Anarch - Dan Abnett Read online

‘We are,’ the first one said. ‘Pilgrims come to the side of the Saint.’

  ‘Pilgrims getting in the way,’ muttered Maggs. ‘This is a war zone.’

  ‘We walk where she walks, and go where she goes,’ said one of the esholi.

  ‘This is no place for you–’ Maggs began.

  ‘That’s enough, Maggs,’ said Criid. ‘How many more of you in here? More out the back? No? Then come on out.’

  They led them back onto the street. The esholi blinked at the daylight and shivered.

  ‘We cannot escort you,’ said Criid, ‘but head that way. Head west. When you reach the main thoroughfare, turn north. There’s an aid station in Faylin Square. Move quickly. Don’t look back.’

  The esholi nodded. One tried to give Criid a sprig of islumbine. She refused it, and urged them on their way.

  ‘Who walks into a war?’ Maggs asked as he watched the ayatani move away.

  ‘I heard the fleet was having trouble with pilgrim ships,’ said Ifvan. ‘They’re trying to keep them off-world, and most ships haven’t got the vittals to stay in orbit.’

  ‘How do they even know she’s here?’ asked Mkvan.

  ‘Same reason we’re here doing this fething stupid job,’ said Criid. ‘Faith in something bigger than ourselves.’

  Maggs had raised his weapon.

  ‘More of them,’ he said.

  Across the street, another group of pilgrims had appeared from cover. There were more than twenty of them, wearing the blue robes, lugging bundles of possessions. Apparently encouraged by the sight of Criid’s team allowing the other pilgrims to pass, they had come out of cover to refill their water-flasks from the broken fountain. They were all small and thin, stooped with age and fatigue. They reminded Criid of birds coming to drink.

  ‘Fething idiots,’ said Criid.

  ‘I’ll move ’em on, captain,’ said Maggs. He crossed the street. Criid could see the confidence coming back into him. He’d taken a knock, but she’d made him push on. Now they’d saved a few lives, some tally in his head was beginning to even out. He was more like his old self, the smart-mouthed Wes Maggs who’d spit in the eye of anyone, including death.

  More like his old self, she thought, but not whole. The kids with their empty stares and bloody faces would haunt him from now on. Another piece of a good man chipped away.

  ‘You cannot stay here,’ Maggs said to the esholi around the fountain. They looked at him silently.

  ‘You have to move,’ he said. ‘Get walking, that way. That way.’

  ‘Will you kill us, soldier?’ asked the leader of the group. He straightened up slightly. He had some height when he wasn’t hunched over, but it was hard to determine his age. He was rail-thin and haggard, and his skin lined and weathered, from long pilgrimages outdoors and meagre rations.

  ‘No,’ said Maggs. ‘No, I won’t. Just get moving. Get your things and move that way. Head west. What’s your name?’

  ‘Hadrel,’ said the man. His eyes were as oddly flat and lightless as his tone.

  ‘You’re an ayatani?’

  ‘I am Hadrel.’

  ‘You need to get your group to move, father. You understand? Fast as you can. Off this street, head west.’

  Hadrel glanced at his followers. They picked up their things and began to walk.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Maggs. ‘Off you go.’

  Criid walked over to him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘With them?’ Maggs asked, gesturing to the departing pilgrims. ‘Shell-shock, I’ll bet. They were just weird with me. Like they didn’t care.’

  ‘They’ve probably been through shit,’ said Criid. ‘And since when were ayatani not weird? You’ve met Zweil?’

  Maggs smiled.

  ‘They’re alive, Maggs,’ said Criid. ‘When they get food inside them and their wits together, they’ll offer thanks to the trooper who pointed them to safety.’

  The House of Ghentethi sat halfway up the hill where Vapourial Quarter became Albarppan Quarter. It was a substantial manse made of worked ouslite, its street windows tall and blue. To the rear of its significant plot lay adjoining manufactory buildings and craft halls, high roofed and raised from local stone. Chrome chimneys vented from the furnace hall.

  The house had survived the recent conflict in the district unscathed, but the Ghentethi had not so successfully weathered the past few generations. They had once been one of the most significant dynastic claves on Urdesh, lay-tech makers allied to the might of the Mechanicus. Their power had dwindled during the long years of the war as the Mechanicus relied less and less on the machine shops of the dynastic claves. Ghentethi holdings had reduced from three dozen properties of shop halls in the southern districts of Eltath to this one little fortress of industry, manufacturing bayonets, buckles and focus rings for the Urdeshi regiments.

  In the main salon, the rain against the street windows washed the chamber in blue, moving patterns, like the bottom of a pool. Jan Jerik, ordinate of the clave, prodded the fire in the huge, ornate stove with a poker, and then closed the grille. He eyed his guests warily. They had done eating and now sat in silence.

  Jan Jerik was a proud man, well-dressed in a dove-blue jacket and embroidered waistcoat. The silver keys and ciphers of his rank as ordinate hung around his neck on a long chain. His white shirt was high-collared, and the boss of his walking cane was the engine motif of his beloved clave.

  Jan Jerik had nursed doubts about the endeavour since its first whispered suggestion. But Ghentethi came before everything, and it was his duty as ordinate to ensure its prosperity and survival. Since the earliest days of the dynasts, clave-wars had been fought in all manner of ways, and open violence was the rarest form. Trade wars, espionage, assassination… these were the arsenals of the Urdeshi claves. Clave-loyalty, survival, wealth and knowledge were the touchstones. Despite its risks, and its distasteful aspects, the endeavour promised unprecedented trophies of wealth and knowledge for Clave Ghentethi. He would have been remiss, as ordinate, in ignoring the opportunity.

  He heard a knock from below, someone banging repeatedly against the street door. Jan Jerik nodded to a footman, and the footman hurried away to answer.

  ‘The last few,’ said the leader of his guests, rising to his feet. His accent was strong.

  ‘They will be made welcome, sir,’ said Jan Jerik, ‘as you were made welcome.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ replied Corrod.

  The footman returned, leading the visitors from below. They shuffled in, and stood, dripping wet, glancing around the high-ceilinged salon at the old murals.

  ‘This place is… secure?’ asked their leader.

  ‘Yes,’ said Corrod. ‘You’re the last to arrive.’

  ‘They’re sweeping the streets,’ said the new arrival. ‘Searching. Hunting.’

  ‘How close?’ asked Jan Jerik nervously.

  ‘We’ll be gone before they arrive to search your property, ordinate,’ said Corrod. ‘Provided everything is in place as you promised.’

  ‘It is,’ said Jan Jerik. ‘Everything that was requested.’

  ‘And the access?’

  ‘Remains open, sir,’ said Jan Jerik.

  ‘Do we have data?’ asked the leader of the new arrivals. ‘Reliable intelligence?’

  Jan Jerik took a packet of documents from inside his embroidered waistcoat. He unfolded them and spread them on a small side table. Corrod and the leader of the new arrivals looked over his shoulder.

  ‘We believe the location is here,’ said Jan Jerik, pointing to a section of the hand-drawn map.

  ‘We?’ asked Corrod.

  ‘Information supplied by agents of my clave,’ said Jan Jerik.

  ‘There is certainty?’ asked the leader of the new arrivals.

  ‘Nothing direct,’ replied Jan Je
rik. ‘The Mechanicus, and the other organs of the Imperial machine, keep such data secret. Their belligerent confidences are, of course, part of the problem–’

  ‘Keep to the point,’ said Corrod. ‘We understand your grievance, ordinate. You help us, and we secure you a better future.’

  Jan Jerik nodded. He hadn’t known what to expect of his guests, but Corrod and his companions, and now the newcomers, seemed simply disappointing. Thin and shrivelled, unwashed and stinking from days in the open. They seemed frail and exhausted, and quite unsuited to the task ahead. He was disheartened.

  ‘It is a matter of reading the hole in the available data,’ he said. ‘Movement and reassignment of specialist Mechanicus adepts from other facilities to this one. These transfers have been made since the arrival in the city of the warship Armaduke. Also, the classification of some data is specific to the ordos. So, by elimination, we can see… specialists moved to this location in the last few days. Higher classification to all data traffic relating to said location. They have masked what they are doing there, but we can see the mask. What you seek is there.’

  ‘By your estimation,’ said the leader of the new arrivals.

  ‘The likelihood is high, sir,’ said Jan Jerik. ‘For the bargain we are striking, I aim to be diligent in my part of it. I would say a ninety-five per cent likelihood. There is one other location that might have potential. Here. But this, we think, is not research or analysis. The facility is too small. Prisoner holding, is my guess. The traitor, the pheguth.’

  Corrod nodded. ‘The equipment?’ he asked.

  ‘Laid out, in the sub-levels,’ said Jan Jerik.

  ‘Well then,’ said Corrod. ‘We can begin. I’ll lead the effort here, at the primary target. You take the secondary one.’

  The leader of the new arrivals nodded.

  ‘We cover both possibilities,’ said Corrod. ‘If the second is the pheguth, then we win some justice.’

  He looked at the new arrivals.

  ‘Take off those damned robes. Burn them.’

  The men stripped off their wet, blue silk garments, and pushed past Jan Jerik to stuff them in the mouth of the iron stove.

  ‘Are you ready, sirdar?’ Corrod asked.

  ‘Yes, my damogaur,’ replied Hadrel. ‘His voice commands us, and we obey, for his voice drowns out all others.’

  Five: Leaving Sadimay

  The cloister air smelled of burning: burning history, burning faith, burning tradition. Packsons were in the record house and librarium of the old Basilica, sweeping books off the shelves and bundling them onto bonfires that had been lit in the low stone walk. Mkoll walked past them, his knife-hand pressed into the small of Olort’s back, guiding him. His instructions had been plain, and he’d made them in Olort’s language: draw attention to me and you’re the first to die.

  Some of the packsons even threw ritual salutes – the hand across the mouth – to the damogaur and his sirdar as they passed. The sirdar’s uniform was a barely adequate fit. The man had been both taller and broader than Mkoll. But the chief scout made a few adjustments, hoping that dirt and drying blood would cover any discrepancies, and besides, the uniform discipline of the Sons of Sek never seemed that precise to him. They all looked like a mob of filthy, ragged barbarians to him, wasteland raiders who cared little if a button or epaulette was out of place, or a pair of boots unpolished.

  But what did he know? He was Imperial bred. He understood and recognised the uniform codes of the Astra Militarum in all its variation. He could tell a Throne trooper from a non-Throne at a glance because of cultural familiarity. But the packs were not his heritage. This ruined island, this world, was no longer his culture. He was deep in the heart of the Archenemy, deeper than he had been on Gereon. What nuances was he supposed to notice, what details might he miss with his ­unfamiliar eyes? He found himself working obsessively about details. The mud on men’s boots, the blood stains on their patched tunics. Was that just random, just dirt? Or was there some deliberate significance… marks daubed or smeared to signify something?

  How was he giving himself away? The customs and habits of the Sanguinary Tribes, from whose far-rimward feral worlds Sek and that bastard Gaur drew their forces, were entirely alien to him.

  Mkoll fancied that when, inevitably, he was finally discovered, it would be some ridiculously small detail that would give him way. Some tiny Sanguinary custom that he couldn’t possibly have known.

  As they walked along the cloisters, he decided it might be the helmet. He’d buckled it across his face, the foul-tasting leather mask across his nose and mouth. Tanned human hide, a boneless hand, a trophy turned into a chin-strap that symbolised the Sons of Sek’s gesture of humility to their Anarch. That was it. The touch of it against his mouth made him gag. He’d tear it off to be free of it, unmask himself, and be revealed.

  They walked out onto a colonnade that overlooked the Basilica’s harbour. The hillside below the Basilica plunged away almost sheer to the docks and stone-built ware barns below. Mkoll made Olort stop beside the low ouslite wall, and looked out.

  The day was grey. There was rain in the air. Thirty kilometres ahead of him, across the unwelcoming waters of the strait, lay the mainland, the industrial shorelines and dingy habs of south-west Eltath.

  That was where they’d brought him from.

  He couldn’t see the city itself. Its bulk, and the massive rise of the city mound and the palace mount were lost behind weather and wind-drawn banners of smoke. The fighting in those south-western wards had been intense. Whole areas were on fire, and the smoke plumes dragged back across the sky for kilometres, dense and dark.

  It looked so close. The strait looked swimmable. But he knew the scale was deceiving him. A thirty kilometre crossing, in sub-zero water, with strong currents. If he made that, which he wouldn’t, then it was another forty kilometres on foot through the industrial zones of the Dynastic Claves before he even reached the formal outskirts of Eltath. And that was all enemy ground, held by the Sons of Sek. Even the city fringes were disputed.

  Mkoll changed his view. The great black crags and hilltop Basilica of Sadimay Island stood to his right, but over its rugged shoulder, he saw the hazed waters of the channel, and the mauve shapes of other islands. He searched his memory, trying to recall the overheads of charts he’d seen during briefings in the last few weeks. His focus had been on Eltath and its maze of streets and quarters. He’d paid little attention to what lay outside, the greater clave zones, the industrial heartlands, the neighbouring forge-towns. He knew the Strait ran from the bottom of the Great Bay of Eltath southwards, and was a major shipping channel. It separated the island chain from the mainland. Sadimay was one of the principal islands because of its religious centre. There had once been regular ferry links for pilgrims and forge devotees. But it was just one of many. The whole planet was blistered with islands in chains and groups and archipelagos, most of them volcanic. Sadimay was just one of hundreds in this particular chain, some closely spaced, divided by much narrower channels, no more than a couple of kilometres in places. Might he find sanctuary there, perhaps? Just for a while. Get himself to one of the small islands, something the Sons of Sek regarded as strategically unimportant, and just wait it out?

  Was that even what he wanted to do?

  Mkoll had an idea, a notion, and it made him fret to even think of it. Did it come from madness, or desperation, or some higher calling? He’d never believed in that last thing much, so he put it down to desperation.

  He looked down at the small harbour. The island’s little port was swarming. Watercraft were coming inshore in small fleets, some staying off-station while they waited for quaysides to clear. They were laden with Archenemy troops withdrawing from the mainland or bringing more Imperial captives to Sadimay for processing.

  But the agriboats and barges were loading again as fast as they emptied. The enemy was in the process of ab
andoning Sadimay too. Packed tight and low in the water with the weight of men and vehicles, the barges were leaving the dockside and chugging out into the Strait, turning south on slow, steady curves of wake water.

  Turning right. Heading towards the channel into the island chain.

  Mkoll reached for Olort. The movement made the damogaur flinch.

  ‘Be calm,’ Mkoll hissed in the enemy tongue. He fished Olort’s field glasses from his belt pouch.

  He scanned the harbour, resolving greater detail through the small, grimy glasses. Miserable huddles of prisoners on the wharf, waiting to be loaded for transport. So they’d kept some alive, and were shipping them into the islands. The prisoners were all Guard. Were they men who had turned? Had they been offered the same choice Olort had offered him, and said yes?

  If they were, then induction awaited them in the islands. Induction, and the pledging of their new loyalties. And you couldn’t pledge without there being someone present to pledge to.

  He loosened the vile chinstrap, and wiped his mouth. Who? An etogaur? A senior chieftain? Someone more significant than that?

  He panned the glasses around again. At the north end of the docks, he saw a cluster of small craft tied up. Small cutters and jet-launches, and two or three skiff bikes.

  Small and fast. Just sitting there. One of those could get him across the Strait in less than an hour. A sirdar on a one-man skiff, carrying confidential orders to officers on the mainland. Maybe he could pull that off. Maybe he could get down there, commandeer one of the jet-launches, and get clear.

  Maybe he could even get as far as the harbour mouth before someone challenged him and the shore batteries began tracking to blow him out of the water.

  It was a chance. It was as slim as a fething knife-blade, but that was the sort of chance he’d dealt with his whole life.

  ‘Planning flight?’

  Mkoll glanced at Olort. The damogaur was staring at him in vague amusement.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said.

  ‘You wouldn’t get far, Ghost,’ Olort said. ‘Someone would notice.’