ELEVEN
Gaunt woke, and remembered that he had been dreaming of Tanith. That wasn't unusual in itself; the visions of the fall of that world stalked his dreams regularly. But this time, for the first time, it seemed to him that he had been dreaming about the world as it had been: alive, flourishing, thriving.
The dream disquieted him, and he would have dwelt on it, had there been time. But then he realised that an urgent commotion had roused him. Outside, the pre-dawn gloom of Monthax was riven with shouts and alarms and the distant, eager sounds of warfare. Someone was hammering on the door of the command centre. Gaunt could hear Milo's insistent voice.
He pulled on his boots and went outside, the cool morning air stiffening the night-sweat soaking his tight undershirt and breeches. He blinked at the cold glare, batting aside a persistent insect, as he half-listened to Milo's hasty reports, half-read the vox-caster print-outs and data-slates the boy handed him. Gaunt's eyes looked westward. Pink and amber flashes under-lit the low night clouds to the west, like a false dawn, every now and then punctured by the brief, trailing white star of a flarecharge, or the brighter, whiter flashes of some powerful energy support weapon.
Gaunt didn't need Milo or the printed communiques to know that the major offensive had begun at last. The enemy was moving, in force.
He ordered the platoon leaders to ready their men – though most had begun to do so already – and summoned the senior officers for a tactical meeting in the command centre. He sent Milo away in search of his cap and jacket, and his weapons.
In under ten minutes, Corbec brought Rawne, ferod, Mkoll, Varl and the other seniors to the centre, to find Gaunt, now dressed, spreading out the communiques on the camp table. There were no preliminaries.
'Orbital reconnaissance and forward scouting has shown a massed, singular column of Chaos moving through the territory to the west.'
'Objective?' Corbec asked.
Gaunt shrugged. It was a disarming gesture from one usually so confident. 'Unclear, colonel. We've been expecting a major attack for days, but this doesn't seem to focus any strength on our positions at all. Early reports show the enemy have cm through – well, destroyed, in fact – a battalion-strength force of Kaylen Lancers. But I have a hunch that's only because the lancers were in the way. It's as if our enemy has another objective, one they're determined to achieve. One we don't know about.'
Mkoll was eyeing the charts carefully. He'd scouted and mapped the area in question thoroughly during the previous week. His sharp tactical mind saw no obvious purpose to the assault either. He said as much.
'Could their intelligence be wrong?' Varl asked. 'Maybe they've made their play at positions they think we hold.'
'I doubt that,' Mkoll answered. 'They've seemed well informed up to now. Still, it's a possibility. They've committed a huge portion of their strength to a mistake if that's true.'
'If it's a mistake, we'll use it. If they have some dark and secret purpose, well, we'll do ourselves no favours by waiting to find out what it is.' Gaunt paused and scratched his chin thought fully.
'Besides,' he said, 'our orders are clear. General Thoth is sending us in, as soon as we're ready, on orders from Lord Militant General Bulledin himself. The Tanith will form one arm of a counter assault. Upwards of sixty thousand men from various regiments are to be deployed against the enemy. Because of the peculiar, not to say perplexing orientation of their advance, we'll catch them side on. The Ghosts will cover a salient about nine kilometres long.' Gaunt indicated their area of the new front on the chart, marking little runic symbols on the glass plate with his wax pencil. 'I don't want to sound over-confident, but if they've presented laterally to us by mistake, or if they're driving towards something else, we should be able to do a lot of damage to their flank. Thoth has demanded a main force assault, what the beloved and devout Chapterhouses like to call a meat-grinder. Rip into them along the flank and try, if nothing else, to break their column and isolate parts of it.'
'Begging your pardon, commissar,' Rawne's sibilant tones whispered through the centre's close humidity like a cold draught. 'The Tanith aren't heavy troops. Main force, without playing to our strengths? feth, that'll get us all killed.'
'Correct, major.' Gaunt fixed the man with a tight stare. 'Thoth has given the regimental commanders some discretion. Let's remember the depth of ground cover and jungle out there. The Ghosts can still use their stealth and cunning to get close, get in amongst them if need be. I'll not send you in en masse. The Ghosts will deploy in platoon sections, small scattered units designed to approach the foe unseen through the glades. I think that way we will give as good an account of ourselves as any massed charged of armoured infantry.'
The briefing was over, save to agree platoon order and position. The officers filed out.
Gaunt stopped Mkoll. This notion they've made a mistake: you don't hold with it?'
'I gave my reasons, sir,' Mkoll said. 'It's true, these jungles are dense and confusing, and we can use that. But I don't believe they've made a mistake, no, sir. I think they're after something.'
'What?'
'I wouldn't like to guess,' Mkoll said, but he gestured down at the chart. Just off centre in the middle of the area mapped out as the new front, Gaunt saw what he was pointing to. A mark on the map representing the estimated position of the prehuman ruins Mkoll had found while scouting just a few days before.
'I never did get a look at that, first hand. I… couldn't find it again.'
'What? Say that again?'
Mkoll shrugged. 'I saw it from a distance on patrol – that's when I reported it to you. But since then, I've been unable to relocate it. The men think I'm slipping.'
'But you think…' Gaunt let the silence and Mkoll's expres sion finish the sentence.
Gaunt began to strap on his holster belt. When we get in there, prioritise getting a good assessment of that
