Heralds of the Siege

by Nick Kyme

  ‘Constantin!’ Russ cried out, throwing himself from the still-racing Land Raider and crunching heavily to the ground. His blade, the one Imperial scholars called Balenight, but which the Wolves themselves called Mjalnar, gleamed with a malignant silver-white spitefulness.

  The Wolf King marched up to the captain-general, pelts swinging about him. Other warriors jumped down from skidding Land Raiders – Varagyr Terminators bearing axes and frostblades, their liberally bloodied armour hung with fur scraps and bone totems.

  Valdor waited for him, flanked by his own honour guard. The Custodians were taller than their counterparts, and no doubt more accomplished in some of the finer arts of combat, but there was something in the Varagyr’s latent menace, bleeding from them with every swaggered move, that chilled the blood.

  ‘What took you so damn long?’ Russ demanded, hawking up a gobbet of spittle and loosing on the ground. He went helmless, the only one of them there who did – a statement of arrogant confidence that struck Samonas as borderline crazed. ‘We’ve been killing witches without your Sisters to blunt their fangs.’

  Valdor stiffened a little. ‘It was your wish to engage first, lord,’ he said.

  ‘True.’ Russ laughed. There was a strange light in those bestial eyes – Samonas thought he looked half mad. ‘True! But you took your time when the order came.’

  Order. No living man gave the captain-general an order, save the one who had created him. ‘Our landings are completed,’ Valdor said calmly. ‘We advance on all fronts, and the Knight Commander’s sisterhoods are now deploying throughout the city.’

  Russ growled low in his throat, a sound that made Samonas’ spine tingle. ‘This will throttle them now. This will crush them. Hel’s eyes, I have learned to hate these bastards, but still he eludes me.’

  ‘Is he even on this world?’ asked Valdor doubtfully. ‘We have detected nothing.’

  Russ drew up to Valdor then. He was a little shorter, much broader, his armour stained and smeared where Valdor’s was pristine. ‘Oh, yes,’ he hissed, smiling in a disconcertingly feral manner. ‘I can smell him now. I can smell him hunkering down in his own filth, fearful of me.’

  Valdor remained unmoved. ‘Even now, I would see him taken to Terra, if it could be done. I would wish to know why.’

  Russ laughed, a coarse bark that sent more spittle flying into Valdor’s faceplate. ‘You’re still clinging to that? Ha!’ He turned away, swinging his greatblade casually. ‘I’ve known since I first saw this world that we would face one another. I did not come here for prisoners, Constantin. If my father had truly wished for such, He would not have sent me.’

  ‘You were not sent alone, Lord Russ.’

  Russ glanced back at Valdor, a sly smile on his fanged face. ‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ He laughed again, but it was an ice-cold sound. ‘You have the power of Magisterium, and wish to cling to it.’ Russ paced back to him again. He was always moving, restless, like a tempest bound up inside the sham-form of a man. ‘Don’t try to invoke the Lex with me. You claim to speak for my father, but you’re not His blood, are you? Not like we are. That’s what really gets you, isn’t it? You’re His instruments. He’d toss you aside in an instant if He cared to. We, though. We. We’re family.’ Russ gave out a great belly laugh then, amused by the idea. ‘You’ll never understand that.’

  Valdor didn’t reply for an instant, seemingly genuinely nonplussed.

  ‘There are so many errors there,’ he said eventually, ‘I do not even know where to start.’

  But a reply never came. Fresh mortar-blasts bloomed at the end of the avenue. The Land Raiders gunned their smoggy engines, and the grav-tanks swung round to target new markers. In the far distance, where one of the many great pyramids slumped in burning ruin and the clouds deepened towards an inky vortex, the enemy was moving.

  ‘They stir!’ Russ roared joyously, running back to the Land Raider and leaping onto its chassis. The Wolves were crying out battle-cant, slamming their blades against their armour and slavering for action once more. ‘Try to keep up, Constantin – you’ll have to get your armour dirty sooner or later.’

  And then the column powered up and thundered down the shattered avenue, followed by loping packs of Grey Hunters and whole contingents of bound Auxilia.

  Samonas watched them go. The Aquilon guard remained static around them, their helm-faces magnificently blank. ‘Is he… in his right mind, lord?’ he ventured, looking up at Valdor enquiringly.

  Valdor didn’t respond immediately. He watched the Wolves race into battle, whooping and hollering. It was impossible to gauge what he thought behind that ornate mask of auramite and carnelian.

  ‘Primarchs,’ he said finally, a single, withering expletive that sounded as close to a curse as the captain-general of the Ten Thousand would ever get.

  ‘You refused our offer of assistance,’ said Dorn.

  ‘We refused nothing,’ said Valdor. ‘You know where the order came from.’

  ‘And you never resisted it.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Valdor drew in a weary breath. ‘Resisting orders has not given spectacular results thus far, has it?’

  ‘Neither has following them,’ said Dorn grimly.

  The tension between the two figures was evident, despite the informal setting. The primarch Rogal Dorn was unarmoured, as he preferred to be unless called to war. As ever, his aspect was spartan, clad in the robes of a warrior-monk. His white hair had grown long, adding to the effect. The many stone tables of his private chambers were stuffed with the paraphernalia of Imperial bureaucracy – order capsules, tactical reports, innumerable requests for audience or support. Even though the doors were closed and locked, Samonas guessed that dozens of attendants still hovered on the far side, waiting for their moment to run the gauntlet of the Lord Commander’s unpredictable mood.

  For now, though, it was only the three of them, locked away in the windowless heart of Dorn’s cell-like sanctum, raking over old regrets before the storm hit.

  ‘There are days,’ said Dorn, ‘when I think nothing any of us do is free of the curse.’

  ‘Curse? I did not have you as a suspicious soul.’

  ‘I wasn’t. We’re all having to learn new things.’ Dorn sat back in his heavy throne, for a moment letting the aura of control slip. He looked like some archaic warlord then, holed up in his crumbling citadel as the tides of ruin lapped closer. Samonas tried not to meet his gaze.

  ‘The situation remains the same,’ Valdor said, steering the discussion back to its purpose. ‘The Emperor holds the breach under the Palace. The Mechanicum works on a way to release Him from this duty, but you and I both know that they will not succeed in the time we have left to us.’

  ‘But it’s not the same, though, is it?’ said Dorn. ‘You should have withdrawn earlier. Tell me, Constantin, what did you gain, clinging on down there for so long? You’d all rather have died following a command than countermand it.’

  ‘I do not see–’

  ‘It was a fool’s errand!’ Dorn exclaimed. ‘I tried to warn you. Unless we committed everything we had, there was no hope of holding those portals. But no, only the pure could be risked. And look how that turned out.’

  ‘The order was given.’

  Dorn smiled, cynically and without warmth. ‘You see, there’s your old problem. You never see any fault in Him. You never push back. You never stop, think, say to yourself – is that sensible?’ He pressed his great, calloused hands together. ‘And now you have this conundrum, the greatest of your existence. You were created to be the embodiment of His will, but we can no longer discover what that is. You are His voice, but He is silent. Can you think for yourself now, captain-general? That is what’s required.’

  Samonas hardly dared to look at Valdor. No one, not even Russ, who was as much bluster as substance, had ever dared to speak with quite such casual condescension to his master. And yet, when he finally lifted his eyes to that noble countenance, there was no anger there, only a kind of
thoughtfulness.

  ‘We were faithful,’ Valdor said quietly. ‘I watched, while your brotherhood was created. I studied you. I saw the dangers in you from the start, and witnessed the way you fought, and acted, and quarrelled. And still I said nothing. If there had been a time to question an order, perhaps it was then. But the moment passed, and your great success came soon afterwards. I will be honest now, for you have been honest with me. I did not believe you would ever be that deadly. I saw how swiftly you conquered worlds, and said to myself, perhaps this is why you were made in the way you were. That was your great victory – you became untouchable.’

  Dorn listened warily. Samonas did also.

  ‘But now we see the errors implicit in your forging,’ Valdor said. ‘I should have spoken earlier. By the time war came to this place, the moment had passed, and we were all trapped by our fates. You say that the defence of the tunnels was doomed? Perhaps so. I have fought in other wars – more than you will ever know – that were also doomed, and they always played some part in His pattern. I still cleave to that. The only element that could not be accounted for,’ and there he looked directly at Dorn, ‘was you.’

  Dorn lost his chilly smile.

  ‘And, as always, the fault lies elsewhere,’ Dorn said. ‘From the first time I met you, Constantin, you were never quite able to keep the disdain from staining your words. Oh, you’ve been polite. I never met a more courteous soul. That doesn’t really cut much with me.’ The primarch stirred himself, sitting forwards in the throne and jabbing a finger at the captain-general. ‘See, for all you look down on us, at least we were doing. We were building the empire while you were musing over the finer points of the law that binds you. We were making decisions over which planets would burn and which would be saved. I’d rather have blood on my hands than book-ink.’

  For a moment, Samonas thought Valdor might snap then – release the anger that he was surely capable of. Over heartbeats, the two of them held one another’s gaze, as if engaged in some hidden test of will.

  ‘And yet, the task remains before us,’ Valdor said at last. ‘I came to confer, not to dispute. We know Lupercal will be here soon. You are the Lord Commander. I have invested in me the power of Magisterium. We must speak with one voice from now on, lest further division hamper what preparation remains.’

  Dorn looked at the floor, pressing his fingers together in an image of contemplation. Samonas saw the curve of those mighty shoulders, and had a mental image of the weight of the entire Imperium bearing down on them.

  ‘I speak as my soul dictates,’ Dorn said slowly. ‘If it appears blunt to you, then it is not intended as such. I do not have time for much else – only truth, now.’ He lifted up his eyes, which were ringed from lack of sleep. ‘And this is the truth. Your power was exhausted in that war. You have fewer than a thousand warriors under arms, and half of them are beneath the Apothecary’s knife. My father is silent, and cannot guide you. Magisterium is an empty word. I have no doubt you will fight when the time comes, and reap as great a tally as you always have, but your place is by the Throne now, not on the walls.’

  Samonas listened, unable to keep shame from welling up within him as the primarch reeled off his judgement. The power of the words came not from their delivery, which was issued more in sorrow than disdain, but the fact they were being uttered at all.

  ‘You have given great service, captain-general,’ said Dorn, working to keep the worst of the hardness from his voice. ‘But this war has moved beyond you. It will be settled by the Legions. If you wish to remain a part of it, you will have to find some way to fit around that.’

  The apocalypse came, reaving through the remains of the broken city and rendering it down to flying squalls of dust and wreckage. With the fallen primarch’s destruction, the great pyramid fractured, first leaking brilliant light, then exploding into a whirling column of eye-burning plasma that joined sky to heaven.

  Warriors were hurled through the air, cracking against the storm-scoured flanks of the surviving buildings. Tanks were overturned as they raced across the causeways, and even the distant silhouettes of Titans were tested, leaning into the hurricane while it tore at them.

  Samonas gripped the tower’s balustrade hard, feeling the unnatural storm drive into him like a blow. His sentinel blade was ripped from his grip and spun away into the maelstrom. Far below, out on the great plaza, the Wolf King strode through the tumult, roaring out in anger and frustration. His armour had been turned as black as jet, seared by the magics of his great enemy, and the edges of his mighty sword blazed with an impotent fury.

  Valdor stood tall, staring impassively into the racing tempest. His cloak snapped and writhed around him like a living thing, though his body remained rigid, untouched, still splendid despite the bloodshed and the raw horror of a Legion’s ending.

  Samonas struggled to keep his feet. He could feel the tower’s stones shift underfoot. Cracks snaked up the stonework, blowing the mortar from the joints.

  ‘Lord,’ he urged, struggling to keep standing. ‘We must withdraw.’

  Valdor remained still, his gauntlets clutching his spear. Unearthly screams from below added to the tidal wave of noise. Lesser pyramids collapsed in on themselves, flickering with multi-hued lightning as they slid into oblivion.

  ‘Lord,’ Samonas tried again.

  ‘He has unleashed something he does not understand,’ Valdor said, staring at the distant Russ and speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘Just as Magnus did before him. What is it with them all? Where did they get this monstrous pride?’

  More flagstones cracked, and Samonas heard the sighing creak of breaking stone. There was no sign of the primarch of the Thousand Sons now, only the endless bellows of his assassin. He lurched over to Valdor across the tilting flags, daring to reach out to pull him back from the edge.

  But at last the captain-general turned away. As the debris of a world’s demise blew about them in furious eddies, he finally reached up to remove his helm. It came loose with a hiss, and Valdor inhaled the first unfiltered air of doomed Prospero.

  The captain-general was furious. Never before had Samonas witnessed such raw anger on that normally implacable face.

  ‘They are the architects of this,’ Valdor said, speaking to the storm. ‘All of them.’

  He turned to look at his thrall.

  ‘It could have been prevented,’ he said grimly. ‘Yet when the hour came, we merely watched them being born.’

  The tower remained dark. Promised aid from the Mechanicum never came. The forges rang each day and each night, and still there were not enough blades for the few who were able to wield them. More died on the medicae slabs, as even their gene-tempered bodies were unable to resist the lingering cankers carried by daemon-blades.

  In the days following Valdor’s meeting with Dorn, Samonas’ attention was consumed by a thousand tasks. Those who still survived needed tending. Those who were able to fight needed to be re-equipped. In times past the tower had been able to obtain anything it required with ease. Now things were harder, and the Legio’s voice was diminished. There were rumours abroad that more Legions were returning, running for Terra ahead of Horus’ advance, and minds were turned towards that hope. In such an environment, the Custodians retreated back into the shadows, overlooked by all, save perhaps Malcador, who was smothered by his own burdens.

  For all that, battle-readiness gradually returned. The tower was re-manned and fortified, equipment and materiel was steadily put back to use, and throughout it all the ceaseless watch over the Throne room never slackened. Ancient duty-patterns were re-examined, and provisions made for the deployment of the remaining Custodian Guard when the need came, together with those few Sisters of Silence who had made it out of the subterranean killing ground.

  Samonas trained as hard as any of his brothers. He finally received a new sword, bereft of the fine carvings that he had loved, but deadly nonetheless. He entered the fight-cages with a different attitude than before. The old
superlative certainties were gone, replaced by something new – the tinge of vengeance. He detected the same in all those who had returned from the slaughter. They would take the shame that they could not erase, and turn it into yet another marginal gain, a way to fight faster and better than those who came to eradicate the last of them.

  Whenever he thrust his new sword, Samonas remembered that final look in Dorn’s tired eyes. This war has moved beyond you. That would be the challenge now, the spur forever dug in their flesh, goading them out of grief and into wrath.

  In that time, Valdor was the most active of them all, deprived of the support of the tribunate that had ever been the most active force in the Legio’s workings, but also freed of the more onerous demands of the Senatorum Imperialis and able to devote his formidable energies to his own order.

  Samonas was not summoned into his presence for a long time. When he next saw his master, it was on the cusp of the Khan’s anticipated return, and all Terra was looking up to the void rather than into the depths of the sprawling Palace.

  He climbed the long winding stair leading to the observation parapet atop the tower’s northern edge. From there, the view looked out towards the colossal fortifications of the Inner Palace, still being added to, re-fortified, over and over, as if caught up in a kind of obsession. The sun was setting, casting a dark red pall over the haze of construction.

  The captain-general was waiting for him, looking out at the landscape of incipient siege.

  ‘You are disappointed in me, vestarios,’ he said.

  Samonas, taken off guard, began to issue a denial.

  ‘You think I should have challenged the Lord Commander.’ Valdor turned to face him. ‘Do you believe, truly, that I would not have been up to the contest?’