The Chapters Due

by Graham McNeill

  Calgar dropped to one knee before Maskia Volliant, bringing himself level with the man’s face, and said, “Tell us how you came to be here, Master Volliant. When we reached Talassar we detected no life signs. How is it that all of Talassar has been devastated and yet you live?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, my lord,” said Maskia. “We’re just a small settlement in the high plateau around the Capena Spire. About a thousand souls, all told. We saw the lights in the sky a few weeks back, and when we lost contact with Colonia Serdica—that’s the refinery city we send all our ores to—we tried to contact Perusia.”

  “Perusia,” said Agemman. “That’s where Sicarius is from.”

  “I know,” replied Calgar. “Go on, Maskia. What happened next?”

  “We kept hearing things over the vox, dreadful things. We heard alerts had been called all over Talassar that we were under attack. We couldn’t believe it at first. I mean, who in their right mind would attack a world of Ultramar? We’d heard the rumours about Tarentus, but nobody really believed them. There was all this talk of monsters and daemons, but we couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone. No one seemed to know what was happening, and after a while all the relay stations went quiet and we couldn’t raise nobody on the vox. Perusia was the last to go dark, and we figured that they was too busy fighting to answer our calls, but when day after day went by we knew they weren’t busy, they were dead.”

  “That doesn’t answer why you’re here,” said Agemman with a scowl. “This is a holy site of the Ultramarines. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Begging your pardon, my lord,” said Maskia. “We didn’t have nowhere else to go. About a week after Perusia went dark, we saw the same lights in the sky and our surveyors plotted out where they were. All the other settlements along the Capena gorge were going dark one by one, so we knew it was only a matter of time until we were next.”

  “So you came here,” said Marneus Calgar.

  “Yes, my lord,” said Maskia. “Some folk didn’t want to go, and there wasn’t anything I could say to make them. Their families had claims there going back thousands of years and they weren’t about to give them up, not for daemons or nothing.”

  “Then they will be dead by now,” said Agemman.

  Agemman’s hostility towards the civilians irritated Tigurius, and he made his way outside. The night air was crisp and the wind blowing down from the south had a fearsome bite to it. Some of the Caesar’s survivors had taken refuge within the keep, but many others had joined the warriors of the 1st Company on the walls of Castra Tanagra, armed only with lasrifles and courage.

  He climbed the worn marble steps to the ramparts and made his way along the fighting men of the 1st Company. Looking out over the darkness of the mountains, he was reminded of the high peaks of Iax, the world he once called home. Known as the Garden of Ultramar, it was a bountiful world that was said to have been a favourite of Roboute Guilliman.

  Tigurius nodded to a Terminator sergeant, but said nothing as the man turned back to watching the approaches to the fortress. Tigurius knew he was not well-liked, for his powers forever set him apart from his battle-brothers. He had long ago made peace with his isolation from the shared brotherhood of the Chapter, finding his own place within its ranks and allowing his duty to define him.

  He paused beside a curved embrasure, resting his hands upon the cool marble of the merlon, feeling the ancient power within the stonework. Until now he had always attributed that to the craft of its builders and the legacy of the primarch, but now he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t been able to tell that there were survivors within the keep until he had set foot within the fortress’ walls. Even then his powers of discernment had been dulled, as though an enemy psyker was disrupting his abilities.

  Tigurius placed his other hand on the stonework and let his consciousness flow out into the stones of the fortress, sinking down through the heavy weight of its body and into its ancient foundations.

  He heard footsteps behind him, and returned to his mortal senses.

  Marneus Calgar stood beside him, his iron gaze cast out over the magnificent vista of the high, snow-shawled mountains.

  “I should come here more often,” said Calgar.

  “When we drive off the daemons I will come with you,” said Tigurius.

  “Tell me, Varro,” said Calgar, suddenly serious. “What do you see?”

  “I see that we are trapped in a valley with no way out, awaiting an army of daemons to descend upon us. And there is little hope of relief.”

  “I wish I hadn’t asked,” said Calgar.

  “Yet as grim as things are, there is a remarkable lack of fear amongst the new garrison of the shrine fortress. These are the finest warriors of Ultramar, my lord, and there is power here, wrought into the very bones of the fortress. It is no accident that we have come to this place.”

  Calgar said nothing, his gaze drawn to a wavering tear of lightning that had appeared at the end of the valley. It drew wider with every passing second, and they smelled the rank stench of the daemonic on the wind.

  “I hope you are right,” said Calgar.

  WHEN URIEL OPENED his eyes, he felt as though the world had lurched out of focus. His right eye burned with fire, a hazy rippling static filling his head with a noise like a thousand angry wasps. He sat up, suddenly aware he was lying on a metallic slab like a mortician’s table. Bright light speared into his eyes and he swung his legs out.

  “Easy there!” said a gruff, comradely voice.

  Uriel shook his head, and immediately regretted it. Hammer blows of pain and bright lights exploded within his skull and he reached out to steady himself. A strong hand grabbed him, keeping him upright. He held on to it, feeling as though his balance were shifting in and out of kilter.

  “Be still,” advised another voice, one with a soft mechanised burr to its syllables. “It will take a moment for the ocular implant’s nerve fibres to mesh with your own organic tissue. Be not afraid, the discomfort and nausea will pass.”

  “What is happening to me?” demanded Uriel, fighting down a wave of sickness. Shapes moved around him, but he couldn’t make any of them out. They were familiar, but what they were took a moment to return to him, as though the vast amounts of information required to process his visual input were somehow blocked. He leaned against the slab, taking shallow breaths to calm himself.

  “You took a bolt pistol round to the head,” said the voice. “Fortunately the angle at which your helmet was positioned as the round struck deflected much of the kinetic energy.”

  Uriel reached up to his right temple, feeling cold metal where he expected flesh. He recoiled from the touch as his balance returned. He remembered fractured images of facing the creature that wore his face, its words of hate and the booming thunder of a gunshot.

  After that, all was confusion. His vision flooded with red, then grey, then black. He remembered shouting voices, desperate cries and blaring warning bells. Selenus’ voice cut through it all, the crisp declarative commands of the Apothecary bringing order to the chaos. Soothing warmth seeped into his limbs and he remembered the soporific effects of a strong pain balm spreading through his system.

  Then this. Grainy static-laced vision and a numbing loss of awareness. He gasped as the floor suddenly snapped into focus and he saw the cracked tiling clearly, every split in the ceramic and every imperfection in the mortar bedding as clear as though he studied it through a microscope.

  He reached up again, this time more carefully, and explored the side of his head with his fingertips. His close-cropped hair had been shaved on the right side and he could feel a number of raw scar sutures running from the edge of his eye socket to his ear.

  Uriel looked up to see Pasanius, Magos Locard and Apothecary Selenus standing before him. He was in a long medicae bay of some kind, one dedicated to augmetics by the look of the patient stations, workbenches, tools and half-built limbs lying scattered around.

  “How much do you remember
?” asked Pasanius, his friend’s face in sharp focus, as though he had been looking at him through misty glass until now.

  “I remember the fight to retake the gun battery,” said Uriel. Suddenly animated, he said, “Vaanes! I fought Ardaric Vaanes! Is he…?”

  “In a holding cell that even a Callidus couldn’t escape,” Pasanius assured him. “Shaan and Suzaku are interrogating him now.”

  “He will not talk to them,” said Uriel.

  “He isn’t,” said Pasanius. “He says he’ll only talk to you.”

  Uriel nodded. He should have expected no less from the renegade, yet he wasn’t sure how he felt about confronting a warrior he had once called a battle-brother and who had gone on to abandon him to his fate. Yet Vaanes was here, and his last words haunted Uriel.

  “I will deal with him later,” he said, putting the matter aside for now. “We have more pressing concerns just now.”

  Pasanius appeared to accept this, and Uriel shuddered as a snapshot of the battle in the gun battery flashed into his mind.

  “I saw that thing, the warrior with my face,” he said. “It was him who shot me.”

  “Just as well he’s as lousy a shot as you are,” said Pasanius, and Selenus grunted in displeasure at the easy familiarity.

  “This doesn’t feel like he was a bad shot.”

  “You’re alive aren’t you?” pointed out Pasanius. “You were too close for the bolt to arm fully, but you’ll have a nasty scar, mind.”

  “The scarring will fade,” said Locard, irritated that his work was being impugned. “Apothecary Selenus and I tried to save your eye, but the damage was too extensive. I have replaced it with a superior implant, one of my own designs in fact.”

  “Show me,” said Uriel.

  Locard held out a mirror, and Uriel stared at the pale, aquiline countenance looking back at him. The features were thinner than he remembered, the one eye remaining to him hooded and filled with a heavy burden. Locard’s work was good, the augmetic moulded within his eye socket to match the shape and positioning of his left eye. Where one eye was stormcloud grey, the other shone with a cold, metallic blue.

  “This is fine work,” said Uriel, though the idea of losing an eye pained him.

  “It is,” agreed Locard, “and far more efficient than its predecessor. You now have access to a wide variety of visual spectra, heightened spatial awareness, a more efficient bolter-link targeting mechanism, and best of all, visual image capture and storage capability.”

  “My thanks,” said Uriel, trying not to sound ungrateful. As he became more aware of his surroundings, he realised he was within the lower decks of Lex Tredecim. The vehicle was moving, and his enhanced balance told him they were moving down at an angle of four degrees. No sooner had he formed the thought, than a stream of information scrolled into view on his right eye.

  Three thousand five hundred and seven metres beneath mean surface level.

  Local Positioning: Four Valleys Gorge. Accuracy level 94%.

  Ambient External Temperature: 23 degrees Celcius.

  Ambient External Light Level: 85 Lux.

  Contour Gradient—

  Uriel shut off the stream of information with a thought, without even knowing he could. He knew the Four Valleys Gorge well enough. One of the largest underground vaults in this region of Calth, it was an artificially created compartment that linked to the Cavernas Draconi, a natural cavern system believed to be the oldest on Calth. Local legends told that the Cavernas Draconi caves were the first hewn by the mythical serpent said to have honeycombed the bedrock of Calth in ancient days.

  “Four Valleys Gorge,” he said. “We are pulling back. The gate fell?”

  “It did,” said Pasanius wearily. “They used some machine infection to turn its systems against us.”

  “A somewhat simplistic explanation,” added Locard, “but it will suffice for now.”

  Uriel took Locard’s word for it and turned to Pasanius and Selenus. “What is the status of our forces? Are we in any shape to fight?”

  “We are, right enough,” said Pasanius. “We hold the high ground in the valleys, as well as all the strong-points. Those bastards will be walking into a killing ground when they get through the avalanche the Lex’s big gun brought down. The Defence Auxilia are prepped, we’ve got our warriors and those of Captain Shaan deployed where they’re likely to hit us hardest, and Inquisitor Suzaku says she has a specialised pair of savants who’ll be able to warn us of any warp trickery.”

  Pasanius paused and glanced towards Magos Locard. “And the magos has his battle servitors and skitarii poised to take the brunt of the hard knocks.”

  Uriel frowned and said, “The enemy turned our machines against us at the gate. Can they do that again? Your servitors and Praetorians are not going to attack our warriors are they?”

  Locard rubbed his hands together, as though relishing the opportunity to expound on his ingenuity. He shook his head and a pict screen illuminated with a squalling blurt of interference that roiled like a caged raptor. Locard studied it for a moment before shutting off the volume and turning to Uriel.

  “There is a priest of the Dark Mechanicus amongst the enemy, a skilled one to be sure, but I have his measure now,” said Locard. “I have some of his tainted code to study, and if he comes at us again with his debased infections, he’ll have a nasty surprise.”

  “Can you guarantee that?” said Uriel. “I will not place your forces in the battle line if you cannot say for sure that they will fight for us and not the enemy.”

  “The machines are safe,” said Locard. “I give you my word as a priest of Mars.”

  Pasanius held out Uriel’s weapons, and he gratefully took them, buckling on his sword belt and holstering his pistol. Armed once more, he felt like a true warrior of the Emperor, and he ran a hand across his close-cropped scalp.

  “We will not have much time before the Iron Warriors attack,” he said, heading for the medicae bay’s doors. “I need to get out there and see the ground.”

  Pasanius and Selenus followed him, and Uriel paused as a stray thought occurred.

  “Any word from Learchus?” he asked.

  Pasanius shook his head. “No,” he said. “Nothing. We’ve heard nothing.”

  THIRTEEN

  THE DAEMONS ATTACKED as the sunlight began to set over the Lirian Mountains, bathing the Capena Gorge in a ruddy glow. Tigurius fought down the sickness in his gut and forced himself to concentrate on the surging horde. They came from the motionless bolt of lightning in a tide of daemonic flesh, a host of bestial monstrosities of all description.

  “Front rank, open fire!” came the shout from the walls, and Tigurius looked up to see the strained faces of the mortal defenders of Castra Tanagra. A haphazard mix of civilians and Chapter serfs, they stood shoulder to shoulder, united in the defence of this world, and he took heart from their courage. Their lines were bolstered by the presence of veteran Space Marines and First Captain Agemman. The Regent of Ultramar was a thunderous presence, a rock upon which the defence of the walls rested.

  A synchronous volley of gunfire reached out to the daemonic horde. Bolter shells, las-fire and hard rounds ripped through their enemies, but for each monster destroyed, there were many more to take its place.

  Tigurius moved to the centre of the great breach, where Marneus Calgar and his honour guard had positioned themselves. The Chapter Master was a magnificent sight in the Armour of Antilochus, with the Gauntlets of Ultramar wreathed in killing fire at his sides.

  “Ready to do this again?” asked Calgar, as Tigurius took his place at his side.

  “I am,” replied Tigurius, through in truth he was bone weary. The past two weeks had been gruelling for all of them, but Tigurius had felt the exhaustion more keenly than most. His powers were anathema to the daemons, but every usage took more and more out of him, more than even his prodigious physique could easily restore. Denied the meditative calm of the Librarius, each battle took longer to recover from, and th
e daemons were giving them little enough time between each attack.

  “I know that is a lie,” said Calgar. “But you are needed. Now more than ever.”

  Tigurius nodded. Hundreds had already died in defence of Castra Tanagra, and scores of wounded filled the keep, which had become a makeshift Apothecarion. Those too old or too young to fight tended to the injured soldiers, but without much in way of medical supplies, most would likely die.

  It was a depressing thought, and Tigurius returned his attention to the daemons.

  They were scaled and hideous, howling with maddening hunger and lust, their bodies lambent and filled with unnatural energy. They were wasted, wind-borne things, sustained by the energy of the daemon lord that dwelled in the corrupt star fort above them. Some were armed with black bladed swords that could cut flesh and armour with equal ease, but most needed only their claws and warp-strength to tear and rend.

  But facing them were the greatest warriors in the galaxy.

  A solid wall of Ultramarines filled the breach as surely as any barrier of stone, each warrior clad in fabulously ornate armour and bearing a glittering blade of antiquity.

  No two of these weapons were alike, for each had come from the most hallowed reliquaries of Macragge. Such weapons had been crafted by master artificers and borne by the greatest heroes of the Ultramarines. Tigurius counted two weapons from the days of Apostasy, and at least one from the age in which Roboute Guilliman walked among his warriors.

  The daemons charged through the withering hail of gunfire, leaping and bounding over the rocks to reach their victims. Most headed to the breach, but thousands more scaled the marble wall with vorpal talons piercing the rock. The power woven into the walls burned them, but still they climbed. Their unclean flesh sizzled and melted, but the pain only seemed to drive them to greater heights of fury.

  “Warriors of Ultramar!” cried Marneus Calgar, his head bared to the elements. “Courage and honour!”

  Every defender took up the defiant war shout, and the honour guard braced themselves for the charge of the daemons, lowering their weapons to face their enemies. A pack of ravening hounds bounded over the rubble stacked in the breach and a blazing torrent of bolter shots plucked three from the air as Marneus Calgar opened fire. His gauntlets swept left and right, weaving a pattern of destruction that left little unscathed.