Dan Abnett - Ghostmaker

'Few of them will last the night and day unattended. And none if they are found and attended by the Chaos filth!'

Gaunt took off his cap and smoothed his cropped blond hair. The dying suns-light silhouetted his angular profile, but kept his internal thoughts in shadow. 'You have my respect, medic. You've always had it, since the Founding Fields even. The only Ghost who refuses to bear arms, the only man who can keep us alive. The Ghosts owe you, many of them owe you their lives. I owe you for that. I'd hate to have to give you an order.'

Then don't, commissar. You know I'll refuse it. I'm a medic first and a Ghost second. Back on Tanith, as a community practitioner, I worked for thirty years ministering to the sick, the infirm, the new-born and the weak in the Beldane District and County Pryze. I did it because I took an oath at the Medical College in Tanith Magna. You understand allegiances and oaths, commissar. Understand mine.'

'I understand the weight of the medical oath well enough.'

'And you've honoured it! Never asked me to break my vow on confidentiality over men with private problems… drink, pox, mind-troubles… you've always let me do as my oath bids. Let me now.'

Gaunt replaced his cap. 'I can't leave you here to die.'

'But you'd leave these men to die?'

'They're not the Ghosts' chief medic!' Gaunt spat the answer and then fell silent.

'A doctor is vowed to serve any injured. Oh, I swore to the Emperor, on the Eounding Fields, to serve him and you and the Imperial Guard. But I'd already sworn to the Emperor to uphold life. Don't make me break that vow.'

Gaunt tried logic. 'Our illustrious forces were routed on the delta at Lohenich. We are fleeing before a massed Chaos army that thunders at our heels, barely half a day away. You're a non-combatant. How could you hold this place?'

'With words, if I have to. With volunteers, if any will stay and you'll allow it. After all, it's only until tomorrow night. Until your counter-push retakes this place. Or was that a lie? Propaganda?'

Gaunt said nothing for a while, tilting his tall bulk into the evening suns, adjusting his muddy coat. Then he turned back to the old medic.

'No lie. We will retake this land, and beyond. We will drive them back as they come to us. But to leave you out here, even for a night…'

'Don't think of me. Think of the Volpone wounded in there.'

Gaunt did. It didn't change his mind much. 'They would have had us butchered—'

'Don't go to that place!' Dorden warned. 'Hate has no place between allies. 'These are men, Troopers, valuable soldiers. They could live to fight again, to turn another conflict for the better. Leave me to care for them, with whoever you can spare. Leave me, and come back for us all.'

Gaunt cursed. 'I'll give you a squad. I can spare no more. Ten men, volunteers. If it doesn't come to ten, tough. Muller will have my head for leaving any in the field as it is.'

'I'll take whatever I can get,' Dorden said. 'Thank you.'

Gaunt strode away abruptly, then turned, came back and took Dorden's hand tightly in his own.

'You're a brave man. Don't let them take you alive… and don't make me regret allowing you to be too brave.'

Gaunt and the retreating lines of Ghosts passed on and then they were alone. Dorden was working in the long hall, and only noticed the passing of time as the sunshine through the skylights faded to blue and dusk fell. He lit lamps on crates placed between the wounded and went outside into the yard. Overhead, alien stars were coming out in the mauve sky.

He saw three Ghosts at first: Lesp, Chayker and Toskin, who acted as his orderlies and were skilled field medics. They were sorting through the medical supplies Gaunt had left for them. Dorden had half-expected them to volunteer and stay, hoped for it, but to see his three staffers working as usual was refreshing and uplifting. He crossed to them, meaning to carry on as normal and ask about the supply level, but all he found in his throat was thanks. Each one smiled, took his hand as he offered it, gainted an acknowledgement of duty. Dorden was proud of them.

He started to give them dispersal instructions, and began to run through the needs of the sick in priority order, when outer Ghosts stepped into view: Mkoll, the chief scout and Dorden's closest friend in the unit, accompanied by Troopers Brostin, Claig, Caffran and Gutes. They had just finished a patrol sweep of the horseshoe boundary and were preparing to dig in for the night.

Dorden greeted Mkoll. 'You needn't have stayed.'

'And leave you alone here?' Mkoll laughed. 'I'll not have the records say 'Medic Dorden died and where was his friend, the warrior Mkoll?'

'The commissar asked for volunteers and so we volunteered.'

'I'll not forget this, however short my life,' Dorden replied. 'We have the flank guarded well,' Mkoll told Dorden, indicating the double fence. 'All ten of us.'

'Ten?'

'That's what the colonel-commissar allowed. Us five, your three, and the other two. All of the Ghosts were arguing over who could stay, did you know? Everyone volunteered for the duty.'

'Everyone? Not Major Rawne, I'd bet!'

Mkoll grinned ruefully, 'All right, not everyone. But there was a scramble for places. Gaunt finally decided on first come, first served. So you got your three, me, Brostin, Claig, Caffran and Gutes. Plus Tremard, on watch at the gates. And…'

'And?'

Dorden whipped round, sensing someone was suddenly behind him. He looked up into the smiling bearded face of Colm Corbec.

'And me. So, Doc, you're in charge. How do we play this?'

Night fell. The air cleared. Distantly, carrion-dogs howled. Three or more moons rose and set, duelling with each others' orbits. The darkness was clear and cold and smelled of death. Far away, on the southern horizon, amber clouds thumped and boiled, a storm approaching. A mighty land army was moving towards them. That, and a real storm. Lightning shuddered the sky in hazes of white-flash. The air became heavy and sweet.

Inside the farmhouse, one of the Bluebloods spasmed and died. Dorden was fighting for that life, his apron-smock slick with spurting blood. There was nothing he or Lesp could do.

Dorden stepped back from the cooling corpse and handed bloodied instruments to Lesp. 'Record time and manner of death, and the name and number from the tags,' he said darkly 'Emperor willing, we can pass it to the Volpone adjutant's office and they can adjust their records.'

Lesp snorted. The Bluebloods have doubtless marked all these as dead already.'

Lesp was a tall, thin man from Tanith Longshore, with cold blue eyes and an Adam's apple that looked like a knee in his slender neck. He'd been a fisherman back on the Lost Place, part of a sea-fishing family which plied the ocean currents beyond the archipelago. He owned a fierce skill with a sailcloth and net needle, and an almost surgical knack with a blade learned from gutting fish back in those days. Dorden had put those skills to use in the name of healing when he had co-opted Lesp as an orderly. Lesp had taken to it well, and enjoyed his work alongside the chief medic.

Dorden took all the willing, able help he could get. Most of the trained medics who had founded with the Ghosts on Tanith had never made it off-world. Originally, the only fully qualified medics had been Dorden, Gherran and Mtane, with twenty other troopers trained as field medics. Dorden had interviewed and studied all of the surviving men to recruit for the badly needed medical staff. Without devoted, constantly learning amateurs like Lesp, Foskin and Chayker, the health of the regiment would have failed long ago.

Mtane and Gherran had moved on with Gaunt's main force, though both had wanted to stay. Losing all three trained medics in one rash act was more than Gaunt would tolerate.