by Guy Haley
‘A champion of the Emperor,’ he said, the light of wonder igniting in his eyes. ‘We learned of the Chapter in the schola progenium. Many of the Space Marines are blasphemers, who hold that the Emperor is only a man, not a god. Not so the Black Templars. They worship Him more fervently than any, and are rewarded by Him for it. Their order is mercifully free of the taint of witchery, thanks to His intervention. They are visionaries, master warriors and indomitable crusaders whose wrath cannot be deflected once provoked.’
‘That’s great,’ said Meggen. ‘Still doesn’t tell us who he is.’
‘I was getting to that!’ said Chensormen, his mood souring. ‘On rare occasions, one of their number is visited by visions sent by the Emperor. He will see himself as a great warrior, sometimes even the time of his own death. Undaunted, he will take up one of their black swords, and be anointed as the Emperor’s Champion.’
‘So, what you’re telling us,’ said Meggen, ‘is that the tall, silent warrior knows he is about to die?’
‘Possibly, yes,’ said Chensormen. ‘Imagine, the glory of serving the Emperor in such a way!’
‘Imagine,’ responded Meggen, ‘following him into a fight even a Space Marine can’t win.’
They fell silent at that, leaving Shoam’s dry chuckling to compete with the soft rumble of Lux Imperator’s engines.
Adelard called a halt not long after and summoned the officers to his side. Bannick and Chensormen dropped down from Lux’s skirts into a street that was probably pleasant not so long ago, but was now scarred by days of bombardment and crusted with black ash. Adelard sat astride his combat bike as his warriors searched side streets and the few open spaces between the buildings. The area was affluent, housing hundred-storey habitation blocks fit for the middling-rich. Glimpsed through shell-punched holes, fires burned out of control in their interiors. The air reeked of hot metal and scorched plascrete.
‘Ahead,’ said Adelard. ‘Steel yourselves.’ He pointed around a corner. Bannick walked past the Space Marine and came to a horrified, staggering halt. In a small public space furnished with a fountain was a pile of bodies so high and wide it was jammed hard against the two buildings framing it, their limbs hanging down in such profusion as to provide the illusion of fur or cilia.
Chensormen made the sign of the aquila.
Jonas joined them, followed closely by Parrigar and Suliban.
‘Emperor preserve us,’ whispered Parrigar.
‘Now you understand where the populace has gone,’ said Adelard.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ said Chensormen. He put his fist up to his mouth.
‘I have,’ said Bannick. ‘On Agritha. Work of the eldar.’
‘As have I, many times. Never does it fail to ignite my outrage,’ said Adelard. ‘There will be more such sights, and worse. But this is the work of men, not xenos.’
From over the city, they could hear the sounds of battle. ‘And the Geratomrans, do they know what they are fighting for?’ asked Bannick. ‘How could they be duped so?’
‘The ones that yet fight on are most probably insane. The agents of the Dark Gods have their means. Come, we must not delay, or the unspeakable shall be unleashed upon this world. Prepare your men. They will see things that they will not easily put from their minds. Whatever it is you witnessed on Agritha, honoured lieutenant, I promise you the traitors have worse in store.’
As the tanks drove by, the men goggled at the charnel scene, the tankers glued to their vision blocks and pict screens. The few remaining men of Jonas’ platoon stood to stare over their parapet, too shocked to keep in cover.
They pressed on towards the city centre. The noise of battle echoed down empty streets where the Imperial forces penetrated the city. Aircraft screamed overhead. But Bannick’s group met no resistance. Augurs and sensoriums picked up enemy forces, but these melted away. Cowardice, they put it down to, but after the fifth withdrawal, Bannick suspected otherwise.
‘My lord Adelard,’ he voxed.
‘Speak,’ the Space Marine replied.
‘The enemy are presenting no resistance. They are allowing us through. Does this not worry you, my lord?’
‘It does not,’ said Adelard. ‘You are correct, however. We are being directed to the central plaza of this city, by the palace.’
‘We’re being shepherded?’
‘We wish to go there. They wish us to go there. Our goals accord. It is not shepherding,’ said Adelard. ‘Fate, honoured lieutenant. It drives us all, whether we are blind to it or not.’
‘Then the main battlegroup, they do not wish to let them through?’
‘They do not. This engagement hangs upon the fulcrum of possibility. They seek to draw us in for their diabolical purpose. We seek to end their vile sorcery. Force of arms will determine the matter. Be not afraid. The Emperor is on our side. We cannot lose.’
The vox clicked off.
They passed more mounds of bodies, some arranged into complex, interlocking patterns. Adelard was right: this was on a much greater and more terrible scale than the atrocities meted out upon the miners of Agritha. That humans were doing this to other humans made it all far worse. Bannick focused on his work, but every time they passed another corpse mound, his attention was drawn morbidly to it. The streets closer to the palace were undamaged by cannon fire. Bunting and decorations, dirtied by the rain, were strung across streets and from lumen posts.
‘They were having a party?’ said Meggen. ‘What insanity is this?’
Bodies had been added to the displays, and other, wetter additions taken from the innards of dead men. Revellers lay here in less structured piles.
‘They look like they killed each other,’ voxed Jonas. ‘Are you seeing this?’
‘Keep your eyes off the road, lieutenant,’ said Parrigar. ‘For your own sake.’
The sky overhead was twisting in on itself, forming a vortex darker than a black hole. Colourful plasma flickered around its lip that were painful to the eye.
‘And off the sky,’ the honoured captain added.
The small group broke onto the Founder’s Avenue, the main road of Magor’s Seat, a huge processional way lined with columns supporting statues of past worthies. A mile away, it ended in a square before the monumental palace. Adelard called a halt.
‘Hearken to me now, men of the Imperium. We approach our final goal,’ the sword brother voxed. ‘Parrigar, you must remain here. Take up station on that street. Cover our rear.’ Adelard indicated a crossroads.
‘Understood,’ said Parrigar.
‘Honoured Lieutenant Bannick, I require your tank. You will follow me. This is what we must do...’
‘No pity! No remorse! No fear!’
– Black Templars war-cry
Chapter Twenty-Four
The end of Magor’s line
FOUNDER’S SQUARE, MAGOR’S SEAT
GERATOMRO
087898.M41
A throaty roaring intruded into the nearing sounds of gunfire. Dostain looked up Magor’s Way to see Space Marines on huge combat bikes burst into the square and open fire. A number of the Emperor’s Children fell, but the traitors spread out unhurriedly, unslinging their weapons and returning fire upon the Adeptus Astartes. Several of the traitors carried devices more akin to musical instruments than guns, and they played twanging cacophonies of destruction that burst apart the piles of bodies around Magor’s companions and shattered the stone beneath. Dostain’s captor remained still besides the rearing Dib, who laughed long and loud.
‘They are here – the Black Templars! The final guests at our celebration!’
Between the spread parts of Pollein’s body, the membrane of energy glowed kaleidoscopically and began to throb, bulging outwards in time to the Emperor’s Children’s war-instruments.
One of the Black Templars was brought low, his bike shattere
d into scrap by sonic pulses. The Space Marine skidded free, sparks flying from his armour. He rolled and pushed himself to his feet, drawing his sword.
‘For Dorn! For the Emperor!’ he shouted, and ran at the Traitor Space Marines, only to die in a hail of bolt-rounds.
Dostain watched dispassionately, shocked out of his fear. They could not all be bent on attempting such a suicidal dash, he thought.
The Black Templars drove full tilt into the Emperor’s Children, the mass of their steeds bowling over those who got in their way. Boltguns blazed. As they reached the centre of the square they leapt off their bikes, allowing them to slide away, wheels still spinning, to crash into the followers of the Dark Prince. Their legs aided by their armour, they leapt improbably far, cracking the paving when they landed. There they drew blades and axes attached by steel chains to their wrists, and charged without delay, yelling praise to the Emperor and damning the traitors for their treachery. Slender power swords met heavy axes in showers of sparks. The Black Templars were furious warriors, moving with smooth grace despite their size and armour’s mass. Impelled by the momentum of their bikes, they cut several of Trastoon’s followers down before they were slowed.
‘Impressive, aren’t they?’ hissed Dib to Dostain. ‘But these sons of Dorn face the sons of Fulgrim. They are the Emperor’s Children, for whom perfection was once a byword. Each one of these warriors has fought for thousands of years, and their mastery of blade-craft is unsurpassed, even by the so-called Knights of Dorn. Watch, and see the dogs of the Emperor die.’
Trastoon moved into the melee towards a Black Templar whose armour was trimmed in red. This one fought ferociously, bolt pistol in one hand, a power axe in the other. He hooked his axe-head behind the knee of a traitor, whipping him off his feet and bringing him down hard, ending his unnatural life with three bolt shots to the brain. Before the first had died, he pivoted on one foot, coming in low, his axe sweeping around to cleave another traitor through the chest. Lightning burst around the impact point, there was the almighty bang of annihilated atoms, and blood welled unstoppably from the shattered chest. Another died, riddled with shots from the red-and-black warrior’s pistol, then another, and another. All the time the warrior moved faster, sang louder, his axe hewing down traitors. His blows became frenzied, and his battle-song throbbed the very stones of the square.
Dib winced. ‘Prayers to their god. None of that will work here.’
Trastoon decapitated a Black Templar, sending his helmeted head rattling among the feet of the fighting Space Marines. Seeing the red warrior occupied, he charged, only for his sword to be met with the reinforced haft of the warrior’s axe. Trastoon pushed down hard on his foe, but the Black Templar threw him back, and the two staggered away from each other.
The square filled with the ringing of weapons, the crackling of disruption fields and the banging of shattering matter. The combatants moved too fast for Dostain to make sense of. A space formed around the warrior in red and black and Trastoon, warriors from both sides having the sense not to intervene, and they circled each other warily.
‘I am Sword Brother Adelard of the Black Templars,’ said Adelard, brandishing his axe. ‘I challenge you! May your death be as clean as your life has not.’
Trastoon saluted, holding his blue-steel sword in front of his face, the power field making his fanged mask jump and quiver.
‘I am Damien Trastoon, and I have been killing the sons of Dorn since Horus declared war on the falsehoods of the Emperor. It is I who shall be your death, knight.’
‘Let it be seen,’ said Adelard. He came in with a devastating overhand swing of his axe that Trastoon caught on his own blade and flung wide. He thrust at Adelard, but leapt back as Adelard levelled his gun and loosed a pair of swift bolts. Incredibly, Trastoon deflected one with his blade and dodge the second. It buried itself in the thigh of another traitor so that he fell with a cry, and was finished by another Black Templar.
The Black Templars were hard pressed, outnumbered several times over. A third fell, cut down from behind and run through by two swords from the front. Only four remained. But one of those was a warrior like no other.
‘The Emperor’s Champion. It is his death that will lead to the opening of the gate,’ said Dib.
‘You expected them?’ said Dostain.
‘Of course. We let them through! Time has no meaning to my master. They rush to confront us for pride. He has foreseen it. The death of one of such exquisite purity has value in the working of magicks. For his blood, the warp will obey me. Watch him, marvel at his skill. Martial prowess such as his is rarely witnessed.’
This warrior fought his way forwards with insane power, smashing aside all who came against him. The Emperor’s Champion’s armour was marked by tiny script and fluttering parchments. A wreath circled his helm, and he bore in his hands a sword of purest black that he swung without tiring. Each blow felled multiple opponents, cleaving through ceramite armour and flinging back their bodies. A nimbus of light surrounded him, so pure that it was painful to look at, though it was by no means bright. When it settled on him, Dostain was filled with shame, made aware of all he had done wrong these last months. In that light was the truth of his treachery, and it was more than he could bear, but the Traitor Space Marine held him in place, and he could do little more than cringe from it.
Weapons clashed and songs vied with blasphemous war-cries as a hundred centuries of hatred was vented on both sides. A third Black Templar fell. Knowing what the loyal warriors of the Emperor would do to him if they prevailed, still Dostain found himself urging them to win. The sound of the greater battle had halted some distance away, near where his best troops were stationed, reinforced by more of Trastoon’s warriors. The Imperial Guard would be too late to save him, only the Black Templars could, and he realised now that it was not his life in the balance – he could never keep that after what he had done – but his soul.
‘Fiend! Fiend!’ called the Emperor’s Champion to Dib as he smashed his way through the melee towards the daemon. He barged aside a warrior in pink and gold, reversed his sword and drove it backwards. It pierced back-pack, back and chest, emerging from the front of the traitor and steaming with blood cooking in its disruption field. He withdrew his sword and flourished it at Dib. ‘In my dreams I have seen you. The Emperor has sent me to bring about your end. Stand forwards, and fight!’
Dib smiled. ‘Who could possibly ignore an invitation like that?’ he said, and darted at the Champion with the speed of a striking serpent. From each of Dib’s hands a sword sprouted, exotic alloys gleaming bright colours and dripping with exquisite poisons. He duelled with the Champion, Trastoon with Adelard. The numbers of the traitors had been reduced to a dozen, but the two other remaining Black Templars were isolated, heavily beset by them. One more went down, knocked onto his back. A blade was driven through his breastplate with a sickening crack.
Before he died, he looked at Dostain. His bolter came up, and he fired. Dostain expected the end.
There was a bang directly behind the planetary governor. The giant holding Dostain crumpled, his helmet hollowed out. His hand spasmed on Dostain’s shoulder as he fell, crushing Dostain’s collarbone.
Screaming at the pain, Dostain fell down with the warrior over him. In panicked agony, he pulled himself out from beneath unnoticed and crawled away.
‘Damn it, Shoam, get us closer,’ said Bannick. ‘There’s no way we can get a clear shot.’
He checked the ranging augur again. The view from its eye was obscured by the massive statues of the square and the corpse mounds heaped around them.
Lux Imperator nosed its way down the long way to Founder’s Square, hugging the shadows of the buildings. The imperious countenance of the statues looked out over a sea of corpses. Shoam drove over them. There was no way to avoid the dead carpeting the street.
‘That light there! Do you see it, Meggen?’
Bannick pulled his face away from the eyepiece and wiped his face. ‘Ignore it. That is our target. Get a good range on it, but avoid looking at it if you can. Epperaliant, what news from the battlegroup?’
‘I’ve managed contact only intermittently with high command, sir. But as far as I can tell, the advance has stalled five hundred yards back. We’re on our own. I’m getting some strange readings from that square. I... I don’t understand them.’
‘Think not on them. You witness the diabolical arts of the traitors. These things are not for men such as we to witness,’ said Chensormen. His hand tapped at his bolt pistol. Bannick wished he would shut up; he was putting the crew on edge. He tried to focus on the melee in the square, where giants from legend clashed surrounded by the worst evil humanity had to offer. He caught a glimpse of Adelard duelling a massive champion of the Dark Gods, then he was swallowed up again by the battle.
‘Shall I ask Parrigar to come up and support?’ said Epperaliant. ‘The Black Templars are outnumbered.’
‘Negative. With two super-heavies we’re likely to be spotted, then the game is up. We have one shot at this, do you hear that Lux?’ he said, and rapped his knuckles on plasteel. The sound of the engine hitched.
‘Lux Imperator is aware of the gravity of the situation and wishes wholeheartedly to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion,’ said Starstan. ‘It will not fail you, Honoured Lieutenant Bannick.’
Bannick squinted down the rangefinder again. He bit his lip.
‘Shoam, bring us another hundred yards closer.’
‘Then we’ll be only one hundred and fifty yards away from the gateway, sir,’ said Epperaliant. ‘We’ll be seen.’