by Steve Parker
Gradually picking up strength, a wave of applause – right fists beating on chests – started on the far side of the pit from Karras and spread right the way around.
Zeed shook his head, but he was smiling. He moved to the edge of the pit directly below Karras and reached up a hand.
‘A little help, Scholar?’
Kneeling at the edge, Karras reached down, closed his fingers around Zeed’s wrist and stood, hauling him up and over. There they stood, a metre apart, Zeed grinning into Karras’s face. He shrugged and indicated his wounds.
‘Had to let them get a few shots in.’
The smell of his oxygen-rich blood was strong in such close proximity.
‘You fight without peer,’ Karras admitted. ‘But to die in training is to deny the Emperor his due. Our lives are not ours to spend freely.’
‘You sound like a bloody Chaplain.’
‘You would not have stopped until they cut you down, brother. I saw it in your eyes.’
‘How are we to know our limits,’ asked Zeed, ‘if we never fully test them?’
‘What is the point of knowing your limits if they are the last thing you ever know?’ countered the Death Spectre.
The applause bled off, and the others filtered away down the tunnel back into the main hall. There, with ambitions aroused by the spectacle of Zeed’s performance, the Space Marines would train harder than ever. Kulle had known that. He had been counting on it. This was not the first time he had exploited a particularly gifted Space Marine to inspire and motivate others. Each of the twenty grizzled warriors in the Pankrateon knew that he alone represented the hopes of his Chapter in meeting the old accords. Zeed might be nigh untouchable in hand-to-hand combat, but they were all Space Marines here. Fresh commitment to their training would, at the very least, lessen the margin between themselves and the display they had just witnessed.
Soon the hall echoed anew with clashing and grunting and blood-chilling battle-cries.
In the pit-chamber, Zeed moved around Karras to address Kulle. ‘Thank you for your faith. I know Brother-Sergeant Coteaz had reservations. He left?’
Kulle’s voice was carefully neutral. ‘The Deathwatch has many brothers to train, Raven Guard. It cannot rest all its hopes on you. Brother Coteaz saw that the training of your brothers was being neglected while they spectated here. In future, I will endeavour to follow his example.’
Zeed shook his head. ‘You would have missed quite a show.’
Karras and Kulle both laughed at that.
‘By the nine hells, Raven Guard,’ said the Silver Skull. ‘Arrogance and skill in equal measure. The former will be your downfall one day, I think. As to why I allowed it, well, I’ll not call it faith exactly. When one sets a new standard, it opens the way to greater heights for all. You inspired some and bruised the pride of others. All will train harder as a result.’
With that said, Kulle nodded once to each of them, then strode off, returning to his supervisory duties. As he departed, he called back, ‘Training isn’t over. You’ve another three hours here. Make it count, both of you.’
Karras watched the sergeant disappear down the corridor.
‘Well?’ said Zeed.
‘Well what?’
The Raven Guard gestured at the pit. ‘Train with me. An exchange of techniques. I’ve never seen a Death Spectre fight.’
‘I can’t match your speed.’
Zeed swept his glossy hair back over his left ear.
‘No one can,’ he said and leapt back down to the sandy floor at the bottom. ‘But the gain is in the trying. So let’s see what you’ve got.’
13
Varlan followed Aide Primaris Suliman along a bright corridor floored with creamy brown marble. At every ten metres, they passed alcoves housing the shining white busts of various playwrights, artists, actors and writers. There were no political or military figures among them, Varlan noted. No religious icons, either. It attested to what she’d read in the Chiaro dossier. The Lord High Arbitrator was known to spend far more time on the arts than on the practical aspects of planetary rule, no doubt delegating the lion’s share of his workload to Suliman and others.
The unimposing little aide led the interrogator towards a set of broad double doors, darkly varnished and detailed with fine carving, watched by two men in the livery of the House Guard. Their uniforms were the purple of the twilight sky over Cholixe, and, though they looked fine and healthy, to Varlan it was clear their role was mostly a mix of decoration and visual deterrent. These were not true fighters like the twins. She got no sense of threat, no subconscious tightening of her gut as she approached them. They had about as much contained violence in them as the alabaster busts lining the hall and if they had ever used those short-barrelled lasguns, it was only on a practice range and not recently, judging by the impeccable condition of the weapons.
Of her own two bodyguards, only the girl Myrda walked behind Varlan. The interrogator had sent Oroga into the city. As she prepared to pass through the double doors at the end of the hall, Varlan thought back to the space port and the moments after her meeting with Asset 16.
She had emerged to find Oroga standing over a body in the darkness.
‘Captain Dozois,’ he had told her, looking up. ‘He was about to follow you inside.’
‘He’s alive?’ Varlan had asked.
‘If you want him that way.’
Varlan had considered it. The captain had opted to meddle in her affairs. Not wise. Those that crossed the Inquisition did not live to tell of it. But had Dozois known with whom he was interfering? She doubted that. Had he known her for a servant of the Ordo Xenos, he would never have spent all those weeks trying to bed her. A healthy fear for one’s life tended to quell one’s carnal appetites. Actually, that would have brought her some much-wanted peace from the start, but the movement of Ordo assets was not the business of civilians and her master had enemies both within and without that would take great interest in her trip to Chiaro.
No. Varlan would wager the captain’s life that he had guessed neither her identity nor her affiliation. He did not need to be permanently silenced so long as he had nothing dangerous to say.
‘Serious injuries?’ she had asked her aide. ‘Did he see you?’
‘I don’t think so, ma’am,’ Oroga had answered. ‘I struck him from behind. One blow to the base of the skull. He’ll have one hell of a headache, but that’s all.’
‘Good. Get him back on that shuttle. Dump him in the passenger cabin and shoot him up with one cc of psytroprene[18]. Then get out of there. Let him wonder why his head hurts and he can’t remember a damned thing. The headache and the missing time should be enough to keep him out of our way. I want you to go into the city. Once you’ve seen the cargo into storage, set up a safe-house and get the lay of the land. Myrda and I will stay with this Lord Sannra while it suits me. Contact me at his apartments if there’s a problem. Questions?’
‘None, ma’am. Leave it to me.’
She had. Oroga had hauled the captain’s body back towards the Macedon’s cargo shuttle under cover of Chiaro’s eternal twilight gloom. She and Myrda had ridden with Suliman and his fellows in their armoured cars. Now the double doors were opening and she was about to meet Lord Sannra himself.
Suliman stepped through first, striding into a bright and spacious room with thick burgundy carpeting to announce her.
‘Presenting Lady Fara Devanon of House Devanon.’
A tall figure rose from behind a broad desk of dark oak; a broad-shouldered man of about forty. Beneath a waistcoat of House Sannra purple, he wore a white silk shirt with ruffs at collar and neck. He opened his arms and smiled in a gesture of warm welcome. Flanking him on either side were two tall, pale, willowy women – identical twins wearing diamond-studded garments of white gossamer that could barely be called clothes at all. They eyed Varlan critically, then faced each other and sneered, not thinking much of her outfit.
Varlan ignored them beyond the habit
ual threat assessment.
‘Come,’ said Nenahem Sannra effusively. ‘Enter and be welcome, lady.’
Varlan strode into the room, ignoring Suliman’s bow as she passed him.
Sannra came round from the far side of his desk to kiss her hand. He was ten centimetres taller than she and heavily built, but not fat. Whatever his pleasures, he had not fallen into corpulence as so many aristocrats did.
He dismissed his two women with a wave, saying, ‘Leave us for now, my swans. I will join you later.’
The women threw Varlan a last contemptuous look as they swept from the room.
‘I hear your journey has been a long one, lady,’ Sannra continued. ‘Sit, please.’ He gestured to an ornate, well-padded armchair to Varlan’s right, and she accepted with grace. Sannra returned to his own seat on the far side of the desk.
‘Sul,’ he said, ‘have some caff brought in, would you? Are you hungry, lady? Might you appreciate a fruit platter? Something else, perhaps? You need only ask.’
‘Very kind, m’lord,’ said Varlan, ‘but your man Suliman was kind enough to provide a small meal in my room on arrival. It was more than adequate, thank you.’
‘Just the caff then, Sul. A great pity you weren’t here for dinner, Lady Fara. Barasaur lungs stuffed with chestnuts and glazed with honey. I have a wonderful cook, you know. She’s a rare treasure on this Throne-forsaken world.’
‘I shall look forward to sampling her work in due course, then.’
‘You absolutely must,’ said Sannra. ‘Now, I’ve heard so very little about what brings you here, and I’m frankly quite curious. We’re very isolated out here. It’s a rare honour for me to entertain such a worthy guest, and a cousin of sorts, no less.’
They talked. Varlan said all the things Sannra expected to hear from Lady Fara Devanon. He, in turn, said little that surprised her. He was like many minor nobles given governorships on the edges of the Imperium, desperate for recognition in whatever form it came and equally desperate to prove himself worthy of greater station in life, if only with words. She played to his ego while it served, and guided the conversation into areas that interested her: industrial output, population figures, the religious and political leanings of the people, crime rates and so on. She asked about the Hasmiri and Garrahym both, and remarked on his success in coordinating the operations of two distinct peoples who had little liking for each other. She already knew this was a simple matter of separation, of course – with the two peoples confined to different cities, there hadn’t been significant bloodshed between them since before his father’s rule – but he took the compliment regardless, and it served her cover.
It was some forty minutes into this first meeting that Varlan sensed Myrda stiffen behind her. She half turned and looked at her bodyguard from the corner of her eye. Myrda had been standing quietly by the door since she and her mistress had entered. She had performed a quick tactical assessment of the room, as she always did, and had indicated condition yellow with a quick hand-sign. But now she seemed to be studying it again, slowly and discreetly. She caught Varlan’s attention and gave the slightest nod towards one of the grand portraits on the east wall. Varlan glanced over at the painting – a large oil of a surly-looking man in a hunting coat and a long white wig. His left hand, the one in which he held a long wooden pipe, was a steel augmetic.
Lord Sannra noted her gaze. ‘My great grandfather,’ he said. ‘A Navy man for twelve years. Rather stern fellow by all accounts. I never knew him, but the pipe was a gift from the Lord High Commander of Cadia, you know. I still have it.’
‘It’s a wonderful piece,’ said Varlan, making to rise. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Not at all,’ said Sannra, pleased. He pushed his chair back and rose to escort Varlan over to the painting.
For a moment they stood before it in silence, Varlan pretending to appreciate the brushwork. In truth, she was tuning all her senses towards what lay behind the painting.
Yes, Myrda, you clever girl.
‘It was painted by Morrico of Piscina. Not my favourite of his works, despite the family connection, but my father adored it.’
‘And what happened to his hand?’
Before Sannra could answer, Varlan raised her own hand, index finger extended. There was a sharp crack and a burst of light. From the far side of the canvas came a muffled grunt of pain. A body, doubled in agony, ripped through the canvas and collapsed on the floor at Varlan’s feet. A silenced autopistol fell to the floor beside it. The trigger was sensitive. As the pistol hit the floor at an angle, it discharged with a muffled cough. The round shattered a lume in the ceiling. Glass showered Lord Sannra’s desk.
Sannra cried out and sprang two metres backwards. When no further shots came, he edged forwards, hands on cheeks, keeping Varlan between himself and the body on the carpet. ‘What in the name of Carastina is going on here, lady? What did you just do?’
Varlan ignored him. She crouched over the figure on the floor and checked for a pulse. Faint. It was a woman, short and slim with black hair tied in a tight bun. She was neither young nor pretty. Forty or so. Hard worker. Her white blouse was stained deep red from the crater Varlan’s weapon had left in her chest. She was struggling to breathe.
‘A name. Now!’ Varlan demanded. ‘Who sent you?’
The dying woman’s expression changed from one of agony to one of gloating. She bit down hard on something. Blue froth bubbled from between her lips. Varlan shook her. ‘No! Warp damn it!’ Turning, she barked, ‘Myrda, secure this room. No one in or out.’
‘Aye, ma’am,’ said Myrda, drawing a stun-pistol from beneath her black jacket and turning the lock on the inside of the doors. Outside, the two House Sannra guards started banging and shouting for their employer.
Varlan spoke to Lord Sannra. ‘Tell them you are fine. Tell them to be quiet and wait. Order it.’
Sannra gaped. His mouth worked noiselessly for a moment. He looked like a suffocating fish.
‘Do it!’ snapped Varlan.
Sannra jerked backwards as if slapped, then proceeded to call out to his guards as instructed. They stopped pounding on the doors. When he crouched down beside Varlan again, the lord was pale but his breathing had steadied.
‘It’s Aga!’ he whispered, studying the face of the dead woman. ‘One of the senior maids. But she couldn’t have known about the crisis tunnel. No one does save Suliman and I.’ He stood. ‘What was she doing in there? Why the pistol? Did she…? Look here, Lady Fara. What’s going on? You just killed one of my maids with that ring of yours. If you’re just some noble’s daughter here on trade business, then I’m the bloody Lord Marshall of Terra itself! I want answers, now. I’m the governor here!’
‘Yes, you are,’ hissed Varlan. ‘A job you’ve been doing with your eyes shut, if at all. You don’t seem to have noticed the mass disappearances among the Garrahym. You don’t seem to have noticed the reports coming in of strange things seen in the mines or on the fringes of your cities.’ She gestured at the dead body on the floor. ‘You don’t seem to notice much at all. One of your own staff was spying on you, perhaps even planning to kill you this day.’ Or me, she thought, which is the more likely. ‘How many more might be doing the same, Arbitrator? How safe do you think you are? We both know the guards at your doors are more for show than anything else. Even they might be traitors awaiting an opportune moment.’
Sannra made a scoffing sound, but there was fresh fear in his eyes. It soon gave way to anger. ‘You can’t come in here and say such things. You can’t just shoot the place up like this. I say again, just who the devil are you?’
Time to play her cards, Varlan knew. If she was to get his full cooperation, she had best reveal herself now. Her master would make sure the loose ends were tied up later.
Committed, she reached two fingers down into her bodice and drew a circular pendant from her cleavage. The setting was of intricately worked silver, in the centre of which sat a ruby cut into a perfect disk. The gem was both a butto
n and a lens, and Varlan pressed it, then sat the pendant in the palm of her hand. Above it, a hololithic image of a skull appeared and began to rotate. In the centre of the skull’s forehead was a rune: the Inquisitorial ‘I’ crossed with three short bars, each representing one of the great ordos. After a few seconds the skull vanished to be replaced by the rotating image of a scroll on which were inscribed Varlan’s credentials in tiny Gothic runes.
‘My name is Shianna Varlan,’ she told the astonished aristocrat. ‘Interrogator class 3, Ordo Xenos, agent of His Imperial Majesty’s Holy Orders of the Inquisition. My word is law, Nenahem Sannra. From the moment I set foot on your world, your authority was superseded. Chiaro faces a crisis it is not equipped to deal with. That is why I have been sent. I have come to aid you. If I can, I will save you.
‘But you will do as I command, or you will die.’
14
Tencycles came and went. Times in the kill-block improved. Previous bests were beaten, then beaten again. Accuracy rates with the new weapons and ammunition types went up. Proficiency in race-specific close quarters combat methods rose steadily. And still the Space Marines trained without the power armour to which they had so long been accustomed. At first, eschewing armour throughout the first half of Deathwatch training had seemed a strange, even ill-considered approach to Karras and the others. Ceramite plate and boltgun were badges of honour, the entitlement of those tested to the brink of death – in Karras’s case, beyond even that. They were entitlements not easily put aside. But now, some two hundred cycles into the programme, with their performance levels beyond anything the sequestered Space Marines had previously known, the logic behind it could not be faulted.
