Angel Exterminatus

by Graham McNeill

  But Kroeger felt no guilt for what they had done on Olympia. What did it matter that it had been the world that the Lord of Iron had called home? His world or another, it was irrelevant. Any other planet would have burned and been razed to the ground and no one would have cared.

  Only the name gave it significance, and names were just noise.

  Like grief, guilt was rust that ate the iron in a warrior’s soul, and Perturabo had spoken to the entire Legion in the ashen rains of their homeworld, telling them that guilt had no place in his Legion.

  Guilt was for lesser men who looked to the past for validation.

  The Iron Warriors would never allow the crippling taint of guilt into their ranks, for only the future would give them validation.

  Kroeger’s thoughts were interrupted as he saw a familiar face in the front rank of his Grand Battalion. He knew he should walk on, that there was no point in drawing attention to a wound in the pride of the warriors he now commanded. But the spiteful part of him couldn’t resist the chance to rub a little salt in one particular wound.

  He paused before Harkor, pleased to see his former warsmith’s stature now much reduced.

  ‘Harkor,’ he said, only just stopping himself from calling him Warsmith.

  ‘Kroeger,’ said Harkor.

  ‘That’s Warsmith Kroeger,’ he said.

  Harkor nodded, and swallowed the bile that must surely be rising in his throat.

  ‘You have found a place in the Grand Battalion?’

  ‘Yes, warsmith,’ replied Harkor. ‘Battle-brother, 55th Storm squad.’

  Kroeger knew it, mediocre earth grubbers and breach fodder.

  ‘You will fit right in there,’ said Kroeger. ‘Sergeant Ghasta is competent.’

  ‘Competent was never enough for me… warsmith,’ said Harkor, and the bitterness in his voice was so rich that Kroeger had to force himself not to laugh in the man’s face.

  ‘No, and look where that attitude got you.’

  ‘Permission to speak freely, warsmith,’ asked Harkor.

  Kroeger hesitated, but nodded eventually. ‘Speak, but do not waste my time.’

  ‘It is a heavy burden being a warsmith, I know this all too well. There are a thousand responsibilities that rest on your shoulders alone. And broad as they are, Warsmith Kroeger, you do not have the experience to carry them all yet. I could help you.’

  This time he did laugh in Harkor’s face.

  ‘You would help me? I replaced you after the primarch stripped you of your rank. I can almost feel your blade between my shoulders now.’

  Harkor shook his head and said, ‘No, warsmith.’

  ‘Why would I ever trust you, Harkor?’

  ‘Because what else have I to lose? The Lord of Iron will never grant me rank as a warsmith again, so what advantage would I gain in betraying you?’

  ‘Personal satisfaction?’

  ‘I won’t deny the truth of that,’ said Harkor, ‘but I can help you make this Grand Battalion something legendary. You have the primarch’s ear, you have fire and force. Ally that to my experience and you would be Perturabo’s most trusted triarch by the time Horus sits upon the throne of Terra.’

  ‘You only aid me to gain standing and prestige,’ sneered Kroeger.

  Harkor shrugged. ‘There is no shame in that.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ agreed Kroeger. ‘But I would take a snake to my bed were I to trust you.’

  ‘I did not say you should trust me,’ said Harkor. ‘Just that you should listen to me.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Kroeger.

  Bare girders columned the bridge of the Iron Blood, and bolted gantries stacked above one another ran the length of it, each filled with augmented servitors to man the more mundane elements of the ship’s operation. A handful of Iron Warriors manned the stations requiring post-human input, though only a few were known to Perturabo.

  He stood with his arms folded across his chest, staring impassively at the billowing flares, strange tides and curling bursts of ejected warp matter displayed on the viewscreen. The combined fleets of the Iron Warriors and Emperor’s Children held station at the very edge of the star maelstrom, its firebright core seething like a star in its death throes as the rippling haze of its storm-wracked corona expanded to swallow everything around it. Umber light from the storm’s heart bathed his features, making them ruddy and hale. The warp-born illumination played over Perturabo, dancing in his cold eyes like firelight.

  For once in his life, Perturabo looked at the star maelstrom and knew that others could see it too. They did not see it quite as he saw it, but they could at least acknowledge its existence. He saw beyond its dark light to the engulfed worlds within: phantom images that ghosted in and out of perception and fleeting moments of solidity in a realm where such things were anathema.

  He saw planets where all reason and Euclidian certainty had been abandoned, where the physical laws that underpinned the galaxy were playthings of lunatic forces beyond mortal comprehension.

  Worlds of fire; worlds that were somehow crafted into geometric shapes; worlds wreathed in unending lightning storms; islands of ephemera that were vomited into existence and destroyed an instant later to sink back into the roiling chaos from which they had been birthed. Madness held sway in the nightmarish confluences of this storm, a reign of inconstancy that would break even the hardiest sanity.

  Yet amid the endless cycle of creation and destruction, one of the half-glimpsed worlds retained a sickening solidity – a bleak world of lifeless rock and crooked spires, where an impenetrable sun, like the pupil of an impossible eye, held sway in a sky of unchanging emptiness. Perturabo blinked and the dead world and its black sun sank back into the malignant hues of the star maelstrom.

  For as long as he could remember, since coming to awareness on that rain-slick cliff, he had felt the gaze of the star maelstrom upon him. It had always looked down upon him; judging him, measuring his worth and spying on his every moment. A life lived beneath its cold scrutiny had made him brooding and loath to offer his trust, ever-watchful and aware of its baleful glare.

  It had always been with him and always would be.

  And now he was to venture into its depths, following the guidance of an alien seer. What would he find in there and, more to the point, what might find him?

  Somehow he had always known he would be one day enter the star maelstrom. Its call had been gentle, but insistent. A reeling-in that had been as invisible as it had been impossible to ignore.

  Part of him resisted the idea of summons. He could give the order to turn his Legion around and take its hundreds of ships to where he could more readily contribute to Horus Lupercal’s war effort, but every time the thought surfaced in his mind it was obliterated like a timber palisade before a melta ram.

  Perturabo had lived his life under the gaze of the star maelstrom, yet this was the first time his ships had ventured near it. Why should that be so? He had been a primarch in the Emperor’s armies; hundreds of starfaring vessels were his to command and no one would have questioned him had he chosen to lead his expeditionary forces here.

  The answer was obvious.

  Until now, he had no need to venture within.

  Fulgrim may have given him superficial cause with his tall tales of imprisoned war-deities and weapons of the apocalypse, but Perturabo knew that wasn’t the real reason. He had come because now was the time to see what lay within the star maelstrom.

  Star maelstrom?

  How long had he known it by that description without ever learning its true name?

  Perturabo called up the astrogation charts for this region of space stored in the Iron Blood’s data engines. The viewscreen shimmered as it was overlaid with a neon-bright grid, curving arcs and flickering key labels for those few stellar objects in this region worthy of a name. At the heart of the screen, a vertical black label bisected the fiery orange heart of the star maelstrom like the eye of a great cat. Imposed upon the bar was a name.
<
br />   Cygnus X-1.

  Perturabo knew the star maelstrom was not the first spatial anomaly to bear that name, and whichever lowly scribe had ascribed it again was a fool. Something this powerful and terrible deserved a name to strike fear into the hearts of all who saw it, a name that would resonate down the millennia until the end of time, when the stars went out and the only light in the universe was the nightmare glow of the star maelstrom’s ever-devouring borders.

  Perturabo’s fingers danced over the slate from which the charts had been brought forth, and his thin lips curled in an approximation of a smile as the name in the vertical black bar changed. It would change throughout the fleets, spreading to any data engine that called up maps of the galactic north-west.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A name to lodge in the hearts of all who hear it.’

  The Iron Blood’s engines flared at Perturabo’s command, taking it into the star maelstrom.

  No, not the star maelstrom.

  The Eye of Terror.

  They called it the Dodekatheon, after the twelve tyrants of Olympia, and the masons’ order of the IV Legion had met aboard Iron Warriors starships before Perturabo had even been reunited with his gene-sons. There was nothing secret in its formation or gatherings, nothing hidden at its core, and no secrets worthy of keeping in its activities. It was a true meeting place of builders and warriors, where new structural designs were unveiled, past battles refought and new theorems of war given voice.

  Every warrior of the Legion was welcome, but in practice only those of rank had the opportunity to attend any of the lodge meetings. Kroeger had known of it, as had every Iron Warrior, but he had never found the time to seek out a meeting. On the approach to the anomaly in which lay the weapons of the Angel Exterminatus, Barban Falk and Forrix had arrived at his arming chamber as he was replacing the blunted teeth of his chainblade.

  ‘You have bond-serfs to do that,’ said Forrix.

  ‘I prefer to do it myself,’ said Kroeger, sitting cross-legged in a steeldust habit of hessian and mail links over his bodyglove. A hundred or more razor teeth were spread on an oiled cloth before him, like trophies taken from the jawbone of some mechanised shark. Each one was polished and fresh, oiled and ready to rend.

  ‘You have better things to do with your time,’ said Falk, as though irritated by a fellow triarch performing such a manual task.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Coming with us,’ said Forrix, reaching to lift the sword from Kroeger’s grasp.

  Kroeger snatched the weapon away before Forrix could touch it.

  ‘Don’t touch my blade,’ said Kroeger, fingers curling around its hilt. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the Dodekatheon,’ said Forrix. ‘It’s time you were known there.’

  Kroeger eased his grip on his sword and laid it on a sword rack against the wall, amid a host of blades, bludgeons and firearms.

  ‘The masons’ order?’

  Forrix nodded and they led him into the gleaming, oil-scented hallways of the Iron Blood, through corridors he travelled regularly and chambers he had never known. They crossed vaulted processionals of ranked artillery pieces, with hundreds of heavy armoured vehicles suspended on massive chains from the strengthened roof trusses. They climbed great spiral stairs that wound around thunderous columns of magma-hot power, and super-hardened magazines packed tightly with shell casings, entrenching gear and millions of rounds of volatile ammunition. More than any other Legion, the interiors of the Iron Warriors vessels were given over to supply and logistics, for their way of war depended on a steady supply of high-explosive warheads.

  Though it was easy to become lost while travelling through the guts of a starship, Kroeger knew they were heading toward the Iron Blood’s frontal sections. The high-walled chambers of hot iron and sweating pipework through which they passed became ever more cramped as more and more space was given over to the prow weapon systems: the vast tubes of the forward torpedo arrays and power relays serving the heavy gun batteries mounted to either side of the carved ram of its bow.

  ‘You’ve really never been to a gathering of the Dodekatheon?’ said Falk.

  ‘Never,’ said Kroeger.

  ‘Why not?’

  Kroeger shrugged. ‘Always seemed like there were more important things to do with my time than talking about war. I prefer to be ready for fighting.’

  ‘You are a triarch,’ said Forrix. ‘Talking about war is part of being ready for it now.’

  The curving ramp they were descending opened out into a long, lancet-vaulted triumphal way, along which numerous groups of Iron Warriors were gathered in tight knots. Some pored over sheaves of architectural plans, while others clustered around hololithic displays projecting schematics of wall details, projected bombardment patterns and fire schedules. Perhaps a hundred or so warriors had assembled, some in armour, some in their mesh and mail robes.

  ‘It looks very… informal,’ said Kroeger.

  ‘Don’t let appearances fool you,’ said Forrix. ‘This is as much of a vipers’ den as ever you might imagine. Alliances are made and broken here, pacts and oaths sworn and forgotten before the night’s end. It’s all very useful.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound useful at all.’

  Forrix grinned. ‘On the contrary, to see who favours whom and where plots are formed is knowledge that will stand you in good stead when it comes to deciding upon your order of battle. Pitch any three warsmiths into battle alongside each other and it’s always good to have some healthy rivalry between them. Judging the right level of rivalry can spur each warsmith to greater heights of endeavour, just as getting it wrong can cause your army to fight itself as much as the enemy.’

  ‘I see,’ said Kroeger, though the idea of engineering rivalry between warsmiths seemed needlessly antagonistic. ‘Do other Legions have orders like this?’

  ‘Other Legions have since established similar orders, but the Dodekatheon was in place long before Lorgar’s errand boy thought to supplant it with a lodge of his own making.’

  ‘Aye, we soon sent that worm packing,’ laughed Falk. ‘We have our order, and we don’t need any other.’

  Heads began turning as word of the Trident’s arrival spread through the assembled warriors. Though rank and title were left at the door in the Dodekatheon, some were too important to be entirely left behind. Nods of respect followed the three warriors as they made their way through the press of bodies. Kroeger saw faces he recognised, faces he had never seen before and faces that didn’t look like they belonged in the IV Legion.

  One such face belonged to the scarred Emperor’s Children swordsman who had accompanied Fulgrim into the Cavea Ferrum. The same warrior who had put him on his back. Lucius, Fulgrim had called him, and with his twin sword sheaths empty at his waist. Kroeger’s hand flashed to his own scabbard before he remembered that he too was unarmed. Lucius grinned as he read the anger in him and sketched a casual salute.

  ‘Why is that slippery bastard here?’ he asked.

  ‘A gesture of cooperation between Legions,’ said Falk, practically spitting the answer. ‘We invite one of Fulgrim’s warriors to our order, we send one of ours to theirs.’

  ‘A spy?’

  ‘An emissary,’ said Forrix. ‘An ambassador.’

  ‘Who did we send to them?’

  Forrix shrugged. ‘The Stonewrought and one of Berossus’s men. I don’t know his name.’

  Lucius moved from sight and Kroeger saw the silver-white hair of Warsmith Toramino as he conversed with a shaven-headed warrior with his back to Kroeger. The two warriors slipped into the side cloisters of the chamber, but not before the warrior turned his head and Kroeger recognised Harkor. He had warily accepted Harkor’s offer of help, all the while knowing the man would eventually betray him for position, but it still surprised Kroeger how quickly his new equerry had run to Toramino to boast of his influence with the newest triarch.

  Perhaps there was something to the notion of attending such meetings to gauge the ebb and f
low of treachery and infamy after all.

  ‘The Trident,’ said a grating voice with all the warmth of a glacier. ‘You do not often grace us together. The coming fight must be serious indeed.’

  An Iron Warrior in full armour emerged from the crowds and came towards them. He wore the burnished iron of the Legion, his gold and jet polished to a brilliant finish, but the bulk of his armour was the cold ivory of an Apothecary. One gauntlet was enlarged with the tools of the healer and custodian of the dead, the other bearing a jade sceptre in the shape of an elongated lightning bolt. One end was topped by a sapphire sphere filled with vapour, the other by a jade sphere of rippling liquid contained within an invisible energy field.

  ‘Iron within, Honourable,’ said Forrix, inclining his head in a gesture of respect.

  Falk also gave a nod of respect. ‘Honourable Soulaka,’ he said. ‘Iron within.’

  ‘Iron without,’ said the Apothecary, with a curt bow.

  Kroeger did not know this Soulaka, but instinctively disliked him. His features were roguish and handsome, dark-haired with pale blue eyes that might once have been attractive in a mortal face. His smile was that of a bad iterator, sincere and empathetic, but utterly lacking in real conviction.

  ‘So this is Warsmith Kroeger?’ said Soulaka, holding out his free hand.

  Kroeger shook the hand, wrist to wrist, feeling a strength in the man he hadn’t expected.

  ‘Greetings, Soulaka,’ said Kroeger.

  ‘My title here is “Honourable”,’ said Soulaka. ‘It is the one rank that endures amongst the equals who come here. But as you are new to the order, I take no offence.’

  Kroeger nodded stiffly at the bland rebuke.

  ‘Be at ease in our company,’ continued Soulaka, leading them deeper into the chamber. ‘There is much in which to take part.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Kroeger.

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Long chains hanging from the distant ceiling bore flaming brands that created a low ceiling of dark smoke, making the space feel claustrophobic. The hubbub of voices was pleasantly soothing, but there was an undercurrent of fierce pride that coloured every mention of casualties, breaches, escalades and lines of advance.