by John French
He preferred it this way, preferred the inside of his own thoughts. It reminded him of a time before he knew of his father’s death, when the world was made of straight lines of logic and strength.
What happens to a Legion when its primarch dies? His thoughts spiralled on as the Storm Eagle slid through emptiness towards the Thetis. What happens to his sons without his hand to guide them? What will become of us?
‘Crius.’
Boreas’s voice broke the spiral of his thoughts, and he shook himself and opened his eyes. They had reached the Thetis, he realised.
The Storm Eagle’s hull creaked as she settled, the engines and systems sighing as they cycled to sleep. Boreas was standing, looking down at Crius with that carved-stone expression that only ever broke to show anger. The light gleamed from the templar’s armour, catching the eagle wings etched into the golden yellow plate. A cloak of black and red hung down Boreas’s back, and the skull upon the pommel of his sheathed sword winked at Crius with eyes of jet.
‘Are you ready for this, Crius?’ he asked, and for a second Crius thought he saw a flicker of emotion in the warrior’s dark eyes.
Pity? he wondered. Is that all that remains for us?
He nodded to Boreas, unclamped the mag-harness, and rose. The servos in his leg stuttered. Error-data and pain stabbed through his body. He cursed silently but did not let it show upon his face. The malfunctions in his augmetics had become worse since they had left the Solar System, as though the metal added to his flesh echoed the fractures in his soul.
Or rejects the weakness growing in me, he thought, as he checked the thunder hammer at his back and the bolt pistol locked to his thigh.
‘I am ready,’ said Crius at last, and they turned to face the ramp of the Storm Eagle as it lowered. For a second his eyes dimmed at the brightness of the light, then rebalanced. Their gunship sat at the centre of a floodlit circle in an otherwise gloomy cavern. He turned his head, taking in the echoing space that extended to darkness on either side. Assault craft covered the deck, silent and cold, their hulls marked by damage. Stormbirds, Thunderhawks and assault rams crowded together with craft of a dozen other configurations. He recognised the colours of Salamanders, Night Lords, Raven Guard, Imperial Army regiments and the Adeptus Mechanicum, all jumbled together like the store of a scavenger. The air was like the breath from an open furnace door.
Twelve figures waited for them. Crius’s eyes flicked over them, noting the scratched and dented black battleplate and the markings of five different clans of the Iron Hands. Each of them wore armour that looked as though it had been repaired many times over, growing in bulk each time. Crius recognised none of these legionaries, but it had been almost a decade since he had been sent to Terra, and the hundred thousand faces of a Legion could change much in that time.
‘I am Crius,’ he said, and heard his voice echo. ‘One-time chief of the Kadoran, and Solar Emissary of Ferrus Manus.’ He paused, turning to indicate Boreas. ‘Beside me stands Boreas, Templar of the Seventh Legion. I come with tidings and orders from Rogal Dorn, Praetorian of Terra.’
The Iron Hands did not move or respond. Crius frowned.
‘To whom do I speak, brothers?’
‘I am Athanatos,’ said a static-laden voice. The speaker’s face was a black iron skull, with a pierced grill for a mouth. Blue light burned cold in the skull’s eye sockets. Cables punctured Athanatos’s scalp, trailing back into the gorget of his armour. The plate itself was a mixture of patterns and designs fused together around its wearer. Crius registered the details of the hunched shoulders, weapon-tipped arms and secondary pistons visible through gaps in the arm and leg plating. Droplets of moisture clung to the dented plates, as though they had been scattered with rain. ‘I know your name, Crius of the Kadoran,’ added Athanatos. ‘I stood under your command on Yerronex. Few still thought you among the living.’
Crius sorted through legionary records and images in his memory, until he found the face of a line sergeant with grey-steel eyes. If it had not been for the name, he might never have thought it to be the same warrior.
‘Of what clan-companies are you?’ asked Crius.
‘Of what we were, nothing remains.’ Athanatos paused, static scratching at the edge of the words. ‘Brother.’
Crius swept his gaze over the circle of Iron Hands. ‘These who stand beside you?’ He noticed their stillness again. Like Athanatos, their armour was sheened with moisture. Why is the air so hot? he wondered.
‘The few that came from the fields of slaughter,’ said Athanatos. ‘We are of the Thetis now.’
‘You were on Isstvan Five?’
The pause lasted for several long heartbeats.
‘Yes, Crius of the Kadoran. We were there,’ said Athanatos, his speaker grill popping and crackling. ‘And on Gagia, and Sacrissan, and Agromis.’
‘These places are not known to me,’ said Crius.
‘They are places of battle, places of vengeance and death to the betrayers,’ said another of the Iron Hands, standing near Athanatos.
Crius looked at him. His face was bare, without the mark of augmetics, but the iron was in his eyes. Interface sockets dotted his layered armour, and cables hung from the base of his skull like a cloak of snakes. His lips pursed and a frown etched its lines between the service studs on his skull.
‘I am Phidias,’ he said, as if in answer to the question Crius was about to ask. ‘I am commander and keeper of the Thetis.’ Crius thought he caught a flicker within Phidias’s stare, perhaps a brief flare of emotion. ‘It is good to see another of our kind amongst the living.’
‘How many of your Legion are with you?’ demanded Boreas. Athanatos turned his head slowly to look at the Imperial Fists legionary.
‘Our strength stands before you, son of Dorn.’
So few… Crius felt the leaden weight in his stomach swell. When he had last seen the Thetis, she had carried three thousand warriors under arms. An image of corpses scattered under fire-soaked skies filled his mind before he could control it. How many are lost and dead at our father’s side?
‘Rogal Dorn asks that you return to Terra,’ said Crius. ‘To stand there with our brother Legions.’
‘Asks?’ said Athanatos.
‘Or demands?’ added Phidias.
‘The strength of all Legions must be gathered to defend Terra,’ said Boreas, taking a step forward. Crius could see the lines of the templar’s face harden. ‘You must return with us, as Lord Crius says.’
‘Lord Crius…’ Athanatos purred the words, as he nodded to the severed chains still hanging from Crius’s wrists. ‘What is he lord of?’
Boreas was moving to reply, but Athanatos spoke again.
‘Your strength failed long ago, Crius of the Kadoran. We will not return with you. We will not turn away from what lies before us.’
‘What of the signal you sent into the void?’ demanded Boreas. ‘The gathering of war?’
‘We are here,’ said Phidias.
‘And the other survivors, the rest of the Legion?’
‘We have not seen any others of the Legion since the massacre,’ said Athanatos.
‘Not until now,’ Phidias muttered.
Details clicked into place in Crius’s mind, completing patterns and closing off possibilities. He let out a long breath as the realisation formed. He felt a sudden need to shiver despite the heat crawling in the air.
‘The signal is not a summons,’ he said. Boreas turned to look at him. ‘It is bait.’
‘We draw our enemies to us,’ nodded Phidias.
‘There are hunters amongst the stars,’ said Athanatos. ‘They seek us now as they have ever since we escaped Isstvan. They will have heard our summons. They know enough of us to understand its meaning. They will come, and we will face them.’
‘With a handful?’ asked Boreas.
‘With every weapon we have,’ replied Athanatos.
‘If you had a hundred times the numbers…’ said Crius, then shook his hea
d. ‘You will perish here, brothers.’
‘Perish…’ Athanatos echoed, rolling the word through the hot air.
‘How can you hope to do anything other than die here?’
Athanatos laughed then, a crackling growl of noise that clattered in the silence like grinding gears.
‘This is no longer a war of hope, brother – this is a war of vengeance and extermination.’ He shook his head. ‘The primarch is gone, the Great Crusade is done and soon the Imperium will follow. All that matters is that those who brought us to this end will share our graves.’
Boreas snarled. Crius heard the blade begin to scrape from the templar’s scabbard. He turned and fastened his hand on the grip of the half-drawn sword and met the Imperial Fists legionary’s burning eyes. Around them, he could hear the high-pitched whine of charged focusing rings and the clunk of firing catches as volkite and bolt weapons armed.
‘No,’ said Crius. ‘Your death or theirs will serve no purpose here.’
Boreas stared back, his face a blank setting for the rage in his eyes. Crius felt the servos in his hands whine as they strained to hold the sword still. Slowly, Crius released his grip and turned back to Athanatos.
‘Forgive our kinsman of the Seventh. Your words…’ Crius paused, his tongue still behind his open teeth. His eyes clicked and refocused. ‘Your words surprised him.’
‘You are wrong when you say that death serves no purpose,’ said Athanatos. ‘Death is all there is now.’
What has become of these brothers? wondered Crius as Athanatos turned away, armour creaking and hissing. Phidias and the rest of the Iron Hands turned to follow.
‘We will remain with you,’ Crius called out. Boreas caught his eye but said nothing. ‘For now.’
‘You speak as though there were any other choice,’ said Athanatos as he walked away.
‘Madness,’ breathed Boreas.
Crius did not reply. He and Boreas stood on the bridge of the Thetis, on the peninsular of shaped granite that lay beneath her command throne and above the servitor-filled canyons of the control systems. The whole chamber was five hundred metres long and half as wide. Pillars reached up to a vaulted ceiling a hundred metres above the deck. Black iron braziers hung from chains, adding their coal-glow to the cold green and blue of hololith-screens. Silent crew sat at their consoles, heads bowed, cables snaking from the folds in their charcoal robes to link to the banks of machinery. Tech-priests in white and red robes moved between the machines like ghosts.
Raw heat filled the air even here, which smelled of worn metal and electrical charge. To Crius, it felt both familiar and unsettling, like a friend’s face subtly scarred.
Phidias sat in the command throne above and behind them. A host of cables swarmed over him, linking him to the ship’s systems. Athanatos and the other Iron Hands had vanished after they had left the hangar deck – they had not appeared again.
Crius turned his eyes back to the display showing the empty void around the Thetis. The display was a polyhedron of blue light revolving above a dais of black crystal. Data runes swam through the holo-projection, tracking the position of void debris with the Thetis at its centre. The Oathbound was out of sight in the shadow of a planetoid which rolled slowly through the near reaches of space. Phidias had told Boreas to order his ship away, and that she was to remain silent, no matter what occurred. No threat had needed to be spoken for all to understand that if the Oathbound did not obey then she would be destroyed. Boreas had given the order.
Crius turned slowly to look at the templar. A charge of restrained control and focused rage surrounded Boreas, like hard and soft steel forged together to make a blade.
‘What strength they have will end here, wasted for spite,’ said Boreas.
‘They do not intend to die here,’ Crius said after a long moment of silence. ‘That is not our way.’
‘They are not like you. They are like no Iron Hands I have ever met.’
Yes, thought Crius. They are like another Legion, or a shadow cast by the past…
They had not been allowed to leave the bridge, and on their journey from the hangar decks he had seen no sign of any other Iron Hands – just servitors, and serfs hooded in tattered grey. He took a deep breath, and wondered again why it was so hot.
‘A ship with a carcass-house of assault craft, but only a “handful” of warriors…’ said Boreas, letting the words hang. ‘And now Athanatos is nowhere to be seen.’ He looked at Crius, his face grim. ‘Secrets,’ he muttered softly, as though following the thread of his suspicion.
‘No, reasons,’ said Crius. Boreas held his gaze. ‘They are still my brothers. Even if they have changed. We are still kin. We are still…’
…the sons of a dead father. The thought caught in his mind and he felt the tide of emptiness rise inside him again.
‘Look.’ The word echoed from vox speakers across the bridge. Crius’s mind snapped clear as he looked up at the command throne. Phidias’s voice rumbled through the air again. ‘They come.’
Crius turned his eyes back to the hololith display. At the edge of the projection, red marker runes of enemy ships blinked into existence. Names began to form beside the spreading clutch of ships.
‘Sons of Horus,’ Boreas breathed. ‘They do not even hide their allegiance.’
‘They want us to know who they are,’ said Phidias. ‘They want us to know it is them when they destroy us. In that, they have not changed.’
Crius read the data spilling from the enemy vessels. He recognised them all. Three of the ships were spear-hulled, skinned in sea-green adamantium and bronze. They had been born in the forges of Armatura and gifted to Horus by Guilliman – the Lord of the Ultramarines had named his gifts, Spear Strike, Wolf of Cthonia and Dawnstar, and there were few to match them for speed and ferocity.
The fourth ship, larger and blunter than the rest, had a history that stretched back to the first wars beyond the light of Terra’s sun. The Emperor had christened her the Death’s Child, and she still bore that name in treachery.
‘Two thousand legionaries,’ muttered Crius, calculating the likely numbers. ‘If we are fortunate then they will be under strength.’
‘They are firing!’ shouted Boreas.
Crius saw a spread of markers break away from the four ships. The torpedo clusters sped towards them.
‘Twelve seconds to impact,’ called a grey-robed crewman.
‘Why do you not return fire?’ called Crius. Phidias said nothing. The clatter of machines swelled through the bridge, the crew bent over a thousand tasks, but the Thetis’s guns remained silent. ‘You must–’
The bridge pitched with the first detonations. Crius staggered and caught his balance. Alarm after alarm began to sound. Red fire leapt up. The reek of charring meat filled the air; crewmen were burning at their stations, their screams lost in the din. White gas vented into the bridge space.
Phidias did not move in his throne. Crius wondered if he was even aware of what was happening in front of him, or if his interfaced mind now saw only the darkness beyond the hull.
Another blow ran through the ship. The deck pitched and for a second the gravity failed. Mortal bodies flew into the air. Cables ripped free of flesh. Blood sprayed out, the droplets breaking into hanging globules.
Crius rose from the deck with the rest of them, tumbling end over end. Then the gravity cut back in and he crashed back down, rolling and coming up in a crouch. Boreas was next to him, already on his feet.
Around them, mayhem reigned in the smoke and flame.
‘We have to find Athanatos,’ shouted Crius. ‘If Phidias will not listen, he must. They have to run, before they are overwhelmed.’
Boreas glanced at the chaos around them and nodded. As one they pulled themselves from the deck and made for the door. Behind them, the alarms screamed on.
In the Thetis’s command throne, Phidias felt his ship shudder with anger. The Thetis was bleeding across her hull. Gas, plasma and machine fluid sprayed from f
resh holes in her scarred skin. He felt each wave of damage as a stab of pain through what remained of his flesh. It was a small price to pay. An irrelevance.
The hololithic projection hanging in front of him swam with the red markers of enemy craft, closing fast.
‘Turn to face them,’ he said. ‘Power to the engines.’ A second later he felt the ship begin to obey. The crew and adepts on the bridge cancelled new warning alarms as they triggered. They knew better than to question the order.
This will be a great father of firestorms, he thought. Perhaps this will be our last. He shivered in his armour. No, we are not done with this war yet. While we still have strength, we will never be done.
‘Enemy targets, thirty seconds from battery weapons range,’ called out a battered signal officer. Phidias did not even nod; he knew already and could see the range to the three Sons of Horus ships draining down to nothing.
‘Begin the rites,’ said Phidias, over the noise of the bridge. ‘Waken them.’
Crius had stopped at the sight of the doors, his flesh prickling, his breath stopped in his throat. Behind him Boreas halted, his eyes going up to trace the doors’ height into the darkness above. Condensation covered the pitted adamantium. The air was very hot, as though they stood beside a fire. A steaming pool had gathered upon the threshold, its surface a black mirror disturbed only by the tremors of the void battle that wracked the ship. Crius had the overwhelming feeling that this place had been waiting for him to find it.
They had found it by accident. Running through the empty corridors of the Thetis, they had felt the tremors of battle, and seen the lighting dim and flicker, but found no sign of Athanatos. Then the doors had just been there, looming above them.
‘A weapons cache,’ said Boreas.