‘As I was saying…’ he said.
‘They haven’t gone off for that long before,’ said Domor.
Kolea shrugged. ‘Maybe the Munitorum took them off line to reconnect or test?’ he said.
‘You want me to go and check?’ asked Bonin.
‘Well, I was about to open this precious bottle of sacra to celebrate Gol’s return,’ said Baskevyl. He put it down. ‘But we probably should.’
The others got up from their seats around his camp table.
Yerolemew and Blenner came in from the hall outside.
‘A lot of fuss in the billet halls,’ said Blenner. ‘That black-out was the whole undercroft.’
‘Go calm them down,’ Baskevyl said. ‘It was just a circuit fault.’
Blenner eyed the bottle on the table. ‘Private party?’ he asked.
‘Go calm them down, Blenner,’ said Baskevyl, ‘and you might get an invitation to join us.’
Blenner nodded, and hurried out.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Bonin asked the bandmaster.
‘Can’t you hear that?’ Yerolemew asked.
‘Hear what?’ asked Domor.
Yerolemew frowned. ‘Like a… whistle. A note. High pitched.’
They shook their heads.
‘You’ve spent too many years standing beside the full brass section,’ said Domor.
‘You really can’t hear that?’ Yerolemew asked.
Bonin glanced around. He looked at the shot glasses standing on the table beside the bottle.
‘What, Mach?’ asked Kolea.
Bonin reached out and placed his splayed hand down on the tops of the glasses.
‘They were vibrating,’ he said.
‘Well, it must’ve been that,’ said Yerolemew. ‘The sound’s gone now.’
Bonin lifted his hand.
‘Now it’s back,’ said Yerolemew.
‘What the feth?’ said Domor. The sound made him uncomfortable. It reminded him of something he’d heard recently.
‘My, uh, ears itch,’ said Baskevyl. ‘What the gak is going on?’
Meryn hurried in. ‘Commissar Fazekiel wants you,’ he said to Baskevyl.
‘Why?’
‘Something’s going on. She said amber status. She’s spooked about something.’
‘What?’ said Domor in surprise.
‘Amber?’ asked Kolea. ‘On what grounds?’
Meryn shrugged mutely.
‘Let’s get some control back into this situation, please,’ said Baskevyl. ‘Come on! Act like you know what you’re doing. Get the retinue calmed down and secure, get the companies stood to. Shoggy, find that Munitorum work crew and ask them if they know what the problem is. Yerolemew, send a runner upstairs and find out if this is just us or the whole palace. And get them to advise Daur we seem to have a situation down here. Gol, Mach, with me–’
The lights went out again.
This time, they did not come back on.
She’d been thinking about it all the while Biota had quizzed Marshal Tzara about the integrity of the bridges and causeways serving the Zarakppan and Clantine canals.
Dalin had been waiting for her outside the showerblock. Standing guard at the door to protect her modesty. As she’d stepped into the shower pen, she’d heard his voice through the door. Dalin speaking to someone.
It was so vague. Just a partial memory she didn’t feel she could trust.
But the other person had sounded like Captain Meryn.
‘I’m sure this can wait,’ said Relf.
‘I’m not sure of anything,’ said Merity. ‘But Commissar Fazekiel said to report anything to her. Anything at all.’
‘But now?’ asked Relf, following Merity down the steep stone staircase into the undercroft.
Merity turned to her.
‘Can I ask?’ she said. ‘Do I take orders from you, or do you simply follow me where ever I go?’
‘Uhm, the latter,’ replied the large Tempestus Scion.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Merity, and continued on her way.
They reached the bottom of the steps and followed the white-washed corridor into the chambers of the palace undercroft. Merity glimpsed the billets of the retinue, through side arches. There seemed to be some general agitation.
‘It smells down here,’ said Relf.
‘Never mind that,’ Merity said. ‘Let’s ask someone where Fazekiel is billetted.’
They turned a corner and Merity recoiled. The hallway floor ahead was awash with drain water. It wasn’t just standing water. The frothy waste was spilling towards her rapidly, as if it was being fed gallons at a time by some serious leak or overflow.
‘Come on,’ said Relf.
The lights went out.
Merity froze. She heard voices crying out from the billet halls in alarm.
‘There is one circumstance in which you take orders from me,’ Relf said in the darkness behind her.
‘Yes?’
‘Get behind me and do what I say.’
‘You have, honoured one, no active knowledge of the Anarch’s whereabouts?’ asked Van Voytz.
‘No,’ replied the Beati.
‘Or any views as to his plan of attack?’ Van Voytz added.
‘No,’ said the Beati.
‘But he lives still?’
‘He lives, Lord General,’ she said.
Van Voytz stood back and glanced at Gaunt. The three of them were standing at a strategium desk in a privacy-screened gallery room overlooking the war room. Kazader and the Beati’s deputies were with them. Sanctus and his Scions stood guard outside.
Gaunt wasn’t sure what was wrong. The Beati could be unpredictable, but in the last ten minutes, her manner had become distracted and remote. He knew she was tired. He could see it. She’d come straight from the Oureppan fight. He wished they could give her time to recuperate, but synchronising intel was a priority.
Gaunt turned to Captain Auerben. ‘You’ve brought reports from Oureppan?’
‘Yes, Lord Executor,’ Auerben replied. ‘Full field accounts from the victory and subsequent miracle at Ghereppan, and supplementary command reports and pict records from the raid on Pinnacle Spire.’
‘Then let’s upload and review those at least,’ said Van Voytz. ‘And maybe we should bring in Blackwood and Urienz?’
‘Let’s run through it first,’ Gaunt said. ‘Then we’ll brief high command as a group. Blackwood and Urienz have got plenty to be getting on with.’
Gaunt looked at the Beati.
‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.
She looked up at him. He was surprised by the distance in her eyes.
‘I think I hear a voice,’ she said very quietly. ‘Nagging at my head. His voice. Scratching…’
‘What?’
‘Ibram,’ she said. ‘A shadow is falling. Something bad is about to happen.’
‘An attack?’ asked Gaunt.
‘No,’ said the Saint. ‘It’s already in here with us.’
Olort led the way into the record chambers. It looked like an old library space that had been requisitioned for the Sons of Sek. Packson scribes worked at the old wooden desks, scraping bare the pages of old shipping ledgers so that they could be reused as palimpsests.
There was no electronic activity or apparatus. The dark, high-ceilinged rooms were lit only by candles and wick-lamps.
‘I want information about prisoners,’ Mkoll whispered to Olort.
‘Prisoners?’
‘You’ve brought plenty here. There will be lists.’
Olort looked dubious.
‘When we’ve found that, maps and charts. Plans of the whole Fastness.’
‘You sound like an etogaur planning a campaign,’ said Olort.
‘Maybe I am.’
‘You also sound like a hopeless fool.’
‘Humour this fool, and the fool won’t kill you.’