He told me of how he had seen Elena Grayloc on the headland on the night of the previous storm, arms raised as if conducting its wrath. While her attention was fixed on whatever sorcery she was conducting, the agony of his burning nails had receded just enough for him to take the colonel’s plasma pistol from the library and get close enough to her to put a single, overpowered shot through her skull. Such a wound ought to have killed her instantly, but her dark masters were not yet ready to release their mortal avatar.
Just as she re-established psychic control, Kyrano had kicked her from the cliff with his last independent thought. He had no knowledge of how she had come to be encased within the Inamorata, but it seemed clear to me that Garrett Grayloc was not the innocent I had feared when I killed him. I could only surmise that he had been a willing participant in his mother’s scheme of rebirth. It was impossible to know for sure, but it was difficult to believe he had not been party to events at Grayloc Manor.
And the night I had woken to find Kyrano standing at my bed with what looked like a garrotte of twisted sheets in his hands? He had not been trying to kill me, he had been saving me. Elena Grayloc’s malign influence permeated the entire house, and in her deathly, regenerative state, it seemed her mind roamed the site of her death with only fragmentary knowledge of what and who she was.
Seeing a stranger in her bed had likely stoked a murderous rage in her.
Kyrano had heard me choking and had rushed in to save me, and had in turn found himself the object of the colonel’s psycho-kinetic fury.
Had the figure I had seen on the headland been a phantasm also conjured by her gestating nightmares? It was the only explanation I could think of, but who can know the minds of the mad or the designs of one fallen to the Ruinous Powers?
Who would wish to…?
I slept some of the way, exhaustion and the after-effects of adrenaline leaving me alternately weeping, angry, cold, terrified and determined.
The sun was cresting the horizon as the spires of Servadac Magna came into view.
‘Where. To. Go. Now?’ asked Kyrano, working his jaw from side to side.
I had given the matter careful consideration on the journey back.
Events at Grayloc Manor would eventually come to light. Investigators would find the corpse of Garrett Grayloc and perhaps they might even be able to positively identify him. It wouldn’t take long to trace a line from him back to me, so we only had a short window in which to act.
Both books in the hidden study had been destroyed, but I remembered enough of what was contained in the ledger to know that the colonel’s poisonous collection had spread far and wide. We would not be able to reach them all, but we could at least make a start.
‘The Cardophian Repository,’ I said.
And now we come full circle.
The candle is almost burned down, and this missive is complete. Now you know the truth of what happened at Grayloc Manor. Now you know the truth of the Dawn of Dark Suns.
I warned you that you would not thank me for these revelations.
Kyrano has almost finished his task, and the acrid reek of promethium fills the repository.
We spent the day gathering as much as we could fit onto an old cargo-8 and, using my access codes to the repository, which were still valid thanks to my regular consultations with the staff, entered and poured the flammable liquid wherever I could remember books of the colonel’s being deposited.
I lament that I can see no other way to rid this world of Elena Grayloc’s corruption, for who knows how far the malign power in her books has spread? It pains me to do this, for I have many fond memories of this building. But for all we know, every book on every shelf might be infected with the horrors Colonel Grayloc brought back from the howling darkness she found in the hostile void of space.
Nor are Kyrano and I exempt from this purge.
He lived with her taint in his mind for decades, and if I touch my hand to my belly, I fancy I can feel a tremor of movement. I cannot be certain, but the chance that Elena Grayloc was able to pass on something of her treachery into my flesh is too great a risk.
No, this must end tonight.
I look up and Kyrano nods. Our task is almost at an end.
I doubt this record will survive, for Kyrano is nothing if not thorough.
The truth of setting this down, then, is that it has only been for me.
Catharsis perhaps. Or maybe it is something more, something I cannot express but feel must somehow be recorded, even if the reasons for that are entirely selfish.
Once an archivist, always an archivist, I suppose.
Kyrano has lit the flare.
It burns so very bright.
So, too, shall we.5
Notes
1. Colonel Elena Grayloc of the 83rd Yervaunt Voltigeurs (a light regiment of the Astra Militarum with a long and storied history of heroic actions in this sector and beyond) was well known as a collector of artefacts on the campaign trail, many of which she subsequently gifted to the Cardophian Repository prior to her death.
2. Cardinal Saloma was a hero to the people of Yervaunt after she led an army of the faithful alongside the 83rd Yervaunt Voltigeurs against the forces of the Archenemy in the latter years of the forty-first millennium.
3. Such was Mistress Sullo’s reputation for precision in recall that her former colleagues attest that any conversations thus recorded would likely have taken place exactly as set down here. However, in light of her subsequent actions, the possibility exists that this missive was penned as a form of exculpatory record.
4. Many of the survivors of this benighted campaign were subsequently confined to the lunatic wards of the Hospice of Cardinal Saloma Arisen. As of now, only one yet survives.
5. Inquisitorial Note: The above confession was discovered in the burned ruins of the Cardophian Repository on Yervaunt. How it survived the fire that destroyed the rest of the building is a matter of some interest, as the murderer, Teresina Sullo, and her servitor accomplice were thorough in their application of flammable accelerants. How much of this record can be considered truthful is impossible to verify at this time, as both bodies found at the site bore signs of deep psychic manipulation. It is our recommendation that their remains be contained and transported securely to the nearest ordo facility for further psycho-forensic examination. We also recommend that this record be sealed to Omicron-level clearance and that investigations begin into Grayloc Trading Cartel. A last recommendation is that an interrogation be undertaken of the sole survivor of the campaign colloquially known as the Dawn of Dark Suns at the earliest opportunity. Ave Imperator!
About the Author
Graham McNeill has written many Horus Heresy novels, including The Crimson King, Vengeful Spirit and his New York Times bestsellers A Thousand Sons and the novella The Reflection Crack’d, which featured in The Primarchs anthology. Graham’s Ultramarines series, featuring Captain Uriel Ventris, is now six novels long, and has close links to his Iron Warriors stories, the novel Storm of Iron being a perennial favourite with Black Library fans. He has also written the Forges of Mars trilogy, featuring the Adeptus Mechanicus. For Warhammer, he has written the Warhammer Chronicles trilogy The Legend of Sigmar, the second volume of which won the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award.
An extract from The House of Night and Chain.
Chapter 1
Now
The antechamber to the Hall of Judgement on the battleship Eternal Fury was a semicircle, fifty-four paces across at its widest. I had counted. Against the fore wall, a single iron chair stood next to the heavy bronze doors that separated me from my judges. I had yet to sit in it. I could not keep still. I walked the periphery of the antechamber, finding no relief in movement, only the necessity to avoid the curse of stillness.
To port and starboard were deck-to-ceiling windows, and from the port one I could see the charred lu
mp of coal that had been the world of Clostrum. The world it had been my duty to save. Every time I passed before that view, I paused, wincing through fresh spasms of guilt. Averting my gaze was not within my power. The sight pulled me, hooks sunk into my soul. Again and again, I stared at the dead world and then jerked away, my heart thumping hard, my gut dropping away, my left palm tingling with new sweat.
There was no feeling in my right palm. Nor anywhere else in my right arm, or my right leg. Or, more precisely, there was no natural feeling. They were my prosthetics, replacing the flesh and bone taken from me on Clostrum. I was not used to them yet. My pacing was more than restlessness. It was also my attempt to come to terms with the new realities of my body. The faint whirs of the servo-motors were still an alien sound, a machinic voice that I could not truly connect with myself. It was a whisper that followed me everywhere I went, its true source perpetually out of sight, though always near. The arm and the leg worked well, obeying the impulses sent by my brain. I did not consciously have to command their motions. At the same time, they were a strange land, a zone I did not recognise. They belonged to someone else, someone whose intentions perfectly reflected my own. I felt the phantom pains of my vanished limbs, and the aches corresponded to places on the prosthetics yet did not come from them. I was a divided being, playing at unity.
My soul was as split as my body. I was present in the moment, and grappling with the agony of my shame. I was also distant, part of my mind retreating into a cocoon of numbness, observing my torment with a cold disinterest.
I had been waiting in the antechamber for hours. When my eyes did not go to the ruin of Clostrum, they lingered on the relief sculpture of the bronze doors. On each was a massive figure, Justice personified in heroic lines, arms crossed, jaw stern, gaze directed far above my head, as if seeing the arrival of judgement. There was no mercy to be had here, no concessions.
I expected none. I desired none.
I did not think I desired anything. Not any longer. I awaited the call to pass through the doors with no impatience. I did not even feel the urge to get the process over with. There was only the shame, its spears battling with the protective shield of the numbness. The shield that held the memories of Clostrum at bay. I had to protect myself from them, or they would rip me apart. I would not be able to function at all. And if nothing else, I was determined to meet my fate with dignity. I owed that to my regiment. And to my fallen troops.
‘Steady,’ I whispered to myself as I approached the port window again. ‘Steady.’ But the effort to avoid the memories backfired. Instead of blocking them, I summoned them. They stormed my defences. They came for me with pincers and claws that could shred a Leman Russ like parchment. They came with bodies bloated with bioweapons. They came in a swarm that blotted out the sky and covered the land with an undulating carpet of horror. I saw the heroes of the Nightmarch, the soldiers who trusted me, who followed my commands without question, who looked to me for guidance and the path to victory. I saw the monsters turn them to blood and pulp. I saw the ocean of jaws devour my regiment.
I was in the roof hatch of my command Chimera again. The giant horror rushed us. It towered over the vehicle, its body armoured with impregnable chitin, its huge arms ending in talons like serrated spears. It stabbed its talons through the flanks of the Chimera, lifted it from the ground and ripped it in two. It hurled the halves away. I went flying and landed twenty yards from the burning wreckage. I tried to stand. I tried to make my last stand a worthy one. Before I could rise, the creatures were on me, marching over me, barely seeing me. One warrior form paused. Its talons pierced my shoulder and thigh.
The agony was fresh again. The agony and the sound, the awful tearing of muscle and the cracking of bone. The agony and the smell, the mix of my blood and the sharp, burning stench of xenos pheromones. The agony and the sudden absence, the parting of arm and leg from body.
And still other memories came, more fragmented but just as terrible, maybe even worse. They were confused impressions of gunfire, light and darkness, screams and roars. They were my last impressions as I wavered in and out of consciousness, of the troopers who came to my aid and died saving their failed colonel.
I hunched forward in the antechamber, clutching my false arm, my right leg feeling as if it were buckling, even though it could not. I gasped for air, and my nostrils were filled with the smell of xenos and massacre. My eyes watered. My chest heaved. I growled, because if I didn’t, I would scream.
‘Colonel, you may enter.’
The words jerked me from the memories. My eyes cleared. The bronze door had opened. Two men, one in the livery of the Imperial Navy, the other a surviving major of the Solus Nightmarch, stood on either side of the doorway.
I straightened up, cleared my throat and gave the major a curt nod. His name was Hetzer. He had been among those who had saved me. He was one of the few who had survived doing so.
I crossed the threshold into the Hall of Judgement. Four sculpted swords pointed to the centre of the vaulted ceiling, from which a great skull stared down. The room was circular, and I advanced down an aisle to its centre, to stand on a bronze aquila inlaid in the marble floor, directly beneath the gaze of the skull.
A ring of thrones surrounded me. All were occupied. The majority of the authorities present were of the Astra Militarum, most notably General Pereven of the Solus Nightmarch. There were a number of officers from the Imperial Navy as well, in deference to the fact that it was in their ship that this court was assembled. There were others too. There was Captain Numitor of the Ultramarines Eighth Company. I had never seen him before, but I knew who he must be. We had all known that the Ultramarines were fighting on Clostrum, though they had not been present near the battle I had lost. This was the first time I had been in close proximity to one of the Adeptus Astartes. I was dwarfed by his colossal stature. I felt something even worse than shame to be in the presence of so noble a warrior.
Sitting next to Pereven was a woman in solemn robes of black laced with gold. She was very old. The heavy chain and pendant of the Adeptus Terra seemed to weigh her neck down, but her eyes were piercing.
Pereven confirmed my surmise by introducing Numitor, and presented the woman as Lady Arrasq. ‘The rest you know,’ he said.
I did. I had the deepest respect for every officer in the room. It made my failure all the more painful to have it witnessed by them.
‘Colonel Maeson Strock,’ said Pereven, ‘the Circle of Judgement has been called to consider your actions in the battle for Clostrum. Do you understand your position in these proceedings?’
‘I do, sir.’ I stood straight. I stared at a point on the wall just above the general’s head. ‘I understand that the work of the Circle is complete. Judgement has already been reached. I am here for it to be rendered, not to defend myself.’
‘Good,’ said Pereven. ‘Before we pronounce the verdict, this court would like to hear your evaluation of the event.’
‘Sir, I was charged with leading my regiment against the tyranid invasion and protecting the civilian population of Hive Throndhelm. I failed in this task. My regiment was defeated, taking severe losses, and Throndhelm was overrun. So was all of Clostrum. In the wake of the Imperial defeat, Exterminatus was declared. I make no excuses for the part I played in losing a forge world. Whatever the verdict of this court, I accept it with thanks and will do grateful penance.’
Pereven toyed with the stylus in his hands. ‘Colonel, though you have described the events accurately, your analysis is incorrect.’
‘Sir?’ I asked, confused.
‘You did not fail in your duty,’ said Numitor. ‘No success was possible, though none of us knew this at the outset of the battle.’
‘You slowed the tyranids,’ Pereven said. ‘You bought enough time for a significant portion of the population of Hive Throndhelm to be evacuated off-world, along with a considerable amount of resources. Colon
el, you are to be commended for your actions.’
‘Commended,’ I repeated softly. The word tasted like sawdust.
‘Though Clostrum was lost,’ said Numitor, ‘the larger tyranid advance into this sector of the Imperium has been blunted, at least for now. You were part of a victory, colonel, not a defeat.’
The screams of devoured soldiers roiled in my memory, blotting out my sense of the chamber for a moment. If there was a triumph here, I could not find it.
‘You fought hard,’ said Pereven. ‘You have done well, colonel.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I managed. His praise struck my soul like a curse. ‘I look forward to serving with honour wherever the Nightmarch is called to next.’ It took a huge effort to utter those words. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
Pereven exchanged a glance with Arrasq.
‘No,’ said the noble who spoke for the Adeptus Terra.
‘How much of the retreat do you remember?’ Pereven asked before I could respond.
‘Very little,’ I admitted. ‘I believe I was unconscious for most of it.’
‘Despite your wounds, you were not. You continued to issue commands throughout.’
‘Coherent ones?’ I turned to look at Hetzer. He looked uncomfortable.
‘Speak freely, major,’ said Pereven. ‘You will do no harm to your colonel. We already know the answer to his question. He does not, and he deserves the truth.’
Hetzer cleared his throat. ‘No,’ he told me. ‘Many of your orders could not be followed.’
‘Meaning you had the good judgement not to obey them,’ I said sadly. ‘Was I delirious from blood loss?’ I asked Pereven.
‘The medicae officers have concluded that this was only partly the case. You were suffering from other forms of shock, colonel.’
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