Warden of the Blade

by David Annandale

  He waited beside the command bunker for Sendrax and his squad. They marched back from the gunship in silence, their formation still ceremonial. Crowe had sent Sendrax to the Sacrum with Gavallan while he and his squad made ready for the new mobilisation. Crowe had hoped the Knight of the Flame would find some calmness of the spirit. His grim countenance as he approached was not promising. The rest of the squad entered the bunker, leaving the two senior Purifiers alone.

  ‘It is done, then,’ Crowe said.

  Sendrax gave him a curt nod. ‘Gura says all orbiting vessels have been downed.’

  ‘Good.’ A necessary sacrifice, of the sort never taken lightly, but not unusual. The war was making the presence of the Grey Knights and the existence of daemons known more and more widely across Sandava II. The hard duties were to be carried out with no hesitation or regret, and with a full understanding of their weight.

  Here was the truth Crowe and Sendrax both knew, and would not reveal to the soldiers waiting to fight at their sides: Sandava II was subject to what amounted to a slow Exterminatus.

  The ships were destroyed. Thousands had died in orbit. Now the first phase of the planetside purge was about to begin. Crowe could have ordered the commencement sooner. But he felt that this, too, should be accomplished with Sendrax present.

  ‘Well?’ said Sendrax. ‘Have you located our quarry?’

  ‘Not yet. It won’t be long now, brother. The sword cannot leave Sandava II. It is being hunted by the daemons as well as by us. It will be forced to react. A little patience more.’

  ‘Patience,’ Sendrax repeated. He pronounced the word as a curse. ‘I freely acknowledge patience has never been my strength. But, brother, you have too much. It looks like resignation.’

  Sendrax was wrong. Crowe wanted to tell him so. He believed in militant patience. It was the patience that waited for the best moment to attack. More importantly, it was the patience that endured the unendurable, tempering the soul on an anvil that could be mistaken for martyrdom, but was something far more aggressive and unforgiving. Crowe would endure until the last enemy had fallen. Sendrax’s impatience was a weakness. It left him vulnerable to error. To recklessness. To the clouded judgement of anger.

  Crowe said nothing of this to Sendrax. To insist further on calm would serve no purpose. Sendrax would not listen. Instead, Crowe said, ‘Come with me.’

  He led the way from the bunker, down the bare avenue between the barracks. Soldiers stared at them as they passed. The buildings were dark prefab rockcrete. The double-headed Imperial eagle rose in iron on each roof, a call to vigilance to every man and woman inside. The base was austere, yet not without a cold grandeur in the scale of its vehicle hangars. The walls were massive, built to withstand direct cannon fire. The setting sun tinged the eagle’s pinions with red. Sanctified violence resided here, ready to be unleashed in the direction of the foe.

  Crowe could tell at a glance which troops had been in Egeta and which had been held back here. The reserves were fresh, eager to be in combat. The veterans of the current war had haunted looks. They had already seen too much for their spiritual health. They went through their drills with a grimness of purpose. They knew what they would be fighting. They were terrified. And they were still ready to fight.

  ‘The stocks are being kept busy,’ Sendrax said as they passed a parade ground. There were three figures in the iron pillories. They had been there since the morning.

  ‘Yes, they are,’ said Crowe. There was something here he would have to think about later.

  He took Sendrax to the wall facing east, towards Egeta. They found Vendruhn on the ramparts. She was staring at the wounded city, ten miles away. When Crowe spoke her name, she spoke without turning around. ‘Has the time come?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For Egeta’s punishment.’

  Crowe had told her nothing of what was coming. Perhaps she spoke from hope, not knowledge. Either way, she was correct, and there was no point in concealment. ‘Yes,’ Crowe said, ‘it is time.’ He opened up a vox-channel to the Sacrum Finem.

  Gura’s voice answered immediately. ‘Yes, Lord Crowe,’ she said.

  ‘You may begin,’ Crowe told her.

  There had been an order to events since the retreat from Egeta. Crowe had no control over when the Black Blade would make a move and so reveal itself. He did have control over the actions taken at the base and aboard the strike cruiser, though. There were steps to be taken, mourning to be observed, retribution to be exacted. The lines between these actions blurred. So Crowe had a solemn ritual performed. First Gavallan had been escorted to the place he would rest until his arrival at the Dead Fields. Now it was time to destroy the faithless and mark Gavallan’s death with a great pyre built from the city that had killed him.

  Crowe voxed the squads. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘look to the east. Behold Gavallan’s wrath.’

  The late evening sky was streaked with the fire of orbital bombardment. The lines of holy anger descended on the city. The Sacrum Finem had the power to reduce Sandava II to a cinder. What it sent now was the smallest portion of its wrath. That was enough. Ship-to-surface rockets raced ahead of cannon shells twenty feet long. High explosives and ordnance whose devastating force was a product of sheer mass fell on Egeta. The claws of destruction came lower, and lower yet. Then touched the city.

  The purge began with light. Searing flashes went off in such quick succession that the skyline disappeared. They were succeeded by the fireballs. Huge, blazing orange, they swallowed the towers. The architecture of Egeta became disintegrating silhouettes as centuries-old edifices flew apart. High spires collapsed on themselves. The conflagration grew and grew and grew, and in the midst of expanding spheres of flame, new flashes erupted as more rockets and shells hit.

  Finally the sound came, the thunder of blast upon blast, shaking the ground and the walls of the base. Crowe and Sendrax stood fast. Vendruhn clutched the edge of the parapet. Her mouth was open. At first, Crowe thought she was wailing in grief over her fallen city. Then he saw he was wrong. Her eyes were wide with anger. She was drinking in every moment of the annihilation. She caught his gaze and shouted. He could not hear her, but he could read her lips: Let the heretics burn.

  The bombardment continued. The immense booming was without surcease. The flames of Egeta rose to the sky as if hungry for still more shells, still more rockets. Soon there was nothing but the fire. The silhouettes of the buildings vanished completely. In the city-wide firestorm, Crowe knew, roads were melting. Metal was evaporating. All that had once stood tall was being laid to waste. The people caught in that onslaught burned, were crushed, vanished beneath flows of molten iron, and were blasted out of existence by the sunbursts of the shells.

  At last, the bombardment ended. The explosions ceased. The firestorm still burned, and would for days to come. But the thunder was over. The night seemed almost silent after the overlapping concussions had faded.

  Almost silent. The quiet was punctured by Vendruhn’s bitter laughter.

  The night was spent in prayer to the God-Emperor, and in the psychic search for His foes. The two squads gathered in the command bunker. They kneeled with their swords before them, their hands clasped on the hilts. They sought to read the turbulence of the warp over Sandava II. But the storms in the immaterium were too great. There was so much disruption, and so much corruption, that it was difficult to determine with precision where Mnay’salath and Antwyr had gone. There were storms over both of Sandava II’s land masses, but they were too violent and too large to find a centre. More information was needed.

  It came in the morning, when one of the militia’s vox-operators stood before Crowe, trembling in awe. Her name was Morenz. ‘We have lost two more cities,’ she said.

  ‘To what?’ Crowe asked.

  ‘We are not sure. Beroea was the first. We did pick up some distress signals from there. We have repo
rts of monsters.’

  The daemons were there, Crowe thought. So the sword must be elsewhere. ‘And the other city?’

  ‘Dikaia, lord. We do not know what has happened there. It has gone silent. We only noticed after there had been no vox traffic for several hours.’

  ‘You’ve tried to contact the militia there?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ Morenz said. ‘There has been no answer.’

  A sudden, absolute silence. That was suggestive. It would accord with the unleashed will of Antwyr. Crowe thanked Morenz. A few minutes later, he announced to his brothers that Dikaia was their target. Then he told Vendruhn, and the entire base began to mobilise for war.

  Drake drew Crowe aside as the Purifiers walked across the launch pad to the Stormraven. ‘The moment of your fate is at hand,’ he said.

  ‘So it would appear.’ Crowe noted with satisfaction that Drake took it as certain that they would recapture the Black Blade.

  ‘It has been an honour to fight by your side, brother.’

  Crowe nodded. ‘The honour has been mine.’ This would be the last time they would march to battle as comrades. When Crowe took the sword, he would be made separate from his battle-brothers forever. The process had already started. He had spent most of this campaign at Gavallan’s right hand, in a proximity to Antwyr too dangerous for any other Grey Knight. Victory today would transform Crowe into something other, a solitary warrior almost as dangerous to his fellows as he was to a daemon.

  ‘I would wish you well in your burden,’ Drake said.

  ‘My thanks. I will shoulder it with gratitude.’

  ‘Which is why it must be yours.’ Drake’s head moved infinitesimally in Sendrax’s direction.

  Crowe said nothing at first. He understood. Sendrax did not have patience. He did not have resignation. He would always resist the dictates of fate. These traits made him a furious warrior, but he would have been ill-suited to be Antwyr’s guardian. ‘Our duties to the Emperor are apportioned to us according to our powers,’ Crowe said at last. The words were not a platitude. He believed what he said. Those who failed in those duties were guilty of the worst sort of faithlessness. And that would never be true of Sendrax.

  ‘Well said,’ Drake murmured. ‘I mean no slight to any brother,’ he emphasised.

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Then let us fight well together one final time,’ Drake said.

  ‘Agreed.’ They clasped forearms, then mounted the ramp to the troop hold of the Purgation’s Sword.

  The Stormraven outpaced the air transports of the militia. It ate up the ground to Dikaia. It was midday when Crowe saw the city, and what the Black Blade had wrought. Outside the walls of Dikaia, a million mortals stood ready to repel invaders.

  ‘I see firearms,’ said Destrian as the gunship made a pass over the army. ‘Proportionately few. Some thousands perhaps.

  ‘The militia has fallen,’ said Gorvenal. ‘A poor testament to their faith.’

  Destrian grunted. ‘Many tens of thousands of improvised weapons,’ he continued. Crowe could almost see the other Purifier’s methodical calculations at work, weighing the best approaches to deal with the taint below.

  ‘They are motionless,’ Sendrax said.

  ‘Possessed,’ said Crowe. ‘The Blade has them in its thrall.’

  The city seemed to be frozen, waiting for a single will to hurl it into war. Rising above the city, the Vigilance tower rumbled. Its peak was shrouded in shadow. There was the only movement. The dark pulsed and whirled and twisted.

  The tower gave welcome to the Grey Knights. It welcomed them to the vengeance of their former prisoner.

  Chapter Eleven

  ERUPTION

  Berinon took the gunship high. He flew directly at the peak of the Vigilance tower. In the troop compartment, Crowe watched the tableau of Dikaia draw closer.

  ‘I do not trust their stillness,’ Berinon voxed.

  ‘A display for our benefit,’ said Crowe.

  ‘I would have called it a trap.’

  ‘It is not a trap when both foes know what must happen. The sword taunts us. Test its hubris, brother.’ Crowe indulged in the hope that Antwyr desired to exact its vengeance directly. How do you wish to taste our blood? Crowe thought. Do you wish to strike us down yourself?

  No, came the answer.

  The perimeter of the city exploded at a stroke. Berinon cursed. He threw the Stormraven into a hard right bank. The fire of every wall-gun and long-range cannon on the tower reached for the Purgation’s Sword. Thousands of lasguns opened up at the same time. What would have been mere nuisance fire became deadly as all beams converged with inhuman precision on a single point. Weapons never designed for anti-air struck with the accuracy of sniper rifles. Earthshaker shells screamed past the hull. Lascannon fire struck the port engine. The armourglass of the viewing blocks cracked. The world was blinding flashes. The Stormraven shuddered. Warning klaxons shrieked. The scream of the engines vibrated the bulkheads. Berinon pushed the ship harder yet, his turn so sharp it did violence to the integrity of the hull. Crowe and the others joined the pilot in a prayer of forgiveness to the machine-spirit.

  Something huge sideswiped the undercarriage. The Purgation’s Sword lurched in the air, then dropped, its engines screaming as it completed the turn. Berinon aimed the nose down. He used gravity to turn the dive into a furious sprint to the ground. The firestorm of las and ordnance overshot them, then was corrected. Berinon slammed the controls right, right again, then left, jerking away from the fusillade. At this height, the Purgation’s Sword was in easy range of the small arms. The hull rattled and hissed from the hits. Lower yet, faster, and Berinon levelled off just fifteen feet from the ground.

  The Purgation’s Sword roared over the possessed army. Crowe saw a blur of expressionless faces and expertly wielded guns. There were more las hits against the hull. Massive explosions chased the fleeing Stormraven. Berinon launched two Stormstrike missiles to the rear. They killed hundreds in seconds. The slaughter made no difference to the ocean of enemies. The guns pursued the Sword until it passed beyond the reach of most of the defences. Even then, Berinon kept the flight jagged and random to throw off the aim of the biggest cannons. The Vigilance tower continued to boom, belching fire, the bombardment unceasing now that it had begun.

  Crowe said, ‘We cannot approach the sword’s position by air.’

  ‘We were almost hit by mortar and anti-fortification ordnance,’ Carac said, outraged. ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘This is the power of the Black Blade,’ Crowe told him, ‘and why its threat is so severe. Its possession of its victims is total. Every set of eyes in that army belongs to the sword. It is a single will with millions of bodily manifestations. In Dikaia, it is effectively everywhere at once.’ He had studied the writings on the Black Blade. He had learned from Gavallan. He knew what it had done in the past. He had understood what it might do again.

  No, he thought he had understood. Now he had experienced the sword’s powers. Now he saw what it could do. He imagined Antwyr’s control spreading across Sandava II, then to Sandava III, then from one system to another. Antwyr becoming omniscient and omnipresent across the galaxy.

  Becoming a god.

  ‘A ground assault will not fare any better than an aerial one,’ Sendrax said.

  ‘It might, if we alter the battlefield,’ said Crowe. ‘If we take away the sword’s advantage.’

  ‘Alter the battlefield in what way?’ Sendrax asked. ‘The transformation would have to be radical.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Crowe.

  Sendrax grunted in surprise. ‘An orbital bombardment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The risks…’

  ‘Are considerable. I realise that. But the sword is on the peak of the Vigilance tower. That target is large enough for Shipmaster Gura to avoid.’ If the sword disappe
ared in the devastation, the attempt would be for nothing.

  For the first time since Gavallan’s death, Sendrax smiled. The expression was grim, but the trace of iron humour was there. ‘You would have us march into our own bombardment to conduct a ground war.’

  ‘I would.’

  The smile grew a little broader. ‘I chastised you for your patience yesterday,’ Sendrax said.

  ‘So you did,’ said Crowe. Militant patience, he thought. I waited for our enemy to reveal himself. Now I strike. I do not make this choice lightly, brother. I know what we risk if we do this. I know what we risk if we do not. I accept the consequences of this decision.

  ‘I shall walk in the valley of fire,’ said Gorvenal, intoning the twenty-third martial prayer.

  Crowe joined him. ‘The pillars of flame shall be at my side and in my steps.’

  Now all the Purifiers took up the prayer. ‘The earth shall fall and the firmament shall crack, for my soul is strong with the Emperor’s wrath. My foe’s domain ends in blood. The fire is mine. The chasms of the earth are mine. The comets of the sky are mine. For all that is mine is naught but the will of the Emperor. And I shall walk in the valley of fire with fell purpose and war-bound heart.’

  ‘Do not approach the city,’ said Crowe.

  Vendruhn stared at the vox-unit. She could not accept the order she had been given. Morenz stood on the other side of the Chimera’s tacticarium table. She looked anxious to be elsewhere, out of earshot of this conversation.

  ‘We have disembarked,’ Vendruhn told Crowe. The last of the armour had rolled down the heavy lifter ramps a few minutes before. She once more had a Chimera suitable for command. She had rebaptised it before leaving the Egeta bases, over the objections of the company’s Mechanicus adept. Vendruhn had no regard for the offence she might cause to the vehicle’s machine-spirit. It was now the Legacy of Glas. She was going to fight the thing that had been her father. She had no illusions about what, if anything, would remain of Sandava II in a month, or a week, or even a few days from now. But in that time, she would hit back at the obscenity that had tainted her world, and she would strike for her family’s honour. The name of Glas would shed blood in terrible righteousness, even if the blood were her father’s.