by Gav Thorpe
‘Let us slay the unworthy and protect the innocent,’ she said, her words carrying some distance along the firing line. The thought came to Katsuhiro to step back and he did so, shouldering his lasgun. Others also made way for the woman’s silent acolytes, until the firing step was populated by them.
‘Who are you, lady of light?’ Katsuhiro asked.
An older man came forward, interposing himself between Katsuhiro and the pale figure that looked out into the devastation of Poxville.
‘She is the Holy Messenger, trooper. Blessed of the Emperor.’
Looking at her radiance against the darkness of the broken palaces Katsuhiro could easily believe it.
‘Is this safe?’ Olivier asked, voice trembling. His gaze kept straying from Keeler to the dead and dying heaped upon the road about seventy metres from the wall. Shambling figures moved among them, some crawling over the charnel piles, others trying to pick routes through the rubble around them.
‘Of course not,’ she told him. ‘I told you we would confront the enemies of the Emperor. They do not dwell in safe places, not in these times.’
The truth seemed to reassure him more than any platitude, and he visibly calmed.
‘Your strength is an inspiration,’ he said.
‘It is the Emperor’s strength, not mine. My faith connects me to Him. It will connect us all to Him.’
Olivier looked along the curve of the wall and nodded. Here and there the spark of a las-bolt spat out into the ruins but far fewer than when they had arrived.
‘I think we are ready.’
‘Then raise up your voices in prayer and let us banish this evil.’
Olivier raised his voice, beginning one of his invocations. Keeler listened to her heart beating in her chest, a little faster than usual. She stared at the flame inside her shell-lamp, watching the dance of light on the blackening metal. Olivier’s voice became an undercurrent of her thoughts as it had at the bastion. It was joined by the rest of the Lightbearers that had come with them, nearly four hundred souls.
Each of them was a light, a patch of brightness in the darkness of Horus’ shadow. Keeler could feel that oppressive shade laid upon the Palace as much as the twilight of ash and smoke that obscured sun and stars alike.
She felt also the soul of the Emperor again, though rather than a tree it felt more like a dome, the skies themselves. But all was not well. The dome was assailed from without, its surface blackening like the interior of the lamp, the daemonic accretion growing thicker, in places enough to stifle the light from within.
Keeler felt her breath coming in short gasps, panic threatening her. Almost unnoticed a hand slipped into hers, gripping the fingers. She felt the closeness of Sindermann and relaxed.
The light. She turned her thoughts to it again, taking the illumination of the Emperor and casting it as a flame in her thoughts. She let the heat build, becoming an inferno of ecstasy. She knew nothing else, not of the wall beneath her feet, the men at her side, the hundreds of souls along the wall and within the ruins. But she did see the blots, the stains on the fabric of the Emperor’s vision.
To these she directed the flames, her lips moving as words came unbidden to her.
‘With the Emperor I am righteous. With His light the darkness is broken. With the fire of purity I purge the unholy.’
‘Look!’ grunted Olivier.
Keeler opened her eyes. From the ruins of the Palatine Arc dozens of figures staggered into view. Each was human-like, but obviously twisted or infected in some way. Fire burned in their skin, consuming them from inside as they flailed into the walls and fled over the rubble, bodies crumbling like ash as they fell.
‘Praise the Emperor!’ Keeler shouted, feeling the power flowing through her.
The call was echoed, weakly at first, and then again with greater vehemence.
‘Praise the Emperor!’
The keening cries of the dying Neverborn were drowned out by the third triumphant shout, the words coming from the lips of the soldiers as well as the Lightbearers.
‘Praise the Emperor!’
The sudden uplift of faith swept through Keeler like a hurricane, so that it felt as though her soul ascended on a hot wind. She was borne away by it, losing the sense of her body, and in that moment she found herself flying over the gardens of faith.
The great Emperor-tree spread its branches against a falling twilight, more sombre than before. Darkening clouds gathered about the treetop, flecked with malevolent lightning.
Keeler raced closer, no longer walking, but with wings like the aquila, feathered with pure faith.
For a few heartbeats she thought she might actually reach the branches that she desired so strongly, but even as she neared them her wings began to fade. She did not fall, but descended lightly to the ground, clawing at the air with her hands as though she might climb through the space between her and the Emperor.
Through tears she saw that the chains binding the branches to the ground had grown thicker, and more numerous. Each was like a great docking cable, broader than her shoulders, and she thought she could make out writing etched into every link.
She fell back into her body before she could read the words.
It took some time before she reacquainted herself with her physical form, though it must have been only moments since her departure. She sat down, back against the battlement, Sindermann bent over her with concern. She gave him a smile of assurance but could not speak, robbed of words by her experience.
The former iterator deterred others that tried to crowd closer, Olivier among them. One of the troopers approached from the other side, the slight-looking man that had spoken to her before.
‘Was that…?’ He stared back over the wall. ‘How did that happen?’
Keeler held out her hand and the man helped her to her feet.
‘The Emperor protects,’ she told him, handing him the shell-lamp. She raised her voice, addressing Olivier and the others nearby. ‘There will be other times we are needed, when the evil of Horus and his allies takes form. Our faith will be the light that banishes them back to the abyss that spawns them.’
Lion’s Gate space port, tropophex core,
nineteen days since assault
Pushing forward into the brightly lit monorail terminal in the company of his warriors, Forrix saw the tunnel at the end of the light. Three lines ran across his advance, separated by broad platforms broken by rows of pillars. A flurry of bolter rounds greeted the arrival of the Iron Warriors, shattering the tiles on the wall and the entrance gate, slamming into armour already much-punished. Yellow-armoured foes lurked behind many of the columns and along the sunken trackbeds. The crack of boltguns and crunch of armoured boots on shattered tiles echoed back and forth across the open station.
The warriors of the IV Legion split, breaking left towards the tunnels and directly ahead to the nearest foes. The noise of their bolters sounded wrong in Forrix’s ear, like coughs instead of barks, as close to the point of failing as those that carried them. Likewise, their armour whined and creaked and moaned with every movement, hissing and snarling from battle damage and lack of maintenance.
Forrix’s own armour had seized at the left ankle, giving him an awkward limp. For the past four hundred metres of the advance he had adopted an almost crabwise gait, bolter pulled tight to his left pauldron, sighting by naked eye along its length.
‘If you fall behind, you’re left behind.’ It wasn’t the most inspirational speech Forrix had ever delivered, but it conveyed everything his weary legionaries needed to know. ‘Keep pushing forward.’
He reached a square pillar and almost fell into it, turning at the last moment to lean his backpack against the blue-and-white tiles. A glance up showed a roof vaulted with broad arcs of plasteel, the rockcrete between cracked and showering trickles of dust. The bombardment was distant, targeting a
nother part of the space port, but its effects were still obvious.
‘Triarch! I’m reading multiple power armour signals in the vicinity,’ Allax reported from the next pillar along, about thirty metres closer to the track.
‘Yes. The occupants are shooting at us!’ Forrix bellowed back.
‘No, there’s even more.’ Allax gestured with his free hand towards the tunnels and upwards. ‘Hard to pinpoint, but scores, maybe hundreds of signals.’
‘From the tunnels? Are you sure?’ Forrix asked, heart sinking. There was no other way out.
Allax’s reply was cut short by a beam of red energy that punched through the pillar and out of his chest.
‘Lascannon!’ The warning was shouted from behind Forrix, too late for Allax. The legionary’s armour collapsed to its knees and then toppled forward. The auspex was still clasped in one hand, the green glow of its screen flickering on the tiles.
‘Cover fire!’ commanded Forrix. He rounded the pillar and let loose three rounds, aiming towards the closest blurs of yellow. A fusillade of fire erupted around him and he broke cover, limping as fast as he could to Allax’s body. A bolt-round detonated on his backpack, spraying the back of his head with hot shards. As he ducked beneath the hole left by the lascannon blast, he felt blood trickling down his neck.
He ignored it and prised the auspex from Allax’s fingers. First glance confirmed that there were readings in the direction of the tunnels and on the same plane as the Iron Warriors. Forrix slid down to a crouch, the auspex falling from his fingers.
It had all been a ridiculous gamble.
If he had really examined the plan, rather than just accepting it as Perturabo had instructed, he would have seen that it required a great many factors to come together to succeed. Too many, it had turned out.
He checked his ammunition. Seven bolt-rounds in his weapon, another magazine of twenty mag-locked to his thigh. He corrected himself, pulling the magazine from Allax’s discarded bolter and fixing it to his spare. Another six bolts.
It was hopeless. The only reasonable objective left was to kill as many foes as possible. Trying to escape would make that harder. Forrix was about to order his remaining warriors to hold fast and die fighting when an orange blur on the screen of the auspex at his feet drew his attention.
‘That’s weapons discharge…’ he muttered to himself, leaning forward to retrieve the scanning device. He panned it back towards the tunnels. The energy signatures grew stronger.
As though in confirmation, his vox buzzed into life, chiming three times to indicate a long-range command channel broadcast. He subvocalised the acceptance.
‘This is Captain Rannock, subordinate command of the Third Spear. Nobody is supposed to be in this warzone. Who is this?’
‘Triarch Forrix. Were you expecting someone else?’
‘Triarch… We thought you were all dead!’
‘We’re not. We’re in the monorail terminal. Heavily engaged. What is your situation?’
‘We’ve been positioned to stall a counter-attack across this axis. There’s a significant force of Imperial Fists and auxiliaries heading right past your position. Arrival time in less than five minutes.’
‘Can you come to us?’
‘Not my orders, triarch. If you command it, we’ll try…’
‘No. No point risking your mission. We’ll come to you.’
‘I’ll send forward five squads to link up.’
‘Good. We’ll have company when we arrive. Forrix out.’
Forrix stood up, avoiding the hole in the pillar, and attached the auspex to a belt clamp. He tuned his vox to general address.
‘All legionaries make speed for the tunnels. Cover and advance by threes. If you haven’t got a three, make pairs. Suppressive fire maximal. We have two minutes to get off this station.’
Fire from the Iron Warriors intensified immediately. Forrix looked around, finding his closest companions were Gharal and a legionary called Dexalaro.
‘On me,’ he called to them, moving to fire a burst through the lascannon hole. ‘Dexalaro, move on.’
They covered the next hundred metres in that fashion, two covering the third from cover to cover. Around them the rest of the force did likewise, though the return fire of the Imperial Fists grew in response, converging on those closest to the tunnels.
‘Onto the rail and then run!’ bellowed Forrix. A score of Space Marines broke cover with him, covering the twenty metres to the edge of the platform while bolts screamed both ways around them. Forrix almost fell into the gap, landing heavily against one of the other legionaries. As Iron Warriors threw themselves against the far platform edge to renew their fire, the next wave pounded across the platform.
Forrix heard a cry and turned to see Gharal down on one knee, thigh armour shattered, blood streaming. He tried to rise but the Imperial Fists were merciless, their fire tracking towards him like a pack of wolves scenting wounded prey. Another round caught Gharal square in the chest, a moment before a third bolt exploded against his shoulder. Three more successive eruptions slammed him backwards, his bolter flying from his grip.
Forrix saw him roll to his belly, clawing through his own blood. Through a shattered lens, the captain looked at the triarch.
‘Fall behind…’ wheezed Gharal. He stopped crawling, reaching out to retrieve his weapon. ‘Left behind.’
Swearing, Forrix looked away and broke into a run, limping along the rail amongst his warriors. He heard the snap of Gharal’s bolter as he resumed firing.
It felt like an eternity before the darkness of the tunnel swallowed him, footfalls loud in the sudden confines. A gleam ahead, suit lamps another couple of hundred metres away, dragged him onwards.
He didn’t look back.
Ultimate sanction
Dorn’s hidden army
A banner unfurled
Galleria Formidus, Senatorum Imperialis, twenty days since assault
It was not often that Amon felt the need to demonstrate obeisance to his superiors, but he did not resist his urge to kneel before the captain-general.
‘I have failed you.’
His confession felt small and worthless, lost in the expanse of the Galleria Formidus, which arched a hundred metres over their heads and stretched three kilometres from end to end. Once a busy thoroughfare between the chambers of the Senatorum Imperialis and the Tower Auris of the Custodians, it was now deserted but for the pair.
‘Failed?’ Valdor gestured for Amon to stand but he ignored it, determined to make plain the depth of his contrition.
‘The daemonic peril continues. Escalates, in point of fact. Faith in the notion of the God-Emperor is spreading more quickly than ever. Keeler and her Lightbearers number almost a thousand devotees now and more sects are making themselves publicly known, no longer fearing admonishment.’
‘Stand up.’ The two words were issued with such vehemence that Amon had to comply. The commander of the Legio Custodes clenched his jaw, and Amon prepared himself for his chastisement. ‘This self-flagellation is unbecoming of a Custodian.’
Valdor turned and gestured for Amon to continue alongside him, towards the halls of the senate where he had been heading when Amon had caught up with him. His expression remained stern.
‘I tasked you with investigating a single incident of untoward behaviour. You may have taken it upon yourself to launch a single-handed crusade against the rise of faith and a daemonic invasion, but that was never my command.’
Amon accepted this in silence.
‘I am on my way to speak with Malcador, I am happy for you to join me.’
‘I do not think that would be the wisest course of action. The Regent clearly has his own agenda in this matter, whether he shares it or not.’
Valdor looked at him sharply.
‘You think he works against the will of the Emperor?�
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Amon did not reply immediately, careful of his words. When they had advanced a few more strides, footfalls echoing along the great marble-and-gold transitway, he gave his answer.
‘I do not believe any of us know the will of the Emperor, not on any specific topic.’ Amon controlled his tone, trying to avoid implication of accusation or complaint. ‘We have only the past and our own counsel to guide us. Unless you have some hidden contact?’
‘No, you are right,’ Valdor conceded with a sigh. ‘I have not been in communion with the Emperor for some time. We can only forward guesses on how He would view the current situation, and in that we must rely on the wisdom of Malcador as much as our own.’
‘On other matters, I would not hesitate to agree. But this is a direct direct against the Emperor, and also a flaunting of one of His most emphatic decrees. I was at–’
‘Yes, Monarchia. However, I was at Nikaea and yet I see even Rogal Dorn makes use of his Librarius again. The Emperor has not issued forth to chastise us for what you must agree would be perceived an even greater crime.’
‘It all revolves around the same tenet of the Imperial Truth, does it not? Faith and psykers. Intricately linked.’
‘The Sisters of Silence had Keeler for many months. They detected no psychic talent within her.’
Amon checked the arguments that came to mind. Instead he focused on practicalities.
‘Keeler is amassing too much power. If she continues it will become harder to remove her.’
‘Remove her?’ Valdor frowned. ‘I thought she had some success in banishing these incursions?’
‘The incursions continue to grow in frequency and magnitude, so I would not make any claims to their efficacy. In fact, the greater the influence of the Lightbearers, the more daemonic activity has increased.’
‘I understand that we have not yet seen anything more potent than these warp-flesh hybrids. Is that true?’
‘For the time being. As Malcador speculated, it seems some physical focus is required. The Emperor’s ward continues to keep at bay any pure manifestation of the Neverborn. Even so, it can only be a matter of time before the corrupted primarchs will be able to breach the barrier. We should proceed on the assumption that Angron, Mortarion and the others will soon directly attack the walls.’