A figure suddenly appeared at the end of the alleyway, framed by the snow-light. It was a soldier, one of the raiders, one of the invaders. She weighed her choices. Stay back, and wait for it to come to her, so she could kill it quietly in the private darkness of the alley, or go to it and take it down fast before it got her cornered.
The figure took a step towards her, as if it knew she was there, as if it could see right into the shadows with its warpcraft. She couldn’t just sit there.
She charged.
It recoiled in surprise as she flew out of hiding. She had the spear lowered to impale it through the gut. She let out an incoherent scream.
With a cry of its own, the figure jerked to one side, evading the thrust of the long Tanith blade. It grabbed the spear’s haft with one hand, and tried to use Criid’s momentum to bring her over. She wrenched back, refusing to lose control of the weapon. Her attacker was strong. He crashed her backwards into the alley wall, trying to pin her. She screamed and kicked out.
‘For feth’s sake, Tona,’ Gaunt yelled. ‘It’s me!’
SEVENTEEN
Blood for the Blood God
‘Who is he?’ Criid asked.
‘He’s the reason all this is happening,’ Gaunt replied.
‘He was on Gereon with us?’
‘We never met him,’ Gaunt said to her, ‘but he was the one hunting us.’
Criid stared down at the sleeping face of the man on the stretcher. He wore his scars where anyone could see them. Gereon, probably more than anywhere else, had left the deepest scars inside her, invisible. Gereon was the chief reason she had a stress migraine behind her eyes and such an adrenaline spike that her sweat tasted of sour metal.
They had taken shelter in the refurb block where she had hidden earlier. The night air was still moving the heavy, soiled work curtains that partitioned the structure. The smell of cold, wet sawdust was intense. Maggs and Criid had pried open one of the boarded doorways, and Gaunt had driven the ambulance inside. Maggs was busy putting the panelling back in place so it looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed.
‘You saw me, in the dark,’ Criid said to Gaunt.
He nodded.
‘Those eyes of yours,’ she remarked.
‘You’d be amazed the things I’m seeing these days,’ he replied.
‘How far does this go?’ Criid asked. ‘Have they taken the city? Is it that big? Is he that important?’
‘You know as much as we do,’ said Gaunt.
Kolding was hovering beside the prisoner, checking the state of his dressings. They’d had to leave in a hurry. Kolding had protested, and his protests had all been on medical grounds. He didn’t want the patient moved or disturbed. The patient needed post-operative rest and a chance to stabilise his vital signs. Gaunt had looked him in the face and told him how close the Blood Pact were and, rather more graphically, what would happen when they stormed the house.
‘How is he?’ Gaunt asked.
Kolding looked up at Gaunt. His eyes were unreadable behind his blue-tinted lenses.
‘It’s better now he’s not being shaken and jolted. I don’t want the wound reopening. His core temperature is low, however, and his pulse is thready. Can we risk a fire in here?’
‘No,’ said Criid.
Gaunt shook his head too.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘With them hunting us, that’s not an option.’
Kolding stood up. ‘Then I’ll get some more blankets out of the ambulance. I believe there are some old thermal packs in there too, which might still work.’
He walked away towards the battered old van.
‘Where did you find him?’ whispered Criid.
‘Make sure you show him some respect,’ Gaunt replied. ‘Without him, the Blood Pact would have won already.’
Maggs returned. He looked exhausted, and the dried blood on his ear and neck made it look as if he’d been in a brawl.
‘We’re secure, as it goes,’ he said.
‘Unless things change, let’s rest here for an hour or so. Anyone know where here is, by the way?’
‘Moat Street,’ replied Kolding as he came back from the ambulance with an armful of blankets. Criid moved to help him wrap the patient.
‘Someone needs to stand watch,’ said Maggs.
‘I’ll do it, Wes,’ Criid called back. ‘I’m way too jaggy to sleep.’
Maggs tossed her his laspistol. She caught it neatly, tucked it into her waistband, and crouched down beside Kolding.
‘What’s up?’ Maggs asked Gaunt.
Gaunt shook his head, and said, ‘Moat Street. It rings a bell. I think I may have been here before.’
‘When?’
‘Fifteen years ago.’
Maggs whistled.
‘Really?’ he asked.
‘I can’t be sure. We advanced down a lot of streets in Old Side to get at the Oligarchy. Most of them were rubble or burning or both. The name’s familiar, that’s all.’
‘I thought you’d remember every last detail of a show like that,’ said Maggs.
‘I thought I had,’ Gaunt replied. ‘I’ve never thought much about it, actually. Never felt much need to reflect on it. But I’ve always assumed that my memories of that time were pretty complete, that they were there if I needed them. Now…’
He paused and shrugged. ‘Now I come to look back, to search for the memories, I’m finding they’re actually a bit of a blur. They’ve all run together.’
Maggs nodded.
‘I get that,’ he said. ‘I get the same thing with Hinzerhaus, you know? I remember what happened, I remember what shade of hell it was. I just don’t seem to have any of the details left.’
A strong gust of wind lifted the edges of the work curtains, and blew up a pile of wood shavings so that they scurried and drifted like thick snow.
‘You know what’s to blame, don’t you?’ Maggs said.
‘Tell me,’ said Gaunt.
‘War,’ said Maggs. ‘It feths up your head. It feths it up in terrible ways. And the longer you’re exposed to it, the worse it’ll get.’
‘I hear that,’ said Criid as she walked off to take watch.
‘Get some sleep,’ Gaunt said to Maggs.
Maggs nodded, and went in search of some tarpaulin to curl up on.
Gaunt prowled around the site, pulling aside work curtains, and stepping into new spaces, blue darknesses that smelled of young wood and paint. Moat Street, Moat Street… Had he been here? Probably not in this very building, but outside on the street, moving from cover to cover with the Hyrkans as tracer-fire licked down out of the smoke-wash. Was that a genuine memory, or just a simulation his mind had amalgamated from driftwood pieces in his subconscious?
He heard a light tapping: the fleck of snowflakes being driven against the window-boarding by the wind. He parted another curtain and stepped through into the next area. Plastek sheeting crackled as the draught inhaled and exhaled it against the fibreboard panelling. He adjusted his eyes. Both the front and back walls of the chamber were being rebuilt. Cut stone was waiting to be laid, and the street walls were temporarily formed by wooden boards. Fifteen years ago, something had punched clean through this part of the building. On the interior walls that remained, he found ragged scratch marks running along the stone at about shoulder height. He traced them with his hand until he identified them. A tank, or similar armoured machine, had come through here, flattening the front and back walls under its treads, and raking both side walls with the skirts of its hull.
The strange thing was, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen this. He’d been on Balhaut a year. He’d moved through its streets and gone about his business. How many times had he seen a street corner notched and ragged at shoulder height? Or a stretch of wall scratched with a long, ugly gouge? He’d seen it hundreds of times, and only now did he recognise it for what it was: the traces left by the iron shoulders of the predatory giants that had stalked Balhaut in its darkest days.