Horusian Wars: Resurrection

by John French

  She looked up, and the cowl fell back from her head to show the henna-stained ‘X’ that divided her face into quarters. Josef looked down at her. He wore the off-white robes of a preacher, the hood thrown back from his heavy face. Green eyes glittered from beneath bushy eyebrows. Tufts of steel grey hair circled his bare scalp and ran down his cheekbones. Mountain ranges of fat and muscle shifted as he raised a hand as though in casual greeting. He looked more like a labour boss poured into vestments than he did a priest.

  ‘The last of them is about to arrive. We should be with Covenant,’ he said, his voice a soft rumble. He glanced up at the shrine, then bowed his head. ‘Your forgiveness for interrupting your prayers.’

  ‘I will add it to my chain of penance,’ she said, and rose, bowing to the statue of the saint for a long moment before she backed away and turned. Josef gave a shorter bow, but she could feel the frown on his face.

  ‘It is for the Emperor to burden us, not ourselves,’ he said.

  ‘I bear no burden that I have not earned,’ she said, coldly.

  He gave a low snort but did not reply. Severita’s eyes swept the chamber, suddenly aware that the stillness she had felt during her brief devotion was not reality. Hundreds of figures moved around the chamber edge, flowing around the pillars in tight groups.

  These were the inquisitors and their entourages. There was a towering man in layers of black velvet, face hidden by a checked executioner’s hood, bending to speak to a pair of twins in form-hugging leather bodygloves. Here was a woman in battered scale armour sweeping along at the head of six cloaked figures who scuttled on chrome pincers. Beside them were others, some surrounded by throngs of retainers like courtiers come to the command of their king. Except that no single power beneath the God-Emperor could command these men and women. Their power was absolute, unchecked by anything except each other, and limited only by their own choices. Covenant had said that forty-one of his peers had answered the call to conclave, and that this would be the greatest gathering of inquisitors in the Segmentum Tempestus for a century. Severita had only seen one inquisitor in her life before this moment, and that was the man who she served in penance. To stand in the presence of so many souls who stood one step below the God-Emperor was almost overwhelming.

  She watched the throng for a moment, marking the way they moved, the way they watched each other in turn. Suspicion and tension danced in the spaces between groups, and flickered in their glances. Beyond them, standing in crimson-clad stillness, were the Battle Sisters of the Bloody Rose. Their faces were bare, expressions fixed beneath dark hair. Eagle tattoos and the stylised rose of the order marked their cheeks. That same rose gleamed in silver and gold on the red lacquer of their armour. Arcs of oiled machinery haloed their heads and clamped close over their ears. Tiny purity seals dotted the blunt metal, showing where each of the skull-locks had been checked and blessed. The Order of the Bloody Rose had agreed to host this conclave of inquisitors, and to guarantee the safety of all those present, but while they watched over the gathering they would not be allowed to hear what was discussed, or know the secrets that would be spoken between the servants of the Holy Ordos. Every one of the Battle Sisters within the Reliquary Tower wore skull clamps that allowed them to hear only the vox security channels. To do otherwise would have meant every Battle Sister present being put to the test, and cleansed by mind-blanking or bolt shell. The Imperium could not afford to waste such warriors. Not now. Not with the light of hell swallowing the stars in the sky above this and hundreds of other worlds.

  ‘This makes you uncomfortable,’ said Josef.

  ‘What is there to take comfort from in what we are doing?’ she said, turning to look at his wide face. His eyes were steady.

  ‘I did not mean what we are here to do.’ He jerked his chin at the crimson-armoured Battle Sisters.

  ‘Being here, them being here…’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I am not one of them anymore. I have no illusions as to my place and duty.’

  ‘I never doubted that. I just thought it must hurt, and that you should not take the weight of that pain as well as all the rest.’

  ‘I am the worst of sinners, Khoriv. There is no limit to my penance.’

  Josef raised his eyebrow, folding his hands into the wide sleeves of his robe. After a long moment he turned and began to walk with heavy steps in the direction of the high doors set in the chamber’s far wall.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘It is about to begin.’

  Two

  Enna Gyrid shook the dust from her cloak as the door shut behind her. Four Dominions of the Bloody Rose stood in an arc to greet them. Helms hid their faces, above the glistening red of their armour. The muzzles of four storm bolters held her in their empty gaze. She could see fingers on triggers, tensed, held on the cusp of sending a storm of explosive rounds into the space inside the door. These were the elite of the Sisters of Battle, chosen for this duty precisely because they would not hesitate to execute anyone who came here uninvited.

  Enna nodded to them, and pulled off the rebreather mask she had worn for the brief walk between the lighter to the Reliquary Tower.

  She smiled.

  ‘Greetings. The weather outside is terrible. If you are thinking of going for a stroll, I would advise against it.’

  The four Dominions’ aims did not waver. Enna could almost feel the seconds she had before they opened fire vanishing. She rubbed her eye. The ride down through Ero’s atmosphere in the lighter had been a hurtling drop from low orbit, trying to outrun the edge of the oncoming storm. They had lost that race, and the last ten minutes had been illuminated with amber warning lights, and drowned by the sound of alarms and the rattle of the fuselage. Even once they had touched down, the wind had gusted enough that the servitor crews had begun to lock the lighter’s landing feet to the landing pad before its engines had cycled down. The storm had yanked at the cloth of her layered robe as she crossed to the tower door. The silver coins stitched into the edges of her hood and robe had rung against her armour. If the journey down from orbit had put her humours out of balance, the short walk to this side entrance of a door had tilted it towards acidity.

  The four Dominions tensed further, the shift in muscles under armour almost imperceptible. The vox-thief circling Enna’s ear clicked as it picked up a flurry of encoded signals between the warriors.

  She sighed, and held up her hand. A cloud of hololithic light pulsed out of the ring on her right index finger. Spheres of code and flecks of enciphered data spun through the air.

  ‘I come in the name of Inquisitor Idris, as her herald, and as the voice proclaiming her coming and intention to enter this place.’ She held her hand in place as hidden sensors meshed with the data projection and validated her credentials. There had not really been any need to speak, but there were formalities to authority, signs and pomp and ceremony that were part of the show. And, of course, she rather enjoyed it.

  The Dominions dropped their aim, but did not move aside.

  ‘We bid you welcome to the Shrine of Saint Aspira in the name of the Order of the Bloody Rose,’ they bowed their heads. ‘We are honoured by your presence.’

  ‘Not by mine,’ said Enna. The holo-projection from her ring snapped off. She tapped her vox-bead. ‘Formalities dealt with, my lady.’ She straightened, smile still in place.

  The outer door opened, pistons pulling the slab of plasteel and bronze apart. Dust-laden air billowed through the opening. Enna turned as her Inquisitorial mistress stepped into the narrow chamber. In contrast to Enna’s cloak and burnished armour plates, Inquisitor Idris wore a battered brown duster coat over faded black trews, and a waistcoat of armoured leather. Brass buckles gleamed from belts and holsters. Dark hair rose in a pile above her head, silver pins glinting from amongst the curls. Rings gleamed on her fingers as she pulled the goggles down from her face. Her face was narrow, and lines cobwebb
ed the skin around her eyes. Enna thought she caught a sparkle of amusement in those eyes, but when Idris spoke her voice was cold iron.

  ‘Open the way,’ she said.

  The Dominions bowed their heads again, but did not move from their place blocking the entrance passage.

  ‘The accords under which you may enter require you to yield your arms, inquisitor. You and your… acolyte.’

  Idris’ mouth twitched, but her gaze had hardened. The moment lengthened.

  ‘Of course,’ she said at last, and pulled a compact autopistol and a multibarrelled hand cannon from their holsters and held them out. A Dominion stepped forward, slinging her storm bolter before taking the pistols with a bow. Enna found herself wondering how these acts of deference sat with their pride, or if the Adepta Sororitas were more successful at eliminating that flaw than she suspected they were. Idris glanced at Enna.

  ‘Come, Enna, let’s not be more awkward than we must be.’ The flash in her eyes was definitely there now. +Moment of truth,+ came Idris’ thought voice.

  Enna kept her face impassive. There was a sharp edge to her mistress’ telepathic touch, as though she were shouting to be heard against a wind. That was to be expected. While Enna did not have a psychic gift, her mistress’’ telepathic contact had been a constant during her service. She could read the texture of the sendings like the grain of wood under her fingers. At that moment they were on the edge of something that was repressing psychic activity. Like the yielding of their weapons, it was not unexpected, just another expression of the truth about the Inquisition’s fractured unity.

  The Inquisition’s members – the disparate witchhunters, daemonhunters, xenoshunters, datasecutors, chronoguardians and all the other specialisms of the protectors of mankind – from the most respected lord inquisitor to its most obscure member were all individuals, bound by no law beneath the direct will of the Emperor. All of them had a single goal: the survival of mankind in a hostile universe. How they performed that duty, and what they considered the greatest threat to humanity, was theirs to choose and execute in any manner they saw fit. The concerns of high officials, of generals commanding billions, of faith and truth, none of it mattered to an inquisitor unless they chose to make it their concern. They were the rare few, imbued with the authority of a living god. But that individual authority meant that for every soul that served as an inquisitor there was a different perception of what the path of survival was, and a different conviction of how to walk that path. Rather than unity it was a body defined by divergence. And from divergence had sometimes sprung conflict, and from conflict, violence. Her mistress had explained this to Enna several times, but this was the first time she had felt the reality of it.

  Enna drew her paired power daggers, the light finding the razor edges of the coal-black blades. She spun them, caught the cross-guards and held them out. Another of the Dominions came forward and took the ivory handles. Next came the long-barrelled laspistol from her hip, and then the micro grenades hanging from her waist. Last was the fork-bladed resonance dagger strapped to her left bicep.

  She watched as each piece of weaponry was settled into a metal chest, and the lid sealed with a murmur of gears. The Dominions stepped back and Enna glanced up as a cluster of lenses and cabling hinged down from the roof on an articulated arm. The lenses spun in their settings. Worms of static ran up the wires. Enna felt her skin prickle as a lattice of invisible fields swept over them. Her teeth ached, and she felt static spark off her armour. Then it was gone, and the machine folded back into the darkness of the ceiling.

  Enna found that she was holding her breath. She let it go, and smiled at the Dominions.

  ‘Done?’ she asked.

  The Sisters did not move for a second, but then they parted. Beyond them the inner door into the Reliquary Tower began to clank back into its frame.

  Idris nodded and stepped between them.

  It seems that their security is not as thorough as we would have hoped.+ Idris’ thought voice was weakening as she stepped towards the opening door. Enna suppressed a smile as she thought of the few lethal trinkets on her person that the security auspices had looked straight through without blinking. +If we have circumvented the accords, then it is certain others will have. Be on your guard.+

  All the more reason for us to have done the same, thought Enna, knowing that her mistress would skim the meaning from her consciousness.

  Indeed.+

  They were not here to cause trouble, but Idris was cautious when it came to involvement with her peers, and so they came with hidden arms into this place of supposed harmony. Enna could not say that she disagreed with her mistress; if it had been her decision she would have had a full company of elite infantry waiting in low orbit and have walked in with as many guns as she could carry.

  The doors yawned wide and warm light washed over them as they stepped through.

  Trust no one,+ came a final sending as the null fields closed over them.

  I wouldn’t know how, smiled Enna, but if her mistress heard the thought before the veil descended, Enna could not tell.

  Josef paused on the threshold of the chapel. The space beyond was empty apart from a lone figure knelt before the altar. Banners hung from the stone walls, their edges ragged, their cloth stained with soot and dried blood. Statues stood in niches beneath a vaulted ceiling. He recognised the grim face of Saint Sebastian Thor, and the armoured shape of Saint Sabbat, her features serene in white marble. He bowed briefly.

  ‘Watch us this day in all the battles we must face,’ he muttered, paused, and then added the worry that was itching at the back of his thoughts. ‘And if you could see your way to making sure that everything doesn’t go to hell, it would be appreciated.’ No reply came from the statues. He made the sign of the aquila and bowed again. Brief regret stabbed at the edge of his conscience as he stepped forward without kneeling to give full obeisance. The prayer was not enough, but service was more important than ritual.

  “The Emperor judges us by our deeds, not our words,” a confessor had once said to him, and it was a tenet that Josef had held close throughout his life. If the Emperor judged Josef by his words then He would have found him a poor instrument. He was as ugly as a sinner’s soul, full of gut, and his words, though sometimes plentiful, tended to be as rough as his scar-pocked skin. He had been born in the sump slime of Adrianis Hive in far Mandragora, and had starved, and killed, and wept from loss before he could lift a real gun. He had grown in the dark, and lived by the flash of muzzles and the scream of chainblades. The Emperor’s truth was not even a candle to give comfort in that endless night. Then the Imperial Navy press gangs had come and pulled him up into the stars.

  He had become a rating on an Imperial Navy warship. One world of iron had become another. He had sweated in the chain gangs hauling shells from cavernous magazines, and lost his hearing to the roar of macro cannons. Life had not been kind, but there was food, and for a boy from the sump the skirmishes between factions of lower deck crew were just like home. He learned he had a talent for violence, for the roaring, hacking business of bloodshed. That was noticed by others, and the God-Emperor called him to put his talent to work as an armsman.

  The God-Emperor… More than anything else, more than the food and shelter, the great gift of those days was the word spoken by the preachers who roamed the decks. He learned of salvation, of mankind, of the protection of the man who was a god, and for the first time in his life he knew that there was a choice he could make that mattered, that how he lived mattered. That had been the beginning of the path that had led him here, to this side-chapel in a shrine to a dead saint, and the service of the man who knelt before a low altar, his head bowed before the light of prayer-candles.

  ‘Lord, it’s time,’ said Josef.

  Covenant stood, raising his face to look up at the triptych of the Emperor on the altar. He had a young face, fine-boned but strong beneath a
topknot of black hair. A cuirass of red lacquered armour covered his torso above the panels of a grey storm coat. The sigil of the Inquisition gleamed from the centre of his torso. The sensor pod on his left shoulder twitched, and then panned around to stare at Josef with its cluster of green lenses. A mind-interface cable led from the pod to a metal socket at the base of Covenant’s skull. Josef looked away from the lenses as they whirred and focused. The fact that it was a sensor pod rather than the sighting lens of a psycannon made it a little better, but not much; Josef had never got used to the contrast between his master’s stillness and the pod’s ceaseless movement. The lenses held on Josef and then moved to the chapel door. Covenant’s true eyes gazed at the altar, the gilding of the triptych and the light of candles reflecting in their depths.

  ‘Judgement,’ said Covenant softly. ‘In an ancient kingdom of Terra, judgement was said to have been the greatest blessing that a ruler could possess.’

  Josef shrugged.

  ‘They are going to call the convocation,’ he said.

  Covenant turned, the sensor pod now panning across the space behind him.

  ‘Is Talicto here?’

  Josef nodded.

  ‘He came alone?’

  ‘As you anticipated.’

  Covenant turned, looking back to the three images above the altar. Josef followed his gaze.

  The Emperor in three of his divine aspects looked back at them: the warrior in burnished gold, bearing a sword of flame; the prophet in a black robe leaning on an eagle-topped staff, a closed book chained to his hands; and at the centre the judge sat upon a throne of iron, cloaked in purple, eyes blind pits, a hammer resting in his grasp.

  ‘The blessing of rulers, you say,’ said Josef carefully, ‘to sift truth from lies and to see justice done without flinching. Judgement… Some might say it is a soul’s greatest burden.’