by Ben Counter
As the storm rose to a crescendo and Riggensen knew he was about to black out, Valinov cracked.
The diamond of resolve shattered and the shards ripped through Valinov's mind. Valinov himself was thrown backwards to land flat on his back, blood pumping from his ears and nose, his breath gasping hopelessly through a blood-flecked grimace.
'Speak.' said Riggensen breathlessly.
Valinov's mind was blown wide open. Riggensen could see atrocity and corruption in hideous vistas of memory. Faces screamed. Blood flowed. Whole worlds died before Riggensen's psychic eye.
'The Prince will rise.' said Valinov weakly. 'The Thousand Faces will look on the galaxy and make it ours. The Prince will give mankind to the Lord of Change and the galaxy will turn to Chaos under his eye.'
'More.'
'The... the tides of fate are his to control, the ways of men are weapons in his hands, the course of time runs as he wishes, everything that makes you and decides your fate is the tool he uses to rule...'
'More. Tell me everything. Everything.'
Valinov coughed and thick blood flowed down his chin. 'My Prince Ghargatuloth will never die. Only the lightning bolt will cleanse this reality of Ghargatuloth's presence, and the bolt is buried so deep... there is no time, no space, no fate, no will, there is only Chaos... for the bolt is buried so deep...'
Valinov convulsed and couldn't speak further. Riggensen felt blind horror emanating from Valinov's mind, and he knew that the man had spoken the truth. He was horrified that he had broken, that he had given away so much. That meant his words represented a great and terrible secret he had sworn to keep.
Riggensen turned to the interrogators in the monitoring station behind him. They were covered in cuts from shattered monitor screens, but they were still at their stations.
'Did Enceladus get that?' said Riggensen.
'Everything,' replied one of the interrogators. 'Recorded and sent. Comms never went down.'
'Good. We'll need to get a transcript to the astropaths for transmission to Inquisitor Ligeia.' Riggensen looked down at Valinov, who barely had the strength left to breath. 'And get the apothecary crew in here. We want him healthy for his execution.'
Chapter Five
VICTRIX SONORA
THE DIRTY TURQUOISE sky of Victrix Sonora was darkening as late evening rolled by and the siege entered its eighth hour. A cordon of steel had been thrown around the Administratum complex in the heart of Theograd, the second-largest of the agri-world's settlements, where barricades of spiked steel had been set up covering every angle of fire and rows of Arbites riot-control APCs sheltered assault groups as they edged towards the sinister black-windowed building.
Several of the windows were broken. Here and there bodies lay broken on the paving outside the building where they had been thrown from the upper floors or gunned down as they ran. The remains of Squad 12, the Adeptus Arbites unit that had tried to force entry to the building, were piled around the door where high-powered las-weapons and sniper-fitted autorifles had cut them down from within the expansive entrance lobby.
Arbites officers had been called in from all over Victrix Sonora, and some from off-planet. The Arbites were the ultimate law enforcement of the Imperium - they answered not to local authority but to their own higher echelons, forming a galaxy-wide body that enforced Imperial law. Arbites officers had commandeered the best riot and assault troopers from law enforcement throughout the Victrix system, armed them with their best equipment, and organized them into units for the operation against Theograd's Administratum complex. When the darkness was this deep it had to be the Emperor's Justice that was served, and the Arbites were the instruments of that justice.
Whatever heresy and treachery festered within the Theograd Administratum complex, it had finally shown its hand and there was no reason left not to take the building by force and enact justice upon anything they found. Squad 12 had been prepared to do things with civility, to serve notice of the inquiry in extremis - Provost Marechal himself had put his name to this action. But the heretics had been waiting and had cut down Squad 12 where they stood, eight officers compelled to give their lives in service to the Imperial law, and so every Arbites on the planet had been brought in to ensure justice was done.
Provost Marechal himself arrived in the sixth hour of the siege, shuttled down from visiting Victrix Sonora's orbital dockyards. By the time he arrived at the mobile command post the officers surrounding the buildings had been fired at several times from the building's upper floors. Arbites sharpshooters trained their long-las rifles on the blacked-out windows but still the information about the hostiles was sketchy in the extreme. The heretics were numerous and well-armed.
They knew the complex and they were well-led and organized. The two survivors of Squad 12 reported щеп and women masked in scarlet, yelling horrible high-pitched war cries. They were wearing the floor-length black greatcoats typical of Administratum dress uniforms. Other than that, the Arbites were working blind.
No one knew if the heretics had hostages. They probably did, but hostages were not a priority for the Arbites. Something foul had taken root in Theograd, and justice must be done.
Shortly after Provost Marechal took over on the ground, local defence monitoring reported with shock the two Thunderhawk gunships descending from close orbit towards Theograd. At the same time a strike cruiser made itself known to the small planetary defence installation orbiting Victrix Sonora, identifying itself as the Rubicon.
ALARIC COULD SEE the weight of duty etched on the faces of the officers around him. They had known they would have to assault the Administratum building eventually, and that some of them would end up like Squad 12. The fact that they had been joined by Space Marines - half-mythical warriors from children's stories and preachers' parables - had shaken them up even more. The Adeptus Astartes had not been deployed in the Trail for eight hundred years, and the fact that thirty of them were here, now, meant that the enemy they faced must be far fouler than they had suspected.
Some of them were more scared of the Space Marines than they were of the coming assault, Alaric guessed. They would not speak when they were within earshot of the Marines, whispering to one another as though in reverence. They didn't understand why Marines were here - it was bad enough that the Arbites had come down and taken over command of the assault, but Marines! That was unheard of. Even the Arbites who led the squads were shocked by their presence, radioing in to the command post to get sketchy explanations from Marechal's staff.
Alaric hoped the officers would not be put off by the giants fighting beside them. But everything Ligeia had told him suggested that Theograd's cult was more than an isolated Chaos sect. He didn't know how she had managed to absorb and quantify the astounding amounts of information on Trepytos, but she had collated details of thousands of the Trail's cults and found that some of them had things in common. The debasement of sacred objects, the worship of a being who had many forms, the idea of playing a part in an immense plan far too vast for human minds to understand. They were nihilistic cults who believed they were nothing compared to their half-glimpsed masters, mere vermin to be used and crushed at the unknowable whims of Chaos. They wanted to serve. They wanted to die. The Trail's overstretched Adeptus Arbites had shown admirable dedication in ensuring the latter wish came true.
'Santoro in position.' came Justicar Santoro's voice over the vox. Santoro's squad were best up close, right in the thick of the action where Santoro's own Nemesis mace would extract a toll of blood from anyone who got too close. Tancred's Terminators and Genhain's retributor squad were on the other side of the plaza, moving into position with the Arbites tasked with storming the service entrances at the building's rear.
'Brother Arbites, officers of the law.' came Provost Marechal's grim tones on the Arbites vox-channel. 'The time has come for this heresy to end. We all knew it would come to this. Something foul has taken root on this world, for most of you your own world, and
we are the only force for justice on Victrix Sonora. Battle-brothers from the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines themselves, are with us. That alone should tell you what is at stake.'
Provost Marechal had heard there was a Space Marine force under Inquisitorial auspices on the Trail. If he had been unnerved at Alaric's sudden appearance, or offended that they were going to spearhead an assault that belonged to his Arbites, he had not shown it. Alaric had been impressed by the Provost who now sat in the mobile command APC coordinating the two hundred officers and Arbites arranged around the plaza. He was a huge man with skin the colour of old leather, wearing full ceremonial armour and carrying a power maul in one hand. He had been professional and curt - Alaric and Santoro were to take their place in the charge into the lobby, through the fire fields that had cut Squad 12 to pieces. Tancred's peerless assault troops were to batter their way into the back of the building where a nightmarish warren of offices, corridors and labyrinthine networks of chapels and workshops would reward sheer up-front momentum. Genhain would form a fire base duelling with the heretics who would be sure to use the large loading yards to the building's rear as a killing zone.
The Arbites would be with them. Fifty officers were behind the same barricade as Alaric, glancing with disguised awe at the giant silver-armoured warriors who had joined them without warning. They were armed with shotguns and autoguns, with the Arbites to the front wielding power mauls and riot shields. In total the law enforcement troops and Arbites numbered more than two hundred, representing the whole squad strength of Victrix Sonora. The assault was the culmination of an effort against the planet's cult that had cost them much in manpower and resources. If they failed here, the whole Trail would suffer.
'In position, lord provost.' voxed Alaric. Santoro, Genhain and Tancred sounded off in similar fashion. Alaric glanced back at his Marines, who were sheltering behind the massive sloping plasteel barricade. 'Lykkos, stay with me. Dvorn, you're up front. Break the doors down if you have to.' Dvorn nodded. Of all Alaric's squad he had the highest muscle mass and raw physical strength - his Nemesis weapon was a hammer, a rare form that had almost died out amongst the Chapter artificers but was perfectly suited to Dvorn. 'The rest of you, keep firing and keep moving. The Arbites will do the fighting, we must get into the heart of the place and crack open whatever lies in the centre. Tancred will be doing the same. Remember, we do not know what the enemy is capable of. We cannot guarantee that we can hold our own if we get bogged down. We have lost too many brothers to the Prince's followers already.'
Lykkos gripped the psycannon. Dvorn, Vien, Haulvarn and Clostus placed hands to the compartment in their breastplates that held their copies of the Liber Daemonicum, letting its sacred knowledge guide their hands.
'I am the hammer.' began Alaric.
'I am the hammer.' replied his squad. 'I am the hate. I am the woes of daemonkind.'
It was an old pre-battle prayer, one of the oldest. One of Alaric's roles as justicar was to prepare the minds of his men before battle, just as they prepared their bodies and their battle-gear. Over the vox he could hear Tancred leading his squad in a similar prayer, as Santoro joined in with Alaric. The officers nearby watched them warily, intimidated by having to witness this ancient battle-rite.
'...from the frenzy, temptation, corruption and deceit, deliver us, our Emperor, that the enemy might face us in Your wrath...'
'Marechal to all units.' came the provost's strident voice. 'Assault plan primary! All units advance!'
The front plates of the barricade were rammed outward, and the plaza opened up before Alaric. Almost instantly bright streaks of fire spattered down from the upper floors of the ugly, black-windowed Administratum building. Return fire from Arbites sharpshooters coughed up in reply, kicking showers of broken glass from the sides of the building.
The riot-equipped Arbites were in front, their shields held up to protect the officers behind them. Alaric refused such protection and strode out in front of Arbites as the line broke into a jog, Dvorn ahead of him. Alaric could see Santoro doing the same, leading his Marines at a run. They would hit the doors first, charging onto one side of the cavernous lobby while Alaric took the other side - the side where the men of Squad 12 had died.
Shots punched into the smooth ferrocrete of the plaza. Muffled cries marked where officers were hit and wounded, metallic thuds where shots impacted on riot shields. An autogun shot spanged off Vien's shoulder pad, and another hit Alaric's foot. The age-old power armour turned both shots aside easily.
'Clostus, give me range!' called Alaric as the building loomed closer - he could see where upper windows had been blown out, where the shapes of heretics could just be seen taking up firing position. Clostus, the best shot in Alaric's squad, fired a roaring volley of shots from his wrist-mounted storm bolter, firing at a run when the recoil of the bolter might break the arm of a normal man. Explosive shells ripped around the frame of one of the windows - the heretic sheltering there broke cover and ran, only to jerk suddenly as a sharpshooter's long-las round punched through his throat.
'Haulvarn, Vien, keep their heads down!' called Alaric and bolter fire ripped up from his squad, slamming into the building. The fire coming down at them in return was thicker now - they had a rapid-firing las-weapon, probably a multilaser, that stitched glowing red spears of fire through the advancing officers. Men tumbled to the floor. Haulvarn stumbled as las-shots spattered up one leg, leaving glowing dents in his armour.
Santoro was at the door. He had kicked in one door and brother Mykros was pouring a gout of flame from his incinerator into the lobby.
'Dvorn!' called Alaric. 'Take the doors!'
The squad broke into a headlong run as heavier fire spattered down from above. Dvorn reached the doors and without breaking stride swung his Nemesis hammer in a wide arc, shattering the flak-glass of the doors in a shimmering crescent of shards.
Alaric was next in. His auto-senses adjusted instantly to the shadowy interior of the lobby and in a heartbeat he took in his surroundings - several floors rose around him, hung with banners bearing litanies of obedience and diligence, the mantras of the Administratum. A fountain in the form of a statue of the current High Lord of the Administratum dominated the lobby, its hands sheared off and its stone eyes gouged out. The water was black and foul, pouring from the base of the statue into a fountain pool choked with bodies. Gunfire ripped down from the first and second floors - Alaric saw faces wrapped in scarlet, Administratum uniforms worn like a badge of treachery. The bodies were Administratum, too, workers in drab fatigues or foremen's greatcoats, except for the black-armoured bodies of officers by the doors.
Alaric opened fire, bolter rounds streaking upwards. The fire blew the arm off one heretic and he tumbled raggedly over the railing around the first floor, but there were still dozens more of them up there. They had upturned desks to use as cover and, though they would offer scant protection against storm bolters, the Grey Knights could not fight it out here; enough fire could be brought to bear to pin them down.
Santoro was already moving into the building, vaulting over the scattered furniture of the lobby into the networks of offices.
Alaric made a sharp, stabbing hand signal to the chapel entrance leading off from the lobby's near side as the rest of his squad charged in through the broken doors and heavy fire suddenly stitched down from above. Chunks of marble were ripped from the floor and stray shots blew half the head off the stone High Lord.
'They've got an autocannon up there!' voxed Dvorn.
'Suppress fire and move!' shouted Alaric. An autocannon was a loud, inefficient, old-fashioned weapon that fired shells of sufficient size to crack even power armour. Alaric's squad fired streaks of rapid storm bolter fire up at the source of the autocannon fire as they ran through the arch leading to the chapel.
The chapel was a long narrow room of black marble crowded with pews, with an altarpiece depicting diligent Imperial citizens locked in lives of holy obed
ience. The body of an Administratum under-consul lay draped over the lectern, where he had apparently been killed while lecturing the adepts.
Alaric knew they were in here - it was little more than an instinct, a sound, a flicker of movement. Even as he turned they screamed and charged out from between the pews, a dozen cultists, tattered bloodstained cloth covering their whole faces except for their hate-filled eyes.
One of them dived onto Alaric, a knife flashing down. Alaric threw the man aside and heard him slam into the wall, ribs crumpling. Alaric's Nemesis halberd flashed out and beheaded another before he stabbed the butt-end of the halberd into the stomach of yet another, pitched him into the air, and brought him smashing down through a pew that splintered under the impact. Storm bolter fire streaked past Alaric, punching through the wood of the pews and through the bodies of the cultists trying to shelter there. They screamed as they died, not with pain but with hate.
Laspistol fire rattled up from the survivors - Alaric grabbed the nearest and fired the storm bolter mounted on his wrist, blasting the cultist out of his hand to spatter against the far wall. Dvorn charged right through the pews and knocked two more flying with a single swipe of his hammer while Haulvarn impaled another with his sword.
The squad ran forward to secure the chapel, sweeping the shadows between the pews with the barrels of their guns. Alaric bent down and turned over the closest body. The scarlet cloth wrapped around the cultist's head fell away and Alaric saw the face of a young adept, the same as billions of men and women who ran the endless bureaucracy of the Imperium. But this man's skin was altered. Scales, like scabs over burnt skin, surrounded the dead staring eyes and ran under the cultist's throat down into the redolent remains of his adept's uniform. Those truly marked by Chaos carried a mark on their bodies as well as on their soul, and the cult on Victrix Sonora had sunk deep indeed.