Warden of the Blade

by David Annandale

  Fate. Destiny. No, Sendrax was wrong. Crowe did not rely on destiny to see him to his goal. Destiny was not a predetermined event. It was a responsibility. It was a calling. It could be failed.

  He would not fail.

  And in answer to his determination, the sky hurled itself down on Dikaia. On all sides, the city exploded. Crowe ran through the blasts. Shock waves buffeted him. Pieces of shrapnel the size of Land Raiders flew across the avenue. Fire consumed his sight. The thunder of the explosions was the roar of Sandava II itself. The rockcrete of the road melted. Crowe’s boots stuck in the molten sludge. He pulled himself free and charged over the bodies of the enemy. They sank into the road, burning, their faces betraying no sign of the agony inflicted upon them. The sword’s control over their beings was so complete, it would not let them scream.

  Dikaia rocked and howled. It surrounded Crowe with the cataclysm of its death. Except in front. One shell landed near the base of the tower, and a horde of heretics vanished in the explosion. The crater was free of rubble.

  ‘I give thanks to the Emperor,’ Crowe prayed. ‘His hand scatters my enemies before me. His wrath is the flame of their annihilation.’

  ‘I am His sword,’ Drake said.

  ‘He directs my blow,’ said Gorvenal.

  Crowe moved through the fury of a sun. There was the road ahead, the straight path through the writhing enemy to the Vigilance tower. And there was the tower itself, the great solid, black mass, the single unchanging point in the vortex of the bombardment. All else was shattered, all else was hurtling ruin. All else was a storm of total incineration.

  But the path was there. Crowe’s steps were sure. This was the nature of destiny. It was the clear road, the path that must be followed, even if the end was never reached.

  What is the end? Is it the destruction of the Black Blade?

  No. Even if the impossible was finally accomplished, and Antwyr was destroyed forever, that would not be the end. Crowe’s destiny would stretch ahead to the task appointed by the completion of the last. He would walk the path until his end came. That was where destiny would take him.

  He accepted his task with full heart.

  The Purifiers ran through the crater. Ten yards beyond it, they reached the Vigilance Tower. Behind them, the possessed mortals continued their pursuit. The bombardment had thinned their numbers still further. There were a few hundred at most, and they were dying all the time, sinking into the road, crushed by falling wreckage.

  Crowe looked up at the vertical face of the Vigilance tower. A regular series of handholds marked the trail of the daemon’s climb. Crowe thought about the Black Blade’s omniscience, and in the diminished horde rushing at the Grey Knights through the inferno of the bombardment, he saw opportunity.

  ‘We must kill them all,’ he told his brothers. ‘Every last one. We need a few moments where there are no eyes on us.’

  They formed a half-circle with their backs to the tower and welcomed the heretics to their deaths.

  ‘What are you planning?’ Sendrax asked.

  ‘To climb the tower out of the sight of the Blade.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘I will have to be.’ And from this moment forward, he knew he would be alone for the rest of his existence. ‘We need to keep Antwyr’s attention focused on the rest of you. If it believes the threat is elsewhere, we will retain the initiative.’

  ‘I understand, brother.’ It was clear Sendrax did, in every sense.

  ‘Thank you, brother.’ Crowe stabbed a heretic through the neck. His blade came out the other side and pierced another’s eye.

  ‘You will begin to fight alone so soon?’ Drake asked.

  ‘So it must be.’ Destiny. Not chance. This was his appointed task, leading to his appointed burden.

  The world burned and fell. The avenue melted. The heretics attacked and died, attacked and died. The skill of the Blade, channelled through the possessed, meant nothing as their numbers diminished. The full ocean of that army’s strength might have overwhelmed the Grey Knights, but this small tributary could do nothing but die.

  This is your mistake, Antwyr, Crowe thought. You are about to blind yourself. If you held your slaves back, you would prevent what I am about to do. But in your folly, you will blind yourself.

  The last of the heretics fell. The street raged. There was nothing but flame. In the midst of the eruption, the Grey Knights were alone.

  ‘Fight well, brothers,’ Crowe said. If they met again, they would see him with different eyes. He would have his burden, and he would be dangerous to them.

  ‘Go,’ said Sendrax. ‘Avenge our champion.’

  Crowe seized the first of the handholds. He began the ascent, to take a prisoner and to make a prisoner of himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  DESTINY

  Crowe ascended above the fire. The world below screamed and roared. Its agony trembled up the height of the Vigilance tower. He seemed to be climbing the spine of an animal caught in its death throes. The tremors tried to throw him down. Cracks opened up along the igneous columns of the tower. Dust fell on him. Small rocks bounced off his armour. He held fast, but his progress was slow. An age passed, and the summit with its roiling darkness seemed no closer. When he glanced down, though, the ground was now hundreds of feet away. He was leaving the chaos of Dikaia’s destruction behind, and moving steadily towards the heart of a deeper madness.

  His motions were steady. He did not rush. He thought about each movement before he took it. He had reached the point where there could be no mistakes. If he fell, that would be the end to his mission. That would be the most ignoble betrayal of his destiny.

  He would not fall.

  The steps of the climb were monotonous, mechanistic. He forced himself to be conscious of every moment of the climb. He approached the task as he would a prayer. In truth, it was a form of prayer. It was a test, one he must pass to prove himself worthy of the destiny revealed to him by Gavallan, and set before him by the Emperor. The Vigilance tower was the physical embodiment of his life’s journey to this point. He was moving towards the summit of his existence to this day. There waited his honour and his curse. They were one and the same. They were his destiny, but he must fight harder than he ever had before to embrace his fate.

  He was higher than the flames now. He had risen past several cannon emplacements, his progress slowing as he avoided them. The guns fired with the same relentless rhythm as he climbed. He wondered if they were still shooting at the Purgation’s Sword. Berinon was flying strafing runs, but only at the edges of the city. There was no reason to risk the destruction of the gunship in the bombardment. But if the ship was the target, then Crowe gave thanks. There was something else to draw the sword’s attention away from the silver-grey speck moving up the Vigilance tower. You can be everywhere in Dikaia, he thought. But first you must think to do so.

  He had not heard from the other Purifiers for some while. He did not try to contact them. He had faith in them, and that was enough. His concern was the summit of the tower, not the ground below. He could not think about the effect of any orders he might give. All that mattered was the recapture of the Black Blade. Every sacrifice was permissible.

  He cut two more grooves into the stone. He paused before he climbed, looking up at the peak once more. The shadow storm was as ferocious as ever, as the smoke-obscured day drew to a close and night fell. A slashing tendril of the dark streaked down the face of the Vigilance tower less than fifty yards away from Crowe’s position. He froze until it withdrew. He studied the vortex above him a few minutes longer. Was it smaller than it had been at the start of the battle? He thought so. It had reached farther during their attempt to reach the summit in the Stormraven.

  Crowe pondered this. There was a weakness here, something to be exploited. The sword was not omnipotent. Something had eaten away at its strength.


  What did we do to you? Crowe thought.

  We have been destroying your army.

  The ten million people of Dikaia had been decimated. Not a single tower was standing in the city now. Every sector had been pounded into rubble, and the attack continued. With every shell that landed, the Blade lost more slaves.

  We are hurting you already.

  He had been unable to hail Shipmaster Gura since entering the bombardment zone. Now high above the devastation, he tried again as he moved upwards once more. On the third attempt, Gura answered. The vox-link was plagued by static, but it would do.

  ‘Lord Crowe,’ she said. ‘Do you wish me to cease the bombardment?’

  ‘No. I want you to increase its intensity. Destroy everything except the Vigilance tower. Level the city completely, then bomb it again. Do not stop until you have received the order to do so.’

  ‘Understood.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Lord Crowe, the auspex array picked up a large movement from the east of Dikaia, heading into the bombardment zone.’

  ‘General Glas has led the militia into the city?’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  Vendruhn’s act was something that went beyond the merely foolish. It was more important than that. It changed nothing, though. In the long run, Vendruhn and her troops were doomed no matter the outcome of the war. ‘I see,’ he said to Gura. ‘My order stands. Obliterate Dikaia.’

  ‘So ordered.’

  Crowe’s path was clear. The need for the bombardment was clear. But there was a matter here that was not. Vendruhn’s behaviour made him uneasy. Her loyalty to the Emperor was beyond reproach. Her anger at the corruption that had come to Sandava II was immense. Her struggle was certain to end in her death before long, regardless of her tactical decisions. But the sense that there was something important here would not leave him. Crowe approved of Vendruhn’s fanaticism, but not her recklessness. Now she had chosen to hurl herself and her troops into the teeth of an orbital bombardment, one that Crowe had commanded be pushed to the limit, leaving nothing in Dikaia alive.

  He saw a pattern here. It was not an accident. It was not foolishness. It was a path. He saw in Vendruhn’s actions a distorted mirror of his own.

  More than a path, then, he thought. Destiny.

  The implications were obscure. He could not read them, but he did not like their direction.

  The consequences were also out of his hands. He turned his attention from the shadows below and resumed his climb to the shadows above.

  The sublimity of excess was unending. Vendruhn revelled in the disorientation. She was at the centre of the judgement. The explosions were an extension of her rage. Wherever she looked, wherever she fired, the enemy died. North, south, east, west – where she turned her eyes, fury erupted. She looked everywhere. She spun in the turret, firing across three hundred and sixty degrees, and there was fire everywhere. Perhaps she was inside the city walls... Only there were no more walls. Huge masses of rockcrete fell near her. Gargantuan masses toppled. She did not know what they had been. She did not care. All that mattered was the enactment of judgement, judgement without limit, judgement that surpassed all understanding.

  Judgement was excess, and she was one with it.

  There could be nothing proportional in the punishment of Dikaia. To turn from the Emperor was a crime beyond proportion. Excess must be met with excess. Faith and the miraculous existed in the realm of the excessive.

  And that was where Vendruhn was, killing the apostate, lost in the celebration of total punishment.

  Legacy of Glas kept to no fixed path. Where a space opened through the ruins and the blasts, there Owrun directed the Chimera. The rest of the militia followed as it could. Vehicles and infantry died. The losses registered at the edge of Vendruhn’s awareness. The slaughter of the Dikaians remained central. So many died at every second, they far outweighed her casualties.

  Now and then enemy vehicles appeared. There were few, and most of them were destroyed before they came near. One appeared now, surging through a fountain of flame. Its multi-laser turret blasted the right flank of the Glas. Owrun turned into a crater, dropping the Chimera out of the arc of the other vehicle’s guns. Vendruhn heard screams coming from inside the hull. The side las gunners had been hit. The Glas’ steering seemed sluggish. But its multi-laser was ready as Owrun turned and brought the transport roaring back up from the crater.

  Then all was light – terrible flaming light – and the duel ended. Shells rained down with a new intensity. There was nowhere to turn. Vendruhn’s illusion of judgement disintegrated. Everything was destruction. Everything was flame. The attacking Chimera took a direct hit. Vendruhn saw nothing but searing red. She was flying, jerking back and forth. She thought she had been thrown free of the hatch. She had not. Legacy of Glas was lifted into the air and spun around by the explosion. It came back down in the new crater. Vendruhn fell into the hold. Smoke filled the space. Burned bodies lay beside ruined lasguns. Morenz leaned against the tacticarium table, clutching a shattered arm.

  ‘General,’ said the vox-operator, ‘we must leave.’

  No, Vendruhn thought. No.

  The Chimera jerked violently. Outside, gods were howling their wrath at all things mortal.

  ‘While we still can,’ Morenz pleaded.

  Vendruhn was dizzy. She realised she had struck her head in her fall. She rubbed her temple. She looked up at the hatch. A sky of flame stared back.

  Reason sank cold fingers into her veins. She had thought herself part of the tapestry of excess, but she was not. A storm had come that did not care for her or her vengeance.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Her throat was raw. ‘Order a retreat.’

  Did the order matter? Did Owrun know where they were? Vendruhn could not think what direction would take them out of the bombardment. But the Chimera lurched into motion again. Owrun knew where he wanted to go. That would have to be enough.

  Fire licked through the hatch. Thunder on top of thunder on top of thunder roared its monstrous victory. Vendruhn climbed up again. She grabbed the hatch to close it, but hesitated, frozen by what she saw outside. The maelstrom was total. There was no distinguishing between enemy and militia.

  This was true excess.

  It was also betrayal.

  Where are you? she begged the Emperor. Why do you not protect your servants? Why have you abandoned us?

  The only answer was a dragon’s roar of annihilation.

  The shadow storm raged above Crowe. It billowed towards the sky, then whirled back down to the summit with the force of madness. It had continued to shrink as he climbed. The ramping up of the bombardment was having an effect. Antwyr’s army was blasted to ash, and the Blade’s power diminished as its slaves fell. It was feeling its weakness, Crowe was sure. The storm’s fury was growing as it faded. Desperation screamed from the peak of the Vigilance tower.

  A few feet from the end of his ascent, Crowe heard from Sendrax for the first time in hours.

  ‘You have kept us busy, brother,’ said the Knight of the Flame.

  ‘Say rather that I sent you reinforcements.’

  ‘Very true. The enemy is reduced to clusters.’

  ‘They are still following you?’

  ‘They are. I split up our squads to further the confusion. It may be that Antwyr believes you dead.’

  Perhaps. Crowe had not heard the Blade in his head since its escape. He would have expected to experience its taunts during the attack, but there had been nothing. He wondered why. Perhaps in its need to escape, Antwyr sought every form of distance from its captors, even a psychic one. Perhaps it had been more desperate from the start. Its first taste of freedom must have seemed passing and fragile when it had lost any means of getting off-world. ‘It will learn I am not dead soon enough,’ he told Sendrax.

  ‘Brother Drake is right. You do not need to fight a
lone so soon.’

  ‘I must. The sword still looks down and attacks you. Hold its attention a little longer.’

  ‘Very well.’ Sendrax said nothing after that, but he did not sign off.

  ‘What would you ask?’ said Crowe. He paused now. He was just below the peak. When he moved again, he would be on the summit, and within the shadow.

  ‘Do you not trust us, brother?’ Sendrax asked.

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘But you would keep us at a distance from the sword.’

  ‘Yes,’ Crowe said. ‘I would. You know the power it has when it is captive. You have felt it seek to influence you.’

  ‘I have,’ Sendrax admitted.

  ‘How much stronger is it now? This is my task. I will not subject my brothers to a fate from which it is my duty to shield them.’

  ‘Is it written? Is it destined? And what if this should be our chance to destroy the Blade? We will have lost that opportunity because you blindly submitted to Gavallan’s dictate. He made mistakes, Garran. And now he is dead.’

  ‘We all shared in his errors. I do not want to compound them. Do you see the means to destroy the sword, now when it is more powerful than it has ever been since its capture? If so, tell me, because I do not.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Sendrax said after a moment.

  ‘Then our course of action is clear. I fight alone, brother.’ And so I will until my death, whether that is moments away or at the end time.

  ‘So be it.’

  Crowe would not dishonour Sendrax by thinking that he sounded relieved. He knew the Purifier would march into the foulest keeps of the Ruinous Powers without hesitation. But like all Grey Knights, Sendrax knew the value of a soul. The Blade of Antwyr had been the most sinister artefact on Titan. It was the relic that would destroy its guardian, the weapon that held mortal danger even for the Grey Knights, and the prisoner that must always be held. Sendrax honoured Crowe by offering to join him. But it was well Crowe did not accept, and they both knew it.