‘So kind of you to grace us with your presence, Dreagher,’ snarled Goghur.
The image of Dreagher stared back at him, eyes hard, but he did not say anything.
‘Do you have anything to contribute to this–’ Goghur was saying, but his words faded into a sibilant hiss as a newcomer stepped forward, occupying the vacant space of the Eighth Assault Company.
This newcomer was armed for war, his body fully encased in battleplate but for his tautly muscled, bare arms. In one hand he held a massive axe that all within the Legion recognised instantly, its name and its bloody history known by all.
Gorechild.
Slowly, the raised voices and arguments ceased, one by one, until all of the gathered captains stood in frozen silence.
The newcomer was not wearing a helm. Dark monochrome specks that could only have been blood covered his bare face, one that was so familiar to them all.
It was a long face, not arrogant or patrician in aspect like those of the Ultramarines or Emperor’s Children, but noble nonetheless.
‘Khârn,’ breathed Goghur finally, breaking the silence. The Eighth Assault Captain turned his mercurial gaze towards him. He stared at him, unblinking, holding his gaze for a moment longer than was comfortable before speaking.
‘Goghur,’ he said, bowing his head fractionally. His voice was refined and clear, calm and tinged with the accent of his home world.
‘We were not expecting you,’ said Goghur.
‘And yet I am here,’ said Khârn.
Chapter 12
Dreagher and Argus Brond stood outside the sealed door. The retinue that Dreagher had posted to watch over Khârn stood to either side of the portal, chain-halberds held at rest.
‘How long has he been in there?’ said Dreagher.
‘Five hours,’ said Brond. ‘No one has gone in or come out in that time.’
‘Remind you of anyone?’ said Dreagher.
‘A little too much,’ he said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Go,’ said Dreagher.
Brond nodded. ‘Good luck,’ he said, with a sardonic smile.
As Brond left, Dreagher hit the door release. Darkness awaited him beyond.
‘Khârn?’ he said, stepping into the gloom. His senses were on high alert, half expecting an attack from the darkness. No, he told himself. He is nothing like Angron.
To one of the Legiones Astartes the darkness was not impenetrable, naturally. It took him only a moment to see Khârn, seated at the far end of the room. His head was lowered, and he had Gorechild across his lap, both hands resting upon its haft. How many had fallen beneath the teeth of that blood-soaked axe? Had any weapon forged by man been the cause of more death?
Khârn did not lift his head. Dreagher did not speak, unwilling to interrupt Khârn’s thoughts. He stood motionless, waiting for Khârn to register his presence.
‘There were those who thought I’d gone too far,’ said Khârn, after a long moment of silence. His voice was low, such that Dreagher was forced to move closer to discern his words clearly. ‘They said I was tempting fate, that I would incur his rage. “He’ll kill you”, they said. They did not understand.’
Dreagher said nothing. In the darkness, his brow was furrowed.
‘He’d thrown it away as if it were nothing,’ continued Khârn. ‘The few teeth that remained were blunted to the point of uselessness. You remember this – you were there, were you not?’
‘Armatura,’ said Dreagher, realising that Khârn was speaking of Gorechild. ‘Yes, I was there.’
‘Anyone could have retrieved it and restored it. He wouldn’t have cared. It was not favouritism that spared me his wrath. It was so obvious. They wouldn’t have understood, but it was obvious. Do you, captain? Do you understand?’
Dreagher could feel Khârn’s gaze upon him now. His eyes gleamed silver in the darkness as he looked up: the eyes of a nocturnal predator.
His head was hurting – the Nails were urging him to draw a weapon – but he forced himself to think.
‘He discarded it because it no longer served its primary function,’ he said finally. ‘It ceased to be useful to him.’
‘It no longer served its primary function,’ Khârn repeated, lingering over the words. He nodded slowly. ‘He was nothing if not pragmatic. He did not view any object – or person – with any particular reverence or sentimentality. Gorechild ceased to fulfil its primary function, and so it served him no longer. He cared nothing for what became of it afterwards.’
He stood, hefting Gorechild. He looked down at it, turning it over in his hands.
‘It is only a killing tool, a thing forged by men, the same as billions of others over the course of human history. It is no different from a simple bronze blade smelted in a clay mould on Terra thirty-five thousand years ago. It is only we lesser men who imbue it with worth more than it deserves.’
‘No,’ said Dreagher. ‘It is more than that. It is a symbol, even if Angron never appreciated it.’
‘A symbol of what?’
‘Of the Legion,’ said Dreagher. ‘Of direction. Of leadership.’
‘I never had ambitions to lead the Legion. I have no desire to lead it now.’
‘There is no one else,’ said Dreagher. ‘The Legion will not rally to anyone else. If you do not lead us, then the Legion is done. It will splinter, scattered across the void as independent warbands. It will be the end.’
‘Perhaps our time is passed,’ said Khârn.
‘You do not believe that,’ said Dreagher.
‘The Third Legion,’ Khârn said, changing tack. ‘You bring word?’
‘They have hailed us,’ said Dreagher. ‘We need you.’
Khârn nodded, and stepped into the light.
‘A war is not what they want,’ said Khârn. ‘No sane Legion would start one like this, not without good reason. They will seek to placate us, and send us on our way. However, they are still Emperor’s Children. They will not let the opportunity to show us their superiority pass.’
Dreagher shook his head.
‘It’s all just a game, one of feints and ripostes, posturing and insults hidden as praise,’ said Khârn.
‘It’s tiresome,’ said Dreagher.
‘Politics and diplomacy have never sat well with the Legion. The Nails do not make subtlety one of our strengths, but this is something to be expected when dealing with the Third Legion.’
‘Would that the Nails had never been inflicted on us,’ said Dreagher. ‘Things could have been different for us.’
Khârn glanced at Dreagher. His expression was unreadable, like a mask made of plascrete. Something in his gaze, though, made him want to reach for a weapon.
‘This is our fate. This is the way things are,’ said Khârn. Dreagher nodded, accepting this.
‘I am not the Legion’s saviour, Dreagher,’ said Khârn.
‘You are Khârn,’ said Dreagher. ‘The Legion will follow you.’
‘Tell me,’ said Khârn. ‘Why do you think Angron left us?’
‘He wasn’t Angron any more,’ said Dreagher. ‘Not in the end.’
Khârn shrugged.
‘Perhaps he came to see us like Gorechild,’ said Khârn. ‘Blunted. Broken. Perhaps he believed we had failed him and he discarded us. No longer able to serve our primary function.’
‘But you recovered Gorechild,’ said Dreagher. ‘Rebuilt it, restored it. You made it whole again, and now it serves its function once more. The same could be done with the Legion.’
Khârn grunted. Then he looked Dreagher in the eyes, his gaze burning in its intensity.
‘What would you be willing to do to see the Legion united?’ said Khârn.
‘Anything,’ said Dreagher right away.
Khârn considered this, nodding as he turned Gorechild over in his hands.
‘Come,’ he said, at last. ‘Let us speak with the Emperor’s Children.’
Skoral bit down hard on the hilt of her wide-bladed dagger, enduring the pain in silence.
Oblivious to her discomfort, the tech-servitors went about their work with diligent mono-focus, digits ending in scalpels, sparking electrodes and soldering irons jabbing at her flesh.
She was straddling a utilitarian composite steel chair, her one remaining arm, heavily muscled and covered in jagged tattoos, wrapped around its backrest. Her whole body was tense, like an over-extended spring. The muscles of her neck resembled tightly bound ropes of steel, and her veins protruded dramatically, like branching twigs beneath her skin.
The sickly sweet stink of burning human flesh filled the air as one of the tech-servitors weld-fixed a cog-shaped plug-socket into the stump of Skoral’s shoulder. She clenched her eyes tightly shut against the pain, sweat beading her skin.
‘Is it wrong that the smell is making me hungry?’ said Maven. He was leaning against a nearby wall, smoking a lho-stick.
Skoral’s eyes snapped open, fixing him with a bloodshot glare.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Maven.
Skoral’s glare turned into a fresh grimace as another servitor touched its needle-like index fingers to the freshly welded plug-socket, causing a shower of sparks to erupt.
‘Throne,’ said Maven. ‘You’re the only thing even approaching an Apothecary on this ship. Just give yourself a damn shot.’
‘Throne?’ growled Skoral, speaking around the dagger hilt clenched between her teeth. ‘Don’t let the masters hear you say that. Even being Brond’s seneschal won’t help you then.’
‘You don’t have anything to prove,’ said Maven. ‘Take a pain suppressant.’
‘Supplies are short,’ snapped Skoral. She made to say more, but her words were cut off by a fresh burst of sparks. Maven inhaled on his lho-stick and blew out a cloud of blue-grey smoke.
‘So it seems that – at least for the moment – we are not at war with the Emperor’s Children,’ said Maven. ‘Who knows if that will last, though. I am not sure how long even Khârn can hold the likes of Goghur back. The Nails have taken root in his mind. He will not be easily dissuaded from this battle.’
Maven took a last pull on his lho-stick before grinding it into the deck beneath his boot. Pushing himself off the wall, he sauntered over to peer over the shoulders of the cluster of tech-servitors, watching their work.
‘Even if the whole Legion turned away from this conflict, I’d guess Goghur would attack,’ said Maven. ‘I don’t know if he would be physically capable of turning away now. He probably wouldn’t be the only one, either. Mark my words, he’ll drag half the Legion to war with him.’
Maven looked away.
‘Perhaps that’s what the Legion needs, though,’ he said. ‘A cleansing of the ranks. That may be the best we can hope for from this idiotic standoff.’
The servitors stepped back from Skoral, having finally finished their work. She stood, a little shakily, removed the dagger from between her teeth and shoved it back into its sheath.
‘I’d be careful who hears you say that,’ she said.
‘Tell me you don’t feel the same way,’ said Maven.
Skoral shrugged, then winced in pain. The flesh around the new implant socket was a raw, red-purple shade, and blood was leaking from the edge of the metal.
‘I feel like someone’s taken a hammer to me,’ said Skoral, ‘then set me on fire.’
‘When do you get your new arm?’
‘A few hours.’
‘Let’s hope we are not at war by then, eh?’ said Maven.
‘With the Twelfth Legion, you never know,’ said Skoral.
‘Are we concluded?’ said the scowling, five-metre-high projection of the Lord Admiral of the Emperor’s Children. His high-born accent, oozing with condescension, set the Nails grinding in Dreagher’s brain.
‘We are done,’ growled Khârn.
‘Coordinates will be out-loaded to your fleet’s cogitators. A deputation of the exalted Third Legion will greet you there.’
Without further talk, the vid-feed was severed. The oculus darkened as the image of the admiral faded, then brightened as it was replaced with a projection looking out into the void.
The vision was heavily pixelated, but its harsh edges smoothed out in a matter of seconds, until the image was so crisp that a casual observer could easily have been fooled into thinking it was a portal looking forward, not that they were hidden behind more than ten metres of reinforced armoured plating.
The void glowed a luminous red, like a bleeding sunset over a heavily polluted industrial world.
‘This is foolishness,’ hissed Brond. ‘No good will come of it.’
Khârn remained standing in the communications pulpit, staring up at the curved screen for a moment, before he turned and bowed his head to Stirzaker.
‘Thank you, captain,’ he said.
‘My lord,’ said Stirzaker, bowing his head.
‘I am no man’s lord,’ said Khârn. ‘Captain will suffice. Khârn would be better.’
‘As you wish,’ said Stirzaker.
Khârn walked off the central dais, and climbed back up the metal stairs to the viewing balcony.
‘Dreagher, Brond,’ said Khârn, as he got to the top. ‘Walk with me.’
A detachment of legionaries fell into step around the three captains as they left the bridge. They were warriors of Dreagher’s echelon, trusted veterans all.
‘Will they parley with us in good faith?’ said Dreagher.
‘I believe they will,’ said Khârn.
‘Goghur will not stand idly by while we go and make peace with the Emperor’s Children,’ said Brond. ‘He is set on conflict here. He will not be dissuaded.’
‘He does not speak for the Legion,’ said Dreagher. ‘The Twelfth will not be hostage to the actions of one madman.’
Brond laughed. It was an ugly, barking sound, and there was no humour in it.
‘Ever since we became the Eaters of Worlds, we have been hostage to the actions of a madman,’ said Brond, his voice tinged with bitterness.
Those words were an error, and Brond realised it instantly.
A stillness descended on Khârn. He stared at Brond without blinking, and while his expression was unreadable, there was a palpable threat of violence in his eyes. The fire of madness and brutality glinted there for a moment, and in that instant Dreagher half expected him to cut the 17th Captain down where he stood, spilling World Eaters blood within the bridge of the Defiant.
To his credit, Brond matched Khârn’s gaze, unwilling to back down or look away. Wisely, his hands did not stray towards the hilts of his swords, though the temptation to do so must have been strong.
‘We are still investigating how the kill-team came aboard,’ said Dreagher in a low voice, seeking to deflect the tension between the two captains. ‘The Defiant was likely compromised by someone on this vessel, in collusion with outside parties within the fleet. I take full responsibility for the breach in security and the attempt on your life.’
‘Other matters are of greater importance,’ said Khârn, still holding Brond’s gaze.
‘Captain?’ said Dreagher. ‘We have traitors in our midst.’
‘In the eyes of the Imperium, we are all traitors. It’s not the first time that an attempt has been made to kill off high-ranking members of our Legion,’ said Khârn, eyes burning, ‘nor will it be the last. It does not matter – the attempt failed. That is the end of it.’
‘If others were involved, they may try again,’ said Dreagher.
‘Let them,’ said Khârn. ‘They will succeed or they will not. Now…’
The Eighth Assault Captain turned towards Dreagher, finally breaking eye contact with Brond.
‘I hav
e been out of the world since Terra,’ Khârn said. ‘I need to know where we stand. I want a full breakdown of every echelon. Numbers, weapons, ammunition, artillery, armour, support. I want to know who leads each company – an appraisal of the existing chain of command – and how many of our numbers have already joined the Caedere cohorts. I want to know which captains and Chapters have fallen hardest to the Nails. I want to know who we can rely on to have some control when the blood starts pumping.’
‘That is an ever-diminishing list,’ said Dreagher.
‘We work with what we have,’ said Khârn.
Chapter 13
Ruokh was roaring as he returned to lucidity, though he didn’t hear it at first. The blood pumping through his veins blotted out all sound.
His throat was raw and his vision bleeding. His breathing was fast and shallow.
His legs kicked uselessly below him, and as the red veil lifted from his eyes, Ruokh remembered where he was. He had no concept of how long he’d been lost in the oblivion of the Nails.
The red light emanating from within his spiked gorget lit his face from below in its hellish glow.
Chains hung down from the darkness above, maglocked to the ceramite hood of his newly donned, hulking armour. That heavy plate was his prison now. It would never be removed while he still drew breath.
Not that it mattered. With every beat of his hearts, with every intake of breath, he drew closer to death. His body was failing. Every cell and fibre of his being was fatally irradiated. His organs were disintegrating within his body, and his lifeblood was bleeding out through his eyes, his ears, his pores. The weapons he’d used for so many years in the Destroyer ranks were finally coming back to claim him.
He did not fight it. He’d already lived far longer than he had any reason to.
Gradually, his heartbeats began to steady and the roar died in his throat. The thundering in his ears began to abate and he heard the others. He was not alone. There were others – hundreds of them – all condemned to the same fate that awaited him.
They thrashed and struck out impotently as they hung there, like twisted, hate-fuelled marionettes. Most of them were further down the blood-soaked spiral than he. Many were no longer capable of even brief moments of lucidity. All they knew now was madness, fury untold, and the constant, never-ending urge to kill.
Khârn: Eater of Worlds Page 12