He leaned back and stretched.
‘Your mission to Salvation’s Reach. I understand it may have brought back the sort of Throne-forsaken artefacts that gets the Inquisition damp in the crotch.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Macaroth nodded.
‘And it will have value. I’m not an idiot. It will be reviewed and studied, and its use will be applied. Victory may well be hiding there. I am open to these possibilities. No, what really delights me about the Salvation’s Reach mission is the tactical insight. The use of data. Your insight, I suppose. To disinform, and set the factions of the Archenemy against each other. That, Gaunt, is detail at work. Triggering a war between Sek and Gaur. To me, the artefacts that you have returned with are merely the icing on the cake.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Gaunt. ‘I wonder–’
‘Spit it out, Gaunt. I perceive value in you, but you are self-effacing. Too timid, which surprises me given your record. Speak your mind.’
‘You mentioned the timing of this attack on Eltath, sir,’ said Gaunt. ‘The suddenly galvanised response. Just days after we returned with the spoils of Salvation’s Reach–’
Macaroth nodded.
‘They want them back,’ he said quickly. ‘They know they’re here, and they want them back. This had crossed my mind. It is on my shortlist of explanations for their change in tactics. Analysis will confirm it. If it’s true, then it’s another detail. Another error. I estimate that the change of tactics and the assault on Eltath will cost them…’
He rummaged on his desk and found a notebook.
‘Here. Nineteen per cent wastage. Sek accepts a crippling loss as the price of changing direction and attacking a near invincible Imperial bastion. So it must be worth it to him. Ergo, the artefacts are of immense value to whoever possesses them. Sek has shown us his cards.’
‘You have prosecuted Sek since day one,’ said Gaunt.
‘Sek is potentially more dangerous than the Archon. If we ignore him and focus on Gaur, we will lose. If we don’t take Sek down first, we will never get clear to deal the grace blow to the Archon.’
‘And your scheme was to set bait for him here on Urdesh?’
Macaroth smiled and waggled a knowing finger at Gaunt.
‘Sharp as a tack, you. Yes. To bait him.’
‘With you, and the Saint, and the majority of the high staff?’
‘How could he resist?’
‘Is Sek a genius, sir?’
‘Quite possibly. Superior in cunning to Gaur, at the very least.’
‘Then have you considered that he might be playing the same game?’
Macaroth frowned.
‘How so?’
‘You come here, with the Saint and the staff, to bring him out and finish him. Might he have placed himself on Urdesh to do the same to you?’
Macaroth pursed his lips. He stared into the distance for a while.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Like the end game of a regicide match. The last few pieces on the board. The most valuable pieces. Monarch against monarch.’
‘What if he has pieces left that you don’t know about?’
‘We’ve analysed in detail–’
Gaunt drew out a chair and sat down, facing Macaroth across the stack of books. Macaroth seemed very frail and tired. Gaunt could see a small tick beat in the flesh beneath the warmaster’s left eye.
‘My lord,’ he said. ‘I agree with you wholeheartedly that data is the key to victory. The Imperium does know so very much about itself. Too much, perhaps. That resource must be used. But my experience, as a common trooper on the ground, is that we know virtually nothing about our enemy. Virtually nothing. And what little we do know is sequestered and restricted, for the most part by the Inquisition, and deemed too dangerous to consider.’
Macaroth started to reply. No words came out. His hands trembled.
‘I miss Slaydo,’ he whispered.
He looked up at Gaunt. His eyes were fierce.
‘I know detail. You, for instance. Your character and demeanour, as reflected by your service record. Your body language. You came here today, though orders reflect my desire to be left alone and the east wing is out of bounds. It was not arrogance that brought you. Not entitlement that you, the newly minted lord militant, should get his audience with me. That’s not you. You feared I was neglecting my duties and oblivious to the assault at our door, that everything the staff said about me was true. That I was a fool, and a madman, a recluse, out of touch. That I am no longer worthy of my rank. You came to warn me.’
‘I did, sir.’
‘But not that the city was under assault. I can see it in you. Some greater weight you carry.’
Gaunt hesitated. He felt a weight indeed. He could feel enemies, waiting to be made, on either side of him.
‘Lord,’ he said, ‘a significant proportion of the commanders at staff level have lost confidence in your leadership. As we speak, they have a process in motion to unseat you and remove you from command.’
Macaroth sighed.
‘There’s gratitude,’ he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. ‘I have watched for enemies with vigilance. I sleep with one eye open. But the enemies are inside these walls already. Cybon, is it? Van Voytz? Who else? Bulledin? Who do they intend to replace me with?’
‘Me,’ said Gaunt.
Macaroth blinked.
‘Well, well… They’re not idiots, then. I am reassured at least that they have a keen grip of politics. Of talent. In their position, you would be my choice too. But, Gaunt… You stand to succeed to the most powerful rank in the sector. An outsider, brought to the very forefront, just as I was at Balhaut. You stand to inherit. Yet you come here to tell me this? To warn me?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Do you not want the job?’
‘I haven’t even considered my feelings about it,’ said Gaunt. ‘Probably not, on balance.’
‘Which is why you’re the right man, of course. Why, then?’
‘Because you are the warmaster,’ said Gaunt. ‘I have served you since Balhaut. Duty and history tell me that we are as good as lost the day men like me turn against their warmaster.’
Twenty-Four: I Am Death
‘We can walk from here,’ said Baskevyl.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Domor. ‘It’s not far now.’
‘Let me rephrase,’ said Baskevyl. He tapped the transport’s fuel gauge. ‘We’re going to have to walk from here.’
He pulled the transport to a grumbling halt, and they got out. The street was deserted and lightless, but the night air was heavy with the smell of fyceline, and the sky above the rooftops was blooming with an amber glow. They could hear the distant sounds of warfare from several directions, rolling in across the city.
Fazekiel looked at the Munitorum transport ruefully. The bodywork was punctured in dozens of places, and the rear end was shot out.
‘Close call,’ she said. Bask nodded. If the engine hadn’t started, they’d have been sitting targets. The ride out had been fierce and blind. Baskevyl had driven like a maniac, his only direction ‘away from the gunfire’.
Domor glanced at the burning sky.
‘Close call’s not over yet,’ he remarked. ‘The whole city’s up against the wall.’
They started to walk. They crossed streets that were shuttered and dark, and passed buildings that had been abandoned. Shrapnel and air combat debris littered the roadway, smouldering and twisted, some scraps still twinkling with heat. The stuff had been raining down indiscriminately for hours, and though the main air raid seemed to have ended, soot and sparks continued to flutter down. Up on the Great Hill, the glow of the palace’s void shields was dying away. A calculated risk, Bask supposed, but the main fighting zones were clearly ground wars at the edges of the main city, and the void shields would urgently need time to recharge. Another aerial assault could come at any time.