Lords of Blood, page 44
Quiet again.
A warrior in black and gold stood from his chair. A swift-moving servo-skull went to hover over his head, bathing him in a soft lumen glow.
‘Captain Cantar of the Golden Sons,’ it said. ‘Keeper of the Wheel, Slayer of Danrane of the Fifteenth Path, Bloodlord of Kathoi, Exterminator of the Skaal.’
Cantar let the herald skull say its piece. In the light the skin of his bare head was a deep, nut brown of lustrous hue, and his hair was tightly plaited and gathered into a short braid at the back. Golden tattoos glimmered in the light. ‘I am but second captain, no master am I,’ he said. ‘I was sent here with my own warriors and two half companies of my brother-captains at the command of my Chapter Master Erden Cleeve. He gave me express orders to follow your will to the letter. You need not ask if we shall follow you, Commander Dante.’ He banged his fist upon his chest, then made the sign of the aquila. ‘I hear at Armageddon the generals of the Imperium appointed you as lord commander, but they debated first. There is no need for that here, you are among your kin. You are our lord.’ He bowed his head, and sat. A cheer went up around the room.
‘My thanks for your words, brother,’ said Dante. ‘But there will be warriors here who perhaps think they should have ultimate say in the deployment of their Chapters, as is only right. I believe that only in unity shall we prevail. I cannot proceed until I am assured that my orders will be obeyed by all. Our lives, our victory, depend upon it.’
Another warrior stood, this one helmed and in particoloured armour of black and red. The herald skull’s light lit gorgeously worked trim. Upon his shoulder a winged skull glared out imperiously.
‘Castellan Zargo, Chapter Master of the Angels Encarmine, Fleetlord, Far-Wanderer, Master of the Gloried Reach.
‘We of the Angels Encarmine commit ourselves wholly to your cause.’ Through his helm emitter his voice was hard and rasping. ‘I am sure there are many more here who would agree. I feel I can vouch for the sentiments of Chapter Master Seth. Though we have had our differences I am sure we are of mind on this matter. Chapter Master Glorian, and Chapter Master Voitek, among others also. Is there need for this, Dante? You are the great hero of the Imperium. Your name and exploits are known to all of us, even those who have never been within a thousand light years of Baal before.’
‘Aye! Aye!’ men shouted. ‘It is true!’
‘Let us be about this war, without this charade. You bear the blood of Sanguinius on your forehead,’ said a warrior in sombre grey.
‘Paracelius, First Captain, Charnel Guard, Giver of the Bones, nineteenth of the title,’ said the skull.
‘You wear Sanguinius’ mask on your face. We shall all follow you,’ Paracelius said.
‘Yet I am not Sanguinius,’ said Dante. ‘You all must understand this. I have achieved much, but my legend is different to my story. I am only a warrior, like you. Know this. Know also that this war may be the doom of your Chapters. I will command only by consent, and not by some supposed right. For who but the Emperor could confer that on me? Therefore in His absence, I must ask my peers for their approval.’
‘So we will die!’ shouted a captain of the Blood Swords, surging to his feet too quickly for the herald to reach him and call out his name. ‘What of it? For what other reason did the Emperor create us than to die in battle performing service to Him? If our deaths will aid victory, then so be it! Life is fleeting, the blood is eternal. We fight not for ourselves, but for our geneline and the Imperium.’
‘Hear, hear!’ shouted several warriors. Gauntlets banged thunderously on the table.
‘Dante shall lead us!’ cried someone.
‘Dante! Dante!’
Dante stilled the noise with a raised hand. ‘If you are so eager for me to command you, then heed this first order,’ said Dante. ‘Vote.’
‘Aye! Very well, we shall vote!’ shouted a helmetless Chapter Master in rich white and red armour.
‘Lord Follordark, Chapter Master of the Angels Excelsis, the Void Sword, Master of Utrech,’ said the skull herald.
‘And I shall swear to be bound by your command should my brothers in arms here vote yes!’ Follordark shouted. His eyes were wild and bloodshot. Spittle flew from his lips. He held up his hands and turned around so that all could see him. ‘But,’ he said, his voice dropping, ‘should the vote prove against you, Lord of the Hosts, then I shall command my own men in the manner of my choosing. And that will be to follow you!’
Dante inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘All I ask is that you vote. The vote will be done simply and quickly. When my Master of Ceremony asks that you cast your lots, stand if you favour my command of this defence and subsequent actions necessary to break Leviathan. Remain seated if you wish to operate independently. I remind you that all of you in here are bound to honour the outcome, no matter your preference.’
The warriors spoke with each other then, either for or against. The motion of impassioned gestures made draughts in the room that stirred the fires lighting the gathering.
Dante nodded to his Master of Ceremony. The old man piloted his conveyance into the centre of the table, the thick metal cables running down his back linking his brain with its motive systems gleaming orange gold.
‘My lords!’ he said in his incongruously beautiful voice. ‘We ask you to be silent! We shall now vote on the matter, the first to be put to the Great Red Council of the Angelic Host.’
Conversation dropped away reluctantly. Warriors who had stood sat again so as not to pre-empt the result.
‘Vote!’ called the Master of Ceremony.
The hall reverberated to the sound of hundreds of armoured giants getting to their feet. The growl and whine of armour joints working in unison filled the space, so that it sounded like a mechanical dragon stirring in its lair.
Servo-skulls swept over the silent crowd. From the ceiling a robotic angel descended, lowered by an armature. It spread useless metal wings. Red light burned fiercely in its soulless metal face. Fine laser spread scanned up and down the voting Space Marines as the angel turned in a slow circle.
There were a handful of warriors who remained defiantly seated, and of them only two were Chapter Masters. Commander Dante’s reputation was such that very few of them would not follow him. The majority in the room were variously surprised and annoyed that he asked at all. Most of the captains that remained seated did so on principle to honour the Codex Astartes commandment that no lord, no matter how great, should command more than a thousand Space Marines. Only a couple were arrogant enough to believe they could do better than the Master of the Blood Angels.
The angel finished its count. Its metal eyes shut with a click, and its wings folded.
The Master of Ceremony closed his eyes, communing via data pulse with the machineries of the Arx Angelicum.
‘In favour of Commander Dante commanding the defence of Baal, four hundred and seventy-six. Against, twenty-four.’
Deafening cheers and applause ripped through the chamber.
Dante stood, and shouted into the tumult. ‘Then it is decided. I shall command you as if you were my own until this conflict is done and Baal is saved! Until that time, I will treat you with the honour and respect I accord my own warriors, and mete out the same punishments to those who defy my will. Any who do not agree may leave. This is your last chance. Go without rancour, and be counted among our brothers still.’
The applause petered out. Dante’s glowing eyes lit upon the last seated warriors. Not one of them moved.
‘Very well,’ said Dante with a curt nod. ‘To war.’
‘So it shall be!’ cried out a captain of the Blood Drinkers.
‘Dante! Dante! Dante!’ the shout began again. Once more the ancient heart of the Arx Angelicum rocked to the shouted name of its Master.
‘Enough!’ commanded Dante, and all fell silent. ‘We shall turn now to the matter at hand – the destruction of Hive Fleet Leviathan.’
A hololith activated, adding its gentle thrum to the room’s noises. Ribbon projectors concealed in carved angels upon the ceiling painted a glowing star map whose sides brushed the edges of the table’s interior. A section of the Ultima Segmentum floated in space, perfect in every detail. Across its centre was the broad, bloody brushstroke of the Red Scar. Balor glowed off centre. The twin-starred Cryptus system burned to the galactic south west. There were many stars in the Scar, and all were red, whether they were lone wanderers in the Red Wilderness, or tightly packed in the stellar nurseries that cramped the southern Obscura Veil. The cartolith showed space around the Scar too, and away from the lurid glow the norms of space reasserted themselves. The Scar was relatively sparsely inhabited, but outside the Scar were millions of systems, hundreds of them Imperial, all at risk.
Once established, the illusion of space was total. For a few seconds the Chapters of the Blood were warrior gods peering down from their celestial palace at the mortal realm. A flicker and an influx of data banished the effect. Signifiers and datascreed sprang up all over the map. First came the system names, unrolling themselves in multitudes over the points of ersatz starlight. Most were no more than a string of Ordo Astra astrogation numbers, reminding them all of how thinly spread the Imperium was. Star systems occupied by humanity gained datascreed that scrolled down automatically, detailing their worlds closely: populations, exports, tithe grades and all the other macro-grade information the Imperium’s slow bureaucracy needed in order to function. The statistics in the screeds were from the top of a pyramid of data; even so, all except the most general would be out of date.
System orbital marks, stellar progression tracks, zone delimits, borders, highlighted phenomena and important outposts cluttered the map further. It became busy. Still, for another second, the Space Marines looked upon a pristine map of humanity’s empire in that sector, annotated with a bureaucrat’s diligence.
Order and purity were as much an illusion as the hololith of the void. A further flicker brought the watching warriors closer to the truth. Cogitators overlaid the progress of Hive Fleet Leviathan over all the busy data of the cartolith. A shadow was engulfing the stars, multiple tendrils extending along attack vectors from beneath the galactic plane. They moved in unison, closing like a slow-motion vid replay of some monstrous, aquatic beast snaring its prey. Though at first regard the tendrils appeared separate, splinters in the parlance of the age, all led back to the unknowable totality of the hive mind. As the monster moved, the galaxy died. Beneath the slowly questing tentacles star signifiers, Imperial and non-Imperial both, flashed an angry red and greyed out.
‘Behold Hive Fleet Leviathan,’ said Commander Dante, his out-flung arm encompassing the writhing tentacles. ‘It has been on this heading for decades, consuming all in its path. This simulation is sped up by a factor of several thousand. As you watch you will see it consume world after world, although in reality these planet deaths were months or years apart. Its progress is slow by our standards. By some mechanism the tyranids are able to violate natural law and exceed the speed of light somewhat, but as far as we know the fleets cannot traverse the warp. Over the last few decades this has offered us a small strategic advantage, as we have been able to respond more quickly than it has. Nevertheless, I cannot claim any sort of victory. We have done our part in attempting to stop the hive fleet, but in doing so have discovered that it could not be stopped. It is too vast, and growing bigger. Every world devoured has strengthened it in number and variety. Forgive me if I provide knowledge you already possess. There are several Chapters here who have warred valiantly against the Great Devourer, but not all of you have.’ Dante paused. ‘We have fought Leviathan many times now, and we have come to new, disturbing conclusions.’
A smaller scale map sprang into being, separated from the greater in a glowing wireframe rectangle. It displayed two alternate courses for the hive fleet, one lighter than the other.
‘From the data we have gathered from the Ordo Astra and which has been provided to us by the Inquisition and other adepta, we believe this darker course to have been Leviathan’s original trajectory,’ said Dante. ‘See how it looked to be avoiding the Red Scar until this sharp turning to the galactic north, twelve years ago. The Red Scar is a poisonous area of space. The hive fleets, as a rule, seem to be drawn to rich worlds, those populous or with intact natural systems. They favour sectors with high densities of such planets, and avoid perilous areas of space. But in this case the hive fleet appears to be forgoing richer sectors in favour of a strategic goal. We believe that it is actively seeking the destruction of the Blood Angels Chapter.’
A hubbub arose at these words. ‘That is impossible, Commander Dante.’
‘Lord Malphas, Chapter Master of the Exsanguinators,’ blurted the herald skull.
‘We have fought against these creatures before. They appear cunning, but they have as much self-determination as a colony of steelmites. They are animals, they do not bear grudges.’
‘Techial, Chapter Master of the Disciples of Blood,’ said the servo-skull.
‘Then why, twelve years ago, did Leviathan alter its course, and begin to head directly for Baal?’ said another.
The skull’s announcement went unheard as voices clamoured at Dante. Space Marines argued with each other.
‘My brothers!’ shouted Dante. ‘Scaraban, the Chief Librarian of the Flesh Eaters has invested a great deal of time into investigating this independently of our Chapter. Listen to him, then judge.’
Scaraban left his seat and went through a gap in the table into the hololith at the centre of the room. As he talked, he strode through the stars like a celestial being. His force staff glimmered with unearthly power, as if he could not quite separate himself from the warp.
‘We in the Imperium see the tyranids as a collection of creatures linked together through psychic interface,’ he said. ‘It is an understandable mis-conception. We compare the things we fight to other foes. In this case, comparison begets false truths. There is nothing like this race of beasts in this galaxy, and therefore nothing to accurately compare them with. We face heaving masses of creatures, and see armies of individuals. We observe the higher forms appearing to make decisions and directing the lesser, and see officers or slave masters. The tyranids appear as a race like any other, one that has incorporated many species into its genetic memory, and that employs radical gene-engineering and psychic slavery. This is the logical interpretation. It is also wrong. The tyranids are winning their war because the Imperium has been blind to their, or I should more correctly say, its true nature.’
‘You know the truth of its being?’
‘Chapter Master Geron of the Angels Numinous,’ said the skull. Its gravity motor growled with effort as it flew back and forth across the room.
‘I did not discover it,’ said Scaraban. ‘This hypothesis is but one of several theories advanced, but it has the merit of being true. I have seen it.’
Doubtful talk struck up.
‘No psyker can look into the shadow without going insane, Adeptus Astartes or not!’
‘Seutona, fifth captain, Angels of Light.’
‘I have,’ said Scaraban.
‘I hear rumours that you consort with decadent aeldari to further your knowledge!’ said Seutona hotly.
‘If I have, it is to the benefit of all,’ said Scaraban.
‘Aeldari destroyed the Third Company of my Chapter not four years ago, they cannot be trusted!’
‘Silence!’ warned Dante. So commanding was his voice the brewing argument was quashed instantly. ‘There will be no dissent. No airing of grievances. Do not do the enemy’s work for him.’
‘I have seen it too. Scaraban speaks the truth.’ Mephiston rose from his chair. His eyes glowed blue, and on wings of scarlet energy he flew over the heads of his peers and landed in the centre of the map, his deathly pale skin lit by the dancing light of disturbed hololithic star systems.
Dark mutters greeted the Lord of Death’s intervention.
‘I have looked into the shadow in the warp and seen the thing that casts it,’ said Mephiston. ‘What assails our galaxy is not an army of individuals, or even a colony of social animals working as one, but a single creature, a monstrous foe of inconceivable dimensions. Scaraban is correct. We have our perception of this predator back to front. It is not as it appears, a host of creatures linked psychically, it can instead be seen as a single, massive psychic presence: a single mind. These monsters that attack us generate it, they make it as a man makes his soul, but whereas ours are individual, theirs is singular, a single predator, not many.’
‘And when they attack each other?’ said Malphas.
‘Perhaps the hive fleets are different beings, one mind for each. Perhaps they are all ultimately one. We cannot say for sure. The tyranids are utterly alien. But we know the hive mind is real. This intelligence is emergent, coming from the billions of creatures in the swarms, but it is not an empty intellect, it is aware. It has a soul.’
‘You say then this being is a warp entity, born of the immaterium?’ asked a Librarian. ‘In our librarius we have theorised it is but another thing of Chaos wearing xenos skin.’
‘Codicier Laertamos, Brothers of the Red,’ the herald skull announced.
Scaraban shook his head. ‘I am sure its origins are in this realm of being. We are not alone in holding this opinion of its nature. The reports of Inquisitor Kryptmann, others in the Inquisition and the Magos Biologis suggest so, at least those that support this interpretation. Perhaps what we are seeing is a creature part-way to spiritual transcendence, a gestalt made of the minds of billions of brute animals trapped half in and half out of the warp by unending hunger?’
‘You suggest we fight a god?’ scoffed a Space Marine of cadaverous appearance. His eyes were sunken in skin that looked dry as dust.
