by Various
I hook my left arm over his right and pin it against his body, as I throw my weight up. We roll. This time, I’m on top of him. Khârn hasn’t registered the reversal. I have a moment’s clear shot.
I hit him. The blow dents his cheek, breaks my fist, and leaves blood pooling under his skull on the rock. I drop my weight behind an elbow and collapse onto his face. Bone breaks. I ignore the pain in my ribs as he lands a series of wild punches, and grab his head with both hands. I growl, smashing it into the ground.
Khârn lies still. I slump away from him.
I hear the roar of my blood rolling and crashing like a distant wave. It begs me to rise. I cannot.
The words fall from my lips. ‘A draw.’
Cruel laughter rumbles in Khârn’s throat. ‘There can be… no such outcome. Our fight is… not over…’
‘It is for today.’
‘Finish it.’
I ignore him, and close my eyes. I see only Khârn, and the World Eater wears my face.
The Tempest
It is the ninth day of the ninth month. The Tempest of Angels is upon us. I stand in the centre of the duelling stone and await my sons. It has been a year since I have seen either Amit or Azkaellon, not since I sent them to face Lucius and Khârn. I turn my gaze to the twin statues of the Emperor set above the chamber’s main archway. Between them burns a single, blood-red candle. The pillar of wax is almost gone. When the last of it has burned down, the Tempest will begin.
For a hundred heartbeats, I watch the flame. It stands upright in the still air of the room. Only at its last does it waver. I watch as it flickers and fades. A moment more and it will burn its last. It is the same moment in which it burns brightest.
Then my thoughts turn to my sons, and my mood diminishes just as the candle has. I think of my Angels and their fury as they war across the stars. I wonder for how long such a fire will keep them from the darkness in their blood. Foreboding threatens to steal all strength from my limbs as I ponder my sons’ final moments, and the terrible loss that such a time will bring.
‘Lord Sanguinius.’
The strength in Amit’s voice breaks my reverie. I remind myself that the flame is still lit. The destiny of my bloodline will unfold – if I am to be more than a mere observer, my focus must be on guiding them now.
I turn to find him stood under the eastern archway, a ragged frame of dark brass and jagged iron. He neither bows nor salutes, for there is no honour in this place. Only life and death, and the moments that act as passage from one to the other.
He has come as the Blood Seeker. The attacker, the destroyer. A role I have never doubted he was born for. I sigh.
‘Lord Sanguinius.’
Azkaellon’s voice sounds from the opposite side of the chamber. I do not turn to greet him. He stands as the Saviour. My defender.
I feel my limbs swell with anger in the same moment that my hearts grow heavy.
I have failed. The lesson has gone unlearned.
They have come to play the same roles that they always do.
I wait, motionless, while they step onto the duelling stone and ready their blades. I nod for them to begin, and close my eyes. I have no wish to watch this same dance again.
I am barely aware of their actions as they clash around me. Azkaellon will never let Amit’s blade strike me, and the Flesh Tearer will never stop trying. My mind begins to wander, to slip away down the threads of thought, until–
The familiar clashing of Baalite steel, the background wash of the Tempests I have stood through all these long years, changes. There is something different in the tempo this time.
Something in the cadence of the fight.
I open my eyes to find Amit wrong-footed, his attack beaten back by Azkaellon’s savage counter. I hide a smile as Azkaellon presses this advantage, each sweep of his blade more furious than the last. Amit remains composed, turning aside Azkaellon’s blows until he finds an opening. Amit’s strike is exacting. Azkaellon only just stops his blade as it drives toward my abdomen. I watch now with keen interest.
But the break in the normal rhythm of the pair is fleeting, and they return to their natures by the next sword stroke. Amit attacks with pure aggression, sacrificing his guard for a chance at victory. Azkaellon, his composure regained, strikes with direct poise, unwilling to throw himself off balance for a kill stroke. Yet, as the duel progresses, there are moments when the tempo is altered again, and in each of them I see a glimmer of the other.
I was wrong to have expected these two to switch roles. Horus was right – we are who we are.
But we can be tempered. Our flaws rounded off by the virtues of our brothers. I know hope then. It is as a third heart in my breast, beating in slow time as it waits for the chance to race, to pump a glorious future through my veins.
I have seen too much of the possible ends to believe that it is glory awaiting me and my lineage. Yet the weight of certainty is not crushing, for when the day comes when my sons each fall to the darkness in their blood, I hope that the virtues of those they stand beside will keep them in the light.
They called him the killer of Titans.
Lucretius Corvo did not care for the title. He was captain of the 90th Company of the XIII Legion. That was honour enough for him.
In Martial Square, Corvo stood with the veterans of the Shadow Crusade and the atrocity at Calth. Ten files of thirteen: officers, battle-brothers and neophytes ordered without deference to rank. They were joined by brotherhood of a kind that transcended the boundaries of Chapter, station and company.
Inhumanly large and resplendent in their battleplate, they scintillated in the bright sun of Macragge, their badges of service and recognition crisp with fresh paint. Many times Corvo had stood in noble assemblage with his brothers, but never in one quite like this.
Once uniform in everything, the hammers of war had wrought the Ultramarines variously, beating out a different tune on each of them. Armour of differing marks mixed in their ranks and within individual sets. Battle salvage and worn elements had been lovingly restored by the Legion artisans rather than replaced. Commendation studs, non-regulation weaponry and unique war-plate revealed the identity of their wearer for all to see. Personal foibles sanctioned and let speak of victory, victory, victory!
They bore the marks of their actions proudly. They had prevailed against all odds, and they were to be honoured for it.
Amongst this august company, Corvo nevertheless stood out. He was taller than many of his gene-kin – that was a factor, yes, as was the massive suit of Mark III armour that singled him out as a void-war specialist. But it was the unique nature of his colours that set him truly apart. The cobalt-blue of his plate was quartered with bone-white. His personal banner, hanging from a pole mounted on his power plant, was likewise divided. It bore the emblems of the Ninth Chapter and the 90th Company. In the top left field was a spiked, hollow circle: a dark blue starburst.
This was not of Legion origin.
Serried ranks filled the rest of the square, representatives of every military force currently on Macragge – three Legions, the Imperial Army, and others. At the north and south, a pair of Warlord Titans stood sentinel. The eyes of millions of citizens watched the ceremony, hundreds of thousands in the vast crowds beyond the square alone. They were quiet. All of Macragge listened respectfully.
Three primarchs occupied a grand dais beneath the massive Propylae Titanicum.
Sanguinius stood forward and centre as befitted his status as Imperial Regent. He shone with his customary radiance, but appeared troubled even so. He said little, and the enigmatic Lion El’Jonson even less. Today was their brother Roboute Guilliman’s day – the master of Ultramar and the XIII Legion. Today the sacrifices of his realm, his people, were to be remembered. His words boomed out across the square – dozens of names, dozens of victories, dozens of heroes born from the horrors of defeat.
Guilliman honoured the unenhanced first, scores of mortal men and women who had defied the traitors, whether by lasgun and blade, or through acts of less obvious heroism: a scholam mistress who had led three hundred children to safety, a fabricatory adept who had worked for ten days without rest when his fellows had fled, and the sole survivor of a hundred port workers who had marched their industrial loaders into the enemy.
The Legiones Astartes waited motionless in the sun. Hours passed. The bulk of the southern Titan draped Corvo in welcome shadow for a while, but soon enough he was in the sun’s full glare again. Half the standard humans had yet to be feted.
The sun was westering when the last bowed before the giant lords of men and walked away. A scroll was unfurled by Guilliman’s equerry. Now it was time for the Ultramarines to pay respect to their brothers.
These were the champions of Ultramar.
The first name was read out. Honours were stated and bestowed. Short words from the primarch. The receiver renewed his oaths of loyalty. He was only the first to do so.
Corvo’s hands twitched.
The night before. With Guilliman there was always a night before, or a night after. Feasts and parties went with his honour-giving like bolts went with boltguns. He held it important for his sons to mingle with the citizens, another chore in preparing themselves for peaceful duties once war was done.
It was clear now that those days would never come. Corvo expected ambivalence at the thought – he was made for war, after all – but found melancholy instead. Guilliman’s dream was fading.
The whole of the Regia Civitata had been given over to the function. Inside its baroque halls, the one hundred and thirty mingled with the common mortals of Ultramar. The Space Marines stood like adults in a room of children, but the two strands of humanity were, for the most part, at ease with one another. The primarchs were absent from the pre-feast socialising, a calculated decision on Guilliman’s part.
Corvo wore a simple, formal uniform, like all those who were to be honoured. Even so, he carried his gladius and bolt pistol on a broad belt. Events of the last few months had taught the XIII to be cautious. Members of the Invictus Guard stood garbed for battle at the main entrance. Around the perimeter and on the roof, the Praecental Guard and legionary brothers of the First Chapter patrolled. This heightened security saddened Corvo further. As much as the captain disliked company, Guilliman did not. It was important for his lord to be comfortable among his people. Distance was growing between the shepherd and his flock.
A woman was talking to Corvo. He reminded himself to pay attention to her.
‘So much heroism,’ the woman was saying.
‘War breeds heroes,’ said Corvo, and immediately felt foolish. ‘The larger proportion of them perish uncelebrated.’
The woman was not fazed by his bluntness. She’s used to this, he thought. Some women enjoyed flirting with legionaries, though he could not fathom for what reason. Women had been a mystery to him before his ascension to the XIII, and they only seemed more obtuse afterwards. She was very beautiful, and finely dressed. It did not matter to him.
Theoretical, he told himself, you’re behaving like an oaf.
Practical, he added, you are an oaf.
‘Something amuses you?’ she said. An ironic smile played on her lips, a smile that seem to say: where is the power if there is no potency?
‘No, no. A memory, that is all.’
She looked at him expectantly.
‘It would not translate well,’ he said awkwardly. By the old gods, he wanted to get away.
Corvo held out his glass, an oversized thing made for his oversized hands. A server stopped – his ewer was fit for men, but Corvo’s glass was fit for the sons of demigods, and the server used his full measure in charging it. The liquid ran up the side as it flowed into the bulb, the thick swell of it trailing a lesser curve of clear alcohol as it found its equilibrium.
Not at all like the wall of blood that burst from the coffin ship. Not like that in the least.
‘That is some drink,’ said the woman. ‘If I were to drink it, I would not wake for a week.’ She was trying for levity, Corvo supposed. She was not intimidated by him.
‘Our lord is still at pains to make us feel part of humanity,’ he said. ‘A lesser amount would have no effect upon me whatsoever. We are supposed to be enjoying ourselves.’ He tried to hide his irritation, unsuccessfully.
He sipped the drink. There was a hard burn to it. A good, strong Macragge pine brandy. Very fine vintage.
‘Will that help you to enjoy yourself, good sir?’
‘Only if I drink a lot, and quickly,’ he replied.
The woman cradled her own glass in both hands, the drink untouched. ‘Does it work then? All this, talking to the little people. Does it make you feel like one of us?’
Corvo looked over the gathering of humans and transhumans. They ignored the monster outside as they conversed and pretended that the sky was not red. They acted as if the galaxy had not been ripped asunder by fratricide, as if the order of all right things was not upset. If they could just pretend all was well, then all would be well. It was as much a pantomime as serving humans and giants from the same jug, or of pretending that their chairs were of equal size because they were made in the same style. He looked down upon the woman. She was so tiny, so frail. Of course it didn’t work.
‘I am one of you,’ said Corvo, and tried his hardest to believe it. ‘It is better not to forget our humanity in the first place, rather than seek to remind ourselves. That is my opinion.’
‘We have all heard what you did at Astagar. I doubt any human soldier could have done as you did.’
Corvo’s smile became fixed. She sensed his irritation, and formed an expression of concern. ‘Oh no, no! Not just the Titan, sir. I do not talk of that – no doubt you are sick of it.’
She was right.
‘I talk of your efforts in the rebuilding. I have family there,’ she explained.
Corvo dipped his head in gratitude. ‘If only I could have seen it to the end. I was recalled for this ceremony. One week to destroy Eurythmia Civitas, and two years later it is still not set right. And I fear it never shall be.’
‘He is right, our Lord Guilliman.’ She cocked her head, appraising him. ‘You are as much an asset in peace as in war.’
‘We strive to be so,’ he said. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, mamzel?’
‘I am Medullina,’ she said with a slight curtsey.
‘Well then, Mamzel Medullina, I bid you enjoy the rest of the evening.’
Corvo dipped his head to her and made his way through the crowd of worthies. He was courteous enough to move with purpose, as if he had somewhere else to be, though he did not. He headed for solitude, offered by the tall doors leading out onto the balcony. It was hard to navigate such fragile beings without damaging them – not a consideration he’d had in some while.
The greatest luxury in Corvo’s recent life had been preparedness. He only heard the true, appalling scale of what had happened at Calth later, but by the time the enemy approached Astagar he was at least aware of the treachery. Corvo set the operational mark running as soon as the Word Bearers and World Eaters translated in-system, and his erstwhile cousins were met with a wall of fire.
Why they even attacked Astagar was beyond Corvo, his incredulity at the waste of resources vying with the outrage of betrayal. It made no sense. Astagar had little strategic or symbolic value. He had not known then that wanton destruction was the traitors’ main intent.
The force that attacked was commensurately small: five battle cruisers and attendant support – enough to ravage a lightly defended world, no more, no less. Good theoretical, perhaps, but the enemy’s intelligence was lacking. They reckoned without him.
Corvo was not supposed to be there. He was en route to the muster at Calth but had been divert
ed by a malfunctioning warp engine on his command ship. Call it fate. Call it luck. Corvo believed in neither. He was there, and that was all that mattered.
The manner of the enemy’s approach told him they were intent on a ground battle. So be it. He landed his own men and ordered his fleet to run out ahead of the enemy. A raid cost the foe five Army transports at minimal damage to Corvo’s ships. Satisfied that the enemy would thereafter have one eye over his shoulder, Corvo had his fleet withdraw. He would save the ships, if nothing else.
Astagar’s modest orbital defences accounted for a portion more of the enemy’s strength before being overrun. Light bombardment of the principal habitation zones opened hostilities on the ground. Corvo was appalled at this prioritisation of civilian targets, but had had the presence of mind to send the population to the shelters away from the city. When the enemy commenced orbital insertion over Eurythmia Civitas it was empty but for six hundred Ultramarines and the seventy thousand men of the Astagarian Light Rangers.
All this was in his report. Corvo was diligent. He put everything into the report, even the parts that he didn’t believe.
Corvo was granted a brief respite. The balcony was typically grand in the Ultramar style, running all the way around the top of the Regia Civitatis’s extensive arcade. Intimate groupings of couches were dotted about, coloured lanterns and braziers of cheerful coals at their centres to blunt the bite of Macragge’s night. There were few people seated near them. Guilliman’s attention to detail in all things extended as far as ensuring that light pollution from the city did not drown out the stars, and the sky should have been ablaze with distant suns.
It was not. It glowered a dull red. Only a single star burned beyond the lights of the orbitals and ships at anchor, and that was false – the Pharos, xenos technology illuminating Macragge from afar.
Corvo walked to the balustrade and looked out. There were only a handful of cities so perfect. There were prettier, certainly, and definitely livelier ones. None, however, could match Magna Macragge Civitas’s perfect marriage of form and function.
