Garro

by James Swallow

  ‘You owe your life to me, Garro.’ Dorn’s fury seethed beneath the words. ‘It was the Imperial Fists that rescued you and your men from deep space. You were adrift and facing certain death. Have you forgotten that so readily?’

  ‘I forget nothing, my lord. True enough, I know the full weight of the debt I owe you, but my duty to the Sigillite is greater still.’

  Dorn’s eyes narrowed menacingly. ‘What duty can require you to steal aboard my ship like a thief, break my commands and disturb those whom I hold in isolation? We have already recovered your shuttle-pod, Garro. How were you going to escape? What did you want with the Librarians? You will answer me!’

  Garro breathed deeply, steeling his courage to openly defy the primarch. ‘I regret that I cannot, my lord.’

  For a long moment, Garro feared that Dorn would make good on his threat and knock him to the deck. But then the primarch stepped back, his aloof rage simmering. ‘I do not accept your refusal. You will remain a prisoner aboard the Phalanx until such time as you decide to provide me with the answers I have requested. Here you will stay, if need be until the stars themselves burn cold.’

  Before the Master of the Fists could summon his guards to escort him away, the sanctorum’s doors opened of their own accord and Garro saw the psyker he had spoken with standing there, held back by the praetorians. ‘Lord Dorn, forgive my intrusion, but I must speak with you!’

  ‘Brother Massak.’ Dorn dismissed him with a glance. ‘I did not grant you permission to leave the Seclusium. Return there at once.’

  ‘I shall,’ said Massak, ‘but first I must beg this audience with you.’ He shot a look at Garro. ‘I know why he is here.’

  Dorn waved a hand, and his praetorians stood aside to let Massak enter. The primarch’s narrow gaze turned its full, withering power on his son. ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘I can sense the truth he is hiding,’ insisted the Librarian. ‘It lurks beneath the surface of his thoughts. With your permission, I can reveal it.’

  The warrior-lord’s huge arms folded across his golden chestplate. ‘Do you dare suggest the use of psychic power? You know better than any Imperial Fist that my father forbids it!’

  But even as he said the words, Garro saw the conflict in Dorn’s eyes, the same questions he himself had wrestled with. Even as Dorn knew he was honour-bound to follow the Emperor’s edict, he could never ignore the great value of a psyker as a weapon of war in the arsenal of the Legions.

  Massak shook his head. ‘He can hide nothing from me, master. If only you will allow me to put Garro to the question. I swear to you I will not defy the Decree of Nikaea.’

  ‘But you will. Even the smallest exercise of warp-born power is defiance. It opens the door to misuse, just as my brother Magnus misused it.’ Dorn scowled. ‘No. The Imperial Fists are loyal to the Emperor in all things. My father’s decision is the final word.’

  In that moment, Garro saw an opportunity and took it. ‘If I may speak… I would offer a compromise, Lord Dorn.’

  The primarch eyed Garro. ‘I will hear you out.’

  ‘Your Librarian’s instincts are strong,’ Garro went on, ‘and they are correct. I came here for him.’ He pointed at the psyker. ‘I will reveal Malcador’s orders, but to Brother Massak and no other. He will know if I am truthful.’

  Dorn studied him, his expression impassive. ‘And if I refuse?’

  Garro managed a rueful smile. ‘Then, my lord, as you say, you will have my company until the stars burn cold.’

  The interrogation chamber on the Phalanx’s dungeon decks was no larger than the interior of an armoured transport. Dull, featureless metal walls rose up to a ceiling studded with lumen orbs, and a sluice-grate in the centre of the floor betrayed the spilling of blood that had often occurred there.

  A heavy hatch slid closed on oiled pistons, the thud of magnetic locks sounding as it sealed them off from the rest of the vessel. Garro and Massak stood opposite one another across the empty room. The former captain was as still as a statue. The Imperial Fist studied him, watching his face for the first sign of some telltale micro-expression that might reveal Garro’s true intentions.

  ‘Are we being monitored?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Massak. ‘Even the primarch cannot hear us in this place. Whatever you have to say to me, it shall be between us alone.’ He took a breath, preparing himself for what would come next, reaching for a point of calm neutrality in his thoughts.

  Garro nodded. ‘Tell me about the dreams, Massak.’

  Of all the words he had thought to hear, the Librarian had not expected those. Massak had told no one of the disquieting images that had visited his meditating mind in recent weeks, their appearance growing more frequent with each passing day. ‘I do not dream.’ The lie came too easily to him, and Garro saw it immediately.

  ‘We all do, kinsman. Perhaps not in the way that common men think of it, but we dream. And you, with your abilities… You dream very differently indeed. You haven’t spoken of it, have you?’

  For a moment, Massak considered prolonging his denials, then thought better of it. They were truly alone here, and in that there was a kind of liberation. ‘I have not,’ he admitted.

  ‘Yet the Sigillite knows.’ It troubled Massak greatly to see that his thoughts were open to others, but then Malcador was the greatest living psyker in the galaxy, after the Emperor of Mankind, and it was said that any mind was as an open book to him.

  ‘I said nothing because I feared my brothers would not understand.’ He took a breath. ‘I have dreamed of the skies above Terra filled with black warships, a baleful eye emblazoned upon them. I dream of hordes of malformed horrors in league with traitors, laying waste to the planet. Atrocities. Creatures the like of which have never been seen before in mortal realms.’

  ‘Daemons?’ Garro offered the word without weight, but Massak instinctively knew that it carried grave meaning for the warrior.

  ‘That name is good enough,’ he said.

  Garro nodded. ‘They are no mere fancy, no trick of the mind. They are real.’

  With blunt, steady words, he told the Librarian of the insurrection spreading under Horus’ hand. He revealed the whole bloody truth of it to him, as at first shock, then revulsion and finally fury warred across Massak’s face as he struggled to take it all in.

  ‘I have fought these creatures,’ Garro concluded. ‘I have seen them born from the flesh of the dead. Your visions are–’

  ‘The future, then?’

  ‘A possibility,’ he corrected. ‘What you have seen is why I am here.’ Garro took a step closer, his manner sobering. ‘The Sigillite sent me to retrieve you. Malcador seeks men of strength and honour for an endeavour that will defend the Imperium against such threats for millennia to come. He chose you, Massak. He chose you for a duty that goes beyond your loyalty to Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists.’ The grey warrior offered his gauntleted hand. ‘Come with me, kinsman. Your seclusion will be at an end. Your power will be returned to you.’

  Brother Massak looked down at Garro’s outstretched hand. He knew what the offer meant. A chance to end his isolation, to be useful again. To fight for the Imperium.

  But he shook his head, turning away. ‘No. I refuse. Tell the Regent of Terra that I must decline his offer. I am an Imperial Fist, a son of Dorn, and subject to my primarch’s command over all else. I will not leave my Legion.’

  Garro’s hand did not drop. ‘You realise what you are rejecting, Massak? If you do not come with me, Lord Dorn will return you to the isolation of the Seclusium. You will be a prisoner there, an outcast among your own Legion. You may never have another chance to be freed from the Decree of Nikaea.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Massak told Garro, a resolute cast rising in him. ‘We are iron and stone, captain. We do as our primarch commands us. I do not seek to be free of the Emperor’s mandate. I embrace it
. I am of the Seventh Legion, and we obey.’

  ‘Even if the order brings you to doubt?’ For a moment, it seemed as if Garro’s question were directed towards himself and not Massak.

  The Librarian drew up to attention, his gaze unwavering. ‘If Dorn speaks the words, then there is no doubt. My visions…’ He hesitated, framing his words. ‘If what you say is true, Garro, if the Warmaster has betrayed us, if he makes pacts with monsters, then I must stand side by side with my primarch and my battle-brothers, and meet this treachery head-on.’

  ‘When the time comes, that may not be enough to stop him.’

  ‘I have faith that it will.’ Massak’s reply seemed to strike a chord with the warrior, and at length, Garro nodded in reluctant acceptance.

  ‘I understand. I too know the burden of duty all too well. I will see your words carried back to Malcador. He will not be pleased, but I will make him appreciate your choice.’ Garro saluted Massak with the sign of the aquila and strode towards the hatch, but he held firm, musing upon his words. ‘Farewell, Massak,’ Garro added, as the heavy door hissed open once more. ‘I hope one day I will have the honour of fighting the enemy at your side.’

  Unbidden, a dark mood settled on the Librarian, and the memory of stark, dreamlike images clouded his thoughts. ‘That day will come sooner than we expect,’ he said, the words coming from nowhere.

  Rogal Dorn stood waiting for Garro in his sanctorum, staring out of the great gallery windows towards the distant sphere of Terra. The primarch’s praetorians escorted him into the chamber, before executing a flawless about-turn and retreating to the corridor beyond.

  ‘An unscheduled transport vessel flying the colours of the Regent’s Court is approaching the Phalanx, requesting permission to land,’ said Dorn, when they were alone. ‘Your passage home, I imagine. It seems that the Sigillite is always watching.’

  ‘That has been my experience, lord.’

  The primarch spared him a glance. ‘I am within my rights to kill you, Garro. This is a time of war, and deeds done in shadows are dealt with in most harsh a manner. Is it not enough that we must guard against assassins and spies from the traitors? Must I protect myself from my own side as well?’

  ‘I would not presume to say.’

  Dorn’s expression shifted. ‘Of course not. You are a loyal son of the Imperium. My issue is with he who gives your orders. Your only error is that your loyalty may be misplaced. Or misused.’ At last Dorn turned to look directly at him, starlight throwing the hard lines of his face into stark relief. ‘My sons make me proud. Tell me, are you proud of your duties, Nathaniel? Does it elevate your spirit to be a soldier in a silent war, out in the darkness chasing deeds of questionable provenance?’

  ‘I do… what must be done.’ Garro faltered on the words, as Dorn’s pitiless gaze bored into him.

  ‘Malcador and I…’ Dorn paused, his gaze turning inwards. ‘We want the same things. In a way, we fight the same battles and we prepare the same ground. But his methods! I cannot countenance them. And it saddens me to see a warrior of your calibre at his side. He will put you on a certain path, captain, if you allow it. And it will lead you to ruin, to the fulfilment of his need and no other.’

  ‘The Sigillite serves the Imperium,’ said Garro, echoing words that Malcador himself had once uttered.

  ‘But does he serve the Emperor?’ said Dorn.

  Garro’s throat felt arid. ‘I am clear-eyed in this. I know the dimensions of the bargain I have struck.’

  ‘Do you?’ Dorn’s simple question thundered through the canyons of Garro’s soul.

  Did he really understand? The uncertainties that had been building since Calth and the incident in the Kuiper Belt could not be ignored. It was as if the primarch’s words had removed a veil from Garro’s gaze and forced him to see them, straight on and without obfuscation.

  ‘Question yourself, Nathaniel,’ Dorn went on. ‘Question him. Ask why he keeps so much from you.’

  A chill crept through Garro’s bones. ‘What do you mean, lord?’

  ‘I will show you.’ Dorn walked to the chart table and picked out a particular data tablet. ‘Do you know where your brothers are, Nathaniel? Not the traitors. I speak of the ones who risked all to come with you.’

  ‘The Seventy?’ He was describing Garro’s own command cadre, the warriors who had joined him in his desperate race to warn Terra of Horus’ betrayal at Isstvan V. ‘They remain at the Emperor’s pleasure in the Somnus Citadel on Luna, in the care of the Silent Sisterhood.’

  Dorn shook his head. ‘Not all of them.’

  He handed the tablet over, and Garro scanned the words there, his eyes widening as he read on. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Intelligence comes to the Imperial Fists as we fortify and prepare. I had considered directing my sons to investigate the report you have in your hand. But now you are here, and perhaps it is better that you look into the matter personally.’ Dorn studied him for a moment. ‘And when you do, ask yourself why Malcador did not speak to you of it.’ The primarch walked away, towards the towering windows looking out onto the blackness of space. When he spoke again, it was with stern, unbending conviction, his brief flash of liberality extinguished. ‘Do not test the tolerance of the Imperial Fists again. That warning is to you and to Malcador. Make it clear to him.’ He waved him away. ‘You are dismissed, Captain Garro. Take what I have given you and leave.’

  Garro bowed, his thoughts churning, but still he hesitated a moment longer. He could not leave without one more thing said. ‘Lord Dorn… Your warrior, Massak. He has great insight that goes unheeded in his confinement. There will come a time when you will have use for him and his fellow Librarians once again.’

  ‘I value Massak’s insight more than you can know.’ Dorn spoke over him. ‘The Sigillite believes I act out of ignorance and fear. He does not understand. The Librarians are precisely where they need to be.’

  Garro’s brow creased. ‘Locked in a vault, in the bowels of your fortress? They mark time like condemned men waiting for the scaffold.’

  ‘No,’ Dorn corrected. ‘They stand ready. Close at hand, in the heart of my Legion. I will choose the right moment, Death Guard. Not you. Not Malcador.’

  ‘You ask much of them, my lord.’

  The father of the Imperial Fists nodded grimly. ‘These times ask much of us all.’

  Eight

  Errant

  Ashes of fealty

  Consequences

  The long iron hall was filled with shadows.

  In the echoing space, nothing human moved. No one had the courage to enter, for fear of what lay beyond. No one dared to set foot inside, to take a breath of the air within and challenge fortune.

  At least, no man dared.

  Concealed in the gloom, a heavy hatchway opened with a hissing chorus of pressure-locks and two hulking figures entered the chamber. These were not men. They towered over common humans, these scions of battle. Once, both of them had been proud to stand amongst the Emperor’s Legiones Astartes. Brothers in conflict, comrades against adversity. Now fate had set them upon separate paths.

  One was clad in wargear the colour of storms, adorned with a golden eagle cuirass, his helm mag-locked at his waist and his sword at his back. Nathaniel Garro, Knight Errant and Agentia Primus of the Regent of Terra. The other, a former warrior stripped of his armour, weapons and the desire for war. Meric Voyen in his robes, once an Apothecary of the Death Guard Legion and now a soul in search of peace.

  ‘Captain! Please, no! Wait!’ cried Voyen, trying in vain to halt Garro’s furious strides.

  ‘I will not,’ came the reply.

  ‘Stop! I beg of you, let me explain!’

  Garro shook his head angrily. ‘Nothing you say will sway me.’

  ‘Nathaniel!’ The shout echoed through the chamber, with such force behind it that both of them halted.


  Garro looked down at the hand that Voyen had placed on his vambrace, a warning flashing in his eyes. ‘Step back, brother. Now.’

  ‘Hear me out,’ said the former legionary. ‘That is all I ask.’

  ‘There is no explanation you can voice, Meric.’ Garro’s ire ebbed, replaced by a sadness. ‘I am disappointed in you.’

  ‘I have not done this for your approval, my captain,’ Voyen said stiffly. ‘I did it for a greater good. For our battle-brothers and our Legion.’

  Garro’s scowl returned. ‘The Death Guard are no longer our Legion. They broke that faith when Mortarion turned against the Emperor.’

  ‘We can bring them back.’ Voyen’s words gave him pause, as did the light of certainty in his old friend’s eyes. ‘I can bring them back.’

  ‘With that?’ Garro turned and gestured tersely towards the only object in the hall, a heavy cylindrical cryo-casket made of plasteel and armoured glass. ‘A harvest of poisoned dregs and foul detritus?’

  Voyen raised his hands. ‘How does one cure a disease, Nathaniel? First you must capture the virus. Analyse it and conquer it. Only then can a vaccine be feasible.’

  The warrior sneered. ‘A vaccine? We do not speak of some malady to be treated by balms and potions! You cannot… recover from this corruption. I have seen it, at close quarters and with my murder in its fangs! I have looked this foulness in the eye and glimpsed the true shade of its hatred.’

  ‘You are not alone in that,’ insisted Voyen. ‘I was on the Eisenstein too, remember? I know what happened to Grulgor and Decius! I saw the pestilence that overtook their bodies.’

  Silence stretched between them. It seemed like an aeon had passed since they had fled to Terra. Garro and Voyen, and Solun Decius, Andus Hakur, Iacton Qruze and the rest of the Seventy, who dared to oppose their primarchs when all loyalty to Terra had been burned to ashes.

  In the aftermath, amidst the airless wastes of Luna, they had awaited an uncertain fate. Warriors orphaned by their traitor kinsmen, trusted by few, feared by many. In that silence, their brother Decius had been taken by the same insidious taint that even now was undoubtedly corrupting the rest of their Legion.