Except that the Emperor was gone, locked away in the deep Throne chambers, his unmatched power deployed to an end that even the Lords of Terra did not speak of openly.
‘Then let me tell you again,’ said Dorn. ‘Perhaps you have forgotten where it is that we stand. Magnus has broken the wards around the Throne, and now this, the mightiest fortress in the galaxy, sits upon a foundation of madness.’
‘It is contained once more,’ insisted Malcador. ‘For now the world knows little of the actual truth.’
‘It is contained only because the Emperor binds Himself to the hidden war,’ Dorn replied. ‘This respite has been bought with the sacrifice of a thousand souls. Thatis why the world does not know.’
‘Not yet,’ said Valdor bleakly. ‘But they will. Perhaps a few more weeks, perhaps months, but it will spill out eventually. Rumours are already running wild.’
‘It will do,’ agreed Malcador. ‘But as long as He holds firm…’
‘Yes, as long as He holds firm,’ said Dorn, bitterly. ‘That is what we are reduced to. No actions, no movement – just hope.’
‘We cannot help Him,’ said Valdor. ‘We know this. So let us turn to what we can do.’
Malcador chuckled dryly. ‘I never asked you how it felt, Constantin, to see Prospero burn. Did even your callous soul blanch at that?’
Valdor didn’t miss a beat. ‘No. It was necessary.’
‘Was it?’ sighed Malcador. ‘I did not give the order. I wanted Magnus censured, not destroyed. What was it that made Russ do it? You never could give me an answer.’
Dorn exhaled impatiently. ‘You know all of this, Malcador. You know all that happened there, just as we do.’ He was coldly furious. ‘Does this need repeating? The Warmaster is at the heart of it, poisoning everything we do, and now he has the blood of three more Legions on his hands.’
At that, Malcador seemed to wince. The slaughter of Isstvan V was still raw. None of them, save the implacable Valdor perhaps, could refer to it without provoking that hollow, draining, sense of loss.
‘Ferrus is truly gone, they tell me,’ admitted Malcador. ‘Vulkan and Corax missing. Eight Legions declared traitor, even now carving the void apart to get to us.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Shall I go on? The ether in turmoil, blighting the Astronomican and making us blind? No word of Guilliman or Sanguinius. Are they with us? Or have they also turned?’
‘Not the Angel,’ said Dorn, firmly. ‘And I will not believe it of Roboute.’
‘But they are lost to us, for now at least,’ said Valdor. ‘So we must survey what we know. Russ is at Alaxxes. When I left him, they were badly mauled, for the Sons gave us a hard fight, but they will hunt again.’
‘And the Lion,’ said Malcador. ‘What of him?’
‘He pursues his private feuds,’ said Dorn. ‘And when has he ever been anything but his own master?’
Malcador smiled. ‘You brothers – such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. He thought I was joking. I wasn’t.’
Dorn didn’t smile. His face seemed permanently rooted in a kind of frozen tension.
‘There is one other,’ said Valdor quietly.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Malcador. ‘So easy to overlook the Khan. Why is that?’
‘It is his gift,’ said Dorn dismissively.
‘The Khan was in the Chondax system,’ said Valdor.
‘Which, like so many others, is beyond our reach,’ said Malcador, his voice bleakly humorous.
‘What of Jaghatai’s loyalty?’ asked Valdor.
‘I did not know him, not well,’ said Dorn.
‘None of us did,’ said Malcador. ‘That was the point of him – in any system there needs to be uncertainty.’ He smiled at Dorn. ‘You, my friend, were an exercise in the opposite. No wonder you two did not understand one another.’
‘So who was he close to?’ asked Valdor.
Malcador thought for a moment. ‘Horus, of course. They were so similar. I believe they conferred on Ullanor.’
‘Magnus, too,’ said Dorn, somewhat hesitantly. ‘They fought alongside one another for a long time.’
‘Yes,’ said Malcador, nodding pensively. ‘The Librarius – the Khan, Magnus and Sanguinius were behind it. That was the root of their connection, such as it was. They all believed in the need for psykers within the Legions.’
Valdor took a deep breath. ‘So there it is. The Khan’s known allies, Horus and Magnus, traitors both.’
‘All of us trusted Horus,’ said Dorn.
‘Quite,’ said Malcador ruminatively. ‘As I said at the time, Nikaea was the root of this. We should have explained things better, though there were reasons, some of which we could never disclose, not there.’ He pursed his thin lips. ‘We were too caught up in what needed to be done. That may be the tragedy of it all – we did not explain.’
Dorn looked at Malcador coldly, as if he fully agreed. Valdor remained as implacable as ever.
‘Too late for regrets,’ said Malcador wearily. ‘We must summon him. Russ and the Khan standing here beside you, Rogal, would make me sleep easier. The Executioner and the Warhawk – that would give even Horus pause.’
‘Chondax has gone dark,’ warned Valdor. ‘But I can instruct the astropaths to focus their efforts there.’
‘And if he fails to answer?’ asked Dorn.
For a moment, neither Valdor nor Malcador answered. The space around them seemed to shrink a little.
‘Then we must assume that Jaghatai has fallen too,’ said the Sigillite at last, no trace of wry humour left in his voice. ‘Another name to add to the tally of the lost.’
Ilya sat back in her chair after placing the ivory token. Her move had taken her a long time. With so many places to choose from, and so many tokens at her disposal, they always did.
Her opponent shook his head. ‘Poor choice.’
‘Really?’ she asked, waiting to be shown why.
‘Yes,’ he said, reaching over the large, square board to position a black slate counter. She studied the results. They became sobering – he was close to capturing a straggling, kidney-shaped slice of territory, and there was almost certainly nothing she could do about it. The choice therefore became simple: to fight the inevitable, or carve out some new area of her own elsewhere. It was a choice she had become used to making.
‘I don’t see the possibilities closing, not in time,’ she complained.
‘That is the skill of it. But you’re getting better.’
Ilya allowed herself a brief glance at her opponent, checking to see whether he mocked her.
As ever, it was hard to tell. Jaghatai Khan lounged back in a low-slung seat of furs and leather, limbs loose, his proud face as inscrutable as stone.
Ilya remembered when she’d first met him, back above Ullanor. For some reason she’d nearly fainted, even after Yesugei had warned her about it. It was said that primarchs sometimes had that effect – the force of their superactive souls strained at the bonds of sense. She had also heard it said that the human species had never evolved to cope with presentations of such power within simulacra of their own bodies. The effects were well-documented: nausea, light-headedness, panic.
That had all passed now. Spending time with the primarch hadn’t become mundane – it could never become mundane – but it was containable. The flutters of anxiety in her stomach now rarely troubled her. Their conversations had become a trifle less formal. They shared a glass of wine from time to time. They played games.
‘Am I really getting better?’ she mused, picking up another ivory stone and pondering where to place it. ‘I think you tell me that so you don’t lose an opponent.’
‘Qin Xa plays.’
‘Does he ever beat you?’ she asked.
‘He’s very good.’
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
The primarch’s physical presence could be a distraction. It wasn’t just the size of him, though there was something inescapably incongruous
in addressing a man nearly twice as tall as her. It was more the unconscious… splendour.
The Khan was lean, rangy, cut harshly like the talons of a hunting bird. He spoke sparingly. When he did, his voice was cultured, tinged with an aristocratic idiom. His face was long and sleek, dark-skinned like all Chogorians and framed by long black hair. The scar that ran down his left cheek was pronounced, the zigzag of an old wound. Ilya heard that the legionaries had to add poison to the knife cut to get it to scar, for their superhuman flesh otherwise healed too perfectly.
He took care over his appearance. His cloak was trimmed with white fur: ermyet, it was called by his fellow Chogorians. He wore a kaftan of deep burgundy, lined with silk. Bands of gold sat on his fingers, around his neck, enclosing the topknot of glossy hair.
Even out of armour he looked dangerous. The folds of his clothing failed to hide the warrior’s training of the body beneath. Every movement he made, whether reaching for more chinyua wine or setting his own stones in position seemed to take place in a refined world of swordsman-like precision.
Halji had told her about it many times. ‘Nothing is wasted,’ he had said, sweeping his tulwar though the air in front of her to prove the point. ‘Every movement as efficient as muscle allows. No flourish, no flair. Just the principle.’
The Khan, fittingly enough, seemed to have perfected that.
‘Do you wish me to give you a piece of advice?’ he asked.
Ilya raised an eyebrow. ‘By all means.’
He sat back in his oversized chair. The light around them played with the gentle movement of candles. The strains of a Prosperine silverharp sounded faintly in the background. The Khan was very fond of music – an enjoyment he and Magnus shared, so they said.
‘You play regicide?’ he asked.
Ilya nodded.
‘Not as sophisticated as Go,’ said the Khan. ‘Regicide gives you one enemy, one trajectory – kill the Emperor, you are the victor. In Go there is no Emperor to kill. Or perhaps it is better to say there are many Emperors.’
Ilya listened. She thought the White Scars tried too hard to explain the superiority of their cultural preferences. They were so used to being overlooked and ignored; something of that must have sunk into their psyche somewhere.
‘My warriors are trained by this game,’ the Khan went on. ‘They learn to see threats from all sides. They learn to counter many targets.’
‘I can see that,’ said Ilya. ‘Damn it. I struggle to keep everything in my head.’
‘You do very well.’
‘There must be times, though… Times, in reality, when you do have one enemy.’
‘It is easier for a subtle mind to adjust to simplicity.’
Again, that edge of defensiveness.
That is because you know you are seen as barbarians.
Ilya sighed, and placed her stone. It would probably do little to stem her losses; she expected to be given back handfuls of her counters fairly soon. ‘So what is the next target?’
The Khan studied the board. ‘After Chondax? I do not know.’
‘No orders from the Warmaster?’
He did not reply. He hadn’t spoken about Horus since the final stages of the conflict on the White World, though before he had often mentioned him. Qin Xa was the same. She knew that they hadn’t received any firm news from the Warmaster whilst on Chondax – she would have seen the logs – but something, perhaps some half-heard star-speaker vision, might have eked its way through.
It was as if they were all starting at shadowy rumours, fragments of uneasiness that moved through the void like gossip between infantrymen.
‘So do you have plans?’ Ilya asked, wondering if she would get a clear answer.
The Khan stared intently at the stones, not lifting his eyes. ‘I feel the need to speak to Yesugei again. If we cannot make contact soon, then we will need to make our way home.’
Ilya smiled. ‘Really? You’d bring the whole Legion to Chogoris, just for him?’
The Khan did not smile. Smiling was rare with him, which was odd: the rest of the Legion hardly ever stopped. ‘Of course I would.’ He placed his stone, predictably enough beginning the encirclement of another of her dwindling groups. ‘I have relied on Yesugei for centuries.’
Ilya took a sip before moving again. The wine wasn’t very good – Chogorians didn’t really appreciate viniculture. ‘So why didn’t he come with us to Chondax?’
‘He was needed on Nikaea.’
‘Nikaea?’
‘A summit.’ The Khan gave her a shrewd look. ‘I would have been there too if I could have been, but Yesugei was my representative. He spoke for me. You see how much I trust him?’
‘I do. What was he doing there?’
‘Arguing for the right of the zadyin arga to exist. I hope he was successful.’
‘And if he wasn’t?’
The Khan shrugged. ‘It makes no difference to me, but I would prefer that my more assiduous brothers don’t have to make a difficult choice.’
Ilya smiled. She had come to find the White Scars amiable indifference to Imperial edicts more endearing than exasperating. They weren’t rebellious, exactly, justthemselves – no more, no less. Out alone. Unconcerned. They would never give up the Stormseers.
‘The ruling could have gone against you months ago,’ she observed. ‘We would have no idea.’
‘Lots of things may have happened about which we have no idea,’ said the Khan. ‘That is the advantage of this agreeable place.’ But the primarch’s expression faltered for a moment then, as if he knew, or perhaps guessed, something more than he said.
‘Do you wish to tell me more?’ Ilya asked carefully.
‘I do not,’ the Khan replied, putting his stone down and launching a fresh attack on her beleaguered positions. ‘Now concentrate. You are nearly dead.’
‘So tell me what you think,’ said Shiban.
The body of the dead legionary lay in front of him on a slab of steel, rendered in uncomfortable detail by the overhead lights of the Kaljian’s apothecarion. His armour had been cut away and the flesh inside was black, like overcooked meat.
Jochi stood beside Sangjai, who rubbed his chin.
‘Progenoids gone,’ Sangjai said with regret. ‘The heat.’
‘How did he die?’
‘You can see for yourself,’ said Sangjai, moving up towards the warrior’s neck and parting the flaking folds with gloved hands. ‘A single blade thrust down to the spine. He was held in place while they did it.’
Shiban leaned on his hands. ‘Ever seen an ork make a wound like that?’
‘I do not know. Do they make wounds a certain way?’
‘You have seen the way they fight,’ said Jochi. ‘They mutilate what they kill.’
‘Perhaps they did not have the chance,’ said Sangjai.
‘They had plenty of time,’ said Shiban. ‘That is not the issue.’
Sangjai looked back at the corpse. He studied it long and hard. He bent over and stared at the wound again. Shiban heard a faint whine as his augmetic left eye adjusted focus.
Eventually Sangjai straightened. ‘It could have been hain. I have seen them use a blade well enough. But yes, perhaps unlikely.’
‘What, then?’
Sangjai looked at him evenly. ‘You want my guess?’
‘Say it,’ hissed Jochi impatiently.
‘This is a long knife cut. A legionary blade. They knew where to angle it. It was done quickly, and they trusted the lava to hide it.’
Shiban nodded. He felt vaguely nauseous. ‘Anything else?’
Sangjai shook his head.
‘Legionary blade,’ murmured Jochi, appalled. ‘They were fighting among themselves?’
‘Who knows?’ said Shiban.
‘There was nothing on Phemus but greenskins,’ Jochi went on, getting increasingly agitated. ‘Greenskins and us. Did they go mad?’
‘That’s enough.’
‘How many died this way?’
&nbs
p; ‘Enough,’ Shiban snapped.
He pushed away from the table. His mind crowded with thoughts. Phemus had taken a long time to pacify, far longer than it should have. The fleet commanders had put it down to the hostile terrain, but Shiban had seen the campaign logs prior to his transfer, complaining of higher casualties than expected, poor communications, regular setbacks.
They were fighting amongst themselves?
Hard to believe. Tensions always existed between the brotherhoods – he’d experienced them himself – but not to that extent. Never to that extent.
‘This cannot be ignored,’ he said at last. ‘I am going back down.’
‘The cleansing is over,’ said Sangjai doubtfully. ‘We have our recall orders – the Khagan will move the fleet soon.’
‘Comms have been bad for months,’ said Shiban, smiling bleakly. ‘If we are slow in answering, he will understand.’
‘You will not solve this,’ said Sangjai. ‘Not on Phemus.’
Shiban started to walk away.
‘You have to start somewhere,’ he said.
It took a long time for a fleet formation to respond to orders. Legiones Astartes battle cruisers were gigantic things – kilometres long, like dark cities in space. Building them was the labour of decades, drawing in millions of workers and thousands of Mechanicum creation engines. Once sent into the deep void they continued to grow, to evolve, to change. A ship’s own forges were never still, never at rest.
Moving one was an exercise in logistics. A million crew-serfs needed to be at their stations, priming weapons, activating power coils, manning command nodes. Thousands of line officers needed to make their decisions, ensuring the enginarium caverns delivered drive to the thrusters at the correct pitch and frequency. Hundreds of section commanders needed to keep track of the relative movements of other ships and feed a trillion augur readings to the cogitators and sensors to prevent collision with other behemoths manoeuvring ponderously in the void.
But in the end, even the biggest warship was driven by a single soul – a lone captain, gifted suzerainty by the Imperium’s relentless drive towards hierarchy in all things. One voice gave the order to move, to train weapons, to light the black with the world-burning power of lances and torpedo volleys.
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