Dark Imperium: Plague War

by Guy Haley

  The display was cracked. Luminous liquids trickled from the glass. Where the screen still worked, sigils announced a miserable tally of damage and injury. His armour had been running for days on minimal power consumption. He had gone deep into hibernation. Looking at the wounds starkly presented to him in beads of light, he was not surprised. If he survived he would be a while healing.

  The Belisarian Furnace in his chest was working, sending his human-born healing systems into overdrive. The furnace pushed him along a dangerous path. It was keeping him alive, but it raised his temperature dangerously and consumed his body’s resources. If he were not rescued soon it would kill him. How much longer he had remaining before that happened was beyond Justinian’s ability to calculate.

  But he was alive. The pain in his back was a good indicator of that. He tried to move, but all he managed was to shift his head. Metal scraped against his eye lenses. His body was cocooned by mucranoid excretions within his armour, and this hindered his movement further. Data runes blinked in warning. The reactor in his battleplate was running poorly and could not stand the extra power draw of his supplementary muscle fibres. He was weak. He could do nothing but wait.

  He was terribly thirsty. He called upon his battleplate to provide him with sustenance. None came.

  After a few moments, his armour sedated him and he drifted off back into dreamless sleep.

  When he woke again he felt stronger. But he still couldn’t move, and a gentle beeping in his left ear told him his air supply was close to exhaustion.

  The grating whine of power saws sounded over his face. It stopped, replaced by the wrenching squeals of metal. More saw-noise followed, then the hiss of pneumatic shears and the soft yielding sound of plasteel being cut. Someone was digging down towards him. He wondered who. Did salvation await, or torment? He realised that the last time he had really thought about dying was that day in the scholam, when the stern-faced recruiters had come for him and changed his life forever.

  For some reason that struck him as funny.

  He was still laughing when the last great weight was pulled off his body. Not until it had gone did he realise how constrained he had been. His suit opened his breathing mask to replenish its stocks of air. He arched his back and he took in a great, rasping gasp, but he was not free yet. A length of plasteel across his chest held him firmly in place.

  A slack-mouthed servitor looked down on him, its pasty grey head framed between a pair of massive lifting claws. It bent down, grippers opening, reaching for him. The thing’s idiot brain perceived him as another piece of wreckage to be hoisted away. He had been saved to be crushed.

  ‘Wait, stop!’ said Justinian.

  The servitor bent closer.

  ‘Hold!’ commanded a voice. The servitor stood upright and pivoted to one side. Running lights on the unit bolted to its skull blinked an idle sequence. Footsteps rasped over debris. A Novamarine in the rusty red livery of the Martian priesthood appeared over the hole. A brace of servo-skulls hovered behind him, playing scanning beams over the fallen Space Marine.

  ‘I have one here!’ shouted the Techmarine to someone Justinian could not see. ‘Brother-Apothecary! Your aid please, this one is alive.’ The Techmarine addressed him. ‘Keep yourself still, brother. Aid is coming.’

  ‘If you free me, I can pull myself out,’ said Justinian. His voxmitter crackled. ‘I want to get out of this hole.’

  ‘You Primaris Marines are strong,’ said the Techmarine admiringly. Another scan beam ran up and down Justinian’s body. ‘You are injured, but not mortally,’ the Techmarine said. ‘I will aid you.’

  His servo arm unfolded itself from the side of his power plant, and moved forward and open. The plasma torch held beneath its grips ignited. The Techmarine started to cut away the plasteel bar.

  ‘Did we win?’ croaked Justinian.

  ‘We won,’ said the Techmarine. ‘Typhus withdrew. Galatan arrived in orbit in time to turn the battle in the primarch’s favour. The last of the enemy were driven off the station by armies redeployed from the surface.’

  ‘Dovaro,’ he swallowed. ‘Did he survive?’

  The plasma torch cut through the metal. It parted with a crisp ping. More pressure came off Justinian. Finally, he could move his arms.

  ‘The Chapter Master is dead,’ said the Techmarine sadly.

  ‘What about my warriors? Am I the only survivor?’

  ‘From this bunker, other Primaris Marines?’ Delicately, the ­Techmarine moved his servoarm over to the other side of the wreckage. The plasma torch burned again. ‘Two others live. They are in the apothecarion. They should survive.’

  ‘That is good.’ The metal came away. Justinian pulled it from his body. Unpowered, his armour dragged at him, and it took him two attempts to shift the metal.

  He attempted to rise.

  ‘Steady!’ commanded the Techmarine. ‘Your armour is non-functional, and you are half encysted.’

  ‘I will stand,’ said Justinian.

  ‘Well, if you insist.’ The Techmarine took a step down into Justinian’s temporary tomb and extended his hand, exposing the blue and bone shoulder pad on his red armour. Justinian reached up and grasped the warrior’s hand.

  With care, the Techmarine pulled Justinian upright. He winced as pain shot through his legs. He leaned against the Techmarine for support.

  ‘Take it slowly,’ the red-clad brother said. ‘Are you sure you do not wish to sit?’

  ‘I am sure.’ Justinian defied the pain to stand unaided. He allowed the Techmarine to steady him.

  ‘Where is Brother Locko?’ the Techmarine complained. ‘Locko! Get over here, before our Primaris brother walks off on his own.’

  There were servitors everywhere, digging through the wreckage of the Crucius Portis II under the direction of a dozen Techmarines. An Apothecary in white hurried over, wiping down his bloody reductor.

  ‘I am coming. Unlike your charges, mine bleed to death if I go hurrying off to look at something new,’ said Locko.

  ‘There, you are free, and you have aid,’ said the Techmarine.

  ‘You have my thanks,’ Justinian said to the Techmarine. He paused. ‘Brother,’ he added.

  Upon Parmenio there was a silent vigil. Candles were carried through the dark streets of Tyros to the cathedral. The people wept to see the body of the saint upon her bier. Prayers were given. Thanks were lifted by singing voices to the primarch and the Emperor.

  In orbit on the Macragge’s Honour an atmosphere of a different sort prevailed. In closed conclave Guilliman and his highest officials sat in judgement of Iolanth, he upon his throne, they in chairs of black steel arrayed in a semicircle around him. Iolanth wore a simple dress, not unlike the shift Kaylia had died in. Her hands and bare feet were manacled, but she held up her head proudly, and looked Guilliman unflinchingly in the eye.

  ‘You admit that you disobeyed my orders?’ said Guilliman. ‘And that you did so to release from custody the girl Kaylia of Tyros?’

  ‘I do, my lord,’ said Iolanth. ‘Though only to save you.’

  ‘And your warriors murdered my servants in commission of this crime.’

  ‘They did so at my order, my lord,’ said Iolanth.

  ‘Did anyone else encourage you upon this course of action?’ said Guilliman.

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘Do you swear?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘By the Emperor of Mankind?’

  ‘I do, my lord,’ she said. ‘I swear by He who sits upon the Golden Throne.’

  ‘Very well.’ Guilliman swung his monumental head about to stare at Mathieu. His face was set with such stony hostility that Mathieu’s soul crumpled.

  ‘Lord Arbitrator, please tell this court what the penalty is for treason.’ Guilliman continued to glare at the militant-apostolic.

  Guilliman’s Chief
of Arbitrations stood from his seat. He was an old man retired from frontline duties for many years. His hawkish eye looked upon Iolanth without mercy.

  ‘No one who defies the holy will of the Imperial Regent can be permitted to live. For defying you, she should be condemned to death.’

  ‘And for the breaking of her vows, under Ministorum law?’

  ‘Death by immolation.’

  ‘Death by fire?’

  ‘That is the penalty, my lord,’ said the Chief of Arbitrations.

  Mathieu could feel Guilliman’s anger surging under his calm exterior. He was a volcano ready to erupt, but all the primarch displayed was a tic in his upper lip. Mathieu was glad when the primarch returned his attention to Iolanth.

  ‘Do you repent, Sister Iolanth?’

  ‘I have nothing to repent, my lord,’ said Iolanth proudly. ‘I will not ask for your forgiveness. I defied you, but I would do it again without a second thought were the moment to come again, and even were that moment to present me many other choices that would save my life, for the sake of my soul and the Emperor’s love, and for your sake, my lord, I would take the child to the battle.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Guilliman. ‘Pronounce my judgement.’

  ‘For the crime of breaking the order of the primarch, death,’ the Chief Arbitrator said. The room was silent. ‘For the crime of murder, death. For the crime of endangering the person of the Imperial Regent, death. For the crime of unleashing an unsanctioned psyker, death.’

  Guilliman stood. His presence grew beyond his stature, smothering the breath from Mathieu’s lungs.

  ‘You shall be treated fairly, for your prior service,’ he said. He motioned to a pair of his Victrix Guard. ‘Take her away. Make her death quick and clean.’

  The Space Marines led Iolanth from the room. She looked dead ahead, her head held high.

  Guilliman stared about. ‘Clear the room.’

  The lords and generals of Guilliman’s staff got up from their seats, bowed and departed. Mathieu made to leave with the rest.

  ‘Not you, militant-apostolic,’ said Guilliman.

  ‘I will remain, by your command, Imperial Regent,’ said Mathieu. He went to sit again.

  ‘You will stand, priest,’ said the giant, Maldovar Colquan. The tribune had a savage look on his face that made his noble features ugly. Alone in the room, he was armoured, and he pointed a golden finger at the space vacated by Sister Iolanth. ‘Here,’ he said.

  Tetrarch Felix glanced at Guilliman. They shared a look. Felix nodded the slightest amount. Mathieu had no idea what passed between them. Had they condemned him earlier, in private? Was he to be executed? He steeled himself against the possibility. There was no greater death than that in service. He would be brave.

  ‘Tetrarch, ensure I am not disturbed,’ said Guilliman, ‘and that this chamber is shielded against all forms of surveillance. Shut off the vox and picters. This conversation will go no further. Colquan, you are to remain as sole witness. You will write a sworn account of what is said, which shall be duplicated, sealed and deposited with the Inquisition on Terra, the High Lords, and my own archive, in the event that the Adeptus Ministorum decides to elaborate upon this event for their own purposes.’

  ‘My lord,’ said Colquan.

  Felix left. The doors hissed closed.

  Guilliman waited for a signal from Felix. When a chime notified all present that privacy protocols were in place, he looked again upon his priest. Mathieu flinched at the force of his animosity.

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself, militant-apostolic?’

  ‘Sister Iolanth acted under her own recognisance, my lord. The true servants of the Emperor recognised the girl for what she was, and rushed to aid you.’

  Guilliman took a step forward. He loomed over the priest.

  ‘You will not ever lie to me again, militant-apostolic,’ he said plainly. ‘You are lying to me now. You even convinced Sister Iolanth to lie under oath. By the Throne, man, what deviousness is present in you.’

  ‘My lord, if I may–’

  ‘You may not!’ Guilliman’s shout was sudden and terrifying. ‘This was your doing,’ he said calmly again. ‘A good man lies dead. My warriors turn upon one another. A champion of the Emperor is grievously wounded, another is executed, and all this for no other reason than your arrogance. You believe yourself to be better informed than I. I want you to understand now that is not the case.’

  ‘I swear, Iolanth did not act upon my orders,’ said Mathieu.

  Guilliman growled deep in his throat, an inhuman sound that should never have emanated from so perfect a being. It struck fear into Mathieu that he could not hide.

  Guilliman snorted in contempt.

  ‘You disobey my orders again. You lie. Confess. You were responsible.’

  ‘My lord regent…’ Mathieu began. He looked into Guilliman’s eyes and saw the fury that would consume him if he dared deny again. ‘You saw what happened,’ he said instead.

  ‘Confess, preacher,’ said Guilliman. The heat of anger coming off him beat at Mathieu. ‘Tell me that you did it. I want to hear you say it.’

  Mathieu took a step backwards. ‘Did you not see! Your father was on the field with us, working through the child,’ said Mathieu. ‘She was a vessel for your father’s power, chosen by Him. His will worked through her!’ He retreated further as Guilliman advanced on him. ‘She threw back the daemons. No child could have done that! A golden light issued from her… The Emperor was there, He was with us, all around us. He helped you win! The Emperor is with you!’ gabbled Mathieu.

  ‘Was he now?’ said Guilliman. ‘I saw unbounded psychic ability let loose. It could have come from any source, not least the gods who are rival to my brother’s patron.’ Guilliman leaned forward. A vein pulsed in his broad forehead. ‘You speak, you priests, as if you know my so-called father, as if you are privy to His will and His word, as if He would speak through you!’ His fist clenched. Out of his armour he seemed more dangerous. ‘You have never spoken with Him. Not one of you damnable fanatics has ever exchanged so much as a word with the Emperor. I lived with Him. I fought at His side for centuries. I studied with Him. I learned of His dreams for mankind from His own lips and I raised my sword and spilled my blood to make them a reality!’

  ‘But there are visions–’

  ‘There are lies!’ shouted Guilliman. ‘I am the only living being to have spoken with the Emperor for ten thousand years. Ten thousand years, Mathieu, and yet you dare to suppose you know His mind? You priests burn, maim and condemn on the basis of supposition. You practise your barbaric religion in the name of a man who despised and wanted to overthrow all of these things. The Emperor’s purpose was to lead us out of the darkness. You, Frater Mathieu, you and your kind are the darkness!’ He turned his head aside in disgust. ‘These feats of faith can be explained by the workings of the empyrean. No god need be invoked, and if one is, it is rarely the thing that is called upon. There are beings in the warp that hearken to such entreaties. I assure you they are not gods, and the Emperor is not one of them. None of what you believe in can be trusted. None of it!’ His voice rose to a condemning shout that echoed off the marble walls. Colquan looked shocked. Mathieu was battered to his knees. He bowed his head and cowered.

  Guilliman reined his anger in, his voice fell to a harsh whisper. ‘You cannot be trusted.’ He swallowed and continued in more measured tones. ‘The man that created me did His job well. The battle would have been won without any intervention from the powers of the warp. That girl was a psyker of rare ability, nothing more, whose presence on the field could have done a great deal of harm. By ordering Iolanth–’

  ‘But, my lord, I ordered nothing!’

  ‘Do not interrupt me!’ Guilliman said. He held up his hands as if he were going to grab Mathieu by his homespun robes and haul him up into the air and crush his s
kull, but his fingers stopped short of the priest, where they trembled with rage. ‘By ordering Iolanth,’ Guilliman repeated, ‘to bring her to the battle, you risked the annihilation of all our forces. If she had not mastered her ability, if she had become a conduit into the warp…’ Guilliman bared his teeth.

  Mathieu had never suspected the primarch might harbour such depths of rage. Guilliman had always been described as such a bland fellow, a competent genius untroubled by the miseries of unbounded humours. In the scriptures it was his brothers, and mostly the traitorous fiends at that, who had exhibited the unsaintly traits of anger. But the primarch was angry, and it was a primordial rage born in the hearts of tortured planets and fast-burning stars. In the brunt of his fury was the anger of the God-Emperor Himself.

  Mathieu quailed, and yet he felt the beginnings of religious ecstasy creep into his gut. The thought of being destroyed by Guilliman, of falling to the Emperor’s only living son, almost undid him.

  Guilliman recoiled from the adoration shining from Mathieu’s eyes. ‘You disgust me. I will not kill you. I cannot. I miscalculated, choosing you. I should have appointed another parasite to your position, like Geesan and the rest. Instead I thought it best to have an inspiring man by my side, to make a virtue of your religion. And this is the repayment I get for giving weight to your faith? You could have killed us all! Chaos has tried to trick me several times – me! Do you think you are below its attentions? It will use anything to see our species fall. Be sure that your faith does not give it an open gate into your heart.’

  ‘You saw, my lord. You saw your father’s light!’

  ‘He is not my father,’ Guilliman said. ‘He created me, but I assure you, priest, that He was no father. King Konor was my father.’

  Mathieu blinked at him. ‘My lord, please.’

  ‘Listen to me. You live by my indulgence alone. You may have manipulated Tetrarch Felix. You may even have hoodwinked me. Enjoy your success, it shall never happen again.’ Guilliman extended his fist. Again, Mathieu thought the primarch meant to strangle him, but he pointed a single, accusing finger. ‘Disobey me again, Mathieu, either the letter of my orders or the spirit of my leadership, or if you so much as varnish a single one of my words, then I shall commit you to the cleansing flames your cult is so fond of, no matter what ramifications such an action might have. You might seek to gather more power to your religion by winning me over. I say it shall never, ever happen. I will never give myself over to worship of the Emperor. I will not put myself in thrall to you and all the other priests. I tolerate the Adeptus Ministorum as a necessary evil. Do not force me to reevaluate my position.’