by Gav Thorpe
A few metres away stood a dead woman. It was clear she was dead because her head flopped upon her shoulder, eyes half closed. There was also the blood staining her blue tunic and grey trousers. A normal human could not lose that much blood and live.
The ground trembled again as Zahariel tried to get to his feet. The walking corpse swayed like a reed, sustained by the force that rippled out from the depths of the ruined arcology.
There were other figures behind her. Men and women, a few children. All were equally dead. Workers in unirobes and coveralls. Some had mining gear. What had become of the people from the abandoned excavation above suddenly became clear.
More emerged from the shadows, nearly three dozen.
Standing, Zahariel pulled free his pistol. He had twelve bolts in the magazine, and a spare at his belt.
But he did not need physical ammunition.
Holding up his other hand, he allowed his mind to pierce the invisible dam that kept the terrible energies of the warp at bay. Immediately his thoughts swirled with power. Zahariel’s splayed fingers crackled with purple lightning, tiny sparks leaping from fingertip to fingertip, his nails gleaming like light filaments.
The ground ceased its movements and the walking corpses withdrew, fading from view into the bluish gloom. Zahariel’s perfect vision scoured the darkness for the other signs he had been expecting.
Worms. The deadly worms that had assaulted him and the other Dark Angels the time that they had driven the Ouroboros from these caverns.
There was no sign of the beasts, not the giant queens, nor the workers or soldiers.
There was also no indication that the sorcerers that had brought forth the Ouroboros had survived. Zahariel had seen no evidence of their presence in the settlement above – both he and Lord Cypher had mentioned the threat and had taken pains to seek out anything that might betray the presence of more Terran warp-wielders.
There was nothing. Zahariel’s psychic sense picked up no manipulation of the warp in the vicinity.
He detected something else, though.
It wasn’t a psychic effect, not as such. It was hard to pinpoint, more akin to an atmospheric condition, a psychic wind he might have said to the non-gifted. It was more than a wind, it was…
It was a void. An emptiness. An absence of psychic power.
It was growing stronger. The lightning in Zahariel’s hand guttered into sparks and then died as a great barrier pressed in around him, squeezing out the psychic energy he had tapped into. He tried again, releasing his thoughts from the flesh, but they rebounded painfully back into his skull, forcing him to the ground with a cry. He held his hands to his temples as the inward pressure increased.
His hearts beat faster, a response to danger that others might mistake for fear. It was, in a Space Marine, simply a physical reaction tied to no psychological baggage. His body was merely ready to fight, his mind racing.
No. Zahariel was lying to himself.
It was fear that sped his pulse.
The blackness of the anti-warp around him isolated the Librarian from all sensation, making him feel utterly alone. He could not probe its depths, its mass so huge, so intangible that it was beyond measure – a thing beyond mortal comprehension, even that of a Librarian. He did not know what was happening; nothing in his training had prepared him for this sensation of helplessness and isolation.
He swallowed hard as the revelation came to him.
The psychic null was not an effect of the Ouroboros. It was the Ouroboros! Its incorporeal body coiled and twined through the heart of Caliban, both leeching and leaking psychic energy into and from the warp and material universe.
More than that, it was all around Zahariel.
He would not see the worms, could not. They were a physical manifestation of the Ouroboros, the bubbles on the surface of the water that told of the predatory presence in the depths below.
Zahariel looked again at the gouges and cracks in the ferrocrete around him, taking in the pulsing mass behind the tiles and masonry, and no Legion training could prevent the cold chill of realisation.
There was a reason he could not see the Ouroboros. He was not on the surface, but in the depths. He was within the gut of the Conqueror Worm.
He was inside the warp beast.
The light of the crystals faded and darkness reigned.
Zahariel fell.
THREE
The Angels of retribution
Ultramar
The screen of the visual feed was blank, but the voice of Redloss boomed out across the audio system of the primarch’s chamber. Holguin stood to one side, watching his liege as much as he listened to the transmission. The primarch sat in his throne as had become his habit again of late. He listened intently to Redloss’ report, features impassive.
‘There was nothing to be done. The Monarch’s Glory and three corvettes arrived first and detected a battle-barge-class vessel and four escorts in orbit.’ Gunfire crackled and the growl of engines cut intermittently across the voted lieutenant’s words. He grunted heavily, presumably swinging his broad-headed axe into some foe. ‘They tried to bring the enemy to battle but the traitor vessels fled. I assume they had psykers with them and knew the rest of the fleet was incoming, else why would they retreat when they had more firepower? Augur intercepts mark the enemy vessels as belonging to the World Eaters, with one Word Bearers ship.’
‘They left the system?’ The Lion leaned forward as he asked the question.
There was a delay followed by muffled shouting and the distinct crack of armour splitting. Redloss hissed a curse.
‘Headed directly out-system and jumped as soon as they could, my liege.’ Redloss paused, this time to gather his breath. ‘Obviously not all of the traitors left… I will try to keep some for interrogation but these World Eaters are not making it easy. The Navigators have compiled course estimates and rangings. Their best guess is that the ships departed on a course towards Exila-Sigma-Eighteen. No other habitable systems within seven light years.’
‘Best guess,’ said Holguin, letting slip a sigh. The Lion pursed his lips in annoyance but did not say anything. ‘If Curze had been here, he is gone now.’
The speakers rumbled with the detonation of an explosion close to Redloss, followed by a sudden silence.
‘Farith?’ Holguin kept his voice calm despite his rising concern. ‘Brother, what happened?’
It was a tense few seconds until the vox snarled back into life.
‘Pardons, my liege, it appears the enemy have a Vindicator.’
The vox fell quiet again though the link was still open, leaving Holguin in silence with his lord. Several minutes passed, the thrum of the starship’s engines occasionally broken by the thump of some heavy weapon across the vox-link or the snarl and grunts of Redloss. Brief bursts of static indicated when the voted lieutenant broadcasted on a different channel.
‘Curze was never here,’ the Lion said eventually, speaking slowly, deep in thought. ‘He is not a coward. The opposite, in fact. Rash and intemperate. Willing to risk much to prove himself right.’
Holguin had warned that the chase to Zephath was likely pointless and had been proven correct. Any statement to that effect would simply be juvenile, and certainly not welcomed by his lord. He sought for something conciliatory to say, but was equally aware that platitudes would also earn the primarch’s displeasure.
He chose to say nothing.
The vox burst into fresh life with a garbled screech and then the calm voice of Farith.
‘Someone came here,’ said the Dreadwing officer. ‘Those ships were not empty. We have only sporadic contact from the surface. There seems to be nothing left of any global command structure. Orbital defences have been totally destroyed.’
‘There is nothing much we can do here,’ said Holguin. He stepped aside as the Lion moved to the controls. A chart of the Five Hundred Worlds appeared on the screen. ‘Do we pursue them to Exila-Sigma-Eighteen? Or look elsewhere?’
&n
bsp; ‘There is something you need to see, my liege, before you make that decision.’ A signal interrupted the map projection. In its place the link panned across a ruined cityscape. ‘This is a live feed from a legionary from the Diligent Servant, one of the first to land on Zephath.’
The buildings had been constructed from red brick, their facades plastered and painted in bright colours. Piles of rubble several storeys high were all that was left of most of them, while here and there a stair or chimney still stood, alongside the twisted metal skeletons of taller structures. The ground was heavily cratered. Holguin recognised large areas flattened by orbital attack, but within these were smaller wounds from artillery and gunship strikes.
‘Gratuitous,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how…’
He trailed off as the viewpoint moved. The legionary advanced over the mound of a collapsed dwelling, here and there a limb or face jutting from the shattered, charred bricks. It was nothing Holguin had not seen before, and it was not this loss of life that silenced him.
Beyond the ruin stood something else. It was difficult to make out at first, obscured by distance, the smoke and dust confusing Holguin’s sense of perspective. It was pale, towering over the flattened city.
The Lion manipulated the controls and the view expanded to encompass the whole display. Holguin could now see the bright blue flare of jump packs as assault squads crossed the ruins, adding some scale to the edifice. Gunships circled, adding more depth to the image.
‘It must be half a kilometre high,’ said Holguin. ‘What is it?’
The Lion remained silent, eyes narrowed as he watched the unfolding scene.
A sudden acceleration, an assisted jump, moved the legionary closer. His companions bounded alongside, their boosted leaps covering fifty metres at a time. Three more jumps and then the squad came to a halt. The transmission carried no sound from the vox-channel, but it was clear to see that they were perturbed. They exchanged looks with each other, some of them pointing.
The view magnified. The Lion sucked in a ragged breath between his teeth.
The tower was made of skeletons. A thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, it was impossible to tell. Skulls dotted the macabre spire and as the magnification increased again Holguin could even make out letters made from fingers and the tiny bones found in the ears. He could not read what they said, but he did not need to.
‘Secure the area for my arrival,’ the Lion said, his voice the whisper that Holguin had learned meant his lord was subduing a deep rage.
Up close, the towers were even more disgusting. The stench of dead matter and dried blood carried to the Lion on a charnel breeze. Rubble crunched beneath his tread as he approached the grotesque edifice. He looked up, squinting against the bright sun. The fine summer weather made the deathly monuments even more incongruous. In the middle and far distance, other slender ivory fingers jutted towards cloudless indigo skies. This was a landscape that should be shrouded in darkness and storms, not bathed in warm sunlight.
‘It gets worse.’ Redloss’ voice was flat.
‘Worse?’ The Lion whispered the word, fingers curling into fists at his sides.
‘I double-checked our charts from Macragge,’ said Redloss. ‘This was Antilasta, a city of five million. They’ve yet to find anybody alive.’
‘Why?’ Holguin could think of no other question. ‘This is not conquest, it is slaughter. What purpose could it serve?’
‘Again you seek reason where none exists.’ The Lion took a deep breath. ‘But there is another logic at work.’
‘Could this be the action of Curze?’ asked Holguin, unable to draw his eyes from the tower.
Redloss led them into the closest structure. The arched gate was high enough for the Lion to pass within unhindered. Inside he discovered what had happened with the rest of the bodies. Skin was pulled taut across the ossuary framework like the tapestries of Aldurukh, still blemished and featured, carefully taken whole from the victims. Mouldering entrails hung like decorations, creating disturbing geometries and curving letter-shapes.
‘No,’ said the primarch in answer to Redloss’ earlier question. His gaze moved around the tower, taking it all in, forcing himself to examine the bloody handiwork of the Word Bearers, for surely this was the industry of Lorgar’s warriors. ‘This required much labour. The World Eaters and Word Bearers would not do the bidding of Curze and he would not wish to command them. He has abandoned even his own Legion, a solitary monster now.’
The Lion’s stare became sharper, his thoughts returning to the present.
‘This…’ He waved a hand towards their surroundings. ‘This is deliberate, ritualistic. It is not simply horror for its own sake. It served or serves a purpose. We have seen things that defy normal comprehension, Holguin. This is part of that new reality.’
‘If it is not Curze, and he has not been here, do we pursue the perpetrators, my liege?’ asked Redloss.
‘Have the Navigators refine their calculations,’ the Lion said with a slow nod, the command directed at Holguin. ‘Best guesses are insufficient.’
The voted lieutenant was about to acknowledge the command and depart when a chime sounded from the device he was carrying. Holguin proffered the long-range comm-unit to the primarch.
‘Stenius, my liege,’ he said, handing over the bulky device to the Lion, in whose palm it fitted perfectly.
‘Apologies for the intrusion, my liege,’ said Stenius. There was a slight delay on the image, so that his lips did not quite move with his voice. ‘We are receiving contact from the Colgrevance. Lieutenant Neraellin wishes to speak to you directly.’
‘The Colgrevance. A frigate patrolling orbit over the southern continental archipelago. Interesting,’ the Lion said after a moment’s thought – the commander of a patrol ship was far enough down the chain that it was unusual to request a direct link to the primarch. ‘Grant him audience.’
Stenius’ face disappeared to reveal an image of Neraellin on the bridge of his frigate, some distance from the vid-capture unit, speaking with one of his subordinates. He turned in surprise as the comms officer called to him. Most of the lieutenant’s left cheek and his nose were a messy swirl of old scar tissue.
‘My liege!’ He bowed his head three times in formal greeting, more hurriedly than decorum dictated so that he appeared to be nodding to himself. ‘I did not expect to be put through to you so soon.’
‘You have my full attention, lieutenant.’
The Lion suppressed a smile as Neraellin momentarily looked like a mouse spotting the diving hawk. The lieutenant rallied in a few seconds, cleared his throat and gestured to his officer – a second later an image of a cloudy sky over barren coastline replaced his face.
‘Our initial patrol detected a strange energy signature in a locale close to the coast of the southern continental mass, my liege.’ The display split to show a rough schematic of Zephath’s southern oceans, but the lack of clarity of the live visual feed obscured any detail. ‘I ordered a gunship flyover to see if perhaps it was an outlying settlement or research post. This is what they witnessed.’
Through the eye of the pict-feed the Lion could just about make out high walls, surrounded by a ring of fortified towers, bunkers and other defences. There appeared to be significant mining and earthworks in the surrounding area, as though someone had been digging for something in the ice-crusted ground.
‘An abandoned defence fortress,’ said the primarch.
Neraellin said nothing, and in a few more seconds the reason became clear. Stabs of light and blossoms of explosions seared across the display. The view veered violently as the pilot took evasive action, and then two beams of light, unmistakably lascannons, converged on the gunship. For several seconds the view spun, the ground rushing up to meet the camera before everything went dark.
‘Automated defences?’
‘No, my liege. Augur data that accompanied the feed confirmed life signals. The fortress has a garrison.’
‘Perhaps
Zephathian locals?’ suggested Holguin. ‘They have been attacked, it would be likely they would mistake our ships for more traitors.’
‘The Zephathian defences were totally crippled, my liege,’ said Redloss. ‘Despite the madness we’ve encountered on the surface, legionaries attacked this world. The assault was conducted with ruthless precision.’
‘The traitors are still on Zephath.’ The Lion growled, a bass noise that reverberated in the pit of Holguin’s stomach.
‘Their ships abandoned them, just like the ones that contested the landing,’ concluded Redloss. ‘Cowards.’
‘Or hoped to draw our attention away from the planet,’ countered the Lion. ‘We assumed they detected the incoming fleet and feared our numbers. It is possible they thought the first ships were a scouting flotilla and wanted to be pursued, so that Zephath was not subjected to close scrutiny.’
‘They have unfinished business on this world,’ said Holguin. ‘It has kept them here too long.’
‘A misjudgement they will regret for a short time only,’ said the primarch, standing. He adjusted the comms-pack to transmit a multi-channel broadcast. ‘Stenius! What is the latest tally of the fleet?’
‘Seventeen vanguard vessels, my liege.’ There was a muffled comment from someone else and Stenius paused while he accessed the latest data. ‘Correction, we have eighteen vanguard vessels in orbit. Eight main fleet vessels. Four dedicated transports and half a dozen ships from the support flotilla.’
‘Have all surface-assault capable ships stand to and await drop orders, captain.’
‘That’s nearly ten thousand Dark Angels, my liege,’ said Holguin. ‘There cannot be more than a few hundred traitors in that fortress.’
‘Your mathematics skills are exemplary, Holguin.’ The Lion returned his attention to the cross-channel display. ‘Captain Neraellin?’
The Colgrevance’s commander had witnessed the exchange in respectful silence and took a moment to realise he was being addressed.
