She’d known. Just the way he had been moving, holding himself. Always a lying bastard. That look he’d shot her.
Say nothing.
She turned towards the distant light and started running as fast as she could.
There was no sound except the hiss and spatter of the rain. Laydly had his weapon up, covering the middle of the yard. They had to come through here. He had switched to full auto, last cell locked in the receiver.
He couldn’t see Brostin, but he could see the steps of the service shed. Good bit of shadow. Nice angle for that big autogun. Brostin would be the hitter on this one. That thing, at short range, with those armour-piercing shells Okel had prized, would make a hole in anything.
A waiting game now. Patience. Waiting for the deal. Waiting for the cards to land. Those things moved as quietly as any Ghost, but there was an open killbox waiting.
Laydly took aim, nice and loose, ready for the snap.
Sekran’s claws closed around his throat. The Qimurah hoisted him off the ground. Laydly tried to scream, but the vicing grip had crushed his throat. Sekran kept squeezing until he’d wrung and snapped the human’s neck. As he died, Laydly squeezed the trigger. Full auto, aimed at nothing, sprayed out of the swinging gun, tearing into the rockcrete ground of the yard, pinging off the tanks, stitching up the wall.
Brostin saw the wild burst, saw two figures strobe-lit by the muzzle flash. One lifting the other by the throat.
He yelled Laydly’s name, then opened fire. The autogun’s big rounds smacked into the feeder tanks. The Qimurah tossed Laydly’s body aside and ran at Brostin, bringing up his lasrifle to fire.
‘Yeah, you fething come at me,’ Brostin snarled.
He put the first armour piercing hard round through Sekran’s face, the second and third through his torso. By then, there was very little left of him above the sternum or between the shoulders. The Qimurah folded and collapsed in the middle of the open yard.
Brostin switched around, looking for the others. He saw movement and banged off two more shots.
On the roof of the machine shop opposite, Hadrel noted the muzzle flashes. He took the grenade out of his jacket pocket and weighed it in his hand. They’d picked over the bodies of the Imperial dead, and found a few useful items.
He threw it.
Brostin heard it strike the gutter above him. He knew the sound of an anti-personnel bomb whacking against metal. He threw himself forward.
The grenade splintered the front of the service shed and obliterated the steps. The blast rolled Brostin hard across the rockcrete, and shrapnel whickered into his flesh.
He lay for a moment, deaf and dazed. Then he tried to rise.
My turn again, you fethers–
The front wall of the wrecked service shed collapsed, and the entire roof gave way. An avalanche of slabs and rockcrete roof tiles buried Aongus Brostin.
Dust billowed off the heap of rubble. It was piled up like the rocks of a tribal grave on some lonely hillside. Just one hand protruded, caked in dirt.
Hadrel leapt down from the roof and landed on his feet. Jaghar emerged from cover and walked to join him.
They clutched their lasrifles and advanced side by side.
‘Just the last of them now,’ said Hadrel.
‘Gol? We have to go up now,’ Baskevyl said gently. ‘Can’t stay down here all night.’
Kolea didn’t reply. He was staring at the burned thorns.
‘Gol?’
‘I made a promise,’ Kolea said at last. ‘Swore it, Bask.’
‘It was a promise you couldn’t keep,’ said Baskevyl. ‘They don’t count.’
‘I should have known.’
‘None of us knew, Gol.’
Kolea looked at him.
‘I did, though,’ he said. ‘I thought it. I considered it. I even… I even took it to Gaunt. I told him what I feared.’
‘I’m sure he–’ Baskevyl began.
‘He reassured me,’ said Kolea. ‘He talked me down, said it was a mistake.’
‘Nobody could have known the truth,’ Baskevyl said. He glanced over his shoulder. Gaunt and Blenner were standing a few yards away, watching them. He could see the expression on Gaunt’s face. Guilt. Guilt for brushing Kolea’s fears aside.
They all felt the guilt. Baskevyl certainly did. Odd nagging doubts that he’d cast aside as stupid. Then the things Elodie had said to him–
He clenched his eyes tight shut. She’d known, but just like Gaunt had done with Kolea, Baskevyl had allayed her fears. Because it just couldn’t have been true.
Now she was dead. Now so many were dead. Nobody had listened. Daur’s wife was dead because Baskevyl hadn’t taken her seriously.
Kolea got up suddenly.
‘Gol?’ Baskevyl rose, and put his hand on Kolea’s arm.
‘I’ve still got a son,’ Kolea said, and pulled his arm away. He walked over to Dalin, who was hunched against the wall.
Baskevyl joined Blenner and Gaunt. They watched Kolea approach the boy.
‘He just needs time,’ Baskevyl said quietly. Gaunt nodded.
‘What did he say?’ asked Blenner.
‘What do you think?’ Baskevyl replied.
‘I don’t know. I was just wondering.’
‘He can’t believe it, even now it’s happened,’ said Baskevyl. ‘He blames himself. He blames everybody. That part’ll go. But he’ll never stop blaming himself. He’s not making much sense at all, to be honest.’
‘Well, he wouldn’t,’ Blenner nodded. ‘I mean, a shock like that. A tragedy. It’d shake a man to his core. It’s shaken all of us. I doubt an ounce of sense will come out of him. Just… just a lot of old nonsense.’
‘What?’ asked Baskevyl.
‘I just meant,’ said Blenner, awkwardly, ‘we can’t expect him to make any sense. Not at a time like this. He’ll probably say all sorts of things, rant and rave, you know, until that pain eases. A trauma like this, that could take years.’
Baskevyl stared at him.
‘Are you trying to make some kind of point?’ he asked.
‘N-no,’ said Blenner.
As they watched, Kolea knelt down facing Dalin. He reached out and put his trembling hands on the young man’s shoulders.
‘Dal.’
‘Leave me alone,’ said Dalin.
‘I don’t know what to say, Dal,’ Kolea said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything anyone can say–’
‘She said plenty,’ said Dalin quietly. ‘All those weird things. She was always so strange. But she was my sister.’
He paused.
‘I thought she was,’ he added.
‘Dalin, let’s go up. Get out of here, eh?’ Kolea said.
‘She was always so strange,’ Dalin said, staring at Gol. ‘Growing up, all her games. All her stories. I used to love them. Now I remember every one of them and I see how creepy they were.’
‘Come on, now.’
‘Then the things she said tonight. When I found her. The things she said. They didn’t make any sense. But then her stories about bad shadows didn’t make any sense either, and they were true. She told me there was a woe machine. That was true. What if all the things she said were true?’
‘Like what?’ Kolea asked.
Dalin shook his head.
‘Look, son, none of us could have known–’ said Kolea.
‘I’m not your son.’
‘Dal, listen. None of us could have known. Not me, not you, not–’
He stopped. There was still a burning anger inside him. He hated himself for it, but the anger was directed at Ibram Gaunt. Kolea had laid it all out, exposed everything that had plagued him, and Gaunt had just talked him out of it. He’d brushed all the fears away, found ways to account for every strange detail, and swept it all out of sight.