The Unburdened

by David Annandale

  Kurtha Sedd leaned towards the sergeant. ‘Have I given you cause to doubt me?’ It was difficult to speak through the growl of rage rising from his chest. ‘After this victory? After the darkness answered my call?’

  ‘I do not doubt the gods. My faith is adamantine. Chaplain, I am uncertain about you, because I can see your own uncertainty.’

  Kurtha Sedd’s vision swam red with rage. His fingers itched to grab his crozius and beat Vor Raennag’s head to pulp. He held back. Perhaps he would kill Vor Raennag. But not now. The sergeant would be useful. He could not be the only member of the company to have these doubts. Toc Derenoth’s questions suggested he might be wavering too. If Kurtha Sedd secured Vor Raennag’s faith, he would kill any chance of a schism in the company.

  Instead of striking, he swallowed his anger so hard he hurt his throat. He said, ‘Our correct path requires my attention.’

  ‘So does our extraction.’

  Kurtha Sedd’s breath hissed from his lungs. ‘I will find out what I can.’

  Vor Raennag nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Kurtha Sedd grunted and walked away. ‘Guard the entrance to this hall,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘If anyone disturbs me in the next few minutes, that individual will die.’

  Vor Raennag’s boots crunched on broken stone as he made his way back to the entrance. Kurtha Sedd approached the lip of the huge pit. He waited until he was sure the sergeant was gone. Then he knelt. He drew an octagram in the dust on the floor.

  Uncertainty. Uncertainty! How dare his followers give voice to such things.

  They would not deny him his destiny.

  ‘I refuse it,’ he snarled. ‘All that I have striven for – it cannot end in confusion and dirt.’

  The chamber shook while he worked. The rain of dust was constant. He could hear it sifting and drifting across the rubble, an endless sigh. There were peaks and valleys in the intensity of the vibrations in the floor, but they did not end. The deeper, heavier groans of stone at war with itself multiplied. They seemed to Kurtha Sedd to be reaching across vast distances, as if the entire arcology network were crying out.

  Vor Raennag was right. The instability might become catastrophic. Doubt gnawed at the heart of Kurtha Sedd’s faith. How could he believe in the inevitability of his destiny when everything seemed about to end?

  He took out his warp-flask and placed it in the centre of the octagram. He removed the stopper. Inside the wire-and-glass vessel, something grey waited, inert but filled with hungry potential.

  Kurtha Sedd hesitated. He had resisted taking this measure until now. He had not wanted to show weakness. He had also, he admitted to himself, been unwilling to learn a truth he had been actively suppressing. But he had a victory now. He could demonstrate the worth of his command. And he needed guidance. The fork in his path involved two equally uncertain choices, as frustrating as they were promising.

  And the caves themselves were shaking. A turning point had been reached.

  He pulled off his left gauntlet. He took a dagger from his belt. Its blade was dark, twisting. The engravings appeared to move. He stretched his arm out and cut deeply into his wrist. His blood poured onto the octagram and into the warp-flask. Vitae ran down the channels in the dust. The octagram glistened with red. The warp-flask filled, and the thing in its depths wriggled. It coiled and uncoiled, feeding on the blood, gathering an existence that injured reality.

  Kurtha Sedd put aside the dagger and pulled his gauntlet back on. He knelt before the octagram and the flask. The air before him rippled. It roiled. Reality thinned, its coherence devoured by the thing in the flask. The immaterium spread exploratory tendrils into the space. Kurtha Sedd chanted, and the air writhed, tortured by the words. Time and distance withered in a cone of dark possibility.

  The whispers of the dark gathered around the octagram. They echoed the chant. Once more, Kurtha Sedd felt how thin the veil was in Calth’s underworld. He felt he could rip it wide. He believed he could turn the ritual of communication into a chain reaction. He resisted the temptation. He would not be able to control the forces he would unleash. He had enough experience to know the limits of his skill.

  He focused on the task. He focused on a name. Shapes formed in the air, awaiting form and identity. ‘Kor Phaeron,’ he chanted, ‘answer my call. Kor Phaeron, hear my voice. Speak to me. I have need of your guidance, Master of the Faith.’

  The air shimmered. Shapes twisted. Crimson and grey coils merged, then came apart, forming ghostly shadows of other XVII legionaries stationed at each point of the octagram. Their dead eyes glowed faintly in the gloom.

  But the First Captain of the Word Bearers did not appear.

  ‘Kor Phaeron,’ Kurtha Sedd called again.

  He repeated the name with growing urgency. The air convulsed with greater and greater force. But the answer did not come.

  ‘I beseech thee. Guide my path. Will you not speak to me?’ he pleaded. ‘Kor Phaeron! You sent us here! Will you forsake us in our–’

  The answer came.

  Reality tore, shattering the flask and ripping up to the ceiling. The voices of the darkness cried in unison, a choral ahhhhhhhh of wonder. The tortured space took form all at once. It exploded with golden light. Not the false gold of the Emperor – this was the gold of terminal knowledge. The gold of frozen tombs. The gold of the visage that gazed at Kurtha Sedd.

  From deep recesses beneath a heavy brow, eyes blazed with dark wisdom. Over the bald skull and across the face were the words of faith and truth. Here was the ultimate bearer of the word.

  Kurtha Sedd gasped. He rocked back. Aurelian.

  He could barely shape the words. He abased himself. ‘My lord Lorgar.’

  Kor Phaeron is gone, my child,+ Lorgar said. The primarch’s voice was rich, calm, sonorous. It was the sound of truth itself. +He will not answer. The fleet is gone. He has fled into the void. There will be no reinforcements.+

  And yet…

  The Emperor is watching you.+

  But he is not.

  The tortured thoughts vanished as Lorgar’s words sank in and Kurtha Sedd dared to look up at the primarch. ‘I know the fleet was forced to leave the system, Lord Aurelian, but–’

  It will not return,+ said Lorgar.

  A void opened up in Kurtha Sedd’s chest. In its abyssal depths, something stirred that he dared not name. He hung his head.

  ‘Then we too are betrayed. The Legion is abandoning the campaign on Calth.’

  Are you still fighting?+ There was no anger in the primarch’s tone. His calm was heavy as marble.

  ‘My lord, we are.’

  Then the campaign is not abandoned. Your forces are that campaign, even as I bring war to the rest of Ultramar.+

  The cavern shook with enough force to dislodge large fragments of the ceiling. The Veridian star still raged, unseen, above.

  ‘The surface of Calth is lethal,’ said Kurtha Sedd, frustration and anger rising in him. ‘The underworld is unstable. Without reinforcements, how are we to bring the loyalists low, my lord primarch? How do you see Calth won?’

  No reinforcements?+ Lorgar’s lips twitched in the trace of a smile. +What is that darkness that you call upon, Chaplain?+

  ‘But if the tunnels collapse…’

  Ah, yes. Destruction. Havoc. Chaos. Are you so blinkered, Kurtha Sedd?+

  ‘Chaos.’

  Can you really believe it is coincidental that this instability follows your actions? Look to the darkness. See how it gnaws the sinew of the materium. You have summoned destruction itself, my son. Use it well. You are not abandoned. You are chosen.+

  ‘Chosen…’ Kurtha Sedd repeated.

  Lorgar inclined his head, smiling. +You do not need guidance, Chaplain. Only faith.+

  ‘My lord–’

  Chaos is all around you, Kurtha Sedd. Harness it.+
/>
  A golden implosion, the shriek of a second wound to reality, and Lorgar was gone. The cone of unreality dissipated. The air whirled dust through the space before Kurtha Sedd’s dazzled gaze. Smoke rose from his blood.

  He fell forwards. On all fours now, he gasped. Each breath was ragged, and sucked into the void in his chest. His thoughts were disordered, shattered fragments that shook with every earth tremor. He exulted to know that the tremors were a consequence of his actions. They were a proof of his power.

  I have done this.

  He also despaired to realise that this destruction was inevitable. A catastrophe was coming, and even if Fifth Company weathered it, what then? The Word Bearers did not have the means to triumph in a war of attrition.

  These two realities clashed in his soul, but he could not think of them in a coherent fashion. Instead, they took the shape of their emotions. Exaltation and despair stormed.

  He breathed darkness and dust.

  A refrain took shape. It consisted of two repeating words. They were conflicting states of being. They held out opposing fates. Yet they were both true.

  Chosen.

  Abandoned.

  Chosen.

  Abandoned.

  He was humbled. He was honoured. Lorgar had appeared to him. The primarch had charged him with leading this Underworld War. How could he say he was abandoned when such glory was his?

  He raged. He was betrayed. There would be no extraction, no re­inforcements. The Legion had thrown him away.

  Chosen.

  Abandoned.

  Chosen.

  Abandoned.

  Round and round, the refrain becoming a firestorm in his mind and his soul. There could be no solution. The two truths would destroy each other, and he would burn with them. Lorgar had revealed both truths. They could not be falsified. And they could not be reconciled.

  Unless…

  He caught his breath.

  ‘The Emperor is watching you.’

  But he does not. Lorgar does not speak the truth.

  The revelation had come for him on Khur, but he had refused it then. Even now, part of him resisted. Part of him still awaited the Emperor’s judgement. Would he ever excise this cancer from his soul? Would he never shed that burden of guilt, that last, festering link of old loyalty? He must, for the lie was manifest. There would be no judgement.

  Lorgar does not speak the truth.

  Kurtha Sedd groaned in pain, and the walls of the cavern groaned with him. He tried to hold the revelation back, but it was too strong. It battered through his defences. When it did, it brought resolution. The two truths were reconciled. He was abandoned, and he was chosen.

  He was abandoned by the Legion.

  He was chosen by the gods.

  The reconciliation brought no peace. His breathing became easier, but only so rage could build in his frame. His thoughts became clearer. So did his doubts. So did his pain. His filled his lungs, and he roared. His wrath hurled itself against the walls of the cave. He raised a fist and brought it down again and again on the shattered remains of the warp-flask. Glass powdered. Wire bent. The squirming thing within it was dead. Blood flowed into the lines of the octagram. The rune retained its shape. Drawn in dust, it was as untouched by his blows as if it had been carved into the rock itself. It glowed with crimson fire, giving him his answer.

  Kurtha Sedd rose to his feet. He stood tall in pride and anger.

  He would die on Calth.

  But not yet.

  He had been abandoned. But he was strong.

  Oblivion would not take him easily. He would end his days in the performance of a great task. He would accomplish his work, if it meant descending to the molten core of the planet itself.

  He took a step back from the edge of the abyss. The octagram shone, but all trace of the warp-flask was hidden by the falling dust. Those who had abandoned him had freed him of the bonds of loyalty. The burden slipped from his shoulders. He breathed with a new freedom. The other chains were still there. They would not release him without a struggle. They clung to him through his doubts. He would have to shatter them through terrible action.

  He made his way back towards the tunnel where Fifth Company waited for him. His soul bled. Pain, pride, anger, doubt, honour, determination – they all clawed at him. The shedding of one burden seemed to have increased the weight of the others.

  The ground trembled beneath his tread. I have caused this, he thought. I have shaken this world.

  It was time to do far worse.

  ELEVEN

  Foresight

  Pipeline

  These are my works

  The tremors were constant. The spikes of intensity were becoming more frequent and more severe. Weakened passageways were collapsing. The cracks spread everywhere. Walls and floors and ceilings developed larger, deeper fissures. The network of caverns was evolving. Cave-ins blocked old routes. New paths through the underworld opened up. Routes through the arcologies were even more unpredictable than they had been before. The labyrinth was changing.

  Kurtha Sedd’s path was clearer than it had been since before the rise of the darkness. Descent or pursuit? The answer was not in the choice.

  Lorgar had told him to harness Chaos. Yes, he would. From the maelstrom he would create, his road forward would appear.

  He marched with Fifth Company on a route that circumnavigated the great pit. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘we have driven the loyalists back. Now we will bury them.’

  Vor Raennag walked beside him. ‘We know little of their defences,’ the sergeant said quietly.

  ‘I know where they are.’

  Vor Raennag paused before responding. ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘It was revealed to me.’ He had communed with the darkness while the cultists chanted. The clarity of perception had extended beyond the material world before him. He had been able to picture the entire region of the arcology perfectly. He knew where the pipeline chamber was. He knew the Ultramarines were there. The darkness had touched them, and so had his spirit. He could not tell their numbers. But the dark had coiled around their presence, and spoken to him.

  ‘I would feel better,’ the sergeant said, ‘if–’

  ‘If your faith were stronger,’ Kurtha Sedd snarled. ‘The enemy’s location was revealed to me. Do not question this.’ Ropes of darkness slithered around his shoulders. They reared at Vor Raennag. They hissed.

  The sergeant took a step away. ‘I do not question the truth, Chaplain,’ he said.

  Kurtha Sedd narrowed his eyes at the equivocation. He let it pass. Vor Raennag would be enlightened soon enough. He would witness the truth.

  ‘And their strength?’ Vor Raennag asked, not finished. ‘Do you know that?’

  A hard tremor hit. The ceiling split. Conduits running inside the rock burst. Electricity sparked. Promethium ignited. Fire rained on the Word Bearers.

  Kurtha Sedd laughed. He extended a gauntlet to catch the drops of flame. ‘And what of the strength of our offence, brother-sergeant?’ he asked. He switched the vox to the company channel. ‘Have faith, brothers, and we shall destroy the loyalists with their own walls.’

  He was answered by vocal professions of devotion. The cultists chanted as they milled around the company. They rushed ahead, willing sacrifices if the enemy should be around the next bend. They crowded around the crushing feet of the Bull, and their prayers seemed to grant the mad warrior a degree of focus, if not relief. He marched towards the promise of more slaughter.

  Many of the Word Bearers joined in the chanting. Kaeloq was among the most fervent. Kurtha Sedd heard his voice rising above the others, ecstatic in his praise of the gods of Chaos. The legionary’s faith was pure and savage. He followed the Chaplain’s leadership without question. His discipleship was as absolute as the cultists’, and he was not alone.

&
nbsp; Kurtha Sedd envied Kaeloq as much as he resented Vor Raennag. The sergeant’s doubts were not his own, but by voicing them, Vor Raennag made Kurtha Sedd’s uncertainties stab more deeply. His faith in the gods was complete. So was his belief in the revelations he had received. His doubts were about his own worthiness. He understood now that he had been struggling to be worthy of his charge in his own eyes. He had yet to succeed. Until he did, his faith was impure. He could not be the agent the gods demanded if he still awaited punishment for his crimes. He could not wage the war required of him if he distrusted his abilities.

  The darkness and voices invited him forwards. They enticed him to reach into the immaterium. Much more waited to be unleashed. All he had to do was follow the path before him.

  Grasp the veil. Feel how fragile it is. Tear it. Open the way.

  He knew the dangers in the warp. Only a fool believed that worship granted immunity. He was no fool.

  The tunnel shook again, hard enough to knock cultists off their feet. Call out, the darkness whispered. Let us shatter the foundations of this world.

  The promise of power was overwhelming. He felt as if his simple touch would split Calth in half. But the destruction was coming with or without his aid. He had contributed, but so had the war on the surface, and the scouring blasts of Veridia. If he did as the darkness bade him, he would be dwarfed by what was unleashed. He would not control it.

  Yet there was no choice. His heart clenched in horror at his unworth­iness even as it rejoiced in the madness to come. He almost laughed at Vor Raennag’s reservations. Of course they had no intelligence about the Ultramarines dispositions. Of course the charge he was leading was a strategic folly. The plan of attack was crude, and its goals were vague: Smash the defences by drowning them in burning fuel. Draw Aethon out.

  And then what? If Aethon came, would he find the will to do what he must? That question mattered, not the weakness of the plan. He was committed to the action. He dreaded his failure. He hungered for the deaths to come. Word Bearers or Ultramarines, every drop of blood would be an act of obeisance to the gods. His duty went beyond loyalty to the Legion now. It had abandoned him. The gods had not.