by William King
Haegr complained about how hungry he was then he boasted about how many of the Brotherhood he had slain in hand to hand combat. Linus Serpico looked progressively more worried as the huge Marine rambled on. He was obviously having second thoughts about travelling in their company. To distract the little man, Ragnar asked, “How long do you think it will take us to get to the conduit?”
“Two sleeps at most,” said Linus. “If we walk fast and avoid the lurkers in the dark.”
“The lurkers in the dark?”
“There are many different sorts. Huge spiders. Giant rats. Cannibal men who are outside the Emperor’s law.”
“Who would have thought it on Holy Terra?” said Haegr sardonically.
“We are deep beneath Holy Terra now, and far from those who enforce the Emperor’s law.”
“We enforce it,” said Ragnar. “And we shall protect you?”
“But how will I get back?” asked Linus.
“I thought you were coming to the surface with us, to seek employment with House Belisarius.”
Linus looked unsure once more. He seemed to be having profound misgivings. How could my destiny find itself entwined with a mouse like this, Ragnar thought, but dismissed the question. Linus Serpico was not a son of Fenris, he had not been bred for battle and war. It looked as if even a short march from this shabby holding was a major adventure.
Suddenly Ragnar realised that for Linus it would be. In his scheme of things, this was a mighty journey. It had been once for Ragnar too. There was a time, not that long ago, when he had never left the island of the Thunderfists. Then the very concept of an interstellar journey would have been incomprehensible. He smiled to himself, and oddly that seemed to reassure the little man.
“Of course, I will come with you,” he said. “Of course, you will protect me.”
He sounded as if he needed reassurance, so Ragnar nodded. Perhaps he was right to be worried, despite the relatively short distance. Doubtless this vast underground world was packed with dangers. Perhaps Ragnar was wrong to be overconfident. After all, the Brotherhood of Light was looking for them. And there may be others. He shrugged. All he could do was be prepared for the worst and, as a Space Marine, he always was.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Brother Malburius returned with food. There was a thoughtful expression on his lean bearded face. Ragnar could tell from his scent that he was uneasy. He could sense Haegr responding to that as well. In the brief time the priest had been away, he had already started to recover. Malburius inspected Haegr. “Astonishing,” he muttered, “you are up and about already.”
“You should expect no less from a great hero of Fenris,” said Haegr. “Do you have anything to eat?”
“What is going on, Brother Malburius?” Ragnar asked. “You seem a little nervous.”
“Some of the men have disappeared. It may be nothing. They may have just gone spider hunting.”
“But they may not…”
“The ones who are missing — Burke, Smits, Tobin and the others are all the ones who listened most closely to Brotherhood doctrines.”
“You think they may have gone to contact the zealots?”
“Let us say I don’t rule out the possibility.”
“Will you be safe if you stay here?”
“It will not do the Brotherhood’s reputation for piety much good if they start killing priests, will it?” His voice was steady but Ragnar could tell that he was not quite as certain as he appeared. Nevertheless, he was determined to stay with his charges. Malburius was certainly a brave man. “You had best get going! It is a long way to the surface.”
“Are you sure you will not come with us?”
“My work is here. My folk are here. I must continue to deliver the Emperor’s word to them.”
“Then may the Emperor watch over you,” said Ragnar.
“And you too, Space Wolf.”
“What about food?” demanded Haegr. “A man could starve around here.”
“I am not sure you should be eating,” said Malburius with humour.
“So the torture is to continue,” said Haegr.
“But the priest produced loaves and a bunch of mysterious meat that smelled like giant rat. Haegr did not care. He dug in with gusto. You should save some for your journey,” said Malburius. “This was all I could collect from the holding.”
Ragnar nodded and began to check his weapons. It never hurt to know they were in perfect working order before entering potentially hostile territory. Haegr continued to eat while Linus Serpico watched appalled. At least, Haegr was less troubled by his wounds.
“What do you think has happened to Torin?” Ragnar asked.
“He probably found a mirror somewhere and is busy admiring himself,” said Haegr. “The man’s vanity is overwhelming.”
Ragnar could tell from his scent that Haegr was more worried about his friend than he let on. “Unlike your own,” he said.
“My pride in my manly prowess is entirely justified,” said Haegr as he let out a thunderous belch. He paused for a moment for a reply, but when none came he carried on eating.
“We’d best get going,” said Ragnar.
The narrow corridors of the holding were empty and very quiet. Ragnar could hear furtive movements all around him. He knew people were trying to watch them unobserved. There was nothing menacing about the noises or the scents. The people were merely nervous around strangers, and Ragnar could understand why. They were poor, ill fed and unarmed. And two massive Space Wolves must be very intimidating. He and Haegr would be like legendary daemons of the Horns Heresy to them. It was an odd thought that rankled deep within him.
“Look at the rats hiding in their holes,” jeered Haegr with his customary sensitivity. “Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you!”
Your manner will certainly do nothing to improve their impression of us, thought Ragnar. Haegr sensed his disapproval and quietened down. He contented himself with rambling about what he would do if they encountered any of the Brotherhood of Light. He showed considerable imagination in his descriptions of mutilation. Linus Serpico began to look queasy. And the sicker he looked, the louder Haegr boomed. The huge Wolf was enjoying the little man’s discomfort.
Despite his bombast, Ragnar remained concerned. It was still only a few hours since his surgery, and the big man was not at his fighting peak. He moved slowly although his long strides still matched Linus Serpico’s, Ragnar turned to their surroundings. They were down deep, and the air smelled dank and musty. Somewhere far off ancient systems must still be working to keep it in motion, but everything had a stale smell.
All around were ancient buried buildings, and fragments of defaced murals that spoke of a time when these streets might have been exposed to wind and sun. fudging by their depth that would have been when Terra had seas of open water and not toxic sludge. Some depicted a sort of sailing vessel that would not have been out of place on the waters of Fenris. It was hard to imagine that there was once such a time. It was all so incredibly ancient. Ragnar wondered how many feet had trodden these stones before him, wearing those smooth indentations into the very surface. Too many to count. The weight of history pressed down on him as much as the weight of the ground above his head. He felt trapped and claustrophobic, not for the first time in his life.
He noticed his unease had communicated itself to Haegr for he had raised his head and was glancing around. As they left the inhabited warren behind, Ragnar became aware that the place had begun to stir once more. The people seemed shy and timorous, so that even Linus Serpico looked bold. Ragnar wondered if they were hiding something, a stigma of mutation. But he caught none of the giveaway scent traces and he was sure Malburius would never have stood for it, despite his tolerance of the Navigators.
He pushed all thoughts of the people they were leaving from his head. It was better to concentrate on their surroundings, and their destination.
The corridors were becoming narrower and more oppressive. In some places they were mer
ely tunnels, excavated and propped up with bits of broken girder and salvaged plasteel. These were traces of old roof-falls. It was testimony to the skill of the ancient builders that there were so few. Common sense indicated that no architect of Terra would have built anything that could not support the new structure. The real question was why they had done so. Why had all these layers accreted over the centuries? What had compelled them to build atop what must have been perfectly good houses and palaces and warehouses? He cursed. Curiosity was an affliction of his, just as hunger was Haegr’s. He asked Linus Serpico.
The little man glanced at him, like a sparrow looking at a hawk. “I know not,” he said. “Most likely it was either population or economic pressure. Tales tell of how the structures beneath were still occupied even as new ones were built.”
“Economic pressure?” Ragnar asked. He understood population pressure. He had seen the worlds of the Imperium where billions were crammed into massive hive cities, but the concept of economic pressure was more difficult for him to grasp.
“Land is very valuable here,” said Linus, not without pride. “The most expensive in the galaxy. Every square metre is titled and deeded to someone — a Navigator House, a great noble of the Adeptus, a religious order. Selling is rare. Rents are high. When you can’t build outwards, you build upwards. New layers are constantly being added.”
Ragnar’s grasp of economics was good enough to tell him one thing. “Surely that would reduce the value of all the land beneath.”
“You would think! But no — it means they simply charge more for the new space above. Eventually, after millennia of this you end up with places like we have. The rent rolls must be fascinating. Some of them date back more than ten millennia.”
Ragnar had assumed that the area of warrens was abandoned and the people there were squatters who lived free. Linus soon corrected him.
“No, we pay rent. Not much by modern standards, but we pay according to the agreed schedule. The toll collectors still come and enter our payments in the book of records. Interesting work for a scribe — you get to see a bit of the world.”
“Not the most appealing bit,” said Haegr. “Judging by this place.”
“I suppose not,” said Linus. “But then you have lived on the surface.”
He made it sound as if he were talking about some distant and luxurious planet, not that which lay directly above his head. Another heavy impression imprinted itself on Ragnar’s mind — there were countless generations that lived and died here without seeing the sun or the sky. He began to get a sense of how blessed he had been to be born on Fenris, despite its dangers.
“You will see the surface soon,” said Ragnar.
“Indeed,” said Linus. He sounded both hopeful and astonished at his own temerity.
They moved on through the gloom, the shoulder lights of the Wolves flickering on automatically as they entered pockets of darkness. Ragnar did not bother to suppress them by over-riding the automatic controls. He wanted some light to see by, and he was sure that his own eyes gained more advantage from the lights than a normal man’s. Besides, in these twisting winding corridors, he would catch wind of anyone approaching in time to dowse the lamps if the need arose.
In some places the ceilings grew so low that Ragnar had to crouch and Haegr had to bend almost double to work their way through. Linus had no such problems. Ragnar wondered if his small size was some sort of adaptation to his surroundings rather than a product of a poor diet.
He smiled. There was a time when he would not have considered such things, but the strange knowledge the teaching engines of Fenris had placed in his brain chose the oddest moments to surface.
There were faint animal smells around them now, and he began to notice small holes in the walls; places where long feral things that looked more like weasels than rats emerged, with a baleful glitter in their eyes. They glanced at the three companions as if to see whether they were edible. Linus flinched, but the creatures recognised the threat the Wolves represented and did not attack. They probably sensed Haegr’s hunger. The big man was more likely to eat them than they were to get a bite out of him. Ceramite probably did not smell particularly appetising to them either. A tasty bite of Linus Serpico would be different, though.
Ordinary men like Linus lived in a different world, where even these rodents might prove a threat. In his own diffident way the scribe was showing more courage by making this journey than either of the two Wolves. Linus was risking his life. It was not just the rats — it was the diseases they might carry, the poisons in the tainted water, things to which he was not immune. By making him come with them, they were putting their needs before his life. Ragnar wondered if Linus realised that, and how great his courage really was.
Everything is relative, thought Ragnar. He realised he was coming dangerously close to heresy. The Imperium was built on absolutes: the absolute truth of the Emperor’s revealed word, the absolute supremacy of man in the universe, the absolute evil of Chaos and mutation that must be opposed by the defenders of order. These formed the bedrock of Imperial faith.
He did not need to start thinking in terms of relativity — that way leads to weakness and worse. The truth of it was that every man, woman and child had a place in the great scheme of things. It was up to Ragnar to stand between mankind and its enemies. It was Linus’s place to write down farts and figures. They had simply been given gifts of strength and courage proportionate to their responsibilities. There was no need to look further than that.
The great edifice of the Imperium had lasted ten thousand years, and would last ten thousand more as long as men adhered to their sound beliefs. Anything worth settling had been done by the Emperor and the primarchs at the dawn of their history. That was the end to it. There was no need to start attributing more courage to Linus than he had, or to belittling himself and Haegr because of it. He and Haegr were worth more to the Imperium than Linus and a hundred like him.
And yet… part of him did think that way. It was a flaw in him that he must wrestle with ideas. Not all heresies were obvious; the most dangerous were the subtlest. Pride was the greatest of all sins, the one that had led the Warmaster astray. Pride in intellect was the worst of all, and Ragnar suffered from precisely that. He needed to talk it over with a Wolf Priest when he saw one. And he realised there would be penances.
Haegr possessed a simple acceptance of what went on around him, and a simple faith in the Tightness of the old ways. But Ragnar was being hypocritical. He was not like Haegr, and would not be happy to be like him. Pride again, he thought. There is no escaping it.
His feelings were partly a reaction to being on holy Terra itself. He had been expecting something special, a glow of sanctity, the touch of the divine, such as he had experienced in the shrine of Russ on Garm. Instead he had found politics and corruption and crumbling corridors. A deep sense of disappointment had settled in.
“I think we should head left now,” said Linus. They had come to a fork. One path led up and to the left, the other down and to the right. From both emitted fusty air, dank and redolent of rust and the smell of ancient machines blew.
“You think,” said Haegr. “That’s reassuring.”
“It’s been a long time since I came this way, and I was headed in the other direction.”
“You are an excellent guide,” said Haegr. He sounded peevish. Ragnar put it down to the pain.
“I am sure you are correct,” said Ragnar, striding confidently up the crumbling stairwell, much to Haegr’s astonishment.
It became obvious that there were people all around them. These crumbling corridors were as full of them as rotting cheese was riddled with maggots. They were squeezed into nooks and crannies, shyly trying to avoid the sight of the Marines, but unaware of how great their failure was. There were women and children and old men. They sat beside traps that they inspected for rats and large insects to eat. They pumped dirty water from standpipes. They moved silent as shadows and ghostly as wraiths. They were
the dispossessed poor of this ancient planet.
Now and then, Ragnar smelled alcohol in a raw state. It was always accompanied by the sounds of muted laughter and quiet discourse. There were taverns down here of the most basic sort, where brewers fermented drinks from sugary waste and mixed it with tainted water. Everything echoed with the brighter world of the surface. These people might as well have been ghosts of ancient days, he thought, for all the life that was in them. The trip had taken on a strange quality. It was like a journey through some mythical afterlife, or a primitive civilisation on which the shades of the departed fed on dust and performed odd parodies of the tasks they had done in life.
They moved on through the spectral gloom and Ragnar was filled with a growing sense of unease. He wished he had more brothers with him. Where was Torin, he wondered? The shadows gave no reply.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The corridors grew wider, more like avenues. Ancient statues, dull and dusty and crumbled with age lined what had once been a street. Ragnar’s unease grew and he could smell that, despite his cheery demeanour, Haegr was growing tense too. The huge Wolf had started to favour his right side again. Not even the fabled healing powers of a Space Marine could make him entirely immune to the effects of his injuries. Ragnar raised his head and sniffed the air. Something was making him wary.
He padded forward cautiously and studied a statue. It was robed like a member of the Administratum, and doubtless represented some forgotten hero of an ancient struggle. It held a book in one hand and a bolter in its outstretched right arm. Who were you, Ragnar wondered? Did the citizens erect a statue in your honour, or did you erect it as a monument to your vanity? The whole place seemed like a storehouse of monuments to forgotten struggles and peoples.
“What is it?” asked Linus Serpico, in the tone of a man who has just been told he has a fatal disease by a chirurgeon.
“I don’t know,” said Ragnar, “Something’s not right.”
