Anarch - Dan Abnett

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘We don’t know what he is,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘I saw his face,’ said Milo quietly. ‘In the vortex. I saw his face.’

  Mazho shivered. He’d glimpsed it too.

  ‘He’s definitely not human,’ said Milo.

  ‘So he won’t die like one, which is my point,’ said Holofurnace. ‘Carbines? Blades? Even this?’

  He put the heavy sentry gun down on the table.

  ‘I have grenades,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘How many?’ asked the Iron Snake.

  ‘Two,’ said Mkoll. ‘One smoke, one anti-personnel.’

  ‘Two,’ sighed Mazho.

  Holofurnace looked at Mkoll. ‘Oh, my brother,’ he said with a smile. ‘Scout and hunter. Best of both. You move light but you think small. You can hunt this prey, I don’t doubt that, but can you kill him when you run him to ground? Straight silver won’t be enough here.’

  ‘This might help,’ said Milo. He’d spotted a battered crate on a lower shelf, and dragged it out. It was heavy, but he lifted it clean to the table. Mkoll watched him. Milo wasn’t the boy piper any more. He was strong, and he was tall. He handled weapons with complete familiarity. He had become a seasoned warrior in the years after the Ghosts. And that had been more years than Mkoll could accept. Thanks to the warp incident that had broken the Armaduke’s return voyage to Urdesh, Milo was ten years older, relative. That made him over thirty standard. Mkoll knew he had to stop thinking of Milo as some boy, some eager but harmless adolescent lasman like Dalin Criid, or the Belladon bandsman Arradin. He wondered if that, in part, was why the regiment had welcomed Dalin when he became old enough to pledge in. A little of Boy Milo about him. A return to the early days.

  He wondered where they were now, how they were faring. Had they held the batteries that night? Was the retinue safe in a new billet? He hoped Dalin was safe. He’d grown fond of him. A brave lad. Just like Milo had been.

  All those years, he’d thought of Milo often, and prayed he was safe at the Saint’s side. He’d never pictured him as a grown man.

  Milo unlatched the crate.

  Anchor mines, wrapped in wax paper, packed in plastek beads. Imperial issue, salvaged by the Sons from some overrun depot. Each one was the size of a ration tin. They packed a fyceline/D60 mix that could blow a hole through a ceramite bulkhead.

  Milo took them out, handling them with care and expertise.

  ‘Mechanical timer,’ he said. ‘Contact-fusion anchor pad on the flat side.’

  ‘I know bombs, lad,’ Mazho snapped, picking one up.

  ‘Good,’ said Milo. ‘Then you’ll know to treat them gently. Not to snatch or shake them. They’re volatile.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Mazho. He put the mine down again carefully.

  ‘Two each,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘Three if we carry fewer cells,’ said Milo.

  ‘Heavy pockets,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘Bigger punch,’ said Holofurnace.

  ‘Because straight silver won’t be enough,’ Mkoll nodded, conceding.

  Holofurnace found a musette bag and emptied out the hard round clips it contained. ‘I can take four. Maybe five.’

  ‘Load up,’ said Mkoll.

  They stepped out of the locker, and the V’heduak sealed the door with his keys.

  ‘Everything’s in order,’ Mkoll said to the packsons. ‘Lucky for you.’

  They followed the main spinal towards the Oratory, Brin, Mkoll and Mazho forming an honour guard escort behind the cowled Iron Snake. The whispering buzz of voices was getting louder. It vibrated their ears and made their skin crawl.

  The hallways were busier in this part of the ship. Crowds seemed to be gathering: packsons, Sekkite officers, even other V’heduak magirs.

  ‘What is this?’ Mazho whispered.

  Mkoll listened, catching snatches of conversation from the crew they passed.

  ‘A summoning,’ he told them. ‘The Anarch is calling them. He’s going to speak.’

  ‘He’s speaking all the time,’ Mazho whispered.

  ‘No, this is a formal declaration,’ said Mkoll.

  ‘Of what?’ asked Milo.

  Mkoll kept listening.

  ‘Of victory,’ he said.

  The Oratory was a spherical chamber that occupied a socket through three deck levels. The exterior was ribbed with iron-plate armour, and wrought from a pale brown, polished material.

  As they came closer, Mkoll realised it was human bone. Thousands upon thousands of gleaming skull caps bonded together. The entrance was a huge doorway accessed via the middle deck. Two rows of abominable excubitors with power lances stood guard outside, forming an avenue that channelled the gathering officers inside. The low murmur of the gathering was drowned out by the rasping whisper in the air.

  ‘Once we’re in there, there’s no coming back out,’ whispered Holofurnace as they watched from a distance.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Mkoll. ‘But we knew that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mazho, clearing his throat. Mkoll could see the colonel was sweating behind his leather mouth guard. Mazho was a brave man who had served the Fourth Light ‘Cinder Storm’ with distinction. But this was no battlefield. This required another type of courage.

  ‘We can do this,’ Milo said to the colonel. ‘For your world. That’s all you’ve ever fought for.’

  Mazho nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid. Not of death. Just centring my mind.’

  ‘You do it for Urdesh,’ Holofurnace said.

  ‘I do it for all worlds, sir,’ Mazho replied. ‘Fourth Light. Cinder Storm. Light on the breeze, then burning all around you.’

  ‘Cinder Storm,’ nodded Holofurnace.

  Milo looked at the Oratory sphere again.

  ‘It’s a shame we can’t–’ he began.

  ‘I was thinking that,’ said Mkoll. ‘We might have time. It’s going to take a while for them to file inside.’

  He looked at Holofurnace.

  ‘Give me the bag,’ he said.

  Holofurnace handed it over.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Milo. ‘You and Mazho. Stay right here.’

  ‘We could all–’ Holofurnace began.

  ‘No, leave this to us,’ said Milo. ‘We’re Ghosts.’

  They dropped a deck, keeping to the shadows, and skirted around the vast base of the bone sphere. Brin Milo hadn’t forgotten the old Tanith craft. He was silent, a shadow in the shadows.

  They paused under a stanchion arch, and waited as a Sekkite platoon passed by. Mkoll opened the bag. Holofurnace had packed six mines inside it.

  ‘All of them?’ Milo asked.

  Mkoll nodded. ‘And one from your pockets. Keep two back. We’ll see if we can set them inside, along with the ones Mazho’s lugging.’

  ‘Long timer?’

  ‘What’ll that give us?’

  ‘Thirty minutes. Give or take. They’re not accurate, or reliable.’

  ‘Longest mark, then. Go.’

  They darted low between pools of shadow, running side by side, and slithered in under the curve of the sphere. The Oratory sat on huge shock gimbals, and thick trunks of cable sheaves and power ducting sprouted from its south pole into the deck.

  Milo placed the first charge, using the fusion anchor to fix it to the bone. He removed the steel pin, and flipped the activator. They ran on a few metres, then fixed the second, trying to space the mines fairly evenly on a line of latitude near the sphere’s base. The fifth one wouldn’t stick, its anchor plate too old and corroded. Mkoll switched it for one of the mines in his coat pockets.

  ‘Hurry,’ Milo whispered.

  ‘I’m hurrying gently,’ Mkoll replied.

  ‘What’s taking so long?’ Mazho whispered. The procession of Sekkite seniors had almost finished filing into the Oratory, and the excu
bitor vanguard was preparing to unhook the doors and swing them shut.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Holofurnace assured him.

  ‘What if they’ve been taken?’ Mazho asked.

  Holofurnace looked grim. ‘Then it’s down to us,’ he said. He beckoned Mazho, and they stepped out of the shadows and joined the last of the officers gathering before the doors.

  They fell into line, the queue advancing slowly. Mazho kept looking back. He couldn’t see anyone behind them except enemy staff officers and V’heduak magirs.

  ‘Stop doing that,’ Holofurnace whispered to him. ‘If they’re not coming, they’re not coming.’

  The whispering was getting louder, buzzing from the entrance like the sizzle of churning blow-flies.

  They stepped through the doorway.

  Eight Sons of Sek moved a slave gang along the walkway, then herded them through a hatch onto the main spinal.

  Mkoll and Milo waited until they were out of sight, then moved out of cover and set to work attaching the last of the mines.

  ‘We’ve taken too long,’ Milo said.

  Mkoll didn’t reply. The timer mechanism was refusing to set.

  ‘I need to be in there,’ Milo said.

  Mkoll glanced at him.

  ‘You know duty, Oan,’ Milo said. ‘Better than most. This is mine.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Sek,’ said Milo.

  ‘This is an opportunity, that’s all.’

  Milo shook his head. ‘I’ve seen things,’ he said. ‘I’ve walked at her side and seen the galaxy the way she sees it. Learned to a little, at least. There’s chaos, but there’s order. An order driven by will. A grace that holds the chaos at bay.’

  ‘We all believe that,’ said Mkoll. He cleared the timer and tried to rewind it.

  ‘No,’ said Milo. ‘We believe it. But I’ve seen it. I thought they were coincidences at first. Just quirks. Chances. But I see a pattern now. She showed me that. Taught me to notice it. An orchestration. A determined force, vastly outnumbered by the immaterium, but holding it in check. Out-playing it, move-for-move, like a game of regicide. It doesn’t always win, but it moves the pieces it has, and places them where it can for the best effect.’

  ‘I prefer cards,’ said Mkoll. He took the mine off and blew into its corroded timer. ‘Suicide Kings…’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘I know. You’re talking about fate.’

  ‘That’s one word. Call it what you will. I think it’s why I made it off Tanith with the First, why we found Sanian, why we… It’s why she chose me. She knew… she understood, that one day I would be here.’

  Mkoll smiled. ‘To kill Sek?’

  ‘Are you mocking me?’

  ‘No, Brin. If you believe that’s why you’re here, as a chosen instrument, a weapon selected and deployed by… I don’t know… destiny, then Throne bless you. That’s the strength that drives you. Use it.’

  He looked at Milo. He could believe it. There was a purity of purpose in Brin’s eyes. Not the blind fanaticism of the zealot or the pilgrim-radical, nor the howling and unquestioning fealty of the warp-corrupted Archenemy. A true faith, a certainty. He could see that long years in the company of a creature as gnomic as the Beati could do that to a man. It could affirm his purpose, give him a sense of calling that would carry him through the darkest and most hellish events. The boy piper had truly long gone. Milo had become a warrior of the Throne, as sure and committed to his function as any Astartes.

  ‘Don’t you feel it?’ Milo asked. ‘Aren’t you the same? You, and the Ghosts? I was there in the early years. I saw what was accomplished. And I’ve read the reports since. The deeds, the achievements. Gaunt, the regiment, you. That doesn’t just happen. That isn’t just luck. I think we’ve all been guided by that grace, all along, whether we like it or not. Whether we know it or not. It’s taken us to the places we’ve needed to be so that we could do the things it’s needed us to do. You must feel that too.’

  Mkoll shrugged.

  ‘I don’t think on it, Brin,’ he said. ‘I suppose I only ever consider the immediate. The shadows around me, the foe ahead. I haven’t had the opportunity to see things the way you have, at her side. You’re a weapon. I don’t doubt that, I really don’t. We’re all weapons. I trust in the providence of the Golden Throne, but I don’t have the vision to see any great plan at work. I’m just Guard, Brin. Just Guard. I go where I go and I do my damnedest when I’m told to march or fight. I tell you this much, though… I find it hard to swallow that fate has any great plan spun out across the years. Our side or theirs. Reading the variables across a thousand worlds? Planning moves decades in advance? Plotting the future and setting players in position to execute some ingenious gambit years down the line? I don’t think it works that way, not for us or the Archenemy. I think it’s all a brawl. A free-for-all. Just carnage, and you swing when you can. Instinct. Reaction. Opportunity. What is it Hark calls it? Fight time? Shit just happens, the moment’s on you, and you just do. Then you see who walks away. That’s all there is. No transcendent plan. Just moments, one after the other, bloody and senseless. You do what you do. Duty gets you through, or you’re dead.’

  He clamped the last mine in place and set it running.

  ‘Guess we’ll see which of us is right, eh?’ he said.

  Mazho stepped into the Oratory, jostled along by the press of bodies passing through the door. Fear was almost strangling him. He could feel his rapid breathing sucking against the hand-strap across his mouth. He looked up.

  The Oratory was huge, even bigger than the exterior shell had suggested. It was a vast, circular theatre. Rings of tiered stalls, each level fringed by a rail, stepped down the lower half of the sphere to a large dais in the centre of the floor. They were entering through the main doors at the equator of the sphere, around which ran a wide, railed walkway. Steep flights of steps ran down between the banks of stalls to the dais below. The place was packed. Sekkite officers, the magirs of the vessel, tribal dignitaries and arbitors of the warp-faith were filling the stalls, finding places to stand, talking and greeting and exchanging the hand-to-the-mouth salutes. Hundreds of them. Bloody hundreds of them. The weight of the mines packed in his pockets felt like they’d give him away. His mind raced. He was just a packson. All around him were seniors of the Anarch’s host. They would know he was too lowly to be present. They would know.

  The press of bodies carried him forwards. He was forced onto the steps, descending from the equatorial ring into the tiers of stalls. Voices were all around him. Whispers in his ears. He’d lost sight of Holofurnace. The flow of the crowd had separated them. He shot anxious glances, trying not to look jumpy, scanning the stalls around him as they filled. Where was the Space Marine? He saw robed V’heduak giants. Each one was cowled. Was that the Snake there? Was that one?

  The air stank of dry dust. Sweat was running down his spine. The whole auditorium was made of human bone: the floor, the steps, the platforms of the tiers. The handrails dividing each ring of stalls were fused from polished human long bones, fashioned not crudely but with precise craftsmanship. He glanced up. The dome above, hazed in the golden candlelight, was a mosaic of skulls. Thousands of them, fixed side by side on concentric shelves, staring out blindly, like some vast ossuary, a catacomb’s bone house displaying the relics of the dead. So many staring sockets. So many gaping jaws. The whole ceiling, the whole dome, was solid with yellowed skulls.

  He was forced into one of the stalls halfway down the tiered bowl. The Sekkites around him spoke to each other, nudged him impatiently to move along and make room. He ran out of space, boxed in by packson damogaurs and V’heduak giants. He got a place at the rail, gripped it to steady himself, then took his hands away. Bone. He didn’t want to hang on to bone.

  Below him, the dais was a platform raised on a scaffold of bones, turned, shaped and jointed like
the work of the finest cabinet maker: interlocked femurs, some laminated to form thick post uprights, the cross-braces secured with shoulder blades and sacral plates, inlays of carved finger-bones. The railing around the edge of the dais was a basketwork of ribcages supporting a top-rail made of vertebrae carefully matched for size, and fitted together to make one long, continuous spine. The joinery had been done with experienced precision. Everything was polished, and delicately carved and veneered, like an exquisite ivory sculpture. It gleamed, a warm glow.

  It was the most appalling thing Mazho had ever seen.

  The dais faced the main doors. Behind it, the lower stalls were a reserved quire, the curved bench seats were packed with lekts, the Sekkites’ macabre psyker caste. They chattered and gibbered, their mouths covered by hand-print brands. Many were veiled. Mazho could feel the scalding throb of their minds, amplifying the whispers that buzzed and crackled in his ears.

  He tried to control his frantic breathing. Iron bars of terror were locking him rigid.

  A loud boom caused a temporary hush. The towering excubitors had closed and barred the doors. They took their places amongst the crowds on the equatorial walkway, gazing down, their power lances held upright.

  He was in now. The only way out was shut. It had become a dream that didn’t belong to him.

  A figure stepped up onto the dais. Mazho had no idea where it had come from. It had just emerged from the crowd packing the auditorium.

  It was the Anarch. It was Sek.

  Holofurnace found a place to stand at the bone-railing of the equatorial walk. He’d lost Mazho. From under his cowl, he surveyed the tiers below, his acute, post-human eyesight searching for detail. Where was he? Where–

  There. Off to the right and down in the thick of it. A tiny figure, packed into an overcrowded stall. The poor damn bastard.

  The excubitors were preparing to shut the doors. What of Mkoll and the Saint’s man? Had they come back in time? He studied the crowd again. Damogaurs, etogaurs, packson tribunes with tribal standards, a quire of cackling lekts, excubitors, cult shamen, Blood-fare officers and steersmen. The host was still taking its places, thronging the staircases, shuffling into stalls, milling around the base of the obscene dais.