Yelling the Gaur Magir! war cry of the Pact, he ordered what was left of the philia forward. It had begun to snow quite heavily. The light had gone, the blue of the sky turned to zinc. Karhunan could smell blood and snow.
They had reached the end of their last mission.
He sprayed fire, and cut down three Commissariat storm-troopers, who were trying to advance along the contested colonnade. From cover, Captain Tawil took a shot that hit Karhunan in the gut. The sirdar fired back, instinctively on auto, and shot Tawil to pieces.
Karhunan could smell his own blood.
He winced, and tried to remain upright. He waved his men forward.
The last of his men: Gnesh, Samus and Lusk.
Gnesh led the way, hosing the colonnade with fire. S Company troopers, screaming for want of cover, burst like meat sacks. Gnesh was laughing. There was blood aplenty for all the thirsty gods of the Consanguinity.
Gnesh fell.
Karhunan didn’t see what hit him, but the big man fell with an awful and final certainty, a death fall.
Karhunan screamed in rage. He saw several figures in black fatigues flanking his line along the outside of the colonnade’s wall. He fired at them, chipping stonework.
Mkoll swung up, and fired back. His first burst slew Lusk, and his second winged Samus. Jajjo, at his left-hand side, aimed over the colonnade wall, and nailed Samus with a squirt of full auto.
Howling, Karhunan ran for them.
A tall figure in nightmarish war paint stepped out of the shadows of a pillar in front of him, and fired some kind of powered bow.
The bolt hit Karhunan Sirdar in the forehead, and crashed him over onto his back, dead.
‘Clear,’ Eszrah ap Niht yelled to the Tanith fire-teams.
‘Advance!’ Mkoll bellowed.
‘It’s a dead end!’ Gaunt yelled.
‘No, this way,’ Jaume cried. ‘This leads through to the Honorarium.’
‘Are you sure?’ Gaunt asked.
‘Of course I am. I’ve been coming up here every Friday for the last six months.’ Jaume yelled.
Gaunt didn’t even think to ask the portraitist why.
‘Maggs!’ he yelled. ‘Move Jaume and the doctor into cover in the Honorarium!’
Mabbon had fallen behind. His strength had held up well, but he was flagging now, slowed by the returning pain of his wound. Snow was swirling around them.
‘But–’ Maggs protested.
‘That’s an order!’ Gaunt yelled.
Maggs turned, and scooted Kolding and the terrified Jaume away in the direction of the vast Honorarium.
Gaunt got his arm around Mabbon, and supported him.
‘Not far now, magir,’ he said.
‘You’re a good man, Gaunt,’ wheezed the etogaur.
‘If they take us, please don’t say that to anyone. Tell them I’m your sworn enemy.’
An RPG shrieked down the colonnade, and blew out the roof. The concussion dropped Gaunt and Mabbon hard.
Malstrom stalked forwards through the coiling smoke and the random snow, slamming another fat shell into the launcher. Dust from the blast had given the air a gritty, grainy quality.
Up ahead, the two bodies lay amongst the rubble, swathed in stone dust. Both looked dead. One of them was the pheguth. Malstrom tossed his launcher away, and drew an autopistol. They had done it. The philia had won. All he had to do was confirm the kill.
Coated in stone dust, and looking like a statue come to life, Gaunt sat up abruptly. His bolt pistol was in his hand.
‘Not today,’ he said, and fired.
The bolt blew Malstrom in half, and painted the cloister wall with a terrible quantity of blood. There were no gore mages of the Consanguinity present to read the blood mark, but the prognostications were nothing but violent death.
Mabbon was dazed and woozy. His wound had started to bleed again. Gaunt hoisted him upright, and got his arm under the enemy officer’s armpits. Both of them were covered in stone dust and blood, and both of them were a little deaf from the concussion.
‘Come on. Stay with me!’ Gaunt yelled. He stared up into Mabbon’s face, and slapped his scarred cheek. ‘Stay with me!’
He could hear whining. He thought it was just his ears. Snowflakes touched his face.
The muzzle of a pistol rammed against Gaunt’s temple.
‘I will give you credit,’ Baltasar Eyl said, panting hard. ‘You have been a worthy adversary. You have led my philia a proper dance. But now, we end this.’
His voice was full of accent, of outworld accent. In the extremity of the moment, it had become hard for Eyl to maintain his civilised veneer.
‘One last thing you might want to consider, damogaur,’ Mabbon said in the Archenemy tongue. ‘When you’ve got the bastard, kill the bastard. Don’t talk about it.’
Gaunt threw a savage elbow that smacked Eyl away. The damogaur reeled, his teeth broken, and his mouth bloody, but he still had the gun. Gaunt kicked him in the belly.
Eyl still had the gun.
‘We’ve got targets! Out in the open!’ Bonin yelled.
‘Take them! Take them all!’ Rime was shouting over the static heavy line.
‘Feth that, there’s smoke and snow all over the place!’ Larkin replied, snuggling up his aim as the Valkyrie bucked and wallowed.
‘Big boss says take the shot, Larks,’ said Bonin.
‘Wait…’ Larkin advised. ‘Wait… get the pilot to level us out! All right, I have three targets. Repeat, three hot. What’s the advice?’
‘Instruction is take the shot,’ Bonin repeated over the roar of the cycling turbofans.
‘I aim to please,’ Larkin replied, the long-las banging in his hands.
There was a crunch of overpressure and punctured vacuum. Blood vapour drenched Gaunt and Mabbon, caking their dust-covered faces.
Eyl’s skull had just detonated. His headless body fell against Gaunt. A gunship wailed in overhead, tossing and pluming the rising smoke and the billowing snow. A second later, its shadow went over them,
‘Holy Throne,’ Gaunt stammered.
‘Hit! Hit!’ Larkin yelled.
‘Yeah, but what did you hit?’ Bonin demanded, leaning down over Larkin in the doorway.
‘I only ever see what’s real and true through my scope,’ Larkin replied. ‘I got the bad guy, of course. Didn’t I?’
Gaunt and Mabbon ran towards the Honorarium. Leaking blood, Mabbon was getting slower all the time.
Behind them, vicious fighting was ripping through the great quad’s cloisters as the last of the Blood Pact philia made their stand.
The Honorarium was huge, a massive, gloomy dome of cold, echoing air and silence. Lights illuminated displays at floor level around the vast rim of the building. The skirts of the huge temple housed individual chapels, dedicated to certain heroes or campaigns. In the centre of the floor space was the giant basalt crypt housing Warmaster Slaydo’s remains.
Halfway across the immense open floor space of the Honorarium, Mabbon’s legs gave out, and he fell. Gaunt turned back to scoop him up.
Jaume, Maggs and Kolding had been hiding behind the front rank of pews. They ran out to help Gaunt.
‘We need to get him into cover,’ Gaunt said.
‘He’s bleeding pretty badly,’ Kolding said, opening his kit.
‘Pack the wound. Pack the wound, then!’ Maggs urged.
‘Let’s carry him somewhere quiet and out of the way,’ Gaunt said. ‘Come on. These side chapels look good to me.’
‘Your chapel is just over there,’ said Jaume, pointing.
‘My what?’
‘Your chapel,’ Jaume repeated.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Gaunt snapped. ‘What chapel?’