Age of Darkness

by Christian Dunn

  Mendacs stepped back and sniffed. ‘That’s a very simplistic view,’ he replied. ‘Loyalty is an elastic concept. You’d be surprised what it can encompass, given enough impetus.’

  ‘You will not succeed,’ spat the psyker. ‘I know what you are. I see the brand. Alpha Legion.’ She pointed at his arm, where a tattoo protruded from his sleeve. ‘You’re the tool of monsters and turncoats. A liar, a walking falsehood!’

  ‘I will succeed,’ Mendacs countered. ‘I have succeeded. Here, on Virger-Mos II and dozens of other worlds, all of them of similar stripe. This is not the first planet I have brought to the edge, nor the last.’

  ‘If… If your masters come to invade, they will be made to pay for whatever they take. The Emperor’s Legiones Astartes will come here and take it back!’

  He shook his head, smiling slightly. ‘You don’t understand. Let me make it clear to you, mind-speaker. I alone am the invasion. And my work is done. There will be no massed attack from the stars, no bombardments and battle fleets.’

  ‘But Horus–’

  Mendacs chuckled. ‘The Warmaster has more important things to do than send his men to this dreary corner of the galaxy. Are you so arrogant as to think it would be worth a primarch’s effort? Do you really believe he would commit ships to the capture of a farm?’ He spat the last words with a harsh sneer. Mendacs was warming to his subject; Leon recognised the same manner in his speech that the man had shown to the youth when speaking of his travels. ‘Horus’s fleet, as large as it is, cannot be everywhere at once. But to sow fear into the hearts of the loyalists, it must appear as if it can. Do you see? I am only one of dozens of operatives sent by Alpharius to create dissent and dissolution all across the galaxy.’ He nodded. ‘You are quite correct. I am indeed a liar, and one of the most potent strength. I sampled the signals you sent down to the populace, copied them, emulated them. Then it was only a matter of inserting them into the telegraph network, and letting the paranoia and petty fears of these parochial fools do the work for me. A handful of small asteroids captured from the Oort cloud and kicked into the atmosphere by automata-drones, and the fires were lit.’ He flashed a grin. ‘I made their sky fall.’

  With each word the man said, Leon’s fury had grown and grown. His terror gave way to anger, hard resentment at his betrayal. Finally, he could hold it in no more, and he burst from his cover and threw himself at Mendacs, cursing his name.

  The remembrancer – no, the spy – let him come running, at the last moment swinging up the laspistol and using it to crack the boy across the face. Leon cried out in agony as the butt of the gun broke his nose and he tripped, stumbling to the floor.

  Without pause, Mendacs turned back to the astropath and executed her, the howl of a single las-bolt resonating in the chamber as it blew through the psyker’s heart and killed her instantly.

  Leon scrambled backwards, bringing up his hands in a fruitless gesture of self-protection, gagging on the stink of burnt meat. Mendacs ignored him, instead stooping to pick up the box-shaped device lying on the floor. He holstered the gun and walked away.

  He was almost out of the room before Leon gathered the wits to call after him. ‘She was right, you are a traitor bastard! You’re a mass-murderer!’

  Mendacs halted on the threshold. ‘That’s not true, Leon. I’ve taken only one life since I came to this planet.’ He nodded at the dead psyker. ‘It’s the people who are killers. People down there, in Town Forty-Four and every other place just like it. People like your father and Prael and all the rest. They let themselves be manipulated, because deep within them, they want to be right. They want to have their darkest fears come true, to validate their loathing of the lives they lead.’

  ‘You did it all!’ Leon shouted. ‘You faked the drop-pods in the sky; you used those things in your case to corrupt the broadcasts… You turned neighbours against each other with your lies and propaganda!’

  ‘I did. And I will again, and again…’

  Leon’s shoulders fell. ‘Are… you going to kill me now?’

  Mendacs shook his head. ‘No. I knew you were following me. I wanted to see how far you would come.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘It amused me. I so rarely have a witness to the full scope of my work.’ The man nodded in the direction of the transfer station core. ‘You’re clever enough to find a set of cargo pods on the downbound rails. They’ll take you home.’

  Leon climbed unsteadily to his feet. ‘When I get back,’ he husked, ‘I will tell everyone what you have done. I’ll stop you. I’ll make sure all the other worlds are warned!’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ Mendacs turned away. ‘You have a choice, Leon. You must swear your loyalty to Horus Lupercal and deny the Emperor’s dominion. Because by the time the Skyhook carries you down to the surface, the colony of Virger-Mos II will belong to the Warmaster. Not through force of arms, but because of the weakness of the people who live there. Because they have exchanged their fear of one thing they have never seen for the fear of another.’ He spared the youth one last look. ‘And if you do not join them, they will be the ones who kill you.’

  The warp-cutter detached and turned about its axis, the slower-than-light fusion engines coming online to propel the vessel up and away from the colony world.

  In the cockpit module, Mendacs finished the last of the entries in his mission log, pausing to study the details of the mining outpost six light years distant where he would begin his work anew.

  Content that he was prepared, he settled back into the acceleration couch and reached for the stasis field generator. He keyed the deactivation timer to trigger a week out from orbital insertion, so that he would have time to intercept the outpost’s vox-transmissions and begin work on a new plan of subterfuge.

  Mendacs closed his eyes and flipped the switch; to him, he would awaken a second later and begin again.

  It was what he was best at.

  Leon Kyyter leaned forwards and let his forehead touch the cold glassaic of the armoured viewport, his hands splayed palm open either side of his face.

  He looked down, not daring to glance towards the threatening dark, watching the agri-world beneath him. Night covered the landscape, but there was light, here and there in scattered bands and broken commas of colour.

  Light from the fires of burning towns, yellow-orange and hellish in shade, falling everywhere he turned his gaze.

  In the cold and the silence, Leon watched the distant flames spread.

  Forgotten Sons

  Nick Kyme

  Landfall

  I

  Heka’tan rose from the smoke cloud like a statue of living onyx. The woman was alive but unconscious. Grey tendrils of smoke coiled off the warrior’s ebon skin from where he’d shielded her from the blast. Debris crunched underfoot – most of the ceiling, together with the lume-strip array, had collapsed. Somewhere in the crawl space above, an orange glow flickered.

  The fire hadn’t reached the meditation chamber yet and the billowing smoke coming through the vents was escaping upwards. At least she wouldn’t choke to death on the fumes. Others might be injured, in need of rescue. The ship lurched suddenly, throwing Heka’tan against the wall. It was in its death throes now. He could feel the shuddering of the failing engines through the bulkhead, hear the whine of rapid depressurisation from the gash in the fuselage.

  The door was blocked. Heka’tan felt the heat beyond it and heard the crackle of flames ravaging the adjacent corridor section. During meditation, his battle-plate was secured in the armourarium. He recalled the oaths of moment affixed to his shoulder guards and greaves. One of those vows was echoed in the onyx flesh of his naked torso too, branded eternally.

  Protect the weak.

  It was written in sigil-language, the ancient tongue of Nocturne. Heka’tan was born from fire on this hell-world. Rather than debilitate, the blaze invigorated him. He tor
e the door off its hinges, closing his eyes as the flames swept out and over him. They burned out quickly, devouring the oxygen. Heka’tan stayed anchored in place until it was done, a light tingling on his skin the only lasting evidence of the fire’s touch.

  A corridor stretched in front of him. The air hazed with the heat of conflagration. Again, the ship bucked. Not long now before impact. He glanced back at the woman.

  The vox alongside him crackled to life, the pilot’s last words.

  ’...ing down. Brace... selves... impact. Emperor... preserve us...’

  Detached and calm, even in the face of imminent and violent landfall, Heka’tan found the last remark curious. It sounded almost like a prayer.

  The engine drone became a scream. For a few seconds, Heka’tan remembered... The screaming, the death and blood. ‘Hell made real’ – they were Gravius’s words. Heka’tan staggered, but not from weakness or fatigue. He staggered at the memory of it, of that place where so many had died and so much had gone wrong.

  Father.

  The thought was a painful one, forming unbidden.

  Vulkan was alone. He was alone and surrounded. They were coming for him. He was... he...

  ...shook his head to banish the nightmare. The smoke in the chamber and the corridor was thickening. Heka’tan heard shouting above the roar of the flames. The desperate ship was arrowing through the sky too fast, too steep. Its sides shuddered hard, presaging a terminal impact.

  A sudden change in pitch signalled the ship was coming to the end of its fiery trajectory. The hold was ahead. Heka’tan was halfway down the corridor when he realised he wouldn’t make it in time. Arcadese would have to protect the others, assuming he wasn’t already dead.

  ‘I’m coming, human…’ he muttered, turning on his heel and racing back through the door. At least he could save one life.

  As Heka’tan embraced her, the Stormbird hit the ground with all the force of a drop-pod and the world exploded into hell and fire.

  II

  Earlier...

  Persephia eyed her master with fear.

  Hulking plates, edged with gold, sat atop his shoulders. A blade as thick and long as her arm was strapped to the warrior’s thigh. Cobalt metal armoured his form. She found only cold grey stone in the giant’s eyes, glaring back at her with piercing intensity, and looked down again.

  The Immortal Emperor’s Legiones Astartes, His Angels of Death – no, that wasn’t right – his Angels of Death, created to protect mankind from threats beyond the stars. A billion, billion worlds; a million, million cultures all compliant – now at war.

  Who will protect us from ourselves? Persephia wondered, keeping her eyes on the shaking deck. Who will protect us from you?

  War was everywhere, or so it seemed, so the propagandists, the rabble-rousers and Imperial Army press-gangers would have the galaxy believe. Where then the promised era of prosperity and peace made possible through the pre-eminent Imperium? The reality was a galaxy divided.

  Join the Emperor, a distant, untouchable figure – after all, who beyond His favoured sons had ever even seen Him? – or be denounced as traitor. Heretic.

  No, that wasn’t right again.

  Great pains had been taken to assert the empirical fact that the Emperor was not a god. There were no gods.

  The propagators, the pamphleteers, had not been seen or heard from again. Idolatry was to be stamped out – science and reason were the future; logic would bring the human race to its apex, and yet… there were whispers.

  And what of the other choice? Horus. Warmonger, planet-killer, ruthless demagogue of a bloody crusade allied to old religion, old faith. The smear campaign had been waged with military brutality on Terra. Vilified, demonised, Horus was a monster, a thing of childhood nightmares. How quickly the gilded could fall.

  ‘Be still,’ said the cobalt giant.

  Persephia could barely hear her own thoughts above the droning engines, let alone her actual voice. The giant had heard her as easily as if they were engaged in polite conversation in a quiet room. And his voice had carried with all the force of a thunderclap.

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘I said, be still,’ the giant repeated. He had a stylised ‘U’ on his chest plate. A curved helmet, with a vox-grille for a mouth and cold crimson lenses, sat mag-locked to his thigh. Even without his full complement of weapons, secure in the ship’s locker, he was still formidable.

  ‘The vessel you’re riding in is a Stormbird – though, it scarcely resembles one any more – it has endured harder journeys.’

  Persephia was humble and contrite. ‘Yes, my lord. I’m sorry.’

  Seemingly satisfied, the warrior shifted back in his grav-harness but was no less threatening. Bionics beneath his armour whirred as he moved, betraying old injuries. It was why the giant had missed out on front-line duties and part of the reason Persephia accompanied him. She had once been an artisan, but since the Edict of Dissolution her role as a remembrancer was a memory long dead. War had come to the galaxy and Persephia’s talents were put to the forge like the rest of the human race.

  No one wanted to remember any more.

  A bout of turbulence rocked the ship, causing Persephia to stumble.

  The pilot’s voice came from the cockpit through the vox.

  ‘Entering Bastion’s atmosphere. Experiencing wind shear. Attempting to correct.’

  Persephia’s gaze alighted on the cobalt giant. His eyes were closed, his respiration barely visible in the movement of his chest.

  ‘I am not supposed to be here, not like this.’ She clenched her fists tightly, willing the turbulence to abate.

  ‘You and I have something in common, human. Neither of us should be here. We’ve both been left behind.’ His eyes snapped open, tainted with hurt and anger. ‘Heka’tan’s meditations are almost over. He will have need of his armour.’ The giant closed his eyes again as the artificer moved towards the back of the ship. His sonorous voice followed her.

  ‘Forgotten… both of us.’

  III

  Heka’tan was naked but for a pair of training fatigues. He had prepared the ash and the brazier. He had observed the rites and warmed the branding iron. The flame was born in the cradle, and within its blazing grasp he found purity and a sense of truth. Repressed memory came with it…

  The drop-ship was taking fire from all sides. Much of its armour plating was punched through by lascannon blasts and several of its heavy bolter armaments were destroyed. Heat emanated from the interior. Shadows lurked there, of broken bodies silhouetted a visceral red from the incendiary fires inside. The guts of the ship lay strewn across the Isstvan plain where a cloying fug of smoke roiled. Hot tracer whickered through air screaming with the discharge of bolters and heavy cannon. Somewhere in the distance, by a shrouded ridgeline, an explosion blossomed.

  ‘Ta… king… vy… ire…’ The broken vox report crackled in Heka’tan’s ear.

  ‘Gravius! Is that you, brother?’

  ‘Affir… mative, brother… aptain…’

  ‘Fall back immediately and assume defensive postures.’

  Around him, the fight was intensifying. Gunfire, scores of overlapping bolter bursts, rose to a deafening frenzy. Enemy cohorts were massing from the east and west, and advancing on their position.

  Enemy cohorts.

  The notion was insane, a crazed nightmare brought to life on a dead world with only the dead to witness it. For surely, that’s what they all were.

  ‘Brother… aptain…’ There was a pause not caused by the static interference.

  Figures were resolving through the artificial fog. Their hulking forms wore the colour of hard steel, of grey unyielding metal. Iron.

  The Urgall Depression was no place for a last stand. The ravine resembled a charnel field and not a place about which great deeds were sung. There would be no glory,
face down in the blood-drenched tundra slain by one’s own brothers.

  Gravius continued and for once the link was clean. ‘What’s happening?’

  Heka’tan had three hundred and sixty-two Legiones Astartes left in his command. They had forged a ring around the shattered drop-ship. Over half that number again was forever entombed inside their vessel, lost before the fight had even begun, a fight the brother-captain didn’t understand.

  ‘Assume defensive postures,’ he answered, for want of something better, something that made sense.

  The line of iron opened up with its weapons. Fusillade met fusillade as both sides engaged, hundreds of muzzle flares ripping up the smoke like jagged knives of hot light.

  It was but a skirmish in a maelstrom of death. This was a battle like no other. It was a reckoning. It was a show of force. But above all else it was fratricide on an epic scale.

  Heka’tan’s words to Gravius sounded hollow even to him. ‘Hold out as long as you can.’

  It was over. Even before he’d seen the armoured column advancing behind the infantry, Heka’tan knew it. He took a round to the shoulder, the explosive impact nearly tearing off the pad and spinning him. A second struck him in the chest and he staggered.

  One of his own, Ikon he thought, died to a throat wound. More followed, too numerous and rapid to count. Apothecaries were a pointless luxury during this nascent massacre. The air shimmered with the heat of shells passing so close that some struck one another and deviated from their original targets. Above, Thunderhawks and Stormbirds tried to escape. Heka’tan saw several in the livery of the Raven Guard and Iron Hands plunge from the smoke-blackened sky like broken comets. Distant explosions announced their destruction.

  Bleak was not the word for their chances.

  Fatalism, yes, but capitulation was not amongst Heka’tan’s emotional vocabulary. Sons of Nocturne were born of sterner stock. They came from the earth and its fiery heart-blood. They would not go to Mount Deathfire with the foe unbloodied.

  ‘Burn them!’

  A wave of super-heated promethium spewed from the Salamanders’ serried ranks. Several Iron Warriors fell to the flamers, first going to their knees before collapsing onto the shell-strewn earth.