‘When we have concluded this parley, send word to the captains, little brother. The fleet is to assume formation for the bombardment of Perditus Ultima.’
There were outbursts from Typhon and Midoa, which fell on deaf ears.
‘As you command, my liege,’ said Corswain.
‘You cannot destroy the warp engine!’ said Midoa, taking a step forwards. ‘If its power can be harnessed, it could be the weapon that enables us to turn the tide on the traitors.’
‘You suppose too much, captain,’ the Lion replied sharply. ‘I too received Guilliman’s summons. I do not concur with his plans, and I would no more trust him with this engine than any servant of Horus. I consider Ultramar no safer place for this device than Perditus, and even if Guilliman does not use it for his own purposes I cannot allow it to fall into the hands of the Emperor’s enemies.’
Typhon’s laugh rang around the chamber as Midoa made further protest.
‘Your good humour is misplaced, commander,’ snapped the Lion, silencing Typhon’s mirth and Midoa’s arguments. ‘I am of a mind to let you depart Perditus without the engine, so that you might take word of its destruction to whatever masters you wish to claim. However, slight me again or dishonour my audience and I will be content to allow your lieutenants to perform that errand in your stead.’
Silence greeted this proclamation and the Lion stood up, signalling that the audience was at an end.
‘Perditus Ultima and its prize will be destroyed within hours. Tell my brothers that there is nothing for them here.’
IX
On the main display, the tiny speck of light that was Captain Midoa’s shuttle disappeared behind the shadow of his heavy cruiser, the Fastidious Prosecutor. Looking at a sub-screen, the Lion saw the Terminus Est of the Death Guard powering away, its plasma engines almost lost against the light reflecting from Perditus Ultima’s surface. The primarch was about to turn away, with both Typhon and Midoa now returned to their respective ships, when he overhead a message from Lady Fiana coming through to one of the communications attendants.
‘Relay that connection to speakers,’ the Lion demanded, pointing a finger at the Legion serf, who complied immediately, eyes wide with surprise.
‘Lauded primarch, my family and I are detecting a distortion in the warp around Perditus Ultima,’ Fiana repeated, her voice coming through the address grilles all around the strategium.
‘Tuchulcha?’ asked the primarch.
‘No, this is something different. It is like a miniature vortex, a hole burrowing through the warp.’
‘Burrowing from where? To what does this hole lead?’
‘Give us a moment, lauded primarch. Ardal is ascending the pilaster for a better fix on the location of the disturbance.’
‘Raise void shields,’ snapped Captain Stenius. ‘Arm weapons batteries and sound the call to battle order.’
The Lion was content to let his subordinate take the appropriate defensive measures. He waited with arms crossed, gaze moving between the main screen, the sub-display of the Terminus Est and the speaker located to the right of the display array, as if he could see Lady Fiana beyond.
‘Detecting a power surge from the Terminus Est, captain,’ announced one of the serfs at the scanner consoles.
‘Just raising void shields, captain,’ said another almost immediately after.
‘The warp disturbance is local, very small.’ Navigator Ardal’s voice was reedy over the internal comm. ‘I do not know how, but it seems to be originating from the Death Guard flagship.’
‘Where to?’ snarled the Lion. ‘Where is it directed?’
‘Perditus Ultima, lauded primarch. It’s some kind of warp tunnel, straight into the heart of the facility. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Corswain!’ The Lion’s use of the seneschal’s name automatically switched the battle-barge’s systems to a direct address channel. Almost unnoticed, a tiny icon blinked on a sub-screen, indicating on a schematic of the Invincible Reason that Corswain was in the transit corridor outside the starboard launch bays, having seen off Midoa and Typhon.
‘Yes, my liege?’
‘Assemble your guard, and the Librarians, at teleporter chamber two. I will meet you there.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Lay in coordinates for the Magellix facility. The Death Guard are trying to steal the warp engine.’
Typhon’s manreaper parted the tech-adept from pelvis to throat, the scythe’s power field fizzing and cracking with vaporising blood. The ragged remains of the tech-adept flopped to the bare stone of the floor as a squad of skitarii burst from the doors ahead. The Mechanicum’s bionically-augmented warriors sported a variety of laser weapons and rocket launchers. As red las-blasts seared down the tunnel and the corkscrew contrails of guided rockets followed, the Grave Wardens opened fire. Typhon’s autocannon thundered in his fist while a counter-barrage of missiles and bolts hammered into the half-machine defenders of Perditus Ultima.
The Terminators continued their implacable advance, stepping over the sparking, bloodied remnants of the skitarii, passing into the corridor that led to Tuchulcha’s prison. More skitarii appeared and were cut down, the Grave Wardens all but impervious to the weapons carried by their foes.
At the head of the column, Typhon was still trying to push aside the side effects of the warp-teleportation he had employed to bring his warriors inside the facility. The Father had not been so generous in his gifts this time, and Typhon’s skin felt heavy beneath his armour. His whole body itched and his head occasionally swam with the effort he had expended to punch a hole through reality.
‘Why did we not do this when we first arrived?’ rasped Vioss, striding alongside Typhon to the left. ‘We would have retrieved the device long before the arrival of the Dark Angels.’
‘I did not know that Tuchulcha was awake,’ replied Typhon. ‘It will have to transport itself back to Terminus Est, for I do not have the power. It is of a far greater mass than it looks, the bulk of its construction existing only in warp space.’
‘A feat of engineering,’ said Vioss, his sarcasm plain to hear.
‘A miracle of the Father,’ Typhon corrected him as they came to the chamber of Tuchulcha. The Death Guard commander stopped, seized by a sudden pain in his abdomen. He gritted his teeth as he felt something squirming through his insides; or at least a sensation he considered similar to having his intestines burrowed out by some hellish rodent. In a few seconds the pain had passed and he barrelled forwards through the next set of doors.
The globe of Tuchulcha hung in the centre of the room, surrounded by the entrapments and delving devices of the Mechanicum. Typhon was struck by the beauty of the patterns that flowed across the device’s surface. A melange of oily colours merged and split, creating a hypnotic effect. With some effort, the Death Guard leader broke his gaze from the floating orb, seeing a red-robed figure kneeling before the device, hood covering head and face.
Typhon aimed his reaper autocannon at the kneeling figure, but his finger did not squeeze the trigger as a child’s voice broke the quiet.
‘Stop! Do not harm him!’
A youth had stepped out of the tangle of cables surrounding Tuchulcha, sallow-skinned, connected to the apparatus imprisoning the device. It took a moment for Typhon to realise that the servitor-body was being manipulated by the machine.
‘He is of no consequence,’ said the commander. ‘He has been your jailer, and should be punished.’
A liquid-filled gasping emanated from the servitor-youth, which Typhon realised was laughter.
‘I cannot be imprisoned, not by the likes of this creature,’ said Tuchulcha.
‘Good, then you will be able to come with us.’
The boy did not reply, but looked away, head tilted back as if he was gazing through the rocky ceiling of the hall.
�
��You do not have long, Typhon of the Dusk Raiders,’ he said. ‘The Lion comes, seeking your head. Your warriors are being slain.’
As if in confirmation, the first reports crackled across the comm-net. The rearguard of three squads of Grave Wardens were under attack. Their report was short-lived, talking of the blazing sword of the Dark Angels’ primarch, and of nightmare hooded creatures by his side that had eyes of flame and claws of iron. Ten seconds passed and Typhon heard no more from his men.
‘He has brought his psykers with him,’ Typhon told Vioss. ‘I cannot contend with their combined abilities. Warn Charthun and the second line, they must fall back towards this position.’
‘As you wish, commander,’ said Vioss.
‘We are the Death Guard now,’ Typhon corrected Tuchulcha. ‘I cannot take you back to my ship by my own hand. You must come with me if you want to be free.’
‘Free?’ Again there was the strangled gurgling of laughter from the animated boy. ‘I have been waiting a long time for the Lion to return. I saw him, the first time he came, and knew that my saviour had been delivered to me. The Perditians trapped me here, but with the aid of Iaxis I have been able to loose my bonds. I have remained solely because I knew the Lion would return to me.’
‘He seeks to destroy you,’ said Typhon.
‘He seeks to possess me, as all others have before,’ replied Tuchulcha. ‘Fear not for me, brave Typhon. You must fulfil your own destiny. Your primarch awaits you. It would be such a waste for you to be slain here. Here, let me help you.’
Typhon’s protest died in his throat as he felt the surge of translocation. A moment later, he was on the strategium of the Terminus Est, his remaining Grave Wardens around him.
‘What was that about?’ said Vioss, shaking his head. The captain turned to the surprised attendants at the bridge controls. ‘Set course for the nearest translation point. The Dark Angels will be after us soon enough.’
‘No need,’ said Typhon, feeling a pressure in the back of his mind that he recognised well. ‘Tuchulcha has already put us well out of harm’s way.’
Dismissing his serfs, Typhon was left alone in his chambers, the bare metal bulkheads spotted with rust, lit by the unfettered glare of the light strips in the ceiling. He peeled off the last layer of his undersuit, tossing the sodden mesh aside to reveal his pallid flesh. He could not understand what had happened. The Father had sent him to Perditus to rescue Tuchulcha from the clutches of the Mechanicum, but he had failed.
The ache in his gut was still there, and the Death Guard commander looked down at his stomach. Beneath his flesh could be seen the rigid plates of his black carapace. There was something else, pocking his skin just below his breast plate. He could not see so clearly past the curve of his muscled chest, so Typhon turned and looked at himself in the polished bronze of his mirror.
Just beneath his solar plexus were three blisters, each as large as his thumbtip, arranged in a triangle, touching each other. They were dark red, surrounded by a black ring, weeping clear fluid. He felt no pain as he gently prodded one of the buboes with his finger. In fact, the sensation sent a thrill of pleasure through his body.
Typhon had a moment of realisation. He had freed Tuchulcha. By travelling to Perditus, he had turned the Lion’s eye towards the world, setting in motion a course of events that led somewhere Typhon did not know, but was to the grand design of the Father. The trio of blisters on his flesh was a reward; a sign from the Father that Typhon’s loyalty had been noted. He was marked now and forever, marked by the love of the Father.
It was just the beginning, of course. The Grave Wardens were only the first. The Father wanted them all. The Father wanted the love and loyalty of every Death Guard; the love and loyalty of Mortarion above anything else.
‘Areyou surethat was all the message said?’ Captain Lorramech shook his head, eyes fixed on Midoa. The two of them walked back to the strategium, heading from the conveyor that had brought them up from the docking bay.
‘That was all the Lion said I was to say,’ confirmed Midoa. ‘He was very specific. “Tell Guilliman I have a reply for him,” the Lion told me. “Tell him to wait for me. I am coming.” That was it.’
The lord of the First Legion sat as he so often sat these nights, leaning back in his ornate throne of ivory and obsidian. His elbows rested upon the throne’s sculpted arms, while his fingers were steepled before his face, just barely touching his lips. Unblinking eyes, the brutal green of Caliban’s forests, stared dead ahead, watching the flickering hololith of embattled stars.
Iaxis and his device were safely stowed in the deepest holds of the Invincible Reason. Magellix station had been turned to molten slag and rubble in a few hours; nothing was left for any other Legion to claim.
The Lion’s lips moved, so slightly that perhaps a casual observer would not have noticed. Also none but those with the superhuman hearing of a primarch would have heard the words that came from his near-unmoving lips.
‘I have Curze now,’ the Lion said, speaking only to shadows. His monologue stopped every few moments, as though to allow someone else to speak. ‘With Tuchulcha, we will be able to trap the Night Haunter. We have to be careful not to act too swiftly. Yes, when the time is right, but not before. If Curze notices a drastic change in our strategy he will respond, perhaps abandoning Thramas altogether. You are right, that would not be helpful.’
The Lion paused and wiped a fingertip across his brow.
‘Guilliman is a misguided fool at best, and a traitorous dog at worst.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I know that, but I would no sooner bend my knee to him than to Horus. Curze has the truth of it, but I was blinded by my anger. It has fallen to me to be the scale upon which history will be balanced. Every event has its counter, every brother his equal. Curze seeks to sap my morale and the strength of my Legion with unending war. Such shall be the duty of the Dark Angels. Yes, they will be ready for the task. There will be no new Emperor, only a lifetime of war. My brothers will bleed each other dry, contesting for eternity until there can be no victor. No, not even him. There is only the Emperor, none is worthy of inheriting that mantle. I will ensure the Legiones Astartes destroy themselves before another matches the power upon Terra. That is true. Faced with the prospect of mutual annihilation, my brothers may come to terms. Horus will be forced to acknowledge the Emperor again, and Guilliman and the others will not usurp their true master.’
Again the Lion stopped, with a slight shake of the head. He turned his gaze to his left, and out of the shadows appeared a diminutive figure. It was no taller than the height of a man’s knee, clad in an ebon robe, tiny and nimble black-gloved hands visible, but the rest of its body and face hidden in shadow. The diminutive creature looked up at the Lion and two coal-like glows briefly lit the inside of its hood.
‘No, it is too important,’ said the primarch. ‘Even if what you say is true, I cannot return to Caliban yet. Come what may, I have to stop Horus and Guilliman.’
The small figure bowed its head, and the Lion did the same, his whisper full of sorrow.
‘Yes, even if it costs me my Legion.’
Gilead’s Curse
Chapter 6
Nik Vincent and Dan Abnett
Mastering the bardic arts requires such discipline, such breadth and depth of understanding that it falls to the very few, to the most learned, and to those truly in their unfettered prime to invoke a character that is other.
I fell upon my profession as a child at the bedside of a teller of the most magical of elf tales, and I have tried my humble best to invoke the ancient race honestly and honourably.
I weary now, and know that it will take all the energy I have to do justice to this portion of the tale, this most pained and painful of subjects, this creature of the endless night, of enduring darkness, of pity and of pathos.
Forgive me if I falter, for so desolate a character never walked the
Empire but he filled these bardic veins with bloodless ice. I feel a glacial blast only anticipating unfurling this tale. Stir the fire, for my chilled hands will not hold the poker steady, and swathe my shoulders in another of your fine blankets, and I will do my very best.
Hail mine liege lord the night
Hail mine liege lady the moon
Hail mine steed of might
Hail mine blades of doom
Hail mine eternity of life
Hail mine eternity of death
Hail mine duty of strife
Hail mine sacrifice of faith
He spoke the words over and over, first aloud, and then silently. For the first half-hour of silent repetitions, his lips moved, but, gradually, the words became a mantra, a meditation in his exhausted mind. Then, his lips were all but stilled, the top, so pale that its edge was invisible, the lip and the surrounding skin the same bloodless, grey hue. His bottom lip swelled slightly at the centre, dark and moist, as if a great black ball of blood was trying to leak out from between his teeth. It quivered from time to time. He longed to feel the words as he had felt them a thousand years ago, but he felt nothing now, nothing but the futility of an existence devoid of all meaning.
He sat in a small clearing with his back exposed. He had long-since given up the practice of sitting with his back against a tree or wall, or into the corner of a room. He had long-since abandoned any desire to defend himself. He relished his vulnerability, however artificial it was. He knew that if he was attacked from behind, he would surely hear his adversary, be on his feet before the attack had happened, and would probably have run his assailant through on his sword before the poor deluded fool had a chance to parry or counter-attack.
He was the consummate fighting machine. He had no heart, no fear, no weaknesses, and above all no worthy opponent.
Everyone was his enemy. Every mortal creature despised him, as he despised himself. Every sentient race cursed him, cowered before him and condemned him, as his own kind had condemned him to this endless round, this interminable existence.
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