Defenders of Mankind - David Annandale & Guy Haley

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Our mission now is clear,’ Toharan was saying. ‘The reports from Aighe Mortis are as spotty as they are dire. The planet is crying out for our intervention. All we have achieved here is to suffer grievous losses. I think we know now where the true trap was. We have been tricked by a diversion. No longer.’

  Volos clamped his teeth together. He would not speak. Toharan was right about Aighe Mortis’s need. But his dismissal of the events on Flebis was foolish. It was worse than a tactical error. It was some kind of political move, one that the Dragons could not afford. Toharan seemed set on repudiating Volos, and the Dragon Claw couldn’t understand the logic of the move. He was no threat. He might not agree with the new captain, but he would never disobey his orders. Toharan was fighting a war where none existed, and turning his back on decades of comradeship. Toharan was baiting him, asking him to defend the Flebis action and step into some kind of ambush. Volos declined.

  Setheno’s words rattled around in Volos’s head. He tried to push them away. Then the shake-ups were announced, and it was all Volos could do to keep his jaw from dropping.

  ‘Nychus must be rebuilt,’ Toharan said. ‘Brothers Symael, Jemiah, Mattanius, and Kataros, I would have you at my side.’ Volos’s eyes widened. No Melus? He had known Toharan almost as long as Volos had, and had been his squad-mate for most of that time. ‘In recognition of their actions on Flebis and Antagonis, I am pleased to raise a few of our brothers to the rank of sergeant,’ Toharan went on, and Volos moved beyond surprise and into dread. Too sudden, too many changes, too much wholesale flouting of tradition. What did Toharan think he was doing? More disturbingly: why was he doing it?

  Danael was one of the new sergeants, and assumed command of Squad Neidris. Omorfos was given Pythios, and the slight to Melus was complete. Volos barely registered the other names. But Toharan shocked him one more time.

  ‘We remain without our Apothecary, Librarian and Chaplain,’ Toharan said. ‘The Emperor willing, they may yet recover. Until such time, I would ask Brothers Symael and Jemiah to act in their place.’ There was some logic to that, Volos thought. Symael had done some apprentice medicae work with Urlock. He knew his way around field dressings, at least. And Jemiah was a Lexicanium, though so was Ennyn in Squad Exuros, and he, in Volos’s opinion, had shown better battlefield ability. Then Toharan said, ‘Chaplain Massorus has no clear successor. Initiate Bumalin was killed on Flebis. We thus find ourselves with no Chaplain until a truly suitable candidate can be found. No decision in matters of faith should be taken lightly or quickly. But neither should we be without spiritual guidance. Therefore, until Chaplain Massorus recovers, or his successor has been found, I have asked Inquisitor Lettinger to preach to us. Though he is not of our brotherhood, his ecclesiastical experience is considerable. I think, too, that, at the very least, we might find his perspective interesting and worth hearing.’

  With a supreme effort of will, Volos kept his hands from balling into fists. He stood still, silent and, he hoped, expressionless. When the other sergeants, veteran and newly minted, said, ‘As you command,’ so did he. When Toharan looked him in the eyes, Volos met his gaze with a neutrality that took more out of him than his battle with the doubtworm. Toharan’s violation of Black Dragons tradition in effectively naming Lettinger acting Chaplain was unspeakable. What he was doing was obscene. It was also perversely clever, in the short run, since it would be difficult for any Dragon to complain about the arrangement while Second Company was under Inquisitorial investigation. But the damage Toharan was doing to the Chapter in the long term might be incalculable.

  Still, Volos did his duty, as he still saw it, for the time being. He held his peace.

  He headed back to his quarters, hoping for some time to think quietly. But Nithigg was waiting for him by his door, and Melus strode down the corridor, scattering servitors, to catch up.

  ‘You heard?’ Melus asked Nithigg.

  ‘Some. I can guess the rest.’

  ‘What is he doing?’ Melus demanded of Volos.

  Still reeling, his thoughts thick and stumbling, Volos found himself giving a rote answer, defending the Space Marine he had long held a close friend. ‘He is making his first decisions as captain. This is a huge responsibility that has been thrust on him, and he needs us…’ He trailed off, the stares of the other two finally registering.

  ‘Volos,’ Nithigg said quietly.

  The use of his name snapped him back to clarity. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Did you have a look at that group that is in command, now?’ Melus fumed. ‘I’ve never seen such a concentration of pretty faces.’ Melus’s skin was almost as dark as Volos’s, and a single, hooked horn jutted from his brow, poking through lank grey hair. Melus was not pretty.

  ‘Fire and bone,’ Volos muttered.

  ‘What was that?’ Melus asked.

  Volos shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ But he was thinking about the Black Dragons battle-cry, and about their liturgy, and about how warriors like Toharan might feel excluded. Had that been done? Were he and Melus and their other, mutated brothers reaping the whirlwind of an unintentional elitism? Is that all this is about? he wondered. Maybe it will pass, then. Maybe this is a squall, not a storm. He indulged in a brief moment of foolish hope.

  Melus dragged him back to reality and dashed the hope. ‘You know where this might lead,’ he said. ‘You should be our captain. We all know it. Even Toharan does, I’ll wager. The day is going to come when he’ll have to be stopped. And you’ll find many who will stand beside you.’

  ‘The day is going to come? ’ Volos snapped. ‘He’s barely been captain for an hour, and you would have me begin a mutiny?’

  ‘No, brother-sergeant. Toharan started it. You’ll finish it.’

  CHAPTER 14

  IMMACULATE ACTION

  The guns fell silent in the hour before Bisset reached the site of the battle. He followed the smoke and the sporadic rumble of machinery. Now and then, there was the crack of a pistol. And yes, there were some screams. It was all better than the terrible silence of the Palace of Saint Boethius. As he drew closer, he started to encounter people at last. Before long, he was in the familiar suffocating crowd of street-level Mortisian life. Most of the people he saw were in worse rags than usual. Many were clearly refugees, clutching bundles of belongings and bearing scorch marks and tears on clothing and flesh. But the mood was, by Mortisian standards, surprisingly upbeat. Bisset picked up his pace, chasing optimism. Perhaps this engagement had gone the Guard’s way.

  He rounded a corner to find a contingent of Defence Militia troops relaxing around an indifferently maintained Leman Russ. Beyond them, a warehouse complex built into the lower stratum of the towers had been blasted open. Bodies lay in twisted, carbonised piles. Bisset approached a nearby trio of soldiers. He nodded to them. One of them gave him a cock-eyed salute. Bisset’s uniform was long gone, but he couldn’t disguise his posture and gait. Any military man would recognise him as one from blocks away.

  The soldier offered him a tabac. Bisset accepted and gestured towards the bodies. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.

  ‘Cultists,’ the soldier said. He spat.

  ‘Did they put up much of a fight?’

  ‘Some.’ The soldier grinned. ‘Not enough.’ He pointed to the street that ran alongside the warehouse. ‘Gave us something to think about.’ Charred vehicle wreckage blocked the passage. The soldier lowered his voice. ‘Don’t mind telling you I thought it was last shift,’ he said, his slang marking him as a product of the southern manufactorum complexes. ‘Lucky for us the Space Marines showed.’

  Bisset’s eyebrows shot up. ‘They did?’ He’d been praying for Adeptus Astartes intervention since he’d sent his message.

  The soldier nodded. ‘Extermination time. Cultists didn’t even have time to blink.’ His grin broadened, and suddenly he shed his hard-boiled shell and a young man was standing in front of Bisset, his eyes shining with unexpected joy. ‘I never thought we’d get thei
r support, too. I guess they know a just cause when they see it.’

  Bisset’s words caught in his throat. The soldier’s phrasing alarmed him. He glanced back at the warehouse. He could see the scorched remains of an eight-pointed star on one interior wall. It was almost reassuring. So the dead were Chaos cultists. But… ‘I hadn’t heard the Space Marines were here,’ he said carefully. ‘What Chapter are they?’

  ‘Couldn’t tell you,’ the soldier said. ‘Bright ones, though. Lots of gold. Look like angels.’

  Bisset’s mouth went dry. ‘I suppose they are,’ he lied. He wondered why the Chaos Space Marines would kill their own followers. He sensed a bigger, more sophisticated game than he had guessed.

  The soldier nodded enthusiastically. ‘The revolution can’t be stopped now,’ he said, and gave Bisset a clap on the back. ‘Justice for Aighe Mortis at last. Work on that for a shift.’

  He didn’t appear to notice Bisset’s dread.

  Sometimes, Volos found strength in the reliquary. The huge, vaulted chamber was dark except for the minimal glow-globes casting a reverent shine on the machines and weapons of Chapter glories. There was the peace of certainty here, of the Black Dragons at their finest. He thought he might escape his doubts for a few minutes. Just a little bit of peace was all he wanted, a respite from thoughts of mutiny and heresy.

  It didn’t work. Instead, he was thinking of an absence. He stood before the empty Dreadnought armour. Its last occupant had died more than a century ago, and no worthy successor had yet been found. Warriors whose skill, bravery and age made them candidates for the grim immortality of the armoured coffin, and whose wounds on the battlefield did not kill them outright, were rare. Volos longed to speak with a venerable brother. He needed to hear wisdom tempered by the ages.

  Footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Nithigg. Volos smiled. ‘Why are you the only one who hasn’t been telling me what to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Because if you don’t act from your own conviction, we are all lost,’ Nithigg answered.

  Volos grunted. There was no comfort in his friend’s words, but they gave him an anchor of strength. ‘You’re a wise man,’ he said.

  Nithigg was looking over his shoulder at the Dreadnought. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not really.’ His gaze was poignant with humility and reverence.

  The Hall of Exaltation was a shaft that stretched from the top to bottom decks of the Revealed Truth . Both ends were covered in armourglass. The mad light of the warp flowed in, spiralling up and down the walls of the shaft, fingering runes, charging them, and setting them off on a writhing dance. Even when the Truth was in the materium, as it was now, waiting on the far side of the sun from Aighe Mortis, the Hall carried with it the energy and taint of the warp. It was as much a battery as it was a place of worship and meditation. Standing in the centre of the transparent floor, and looking up, Nessun couldn’t see the stars through the distant ceiling. What he could see was the stored power, coiling and flexing over the expanse of the Hall. It invited his eyes and mind, and he surrendered to the whirl.

  Dreamscape, warp space, it was all one, and in his fugue state, Nessun’s consciousness stretched over infinities. He was searching for a prize. The note on Flebis had been sounded, and the song would soon resound throughout the Imperium, but he had sacrificed much for this step. He wanted recompense. He was sure he would find it. He travelled the warp, swimming and tasting the currents of emotions and impulses, the knots of thoughts and the flesh of desires. The Black Dragons had been exposed to the strength of the vault. Not all of them could have emerged without being marked. The scars would be distinctive.

  They were. He homed in on them, a predator summoned by the scent of blood. He found the lesions in the wounded soul, and slipped inside. He began to whisper. He began to teach.

  He placed his hands on the threads of destiny, and, as his god showed by great example, plucked at them. Wove them. Tangled them.

  There were storms in the warp. There had to be. Something was different about this crossing. Toharan couldn’t pin down the precise nature of the difference, or how it was affecting him. He knew it was, though. He had started sleeping. Not just the microbursts of downtime that a Space Marine could get by on almost indefinitely, but real sleep, hours of it, as if he had that time to spare and didn’t have the infinite demands of his new duties. And even with those hours lost to the luxury of full unconsciousness, he was exhausted. So he only wanted to sleep more. It was a drug. It was a hallucinogen. He had also started to dream, though he couldn’t remember the details when he awoke.

  Just as well. He didn’t feel up to dealing with two sets of unrealised hopes.

  He was in the prison chapel. He walked its length, running his fingers along the altar stone, breathing in the austere atmosphere of rigour, supplication and final extremities. After a few minutes, he knelt at the altar and prayed. He prayed for guidance, and for the strength to do what needed doing. Because it was clear that hope, reason, goodwill and daylight dreams were simply not enough.

  He could be praying in the upper chapel. There was nothing compelling him to seek spiritual solace in a place designed to cow prisoners rather than elevate the thoughts of Adeptus Astartes. But here was where the Disciples of Purity had formed, and the collective dream that group represented had come to pass. Most of the key positions in Second Company were now filled by Disciples. The upper chapel, on the other hand, had become the site of dashed hopes and bitter disappointment. The promise he had felt during his rite of ascension had been an illusion. There had been a moment of unity that evaporated as soon as the demands of duty and purity had made themselves felt. The Disciples were in power, but they were resented. Training cage matches were turning into blood feuds. Hostile silences in the mess hall turned into brawls in the corridors. The conflicts were unseemly. They were, it seemed to him now, almost heretical.

  The scenes in the upper chapel were demoralising. There were no fights there, no veiled insults or toxic debates. The services were solemn, dignified and, thanks to Lettinger’s sermons, insightful. They were also sparsely attended. After the first one of his captaincy, when he guessed the ranks had been filled by the curious and the outraged, the numbers had plummeted. Almost every face he saw there, he knew from the meetings here. The upper chapel was becoming, for Toharan, a symbol of pointlessness. Here, in the depths of the Immolation Maw , he could feel the direction and impetus of mission.

  He was still on his knees when Lettinger found him. ‘I think I know why you’re here,’ the inquisitor said.

  ‘And why are you here?’ Toharan asked. ‘Have you come to offer judgement or strength?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your mission on our ship seems to have undergone an evolution of sorts.’

  Lettinger said nothing at first. He looked uncomfortable. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, thoughtful, not coy. ‘I have been having dreams,’ he continued, and Toharan held his breath. ‘I feel a sense of…’ he hesitated. He seemed embarrassed, which Toharan hadn’t thought possible.

  ‘Destiny?’ Toharan supplied.

  Lettinger smiled. ‘You too?’

  ‘I can’t ignore all that has happened.’

  ‘Neither can I. I thought I was here to render judgement.’ He glanced in the direction of the cells holding the abominations. ‘I certainly could. I have seen the monstrosities that are kept down here. But I now believe that I was sent to help you save your Chapter.’

  Toharan believed the same thing. But he didn’t feel the optimism he should have. ‘Is that even possible?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen what is happening? Have you seen how the simplest attempts to move us back towards Codex compliance have been received?’ He sighed. ‘This kind of conflict is unworthy of the Black Dragons.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lettinger said quietly, ‘you have the problem reversed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Even as Toharan asked, something stirred in his brain. Memory or dream, vision or inspiration, he couldn’t say. It was both new and
familiar, enticing and maddening. It was the struggling scrabble of insect legs against his cortex.

  ‘Maybe it is the Dragons themselves who are unworthy.’

  ‘Then what would you have me do?’ Toharan demanded.

  ‘You should consider the possibility of something new arising from the ashes of the irredeemable. A new Chapter.’

  Horror and promise stretched out before Toharan. The scrabbling in his head was almost unbearable. ‘How?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. But if this is destiny, if this is the Emperor’s will, then the way and the means will appear.’ Lettinger spread his hands. ‘I could be wrong. Our task will be much simpler if I am. But I fear that I am right. I sense that the coming engagement on Aighe Mortis will give us the answers we need.’

  Toharan heard, but said nothing. His sense of mission grew until it was an ecstasy. He looked around the prison chapel, at the dark stone and iron, and saw a reflection of the stark choices ahead. He placed his hand on the bloodied altar, and drew on its strength. He would make those choices. When they came, he would know what to do, and the way he would know was suddenly clear. The answer was so simple, so obvious, and such a basic fact of his existence that he had almost overlooked it.

  Purity. The dictates of purity were the answer. He had but to follow the pristine road, and his actions would be immaculate in their power and perfection. And if it came to that choice, then yes, he would destroy his Chapter in order to save it.

  Then the noise in his brain blotted out the world, calling him down to sleep and dreams.

  CHAPTER 15

  PARSING REVOLUTION

  Even when viewed from orbit, Aighe Mortis couldn’t hide its essential ugliness. Some hive worlds glittered like spiked jewels from a distance, the cloud-piercing turrets of the elite creating a mirage of beauty. Others had mountain chains and oceans that defied the feature-eradicating virus of humankind. But Aighe Mortis was honest. It looked like an infected boil. The lance of Exterminatus might almost be a mercy. But the Black Dragons came to liberate, not to annihilate.