Blood Pact

TWENTY-EIGHT The Death Venue of Ibram Gaunt (visitors welcome)

The eager docent led them towards the great quad where the footprint of the Tower of the Plutocrat was outlined in silver and gold.

Gaunt felt the air chill.

He reached for the reassuring grip of his bolt pistol. It felt comfortable in his hand. He kept the group close to him, and picked up his visual checking. He noticed that both Mabbon and Maggs were scanning the area too. They’d felt it as well, and whatever they were, both of them were soldiers first. They had keen skills that could never erode.

Gaunt kept his hand on his bolter as he let the docent guide his party through the cloister shadows towards the Tower site. Maggs sidled close to Gaunt.

‘Give me a gun,’ he whispered.

Gaunt shook his head.

The sky above the High Palace had become an aching blue, unblemished by any clouds. The sun, beginning its afternoon track down the sky, was still bright. The shadows of the cloisters and the memorial chapels around the great quad were hard-edged and black.

Gaunt could hear a general murmur of voices: other docents, leading their parties; conversations between visitors; an ayatani priest performing a simple service of remembrance in front of a memorial plaque, a family grouped around him with their heads bent. The light wind ruffled long skirts of black silk.

Gaunt heard a clock tower down in the Oligarchy chiming four. He turned to the docent.

‘Can you keep my group here for a few minutes?’ he requested. ‘Tell them about the Tower. Tell them about the extraordinary noise it made when it fell, like the world splitting in half. Tell them about the dust-cloud that blotted out the sunlight. Tell them about the piles of bodies steeper than the piles of rubble.’

‘Sir?’ the docent asked, looking puzzled.

‘Tell them all about Commissar Gaunt and what an amazing soldier he was.’

Gaunt turned and walked out of the shadows into the sunlight of the great quad. He saw tour groups in the distance on the far side of the area, and several more closer to, grouped around the memorial statues in the centre of the quad.

It was nothing like he remembered it, though he had begun to seriously doubt the quality of his memories. The terrain was different, flatter. The topography of the buildings surrounding the area had changed, which was hardly surprising, given the collateral of the Tower’s demise. He remembered being holed up for hours under fire, staring at a small gatehouse with distinctive finials in the shape of aquilas. He wondered what had happened to the place. It had still been standing when he and the Hyrkans had finally been able to storm a path past it. Had it fallen later? Had it been demolished much later on to make way for these memorial vaults?

Even the sky was different.

He turned in a slow circle. He could see the High Palace, hazed by the blue distance. He could see a wheeling flock of birds. He could see the huge, dark drum-shaped monolith of the Honorarium rising behind the great quad like a battlement.

He walked towards the centre of the great quad. Though it was long gone, he could feel the presence of the Tower above him, clinging like a ghost. His orders had brought it down: his sweat, his effort. The Tower had added almost half a kilometre to the Oligarchy’s overall height. Falling, the roar it had made…

He saw a figure in the distance, standing at the edge of the cloisters. He recognised it instantly. The sight almost brought a spontaneous tear to his eyes: not a tear of sadness or weakness, but a sudden upwelling of emotion. To be here, so many years later, and to see his oldest friend coming to his aid, on this very spot…

Gaunt did not cry. It was one design feature his new eyes did not possess.

He began to walk towards Blenner. Blenner was smiling his shit-eating smile, his ‘Let’s blow the rest of the day off and go to this little bar I know’ smile. His cap was on at its trademark, almost jaunty, entirely nonconformist angle.

Everything was going to be all right.

As he got closer, Gaunt noticed Blenner’s hands. Blenner’s arms were down at his sides. The index and middle fingers of each hand were, quietly and subtly, making ‘walking’ motions.

It was one of the old codes, one of the scholam codes that they’d used so long ago on Ignatius Cardinal. Fellow pupil, friend, I can see trouble that you can’t see; I can see the master or the prefect waiting to pounce, waiting to catch us out for running or singing or chatting, so walk away while you still can. I’m done for already, but you can still save yourself. Walk, walk, walk, for Throne’s sake, walk…

Gaunt stopped in his tracks, and began to back away. A big grin crossed Blenner’s face. Yes, you’ve got it, Bram…

Two men suddenly shoved past Blenner, and burst out of the cloisters into the sunlight. They both had laspistols. They both had the same face: two of Rime’s agents.

They aimed their weapons at him.

‘Ibram Gaunt!’ one yelled. ‘By order of the holy Inquisition, we demand your immediate surrender! Do not resist. Get on the ground, face down, with your arms spread!’

‘Why?’ asked Gaunt.

‘Do as I say!’

‘I don’t recognise your authority.’

‘You are consorting with a known warp cultist. Guilt by association. Get on the damn ground!’

Eye-blink fast, Gaunt drew his bolt pistol, and aimed it at the Sirkles.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s do this.’

The Sirkles baulked slightly.

‘Take him,’ one said to the other.

There was a bone crack. Vaynom Blenner had wrapped his fists together and smacked them across the back of one of the Sirkle’s skulls.

‘Run, for Throne’s sake, Bram!’ Blenner yelled as the Sirkle he had struck went down onto his knees.

The other Sirkle looked at his twin, distracted.

Gaunt put a bolt-round into the quad paving at the Sirkle’s feet. The boom was gigantic, and echoed around the vast area. Flocks of startled birds exploded up into the blue from cloister roofs. Visitors looked around, wondering what the hollow thunderclap meant, not recognising the sound of gunfire.

Who on Balhaut recognised the sound of gunfire anymore?

Hit by paving debris, the other Sirkle staggered backwards. Gaunt started to sprint across the sunlit open ground, his stormcoat flying out behind him like ragged wings.

‘Run!’ he yelled at the group waiting for him in the cloister shadows. Maggs was already getting them moving.

‘I think you should stay here,’ Mabbon said gently to the bewildered docent. ‘This is probably the point at which you’ll want to disassociate yourself from this group.’

‘If you think that’s best, sir,’ the docent stammered. ‘Uhm, the Emperor protects.’

‘So I keep hearing,’ said Mabbon, as he turned to follow Maggs, Jaume and Kolding along the cloister.

‘It’s a trap! Move,’ Gaunt yelled, catching up with them.

Squads of troopers, some of them S Company, but many of them ordo fire-teams, rushed out onto the great quad from the eastern cloisters where Blenner had been waiting.

Rime was with them, yelling orders to his agents.

‘Spread out. Flush the cloisters! Is the area locked?’

‘Yes, sir! Strike teams at all the gates. They can’t leave the Oligarchy precincts.’

‘We can’t let him run!’ Rime declared. ‘Bring the birds in. Marksmen. Now, Throne damn it!’

‘Yes, sir,’ a Sirkle replied, waving up a vox-officer.

‘This Gaunt’s shown his true colours!’ snarled Rime. ‘If he’d surrendered when he’d had the chance, I would have had some measure of pity. But it’s clear where he’s cast his lot. Old habits die hard, and he learned all of his on Gereon. Tell the birds to take any shot they can get! They’re all viable targets, do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’ the Sirkle replied.

Edur emerged into the sunlight of the great quad with the first wave. He shouted his S Company men forward, hoping to secure Gaunt in the confusion that followed Rime’s fumbled play.

‘Go. Go!’ he yelled.

‘Targets have gone into the cloisters, west side, sir,’ Tawil voxed back via micro-bead.

‘Dammit!’ Edur cried.

‘We think the targets are heading east towards the Honorarium and the memorial enclave, sir.’

‘Follow them!’

‘Sir, there are an appreciable number of civilians in our path!’

Edur cursed again, and turned in a frustrated circle in the sunlight.

He saw Kolea and Baskevyl, and the Tanith scout squads, running towards him.

‘Back off. Back off, now!’ he yelled, raising his hands. ‘Stand down. You’re only going to make this worse!’

‘Well, great job you’re doing,’ Baskevyl yelled as he ran past.

‘Throne damn it,’ Edur screamed.

‘We look after our own!’ Kolea yelled back at him.

‘That’s exactly why this is a bad idea,’ Edur replied.

Mkoll was the first of the Tanith party to reach the western cloisters. Eszrah was close behind him.

Mkoll suddenly skidded to a halt, and looked up at the sky.

‘Something’s coming,’ he said.

‘You mean the air cover?’ Jajjo asked, running up behind them.

‘No,’ Mkoll growled. ‘Something bad, I think.’

He raised his rifle and rushed on into the cloisters.

‘Shouldn’t we just surrender to them?’ Jaume asked as they ran.

‘No,’ said Gaunt.

‘But they were Throne agents, weren’t they? Officers of the Inquisition?’

‘The answer’s still no,’ said Gaunt.

He skidded to a halt. He could hear the uproar of the fire-teams chasing them, the screams of the visitor parties scrambling out of their way.

It all seemed very distant, suddenly.

Gaunt looked up. A scatter of snowflakes, no more than three or four, was falling towards them out of the cloudless air. They fell until they were a few metres above their heads.

Then they froze in the air. They hung, impossibly, in nothingness, as if time had been suspended.

‘Now we’re really in trouble,’ murmured Gaunt.

‘She’s here,’ whispered Mabbon. ‘The witch is here.’

Heavy gunfire suddenly raked at them. They flew for cover behind the pillars of the colonnade. The throaty las-fire punched holes in the stone flags, and sent paving stones spinning into the air.

Closing in behind Gaunt’s group, the ordo fire-teams turned to blast at the sudden source of fire. They got off a few shots before the heavy gunfire turned on them, cutting many of them down. Men crumpled or jerked back, smashed off their feet. Some of them got to cover. Some of them fell, hideously wounded.

‘Into them!’ Baltasar Eyl commanded.

Gnesh moved forwards along the cloisters, hosing with his heavy las-gun. Las-bolts squealed and spat from the massive, oil-black weapon slung over his shoulder. His shots were chewing the corners off the colonnade’s stone pillars. Facing stone cracked and shattered. Brick dust bloomed like shocks of pollen. Ordo agents toppled and fell. A Sirkle, hit twice, smashed back into a pillar, and slid down, dead.

Around Gnesh, elements of the philia laid in support. Their gunfire greeted the S Company formations arriving behind the ordo units. The Commissariat storm-troopers took cover, and began to return fire with their hellguns. In less than a minute, the western cloisters of the great quad had turned into a furious, howling nightmare of a firefight.

This is the Tower of the Plutocrat I remember, Gaunt thought.

He looked around, gauging the best exit route. Las-rounds smacked into the wall above him. Somewhere, a grenade went off. Above the gunfire roar, he could hear turbofans whining.

Gaunt rose, blew a Blood Pact warrior off his feet with a single bolt, ran, and tried to reach the next archway, hoping to duck in, and provide cover for the men following him.

Imrie of the philia swung out of the archway shadows, and rammed the muzzle of his weapon against Gaunt’s forehead.

‘On your knees,’ he said in broken Low Gothic. ‘On your knees. Where is the pheguth?’

‘Tar shet fethak!’ Gaunt replied, cursing the Blood Pact warrior in his own tongue.

Imrie took a step back in surprise, and then aimed the gun to shoot.

A chunk of paving stone smacked him in the face, cracking his grotesk.

Imrie fell on his back, his weapon discharging uselessly into the ceiling of the colonnade.

Maggs appeared at Gaunt’s side.

‘Don’t give me a bloody gun then,’ Maggs said, and helped himself to Imrie’s weapon. Gaunt didn’t stop him.

Maggs checked the weapon. On the ground, Imrie began to stir. Maggs put the rifle to his head, and fired.

‘One less to worry about,’ he said.

‘We’ve got to find a way out of here,’ Gaunt told him.

Two more Blood Pact shooters opened up on them from the cloister end. Las-bolts chopped and stripped through the air. Gaunt and Maggs ducked down, and fired back.

‘Oh holy Throne!’ Gaunt heard Jaume cry out. ‘Oh holy Throne, this is insanity!’

Maggs adjusted his angle, and took out one of the Archenemy shooters. The other tried to reposition to get Maggs into his sweep of fire, and Gaunt put two bolt-rounds through him and the wall behind him.

‘Run!’ Maggs told the others. ‘Now!’

They all ran.

The Valkyries swung in low over the High Palace. Smoke was pluming up off the cloisters near to the great quad.

Strapped into the open doorway of the leading bird, Larkin looked up at Bonin, who was holding on to the door’s overhead rail.

‘It’s a fething mess down there,’ he yelled over the wind rush.

Bonin nodded. He pulled out a scope, and started spotting.

‘Get your eye in, Larks,’ he said.

‘I don’t even know what I’m looking for anymore,’ muttered Larkin, settling up to his long-las’s scope.

‘Bad guys,’ Bonin said.

‘Ah, gotcha,’ replied Larkin.

Rime and three Sirkles ran down the western colonnade, past the bodies of dead agents and at least two other Sirkles. Rime could hear the strip and slap of fierce gunfire exchanges in the precincts directly ahead of him.

‘Close in, close in!’ he yelled over his link. ‘Condition red! All forces close in and subdue. Kill shots approved, all targets!’

Crossfire ripped through the colonnade, killing both of the Sirkles, outright. Rime stumbled with a flesh wound to his left thigh. The philia warrior known as Naeme ploughed out of hiding behind the inquisitor with his weapon raised to finish his attack.

‘Then it is Golguulest,’ he was saying, ‘then it is Nyurtaloth.’ Naeme was ebullient. He knew in his heart that the mission his philia had been sent on was almost done, and he knew his rite was nearly done too. There were only a few of death’s names left to be recited.

‘Then there is Djastah,’ he said.

‘Then there is Rime,’ said Rime.

Naeme hesitated, and stared at the inquisitor in amazement. There was no denying it. Rime was certainly one of the last names of death.

‘You,’ Naeme breathed. ‘You are–’

Rime raised his hand and caught Naeme by the throat. He snapped the Blood Pact warrior’s neck with an effortless flick.

‘Yes,’ said Rime, allowing the body to fall. ‘I am.’

Karhunan Sirdar knew that the philia was losing bodies fast. The running gun battle through the High Palace was costing both sides dearly. He’d just seen his brother Barc fall, his brains splashed up the wall. The area ahead of the sirdar was littered with Imperial dead.

Ever the strategist, Karhunan reckoned he had enough men left to cut across the line of Imperial assault, and hold it long enough for his beloved damogaur to make the kill.

Yelling the Gaur Magir! war cry of the Pact, he ordered what was left of the philia forward. It had begun to snow quite heavily. The light had gone, the blue of the sky turned to zinc. Karhunan could smell blood and snow.

They had reached the end of their last mission.

He sprayed fire, and cut down three Commissariat storm-troopers, who were trying to advance along the contested colonnade. From cover, Captain Tawil took a shot that hit Karhunan in the gut. The sirdar fired back, instinctively on auto, and shot Tawil to pieces.

Karhunan could smell his own blood.

He winced, and tried to remain upright. He waved his men forward.

The last of his men: Gnesh, Samus and Lusk.

Gnesh led the way, hosing the colonnade with fire. S Company troopers, screaming for want of cover, burst like meat sacks. Gnesh was laughing. There was blood aplenty for all the thirsty gods of the Consanguinity.

Gnesh fell.

Karhunan didn’t see what hit him, but the big man fell with an awful and final certainty, a death fall.

Karhunan screamed in rage. He saw several figures in black fatigues flanking his line along the outside of the colonnade’s wall. He fired at them, chipping stonework.

Mkoll swung up, and fired back. His first burst slew Lusk, and his second winged Samus. Jajjo, at his left-hand side, aimed over the colonnade wall, and nailed Samus with a squirt of full auto.

Howling, Karhunan ran for them.

A tall figure in nightmarish war paint stepped out of the shadows of a pillar in front of him, and fired some kind of powered bow.

The bolt hit Karhunan Sirdar in the forehead, and crashed him over onto his back, dead.

‘Clear,’ Eszrah ap Niht yelled to the Tanith fire-teams.

‘Advance!’ Mkoll bellowed.

‘It’s a dead end!’ Gaunt yelled.

‘No, this way,’ Jaume cried. ‘This leads through to the Honorarium.’

‘Are you sure?’ Gaunt asked.

‘Of course I am. I’ve been coming up here every Friday for the last six months.’ Jaume yelled.

Gaunt didn’t even think to ask the portraitist why.

‘Maggs!’ he yelled. ‘Move Jaume and the doctor into cover in the Honorarium!’

Mabbon had fallen behind. His strength had held up well, but he was flagging now, slowed by the returning pain of his wound. Snow was swirling around them.

‘But–’ Maggs protested.

‘That’s an order!’ Gaunt yelled.

Maggs turned, and scooted Kolding and the terrified Jaume away in the direction of the vast Honorarium.

Gaunt got his arm around Mabbon, and supported him.

‘Not far now, magir,’ he said.

‘You’re a good man, Gaunt,’ wheezed the etogaur.

‘If they take us, please don’t say that to anyone. Tell them I’m your sworn enemy.’

An RPG shrieked down the colonnade, and blew out the roof. The concussion dropped Gaunt and Mabbon hard.

Malstrom stalked forwards through the coiling smoke and the random snow, slamming another fat shell into the launcher. Dust from the blast had given the air a gritty, grainy quality.

Up ahead, the two bodies lay amongst the rubble, swathed in stone dust. Both looked dead. One of them was the pheguth. Malstrom tossed his launcher away, and drew an autopistol. They had done it. The philia had won. All he had to do was confirm the kill.

Coated in stone dust, and looking like a statue come to life, Gaunt sat up abruptly. His bolt pistol was in his hand.

‘Not today,’ he said, and fired.

The bolt blew Malstrom in half, and painted the cloister wall with a terrible quantity of blood. There were no gore mages of the Consanguinity present to read the blood mark, but the prognostications were nothing but violent death.

Mabbon was dazed and woozy. His wound had started to bleed again. Gaunt hoisted him upright, and got his arm under the enemy officer’s armpits. Both of them were covered in stone dust and blood, and both of them were a little deaf from the concussion.

‘Come on. Stay with me!’ Gaunt yelled. He stared up into Mabbon’s face, and slapped his scarred cheek. ‘Stay with me!’

He could hear whining. He thought it was just his ears. Snowflakes touched his face.

The muzzle of a pistol rammed against Gaunt’s temple.

‘I will give you credit,’ Baltasar Eyl said, panting hard. ‘You have been a worthy adversary. You have led my philia a proper dance. But now, we end this.’

His voice was full of accent, of outworld accent. In the extremity of the moment, it had become hard for Eyl to maintain his civilised veneer.

‘One last thing you might want to consider, damogaur,’ Mabbon said in the Archenemy tongue. ‘When you’ve got the bastard, kill the bastard. Don’t talk about it.’

Gaunt threw a savage elbow that smacked Eyl away. The damogaur reeled, his teeth broken, and his mouth bloody, but he still had the gun. Gaunt kicked him in the belly.

Eyl still had the gun.

‘We’ve got targets! Out in the open!’ Bonin yelled.

‘Take them! Take them all!’ Rime was shouting over the static heavy line.

‘Feth that, there’s smoke and snow all over the place!’ Larkin replied, snuggling up his aim as the Valkyrie bucked and wallowed.

‘Big boss says take the shot, Larks,’ said Bonin.

‘Wait…’ Larkin advised. ‘Wait… get the pilot to level us out! All right, I have three targets. Repeat, three hot. What’s the advice?’

‘Instruction is take the shot,’ Bonin repeated over the roar of the cycling turbofans.

‘I aim to please,’ Larkin replied, the long-las banging in his hands.

There was a crunch of overpressure and punctured vacuum. Blood vapour drenched Gaunt and Mabbon, caking their dust-covered faces.

Eyl’s skull had just detonated. His headless body fell against Gaunt. A gunship wailed in overhead, tossing and pluming the rising smoke and the billowing snow. A second later, its shadow went over them,

‘Holy Throne,’ Gaunt stammered.

‘Hit! Hit!’ Larkin yelled.

‘Yeah, but what did you hit?’ Bonin demanded, leaning down over Larkin in the doorway.

‘I only ever see what’s real and true through my scope,’ Larkin replied. ‘I got the bad guy, of course. Didn’t I?’

Gaunt and Mabbon ran towards the Honorarium. Leaking blood, Mabbon was getting slower all the time.

Behind them, vicious fighting was ripping through the great quad’s cloisters as the last of the Blood Pact philia made their stand.

The Honorarium was huge, a massive, gloomy dome of cold, echoing air and silence. Lights illuminated displays at floor level around the vast rim of the building. The skirts of the huge temple housed individual chapels, dedicated to certain heroes or campaigns. In the centre of the floor space was the giant basalt crypt housing Warmaster Slaydo’s remains.

Halfway across the immense open floor space of the Honorarium, Mabbon’s legs gave out, and he fell. Gaunt turned back to scoop him up.

Jaume, Maggs and Kolding had been hiding behind the front rank of pews. They ran out to help Gaunt.

‘We need to get him into cover,’ Gaunt said.

‘He’s bleeding pretty badly,’ Kolding said, opening his kit.

‘Pack the wound. Pack the wound, then!’ Maggs urged.

‘Let’s carry him somewhere quiet and out of the way,’ Gaunt said. ‘Come on. These side chapels look good to me.’

‘Your chapel is just over there,’ said Jaume, pointing.

‘My what?’

‘Your chapel,’ Jaume repeated.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Gaunt snapped. ‘What chapel?’

‘For Throne’s sake,’ Jaume replied. ‘It’s why I was commissioned! Didn’t you even read the letter? I was commissioned to make your portrait for the dedicated chapel here!’

‘I don’t believe Ibram Gaunt is going to be commemorated anywhere in Imperial circles after this,’ said Handro Rime.

He walked towards the group across the broad, sunlit floor space. Snowflakes were tapping against the skylights far above their heads. Rime had his weapon aimed at them, a laspistol.

‘A heretical monster and his enablers. You have fallen a long way from the greatness you once achieved here, Gaunt.’

Gaunt stood up, and faced Rime.

‘And you’re the worst kind of fanatic, Rime. You’ve got this so wrong. You should be thanking me.’

Rime grinned a smile that all of his Sirkles could copy.

‘I don’t think so, you despicable traitor.’

Gaunt shook his head. ‘Whatever I say, you’ll just reply “That’s what a heretic would say”, won’t you?’

‘Of course he will,’ coughed Mabbon.

Gaunt turned. Jaume and Kolding were helping Mabbon to rise. The etogaur was clearly determined to get up and face his adversary.

‘I don’t even want to look at you,’ sneered Rime. ‘Archenemy scum.’

‘It isn’t just Gaur’s Blood Pact that wants me dead,’ Mabbon said to Gaunt, swaying against Kolding’s support. ‘The Anarch’s forces want me silenced too. They’re rather more subtle.’

He looked at Rime.

‘You’ve changed your face a thousand times, but I still know you, Syko Magir.’

‘This animal is talking nonsense!’ Rime declared.

‘Is he?’ asked Maggs.

Rime raised his weapon to shoot the etogaur. The split second he did so, Gaunt realised it was snowing.

Indoors.

The blood-scream knocked them all flat, and blew out the huge skylights of the Honorarium. Howling, the witch came for them, surrounded by a coruscating ball of warp-lightning. She was demented and raving. She was screaming vengeance for the death of her beloved brother. She came at them across the floor of the Honorarium like a typhoon, driving an arctic blizzard before her. Dry lightning tore the air.

All Wes Maggs saw was the old dam who had haunted his mind since Hinzerhaus. All Wes Maggs wanted was to be free of her phantom torment.

He opened fire, screaming, on full auto, and discharged the lasrifle’s entire energy reservoir.

His shots exploded the witch’s cocoon of warp-energy, and shredded her. She took nearly two hundred hits, and by the time her body struck the paving stones, it was pulped beyond any semblance of articulacy. The last few shots lifted her veil for a second as she fell back.

Maggs saw her face, a face he would never forget.

His weapon misfired, and began to chime repeatedly on charge out.

He killed the alert, and lowered the gun.

‘Feth me,’ he stammered. ‘Did I do that?’

Gaunt slapped Maggs on the back. ‘Yes, you did. Makes me glad I didn’t kill you.’

Maggs smiled a half-surprised smile.

‘Wake up, trooper, and help us carry the prisoner to cover,’ said Gaunt. Beyond the walls of the Honorarium, they could hear sirens wailing and gunships thundering in.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Kolding.

Gaunt turned.

Rime was back on his feet. He had a gash across his scalp, and what lay beneath looked more like augmetic artifice than flesh and blood. His face was half hanging off.

He was aiming his pistol at them.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he announced.

Gaunt heard footsteps running out across the echo-space of the vast temple. Troops were deploying into position around the confrontation, weapons trained.

He realised they were his.

‘Glad you could join us, Major Rawne,’ Gaunt said, his eyes never leaving Rime’s.

‘Apologies, sir. Got a little waylaid.’

‘Who’s with you?’ Gaunt called.

‘Varl, Meryn, Daur, Banda, Leyr and Cant, sir.’

‘All aimed at this lunatic as opposed to me?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Even Cant?’

‘Locked and blocked, sir,’ Cant called out.

‘See?’ said Rawne, ‘Sometimes even he can.’

‘Well,’ Gaunt said to Rime. ‘This is a proper stand-off, isn’t it? Toss down your weapon.’

Rime smiled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Tell your people to surrender. This facility will be overwhelmed in another five minutes.’

‘My people don’t work like that, inquisitor, especially not when the man they’re facing has been identified as an agent of the Anarch.’

‘That’s preposterous! The ravings of a heretic who’d do anything to save himself!’

Gaunt shook his head. ‘Mabbon was certain. He identified you, Syko Magir.’

‘The man is insane,’ Rime scoffed. ‘Put up your weapons. Come on, Gaunt. I know how straight-laced you are at heart.’

The bolt pistol was still in Gaunt’s hand. There was one round left in its clip.

He raised it, and aimed directly at Rime.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I have reason to believe that you are an agent of the Archenemy, and I demand that you drop your weapon, now.’

‘Or what, Gaunt?’ Rime grinned. ‘You’ll shoot me? I know you. I’ve studied your dossier. Without unequivocal proof, you’d never act against the Throne. Ever.’

Gaunt hesitated, and lowered his weapon.

Rime glanced over as Rawne stepped forward.

‘We’re done, thank you, trooper,’ Rime said. ‘Step back.’

‘My boss doesn’t trust you,’ said Rawne.

‘He’s got no actual proof,’ said Rime. ‘And he won’t act. I’ve read his dossier.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rawne, ‘but you’ve never read mine.’

Rime brought his pistol up, firing, screaming.

Rawne took him down with two kill-shots to the chest.