'Feygor was with me back then. Weren't you, Feygor?' Rawne said, nodding at his comrade.
'Aye, Rawne, aye.'
'Nice work, good returns, didn't want to give it up… but, feth take me for a chulan… I'm glad I did! feth the Golden Throne… thank the anroth I'm armed and ready to stand for Tanith at this dread hour!'
'We all thank the anroth for that, Rawne human,' Munnol replied.
They were out on the battlements now, enemy fire ripping over them. Colonel Munnol called to his Tanith soldiers, who looked around from the loopholes and crenellations where they had been firing down at the foe. White hair, streaked with red, thought Milo with a shudder. They all have white hair.
He thought he was going to be sick.
'Men of Dolthe!' Munnol exclaimed.
Dolthe? Dolthe? Where was that? Milo wondered.
'Our Kin arrive to fight with us! Major Rawne and other humans! Treat them well, they are resolute and with us to the end!'
A rousing cheer greeted Colonel Munnol's words.
Rawne ordered the Third in alongside the Tanith already in place, taking position and firing down into the stormy dark over the jagged lip of laser-chewed stonework.
Milo was about to take his place when he saw Larkin was cowering behind them all, crouched in the corner of the battlement away from the fight, clutching his sniper rifle and shaking uncontrollably.
Milo crossed to him. 'Larkin? What is it?'
'T-took a look through my scope… B-brin… they're not human!'
'What?' Milo felt his guts clench, but he wasn't going to give in.
'I know what I saw! Through my… my scope. It never lies. This big bastard Munnol and the rest! They're not… not Tanith!'
Milo snatched the sniper gun out of Larkin's wavering hands, and sighted it at Munnol, looking through the scope. The bead of the blue light beam kissed Munnol's drab camo-cloak like a tiny spotlight. Milo looked through the scope viewer, seeing Munnol as a ghost of blues and shadows.
Munnol, as if sensing the beam on him, turned to look back at Milo. Through the scope, Milo saw Munnol as he swung slowly around, his eyes hooked and slanted in his cold pale face. A second more, and those eyes became the visor slits of a great sculpted helmet of gleaming white armour, backed by a towering crest of red feathers. Munnol's grey fatigues became a tight suit of blue armour that locked majestically about his huge, powerful frame. The lasgun in his hands became a long, fluted lance weapon with a ridged, coiled pipe, silver vents and a beautiful inlay of chased pearl and gold. Munnol became quite the most frightening thing Milo had ever seen.
'Oh my Emperor…' he breathed. 'They're
Lilith's brigade broke from the gorge into a fan of lowlands where the jungle had vanished under sculptural folds of mud which had slid in vast curls down the slopes and obliterated everything in their path. The going was slower, the troops wading waist-deep in ochre slime in some places. Above the roar of the storm, the forward scouts could now pick up the sounds of massed combat from the valley beyond. Hashes of light backlit the hilltop, and it wasn't lightning.
Gaunt ordered battle readiness via an encrypted vox-burst, marshalling the Volpone heavyweights up the flank of the hill under Gilbear's lead and funnelling the Ghosts in two detachments led by Lerod and Corbec along the edge of the mud slip below. Gaunt and Lilith moved at the front of Corbec's band.
Mkoll had led them true. Round the curve of the hill, they got their first sight of the mound and its ruin – and the massed forces of the enemy surrounding it. Even prepared by Mkoll's description, Gaunt found the scale was immense. Thousands of enemy troops, some with heavy weapons, were swarming the mound's slopes and bombarding the great, dark edifice with a force stone had no right to resist. The entire scene was a flickering mess of fire-flashes and explosions. The wet air was pungent with blood and thermite.
The Guardsmen were engaging before they realised it. Gilbear's Bluebloods had come into the rear positions of enemy heavy weapons emplacements, and the crews were turning, startled, counter-attacking with close- quarter side arms. A moment later, and both detachments of Ghosts were hemmed in by Chaos units that peeled back from the main assault to face this surprise rear contact. Las-fire and bolt rounds seared a miserable light- streak criss-cross over the smooth mud flats.
Blasting with his bolt pistol, Gaunt saw a tiny opportunity: break and fall back now, or become locked irrevocably into the fighting.
He saw Gilbear's unit spill down the rise and fall upon the enemy weapon stations with a ferocious and admirable grace, overwhelming and slaughtering them in a matter of a minute or two. The powerful hellguns, supported by two grenade launchers and a plasma rifleman, ripped into the hindquarters of the guncrews' position and cut them down.
Gilbear haughtily voxed his success as his men took over control of the enemy weapons, turning missile launchers and field artillery on the ranks of the chaos army beyond. The Volpone Tenth Elite were damn good, Gaunt had to admit. Rotation training on all combat disciplines meant that they could take a gun post and then man that gun as surely and deftly as if they were dedicated artillery troops.
Gaunt knew the moment had gone. To break now would have left the Volpone alone. His choice was made for him. Battle was truly joined and there would be no respite.
The twin prongs of the Ghosts punched into the rear of the besiegers. Gilbear, tactically astute, turned the aim of captured guns down the turn of the valley and covered the Ghost push, creating huge breaks in the enemy's makeshift flanking manoeuvre. Shells whistled down under Gilbear's direction, pin-point accurate, throwing ribbons of mud, strands of foliage and pieces of Chaos troopers into the air not twenty metres in front of the advancing Ghosts.
The fighting was close range and white hot. Incredibly, but for a few grazes and glancing burns, Gaunt found his men suffered no casualties.
Within five minutes of first contact, the Imperials had cut a wedge into the enemy rearguard, made up half a
