by Paul Kearney
There were over a thousand square kilometres of ruined buildings down below.
The hive-scrapers were burned out at last, and the wholesome wind of the cool season was blowing steadily through the shattered city, clearing the air somewhat. It was possible to look east and see the sere lowlands beyond Askai and the dry bed of the Koi River, even catch a glimpse of the blue-shadowed Koi-Niro Mountains far to the east.
As though the world and its possibilities had opened up for him again.
It was an odd feeling, not to have death breathing at his shoulder. Odder still to miss the crump of artillery and crack of small arms. The city was silent, exhausted, broken down. It reeked of decay, even now, and in the ruins legions of rats and giant centipedes and packs of wild, pot-bellied canines were still gorging themselves on a harvest of corpses, many of the bodies reduced to skeletal fragments by now through the fury of the fighting.
But we held, Dietrich thought. That is the main thing. We did not give in, and we did not give up. That is victory – this, here, the stench of death on the wind, is victory.
He was too tired to savour it. He felt as though he would need a year of dreamless sleep to catch up on all he had lost.
And all his men, who had been fed into the storm of war, feeding that furnace. Lars Dyson was dead, and the entire bodyguard with him except Garner, now promoted to lieutenant. His magnificent regiment was a mere shell.
But we saved a world, he thought.
He turned around and drew himself up. Even after all these years in the service of the Imperium, to stand in close proximity to the Adeptus Astartes shook something in his core. Space Marines were like things out of fable and myth. A man might serve out his entire career in the Guard without ever encountering one, as Dietrich had.
And now they were here in this room with him, dark, brooding angels, more than men, more like a legend brought to life out of some ancient storybook and set down for lesser beings to marvel at.
They were frightening, with their long, almost equine skulls and massive-boned features, and pitiless eyes. Their uncovered faces were more unsettling than the savage lineaments of their massive helmets. One could hardly meet their gaze, and when one did, it seemed they looked deep into the soul of a man, weighing him on the scales of their own puissance and finding him wanting.
Dietrich respected them, admired them and feared them. But aside from that he could not relate to them – they seemed to exist on some different level of reality, one in which he was barely able to register.
They were the Angels of Death, and they looked it.
Their captain, Jonah Kerne, was looking down on the table at the old-fashioned map Marshal Veigh had once shown Dietrich and Von Arnim in this very room. In the months since then, the map had been updated hundreds of times, but they had kept it current, because the power failures had rendered electronic record-keeping unreliable.
In the last few weeks, tactical readouts had become a thing of memory; they had gone back to the technology of their forefathers, and marked up maps of paper, plasment and even vellum, ripped from the ancient tomes of the palace library.
They had instituted a series of semaphore stations on the citadel and in the Armaments District as their vox frequencies succumbed to jamming, and at times they had been reduced to sending despatches by runner, harkening back to the dawn of warfare.
But it had sufficed – just – to hold together the dwindling, fragmented defence.
Now the generators were being turned on again, the solar panels on the side of the citadel – those that had survived – were once more being cranked by hand out of their protective housings, and there was electric light here in the audience chamber, where before they had burned torches and candles.
But the city below was still without mains water or power, and the only food to be had was decaying carrion. Even in the Armaments District, there had been rumours of cannibalism among the munitions workers.
‘We estimate that since the drop, we have slain some seventeen thousand of the enemy,’ the Adeptus Astartes captain was saying. ‘There are still pockets of cultists here and there in the city – the hive-scrapers house quite a few – but they have no hope of being more than a nuisance. In a few days we will begin the cleansing of the rest of the planet, but from what my people in orbit tell me, that will prove little more than a mopping-up operation. General Dietrich,’ Kerne’s stone-dark eyes met his own. ‘What is left in the way of defenders on Ras Hanem?’
Dietrich retrieved a scrap of grubby paper from his pocket and peered at it. ‘I have three hundred men left of my original command, nine main battle tanks in various states of repair, including two Baneblades, various other light armour to the total of some two skeleton companies.’
He looked up. ‘Our mobile artillery was all destroyed, as were our Hydras. They sought those out especially. As far as the Hanemites go, out of a total of some five divisions, we have one understrength battle-group remaining, some six thousand men, with almost no heavy weapons. In the citadel also are almost four thousand wounded.’
Dietrich put the paper away. He met Ismail’s eye and the commissar nodded, as though in approval.
‘You made a good defence,’ the Dark Hunters first sergeant said, a scalp-locked Space Marine named Fornix with one red-gleaming bionic eye. ‘Your idea of linking up the citadel to the Armaments District saved you and the city.’
Then the Chaplain, Brother Malchai, spoke up, and there was something in his voice that made Dietrich’s skin crawl.
‘We have heard the story of the traitor Marshal Veigh. I rejoice, general, that your commissar behaved properly, but I will of course have to conduct my own investigation. The murder of a planetary governor is no light matter, and the Administratum will want a full report on the affair.’
Dietrich bowed slightly, the blood leaving his face.
‘It seems to me,’ Fornix said, ‘that this Riedling was a liability to the defence.’
‘That is irrelevant,’ the Chaplain said, and Dietrich watched as he and the first sergeant held one another’s gaze for a long moment.
‘We all know how you love to send reports, Brother Malchai,’ Fornix said with a sneer.
‘Enough.’ It was Jonah Kerne, an edge of anger in his voice. ‘Our concern here and now is the strategic situation upon this world and within this system.’
Dietrich was startled to catch the undercurrents of hostility between these giants of the Imperium. It had never occurred to him before that Space Marines had their own arguments and rivalries, just as lesser men did.
After a pause, Jonah Kerne spoke again.
‘Ras Hanem is saved, that much seems clear. The forces of Chaos were not here long enough to embed their filth in the very fabric of the planet–’
‘We cannot yet know that,’ Malchai interjected.
Kerne held his temper. ‘Brother Kass, this is more in your province. What do your senses tell you?’
They all looked at the young epistolary. His psychic hood glowed slightly, a blue that matched the glow in his eyes.
‘I am still conducting my own researches, brother-captain.’
‘I suggest you accelerate your researches. You know what it means for the inhabitants of Ras Hanem if the taint of Chaos is proven to have taken root here.’
It would mean annihilation, the destruction of every living thing on the planet, down to the very microbes in the earth. And the sequestering of Dietrich’s own men, until agents of the Inquisition could vet them one by one: a trial so severe that many would not survive it.
Dietrich knew that, and he felt the first stirrings of anger. He started to say something, but Von Arnim, reading his face, set a warning hand on his arm and he subsided.
‘I know what it means,’ Brother Kass said. He glanced at Dietrich.
He felt my anger, the general realised.
‘Brother-captain, I have not thus far sensed any great taint of heresy upon this world, but I have felt the presence of something
else. Something ancient and faint and deep buried, that I believe predates the Imperium’s presence here.’
Kerne raised an eyebrow. ‘Xenos?’
‘Perhaps. Something I have not encountered before at any rate. And captain, there are other flashes of it now and again which are similar, but far more recent. I cannot help thinking that we are not alone on this world. There is another element at work here besides us and the lingering traces of the Chaos presence.’
‘Could you be any less clear, brother?’ Fornix asked with a snort.
‘As the Chaos infestation recedes, this other element will become clearer to me, first sergeant,’ Elijah Kass said. ‘At this time, I cannot be more specific, no.’
Captain Kerne drummed his gauntleted fist heavily on the tabletop, like the mutter of a drum.
‘What else can we give you in the way of resources to aid your research, Elijah?’ he asked.
‘I would be appreciative of Brother Malchai’s assistance in this matter.’
There were cross-currents here, undertones of tension between these giant warriors. Dietrich was fascinated and disquieted by the realisation. Even the Emperor’s elite had disagreements amongst themselves. Kerne and Malchai were looking at each other as if this were some sort of contest between them.
‘Very well,’ Kerne said tersely. ‘Make it a priority. I do not want to spend time and treasure rebuilding a world which the Inquisition may yet find it necessary to cleanse.’
He straightened.
‘Fornix, have three Hawks prepped. I want mixed squads in each – light, heavy and line. They are detailed to hunt down and destroy the last remnants of the Punishers across this planet. Three more Hawk gunships will be held in reserve down at the spaceport once the servitors have cleared a landing pad, with three line squads on immediate notice to move, as a general reserve. The rest of the squadrons will maintain an overwatch for now, and the gunships will stay on call until further notice. How are we for ammo and supplies?’
‘A resupply shuttle is due from the Ogadai within the hour,’ Fornix said.
‘All brethren are to remain at maximum readiness. General Dietrich, do you require any technical help with matters inside this fortress?’
Dietrich started. ‘Our own enginseers are recovering what they can of our vehicles, but we could do with some help on the Baneblades. We’ve located the hulks of three that may be salvageable.’
‘I will second Brother Heinos, our Techmarine, and a detachment of servitors to your command. Scavenge whatever you can, and do your best to have the munition manufactoria run up to full production once more. I would rather we made our own munitions than have to rely on transports from the Ogadai.’
‘Those people in the factoria need food and water more than anything else,’ Dietrich said.
‘My servitors will look into it. Fornix, I want mixed teams of gun-servitors and brother Space Marines patrolling the city. Every single cultist must be destroyed, every scrap of Chaos eradicated. I want this city made clean. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, brother-captain,’ Fornix said at once, his face flat and neutral now.
‘Brothers, general, we have a lot of work to do. You are all dismissed to your duties – we will speak again later. Brother Kass, you will remain behind if you please. I should like a word in private.’
They filed out of the soot-grimed, mud-tracked audience chamber where Riedling’s gaudily caparisoned boy-bodyguards had once stood by the doors under a gilt ceiling. As the doors boomed shut, Jonah Kerne turned to his young Librarian.
‘Brother Kass, I have been meaning to have a talk with you for some time.’
Elijah Kass bowed slightly. ‘I expected as much.’
‘You know then of the incident of which I mean to speak?’
‘Yes, captain. The boarding action, when I felt the minds of the Great Enemy for the first time.’
‘Indeed. Brother, it would be remiss of me not to tell you that your behaviour that day disquieted me.’
‘I was somewhat disquieted myself,’ Kass said with a smile. The smile faded as he caught the look in Kerne’s black eyes.
‘The minions of Chaos,’ he went on, ‘are like mosquitoes in a darkened room – one can hear their ruined minds like a continual annoying whine, but after a time, one can tune them out. Chief Librarian Vennan taught me that, prepared me for it. I was ready for that, captain, truly I was.’
‘This campaign was the first in which you have encountered the Great Enemy in any numbers,’ Jonah Kerne stated.
‘Yes, captain. Before this, it was the human pirates of the Gulbec war, or the childlike malevolence of the ork. The cultists, I could dismiss like the insects they are, but I was shocked to encounter the minds of those who had – who had–’ He seemed almost unable to continue.
‘Who had once been Adeptus Astartes, such as us,’ Kerne finished for him.
‘Yes. It was a profound shock to find in those twisted wrecks of intellect, the core of knowledge and will which is common to all of our Adept. It had been warped into something vile, but there was still something recognisable there.’
‘It is the reason for the great hatred we feel for those who followed the Heresy into darkness,’ Kerne told him. ‘We hate them not only because they are purely evil, not just because of the Great Betrayal that they perpetrated and which almost brought the whole Imperium down.
‘We hate them most of all because at times, we can glimpse in them a facet of ourselves.’
‘Yes!’ Kass agreed, his blue eyes flashing. ‘That is what I felt. I had not expected to feel that – it was almost a kind of grief.’
‘Forget the grief – concentrate on the hate,’ Kerne growled.
‘I know that now, captain. But there is one other thing, something I have been meaning to draw back to your attention in the last few days. Something else I felt while standing on the hull of that Punisher destroyer.’
He paused, and looked down at his hands. The blue gauntlets opened into palms, and then closed into fists, as though he were trying to grasp something indefinable.
‘Our foes on this world and in this system were not some ragged conglomeration of warbands, drawn together at random. They were a coherent whole. All those minds were gripped by an idea which brought them together, and it was not mindless hate, such as we have encountered in this city since we landed. It was directed, measured, implacable.
‘Captain, somewhere out there, in this system, or perhaps beyond it now, there is a single directing will which had planned all this. I felt an echo of it during the boarding action – and even then it was far away, and receding further.’
‘I am sorry to hear that. I would have liked to look upon this leader of Chaos,’ Kerne said. ‘Such champions spring up in the ranks of the Great Enemy eternally, Brother Kass. Daemon princes, warlords, black sorcerers of great subtlety and power. I met them and contended with them before you were born. I am not surprised to find that it was so in this system also. I only want to make sure that you are capable of dealing with the psychic shock of such encounters.’
‘I am, now,’ Kass said earnestly. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, captain. I shall know what to expect next time.
‘But what I meant to tell you – and I have been thinking about this ever since – is that this single, guiding intelligence did not feel alien at all to me.
‘It felt like the mind of a battle-brother.’
Out in the dark and ruin of Askai below, a creature detached itself from the deep shadow of the ruined hive-scraper and flowed across the rubble-strewn roadway. Seconds later, three more like it rippled in its wake.
They were hard to look upon, but if they remained still for more than a few moments, then it was possible to decipher an outline of interference in the normal range of vision, like a heat-shimmer caught out of the corner of the eye.
A series of clicks, interlocked with a flowing sing-song; it was not mere noise, but a strangely melodic language. One which no human being had ever
spoken.
‘It is here, my sister, up ahead. The entrance to the way below is calling to me – I can feel its song even from here.’
‘The place has the look of one of their fortresses,’ another shape said.
‘It is guarded,’ put in a third.
‘No mon-keigh watcher can catch sight of us, hearts of my heart.’
‘The armoured fanatics are here – I can smell them. They can see us – nay, they can even sense us. I have known it before. We must go with extra care here, Callinall.’
‘I know it.’ The speaker hissed slightly. ‘I smell their reek as clear as you do, Vorporis.’
‘We can scale the wall, but there are untold numbers of them within – thousands. We will not evade them all – I state this as fact, my sister.’
Again, the hiss. It was anger and disgust and disappointment all in one.
‘What say you, then, shall we attempt it?’
‘It cannot be done without alerting the mon-keigh, and we are under orders above all not to reveal ourselves.’
‘Then so be it. But are we agreed that what the farseer suspects is true?’
‘It is. I can hear it calling – the song is faint, and so, so old and deep. But it is here.’
They all bowed their heads, in reverence and something approaching grief.
‘Then we shall return to the Brae-Kaithe, and make the news known. My sisters and brothers, it is not for us to recover this precious thing. For now it is enough that we have established its presence.’
‘How can the mon-keigh not suspect?’ one of them asked in disbelief.
‘They are mere animals. They know nothing of the true universe they walk upon – one might as well expect a plant to be able to read.’
Dark laughter.
‘Let us go, my dear ones. Back to the ship while we still have the night to cloak us. The farseer, may Gea bless her, will know what to do.’
The group of rippling shadows moved again, as soundless as felines of Old Earth, almost invisible.
They waited once while a patrol passed, composed of clanking monstrosities with caterpillar tracks and the faces of the mon-keigh combined, a monstrosity of flesh and machine, and a pair of the giant warriors the mon-keigh knew as Space Marines, the most feared of all adversaries.