Scythes of the Emperor, page 10
‘This world,’ he murmured. ‘This world is full of potential. I can practically smell it.’
Machaon shifted awkwardly. ‘I have heard others remark similarly, though it certainly wasn’t potential they thought they were smelling.’
Thorcyra laughed, letting the soil crumble through his fingers before wiping his gauntlets together.
‘We have been given a second chance, my Brother- Apothecary. This world is great indeed. Would you not agree?’
‘I believe that this world… will become great, my lord. With time, and our patience.’
‘True enough, brother,’ the Chapter Master replied. ‘True enough.’
He looked back to the upper ramparts of the bastion, where the Chapter’s standard now flew. Newly patched and mended after the expedition’s ignominious return from the Saphir Cluster, the classical image of the Sothan horseman was restored, along with all their centuries of campaign honours. It was an undeniably glorious sight, and for a moment even Machaon found himself almost able to put aside the hundreds of practical and logistical obstacles that stood in their way, and simply share in his master’s grand vision for the future.
Then he shifted awkwardly again. Not since his youth had he ever been given to extended bouts of blind optimism.
‘My lord, we are ready to proceed. I have brought the larger part of our gene-seed stock down from the fleet’s cryo-vaults, but there is no sign of my brother of the apothecarion to take custody of it. Nor is there the escort I was promised by the bastion guard.’
Thorcyra waved away his concern. ‘Brother Emrys is seeing to the conditioning of our incoming recruits. He is not expected back at the Coffin for at least a few days.’
The Apothecary faltered, suddenly feeling very exposed out there on the edge of the landing platform. He glanced back at the unloaded cryogenic containers, each one a metre deep and twice that in length, drifting at the foot of the drop-ship’s ramp on humming repulsor skids. His human attendants clustered around them, nervously eyeing the Mirali natives and armoured battle-brothers fresh out of the jungle patrols.
These requisitioned medicae adepts still seemed very far from home, no matter how many inspiring speeches Thorcyra might make.
‘My lord,’ Machaon sighed, ‘forgive my boldness, but I don’t believe you have thought this through.’
The Chapter Master raised an eyebrow, but did not reply. The Apothecary continued.
‘Captain Thracian personally oversaw every step of the procedure to have this material retrieved from the secure vaults on the Heart of Cronus, my lord. He personally double-checked, triple-checked each seal and serial number on every single flask in those containers, even after I had carried out my own examinations. He queried the security clearance of every mortal retainer involved in the transfer, and he had Sergeant Romonos pick out a pair of cool-headed drop-ship pilots who could be trusted with so valuable a cargo.’
He took off his right gauntlet, and wiped sticky sweat from his brow.
‘We are scraping the proverbial tun, my lord. This is all the gene-seed we have left, and a good many of my fellow Apothecaries – not to mention worthy battle-brothers and who knows how many loyal serf retainers – gave their lives to see this treasure safely off Sotha when the xenos attacked. Captain Thracian honoured their sacrifice with the care he took in ensuring that these containers would be delivered safely to you, now. He even took me from my duties on the wards, tending to our many injured warriors, to convey it directly into the hands of Brother Emrys in the storage chambers that have been prepared beneath the Giant’s Coffin.
‘And yet, my lord, here we are. The cryogenic systems will not function indefinitely, out here in the sun. I can appreciate that you have a great many things to attend to, but this simply will not wait.’
Thorcyra nodded, contrite. ‘Of course, brother. You are–’
‘With the greatest respect, my lord,’ Machaon interrupted him, ‘I have not finished.’
He gestured to the shuffling medicae adepts.
‘Do you see those men and women? Not one of them has been in any way prepared for this excursion to the surface, much less the idea that they will soon have to settle here permanently along with the Chapter. We’ve dragged them out into the wilderness, so far from civilisation that we can’t even be sure of the date any more. More than that, this is a death world. A death world. They are Sotharans, one and all – maybe a few will have been in landing parties during their time, but not one of them has seen combat from the ground, and there were precious few survivors from our indentured garrison forces on the home world. Here on Miral Prime, every single day will be a mortal struggle for the people we brought with us. They’ve heard rumours of the deadly jungle, of course, and now they see these feral natives strutting around, being praised as our saviours. So what do our loyal servants have to look forward to? Being bred out by tribesmen, in the gloom of our new fortress.’
The Chapter Master’s expression was haunted, but Machaon felt that the point had to be made.
‘You talk of new beginnings?’ the Apothecary muttered. ‘We can pretend all we like, but this will be the death of them. They too will be buried in the Giant’s Coffin.’
For a long while, Thorcyra was silent. He breathed slowly, staring at the frightened humans who nonetheless still tried to put themselves between the passing groups of Mirali and the gene-seed containers.
Then he snapped his fingers, and called out to his guard.
‘Veteran! Take your warriors and escort these honoured servants to the cryo-storage chambers. They are to be given your full protection while they complete the transfer of their cargo, and then given our full hospitality for the duration of their stay.’
As the adepts gasped their thanks, the Scythes guided them away, driving the containers up towards the bastion’s main entrance.
Thorcyra turned again to Machaon, and bowed his head, sincerely.
‘You speak with an unexpected quality of wisdom, brother. The Scythes of the Emperor have always valued our mortal kin so very dearly, but sometimes it is easy to forget that they have not the constitution or fortitude of a Space Marine. I would see that they are afforded whatever courtesy we can give them, in the difficult times ahead.’
The Apothecary felt vaguely foolish, but accepted the sentiment behind the words. ‘I’ve just seen a lot of them lately, that is all. I’ve seen the fear in their eyes. We’re supposed to protect them, and lately it seems as though we can barely protect even the notion of our own Chapter’s legacy.’
Chapter Six
THE DARKNESS THAT FOLLOWS
There was something in the electronic chime that made Thracian curiously uneasy. It was the same tone and pitch as it ever had been, and it was not accompanied by anything so dramatic as a frantic, hammering knock, nor cries for help from the other side of the doorway.
And yet, on this one particular occasion, he would swear that it sounded different.
Colder, perhaps, like an unexpected call in the dead of night that summons the tearful dreamer to an old mentor’s deathbed for the final time.
He hesitated before responding, his hand hovering over the access switch.
So dark had been Thracian’s thoughts of late, out here beyond the system-edge. The Heart of Cronus prowled the borders of the Chapter’s new demesne, and the solitude was an icy, thankless exile while his brethren tamed the wilds of Miral Prime.
He blinked away the melancholy. Such thoughts were not becoming of a captain of the Scythes of the Emperor. He would continue in this duty for as long as Master Thorcyra demanded it.
‘Enter,’ he called out, placing his loaded bolt pistol out of sight as he rose.
The doors slid open, and a single battle-brother entered his chambers. The warrior was fair-skinned with a gleaming, bare scalp, and dressed in a loose training tunic. Thracian did not recognise him at all.
‘Brother, how may I assist you? The hour is late.’
The warrior was lithe, with a calm, detached air about him. As he approached the conference table, strewn about with navigation charts and sundry other papers, he gazed absently at the unlit mosaics upon the walls.
‘Captain Thracian, my name is Hadrios. I have been seeking an audience with the Chapter Master for some time.’
Thracian frowned. ‘Master Thorcyra is not here. He has not set foot on the Heart for many weeks.’
‘I know.’
Hadrios halted at the edge of the table, casting his dark eyes over the paraphernalia there. There was no urgency about him at all – he seemed quite comfortable in the silence that followed his reply.
Thracian made a show of gathering up a handful of documents, waiting for him to explain himself. Hadrios. Hadrios. The name was not familiar, not from any of the lists that had been drawn up since their arrival at Miral, and he had been thorough in reading them…
Hadrios simply stared back at him, but there was no malice there.
‘After a while, captain, it occurred to me that Thorcyra might not be the person with whom I should discuss this matter,’ he said, eventually. ‘It is sensitive, to say the least, and I encountered a surprising amount of resistance and interference from those around him.’ He scanned the room again, as though confirming to himself that they were alone. ‘I have to be sure, my lord. I have to be sure of who I can trust.’
Unease grew in Thracian’s gut. He did not like what Hadrios was insinuating. ‘Are you suggesting that there are individuals within the fleet who would seek to keep this knowledge – whatever it is – from our noble Chapter Master?’
Without a second’s hesitation, Hadrios shook his head. ‘No. I am suggesting that there are such individuals within the Chapter itself.’
At that, Thracian’s unease became something darker. He glanced at his pistol, lying concealed amidst the documents and data-slates on the tabletop.
‘What, then?’ he demanded. ‘What is it that you wish to bring before Master Thorcyra, this notional conspiracy of silence aside?’
Hadrios narrowed his eyes. ‘Can I trust you, Captain Thracian?’
‘Your tone suggests that you already do. That, or you have no one else left to confide in. Either way, we both already know that you are going to tell me.’
Warily, Hadrios reached out to the largest navigational chart before them. It was a map of the Sotharan League and the periphery, and he pointed to their home world itself, now starkly and unceremoniously struck through in red ink.
‘It is Sotha, my lord. I know how the xenos were able to take the home system of a Space Marine Chapter, in spite of all our carefully laid defences and everything we threw at them in the final hours. I know why it was that they were drawn to our world above all others, and why they follow us still. Furthermore, I can prove that this was all no mere accident of galactic geography.’
Thracian looked up slowly. He was caught between disbelief and outrage.
‘Do you… Do you dare to suggest that the hive fleets were lured to Sotha… deliberately?’
‘Indeed,’ Hadrios replied. ‘And I believe that the gates were left unbarred to them from within. Speaking figuratively, of course.’
White noise began to pound in Thracian’s skull. His entire reality, everything he knew to be fact, seemed to be slipping off by a few degrees with every heartbeat, turning in upon itself with a sickening, irresistible, inhuman slowness. Had noble Sotha, home world and protectorate of the Scythes of the Emperor, been betrayed unto its ending?
If this was true, then… then…
Without thinking, he snatched up the bolt pistol, screwed his eyes shut and fired.
The report of the shot was almost deafening in the closed chambers. A scattering of debris fell to the floor, pieces of mosaic blown out by the impact of the mass-reactive shell, and the acrid taste of propellant and gun smoke hung in the air.
After a long moment, Hadrios spoke.
‘Captain, your reaction is understandable. But I would prefer that you warn me before discharging your weapon at such close range.’
Numbly, Thracian opened his eyes. He had put his shot through the heart of Mount Pharos on the far wall, exposing the fine plaster and reinforced metal panelling behind it. A web of cracks had spread through the mosaic from the impact point, fracturing the captain’s memory of Sotha as surely as Hadrios’ allegations had.
He let the bolt pistol tumble from his grip.
‘It’s not possible,’ he mumbled to himself, over and over again.
Hadrios came to his side, leading him away from the fallen weapon. He still spoke so calmly, so matter-of-factly, and that in itself was profoundly unsettling.
‘Come with me, Captain Thracian,’ he said. ‘There is something I must show you, something I risked a great deal to bring aboard this ship.’
It was some hours before Thracian stumbled back to his chambers, his mind reeling. He fumbled at the hatch with clumsy hands, his eyes clouded with tears and his voice hoarse from screaming his rage in the secluded compartment to which Hadrios had led him. A maintenance servitor had been alerted by his anguished cries and come to offer what assistance it could, but Thracian had battered the mindless wretch into a pulp and shattered its bare, metallic skull against the bulkhead.
What Hadrios had shown him had stunned him almost beyond comprehension. The Chapter had not simply been betrayed, but entirely undone. Thracian had seen the proof of it with his own eyes.
Now he started at shadows, staggering down unlit corridors away from half-imagined alien spectres in the bowels of the ship.
Madness. Darkness.
Was it growing deeper, hour by hour? Was this what Brother Spiridonas had seen, in the endless, feverish dream of the warp jump?
Thracian sealed the door behind him, and collapsed to the deck, retching and writhing. These were not truly his quarters. He was no Master of the Fleet.
And yet they were, and he was.
Damn you, Zebulon! A curse upon your name, for leaving us to wander the void alone…
He dragged himself back to his feet, tearing at his dark hair and grinding his teeth. Then he took up the crystal ewer from the end of the conference table, and hurled it with all his might at the mosaic of Mount Pharos, where it shattered into a thousand pieces against the already ruined ceramic. He cried out again, howling his frustration and throwing himself around the chamber in a destructive rampage before sinking to the floor once more, his face creased in torment.
He was hollowed out. He did not know how Hadrios could know the terrible truth behind the fall of Sotha, and bear it with such quiet, observing stoicism.
He watched the frozen blackness of interstellar space roll past the viewports for what could have been minutes, or hours. He had never felt more truly alone, here on this battle-barge crewed by many thousands.
When the tentative knock came, he was not alarmed. He had almost expected it. He had torn the chime controls out with his bare hands.
A pair of serf security officers in carapace plate stood either side of a Militarum courier, one of the many Imperial Guard personnel who had been seconded from the outpost on Miral II to assist the Scythes in their ongoing communications. With his long hair hanging limply over his face, his eyes red-raw, Thracian suspected that he must look quite frightful to these slender mortals.
Did that explain the shaking of the courier’s limbs? The cold sweat that soaked his uniform? The man was thin and haggard, wearied by endless, thankless hours of vigilant duty, but beyond that he seemed genuinely terrified.
In his hands, he held a terminal scroll. The wax seals had been broken.
Wordlessly, he held it out to Thracian.
The captain took it, unrolling the machine-fed parchment and scanning the origination codes. Then he read the message. It was a fragment of a much longer astropathic transcript.
Strangely, he felt no surprise or horror at the contents – only a sense of detached, pragmatic acceptance.
+Nova Prospectum, to battle-barge Heart of Cronus.++
Sebastion returning to Miral. All cargo accounted for.
Warning. Xenos hive ships inbound, confirmed.
Estimated time to arrival: six days.
We are unprepared for combat. We will tread the circuitous path.
‘The Coffin is cry loud, Giant-Culimoss,’ Hwygir murmured. ‘What means it?’
Culmonios did not look down at the boy. His eyes were fixed upon the bastion’s ramparts at the far end of the mesa, and the Sothan colours that flew defiantly from them. He was not sure whether to feel pride or concern at the sight.
His augmented hearing had picked out the sound of distant sirens even before they had left the jungle’s edge, but as the hunting party had trekked over the bald wasteland of recently felled trees, heading for the outer gate, it had become more distinct.
The bastion was under combat alert.
A pair of Stormtalons flew in low, directly over their heads. The lead craft dipped its wing-nacelles as they passed, the pilot most likely seeking a visual on the group before peeling back off to resume his patrol, satisfied that they were non-hostile. From behind the defence walls, Culmonios picked out the rising whine of drop-ship engines as a Thunderhawk transporter rose ponderously from the landing platform, before breaking for orbit on brightly glowing thrusters.
He darted back down the line to the crude litter of branches where the mauled Keltru lay. Five of the bigger and stronger Mirali youths had taken him up as a shared burden, dragging him along with the group even though it slowed their progress through the jungle considerably. But Culmonios had realised that – even if his battle-brother did not survive – to leave him to the wild carrion feeders would have been worse than sacrilege, and worse than a waste of manpower.
It would be a waste of gene-seed. They could not countenance that.
Keltru’s helm and boltgun lay on the litter beside him, placed by the young trogs as reverentially as if he were headed for a grand funeral pyre. The Space Marine was still unconscious, and though his truncated legs were healing gradually, it was a poor heal without the attentions of a medicae. Thick red clots attracted hungry insects in the heat, as much from the ferocity of his immune system as from the blazing Miral sun overhead. There would be no possibility of infection by this stage, but equally the stumps were knitting themselves closed. Short of further surgical dismemberment to reopen the ragged transhuman musculature, Keltru might not even be suitable for augmetic fittings by now.
Machaon shifted awkwardly. ‘I have heard others remark similarly, though it certainly wasn’t potential they thought they were smelling.’
Thorcyra laughed, letting the soil crumble through his fingers before wiping his gauntlets together.
‘We have been given a second chance, my Brother- Apothecary. This world is great indeed. Would you not agree?’
‘I believe that this world… will become great, my lord. With time, and our patience.’
‘True enough, brother,’ the Chapter Master replied. ‘True enough.’
He looked back to the upper ramparts of the bastion, where the Chapter’s standard now flew. Newly patched and mended after the expedition’s ignominious return from the Saphir Cluster, the classical image of the Sothan horseman was restored, along with all their centuries of campaign honours. It was an undeniably glorious sight, and for a moment even Machaon found himself almost able to put aside the hundreds of practical and logistical obstacles that stood in their way, and simply share in his master’s grand vision for the future.
Then he shifted awkwardly again. Not since his youth had he ever been given to extended bouts of blind optimism.
‘My lord, we are ready to proceed. I have brought the larger part of our gene-seed stock down from the fleet’s cryo-vaults, but there is no sign of my brother of the apothecarion to take custody of it. Nor is there the escort I was promised by the bastion guard.’
Thorcyra waved away his concern. ‘Brother Emrys is seeing to the conditioning of our incoming recruits. He is not expected back at the Coffin for at least a few days.’
The Apothecary faltered, suddenly feeling very exposed out there on the edge of the landing platform. He glanced back at the unloaded cryogenic containers, each one a metre deep and twice that in length, drifting at the foot of the drop-ship’s ramp on humming repulsor skids. His human attendants clustered around them, nervously eyeing the Mirali natives and armoured battle-brothers fresh out of the jungle patrols.
These requisitioned medicae adepts still seemed very far from home, no matter how many inspiring speeches Thorcyra might make.
‘My lord,’ Machaon sighed, ‘forgive my boldness, but I don’t believe you have thought this through.’
The Chapter Master raised an eyebrow, but did not reply. The Apothecary continued.
‘Captain Thracian personally oversaw every step of the procedure to have this material retrieved from the secure vaults on the Heart of Cronus, my lord. He personally double-checked, triple-checked each seal and serial number on every single flask in those containers, even after I had carried out my own examinations. He queried the security clearance of every mortal retainer involved in the transfer, and he had Sergeant Romonos pick out a pair of cool-headed drop-ship pilots who could be trusted with so valuable a cargo.’
He took off his right gauntlet, and wiped sticky sweat from his brow.
‘We are scraping the proverbial tun, my lord. This is all the gene-seed we have left, and a good many of my fellow Apothecaries – not to mention worthy battle-brothers and who knows how many loyal serf retainers – gave their lives to see this treasure safely off Sotha when the xenos attacked. Captain Thracian honoured their sacrifice with the care he took in ensuring that these containers would be delivered safely to you, now. He even took me from my duties on the wards, tending to our many injured warriors, to convey it directly into the hands of Brother Emrys in the storage chambers that have been prepared beneath the Giant’s Coffin.
‘And yet, my lord, here we are. The cryogenic systems will not function indefinitely, out here in the sun. I can appreciate that you have a great many things to attend to, but this simply will not wait.’
Thorcyra nodded, contrite. ‘Of course, brother. You are–’
‘With the greatest respect, my lord,’ Machaon interrupted him, ‘I have not finished.’
He gestured to the shuffling medicae adepts.
‘Do you see those men and women? Not one of them has been in any way prepared for this excursion to the surface, much less the idea that they will soon have to settle here permanently along with the Chapter. We’ve dragged them out into the wilderness, so far from civilisation that we can’t even be sure of the date any more. More than that, this is a death world. A death world. They are Sotharans, one and all – maybe a few will have been in landing parties during their time, but not one of them has seen combat from the ground, and there were precious few survivors from our indentured garrison forces on the home world. Here on Miral Prime, every single day will be a mortal struggle for the people we brought with us. They’ve heard rumours of the deadly jungle, of course, and now they see these feral natives strutting around, being praised as our saviours. So what do our loyal servants have to look forward to? Being bred out by tribesmen, in the gloom of our new fortress.’
The Chapter Master’s expression was haunted, but Machaon felt that the point had to be made.
‘You talk of new beginnings?’ the Apothecary muttered. ‘We can pretend all we like, but this will be the death of them. They too will be buried in the Giant’s Coffin.’
For a long while, Thorcyra was silent. He breathed slowly, staring at the frightened humans who nonetheless still tried to put themselves between the passing groups of Mirali and the gene-seed containers.
Then he snapped his fingers, and called out to his guard.
‘Veteran! Take your warriors and escort these honoured servants to the cryo-storage chambers. They are to be given your full protection while they complete the transfer of their cargo, and then given our full hospitality for the duration of their stay.’
As the adepts gasped their thanks, the Scythes guided them away, driving the containers up towards the bastion’s main entrance.
Thorcyra turned again to Machaon, and bowed his head, sincerely.
‘You speak with an unexpected quality of wisdom, brother. The Scythes of the Emperor have always valued our mortal kin so very dearly, but sometimes it is easy to forget that they have not the constitution or fortitude of a Space Marine. I would see that they are afforded whatever courtesy we can give them, in the difficult times ahead.’
The Apothecary felt vaguely foolish, but accepted the sentiment behind the words. ‘I’ve just seen a lot of them lately, that is all. I’ve seen the fear in their eyes. We’re supposed to protect them, and lately it seems as though we can barely protect even the notion of our own Chapter’s legacy.’
Chapter Six
THE DARKNESS THAT FOLLOWS
There was something in the electronic chime that made Thracian curiously uneasy. It was the same tone and pitch as it ever had been, and it was not accompanied by anything so dramatic as a frantic, hammering knock, nor cries for help from the other side of the doorway.
And yet, on this one particular occasion, he would swear that it sounded different.
Colder, perhaps, like an unexpected call in the dead of night that summons the tearful dreamer to an old mentor’s deathbed for the final time.
He hesitated before responding, his hand hovering over the access switch.
So dark had been Thracian’s thoughts of late, out here beyond the system-edge. The Heart of Cronus prowled the borders of the Chapter’s new demesne, and the solitude was an icy, thankless exile while his brethren tamed the wilds of Miral Prime.
He blinked away the melancholy. Such thoughts were not becoming of a captain of the Scythes of the Emperor. He would continue in this duty for as long as Master Thorcyra demanded it.
‘Enter,’ he called out, placing his loaded bolt pistol out of sight as he rose.
The doors slid open, and a single battle-brother entered his chambers. The warrior was fair-skinned with a gleaming, bare scalp, and dressed in a loose training tunic. Thracian did not recognise him at all.
‘Brother, how may I assist you? The hour is late.’
The warrior was lithe, with a calm, detached air about him. As he approached the conference table, strewn about with navigation charts and sundry other papers, he gazed absently at the unlit mosaics upon the walls.
‘Captain Thracian, my name is Hadrios. I have been seeking an audience with the Chapter Master for some time.’
Thracian frowned. ‘Master Thorcyra is not here. He has not set foot on the Heart for many weeks.’
‘I know.’
Hadrios halted at the edge of the table, casting his dark eyes over the paraphernalia there. There was no urgency about him at all – he seemed quite comfortable in the silence that followed his reply.
Thracian made a show of gathering up a handful of documents, waiting for him to explain himself. Hadrios. Hadrios. The name was not familiar, not from any of the lists that had been drawn up since their arrival at Miral, and he had been thorough in reading them…
Hadrios simply stared back at him, but there was no malice there.
‘After a while, captain, it occurred to me that Thorcyra might not be the person with whom I should discuss this matter,’ he said, eventually. ‘It is sensitive, to say the least, and I encountered a surprising amount of resistance and interference from those around him.’ He scanned the room again, as though confirming to himself that they were alone. ‘I have to be sure, my lord. I have to be sure of who I can trust.’
Unease grew in Thracian’s gut. He did not like what Hadrios was insinuating. ‘Are you suggesting that there are individuals within the fleet who would seek to keep this knowledge – whatever it is – from our noble Chapter Master?’
Without a second’s hesitation, Hadrios shook his head. ‘No. I am suggesting that there are such individuals within the Chapter itself.’
At that, Thracian’s unease became something darker. He glanced at his pistol, lying concealed amidst the documents and data-slates on the tabletop.
‘What, then?’ he demanded. ‘What is it that you wish to bring before Master Thorcyra, this notional conspiracy of silence aside?’
Hadrios narrowed his eyes. ‘Can I trust you, Captain Thracian?’
‘Your tone suggests that you already do. That, or you have no one else left to confide in. Either way, we both already know that you are going to tell me.’
Warily, Hadrios reached out to the largest navigational chart before them. It was a map of the Sotharan League and the periphery, and he pointed to their home world itself, now starkly and unceremoniously struck through in red ink.
‘It is Sotha, my lord. I know how the xenos were able to take the home system of a Space Marine Chapter, in spite of all our carefully laid defences and everything we threw at them in the final hours. I know why it was that they were drawn to our world above all others, and why they follow us still. Furthermore, I can prove that this was all no mere accident of galactic geography.’
Thracian looked up slowly. He was caught between disbelief and outrage.
‘Do you… Do you dare to suggest that the hive fleets were lured to Sotha… deliberately?’
‘Indeed,’ Hadrios replied. ‘And I believe that the gates were left unbarred to them from within. Speaking figuratively, of course.’
White noise began to pound in Thracian’s skull. His entire reality, everything he knew to be fact, seemed to be slipping off by a few degrees with every heartbeat, turning in upon itself with a sickening, irresistible, inhuman slowness. Had noble Sotha, home world and protectorate of the Scythes of the Emperor, been betrayed unto its ending?
If this was true, then… then…
Without thinking, he snatched up the bolt pistol, screwed his eyes shut and fired.
The report of the shot was almost deafening in the closed chambers. A scattering of debris fell to the floor, pieces of mosaic blown out by the impact of the mass-reactive shell, and the acrid taste of propellant and gun smoke hung in the air.
After a long moment, Hadrios spoke.
‘Captain, your reaction is understandable. But I would prefer that you warn me before discharging your weapon at such close range.’
Numbly, Thracian opened his eyes. He had put his shot through the heart of Mount Pharos on the far wall, exposing the fine plaster and reinforced metal panelling behind it. A web of cracks had spread through the mosaic from the impact point, fracturing the captain’s memory of Sotha as surely as Hadrios’ allegations had.
He let the bolt pistol tumble from his grip.
‘It’s not possible,’ he mumbled to himself, over and over again.
Hadrios came to his side, leading him away from the fallen weapon. He still spoke so calmly, so matter-of-factly, and that in itself was profoundly unsettling.
‘Come with me, Captain Thracian,’ he said. ‘There is something I must show you, something I risked a great deal to bring aboard this ship.’
It was some hours before Thracian stumbled back to his chambers, his mind reeling. He fumbled at the hatch with clumsy hands, his eyes clouded with tears and his voice hoarse from screaming his rage in the secluded compartment to which Hadrios had led him. A maintenance servitor had been alerted by his anguished cries and come to offer what assistance it could, but Thracian had battered the mindless wretch into a pulp and shattered its bare, metallic skull against the bulkhead.
What Hadrios had shown him had stunned him almost beyond comprehension. The Chapter had not simply been betrayed, but entirely undone. Thracian had seen the proof of it with his own eyes.
Now he started at shadows, staggering down unlit corridors away from half-imagined alien spectres in the bowels of the ship.
Madness. Darkness.
Was it growing deeper, hour by hour? Was this what Brother Spiridonas had seen, in the endless, feverish dream of the warp jump?
Thracian sealed the door behind him, and collapsed to the deck, retching and writhing. These were not truly his quarters. He was no Master of the Fleet.
And yet they were, and he was.
Damn you, Zebulon! A curse upon your name, for leaving us to wander the void alone…
He dragged himself back to his feet, tearing at his dark hair and grinding his teeth. Then he took up the crystal ewer from the end of the conference table, and hurled it with all his might at the mosaic of Mount Pharos, where it shattered into a thousand pieces against the already ruined ceramic. He cried out again, howling his frustration and throwing himself around the chamber in a destructive rampage before sinking to the floor once more, his face creased in torment.
He was hollowed out. He did not know how Hadrios could know the terrible truth behind the fall of Sotha, and bear it with such quiet, observing stoicism.
He watched the frozen blackness of interstellar space roll past the viewports for what could have been minutes, or hours. He had never felt more truly alone, here on this battle-barge crewed by many thousands.
When the tentative knock came, he was not alarmed. He had almost expected it. He had torn the chime controls out with his bare hands.
A pair of serf security officers in carapace plate stood either side of a Militarum courier, one of the many Imperial Guard personnel who had been seconded from the outpost on Miral II to assist the Scythes in their ongoing communications. With his long hair hanging limply over his face, his eyes red-raw, Thracian suspected that he must look quite frightful to these slender mortals.
Did that explain the shaking of the courier’s limbs? The cold sweat that soaked his uniform? The man was thin and haggard, wearied by endless, thankless hours of vigilant duty, but beyond that he seemed genuinely terrified.
In his hands, he held a terminal scroll. The wax seals had been broken.
Wordlessly, he held it out to Thracian.
The captain took it, unrolling the machine-fed parchment and scanning the origination codes. Then he read the message. It was a fragment of a much longer astropathic transcript.
Strangely, he felt no surprise or horror at the contents – only a sense of detached, pragmatic acceptance.
+Nova Prospectum, to battle-barge Heart of Cronus.++
Sebastion returning to Miral. All cargo accounted for.
Warning. Xenos hive ships inbound, confirmed.
Estimated time to arrival: six days.
We are unprepared for combat. We will tread the circuitous path.
‘The Coffin is cry loud, Giant-Culimoss,’ Hwygir murmured. ‘What means it?’
Culmonios did not look down at the boy. His eyes were fixed upon the bastion’s ramparts at the far end of the mesa, and the Sothan colours that flew defiantly from them. He was not sure whether to feel pride or concern at the sight.
His augmented hearing had picked out the sound of distant sirens even before they had left the jungle’s edge, but as the hunting party had trekked over the bald wasteland of recently felled trees, heading for the outer gate, it had become more distinct.
The bastion was under combat alert.
A pair of Stormtalons flew in low, directly over their heads. The lead craft dipped its wing-nacelles as they passed, the pilot most likely seeking a visual on the group before peeling back off to resume his patrol, satisfied that they were non-hostile. From behind the defence walls, Culmonios picked out the rising whine of drop-ship engines as a Thunderhawk transporter rose ponderously from the landing platform, before breaking for orbit on brightly glowing thrusters.
He darted back down the line to the crude litter of branches where the mauled Keltru lay. Five of the bigger and stronger Mirali youths had taken him up as a shared burden, dragging him along with the group even though it slowed their progress through the jungle considerably. But Culmonios had realised that – even if his battle-brother did not survive – to leave him to the wild carrion feeders would have been worse than sacrilege, and worse than a waste of manpower.
It would be a waste of gene-seed. They could not countenance that.
Keltru’s helm and boltgun lay on the litter beside him, placed by the young trogs as reverentially as if he were headed for a grand funeral pyre. The Space Marine was still unconscious, and though his truncated legs were healing gradually, it was a poor heal without the attentions of a medicae. Thick red clots attracted hungry insects in the heat, as much from the ferocity of his immune system as from the blazing Miral sun overhead. There would be no possibility of infection by this stage, but equally the stumps were knitting themselves closed. Short of further surgical dismemberment to reopen the ragged transhuman musculature, Keltru might not even be suitable for augmetic fittings by now.
