by Darius Hinks
‘Wait!’ cried Antros, but his voice was drowned out by the gunfire and, when the smoke cleared, they were facing dozens of Unbegotten Princes, all shaking their heads with identical expressions of disappointment as they raised their falchions and pistols and strode down the steps.
Ceramite clashed against ceramite as the white-armoured knights met the crimson ranks of Tactical Marines.
‘To me!’ growled Captain Vatrenus over the vox, summoning the rest of his men to the square.
The Space Marines formed a wall of armour in front of Mephiston and the other Librarians, fighting with brutal efficiency. But for every warrior that fell, two more appeared. They were gradually filling the courtyard with ranks of identical, white-armoured knights whose smiles had been replaced with determined scowls as they forced the Blood Angels back across the mounds of corpses.
Antros sought Mephiston out in the melee, wondering if he would act as he had on Thermia, when the sepolcrali surrounded him.
Mephiston powered up the steps, flinging the white knights aside with ease. When he reached the doors of the sacristy, he turned to face the battle below and raised Vitarus over his head. The sword’s blade vanished, replaced by a column of vermillion fire.
Antros gasped in shock as heat pulsed through his gauntlet, causing him to drop his bolt pistol. He saw that all the other Blood Angels had been stricken in the same way, forced to defend themselves with their swords and combat knives as the enemy piled into them.
Mephiston sliced his flaming sword through the air and the knights nearest to him lit up like beacons, their white battleplate spilling red light as they toppled back down the steps. When they crashed to the flagstones, they writhed and howled, adding torrents of hissing blood to the shimmering lights. The heat coming from them was so intense that the air around them rippled as they died and their armour buckled, as though crushed in a vacuum.
‘Hollow Fire!’ roared Epistolary Rhacelus, who was on the far side of the crowd.
Rhacelus had not directed his words to Antros, but he immediately understood the reference. His training might not be complete but he had studied every word of The Glutted Scythe – Mephiston’s treatise on lethal invocations. The tome was forbidden to less experienced scholars such as Antros, but he had acquired a copy many years ago. The Exhortation of Hollow Fire sprang to his lips almost unbidden, begging to be spoken out loud, but he suppressed the urge. He felt the invocation blazing through the thoughts of Rhacelus and Mephiston and his hunger to join them was almost overwhelming, but he had never attempted such a thing before. To feel such potent sorcery, so close by, and not be able to taste its power, was a torment.
The white-armoured knights howled in triumph as they saw the Tactical Marines drop their guns; then their howls took on a different tone as red fire ripped through their bodies. Rhacelus had raised his sword in mimicry of Mephiston’s pose, weaving dazzling strands of light and sending a rippling wave of death through the enemy ranks.
The veteran Librarians worked as one to create a fierce corona of light. The heat was so intense that Antros could feel it despite the environmental controls of his power armour. All around him, knights were toppling and crumpling in the inferno, their faces melting as they tried to rip off their lava-like helms. Embers whirled through the air, billowing like clouds of fireflies, but all Antros could think of was the splendour of the sorcery. It felt like a beautiful ocean, begging him to dive in and sample the fury of its tides. Just as he felt he could resist no longer, Antros heard Confessor Zin calling his name.
He turned from temptation and looked back towards the gates. All he saw were ranks of the white knights, either blossoming into flames or still firing their bolters into the squads of Tactical Marines.
He wrenched himself away from the draw of the invocation and barged through the crowds of burning warriors. Some of the knights lashed out at him as he passed, roaring in pain and fury as they sliced their falchions towards his face, but they were half-dead and he smashed them aside with ease, using his staff as a club.
He reached the monastery gates and left the crush behind, staggering into an open space. With a flood of relief, he saw Zin, helping Prester Brennus across the chalky road.
He slowed his pace, removed his helmet and drew a breath to call them back. It was only then that he saw the man striding towards them. It was Pieter Zorambus, or at least one Pieter Zorambus. This particular Unbegotten Prince was badly wounded – one of his legs had been warped out of all recognition by the heat. But his broad grin gleamed in the moonlight as he raised his sword and closed in on his slow-moving prey.
There was no way Antros could reach the priests before Zorambus got to them. The Exhortation of Hollow Fire was still echoing through his thoughts and the archaic language rumbled up through his throat, dark and violent, refusing to be suppressed any longer. Feelings of hatred and bloodlust enveloped him, and as his staff erupted into crimson flames the world was engulfed by a red haze.
Several feet away, at the edge of the road, Pieter Zorambus staggered to a halt as the flames shrouded his body.
Brennus and Zin cried out in alarm, noticing Zorambus for the first time as he lurched towards them wreathed in fire. The flames were not enough to stop him and as he reached Zin, Zorambus hacked down at him with his sword.
Zin’s portly frame clearly belied his strength. He managed to dodge the warrior’s blow and then barrelled into him, head down. The warrior’s crippled leg collapsed beneath him and he toppled backwards onto the road.
Pieter Zorambus was howling as the fire poured from his eyes and mouth, but his flesh was unmarred and he was able to stand, draw back his sword and prepare to strike again.
Rage exploded in Antros’ mind and he intoned the curse again, roaring it this time. The night turned white and he staggered under the violence of the magic. Divinus Prime faded from view, replaced by a liquid vortex of shapes and colours. Power tore through the fibres of his flesh, swelling and multiplying until he felt godlike and ephemeral – a spirit of raw energy. Amorphous shapes formed from the aether and swam towards him – undulating bundles of limbs, like anemones rippling across a seabed. They rushed through the whirling colours, their grasping, nebulous limbs straining towards him as they formed and reformed. The sinewy flesh boiled and inverted, spawning hideous faces. Leering, hysterical grins popped into existence, crammed with rows of needle-teeth and surrounded by lidless, misshapen eyes.
Antros looked around for a way back to Divinus Prime but all he could see was the tide of daemons. He scoured his memory, visualising his copy of The Glutted Scythe, recalling the Exhortation of Hollow Fire and wondering what he had forgotten. Why had he been cut loose? He had untethered himself from the materium. He felt himself fading into the maelstrom of power, losing his sense of self and form. He visualised his armoured body, picturing the details with all the clarity he could muster and, to his relief, he saw his physical shape reappear beneath him – his blue battleplate reflecting the lunatic whirlpool of colours that surrounded him. He summoned his staff back into being just before the first of the daemons reached him and he smashed it into the creature’s grotesque face. The daemon somersaulted away into the tumult, laughing all the harder, but dozens more were almost on him – a tsunami of rippling limbs and tentacles, like one great mass of daemon flesh.
Antros scoured the pages of his imaginary copy of The Glutted Scythe, attempting to find an invocation that could save him from this avalanche of horrors. To his frustration, the words of the book smeared and ran, as though washed away by a chemical rain, leaving colourful streaks where there should have been a facsimile of Mephiston’s precise script.
More of the daemons reached him and Antros could do nothing but use his staff as a club, smashing the bubbling mass of limbs away with furious blows as despair threatened to overcome him.
To his surprise, his blows seemed to have a powerful effect on his attacker
s – they screamed in frustration as blue fire engulfed them, just like it had swallowed the white knights in the abbey. Antros fought harder, but then he noticed that even the daemons that were nowhere near his blows were exploding into balls of blue light. The light grew brighter until he struggled to see what was happening. Suddenly he was falling, as though gravity had noticed his escape and called him to account. As he fell, Antros saw the true cause of the fire: Mephiston. The Chief Librarian had entered his mind and was carving a path through the horrors, hacking and slashing with his flame-bright sword and spreading a great elliptical wall of blue flame through the scrabbling, gibbering daemons.
Antros continued to fall and a funnel of blue fire formed around him. Then he hit the ground with a painful crunch.
The flames and colours were gone and Antros found himself back on the bone-white road.
Zin and Brennus were standing a few feet away, staring at him in horror. There was a small fire smouldering next to them – the warped, scorched remains of Zorambus.
Antros sat up and felt something brittle tumble over his face. He reached up and caught the stinking, ash-like remnants of his own hair. He looked at his armour and saw that it was scorched and blackened. Trails of smoke drifted up from his gauntlets as though he had been gripping hot coals.
He looked around for Mephiston, but saw no sign of him. The battle was still raging in the abbey and the ruins were bathed in mystical light, giving the petrified bones a silvery, lunar quality.
‘Are you hurt?’ asked Zin, summoning the courage to approach him.
Antros climbed to his feet and dusted the ash from his armour. He ran his hand over his head, feeling nothing but hot stubble where there had previously been thick locks of hair.
He shook his head and examined his face for injuries, finding nothing. ‘I am unharmed,’ he said, looking at the charred remnants of Pieter Zorambus.
‘You became holy fire,’ breathed Confessor Zin, hurrying forwards, his bulbous features quivering with excitement. ‘The light of the God-Emperor shone through you and struck down that…’ he sneered at the burned remains, ‘that filthy heretic.’
‘The flames were consuming you,’ whispered Prester Brennus, his voice trembling.
Antros shook his head again, his thoughts still clouded with images of daemons. ‘I had no choice,’ he said looking out into the moonlight, half expecting to see more of the unformed things bubbling from the shadows. There was nothing but the eagle cages lining the road and the ghostly shapes of the Penitent Trees, looming over the valley, but he sensed he had crossed some invisible boundary, linking his soul to the things he had seen.
Zin looked past him at the carnage visible through the broken gates. Bursts of flame lit up the violence, revealing brutal snapshots of the knights’ agonised screams. The fury of the fires was dying down and the sound of screams was fading too. The battle was ending already and Antros gestured for Zin to follow him as he lifted Prester Brennus to his feet and started to lead them back towards the gates.
By the time they stepped back into the abbey, the fight was over. White-armoured corpses littered the ground, warped into abstraction by the incredible heat that had destroyed them. Embers and fumes billowed across the courtyard as the Tactical Marines picked through the bodies, recovering their weapons but showing the sense not to fire them again. Whenever they found a knight who was still alive they summoned a Librarian to silence him.
Rhacelus looked up as Antros led the priests through the carnage towards him. The equerry was unmarked and wore his usual expression of mild distaste as he saw the scorch marks on Antros’ battleplate and the charcoal smear that had once been his hair.
Rhacelus raised an eyebrow and leant on his force sword. ‘What happened to you?’
Antros grimaced. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I had no option.’
Rhacelus frowned. ‘No option?’
Mephiston strode through the fumes, his robes trailing smoke and sparks. His expression was cool but in his eyes Antros saw a glimpse of the fury that had overcome him on Thermia.
‘Lexicanium Antros is more widely read than we thought,’ said the Chief Librarian, lowering his still-smouldering sword as he reached them.
‘Forgive me, my lord,’ said Antros, bowing his head. ‘If I had not acted, the priests would have been butchered. I had to–’
‘Had to?’ interrupted Mephiston. ‘Lexicanium, you almost handed your soul to our enemies.’
Antros saw a terrifying glint of anger in the Chief Librarian’s cadaverous features. ‘And what a generous gift you would have made.’ He waved at the priests. ‘In saving two souls you could have risked a multitude. Remember what you are, Lexicanium. Remember that you are dangerous.’
Antros pictured the leering daemons he had seen and realised the magnitude of what had nearly happened.
He was about to apologise when Prester Brennus spoke up. His eyes were straining in horror as he took in the gruesome scene that surrounded them. ‘We must take word to Arch-Cardinal Dravus,’ he whispered. ‘These… these things you have killed, they are not Zorambus.’
‘No,’ agreed Mephiston. ‘They were not. The kind of sorcerer who can create such powerful likenesses would not fall so easily.’ He looked at the cringing priest. ‘But what makes you so sure that he’s headed towards Arch-Cardinal Dravus?’
Prester Brennus kept his gaze fixed on the ground as he replied. ‘Because Dravus is the planet’s last hope. He has summoned everyone still loyal to the Labyrinth – as well as the Children of the Vow, there are whole regiments of Astra Militarum and brothers of the Frateris Militia, all massing behind the walls of Mormotha.’ He scratched at his bleeding head and glanced nervously around the mounds of bodies, as though expecting Pieter Zorambus to emerge and strike him down. ‘But the Unbegotten Prince has sworn to “enlighten” them with his repulsive creed. He said he will tear down the gates of the Labyrinth.’
Mephiston nodded. ‘Then we must be ready to greet him when he arrives. Can you lead us to the Labyrinth?’
The priest still refused to look at Mephiston, but he gave a slow nod.
Chapter Thirteen
Mormotha, Divinus Prime
They thundered across the plains, trailing a great mountain of dust as they screamed between the Penitent Trees. The priests of Tarn Abbey had left a surprisingly powerful array of vehicles behind and, as dawn turned the bleached landscape into a kaleidoscope of reds and golds, Antros saw their destination rushing towards them out of the heat haze. He was hunched in one of the eagle-prowed skiffs they discovered in the abbey. They were antiques, elaborate constructions of iron and brass that no one had expected to work, but the priests had obviously treated them as holy relics. Their engines had a deep, powerful growl that filled the morning with noise and fumes as they hurled the Blood Angels along, gliding just a few feet above the ground.
Rhacelus was next to him, staring into the dust storm trailing from Mephiston’s craft. Behind them, the two priests, Zin and Brennus, were lying on the floor, clutching on to the spars that lined the hull. Captain Vatrenus and some of his Tactical Marines were standing, legs wide as they braced against the lurching motion of the vehicle, their bolters raised and trained on the shapes blurring past.
Mormotha was constructed in the same ossuary fashion as the abbey, but as the rising sun painted it in warm, golden hues, Antros saw that Divinus Prime’s capital was built on a much grander scale. The entire city was contained within a circular curtain wall, hundreds of feet tall and punctuated with gun emplacements and missile batteries. Antros could see the silhouettes of soldiers on the walls carrying banners emblazoned with the sigil of Divinus Prime, a winged sword hilt, and others bearing the symbol of the Adeptus Ministorum.
Unlike Tarn Abbey, Mormotha was perfectly intact. The bleached walls matched the macabre beauty of the Penitent Trees, the curved, bone-construct crenellations reaching up,
talon-like, into the clouds.
Broad, paved roads approached the city from several directions and they were all crowded with refugees and weary-looking soldiers. Barely a soul looked up as the skiffs hurtled past them, whipping up clouds of chalk dust. The columns of survivors just trudged on into the morning sun, heads down, carrying a pitiful collection of personal belongings and hauling their wounded on makeshift litters. An army of rickety servitors trundled and lurched through the refugees, carrying broken equipment and the corpses of those who had not survived the journey. It was a miserable scene and Antros started to understand the scale of what had befallen Divinus Prime.
He could see thousands of dispossessed souls stumbling through the barren scrubland, their lines disappearing into the distance. It was one thing to hear the Quorum Empyrric discuss these wars in derisive tones, but quite another to see the consequences. There were families mingled in with priests – normal citizens of the Imperium, just trying to stay alive, hollow-cheeked elders hobbling on bandaged feet, and mothers cradling their febrile infants, all staring at the walls up ahead with the vacant expression of people who could remember nothing but the need to keep walking. Many would never reach their goal – the roads were lined with the corpses of refugees who had died within sight of the capital.
The gates to the city stood open and there were crowds of hooded, white-robed priests waiting to welcome those who staggered inside, offering cups of water and hunks of bread as they helped them into the shade. The air was full of noise and movement as mechanised hymnals fluttered overhead – leather-bound tomes borne through the air on broad, dove-white wings. As they flew they broadcasted the ghostly recordings of long-dead Terran choirs. Singing along tunelessly with the hymns were the relic-sellers who haunted all shrine worlds. Antros saw plump, lavishly dressed frauds with rubicund faces, cheerfully peddling holy tracts and crudely made reliquaries to wretches who could not afford to feed themselves.
