thirty metres. He clambered up on the scorched wreck of an old armchair and hoisted himself up into an upper window space, from which he could get a good view of the rubble waste outside.
“Toss me a few live ones!” he called down to Trygg.
Trygg made a sound like a scalded cat and fell, severed at the waist. Ochre-armoured stormtroops flooded into the ruin below Caffran, firing wildly. A shot hit Trugg’s belt of grenades and the blast threw Caffran clear of the building shell and onto the rubble outside.
Caffran clawed his way upright as Zoicans rushed him from three sides. Pulling out his Tanith dagger, he plunged it through the eyeslit of the nearest. He clubbed the next down with his rocket tube.
Another shot at him and missed.
Caffran rolled away, firing his loaded rocket launcher. The rocket hit the Zoican in the gut, lifted him twenty metres into the air and blew him apart.
There was a crack of las-fire and a Zoican that Caffran hadn’t seen dropped dead behind him.
He glanced about.
Holding the laspistol Caffran had given her as a gift, Tona Criid crept out of cover. She turned once, killing another Zoican with a double shot.
Caffran grabbed her by the hand and they ran into the cover of a nearby hab as dozens more Zoican troopers advanced, firing as they came.
In the shadows of the hab ruin, Caffran looked at her, one soot-smeared face mirrored by the other.
“Caffran,” he said.
“Criid,” she replied.
The Zoicans were right outside, firing into the ruins.
“Good to know you,” he said.
The cage elevators carried them up as far as Level Sub-6 before the power in the Low Spine failed and the cars ground to a screeching halt. Soot and dust trickled and fluttered down the echoing shaft from above.
They exited the lifts on their bellies, crawling out through grille-doors that had half missed the next floor, and they found themselves in a poorly lit access corridor between water treatment plants.
Gaunt and Bwelt had to pull Pater bodily out of the lift car and onto the floor. The old man was panting and refused to go on.
Gilbear and his troops had fanned down the hallway, guns ready. Daur had guard of Kowle and Sturm was trying to light a shredded stub-end of cigar. Grizmund and his officers were taut and attentive, armed with shotguns they had taken from the VPHC dead.
“Where are we?” Gaunt asked Bwelt.
“Level Sub-6. An underhive section, actually.”
Gaunt nodded. “We need a staircase access.”
Down the damp hallway, one of Gilbear’s men cried out he’d found a stepwell.
“Stay with him and move him on when he’s able,” Gaunt told Bwelt, indicating the ailing Pater.
He crossed to Grizmund. “As soon as we reach the surface, I need you to rejoin your units.”
Grizmund nodded. “I’ll do my best. Once I’ve got to them, what channel should we use?”
“Ten ninety gamma,” Gaunt replied. It was the old Hyrkan wavelength. “I’m heading up-Spine to try to get the Shield back on. Use that channel to co-ordinate. Code phrase is ‘Uncle Dercius’.”
“Uncle Dercius?”
“Just remember it, okay?”
Grizmund nodded again. “Sure. And I won’t forget your efforts today, colonel-commissar.”
“Get out there and prove my belief in you,” Gaunt snarled. “I need the Narmenian armour at full strength if I’m going to hold this place.”
General Grizmund and his men pushed on past and hurried up the stairs.
“Sounds like you’ve taken command, Gaunt,” Sturm said snidely.
Gaunt turned to him. “In the absence of other command voices…”
Sturm’s face lost its smile and its colour.
“I’m still ranking Guard commander here, Ibram Gaunt. Or had you forgotten?”
“It’s been so long since you issued an order, Noches Sturm, I probably have.”
The two men faced each other in the low, musty basement corridor. Gaunt wasn’t backing down now.
“We have no choice, my dear colonel-commissar: a full tactical retreat. Vervunhive is lost. These things happen. You get used to it.”
“Maybe you do. Maybe you’ve had more experience in running away than me.”
“You low-life swine!” Gilbear rasped, stomping forward.
Gaunt punched him in the face, dropping him to the floor.
“Get up and get used to me, Gilbear. We’ve got a fething heavy task ahead of us, and I need the best the Volpone can muster.”
The Volpone troops were massing around them and even Pater had got up onto his feet for a better view.
“The Shield must be turned back on. It’s a priority. We’ve got to get up into the top of the hive and effect that. Don’t fight me here. There’ll be more than enough fighting to go around later.”
Gaunt reached down with his hand to pull Gilbear up. The big Blue-blood hesitated and then accepted the grip.
Gaunt pulled Gilbear right up to his face, nose to nose.
“So let’s go see what kind of soldier you are, colonel,” the Blueblood said.
They climbed the dim stairs as far as Level Low-2 and then found a set of cargo lifts still supplied with power. The massive Spine shuddered around them, pummelled from the outside by the enemy.
Crowded into a lift car, the Volpone checked weapons under Gilbear’s supervision. Sturm stood aside, silent. Gaunt crossed to Daur and his prisoner.
“Ban?”
“Sir?”
“I need schematics of the upper Spine. Anything you can get.”
