by John French
The ragged figure took its hand from Glavius-4-Rho’s skull. For a second the magos stood, swaying before the altar of his Machine God. Then he folded to the floor and did not rise.
Josef raised his head as the response to Vult’s words faded from the air. The daemonhunter lord stood atop the pillar at the end of the long chamber. At the base of the pillar, two Dominions of the Order of the Bloody Rose stood at attention, their eyes fixed on the distance. The devices covering their ears and circling the back of their heads looked like the jaws of huge metal pincers. Along the tiered benches eyes turned, and silence settled. Josef shifted as Vult moved his gaze slowly over the assembly.
The inquisitors sat on the highest tiers, the bound servants they had brought with them on the benches in front of them. Josef had noted Talicto’s position, and that the benches in front of him were bare. He had come to this gathering alone.
‘Arrogant old snake, aren’t you?’ Josef muttered under his breath as he watched the bald inquisitor shift the black stole that lay on his cloak.
Josef fought the instinct to scratch the skin under his chin. He was sweating, he knew. Just like he did before a breaching charge blew through a bulkhead, or when he felt the thump of boarding torpedoes ripping into a ship’s hull. He sniffed, shifted his weight and tried not to think about the moisture pricking his skin. Behind him he heard Covenant’s sensor pod whir as it focused.
Vult bowed his head for a second as though in silent prayer.
None of the twenty seated inquisitors spoke. Technically they were equals, peers beneath the authority of the Emperor, but that did not mean there were not traditions of respect and precedence that striated their ranks, just as experience lent a veteran soldier the right to speak before his greener squad mates. Even amongst equals there were always some who were more equal than others.
‘We are flesh and soul united in one purpose,’ said Vult. He looked up. ‘We are bound together not by oaths to each other, but by our duty. That duty, here and now, in this place and at this hour is the same.’ He paused, and gestured. A pair of cyber-crows flapped silently from the shadows behind him and began to wheel in a gyre above him. Cones of hololithic light unfolded from their crystal eyes. An image formed in the cylinder of air between them, flickering with the beat of their wings.
Sweeps of nebula and glimmering drifts of stars formed. Glowing runes and markers snapped into being, burning cyan and orange amongst the monochrome slice of the heavens. None of those present needed any explanation of what they were seeing. It was the Caradryad Sector. One of the motes of light was the planet on which they now sat.
‘The precipice of annihilation,’ said Vult, his own eyes fixed on the turning image. ‘Any of us who ever spared a thought to the portents of recent ages knew it would come. And here it is. And here we stand at its edge.’
A red line of light burned across the cylinder of stars, weaving as it marked the void like a brush stroke made by a dying hand. Crimson runes spread from its path, dotting the star-filled volumes. Josef’s eyes traced the flow of data as the image turned. Rendered in light and symbols it looked almost mundane, an abstract sculpture in colour and shadow. He shivered.
The Caradryad Warp Fault, a wound in reality stretching across vast distances of space, grinning wider and wider as time passed, daemonic energy and madness spilling from it to stain the void and swallow worlds. As he watched, three swirls of red bloomed into being beside the fault line, blood boils gleaming on a crooked smile. Each of them was a warp storm. Wrath, Vengeance and Justice: three churning masses of psychic energy straddling the physical realm and the realm beyond.
‘How many worlds fallen?’ said Vult. ‘How many are now nests for the neverborn? How many will fall to madness even while we sit here?’ He let the words hang, and turned his masked and hooded head to meet the eyes that watched him. ‘Too many,’ he said softly. ‘Too many. You know this. You have all seen this. You have heard systems screaming under the daemon’s lash, and seen the taint spread on worlds where the Storms of Judgement stain the night sky. War is here, a war that we must win. Admirals and generals and commanders of warriors gather on this world, but as vital as they are, make no mistake – we decide the future of this war. Here and now, we are the judges of fate, and if we fail, if we allow our weaknesses to blind us to what must be done… then we are not worthy of the power we wield.’
Josef swallowed and found that his throat was dry. A cold shiver ran over his skin. He glanced up to the ledge high above the assembly. He could feel the beat of his heart rising. Vult was stepping backwards on the platform, his heavy tread echoing on the stone pillar top. Quadin was rising from her seat, mouth opening to speak to the assembly.
‘We cannot win a war if our strength is a lie.’ Covenant’s voice rang clear in the air. Josef closed his eyes for a second. His muscles were cold with adrenaline. Faces were turning, voices rising like the first rumblings of a storm. He turned and looked behind him.
Covenant stood, his face hard, his eyes fixed on Vult. On his shoulder the sensor pod sat still. Vult shifted, but it was Quadin that spoke first, her lips curling, eyes flashing in her wide face.
‘You dare…’ she began.
‘Chaos is here,’ said Covenant. ‘It is walking amongst us.’
Josef looked to where Idris sat. She was very still, eyes closed, the fingers of her left hand resting on her forehead. The growl of whispers ebbed, pulling back to silence like the sea before a storm wave crashed down.
‘It is here, and while it is here it will undo everything we do. It is the disease within that will rot our bones even as we walk to battle.’
Uproar. Voices called out; shouts split the air; inquisitors rose to their feet.
‘…insult…’
‘Baseless…’
‘…poisonous cur…’
Snatches of shouted phrases crackled in Josef’s ears as his bionic implants dimmed the squall of noise. Covenant had not moved, his face and gaze still set with cold indifference. Josef glanced over the tiered seats. Angry faces and hard eyes looked back, but not all of the inquisitors had stood; Idris sat where she was, eyes still closed. Others too remained still, eyes fixed on Covenant or Vult, waiting, calculating. He looked at where Talicto sat alone. He had put away his bone rosary and was spinning a silver coin across the knuckles of his other hand. Josef thought he saw a smile twitch at the edge of Talicto’s lips, and something in that simple gesture sent ice coiling through his guts.
He knew, thought Josef. He knew that this was going to happen.
They had been following the path of Talicto’s corruption for three years. Tracking down the warp-tainted by-blows of his experimentation, hunting and purging the heretical cults he had created or manipulated in his quest for power. In all that time they had never confronted the inquisitor directly, and had even considered that he had not realised they were following in his wake. Seeing the smile on Talicto’s lips, Josef saw that their quarry had known, and known that this confrontation would happen here and now. More than all of the witch-breeds, daemon-touched and abominations that they had unearthed and slain on the path to this moment, that smile was the most terrifying thing Josef had seen.
‘You are Covenant.’ Vult’s voice cut through the clamour. Those who had stood turned to look at the daemonhunter lord. Angry voices fell quiet. ‘I knew your master while he lived, and have heard of your deeds.’ Vult and Covenant’s gazes were locked together. ‘You bring dark words and heavy accusation to this gathering.’
‘I bring the truth,’ said Covenant.
The growl of the assembly began to rise, but Vult held up a hand and the murmur died.
‘Then speak it,’ said Vult.
Covenant inclined his head slightly to Vult. Across the aisle Idris opened her eyes and looked up. Covenant glanced from Vult to Talicto.
‘Goldoran Talicto, in this place and witnessed by those
assembled I call thee Diabolus, and say that you have consorted with the powers of the warp, have brought into being abominations, and have fostered corruption within the body of humanity. For these crimes against your duty, I say that you are not of this order, but are its most vile enemy. I say this and call you to be judged, and being judged be punished without limit or mercy.’
The formal words of denouncement rang in the silence. Talicto looked up, his smile still on his face, and gazed unconcernedly across the faces turned towards him.
‘Powerful words. Fine words, even,’ he said, voice rolling with assurance. ‘But you seem to be alone, and there are vital matters to discuss and little time to do so. I am sure we can all agree on that.’ Talicto looked up at Vult, and then around at the assembly. ‘Shall we proceed, and put this misunderstanding, no doubt well intentioned, aside?’
Idris stood. Eyes turned to her, and for a second Josef could almost feel the surprise ripple through the air.
‘I stand with Covenant. The charges he makes must be heard. Judgement must be passed.’
Vult was a still statue on the pillar above the gathering. Talicto glanced at Idris, then shrugged.
‘So be it,’ said Talicto.
And sirens began to scream.
Four
The Dionysia’s bridge hummed with whispers and the low click of machines. Viola von Castellan’s eyes swept down the length of the long chamber as she entered. Seen from above, the bridge was a long wedge, tapering from where it met the ship’s aft castle to a point that jutted out above the bulk of its hull. Panes of crystal ran down its walls and across its ceiling, allowing the light of the stars and the dark of the void to blend with the glow of instrument panels and the flash of data readouts. Concentric rings of trenches cut into the deck, their sides lined with machines and consoles. Servitors sat before each console, bound to their station by cables and wires linked to skull sockets. Deck officers in the red and blue of the dynasty moved along the bottom of each trench circuit. At the centre of the bridge sat the command dais. Pict screens hung above it on mechanical arms. Trumpet-tipped tubes of brass ringed it like a fence. A throne of tarnished silver sat on the dais, upholstered in crimson velvet. Banners bearing the red falcon crest of the von Castellans hung behind it in a curtain of tattered silk.
The officers paused in their duties, and came to attention as Viola and her brother strode towards the command dais. Viola could read the tension in the movement. She caught the eye of Ghast, and the old void mistress gave a tiny nod, the cogs of Ghast’s neck brace whirring. The gesture said everything that Viola needed to know. Everything was as it needed to be, but finely balanced.
Cleander grinned as he took the steps up to the command dais. Viola held back, close to the pillar of screens that rose from the deck by the secondary watch station, eyes moving between data displays and the faces of the crew.
‘I hope I am not too late,’ said Cleander. The officers laughed, the sound lifting past the low drone of the servitors. He stepped up, glanced at the silver command throne, and gave it a casual slap with his hand. ‘Really must get rid of this eyesore, thing only gets in the way.’ Another rumble of laughter rose from the officers, lower than before, comfortable. Cleander had been saying that the throne should be removed ever since he had first walked onto the bridge decades before. It would never go, though. It – like the wry jokes, easy grin and the fact that he never sat in the chair – served a purpose.
‘Mistress Ghast,’ called Cleander, as he pulled one of the rig-mounted pict screens down to level with his face. ‘Light the shields and run out the guns.’
‘Sir,’ said the void mistress, and the order rippled out. Activity buzzed down the trenches. Cleander was still grinning.
‘And gunship location and status to my station too, if you please. Rather excessive, all this, but then what is the point of being a wolf if we don’t show our teeth? Isn’t that right, Mistress Ghast?’
Ghast grinned, her machine jaw clacking.
‘Sir!’
Viola saw the crew were grinning too. Just like that, they had gone from worry to smiling confidence.
She looked back to the data flicking across the screens in front of her, and tugged a roll of parchment as it spooled through the auto-quills. The second wave of gunships was loaded. Obedience in the gun deck loader-gangs was acceptable. The discipline sweep through the lower decks had completed on schedule. Enginseers Ka-Gamma and Ka-Kappa had managed to repair the power conduits to the forward dorsal batteries. Signals from the gathering fleets were within the expected pattern. Her mind parsed these and a dozen more details of the ship and mission operations as she glanced at the screens and parchments. Her left eye flickered for a second as it performed a pattern match and scan. Everything was as it should be. She knew it would be, but she still had to check.
She did not like being removed from information, and the tension only made that discomfort worse. So she had been checking every detail and information feed for the last ten hours. She was not ashamed of it; everyone had a way of dealing with uncertainty. Cleander drank, Severita prayed, Josef cleaned weapons in the armoury, and she drowned herself in information. It was a consequence of the conditioning, she knew. The patterns of logic and recall forced onto her mind when she was a child were useful for running a trade dynasty, and had been more so in serving Covenant. But that teaching had left a mark, just as the expectations of their parents had marked her brother.
‘Gunships are skimming the cyclone,’ called an officer. ‘Thirty-three minutes until the eye of the storm is over the Reliquary Tower.’
‘Drop us down to the edge of the atmosphere,’ said Cleander from the command dais. ‘Auspex and targeting systems active. I want to see as much as we can through the storm, and if another ship so much as flinches towards us, I want a firing solution.’
‘Sir, we are being challenged by fleet elements in close orbit,’ called the signals officer.
‘Transmit our cyphers of authority, and ask them in the name of our Inquisitorial lord and master to mind their own business.’
Viola was about to look away from monitor consoles when one of the autoquill arms began to dance and parchment spewed onto the deck. She grabbed it, reading it in a blink.
‘Brother,’ she called. Cleander turned, a frown creasing his brow above his smile. A second later the strategium and signal officers began to shout too. ‘A signal from the surface has got through the storm. It is saying the Reliquary Tower is under attack.’
‘Sir, we have system monitors closing, both are signalling challenges.’
‘Re-transmit our clearance,’ he said calmly. ‘Tell them to back off.’
‘There is another ship closing on our position from the far side of the planet, engines burning hard.’
‘Identify,’ said Cleander.
‘It’s a frigate,’ said Viola, reading the flow faster than the sensor officer could relay it from the readouts. ‘Falchion class. It’s transmitting full Inquisitorial clearance. Weapon systems are locked on us.’
Cleander’s smile did not waver as he cursed.
The siren filled the assembly chamber. Severita was already rising to a firing position, the boltgun in her hands. Far beneath her the assembly was a frozen tableau of inquisitors and acolytes caught in expressions of shock. Her eyes found Talicto. Her finger tensed on the bolter’s trigger.
This was not what had been planned; she was here to enact execution at Covenant’s word, once the assembly had condemned Talicto. Her shot should have taken him like the touch of divine wrath. But she was also there to ensure that he did not escape, that if the conclave ignored Covenant’s accusation, Talicto would still die for his sins. That act, made in defiance of the other inquisitors in the chamber below, might mean her death, but Covenant had commanded, and it was her penance to obey.
Talicto was still seated, his face calm as his peers bega
n to rise and shouts echoed against the blare of the sirens.
‘May the Emperor have mercy on your soul,’ breathed Severita, and squeezed the trigger.
The wind was a threshing wall of force battering against Koleg. The dust was so thick that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Zeroes flashed across the inside of his visor. He keyed the detonator. Fire roared through the murk, backlighting the swirling dust in rolling flashes of white. The landing pad shook and shook as a glowing column of flame rose through the shredding wind.
Koleg waited for a second, then kicked the loading hatch open beneath him. Light flashed high above. He looked up. White fire stuttered behind the clouds hiding the tower.
‘What…’ he began. Then another flash, then another, and the crack of explosions shuddering against the roar of the wind. The light curdled to orange, fire streaming into the gale. He blinked, knowing what he was seeing, but struggling to process it. Something had just blown holes through the tower’s walls. That should not have been possible. Shielded and guarded, it would have taken ship-killing weaponry to do that. In the dust storm such weapons would not be able to find their targets, let alone hit true.
Unless the shields were down… Unless the explosions had come from inside the tower…
Another explosion flashed above him, a tattered rose of wind-ripped fire.
He paused, considered his possible actions. Then he nodded once to himself, and dropped into the space beneath. There was a plan, and a quarry still to bring down, and in the focused pathways of his mind that was all that mattered.
Enna saw the muzzle flash high above her and was moving before the sound reached her ears. Shock kicked through her. Then the panic response found the pathways that had been spliced into her nerves, and fire ignited in her veins. Glands grafted in her chest dumped a cocktail of drugs into her blood. Time slowed and rippled like water, blurring at the edges as nanoseconds unfolded to aeons.