Slaves to Darkness
Page 31
Jaghatai Khan glared at them hungrily, as if poised to attack. His great fist, locked within an ivory gauntlet, flexed instinctively. The delegation shrank back; it was never easy to look a primarch in the eye, no matter one’s rank or training, and it was almost impossible to face an angry one.
‘Who dares this now?’ the Khan demanded.
Most did not speak. Some looked as if they had lost the capacity. Only one managed to return that gaze, and did so uneasily, as if he feared attracting the storm’s full wrath.
‘May it please you, lord,’ he started, ‘the ship is ready.’
The man was heavily built, old but not decrepit. His skin was lined, his muscle tone rigid, and he wore the dress uniform of an admiral in the Naval high command. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been a man of substance, one from whom many would take an order without question. Perhaps he had commanded many starships, and seen many worlds wreathed in the coronas of battle. Yet right then, just then, as he looked up into the face of one of the Emperor’s sons, he might as well have been a youth of sixteen on his first assignment.
The Khan rounded on him. ‘What ship?’
‘The one ordained for you.’
‘Without my knowledge.’ The Khan shot a sour smile at Hasik. ‘It’d better be a good one.’
The admiral swallowed. ‘The best, lord. The very best. A Gloriana.’
‘Those words mean nothing to me.’
‘Perhaps, then…’ The admiral’s eyes fell away. ‘Perhaps it would be better to see it, then.’
As soon as the words left his lips, he went white. He took an involuntary step backwards, flinching as if in anticipation of a blow.
The Khan stared at him. The air seemed to fizz a little, as if energy were coiling somewhere. The light around them thickened, and the ivory gauntlet clenched into a fist.
Then the primarch laughed. He looked over at Giyahun, who grinned back.
‘He thinks I’ll skin him alive,’ the Khan said, speaking to his gene-son in Khorchin, the kin-speech of the Talskar of Chogoris.
‘Give the order, Khagan. My knife grows blunt in this shit shed.’
‘Ha. We’re guests, and my Father objects to blood on his fine floors.’ The Khan looked back at the admiral. ‘I was told I had an army,’ he said, reverting back to thickly accented Gothic.
Another official stepped forwards then, a portly woman with a severe bob and jowly cheeks. ‘Ready for inspection, lord.’
‘I was told I had counsellors.’
A third shuffled into view, a thin man with an augmetic jawline and receding hair. ‘Whenever you wish to consult us, lord.’
Hasik raised an eyebrow. ‘Never been given an army before,’ he said in Khorchin. ‘Always had to take them.’
The Khan shot him a dry look. ‘No man gives a gift without expecting another in return. We didn’t come here with our hands full.’
‘As they never cease to make clear.’
The primarch turned back to the first speaker. ‘Where is it, then?’ he asked. For all his imposing demeanour, there was something in that question – an eagerness, only part suppressed by awareness of rank, as if he had been shown some ancient blade only offered to the sons of princes.
‘Void-dock above Luna, lord,’ the admiral replied. ‘Ready for examination whenever you deem fit.’
The Khan scrutinised him a little longer. ‘Who sent you here? Malcador? My Father? You know I come from Him now? You know what we talked of?’ He waved the stuttering answer away. ‘No matter. Take me there – I need to fill my lungs with purer air.’ He glanced back at Hasik. ‘You, go and see this army. See if it’ll fight, or if it’s as slack-gutted as everything else in this place.’
He gestured for Giyahun to follow him, then paused.
‘Where’s Yesugei?’ he asked.
‘Exploring,’ ventured Giyahun, shrugging.
The Khan looked amused. ‘One day that’ll get him into trouble.’ He summoned the admiral with a snap of his fingers. ‘Come. Show me this ship you’re so proud of. It had better be worth the journey.’
He stood in the chamber, chin raised, looking through the slender window. On the far side of the glass, a bird hopped across the stone sill. He watched it silently. The bird’s head turned, angling a jewelled eye towards him. For a moment, they stared at one another.
Then a door creaked, tripping an announcement chime, and the creature fluttered away in a snap of feathers.
He watched it go, before turning to see who had entered.
A woman stood in the doorway. She was tall, her face angular. She wore deep green robes and bore the stylised I-icon of the Imperium atop a long metal staff.
‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘Am I disturbing you?’
He bowed. ‘Not at all.’ He beckoned her in. ‘Come.’
Only when she stepped under the light of the lumens was it apparent how tall she was. Most humans looked like children beside one of the Legiones Astartes, but she didn’t. Perhaps that was due to her physical presence; perhaps something else.
‘I was told you’d found your way here,’ she said, looking around the chamber. ‘Not many come this far up.’
The walls around them were decayed, a mottled stone that had aged and rotted. Packing crates lay about the floor, most filled with old machinery. A defunct cogitator stood in the shadows, its data-maw empty and gaping. The window looked out over far newer reaches of the Palace, all coronets of gold and silver, sharp-edged against the eye-watering dazzle from the mountains.
‘Old, this place,’ he said, smiling apologetically. ‘Like me. Too old, they said.’
The woman leaned against the wall opposite him. ‘For induction into the Legions? It depends. Sometimes the seed takes, sometimes it doesn’t. Your Legion took a surprising number of post-adolescents. I wonder why?’
‘Forgive,’ he said, clasping his hands together in gesture of politeness. ‘Who are you?’
‘Magister Niasta. The office of the Sigillite. I was asked to make myself known to you. That proved harder than anticipated – you don’t stick to your itineraries. None of you do.’
He bowed. ‘Is true. I am–’
‘I know who you are.’ She looked at him carefully, a half-smile playing on her lips. ‘Tell me if I pronounce it right – zadyin arga, Targutai Yesugei.’
‘Excellent. You speak Khorchin. If we may?’
‘Afraid not. I know those two words, nothing else. They tell me it’s damned hard to learn.’
Yesugei gave a rueful smile. ‘And other way round. Will take time.’
‘The lexicographers will have the syntax decoded in a month. Then at least we’ll be able to use transcoder beads. Until then, it’s fumbling and stumbling.’
‘Fumbling and stumbling,’ Yesugei repeated, liking the sound of the words. ‘Yes, all of us.’
‘The rest, maybe. You, not so much.’ She ran her finger absent-mindedly up the length of the staff, right under the iron symbol of Malcador’s office. ‘You have an interesting mind, Targutai Yesugei. I sensed it when your delegation arrived, and now I’m standing close to you, I feel it more strongly. You know what I mean, I think.’
He smiled. Like all his kin, when he smiled his whole face creased. ‘Weather-magic,’ he said. ‘They told us it causes trouble.’
‘Weather-magic? How quaint. I’ve seen reports of what you can do with it. I think you’d better come up with a better name.’
‘Suits us.’
‘But it’s dangerous, this business.’ She looked at him more seriously. ‘That’s why we brought you here. Well, it’s one of many reasons, but an important one. You don’t hide it. You don’t seem to feel the need. I could admire that, but you’ll need to learn to.’
Yesugei looked at her quizzically.
‘Your master is the fifteenth primarch to be locate
d,’ Niasta said. ‘His brothers were all brought here, just as he has been, and inducted into the ways of the Crusade. I saw them all come, one by one, ushered into the Palace and cloistered with the Emperor. Then I saw them go again, out into the void, where they now forge the Imperium at the head of the mightiest armies ever created. Each one of them would be a monarch on his own if allowed to be, an emperor greater than any that’s gone before, and yet they fight not for themselves, but for a greater vision. His vision.’
Yesugei nodded. ‘Is understood.’
‘Then you understand the danger. It is Unity. It is conformity. It has inherent vice. They must learn, all of them, and they must trust. So many of them find that difficult. How could they not? Even I struggle with it, and I’m not tempted by your outrageous martial prowess.’
‘This, also, is understood.’
Niasta laughed. ‘So you know what’s coming. The Khan has spoken with his Father often since we brought you to Terra, and we know it’s not gone well. This is not uncommon, but we need it to go better.’
Yesugei sighed, and looked out of the window again. ‘Tell him, then. I am not master – he is.’
‘This is our message – there are no gods, there is no magic, there is only reason. This is our only weapon, the one sanctioned by Him, beloved of all, who set this thing in motion.’
‘Is nonsense.’
Niasta smiled tolerantly. ‘Which is, I gather, exactly what the Khan told the Emperor. And that’s what’s giving my master considerable trouble, and when our respective masters are at loggerheads, it falls to us to smooth things over.’
‘Logger heads?’
‘You know precisely what I mean.’
Yesugei smiled sadly, knowingly. ‘You wish us to lie.’
‘We wish you to be sensible.’
‘He will never lie.’ Yesugei lost his smile. ‘He has fault. All men have fault. But not this. He make an oath, the oath is kept. You understand?’
‘This is not about truth,’ Niasta said, just a trace of exasperation creeping into her polished voice. ‘It doesn’t need to be.’
Yesugei pursed his cracked lips. The ritual tattoos flexed as his skin moved, forming new and esoteric shapes across sun-toughened flesh. ‘We are warriors. We have weapon, we use it. Does not master us, we master it. That is balance.’
‘He needs to meet the Sigillite,’ Niasta said. ‘He needs to meet Malcador.’
Yesugei shrugged. ‘May not be possible.’
‘Make it possible.’
He turned to face her, looking at her carefully for the first time. ‘Your eyes,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
Niasta looked away. ‘Soul-binding,’ she said. ‘Most lose them.’
‘Soul-binding,’ Yesugei mused, softly. ‘So there are souls, then.’
‘Do not be obtuse.’
‘Be honest, with me. You have sight, both kinds. What is inner sense used for?’
‘I am not used. I serve.’
‘Now, yes. The future – who knows?’ He drew closer, and his golden eyes reflected the light from the window. ‘What you sense in me, Niasta, I sense in you. But be careful. We do not lie, even to ourselves. Perhaps you do.’
‘Get him to meet Malcador. That’s all I need.’
Yesugei hesitated, as if he wanted to say more. Then he thought better of it and turned away, back to the window.
‘I do what I can,’ he said.
Click here to buy Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris.
A Black Library Publication
First published in Great Britain in 2018.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.
Internal illustrations by Tomas Duchek.
Slaves to Darkness © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Slaves to Darkness, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78030-970-5
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com
Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com
eBook license
This license is made between:
Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and
(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)
(jointly, “the parties”)
These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:
* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:
o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;
o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and
* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.
* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:
o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.
* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.
* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.
* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.
* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.
* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.
* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.