“That’s not why it’s aching.”
Corbec refilled their glasses.
“But for this moon war, you’ve never been off this place?”
“No,” replied Bulwar. “Wanted to muster for the Guard at the last founding, but I was a major by then and my path was set. Planetary Defence, like my father and his before him.”
“It’s a noble calling. I could have wished for it myself, commanding the garrison of a city back home.”
“Where is that again? Tanith?”
Corbec toyed with the tiny glass in his paw. He pursed his lips. “Dead and gone. We’re the last of it.”
“How?”
“We were founding, the first founding Tanith had made. Three regiments assembled to join the warmaster’s crusade. This was just after Balhaut, you understand. Gaunt had been sent to knock us into shape. There was a… a miscalculation. A Chaos fleet slipped through the interdiction set up by the advancing Segmentum Pacificus navy and assaulted Tanith. Gaunt had a choice: Get out with those troop elements he could save, or stay and die with the planet.”
“And he chose the former.
“Like any good commander would. I like old Ibram Gaunt, but he’s a commissar at heart. Hardline, worships the Emperor above his own life, dedicated to discipline. He took us out, about two thousand of us, and Tanith burned as we left it behind. We’ve been paying back the enemy ever since.”
Bulwar nodded. “That’s why you’re called Ghosts, I suppose?”
Corbec chuckled and poured some more sacra for them both.
Bulwar was silent for a while. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your homeworld.” Corbec didn’t make the reply that flashed into his mind, but Bulwar saw the logic of his own words and spoke the unspoken anyway. “I hope I don’t find out.”
Corbec raised his glass. “By the spirit of my lost world,” he said mischievously, glancing at the sacra, “may we Ghosts ensure there are never any Verghast ghosts.”
They downed their drinks with heartfelt gulps. Bulwar got up and began to rummage in a footlocker bolted to the carrier’s hull. He pulled out map-cases, ammo-cans and a sheaf of signal flags before finding what he was looking for: a tall-shouldered bottle of brown glass. “We’ve toasted with your Tanith brew, which I commend for its fine qualities, but it’s only fair we toast now with a Verghast vintage. Joiliq. Ten year old, cask-fermented.”
Corbec smiled. “I’ll try anything once.” He knocked it back, savoured it, smiled again. “Or twice,” he said, proffering his glass.
By a roaring oil-drum fire, Baffels sat with Milo, Venar, Filain and Domor. Filain and Venar were snoring, propped against each other. Domor was spooning soup into his mouth with weary, almost mechanical motions.
“I want you with me,” Baffels said quietly to Milo.
“Sergeant?”
“Oh, stop it with that crap! These pins should have been yours.”
Milo laughed and Filain looked up at the noise for a moment before slumping and snoring again.
“I’ve been a trooper for all of ten seconds. And I’m the youngest Tanith in the regiment. Gaunt would never have been crazy enough to make me sergeant. You deserve it, Baffels. No one denies it should be yours.”
Baffels shrugged. “You led us today. No one denied that either. You’re trusted.”
“So are you and we worked as a team. If they followed me at all it’s only because you did. They may think of me as some lucky fething charm, touched by the commissar himself, but it’s you they respect.”
“We did okay though, didn’t we?”
Milo nodded.
“Whatever you say, I want you at point, right up near me, okay?”
“You’re the sergeant.”
“And I’m making a command decision. The men respect you, so if you’re near me and with me, they’ll follow me too.”
Milo looked into the fire. He could sense Baffels was scared by his new responsibilities. The man was a great soldier, but he’d never expected unit command. He didn’t want to fail and Milo knew he wouldn’t, just as Gaunt had known when he’d made the promotion. But if it helped Baffels’ confidence, Milo would do as he was asked. Certainly, through that strange, organic process Milo had observed in the firefight that morning, soldiers chose their own leaders in extremis, and Baffels and Milo had been chosen.
“Where’s Tanith, d’you think?”
Milo glanced round, initially assuming Baffels had asked a rhetorical question. But the older man was looking up at the sky.
“Tanith?”
“Which of those stars did we come from?”
Milo gazed up. The Shield was a glowing aura of green light, fizzing with rain that fell outside. But even so, they could just glimpse the starfields pricking the blackness.
Milo chose one at random.
“That one,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
It seemed to please Baffels and he stared at the winking light for a long time.
“D’you still have your pipes?”
Milo had been a musician back on Tanith and before he’d made trooper he’d played the pipes into battle.
“Yes,” he said. “Never go anywhere without them.”
“Play up, eh?”
“Now?”
“My first order as sergeant.”
Milo pulled the tight roll of pipes and bellows from his knapsack. He cleared the mouth-spout and then puffed the bag alive, making it whine and wail quietly. The hum of conversation died down at fires all around at the first sound.
Pumping his arm, he got the bellows breathing and the drone began, rising up in a clear, keening note. “What shall I play?” he asked, his fingers ready on the chanter.
“My Love Waits in the Nalwoods Green,” Domor said suddenly from beside him.
Milo nodded. The tune was the unofficial anthem of Tanith, more sprightly than the actual planetary anthem, yet melancholy and almost painful for any man of Tanith to