Dan Abnett - First and Only

They assembled quickly, eyeing the black shaft suspiciously.

'Our back door,' Gaunt told them. 'According to the old data, this sink leads down some way and then into the catacombs beneath the shrine structure. We'll need ropes, pins, a hammer.'

'Who'll be going in there?' Rawne asked curtly.

'All of us… me first,' Gaunt told him.

Gaunt beaded to Corbec and instructed him to marshal the main Tanith levies and sustain fire against the facade of the structure.

He stripped off his storm-coat and cloak, and slung his chainsword over his back. Mkoll had tapped plasteel rooter pins into the stonework at the top of the shaft and played a length of cable around them and down into the darkness.

Gaunt racked the slide of his bolt pistol and holstered it again. 'Let's go,' he said, wrapping the cord around his waist and sliding into the hole.

Mkoll grabbed his arm to stop him as Trooper Vench hurried down the slope from the combat-ridge, calling out. Gaunt slid back out of the cavity and took the data-slate from Vench as he stumbled up to them.

'Message from Sergeant Blane,' Vench gasped. 'There's a Chimera coming up the low pass, sending signals that it desires to join with us.'

Gaunt frowned. It made no sense. He studied the slate's transcript. 'Sergeant Blane wants to know if he should let them through,' Vench added. They're identifying themselves as a detail of tactical observers from the warmaster's counsel. They use the code-name 'Eagleshard'.'

Gaunt froze as if he had been shot. 'Sacred Feth!' he spat.

The men murmured and eyed each other. It was a pretty pass when the commissar used a Tanith oath.

'Stay here,' Gaunt told the insurgence party and unlashed the rope, heading downhill at the double. 'Tell Rafflan to signal Blane!' he yelled back at Vench. 'Let them through!'

SIX

The Chimera, its hull armour matt-green and showing no other markings than the Imperial crest, rumbled up the slope from Blane's picket and slewed sidelong on a shelf of hillside, chewing bracken under its treads. Gaunt scrambled down to meet it, warier than he had ever been in his life.

The side hatch opened with a metallic clunk and three troopers leapt out, lasguns held ready. They wore combat armour in the red and black liveries of the Imperial Crusade staff, elite bodyguard troops for the officer cadre. Reflective visor masks hid their faces. A taller, heftier figure in identical battle dress joined them and stood, hands on hips, surveying the scene as Gaunt approached.

The figure slid back his visor and then pulled the helmet off. Gaunt didn't recognise him… until he factored in a few years, some added muscle and the shaven head.

'Eagleshard,' Gaunt said.

'Eagleshard,' responded the figure. 'Ibram!'

Gaunt shook his old friend's hand. 'What do I call you?'

'I'm Imperial Tactician Wheyland here, but my boys are trustworthy,' the big man said, gesturing to the troopers, who now relaxed their spread. 'You can call me by the name you know.'

'Fereyd…'

'So, Ibram… bring me up to speed.'

'I can do better. I can take you to the prize.'

The stone chimney was deep and narrow. Gaunt half-dimbed, half-rappelled down the flue, his toes and hands seeking purchase in the mouldering stonework. He tried to imagine what this place had been at the time of its construction: perhaps a city, a living place built into and around the cliff. This flue was probably the remains of an air-duct or ventilator, dropping down to Emperor-knew-what beneath.

Gaunt's feet found the rock floor at the base, and he straightened up, loosening the ropes so that the others could join him. It smelled of sweaty damp down here, and the tunnel he was in was low and jagged.

'Lasgun!' came a call from above. The weapon dropped down the flue and Gaunt caught it neatly, immediately igniting the lamp-pack which Dorden had webbed to the top of the barrel with surgical tape. He played the light over the dirty, low walls,

his finger on the trigger. Above him came the sounds of others scrambling down the ragged chimney.

It took thirty minutes for the rest to join him. They all held lasguns with webbed-on lamps, except Dorden, who was unarmed but carried a torch, and Bragg, who hefted a massive autocannon. Bragg had enjoyed the hardest descent; bulky and uncoordinated, he had struggled in the flue and begun to panic.

Larkin was moaning about death and claustrophobia, young Caffran was dearly alarmed, Dorden was sour and defeatist, Baru was scornful of them all and Rawne was silent and surly. Gaunt smiled to himself. He had selected them well. They were all exhibiting their angst and worries up front. Nothing would linger to come out later. But between them, they encompassed the best stealth, marksmanship, firepower, medical ability and bravery the Tanith First-and-Only had to offer.

All of them seemed wary of the Imperial tactician and his trooper bodyguard which the commissar had suddenly decided to invite along. The troopers were tough, silent types who had scaled the chimney with professional ease. They stuck close to their leader, limpets-like, guns ready.

The party moved down the passage, stooping under outcrops and sags of rock and twisted stone. Their lamps cut obscure shadows and light from the uneven surfaces.

After two hundred careful steps and another twenty minutes, they emerged into a dripping, glistening cavern where the ancient rock walls were calcified and sheened with mineral moisture. Ahead of them, their lamps picked out an archway of perfectly fitted, dressed stone.

Gaunt raised his weapon and flicked the lamp as an indicator.

'After me,' he said.

SEVEN

'He wants to see you, sir,' the aide said.

Lord General Dravere didn't want to hear. He was still staring at the repeater plates which hung in front of him, showing the total, desperate carnage that had befallen Marshal Sendak's advance on Target Secundus. Even now, plates were fizzing out to blankness or growing dim and fading. He had never expected this. It was… It was not possible.

'Sir?' the aide said again.

'Can you not see this is a crisis moment, you idiot?' Dravere raged, swinging around and buffeting some of the floating plates out of his way. 'We're being murdered on the second front! I need time to counter-plan! I need the tactical staff here now!'

'I will assemble them at once,' the aide said, speaking slowly, as if he was scared of a thing far greater than the raging commander. 'However, the inquisitor insists.'

Dravere hesitated, and then released the toggle of his harness and slid out of the hammock. He didn't like fear, but fear was what now burned in his chest. He crossed the command globe to the exit shutter and turned briefly to order his second-in-command to take over and assemble the advice of the tactical staff as it came in.

'Signal whatever remains of Sendak's force to withdraw to staging ground All-23. Alert the other forces to the danger of the towers. I want assessments and counter-strategies by the time I return.'

A brass ladder led down into the isolation sphere buried in the belly of the command globe.

Dravere entered the dimly-lit chamber. It smelled of incense and disinfectant. There was a pulse tone from the medical diag-nosticators, and pale steam rose from the plastic sheeting tented over the cot in the centre of the room. Medical staff in cowled red scrubs left silently as soon as he appeared.

'You wanted to see me, Inquisitor Heldane?' Dravere began.

Heldane moved under the loose semi-transparent flaps of the tent. Dravere got a glimpse of tubes and pipes, draining fluid from the ghastly rent in the man's neck, and of the ragged wound in the side of his head, which was encased in a swaddling package of bandage, plastic wrap and metal braces.