by Guy Haley
‘Yours is a tension between justice and vengefulness,’ said Guilliman at last. ‘You are similar to Curze in that way, though I would say the proportions are reversed.’
‘Who is the more vengeful?’ asked Corax.
‘You don’t need an answer to that. You have witnessed the Night Lords’ work.’ Seeing Corax’s expression flicker distaste, Guilliman, ever the statesman, continued smoothly, ‘But you are also similar to me. Both of us have a keen interest in the rule of law to impose fairness. We are both occupied by justice. Curze speaks of justice, but he is concerned with revenge, and enamoured of fear.’
‘I seek justice, and peace,’ said Corax. ‘I have always desired to write a book on governance, to complement your and the Emperor’s works on generalship, though saying it out loud the idea seems boastful.’
‘You are allowed to boast, my brother. The idea is worth exploring, and I am sure you would do a fine job,’ said Guilliman. ‘Our species is fond of treatises on warfare, but makes little time for those concerning a good peace.’ As he spoke he made a note upon a scratch pad by his couch. The screen fluoresced at the pressure of the stylus, very bright to Corax’s night-attuned eyes. The pad was never far from Guilliman’s hand.
‘I am sure the Emperor has His own ideas on ruling the galaxy fairly,’ said Corax.
‘Naturally, but then why make children, if you are not interested in learning from them?’ countered Guilliman. ‘Our father is a wise being, but He cannot know everything. He made us for more than war.’
‘I cannot know if that is true. You have spent more time with Him than I.’
‘I did, at the beginning,’ said Guilliman, somewhat sadly, ‘though I had to give up much to do so.’
Corax drank a deeper draught of wine. It was hard to simply enjoy it. Its bared soul waved for his attention. The innate properties dissected by his primarch’s senses crowded out the glory of the whole.
‘Forgive the dour nature of my conversation,’ said Corax. ‘I am a latecomer to our brotherhood. I am something of an outsider. I do not see myself ever fitting in.’
‘You are doing well,’ Guilliman reassured him. ‘You are respected by the others, and there will be time for you to get to know our father better when the wars are done.’
Corax smiled. ‘I apologise. I treat you like an older brother. If my questioning irritates you–’
Guilliman waved a hand. ‘Not at all. You are not long with your Legion. Besides, though we were created at the same time, I am older than you, subjectively speaking.’
‘More time accounts for only part of your skill,’ said Corax, recovering some of his good humour. ‘Our adventures in your machine are proof that you are a finer tactician than I.’
‘The strategio-simulacra is a test of empire building. You are a force for liberation,’ said Guilliman. ‘Without the resources available to me from my other worlds, were the contest to be decided solely on the basis of a single planet, then you might well have bested me more than three times.’
‘But not every time, I think,’ said Corax. ‘You are the superior general.’
Pride and humility crossed over Guilliman’s face one after the other. ‘Maybe not every time. But you, my brother, are the superior insurgent, and the better warrior. Your mistake is to concentrate too much of your personal attention on detail. I prefer a grander overview, but we were all made for different purposes. The more of us that are found and the more time I spend with our brothers the more astounded I am by the majesty of the Emperor’s plan. I am not so adept at leading my troops from the front as you. You are a potent saboteur. I have learned a lot in the last few days. The lone assassins you employed against me were quite dangerous. Using such unstable troops is not something that suits my temperament, but their efficacy cannot be denied. I shall be looking into creating a corps of my own.’
‘My shadow killers? There are many suited to the role in my Legion,’ said Corax.
‘There are murderers in my Legion too, I regret to admit,’ said Guilliman.
‘There are bad men wherever there are men,’ said Corax. ‘But there is a condition that afflicts some of my sons. The Terrans call it ash blindness, those from Deliverance sable brand. It is a mental dissonance that plunges them into a state of deep and violent despair. A quirk of my gene-seed, I suppose. I have always been introspective.’
‘You should not blame yourself. Not one Legion has a perfect success rate. There are always problems, sometimes years after implantation.’
‘I have not come across a similar issue in the others. This problem is peculiar to my warriors. Your Legion, for example, is mostly free of difficulties.’
‘Mostly, not entirely.’
Corax experienced a flash of annoyance. He liked this brother, but Guilliman had an innate high-handedness he could not disguise. Especially when it came to his Legion or his realm, he could be a little smug.
‘This problem has to be connected to me,’ said Corax. ‘The darkening of the eyes and the lightening of the skin of those struck by the affliction suggests a clear link. Around one in fifteen hundred recruits succumb, at my latest estimates – never many, but never few either. It is especially problematic among the Xeric tribesmen I inherited from father, though I have begun to notice it among my warriors from Deliverance also. When the despair takes hold, they are good for little more than killing until the mood lifts, and it does not always.’
‘If they are as effectively deployed as those… Moritat?’ Guilliman raised his eyebrows in a request for confirmation.
‘I have taken to calling them that,’ agreed Corax.
‘…you employed in the simulation,’ continued Guilliman, ‘you should see them as an asset. I will be instituting a similar assassin cadre in my Legion also. Despite what you say I am sure I can find warriors fit for the same role.’ Guilliman drained his glass in three swift gulps, an action that seemed out of tune with his considered nature. ‘Now, if you will permit me to change the subject, I would like to hear more on your thoughts on governance. The crusade will not last forever. The peace will be far longer than the war.’
‘If only that were the case now,’ said Corax.
‘Your latest mission?’
Corax nodded. ‘My orders send me to join the Twenty-Seventh Expeditionary Fleet at Carinae. The Sodality’s lack of respect towards our ambassadors compounds the sin of their refusal to comply. Negotiations have dragged on for six months. This is their last chance to comply before force is employed.’
‘I see. What is the nature of the insult?’
‘They are many. But there has been an escalation in tone. Most recent and egregious is their return of Imperial iterators minus their tongues and hands. The Emperor requires the Carinaeans to be punished. It falls to me. I am closer to hand than the Night Lords, who the expeditionary commander originally requested.’ Corax showed a quick, humourless curve of the lips, more snarl than smile. ‘The expedition leader, Fenc, wanted to terrify the Carinaeans into submission. It might have worked, and I think the Emperor wishes me to perform the same role. But I will not play impersonator to our brother. I have worked hard to distance my Legion from its past practices of terror. The compliance will be won cleanly.’
‘When do you leave?’
‘In two days standard,’ said Corax. ‘We shall depart next time we enter the warp. I am sorry to go. We have made good war together, and I have enjoyed your society.’
‘A shame. There is so much more to discuss.’
‘As you say, there is always another matter. It is true for dialogue and war.’
Guilliman poured more wine for them both. ‘Then we had best talk quickly.’
Four
the carinae sodality
From the bridge of the Saviour in Shadow, Corax eavesdropped on the negotiations ongoing between the Carinae Sodality and the Twenty-Seventh Expeditionary F
leet.
The ships of Corax’s fleet were hidden from view. Reflex shielding was an adaptation of Imperial void shield technology used solely by the Raven Guard. The reflex shields inverted the void field, presenting the displacement face towards the vessel, and so all energies emitted by a ship were shunted into the warp upon encountering the shields, rendering them virtually invisible to every known form of detection. A reflex-shielded ship might appear as a slight augur anomaly, and to avoid suspicious concentrations of such, Corax had his forces scattered across the forward edge of the Carinae helioshock. Ahead of the sun’s progress through the void its solar wind slammed into energetic particles coming from outside the system. At the boundary of the helioshock the Raven Guard hid in eddies of radiation.
Carinae was a bloated red giant. Ancient circumstances dictated it burn alone in the stellar wilds, having birthed no family of worlds. There was no attendant dust cloud, no flock of comets crowding the bounds of its influence. A lonely thing, a barren widow star whose heat would have warmed no children, were it not for mankind.
A thousand artificial moonlets circled Carinae in a complex interlacing of orbital paths. Every one was a great city home to tens of thousands of human beings. There was nothing of intrinsic worth within the system itself, but as Carinae lay on a warp conduit that led deep into the rich Argyluss Cluster, historitors theorised the system to have been established as a colonisation waypoint in the distant past. How the billions of tons of materials to construct the Thousand Moons had been brought to the place was a mystery, but the arts of the ancients had been broad and mighty, and by their will ten hundred cities shoaled the void.
Corax had little time for the history of the system. Let the iterators pick over that once it had been integrated into the Imperium. More pressing concerns were at hand.
The Carinae Sodality refused compliance.
The Saviour in Shadow ran on minimal power. A single, small hololithic tacticarium displayed a system map of Carinae at the centre of the command deck. The heavy star was a tiny dot at the middle. A thousand graphical tags flagged up the location of the Thousand Moons. Other tags, different in form and colour, showed the Imperial fleet already present there. The Twenty-Seventh Expedition was at the edge of the orbit of the furthest city, arrayed for battle with its warships at the front and support vessels behind.
Much further out was a dispersed cluster of tags denoting the location of Corax’s fleet. These were dimmed, representing their cloaked status. Neither the Carinaeans nor the Imperial fleet knew they were there.
A data thief probe plucked the communications streams between the Sodality and the Twenty-Seventh Expedition from the void, amplifying them into a tightbeam concentrated enough to punch through the reflex shields to the Saviour in Shadow’s comms arrays.
A crowd of hololithic figures thronged the deck, representatives of the Imperium and the Sodality. Reflex shielding could only mask so much, and its operation required the power output of the ship to be kept to an absolute minimum. All devices on the command deck were starved to feed the hololithic phantoms, including basic life support functions; even individual handheld devices and integrated bionics were powered down. The air mix was bad. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide were discernible to Corax’s preternatural senses.
In the voidal chill gripping the deck, the crew’s breath billowed out as ghosts of steam to join the phantoms of light. The voices of the phantoms were out of synchronisation with the movement of their lips. Interference patterns rippled repeating sines through their bodies. The figures reflected in the black orbs of Corax’s eyes, and for those men brave enough to look into them, it appeared as if he were a lord of death, with the souls of multitudes imprisoned within his gaze.
A tall man from a race grown lofty under low gravity was speaking. His costume was elaborate: long, layered robes full of slashes and holes edged with wire embroidery to show off the clothes beneath. His headdress was a stacked confection of square boards mounted on a central pillar that emerged from the third, uppermost level as a silver spike, far too bulky to be practical under normal gravitic conditions. Loops of beads hung between the corners of the boards. As he spoke, the motion of his mouth sent them swaying.
‘You have had our answer,’ said the man. ‘We have no interest in joining your Imperium. We are proud of our independence, we are…’ he went on.
Corax spoke over him to a man at his side who wore the uniform of the Imperial Iterator corps.
‘Who is this one, Iterator Sentril?’
‘That is Comptroller Thorern of Twenty-Three Planar Tangent, my lord.’ Iterator Sentril’s hands were shining metal frameworks cradling elaborate gears and pistons. Around the cuffs fitting them to the stumps of his arms the skin was raw with recent trauma. He spoke quietly, the grafted, vat-grown tongue in his mouth not yet fully seated. He had been to Carinae before. It had not gone well for him.
‘Thorern,’ said Corax. He spoke equally quietly, as if raising his voice risked revealing the position of his ship. ‘He speaks Gothic with a minimal accent.’
‘The lords of Carinae are cultured, my lord.’
‘Then they should appreciate the seriousness of their situation.’
‘Most of them restrict themselves to watching. These one hundred and twenty displayed in the hololith here are reckoned the foremost among the Thousand Moons,’ said Sentril. ‘They have no authority over the others, but they are respected as the foremost peers, and their lead is followed. If they concede, the rest will fall into line.’
Corax nodded.
Thorern’s speech came to a close. The Imperial representative responded.
There was no primarch leading the Twenty-Seventh Expedition, it being a force composed entirely of Imperial Army and Mechanicum forces. The heavily decorated Admiral So-Lung Fenc, displayed slightly off to the right in front of Corax, had command.
‘We are no longer offering you the choice. Do you not understand?’ Fenc said.
‘So…’ said another of the willowy lords.
‘Hord, my lord,’ Sentril interjected for Corax.
‘…you make offerings of peaceful brotherhood to our people,’ Hord went on, ‘and when politely rebuffed, back up your “offer” with threat.’
‘Your treatment of our iterators was far from polite,’ So-Lung Fenc stated coldly. ‘You cut out their tongues and removed their hands.’
‘A point had to be made!’ said Hord. ‘You would not listen. After six months! We are not fond of such cruelties here in Carinae. You leave us with no choice but to descend to your level.’
‘Hord sees us as barbarians,’ Sentril murmured into Corax’s ear. ‘He was chief among those calling for the mutilation of myself and my colleagues, despite what he says. He is a sanguinary man.’
‘For millennia we have managed our own affairs,’ said another of the thousand lords. ‘Why should we accept the yoke of another’s rule? We may value our solitude, but we are not cut off from reality. We have heard of your compliances. See!’
‘That is First Citizen Dereth, of Outward-Twenty-Six,’ said Sentril. He swallowed painfully around the root of his grafted tongue. Corax glanced up, suddenly aware of the man’s pain.
‘You are in discomfort. Your wounds are not yet healed. I am sorry. You need not speak unless I ask you, and I shall try to refrain from doing so. Please, rest your voice, Iterator Sentril. I can follow what is going on well enough from here.’
Sentril rubbed at his throat gratefully.
Pict-feed of a burning city replaced Dereth. The First Lord narrated the images displayed. ‘This record was made by civilians who fled here from Hartin III after your “Emperor” sent His deliverers there. Civilians slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands, simply because their masters refused to join this “Imperium” of yours.’
‘It is not surrender. You will retain your mode of government and your customs,
save a few impositions from Terra,’ said Fenc. ‘We have been over this many times already.’
‘And what will those initial few impositions become?’ said another, whose hat was the most extravagant yet. Corax decoded the symbology of the beads and tiers of the headgear. Each, he saw, related to the positioning of the orbital track of the city the man represented, and his name and title. They were mathematical formulae represented as jewellery. By this Corax knew him as Arch-Comptroller Agarth, of Zenith-312. ‘The Emperor. Who is this man who calls Himself so grandiose a title? Emperor,’ he said slowly. ‘A word connoting tyranny and subjugation. If His self-appointed mission truly is to unite mankind for its own good, why does He not carry a humbler name? Peacemaker, or saviour perhaps!’ he scoffed.
Several of the others laughed, their images jumping with data degradation.
Corax shifted in his throne at this mockery of his father. ‘Few men are so shortsighted as those about to lose power,’ he said to his crew. ‘Aegis control, prepare to disengage reflex shielding. Vox command, prepare for widecast on all channels. Send out my signal via the tightbeam to the fleet to prepare to exit reflex on my mark. I want everyone in this system to see the Legion.’
Muted affirmatives disturbed the sepulchral quiet of the command deck.
‘I submit to you that this is your last chance,’ said So-Lung Fenc. His eyes were narrow in a broad face, an evolutionary adaption against bright light found on thousands of worlds. They narrowed further. ‘We shall declare war if you do not comply, and take your cities by force. This is your final warning.’
‘Your true colours are revealed. You are conquerors, that is all, like a hundred others who have come against the Sodality in the last few thousand years,’ said Agarth. ‘Every one of them we have defeated and turned back. You say “comply” as if we are asked to perform a simple task. Your language is deliberately bland. Your talk of unity is a lie. We will not submit ourselves to your dominion!’ The figures froze momentarily as Corax’s order was passed out up the remote data tether to the Legion, taking up the narrow bandwidth. The feed stuttered, and fell silent for a second. It came back online abruptly and all of a sudden the lords of Carinae were shouting altogether.