Castellan

by David Annandale

  The landing apron was miles wide, and a huge crowd had gathered to witness the arrival. As the Grey Knights marched out of the gunships, they were greeted by a wail as confused as it was deafening. It was a cry of worship and of anguish.

  ‘Do they know what our coming means?’ Drake asked on a private vox channel.

  ‘They can’t,’ said Crowe. He trusted Styer’s diligence in expunging all trace of the Grey Knights’ earlier mission to Angriff Primus. Yet the reaction here was very different from what the strike force had encountered in Skoria. Surrounded by an army of abominations that had laid waste to the rest of the planet, the people of Skoria had greeted the Grey Knights as protectors and liberators. ‘We are seeing one manifestation of being severed from the Emperor’s light,’ Crowe said to Drake. ‘We will have to watch the form it takes carefully.’

  A greeting party advanced across the ferrocrete. The planetary governor had an honour guard of the local militia, but the soldiers hung back because of the third figure in the lead. Crowe recognised the Sister of Battle from the funereal grey of her armour before she was close enough for him to see the hard, emotionless features and the frigid, golden eyes. The fact that Algidus still functioned now made sense.

  ‘Canoness Setheno,’ Crowe said. ‘You are well met.’ They bowed to each other and made the sign of the aquila. He had encountered her once before, briefly. They had not fought together, though she had with other forces of the Grey Knights. Rare among her kind, her dispensation was such that she had not been memory-wiped after those missions.

  ‘I give thanks to the Emperor to see you here, Castellan Crowe,’ said Setheno. ‘Terra still stands, then?’

  ‘It does. And Roboute Guilliman has returned to us.’

  Setheno’s eyes widened slightly. For her, that was a sign of immense surprise. She was silent for several moments, then said, ‘The galaxy shakes and the glory of the past walks again. Then these are portentous times indeed.’

  ‘They are. We will have much to discuss.’

  Setheno nodded. She turned her head to look over her shoulder. ‘Governor Vismar,’ she said. ‘She is as you see her.’

  The canoness spoke dismissively, as if the governor could not hear her. Crowe suspected that Vismar did not, at any level where pride mattered. If she had once been formidable, she was not any longer. She looked twisted and withered by fear and resentment. She stared at Crowe with terror.

  Kill her and those who serve her, said the sword. They are unworthy in your sight. Stain the ground with their blood. Part the flesh of weakness. Be the triumph of strength.

  Vismar was not looking at the sword. Her eyes were on Crowe’s helmet, at the crimson banner that hung above his armour’s power pack, and at the golden skull that surmounted the standard. He did not think Antwyr was, at this moment, affecting her.

  Voxing Drake privately, Crowe asked, ‘What do you make of the governor?’

  ‘She looks guilty.’

  ‘I think so, too. Guilty of heresy, though?’

  ‘The canoness would not have allowed her to live. Dereliction, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps. She will need to be watched.’

  Setheno seemed to guess the nature of the exchange she could not hear. She nodded slightly, then stepped aside. Crowe moved towards the ruler of Angriff Primus. Vismar shrank away from him, but had the presence of mind not to stumble backwards. She squinted in emotional pain. She seemed to be expecting a blow. But there was still some pride in her stance, even if it was now only in the form of resentment.

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ Vismar muttered.

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ Crowe repeated, with emphasis. He looked again at the crowd, paying closer attention to the wailing.

  ‘It is your doing,’ he said to Setheno, ‘that accounts for this city not having collapsed.’

  ‘I have laboured to prevent its fall, yes, but there is more than my efforts at work here, and its impact is not limited to the changes we see in the skies.’

  ‘What is your evaluation?’

  ‘I have none as yet.’

  ‘Perhaps because it has not really made itself felt yet,’ said Styer, joining them. ‘Perhaps it has not really begun.’

  Crowe nodded slowly. And now it will, he thought. Because we are here, now it will.

  Chapter Ten

  Catalysts

  At Setheno’s suggestion, the Grey Knights commandeered Governor Vismar’s quarters. The palace was centrally located in Algidus. The landing pads on the roof of the chambers were suitable for the gunships, and placed every quarter of the city within reach of a rapid strike. The outer walls were strong, and the gate was reinforced by the Malleus Maleficarum. The communications and control networks were in the palace, too. A strategium centre on the same level as Vismar’s private chambers was ideal for a command post. A small tower next to the landing pads held the governor’s private study. Its luxury was uninteresting to Crowe. Its isolation, though, was practical. It would serve as his containment.

  Crowe was satisfied with the preparations that could be made, though the tactical situation was frustratingly vague. The Ruinous Powers were at work in the Angriff system, but no enemy was visible, and there was no action that could be taken.

  Will you arrest the movement of worlds? Antwyr mocked. Will you fight in the sun?

  Crowe surveyed the strategium, ensuring the necessary work was proceeding before he removed himself from the presence of his battle-brothers. The twenty-foot tacticarium showed a lithographic map of the hive. Parchment maps and data-slates provided information on the rest of the planet. Evaluating the situation outside of Algidus involved a lot more speculation. The collapse had been total. Setheno had expended an inhuman effort in forcing order on the primary hive. Everything outside of its walls had been beyond her reach. The anarchy that had taken the other cities made them potentially fertile ground for corruption and heresy to take root. The Tyndaris was making more detailed surveys as it orbited Angriff Primus. The initial scans relayed by Ambach suggested dead cities. The vast fire damage was years old. Crowe pictured the frenzy of panic that would have seized the populace with the coming of the Noctis Aeterna. Without the merciless hand of Setheno to impose a disciplined terror, the collapse would have been quick. To judge by the extent of the destruction recorded by the Tyndaris, the infrastructure of the cities disintegrated almost immediately. Very soon, life would have become impossible.

  If there were still inhabitants in the shells of the hives, they would be few in number. Although Crowe did not rule out the possibility of a threat emerging from the ruined zones of Angriff Primus, he did not think it was likely. And there was more. It was in Algidus that Styer and his battle-brothers had fought the first incursion. He had to remain alert to patterns of repetition and symmetry.

  Crowe said, ‘We should have plans of the Sanctus Vincula.’ They had to consider the chance that a new incursion might occur in the very spot the daemons had emerged from before.

  Vismar looked puzzled by his request. ‘Lord,’ she said, ‘that manufactory was destroyed by fire years ago. There is nothing there now.’

  ‘We know,’ Styer said. ‘Nonetheless, we require the plans.’

  Vismar stared at the justicar for a moment, then bowed her head. ‘I will see it is done,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’ Styer looked back at her, saying nothing more. The other Grey Knights were silent, too. After a moment, Vismar understood and left.

  Crowe watched her go. She had been cooperative, and made no protest when the Grey Knights had effectively expelled her from her quarters. Some of the initial shock of encountering the strike force had drained away. Now she seemed numb. Her responses were slightly off, as if she kept having to remember how to move and speak. She appeared to have one of those moments of lost direction just before she reached the doors to the strategium. She stopped walking suddenly. Her shoul
ders hunched as if warding off a blow. Then she was moving again. When the bronze doors closed behind her, Drake said, ‘The local forces will be of little use to us.’

  ‘When are they ever?’ said Sendrax.

  ‘On more than one occasion,’ Crowe corrected him. ‘The sacrifice we impose on mortals may be necessary, but it should not be forgotten.’

  ‘As you say, castellan.’ Sendrax’s concession had little grace. ‘Here, though, what are they to do? For that matter, what are we to do? The Ruinous Powers have transformed this system and torn it from its place in the galaxy, and we have nothing to do but observe.’

  ‘That is so,’ said Crowe. ‘We must endure the frustration of waiting when we know an enemy is present. Our foe is invisible to us, brother. If we can force it into the light, we will, but we must know more before that becomes possible.’

  ‘The longer we wait, the more the enemy’s scheme, whatever it is, progresses.’

  ‘How will you fight something you do not perceive?’ Crowe asked.

  Sendrax shook his head and turned back to the maps, glaring at them as if he might summon their foe through them.

  ‘Have patience, brother,’ Crowe said. ‘Militant patience will guide us. Through it, we will find the time and the place to strike.’

  There was nothing more for him to do here. Sendrax was still unhappy, and Crowe knew the Blade would seize upon that displeasure. Likely it already was. He had been in the company of his brothers for too long.

  As he made his way up the spiral staircase to the governor’s study, Crowe wished again he could convey the full understanding of militant patience to Sendrax. He had not tried when perhaps he should have, when they were both Knights of the Flame. Since he had become castellan, his conversations with his brothers were all necessarily brief, pared down to the needs of the moment. He had spoken of his precepts to Sendrax. He wanted him to understand that militant patience was not delay, and not the curse of inaction. It was faith honed to the most precise, deadly edge. For Crowe, it was the spiritual sword that countered the blows of the Black Blade. Patience was the strength to withstand decades of unceasing attacks. Patience, whose end was an even greater blow, delivered to the enemy’s weakness, was the key to every victory Crowe had known.

  But Sendrax would not hear him. Their conversations could not be in depth, and there was always the voice of Antwyr in the background, cursing and manipulating and undermining. What it failed to do to Crowe, it sought to accomplish in Sendrax. Even if the sword had not sent its whispers between them, Crowe wondered if Sendrax would have been any more open to what Crowe was saying. Drake understood, taking aboard Crowe’s thoughts after just a few exchanges. But then, he and Crowe had fought in the same squad long before the sword fell to Crowe. They had come to know the other’s moves in battle almost as instinctively as their own.

  Communication with Sendrax had always been more difficult. Sendrax’s pride in the Grey Knights and their mission would not brook delay. The glory of the Chapter’s battles would never be known to outsiders, but internal glory and personal pride mattered to Sendrax. He lived to attack the daemonic with immediate fury.

  His ferocity on the battlefield was valuable. But the lack of a target on Angriff Primus would be a gruelling test of his patience.

  As he reached the top of the staircase, Crowe wondered whether this circumstance was intended precisely to have this effect on Sendrax. He wondered whether the trap he knew had been set was aimed so specifically at every member of the strike force. He had been personally targeted on Sandava III, after all.

  No, he thought and hoped. The enemy cannot know every battle-brother who would come. If the enemy knew everything, then all was fated, and the war was lost. Styer had been lured here, and knew it. But he had not been destined to come.

  No, Crowe did not think the attack was so perfectly targeted. Yet he would not rule out the possibility. He felt the impatience that plagued Sendrax, and fought it down. He entered the study and moved to its panoramic armourglass windows. He looked out at hab blocks and manufactories crowding up against each other, blocking sight of the unnaturally clear sky from the narrow streets. The blackened rockcrete faces of the buildings, towers and chimneys concealed the anguish within. Before him was an infinity of possible ignition points for the conflict. The attack would come, but he could not anticipate from what direction. There was no choice but to wait and to watch, and to be ready when the moment came.

  He did not resent these tasks. He was castellan, and his duty was his honour. He would be standing guard until his death. On Angriff Primus, he had mounted yet another rampart. It was not the city he had come to protect, but the Imperium. If, as on Sandava III, it became necessary to destroy the wall, or even the planet, to safeguard the greater charge, he would not hesitate to do so.

  He waited, a figure of patient, implacable violence.

  We know, the Grey Knight said. They knew Sanctus Vincula was a crater.

  How can you know? Vismar thought, staring at the justicar. That was years ago. Long before the current crisis. How do you know there was such a manufactory?

  The answer came to her a second later. Because you’ve been here before. Because you were there.

  The explosions at Sanctus Vincula had been cataclysmic. There had been no survivors, and the destruction had been so complete that there was no way to determine what had caused the accident.

  Accident. She had accepted a lie. She was governor of Angriff Primus, and a war had taken place on her world without her knowledge. The Grey Knights had come to Algidus, killed thousands in its centre, and left. She choked on the bitterness that rose in her throat as she thought about the arrogance that went hand in hand with that kind of secrecy. Setheno, at least, carried out her merciless sentences for all to see and fear.

  The Grey Knights waited for her to leave. They had taken her quarters. The planet was under their command. She was superfluous. She was not worthy to know the plans the giant warriors had for her world. She was beneath notice, an irrelevance in a conflict between gods.

  She looked away from the justicar, and her eyes fell on the leader of the strike force at the far end of the strategium. He frightened her even more than Setheno. He looked like death in armour, and she could not face that cold evaluation of those hollow eyes. The shame of her failure crashed upon her. She was guilty of the sin of despair. She did not belong in this chamber. She had failed in her duties as governor. The only act left to her was to stand aside and not interfere with salvation.

  As she reached the threshold, a voice stabbed into her. It seemed to come from the other side of the room, but it was not Crowe speaking. It made no sound, yet she heard a rasp in her head, a grating snarl that conjured images of laughing skulls and the pain of burning worlds. Vismar froze, her spine in a knot.

  This is your reward for loyalty, said the voice. You were used. Your people were sacrificed. You will not be allowed to live. The Emperor does not protect. You know this to be true.

  Vismar shook off the paralysis and left the strategium. She wandered the halls of the palace. She had no conscious thought of a destination. The voice’s words echoed in her mind. They fed her anger and they hammered at what was left of the foundations of her faith. You know this to be true. And she did. The Grey Knights had killed everyone in the Sanctus Vincula. There was no reason to think they would not do the same again.

  They are not salvation, she thought. They are extermination.

  She acknowledged her failure. She and her people had fallen short of the perfection demanded by Setheno. But in their imperfections, they had still done their duty to the Emperor. What of the Imperium’s duty to them? They had persevered through the endless night, and kept their faith when they had been abandoned.

  The Emperor does not protect.

  No, he did not.

  You know this to be true.

  Yes, she did.
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  The illusions fell away. She saw the truth clearly, and when she did, she also saw where her steps had brought her. She was on the lower floor of the palace, not far from the barracks that held the militia companies assigned to the defence of the governor. Instinct must have brought her here, an instinct driven by injustice. She entered the main hall of the barracks. Raised voices greeted her. It was the sound of anger.

  The sound of her anger amplified and reflected back to her.

  The vestry was still dark with torch smoke, only now Orla could feel the light of wrath and judgement shining down on him. He grovelled before the shrine.

  ‘I am not worthy of forgiveness, Master of Mankind,’ he choked out between sobs. He had been repeating variations of the same self-condemnation for hours. He pressed his forehead against the marble floor. He could not bring himself to look upon the golden skull. The weight of his shame was crushing him. He had thought he had plumbed the depths of agony when he had lost his faith, but now it had returned, and the magnitude of his sin threatened to drive him through the floor. He wanted to tear out his tongue and his eyes. He wanted to tear open his throat. He wanted to tear himself from existence, so that his taint would no longer mar holy ground.

  But death was a mercy he had not earned.

  ‘I do not seek forgiveness,’ Orla wept. ‘I know it can never be mine. I renounced you, Emperor, and there is no penalty too great for apostasy. I failed you and I failed my flock. I am beyond salvation. But oh, let me atone!’

  There had to be a path, if not to salvation, then to reparation. Nothing else mattered. The military concerns of Angriff Primus had nothing to do with him. Visions in silvery grey had descended from the sky. They were angels of judgement, and their sentence could not be more severe than the one Orla had passed on himself. He had, in the first moments after the arrival of the Grey Knights, thought to hurl himself from the tower of the Cathedral of the Saints Unforgiving. He had checked the impulse. In reaction to shame, he would not indulge in a final shameful act.