Garro: Vow of Faith

by James Swallow

  He looked up, the nictating membranes in his ocular implants flicking into place to stop the legionary from being blinded. Blocky avian shadows moved up there, searching for targets.

  When Garro looked back, the survivor was dead.

  The legionary pivoted on his heel and brought up his power sword, as six cloaked figures came falling through the canopy, tearing it apart with their violent descent.

  That they were Space Marines was not in doubt. Even in the smoke-wreathed dimness of the encampment, Garro could not mistake the familiar tread of ceramite boots and the whine of servos. But as to their allegiance and the identity of their legion, he could only guess. They did not give him time to speak. It was an assault without question.

  Bolters crashed and chewed up the gritty earth beneath Garro’s feet. He leapt forward into a tumbling roll that took him over a broken pew and out of the line of fire. They came after him in a charge, breaking to the left and the right in an attempt to herd him and block off any routes of escape.

  Flight, however, was the farthest thing from Nathaniel Garro’s mind. Was he facing the same killers who had murdered all the devoted in the sanctuary? Had the arrival of the hover-truck somehow drawn their attention? Perhaps they had come back to make certain of their work, or to ensure that the legionary did not live to tell of it.

  His jaw set as he spun about to face the intruders. No-one was left to speak for these poor souls, and so Garro would speak for them. He would let Libertas be their voice.

  The mighty blade flashed blue-white as power pulsed through it, and Garro threw a hooked kick at a discarded water barrel lying near his feet. The empty container clanged as his foot connected with it, and flew up and at the nearest of the hooded warriors. By reflex, the cloaked figure opened fire and shredded the barrel with a burst of full-auto fire.

  Garro used the split-second distraction to launch himself at one of the long tent poles that supported the fabric roof above their heads, and with a two-handed swing, he cut it clean through. The pole quivered and fell, dragging a swathe of camo-cloth, cables and other detritus on to the heads of the new arrivals.

  As he planned, they broke apart from their careful formation, allowing him to pick single targets of opportunity rather than face a united force. But still, his improvised strategy did not go exactly as he wished. Even as they reacted on instinct, the attackers were still precisely ordered, moving with great economy of motion. There was no wasted effort here, no hesitation. A sudden sense of the familiar prickled Garro’s thoughts, but he was not given time to consider it. Bolters barked and he moved again, falling on the nearest of his enemies.

  From beneath the hood, he caught the briefest glimpse of a blunt-faced helmet, a war-mask that resembled a fortress wall lit by glowing eye slits. Then Garro was swinging the pommel of his sword in a hard cross that raked across at head height.

  The tungsten hemisphere at the base of the blade struck the helm with a sound like the peal of a dull bell, and the impact shock travelled up Garro’s arm. Out of his wargear, he had sparred with other legionaries in the training cages, and in full armour it had been his grim duty to battle turncoats in theirs – bur Garro had never had cause to fight like this, bare genhanced flesh against power-assisted ceramite and plasteel. He had agility and speed on his foes, but they had the advantage of numbers and endurance. One well-aimed bolt shell could end him instantly from range, whereas Garro needed to be close to use his sword at full lethality.

  The warrior he targeted stumbled and went down, caught by the uneven ground underfoot. Garro wanted to grab for his bolter, but he couldn’t pause, not even for a second. Instead, the legionary burst into a sprint, spinning Libertas around in a web of crackling power. Bolt rounds deflected off the flashing edge of the weapon as Garro scrambled up a half-collapsed habitat cube and made a diving attack at the next closest target. This one carried a smaller bolt pistol, and he panned it up to meet Garro with a shot in the chest.

  At the last second, the legionary jack-knifed and fell on the attacker with his sword aimed down. The tip of the blade almost hit the mark, a fraction of a centimetre from the point where the neck-ring of the attacker’s armour joined the helmet seal. Had it fallen true, Libertas would have sliced down inside his collarbone, bursting through lung and primary heart. Instead, the sword tip slashed away hood and cloak, screeching down the chest plate to leave a sparking gouge in the ceramite.

  In the bright aura of the power sword, Garro saw the colour of his adversary’s wargear for the first time. A matte yellow-gold that could only belong to one legion.

  He disengaged, reeling back. ‘The Fists?’

  In answer, a mailed gauntlet rocketed out of nowhere and stuck Garro in the side of the head, the shock and the force of it so great that he almost lost his balance. The few moments the surprise cost him were more than enough for the other warriors to close on him, and a savage kick to the back of Garro’s knees planted him in the soot-caked dirt. A heavy boot clanged down on the blade of his sword, and Garro shook off the pain. When he looked up, he was ringed with the yawning mouths of bolters at point-blank range.

  ‘Traitor swine,’ came a snarl, as the warrior with the torn cloak angrily shook it off. His free hand traced the scratch Libertas had made down his chest. ‘You’ll pay for daring to come here.’ Now revealed, Garro saw that the Imperial Fist was of sergeant’s rank, and marked with many honours from countless campaigns.

  ‘I am no traitor,’ Garro retorted, turning his head to spit out a glob of blood, fighting off the ringing in his ears.

  ‘He is of a Legion,’ said one of the others. ‘That much is plain. What is he doing here?’

  ‘He fought us,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘You attacked me,’ Garro corrected. ‘Have you been waiting on the walls of the Imperial Palace so long that your trigger slips at the first hint of an adversary?’ For a moment he was a battle-captain again, a command officer berating a lower rank for an error of judgement. ‘Your primarch Lord Dorn would be displeased.’

  The Imperial Fists stiffened, and Garro knew he had touched a raw nerve.

  ‘This place is outside the law,’ said the sergeant, his voice low and cold. ‘Those settling here have no protection under Imperial edict, yet still we came. And we find you, without apparent purpose or sigil, armed and dangerous among hundreds of the dead. Give me a reason why I should not execute you and learn your name from your corpse.’

  Garro hesitated. He had become used to the weight of the Sigillite’s mark, of the doors that it could open for him as Agentia Primus, and it felt odd to suddenly be without it. He took a deep breath and stood up, the guns still tracking him. ‘I am Nathaniel Garro. I was once a captain of the XIV Legion–’

  ‘Death Guard?’ The other Fist who had spoken flinched at the name and aimed his bolter right at Garro’s temple. ‘Mortarion’s accursed sons! How did–?’

  The sergeant reached out a hand and pushed the muzzle of the weapon away. ‘I have heard that name before, from my captain. You are Garro of the Eisenstein.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye, the very same.’

  ‘I have also heard that he and his kinsmen, the ones who came to Terra after the archtraitor’s defiance, are prisoners upon Luna. Held there until trust can be verified, or blame laid.’ There was no ease in the words, not the smallest ember of credence. ‘How have you come to be here?’

  Garro frowned. ‘There is more to the matter than what you have heard, sergeant,’ he said carefully. ‘I came to find this outpost… these people. But their deaths were not by my hand.’

  ‘We are to take the word of a turncoat Legion’s son?’ said another of the Imperial Fists. ‘I say we finish what we started.’

  But before the sergeant could decide on a course of action, heavy footfalls signified the approach of more armoured figures. The dropships that had circled overhead had since drifted away to make landings, an
d now more of Dorn’s warriors were entering the desolated settlement.

  A legionary with captain’s laurels came into view. Garro saw he wore a heavy tabard of white ballistic cloth covered in jet-black detail, and chains about his wrist-guards. The device of a black cross, repeated on the armour of all the Imperial Fists, featured prominently upon him. This new arrival reached up to remove his helm and in a gesture of obedience, the sergeant did the same.

  The captain’s blond hair framed a face that Garro had seen before, what seemed like an age ago, in a meeting aboard the star-fortress Phalanx.

  ‘He is who he says,’ said the warrior, his eyes narrowing. ‘Let him be.’

  Garro gave a nod. ‘First Captain Sigismund. Well met.’

  Sigismund’s cold gaze raked over him. ‘That remains to be seen.’

  THREE

  The Templar

  Hesperides

  Tracking

  They sat across from one another in the troop bay of one of the grounded Thunderhawks, alone after the First Captain had barked an order to clear the ship so that they might have some privacy.

  The act seemed unusual to Garro. Knowing the character of Dorn’s stone men as he did, the legionary expected to be clapped in irons and subjected to arrest. Instead, Sigismund reached forward with Garro’s sword and scabbard, briefly confiscated by his subordinates, and laid the weapon on the deck between them.

  Garro made no move to pick it up. His steady gaze held. ‘Did your gene-father order that?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the ruined settlement.

  Sigismund’s jaw clenched. ‘You know better than to say such a thing, Death Guard.’

  ‘I have not been a Death Guard for quite some time,’ he replied. ‘The insurrection has changed many things. Perhaps your master’s countenance is among them.’

  ‘I will choose to believe you are testing me,’ growled the Imperial Fist. ‘And poorly at that. The alternative is that you impugn the honour of the Seventh Legion, and were that to be so, it would go badly for you.’ He pulled a device from a pouch at his waist and Garro saw it was a handheld auspex unit. Sigismund tossed it to him, and he caught it easily. ‘Listen,’ he told him.

  Garro turned the device over in his hands and found that the display screen showed a blinking rune to indicate it carried an audio recording in its memory. He pressed the button to replay the data file, and for a few brief moments the interior of the troop bay echoed with sounds of screaming and the voices of the dead.

  He listened to a man whose words were distorted with terror and feedback as he shouted into a vox-pickup, desperate for someone to hear him, pleading for rescuers to come and save them. The accent was thick and several of the words were from Afrik dialects Garro did not know, but the intent of the message was clear. It had been sent as the killing was in progress, as whatever force had come to murder the sanctuary had done its swift and merciless work. The recording cut off suddenly in the middle of a panicked shout.

  ‘That was picked up on one of the common distress wavelengths,’ Sigismund explained. ‘We came to investigate.’

  ‘And your men thought I was the cause?’

  The First Captain looked away. ‘They reacted with poor judgement. Inaction has made them lax. They’ll be chastised for acting without thinking.’

  Garro realised that was the closest he would get to any kind of an apology. Sigismund went on.

  ‘What are you doing, Battle-Captain? I have heard tell that you were at large. But why here, and why today?’

  ‘Both our missions have altered,’ Garro offered, at length. ‘Since the Eisenstein.’

  Sigismund nodded. ‘You are Malcador’s attack dog now. With armour that bears no sigil or livery. What is it that you are called? A Knight Errant?’

  Garro bristled at the off-hand description of his status. ‘There is more to it than that.’

  ‘Where the Sigillite is concerned, I have no doubt,’ Sigismund shot back. ‘He would build a scheme with a thousand players just to fetch him a cup of amasec.’ He leaned back and cocked his head. ‘But I wager he did not send you to this place. Have you escaped his employ, Garro?’ He nodded at the sword. ‘You’ve left your nameless armour behind. If not for that weapon, I might ask if you had decided to give up the warrior’s calling in hopes of a monastic life.’

  ‘I am here on a duty of my own, not by Malcador’s orders,’ Garro allowed. ‘I came to the sanctuary looking for information.’

  ‘About this?’ Sigismund reached for something and threw a wad of burned devotional papers on the deck, across the sheathed sword.

  Garro ignored the question and kept his eyes fixed on the Imperial Fist. ‘If I am Malcador’s attack dog,’ he began, ‘one might say that you are Lord Dorn’s. What was the name they gave you? The Templar, I recall.’ He gestured at the black cross on Sigismund’s tabard. ‘We both serve masters who seek to safeguard Terra and the Imperium.’

  For the first time, Sigismund’s expression shifted, and Garro saw a cold twist of humourless amusement on his lips. ‘We are alike, is that what you wish me to believe? You, a man who moves in shadows under the aspect of a ghost, are the same as I? Who stands for all to see, his duty clear as daybreak?’

  The First Captain’s blunt truth cut Garro more deeply than he expected. ‘I did not choose the path I am on,’ he said tersely. ‘But we each fight the battle we have, not the battle we want…’ His words faded as a suspicion crystallised, one that had been gnawing at him since the moment the Imperial Fists had arrived. ‘You answered that distress call.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Garro leaned forward. ‘You did. Captain Sigismund, commander of the First Company of the Imperial Fists, defender of this planet… You brought two dropships and a detachment of Space Marines into the desert for… what? The sake of a garbled message from some luckless civilian? There was nothing in that signal to warrant the deployment of such a force. Why not leave it to the local garrison instead?’

  ‘We were passing through the area. It seemed expedient.’

  Garro snorted. ‘You do not lie well, cousin.’ He pieced the facts together. ‘The Imperial Fists were already monitoring this place. It is the only explanation that fits. My question is, for what reason?’ He saw a flicker of doubt in Sigismund’s eyes and chased it down. ‘Or am I mistaken? These warriors are not here at Lord Dorn’s behest… they are here at yours.’

  Sigismund’s face turned to stone, and it was then Garro knew he was right.

  ‘When I first met you,’ said the other captain, after a long moment, ‘I thought you a deluded fool. We pulled you and your fellow refugees from that frozen hulk, dead in space, and you stood before my gene-father with stories about treachery and betrayal. I knew they were lies. Knew it… until the very moment that remembrancer Oliton showed us her memories.’ Sigismund shook his head. ‘Emperor’s Blood, Garro… Do you realize what damage you wrought with your flight?’

  ‘More than you can know. I took no pleasure in it,’ Garro said quietly, and he felt the shadow of that moment pass over him once again. It was not untrue to say that Nathaniel carried resentment for the burden that had been forced on him at Isstvan. ‘I curse Horus Lupercal every day for forcing me to make the choices I did.’

  The Templar looked away. ‘The woman, Keeler. You know what she is.’ It wasn’t a question.

  Garro frowned. ‘I…’ He halted, unable to frame his thoughts. ‘We have spoken. I was… illuminated by her insights.’ He nodded in the direction of the burnt-out settlement. ‘I hoped to find her here so we might talk again.’

  ‘She spoke to me,’ said Sigismund, and Garro could tell that the admission was a hard one for the Imperial Fist to voice. ‘Told me things. Showed me things.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. She has a way about her.’ Garro thought back on the counsel Keeler had given him when he felt lost and rudderless. That she had become
connected to some greater actuality, perhaps some fragment of the Emperor’s manifested will, had never been in doubt. It came as no surprise to him that the so-called Saint shared that counsel with others. He looked at Sigismund with fresh eyes, assimilating this new truth.

  It was as if he had given the First Captain permission to unburden himself. As he went on, hesitantly at first, Sigismund leaned close in the manner of a brother sharing a confidence. He described how he had crossed paths with Keeler aboard the Phalanx, and spoke of the futures she had laid out before him – one, to perish forgotten and alone under an alien sun; the other, to stand at Dorn’s side when the inevitable invasion of Terra took place. Sigismund told him of his own grave choice, to go back on his primarch’s command to lead a chastisement force against Horus, and beg a different posting closer to home.

  Suddenly, Garro understood why the Imperial Fist had ordered his men to leave them aboard the Thunderhawk. He did not want anyone else to hear this, to glimpse what some might see as a fissure of weakness in the man’s otherwise granite-hard exterior. If the Knight Errant ever spoke of what was said here, he knew he would be ignored and derided by Sigismund’s brethren.

  As Garro had become Malcador’s agent in acts of preparation and retribution, so Sigismund had been tasked by Dorn along the same lines. The First Captain purged the Solar System of Horus’ spies wherever he could find them – and Garro had frequently seen the results of his work from the sidelines as their missions crossed one another, always in parallel but never in unity.

  But there had come a moment when Sigismund could no longer keep his secrets from his gene-father. That bleak mien Garro had seen pass over the Imperial Fist’s face before returned, and he saw it for what it was – great sorrow and regret. Sigismund confessed to Dorn, and in turn his primarch tore him down for it. The master of the VII Legion decried Keeler as a charlatan trading in worthless religionist dogma, and reprimanded his son for allowing himself to be swayed by her.