But then there were those last words Bisset had shouted to him: Bring back help . The terrors before him were that help. So after they told him who they were, which did his confidence no good at all, and they asked him who he was and what he was doing here, he spoke about Aighe Mortis. But though they listened, the detail they jumped on was the date of his departure from Antagonis.
‘There was no plague when you left?’ Inquisitor Lettinger asked sharply.
‘Plague?’ Tennesyn asked. ‘No, there was nothing wrong at all.’
The trio exchanged a look.
‘Incubation stage?’ Vritras asked.
Setheno stepped forward and took Tennesyn’s chin in one armoured hand. She tilted his head up to face hers. He stared into golden eyes that reduced him to his itemised component parts. ‘I don’t think so,’ Setheno said. ‘His return would make no sense.’ She pulled the chain around his neck, drawing out his aquila. ‘Then there’s this.’
‘Congratulations, Scholar Tennesyn,’ Vritras said, and there was a welcome shade of humour in his tone. ‘You have just avoided execution.’
Setheno released him, and Tennesyn tried to swallow. He found that he couldn’t. ‘Will you please tell me what has happened here?’ he asked. ‘Everything was going so well just before I left, and the cardinal was pleased. I can’t believe–’
‘Cardinal?’ Setheno said.
Tennesyn nodded. ‘Cardinal Nessun,’ he said, and the temperature in the room plunged ten degrees. ‘Why?’ he croaked. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Excommunicate Traitoris,’ Lettinger hissed.
‘No…’
‘What were your dealings with him?’ Setheno said. Her voice was quiet, but its steel almost deafened Tennesyn. ‘Leave nothing out.’
‘He was financing my dig,’ Tennesyn began, and felt the immensity of war wrap its fist around him.
The word ran through the Immolation Maw . There was rebellion on Aighe Mortis. The scope and nature of the revolt was not known, nor was it clear whether the Imperial Guard would be able to suppress it. But the possibility of full-company deployment was enticing. It was the chance to cleanse the war spirit of the filth of Antagonis. Honourable retreat or pyrrhic victory, the engagement on that planet was something to recover from, and the way to recovery was through the flesh of the Emperor’s foes. There was also another point of honour involving Aighe Mortis: the Black Dragons had recruited there in the past.
But the Maw remained in orbit over Antagonis.
Toharan found Symael of Squad Jormund in the armoury, cleaning and oiling his weapons. Symael didn’t have Toharan’s fair skin and blond hair, but his bald head was smooth, free of crests or horns. ‘What do you hear, brother?’ Toharan hailed him. He went to work on his own bolter.
‘Nothing but rumour, brother-sergeant.’
‘I want to ask you something. It’s of a personal nature, so if I overstep my bounds, tell me so, with blows if necessary.’
Symael laughed. ‘Are you going to ask if I have greenskins in my genetic ancestry?’
‘I plan to, but not today.’
‘Then I can’t see how else you might give offence.’
‘When our Chaplain commands us to bless the curse,’ Toharan said slowly, ‘how do you respond?’
‘You aren’t asking if I echo the creed at the appropriate moments, are you?’
‘No.’
Symael toyed with his trigger assembly. ‘Truth be told, it’s sometimes hard not to feel a bit…’
‘Resentful?’ Toharan suggested.
Symael gave him a long, considered, guarded look. Then he nodded. The gesture was almost imperceptible.
‘Excluded?’ Toharan said.
The nod became emphatic. Ecstatic relief flooded Symael’s face, as if he were giving in to an emotion repressed and disavowed for centuries. ‘Yes, by the Throne, I damn well do. Am I any the less a Black Dragon because my bones are all inside my skin? I would kill anyone who dares aver I am.’
‘Well said, brother. Well said.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I have been wrestling with the question of purity. It has been put to me that seeing the greatest purity in the greatest distortion is, perhaps, unsound.’
‘Do you think it is?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and he spoke from his soul. ‘I don’t know. I do know this, though, there is no such reasoning anywhere in the Codex Astartes.’
‘We are hardly a Codex Chapter,’ Symael pointed out.
‘No, we aren’t. That has certainly been beneficial, hasn’t it?’
Symael didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They had all experienced the suspicion of the more orthodox Chapters, suspicion that, in some cases, extended as far as a categorical refusal to fight at their side. Symael reloaded and mag-locked his bolter, then turned to go. He paused before he left. ‘I think we should talk about this further, brother-sergeant,’ he said.
‘Yes, we should.’
‘There is,’ Symael said, ‘another warrior who would, I think, be interested in taking part in that conversation.’
‘He would be welcome.’
Nithigg was in the librarium. He had a favourite lectern. It was on the second level, facing the balcony, overlooking the marching stacks of manuscripts below. He had his nose buried in a massive folio, though he had to keep a certain distance from the tome: adamantium-tipped horns jutted from both temples and the centre of his forehead, and he had to be careful not to gouge the precious manuscript. All of Nithigg’s non-combat movements had to be cautious. His blades didn’t retract, and extended downward from his forearms like scimitars. Volos peered over his shoulder. ‘History?’ he asked, keeping his voice down.
Nithigg nodded. ‘A chronicle of the Year of Ghosts.’ He looked up. ‘I see Epistolary Rothnove still hasn’t granted my requests for tighter security at the entrance.’
‘He won’t. He’s hoping I’ll acquire some knowledge through osmosis.’ An old joke. He spent almost as much time here as Nithigg.
Nithigg closed the book. ‘Something?’ he asked.
Volos nodded. ‘Our captain asked me to be first-sergeant.’
‘And you refused.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s hard to leave the Claws, isn’t it?’
‘You say that as if I will.’
‘I think you might.’
Volos shook his head. ‘I refused, remember?’
‘So you did. The choice might not always be yours to make.’
‘It has been yours.’
‘Ah,’ Nithigg said. ‘What you really wanted to talk about.’
‘Yes.’ Nithigg was the unofficial, self-appointed, universally accepted historian of Second Company. He had good claim to the title, not just because of his meticulous research, but because of his age. He was the oldest Dragon Claw, and the oldest veteran in the company. He kept his exact age to himself, though Volos suspected he was at least a thousand years old. Why he had not been elevated to First Company was a mystery to Volos. The honour markings on his armour were beyond counting, as were the scars on his face. There were times when his personal memory seemed even greater, and to reach back further, than the Chapter’s institutional one, and though Nithigg had frequently acted in the training and mentoring capacity of a sergeant, he had never officially been given the rank.
Nithigg reached up to place a hand on Volos’s shoulder. ‘Brother, I am still where I am not because I choose to be, though I do. I am here because this is where I can best serve the Emperor.’
‘So am I.’
Nithigg shook his head. ‘You don’t know that. We don’t get to decide. It takes someone who is not yourself to see your essence clearly. I stay because it has been recognised that I have no leadership skills to speak of, though I am apparently very good for morale. When the final decision about you, whatever it is, comes down from whoever has authority over your fate, please have the good grace to accept it.’
Volos sighed. ‘All
right.’ When Nithigg clapped him on the pauldron, Volos said, ‘I also wanted to talk about one of our guests.’
‘That worm is an insult to–’
‘Not Lettinger.’
‘I see.’ Nithigg lowered his voice. ‘I wonder about her, too. I spoke to Epistolary Rothnove.’
‘Is she a psyker?’
‘He’s not sure. Neither he nor the Chaplain quite knows what to make of her. They agree that she is powerful.’
‘Do they think she’s a threat?’
‘They didn’t take me that far into their confidence.’
Volos grimaced. ‘So we’re no further along.’
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ Nithigg said. ‘I think she’s dangerous, and so is the inquisitor.’
‘You just called him a worm.’
‘And we just fought one.’ While Volos digested that, Nithigg added, ‘I don’t think they represent the same danger, though.’
‘Is that all the wisdom you have to offer me, oh Ancient of Days?’
Nithigg grinned. ‘All that you can take in, whelp.’
They left it there, and as Volos exited the librarium, he almost collided with Lettinger on his way in. Of course he did. The fates had so decreed.
It was the first time Volos had been brought into direct contact with the inquisitor. He looked down at the man, and though his face was shadowed, Volos could read it easily. Before him was a man determined to destroy his Chapter. Volos had expected to feel rage. Instead, he felt contempt, and something that came very close to pity. ‘Your pardon, inquisitor,’ Volos said, and stepped aside for him to pass.
Lettinger didn’t go in right away. ‘Sergeant,’ he said, ‘do you make much use of this resource?’ His gesture took in the librarium.
‘We all do.’
‘And do you admit that some knowledge is inherently dangerous?’
Volos saw the trap open before him, and knew he would spring it no matter what he answered. The beauty of a certain form of Inquisition logic was that it could not fail to reach its desired conclusion. If Volos said ‘yes,’ then he would be confronted with some unpardonably risky sin on the part of the Dragons. If he said ‘no,’ he would be branded a heretic. His contempt for Lettinger ratcheted up another notch, and he spoke the truth. ‘I admit that there are many instances of powerful knowledge being misused.’ Lettinger would damn him for saying that, too, but he was being true to himself, and to the doctrine of the Chapter. Speech was a form of action, and should be no less pure than the most lethal blade thrust.
‘That is a potentially catastrophic equivocation,’ Lettinger said.
Volos shrugged. ‘It’s the truth.’
‘Then it’s a truth that could be fatal to the Black Dragons, and thus prove my point. Can’t you see what your Chapter is doing to itself? Don’t you see how the process that created you is corrupt?’
‘It gave me the tools to do the Emperor’s work. I don’t see that as corrupt. And we are hardly the only Chapter to encourage mutation. Why aren’t you bothering the Space Wolves?’
‘You are not the only Chapter under suspicion, so do not pride yourselves on your uniqueness. But no other Chapter goes so far in encouraging mutation, and does so at such a fundamental genetic level.’
‘Why are we having this conversation?’ Volos said. ‘Are you trying to convert me or threaten me, inquisitor?’
‘Perhaps warn you. I would be sad if not a one of you sought salvation before the end.’
‘I will not seek it from you,’ Volos said, very quietly.
‘And what will you do, when you and your Chapter are condemned?’
‘What my brothers and I have always done. Fight and destroy the enemies of the Imperium. And we will not stop because of one man.’
‘You would fight me? And would you fight the Ordo Malleus?’
Another trap, an even worse one. The idea of coming to blows with another Imperial brotherhood, one just as loyal to the Emperor, was horrific. Volos wouldn’t grant that as a possibility. And he was tired of playing Lettinger’s game. He didn’t answer. He walked away.
The summons came, and Toharan surprised himself by discovering that he had expected it. That made nothing better. It simply told him that he knew his own worth. He made his way from his meditation cell to the captain’s quarters. He knew what was about to happen, and he tried to understand why he felt nothing but resentment.
He still had no answer when he knocked on Vritras’s door and stepped inside. The captain’s quarters were just as spare as those of any other Black Dragon, and were only a bit larger to make room for a table covered with maps and parchments of jottings which half-concealed three data-slates. Vritras returned his salute. The two Space Marines faced each other in full armour and under total military formality. This was no casual discussion at the training cages. Vritras’s first words were just as formal. ‘Brother-Sergeant Toharan, it is my privilege and honour to offer you the position of first-sergeant.’
It is my duty and my honour to accept. That was what Toharan was supposed to say. That was the protocol. Instead, he said, ‘Am I the first you have spoken to?’
To his credit, Vritras didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even blink. ‘You are not.’
‘You spoke to Volos.’
‘That’s right.’ Again, no reaction from Vritras.
Toharan said nothing. The seconds slipped by, one after another, and he didn’t know why he didn’t speak. Perhaps because he still hadn’t found the answer to why he felt as he did.
Vritras spoke first. ‘You believe you should have been my initial choice,’ he said. He did not sound angry.
‘I do,’ Toharan said, and it was the truth, a simple one, and not spoken out of arrogance or pride. He did not resent Volos. They had a comradeship forged by decades of battle together. That was not broken easily, and he didn’t believe it was broken now. He was just acknowledging truth, which was the duty of any Space Marine. He was better suited for the position. He knew that Vritras was about to ask him why, and he was asking himself the same thing, and he didn’t have the answer yet, but it was coming, bearing down on him with the force of destiny.
‘You can’t deny that Volos acquitted himself spectacularly on Antagonis,’ Vritras said.
‘I don’t. Nor would I ever. He has always been the most perfect of warriors, one I am proud to call my brother.’
‘So why should I have come to you first?’
‘Volos refused you. I will not. Therefore, Volos isn’t suited to the demands that lie ahead as your first-sergeant. I am.’
‘Why?’
There was the question. The answer came with a burst of insight so powerful it almost staggered Toharan. ‘Because I have a vision for our Chapter. I have duties to perform that extend far beyond winning the next battle.’ The truths, each more simple and pure than the last, kept thundering in on him, and his hearts expanded with hope and joy. And hunger. Everything he had been feeling, all the disturbing questions and the memories that would not leave him alone, fell into place. He understood. The pressure in his chest lifted, and he could breathe in a way that he hadn’t in days.
Vritras said, ‘Then I thank you for performing them as the first-sergeant of Squad Nychus, Black Dragons Second Company. Fire and bone.’ He crossed both arms in front of his chest and banged armour against armour.
Toharan returned the salute. ‘Fire and bone,’ he repeated, and began not a duty, but a mission. A sacred one.
He would save the Black Dragons from themselves.
CHAPTER 9
TRACES OF EPIPHANY
There were times, after battle, or during long sessions in the librarium, that Volos and Nithigg tried to untangle the web of fate that bound the Black Dragons and the Swords of Epiphany. Over the course of five millennia, they had met and clashed again and again. The black and the gold, the Emperor’s night and the Archenemy’s light, found and tore into each other with a regularity that smacked of destiny. ‘Do you realise,’ Nithigg had p
ointed out on one occasion, ‘that we know more about the Swords’ history than we do of our own?’ Volos had appreciated the irony, though the situation was not surprising. The early days of the Dragons were shrouded in the murk and confusion that attended anything to do with the 21st Founding. The Swords, by contrast, were evangelists. They had lessons to teach, and one of those was the story of their origins, which they spread through every system they attacked. As to why the Dragons and the Swords were doomed to wade in each other’s blood, Nithigg had ideas. Both forces were the product of secretive experiments. ‘We are their opposite number,’ he theorised. ‘We are Nemesis. We must fight until we have annihilated them down to the last memory of their existence.’
The Swords had been active on Antagonis. There was something on the planet that the traitor cardinal had desired. When the augurs revealed that Tennesyn’s dig site still existed, the Dragons’ course became clear. A team must return to the blasted world, and pry Nessun’s secret from its corpse.
And so the Battle Pyre touched down on the tortured surface of Antagonis. The Thunderhawk’s door slid open. Tennesyn lowered himself to the ground and consulted the auspex readings. Lettinger and Setheno walked behind him, with Volos following as escort. ‘This is remarkable,’ Tennesyn said, his voice tinny through his rebreather. The planet’s atmosphere was a toxic shadow of its former self after the fires of the torpedoes. ‘The topography of the entire continent has changed, the tectonic plates have moved hundreds and hundreds of kilometres, and yet the latitude and longitude of the site haven’t changed at all.’ His smile was childlike in its joy in discovery. ‘It’s as if the planet flowed around the structure like a river around stones. Can you imagine how deep the roots of this thing must be? They must be impossible. They must be anchored in the core itself!’
Tennesyn was right, Volos thought. There was something impossible about the place. After the devastation of the cyclonic torpedoes, it shouldn’t be here at all, much less be recognisable, and never mind intact. But there it was, uninterested in the changes of mere rock around it. ‘What is it?’ Volos asked. ‘A temple?’
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