More men went by in the other direction, hurrying, buttoning up their jackets.
‘I just went to the infirmary, sir,’ said Cohran. ‘I can’t miss the review.’
‘I’m about out of patience with you, Cohran,’ said Edur. ‘I think you’ll be looking at the inside of the brig for quite a time, while I fathom out why Commissar Blenner tried to protect you. People like you frustrate me, Cohran. If you’d just faced up when I confronted you, I’d have probably let you off with a citation. But this blather, this effort to wriggle out. It’s what dilutes the Guard, you hear me? It’s the kind of rot-thinking that eats out the heart of a good regiment. You’re a weak man, Cohran, and there’s no excuse for it.’
‘I’m sick, sir,’ said Cohran. He stopped walking.
‘You’re not sick. Get on.’
Cohran shivered and groaned, as though something unpleasant had just undermined him on a gastric level.
‘Cohran?’
‘I’m going to throw up…’ gasped Cohran. He turned and blundered off the transverse into the narrow access tunnel of a engineering inspection bay, clinging to the wall and heaving.
‘Cohran!’ Edur strode after him. His hand went to his holster.
Cohran had gone a short way down the dank metal tunnel. There was a purr of heavy machinery from the bay up ahead. The light levels were much lower than out in the transverse, where people were still hurrying by. Cohran leaned his forearm and his head against the machined metal wall plate, breathing hard.
Edur drew his pistol and aimed it at the side of Cohran’s head.
‘You must think I’m a Throne-damned idiot if you think I’m going to fall for this play-acting,’ he said. ‘This just escalated to serious charges, you worthless–’
Cohran snapped around. With a speed Edur could not explain or anticipate, Cohran’s raised hand caught his wrist, knocked the aim aside, and propelled Edur backwards into the opposite wall of the tunnel. He hit hard, grazing the back of his head and driving the wind out of his lungs.
Cohran reversed his turn, embraced Edur’s gun-arm, extended it, and then broke the wrist.
Edur howled in pain. Cohran took the pistol out of the limp hand and tossed it into the engineering bay behind him.
It was done. Pain-shock alone would floor the commissar and–
Usain Edur was a strong man. A deep sense of righteous indignation broke through his wash of pain and surprise. It was a reserve that had kept him alive on several battlefields, a focus that allowed him to push past the undermining fog of injury or confusion.
He threw himself at Cohran, leading with his left shoulder. They cannoned together, and Edur dragged Cohran along a section of wall plate, splitting his lip and gouging his cheek. Cohran barked out a snarl and drove his elbow back into Edur’s collar-bone. Edur smacked back against the opposite tunnel wall.
He came at Cohran again, leading with his good hand. Cohran had turned to square up, head down, fists raised. As Edur surged forwards, Cohran swung a punch that caught Edur across the ear and drove him sideways. He stumbled into the end of the tunnel wall, and staggered off it into the engineering bay.
Cohran came after him. He needed to control things again, quickly, before somebody passing along the traverse heard or saw what was happening. The bay was more out of the way than the tunnel. The purr of the machinery masked their sounds. A single servitor menial turned from an inspection panel to note the visitors to his workspace with uncomprehending eyes. Caliper digits flexed as it tried to process the interruption to its basic task functions.
The centre of the bay area was a deep through-deck shaft that accommodated the rising spire of an accumulator stack. The ancient brass rings and steel-cased capacitor rods whirred and rotated. Fronds of energy crackled down in the shaft below the iron handrail.
Cohran barged Edur across the bay and into the rail, twisting his back and damaging his lower spine. Edur cried out in pain, lashed out, and connected with his broken hand. The blow, to the forehead, was enough to make Cohran flinch backwards, but the pain from the grinding bone made Edur gag and slump, his eyes and mouth wide, gasping like a landed fish.
Cohran kicked him in the chest, then again in the face, smashing Edur’s head back so it bounced off the guardrail. Edur collapsed in an awkward heap against the rail, his legs bent under him.
Cohran stepped forwards to snap his neck and finish the game.
He stopped dead, looking down the snout of Edur’s pistol. Somewhere during the scramble, the commissar had got hold of it again. He was aiming it with his good hand, his broken hand curled like a dead fledgling against his chest. His head was swaying and blood was drooling from his mouth. He’d lost some teeth, and one eye was beginning to swell shut.
‘Little bastard…’ Edur slurred.
The surprise reversal made Cohran lose control of his face for a second. The features rippled.
‘What the hell are you?’ Edur asked.
It was enough of a distraction. Cohran punched, his fingers gathered into a beak-shape. The inhuman force of the blow demolished Edur’s face and exploded the nasal and brow bones back into his brain. The hand holding the pistol dropped heavily. Edur’s pulverised face bowed forwards as if in prayer. Blood pattered out of it in three or four separate streams.
Cohran straightened up. He could feel blood running from his own cheek and lip. He turned. The servitor had risen to its feet, agitated. Cohran stepped forwards, grasped it by its ceramite jaw and cranium, and snapped its neck. He broke off one of the servitor’s digital tools and used it to gouge out the unit’s optics and burn out its visual memory core.
Cohran looked around. He peered over the rail and saw the long drop into the gloom of the exhaust sump at the foot of the stack. Without prevarication, he tipped Edur’s body down the shaft, watched it tumble and deflect off lower guard rails and then disappear. He threw the servitor in after it.
He needed to get cleaned up. He needed to get to the excursion deck.
‘They’re present and correct,’ said Beltayn.
Gaunt nodded. He put on his cap, peak first, adjusted it, and took a calming breath. Then he walked in through the vast entry hatch. Beltayn fell into step behind him, with an escort squad from A Company led by Criid and Mkoll.
The Armaduke’s main excursion deck was a vast hangar space with a floor plan equal to several parade grounds set end to end. Light shafted down from the lantern arrays bolted in amongst the girder ribs of the roof. Large craft, such as troop carrier landers and cargo runners, had been towed to the far end, away from the forward space doors. Some were enclosed in cages of gantry scaffolding so that servitors and Mechanicus crews could work on their maintenance. Small craft – the lighters and shuttles – had been hoisted up into the rafters on magnetic clamps and hung overhead like hunting trophies. On the port wing-hinge assembly of one suspended Arvus, a two-headed eagle perched and glared balefully down at Gaunt as he advanced out into the open space of the deck.
The entire regiment had assembled on the principal landing platform. The troopers were wearing operational uniforms rather than formal dress, but the clothes and kit had been cleaned and prepared to the highest standards. They were arranged in company blocks, with their officers to the fore of each section. A cantilevered through-deck elevator had been raised to form a podium in front of them. Company colours were displayed: Tanith, Verghast, Belladon.
The retinue had been permitted to attend. They clustered around the doorway or filled the second and third tier galleries of the deck’s upper levels. As he walked out through them, Gaunt saw two faces he recognised: Daur’s girl, Elodie, aloof and vigilant; Maddalena Darebeloved.