The Flight of the Eisenstein

by James Swallow

  There was a pang of sadness. In the dark of night, he could not hope to pick out the terrain formations and landmarks that he had learned so readily as a youth. Would there be men down there looking up as he stared out on them, Garro wondered? Perhaps a boy, no more than fifteen summers, out in the wild agri-parks of Albia for the first time in his life, would be staring up into the night sky and marvelling at the impossible magnitude of the stars.

  Turning there below, somewhere beneath him was the place where he had been born, and all the other landscapes of his childhood. Down there was the heart of the Imperium, great complexes of infinite majesty and achievement like the Red Mountain, the Libraria Ultima, the Petitioner’s City and the Imperial Palace itself, where even now the Emperor resided. It was so close, Garro felt like he could reach out and take it in his armoured fingers. He pressed his gauntlet to the window and his palm covered the planet completely.

  ‘If only it were that simple to keep it safe,’ said Hakur. The sergeant joined him at the viewport.

  In spite of everything, Garro felt strangely cheered by the sight of his home world, even as his emotions pulled him towards melancholy. ‘As long as one Astartes still draws breath, old friend, Terra will never fall.’

  ‘I would prefer not to be that one Astartes,’ replied Hakur. ‘With each passing day we are isolated further still.’

  ‘Aye.’ The Death Guard reflected. Time indeed was passing more swiftly than he had anticipated. While the Eisenstein’s escape, becalming and rescue had seemed like little more than a matter of weeks for those on board. Garro soon discovered that their subjective period did not marry with the passing of days elsewhere. According to the central chronometer broadcast from the Imperial capital, more than twice as much time had passed since the attack on Isstvan III. Once more, Garro spared a thought for the loyalists left behind to face the guns of Horus.

  The Stormbird turned and dipped its nose towards Luna, filling the viewport with spans of hard white stone the same shade as Garro’s marble-hued armour. They were falling towards the Rhetia Valley and beyond it the Mare Crisium – the Sea of Crises where the Silent Sisterhood kept their secure lunar citadel.

  Garro caught movement from the corner of his eye, the yellow of an Imperial Fist going forward from the aft compartment. Hakur saw him notice. ‘I dislike being treated like a noviciate on my first mission off-world,’ he said quietly. ‘We don’t need escorts, not from these humourless dullards.’

  ‘It is by Dorn’s orders,’ Garro replied, although he said it with little conviction.

  ‘Are we prisoners now, captain? Have we come so far only to be clapped in irons and stowed away in some lunar dungeon?’

  Garro eyed him. ‘We are not prisoners, Sergeant Hakur. Our wargear and weapons still remain in our possession.’

  The veteran snorted. ‘Only because Dorn’s men think we are no threat to them. Look there, sir.’ He nodded at the warriors at the far end of the compartment. ‘They pretend to be at ease but they are too stiff to carry it off. I see the patterns of their movements through the ship. They walk as if they are on guard duty, and we are their charges.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ admitted Garro, ‘but I believe it is more that Captain Halbrecht fears what we represent than who we are. I saw his face when Dorn revealed the truth of the Warmaster’s deceit. He could not comprehend it.’

  ‘That may be, lord, but the tension grinds like blades upon me!’ He looked around. ‘It’s an insult to us. They separated us, placed the Luna Wolf with Voyen and the boy Decius’s capsule on another shuttle, and I never saw what happened to the iterator and the women.’

  Garro pointed at something through the viewport. ‘We’re all going to the same place, Andus. Look there.’

  Outside, the sheer brass tower of the Somnus Citadel turned to meet the descending drop ship. As they came closer, Garro saw that the building was made from hundreds of gates, one atop the other, arrayed like the faceplates of the golden helmets of the Silent Sisters. The Stormbird fell into a spiralling turn, orbiting around the tower. A dome became visible in the floor of the vast crater beyond, and slowly it opened, triangular segments drawing back to present a concealed landing field.

  ‘We are on final approach to the citadel,’ said Halbrecht. ‘Take your seats.’

  ‘What if I wish to stand?’ replied Hakur, open defiance in his tone.

  ‘Sergeant,’ warned Garro, and waved him to his place.

  ‘Are all your subordinates so obstreperous?’ grumbled the other captain.

  ‘Of course,’ said Garro, returning to his acceleration couch, ‘we are Death Guard. It’s our nature.’

  THE STORMBIRD’S HATCH yawned open and Garro strode out down the drop-ramp, catching Halbrecht unaware. Protocol meant that as it was an Imperial Fists ship, an Imperial Fist should have been first down the ramp, but Garro was finding less and less use for such pointless etiquette.

  A cadre of Silent Sisters was waiting for them in a careful formation on the landing apron. Garro glanced around, up over the folding wings of the Stormbird to the open hatch far above. The soap-bubble shimmer of a porous aura field was visible, holding the atmosphere inside the chamber but allowing objects of high mass like the ships to pass through unencumbered. A second Stormbird was dropping in behind on jets of retro thrust, and out in the void a third ship was approaching, twinkling with indicator lights but too distant to see in any detail.

  The Astartes came to a halt and bowed to the Sisters. ‘Nathaniel Garro, Battle-Captain of the Death Guard. By order of the primarch Rogal Dorn, I am here.’

  Halbrecht and his guards came down heavily after him, and Garro felt the annoyance radiating off them. He kept his eyes on the Sisters. Their squad markings varied among the group and he searched for some that matched those of the Storm Dagger cadre.

  Garro saw the same kinds of warriors as he had on the jorgalli world-ship, but with stylistic differences upon their armour in the same fashion as those of the various Legiones Astartes. One group wore armour detailed in wintry silver, the lower halves of their faces hidden behind spiked guards that resembled a barrier fence. Another woman, standing to the edge of the group, had no armour at all. Rather, she was clad in a thick, buckle-studded coat of blood-red leather, with matching gauntlets and a high collar ranged around her neck. The woman had no eyes. In their place were two augmetics, heavy lenses of ruby-coloured glass fixed to the skin of her brow and cheeks with hair-fine wires. She studied Garro with all the warmth of a chirurgeon observing a cancer beneath a microscope.

  With an abrupt sensation, Garro felt a chill range deep through his bones. It was the same odd feeling he had encountered when he saw Sister Amendera in the Endurance’s assembly chamber, the same peculiar absence of something indefinable, only now he felt surrounded by it, the disquiet pressing in on him from every side.

  ‘Battle-Captain Garro, well met,’ said a familiar voice. A slight figure in robes dropped back her hood and he recognized the novice girl he had spoken to before. ‘And to you as well, Halbrecht of the Imperial Fists. The Silent Sisterhood welcomes you to the Somnus Citadel. It saddens us that your arrival must come under such difficult circumstances,’

  Garro hesitated. He wasn’t sure how much the Sisters knew of the Isstvan situation, or what Dorn and the Sigillite had communicated to them. He covered with a salute. ‘Sister, I thank you for granting us a haven while these matters are addressed.’

  It was a lie, of course. Garro did not wish to be here and neither did his men, but the Sisterhood had proven themselves worthy of his respect and he saw no need to begin this meeting on an adversarial note. He had taken his fill of such behavior with the Imperial Fists. ‘Where is your mistress?’

  The novice girl’s neutral expression faltered for a moment and Garro saw her give the woman in the red coat a sideways glance. ‘She will attend us momentarily.’

  The rest of Garro’s men from the first Stormbird had fallen in behind him and under Hakur’s command, presented a
parade ground formation. Halbrecht stood at Garro’s shoulder and eyed him. ‘Captain,’ he said with formality, ‘a word.’

  ‘Yes?’

  The Imperial Fist’s eyes narrowed, but not in annoyance as Garro expected. Halbrecht showed what might have passed for compassion. ‘I know what you must think of us. I can only begin to comprehend what you have experienced.’ If it is true. Garro could almost hear the silent addendum. ‘Do not think ill of my primarch. These orders he has given are to preserve the security of the Imperium. If the price of that is a wound to your honour, then I hope you will see it is a small one to pay.’

  Garro met his gaze. ‘My kinsmen have betrayed me. My master has turned traitor. My honour brothers are dead, and my Legion is on the path to corruption. My honour, Captain Halbrecht, is all I have left.’ He turned away as the second Stormbird settled into place with jets of spent thruster gas.

  The other transport opened along its flanks and servitors scurried out with the isolation capsule in their grip. Voyen walked in lockstep with them. As Garro watched, a contingent of Silent Sisters, all of them armed with powerful inferno guns, formed a guard around the module as it was carried past them.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ he asked.

  ‘The Somnus Citadel has many functions, and our hospitallers are highly skilled,’ said the novice. ‘Perhaps they may have success where the medicae of the Astartes did not.’

  ‘Decius is not a xenos corpse to be poked and dissected,’ Garro replied tersely, his thoughts returning to the alien psyker-child. ‘You will treat him with the respect a Death Guard is due!’

  Sendek and Qruze approached, joining Hakur’s formation with the last of the men. ‘Be still, lad,’ said the Luna Wolf. ‘Your boy is not dead yet. Still he clings on to bloody life, even now. I’ve rarely seen a fighting spirit of the like.’

  Garro grunted, his mood darkening. At last, the final vessel dropped down into the chamber and turned, landing struts extending from the spread wings and fuselage. He recognized the shuttle, the black and gold livery identical to the ship from the Aeria Gloris he had spied on the landing deck of the Endurance. The swan-like ship settled gently on the apron and fell silent. Garro knew instinctively who he would see aboard before the egress hatch opened. A ramp extruded from the ventral hull and a handful of figures disembarked. Leading them was Amendera Kendel, her proud and noble bearing somewhat muted. She seemed distracted and wary. Two more of Kendel’s Storm Dagger Witchseekers marshaled the other passengers from behind: Kyril Sindermann, Mersadie Oliton and at their head, Euphrati Keeler.

  Keeler’s gaze crossed the chamber and found Garro. She gave him a nod of greeting that seemed almost regal. He had expected her to appear afraid, as nervous as Oliton and the old iterator obviously were, but Keeler stepped down into the citadel as if she were fated to be there, as if she were the mistress of the place.

  Sister Amendera did something in sign-language and the unblinking woman in the red coat and her cohorts moved with sudden, graceful swiftness.

  ‘An Excrutiatus,’ said Halbrecht of the woman. ‘It is said that each one of them must personally burn a hundred witches before they can take the rank.’

  Keeler stood, unruffled, as the prosecutor squad approached her. With exaggerated caution, the Sister Excrutiatus gave Euphrati a cold and clinical once over, looking her up and down. Then she signed to Kendel and gestured sharply to her warriors, who surrounded the refugees.

  Both Garro and Qruze came forward at the same moment, ready to step to battle if events fell that way. ‘These people are under my aegis!’ barked the Death Guard. ‘Those who harm them will face me—’

  Sister Amendera and her witchseekers stepped in to block the Astartes’s path, but it was Keeler who gave them pause.

  ‘Nathaniel, Iacton, please, don’t interfere. I will go with them, it is necessary.’

  The woman in the red coat signed and the novice translated. ‘This one demonstrates traits that are of issue to the Sisterhood. By the Emperor’s edicts and the Decree of Nikaea, we have the authority to do with her as we wish. You have no right of claim in this place, Astartes.’

  ‘And the civilians, a documentarist and an iterator?’ snapped Qruze. ‘Are you free to take them as well?’

  ‘Wherever Euphrati goes, we will accompany her!’ Mersadie managed a defiant interjection and Garro saw Sindermann nod in agreement.

  Keeler began to walk. ‘Don’t be afraid for us,’ she called. ‘Have faith. The Emperor will protect.’

  Garro watched the procession of figures disappear down a ramp and through a thick iris of steel leaves that slammed closed behind them. He could not shake the sudden, icy certainty that he would never see them again.

  Amendera Kendel was still in front of him, still studying him with iron eyes. She signed again. ‘Captain Garro, and the men under your stewardship, know this,’ the novice translated in a clear, crisp voice, ‘we grant you sanctuary here until such time as the Master of Mankind makes ruling on what shall be done with you. Quarters have been prepared.’ The Silent Sister never once broke eye contact with him. ‘You are our guests and you will be treated as such. In return we ask that you behave only as the warriors of the Legiones Astartes should, with honour and respect.’ The novice paused. ‘Captain, she asks you for your word.’

  It seemed like an eternity before Nathaniel answered. ‘She has it.’

  IT WAS A PRISON, in any real sense of the word.

  There were no bars upon the windows, no locked doors on the spartan tier of the citadel where the Sisters gave them quarters in which to wait, but outside was barren rock and airless void, and for kilometres in all directions there were autonomous sensor units and gun-drones. If they left the spire, where could they go? Steal a ship from the launch bay? And then what?

  Garro sat in his small chamber in silence and listened to the men of the seventy as they talked among themselves. All of them gave voice to the things that churned inside their minds, thoughts of what futures lay before them, fears borne of desperation and plans that went nowhere and did nothing.

  Sister Amendera was no fool. He saw the look in her eyes. He knew as well as she did that if the Astartes of the Eisenstein decided that their confinement was at an end, there would be little the Sisters of Silence could do to stop them from leaving. Garro was certain that Kendel’s warriors would make it a costly path for them, but he estimated he would lose no more than ten of his men, and probably only the ones who had been slowed by injury during the escape from Isstvan.

  He knew the Phalanx was still nearby, and Dorn with it. Perhaps if they did try to leave, the primarch would send Halbrecht and Efried to convince them otherwise. Garro frowned. Yes, that was a sensible tactic and Dorn was nothing if not the master of level-headed strategy. Stepping back for a moment to examine the situation, Garro had to give the lord of the Imperial Fists his due for handling the Eisenstein men in the manner he had. If Garro and the others had remained on the star fortress, eventually friction would have flared and blood would have been shed. By placing them here, under the roof of the Sisterhood – and the very same women who had fought alongside them only months ago – Dorn forced Garro to give pause to any thoughts of unfettered combat.

  Even if they fought through the Sisters and the Imperial Fists, and got themselves a ship, what would it earn them? It was madness to think they might approach Terra and demand an audience with the Emperor to vindicate themselves. Any atmosphere-capable ship would be ripped from the sky before it came within sight of the Imperial Palace, and if they fled for deep space there were hundreds of battleships between Luna and a navigable jump locus.

  Of all the things he feared would happen to the seventy, Nathaniel Garro had not expected this. To come so far, in measures of both his soul and of distance, only to be held at bay here, within sight of his goal… It was torture, in its own way.

  Time passed and no word came for them. Sendek wondered aloud if they might be left here to live out their lives whi
le the matter of Horus was settled on the other side of the galaxy, the seventy an inconvenient footnote forgotten amid the fighting. Andus Hakur made a joke to him about it, but Garro saw the real concern beneath the forced humour. Barring death in battle or fatal accident, an Astartes was functionally immortal and he had heard it said that one of his kind might live a thousand years or more. Garro tried to imagine that, being trapped in the citadel while the future unfolded around them, unable to intervene.

  The Death Guard had attempted to rest for the first few days, but as it was aboard the frigate, sleep came infrequently to him and when it did, it was brimming with images of darkness and horror dredged from the madness of the flight. The corrupted, diseased things he had seen masquerading as Grulgor and his men lurked in the shadows of his mind, tearing at his will. Had those things truly been real? The warp was, after all, a reflection of human emotion and psychic turbulence. Perhaps the Grulgor-daemon was that, a freakish mirror of the black, diseased heart that beat beneath Ignatius’s chest made real, a fate that other unwary men could also fall to. At the opposite end of the spectrum, he felt the golden glow of something – someone – impossibly ancient and knowing. It wasn’t Keeler, although he sensed her as well. It was a light that dwarfed hers, that reached into every corner of his spirit.

  Finally, he awoke and decided to give up his efforts at sleep. There was a war being fought, he realised, and not just the one out in the Isstvan system, the one between those who stood by Horus and those who stood by his father. There was another war, a silent and insidious conflict that only a few were aware of, people like the girl Keeler, like Kaleb and now Nathaniel himself: a war not for territory or material gain, but a war for souls and spirits, for hearts and minds.

  Two paths lay open before him and his kindred. The Astartes understood that they had always been there, but his vision had been clouded and he had not seen them clearly. Along one, the route that Horus had taken, that way lay the monstrous horrors. The other led here, to Terra, to the truth and to this new war. It was on that battlefield that Garro stood, the battle looming ever closer like thunder at the horizon.