by Gav Thorpe
Sickened, she turned her gaze back to the tree, seeing weeping sores upon the bark, streams of black-threaded sap pouring from burrow holes.
As before she longed to ascend to the branches, where dark clouds hung like creepers among the dying leaves. Instinct told her to look down, right to the base of the great tree where the roots pushed hard into the earth. That was where she had felt the faith lifting her, feeding her from the roots, and that was the strength of the Emperor too.
She dived, heedless of the wet ground rushing up to meet her. Mouth closed, she plunged into the murky waters that drowned the tree’s roots, feeling coldness on her skin, thick ooze pushing into ears and nostrils, eyes closed tight.
Keeler thrashed into the sucking mud, trying to force herself deeper and deeper, feeling her heart hammering as her breath grew short.
She forced her eyes open, straining in the filth, hands groping in front of her, following the root trails deep into the ground, far from light and air.
Faith.
Faith exists to be tested.
She recalled the line from the Book of Divinity.
Faith sustains when all else is lost.
Keeler grasped the root tendril ahead of her and used it like a rope, pulling herself further and further from salvation, letting its roughness between her fingers guide her when all other senses were blinded and numb.
Her hand came upon something slick, her fingers sinking into a slug-like growth. Her questing revealed it to be one appendage of a much greater entity coiled deep in the mud, sucking the life from the tree.
Here was the source of the rot.
She could not fight it here, but seized the rubbery limb in both hands, turning to ascend through the murk. Something far below, something ancient and vast, bucked and resisted, but she gritted her teeth, the rancid muck dribbling into her mouth, threatening to choke her.
With all her strength she started to pull, dragging the creature away from the tree roots, kicking her way back towards the light.
Lion’s Gate space port, interstitial bridges,
twenty-two days since assault
Sigismund watched the crimson-armoured figure arc above the shield wall of his brethren, incredulous that such a jump could be made. His belief was stretched further as he watched Khârn running straight at him.
‘Shall we gun him down, captain?’ asked Eghrlich, lifting his plasma gun.
‘No, save your fire for them,’ replied Sigismund, raising his sword towards the Sons of Horus and Iron Warriors that swept forward in the wake of the World Eaters’ headlong charge. He saw the bulk of a Terminator suit among the Warmaster’s gene-sons and recognised the markings of Ezekyle Abaddon. ‘When I am done with Khârn I will cut off the right hand of Horus.’
The World Eater did not slow in his approach but swept up the dragon-toothed axe over his shoulder. A crude, slow move that Sigismund would easily counter as he moved forward to meet Khârn’s charge.
Spinning teeth smashed against the edge of the Templar’s sword with a force he had not reckoned for. The strength of the blow jarred Dorn’s son mid-stride, knocking him off balance. Taken aback, Sigismund spun, dodging the next blow while he assessed his options. Khârn gave him no time at all, rushing like a bull with a wordless bellow.
Khârn’s axe rang against the sword, swept away and lashed back again. He was breathing hard, a fog jetting from the vents of his helm, swathing them both in a ruddy mist as dusk light pushed through the cloud cover below them. Sigismund took one step backwards, deflecting each blow as it came. Khârn pulled away, growled, and hammered in again.
Now expecting the greater strength of his foe, Sigismund parried with a looser grip, turning aside with timing rather than meeting force with force.
‘I have your measure, as always,’ he told the traitor. ‘This time there is no cage.’
He swerved away from the next strike, letting the tip of his blade lash out towards Khârn’s chest. It carved a furrow through the dried blood and ceramite, leaving steaming, ruddy swirls in its wake.
‘Still… Hnnh. Still chained to your duty, I see,’ Khârn snorted, shoulders heaving with effort as he stepped back. Gorechild’s head weaved a figure of eight, as though moving with a life of its own while Khârn stepped to the left, seeking an opening.
‘Better duty than the emptiness of self-service.’ Sigismund stepped and thrust hard, but Gorechild flashed down to meet the attack with stunning speed and impact, sending the Templar staggering away.
‘You are weak. Duty isn’t purpose, Sigismund.’ Khârn flexed his fingers on the haft of his chainaxe, moving from side to side on the balls of his feet. ‘Your lord is empty. He cares nothing for your blood.’
Sigismund attacked again, lancing his sword towards Khârn’s groin. The haft of Gorechild met it, but Sigismund had been relying on the parry, having seen Khârn employ it many times before in the World Eaters’ duelling cage.
‘Enough talk,’ he spat as he turned, swinging the sword in a wide arc, the blade crashing against the World Eater’s pauldron. He rained down another blow against his foe’s chest, seeking to keep him off balance.
Khârn pushed into the attack rather than retreating, so that the blade edge struck his helm a glancing blow. Gorechild screamed as it slashed into Sigismund’s arm and juddered down his vambrace to shatter the chain binding the Templar’s sword to his wrist.
‘Jubal was right. Hnnh. You are better without them.’
It was a fool’s move, a gesture that left Khârn open to a deadly attack. Sigismund cared nothing for ceremony, hacking double-handed towards his enemy’s gut. The blade bit deep, searing into armour and flesh. Blood spilled as he ripped it free.
He swung again, blade meeting axe overhead. Sigismund braced, trying to turn aside his enemy’s weapon. With a deafening bellow, Khârn flexed, thrusting Sigismund back with raw strength.
Stumbling, almost falling to one knee, Sigismund saw the seams of Khârn’s armour parting, splitting where plate met plate. Slabs of muscle bulged beneath, unnaturally swollen even for a Space Marine, veins as thick as power cables taut beneath thick skin.
‘I serve a power greater than yours,’ Khârn roared, lifting up Gorechild, sunlight sparkling from its mica-dragon tooth blades. Flecks of the Templar’s blood showered down upon him. ‘You are hollow, Sigismund. Hnnh. You’ll never beat me again.’
Sigismund dived aside, too late to fully avoid the blow. Dragon’s teeth caught his left thigh, ripping chunks from power armour and genhanced muscle.
In that moment Sigismund understood Keeler’s words and knew that he was beaten. As legionaries there were none among the traitors that could match him. The Legions’ greatest had always been his inferiors. Corswain of the Dark Angels. Jubal of the White Scars. Khârn of the World Eaters. Sevatar of the Night Lords. Lucius of the Emperor’s Children. Abaddon of the Luna Wolves.
But as he looked at the warped figure that had once been his sword-companion, he knew that he no longer fought legionaries. He had to be more too, something pure to match their vileness. To draw strength from a power beyond himself.
The Emperor.
If only he had heeded the lesson earlier, learned its full meaning.
A shadow covered them both for an instant before a flare of weapons and plasma jets lit the fog. Missiles scythed down while lascannons spat sparkling beams of death. Khârn looked up and the Templar spared a glance to recognise the shape of Aetos Dias, the personal gunship of the Praetorian.
The nose opened and from the assault ramp appeared a large armoured figure. It fell through the smoke, glinting gold, and slammed into the ferrocrete a few metres from Sigismund and Khârn. A giant clad in the same auric-adamant of the Emperor Himself, bearing a two-handed chainsword as tall as a legionary. In the flash of gunfire Sigismund looked upon the face of his genefather, nostrils flaring, teeth bared. Dorn’s ey
es were not on him, but fixed upon the wider battle.
Bellowing, Khârn hurled himself at the primarch. Dorn swung Storm’s Teeth to meet the captain, the force of the blow throwing Khârn a dozen metres through the air. Dorn spared not a second glance as warriors clad in Terminator armour materialised around him, sent from the teleportaria deep within the bastion of the Lion’s Gate.
At the same moment, the Imperial Fists’ shield wall broke, a spearhead of Sons of Horus and Iron Warriors crashing through amid bolter volleys and gleaming powerblades. Sigismund tried to stand but his wounded leg gave way, cut to the bone.
Dorn’s gunship landed and more Imperial Fists swept forward around their lord, the white of an Apothecary among them heading for the Templar. He lost sight of Khârn beyond the erupting melee, an instant before hands grabbed his pauldrons and dragged him towards the Thunderhawk.
Sigismund’s thigh was agony, but it was nothing compared to the pain of his shame.
Keeler confronts the taint
Manifestations of false hope
Layak’s destiny
Unknown
Gaining speed, Keeler focused her thoughts on the branches of the great tree, imagined them in the bright sun as she clambered up through the labyrinth of roots. The parasitic worm thrashed in her grip, mewling and shrieking, occasionally falling silent when promises of everlasting life and eternal hope whispered in her thoughts.
She realised that in her haste she had lost herself amidst the tangle, suffocating and blinded by the putrescent mulch that ebbed around the roots. She had no sense of up and down, only the tug of the creature away from her offering any feeling of direction at all.
She continued on until another passage from the Lectitio Divinitatus came to mind.
Faith should not be blind. Faith is not ignorance, but acceptance. Faith should always be measured, and directed, and serve the purpose of the Emperor not the faithful.
How was she to find direction in the lightless morass? If faith alone could not buoy her up, how was she to ascend to the light again? She fought back a surge of panic, during which the creature’s whispering grew in vehemence, offering her a lifetime of certainty and purpose if only she followed it back into the depths.
Rather than succumb to despair, she forged on, but stopped shortly after, second-guessing herself. She had been fooled once by the Hope in her Heart; was it possible that it was trying to mislead her now? What if it was pulling towards the surface, trying to trick her into plunging deeper into the darkness?
Doubt assailed her, bringing weakness to her grip, so that she almost let go of the slick tendril in her fist. It had been so long since she had taken a breath but she dared not open her mouth. The thought of the malignant ooze around her slipping into her throat, infecting her lungs, caused a flurry of terror. Sensing her weakness, the worm-creature thrashed hard, forcing her to reach out a hand to seize a root to brace herself.
Her fingers closed not around the rough texture of wood, but something smooth, and cool.
Metal.
Gold.
She could not see it but she sensed it. Her exploring fingers identified the link, slender here, but as she pulled herself up a short way the chain grew stronger and thicker.
Chains of faith.
Keeler was confused. She had thought the chains were some kind of prison, an artifice of the enemy ensnaring the Emperor. Yet her faith had brought her to them, and through them she climbed, growing in courage again. One arm wrapped about the squirming entity, she heaved with the other.
After an eternity, her head broke through a layer of rotted leaves and broken carcasses. She opened her mouth and took in a long draught of air. It was tainted by decay but tasted as sweet as nectar after her confinement in the bog.
Grunting, giving vent to her frustration and effort, she pulled an arm free, clinging to one of the massive chains that stretched up into the branches. Finally, she saw the letters inscribed on the chain and she let out a short laugh.
Kyril Sindermann.
It was his faith that had saved her.
Though it was a mighty limb, the bough from which the chain hung bent under her weight, the tree swaying ever so slightly as she used the links to pull herself out to her waist.
She realised that each time she pulled herself up, she also dragged down part of the tree.
Basilica Ventura, western processional,
twenty-two days since assault
The fly swarm had thinned around Amon, though hundreds of the loathsome insects clustered around Keeler, encasing her in a writhing coat of darkness. She seemed oblivious and immobile, though one hand dropped away from Olivier’s, the other still clung tightly to Sindermann, who stared vacantly ahead. In the periphery of his vision Amon also saw the miasma dissipating, seeping into the thousands of worshippers gathered around the platform. Their skin greyed and their eyes rolled up as the cursed fog entered them, jaws lolling open, trails of saliva falling from slack lips.
More than a century of warfare had honed Amon’s instincts to the sharpest edge. So it was that he brought his guardian spear to readiness a fraction of a second before Olivier leapt at him. The Lightbearer’s eyes had also rolled back, black tears falling from the ducts to coat his cheeks in oily grime. He had no weapon, his lunge met by the tip of the guardian spear, which split his shoulder open, his left arm flopping to the metal decking of the stage even as Amon sidestepped to let his attacker flail past.
The blood that gushed from the injury bubbled with something unnatural, so that it hissed and spat as it hit the platform. Olivier stumbled and turned, not the least afflicted by the wound.
Amon fired, three bolts direct to the tainted man’s face, tearing apart the skull and brain. The body toppled, lifeless.
The two book-bearers came next, gurgling through mouths filled with sickly yellow mucus, the same black tears dripping from their eyes, pustules erupting around their nostrils and on the backs of their hands.
His guardian spear whipped out, beheading the first. Amon stepped close, ramming his fingers into the throat of the other, snapping the neck. The woman slapped her hands against his armour, sustained beyond the breaking of her spine. Amon tore the head completely free and kicked the twisting body away.
He ran to the edge of the platform. Many of the crowd were surging up the steps towards him. The chatter of bolter fire announced that the protective field had failed – or been withdrawn – and that his companions were assailed in a similar manner. The snarl of rotary cannons split the background din of the bombardment, joined by the noise of plasma engines as the Custodian cutter renewed its attack run down the processional. The Sisters of Silence had disembarked from their gunship at the far end of the route. Muzzle flare marked their slow progress into the horde of aimless worshippers.
The stage was flanked by two sets of steps, each three flights high. Amon could not defend both: to stand at the top of one would be to expose his back to the other.
He looked at Keeler. She was still entombed within a sarcophagus of flies, only her hand where it held Sindermann’s visible among the welter of buzzing wings and furred bodies.
He could not abandon her, either.
Amon levelled his guardian spear and took up a wide stance just in front of Keeler. The metal steps creaked as scores of tainted Lightbearers raced up them, pants and moans growing louder as they ascended.
The first group appeared to his left. He leapt across the distance between to meet them with his spear, three slashes taking down the first handful. Spinning, he fired across to the other steps, stitching explosions across the bodies of four more. He cut down another half a dozen before breaking away, dashing past Keeler to bring the tip of his spear down through the skull of another.
He fired, emptying the spear’s remaining ammunition in a series of controlled bursts, aiming high into the crowd pouring up the left-hand steps.
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There was no attendant to reload for him, but he managed to swap out the magazine with a second to spare before they came upon him from the right. The bolter attachment roared, turning the head of the closest half-born to a bloody mess.
Nineteen more shots, and then he would be down to his blade alone.
Lion’s Gate space port, interstitial bridges,
twenty-two days since assault
Abaddon’s experiences of late had somewhat inured him to the presence of primarchs, but he still felt a primal shiver of response to the sight of Rogal Dorn carving his way through the Warmaster’s forces like a golden blade. Bolts and blades struck his armour without effect while great sweeps of his chainsword dismembered and decapitated legionary after legionary, leaving a trail of bloodied armour plates and broken corpses in the primarch’s wake.
What had been a victorious final charge to drive the Imperial Fists from the space port faltered in the face of the Emperor’s son. Across the bridges, companies slowed in the advance, baulked by the prospect of facing Dorn’s wrath, waylaid by the reinforcements that he had brought with him.
Abaddon slowed, his remaining warriors taking station around him, weapons raised towards the incoming giant. He had expected he would have to face one of the Emperor’s greatest sons before the war was over, but the prospect was far from thrilling.
‘It is not your time.’ Layak continued onwards, his blade slaves flanking him, a halo of power writhing about the tip of his staff. ‘I see now that this moment was ordained for me long ago. Remember that the gods always demand a price, but if you are willing to pay, their power is yours to command.’
The urge that had drawn Abaddon to push forwards in support of Khârn did not surface for Zardu Layak. The lord of the Mournival watched with detached interest as the priest conjured a gleaming hemisphere of power about himself and advanced several dozen metres to take up position between the oncoming primarch and the Warmaster’s First Captain.
He felt no brotherhood with the creature Layak had become, any more than he did the Neverborn that wore Grael Noctua’s skin or cloaked itself in the guise of the Word Bearers’ vakrah jal. Not that Layak was no longer human, but his motives had long since departed any mortal concern. He was wholly a creature of Chaos, and as such served only the gods’ ends, not those of any other around him.