Angels of Caliban

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘Nobody has ever gone up there, my liege,’ Redloss told the Lion when he was summoned to council. He had taken with him Danaes and a few others of the Dreadwing leadership, but it was not their place to speak. He was the voted lieutenant, he was the voice of the Dreadwing. ‘Even the relative handful of Ultramarines from Illyrium are lowlanders, considered traitors by their mountain cousins. Orbital surveyance is patchy at best, and the storms are too much of a risk to gunships. I’m sure if we had brought more of the Ravenwing with us we could spy out their holes and nooks, but with the resources to hand…’

  ‘We knew that it would come to this,’ said the Lion. ‘From the outset the Alma Mons would be their stronghold.’

  ‘More than a hundred kilometres of caves and tunnels, fortified since Old Night, held by several thousand dedicated rebels.’ Redloss scratched his chin. ‘Do we think Curze is in there? If he isn’t, I’d rather leave the Illyrians there to rot. If we could use orbital weapons I would crack the mountain open and have done with it. Could you perhaps approach the emperor again, my liege?’

  The Lion scowled at such honest but negative talk. Redloss ploughed on, emboldened by the knowledge that his primarch had brought him and the Dreadwing to Imperium Secundus to use their expertise and listen to his perspective.

  ‘From the orders of the Imperator Regis himself, our mission is to eliminate the Night Haunter, my liege, not end the Illyrian uprising.’ Redloss gestured for Danaes to approach with a handheld hololith. The Dreadwing officer placed it on the floor of the hall and a three-dimensional render of the Gatepeak sprang into red-and-orange life before the throne. Flashing runes highlighted detected fortifications, more than twenty of them, while bright green ribbons delineated the accessible routes onto the higher slopes.

  ‘The harder we fight, the more resistance we create, my liege,’ Redloss continued. ‘A hundred a day, five hundred a day, it’s impossible to tell how many sympathisers our occupation is creating.’

  ‘Sympathisers,’ the Lion said heavily. ‘Not fighters.’

  ‘Not many of them, no, my liege. But we fight the mountain as much as the men, and while outsiders sustain them they will hold.’

  ‘And you would prefer not to fight the mountain?’ said the Lion. He leaned forward, one elbow on his knee, chin on fist as he stared at the slowly rotating display.

  ‘Exactly, my liege. If we are to assume Curze is masterminding the defence, we can expect incessant suicide attacks, ambushes, feints, counter-assaults and an ever-present threat of harassment from the native populace behind us. We will pay a bloody toll for every step up that mountain.’

  ‘And Curze will slip away at the last moment,’ concluded the primarch.

  ‘That is my worry, Lord Protector,’ said Redloss. ‘Even at best estimates we would lose hundreds of legionaries without any guarantee of achieving our mission.’

  ‘I assume that you did not come to me simply with concerns and worries,’ the Lion said. He sat back, eyebrows raised. ‘Proposals? Plans?’

  ‘We are death.’ Redloss signalled Danaes, who activated the next stage of the hololithic presentation. A cloud of tiny blue lights seemed to drift down onto the mountain like snow, settling in cyan swathes. It was followed by several pinpoints of white and the mountains were lit from within by a pale yellow glow. ‘We can set up a picket across all of the major lines of access and escape, and use orbital-seeded deathwinds, vortex detonators and guardian minefields to cut off any other exit.’

  ‘Can you ensure that the encirclement will be complete?’

  ‘If we use the resources of the whole fleet, and a few hundred deathstorm pods I happen to know the Ultramarines possess, supplemented by gunship-dropped motion-activated cluster ordnance, tarantula and rapier batteries. In the lower reaches we can conduct Land Speeder and Thunderhawk interdictions too.’

  ‘We seal the Alma Mons, letting nothing in or out. A sterile battlefield.’

  ‘Yes, my liege. We bring in the two Dreadhammers being carried on the Forgivable Aggression, along with the eighty-four void shells we can muster. The Dreadhammers lead the advance, punching a hole in whatever strongholds we encounter. We then deploy the Caestus assault rams into the breaches.’

  ‘This seems like a lot of work simply to pave the way for an aerial infantry assault.’

  Redloss smiled.

  ‘If the assault rams were carrying legionaries, my liege, I would agree. We can bring together forty-eight Caestus in total, and pack each one with rad-bombs and phosphex shells.’

  ‘You are turning manned missiles back into torpedoes?’

  ‘Piloted bombs, my liege. Not forbidden by Lord Sanguinius’ ruling. We also have enough rad-missiles and promethium to turn three hundred drop pods into guided ordnance.’

  ‘Drop pods must be deployed from orbit, little brother. The Imperator Regis forbade attack from orbit.’

  Redloss looked at his companions and then back to his primarch.

  ‘Most will be servitor-piloted drones. There are several dozen heavily wounded brothers of the Dreadwing that would be happy to give their last effort to the cause in this manner. We can slave the other systems to the legionary-guided craft. To everyone else it will look like an infantry drop, my liege.’ He took a step closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘We won’t tell Guilliman if you won’t, Lord Protector.’

  The Lion considered the proposal in silence for several minutes, his gaze moving from Redloss to the hololith to the other members of the Dreadwing and back to the display.

  ‘Long-term environmental effects?’

  ‘Phosphex and rad-pollution will render central Illyrium completely uninhabitable for about six to eight hundred years.’ Redloss kept his tone impassive, but secretly the thought of rendering such devastation gave him a thrill. ‘If such concerns are a factor, I submit that Holguin and his warriors might be better suited to the task.’

  He thought that he had gone too far at that moment, an instant of flippancy that might be taken as arrogance, assumption even. The Lion’s eyes narrowed and Redloss prepared himself for the inevitable rebuke.

  ‘None of this guarantees the death of Curze,’ said the primarch.

  Redloss deflated, the primarch’s words robbing him of any triumph.

  ‘There are no guarantees, my liege,’ he heard himself say before he could stop.

  The Lion stood up and approached the hololith, oblivious to Farith’s platitudes. Redloss wondered at the thought processes turning his master’s mind at the time. What labyrinthine possibilities did they explore?

  ‘It is a good plan,’ said the Lion, sending a surge of relief and excitement through Redloss. It was almost unnatural how much he delighted in the praise of his primarch even after so many years of service. ‘However, it needs one small adjustment.’

  ‘My liege?’

  ‘It shall be as it was on the Invincible Reason. When you have cleansed the Gatepeak, withdraw and seal the mountain tight.’ The Lion closed a fist, his gaze distant. ‘Then I shall hunt.’

  PENTAE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Taking control

  Caliban

  The Stormbird was swallowed by the cavernous landing bay of the transport, passing into a space designed to accommodate ten such drop-ships. It settled on the decking amidst a last flurry of plasma plumes, bathing plasteel with an azure glow.

  Astelan stepped onto the descending ramp, picking up fresh lubricant and disinfectant through the olfactory sensors of his power armour. Notes of polish and the smallest vestige of human sweat completed the input.

  ‘Someone has been cleaning up for us,’ he said to Galedan. ‘Working hard, by the smell of it.’

  The inner doors clanked open on heavy gears, wide enough to admit ten Space Marines abreast. A phalanx of serfs entered, dressed in grey carapace armour and vambraces over black coveralls, bearing a mixture of lasweaponry and shotguns. They formed up in lines of twenty to one side of the bay, weapons presented as a guard of honour.<
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  ‘You must be Deck-Captain Tagrain,’ Astelan addressed the officer leading the corps of unaugmented troops. The rest of the Stormbird’s complement arrayed themselves to either side of the First Master, fifty Space Marines armed with boltguns and a variety of more specialist weaponry.

  ‘Master Astelan.’ The deck officer snapped a crisp salute and bowed. He gestured towards the inner bay doors. ‘Quarters have been assigned according to the manifest you sent. If your troops would like to follow Deck-Lieutenant Haster, he will show them the way.’

  ‘My warriors are well acquainted with the layout of this vessel, deck-captain.’ Astelan turned to address the Space Marines on his right. ‘Lieutenant-Commander Vael!’

  The officer stepped out of the line and raised a fist to his chest.

  ‘First Master?’

  ‘Take two squads and secure the command bridge of this ship.’

  ‘Master?’ Tagrain looked aghast at the Space Marines that fell in beside Vael. ‘We received no communication of a change of command.’

  ‘You are receiving it now, deck-captain. Inform your crew that if they resist, my warriors have standing orders to eliminate any opposition. Galedan, pass the word to the other gunships, all forces are to secure the transports immediately. No delays.’

  Galedan looked uncomfortable at this development but turned away to comply.

  ‘This is…’ Tagrain’s complaint wilted as Astelan stared down at him through the lenses of his helm.

  ‘Your consent is optional, Tagrain,’ the First Master told him quietly, not without a small measure of sympathy. ‘I would find somewhere else to be busy, if I were you. Dismiss your company before matters escalate.’

  While Tagrain attended to heeding this advice, Galedan stepped close.

  ‘The order has been passed, First Master. All vessels will be seized without delay.’ He paused, weighing his next words. ‘No such command came from Luther, I would know it. Why the change of plan?’

  ‘Sar Luther is a man of honour, Master Galedan,’ Astelan replied. ‘He has values and principles to uphold. Such men can be manipulated, coerced and distracted. Belath will refuse Luther’s offer of alliance. He is also a man of principle, in this case the principle of doing the most idiotic thing at any given occasion. He will order his crews to fight and Luther lacks the stomach for such bloodshed. He would risk the freedom of his world for the lives of a few serfs. While the debate rages, it would take only a short signal from the ground to send the fleet back into the void. I would remove that option from Belath.’

  ‘You ignored the Lion’s orders, so that you could protect civilian lives, which earned us the primarch’s ire in the first place. Why so sanguine about innocent casualties now? You are disobeying Luther to do the opposite. Are we not men of honour and principle too?’

  ‘Not when it is too costly. Sometimes we must do a painful thing, receive a slighter injury, to avoid a greater wound.’

  The deck throbbed with the arrival of more gunships. Astelan turned on his heel and marched back up the ramp of the Stormbird, Galedan striding to keep up.

  ‘We’re not staying?’ said the Chapter Master.

  ‘I have seen the full fleet orders,’ said Astelan. Arriving in the troop bay of the gunship he activated the internal communicator and addressed the pilot. ‘Maythius, rendezvous with Master Awain’s reserve group and direct them to the battle-barge.’

  ‘Affirmative, First Master.’

  ‘What battle-barge?’ Galedan’s confusion brought Astelan a perverse sense of delight. ‘There’s a battle-barge?’

  ‘Sar Luther, for reasons known only to himself, kept its identity a secret. Belath didn’t arrive on a transport, he commanded a warship as escort, which is not unreasonable. A friend in the orbital scanning relays picked up the sensor returns and passed its location to me.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘I have lots of friends.’ Astelan closed the ramp and moved towards the seating bays near the Stormbird’s aft section. ‘My friend also decoded an identifier signal. The ship is the Spear of Truth.’

  ‘Our old ship?’ Galedan shook his head. ‘How did it…?’

  ‘My old command, given to me by the Emperor. The Lion took it from me at Zaramund. The primarch or that halfwit Corswain must have passed it on to Belath. Who can say what that fawning moron did with his own ship.’

  Astelan’s hands formed fists as he sat on the bench.

  ‘Perhaps Luther thought to make it his flagship,’ he continued. He looked at Galedan. ‘I am taking back my ship, old friend. Are you with me?’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Haunted knight

  Ultramar

  The ring of the Lion’s footfalls sounded abnormally loud on the ramp of the Stormbird. The mountain was quiet, the only sound the purr of the gunship’s idling jets and the sighing of the wind over the snowy ground. The storm was strengthening, the snow coming in thicker flurries, stained dirty grey by the ash that fell with it. Overhead the clouds were almost black, underlit by an orange gleam, as though the Alma Mons had become a volcano.

  It was not lava that lit the storm. Burning promethium, phosphex and radiation turned the night into twilight, glowing from the gaping wounds rent into the mountain by the assault of the Dreadwing. Suffused with light from within, the Gatepeak looked like an enormous feast candle, its tip shrouded in a multicoloured fog.

  Looking back, the Lion could see the cordon half a kilometre behind, further down the slope. Redloss stood atop the roof of his Spartan transport, axe held up in salute. More tanks barred the highway descending to the foothills. Patrols of legionaries and Speeders criss-crossed the ravaged wilderness between the armoured sentry points.

  Redloss had gone to great lengths to secure the mountain, and the Lion had even drafted in some of the non-Dreadwing warriors that had been stationed on the border of Illyrium. It made no difference. If Curze wanted to escape, he would find a way. Had not the Night Haunter been able to flee the Invincible Reason though the battle-barge had been locked down, at combat readiness in the vacuum of orbit above Macragge?

  As much as the Lion knew Curze could slip through the net any time he wanted, the Dark Angel also knew that his foe would not. There was a reason the primarch of the First Legion stepped out openly on the main highway, announcing his arrival by Stormbird as though a fanfare had pealed and a thousand Space Marines had hailed his name.

  He wanted Curze to know that he was coming for him.

  Alone.

  Vulnerable.

  At least to Curze’s mind. It was a challenge. A mirror to the invitation Curze had issued, when he had suggested parley at Tsagualsa.

  On that occasion the Lion had allowed a delusion to enter his thinking – that Curze was redeemable. Even with the slaughter of Thramas on the bloody hands of the Night Haunter, the Lion had considered Konrad a wayward brother like Horus. Only when he had looked into the eyes of his foe, their hands around each other’s throats, had he known the depths to which the traitors had been dragged.

  There was no humanity left in Curze, no matter what Sanguinius thought. He was a mad animal, undeserving of anything less than death. His defiance of the Emperor, turning on his own brothers, had been a choice.

  Whatever else had happened to the Night Haunter, he had always made choices. He could have chosen to treat equally with the Lion, to negotiate a settlement to their war to spare the lives of millions.

  He had not, and one thing had been clear from the moment the Lion had looked into his eyes.

  Konrad wants me dead. He has always wanted to kill me, for some perceived slight, or perhaps because though I have seen tragedy and darkness too, I chose to remain loyal. Am I the thing he hates about himself?

  Very well. Meet me, if you dare.

  So declared the Lion as he turned away from his warriors and started to ascend, the broken rubble of the road crunching beneath a layer of thickening snow. It was both simple and complex. Simple, insomuch that the Lion offered hims
elf as bait. Complex, in that Curze would see the trap in moments.

  The question was whether the Night Haunter thought he could kill the Lion.

  He drew his blade, the Lion Sword. It gleamed with pale light, an artefact of Terran ingenuity that could slice through any armour. He had taken it from Redloss when he had confronted Curze in the castrum of Macragge Civitas alongside Guilliman. It seemed fitting to keep the blade until he had finished the job.

  Leaving the cratered remains of the highway, the Lion cut north-east, towards the still-burning ruins of the first Illyrian outpost two kilometres away. The bluish flicker of fire lit the stone palisades and molten remnants of ferrocrete towers. The wind, brisk and gathering strength, brought the acrid taint of phosphex vapours.

  Long strides took the Lion swiftly towards his goal.

  From their encounter on Tsagualsa, the matter was undecided. Much depended on the exact manner, locale and timing of the attack. There was a chance, slim but possible, that the Lion would not see the strike that would slay him. If the conditions were perfect, if he hesitated at the wrong moment, Curze could end the Lion in a heartbeat.

  The Lion was willing to back himself, his ability to sense the attack, to be alert to any danger and react without thought. He was also willing to wager his life on the belief that Curze did not want to kill him quickly. Where was the delight in victory over a foe already dead? Where was justification, vindication, when no one could hear your argument?

  It was this more than his skill that the Lion thought would keep him safe. Curze’s insanity would not let him simply strike and fade away. He had a point to prove.

  It was worth the tiny risk. The point had been made that the better part of three Legions were tied to Macragge while Curze roamed free. To be rid of the Night Haunter would free the Lion to fulfil his role as the Lord Protector – command not just of the Dark Angels, but of all the military forces of the Imperium.

  Sanguinius would be emperor, Guilliman the architect of the new Imperium. The Imperator Regis was welcome to the plaudits and adulation, the burden of responsibility. Guilliman would command an army of bureaucrats, senators and lawmakers. The Lion would be the general of the Imperium’s armed forces, a new… He hesitated to bring the rank to mind, but could not stop himself.