Belisarius Cawl- the Great Work - Guy Haley

by Warhammer 40K

  Felix was knocked off balance by the blow. The forces emanating from the centre of the chamber buffeted him, sending him turning about as he was pushed back. The projection of the battle showed nothing of these vortices, but to be close to the centre of the display was to suffer the wrath of invisible storms.

  ‘Cawl!’ he shouted. ‘Shut it off!’ His vox emission was strangled by the Pharos’ workings, shattered into feedback that made his ears ring. Cawl stood rigidly at the centre of it all, his acolyte still calmly taking notes. A genestealer leapt out of the projection, and claws outstretched to gut the magos encountered an energy field that threw it back with a flash of light. Stray bolt-rounds were similarly deflected. Several were transmuted to bursts of energy as a full burst clipped him.

  ‘Watch the archmagos!’ Felix roared. ‘Control your fire!’

  Again his words were thrown back at him. Vox was dead. He turned from the centre, guard up, and headed out to the edge of the room.

  The other Space Marines were doing the same, backing further away from the projection circle and the play of ghosts. Genestealers that emerged from the hard edge of the phantoms were easily marked and cut down. Felix’s helm display was a confused mess of broken inputs. He could not call up the status of his warriors, but at least one armoured figure of today was down amid yesterday’s dead.

  Felix signed one-handed with his boltstorm gauntlet, the fat digits of the power fist limning his orders with lightning.

  Double fire line, backs to wall, avoid magos. Move! he signed.

  His and Thracian’s men stood shoulder to shoulder, their boltguns and bolt rifles putting out a wall of shot that nothing could cross. Genestealers reared up and died, purple blood flying from their crimson bodies. There was confusion, no time to think, only to fire. Thracian’s Terminators were moving round the projection to create a crossfire, trusting their heavy suits of armour to protect them from savage tyranid claws.

  The creatures had seemed to be materialising directly from the projection, but then Alpha Primus and Gathein began to hurl psychic lightning at the enemy, lighting up the room, and Felix saw the source of the threat was on the far side of the chamber.

  They’re coming from the lower levels, he signed, and directed half the Space Marines to lay down covering fire on the entrance. Brother Ixen pumped the slide of his grenade launcher repeatedly, filling the down stair with clouds of shrapnel. The light from the explosions and the witchfire revealed a press of aliens, all rushing up heedlessly into the Imperial guns. All was performed in the perfect silence of vacuum, no vox, no communication or outside sounds, only the sound of his own breathing and tremors from detonations powerful enough to overcome the Pharos’ trembling.

  Cominus ceased firing. He took his bolt rifle in one had so he could sign to the tetrarch.

  They are fleeing. They are making for the exit.

  Felix saw that this was true. The majority of the creatures that made it into the room were not coming for them, but pouring towards the bronze doors and the Crooked Stair. Screened by the Pharos’ projection, their flight had evaded his notice but now he saw.

  The genestealers were running away, right into the guns of the Space Marines outside.

  A surge of power from the alien machine caused a loud crack across the vox. The display went out. The room fell dark. A pack of genestealers ran along the wall, heading for the doors. They died by the strobing light of bolt-fire.

  The vox snapped back on.

  ‘Cawl!’ Felix shouted, striding forwards. The room seemed smaller now the display was off. Alien bodies crunched under his feet.

  ‘Ah, tetrarch,’ said Cawl. He smiled as if he had been momentarily distracted. ‘Impressive, isn’t it? More active than I thought.’

  Felix stood before the magos.

  ‘You could have killed us all,’ said Felix. Behind him Yansar and Aratus were attending to the fallen. Felix’s systems were working again. Two mortis runes shone in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, well. Every investigation carries a certain amount of risk.’ Cawl seemed distracted. Qvo irritated Felix by continuing his note taking.

  ‘My lord!’ Yansar hailed him. ‘Brother Tullio is gravely injured. Brother Tobias and Sergeant Quintos of the Scythes are dead.’

  The Scythes’ Apothecary was already working on them to extract their geneseed, while Thracian sent two of his warriors out to check on the gene vault in the Walk of the First Scythes.

  ‘Give me your prognosis on Tullio,’ Felix demanded.

  ‘I can return him to combat effectiveness, if I can treat him somewhere with adequate facilities.’

  ‘If you don’t?’

  ‘There is a fifteen per cent chance of death. In any case, he can’t fight like this, and his armour’s compromised.’

  ‘You may use our apothecarion,’ said Thracian. The Chapter Master joined Felix and Cawl. ‘We can regroup in the Emperor’s Watch and assess the situation while Brother Tullio is seen to and Sebastion completes his task. The tower can easily be held if need be. The upper chambers will not be so affected by the things under this mountain. They were sanctified by the Emperor Himself at the dawn of the Imperium.’

  ‘The Emperor has no hold over this place,’ said Alpha Primus. ‘It is old, and evil.’

  ‘Do you feel it, brother?’ asked Gathein.

  ‘I feel nothing at all. That is how I know,’ said Primus.

  ‘That’s all theoretical. The practical is that I’ll need to get Tullio’s armour off and work on him in a properly equipped facility,’ said Yansar.

  ‘I am sure we can repressurise part of the tower,’ said Thracian.

  ‘Yansar?’ asked Felix.

  ‘It would be better than taking him back down the stairs and evacuating him from the mountain,’ the Apothecary agreed.

  ‘The disabling of the defence grid is our primary objective at this time,’ said Felix. ‘We will see it is done. Cawl, before you attempt anything like that you are to consult with me.’

  ‘As you wish, Decimus. But I’m sure you’ll agree, impressive results. Impressive results!’ He moved off in consultation with Qvo.

  ‘The genestealers are the lords of Mount Pharos now. We must be more careful,’ said Gathein.

  ‘Can you sense their psychic net?’

  ‘It is incoherent,’ said Gathein.

  Primus nodded. ‘Disrupted. They are afraid.’

  ‘They are weak,’ said Cominus. He bent over a shattered corpse. ‘Look at this. These wounds are not from our weapons.’ He jabbed two fingers into a perfectly neat hole burned into the creature’s side. ‘Nor is this.’ A similarly clean slash wound had cut away some of its spinal crest. ‘These look like particle beam wounds.’

  ‘They were fleeing,’ said one of the Scythes. His name plate proclaimed him to be Keltru. Both his legs were bionic replacements.

  Felix nodded, and looked down the stairs. ‘From the Pharos.’

  ‘The engines are still running,’ said Daelus. He datapulsed a screed of readings to the tetrarch. ‘I’m seeing ghost echoes of energy spikes everywhere. What has Belisarius Cawl done?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Lords of Mount Pharos

  ‘I have checked over the monastery systems, and we can refill these three levels with atmosphere,’ said Daelus. Felix watched the Techmarine move his finger through the hololithic image projected by Cominus’ forearm comms unit. The image was semi-transparent, showing all the layers of the fortress-monastery. The central tower of the Emperor’s Watch clung to the very top of the mountain, its footings sunk right into the basalt encasing the blackstone. The rest of the fortress had grown up around it; though never engulfing the uppermost levels of the tower, it spread out and down the mountainsides. In the cartolith, the Pharos itself was an absence, an unscannable block of darkness beneath the fortress.

  ‘These lev
els include the apothecarion and the upper armouries,’ said Thracian. ‘It would be useful to both the Chosen and to the Scythes to have these parts pressurised.’

  They were in the Vigilatum, a cylindrical, central hall that rose fully halfway up the tower’s height. Balustraded galleries overlooked the plunging drop, statues of Space Marines at every major support. Stairs wound their way up the interior, linking the landings. A set of blast doors, currently sealed, led onto the stairs going down into the Hall of the Founder.

  ‘What about power?’ said Felix.

  ‘The reactor is out and cold,’ said Cawl. ‘It would take several days and much fuel to reignite. However, there are indications of power output, separate from that of the mountain, that bear Imperial wave signatures. These will be the Chapter’s emergency battery systems. It should be easy to bring them to wakefulness. They will provide days of power, if they were fully charged before the monastery’s fall.’

  ‘Then power and air are to be restored as secondary objectives. As a matter of priority communications must be established with the fleet and with Odessa Port,’ said Felix. ‘The primary objective remains the deactivation of the defence matrix.’

  ‘A simple input of the armoury codes in the primary armament cogitation systems should be enough to shut it down,’ said Sebastion. His finger moved down the tower’s length to the very bottom, where a series of chambers sheltered beneath more than three hundred feet of rock. ‘The Defensor Strategium centre is here, well below the peak.’

  ‘The codes were not accepted remotely,’ said Felix.

  ‘What if your main systems have been compromised by the mountain like the gun on the wall?’ asked Daelus.

  ‘Then I will excise the xenos intrusion, overload the cogitators and destroy the control systems,’ said Sebastion. ‘Leaving the weapons intact. If that does not work, then the guns can be spiked remotely.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ said Felix.

  ‘Two hours, maybe less,’ said Sebastion. ‘There are many armoured doors between here and there. If they do not respond to Chapter cyphers either, I shall have to cut my way through.’

  ‘Troncus and I will help you,’ said Daelus. ‘It will be an honour to watch you work, Forgemaster.’

  Troncus nodded.

  Sebastion shook his head. ‘Those of us with insight into the mysteries of Mars should divide our efforts,’ said the Forgemaster. ‘Accomplish all mission objectives at once. You are tech-acolytes. You should reengage the life support systems while I deal with the weapons.’

  ‘That is the most efficient course of action,’ said Qvo-87.

  ‘Qvo-87 and I will attend to the power sinks,’ said Cawl.

  ‘Then Troncus and I will take environmental control, as the Forgemaster suggests,’ said Daelus.

  ‘Brother Esau will accompany you, Forgemaster. Brother Ulas shall go with Daelus’ party,’ said Thracian. ‘I will be gladder if you are properly protected.’

  ‘I will go with Sebastion also,’ said Alpha Primus.

  ‘Brother Esau will be sufficient,’ said the Forgemaster.

  ‘Then I will accompany Daelus’ group,’ said Primus.

  ‘Who will watch over the archmagos?’ said Thracian.

  ‘The archmagos will!’ scoffed Cawl. ‘I am perfectly capable of protecting myself.’ He raised up his weapons and spun them around. ‘I do not require Primus to be safe. The power sinks are isolated. Qvo and I will be fine. A better combat efficiency will be achieved if he travels with Daelus. The environmental controls are most central, and therefore the group there will be swiftest to respond to calls for aid. It makes sense they be the biggest company, and that Primus be most able to respond should something go wrong. He is the most gifted of you. Qvo-87 and I will not be long. We will join the central group once we have power restored.’

  Felix reluctantly agreed. ‘Stay vigilant. Auspex scans indicate no lifeforms in the tower, but that does not mean there are no hibernating organisms here. Deactivate the weapons. Get those cannons offline. Cominus will guard the lower stairs with Cadmus,’ he continued. ‘Gathein will accompany me to the tower summit. We will check the citadel communications mast preparatory to reopening channels with the fleet. Yansar has already gone to the apothecarion and begun stabilising Brother Tullio.’

  ‘I and the remainder of my men will head to the armoury to retrieve our Chapter relics,’ said Thracian, ‘and prepare for the internment of our dead and the geneseed in the tombs. From the armoury my warriors will be able to act as a second rapid response force if the enemy attack.’

  ‘You are sure I will be able to overcome the Pharos’ interference from the top of the tower?’ Felix asked.

  ‘Our main communications array is powerful,’ said Thracian. ‘You will have no difficulty contacting the fleet from that altitude, even with the Pharos awakening.’ Thracian looked to Sebastion for confirmation.

  ‘It should be the case,’ said the Forgemaster. ‘I may be wrong. I’ve never seen interference like this. It is probable that you will have limited time. The mountain’s strength is growing.’

  ‘Then I will depart immediately. Once we have contact, I will order our drop-ship up to the northern landing pad the moment the fortress-monastery defences are offline,’ said Felix. ‘Daelus tells me it is the most intact.’

  ‘And then the real work can begin,’ said Cawl.

  ‘We shall meet here again in three hours,’ said Felix. ‘Set mission count.’

  In a dozen Space Marine helmets, miniature chronographs blinked to zero.

  ‘Begin,’ said Felix.

  Daelus watched Ulas through his autosenses. The Scythe was watching him back.

  They are hiding something. Felix had told them all of Cadmus’ warning.

  The corridors appeared as clean as if the fortress monastery were still operational, but then they would pass the wreck of one of the servitors that had serviced the place, its metallic components scattered and picked clean of organics, and the illusion broke.

  Troncus was following the lines of piping along the ceiling. They reached a junction, and the group paused while Troncus pulled out a small auspex to take readings. He gestured down the left hand corridor to indicate the others should follow him.

  ‘Your brother does not speak much,’ said Alpha Primus softly.

  Daelus made a noise of amusement. ‘Troncus doesn’t speak at all.’

  Daelus waited for Alpha Primus to ask. You could build a picture of a man’s mind by letting your sentences hang, and seeing where their curiosity took them. They always wanted to know when you were hiding something. In Daelus’ experience, it was how they asked that let you look into their minds.

  ‘Why?’ Alpha Primus said eventually.

  ‘Because when Troncus met the primarch, he was awestruck. He ­fumbled his words, he babbled, he made a fool of himself. He felt that he had so disgraced himself, that he had gone so far from what he thought a Techmarine should be, that he went down to his Chapter armoury and burned out his own tongue with a plasma cutter.’

  ‘Really?’ said Alpha Primus. He affected an emotionless air, but he could not conceal his interest.

  ‘Yes,’ said Daelus. ‘You’d think an oath of silence would suffice, but Troncus never does things by halves. You have to imagine that a plasma cutter makes a mess of a man’s face. He could have killed himself. He should have been executed, but his Chaplain enforced penance and they let him live, Emperor alone knows why. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Guilliman can have that sort of effect on people. It affected me when I first met him.’ His voice became thoughtful. ‘I’ve heard of mortals killing themselves after being in his presence, because they will never experience a more important moment.’ His voice resumed its usual bright tone. ‘I can’t guess what it must have been like meeting more than one primarch at once. Whole rooms of people must have gone insane
.’

  Troncus was a blur ahead in the dark. When stablights glanced off his armour, the brief glimpses afforded made him seem like a mechanical ghost fleeing into the gloom.

  Primus watched him closely.

  ‘Are you lying?’ Primus said.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Daelus.

  ‘I could look into your mind.’

  ‘You wouldn’t violate the mind of an ally like that though, would you?’ said Daelus.

  Primus growled. ‘If Troncus’ ideal of what a Techmarine should be is silent and sombre, what does he think of you?’

  ‘Primus has a point,’ said Ulas, breaking his watchful silence. ‘It is unseemly the amount that you speak.’

  Daelus laughed. ‘Brothers! I take no offence. Troncus thinks I talk altogether too much. But I say to him, just because we tend to machines, it does not mean we have to love them more than our brothers or more than other men. Machines are made by men. Understanding the human mind properly gives insight into their spirits. Machine-spirits have their quirks as men do. I like to talk, because through talking and listening you learn. Brother Troncus doesn’t contradict my argument, so I assume I am right.’

  ‘Space Marines should not jabber,’ said Ulas.

  ‘We shall remain in amicable disagreement then.’ Daelus slowed and let his arm trail along the wall. The rockcrete changed colour there, where newer materials were bonded to a much older core. ‘See these walls?’ He tapped the inner band, weathered dark by ancient storms. ‘The original outer surface. This tower was much smaller when first built.’