by Darius Hinks
Faced with this dazzling avatar of their glorious prophet, the regiments of dragoons dropped to their knees, prostrating themselves. It was as though the Emperor Himself were riding towards them on the back of a mythical beast. As the prophet approached, the light dimmed and the spectral shapes melted away, leaving just the prince on his winged steed. Even when the light had stopped blazing from his skin, he looked utterly divine.
The prince pointed the tip of his sword from head to head until finally Hesbon realised, to his amazement, that it was pointed at him.
‘What would you have us do with unbelievers, Captain Hesbon?’ The prince’s clear, musical voice rang out through the ruins. ‘Stand, brother, and share your thoughts.’
The city fell silent as Hesbon climbed, with some difficulty, to his feet. He looked around and saw the surreal sight of his entire army on its knees. A few of his braver men dared to look up, but most kept their heads pressed to the ground.
The Unbegotten Prince approached, the enormous mass of the serpent crushing rubble like leaves.
Hesbon felt even more terrified than when he had faced the mob. ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘If I have offended you in any way, I never meant to–’
‘Blasphemers!’ cried a voice from the ruins and a series of rockets screamed through the air, tearing chunks from the masonry near the prince, shrouding his serpent steed in dust.
Hesbon drew his laspistol and looked back, cursing his hubris. The square was clearly not secure. With a series of furious hand gestures he ordered the Enlightened into action. They leapt to their feet with a clatter of boots and armour. Some formed a protective circle around the prince while others raised their lasweapons and took up defensive positions in doorways and windows, scouring the streets for signs of the gunman.
When the dust cleared, Hesbon saw that the Unbegotten Prince had not moved. He was still sitting calmly and smiling. Then he raised his sword to the black-bellied clouds and whispered a prayer.
An electric charge rippled through the air and a breeze whipped up from nowhere, creating eddies and whorls in the dust. Captain Hesbon gasped as he felt the prince’s divine presence moving through the city. He saw the same wonder in the faces of the guards crouched next to him.
‘The Emperor is with us,’ he whispered, tears forming in his eyes.
The storm around the prince grew more powerful as he continued to pray, and a tornado started to form around him, whipping up the clouds overhead.
Finally, the force grew so powerful that the clouds rolled back, pouring daylight down into the square and revealing the dreadful vision that had triggered the schism on Divinus Prime.
Hesbon’s tears ran freely as he forced himself to look directly at the Miracle. The clouds vanished, torn open by the prince’s storm, and where they should have revealed the clear blue of a midday sky, Hesbon saw the world looking back at him. As on every other day since the civil war began, the sky was a mirror, an exact likeness of the world below. Hesbon even fancied that he could see himself, hunkered down next to a tank, miles up in the sky.
‘For the Emperor!’ cried Hesbon, his voice hoarse with emotion.
The prince was not finished. As daylight flooded the scene, it revealed another strange sight: a group of militiamen, floating up from a ruined temple on the far side of the square, kicking and writhing as their weapons clattered onto the flagstones below.
The prince raised his free hand into the whirlwind and a shaft of holy light engulfed him. The sapphire in his chestplate blazed, throwing a dazzling blue nimbus around his open hand. Then he clenched his fist and hurled the ball of light into the sky. It shot like a thunderbolt towards the mirror city overhead and, as it flew, it dragged the floating men with it, propelling them higher.
As they soared higher, their mirror twins rushed down to meet them. The two sets of men passed through each other before simultaneously slamming to the ground.
They hit with such force that Hesbon could not help but wretch. He was standing just twenty feet from where the men exploded across the flagstones.
The prince lowered his hand and the light vanished. The clouds tumbled back into place, masking the mirror city and plunging the square into gloom.
Everyone stared at the prince, aware that they had seen a second miracle. The prince calmly rode to Captain Hesbon and waved at the child, still cowering under the gun emplacement. ‘What would you have us do with her?’ he asked, as though nothing had happened, gracing the captain with a beatific smile.
‘Prince… My Lord,’ stammered Hesbon. ‘I never meant to deny the holiness of your work – or your great vision.’ He glanced again at the weeping child and, despite his fear of the prince and his shame at challenging such a divine being, he found himself shaking his head. ‘But it cannot be right to kill her.’ He looked into the prince’s blazing eyes. ‘Look at her, my lord. She’s no heretic – just a poor wretch trying to stay alive. Surely we should not lower ourselves to the cruelty of our enemies?’
The whole fortress fell silent, shocked at this outburst, and the prince stared down at Hesbon from the back of his enormous steed. Then the snake looped closer and the prince lifted a finger to one of his eyes, catching a single, diamond-like tear. ‘There are many kinds of victory,’ he said, his voice ringing out through the fumes. He waved his sword at the ruins and corpses that surrounded them. ‘Victories of the flesh are to be celebrated, of course.’ He reached down and placed the glittering tear on Hesbon’s forehead. ‘But victories of the soul are far more precious.’
Light exploded in Hesbon’s mind. He staggered and fell, blinded for a moment as the light grew brighter. He could no longer see the prince but he could still hear him addressing the crowd.
‘I came to you with a vision, my brothers. A vision of enlightenment through change. For too long we have been smothered by doctrine and dogma. Now begin anew. Now learn to think again. Now we decide what is right and we act. No more sitting in quiet prayer. No more waiting for the Imperium to die. The time for action has come!’
A deafening roar rang out.
‘We will seize the Emperor’s blade and we will take it to Terra! We will lay it at His very feet!’
Another deafening roar.
‘But,’ said the prince, lowering his voice a little. ‘If we are to serve a god, we must think like a god. We must no longer be blinded by superstition or hate. We must cast blind zealotry aside. We must be as clear-sighted as the Lord of the Luminous Throne.’ He paused and Hesbon’s vision had returned enough to see that the prince was smiling at him. ‘We must be as clear-sighted as Captain Hesbon,’ said the prince, signalling for Hesbon to rise.
As Captain Hesbon climbed to his feet he felt an odd sensation – a weight on his shoulders that had not been there before.
The ranks of dragoons stared at him in awe and backed away, muttering prayers and making the sign of the aquila.
‘Do not be afraid, brothers,’ laughed the prince. ‘A portion of the Emperor’s soul has alighted on your captain. Such blessings only confirm the holiness of our mission.’
To Captain Hesbon’s amazement, some of the soldiers nearest to him dropped to their knees, as though he were a holy relic.
He backed away, confused, and caught his heel on a piece of the ruins. Before he fell, he pounded his broad, powerful wings, creating a cloud of dust as he steadied himself. Wings? Hesbon strained to look over his shoulder and saw a vivid splash of colour in his peripheral vision – vibrant blue and pink feathers, ruffled by the breeze. With a wonderfully pleasant stretching sensation, he extended the wings to their full span – dozens of feet on either side of him. He laughed as a tremendous vigour rushed through him.
‘Commander Hesbon,’ said the prince, still beaming. ‘You have proved yourself a true leader of men. The bloodlust of an entire army was not enough to cloud your judgement. The time has come for our final march.’ The prince
kept his voice loud enough that all the soldiers in the courtyard could hear him. ‘After what they have seen today, your men will give you the unquestioning loyalty you deserve.’ He looked out at the crowd and roared, ‘Am I right?’
The army howled in reply, hammering their guns against their chest armour. The combination of their victory and the transformation of their captain left the dragoons almost drunk with emotion. The sound of their cries was deafening and both the prince and his new commander laughed in delight.
‘We make for Volgatis with all the speed we can muster,’ said the prince when the noise had finally died down. ‘The sons of Sanguinius are coming to Divinus Prime and they mean to claim the blade for their own. They intend to steal it away and bury it in the forgotten crypts of Baal. Just like these heretics you have fought so valiantly to defeat, the Blood Angels would hide the blade from the Emperor. We will not allow that to happen. We will be quick. We will go to Volgatis, tear down those idolatrous gates and take the Emperor’s prize. And know this – when victory is ours, every voice on Terra will sing your names!’
The soldiers roared again, raising their lasrifles to the sky as the prince blazed with light once more. Then he turned and led the way out of the gates, ranks of dragoons rushing after him. Even with the sun directly overhead, the courtyard seemed to plunge into darkness as the prince left, taking his sublime radiance with him.
Hesbon felt a momentary panic, wondering if he had hallucinated the entire episode. Then he looked around the courtyard and saw that the troops nearby were all still staring at him with the same stupefied expressions. He flexed his shoulder blades and, to his delight, the vibrant wings were still there. Where they had torn through his armour, some of his skin had been exposed and Hesbon saw that a swirl of baroque symbols and characters had appeared where the wings joined his back. He could not read the symbols but the designs were so beautiful that they could only be divine in origin.
The soldiers looked at Hesbon in expectation. He could not understand what they wanted of him; then he realised and pounded the wings with all the force he could muster. He soared up from the ground, passing the broken faces of toppled statues and the tops of ruined battlements. He felt the air rushing through his feathers as he flew higher and an incredible euphoria washed over him. He revelled in the sensation of flight, looping and rolling through the air as the army below stared up at him in silent wonder. For a while he forgot everything but the physical joy of weightlessness. Then he recalled the prince’s warning that the Adeptus Astartes were also racing to Volgatis. He glided back down through the clouds and landed, a little awkwardly, back in the courtyard.
His men roared their approval and rushed towards him with delighted faces.
‘This is no time to celebrate!’ cried Hesbon, trying to hide his own excitement as he felt his wings beating slowly behind him. ‘The Unbegotten Prince has spoken. Follow him to victory! We march for Volgatis!’
Half of the prince’s army was already back on the road, and Hesbon ordered the remaining men into ranks and waved them towards the gates. It was only as the last of the columns marched past him, and he prepared to join his lord at the head of the army, that he recalled the girl who had been the cause of the prince’s speech.
He looked back at the wrecked gun emplacement and saw that the bedraggled, malnourished youth was still there. The fear was gone from her face, replaced by a look of astonishment.
Hesbon gave her a slight bow, feeling utterly magnanimous after everything that had occurred. ‘Head south, child,’ he said. ‘Make for the Esomino coast. War will not find you there.’
She nodded, gratitude in her eyes.
‘Good luck to you,’ said Hesbon. Then he pounded his wings and launched himself into the air, gliding across the serried ranks of his glory-bound army.
The girl stood watching him for a while, her filthy, emaciated body shivering with exhaustion. Then she sat down heavily on the twisted barrel of the gun. It was only once the army was far in the distance that she began to laugh.
‘By the Throne,’ she gasped, struggling to speak as her laughter grew more violent. ‘How did you know that would work? How were you so right?’
A group of figures climbed slowly from the wreckage behind her, all equally blood splattered and filthy. They wore a mismatched collection of robes and battle fatigues that marked them out as members of Divinus Prime’s militia and they carried an eclectic mix of weapons: flamers, crudely customised lasrifles and brutal-looking flails, all still dripping with the blood of the Enlightened. Dozens of them clambered up to surround the laughing girl and most of them were heavy-set men, with scarred, tattooed muscle and draped in holy icons. The leader of the group, however, was a woman. Her hair was shaved and her skin was tattooed with holy screeds. She wore the same filthy fatigues and she carried a lethal-looking laspistol, but her demeanour was strikingly different from the men. While their faces were contorted by fanaticism and rage, hers was marked by a mischievous, crooked smile.
‘I knew it would work,’ she said, giving the girl a fierce hug, ‘because they are morons, and I am not.’ She sat down and picked a bit of food out of her teeth. As she held it up into the light, examining it thoughtfully, she said, ‘What you have to remember, Dharmia, is that in the kingdom of the moron, the not-a-moron is king.’
Dharmia laughed harder, smearing the grime from her sunburned face as she wiped away tears of delight. ‘And what do you intend to do next, oh mighty not-a-moron?’
One of the militiamen, a wild-eyed zealot clutching a chainsword, shoved his way through the others. He was a low-browed brute with a face like a slab of granite. ‘Did you hear what he said, Livia?’ The man’s voice was low and coarse. ‘Blood Angels. Coming here. And they want the blade. We knew that the apostates meant to steal it, but now it’s the Adeptus Astartes as well.’
Livia turned her playful smile on him. ‘The prince said more than that, Abderos. Were you listening?’
The man licked his lips and flushed purple with anger. ‘I did not catch every stinking–’
‘Volgatis,’ said Dharmia, grinning.
Livia winked at the girl. ‘He said Volgatis. And why would the prince lead his apostates to Volgatis?’
‘Because the blade is there!’ cried Dharmia.
‘Because the blade is there.’ Livia placed a kiss on her forehead, smearing the blood and filth. ‘I have no parrot wings to give you, Dharmia, but consider yourself my new general.’
Dharmia laughed again, snatched a broken sword from a dead dragoon, and began leaping from corpse to corpse, swinging the blade at imaginary foes.
Livia climbed up on top of the broken gun, surveying the growing numbers of militiamen gathering around her.
‘The sparkly apostate may call himself a prince and he is, indeed, very pretty. He may have Hesbon’s dragoons at his back and the ability to look shiny while others do his dirty work, but getting that bloated army up to Volgatis will be a hard, slow battle. Think about Volgatis’ position. They will be half-frozen by the time they get to the top of that mountain and they will be under fire before the dragoons can get within a mile of the gates.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘But we will be welcomed with open arms.’
Abderos scowled at her, trying to mask fear with anger. ‘And if we manage to get the blade, we will have the Angels of Death after us.’ He lifted up his chainsword. ‘What use would our weapons be against Adeptus Astartes?’
Livia shrugged. ‘You may be right. Perhaps we should all just go home, Abderos. There could be some danger involved. Besides, if the Blood Angels take the Blade Petrific, they will probably put it to good use in some battle or other before they lose it or break it.’ She tapped her head. ‘Think, Abderos! They are Adeptus Astartes. They are Angels of Death. They will not be interested in our vow to preserve the Emperor’s blade. They will not understand the need to preserve its sanctity, to keep it here on Divin
us Prime. They will take it to war.’ She suddenly looked serious. ‘You swore a vow to protect the Blade Petrific until the Emperor returns, Abderos.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you?’
Abderos twisted his head to one side, grinding the muscles in his neck. ‘I have not forgotten my oath, Livia,’ he growled, jabbing his bloodstained chainsword at her face. ‘But how safe will the blade be if we remove it from Volgatis? That convent was designed to protect the Blade Petrific. The Seraphim have watched over it for centuries. How safe will it be when we’re wandering through the Tamarus Mountains with Blood Angels at our backs?’
‘Volgatis is doomed,’ said Livia, smiling kindly, as though addressing a confused child. ‘The prince is leading his army of apostates there as we speak. They will struggle up those mountain passes but Volgatis will fall. Half the planet has embraced his lies. And the other half are cowering in Mormotha, waiting for the arch-cardinal to pray his head out of his arse. And it now sounds like Blood Angels might steal the blade even before the apostates do.’
The smile slipped from her face as she looked around the faces of her followers. ‘We are the Emperor’s last hope. Think about it. We are the only Children of the Vow who have the intention and the chance of fulfilling our promise. The Seraphim think Volgatis is impregnable. They think they are beyond the reach of mortal men. And they will still be thinking that when the apostates are leaving for Terra with the Blade Petrific in their back pocket. You heard the prince. He means to take it from Divinus Prime. It is down to us to save the blade. If we don’t, no one will. You know it’s true.’
Livia shrugged again. ‘But I can understand your fear, Abderos. There is some danger involved.’ She turned to the young girl. ‘Dharmia, what about you? Perhaps you would like to head home too?’
