Luther: First of the Fallen, page 7
I had three destriers over the course of my life, each as dear to me as a family member. Dearer, in fact, for as I have said the bonds of family were considered less strong than those of mutual service. The first, Accadis, which means Blackfire, was given to me before I left for Storrock and she came back with me to Aldurukh. She it was that bore me that first winter, a brave and inquisitive soul that knew well her rider was of rank and destiny, and hence prone to bouts of imperious behaviour towards her fellow destriers.
Another remarkable ability of the destriers was their tracking sense. Not for us the need for packs of hunting dogs to catch the scent of our prey. Our steeds could follow a days-old trail as well as any bloodhound.
So it was that when we were four days out from Aldurukh protecting the latest extension of the clearance to the north, Accadis pricked her ears and whinnied meaningfully to me. The squadron had split, with Serjeant Gabrio, my senior, leading five knights west of the route of advance while we covered the approaches to the east. We had not seen the sky for a day, having entered the lowlands and forests proper just after dawn the previous day. The snow was thick, drifting still from the branches above, so that it was dark as night but for the glimmer from our saddle lights that reflected on snow and ice.
‘Patrol halt!’ I called to my companions, my hand moving to the bolt pistol holstered next to the saddle bow.
They responded without comment, falling silent as they reined in their destriers. The quietness brought the distant calls of the work groups nearly two kilometres behind us, but save for that the only sound was the creaking of trunks in the wind and the odd thump as a branch’s load proved too much.
The other destriers caught the scent too, exhaling sharply, stomping warnings with their forehooves. The wind was in the south-east, behind us and from the right.
‘That’s towards the diggers,’ exclaimed Parican, turning in the saddle to look back along the trail we had forged in the snow.
‘Something circled around us?’ suggested Larel, pulling free her pistol.
‘Or coming down the east shoulder,’ I replied.
Accadis was fretful, drawing attention to her unease as a warning. I could feel her pulling at the reins, straining to take us towards the scent.
‘Bear arms,’ I told the others, taking out my pistol. ‘Corboric, take lead. Take us back east of the work group. We’ll put ourselves between them and whatever is coming.’
We fell in behind the knight I’d commanded, riding single file at an angle away from the route we had taken. This was an old stretch of forest, the trees like castle towers in girth. Even atop Accadis the plume of my helm did not touch the lowest branches and had I stood on her back I would not have been plucked from my perch.
We rode as straight as could be reckoned through the broad trunks, the slope of the land rising to our left, becoming steeper after a kilometre. The snowdrifts worsened, thick against roots coiled like mythical serpents, and our steeds were slow in picking their way forward in places.
Their agitation grew as the morning wore on. We had no chronometer – Serjeant Gabrio had the squadron’s only timepiece – but by the vaguest notion of the sun’s position I reckoned we were coming close to midday when ahead there erupted an awful shrieking of birds and monstrous bellows.
It is hard to gauge distances in the press of the forest but the thrashing of wings through the leaves could not have been more than three or four boltfalls ahead – a boltfall being the typical distance a bolt’s propellant could last before it started to lose horizontal distance, so in total five hundred to eight hundred metres. As the disturbance passed, the unseen flock flying almost due north which put our prey south of us, we moved on cautiously. Here and there an older tree upon the slope had lost the battle against the white of snow and tumbled, leaving breaks for the twilight to creep in. We quickly extinguished our lamps because they showed our position far more than they illuminated anything of the creature we hunted. We could not see much more than half a boltfall ahead and our ears were more guide than our eyes, even though the boles of the trees were thinner and more separated.
It was then that the snorts of our mounts alerted us to patches of darkness in the snow and a few metres later we came upon large furrows where something had passed, accompanied by glistening droplets. Blood. It was difficult to judge direction of travel in the gloom but the destriers kept pulling southwards and so we let them take us onwards, easily following the tracks.
Soon we saw something in the distance, a bulk of darkness beneath the shade, unmoving.
I signalled for the others to spread out, leaving Egalade a short distance behind us to watch the rear. We pulled free our chainswords then, charged from the small generator packs carried upon our steeds. We saw more clearly what was humped over a fallen trunk ahead. Where the tree had collapsed, the canopy was broken, letting in fitful pale light.
It was a Great Beast, furred with white and dark grey, the hairs as long as a destrier’s mane. Though it did not move, we approached warily in case it was simply playing dead. We could not see its head, but spines like sword blades jutted from its shoulders and rump. It was easily three or four times larger than one of our steeds and an outflung paw was as big as my body, tipped with seven claws that could rake out the guts of a knight with a single blow. A gasp from Larel, who was approaching ahead and to my right, caused us all to flinch, and the cause of her reaction became clear as we rounded the beast, still a good score of metres distant from the creature.
The pale fur around the throat and chest was matted with glistening red. The flesh was shredded, skin lying in flaps, and one side of the monster’s face was sunken, as though it had been staved in by a smith’s hammer or equally powerful blow.
‘Serjeant!’ Parican’s call was more hiss than whisper, his eyes wide as he pointed to the ground beside his steed.
Another furrow in the snow led away from the steaming corpse, heading westwards. Spatters of dark red followed the line. The blood of the beast. It was difficult to say what had left the tracks but it was smaller than the dead creature, and within a dozen metres they suddenly disappeared.
‘Where do they go?’ demanded Larel, but a careful search of the surroundings revealed nothing else on the ground.
I returned to the spot where the tracks ceased and looked up. The branches above were clear of snow.
‘It went up,’ I told the other knights, pointing with my sword. ‘Disturbed by our approach I reckon.’
‘Must have been a really nasty monkey,’ said Larel, her jest breaking the tension that had been building, drawing laughs from me and Parican.
‘The apes have all migrated south,’ said Corboric, unamused as he looked back at the savaged monster. ‘A cat? Lion perhaps?’
Before we speculated any more, the stillness was broken by the bark of a bolt pistol firing, six shots in all. It came from the direction of Egalade, three score metres back. As we turned towards him his destrier started whinnying and stamping something fierce, the rider clinging on barely with his sword hand, bolt pistol held aloft.
‘I saw something!’ the knight shouted to us, but the rearing of his steed made it impossible for him to show us where.
Accadis reacted before me, leading her stable-kin as she burst into a gallop, first running for her distressed companion before veering south again, nostrils flaring. I pulled on the reins, slowing her a little, but allowed her to show the way. We plunged into darkness once more and I lit my saddle lamps. Peering ahead, I saw something moving fast through the limits of their beams, passing behind the trees a boltfall or more away.
‘Catch it before it gets into the trees again!’ called Corboric, his mount dashing past us on the left. The others were drawing level on the right, separated by a score of metres. I glanced back and saw that Egalade had joined the rear of the chase. Together the squadron thundered between the trees, coming upon scuffed tracks in the snowdrifts. Passing one bole I spied bright red splashed up the trunk. To my mind it looked oddly like a handprint and I thought again of perhaps some carnivorous gorilla forced to hunt large prey by the terrible winter. The recollection of the Great Beast with its throat ripped asunder made me shudder.
‘It’s wounded,’ I called out, and at the same time I signalled for Corboric and Larel to move aside and ahead so that we would encircle the creature, as we had done at the clearing.
Close to a kilometre the pursuit continued and I marvelled at the speed of our prey, but stooping from my saddle I could see that it was flagging, the tracks becoming shorter, more laboured.
‘We have it!’ announced Larel, about a dozen metres further ahead.
A tree as broad as a roundhouse dominated the forest before us, its vast canopy overshadowing everything so that for perhaps a hundred metres nothing else broke the white of the snow, drifts falling in the wind as the branches swayed overhead. The two lead knights converged from left and right towards the base of the trunk, where I spied something pale against the bark. My first impression was a mane of long, yellow hair and I thought again of a lion, though the creature seemed more upright than any feline. I saw claws, long and bloodied.
The others closed with pistols raised and ready, their chainswords growling. The creature snarled in reply.
And in doing so the hair fell back from its face and I looked upon the visage of a man. Eyes the colour of Caliban’s forests regarded me from amid a grime-covered countenance, alert and full of intelligence.
‘Hold!’ I cried, sharper and swifter than any command I had given before.
I could scarce believe what I witnessed and dismounted to see better. As far as I could judge, the person was a little taller than myself, but other than the outstanding blond mane was bereft of hair, like an adolescent. I could tell, for he was fully naked, body as dirty as his face, the splash of fresh blood down his chest and along his arms from hands to elbows.
Swallowing hard, I remembered that this person – if it was indeed a person – had attacked and slain the Great Beast we had found. It seemed impossible.
‘It is one of the nephilla!’ warned Corboric.
‘Nephilla do not bleed,’ I told them, for I could see that the youth’s shoulder was a bloody mess, the flesh exposed down to bright white bone. ‘Your panicked volley found its mark, Sar Egalade.’
‘I did not panic! A bolt hit would have torn off a man’s arm,’ the knight replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the apparition backed against the tree bole. ‘It is not human!’
The green eyes slid from me to regard the others, narrowing as they moved from one knight to the next. I could see calculation in that gaze, one that I came to know very well in the years after. He was weighing up strategies, visualising what would happen.
‘You saw what it did to the quest beast,’ said Larel. ‘Keep clear and fill it with bolts.’
‘You’re not going to attack, are you, Lion?’ I said loudly. I am not sure why I gave him the name; it was a poor joke to settle my nerves. To find a person when we had been seeking a beast was most unsettling, and as you can imagine I had no idea of the manner of person I had discovered.
I laid down my pistol and chainsword and took a step forward. The youth tensed, but whether to attack or flee I did not know. Pain flared across his face as he moved his wounded arm. I fixed my eye upon his and slowly advanced, hands held out with the palms down. I could feel the aim of my companions sighted upon the boy but I trusted them not to shoot without my command. I hoped the youth made no movement though. In their state, my knights surely would have thought it an attack on me and opened fire. A very different future for Caliban and the Imperium had that happened.
As it was, I came within arm’s reach and leaned forward, brushing aside the hair so that the others could see what I could.
‘Look,’ I told them. ‘He is a man, not a beast.’
And that was how I found one of the Emperor’s primarchs.
As he had done several times before, Morderan stared hard at Luther as though he might extract what he wanted to know by simple visual study. Luther knew well the use of the pregnant pause in conversation and interrogation, leaving a heavy gap for other participants to fill. He was not sure if Morderan thought he would volunteer more information, or the Dark Angel simply needed this long to think. Either way, Luther kept his silence until Morderan spoke again.
‘You liken Cypher to the Lion,’ he said quietly.
‘I liken the encounters to one another,’ Luther corrected. ‘At the time of my meeting, I knew nothing about the Lion or what he would become.’
‘And you think we should deal with Lord Cypher in the same fashion? To treat him as an ally?’
‘As a man. I know nothing of his intentions, nor his loyalties. Neither will you if you slay him out of hand.’
Morderan’s eyes widened, first in shock and then revelation. He stared again at Luther and stood up, more animated than he had appeared before.
‘Cypher was one of the most influential members of your cabal. Certainly your warriors owed allegiance to him. If there is one that could command them, it would be him.’
‘Or Astelan, or Griffayn, or Maegon.’
It did not appear as though Morderan had heard Luther. He paced back and forth, talking to himself.
‘He might be the key to the whole conspiracy. If we capture him he could lead us to many others, hundreds or thousands perhaps.’
The Supreme Grand Master started towards the door, quite forgetting the other man in the room. Luther stood, feeling that the intent of his story had been missed entirely.
‘I might have been wrong,’ he called out. ‘There are many that think I should h–’
TALE OF THE BOOK
‘–ave let him be shot.’
Luther fell silent, as though suffering a verbal stumble. Morderan was at the door, his expression grave. He had a pistol in his hand, the first time Luther had seen the Space Marine bearing any armament. Morderan’s lips were moving silently, his posture swaying back and forth as though he debated himself.
Luther’s eye was drawn again to the bolt pistol. It was finely crafted, its main block inlaid with pieces of green and black stone to fashion the symbol of the Dark Angels. He could smell the fresh lubricant and Morderan was also heavy with the scent of cleansing.
‘Have you a question?’ Luther said quietly, not liking what he saw but not wishing to watch matters simply unfold without his participation.
Morderan glared at him, the pistol half rising.
‘It was you that told me to capture him,’ growled the legionary. He thrust an accusing finger at Luther. ‘You! Make him an ally, you told me.’
A wave of grief passed over the Supreme Grand Master’s face and he faltered, his hand falling back to his side. Luther judged it to be just half a dozen metres between him and the Space Marine. If he was quick enough…
He still would not be strong enough. Not to wrest a weapon from the fingers of a fully transformed Space Marine. And such action would certainly precipitate violent reaction. Probably lethal. When pressed, a legionary’s first reaction is to slay, not injure.
Luther was tempted all the same, not for want of freedom but desire for release. The relative stability he had enjoyed in the captivity of Morderan had revealed to him the depths to which he had sunk in his prior madness. Those depths awaited him still. Even the dislocation of this latest stasis leap was starting to eat at the edge of his thoughts.
How much time had passed? Years, obviously. Decades? Likely.
At least three thousand years had passed since Caliban had died and yet Luther had known perhaps forty days of it with any semblance of clarity. Many more were the days spent raving and raging, locked in loops of prescience or chained to the wall while a screaming face demanded repentance he could offer to nobody but the Lion.
He realised his thoughts were already distant, a living dream, when he felt the cold muzzle of the bolt pistol pressed against his cheek.
‘You are a poison,’ snarled Morderan.
‘You may be right,’ Luther replied as he closed his eyes.
He waited, breathing slowly. The pressure of the gun made his face ache, but he welcomed the sensation, anchoring him in the present. If he was going to die, he wanted to be there, not abroad in some hallucination or vision.
‘Your lies nearly destroyed us.’
Luther wanted to deny the accusation, but stopped, sensing that it might be the last provocation Morderan needed. At the last, it seemed Luther was not yet ready to die. Not without meeting the man he had betrayed, to explain why he had turned and how he now regretted it.
He opened his eyes and looked sidelong at the Supreme Grand Master. The gleam in the man’s eye spoke of a mania Luther had never seen in a Space Marine. They were supposed to be conditioned against such mental breaks, recruited from the strongest-willed so that they could face any adversity.
But he could see in the face of Morderan that the fear was not outside but within. The enemy he faced was himself, whether real or perceived. What had he done? They had last spoken of Lord Cypher. Morderan spoke of alliance. Had he somehow parleyed with the foe he had been chasing? Bargained with him?
Morderan focused on Luther, saw his gaze meeting his own. He stepped back, the muzzle of the bolt pistol wavering in his grip.
‘Your lies end here!’
Luther flinched but the bark of the bolt pistol rang around the room for a moment before the heavy thump of Morderan’s body hitting the floor. He stared down at the corpse, stunned, seeing the bloody mess where the head had been seconds earlier.
His eye slid to the bolt pistol still in the grip of the Space Marine’s right hand, the smoke of its use drifting from the barrel, and then to movement in the shadows at the door. He stooped to grab the weapon as red eyes gleamed.
