by Guy Haley
Sanguinius looked back upon the battlefield as his brother joined him.
‘The scriptures your father quotes from held that to each god in each of his many lives was given a part they were bound to play,’ said the Khan, continuing his explanation. ‘These ancient Kushites said there was no life and death, that both were illusory. All is cyclical and never-ending. Their creed was at once cataclysmic and comforting.’
‘It gives me no comfort,’ said Sanguinius. ‘I look upon destruction such as this, and I no longer wish to play my part. In light of this, I wonder what I am for.’
‘We are as we were made to be,’ said the Khan. He said this as a fact, something to be accepted, like poor weather.
‘I am no longer convinced of that,’ said Sanguinius. ‘If the Emperor had known what we would become, He would have ordered our destruction before we were ever taken from Him. You would think He would have known, when He gathered us to Him. Two failures should have made Him wary.’ He turned away from the battlefield and the dead machines, towards the wreck of Nyrcon City. ‘I have made of this place a pyre for hundreds of millions of innocents, and for what?’ He gestured to the fallen Titans and the giant rupture in the planet’s crust. ‘To reduce infinitesimally the forces the Warmaster will bring to Terra to kill our father? There was no worth in this place other than as a miserable dwelling, somewhere for generations to live and die in darkness and poverty before my father found the time to raise them up. Now it is not even that.’
‘I am sorry, lord,’ said Azkaellon, falling to one knee. The knuckles of his bionic arm rested in the rubble of the wall. ‘The Sons of Horus hid their intentions to the last. We had no warning they were going to destroy the Anvil.’
‘Rise, my son,’ said Sanguinius. ‘It is my error, not yours. Horus beat me without even setting eyes on me.’
‘You should not blame yourself, as Azkaellon should not,’ said the Khan.
Sanguinius fell silent. Firelight danced upon golden hair. Though clouds and smoke blotted out the sky, he could see the damage the fall of the Carthega had done. The pale non-light of the warp, visible to his psychic gifts, spread across the firmament. Although unheard by mortal ears, it let out a snarling howl that cut dead the messages of astrotelepathy. He, the Lion and Guilliman had destroyed the Ruinstorm, so Horus had found another way to create the same effect; it was lesser, but it was well placed to aid him. Despair gripped Sanguinius. Perhaps his death at Horus’ hands would do no good, and the galaxy would burn.
‘A thousand astropaths dead,’ he said, ‘the warp unleashed upon the Garmon Cluster, our communications destroyed and our forces fragmented beyond redemption.’ He looked deep into his brother’s eyes, who frowned to see the suffering in them. ‘I am glad to see you, my brother, but I would fly a while, to witness all the good I have done here,’ he said bitterly. He spread his wings and stepped towards the precipice of the ruined parapet.
His lords stood unsure of what to do. Sanguinius’ humours grew ever darker.
‘My lord,’ called Amit. ‘What are your orders, what should the Legion do?’
Sanguinius half turned his head. His feathers ruffled in the hot wind, poised upon the verge of flight. ‘Send orders to all companies to regroup. Inform every Imperial force still contactable that they are to make all haste to the muster point. Our cause here is lost. This is no kind of victory.’ Sanguinius looked to his brother. ‘Jaghatai?’
‘You were vouched this command, Great Angel. My sword is yours to direct. The Ordu are ready to ride at your direction.’
Sanguinius nodded slowly. His head was heavy with the burden, and it was a struggle to look up into the heavens, to the position the Throneworld occupied beyond the choking smog of war. He knew where it was instinctively.
‘Then we return to Terra.’
He stepped off the wall. Slow wingbeats carried him into the sky, where the world spread itself beneath him, and displayed its utter ruination.
Thirty-Two
A New Darkness
The Tantamon was the last ship remaining to the Legio Solaria.
Three of its drop-ship slots were unoccupied. The hull of the conveyor itself bore extensive damage, and yet it was luckier than its sister ship. The Artemisia was dead upon the plains of Beta-Garmon III. Its landing craft were broken wrecks littering the mountain around the ruins of the Carthega Telepathica, brought down as it ferried engines from half a dozen Legios to the world.
The picture of the Legio’s reduced status continued within. The Tantamon’s halls echoed to the rare footsteps of survivors. Every level of the Legio had suffered massive depletion: duluz, secutarii, skitarii, tech-priests, Knights and, most evidently, god-machines. Not a single drop-ship was full. One of the three was empty completely.
Abhani Lus Mohana walked the silent halls alone, heading for the drop-ship hastily reconsecrated to be fit for First Maniple, where the last of the Legio gathered. She joined a thin stream of people who spoke few words. Titan crew shocked with the death of so many sisters, tech-priests mumbling prayers for their dead machine charges, their red and white robes tied tight with black mourning bands.
They all walked so slowly. None of them had any energy remaining. The great aft war gates of the drop-ship reared up. They were scarred with battle damage, the orange paint scraped down to grey undercoat and dull, wounded plasteel. Sealant foam had been liberally applied around one side where the drop-ship hull no longer formed a good seal with the Tantamon, all that was keeping the atmosphere in and the void out. Yellow candlelight shone from the circular access port bored through the left-hand gate. The procession filed through this in small knots, degrees of division between priest, crew, serfs and infantry forgotten. There were so few of them left now, Abhani Lus thought, they could not afford to dwell on rank.
She passed into the ship past parchments fluttering in the updraft of thousands of candles. The scene before her was even more reminiscent of a temple than the last time she had gone to see her grandmother.
The Legio was prepared for a funeral.
Her breath caught in her throat to see the shell of Luxor Invictoria pinned against the far wall by a thousand extremis-grade mag-hooks. Every limb was broken. Every plate cracked. And yet, the Titan lived. Under the watchful glare of Sagitta Auri, the last of First Maniple’s myrmidons, tech-priests worked with feverish application to prevent their god-machine’s passing. They took no rest. They wore out their servitors. Under their intensive care, Luxor Invictoria stabilised, and began the slow road to recovery.
His head was held in a separate cradle, at the height it would be were it still attached, as was respectful. Long bridging cables linked the head to the body, bringing together the two parts of his soul – Mohana Mankata Vi, and the machine-spirit that dwelled inside his body of iron.
‘The Titan will walk again!’ said a tech-priest Abhani Lus did not know, prompted by her sorrow. ‘So will your grandmother. Rejoice! She joins with the machine.’
The procession walked on in silence. In front of and beneath the head cradle, a dais platform was held aloft upon a tall scissor lift. A staircase had been set up leading to the platform. Abhani Lus was among the privileged few allowed to ascend, with the other remaining crew and senior strategos.
Through the broken faceplate of the Titan, the Great Mother’s immersion tank, cracked and blackened but still complete, was visible. Cables festooned it. Ugly squares of glassite paste patched it. But it functioned, and Mohana lived for now.
The last of her daughters came to pay their final respects. Abhani Lus realised that she would never speak with her grandmother again.
The Titan crews filled the platform in solemn silence. There were twenty-nine of them, of all grades, all that was left from a Legio of hundreds of women. Most bore the marks of the conflict for Beta-Garmon: scars, burns, amputated limbs. There had been little time to heal. They were neglected by the m
agi. So many of the god-engines were in greater need. Many of the women exhibited signs of severance trauma, ripped from the MIU by catastrophic damage, or worse, still attached to the manifold when their Titans had died. Restless eyes, facial tics, tremors in the limbs as they relived the shock of engine death – none of them had escaped wounding, and they bore a combination of spiritual, mental, emotional and physical scars.
Abhani Lus was ushered to the front with great respect by Goten Mu. She was not the highest ranked princeps left alive, but she was the closest to the Great Mother as her last, natural granddaughter. Esha lay in an induced coma. The leadership of the Legio hung in the balance, but in this instance the order shed some of its military manners, acting more as a family.
Abhani Lus glanced from side to side, uncomfortable to be set at the head of so many heroes. With the crews were the highest tech-priests and Legio support staff. Their numbers were less reduced by the war, although only barely.
Sagitta Auri blew out a single, funereal note. All those ordained in the Cult Mechanicus began to sing a dirge, even the Vox Omni Machina and the Magos Principia Militaris, for this was an occasion of the most momentous misery.
Neokora and deimechanics worked together over desks cluttered with flashing valves. They struggled to raise the spirit of the Great Mother from her slow slide into death, but they persevered, and eventually the silhouette in the tank jerked, and her head rose. Through the scrappy blurts of damaged voxmitters, she spoke. Abhani Lus held her breath, so as not to miss a word.
‘My daughters,’ she said. ‘My children.’ Even broadcast by voxmitter, her voice was a thin whisper, quiet as a graveyard breeze, yet some power clung to it still. ‘Children of my long-departed friends, last of the exiles of House Vi.’
Lights blinked in pulsing waves that ran across the equipment desks. Tech-priests twittered binharic at one another and their devices. The Great Mother spoke on over their agitation.
‘We have survived this test. Through your skill and dedication, the name of the Legio Solaria will continue.’ Her vox feed blared with sudden static, breaking up her words, though she did not notice and spoke on. ‘…ever more in defence of all we hold dear, but it will not be the same Legio. Our gene stocks are exhausted. New crews must be found. If the magi of Tigris return to Procon, which they most surely will, then the terms will be renegotiated with our ancestor houses. The Knights of Procon will not be deceived again. They covet the power of the god-machines for themselves. Men will come among us. This era of the Imperial Hunters is over.’
Tension rose between the surviving women and the tech-priests. The future depended on the cult leaders. None of the huntresses disagreed with the Great Mother’s assessment. They felt the first cuts of the coming betrayal.
‘The universe has changed, my daughters. Horus begins his final march for Terra. This is the end of the old, and the birth of the new. Now we can only survive. As your Grand Master, the Great Mother of this Legio, I have one final request.’
Her voice was fading, the electronic qualities growing, its humanity dying. Emotion bled away, not quite entirely gone, but her tones lost nuance so that all that was left in the end was the sincerity of her plea. It seemed to Abhani Lus that her grandmother addressed her directly, and maybe that was true.
‘Live. Take forward the best of what we were, and bring it into the Legio that will bear our name. Remember honour. Remember speed. Remember cunning. Remember the hunter’s kindness, to kill cleanly and swiftly, and to let prey live when it should, and cull mercilessly when it should not. Not. Not. Not. Not. I. I. I would not ask that you remember me. My time is done, but remember what we… what we… what we…’
Discordant roaring boomed from the voxmitters. The deimechanics fussed over their devices. The Great Mother’s voice returned.
‘Remember what we were, together. Remember always, Legio first.’
Her speech concluded abruptly with a musical tone of disconnection.
The deimechanics stood still. The hymns swelled. The Vox Omni Machina moved forward.
‘She is dying. It is time for the Great Mother to become one with the machine. Begin deactivation.’
Far back in the drop-ship, the bell of remembrance tolled. Cast from the broken plates of the Legio’s first Warlord lost in battle, its sonorous voice recalled all who had lost their lives in service to the Emperor’s dream.
The Vox Omni Machina gestured solemnly to the deimechanics. They bowed deeply, their mechadendrites and additional augmetic limbs brushing the floor respectfully, then returned to their machines.
Abhani Lus let out a sob and dropped her head. Three tears fell to the platform floor, each one splashing into a little crown of misery on the metal.
A button press began the end of Mohana Mankata Vi’s life.
There was wind upon her skin.
She was youthful again, and free of the tank and the infirmities of age. Her steed Hamaj tensed between her legs, eager to surge forward into the landscape before them.
The dark forest lay behind. Ahead, there was nothing but golden grasses as far as the eye could see, the kind of landscape a rider could lose themselves in forever. Downy seeds brushed against skin warmed perfectly by the setting sun.
‘Come, Hamaj!’ she whispered.
The horse needed no encouragement, but sprang into a gallop straightaway, arrowing through the grasslands towards forever.
A heaven, of sorts. But it could not last. A diabolical laugh cut the sky, making it bleed. Grass wilted where the sound travelled. The earth shook. The wound in the sky spread its bloody lips, opening up on a vista of madness, an ocean of energy where monsters waited to devour her.
‘Stop!’ she commanded.
But Hamaj did not heed her, and plunged onwards. The ground shook and began to break into fragments. Soil frittered away into multi-coloured vapour. Grass launched itself at the growing rift like arrows loosed. An invisible force pulled at her soul, dragging her towards the waiting maelstrom of sharp eyes and teeth. Hamaj whinnied in panic and fell into the yawning nothingness. The last parts of the prairie vision evaporated, leaving her alone.
Otherworldly predators circled, ready to tear her to shreds.
Mohana Mankata Vi screamed.
This was the reality of the warp. This was what the Imperial Truth hid. At the last moment, she felt utterly betrayed, and understood finally why the traitors had turned.
Wide-winged things with rasping mouths dived at her through looping whirls of impossible colours. She floated helplessly. Through will alone she shifted herself aside from a swooping beast. Its razored fins caught her, and her soul’s arm bled light.
The creatures turned, excited by the scent of corposant upon the empyrean’s current, and dived.
She closed her eyes, wishing it all to be over.
A great song played. The loudest war-horn she had ever heard blasted across the non-space of the warp, and foundry heat beat at her back. She opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by a golden light, and the creatures fled before it.
Trembling, she turned.
A vast being filled eternity. She had the impression of a human form, though the entity was too large for a mortal eye to encompass. Its blood and bones were grinding cogs, its thoughts living streams of plasma, its eyes lenses the size of galaxies.
An iron door appeared in the maze of machinery in front of her. She looked up, searching for a face, and saw a shining entity looking back down that turned from flesh to light to mechanism and back.
Through the door radiated the familiar, plasmic warmth of Luxor Invictoria’s reactor. She sensed its machine soul, more apparent to her now, not almost alive but truly living by the grace of her Machine-God.
A voice spoke within her, beautiful as the finest singer, grating as the mightiest machine.
While there is service, there is life, it said. It is time.
Mohana Mankata Vi passed through the portal, where for one last, ultimate time, she joined with the spirit of the Titan.
Mohana Mankata Vi was played out by the eerie, monotone screech of monitoring equipment no longer detecting signs of life. Her corpse floated upwards in the amnion, arms wide, the cables that had sustained her wrapping around her back in a final embrace.
‘She is gone,’ said the Magos Principia Militaris.
‘She will be with us forever,’ said the Vox Omni Machina.
In the body of the great god-engine clamped against the wall, the erratic, wounded frequency of the reactor steadied, and became a little smoother.
The site of the Diviner’s Needle was abandoned by the bulk of the Warmaster’s armies as soon as it had been destroyed. Their task was done, and they had no need to linger. They crucified the survivors of the Imperial forces as a warning to any who would defy the new Emperor of Mankind, then departed for new fields of war.
No one and nothing was left but acolytes of the Dark Mechanicum picking over the battlefield. They worked under glowering clouds whose interiors flashed with unnatural lightning. Above the weather fronts, a slick of diseased luminance crept across the firmament as the warp bled through the rift created by the tower’s destruction.
Like their counterparts on Beta-Garmon II, the Dark Mechanicum laboured to retrieve the broken idols of their mechanical god and return them to good function. They did not follow the precepts of Horus, who in his dash for victory would leave his troops to die once they had served their purpose. The engines were far too precious for that, and upon this battlefield in particular there were eight prizes beyond compare, gods of battle of the most potent kind.
The servants of machines passed over the wreckage of the Carthega with augurs and other, stranger devices of detection. Pulses of etheric energy harnessed by forbidden mechanisms emitted a call to the children of the warp for them to reveal themselves.
The needle lay draped over the planet’s surface. Its impact was so great it had reshaped the land around it, giving the downed structure an illusion of softness, like it was a thing of cloth cast carelessly aside. Its ruin was visible from orbit. Nothing beneath this nation-sized megalith could have survived, and nothing did. The recovery machines of the Dark Mechanicum detected three of their treasures smashed beyond repair under the rubble, the daemon souls chained inside gone back into the warp. Not far from the ruin, a fourth was an inert statue, burned out from the inside.