‘Nothing,’ says Gaunt.
‘You sure?’
Gaunt nods.
‘Good,’ says Bragg, sitting back again. ‘I thought you might have the torments on you.’
‘The torments?’
‘Everyone gets them,’ says Bragg. ‘Everyone has their own. Bad dreams. Bad memories. Most of us, it’s about where we come from. Tanith, you know.’
‘I know,’ says Gaunt.
‘We miss it,’ says Bragg, like this idea might, somehow, not be clear to anyone. ‘It’s hard to bear. It’s hard to think about what happened to it, sometimes. It gets us inside. You know Gutes?’
Bragg points across at Piet Gutes, one of the men who was in the guild house with Domor. Like all the Tanith, Gutes is resting for a moment, sitting against a wall, feet pulled in, gun across his knees, listening.
‘Yeah,’ says Gaunt.
‘Friend of mine,’ says Bragg. ‘He had a daughter called Finra, and she had a daughter called Foona. Feth, but he misses them. Not being away from them, you understand. Just them not being there to return to. And Mkendrick?’
Bragg points to another infantryman. His voice is low.
‘He left a brother in Tanith Steeple. I think he had family in Attica too, an uncle–’
‘Why are you telling me this, trooper?’ Gaunt asks. ‘I know what happened. I know what I did. Do you want me to suffer? I can’t make amends. I can’t do that.’
Bragg frowns.
‘I thought,’ he starts to say.
‘What?’ asks Gaunt.
‘I thought that’s what you were trying to do,’ says Bragg. ‘With us. I thought you were trying to make something good out of what was left of Tanith.’
‘With respect, trooper, you’re the only man in the regiment who thinks that. Also, with respect to the fighting merits of the Tanith, I’m an Imperial Guard commander, not a miracle worker. I’ve got a few men, a handful in the great scheme of things. We’re never going to accomplish much. We’re going to be a line of code in the middle of a Munitorum levy report, if that.’
‘Oh, you never know,’ says Bragg. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter if we don’t. All that matters is you do right by the men.’
‘I do right by them?’
‘That’s all we want,’ says Bragg with a smile. ‘We’re Tanith. We’re used to knowing where we’re going. We’re used to finding our way. We’re lost now. All we want from you is for you to find a path for us and set us on it.’
Someone nearby says something. Corbec holds up a hand, makes a gesture. Pattering rain. Otherwise, silence. Everyone’s listening.
Gaunt pats the big man on the arm and goes over to join Corbec.
‘What is it?’ he asks.
‘Beltayn says he heard something,’ Corbec replies. The boy is settled in beside Corbec, the wounded arm packed and taped. He looks at Gaunt.
He says, ‘Something’s awry.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asks Gaunt.
Corbec indicates he should listen. Gaunt cranes his neck.
The Kosdorfers are moving. They’re talking again. Their whispers are breathing out of the ruins to reach the Tanith position.
Gaunt looks sharply at Corbec.
‘I think I can understand the words,’ he says.
‘Me too,’ Corbec nods.
Gaunt swallows hard. He’s got a sick feeling, and he’s not sure where it’s coming from. The feeling is telling him that he’s not suddenly comprehending the Kosdorfers because they are speaking Low Gothic.
He’s understanding them because he’s learned their language.
The boy wakes up with a start.
‘Go back to sleep,’ Dorden tells him. ‘You need your sleep.’
Dorden’s standing in the doorway of the tent, watching the evening coming in.
Milo gets up.
‘Are they back yet?’ he asks.
Dorden shakes his head.
‘Someone needs to go and look for them,’ the boy says flatly. ‘I had another dream. A really unpleasant one. Someone needs to go and look for them.’
‘Just go back to sleep,’ Dorden insists. The boy slumps a little, and turns back to his cot.
‘You dreamed they were in trouble, did you?’ Dorden asks, trying to humour the boy.
‘No,’ replies the boy, sitting down on the cot and looking back at the medicae. ‘That’s not why I have the feeling they’re in trouble. I didn’t dream it, that’s just common sense. They’re overdue. My bad dream, it was just a dream about numbers. Like last night and the night before.’
‘Numbers?’ asks Dorden.
Milo nods. ‘Just some numbers. In my dream, I’m trying to write these numbers down, over and over, but my stylus won’t work, and for some reason that’s not a pleasant dream to have.’
Dorden looks at the boy. He asks, ‘So what are the numbers, Brin?’, still humouring him.
The boy reels the numbers off.
‘When did he tell you that?’ Dorden asks.
‘Who?’
‘Gaunt.’
‘He didn’t tell me anything,’ says the boy. ‘He certainly didn’t tell me those numbers. I just told you, they were in my dream. I dreamed about them.’
‘Are you lying to me, Brin?’
‘No, sir.’
Dorden keeps staring at the boy a minute more, as if a lie will suddenly give itself away, like the moon coming out from behind a cloud.
‘Why do those numbers matter?’ the boy asks.
‘They’re Gaunt’s command code,’ says Dorden.
‘Explain yourself,’ the voice demands. It comes out like an echo, from the ruins, the ghost of a voice. ‘Explain yourself. We don’t understand why.’
The voice tunes in and out, like a vox that’s getting interference.
‘We’re hungry,’ it adds.
Corbec looks at Gaunt. He wants to reply, Gaunt can see it on his face. Gaunt shakes his head.
‘You left us here,’ the voice says. It’s two or three voices now, all speaking at once, like two or three vox sets tuned to the same signal, their speakers slightly out of sync. ‘Why did you leave us here? We don’t understand why you left us behind.’
‘Feth’s sake is that?’ Corbec mutters to Gaunt. All good humour has gone from him. He’s looking pinched and scared.
‘You left us behind, and we’re hungry,’ the voices plead.
‘I don’t know,’ says Gaunt. ‘A trick.’
He says it, but he doesn’t believe it. It’s an uglier thing than that. The voices don’t really sound like voices when you listen hard, or vox transmits either. They sound like... like other noises that have been carefully mixed up and glued together to make voice sounds. All the noises of the dead city have been harvested: the scatter of pebbles, the slump of masonry, the splinter and smash of glass, the creak of rebar, the crack of tiles, the spatter of rain. All those things and millions more besides, blended into a sound mosaic that almost perfectly imitates the sound of human speech.
Almost, but not quite.
Almost human, but not human enough.
‘You left us behind, and we’re hungry. Explain yourself. We don’t understand why you left us. We don’t understand why you didn’t come.’
The Tanith are all up, all disturbed. Knuckles are white where hands grip weapons. Everyone’s soaking wet. Everyone’s watching the dripping shadows. Gaunt needs them to keep it together. He knows they can all hear it. The inhuman imperfection in the voices.
‘I know what that is,’ says Larkin.
‘Steady, Larks,’ growls Corbec.
‘I know what that is. I know, I know what that is,’ the marksman says. ‘I know it. It’s Tanith.’
‘Shut up, Larks.’
‘It’s Tanith. It’s dead Tanith calling to us! It’s Tanith calling to us, calling us back!’