by John French
Dorn paused, aimed and fired once. The incoming fire cut off.
Silence had slid back into place across the Investiary. The wind pulled at the smoke.
Dorn shook his head.
‘This is not as it should be,’ he said.
‘Lord?’ asked Archamus. The adrenaline was still burning in his veins. His eyes were scanning for targets, but none moved in his sight.
‘They mined the entrance, but nowhere else,’ said Dorn. ‘If they had time to do that they could have wired traps into the ground. They have not.’
‘They might have, but the charges failed,’ replied Archamus.
‘They have not,’ repeated Dorn, turning again. ‘They are still here. Five are dead, but others remain. Two at least.’
Archamus reached up and pulled his helmet off. The buzz of static from his damaged vox vanished. The quiet wrapped around him. He could sense nothing, and the reek of explosives and dust filled his nose.
‘We should seal the entrances and bring the gunships over.’
Dorn glanced at Archamus, and a spark, hard and bright, seemed to catch at the edge of his eye. He shook his head, and Archamus recognised something in the expression that he had not seen in his lord for a long time.
Rage.
‘No, Archamus. No one comes to the heart of this fortress and forces me back into a hole. We go forwards. We find them.’ He paused, and Archamus watched a muscle move and settle in Dorn’s jaw. ‘We take the last of them alive.’
Archamus nodded, but Dorn was already moving forwards. Above them, the graven faces of the primarchs looked down on them like a court of gods standing in judgement on the living.
Silonius lay utterly still beneath the shroud. His armour and body suit had shifted to the white grey of the marble he clung to. He could hear the Imperial Fists moving across the Investiary. He stilled his breath.
Four of the others had died in as many seconds when Dorn had stepped from the dust cloud.
Silonius could almost feel the primarch’s presence, like the edge of a sword held just above the skin. He turned his head, unfolding the muscles a fraction at a time, until he was looking at the small charges attached to the shroud tethers. The last one still needed to be armed. Once he did that, his lifespan was measured in seconds. Dorn would hear the noise and a bolt would pluck away Silonius’ life before he heard the gunshot. That was a problem. Dying was not part of the mission parameter. But neither was failure.
He reached out for the charge, and snapped the arming mechanism closed.
Gunfire whipped out towards Silonius, but he was already dropping from the shrouded statue. He yanked the blind grenades from his harness as he fell, landed, and pulled the arming pins as he rolled. He came to his feet running, tossing the grenades behind and in front of him. A cloud of white mist burst from the first grenade as he broke from cover. The world beyond the cloud vanished.
The clatter and roar of bolter fire echoed from the stone as shots cut the air around him. He swerved, breaking the rhythm of his run as the other two grenades triggered. Fresh clouds of blank white gas filled the air. He was running down a corridor of clear air between expanding clouds. The sounds of gunfire distorted.
A bolt-round flicked out of the cloud and exploded at his feet. Shrapnel ripped through the fabric over his thighs. Blood pumped from the wound as he ran.
He pulled the detonator from his belt. It was a black cylinder as long as his hand was wide. Dials etched with numbers capped one end, a simple switch was at the other. Any other surviving infiltrators would be doing the same, and all would be making for their escape routes.
He reached the wall running along the edge of the amphitheatre, and ran along it until he found the drainage grate. It was raw plasteel, plated in bronze and welded in place. He locked a melta bomb onto it, and ducked aside as the metal became vapour. He looked up. The statues of the primarchs loomed above the dust and smoke. Gunfire rattled in the murk. He did not know which escape routes the others were making for. It did not matter. He turned the dial on the bottom of the detonator wand.
The figure came out of the fog at a run.
Silonius jerked sideways. His bolter was in his hand, finger pulling the trigger.
He froze.
The other infiltrator stared back, gun aimed at Silonius. Dark recon armour covered his torso, shoulders and shins. Dark green-and-blue fabric swathed his head. Blood was clotting in tears in the fabric over his arms. He was breathing hard from traumatic shock.
‘The charges are... set...’ coughed the other infiltrator, and swayed.
Silonius nodded slowly.
‘Good,’ he said, and shot him.
The warrior fell where he stood, his skull scattered in red fragments across the stone floor. Silonius stepped towards the drainage grating and looked up one last time. He had a clear route from here out of the Palace, and to the next element of his mission. He had not replied in kind when the other infiltrator had given the mission parameter as Eurydice. Even though his mind was still locked behind blank doors, one of the first things that had come back to him was the reason he was here. He had a mission, the end of which he could not see, but which he would follow, and the parameter of that mission was not Eurydice, it was Orpheus.
He keyed the detonator and dropped into darkness, as above him the roof of the Imperium shook.
The first explosion cut through the sound of gunfire like an axe blow through flesh. Archamus turned in its direction. The statue of Lion El’Jonson trembled where it stood. Cracks raced over the contours of armour. The face of the First Primarch split, and the cracks raced through the blade he held to his chest. Then a second explosion ripped through the base of the statue.
It fell.
Carved fabric and flesh broke apart. Shards exploded as they hit the floor. A wave of dust spilled through the air.
Another explosion, and another, and the Khan was a shattered ruin on the stone floor, and Russ was toppling, and the sound rose up to greet the rising sun. Detonations raced around the circle of statues, ripping them from their plinths and shattering them as they fell. Archamus just had time to clamp his helmet in place before the blast waves enveloped him.
The world was dust again. The ground shivered beneath his feet, and the thunder of explosions rolled on, growing and growing, until at last it faded.
Pieces of marble rang on his helm like heavy rain.
‘Lord?’ he shouted. His helmet display had cut out completely.
‘I am here,’ said Dorn from close by.
The dust drained slowly from the air. The sight of the sky returned first, the light breaking into coloured rays as it fell through the cloud. Then other shapes appeared: the high tiers of the Investiary’s bowl, the high towers of the Palace, the top of the Pillar of Unity.
Then, one at a time, the shapes of the two remaining statues emerged.
Eight traitors had fallen. The wind stirred the tatters of their shrouds amongst the rubble they had become. Here and there a recognisable fragment remained: the reaching claws of Curze, the single eye of Magnus set in his proud face, the hand of Horus resting on the pommel of his sword.
Of the nine brothers still loyal to the Emperor, one remained unbroken amid the devastation. Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the VII Legion, Praetorian of Terra, stood against the sky, his eyes set on the rising sun.
Dorn stared at the carved image of himself, and then turned to look at the only other statue that now stood unshrouded and unbroken.
Fabric had hidden its features for years, but a series of small charges had cut the ropes holding the covering in place. The shroud now lay at its feet, shed like a snake’s skin. Archamus almost thought he saw a grim smile flicker on his lord’s face as he looked up, as though a suspicion had become a certainty.
Above the Investiary – face hidden behind a crested helm, weight leaning on a sp
ear, the tip of which pierced the throat of a two-headed serpent at his feet – stood Alpharius.
Dorn stood looking up, his face unreadable, his eyes hard and dark.
‘No one enters here, besides my Huscarls. Not the Custodians, not others from the Legion, not the vassals of the Regent.’
‘The Regent himself?’
‘No one,’ said Dorn, then gestured at the settling dust. ‘Bring servitors in to sift the rubble. Every scrap of evidence left by the enemy will be found.’
‘Lord...’ began Archamus, looking down at where the carved feather of an angel’s wing lay amongst a jumble of broken marble. It was Pendelikon marble, threaded with fine grey veins and shaped with such skill that it seemed as though feathers had been transmuted into stone rather than carved, exquisite even in ruin. ‘What...’ The words stopped in his throat. He looked up and met his primarch’s eyes. ‘What was this, lord?’
Rogal Dorn was still for a long second, and then he looked up at the statue of Alpharius, then to where his own carved image stood amongst the rubble.
‘It was a message,’ he said, and then strode away through the settling dust.
Six
Damocles Starport
Terra
The chainsword cycled down to silence. Kestros kept his eyes on the entrances of the lift shaft. He pulled the empty magazine free of his bolt pistol and snapped a fresh one in place. The ammo counter chimed, and a rune flashed green in the corner of his helmet display. The empty magazine clanged off the support girders and walls of the shaft as it dropped down into the dark. Blood splatter covered half his view, but with infra-sight he could see straight through it. The rest of his squad were yellow silhouettes of armour above and below him. The drying blood coating the lift shaft was a cooling green against the cold black of the metal. A body, wedged in the nearest door, was still orange with warmth.
‘Nothing showing on auspex,’ said one of his squad over the vox. ‘Levels of hallucinogen are dropping.’
‘Very well. We are dropping in ten seconds. Stand by.’ He gunned the chainsword once. Clotting blood and scraps of skin sprayed free of the teeth.
It had been twenty hours since the company had dropped onto Damocles Starport. He had been fighting without cease from the moment he had leapt from the gunship’s assault ramp. A wave of cargo-loaders and menials had met them in a frenzied wave, and from that point he and his brothers had been hacking and shooting without respite. They had held the landing pads until heavier gunships had dropped prefab defence lines and more warriors. Then they had begun to drive inwards, into the guts of the starport. Screams had filled its corridors. Bodies had strewn its floors, and blood daubed its walls. They found no one sane. Hordes of humans would break from tearing at each other and charge onto the Imperial Fists’ guns. They did not respond to threats, or words, and after a while the order went out to engage without hesitation. The retaking of the starport had become a purge. That bloody task was still under way.
This is not war, he thought. This is butchery.
Kestros closed his eyes for a second, and flexed his fingers on the grips of his weapons.
‘Drop on my lead,’ he said, and fixed his gaze on the abyss below. ‘Drop.’
He stepped off the ledge into the darkness of the shaft. Gravity yanked him down. Girders and doorways rushed past. The black pit beneath him grew. Voices roared around him, booming from vox-horns in the open mouths of passing corridors. He saw light from an open door shining across the floor at the bottom of the shaft.
He triggered his jump pack for an instant. Flames lit the dark, and force snapped through him as his speed vanished. Light flared above him as his brothers triggered their own packs. He landed on the rockcrete floor at the bottom of the lift shaft, and came up firing. The doors vanished in a wall of detonations. Kestros bounded through. His visor lit with target runes. He fired, recoil hammering back into his hand. The first figure came out of the smoke. Its body was a red blur of heat, the chain in its hands cold blue. He let the swing come, stepped into it and brought the chainsword up in a cut that split the attacker from groin to crown. He ran on, taking another two figures as they came at him. His squad were already through the door, their guns finding targets, hammering shells into bodies.
The sounds of madness and slaughter reached up and filled the chamber’s high roof. He blinked his visor to full-sight. Through the gun smoke he could see the shapes of macro haulers lined up across the space. A mass of debris lay across the back of three of them, and twisted remains of girders hung from the roof above. Bodies carpeted the floor. The air was vibrating with the distorted shout of the vox-horns. Movement twitched at the edge of his sight.
‘Take the gantries,’ he called, his voice a rasp, as he hacked through another flailing figure. Four of the squad triggered their jump packs and boosted through the air. They landed on the network of gantries high above and began to fire downwards.
‘Brother-sergeant,’ called one of them, ‘there is–’
He heard the thump of the missile launching, and twisted to look up, in time to see the ceiling explode. Two more missiles struck, a blink between each of them. The gantries fell. Kestros leapt to the side, struck the ground, rolled and fired his jump pack as he came up. The wreckage hit the floor. A fuel cell in one of the haulers ruptured, and a fist of fire thumped into the air.
The blast batted Kestros aside. Damage runes flashed in his eyes. Gunfire rattled into the air, hard rounds loosed in bursts. His head was spinning as he tumbled through the air, thrusters still firing.
The purge had been bloody, and they had faced humans prepared to kill anything they found, in any way they could. But this was different. This was not madness.
He cut the jump pack and tucked into a ball as he fell. He hit the side of a macro hauler, and the impact ripped through the skin of its cargo container. His armour screamed. His left pauldron tore away, servos burned out as they tried to absorb the impact. He felt bones break.
He uncurled and leapt up through the hole he had ripped into the hauler. There was another percussive boom, and a missile struck the cargo container where he had fallen. Shrapnel clattered off his armour. The runes of his squad brothers were distorted yellow in his visor. He could see the enemy now, a cluster of figures moving behind cover. His eyes took in their breath masks, weapons and movements.
Trained, he thought. Dangerous, for humans. He shot two of them before they could raise their weapons. At his back, three of his squad landed and fell into an arrow behind him. They ran forwards, clearing debris, bodies and crates in fluid bounds. He felt the drum beat of hard rounds clattering against his armour.
He saw the real threat almost too late.
Two figures crouched behind a mound of crates, their missile launchers levelled at him as he came from the clouds of smoke and dust. He fired again, and jinked to the side a second later. The shell hit the launcher as the missile’s propellant ignited in the tube. A wave of shrapnel ripped the second shooter apart just as the missile roared into the air. The explosion burst above his head.
The silence was sudden, as though the noise had been sliced away with a knife. The haze of Kestros’ helmet display showed only the rolling clouds of smoke. Nothing else moved. Targeting runes searched for threats and found none. Kestros blinked back to infra-sight, but cooling greens and blues painted the world. The heat from the fires rippled in red, but besides his brothers no warm blood beat in the chamber.
He walked over to the nearest enemy, or what remained of them. They were simple human stock, fit but unexceptional. What was exceptional was that in all the hundreds they had butchered as they descended through the starport, these were the only ones who had not acted from madness.
Slowly, he reached down and pulled the breath mask off the corpse. The face beneath was slack. Terran trade cartel brands covered the neck and lower lip, he noticed. He recognised the geometric design
of the Hysen Cartel seal.
The noise coming from the vox-horns finally fell silent.
‘Sergeant,’ came a voice from behind him.
He rose and turned. His squad brother’s armour was dented and dotted with impact marks.
‘Yes, brother?’ he said.
‘Area is clear. We have three casualties, no fatalities.’
Kestros nodded. He breathed out.
‘Make ready to withdraw,’ he said, looking back down to the corpse at his feet. ‘We are done here.’
‘A holding force–’ began the other warrior, but Kestros cut the question off.
‘They can send auxilia or militia to deal with this slaughterhouse.’ He paused and looked at his left vambrace. A thick coat of drying blood hid the yellow ceramite. On the ground further away, he saw a severed arm, still wrapped in the tattered uniform of the starport’s militia. ‘Our duty here is done.’
He gave a small shake of his head, but if his brother noticed he said nothing.
He glanced at the corpse with the cartel tattoos on its neck and dropped the rebreather beside it.
Bhab Bastion
The Imperial Palace, Terra
The corpses lay in darkness. Archamus crossed the vault slowly, his bionics clicking and hissing. Ghost pain ran up and down the pistons that had once been muscle. It had been constant since the encounter in the Investiary. Flesh that had never had a chance to grow old ached as he moved. It was not tiredness, even though he had not rested since the night of the attack. No, it was something else: an echo of a thought escaping the control of his will.
He had not seen the primarch since the attack. The sun had turned through the sky, but the orders from the Praetorian had come via others. Where Dorn was and what he was doing remained unknown to the master of his bodyguard. That did not concern Archamus, though; the primarch often was concerned with affairs that Archamus knew nothing about. No, what worried Archamus was that Dorn had now called for him, and him alone. That was what itched at the back of his skull as he walked towards the dead.
