Dan Abnett - Ghostmaker

But he himself had seen things that kept him sharp and made him determined to press on. Things he had reported to Gaunt to convince him to work the forests a little longer: broken paths in the vegetation; trampled areas; torn, apparently random trails in the underbrush. There was something still out here.

They crossed the valley floor and came up the shaded side, where the ferns listed restlessly, like shadow-fans. Every dozen or so steps, Dewr's feet cracked a thorn or a seed case, or chinked a rock, no matter how delicately he walked. He cursed every sound. He was determined to prove his ability to Mkoll. And he had no clue how Mkoll moved so silently, like he was floating.

The ferns hissed in the wind.

Mkoll stopped to check his compact chart and referred his eyes to sun and compass. Within a quarter of an hour their circuit should bring them into contact with Rafel and Waed, on a mirror sweep towards them.

Mkoll suddenly held up a hand and Dewr stopped sharp. The scout sergeant fanned his fingers twice to indicate Dewr should cover, and the other slid in low beside a thick fern stem, knelt and raised his lasgun. There was dust on the exchanger and he wiped it off. Dust in his eyes too, and he wiped them. He braced and then took aim, rolling it left and right as Mkoll advanced.

Mkoll dropped down another few metres and found another torn trail in the fem. As wide as three men walking abreast, ferns uprooted or snapped and trampled. Mkoll gingerly touched one sappy, broken twist of stalk. It was as thick as his thigh, and the bark was tough as iron. He could not have severed it this clean even with a wood axe. He checked the ground. Trample marks, deep and wide, like giant footsteps. The trail snaked away both ahead and behind as far as he could see, uneven, weaving. Mkoll raised three fingers and circled them. Dewr advanced to join him.

The younger man looked at the trail, questions in his mouth, but the look in Mkoll's eyes told him not to ask them. Not to say anything. There was no sound at all except the hissing of the fronds. Dewr knelt and looked at the trail for himself. Something… someone… big, moving blindly. His fingers touched something buried in the ashy soil and he plucked it out. A chunk of blackened metal, part of the rim of something, large as a cupped hand. He held it out to Mkoll. The sergeant took it with genuine interest, studied it, and tucked it into his thigh pouch. He nodded a firm acknowledgement to Dewr for his sharp eyes. Dewr felt greater pride in that fleeting moment Than he had ever done in his life before. Or would again.

They moved on, down the trail line, following the bent-forward fronds which indicated the direction of motion. After sixty metres, the trail veered uphill. Mkoll stopped and wiped his weapon again.

A scream cut the air, as bright and sharp as a Tanith blade. They both started. It shut off abruptly, but while it lasted it had been unmistakably human. Mkoll was moving in an instant, following the source of the sound. Dewr went after him, trying to keep his hurried steps silent. They moved off the trail into the thickets. Ahead, the foliage changed. Under the crest of the slope, thicker, spined cacti grew in clusters; fibrous, gourd-like growths lined with long needles were arrayed down each seam of the plant sac. There were hundreds of the plants, some knee high, some higher and fatter than a man, a forest of needle-studded bulbs.

Another, weaker scream came, as from a man waking from a nightmare and abruptly dying away as he realised it was but a dream. And another sound, close on the heels of the scream. A hollow, plosive, spitting sound, like someone retching fruit pits from his throat.

They found Rafel crumpled amid the gourd-bulbs. A trail of blood, bright spatters on the ashy ground, showed where he had dropped and how he had crawled. Over a dozen needles, some more than a foot long, impaled him. One went through his eye into his brain. Dewr, in horror, was about to speak, but Mkoll whirled and clamped his hand over the younger man's mouth. Mkoll pointed to the nearest of the large cactus growths, indicating where a line of spines were absent, leaving only a line of sap-drooling orifices.

'I say again, Trooper Rafel! What is your position?' The voice crackled out of the corpse's intercom. Mkoll drove himself into Dewr, knocking him aside, away from Rafel as the three bulbs nearest the body shuddered and spat spines. A salvo of those hollow spitting coughs again. Needles stabbed into Rafel's corpse like arrows and bounced off the ground around them.

One went through Dewr's shin. He wanted to scream but managed to master it. The pain was sharp, then dull. His leg went cold. Mkoll rolled off him. Dewr pointed feebly at his leg, but the sergeant seemed to ignore it. He made a quick adjustment to the intercom at his collar and then reached down to Dewr's, switching it off.

Only then did he turn to the wound. He took out his knife and cut the cloth away from Dewr's shin, slicing the straps holding the chain-cloth bandages in place. The needle had passed right through the chain, directly through the eye of some links and severing others. Mkoll turned the knife round and forced the hilt into Dewr's mouth. Instinctively, Dewr bit down and Mkoll yanked the needle free.

There was very little blood. That was bad. 'The blood was clotting and turning yellow fast and the sticky residue on the spine suggested venom. But the needle had only punctured flesh, which was good. The force of it could have shattered the shin bone.

Dewr bit hard on the hilt a while longer. As the pain ebbed, he slackened his mouth and the knife slid out down his cheek onto the ground. Mkoll rose. He would get Rafel's field dressings and bind the wound. Rafel wouldn't need them now. He turned. His foot cracked a thorn on the ground. A moment of carelessness, triggered by his concern for Dewr. A bulb shuddered at the crack and spat a needle. It passed through the stock of Mkoll's lasgun and the point stopped an inch from his belly.

He unfroze and breathed, then pulled it out. Mkoll crossed to Rafel and freed his field dressing pouch, pinned to his waist by another needle through the strap. He returned to Dewr and bound the wound.

Dewr's head began to spin. It was an easy, fluid feeling, like his cares were ebbing away. There was a gnawing feeling in his leg and hip, but it was somehow pleasant.

Mkoll saw the vacant glaze coming over Dewr's eyes. Unceremoniously, he took another length of gauze dressing and jammed it into Dewr's mouth, taping the gag tightly in place. A delirious man may not realise the sound he is making.

He was about to lift Dewr onto his shoulder when another sound came. A ripping and crashing, distant at first, accompanied by the relentless retching spit of the bulbs as the tearing sound set them off. Something was coming, something drawn by Rafel's last scream. Something gigantic.

As it burst into the clearing, all of the cacti around them spontaneously shed their needles in a blitz of venomous barbs. The fusillade rattled off the metal carapace and legs. Mkoll threw himself over Dewr and they lay there, silent and still under the storm of darts.

The Chaos dreadnought came to a halt on its great hydraulic feet, sighing and hissing. There was a stench of heat and a throb of electromagnetic power that prickled the hairs on Mkoll's neck. It was four metres tall, wider than three men, blackened and scorched as if it had walked through hell and back. All signs of paint or insignia had been burnt off, to bare metal in some places. A malign presence oozed from it, filling the atmosphere. Such a great machine was terrifying enough in itself, but the malevolent feeling of it… Mkoll felt his gorge rise and clamped his jaws. Dewr seemed unconscious.

The dreadnought took a step forward, almost tentative and dainty though the great steel hoof shook the earth as it fell and triggered another volley of spines. Its body rotated as if scanning, and it took another step. Another plank-plank of rebounding spines.