Garro

by James Swallow

  With the bridge crew dead, the murderous warrior moved to the helm console and turned the ship’s yoke, putting power to its engines. Almost as an afterthought, the legionary looked up and found the sensor head that was recording the images. He raised his gun. A shot rang out and the hologram dissolved into a fall of static.

  Khorarinn pointed with his sword, his face like thunder. ‘For the record, let the colours of the killer be known. He wears the purple and gold of the Third Legion, the Emperor’s Children! And so I name Rakishio and his warriors traitor!’

  Rubio allowed himself to become free of distractions, and he moved down through the mid-decks of the frigate, with a degree of stealth that one might have thought unattainable for a legionary in battleplate. He was adept at becoming invisible when he needed to, and Rubio knew these ships well, having spent many a year aboard such craft in the Ultramarines expeditionary fleets, at the height of the Great Crusade.

  On the eighth level of the Daggerline were the Legion barracks. Usually home to dozens of squads of warriors, here they lay mostly empty. The renegade World Eaters, the lost Emperor’s Children and the White Scars were sharing the compartments, but no one walked there at this moment, save for mindless servitors intent on their tasks.

  It troubled Rubio that his psychic inkling had drawn him here. The closer he came, the sense of what his thoughts had touched grew clearer – and with them, his misgivings.

  He wanted so much to be wrong, even as he knew he was not. For a moment, he allowed himself to feel a measure of sorrow, then smothered the jolt of emotion. This was not the time or the place.

  Moving through the compartment, he reached for a particular cabinet at the back of an arming alcove.

  Here, he told himself. Here is the place where the darkness has collected. I must know what is within.

  What he was about to do was a gross violation of a battle-brother’s personal effects, a grave insult that no legionary would overlook. But he had no choice. He had come this far. Rubio sensed the residue of intent around the locking mechanism and dialled it open with great delicacy, taking care not to disturb the cleaning cloths, tins of lapping powder and other items used to maintain a legionary’s wargear.

  The cabinet slid open, and the Codicier felt the temperature in the compartment fall by degrees.

  The guns of the troopers in Khorarinn’s escort were raised and ready, but they wavered, some aiming towards Rakishio and his men, others drifting back and forth between the other legionaries assembled before them. In another time or place, such an act would have been met with immediate violence, but for the moment the attention of the warriors was turned elsewhere.

  ‘Rakishio…’ Varren’s words were low and menacing. ‘You will explain what we witnessed. Tell me now!’

  ‘I… I can’t say!’ Garro watched as the warrior in purple and gold shook his head, his eyes wide. ‘I don’t know. All my warriors are here, accounted for. I don’t know who that was!’

  ‘Some kind of illusion,’ offered Hakeem. ‘An impostor, perhaps.’

  ‘No,’ insisted Khorarinn, brooking no challenge to his words. ‘The adepts assure me the images are genuine. It would take incredible skill to falsify such a recording. I deem it true!’

  ‘How closely did you look?’ Garro glared at him. ‘Did you want it to be disproved? You seem very ready to accept it at face value.’ He advanced on the Custodian, eyes flashing.

  Khorarinn showed his teeth. ‘When we return to Terra, I will see Malcador strip you of that armour and bury you under the craters of Luna. Do not think you have the right to question my intent, Garro.’

  ‘If what we saw is fact…’ Varren was struggling to grasp what he had seen. ‘Answer me, Rakishio. Do you still serve Fulgrim? Have you rejected the Emperor?’

  ‘No, brother. No! I fought and killed my own battle-brothers to come with you. You know that.’ The warrior was almost pleading with his comrade. ‘Fulgrim betrayed us all!’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Hakeem, ‘and in turn the Emperor’s Children took the Warmaster’s side.’ There was no pity in the White Scar’s voice. ‘Perhaps all of them did so.’

  ‘You will surrender now, or you will die.’ Khorarinn said the words and the armed troopers took aim. ‘I call to all those loyal to Terra to take aim and fire upon these turncoats if they do not comply.’

  As one, the White Scars followed suit, turning their bolters towards Rakishio and his brothers. Hakeem’s nod had been subtle, but enough for Garro to see it for what it was, just as his men did. They trained their weapons on the Emperor’s Children, each prepared to make a head-shot kill. In turn, Rakishio’s followers had their guns at the ready to fire back.

  ‘I am sorry, Rakishio,’ intoned Hakeem. ‘But this must be done. Do not resist.’

  ‘No!’ Varren strode forwards, into the line of fire. ‘We will not carry the horrors of Isstvan with us. The legacy of that act must not reach here. Lower your guns!’ The World Eater’s power sword flashed into the air and Varren raised it across his chest, daring anyone to oppose him. ‘I said lower them! I did not claw my way through the madness of the Ruinstorm for this.’

  Garro sensed the moment tipping towards open violence and he followed Varren across the deck. ‘Stay your hand,’ he called. ‘No more blood must be shed.’

  Khorarinn walked forwards, bringing his sentinel blade to a guard position. He glared at the World Eater. ‘If you wish to die here, captain, I will see it done. You will not oppose my commands, nor will your men.’ His gaze momentarily took in Garro, and the warrior knew the threat was meant equally for him.

  When Varren spoke again, his words were an angry hiss. ‘You expect me to let you execute Rakishio like you did those poor fools on the Mistral?’

  ‘The Emperor’s Children are culpable,’ said Khorarinn. ‘You saw the recording. If you defend them, you share their guilt.’

  Garro stepped between the two warriors, his hands open and raised. ‘Whatever you suspect to be true, Khorarinn, Rakishio is still a legionary, and he answers to authorities higher than yours.’

  The Custodian snorted. ‘Unless he surrenders peacefully, that point is moot.’

  A heartbeat more and there would be open conflict, brother fighting against brother, Legion against Legion. In this place, the great misery of the insurrection was being played out in microcosm. Garro turned to Varren, imploring him to step back from the abyss. ‘Brother-captain, he will listen to you. Don’t let this go any further.’

  For a moment, Garro feared the World Eater would spit out a war-cry and attack; but then the fire in his eyes ebbed, and with sullen mood, he returned his sword to its sheath. ‘Rakishio,’ he said, in a dead voice, ‘Stand down. Cousin, I promise you that this matter will be resolved and your honour restored.’

  ‘Very well.’ After a moment, Rakishio bowed his head. ‘You have brought us this far, Varren. I will trust your judgement now.’ Grudgingly, the warriors of the III gave up their guns and blades, the grave symbolism of the act taking place without a word spoken.

  Varren’s gaze had never left Khorarinn’s. ‘Are you satisfied, Custodian?’

  Khorarinn did not answer, instead turning to the White Scars. ‘Hakeem. You and your men will accompany me below. We will escort these prisoners to the Daggerline’s brig for detainment and questioning.’

  ‘Very well.’ Hakeem made a terse motion with his hand in battle-sign, and his warriors took up positions around the disarmed Emperor’s Children. Garro and Varren watched the warriors march away across the landing bay under the guns of the White Scars, with grim, solemn expressions.

  At last the World Eater turned to him. ‘Is this how our world must be from now on?’

  Before Garro could answer him, another voice spoke, crackling from the vox-bead in his armour. ‘Garro. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Rubio? Where are you?’

  ‘Below d
ecks,’ said the Codicier, a warning in his tone. ‘I’ve found something you need to see.’

  On the psyker’s insistence, they gathered in a maintenance corridor beneath the Daggerline’s secondary heat-exchanger array, amid a rain of moisture dripping onto catch-trays below.

  Rubio stepped out of the shadows as Garro approached, casting a cautious look up and down the empty corridor. ‘You were not followed?’

  ‘No one saw us,’ said Garro.

  ‘Us?’

  Varren moved into view, his aspect set and cold. ‘If you have something to say, psyker, you may voice it to me also. This situation is growing worse by the moment, and I will not be left behind by any development.’

  Garro gave him a nod. ‘The situation has changed, Rubio. We owe him the right to know the truth.’ With quick, blunt words, Garro relayed what had taken place in the landing bay. Rubio listened with mounting concern, feeling the colour drain from his face.

  When Garro was done, Rubio released a low breath. ‘I fear what I am about to say will only create more disorder.’ He held up a metal disc, slightly larger than a Throne gelt coin or a five aquila piece, stamped out of silver with an intricate design on both faces. ‘Do you know what this is?’ Turning it in the low light of the corridor, the etchings conspired to make the shape of a crescent moon.

  Garro reached out and took it, and from the expression on his face and Varren’s, both captains were aware of what the object represented.

  ‘It is a lodge medallion,’ said Varren. ‘Only those who are sworn initiates to the secret host may carry such a thing. He who holds this, holds loyalty to Horus, I’ll wager.’

  Rubio’s lips thinned. He had suspected as much, but now confirmation made his gut twist. ‘I found it on the barracks deck,’ he explained. ‘It was hidden in an arming cabinet. I sensed it, like the sound of a distant scream on bloody winds. There is a psychic trace on the object. The last time I encountered such a warp taint was on Calth, when the Word Bearers attacked us with their hell-beasts and cult-slaves. I think it may be somehow bonded to its owner.’

  The medallion flickered as Garro examined it, the lines and forms upon the surface moving almost as if they were threads of mercury. ‘It is cold to the touch, this eldritch thing. Aye, this is the mark of treachery.’

  Rubio thought he saw a circle upon it, a wavering line, a star with eight points, one changing into the other, an inconstant and shifting illusion.

  ‘If there is no mistake, then this makes the claim of Rakishio’s disloyalty certain, and his men doomed along with him.’ Varren spat angrily on the deck. ‘Curse this war. I believed in him!’

  ‘By the Throne,’ said Garro. ‘Khorarinn was right.’

  But Rubio was raising his hands, shaking his head. They do not understand. ‘No, you mistake my words. The lodge medallion does not belong to Captain Rakishio, or any of the Emperor’s Children.’

  Varren grabbed him by the wrist. ‘Then where did you find it?’

  ‘Among Hakeem’s personal effects.’ Garro stared at the disc in stunned silence, and for an instant, Rubio fancied that he glimpsed the shimmering patterns upon it become a mimicry of the V Legion’s lightning-bolt sigil.

  ‘How can this be?’ Garro was shaking his head. ‘The Khan’s sons are loyal to Terra. They have proven it.’

  ‘All of them?’ said Rubio. ‘Just as every son of Mortarion and Angron is blindly loyal to the Warmaster?’ The counter cut hard, and he saw Garro accepted it with a grave nod.

  ‘But if Rakishio is truly innocent–’ Varren blurted out the words.

  ‘Then Hakeem cannot allow him to live,’ concluded Garro. He tapped the vox-link on his gorget, tossing the medallion away, into the depths of the sluice tanks. ‘Garro to Khorarinn. Do you hear me? Answer, you fool!’

  The quiet murmur of a dead communications channel was the only reply.

  Six

  Daggers

  Sword of truth

  Destroy them

  Khorarinn’s armoured boots sounded an echo with each footfall across the broad expanse of the cargo bay. At his side, the trooper party from the Nolandia and the White Scars moved carefully about the pack of Emperor’s Children they surrounded. Rakishio and his men did not speak, seemingly resigned to their fate. The Custodian scanned their faces, seeing nothing to disabuse him of the belief that they were deserving of their chains.

  Curious, he thought, how easy it is to think them like the rest of us. The loyal. But the face shown to the light is never the true one…

  He did not finish the notion. Something was amiss, and it took him a second to realise what it was. ‘This route does not lead to the brig.’ He had memorised the frigate’s deck plan as a matter of course before boarding it.

  ‘That corridor is sealed off,’ Hakeem said airily. The White Scar’s topknot caught the light as he moved. ‘The Daggerline was damaged in the escape from Isstvan. This path will take you to your destination.’

  Khorarinn hesitated, glancing back at the warriors. The wide, low compartment around the group was a cargo storage bay, but empty now, the supplies that had once filled it gone to feed the civilian refugees.

  There was no cover here, he noted. No method of quick egress. His martial mind saw it instantly for what it was – a perfect kill box. The first real sense of something truly awry settled in his mind, and the Custodian grabbed the handle of his sentinel blade, as a static-smothered voice crackled over his vox-link.

  ‘Heed me!’ It was the Death Guard, but his words were barely intelligible. ‘You are in great danger!’

  Rakishio’s head snapped up. ‘What did he say?’

  The White Scars halted abruptly and Hakeem turned to cast a withering gaze over them all. He spoke before Khorarinn had the chance to respond. ‘Kill them all.’

  Their guns spoke in thunder, and across the rusted space of the cargo bay the flash of muzzle flares blazed like lightning strikes. The Naval troopers were cut down like chaff, dying together as swords flashed and blood jetted in arcs of wet crimson. They were dispatched in seconds, their murders merely the opening act of the deception. Rakishio’s veteran sergeant and his equerry were the next to die, each legionary perishing instantly as bolt-rounds blew their skulls into red mist.

  The captain reacted quicksilver-fast, throwing himself at the nearest warrior, desperate to try to wrestle a gun from him and fight back, but Hakeem had him in his sights and he stitched a three-round burst up his thigh and chest to blast him down to the iron deck. Rakishio collapsed, blood streaming through the cracks in his ceramite armour. He struggled, his leg refusing to obey him, clawing at the deck as he tried to right himself.

  Then Hakeem was upon him, combat knife in his hand. The White Scar cut the other warrior’s throat as though he were butchering a herd animal. The warriors of the Emperor’s Children died around him in short order, brought low by bolt shell, sword’s edge and callous treason.

  Khorarinn was not so easy to kill. The traitor White Scars slaughtered their fellow legionaries and then turned their attention to the Custodian. It was a tactical error, allowing him to terminate the first of Hakeem’s outriders by planting his sword through the warrior’s chest.

  He moved swiftly, but it was impossible to avoid every shot. Khorarinn let his heavy armour absorb glancing strikes, trying to pick off the traitors one at a time. But the odds were not in his favour. Khorarinn ended the life of another collaborator with a swingeing snap of a neck, but they were closing in on him, tightening the noose.

  The Custodian had killed prey enough times to see the hunter’s pattern as it formed around him. They had his measure, and his life was now counted in moments. In a brutal flurry of gunfire, he took a dozen close-range hits in the span of a heartbeat. The Chogorian warriors were careful and deadly with their guns, like the patient battle-riders of the steppe-world they had risen from. He fell, and they took aim.r />
  ‘I always wondered how many of us it might take to put one of them down,’ offered Harouk, the machine arm curving over his shoulder brandishing a combat blade. ‘Now we know what is needed. Their arrogance. Our surprise.’

  Blinking away blood and pain, Khorarinn groped for understanding. The White Scars are loyal. That fact crumbled to dust before his eyes, and he knew the kill would come next. ‘This is treason, Hakeem!’ He spat the accusation at the legionary. ‘You have renounced your birthright. You have shamed your Legion!’

  ‘No, Custodian. We will save it.’ Hakeem stepped closer, preparing to take the final shot himself. ‘Horus Lupercal will win this war – it is written. And all those who side against him will be ashes and bones. You will not be the last.’

  Their bolters howled, and ran until every one of them had emptied their magazines.

  ‘Khorarinn?’ Garro called into the silence. ‘Custodian, do you hear me?’ After a moment, Garro silenced the vox-channel and gave Rubio and Varren a grim look. ‘It seems that our communications are being disrupted.’

  ‘The Custodian is dead,’ said Rubio quietly.

  Varren eyed him. ‘How can you be sure?’

  Rubio ran a hand over the glowing crystalline matrix of his psychic hood. ‘I’m sure,’ he said.

  The World Eater shook his head, trying to make right the sudden reversal of what he had held to be true. ‘How could I have been so blind? Curse me, I am a fool.’ He looked to Garro, almost imploringly. ‘Hakeem and the others, they were White Scars like any other but… They had a different way about them. I paid it no mind. The warriors of Chogoris stem from so many different tribes, I thought it only a variant in company traditions. But it was the lodge. They hid it from me!’

  ‘It must be so,’ agreed Garro. ‘Rakishio and his men were never in league with Horus. All this, the Mistral, everything, it was to isolate them and distract us. To allow Hakeem to make his move.’

  ‘He has been following the Warmaster’s banner from the start,’ said Varren. ‘It is the only explanation. But we can fight back. I still have many warriors on board this ship.’