Castellan

by David Annandale

  ‘Justicar,’ Saalfrank began. The tendons of his neck were standing out, and his face was grey with pain.

  ‘I know, shipmaster.’ The groans of the hull were turning into a scream. ‘A few moments longer.’

  The Tyndaris unleashed its broadsides against the wounded centre of the Dark Honour. The red glow blazed searing white. The battleship turned too hard against the roiling gravitic currents, and it broke in half. Stern and bow parted, falling away from the sun erupting to life between them. Then they vanished, swallowed by the wrath of the explosion. The fireball was blinding, all-consuming, and it reached out for the other combatants. The superheated plasma hit the Tyndaris hard enough to collapse all the void shields. Port batteries melted, and the hull began to buckle. Saalfrank cried out with the agony of the ship’s machine-spirit, but the strike cruiser held fast.

  The Perdition of Dawn could not arrest its forward course, and it sailed directly into the blast. A thing of flames came out the other end, a torch miles long, its guns still firing, but the integrity of its form disintegrating.

  The Pertinax Fatum was further away. It weathered the explosion as the Tyndaris did. The destruction of the Dark Honour cleared the near space of wreckage and planetisimals, and the grand cruiser pursued the Tyndaris, a new salvo tearing across the void.

  ‘New contact!’ Ambach shouted. ‘Port and aft of the Fatum. They’re opening fire.’

  Styer cursed. There was a slim path to victory against the remaining ships, especially if the Perdition of Dawn was crippled. But another vessel entering the fray from a distance could easily tip the balance of war against the Tyndaris.

  ‘Redirect maximum shield power to port and aft,’ Saalfrank ordered.

  Styer braced for the impact. It never came.

  ‘They aren’t firing at us,’ said Ambach, baffled. A moment later, she said, ‘Direct hit on the Pertinax Fatum’s engines.’

  The grand cruiser had shifted its reserve power to the fore shields to ride out the worst of the Dark Honour’s holocaust. It had left itself vulnerable to an attack from the rear, an attack that was impossible. Suddenly on the defensive, smaller internal explosions splitting the aft hull near the enginarium, it turned away from the Tyndaris.

  ‘Can you identify this ship?’ Styer asked Ambach.

  ‘No, justicar. The interference is growing worse. It is all the auspex array can manage to confirm another presence at that distance at all.’

  ‘Are we being hailed?’

  ‘We are not,’ said Soussanin, the vox officer.

  Styer glanced at Drake and Sendrax. Their silence was eloquent. The decision is yours.

  ‘The mission to the Imperium Nihilus is paramount,’ he said, and Drake nodded. The presence of an unexpected ally was welcome, but the Tyndaris could not remain in the fight. An opportunity had come. Styer had to seize it. ‘Full ahead,’ he said to Saalfrank. ‘Take us through the passage while you can.’

  ‘So ordered,’ Saalfrank croaked. His physical strain was undiminished, but there was a shard of relief in his tone.

  The Tyndaris pulled away from the guttering aurora of the Dark Honour’s pyre.

  On the bridge of the Catharsis, the tacticarium screens displayed the effect on the battle of Tarautas’ intervention. ‘Are you mad?’ Gothola snarled, aghast. He stared at the oculus as if he might see something that would contradict the screens.

  ‘Your trouble, brother,’ Tarautas said, ‘is that your imagination is stunted. No wonder your work in torture is so blunt.’

  ‘I am not interested in your theories of aesthetics! I only care about what you have done. We have betrayed the Tyrant. He will come for us now.’

  Tarautas smiled. ‘So it would appear.’ The Pertinax Fatum was changing its course. ‘He will have to catch us, though, and I don’t think he will. Make for the Rift,’ he commanded. The Catharsis would vanish into the embrace of the warp long before the Tyrant of Nachmund’s forces could muster a counter-attack. The torpedo salvo had done its work.

  The shipmaster acknowledged the order. The shape in the throne spoke, but the sounds that emerged were a soft, liquid rasp. Blood bubbles rose from the shipmaster’s throat and dribbled down its mutilated chest. The thing in the throne had once had a name, but Tarautas had forgotten it long ago. There were no recognisable features any longer. It was a mass of meat and bone, permanently fused to the command throne by a serpent’s nest of mechadendrites. The shipmaster was a triumph of torture and function. It was the exposed nerves of the ship, and its skills had been honed through pain and colossal sensation to a ferocious edge.

  ‘We can never return here,’ said Gothola.

  ‘We won’t have to. Our work here is complete. We will have no further use of the Nachmund system.’

  ‘Never? You are so certain of our future?’

  ‘I am.’ Gothola had recovered his insolence, and Tarautas considered imposing discipline again. He decided against it. The other members of the warband were watching the exchange with curiosity, but no challenge. There was no threat here, and he was enjoying the chance to educate Gothola. Sadly, Tarautas doubted there was much hope of ever bringing him to true refinement. ‘The art we shall help create will move us beyond the petty strategic concerns of this passage. It won’t matter to us any longer, brother.’

  ‘So great a work…’ Casca breathed. His face was carved with electoos that cut all the way down to the bone. His eyes glittered with artistic fervour.

  ‘But why betray the Tyrant?’ Gothola insisted. ‘His ships might yet have triumphed against the Grey Knights.’

  ‘That is precisely why we intervened, brother. The Grey Knights must reach their goal. The work needs them. We must help them to undo the damage they did on Sandava III.’

  Tarautas savoured the irony of fate. It tasted like blood and had the hard, metallic tang of perfection. The sensation was rich and layered, and he was still exploring it as the Catharsis entered the warp.

  Chapter Nine

  Messengers of Judgement

  They met in Crowe’s cell. Drake, Sendrax, Styer and Furia gathered on one side of the iron table in the centre of the chamber. Crowe stayed on the other. They laid out star charts, and placed a data-slate beside them. The slate displayed the current coordinates, and what had been found there.

  ‘I suppose we should not be surprised,’ said Crowe.

  Because the prognosticars had identified this location in empty space as the point of incursion, the imperative had been to make for here first, and then, depending on circumstances, head for the nearby Angriff system. Only the void was not empty. Angriff was here, the star hundreds of billions of miles from where the charts placed it.

  ‘Are we sure this is Angriff?’ Sendrax asked. ‘There are too many planets.’ The Angriff system had four. This one had seven. ‘And didn’t its worlds have any moons?’

  There wasn’t a single moon in the system. Nor were there any asteroid belts, or a cometary cloud. It was as if Angriff had been swept clean of anything except its primary bodies. Crowe thought it looked more like an orrery than an actual planetary system.

  ‘We are sure of the identification,’ said Furia. ‘The star and four of the planets are unmistakeable.’

  Crowe examined the orbits of the other three worlds. They were wildly eccentric, at sharp angles to the ecliptic. One was perpendicular. Two were simply impossible. ‘These worlds are orbiting at precisely the same distance from the star,’ he said, tapping at the data-slate’s screen. ‘The paths intersect.’

  ‘Destined to collide?’ Drake wondered.

  ‘We wondered that, too,’ said Styer. ‘It would seem not, at least not for the foreseeable future. Their speeds are also identical. They will never reach the intersections at the same moment.’

  ‘They will come very close, though,’ said Crowe, switching to a screen that plotted the trajectories an
d times of the planets. ‘Close enough to fill each other’s skies. The gravitational effects will be catastrophic. Twice a year.’ He looked up. ‘Are they inhabited?’

  ‘They are,’ said Furia. ‘We have intercepted some vox traffic from them. It is very sparse, but present.’

  ‘The terror of their near collisions would be wasted if there were no populations to witness them,’ Crowe said. ‘Have we identified them?’

  Furia shook her head. ‘Too much of the Imperium Nihilus is dark to us. We presume there are systems that have lost worlds in the subsector, but we have no evidence.’

  ‘They may not even come from this region,’ said Crowe. He pointed to a chart of the Imperium as it had been before the Cicatrix Maledictum had torn it in half. ‘Sandava III was not.’

  ‘So,’ Styer said, ‘the incursion will come on Angriff Primus after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Crowe. ‘And look.’ He took a stylus and extended the theorised track of Sandava III from Angriff. It travelled through the system’s new location. ‘The entire system has been moved so that the conjunction of Angriff and Sandava III is at the point of the incursion.’

  ‘Except the conjunction will no longer happen,’ Sendrax said.

  ‘Precisely. The movement of the system is doubly superfluous, from that perspective. Sandava III would have arrived at Angriff’s original position. There was no need for displacement. Now the world will never reach here, yet there is still movement.’ He glanced at the slate. ‘And the system is still moving.’

  ‘Against the galactic rotation,’ Furia added.

  ‘Where is it going?’ asked Drake.

  ‘Based on its trajectory so far,’ said Furia, ‘nowhere.’

  ‘Then it is the movement itself that is important,’ said Crowe.

  ‘Apart from the fact that we confront a force that can move entire systems at will?’ Drake said.

  Behold your futility, Antwyr hissed. Your weapons are futile. Your efforts are futile. You have already lost. Your wretched lives serve the purpose of the gods. Your attempts to escape fate only tighten its bonds. What weapons will you use to free yourselves? Only I can deliver you. Only I can cut through fate.

  Crowe glanced at the Grey Knights and the inquisitor opposite him before he spoke again, gauging the harm the Black Blade was causing. There was tension in their posture, an instinctive anger rejecting the sword’s temptations. At least for the moment. He did not have to halt the briefing just yet.

  ‘The apparent pointlessness of the movement is itself significant,’ he said. ‘It tells us something of our enemy. There is meaning here, though it may not be apparent from a tactical perspective.’

  ‘I agree with the castellan,’ said Styer. ‘My squad has come full circle in returning here. There is a malign perfection in the confluence of events.’

  ‘Art,’ said Furia. Though there was little modulation in her artificial voice, she seemed to spit the word in disgust.

  ‘Art,’ Crowe repeated. ‘That would be in keeping with the nature of the abominations we fought on Sandava III. They were creatures of the Dark Prince. Certainly we can discount accident and coincidence. What has happened is clearly willed. And if it is willed, if the aspects we see here are present for a reason, then we are, too. We must assume that our arrival is desired.’

  ‘The question, then,’ said Furia, ‘is how we are to disrupt the pattern that forms around us. Our every move may be the one desired by the enemy.’

  ‘Faith,’ Crowe said. ‘Our faith in the Emperor will show us the way.’ Faith had upheld him in the long ordeal that was his guardianship of the Blade. Faith gave him the strength and the wisdom to crush Antwyr’s attempts to break him down. ‘Be vigilant, and we will know when and how to strike. And the moment will come.’ He looked back at the charts, at the evidence of overwhelming power and flawless art. ‘This is the illusion of perfection,’ he said. ‘We will shatter it.’

  The Emperor’s Children greeted the transformed system with an ecstatic silence. Screens on either side of the oculus displayed the new configuration of Angriff, and the malevolent dance of the planets.

  ‘Bear witness,’ Tarautas said. ‘This is the work we have come to complete.’

  ‘What will it be?’ Casca asked, rapt with joy to witness the immense change. Tarautas saw in him the same fervour that had animated Ossidius and Erossus.

  ‘Only its inevitable magnificence has been revealed to me.’ When he had sent Erossus and Xathius to Angriff Primus, the transformation had not begun. They had been acting entirely on their faith in his dark inspirations. Now he was seeing the extraordinary form of the great art taking shape. ‘No scans,’ he warned. ‘Maintain complete signal silence. Passive auspex only.’

  ‘Have the Grey Knights reached Angriff Primus?’ Gothola’s question was not hostile. He, too, was feeling the force of revelation.

  ‘If they have not already, they will soon. We can wait. The time is ours.’

  ‘So we do nothing?’ Gothola was sounding less happy now.

  ‘For the moment.’

  ‘When do we act?’

  ‘When we are called.’

  ‘By what?’ Less hostility now. Gothola was genuinely curious. He accepted that the miraculous was underway, and wanted to understand what his role would be in its accomplishment.

  ‘By art,’ Tarautas said. ‘By divinity. By the imperative of aesthetics. We will know, brother. We will know.’ He paused, savouring the nerve-searing burn of the mechadendrites in his scalp. ‘And trust in this, brothers. In the end, the galaxy will know the art that has been created here.’

  The primary spaceport in Algidus had not been used since the fall of night over the Imperium. The last ship to have arrived in orbit over Angriff Primus was the mass conveyer Resplendent Submission. It its journey, its crew had been corrupted, and it had brought heresy and the Emperor’s Children to the system. It had also brought Setheno, who had pursued the Traitors onto the ship. Since the lighters had descended from the Submission, there had been no other traffic, and none was expected.

  The spaceport, however, was not abandoned. The landing surfaces were maintained. The control tower personnel performed their assigned duties every day. There was little to do, in the absence of arrivals or departures, but the work was done. The shadow of the Canoness Errant covered Algidus, and fear of her wrath moved the populace to do what was expected, even though the meaning of their labours had been reduced to nothing more than simple obedience.

  Erner Kierska had command of the control tower. A hundred technical officers served under him. In the late afternoon, they worked at their stations in near silence. There was nothing to communicate. Their presence here was little more than an empty ritual. There was greater tension inside the armourglass dome than there had been the day before. Word had spread of Setheno’s appearance at Laboris Gloria. Perhaps she might decide to come here next. She had, over the years of darkness, made violent examples of those who revealed their lack of faith through their dereliction of duty. She made no distinction between serfs and nobility. All were subject to public execution. No one wished to be chosen as the next object lesson. So greater care was taken today to fill the empty hours with visible marks of assiduity.

  Kierska walked the rows between the stations, as silent as his subordinates, and as tense. Despite his anxiety, he kept falling into a dull, machinic stupor. He would catch himself with a stab of fear, and then a few minutes later he was again plodding along with all the awareness of a servitor.

  Then, for the first time in years, Teoda Varam called out, ‘Incoming vessel.’

  Silence greeted her words, as if no one knew what the phrase meant any longer. Kierska blinked, then ran to Varam’s station. ‘Primary display,’ he said, and a hololithic screen in the centre of the dome lit up with the data of the approaching vessel. At first, Kierska was unwilling to believe what he was
seeing. It was too improbable, and too ominous.

  Awed, Varam said, ‘That is a strike cruiser.’

  Now Kierska could no longer take refuge in disbelief. ‘Hail it,’ he began, but a voxmission came from the ship first. Varam transferred the communication to the central vox-casters.

  ‘This is Shipmaster Bruno Saalfrank of the Tyndaris. This vessel is here in the name of the Emperor. You will ensure working landing pads for two Stormraven gunships. Failure to comply immediately will be judged treason.’

  Kierska grabbed the vox-piece from Varam. ‘Acknowledged!’ he shouted. ‘We acknowledge and comply!’

  The Tyndaris had already closed the link.

  ‘Stormravens…’ Varam said.

  Kierska nodded, his mouth dry. ‘Adeptus Astartes,’ he said.

  Joy and terror flashed through the control room.

  Within minutes, the two emotions were spreading through the city.

  The Purgation’s Sword carried the Purifiers down to Algidus. The ­Harrower flew wingtip-to-wingtip with it, bearing Styer’s squad. The principal hive of Angriff Primus was the only city on the planet from which a steady flow of vox and electronic signals still emanated. The other cities of the forge world had fallen into silence and darkness. Scans had revealed signs of massive conflagrations, many sinking so deeply into the roots of the cities that they had burned for years, and would for many more. There were no scars of battle, though. Angriff Primus had not been attacked. The evidence suggested much of the planet had simply collapsed into decay. With the manufactories so densely packed and agriculture so precarious, neglect and despair would be enough to trigger catastrophe.

  But Algidus had not burned. Its industries and food production arcologies were intact. Some element had turned it from the fate of the rest of the world.

  The gunships came down in the centre of the ferrocrete landing apron. The rear hatch loading ramps dropped almost simultaneously, and Crowe led the way out. The Grey Knights were not marching into combat, so he would have to remove himself from the presence of others soon and seek isolation again. But the mission was under his command, and he valued a first impression to read what he could of the situation on Angriff Primus.