Krukesh, Captain of the 103rd Company, was VIII Legion from blood to bone. Taken as a youth from Terra, he rose to his captaincy by a murder duel, taking his former commander’s head. Whatever would the Ultramarines or Imperial Fists have thought if such barbarous customs inside the Night Lords had become known before the betrayal? Savagery of that stripe was a natural projection of ambitious warriors freed of moral constraint. The gangland wars of Nostramo Quintus had a hundred varieties of honour duels and succession rituals based on the murder of one’s predecessor. The Pale, Krukesh was called by his brethren. The primarch’s gene-seed whitened the skin of every soul who endured implantation, and blackened the irises of their eyes. Krukesh, however, was gaunt to the point of emaciation, pale past anything resembling ill-health, edging on the preternatural. He was a starved cadaver in midnight ceramite, black eyes burning from sunken eye sockets. Sevatar suspected some form of low-grade gene-seed degeneration: uncommon, but not entirely unknown. Either way, Krukesh and Sevatar had history. Debts were owed, from times past. Even remembering them made the First Captain’s skin itch.
Last of all was Alastor Rushal, born of Terra, but not born of VIII Legion genestock. He still wore the armour of his Legion, cast in a cold black, edged in dented white trimmings. The noble emblem on his shoulder guard – a raven in white, with wings spread wide – had been ritually broken by blows from a hammer, wielded in Alastor’s own hand. All trappings of rank were gone from his armour, scratched away after the killing fields of Isstvan. Like the Night Lords, his face was pale and his eyes were dark. Unlike the warriors he stood amongst, the helm carried in the crook of his arm lacked the bat-winged crest sported by the VIII Legion’s inner circle of captains. In this coven, he stood alone and unmarked.
Sevatar nodded to Alastor, before addressing the group as one.
‘You will help me lead this broken Legion. You are now the Kyroptera of the Night Lords. Any questions?’
Several of the others exchanged glances. In the corner, Trez’s rebreather hid his smile. Tovac was the one to actually speak.
‘That’s your greeting? That’s how you welcome us?’
‘Yes.’ Sevatar didn’t blink. ‘Did you expect a speech?’
‘I don’t know what I expected.’
‘Then why do you sound disappointed?’
‘I…’
Sevatar tilted his head. ‘Any real questions?’
‘I have one,’ said Ophion. His face was a mess of recent stitches and skin grafts. ‘Why us?’
‘Because the rest of the Kyroptera are dead, with Var Jahan and myself as the only survivors.’
‘Obviously. And how did they die?’ Ophion asked.
‘The Dark Angels killed some of them. I killed the rest. Or rather, the Atramentar killed them, because I asked them to.’
Ophion snorted, not even remotely surprised. ‘But why us?’
Sevatar watched the other captain in silence for several moments. ‘You are a very suspicious man, Ophion.’
‘That I am.’
Sevatar saw no harm in the truth. ‘You are all variously loyal to me, intelligent, reliable, trustworthy, and divorced from the weakness of human compassion. The Legion needs leadership. It needs us.’
‘Then I’ll be the one to say it.’ Krukesh gestured a gauntleted hand at Alastor, his skullish face locked in a sneer. ‘Why is the Raven here? He leads no company. He commands no men. He cannot be one of the Kyroptera.’
‘He can, because I say he can. Unless the primarch rises and countermands my order, the Raven stands with us. Now, to business.’
Sevatar called up the hololithic display again. ‘What you’re looking at, brothers, is over a third of the Legion’s fleet. We’ve had contact with the other mustering points at Ykresh, Taur, and Sotha. The casualty figures are on the wrong side of hilarious.’
‘Don’t keep us in suspense,’ Var Jahan grunted.
‘The Dark Angels destroyed just over twenty-five per cent of the fleet in their ambush. They killed a quarter of the Legion in three hours.’
The new Kyroptera exchanged glances. None of them wished to say anything, leaving Sevatar to continue. ‘It’s only been two weeks. There may be several dozen vessels still in the warp, or caught away from the fallback points. But the confirmed casualties alone are grievous. Every shipmaster saw other vessels die. Collating that list shows a fifth of the Legion dead in the void, or on the surface of Sheol. So…’
Sevatar turned back to his brothers. ‘The question now, is what do we do?’
‘Revenge,’ said Var Jahan. ‘Vengeance against the Angels.’
‘Don’t make me kill you, as well. Revenge against the First Legion would be a fool’s crusade. I am striving to make this as democratic as possible, but don’t try my patience.’
Krukesh tapped his knuckles on the hololithic table. ‘What of the primarch?’
‘Still in a coma,’ replied Var Jahan, ‘aboard the Excoriator.’
‘What is the meaning of…’ Naraka gave the vaguest of waves at the bodies hanging all around, ‘…of all this?’
‘This,’ said Sevatar, ‘is the result of our primarch’s little telepath no longer doing his job. Isn’t that right, Trez?’
The old man blinked, sucking in a gulp of oxygen through his facemask as the seven warriors slowly turned to face him. His stammered attempt at a response went nowhere. It barely even left his lips.
‘The Sin-Eater is failing us?’ asked Naraka.
‘So it would seem,’ replied Sevatar.
‘My lords…’ Trez swallowed.
‘We’re “my lords” now,’ Sevatar chuckled. ‘I was just “Jago” earlier.’
‘My lords, please. Before the ambush, Lord Curze’s dreams were becoming too poisoned, too dark. I struggled to purge them of the pain.’
Krukesh stalked closer to the wizened archivist. His cadaverous visage stared down at the man. ‘Are you failing in your duties, little psyker?’
Trez’s throat bobbed as he swallowed again. ‘Please… I’m doing all I can… I’ll double my efforts when he returns to us, I swear on my very soul.’
Naraka joined Krukesh, looking down at the hunched scholar. ‘You gave the Legion your word before, telepath. And now you fail us.’
‘Sevatar…’ Trez managed to whisper between panted breaths.
‘I did warn you to be somewhere else,’ Sevatar pointed out. He let his words hang in the air, the implied threat adding blades to the leering black eyes staring down at the archivist.
‘Leave him be,’ Sevatar said at last. ‘We need him.’
The two captains backed away, one chuckling, the other silent. ‘The primarch’s degeneration is a grave threat to us,’ said Var Jahan from across the chamber. ‘Mounting heads on spikes to warn slaves about the price of disobedience is one thing. Dwelling among the bodies of dead legionaries and Legion serfs is quite another.’
Sevatar gently shoved one of the nearby corpses, sending it swaying on its rattling chains. ‘Degeneration is a harsh word. I regret using it myself in the past. Our lord is a haunted man, that’s true. But he remains unbroken. This war – this exile into the deepest black – is what’s poisoning him. He feels useless.’
‘Conjecture,’ said Naraka.
‘You’re guessing,’ Krukesh said in the same moment.
‘Am I now?’
Krukesh hissed in a breath through his bloodstained teeth. ‘Just tell us your scheme, Sevatar. We’re not fools. You’re planning something.’
‘Not a plan. An intent. I’m going divide the remnants of the Legion. I’ll scatter the Night Lords across the galaxy, to fight the war as they wish. Each of you will take whatever forces you can gather, forming one of six Great Companies. And then do whatever you want. I don’t care, as long as you bleed the Imperium. Carve out your own slice of Mankind’s empire. Come with me
on the long crusade to Terra.’ Sevatar shrugged. ‘The choice will be yours. Var Jahan, if you are still so ruthlessly committed to fighting the Dark Angels, you can remain with your companies and slow them down, as you desire.’
Var Jahan didn’t comment. Sevatar could see the thoughts curling in the depths of his black eyes.
‘Six Great Companies,’ Tovac said. ‘The Raven will be one of the Kyroptera, but he’s given no men to command? Why include him at all?’
Alastor said nothing. He merely forced a tight smile.
Sevatar nodded to the question. ‘He is one of us, whether he was born of Nostramo or not, and no matter what blood beats through his veins. To be Eighth Legion is more than flesh and bone. He earned his place among the elite at Isstvan. Do you dispute it?’
‘Not I.’ Tovac inclined his head towards Alastor. ‘All here know I hold no grudge against the Raven.’
‘We need time to think on this, First Captain,’ said Var Jahan.
‘You have three nights before I begin coordinating the vessels of the force I’m taking to Terra.’
‘Will you kill us if we disagree with this… division?’ asked Ophion.
Sevatar gave his flesh-hooked grin again. ‘And they told me you weren’t a thinker, Captain Ophion.’
Sevatar boarded the Excoriator with Var Jahan at his side, and Ekra Trez trailing along at their heels. In other Legions, the arrival of the First Captain and the vessel’s own commander might have prompted at least a little ceremony. In the VIII Legion, the menials and serfs working in the hangar bay lowered their heads in respectful silence, and did their best to carry on their duties unnoticed.
As the captains walked through the dark corridors of Var Jahan’s warship, Sevatar spoke softly.
‘There’s something I’ve just realised I don’t know.’
Var Jahan glanced to his left, immediately on edge from the introspective tone in his brother’s voice. ‘Yes?’
‘How did the Terrans in the Legion feel when we all watched Nostramo burn? It wasn’t their homeworld, after all.’
Var Jahan mused over the question, unsure how to answer. ‘Half the Legion is Terran, Sevatar. You’ve never spoken to any of them about this, even once?’
The First Captain didn’t reply. He sometimes had great difficulty recalling that other people had different perspectives to him. Of course he knew that they led different lives, and were shaped by different experiences, but he struggled to imagine their frames of reference. He couldn’t, in essence, see things from their point of view.
Part of the problem was that he was so rarely wrong. It made it hard to take other people’s opinions and observations seriously. He’d always been this way, even as a child. His mother had told him he’d grow out of it, that he’d become better with people.
He didn’t. He hadn’t.
It was the same in battle. He didn’t know why he was different there, either. He didn’t know why he ran faster, killed quicker, and tired slower than they did. He’d duelled Sigismund of the Imperial Fists once – the only warrior ever to beat him to a deadlock in over a hundred years of warfare. The duel had lasted almost thirty long, long hours of sweat, swearing, and the crash-clash of iron against iron.
He’d cheated, in the end. He finished the duel, as hundreds of warriors from both Legions looked on, by headbutting the Templar and disqualifying himself. It broke the rules, as well as Sigismund’s winning streak.
True to his nature, Sigismund had done nothing but laugh. The proud stoicism the First Captain of the Fists was so famous for didn’t bleach all humanity from his humour. Sevatar had always envied him that, for he found it very difficult to laugh, to joke, to bond effortlessly with brothers in arms.
‘Forget I spoke,’ he said to Var Jahan. ‘Good luck in council with your captains, brother. I will deal with the primarch’s transfer.’
The two captains parted ways. Trez shuffled after Sevatar, saying nothing.
I know your secret, Jago. The memory of the old man’s words was curiously cold.
Sevatar entered the apothecarion, offering a saluted greeting to the three Apothecaries lingering near the resting primarch. They returned his salute as he approached the surgical slab.
‘Any change, Valzen?’ he asked the Chief Apothecary.
‘None. He sleeps.’
‘Any sign of dreaming?’
‘There’s still no evidence of it, on any cerebral auspex sweep.’ Valzen’s face was partially augmetic – a silver and steel simulacrum of the features he lost to an Iron Hands warrior’s chainfist on Isstvan. The ceramic black eye didn’t blink, the mouth didn’t move; Sevatar was an indifferent student of history, but he thought the shining visage harked back to the death masks of primitive cultures on Ancient Terra.
‘Be ready to transfer the primarch to the apothecarion aboard the Nightfall. We leave in three nights.’
‘Of course, captain.’ Valzen hesitated, though his emotionless chrome face showed no hint of why. ‘Why is the Sin-Eater here? I’ve told you in every report, sir, the primarch isn’t dreaming. Trez’s presence isn’t required.’
‘I know. Do not concern yourself with it.’
‘As you wish.’
Sevatar looked around the busy apothecarion, at the servitors, the serfs in scrubs and surgical coats, and the Legion Apothecaries remaining by the primarch’s side. He knew all three of the warrior-surgeons: Valzen was his own Apothecary, an officer in the Atramentar. The other two were from the Third and Tenth Companies, respectively.
‘Leave me,’ Sevatar told them all. ‘Even you, Valzen. Clear the apothecarion. I want every soul gone.’
‘Captain–’
‘I have an idea that may bring him back.’
‘Sev, I have to stay. You can’t expect me to leave.’
‘I expect you to do as I order.’ In a rare moment of insight, Sevatar softened the demand with a hand on Valzen’s shoulder guard. ‘And I expect you to trust me, brother.’
Trez breathed slowly, once they were alone. His rasping respiration was a sickly wet rhythm behind the growl of Sevatar’s armour, and the digital sounds of medical equipment.‘So this is why you brought me,’ the archivist said. His voice echoed hollowly around the empty room.
Sevatar stood by the slumbering primarch. In repose, Curze looked less wretched, less weakened by the strains of commanding a guerrilla void campaign out here in the deepest black for more than two years, across hundreds of star systems.
Curze wasn’t born for this. He was a justiciar, a judge, a man born to look traitors and thieves in the eye as he delivered their sentence. And now, what had he become? A general? An admiral? A warleader buried beneath logistics and tactical displays, cast out to languish with his sons at the far end of the galaxy.
Worse, he was a traitor now himself.
Sevatar had seen his primarch’s desperation, the degeneration, the yearning for purpose in the star-scattered isolation of the deep void. He’d seen it taking place since they’d first set sail for the Thramas Sector, and now he wanted answers. Guesses and patience were no longer enough.
Sevatar’s gloved hand remained above the primarch’s pale forehead, fingers half-curled, unwilling to touch his father’s face.
‘This will probably kill you, Jago.’
He nodded to Trez’s words. ‘I know.’
The archivist sucked in a wet breath. ‘You have the strength for this. But not the control.’
‘I know,’ Sevatar said again. ‘But I have to try. I don’t want him to die.’ He looked down at his crimson gauntlet, painted as evidence of his sins. ‘I failed him once already. I won’t let it happen twice.’
Trez sighed, dew droplets of condensed breath sparkling on the inside of his rebreather. ‘There’s no going back from this. If you unlock the gift you’ve fought so hard to forget… Some doors cannot be closed.
’
Sevatar was barely listening now. ‘I already struggle to restrain it,’ he said, his voice barely carrying over the humming of the ceiling air vents. ‘Will you help me? I can’t do this alone.’
The old man limped over on a creaking spine and shin-splinted legs. He reached out with a hand blighted by liver spots and the trembles of flaring arthritis, and closed his knuckly fingers around the back of Sevatar’s red gauntlet.
The First Captain lowered his hand, resting his fingertips on his father’s forehead.
‘You said he wasn’t dreaming, Trez.’ Sevatar spoke aloud, dead-voiced and staring at nothing. ‘You were wrong.’
Chapter V
The Boy Who Would Be King
The boy rose from the wreckage, wearing nothing more than smears of ash and dirt clinging to his pale skin. He looked at the sky, dark as the void, blind without a sun’s eye. He looked at the metal ruin of his cradle-engine, still hissing steam through its cracked, blistered armour plating. And then, still with nothing resembling an expression on his slender face, he looked to the horizon.
A city. A city of spires and domes, its dull, low lights still brightening the surrounding darkness with a beacon’s intensity.
The first expression to play across the boy’s face was subtle, but telling. His eyes narrowed as his heartbeat quickened. Instinctively, he knew he’d find others of his kind in the distant, light-rich hive. The thought made him reach for a weapon. White fingers curled around a jagged shard of metal, cooled in the soil.
Shadows of Treachery Page 26