False Gods whh-2

by Graham McNeill

  Blinding light filed the passageway and Keeler shielded her eyes as she felt hands upon her shoulders, seeing that Kyril Sindermann was on his feet once more. He dragged her to her feet and said, 'I think I may have mistranslated part of the book…'

  'You think,' snapped Keeler as they backed away from the abomination.

  'Or maybe you translated it just perfectly,' said Ing Mae Sing, desperately scrambling away from the archive chamber's door. The beast of light oozed outwards in a slithering loop of limbs, each one thrashing in blind hunger. Multitudinous eyes rippled and popped like swollen boils across its rubbery skin as it came towards them once more.

  'Oh Emperor protect us,' whispered Keeler as she turned to run.

  The beast shuddered at her words, and Ing Mae Sing tugged on her sleeve, crying, 'Come on. We can't fight it.'

  Euphrati Keeler suddenly realised that wasn't true and shrugged off the astropath's grip, reaching beneath her robes to pull out the Imperial eagle she kept on the end of her necklace. Its silver surfaces shone in the creature's dazzling light, brighter than it had any reason to be, and feeling hot in her palm. She smiled beatifically as she understood with complete clarity that everything since the Whisperheads had been preparing her for this moment.

  'Euphrati! Come on!' shouted Sindermann in terror.

  A whipping limb formed from the horror's body and another gout of blue fire roared towards her. Keeler stood firm before it and held the symbol of her faith out in front of her.

  'The Emperor protects!' she screamed as the flames washed over her.

  Rain fell in heavy sheets, and Loken could feel a tangible charge to the night air as dark thunderheads pressed down on the tens of thousands of people gathered around the Delphos. Lightning bolts fenced above him, and the sense of anticipation was almost unbearable.

  Nine days had passed since the Warmaster had been interred within the Temple of the Serpent Lodge and with each passing day the weather had worsened. Rain fell in an unending downpour that threatened to wash away the makeshift camps of the pilgrims, and booming peals of thunder shook the sky like ringing hammer blows.

  The Warmaster had once told Loken that the cosmos was too large and sterile for melodrama, but the skies above Davin seemed determined to prove him wrong.

  Torgaddon and Vipus stood with him at the top of the steps and hundreds of the Sons of Horus followed behind the three of them. Company captains, squad leaders, file officers and warriors had come to Davin to witness what would be either their salvation or their undoing. They had marched through the singing crowds, the dirty beige robes of remembrancers mixed in with army uniforms and civilian dress.

  'Looks like the entire bloody Expedition's here.' Torgaddon had said as they marched up the steps, trampling trinkets and baubles left as offerings to the Warmaster beneath their armoured boots.

  From the top of the processional steps, Loken could see the same group he had faced nine days previously, with the exception of Maloghurst who had returned to the ship some days before. Rain ran down Loken's face as a flash of lightning lit up the surface of the great bronze gateway, making it shine like a great wall of fire. The gathered Astartes warriors stood sentinel before it in the rain: Abaddon, Aximand, Targost, Sedirae, Ekaddon and Kibre.

  None of them had abandoned their vigil before the gates of the Delphos, and Loken wondered if they had bothered to eat, drink or sleep since he had last laid eyes upon them.

  'What do we do now, Garvi?' asked Vipus.

  'We join our brothers and wait.'

  'Wait for what?'

  'We'll know that when it happens,' said Torgaddon. 'Won't we, Garvi?'

  'I certainly hope so, Tarik,' replied Loken. 'Come on.'

  The three of them set off towards the gateway, the thunder echoing from the massive structure's sides and the snakes atop each pillar slithering with each flashing bolt of lightning.

  Loken watched as his brothers in front of the gate came to stand in line at the edge of the rippling pool of water, the full moon reflected in its black surface. Horus Aximand had once called it an omen. Was it again? Loken didn't know whether to hope that it was or not.

  The Sons of Horus followed their captains down the wide processional in their hundreds, and Loken kept a grip on his temper, knowing that if things went ill here, there would almost certainly be bloodshed.

  The thought horrified him and he hoped with all his heart that such a tragedy could be averted, but he would be ready if it came to war…

  'Are you battle-ready?' hissed Loken to Torgaddon and Vipus on a discrete vox channel.

  'Always,' nodded Torgaddon. 'Full load on every man.'

  'Yes,' said Vipus. 'You really think…'

  'No,' said Loken, 'but be ready in case we need to fight. Keep your humours balanced and it will not come to that.'

  'You too, Garvi,' warned Torgaddon. The long column of Astartes warriors reached the pool, the Warmaster's bearers standing on its opposite side, stoic and unrepentant.

  'Loken,' said Serghar Targost. 'Are you here to fight us?'

  'No,' said Loken, seeing that, like them, the others were locked and loaded.

  'We've come to see what happens. It's been nine days, Serghar.'

  'It has indeed,' nodded Targost.

  'Where is Erebus? Have you seen him since you put the Warmaster in this place?'

  'No,' growled Abaddon, his long hair unbound and his eyes hostile. 'We have not. What does that have to do with anything?'

  'Calm yourself, Ezekyle,' said Torgaddon. 'We're all here for the same thing.'

  'Loken,' said Aximand, 'there has been bad blood between us all, but that must end now. For us to turn on one another would dishonour the Warmaster's memory.'

  'You speak as though he's already dead, Horus.'

  'We will see,' said Aximand. 'This was always a forlorn hope, but it was all we had.'

  Loken looked into the haunted eyes of Horus Aximand, seeing the despair and doubt that plagued him, and felt his anger towards his brother diminish.

  Would he have acted any differently had he been present when the decision to inter the Warmaster had been taken? Could he in all honesty say that he would not have accepted the decision of his friends and peers if the situation had been reversed? He and Horus Aximand might even now be standing on different sides of the moon shimmered pool.

  'Then let us wait as brothers united in hope,' said Loken, and Aximand smiled gratefully.

  The palpable tension lifted from the confrontation and Loken, Torgaddon and Vipus marched around the pool to stand with their brothers before the vast gate.

  A dazzling bolt of lightning reflected from the gate as the Mournival stood shoulder to shoulder with one another, and a thunderous boom, that had nothing to do with the storm, split the night.

  Loken saw a dark line appear in the centre of the gate as the thunder was suddenly silenced and the lightning stilled in the space of a heartbeat. The sky was mystify-ingly calm, as though the storm had blown out and the heavens had paused in their revelries better to witness the unfolding drama on the planet below.

  Slowly, the gate began to open.

  The flames bathed Euphrati Keeler, but they were cold and she felt no pain from them. The silver eagle blazed in her hand, thrust before her like a talisman, and she felt a wondrous energy fill her, rushing through her from the tips of her toes to the shorn ends of her hair.

  'The power of the Emperor commands you, abomination!' she yelled, the words unfamiliar, but feeling right.

  Ing Mae Sing and Kyril Sindermann watched her in amazement as she took one step, and then another, towards the horror. The monster was transfixed, whether by her courage or her faith, she didn't know, but whatever the reason, she was thankful for it.

  Its limbs flailed as though some invisible force attacked it, its screeching laughter turning into the pitiful wails of a child.

  'In the name of the Emperor, go back to the warp, you bastard!' said Keeler, her confidence growing as the substanc
e of the monster diminished, skins of light shearing away from its body. The silver eagle grew hotter in her hand and she could feel the skin of her palms blistering under its heat.

  Ing Mae Sing joined her, adding her own powers to Keeler's assault on the monster. The air around the astropath grew colder and Keeler moved her hand close to the psyker in the hopes of cooling the blazing eagle.

  The monster's internal light was fading and flickering, its nebulous oudine spitting embers of light as though it fought to hold onto existence. The light from Keeler's eagle outshone its hellish illumination tenfold and the entire corridor was bleached shadowless with its brilliance.

  'Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!' cried Ing Mae Sing. 'It's weakening.'

  Keeler tried to answer, but found that she had no voice left. The wondrous energy that had filled her was now streaming from her through the eagle, taking her own strength with it.

  She tried to drop the eagle, but it was stuck fast to her hand, the red hot metal fusing itself to her skin.

  From behind her, Keeler heard the clatter of armoured ship's crew and their cries of astonishment at the scene before them.

  'Please…' she whispered as her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor.

  The blazing light faded from her hand and the last things she saw were the disintegrating mass of the horror and Sindermann's rapturous face staring down at her in wonder.

  The only sound was that of the gate. Loken's entire existence shrank to the growing darkness between its two halves, as he held his breath and waited to see what might lie beyond. The gates swung fully open and he risked a glance at his fellow Sons of Horus, seeing the same desperate hope in every face.

  Not a single sound disturbed the night, and Loken felt melancholy rise in him as he realised that this must simply be the automated opening of the temple doors.

  The Warmaster was dead.

  A sick dread settled on Loken and his head sank to his chest.

  Then he heard the sound of footsteps, and looked up to see the gleam of white and gold plate emerge from the darkness.

  Horus strode from the Delphos with his cloak of royal purple billowing behind him and his golden sword held high above him.

  The eye in the centre of his breastplate blazed a fiery red and the laurels at his forehead framed features that were beautiful and terrible in their magnificence.

  The Warmaster stood before them, unbowed and more vital than ever, the sheer physicality of his presence robbing every one of them of speech.

  Horus smiled and said, 'You are a sight for sore eyes, my sons.'

  Torgaddon punched the air in elation and shouted, 'Lupercal!'

  He laughed and ran towards the Warmaster, breaking the spell that had fallen on the rest of them.

  The Mournival rushed to this reunion with their lord and master, joyous cries of ''Lupercal!'' erupting from the throat of every Astartes warrior as word spread back through the files and into the crowd surrounding the temple.

  The pilgrims around the Delphos took up the chant and ten thousand throats were soon crying the Warmaster's name.

  'Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal!'

  The walls of the crater shook to deafening cheers that went on long into the night.

  PART FOUR

  CRUSADE'S END

  EIGHTEEN

  Brothers

  Assassination

  This turbulent poet

  Silver trails of molten metal had solidified on the breastplate and Mersadie Oliton had learned enough in her time with the Expedition fleet to know that it would require the aid of Legion artificers to repair it properly. Loken sat before her in the training halls, while other officers of the Sons of Horus were scattered throughout it, repairing armour and cleaning bolters or chainswords. Loken was melancholic, and she was quick to notice his sombre mood.

  'Is the war not going well?' she asked as he removed the firing chamber from his bolter and pulled a cleaning rag through it. He looked up and she was struck by how much he had aged in the last ten months, thinking that she would need to revise her chapter on the immortality of the Astartes.

  Since opening hostilities against the Auretian Technocracy, the Astartes had seen some of the hardest fighting since the Great Crusade had begun, and it was beginning to tell on many of them. There had been few opportunities to spend time with Loken during the war, and it was only now that she truly appreciated how much he had changed.

  'It's not that,' said Loken. 'The Brotherhood is virtually destroyed and the warriors of Angron will soon storm the Iron Citadel. The war will be over within the week.'

  'Then why so gloomy?'

  Loken glanced around to see who else was in the training halls and leaned in close to her.

  'Because this is a war we should not be fighting.'

  Upon Horus's recovery on Davin, the fleet of the 63rd Expedition had paused just long enough to recover its personnel from the planet's surface and install a new Imperial commander from the ranks of the Army. Like Rakris before him, the new Lord Governor Elect, Tomaz Vesalias, had begged not to be left behind, but with Davin once again compliant, Imperial rule had to be maintained.

  Before the fighting on Davin, the Warmaster's fleet had been en route to Sardis and a rendezvous with the 203rd Fleet. The plan was to undertake a campaign of compliance in the Caiades Cluster, but instead of keeping that rendezvous, the Warmaster had sent his compliments and ordered the 203rd's Master of Ships to muster with the 63rd Expedition in a binary cluster designated Drakonis Three Eleven.

  The Warmaster told no one why he chose this locale, and none of the stellar cartographers could find reports from any previous expedition as to why the place might be of interest.

  Sixteen weeks of warp travel had seen them translate into a system alive with electronic chatter. Two planets and their shared moon in the second system were discovered to be inhabited, glinting communications satellites ringing each one, and interplanetary craft flitting between them.

  More thrilling still, communications with orbital monitors revealed this civilisation to be human, another lost branch of the old race - isolated these past centuries. The arrival of the Crusade fleet had been greeted with understandable surprise, and then joy as the planet's inhabitants realised that their lonely existence was finally at an end.

  Formal, face-to-face contact was not established for three days, in which time the 203rd Expedition under the command of Angron of the XII Legion, the World Eaters, translated in-system.

  The first shots were fired six hours later.

  The ninth month of the war.

  Bolter shells stitched a path towards Loken from the blazing muzzle of the bunker's gun. He ducked behind a shell-pocked cement column, feeling the impacts hammering through it and knowing that he didn't have much time until the gunfire chewed its way through.

  'Garvi!' shouted Torgaddon, rolling from behind cover and shouldering his bolter. 'Go left, I've got you!'

  Loken nodded and dived from behind the cover as Torgaddon opened up, his Astartes strength keeping the barrel level despite the bolter's fearsome recoil. Shells exploded in grey puffs of rockcrete at the bunker's firing slit and Loken heard screams of pain from within. Locasta moved up behind him and he heard the whoosh of flame units as warriors poured fire into the bunker.

  More screams and the stink of flesh burned by chemical flame filled the air.

  'Everyone back!' shouted Loken, getting to his feet and knowing what would come next.

  Sure enough, the bunker mushroomed upwards with a thudding boom, its internal magazine cooking off as its internal sensors registered that its occupants were dead.

  Heavy gunfire ripped through their position, a collapsed structure at the edge of the central precinct of the planet's towering city of steel and glass. Loken had marvelled at the city's elegance, and Peeter Egon Momus had declared it perfect when he had first seen the aerial scans. It didn't look perfect now.

  Puffs of flickering detonations tore a line through the A
startes, and Loken dropped as the warrior with the flame unit disappeared in a column of fire. His armour kept him alive for a few seconds, but soon he was a burning statue, the armour joints fused, and Loken rolled onto his back to see a pair of speeding aircraft rolling around for another strafing run.

  'Take those ships out!' yelled Loken as the craft, sleeker, more elegant Thunderhawk variants, turned their guns towards them once again.

  The Astartes spread out as the under-slung gun pods erupted in fire, and a torrent shells tore through their position, ripping thick columns in two and sending up blinding clouds of grey dust. Two warriors ducked out from behind a fallen wall, one aiming a long missile tube in the rough direction of the flier while the other sighted on it with a designator.

  The missile launched in a streaming cloud of bright propellant, leaping into the sky arid speeding after the closest flier. The pilot saw it and tried to evade, but he was too close to the ground and the missile flew straight into his intake, blowing the craft apart from the inside.

  Its blazing remains plummeted towards the ground as Vipus shouted, 'Incoming!'

  Loken turned to rebuke him for stating the obvious when he saw that his friend wasn't talking about the remaining flier. Three tracked vehicles smashed over a low ceramic brick wall behind them, their thick armoured forward sections emblazoned with a pair of crossed lightning bolts.

  Too late, Loken realised the fliers had been keeping them pinned in place while the armoured transports circled around to flank them. Through the smoking wreckage of the burning bunker, he could see blurred forms moving towards them, darting from cover to cover as they advanced. Locasta was caught between two enemy forces and the noose was closing in.

  Loken chopped his hand at the approaching vehicles and the missile team turned to engage their new targets. Within seconds, one was a smoking wreck as a missile punched through its armour and its plasma core exploded inside.