by Guy Haley
The effects were instantaneous. A smoky, circular wavefront blasted out from the point the liquid hit the ground. Every nurgling it touched was reduced to a sticky black smear. Their tiny souls screamed back into the warp, already corroding to nothing under the blight’s supernatural effects. From the goo left by their demise, a secondary infection spread, skittering in all directions. Nurglings sneezed. Mucus filled their eyes, blinding them, and they ran into each other, spreading the disease further. They coughed up their guts before melting like slugs exposed to salt, wailing as they died. For Ku’Gath, who had been greatly irritated by nurglings since he had ceased to be one himself, it was the sweetest sound he could imagine.
The devastation spread quickly, overtaking all but the fastest nurglings, until everything around him was covered in stinking ooze.
He squinted, looking with his daemon sight into the warp, and saw not one of the souls of the dead imps had survived.
‘It works,’ he whispered. ‘It really works!’ He danced about, his covered feet slapping in the remains of his servants.
For once, Ku’Gath Plaguefather allowed himself to smile.
It didn’t last. He remembered himself soon enough, put back on his scowl and corked the tube. Already, giant snails were slithering into the room to slurp up the nurglings’ remains.
‘Mortarion,’ he said. ‘I must summon him. He must come here personally!’
With a little pride and a little hurry, Ku’Gath went to contact his ally.
Chapter Eighteen
THE CRUSADE OF THE WITNESSES
A few days passed, and preparations for the battle against Mortarion’s warriors were well under way. The towers of First Landing shook as ship after ship laboured overhead, hauling the city’s frightened inhabitants out to the relative safety of the Fleet Primus battle groups, and others came down, bearing Space Marines and tanks and the battle automata of the Legio Cybernetica. For much of this time, Guilliman was closeted with his warlords, and it was during one of their many discussions of strategy that a banging came upon the door of the strategium. Quiet talk among the Custodians, Space Marines and groupmasters came to a close, and Guilliman ordered the doors opened. None but his Victrix Guard had permission to knock so.
A mortal messenger was admitted, and came before the primarch, trembling with fear at the news he must deliver.
‘This had better be significant,’ said Colquan. ‘There are standing orders in place that the primarch is not to be disturbed.’
‘I am sorry, my lords,’ said the messenger. ‘But the news I bear is most important. Tetrarch Felix bade me come.’
‘Then spit out whatever it is you have to say,’ said Colquan. ‘We have a war to win, and you are delaying us.’
The man shook under the hostility of the Custodian, but managed to speak.
‘Militant-Apostolic Mathieu is attempting to leave the city.’
Guilliman looked down with such concentration the messenger looked like he might dissolve into a puddle of sweat.
‘Is he now?’ said the primarch. ‘Where is Felix?’
‘At the Evergreen Outlook, my lord, above Puscinari’s Barbican.’
‘Now he goes too far! Let us put right our error,’ Colquan said. ‘I’ll wring that scrawny preacher’s neck, I swear.’
‘You will do nothing. None of you will. You will all remain here,’ Guilliman told his generals. ‘I shall deal with this myself.’ The Victrix Guard standing at the door made to come with him, but Guilliman stayed them with a gesture. ‘Myself, I said.’ And he left.
Guilliman went out from the Palace of Flowers on a quick route through crowded alleys to the edge of the city. He took steps carved for mortals five at a time, scattering people queuing to leave the city as he went. Those nearest recoiled from him, overwhelmed by his presence, terrified by his might, but away from him cries went up, and crowds gathered to see.
He came to the Spiral Way that curled round the city, headed down, and stepped out onto a broad platform cut into the top of one of the city’s cliffs at the third-tier defences. A macrocannon squatted silent in the middle, its stoppered muzzle poking out from under a tarpaulin. The platform tapered to a point overlooking the plains, and budding from the side of that, like a tree clinging to a cliff face, was an observation post. This was sized for humans, and so Decimus Felix watched from the parapet instead.
A heavy hauler grunted into the sky from the space port near the horizon.
Guilliman went to stand by the tetrarch, causing the soldier manning the post to almost drop his magnoculars in surprise.
‘Decimus,’ said Guilliman.
‘My lord Guilliman,’ said Felix. ‘You see our problem?’
Guilliman nodded. The city’s only gate was two thousand feet below. A cliff face of statues, palaces and defence points carved directly into the living rock descended into the haze, and halfway down was the second-tier wall, but even through all that he could see Mathieu’s war train and his assembled host. They crammed the barbican projecting from the mountain, a vast sub-castle that occupied a square mile. The walls rivalled those of the Fortress of Hera, and the towers of the gatehouse were monstrous things, cruel as spearpoints, and well provided with guns.
‘It seems the militant-apostolic wishes to liberate the world himself,’ said Felix.
‘That is not all he wishes to liberate, Decimus,’ said Guilliman.
Felix gave his gene-father a quizzical look. ‘I do not understand, my lord.’
‘He wishes to liberate my soul,’ said Guilliman softly.
‘What are your orders then? The city guardians have the militant-apostolic detained. He is trapped. The gates are locked.’
‘What is his reaction?’
‘Silence,’ said Felix.
‘And what does he want?’
‘For the gates to be opened, nothing else. He tells my men that he has been given a holy task, and that he must take the fight to the followers of the Plague God.’ Felix paused. ‘My lord, he has thousands of the city folk with him. They have joined his crusade. He is delaying the evacuation. He is insane,’ said Felix.
‘A subjective judgement. He thinks the same of me,’ said Guilliman, still staring down.
There was a whir as Felix upped the magnification of his eye-lenses. ‘Colonel Odrameyer’s regiment is with him. Several units of the Adepta Sororitas also. Others. There are many people in his host who have deserted their posts for him.’
‘Then he may stand a chance,’ said Guilliman, still staring, still speaking softly. His hands clenched a little, then relaxed as he thought.
‘Then you mean to let him go? He is taking many men with him who would best be used elsewhere.’
‘What would you have me do, Felix?’ said Guilliman. ‘If we oppose him, he will fight. He was correct, the damage that would do is incalculable. He has outplayed me. I must remain content that he is on our side. He may achieve something, and although he and I may disagree on the origin of the phenomena we have seen in this campaign, there is no doubting their reality.’
‘Then you wish to let them proceed?’ said Felix.
Guilliman nodded. ‘Open the gates, let him out. The men he takes with him would have been evacuated anyway. He is not weakening our defences much. We can spare him a few Battle Sisters.’
‘They will all die, my lord,’ said Felix.
‘Is that so?’ said Roboute Guilliman. ‘Why do we not let their faith prove itself. I decree that their fate shall lie in the hands of my father, for I will have nothing to do with it. Give the order.’
Felix did as he was told. Guilliman walked away, but Felix stayed to watch the gates to First Landing open wide, and Mathieu’s battle congregation set out in a singing column around the war train. Once it was clear, Colonel Odrameyer’s tanks swung out around it to form a rolling cordon through the fields either side
of the highway. Felix was angry at such defiance of the primarch’s will, but Guilliman had commanded that Mathieu be let free, and so let free he was.
He did not intend to stand there so long, but Felix watched the column until it had vanished into the polluted mists, and for a time after. He thought upon the primarch’s reasons for allowing the preacher out. Theoretical, he thought, Guilliman is at genuine risk from the Church. There was undeniable truth there. The Adeptus Ministorum was all-powerful, everywhere, influenced everything, from the hopes of the smallest child to the operation of the grandest organs of state. But he did not believe that the Ecclesiarchy’s pervasive influence and Guilliman’s need to treat it carefully was all that was going on here. There was another, far more troubling possibility.
Theoretical, he thought, but slowly, hardly daring to consider the idea.
Theoretical, Roboute Guilliman is beginning to believe his father is a god.
Diamider Tefelius stumbled through life as if it were a thick, cloying fog. He could hardly speak when spoken to, concerning his wife and worrying his subordinates. Only bursts of anger orchestrated by his passenger kept the medicae away. He wondered what was happening to him, why his hair was falling out and his teeth hurt so much, but every time he considered taking himself off for an examination, the Tattleslug would tweak a synapse here, or pull a ganglion there, and the idea would be replaced with a dread of doctors.
The Tattleslug recognised the signs well enough. Time was running out. It was careful with its diseases, but it was a daemon of plague and no amount of restraint on its part would stop its host from suffering. Tefelius would die soon.
Tefelius had no notion of any of this. Once again he found himself somewhere he had not expected to be, swaying slightly upon a ledge with nothing but spore-hazed airs between himself and the ground thousands of feet down. From there, he had a clear view right into the heart of Puscinari’s Barbican around the gate. A large military force was leaving the city. Some part of him buried way back in the rear of his skull seemed to find the sight very interesting indeed, so interesting, it let go a little of its hold on Tefelius.
The captain blinked, a sick man waking, not quite sure where he was or what was happening. Then his sluggish brain caught on to his situation, and he gasped, nearly fell, and spread his arms wide upon the stone behind him. He looked to left and right. He knew where he was: a little nook in the city at the dead end of an obscure path, round and furnished with benches, open to the sky but protected from the drop by a tall wall pierced by three unglazed windows, one of which he must have climbed through. It was distant from the main thoroughfares, and often deserted, a place frequented by lovers looking for privacy, and the occasional suicide.
He had no wish to join that second category. The problem was, he was on the wrong side of the wall, his feet balanced on a ledge.
His heart in his throat, he inched along. The ledge was an architectural flourish, barely three inches deep, and crumbly with age. Grit from the stone rasped under his soles. He dared not lift up his feet, but shuffled. Growing up in First Landing tended to blunt a man’s fear of heights, but this was too much.
His hand hit an empty space, and he forced back a rush of panic. It was one of the windows. Shaking with fear, he turned himself around, one hand gripped tight to the window’s edge, and pulled himself through.
He sat there shivering, sweat pouring down his face. He had to get himself to the medicae.
There was that strange movement in his head, damping down his concerns, making him quiescent.
‘What’s wrong with me?’ he wondered aloud. His breath stank. His tongue was sore.
‘A question I would very much like the answer to,’ said a deep, transhuman voice.
Eye-lenses lit up eerie blue at the back of the little hideaway. A curtain of vines over a stone pergola obscured the seats there, pink-leaved and vibrant before Mortarion, now stringy as hag’s hair. There were still enough dead stalks to conceal the Space Marine within.
The warrior came out, ducking to avoid destroying the beams holding up the vines. His battleplate was a deep blue, covered with esoteric markings. His left shoulder pad was green, and bore the badge of the Aurora Chapter.
‘I saw you, in the strategium.’ Tefelius’ shaking was getting worse. His stomach boiled with acid.
‘You did. I am Codicier Donas Maxim. I am an advisor to the primarch.’ The Space Marine planted his staff carefully upon the ground. ‘You are unwell.’
‘It is nothing,’ said Tefelius. He got up to his feet, hardly able to stand, a combination of illness and fear making him weak.
‘It is something,’ said Maxim. ‘I have been watching you. I have listened to your thoughts. You are not yourself. You have a passenger.’
A squirming, awful fear flooded Tefelius, and only part of it was his own.
The Space Marine levelled his staff at Tefelius’ chest.
‘No, my lord, wait, please, I–’
‘I will try to save you if I can,’ said Maxim. His eyes flashed bright, and a pulse of lightning burst from his staff into Tefelius.
Tefelius’ muscles locked. He fell down. He got up on his knees, and tried to crawl away. Maxim moved in front of him, blocking his path as surely as a tank.
‘I am sorry,’ the Librarian said, and pushed another burst of psychic power into the captain. ‘What is within you must come out, and it must be slain.’
Tefelius began to retch, whole-body-shaking convulsions like those made by an ailing canid. He felt something inside him, huge, too big to fit inside, and yet it seemed to be coming up out of his throat. Maxim had his staff couched under one arm like a feral worlder’s lance, his other hand out, crackling with sparks of warp power as he drew out the poison in the captain.
The thing moved up, squeezing stomach acid into Tefelius’ gullet and searing it. Impossibly, it seemed to be coming from out of his head and his gut at the same time. Tefelius’ neck bulged. His airways were closed off. He choked on something indescribably foul. Vomit churned in his oesophagus with no way to be released.
Maxim closed his hand. ‘I have you now, Neverborn,’ he said.
Struggling against eviction, the thing was drawn out further. It stuck in his throat, soft and wriggling, pushing against the back of his jaw. Pain, terrible, awful pain, consumed Tefelius, and he tried to scream, but could only moan deep in his chest. It became worse, and worse, until with a sudden click, his jaw detached, flapping wide on his chest, and the thing inside him plopped onto the floor, steaming and vile. A buzzing blackness cast itself over Tefelius like a hood, but still he was conscious.
Tefelius had time to get a good, long look at the monster that had been hiding inside him; to see its stubby arms, the slug-like body, its insect’s wings beating feebly as it tried to escape, before Donas Maxim pinned it to the ground with the horns atop his staff, and blasted it from existence with a pulse of warp-born power.
Unable to speak, clutching his dislocated jaw, Tefelius collapsed into a puddle of blood and vomit on the paving slabs.
‘I need a medicae team at my position, now, in full protection gear,’ Tefelius heard Maxim say, then the blackness closed tight around him, and he was spared further pain.
Chapter Nineteen
KU’GATH’S GIFTS
Before Mortarion arrived, Ku’Gath prepared himself. He stripped off the leather suit and rolled it up to eat, slurping it down in one, long noodle of hide. Then Ku’Gath took a size that would not outdo Mortarion, whose form was fixed owing to his half-mortal nature. The primarch would find Ku’Gath modestly occupying only the height of the plague mill’s first two floors, and not towering through the broken roof. He had the cauldron shrink too, and set it back on its feet, with a fresh fire prepared beneath, though this he left unlit.
Ku’Gath was tiring of Mortarion. His moods, his arrogance, they oppressed him, and if there
was one thing Ku’Gath’s spirits did not need, it was more oppression. He regretted his alliance with him completely. Still, it had to be seen out to the end, and there was no need to be rude.
The primarch flew in on silent moth wings, but his armour gave out a series of coughs and splutterings, and his respirator was so loud Ku’Gath could hear him well before he saw him. Mortarion circled the plague mill once, dragging out the fumes of the Plague Guard’s campfires as he passed through them, then came down in a rush of smoke and odour, followed by an entourage of nurglings that plopped down from under his cloak and waddled across the floor as if they owned the place. A few of them had wings, and they carried some of the chained censers that hung from Mortarion like a lady’s train.
He brought with him his own fogs, and these mingled with the mists of the marshes.
‘I have come, Ku’Gath, in answer to your summons.’
‘My lord primarch,’ said the Great Unclean One, and inclined his mighty head a little, forcing out his goitre so that it inflated like the throat of a toad.
Mortarion gave him a perfunctory nod, then paced around the ruined hospital, using his enormous scythe as a staff, looking up at the broken floors, poking into the weed-infested rubble, crushing dirty glass under his heel. With the toe of his boot he turned over a skeleton livid with fungi and hissed appreciatively.
‘So pleasing,’ he said. ‘So right, to see the feeble cut down. Mankind requires culling. All these places of healing should be destroyed. They encourage weakness.’
‘Quite so, my lord,’ said Ku’Gath. ‘Grandfather is most generous in decimating them so they may become stronger. They are so numerous that a lesser god would have become bored, but our Grandfather always did have the virtue of persistence.’
‘And this, this is his cauldron?’
‘It is, my lord. A part of it, anyway,’ said Ku’Gath proudly. ‘A manifestation of the eternal whole.’
‘That’s why it is so small. I expected it to be bigger,’ said Mortarion dismissively. Ku’Gath’s own coterie of nurglings giggled and blew raspberries, while Mortarion’s looked at him with an air of insufferable superiority. Ku’Gath battled to keep his spirits up.