Garro

by James Swallow

  The pod spiralled in towards the hull of the Phalanx, autonomic systems waiting until the last possible second to fire braking thrusters to slow its approach. Magna-grapples extended and drew the pod the last short span towards a service hatch, and locked on. Stealth protocols ran from the craft’s cogitators, misdirecting the docking sensors and masking the unscheduled arrival. The window of opportunity was only a few moments, but it was enough.

  Unnoticed by the Imperial Fists, an intruder had boarded their vessel. A ghost by any other name. Its sole function completed, the shuttle-pod disengaged and drifted away, blending back into the clutter of the space lanes.

  The lone passenger risked a single communication, a burst-transmission message encrypted on a deep-level vox-channel. There would be no reply. One signal alone was enough to chance detection.

  ‘I have boarded,’ he whispered into his vox-bead. ‘Proceeding with mission as planned.’

  The warrior let the long shadows conceal him, the bulk of his ghost-grey power armour half hidden in the gloom. He wore a large, thin robe of shimmering material over the battleplate, giving him the look of a monastic figure out of old legend. Pulling it close, he activated a device sewn into the sleeve and the surface of the robe shimmered. He became a glassy sketch, a shape disrupted as if seen through a rain-slick windowpane. The technology was rare and fragile, but the Falsehood could shroud even an armoured giant from a passing observer.

  Beneath the hood, Nathaniel Garro grimaced. He did not approve of such clandestine acts, but he had no other choice. He was here on the direct command of Malcador the Sigillite, as one of the Regent of Terra’s covert agents amidst the turmoil of the galactic civil war.

  Months had passed since Garro had made his new oath to Malcador’s service and taken on the mantle of a so-called ‘Knight Errant’. Months since that first mission to Calth and gathering of the first name on the Regent’s list of recruits. Since then he had found more, swelling the secret ranks of the Sigillite’s secret militia.

  It was easy to lose himself in the work. He had been so desperate for purpose after his escape from Isstvan that the simplicity of tracking, isolating and recovering the legionaries Malcador required was enough to sate him.

  Until recently. Garro frowned and silenced the traitorous doubt before it could fully form in his mind. He could not afford to be distracted, not here of all places.

  He moved in the gloom cast by huge ornamental columns, shifting from point to point when the eyes of crew-serfs or Imperial Fists legionaries turned away. Garro crossed the Great Hall of Victories, following the lines of the Statue Garden and the Gallery of Heroes. He had been aboard the Phalanx once before, but under very different circumstances. Then, Garro had been a guest of the VII Legion, plucked from certain death by Rogal Dorn himself. It sat poorly with him that his return came under a shroud of secrecy.

  The corridors and chambers of the flagship were magnificent works of functional, martial architecture. Heavy with banners from a hundred thousand victories, lined with works of art that celebrated Dorn’s Legion and the high ideals of the Imperium, they were a glorious sight. Garro had no time to admire them. For the duration of this mission, he considered himself in enemy territory and would act accordingly.

  The only exception he had made to his usual preparation was to come bearing only his sword, Libertas. Garro had left his boltgun behind. That act signified that he would not, could not, shed blood in the prosecution of this duty. But if he were discovered now, he doubted that the Imperial Fists would extend him the same consideration.

  He froze in place at the sound of footsteps. A dozen armoured Space Marines passed close to his place of concealment, oblivious to his presence. Careful to remain unseen by his fellow legionaries, Garro let the Falsehood and his training carry him slowly and carefully into the inner halls of the vast star fort.

  The warrior’s objective lay deep inside the Phalanx, on the lower decks towards the flagship’s gargantuan engine cores. The chamber was known only as the Seclusium.

  Within a few hours, he had made his way to his target. A huge oval gate, titanium-blue and ringed with locking devices, rose up before Garro, and his eyes caught the symbol etched into the metal above the latch. A mailed fist against a white disc, the emblem of the VII Legion. Rogal Dorn himself had struck that sign when this door had been closed, and if Garro opened it, it would be Dorn that he defied.

  Inside the sealed chamber, behind humming forcefields, walls of deadening black phase-iron and psychic countermeasures from the Dark Age of Technology, the primarch of the Imperial Fists had wilfully imprisoned a cadre of his own sons. They had committed no crime, done nothing to dishonour their brethren. These were steadfast warriors taken from front-line battle duties, men ordered to disarm and stand down by the father of their Legion. They were Imperial Fists, sombre and steadfast in character, and to every last degree Dorn’s true sons. Yet they had accepted their primarch’s command without question.

  The only offence that these legionaries had committed was to be cursed with the gifts of the warp – Lexicanium, Codicier or Epistolary, they were the battle-brothers of the Librarius, trained to use the power of their minds as a weapon. The Emperor’s passing of the edict after the conclave on Nikaea had ended that service in a single moment. In the wake of the sorcerer-primarch Magnus the Red’s dalliances with the mercurial powers of the warp, their weapons had been denied to them and now Dorn’s Librarians spent their long days in quiet meditation, isolated from their kinsmen and their future uncertain.

  Garro paused, considering the great seal, the edict and the men he had recruited. He thought of Rubio, the Ultramarines Codicier who had been the first. The act of bringing Rubio to Malcador had been in direct violation of the Emperor’s Decree Absolute, and so it would be violated again if he were to proceed now. Yet it was necessary for the safety and security of the Imperium. Garro believed that wholeheartedly.

  The troubling duality of the situation weighed heavily upon him, and not for the first time. In the end, he did what he always did, and silenced his misgivings with action.

  Garro reached into a pouch on his belt, removing a device that Malcador himself had pressed into his hands. The origin of the small crystalline object, its radiant glow soft and ethereal, was unknown to him. Still, Garro could not entirely banish the feeling that it was somehow alien. When he had questioned the Regent of Terra on that suspicion, Malcador had said nothing, merely holding him in that steady, stony gaze.

  He held it up to face the sigil on the gate, and tendrils of faint energy reached out to caress the locks. The glow brightened and the arcane device began its work, the seals holding the gate shut opening in swift order under its influence. But the act did not go unnoticed.

  Hidden alcoves spun open to reveal a pair of armoured gun-servitors in the yellow livery of the Fists. They marched towards him, weapons spinning up to firing speed, targeting lasers flashing in the cold air. A vocoder grille in the chest of the nearest cyber-hybrid produced a pre-programmed demand. ‘In the Legion’s name, halt and identify.’

  The Falsehood’s image-collapsing effect seemed to confuse them, and the machine-slaves dithered, struggling to track the cloaked warrior. Garro did not give them time to target him.

  Libertas came to life in his hand. He allowed the servitors no opportunity to raise the alarm before he attacked, the power sword making swift, deadly arcs. The servitors barely managed a screech before they were cleaved apart. Oil and blood spurted, electricity crackled, and with their neural cords severed, the mind-wiped helots stumbled and crashed to the deck.

  Leaving them where they fell, Garro turned back to the gate as the last of the seals disengaged. Slowly, the Seclusium began to open.

  Brother Massak was dreaming.

  He did not truly sleep, for the bio-implants of the Legiones Astartes ended the need for such a thing. But he did dream, in the strange mind-space o
f his meditations as his thoughts turned in upon themselves, and there he contemplated his fate.

  In the darkness, he sometimes saw glimpses of things that appeared unreal.

  Skies, black with warships. Creatures beyond the alien, warped and monstrous. Fire and thunder. War, burning the galaxy from spiral arm to core.

  Time had become meaningless to Massak and the other psykers. Isolated from the universe at large, the passage of weeks into months, and months into years had fallen away until there was only the now. Massak was ready to wait as long as his primarch wished him to, contained within this chamber. That was his duty.

  ‘When the time is right, he will come.’ His voice echoed into infinity. ‘When the Imperium needs us, Dorn will return.’

  The words came from nowhere, but the conviction beneath them seemed transient. None among the isolated Librarians had given voice to any doubts about their confinement, but a bitter thought buried deep in Massak’s mind threatened to rise to the surface.

  What if Dorn did not return?

  Then the moment faded. At some great distance, he heard the faint sound of complex locks opening, of gunfire and sudden death.

  The Seclusium gate? Brother Massak’s mind snapped back to wakefulness and he rose swiftly from his pallet. Something was wrong.

  He sensed the flicker and fade of the gun-servitors as the dim candles of their minds were snuffed out, and then the hazy shape of another psyche. One hidden behind hard walls of counter-telepathic training and rigid thought. It could only be a legionary, but the identity of the warrior was impossible to grasp, and to call upon his powers to push deeper would be to violate the decree.

  ‘Brothers!’ Massak sprinted towards the opening gate, rousing a handful of the other Librarians around him, calling them to arms. ‘The gate should not open so readily. This must be some sort of attack!’

  The great hatch yawned, light flooding in from beyond, and Massak’s kinsmen stood ready as a vague shape moved like heat-haze in the air. Then the phantom was revealed, a grey-armoured figure appearing as a Falsehood about it opened and fell to the deck. The figure was haloed by the glow from the corridor beyond, a power sword crackling in its grip.

  By contrast, the Librarian’s weapon of choice was a force axe, two curved blades of psychically resonant metal forming the killing edges. It was in his hand in a heartbeat, and at his side his brothers drew their swords and force rods from arming racks about the chamber. ‘You wear no colours or sigil, intruder! Give me your name and Legion. Surrender your sword.’

  ‘And if I do not?’ said the stranger. ‘Those weapons in your hands are nought but dead metal without your psionic powers to charge them.’

  Massak’s knuckles whitened around the shaft of his axe. The invader was quite correct, but months of isolation with little else to do but train had sharpened the Librarian’s already excellent skills of blade-play, enhanced or not. ‘They will be enough,’ he countered.

  The warrior in grey smiled at that. ‘Come with me, and we need not cross blades at all.’

  ‘You do not command us,’ Massak retorted. ‘Now surrender your sword.’

  The smile faded. ‘I do not wish to fight you. But I will not give up my weapon.’

  ‘Then you will pay for your trespass!’ Massak and his battle-brothers advanced upon the intruder, launching a string of connected attacks that were each met and parried. The Librarian tried to find the measure of the warrior. He moved with a fractional hesitance, betraying the presence of an augmetic replacement limb, but he was not slow. His great power sword deflected Massak’s own weapon and forced the Librarian back a step. The nameless one had the scarred face of a hardened battle veteran, and the prowess to match it.

  The Imperial Fists outnumbered him, but he held them at bay with unparalleled focus and skill. Massak grimaced, advancing. He let his brothers move in a swift feint and then he struck, swinging the axe hard. Their blades met and locked, sparks flying. Massak glared at the trespasser, searching his expression for some understanding of why he was here.

  ‘Who are you?’ he hissed, and for a moment he allowed his emotions to take the upper hand.

  A flicker of psionic power sparked across his thoughts. Despite his iron self-control, in the melee some tiny fraction of Massak’s preternatural power brushed across the mind of his opponent. A flash of insight came to him, the briefest glimpse of why the legionary had come to the Seclusium. The shape of his true intention was almost within reach…

  …but then the moment broke like brittle glass as a new force entered the chamber. The burning, stony mind of a warlord.

  ‘Cease!’ shouted Rogal Dorn, in a voice that had ended battles and split mountains. Hard as granite, radiating dark fire, his psyche eclipsed everything else in a silent inferno of pure will. ‘By my command, put up your weapons.’

  None dared defy the order. Dorn filled the chamber with the great weight of his presence, his aura the very echo of the mailed fist upon his ornate armour. Flanked by his huscarls, the primarch of the Imperial Fists threw his stormy gaze across the psykers and watched them each sink to one knee, bowing their heads. Massak followed suit, as did the grey-armoured intruder.

  Dorn was a son of the Emperor, a walking fortress of a man more invincible and unyielding than any construct of stone and steel. Few could have had the courage to meet his gaze without flinching, but to Massak’s surprise the veteran warrior did so.

  ‘Well met, Lord Dorn,’ he said.

  Something like surprise flickered briefly on the face of Massak’s master, before quickly vanishing again. ‘Nathaniel Garro. I wondered if our paths might cross again. Did he send you?’

  The warrior named Garro looked away. ‘With all due respect, my lord… I believe you already know the answer to that question.’

  Dorn’s eyes narrowed, and he gestured to one of his men. ‘Take him to my chambers. I will have words with this one.’

  Massak watched Garro sheathe his blade without resistance and walk away in custody. As he crossed the Seclusium, he threw Massak a nod. A gesture of respect, perhaps?

  ‘Your isolation should not have been disturbed,’ Dorn said tersely. ‘Those responsible will be punished. Return to your meditation.’ He turned away towards the threshold of the hatchway. ‘The gate will be secured once more.’

  ‘Master?’ The Librarian spoke before he could stop himself. Dorn halted but did not turn back to face him. ‘My lord, before you leave us, if I might ask of you…’ He mustered his will to put forward the words. ‘How goes the Great Crusade?’

  The primarch was silent for a long moment. The question – not what he had uttered but the true question – hung unspoken in the air between them. When may we return to our Legion?

  Dorn’s tone became grim. ‘Matters have become complicated. It is a crusade no longer. It is a war now. A war of brutal dimension and great sorrow.’

  Massak drew himself up to attention. ‘We stand ready to serve.’

  When his gene-father replied, the psyker heard sadness in the words. ‘I know you do, my son. I know.’

  Garro looked around, taking in the scope of the primarch’s sanctorum. Little had changed since his last visit to this chamber, other than a new profusion of documents, pict-slates and data charts ordered in neat piles across one great chart table. The matters of the Order of Fortification presented for Dorn’s guidance were many and complex. The ornate chambers, atop the tallest of the Phalanx’s towers, commanded an impressive view of the star fortress. The wide, oval space seemed now like an arena, and Garro felt like a sacrifice sent to perish upon its azure floor.

  He tensed as he sensed a presence behind him.

  ‘Do you recall what happened the last time we stood together in this room?’ Dorn’s voice was deep and resonant, like a faraway storm.

  ‘I watched the noble Eisenstein meet its end.’ Garro felt an unexpected pang
of guilt at the memory of the steadfast ship and its destruction.

  ‘After that.’

  The warrior stiffened. It had been here that he had first revealed to Rogal Dorn the facts of Horus Lupercal’s betrayal. Dorn’s reaction had been that of any loving brother: first denial and then great anger, severe enough that Garro had feared for his life. Considering his next words carefully, he turned to face the primarch. ‘I brought you a hard truth. The burden of my duty.’

  ‘As I recall, you asked me if I was blind. And perhaps I was. But no longer. I see clearly now – I must so that my duty can be completed. The Emperor has charged me with the defence of Terra and command of all His armies. That is my burden. I am now Warmaster in all but name.’

  ‘Much has changed for both of us, my lord.’

  Dorn loomed over him, his eyes glittering like shards of flint. ‘I know what you are, Garro. I know of Malcador’s plans and his secret endeavours. I know that you and that old wolf Iacton Qruze are among his agents. The Sigillite uses you to gather materiel and to recruit men, many of them psykers, for reasons as yet unrevealed. And all of it in apparent defiance of the Emperor’s commands.’ The primarch’s heavy gauntlets closed into fists. ‘That ghost-armour you wear, with Malcador’s brand upon your shoulder, it may give you leave to go where you wish elsewhere in the Imperium, but not here! The Phalanx belongs to my Legion. You do not come to my domain in stealth and expect no censure. You will explain yourself to me.’ He raised his hand to point at Garro. ‘Or this time, I will not hold back when I strike you.’

  There was only truth in the threat, and all too clearly Garro recalled the grievous pain that had shocked through him when Dorn had lashed out at him once before. He still had the scars from the day. But still, the primarch’s order was one he could not readily obey. ‘I mean no disrespect, my lord. But my mission cannot be revealed. Even to you.’