Gol Kolea, his las weapon exhausted, met the enemy at the barricade and killed them one by one, to left and right, with savage swings of his axe-rake. He screamed his wife’s name with every blow.
A las-round punctured Captain Olin Fencer’s body at the hip and exited through his opposite shoulder. As he fell, weeping, he clicked his lasgun to autofire and sprayed his massing killers with laser rounds.
His hand was still squeezing the trigger when the pack ran out.
By then, he was already dead.
SIX
“A war waged by committee is a war already lost.”
—Sebastian Thor, Sermons, vol. XV, ch. DIV
Gaunt felt the monumental bulk of the Curtain Wall around him actually vibrate. The shellfire falling against its outer skin was a dull roar.
Captain Daur and three other officers of the liaison staff led the oversight party up the stair-drum of a secondary tower in the wall just west of the massive Heironymo Sondar Gate. Gaunt had brought Rawne and Mkoll, with Trooper Milo as his adjutant. General Grizmund—with three of his senior Narmenians—and General Nash—with two of his regimental aides—made up the rest of the party, along with Tarrian of the VPHC. They had a bodyguard detail of thirty Vervun Primary troopers in full battledress.
The oversight party emerged onto the tower-top, where hot breezes, stifling with fycelene fumes, billowed over them. Three missile launchers were raised and ready here, their crews standing by, but additional awnings of flak-board had been erected in preparation for the visit of the dignitaries, and the launchers, with no safe room for their exhaust wash under this extra shelter, had fallen silent. The crews saluted the visitors smartly.
“These are for our benefit?” Gaunt asked Tarrian, indicating the freshly raised awnings.
“Of course.”
“You muzzle an entire defence tower so we can get a safe peek over the Wall?”
Tarrian frowned. “General Sturm has made it a standing requirement every time he visits the Wall. I presumed you and the other eminent generals here would expect the same.”
“We’ve come to fight, not hide. Take them down and get these crews operational.”
Tarrian looked round at Nash and Grizmund. The Narmenian nodded briefly. “Gaunt speaks for us all,” said Nash dryly. “We don’t need any soft-soap.”
Tarrian turned from the group and began issuing orders to the launcher crews.
The rest of the oversight party approached the rampart and took up magnoculars or used the available viewscopes on their tripod stands. Milo handed Gaunt his own scope from its pouch and the commissar dialled the magnification as he raised it and gazed out.
Below them, the miserable wasteland of the southern outer habs lay exposed and broken. There was no discernible sign of life, but a hateful storm of enemy shelling and missiles pounded in across it at the hive. A fair amount fell short into the habs, but a good percentage struck the Curtain Wall itself. Gaunt craned over for a moment, training his scope down the gentle slope of the Wall. Its adamantine surface was peppered and scarred like the face of a moon, as far as he could see. Every few seconds, batteries to either side of them on the Wall fired out, or the great siege guns in the emplacements below in the thickness of the Wall recoiled and volleyed again.
The vibration of the Wall continued.
“No way of knowing numbers or scale—” began Nash.
Grizmund shook his head. “Not so, sir,” he replied, pointing out to the very edge of the vast, outer-hab waste. “As we have been told, this is no longer the work of their long-range artillery out in the grasslands. This is ground assault from closer range—armour moving in through the outer habitations and factories.”
“Are you certain?” asked Gaunt.
“You can see the flashes of tank cannons as they fire. Four, five kilometres out, in the very skirts of the outer habs. Their weapons are on full elevation for maximum range, so the muzzle-flashes are high and exposed. It is a simple matter of observing, counting, estimating.”
Gaunt watched for flashes through his scope. Like Nash, he was an infantry commander, and he always appreciated technical insight from experienced officers with expertise in other schools of warfare. Grizmund had a fine reputation as an armour commander. Gaunt fully trusted the Narmenian’s judgement in this. As he looked, he began to discern the flickering display of brief light points out in the hinterland.
