by William King
‘What is going on?’ Sejanus asked. Macharius looked at Drake.
‘The ritual is nearing its climax. The tectonic plates of the world itself are shifting. The power of the Angel of Fire is manifesting.’
The wastelands were split by great fiery chasms. Lava bubbled forth, forming rivers and lakes. It looked as if a new lava sea was being born in front of us.
‘It’s a moat,’ said Sejanus. ‘It won’t keep us out for long.’
‘It doesn’t have to,’ said Drake. ‘Just long enough for them to finish their ritual and summon the Angel of Fire.’
Macharius looked at them. ‘Suggestions? Thoughts?’ he asked.
Sejanus looked back at him steadily. ‘We could evacuate.’ He said in a tone of utmost seriousness. Macharius just stared at him and then they both laughed. It seemed like it was some sort of joke between them but for whatever reason I could not see the funny side. Evacuation seemed like a good idea to me.
‘No way to get armour through that except airdrop,’ said Sejanus. ‘We could request our comrades in the Adeptus Astartes drop on top of the cathedral and interrupt the ritual.’
‘Without support, with the number of psykers in there?’ Drake asked. ‘With a daemon-god about to manifest. They might be able to do it but…’
‘But we need to be certain,’ Macharius said. ‘I will not ask a Chapter of Space Marines to perform a suicide mission unsupported…unless I have to.’
You could see he had something else on his mind. He really did not want to send the Adeptus Astartes to a potentially fatal last stand but it was not just that.
Later, when I got to know Macharius better, I knew what it was. He did not want them getting all the glory. This campaign was his campaign. The Space Marines were not going to bail out Lord High Commander Solar Macharius. This was going to be a triumph for the Imperial Guard and for its leader or it was going to be nothing.
If that seems selfish and self-aggrandising on the part of Macharius, what can I tell you? He was an Imperial general. Even in the humblest-seeming of those there is a lust for glory. They all want to write their names in the history books and none of them wants to be put there as the fool who was saved, yet again, by the Space Marines. The least of them are like that, even the weakest, the most venal and the most incompetent. Macharius was none of those things.
‘The Death Spectres are tied down on Karsk VII anyway,’ said Sejanus. ‘We need them there.’
Translating that from High Command speak, what he really meant was that he would see himself in hell before he would let the Adeptus Astartes get his share of the glory.
‘Can we neutralise the daemon-summoners?’ Macharius asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Drake. ‘If we mass all of our sanctioned psykers and I call in all of my agents in place, maybe… We would need to get very close though.’
‘We can send in a strike force mounted on Valkyries and Vultures,’ said Sejanus.
Macharius said, ‘They won’t be able to fight their way into the heart of the Cathedral Zone unsupported and we’d lose too many to the air defences. We need to get our armour in and the bulk of our army behind it. We need to call on the people in the city who hate the priests to rise up and they need to know there is a force there that can support them. I am going to stop those damn heretics now and end their threat once and for all.’
You could tell that he meant that and I would not have given a lot for the chances of any pyromancer he personally encountered surviving. Of course that was something a lot different from breaking into the hive and seizing the cathedral.
‘That’s all very well, but how are you going to do it?’ Drake asked. ‘The earth is shifting, lava lakes are bubbling up, there’s no easy way for us to get through in time.’
He was merely saying what we were all thinking. He was probably the only one there except for the Understudy who had the nerve to question Macharius. Macharius glared out through the canopy.
‘We will find a way,’ Macharius said.
We were not the most optimistic of groups. All of us looked at the great holo-map and contemplated the possibility of failure.
We knew we could take the hive. We had already done so once. That was not in doubt. What was in doubt was our ability to bridge the great moats of lava sliding into place around the city in time to stop the ritual. None of us wanted to contemplate what would happen if we were still on-planet when the Angel of Fire manifested. One look at Drake’s sickly features was enough to convince me that it was not likely to be a pleasant experience.
There was a growing horror in the chamber. In part I suspect it was a product of the manifestation of the Angel. Even people with as much sensitivity to psychic events as a desert rock could sense that there was something wrong. There was a pressure in the air such as you get before a great storm. A cloud of gloom and despair had settled over our entire army. Macharius stared hard at the holo-map. All of his attention was focused on it. He glared at it as if he believed his hope of rebirth in the Emperor’s Light depended on it. I suppose in a way it did. Concentrating, Macharius did not fidget. He merely stood there, statue-still, looking completely at rest. His gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the map, on the great hive that it was his desire to reclaim. A cold light burned in his eyes. It was as if he was staring at some hated personal enemy.
The rest of the command bustled around, bringing dispatches, discussing matters in low voices in the corner of the room. Sejanus lolled in an old padded armchair that looked like it had been brought directly from his family estate, and smoked a cheroot. Clouds of vile-smelling smoke drifted towards the ceiling of the pavilion and were sucked out into the even fouler air beyond by the extractors. The flexi-metal sides of the enormous tent bulged and rippled in response to pressure differentials. The Lion Banner of Macharius hung once more beneath the central frame of the tent. I wondered where they had dug that up from.
The Understudy looked like a machine that had shut down. His face was slack. His eyes half-closed. He was staring at the map as well and I wondered what he was seeing with those strange blue eyes.
Anton and Ivan stood in a corner like schoolboys in our old class in Ironforge Academy. They seemed to be hoping that no one would notice them and it was perfectly possible that in this august company no one would. I walked over to them.
Anton ran a bony hand across the scar on his forehead. ‘Tense, isn’t it?’ he said and grinned his idiot grin.
‘They are just waiting for you to come up with a brilliant idea and save the day,’ Ivan said. ‘You think they have anything to drink around here?’
His voice was gruff. Booze was on his mind. I could tell he was just as tense as Anton in his own way.
‘Not many of us left now,’ I said, saying what was on my mind. We had known each other so long they caught my meaning instantly. I had been thinking about Hesse. It had been the first time I really had time to do so. I felt oddly guilty about that. Hesse had been with us for a long time, had been a real link to the old days in the Indomitable and yet his death had completely vanished from my mind until the present. Well, I told myself, I had had plenty of other things to think about.
‘Just us three now and the New Boy,’ Anton said. ‘I am not sure the Understudy is all there.’
‘We’ll raise a glass to them in time,’ said Ivan. ‘If we can find a bloody glass and the bloody time.’
We looked at each other. I could tell we were all thinking about Hesse and Oily and the lieutenant and all the others who had passed on in the Emperor’s service. We had lost comrades and friends before but never so many so quickly. There was something about this place that felt accursed and I put that down to more than the growing influence of the ritual. Now that events had slowed down and I had time to think I felt their absence the way you feel a missing tooth in your mouth. It was uncomfortable and yet you could not stop inspecting it.
‘What do you think is going to happen?’ Anton asked. He sounded scared. I knew then I should b
e worried. If fear had managed to drill a hole through the solid rock of Anton’s skull, things must be getting really bad.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but if anyone can think of something Macharius will.’
I was astounded to discover as I said the words that I really believed them. I had been mouthing them for reassurance but they came out full of faith, not doubt. I was as much surprised as anybody else. As if I had provoked him, I suddenly heard the Lord High Commander speak. ‘Do you see it?’
All eyes were on him. Sejanus rose from the chair and strolled across to the holo-map. ‘See what?’ Drake said, voicing what we were all thinking.
‘No,’ Sejanus said, with what I thought was commendable honesty.
‘The pattern, Sejanus, the pattern.’
‘There may be one certainly, but I am damned if I see what you mean.’
‘It’s the same one as on the High Priest’s sigil.’
‘It may be so, but I never saw the damn thing.’
Macharius held something out in his hand. It glittered metallically. I realised it was the amulet he had pulled from the High Priest’s neck back in the cathedral. He held it up to the light and it reflected the artificial fires visible in the holo-map. It was as if he was holding a rune made of flame in his hand.
Macharius held the symbol so that the light of the holo-globe was behind it and the shadow of part of the pattern, partially obscured by his clutching fist, fell on the map.
I looked from it to the map, and, you know, by the Emperor I could see that Macharius was right. Those shifting lines of fire were not a moat. They were flowing into the same pattern as the emblem of the Angel of Fire. I did not know whether to be relieved or filled with fear.
It seemed that we were insignificant to whatever power was manifesting itself in Irongrad. It was not creating a flaming barrier to keep us out, except perhaps by accident. It was manifesting a tribute to its own glory and might, reshaping the desert and the earth and the elements of rock and fire into a pattern that was significant only to it.
‘It’s very close to the sign of Tzeentch,’ said Drake. ‘The Changer of Ways. It’s obvious now that you point it out.’
His voice was so soft it was hard to pick out the words. I think he was speaking only to himself. Nonetheless a chill passed through the room. An eerie silence fell. The inquisitor had named one of those names that it is very ill to speak, one of the greatest of all the enemies of humanity. Anton gave out a soft yelp. I understood why. Was it possible that this great daemon-god was going to manifest on the surface of Karsk? If it did, what would happen then? Even the shadow of its power was already beginning to reshape the land. Once it was fully present, what would it not be capable of?
Sejanus said, ‘We can plot a path through that maze if we’re quick.’
‘How much time do we have now?’ Macharius asked Drake.
The high inquisitor said, ‘Not more than twelve hours – the power is spiking again. I can feel it even from here.’
‘We had better get moving,’ said Macharius, with what I thought was considerable understatement.
Twenty-Four
Once he had seen the pattern, there was no holding Macharius back. He barked out orders to all of his commanders and sub-commanders, telling them to prepare to advance. Within minutes he had sketched out a basic plan of attack with all the usual trademark details of his genius. He could see the way the lava flows were going to end up. They were not there yet but they would be by the time we were ready to attack. Our forces would sweep in to attack the hive, navigating through the labyrinth of lava. Once we were within the boundaries of the great pattern, our force would divide into three main groups, attacking all of the major southern gates of the city. Our forces were to be ready to shift the weight of the attack at any time, to follow up any breakthrough. At least half the army was held in reserve, to rush forwards when the breakthrough came. In that group would be the bulk of the psykers. They were the ones who were going to be necessary once we got within the city. Having sketched in the outline of this plan, Macharius studied the maps of Irongrad itself. Our route was clear – wherever we broke in we would need to rush down into the cathedral itself and disrupt the great ritual that was taking place.
There was nothing else for it. It was a desperate gamble, a roll of the dice; do or die. I could tell from the way he was smiling that the thought made Macharius happy.
I thought I could understand why. His destiny was once more within his own hands. He was not merely an observer standing by and waiting for the daemon-god to arrive and take possession of its new domain. He was going to do something about it. He was going to measure himself against the darkest powers in the galaxy. He might not win but he was going to die trying. And we were going to follow him. And the truth of it was, in that moment, I was perfectly happy to do so. At least, doing it his way, we had some chance. It was better than standing back and doing nothing or desperately trying to evacuate when we had no time to do so. We were going to fight and we were going to fight like men and that, in the end, was all we could really ask for.
Headquarters tent became a buzzing hive of activity. Commanders were briefed on the entire plan and rushed off to find their sub-commanders. Orders rippled out through the whole vast nervous system of the army.
Macharius, as he always did, was making sure that everybody knew what they had to do. He looked more alive than at any time since I had first seen him. I realised that this was what he lived for; this was when he was only truly alive. It’s a strange thing to say about a man who always seemed so vital. There was always more life in Macharius than in two normal men even when he was at rest, but now he blazed with energy and authority, radiating calm and confidence and certainty that what he was asking could be done, and that filled those around him with a similar confidence.
I asked myself, what would happen if he was wrong? What would happen if the lava was simply flowing into some random pattern and he had simply perceived something that was not there? I realised that the truth of the matter was that it didn’t matter. If Macharius was wrong, we were no worse off, and if he was right, we would soon be in a position to take the fight to the heretics.
I looked at Ivan and I looked at Anton and I could see that they were both feeling better. The dread had departed from their faces and they looked as ready for action as I had ever seen them. Even Drake had perked up; he did not look quite so sick. He walked over to a comm-board and began typing in odd combinations on the runic keyboard. I guessed he was getting in touch with his agents within the army. In the midst of all this chaos, I was surprised when Macharius walked over to us. He placed his heavy hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Go outside, take a break. There will be a few hours before the preparations to advance are complete. I want you all with me when the final attack begins. You’ve brought me good luck this far and I’m not taking the chance of losing it before the end.’
I was at once touched and frightened. I was touched by the fact that Macharius seemed to have some faith in us. I was frightened by the fact that even the great general seemed to believe that he was in need of all the luck he could get.
People will tell you that the great commanders make their own luck, and there is a freighter-load of truth in that statement, but even Macharius seemed to feel he had to do everything he possibly could to stack the odds in his favour. Sometimes, luck is the only difference between victory and defeat. It was strange to see that even a man as confident as Macharius felt the need of some lucky talisman. It was even stranger to look at Anton and Ivan and the Understudy and think that that was what we were to him.
We stepped outside. The dust had settled. As far as the eye could see were armoured vehicles. To the north an eerie glow lit the sky. Far, far off, the hive of Irongrad loomed, a shadowy mountain pierced by caverns of light. At its tip, a fire-winged angel stood ominously waiting. I knew it was not going to wait for long.
‘Well, we’re going with Macharius,’ Anton said.
‘I can tell you’re excited,’ said Ivan. He eyed the distant hive with a certain gloomy satisfaction, pulled out his hip flask and took a swig. He offered it to me.
‘I bloody well am, and so are you, don’t lie about it!’ Anton said. He knew Ivan too well to be fooled.
I drank the fiery liquid. It tasted like Oily’s coolant fluid. I fought back the wave of memories the taste brought with it.
‘Well,’ Ivan asked, sad eyes gazing at me out of his ruined, half-metal face. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘About all this. You think we have a chance?’
‘What does it matter what I think? We are going in.’
‘So you don’t then.’ His voice was flat and calm, a man discussing the chances of a dust storm coming in tomorrow morning.
‘I never said that,’ I said.
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘Tell me,’ said Anton, ‘when we were back in the cathedral, did you think we would ever get out alive?’
I shook my head. Ivan did the same.
Anton banged his chest with his fist. ‘We’re still here.’
‘You know,’ said Ivan, ‘the idiot is right.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Anton. His mouth shut like a trap when he realised he had just agreed he was an idiot. He paused for a moment, then pulled out a lho stick and lit it. He coughed wheezily and said, ‘Maybe Macharius is lucky for us. Maybe it’s not that we are lucky for him.’
‘He wasn’t lucky for Hesse,’ I said.
‘I said for us,’ said Anton. There was an edge of desperation in his voice, as if he was looking for something to believe.
‘Go read your prop-nov, Anton,’ I said, not unkindly. ‘It’ll take your mind off things.’
The bastard took me at my word. He sat down right there in the gritty sand, pulled the book from his chest-pocket, licked his finger and began flicking through the pages until he reached his favourite part. He squinted in concentration. Strange as it may sound, just looking at him and his dumb book gave me hope. Somehow he had managed to preserve the bloody thing through all the madness.