Slaves to Darkness

by John French

  Magnus the Red stepped forwards, the copper of his flesh and silver of his armour forming from the cooling flames as he moved. Fulgrim coiled, blades still drawn, teeth bared.

  We come for war,+ spoke Magnus. +We come to carry our vengeance to Terra, that it might burn as Prospero burned. We come in answer to your call…+ Magnus stopped. He was taller than Fulgrim, a looming giant amongst demigods, but he seemed to shrink as he approached, geometry warping, his fire somehow diminished in Horus’ shadow. And then he knelt, newly formed flesh folding to the ground. Behind him, the nine Thousand Sons bent their knees.

  My Warmaster,+ said Magnus the Red.

  Nineteen

  Argonis

  The armada that would break the cradle of mankind arrived the way rain starts after a season of drought. First a single drop falling from an iron sky to touch dry ground. Then a second, and then the deluge pouring from heaven without end. Ships came from the warp, churning reality to ragged froth as they cut back into being, adding to the might of those already gathered above Ullanor. The first of the new arrivals came in midnight clad, their gun towers snarling with dirty gold leers, their hulls cobwebbed by silver lightning bolts. The Covenant of Blood, the Excoriator and the Echo of Damnation drifted from their translation points, wary and sullen. Others followed. Clusters of craft from every Legion that had pledged to Horus’ cause, and more besides. Ships in unknown liveries and bearing strange names slid from the night like rough beasts called from the edge of the world. The Cradle of Light, bearing the Brotherhood of Scorn; the Sepulchral Sword and the Song of the Unliving, marked with the heraldry of seven different Legions. On came the mongrel children of strife. And with them came ships crewed by mortals, thousands of them, from schools of strike frigates to the gigantic cannon-barge Mithras, all of them responding to the Warmaster’s call.

  From the strategium of the Iron Blood, Perturabo watched each of them appear on the fleet’s sensor mesh and then issued the order that moved them into place in the spheres above Ullanor. Guns tracked each arrival, their command slaved to the will of the Lord of Iron. Signals greeted the new ships, confirming loyalty, ship condition and troop strength. Perturabo, Grand High Marshal to the Warmaster, saw and held each set of data, slotting it in to the scheme forming in his mind. The title that he now bore mattered little beside the reality that he was creating. Every scrap of strength and materiel extended along an axis into the future, sliding into models and plans as they were matched against Dorn’s Solar defences. In his soul, the values of destruction spun and danced and created a beauty that only he would ever see. When the flow of arrivals had slackened, the duty would pass to Forrix, with Soltarn Vull, Bronn and Berossus to aid him. Even then, the data arrangement would be almost overwhelming. To the Lord of Iron it was a song that he was only now being allowed to bring into being.

  Shuttles and landing ships passed from the ships to the planet’s surface without cease. Each moved only when ordained and authorised, watched by the overlapping guns of Iron Warriors and Sons of Horus warships. They descended through an unsullied atmosphere. The clouds had been salted with crystals to clear the skies above the Imperial Dais and the Victory Parade. Sunlight and starlight touched the white marble of the dais for the first time in years. Closer to the ground, the shuttles and landing craft swirled in stacked flights. Black-winged interceptors slid amongst them, weapons armed and sensors watching. One by one, they dropped to the ground. Plumes of dust rose from the drying earth as thrusters fired.

  Hundreds of thousands of warriors and tens of thousands of war machines already carpeted the planet. A city of landing craft covered the Triumphal Plateau. Roads of segmented metal covered the ground between the machines. Slave battalions and Mechanicum machines moved between the craft under the direction of Iron Warriors, and squads of Sons of Horus watched from towers of welded girders.

  Every Legion and faction held to its own quarter, great reaches divided by avenues of flame-topped pillars. A great pavilion of gilded plates and multicoloured silk had unfolded from the drop-ship that housed Fulgrim’s court of pleasure. A sweet, glistening fog hung above it, and a swelling of screams and laughter rose to meet the roar of thrusters and the clank of machines. The camp of the Word Bearers shone with flames beneath the red-and-black hulls of their temple craft. A forest of impaled humans rose amongst them, and black smoke breathed into the air from firepits. The landing craft of the Titan Legions loomed above the rest, blackened cliffs of metal from which the god machines would walk.

  Only the World Eaters were held in orbit, and would be until the last hours of the muster: to do anything else risked slaughter. Even then there had been skirmishes between some forces. Blood had blessed the soil of Ullanor, and some forces had been decimated as punishment and example. The corpses and fire-gutted shells of armour lined the wide avenues that converged on the parade and dais.

  And still more came from the sky to join those on the ground.

  At the Triumph a decade and a half before, it had taken months for the Mechanicum to prepare the ground and weeks to array the forces that took part. Perturabo had bent his mind and will to see this mustering complete in less than fourteen days. So far, his timetable had been followed to the minute.

  On the surface, Argonis watched from the dais as the lights of the landing craft chased the setting sun beneath the horizon. They had kept coming until Perturabo relinquished his control of the marshalling and descended to the surface to stand with his brothers.

  They stood as they had decades before, high on the Imperial Dais. Perturabo beside Magnus, the two separating Angron and Fulgrim. The air wept red around the World Eaters primarch, and his head twitched like a starved dog. Fulgrim grinned his needle smile, and his laughs of delight tore at the souls of warriors passing within earshot. The marble they stood upon had been blasted white, the statues anointed in blood, and the symbols of the pantheon fluttered on the wind beside the banners of the nine Legions that would make the new Imperium. Beneath them a river of flesh and iron had marched, their shouts of salute and praise a rolling roar of voices blending with the blare of war-horns and the clatter of machines. They began as dark fell, burning brands in their hands, flame and sparks streaming from great cages of coals set on the backs of Titans. On they came, through growing twilight and into the night, passing under the eyes of the lords of the new Imperium, until just before dawn the Sons of Horus came. The rising sun glinted off the Eye of Horus, set on shoulders and borne on banners, and the great cry came from the warriors as they passed the dais.

  ‘Lupercal! Imperator! Lupercal!’ On and on, louder and louder.

  And as they had passed, Horus had raised Worldbreaker, and silence had echoed before the sea of warriors and war engines had given single voice to a cry that rose and rose, as though to shake the stars in the firmament.

  They were all there, all the great and small who defied the tyranny of the False Emperor of Mankind. Even sons of the Night Haunter had responded to the call, and with the arrival of the Crimson King all of the defiant Legions were represented. All except one. The warriors of the Alpha Legion were nowhere to be seen. Alpharius had been there, though, waiting at the edge of the great turning of events like a phantom at a feast. The Emperor’s Children and Word Bearers had told Horus of the figure they had seen, and Argonis had watched his lord nod, then look up to an empty point in the distance.

  ‘He will come when he is ready,’ the Warmaster had said. And that night, on the eve of the parade of forces, Alpharius had come.

  He came alone. No one saw him until he was on the threshold of the chamber in the dais that Horus had made his council room. It had been Malcador’s in the days before the first triumph, and the Imperial Eagles still glowered from amongst the eye-marked banners. Argonis, attending on his master, watched as the Justaerin snapped into sudden action, guns rising, chain and powerblades screaming to life.

  ‘Hold,’ Horus said without lookin
g away from the spinning hololith of the Solar System projected in the centre of the room. ‘Let him pass.’

  Alpharius walked forwards and stopped a pace from Horus. The only weapon he bore was a sheathed dagger at his waist, the grip fashioned in the shape of two intertwined snakes. Scales covered his armour, glinting iridescent blue, and a helm with a low crest hid his face. He did not remove it.

  ‘You bring me no warriors, brother. They did not perish at the gates of Terra, and yet they are… not here. So what do you come to lay at your Warmaster’s feet?’

  Alpharius did not reply, but simply took a small black-and-brass cylinder from a recess in his armour. Data sockets gleamed at either end of the rod. Alpharius held it out. Horus looked at him, his focus bleeding out into the air around him. Argonis winced at the pressure in his skull. Horus gestured, and Argonis stepped forwards to take the data cylinder. Alpharius held up his free hand, and the gesture was somehow enough to freeze Argonis in mid-stride. Horus and Alpharius remained still, looking at each other, the Master of Serpents seeming small beneath the undiluted focus of the Warmaster. Argonis wondered how anything could remain still under that gaze.

  Then, slowly, without breaking his focus, Horus reached out and took the cylinder.

  Alpharius nodded. Horus tossed it to Argonis, who slotted it into an isolated cogitator. Cogs clattered, discs of silver spun, and then cones of holo-light unfolded in the air. First came the great body of the Sun, and then its planets, each blooming to dominate the view before shrinking as their siblings were added. Moons, orbital habitats, drifts of void stations and fortresses glimmered into view. Data shone in haloes around them, flowing with strength specifications, tactical weaknesses and threat reaction parameters. Argonis recognised the image; it was a strategic view of the Solar System but threaded and woven with information on every detail of its defences, from communication response times to main troop strengths. It was staggering, a treasure of intelligence from the heart of Rogal Dorn’s fortress.

  Horus did not look at it, as though he had known what Alpharius would bring.

  ‘You have my thanks,’ said Horus. Behind him the projection of the Solar System spun, its secrets unfolding like flowers in sunlight. ‘You have done as I asked but come alone. Where is your Legion?’

  Alpharius did not move for a long moment. Reflections of the display flowed across the green lenses of his helm.

  Then he drew the knife from his waist. The motion was simple, not a grand flourishing or threat-filled flash, but still the Justaerin twitched. Horus did not move. Alpharius held the dagger up. It was long and double-edged. Twin serpents were etched on the blade to match the grip, one coiling towards the hilt, one towards the tip. Alpharius held it still for a second, then reached up with his other hand. He gripped the blade. Razor edges bit into ceramite. Argonis realised what he was going to do an instant before the blade shattered in Alpharius’ grasp. He opened his hand, and slivers of metal fell between the fingers like sharp petals of a crushed rose. Then he dropped the dagger’s hilt at Horus’ feet, turned and walked towards the door. The Justaerin moved to stop him, but Horus gave a small shake of his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let him go.’

  Argonis looked back from the image of Alpharius to the broken dagger and the mirror coin lying on the stone floor.

  He had thought of Ekaddon, then, and the conversation he’d had with the Mournival after Horus had summoned him.

  Abaddon had been there, returned from his hounding of the Wolves, the Red Angel a fire-wreathed shadow at his back. The others – Aximand, Kibre and Tormageddon – had formed an arc around him, watching. Abaddon had spoken first.

  ‘I opposed the choice of you,’ said Abaddon as he turned to look at him squarely. ‘Just so that you know.’

  Argonis held his gaze for a second and then shook his head.

  ‘My thanks for the clarification, First Captain.’

  Abaddon’s mouth thinned.

  ‘The Warmaster requires an equerry,’ Tormageddon said. ‘He sent us to summon you. And we took the opportunity to–’

  ‘There is a matter that needs dealing with,’ Aximand said, his voice flat, his eyes fixed on the distance. ‘A matter that the Warmaster cannot address and has forbade us to, and so you must address for him, lord equerry.’

  The words that came after had followed him into his audience with the Warmaster, and turned through his mind as he looked at Alpharius’ broken and discarded dagger, and rose again now as he heard the roar of the armies that would burn Terra. Once they were gone, the pyres would be lit and one-tenth of the slave strength of all the Legions would be burned alive on this spot. It would be an offering, a libation to the gods at the commencement of the last great battle for mankind.

  He thought of the symbol he now bore atop an iron staff, not as an emissary but as the voice of the Warmaster. He thought of the deeds he would have to do. Of the first deed he would have to do. He thought of Cthonia, long ago but still remembered, of his blood brothers and the flash of a grin behind a knife as they ran to make murder. He thought of Volk looking at him on a smoke- and mist-streaked dawn, on the side of a mountain, far away now.

  ‘The end was only a dream, and what do dreams matter?’

  Argonis waited for the shouts of exhortation to fade, and then walked away from the view into the shadow of marble corridors and the ghosts of his own thoughts.

  Layak

  Layak looked up as the wind brought the scent of the pyres to his nose. The light of the armada filled his mask-helm’s eyes. There were cruisers, destroyers, bombardment barques, macro-carriers, battle-barges, cities of stone and iron filled with tens of thousands of souls. The flames of those souls outlined the craft, illuminating them in the sight of his mask. They slid across Ullanor’s sky, seeming to streak through the heavens even though they were still, tethered to stationary orbit.

  ‘What do you see?’ said a voice from behind him. Hebek shifted posture, hand going to his sword, like a dog raising its hackles.

  ‘Lady Actaea,’ he said without looking around. ‘You bless and honour me with your presence.’

  He turned. She stood two paces behind him, hands by her sides, the aching roar of her psychic aura dimmed as though it were a fire in need of fuel. The wind caught her robe, and she pulled the blood-crusted velvet closer. She had her face turned upwards towards the now-clear sky and the night laid out across it. He followed the line of her attention and found the ships of the Emperor’s Children. They sparkled with the light of souls flaring in pain and then snuffing out – the tithe in suffering and lives to keep their primarch-prince in the abyss of the real.

  ‘You did not go with Lord Aurelian,’ he said.

  ‘Self-evidently true,’ she said, then cocked her head to the side, blind eyes fixed on nothing. ‘Well? Are you going to tell me what you see, or am I just going to have to imagine it?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You ask the question, because you want me to ask it of you.’

  She smiled, the expression cold.

  ‘A fair point.’ She paused. ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask? It is the question you have wanted to ask since you made your choice.’

  Layak shook his head and looked away across the pyre-dotted plateau. Eight days of sacrifice and flame had burned the clouds away, and laced the ground with greasy ash.

  ‘What do you see?’ he asked, his voice low.

  ‘I see the future balanced on the edges of a million swords. I see beginning. I see ending.’

  ‘Will we succeed?’

  ‘Not even the Warmaster asks that.’ She paused again. ‘Not even he knows that. The gods hold their breath, and if word is written of what shall come, I cannot read it.’ She turned and looked at Layak. ‘Does that give you comfort, Zardu Layak?’ Her aura was shadowed silver, streaked with cold grey and black.

  He turned away
and began to walk down the ashen path between the pyre cages.

  ‘The sacrifices have been made,’ he said. ‘The propitiations are complete. It is time to go.’

  The fires in the towering iron cages had cooled to embers; the flesh and bones they had held were now just charred tatters and ashes. The scent of cooking meat had faded as the screams had soaked into the warp. Eighty thousand had died on the plateau where once the Emperor had stood – not a true offering but a promise.

  ‘Atrocity is a necessity sometimes,’ said Actaea, following him. ‘Half of these idiots would do such things for pleasure.’

  ‘That is–’ began Layak.

  ‘That is the truth,’ said Actaea. ‘And what matters in the end is that humanity knows the truth. Everything else was hope and pride.’

  They reached the ramp of the nearest Stormbird. Its hull was the crimson of the Word Bearers, but the Eye of Horus now marked its flank, branded into it by fire to show its allegiance to the Anointed Warmaster of Chaos.

  He mounted the ramp, but Actaea did not follow. Layak paused at the top and looked back at her.

  ‘I released the binding on Prince Fulgrim. But… I can’t remember anything before the journey to find him… I don’t know who I am.’

  ‘Consequences, Zardu Layak. You were used, but even those who are slaves must pay a price. Everyone does in the end.’

  ‘Then why do I go on?’

  ‘Because even without a self, you have faith,’ she said.

  He was silent for a long moment.

  ‘Ask,’ she said.

  Layak felt his cheek twitch inside his mask.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘You revealed Lorgar’s intention to Horus. Somehow you told him what was planned.’

  Actaea’s smile did not alter. She walked up the ramp until she was standing just in front of him and then put a hand out, and tapped the iron Eye of Horus, newly set at the centre of his breastplate.