by John French
The ship bucked beneath them as its engines pushed against the fire-soaked void. A chunk of debris struck their spine, and the deck pitched.
‘What should this signal say?’ asked Vek as he pulled himself back to his feet.
‘Just my name, and one other word.’
‘What?’ asked Vek, glancing at the prow viewports as the ship dived into a cloud of gas lit by the flare of more explosions.
‘Loken,’ said Mersadie. ‘It should just say “Loken”.’
The wall within
Kerberos
Spaces
Battle-barge Throne of the Underworld, Trans-Plutonian Gulf
The wolves closed their jaws on Pluto as the sons of Dorn fled. The Imperial Fists had prepared for flight, that much was clear. One moment there were hundreds of ships spinning in the dance of weapon exchanges. Then, every weapon station and fortress-moon still in the defenders’ hands fired. Rolling volleys of shells, and short-fused torpedoes shook the void and lit the dark with bubbling shoals of fire. The attacking ships’ sensor systems chattered in distress as they filtered the sudden squall of energy spikes.
And the volleys kept coming, rolling over the top of each other like the rising beat of drums. The loyalist ships wheeled as one and turned, thousands of vessels coming together and diving for the inner system.
The engine light of his fleeing enemies gleamed in the eyes of Horus Aximand as the Throne of the Underworld cut through Pluto’s orbit. It was a battle-barge, not the equal of the great Gloriana-class ships, but still a monarch of destruction. Two companies of Sons of Horus stood ready in its holds, a thousand of the Legion’s best killers, and it mounted cannons that could hammer targets to ruin. The spear-tip force it led had been aimed at Kerberos, a primary strike to take the fortress-moon’s main batteries. That blow would now be left to others. The newborn and the IV Legion could take their objectives and bear the cost. And there would be a cost. Even with the cover of their fleet gone, the fortress-moons were still ship-killers. Tens of thousands would die to take them. That did not matter. All that mattered was that this gate to the Solar System was in their hands.
Aximand could see each of the next moves he had to make, all the gradations of victory and how to reach them. It was as simple as breathing. He understood it in his mind, but also with his soul. That was what had seen him rise in the Legion – his sheer tactical genius. There had been others who were better at the point and edge of killing – though they were few – but Aximand was able to measure war, and to weigh possibility, and then make decisions that won battles. He was ‘Little Horus’ because his face had resembled that of the primarch, but the deeper resemblance lay here, in his ease in the crucible of war. The face that had given him his half-mocking title had been flayed away, but the commander’s soul beneath remained. Seeing the battle sphere of Pluto change, he already knew why and what to do.
‘Battlefleets Ullanor and Shardspear, engage the fleeing enemy ships. Run them down. Fourth Legion battle groups, divert and begin assault on Kerberos, Charon and Hydra.’
Beside Aximand, Vull Bronn sucked in a breath to speak. The veteran warsmith had survived the Iron Warriors’ withdrawal from Krade, but a strike on the last transport had left him with a bloody cave in his side.
‘They are not breaking,’ he rasped. Compression pistons in his rebuilt torso hissed and released. ‘The key values of their force and strength have not fallen to collapse. We should hold to our current deployment.’
‘No,’ said Aximand. ‘They are withdrawing. This is a battle they knew they would lose. They held for as long as they could, slowed us and bled us as much as they could, and now they will run to Terra.’
‘The dog-sons of Dorn do not run,’ said Vull Bronn. ‘They hold past the point of sense. This is something else.’
‘They have other lines and defences to use,’ replied Aximand, ‘and billions of people who can die on their walls.’ He turned his flayed grin to Vull Bronn. ‘What they don’t have is ships. They cannot lose more. Their strength is their fortifications and the number of mortals who will fight for them. But fortresses cannot be moved. Their ships are the only way for them to redistribute their strength. They lose those ships and all their strength is trapped.’ He turned and began to walk towards the doors that led from the bridge to the hoist down to the launch decks. ‘So, they are running because they must, to keep their ships alive. And we will not let them escape.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Vull Bronn.
‘To draw my sword and bury it in their back,’ said Aximand. ‘One-third of your ships may join the pursuit, but the rest of the fortress-moons are yours. Live up to your reputation – take them now.’ He could see his words light a fire in the cold eyes of the Iron Warriors commander. Vull Bronn understood what Aximand had explained – of that there was no doubt – but the Iron Warriors’ way of war moved like a glacier over stone. They had no time for such caution. The Ultramarines were coming, and with them all the enemies they had left undefeated in these years of war.
‘As soon as the main defences fall, we should bring the reserves through,’ said Vull Bronn, and Aximand could see that it was an act of will for the other warrior to not bite back. Good. The two chains that formed the Iron Warriors’ bridle were loyalty and pride. Now pride would work to overcome caution. ‘We should bring all the rest of our forces through the gate on an accelerated timetable.’
‘Agreed,’ said Aximand. ‘So ordered.’
The Imperial Palace, Terra
‘Admiral.’
Su-Kassen looked up into the face of the Huscarl. A black cloak hung from his shoulders and snow leopard fur covered his shoulders. He held his brush-crested helm in his left hand, and his right rested on the pommel of a sheathed sword. His face was clean-shaven, his eyes hard but bright.
‘Yes, Captain Archamus?’ she said. The name still felt strange to say to this young warrior, and for a moment she saw the face of the man who had borne the name before, her friend: bearded, unreadable, as immovable and eternal as a granite cliff. Then she blinked and the new face nodded, as though seeing the memory in her eyes.
‘Come with me please, admiral,’ he said. She frowned and glanced around at the Grand Borealis Strategium. The circles of officers and tech-priests did not look up. The shimmer of holo-projections and the buzz of machines flowed on unceasing.
‘General Kaze,’ she said to a lean-faced officer standing one step down from her station. ‘You have the watch.’
She stood and followed Archamus as he walked from the chamber. She did not ask where she was going or why; that it was Archamus meant that this was the Praetorian’s will, and she would discover the reason soon enough.
Two figures in massive amber-yellow Terminator plate flanked the door they eventually reached. Archamus paused for a second in front of them, and then the door to the chamber beyond opened. He stepped aside and motioned for her to enter.
The room was circular, and wide enough that it would have taken her twenty strides to reach the opposite wall. Thick, embroidered curtains hung over tall windows. Dusty glow-globes sent shadows across the domed ceiling above and the carpeted floor below. It smelled of pipe smoke and time soaked into rich fabric. Four figures looked up from the circular table as she entered. She knelt instantly.
‘Stand, admiral,’ said Rogal Dorn. She obeyed. Behind her, the door closed behind Archamus and she heard the brief buzz of servos as he too began to kneel, and then stopped himself. There was a clack of ceramite as he saluted, fist to chest. She smiled inwardly. As one of the Huscarls, Archamus did not kneel unless his lord did; it was a rule that he was still getting used to. But well he might have knelt.
Beside Rogal Dorn stood Sanguinius, face grave beneath his golden locks, and with them the gilded presence of Constantin Valdor. The Chief Custodian looked up from the parchment-strewn table, and gave Su-Kassen a short nod.
&nb
sp; ‘Admiral,’ he said, his voice an echo of the gravity in Sanguinius’ expression.
Malcador, alone of the four, was seated. The Regent of Terra had never looked older to Su-Kassen’s eyes. The hood of his robe was lowered, and she could see the skin of his scalp through the white strands of his hair. The lines of his face looked to be cut deeper into his brow and cheeks, and the skin had drawn tighter over the bones of his skull. A jolt of shock ran through her as he looked up. There was pain in his eyes, and a distance that reminded her of the eyes of her father in the last days of life.
‘Thank you for attending us here, admiral,’ said Malcador, his voice was as clear and steady as ever. A small smile twitched the edges of his mouth. ‘Excuse my remaining seated.’
‘Of course, Lord Regent,’ she said.
‘Oh, please can we move past the tortuous formalities?’
Su-Kassen looked around at the sound of the voice. A woman in grey robes, with chromed hair, sat cross-legged on the top of a polished wooden cabinet. She was resting her chin on her hands. Her posture looked bored, but her eyes were alight and glittering. Su-Kassen knew who she was instantly, even though they had not met in person before. The woman was called Andromeda-17, and she was one of the last of the Selenar, a scion of the near-extinct Luna gene-cults that had helped the Emperor raise the Space Marines from armies to Legions. She was a specialist in empathic and non-linear reasoning, and was part of a hazy grouping of servants that existed between Dorn and Malcador. Su-Kassen knew Andromeda-17 by rising reputation, and disliked most of what she heard. Nothing that she saw of the woman in the flesh undid that impression.
‘It’s all right, admiral,’ said Andromeda. ‘Despising me at first sight is what most people do.’
Archamus shifted, and if Su-Kassen had not known better, she would have thought that the Huscarl was trying to suppress a smile.
‘Thank you for the attempt to leaven the mood, Mistress Andromeda,’ said Malcador, looking directly at Su-Kassen. ‘This is a council, admiral, after a fashion, but not one that can involve the wider staff, you understand?’
‘In all honesty, I don’t, my lord. I believe I am aware of all the dimensions of the defence, and the senior staff also knows all of those details. If it is a matter of trust…’
‘It is not,’ said Rogal Dorn. ‘It is a matter of perspective, of judgement.’
Sanguinius looked at his brother primarch for a second, and the gravity in his expression became a brief flash of raw emotion.
‘It is not weakness, brother. Our limits are what make us.’
Su-Kassen thought she saw something within Dorn’s gaze then, like the flare of lightning hidden by a far horizon.
‘What they are trying to say,’ said Andromeda ‘is that they are struggling with some things that don’t fit in the normal patterns of war.’
‘Specifically?’ asked Su-Kassen.
‘Things unseen and incomplete,’ said Malcador, sounding very tired suddenly. ‘Shadows on the wall…’
‘If you would indulge us by summarising the position, admiral,’ said Valdor, activating a micro holo-projector that spun a display of the Solar System into the air.
‘The enemy progresses through the gates off Pluto and Uranus as planned for,’ said Su-Kassen. ‘They have also, by other means–’
‘By sorcery,’ injected Andromeda.
‘–inserted a large force above the plane of the Solar System. That fleet has divided into two, with both elements making speed for the inner system, for us and for Mars.’
‘Why?’ asked Dorn.
She looked at him. ‘To divide our efforts. To put direct pressure on the inner-system defences while they take the gates off Pluto and Uranus. They pin us in place around the Throneworld and pour forces in from the outer system and overwhelm us.’
‘Will it work?’ asked Sanguinius, lightly.
Su-Kassen paused.
‘It can work. In the end, my lord, they have numbers and mobility. It is just a question of time.’ She paused, then decided to give voice to her suspicion. ‘But you all know this just as well as I do. The enemy know that others are at their heels, that they do not have time. This battle for them must be swift, and our greatest defence is to slow them, to make them have to grind through every step they take forwards. This… manoeuvre is much further in-system than we would expect. It is extraordinary, but it is not enough. It will not work quickly enough.’ She looked up and met Rogal Dorn’s gaze. ‘And they will know that. They will know that we can defeat them with time even if we lose these battles. So the question is – what are they doing that we cannot see?’
Dorn nodded.
‘They are either blind or desperate, or there is another dimension that we do not see,’ said the Praetorian. ‘That I do not see.’
‘The warp,’ said Malcador simply, and Su-Kassen could not miss the weariness in the word. They all looked at the Regent. ‘This has always been a war fought on two fronts. One in the physical world, the world of guns and bullets and flesh. The other a war in the realm beyond the physical, a world of things that dream they were gods, and where power has different dimensions.’
‘The wall without,’ said Dorn, ‘and the wall within.’
‘Indeed,’ said Malcador, ‘and you have always known that, Rogal. But now Horus comes here not just in the physical realm, but in the warp…’ He broke off, and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I can feel it, and see it. Just as you all can, just as every soul in the circle of the sun can. Fear and despair grow stronger, and feed the storm that rides at Horus’ back. This is just the prelude, the beginning. The storm builds still and has yet to break…’
Sanguinius moved next to the old man, and placed a hand on his thin shoulder. Malcador let out a breath and closed his eyes again as something spasmed across his cheeks.
‘And everything that happens here,’ said the Angel, ‘has an echo in the warp, in the beyond. In war, one might unleash terror to break the will of the enemy, or sow confusion. In this war that terror is the end in itself. Everything they do must be seen as having two purposes, one we can see and one we cannot.’
‘Can you not look?’ Su-Kassen asked, looking at Malcador. ‘Forgive me, but like the beloved Emperor you are–’
‘I cannot see. There is a… a darkness in the warp, screaming, blinding and growing deeper. It is a constant pressure and with every moment the pressure becomes greater… I cannot see.’
‘The Emperor–’ began Su-Kassen,
‘The Emperor is our wall within now. He and He alone,’ said Sanguinius. ‘He is… He is holding it back alone.’
‘And He can hold,’ said Valdor. The Chief Custodian seemed to shiver. ‘At great cost, but He holds and protects.’
‘Holds?’ said Su-Kassen. ‘Not triumphs?’
‘That is triumphing. As things stand, Horus cannot win the battle within,’ said Malcador, ‘and so his hope must be to break us without.’
‘Then they will fail,’ said Su-Kassen. ‘The enemy do not have time. We will move primary fleet forces to intercept them, and even at great loss, they will not be able to have victory before Lord Guilliman arrives at their back.’ She looked at Dorn. ‘I was preparing the fleet redeployment orders. I assume you are ready to order the Phalanx into the line?’
Dorn’s face showed no expression.
‘Not yet,’ he said quietly.
‘My lord…’
‘He knows,’ said Dorn, and Su-Kassen could see in the stillness around the table that they had arrived at the point they had been unable to resolve. ‘Horus knows all that we have said and seen already. He knows what we know of this battle so far, and he knows what we cannot see. And he is Horus.’ Dorn looked at Sanguinius, and the two primarchs’ gazes met. A small, sad smile formed and faded on Dorn’s lips. ‘Was he ever less than brilliant? Can we assume he is less than that now?’
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br /> ‘This is the question,’ said Valdor. ‘For my judgement, we must proceed against what we can see, not what we can’t.’
‘Agreed,’ said Su-Kassen. Dorn looked at her sharply, but she held his gaze. ‘We have planned for this battle, my lord. We have laid the ground. You know better than I that the unexpected is inevitable. We must not let it lead us. We must be firm in purpose.’
From behind her she heard Andromeda-17 give a snort of approval.
‘And if that is what Horus wishes us to do – for me to follow my nature, which he knows so well?’
‘I don’t see that we have a choice,’ said Su-Kassen.
‘And that is one of the things that worries me more than anything,’ said Dorn, softly. He looked up and away, his gaze focused somewhere far beyond the tapestry-hung walls. Su-Kassen felt a shiver run down her back at the implication in the words. In all her years at his side she had never seen a crack of doubt in the stone of his being.
‘He needs to be allowed the moment of flight before he returns to the cage of necessity,’ said the memory of the Khan’s voice.
‘With all respect, my lords,’ she said. ‘There is no choice to make. We can only fight the war we can see, and so that is what we must do.’
‘See?’ said Andromeda-17 from the side of the room. ‘I told you she would set you true.’
‘What else worries you, brother?’ asked Sanguinius, frowning.
Dorn looked around the table and then at the Angel.
‘The same question that all of us have asked, but not spoken yet,’ said Dorn. He looked at the holo-projection and gestured so that it shrank to a sphere that he could rotate with his fingers. ‘Where is Horus?’
Silence answered. Dorn turned his gaze around the circle, slowly, meeting and holding each of their gazes.
‘Just so,’ said Dorn at last. ‘And there is no answer we can give, and no guesses that would give comfort.’ He looked back at the holo-sphere hanging between them, and keyed a control on the projector. The image folded into an image of Terra turning to show its face through day and night. Locations marked in a rainbow of colour spread across its surface. ‘There are other matters to be discussed,’ he said.
