‘We fortify the city, help rebuild the walls,’ said Sicarius, a fiery glint in his eye that saw the baron shrink a little in his pampered arrogance. ‘We make ready for war as we have always done.’
The baron nodded, slowly at first but then with greater vigour, as if suddenly warming to everything that had been discussed. He turned to his vizier, who continued to look studious and unaffected.
‘These men from the south, Nehebkau, do they have the means to accomplish all of this?’
The vizier watched them keenly, his deeply sunken eyes unblinking as they met Sicarius’.
‘Yes, my liege, I believe they do.’
SAVIOURS
An awestruck populace watched as the knights of Macragge slowly marched back through the muddy streets of Farrodum. They peered from doorways or in the gaps between shuttered windows, dirty-faced and thin. Many gathered together, unwilling to step out of their hovels alone as the giants strode amongst them. Some of the impoverished citizens laid leaves or bunches of wild flowers in the path of their new saviours. A few even sang, the lilting melodies a soft refrain to the dolorous tolling of bells mourning for the dead and celebrating victory.
A girl in a tattered shift, barefoot and shivering in the cold, raced up to Scipio, the tender stem of a leaf in her tiny hands. The procession of warriors carried on as Scipio slowed and knelt down before the girl with his hand outstretched.
‘You are a brave one,’ he said softly as she placed the leaf in his gigantic palm.
She smiled, not speaking but with bright eyes full of fear and wonder, before her mother called her back.
Scipio arose, tucking the leaf into his belt, and regarded the mortals.
‘Temple of Hera, such suffering…’ said Iulus, having lagged behind with Scipio. The others had slowed too and were not far ahead.
The Ultramarines had left the hall of triumphs behind, along with the baron’s keep, where he still hid behind fortified walls, and were on their way back to the abandoned feast hall where they had been barracked when the people of Farrodum had emerged in a throng.
‘I see hope in their eyes, Iulus. They believe we can save them from the orks.’
‘And can’t we?’
‘Yes, it’s our duty, but I do not think that is the only threat that besets these people.’
They resumed walking, but picked up the pace to try to catch the rest of their brothers. Pillium, now at the back, moved hesitantly, his injuries still not properly healed.
‘Something about this place…’ Scipio continued as they walked, cloak trailing in the dirt. ‘It feels familiar.’
‘Suffering looks the same across worlds and star systems, brother.’
‘It’s not that. The banners in that hall… Did anything seem awry to you, Iulus?’
Iulus made a face as he considered the question. ‘I think that potentate seemed awry, and I believe Veteran Daceus would very much like to tell him so at the point of his sword.’
Scipio chuckled at that. ‘He would be at the front of a long line, I think.’
‘What of the banners then?’ he asked. They had almost caught up with Pillium. Vandius walked beside him, but the two warriors did not speak.
‘They were aged,’ said Scipio, ‘but almost uniformly, as if to precisely the same degree. And the shape of the city, its walls and structures, does it not remind you of an Imperial colony template?’
‘I cannot say I have spent much time analysing Imperial repopulation, but if you say so. Have you spoken to Sicarius?’
Scipio glanced ahead at the front of the group where Daceus and the captain were conversing. Ahead of them was the warrior, Scarfel, whom Scipio and Vandius would accompany to the gorge.
‘And say what? It’s a feeling. A scout’s instinct.’
‘Perhaps it was a colony once. I read Haephestus’ report.’
‘You read?’ said Scipio with a glint in his eye.
Iulus gave him a scathing look. ‘It was on the retinal feed as we broke from the void. He postulates that a catastrophic environmental upheaval may have set the world back, technologically speaking. The materials change as the generations die off and knowledge is lost, but the templates remain.’
‘And yet there are no records?’
Iulus gestured to Vedaeh, who walked in Sicarius’ shadow.
‘I expect the chronicler will seek them out, if there are any to be found. Any records may have been lost too. What can be done about it, though? We’re warriors, Scipio, not inquisitors.’
‘It does not remove our ability to question.’
Iulus shrugged, indicating the conversation was over, or at least his meaningful contributions to it.
Scipio decided to change the subject. ‘How is the arm? I see you’re keeping it close to your body.’
Iulus grimaced. ‘Stiff. It barely functions. I’ll need Haephestus to look at it when we get back to the ship.’ He paused then said, ‘That’s why, of course.’
Scipio frowned. ‘Why what?’
‘Why it’s you and Vandius that are going to the gorge.’ He made a fierce effort to raise the stricken bionic limb a few inches. He did so, lifting a few fingers too. ‘That’s about the extent of it,’ he said. ‘I’ll remain here and see to the defences while you chase across the wilderness with Vandius in the rain and the mud.’ He grinned, showing slab-like teeth. ‘You know… scout work.’
‘They should put you in the wall breach,’ Scipio replied. ‘A redoubtable cliff. You have the face for it, brother.’
The two veterans laughed, but their levity was short-lived.
‘Be careful, Scipio,’ said Iulus as they left the scattered crowds of Farrodum behind and moved into a more sparsely populated area of the city. ‘I think you’re right. I think there is more danger here than we realise.’
‘And you too, Iulus. I have comrades around me, battle-brothers I trust with my life, but I think you are my last true friend in this company we serve.’
They said nothing further. Scarfel had stopped as they reached a stable house, his mount tethered and waiting for him under its sloped roof. The party slowed, pausing to exchange a few words and lock forearms in the way of warriors, before leaving Scipio and Vandius behind as the rest moved on.
The baron watched from his tower, the looming presence of his henchman behind him and the vizier to his right, lurking in the shadows.
‘I do not trust these men,’ said Athelnar, a worried look on his face that he kept to himself. ‘Did you smell them? They reek! Beast sweat and blood. And the way they speak…’ His expression turned to disgust. ‘They use our language but they are not of our kind. And that one at the back of their ranks. Enormous. What kind of men could they possibly be? No… they are other.’
‘They did take up arms in our defence,’ offered the vizier gently.
‘They sought to ingratiate, Nehebkau,’ snapped the baron, hand tightening on the pommel of his ceremonial sword, sweating and fidgeting with the impotence of not being able to do anything with his anger. It only rose further as he saw the people flocked around them, throwing flowers and tokens of appreciation. ‘What do they want here?’ he demanded. ‘They claim to be our saviours and yet they are as ragged as peasants. Only their size and strength is impressive.’
‘They are unusual, my lord,’ agreed the vizier, ‘but their potency in battle should not be underestimated. A move against them would… be unwise.’
‘You think they plan to supplant me? That captain. He and his men looked at my hall with avaricious eyes, only staying their hands from their blades because of the arrows and spears aimed at their foreign throats! I do not like this imposition, Nehebkau. I want to be rid of it.’
‘And what of the bone-swine? If these strangers can do as they say…’
‘We need them for now. But after?’
‘What do you propose, my lord?’
Athelnar braced his hands against the lip of the window, daring to step forwards only when the knights had almost slipp
ed from view.
‘We cannot fight them as they are, but the bone-swine might cull their numbers, make them weak enough for us to overcome. Before that though, I want to know who they are.’ He smiled, pleased with his own scheming. ‘Haukberd…’ he said, and the plate-armoured hulk behind him shifted his stance. ‘Take a few men, follow the trail the strangers took to Farrodum and find out where they actually came from. If they are honest men, the trail will lead to their ship. This land, this Macragge,’ Athelnar’s expression soured further. ‘I have never heard of it. I think these men are liars, and I would know the truth.’
Haukberd nodded, the armour around his trunk-like neck rattling. It kept rattling as he stomped out of the room.
THE GORGE
Scarfel rode at a canter and Scipio had no difficulty keeping up. Vandius lagged a step or two behind him, but appeared none the worse for wear. He had merely elected to take the rearguard, his sword strapped across his back and the tightly wound cloth of the company banner tied at his belt. Even in unpowered armour, the Ultramarines could travel distances at speed. They ran as Scarfel rode, two outriders on foot, ranging through the rugged terrain of Agun.
‘Tell me, Scarfel,’ Scipio ventured, and pointed to the eastern horizon, ‘what is that spire in the distance?’
He gestured to the strange landmark they had seen upon first making planetfall, still drenched in a distant fog though the pale sun had burned away some of the mist. It was incredibly tall, and as sharp as a dagger, but little else by way of detail presented itself.
Scarfel followed his arm, squinting with old eyes at the spire. For a moment he looked confused, as if struggling for a memory he possessed but which was just out of his reach. After a few seconds, his face went blank and he shrugged in the saddle.
‘No one knows. It is too far from the city and with the bone-swine, no party would ever return from such a journey.’ He seemed content to leave it at that, pressing on ahead, but Scipio looked across to Vandius, whose expression suggested he did not believe the old campaigner. The spire did not look that far away.
It had felt like a lie, but not one Scarfel knew he was telling.
‘The gorge is close,’ he said, as if sensing the sudden disquiet amongst his companions. ‘A few miles northwards and we’ll be at the edge of it.’
They followed a rough trail, though the spoor of the ork lay everywhere, in the way the earth had been churned, or the heaps of dung, or the carcasses of prey beasts left to spoil.
‘How long have you been fighting the orks, Scarfel?’
‘For as long as I can remember.’ His answer came swiftly, though he stopped short again as if not knowing how to explain further.
‘Have they always been a plague upon Farrodum? What about the other cities?’
‘I know of no other cities,’ Scarfel replied.
‘Have you ever seen or heard of another civilisation on Agun?’
He looked ahead, his eyes vague but then sharpening again. ‘Only Farrodum. I have heard of lands to the south. The vizier is from there and now there’s Macragge, of course. But we have always fought the bone-swine, or the orks as you call them. I have known this land my entire life. I raised my sons here, loved my wife here. It is all I’ve ever known.’ He turned in the saddle to glance at Scipio, who almost came up to his mounted height. ‘Have you a wife, a family?’ he asked. ‘Or you, Vandius?’
The Lion grunted in reply.
‘Our brotherhood is our family, Scarfel,’ said Scipio, a little more forthcoming than his battle-brother.
Scarfel look confused. ‘No wife, no bond of any sort?’
‘Our blood is our bond. We are devoted to a higher cause.’
‘You are monks then?’
‘Of a sort, I suppose.’
‘It is an ascetic life?’
‘It could be described like that.’
Scarfel paused. He looked melancholic for a moment. ‘Sounds lonely.’
‘A life pledged in service is never lonely.’
‘Are we close?’ asked Vandius, apparently eager to end the questioning. It was the first time he had said anything in several hours.
Scarfel blinked, as if emerging from a momentary stupor. ‘Not far,’ he said.
They reached the edge of the gorge before nightfall as the sun bled across the horizon in veins of ochre and red. It had almost dimmed to an ember as Scarfel led Scipio and Vandius through the narrow path he had once taken.
From amongst thick scrub and scattered boulders, Scipio looked down into the gorge. It was deep, its high sides made up of several overlapping ridges, but also narrow like a canyon. He took in every detail, every slip of rock that fell inwards of its own accord, the overlapping plateaus on either side. To know the battlefield was just as important as understanding the enemy. Master both and victory became much easier.
Rather than enter directly through its mouth, they had taken the highlands that rose up either side of the gorge and descended into it. Better for remaining hidden, Scarfel had said. He had good reason to be cautious. Orks gathered in tribal groups along the snaking basin of the gorge, its craggy flanks extruding inwards to break up their numbers. But they had numbers. A great many. Scipio took careful note here too. Seeing the horde like this, he realised they had engaged but a fraction of it at the city wall.
‘How many, do you think?’ asked Vandius, crouched by his side.
‘Hundreds,’ Scipio answered grimly. ‘At least five or six times what we fought in the city.’
The orks had lit fires all along the lower ridge line. Some burned in craters along the basin too. A greasy black pall fed into the sky, smothering it and filling the air with the stench of human fat. They brawled and laughed and ate. The gorge was littered with a profusion of yellowed bones. Skulls turned in the breeze, clicking hollowly as they spun and collided on strings of sinew. More dung lay here too, though some of it had been combined with what appeared to be blood to make a daubing of the two-headed ork god. It was massive, stretching almost to the gorge’s summit, and old. Gangs of greenskins toiled to refresh the ‘paint’, grunting and snorting with their crude labours.
‘Where is it?’ murmured Vandius.
Scarfel had fallen into an agitated silence, and though he kept himself back from the edge of the small ridge where the knights had taken position he still could not look away.
Vandius thumbed over his shoulder. ‘He will be of no further use to us.’
Scipio spared the old campaigner a pitying glance, but he was lost to memory as the old fears returned. ‘He got us this far. That’s all we need.’ His eyes narrowed. The orks were fifty feet or so below them. ‘There…’ Scipio nodded.
A savage grin crept across Vandius’ features. ‘Ah, yes… you big ugly bastard.’
A hulking brute of an ork had just emerged from a shallow cave in the gorge wall. Much, much larger than the others and with a gut that spilled over elephantine legs, this was obviously the chieftain. It had lost an eye, perhaps fighting a rival or during the battles against Farrodum’s now-depleted army, and clenched a huge bone club the size of Scipio’s arm. It wore pelts too, and had a furred cloak slung over its broad, sloping shoulders. The skull of some large predator beast served as a crown, but the lower section was missing. One of the horns had broken off halfway as well, but the other curved in a yellowed crescent.
In its other hand, it clutched the dead shaman’s staff. It must have been retrieved by the fleeing greenskins when they realised the crushed corpse wasn’t going anywhere. The beast raised the staff, brandishing it at the sky and gesticulating to the horde that had begun to coalesce. The orks beat their chests, bellowing and pulling on their tusks.
‘He is aggravating them,’ said Scipio.
‘He?’
‘He looks male to me.’
The orks roared louder at the chieftain’s ranting, his deep guttural voice carrying loudly through the narrow gorge until every greenskin looked to him. He beat his chest as he shook the staff
, gesturing to his brutish kin before smashing the bone club over and over against the ground.
‘He wants vengeance,’ said Scipio. ‘For the obelisk, for the shaman.’
‘What’s this now?’ Vandius pointed to a gaggle of Farrodum slaves that had just appeared from another cave. Bound hand and foot, they were yanked into the light. Bloodied and beaten, they looked in a poor way. A few wailed plaintively, but only succeeded in stirring up anger and derision in their captors. Others bore it stoically with the resignation of men headed for the gallows.
‘Old men and boys… Guilliman’s mercy, when did they take them?’ breathed Scipio, and turned to meet Scarfel’s gaze. ‘You do not need to see this.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Scarfel.
‘They’re headed deeper in,’ said Vandius as the orks began to move in a great horde, a green river flowing into the gorge. He edged around the ridge line for a better look, spurring the others to do the same.
They went carefully and quietly, but as the spies crept that little bit closer they saw what the orks intended. And they saw a second obelisk, except this one was not hewn from wood.
‘Blood of the primarch,’ hissed Vandius. ‘Is that it?’
Scipio nodded. He was not trained as a Techmarine, but he recognised a generator when he saw one. This one looked old, extremely old, and jutted from the earth like a huge metallic monolith. It, like the gorge wall, had been daubed in tributes to the ork gods. It wore two faces and the greenskins had covered it in glyph graffiti. There was no mistaking what it was, though. The thick cabling, the densely housed power plant. This was the energy source that Haephestus had seen via the ship’s augur. It stood as high as the facsimile totem the orks had brought to the city. And they worshipped it as if it were the manifestation of their two-headed god.
‘Another bone-swine monument,’ said Scarfel, not understanding.
Scipio didn’t answer. He was watching as the prisoners were led to the base of the generator and then lashed to it with rope.
Vandius smoothly drew his sword and made to move down the side of the ridge. He only stopped when Scipio gripped his arm.
Knights of Macragge - Nick Kyme Page 23