Castellan

by David Annandale

  ‘Why didn’t they?’

  ‘Tensions between the cardinal on Primus and his arch-deacon, who had a political power base on the moon. The arch-deacon falsified evidence, making the cult, and therefore the campaign, appear more important.’

  ‘And your concern about the energies unleashed is that they might have played a part in causing the incursion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  You defy the gods, the Blade whispered. Yet you already serve them. All of you are their slaves. You are pawns and prey. With me, you will be the predator.

  ‘I see the parallel between Angriff Primus and Sandava III,’ said Crowe. ‘Our presence was used in both cases.’

  ‘There is more. Something similar happened in the Sanctus Reach.’

  ‘You encountered the Plaguefather there, I believe.’

  ‘We did. Epistolary Gared formed a theory, which I believe to be correct, that the combination of events that led to the daemons invading the materium happened because of our presence.’

  Crowe frowned. ‘Are you implying the warnings of the prognosticars are self-fulfilling prophecies?’

  Futility, said Antwyr. Your wars, your struggles, your faith. Futility. All is futility.

  ‘All of them? I do not wish to go so far. But some of them? Perhaps. There has been a pattern in the battles my squad has fought since Angriff Primus. Time after time, we have been vital to the unleashing of the very threat we came to combat.’

  ‘And the same thing occurred on Sandava III? You think the Ruinous Powers were not simply taking advantage of our presence, but that we were lured there?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I agree with you. During the battle of Labos, I encountered attacks specifically directed at me. Their power came from taking place in the Sandava system, because of my history there. There was no doubt in my mind that I had been lured there. However, if this is also true for your squad, then we confront machinations even more insidious and far-reaching than we had supposed.’ He thought for a moment. ‘So we have a possible trajectory for Sandava III through Angriff, an imminent incursion near the system, and the pattern of events you have outlined. These are dark portents.’

  ‘Castellan, if I am right, then the Ruinous Powers not only expect us to launch a strike force to Angriff, they seek precisely this result.’

  ‘And what, justicar, has been your strategy, in the face of this pattern?’

  ‘To anticipate it, and to seek to choose my ground in the battle I know is coming.’

  ‘A sound strategy. You were right to request this audience. You have given me much to think about, though it does not alter the need to reach Angriff.’

  ‘I have requested my squad be part of the strike force,’ Styer said. ‘By returning to Angriff Primus, we will be coming full circle. Perhaps we will finally break these machinations that seek to pass as fate.’

  Crowe grunted. ‘Do not place your hopes in that outcome.’ Memories of Labos rose before his inner eye, visions of atrocities repeating those carried out in the system decades before. He had come full circle on Sandava III, and nothing was finished. He had defeated one enemy, only to discover there was another, greater threat lurking behind it.

  Your struggle can end only in one way, said Antwyr. Your strength will fail. Your spirit will fail. You will fail.

  Crowe tightened his grip on the hilt, as if he could throttle the sword into silence. ‘Nothing ends,’ he said to Styer. ‘But whatever the enemy’s plans may be, we will consign them to the flames.’ He noticed a faint twitch in the justicar’s cheek. It was time he released Styer from his presence. ‘The Emperor protects,’ he said.

  ‘The Emperor protects.’ Styer bowed his head, clapped an arm against his pauldron, and left.

  Crowe returned to his desk. He examined the star chart in its centre, and traced a finger from Titan to Angriff Primus. The chart was an old one, the vellum cracked and growing rigid. Much of its centuries-old art was hidden by new emendations, reflecting the changed reality of the Imperium. The Cicatrix Maledictum cut its jagged slash across the galaxy. Angriff Primus waited in the darkness of the Imperium Nihilus. The Cicatrix barred the way. There was only one narrow passage to the fated system. Appearing and disappearing not far from the Eye of Terror, it was held by another revenant from the Imperium’s deep past. But unlike Guilliman, Kaligius brought no hope. He was a tyrant, a poison upon the void. The system he ruled was now known as the Nachmund Gauntlet. It was a destroyer of ships.

  And it was the only way through.

  Crowe eyed the region on the map, scowling at its dark invitation.

  So many traps lay ahead. So many dooms.

  We, too, are dooms, he thought, challenging the Ruinous Powers. We are yours. Fear our coming.

  Chapter Seven

  Hope and Glory

  The Emperor’s Children strike cruiser Catharsis prowled the edges of the Nachmund system. The ship had once been resplendent in violet, a jewelled blade cutting through the void. Millennia of battle had pitted the hull and reshaped the vessel in a brutal patchwork. Millennia of excess were reflected in the colours of black and crimson, the tormented iron sculptures surmounting the gun emplacements and the superstructure. Shapes that bore only the most grotesque resemblance to the human form reached out, pleading to the gods for the supreme agony of sensation. The vessel was still a blade, but it was no longer a jewel. It was a corrupt, venomous thing. It pleased Tarautas that it was now an instrument of torture more than of conquest.

  Tarautas had secured the Tyrant King’s permission to enter the system, though he did not intend to venture into Kaligius’ realm. It was enough to be in this position, so far into the darkness that Nachmund’s star was little more than a sharp point, with the auspex array aimed towards the Imperium, waiting. The ship had been here for a long time. Tarautas did not mind. He was patient.

  Gothola was not. He blocked Tarautas’ way as he left the Cruciatorium.

  The Cruciatorium was the dark heart of the Catharsis. The great hall took up the centre of the lowest deck of the ship. It was a place of instruction and of spectacle. Its amphitheatre seating had once held hundreds of the Emperor’s Children. There were only five of them aboard now, but there was no lack of mortals forced to participate in the theatre, and the spectacle had spread far beyond the granite stage, into the pews. The Cruciatorium was above all a site for the pursuit of sensation. It demanded constant invention, renewal and creativity from Tarautas and his battle-brothers. They were tireless in their task, and the bloody fruit of their labours had, over the course of the centuries, come to drench the entire hall. The pews were black with old blood, their surfaces uneven with clumps of dried flesh. An iron network of tracks and pulleys took up the upper half of the hall. Blades, saws and hooks hung from chains. There were musical instruments stringed with woven nerve fibres of still-living victims. There were also flutes of hollowed-out bones, and drums of tanned flesh.

  It was here that the blessings of Slaanesh had come to Tarautas. At first, they took the form of inspirations so strong he knew they could not have come from within. The first inspiration had come at the height of a victim’s scream, when the note of agony reached such purity it had ceased to be human at all. He had been consumed with thoughts of Angriff Primus and Sandava III. At first, the obsession had been without form. He had plunged back into the torture, conjuring ever more refined pain, ever more extreme sensation, from his subjects and himself. At last, in the depths of meditative paroxysms, the inspirations had become visions, and he had known what he had to do. Since then, the impulses to action had come more easily, and more frequently. He could not see the end to which he was working, but he felt its glory and perfection as he would the heat of a sun.

  Obeying his visions, Tarautas had commanded new constructions to be made in the Cruciatorium. Massive frameworks of iron extended from eight points on the walls to the centr
e of the ceiling. From that intersection, thousands of yards of iron, forged into coils and webs and lace, formed a claw that descended halfway to the stage. Delicacy and brutality were one. It tapered to an end so sharp, it seemed to cut the air as the sluggish breeze of the ventilation whistled past it. Beneath it, a runic circle marked out a forbidden space on the granite of the stage. The blood of twenty prisoners had poured into that circle, and had vanished, seemingly absorbed into the stone. No further work had been done in the circle, and Tarautas permitted nothing to cross it.

  ‘Is this to awaken Diotian?’ Casca had asked.

  ‘No,’ Tarautas had responded. The most extreme rituals of cruelty had failed to stir Diotian. He was beyond sensation now, beyond the furthest transgressions of art. Tarautas had come to believe that he would sleep forever.

  ‘Then what is it for?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ He had smiled. The visions commanded actions, and were suffused with the promise of the sublime. They were also partial. The full truth of the sublimity was not his. It would come, though. ‘The revelation will be glorious,’ he said.

  On this day, Tarautas had been working in a space on the left side of the stage, beside the black, massive bulk of Diotian’s vault. He was exploring the tones he could summon as he slowly poured molten brass over the skull of a slave, gradually turning the mortal’s head into a bell. The experiment was showing some promise. Utheian, Belagas and Casca had been at opposite ends of the upper reaches of the amphitheatre, busy with their own efforts, but they left when he did.

  Gothola was just outside the main doors. Alectus was a few steps behind him and to the side. Tarautas did not have to look to know that the other three had positioned themselves so that he was surrounded. The ambush was not a direct attack, however. It was deniable. Gothola was the only one standing in overt challenge. The others were waiting to see what would benefit them most.

  Tarautas felt a pang of regret that he had not sent Gothola instead of Ossidius to Sandava. Ossidius had understood, at a profound level, the nature of the great work in which they were engaged. There would be no challenge from him. His loyalty, though, was precisely why it was necessary that he be the one to take charge of Sandava III. Tarautas could not have trusted Gothola.

  But now Sandava III was gone, and the challenge had come. Tarautas was not surprised. He had even expected it before now. Either Gothola’s patience or his belief in the masterwork was greater than Tarautas had supposed.

  ‘When are you going to admit to failure?’ Gothola asked.

  Tarautas cocked his head and drew his lips back over his fangs in a predator’s smile. The skin of his shaven scalp tightened. He had flayed and healed his flesh again and again, never allowing it to harden into numb scar tissue. It was the deep pink of exposed muscle. Slender mechadendrites, linked to his armour’s power plant, burrowed through his scalp and face. They burned and cut, keeping the wounds fresh, but they paused, too, letting the flesh knit, and building up the anticipation of the next burst of pain. Tarautas felt them start to buzz now as they reacted to his spiking adrenaline. ‘The failure is yours, brother,’ he said.

  ‘What are you talking about? We have followed you. We have done your bidding. What has that brought us? Nothing but the Tyrant King’s leavings. You say Sandava III is gone. There is an end to your dream.’ Gothola spoke with a lisp. His face was quartered with self-inflicted slashes of his gladius, and he had cut his tongue in two.

  ‘It was no dream, brother,’ Tarautas said. ‘And it was not mine. It was commanded of us by the Dark Prince.’

  ‘So you say. So you insist we believe. I have a confession to make, brother-captain.’ He spat the last word. ‘At this moment, my faith is weak. It is very weak.’

  Tarautas lowered his voice, speaking so quietly Gothola took an involuntary step forward to hear him better. The other Emperor’s Children did not move. They were still witnesses more than conspirators. Good. ‘The campaign is not over. It has not failed. The most vital moments are yet to come, and you will see them soon, if you have the patience to do so.’

  ‘Patience!’ Gothola cried. ‘We have been patient. We have been patient in this empty quarter for years, doing nothing while the Imperium burns and is ours for the plucking. How long do you expect us to be patient? Until Diotian walks again?’

  Tarautas’ right arm snapped out in a blur. He grabbed Gothola and slammed him against the wall. Above his left fist, drill-headed syringes extended from the modified narthecium of a long-dead Apothecary. He drove the syringes into the side of Gothola’s neck.

  ‘You will be patient for as long as I tell you to be patient,’ Tarautas snarled. The drugs hit the blood stream, and Gothola’s face went slack with horror. Tarautas smiled. It was not pain that he was inflicting on Gothola, but numbness. He was stealing away all of the other Space Marine’s sensation. He frequently injected himself with the anaesthetic. The numbness was part of the exquisite torture of anticipation. Sensation vanished, but only so it would return with even more power. Lacking patience, Gothola needed constant stimulation. Tarautas was cutting him off from sensation, and from the world. He was walling Gothola off, turning his body into a prison of nothingness, with the threat of keeping him there forever. He wielded the one form of torture any son of Fulgrim would dread.

  Gothola’s arms went limp. They dropped to his sides, fingers loose. Gothola would fall if Tarautas released him.

  ‘You will wait,’ said Tarautas. He looked around at the other Emperor’s­ Children, including them in his commands. ‘You will obey. And the glory will come. You will witness it, and you will take part in the most perfect of all slaughters. Or you will feel nothing. Is that your choice, brother? Nothing is upon you. Your sense of touch is gone. Soon, the rest of your senses will follow. Do you embrace nothing? Do you wish me to continue?’

  Gothola struggled to shake his head.

  ‘I see,’ Tarautas said. He withdrew the drill heads, dropped Gothola to the deck and stepped back. Gothola was motionless. His face drooped. His eyes were full of hate, but Tarautas doubted he would risk another challenge soon. He would not forget the horror of absent sensation. ‘So you have decided to be patient.’ Tarautas turned around slowly and forced the rest of the squad to meet his gaze. ‘I trust there is nothing further to be discussed.’

  He waited until each legionary shook his head.

  ‘Then stand ready. The promised time comes, and very soon.’ He raised his voice. ‘The pawns approach, and the work will be completed. You cannot imagine the sublimity that awaits us. Apotheosis is upon us, brothers!’

  He saw his fire reflected in the faces of the others. Even Gothola’s eyes began to burn with more than hate.

  Moored to Broadswords Station, the Tyndaris made ready to seek the Imperium Nihilus through the lethal passage of the Nachmund Gauntlet. Convoys of motorised servitors moved through the transport halls of the station, loading ordnance into the strike cruiser’s weapons bays. Tech-priests prayed over the machine-spirit of the vessel, and anointed its control surfaces with sacred oils. In the colonnade that linked the station to the bridge deck of the Tyndaris, Grand Master Voldus watched the strike force board. The Grey Knights marched past wall frescoes commemorating victories and fallen heroes. The figures immortalised in oil were in profile, all facing towards the outer lock of the passageway, and thus seemed to march in solidarity with the living warriors who passed them.

  Voldus stood beneath the final starboard arch of the colonnade. The Purifiers were the last to board, and Crowe last of all. The Knights of the Flame, Drake and Sendrax, paused on the threshold to the ship and waited for the castellan. With their squads aboard and a safe distance from Crowe and the Blade of Antwyr, they would pay their leader respect by boarding the Tyndaris with him, and then his necessary isolation would enclose him once more.

  Crowe carried his helmet. There was a marked contrast between his face and th
ose of the Knights of the Flame. Though Drake’s metal and fire-scarred features made him more statue than human, he still seemed to have more in common with Crowe than Sendrax, whose noble lines bespoke determination and pride. Crowe’s skin was almost grey. It was taut against his skull, the eyes sunken and shadowed. The long years of struggle against the sword, a struggle without cessation, had carved deep hollows into his face, yet those lines were like gouges in granite. Crowe’s was the face of a warrior who had confronted the most profound exhaustion that could afflict body and soul, and crushed it beneath his determination. Mountains would erode away before that face would sag.

  Voldus stepped forward to greet Crowe. ‘May the Emperor’s hand guide you on your journey, castellan, and may you strike with the strength of his sword.’

  No hand will guide them, said a hissing, rasping whisper in his mind. Their path is futile. The fool turns from destiny. You will do better. You will grasp my hilt. You will rise to glory, borne upward by the fires of victory.

  Voldus’ soul turned from Antwyr’s temptation. The sword responded with a howl of curses.

  ‘You carry darkness to darkness,’ Voldus said to Crowe.

  The castellan’s hand never left the hilt. ‘And so we must bring a light even more terrible.’

  ‘Indeed. This is the pass to which the Imperium has come. Every act of war must be greater than the one before. We are grateful that your light is strong.’

  As Voldus spoke, Drake and Sendrax joined them. ‘Our light will shine so brightly in Angriff,’ said Sendrax, ‘you will see it from Titan.’

  ‘Temper your pride, brother,’ Crowe said. ‘We shall not mark a victory before it is accomplished.’

  Sendrax bowed his head. ‘Of course, brother-castellan. I misspoke.’ His contrition sounded genuine, and he kept his features neutral. Even so, Voldus saw his nostrils flare with displeasure.