Shadowsword

by Guy Haley

  In another room he found a couple, their flesh run together, their faces joined by a long tube of skin at the mouth. From the look of the wounds all over their bodies, they had clawed at each other before the end, though their fingers too were buried deep and seamlessly into each other’s skin. More horrors awaited him. The nearer he drew to the banqueting hall, the more he found: people dead in the most horrific of ways, many with expressions of pleasure plastered across their faces.

  Towards Magor’s Hall the floors were covered with blood. Isolated pools at first, then as he drew nearer, a continuous slick that stretched from wall to wall. Steeling himself, he paddled through it, ignoring the screamed pleadings of his heart that he flee and never look back. He had nowhere to go. He had been duped. There were dark stories, read in forbidden books and passed on by word of mouth among the elite, of such happenings as this – things that made the legend of the Devil-in-the-bush seem positively benevolent; tales of gods and their servants, treachery on a galactic scale in the distant past of the Imperium.

  He had been a fool. Blinded by love. And it was love he felt for Pollein. Now he had sated his baser desires, his affection for her had blossomed, but because of his shame, he found it hard to attribute his search to pure motives. All he could be certain of was that he had to find her. Conflicted, he pressed on.

  The approach to Magor’s Hall was silent, empty of the servants, Yellow Guard, petitioners and others who would throng its length on a normal day. Through their blood he approached the hall that was supposedly the seat of his power. He had no right to it; he had bought the throne with blood. Dostain suspected there would never be such a thing as a normal day on Geratomro ever again.

  The golden gates were ajar. He slipped through to find a scene of such awfulness his knees gave out and he collapsed to the floor.

  His court had never gone home. All remained at the feast. All were dead. Most were in a state of undress. Many had been partially devoured, human bite marks all over their skin. Musicians had been strangled with the strings of their instruments. His courtesans lay piled naked and bloody atop each other all over his dais.

  For this, he had slain his Aunt Missrine. For several minutes he wept, now smirched with blood himself, until he heard chanting. It drifted in and out of hearing, and he held his breath to catch it. Feeling weak, he pulled himself from the lake of blood on the floor, and headed for the rear of the hall, past the gory banqueting tables and his charnel throne. The serving doors at the back were open. From there the sound came.

  Dostain hurried through low, mean servants’ corridors. These places he had not ventured into since he was a child, when he had run wild through areas supposedly too lowly for a man of his blood to tread. As he had grown, he had disdained them and the people within upon whom he had once looked well. Not one of his servants was present. He remembered them now without the filter of privilege, how they had indulged him not because of his high birth, but in spite of it. He hoped they had got away.

  He came to a servant’s staircase that led all the way down to the kitchens in the bowels of the palace. The smell of roasting meat rose on the draught. Dostain had no desire to find what flesh cooked in his ovens, and exited via a hidden doorway into the grand lobby of his palace. Again, there was not a living soul. The body of a Yellow Guard lay across the open doors. Dostain glanced down. It seemed the man had shot himself in the head. His laspistol lay a few feet from his outstretched hand. Dostain plucked it up.

  Beyond the doors was the Founders’ Plaza. With a shaking hand he pushed against the ornately carved wood of the gate.

  They swung wide upon a vision of hell.

  The statues of the Founders – Magor and his thirteen companions – were obscured by piles of bodies stacked around them. Blood covered the mosaics of the plaza. Piles of burning heads lit the square under the dark skies. Heavy drops of rain pattered down to hiss in the fires, striking slow ripples from the blood underfoot. A ring of Space Marines surrounded something in the centre of the square that gave out an impure light. Dostain slipped through the gap, trying not to look at the dead faces staring out from the piles of corpses. There must have been hundreds of them, thousands, the people of the city slaughtered like livestock.

  He approached the circle of monsters unseen, skulking between the piles of burning dead. A tall being led their chant, shouting out phrases that they thunderously repeated. Their high priest was not human, but a serpentine being with a four-armed torso and pale pink skin. Four horns crowned a head set with three blood-red eyes above a hooked nose and a mouth overfull with diamond teeth.

  Dostain barely recognised Dib, but Dib it was. Beside the beast was his wife. He could barely recognise her either.

  Pollein’s body had split and stretched, becoming a fleshy arch. Her limbs hung limply from either side. From the top dangled her arms, from the bottom her legs. Her head was set into the apex between crushed-up shoulders, the obscene keystone to a hellish portal. Dostain choked back a cry. When her eyes opened and her mouth formed soundless words, he almost lost his mind.

  He took aim to end her misery, but Dostain had never been a competent shot; he had never needed to be. The las-bolt sparked off the head of Magor’s wife peering out from her mound of corpses with blind marble eyes.

  Naturally, he was seen.

  Dib, or the thing that Dib had become, or the thing that Dib had always been, threw up his hands in greeting.

  ‘The master returns to us! Our Lord of Geratomro. Come to me, Dostain. I bring allies who will ensure your rule forever.’

  Dostain backed away, the laspistol up but uselessly shaking in his hand. A pair of Space Marines detached themselves from the circle and came stalking after him, enormous armoured hands held out ready to grab and rend. He fired one more shot, and this one did hit. It struck a groove in a massive pauldron with no greater effect than if he had cast a pebble at the warrior. The Space Marine took the weapon and crushed it to broken components in a mighty fist, then he was seized and dragged before Dib. The creature’s tail lashed back and forth. It rose up over Dostain. With a horrible smile, Dib followed his anguished eyes to the doorway of flesh that had been Pollein. She mouthed at him still. Her eyes were dreamy, and he saw with utmost horror that she was still saying ‘How wonderful’ over and over again.

  ‘Yes, a pretty sight,’ said Dib. He lowered himself down to Dostain’s eye level, his serpent’s body circling him. ‘Behold, your wife, the witch! Of all the very many foolish things your Aunt Missrine did, not handing her sister over to the Black Ships of the thrice-cursed corpse-god was perhaps the most reckless. Mercy. Affection. Weaknesses. She has a powerful mind, Pollein, and a soul that burns in the warp like a beacon to those such as I. Great enough to allow me through. A charming legend that of the Devil-in-the-bush, don’t you think? And so easy to slip into. Why, I think perhaps I might have been him before. I forget. Time does rush on so.’

  Dib swayed for a moment, then said, ‘In more fortuitous eras, this unguarded mind of your dear wife would be gateway enough for many of my lord’s servants. But not far from here, Macharius brings the lies of your Emperor to hundreds of new worlds, and the vile light of Terra waxes strong. No matter. A tide of blood shall be the key to fit the lock. When the soldiers of Terra come marching in here with their songs and their desperate courage they will slaughter your men, and slaughter your citizens, and they themselves will be slaughtered. Their deaths are all I need, and they are inevitable. There will be soulfire enough not just for me, but for many! A daemonic legion will pour through this portal into this universe of ash and fire, and remake it in a fashion more pleasing to my Dark Prince!’ He bent low again and caressed Dostain’s cheek. His touch burned. ‘You and I are going to have a lot of fun together, Dostain,’ he whispered, ‘and we shall have all eternity to enjoy it.’ Dib cocked his horned head. ‘It begins soon! Hearken! They approach. Those whose souls shall provide the final pry and f
ling the door wide! The Black Templars are coming.’

  Dib’s voice gave way to the guttering of flames and the sizzle of rain on hot fat. Dostain heard guns large and small only streets away. There was defiance in him still, and he attempted to stand, but the metal-clad hands of the Emperor’s ungrateful children held him fast. He might as well have been pinned by a mountain. The chanting began again.

  So ensnared, Dostain awaited the end of the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Magor’s Seat

  SUBURBS, MAGOR’S SEAT

  GERATOMRO

  087798.M41

  Bannick was aboard Righteous Vengeance having his wounds seen to when Meggen caught up with him. The first gunner greeted Bannick with a manner as close to joy as he ever exhibited, but all was not well. Most of Jonas’ platoon had been wiped out alongside the two Atraxian Shadowswords, and Bannick’s hopes that Lux Imperator’s crew had survived the grenade were soon dashed.

  ‘Leonates is dead,’ said Meggen as Turneric, Jonas’ medicae, patched up Bannick’s arm. He scrubbed inside the cut with a stiff brush covered in powdered disinfectant.

  ‘Hold still!’ said Turneric as Bannick winced. ‘I have to get all the mud out of this wound or you’ll lose it to infection.’

  ‘It’s more painful than the wound,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll thank me for it,’ murmured Turneric. ‘Please hold still. There are others that need my attention. The sooner I am done with you, the more lives might be saved.’

  Bannick shut up, gritted his teeth and took the pain. When he was done bandaging up Bannick’s arm, Turneric gave him a stimm-shot from a hypospray and rushed off. Bannick got up groggily.

  ‘I don’t see why he couldn’t have done that before the cleansing,’ said Meggen as he clambered down the Stormsword’s access ladder. He offered his arm to the honoured lieutenant. Bannick waved it away.

  ‘Leonates?’

  ‘Threw himself on the grenade. Brave boy.’

  ‘We’re getting short on crew,’ said Bannick. He reached the ground and sank mid-calf in the mud. Meggen gave him a strange look.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be callous,’ said Bannick.

  Meggen nodded. ‘Yeah. I’m sure,’ he said uneasily.

  The downpour had petered out to something approaching normal for Geratomro. The raindrops were cleaner. The sky, however, remained thick with cloud that reduced the day to a grim twilight. Lux Imperator waited a dozen feet from the Stormsword, lights blazing and engine idling. Bannick was grateful for the heat put out by the big machine. Under a tarpaulin drooping with collected rain, Parrigar, Suliban, Chensormen and Jonas waited for him. Sword Brother Adelard stood outside, being too tall for the rough shelter.

  ‘All fixed up and ready to fight?’ said Parrigar.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Bannick. Three Space Marines were gathering their dead. Two giant, armoured corpses were laid in the dirt and covered with shrouds written all over with scripture. Another pair of Black Templars wheeled bullet-holed combat bikes into place beside them. A sixth bearing a massive sword and clad in ornate black armour watched on in silence. The Space Marines retrieved a beacon from the saddle packs of a bike, rammed its spike into the ground and extended its antennae. A signum light began blinking, and the Space Marines dipped their heads a moment.

  ‘They gave their lives for the permanence of humanity,’ intoned Adelard.

  ‘Praise be,’ the great warriors responded.

  ‘Honour the legacy of the Chapter.’

  ‘Praise be.’

  ‘Honour the legacy of Rogal Dorn and of Sigismund.’

  ‘Praise be.’

  ‘Honour the gifts of the Emperor,’ continued Adelard.

  ‘Praise be.’

  ‘Honour the battlegear of the dead.’

  ‘Praise be!’ the six Space Marines shouted, clashing their forearms on their breastplates.

  ‘To your bikes, the time is at hand,’ said Adelard. The Space Marines dispersed.

  ‘There is no harder fight than that against our erstwhile brothers,’ said Adelard. The shrouds of the dead flapped mournfully in the gathering wind. ‘The beacon will draw in our Apothecary and Techmarines to recover their gene-seeds and wargear. All is not lost, and many traitors died at the hand of my two brothers here. I am satisfied.’

  ‘Your beacon might also draw the enemy,’ said Jonas. Bannick couldn’t speak. He had been in the presence of Space Marines before, but they had not been armoured and he’d had other things to worry about that night aboard the command Leviathan on Kalidar. Power armour added so much more mass to the warriors. It was like conversing with monuments heavy with history. They were on his side. He knew that. He was still afraid of them.

  Adelard regarded Jonas with the blank face of his helmet. ‘Your position is already known. They will not come here. It is not their intention to push forwards. This group came here to disable the tanks so that they might remove the threat to their blasphemous engine.’

  ‘Then what is their strategy?’ asked Bannick.

  ‘This planet is to be claimed in the name of old, dark gods.’ He pointed to the sky over Magor’s Seat. ‘There. The discolouration of the clouds. It is already beginning. Daemon sign. Only faith and fury might save this world now.’

  ‘You’re not serious, are you?’ said Jonas. ‘Daemons? They’re myths.’

  ‘There are things in this galaxy many men would rather be kept secret,’ said Adelard, turning to the commissars. ‘Our order do not hold with this... opinion. How is faith to be tested, if the greatest evils are obscured? So say we.’

  ‘My lord,’ warned Suliban.

  ‘Do not become concerned at my words, commissar. I will say no more lest I endanger these warriors to no good cause.’

  ‘I don’t like where this is going,’ said Jonas.

  ‘And you should not,’ said Adelard. ‘To know more would risk your lives from the actions of men less faithful than I.’ By that he clearly meant the two commissars. Adelard rested a hand on Jonas’ shoulder. ‘Faith, brother. That is the only armour a warrior of the Imperium requires. Remember that, in the hours ahead.’

  Chensormen and Suliban glanced at each other.

  ‘What now then?’ asked Bannick. ‘Are we to return to our units?’

  Parrigar cleared his throat. He looked haggard. They all did. ‘No.’

  ‘Just why exactly are you here, my lord?’ asked Jonas suspiciously. ‘It was pretty convenient you showing up like that moments before we were, well, all killed.’

  ‘We came looking for this tank, Lux Imperator, the light of the Emperor,’ said Adelard.

  ‘Why?’ asked Bannick. ‘Who sent you?’

  Blood-red eye-lenses turned towards him. ‘Prophecy.’ He pointed at the warrior armoured solely in black. ‘Our brother has been chosen as the Emperor’s Champion. His visions tell of great evil. You were in this vision, you and this vehicle. Our task cannot be completed without it. Now you must come with us.’

  Adelard looked down at Bannick, who suddenly felt very small and very frightened. ‘You have been chosen by the Emperor Himself.’

  They came into Magor’s Seat through the sparse suburbs climbing the lowermost slopes of Magor’s Peak. Above the towering palace spires, green and red lights danced in the cloud, playing havoc with the vox. Soon after passing into the first district, they lost contact altogether.

  ‘Magor’s Peak, Magor’s Park, Magor’s Seat... Who is this damn Magor anyway?’ muttered Meggen, reading a placard by the road.

  ‘The founder of this world. A mercantile guildsman who stumbled across the planet some seven thousand years ago. Did none of your men read the prescribed intelligence, lieutenant?’ asked Chensormen.

  ‘No,’ said Meggen with a certain insolent satisfaction. ‘They did not.’

  ‘Th
at is a minor offence, but an offence nonetheless.’

  ‘And when do you suppose I should read these reports?’ said Meggen, his voice testy over the internal vox. ‘In battle? While I am in training?’

  ‘In your leave,’ said Chensormen.

  ‘I’ve had two hours leave in the last three years. There’s nowhere to leave to in the Guard,’ said Meggen.

  ‘Have the rest of you read the material? Speak up, I say!’ demanded Chensormen.

  Nobody answered him.

  Nominal amounts of resistance were swept aside by the Space Marines, acting as outriders to the depleted tank unit. Bannick aided them for a while, firing the secondary weapons systems out into the gloom from his own station. The Space Marines did not seem to need the help, and he gave up after a while to conserve ammunition. They encountered only reserve troops, old men and pressed youths, many of whom surrendered as soon as their officers were dealt with.

  The Traitor Space Marines were missing from the battlefield, a cause of some irritation to the Black Templars, if the change in tone to their incomprehensible battle cant was anything to go by. They spoke infrequently to the unmodified humans, and when they did their exchanges were shot through with religious aphorisms and snippets of catechism. Bannick began to feel less than devout in the face of their unshakeable belief.

  Occasionally, the Space Marines shared dark jests, shocking simply because Bannick had not thought them capable of humour. Of them all, the warrior with the black sword fascinated Bannick the most. He spoke only to say ‘this way’ when questioned by Adelard as to the direction they should go. He lent the fire of the boltguns mounted on his bike to their lightning plunges through street barricades, but his sword remained in its scabbard.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Bannick of Chensormen. The commissar, who had been sulking at the back of the tank, brightened and came round the blocky refraction array of the cannon to share his know­ledge. Chensormen was that type of man who thought he knew a lot and has an overwhelming desire to share it. The station of his office prevented him from doing so – Bannick thought he did ‘hang back and glower’ exceptionally well – but when prompted, he was only too happy to speak.