Anarch - Dan Abnett Read online

  Nessa explained in clear, anatomically precise terms what high command might do with their expertise. Larkin chuckled, and slid along to the next window gap.

  ‘We’ll get relief,’ he said, ‘sooner or later.’ He set up again, training his weapon, peering with an unblinking eye through the powerful scope.

  ‘Caober?’ he voxed.

  ‘Go.’

  ‘We can’t deliver from here.’

  ‘Understood. Maggs is moving left of the target.’

  Larkin adjusted his aim.

  ‘I see him, chief,’ he whispered. ‘Tell him if he follows that alley, it’ll bring him around to the back of the walled court behind the target site.’

  ‘Keep your eyes on him,’ Caober replied over the link.

  The alley was high-walled and almost ankle-deep in water and debris. Maggs moved at the head of his team, lasrifle up to his cheek and aimed. He made a series of quick, clear hand signals to the Ghosts behind him.

  Gate. Go around me. Either side.

  They stole around him, weapons trained on the old wooden gate in the yard’s high wall. The gate was the only access. Going over the wall would draw fire from the building.

  Maggs pointed to Gansky, signalled ‘kick it in’ and then raised three fingers to count him down.

  ‘Maggs, hold position!’

  Maggs froze. He adjusted his micro-bead.

  ‘Larkin?’ he whispered.

  ‘Hold position,’ Larkin replied over the vox-link. ‘I’ve got a view into that yard. Definite movement behind the wall.’

  ‘I read that,’ said Maggs. He glanced at his squad, and pulled a grenade from his musette bag.

  ‘I request, not for the first time,’ said Rawne, ‘permission to withdraw the Tanith First from this line.’

  ‘I’m not unsympathetic, colonel,’ said Major Maupin. ‘But the lord general’s orders are specific. The Tanith must hold here for a while longer.’

  Rawne looked the Narmenian officer up and down. Maupin’s clothes were clean, and he’d had a shave that morning. A few hours earlier, he’d been asleep in a bed somewhere. Probably the Urdeshic Palace.

  ‘We held this line and took a bruising,’ Rawne said. ‘Now you’re here to reinforce. It’s time to rotate us out.’

  Rawne looked at the signal the Narmenian had handed him again. A direct communique from Lord General Grizmund. Raindrops flicked and tapped the flimsy paper.

  They were standing in a street in the Millgate Quarter, under the shadow of the now silent Tulkar Batteries. It had been the scene of the heaviest fighting against the Sons of Sek four days earlier. From the seawall and esplanade, the edge of the city was a mess of burned and bombed habs and manufactories, through the tight warren of Millgate Quarter south-east into the mercantile districts of Vapourial and Albarppan. Smog rolled in from the sea in the heavy rain, and behind the fume of petrochemical smoke that made the sky seem oppressively low, huge fires burned to the south of them in the Northern Claves, as though pit-gates down to the inferno had opened up.

  Maupin’s column had arrived ten minutes before. His line of Vanquishers and Conquerors stood waiting on the esplanade highway, tailing back into the upper streets of Millgate, engines idling.

  ‘Grizmund has command of this theatre, does he?’ Rawne asked.

  ‘Lord Grizmund does, yes,’ Major Maupin said, stressing the ‘lord’ gently to correct Rawne’s lack of protocol. ‘Staff has charged him with the securement of the south-western line in advance of further enemy assault.’

  ‘So secure it, sir,’ said Rawne. ‘You’ve brought your big guns and everything.’

  Maupin smiled.

  ‘The lord general’s approach is two-pronged. To secure these quarters of the city, house-to-house, using infantry, and to advance the armour into the Northern Claves and hammer a proper pushback against any remaining enemy forces holding there.’

  ‘My Ghosts are tired,’ said Rawne. ‘They were in the thick of it four days ago. We drove the bastards back. They haven’t slept since.’

  ‘Resources are stretched,’ replied Maupin. ‘We are awaiting reinforcements. You are a vital infantry asset.’

  ‘You withdrew the Helixid.’

  ‘In part.’ Maupin sighed. He looked at the tired and filthy Ghosts standing around them, watching, and drew Rawne aside.

  ‘In all candour,’ he said quietly, ‘the Helixid forces are competent at best.’

  ‘They broke here,’ said Rawne.

  ‘They did. It’s been noted. Inquiries will follow. Your Ghosts, colonel, are a prestige unit. Famously specialised. Lord Grizmund knows you of old, I gather, and values your abilities. You might consider this a compliment.’

  ‘Doesn’t feel like one,’ said Rawne.

  ‘I’m sure it doesn’t, right now. We have signals of assurance that brigades of Urdesh, Keyzon and Vitrians will move up to relieve you in the next thirty hours. The Urdeshi will be on station before that, in fact. Look, colonel, the First Lord Executor gave Lord Grizmund this command personally. The two of them have a history, you know that. And your Ghosts are the Lord Executor’s personal regiment. Lord Grizmund wants people he can trust to keep this line tight. And he trusts Gaunt’s Ghosts.’

  ‘Major,’ said Rawne, ‘you keep making everything sound like it’s doing us a favour and bestowing an honour on us. Gaunt would have pulled us out of here long since.’

  ‘The Lord Executor has delegated zone command to Lord Grizmund, and Lord Grizmund has chosen the Lord Executor’s elite troops to assist him in this endeavour.’

  Rawne sighed and nodded.

  ‘Then…’ he said. ‘Signal received. Happy hunting, major.’

  ‘You too, colonel,’ Maupin replied as he walked back to his waiting tank.

  Colonel. That still sat uneasily with Rawne. He wandered back to the waiting Ghost squads.

  ‘We’ve been delegated,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ asked Ludd.

  ‘Skip it,’ said Rawne. ‘We’re holding this quarter for now. Another thirty hours.’

  They tramped into the partial shelter of a damaged manufactory. Rain pattered down through sections of missing roof. Oysten, Rawne’s adjutant, had spread area maps out on a printmaker’s table.

  ‘We’re stretched thin,’ remarked Elam.

  ‘I know,’ said Rawne.

  ‘The armour could clear this zone out in a couple of hours,’ said Obel.

  ‘The tanks are moving south,’ said Rawne.

  ‘And this area is still inhabited,’ said Ludd. ‘We can’t just flatten it.’

  ‘Update on that?’ Rawne asked.

  ‘These quarters were not evacuated before the assault began, sir,’ said Major Pasha. ‘There are hundreds of citizens and workers cowering in these ruins, waiting to get out. They’ve been sheltering in basements and whatever. Now the shelling has stopped, they are emerging. Short of water, food, medical supplies.’

  ‘Our sweeps are making contact with them all the time,’ said Obel. ‘They’re risking exposure because they can’t stay where they are any more. We’re sending all we find into the city, to the nearest waypoints. There are camps in Gaelen that can take them.’

  ‘Which makes our job harder,’ said Varl. ‘Any contact we encounter on the sweeps could be a friendly. Could be women, kids. We’re holding ourselves in check, every building we clear, every door we kick–’

  ‘I know,’ said Rawne.

  ‘Which means no flamers,’ said Brostin, as if this was the biggest disappointment of his life.

  ‘I feel your pain,’ said Rawne. He stared at the map and scratched at a scab on his chin. It was a mess. Even before the recent assault, the city of Eltath had been porous. The Tanith had found that out to their cost at the Low Keen billet. There were insurgent forces inside the city, either Sek soldiers moving
in unseen or sympathisers already embedded in bolt-holes. The recent fighting had left the Millgate and Vapourial Quarters even more penetrable. Add to that, enemy units that had been left behind or detached during the withdrawal.

  And the withdrawal itself. Rawne’s mind kept coming back to that. The Ghosts and other Imperial defence forces had held off the full-on assault. A victory to be proud of. Except, they shouldn’t have won. The Archenemy had fielded significantly superior numbers, backed by armour momentum against thinly stretched and hastily prepared defence lines. Despite extraordinary individual actions by Ghosts like Pasha and her anti-tank teams, the marksmen, and – Throne rest him – Mkoll, the outcome should have been decisive in favour of the Anarch’s forces. Millgate should have broken. The batteries should have been overrun. Eltath should have been opened up.

  But the Archenemy had, suddenly, fallen back. Not in defeat. By choice. A deliberate retreat.

  As if, Rawne thought, they had achieved their objective.

  The thought troubled him. He knew it troubled his officers too, and hoped it troubled staff, and the lords general, and even his newly crowned excellency the First Lord Executor. Sek was a wickedly ­cunning bastard. He’d done something, and they had no idea what it was. He’d had a knife to the Imperial throat, and he’d taken it away without finishing the slice.

  ‘Because the knife was a distraction,’ Rawne murmured to himself.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Varl.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Rawne. He wanted to know. To figure it out, he had to try to think like a Sek packson, and that was something he didn’t relish. Archenemy tactics on Urdesh had been incomprehensible from the very start of the campaign. It was like trying to play a game when no one had bothered to teach you the rules.

  Well, he was going to learn them. Lord Grizmund, one of the few senior commanders Rawne had any time for, had misjudged things. Operations in Millgate and Vapourial weren’t a simple matter of hold and secure. Though the main fighting had ceased, there was still a coordinated enemy action going on, as far as Rawne was concerned.

  He looked at the crumpled signal again. ‘Secure and hold south-western line – Millgate, Vapourial – and deny enemy action in zone.’

  When he’d dictated that order, Grizmund had clearly intended some hab-to-hab clearance, and the construction of more permanent defences, pickets and trenches. But it was open to interpretation. Rawne was good at interpretation. ‘Deny enemy action in zone.’ That was the choice phrase. The enemy was taking some kind of action, it just wasn’t obvious.

  Rawne had a gut feeling the Millgate assault had been a feint. Now he had specific orders to deny. He was going to follow them to the letter. There was intelligence to be gathered.

  He looked at the officers around the table.

  ‘We’ll focus on sweeps, building by building,’ he told them. ‘Systematic, area by area. Advise all to err on the side of caution.’

  ‘Because of the civilians–’ Ludd began.

  ‘No, commissar. I mean the opposite. If in doubt, shoot.’

  ‘But–’ Pasha began.

  ‘No arguments,’ said Rawne. ‘I think the Archenemy is all over this area. Hiding like rats in the rubble. I’m not talking about stragglers and survivors. I’m talking active units. They’re up to something. My orders are to deny.’

  Pasha looked grim. ‘We’re going to kill friendlies that way, sir,’ she said.

  ‘There may be some collateral,’ said Rawne. ‘Be clear to your squads. If in doubt, shoot.’

  ‘But–’ said Pasha.

  ‘How would the Ghosts take a city, major?’ Rawne asked. ‘Full on assault, or bleed in through the margins, probably while someone makes a very loud noise to draw attention from us?’

  Pasha lowered her head.

  ‘We thought we were fighting off the attack the other day,’ said Rawne. ‘I think the real attack is happening now. Shoot first. Make that explicit to all. I’m not letting them through this line just because we think the danger’s passed and we can go easy.’

  He walked down towards the esplanade. Elam and Obel followed him.

  ‘No one likes this,’ said Obel.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Rawne said.

  ‘So, should we–’ Elam began.

  ‘I’m colonel now, so just follow my fething orders,’ said Rawne.

  Zhukova was standing by the sea wall, staring out at the rusting shells of the agri-harvester boats. Rawne knew why she was there, and why the sight preoccupied her.

  She turned as she heard him approach.

  ‘Help you, sir?’ she asked.

  Rawne stood for a moment, staring at the rotting hulks.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ he said at last.

  ‘I fear he is,’ she replied.

  Rawne shook his head.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Zhukova asked.

  ‘Because there’s nothing in this fething galaxy that can kill Oan Mkoll,’ he replied.

  He looked at her.

  ‘He chose you for scout duties,’ he said. A statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Go find Caober and Vivvo. Spread the word in the scout units. I want one alive.’

  ‘One…?’

  ‘One of them. A Son of Sek. We need intel.’

  ‘And you expect to get that out of a captured Archenemy trooper?’ she asked.

  ‘You have no idea how persuasive I can be,’ he replied.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Tona Criid.

  Caober glanced at her sourly. ‘Non-combatants, sir,’ he said simply. He sighed and shrugged. Smoke was lifting off a small, walled yard beside the derelict habs ahead, and Criid could hear shouting and the misery of the stricken and wounded.

  ‘We were trying to clear that place,’ said Caober, gesturing to the hab. ‘Shooters in the higher floors. Larks got a bead on some movement in the yard, so Maggs tossed a grenade over the wall.’

  Criid could guess the rest. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. Civilians, hiding, trying to find shelter, caught in the crossfire. She watched the regiment corpsmen leading the injured out of the yard, men and women with burns and cuts from the shrapnel blast. They were sobbing, or wailing curses at the Ghosts. She saw children too. Nearby, she saw some Ghosts from Caober’s team unpacking bedrolls so they could be used to cover the dead still laying in the yard.

  It was only going to get worse. Rawne had just issued a ‘shoot first’ order.

  ‘They must’ve known the civilians were there,’ she said.

  ‘Mmm?’ asked Caober.

  ‘The shooters,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yeah. They knew,’ said Caober. ‘Made a nice little buffer for the bastards. Shoot at us from up top, get us to storm in and kill our own. Bastards.’

  He said the last word with a weary force that made Criid wince.

  ‘Where did they go?’ she asked. ‘The shooters? You clear the building?’

  ‘Of course, captain,’ Caober replied. ‘They’re gone. Off on their heels into the back streets while we were dealing with the injured.’

  Criid looked at the wounded children Lesp was trying to patch up. They were sitting in the rain, caked in dirt, glazed eyes looking into forever as the corpsman attempted to clean and close the gashes on their faces.

  ‘They can’t have gone far,’ said Criid. She hoisted her lasrifle. ‘You lot, with me.’

  The Ghosts she’d summoned moved in close to her, eyes dark.

  ‘You too, Maggs,’ she called.

  Maggs was leaning against the wall, smoking a lho-stick, staring at his boots.

  ‘Leave him be,’ Caober whispered to her. Criid ignored the scout. Going soft never worked. When a man was rattled, you got him back in the game as fast as you could.

  She could see Wes Maggs was struggling. H
e’d lobbed the grenade. The blood was on him.

  ‘Come on, Maggs,’ she called, beckoning, then turning away to show that she expected him to follow without her having to check.

  They filed down the alley and onto the adjacent street. Roof tiles covered the roadway like shed scales, and the rain drummed down. They hugged the left side of the street, checking the blown-out fronts of shops. Something had taken the top off the public fountain at the end of the street, and a broken pipe was jutting from the throat of a decapitated griffon, heaving a fat, irregular column of water into the air.

  Sergeant Ifvan signalled, indicating something across the street. Criid led the way, keeping three men back to supply cover. She reached the side wall of a low building that had once been some kind of street kitchen or eating hall. Criid could smell rotting food waste and rancid spilled fat. Ifvan and Maggs slid past her, weapons up and aimed.

  ‘Something in there,’ Ifvan whispered. Criid nodded. She noticed that Maggs’ index finger rested outside his trigger guard. He wasn’t going to shoot unless he was sure of a target.

  She edged into the dark interior, her weapon up to her cheek, grimacing at the smell of the place. The floor was covered in broken pots and beakers and dented tin plates. Trestle tables had been overturned. A chalkboard had been blown off one wall, and lay face up, revealing the prices and choices of the day’s offerings, simple meals for the district mill workers.

  She saw movement.

  ‘Hold!’ Maggs hissed.

  He shone his flashlight. She saw huddled figures, a flash of blue.

  ‘Come out!’ she called. ‘Right now!’

  There were six of them, ayatani priests in blue robes. They were dirty and soaked through, and looked at the Militarum troops with suspicion.

  ‘Praise be the Beati,’ mumbled one.

  ‘Praise be indeed,’ said Criid. ‘You sheltering here?’

  ‘We tried to move on, but there was shooting,’ said another.

  ‘You’re esholi?’ she asked.

  The ayatani looked at her in surprise. The term was quite obscure, and they hadn’t expected to hear it from an outworld Guardsman.