Garro

by James Swallow

  He nodded again. ‘That one. I killed him.’

  ‘Good…’ Zeun was going to say more, but she trailed off as she got a better look at him. He had to appear as something barely alive to them, the burns on his body so fierce that they had only ever seen the like upon the dead. She struggled with her reaction – was that disgust or pity? Amazement or revulsion?

  Garro peeled open part of his body-glove, where it had become stuck to his bloody torso, to remove an object he had placed there. With care, he cleaned it off. ‘Here. You should have this.’ He handed it to her, and Zeun looked down at the shimmerknife dagger lying across her palm.

  She held it like it was a poisonous snake, fascinated as much as she was repelled by it. After a moment, Zeun took the weight of the energised blade in her hand and rolled it in her fingers. Garro could see that she had the skills of a street fighter, and the pragmatism too. Some might have baulked at taking the very weapon that had almost ended them, but not this one.

  From where he stood, he could see the cut in Zeun’s tunic where the blade had gone in. If there had been a wound behind it, that injury was gone now. ‘You said I owed you a weapon.’ He gestured at the blade. ‘My debt is paid.’

  He didn’t linger to see if she had more to add, and turned towards Sindermann – but not before casting a glance at the knot of hooded believers. One among them seemed to move differently to the others. Keeler. Hiding in plain sight.

  ‘Captain,’ began the iterator, labouring a breath with the words he uttered. ‘What of our people…?’

  ‘None remain.’ He saw no merit in softening the blow. ‘Your secret church of Hesperides, such as it was, has suffered the same fate as the sanctuary in Afrik.’

  ‘And others too, that you know not.’ Saying the words aged Sindermann terribly, and his young companion had to hold him steady. ‘But the killers are dead. I heard you say that.’

  ‘These killers are dead,’ Garro corrected. ‘But there will be others. The archtraitor has many more broken souls to call upon.’ Frustration rose in him, his growl becoming harder and colder. ‘You should have listened to me.’ He turned and glared at the hooded figures. ‘Euphrati!’ barked Garro. ‘You should have listened!’

  The group parted and there she was in the middle of them. He wondered if they really thought the act of surrounding her with their frail human bodies would be armour enough to keep her safe.

  The Saint rolled back her hood and showed him a weeping face. ‘I did not want this,’ she breathed, coming to him. ‘I don’t want it to happen any more.’ She halted and looked up at the sky, as if seeing something Garro could not.

  He glanced at the iterator. ‘You must go into hiding, that is clear. I will stand with you. I have contacts. I will find us a safe haven.’

  ‘You would reject the Sigillite’s dominion over you?’ said Sindermann. ‘You would become a renegade?’

  ‘I will never reject Terra and the throne,’ Garro snapped back. ‘Lord Malcador, however…’

  But before his thought could fully form, the legionary felt the wet air around him take on a taut quality. He tasted ozone on his crackled lips and knew the familiar sensation for what it was – the precursor effect to a battlefield shock transit.

  He had Libertas clear of its sheath as the first emerald flash emerged out of nothing, across the platform past the prow of the second tanker. In the span of milliseconds, other motes of green lightning blinked into existence all around them, and then came a low crack of displaced air molecules as multiple teleport fields deposited a dozen faceless figures at all points of the compass.

  Garro wheeled, seeing human soldiers in blank-eyed carapace armour bearing high-power laser carbines. His gaze settled on their leader – a Space Marine in full Corvus-pattern war-plate, a heavy bolt pistol already drawn and ready in his grip.

  Like the soldiers’, the other legionary’s armour was the shade of storm clouds and bereft of all sigils, honours or iconography – or at least, no marks that were immediately apparent to the eye. But if Garro had looked closely, he would have found the ghostly imprint of a stylised eye upon their shoulder pauldrons.

  The bolt pistol – the sole object that carried a splash of colour upon it – was a clue to the face behind the beaked helmet. Then, as the legionary advanced towards Garro, the way he moved confirmed his identity. ‘Ison? Malcador sent you, then?’

  Ison reached up and twisted off his helm as he walked closer, snapping it to a magnetic pad at his waist. The other legionary’s face was olive-hued and his eyes were dark and almond-shaped. A duelling scar ran the length of his jaw and it had not healed well, giving him a permanent half-scowl. The bolt pistol floated in his mailed fist, lazy and deceptive. Garro could almost believe it wasn’t aimed at him, but he had seen the warrior in action and knew how he fought.

  ‘Captain Garro,’ Ison said formally, giving him a slow look up and down, his gaze lingering on the worst of the burns. ‘Do you require an Apothecary?’ His voice was a steady murmur.

  ‘I’m well enough to fight.’ He tightened his grip on his sword.

  Ison cocked his head, and as one the soldiers raised their rifles to firing stance. ‘Will it come to that?’

  ‘The choice is yours.’

  The other legionary released a weary sigh. ‘The order falls, Garro. Stand down. You are recalled to duty.’

  ‘Malcador tracked me…’ Garro’s lips thinned as he considered this turn of events. ‘He used me to find Keeler?’ He nodded towards the Saint, who had gathered Sindermann and Zeun to her.

  ‘He is the Sigillite,’ Ison replied, and tapped a long finger against his temple. ‘Did you ever think he would not know where you were?’

  ‘He sees so much, aye… But not enough to intervene below?’ Garro pointed at the deck, in the direction of the underlevels. ‘Or is it that he cares little for civilians who lose their lives daring to seek a different truth?’

  ‘I know nothing of what you speak.’ Ison’s expression remained neutral, and Garro realised he was telling the truth. The Knight Errant went on. ‘By the command of the Regent of Terra, you must stand down and allow the woman Keeler to be taken into Imperial custody. She won’t be harmed. No blood will be shed… if there is co-operation.’

  Garro’s damaged features turned stony, and he let his weight shift away from his bionic leg. If it came to combat, he did not trust the replacement limb to work flawlessly after all the heat damage it had suffered. Libertas was at the ready. He could strike at any instant. ‘I do not wish to comply.’

  ‘Out of respect for what you have done for me, I suggest you reconsider that statement.’ Ison stiffened, tightening his grip on the pistol. ‘I say this for the final time, Captain. Stand down.’

  The sword began to move, but then Garro felt a delicate touch on the blackened flesh of his arm and he looked down to see Keeler’s hand resting there.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, and all at once the air became slow and heavy. The gauzy haze of raindrops around them gained sudden definition as they were suspended, and every motion was arrested.

  He looked back to Ison and saw that the other legionary was as motionless as a statue. The solders and the believers, Sindermann and Zeun alike, all were frozen in a timeless instant.

  ‘How… are you… doing this?’

  There was a peculiar echo to his voice, the sound flat and contained.

  The Saint was pale, the effort taxing her greatly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘Don’t fight him, Nathaniel. That act cannot be called back.’

  ‘I have taken the lives of brother legionaries before,’ he said, regret weighing down the words.

  ‘Not like this. Ison is not your enemy.’ She gestured at the soldiers, whom Garro knew he would have to butcher to a man if it came to blades and guns. ‘They are only doing what they believe to be right, as you are.’

 
He turned on her, Libertas dragging in the air as if moving through thick oil. ‘I did not protect you from Horus’ agents only to turn you over to the Sigillite! Malcador’s schemes are known only to him, and I will no longer place my trust nor yours in his hands! Not while he has so many secrets.’

  She shook her head. ‘I told you before. You see and you do not see.’

  ‘So tell me,’ he demanded.

  The Saint’s head bobbed. ‘Have you not considered that I am meant to go with Ison? That this confrontation was always going to happen?’

  ‘Malcador fears your influence,’ Garro retorted. ‘He hides it, but there can be no doubt! If the Knights Errant take you this day, you will vanish… There are myriad dungeons buried deep in the rock of the Imperial Palace. You will disappear into one of them and never see light again!’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ she said firmly, with enough conviction to give the legionary pause. ‘Not as long as you still draw breath.’ Keeler leaned closer to him, and he felt an ethereal warmth radiating from her face. ‘You told me before I am in danger. What better fortress walls for me to shelter behind than those of the greatest bastion in the Imperium?’

  ‘As a prisoner?’

  She smiled. ‘If the esteemed Regent wishes to consider me that, I won’t correct him until I have to. And the word will out, Nathaniel, even if I am not there to speak it. I am the Truth, but the Truth is not me. The book continues to spread across all human worlds. The work will go on. We approach our darkest hour, and the people need that light to guide them, now more than ever.’

  His heart felt leaden. ‘Then this is to be my doing? I do not protect you. I step aside, stand down… What am I then? What value do I have any more, if not this?’ The sword in his hand had never weighed as much as it did now.

  ‘Nathaniel Garro, you are as you have always been.’ The smile on her face became radiant, and her eyes shimmered. ‘You are of purpose. When the moment comes, and mark me when I tell you, you will know it… It will be your hand that sees me set to freedom, your sword that holds fast my safety. Do you believe me?’

  How could he not? The force of veracity behind every word she said resonated with him in a way few things ever had. Garro knew now that he was sworn to her, that he had been from the very moment they first met on board the Eisenstein. If there was a fate, then this woman was its hand upon his. He nodded. ‘Aye.’

  ‘When the time is right,’ she told him, ‘you will release me.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘You’ll know,’ said the Saint. ‘Until then… you must have faith, Nathaniel.’

  There were so many other questions he had, but then Keeler withdrew her hand from his arm. The gossamer rain resumed its fall and the moment was in motion once again.

  ‘Put up your sword,’ Ison was saying.

  Without breaking the Saint’s gaze, Garro tapped the stud that deactivated the power field around Libertas’ blade, and then carefully returned the sword to its scabbard. He took a step back from the woman’s side, and at a nod from the other Knight Errant, a trio of soldiers detached from the group and came in to escort her towards the edge of the platform. His hearing picked out the muted thunder of a stealth-rigged Stormbird approaching from the north.

  Garro eyed the troopers with cold malice. ‘She is to be respected, understand?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ison replied. There was a faint note of reproach in his words, as if he was insulted by the suggestion of any other behaviour. He nodded again, and the remainder of the grey-armoured soldiers stepped forward, moving towards Sindermann, Zeun and the other followers.

  ‘No.’ Garro’s hand had not left the hilt of his sword, even though it remained sheathed. ‘You won’t take them. She is all you’ll have today.’

  Ison hesitated. ‘It is true that Lord Malcador did not make specific reference to any others beyond Keeler… As you wish, Captain.’ He gestured to the soldiers, who stood back.

  The weak scattering of rainfall was briefly whipped into a fury as the Stormbird rose into view, hovering at the edge of the landing platform. Its thrusters turned the air to a turbulent squall as it moved to present a drop ramp for boarding. The Saint gave a bow to Sindermann and the others, and then walked directly into the ship without waiting for her escorts. Garro watched the iterator take two shaky steps after her and then falter, his face falling. Zeun shot the legionary a poisonous glare, blaming him for all of this. She has good cause, Garro told himself.

  Ison crossed to his side, his voice rising to be heard over the engine noise. ‘You’ll accompany us, then? I have been told your wargear has been repaired and renewed during your leave. Your mantle as Agentia Primus awaits your return.’

  Garro let go of the sword’s hilt and watched as Sindermann and the other followers came to the realization that they were free to leave. Slowly, they turned to face the Stormbird, and without any bidding from the iterator they all bowed in the direction of the Saint. Against their breasts, they crossed the flats of their hands over one another, forming the shape of the aquila.

  As elderly as he was, Sindermann’s old mind still held a fire of oratory that would continue to carry the truth of the Lectitio Divinitatus, even without Keeler’s ephemeral support. And perhaps a quiet word to Brother-Captain Sigismund would help that on its way – if the Templar ever forgave Garro for letting Keeler fall beneath Malcador’s shadow.

  ‘Is there anything more to hold you here?’ said Ison.

  ‘My questions have been answered,’ Garro told him, walking towards the drop ramp.

  Weeks passed, and Garro left Hesperides behind in thought and memory – first in the non-sleep of a curative trance to heal his wounds, and then with new duties. There were many tasks to be addressed, fresh missions to be attended to. It seemed that with every passing day, the clandestine work of the Knights Errant grew in scope and complexity.

  In a lull before his next deployment, Garro travelled back to the surface of Terra, back to the forbidding hills of Albia. Now he walked there once again, alone with his thoughts, refreshed by the silence.

  It felt right to be back in his war-plate once again. Without it, he was less than the sum of his parts, incomplete – and Ison had been right when he said the armour had been well cared for in his absence. While outwardly it still bore many of the scars earned in decades of long battle, beneath the skin the mechanisms that drove it had been invigorated with new components and the loving care of the armourium’s tech-wardens.

  With flesh regrown across his burns, his bionics newly attuned, he was whole again, not just in physicality but in spirit – something that had eluded him for too long.

  Garro walked on, wondering how many others there were like him, at large in the galaxy at this moment. How many men in grey, featureless armour at the Sigillite’s beck and call? He considered what he had seen on a mist-wreathed moon of Saturn and the moment of insight that had come to him there. My fate does not lie on Titan, he had told himself. He would have to trust that it would reveal itself in due time, rather than allow itself to be sought out.

  His gauntlet closed into a fist. Garro had been a Death Guard legionary, and a Dusk Raider before that. He understood the acts of patience, dedication and unyielding perseverance better than any scion of the Legiones Astartes. So be it, he thought. I will be ready. Until then…

  He sensed movement on one of the nearby crags and halted, his hand dropping to his mag-locked bolter. Presently, a trio of oily black shapes detached themselves from the dark granite outcroppings and gingerly skirted around him. Garro halted and let the lupenates come a little closer.

  The wolf-things sniffed at the air, tasting his scent on the stiff breeze, and lowed mournfully to one another. A simple communication passed between the animals and they slowly backed away, giving him a wide berth. An intelligent predator learned from its errors, and the lupenates had learned not to challenge the
warrior in grey, instead to respect him. But as they moved to a distance, the creatures became twitchy and skittish, finally breaking into a loping run and vanishing over the ridge line.

  Garro knew without needing to turn around what apparition had frightened them into headlong flight. ‘Am I never again to have my own counsel, my lord?’

  Malcador walked past him, marking out each step he took with the black iron staff in his hand. ‘Is that why you come here? To be alone?’ The Sigillite looked at everything except the legionary, a pool of light cast around him from the slow-burning fires in the basket atop the rod.

  ‘I find something in this place that exists nowhere else.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Malcador’s eyebrow arched.

  ‘Clarity,’ explained Garro. ‘I have learned that as time passes, it becomes a more valuable commodity.’

  ‘And what does your clear vision grant you?’ Malcador turned to face Garro, that ice-cold gaze washing over him. ‘A greater understanding of the threats we face, I hope.’

  ‘I know those things well enough.’

  The Sigillite gave a nod. ‘Yes, I think that may be so. Your conduct proves it.’ Garro wondered what that might mean, and Malcador told him. ‘When we stood here before, and I granted you leave to follow your own path for a time… I confess, there were many ways in which that might have unfolded. But in the end, you did what I would have ordered you to do regardless, even without my command. You did what best served the Throne and Terra. What does that say about you, Captain?’

  Garro held the Sigillite’s burning gaze. ‘That I am as I have always been. Loyal to the vow I swore.’

  ‘No doubt…’ Malcador seemed about to break off, but then the smallest of expressions pulled at his lined features.

  Garro saw it clearly for what it was – puzzlement. For a brief moment, the air stiffened around him and the legionary sensed the Sigillite turning a greater force of his powerful psionic ability to bear on him. Then the strange pressure fell away, like a wave retreating from shore.