Wolfsbane

by Guy Haley

  Russ danced back, ready for the next assault.

  'End programme,' said a voice.

  Russ looked up. He was still alone, but the lenses of a hololithic projector set into the wall sparkled with white light and, into the air, painted an image of an old man leaning on a staff.

  'Malcador,' said Russ. 'Where have you been hiding? I've had no word from you for a week.'

  'I have not been hiding, Leman,' he said. 'You can beat a Dreadnought unarmed.'

  'I can. Easily.'

  'You exaggerate.'

  'A Fenrisian virtue,' said Russ.

  'You put yourself at risk. This is reckless.'

  'That is the point,' said Russ. 'I am making it hard for myself. Without armour or powered weapons it is a challenge to take down a machine like this. I need a challenge. I can beat this thing, but I cannot beat Horus, not yet. Dorn's right about that.'

  'Lord Dorn is displeased by your choice,' said Malcador neutrally. Russ loved the regent, but he bridled at his tone. The old man liked to keep his statements short and his silences long, so that others might make fools of themselves in filling them. Normally it amused him to watch, but he didn't like the technique being used on him, and his humours were already out of balance.

  'That doesn't work on me,' Russ said.

  'What doesn't?' said Malcador. There was a touch of amusement to his words, and that annoyed Russ even more.

  'Dorn knew what I intended. Does my decision disturb you as well, old man?' Russ snarled. 'Do you think I should stay here with the others? You don't understand me if you think I should. Wolves hunt - we don't hang back to guard our dens. You have your appointed task, I mine. Do not let me distract you from your duties.'

  'I am not disturbed. Nor am I distracted. I helped you before. I have not changed my mind.'

  'Then why come to speak with me?'

  Malcador's image straightened up. 'Because I should, and because your father cannot,' said Malcador. 'I have a little time. Attend me. You know where to find me. I will see you in an hour.'

  Malcador's hololith blinked out.

  'How do you know I will come?' Russ said into the empty air.

  He cocked his head, expecting a reply to his challenge. He didn't get one.

  The telepath could as easily have spoken into his mind, or sent a ghostly projection of his body to the Wolf King. His psychic might was second only to that of the Emperor. Russ thought he was making a point by not using his abilities.

  Growling softly to himself, Russ snatched up a towel and wiped himself down, then left the arena to get dressed.

  A moment later, he returned and reluctantly collected the Emperor's Spear.

  MALCADOR SAT IN his private garden overlooking an enclosed valley in the Himalazian peaks. Water tumbled from on high, running down a stream bed through a thick jungle of rhododendrons. Insects reconstructed from ancient genetic records flitted between the blooms hanging from the trees. The air was thick and moist, rich with oxygen, redolent of the nectar of flowers and the healthy, pure smell of loam.

  This was a vision of Old Earth, but it was a lie. The sky was roofed over with armourglass. The stream went into a tank, and

  was pumped back up the mountainside and let loose to repeat its journey. It would never reach the infant reborn seas. The clean light came not from Terra's tired sun but from a compact fusion reactor suspended over the centre of the valley. The mountains that once soared boundless to the sky were covered by the buildings of the Imperial Palace.

  In the years after his finding, Leman Russ had spent a lot of time at the Emperor's side. Among the many things the Emperor had told Russ were His plans to restore Terra to life. By the time of the Great Crusade's end He had already brought a few of its once extensive oceans back. But much of the rich life of Old Earth's past was extinct, and records that might allow its reconstruction destroyed. Even if they won, Russ doubted Terra could be remade again into the world it was. Now, even if the Imperium survived the war it would be wounded even further. So many pretty dreams had died on the sands of Isstvan V.

  Malcador waited for him in the shaded arbour where, months before, Leman Russ had interviewed Garviel Loken. Like then, a Hrafnkel board was set up on the marble.

  'I hope you give a better game than your Alpha Agent, Malcador.' Russ sat down opposite the aged psyker.

  'Would you like to play?' said Malcador.

  'You'll cheat.'

  'I thought you wanted a challenge.'

  'We're all playing this game now,' said Russ gruffly. 'The outnumbered king, besieged on all sides.'

  'Which side do you want?' said Malcador.

  'Go on then, I'll take white,' said Russ begrudgingly. 'I need the practice.'

  The white pieces ringed the single king at the centre of the board. The aim was for the king to escape the larger dark army surrounding it. Russ picked up a warrior piece and moved it.

  'Where have you been hiding? I've hardly seen you since I returned from Vanaheim,' said Russ. 'You made time for Sanguinius' arrival.'

  'You were keen to go out and kill things. I was busy.' Malcador moved one of his own pieces.

  Russ looked at the board and grunted. 'Looks like an interesting opening, but none of them are. You shouldn't read too much into the first few moves.' He moved the next of his pieces swiftly. 'I note many of my father's pieces are not on the board at the moment. Where are the Custodes? Those ones you dredged up to guard the tower were the first I've seen for months.'

  'With your father,' said Malcador.

  'Ah,' said Russ, raising his eyebrows in an expression of mock understanding. 'With my father. And you will still not tell me what He is doing.'

  'He is in the Imperial Dungeon.'

  'That's where He is, not what He's doing, you sly orm. Don't try to fob me off. Will He not speak with me even now?' said Russ. 'He cannot,' said Malcador simply.

  Russ bracketed one of the darker pieces with two of his white and took it. 'First blood. I shouldn't read anything into that either. A dead scout is not a war won.'

  Malcador moved a piece. Russ tracked the movement with his eye closely. His post-human brain idly calculated the myriad possible following moves. Russ loved to play Hnefatafl, but it was too easy for him to win.

  'You're a crafty old bastard, Malcador,' said Russ. He moved a piece, then lost one.

  'You're enjoying this war.'

  Russ glanced up from the board. 'Why do you say that?'

  'You find life too easy. This war is not.'

  'Get out of my head,' growled Russ.

  'So you admit I am right.'

  Russ moved a piece. 'There's nothing to admit, if you can look in here and read my mind.' He tapped his head with his fingertip so hard it locked.

  'You are set on facing the Warmaster.' Malcador looked at him expectantly.

  'Take your turn,' said Russ. Malcador moved a piece 'You know I am,' Russ continued. 'I'd been waiting for Loken and your band of lost souls to come back. I needed to know what had happened, that his mission was a success.'

  'Was it?'

  'You know that it was. Stop pretending,' said Russ. 'You know that I was always going to leave.'

  'Your brothers are not happy.'

  'They knew too. I haven't lied to anyone.'

  'They need you,' said Malcador. He made a deliberate move.

  'I thought you weren't going to try to convince me to stay.'

  'I'm not,' said Malcador. 'But you've fought two successful campaigns since you returned. You have value here.'

  Russ made a dismissive noise. 'All that parading around the segmentum edge? I had to do something to keep my mind busy, and stay away from Dorn's sanctimonious lecturing.'

  'I thought you got on with Dorn.'

  'We do get on. I respect him, hel, I like him, but he is a different man to me, and his methodology plucks at my nerves after so long a stay. Only Guilliman and Perturabo are more boring than he is.'

  A rare smile crept across Malcador's thin lips
. 'Do you know, I did tell your father to make you more personally compatible with each other. But He believed you all needed to be different to fit the tasks He had ordained for you, and that rivalry rather than blind affection would drive you to greater heights.'

  'That worked, didn't it?' said Russ sourly. 'Sometimes I think the Emperor isn't half as clever as He thinks He is.'

  'There are very few people who could say that safely, Leman,' warned Malcador. 'You might not be one of them.'

  Russ paid no heed to his tone. 'Perhaps there should be more who are willing to say it. I sometimes think my father should have heeded you better,' said Russ. He took another piece. 'But I like the way I am, so perhaps I should be glad that He didn't. Even if He had, it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference. He could have engineered us all to love each other and skip about holding hands like children, but it wouldn't have worked. I've seen brothers from mortal families stain their swords with each other's blood often enough over the most stupid of things. Nature and family made them to care, and they didn't. Not even He can predict everything.'

  'He cannot,' agreed Malcador. He moved another piece. Russ took it.

  'Try harder,' said Russ, and made his move.

  'You cannot beat him, not like he is now,' said Malcador.

  'Him being Horus.'

  'Who else?'

  Russ looked up again from under his glowering brow. 'You are trying to dissuade me. Stop it. Sanguinius is here, they need me less.'

  'I'm not trying to do anything,' said Malcador calmly. 'But neither I nor the Emperor can see what will happen to you. I need to make sure you are not going to use yourself wastefully.'

  'Is that from affection, Malcador, or don't you want to lose a useful weapon?'

  'What do you think?'

  Russ hunched lower. 'Both.' He tugged at his bottom lip and shook his head. 'I know I can't win.' He sat up. Though he looked down on Malcador from a considerable height advantage, his words were delivered from the heart, as a son seeking counsel from his father. His barbarian bluster fell away, stripped off like the leather masks his warriors wore, revealing the man beneath the beast. 'So I will have to find a way of beating him. You heard the Knights Errant's report. Horus is beyond the touch of mortal steel. On Fenris, the gothi turn the world spirit against the wights and ghosts. I am forced to do the same. I will travel home, where my priests are powerful, and consult with them there. I suppose that's why you've called me, to give a warning or something.'

  'Or something,' said Malcador. The regent took a tight, considered breath. 'I want you to listen to me, Leman, very carefully. You have always understood the virtue of restraint. You and the Khan both know the value of the warp but both of you have been alive to its dangers from the very beginning.'

  'And Dorn called me a hypocrite for it,' said Russ.

  'I was there.'

  'Calling for the abolition of the Librarius, while surrounding myself with bone-waving priests.' Russ smiled, almost secretly. 'Maybe I am a hypocrite.'

  'There have always been exceptions for you, Leman,' said Malcador.

  Russ nodded. 'I know. Father has been generous to me.'

  'Your purpose is singular, and He relies on you to perform it. So many of the others have been disappointments, first those we do not name, then Horus and the rest, but not you. He trusts you, Leman. I need to know I can too.'

  Russ raised an eyebrow. He took his move without looking at the board.

  'Dorn has a point. You should be careful. Do not abandon the restraint you have always shown. Do not let pride drive you on to embrace powers you cannot control.' Malcador shut his eyes, turning his vision inwards upon private vistas. His voice assumed the stem certainty of prophecy. 'In your eagerness to save your father and kill your brother, you will be tempted to turn the weapons of the enemy back on him. This mistake has snared men for millennia, and xenos and the great beings of distant times. There is a greater enemy behind Horus. Do not listen to its lies.' He opened his eyes, and smiled pleasantly. 'Still, l tear if you set yourself on this course YOU will destroy yourself Death will not come for you with flashing tangs, but slowly, through the poison of doubt. That is the power of the enemy we lace.'

  Russ' face twisted. 'If father knew this foe was so dangerous, this Chaos, He should have told us about it. Then this whole sorry mess of a war would never have happened.'

  'Tie kept it from you to protect you,' said Malcador. 'If He had told the truth, the outcome may well have been worse. More of your brothers may have been tempted to actively seek greater power. See what happened to Magnus.' Malcador took a move, placing a piece somewhere that seemed to give him no advantage whatsoever. Russ stared at him levelly.

  'Well, you don't need to worry about me. Magnus did the sorcery, not I,' said Russ. He returned his attention to the game.

  'Be sure it stays that way. You spoke to Dorn of limits. Make sure you remember them.'

  Russ leaned on the table. 'Now why do you think I would forget where the lines lie, when my entire life I have sought them out, danced over them and back again to test them, but never strayed far beyond? Ever!

  'Then you will not seek to turn the power of the warp against Horus?'

  'In truth?' He shrugged. 'If I must, yes, though my gothi would fight me every step if I made that choice.'

  Malcador looked at him concernedly. Russ growled.

  'I will find a cleaner way, I swear.'

  Russ moved his king into one of the ornate corner squares, neatly avoiding Malcador's pieces.

  'The wolf evades the trap,' he said. Russ knocked over the king. It fell down with a soft clatter, rocking, before Malcador pinned it in place with his long forefinger.

  'Remember when you face your brother, Leman, it is you who will be the fugitive king, not the Warmaster. Do not overestimate your own strength.'

  'We're all trapped kings on your board, aren't we?' said Russ. 'I've always known that. I know what kind of man you are, Malcador.'

  'Do my methods bother you?' asked the regent, genuinely curious.

  'No,' said Russ. 'Nothing bothers me. The world is as the world is. There's nothing a man can do about his wyrd.'

  Malcador set the king upright away from the board. He cut a lonely figure on the table, isolated from his warriors.

  Malcador and Russ looked at each other for a long time. There was a bond between them neither had ever truly acknowledged. Russ remembered when he had first come to Terra. He had spent more time with Malcador than with the Emperor to begin with. In a sense, he was overly blessed with distracted fathers.

  Russ glanced back at the Hnefatafl board. There were numerous traps set all around the periphery. Malcador had left him exactly one way out.

  Have you been preparing me for this all along? Did you know? thought Russ, which in Malcador's presence was as good as shouting it out loud.

  Malcador's face twitched with amusement. Russ responded with a little smile.

  'Thanks for the game, old man,' Russ said. 'I'll see you when I return.'

  Russ got up and placed a fond hand on the regent's shoulder, before leaving Malcador in the garden.

  Malcador watched the Lord of Winter and War leave. His gaze returned to the king, standing apart from his army, and from there to the spear Leman Russ had left behind, propped up against the wall.

  Seven

  Leaving Terra

  The near space of Terra was crawling with ship activity.

  Mechanicum scavenger barques swarmed a metal landscape wrought from steel and hung in orbit. The orbital plate still looked like a living world. Lights shone from domes and armourglass blisters. Peripheral signal beacons blinked. Spires shone with data sign.

  The carrion vessels said otherwise.

  Lemurya was dying. A conjurer's trick of a world, balanced on the knife edge dividing Terra's gravity from the freedom of space, Lemurya was a marvel of science; its renovation had been a statement of mankind's new ascendancy that shone brightly in the glare of Sol. Like
a heliograph it had winked the message of Unity and prosperity at a hostile universe. Within its arcades and mega halls were soft landscapes for a civilised people. The playgrounds of the rich had been a promise of what might come for all mankind's teeming billions once the war was done and the galaxy under humanity's rightful stewardship.

  No more. After thousands of years, its end had come, and not

  at the hand of any enemy. Lord Dorn had declared the great civilian platforms a liability. Every one was in the process of being disassembled. Those in the highest orbits were towed away to be reassembled in the wake of victory, if victory ever came. The smallest were repositioned, converted to the purpose of war, and their populations pressed into service to man gun-decks built over the parks and the palaces. The very largest could not be moved, and were too dangerous to be left in place. Lemurya, Rodinia and the rest were torn from the sky; prophylactic destruction to prevent the traitors hurling them down to break on the world below.

  Metal continents died, killed by their masters to save them from conquest.

  Leman Russ' face reflected in the windows of the loading dock. Eyes of such a piercing blue they should surely be able to bore their way through the armourglass stared at the act of self-destruction unfolding in the skies below. The functional steelwork of the loading dock extended for kilometres either side of Russ. It possessed nothing so fancy as an observation deck. The window Russ watched from was one of only a handful that pierced the orbital's side. It was small, stretching from the level of a man's waist to just over human head height, meaning the primarch had to stoop to peer out. Grubby with accreted dust, cracked by orbital debris impact, the window was a lone weakness in a wall of adamant. Either side of the primarch long corridors of latticed plasteel led to cavernous hold spaces. From within, autoloaders rumbled without pause, the transfer of mass from dock to ships shaking the superstructure. Shadowy cubic shapes thundered back and forth across the way, relentless as pistons as they ferried munitions, water, food, guns and all the rest of the endless materiel a fleet needed to wage war. Grilles left the orbital's coiled innards open to view, a mess of cables crudely bound by steel bands, hissing pipes, junction boxes, winking lights and ribbed metal organs crenellated like miniature cashes. The grim cybernetic skull of the machina opus glared from every surface. It was an ugly place - brutish, utilitarian, made for the provisioning of battleships - but it would survive Dorn's clearing of the heavens. It had a military application. The glorious skylands did not. There was no room for beauty or comfort on Terra anymore. Anything that did not serve the needs of war was swept away.