Hand Of Abaddon, page 17
My fate.
He was alone, save for the graven statues of Imperial saints that stared down on him with their impassive judgement.
Or am I merely judging myself?
Their heads were crowned with carved sunbursts, their eyes etched with jagged lightning. Wielding swords and framed by stone wings, they told of a heroism that echoed through the eras. He felt small by comparison.
Deeming it unproductive, he shrugged off this introspection. Astartes were not meant to endure such prolonged periods of inactivity. Without a war to fight, a skill to hone, Areios felt adrift. It was disquieting, and not for the first time he readjusted the grip on the power sword sheathed at his belt, feeling the synth-leather creak against his gauntlets.
The manufactors of this part of the ship had put a polished oval of silver in the facing wall. He wondered if its placement was deliberate. In it he saw mirrored his armoured form. Blue to reflect the livery of his genetic heritage, his battle plate still bore the scars and chipped paint it had earned at Srinagar. Here a scorch mark after a bullet’s passage, there a scrape of gunmetal from a blade. On his left shoulder was the pale grey chevron of the Greyshields, a symbol of the fact he had yet to be assigned to a Chapter.
But that was all ending now. It had been a measure of expediency and pragmatism, now no longer needed. The Greyshields were never meant to endure as an organisation – Guilliman’s de facto Legions, despite him presiding over the original breaking of similar military structures ten thousand years in the past – and Areios knew he was amongst the last of them. This was why he was here, to be reassigned. He wondered whose ranks he would join, who amongst Guilliman’s sons he would call brother. He reflected then that introspection was proving harder to cast off than he thought.
A door opened at the end of the hallway, and Areios turned from the mirror to see a robed patrician emerge. Human, she wore long robes that pooled by her feet as she walked. A rod of office hung around her shoulder on a golden cord. Several scroll cases were cinched at a simple leather belt. She came over to Areios on sandalled feet, her steps soft and quiet. Her head was shaved, an Imperial eagle tattooed on the right temple.
‘Ferren Areios?’ she said in a strong voice, checking a data-slate cradled in one arm.
Areios gave a slow nod, at which the patrician wrote something on the screen with a stylus. His name was an amalgam of his old life and a reference to the world where he was born anew.
‘Please follow me, my lord,’ she said and moved off.
Areios followed, keeping his gait short and his steps slow so he didn’t overtake her. She was several feet shorter than him, a reed to his oak, but she hadn’t balked when confronting him and for that reason alone he knew she possessed strength.
The patrician led him through the doors at one end of the hallway into a receiving chamber. It was small but comfortable, the faint vibrations of the ship’s engines barely audible through its padded walls. And there, sitting behind a desk in the spartanly furnished room was Vitrian Messinius.
The Astartes rose as soon as Areios entered, dismissing the patrician with an unobtrusive gesture.
‘It is good to see you, old friend,’ he said warmly, stepping from around the desk where he had been reviewing a data-slate.
Areios clasped his mentor’s arm, gripping it firmly in the way of warriors.
Messinius was armoured in white with a green trim around his shoulder guards, the livery of the White Consuls, one of the Ultramarines’ many successors. After the Rift, the Chapter’s home world, Sabatine, had been overrun by Chaos. Fate had meant Messinius had been unable to stand in its defence, his path eventually aligning with that of Guilliman and Fleet Tertius. He desired greatly to return and try to reclaim Sabatine, or at least avenge it. That vengeance would have to wait, though, until his oaths to the primarch had been fulfilled, and so here he was, reviewing data-slates.
‘Traded your blade for a stylus, I see,’ said Areios mildly as the two broke apart. Messinius stood a little shorter than Areios, his frame narrower. Unlike Areios, Messinius belonged to the old caste of Astartes before Cawl’s miracle and the emergence of the Primaris Marines. His presence was undeniable, however.
‘A lord lieutenant’s duties see him exercise the strength of his mind as well as his sword arm, captain.’
‘Of course, my lord,’ Areios replied, chastened.
‘A joke, Ferren,’ said Messinius, smiling broadly. ‘I admit I am not good at them.’
Areios’ creased expression suggested he didn’t understand. Messinius left it at that and went to retrieve a piece of parchment, one of a stack of several piled on his desk. A glance revealed troop numbers, lists of materiel, the disposition of armies. The stark balance sheet of war. At least, that was his impression; oddly the detail eluded him. Almost as if he couldn’t quite parse it.
‘Do they not have logisticians and tacticae for that?’ asked Areios, putting his reaction down to fatigue. Even Astartes were not tireless, and he had been on campaign for several weeks without rest.
‘They do, but I prefer to trust my own eyes and follow in Lord Guilliman’s example.’
At mention of the primarch, Areios made the sign of the aquila. He winced at a sudden painful twinge, but Messinius appeared not to notice.
‘As pleasant as this reunion is, it is not why you were summoned, Ferren.’ At this, the lord lieutenant proffered the parchment he had taken from his desk. ‘Read it,’ he invited when Areios did not immediately react.
He took the parchment.
‘The Greyshields are being disbanded, Ferren,’ Messinius told him. ‘It will take time to enact in full, but the end has begun.’
The pain returned, worse than before, and Areios clutched at his side but found no wound.
Messinius continued unabated. ‘You are an Unnumbered Son no more. Guilliman himself requested your elevation to the Ultramarines. It is a great honour.’
Areios nodded his gratitude, feeling slightly numbed at the news. He looked down at the parchment, the pain in his side a needle of fire. He grimaced.
‘I admit, it lacks fanfare,’ said Messinius.
Areios blinked. Once, then again. The words on the parchment made no sense. They were gibberish, the scratchings of a madman.
‘Is this another joke?’
‘I hope you are proud,’ said Messinius as if replying to a different question. ‘There is no Chapter held in greater esteem than the Ultramarines. I believe the primarch sees greatness in you, as do I.’
‘This is…’ Areios felt off balance, as if the floor had been canted to one side. He staggered. Messinius still appeared not to notice.
‘You will become a part of the Sixth Company, under Brother-Captain Epathus. He is a fine warrior and tactician, you will learn much from him. The Sixth are headed for the Anaxian Line, and as such you will be leaving Fleet Tertius.’
Messinius paused, allowing Areios a moment to assimilate his words. The lord lieutenant’s tone softened slightly.
‘I know you wanted to be posted to the White Consuls. It would have been my honour to serve alongside you and return to liberate Sabatine together, but ours is the path of duty, Areios.’
‘I am sorry, lord lieutenant, but I…’
Areios’ world contracted, darkness encroaching at its edge, the pain in his side now agonising. Messinius, still talking, fell away, his voice ever fainter, until–
Areios awoke to darkness and the solitude of an apothecarion. It had been a memory, nothing more. The air felt cold, and heat evaporated off his body in a shroud of steam. Around him, he was suddenly aware of machineries, of pipes and wires, of the smell of counterseptic, and immediately he sat upright, having been lying prostrate on a medi-slab. Stripped of his battle plate, including the under mesh that acted as a conductive layer between his skin and his armour systems, he saw the wound.
And then he remembered the knife.
In the wan light of the overhead lumen the skin looked raw, discoloured by bruising. Thick staples punctuated a long cut in his side, effectively suturing the flesh together. A sickle grin of metallic teeth.
‘It had pierced right through your armour,’ said the Apothecary, Areios only just then aware he was being observed.
‘Where I am, brother?’
‘The apothecarion at Marfax.’
It was one of the bastions in a continental region of Garrovire pacified by the Imperials. Its role was that of a forward base and strongpoint for the non-Astartes. As well as its Militarum garrison, it housed logisticians, strategos and engineers. All cogs in the complicated mechanism of war. The Ultramarines made use of it only occasionally between missions, having no need for a static encampment since they were not on Garrovire to hold territory but instead to aggressively purge the heretic presence from the world, to decimate it to such a degree that it could be excised completely by the rest of the Imperial occupation force.
All of this, Areios’ reviving mind processed in a second.
His next thought was more immediately practical.
‘The knife,’ he replied, not reacting. ‘I remember it feeling cold.’
‘You are fortunate, it broke apart like shrapnel. I had to dig it out, piece by piece. It did not want to be removed.’
Areios frowned. ‘It is a shard of metal, Valentius. It does not want, it merely is.’
The Apothecary was a studious-looking warrior with a narrow face for a Space Marine and hawkish eyes. His olive skin appeared almost gold in the light and his black hair had been shaved almost down to the scalp.
‘Not all knives are made equal, brother.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Warp sorcery folded into the metal and edged with poison. A particularly virulent one. You will have to ask Maendaius for a more detailed explanation. It is beyond my art. A tainted blade shall have to suffice by way of explanation, for now. Mercifully your physiology was equal to it, though only a small piece found its way through into your body.’
It had not been the first time Areios had been wounded near to death. He still carried the horrendous scars from Pridor Vrakon, back on Srinagar when the Dark Apostle had almost killed him. During that fateful encounter, he had lost an arm. The augmetic replacement shone in the faint light and was usually concealed beneath his armour. It whirred as he flexed it. At least this time he had not parted with any more of his limbs. Another close call, however. He was becoming accustomed to his own mortality.
‘And if it had been more than that?’ Areios asked.
‘I suspect I would be harvesting your progenoid organs instead of speaking to you of matters that have little import in the here and now.’
Areios gave a grunt and then eased himself off the medi-slab. ‘Am I sanctioned for duty?’
Valentius raised an eyebrow. ‘I would suggest first a visit to the armoury.’
Areios looked down, as if fully aware of his partial nakedness for the first time. The inputs of his subdermal black carapace shone like gunmetal edged with silver.
He showed no emotion beyond recognition. ‘Agreed.’
Epathus stood next to the strategium console, his face lit by a hololithic projection of a city. The image rotated slowly around the projection dais, bathing everyone in close proximity to it in a flickering green glow.
Only Ultramarines were present, for hunting the Oracles was their sole purpose. Others would remain to fight the war. As such, they had parted ways with the Catachan 116th and other Militarum forces at Arrandius, though their heroism would not soon be forgotten.
‘The assault on the temple at Landhope yielded more than just a coven of Oracles,’ said the captain, his eye falling on Areios, who had been last to join the gathering. The re-armouring ritual had taken several hours, but no Astartes would be clad without it. He was joined by Lieutenant Vero, Sergeant Trajus and the Librarian, Maendaius, who looked pensive as ever but was taciturn as a servitor.
His skin itching at the psyker’s regard, wondering what thoughts the Librarian could prise from his mind, Areios refocused on the mission and on Epathus.
‘Within the ritual stones, Maendaius uncovered a psychic spoor.’ The captain glanced to the Librarian for confirmation, who gave a slight nod. Epathus went on, ‘We think this is the reason the Oracles are on Garrovire, and why their movements have been so difficult to predict. It led us here.’ Epathus indicated the city with a casual gesture of his hand. ‘This was the epicentre of the initial outbreak. It was believed abandoned, emptied of all occupants, and has been purged several times by the Militarum and Ecclesiarchy. It is a ghost city now, little more than a ruin, but it harbours more than the dead, and its outward desolation veils something deeper but currently obscured. Our augurs cannot see it, nor can our eyes, it would seem. The strategos are calling it the falsehood.’ He turned to Maendaius. ‘Only a psyker of sufficient ability can pierce it and reveal whatever is behind it. If there is some greater plan to the Oracles’ presence on this world then we will find it here.’
‘How can we trust our senses, brother-captain, if this obfuscation is as potent as it seems?’ asked Areios, remembering his experiences in the Forlorn Temple. It had felt real.
‘We cannot,’ uttered Maendaius, his sonorous voice like a bell chime. His eyes narrowed on Areios and the lieutenant fought not to break the Librarian’s gaze.
I see you, Ferren Areios. I see your path, following in the wake of death.+
Areios felt his jaw tense, the veins in his neck bulging like cords of rope. Every inch of him rebelled at the psychic touch, but just when he thought he could endure it no longer, it was over. A second had passed, no more, and Maendaius had already moved on.
‘Closer to the falsehood, I will be able to unpick its manifestations,’ the Librarian said to Epathus. ‘Once the psychic stitches are loose, the truth will reveal itself as it did to our brother-lieutenant in the temple.’
‘Brothers,’ said Epathus, ‘our forces will be split. A vanguard section will approach on foot. The rest will engage encirclement protocols and remain on overwatch. Ingress point for vanguard is here’ – at the word ‘ingress’ the image zoomed in, revealing a more detailed topography – ‘at the city’s eastern gate, where we will break into fire-teams and then converge’ – an icon flickered into being, identifying the rally point – ‘here at this plaza. The east gate has been sealed by the Ecclesiarchy but will pose no impediment to our mission. It offers the most direct route into the main part of the city.’
‘If it is uninhabited, why not level the entire city with a bombardment?’ asked Trajus. The question seemed genuine, without any suggestion of scepticism or dissent. He had a grey pallor to his scalp from where his hair had been completely shorn. A scar on his cheek spoke of older wars.
‘Whatever is at the heart of the falsehood may be of strategic value to our forces. If such an asset exists, we are commanded to retrieve it,’ said Epathus.
‘An aerial assault would remove the need for an on-foot incursion,’ suggested Lieutenant Vero, indicating a suitable deployment point on the map. Thinner of face than the others, Vero was a cautious but solid officer. A dark, well-kept beard framed his jaw and his eyes were intense, as if constantly searching.
‘For the same reason we are not levelling the city with ordnance, we cannot risk an aerial assault blind. If the enemy has deeply embedded forces or some other advantage we are unprepared to fight, it could jeopardise the mission.’
Trajus folded his arms. ‘Have we ever been unprepared for any fight?’
Areios could think of instances in the Chapter’s recorded history, but Trajus’ bravura was well meant. Tight, feral smiles flashed around the gathered officers. All except for Maendaius, whose emotions were as unreadable as stone.
‘I admire your confidence, brother,’ Epathus said generously. He had a way about him, an easy camaraderie that eluded some officers and a respect earned through deed and manner rather than by dint of rank. ‘Vigilance, as if we have ever been anything other, will be paramount. An unknown battlefield lies ahead of us, and the civitas will be guarded by enemies both seen and unseen. For the primarch,’ he added solemnly.
‘For the primarch,’ they all replied.
He deactivated the hololith and the city blinked out, casting the room into shadow.
Chapter Sixteen
the prospect of trade
true as wrought
am i not a servant of the emperor?
She didn’t blink. Not once, that Rostov could see. Throughout their entire exchange, Kâhl Vutred was stony-faced, eyes stern as granite. Gone the avarice at the prospect of trade, and in its place an intense severity.
She sat on a rock amidst the aftermath of the battle, hunched in her hulking armour as her dead were dragged away to the Kin’s waiting transports, bound for their voidships at high anchor. It was, Vutred had explained, the only way by which they could be returned to their ancestors. Rostov inferred this phrase as non-literal but also detected reverence in the kâhl’s tone when she spoke of it, and the Kin treated this practice with the utmost seriousness and solemnity. Nothing was left behind, save the bodies of the enemy, and every loss was tabulated, an Iron-master wearing a long coat over her armour and a set of esoteric lenses on her head calling out names and making tally marks on a large tablet.
He had learned the names, some of their peculiarities and predilections, through observation and keen listening. Rostov had always been a good student of his environment and the people who inhabited it. From Vutred directly, he had learned the Kin were a large group of pioneers. She referred to them as an ‘Oathband’, which the inquisitor assumed was some kind of social or militaristic grouping. They had been sent by their League, a corporation of sorts, for want of a better term, to gather resources and find viable trade routes. It was how they had come to be in Yamir’s orbit and how the two had struck an accord. The need for something for something, the basis of any fair transaction. This was the language the Kin understood.
