‘Pardon our intrusion, kinsman,’ said the demigod, his words strong and firm but not raised in censure. ‘I am Rogal Dorn, Master of the VII Legiones Astartes, Emperor’s son and Primarch of the Imperial Fists.’
He found his voice again. ‘Garro, lord. I am Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard, commanding the starship Eisenstein.’
Dorn nodded gently. ‘I request permission to come aboard, captain. Perhaps I maybe of some assistance.’
PART THREE
UNBROKEN
FOURTEEN
Dorn’s Fury
Divinity
To Terra
THE MEN AT the gunnery stations stood in salute as they carried out the orders of the primarch. Heads bowed, they made the sign of the aquila across their chests before the commander of the cannonade island on the prow of the fortress placed his hand on the firing lever. The officer paused for a moment and then pulled the massive trigger.
Four high-yield ship-to-ship torpedoes flashed from their firing tubes, thruster rockets igniting to carry them the short distance from the fortress to the frigate. Each one was tipped with a compact but very powerful atomic warhead. One would have been enough to do the job, but after the catalogue of horrors that had walked the decks of the Eisenstein, the overkill was deemed necessary. The ship’s duty was concluded, and only in death did duty end.
The Phalanx watched the last few seconds of the starship’s life unfold. The massive construct, the nomadic home of the Imperial Fists Legion, was more planetoid than it was space vessel. It stood at silent sentinel over the ending of its smaller sister.
The torpedoes impacted at the bow, the stern and at equidistant points along the frigate’s beaten and ravaged hull. The detonations had been programmed flawlessly, all four rippling into one seamless, silent flare of radiation and light. The glow illuminated the surrounding vessels of the Astartes fleet, and cast bright columns of white through the windows of Rogal Dorn’s sanctorum atop the highest of the Phalanx’s towers.
GARRO TURNED HIS face away from the flash and in doing so felt an odd pang of regret, almost as if he had done the steadfast vessel a disservice in not watching her last moments of obligation to the Imperium. Dorn, some distance away at the largest of the windows, did not move. The nuclear light washed over the primarch and not for one moment did he flinch from it. As the flare died away, the master of the Imperial Fists gave a shallow nod.
‘It’s done, then.’ Behind him, Garro heard Iacton Qruze’s remark. ‘If any taint of that warp witchery remained, it is ashes now.’ The old warrior seemed to stand a little taller now that his power armour had been repainted in the old colours of the Luna Wolf lively. Dorn had raised an eyebrow at the change, but said nothing.
Garro was aware of Baryk Carya at his side. The shipmaster’s face was sallow and drawn, and the Astartes felt pity for the man. Commanders like Carya were as much a part of their ship as the steel in the bulkheads, and to give up his vessel like this clearly struck him hard. In his fingers, the man held the brass dedication plate that Garro had seen bolted to the base of Eisenstein’s navigation podium. ‘The ship died well,’ said the Death Guard. ‘We owe it our lives, and more.’
Carya looked up at him. ‘Lord captain, at this moment I think I understand what you must have felt at Isstvan III. To lose your home, your purpose…’
Garro shook his head. ‘Baryk… iron and steel, flesh and bone, these things are transient. Our purpose exists beyond them all, and it will never be destroyed.’
The shipmaster nodded. ‘Thank you for your words, captain… Nathaniel.’ He looked to the primarch and bowed low. ‘If I may take my leave?’
Dorn’s adjutant, the Astartes captain from the boarding party, answered the question. ‘You are dismissed.’
Carya bowed again to the Astartes and made his way out of the wide, oval chamber. Garro watched him go.
‘What is to become of him?’ Qruze wondered aloud.
‘New roles will be found for the survivors,’ replied the captain. His name was Sigismund, and he was a sturdy, thickset man, hair a dark blond with a patrician face that echoed the same austere lines as his liege lord’s. ‘The Imperial Fists have a large fleet and able crew are always prized. Perhaps the man can be put to use as an instructor.’
Garro frowned. ‘An officer like that needs a ship under him. Anything else would be a waste. If only we could have taken the frigate in tow, perhaps—’
‘Your recommendation will be noted, battle-captain.’ Dorn’s voice was a low thunder. ‘I am not usually given to explaining myself to subordinate ranks, but as you are of a brother Legion and your disciplines differ from that of my sons, I will make this exception.’ He turned and looked at Garro, and the Death Guard did his best not to shrink beneath the steady attention. ‘We are not given to waste time with ships that are wounded and unable to keep up with the Phalanx. Already during this journey I have lost three of my own vessels to the storms in the warp, and still I am no closer to my destination.’
‘Terra,’ breathed Garro.
‘Indeed. My father bid me to follow him back to Terra in order to lend my arm to the fortification of his palace and the formation of a Praetorian aegis, but with the aftermath of Ullanor and all that came from it… we were waylaid.’
Garro felt rooted to the spot, the same tense awe he had felt before Mortarion and in the Lupercal’s Court holding him in a tight embrace. It seemed so strange to hear this mighty figure speaking of the Master of Mankind as any common son would talk of his parent.
Dorn continued. ‘We left my brother, Horus, intent on making that voyage at long last, only to once more find the universe conspiring against us.’
Garro failed to keep a glimmer of unease from his face at the mention of the Warmaster’s name, and he was aware that Sigismund noticed it. Garro knew from talk aboard the Endurance that the Imperial Fists had departed the 63rd Fleet some time before the Death Guard had arrived from the jorgall assault mission. In his years in the Legion, he had never shared the battlefield with the sons of Dorn and knew of them only by their standing with the other Legions.
Fierce warriors and masters of siegecraft, it was said that the Imperial Fists could hold any citadel and make it impregnable beyond the reach of any enemy. Garro had seen their work first-hand, in the design of fortresses built on Helica and Zofor’s World. What he had heard of them appeared to be accurate. Dorn and his men seemed as rigid as castle walls.
‘The storms,’ ventured Nathaniel. ‘They almost claimed our lives.’
Sigismund nodded. ‘If you will permit me to comment, lord, I have never seen the like. The tempest came upon us the moment we took to the empyrean, and it rendered the careful routes of our Navigators useless. Whatever waypoints we had turned to sand and disintegrated. The finest of the Navis Nobilite, and they were reduced to the level of blind children flailing in a featureless desert.’
Dorn stepped away from the window. ‘This is how we came to find you, Garro. The storms ringed us in a disordered region of the warp, put us in the maddening stillness of their eye. The Phalanx and her fleet were becalmed. Every ship we attempted to send beyond the storms was torn apart.’ A tiny flicker of grim irony crossed the primarch’s face. ‘The immaterium besieged us.’
‘You saw his flare,’ said Qruze. ‘Across all that distance, and you saw it?’
‘A bold risk,’ allowed the primarch. ‘You could not have known that there would be anyone within range to glimpse it.’
‘I had faith,’ Garro replied.
Dorn studied him for a long moment, as if he were going to question the captain’s words, but instead continued on. ‘The shockwave from the detonations of the drives disrupted the patterns of the storm barrier. The energy of the flare allowed our Navigators to get their bearings once more.’ He inclined his head. ‘We owe you a debt, Death Guard. You may consider it repaid by our rescue of your ship’s crew.’
‘My thanks, my lord.’ Garro felt his gut tighten. �
��My only wish is that the events that brought us to this place had not come to pass.’
‘You pre-empt my questions, Garro. Now you understand how I came to your aid, it is your turn to illuminate me. I would have you explain why a lone Death Guard warship found itself in the uncharted territories, why signs of battle against Imperial guns lay upon her, and why one of your battle-brothers lies in my infirmary wracked by an illness that confounds the very best of my Legion’s Apothecaries.’
Garro threw a look at Qruze for support and the veteran nodded back to him. ‘Lord Dorn, what I have to say will not sit well with you, and at the end of the telling you may wish that you had not asked for it.’
‘Oh?’ The primarch moved to the middle of the sanctorum chamber, bidding them to follow. ‘You think you know better than I what will distress me? Perhaps my brother, Mortarion, allows such presumption among the Death Guard, but that is not the manner of the Imperial Fists. You will give me the complete truth and you will excise nothing. Then, before my fleet makes space for Terra, I will decide how to deal with you, and the rest of your seventy errant Astartes.’
Not once did Dorn raise his voice or show even the slightest fraction of aggression behind his orders, yet the commands came with such quiet force that Garro found them impossible to resist. He was aware that Sigismund and a cohort of his men were at the edges of the chamber, watching him and Qruze for any signs of behaviour that might mark them as untrustworthy. ‘Very well, my lord,’ he replied.
Garro took a deep breath, and began the story at Isstvan and the Lupercal’s Court.
ON ANY OTHER occasion, Qruze might have been willing to let his talkative manner come to the fore and lend his own viewpoint to a story told by one of his fellow Astartes, but as the lad Garro began to unfold the events to Dorn and his men, Qruze found himself quieted. He searched inside himself and realised there was nothing he could add to the Death Guard’s dry, careful explanations, just a nod now and then when Garro looked to him for confirmation of some minor point.
The Luna Wolf became aware of the silence that had fallen across the rest of the sanctorum chamber. Sigismund and the other Imperial Fists in the black-trimmed armour of the First Company were as still as statues, their faces stoic against the unfolding tale. Rogal Dorn was the only point of motion in the room, the primarch walking back and forth in a slow pattern, lost in thought, occasionally pausing to stop and give Garro his full, unwavering attention. It was not until Garro reached the moment of Eidolon’s orders to kill Saul Tarvitz and his refusal to obey that Dorn spoke again.
‘You disobeyed a ranking officer’s direct command.’ It was not a question.
‘I did.’
‘What evidence did you have at that time that Tarvitz was not, as Eidolon said, a renegade and a turncoat?’
Garro hesitated, shifting uncomfortably on his augmetic leg. ‘None, lord, only my faith in my honour brother.’
‘That word again,’ said the primarch. ‘Continue, captain.’
Qruze had heard second-hand from conversations with Sergeant Hakur of the firefight on the Eisenstein’s gun deck, but it was only as Garro relayed it that he found a true sense of it. The Death Guard baulked at repeating the seditious declarations of Commander Grulgor, and when Dorn ordered him to, a new tension emerged across the room as he finally gave voice to them. Qruze saw anger pushing at Sigismund’s lips and finally the captain spoke.
‘I cannot hear this without answer! If this is true, then tell me how the Warmaster allowed Death Guard and Emperor’s Children alike to make these plays for power under his very nose? The unsanctioned virus bombardment of an entire world? The execution of civilians? How did he become so blind overnight, Garro?’
‘He was not blind,’ Garro said grimly. ‘Horus sees only too well.’ He looked the primarch in the eye. ‘Lord, your brother is not ignorant of this duplicity. He is the author of it, and his hands are stained with the blood of men from his own Legion, from mine and from those of the World Eaters and the Emperor’s Children as well—’
Dorn moved so quickly that Qruze flinched, but the Master of the Imperial Fists was not coming for him. There was a crack of sound and Garro fell away, skidding back across the bright blue marble of the sanctorum’s flooring. Qruze saw Garro hover on the edge of unconsciousness, a livid bruise forming on his face. With care, the Death Guard blinked back to wakefulness and worked at resetting his jawbone.
‘For even daring to think of such a thing in my presence, I should have you flogged and then vented to the void,’ growled the primarch, every word a razor. ‘I will not hear any more of this fantasy.’
‘You must,’ Qruze blurted, taking a half-step forward. He ignored the ratcheting of slides on the bolters of Sigismund’s men. ‘You must hear him out!’
‘You dare to give me an order?’ Dorn faced the old warrior. ‘A relic who should have been retired centuries ago, you dare to do so?’
Iacton saw his opening and took it. ‘I do, and furthermore I know that you will. If you truly thought that Garro’s words had no value then you would have killed him where he stood.’ He moved to help Garro to his feet. ‘Even in your moment of anger, you pulled a blow that could have broken his neck… because you want to hear everything. That is what you asked for, isn’t it? The complete truth.’
For an instant, Qruze saw a flash of titanic rage in the primarch’s gaze, and felt his blood run cold. That’s it, you old fool, he told himself, that was a word too far. He’s going to kill us both for our boldness.
Then Dorn gestured to Sigismund and his Astartes lowered their guns. ‘Speak,’ he told Garro. ‘Tell me it all.’
GARRO FOUGHT DOWN the giddiness and pain. Dorn was so fast, even in that tonnage of armour, he was lightning. Had he intended real harm against him, Garro knew that he would never have seen it coming. With care, he swallowed and took a painful breath. ‘After the bombing, I knew that I had no other choice but to do as Saul Tarvitz and I had discussed, and take a warning to Terra. With Grulgor dead, I ordered my men to secure the Eisenstein. In the interim, Captain Qruze had come aboard with the civilians.’
‘The remembrancers and the iterator,’ said the primarch. ‘They had been aboard Horus’s flagship.’
‘Aye, lord,’ added the Luna Wolf. ‘My battle-brother, Garviel Loken, entrusted their safety to me. The girl Keeler, she…’ He paused, marshalling his thoughts. ‘She suggested that Captain Garro could help us.’
‘Loken,’ said Sigismund. ‘My lord, I know him. We met aboard the Vengeful Spirit.’
Dorn glanced aside. ‘What was your measure of him, first captain?’
‘A Cthonian, and all that entails, with a strong spirit if a little naive. He seemed trustworthy, a man of principles.’
The primarch absorbed this. ‘Continue, Garro.’
Nathaniel ignored the tension in his jaw and relayed the details of the signal sent to Typhon and the Eisenstein’s pursuit by the Terminus Est, then the catastrophic voyage through the warp. There was a moment when one of Sigismund’s men made a derisive noise under his breath as Garro described the freakish revivification of Grulgor’s dead men, but Dorn silenced that with a hard look.
‘There are stranger powers that lurk within the immaterium than we may know,’ the warlord said darkly, ‘but what you say tests reason even with that qualification. These things you speak of come dangerously close to primitive ideals of sorcery and magic.’
The Death Guard nodded. ‘I do not deny it, Lord Dorn, but you asked me to give you the truth as I saw it, and this is what I saw. Something in the warp brought Grulgor back to life, it animated his contaminated flesh through the very disease that had claimed him. Do not ask me for an explanation, sir, as I have none.’
‘This is what you come to me with?’ The primarch’s slow anger filled the room like smoke, heavy and dark. ‘A convoluted story of treachery and conspiracy among the Emperor’s sons, a collection of ill-informed opinions and rash actions made with base emotion and not cold cla
rity?’ He advanced slowly on Garro, and it took all of Nathaniel’s courage not to back away. ‘If I were to have my brothers in this room right now, Mortarion, Fulgrim, Angron, Horus… what would they say of your tale? Do you think that you would even be able to draw a breath before you were struck down for such an outright fiction?’
‘I know it is difficult to accept—’
‘Difficult?’ Dorn raised his voice for the first time and the room shook with it. ‘Difficult is a winding labyrinth, or a complex skein of navigational formulae! This is against our very creed and character as the Emperor’s chosen warriors!’ He glared at Garro, eyes aflame. ‘I do not know what to make of you, Garro! You carry yourself like an honest man, but if you are not a traitor and a deceiver then you can only be possessed by insanity!’ He stabbed a finger at Qruze. ‘Should I make a concession for some contagious senility perhaps? Did the warp addle your minds and create this hallucination between you?’
Garro heard the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. Everything was going wrong, falling apart around him. In his rush to find a rescuer for the Eisenstein and a way to get the message out, it had never occurred to him that he would not be believed. He looked away.
‘Look at me when I speak to you, Death Guard!’ snapped the primarch. ‘These lies you bring into my personal chambers, they sicken and disgust me. That you would dare to say such things about a hero of such matchless character as my brother, Horus, it vexes me beyond my capacity for description!’ He placed a massive finger on the sternum of Garro’s armour. ‘How cheap you must hold your integrity to give it up so easily! I weep for Mortarion if a man of such low honour as you could rise to command a company of the XIV Legion.’ Dorn’s hand closed into a massive brass fist. ‘Know this – the only reason I do not tear you limb from limb for your defamation is that I know my brothers will reserve that pleasure for themselves!’
The Flight of the Eisenstein Page 27