by Dan Abnett
Three complete companies of the Sons of Horus, the First, 18th and 25th, in full battleplate, stood ready to board. Officers waited, ready to take their oaths of moment. These were oaths the warriors were eager to make, perhaps the most significant of their lives.
The company captains, Lev Goshen of the 25th, and Tybalt Marr of the 18th, waited nearby, flanked by an honour guard formed of the Justaerin and the Catulan.
‘I see you are,’ Eidolon fluted.
‘You’ve kept us waiting,’ said Abaddon.
‘Not polite,’ said Kibre.
‘My manners are impeccable,’ Eidolon replied. He glanced at his escort guard, lavish warriors in full panoply, and smiled, as if at some private joke. They were gaudy warriors, parodies, but killers all. Aximand knew some of them. Von Kaida, with his wide-eyed child’s face and ivory armour, equerry to Eidolon; Lecus Phodion, the vexillarius, who now insisted his rank was ‘orchestrator’ or something; Quine Mylossar, once a fine sword and a good tactician, now chromed like a trophy, with hideously long sabre blades extended from his vambraces, and peacock feathers behind his head; Nuno DeDonna, a noted master of assault doctrines, sheathed in plate that seemed both black and purple, yet neither.
‘The question is, lord, are you prepared?’ asked Aximand. ‘Were you persuasive?’
‘I am always persuasive,’ said Eidolon.
‘So the Third is with us in this undertaking?’ asked Abaddon.
‘It is, Ezekyle,’ said Eidolon, ‘it is. The concept is appealing. The speed of it, the finality. The Emperor’s Children are with you.’
Abaddon nodded. He took a step closer to Eidolon. Aximand recognised the footwork. It looked casual, just a step forward with a half-step to the side, but it placed Abaddon slightly on Eidolon’s off-guard side. The First Captain often used the same footwork to realign for a kill-stroke in a blade fight.
‘Good,’ said Abaddon. ‘I am gratified, brother. You had sent no word, and I was beginning to fear we had over-committed in false expectation. My Legion, with the tacit approval of the Lord of Iron, has made significant investment in this endeavour. Without your promised participation, it dies before it even begins.’
‘And I have kept my promise,’ said Eidolon. He chuckled. ‘I have been persuasive. I have been silver-tongued.’
‘It looks blue,’ said Aximand.
‘You’re funny, little one,’ Eidolon giggled.
‘What strength?’ asked Abaddon. ‘What strength do you commit? What has the Phoenician allowed you? I told you, I need five battle companies, minimum.’
‘Yes, you were quite clear.’
‘Then what strength?’
‘All,’ said Eidolon.
‘All five?’ Abaddon asked.
‘No, Ezekyle. All’
Abaddon narrowed his eyes.
‘Is that a joke?’ he asked.
‘I do love jokes, as you know,’ said Eidolon, fastidiously flicking some invisible mote of dust off his coral-pink warplate, ‘but no, it’s not. You wanted our strength. You have it. You have the Emperor’s Children. You have all the Emperor’s Children.’
‘The entire Third Legion?’
‘The entire Third Legion,’ echoed Eidolon. ‘I hope that will be sufficient.’ Abaddon ran the tip of his tongue around his lips, thoughtfully.
‘You’ve surprised me,’ he said.
‘I can tell that by the expression on your face,’ said Eidolon. He clapped his hands in delight, and shrill little squeals burbled from his inflated throat. Behind him, his warriors laughed and hooted. ‘It was worth it all, just to see that!’ Eidolon added.
‘It will be worth much more than that,’ said Abaddon. ‘It will be worth my gratitude, and the respect of the Lord of Iron, and the thanks of my genesire. What we are about to do will change everything, and the measure of your support will guarantee its success. I have underestimated you, brother. Underestimated the seriousness of your intent.’
He held out his hand.
‘Forgive me for that, Eidolon, and receive my thanks.’
Eidolon’s face split in a smile that even the features of a legionary should not have been able to accommodate. It stretched to his ears, revealing thousands of polished teeth. He took Abaddon’s hand and clasped it.
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘It’s what brothers do.’
‘How did your lord, the Phoenician, greet this idea?’ Abaddon asked. ‘You said you were persuasive, but he must have questioned the wisdom of deploying the whole of his Legion. He must trust you a great deal to lead it into this action.’
‘Oh, he doesn’t trust me at all,’ replied Eidolon. ‘Not even slightly.
But I am so persuasive.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Abaddon.
‘He talked me into it,’ said a voice.
One of the warriors behind Eidolon stepped forward, from between Phodion and Mylossar. With each step, his plate and gear, cloak and shield, peeled off him, disintegrating into embers that sizzled into the canyon wind. The legionary was naked for a moment, then, as he continued to walk, his unblemished skin became polished like opaline shell. He began to grow, becoming taller, leaner, a towering figure of athletic perfection. A soft, pearlescent radiance guttered beneath his nacreous skin, like candles fluttering inside a box of the thinnest ivory, and then his flesh was reclothed in ornate armour of the most extraordinary lustre and complexity. The beautiful, painful fury of Fulgrim’s eyes bore down on Abaddon.
‘It sounded like fun,’ Fulgrim said, his voice made of silver and venom and sherbet syrup. He brushed a loose strand of long, snow-white hair away from his face.
Abaddon bowed his head, and sank to one knee. He knew he needed to show respect. He also didn’t want to look. A single glimpse of Fulgrim’s lethal beauty was enough.
Abaddon threw a curt gesture. The Mournival, and the companies behind them, knelt too.
‘You honour us, lord,’ said Abaddon.
‘You honour us, Abaddon,’ said Fulgrim. ‘You offer us a chance to break deadlock and seize victory. You offer a swift end to this malingering. When Eidolon brought your modest proposal to me, I saw its finesse at once. I wanted to do more than lend you a few companies. I wanted to throw my entire support behind your effort. My children will execute the assault you have requested. I will lead them in person. Where my children go, I will go.
‘Get up now,’ he added.
Abaddon rose.
‘Let’s make our beginning,’ said Fulgrim.
* * *
The geo-imaging display turned slowly in the air.
‘There,’ said Malcador. ‘And there. Do you see?’
‘I am no geological expert, lord,’ said Sindermann, squinting, ‘but I see enough. The subcrust is compromised below the macrofortifications.’
‘Both before and behind the Saturnine Wall,’ said Malcador. His voice was dust dry, loose pebbles trickling down a dry stream course.
He cancelled the display with a twitch of his hand, and sat down on a gilded chair.
‘We knew of the natural fault,’ he said. ‘Every potential flaw was assayed and plotted when Dorn began the fortification work. It was filled in. Rockcrete and ferroplast. But the bombardment of the Palace has been long and sustained. The cumulative effect has caused tectonic shifts. The old wound has split again. We weren’t aware. We would not have seen it but for you.’
‘It was an idle comment, made by chance,’ said Sindermann. He noticed that Therajomas was still writing on his slate, furiously. ‘Don’t note that,’ Sindermann hissed.
‘The idle comment part?’ asked the young man.
‘No, the fact that I apparently noticed it,’ said Sindermann.
‘Why ever not, Kyril?’ Malcador asked. ‘Your role is part of the history now. A significant part.’
‘A historian, lord, should show some modicum of detachment,’ said Sindermann. ‘I seek truth, not personal credit.’
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‘You seek odd things, Kyril,’ said Malcador. ‘You always have. The truth? What is that? The truth depends on who’s looking. Who’s telling. You found a hole in the ground, Kyril, and the only truth in that is, if Rogal’s right, it will be filled with an enemy spearhead within clays or hours. It is the way in they’ve been looking for. The one liny chink in Rogal’s defence. Perturabo will exploit it. There’s no doubt about that. And the prize is very great, so the agency he sends to exploit it will be very great, also.’
‘Can’t you just fill it?’ asked Therajomas suddenly, then remembered who he was addressing and swallowed hard.
‘What did you say, child?’ Malcador asked.
Therajomas mumbled something.
‘My colleague was positing the idea that you could just “fill the hole”, lord,’ said Sindermann. ‘Remove the flaw.’
‘Oh, we can,’ replied Malcador. ‘And we are preparing to. The specialist, Land. That’s his task.’
‘Land?’
Malcador sighed. ‘I am tired. Diamantis, point him out, will you?’
The Huscarl led Sindermann to the gantry rail. Below them, in one of the vast, excavated chambers, a man was supervising high-function servitors and diligent magi. They were in a lab space, working on an array of industrial machines that looked like pumping units and drill rigs. The rest of the chamber was filled with rows of immense storage tanks, the source of the chemical stink Sindermann had detected when he first arrived.
‘Arkhan Land,’ said Diamantis. ‘Technoarchaeologist.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Sindermann.
‘I think only he knows,’ the Huscarl replied. ‘He’s an annoying little bastard, but he’s clever. In just a few hours, he has concocted a liquid filler. A sealant. He calls it lockcrete, I believe. Flows like water, but it sets fast. Massively adherent. It forms a solid harder than the ground rock. We’ve broken drills on it in tests.’
‘Mars?’
‘What?’ asked Diamantis.
‘He’s from Mars? He’s Mechanicum?’
‘Something like that,’ said Diamantis.
‘I’d like to talk to him.’
‘You really wouldn’t,’ said the Huscarl. ‘He’s obnoxious. Besides, he’s busy.’
Sindermann looked back at the Sigillite. ‘So, you can seal the flaw, this terrible vulnerability, at a moment’s notice?’ he asked.
‘We expect to be able to do so,’ Malcador replied. Perched on his golden chair, he looked very frail. He took a sip of something from a goblet.
‘But you’re waiting?’ Sindermann asked.
Malcador nodded, and dabbed his lips.
‘Because you want them to come in?’
‘Whoever’s coming will be a prize. A significant kill. Perhaps a decisive one. They don’t know we know. We want to let them in.’
‘And who’s coming?’
‘I don’t know that,’ said Malcador. ‘But it will be someone worth destroying.’
‘It could be him?’
Malcador wheezed out a chuckle. ‘It is his kind of play. And we can be fairly certain he wants the glory. For himself. He’s come a long way for this, Kyril. I can’t picture him delegating the final step to others. Can you?’
Sindermann walked across the gantry, drew out another of the golden chairs, and sat down facing the Sigillite. ‘It is the most extraordinary risk,’ he said.
Malcador nodded. ‘Without doubt,’ he agreed.
‘If it fails, lord-‘
Malcador raised a bony hand to hush him.
‘This is Dorn’s game,’ he said. ‘Regicide. The grand master play. I trust his schemes implicitly. We think of him… I dare say, we’ve always thought of him… as the master of defence. We are not masters of defence, Kyril. None of us even approach his level of insight and expertise. We presume, in our innocence, a great defence involves an absence of flaws. A perfect, impervious fortress, immune to any assault.’
He paused, and took another sip. His neck was as thin as a reed, and as knotted as a twig.
‘Rogal understands better,’ he said. ‘A flaw can be an invitation. Especially to a mind like Perturabo’s. It draws his attention. Of course, it helps that the Lord of Iron is clinically obsessed with besting Dorn. He won’t resist. Dorn is forcing him into making a move, forcing him into an error.’
‘It seems so counterintuitive,’ said Sindermann. Exploiting one’s own flaw-‘
‘I know, I know,’ said Malcador, nodding. ‘Rogal is full of surprises. That’s why he’s the Praetorian. We expect perfection of him. Faultless perfection. He is embracing imperfection. Seeing it and, rather than removing it, using it. I think he’s learned that from Jaghatai.’
Sindermann frowned. ‘This was the Khagan’s idea?’
‘Oh no, not at all!’ the Sigillite replied, chuckling. The Khan is mercurial, almost capricious. Dorn is not. The Khan is fluid and adaptive. Dorn is not. The Khan adjusts his strategies on the move, as the environment changes. Dorn sets the environment in advance. Now they’re working together, obliged to, caught in the same trap, back to back. A siege is Dorn’s theatre. It is stifling to the Khan, so he’s learning. Adapting. And Dorn, in turn, is watching him adapt. And learning from that.’
‘They are learning from each other?’
‘It can be fractious, but yes,’ said Malcador. ‘Rogal knows he needs Jaghatai. That’s a given. But he’s also come to understand that he can’t box Jaghatai in, and force him to conform. Dorn has perceived, quickly, that he needs to let Jaghatai be Jaghatai. Create a grey area in which the Khan is free to operate to his full potential. That grey area is still part of Dorn’s structure, but is, of itself, not set.’
‘A little, deliberate flaw,’ said Sindermann.
‘Quite right,’ said Malcador. ‘It means Rogal gets the best out of the Khan. But the real beauty of it, is it sets up variables that Perturabo can’t read. Perturabo is anticipating Dorn’s every move. He’s studied his tactica for years. The Khan is an outlier. What he does, still, you understand, on Dorn’s behalf, cannot be anticipated in the same way. The Khan’s actions are not Dorn’s. Through the Khan, Dorn seeks to generate unexpected moves that Perturabo cannot read.’
‘And now he’s adopted that idea himself?’ asked Sindermann.
‘Rogal has learned a flexibility. A sleight of hand.’
‘Like letting our archenemy into the Sanctum Imperialis?’
‘Yes. Letting him in, cutting his throat, and then sealing the flaw behind him. This Land fellow’s lockcrete will close the flaw once the trap is sprung, and build a tomb for whoever comes.’
‘We’re meeting their decapitation strike with one of our own?’
‘Exquisite, isn’t it?’ said Malcador, and laughed.
Sindermann sat back. ‘Still, it is a risk,’ he said. ‘A gamble of terrifying magnitude…’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ replied Malcador.
He tilted his head, as if listening to something.
‘We should attend,’ he said. ‘He’s ready. Help me up, would you?’
* * *
They found Dorn in an adjoining chamber, one of the preparation halls carved out of the rock beneath the streets of the Saturnine Quarter. It was, Diamantis said, a deployment station adjacent to the line of the flaw.
Dorn, in full regal battleplate, was standing on a dais, with a baldachin canopy above him. The rich, draped material was embroidered with the Praetorian crest and the symbols of the Imperial Fists. Nearby stood the brooding Dreadnought Bohemond, several more Huscarls, a small group of tacticians from the War Courts, led by Mistress Tacticae Katarin Elg, and a phalanx of the Hort Palatine, fronted by Ahlborn.
Dorn nodded to Sindermann as he approached. The Praetorian helped Malcador onto the dais. Sindermann and Therajomas waited with Diamantis at the side of the stage.
Ahlborn listened to his earpiece, then looked at Dorn.
‘My lord, the count
er-assault officers are assembled.’
‘Bid them enter,’ said Dorn.
Four of the Hort troopers hurried across the chamber floor, and rolled open the heavy cargo shutters. A line of Space Marines walked in, side by side, and approached the dais.
Sindermann gazed, taken aback. He’d expected a command section of the Imperial Fists.
‘Is that-‘ Therajomas whispered.
‘Shhh!’ Sindermann hissed.
He watched the warriors approach, side by side, a slow and steady pace. Each one was in full battleplate, unhelmed. Their faces were solemn and determined. Maximus Thane, Imperial Fist, captain of the 22nd Company Exemplar, a long-hafted warhammer resting across his right shoulder. Helig Gallor, once of the Death Guard, his plate now the sombre grey of the Knights Errant. Bel Sepatus, Blood Angel, a captain-Paladin of the Keruvim host, his tri-faced emblem gleaming on the chest of his crimson Cataphractii armour, his avenging longsword, Parousia, held across it in both hands, inverted. The massive Endryd Haar, the Riven Hound, World Eater turned Blackshield outcast, his power fist as soot-dark as the plate he wore. Nathaniel Garro, once battle-captain of the 7th Great Company Death Guard, now a grey Knight Errant too, Paragon bolter clamped to his hip, the ancient broadblade Libertas braced across his pauldron. Sigismund, Imperial Fist, First Lord Captain of the Templar Brethren elite, his artificer plate the black of that order, badged in yellow, covered in
an ebon surcoat that lacked any emblem, his powerblade bound to his right wrist by penitent chains, his shield to his left. Garviel Loken, Knight Errant, Rubio’s dead sword strapped to his waist, a long pattern chainblade suspended in his hand.
Loken’s plate was not grey. It had been freshly refinished in the colours of a captain of the Luna Wolves.
The seven came to a halt, in line, in front of the dais. In unison, they saluted the Praetorian, each making the particular gesture of homage used by his Legion, or the lost Legion he had once served.
