by Ben Counter
'The Enemy is perverse.' said Tancred simply. 'They need no logic.'
'But it's not just Sophano Secundus. Why here at all?' Alaric held his arms out wide, indicating everything around him. 'The last time Ghargatuloth reigned, he laired on Khorion IX. That was on the far edge of the Segmentum Pacificus, it took us a hundred years to find him. Why the Trail? There are backwaters more decrepit than the Trail, there are whole sectors of empty space where he could hide. What makes the Trail of St Evisser special?'
'Saint Evisser?' said Tancred.
'Saint Evisser. Ghargatuloth has his cults collecting Imperial relics. He needs the biggest relic of all to complete the ritual that will bring him back.' Alaric held up the data-slate. It was showing a set of planetary coordinates. 'The Hall of Remembrance on Farfallen was the biggest Ecclesiarchical archive on the Trail. As far as we know it's still there. We are going to find out where the body of Saint Evisser is buried, because that is where Ghargatuloth will rise.'
* * *
THE PRIMARY DEFENCES of Volcanis Ultor described a semicircle around the base of Hive Superior, several hundred kilometres of hastily-dug trenches, prefabricated bunkers and command posts, endless rolls of barbed wire, emplacements for Basilisk self-propelled guns and even an immense Ordinatus artillery piece manned by Volcanis Ultor's class of tech-priests. Hundreds of supply Uenches zig-zagged back through the pollution-bleached ground into the outer reaches of the hive, crawling with thousands of men from the Balurian heavy infantry, Methalor 12th Scout Regiment, 197th Jhannian Assault Regiment and Volcanis Ultor's own PDF. Rearward positions were held by men and women drafted from Hive Superior's underhive gangers, who had answered the call of the Departmento Munitorum and joined the defence in return for being allowed to keep the weapons they were issued with. The strongpoint at the northern end of the line, where the broken plain met the shore of Lake Rapax, was held by the Sisters of the Order of the Bloody Rose, and Cardinal Recoba had personally sent hundreds of preachers and confessors to the front lines so spiritual leadership would never be far away from the troops.
The attack, when it surely came, would come from the plains in front of the defences. The jagged mountain ranges on the far side of Hive Superior meant that the plains were the only place an arriving army could gather, and the defences would be ready for them. Recoba knew that if Hive Superior was overrun, Volcanis Ultor would fall, and with it the keystone that held the whole Trail intact. He had drawn troops and resources from all over the planet and even off-world, sacrificing the smaller hives and inter-hive settlements to ensure that Hive Superior would survive.
The northern half of the line was served by a rearward command centre, a massive plastcrete arena of bunkers and parade grounds built along standard template lines grid dropped from orbit by a Mechanicus transport just few days before. Rings of overlapping gun emplacements surrounded it and Hydra anti-aircraft quad autocannon were mounted to cover central parade ground. Transport and staff shuttles zipped overhead, and the sky was patrolled by an occasional Thunderbolt fighter of which three squadrons had been rambled to the surface. A pulpit and lectern had been set up in the centre of the parade ground, linked to vox-casters and to the comm-net that covered the entire hinterland of Hive Superior.
As the sun's murky morning light filtered through the clouds of pollution overhead, troops began filing into the parade ground. Several platoons of Balurian heavy infantry were first, smart and well-drilled. The Methalorian scouts were less polished in their parade ground skills, and they had a ragtag appearance with each carrying non-issue weapons and gear, from camo-cloaks to orkish combat knives. The Guardsmen were from units who were still waiting to be assigned to a section of the defences - every one of them would be heading to the front line within a few hours. There were even some of the conscripted hive gangers milling around towards the back of the parade ground, almost feral figures in clashing gang colours who carried trophies from gang-scraps in the depths of Hive Superior.
Officers yelled at the men to redress ranks and smarten up. A couple of commissars prowled, and everywhere they looked Guardsmen stiffened at attention. They all knew they could soon be in the thick of fighting against Emperor knew what kind of enemy. Even the gangers mostly fell silent.
Finally, Cardinal Recoba's staff arrived to take their places beside the pulpit. Recoba himself wore his full cardinal's regalia, the crimson and white standing out amongst the drab fatigues of the soldiers, the gold of his mitre glinting in the murky light of the rising sun. There were several deacons and preachers with him, along with the lexmechanics and protocol officers who followed senior officers everywhere.
Finally, alone, Inquisitor Valinov entered the parade ground, and ascended to the pulpit. Vox-casters would send his voice booming across the parade ground, and across the comm-link so that thousands of soldiers could hear his every word. Cardinal Recoba had required all officers to ensure their men were listening. The media of Hive Superior were broadcasting, too, because Recoba knew how important Valinov's words would be.
Valinov looked out over the thousands of men assembled on the parade ground. The eyes looking back at him didn't know who he was. That meant he could be whoever he wanted to be. It was something he had learned a long time ago, as an interrogator in the service of Inquisitor Barbillus. He wore polished carapace armour and an antique power sword, taken from the armoury of the Governor's household - today, Gholic Ren-Sar Valinov was a hero.
'Men and women of Volcanis Ultor.' he began. 'Soldiers, Sisters and citizens. All of you know that a dark time has come to the Trail of St Evisser, and that darker times still are yet to come. The Enemy, who we must now speak of freely, has come to the Trail. I have seen this Enemy, and fought it, and believe me when I tell you it can be beaten. You will see things that may make you despair, things that you cannot understand, but you must fight. The Enemy fights with lies, and will use confusion and dissent to break your resolve. It cannot succeed. No matter what, you must fight, and carry on fighting until the Trail is free. That is the order I give you that supersedes all others, by the authority of the Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition.'
Valinov paused. The existence of the Inquisition was officially suppressed, but rumours were the most universal currency of the Imperium. Guardsmen talked over bottles of bootleg spirits about the figures who could kill planets with a word and purge entire populations to root out the taint of corruption. Valinov would be one such figure - a legend come to life, a story made real. The soldiers had flinched when they realised that an inquisitor was in command - a real, genuine inquisitor! Even the lexmechanic scribbling down a record of his words had paused.
'But there is a far darker truth that I must tell you. You have all heard of the Adeptus Astartes, heroes of the Imperium. The defenders of mankind.' Valinov knew well that they had - the Balurians had fought alongside the White Consuls at the Rhanna Crisis, and the chapels of Hive Superior had stained glass windows depicting the Ultramarines who destroyed the rebels of Hive Oceanis centuries before. If inquisitors were figures in dark stories told on long nights, Space Marines were the heroes of wide-eyed children's tales. 'And you have all been told of the Horus Heresy, when the Enemy stole away the minds of billions and waged a civil war against the Emperor-fearing people of the Imperium. It is my duty to tell you that the Space Marines were at the heart of this conflict. Fully half their number fell to the Enemy and marched with Horus.'
Valinov let that sink in, too. Imperial histories - as told to the ordinary citizens who needed to know no more - glossed over the details of the Horus Heresy, and of the Traitor Legions of Space Marines who fell to Chaos.
Valinov let his voice rise. He could see the eyes of the soldiers growing wide. For one of them to say these things would be heresy - for an inquisitor to say them was a revelation.
'For ten thousand years those Traitor Marines have held their grudge. Now they are returning, for the Eye of Terror has opened and the eyes of the
Enemy fall again on the galaxy. The Traitor Marines think that the Trail is the weak underbelly of the Imperium. They think that with so many of our forces at the Eye, they can do what they want with our worlds and our homes. If we stop them here, they will be thrown back into the darkness, and the touch of the Enemy that curses the Trail will go with them.'
'I tell you this because the Traitor Marines are coming here, to Volcanis Ultor. I have been sent ahead of them by the daemon hunters of the Inquisition to ensure that you understand what you are fighting. In a few days they will be here. They were once the Imperium's finest soldiers, now corrupted beyond redemption, but they are expecting to meet no resistance. We have the advantage of surprise. That is why the battle will be here, and that is why it must be won. Recognition documents are being circulated to every officer now. Understand the form and markings of this enemy! In their arrogance they proudly display the marks of their heresy. The sword and the book is their symbol. To parody the nobility of what they once were, they call themselves the Grey Knights. They bring with them daemons and foul sorcery, but we have the hearts of Imperial citizens and the steel of the Emperor's will!'
Valinov could taste the heady mix of emotions. Fear, because every Guardsman had heard of Space Marines but never expected to see one, let alone have to go against their legendary strength in battle. Pride, because they were the ones trusted to stop them. Awe, because suddenly the defence of a single hive city had become a crusade against darkness, led by a hero of the Imperium.
'Take your positions, obey your commands, have faith in the Throne of Terra and show the Enemy no quarter! For here will the Enemy's will be broken, and here will be forged your future.'
Everyone had heard of Space Marines. Some had heard of the Inquisition. No one had heard of the Grey Knights. The Inquisition's own obsessive secrecy was its greatest failing, an irony Valinov enjoyed as he stepped down off the pulpit and turned his thoughts to the coming battle.
LIGEIA HAD ASKED for Valinov's execution to be stayed. There was no one left to ask for Ligeia.
Ligeia was still in her cell, anchored just above Mimas's upper atmosphere. All interrogations had elicited only the same garbled stream of syllables she had uttered when Nyxos had broken her. She was all but useless as an intelligence source, and her freeing of Valinov marked her as an enemy of the Imperium and an immediate moral threat.
The lord inquisitors came to the only conclusion they could. Ligeia had to die.
Inquisitor Nyxos stood in the interrogator command control room at the heart of the Mimas facility, waiting patiently as the interrogators, explicators and chief medicae staff made the last few checks on Ligeia. In the past, particularly corrupt prisoners had waited until the moment of their execution to display Chaos sorcery they had managed to hide until then. Ligeia, however, had not changed - she was still in a constant state of physical shock, her heart rate fluctuating, her brainwaves fractured and haphazard. Several pict-stealers watched her from many angles, but all she did was curl up in the corner of her cell and shiver. She had nearly died when Nyxos had interrogated her, and since then had been just a few steps from death.
'No lifesign change,' said one of the medicae as the final checks were completed.
'Negative brainwave change.' said another.
The chief medicae, an elderly, portly man who had taken on the role after the death of his predecessor at Valinov's botched execution, turned to Nyxos. 'Medical go-'
'Good,' said Nyxos. 'Explicator command?'
The chief explicator's voice was voxed from elsewhere in the facility. 'Psychic activity residual only. No change.'
Nyxos stepped up to the comm-pulpit, which was connected to Ligeia's cell via several warded niters that lessened the likelihood of her words corrupting the listener.
Nyxos opened the channel. His voice was fed directly into the cell.
'Ligeia.' began Nyxos, 'this is the end. I promised you it would be over and now it is. There is one last chance before you die. Tell us where Valinov is, tell us what he is doing. Do this and the Emperor may show you mercy where men cannot.'
Ligeia stirred. She lifted her head and looked up at one of the pict-stealers, and on the screen Nyxos could make out her deathly pale, almost translucent skin, her sunken red eyes, grey hair clinging to her damp skin. She shook and seemed to be choking on something, her fingers curling into claws, her jaw clenching and unclenching.
'Tras'kleya'thallgryaa!' she yelled suddenly, as if vomiting the words up from somewhere deep inside her. 'Iakthe'landra'klaa! Saphe'drekall'kry'aa!'
Nyxos snapped the sound feed off, leaving Ligeia screaming silently out of the monitor.
'She is lost. In the sight of the Emperor, witness her excommunication from the human race and the extinguishing of her corruption.'
Nyxos slammed his fist down on a large control stud on the pulpit. Soundlessly, the back wall of the cell blew out and the image shook violently as the air was torn away. Ligeia grabbed instinctively, digging thin fingers between the tiles, hanging on as suddenly the blackness of space was shockingly close. The cell was open to space, the barren frozen rock of Mimas below, the glowing banded disk of Saturn above, the blackness streaked with stars and the smears of dust that made up Saturn's rings.
Ligeia looked with horror at the void in front of her. For a few moments she tried to crawl towards the front of the cell, her eyes fixed on the endless darkness. But then something inside her finally realised it really was the end. She lay helpless on her back as the freezing cold seized up her limbs and the vacuum paralyzed her lungs. Her eyes flooded red as blood vessels burst. She gasped silently for air that wasn't there. Then, she stopped moving altogether, red eyes wide, mouth frozen open.
Nyxos watched her for some minutes, trying to detect the slightest movement. There was nothing.
'Monitor her for three days.' he said eventually to the interrogator command staff. 'Then destroy the body.'
An inquisitor was due a proper burial, below the fortress on Enceladus if possible. But Ligeia wasn't an inquisitor any more. Aside from a warning footnote, she would be better off forgotten completely.
Chapter Fourteen
FARFALLEN
FARFALLEN WAS A dying world. It had once been a garden world, one of those rare breed of planets kept pristine as rewards and playgrounds for the Imperium's nobility. Retirement on a garden world tempted the most ambitious of planetary governors and rogue traders to toe the Imperial line. At the height of the Trail, when the mass pilgrimages had given plenty the opportunity to leach fortunes from the faithful, Farfallen had been a wondrous mixture of lush virgin forests and carefully manicured landscape gardens. White marble villas had nestled in the fronds of towering rainforests. Elaborate turreted castles of coral had looked out on an endless azure sea. Sky yachts plied the clouds and elderly nobles hunted imported big game on the vast rolling plains.
The Ecclesiarchy, who could claim the greatest credit for the Trail's prominence, maintained a great estate on Farfallen, and used it as the seat for the Hall of Remembrance where the Trail's religious legacy would be collected and compiled for posterity. The Administratum took a tithe of land from the garden world, so Consuls Majoris of the Administratum could themselves retire in splendour.
With a stable ecosystem, hardly any predators, a predictable temperate climate and the protection of the Adeptus Terra, Farfallen had been a rare paradise in the grimness of the Imperium. But that had been a long time ago.
Much of Farfallen was untended and overgrown. Landscaped gardens fell into disrepair and tree roots broke up the marble buildings. With fewer fortunes to be made on the Trail only a handful of noble families remained, ageing and cut off, repeating into their estates as Farfallen became wilder. Imported game predators could no longer be controlled by hunting and they turned the jungles into savage places. And somewhere, somehow, the uninvited had come to Farfallen - feral humans who infested the deepest jungles. For centuries no one noticed them, a
nd they remained hidden from Farfallen's dwindling Imperial population.
Then Ghargatuloth's call went out across the Trail, and suddenly hundreds of thousands of savages poured from the forests to do the work of the Change God.
THE GREY KNIGHTS had lost two Thunderhawks on Sophano Secundus and so Alaric took only as many Marines as would fit into the remaining gunship - he chose his own unit and Squad Genhain. He might discover something unpalatable, and he trusted Genhain to cope with it best of all.
Alaric watched the surface of Farfallen from the Thunderhawk as it made its approach. It was late evening and the thick carpet of forest was dark green, the curling fronds of the trees like the bristles on an animal's hide. It was easy to see how the dense forests had hidden the feral tribes, and how they could be corrupted away from Imperial eyes.
The forest sped past beneath the Thunderhawk and on the horizon Alaric could see the Hall of Remembrance. It was built into a cliff that soared above the forest canopy, a massive blocky shape carved from the rock face. High arched windows like dead eyes looked out from beneath a deeply carved pediment depicting the heroic figures of past Eccle-siarchs, trampling the minions of Chaos beneath their feet.
As the Thunderhawk swooped lower for the final approach Alaric could pick out signs of the chaos on Farfallen. Lights from fires burning at ground level flickered on the stone. Charred tatters marked the places banners had once hung. The edges of the roof were scarred where crude catapults had slung stones and balls of fire at defenders firing down. The jungle on the top of the cliff just above the hall's roof was chewed and trampled - early on the ferals had tried to climb down the cliff, only to be shot off the rocks as they made the descent. Some broken, desiccated bodies were still wedged into cracks in the cliff face, a testament to the first moments of the attack. The Hall of Remembrance, the most visible Imperial bastion to remain on Farfallen, was under siege.