Gaunt was about to shake his head. Regimental business could wait, and Daur knew it. But there was something in Daur’s body language.
He nodded.
Sancto hesitated for a moment, as if surprised, and then opened the door for Daur.
‘My apologies, Lord Executor,’ Daur said as he stepped in.
‘What do you need, captain?’ Gaunt asked.
‘I…’ Daur hesitated. Everyone was looking at him. ‘I need to report that there seems to be a situation in the Tanith billet. In the undercroft, sir.’
‘An issue?’
‘A power-out, my lord. It–’
Gaunt sighed. His gut had been wrong. Daur was fussing, and he should have known better.
‘That’s a technical issue, Captain Daur. Take it to the palace custodians.’
Daur wavered. ‘I don’t fully understand the circumstances, my lord, but an amber status has been issued. By Commissar Fazekiel.’
‘Why?’ asked Gaunt.
‘I don’t know, my lord. I came straight to you. Commissar Hark has gone to investigate directly.’
He looked at the others in the room.
‘I apologise for interrupting this meeting,’ he said.
Gaunt had risen to his feet.
‘Amber status?’ he asked. His voice was oddly fierce.
‘Yes, my lord,’ Daur replied.
‘Is it in darkness?’
Everyone looked around. Daur blinked in surprise. The Beati had entered through the walkway door and was staring at him.
‘Captain Ban Daur,’ she said. ‘I asked you, is the undercroft in darkness?’
‘It is, my lady. Entirely. So I understand.’
‘Are there children there? Children who might be afraid? Who might be sobbing?’
‘Yes, my lady. There are children. The entire retinue.’
The Beati turned to look directly at Gaunt.
‘Anarch,’ she said.
‘Sound the alarms!’ Gaunt snarled.
Hark took another run at the doors, and bounced off again.
‘You’ll break your fething shoulder,’ said Curth.
He didn’t reply. He pulled out his plasma pistol and adjusted the setting.
‘Stand the feth back, both of you,’ he said. Curth and Perday stepped away. Perday’s eyes were wide.
Hark aimed the weapon at the doors, and fired.
The whoop of discharged plasma echoed in the empty hallway, and Curth winced. Smoke drifted up and clouded the air around the hissing lumen globes overhead.
The doors were unmarked.
‘How the hell–’ Hark stammered.
‘Is there something wrong with your gun, Hark?’ Curth asked.
‘What? No. That was a full discharge.’
He examined the door, running his fingers over the wood. Not so much as a blemish.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘I hear alarms,’ Perday said, looking up. ‘That’s the threat alert.’
Klaxons were sounding in the corridors and hallways above them. The bells in the palace campaniles were being rung too.
‘Try it again,’ Curth urged Hark.
Footsteps clattered down the stairs from the hall above. They turned, and saw Gaunt striding towards them, with Daur at his side. Behind them came Gaunt’s Scion guard, Beltayn, some tacticae officers, a woman with an augmetic golden mask, and several individuals who looked like scratch company partisans. Curth didn’t know them at first. Then she saw the face of one of them.
‘Oh feth, Viktor,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the Beati.’
‘Hark?’ Gaunt said as he arrived.
‘The door won’t budge, my lord,’ said Hark. ‘I even took a shot at it.’
Laksheema pushed forward and stared at the door. ‘A las-round will hardly tear down–’
‘Plasma gun, inquisitor,’ Hark said. ‘Full load, point blank.’
‘My lord?’ said Sancto. ‘Shall we?’
‘No disrespect, Sancto, but I don’t think you and your men are going to make a better dent than Hark,’ replied Gaunt.
‘It’s bound shut,’ said Laksheema. She had been stooping to examine the door. ‘The warp is holding it.’
‘You sense that?’ asked the Beati.
‘Don’t you?’ asked Laksheema. ‘My lord, even if we could force it, we have no idea what’s on the other side.’
‘My regiment–’ Gaunt replied.
‘And what else besides?’ asked Laksheema. She adjusted her micro-bead link. ‘I will summon my staff. We need specialist assistance.’
She frowned.
‘My link is dead,’ she said.
‘No response from any vox source below,’ Beltayn called out. He’d set his vox-unit against the wall and was adjusting the settings. ‘Dead air. No microlink. No vox-unit. Just–’
Beltayn jumped in surprise, and pulled the headset away from his ears.
‘What the feth–?’ he gasped.
‘Bel?’ asked Curth, crossing to him.
‘I heard a voice,’ Beltayn said. ‘A child, weeping.’
‘Speaker!’ Gaunt ordered.
Beltayn switched the set to speaker output. There was a hiss of static, then they could all hear the tinny yet distinct sound of sobbing. A young voice, far away, in anguish.
‘Grae?’ said Laksheema over the eerie sound. ‘Go get my team, please.’
Grae nodded.
‘And tell Van Voytz we have a red status location,’ Gaunt added. ‘Biota, you and your team go too. Start briefing on everything we know.’
‘Which is precious little,’ replied Biota.
‘Do it anyway.’
Grae was already running back along the hall. Biota and his aides turned to follow him.
‘Biota?’ Gaunt called.
‘My lord?’ Biota responded, pausing to look back.
‘You said my daughter went down there?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Gaunt cleared his throat. ‘Carry on,’ he said. Biota and his aides hurried after Grae.
Curth looked at Gaunt. She gripped his arm.
‘We’ll get in,’ she said.
‘I know,’ Gaunt replied.
‘The offspring of the Great Master,’ Laksheema muttered.
‘What?’ said Hark.
‘Do you not recall, commissar?’ Laksheema said, glancing at him. ‘The signal from the Archenemy warship that spared the Armaduke so mysteriously. The translation provided by the pheguth spoke of “the offspring of the Great Master”. A child, a daughter. The noun was female.’
‘You remember all that?’ Hark asked.
‘I have reviewed the reports many times,’ Laksheema said. ‘Merity Chass was aboard the Armaduke. She is here now. She is the offspring of a Great Master… a Lord Executor perhaps? Major Kolea’s misfortunes may have been a wilful distraction. A creation of significance. That’s how it translated. All this shall be the will of he whose voice drowns out all others.’
‘The feth are you suggesting?’ Hark asked, stepping forward. Gaunt held up a hand to him in warning.
‘We have been confounded by the Archenemy’s actions,’ said Laksheema. ‘We have many elements that do not fit together. All we agree on is that Sek achieved something after the Eltath raid, and now enters a new phase of attack. It would seem that is here, now, beneath us. Elements begin to connect.’
‘The hell they do,’ said Hark.
The sobbing continued to crackle from Beltayn’s vox-unit.
‘Turn it off,’ said Curth.
‘Should I, my lord?’ asked Beltayn.
Gaunt nodded. Beltayn reached for the speaker switch. Just before he could throw it, the noise of weeping shut off and was replaced by a hellish shrieking roar. The volume was so great, it blew out the vox-caster’s speakers. Smoke wafted from the ruined set.