Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘I am aware of the situation we face.’

  ‘No, inquisitor. You’re not. You’re missing something rather vital.’

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘Look at these soldiers,’ Thade nodded to the marching column ahead. ‘Take a long look. What do you see?’

  ‘Your men.’

  ‘Look harder.’

  ‘The Cadian Eighty-eighth.’

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘I am not obtuse, but I am far from patient. I asked you to get to the point.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  The inquisitor, curious now, looked at the soldiers up ahead. What did he see? Brain-dead servitors walked in their shambling gait around the red-cloaked form of Enginseer Osiron. The surviving Kasrkin kept together in their own dark-armoured pack, a little away from the others. Caius noticed, for the first time, a tattoo on the back of Ban Jevrian’s bullish neck. ‘Unbroken’ it read, in stylised Gothic script. Seth Roscrain walked alone, leaning heavily on his black staff. While the Kasrkin kept their distance, the soldiers seemed to instinctively avoid the sanctioned psyker.

  The main bulk of soldiers were ragged, dirty, but straight-backed and alert with their weapons at the ready. The formation was orderly and efficient, with the stretcher bearers carrying the wounded – each pair surrounded by a fire-team of men from their platoon. The Sentinels, the four still in working order, stalked in a ceaseless patrol around the marching column.

  Caius’s psychic sense picked up on what his natural senses did not. The air around the Cadians was powerfully grim – every man’s thoughts turned to the trials of surviving the next few hours, let alone the next five weeks until reinforcements reached orbit. The sense of defeat was palpable now.

  ‘I see…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘…your point, captain.’

  ‘I thought you would. Our regiment was a thousand strong. Just over a hundred remain alive, and we’re looking at the prospect of dying of starvation or Chaos-tainted infection unless we can secure our conquered base. Now I know what you want. You want to continue your search, seeking whatever it is that brought the Curse of Unbelief to this world. I’m telling you in cold honesty that without answers, without hope, that’s not going to happen with us at your side. And now we face execution if Tionenji wishes it.’

  Thade drew a breath and continued, ‘This is not about Inquisitorial authority, lord. This is about war, and this is about Cadia. Every single man here expects to die today. I expect to die today. And we want to die, because one last charge against the Death Guard and killing as many of them as we can is one hell of a way to go. Since childhood, we’ve all known we were born to die in war. Walking across a plague planet for days on end until starvation sets in is not the way any Cadian wants to die. Nor is a firing squad because of one overzealous otherworlder seen as a prime way to meet the God-Emperor in the afterlife.’

  ‘You’re wrong. This is about authority, Thade. And I hold it. I demand that you serve me.’

  ‘Ah, now we come to the crux of the matter. I could disobey this order and never suffer punishment, as being dead in the coming battle would leave me far from harm’s way. So let me be clear, lord. I’m charged with leading my men into battle and ensuring above all that they fight and die for the Golden Throne. So convince me. Convince me that one last charge against the enemy and killing a horde of them isn’t the best way to serve the Throne. Convince me the God-Emperor wants more from us, or we die in battle for Him tonight.’

  Caius smiled. ‘This is an amusing little blackmail, is it not? But I take your point. You will obey because I demand it, but I will throw you the bone you and your men need in order to be… motivated.’

  ‘You’ve a generous soul, lord.’ Thade grinned back.

  ‘You ask much of me. I already gave you permission to recover your regimental banner, did I not?’

  ‘That coin spins two ways. It’s tactically sound to seek out the survivors of the Eighty-eighth. I am, after all, the current commanding officer. But let’s cut to the point. What is it I should know, inquisitor?’

  ‘And what if I say that what I know for certain is little more than what I already told you?’

  ‘Then I would ask you to guess what’s going on, because the educated assumptions of a servant of the Ordo Sepulturum are more than good enough for me.’

  ‘Very well. I am tasked with visiting the various shrines of true merit within Solthane, seeking the source of the taint.’

  ‘That much I know.’

  ‘Unlike any other outbreak in recorded Scarus history, no Archenemy vessel brought the disease from orbit, no sightings of the Herald’s flagship were registered before the plague struck, nothing of the conventional kind occurred here. We reasoned that something already present on the planet was responsible.’

  ‘This is still not news to anyone, lord.’

  ‘The Ordo Sepulturum has its suspicions of what caused this plague.’ That caught Thade’s attention. ‘We have a theory. It matches the records I have of a cultist interrogation before the Curse of Unbelief struck. And now, with hindsight, it matches the sudden appearance of the Terminus Est and the Herald’s fleet.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘First you tell me, captain. What do you know of Kathur’s achievements before his glorious ascension to sainthood?’

  Thade shrugged. ‘Nothing. Just what’s stated in the shrineworld’s scrolls. A file of them was attached to our initial briefing reports on planetfall.’

  ‘And what glorious picture of sainthood did these holy texts paint?’

  ‘He was a crusader. An Imperial Army commander thousands of years ago. He worked with the old Astartes Legions to reclaim the lost worlds of mankind.’

  Inquisitor Bastian Caius smiled. The patronising curve of his lips made Thade’s skin crawl.

  ‘So, he was a leader within the fledgling Imperium, allegedly during the Great Crusade. And how did he die?’

  ‘He was killed in battle on this world, the last planet his armies brought into compliance with the Imperium. I’ve heard it said even the Raven Guard primarch honoured him by speaking at his funeral.’

  ‘And what of his remains? Where do the bones of this great hero rest?’

  ‘They are interred across Solthane in various shrines.’

  ‘A perfect recital of common knowledge, captain. And almost entirely incorrect.’

  Thade shrugged again. He wasn’t surprised.

  ‘So enlighten me,’ he said.

  ‘Kathur did not die in the Great Crusade. He died in the Horus Heresy itself. And his bones, may the God-Emperor bless them, do not rest on this world. This shrineworld does not honour his final resting place. It honours his memory.’

  ‘So where did he die?’

  ‘That’s not the vital question, but I’ll answer it.’ Caius slowly raised a finger. At first Thade thought the inquisitor wanted silence. Then he realised the other man was pointing. Pointing up.

  ‘He died in space?’

  ‘In orbit. Aboard the flagship of his fleet, the Emperor-class battleship In Purity Protected. The vessel was lost with all hands, and the wreckage rained down to the planet below.

  ‘What destroyed his ship?’

  ‘Now that, captain, is the vital question. The truth is a strange beast. It appears differently to each soul seeing it. The mists of time will shroud any truth, because truth changes with age. Events become memories, memories become history, and history becomes legend.’

  ‘I see,’ said Thade. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, guiltily hoping the inquisitor hadn’t picked up on that thought.

  ‘Ten thousand years before this Reclamation, when our newborn Imperium almost tore itself apart in the Horus Heresy, the galaxy burned in countless battles across countless systems. Unknowable numbers of stories from this era are no longer
recounted in their entirety. But this one… This one we know is the truth. An enduring core of truth behind a lie that has grown around it like a pleasant shell.’

  ‘So what destroyed Kathur’s ship? Was it the Terminus Est? My sanctioned psyker has learned that the Herald’s vessel destroyed the flagship of the Raven Guard in the Horus Heresy.’

  ‘No, captain,’ Caius smiled. ‘The grudge held by the Raven Guard is their own weight to bear – though I am not blind to the fact Fate seems to have brought us all together against the Fourteenth Legion on this world.’

  ‘Throne, just answer the bloody question. What destroyed Kathur’s ship? What was he fighting here?’

  ‘The Death Guard battleship Aggrieved. After the failed Siege of Terra, when the Traitor Legions turned tail and fled to the warp, not all of them made it to the blossoming Ocularis Terribus here in Scarus Sector. Many were damaged from the assault on Holy Terra, and their warp drives threw them back into realspace far short of their daemonic haven. Lord Admiral Kathur and his vessel, In Purity Protected, chased the Aggrieved here and engaged it above the world that would one day be named for him.’

  ‘So your theory is that the Aggrieved left something here after it destroyed Kathur’s ship? Something that has lain silent until now?’

  ‘That is a possibility. But I believe otherwise.’

  ‘The Aggrieved never left.’ Thade said, swallowing as it all fell into place. ‘The Aggrieved remained here, hidden somewhere on the planet.’

  ‘That is what I believe. In Purity Protected was the cream of the Imperial Navy, even were it damaged in the hell of Terra’s Siege. The Death Guard vessel would have suffered under its assault. I suspect the Aggrieved was forced into a crash landing. It struck the surface and remained undiscovered since the days of the Heresy. Ever since I came to this world, I’ve heard a voice calling out, screaming into the warp, pleading for aid. Your sanctioned psyker has heard it, too. I’ve read his mind several times to be sure. I believe he even tried to tell you once. The voice is weak, but the screamer was at least strong enough to leave a beacon for its brethren to find.’

  ‘The Curse of Unbelief.’

  ‘Yes, the plague. All the suffering, all the disease, all the death. A sickening sign that lights up in the unseen world, saying: “I am here. Come to me”.’

  The thought staggered Thade. To consider such pain reaching out into the warp, acting as a beacon. All those lives lost, just to send a message. It was blasphemy on a scale he couldn’t fully comprehend.

  ‘But why now?’ he asked. ‘If you’re right, the Aggrieved has been here for a hundred centuries, silent as a tomb. Why now?’

  ‘Because something aboard the ship’s wreckage has finally woken up. Something powerful enough to cause the plague that killed this world, and so important to the Death Guard that the Herald himself has come to meet it.’

  ‘Where is it? Throne, what is it?’

  ‘If we knew the answers to those questions, this war would already be over. I had planned to visit each truly holy site within Solthane’s cathedral district and perform various rituals of scrying. It’s my belief that the first colonists and city-builders will have sensed the slumbering malice from the crashed vessel. Imperial records are full of similar incidents – cultures unknowingly raising their holiest sites over places of great darkness to nullify the touch of evil. A subconscious defence, if you will.’

  ‘There’s a lot of “maybe” sticking out of this plan, lord.’

  ‘Do I have your support now, Captain Thade? Have I convinced you the Emperor wants more from you and your men than some vain-glorious last charge?’

  Thade took a long time before answering. Finally, with a rueful smile and a strange gleam in his violet eyes, he said ‘We have to reach the wreck of the Aggrieved before the Herald.’

  ‘That is impossible at this stage. They will be landing as we speak. They likely know exactly where it is. We do not.’

  ‘Yes, we do.’ Thade clicked his vox live and ordered Seth to join him at the back of the column.

  ‘I’ve already spoken with your sanctioned psyker. He was unable to confirm anything of use. He could be no more precise than first sensing it upon entering the cathedral district several nights ago. We are already in the cathedral district, captain. We still have hundreds of square kilometres to search.’

  ‘Count the Seven,’ Thade whispered with a dawning smile. ‘Count the Seven. The clarity of our scanners at the monastery… The vox-ghosts… We heard them trying to speak with it, trying to wake it up. We caught them voxing Death Guard battle mantras on every frequency. They were scanning for it. They were calling to it. Blood of the God-Emperor, it’s under the monastery. It has to be.’

  ‘It might be,’ the inquisitor allowed. ‘But it’s far from certain. Yours was not the only regiment to encounter scanner clarity in the monastic sector in the past week; merely the first. I intended to visit each reported site. And I remind you that “under the monastery” means no more than “under a building the size of a small city”.’

  The captain took a breath, watching the shuffling form of Seth Roscrain making his way back through the marching soldiers. Once more, he remembered the sanctioned psyker’s words in the Shrine of the Emperor’s Unending Majesty – at the heart of the monastery before they’d faced the first Death Guard warrior. Seth had never spoken of the voice before. It started that night, on that mission, when everything had really started to foul up beyond repair. It had happened in the monastery’s heart.

  ‘Seth only heard the voice as he grew nearer to it. But you… The Astartes… You both heard it before and hear it now. But Seth is weaker than you. He heard it only as he drew nearer to it. You can’t track it yourself because the voice is ever-present. But you can track it by watching its influence within him.’

  The inquisitor’s gaze remained unbroken as Thade finally said, ‘I’ve been blind.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’

  ‘You were planning all along to use us – use Seth – as the bloodhound to track this voice.’

  ‘As soon as his sensitivity to the psychic scream became apparent, yes. Before that, well, the fact the 88th was the finest regiment involved in the Reclamation was just good fortune. I needed soldiers, Thade. I needed to scour this city.’

  ‘The Traitor Legion may know exactly where the Aggrieved is. But we have a chance if we can track the voice to its source.’

  The inquisitor was impressed. Not at Thade’s deduction, but at his ruthlessness. To use Roscrain as an open conduit for the warp-voice would almost certainly kill the sanctioned psyker. He didn’t need to say it. Thade knew, anyway. The Cadian wasn’t blind to his role in the Imperium, nor the roles of his men.

  ‘I can see in your eyes that you’ve sensed the truth of the matter. This search will still likely take days or weeks, but you are right. We will play this game, with your psyker as the pawn.’

  Both men looked to the towering spires and domes of the monastery a few kilometres away. Entire sections of the palatial monument were blackened, fire-touched from battle and darkened from the smoke of funeral pyres when the world’s population had first begun to die, and the incinerators still functioned. There it stood: the scorched heart of a fallen city.

  The sight made Thade smile.

  ‘In a stunning break with tradition, I think we actually have a shot at this,’ he said. ‘In fact, to the Eye with your doomsaying, Caius. All we’ve done on this planet since we landed is retreat. No more. If we’re destined to die here, we’ll die fighting, doing our duty to the Emperor. And I’m willing to bet we’re close enough to beat the Herald to the prize.’

  ‘There’s one matter you’ve not considered, Thade.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate you spoiling my uplifting speech with an addendum, but enlighten me nevertheless.’

  ‘The Aggrieved, and whatever has awoken within its w
reckage, is likely under the monastery’s foundations. The Mechanicum supplied me with heavy digging equipment in case I had to seek my prey under the earth. That equipment, obtained at massive cost I might add, is now dust in the atmosphere.’

  Thade looked at the inquisitor with a clash of bemusement and despair on his face.

  ‘Sacred Throne, it’s one thing after another with you. I’m glad we’re only seconded to you for one mission.’

  ‘If we survive, I could make it permanent.’

  ‘If you tried, I’d shoot you myself,’ Thade said. ‘Uh, lord,’ he added several seconds later.

  Part III

  The Last Day

  Chapter XIII

  For Home and the Throne

  Solthane, Monastic sector

  It rained as the Death Guard made planetfall. Ancient winged craft drifted through the grim clouds, descending to the surface in juddering landing arcs while rain streamed from their rotting hulls. It was the first rain Solthane had seen in weeks, and the thirsty soil drank its fill.

  Typhus set foot on Kathur. His armour was hot to the touch, radiating heat the way a man gripped by sickness runs a fever, and the greenish plate steamed gently as the cold rainfall hissed against it. In his fist was his Manreaper scythe, deactivated and silent.

  ‘That smell,’ breathed Typhus, his helmet vox speakers adding a crackle to the wet drawl of his voice. ‘That scent on the air…’

  Solthane reeked of death. It had reeked of death for months, but the rain hammering down on mouldering corpses – both those that moved and those that did not – was adding a thick, sick smell to the already corrupt air.

  ‘The smell of divinity,’ Typhus growled. ‘The smell of the Disease God’s gift to mortal flesh.’

  The warriors of the XIV Legion had touched down within Solthane itself, in an expansive city park large enough to accommodate the landing craft of a hundred Traitor Astartes. Thousands of cultists in Remnant uniforms emerged from the dark places of the shrine-city, clustering around the disembarking Death Guard like worshippers greeting their gods. For the most part, the Astartes ignored the mortal scum milling about and chanting praises.