Ruinstorm

by David Annandale

  ‘I know,’ said the Lion. ‘And the means to breaking through the Ruinstorm must lie in this system. It is simply not here, on Davin. Can’t you see, brother? Davin’s history is done. All that would ever happen here, has already happened. This world corrupted Horus, and its population left to spread more ruin. Its task is done.’

  ‘An entire world bent to a specific purpose,’ Guilliman said, his face troubled.

  ‘We have seen enough to know such things must be true,’ said Sanguinius.

  ‘Tasked by whom?’ Guilliman asked. ‘By what?’ There was pain on his face, and he held up a hand before Sanguinius answered. ‘I know. I resist the idea that we are at the mercy of gods. I resist them. I will not abandon reason without a fight. Horus had a choice. All of us do.’

  ‘Do we?’ said Curze, his tone a reptilian mix of bitterness, amusement and despair. ‘Do you? The future is written, Roboute. You can shake the bars of our cage all you want. They will not bend.’

  ‘Our problem is not whether fate has brought us here or not,’ said the Lion. ‘Our problem is what to do next.’ To Guilliman he said, ‘If there is nothing here, then we must consider the shadow we saw in the necrosphere. The enemy must be hiding in the shell.’

  ‘I had hoped our presence here would lure it out.’

  ‘We have learned otherwise. We must hope it is not too late to change our deployment. I will halt our landings. We must leave.’

  ‘No,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Our task here is not done.’

  ‘How can you be so fixated on this distraction?’ the Lion demanded, exasperated. ‘The enemy is the one you saw first, the one you fought.’

  Sanguinius circled the room. ‘There is something we are missing,’ he said. As he walked, he looked at the walls, the ceiling and the sides of the altar. Everything was old, eroded, dead. The traces of runic murals were little more than patches. They did not even hint at what forms the runes might once have had. The power that had circled the room, a serpent on stone, was gone.

  ‘Accept what you see,’ said the Lion. ‘Nothing more of significance will occur on Davin. All that matters has already happened.’

  ‘Everything has already happened,’ Curze snarled. ‘Not just here. Everything is written. Nothing can change.’

  Sanguinius stopped his pacing. ‘You are wrong, Konrad,’ he said. ‘I know the future can change.’

  Curze looked at him with genuine unease.

  The Angel approached the south end of the altar. He rapped it with his fist. ‘This was a fulcrum,’ he said. ‘Fate pivoted here. Horus fell, but why did he fall? Something turned him, but it did not transform him. He is still Horus. When he betrayed my Legion and sent us to the trap of Signus Prime, he fooled me because he was our brother. He is not a changeling. He embraced his descent into darkness. So however hard he was pushed, tempted or manipulated, he must still have made a choice. There was a decision.’ He looked at the Lion. ‘You faced a decision too. You might have killed me. Was it fated that you did not?’

  ‘Of course it was,’ said Curze. ‘You disappoint me, Sanguinius. I thought you were beyond trying to wriggle free of the hook. I thought inevitability was why you brought me here. You and I do not die on Davin.’

  ‘Don’t we? Is there no chance that we might have? I wonder. Remember how near to death you came on Macragge, Konrad. You felt certainty slip away then. Destiny was on a pivot, and it almost turned.’ Sanguinius turned to the Lion again, pushing his brother. He felt the charge in the air again, and it grew stronger as he moved closer to revelation. ‘How close did you come to giving the order for the bombardment?’

  ‘Close,’ the Lion said. He hesitated, then continued, ‘My reason was clouded.’

  ‘Yet you did not give the command,’ Sanguinius said. ‘Where is the victory of Chaos, Konrad? The universe acted to spare us.’

  Guilliman said, ‘I faced a decision too.’

  ‘A fateful one?’ Sanguinius asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you see the pattern?’ Sanguinius realised he was breathing faster. An enormous possibility was opening up before him. He would articulate it this time. He would make it real. ‘The Davin ­System is a fulcrum of destiny. Brothers, you chose well. Horus fell, but you remain standing. We have been brought here to be tempted, just as Horus was.’

  ‘If this is so, then you too must face a decision,’ said the Lion. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I perceive it imperfectly, but I encountered it on Pyrrhan.’ He paused. ‘Konrad knows when and how he will die. I, too, know the moment of my death.’

  Guilliman looked stricken. The Lion’s face darkened with surprise and anger.

  ‘I did know the moment,’ Sanguinius continued before they could speak. ‘On Pyrrhan, that changed. In the manufactorum, I confronted visions of the future. In all of them but one, I died. That was my moment of decision. I could accept what I had long known, or reject it. I chose the vision where I lived, and we triumphed.’

  Next to him, the clink of Curze’s manacles and chains ceased.

  ‘Why are we here?’ said the Lion. ‘You made your choice on Pyrrhan, and we made ours in orbit. No one except Horus made a decision on the soil of Davin. There is nothing here except the traces of what happened to him. If this altar had a purpose, it has served it. There are relics of tragedy on Davin. That is all.’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Sanguinius said. ‘The world is deserted. Too much dust has gathered. Too much has eroded. The system is enclosed by bone. Is it not extravagantly dead? As if gods were determined to convince us that there is nothing?’

  ‘None of this advances us strategically,’ said Guilliman. ‘We have come here, Sanguinius, and we have seen. I feel the weight of this place, but this is getting us no closer to Terra. There is an intruder in the system, and we have the bulk of our forces planetside. We must leave.’

  Sanguinius shook his head. He was not going to be deflected now. Not when understanding was so close, not when he could finally lay claim to the hope that had been denied him for so very long. ‘The way to Terra is here, Roboute. In this chamber. I am sure of it. This is still a fulcrum. It…’

  He stopped. His eyes snapped wide in awe. He understood what he had been arguing. He understood the full implications of his words. He understood that Pyrrhan had only been a prologue. ‘Fate can be altered here,’ he said. ‘This is where Horus’ destiny was created. It was not inevitable that he would come here. Don’t you see?’ he pleaded. ‘Our father was not blind. He could not foresee Davin, because here is where the future changes. Here is where we will change it.’

  Revelation blazed. He saw all the threads of possibilities, the severed and the chosen. He saw the knots of fate, and how they choked or were undone. ‘I will!’ Sanguinius shouted. ‘I will change the future!’

  And his words summoned light.

  The Lion cursed. He and Guilliman stepped back from the altar, weapons in hand.

  A vertical slit opened in the air before the north wall. It ran from the dome to the floor, thin as a las-beam, and as bright. A second tear grew horizontally from its centre, arcing halfway around the cylinder wall. Diagonal lines lashed out, forming a star. The tear widened, turning from star to sphere, burning with white light. Sanguinius stared into brilliance. He beheld the ferocious energy of life and possibility.

  The sphere stretched downwards, taking on the shape of a doorway. Something moved deep within the gate. Sanguinius thought he saw a flutter, as rapid, constant alterations. He thought of the blurring succession of visions when he fell through the breach in the real on Pyrrhan, and he knew what he had to do.

  Guilliman and the Lion were at the back of the chamber, squinting against the light. Their guns were trained on the portal.

  ‘This is a trap, Sanguinius,’ Guilliman called. ‘There is nothing else it can be.’

  ‘We were manipulated,’ sai
d the Lion. ‘The enemy misleads you, too.’

  ‘You do not understand what I have seen,’ Sanguinius told them.

  Curze still hadn’t moved. He was staring at the portal, though his face was a mask of agony.

  ‘I know what I must do, brothers,’ Sanguinius said. ‘This is the fulcrum. I will forge us a new fate.’

  ‘You cannot do this,’ said Curze. His voice was barely a whisper. There was something in his tone that was alien to the Night Haunter. His face was transformed. It took Sanguinius a moment to recognise what he was seeing and hearing in Curze.

  It was horror. Horror that the Angel might destroy the bedrock of Curze’s existence. Horror that Sanguinius might prove the future was not written.

  ‘I must,’ Sanguinius replied.

  He entered the portal.

  The last thing he heard before the light enveloped him was the Night Haunter screaming.

  Fifteen

  By Eight, By Four

  The portal flared with slicing, frozen brilliance. Then it faded, the edges pulling back until only a vertical tear remained. It suffused the chamber with dim light that cut the eye like a razor. Guilliman stopped with his right hand a hair’s breadth from the portal. He had lunged to grab Sanguinius and missed. He cursed. He looked back at the Lion. ‘This is impossible. Where is he?’

  ‘The warp?’

  ‘Impossible,’ Guilliman repeated. ‘This is madness.’

  From the hall beyond the chamber, the Sanguinary Guard had pushed forwards. Azkaellon stood in the doorway. ‘Where is our lord?’ he demanded.

  ‘Beyond our reach,’ said the Lion.

  Azkaellon rushed towards the portal.

  ‘Hold!’ Guilliman commanded.

  The voice of thunder stopped Azkaellon. He faced Guilliman, shaking with fury. ‘I will not abandon my primarch.’

  ‘I do not abandon my brother,’ Guilliman said, his words rumbling still through the chamber. ‘But a blind leap through that portal does him no good. He made this decision. Respect it, and prepare for what may follow. He went in. You know what may come out.’

  ‘Daemons,’ Azkaellon growled. The word came to his lips more easily than it did to Guilliman’s.

  ‘Withdraw and stand ready,’ Guilliman told him. ‘We shall expect an enemy attack from this gate.’

  After another hesitation, Azkaellon obeyed.

  Curze was shaking his head. He staggered against the altar. He looked as if the light had dealt him a mortal blow. He was ­staring at the portal, his sunken eyes glittering with anger and horror. Guilliman advanced on him. ‘Tell us what will happen,’ he said.

  Curze looked up at him with contempt. ‘I don’t know.’

  The Lion seized his chain. He bent Curze backwards, arcing his back to the breaking point. ‘You don’t know? You know I won’t kill you,’ the Lion said. ‘And you know I will make you wish I would. Answer my brother!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Curze roared. His anger and confusion were real.

  ‘He’s telling the truth,’ Guilliman said.

  The Lion threw Curze back against the altar.

  The Night Haunter struggled to stand. He was a ragged shadow in the hard light. ‘If I knew he would fail, I would throw it in your faces. You’re all fools, and he’s the greatest fool of all.’

  ‘Why?’ Guilliman asked.

  Curze whispered, ‘Because he might succeed.’

  Corruption draped the halls of the ship. Sanded skins hung between iron spikes that reached from the walls like claws. Sanguinius tasted his blood, and the viscous slick of the air. He smelled scorched ozone, expended fyceline, burning flesh and the stench of rotting souls. The hull of the Vengeful Spirit rang with the clash of blades and the roars of men. A huge icon, the eye of Horus, stared down on Sanguinius as he crossed the threshold into the throne room.

  Horus was there, waiting, as he always was, as he always would be until the end finally came.

  The brothers fought, and warm blood coursed down inside Sanguinius’ armour. He struggled against the sluggishness of his limbs. His lungs struggled to pull in the foetid air. His hearts beat like pounding stones in his head.

  Most acute of all the sensations was the agony of Horus’ blows. Sanguinius knew every step of the fight, every strike and parry and counter-attack. Though his body reacted to the immediacy of the duel, his mind looked at each moment with the despair of total familiarity. Each second was a painting he had studied to the ­minutest detail.

  And still the death blow came as a brutal shock.

  Sanguinius died, and then he fought again, and died again, and died again. Death was a terrible refrain. He was trapped in a hymn to the triumph of dark gods.

  But on Pyrrhan he had found a way out of the trap, a way of disrupting the refrain. He reached for that memory. He seized upon that single, precious future where he killed Horus, and he made it real. For the second time, he experienced the impossible victory, and the surge of hope that came with it renewed his strength. He slew Horus and grew stronger yet. The weight of countless repetitions hurled his death at him once more. In rage and determination, he fought back.

  Horus died. Sanguinius died. Reality flickered between the two alternatives. The deaths came faster and faster, agony and triumph turning from instants into constant states of being. Time thrummed, vibrating. Darkness and light took form in Sanguinius. States of being took on definite contours. The darkness was rage. Betrayal and pain fed into an anger that blinded him in his final moment, the wrath so consuming it seemed to burst from within and take on a life of its own independent of Sanguinius. The light was justice. It brought an end to Horus’ treachery. It brought the revival of hope. The darkness had the strength of many futures, yet they all ended with the last blow. The light shone in the one destiny, the one series of actions that saved Sanguinius and killed Horus. Through that light, time continued. It described his future beyond slaying Horus on the Vengeful Spirit.

  Sanguinius chose the light. He chose it and he chose it and he chose it. It grew brighter. He grew stronger. Victory’s radiance ­dazzled. It overwhelmed the darkness. The endless cycle of death stuttered. It weakened. The anger of betrayal lost its grip. Sanguinius pulled himself away from rage. His justice was cold, and it was implacable. The light of the Blade Encarmine and the light of victory fused. They were the same, and the light grew and grew. The reality of the Vengeful Spirit faded. Soon there was only the light. It intensified, blinding, and it became the piercing white of the portal once more.

  Sanguinius soared through the featureless brilliance.

  But the dark would not release him willingly. It surged back. The light faded. The rewritten future slipped away from his grasp. A black tide rose beneath him. It tainted the light. His wings beat against limbo. He tried to climb. The darkness was faster. It rushed up, a deluge. It swallowed him. He choked on it. It filled his lungs. It filled his eyes. It filled his mind.

  This is the choice. Let me guide your hand against Horus. Turn from me, and behold what will come.

  The voice was not his. It spoke without sound. He thought that, if he could hear it, he would recognise it.

  He breathed again. His lungs pulled in familiar, dusty air. Wind whipped against his face, stinging, scouring. The darkness dropped from his eyes, and he was on Baal. His armour was torn open. His chest ached. The pain of his death lingered. He stood on the highest spire of the monastery-fortress of the Blood Angels. The sky was black with smoke. Below the fortress, the landscape of canyons and jagged ridges was strewn with the guttering remains of tanks, transports and mobile artillery. Clouds of ash billowed on the wind. War had come to Baal, and war had ended.

  The aftermath was cancerous. Screams of madness and rage rose from inside the monastery towers. Sanguinius gasped in the agony of recognition. The Thirst had come for his sons. Reflected in the windows of the spires, he cau
ght glimpses of beasts. They wore fragments of battle armour. They fought and killed each other. They tore the bodies of mortals apart and lapped their blood. The wind carried the howls over the land; the animal wailing of a Legion’s death. Soon blood ran from the windows. It streamed in torrents down the towers. It pooled in the courtyards and at the base of the monastery. It poured in great cataracts, becoming a lake, becoming an ocean. The fortress became an island. The blood kept rising. It reached the ramparts. It flooded the keep. Crimson waves broke against the towers. Still the blood cascaded. Storm-tossed, the ocean rose. The screams of the monsters were cut off, smothered beneath the blood.

  Sanguinius groaned. He cried out against the flaw. He spread his wings to fly away from the rolling swells of grief. He could not. The blood lapped at his feet. His wings folded and he sank to his knees.

  The sea of blood took him. He choked, drowning. The darkness filled him again.

  Again he dropped through the smothering night. Falling, falling.

  This is the choice. Turn from it.

  Falling. The red of flame streaked the dark. He breathed again. The air burned.

  He was on the ramparts of the Imperial Palace. The sky boiled with flame. The prow of a battleship plunged through the clouds. The vessel bore the gold and black of the Imperial Fists. It had broken in two. Wreathed in fire, a slow comet, the forwards half of the ship dropped to the Imperial Palace. The earth shook. A terrible sunrise filled the night. Huge fragments of domes, towers and great halls were specks of black in the fireball.

  The streets were in tumult. Millions ran in panic before the advance of the enemy. Mutated Titans, spikes running down their spines and limbs, strode over hab blocks and smashed through the walls of Administratum palaces. War-horns blared, the cries of frenzied predators. They turned their weapons on the streets, making the ground molten.

  If there were still defenders, Sanguinius could not see them. The enemy marched in shadow. They were the night beneath the night. Their war-chants were incantations of madness. A great wailing of fear greeted their arrival. A great wailing of grief remained in their wake. The chorus of woe resounded against the crumbling walls of the Imperial Palace. It hit Sanguinius with a force greater than the death of the battleship and the war-horns of the Titans. The wailing was the sound of his failure. It felt like Horus’ blade sawing through his hearts again. He had failed his Terra, the Imperium and the Emperor. His death was meaningless. He had been willing to embrace it, if, by dying, he saved his father. He would sacrifice himself on the altar of salvation. But Terra had fallen. The Imperial Palace was burning. The Emperor must be dead, for surely He would have been fighting the invaders. Where the Master of Mankind should be, there was only absence.