Knights of the Imperium

by Graham McNeill

Tomorrow would see the majority of these men sally forth on what might be their last ride. The intent of the feast was clear: the man beside you might soon be dead, so partake of his company while you can.

  Roland was holding court with Roderick and William, re-enacting the last Cull by the looks of her husband’s hand movements. Yes, that was a reaper blade cut, that a battle cannon shot, that a pounding stomp.

  Sir Malcolm was included in Roland’s circle, but clearly wished he wasn’t. Cordelia made a note to remind Roland to be more gracious in victory.

  She passed through the gathered Knights and their consorts with the practised ease of a ruling matriarch. Here and there she paused to congratulate a Knight on his improved kill tally in the Cull, or a consort for a flattering dress or well-chosen piece of jewellery.

  The Knights offered sincere compliments as their wives passed messages only another consort would understand. None of the Knights read the subtext in the consorts’ words, but that was the way of things. The men had their wars, the women had duties that were no less important.

  Satisfied all was as it should be, she made her way through the crowd to where Aeliana, Cassia and Aikaterina were seated on padded benches at the chamber’s hearth.

  Cassia looked up from her book and smiled. Aeliana scribbled notations across sheets of music of her own composition, and Aikaterina rocked her baby gently in her arms.

  ‘He’s asleep?’ asked Cordelia, taking a seat.

  Aikaterina nodded, and Cordelia saw dark smudges of tiredness under her eyes.

  ‘Thank the Emperor,’ said Cassia, without looking up from her book. ‘It’s next to impossible to write with him screaming all the time.’

  ‘He’s quite musical sometimes,’ grinned Aeliana. ‘I might use some of his tones in the crescendo.’

  ‘I don’t know why you bother with that journal,’ said Aeliana. ‘It’s not like you let anyone read it.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be a private journal if anyone else read it.’

  ‘What’s the point of writing it if no one gets to read it?’

  Cassia shrugged. ‘It helps,’ she said at last.

  ‘Helps with what?’ asked Aeliana.

  At first she thought Cassia wasn’t going to answer, but the younger girl finally closed her book and snapped a locking hasp in place.

  Cassia looked Aeliana straight in the eye and said, ‘I write in it because when Malcolm is killed in battle, I want to be able to remember every moment we shared before he died.’

  Cordelia was saddened to hear when as opposed to if, but supposed that was the fear of every woman who sent her husband or son off to war in these dark times.

  ‘You study maps and plans of the Knights’ missions to know what Roderick is riding into, that’s your way of coping,’ said Cassia. ‘This is mine.’

  ‘Then you go right ahead and fill that book with everything you can,’ said Cordelia. ‘And don’t let anyone tell you differently.’

  She saw Cassia’s eyes drift over her shoulder and turned to see Sir Malcolm marching over to the hearth, his face taut with disappointment.

  Cassia stood as Sir Malcolm halted and bowed respectfully to the other consorts.

  ‘Malcolm?’ said Cassia. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’re leaving,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘So soon?’ said Cordelia. ‘The feast’s barely begun.’

  ‘Right now,’ snapped Malcolm.

  Cordelia stood from the bench and faced Malcolm and said, ‘Whatever has upset you, Sir Malcolm, there’s no excuse for rudeness.’

  Cordelia saw Malcolm’s natural brusqueness fight against his respect for his lord’s consort. He was a handsome man, in an angular, feral way, with eyes like chips of dark flint and close-cropped salt and pepper hair.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, Lady Cordelia, but I have just been informed by your husband that I am not to ride out with the rest of the house tomorrow. Instead, I am to remain in Vondrak Prime with Sir Garratt and seven others.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Baron Roland feels that, with the presence of Hawkshroud’s Knights, it is unnecessary to ride out with our full complement of warriors. He feels it would be prudent to attach some of our Knights to Colonel Rukanah’s order of battle, to “defend the city and those we hold most dear to our hearts”.’

  Cordelia heard the bitterness in Malcolm’s voice, wishing Roland had spoken to her about this decision before slapping Malcolm in the face.

  ‘My husband does you great honour, Sir Malcolm,’ she said, seeing a way to turn Roland’s misstep into a boon. ‘He trusts you to keep the dream of House Cadmus alive.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Cordelia turned to face Aikaterina and her baby boy. Cassia and her book of memories. Aeliana and her fresh concertos.

  ‘I know how dangerous this mission is,’ said Cordelia. ‘I know there are Knights in this hall who will not come back to us. Maybe none of them. Maybe I will be a widow. Maybe Aikaterina’s son will grow up without a father’s guidance. My husband understands that he may never return, and the only way he can shoulder that burden is if he leaves his very best Knight to watch over us.’

  ‘Vondrak Prime is well defended,’ said Malcolm, but Cordelia saw the uncertainty in his eyes. ‘There are thousands of soldiers here who–’

  ‘Would you trust anyone but one of our own to protect us? To protect Cassia?’ interrupted Cordelia. ‘It is the women of Cadmus that keep this house strong, who birth and raise its heirs, who bind the noble lines together. It is our strength that allows the house to endure when you menfolk ride to war. When you come back to us broken from too long a connection with your armour, who do you think puts you back together?’

  Sir Malcolm knew he was beaten, but took his defeat with good grace, something he would never do on the field of battle.

  ‘You are, of course, correct, my lady,’ he said, his normally brusque demeanour actually cracking into a smile.

  ‘You would have made a formidable Knight had you been born a man,’ he said, before turning and rejoining his brother Knights.

  ‘He says that like it’s a compliment,’ said Aeliana as soon as Malcolm was out of earshot. ‘Didn’t he hear anything you said?’

  ‘He’s a Cadmus male,’ said Cordelia, sitting back down. ‘When do they ever pay attention to the words of women wiser than them?’

  The consorts smiled at the oft-repeated mantra. The baby at Aikaterina’s shoulder wriggled and began to cry, loud and strident, like the hunting horn of a Knight. Aikaterina opened the top of her dress and attempted to suckle the child, but he refused to latch on to his mother’s breast.

  ‘The little prince still wary of the teat?’ said Cordelia.

  ‘The Maia Sisterhood scold me and tell me I’m a bad mother,’ replied Aikaterina, close to tears. ‘The texts Maia Agnodice gave me say he should be drinking more and sleeping longer.’

  ‘This from a woman who’s never borne a child,’ said Cordelia, shaking her head and taking a seat next to Aikaterina. ‘I think she forgets that babies don’t read her texts. Here, let me hold him.’

  Aikaterina gratefully handed her son to Cordelia, and she cooed softly to the infant. The moment she looked into the child’s eyes, she knew what was wrong.

  ‘It’s just a little translation sickness,’ she said. ‘It’ll pass in a day or so.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Cordelia nodded, gently running a fingertip down the child’s forehead and nose. His eyes followed her finger, taking longer each time to reopen. ‘It’s hard enough for us to travel to another world through the immaterium – how terrifying must it be for a child? Braxton suffered terribly from it.’

  The child’s cries began to subside, and Aikaterina smiled gratefully to her.

  ‘That settles it, you’re staying with us,�
� said Aikaterina. ‘He won’t stop crying for me, no matter what I do.’

  ‘He’s a Cadmus male,’ repeated Cordelia. ‘Since when do they ever pay attention to the words of women wiser than them?’

  They laughed, but each of them knew the truth of it.

  Their husbands were great men, warriors of honour, courage and nobility, but they were incomplete. They fooled themselves into thinking they were only whole when joined with their Knights, but that was a lie. A lie that had been told too often to be contradicted and repeated so often it had achieved a form of truth.

  A necessary lie, but a lie nonetheless.

  Roland was drunk. Not so drunk that Cordelia’s words wouldn’t register, but enough to make it an effort to keep him focused on what she needed him to hear. The feast had finally wound down as the prayer bells for Nocturns echoed from the Mubarizan billets beyond the palace.

  As usual, Anthonis was the first Knight to withdraw. Since the death of Persis, he had distanced himself from his brothers. Thus far Cordelia had managed to deflect Roland’s demands that she find Anthonis a new consort. As though that would suddenly catapult him from mourning.

  The rest of the Knights followed soon after, led to their chambers by their consorts, who all gave Cordelia knowing glances that told her every one of them would be standing proud on the muster fields at roll call in the morning.

  As master of the house, Roland was duty bound to be the last to leave, but by that point Cordelia had ordered the servitors to water his drink so much that she doubted there was even one part per hundred of alcohol in his last five flagons.

  Cordelia reclined in an iron-framed bed as Roland stumbled around the room, removing his boots with all the grace of a wounded grox. At last he managed to pull them off and slumped into the bed. He let loose a colossal fart and looked over at her as though expecting a round of applause. After an evening of beer, meat and vegetables, the aroma was only slightly less appalling than the corpses dragged up from the forest after the Cull.

  ‘Sorry, Cor,’ he said. ‘That local stuff Ohden sent has gone right through me.’

  ‘You and the sheets,’ said Cordelia.

  ‘Sorry,’ he repeated, reaching for her. ‘How about I make it up to you?’

  ‘Later,’ she said, lacing her fingers through his.

  Roland blinked and sat up next to her. He recognised her tone and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He reached over to pour two goblets of water from a ewer next to the bed.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Cor?’ he asked, handing one to her.

  ‘Did you ever hear the fable where a meso-scorpius asks a swamp-scutter to carry it across a river?’

  ‘No,’ said Roland. ‘My father wasn’t one for bedtime tales.’

  ‘It’s an old story, but the short version is that despite promising it wouldn’t, the scorpius stings the scutter as it swims across the river and they drown. Just before they die, the scutter asks why the scorpius stung it and killed them both. The scorpius shrugs and says that’s just its nature.’

  ‘Is there a point to you telling me this?’

  ‘Isn’t there always?’

  ‘Then would you mind getting to it?’ said Roland, draining his water and pouring another. ‘Hangovers and the Throne Mechanicus don’t go well together.’

  ‘I will,’ said Cordelia, taking a sip of water. ‘I just find that when I want a man to clearly grasp what I’m about to say, I find it’s better to start with something simple.’

  ‘Ha, bloody, ha. Get on with it.’

  ‘Coming to Vondrak was a mistake,’ said Cordelia. ‘I think the Mechanicus want House Cadmus destroyed.’

  ‘Destroyed? What kind of sense does that make?’

  ‘Clearly I should have started with a simpler fable,’ sighed Cordelia. ‘What I’m saying is that no matter how illogical it might be for the Mechanicus to send your Knights to their deaths, you have to understand that it’s not in their nature to let things go that once belonged to them. What is it they say? The Mechanicus never deletes anything? Right now, I guarantee that House Cadmus is still considered wed to Mars, and the forge-masters would rather see us all dead than have us walking around contradicting their records.’

  ‘Ach, you’re seeing enemies where there are none, woman,’ said Roland, settling himself down in the bed. ‘They want this Manifold with their ghost apostle back in one piece. How do they do get that if we’re all dead?’

  ‘You’re assuming there’s anything to find in Vikara,’ said Cordelia. ‘That this temple and the apostle even exist.’

  That gave him pause.

  ‘You think Kyrano’s lying?’

  ‘It’s certainly possible.’

  Roland considered her words, and closed his eyes, sending a mental command to release purgatives into his bloodstream from his boosted hepatic system. Cordelia saw the fog of whatever alcohol was left in his system dissipate almost instantaneously as clarity returned to his eyes.

  ‘I’ll piss a bloody waterfall come morning,’ grumbled Roland, ‘but if you’re right, Kyrano condemns Hawkshroud to death as well.’

  ‘I may not be right,’ said Cordelia, reaching over to tilt his face towards her. ‘But remember that the House Master needs to be both a fox to avoid the snares and a lion to scare away the wolves.’

  Roland nodded in understanding, taking a long drink of water and wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

  ‘No, you’re almost always right in matters like these, but you’re forgetting one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That I want to go on this mission,’ said Roland. ‘I want to ride out there and kill those bastard xenos. You know how many of our warriors died on Gryphonne Four, and I will reap an ocean of alien blood for every name carved in the marble of the Vault Transcendent.’

  Cordelia sat up and put aside her cup.

  ‘Revenge isn’t a trustworthy motive for war,’ she cautioned, already knowing her words would fall on stony ground. ‘And it’s only vengeance if who you’re killing knows why they’re dying. The tyranid swarms won’t know or care who it is that’s fighting them. You won’t make them fear you, Roland.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll fear me all right,’ he said. ‘By the end, they’ll know House Cadmus, I can assure you of that.’

  Seeing his will was now set in stone, Cordelia changed tack and slipped her arm across his chest, stroking the moulded hardness of his pectoral muscle.

  ‘Then if you are intent on riding out, you’ll need to make sure that you’re in charge of the mission. You have to be the Magna Preceptor.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Another knightly house has been embroiled on Vondrak longer than us,’ said Cordelia. ‘The right of leadership falls, by strict protocols, to Aktis Bardolf of House Hawkshroud.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ hissed Roland in irritation.

  ‘But I know how you can get him to willingly hand the role of Magna Preceptor to you.’

  ‘How?’

  Cordelia smiled.

  ‘Simple really,’ she said. ‘Petition him.’

  Warmakers

  A thousands-strong crowd gathers in the evening rain to watch us ride out, and we give them a good show. Weapon arms pump skyward in salute and hunting horns blast from the carapaces of all eighteen Knights. Even Anthonis joins in the pageantry, albeit reluctantly. He has been so withdrawn after Persis died in the retreat from Gryphonne IV.

  My Knight is alive beneath me, a towering giant as much a part of me as any limb of flesh and blood. When we arrived on Vondrak, the Knights who wore this armour before me were dreaming whispers pressing against the bone of my skull.

  But the roars of the crowd have woken them.

  Their hunger for glory and battle burns brightly.

  I feel them at the edge of my perceptions, urging m
e to push the Lancer armour to the greater speeds of which it is capable. They are impatient to vicariously taste battle through me, but I restrain them for now.

  Sitting immobile on the Throne Mechanicus, I see and feel the world through artificial means that are as real to me as any mortal sense. More so, for I can experience things in ways I cannot when divorced from the linking cables that bind me to my armour.

  I turn my head as I feel the ghosts of warriors past urging me to let them see this new world for which we will fight.

  Our route to the city walls does not pass through heavily industrialised areas of the city. This region of Vondrak Prime is all rain-slick glass and bronzed chrome, lit by the sodium glow of street-lamps. We pass beneath arches and wire-spun confections of brass that look like the webs of mechanical spiders.

  We ride through the city in a show of Imperial strength, and I am content to do so.

  Squadrons of aircraft sear contrails into the darkening sky, and barely visible flocks of avian life forms with torn-cloth wings that might just be birds, but probably aren’t, circle higher.

  Soldiers and civilians line the route of our march, tens of thousands, cheering and waving aquila banners that hang limp with rainwater. Children carry burning flares and clockwork automata of Knights.

  ‘None in Cadmus colours,’ notes Roderick, seeing the same thing as me.

  ‘When we return that will change,’ I promise him.

  ‘Do any of them even know what we’re doing?’ asks William.

  Or even bloody care?

  Though Malcolm does not ride with us, I practically hear his imagined response to William. My second-in-command musters his eight Knights to the south, in the vacant forge complex of Verdus Ferrox, where space and resources have been set aside for the Cadmus Sacristans and support personnel.

  Cordelia tells me that despite her words to him last night, he and the others are unhappy at their exclusion from the mission. But there is no one else whose war-skills I would trust to keep Cordelia and the other consorts safe. Seeing what the loss of Persis has done to Anthonis, I would have it no other way, Malcolm’s feelings be damned.