Dan Abnett - Ghostmaker

'Y-you sound like Gaunt…'

'Ibram Gaunt and I have much in common. A common purpose, a common function. Inspiration and punishment.'

It seemed as if the world outside the chapel had fallen silent. As if the war had stopped.

'Did you desert, Larkin?'

He stared at her, at the gun, at the terrible wingspan. Slowly, he got to his knees and then his feet. 'No.'

'Prove it.'

Every joint in his body ached, every nerve sang. His head was clear and yet racing and strange. He walked with measured care over to his fallen pack.

'Prove it, Larkin! The Emperor needs you with him at this hour! Muster your strength!'

He looked back at her. The gun and the gaze had not faltered.

'How did you know my name?'

You told me.'

'My forename. Hlaine. I don't use that any more. How did you know?'

'I know everything.'

He laughed. Loud and hard, his thin chest shaking as he stripped open his pack. 'Feth take you! I'm no deserter!'

'Tell me why.'

'See this?' Larkin slid his sniper rifle from the sling across the back of his pack. He held it up and freed the firing mechanism with a deft twist of his hand.

'A gun.'

'A lasgun. Workhorse of the Guard. Solid, dependable, tough. You can knock it, drop it, club with it, submerge it and it just keeps on going.'

The Angel took a step forward, looking at the gun he held out to her. 'It's not standard. Not a standard M-G pattern. Where's the integral optics, the charge-setting slide? That barrel: it's too long, too thin. And that flash suppressed.'

Larkin grinned and reached into his pack. 'It's the sniper variant. Same body, but stripped down. I did some of the work myself. I took out the integral optics because I use this.' He held up a bulky tube to show her for a moment, then slotted it into a bracket on the side of the gun case. He flipped covers off both ends of the tube and the device spread a faint red glow ahead of the gun.

'Night spotter. My own. I tooled the bracket to fit. I used to use it to spot for larisel in the woods back home.'

'Larisel?'

'Small rodents with a fine pelt. Made a good income hunting them before the founding.'

He slid his hands down the gun and tapped the barrel. 'XC 52/3 strengthened barrel. Longer, and thinner than the standard. Good for about twenty shots.' He kicked the pack at his feet, which clinked. 'I always carry two or three spares. They twist and pull out. You can switch them in about a minute if you know what you're doing.'

'Why the strengthened barrel?'

'Increased range for a start, tighter accuracy, and because I use these…' Larkin pulled a powerpack from his kit and slammed it into place. 'We call them ''hotshots''. Overpowered energy clips, liquid metal batteries juiced to the limit. Bigger hits but fewer. Perfect for marksman work. And that's why there's no charge setting slider on my piece. One size fits all.'

The stock is made of wood.'

'Nalwood, Tanith grown. Hike what I know.'

And that long flash suppressed.'

'I'm a sniper, Angel. I don't want to be seen.'

'Are you a sniper, Hlaine Larkin? I was sure you were a deserter.' The gloomy voice echoed around the chapel.

Larkin turned away from her, expecting a bolt round in the back of the head. His own head was clear, clearer than it had been in months.

'Think what you like. I'll tell you what I know.'

He crossed to the arched doorway of the chapel and settled down in a crouch, the lasgun resting on a finial of stonework. It afforded him a wide view down onto the half-ruined canal on the upper level of the great aqueduct.

Larkin settled himself, shook out his neck, flexed his arms. He took a sight through the eyepiece of his scope.

'My company's primary mission was to take Nokad. He's a charismatic. He leads by personality and that means he stays at the fore. This aqueduct has been recognised by both sides as the primary weakness of Bucephalon. We've attacked it. Hard.

Nokad will want to defend it just as hard. And that means inspiring his troops along the length of it. And that, in turn, means he'll be here in person.'

'And if he's not?' asked the Angel.

'Then I'm just another nameless wooden marker in the cemetery.'He was no longer looking at her, no longer caring about her terrible presence. She could be holding that boltgun to his temple for all he cared.

'You trust that scope to make the shot?' she whispered.

'I calibrated it myself. And yes, I trust the scope. Tunny thing, but whatever goes on around me, whatever madness…' – and at that Larkin dared a glance round at the hovering presence at his shoulder – 'I always see the truth through my scope. It shows me the world as it really is. Truth, not what my fethed up mind tells me is there.'

A long pause.

'Maybe I should look through the scope at you some time?' he ventured.

'Haven't you got a job to do, Hlaine?'

'Yes. My job.' He turned back to the scope and shut his eyes.

Your eyes are closed. What are you doing?'

'Shhh! To take a shot, your breathing must be controlled. More than that, your weapon must be pointing naturally at the target.' He opened his eyes again and fiddled with the lasgun as it lay in the lip of stone.

'What's the matter?'

'I need to baffle the barrel against the stone. I need cloth to wrap around it.' He began to pull at his cloak, trying to tear a strip off it. There was a shredding noise behind him. A perfect hand passed him a long strip of glowing white cloth, light and warm to the touch.

'Use this, Hlaine.'

Larkin smiled. He wrapped the silky material around the muzzle of his rifle and then nested it back into the stony over hang. It rested better now, bandaged with angelic satin, neatly snuggled into the turn of the hard buttress.

'Thanks,' he said, resuming his position.

'What are you doing now?'

Larkin flexed, as if fidgeting. 'I must have a stable firing position. If the gun wobbles even slightly, the shots can go wild. I need a firm grip, but not too tight. I want it to point naturally at the target. If I have to apply pressure to keep it aimed, then it's going to miss. See, here's the trick…' He closed his eyes.

'Take aim and then close your eyes. Open them again. Chances are your aim will have wandered. Realign your body and repeat.'

'How many times?'

'As many as is necessary.' Larkin closed his eyes again, opened them, shuffled, closed his eyes.

'Eventually, when you open your eyes, the gun will be pointing precisely, naturally, exactly where your body falls and directs it.'

'You're breathing slowly,' said the Angel, a whisper in his ear. 'Why?'

Larkin smiled, but ever so slightly as to not disrupt the perfect pattern of his firing position. 'Once you're in position, breathe slow, a regular rhythm. Keep it going, nice and relaxed. When you get the shot, take a couple of deep breaths, pause, breathe out just a tad, and then hold. Then fire. Then breathe out fully.'

'How long will this take?' the Angel asked behind him. 'As long as it takes to get a target.'

Nokad the Smiling sang to his brethren as they advanced down the upper canal of the aqueduct. An echelon of things that had been men, now trailing long tattered robes sewn from the hides of those they had defeated. They brandished weapons, slapping them in dull time to the chant. They passed over the butchered and exploded remains of the foe who had assaulted their one weak link that afternoon.

Nokad the Smiling was well over two metres tall, his frame heavy set and powerful. Piercings studded his naked torso and arms: loops, rings, chains and spikes armouring his sheened skin and glittering as brightly as his perfect teeth.

'Make trophies of them!' Nokad grinned as he passed the corpses. Imperial Guard, weak, puny things, draped in dull fatigues and anonymous cloaks. There was fighting ahead, the barking returns of lasguns at close range.