The sarcophagus was rendered in platinum and bronze, depicting one of the greatest days of battle ever to take place in the history of 10th Company. A warrior in ancient war-plate stood, head raised back to the sky, clutching two Astartes helms. His right boot rested upon a third, driving it into the ground.
The image had never been defiled with exaggeration. No mound of skulls, no cheering crowds. Just a warrior alone with his victory.
The helm in his right hand sported a jagged lightning bolt etched onto its forehead, with a barbaric rune upon its cheek. The helm of Xorumai Khan, swordmaster-captain of the White Scars 9th Company.
The helm in his left hand was crested and proud, even when torn from the body of its wearer. It was marked only with a clenched fist upon the faceplate, and the High Gothic rune for Paladin. Here was the helm of Lethandrus the Templar, a renowned champion of the Imperial Fists Legion.
Lastly, beneath the warrior’s boot, the helm of a third Astartes. This helm was winged, marked by a tear-shaped drop of blood – displayed here as a ruby – on the helm’s forehead. Raguel the Sufferer, captain of the Blood Angels 7th Company.
The warrior had slain these three souls in the span of a single day. A single day of hive warfare outside the walls of the Imperial Palace, and the warrior had cut down three champions of the loyalist Astartes Legions.
Clanking cranes lifted the huge sarcophagus from its stasis pit in the marble floor of the Hall of Remembrance. Servitors operated the lifting equipment, their mono-tasked mechanical precision a necessary part of the ritual of reawakening. Talos watched the hulking coffin of platinum, bronze and black ceramite – the size of two Astartes in full Terminator plate – as it was lifted clear of the pit’s restraints. Tubes, feeds and cables, each with a sacred use, trailed down from the sarcophagus as it hung aloft. These fibrous snakes dripped coolant, beads of moisture collecting in the funereal air after such a long immersion in the stasis field.
First Claw watched in silent reverence as the sarcophagus was carried across the chamber and lowered with programmed care. Several more servitors waited below the lowering coffin, clustered around the towering form of an armoured carapace three times the height of an Astartes. Their hands, replaced with industrial claws and technical tools, busied over the machine body, making the final preparations for the sarcophagus’s mounting upon its front.
Dreadnought.
The word itself sent a pulse of ice through his blood, but it was nothing compared to the reality before his eyes. A Dreadnought: the ultimate blend of man and machine. The form of an Astartes hero, encased within an ornate sarcophagus and forever suspended in amniotic fluids on the very edge of death, controlling the nigh-invulnerable ceramite body of a walking war machine.
The ritual so far had taken almost two hours, and Talos knew several still lay ahead. He watched the servitors at work, machining clamps into place, locking struts, testing interface ports…
‘My lord,’ said Tech-Priest Deltrian. ‘All is ready for the Third Juncture of the Ritual of Reawakening.’
The man, robed in black, had augmented himself to the height of an Astartes with none of the inhuman muscle-bulk. To Talos, he resembled the skeletal harvester of life from pre-Imperial Terran mythology. It was an image shared across the stars by so many colonised worlds, even those that had evolved independently of far, far distant Earth. A reaper of souls.
Deltrian’s face, visible from under the black cowl, seemed to play to this conceit for reasons Talos had never fathomed. A silver skull grinned at the Astartes. The face was formed from chrome and plasteel shaped to the man’s facial bones – perhaps even replacing skin and bone itself.
A voxsponder unit, like a coal-black beetle on his still-human throat, emitted Deltrian’s mechanical voice.
The unblinking eyes were glittering emerald lenses, dewy with a faint sheen from the moisture spray that hissed subtly from Deltrian’s tear ducts once every fifteen seconds. Talos had no idea why the tech-priest’s eye lenses must be kept moist, they were hardly human eyes in need of lids and juices to prevent them drying out.
As with all of Deltrian’s inhumanities, it was something Talos respected as personal, despite his curiosity.
‘You have the Legion’s thanks, honoured tech-priest,’ the Astartes said, continuing the traditional phrases expected of him. He glanced around the marble-floored chamber, its walls thick with arcane machinery, pits sloping into the floor holding even more wondrous technology. He looked back to the tech-priest, and added on a whim: ‘Our thanks, as always, Deltrian. You are a dutiful and trusted ally to us.’
Deltrian froze, machine-still. The servitors banged and clanged and fused and attached and drilled. The tech-priest’s emerald lenses clicked and whirred, as if seeking to adopt some form of facial expression. The skull of his face never stopped grinning.
‘You have violated the traditional exchange of vocalised linguistics.’
‘I merely meant to show gratitude for the duties you perform. Duties that too often remain thankless.’ Talos’s black eyes didn’t break the sincere stare. ‘I apologise if I caused you offence.’
‘It was not an error to amend the vocalised linguistical exchange?’
‘No. It was intentional.’
‘Analysing. Processed. In reply, I would state: thank you for your recognition, Astartes One-Two-Ten.’
Astartes One-Two-Ten? Talos smiled as understanding dawned. First Claw, Second Astartes, 10th Company. His original squad designation.
‘Talos,’ the Night Lord said. ‘My name is Talos.’
‘Talos. Acknowledged. Recorded.’ Deltrian turned his death’s head grin on the lowering sarcophagus. ‘Through the invocation of the Machine-God, through the blessed sacrament of unity between the enlightened Mechanicum and the Legions of Horus, I shall endeavour to revivify the warrior before us if the cause aligns with the First Oath. Make your vow known to me.’
Slipping back into the formal exchange, Talos replied, ‘In the name of my primarch, who loved and served Horus as the brother he was, I give you my vow. The VIII Legion makes war upon the Golden Throne and the Cult of Mars. Return to us our fallen brother, and Imperial blood shall run. Renew his strength with your secrets, and together we will bleed the false Mechanicum of its lore.’
Here Deltrian paused again. Talos wondered if he had spoken the oath incorrectly. He’d studied the texts, but this was the first time he had undertaken the ritual himself.
‘Your avowal aligns with the First Oath. My secrets will be employed in our mutual favour.’
‘Wake him, Deltrian.’ Talos met the tech-priest’s gaze, his voice lowered. ‘A storm is coming. A reckoning. We need him to stand with us.’
This, too, was a break in the prescribed ritual. Deltrian paused to process it.
‘You are cognitive of the probability of failure? This warrior-unit has resisted reawakening on all four previous attempts.’
‘I know.’ Talos watched the sarcophagus, golden with great deeds, being fastened in place on its war machine body. ‘He has never awoken. He did not wish to be entombed.’
Deltrian said nothing. To refuse the honour of becoming so close to the Machine-God made no sense to the Mechanicum priest. With no comprehension of the emotions at play, he simply remained silent until Talos spoke again.
‘May I ask a question?’
‘Permission is granted, with the acceptance that no lore of the blessed Mechanicum shall leave the minds of its holy servants.’
‘I respect that. But I will be leaving an… honour guard here. To watch over the ritual. Is that an unacceptable breach of tradition?’
‘It was once considered tradition to maintain an honour guard in the Hall of Remembrance at all times,’ Deltrian said. In a moment of almost eerie humanity, the machine man tilted his head to the side while the smile remained on his unchanging face. ‘How times change.’
Talos nodded to that, smiling himself.
‘Thank you for your patience, Deltrian. C
yrion, Mercutian and Xarl will remain here. They will not interfere with your work and worship, I assure you.’
‘Your orders are recorded.’
‘I wish you well, honoured tech-priest. Please summon me for the final stage of the rite. I wish to be present.’
‘Compliance,’ the augmented man said. After several seconds, Deltrian added almost awkwardly, ‘Talos?’
The Astartes turned with a growling whirr of armour joints. ‘Yes?’
Deltrian gestured with a long-fingered skeletal hand to a wall-mounted life support pod. Within its glass walls, suspended in amniotic fluids and connected to external systems by a tangled weave of cables and wires, the naked form of Princeps Arjuran Hollison floated in chemical-induced slumber.
The tech-priest emitted a blurt of machine code from his throat-vox; the sound equation of a pleased smile. ‘This one will have many uses. Much to be learned from him. My thanks for the gift of this most valuable weapon.’
‘Return the favour,’ said Talos, ‘and we’ll consider the matter even.’
‘We need to discuss matters of rank.’
Bare-headed, sporting a short black beard salted with flecks of grey, Adhemar walked alongside Talos through the darkened halls of the Covenant. They were descending deeper through the ship, heading from the artificer and machinery deck, making their striding way to the mortal crew quarters.
‘What is there to discuss?’ Talos asked. A rare vitality was flowing through him. Hope. Something he’d not felt in a long time. He’d not lied to the tech-priest; a storm was coming. He could feel it in his blood. It threatened to break with every beat of his heart. 10th Company would be changed forevermore.
The two Astartes’ bootsteps echoed from the black steel around them.
‘I outrank you.’ Adhemar’s voice came as if he were grinding rocks with his teeth.
‘You do,’ Talos agreed. ‘Why does that seem to make you uncomfortable?’
‘Because rank means nothing with the 10th ruined. Beneath the Exalted is the Atramentar. Above the Exalted is no one but his hateful gods. All else is unworthy of his notice. Ninth Claw has been leaderless for three months now.’
Talos exhaled, shaking his head. Truly, the Legion had fallen apart.
‘I had no idea.’
‘I am First Claw now,’ Adhemar affirmed. ‘But who leads First Claw? The former brother-sergeant of Seventh? Or the former Apothecary of First?’
‘Do I look like I care?’ Talos rested his hand on the pommel of sheathed Aurum. ‘I’d be satisfied with the company holding together for the duration of this war. You lead. You earned your rank.’
‘Has it never occurred to you that perhaps you’ve earned a higher rank than the Exalted grants you?’
‘Never,’ Talos lied. ‘Not for a moment.’
‘I see the lie in your eyes, brother. You are not gifted with deception. You know full well you should lead First Claw. You merely offer me the position from respect.’
‘Maybe. But the lie is sincere. You have the rank. Lead and I would follow.’
‘Enough games. I have no wish to lead your – our – squad. But hear me well. Your actions for the betterment of the Legion may be altruistic and made without thoughts of personal glory. But they do not look that way to the Exalted.’
They waited at the sealed doors to an elevator, staring at one another in the pitch blackness, seeing each other’s features perfectly. Talos breathed slowly before answering. Even the mention of the Exalted was fuel for his suppressed fury.
‘These are not your words, Adhemar. This talk of suspicion and deception… It is not your way to learn of such things. Who is this warning from? Upon whose behalf are you speaking?’
From the hallway behind them, a voice said: ‘Mine.’
Talos turned slowly, cursing himself for being too lost in his inner conflicts to have heard another close by. Even though the newcomer was unarmoured and wearing only the traditional Legion tunic, the prophet should have heard his approach.
‘My behalf. Adhemar speaks on my behalf.’
Adhemar nodded his head in respect, as did Talos, to Champion Malek of the Atramentar.
Xarl and Cyrion had never been close. Conversation, such as it was, always remained stilted between them when it occurred at all. Idle chatter was not an Astartes trait, and that tendency was only magnified when the two Astartes in question despised one another.
Bolters held to chests, they walked in opposite directions around the marble-tiled chamber of the Hall of Remembrance, passing each other twice on each circuit. Mercutian, his armour sigils yet displaying his allegiance to Seventh Claw, stood guard at the great double doors, his helm turned to face the form of the Dreadnought.
Deltrian puppeteered his servitors with occasional blaring snarls of machine code. According to his directions, the cyborged minions went about the painstaking process of readying the Dreadnought for a full reawakening. Upon its front, the mounted sarcophagus stared across the room, brazen with its glory in a way Malcharion never was in life.
On the sixth time Cyrion passed Xarl, he opened a vox-channel to his brother.
‘Xarl.’
‘Make this good.’
‘What are the chances of this working?’
‘Of the war-sage waking?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am… sceptical.’
‘As am I.’ A pause stretched out, and the channel fell dead after several minutes. Cyrion blink-clicked it open again.
‘The Exalted will not allow it to happen.’
‘That is not news to me, brother.’ Xarl sighed over the link. ‘Why do you think we are here? Of course the Exalted will attempt to stop this ritual. What still eludes me is why. I can scarcely believe things are falling apart so completely.’
‘The Exalted fears this. He fears Talos, but he fears the awakening of Malcharion even more. You haven’t sensed what I have.’
‘I have no desire to. Let us not dwell on talk of your corruption.’
‘I sense fear. I do not feel it. It’s a… perception. Like people whispering on a detuned vox, where only scraps of meaning break through.’
‘You are touched by the Ruinous Powers. Enough.’
Cyrion pressed on. ‘Xarl. Listen. Just this once. Whatever war is taking place within the Exalted, it is one Vandred lost long ago. He barely exists as the man we followed into battle after the Siege of Terra.’
They passed one another again, neither warrior giving sign of acknowledging the other, despite their argument over the vox. Mercutian still stood in orderly silence.
‘Enough,’ Xarl snapped. ‘Do you think I will react favourably to learn you understand the mind and soul of that twisted wretch? Of course you know his secrets. You are as warped as he is. His corruption is on the outside, bared to the eyes and displayed in the ravaging of his flesh. Your decay is within. Hidden, and all the darker for that fact.’
‘Xarl,’ Cyrion said, his voice softer. ‘My brother. In the name of the father we share, listen to me now if never again.’
Xarl didn’t reply. Cyrion watched his silent brother approaching as they came around to meeting on another half-circuit of the chamber. As they passed, Xarl gripped the rim of Cyrion’s shoulder guard. It was a strange and awkward moment. Even though the red lenses of both their helms, Cyrion felt his brother making eye contact for the first time in several years.
‘Speak,’ Xarl said. ‘Justify yourself, if you can.’
‘Imagine,’ Cyrion began, ‘a secret voice within everyone. A voice that speaks of their fear. When I am with you, with Talos, with Uzas… all is silent. We are Astartes. “Where fear fills the mortal shell, we are hollow and cold”.’
Xarl smirked as Cyrion quoted Malcharion’s writings. Apt, very apt.
Mercutian’s voice crackled over the vox. ‘Keeping secrets from your new squadmate?’
‘No, brother,’ replied Cyrion. ‘Forgive us this momentary disagreement.’
‘Of course.’ Merc
utian’s link went dead again.
‘Continue,’ Xarl said.
‘It’s… different around mortals. I hear their fears, like a chorus of shameful whispers. You kill a mortal and see the light die in his eyes. I hear him silently weeping, hear him whispering of a home world he will never see again, of a wife he was so afraid he would never lay eyes upon one last time. I… rip these thoughts from every mind I am near.’
The taint of the psyker, Xarl thought. In the years of the primarch’s glory, such wretches would be purged from the Legion, or shaped according to rigid codes of behaviour and use. A wild psychic talent was an open door to possession and corruption by the soulless beings of the warp.
‘Continue,’ he said again. The word was much harder to speak this time.
‘You cannot imagine what the Exalted sounds like to me, brother.’ Cyrion’s own voice was broken and hesitant, struggling to give the concepts a form in words. ‘He shrieks… lost in the darkness of his own mind. He shouts our names, the names of Legion brothers dead and alive, imploring us to find him, to save him, to kill him.’
He took a breath before continuing. ‘That is what I hear when I stand near him. His torment. His terror at the loss of control he suffers throughout his existence. He is no longer Astartes. His possession has allowed him to feel fear, and it has rendered him truly hollow. Terror bores through him like the tunnels of a hundred worms.’
Xarl realised he was still holding Cyrion’s shoulder guard. He released it immediately, fighting down the snarl in his voice. ‘I could easily have lived without that knowledge, brother.’
‘As could I. But my revelations were not spoken to make you uncomfortable. The Exalted is two souls – Vandred, shrieking his slow way into oblivion, and something else… something formed from his hatred and meshed with the mind of another. When Talos threatened to awaken Malcharion, it was the first time I have heard both souls howl. Vandred’s remnants and the daemon that claims him; both feared this moment.’
‘We are here,’ Xarl insisted. ‘We stand watch over the rites of resurrection. If the Exalted truly fears this event and sends… dissuasion, it will not matter. Threats and oaths. Who of the Atramentar is truly ignoble enough to make war upon his brothers? Malek? Never. Garadon? He is the Exalted’s creature, but he is no match for three of us. Any of the Atramentar would fall, and the Exalted is precious with the lives of his chosen elite.’
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