Mechanicum

by Graham McNeill

  With the support of so many colossal armoured fortresses, the Saturnine forces rallied, quickly encircled the enemy counterattack and crushed it utterly. With their flanks secure, the battered and wary Imperial soldiers continued their attempt to relieve the siege of Maximal’s forge.

  Further south, two companies of Imperial Fists and four regiments of Jovian Grenadiers under the command of Captain Camba-Diaz made planetfall in the Mondus Gamma forge complex, but unlike Sigismund’s warriors at Mondus Occulum, they were unwelcome arrivals.

  As Sigismund secured vast quantities of munitions for transport back to Terra, nearly two thousand aircraft – Stormbirds, Thunderhawks and Army drop-ships – swooped on Mondus Gamma under the cover of an ash storm blowing in from the Solis Planum. In the wake of a furious volley of missiles and cannon fire, the assaulters blasted their way into the production facilities of southern sub-hive factorum.

  Surprise was total, and led by hundreds of warriors in golden battle plate, over fifteen thousand Imperial soldiers stormed the forge’s defences, rapidly seizing the armaments temples before spreading out to secure the armouries in a textbook example of multiple take and hold assaults. With the dropsite secure, wide-bellied supply carriers dropped into the forge, and an army of loader servitors, overseers and quartermasters began the liberation of the vast quantities of armour and weapons.

  As sudden and shocking as the Astartes assault had been, the unknown quantity of the defences was quickly and horribly revealed. Within moments of the carriers landing, the monstrosities of Lukas Chrom’s forge rose to its defence.

  A host of screeching battle robots, their weapons limned with unholy light, attacked and burned and crushed scores of desperate men with blazing fire lances and power maces. Alongside the robots came a tide of blank-faced automatons, each one fighting with deadly ferocity and unbreakable resolve. These monstrous machines slowed, and finally held the merciless advance of the Astartes, giving the forge’s mortal defenders the opportunity to launch a ferocious counterattack.

  An endless tide of screaming tech-guard, thousands of hideously altered weaponised servitors and yet more battle robots converged on the Astartes and Army units from multiple directions in perfectly coordinated phalanxes. Only the superhuman resolve and tenacity of the Imperial Fists prevented their position from being overrun in the first moments of the counterattack.

  Desperate soldiers fought and died as loaders and riggers rushed to evacuate as many suits of armour and crates of weapons as possible from the blazing forge, onto the waiting carriers.

  With every second, men were dying, but Camba-Diaz knew that it was a small price to pay in order to secure as many weapons and suits of armour as possible.

  Terra would stand or fall depending on what they could achieve here.

  DALIA SMELLED THE hot, dry air of another world, the spiced fragrances drifting from lands far away and countries as yet undiscovered. The cavern beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus faded from view, the silver lines that defied rational perception easing into obscurity and replaced with the soft curves of desert dunes and the vast expanse of a breathtakingly beautiful azure sky.

  A ferocious heat enveloped her and she gasped as it hit her like an opened blast furnace. The vista was at once strange and familiar to her, and her fear faded as she suddenly understood where and when she was.

  She stood on the baking sands of a high dune, looking over a wide river valley where a great city of sun-bleached stone reared up on a plateau of dark rock. From the gates of the city marched a solemn procession of women in white, bearing a silk-veiled litter of gold and jade.

  ‘You know where you are?’ said a voice behind her and she turned to see Adept Semyon.

  ‘I think so,’ said Dalia. ‘This is Old Earth. Before Unification.’

  Semyon nodded. ‘Long before Unification. The tribes of men are still divided and know nothing of the glories and perils beyond their world.’

  ‘And what is that city over there?’ asked Dalia.

  ‘Still thinking in such literal terms, girl,’ chuckled Semyon. ‘We are still in the cave of the Dragon. All this is a manipulation of your mind’s perception centres by the book to show you what needs to be shown. But in answer to your question, the city is called Cyrene and this is a representation of a land once known as Libya. It is an ancient land, though the people you see before you are far from the first to settle here. The Phoenicians came here first, men the Grekans, then the Romans, and finally the Arabii. Well, not finally, but that’s who rules now.’

  ‘And when are we?’

  ‘Ah, well, the text isn’t clear, though I believe this happened some time in either the eleventh or twelfth century.’

  ‘So long ago.’

  ‘A long time by anyone’s reckoning,’ agreed Semyon. ‘Save perhaps his.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Dalia. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Never mind. You’ll understand soon enough.’

  Dalia fought down her annoyance at Semyon’s cryptic answers and said, ‘So we’re not really here and this is just what’s in the book?’

  ‘Now you begin to understand.’

  ‘So who are those women?’ asked Dalia, pointing towards the procession as it made its way down a road of hard-packed earth towards a long scar in the ground from which drifted a mephitic fog.

  ‘They are the handmaidens of the King of Cyrene’s daughter, Cleodolinda, and they are taking her to her death. Within that wound in the earth dwells the Dragon, a fearsome creature recently awoken after a great war with its kin, which seeks refuge on this world to feed and regain its strength.’

  ‘The Dragon.’

  ‘Yes, the Dragon,’ agreed Semyon. ‘It has slain all the knights of the city and demands the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden every day. It feasts on their terror, growing stronger with each feeding, but all the young girls of Cyrene are dead. The king’s daughter alone remains, and now she goes to her death.’

  ‘Can’t we do anything?’

  Semyon sighed. ‘Can you not grasp that this has already happened, girl? This is ancient history we are watching, the birth of a legend that will echo down through the ages in one form or another for all time. Look!’

  Dalia followed Semyon’s pointing digit and saw a lone warrior knight in golden armour and a scarlet-plumed helmet riding towards the procession of women on a mighty charger of midnight black. He carried a tall lance of purest silver, from which flew a long red and white banner depicting a soaring eagle grasping a bolt of lightning.

  ‘Who is that?’ asked Dalia, though she already knew.

  ‘At this point in time, he is known as a soldier of the Emperor Diocletian, one who has risen to high honour in the army and who is passing through Libya to join his men.’

  Dalia almost wept at the sight of the knight, a being of a fairer presence than any she had seen and one whose wondrous power was undimmed by the passage of years.

  The knight spurred his horse and swiftly overtook the procession, riding towards the dark scar in the earth. No sooner had he halted his mount and set his shield upon his arm than the Dragon surged from its lair, roaring with a sound louder than thunder.

  Dalia’s hands flew to her mouth and she cried out as she saw the Dragon’s monstrous form. In shape it was half crawling beast, half loathsome bird, its scaled head immense and its tail twenty metres long. Its terrible winged body was covered with scales, so strong and bright and smooth that they were like a knight’s armour.

  The light of devoured stars shone at its breast and malignant fire burned in its eyes.

  The warrior knight leapt to meet the Dragon, striking the monster with his lance, but its scales were so hard that the weapon broke into a thousand pieces. From the back of his rearing horse, the warrior smote the dragon with his sword, but the beast struck at him with talons like scythe blades. The warrior’s armour split open and Dalia saw blood pouring down his leg in a bright stream.

  The Dragon towered over its foe
, dealing him fearful blows, but the knight caught them upon his shield and thrust his sword against the Dragon’s belly. The scales of the beast were like steel plates, rippling like liquid mercury as they withstood the knight’s every attack. Then the Dragon, infuriated by the thrust, lashed itself against the knight and his horse, and cast lightning upon him from its eyes. The knight’s helmet was torn from him and Dalia saw his face shine out from the battle, pale, lit by some radiance that shone from within. As he thrust at the Dragon, that radiance grew in power, so that at last it was like the light of a newborn sun.

  The Dragon looped itself around the knight, clawing and biting at his armour and roaring in triumph. Then, as though the thought had come from the warrior, Dalia saw that, no matter how the Dragon writhed, it sought always to protect one place in its body, a place beneath its left wing.

  ‘Strike, warrior, strike!’ she urged.

  As if hearing her words, the knight bent downward and lunged forward, thrusting his sword with a mighty bellow into the Dragon’s body.

  The creature gave out a deafening roar that shook stones from the city walls and the burning radiance in its breast was extinguished. Its grasp upon the knight loosened and the lightning faded from its eyes as the great beast fell to the ground.

  Perceiving that the Dragon was helpless, though not dead, the knight untied the long white banner from his shattered lance and bound it around the neck of the monster.

  With the Dragon subdued, the knight turned to the astounded handmaidens and the people of the city, who streamed from its gates in a riot of adulation. The knight raised a hand to quiet them, and such was his presence and radiance that all who beheld him fell silent.

  ‘The Dragon is defeated!’ cried the warrior. ‘But it is beyond even my power to destroy, so I shall drag it in fetters from this place and bind it deep in the darkness, where it will remain until the end of all things.’

  So saying, the knight rode off with the Dragon bound behind him, leaving the scene behind him as immobile as a painting.

  The image of the city and the desert were frozen in time, and Dalia turned to Semyon. ‘Is that all of it?’

  ‘It’s all the Dragon remembers of it, yes,’ said Semyon. ‘Or at least a version of its memories. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not sometimes. I listen to its impotent roars of hatred as it watches from its gaol on Mars and write what comes out, the Emperor ‘slaying’ the Dragon of Mars… the grand lie of the red planet and the truth that would shake the galaxy if it were known. But truth, as are all things, is a moving target. What of this is real and what is fantasy… well, who can tell?’

  Dalia looked towards the horizon over which the knight had vanished. ‘Then that was?’

  ‘The Emperor? Yes,’ said Semyon, turning and walking away as the reality of the desert landscape began to unweave. ‘He brought the defeated Dragon to Mars and bound it beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘The Emperor sees things we do not,’ said Semyon. ‘He knows the future and he guides us towards it. A nudge here, seeding a prepared prophecy of his coming there, the beginnings of the transhumanist movement, the push from humanity’s understanding of science to its mastery… all of it by his design, working towards one glorious union in the future where the forges of Mars would perceive the Emperor as the divinity for whom they had been waiting for centuries.’

  ‘You mean the Emperor orchestrated the evolution of the Mechanicum?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Semyon. ‘He knew that one day he would need such a mighty organisation to serve him, and from the Dragon’s dreams came the first machines of the priests of Mars. Without the Dragon there would have been no Mechanicum, and without the Mechanicum, the Emperor’s grand dream of a united galaxy for Humanity would have withered on the vine.’

  Dalia tried to grasp the unimaginable scale of the Emperor’s designs, the clarity of a vision that could set schemes in motion that would not come to fruition for over twenty thousand years. It was simply staggering that anyone, even the Emperor, could have so carefully and precisely orchestrated the destiny of so many with such skill and cold ruthlessness.

  The scale of the deception was beyond measure and the callousness of it took her breath away. To lie to so many people, to twist the destiny of a planet to suit one man’s aims, even a being as lofty as the Emperor, was a crime of such monstrous proportions that Dalia’s mind shied away from that awful calumny.

  ‘If the truth of this became known,’ breathed Dalia. ‘It would tear the Mechanicum apart.’

  Semyon shook his head as the last vestiges of the sands of Libya faded away to be replaced with darkness all around them. ‘Not just the Mechanicum, but the Imperium too,’ he said. ‘I know this knowledge is a terrible burden to bear, but the Treaty of Olympus bound the fates of both Throne and Forge together in a union that must never be undone. Neither can survive without the other, but should this become known, then those who hold truth sacred above all else will not see that, they will only see the righteousness of their cause. In any case, the Mechanicum is already tearing itself apart, but the horrors unleashed by the Warmaster’s betrayal will be as nothing if Mars and Terra make war upon one another.’

  Semyon fixed Dalia with a gaze of such pity that she shuddered. ‘But it is the duty of the Guardians of the Dragon, souls chosen by the Emperor, to ensure that such a thing does not happen.’

  ‘You keep the Dragon bound?’ asked Dalia as she began to perceive faint outlines of her surroundings reestablishing themselves.

  ‘No, the Dragon is bound by chains far stronger than one such as I could devise. The Guardians simply maintain what the Emperor wrought,’ explained Semyon. ‘He knew that one day the Dragon’s lost children would seek its resting place and we are here to ensure that they do not find it.’

  ‘You said ‘we’, but I’m no Guardian,’ said Dalia warily.

  ‘You have not guessed why your every footstep has brought you to this place, girl?’

  ‘No,’ hissed Dalia as Semyon reached out and took her hands.

  At the moment of contact, Dalia gasped in pain as the world around her returned, and she found herself once again standing at the lectern in the vast cave of silver.

  She tried to pull her hands away, but Semyon’s grip was unbreakable. Looking into his eyes, she saw the weight of a thousand years and more in those depthless pools, a duty and honour that was like nothing else in the galaxy.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Semyon, ‘but my span, though much extended, is now over.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, Dalia, you must fulfil your destiny and become the Guardian of the Dragon.’

  Dalia felt the heat in Semyon’s hands spread into her flesh, a golden radiance that filled her with unimaginable wellbeing. She wanted to cry out in ecstasy as she felt every decaying fibre in her body surge with a new lease of life, every withered cell and every portion of her flesh blooming as a power undreamed of filled her.

  Her body was reborn, filled with a sliver of the power and knowledge of a world’s most singular individual, power and knowledge that had been passed down from Guardian to Guardian over the millennia, a burden and an honour in one unasked for gift. With that knowledge, her anger at the Emperor’s deception was swept away as she saw the ultimate, horrifying fate of the human race bereft of his guidance.

  She saw his single-minded, pitiless drive to steer his entire race along a narrow path of survival only he could see, a life that allowed no love, few friends and an eternity of sacrifice.

  Dalia wanted to scream, feeling the power threaten to consume her, the awesome ferocity of it almost burning away all the things that made her who she was. She fought to hold onto her identity, but she was the last leaf on a dying tree and she felt her memories and sense of self subsumed into the fate the Emperor had decreed for her.

  At last the roaring power within her was spent, its work to remould her form complete, and she let out a great, shuddering breat
h as she realised she was still herself.

  She was still Dalia Cythera, but so much more as well. Semyon released her hands and stepped away from her with a look of contented release upon his face. ‘Goodbye, Dalia,’ said Semyon.

  The adept’s skin greyed and his entire body dissolved into a fine golden dust, leaving only his aged robes to fall to the rocky floor. Dalia looked over at the hulking servitor that had accompanied the adept and was not surprised when it also disintegrated into dust.

  Such a sight would normally have shocked Dalia, but she felt nothing beyond a detached sense of completeness at the adept’s dissolution.

  ‘Dalia,’ said Severine, and she turned to see her friend looking directly at her, a look of manic desperation knotting her features as tears of grief and horror spilled down her cheeks.

  Severine smiled weakly, looking up at the distant cavern roof, and said, ‘You brought me the Dragon, Dalia, but I wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Dalia as Severine stepped towards the drop only a foot behind her.

  ‘It’s a mercy, I think, that we can’t normally see the terrible things that hide in the darkness or know how frail our reality really is,’ wept Severine. ‘I’m sorry… but if you could see as I now see, you would do the same as I.’

  Severine stepped off the ledge.

  3.04

  FIRST CAPTAIN SIGISMUND of the Imperial Fists watched as yet more metal-skinned containers were borne skyward on Fabricator Locum Kane’s gigantic Tsiolkovsky towers towards the container ships in orbit. The enormous structures were working at full capacity, and it still wasn’t fast enough, for his ship masters had just informed him of an enemy force closing in from the north-east: infantry, armour, skitarii and at least two Legios’ worth of engines.

  It seemed Mondus Occulum’s privileged status was at an end.

  Nothing of this mission to Mars had panned out the way it was supposed to, and Sigismund felt his anger gnawing at his bounds of control. Camba-Diaz and the Jovian regiments were embroiled in a fight for their lives at Mondus Gamma, and the Saturnine companies tasked with breaking the siege at Ipluvien Maximal’s forge had been repeatedly turned back by the horrifyingly altered weapon-creatures of the Dark Mechanicum.