by Gav Thorpe
Alpharius watched as the barrels spun up to speed, momentarily taken aback by the machine’s sudden appearance; Corax had warned of such a thing but until now they had only encountered the fixed defences. Even as he lifted his bolter to fire, he realised he had reacted too slowly.
A weight smashed into the side of Alpharius, sending him reeling to his left just as the guard-machine opened fire. Lukar was firing his bolter as he took the brunt of the cannonade, fist-sized shells hammering into his armour in a welter of ceramite shrapnel and ripped metal.
Lukar was hurled backwards by the impact, his shattered armour slamming to the floor, cratered and cracked. Alpharius fired his bolter, targeting the sensor array, smashing lenses and aerials.
The side of the machine exploded into a shower of molten drops from the blast of Marko’s multi-melta, exposing steaming circuitry and wires. Dor’s bolts slammed into the rent a second later as the turret spun towards Marko. Velps leapt forwards with a melta-charge in his fist. He ducked beneath the blaze of bullets as the guardian opened fire again, smashing Dor from his feet. With a snarled oath, Velps slapped the charge on the casing beneath the guns and dived away.
The machine detonated, its destruction filling the tunnel with incandescent fury that caused heat warnings to flare across Alpharius’s helm display, an explosion far greater than that caused by the melta-bomb alone. Shrapnel carved into Alpharius’s chest and shoulder, but his armour held. The ceramite walls were similarly crackled and pitted with debris.
‘Self-destruct,’ said Velps, the paint of his armour blistered away by the fiery blast. He fired several rounds into the smoking, twitching mechanical remains, snarling curses.
Alpharius turned to where Lukar lay awkwardly on the grey floor. The face of his helm was a mess, the Raven Guard symbol embossed on his breastplate mangled beyond recognition, blood seeping from a dozen gouges in his armour.
‘The sergeant looks alive,’ reported Marko, kneeling beside Dor’s supine form. The sergeant weakly held up his hand to confirm the fact.
‘Lukar’s dead,’ Alpharius said quietly. The Raven Guard had taken the full brunt of the attack, saving Alpharius’s life. As he looked down at the blood-spattered, broken armour of Lukar, Alpharius shook his head with disbelief. ‘Why did he push me out of the way?’
‘Why did you drag me to safety?’ Marko replied, pulling Dor to his feet.
Alpharius had no answer. These warriors were Raven Guard, his enemies. His sole purpose was to ensure their destruction, but the mission required that they succeed in retrieving whatever it was that Corax sought in the vaults. That meant they had to stay alive to breach the inner sanctum of the mountain.
Yet there was more to it than that. Their eventual deaths would be a necessity, but as individuals Alpharius had respect, perhaps even friendship, for his fellow squad members. Whether this was some remnant of memory from the warrior-material in his omophagea, or something altogether more vexing and problematic, he did not like to guess.
‘We are brothers-in-battle,’ Dor said quietly, crouching to place a hand on the shattered remnants of Lukar’s chest.
‘Aye,’ said Velps, pressing his fist to his chest in salute. ‘Battle-brothers.’
‘Battle-brothers,’ Alpharius whispered, pulling his gaze from the dead legionary, unable to deal with his confused thoughts.
ARCATUS EYED THE channel ahead with suspicion. The passageway was long and narrow, no more than two metres wide and at least three hundred metres long, turning abruptly to the right to continue out of sight. About fifty metres away, a small gutter-like trench emerged from the wall, cutting diagonally across their line of advance. He called his Custodians to a halt and waited for instruction from Corax. In the three and a half hours since he had entered the Labyrinth, Arcatus had found a new respect for the primarch, and perhaps even a little trust. Four times, Corax’s last-minute warnings or orders had saved the him and his group of Custodians and Raven Guard from deadly traps and mechanical attack. Only a few minutes earlier, Arcatus had drawn back just in time to avoid a vaporous acid spray that would have melted through his armour in seconds.
A rivulet of liquid ran along the channel, a dark green, viscous fluid that flowed sluggishly, its level growing higher.
‘I think this passage is going to be flooded, Corax,’ Arcatus reported.
‘It is just lubricating fluid,’ the primarch replied. ‘It is no threat. Proceed to the end of the passageway. There will be three doors. Take the door on the left. Beyond is some kind of energy grid, a laser trap perhaps. Be wary.’
This last comment seemed unnecessary – Arcatus had been wary from the moment he had first stepped into the deadly maze. He followed Corax’s instructions, taking the squad to the bend in the corridor. A shouted warning caused him to turn as a previously invisible hatch opened in the ceiling. Three silver orbs, each no bigger than his fist, dropped into view.
The first exploded into molten shards as Custodian Ganius swept the blade of his guardian spear through it. The other two detonated of their own accord, showering Ganius and the Raven Guard next to him with jagged, smoking shrapnel. Wisps of vapour rose from their armour as the acidic compound melted swiftly through to flesh.
Ganius cried out – the first time Arcatus had ever heard a Custodian react to pain – and struggled to disconnect his breastplate. The Raven Guard legionary toppled to the floor with a crash, a hole melted through his helm, a slush of liquefied skull and brain matter dribbling onto the bare floor.
‘It’s through my ribs!’ snarled Ganius, dropping to one knee, clutching at his chest.
Arcatus acted without thought, to spare Ganius the inevitable agony of having his heart and lungs melted. His power halberd gleamed with energy as he swung the weapon, taking Ganius’s head from his neck in one stroke. Ganius’s decapitated corpse flopped to the ground, the echo of the impact resounding along the passageway.
‘Move up, door on the left,’ Arcatus snapped, waving his halberd to get the survivors advancing.
He stood over the remains of Ganius, alert for any more of the silver globes. Arcatus followed after the last of the Raven Guard to pass, remembering the primarch’s promise that the vault contained something that would ensure Horus’s defeat. With a last glance back to Ganius’s body, which was collapsing in on itself as the acid chewed through his spine, Arcatus vowed to himself that he would hold Corax to his word.
NINE
The Depths of Terra
Nikaea’s Legacy
Genesis of the Primarchs
THE GENE-TECH VAULT lay within reach. Corax allowed himself a moment to see if he remembered anything about the inner defences, but there was nothing in the Emperor’s memories. Once through the Labyrinth, Corax would simply have to unlock the vault doors and they would stand before the prize.
‘Ready your servitors,’ the primarch told Nexin. ‘We enter the Labyrinth in two minutes.’
Twenty-three Raven Guard were dead, another seventeen crippled and left in the Labyrinth to be recovered later, a further thirteen wounded but able to continue. The Custodians had also lost three warriors. Corax had committed all of their names to memory but now was not the time to mourn or mark their passing. The Labyrinth remained to be unlocked.
Corax’s commands continued to spill from his lips in a constant stream, moving the pieces of the puzzle to where they were needed. He tried not to think of them as living, breathing warriors. Ever since he had first sent his prison-army to fight against the guards of Lycaeus, he had known his orders would see men die. Though the adversary he now attempted to outwit was no sentient foe – though, in a sense, he was being pitted against the guile of the Emperor himself – the sacrifices required were no different. Millions, probably billions, of the Emperor’s followers would die if the Raven Guard failed today and could not cause Horus to pause in his advance on Terra.
So it was that the chatter of bolter fire that now echoed distantly from the maze and blared harsh over the vox-net did
not divert his attention from the task. He thought only of report and command. His Legiones Astartes had sworn oaths to lay down their lives in his service and for the cause of the Emperor, and it would be vanity to think this battle was any different.
The lead elements of the force were almost two-thirds of the way through the maze. Parts of the Labyrinth had been secured – the positions of the squads and the routes they had taken forcing the mechanism of the Labyrinth into impossible choices so that engines broke, pistons froze and gears seized.
The hardest part was over. The remaining possible configurations had dwindled to the extent that Corax could clearly see the path ahead. It was just a matter of time until the Labyrinth was bested. The primarch warned himself against complacency. The Labyrinth was still a random device, constantly changing, and could throw up a challenge he had not yet encountered and could not foresee. His brave Raven Guard and the warriors of the Legio Custodes still placed their lives in his hands.
He directed several squads to converge on a massive turntable that would open up a main accessway towards the inner reaches of the mountain. This done, he signalled Arcatus on a direct channel.
‘Custodian, you must move your men into the chamber flanking your right,’ he said. ‘You will be breaching a line of strong defences. Be prepared.’
‘The Custodian Guard is always prepared, primarch,’ Arcatus replied. ‘It seems from the reports I have been hearing that you have directed my squad into the teeth of the hardest opposition. Perhaps you hope we will fall, and thus rid yourself of our scrutiny?’
‘I have no desire to do so,’ Corax replied without rancour at the accusation. ‘Had I wished you disposed of, I have had many opportunities already. Your warriors see the hardest fighting because they are the best under my command. You and your men have abilities even above those of my legionaries and so it is against the toughest challenges you have been pitched. The Raven Guard owes you a debt of honour for your aid, which I have found of the highest value, making this task a little easier for all of us.’
There was no reply for a while, the Custodian perhaps taken aback by Corax’s words.
‘Very well,’ Arcatus said. ‘We shall continue as you say.’
The whine of hydraulics caught Corax’s attention as Nexin and his servitors joined the primarch.
‘The vault is open?’ the magos asked.
‘It will be soon,’ said Corax. He worked out the quickest route through the Labyrinth to the front of the advance and pointed to one of the openings. ‘This way. Follow me.’
STANDING CLOSE TO Corax, Alpharius could hear the primarch’s conversation with Arcatus, Agapito and the tech-priest. They discussed the immense vault door that now barred further progress. It was circular, five metres across, and of a metal that reflected the light dully, something which Alpharius had not seen before. The hinges were massive, as tall as him, but there was no sign of a locking mechanism: no runepad, no scanner, not even a keyhole. Around the door smoked the remains of four gun turrets that had sprung from the floor as the lead elements of the force had approached.
Alpharius listened patiently as the commanders discussed the options. Agapito favoured melta charges, but the primarch was not convinced they would breach the barrier. The magos claimed his servitors could cut their way through.
More squads were emerging from the beaten Labyrinth; some of them bearing dead warriors. Corax had assured his force that the fighting was over for the moment. Alpharius had been alarmed when the maze had been held in the grip of a titanic shuddering, the screeching of metal echoing along the tunnels and rooms, smoke from burning oil drifting through the air. It had lasted several seconds, and the Alpha Legionnaire had thought the whole complex was collapsing.
When it had finished, Corax had announced calmly that the Labyrinth was stuck, unable to respond to further movement. He had despatched search teams to return to isolated and fallen brethren, but Alpharius and his fellow squad members had been directed towards the vault entrance along with the majority of the expedition. It was there he had come across the senior leaders of the force, baulked by this final obstacle. The conversation had reached an impasse.
‘Burrowing through would take many hours, days perhaps, if it is even possible,’ Agapito was saying. ‘Is there no other way?’
Corax seemed lost in thought for a moment, eyes half-closed, before he replied.
‘It is a psychic lock,’ said the primarch, his whole demeanour changing, shoulders slumping with disappointment. ‘It can only be activated by the mind of the Emperor.’
‘Then we must rely upon physical means,’ said Orlandriaz. The magos gestured towards the two heavy servitors looming over the group. ‘I shall prepare my servants.’
‘There is another way,’ said Corax, straightening, filled with purpose again. He glanced at Arcatus before his eyes came to rest on Alpharius. The Alpha Legionnaire was disturbed by that dark gaze but did not react. ‘Balsar Kurthuri is in your squad, yes?’
‘He is, lord,’ replied Alpharius, glancing towards the named legionary who stood a few metres away from the group.
‘He was once a member of the Librarius,’ Corax continued.
Alpharius did not know his squad-brother was a psyker, and was taken aback by the thought, but assumed Corax would not have misremembered. He nodded.
‘Yes, lord, he was,’ said Alpharius, unsure of the primarch’s intent. He called for Balsar to join his superiors.
‘This is unwise,’ said Arcatus, stepping between the primarch and the approaching legionary, his halberd raised. ‘Do you not remember these words: “Woe betide he who ignores my warning or breaks faith with me. He shall be my enemy, and I will visit such destruction upon him and all his followers that, until the end of all things, he shall rue the day he turned from my light.” Such were the words of the Emperor.’
‘The Edict of Nikaea,’ Corax said with a nod. ‘I remember the words well, Custodian. I heard them myself from the lips of the Emperor.’
‘Then you understand their meaning: sorcery is condemned. I cannot allow this,’ said Arcatus.
Corax pursed his lips in thought and then gently laid a hand on the warrior’s shoulder, guiding him aside. He looked at the legionary standing before him.
‘Balsar, you have powers of the mind, yes?’ he asked.
‘I was a Librarian, lord, it is true,’ replied the battle-brother. ‘I have not exercised my powers since the Librarius was disbanded by your command, and have sworn not to employ them.’
‘To whom did you swear that oath, Balsar?’
‘To you, Lord Corax,’ the legionary replied.
‘And if I release you from that oath, can you use your powers now?’
‘My lord… I also swore in the name of the Emperor to cease using my abilities,’ said Balsar, his voice trembling. ‘Are you ordering me to break my oath?’
The words struck a chord in Corax, his lips twitching with frustration. It lasted only for a few seconds before the primarch’s expression hardened again, dark eyes narrowing.
‘This will not happen,’ barked Arcatus before Corax could speak. His Custodians assembled around him, summoned by some means Alpharius had not detected. ‘The Edict of Nikaea is absolute.’
Corax ignored them all and addressed Balsar again.
‘Have you ever felt “dark temptations”?’ the primarch asked, his tone harsh and dismissive. ‘Do you feel any now?’
‘No, my lord, I have never felt any temptation, dark or otherwise,’ Balsar replied dryly. ‘My life has been woefully bereft of temptation since I left Terra.’
‘I will not allow sorcery, not here on Terra itself,’ said Arcatus. A glimmering field sprang into life along the length of his halberd blade and was matched by the glow of the other Custodians’ weapons. This was greeted by the raising of several dozen bolters by the assembled Raven Guard. Alpharius followed suit a moment later, directing his weapon at the Custodian Guard.
‘You use words whose meani
ng you do not understand,’ said Corax, his expression growing grim. ‘The Emperor guards Terra from the most unnatural powers. Do you think he will allow such a thing on his world?’
‘I do not guess the mind of the Emperor, I merely ensure his decree is enforced,’ replied Arcatus. He looked around at the legionaries that surrounded him and then back at Corax. ‘Sorcery is forbidden.’
‘Do you judge the Emperor to be a sorcerer, Custodian, or perhaps his regent, the Sigillite?’
‘The edict does not concern my superiors, only the warriors of the Legiones Astartes,’ Arcatus said coolly.
The two sides faced each other in silence, fingers tight on their weapons. Alpharius looked at Corax, trying to judge the primarch’s next move. It would go badly if the Custodians were killed. Investigations would follow that would not only hamper the retrieval of the vault contents but might also lead to the discovery of the Alpha Legion infiltrators. There was also the very real possibility that Alpharius would be killed in the fighting, as Corax’s summons had brought him close to the Custodians. It was impossible to guess at Arcatus’s intent, his face hidden behind his golden-masked helm. Similarly, the Raven Guard were faceless warriors, their weapons showing their intent with no hint of reluctance.
Only Corax’s face could be seen. The primarch looked pensive, but his eyes never moved from Arcatus. Corax held no weapon, but Alpharius knew well enough that the primarch was fully capable of killing Arcatus without armament. He wondered what ‘dark temptations’ played on the primarch’s mind at that moment. A single blow would fell Arcatus and the Raven Guard had the other Custodians surrounded, though the gold-armoured warriors would surely slay many legionaries before they fell.
‘Father, do not abandon us.’ Corax’s voice was a whisper, not meant to be heard by the others. There was anguish in those few words, spoken between gritted teeth.
