team of Bluebloods.
'Bit of a fight,' Corbec said. 'Some fething thing came out of the dark.'
Gaunt didn't want to know any more. This was no time for fierce reprimands. He had to keep the whole unit tight and together. He keyed his micro-bead. 'Gaunt to brigade. We're advancing, double time. Spearhead formation. Tanith First platoon and half the Volpone unit at the point. Take your direction from Scout-Trooper Mkoll. Everyone else, watch the flanks and the rear. Inquisitor Lilith instructs that warp-spawn could appear around or among us at any time. Don't hesitate; shoot. Sergeant Lerod, take a six-man drill and guard the back of the formation. All commanders acknowledge understanding of these orders and signal readiness.'
A chatter of responses came back swiftly. Raglon, monitoring them with the vox-caster, nodded to Gaunt that all the brigade had signalled in.
Gaunt hadn't finished. The devoted Tanith had made his commissarial duties easy these last few years. But now they were in thick, spooked, and the company was mixed with troopers he didn't know or even trust. Morale, discipline – the watchwords of the commissariat. He thought back to his training at the Schola Progenium, to his field apprenticeship as a cadet under Oktar. He took the speaker horn of the vox-set from Raglon.
'I won't pretend this will be easy. But it is vital. Vital to Imperial success on this world, vital perhaps to the entire Crusade. The enemy and their ambitions will be denied, if it takes every spark of our lives and every drop of our blood. We fight for the Emperor today, fight as if we were standing at his side as his chosen bodyguard. Protect the men to your left and right as if they were the Emperor himself. Do not slacken, do not falter. Victory awaits you, and if not victory, then the glory of a brave death in service to the Golden Throne of Terra. The Emperor will provide, if you are true. His hand guides us, his eyes watch over us, and even in death he will bring us to him and we shall sit in splendour at his side beyond the Eternity Gate.
'For Lost Tanith, for Mighty Volpone, for Imperial Earth… advance!'
Like a single, lithe entity, the brigade swept up the escarpment, pushing onwards into the jagged hills as the storm shook the world around them. Blueblood and Ghost moved in perfect, trained order together, all animosities set aside. Gaunt smiled as he observed the tight drilled formation of his own, and was suitably impressed that it was matched by the bulky Volpone elite. Every now and then, las-shots sang out from the vanguard as warp-things were sighted and dispatched.
Lilith moved with him. She slid a plasma pistol out from under her cloak and charged it with a flick of her black-gloved hands. 'Good speech,' she grinned at him. 'Got them motivated. Oktar trained you well.'
'You've checked up on me. My background.'
'I'm an inquisitor, Gaunt. What do you expect? I enquire.'
'And what are you really inquiring about here on Monthax?' he asked curtly.
'What do you mean?'
'I'm no psyker, but I read people well enough. This is about more than victory here, more than the successful prosecution of psyker-deviants in our forces. You have an agenda.'
She flashed a smile at him. 'No mystery, Ibram. Back on the Sanctity, I told you. Bulledin had reported back to us because it was suspected some powerful psyker component might be at work here. We thought that it was the enemy itself, that we were in for a mind-war. But now, this ruin. The foe embark on an advance, ignoring us completely, and seem hell-bent on taking that place. You've got to wonder why. You've got to believe that there's something very valuable up there.'
'Something that caused this storm?'
She shrugged. 'Or something that made them cause this storm to cover their movement towards it. But I think your guess is probably more likely.'
'And that's what you want?'
'It's my duty, Ibram. And I don't think I need to explain that concept to one of the Imperium's best commissars.'
'Don't try distracting me with flattery. Give me some idea what you mean by 'something valuable'.'
Think back to Menazoid Epsilon. I told you, I checked your background thoroughly. As an inquisitor, I got to look at some very classified reports. You know what was at stake there.'
Gaunt was wary. 'You're talking about technology? Artefacts?'
She nodded. 'It could be.'
'Ancient human? Alien?'
Lilith produced something from her pocket. 'Mkoll found this. He dug it out of a tree stump at a battle site just before the storm hit. You tell me what you think it means.'
She held up the metal star with the sharpened points. Gaunt stared at it with dark comprehension.
'Now you know as much as I do.'
The brigade moved down a deep defile into a tree-sheltered vale that blocked the raging storm partially for the first time. Gaunt was becoming numb with the incessant wind and rain, and knew his men must be too. It was a blessed, temporary relief to move through the deep gorge with its almost cathedral-like arches of ancient cattails and clopeas, where rain arrested by the leaf canopy simply drooled down to the ground in long, slow, sappy streams. The storm raged, muffled, far above them.
Gaunt moved up to Mkoll at the point of the formation. Still on track?'
Mkoll nodded. 'Like I said, I couldn't lose the trail now if I wanted to.'
'Like coming home, you said,' Gaunt reminded him. Mkoll closed his eyes and saw Eiloni just ahead, beckoning him back to the farmstead. She was whispering promises of a hot supper, and of rowdy boys ready for one of their father's fireside tales before bed. 'You have no idea, commissar.'
The advancing tide of Chaos warriors only stopped when the numbers of their dead choked the passageway.
Rawne ordered his platoon back and they hauled a set of double doors closed, barring them to seal the tunnel.
