Wolfsbane

by Guy Haley

  Cawl reached into his augmetic, scanning the command frequencies. An all-band message swamped the infosphere, disabling the cyborgs and urging the rest to submit.

  the order went, transmitted with the correct codes.

  'Aspertia,' Cawl whispered.

  The lumens went out. Emergency lighting flicked on, flooding the agri-cavern hall with bloody red light. Cawl glanced upwards. From the row next to his, a boltgun was pressed against his head. Somehow, the legionary had reached his side without Cawl noticing.

  'Yield or die,' said the legionary.

  Cawl went to his knees and held up his hands.

  'Yield.'

  His gun was taken. Cawl expected death, but the legionary ordered him to stand.

  'You're coming with us,' he said.

  Cawl was delivered along with dozens of other adepts of the Trisolian Taghmata to the Heptaligon's Septa station. Legionaries had seized control of the capital, and guarded every intersection. Blood smears on the walls indicated recent executions. His escort of Night Lords marched him past all this too fast for him to get more than a glimpse of ongoing atrocities.

  The priests were kept under guard in an antechamber of Central Command, and taken one by one within. They all came out again, but some were taken away with grim looks on the human portions of their faces. The rest were herded to the far side of the room. Speech was forbidden; the Heptaligon's infosphere was shut down.

  After a wait of an hour, it was Cawl's turn. A legionary grabbed him without warning and shoved him through the double doors. The lights were off. The command chairs were empty and their systems powered down. The shutters were open and the planet shine of Etrian flooded the space.

  The legionary departed, leaving Cawl in the dark with Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma.

  'You have betrayed the Imperium,' said Cawl, when they were alone.

  'It is a calculated betrayal,' she replied. 'Do you think I wanted to do it? I had no choice.'

  'But we were winning!' he said, taking an angry step forwards.

  'We would have lost. I can show you the calculations if you like The Warmaster would have diverted more resources to this system until it was overwhelmed, and we would all have died. Is that what you want, Cawl, to die?'

  Cawl remained defiantly silent.

  Aspertia clattered forwards. 'The creed of our people is the preservation of the past. The past's knowledge means nothing if it cannot be conveyed into the future.' She ran her hands over the canisters attached to her front. 'For that reason, I carry these. You know what they are?' she challenged him. The nature of the canisters was supposed to be secret, but it was widely rumoured throughout the system what they were.

  'Clones,' he said. 'I have heard they are clones of yourself, kept in embryonic.'

  She snickered. 'Yes. Yes. The whisper-mongers have that right. What else have you heard about my little babies?' She swayed from side to side. The canisters clicked together.

  'That they are your bid for immortality.'

  She rounded on him, her manner fierce. 'Wrong, wrong, wrong!' she said. Her words were overlaid by angry blurts of audible data cant. 'The preservation of my life is nothing.' She retreated a little from Cawl. 'But my part in the Great Work is irreplaceable. Within these canisters are no homunculi, but gene-perfect replicas of my brain. The rest is vestigial. Irrelevant. Why should I wish to replicate what I have already discarded?' She rapped a metal claw against her elongated skull. 'But the brain, that is the seat of the intellect. The clonelings are fed constantly with an update feed from my main cortex. The preservation of all I have learned is their purpose. Should I die, they will be force matured and implanted into a new body.

  'For three hundred years, Cawl, I have fought as a domina of the Taghmata. I have served in seven different Exploratory Fleets of the Great Crusade. I have been to the edge of the galaxy and back. During my travels I have faced fourteen hostile xenos species, a hundred and three divergent human civilisations. I have waged war alongside nine Legions, and seen the belligerent arts of the Machine-God tested in every imaginable warzone. The wealth of combat data I possess in this one mind would fill a library of paper books.'

  She looked down at him.

  'Now why would I let that all go to waste?'

  'You betray the Emperor to save your knowledge?' said Cawl.

  'You still think I do it to save my life!' she scoffed. 'I live and die at the will of the Machine-God! Knowledge is all. To permit any of it to be lost is a great sin.'

  'The Emperor…'

  'The Emperor? Horus?' she said. 'Who are they, these Terran upstarts? It does not matter who sits upon the throne. What matters is what resides in the tabernacles of Mars. What matters is what is here, preserved in my minds and my memories.' She caressed her silver cheek with a mechadendrite, a curiously sensuous gesture. 'Kelbor-Hal may be right, we may have a more glorious future at the Warmaster's side. He may be wrong. He is definitely one or the other, he cannot be both. But so long as the knowledge is saved, what does it matter? I might live or I might die. Life is a binary state. It is or it is not. The state of being is unstable and liable to collapse at any time into death, which is eternal.'

  'We all die,' agreed Cawl. He glanced at the canisters swinging from her chest.

  'We do,' she said. 'Only knowledge persists. All that matters is that while I live so does my knowledge so that it might be added to the sum total of all things known. It is in service to the Machine-God that I go to bend my knee at Horus' throne. If the Emperor Himself came here, I would do the same to Him. The question is, what about you? I kept you alive because I see potential in you. Will you follow me, whoever I pledge my service to, or will you protest your loyalty and die? I can use you, Cawl, but that does not mean I will not end you if I must.'

  A triple-pincered claw sprang open. A plasma torch flame burst from the centre. It dipped towards Cawl's face. 'It would be a shame to lose that mind of yours,' said Aspertia. 'If l must kill you, I will probably keep it.'

  'I serve the Machine-God!' said Cawl. He mastered his anger and spoke as levelly as he could. 'I serve the Machine-God.'

  'Excellent,' she said. The torch went out, the claw snapped closed around it. 'Then I will keep you alive for a little while longer. Now join the others. Power is a show, and we have a performance to give.' The door hissed upwards.

  Cawl left as quickly as was seemly. As he joined the ranks of Aspertia's acolytes waiting in the antechamber outside, he wondered if the others had suffered the same interrogation; which of them had thrown themselves on her mercy and which needed to be convinced. His mind went back to his unfinished work in his chamber.

  If he could complete it, he could be free again.

  Slowly, a plan began to form in Belisarius Cawl's mind.

  Seventeen

  A Father's Request

  After so short a time in the Aett, the Legion was readying itself to leave, and Leman Russ called his war council to session.

  The Einherjar gathered in the chamber of the Grand Annulus. A monumental feasting hall high in the Valgard, its floor was decorated with an immense round inlay depicting the emblems of the Thirteen Great Companies of the Vlka Fenryka - an adaptation of the kings' stones Fenrisian tribes carried from land to land. Russ had insisted the Annulus be finished before any of the Valgard was completed. It comprised movable segments metres across, each inlaid with a badge of a Wolf Lord. They centred on a circular stone bearing Leman Russ' own tribal symbol. Some had been removed and replaced recently.

  The rest of the hall was not yet done. Raw mountain stone had been roughed into blocks and shapes that would take statues and relief panels. Archways, niches and other decorations were but simple, chiselled outlines. One day, Russ wanted the chamber to be the ritual heart of the Vlka Fenryka. For now it remained a cold, unfriendly place. Its entry was sealed with a simple, temporary ceramite blast door. Wheeled scaffolding towers waited in place for workers to return. Tools were n
eatly racked where artworks would go. Opaque plastek sheeting covered works in progress.

  A sombre atmosphere prevailed. There was little talk as the Einherjar waited for their primarch. The chamber swayed slightly with the motion of the world. The room would never be still. Under the vicious tugging of the Wolfs Eye, the Fang was the wavering cap of a child's top, always on the brink of falling.

  The door slid aside rapidly, banging into the wall recess that housed it. Leman Russ strode in, Bjorn his shadow. Fewer eyes narrowed at the warrior's presence than in the past, but they still narrowed.

  'I am a little late,' said Russ. Across his shoulders he carried the Spear of the Emperor, bearing the sacred if little-liked weapon crosswise, his wrists hooked over the shaft, like the son of a hersir heading to his first skirmish. He was too mighty for a mortal room to fully contain, and though physically the hall was vast enough to accommodate a thousand Vlka, it seemed that the primarch's essence overfilled it, like a fjord spilling torrents into the sea as the tide goes out. Around him buzzed the promise of slaughter. His arrival excited the Einherjar. Images of blood and battle flitted through their minds, twisting their lips into involuntary snarls.

  Russ stalked to the centre of the Annulus, and stood upon the rondel bearing his name badge, the symbol of the Legion, a red wolf's head on a field of grey, his boots either side of the wolf's muzzle.

  Silently he acknowledged each of his warriors. He spoke no words to them, but his ice-blue eyes said that he saw them, and that he valued them. The hearts of the Wolves filled with pride at this honour.

  'The time for feasting is over,' said Leman Russ. 'I have learned what I came here to learn. I hear the caw of rumour's raven echoing around the halls.' He looked to Grimnr. During the ritual the huscarl and his men heard nothing, and they were alarmed to see Russ' wounds when he returned to them. Russ had told no one what occurred.

  'I will tell you,' he continued. 'The eight gothi I took with me to the Krakgard, including Kva, my adviser and friend, are dead. They perished sending me into the Underverse, where even I, a primarch of the Emperor, may not easily go. Within the world of wights and ghosts, I was given the host-challenge by a thing not of this universe. Let it be known that I succeeded. While I quested in that realm our gothi were assailed by the wights of the enemy, and paid for the knowledge I gained with their lives.' He swung the spear from his shoulder and slammed the haft into the floor. The crack of metal on stone echoed from the walls.

  'This is what I learned. With this weapon that my father gave me, I shall bring the traitor to his knees, and although I may not kill him, and we may all perish in the attempt, I will bring him pain that shall undo him in the days to come.' Again he looked at all his sons. His gaze was so fierce not one could hold it.

  'My warriors. My Einherjar, this might be the last hunt of the Vlka Fenryka. Through many wars I have commanded you, and you have never failed me. Many strange and terrible foes I have ordered you to face, and you have done so without question or hesitation.'

  'You are our primarch!' said Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot. 'We would follow you into Hel if you asked.'

  Russ looked sternly at Helmschrot. 'Yes, I am your primarch, I am your lord. I am your gene-father. From my body the gifts my father bestowed upon you were taken. For this, though you each had a mortal sire, I claim the right to call you my sons.'

  'We are your sons!' said Baldr Vidunsson. 'I have no other father.' He spat on the floor. His comment elicited growls of agreement from the others.

  'I love you as my sons,' said Russ. 'But above my affection for you, beyond what I am, and who I am, I am your king, and I am your king because you chose me to be so. Forget for a moment that we are Legiones Astartes. Remember instead that we are the lords of Fenris.' He pointed at Hvarl Red-Blade. 'You, Hvarl, are the match of the great heroes of all the sagas.' He turned to Lufven Close-Handed. 'You, Lufven, are a more generous ring-giver than any of the finest kings of history. Ogvai is thoughtful, Baldr is bold. You are a company of warriors that no lord could dream of. You outmatch in spirit and in mettle the best of all my brothers' Legions, and I am proud to be your lord. I should bend my knee to you.' He took a deep breath. 'I have a purpose. For a long time I assumed that purpose on your behalf, sending you into battle with little thought for the blood spilled, and both eyes on the glory that would come.'

  'And we were glad to obey!' shouted form BIoodhowl 'Aye!' called the others. They hammered their fists on their chest-plates and howled.

  'Yes!' said Russ. A feral light burned in his eyes. 'Yes, you were. But did I have the right to demand you lay down your lives for me?'

  'My lord,' said Amlodhi Skarssen Skarssensson, 'as you say, you are our king.'

  'A king' said Russ thoughtfully. 'A king. What is a king but a man who rules over other men by their consent? According to our custom, no king of any tribe has the right to command his warriors into a battle they cannot win. No king can force obedience from his subjects if they no longer have his trust. It is our way in the fire and the ice to elect our leaders, and depose them when they fail. I never forget that I was a stranger to this world. I am a foundling lord, imposed on you.'

  The Wolves shook their heads.

  'We chose you,' a Rune Priest said.

  'What other choice was there?' said Russ. 'Fight with me or be killed by me. This is how the Russ came to rule half of Fenris. After Alaxxes, I vowed never to be the blind executioner again. I am no dumb axe swung in another's fist. I will fight Horus.' He slapped his palm against his breast. 'But I will challenge him because I will it, not because my father says so. My brothers wished for me to remain on Terra. I have made my choice. You must make yours. I will not order you to fight him. If you would rather stay here and see what the war brings, then so be it. If you would rather return to Terra to stand with Dorn, Jaghatai and Sanguinius in the Allfather's defence, I will not stop you. Perhaps your lives may be better used there. I am no gothi. I cannot see the future.' He smiled sadly. 'But I will ask you to follow me, into the heart of the traitors' armies. Today, Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot, I am not commanding you, but asking you to follow me into Hel. You said you would. Would you still?'

  Helmschrot bared his fangs. 'There is no other answer to give. I say yes!'

  'And I!' called another.

  'I will also follow you.'

  So they spoke affirmatively. Not one said otherwise. Russ' grim face was suffused with pride. They howled and swore wild oaths, working themselves up into a frenzy.

  'Enough!' Russ said.

  The howls ceased immediately. The hall fell silent.

  'Then to the business of red slaughter. Thanks to Malcador's Knights Errant, we know where Horus is.'

  A cartolith snapped on, bathing the dim hall in spectral light.

  'The rune marks placed within the Vengeful Spirit by Bror Tyrfingr mark out its vulnerable areas for destruction, and will aid our warriors in finding their way through its halls, but they had an additional purpose l commanded Bror keep from the rest of Malcador's agents. Within each inscription was a rune of power, given to him by Kva. These markings allow us to track my brother's ship through the Underverse. At present it is here,' said Leman Russ. He thrust his spear into the hololithic map, holding the spears tip unwavering beneath a bright star, appearing to support it on the point.

  Closer inspection revealed it to be a system of common type, not one but three stars: a main sequence primary, with a binary of red dwarf secondaries orbiting far out. It was a system of immense bounds, but only modest importance. It was nowhere, but close to places that mattered, the kind of system where a warlord might bide his time before launching a major attack.

  'At this place, called Trisolian,' said Russ, 'we shall bring the Warmaster to heel.'

  Eighteen

  Lupercal's Bargain

  The assembled population of the Heptaligon waited in Tria Station, otherwise called the Orb of Conveyance. Tria was given entirely over to docking facilities, being the main port of th
e Heptaligon. Metal skies encompassed a volume to rival a small moon. Grav-plating made the interior of the orb an inverted world, where the ground curved overhead in an unbroken sphere. The sight was a breathtaking display of the Machine-God's artistry. There was no up or down in the Orb of Conveyance. A forest of graceful docking spars extended towards the centre, tipped with floating wharfs. Giant lumen panels adorned the interior in binary patterns that spelled out the might of the Machine-God for all to see until distance squeezed them together into a pale yellow glow.

  The structure that faced the moon gave into the giant funicular highway that ran down the centre's tether-tube. Opposite the funicular were a profusion of apertures that opened into the void, the stars beyond tinted a subtle blue by the glimmer of atmospheric fields.

  Upon Aspertia's grav-dais Cawl attended his mistress. He was thus higher than the common herd, and so had a fine view of the crowds and the sphere. The throng blurred into a mass of red and gunmetal-grey with distance until, between the docked void craft locked to the orb's numerous piers, the people on the upper interior surfaces blended into a rose sea so distant no enhancement of vision could tease it apart into individuals. They were the assembled might of Mars in the Trisolian System. Cawl clicked through his machine senses. The infosphere vibrated with anticipation. The faces of the entire host pointed towards the central point of the Orb of Con veyance, where a single landing platform had been placed, plated in gold and draped with rich red cloth. Hololithic banners scrolled around it in broad bands and were periodically shattered into swirling motes by the passage of hundreds of servo-skulls. Laudatory anthems played over a constant screeching of binaric and grand pronouncements in Gothic. Holoscreens the size of light cruisers displayed the platform for the crowds.