Warhammer 40k - Gaunt's Ghosts 99 - In Rememberance by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-05-03T14:06:25+00:00

IT WAS DUSK when we returned to the city. Doyl and Baffels carried Mktag all the way. Bragg and Brostin tried to buck me up, claiming my improvisation with the faulty flamer had saved the day. By the time we reached the curtain wall, their version of events had me as the hero, winning the entire encounter They were generous souls, these Ghosts. Brostin in particular had no reason to admit I'd been right. They realised, I suppose, that I was a civilian and they'd taken me too far. They felt sorry for me, I'd survived their rite of passage and acquitted myself well.

I suppose I should have been flattered by the inclusion. Honoured to earn the respect of such warriors.

But Mktag's death had unsettled me profoundly. The memory of it had burned into my brain so deeply that I was sure it had left a little, smoking hole in my skull. I was no soldier despite what Brostin and Bragg cheerfully said. I had no basis of experience with which to deal with this shock, no inoculation, no Fundamental Training brutalisation to take the sting away.

I was an artist, for the God-Emperor's sake! A soft, protected artist from a secure world where death happened behind closed doors or drawn curtains. For all I tried to make my work contain such eternal concepts as truth and grace, nobility and humanity they were empty gestures. My work was empty. I despised every thing I had ever done, all the artistic triumphs I had been so pleased with. They were nothing, barren, vapid. Devoid of any real human truth.

Real truth was out there in the shattered outhabs of Vervunhive. Real truth was waiting and silence, courage and stealth. Real truth was the ability to function in extremes. To fire a cannon and miss and try again. To fix a silver blade to the end of a las·weapon and leap from safety into a shroud of smoke, prepared as you did so to really use that makeshift spear.

Real truth was as real as a tiny hole in a man's forehead.

I had not been scared during the patrol. I had been bored, horrified, perplexed, impatient. But at no point had I actually succumbed to terror. Once we were back, fear consumed me. I shook I could barely speak.

I sat, swathed in Bragg's camo-cape, in the doorway of the billet. Troopers moved around me, getting on with their work. I wondered why they didn't seem scared. If they were scared, and they were still just getting on with it, that was truly terrifying.

I saw Bragg talking with Corbec and pointing in my direction. Corbec disappeared, but a few moments later the young trooper, Milo, came to find me.

'Colonel Corbec wants me to take you to the Medical Hall.'

'I'm fine.'

'I know. But he wants the medics to check you out. You've had quite a day, Mister Thuro.'

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.