Fear to Tread

by James Swallow

  It came up after him, and they collided, brass and bronze clashing with gold and ceramite. Sanguinius raked his weapon across the creature’s chest, cutting deeply. He hacked at Ka’Bandha’s wrist-guard, forcing the daemon to lose its grip on the bone-axe.

  They twisted in mid-flight, raining blows upon one another, each punch landing with enough kinetic force to send out thunder-cracks of displaced air. Sanguinius felt armour that had weathered a thousand wars fracture and split beneath the deadly impacts of the daemon warlord’s strikes. Ka’Bandha’s foetid maw opened wide and snapped at his face, hellish eyes bereft of all but fury and bloodlust boring into him.

  The combatants were spinning back toward the ground now, falling uncontrolled towards the raging battle below. Gravity had them in its grasp, and even the Angel’s mighty wings could not arrest the plunge.

  Instead, he gave in to it. With a growl of effort, Sanguinius pulled on the chains about Ka’Bandha’s thick throat and closed the distance between them. Before the daemon could react, he had buried the full length of his sword in its chest.

  With strength borne of pain, the creature swatted him away and they parted company a split-second before striking the ground.

  It was the Angel who stood first. Bloody and panting, he rose and drew up his sword, even as Ka’Bandha writhed in the mud, barking out sounds of frenzied agony.

  He advanced, raising the red blade to find the killing blow.

  ‘Wait,’ Ka’Bandha’s clawed hand lifted, but the primarch did not halt. ‘Before you strike, know this.’ The daemon pulled itself to a kneeling position, clutching at the ruined meat of its torso. ‘We will never lie to you, little angel. That is not the way of Khorne. We are the truth of blood, and that truth is, Horus has betrayed you!’

  And for one, fractional moment, a greater pain than any other touched the heart of Sanguinius. His sword dipped, his vision clouded. ‘No,’ he insisted. ‘No!’

  It was enough; Ka’Bandha moved like lightning, the barbs of his whip coming from out of nowhere. Striking like vipers, the lashes cracked against the primarch’s legs with monstrous force and crushed them, knocking him to the ground. The Angel’s cry of agony echoed across the battlefield.

  The daemon’s laughter smothered the sound. ‘You defied me, and now I will give you a wound that will forever fester,’ he vowed. Bolter fire from squads of Blood Angels coming to their master’s aid whined off his brass armour, but he paid no heed to them.

  Sanguinius fought against titanic waves of agony, grasping for his fallen sword. The beast had turned his kinship with Horus against him; his uncertainty forged the moment of doubt, the careless instant that allowed Ka’Bandha to strike him down. ‘Try if you will!’ he spat.

  The daemon’s face twisted in amusement. ‘You misunderstand,’ it told him, gathering up its fallen axe. A baleful light, a glowing crimson mist, formed around the cutting edge. ‘I know how to cut you deeper than any blow ever would.’

  There were hundreds of legionaries storming across the mud, righteous anger propelling them forward, burning with the need to avenge this attack against their master. Sanguinius felt the emotion coming from them in waves. He saw their faces, heard their names ring in his ears. At the lead, steadfast Nakir, his captain of the bold 24th Company; and with him Gravato and Madidus, Perada and Ferveus and Eremin and Carrick and countless more, each of whom he knew like a son.

  ‘No!’ He tried to warn them off, his wounded legs resisting him as he attempted to stand, but Ka’Bandha was already running into them, conjuring a red fire from the air, a haze that burned like pure fury.

  The daemon’s axe rose; and when it fell, a new crimson sun came to life in the middle of the battleground. A ragefire broke, and in the halls of his mind, a father heard five hundred of his sons perish at once.

  Then darkness claimed the Angel, the backlash of psychic shock spiralling after him into the abyss of his soul.

  ‘This will not end well,’ said Captain Thoros. The words were almost a whisper, more the escape of an ill-concealed thought than an actual utterance.

  Raldoron glanced at his pale-skinned companion and halted in the middle of the rough, black-walled lava tunnel. ‘Brother?’ he prompted.

  Thoros hesitated and his sallow cheeks took on a flicker of colour as he realised his error. ‘Forgive me, First Captain. I spoke out of turn.’

  ‘Speak your mind if you will,’ Raldoron insisted.

  The other officer shook his head. ‘Not here.’ He glanced around the volcanic passageway. ‘Not now.’

  Raldoron wavered on the cusp of making it an order, but Thoros beat him to it. ‘The transports need to be prepared for the Angel’s departure,’ he said. ‘I’ll set to the task.’ Before he could say more, Thoros set off down a branching passageway, heading toward the landing quadrant that had been cut into the volcanic ash fields beyond the cinder cone that rose above them.

  The First Captain frowned, and walked on. He passed servitors and warriors from other Legions, all of them engaged in the matters of withdrawal from the surface of Nikaea. None of them had reason to remain now.

  The function of this place was at an end, and Raldoron wondered what would happen to it after they were gone. The gargantuan volcano had been tamed by the power and technology of Imperial might, the living rock and roiling magma cut back and dammed so that the Emperor and his sons could come into the heart of this place and walk the spaces within without threat of destruction. There was something bluntly symbolic about it, a deliberate and engineered statement to all who had come here. No matter how powerful, unknowable and furious the elements of nature might seem, the Imperium could tame them at a whim.

  But was that hubris? Once the legionaries and their servants were gone, the field generators and gravity-walls would be deactivated and Nikaea’s burning mountain would assert its strength once more. The rocky chambers cut by melta-beam into domicile, anteroom and amphitheatre would be engulfed by lava, reclaimed by the fires. It would be as if no one had ever set foot here.

  But even if Nikaea remained untouched, the shockwave of what had happed here would change everything else. It was not an exaggeration, Raldoron reflected, to suggest that the words spoken on this day would affect every other world in the Imperium.

  At first, Raldoron had been honoured to accept the duty of accompanying his primarch to the Emperor’s gathering; Azkaellon had, predictably, not seen the sense of it, but the Angel knew it would mean more to arrive among his great brothers not just with the golden seraphs of his Sanguinary Guard, but among the host of his most elite warriors. Raldoron’s pride swelled; the chance to represent his Legion and his company in the presence of several primarchs and the Emperor himself… Many Blood Angels went for centuries without ever having such an opportunity.

  He felt differently now. The glory of the moment was tarnished by a bleak cloud of ill-mood that permeated through every chamber, repeated in the eyes of every face he saw. Raldoron had hoped Nikaea would be a place of concord and unity, as the Emperor wished. Instead, he felt the sword point of division had been laid here. Legionaries were guarded now, more so than before, even within his own Legion, as Thoros’s example clearly showed.

  In the aftermath, the first vessel to leave was the Photep, the warship that belonged to the primarch of the Thousand Sons. By unspoken rule, the protocol was that it should have been the Emperor’s conveyance, but the Imperator Somnium still lingered in high orbit. No one spoke against Magnus the Red as he swept from the amphitheatre, his mien as crimson as his name. The First Captain remembered the moment clearly. His gaze had turned to his primarch, and Raldoron recalled the brief sorrow he saw in Sanguinius’s eyes.

  Raldoron had seen the Angel show that face before. On Melchior, when confronted by Warmaster Horus; and in his sanctum aboard the Red Tear, on the day he had confided a great secret to a handful of his chosen sons.

  Magnus was gone, and vanished in his wake was the gift that he had first brought to the Legiones Astart
es. It was the Crimson King, in partnership with the Angel and the Khan, who had originally gathered to bring the ideal of the Librarius to the Legions. Magnus, Sanguinius and Jaghatai argued for – and won – a place for psychics within the Legions. The Librarians made the suspect powers of witchery into weapons of war… and for a time that had been enough.

  Many, who were not yet willing to accept the use of shackled psykers as Navigators and astropaths, took discomfort at the idea of psychic warriors. Some Legions eschewed the principle in its totality, others bordered on open hostility to the concept. In the end, it did not matter. What had been seen as a boon was gradually recast as a weakness, a threat, a vector through which the vagaries of the warp might unbalance a Legion.

  They brought Magnus the Red to Nikaea to challenge him for his reckless exploration of the depthless halls of the immaterium; they spoke of secrets not meant to be known, of vile sorcery and paths to ruination taken by avaricious and unwary minds. In the end, it had been less for the questioning and more as a trial of the Crimson King’s intentions.

  Magnus was gone, and so were the Librarians. Raldoron heard the words of the Emperor’s decree with his own ears. ‘It is my will that no Legion will maintain a Librarius department. All its warriors and instructors must be returned to the battle companies and never again employ any psychic powers.’ With that edict given voice, the demand could not be un-made. It was done.

  Thoros was right. The day had not gone smoothly, and these events would not end well. Even a blind man could have reckoned the resistance of the Thousand Sons to the orders from Magnus’s father, and while it was anathema for Captain Raldoron to even consider defiance of an Imperial edict, he knew that others would not be so circumspect.

  And what of my master? He asked himself the question as he passed through a fork in the tunnel and approached the chamber that had been set aside for use by the IX Legion. What are the Angel’s thoughts on the Emperor’s choice?

  The warriors at the great copper doors saluted the First Captain and gave him entrance. Inside, he did not find answers, only more questions.

  ‘Is it true?’ Captain Amit turned toward him, pushing through the half-dozen servitors in the process of packing up the primarch’s travelling gear. ‘Tell me that it isn’t true, Raldoron.’

  The other officer scowled. ‘The command is to be obeyed,’ he snapped. ‘Had you been up there, you would have heard the Emperor say as much himself.’

  ‘But I was not,’ Amit replied. ‘I was commanded to stand sentinel at this chamber. And perhaps with good purpose. At first I thought it was because I am not so elegant in my dress uniform as Thoros, but I wonder now if it was to quiet my tongue!’

  ‘You think too much of yourself, brother.’ Raldoron’s irritation came to the surface and he ran a hand through the stubble of hair on his head. He found a wine jug and goblets that had not yet been stowed for transit, and helped himself to a generous measure. ‘No one dares raise his voice in the Emperor’s presence.’

  ‘That is it, then?’ Amit demanded. ‘We go with the Angel back to our ships and then to the crusade at hand, as if it is of no matter?’ He snatched the jug from Raldoron and took some wine for himself. ‘And what will we say to our battle-brothers when we pass word of this to them? Magnus has looked upon books he should not have read, so now our Librarians must sacrifice themselves? I have two psykers in my company, legionaries I have fought alongside, who I trust! What becomes of them now?’

  ‘You exaggerate.’

  ‘Do I?’ Amit prodded him in the chest. ‘I have no doubt our lord will welcome his warriors into the fold anew, without their hoods or with them. But what of the others? Dorn, for example? Have the Imperial Fists ever failed to take a command to the bitter end of its definition?’ He shook his head, looking away. ‘Tell me you are not torn by this diktat, brother. Imagine if I came to you and forbade you your sword or bolter, then pressed you to battle nonetheless. What would you do?’

  ‘I’d fight with what was left to me. Tooth and nail, if need be.’ He put down his goblet. ‘This command is for the good of the Imperium. And your words verge on courting open censure!’

  Amit eyed him, ignoring the warning. ‘Lexicanium, Codicier, Epistolary. Those are not just words, Raldoron, ranks and status-markers that can be discarded out of hand and make no difference.’ He pointed at him. ‘The titles you hold – First Captain, Chapter Master, the Blooded… Strip those away and you would still be unchanged. But without the power of the psykers among our weapons of war, the Legiones Astartes leave themselves open to attack. I cannot be the only one who sees this!’

  ‘The benefits are outweighed by the hazards of opening a mind to the power of the warp,’ Raldoron countered. ‘Such things can drive a man to madness…’ He trailed off, and unbidden, a painful memory pushed to the surface of his thoughts. Suddenly he was recalling Brother Alotros, lost on Melchior, his sense of self shattered. Alotros, and the handful of others who suffered the same fate. Had it been the dark shadow of the warp that had pulled them from their reason, or something deeper?

  Amit did not notice his moment of reverie; behind him, the copper doors were swinging open once again. ‘I am not convinced. I struggle to understand why the Emperor has made so arbitrary a decision.’

  ‘My father has never once been capricious throughout the millennia of his existence.’ Sanguinius entered the chamber, delivering the words evenly and without reproach. Raldoron wondered if he had heard everything that had been said; and then realised that it did not matter. He was the primarch; he would know.

  Amit bowed with Raldoron. ‘My lord, I chose my words poorly, that’s not what I meant–’

  ‘Yes it is,’ said the Angel. There was something darker about his manner, the First Captain noted. Sanguinius always had an air of the numinous, the distant, about him, but here and now he seemed almost distracted. ‘You said exactly what you meant.’

  It was a rare moment to see the Flesh Tearer of the Fifth Company silenced like an initiate rebuked by his mentor, but no such admonishment came. Instead, the Angel looked back and forth between the two warriors and considered them.

  ‘Ral,’ he said to the First Captain. ‘Shall I tell you why I keep Captain Amit close at hand?’

  ‘I have wondered on occasion, master,’ ventured Raldoron.

  ‘You,’ Sanguinius told him, ‘you I keep near because you are close to the hearts of my sons as the stone is to the sand. Berus is High Warden because he knows our lore and our Legion’s soul as though it were a living being. Azkaellon leads my Sanguinary Host because he distrusts everything and suspects threat in all places. But Amit…’ He paused. ‘Captain Amit will always speak his mind, never hesitating, even if he knows full well it courts reprimand.’

  ‘You may be assured of that until my dying day,’ Amit noted.

  The Angel nodded once. ‘But never forget. The Emperor’s word is law, and his will be done. The Decree of Nikaea is now Imperial commandment, and we will respect it as such. The Librarians will be re-integrated back into the tactical ranks. They are still legionaries. They will make me proud no matter what weapon they carry into battle.’ He turned to look at Amit and fixed him with a steady, unwavering gaze. ‘And as for whatever challenges fate puts to us after this day… The Blood Angels will deal with them as they come.’

  Raldoron accepted this in silence. His doubts, however, did not lie quiet.

  FIFTEEN

  Temple of Bones

  Ignition

  An Act of Defiance

  Tanus Kreed’s path was tiled with the crowns of a hundred thousand skulls, each one smoothed and polished as if it were a careworn cobblestone on the street of a fringe world. His footfalls gave off a peculiar echo in the halls of the cathedral; the density of the walls gave the sound a brittle timbre.

  The noise of the battle outside could barely reach them here. It was far away, a dull rumble like the breakers upon a distant shoreline. Bolt-fire crackling, screams and hell-shrieks re
sonating – it was a fitting ambience.

  He ran the fingers of his gauntlet over the arches and pillars rising high over his head to support the conical roof. Bunches of long femurs surrounded by ribcages rose up in clusters to form the shape of the pillars, each secured in place by the tiny rods of phalanges from children’s hands. Jaws and spines formed porticos, butterfly hips dressed the cloister walls, and the skulls went on forever. Sightless eye sockets glared out at the legionary from above and below, some lit from within by plasmatic torchlight.

  The great bone temple was a magnificent creation, he reflected, a devotional work that dwarfed even the greatest monuments the Word Bearers had erected to the Emperor, when they had still called him master.

  Kreed coloured at the thought of that. Lorgar and his sons had laboured so long in service to the Urizen’s aloof and uncaring father, and for what? They had believed so strongly in his greatness, courted the truth of his divine nature in all their acts and wars during the Great Crusade. The XVII Legion had put whole worlds to the sword for daring to defy the Emperor, and more had been set to work to build works to glorify him.

  Then the betrayal at Khur happened, and all eyes were finally opened. It began with the obliteration of Monarchia, that perfect tribute to the Emperor, and it ended with Monarchia, the wasteland where Lorgar was chastised for his blind love. His zealotry denied, spat upon. Tanus Kreed had been there. He had seen it happen.

  In the aftermath, was it so surprising that the Bearers of the Word had realised that there was a greater truth to be borne? A Word not of a mortal pretending and denying his way to godhood, but of real gods, real powers with the touch of ruin and chaos at their fingertips?

  ‘Acolyte?’ Captain Harox was at his side, waiting. Kreed hadn’t noticed that he had halted. He said nothing and resumed his pace, listening to the echo, feeling the build-up of silent energy in the dank air. This place, this Cathedral of the Mark, was the kind of monument they should have been creating all along. All it took was the greatest betrayal to make that clear.