Jehanu interjected again. ‘You ask what could those priests have chanted to poison the souls of a whole world?’
Were the Lions mission briefings relayed in the same warrior-
by-warrior retelling of facts? A curious custom.
‘Blasphemy,’ said another Lion with an amused snort. ‘Blasphemy and lies, compelling enough to sound like truth to a society weary of their prayers going unanswered.’
The Lions nodded. I wondered how true that was, across the galaxy. The Emperor was immortal and mighty beyond reckoning. But he was no god. Mankind – in its blessed ignorance – worshipped him as one.
Yet false gods cannot answer prayers. How tempting it must seem to those sects and societies far from Terra to seek other answers when pleading with the Emperor brings only silence.
‘Where were the world’s defenders, I hear you ask?’ Ekene showed his teeth in a feral shadow of a smile. ‘The planetary defence forces did not rise up to purge the revolt. They joined it. And more were still to come: Imperial Guard regiments in nearby systems did the same – such was the ferocity of Khattar’s blasphemy.’
‘Apollyon,’ Jehanu spoke up again. ‘Apollyon was the inquisitor who pleaded for our support, for his efforts to crush the faithless lies had met with failure after failure.’
Ekene stared into the fire as he agreed. I could see the sparks of memories in his eyes. ‘He had a Naval blockade, but nothing in the way of surface troops. So in the wake of his failure, we made planetfall in full force. Hundreds of us, Reclusiarch. We rained holy fire, sacred iron and true faith on a world that had forgotten the taste of all three.’
‘Slaughter followed,’ said Jehanu.
‘What chance did they have?’ another Lion, Ashaki, put forth. ‘They were mere men, following the lies of false prophets. We destroyed them.’
‘All of them,’ Jehanu grinned. ‘Every man and woman with a weapon in their hands.’
Ekene took over once more. ‘We quenched the rebellion in a matter of weeks. No armies existed once we were finished with Khattar, not even a town militia. Nowhere on that world did a single priest still draw breath. With the armed resistance annihilated, we returned to our ships. Whatever heresy lingered among the defenceless population was under the eyes of others now – no longer a matter for bolters and blades.’
Jehanu barked a nasty laugh. ‘Such faith in our allies, we had that day.’
‘As with any cleansing,’ Ekene continued, ‘we expected preachers of the Creed to take over, shepherding the lost populace back to enlightenment.’
Ekene had been cleaning his bolter. Now he lay it aside, looking back into the fire. ‘It took several days to recover our materiel, honour our dead, and prepare to leave. Apollyon’s underlings worked on the world below, assessing the population of eight billion for signs of further deviancy. We were scarcely out of orbit when Apollyon’s warship opened fire on the world below. The rest of the Imperial Navy blockade fired with him, targeting cities and population centres.’
‘We watched them,’ said Ashaki, ‘spitting fire onto the world we had just bled to cleanse of corruption. Our honour burned with those cities. Every shot we had fired, betrayed as a waste.’
I remained silent, waiting for the rest.
‘Our lords demanded the blockade cease fire and answer for its actions,’ Ashaki spat into the fire. ‘Apollyon claimed he had determined the entire population tainted beyond salvation. He even thanked us for our “worthy efforts, though they were in vain”.’
‘An hour later,’ said Jehanu, ‘Khattar’s cities were dust.’
I took a slow breath, shaping the words to suit my reply. ‘It is possible that he was astute in his observations. Heresy had clearly taken root through Khattar’s society. Perhaps it had wormed as deep as Apollyon claimed.’
The Lions bristled. I could tell they ached to show their anger, but the skull helm I wore stayed their hands. That, and the fact I could kill any one of them without breathing hard.
Ashaki was the one to speak. ‘Are you saying he was capable of determining the taint running through several billion souls in a handful of days?’
‘No. I am saying nothing more than the fact it has taken me a single heartbeat to see corruption in the minds of men before, and a man in Apollyon’s position can afford no chances.’
‘You stand with him?’ Ekene was growling now.
Words came to me in that moment, Mordred’s words. I could have merely opened my mouth and spoken them for him, as surely as if he were still alive, still telling me what to think and who to kill.
The innocent will always die when the guilty are punished. Is that wrong? By what scale of virtue do we judge morality? This is life. This is duty. This is necessity. We mourn the innocents lying in mass graves with the guilty, and we move on. The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Imperium.
I said none of this, though it was as true as anything else. Ekene took my silence as disregard.
‘You believe he was justified?’ the Lion almost snarled the words. ‘That he slaughtered billions of men, women and children on the chance they were all tainted, and it is our place to ignore it?’
Before Helsreach, yes, I would have said exactly that. But no longer. Balance, I thought. Balance between wrath and wisdom. I looked at him, still saying nothing. He seemed to recall to whom he was speaking, and nodded a subtle apology.
‘Calm your spite, Ekene, for it is meaningless here. Apollyon acted within the rights granted by his rank; he did as many of his Inquisitorial kindred would do. He also did as many Chapter Masters would have done. That does not make it wise, or right, or virtuous. It merely makes it real.’
‘It makes it an effort to hide some filthy secret,’ Jehanu insisted, and his brothers nodded. ‘The tale reeks of a man seeking to hide some grievous error, does it not?’
‘Perhaps. But if he had so much to hide, why summon a Space Marine Chapter? Perhaps Apollyon was merely a hasty fool to whom life meant little, and that mournful truth is one we have to live with. He is hardly the first man of exalted rank to decay in a position of power.’
‘You are as cold as any Deathspeaker,’ Ekene said, but the anger was bleeding from his words.
Cold-blooded off the battlefield, hot-blooded upon it. This is your place. More of Mordred’s words.
‘I will not pass judgement on a moment I never saw, between men I do not know. That is not my place. I judge my brothers – their actions and their souls – not the pathetic intricacies of Imperial Law. Tell me what came next. Did you fire on his fleet?’
Ekene shook his head. ‘No, never. Chapter Command sent word throughout the subsector, warning all Imperial outposts and regional governors what had occurred and decrying the actions of the Inquisition. Word was also sent directly to Terra – a delegation of Deathspeakers and Warleaders chosen for the task, to show the gravity of the situation.’
‘They never reached Terra.’ I did not need to guess the fate of those well-intentioned souls. They would never set foot on the Throneworld. ‘They were never seen again.’
‘Oh, we saw them again,’ Jehanu said, quietly.
‘We found their vessel two years later,’ Ekene admitted. ‘Dead in the void, deep in greenskin space. All damage was indicative of a ruinous warp flight. No signs of weapons fire on the hull.’
I had seen the interior of several vessels gutted by warp storms. All life torn into genetic scrap; all metal mutated and poisoned beyond salvage.
‘And then?’
‘We kept demanding an investigation into the Khattar Massacre. We sent word to any Imperial officials who would listen, from planetary regents to the priest-kings of Ecclesiarchy worlds. If any such investigation took place, it remained a mystery to us. Armageddon called, and we answered. Which brings us… here.’
Jehanu gestured at the hollow armoury as Ekene finished. ‘They want to silence us.’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Far from it.’
The Lions looked at me, seemingl
y unsure if I were making some dark jest. But I was not; the Inquisition were not acting to silence the Lions, and I was certain Julkhara had known that when he reached out to me.
‘Then what?’
‘They are using you,’ I told the survivors around the scrap-fire. ‘They are using you to make an example. The Lions are the most recent casualty in the institution’s campaign to rein in the autonomy of the Adeptus Astartes. The Inquisition tolerates no attacks on its sovereign rights – yet you challenged them. And now all will bear witness to the price of your rebellion. The sabotages, the conflicting orders, the ambushes. A Chapter will not just suffer for defying the Inquisition and slandering its virtue. A Chapter will die in shame for it. Millions will hear of how you were killed on Armageddon. A mere handful will know the truth behind your deaths, and each of those will be Adeptus Astartes officers who will tread with much more caution when they deal with the Inquisition in the future. The lesson will be learned, just as Apollyon’s cronies wish.’
The Lions digested this in silence. Eventually, Ekene spoke, looking into my eye-lenses.
‘We are going back to Mannheim,’ he said.
I had been waiting for those words.
‘I know.’
‘Many of the Gargants are gone, but it is still a well-defended stronghold. It remains a cancer of enemy presence in Volcanus’s territory, and it must fall.’
That seemed idealistic, at best. ‘It will not fall, Ekene. Not to a handful of Lions, no matter how noble and proud.’
He spread his hands in calm acceptance. ‘Then we will die trying.’
Akashi leaned forward, adding his voice to his sergeant’s. ‘That is where we have chosen to die. It has to be there. Our bones shall lie alongside our brothers’.’
Jehanu nodded. ‘Remember us, Reclusiarch.’ His voice was low, and his tone plaintive. ‘Take the truth with you when you leave this world. Spread it among the Chapters that share Dorn’s bloodline.’
They were asking a great deal of me. If I did as they asked, it could all too easily draw the Inquisition’s ire upon the Black Templars. Even so, they should have known they had no need to ask. Of course I would do it. It was the valorous truth. I could no more hide that than I could forsake the Eternal Crusade and retire to a life of ignorant peace.
‘The truth will sail with me,’ I vowed. ‘And you are fools for believing it might not.’ They shared smiles again; that curious tribal brotherhood. ‘You mean to fight alone?’ I asked.
‘We must,’ replied Ekene. ‘Volcanus cannot spare its Guard regiments. Even with Mannheim emptied of Gargants in the weeks since the massacre – a fact we still cannot be certain is true – it is still a brutal target, rich with enemy presence. Five of our battle companies failed to take it. A few thousand Guardsmen will be nothing more than spitting into the wind.’
Ashaki snorted in derision. ‘And we can trust none of them, anyway. The Inquisition’s talons are everywhere.’
Ekene growled, little different from the beast that gave his Chapter its name. ‘I just want one chance to kill the warlord that devoured our dead. I will die content if I drag him to the grave with me.’
I breathed the stale, recycled air of my suit’s internal oxygen supply. It tasted of sweat.
‘Mankind’s galaxy will mourn the loss of the Celestial Lions.’
‘Let them mourn.’ Ekene’s lip curled in disgust. ‘If this is our reward for loyal service, they are welcome to their grief.’
Something in my demeanour must have warned him, for he continued more cautiously. ‘This is how it has to end, Deathspeaker. Let it finish in fire, not in centuries of painstaking laboratory work to preserve our bloodline. We will die as warriors.’
Yes, they would. A hundred warriors, dying in glory… and denying the possibility of thousands of warriors who might be needed in a darker future.
As the stories and oaths came to a close, the unwelcome truth was that I heard nothing but empty promise in their words. Was there worth in glory, even if defeat was the only legacy? I had watched the Shadow Wolves die, and been inspired by their sacrifice. Now the Lions threatened to make the same journey, down the same path. But my blood ran cold, beating from a calmer heart.
A Chaplain is the future of his Chapter. He must guard its rituals and traditions and histories, as well as his battle-brothers’ souls. It was not senseless violence that shaped our worth, but focused ferocity. Ferocity in war, when we killed our foes. Ferocity in peace, when we shepherded our kindred’s souls. Our place was to make the decisions others could not be trusted to make. Ferocity was our weapon against ignorance or blind faith, the same as it was our weapon against humanity’s enemies.
It was Dorn’s way to fight no matter the odds. Death against overwhelming odds was no shame to us, or to any warrior of Imperial Fists gene-seed. Yet, those were lessons first taught ten thousand years ago – those words again – when the Imperium was so, so much stronger. The last centuries of this Dark Millennium had all but bled man’s empire dry.
So I admired Ekene for his hunger to taste a glorious death, even if it was in a last charge few would remember.
But viciousness and glory were no longer enough. Killing enemies in battle was no longer enough. I wanted to fight the Eternal Crusade. I wanted to win the war.
Cyneric was right. The Lions’ deaths now would be a disservice to the Imperium, no matter the greatness of their glorious last stand; no matter the heroism of individual warriors as they spent their life’s blood.
Ekene was not finished. He cleared his throat, sensing the dissipation of my thoughts.
‘One more thing, Reclusiarch. Would you perform the Heart’s Thunder Dirge for us?’
The Heart’s Thunder Dirge. I did not know the words, but I could guess their meaning. Among my Chapter, we called it the Rite of the Forlorn Knight, in honour of a warrior’s last battle. A prayer for the dying. I felt my skin crawl, and my teeth close together.
‘I said I would speak of your death. That I understand it. Now you wish me to bless your damnation? To give your extinction my personal blessing?’
The Lions were all looking at me, but now none sought to meet my eyes. ‘We have no Deathspeakers,’ said Ekene. He recoiled, slowly but surely, the way the Salamanders had recoiled from me months before in the ruins of Helsreach.
I was merciless, for I wanted to be absolutely clear. ‘You wish me to give my blessing to warriors of another Chapter, sharing the Templars sacred rituals, and vowing before the Emperor and Dorn that your death is a noble testament to the Imperial Fists bloodline. You wish me to endorse your deaths. That is what you ask?’
‘Yes, Reclusiarch.’ Several nodded at Ekene’s affirmation. ‘It is a curse to die unblessed.’
‘When do you intend to make this last stand?’
‘What benefit is there in delaying the inevitable?’ he replied. ‘We will gather our resources tomorrow at our forward base, and make one last scouting run for supplies and survivors. The Lions charge to war at dawn the day after.’
The Eternal Crusader would break orbit the same day, in pursuit of Armageddon’s arch-warlord. I would have to time this very well.
‘Will you bless our last hours, Reclusiarch, and consecrate our final deeds?’
I looked across the foundry’s junkyard, where Cyneric patrolled with another Lion, bolters in their hands. I rose to my feet amidst their desperate, respectful silence. Ekene started to object, to ask me to stay, but my mind was ironclad. The decision had been made.
‘No.’
VI
Choices
We could not return to Helsreach. The Season of Fire played its tempestuous games around my city, harsh enough to kill sky traffic but not quite violent enough to slay vox signals. The storm was predicted to last between three and nine hours. The former would be an acceptable flaw in the plan; the latter would leave precious little time to do anything at all. If the storm died down at all.
Aboard the Eternal Crusader, I walked t
he cold halls of the Temple of Dorn. Relics of war and glory rested behind shimmering auras, atop marble plinths housing rattling, grinding stasis field generators. War banners hung proud from the vaulted gothic ceiling. There was always something skeletal about the temple, and it derived from more than the arched architecture. I always believed it reminiscent of some sepulchral afterlife, where warriors walk after their deaths in battle. Legacies go there to die.
Cyneric walked with me, astute enough to know that when I was silent, I was silent for a reason. He did not push me to talk. I would not say that I liked him then, but I was finding it easier to tolerate him.
In truth, I had not gone there to be alone with the Chapter’s revered treasures. I had gone there to put plans in motion. From the great bay window, I looked down on the embattled, scarred globe of Armageddon. Its cities were smoking scabs. Its canyons were dirty scars. Its oil-rich oceans were graveyards for dead greenskin ships.
A lesser man might see a world at war, and feel sorrow for the loss of life. All I could feel was hate. I hated the greenskins for defiling our territory. I hated the planet itself for defying our attempts to save it.
A lesser man. There is the lack of humility that so coloured Mordred’s thoughts. An unchanged man, then. A true human, one not altered by the Emperor’s genetic designs, would feel sorrow.
The fleet was at anchor, relishing a respite from the near-constant void warfare that still broke out in the skies. No new alien reinforcements had translated in-system for almost a week – the longest ceasefire yet. Shuttles, gunships and cargo haulers drifted between our vessels – the final refuelling and rearming taking place before we left in pursuit of the alien warchief.
It felt as though I waited an age for my handheld hololithic transmitter to give a signal pulse. Cyneric kept his distance, paying reverence to the weapons and suits of armour on display, each one waiting to be claimed by a worthy warrior from our generation, or the generations that would follow.
‘Vox link established,’ came the bridge servitor’s voice. Using the Eternal Crusader’s communications array had been the only way to amplify my transmitter’s signal. A hololithic avatar started to form, ghostly blue, above my palm.
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