Ghostmaker Read Free

the private rooms!
    He got to his feet and strode to the sloping windows. Out beyond the cityscape and the Founding Fields, orange fire thumped into the twilight as the heavy transports departed and returned, ferrying the regimental components to the vast troop carriers in high orbit.
    That music still!
    Gaunt walked to a set of dark green velvet drapes and swept them aside. The music stopped. The boy with the small set of pipes looked at his raging eyes in astonishment.
    “What are you doing?” Gaunt asked, as threatening as a drawn knife.
    “Playing, sir,” the boy said. He was about seventeen, not yet a man, but tall and well-made. His face, a blue fish tattoo over the left eye, was strong and handsome. His be-ringed fingers clutched a Tanith pipe, a spidery clutch of reeds attached to a small bellows bag that was rhythmically squeezed under the arm.
    “Was this your idea?” Gaunt asked.
    The boy shook his head. “It’s tradition. For every visitor, the pipes of Tanith will play, wherever they go, to lead them back through the forest safely.”
    “I’m not in the forest, so shut up!” Gaunt paused. He turned back to the boy. “I respect the traditions and customs of the Tanith, but I… I have a headache.”
    “I’ll stop then,” the boy said. “I — I’ll wait outside. The Elector told me to attend on you and pipe you while you were here. I’ll be outside if you need me.”
    Gaunt nodded. On his way out of the door, the boy collided with Sym, who was on the way in.
    “I know, I know…” Gaunt began. “If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late for the dinner and — What? Sym? What is it?”
    The look on Sym’s face immediately told Gaunt that something was very, very wrong.
     
    Gaunt gathered his senior staff in a small, wood-panelled lobby off the main banqueting hall. Most were dressed for the formal function, stiff in gilt collars and cuffs. Junior Munitorium staff watched the doors, politely barring the entry of any Tanith dignitaries.
    “I don’t understand!” said a senior Departmento Munitorium staffer. “The nearest edge of the warzone is meant to be eighty days from here! How can this be?”
    Gaunt was pacing, reviewing a data-slate with fierce intensity. “We broke them at Balhaut, but they splintered. Deep intelligence and the scout squadrons suggested they were running scared, but it was always possible that some of their larger components would scatter inwards, looping towards us, rather than running for the back end of the Sabbat Worlds and away.”
    Gaunt wheeled on them and cursed out loud. “In the name of Solan! On his damn deathbed, Slaydo was quite precise about this! Picket fleets were meant to guard all the warpgates towards territories like Tanith, particularly when we’re still at founding and vulnerable like this! What does Macaroth think he’s playing at?”
    Sym looked up from a flatplan-chart he had unfurled on a desk. “The lord high militant commander has deployed most of the Crusade Forces in the liberation push. It is clear he is intent on pressing the advantage won by his predecessor.”
    “Balhaut was a significant win…” began one of the Ecclesiarchy.
    “It will only stay a victory if we police the won territories correctly. Macaroth has broken the new front by racing to pursue the foe. And that’s let the foe through, in behind our main army. It’s text book stupidity! The enemy may even have lured us on!”
    “It leaves us wide open,” another Ecclesiarch agreed flatly.
    Gaunt nodded. “An hour ago, our ships in orbit detected a massive enemy armada coming in-system. It is no exaggeration to say that Tanith has just hours of life left to it.”
    “We could fight—” someone ventured bravely.
    “We have just three regiments. Untried, unproven. We have no defensive position and no prepared emplacements. Half of our force is already stowed in the troop carriers upstairs and the other half is penned in transit. We couldn’t turn them around and get them unlimbered and dug in in under two full days. Either