by John French
Loken looked away. Luther smiled then, his mouth splitting his face with a broad crack of shadow in the torchlight.
‘So what led you here, wayward son of Cthonia?’
Loken stared, unable to hide his shock. Had they been wrong? Had news of the Warmaster’s rebellion already come to Caliban?
‘The Legiones Astartes do not fight their own kind,’ said Luther, his demeanour becoming more threatening, ‘nor come as spies into each other’s realms. I have asked you why you came here, and you have said nothing. So now I must wonder who sent you. The Lion, my sworn brother? Does he doubt that I keep to my appointed duty? My unique honour?’
For a moment Loken thought that he saw something play across Luther’s face, something ugly breaking through the veneer of perfect control. Then Luther shook his head, his eyes straying to the shadows. Loken felt the touch of destiny again in the cramped cell, a hard shape of blade-like angles and raw ambition.
Then it was gone, fading back into dull unresolved sensations.
‘No. Not my brother. Not the Lion. But who then, and why? Do you carry a message for me? Is that it?’
They did not know. It was as Loken and Qruze had first surmised, then – Horus’ influence had not yet spread as far as the fortress of Aldurukh. That should have made matters easy. Dorn had given them a message to relay to the Dark Angels of Caliban, if they were free of treachery.
Luther stared straight at him. ‘…or are you a message yourself?’
Loken opened his mouth. He felt the words forming upon his tongue – the revelation of Horus’ betrayal, the war that divided the Imperium, and the call for the I Legion to reaffirm their loyalty to the Emperor. He could speak that truth, could loose it with but a few words. He felt the temptation of it, the need to resolve the unanswered question.
But darkness and treachery circled the home of the Dark Angels. Loken could still feel it like a ghost of the winds of Isstvan. He thought of the intelligence and power of Luther, and the suspicion inherent in his questions. Loken had once been a warrior, able to resolve such matters with the simple martial logic of war. Now he served only guesses and half-truths. Could he be sure of the effects his words might ultimately have?
After a long moment, he spoke. ‘I am nothing.’
Luther nodded, his eyes like sparkling obsidian in a face of pale marble.
‘Very well.’ With a swirl of his robes, he walked to the cell door. ‘I will return, Cerberus, son of Cthonia. And when I do, I will decide what you are. And if you are a herald of treachery then I will know who it is that has turned against me.’
Loken let his eyes close and the darkness became complete. He had to get free. He had made his decision – the message from Rogal Dorn and the revelation of the war had to be protected. The fear that they may have already upset a delicate balance of circumstance itched at the back of his thoughts.
Luther would return with more questions, and perhaps the means to get his answers. The Council of Nikaea had outlawed the use of psykers within the Legions, but he had seen the proof many times over that necessity undid edicts.
He opened his eyes. ‘Why couldn’t he see you?’
‘Because we choose those who see us, and when.’
The small, hooded figure crouched in the corner of the cell, its shape a fold of deep gloom outlined by a cold halo. It had stood motionless while Luther had questioned Loken, the empty space beneath its cowl taking in all that had transpired. Loken could feel the clammy, static touch of its presence, the witch-touch of its words in his mind. There was something familiar about it that he could not place, like the face of a forgotten friend.
‘You touched my mind,’ he said. ‘I could sense things that do not exist – the darkness and warp-taint, the possibilities, the unspoken secrets behind Luther’s words. That was you.’
‘We let you see somewhat as we do. But your senses are limited. Your mind is blind.’
‘What are you?’
‘You have asked us that already.’
‘You did not answer.’
‘We watch.’
Loken snarled. ‘Speak plainly. I do not trust you–’
‘Trust is not required,’ the watcher interrupted him. ‘We have allowed you to see what you must, and that is all.’
‘Is what I sensed real, or merely what you wished me to see? Was it… the truth?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Then you will tell me no more?’
‘No.’
‘Then why are you still here?’
‘To set you free.’
Loken felt a static charge spread through the air. Power flowed through his armour once more, and his own muscles twitched as their movement meshed with the suit’s fibre bundles. An acidic burn ran down his spine as interface plugs fizzed with charge. The chains holding him writhed and snapped, and he fell hard onto the cold flagstones beneath him.
The watcher moved towards the door, its form flickering between positions like an image from a damaged pict-feed. Loken clamped his weapons to his armour. The static in the air discharged sparks across the ceramite plates.
The cell door opened and the watcher flickered across its threshold, the dark space of its hood still facing towards Loken.
‘Go. You must tell your masters what you have seen here.’
The corridor was still and silent. The torch flames were a frozen flicker in their iron brackets, the shadows on the floor still. Loken glanced at the Dark Angels flanking the cell door. Each wore pale cloaks over their black armour. Double-handed swords rested point-down at their feet. Ruby eye-lenses stared unseeing as he moved past.
His footsteps scraped on the stone floor. The sound felt alien in his ears, as if he were trespassing into a dream. A dull ache of pounding blood was building in his temples, and the watcher’s final words seemed to be spoken directly into his mind.
‘You have what time we can give you, Garviel Loken.’
He moved down the corridor at a run, footfalls echoing in the dead air. The shadows writhed, torchlight moving in jerks like the flicked pages of a book. He turned a corner.
The Dark Angel had been walking the other way, his hand resting on the pommel of a sheathed blade. Their eyes met as Loken turned the corner, his cold grey to the guard’s red helmet lenses.
The warrior’s blade was in his hand, its length hissing with power. Loken was not here to kill. He was a hidden emissary in a fortress of unknown, and perhaps unresolved, loyalty. His mere presence might have tipped a wavering balance – a death in these dark corridors almost certainly would.
Loken’s hands were empty as he charged, and still empty as the Dark Angel cut down towards his head. Loken twisted at the last moment and rammed his weight forwards, and his shoulder met the guard’s arms at the elbow as the sword fell. The Dark Angel staggered but Loken’s hands were already up, gripping his opponent’s helm at the faceplate and crown.
The guard fell, and Loken fell with him – they hit the floor with a sound like a hammer shattering marble. The Dark Angel still had the sword in his right hand. Loken saw the blade move, and fastened his grip on his opponent’s wrist.
The punch came from nowhere. Loken’s teeth jarred and his nose cracked under the warrior’s gauntlet. His ears rang. Blood spattered the Dark Angel’s white tabard.
He swung his leg up and stamped down on the guard’s free arm, pinning it to the ground, then hauled himself upright and rained down blow after blow, hammering the front of the Dark Angel’s helm into a crumpled ruin. The red lenses shattered, and dull green eyes glared pure hatred up at him through the fractured sockets.
The guard twisted as Loken drew his hand back to strike again, and suddenly he was on his side, right arm trapped beneath his own armoured flank. The Dark Angel leapt to his feet, sword free and rising.
‘Hold!’
The guard’s head
twitched around at the sound of the voice. It was enough – Loken surged to his feet, grappling the Dark Angel’s sword arm as he rammed him into the stone wall. The guard’s head lolled under the barrage of blows, his weapon clattering to the ground.
Loken could hear his own breath heaving from his lungs. Blood framed the green eyes inside the shattered helm.
The Dark Angel shoved him back, his strength seemingly undimmed even after being knocked senseless. He made to lunge for the sword on the floor.
The shot struck the guard in the left eye, and blew out his skull inside the ruin of his helm in a spray of blood and bone fragments. Loken felt the Dark Angel’s battleplate become dead weight in his hands. He knew the sound of a Stalker-pattern bolt-shell, the hissing gasp of its flight and the wet impact of its mercury-filled head. He did not need to look around to know who had killed his opponent.
‘What have you done?’ he cried, carefully lowering the body to the floor.
Iacton Qruze shrugged, striding towards him. ‘It was a necessity, lad.’
‘We could have subdued him! He did not need to die. You may have executed a loyal warrior of the Imperium.’
‘He would not be the first, nor do I think the last…’
‘This may have consequences we wanted to avoid,’ Loken sighed. ‘There are unresolved loyalties at play, and you have just tipped the balance against us!’
‘Possibly. But matters have moved beyond our original concerns.’
Loken took a moment to compose himself. He snorted a messy blood clot onto the flagstones, and adjusted the shattered bones of his nose. ‘I do not believe Luther knows of the war… but the seed of corruption is already here. Our message may have prevented it taking root. But we cannot relay that message now.’
‘You are correct,’ Qruze replied, ‘but our mission has yielded something of great worth, and to protect that interest this warrior needed to die.’
Loken frowned. ‘Why, what did you find?’
‘Me, Garviel. He found me.’
A Dark Angel stepped out from the shadows behind Qruze as though solidifying from the darkness itself. Loken felt a shock run up his spine. A skeletal angel spread its bony wings across the breastplate of the warrior’s void-black armour. Rain had soaked his split robe, and drops shook from the hem as the figure stepped forwards.
He moved with a relaxed precision that Loken knew could become a killing movement without a flicker of warning. The face within the rain-soaked hood was as hard and humourless as it had always been.
‘It has been a long time, has it not?’
Loken turned to Qruze, anger running across his scarred face. ‘What have you told him?’
‘We have reached an understanding.’
Loken met the eyes within the cowl.
‘Iacton is right,’ the Angel said. ‘Matters here are more complex than you can imagine. Ignorance is a shield. I fear that the truth you bear would not have an effect that would serve the Imperium, nor my Legion.’
Loken watched as the robed figure knelt by the corpse at their feet. He lifted the power sword and placed it in the fallen angel’s dead grip.
‘I will see you safely out of Aldurukh,’ he assured them.
‘Oh? And what will you do after we are gone?’
‘Watch and guard, in silence. Such has been my duty for a long time, and the duty of those who came before me.’
The robed figure stood and strode away down the passage. Loken and Qruze followed, first walking and then at a run. Behind them, echoing cries of alarm chased the sound of their footsteps.
He called back to them. ‘Tread carefully, brothers…’
They sprinted along rough-hewn tunnels that plunged through the bedrock, passing through iron doors and over bridges spanning great, natural chasms. Sometimes they heard the sounds of pursuit, but the robed figure led them on into the darkness, and never once did they catch sight of their hunters.
Above them, the storm raged. At the base of an open cliff face beneath the night sky, Loken looked out at the now sparse forests of Caliban swaying in the rain and wind amongst the industrial smokestacks.
Panting beside him, Qruze turned to the robed figure and brought a fist to his chest in the old salute of Unity. ‘Your service… will be remembered… kinsman. No matter what happens… this will not be forgotten.’
‘Remembrance does not concern me. All of us that serve in the shadows are the unremembered. No, tonight I have in fact lost something. You have taken it from me, and I will never be able to reclaim it.’
Loken eyed their ally, the only person on Caliban who knew the truth of what had become of the Imperium. ‘And what is it that you have lost?’
The figure turned without answer and walked back towards the hidden doorway into the bowels of the Rock. Loken looked questioningly at Qruze, but the old warrior watched the robed figure as he vanished into the night.
‘Forgiveness, lad… He has lost the chance for forgiveness.’
About the Author
John French has written several Horus Heresy stories including the novellas Tallarn: Executioner and The Crimson Fist, the novel Tallarn: Ironclad, and the audio dramas Templar and Warmaster. He is the author of the Ahriman series, which includes the novels Ahriman: Exile, Ahriman: Sorcerer and Ahriman: Unchanged, plus a number of related short stories collected in Ahriman: Exodus, including ‘The Dead Oracle’ and ’Hand of Dust‘. Additionally for the Warhammer 40,000 universe he has written the Space Marine Battles novella Fateweaver, plus many short stories. He lives and works in Nottingham, UK.
An extract from Garro: Vow of Faith.
As he waited for the dawn glow to rise higher, the man turned in a slow circle and passed the time reading the history in the landscape around him. Some of it he gathered from his own instincts, more he took from flashes of mnemon-implants fed into his brain by the hypnogoges, long before he had come to Terra.
The forest of tall, mutated fir trees filled a valley that had once been a bay bordered by city sprawls now long-dead and lost. The iron-hard trunks, grey-green like ancient jade, ranged away in all directions beyond the clearing where he had landed the cargo lighter. He could see former islands that were now stubby mesas protruding from the valley floor, even pick out the distant shapes of old buildings swallowed by the tree line. But to the east, the clearest of the decrepit monuments to the dead city were the towers of a long-vanished highway bridge. Only the twisted remains of two narrow gates remained, rust-chewed and thousands of years old. Beyond them, in the time before the Fall of Night, there had been a great ocean; now, the strange forest petered out and became the endless desert of the Mendocine Plains.
The bleakness of that thought was somehow comforting. Entropy is eternal, it said. Whatever we do today, it will matter not in centuries to come. Forests anew will rise and engulf all deeds.
He turned and walked back to the lighter. The snow on the ground hissed beneath his footfalls as he came around to the drop ramp at the rear, open like a fallen drawbridge. Inside the flyer’s otherwise empty hold, a man in a maintenance worker’s oversuit looked up at his approach and pulled listlessly at the magnetic cuff tethering him to a support frame. The two of them were similarly dressed, alike in average height and nondescript aspect, but the chained man’s face was swollen and florid.
‘Haln,’ he began, his words emerging in puffs of vapour, ‘Look, comrade, this has gone far enough! I’m freezing my balls off–’
His real name was not Haln, but it was who he was today. He stepped in and punched the worker in the face three times to stop him talking. Then, while the man was dazed and reeling, Haln released the mag-cuff and used it to lead his captive out of the lighter. He chanced a look up into the cloudy sky. Not long now.
The worker tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet, breathy noise.
Perhaps he had thought they were frien
ds. Perhaps the fiction that was Haln had been so good that the worker bought its reality without question. People usually did. Haln was a well-trained, highly accomplished liar.
He wanted to strike the worker again, but it was important that the man not bleed, not yet. With his free hand, Haln pulled a metallic spider from one of the deep pockets of his overcoat and clamped it around the worker’s throat. His captive whimpered and then cried out in pain as the neurodendrite probes that were the spider’s legs entered his flesh, and found their way through meat and bone to nerve clusters and brain tissue.
Haln released him, but not before giving the worker another item – an Imperial soldier’s battle knife. It was old, blackened by disuse and corrosion. There were stories in it, but they would not be heard today.
The worker accepted the blade, wide-eyed and confused. Wondering why he had been handed a weapon.
Haln didn’t give him time to think too long about it. He pulled back the sleeve of his coat to reveal a control panel with hologlyph keys, secured around his wrist. Haln placed the fingers of his other hand on the panel and slid them around, feeling for the right position. In synchrony, the worker cried out and began a sudden, spastic series of motions. The spider device accepted the signals from the control and made him a puppet. He staggered back and forth as Haln got a sense of the range of motion. He began to weep, and through coughing sobs, the worker begged for his life.
Haln ignored his slurred entreaties, walking him away into the middle of the large clearing where the chem-stained snow was still virgin. When he was satisfied, Haln looked again at the oncoming dawn and nodded once.
Highlighting two glyphs made the worker bring the old knife to his throat and draw it across. Manipulating other symbols forced his legs to work, walking him around in a perfect circle as blood jetted from the widening wound. Haln watched the spurts of crimson form jagged, steaming lines in the snowfall. Each wet red axis pointed away to the horizon.
Eventually, the cut killed the worker and he dropped, sprawled across the mark of his own making. Haln felt a change in the air, a grotesquely familiar acidity that was alien and uncanny. It was good, he decided.