Evil had rooted itself within the psyche of the XVII Legion. It was the only explanation that Decimus had for what they had become.
The silent company champion Tillus Victorius fought like he did in the duelling cages, favouring a small combat shield and gladius opposite his power sword. He was masterful to watch. He took a blow upon his buckler and spun, cutting a Word Bearer down at the knees before despatching him with a cross-bladed decapitating strike.
The champion had never been beaten blade-to-blade, but as he turned to find a new foe, a stray bolt from out of the smoke took him in the eye. It punched through his left visor lens and detonated in his brain pan. He fell without a sound, blades slipping into the mud from his lifeless fingers. The warrior had been almost obsessive in his training. That had counted for nothing at the last. It was an ignoble end.
Decimus stared down at the Champion's corpse, and hatred coursed through him. He had never known such depth of feeling. He had never hated any of the xenos that he'd fought during the Great Crusade, nor even the recalcitrant humans of those worlds that defied the Emperor's dominion. He had felt pity for some of these misguided civilisations, disgust or apathy for others, but never hate.
His heavily artificed armour was barely functional. It was running an auxiliary power, and little of its surface still bore the proud cobalt-blue of his Legion, so scorched, dented and cratered were its plates. His left shoulder was a mangled ruin, spilling angry sparks and internal servos grinding incessantly. He could feel bone grinding on bone in the joint. He wore no helm - he had torn it loose after it had borne the brunt of a power maul swing earlier in the battle - and the left side of his face was crusted with congealed blood.
The Chapter Master was bone tired. It had been more than a week since he'd had any rest. For a second there were no enemies running at him, and he wanted nothing more than to drop to his haunches and lean back up against the dead Word Bearers Land Raider... but no. Even now, even as the end closed in with the inevitability of the setting suns, he needed to be seen, defiant and bellicose until the last.
He checked his ammunition. Four bolts. He slammed the clip back into his pistol. He would make each one count.
The ground shook with explosions, the grind of heavy tracks and what felt like an earthquake, but which he knew to be the thunderous footfall of Titans. He could hear them calling to each other with deafening blares of their warhorns drowning out the pounding of artillery, the chatter of gunfire, the screams of the dying and the clash of blades. The eardrum-shattering roar of their weapons sounded intermittently, and when they did he felt sick thinking of the noble sons of Ultramar being cut down in swathes, like wheat before the reaper.
Communications were down, even the closed Ultramarine vox channels now infected with insidious whispers, screams and hellish warpsound. But he knew that his captains would be doing him proud, punishing the Word Bearers in this, the last XIII push of the war.
A shout from the rear drew his attention. Squinting into the smoke, he saw enemy figures emerging from the fog behind them. They had been flanked. His captains barked orders, but little could be done as Ultramarines were cut down, already caught in the savage crossfire.
A diminished heavy support squad turned to face this new threat, swinging their autocannons around and planting their feet wide. Even as two of their number were dropped, they unleashed their fury into the enemy, tearing through their ranks and buying time for other squads to get into cover. The barrels of their guns were soon glowing red-hot. Still they pounded the enemy, forcing them down into the mud.
An armoured figure crashed down through the smoke from above, bright flames gushing from his overworked jump pack. The Word Bearer landed in a crouch behind the heavy support squad, one knee and one hand planted to the ground for stability. More of them slammed down around the first, smoke venting from their jump pack stacks. The first gunner sensed the enemy behind him and made to turn, but he was too slow. The Word Bearer was rising, chainaxe screaming.
Chapter Master Aecus Decimus was already up and running, his command squad one step behind. His shot hit the first enemy legionary in the side of the head. It deflected off before detonating, knocking him off-balance. Then Decimus was upon him, tackling him into the mud as he recovered. The Word Bearer's chainaxe went flying.
They rolled, slipping and sliding down a muddy incline. Decimus lost his pistol but still had hold of his powerblade. As they came to rest at the bottom of the slope, in a ditch filled with armoured corpses, Decimus was on top. He tried to go for the killing blow, but his enemy's hand was clasped around his vambrace, holding the blade at bay. The Word Bearer slammed his armoured fist into Decimus's jaw, dislocating it and fracturing bone.
He was momentarily dazed, and the Word Bearer pressed that advantage. He rolled atop Decimus, pinning him face down in the mud and gripping the back of his head. The Chapter Master tried to free himself, losing his grasp on his blade in the process, but he could not dislodge the traitor. His face was slammed into the ground, again and again. Mud and blood filled his eyes.
'Now you die,' snarled the Word Bearer. His voice was so twisted that he sounded more like a beast than anything that had ever been human.
Then, in the thunder of close-range autocannon fire, his head disappeared in a red mist.
Decimus wiped mud and blood from his eyes as he rose, scrabbling back up the slope to his frantic command squad under covering fire from the last remaining heavy weapon-toting legionaries.
He threw a glance skyward. He could see nothing, but he knew it must be approaching the appointed time. His adjutant saw his glance.
'Are you sure about this, my lord?' he said.
'I am,' said Decimus. 'May the Emperor forgive me.'
They escorted him off the shuttle like a prisoner, two in front, two behind. They were nestled in the high foothills of Terra's most dominant peaks, though he could not see them now; the articulated docking clamps attached to the shuttle's hull had no windows.
He was unarmed, as per their order. It had been phrased as a request, but it had been an order nonetheless. He stared resolutely forward as he was marched from the shuttle. Flexible jointed walls gave way to an armoured corridor as he entered the palace.
His slate-grey war-plate was unadorned. Only the deep-red crest of his helm, tucked under one arm, gave any indication of his senior Legion rank. His armour was old and well-worn, the plates thick and heavy. It was the armour of a soldier, practical and utilitarian, and its surface revealed evidence of frequent repair. He bore those marks like battle scars. Each scratch and dent had a story.
In contrast, the four members of the Legio Custodes escorting him into the palace wore highly ornate armour of burnished gold, replete with decorative lightning bolts and eagles. Long fur-lined cloaks hung from their gilded shoulders, and their features were hidden behind tall, conical helms. Their armour was more finely artificed than Sor Talgron's humble plate, but it was not parade armour. This was the most highly advanced battle armour that the most skilled tech-priests of Mars had been able to devise — light, strong and nigh impervious to conventional firearms, and allowing greater freedom of movement than Legion plate.
Each bore a guardian spear, the signature weapon of their order. Gilded halberds with inbuilt firearms, they were curious and exotic weapons. They would have been unwieldy in untrained hands, but even at rest, he could see that they were almost extensions of the Custodians' bodies. They would be wielded with consummate skill, and while Sor Talgron had only seen them used in training, he judged that the key to fighting the Legio Custodes would be for an enemy to get inside their effective range.
He felt no particular bonds of kinship with the Legio Custodes. They were as different from him as unaugmented humans, for all their shared similarities in gene-heritage. The divisions between the two strands of transhumanity were stark, even if an outsider might have been blind to them — in the main it was not a physical difference, even though the Custodians might seem unif
ormly taller in stature. They were simply a breed apart.
The true strength of the Legiones Astartes was their unity of purpose, and the bonds of brotherhood they shared. Perhaps that was why they had insisted that Sor Talgron travel to the surface alone, the rest of his company ship-bound at high anchor. The Custodians may be individual warriors par excellence, but their mindset was fundamentally different to those gene-born into the Legions. They had been created for a different task, one that they were perfectly adapted to, and one that required a certain level of individualism and self-reliance that was at odds with the gene-ingrained pack mentality of the Space Marines.
It would be an interesting thing, to pit the Legio Custodes against the Legiones Astartes. One on one, he suspected that the gold-armoured Custodians would have the edge, but the larger the battle got, the more he felt that his fellow legionaries would dominate.
The Legio Custodes were not soldiers, but Sor Talgron was a soldier to the core.
They halted before a third set of reinforced blast doors, flanked by slaved sentry cannons. Scans, identity confirmations, gene-key sequencing. Security was tighter than it had been when last Sor Talgron had walked the palace halls, back when his presence had felt far more welcome.
The occluded portals snapped open. A Custodian officer stood beyond, resplendent in his gold plate. Sor Talgron's gaze flicked left and right. Had he been wearing his helmet, threat glyphs would have been blinking before his eyes. The officer was accompanied by a squad of yellow-armoured Space Marines, bolters held across their chests.
That was unexpected, but he let no hint of surprise cross his face.
The visor of the officer slid back in a series of smoothly overlapping plates, revealing a face that Sor Talgron knew. It was hawkish and strong; unscarred, but Sor Talgron knew that meant nothing, not amongst the Legio Custodes. Had he been of the Legions, Sor Talgron would know that the warrior was either untested, or unfathomably good - the Custodians, however, were not built for a life of constant warfare on the front lines. That did not mean they lacked battle hardening. Far from it. Only a fool would underestimate them.
A ridge of short-cropped hair extended down the centre of the officer's shaved head, a crest that mirrored Sor Talgron's helmet. Whether it denoted rank or was merely an aesthetic choice, Sor Talgron did not know. Their kind had a strong, individualistic streak bred into them, so the latter was highly probable. Nevertheless, he found it somewhat ironic that this choice aped the appearance of the Captain-General, Constantin Valdor. So much for individualism.
'I apologise for the manner of your reception,' said the officer. His courtly accent was still strange in Sor Talgron's ear, accustomed as he was to more guttural Colchisian speech. 'The universe has changed since you last stood on Terra.'
His name was Tiber Acanthus, and Sor Talgron had spent time in his company on his previous visits to Terra. The sentinel had never offered his other one hundred and thirty-seven names, nor did Sor Talgron have any desire to know them.
They greeted each other as warriors, wrist to wrist, clasping each other's forearm. It was rare for the Word Bearer to look up at anyone, but the Custodian stood half a head taller than Sor Talgron.
'What's happened?' he said as they broke apart. 'It looks as though Terra is preparing for a siege.'
'War is coming,' said Acanthus.
Sor Talgron frowned. 'War is nothing unusual,' he said. 'We've been fighting wars since the start of the Great Crusade. It is what we were made for.'
'This war will be different.'
'Why? Whatever new enemy the Crusade has uncovered, there is surely no threat to Terra itself' said Sor Talgron.
Tiber Acanthus did not answer, and Sor Talgron's expression darkened.
'Tell me,' he said, his voice grim.
'It is not my place,' said the Custodian. 'But I will take you to one who will. Come. Lord Dorn is expecting you.'
Five warriors watched as their brothers fought and died on the plains below. From their vantage, the battle was not unlike one of the simulation tables within the collegia, though here the death was very real. They stood in silence, each Ultramarine lost in his own prison of anger, remorse, defiance and grief.
They were not a tightly bonded unit, these five. They had not forged bonds of steel in the crucible of war. None of them had spoken before they had been brought together for this final task, this mission that could exonerate them and clean the slate of their past misdeeds.
They came from different companies, different squads, different backgrounds. One was a Sky Hunter, and one was drawn from the Assault ranks. Two had been drawn from Tactical units, though one of those had once wielded other powers before that path was closed to him, and now he was no different from any other ranked legionary. The last of their number was a disgraced hero of the past.
Their skills and expertise were as disparate as their service records. It was only their shame that unified them.
Each of them wore a helmet painted red. Each of them bore the mark of censure.
They had all stood before their Chapter Master when they were briefed for this duty. None of them wanted it, but none of them had refused it. This was a way for them to clear their names, he had said. An honour.
It did not feel like an honour to Octavion. To him, it fell like the cruellest of punishments. Even so, he did not complain, and he did not begrudge Chapter Master Aecus Decimus for giving him this task. It had to fall to someone, and it might as well be those that had disgraced themselves in the eyes of their commanders.
He could feel the conflicted emotions of those around him as they watched the enemy forces encircling the Ultramarines on the plains far below. Every one of them wanted to be down there, doing their part, fighting - and dying - with the brothers they had trained and fought alongside for so long.
'There,' said one of their number, the Sky Hunter Paulus. He need not have bothered. They all saw it. Perhaps he needed to speak it aloud, Octavion thought. Perhaps in doing so, it was made real, more practical.
To the north, a dust cloud announced the approach of another Word Bearers division. They were coming from the city of Massilea, that once-proud city that was the heart and soul of this world.
Octavion had heard word that it had fallen earlier in the day. For all he knew, all of his battle-brothers were dead. Octavion's 174th Company had held that city longer than expected, inflicting a heavy toll on the traitors, but now it was gone.
He regarded Massilea as much a home as anywhere in the galaxy. It had been there that he had received the majority of his training, what seemed like an age ago.
'And there,' said Paulus, gesturing to the south.
Dark shapes were moving on the horizon: Thunderhawks, Stormbirds and attack craft. Another battle force moving in. They wanted to end this war quickly, Octavion saw. They did not want to be here any longer than necessary.
'It's time,' he said, voicing the truth that he knew was in all of their minds, hanging over them like a guillotine.
'Reinforcements from Ultramar could be inbound,' said the youngest of their number, Sio, only recently elevated from the Scout ranks. 'Could we not wait a little longer?'
Octavion was not aware what infraction had seen Sio forced to wear the red. None of them volunteered explanations for their own censure and none of them asked it of the others. It was not something that any of them were comfortable discussing.
'That no reinforcements have arrived tells us that this is no isolated incident. War has engulfed Ultramar's Five Hundred,' said the brooding veteran Romus. 'We have our orders.' His voice was empty. Hollow. He was already resigned to die, Octavion realised.
'And what if those orders are wrong?' asked Sio.
'It does not matter,' growled Romus. 'Our names are already tarnished. I will not even consider compounding my dishonour by disobeying the final directive of our Chapter Master.'
There were murmurs of agreement from the others, but Octavion could feel the distress of the youngest battle
-brother. It was coming off him in waves. It was there in them all, of course — none of them wanted this hateful, thankless task. The others were just better at repressing it.
'No one is coming,' said Octavion, his voice little more than a whisper.
'How can you be sure?' said Sio.
What could he say to soothe the young warrior's despair? Nothing. Besides, he had his own doubts to overcome. His own daemons.
'No one is coming,' boomed the fifth of their number, the massive once—champion, Korolos. That ended the matter.
'Let us go,' said Octavion, turning away from the battlefield, away from his dying Chapter and towards the waiting shuttle. A score of Imperial Army veterans waited there, standing to attention. Did they realise they were as doomed as the rest of them?
It wasn't just Sio that had hoped, if not believed, that they would not be required to enact the duty they had been tasked with.
Now they all were faced with the fact that such a slender hope was gone. It was not to be.
Now, indeed, they faced the death of hope itself.
THREE
Sor Talgron found it wryly amusing that the Emperor's decree had neutered the Imperium's most potent weapon against the warp, at a time when it most needed it. He had no love of psykers, believing that it would be in humanity's best interests to eradicate them all, but he was a deeply pragmatic soul, and the Librarians were a weapon that the XVII sorely needed. Having seen the powers that were being unleashed against his armies and worlds by the Warmaster's allies, if the Emperor did not overturn his folly soon then he was a prideful fool indeed.
The city was spread before him like a map rendered in three dimensions. Thick black smoke obscured entire sectors. The librarium was built upon a rocky outcrop in the northern sector of Massilea, the highest point in a broad valley delta. It had been a site of pilgrimage long before the Ultramarines had made it a centre of training for those within its ranks exhibiting psychic talents.
The Purge Page 2
