Scars

by Chris Wraight

  ‘Time to hunt,’ he said.

  The torpedo chamber was far below the bridge level, surrounded by thick adamantium bulkheads and lit with red combat-lamps. Each boarding pod lay at the head of a circular launch tunnel ringed with protective rune-carvings. A larger vessel would have carried whole banks of hull-rippers or Caestus rams, their prows tipped with clusters of magna-meltas and their chassis capable of carrying an entire squad into combat, but the Helridder had the minimum complement for its class: ten slender tubes, each one kitted with a single melta-burst prow and reinforced impact zone. The torpedoes were less than six metres long in their launch-berths and had room for a lone power-armoured occupant.

  ‘Holy Hel,’ swore Godsmote, looking doubtfully at his coffin-like receptacle.

  ‘They’re minimally guided once launched,’ said Bjorn, clamping his axe to the front of his breastplate and lowering himself into the torpedo. ‘Try to get a lock once you’re in the flagship. If we can muster, so much the better. If we can’t, just kill everything you find.’

  The pack clambered into position and shackled down their restraint cradles. Warning lights began to throb angrily and the last of the launch crew scuttled free of the chamber. Bjorn lay back in his capsule, feeling the growing vibration of the device’s thrusters.

  ‘Journey well,’ he said, his parting order as the coffin-door closed over him. Locking bolts slid shut with a cascade of clangs.

  Bjorn heard his breathing, hot and heavy in the dark. He clenched the fingers of his hand, feeling confined.

  This is how Dreadnoughts must feel, he thought. Poor bastards.

  The thrusters behind him keyed, rising quickly to a dull roar. He heard blast-hatches slide open, followed by the rush of escaping air. The torpedo trembled like a living thing. Bjorn’s helm display, interfacing seamlessly with the capsule’s onboard systems, gave him a countdown.

  Here we go.

  The torpedo blasted down the tube. Bjorn slammed back against his harness, his whole body thrown up against the rear bulkhead. He had an impression of immense straight-line speed for a few seconds, then a wild change of trajectory as the torpedo swung down and towards the reeling behemoth of the Hrafnkel.

  Gritting his teeth against the colossal pull, he studied the sensor readings tearing down the interior of his rattling helm. He saw the glowing points of the other torpedoes following him down, spiralling through burning zones of las-fire. The flagship loomed up with horrifying speed, a huge block of glowing wireframe against a black void-field.

  He braced for the impact, and then it came – a burst of melta-detonation that made the torpedo shudder, followed by a massive explosion that hurled Bjorn hard against his restraints. Even in power armour and protected by the torpedo’s outer shell the impact was ferocious, wrenching him forwards and nearly causing him to black out. The tube ground onwards for a few more metres, shivering as it carved its way through solid hull-casing.

  A second later and the torpedo’s locking bolts withdrew with a hiss. Shaking his head to clear it, Bjorn thumped the restraint cage’s release mechanism. His capsule opened up, and he clambered to his feet, unlocking his axe and sweeping it around him.

  Debris slewed past, caught in the howl of the rapidly depressurising ship-atmosphere. He leant against it, fighting through the maelstrom, his armour dragged at by guttering flames. The metal decking around him was twisted from the melta-impact – he had to clamber up through the wreckage before finding surer ground, all the while fighting against the roar and rush of racing oxygen. The lumens had shattered on his way in, and his helm’s night-vision was a smear of movement.

  Only once past the next bulkhead along was he able to seal a blast-door behind him and halt the depressurisation. He was inside the Hrafnkel, somewhere down in the lower decks. He activated Blódbringer’s disruptor field, flooding the confined space with ice-blue luminance.

  ‘Report,’ he voxed over the pack-wide comm, blink-summoning locator runes for the others.

  Nothing came back: no locators, no responses. His display looked damaged – a criss-crossed maze of feedback and half-resolved target-locks. He clanged the haft of his axe against the side of his helm, jolting the signals and forcing a quartet of fresh target locks to swim across the display.

  ‘Skítja,’ he spat, frustrated, pressing on down the corridor and opening up another slide door.

  On the far side was a supply depot, its ceiling lost in the distance and its shadowy walls soaring up on either side. Towers of transit crates reared away in every direction, locked together by hulking metal scaffolds. Chains hung down from the roof-space from inert cargo loaders, themselves suspended from the chamber’s summit on heavy metal rails.

  Ahead of him the darkness was broken by muzzle-flares and explosions. Throttled cries echoed down the narrow paths between the towers, swiftly cut off. He smelled the familiar odours of combat: fyceline smoke, blood, human fear.

  Where is my pack?

  He started to run down the canyons, cursing the junk swarming over his tactical display. He sprinted straight ahead, eventually breaking into an open space beyond the first wall of stacked crates. A lifter had been brought down ahead of him in a tangled mess of broken metal and severed chain links, bigger than a Warhound Titan even in its ruin.

  For a moment Bjorn saw nothing else – no bodies, no targets. Then the tower to his right blew apart in a welter of burning plasteel. A warrior in pearl-grey armour flew across the plasteel deck plates in front of him, broken limbs rolling, skidding to a halt and leaving a long slick of blood in his wake.

  Bjorn whirled around, hackles up, wondering what could cast aside a fully armoured Space Marine with such disdain.

  Then the enemy stepped from the shadows, and he understood perfectly.

  The Khan stood in his private meditation chamber, high up on the terraced shoulders of the Swordstorm. Before him rose a many-faceted crystalflex dome looking out into the void beyond. He watched his ships suspended in the blackness, lined up ready for action, every one of them poised for his command.

  Many thousands of souls crewed those ships, both Space Marine and mortal. Each one alone had the potential to annihilate worlds; together, their power was almost incomprehensible.

  Has this much power ever been concentrated in so few pairs of hands? he wondered. The entire galaxy entrusted to twen– no, eighteen brothers. The peril of it is obvious.

  The Khan’s proud, aquiline face lowered towards his ornate breastplate gorget.

  My father knew the risks. He must have done. Why is He silent now?

  He turned away from the observation dome. Artefacts lined the walls around him – ancient flintlocks, sabres, mauls and halberds. His boots sunk into a thick fur rug. Books from a thousand worlds and from the span of ten thousand years lined hardwood shelves lit up by the soft light of a real fire.

  His movements were quietly powerful, like a tyger prowling back and forth in its cage. His cloak rippled all the way to his ankles, brushing against the ivory and gold of his battleplate and shrouding the scabbard of his dao blade.

  Magnus, he brooded, staring into the flames. My good friend.

  He remembered their initial encounter on Ullanor, meeting on the Triumph Plain with the last blood of the slain greenskins still stinking in the air.

  ‘Greetings, brother,’ Magnus had said, grinning across his strange ruddy face, striding down from his lander with his rouged and cartouched cabal in tow. ‘You were actually fighting here, they say.’

  The Khan bowed. ‘In the system. Horus took the core world.’

  Magnus clapped his big hand on the Khan’s shoulder. ‘Of course he did. How are you? You look leaner than you were, if such a thing were possible.’

  The Khan gave an equivocal shrug. Magnus was a little taller than him, a little broader, with his florid scarlet mane and decked out in flamboyant ornamentation. He looked like one of the Qo Golden Emperors the Khan had killed.

  ‘I dislike these gatherings,’ the Kha
n said, looking out over the plain at the gathering masses. Thousands of Legion battalions had already made planetfall, and the polished-stone expanse milled with the heavy equipment of half a dozen different Legions. The air was thick with engine fumes and kicked-up dust. Above them, low in the atmosphere, hung the massive shadows of bulk landers.

  ‘You and I both,’ agreed Magnus. ‘Will we have a chance to speak?’

  The Khan drew closer. ‘I hope so. The Angel is here – we need to confer.’

  ‘About the Librarius.’

  ‘You must have heard the rumours.’

  Magnus smiled sadly. ‘There are always rumours. Russ can shout his ignorance as much as he likes. I think the rest of the Imperium is learning to ignore him.’

  ‘It is not just Russ.’

  ‘Worry less,’ said Magnus. ‘There will always be suspicion of the gifted. We have to manage it, to explain it. Trust in enlightenment.’

  ‘You forget, brother, I am not gifted.’

  ‘Are you not?’ asked Magnus, smiling shrewdly. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘They will destroy what we have built. Angron, Mortarion, Russ. None of them rest easily with it. If we do not guard what we have won–’

  ‘You forget one thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Our father,’ said Magnus, fondly. ‘He set this thing in motion – can you imagine him letting the attack dogs ruin it? Mortarion and Russ will be given their chance to fulminate, I have seen it. Our only task, my elusive friend, is to remain true to reason.’

  The Khan looked into Magnus’s one eye, seeing the trust in it. The faith.

  You are wise in so many ways, he thought grimly. But you are a scholar, not a warrior, and you do not truly see the danger.

  ‘A reckoning will come,’ the Khan warned. He turned to one side, gesturing for Yesugei to approach. ‘This is my counsellor, Targutai Yesugei, master of storm-magic in our Legion. It would be wise to nominate counterparts – an alliance between the like-minded.’

  ‘A cabal?’ asked Magnus.

  ‘A conversation,’ said the Khan.

  The Crimson King regarded Yesugei for a moment. His lone eye glittered in Ullanor’s foul sunlight, as if probing deep into the unseen.

  ‘Mighty,’ he said at last, his voice properly respectful. ‘You would have found a place by my side, had you been born under Prosperine skies.’ He motioned for one of his entourage to join them – a tall figure wearing ruby power armour and carrying a staff of ivory.

  ‘Zadyin arga Targutai Yesugei,’ said Magnus, speaking the Khorchin with perfect inflection. ‘This is Ahzek Ahriman. I think you and he might get on.’

  Ahriman bowed, as did Yesugei.

  ‘I am honoured, weather-maker,’ said Ahriman, his voice as cultured and subtle as all his kind.

  ‘Honour is mine,’ said Yesugei, less fluently, betraying the poor command of Gothic that plagued so many of the V Legion.

  Magnus looked back at the Khan, still in good humour. ‘So there we are,’ he said. ‘Your conversation is established. Now, must we linger on this dust-clogged plain all morning, or does the Imperium’s munificence here extend to something to eat?’

  The Khan remembered how Magnus had behaved then – the smiles a little forced, the bonhomie a little relentless. Magnus had been worried about something on Ullanor and his attempts to disregard it were not successful. He was no dissembler: the truth shone from him like light from a star, pure and naïve.

  Ullanor was the last time they had spoken. It was strange – too strange – to think of that massive soul lying under the crude, hacking blades of the Space Wolves. The Crimson King had been so consummately powerful, so steeped in the rich arts of heaven, the very stuff of the veil; if he had truly fallen, then the galaxy had become a warped and confusing place.

  ‘Khagan,’ came a voice from the open doorway.

  The Khan turned to see Qin Xa standing before him. The keshig master was already in battle-armour, a hulking suit of blast-scorched Terminator plate covered in the trophies of his unmatched combat record.

  ‘I need more,’ the Khan told him. ‘More information. I will not attack my brother without confirmation.’

  Qin Xa bowed. ‘The star-speakers receive more visions.’

  ‘Do they confirm it?’

  ‘Some do.’ The master spoke haltingly. ‘Others do not. We have contradictory interpretations.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Some tell us what we already know – Leman Russ has turned rebel, driven by hatred of Magnus. The Warmaster orders us to bring him to judgement. The Twentieth Legion may already have engaged them.’

  ‘Alpharius’s snakes,’ said the Khan contemptuously.

  ‘But we have other reports,’ said Qin Xa. ‘Just listen to this: they say that the Warmaster has turned renegade and taken many Legions with him. We are commanded to return to the Throneworld and stand beside Lords Dorn and Russ to defend it.’

  For that, the Khan had no words. He stared at Qin Xa, feeling the blood coursing hard in his temples.

  ‘Madness,’ he said weakly. Thoughts raced through his mind in quick succession, each one half-formed and pregnant with possibilities.

  It had begun on Chondax, right at the end – the first inkling that all was not well. There had been no detail then, no authentication, just a stray star-speaker vision of dubious provenance. It should have been easy to dismiss, to put down to the warping power of the veil, but it hadn’t. It had worn at him, unravelling his sleep.

  The Warmaster stands upon a precipice.

  It had been hard to know what to make of that. Should he have recalled the Legion to find out? What did it even mean?

  ‘Madness,’ he said again.

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Qin Xa calmly. ‘Every star-speaker in the fleet is having a different dream. The zadyin arga are working to uncover the truth.’

  ‘The truth?’ The Khan laughed hollowly. ‘Which truth?’ He felt his hand instinctively reaching for his blade, and pulled it back. ‘I need more. Why has the darkness lifted only now?’

  Qin Xa bowed in apology. ‘Every effort is being made to–’

  ‘Is he dead?’ demanded the Khan, frustration mastering him momentarily. ‘That is the first task. I need to know if Magnus lives. Tell them that.’

  ‘Nothing can be divined from Prospero. It seems likely that–’

  ‘Not good enough!’ roared the Khan, balling his immense fists. He felt fury welling, not the wholesome rage of the battlefield, but a choked, impotent rage of ignorance. ‘I have the strength of the Legion arrayed before me, ready to strike. The ordu is assembled, and yet none can tell me who the enemy is. Tell them if they cannot interpret correctly then I shall come up to their spires and hammer their dreams into order for them.’

  Qin Xa weathered the storm, standing silently while the primarch raged. ‘It will be done.’

  ‘Quickly,’ insisted the Khan, giving in to the urge to grasp the hilt of his dao. ‘I give them twelve hours. We will not remain in this backwater while the galaxy burns – wherever this war is, we will find it.’

  A low chime sounded from a large pedestal writing desk in the far corner of the chamber. A hololith flickered into existence over the varnished surface and the old scar-latticed face of Hasik Noyan-Khan crackled into life.

  The Khan swung to face it. ‘News?’

  ‘Of a kind,’ replied Hasik, his voice wavering with static. ‘Ships are materialising on the edge of augur-range. No response to our comms, and they appear to be deploying for attack.’

  ‘The Wolves?’ asked the Khan. ‘Or more of ours?’

  ‘Neither,’ reported Hasik, his normally flat voice punctuated by uncertainty. ‘Alpha Legion vessels.’

  Qin Xa’s eyes narrowed. The Khan almost felt like laughing. Nothing made sense. After years insulated from the rest of the galaxy, locked in a campaign that had promised little glory and much routine hard work, every certainty seemed to have been twisted into a comical level of i
ncongruity.

  Our warriors are trained by this game. They learn to see threats from all sides.

  ‘Hold position,’ ordered the Khan. ‘Try to talk to them, and do not fire unless fired upon. Some witchery is at work here and I will not be dragged into it without knowing why. I will join you shortly. Until then, you know your craft.’

  Hasik’s hololithic head bowed and the link guttered out.

  Qin Xa raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘I would offer counsel, Khagan,’ he said, ‘if I had any.’

  The Khan clasped his gauntlets together. No patterns emerged. His tactician’s mind – far more acute than Guilliman or Dorn ever had the grace to recognise – fell into its familiar run: analyse, project, counter, surprise.

  ‘We must be light on our feet here, keshiga,’ he murmured. ‘We are like blind men fighting the sighted.’

  Despite everything, he felt the first stirrings of enjoyment kindle in his soul. He looked out at the starfield beyond the chamber viewport, weighing options, balancing likelihoods. This was what he had been born for: not the running down of greenskins, but the Great Game, the clash of powers.

  ‘Do you remember, Xa?’ he said. ‘You, Yesugei, Hasik and me against a whole world – a hundred empires, each with a thousand blades. It has been too long since we had a real challenge.’

  Qin Xa looked unsure. ‘Then who is the enemy now, Khagan?’ he asked. ‘That is all I need to know.’

  ‘They are all the enemy,’ said the Khan, striding to the doorway that would take him to the bridge. ‘They always have been.’

  V

  Bjorn spat blood as he ran, crashing into a line of empty crates and scattering them across the floor. By instinct he lurched to his right, just evading a hurricane of shells that screamed over his dipping shoulder. He reached cover, of a sort – the wreckage of the cargo lifter – and flung himself into the shadow of the mangled cockpit.

  The enemy came after him, crunching through the remains of five dead Space Wolves. Its massive feet clanged dully against the deck, its huge clawed fist rotated and its steaming assault cannon clunked as another magazine was shunted into the chamber.