Ghostmaker by Dan Abnett Read Free Book Online

sending you in?” Ortiz asked presently.
    “Right down the river’s floodplain to the gates of Voltis. He thinks we can take the city where fifty thousand of his Bluebloods have failed.”
    “Can you?”
    “We’ll see,” Gaunt said, without the flicker of a smile. “The Ghosts are new, unproven but for a skirmish on Blackshard. But they have certain… strengths.” He fell silent, and seemed to be admiring the gold and turquoise lines of the feather serpent design painted on the barrel of the Basilisk’s main weapon. Its open beak was the muzzle. All the Ketzok machines were rich with similar decorations.
    Ortiz whistled low to himself. “Down the Bokore Valley into the mouth of hell. I don’t envy you.”
    Now Gaunt smiled. “Just you keep pounding the western hills and keep them busy. In fact, blow them all away to kingdom come before we get there.”
    “Deal,” laughed Ortiz.
    “And don’t drop your damn aim!” Gaunt added with a threatening chuckle. “Remember you have friends in the valley!”
     
    Two vehicles back, Corbec nodded his thanks as he took the dark thin cigar his Basilisk commander offered.
    “Doranz,” the Serpent said, introducing himself.
    “Charmed,” Corbec said. The cigar tasted of licorice, but he smoked it anyway.
    Lower down the hull of the tank, by Corbec’s sprawled feet, the boy Milo was cleaning out the chanters of his Tanith pipe. It wheezed and squealed hoarsely. Doranz blanched. “I’ll tell you this: when I heard that boy’s piping today, that hell-note, it almost scared me more than the damn blood cries of the enemy.”
    Corbec chuckled. “The pipe has its uses. It rallies us, it spooks the foe. Back home, the forests move and change. The pipes were a way to follow and not get lost.”
    “Where is home?” Doranz asked.
    “Nowhere now,” Corbec said and returned to his smoke.
     
    On the back armour of another Basilisk, hulking Bragg, the biggest of the Ghosts, and small, wiry Larkin, were dicing with two of the tank’s gun crew. Larkin had already won a gold signet ring set with a turquoise skull. Bragg had lost all his smokes, and two bottles of sacra. Every now and then, the lurch of the tank beneath them would flip the dice, or slide them under an exhaust baffle, prompting groans and accusations of fixing and cheating.
    Up by the top hatch with the vehicle’s commander, Major Rawne watched the game without amusement. The Basilisk commander felt uneasy about his passenger. Rawne was slender, dark and somehow dangerous. A starburst tattoo covered one eye. He was not… likeable or open like the other Ghosts seemed to be.
    “So, major… what’s your commissar like?” the commander began, by way of easing the silence.
    “Gaunt?” Rawne asked, turning slowly to face the Serpent. “He’s a despicable bastard who left my world to die and one day I will slay him with my own hands.”
    “Oh,” said the commander and found something rather more important to do down below.
     
    Ortiz passed Gaunt his flask. The afternoon was going and they were losing the light. Ortiz consulted a map-slate, angling it to show Gaunt. “Navigation puts us about two kilometres or so short of Pavis Crossroads. We’ve made good time. We’ll be on it before dark. I’m glad, I didn’t want to have to turn on the floods and running lights to continue.”
    “What do we know about Pavis?” Gaunt asked.
    “Last reports were it was held by a battalion of Bluebloods. That was at oh-five-hundred this morning.”
    “Wouldn’t hurt to check,” Gaunt mused. “There are worse things than rolling into an ambush position at twilight, but not many. Cluggan!”
    He called down the hull to a big, grey-haired Ghost sat with others playing cards.
    “Sir!” Cluggan said, scrambling back up the rocking Basilisk.
    “Sergeant, take six men, jump down and scout ahead of the column. We’re two kilometres short of this crossroads,” Gaunt showed Cluggan the map. “Should be clear, but after our tangle with the damn World Eaters we’d best be sure.”
    Cluggan