The eldar trick. Good for us. Good for the Ghosts.'
'Explain?' Gaunt asked.
'I know how I feel. I've heard the men talking too. This was Tanith again for us, for you too, I think. Deep down I think we all hate the fact we never got a chance to fight for Tanith. Some are blatant about it. Men like… like Major Rawne. Others can understand why we had to leave, why you ordered us out. But they don't like it.'
He looked around at Gaunt.
'Just a mind trick maybe, but for a few hours there forty or so of us got to fight for Tanith, got to fight for our world, got the chance to do what we'd always been cheated out of. It felt good. Even now I know it was a lie, it still feels good. It… exorcised a few ghosts.'
Gaunt smiled. The boy's pun was awful, but he was right. The Ghosts of Tanith had laid their own ghosts to rest here. They would be stronger for it.
And so would he, he realised. They were his ghosts after all.
Gaunt's Ghosts.
