‘Sek is desperate,’ said Van Voytz. ‘A fleet war would be enough to punish him and keep him at bay. Our warmaster, with the Beati at his side, should be leading the way against the Archon, not detained here.’
‘You’d give up Urdesh?’ asked Gaunt.
‘It’s been done before,’ said Van Voytz bluntly. ‘Many times. So, Sek makes some ground. Once the Archon is destroyed, Sek will just be part of the pacification clean-up. But it has become an obsession with Macaroth to contend with them both at once, and take them both down.’
‘You disapprove?’
‘I’ve been disapproving for fifteen years, Bram,’ said Van Voytz. ‘My dissent got me the Fifth Army Group and a charge to cover the Coreward Line.’
‘With respect,’ said Gaunt, ‘at the time that looked like the warmaster was passing you over in favour of commanders like Urienz. You and Cybon both. It looked like a demotion. History has shown differently. If you, Cybon and Blackwood hadn’t been demoted to the Coreward Line, Sek and Innokenti would have broken the crusade in ’76. Was that petulance on the warmaster’s part, or a strategic insight beyond the capabilities of any of us?’
‘Insight only lasts so long, Bram,’ said Van Voytz.
Their vehicle had reached the summit of the Great Hill. The motorcade rumbled over the metal bridges that crossed the gulf of the geothermal vents, and then ran in past blockhouse fortifications and watchtowers that protected the access gorge bisecting the inner cone of the volcano. The outer faces of the gorge mouth were blistered with macro-gun emplacements, like barnacles on the hull of a marine tanker.
Past the watchtowers, the procession drove into the shadow of the plunging gorge. The cliff walls either side were sheer, solid and impassable. There were weapons posts every twenty metres, and heavy Basilisk batteries on the cliff heads, their long barrels cranked skywards like the long necks of a grazing herd.
The gloom of the deep access gorge was dispelled by frames of stablights that had been fixed overhead between its walls. The light cast had an eerie, artificial radiance that reminded Gaunt of the ochre lumen glow of a ship’s low holds.
The motorcade slowed several times as it passed gate stations and barriers along the ravine, Hydra batteries and quad guns traversing with a whir to track them, but the lord general’s authority meant that it didn’t have to stop. Solemn ranks of armoured Guardsmen stood in honour as the ground vehicles sped past.
Beyond the access gorge, the sky was visible again. The summit of the Great Hill was a vast amphitheatre, fringed by the ragged lip of the volcanic cone, and in it lay the immense precinct of the Urdeshic Palace. Towering inner walls surrounded an Imperial bastion of humbling size, its main spires reaching high above the surrounding cone peak into the dismal sky.
They drove up through concentric wall formations, passed across inner yards where armoured divisions sat like Guardsmen on parade: Basilisk carriages, storm-tanks, siege tanks, super-massives asleep under tarps. They sped past a long row of Vanquishers, identical but for their hull numbers, and then followed a skirt road up to the High Yard of the main keep.
As Gaunt got out of the general’s heavy transport, the Taurox escort vehicles swinging to a halt around him, a formation of Thunderbolts screamed low overhead, filling the High Yard with sound, heading west over the keep. Gaunt looked up to see them pass, and then the second wave that quickly followed them. He pulled on his coat, walked across the yard and ascended the access steps to the wall top.
‘Gaunt?’ Van Voytz called after him.
From the wall top, Gaunt had a clean view out across the rim of the cone, the vast city below and the distant landscape. He could see the dull sheen of the sea. The dark industrial landscape spread away to the east, a mosaic of refineries and manufactory megastructures, vast acres of pylons like metal forests, and filthy, belching galvanic plants, some clearly extending across the waters of the Eastern Reach on artificial islands. Far to the east, thunder broke, and Gaunt saw a tremble of distant flames light up the skyline.
The Urdeshi and Helixid sentries manning the quad-gun positions on the wall-line glanced at him, puzzled. Who was he to just walk up here?
Another wave of aircraft screamed overhead, following the same track as the earlier ones. Marauders this time, a shoal of fifty, their heavy engines roaring as they dragged through the air, slower and more ponderous than the strike fighters that had preceded them. Gaunt watched them until the amber coals of their afterburners disappeared into the dark jumble of the landscape. Another rippling boom of thunder came in on the wind, and another flicker of fire-flash lit the horizon.
‘The enemy is assaulting the vapour mills at Zarakppan,’ said Biota, stepping up alongside Gaunt, and looking out.
‘We try to preserve the precious infrastructure as much as possible,’ he said, ‘which is why the Urdeshi war is primarily a land war and not an orbital purge. But the Archenemy seems more intent on destruction than reacquisition. However, Zarakppan is too close for comfort. Air power has been deployed in preference to ground repulse to deal with the assault more decisively.’
‘At the cost of the vapour mills?’ asked Gaunt.
‘Regrettably, yes. Such sacrifices have become an increasing feature of this campaign.’
‘An orbital purge would annihilate Sek in days,’ said Gaunt. ‘Perhaps end his threat forever. The battlefleet–’
‘–stands ready,’ said Biota. ‘It is a strategy we have in our pocket. It has its champions. The loss of Urdesh as a functioning forge world would be a major sacrifice. This must be weighed against the benefit of eliminating the Anarch for good.’
‘So the warmaster favours the ground war?’ asked Gaunt.
‘Vehemently. To defeat Sek and preserve the might of Urdesh. A worthy goal, and one I can certainly see the merit of. But it seems to ignore the Archenemy’s methodology.’
Gaunt looked at him.
‘What do you mean, Biota?’
Biota was impassive.
‘At the best of times, sir, the Ruinous Powers are unpredictable, their tactics impenetrable. But here they seem outright incomprehensible. They seem to have come to take back Urdesh, and yet they–’
‘They what?’
‘Even by their inhuman standards, they are behaving like maniacs.’
The tactician looked at Gaunt with an expression Gaunt found curious.
‘There is a theory,’ said Biota, ‘that Anarch Sek has gone insane.’
‘And we can tell that how?’ asked Gaunt.
Biota chuckled.
‘A fair point. But it has become impossible to discern any tactical logic to his campaign. Not in comparison to some of his actions, which have often displayed extraordinary cunning. Many in tacticae and intelligence have concluded that he has suffered a psychotic break. Perhaps he has been psychologically damaged by the need to show obeisance to the Archon. Gaur has humbled him and brought him into line, and that may have been too much for an ego like Sek’s. Or perhaps he is ill, or damaged, or corrupted beyond any measure we can understand.’
Biota looked Gaunt directly in the eyes. His gaze was solemn.
‘You did that to him, you know? You broke him.’
‘I’ve driven him mad?’ asked Gaunt. ‘I’ve triggered this bloodbath?’
‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ said Biota. ‘Please, come. The general is waiting for us.’
Designated Billet K700 was a cluster of old worker habs in the Low Keen district. The towering bulk of the Great Hill could be seen above the rooftops, from the yard, a pale shadow in the haze.
When Ban Daur arrived, the yard was already full of trucks off-loading. There were people everywhere, troopers, retinue and Munitorum staffers, all of them milling around, unloading and lugging transportation trunks and stuffed haversacks into the mouldering habs. The yard wasn’t large. Cargo-8s had backed up along the approach track, or rumbled into the vacant lots opposite, and people were dismounting and walking the rest of the way rather than wait.