It didn’t matter if I’d made it or not. I shut the warp nodes down, because to do anything else would be to die.
+Mal,+ I sent out into the nothingness. +Mal.+
VI
‘I’ve got you,’ he voxed.
Vision took a few seconds to return, as my eye lenses re-tuned into reality’s spectrum. Malchadiel clutched my forearm, hauling me back onto the deck.
No. It wasn’t Mal. Sothis moved back three steps, pulling me with him, back from the edge. My retinal display was still a mess of hazy silhouettes and scrambled runes, but I could faintly see the daemon’s immense shadow, dark against a greater darkness, and the flashes of repellent energy as my brothers struck at it. It was coming, looming above us. My warp arrival had drawn it upon me, as I’d known it would. It sensed the breach in the universe, a power so similar to its own.
+Sothis.+ I pulsed his name laced with a warning, hard enough to send watery ripples through the iron floor, distending reality in its wake. My brother dragged me another step, still gripping my wrist, and was already turning when the black talons burst through his chest.
Three of them, a trident’s tines, fingernail claws the thickness of a man’s thighs. I heard the worst sound of my life in that moment – the choking gurgle as Sothis vomited blood into his helm. It carried over the vox with hateful clarity.
Both of my boots thudded and locked onto the decking as I rose to my feet. Sothis twisted in the impaling clutch, too defiant to even realise he was dead. He reached for me, voxing sticky, gargling nonsense, as if I could ever pull him from that monstrous claw.
It began to lift him, and he reached for weapons that weren’t in his hands. I was already firing at the daemon over his shoulder. Blood crystals decorated the air in a disgustingly festive spray, spilling from his annihilated body.
Malchadiel screamed across the vox and into my mind, a union of sound and pain, as his twin brother came apart in the daemon’s claws.
I felt Sothis slipping away, and my mind made an instinctive reach, as if I could somehow pull him back into the bond we shared. For the ghost of a moment, I followed him as his thoughts and presence dispersed, feverish in a futile need to reassemble the fragments of his thinning essence.
There was his pain, burning hot enough to bisect me. I felt his regret, his furious shame at dying with his duty unfinished. And I felt, without knowing such a thing was possible, his fear. The natural fear of a fallible, killable creature at last succumbing to death. I couldn’t think less of him for it. No amount of post-human manipulation could change what it meant to be alive, and the gravity of finally surrendering that gift.
At the very last second, I saw a young boy in ragged clothing, his face turned to the polluted sky. With the image came the whispery murmur of half-remembered words.
‘They’ll take us up to the stars,’ the boy said. Tears ran down his dirty face. ‘Won’t they?’
‘Don’t worry, Mal,’ a fading voice replied. ‘It’ll be fine.’
And then it was gone. The image, and the soul fuelling it, vanished. A hole yawned open in my mind, hungry and cold. I’d never realised how much my Castian brothers relied on one another – how we were always present to some degree in each other’s minds. With Sothis’s sudden absence, my senses gave a queasy jolt, seeking something, anything, to bind themselves to.
All of this happened in the time it took me to draw a single breath.
‘Hyperion?’ The inquisitor’s voice was frantic. The strength of my emotion restored our bond. I felt her seep back into my mind as I instinctively reached out, clawing for any familiar soul. ‘What was that? What’s happening?’
+Sothis… Sothis is dead.+
With those words spoken, I never heard her reply. I snapped back into my body with a brutal lurch. Something had kicked me back into my own consciousness. The justicar’s anger licked at the edges of my thoughts.
+Get back in the fight, you useless bastard.+ Galeo’s words were knives of ice. +Or I’ll kill you myself.+
I opened my eyes, without realising they’d been closed, and raised my weapons again.
VII
Malchadiel dealt the final blow.
As executions went, it was an ugly, graceless deliverance. We took the beast to pieces, blending spell and steel, eviscerating it with the edge of blades and the raw contours of killing lightning. Rage loaned strength to weary muscles and ripened our psychic sorcery. Alchemical blood torrented in arcs that wouldn’t freeze. I’d never fought with such disarray before. Each discharge of power was a long exhalation ending in breathlessness, needing a moment of recovery in the dizzying serenity that followed.
The daemon’s greatest mistake was in seeking to eat Sothis’s remains. It opened the way for several heartbeats’ worth of uninterrupted assault, even as the daemon mocked us with laughter. We savaged the thing as it sought to back away, and when the deathblow finally came minutes later, the tide hadn’t once turned back in the beast’s favour.
We stood in the wake of its dissipating corpse, black with unholy blood from boots to silver helms. Silence reached out then: a tainted, pregnant silence between the four of us still standing. No one said a word. There seemed to be nothing to say.
A nudge of concentration killed the power to my stave. In the noiseless chamber, I wondered how loud my swallow translated over the vox.
+Hyperion,+ Galeo sent at last.
Malchadiel came up behind me. I turned just in time for his fist to meet my faceplate.
‘You said you knew its name.’ His hands were at my throat before I’d even righted myself. ‘You said you could banish it. You said you knew its name. What happened? You killed my brother. He died bringing you back.’
Dumenidon dragged him away from me, though he kept thrashing, sending weak waves of exhausted force against me. I shielded myself against them easily enough.
‘I thought I knew its true name. I recognised it from the archives.’
‘A grievous error,’ Dumenidon said quietly.
+He died saving you.+ Mal spat a vicious pulse at me. It cracked against my helm with a bolter shell’s thud. Without thinking, I almost lashed back in kind, but kept my hand clenched, resisting the temptation.
+Enough.+ Galeo’s single word was enough to calm Mal’s hate, and I sensed more than a touch of manipulation in his psychic contact. +Calm, Malchadiel. We will speak of this back aboard the Karabela.+
NINE
AFTERMATH
I
I watched it burn.
The Frostborn bared her belly, rolling in the momentum of her destruction. Our weapon batteries ripped through the defenceless vessel’s armour with ease, but the ship still took a long time to die. With so few of its systems active, there was little combustive effect. And with nothing to explode, our guns had to take the ship apart in a series of patient strafing runs. It took almost an hour, such was the destroyer’s cold tenacity. It didn’t want to die.
I stood in the observatorium along the Karabela’s spine, staring through the dust at the gradual ruination taking place. My brothers lingered below decks, though I wasn’t sure where. That was strange enough – our bond had grown cold since Sothis’s death, and I resisted the urge to reach out to them. All I knew was that they held counsel together. I could feel their closeness as clearly as I could sense my exclusion from it.
So I watched the ship burn alone. The assault was reaching its end when I sensed another presence approaching nearby. The observatorium took the form of a domed chamber, usually shielded by retractable armour plating. Now, its sides and roof were open to the void, the walls bare, transparent plastek. I felt his presence coming from some distance away, and felt no need to turn when his footsteps began to echo across the chamber.
I couldn’t conceive of anyone I’d rather see less.
‘Hyperion,’ he said.
‘What do you want, heretic?’
‘The same thing I always want. Just to talk.’
I looked at him, uncaring
if my face reflected the disgust I felt inside. ‘I can think of no words worth sharing with you, Clovon.’
He inclined his tattooed head, as if I’d scored a victory of sorts. An aquila was inked over the worst of his burn scars, with its black wings spread like a dappled shadow over his face. This close, he smelled of ritual oils, the pistols at his hips, and the inquisitor he served.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ He gestured to the dying Frostborn.
‘In a way.’ Standing this close to him made me want to spit. I could taste the acid on my tongue. ‘Speak, if you wish.’
He chuckled then. ‘How gracious of you.’
My armour was a cracked and discoloured wreck, but I still towered above him. I looked down, letting my irritation show plainly.
‘I am trying to be polite to you,’ I pointed out. ‘You are not making it easy.’
He zipped the front of his beaten leather jacket. ‘It’s cold in here.’
I hadn’t noticed. I rarely noticed the little details like that. ‘What do you want, Clovon? I am in no mood to suffer irritants with any grace.’
‘The mistress is meeting with your brothers. Despite the loss of Sothis, this ranks as a significant achievement for the Inquisition.’
‘I do not see how.’
The heretic held up a hand, a finger rising with each point he made. ‘You obtained evidence of a Navigator possessed by the Archenemy, and that’s a rare thing to see. You recovered a survivor, and we both know that eyewitness accounts are the ordos’ bread and butter. The survivor was also one of the Wolves, which makes him doubly valuable to Inquisitor Jarlsdottyr, doesn’t it? Considering the vessel’s crew was largely purged into the void, even a single living soul is a triumph. You also banished a threat of – to use Annika’s colourful Fenrisian term – “greater maleficarum”.’
I watched the ship crumbling, and said nothing.
‘She said it was a blessing any of you survived.’
‘She sent us into that fight.’
‘That’s probably why she considers it a blessing. She’d never admit to a mistake, of course. You know how she is.’
‘Her decision has its merits, though. If she blames herself for Sothis, she speaks from ignorance. It had nothing to do with her.’
How to explain daemonic choirs to someone so blind to the truths behind the veil?
‘There are degrees of power in the Neverborn, as in mortals. This was a relatively weak fragment, albeit of the greatest choir. With care, we would have lost no one. Like the crew of the Frostborn, we were undone by the enemy’s cunning and our own foolishness, not the foe’s strength.’
‘I see. So you made a mistake. That’s what you’re saying.’
I didn’t like how he was looking at me.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘It happens, Hyperion. It happens across the galaxy, in every walk of life. People make the wrong decisions. They choose poorly.’
‘I am not people. I am a Grey Knight. We are the Imperium’s flawless blade, mankind’s faultless heart. We are the Emperor’s Gift.’ I broke off before it could go any further. ‘Why does she tolerate you, heretic?’
‘A good question.’ His expression twisted the eagle wings across his face. ‘She tolerates me because I am one of her many triumphs. She saved my soul. She redeemed me.’
I shook my head. ‘You whored your soul away to the gods behind the veil. No matter what salvation came later, some sins cannot be forgiven.’
‘That’s your view, Hyperion. Not an inviolate truth.’
‘And there speaks the voice of corruption.’
‘Think of your Inquisition’s pet Adeptus Astartes mongrels – the Exorcists. Their training is spoken of in the ordos’ archives, you know. They’ve housed daemons within their bodies, and endured exorcism under the Inquisition’s watchful eyes. They are forgiven. Why not a human like me? Where does your hypocrisy come from?’
‘They are as corrupt as any other.’
He smiled at that. ‘Such a puritan.’
His mockery curled my fingers. Even the subtle movement of muscles tensing made my armour growl. I doubted he knew how much effort it took not to kill him.
‘Leave.’ I breathed the word.
He refused. That was a surprise in itself – he’d always seemed so meek. Perhaps his past distance was a form of respect, rather than evidence of fear. I’d need to muse on that.
‘Will you tell me what happened?’ he asked.
The laugh I forced was bitter even to my ears. ‘There is little to say. Mistakes were made. My brother died because of them.’
‘Will you tell me what happened?’ he asked again.
What was there to lose? He had Annika’s clearance, anyway. So I told him. I relayed every detail from the moment we boarded the Frostborn to the moment we left again, with Sothis’s remains in the troop bay of our gunship.
Clovon said nothing at first. He watched the destroyer coming apart among the dusty stars. After a time, he finally spoke.
‘It was unwise to attack the creature from above without securing yourself as Malchadiel did. You know that. But Sothis chose to risk helping you back aboard.’ Clovon drew one of the throwing knives from the baldric over his chest, and proceeded to clean his nails with the tip. That was his judgement, delivered as casually as anything else in life.
‘That is your appraisal? That’s all?’
Clovon nodded. ‘Sothis is dead because he chose to help you. You were half-blinded by retinal re-tuning. He was not. He knew what was happening, and still risked bringing you back.’
‘I…’
I hesitated, unsure of what to say. My thoughts turned thick and slow.
‘He didn’t just risk his life for you, Hyperion. He gave it. Willingly.’
It didn’t matter. Throne, the only thing worse than Clovon’s presence was actually speaking to him. ‘I have no wish to discuss this further. And it is still a mystery to me why the inquisitor keeps you at her heels.’
He sheathed the knife and offered a polite bow. ‘I was only a minor recidivist, in truth. But my mistress is a firm believer in redemption. Mistakes will always be made. What matters is how we deal with them, and what we can bring forth from their aftermath.’
I looked at him for several moments. ‘Subtle.’
Clovon merely grinned, and the aquila tattooed across his face spread its wings.
II
Soon enough, I stood before my brothers. Annika had refused to leave, and the five of us met in the war room, around the central table. Sothis’s meagre remains were in the care of the Palladium Kataphrakt, sealed in cryo-storage.
The inquisitor greeted me with a weak smile. Dumenidon inclined his head. Galeo and Malchadiel stared at me; the former without expression, the latter with dull fire in his eyes. Anger’s embers had become an unclean resentment. I hardly blamed him. Their thoughts were unreadable, shielded behind iron resolves. With time, I suspected I could force my way into their minds, though I wondered where that temptation had even come from.
Cut off from our familiar psychic union, it was all I could do not to shiver. They looked almost like strangers to me, with something missing – the way a blind man would have to guess his friends’ positions, expressions and emotions by the sound of their voices.
‘I was summoned,’ I said.
+You have failed Castian,+ Galeo said. +From the moment we boarded the wreck, you were too headstrong, too incautious, and too overconfident. This is not the first operation flawed by your arrogance, Hyperion. You stand on the edge of censure. I cannot tolerate a warrior who will not obey orders.+
I said nothing, for there was nothing to say. Dumenidon spoke next, his sterner features set closer to resignation than anything else.
‘You are the most gifted of us in some ways,’ he said, ‘and also the least capable of controlling the power. Together, we are Castian. United, we are Grey Knights. Divided, we are little more than men, Hyperion. We bleed, we fall, we die. We’ve
all seen this within you for months now – you fight for yourself, defending yourself rather than the brother at your back. It is not simple selfishness. Selfishness could be easily punished.’
He sighed, and for the first time I truly felt the depth of his disappointment. My failure was a pain to him. I knew it, for he allowed me to sense it. Dumenidon at least lowered the resistance to our empathic bond. I felt his reassuring presence return the way a shivering man feels the touch of sunlight. But he wasn’t finished.
‘It is worse,’ he continued, ‘because ignorance fuels your actions. You should know better, yet you do not. You have been trained to blend with us, yet you fail to do so. In all the millennia of Castian’s history, you are the only one not to have bonded with his brothers. When you manage to focus, you are a powerful force in the Aegis. But more often, you hinder us. We defend you when you act alone, and we struggle to align our powers when yours flare up with instability.’
My blood ran cold. ‘You cannot excommunicate me from Castian,’ I said, hating the tremor in my voice.
‘Can’t we?’ Malchadiel grunted.
+We could,+ Galeo sent.
‘But we will not.’ Dumenidon spared a glance at the others. ‘We have spoken of this.’
Galeo nodded. +You carry one of the few remaining artefacts from Castian’s founding. Perhaps the most precious. It is time to prove you deserve that stave, Hyperion. Heed my orders. Fight with your brothers, joining your movements to theirs. Lone wolves die alone, brother. The pack is a hunter’s strength.+
Galeo opened to me again, just as Dumenidon had done moments before. To feel the background sense of his mind linked to mine was blessed relief, even as it made me more keenly aware of Sothis’s absence.
He shook his head as he responded to my thoughts. +We do not blame you for Sothis,+ he sent. +Purge the guilt from your heart. We were with you, even if you could scarcely feel us. We know you were blinded by retinal realignment. The grudge Castian brings against you is for the mistakes you made in those hours, Hyperion. Not for Sothis’s choice to tempt death by saving your life. The daemon was coming for you with all fury, and you were next to helpless. Our fallen brother knew what he was risking, and he was almost fast enough.+
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