by Various
Five warriors watched as their brothers fought and died on the plains below. From their vantage, the battle was not unlike one of the simulation tables within the collegia, though here the death was very real. They stood in silence, each Ultramarine lost in his own prison of anger, remorse, defiance and grief.
They were not a tightly bonded unit, these five. They had not forged bonds of steel in the crucible of war. None of them had spoken before they had been brought together for this final task, this mission that could exonerate them and clean the slate of their past misdeeds.
They came from different companies, different squads, different backgrounds. One was a Sky Hunter, and one was drawn from the Assault ranks. Two had been drawn from Tactical units, though one of those had once wielded other powers before that path was closed to him, and now he was no different from any other ranked legionary. The last of their number was a disgraced hero of the past.
Their skills and expertise were as disparate as their service records. It was only their shame that unified them.
Each of them wore a helmet painted red. Each of them bore the mark of censure.
They had all stood before their Chapter Master when they were briefed for this duty. None of them wanted it, but none of them had refused it. This was a way for them to clear their names, he had said. An honour.
It did not feel like an honour to Octavion. To him, it felt like the cruellest of punishments. Even so, he did not complain, and he did not begrudge Chapter Master Aecus Decimus for giving him this task. It had to fall to someone, and it might as well be those that had disgraced themselves in the eyes of their commanders.
He could feel the conflicted emotions of those around him as they watched the enemy forces encircling the Ultramarines on the plains far below. Every one of them wanted to be down there, doing their part, fighting – and dying – with the brothers they had trained and fought alongside for so long.
‘There,’ said one of their number, the Sky Hunter Paulus. He need not have bothered. They all saw it. Perhaps he needed to speak it aloud, Octavion thought. Perhaps in doing so, it was made real, more practical.
To the north, a dust cloud announced the approach of another Word Bearers division. They were coming from the city of Massilea, that once-proud city that was the heart and soul of this world.
Octavion had heard word that it had fallen earlier in the day. For all he knew, all of his battle-brothers were dead. Octavion’s 174th Company had held that city longer than expected, inflicting a heavy toll on the traitors, but now it was gone.
He regarded Massilea as much a home as anywhere in the galaxy. It had been there that he had received the majority of his training, what seemed like an age ago.
‘And there,’ said Paulus, gesturing to the south.
Dark shapes were moving on the horizon: Thunderhawks, Stormbirds and attack craft. Another battle force moving in. They wanted to end this war quickly, Octavion saw. They did not want to be here any longer than necessary.
‘It’s time,’ he said, voicing the truth that he knew was in all of their minds, hanging over them like a guillotine.
‘Reinforcements from Ultramar could be inbound,’ said the youngest of their number, Sio, only recently elevated from the Scout ranks. ‘Could we not wait a little longer?’
Octavion was not aware what infraction had seen Sio forced to wear the red. None of them volunteered explanations for their own censure and none of them asked it of the others. It was not something that any of them were comfortable discussing.
‘That no reinforcements have arrived tells us that this is no isolated incident. War has engulfed Ultramar’s Five Hundred,’ said the brooding veteran Romus. ‘We have our orders.’ His voice was empty. Hollow. He was already resigned to die, Octavion realised.
‘And what if those orders are wrong?’ asked Sio.
‘It does not matter,’ growled Romus. ‘Our names are already tarnished. I will not even consider compounding my dishonour by disobeying the final directive of our Chapter Master.’
There were murmurs of agreement from the others, but Octavion could feel the distress of the youngest battle-brother. It was coming off him in waves. It was there in them all, of course – none of them wanted this hateful, thankless task. The others were just better at repressing it.
‘No one is coming,’ said Octavion, his voice little more than a whisper.
‘How can you be sure?’ said Sio.
What could he say to soothe the young warrior’s despair? Nothing. Besides, he had his own doubts to overcome. His own daemons.
‘No one is coming,’ boomed the fifth of their number, the massive once-champion, Korolos. That ended the matter.
‘Let us go,’ said Octavion, turning away from the battlefield, away from his dying Chapter and towards the waiting shuttle. A score of Imperial Army veterans waited there, standing to attention. Did they realise they were as doomed as the rest of them?
It wasn’t just Sio that had hoped, if not believed, that they would not be required to enact the duty they had been tasked with.
Now they all were faced with the fact that even that slender hope was gone. It was not to be.
Now, indeed, they faced the death of hope itself.
Sor Talgron is summoned before Rogal Dorn
Three
Sor Talgron found it wryly amusing that the Emperor’s decree had neutered the Imperium’s most potent weapon against the warp, at a time when it most needed it. He had no love of psykers, believing that it would be in humanity’s best interests to eradicate them all, but he was a deeply pragmatic soul, and the Librarians were a weapon that the XVII Legion sorely needed. Having seen the powers that were being unleashed against his armies and worlds by the Warmaster’s allies, if the Emperor did not overturn his idiocy soon then he was a prideful fool indeed.
The city was spread before him like a map rendered in three dimensions. Thick black smoke obscured entire sectors. The librarium was built upon a rocky outcrop in the northern sector of Massilea, the highest point in a broad valley delta. It had been a site of pilgrimage long before the Ultramarines had made it a centre of training for those within its ranks exhibiting psychic talents.
It had been a rich and populous centre, Massilea – built of marble, gold and glass – before it had been bombarded into ruin. Broken colonnades and fragments of statues lined broad streets that had become battlegrounds, littered with rubble, burned out shells of vehicles and the innumerable dead. A few triumphal arches remained, flying frayed and burned pennants, towering over parade grounds and squares turned to graveyards. Trees and green spaces had been integrated into the city’s design, though they were now blackened tracts of scorched earth. Two bridges crossing the river which wended through the city remained intact, the water below choked with corpses.
Thunderhawks and Stormbirds bearing the new Legion colours screamed overhead, churning the smoke and ash hanging over the city.
From his vantage, Sor Talgron could see the armoured elements of his assigned battalions moving through the secured sectors of the city. Rhinos, Land Raiders and Vindicators traversed the rubble-strewn streets, leading the way out of the city before the heavier assets grinding along in their wake – the Fellblades and Typhons that had been so instrumental in the earlier action.
The crackle of gunfire and the deeper thuds of shells and mortars still echoed out sporadically. Several of the eastern quadrants of the city were still not completely pacified. The fighting was brutal and taxing, as each building needed to be cleared floor by floor.
Booms like thunder rolling in from the west could be heard when the sound of localised artillery and gunfire abated. A battle was still under way out there on the plains beyond the valley, fifty kilometres away. He had already directed half his force to head there, to outflank the enemy assault. That battle would see the last real strength of the Ultramarines on this world shat
tered. That battle would be the last of it. Once it was done, the process of extraction would begin. All resistance within the system would be spent, and the final cull of the defiant human populations would be enacted. If any XIII Legion support ever arrived, they would find the entire system reduced to a graveyard.
The crackling reports of his officers came through on Dal Ahk’s nuncio-vox. All was proceeding as expected.
There was a flash on the periphery of Sor Talgron’s vision. He reacted instantly, shouting a warning and dropping into cover. Too slow.
Hot blood spurted across his faceplate. Chunks of it dripped down his visor. Ahraneth was down, his brains blown out through a gaping fist-sized hole in the left side of his helmet. The company banner was on the ground.
Sor Talgron seethed as he crouched with his back planted squarely against the marble balustrade. He stared at his dead standard bearer, at the blood soaking the banner. Dal Ahk was in cover beside him, relaying orders and the coordinates of the sniper’s location. There was anger in his voice.
The area had been declared clear. Sor Talgron said nothing, letting his officers deal with it. He heard the clipped orders as legionaries closed in on the sniper’s location. He heard the squad sergeant take responsibility for the mistake. There would be repercussions.
They sat there, listening to the vox reports of various elements of the Chapter spread across the city, waiting for confirmation that the sniper had been neutralised. The pool of blood from Ahraneth’s head was getting ever closer.
He found himself thinking of his old mentor, Volkhar Wreth. The thought was not a comforting one.
‘He was a good warrior,’ said Dal Ahk.
‘What?’ said Sor Talgron.
‘Ahraneth,’ said the master of signal, nodding towards the corpse sprawled before them. ‘He was a good warrior. I saw him rip a greenskin’s head clear off once, and he claimed a kill tally of seventeen eldar at Hallanax. He will be missed. His soul is one with the empyrean now.’
Sor Talgron grunted. ‘You sound like a priest.’
‘The teachings of–’ Dal Ahk began, before he was interrupted by the tell-tale click of incoming vox-traffic.
‘What is it?’ Sor Talgron demanded.
‘Third echelon,’ reported Dal Ahk. ‘They have identified the location of… wait… repeat. Is that confirmed?’
In the distance behind them they heard the sharp crack of grenade detonations, followed by the bark of bolter fire in several controlled bursts. Two hundred and thirty metres off, Sor Talgron estimated from the sound. The sniper was gone.
‘Captain, third echelon have sighted Ultramarines docking at a concealed location, suspected communications outpost,’ said Dal Ahk.
‘Where?’
‘Three hundred kilometres to the west. Shall I have the location targeted from orbit?’
‘No,’ said Sor Talgron. ‘Send for my drop-ship.’
‘Captain?’
‘The enemy have conducted the defence of this world with considerable acumen and tenacity. I will not have the last of them obliterated from orbit. They will die as they lived – with honour.’
‘Would they afford us the same respect if our situations were reversed, captain?’ said Del Ahk. ‘Why does it matter how they die?’
Sor Talgron thought of his old mentor again, and the fate that had befallen him.
‘It matters to me,’ he said.
The giant leaned on the table with massive bronze-encased fists.
He was immense. All of the primarchs were, but Sor Talgron had only ever stood in close proximity to one – Aurelian, the gene-father of the Word Bearers.
Rogal Dorn was much bigger.
Had it not been a secular age, the primarch of the Imperial Fists would surely have been worshipped as a demigod. No mortal could stand in his presence and not be cowed.
His face was as unforgiving as stone. His hair was snow-white and cropped short. His eyes were as hard and cold as diamonds and exuded a fierce, cold intelligence.
And anger. A deep, unforgiving abyss of anger that was palpable in his every movement and expression.
The table before him was huge, carved from the dark wood of a tree long extinct on Terra. It was covered with plans, communiques, orbital scans and data-slates. The wealth of information was overwhelming, yet there was order to it – nothing was out of place or unnecessary.
The chamber itself was cavernous, austere and sparsely furnished. There were no seats. One side of its length was dominated by floor to ceiling arched windows. From the view it was clear that the room was positioned high upon the Himalazian flanks, above the cloud line, and while the sky outside was black and pinpricked with stars, harsh industrial light from below flooded through those thick reinforced panes.
A meeting had been under way when Tiber Acanthus announced him. Bureaucrats, politicians, guilders, Administratum – Dorn dismissed them with a word. Few of them deigned even to look upon Sor Talgron as they filed out. These were the architects of the new Imperium. These were those with true power, and Sor Talgron loathed them. They had no concept of the blood, death and horrors that those that had carved out the Imperium had known. None of them had ever likely stepped off-world at all. One, elongated and skeletally thin and clutching construction plans and data-slates, had looked down at him, his pinched face disdainful. Sor Talgron had stared at him as he left, hating him and all his weak-blooded kind. These were the ones that they had been fighting for? It made him sick.
Tiber Acanthus had departed, pulling the huge wooden doors closed behind him. Two individuals remained with Dorn. Neither were introduced.
One he knew from the time he had spent on Terra – Archamus, master of Dorn’s huscarl retinue. A stern, proud individual, his gene-heritage was clear; his features were strongly reminiscent of his primarch’s.
The other was no Imperial Fist. His armour was plainly coloured and trimmed with a worn olive green. An officer of the Death Guard.
He was completely bald, this captain, and a stylised eagle taking flight bedecked his cuirass and gorget. His eyes were stern and unflinching. He looked solid, in Sor Talgron’s estimation. Dependable. Stoic. Who he was, Sor Talgron did not know, but he instinctively liked him. This was a soldier he could respect.
The mystery of this warrior’s identity had been forgotten as soon as Dorn began to speak. Now that he was done, the silence was heavy.
For a long moment, Sor Talgron stared at the Death Guard captain, his brow furrowed. Then his gaze returned to Dorn.
‘It is…’ he said, at last. ‘It is difficult to comprehend.’
‘Believe it,’ said Rogal Dorn, his voice like rolling thunder.
‘Isstvan Three will be forever damned in the annals of history,’ added Archamus. Sor Talgron narrowed his eyes at him – there was too much pride in the huscarl’s bearing.
‘Four Legions turning against their own. Turning against the Emperor,’ said Sor Talgron, shaking his head. ‘It is madness.’
‘Madness, aye,’ said Dorn. ‘Madness of the worst kind.’
The primarch pushed off the table, fists clenched. It looked like he wanted to hit something. If he put the full force of his fury behind it, Sor Talgron doubted any living being would have survived such a blow.
The giant moved across the chamber, his advance implacable, each step echoing heavily and accompanied by the mechanical hum and grind of his armour. He halted before the windows, staring down the range’s flank. A multitude of floodlights bathed the mountainside, throwing the vast construction work below into stark relief. The harsh white glow underlit his features, emphasising the deep lines and contours of his face. He could have been carved from granite, so hard and immobile was he.
He remained there, staring out into the distance for a time. The silence was oppressive. Both Archamus and the unidentified Death Guard captain stared at So
r Talgron, unblinking.
‘How did you learn of this atrocity?’ said Sor Talgron finally, breaking the silence. ‘My augurs and astropaths have heard nothing from beyond the borders of the segmentum for months, blinded by warp storms.’
The primarch turned and stalked back towards the heavy dark wood table, his expression grim. It took considerable force of will for Sor Talgron not to back away a step at his approach. It would be a terrifying vision to see in battle, this giant encased in gold coming at you with the intent to kill.
‘The astropathic choir has been silent,’ growled Dorn. ‘We have heard nothing from the Isstvan System since the start of this.’
Sor Talgron frowned, but said nothing.
‘Rather, I heard it from one who was there,’ said Dorn, answering his unspoken question.
Dorn inclined his head, and Sor Talgron’s gaze was drawn to the Death Guard captain standing silently to attention.
‘This is Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro, formerly of the Fourteenth Legion,’ said the primarch.
Garro saluted, striking his chest with his fist in the old Terran tradition. Sor Talgron returned the gesture.
‘It surprises me to see one of the Death Guard standing here, having just heard the tale of your Legion’s betrayal,’ he said.
‘It is no tale,’ snapped Archamus. ‘It is the truth.’
Sor Talgron glanced at him. ‘A figure of speech,’ he said, before returning his attention to Garro.
‘It saddens me to stand here and speak of such events,’ said the Death Guard captain. ‘My ties to my Legion died along with my true brothers, who were butchered on Isstvan Three for the crime of their loyalty.’
‘You are a legionary without a Legion, then.’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Garro was witness to the Warmaster’s betrayal. He saw my… brother,’ said Dorn, almost spitting the word, ‘turn against the Imperium. Horus attacked Isstvan Three with virus bombs, killing untold thousands of legionaries loyal to the Emperor, and millions of citizens. In the face of this atrocity, Garro took his ship – the Eisenstein – and fought his way clear to bring word to Terra.’