Hammer and Bolter 16

by Christian Dunn

  This is the true conjunction. Erebus reflects upon how remarkably perfect it is. Not just workable or suitable or acceptable. Perfect. From today, for the next sixty days. It is as though some power somewhere manufactured the perfection at exactly the right time.

  The men of the Kaul have laid the circle. Polished black rocks, each taken from the volcanic slopes of Isstvan V and marked with a sigil, are arranged in a perfect circle a kilometre in diameter.

  Erebus takes the last rock from Zote. They are summoning stones. The latent power in them makes him feel sick, just taking one in his hand.

  He places it in the gap in the circle. It clacks against the stones on either side as he sets it.

  ‘Begin,’ he tells Zote.

  The men of the Tzenvar Kaul approach, carrying other offerings from the Isstvan system. In procession, they bear along portable stasis flasks like censers in some Catheric worship. The fluid in the stasis flasks is murky with blood. Harvested progenitor glands. Harvested gene-seed. The lost life of betrayed souls now offered for the final blasphemy. There is Salamanders gene-seed here, Iron Hands, Raven Guard. Erebus knows that the Ruinous Powers make no distinctions, so there is other gene-seed here besides: Emperor’s Children, Death Guard, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, even Luna Wolf. Any that fell during the secret abominations of Isstvan III or V are suitable.

  Erebus stops the first man in the procession, and strokes the glass of the stasis flask. He knows what’s in it, the mangled tissue in the cloudy suspension.

  ‘Tarik…’ he whispers.

  He nods. The Kaul start to carry the flasks into the circle. The moment they cross the stones, the bearers start to whimper and retch. Several pass out, or suffer strokes, and fall, smashing the flasks.

  It doesn’t matter.

  The moon is rising, a pale curl in a mauve sky already busy with lights.

  Zote hands Erebus a data-slate, and the Apostle checks the approach timings. He is data tracking using anchorage codes.

  He hands the slate back and takes the vox-link in exchange.

  ‘Now,’ he says.

  [mark: -0.40.20]

  ‘Acknowledged,’ replies Sorot Tchure.

  He walks back to join the others. His men are mingling with the men of Luciel’s company on the company decks of the Samothrace. They have finished the formal dinner that Luciel had arranged. None need to eat, certainly not the fine foodstuffs that Luciel provided, but it is a symbolic gesture. To dine as allies, as warrior-kings. To bond ahead of the coming war.

  ‘Problem?’ asks Luciel.

  Tchure shakes his head.

  ‘Some question about loading platforms.’

  Tchure looks at Luciel.

  ‘Why have you changed your markings and armour field?’ asks Luciel.

  ‘We are remaking ourselves,’ Tchure replies. ‘A new scheme to celebrate our new beginning. Perhaps it is down to the character of our beloved primarch, may the cosmos bless him. We have never quite found ourselves, Honorius. Not like you. We have struggled to realise a proper role for ourselves. I do not believe you appreciate how fortunate you are. The clarity of your purpose and position as Ultramarines. From the start you had a reputation that never needed to be questioned, and a function that never needed to be clarified.’

  He pauses.

  ‘For years, I have despised Lorgar,’ he says quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Sorot, you mustn’t–’

  ‘Look at your primarch, Honorius. So singular in aspect. So noble. I have envied you, envied the Imperial Fists, the Luna Wolves, the Iron Hands. And I am not alone. We struggle with a mercurial mind, Honorius. We labour under the burden of a brilliant but fallible commander. We no longer bear the word, my friend. We bear Lorgar.’

  ‘Some fall into their roles quickly,’ says Luciel firmly. ‘I have thought about this. Some fall into their roles quickly. Others take time to evolve, to discover what their purpose is to be. Your primarch, great Lorgar, is a son of the Emperor. There will be a role for him. It may turn out to be far greater than any that falls to Guilliman or Dorn. Yes, we’re lucky to have clarity. I know that. So are the Fists, the Hands, the Angels. Terra above, so are the Wolves of Fenris and the World Eaters, Sorot. Perhaps the lack of clarity you have laboured under thus far is because Lorgar’s role is yet unimaginable.’

  Tchure smiles.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re defending him.’

  ‘Why can’t you?’

  Tchure shrugs.

  ‘I think we may be finding our purpose at last, Honorius,’ he says. ‘Hence our new resolve. Our change in scheme and armour colour. I… I was asked to join the advance.’

  Luciel frowns, quizzical.

  ‘You told me that.’

  ‘I have things to prove.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Luciel.

  ‘I have to prove my commitment to the new purpose.’

  ‘And how do you do that?’ asks Luciel.

  Tchure doesn’t answer. Luciel notices how the Word Bearer’s fingers stir, tapping the tabletop. What agitation is that? Nerves?

  ‘I learned something,’ Tchure says suddenly, changing the subject. ‘A little piece of warcraft that I thought you would appreciate.’

  Luciel lifts his cup, sips wine.

  ‘Go on,’ he smiles.

  Tchure toys with his own cup, a straight-sided golden beaker.

  ‘It was on Isstvan, during the fight there.’

  ‘Isstvan? There’s been fighting in the Isstvan system?’

  Tchure nods.

  ‘It hasn’t been reported. Was it a compliance?’

  ‘It’s recent,’ says Tchure. ‘The full reports of the campaign are still being ratified by the Warmaster. Then they will be shared.’

  Luciel raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Guilliman won’t appreciate being left out of the loop for any length of time. Is this how the Warmaster intends to conduct the Great Crusade from now on? Guilliman insists on sharing all military data. And Isstvan was compliant–’

  Tchure holds up his hand.

  ‘It’s recent. It’s fresh. It’s done now. Your primarch will hear all about it in due course. The point is, the fight was bitter. The Imperium faced a foe that had discovered the mortal power of treachery.’

  ‘Treachery?’ asks Luciel.

  ‘Not as a strategy, you understand. Not as a tactic to surprise and undermine. I mean as a property. A power.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ smiles Luciel. slightly disarmed. ‘It’s as though you’re talking about… magic.’

  ‘I almost am. The enemy believed that there was power in treachery. To win the confidence of your opponent, to mask your animus, and then to turn… Well, they believed that this actually invested them with power.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ asks Tchure. ‘The potency, they believed, depends on the level of betrayal. If an ally suddenly turns on an ally, that’s one level. But if a trusted friend turns on a friend. That was the purest kind of power, because the treachery ran so deep. Because it required that so many moral codes be broken. Trust. Friendship. Loyalty. Reliance. Honesty. Such an act was powerful because it was beyond belief. It achieved a potency that was akin to the most powerful blood sacrifice.’

  Luciel sits back.

  ‘Interesting, certainly,’ he says. ‘For them to believe that. Culturally, it speaks a great deal to the strength of their honour codes. If they believed this invested them with power, then it seems like an act of superstition. It has little strategic merit in terms of warcraft or technique, of course. Except, I suppose, psychologically.’

  ‘It certainly worked for them.’

  ‘Until you crushed them, of course.’

  Sorot Tchure does not reply.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asks Luciel.

  ‘It’s like a sacrifice,’ says Tchure. ‘You identify and commit the greatest betrayal possi
ble, and it is like a sacrifice to anoint and begin a vast ceremony of victory and destruction.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. It has no tactical methodology.’

  ‘Really? Really, Honorius? What if it does? What if there is an entirely other kind of warfare, one that extends beyond all practical techniques, one that defies and eclipses all the martial law codified by the Ultramarines and recognised by the Imperium? A ritual warfare? A kind of daemonic warfare?’

  ‘You say that as if you believe it,’ Luciel laughs.

  ‘Think about what I’m saying,’ says Tchure quietly. He looks around the chamber, at his men talking and drinking with Luciel’s. ‘Think of this… If the Word Bearers turned against the Ultramarines, wouldn’t that be the greatest betrayal of all? Not Lorgar turning on Guilliman, for they dislike each other anyway. Here, in this chamber, between two men who have actually managed to become friends?’

  ‘That would be the most atrocious deceit,’ Luciel agrees. ‘I concede it would have some power. As shock value in the Legion. We are immune to fear, but horror and surprise might unman us briefly at the unimaginable nature of the act.’

  Tchure nods.

  ‘And it would be the centrepiece,’ he says. ‘The sacrificial spark to ignite the ritual war.’

  Luciel nods gravely.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. It would be well to understand, and allow for, an enemy who carried such conviction in the power of infamy.’

  Tchure smiles.

  ‘I wish you understood,’ he says.

  [mark: -0.20.20]

  The Campanile crosses the inner ring, its codes accepted by the defence grid. The mass of the fleet disposition lies ahead of it, the yards. The bright glory of Calth.

  As it passes within the orbit of Calth’s moon, it begins an abrupt acceleration.

  [mark: -0.19.45]

  ‘Understand what?’ asks Luciel.

  ‘I was asked to join the advance,’ says Tchure.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I have to prove my commitment to the new purpose.’

  Luciel stares at him.

  For just a second. A second. And in that second, he finally realises what Sorot Tchure has been trying to tell him.

  That in order not to betray one impossible bond, Sorot Tchure is required to betray another.

  The goblet falls from Luciel’s grip. His hand is already moving, through instinct alone, for his sidearm. Only sheer, disfunctioning shock is slowing him down.

  Tchure’s plasma pistol is already in his hand.

  The goblet hasn’t even hit the tabletop yet.

  Tchure fires. Point blank, the plasma bolt strikes Honorius Luciel’s torso. The bolt is as hot as a main sequence star. It vaporises armour plate, carapace, reinforced bone, spinal cord. It annihilates meat, both hearts, and secondary organs. It turns blood into dust. The shot’s hammer blow impact knocks Luciel down, through the table, smashing the tabletop up to meet the falling goblet, spinning it into the air in a semi-circle of wine.

  Luciel’s men are turning, caught by surprise, not understanding the noise and motion, not understanding the weapon discharge or the violent collapse of their captain. Tchure’s men simply draw their guns. They are not distracted by the gunfire. Their eyes never leave the men they are talking to, men who are turning away in confusion.

  Luciel rolls on the deck, limbs thrashing, as the smashed table falls around him. The goblet bounces off the deck plate beside his head. His eyes are wide, straining, staring. The plasma shot has burned a massive hole clean through him. His body is cored. The deck plating is visible through his twitching torso. The edges of the gaping damage are scorched and cooked by superheating. His armour is likewise punctured, the cut edges glowing. Larraman cells cannot hope to clog or close a wound quite so catastrophic. Tchure is on his feet, his chair tipping backwards behind him, toppling. He swings the plasma weapon down, aims it at Luciel’s face, and fires again.

  Around him, the chamber shakes with a sudden storm of gunfire. Twenty or thirty boltguns discharge almost simultaneously. Armoured bodies, blown backwards, fall. Blood mist fills the air.

  The goblet lands on the third bounce, rolls in a circle, and comes to rest on its side next to Honorius Luciel’s seared and shattered skull.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  Cover illustration by Neil Roberts

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