Watchers in Death

by David Annandale

  ‘I do.’ He grimaced. ‘We could have used the clarity of Magneric’s information on Ullanor.’

  ‘Exactly. Obfuscation, illusion, denial, ignorance, they have brought us disaster.’

  So has everything else, Koorland thought. He said, ‘Your point, when you reach it, will have to be an impressive one, Drakan.’

  ‘Did Vulkan speak to you before the end?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And?’

  Koorland took a deep breath. He let it out with a shudder, as if it could expel the burdens and memories that had built up like a toxic cloud inside his chest. ‘He ordered me to carry on.’

  ‘That was all?’

  ‘He called me Lord Commander. He said I was the Imperial Fists.’

  ‘And you would dismiss those words?’

  Koorland shook his head. ‘It isn’t that simple.’

  ‘I see nothing simple in what I am suggesting. I see that you have a great burden to carry, one that is enormously complex. It is yours, however. You shouldered it after Ardamantua. You have carried it since. Vulkan reaffirmed your duty to carry on. It is your burden, because you have the strength for it. The primarch saw you are the leader we need now. So do all your brothers. Across the Chapters.’

  Koorland narrowed his gaze in disbelief.

  ‘Your doubt has no place here, Lord Commander,’ Vangorich said. ‘Unless your information is more complete than mine. Has there been a challenge to your leadership? Has one of the surviving Space Wolves stepped forward to declare himself the alpha of the campaign?’

  ‘No,’ said Koorland. ‘And I would thank you to refer to those Space Marines with greater respect. They have sacrificed much.’

  ‘All have,’ Vangorich said softly. ‘And the mission was a disaster. Yet there has been no challenge. There is a reason for that. They see what Vulkan saw. They await your orders.’

  ‘My orders.’

  ‘I assume you aren’t going to wait for the orks to attack first.’

  Koorland felt the corners of his lips pull back. After a moment he realised something like a smile, cold and hard and hungry, had appeared on his face.

  ‘You’re very good at what you do,’ he told Vangorich.

  ‘I have to be.’

  Koorland studied the Grand Master. ‘Perhaps we should learn from you,’ he said. As he spoke, the feeling of inspiration returned. It was stronger now. Closer to being something he could articulate.

  ‘What do you think I could teach you?’

  ‘Precision,’ Koorland said. The idea had almost formed. ‘You rely on few to do work that affects many.’

  ‘Precision is the correct word,’ said Vangorich. ‘What is necessary is not overwhelming force. What is needed is the right weapon and the right target.’

  ‘Which we have lacked,’ Koorland muttered.

  ‘The weapon or the target?’

  ‘Both. We thought we had found the Beast on Ullanor. Vulkan gave his life to slay it. And now…’ He pointed at the attack moon.

  I AM SLAUGHTER, said the silence.

  Koorland felt the words without hearing them. He saw Vangorich wince, and knew the Grand Master felt them too.

  ‘The Beast survived?’ Vangorich asked.

  ‘No. It can’t have. Yet something with its voice lives on. And that palace on Ullanor…’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vangorich. He understood. The horror was not lost on him.

  ‘They are creating an empire,’ Koorland said. ‘They plan to build it on the ashes of our own.’

  Vangorich nodded. ‘The ambassadors,’ he said.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘More evidence of the construction of an empire. The greenskins are evolving the classes that will be needed for an empire to function.’ He nodded to himself again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘no matter what died on Ullanor, the force of the Beast lives on. We have to consider what this means for our strategy.’

  ‘Our attack was too blunt. We were not a surprise. The orks knew what was coming, and prepared for us.’

  ‘What do you conclude, then?’

  ‘We need to keep looking for the Beast. In whatever form the guiding power of the orks exists, let us call it that. If we destroy it…’

  ‘The ork empire will fall,’ Vangorich finished. ‘A decapitation. You need to commit yourself to that, Lord Commander.’

  ‘We are. We were. We have to change our methods, though. If we come at the orks again as we did, even if we could assemble such a force again, they will win again. They outnumber us, and they outgun us.’ The last admission was the hardest. The entire history of the Imperium’s fight against the orks had involved the superiority of humanity’s technology against the orks’ vast tide of savagery. Recognising that the orks’ technology had outstripped the Imperium’s was a perpetually reopened wound. It had been the most basic fact of the war since Ardamantua, but speaking the words aloud sounded perilously close to capitulation. Not to face that reality would lead to true defeat. ‘We have to hit them another way.’

  The inspiration that had teased the edge of his consciousness burst upon him. It had the clarity of revelation. He had known the same certainty when he had called for a unified command of the Imperial Fists Successor Chapters. Then, as now, the epiphany had come in the wake of devastating loss. Then, as now, he saw his course of action allowed for no doubt. He might question his own worthiness. He knew he would. But the path to follow shone before him.

  He did not look at what he must do as cause for hope. It might yet fail. It was, instead, the thing that must be done. It was the one move left that the orks might not be able to counter.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Vangorich said, unknowingly giving voice to Koorland’s revelation, ‘a single knife can be more effective than a broadsword.’

  ‘Yes,’ Koorland said. ‘Yes. As your Officio has shown throughout its history. I’m interested in your tactics, Drakan. We need to learn from them. That is the counsel I would welcome from you.’

  ‘The Adeptus Astartes are not assassins,’ Vangorich said. He sounded cautious. ‘There are paths we must be careful not to take, if we do not want to repeat mistakes a thousand years old.’

  ‘We aren’t assassins,’ Koorland agreed. He respected Vangorich, but more, the Grand Master was the one member of the High Council for whom he felt anything even remotely approaching trust. He respected Veritus and Wienand, but he did not trust either. They were too immersed in the political machinations of the ordos. Veritus, in particular, he did not trust to act as the needs of the immediate crisis dictated. But now, as Vangorich spoke, Koorland saw the politician emerge in him. His caution was genuine. Even so, Koorland sensed an instinctive territorial defence.

  Vangorich did not have to worry. Koorland had no interest in assassination. Decapitation was still the goal. And now he could imagine a new means to that end.

  ‘I don’t want to know about your organisation, your weapons or your specific tactics,’ Koorland said. ‘I want to hear about the broader strategy. Your philosophy of war.’

  Vangorich gave him a half-smile. ‘You think the Officio Assassinorum goes to war?’

  ‘Of course it does, even if it might use a different name.’

  Vangorich parted his hands, conceding the point. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me about the knife, and how it strikes.’

  Two

  Terra – the Imperial Palace

  Wienand sat in the lowest gallery of the Great Chamber. She had what amounted to a private stall. It had not been built as such; rather, a large fall of rubble had sectioned this small area of the benches from the other tiers. None of the minor lords who still attended council sessions had attempted to lay claim to it. Many likely did not even know about it. The heaps of tumbled marble and rockcrete shielded it from view of the other tiers. It was easily visible only fro
m below, on the floor of the Chamber. If any of the nobility or Administratum officials were aware of this corner, they ignored it, preferring not to sit alone, and so Wienand had it for herself. She was unseen by the other spectators, and she had a good view of the dais.

  Around the Chamber, the banners of the Imperium hung at half mast. So did every banner on every spire of the Imperial Palace. Green bands adorned the arms of the High Lords and of the spectators. The Council, the Palace and all of Terra mourned the loss of the last primarch.

  Wienand knew that for many, it was not a pure form of grief. It was coloured by too much fear.

  Veritus sat with the Council. Wienand was the joint Inquisitorial Representative, but she was content to be away from the dais today. The truce with Veritus was holding. They had not signed a peace accord, but they had found a way of working together. She could make her voice heard again, and, more importantly, she could watch the Council work through its contortions. Being at one remove from some of the debates was useful. It granted her perspective. She could observe the currents of the struggles, the developing fault lines, the weaknesses and pressure points.

  All information was useful, she thought. All knowledge was power. In the present crisis, there were limits to what anyone, in the Council or outside it, could accomplish. She was determined to push against those limits. She would do what was needed to safeguard the Imperium.

  Koorland, she could see, held fast to the same philosophy. The last Imperial Fist’s armour was polished, but bore the marks of the battle on Ullanor. The ceramite was cracked from bullet impacts, scarred by blades, scorched by flame. Koorland’s face bore the traces of almost as many wounds. His genhanced physiology had healed them, the new flesh roughened and thick. Koorland towered over the High Lords, but it was more than his height that made him the dominant force on the dais. It was more, too, than the fact he had fought and bled for the Imperium. He was not the only veteran on the dais. Abel Verreault, the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard, Lord High Admiral Lansung, Vernor Zeck, the Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites – all had their own scars of war. Zeck had lost much of his original flesh.

  Perhaps it was the degree of Koorland’s sacrifice. Perhaps it was the scale of his loss, immeasurably beyond the trivialities of corporeal injury. He had lost his Chapter. And now, after the almost inconceivable casualties on Ullanor, after the death of the last primarch, what he had not lost was his inflexibility of purpose and his aura of command. What he announced to the High Lords had the weight of law.

  They’re going to fight you on this one, she thought. They’re going to fight very hard indeed.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Tobris Ekharth, Master of the Administratum. ‘You’re talking about a united mission of the Adeptus Astartes? How is that different from what was already attempted on Ullanor?’

  Wienand stifled a cynical chuckle. Koorland had barely begun to lay out his vision, and Ekharth was interrupting. Perhaps he was already confused. She didn’t think so. He was already anticipating where Koorland was going, and was impotently trying to stop him from speaking those words.

  The Space Marine looked at Ekharth, his face stony with contempt.

  ‘I have proposed no such thing,’ Koorland said. ‘I am calling for the creation of a new force entirely. We cannot use a blunt weapon against the orks. We must strike with precision, swiftly, giving them no chance to mount a defence. Our force will be composed of independent kill-teams. The members of each kill-team will be determined by the needs of the mission and will be drawn from across the Chapters.’

  ‘Independent to what degree?’ Zeck asked, sceptical.

  ‘Completely autonomous with regards to the completion of the mission. Answerable to a centralised command.’

  ‘And whose command would that be?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Not the Council’s?’

  Wienand was impressed Koorland did not snort in disbelief. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Zeck.

  ‘This is monstrous,’ said Mesring. The Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum spoke with a trembling voice. The tremor was so pronounced, he barely managed a croak. His skin had a bad sheen to it. When he leaned close to the other Lords, their faces twitched as if they were holding their breath.

  Before Mesring could speak again, Juskina Tull jumped in. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘It is monstrous.’

  The authority of the Speaker for the Chartist Captains had been in ruins since the disaster of the Proletarian Crusade. Wienand wondered if she saw an equivalence in Ullanor, and a chance to regain ground at Koorland’s expense.

  ‘Monstrous,’ Koorland repeated.

  ‘You are using this crisis for the political gain of the Adeptus Astartes,’ Tull said. ‘We have not forgotten why the Legions were broken up into the smaller Chapters. And now you would bring together all the Adeptus Astartes under a single authority, answerable only to you?’

  Koorland’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are wilfully misunderstanding me,’ he said. He spoke calmly, but Wienand could hear the rumble of anger in his deep voice. ‘The force will consist exclusively of mission-specific kill-teams. These are not armies. They will not be engaging the orks in great fields of battle. That is the strategy that has failed us. We must think otherwise, and wage a new kind of war, or face annihilation.’

  ‘Of course you are not proposing unification,’ Lansung said. ‘You know the Council would never accept it. Furthermore, the casualties on Ullanor were too great to permit a mass assembly. You are being disingenuous. We can see where this path leads. Once these teams are formed, there will be nothing provisional about them. Consolidation will follow.’

  Vangorich snorted. ‘You’re taking a lot for granted,’ he said. ‘So the Blood Angels and the Ultramarines will happily consent to submit to the authority of the lone Imperial Fist?’

  Lansung waved the objection away. ‘If the plan is moving ahead, then the internal politics have been resolved.’

  ‘This is a coup!’ Ekharth shouted. ‘It will not succeed! We will not allow it!’

  ‘Monstrous.’ Mesring had not moved on from his initial judgement. The Ecclesiarch stood up from his seat, quivering, shaking his head back and forth like a wounded animal. ‘Monstrous, monstrous.’

  ‘Why?’ Vangorich asked.

  Mesring snapped his mouth shut. Still quivering, he looked at Vangorich with wide, nearly maddened eyes. He stared at the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum for several long seconds. Then he said, ‘It cannot work. It will never work. It is against the divine will. It must never be attempted. It is unholy. Unholy.’ He paused. He looked up at the dome of the Chamber. ‘Unholy,’ he said again, more quietly, more to himself than to Vangorich.

  Wienand leaned forward, watching Mesring carefully. There was something wrong with him. She couldn’t tell if the shaking was due to mental paroxysm or physical debilitation. Perhaps both. There had been fear in the look he had given Vangorich, yet his need to speak his truth had won out. Only his truth sounded odd. The other High Lords articulated their fears, and Wienand thought they were wrong. How they imagined the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves surrendering their independence was beyond her, but she could understand the logic of their anxieties. From her vantage point, just far enough away to see the entire Council at a glance, she could picture the High Lords as game pieces on a regicide board, the moves of one blocking and shaping the moves of the others, the ones with the least current power feeling they were the most vulnerable, and so making the most aggressive attacks.

  Mesring, though, was puzzling. She should have been able to place him easily. He should, in this context, have been one of the more quiet members of the Council. The Ecclesiarchy had little to say when it came to strategy. As long as the orks were defeated, its power was unlikely to be diminished. Its only true fear should be the triumph of the greensk
ins.

  So why was he frightened? she wondered. What possible threat would the kill-teams be to him?

  Why? she wondered.

  No, she corrected herself. She was asking the wrong question. It was assuming Mesring was acting out of the same self-preserving, territorial motives as the other High Lords. The assumption was wrong. Mesring’s dismay at Koorland’s plan was genuine. Wienand saw true religious horror in his reaction. He believed in what he was saying.

  How could this possibly be against the Emperor’s will? That was the question to ask.

  It had no answer.

  The other High Lords were wrong-footed by Mesring’s reaction too. They did not appear to know how to respond. Even Tull was thrown off. She had tried to build on his horror from a political perspective. She clearly did not know how to do so from the perspective of faith. Wienand wasn’t sure of the depth of Tull’s piety, but it didn’t matter. Whatever theological turn Mesring had taken, no one else present could follow him.

  Abdulias Anwar ignored the Ecclesiarch completely. The Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica spoke as calmly as Koorland. His voice was a barely audible sibilance, insinuating rather than commanding. It wrapped itself around Wienand’s will and tried to make itself one with her consciousness. She was used to being on her guard in the presence of Anwar, and she raised mental barriers, consciously pushing away the words of the telepath. She saw the slight shifting of positions on the dais as the other High Lords assumed their own forms of wary readiness.

  ‘I cannot speak to matters of faith,’ Anwar said. ‘I will speak to matters of principle. What the Lord Commander of the Imperium proposes is the destabilisation of the governance of the Imperium.’

  Relief washed over the Council. Anwar had returned sanity to the debate. The ground was familiar once again. The opposition was clear. One after another, the High Lords railed against Koorland. They were unified in their accusations. Wienand found the unity significant. They were frightened. They saw his plan as a power play, not a strategy. They attributed their own motives to him.