Praetorian of Dorn

by John French

  ‘The hydra wakes,’ he said.

  The assembled commanders bowed their heads briefly as the words echoed from their mouths. They dispersed, only Pech and Herzog remaining. They were the most senior officers of the Legion present, and much of the detail of the attack would be created by them. That was as it should be, and he had no doubt that they would perform those duties with perfection. That they did not have overall command was of no consequence – rank and command were separate in the Legion, and they had wielded the power of the full Legion many times before. This time, though, he did wonder if they felt any jealousy that he rather than they had been given the honour of being master of this greatest of Harrowings. If they did, they did not show it as they looked up at him.

  Pech spoke first.

  ‘What is your will, Silonius?’ he asked.

  Imperial Fists frigate Unbreakable Truth

  The solar void

  The face of Effried resolved in a haze of static fog. The bridge of the Unbreakable Truth was almost silent, the murmur of the servitors and the distant noise of the engines rolling through the air like the growling of a far-off sea. The frigate was cutting through the void in the wake of the fleeing scavenger vessel as it dived into the reef of debris off Io. Archamus stood before the holo-projection of Effried.

  ‘Master Huscarl,’ said Effried, voice hissing and popping as he looked out at Archamus.

  ‘The primarch,’ said Archamus, his voice snapping out. ‘Brother, I need you to get a message to the primarch.’

  There was a pause as the signals flowed out through the void, connected and passed back. They were close to Jupiter and its moons, but even so the time slid on and on, as Archamus waited for Effried to respond. He did not know where Dorn would be, and so the fastest way of getting a message to him was via an astropath. Effried was Castellan of the Third Sphere, the closest commander to Archamus and the fastest way of reaching Dorn.

  ‘He is gone, brother,’ said Effried. Archamus heard the words, and the blood in his veins seemed to freeze. His flesh and body seemed to vanish.

  Gone? The question echoed in the sudden silence behind his eyes. Where could he have gone? Why would he have gone? And his own thoughts answered, pulling him back through the weeks before the attack: the fading contact with nearby worlds, the questions Dorn had asked Armina Fel when he was there, and the words he had spoken over the bodies of the Alpha Legion warriors.

  Effried’s image spoke again after another delay.

  ‘He has taken half of the strength of the Second, Third and Fifth Spheres. He strikes at the enemy at Esteban.’ A pause, a hollow, numbing pause that stretched in static, and the rising roar of the ship’s engines. ‘I presumed that you knew his plans.’

  Archamus shook his head. ‘No. I was not aware.’

  And he knew that Dorn had not told him, had kept him ignorant.

  Because I chose to follow this quarry, he thought. Because once I entered the cradle of lies I was set apart. The numb chill was his world now, as the logic turned over in his thoughts. Lies within lies, misdirection within misdirection. Dorn had thought the attack on Terra a feint, a distraction to pull him away from the truth of the war, and so he had cut himself away from the possibility of knowing, and focused on the truth not the distraction.

  But... but the truth was not the truth, and whatever had happened to Phaeton and Esteban, it was nothing but a feint to draw the eye from what was, in truth, a death blow.

  ‘What is it, brother?’ asked Effried. ‘What is wrong?’

  I have failed, thought Archamus.

  What are you afraid of?

  My brother was cradled in lies.

  I have failed him...

  Begin to think about what he is doing and you are already giving him his greatest weapon.

  ... and others will pay the price of my failure.

  ‘Send the invasion signals, brother,’ said Archamus. His voice sounded separate from him: cold, controlled, other. ‘Alert all forces. Full alert throughout the system.’

  The long pause, the fizz and click of static.

  ‘You are certain?’ asked Effried. ‘The enemy are coming?’

  Archamus shook his head.

  ‘They are already here.’

  Memory

  ‘Will you serve the Legion in this way?’ Alpharius asked Silonius.

  ‘Of course,’ said a voice that he knew was his.

  ‘There is not one mission parameter at play. There are several. We are also using assets that have been put in place a long time ago. They have slept under the earth of Terra for a decade, and the details of the war they wake to were not known to us then. The mission parameters they will follow initially will serve our ends, but they are not specific to the current need. You will provide that specificity.’

  ‘Yes, of course, lord,’ said Silonius. He glanced around at the columns of light marching away from him through the gloom. He could see the shapes of small objects resting in the light: a near-human skull with canine teeth like knife blades, a silver pendant in the shape of a winged sword, a vial of pale green liquid.

  He looked back at his primarch.

  Alpharius looked back at him, his eyes still, his face blank of emotion.

  ‘There are security matters that must be accounted for,’ Alpharius said. ‘The importance of this operation cannot be overstated. The future of the Legion, and the outcome of this war, rest on it.’

  Silonius nodded.

  ‘I understand,’ he had said.

  ‘No, you do not. But you will. You are carrying the heart of this operation, and it must remain secret. But you are going to carry these secrets to Terra, and there you do not need to speak a secret to have it taken. Without even the powers of Malcador, or my father, there are others who might see the truth in your thoughts, or touch its edges, and once they have seen that truth then it is not your own silence that will matter, but theirs. The only way to truly keep a secret is to keep it from yourself.’

  Silonius nodded, and made himself hold his primarch’s gaze.

  ‘Psychic reconstruction,’ he stated, and Alpharius nodded.

  Two figures slid from behind the columns of light. Both were armoured, their identical faces uncovered. Silver wires and blue crystals gleamed on their bare scalps.

  ‘What is needed will be given back to you when it is required.’

  The two psykers watched him without blinking as they moved to stand either side of him. The Emperor had forbidden the use of psykers within His Legions, but the Alpha Legion had always followed their own will in all things.

  ‘What is the process for the recall to be triggered?’

  Alpharius smiled and shook his head.

  ‘That will remain buried far below your consciousness, but trust that when it is needed, you will know.’

  Silonius glanced at the two psykers. They had become perfectly still, but strands of pale energy were gathering around their heads. Their eyes had become utterly black.

  ‘What will they take from me?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything,’ said Alpharius.

  Cords of lightning leapt from the psykers’ eyes and coiled around him. Pain lanced through Silonius, sharp and bright. He felt his mind crack, thoughts peeling back like flower petals to reveal the bloody mass of emotions and beliefs and personality beneath. Invisible hands reached in and down into the wet meat of his soul.

  And pulled him apart.

  Thoughts ripped free of meaning. Memories dissolved in fire. Sensation compressed to a single razor line drawn onto a black horizon.

  ...and then he was watching as though his eyes were holes cut in a screen, as the psykers turned their gaze on Alpharius, and the lightning wreathed the primarch.

  ...and he opened his eyes inside another skull, and for a second he was looking back at himself, at Silonius stood in front of
him, as though he had stepped into the reflection of a mirror.

  Scavenger vessel Wealth of Kings

  The solar void

  He opened his eyes. The light seemed different: brighter, shapes sharper, shadows deeper.

  Has the light changed, or do I see it with different eyes?

  He could feel the others looking at him, the humans, Hekaron, Orn, Kalix. They were all there, standing back at the other end of the hangar chamber. They hung back, watching him uncertainly. Myzmadra had not said anything to them and stood at the back of the circle of watchers. He ignored them. The ship was roaring as its engines pushed it out beyond the range and sight of the Imperial Fists.

  He sat on a crate at the centre of the chamber. The shard blades lay at his feet. They had been his only weapons when he woke beneath the Imperial Palace, slivers of sharpness cast in silver. The velvet-wrapped bundle that Myzmadra had given him unfolded in his hand. Another shard lay there on the smooth blackness. Then there were the other pieces that had been given to him in the Palace. He took them all, pulling them from the shells that had concealed them. Leaves of metal, splinters of glittering matter and black cylinders. It took seconds, his hands following a will that reached from behind the thinning veil in his thoughts.

  ‘Phocron is gone,’ he said as he placed the last piece down on the deck at his feet. He sat at the centre of the halo of components.

  ‘Who has mission command?’ asked Orn, his voice soft and cold.

  ‘I do,’ he said.

  ‘What is our mission parameter, then?’ asked Hekaron.

  He looked at the exploded components.

  ‘Hades,’ he said.

  ‘I am not aware of that parameter,’ said Orn. His voice and face were blank, but his eyes were skating across the shining pieces on the floor.

  ‘You are not yet, but you will be aware,’ he said. ‘That, amongst many reasons, is why I am here. The hydra has slept in the light of the sun for long enough. Now the hydra wakes.’ He bent down and picked up one of the pieces of metal on the floor, and then another and another, each one snapping together, his hands moving with fluid speed.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Ashul, the human operative’s voice calm, but layered with sudden doubt and fear and wonder.

  The last piece snapped into place, and he stood. The double-bladed spear rested in his hand, light slithering across it.

  ‘I am Alpharius,’ he said.

  Brothers of War

  999.M30

  Six years before the Betrayal at Isstvan III

  I

  The banners lay broken at the foot of the iron mountain. The dead lay with them, still heaped over the trenches, their flesh slowly fuming into the cold air. There had not been time for the flies and insects to come and begin their feast. They would, though. Even within the ice reaches the processes of death still moved, albeit at a delayed rate. Above the dead, the hive rose up to the pale blue sky, its spire pointing at the ships hanging above like the accusing finger of a corpse.

  Archamus watched as the procession approached. Every figure looked tattered and bloody, but they had made their best effort to hold on to some dignity. A block of infantry came first, their silver-and-red brocade coats buttoned to their necks, laslocks held at port. They marched with precision, but Archamus could see the stains on the fabric. Bandages wound over the face of a soldier, fresh blood bright beside the ochre of dried pus. The jaw of a trooper in the front rank was bound shut, and her head had the asymmetric slumped look of a fractured skull.

  Behind the infantry came their officers and commanders, each of them raised above the ranks on sprung calliper boots. Their faces were grim and their eyes hard, but there was something broken behind the defiance of their expressions. Last of all came the World-Prince, thin as a bare branch, silvered robes flowing down to spill over the edge of his palanquin. Twelve slaves in blank masks and bare torsos bore the dais chair forwards, sweat glistening on their muscles. Behind them scribes, advisers and courtiers followed in a loose gaggle. All of them had the blank-eyed look of people who had just had everything they knew and relied on vanish. Of all of the procession, only the World-Prince himself did not wear surrender on his face. He stared out at the battlefields, eyes never even turning towards those waiting for him, anger screaming from him in silent waves.

  Rogal Dorn waited with his commanders on top of a low hill just beyond the trench-lines encircling the hive. Ten thousand Imperial Fists stood on the field around him, and beyond them half a million soldiers of the Imperial Army stood at attention. Tens of thousands of tanks and war machines sat between the ranked figures. A trio of Titans stood above them, their vast pennants shifting slowly in the breeze. It was a spectacle of might and power that would have brought some to their knees, but not the ruler of this newly conquered land.

  ‘Still defiant,’ said Yonnad from just in front of Archamus. The fleet master was bare-headed, and the cold air stirred the dark hair above his hawk face. His eyes were hard black chips embedded in the rust of his skin. ‘His kingdom is in ruin, his armies broken, but he is still fighting us in his heart.’

  ‘That is not defiance,’ said Sigismund, without looking around. ‘That is disdain. This man does not have the grace to know that he has been granted the chance to be part of something greater. So instead he chooses to pretend that he has won a victory. Was there ever greater folly?’

  ‘It is human to want to cling to the past,’ said Rogal Dorn, his voice low. ‘Always remember that, my sons.’

  ‘Lord,’ said the commanders, bowing their heads as they spoke. Archamus alone did not move. Above him the Legion banner rippled in the wind, the silver lightning bolts and sable fist stirring on their field of gold. He felt the standard pole tug at his grasp in the gusting air, but he remained unmoving. Beside him and the primarch, twenty Huscarls stood in double rank, black cloaks hanging from their backs, bolters held across their chests. Beside them twenty of the Templar Brethren stood with drawn swords. On Rogal Dorn’s left the towering bulk of Alexis Polux stood beside Yonnad. The fleet master’s apprentice in void warfare was as stone-faced as always, his eyes cold. On Dorn’s right was Sigismund in the black-and-white heraldry of his office, his sword in his hand. Armed and armoured, Rogal Dorn stood like a burnished statue between them.

  ‘Did the...’ began Yonnad, and then stopped, his mouth open as though he did not wish to bite down on his next words. ‘Did the other Legion not wish to be present for this?’

  ‘Clearly not,’ said Sigismund.

  Silence fell again as the procession crossed the last metres of ground. The World-Prince on his palanquin came to a halt. His guard came to attention with a snap of taut muscle and poised weapons. Archamus noted a bead of blood slowly running from under the edge of a bandage swathing the face of one of the soldiers. She did not move from attention as it ran down her face. He felt admiration touch his thoughts and made note to find these warriors once this was done. The Imperium needed those with such strength.

  ‘Imperium victor,’ called Archamus, his voice echoing from the grille of his helm. In sequence each of the Imperial Fists and human soldiers heard the words and echoed them. The cry rose and rose until the air seemed to be made of sound. Archamus raised the Imperial Fists banner high, and the entire force came to attention, the movement rippling outwards from Rogal Dorn. Archamus saw some of the defeated officers flinch at the sound and movement. The World-Prince looked at Dorn at last, and his eyes glittered with rage. When he spoke, his voice shook with control.

  ‘My son, my nephews, my father, my brothers, my cousins... Make no mistake that you have bought this world with their blood. And we shall remember.’

  Rogal Dorn met the man’s shaking gaze.

  ‘I stand before you and offer what was offered before, that you may become part of the Imperium of Mankind, that you may know the truth of Illumination and live without fear of the dark. Fo
r this the Emperor demands that you give Him loyalty, and follow His wisdom, and the rule of those to whom He has given authority.’

  The World-Prince looked back, lips twisting over his teeth, hands flexing on the arms of his chair.

  ‘As ruler of this domain,’ he said at last, chewing off each word and spitting it out, ‘and master of its people, I... I yield to you, and offer fealty to the... to the Emperor.’

  Silence followed as Rogal Dorn continued to look at the man.

  ‘When you speak those words,’ he said at last, his voice low and cold, ‘you kneel.’

  The World-Prince blinked, and for a moment Archamus thought he was about to say something. Then the man lowered his gaze and gestured at his palanquin bearers. Slowly the muscle-brutes lowered the weight from their shoulders. The World-Prince did not stand, but slumped forwards from his chair to his knees, as though the strength to stand had fled from him. Behind him, the procession that had followed the prince out to meet their conquerors knelt and pressed their foreheads into the dust of their world.

  Rogal Dorn bowed his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘In the name of the Emperor of Mankind I accept your fealty,’ said Dorn, and though he did not raise his voice, his words seemed to roll to the horizon.

  II

  It was night when they came to the Spire Palace. The one-time seat of a royal cousin, it now served a different purpose, its servants and slaves replaced by command officers and military serfs. Since the world’s surrender the mechanisms of Imperial conquest had ground into motion, and were already breaking and remaking the defeated society. Surveyor forces were sweeping the population, cataloguing resources and assessing existing social structures. Military forces were being evaluated and plans drawn up to redistribute the most able into Crusade forces. The first battalions from the conquered world would join a Crusade force within twelve weeks to help conquer others. Iterators had been at work within the masses, and the world’s compliance shaped into a narrative that would let the population come to see their new situation with pride.