Tallarn

by John French

  ‘Horus will win.’

  At first few heard him, and those that did discarded his words. Later, there would be as many different accounts of what happened next as there were war machines on Tallarn. A few say he drew his weapon. Some even say he killed the next three people who spoke.

  ‘Horus will win,’ he shouted.

  Silence echoed after those words and, after a lone minute of shock, he spoke into that silence.

  ‘We will fail. Tallarn will fall. Traitors and rebels will pour through this gate to Terra, and Horus will win this war. He will win, and his victory will begin because here, on this world, we failed. That is certainty. That is undoubtable truth. If we allow it to be. We end this here. We have that power, we simply have lacked the will.’

  When challenged on how victory could now be achieved, Gorn is said to have pointed up to the shelter’s ceiling and beyond that to the sky of the land above.

  ‘The heavens are clear. We bring all of our strength to the surface, all of it, no matter the cost. We drown this world in iron. We force the Lord of Iron to meet us up there in the open.’

  ‘Why would he do such a thing?’ a voice asked

  ‘Because once he sees what we are doing he will see a chance to break us utterly. He will see a chance for victory, and a chance of defeat if he does not.’

  Objections came, declarations of madness, of foolish bravado, of the logistical elements which would mean that armies of that size could not be controlled effectively, how there would not be enough supplies to keep them in the field for more than a few days… and the muttered dismissals and words of disbelief swelled.

  Then one voice asked a different question.

  ‘Where?’ asked someone. ‘Where would you make this battle?’

  And, as though they had suddenly been captivated by the dream of an end, the commanders of Tallarn waited for Gorn to answer.

  Gorn indicated the great flat expanse at the heart of Tallarn’s northern continent.

  ‘Khedive,’ he said. ‘On the plains of Khedive.’

  Eleven

  Belief

  Cthonian truth

  Error

  The time passed in the dimming and brightening of the cell’s only light. Kord slept, and ate, and let his dreams take him. He saw Jurn again, saw the hinterlands around the coast cities, the fields waving in the summer wind. He saw old friends, and heard old words of hurt and love that he had forgotten. He saw his father, gone to the dirt long before Kord had taken the silk ribbons of service and gone to be a soldier. And when he woke the dreams clung to his thoughts like words blown into the present from the past. He began to live for the dreams, but to dread the waking. He counted each time he slept until the numbers frayed in his mind, and the point seemed to be lost. He wondered what had become of the rest of his crew, if they too turned through the circle of sleep and waking just as he did. He wondered what future he had led them to.

  Then, in a gap between dreaming, the door to the cell opened. Kord looked up expecting to see a guard. The face of a demi-god looked back at him. Menoetius stepped through the door, and it locked behind him.

  ‘I wish to speak to you,’ said the Iron Hand.

  ‘Then speak,’ replied Kord, not breaking eye contact, not showing fear, even though it was crawling through his guts.

  ‘You have met our kind before.’

  ‘Yes, I fought on Oscanis with some of your kin.’

  ‘I have not heard of that war.’

  ‘Most wars are unknown to someone.’

  ‘Why were you out on the world above? I ask this, not the Brigadier-Elite.’

  ‘But you are here by her authority.’

  ‘By my own.’

  ‘She commands here though?’

  ‘If you have seen us in war you know that we are our own authority.’

  ‘I have, and I know that warriors of the Tenth Legion rarely ask questions to learn answers.’

  ‘Then why do we ask questions?’

  ‘To confirm knowledge.’

  Menoetius nodded slowly.

  ‘You were following an Iron Warriors formation across the edge of the Khedive. The enemy was light strength, alone, and without deep support. A hunter patrol your commanders call them. But they were not hunters. They were something else.’

  ‘Seekers.’

  ‘That is what you believe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you remember where you were born, Menoetius?’ Kord thought he saw the shadow of a frown on the Iron Hands Commander’s face. ‘I do. I remember the house where I grew up. I remember the smell of the food my grandfather cooked. I remember the red and blue cups I played with before I could speak. I remember leaving it. I remember the doors of the landing craft closing on the light of my last morning. I remember realising that everything I had known would only be a memory from then on. I knew what I was doing. I knew that I would not go back. It was a choice. A sacrifice.’

  ‘You believed in something greater.’ Menoetius nodded.

  ‘I believed that I could be part of something greater, that what I would do, and everything that would happen, mattered… That everything has a purpose.’

  ‘And you still believe that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kord. ‘I still believe that there is a reason for everything even if we cannot see it. I have to believe that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Otherwise there is nothing but chance laughing at us.’

  ‘You killed those under your command,’ said Menoetius, his voice the flat hammer of stated truth. ‘You allowed what you believe to draw you on, and if you felt any doubts, you put them aside, and so you led them to death.’

  Kord felt the muscle harden in his jaw, the heavy warmth as blood flushed to his muscles. He returned the stare.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  Menoetius nodded, and something in the grey skin of his face changed. Kord had the strange feeling that the Iron Hand Commander’s had just passed some kind of judgement.

  ‘But you do not ask for forgiveness. You do not think you were wrong?

  Kord dropped his gaze for the first time. He thought of the ambush, of the sound of shrapnel ringing from War Anvil’s hull. He thought of Augustus Fask’s red, fat face.

  ‘No,’ he said at last, looking back at Menoetius. ‘No I was, and am, right. There is a reason all this is happening, and no one wants to see it.’

  Menoetius blinked, slowly, and then nodded again.

  ‘Those that followed you died because of failures. Some of those failures are yours, some of them their own. Life exists because of strength, the strength to move from the present into the future. Life ends when strength fails. You did what you knew you had to. You followed what you knew was right. They failed as much as you. Their death does not make what you believe false.’

  Kord did not know what to say. It was the most he had ever heard an Iron Hand legionary say. There was something else as well, a feeling that Menoetius was not talking about him at all.

  ‘How did you come here, Menoetius?’ He was not sure why he asked, just that it was the right question to ask.

  ‘From Isstvan.’

  Kord nodded.

  ‘Thank you for the conversation.’

  Menoetius frowned for the first time. ‘This was not a conversation. I simply wished you to understand what will happen now.’

  He stood, and turned for the door. Kord did not move. Menoetius knocked on the door and it opened. He looked back at Kord.

  ‘Come with me.’

  Kord hesitated, and then rose and stepped towards the door. He could see the guard on the other side of the open door, his hand hesitating as it reached for his weapon. Menoetius’s hand barely seemed to move. Stillness filled the outer chamber.

  ‘This is not your duty,’ said
the Iron Hand Commander to the guard, his voice low. Kord felt the instinct to run shiver down his limbs. ‘This man passes from here as I pass. Do you understand?’ The guard nodded slowly. ‘You will comply.’ The guard nodded again. Menoetius let his hand drop from where it had rested on the man’s arm. He turned away and walked from the chamber into the corridor beyond. After a second Kord followed. When he glanced back he saw that the guard was still shaking.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked. Menoetius growled, or perhaps it was a low laugh.

  ‘To find the truth,’ he said.

  Hrend walked with the storm. Around him the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion machines kept in close formation. The rattle of dust stole the sound of tracks and engines. Within the storm there was no day, no night, just the crackle of signals holding them together as they pushed on. Questions walked with Hrend, voices that asked him what he was doing, and all the while the call of the black sun rose and fell in him like a tide.

  Thetacron and the other Alpha Legion machines said next to nothing. Once they had advised Hrend to call a halt in the lee of a crag of rock, saying that the storm would not let them continue for now. Hrend had agreed, and they had clustered together, a string of wind-scoured iron and azure blue. An hour later the dust gloom had become a strobing cauldron of lightning. Great dry booms of thunder shook the ground and air. It had lasted for a full day, and even when it had passed the storm remained. Hrend imagined the storm front circling the land, gathering dust and strength like a serpent eating its own tail. Once the lightning tide passed they had carried on, pressing on in silence through a never-ending veil.

  With every step the black sun seemed closer. He did not sleep any more, but the dreams chased him without pause. He dreamed of Olympia. He dreamed of the world within the Eye of Terror. He dreamed of burning, of his flesh becoming slime inside his armour. He should have died then. He should have died again, up in the valley beneath the pass, with the snow of a dead world as his shroud. Yet he lived, and tried not to think how the damage to his frame had seemed to heal like flesh, how he could sometimes feel the wind blow over him, even though his skin was nothing but plasteel and ceramite. He thought he could hear laughter in the rattle of dust against metal.

  When the first men had brought iron from the fire, and put an edge to the first blade, they had created this strength. And it was a strength that could not exist without its twin. What was a blade without the blood it drew? What was armour without the blow that rang upon it? They were strong, and he was strong, and that strength would not be allowed to fail. It would live as only iron could live: in blood.

  ‘Master,’ Jarvak broke his thoughts. ‘The Navigator has–’

  ‘Change the frequency,’ growled Hrend. Just beside him, close enough to touch, the serpent-etched hull of the Alpha Legion Land Raider kept pace with him. The vox rattled as it jumped between channels.

  ‘The Navigator has begun to speak.’

  ‘He has spoken before.’

  ‘He speaks without pause.’

  ‘What is he saying?’

  ‘He says the gate of the gods draws near.’ Hrend felt cold flicker through limbs he no longer had. ‘He says that the black sun rises.’

  ‘We follow where he leads,’ said Hrend.

  ‘What of our… allies?’

  ‘They must know nothing.’

  Beside him the Alpha Legion machines swept on in silence.

  The lights in Argonis’s cell cut out. The spiral of thoughts in his head vanished. He came to full readiness, muscles poised, every sense open. For a handful of seconds there was silence. Then he heard a sound, low, vibrating from far away even before it passed through the steel and into his skull. The sound grew louder and louder, and went silent. He heard feet clang on metal flooring, just outside. Then something heavy fell against the door, and rattled down its surface. He yanked himself back into the cell as the locks within the door clattered open, and it swung outwards.

  He was ready, crouched low on the floor below the eyeline of someone standing in the doorway.

  ‘Come with me, emissary,’ said Jalen. ‘There is not much time.’

  Argonis lifted Jalen from his feet, and slammed him into the door frame. The human gagged, hands rising on instinct to the fingers around his throat.

  ‘Be still,’ growled Argonis, as he glanced into the corridor beyond. An Iron Warrior lay beneath the door, hands still gripping a boltgun. Smoke filled the space beyond, coiling in the silent flashes of alert lights. He reached down, and pulled the bolter from the Iron Warrior’s grip. He took a slow breath. The scent and taste of the air spoke of weapon fire, of melta-charge detonations and overloaded wiring. There was something else too, a tingle of sweet sugar scent on the edge of his senses. He looked down at the supine Iron Warrior, and at the man pinned by his hand to the wall. Jalen looked back at him, his eyes cold and without fear.

  ‘One twitch of witchcraft, and you die,’ he said.

  ‘Why would I do that, when I have gone to such trouble to free you? And what makes you think I did all this alone?’

  An armoured figure stepped out of the smoke haze. He wore metallic blue battleplate and had a volkite charger levelled at Argonis. His eyes were cold green lenses in a beaked helm. He looked relaxed, as though he had just wandered onto the scene, as if he were almost bored by it. Argonis had seen that air before, and knew that to consider it weakness would be a fatal mistake.

  Argonis nodded. The blue-armoured warrior did not shift his aim. Argonis let go of Jalen. There was nothing else to do. For the next few minutes he did not care why the Alpha Legion was here. All that mattered was getting clear of the cell. A strict hierarchy of needs applied to his next actions. He had a weapon, but he needed armour, his own by preference, then he needed the tech-witch, and most importantly he needed Prophesius. After that he would find a way to Perturabo.

  ‘The others?’ snapped Argonis.

  ‘Down the passage, fifty metres left, then twenty metres right. Doors should release but only for the next four minutes. Route was clear as of sixty-one seconds ago.’

  Argonis folded out of the door, and began to move down the smoke-filled corridor, keeping low and hugging the walls. Jalen and the Alpha Legion warrior followed, their movements fast and fluid.

  He reached Sota-Nul’s cell first, and pulled open the door. The figure he saw sketched in the silent pulse of the alert lights was a floating ball of coiled metal limbs and chromed snakes. A pair of what might have been atrophied legs was tucked up against her torso like the bone and skin limbs of a stillborn chick. A blister of optic lenses protruded from the top of the mass. Red light glowed in her many eyes. Chains of lightning held her in place above a humming box of black metal.

  He looked at the machine and put three bolt rounds into it. The lightning chains collapsed as the box exploded. Sota-Nul began to fall, and then halted in mid-air. Flesh-metal tentacles unfolded around her.

  Argonis turned away.

  ‘Follow,’ he said, and began to move again.

  Prophesius was unchained in a bare cell, the thrumming dome of a null field above him. Argonis shot out the field projector and the null dome vanished into ozone and smoke. Jalen flinched as the masked astropath stepped forward.

  Argonis turned to Jalen.

  ‘Equipment,’ he said.

  ‘Fifteen metres left, there is a cache. The door is disabled.’ He paused, licked his lips, and a tendril of tattooed scales formed at the corner of his mouth. ‘You need to move fast, emissary.’

  ‘What is your plan from here?’

  ‘If you intend to reach Perturabo, you need to get to the Sickle Blade. It will be fuelled and prepared for launch.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘A great deal has gone into this operation since you summoned me.’

  Argonis’s gaze hardened.

  ‘I did not s
ummon you.’

  Jalen’s face had gone still, his eyes flickering over Argonis’s face.

  ‘The signal came through with the activation ciphers given to Horus, and from Horus to you.’

  ‘One of us is lying, and what reason would I have to lie?’

  Argonis heard the microscopic noise as the Alpha Legion warrior behind him shifted.

  ‘No,’ said Jalen shaking his head. ‘There is another possibility…’

  ‘Another possibility?’ said Argonis carefully. His bolter was still in his hand, held low at his side. ‘What other possibility could there be?’

  Argonis turned. The movement was casual, as though he were looking around at the others in the room.

  He fired his gun into the thigh of the warrior behind him as he turned. The warrior slammed back, leg armour shattering. Argonis grabbed him as he fell and hugged his head into the boltgun’s muzzle. The burst of rounds sawed into the legionnaire’s faceplate and tore his head apart. Argonis dropped the corpse, turned, and brought his gun up. Genuine shock split Jalen’s face. Clusters of malformed tattoo patterns bloomed and withered there.

  ‘Prophesius,’ he said quietly, and the astropath stepped closer. The air took on a storm-pressure edge. Jalen’s normally calm eyes flicked up to Prophesius’s iron face.

  ‘You lied to us,’ said Argonis. ‘You lied to us from the start. You have been here since the Iron Warriors were here, amongst them, watching them, leeching secrets. You knew what was happening on this world. Lies layered under lies. How could you be what you are, and not?’