The vox-caster set in the lit turret below him was alive with back-chat, but he started as he heard a signal cut through: a low, even message couched in simple Jantine combat-cant.
‘Who knows that… who’s broadcasting?’ he murmured, dropping into the turret and adjusting the dial of the set.
He smiled at first. Slaydo’s promised reinforcements were coming in. The Hyrkan Fifth and Sixth. And the message was from the Hyrkan commissar, little Ibram Gaunt.
Fog lights lit the glacier crest as the armoured column of the Hyrkan hove in to view, kicking up snow-dust from their tracks as they bounced down towards the Jantine column.
It will be good to see Ibram, Dercius thought. What’s it been… thirteen, fourteen years? He’s grown up since I last saw him, grown up like his father. Served with the Hyrkan, made commissar.
Dercius had kept up with the long-range reports of Ibram’s career. Not just an officer, as his father intended, a commissar no less. Commissar Gaunt. Well, well, well. It would be good to see the boy again.
Despite everything.
GAUNT’S HALF-TRAK slewed up in the snow next to the general’s Leman Russ. Dercius was descending to meet it, putting his cap on, adjusting his regimental chainsword in its decorative sheath.
He hardly recognised the man who stepped out to meet him.
Gaunt was grown. Tall, powerful, thin of face, his eyes as steady and penetrating as targeting lasers. The black uniform storm-coat and cap of an Imperial commissar suited him.
‘Ibram…’ Dercius said with a slow smile. ‘How long has it been?’
‘Years,’ the commissar said flatly, face expressionless. ‘Space is wide and too broad to be spanned. I have looked forward to this. For too long. I always hoped circumstance would draw us together again, face to face.’
‘Ah… so did I, Ibram! It’s a joy to see you.’ Dercius held his arms out wide.
‘Because I am, as my father raised me, a fair man, I will tell you this, Uncle Dercius,’ Gaunt said, his voice curiously low. ‘Four years ago on Darendara, I experienced a revelation. A series of revelations. I was given information. Some of it was nonsense, or was not then applicable. Some of it was salutary. It told me a truth. I have been waiting to encounter you ever since.’
Dercius stiffened. ‘Ibram… my boy… what are you saying?’
Gaunt unsheathed his chainsword. It murmured waspishly in the cold air. ‘I know what happened on Kentaur. I know that, for fear of your own career, my father died.’
Dercius’s adjutant was suddenly between them. ‘That’s enough!’ Brochuss spat. ‘Back off!’
Major Tanhause and Sergeant Kleff of the Hyrkan stood ready to second Gaunt.
‘You’re speaking to an Imperial commissar, friend,’ Gaunt said. ‘Think hard about your objections.’ Brochuss took a pace back, uncertainty warring with duty.
‘Now I am a commissar,’ Gaunt continued, addressing Dercius, ‘I am empowered to deliver justice where ever I see it lacking. I am empowered to punish cowardice. I am granted the gift of total authority to judge, in the name of the Emperor, on the field of combat.’
Suddenly realising the implications behind Gaunt’s words, Dercius pulled his own chainsword and flew at the commissar. Gaunt swung his own blade up to block, his grip firm.
Madness and fear filled the Jantine commander… how had the little bastard found out? Who could have known to tell him? The calm confidence which had filled his mind since the Khedd campaign began washed away as fast as the dying light was dulling the ice-glare around them. Little Ibram knew. He knew! After all this time, all his care, the boy had found out! It was the one thing he always dreaded, always promised himself would never happen.
The scything chainswords struck and shrieked, throwing sparks into the cold night, grinding as the tooth belts churned and repelled each other. Broken sawteeth spun away like shrapnel. Dercius had been tutored in the duelling schools of the Jant Normanidus Military Academy. He had the ceremonial honour scars on his cheek and forearms to bear it out. A chain-blade was a different thing, of course: ten times as heavy and slow as a coup-epee, and the clash-torsion of the chewing teeth was an often random factor. But Dercius had retrained his swordsmanship in the nuances of the chainsword on admission to the Patricians. A duel, chainsword to chainsword, was rare these days, but not unheard of. The secrets were wrist strength, momentum and the calculated use of reversal in chain direction to deflect the opponent and open a space.