by Guy Haley
‘Sound the drums, blow the horns,’ he grumbled. ‘Make ready our beasts and our nightmares!’ He shouldered his way through a crumbling wall, bringing most of it down. Already a clamour of music, shrieks and droning counts was rising around the plague mill. ‘The Plague Guard must war again,’ he growled.
‘Brew me up a storm,’ he mimicked, addressing the marshes as if they might console him. ‘Who am I, his butler?’ He sighed. ‘So be it. Someone fetch me water! Light the fire!’ he bellowed angrily. ‘Apparently I still have work to do.’
Chapter Twenty
TESTIMONIES
The column of the faithful took the First Landing-Boonswell highway, which ran close by the capital, for it, unlike the hydroways Iax relied on for much of its transport, could accommodate the war train’s majesty. After travelling all afternoon, through the evening and into the dark, they stopped in the ruined town of Argardston, some fifty miles from First Landing, where they passed the night full of the confidence only faith can bring. Joy was on every face, though the rations were poor and death certain at the end of the road. Argardston was entirely deserted, most of it burned to the ground, the whole of the population having relocated to the safety of First Landing. There were few signs of the enemy there, and the damage to the town had been done by the townsfolk themselves, who sought to deny their possessions to the foe.
They rose early, ate in the predawn, and set out again at first light of the sun. To speed their progress, half the pilgrims jogged alongside the Cadian tanks and the Ministorum war train, the other half riding every perch upon the vehicles. They changed over at hourly intervals. Few of them were natural runners, many had lived difficult lives. But the strength of the Emperor ran through them, and they ran with glowing faces, and they did not complain. The Sisters of Battle sang hymns in pure voices that never ceased, but folded one into the other in ever-increasing complexity, while preachers standing atop tanks in pulpits made from empty ammo crates and scrap metal gave fiery sermons as the train’s organ played. In these ways did they maintain their strength, and kept up a steady pace. No sickness troubled them, and none of the enemy appeared to inflict more direct harm. Not in the beginning.
At first, the carefully manicured landscapes of Iax seemed merely troubled, as if by drought or passing pestilence. Wilting forests and agricolae lined the highways, but life prevailed; indeed, there was if anything too much of it, for the fields were choked with weeds that blotted out the light from the crops, the canals thick with algal blooms and the woods were tangles of strangling creepers. These plants had no place on the garden world, and were sinister looking, but were not noticeably unnatural in form, though their nocturnal rustlings had the sentries gripping their lasguns tightly, and the faithful were warned from venturing off the road.
After three days of travelling, they were still within two hundred miles of First Landing, and by then the grip of Nurgle tightened with every league they advanced. By the dawn of the third day, the trees were rotten, pulpy sticks, whose leaves lay black around their roots. The turbulent sky was visible through their black skeletons, and no animals or aviforms called out. Even the creepers succumbed, hanging dead in slimy tangles from their hosts, while the fields of the farms were plains of musty straw. The congregation knew their first sickness, though they were careful to boil and treat their water before use, and all they consumed was blessed by priests. A malady of the gut took hold in several groups, and thereafter spread rapidly. For most, the symptoms were unpleasant rather than deadly, bestowing upon the sufferers cramping pains and loose bowels, but it was sufficiently dangerous to kill, and the weak succumbed. A few of the more firebrand preachers declaimed that they were lacking faith, and despite the intervention of Mathieu’s presbyters, some of the pilgrims were cruelly abandoned. Others pleaded to be left behind so as not to slow the procession.
The mountains of the Loann moved up over the horizon, the tallest of their sharp peaks well over six thousand feet high and impassable on foot, but the highway headed directly for them, and passed through a huge cutting cleaving the range in two. One morning, as they approached the mountains, before the train gave off its steam and the march continued, a group of some two hundred came to Mathieu. Shamefacedly their elders spoke, and told him that they were going to turn back. Among them were those too afraid to continue, and although their stated intention was to gather up the ill and take them back the way they had come, it was patent that cowardice was the cause.
There were rumblings of treachery and denunciations then, but Mathieu calmed them, speaking of the Emperor’s individual plan for each man and woman: that some were intended to fight and were given the courage to do so, and others were to perform other roles.
‘This is not a failure of heart,’ he told them, ‘but a realisation of purpose. They go with the Emperor’s blessing.’
The group of dissenters left in peace, though it was smaller than the crowd who had come to ask permission to leave, for a full half of them had their spirits revived by the words of Mathieu, and the only soldiers that left with them were those too sick to fight.
They stopped a further night before the wall of the mountains, and kept watch closely there, for the dark was close and cold, and the voices of strange beings tittered from the mists.
Damp wood snapped in the fires, driving back a little of the night’s chill. Mist rose from the soil in tendrils that searched through the air. The faithful round the fires talked in a hush, not wishing to call the fog to them, or whatever things might lurk in it. But vile though the land had become, there was a sense of confidence around the camp. The pilgrims were staunch, and though they were wary, their spirits remained high. Righteousness guarded them.
Watchful pickets walked the perimeter. Everyone took a turn. The sense of comradeship was strong, their faith making a coherent whole from many disparate parts. But the Cadians provided the backbone. They were the ones with the most experience. They had the greatest discipline, and it was their tanks that sat farthest out, targeting lenses staining the rising fog red as their weapons swept back and forth.
Colonel Odrameyer walked the line himself. His weather-beaten face, bristling eyebrows and moustache were famous, and the patrols saluted him as he passed. He stopped to tell a group of Naval deserters how to keep a better watch, advising rather than rebuking, and moved on. The fog was getting thicker and thicker. The congregational war train had been perfectly visible when he’d set out from his command vehicle, but only its smokestacks were above the vapours now, and every time the mist rolled over them, they appeared in a different place to where they had been before.
No fog would defeat them. The pilgrims had set their fires so that they were visible to each other. It was beautiful, thought Odrameyer, surprising himself. He’d not thought anything beautiful for a long time.
He passed a pair of his soldiers. He didn’t know their names. Despite the fact his regiment was much reduced, there were still too many names to learn. When it came to the corpse-gathering after a battle he saw faces of those he did not know, and it saddened him that was so.
There was a younger one, and an older one. The older wore the marks of a squad second, a sergeant in waiting.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he said, full of respect.
Odrameyer nodded in response.
The younger was cockier. ‘Nothing good about it, Dedlin. I’m freezing! I thought Iax was a warm world, sir.’
‘Nature says it is,’ said the colonel. ‘Right now it’s whatever they want it to be.’ By ‘they’ he meant the enemy. The great foe that no one dared name. The sanction against acknowledging Chaos had become unworkable in most places since the Rift, but old habits died hard. ‘We’ll make it right, son, by His will.’
‘His will,’ the boy replied. The older soldier nodded and hurried his cohort along. Odrameyer continued to where he thought the train to be, and the pair disappeared into the mist.
&nb
sp; Ten frustrating minutes passed. The fires began to give out, and the mist beyond was thick and blank. He reached the plasteel wall of a Leman Russ standard variant, and realised he’d crossed the entire camp. He turned back, determined to find his way without asking for directions, not willing to admit he’d gone awry in the fog. He was lost again in moments, and turned about hopelessly.
A bell tolled. He heard singing. The train’s organ began to play gentle hymns. He listened a moment, sure he had the direction fixed, and headed towards the sound.
As the singing went on, the mist thinned, and in a few minutes he was at the war train. Mathieu was standing in a weapons cupola up on the side, using it as a pulpit to deliver a sermon. He was reaching the end of the First Homily, and Odrameyer got down on his knees and bowed his head. Dirty water soaked his trousers, but he bore the unpleasantness, letting his mind fix on his desire to serve the Emperor’s will.
‘For He of Terra,’ the prayer ended.
‘For He of Terra,’ the crowd responded.
‘Rise, my brothers, my sisters,’ Mathieu said. His voice cut through the mist, when every other sound was muted. ‘Do not fear this fog, though the enemy sends it to confound your senses. Do not fear what creatures wait beyond the light of our fires, though the enemy sends them to slay you. We are followers of the purest light of all, the light of the Emperor, which resides in us all, and that light will penetrate the darkest night, the thickest fog, as it penetrates the empyrean to guide our ships to port. There is a candle in every heart in this camp, each a small fire that might be stoked into a roaring blaze!’
Cries of affirmation rose from the congregation. There were hundreds present. Mathieu gave sermons every hour and a half, and the pilgrims never tired of them. Odrameyer had been a gruff man who practised his religion quietly, when he did so at all. He was an occasional blasphemer, and a sometime doubter.
That had been before.
‘Many of us were there, at Hecatone, when the Emperor showed Himself to us, and brought the fiends of the Great Enemy low!’ Mathieu said.
‘Yes!’ the crowd shouted. ‘The Emperor!’
‘Many of us have seen His hand. I myself witnessed His glory before, when the crew of the Macragge’s Honour were in bondage to the Red Corsairs, and I was their priest. He came to me then, and set a boy free from the touch of the warp!’
‘Praise be!’ shouted the crowd. The mist quivered and shrank back. The train went from a single, visible stretch of wall to a huge shape, solid in the fog, and the more solid it became, the more the mist recoiled from it.
‘Perhaps more of you might share your testimony?’ Mathieu asked. ‘Perhaps more of you will reveal what you have seen, and help us spread the new truth of the Master of Mankind?’
Voices called from the crowd.
‘I saw Him on Monaeth Moti, before the last hive fell!’ called one.
‘He came to me in a dream, and told me not to go to the rations booth. The next day it was gone in fire.’
‘The tarot has not lied to me since the Rift opened in the sky. I feel His eye upon me.’
‘I saw Him, in the dark, the day that Drohl was attacked. He showed me the way to escape, and He guided me to save a hundred others.’
‘Yes, yes. He is watching us all!’ Mathieu shouted. ‘He is at our side. Is that not so, Colonel Odrameyer?’
Mathieu was looking right at him.
‘Would you care to share your own experience, colonel? For those who have not heard it? It is a most uplifting tale.’
Uplifting was not the word that Odrameyer would use. He sweated despite the chill night. He was used to commanding thousands of troops, dealing with the worst alien horrors, and the most powerful men in the galaxy, but Mathieu unnerved him. Part of it was embarrassment – he did not like to retell his story – but that was not all. There was something behind Mathieu’s eyes that was terrifying. He could barely believe he could be scared of so slight and unkempt a man, but he found it hard to look into the militant-apostolic’s face.
He could not say no. He opened his mouth to speak.
‘No, colonel, come here,’ said Mathieu. ‘Join me, join me so that all may hear what you have to say.’ He beckoned.
‘Very well,’ said Odrameyer gruffly. He walked to the side of the train. Mathieu’s silent bodyguard stepped aside from the staple ladder leading up to the weapon’s cupola. His servo-skull hovered down and followed him up the side. Odrameyer scaled the vehicle. Mathieu welcomed him in.
‘Please, colonel,’ Mathieu said to him, as he clambered over the rail mount for the cupola’s heavy stubber. ‘Leave nothing out.’ He then turned to the crowd. ‘Colonel Odrameyer, of the Cadian Four Thousand and Twenty-First Armoured Regiment!’
There was a scattering of applause, and shouts of ‘Welcome, brother!’
‘Remember, tell them everything,’ whispered Mathieu.
‘We were on Parmenio,’ he said, and immediately faltered. His voice echoed back at him from the mist, and he did not know how to go on. Hundreds of expectant faces looked up at him from the congregation. He was acutely aware they were waiting.
Throne, he cursed inwardly, get a grip of yourself, man.
He started again. ‘I have never been an overtly religious man,’ he said. ‘I have always believed in the Emperor, and His protection of mankind. But to me, He was distant, an ideal. I was lax in my following of the rites. I attended fewer of the regimental services than I should.’
He paused. He expected opprobrium. None came.
‘Forgive me if this makes me seem faithless. I was not. But Terra was far away, and the Eye of Terror was close. I have trained since childhood to fight the Emperor’s wars, and though the Emperor was always there, He was a talisman, a statue, His light shone over Terra, not Cadia. The light of my lasgun was closer, and mine to wield.’
He looked down at his fists. They were shaking, and clenched so tightly his knuckles showed white against his skin.
‘When the enemy came, and Cadia fell, my faith wavered more. The talismans seemed useless, the Emperor further than ever. I never stopped believing, as some did. They thought we had been abandoned. I did not, but I will not lie to you. I considered the possibility. We fought in many wars. My men fought on fifteen worlds in the last years, so many they blur into one, a picture of fire and death. My faith did not die, but it guttered low, and never any lower than on Parmenio.’
What could he say about Parmenio? It had been saved, but it was a wasteland of mud and sickness, like this world was becoming. He remembered the rot and the death. But he also remembered the light, and though the night pressed coldly close, he spoke loudly, unafraid.
‘We came from outside. We were not part of Fleet Primus, but an early vanguard reinforcement, sent to Ultramar to hold the defences. When we arrived, we were asked to stop Parmenio falling while the lord commander, Emperor’s blessing be upon him, marshalled his forces and set his strategy into motion. We waited weeks for reinforcement, and we were tested every day. On Parmenio the dead would come in waves, young, old, civilian and soldier, all with that dreadful grin of death, and eyes that lived in rotting flesh. I…’ He faltered. ‘I cannot bear to recall the look of terror in them. They were aware of what they had become. I am certain of it.
‘There was an enemy breakthrough at our command post. I and my staff officers were obliged to fight at close quarters. The dead were everywhere, but I remember well in particular one young man, in an apprentice colonus’ garb. His teeth grinned through green flesh, open at the cheek. His arm was a slime of flesh held on by stinking sinews. He came for me, trying to scratch at my exposed face. One wound from those nails is enough to induct you into their ranks. I thrust my sword into his chest. I have a power sword. I am an officer of rank. I was lucky. The blade laid him low. Several of my men were killed, but it is not their screams that haunt me – it is the eyes of tha
t youth, rolling in horror, pleading silently for an end. I…’ His voice cracked under the strain of remembering, and threatened to desert him entirely in front of these people, but they had to hear. They had to understand. He forced himself to continue. ‘Thank the Emperor I was able to give him release.
‘Every day we killed them and we killed them, and the day after there would be more, and some of those would wear the faces of comrades who had fallen the day before. Some of my men went mad, and there was not one of us who did not despair. We waited to be relieved. Every day I begged to be informed of the primarch’s plans, and when we might see the Angels of Death fighting alongside us. They would not tell me, it would have been tantamount to informing the enemy themselves, but I needed to know. Nearly two months passed before the Adeptus Astartes were in place.
‘We survived, we men. There are many in this galaxy who give thanks to the primarch, but I do not. I would like to say it was all down to our training, and our grit, had I not experienced the effect that world had on our minds and on our souls. We were corroded, inside and out, by relentless horror. We would have died, some of us clawed down by the impossibly living dead, but the rest of us would have died from withered spirits. First our faith, then our hope, finally our sanity would have deserted us. I have seen this happen to men, many times. Then we would have died in our bodies, given up, or perhaps lost our will altogether and prostrated ourselves in front of the foe and begged to be spared. I have seen this happen too. We would have been lost, were it not for one of our regimental preachers who, in his death, showed us the light. Were it not for the intervention of the Emperor Himself.’
He fell silent. The mist was thinning, and he could see the fires closest to the war train properly now, not only as will-o’-the-wisps in the murk, and he could see the people below the train – faces of every type and colour turned up to him, from dozens of worlds, hanging onto his words. Soldiers whose own homes had burned, and in one sense they were the fortunate ones, for many more endured endless fears for their loved ones. A soldier rarely got news from his people once enlisted; now there was none for any of them.