Heralds of the Siege

by Nick Kyme

  Captain Vastobal took a breath, and then launched in. ‘The path you have chosen for us. It will be harder to walk it alone.’

  ‘But?’ Luther’s piercing gaze held him in place.

  ‘I question if these Death Guard are not what we need… but merely what we have.’

  ‘You think we would be better to abandon this world and seek out the Sons of Horus ourselves, is that it?’ Luther frowned. ‘Annexing Zaramund was just the first step. Typhon’s arrival was merely a fortunate confluence of events.’

  Vastobal hesitated, and Cypher spoke for him, anticipating the captain’s words. ‘He does not trust them. He believes the Death Guard have nothing with which to repay our generosity.’

  ‘Gratitude is not in their lexicon,’ added Vastobal.

  Luther was about to add something, but then an icon flickered into life on the chart table and a mech-voice announced an incoming vox-signal, a message sent from the repair camp that the Dark Angels had granted to Typhon’s men several weeks ago.

  ‘Speak of the beast…’ muttered Cypher.

  ‘Answer,’ Luther told the table’s machine-spirit, and the lines and shapes of the display reoriented themselves to form a three-dimensional avatar of the Death Guard First Captain, sketching him in from the waist upwards, as if he were a spectre rising out of the horizontal screen.

  ‘Well met, Lord Luther,’ rasped Typhon, his face hidden behind the tarnished brass of his visor. Each of them silently noted the Death Guard’s mild insult by not facing the Dark Angels Grand Master bare-headed. ‘You wished to converse with me?’

  The question that dallied in all their minds was clearest on Vastobal’s face. What have they got to hide?

  ‘First Captain Typhon,’ said Luther, maintaining a neutral tone. ‘How go the repairs to your ships? My technologians inform me that the work proceeds apace.’

  Typhon’s mask bobbed. ‘We will be whole again very soon.’

  ‘We have several experienced Techmarines in our ranks,’ offered Cypher. ‘If it would expedite the situation, we can deploy a squad to you–’

  ‘No need.’ Typhon cut him off. ‘These are our craft. We know them best.’

  Luther leaned on the edge of the chart table, eye to eye with the hololith. ‘Cousin,’ he began. ‘You have been on Zaramund for over a month now. In all that time, you have turned down my every invitation for respite with us, my offers of serfs and brethren to aid you. You take only materiel and never venture beyond the walls of the encampment.’ He showed a wan smile. ‘I am beginning to think I have offended you in some manner.’

  ‘Not so,’ replied Typhon. ‘Your generosity is greatly appreciated, my lord. But the Death Guard do not easily accept charity. It is a flaw in our character.’ He paused, addressing them all. ‘And I would not wish for any incidence of disagreement to emerge between our two Legions.’

  ‘I do not follow,’ said Cypher.

  Typhon’s masked face turned towards Zahariel. ‘After being hounded for so long by your brother Corswain, some of my warriors bear enmity towards the sons of Caliban. It would be unfortunate if a… misunderstanding were to occur.’

  The implication beneath the words was clear.

  ‘Corswain is no brother of ours,’ said Vastobal firmly. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Of course,’ allowed Typhon. ‘I will merely say, it is better that the repair work is done by my men alone. I ask you to respect that request.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Luther. ‘But I will expect to share a drink with you when all is done.’

  ‘There will be repayment, yes. Until then, Lord Luther. And once again, my gratitude to you.’ Typhon inclined his head and the hololith winked out.

  ‘He’s afraid his men will pick a fight with ours?’ Cypher fairly sneered the words.

  ‘A poor excuse,’ said Vastobal. ‘My lord, he is not being truthful with us. The Death Guard do not deserve the goodwill you are showing them.’

  ‘Oh?’ Luther gave him a cool glance. ‘Then by all means, captain, correct me.’

  Vastobal paused, realising once again that he had overstepped the mark. It was a trait he had never been able to expunge, and one that all too often led him into trouble. He pressed on, committed. ‘Allow me to surveil Typhon and his men. So that we may be certain of what they are doing inside the walls of that camp.’ He glanced at the Lord Cypher. ‘We have all heard the stories of what those behind the Warmaster’s banner are doing on other worlds…’ He drifted off, as if he were unwilling to say more.

  Luther and Zahariel exchanged a loaded look.

  ‘I would expect my centurions to act in the best interests of the Legion at all times,’ Luther said, ‘with care and discretion.’

  ‘No less,’ Vastobal agreed, accepting the unspoken order. He saluted Luther with a mailed fist to his breastplate, and stalked away across the command chamber.

  Hours passed. Typhon wandered through the camp, directionless and lost in his thoughts. He saw the work around him but did not really register it. His mind kept straying to distant questions.

  The ship-helots from the XIV Legion crews brought down from the fleet toiled tirelessly at their assignments, assembling and preparing replacement parts here on the surface before the shuttles took them up to the battleships. They worked in a sullen, careful rhythm, and those of them that did not have lobotomaic implants – the ones who still possessed something of a persona – passed the time with old plainsong remembered from the days of farming the harsh chem-fields of Barbarus. Their low voices drew distant memories from Typhon, back out of the poison mists of his past and into the present, but he dismissed them. It irritated him for reasons he could not articulate, like rough cloth rubbing over chafed skin.

  In his right hand he gripped the long haft of Manreaper, the power scythe that was the First Captain’s signature weapon, absently kneading the grip and letting its weight drag on his arm. The scythe acted like an anchor, pulling Typhon into the moment, keeping him grounded when his thoughts threatened to carry him away.

  It was hard for him to maintain his focus. More and more often, Typhon was finding himself drifting, a dark miasma buzzing coldly at the edges of his thoughts whenever his mind was supposed to be at rest. The subtle magnetic pull of it seemed strongest when he was aboard the Terminus Est, and then even stronger when the ship sailed the warp, as if out there in the churn of the empyrean a clarion was calling that sang only to him.

  A voice echoing from that other place.

  Typhon had come down to Zaramund partly to watch over the helots but also to put some distance between himself and the void. It had not worked. Day by day he felt less like the warrior he had been and more like a traveller inside his own skin.

  He thought about the sunrise he had witnessed, and the creeping motion of light and shadow that followed. A shift of similar magnitude was moving through him, he could sense it. A state-change that would bloom in fullness if only he would let go and allow it.

  And what then? Typhon had led his breakaway splinter fleet out from under his primarch’s shadow because he believed that he had a destiny of his own to fulfil. I always did, even when we were youths. Even at the beginning, before Mortarion’s father came for him. But now that path was coming into sharper focus, and Typhon was uncertain of where it would lead him.

  He took a deep breath and found it tasted odd – not from the air, but from the spittle in his mouth. He swallowed, halting his mind before it could wander again to thoughts of lesions blossoming on reddened skin and cold scales over oily flesh.

  The First Captain’s attention snagged on a pair of legionaries who crossed his sight at a jog, each of them carrying their bolters at the ready as they scrambled up an incline to sight over the walls of the camp and into the treeline beyond. Their boots thudded against the Mortalis-pattern structures of the prefabricated walls, kicking up puffs of displaced rust.

  Typhon went after them as another Death Guard – a veteran sergeant with a bulbous augmetic eye – foll
owed the warriors to their post. ‘You,’ he commanded. ‘What is wrong here?’ No alarm had been sounded, but the actions of his men spoke to a warning.

  The sergeant halted, covering a moment of surprise at seeing the First Captain before him. He gave a brisk salute and jerked his head towards the walls. ‘Lord Typhon. A minor incident, at the perimeter.’ He paused, gathering himself. ‘Civilians. We sighted a group of them on the scry-sensors approaching down the valley.’ The sergeant pointed into the distance. ‘The vox-tower contacted them, warned them off. They came anyway.’

  Typhon sensed the dark glitter at the edge of his vision once again, as if it were light flickering off the wings of resting insects. He walked with the sergeant, following him up the ramp. ‘What do they want here?’

  ‘Unclear.’ The sergeant pointed again as they reached the level of the ramparts. ‘Look there, lord.’

  Typhon planted Manreaper’s shaft on the platform at his feet and peered out at the gathering of people visible through the edges of the treeline. They were settling in by the side of the dirt road that led back towards civilisation.

  Some of them caught sight of him and they froze like prey animals caught in the savage gaze of a predator. On the wind, Typhon picked out their hushed murmurs and saw others coming together, whispering intently. One of them spoke into a hand-held communicator.

  At his side, the sergeant’s manner shifted and he let his bolter drop slightly.

  ‘Lord… a message from the vox-tower. The civilians have responded to our warning. They say they won’t leave.’ He gave his commander an odd look. ‘Not until they are allowed to speak to… to someone called Typhus.’

  The trees rendered Vastobal an emerald ghost.

  As dense as the forests on Caliban, the tall and slender trunks gathered in on one another in thick stands broken only by game trails and the occasional clearing. The gathering light of the day did not penetrate far through the canopy, and Vastobal was able to slip from one pool of shadow to another, barely disturbing the undergrowth despite the bulk of his power amour and the enveloping folds of his deep-green war-cloak.

  Alone and vox-silent, it had been easy for him to melt into the woods and make them his ally in concealment. Once he passed the line of perimeter sensors the Death Guard had seeded in the forest, he felt a warning pulse through his veins. They were acting as if Zaramund were enemy territory, a place annexed by the XIV Legion from an unwilling populace, rather than the gift of sanctuary it truly was.

  Behind the breather grille of his helmet, Vastobal’s lip curled. With each step he took, his misgivings grew firmer.

  He had spotted the civilian caravan a few hours in. Hidden from their sight, he watched them pick their way down the track leading to the Death Guard encampment. He listened to them talking and singing. He studied their manner. They were happy, and he could not fathom why. This strange group of Zaramundi natives, a mixture of all kinds from all strata of the planet’s feudal society, acted like they were on a celebratory outing to some great festival. They were buoyant, but strangely earnest with it. He searched his thoughts for the right word to encapsulate the mood he saw.

  A pilgrimage?

  Partly out of curiosity and partly because they served as a good distraction to any watchers, Vastobal shadowed the civilian band for the rest of their journey, paralleling their path until it ultimately deposited them at a distance from the gates of the repair camp.

  He found a hide inside the hollowed-out core of a fallen tree trunk and used the rangefinders in his helmet’s optics to scan the iron walls, looking for points of weakness. Vastobal planned to wait until nightfall and enter the camp in stealth, to penetrate as deeply as he could and observe the activities of the Death Guard unaware. If they thought no eyes were upon them, he reasoned, their true character would soon reveal itself.

  But the Dark Angel had barely settled himself when the armoured gates of the camp hissed open on pneumatic rods, parting wide enough to allow a figure in Terminator wargear to stride through. The livery was the same as that which Vastobal had seen in the hololith, and the massive scythe in the warrior’s hand erased any doubt as to the identity of the Death Guard who wore it.

  First Captain Typhon. Vastobal tensed, his hand falling to the hilt of his sheathed longsword. Could he know that I am here?

  The Dark Angel had heard the stories of Typhon’s battle prowess, and murkier suggestions that he was some kind of psyker – although that seemed uncertain, given the XIV Legion primarch Mortarion’s antipathy towards mind-witches. He drew on his training to slow his heartbeat and will himself to fade into the forest, lest some fraction of whatever preternatural sense Typhon might possess were to brush over him.

  It appeared to be enough. Typhon halted before the civilians, these pilgrims, looming over them, his full focus on the mortals who bowed at his feet.

  Vastobal tuned his auto-senses to maximum and strained to listen to the words passing between them.

  Calas Typhon knew well the faces of common men who looked upon him and his kind. Without fail, the emotion etched upon their countenances was always fear. The shade of it might change with the circumstance, but they were always afraid of him, terrified of the paragon of war in plate and steel before them.

  Not here, though. Not these men. They looked up at him with something approaching adoration, as if he had come to bring them deliverance. Typhon gave in to an odd compulsion to remove his battle-helm and look them in the eyes, but the act seemed only to cement their manner.

  They whispered among themselves, nodding and smiling.

  As if they know me.

  Irritation pulled at his mouth. ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’

  ‘We have come to see you,’ said one of them, a steely old woman with the manner of a lifelong matriarch. She beamed at him. ‘Ah, it was worth the trip, yes?’ She threw that question to the others and they nodded in agreement. ‘Here you are. Just like we were promised.’

  ‘I do not know you,’ Typhon retorted, annoyed by her manner and by a creeping sense of something amiss that refused to abate. ‘This is a military installation. You cannot be here. Return to your homes.’

  ‘We have abandoned them,’ she explained. ‘It was time. Your arrival made that clear.’

  He shook his head. ‘If you do not depart on your own, you will be removed by force.’ Typhon glared at her. ‘We won’t be gentle.’

  She smiled up at him as if he were some wayward son, and gestured at the air around her. ‘We’ve all heard the whisper of the wings.’ The old woman’s choice of words shocked him into silence. ‘The glittering black-silver. Like you. We’ve all been given gifts.’ She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a bird-thin arm and tanned, wrinkled skin like careworn leather. ‘I was supposed to die of a canker. Instead, I blossomed.’

  Typhon blinked as a tiny insect buzzed between the two of them. From the corner of his eye, he realised that there were more, dancing in shafts of sunlight falling through the treeline. Black motes, coiling around like wilful smoke.

  She showed him the inside of her forearm and the lesions there, all mirrors of the ones on his scalp. Others in the group presented themselves in similar fashion, some unbuttoning their shirts so Typhon might look upon their breast or throat. He saw cold and yellowing marks in tri-part clusters. The same. The very same.

  ‘It was the Grandfather who brought me back from the canker,’ the old woman was saying. ‘He spoke to us about you, the Great Lord Typhus. Our champion.’

  ‘My name is Typhon,’ insisted the First Captain. ‘Calas Typhon.’

  ‘Oh, for the moment,’ she said, dismissing the comment. ‘Things grow and change. There is death, and rebirth.’

  The old woman placed a hand upon his vambrace, the spidery, stick-thin fingers tracing over the metal, and he looked down. She was drawing shapes there, a pattern of three interlocking circles.

  His thoughts raced. Ever since he had been a youth, Typhon had sensed the motion of greater things
out beyond the edges of his perception, like the wakes of giant, unseen leviathans passing below the surface of the ocean. Once, he had been marshalled in his use of those abilities, harnessing them in service to his Legion – only to be forbidden all such practices by his primarch.

  That those forces had impressed themselves upon his life was not in question, but he had rarely encountered those who had felt that touch themselves. Not even Erebus, with his marks and his words, seemed so close to him as these strangers before him now. The air was filled with a strange, potent scent – sweet and acrid all at once, like flowers blossoming from within corpse-flesh.

  ‘You see,’ she said, and her rheumy eyes were shiny with tears. ‘Yes, indeed. You do see it, don’t you? We have been waiting here for so long, my lord. Unhallowed and rescued from our maladies over and over, all for this. For now.’ She nodded, and as he looked closer, Typhon saw the broken blood vessels across her neck and face, the remnants of harsh infection. ‘It is time.’

  His gaze swept across the others and he saw the same. Hollowed faces of men that should have been long dead, drawn back from their end into a kind of null-decay. It was like a veil briefly dropping from his eyes. He saw these people as they really were: the living who fate decreed dead, held in abeyance by the very malaises that should have ended them.

  ‘How are you alive?’ he whispered.

  ‘You know,’ smiled the old woman. ‘By the grace of the Grandfather. And with your passage, herald, we can move on.’ She spread her hands. ‘We may finally impart our gifts and marks to everyone on Zaramund… and beyond.’

  Typhon looked down and saw the leathery skin of the woman’s arms rippling as tiny shapes moved beneath the surface of her flesh. Motile black specks began to extrude themselves through her pores and swarm across her hands, forming a shiny, dark mass.

  A terrible and potent reaction rose up in Vastobal, a wellspring of repulsion that spilled out of the core of his being.

  He could not tear his gaze away from the pilgrims. All of them were spreading their hands in religionist poses and oily, glistening matter was seeping from their mouths and nostrils, weeping from their eyes and ears.