Saturnine

by Dan Abnett

  But I see things that I would have made him mark down on his dataslate, if he had been able to hear me. The names of the dead. The manner of their deaths. Custodian Tsutomu, and ninety-six others, in the cage-ways. Oxana Pell (Hort Borograd K), and three others, at Tower One. Getty Orheg (16th Arctic Hort) and fifty others, at the curtain wall. Bailee Grosser (Third Helvet), and twenty-six others, in Western Freight. Militant Colonel Auxilia Clement Brohn and forty-two others, at the guard gate. Ennie Carnet (Fourth Australis Mechanised) and one hundred and sixty-four others, between the curtain wall and Tower Two. Pasha Cavaner (11th Heavy Janissar), and sixteen others, in the second yards. Willem Kordy (33rd Pan-Pac Lift Mobile) and Joseph Baako Monday (18th Regiment, Nordafrik Resistance Army), on the cargo ramps behind the cage-ways.

  Those two died together, as they began, fighting for each other. They would not leave each other’s sides when the World Eaters came. There is a bond stronger than steel to be found in the calamity of combat.

  I wish I knew the names and stories of the ones I have called the others. I do not. And even if I did, there would not be enough time left to tell them all. There are so many. So very many.

  And totality is here.

  I cross the open quad below Tower Four to meet it. World Eaters come, crushing and scattering the mutilated remains of the dead. They crush everything underfoot: rubble, girders, flakboard, wreckage, bones, helmets, broken weapons, lives, the few effects the troopers were allowed to bring, the picts of loved ones, the little uniform kits of needle and thread, the trinkets and charms, the battered dataslates some of them carried.

  I wonder if, in time to come, any of these things will be found. Will these battlefields be picked over, and the relics of our last day retrieved? Will they be mended and fixed back together, like a broken cup, and put on display in some museum of memorial? Will the dataslates be read? The bones buried?

  Will they wonder who we were?

  Will they care? Will anything we did or said here matter to them? Only fortune knows.

  The World Eaters come. I kill Goret Foulmaw with a clean blow. I make Centurion Cisaka Warhand shiver and recoil, then take off his head. I kill Mahog Dearth of VI Destroyers by impalement. I gut Haskor Blood Smoke, and then Nurtot of II Triari. I cut the spine of Karakull White Butcher.

  I see Khârn coming. Khârn, First Captain. He is a true giant. My null curse does not even slow him down, or give him pause.

  I raise my sword, Veracity.

  I speak in Khârn’s language.

  I

  * * *

  The quad was washed with blood. Khârn’s rage was deeper than he had ever allowed it to be before. The Blood God drinks deep.

  A flicker. Kharn noticed the long number of his tally count had suddenly risen by one.

  A moment of confusion. He did not remember making another kill. He did not see anything. But his axe is spitting blood.

  The rage makes everything a blur. The number did not matter. It never had.

  The flicker of confusion passed as the Nails bit, and the fury deepened.

  He moved on.

  * * *

  Piers returned to the yard where they had raised the battle banner, him and the boy. They had propped it up, wedging the poles with sandbags and fuel drums, so it could flutter in the wind. There He was, the Emperor Ascendant, the Big Man, in His sunburst, looking down at him.

  They had raised it up, him and the boy, him and Hari, then they had gone back to round up others to stand with them, others to crowd around the banner in defiance. Show their good faith. Rally around it, and protect it, so that He would see them and protect them.

  But there were no others. And the boy, he hadn’t come back.

  Piers felt bad about that. He’d seen it all. Hardened to horror, was Olly Piers. Nothing got to him.

  But some losses were oddly hard to take.

  The old grenadier straightened his shako, and sniffed, and rubbed his eyes. Stupid old bastard. You’ve seen worse.

  He could hear it coming. Like a storm in the high Uplands. He heaved up Old Bess, and checked her charge. ‘Don’t let me down,’ he muttered to the caliver.

  He stood before the banner. Right before it. No other place to stand. If the boy had been there, he’d have stood at Piers’ side. Of course he would have. The others would have too. They all would have-

  It had arrived. Shitting shit. Look at that, boy. The size of god. It’s got wings! Wings like a daemon-bat… Each slow step towards Piers a little earthquake. The drone of the axe.

  Piers didn’t budge.

  So that’s what a primarch looks like. Shitting ball-bags. The Lord of the Eaters. Big as hell itself.

  If the boy had been there, he’d have asked Piers if he was afraid. Because he always asked such stupid questions. But Piers would have answered him. He’d have said ‘no’.

  Because he always lied.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Piers cried, ‘and see what happens!’

  The winged monster snorted. Its berserk pace had slowed. It plodded forward, as though it was curious, puzzled by the little man, and his little gun, and his ragged banner. It snorted, a great bellows snort like a bull. Liquid drooled from its lips.

  Piers aimed Old Bess.

  ‘Come on then,’ he yelled. ‘Show me what all the fuss is about!’

  Come on now. Don’t let me down. Come on now, spirit of Mythrus, I’m right here. Your loyal bloody soldier, Olly Piers. That’s Olympos Piers to you, fickle mistress of war. I’m your chosen one. You know me. Come on, now. Don’t keep me waiting. Come on, war-lady, come on, Dame Death, you useless bitch, wherever you are, send your old soldier some grace, for shit’s sake. I know I ask a lot, but you’ve only got one bloody job. Come on, now. Come on. I’m asking you nice.

  Angron, the Red Angel, started to charge. The yard shook. The banner shivered.

  Oily Piers fired Old Bess, beam after beam, dead centre. Bloody shitting centre mass, you big ugly bastard!

  ‘Upland Tercio, hooo!’ he screamed. ‘Throne of Terra! Throne of Terra!’

  Bathed in blood, Angron raised his fists to the sky, flexed his arms, spread his gigantic wings, and let out a roar so loud, the burning guntowers of Monsalvant Gard shook.

  And the banner, soaked in sprays of blood, slipped from its broken pole and fluttered to the ground.

  The ‘unknown Guardsman’ faces Angron, the Red Angel.

  THE TWENTY-SIXTH

  OF QUINTUS

  ‘After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

  After the frosty silence in the gardens

  After the agony in stony places

  The showing and the crying

  Prison and palace and reverberation

  Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

  The who was living is now dead

  We who were living are now dying.’

  - from the Terran vision-cycle

  The Waste Land, early M2

  Battles lost, battles won. Gains made, losses weathered. In the heart of an endless galaxy endlessly ablaze, there was a small space of darkness and silence, and in that space, laid out before Him, was the simple wood and bone surface of an old regicide board. The ancient game, the game of kings, of conquest. He had mastered it before He could walk.

  It had come to this. One tiny fold of darkness and silence, and the old game. The tension of the silence was almost unbearable, even for Him. There were so few pieces left on His side, so many in the ranks facing Him.

  Move followed by move, each one judged with infinite precision, calculating the multiplicity of consequences that followed the adjustment of even one minor playing piece. Not just this move, but where it would lead, moves plotted ten or twenty or even a hundred in advance, weighing every possible outcome.

  His opponent, invisible in the darkness on the other side of the board, was no fool. He had not raised fools.

  The last few moves had been to His advantage, despera
te strategies that exploited His few meagre pieces to their limit. But they had paid off. He had taken several of His opponent’s carved-bone pieces off the board. He had blocked ploys and out-stepped stratagems. He had averted looming defeat, but only briefly. Victory was no closer. All He was doing was postponing His opponent’s inexorable advance.

  His opponent had so many more pieces to play. The warp kept placing fresh pieces on the board as quickly as His plays removed them.

  He had imagined, in the end, the Inner War would be apocalyptic, the aetheric web shaking and screaming in convulsion, roaring like a stoked furnace.

  But it was not. It was rigid silence, with just the occasional soft click of a bone piece moved across old wood. It took His whole mind to focus, every thought bent towards each move. He hoped, He trusted, that in the Palace around Him, His few remaining sons could play their part and keep the Real War at bay, just a little longer, by whatever means they could.

  He had so few pieces left. It was a miracle He had kept the game alive for so long. Soon they would be face to face, no moves left to play, no pieces left, no board. Just Him and His adversary, one against one.

  In the grim darkness, a hand reached out to make the next move.

  He heard the invisible darkness chuckle to itself.

  ‘You didn’t have to come to me, face to face,’ said Rogal Dorn.

  ‘I wanted to,’ replied Sanguinius.

  Dorn’s Huscarls had escorted the Lord of Baal to the War Room adjoining the Grand Borealis, a private command cabinet away from the noise and murmur of the vast chamber. It was wise to do so: the Great Angel was a distraction wherever he went. An awed and fascinated hush had travelled with Sanguinius as Vorst and the men escorted him across the Grand Borealis, operators and War Court seniors glancing around from their vital work.

  Besides, Dorn wanted privacy. More and more these days, it seemed.

  The Praetorian nodded to the Huscarls, and they stepped out, closing the tall panelled doors of the marble War Room behind them.

  ‘I just needed a situational report from the zone commanders,’ said Dorn. ‘Personal evaluation, not what I can read on the feed. Hardlink would have sufficed.’

  ‘Well, I can make the report gladly,’ said Sanguinius. Dorn, in his grey overcloak and his father’s robe, had sat down at the cabinet desk. The Angel, his armour glorious, but marked and scuffed with the toil of war, stood as though at attention before him, a general making report to his warlord.

  ‘Gorgon Bar is firm, Praetorian,’ he said. ‘We are holding it to the third circuit wall, a regain from earlier loss, after some argument. The enemy is in disarray behind the second circuit line, attempting to recompose after the sudden loss of their field leaders. With reinforcement, I believe the Bar’s garrison could reclaim the second circuit, though I doubt reinforcement will become available. As things stand, I am confident Gorgon Bar will hold robustly for another two weeks minimum.’

  The Angel eased slightly. He looked at Dorn, and continued in a less formal tone.

  ‘That’s why I came,’ he said. ‘The stability permits me an hour or two’s grace away, and Rann can hold the line. His fire is undiminished.’

  Dorn nodded. ‘Satisfactory, then,’ he said. ‘But that’s not why you came in person.’

  He gestured to a seat.

  Sanguinius looked at the gilded chairs nearby: chairs for War Court generals and lords militant, waiting like nursery furniture beside the two or three larger thrones made for demigods. All came here, in their turn, for discourse in the private office of Terra’s warlord. There were no seats built for Space Marines. The legionaries always stood.

  Sanguinius sat down, flexing his hands on the lacquered arm rests of the throne he had chosen, as though impressed by the scrollwork and the gaping lion heads.

  ‘It’s not,’ he admitted. ‘A private matter, in fact.’

  ‘So I imagined,’ said Dorn. ‘I had heard reports, brother. Nothing official. Concerns for your health. Just tell me directly-‘

  ‘Oh no,’ said Sanguinius. ‘I am entirely well. Entirely well. Weary from the struggle, but aren’t we all?’ He looked around. ‘Is the Great Khan joining us? I thought he might.’

  Dorn shook his head.

  ‘By link?’

  Too busy for “chatter”, so he said in his message,’ Dorn replied with a touch of disdain. ‘But he’s blocked them squarely at Colossi. I think “too intent” is what he means. Fiercely readying his Legion, no doubt, to make a run at Lion’s Gate space port.’

  ‘We do need a port,’ Sanguinius said. He leant forward earnestly. The word from Eternity Wall Port is bleak. An atrocity, and a wounding loss.’

  Dorn didn’t comment. Some shadow seemed to pass across his face for a moment Sanguinius noticed it, but chose not to remark. He stared at the patterns in the gleaming marble floor instead, pensive.

  ‘Angron is…’ he began. ‘Rogal, he is beyond words. I can no longer contain the horror of him in language. We have much to fear from him. He is a force now, not a once-brother.’

  ‘He’s a monster,’ Dorn replied, with flat affect.

  ‘Each is, in his own way,’ replied the Angel. ‘It pains me to think so, but that’s the way of our world. It’s just us and the monsters.’

  Dorn leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his jaw with the heel of his hand.

  ‘Jaghatai can have his run,’ he said, as though he was allowing something he had any power to prevent. ‘With all my heart, I hope there soon comes a time when we need a port again. Anyway, it could be days or weeks away before he gets the chance. The Pale King is driven back, but he controls the approach and holds the field. The Khan of Khans will have to deal with him, and he is not easily dealt with.’

  ‘But you,’ said Sanguinius, ‘I understand you have made a gain. A decent one. Archamus was tight-lipped, but there’s word of a good fight that went in our favour. They say you took the field in person.’

  Dorn rose to his feet and wandered to the wall displays to check some passing data.

  ‘I had hoped for more, but yes,’ he replied. ‘An engagement at Saturnine. Three full companies of the Sons of Horus destroyed, including the First. The Mournival annihilated.’

  ‘Are you… joking?’ Sanguinius began.

  Dorn shook his head. ‘That’s not the half. We repelled the Phoenician from the wall there. The Phoenician and his entire Legion. Fulgrim is now a true monster too. I shudder at the thought of his transformation. I merely fought. He… he took brutal losses. I didn’t close to kill him, despite my efforts, but I think… I think he’s done. I think he’s broken, and quit the siege, and taken his damn children with him. The monsters are one fewer.’

  Sanguinius tilted his head, quizzical. He laughed in astonishment.

  ‘You tell me that, brother…’ he said, ‘all of that, and yet you preface it with the words “I had hoped for more”? What more could there be?’

  ‘So much,’ said Dorn, expression grim. ‘For a moment, there seemed a chance to take Lupercal himself. But no. I was denied.’

  Sanguinius rose to his feet, arms wide, wings rippling.

  ‘Fulgrim’s departure is a great prize, still!’ he cried. ‘Great Terra! Rogal? This is a victory for us. For you.’

  Dorn nodded. ‘And I mark it as such,’ he admitted. He looked at his brother ruefully. ‘You know the real irony? Fulgrim could have taken the wall. The power he has, the Legion strength. The unimaginable daemon gifts. He cut the wall wide open, brother, wide open. But for a… a stroke of fortune, I held it closed. Fulgrim got deeper, and faster, than any of them so far. Excess was his undoing, as ever. The brazen confidence of over-strength. He threw his whole damn Legion into a space too small.’

  Dorn shook his head. He smiled at the Angel sadly.

  ‘I tell you this plainly, brother,’ he said. ‘If the Warmaster or the Lord of Iron had ever managed to harness him, he would have won this for them in a mat
ter of days. He could have been their greatest weapon.’

  ‘Some of us are hard to control,’ said Sanguinius.

  ‘Some of us always have been.’

  ‘Gifted beyond belief, yet wayward,’ the Angel remarked. ‘So too Angron. The World Eaters, like the Emperor’s Children, as you say, could win this outright. But they are wild, and will not be commanded I hey do as they will, capricious as storms. Sometimes their actions benefit Horus Lupercal, and sometimes, thank every star in heaven, us. They are wasted assets.’

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  ‘Well,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Rogal, you’ve surprised me with word of triumph. I thought I was going to be the one bearing better news. That’s why I came. To tell you in person.’

  ‘You have my full attention,’ said Dorn. ‘Speak this better news. I long to hear of something other than death.’

  ‘At Gorgon Bar, during the fight there,’ said the Angel, ‘I… I came into possession of some intelligence. I won’t say how, not yet.’

  ‘A secret? From me?’

  ‘Please, trust me.’

  Dorn shrugged. ‘I can do no less, brother, without damning myself, so…’

  ‘The intelligence is genuine,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Confirmed. Nuceria is destroyed.’

  The Praetorian frowned. ‘It’s dead. It’s been dead for-‘

  ‘No,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Destroyed, not razed. Eradicated. Exterminated by fleet action. There is only one thing that could have done that. The moment I learned of it, my hope was renewed.’

  Dorn stared at him. They’re coming?’ he breathed.

  They are coming at last,’ Sanguinius nodded. ‘Roboute. The Lion. The others are finally coming.’

  * * *

  ‘What’s it about this time?’ Land asked. He was wearing heavy protective gloves, and they were plastered with lockcrete residue that was starting to harden. The chamber air stank of industrial chemicals.

  ‘Get your things,’ said Maximus Thane.