The Victory: Part Two (Gaunt’s Ghosts: Warhammer 40,000) by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2022-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

DEPLOYMENT

‘Well, Throne be blessed,’ said Blenner. ‘Major Kolea? Back from the dead?’

‘Back from somewhere,’ replied Kolea.

‘Well, welcome anyway,’ said Blenner. He offered up a little shrug, suggesting he was about to give Kolea a brotherly embrace, but Kolea looked distant. Blenner turned the shrug into a smoothing of his tunic, as if that’s all he had intended to do in the first place. ‘Welcome to our new home.’

Kolea glanced around. Blenner was the first person he had encountered since descending to the undercroft.

‘Temporary home,’ he said. ‘Our homes are always temporary.’

‘Well, that’s indeed the truth of it,’ Blenner replied cheerfully. ‘Ever marching on, no bed to call our own. But this is better than some. I recall a billet on Sorclore where the lice, I tell you–’

‘What’s the smell?’ asked Kolea.

‘Yes, there is a smell,’ said Blenner. ‘An aroma. Latrines, I gather. Backing up. It’s the fething weather.’

Kolea glanced around at the whitewashed stonework. The overhead lamps ticked and flickered.

‘And the lights?’

‘Another maintenance issue, I gather.’

‘What are our numbers here?’ Kolea asked. ‘I was told two companies…’

‘Uhm, E Company and V Company, along with the retinue, of course.’

‘And they’re all accommodated? Needs met?’

‘Well, Major Baskevyl has that in hand. That and the maintenance issues. I gather–’

‘You gather?’ asked Kolea. ‘You seem to gather a lot, commissar, but nothing seems gathered to me. You must be one of the ranking officers here. Why aren’t you supporting Bask and getting things fixed?’

Blenner looked stung. ‘I do what I can, major,’ he said, then added, ‘What they’ll let me do.’

‘What does that mean?’

Blenner dropped his gaze and his voice. He seemed miserable. Four women from the retinue went past, carrying baskets of laundry. When Blenner spoke, it had an air of confidentiality.

‘Did you hear about Low Keen?’ he asked.

‘Yes, briefly. Gendler and Wilder. And Ezra.’

‘Well, it’s put a stink on things,’ said Blenner. ‘On me. Just now, I am not regarded with the same warmth as I once enjoyed.’

‘You did your job, didn’t you?’

‘It’s not a popular job. The Belladon–’

‘It’s a dirty job, is what you mean?’

Blenner nodded. Kolea eyed him. He’d never thought Vaynom Blenner much of a soldier, and his lack of discipline made him a poor discipline officer. Kolea suspected he’d only ever become part of the company because he and Gaunt went back. Now Gaunt was elevated above the Tanith, Blenner had no ally to hand, no shadow to lurk in. His chief value had always been his endless cheer and informal conduct, which Kolea had to admit had been an asset to morale at times. Even that seemed dimmed.

‘A dirty job indeed,’ Blenner said.

Kolea felt a pang of pity for the man. Blenner was good for little, but Kolea knew all too sharply what it felt like to lose status and relevance, or at least to stand on the brink of that.

‘Bask doesn’t trust you?’ he asked.

‘No, and I don’t blame him,’ said Blenner. ‘No one seems to. I’m sort of out of the loop a little. Shunned, you might say.

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