‘A good man,’ said Gaunt.
‘I had a horrible feeling you were going to say that,’ said Mercure. He stood, and walked to the side table. ‘A drink? A toast?’
‘Why not?’ replied Gaunt.
Mercure poured two sacras and handed one of them to Gaunt.
‘You do realise that you won’t be coming back from this one alive, don’t you?’ Mercure asked.
‘That’s what they tell me every time I ship out,’ Gaunt replied.
‘Really? Damn,’ said Mercure, and chinked glasses. ‘Cheers anyway.’
‘We’re shipping out in a week,’ said Ban Daur. ‘I think you should come with us.’
‘Oh, right, yeah. Why?’ asked Elodie.
‘Because I can’t kiss you like this if you’re light years away,’ he replied.
‘Like what?’ she asked.
He showed her.
‘Right,’ she nodded, ‘I’d better come with you then.’
The vast space of the Honorarium was full of faint echoes and a sense of eternity. On their last day on Balhaut, the Tanith First marched into the temple for a special service of benediction. It was a warm, bright day, the snow long gone, and most of the damage done to the building during the final battle had been repaired. They wore their number one uniforms, and their marching was impeccable, even though they had been stagnating in turnaround for two years.
Once the service was done, and the platoons had filed out, Gaunt walked with Dorden around the rim of the great temple, pausing to look into the side chapels. The bandsmen of the ceremonial brigades were packing up. Drums were being muffled and rolled into their boxes. Buglers and horn blowers were cleaning their instruments, the chin straps of their caps still hooked up over their noses.
Gaunt hadn’t realised how old Dorden had got. The walk was slow.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ Dorden said.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s not an easy thing, and you won’t like it,’ Dorden added.
‘Let me show you this first,’ Gaunt said.
He led the way into one of the side chapels.
‘Oh, great Throne,’ Dorden gasped.
‘All the satellite chapels have been dedicated to the worlds lost in the first years of the crusade,’ Gaunt said. They sat down together on one of the pews in the side chapel. ‘This is the memorial chapel dedicated to Tanith. This is what Jaume wanted me for, to make a portrait of me to sit on display in here. Can you imagine?’
‘I can’t,’ Dorden replied. He had tears in his eyes.
‘I know. Look, I wanted you to see this, Tol. Of all people, you needed to know this place existed.’
‘Thank the Throne you did,’ Dorden replied.
They sat back, side by side, on the new, waxed pews, and gazed up at the hololithic projection of Tanith.
‘It was a pretty world, wasn’t it?’ Dorden asked.
‘It was,’ Gaunt agreed. ‘Oh, something else. It seems, I’m dead.’
‘What?’
‘According to the guides who work around here, I died during the Famous Victory. You can pay to visit my death venue.’
‘That’s funny,’ Dorden chuckled.
‘No one remembers anything properly,’ said Gaunt. ‘Everything gets twisted and forgotten.’
Dorden nodded. ‘Except the things we care to remember ourselves.’
Gaunt sighed. ‘When they told me about it, I wondered for a moment if I had died here. I wondered if I had died at the Gate and become a ghost, and had been a ghost for all the time I had been with the Tanith.’
‘I can see how you might have arrived at that conclusion,’ replied Dorden. ‘Who am I to deny it?’
Gaunt smiled, and nodded.
‘I need to tell you something,’ Dorden said, turning to look at Gaunt.
‘A bad something?’ Gaunt asked.
‘I said you won’t like it.’
‘All right,’ said Gaunt.
Dorden sat back.
‘I did the examination. I tested that old bastard.’
‘Zweil?’
‘Yes. I did all the tests.’
‘Something’s come back, hasn’t it?’ asked Gaunt.
Dorden nodded. ‘Leukaemia. Blood cancer. It’s all through him.’
‘Oh, Throne. How long?’
‘Zweil? That old bastard will live forever.’
‘But–’
Dorden sighed. ‘He doesn’t like the blood tests, does he? Old Zweil doesn’t like needles. I had to show him how to do it.’
‘So?’
‘When my back was turned, he switched the samples.’
‘So… oh no. No. No!’
‘Hush,’ said Dorden.
‘My eyes won’t let me cry,’ Gaunt said, looking at his old friend.
‘It’s probably best that way.’
‘How long?’
‘Six months, if I’m lucky. But I want to keep going. You know, and Ana knows. Don’t tell anyone else. I want to fight to the end. I want to serve to the end.’
Gaunt nodded.
‘And I’d like to rest here when I’m done,’ said Dorden.
Gaunt looked up at the roof of the Tanith chapel. The dead had a knack of finding their way back to Balhaut.
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ he said.
EPILOGUE
The Ninth Day
The Oligarchy Gate, on the afternoon of the ninth day, at Slaydo’s left hand. Ahead, the famous Gate, defended by the woe machines of Heritor Asphodel. Mud lakes. Freak weather. The chemical deluge triggered by the orbital bombardment and the Heritor’s toxins. Molten pitch in the air like torrential rain.
Gaunt kept his head down as the shells rained in.
Wire barbs skinned the air. The thuk of impacts, so many impacts. Clouds of pink mist to his left and right as men were hit. Ahead, below the Gate, the machines whirring again.
They were dug in opposite a small gatehouse with distinctive finials shaped like aquilas. The bombardment was so severe that Gaunt doubted the building would be standing in another day, or even another hour. It would be erased from the world and from his memory.
His sergeant, beloved Tanhause, yelled out over the onslaught. Formation moving up!
Gaunt looked back. PDF units were advancing to the front, scurrying, heads down. He had to admire their resolution. Often, they had little more than bolt-action rifles and bayonets, but still they threw themselves into the front line.
‘How are we doing?’ the young PDF officer yelled over the roar of the bombardment as he ducked into cover.
‘Pretty decently,’ Gaunt yelled back. ‘If we can rally here and press on, we may have a good day yet!’
He looked up. The Tower of the Plutocrat was the most massive structure he’d ever seen. Nothing in the universe could topple it.
‘Ah, who knows what we can do,’ the young PDF officer returned. ‘We might even bring that terrible big bastard down!’
‘I like the sound of that,’ Gaunt grinned. He held out his hand.
‘I’m Gaunt,’ he said.
The young PDFer grasped Gaunt’s hand and shook it.
‘Jaume.’
Gaunt smiled.
‘Good to know you,’ he said. ‘Let’s finish this.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Abnett is a novelist and award-winning comic book writer. He has written over thirty-five novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies and, with Mike Lee, the Darkblade cycle. His novels Horus Rising and Legion (both for the Black Library) and his Torchwood novel Border Princes (for the BBC) were all bestsellers. His novel Triumff, for Angry Robot, was published in 2009 and nominated for the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent. Dan’s blog and website can be found at