Black Legion

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  There should have been more. We all expected harsher words to follow and promises of recrimination. Such suspicions proved unfounded when in the very same moment, three of Daravek’s warriors held fingers to their vox-beads, and Ashur-Kai’s voice drifted through my mind.

  Sekhandur.

  Ashur-Kai, I sent back. Do you remember Drol Kheir?

  Of course I do.

  Did I face Daravek? Did he kill me?

  Blood of the Pantheon, what foolishness is this?

  Daravek implied that–

  Don’t be ludicrous, interrupted Ashur-Kai. I must speak with Ezekyle, but his mind is walled too tight.

  What is amiss? Explain yourself.

  Across from us, Daravek was speaking with his men, and a sudden disquiet radiated from their auras.

  There are ships appearing before both fleets – unknown vessels of unknown allegiance, not sailing into the storm’s heart, but simply manifesting before us.

  Daravek’s men are uneasy, I observed. It is not one of their ploys.

  I have no idea what it might be. We have been boarded.

  We… What?

  In the same moment, Daravek aimed his axe at Abaddon. ‘What treachery is this? You have broken the truce, Ezekyle.’

  Abaddon rounded on his rival, eyes narrowed to platinum slits. ‘We have broken nothing.’

  We have been boarded. Ashur-Kai’s silent sending was jagged with urgency. A single legionary. It defies explanation. Every ship in the fleet is reporting the same phenomenon – a lone warrior manifesting upon their command decks. They are not moving, nor speaking. They merely stand there, watching us.

  I reached out to place a hand on Abaddon’s shoulder and haul him back, only to see I had no hand with which to grip. It still lay on the wraithbone ground, metres away.

  ‘Brother,’ I said, ‘we must return to the Vengeful Spirit. Ashur-Kai reports that we have been boarded, and–’

  ‘You dare?’ Daravek was calling out to us. ‘You dare board our ships?’

  Daravek’s warships have been boarded, as well, I sent back to Ashur-Kai. He suspects us of breaking the truce.

  I looked between the two opposed, confused groups of warriors. One by one they turned to stare across the dusty garden with its eroded statuary, where a lone warrior walked from the eldar ruins.

  He was dead. I thought that at once, as easily as if I had seen decaying flesh or smelt the rotting musk of decomposition. To my sixth sense, he was without a soul, a man disconnected from the mechanisms of life. And yet he walked closer, his armour the light grey of an overcast sky, tinged by the faintest pale green, his eye-lenses red-lit from within.

  He was no daemon. Daemons have no souls, yet they are presences in the warp – they are the warp itself, and form writhing, drifting things before my psychic gaze. Yet he was no human. Humans have shining souls, and they are beacons in the warp’s tumultuous night. Whatever this warrior was, he walked the line between mortal and immortal, fused with the warp yet not born from it, saturated by the immaterium yet not possessed by it.

  He had a soul, I saw as he drew near, and it was still his own – a weak thing, a dim and shredded light.

  There was a beauty in that, in the same way a lesser mind – ­reliant on the five mundane senses – might see beauty in a colour never before seen. Here before me was a kind of entity I had never believed possible, taking the form of a brother legionary.

  What Legion or Chapter had sired him, I could not say. His armour was of a mark unknown to me then, not even matching the newer suits of Aquila-pattern battleplate I had seen aboard the Black Templars vessel.

  We have encountered one of them ourselves, I sent to Ashur-Kai.

  Daravek’s warriors brandished their weapons at this newcomer. We did not.

  ‘Name yourself,’ Daravek demanded. I could see his knuckles tight on the haft of his axe.

  The grey warrior turned his helmed head to each group in turn, showing no favour either way. The voice that emerged from his helmet grille was deep, though not unusually so for a legionary, and his words were preceded by a click of vox projection, just as any of our voices were.

  ‘I am Saronos.’

  Within his words I heard the telltale flow of respiration. He was dead to my sixth sense, yet alive to all others. My fascination deepened. Had he been one of us before undergoing these changes? Was he still one of us, but with mutations of the soul that set him apart?

  The icon on his pauldron was not one I recognised, but it was nevertheless gravid with symbolism – two skulls set within an eight-spiked disc, one looking to the left, the other to the right. An inscription ringed the staring skulls, cast in dark silver and written in an unfamiliar dialect of High Gothic: In Abysso Tollemus Animabus Damnatus.

  The exact translation evaded me, but I could make out its meaning: ‘We bear the souls of the damned through the depths’.

  ‘I am Thagus Daravek,’ declared our rival. He strode forwards, confronting the newcomer.

  ‘We are aware of what you name yourself,’ said the grey warrior. ‘You speak irrelevancies.’

  ‘How did you reach us undetected?’ asked Daravek. ‘How have your men boarded our ships?’

  Saronos kept his gaze steady. ‘You speak irrelevancies.’

  ‘Then what of your warband?’ Daravek pressed. ‘Where do your loyalties lie?’

  ‘You speak irrelevancies.’

  I do not know if Abaddon sensed something about the newcomer that I could not, or if he simply made the intuitive connection first, but he addressed the grey warrior, cutting past Daravek’s useless questions.

  ‘Will you guide us out of this storm?’

  The grey warrior’s armour joints purred as he looked between the two leaders. ‘Yes, Ezekyle Abaddon, we will – if you meet our price.’

  For a time, I watched through Ashur-Kai’s eyes. I bore witness to his memories, seeing the spectral warships coalesce into being. They took shape on the oculus, at first ghostly and indistinct, becoming the same pale grey-green as Saronos’ armour as they drifted nearer. Imperial ships, but built to patterns I did not recognise. They possessed enough familiar elements to suggest they had been brought into being by Standard Template Construct plans, but not by any that were in use during my years fighting for the Imperium. Like the Black Templars vessel, these warships were newer than those we sailed aboard.

  The Anamnesis reached out through her amniotic fluid, her hands curling as though she were strangling the closest vessel. I felt every turret and forward cannon along the Vengeful Spirit’s hull grinding around to lock on to the far smaller ship.

  That was when the grey warrior manifested before the several hundred primary bridge crew, coming into being the way Saronos had appeared before us. This warrior wore the same armour and showed the same symbol, though whereas Saronos conversed, this one remained perfectly silent. Warriors, beastmen and Ultio’s mind-slaved cyborgs and robots all converged upon the figure where he stood by Abaddon’s empty throne. He still made no move.

  All of this I took from Ashur-Kai’s mind. I took it and relayed it back to Abaddon.

  ‘Tell Ashur-Kai to maintain a vigil,’ he commanded, ‘but make no hostile move.’

  Ezekyle orders you to maintain a vigil, but make no hostile move.

  As he wishes, came the reply. The warrior with you – he speaks?

  He does. He speaks of prices to be paid, to guide us from the storm.

  I felt a stab of irritation from Ashur-Kai, to be so far away from such a fascinating occurrence. It galled him. It galled him deeply.

  Saronos named his Chapter, though each of us heard something different in curiously structured High Gothic. Ilyaster heard Infernum Ductorii, the ‘underworld’s guides’, and Ezekyle heard Umbra Larua, the ‘ghosts of the shadows’. When Saronos spoke the name, I heard him say Katae
gis Lemura, the ‘storm’s spirits’.

  Later, when we had heard others speak of the grey warriors, we would piece together a rough Low Gothic approximation of their name: the Warp Ghosts.

  Saronos told us of his Chapter’s purpose – that he and his kindred were ferrymen of a kind, guiding vessels through the warp. They would, for a price, guide one of our fleets through the storm and into the narrow channel of calm space that speared through the Great Eye and led to the Cadian System.

  He swore in those ceaselessly calm tones that his brothers were born of no Legion, yet told us we spoke irrelevancies every time we asked how that was possible. He said the same when asked the year of his birth, or the patterns and classes of his small fleet’s unknown vessels. Never did he display a loss of patience, nor appear to favour one warlord over the other.

  ‘I do not trust these Ghosts of the Warp,’ Telemachon murmured, giving the name he had heard Saronos speak.

  None of us did, but what choice did we have?

  Daravek, meanwhile, spat at the idea of negotiating with the grey warrior. ‘What are your demands, spectre?’

  ‘We demand nothing,’ said Saronos.

  ‘Then what is your price to free us from your storm?’

  ‘It is not our storm. And the price for guidance out of these tides is for you to discern. You will be judged by what you sacrifice.’

  Daravek spat at the idea. ‘And if we kill you now? If we destroy your fleet?’

  ‘Then we would die. You speak irrelevancies.’

  ‘How can we trust your word in any of this?’

  ‘Nothing I say will alter that choice. You speak irrelevancies, Thagus Daravek.’

  ‘Very well.’ The Death Guard warlord rested his axe on one shoulder, speaking with a confident grin that hid little of his fury. ‘Here is my offer, ghost.’

  ‘We are listening,’ said the grey warrior.

  ‘If you require ships for your fleet, I will give them to you. Ten. Twenty, if need be, from my war spoil. I will tear them from the Black Legion and lay them at your feet. If you desire slaves, I will grant you a million of them from the holds of Black Legion vessels. More, if that is not enough. Two million. Three. If you want access to my daemon forges or armament manufactories, it can be arranged. And once I claim what is mine by right, if you wish my favour in the future, then it will be yours without question.’

  Blood of the Changer, the sheer magnitude of that offer. Most warbands would risk destroying one another over even one of those elements, let alone all of them. The right to use a powerful warband’s forges and manufactories was the kind of opportunity many warlords never saw in the entirety of their lives. Daravek offered lifelong riches for any warband, and he did so with the arrogant generosity of a king laughing while scattering gold coins onto the street for peasants to fight over. Much of it was not his to offer – the ships and slaves he spoke of were still ours for now – but they could so easily become his if this deadlock escalated into war. Nothing he said was beyond the realm of possibility.

  And most valuable of all was his favour. The regard and support of a warlord with Daravek’s influence was enough to inspire any warband to acts of madness. Such patrons were rare indeed.

  At my side, I heard Ilyaster exhale the same awed sigh at the wealth and opportunity being offered so royally. But Daravek was not yet done.

  ‘And,’ he added, through clenched black teeth, ‘if it is souls you desire, then I offer you the souls of Ezekyle Abaddon and his miserable Ezekarion. Ask, and they are yours. I will harvest them with my own blade, one by one, when our fleets do battle.’

  Saronos inclined his head, acknowledging Daravek’s words before turning to Abaddon.

  ‘We have heard the offer made by Thagus Daravek of the Legion Host. What do you offer, Ezekyle Abaddon of the Black Legion?’

  My lord did not answer Saronos at once. He requested a moment to speak with his brothers, and turned to the three of us, his gaze ­raking over us in turn.

  ‘I think back to Moriana’s words,’ he said softly. ‘That “greatness requires sacrifice”. That “one cannot run from what must be done”. As much as I doubt her ultimate loyalty to us, and as much as I distrust her adamant beliefs, there is a cold truth to what she said. She saw this moment – not the souls gathered here, nor the offers that would be made – but she knew the time was coming when a great offer would need to be made. And now here we are, with her words echoing through my skull. The necessity of sacrifice.’

  He gestured to me, indicating my arm. ‘You showed it yourself, Khayon, this very night. Sacrificing your arm. Suffering a grievous loss to win an even greater victory. Without that loss, you would have died. How many myths and legends all grow from the same seeds? A multitude of tales preach that sacrifice is at the root of epochal progress. How many warriors throughout history have laid down their lives so that their nations would survive?’

  For the first time in years he looked at peace, as if the decision he was making was a fight back against the pressures upon his soul. ‘If you wish to beseech the God of War, you kill in his name and risk your own death. If a warrior wishes to join our newborn Legion, he is forced to balance individual glory and personal freedom with the cause we all share. He battles beneath my banner as well as his own. He carves the icons of his former life from his battleplate, and he stains his ceramite black. Sacrifices, all. Sacrifices made for greater gain.’

  Abaddon hesitated, no longer looking at Telemachon or Ilyaster – only at me. ‘A sacrifice is only meaningful if one surrenders something precious. You are a ritualist, Iskandar – a sorcerer, a philosopher. Is that not the truth of it?’

  I thought of my father Magnus, and his ritual to send word to the Emperor. The many apprentices and cultists that lay dead on desecrated altars, even before we were rendered Excommunicate Traitoris. It had worked, though with devastating consequences.

  I thought of Ahriman – my courageous, foolish, beloved, hated brother Ahriman – and the Rubric he wove that destroyed our Legion. He had sacrificed nothing of true worth. He believed in himself above all else, and he had been punished for his flawed attempt to cheat the Changer of the Ways.

  I thought of the sacrifices I had made down the many years, as part of rituals, summonings, bindings… So many of them had involved blood and death, and the most powerful always demanded the most intimate of sacrifices. One did not deal with daemons without ­making sacrifices to them. The slaughter of a stranger holds almost no power, no emotional resonance. The butchering of a close brother, betraying his trust, is an act that sings out across the warp.

  ‘By its nature,’ I finally replied, ‘a sacrifice must cost the giver. ­Otherwise, it is merely an offering. True sacrifices are fuelled by such depth of emotion that they echo into unreality. They are the offers that the warp hears, and the ones it most often answers.’

  ‘They are the offers that history hears, brother.’ Abaddon was smiling now, though there was no humour upon his visage.

  He turned from us, walking towards Saronos. The grey warrior had not moved at all.

  ‘What do you offer, Ezekyle Abaddon?’

  Abaddon spoke his offer. It took far less time than Daravek’s many promises, and was done before I could stop him.

  I would have tried. I told myself that afterwards and I have maintained it through all the years and wars since. Had I known what he would offer, I would have tried to stop him. Instead he spoke, just a single sentence, and I had no time to do anything but stare in shock.

  As soon as he had spoken, other warriors in the same grey-green as Saronos drifted from the shadows and from the air itself, striding forwards and taking form. Ten of them, twenty, fifty. They levelled their bolters at Daravek and his officers.

  ‘Return to your vessels,’ Saronos ordered Daravek’s men. ‘Your offer has been refused.’

  Pus ran from Daravek�
��s eyes in creamy mimicry of fury’s tears. It took me a moment to realise they were maggots, hatching within his skull and spilling from his tear ducts.

  ‘You have made a grievous mistake,’ he warned Saronos and the grey warriors. Saronos’ only reply was to draw his blade, a slow and stoic threat.

  Wisely, they left without bloodshed. I doubted we had long before Daravek’s armada attacked.

  And we made ready to return to the Vengeful Spirit, for there we would offer up our sacrifice.

  Sacrifice

  Nagual and Nefertari awaited me on the bridge. The former came to me at once, trailing at my side, bearing his fangs and swearing to destroy whomever and whatever had wounded me.

  He is already dead, Nagual. I killed him.

  He offered, in his simple way, to find my opponent’s soul in the warp and devour it for me, or bring it to me in his jaws that I might use it for my own purposes. I had no desire for either eventuality. Binding a soul is a monumental undertaking for a mortal. Few sorcerers manage it even once. Let Ansontyn burn. Let his soul journey on its way to oblivion.

  Nefertari offered none of Nagual’s open loyalty. She sat in a tiptoed crouch atop the backrest of Abaddon’s command throne, her wings half-spread for balance. She leapt up when we entered and took wing, her arc carrying her over several consoles before she rested, perched on the railing of one of the upper balconies. Beastmen brayed and cawed up at her, all of whom she ignored. They despised her as an alien thing. The most attention she ever paid to them was when she hunted them as prey and flayed them as playthings. She paid them no notice now, however, because her laughter rang out across the bridge instead. She was laughing at me – more specifically, at my arm. There would be a lecture in my future about my blade skills.

  Above all of us, Ashur-Kai’s navigational platform was notable for its new presence: a grey warrior, cast in Saronos’ image, standing in dreadful serenity and making no move at all. My former mentor remained up there, watching this intruder into his private realm. He greeted me with a psychic sending. I returned it, hiding my guilt for what was about to come.