‘Assembled brothers,’ he began. ‘At 07:58hrs on this Day of Foundation, our near-space communications array received and decoded a pulse-burst signal with an Omega-level Imperial encryption key. The signal was broadcast repeatedly at fifteen-second intervals, originating from a commercial transport that slid from the warp two astronomical units outside the orbit of Phraecos.’
One of Adon’s mechanical appendages swung up and over his right shoulder with a whirring sound. It slotted a thick, digit-mounted data plug into a socket set in the table’s rim and pressed it home with an audible click. At once, the quartz tabletop began to glow brighter, to pulsate with light, and a ghostly hololithic view of the local star system manifested in the air above it.
The assembled Adeptus Astartes raised their eyes.
‘The transmitting vessel’s identicode has been verified,’ Adon continued. ‘The ship is known as the Videnhaus and is properly registered. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of her transmission, though the encryption was added later by the ship’s captain. The original message, we now know, was transmitted raw from the planet Badlanding.’
‘And the content of that transmission?’ asked Ashor Drakken, Captain of Third Company, Master of the Line.
There was a short burst of static, and the voice of Commissar Alhaus Baldur filled the air. ‘There won’t be time to broadcast again,’ said the voice, ‘so this is it…’
Forgemaster Adon played the message in its entirety while the others listened with rapt attention. By the end of it, Cortez could barely sit still. Hearing it for the second time, he found his urge to ship out for Badlanding was even stronger. Battle beckoned him.
‘That is all,’ said Adon when the commissar’s voice stopped. ‘There is no more.’
‘It is enough in any case,’ said Cortez. He locked eyes with Kantor. ‘Send my Fourth Company, lord. Badlanding will be purged of the greenskin taint. We will descend on them like holy fire.’
‘Send the Seventh,’ said Caldimus Ortiz, Master of the Gates, with equal passion. ‘If not alone, then in support of Brother-Captain Cortez.’
Kantor unlocked his fingers and raised both hands into the air, calling for calm. The captains always vied with each other for the honour of deployment. He expected no less, but his decision would, as always, be based on tactical analysis. He did not play favourites, despite his friendship with Alessio Cortez.
‘Forgemaster, show us Badlanding in relation to Rynn’s World. And give me an estimate of travel time, both best- and worst-case scenarios.’
Javier Adon remained still, but above the table the ghostly view of the Rynnstar system zoomed out with dizzying speed to show the relative positions of both Rynnstar and Freiya, the K-type star around which Badlanding orbited. Figures began to scroll down past each of the tiny flickering points of light.
After a moment, the figures stopped scrolling, and Adon said, ‘If the warp is calm, and the tides and eddies favour us, one of our cruisers could reach high orbit around the target planet in approximately three hundred and sixty-eight standard hours.’
‘That’s almost two weeks,’ growled Cortez. ‘The greenskins might have moved on by then. We should mobilise at once!’
‘If the warp is turbulent,’ Adon continued, ‘and the tides are against us, the journey could take many times longer. A worst-case scenario is beyond my ability to accurately calculate with the information I currently have. Perhaps the Master of the Librarius would offer comment.’
Eustace Mendoza angled his head towards Pedro Kantor. ‘Local warpflow appears relatively untroubled at this time. The Librarius has detected no significant disturbances that would present a problem to travel.’
As he watched and listened, Cortez had the feeling that Mendoza was preoccupied with something else, and it wasn’t just the Day of Foundation. In the shadowed corridors of the fortress-monastery, it was cautiously whispered that some of the other Librarians had been reporting dark omens with increasing frequency. Was the master psyker holding something back?
An impressive figure seated on the Chapter Master’s immediate right cleared his throat, drawing all eyes in his direction. His power armour was highly ornate, and his left pauldron, rather than bearing any form of company-centric iconography, was fashioned into a great silver eagle with two heads. This was Ceval Ranparre, Master of the Fleet, Hero of Hesperidon.
‘Two weeks then,’ he said. ‘Trust me, Chapter Master, as you have always done. I can get a force to Badlanding in that time, ill tides or otherwise. If you will permit it, I shall send The Crusader. Of all our fleet, she is the most reliable when a swift warp transit is of the essence.’
Kantor accepted the suggestion with a nod. ‘Then I shall focus my attention on who is to go.’
‘The Fourth,’ said Cortez again. ‘There is no time to debate it, not if we are to make any kind of difference to Commissar Baldur and his remaining men.’
Drigo Alvez snorted derisively at this. Cortez knew as well as anyone that the Imperial forces on Badlanding were almost certainly dead to a man.
Kantor cast his eyes around the assembled leaders. He laid his palms flat on the table and pushed himself to his feet. With his weight no longer on the black throne, the servos jerked into action again and moved the chair out from under the table. Standing there like a vision of ancient glory, an echo of the primarch remembered from the time of the Great Crusade, the Chapter Master towered over the rest of the council.
‘Let us be realistic, brothers. This will be no rescue mission. Those men are dead. Our priority at this point must be to gather intelligence on the threat of this alleged Waaagh. We have put down many significant ork incursions over the years, and the cost in the Adeptus Astartes lives has ever been great. If there is a way to rob this Waaagh of its momentum before it threatens the rest of the sector, I want it found and exploited.’
As one, the figures around the table rose to their feet and clashed their fists against their ceramite cuirasses. ‘In the primarch’s name,’ they intoned.
Kantor nodded, then turned from the table and began striding back up the broad steps towards the Strategium’s double doors. At the top, he stopped, looked back at the council members, and said, ‘Ranparre, issue preparation orders to the crew of The Crusader as soon as the Miracle of the Blood is over. Forgemaster Adon, have the Techmarines ready weapons and equipment for a company-strength force.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ buzzed Adon.
Kantor paused with one hand on the heavy bronze ring of a door handle, and added, ‘The procession will begin in fifteen minutes. The rites must be properly observed. Make sure you are all in place before it starts. As for my decision regarding which captain shall have the honour of this task, I will let you know after the Steeping.’
There was a groan of iron hinges, then the heavy wooden doors crashed shut behind the Chapter Master’s back.
In the sunken circle of the Strategium floor, the council members saluted each other and disbanded, each captain hoping that the honour of battle in the Emperor’s name would fall to him.
‘The procession is starting,’ said Savales, relief evident in his voice.
Twenty minutes earlier, a message from Lord Kantor had arrived. A short emergency session of the Chapter Council had been called. The ordinator had been on edge ever since. What could be so grave as to interrupt this holiest of days? His knuckles had been white, fingers clenched tightly around his chronometer until, now, at last, he placed the old heirloom back in his pocket.
‘It is starting, ma’am,’ he said again.
Maia leaned forward in her chair and drew an excited, trembling breath.
A tall, dark figure appeared, striding through a twenty-metre archway to the far left of the bastion grounds. All the Chosen standing in line behind their Adeptus Astartes masters immediately dropped to their knees.
Maia’s heart leapt. It was him at last! She felt like she would burst at the sight of him. He was shining with an incredible light, resplenden
t in armour so polished that it was almost too glorious to behold.
She had waited a long time to lay eyes on Pedro Kantor again. It had been seven years since she had last spent thirty all-too-brief minutes in council with him at the capital. He had seen many battles since then, but, if his armour had been damaged in the fighting, it showed no sign of it now. The Chapter’s artificers were unequalled in their skill.
He was every bit the vision of strength and honour she recalled.
As if reading her mind, Ordinator Savales whispered, ‘He is an unforgettable sight, isn’t he? And look, here comes High Chaplain Tomasi and the members of the Sacratium. Do you see the crystal sceptre?’
Maia nodded. She could hardly miss it, a mass of sculpted gold and las-cut crystal that surely weighed twice what she herself did. For all its weight, the terrifying figure of the High Chaplain carried it with deceptive ease.
The Miracle of the Blood.
Maia’s father had spoken of it only once. It was, he had told her, a thing too great, too powerful and significant, to be shared through a medium as limited as language. He had died hoping she would see it for herself one day.
Now, watching High Chaplain Tomasi march gravely down the avenue between the Adeptus Astartes ranks, a chill ran up Maia’s spine. The Chaplain was the stuff of nightmares, a vision of death, and she forced her eyes to stay on the beautiful sceptre itself, rather than gaze into the black hollows of his skull-helm’s eye sockets for any length of time. By contrast, the sceptre’s head was like a shimmering golden sunburst. Rays of metal surrounded a perfect sphere of transparent crystal, and that sphere was half-filled with what appeared to be dried blood.
As Tomasi took step after measured step, following the Chapter Master’s exact path, he swung the head of the sceptre slowly from left to right above him. Behind him came a score of other Chaplains, also dressed in black armour, faces likewise encased in leering ceramite skulls. Some of these were hooded, the lipless lower jaws of their death-masks protruding from deep shadow. Others were not. All carried items of holy significance. For some, it was censers that swung like pendulums, filling the air with strongly-scented blue smoke. For others, it was ancient tomes, the leather covers of which were embossed with the Imperial aquila and the fist symbol of the Chapter. Others carried ancient weapons, no doubt priceless beyond measure and surely once belonging to heroes long gone but not forgotten.
All chanted blessings as they moved, their voices merging, blending in a low hypnotic hum.
‘Watch the sceptre,’ Savales told her.
Maia fixed her eyes on it, following it left and right, left and right. Gradually, she realised that something was happening. A change was taking place within the crystal sphere at the top.
‘The blood,’ she breathed.
As the High Chaplain passed, still swinging the head of the sceptre in time with his steps, the dried blood visible within the sphere began to revert to liquid.
Maia gasped, unsure of what her eyes were reporting, but Savales’s hushed voice confirmed it.
‘The crystal sphere holds the blood of Rogal Dorn himself,’ he said. ‘Imagine that, my lady. We are witnessing the blood of the primarch reverting to liquid form, ten thousand years after it was sealed inside! A true miracle! That blood was preserved by an Apothecary after the primarch was wounded in the defence of Holy Terra. To see it change before us now…’
Maia felt faint, dizzy. Though she looked young, she was not. She became afraid that her heart would betray her, that this was all simply too much. The blood of Rogal Dorn, son of the Emperor Himself… Her mind spun with the significance of it. She could offer the ordinator no response.
The other nobles, too, were deeply affected by the change in the crystal sphere. They had heard Savales’s whispered explanation, and they sat stunned. Some wept quietly, their faith in the Imperial Creed somehow finally vindicated by this one inexplicable event.
Maia heard Viscount Isopho, his voice low and reverent, ask, ‘But what does it mean, ordinator?’
Savales kept his unblinking eyes on the sceptre as he answered.
‘It means that the primarch is still with us, viscount. He still watches over the Crimson Fists. Mankind is not alone, even now, even after ten thousand years of war and darkness and ceaseless slaughter. And if the primarch is with us, then the Emperor is, too.’
Maia felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She believed it, everything the ordinator was saying. The Miracle of the Blood was like nothing she had ever known. Archbishop Galendra constantly insisted that faith was its own reward. But here… here was proof!
She sat stunned, her body numb throughout the rest of the procession.
For three whole days after her return to the capital, she refused to see or speak to anyone, such was the effect of what she had seen. It had shaken her, shaken the way she viewed so many things. She felt lost at first, needing to understand her place in the Imperium under this new light. When she finally returned to her official duties, it was with a dedication and commitment that even her greatest detractors could not deny. Her faith blazed inside her. Others saw it in her eyes.
Maia Cagliestra did not know it then, of course, but she would need every last bit of that faith in the grim, blood-sodden days to come.
Four
Space, Badlanding
Large pict-screens dominated the curving forward wall of the command bridge aboard The Crusader, auspex data pouring across them like torrents of glowing rain down a hundred black windowpanes. On the largest and most central of them, no data flowed at all. Instead, its pixels displayed the image of the ship’s senior astropath, a pale, wizened man by the name of Cryxus Gloi. He looked to be well into his ninth decade of life when, in fact, he was a mere forty-four years old. The rigours of his calling had robbed him of much, including conventional sight. His eyes had atrophied during the soul-binding, when his mind had been reshaped by the Emperor until all that was left were two dark, hollow sockets, but their loss mattered little. Gloi had sight of another, far more potent kind.
Captain Ashor Drakken stood in full armour, staring at Gloi’s face on the screen, fists clenched at his sides. The honour bestowed by Kantor on his former company must be repaid. Drakken could not allow the mission to fail. ‘There must be a way,’ he growled. ‘Master Kantor must be apprised at once. If this moon can hide us from their scanner arrays, surely it can cover an astropathic transmission.’
Gloi’s brow furrowed. ‘Nothing, captain, can cover an astropathic transmission. The moment I attempt to send any kind of word out, every ork psyker on those ships will know exactly where we are, I promise you. If you wish me to manipulate the ether without alerting our foes, we must return to the far fringes of the system where we last exited the warp. From there, I might safely send word, but no nearer. It would invite a ship-to-ship conflict that you and I both know we would not survive.’
Gloi was no coward. He had served on The Crusader for over twenty years, performing his duties flawlessly under battle conditions, and had earned the right to speak plainly to whomever he served. Those without the witch-sight seldom understood much about the warp. The smart ones quickly learned to trust those who did.
‘Very well, Gloi,’ said Drakken. ‘That is all for now.’
He dropped the pict-link and turned to his second in command, who stood patiently by his side.
‘Comments, Leo?’
Sergeant Leoxus Werner looked thoughtful. He was not a man to make pronouncements lightly. Both his gauntlets were crimson, marking him as a veteran of the Chapter. He had been decorated numerous times in his century and a half of service, and rightly so. His face was a map of deep, angry scars, every last one a testament to victories bought with blood, to a life spent purging the galaxy of man-hating alien fiends. The greatest mark of honour Werner bore was not on his face. It was on his left pauldron. Rather than display the Chapter’s standard iconography there, Werner wore the exquisitely cast skull sigil of the legendary Deathwatch,
chamber militant of the Holy Inquisition’s Ordo Xenos.
He had served that august body for seven years before returning to his Crimson Fist brothers, and even then, he could tell them nothing of his time away. He had been sworn to secrecy.
Drakken never asked about it. He knew that Werner would honour his oath of non-disclosure until the day he died. Integrity was the sergeant’s byword.
‘Sixteen ork battleships that we can see,’ said Werner, meeting his captain’s gaze, ‘and that’s just on this side of the planet. Five of those are equivalent in size to the Navy’s Emperor-class ships, and each of those, knowing the greenskin propensity for arms over armour, almost certainly has the edge in firepower. I find myself in agreement with Cryxus Gloi, brother-captain. All we have in our favour is our speed and the fact that they haven’t sniffed us out yet – two advantages I think we ought to hold on to. If we were to go straight for them, prow guns blazing…’ He shook his head. ‘A cudbear doesn’t pick a fight with five swamp tigers unless he knows something they don’t.’
Drakken accepted this with a nod, but countered, ‘Still, we didn’t come all the way out here to count ships and turn back. Alessio Cortez would have a bloody field day with that. The Chapter Master gave me full discretion on this one, and I intend to use it.’
‘A ground operation, lord?’
Captain Drakken’s narrow lips curved into a cold smile. ‘Precisely,’ he said. ‘Three Thunderhawks go in on their blind side. We stay dark for as long as we can. Once we have our reconnaissance, we unleash hell on the beasts, do as much damage to them as we can and pull out before they can coordinate any kind of proper response.’
‘Our targets?’ asked the sergeant.
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