Dan Abnett - First and Only

On one knee, the creature rose and raged again, most of its upper armour punctured or shredded, smoke rising and black liquid spilling from the grisly wounds to its face, neck and chest.

A final, powerful las-blast, close range and full-power, took its I head off.

Gaunt looked round to see the wounded Corporal Zeezo standing on the barricade.

The Vitrian grinned, despite the pain from his wound. 'I went against orders, I'm afraid,' he began. 'I reset my gun for full charge.'

'Noted… and excused. Good work!'

Gaunt got to his feet, wet and wretched with blood and Chaos pus. His Ghosts, and Zoren's Vitrians, were moving up the ramp to secure the position. Above them, at the top of the [ elevator shaft, were maybe a million Shriven, secure in their battery bunkers. Gaunt's expeditionary force was inside, right in the heart of the enemy stronghold.

Commissar Ibram Gaunt smiled.

TEN

It took another precious half hour to regroup and secure the Ifcomb deck. Gaunt's scouts located all the entranceways and blocked them, checking even ventilation access and drainage gullies.

Gaunt paced, tense. The clock was ticking and it wouldn't take long for the massive forces above them to start wondering why the shell supply from below had dried up. And come looking for a reason.

There was the place itself too: the gloom, the taste of the air, the blasphemous iconography scrawled on the walls. It was as if they were inside some sacred place, sacred but unholy. Everyone was bathed in cold sweat and there was fear in everyone's eyes.

The comm-link chimed and Gaunt responded, hurrying through to the control room of the bomb bays. Zoren, Rawne and others were waiting for him. Someone had managed to raise the shutters on the vast window ports.

'What in the name of the Emperor is that?' Colonel Zoren asked.

'I think that's what we've come to stop,' Gaunt said, turning away from the stained glass viewing ports.

Far below them, in the depths of the newly-revealed hollowed cavern, stood a vast megalith, a menhir stone maybe fifty metres tall that smoked with building Chaos energy. Its essence filled the bay and made all the humans present edgy and distracted. None could look at it comfortably. It seemed to be bedded in a pile of… blackened bodies. Or body parts.

Major Rawne scowled and flicked a thumb upwards.

'It won't take them long to notice the bomb levels aren't supplying them with shells anymore. Then we can expect serious deployment against us.'

Gaunt nodded but said nothing. He crossed to the control suite where Feygor and a Vitrian sergeant named Zolex were attempting to access data. Gaunt didn't like Feygor. The tall, thin Tanith was Rawne's adjutant and shared the major's bitter outlook. But Gaunt knew how to use him and his skills, particularly in the area of cogitators and other thinking machines.

'Plot it for me,' he told the adjutant. 'I have a feeling there may be more of these stone things.'

Feygor touched several rune keys of the glass and brass machined device.

'We're there…' Feygor said, pointing at the glowing map sig-ils. 'And here's a larger scale map. You were right. That menhir down there is part of a system buried in these hills. Seven all told, in a star pattern. Seven fething abominations! I don't know what they mean to do with them, but they're all charging with power right now.'

'How many?' Gaunt asked too quickly.

'Seven,' Feygor repeated. 'Why?'

Ibram Gaunt felt light-headed. 'Seven stones of power…' he murmured. A voice from years ago lilted in his mind. The girl. The girl back on Darendara. He could never remember her name, try as hard as he could. But he could see her face in the interrogation room. And hear her words.

When her words about the Ghosts had come true, two years earlier, he had been chilled and had spent several sleepless nights remembering her prophecies. He'd taken command of the worldless wretches of Tanith and then one of the troop, Mad Larkin, it was asserted, had dubbed them Gaunt's Ghosts. He'd tried to put that down to coincidence, but ever since, he'd watched for other fragments of the Night of Truths to emerge.

Cut them and you will be free , she had said. Do not kill them .

'What do we do?' asked Rawne.

'We have mines and grenades a plenty,' Zoren said. 'Let's blow it.'

Do not kill them.

Gaunt shook his head. 'No! This is what the Shriven have been preparing, some vast ritual using the stones, some industrial magic. That's what has preoccupied them, that's what they've tried to distract us from. Blowing part of their ceremonial ring would be a mistake. There's no telling what foul power we might unleash. No, we have to break the link…'

Cut them and you will be free.

Gaunt got to his feet and pulled on his cap again. 'Major Rawne, load as many hand carts as you can find with Shriven warheads, prime them for short fuse and prepare to send them up on the elevator on my cue. We'll choke the emplacements upstairs with their own weapons. Colonel Zoren, I want as many of your men as you can spare – or more specifically, their armour.'

The major and the colonel looked at him blankly.

'Now?' he added sharply. They leapt to their feet.

Gaunt led the way up the ramp towards the menhir. It smoked with energy and his skin prickled uncomfortably. Chaos energy smelt that way, like a tangy stench of cooked blood and electricity. None of them dared look down at the twisted, solidified mound below them.

'What are we doing?' Zoren asked by his side, clearly distressed about being this close to the unutterable.

We're breaking the chain. We want to disrupt the circle without blowing it.'

'How do you know?'

'Inside information,' Gaunt said, trying hard to grin. 'Trust me. Let's short this out.'

The Vitrians by his side moved forward at a nod from their commander. Tentatively, they approached the huge stone and started to lash their jackets around the smooth surface. Zoren had collected the mica armoured jackets of more then fifty of his men. Now he fused them together as neat as a surgeon with a melta on the lowest setting. Gingerly the Vitrians wrapped the makeshift mica cloak around the stone, using meltas borrowed from the Tanith like industrial staplers to lock it into place over the stone.

'It's not working,' Zoren said.

It wasn't. After a few moments more, the glass beads of the Vitrian armour began to sweat and run,, melting off the stone, leaving the fabric base layers until they too ignited and burned.

Gaunt turned away, his disheartened mind churning.

'What now?' Zoren asked, dispiritedly.

Cut them and you will be free.

Gaunt snapped his fingers. We don't blow them! We realign them. That's how we cut the circle.'

Gaunt called up Tolus, Lukas and Bragg. 'Get charges set in the supporting mound. Don't target the stone itself. Blow it so it falls away or drops.'

'The mound…' Lukas stammered.

'Yes, trooper, the mound,' Gaunt repeated. 'The dead can't hurt you. Do it!'

Reluctantly, the Ghosts went to work.

Gaunt tapped his microbead intercom. 'Rawne, send those warheads up.'

'Acknowledged.'

A ''sir'' wouldn't kill him, Gaunt thought.

At the elevator head, the troops under Rawne's command thundered trolleys of warheads into the car.

'Shush!' a Vitrian said suddenly. They stopped. A pause – then they all heard the clanking, the distant tinny thumps. Rawne swung up his lasgun and moved into the elevator assembly. He pulled the lever that opened the upper inspection hatch. Above him, the great lift shaft yawned like a beast's throat. He stared up into the darkness, trying to resolve the detail.

The darkness was moving. Shriven were descending, clawing like bat-things down the sheer sides of the shaftway.