The reference was oblique, almost casual. And it was enough to replace Krezoc’s contempt with cold, murderous fury. Many of the tales of the Pallidus Mor’s battles during the Great Crusade were fragmentary, and only spoken of within the legio itself. For Syagrius to have encountered those he was alluding to, he would have had to have had someone dig deeply. She felt as if the identity of the Pallidus Mor were being jabbed at by an intruder. Something sacred was being raked open by an iconoclast.
In those legends of the Great Crusade, the Pallidus Mor had fought thankless campaigns by the side of the Iron Warriors. The lesson of the myths was a point of pride for the legio: the wars that had sown the seeds of resentment which had at last blossomed into the treachery of the IV Legion were the wars that had shaped the Pallidus Mor’s grim, undeviating loyalty to the Emperor. Syagrius’ jab was a deliberate, monstrous misreading of the deep core of the legio’s soul.
Krezoc stared at him. It was several seconds before she trusted herself to speak. ‘Are you questioning our loyalty to the Father of Mankind?’ She managed to sound calm. She spoke slowly, enunciating every syllable with great precision. It was important that Syagrius understand how much depended on his answer to that question. This was the insult she would not permit to pass unanswered.
Deyers looked at Syagrius with undisguised hatred. Fleiser had turned pale with horror. Even Menas had turned to stare at the marshal. It was her look, Krezoc thought, that brought him up short. He seemed to realise he had gone too far if other aristocrats were drawing away from him. ‘No,’ he said to Krezoc. ‘I am saying no such thing. I do not question the Pallidus Mor’s loyalty. I question its competence.’
‘Our competence? It was your decision, marshal, to chase after mirages. The Imperial Hunters abandoned Gelon to no purpose.’
Syagrius glared at her. ‘If the campaign were not over, I would have you charged with insubordination.’
Krezoc shrugged and took a sip of her amasec.
‘If yours was a culture of honour,’ Syagrius said, ‘we would be at the point of a duel.’
‘I see no honour in the culture you are championing,’ said Krezoc.
Syagrius did not answer. Krezoc met and held his stare. The silence in the hall was complete. It went on and on, filling the air with poison.
Ornastas returned to Saint Kaspha’s through the shadows. On his journey to the barracks, he believed that his visibility still meant something, that to be seen was to reinforce the law of the Imperial Creed. He knew better now. His journey had been an illusion. The cancer eating at Creontiades had already won. That was why it had become visible.
Captain Seth had taken him down to a sub-basement of the barracks, and from there to the northern exit of the base. The door was small, and it creaked with disuse when Seth opened it. The alley beyond was free of cultists. They had poured strength into a direct assault on the main gate. They had no need of a siege. They were inside the walls.
‘Go,’ Seth had said.
‘You won’t come too?’
‘My place is here, with my troops. We’ll hold out for as long as we can.’
Ornastas had given in and fled down the alley. He moved through a city erupting in an ecstasy of anger. Many buildings were burning. Riots engulfed the streets. The major arteries were impassable. Ornastas worked his way back by cutting through lanes and abandoned manufactoria. Machines still performed their tasks, adding to the chaos as they went out of control, flooded by unregulated flows of material. Others had been sabotaged. Ruptured forges spread liquid fire across work floors and into the streets. He had to run through complexes in full collapse, but the fighting had moved on from them, and he chose the risk of being crushed and incinerated over having to fight through the mob. All the illusions were gone now. His clerical garb would make him a target of choice, and his mission would fail.
By the time he was a few blocks from Saint Kaspha’s, the dawn had fallen to a sudden night. Smoke and ash blanketed the city. Foul chants rose from every quadrant. The heretics shrieked violent praise to their monstrous god, and they spilled the blood of the faithful. The screams of the murdered were drowned out by the triumphant hymns of their killers. Ornastas’ ears were full of the din of catastrophe. He thought he could hear a pattern, too. There was more than random, uncontrolled violence at work. The pattern was important. He would have to learn what it was. First, though, he had to survive. And he had to summon help.
He avoided the front entrance of the chapel. The square before it was burning. The smell of cooked flesh made his eyes water. He resisted the urge to charge towards the square, brandishing the staff and hurling anathema at the heretics. Religious anger would only get him killed and serve the purpose of the corruptors.
He circumnavigated the square, doing his best to shut his ears to the chants and the screams. When he reached the narrow alley that ran past the south door, he slowed. A group of about thirty people were gathered around it, trying to get in. They were knocking on the door and shaking it, but they weren’t trying to smash it down. Ornastas closed in, thumb ready to depress the stud and send shocks arcing through the crown of the staff.
A man saw him coming and fell to his knees. ‘Save us, confessor,’ he pleaded. In a moment, all the others were on the ground too. Their hands were outstretched, begging him to bring the salvation of the Emperor to them. He recognised the faces now. He had seen them often enough in his congregations. Their clothes were torn and covered in soot. Many of them were bleeding. They had been workers and low-level administrators. Now they were refugees, seeking sanctuary.
Ornastas was torn between pity and anger. They needed help, but where had their vigilance been when it was most needed? Had none of them heard any whispers? Had none of them fought back when the cultists had begun to move?
‘Are you here to hide or fight?’ he asked them.
After a few moments, the man who had spoken first said, ‘We are here to do as you bid us, confessor.’ The others murmured in agreement.
Ornastas saw the first hint of something other than fear in the people before him. That would do for now. He had no direction to give them yet, beyond the need for defiance and faith. He nodded and pushed through them to the door. He unlocked it, let them into the chapel and closed the door tight.
‘What would you have us do?’ a woman asked.
‘Remain quiet,’ he said. ‘Do not make your presence known to the heretics. Watch the windows, and be ready to move to the crypts when I tell you.’ He did not intend to prepare for a siege. They were lucky the chapel had not yet been ransacked. It was only a matter of time before that happened. He and these people would have to be gone before that, unless they chose this place to fight and die. He had no intention of becoming a martyr yet. ‘Wait for my return,’ he told the faithful.
Before he went to the sacristy to make the call for help, he climbed the spiral staircase of the west tower. Anxiety urged him on, and it took less than fifteen minutes for him to reach the top. He crouched low as he approached the parapet, ducking behind a crenellation so he would not be seen by those below. He looked down into the square.
He had expected slaughter, and he was not wrong. He had feared something worse, too, and that was what had brought him to this vantage point. Below, the massacre confirmed his worst surmises. The people of Creontiades were being killed in accordance with a dark ritual. An enormous pyre, already thirty feet high, rose from the centre of the square. The heretics poured accelerant into the flames to consume the unending supply of victims. The screams of the burning rose and fell like the notes of a monstrous song. Other martyrs were butchered with blades and axes. Their bodies were dragged, leaving lines of blood. The designs formed runes around the pyre. Other lines stretched to the edge of the square and beyond, into the major avenues. Ornastas followed one line of blood with his eyes. It headed off to the north west. It pointed towards the glow of another pyre in the
distance. A crimson glow flickered against the building façades. To the north and north east, Ornastas saw more fires. They were coordinated. He began to make out a pattern linking the fires. As it took shape in his mind, lances of red pain shot through his eyes. Cracks of anger spread through his being, like molten cracks of ice. The anger was not his. It was not the anger of righteousness that buoyed him through this day. It was something else. It came from something else. It served a great darkness. If it took him in its grip, it would smash his mind. He would become a thing of rampaging instinct and howling violence. Worst of all, he would still be a priest, only now he would be vowed to the service of the god that sent the anger.
Ornastas pushed himself away from the parapet. He fell to his knees and shut his eyes. He prayed for the souls of the dead, and he prayed to the Emperor for strength. He clutched his staff as though it were the iron of his faith itself. The pain and the anger began to fade as he shook off the sight of the pattern. He leaned on the staff and pulled himself to his feet again. Though he avoided looking too closely at the fires in the darkness, he heard the chanting in a new way. It, too, linked one site of sacrifice to another. Across Creontiades, voices entwined in something worse than heretical worship.
They were calling. They were summoning.
So now he had a much clearer, more terrifying sense of the extent of the threat that faced Katara. He knew the warning he must send.
He descended the stairs as quickly as he could and ran to the sacristy first. He paused before activating the holo-link. It might no longer be functioning. If it was, he did not know who might be monitoring the transmission. He shrugged. He had no other options. He turned it on and began trying to reach his fellow confessors in Deicoon and Therimachus. On his fifth attempt, he got through to Euchenor in the latter. Unlike Vilkur, Euchenor believed him without question. Already, rumours of trouble were reaching the other cities, though they were still only rumours. Ornastas took hope from that.
‘There has been no uprising in Therimachus, then?’ he asked.
‘No, nor in Deicoon, as far as I know.’
Another burst of hope. Perhaps Katara could be saved. The cult seemed to have concentrated its efforts on the capital city first.
‘Spread my warning,’ Ornastas said. ‘Creontiades has fallen. I don’t think you will hear from the lord-governor. We need off-world help.’
Euchenor’s image nodded. ‘We will be heard,’ he said. ‘I wish you well, old friend.’
‘The Emperor is my shield.’
The screen went blank before he finished speaking. At the same moment, a whistling shriek sounded beyond the chapel walls. It seemed to come from the sky. It grew louder by the second. Ornastas burst out of the sacristy, making for the entrance to the crypt. All the refugees had gathered there. Many sobbed and covered their ears. The shriek drew closer. Something was coming down, flying through the atmosphere of Katara, dropping with murderous speed towards the city. Something huge and terrible beyond measure. The people cried out in terror, and it was all Ornastas could do not to join in their scream. His body wanted to collapse in surrender to the threat, but he forced himself to keep going. He reached the door to the crypt. He hauled it open and ushered his desperate flock down ancient stone steps. Before he could follow, the shriek reached its apex. The boom that followed blew in every window in Saint Kaspha’s. A maelstrom of stained-glass shards slashed through the chapel. Angry light blazed.
And over the thunder of arrival came the shrieks of more descents. Ornastas hauled the iron door of the crypt shut behind him and raced down into the dark.
Chapter 4
The Grand Alliance
Knocking on the door to his sleeping quarters jerked Albrecht Fleiser awake. He was out of bed and on his feet before he was properly awake. The adrenaline of war still coursed through him. He had barely slept since the nightmare awakening to the coming of the tyranids. He reacted to any interruption now as if devouring jaws were about to snap shut on him.
But it was just a knock. ‘Lord-governor?’ Gremo, his major domo, called.
‘A moment,’ Fleiser said. He threw on his uniform. It was always laid out beside his bed now. ‘What is it?’ he asked a minute later when he opened the door.
‘Admiral Menas wishes to meet with you. She is waiting in the briefing chamber.’
Fleiser hoped he hadn’t turned pale. Have they come again? he wondered. Good news never came in the dead of night. He said nothing, not trusting his voice to keep from croaking. He nodded and made his way down the gilded corridors to the briefing room.
Menas was alone when he entered. The tacticarium tables were dark for the first time since the start of the invasion, the lumen strips dim and the room eerily quiet. Fleiser guessed it was about to come to life again. Menas stood at the head of the main table, her arms crossed, her head lowered in thought. She looked up at Fleiser as he joined her.
‘What has happened?’
‘A heretical uprising on Katara,’ Menas said.
‘Ah.’ He was glad the room was dark. His relief wouldn’t show too clearly. ‘The Sixty-Sixth will have to return home immediately.’
‘There is more. We have lost communications with the entire Sevasmos System. Before that happened, there were fragmentary reports of landings by a Traitor Titan force.’
‘Throne,’ Fleiser whispered. He wasn’t relieved any longer. As Khania’s fall would have threatened Katara, the converse was also true. He swallowed hard and worked to keep his face composed.
‘You understand what this means?’ said the admiral. ‘The Pallidus Mor and the Imperial Hunters are even now receiving orders to deploy to Katara.’
‘Campaigning as a single force again? That won’t be popular in the ranks. Or with the officers.’
‘Quite. And the losses they have suffered here will require a more complete integration on Katara.’
‘I see.’ He was grateful he was not the one breaking the news to Krezoc or Syagrius. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Be present. I believe the meeting between the marshal and princeps senioris will go more smoothly if they are not alone.’
‘I see.’ Fleiser had pegged Menas as being in Syagrius’ camp at the painful victory celebration. Perhaps she was, yet the natural alliances of class seemed irrelevant now. Though her features were composed into stern impassivity, her eyes betrayed her concern. ‘This is not going to be pleasant, is it?’ Fleiser said.
‘No,’ said Menas. ‘It is not.’
They faced each other from opposite ends of the principle tacticarium table. Krezoc had arrived a few moments after Syagrius. The table was already alight with hololithic maps of Katara’s major cities and surrounding regions. The corner of Krezoc’s mouth twitched in sour amusement. Menas and Fleiser had prepared a visual reminder of what was at stake. They’re that sure Syagrius and I would be at each other’s throats otherwise, she thought. They’re wrong. Deyers was there too, standing by himself opposite the admiral and lord-governor. Another reminder. Krezoc was insulted. She did not need to be recalled to her duty. Even so, the mere sight of Syagrius made her shoulders tense. She tasted something revolting.
Syagrius didn’t look any happier to see her. ‘We have work to do together,’ he said, almost spitting the words.
‘Indeed,’ said Krezoc. She wished they did not. But her orders were unambiguous. She had rarely received an astropathic communication that was so clear, so little open to interpretation. Krezoc suspected it was given force by the anger of Zarath Mallaheim, Grand Master of the Pallidus Mor. She did not believe he found the humiliating command an easy one to give. The Pallidus Mor were to continue the collaboration with the Imperial Hunters. Given the relative losses, Syagrius would retain command of the joint operations. Krezoc was to extend him every cooperation and respect.
Meaning I will have to obey. She already knew what was coming. It was inevitabl
e, given Syagrius’ pride. Worse, though, was that it was necessary, following the logic of chains of command and relative size of forces. In terms of competence, it would be a huge, tactical mistake. The fatalism of the Pallidus Mor did not make accepting Syagrius’ leadership any easier. It was a demonstrable error. It was a disaster in the making. And there was no way out of the trap it presented.
Syagrius said, ‘I have examined the resources we can still field. It is clear to me that a complete integration of our maniples is the way to proceed.’
‘I see,’ said Krezoc, remaining calm as the nightmare began to unfold. ‘Would it not be preferable to preserve the identity of the legios? Bringing crews unfamiliar with each other into the same maniple is risky.’ She said nothing about the tensions between the Pallidus Mor and the Imperial Hunters. That was obvious.
‘The loss of maniple integrity would be worse, especially when we have the means to restore it.’
Krezoc eyed the marshal, trying to decide if his argument sprang from conviction or vindictiveness. Even from across the length of the table, she could see a vein standing out on his forehead. His words snapped with tension. Emotions warred on his face. He seemed to be swinging back and forth between anger and malicious satisfaction. He hated the thought of the two legios working together as much as she did. But he also relished the authority of his position, and the power it gave him to put her in her place.
‘What do you suggest?’ Krezoc said. She couldn’t bring herself to ask what his orders were.
‘The Imperial Hunters have the Warlords to lead four complete maniples,’ Syagrius said. ‘So there will be no integration with those.’ He said integration as though it meant contamination.
You hate the very thing you are imposing, Krezoc thought. How do you intend to have satisfaction? How can you have it both ways?
Warlord: Fury of the God-Machine Page 7
