Gilbear had protested, both at the advance and the co-operation of the Tanith, but Lilith had made no great efforts to disguise her contempt for him when she denied his objections. If her fears were realised, this was Gaunt's business as much as hers. Besides, the Ghosts had already been in there, and had a taste of what to expect, for all the vaunted veteran skills of the Volpone's elite Tenth Brigade, she wanted a serious fighting force, with enough numbers that losses wouldn't dent. Sixty men, or thereabouts, half dedicated heavy infantry, ordered to guard her by the general, half the best stealth fighters in the Guard, led by their own charismatic commissar.
A reasonable insurgency force, she reckoned. Still, she had had her astropath signal back for reinforcements. Thoth had been reluctant until she had pulled rank and suggested the magnitude of the threat. Now five hundred Bluebloods under Marshal Ruas and three hundred Roane Deepers under Major Alef and Commissar Jaharn were moving up in their wake, an hour or so behind them. The astropath was now dead from the effort of sending and receiving through the storm. They left his body where it lay.
It seemed bloody-minded to push a unit back into the storm zone when all other Imperials had retreated out of it, and it seemed to compound that error by sending in fresh numbers after them. But Lilith knew that, storm or no storm, Chaos host or no Chaos host, the key to victory on Monthax lay in the heart of that zone. And the focus of her own, personal inquisition too, perhaps.
Lerod led the spearhead, lie had volunteered, brimming with an enthusiasm that Gaunt found faintly alarming. Yael, one of Lerod's men from the Seventh, had told of I^rod's miraculous escape from the enemy gunners on the creek bank, and explained that Lerod now thought his life charmed.
Gaunt wondered for a moment. He'd seen that sort of luck-flare before, where a man thought himself invulnerable. The consequences could be appalling. But he'd rather have Lerod laying his ''luck'' at the front than cursing them lower down the file.
Besides, Lerod was a fine soldier. One of the best, the most level-headed.
And more than that… All of the Ghosts, Corbec included, seemed somehow eager to get back into the deadly storm. It was as if something called to them. Gaunt had seldom seen them so highly motivated.
And then, in a pause, he realised that he, too, was more than willing to turn back into the fatal onslaught besetting the dense jungle and creeks. He couldn't account for it. It alarmed him.
Lilith's brigade slogged in through the creek-ways and water-runs, beaten by the rain and wind. The muddy ground became steep slopes, the low rises of upland rain forests above the flooded swamps.
Lilith sent pairs of men forward to secure lines. Corbec and a couple of Ghosts and Bluebloods clambered forward with Lerod up the muddy escarpments, playing out cables that they secured to trees and stumps along the way. Lightning berated them, exploding the tallest trees round about.
The brigade moved forward, following the twin lines of cable the advance had played out.
High on a slope, Corbec nailed the end of his cable line to a stump, and then set watch with his party as the main force struggled up behind. One of the Bluebloods looked at him, smiling.
'Culcis?'
'Colonel Corbec!'
Corbec slapped the younger man on the armoured shoulder, and the other Bluebloods eyed this camaraderie with suspicion.
'Where was it – Nacedon?'
'In the farm. I owe you my life, colonel.'
Corbec guffawed. 'I remember you fought as hard as the next that night, Culcis!'
The young man grinned. Rainwater dripping down his face from his helmet lip.
'So you made the Tenth, huh?' Corbec asked, settling in next to the Blueblood and taking aim into the blistering dark.
'Your medic wrote well of me, and your leader, Gaunt, mentioned me in dispatches. Then I got a lucky break on Vandamaar and won a medal.'
'So you're veteran now? One of the Blueblood elite? Best of the best, and all that?'
Culcis chuckled. 'We're all just soldiers, sir.'
The twin lines of advance progressed slowly up the slopes along the cable lines, weaving between the heavy trees and saturated foliage. The ground was like watered honey, loose and fluid, coming up to their shins. At least there were no insects abroad in the onslaught.
They moved on in fire-team formation, following a deep valley into the jungle uplands and the heart of the roiling storm. Lilith called a halt, to get a fix on their position. She was just raising her data-slate when a searing light flashed and they were deafened.
Lightning had struck a tree twenty paces back, exploding it in a welter of wooden shrapnel. Two Bluebloods had been atomised by electrical arcs and another two, along with one of the Tanith, had been flayed alive by the wood chips.
Major Gilbear slammed into Lilith as he stumbled up the slope. 'We must retreat, inquisitor! This is madness!'
'This is necessary, major,' she corrected, and returned her gaze to the slate. Gaunt was by her side. They compared data, pelting rain pattering off the screens of their respective devices.
'There's your Third platoon,' she said.
'As you had it last fixed before the storm came down,' corrected Gaunt. 'They were in the eye of the storm then, but can you get a true fix on their location now? Or on ours?'
Lilith cursed silently. Gaunt was right. They were cut off from orbital locator signals, and the storm was playing merry hell with all their finders and codiciers. All they had to work on was a memory or location and terrain. And none of that seemed reliable.
Gaunt drew her to one side, out of Gilbear's earshot. 'My men are the best scouts in the Guard, but they're
