Daur crossed to him, limping. “What do you see?” he asked.
“What’s that?” asked Milo, pointing down to the east. Far away, round the curve of the massive Curtain Wall, past the Sondar and Veyveyr Gates and the ruin of the Ore Works, a great, black slope extended down out of the hive, two kilometres wide and five deep. It looked like a tide of tar. The Curtain Wall broke in a gap fourteen hundred metres wide to let it out.
“The Spoil,” Daur replied. “It’s a… a mountain of rock refuse and processed ore waste from the smelteries and mine workings. One of the landmarks of Vervunhive,” he laughed.
“The Wall is broken there.”
“The Spoil’s been there longer than the Wall. The Wall was built around it.”
“But still, it’s a break in the defence.”
“Don’t worry, it’s well protected. The fifth division of my Regiment, the ‘Spoilers’, are dedicated to guarding that area: twenty thousand men. They take their work seriously. Besides, the Spoil itself is bloody treacherous: steep, unsafe, constantly slipping. It’s probably harder to get past than the Curtain Wall itself. An enemy would waste thousands trying a foolish gambit like that!”
Daur smiled encouragingly at Milo and then turned away and rejoined the oversight tour.
Milo felt sorry for him. Daur had no experience of the enemy, no knowledge of the way they expended and used their troops wholesale to gain their objectives. The soldiers of Vervunhive and the tactics they had evolved were too deeply focused upon the experience of fighting sane enemies.
In the main group, Gaunt looked to his fellow regiment commanders. “Assessments?”
“Way too much armour for an infantry-based counterjab just now, but I’d as soon not let those bastards reach the walls,” said Nash.
“I’d like to deploy my tank divisions to engage them out there,” Grizmund said. “Supported by whatever the NorthCol armour units can supply. We’re not overwhelmed yet. If we can stop them in the outer habs clear of the main hive, we can push an advance spearhead right down into the heart of them. For all their infamous numbers, they are extended over a massive area. That’s how I’d go. Armoured counter-assault, direct and sudden, take the ground out from under them, if only a section, then open a way to turn and flank them, cutting into their reserve lines. And dig a path for the infantry too.”
Nash agreed vehemently. “I’ll happily support an organised push of that sort.”
“So will I,” Gaunt said. “They’ve taken more than enough ground. We should stop them dead, even if only in this west sector.”
Grizmund nodded. “The gates this side of the hive must be opened. I’ll gladly fight these bastards, no matter how many there are, but I need room for my machines to mobilise and manoeuvre. I’d rather do that out there in the habs than wait until they’re at the Wall.”
“Or inside it,” Rawne added.
“Something of a first,” Gaunt smiled at his colleagues. “Three regimental officers agreed on a tactical approach.”
There was more general laughter, cut short by the first shrieks of the missile launchers on the tower reopening fire now the awnings were down.
“That assessment does not jibe with General Sturm’s strategy,” Tarrian said from the side.
Gaunt looked round at him. “I feel uneasy whenever a political officer uses a vague word like ‘jibe’, Commissar Tarrian. What do you mean?”
“I understand General Sturm’s tactical recommendations for the prosecution of this conflict are already drawn up and under examination by Marshal Croe, the House Command Strategy Committee and representatives of the noble houses. I hear they have the full support of Vice Marshal Anko and Commissar Kowle.”
“It sounds like they’re as good as decided!” Nash snarled, his heavy chin with its bristle of grey stubble set hard.
“Are we wasting our time up here? What good is this oversight tour if they’ve already set on a course?” Grizmund asked.
“I have had past dealings with the general of the Volpone,” Gaunt remarked sourly. “I have no doubt he feels himself to be the senior Guard officer in this theatre and the hive elders have lauded him as such. But he is not a man for personal confrontation. Better he gives us something to occupy our attentions while he makes his own decisions. Hence this… sight-seeing.”
Gaunt turned sharply to look at Tarrian. “And you’d know what those decisions were, wouldn’t you, Tarrian?”
“It is not my place to say, colonel-commissar,” Tarrian said flatly.
“To hold the Wall, to keep the gates sealed, to give up all territory outside and to dig in for a sustained siege, trusting the Shield, the Curtain Wall and the army strengths within Vervunhive to hold the enemy off forever, or at least until the winter breaks them.”
They all looked round. As he finished speaking, Captain Daur shrugged, ignoring the murderous look the VPHC commander was giving him. “The plans were circulated this morning, with a magenta clearance rating. I have no reason to assume that clearance excluded senior echelon Guard officers.”
“Thank you, Daur,” Gaunt said. He looked back at Tarrian. “The generals and I wish to see Sturm and the marshal. Immediately.”
Quietly, the quintet of ochre-clad troops picked their way down the corridor of the bombed-out workshop, moving through the dust-filled air. Outside, a tank grated past down the river of debris that had once been Outhab Transit Street 287/fd.
The soldiers wore ochre battledress, shiny, black leather webbing straps, and polished, newly stamped lasguns. On their heads were full-face composite helmets with flared, sneering features like blurred skulls and the crest of Ferrozoica inlayed on the brow.
The squad checked each doorway and damage section they came to. Gol Kolea could hear the hollow crackle of their terse vox-signals barking back and forth.
He slid back into cover and made a hand gesture that his company could read. They moved back, swallowed by the shadows and the dust.
Gol let the five troopers advance down the corridor far enough until the last one was standing on the false flooring. Then he connected the bare end of the loose wire in his hand to the terminals of the battery pack.
The concussion mine tore out a length of the corridor and obliterated the last trooper where he stood, tearing the one directly in front of him into pieces with fragments of shrapnel and shards of bone from his exploded comrade.
The other three fell, then scrambled up, firing blind in the smoke. Bright, darting bars of las-fire pierced the smoke cover like reef fish scudding through cloudy water.
Gol smashed out his fake wall and came down on the first of them from the rear, swinging the hook-bill of his axe-rake down through helmet and skull.
Sergeant Haller dropped down from the ceiling joists where he had been crouching and felled another of them, killing him with point-blank shots from his autopistol as his bodyweight flattened the trooper.
The remaining Zoican bastard switched to full auto and
