The Flight of the Eisenstein

by James Swallow

  The message unwound and played to the assembled warriors. Instead of watching the recording again, Garro slowly let his gaze cross over the faces of his brother Astartes, searching for some measure of their reaction to the dead woman’s panic and terror. Kharn mirrored his master Angron in his impassive mien, the very faintest twitch of a sneer pulling at the corner of his lips. Eidolon’s haughty expression remained in place, apparently dismissive of the disheveled and unkempt condition of the messenger. Horus was unreadable, his face as calm as that of a statue.

  Garro looked away and found the men of the Mournival. Only Torgaddon and Loken seemed affected, and of them Garviel looked to feel it the most. When the horrific killing scream came, Garro had steeled himself against it but still felt a churn of revulsion. He was watching Loken at that moment and saw the Son of Horus flinch, just as he himself had aboard the Endurance. Garro openly shared his comrade’s discomfort. The dark message the distress signal carried was not just a call for help, a cry for the Astartes to leap to the defence of innocents. It was something much deeper, much more sinister than that. The Isstvan recording spoke of duplicity of the most base and foul kind, where men of the Imperium had turned back to the black path of ignorance, and done it willingly.

  The mere thought of such a thing made the Death Guard feel sick with revulsion. At Isstvan, it would not be xenos or criminals, or foolish men blind to the Imperial truth that they were to face in combat. This foe had once been their comrades in the Emperor’s service. They would be fighting tainted men, turncoats and deserters: traitors. The disgust churning in him turned hot and became ready anger.

  Garro’s mind snapped back to the moment, as the Warmaster showed them the Choral City, the seat of government on the third planet of the system and the source of the signal. The attack was to be huge, with elements of all four Legions, platoons of common soldiery and Titan war machines converging on Vardus Praal’s base of operations in the Precentor’s Palace. Nathaniel absorbed every detail, committing each element to his memory. The mention of his primarch’s name caught his attention once more.

  ‘Your objective will be to engage the main force of the Choral City’s army,’ said Horus, directing his words to Mortarion.

  The battle-captain could not help but feel a swell of pride when his master spoke up after the supreme commander had laid out his orders. ‘I welcome this challenge, Warmaster. This is my Legion’s natural battlefield.’

  There would be one objective to complete before the assault on the Choral City began, and that was a raid to silence the monitors on Isstvan Extremis, the outermost world of the system and home to the nexus of its sensor web network. Once blinded, the defenders of Isstvan III would only know that retribution was on its way. They would not know where or when it would strike.

  ‘Aye,’ whispered Garro to himself, staring into the depths of the hololith and the sprawl of urban complexity it presented. The Choral City would make a demanding theatre of combat, but it was one that Nathaniel was already eager to explore.

  The rest of the order of battle was swiftly laid down. The Emperor’s Children and the World Eaters would target the Palace and the Warmaster’s own Legion would attack an important religious shrine to the east, a vast cathedral complex called the Sirenhold. The name resonated in his mind and once again Garro turned the strange words over and over in his thoughts,

  Sirenhold… Warsinger…

  Unbidden, the alien phrases brought back the creeping sense of unease, and a cold foreboding that would not release him.

  FIVE

  Choices Made

  Omens

  In Extremis

  OVER THE RUMBLE and clatter of docking gear, Nathaniel heard a voice call his name and turned in place to see an Astartes in shining purple armour throw a salute. Garro hesitated, glancing back to see if he hadn’t broken some minor protocol by stepping out of the formation. Beneath the spread wings of the Stormbird launch cradles, he saw his primarch and the master of the World Eaters leaning close together, speaking in a careful and measured fashion. He concluded that he had a moment or two before his lord commander would require him.

  The warrior of the Emperor’s Children was approaching and Garro’s eyes narrowed. During the briefing neither Commander Eidolon nor the men of his honour guard had even deigned to acknowledge the battle-captain’s presence, yet here was one of them calling out for his attention. He didn’t recognize the pennants on the man’s armour, but he was sure that this Astartes hadn’t been present in the Lupercal’s Court.

  ‘Ho, Death Guard,’ said a wry voice from behind the blunt-snouted breath mask of the helmet. ‘Are you so slow-witted that you ignore your betters?’ The figure reached up and removed his headgear, and Garro felt a warm grin cross his lips for what felt like the first time in days.

  ‘Blood’s oath! Saul Tarvitz, aren’t you dead yet? I hardly recognized you underneath all that finery.’

  The other man gave a slight nod, shoulder-length hair falling across a patrician face marred only by a brass plate across his brow. ‘First Captain Tarvitz, I’ll have you note, Nathaniel. I’ve moved up in the world since last we spoke.’ The two Astartes clasped each others wrists and their vambraces clattered together. Each had a small eagle carved there by knifepoint, a sign of the battle debt they owed one another.

  ‘So I see.’ Garro saw it now, the etching and the filigree on the shoulder plates that designated Tarvitz’s new rank. ‘You deserve it, brother.’

  There were few men outside the Death Guard that Garro would ever have given the distinction of that address, but Tarvitz was one of them. He had earned Nathaniel’s amity during the Preaixor Campaign and proven to him that for all the reputation of Fulgrim’s Astartes as overconfident peacocks, there were men among the ranks of the Emperor’s Children that embodied the ideals of the Imperium. ‘I had wondered if we might cross paths here.’

  Tarvitz nodded. ‘We’ll do more than that, my friend. Our companies are to form part of the spear tip to silence the monitor station.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Garro was aware that the First Company of the III Legion would be fighting alongside his Seventh Company, but now that he knew Saul Tarvitz would be there, he felt a greater confidence. ‘Eidolon has given you this one, then?’

  Tarvitz hid a grin. ‘No, he’ll be there at my shoulder. He’s not one to miss even a sniff of glory. I imagine he will goad me on to ensure the Death Guard don’t take the lion’s share of the kills.’

  Garro’s smile turned brittle. ‘It cheers me to see you, honour brother,’ he said, his emotions suddenly raw, there and then gone.

  Tarvitz caught the moment too. ‘I know that look, Nathaniel. What’s troubling you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing. It’s nothing. I am fatigued, that is all, and perhaps a bit overawed by all… all this.’ He gestured around.

  The other officer glanced at the primarchs, still intent on their conversation. ‘Aye, I share that with you.’ He smirked. ‘Is it true what they say? That the Warmaster can stop your heart as soon as look at you?’

  ‘He’s impressive, of that you can have no doubt,’ agreed Garro, ‘but then would you expect any less of an Emperor’s chosen?’ He hesitated. ‘I’m surprised you weren’t part of the honour guard. Doesn’t your rank entitle you to that?’

  ‘Eidolon has favour over me,’ Tarvitz replied, ‘and he would never share his moment in Horus’s spotlight with another officer.’

  Garro grunted. ‘If he preens about the moment too much, you might ask him to recount how Angron shouted him down for his impudence and the Warmaster gave his approval to it.’

  Tarvitz laughed. ‘I doubt that part of the story will ever be told!’

  ‘No.’ Garro looked back at Mortarion and saw the Death Lord give a shallow bow to the World Eater. ‘I think we’ll be leaving now. Until the battlefield then, Saul?’

  ‘Until the battlefield, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Tell Eidolon we’ll try to leave a little glory for him
. If he asks us politely.’ The battle-captain saluted and followed his master aboard the Stormbird.

  ‘DO YOU REALLY think you can take him?’ asked Rahl, tapping a quizzical finger on his chin.

  Decius did not look up. ‘This is a battle, like any other, and I intend to win it.’

  Rahl glanced at Sendek, who waited, poised and ready. ‘He’s going to beat you to a standstill.’ The Astartes leaned in closer, over the arena of combat. ‘Look here, your magister is under threat from his castellan. Your dragonar is pinned by his cannonades, and—’

  ‘If you want a game, you can wait until after I have dispatched Sendek,’ snapped Decius. ‘Until then, if you must watch, be silent. I need to think.’

  ‘That’s why you’ll lose,’ Rahl retorted.

  ‘Let them play, Pyr,’ said Hakur, the veteran pulling Rahl away from the regicide board as ill-temper flared in the younger Astartes’s eyes. ‘Stop distracting him.’

  Rahl allowed the older warrior to draw him back. ‘Care to make a bet on the outcome?’

  ‘I’d hate to embarrass you, again.’

  He smiled. ‘Solun’s going to lose, Andus, that’s as plain as your face.’

  Hakur returned the smile. ‘Really? Well, although I may not be as handsome as you, I have the benefit of wisdom, and I’ll tell you this. Solun Decius isn’t the fool you think he is.’

  ‘I never said he was a fool.’ Rahl was defensive. ‘But Sendek is the thinker, and regicide is a game of the mind. I’ve seen the mess Solun makes of the practice cages. That’s where the lad’s strength lies, in his fists.’

  Andus smirked. ‘You shouldn’t underestimate him. He wouldn’t be part of the battle-captain’s cadre if he was a dim candle.’

  The veteran cast a look over at the table, where Decius had just moved a soldat to take one of Sendek’s iterators. ‘He’s young, that’s true, but he has a lot of potential. I’ve seen his kind before. Let him grow unguided, he’ll turn down the wrong path and wind up a corpse. But mould a man like him with care and intention, and at the end you’ll have a brother fit to be a captain himself one day.’

  Rahl blinked. ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’

  ‘Why, because I make sport of the lad? I do that to everyone. It’s part of my charm.’ Andus leaned closer and lowered his voice. ‘Of course, if you tell him I said any of those things, I’ll deny it to the hilt, and then I’ll break your legs.’

  There was a decisive clack of wood on wood, and Rahl glanced around to see Sendek pressing his empress to the board, surrendering the game to Decius with a grudging smile on his face. ‘Well played, brother. You are a singular opponent.’

  ‘You see?’ prodded Hakur.

  ‘Ah, he must have let him win,’ Rahl said lamely, ‘as a small mercy.’

  ‘Mercy is for the irresolute,’ broke in Voyen as he entered the exercise enclosure, intoning the battle axiom with insincere solemnity. ‘Who asks for it?’ He shrugged back the hood of his off-duty robes.

  Andus nodded to the other Astartes. ‘Brother Rahl does. He has once again been proven wrong and it no doubt chafes upon him.’

  Rahl finally bared his teeth in mild annoyance. ‘Don’t make me hurt you, old man.’

  Hakur rolled his eyes. ‘And what of you, Meric? Where have you been?’

  The question was a mild one, but Rahl saw a fractional flicker of tension in the Apothecary’s eyes. ‘At my business, Andus, little more than that.’ Voyen quickly turned the conversation away from him. ‘So, Pyr, I trust you are ready for the coming fight? I think the score is in my favour still, yes?’

  He nodded. Rahl and Voyen had a casual competition between them as to which man would take a kill first on any given mission. ‘Only combatants count, remember? That last one was only a servitor.’

  ‘Gun-servitor,’ corrected Voyen. ‘It would have killed me if I had let it.’ He looked around. ‘I believe we will have ample chance to test the mettle of these defectors on Isstvan. There’s to be a multi-stage offensive, first a landing to deny the monitor stations on the outermost world. Then on to the inner planets for an assault in full.’

  Hakur’s lip curled. ‘You’re very well informed. Captain Garro has not returned from the Warmaster’s barge and yet already you know the details of the mission.’

  Voyen hesitated. ‘It’s common enough knowledge.’ His tone shifted, becoming more guarded.

  ‘Is it?’ Rahl sensed something amiss. ‘Who told you, brother?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ the Apothecary said defensively. ‘The information came to me. I thought you would wish to know, but if you would rather remain unapprised—’

  ‘That is not what he said,’ Andus noted. ‘Come, Meric, where did you learn these things? Someone in the infirmary babbling under the influence of pain nullifiers, perhaps, or a talkative astropath?’

  Rahl became aware that the rest of the men in the room had fallen silent and were watching the exchange. Even Garro’s housecarl was there, observing. Voyen saw Kaleb too and shot him a frosty glare.

  ‘I asked you a question, brother,’ said Hakur, and this time it was in the tone of voice he used on the battlefield, one accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed.

  Voyen’s jaw hardened. ‘I can’t say.’ He stepped around the veteran and took a few paces towards his arming alcove.

  Hakur caught his arm and stopped him. ‘What is it you have in your hand?’

  ‘Nothing of your concern, sergeant.’

  The elder Astartes was easily twice the Apothecary’s age, yet for all those decades Hakur’s martial skills were deft and undimmed. He easily took Voyen’s wrist and applied pressure to a nerve cluster, trapping his hand. Meric’s fingers uncurled of their own accord and there in his palm was a mottled brass coin.

  ‘What is this?’ Hakur demanded in a low voice.

  ‘You know what it is!’ Voyen snapped back. ‘Don’t play me for a fool.’

  The dull disc bore the imprint of the Legion’s sigil. ‘A lodge medal,’ breathed Rahl. ‘You’re in the lodges? Since when?’

  ‘I can’t say!’ Voyen retorted, shaking off Hakur’s grip and walking to the alcove where his sparse collection of personal effects were kept. ‘Don’t ask me anything else.’

  ‘You know the battle-captain’s feelings on this matter,’ said Andus. ‘He refutes any clandestine gatherings—’

  ‘He refutes,’ Meric interrupted. ‘He does, not I. If Captain Garro wishes to stay beyond the fraternity of the lodges, then that is his choice, and yours too if you wish to follow him. But I do not. I am a member.’ He blew out a breath. ‘There. It is said.’

  Decius was on his feet. ‘We are all part of the Seventh,’ he growled, ‘and the company’s command cadre at that! Garro sets the example we should follow, without question!’

  ‘If he would take the time to listen, he would understand.’ Meric shook his head and gestured with the medal. ‘You would understand that this is not some kind of secret society, it’s just a place where men can meet and talk freely.’

  ‘That seems so,’ noted Sendek. ‘From what you have implied, in this lodge it appears that even the most sensitive of military information is bandied about without restraint.’

  Voyen shook his head angrily. ‘It’s not like that at all. Don’t twist my meaning!’

  ‘You must end your membership, Meric,’ said Hakur. ‘Swear it now and we’ll speak no more of this conversation.’

  ‘I won’t.’ He gripped the coin tightly. ‘You all know me. We are battle-brothers! I’ve healed every one of you, saved the lives of some, even! I am Meric Voyen, your friend and comrade in arms. Do you really think that I would take part in something seditious?’ He snorted. ‘Trust me, if you saw the faces of the men who were there, you’d understand that it’s you and Garro who are in the minority!’

  ‘What Grulgor and Typhon do with their companies is their own lookout,’ added Decius.

  ‘And the rest!’ Voyen replied. ‘I am far from the o
nly soldier of the Seventh in the association!’

  ‘No,’ insisted Hakur.

  ‘I would never lie to you, and if holding this token makes you think any less of me, then…’ After a long moment he bowed his head, deflated. ‘Then perhaps you are not the kinsmen I thought you were.’

  When Voyen looked up again someone else had joined the other men in the chamber.

  Rahl heard a razor-edge of anger in Captain Garro’s voice as he spoke a single command. ‘Give me the room.’

  WHEN THEY WERE alone and Kaleb sealed the door behind him, Garro turned a hard stare on his subordinate. His mailed fingers tensed into fists.

  ‘I never heard you enter,’ Voyen muttered. ‘How much did you hear?’

  ‘You do not refute,’ he replied. ‘I stood outside in the corridor a while before I entered.’

  ‘Huh,’ the Apothecary gave a dry laugh. ‘I thought your housecarl was the spy.’

  ‘What Kaleb speaks of to me is guided only by his conscience. I do not task him.’

  ‘Then he and I are alike.’

  Garro looked away. ‘You say then that it is your principles that made you join the lodge, is that it?’

  ‘Aye. I am the senior healer for the Seventh Company. It’s my duty to know the true feelings of the men who are part of it. Sometimes there are things a man will tell his lodge-mate that he would not tell his Apothecary.’ Voyen stared down at the deck. ‘Am I to assume that you will have me posted to another company in light of this disclosure?’

  Some part of Garro expected himself to explode with fury, but all he felt now was disappointment. ‘I eschew the lodge and then I learn a most trusted friend within my inner circle is a part of it. Such a thing might make me seem weak or short-sighted to others.’