by Gav Thorpe
‘Two days,’ he said, stroking fingers across the curls of her hair. His breath on her neck sent shivers through Zenobi. ‘Only two more days.’
‘Until the battle?’
‘Not yet. That’s when we arrive at our muster point. It’s still another hundred kilometres to the Katabatic Plains.’
She said nothing but listened instead. Their companions’ heavy breaths and snores. The whine of the tank battery lighting the small lantern hung on the pole that held up the centre of the bivouac. And thunder that wasn’t thunder but the detonations of gigatonnes of ordnance crashing against the shields of the Imperial Palace. Every few minutes there would come a crack of a different timbre as some new projectile hit home or a void shield temporarily failed.
‘We might not ever…’ she whispered, stroking the back of her hand along his thigh. ‘You know, might not have time to…’
‘Be united?’ he said with a smirk. ‘I know. It’s not that important.’
‘Maybe not for you,’ she said sadly.
‘Oh.’ He pulled her closer. ‘We might not be moving from the muster point for a while.’
‘I think we’ll be carrying straight on.’
‘Really? What were your orders?’
Zenobi felt a sudden pang of awareness. She couldn’t let down her guard, even for a moment of pillow talk.
‘I don’t know, but we were all expecting to get straight into the battle.’ She listened for a few more seconds. ‘The attack’s well underway.’
‘The battle for Terra!’ he said, eyes comically wide. ‘Never thought I would be part of it. Never considered that the war would come here.’
‘It’s been here a while,’ said Zenobi. ‘The touch of it, I mean. I don’t know anything about Bakk-Makkah, but Addaba was first affected seven years ago.’
‘Changed, yes,’ said Nasha. ‘They flattened the old precincts to make a testing and training range. Three hundred square kilometres of city from before the Old Night. Ancient, really ancient buildings.’
He sighed and she laid her head on his arm.
‘Don’t be so sure about what’s going to happen,’ he told her. ‘It’ll take a day or two for your formation to receive fresh orders from high command. You’re not even supposed to be here.’
‘Glad that we are,’ she said. She kissed his neck and their conversation ended.
Basilica Ventura, thirteen days since assault
‘An impressive gathering.’
Sindermann was right. Through a window in the upper reaches of the Basilica Ventura, mostly frame with only a few shards of glass remaining, Keeler could see some distance down the Via Oxidentus. There was light everywhere, not just clustered at the gateway below but stretched out along the approaches to the improvised fane. People brought their own lamps as well as those that were handed out at the doors, their bobbing progress easy to follow in the evening gloom.
‘Here because of you, holy one,’ said Olivier. ‘Word spreads that the emissary of the Emperor graces the Lightbearers with divine blessing.’
‘Blessing is not mine to deliver,’ Keeler warned him. ‘Only the word of the Emperor.’
‘Of course, but He has sent you to us as a sign of His favour,’ Olivier said quickly. He gestured and his two attendants, Maryse and Essinam, came across the small chamber, holding the massive bound copies of the Book of Divinity. Keeler had meant to ask where they had come from but had not yet had the opportunity. ‘It would honour me if you would lay your hands upon our texts.’
Keeler did so, putting a palm to the cover of each, feeling the embossed lettering under her fingertips. It was as though she could feel the words inside stretching to be read, eager to leave the page and set themselves free in her thoughts.
She pulled her hand back, a tingle of sensation running up her arms.
‘Would you address the congregation tonight?’ Olivier asked.
Keeler considered it and shook her head.
‘Not yet. These are your people, this is your creed. I am the follower here and would not take that from you.’
‘I simply heard the message that you whispered in our ears, holy one,’ Olivier said, clasping his hands together. He looked pointedly at the tomes carried by his companions. ‘And the words of truth as laid down in this book, of course.’
‘Do not undersell yourself,’ said Sindermann, clasping a hand to Olivier’s shoulder, gently guiding him towards the door. ‘The lights hang because of you, and the whisper travels because your voice has been added to it.’
Before he realised what was happening, Olivier had been coaxed to the curtained doorway, Essinam and Maryse diligently flanking him.
‘I will join you shortly,’ Keeler assured him.
He accepted this with a smile and left. Sindermann took a deep breath and crossed back to her, gaze moving to the scene outside the window. It was not only the light of lamps that broke the twilight. It seemed as though a patch of sky at the horizon were ablaze, but in truth it was the Starspear of Lion’s Gate space port, lit with the fires of battle.
‘The traitors are pushing hard to take the space port,’ said Sindermann. ‘It may be only a matter of hours or days before they are at the Lion’s Gate itself.’
‘A victory that would have been far swifter if not for the protections against the Neverborn,’ Keeler replied.
‘There have been more apparitions, lady.’ Sindermann rubbed his hands slowly, as though wiping away something in his palms. ‘I have heard rumours of visitations and received word from Custodian Amon that he has uncovered two more sites of what he claims to be daemonic activity, though the gatherings that caused them had dispersed before his arrival.’
‘The blind guess at what they see, but those that have seen know the truth,’ Keeler told him. ‘If one expects the infernal, one sees it.’
‘Amon would argue that if one expects the divine, one would also see it.’
‘He would be wrong. I have touched the light of the Emperor. It cannot be feigned.’
‘There have been other stories, that tell of warming lights, and of soldiers on the walls seeing gold-clad ghosts sallying forth into the murk. A group of staff officers that meets by the Pradeshi Way says that they shared a group dream of the Emperor, in which He came to them and commanded they defend the wall at a certain place. The following day the traitors launched themselves at that section and were barely repelled. Had they followed Dorn’s deployment orders there is a chance the enemy would have gained a foothold.’
‘It is too much for a pragmatist like Rogal Dorn to place his faith in forces he cannot comprehend,’ said Keeler. ‘Though I feel he is starting to appreciate more their magnitude in opposition with each passing day.’
She fell silent, lost in her thoughts. Sindermann withdrew across the chamber, moving to another window. A rumble of jet engines shook the basilica as a flight of bombers flew low over the stretch of the Palace, heading towards the outer wall.
Keeler took out her Lectitio Divinitatus and opened it to the first page.
Rejoice, for I bring glorious news. God walks among us.
She lost herself in the words, as she had done the first time the scripture had been shown to her. It described with certainty the divinity of the Emperor, rightly placing Him among the celestial spheres as a being to be venerated. She knew the opening chapters by heart but took strength from her own simple handwriting forming the words, as though her voice were given permanent form.
It was with some effort that she roused herself on hearing Sindermann speak her name.
‘The congregation is ready,’ he told her. ‘Olivier will be waiting.’
She reluctantly closed the book and headed down to the broken stairwell that took her to the platform of the chief Lightbearer. Without ceremony she passed through the archway and came up behind him, not willing to place herself before him.
He turned and acknowledged her with a simple nod, and then began his sermon.
She did not listen to his words so much as the cadence of his voice. As before, she let the flowing shadow-pictures take shape in her thoughts, growing branches and leaves from flickering light, while the voice of Olivier took on the role of the gusting breeze once more.
And even more simply than the first time, she slipped into the garden. She was more intent on her purpose than previously and she barely spared a thought for the glorious flora that surrounded her. Greater than ever were the blooms that clustered close, petals and stems turning towards her as though drawn by her life, seeking her energy rather than that of the sun.
Keeler stepped quickly through the waving grass, ignoring the tickles at her legs as seed-heavy heads brushed at knee and calf, caressing her as though trying to entice her to remain.
She was dimly aware of others now, her fellow worshippers each picking their own path through the cultured wilderness. Like the shadows of cloud wisps far above, they drifted past, almost unseen, heading to their own destinations. Keeler paused to reflect that they seemed to be going the opposite way to her.
She considered following them for a moment, but pushed on instead, eager to lay eyes on the majesty of the arboreal Emperor once again.
She found it in a deep valley this time. As before, the immense arch of the upper leaves were a roof to the sky. But where before the lower limbs had also reached up, now a few were bound by golden chains that stretched to the ground, taut and unmoving.
Keeler’s heart skipped a beat at the vision, both awed and concerned. She broke into a run, but no matter how far or fast she tried to approach, the tree remained as distant as ever, out of her reach.
She stopped, knowing that she could not come closer by physical effort. This was a place of faith, and through faith would she one day climb amongst those boughs and know the embrace of the heavenly leaves.
Lord of the Huscarls
Breakout
A waiting army
Lion’s Gate space port, mesophex skin zone, fifteen days since assault
The corridor rang with crashing boots, the whine of servos an undercurrent to the pounding charge of Rann and his Huscarls. Flecks of ceramite splintered from bolt impacts but they did not slow even as the intensity of the fire greeting them increased to a storm.
Only when they were thirty metres from the Iron Warriors did they lower shields, slowing their pace. Ortor was slightly ahead on Rann’s right and checked his stride so that the others came alongside.
Ahead, the sons of Perturabo drew chainblades while combat attachments on their bolters whirred and gleamed in anticipation of the charge.
‘Ram breach!’ Rann called, just ten metres from the gateway held by the enemy.
Seamlessly the Huscarls manoeuvred on the charge. Ortor and Rann came together, shields angled to form a point. Their companions fell in beside and behind them, shields braced against their backpacks.
As a single blade of powered ceramite, the tip of the Imperial Fists company hit the Iron Warriors’ line. With full power to his legs, Rann drove forward. His axe was in his hand but he held it back, shield locked to the sergeant’s, the triangle of their edges slamming into the breastplate of a IV Legion warrior, splitting armour like the prow of an ancient galley holing a foe.
The wounded Iron Warrior was spun away by the impact, going down to one knee. The Imperial Fist behind Rann, to his left, leapt over the tumbled legionary. The Space Marine behind drove his blade into the enemy’s throat, ripping the sword free as the mass of ochre-and-black plunged onwards.
Cut down or hurled back, the Iron Warriors broke apart, allowing the flying wedge to burst through the gateway and onto the broad landing apron beyond. A battle raged across the kilometre-wide span of ferrocrete, a blur of yellow and black on one side set against iron and red on the other.
In the wake of the Huscarls’ attack, seven hundred more Imperial Fists pounded out into the freezing air, the moisture carried with them crystallising on their armour as they advanced, their bolter reports sounding stifled in the thin atmosphere. The fire of missiles and laser beams criss-crossed the sky above, from circling gunships and companies ranged across the outskirts of the storeys above.
Rann urged his warriors onward with raised axe. There was no time to lose. The reinforcements led by Sigismund had drawn much of the ire from the Iron Warriors and their allies, but if Rann’s force did not break through to them they would be driven back from the space port, their mission failed, their losses sustained in vain.
‘Over there, that’s the one!’ Ortor pointed with his sword to the right, into the shadow of a jutting boarding quay that ran over the landing pad.
A knot of fighters in Iron Warriors livery hewed their way through a line of yellow. The legionary at their head was a brute of a fighter clad in old Terminator armour, using his fist like a gleaming hammer. Rann saw an Imperial Fist go down under a series of vicious headbutts, his mask mashed into the flesh and bone of his face, blood splashed across the Iron Warrior’s grille.
‘Secure the left flank,’ bellowed Rann even as he altered direction towards the Iron Warriors champion, breaking the formation.
A dozen warriors came with him, Ortor included. The others peeled left, bolters and blades directed against a wave of bloodstained World Eaters pouring along the edge of the landing apron.
The Iron Warrior recognised the challenge inherent in Rann’s charge and lifted a gore-spattered fist in reply, taunting the lord seneschal. The Imperial Fist could see the rank markings of a warsmith among the blood spatter and daubed graffiti of defiance.
‘Stay close,’ Rann warned his companions, remembering this was a battle, not a duelling cage. He had no desire to face the Cataphractii alone. ‘Take down their leader.’
Far from waiting to receive the attack, the warsmith leapt forward to meet Rann’s charge. Shoulder lowered, arm braced, the Iron Warrior met the boarding shield at speed. The impact lifted Rann off his feet and sent the warsmith spinning away.
Rann crashed to the floor a few metres away, watching his Huscarls slamming into the warsmith’s guard. The warsmith advanced, fingers of his power fist flexing in anticipation.
So much for not being drawn into a duel.
His shield bent at almost a right angle, Rann tossed it away and drew his second axe, the heads of both weapons crackling with licks of power. Crouched, legs braced, the lord seneschal waited for his opponent to come to him.
The Iron Warrior obliged, rushing forward without any attempt to mask his attack nor to use his combi-bolter, fist swinging with sudden speed towards the seneschal’s head. Rann brought up an axe, deflecting the blow to the left, and swung the other upwards, looking for the exposed armpit.
The blade caught on chestplate instead, a split second before the warsmith crashed into him, taking them both down with a thunder of breaking armour.
Rann rolled, using the last of the Iron Warrior’s momentum to push the warsmith away before regaining his feet. The Iron Warrior was slower, but still raised his massively armoured gauntlet in time to meet Rann’s next attack. Lightning flared and the glove burned red in contact, dimming the seneschal’s auto-senses. Quicker than his bulk and armour should have allowed, the warsmith’s fist thudded into Rann’s gut.
It was an odd blow, a brawler’s punch rather than a trained Space Marine’s attack, but its power cracked abdominal armour and sent system warnings flaring across Rann’s display. He was forced back a step and in the moment of regaining his balance realised that momentum had turned against him. The power fist swung for Rann’s chest but caught him on the arm instead, the flare of energy sending splinters of ceramite slashing through the air.
There was not a hearts’ beat of hesitation in the warsmith: he came on without pause, almost crushing Rann’s head, clenched fist missing b
y millimetres to split his pauldron with an impossibly powerful blow. It was more than his Terminator plate that powered such blows, his strength unnaturally boosted.
Rann went down on one knee, vision swaying. On instinct he raised his axes, warding off two more blows to regain his feet.
Pride told him he could swing the fight back in his favour. Experience called pride a liar.
‘To me!’ Rann called. ‘Huscarls, to me!’
His guards were too embroiled to come to his aid. Rann tried one last time to take the initiative, ducking beneath the blur of the fist, axe angled towards his opponent’s thigh. Blade bit into riveted armour, slashed through into flesh.
Rann gave a triumphant shout as he dragged the weapon clear, expecting to see a fountain of arterial spurt. Instead the warsmith backhanded him across the face with his combi-bolter, a trickle of thick, black fluid leaking from the wound.
The power fist caught Rann square in the chest, shattering his plastron, pulverising the bones within. A sudden loss of breath told him he’d lost at least one lung. Armour warning sigils filled his vision with flashes of red.
The warsmith loomed over the seneschal, lightning-wreathed fist raised for the killing blow. It was impossible to see the warrior’s face but Rann could imagine the gloating eyes, the homicidal grin of a foe that seemed more beast than man.
Something black arrived at speed, a gleaming blade flashing out to meet the descending strike. The sword deflected the fist to send it crashing into the ferrocrete just beside Rann’s head. Then it spun, catching the side of the Iron Warrior’s helm, though it glanced off the angled plate.
Blood flowed from a shattered eye-lens, bright against the tarnished silver armour.
Squinting through swirling pain, Rann saw the knightly helm of his saviour – a second before a wall of yellow crashed around him, the Huscarls responding to his call even as the Iron Warriors closed about their own leader. The black-armoured legionary took a step as though to continue the attack but a blaze of bolter fire from the Iron Warriors dissuaded pursuit.