kilometre of ground and slaughtered upwards of two hundred enemy troops, at no mortal cost.
Gilbear held the line as long as he could, but there came a point, mutually agreed between him and Gaunt over the vox-link, when the separation of the two small Imperial advances would become too great.
When the signal was given, the Bluebloods mined the gun emplacements and pushed on, scything a double- time advance to swing themselves in behind the Ghosts. 'Limed explosions, staggered and staggering, set off the emplacement munitions and excavated a new valley where a small plateau had been.
Into the heat now, on the lower slopes of the mound, the Imperial expedition force slicing a break in the foe as a spearhead formation, Ghosts to the right, Volpone to the left, with Gaunt and Corbec at the tip.
Gaunt knew the Tanith fought well, but he had never seen them discharge themselves so determinedly, so brilliantly. In his heart, he couldn't believe that this was a simple response to his motivational speech. They were fighting for something, something deep in theirs hearts, something that would not be denied.
'For Tanith! Tor Tanith, bless her memory!' he heard Corbec yelling as he advanced.
The cry, as it was taken up by Ghosts all around him, prompted a deep, emotional response in Gaunt. It shocked him. They were indeed fighting for Tanith… not for some memory or for a sense of vengeance. They were fighting for the love of their homeworld, of the misty cities, the darkling woodlands, the majestic seas.
He knew this because he felt it too. He had spent all of a day on Tanith before the fall, and most of that inside the dim anterooms of the Elector's palace at Tanith Magna. But it felt as if it had been his home, something he had grown to love through years of upbringing, something that was still attainable…
With Corbec and two other Ghosts, he was the first to reach a defence ditch on the lower slopes of the mound where superior numbers of Chaos filth were turning from their assault of the ruin to repel the hind attack. Gaunt led with his chainsword, slicing the enemy apart. It seemed like he was las-proof. All opposing shots went wild. The joy of Tanith sang in his heart.
He dropped into the ditch, cutting the first aggressor before him open down the middle, then swung the whining blade left to decapitate another. In his other hand, his bolt pistol blasted down the ditch, blowing the legs off two charging ghouls with fixed bayonets. His bolter clacked empty. Corbec was beside him, bellowing, blasting with his lasgun at figures who fell and squirmed and fled down the narrow defile. To the other side, Troopers Yael and Mktea fought hand to hand with silver daggers, passionate, furious. Beyond them, Bragg, blasting with his autocannon over the ditch top.
Gaunt threw his bolter and his sword aside and grabbed the firing handles of an enemy storm-bolter with a belt feed set into the lip of the ditch. The massive gun was set on flak-board, with wire tie-downs to prevent the tripod from skating. Gaunt thumbed the trigger and swept the shuddering gun left and right, decimating the ranks of enemy advancing up the hill above him.
He felt a hand on his arm. Lilith was beside him, her face pale, her eyes full of tears.
'What?' he barked, continuing to fire.
'Can't you feel it? You're swept up in the storm-magic too!'
He released his hands and the drum belt rattled round on auto-feed. 'Magic?'
The web of deceit I spoke of… it's enflamed all your men, the Bluebloods too. It's tearing at my mind! Gaunt…!'
Involuntarily, he held her. She pushed him off after a second. 'I'm all right! All right!'
'Lilith!'
'Whatever… whoever… it is up there in the ruin, they're preying on our emotions.'
'What do you mean?'
'I… I think they want all the help they can get, Gaunt! They've woven a psychic spell through the storm that makes us… makes us respond by touching our deepest desires! For your Ghosts, this is Tanith… a Tanith where it's still possible to win and save the world! For the Bluebloods, it's Ignix Majeure, where they lost after a desperate fight! But Ibram… it's killing me! So strong, so powerful!'
Gaunt fought to catch his breath. 'W-why me? Why Tanith?'
'What?' she asked, wiping her puffy eyes.
'I'm not Tanith, but the will inside me responded that way. Why aren't I fighting for some great cause in my own life? Why have I been living and breathing Tanith in my waking dreams all this while?'
She smiled, simply and painfully, her perfect face lit by the fire-flashes around them. 'Don't you know it, Ibram? Tanith is your cause, no matter if you were born there or not. You've devoted your service and life to these men, to the memory of their world.
'The fate of Tanith consumes you, as it does them, and though you're not a true son of the forests, this magic plays on your deepest urges! You're a Ghost, Ibram Gaunt, whether you know it or not! You're not just their master, you're one of them!'
Gaunt pulled off his cap and wiped brow-sweat back into his cropped hair. He was panting, painfully high on adrenaline. 'This is all false?' he began.
'We're being used. Manipulated. Driven to fight by something that touches our deepest causes.'
'Then… in the Emperor's name, if it helps us kill the Chaos scum, let's not deny it! Let's use it!' Gaunt cued his micro-bead and opened a channel to his force. 'Sixty men against ten thousand! The stuff of legends! Push on! Push on, for Tanith and for Ignix Majeure! Take the slope and make for the ruin!'
At the head of his wave of Bluebloods, Gilbear heard the call and screamed into the night as he emptied yet another power-pack out through the glowing muzzle of his hellgun. The Volpone took the rise, scattering enemy before them.
Lerod, who now thought himself truly immortal, led his detachment up the mound, stampeding over the panicking, splintering waves of Chaos filth.
Corbec, with Bragg firing solid lines of destruction from his heavy weapon at his side, pushed the other Ghost
