Dhareg hated them. He hated them as much as he admired the skill shown in their composition, and that made the hatred ache all the sharper. He had known the honour, in early life, of viewing the works of Karlier and Frachar after they had been broken as so many others had been broken.
There was a glory there that lingered with him, in seeing the hands of the Imperial enemy turned to true and honest craft. Men could work wonders when they surrendered their sanity and their souls to the beauty which dwelt beyond the world.
He had used his hate. He had sketched the statues and noted their dimensions by eye. He had observed the rites the Imperials practised, and he had waited. He had worked marble of his own. Real and imitation. He had worn and chipped and rasped at the stone until it shone. He had hollowed it, laid it aside, and begun to work upon the metal.
Here there was a greater beauty. A vaster truth.
Each piece was assembled with love and fidelity. With a commitment that few Imperial artisans could have matched. He worked until his blood ran into the work and sanctified it further. He created in a holy fugue. Dhareg took no bread nor water nor meat-of-the-city. He maintained his long vigil. When he broke from his work he walked the narrow crawlspace he had found within the bowels of their rule and he crushed the islumbine blooms beneath his bare feet. Soiling them as they sullied him.
Impurity was the price of victory.
The day of the Saint’s ascendancy there was to be a sacred council of war. Normally these things were done within the bastion sanctum but this was a holy day to them – the unfaithful can often be confused and distracted by false signs and wonders. They were as children in understanding. Dhareg pitied them but knew that their time was near.
The night before the meeting the statues were taken to be cleaned. To be garlanded in her flower, dusted with martyr’s ash, and polished to a glorious sheen.
That was when he chose his moment.
He stole in amongst them in the robes of a lithologic adept, as grey and worn as ancient stone, fussing over the precious statues as though they were newborn babes and not priceless relics. They were so engrossed in their work, so devoted to their craft, that they did not notice as he wheeled in the covered trolley. They did not stir when he deftly drew hammer and chisel from beneath the sheet and advanced carefully behind them.
They were barely aware that they were dying when he set about them. Blood spattered the smooth pale stone of the statuary. It would likely endure there forever, such a stain, but he did not care. Instead he turned back to his own prize.
The death had roused them slightly. He pulled back the sheeting and watched the trembling stone. He began to whisper the myriad names of death, binding their hunger with lesser trinkets of yearning, until they quieted at last.
He stepped over the bodies and picked up the garlands and ashes with trembling hands and pursed lips.
When the preparations were made he would destroy the originals. Then, he would wait.
They gathered beneath the eyes of saints and raised their glasses in a solemn toast.
From his concealed hiding place amidst the arches of the upper terraces he watched them with disdain. A lord governor chuckling dryly at the side of a Militarum general. There was a sombre and sober ayatani present as well. Every so often he would gaze up at the rendition of the Saint as though seeing it for the first time again.
Men such as him were why the Sons raised iconoclaves. It was not simple desecration. It was the death of their joy and their hope. Such things were sweet upon the tongue. Dhareg drew his knife along the palm of his hand, adding to the myriad scars of creation, and began to whisper.
The world trembled, sighing like breath drawn in too quickly between teeth. The very air soured and grew heavy. There was a sudden ozone reek, blossoming into innumerable odours. Rotting flowers, the excrement of beasts, corpse-rot and grave dust. They looked around, eyes darting as they sought an explanation. For the heavens to answer weak prayers for deliverance.
The Saint moved.
The statue lurched forward and her artfully graven face split. The smile became a tortured grin of breaking stone, until it was a burning maw, rendered volcanic by terrible internal heat and un-light. The others moved too, as though following her lead, their movements jerky and forced. Marionettes animated by a power vaster than all of them.
The wirewolves bound within the hollow stone were newly born. They were precocious.
They were hungry.
Dhareg gazed down at the carnage with a perfectly placid smile. He recognised the ill-fitting gesture after a moment. He was aping the warm pleasure that the ayatani had shared as he stared up at the Saint.
As she devoured his face with teeth of fire and metal, Dhareg considered that there was a beautiful symmetry there. He would meditate upon it, and embrace it when next he was moved by the Anarch’s will to create.
‘Gerik? Damogaur?’
The voice roused him from his reverie and his head snapped around to follow it. Ekren looked at him with tired eyes, bled of all disappointment. ‘Were you dreaming, damogaur? What did the visions show you?’
‘Truth,’ Gerik murmured. He could feel drool on his chin and winced at the shame of it. He forced himself to stand taller. ‘I have seen the Anarch’s truth in the souls of our brothers. I have seen the truth that should be writ upon the world.’ He swallowed. ‘I believe you are that truth.’
‘The will of the Voice is absolute. We all know this,’ Ekren allowed. He stepped back and Gerik could see the war within him played out upon his face. Surprise as it faded into surety. Dismay as it became determination. Every muscle clenched, every sinew tightened. ‘If it is the will of the Kings of the warp that I bear the voice of revelation then I shall do so. I shall lead where it follows, if all will follow where I lead.’ He smiled and in his plain features Gerik saw all the potential of the man. He could no longer feel the drug’s bite. It was as though it had never been. Perhaps, he now realised, it never had.
He understood.
Gerik was nothing.
Perhaps that was what mattered in the end. A boy with ambition who wished to serve in the cult armies of Nadzybar but had been denied. Who had served the armies of the Gaur, though chafed at the brutality of his calling. Until the Anarch had found him. Until the voice which drowns out all others had filled him and invigorated him.
There were scars on his soul that would never heal. He had seen and done the impossible. He had surrendered himself. The gore-witches of the old Archonate had marked his fate as a child. That he would be a vessel. He would take orders and swallow them down. He would endure. He would remain pure when ambition poisoned so many others.
A man without ambition. Without fear. Without doubt. A man who would follow orders into hell itself. A true son.
Had he known what that meant until the bloody years after the schism was joined at Salvation’s Reach? Did he understand what the Anarch’s ascendancy and scheming would mean?
It no longer mattered. The Anarch was dead. He had failed.
All that remained was for Gerik to listen. To truly hear and to understand. To hear the Voice.
To accept what he had been shown. To accept why he had been shown.
To let me in.
Gerik opened his eyes just as Ekren’s blade swung for his throat. His hand was up in an instant, taking the boy by the wrist as one might discipline a child. He sighed and the breath was charnel. Gerik laughed in a voice that was not his own. It was strange, layered, bent-double and broken. The voice of the dead.
‘I know you, Ekren. A child playing at war, thinking he was worthy. You were not a willing vessel. You were simply empty. Hollow. You can fool others, but you cannot fool me.’
Gerik squeezed until he heard bones pop. He could already taste the marrow on his tongue. His other hand came up, holding his own ritual blade, and cut the boy’s throat.
Kyresh broke first. His confusion turned to rage as he hurled himself at Gerik. Gerik simply turned to face him. He laughed at t
he scourger’s bravado before he rammed the fingers of one hand into his face. Eyeballs popped under his nails. ‘Ah, scourger! You only ever beat down those whose ascent you feared. You killed so many potential leaders in the cradle of their training. You served only yourself. Unworthy.’
Vzar and Dhareg stepped back. The room was no longer silent. Whispers abounded. The walls shook. The enemy were so very near. Time had almost abandoned them. Now, though, there was a whisper. The world woke anew. Wirewolves stirred in their gibbets.
‘What are you?’ Vzar asked. He clenched his hand into a fist, as though that would keep it from rising to cover his mouth.
‘Anarch!’ a voice cried from the stands. Others took up the cry. ‘Magister!’ came the voice again.
Gerik laughed again. It carried and echoed strangely as he held out his arms, displaying himself to the waiting crowd. His rivals sank to their knees, keeping their gaze upon the ground, ignoring the spreading bloodstains.
‘I am not your Anarch. I am not your magister. I am the future,’ Gerik said. His words rang out, clear and strong, and the packsons began to cheer. A terrible, hideous crackling resonated out from him, as every last bone in his body broke and reshaped. ‘In time, the new heritors shall remake me. They shall render me fit for war and glory. Now, though, is the time of resistance. The age of the Anarch is over. I am not Him. I speak with the voice that waits beyond. The voice which drowns out all others. I am the throat of the warp and my word is vengeance. Blood vengeance and death to our foes. Not with trickery and deceit but with blade and shell and teeth.’
They reached for weapons and howled with savage joy. The furious mirth of the reborn.
Their clamouring, their prayers continued, even as the doors at the chamber’s edge blew in.
A storm of enemies. A riot of Imperial banners and Gaurite war-totems.
Gerik wondered how many would be victims and how many would be converts, come the end.
He could feel the mortal aspects of him atrophying as he was remade. He could feel his chin splitting. Reshaping. Blood and mucus slicked it, rendering him capable of such profound speech.
As the enemy drew in around him, as his brothers, his disciples, his Sons, rallied to the defence… he opened his mouth and pronounced the Final Word.
And the First.
NINETEEN-THREE COREWARD, RESOLVED
WRITTEN BY MATTHEW FARRER
PREFACE
If Graham McNeill is a veteran of the Sabbat War, then Matt Farrer is a… a super-veteran. He’s contributed to each anthology so far. I’ve never hidden my admiration for his writing. He’s so inventive, so creative, a superb author. When he said he was willing to write for this volume, I was delighted. I knew it would be good: it was Matt. But what he’s written is quite extraordinary. His story is set in the crusade’s past, and, once again, it looks at an unexamined aspect of Sabbat life. What came as a surprise to me when I read it was that somehow… somehow… he successfully blends two things that should not in any way go together, except as a joke. And this is not a joke. What in lesser hands might be regarded as a ‘mash-up’, a cheeky and inadvisable cocktail of incompatible styles (like, for example, a Jägerbomb) is here rendered with an utterly straight face, complete conviction, and a total mastery of pace and character. It is a complete and perfect story in its own right. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and I think that’s because Matt handles it with an incredible lightness of touch, never pushing anything too far, and never adding too much of any ingredient. I never thought you could mix 40K with… well, I won’t tell you. That would just spoil it. But even now I’ve read it, several times, I don’t know how he managed to merge these genres and still create something that is utterly and genuinely canon.
Oh, and one last thing… No, that would spoil it too.
‘Mister Noverin!’
I couldn’t place the voice right away over all the racket in the passenger compartment, so I arranged my features into a mild, accommodating smile before I turned around in case it was someone important. Around me, the crowd seethed. The pilgrims were getting restive. The Barrekat Faltornae had broken warp after nine long weeks of voyaging and the constellation they called the Holy Visage was out there, just beyond the compartment doors and the viewport shutters, waiting for their adoration. And instead of being able to rush to the windows and see the face of Saint Sabbat drawn in the stars, here they were being made to line up along the deck like little children in the scholam pen, fidgeting and chattering while my attendants did the rounds.
‘Purser Noverin! Over here!’
Oh. No. Nobody important.
Mowle, one of my junior clerks, came pushing through the throng, shrugging off chatter and questions and the occasional hand plucking at her tunic. She was waving something at me.
‘Almost done, Mowle. Then you can tell me what it is.’ I turned to watch while my crew worked their way through the final dozen squirming subjects. Pinlight into the eyes to check dilation and any unusual visual response. Thermocloth pressed to the forehead to check temperature, pulse, perspiration. A talisman – a silver aquila, an etched-pewter islumbine bloom, a vial of blessed water scooped up from a snowdrift at Balopolis – that they had to hold pressed between their palms with no visible tremble in their hands while they gave their answers. With everyone involved carefully not paying attention to the shotgun that the second attendant was holding to their head.
‘Where is the Golden Throne?’
‘On sacred Terra, heart of humanity.’
‘Who sits upon the Golden Throne?’
‘The God-Emperor of us all, exalted be He.’
‘What does the God-Emperor see when He looks upon you?’
‘His devoted servant for now and for all my days.’
A grunt from the crew, the passenger got to sit down on the scuffed metal deck plate, and then on to the next in line. And once everyone was checked the crew leader would turn to me and say, ‘Sound, aye!’, and I would call it back to him, and then the sealed doors could open, the stuffy air would finally start circulating, these poor folk could finally stretch their legs and remind themselves what the rest of the ship looked like. We’d already heard the distant rumble of shutters as other compartments with fewer people finished ahead of us. It was why everyone was so restless.
‘Summons for you, Mister Noverin,’ Mowle said from by my shoulder.
‘Thank you. Almost done. Five people to go.’
‘Yes, Mister Noverin. I’m to escort you–’
‘Just four, now, Mowle. It really can wait.’
‘–escort you to the Upper Fourth with all haste once you are completed here.’
‘Emphasis on that last part. Look, three left to go.’
‘Begging your pardon, Mister Noverin, but “with all haste” was the part they really seemed to emphasise.’
‘Did they.’ I was too annoyed to ask who ‘they’ might be. This was a tedious job but there was no question of not doing it. Every living soul on the ship, every warp voyage. Mowle knew that perfectly well. She and I had already been through it before we were allowed off the crew decks. And still…
…still she came tugging on my sleeve like this, going on about ‘all haste’. All of a sudden this actually sounded interesting.
‘M-mister Noverin?’
Everyone in the compartment was staring at me.
Oh, right.
‘Sound, aye!’ I called, and the crowd erupted around me, people leaping to their feet and hugging, shouting huzzahs, dancing in circles singing blessings and prayers. Of all the types we’d carried while I’d served on the Barrekat, pilgrims were definitely their own breed.
‘What is all this, anyway?’ I asked Mowle as she led the way out of the compartment, and rolled my eyes when she didn’t answer, even when I asked her again. It wasn’t until we were at the crew lifts that she stood on tiptoe so she could whisper in my ear.
‘There’s been a murder.’
‘Forgive my asking, but how can
you tell?’
I was not keen on this. I wanted to be on my way back to my little cubbyhole quarters tucked under the forward mezzanine, where I had a nicely upholstered sleeping nook, a flask of spiced nectar and a chapbook to read until I fell asleep. I was now two decks and four sections away from my lovely little bolthole – I’d been counting as I followed Mowle up here – and I could feel my much-anticipated downtime receding into the distance ahead of me.
‘Tell what, Mister Noverin?’ the lead rating asked. ‘I mean, we’re pretty sure he’s dead.’ He looked up at the ceiling hatch and the rest of us followed his gaze. I was at the wrong angle to see anything except another ceiling, that of the power-channel whose maintenance shaft we were all standing in. Weird, even elegant in its own way, utterly unlike the crew spaces, with its procession of contoured stanchions like curving ribs, the complex veinwork of cables behind them, the mosaics of magnetic repulsor tiles etched with strange Martian ideograms.
This was one of the Barrekat’s arteries, empty and cold now, while we opened it up to extract this little clot, but normally ablaze with plasma pumped forward from the enginarium, ready to power the secondary gravity and life support systems beneath the forecastle, or to feed into the accelerator coils and be jetted out of the manoeuvre ports to brake or turn us. Or even to build up to a killing density inside the firing chambers for the prow batteries, if anything had been waiting for us out here to make us use them.
Apparently nothing had. From what we could tell buried down in the pleb-decks, our breakout from the warp had been as smooth as you pleased. Helm had started the gentlest of burns to guide us around to our materium bearings. The first pulses had come surging down the conduits and…
‘Are we confident that it isn’t an accident, is what I meant, Skosse. Nothing personal, but, well, nobody here is new to void-voyaging, are they? Wheels get greased.’ I wouldn’t normally have used such an indelicate bit of slang, but Senior Deckhand Skosse knew what I meant, and nodded. Voidships are big, brutal creations. The humans who run them are one of the most fragile parts of their machinery and, bluntly, the easiest to replace. Greasing the wheels. Mortal fuel. Expressions like that are as old as spacing and they’ve stuck around for a reason. This wasn’t the first time I’d had to help the Barrekat pick corpses out of her teeth, and it wouldn’t be the last.
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