Deltrian passed a life support pod, stroking a steel finger down the glass. The way a man might tap to catch the attention of a pet fish, Deltrian’s fingertip tink-tink-tinked on the glass as he admired one of the true gems in his collection. The Titan princeps, naked and hobbled, drifted unconscious in the amniotic ooze, curled almost foetal around the input/output cables implanted within his bowels and belly.
The sleeping man twitched at the second set of taps, as if he could actually hear the greeting. That was impossible, of course. Given the amount of narcotics flooding the princeps’ bloodstream, he was locked in the deepest coils of a chemical coma. If he had been even remotely conscious, well, the pain would be indescribable, and almost certainly a detriment to sanity.
Deltrian watched the man twitch again. He made a note to monitor his unconscious ward closely in the coming nights, as they all acclimatised to their new sanctuary. The tech-adept moved on.
Lifter servitors were heaving one of the two saved sarcophagi into stasis racks. This one… This one caused Deltrian some degree of concern. Legiones Astartes One-Two-Ten; preferred appellation: Taloswas in command now, and the existence of this particular sarcophagus directly contravened his emotive desires expressed at a past juncture.
Still, such an eventuality would be dealt with when the time arose. Deltrian considered the sarcophagus to be his finest work: a perfect representation of the warrior within. The Night Lord image engraved on the burnished platinum stood in a posture matching representations of heroic and mythic figures from at least sixteen other human cultures, with his limbs and armour sculpted to exacting standards. His helmed head was arched back to suggest some mythic roar of triumph aimed up at the heavens, while he clutched the helms of fallen warriors in each hand. His boot rested upon a third, signifying his absolute victory.
Yes, indeed. Deltrian was adamantly proud of his work with this particular unit, especially in the ferociously complex surgeries required to save the living remnant’s life during the one and only time it had conceded to activation.
The tech-priest froze as the immense double doors opened on grinding hydraulics. In a curiously human gesture, he reached to pull his hood up around his features.
“Greetings, Talos,” he said, not turning around.
“Explain yourself.”
That made him turn. Not the anger in the prophet’s voice, for there was none to be heard, but the gentility of the demand, that was most intriguing.
“I infer that you reference the continued existence of Sarcophagus Ten-Three. Correct?”
The prophet’s black eyes flickered first, then his pale features turned to follow. He stared at the ornately rendered coffin for exactly six and a half seconds.
“Explain yourself,” he said again, colder now, his voice undergoing a significant reduction in vocalised temperance. Deltrian decided to frame this in the simplest terms.
“Your orders after the engagement at Crythe were countermanded by a higher authority.”
The prophet narrowed his eyes. “The Exalted would never order such a thing. His relief at Malcharion’s destruction was palpable. Satisfaction poured off him in waves, tech-adept. Trust me, I saw it myself when I informed him.”
Deltrian waited for an acceptable juncture in which to interject his own words. “Incorrect assumption. The higher authority you are referencing is not the higher authority I inferred. The order to repair and sustain the life of the warrior within Sarcophagus Ten-Three did not originate with the Exalted. It was a command issued by Legiones Astartes Distinctus-One-Ten/Previous-One.”
Talos shook his head. “Who?”
Deltrian hesitated. He didn’t know the warrior’s preferred appellation, for he’d never been told of it. “The… Atramentar warrior, first of the Exalted’s bodyguards, Tenth Company, previously of First Company.”
“Malek? Malek ordered it?”
Deltrian flinched back. “The modulation of your voice indicates anger.”
“No. I am surprised, that is all.” Talos returned his gaze to the enshrined sarcophagus, already being attached to stasis feeds. “Is he alive in there?”
Deltrian lowered his head and raised it, in the traditional human signifier for positive agreement.
“Did you just nod?” Talos asked.
“Affirmative.”
“It looked like a bow.”
“Negative.”
“So he’s alive?”
Deltrian despaired, sometimes. Slowed by their organic flaws, these Night Lords were woefully difficult to deal with.
“Yes. This unit is ready for activation, and the warrior within is—as you say—alive.”
“Why wasn’t I told of this? I walked the Covenant’s Hall of Remembrance many times. Why was his sarcophagus hidden?”
“The orders were to maintain silence. It was believed you would react violently to the knowledge if exposed to it.”
Talos shook his head again, though the tech-adept guessed it was an accompaniment to thought, rather than an indication of disagreement.
“Will you react with violence?” the tech-adept asked. “This is sacred ground, already consecrated to the Machine-God, in honour of the oath between the Mechanicum and the Eighth Legion.”
The prophet’s gaze lingered on the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus.
“Do I look like a violent soul?” he asked.
Deltrian was unable to discern the exact ratio of sardonic humour to genuine inquiry contained in the Night Lord’s question. With no comprehension of the question’s nature, he couldn’t formulate a customised answer. Lacking any other recourse, he answered honestly.
“Yes.”
Talos snorted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Awaken Malcharion if you are able,” he said. “Then we will discuss what must be done.”
Epilogue
FATE
The prophet sees them die.
He sees them fall, one by one, until at last he stands alone, possessing nothing but a broken blade in his bleeding hands.
A warrior with no brothers.
A master with no slaves.
A soldier with no sword.
Cyrion is not the first to die, but his death is the worst to witness. The inhuman fire, burning dark with alien witchlight, eats at his motionless corpse.
An outstretched hand rests with its fingers blackened and curled, just shy of a fallen bolter.
Xarl, the strongest of them, should be the last to die, not the first. Dismembered, reduced to hunks of armour-wrapped meat, his death is neither quick nor painless, and offers only a shadow of the glory he so craved.
It is not a death he would have welcomed, but his enemies—those few that still draw breath when the sun finally rises after the longest night of their lives—will remember him until their own eventual ends. That, at least, is a comfort he can take beyond the grave.
Mercutian is not the last, either. Miserable, loyal Mercutian, standing over his brothers’ bodies, defending them against shrieking xenos bitch-creatures that take him to pieces with curved blades.
He fights past the point of death, fuelling his body with stubborn anger when organs and blood and air are no longer enough.
When he falls, it’s with an apology on his lips.
Variel dies with Cyrion.
The watcher feels a strange sorrow at that; Cyrion and Variel are not close, can barely stand to hear each others’ voices. The same flames that embrace the former leap to embrace the latter, bringing death for one and pain for the other.
Variel dies unarmed, and he is the only one to do so.
Uzas is the last. Uzas, his soul etched with god-runes even if his armour is not.
He is the last to fall, his axe and gladius bathed red in stinking alien blood. Shadows dance in a closing circle around him, howling madness from inhuman throats. He meets them with cries of his own: first of rage, then of pain, and at last, of laughter.
The Navigator covers both her secrets in black, but only one can be so easily hidden. As sh
e runs through the night-time city streets, beneath starlight kinder to her pale skin than the Covenant’s un-light could ever be, she looks over her shoulder for signs of pursuit.
For now, there are none.
The watcher feels her relief, even though this is a dream, and she cannot see him.
Breathless, hiding, she checks her secrets, ensuring both are safe. The bandana is still in place, sheathing her invaluable gift from those who would never understand. He watches as her shivering hands stray down her body, resting at her second secret.
Pale fingers stroke a swollen belly, barely concealed by her black jacket. The watcher knows that coat—it belongs to Septimus.
Voices shout for her, challenging and cursing in the same breath. A tall figure appears at the mouth of the alley. He is armoured lightly, for pursuit and the running gunfights of a street battle.
“Hold, heretic, in the name of the Holy Inquisition.”
Octavia runs again, cradling her rounded stomach as gunfire cracks at her heels.
The prophet opened his eyes.
Around him, nothing more than a chamber—the cold comfort of his personal cell. The walls were already touched by Nostraman cuneiform, the flowing script written in some places, carved in others. The same etchings and scratchings were visible on the warrior’s own armour, scrawled in mindless, prophectic decoration.
The dagger fell from his hand to clatter on the floor, leaving the final rune incomplete. He knew the sigil, and it wasn’t one drawn from his birth-tongue.
A slanted eye stared back at him from the wall. It wept a single, unfinished tear.
An eldar rune, symbolising the grief of a goddess and the defiance of a species exiled to sail the stars.
Months of fever-dreaming suddenly made sense. He turned to a spiral carved into the steel wall, ringed by a crude circle ruined by its own elliptic sides.
Only it was not a spiral, and not a circle. It was a vortex that stared with one malignant eye, and a presence in orbit around it.
He traced his fingers along the orbiting oval. What circles the Great Eye, trapped within its grip?
“The Song of Ulthanash.” Talos broke the silence of the cold room, looking back at the weeping goddess.
“Craftworld Ulthwé.”
Acknowledgements
With sincerest thanks to Heresy-Online; the Bolthole; Dakka Dakka; thegreatcrusade.co.uk; the elegan/tg/entlemen; the unexpectedly polite WarSeer; and the mighty Bolter & Chainsword.
An extra special thanks to Rachel Docherty and Nik Vincent-Abnett, for the insight that saved this novel.
About The Author
Aaron Dembski-Bowden is a British author with his beginnings in the videogame and RPG industries. He’s been a deeply entrenched fan of Warhammer 40,000 ever since he first ruined his copy of Space Crusade by painting the models with all the skill expected of an overexcited nine-year-old.
He lives and works in Northern Ireland with his fiancée Katie, hiding from the world in the middle of nowhere. His hobbies generally revolve around reading anything within reach, and helping people spell his surname.
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