiel blinked at the glare.

  Meryn stood a few metres away, wincing in the light.

  ‘Captain,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, ma’am. I… I was just looking to see what had happened to the lights.’

  ‘With your silver out?’

  Meryn looked down, He was holding his warknife.

  ‘Well, to be honest, I thought I heard something,’ he said.

  ‘Did you see Yoncy?’

  ‘What? No,’ said Meryn. He rubbed at his left ear.

  ‘You feel that?’ asked Fazekiel.

  ‘What?’

  ‘In your ears. An itch.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It reminds me of–’

  She stopped short. She could feel the anxiety rising inside her and quickly focused on the mental coping strategies she’d been taught to help her deal with her obsessive nature. She shut the anxiety down.

  ‘Of what?’ said Meryn, looking at her warily.

  ‘Go and get Baskevyl or Kolea.’

  ‘Why?’ Meryn asked.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ said Fazekiel.

  ‘What are you going to–’

  ‘I’m going to find Yoncy. She was right here and she’s probably scared. Go and get Baskevyl. Now, please.’

  Meryn sheathed his warknife and hurried away.

  ‘Advise him amber status!’ she called after him.

  In the wardroom, the lights fizzled back on in a brief squeal of alarms. Baskevyl was standing with a bottle in his hand.

  ‘As I was saying…’ he said.

  ‘They haven’t gone off for that long before,’ said Domor.

  Kolea shrugged. ‘Maybe the Munitorum took them off line to reconnect or test?’ he said.

  ‘You want me to go and check?’ asked Bonin.

  ‘Well, I was about to open this precious bottle of sacra to celebrate Gol’s return,’ said Baskevyl. He put it down. ‘But we probably should.’

  The others got up from their seats around his camp table.

  Yerolemew and Blenner came in from the hall outside.

  ‘A lot of fuss in the billet halls,’ said Blenner. ‘That black-out was the whole undercroft.’

  ‘Go calm them down,’ Baskevyl said. ‘It was just a circuit fault.’

  Blenner eyed the bottle on the table. ‘Private party?’ he asked.

  ‘Go calm them down, Blenner,’ said Baskevyl, ‘and you might get an invitation to join us.’

  Blenner nodded, and hurried out.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Bonin asked the bandmaster.

  ‘Can’t you hear that?’ Yerolemew asked.

  ‘Hear what?’ asked Domor.

  Yerolemew frowned. ‘Like a… whistle. A note. High pitched.’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘You’ve spent too many years standing beside the full brass section,’ said Domor.

  ‘You really can’t hear that?’ Yerolemew asked.

  Bonin glanced around. He looked at the shot glasses standing on the table beside the bottle.

  ‘What, Mach?’ asked Kolea.

  Bonin reached out and placed his splayed hand down on the tops of the glasses.

  ‘They were vibrating,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it must’ve been that,’ said Yerolemew. ‘The sound’s gone now.’

  Bonin lifted his hand.

  ‘Now it’s back,’ said Yerolemew.

  ‘What the feth?’ said Domor. The sound made him uncomfortable. It reminded him of something he’d heard recently.

  ‘My, uh, ears itch,’ said Baskevyl. ‘What the gak is going on?’

  Meryn hurried in. ‘Commissar Fazekiel wants you,’ he said to Baskevyl.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Something’s going on. She said amber status. She’s spooked about something.’

  ‘What?’ said Domor in surprise.

  ‘Amber?’ asked Kolea. ‘On what grounds?’

  Meryn shrugged mutely.

  ‘Let’s get some control back into this situation, please,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Come on! Act like you know what you’re doing. Get the retinue calmed down and secure, get the companies stood to. Shoggy, find that Munitorum work crew and ask them if they know what the problem is. Yerolemew, send a runner upstairs and find out if this is just us or the whole palace. And get them to advise Daur we seem to have a situation down here. Gol, Mach, with me–’

  The lights went out again.

  Th
is time, they did not come back on.

  She’d been thinking about it all the while Biota had quizzed Marshal Tzara about the integrity of the bridges and causeways serving the Zarakppan and Clantine canals.

  Dalin had been waiting for her outside the showerblock. Standing guard at the door to protect her modesty. As she’d stepped into the shower pen, she’d heard his voice through the door. Dalin speaking to someone.

  It was so vague. Just a partial memory she didn’t feel she could trust.

  But the other person had sounded like Captain Meryn.

  ‘I’m sure this can wait,’ said Relf.

  ‘I’m not sure of anything,’ said Merity. ‘But Commissar Fazekiel said to report anything to her. Anything at all.’

  ‘But now?’ asked Relf, following Merity down the steep stone staircase into the undercroft.

  Merity turned to her.

  ‘Can I ask?’ she said. ‘Do I take orders from you, or do you simply follow me where ever I go?’

  ‘Uhm, the latter,’ replied the large Tempestus Scion.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Merity, and continued on her way.

  They reached the bottom of the steps and followed the white-washed corridor into the chambers of the palace undercroft. Merity glimpsed the billets of the retinue, through side arches. There seemed to be some general agitation.

  ‘It smells down here,’ said Relf.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Merity said. ‘Let’s ask someone where Fazekiel is billetted.’

  They turned a corner and Merity recoiled. The hallway floor ahead was awash with drain water. It wasn’t just standing water. The frothy waste was spilling towards her rapidly, as if it was being fed gallons at a time by some serious leak or overflow.

  ‘Come on,’ said Relf.

  The lights went out.

  Merity froze. She heard voices crying out from the billet halls in alarm.

  ‘There is one circumstance in which you take orders from me,’ Relf said in the darkness behind her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Get behind me and do what I say.’

  ‘You have, honoured one, no active knowledge of the Anarch’s whereabouts?’ asked Van Voytz.

  ‘No,’ replied the Beati.

  ‘Or any views as to his plan of attack?’ Van Voytz added.

  ‘No,’ said the Beati.

  ‘But he lives still?’

  ‘He lives, Lord General,’ she said.

  Van Voytz stood back and glanced at Gaunt. The three of them were standing at a strategium desk in a privacy-screened gallery room overlooking the war room. Kazader and the Beati’s deputies were with them. Sanctus and his Scions stood guard outside.

  Gaunt wasn’t sure what was wrong. The Beati could be unpredictable, but in the last ten minutes, her manner had become distracted and remote. He knew she was tired. He could see it. She’d come straight from the Oureppan fight. He wished they could give her time to ­recuperate, but synchronising intel was a priority.

  Gaunt turned to Captain Auerben. ‘You’ve brought reports from Oureppan?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Executor,’ Auerben replied. ‘Full field accounts from the victory and subsequent miracle at Ghereppan, and supplementary command reports and pict records from the raid on Pinnacle Spire.’

  ‘Then let’s upload and review those at least,’ said Van Voytz. ‘And maybe we should bring in Blackwood and Urienz?’

  ‘Let’s run through it first,’ Gaunt said. ‘Then we’ll brief high command as a group. Blackwood and Urienz have got plenty to be getting on with.’

  Gaunt looked at the Beati.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him. He was surprised by the distance in her eyes.

  ‘I think I hear a voice,’ she said very quietly. ‘Nagging at my head. His voice. Scratching…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ibram,’ she said. ‘A shadow is falling. Something bad is about to happen.’

  ‘An attack?’ asked Gaunt.

  ‘No,’ said the Saint. ‘It’s already in here with us.’

  Olort led the way into the record chambers. It looked like an old library space that had been requisitioned for the Sons of Sek. Packson scribes worked at the old wooden desks, scraping bare the pages of old shipping ledgers so that they could be reused as palimpsests.

  There was no electronic activity or apparatus. The dark, high-ceilinged rooms were lit only by candles and wick-lamps.

  ‘I want information about prisoners,’ Mkoll whispered to Olort.

  ‘Prisoners?’

  ‘You’ve brought plenty here. There will be lists.’

  Olort looked dubious.

  ‘When we’ve found that, maps and charts. Plans of the whole Fastness.’

  ‘You sound like an etogaur planning a campaign,’ said Olort.

  ‘Maybe I am.’

  ‘You also sound like a hopeless fool.’

  ‘Humour this fool, and the fool won’t kill you.’

  Olort spoke to two of the sirdars, and was directed to a side room. It was a small space, lined with shelves, with high windows facing the hollow mountain’s interior lagoon. There was a maritime desk, with an empty crystal decanter on a silver tray. Mkoll fancied this had once been the office of the port master or a shipping baron.

  Mkoll pushed the heavy door shut.

  ‘Here?’ he asked.

  Olort turned to the half-empty shelves. The books were all old, leather-bound ledgers. Fresh labels marked with the spiked symbols of the archenemy had been glued to their spines. Mkoll unbuckled his helmet and took it off.

  Olort pulled a volume from the shelf, set it on the desk, and opened it.

  ‘This one,’ he said.

  Mkoll moved closer to look. He placed the helmet on the desk beside the ledger, nodding at Olort to stand back.

  The pages of the ledger had been treated and scraped to remove the old ink. Faint ghosts of the original writing remained. Over the top, fresh script had been added, the jagged characters of the Archonate’s tribal tongues. Symbols adorned the margins of the palimpsest, and in some places great effort had gone into the decoration of the words and letters that began chapters or sections. Illuminated images, rendered in different coloured inks, sometimes with a hint of gold leaf or egg tempera. Beasts with horns and wings and cloven hooves peered out from the shadows behind the large capital characters.

  ‘It will be meaningless to you, kha?’ Olort asked, amused.

  It was dense, and the script hard to read. But a year on Gereon had taught Oan Mkoll more than the rudiments of the spoken language. He began to turn the old pages, running his finger along. He found lists. Pages of lists, with details beside what seemed to be names.

  ‘That word means “captives”, doesn’t it?’ he asked.

  Olort nodded.

  ‘This gives names. These are Imperial names. Here, location of capture. The names of the Imperial units the men belonged to, where given.’

  ‘We are thorough,’ said Olort.

  ‘There must be a thousand names here,’ Mkoll said. ‘And this word, this indicates induction? Or a willingness to be inducted?’

  Olort stepped closer and looked at the pages.

  ‘Kha,’ he said. ‘Those willing are held here…’

  He slid his finger across the page.

  ‘…the holding spaces beneath the chapter house. These others, they are resistant but promising. Otherwise, we would not have brought them here. They are held in the livestock compound.’

  ‘A thousand or more…’ murmured Mkoll, reading on.

  ‘Do you suppose you have an army, Ghost?’ Olort asked, smiling broadly. ‘Is that your hopeless plan? To release them? Then what? Mobilise them to fight? Stage a revolt within the Fastness?’

  ‘A thousand men
is a thousand men,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘A thousand starving men, unarmed. Beaten. Defeated. A thousand traitor sons of the Emperor. They would not follow you. And even if they did, they would accomplish very little. Unarmed men? Broken men? If this is your plan, you are no etogaur. I say again, give up, Mah-koll. Let me deliver you. You are alone at the heart of my Anarch’s bastion. The sons of the pack surround you. Give me the skzerret and discard these hopeless dreams.’

  Mkoll ignored him. He skimmed on through the pages.

  ‘Nen, I see it now,’ Olort said. ‘Not an army. A distraction. Kha, kha… a distraction. That’s what you plan. Prisoners released, chaos and confusion. Mayhem. You care not for the lives of these captives. You would use them. Use their lives as cover for your own activities. But not escape. You would have tried that long before now. Not escape, but…’

  He looked at Mkoll sharply.

  ‘You have come to kill,’ said Olort, his eyes wide. ‘Nen mortekoi, ger tar Mortek. These words you said to me. You see your fate as an opportunity.’

  Mkoll continued to ignore him. He was reading on, and had come upon a small separate section divided from the other lists.

  ‘Enkil vahakan. That’s what you called me. Those who hold the key of victory. There are three names here.’

  ‘So?’ asked Olort with a sneer.

  ‘Held aboard the ship,’ Mkoll said. He peered closer to read the three names. He blinked in genuine surprise. ‘Feth,’ he murmured.

  Olort lunged. The old crystal decanter smashed across the side of Mkoll’s head and hurled Mkoll across the desk face-first. He rolled, blood streaming down his neck, shards of broken crystal falling off him, and dropped to the floor. Helmet and ledger fell off the desk with him.

  Olort ripped the skzerret out of his hand.

  ‘Help me here!’ Olort roared in the enemy tongue. ‘Help me here! Intruder! Intruder!’

  Nine: Bad Shadow

  Olort stabbed down with the ritual blade. Mkoll was blinded by his own blood, which was pouring out of the scalp wound the decanter had left. His head was spinning.