Traitor General, page 26
They walked, waded, and clambered, moving on through a permanent gloom fraught by warm fogs and miasmas of marsh gas. The sluggish green pools pulsed and bubbled, and unimaginable things snaked through the slick water, betrayed only by their rippling wakes. Other life clicked and fretted in the lowering black canopy above. What little light there was seemed as hard and unyielding as green marble.
This was not a place for men, for men had no mastery of it. They hadn’t had it when they first arrived on the planet and named it Gereon, and they didn’t have it now. Not even the Sleepwalkers, seasoned to the Untill’s murky dangers. Though they had dwelt here for generations, they were only tenants, tolerated by the true rulers of the marshland.
For this was the domain of the insects. They were everywhere. They were lice in the hair, parasites on the skin, formations of tiny waders, a billion strong, hurrying upon the surface tension of the water. They were crawlers on tree bark, marching in formation, burrowers in mud, gnawers into wood. They criss-crossed the humid air on dank, trembling wings.
And in the swelter of the Untill, they had not been told when to stop growing. Moths swooped amidst the upper canopy like hawks, taking flying beetles as air-prey. Dragonflies thrummed across the glades, primordial gliders the size of vultures. Stalking grazers, bloated like balloons, stilted their way through the waterbeds, gorging on silt-dwelling creatures that they raked up with their mouthparts and then sucked dry.
Treading onwards, the Ghosts saw skaters the size of small deer, travelling over the water surface on hundreds of long, paired legs. They saw grubs like fat, pallid, glistening fingers, waving as they extruded from rotten trees. They saw mantis-spiders as big as hunting dogs dancing slow, jerky tangos with wasp-worms.
The wet air stank of gossamer. Gossamer, wood-rot, steam and stagnation.
The three scouts moved on ahead, trailing Eszrah ap Niht, who seemed to know where he was going. To Mkvenner’s quiet disgust, Larkin had decided that the partisan’s name was ‘Ezra Night’. The nomenclature would undoubtedly stick. Larkin had a knack for coining simple names. They had become ‘Gaunt’s Ghosts’ because of him, after all.
The tail end of the party was lagging. Feygor had not recovered consciousness, and Beltayn, Curth, Landerson, and sometimes Gaunt himself, took turns carrying him.
Rawne was tense. Gaunt had ordered him to keep the group together, but the slower the back-end got, the further the scouts led away.
He slopped to a halt in a glade where engorged, fist-sized aphids suckled in their hundreds around the albino taproots of a fallen mangrove. The forward party was now out of sight, and the only sign of the rest of them was some distant splashing behind him.
‘Feth this,’ he said.
‘Agreed.’ Cirk appeared, her weapon over her shoulder. Her skin was glowing with sweat, and dark half-circles stained the armpits of her jacket. Rawne didn’t like her at all, but he found himself admiring her. And not for the first time. She was a damned attractive woman. Fully loaded, that would have been Murt Feygor’s description. Her jacket was unbuttoned and loose, and her damp, clinging undervest accentuated her bosom as she strode towards him.
Cirk came right up to him, face to face. He swallowed hard. He could smell her musky perspiration. Her generous mouth curled in a slight smile. She tilted her chin down slightly and coyly widened her eyes.
‘Uh, seen something?’ she inquired.
Rawne realised he was staring at her. This was wrong. He knew it. She couldn’t be trusted. That mark on her cheek. That… brand of Chaos. He forced himself to look at it. He tried to curb his libido by thinking about that sickening thing inside Cirk’s arm. That did the trick. The fething imago. Rawne was at a loss to know why Gaunt hadn’t just executed her. She was dangerous. For a while now, Rawne knew Cirk had been playing him off against Gaunt. She’d picked up on their old enmities, and since then she’d been siding with Rawne on every call, every argument. The woman was trying to build an alliance that Rawne wanted no part of. Ibram Gaunt would never, ever be Elim Rawne’s friend, but for the good of the mission, there was no way he’d let this–
‘Rawne? What’s the matter?’
He glanced up and their eyes locked. Her gaze was full of simmering heat, hotter than the damn marsh itself. A promise of something illicit and taboo. Rawne tried to tear his eyes away to the cheek-brand. But now even that wretched mark on her cheek seemed to be just part of her allure. He wondered what it would feel like to touch the scars of the stigma. He–
Shocked by his own desires, he looked away. He was a soldier of the God-Emperor, feth it! Not the purest, he’d be the first to admit that. But he was an officer of the Guard. And he had a woman of his own. Since Aexe Cardinal, he’d enjoyed a liaison with Jessi Banda, the Verghast girl serving as a sniper in three platoon. Their affair was secret, but it meant something to him. For Throne’s sake, Rawne had a lock of Banda’s hair in a spent cartridge case around his neck!
‘They’re falling behind, major,’ Cirk said.
‘I know, major,’ he replied.
What was wrong with him? According to Curth, the taint of this world was now so deep inside them, it was affecting their hormonal balance, their emotions, their self-control. Was that it? Were they all beginning to lose it, him included?
‘Time to cut the poor man loose,’ she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead on her jacket cuff. Her raised arm accented her full breasts.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I said time to cut the poor man loose. What’s the matter with you?’
Rawne hesitated. ‘Nothing. Nothing. Not a thing. I just thought I saw a bug. There. On your… throat.’
‘Is it gone?’
‘Your throat?’
‘No, idiot!’
‘Yeah, it’s gone.’
Rawne tore his eyes away from her considerable appeal. He thought of the mark. The brand on her cheek. He tried to remember Banda’s face.
‘You mean Feygor?’
‘That’s right. He’s… lost.’
‘We’re not leaving Feygor behind,’ Rawne replied, looking at the trees behind her. That was no better. The arrangement of the coiled branches seemed to mimic the shape of the mark on Cirk’s cheek.
‘Really? Why not?’
‘Because we look after our own.’
Cirk laughed darkly. ‘Tell that to Acreson. To Lefivre.’
‘Give me a break, Cirk. Gaunt stuck his neck out to get them clear. So did I. They died well.’
‘No such thing, major.’
‘Whatever.’
Cirk shrugged. Throne, she was really beautiful, Rawne thought. Luminous. And the swirling mist behind her… for a second, the wafting vapour made shapes, pictures. Figures entwined. A man and a woman.
‘Anyway, what I think hardly matters,’ Cirk said. ‘Your commander is about to ditch Feygor.’
‘What?’
‘I heard him say it.’
That, finally, snapped him out. He felt a new emotion, as primal as lust. Rawne started to move. ‘Stay here. No, go get the scouts. Get them back.’
He ran back the way they’d come.
Beltayn and Landerson laid Feygor’s body on a bulging root-mass, and tried to make him comfortable. Beltayn was trying to shoo the blood-flies away from Feygor’s face.
‘We can’t carry him,’ Gaunt said.
‘We can, sir,’ Beltayn said. ‘All the way.’
‘No, Bel,’ said Gaunt. ‘I mean we can’t afford to carry him. It’s slowing us down badly. Exhausting all of us.’ He looked over at Curth, who had sat down on a muddy tussock and was cleaning the leeches off her calves. He’d never seen her look so tired. She was like a faded pict of herself, drained and bleached out.
‘He’s not dead yet,’ she said, without looking up.
‘I know, Ana–’
Curth got to her feet and sloshed over to them. She pushed Landerson and Beltayn aside and ran another check on Feygor’s vitals.
‘Murt’s a feth-hard son of a bitch,’ she said. ‘It’s gonna take a lot to kill him.’
Gaunt peered over her shoulder. Feygor’s skin was abnormally pale and waxy. His eyes – closed – had sunken back into deep, dark pits and the flesh of his face was slack. Brown liver spots freckled his shoulders and arms, and Gaunt was rather afraid to ask Curth what they were. He suspected some kind of mould. A sweet, corrupted scent came out of the dying man with every shallow, ragged breath, and the flies seemed drawn in by it. Worst of all was Feygor’s throat. The flesh around his implanted larynx augmetic was swollen and sore, and it was beginning to fester. It looked like the soft, expanding rind of a rotting ploin, about to burst with its own putrescence. Stinking yellow mucus threaded out of Feygor’s chapped lips. Every weary breath rattled phlegm in the man’s throat.
‘He’s going to die soon, isn’t he Ana?’ Gaunt asked.
‘Shut up,’ she snapped, sponging Feygor’s infected neck.
‘Ana, for my sake, and for Feygor’s, tell me the truth.’
Curth looked around. There were tears in her eyes again. ‘Shut up, Gaunt!’
‘Just tell me one thing, ‘ Gaunt said. ‘Is there anything else you can do for him?’
‘I can–’ She trailed off.
‘Ana? Is there really anything else? Anything?’
Curth turned and punched at Gaunt. The blow struck his shoulder. She threw another punch, another, and then began pummelling against Gaunt’s chest, hammering with the balls of her clenched hands. She was too weary to do any damage. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, pinning her thumping fists. She started to weep into his chest.
‘There’s nothing else, is there?’
‘I’ve got… I’ve got nothing… nothing left… no drugs… no stuff… oh Throne…’
‘All right,’ he said, embracing her tightly. ‘It’s all right. This is just the way it goes sometimes.’
‘Sir?’ It was Landerson.
Gaunt slowly let go of Curth and allowed Beltayn to lead her over to a root-clump where she could sit and recover.
‘Yes, Landerson?’
‘I’d like to volunteer to carry Feygor, sir.’
‘Noted, but–’
Landerson shook his head. ‘I understand this, sir. I understand you need to ditch Feygor because he’s slowing the team down. I understand the importance of your mission. But I’m not one of your team. If I fall behind, so be it. I’d just like to try, to give that man a chance.’
Gaunt looked Landerson in the eyes. He was amazed to feel tears of his own welling up. The man was offering such a sacrifice, and after all that–
‘Landerson,’ Gaunt began, sniffing hard and fighting to stay in control of himself. ‘You’d be dooming yourself and I won’t have that.’
Landerson was about to answer when Gaunt heard a snarl behind him. Rawne appeared out of nowhere and crashed into Gaunt, smashing him down into the water.
‘Holy feth!’ Beltayn cried.
Struggling, thrashing, the two figures surfaced. Rawne had Gaunt by the throat and was forcing him back down into the swamp. ‘Feth you! Leave him to die? Feth you!’ Rawne was screaming, water spraying from his face. ‘You’d leave us all to die! Like you left Tanith to die!’
Blowing bubbles, Gaunt went under again.
‘Holy feth!’ Beltayn yelled again, and splashed forward to break up the fight. Landerson was with him.
‘Let him go, sir!’ Beltayn yelled, pulling on Rawne’s arms.
‘Feth you too!’ Rawne shouted back.
‘Major Rawne, stop it now!’ Landerson cried. He grabbed Rawne by the collar and yanked hard. Rawne twisted backwards and Gaunt surfaced again, spluttering for air.
‘Get off me!’ Rawne bawled, and chopped Landerson across the windpipe so hard, he buckled and fell over, gasping.
Curth rose to her feet. ‘What, now?’ she said. ‘Now? Right now? Are you fething kidding me, Elim?’
Rawne was too busy drowning Gaunt and fighting off Beltayn. Curth ran over to the floundering Landerson and propped him up out of the marsh water.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Beltayn yelled, yanking as hard as he could. Rawne swung round and smacked a fist into Beltayn’s face. The adjutant blundered backwards.
Rawne locked both his hands around Gaunt’s neck and dunked him yet again into the thick, green water.
‘I don’t fething believe this,’ Curth barked. ‘This is it, is it? The moment you finally decide to settle your score? Rawne, you’re fething unbelievable! How many years have you waited and you choose now? Thanks a fething lot, you stupid bastard!’
‘What?’ Rawne said.
‘Your feud with Gaunt! You decide to settle it now?’
Rawne swayed and blinked. ‘What?’ he repeated. He let go of Gaunt’s neck. ‘This isn’t about him and me, this is about Feygor–’
Released, Gaunt came up out of the water and punched Rawne across the clearing.
Rawne slammed into a tree-bole, scraped his face on the bark, and then turned back.
Gaunt had the point of his warknife aimed at Rawne’s throat. Straight silver.
‘Are we really going to do this, Rawne?’ Gaunt asked.
‘I won’t let you just leave him,’ Rawne said, wiping his mouth.
Gaunt slowly put his blade away. ‘I’m going to make allowances, Rawne. This place is making us crazy. We all knew that would be a risk when we signed up for this. I don’t think any of us is really thinking straight any more. Gereon is screwing us up. Do you understand?’
Rawne nodded.
‘But we have to try and hold this together. We have to try and keep our minds on the mission. Have you forgotten the mission, Rawne?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Have you forgotten the mission’s classification?’
‘No.’
‘And you remember what that means? The mission is paramount. Everything else, everyone else, is expendable. We all understood that at the start. We all knew that a bad business like this might come along and we’d have to deal with it. Feth knows, we may yet face choices even harder than this one. But this is how it has to be.’
Rawne sighed. ‘Yes. I know. Fine.’
Gaunt nodded. He looked at the others. ‘Let’s break here for thirty minutes. Rest and collect our wits.’ To Rawne, he said ‘Thirty minutes. Then I’ll make the final decision on Feygor.’
‘Don’t just… leave him here to die,’ Rawne said.
‘I won’t. I wasn’t going to,’ replied Gaunt. ‘If the Emperor can’t protect, then he can at least show mercy.’
The scout party appeared, brought back by Cirk. Brostin, Varl, Criid and Larkin were with them. Sensing that something had happened, Mkoll looked at Gaunt.
‘We’ll take a short rest here,’ Gaunt said. Mkoll shrugged, and the scouts found places on the roots to sit.
‘I’m sorry,’ Curth said quietly to Gaunt. ‘That’s twice now I’ve lost it completely. I’m crying all the time, I don’t know what’s wrong with me–’
‘Yes, you do,’ Gaunt said. ‘It’s not you. So we’ll forget about it.’
‘All right, b–’ Curth broke off. ‘Hey, what’s he doing?’
Gaunt looked round. Eszrah ap Niht was standing beside Feygor’s body, studying him curiously.
Gaunt and Curth waded across to him, and Gaunt signalled Mkvenner to join them.
‘Preyathee?’ Gaunt asked.
Eszrah regarded the colonel-commissar with his dark, unreadable, mosaic-edged eyes and muttered something as he gestured to Feygor. It was too complicated for Gaunt to follow.
‘Slow down,’ Gaunt urged.
The Sleepwalker began to repeat himself, but it was still too complex. Mkvenner asked a question in proto-Gothic, and they exchanged a few words.
‘He says his people have seen several cases of infections like this in the last few months,’ Mkvenner said.
‘Since Chaos came,’ said Gaunt.
‘Exactly,’ Mkvenner nodded. ‘The partisans had a way of treating it that sometimes worked. He’s offering to try that, if you permit him.’
Gaunt glanced at Curth.
‘Look,’ she said, making a helpless gesture with her hands, ‘I’m standing on the edge of Imperial medical science, gazing into the dark. At this point, anything’s worth a try.’
‘Right,’ said Gaunt. He nodded to Eszrah. ‘Do it.’
The Sleepwalker drew back the folds of his segmented cloak, and revealed a number of small gourd flasks suspended from his waist-belt. He selected one, opened the stopper, and wiped two fingers around the inside rim. When his fingers withdrew, they were smeared with a grey paste, the same colour as the pale dye that covered every centimetre of his skin. He leaned forward, and gently smudged the paste around Feygor’s swollen throat. Feygor stirred slightly, but did not wake.
‘What is that stuff?’ Curth asked.
‘Hwat beyit, soule?’ Mkvenner asked and listened to the reply. He looked back at Gaunt and the doctor. ‘It’s… um… it’s essentially moth venom.’
‘What?’ Curth spluttered. ‘Moth venom?’
‘Basically,’ said Mkvenner.
‘Fantastic,’ said Curth. ‘Maybe we could help Feygor by stabbing him as well.’
‘Look,’ said Mkvenner. ‘As I understand it, the stuff works. The only way the partisans have survived over the centuries in an environment this toxic is to understand it. Their skin dye, that’s for camouflage, and for ritual show, but it’s made from ground-up scales from moth wings. It’s built up an immunity in them. There are very few venoms in the Untill that can actually affect them now. They use a more concentrated version to tip their quarrels. That paste stuff has enough in it to purge taint infections.’
Curth exhaled as she considered this. ‘There might be some sense in it,’ she admitted. ‘But what works for them may not work for us. Feygor’s got no immunity.’
