Текст книги "Age of Darkness"

Автор книги: Кристиан Данн

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

The Stormbird was destroyed, and the march through the sump swamp had done nothing to improve Arcadese’s mood, even though Heka’tan had carried the artificer to speed their progress.

‘We will be defenceless.’

Heka’tan returned a carefully impassive expression. ‘A warrior of the Legion is never defenceless, brother.’

‘Cold, dead fingers, remember. I am an Angel of Death. I amdeath.’

Heavier-armoured marshals entered the gallery and levelled rotator-cannons at the Ultramarine.

Arcadese drew his combat blade with a belligerent shriek of steel. ‘To take arms against one is to take arms against all the Legiones Astartes!’

A stern grip on his wrist brought more anger but stopped any potential bloodshed in the making.

Heka’tan’s hold was unflinching. His red eyes blazed with captured fire. ‘Think. Any killing here won’t further our cause, it will end it… And us. Use the wisdom your father gave you.’

Though reluctant, Arcadese saw sense and relented. Scowling at the relieved marshals, he relinquished his weapons.

He was about to move forwards into the auditorium when a pair of marshals blocked his path.

Arcadese glared at them.

‘Now what?’

‘Your armour, too,’ said the high-marshal from behind him.

The Ultramarine shook his head and gave Heka’tan a rueful look as he unclasped a gauntlet. ‘This gets better.’

Persephia moved in to assist him.

‘See that they are well tended,’ Arcadese said in a threatening undertone. The artificer merely nodded, carefully removing a vambrace.

The high-marshal looked on. ‘Who speaks for the Imperium?’

‘I will,’ said Arcadese. He’d removed his breastplate and pulled the torso portion of his mesh under-layer away. Grotesque bionics were revealed beneath, a legacy of Ullanor where he’d fallen in battle to the greenskin. He’d been comatose and hadn’t witnessed the Emperor’s last war, his greatest victory. Instead, he’d awoken to a world that no longer made any sense.

Heka’tan smiled, starting to remove his own battle-plate. ‘Can’t you tell he’s the natural negotiator?’

II

THEY STOOD BEFORE the clave-nobles wearing borrowed robes.

‘We are a sight to stir even the Sigillite to laughter,’ Arcadese had remarked upon their apotheosis to diplomats.

Persephia had rejoined them later, having disappeared with the equipment to ensure it was properly stored.

Though they still wore their boots and mesh leggings, the fact of being unarmoured still rankled at the Ultramarine and he took the artificer to one side when she returned. ‘I need you to do something for me…’

The rest of his request was lost to the sound of the great doors to the auditorium closing behind them.

After a loud, concussive boom, a quintet of sombre figures emerged in the sepulchral gloom. They were under-lit by a dimmed lantern array that cast haunting shadows over their faces, and seated on a dark balcony. In a gallery looking down on the auditorium floor and the petitioners was a host of shadow-veiled faces – lesser nobles of Bastion, their politicians and leaders. Judges all.

In the darkness, the vast auditorium’s form was only hinted at. Heka’tan discerned more hard edges, square and functional. The air smelled of stone and steel. The chamber was much more than its name suggested. It had multiple levels, corridors and conduits. Labyrinthine, the auditorium was just a part, and a small one at that. The Salamander’s gaze rested on the other petitioners.

‘Hard to believe Horus sent an iterator and not a Legion.’

Arcadese looked over at the oleaginous men and women clustered around a besuited central figure. ‘I thought the enemy had disbanded the remembrancers, like us.’

‘Horus is a conqueror, brother. He wants his victories to become a part of history.’

‘Aye,’ Arcadese agreed, bile rising in his throat at the sight of the craven humans, ‘he seeks immortality, and to assert his cause is righteous.’

Heka’tan muttered, ‘Tell that to my cold brothers on Isstvan.’

The Ultramarine was only half-listening. His gaze went to a benighted balcony, high in the auditorium’s vaults opposite the clave-nobles. ‘Don’t be sure the Warmaster hasn’t sent warriors. Our ship didn’t crash itself.’

A brazier ignited with azure flame, ending the conversation on a tense note, and illuminated the form of the high-marshal standing in the middle of the auditorium floor.

‘All attend,’ he boomed, his voice augmented by a vox-hailer unit attached to his mouth like breathing apparatus. ‘Senate is in session.’

Arcadese scowled at the ceremony. Fighting the ork would be preferable to this. ‘Take me back to Ullanor,’ he grumbled.

III

VORKELLEN AFFECTED A serious and professional air. Inwardly, he was ecstatic. This was hisbattlefield, a war in which even against the Legion he had the surer footing.

He eyed the Ultramarine briefly. ‘I will destroyyou,’ he whispered. He needed no Legionaries. What use were they? All their strength and power would only go so far; hearts and minds could not be manipulated by brawn.

‘The Emperor sends warriors to do the work of ambassadors,’ Insk smirked.

‘Indeed,’ Vorkellen agreed, averting his gaze when he noticed the Salamander was looking at him. ‘An abject failure.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. To see them humbled, without arms or armour, was delicious.

The clave-nobles were addressing the assembly, explaining to all that this was a negotiation to decide the fealty of Bastion and its armies, for Horus or the Emperor. Both sides were permitted to petition for their allegiance and based on their arguments Bastion would make its choice. The losers would be granted immunity until they had returned to their starships, then they would be considered an enemy combatant and treated as such.

As they arrived first, the representatives of Horus were permitted to speak first.

As the high-marshal retreated into the shadows, Vorkellen stepped forwards.

‘Our Lord Horus is portrayed as a monster and a tyrant by some. That is not so. He is a warmaster, a warrior-general who seeks only to unify mankind under a single rule. Pledge your allegiance to Horus and become part of that unity,’ he said, ‘I will tell you of tyrants, of butchers and massacres most foul. On Monarchia, where the Emperor’s hubris turned to madness…’

IV

HIGH UP IN the vaulted auditorium echelons, far from the audience, a shadow stirred. Ready and in position, it contented itself to watch. For now.

Tyrants

I

VORKELLEN THRUST OUT an arm, ‘Behold.’

A hololithic image materialised in front of him from a sub-projector in the auditorium floor. It depicted a glorious city of temples, spires and cathedra. Even in the flickering haze of the hololith’s resolution it was possible to pick out statues of the Emperor, great arches of veneration carved in his image.

‘Monarchia…’ Vorkellen said again, leaving a pregnant pause, ‘…before the Legion of Roboute Guilliman levelled it.’

A second projection crackled to life, replacing the first. This was of a sundered ruin, little more than a smoking crater where civilisation had once existed. Bodies were strewn across the wreckage, those too foolish or adamant, or too afraid, to leave.

‘Devastation.’ Vorkellen announced it like a death knell. ‘And for what reason? Why was this massacre sanctioned by the Emperor, beloved of all?’ He opened his hands in a plaintive gesture. ‘ Love. The people of Monarchia dared to show their love for their Master of Mankind, they dared to honour and revere him, and this was their reward – death.’

He eyed the Legionaries, his gaze studiously accusing. This was theirfault too. They were hiswarriors, his butchers.

‘And look,’ said Vorkellen, his eyes going to the Imperial representatives, ‘one of the Ultramarines warriors is with us. The Thirteenth Legion, those who consider themselves above all others, the very template that their fellow Space Marines should aspire to conform too, are the slayers of innocent women and children.’

II

ARCADESE GLARED, observing the self-assured gait, the undercurrent of arrogance in the iterator’s expression, the finery of his attire and the many expensive rejuvenat surgeries employed to preserve his youth. Vanity and confidence bled off him like an invisible fluid.

He clenched a fist. It washis Legion at Monarchia, though he himself had not been present.

‘Stay calm, brother,’ whispered Heka’tan. ‘He is trying to anger you.’

Arcadese nodded. He would not rise to it. All eyes turned to the Ultramarine then, inviting his riposte.

‘The citizens of Monarchia were given ample time to evacuate. We are not monsters. We–’

The iterator cut in. ‘So the Thirteenth Legion did not perpetrate the destruction of Monarchia and the subsequent massacre of much of its population?’

‘They were warned,’ Arcadese growled. ‘Monarchia practiced proscribed religion. Idolatry is the path to damnation. They would not see the light.’

‘An intriguing turn of phrase,’ Vorkellen bit back. ‘Isn’t religion the true path to enlightenment?’

‘It is not a question of theological debate. This is law. Monarchia was–’

‘And who laid down these edicts, these commandments that all of mankind shall adhere to upon pain of brutal sanction? Was it the Emperor?’

‘You know it was.’

‘And so tell me this, also. Who was it that the people of Monarchia were revering that such stern measures be taken against them? Some despot’s graven image, a demagogue of a corrupt and baseless faith, or worse, perhaps a denizen of Old Night?’

‘They worshipped the Emperor.’

‘He who lays down his laws from on high, he who created the most formidable fighting force the galaxy has ever known through science and gene-craft, this… being, who taught men how to span the great gulf of the galaxy and can kill with a thought, this is the one they honoured?’

Arcadese spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Yes.’

Vorkellen snorted his impatience and turned to his audience. ‘How can you trust an Emperor who punishes those that worship him, that makes hypocritical decrees? Is this the Imperium you wish to serve?’

There were mutterings from the shadows and even the five high-nobles swapped remarks and glared seriously at the Ultramarine.

‘Those people were given seven days to evacuate the city. Faith is dangerous; it unlocks the road to destruction.’

‘Spoken like a true fanatic,’ Vorkellen replied. ‘This is the reward the Emperor offers for your loyalty. He sends his Legions to murder and burn and sunder. It is the fate that awaits you should Bastion side with the Imperium.’

He paused and his voice changed. It was level, matter of fact, infused with irrefutable truth. ‘Horus did not rebel against an absent father; he opposed a tyrant, masquerading as a pacifist and a benevolent ruler.’

‘Lies!’ Arcadese’s voice echoed loudly, betraying his anger.

A shocked silence filled the auditorium.

Heka’tan shifted uneasily behind him. ‘Brother…’

Arcadese unclenched his fist. The Ultramarine opened his mouth to speak but could find no words. It was heresy, wasn’t it? That was why Monarchia burned. It was a lesser evil to prevent a greater one. It was…

‘My apologies.’

The eyes of the entire assembly aligned on the Ultramarine, heavy with the weight of judgement.

One of the high-nobles gave their disdain a voice. ‘Then prepare your next words carefully.’

Arcadese nodded stiffly, glancing daggers at the iterator. He turned and hissed at Heka’tan, ‘I knew this was folly.’

‘It is barely begun, brother. Have patience.’ He looked around. ‘Where did you send the artificer?’

‘To watch over my bolter and blade. We may need them before this farce is over, if only to skewer Horus’s pampered snake.’

Heka’tan was about to reply when his gaze was drawn inexplicably to the upper echelons of the chamber.

III

THE SHADOW FIGURE hiding on the balcony shifted slightly. The red-eyed one was looking at it. For a moment it thought it was discovered and its hand strayed towards the rifle. Then the warrior turned away and the shadow figure relaxed. Not yet… not yet…

IV

PERSEPHIA HAD BEEN an excellent artisan. Before the Edict of Dissolution, she had been a sculptor – it made the transition to artificer easier. It also meant she wasn’t pressed into the service of the Imperial Army or sent into the manufactorums to make shells and bombs. She heard about the conditions of those places, of the relentless overseers that made men and women into the blood-gruel of the Imperial war machine. Gone was the era of hope, of glorious conquest she’d longed to be a part of – in its place reigned an age of darkness instead.

The armoury where the Legionaries’ equipment was being kept was directly below the auditorium in a sub-level. As unthreatening as she was, the guards allowed her passage into the darkened under-deeps without question. Their attention was wholly fixed on the two massive warriors addressing the clave.

The words of her master returned to her.

I need you to bring me my weapons. Smuggle them back into the auditorium – no one will pay you any attention – and put them somewhere I can easily find them.

She’d nodded, not daring to question the cobalt giant.

Our ship was attacked, you know that. There are enemies on Bastion. I believe they want to kill us and tip these negotiations in the Warmaster’s favour. I would not have us exposed.

She’d headed off after that, fearful of what she might discover.

Cold, grey stone and struts of functional steel lined the corridors below the auditorium. There were anterooms and chambers, mainly stores or vast offices cluttered with slates and papers. The armoury was ahead and Persephia was still trying to work out how she would smuggle out one of the Ultramarine’s massive weapons when a light prickling heat assailed her skin and nostrils. It was heady, and if she strained she could hear the droning of machinery.

She continued to her destination but found more guards outside the corridor to the armoury that hadn’t been there before. She ducked into an alcove before she was seen and after a minute decided to double back. She couldn’t get through that way but perhaps she could go around and find a different route in.

Another corridor led off from the main, grey artery. It was here that the machine-drone was loudest, so she followed it hoping it might bring her out on the opposite side and let her slip past the guards.

The further Persephia went, the louder the sound became. Some kind of vast machinery she could only guess at. Soon the barren walls and struts gave way to engines and pipes and conduits. There were temperature gauges and funnels, oblong chambers shielded by many-layered plascrete. A throbbing nexus of energy glowed somewhere beneath her. She had reached the end of the tunnel and found herself standing at the edge of a circular chasm ringed by gantries.

Bizarrely, the way was open. None of the gates this far down were locked and there were no further guards she could see. Intermittently, she came across slumped gun-drones but the cyb-organics were deactivated.

Labour servitors moved back and forth, though, engrossed in menial tasks. Persephia moved around them gingerly, careful not to interrupt their routines or touch them, as she descended. The heat was increasing. Patches of sweat darkened her underarms and a veneer of perspiration circled her brow.

She saw a servitor at work by one of the consoles. A bank of screens displayed some of the other geothermal nuclear sites on Bastion. They all looked disturbingly alike. Persephia moved on, drawn by curiosity and the distant nuclear glow coming closer.

Someone was moving below her. Not a servitor – its movements were not syncopated enough. Too large as well, and much bigger than one of the cyb-organic drones. It worked at one of the consoles, attaching something. Persephia was too far away to see what it was. Something about the figure made her pause. She felt disquieted as she watched its bulk shifting subtly in its work.

She suddenly realised why there were no active guards, why the route to the nuclear core was open. Persephia wondered how far up the auditorium level now was and how far away. She’d lost track of time.

There was danger here. Her instincts screamed it. To let the figure see her was to invite that trouble to her. It was to invite death.

A bead of sweat ran down Persephia’s brow and into her eye. She gasped.

The figure looked up, hard eyes glaring through crimson lenses. It was grey; grey like the walls. The figure’s armour was fringed in a dirty gold and a skull icon emblazoned its left shoulder guard like an omen. It saw the woman and crouched.

It took Persephia a few seconds to realise what was happening. Boosting from a squat position, the figure had climbed the gantry immediately above. Then it repeated the motion and did the same again. Underfoot, the metal shook her.

She ran.

Another tremor rippled through the gantry, stronger this time, perhaps only a few levels down. Clanking footfalls followed, resonating behind her, and Persephia realised the figure was now pursuing directly. She heard the hard chankof metal slamming against metal and ducked behind a servitor. A second later there was an almighty boom and the menial exploded in a shower of bone and machine-parts.

Persephia picked up the pace. Her ears were still ringing. Death was behind her. It wore a face of iron and she couldn’t outrun it.

A hard engine growl assaulted her ears, as the sheer size of the Iron Warrior engulfed her.

The engine growl became a wet churn and then a scream as Persephia let out her death cry. She spat a torrent of blood over her clothes and then her slayer before her eyes became glassy and still.

Enemies Among Us

I

HEKA’TAN WAS LISTENING to more of the iterator’s diatribes against the Imperium and the Emperor, watching Arcadese slowly losing his cool. His mood was agitated too, but for a different reason.

‘She’s been gone too long.’

Arcadese half-turned as he heard the Salamander begin to move. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To find her.’

‘What?’ he hissed, only half hearing the iterator’s continued verbal assaults. ‘I need you to speak of Isstvan V. As a witness, your testimony is crucial.’

‘I have to find her, Arcadese.’

The Ultramarine’s face creased with confusion. ‘Why?’ He grimaced. Arcadese’s injuries had not fully healed; they would never fully heal. His bionics gave him motion but at a cost in pain. No human could bear it. For a Legionary such as the Ultramarine it left him debilitated. Even had he awoken from his sus-an membrane coma in time for the muster to Calth, Arcadese would not have gone. He was no longer a front-line trooper. Denial raged in his words and his manner but his eyes couldn’t hide it. Heka’tan saw it as easily as he did his own failings.

‘We were charged with her protection, brother. We swore an oath, both of us, in case you don’t remember. An oath of moment. I’m assuming that still means something to you.’

Arcadese straightened suddenly and for a moment Heka’tan thought he might strike him. Then he relaxed, bionics cycling down to a low hum from their agitated squeal.

‘I’m not sure what anything means, any more,’ he conceded in a low voice, not referring to his honour parchments. ‘I remember,’ he added, louder, ‘but this is our duty too.’

‘I just want to know she is safe.’

Arcadese sighed, resigned. ‘Do what you must, but when Bastion swears for Horus and we are ejected unceremoniously from its atmosphere, do not lay the blame squarely on my shoulders, brother.’ The Ultramarine’s face and demeanour changed abruptly. ‘What’s wrong with your hand?’

It was shaking, so slightly Heka’tan hadn’t realised.

‘Nerve tremor,’ he lied, ‘probably from the crash. Soon as I find the artificer, I’ll return.’

There was no time for a reply. All eyes were on Arcadese again as he took his turn to try and sway the clave. ‘I need battle, not debate,’ he muttered, totally unaware that he was about to get his wish.

II

A BLIGHTED PLAIN of ruined cities and virus-scoured landmarks scrolled before the clave-nobles in grainy panoramic. The recording had sound as well as image but was eerily quiet.

‘What do you hear?’ Arcadese asked, leaving a long pause to emphasise his point. ‘It is the sound of death. It is Isstvan III, where Horus Lupercal committed genocide and set in motion a galactic war. An entire planet destroyed by viral weaponry. Fratricide amongst the Legiones Astartes themselves, conducted on a massive scale. Only by the efforts of Captain Garro of the Death Guard, escaping on the frigate Eisenstein, is anyone alive to tell of this atrocity. No fair warning, no order to stand down. Just death.’

Arcadese signalled for the image to be shut off. He pressed his palms together. ‘These are the deeds of a dictator, one who has turned from the Emperor’s light and embraced darkness.’

The Ultramarine scowled. ‘Isstvan III was a ploy to draw out those still loyal to the Emperor and cull them in one blow. Ally with Horus, and you join forces with a madman.’

Vorkellen spoke up quickly. ‘Isstvan III was a planet in open revolt. Its lord commander was a psyker-mutant called Vardus Praal that had declared against the Imperium. It was on the orders of the Council of Terra itself that the Sons of Horus and their brother Legions were sent there.’

‘What is your point, iterator?’ asked the head high-noble.

‘That Horus was ordered to the Isstvan system by the agents of the Emperor’s will and yet it is claimed this was somehow part of the Warmaster’s plan to rid himself of internecine traitors? He was sent there,’ his gaze went to the Ultramarine, ‘ Sent. There. By Terra.’

Arcadese clenched his fists. ‘He slew billions, bombarded the surface and then unleashed his mad dog upon those warriors still loyal to the Emperor.’

‘A world in the thrall of a dangerous defector from Imperial Law, a psyker-mutant no less – a creature with the ability to affect the minds of men,’ the iterator continued. ‘We were not at Isstvan III – your fighting days were done at Ullanor, were they not?’

Arcadese didn’t answer. His teeth were clenched and he glowered.

Vorkellen went on. ‘I have testimony that a vein of disaffection ran through the Imperial forces, and that the Emperor sought to rein in the Warmaster’s pre-eminence. Certainly, his cult of personality was growing ever since the Emperor abandoned the Great Crusade. Can gods be jealous?’

‘This is idiotic,’ Arcadese pleaded to the clave. ‘These are facile notions designed to muddy the truth – that Horus committed genocide and staged a pre-emptive strike against warriors in his Legion and the Legions of his traitorous brothers that were still loyal to the Emperor.’

‘Horus only acted when forced,’ Vorkellen replied, ‘when he realised factions within his own ranks, warriors sworn loyal to him, were gathering against him, he did the only thing he could. He stopped them.’

‘And in so doing, slew thousands,’ replied Arcadese, ‘scribes, poets, imagists and iterators from the Remembrancer Order into the bargain. He is a monster.’

III

THE WORD WAS hard to use.

Monster.

Horus was still a father figure of sorts to this Legionary, Vorkellen saw it described in the anguish on the Ultramarine’s face.

He is still struggling to understand, he thought. The Emperor was a fool to send warriors such as these. They are broken soldiers, gratefully forgotten by their Legions. He has doubts, and if he has doubts… well…

‘It was your beloved master who put these men and women in danger. Sent to document the Great Crusade, to cement forever in living memory the deeds of the Emperor and his primarchs. Their deaths were a tragedy, but war, a war brought about by an absent father who failed to attend to his sons, has many casualties. It hardly makes the Warmaster a monster.’

As the Ultramarine’s face screwed up into a snarl, Vorkellen allowed himself a tiny smile. Go on then, now is the time – seal my victory.

‘What has been promised you, eh, Vorkellen is it?’ The Ultramarine couldn’t keep the venomous sneer from his lips.

‘I am merely a humble servant, here to see that my master is fairly represented.’

‘Do you honour a pact with some fell power, a concubine perhaps?’

Vorkellen’s eyes were icy. ‘You would like to crush me, wouldn’t you?’

Arcadese nodded slowly, drawing an objection from the clave that Vorkellen waved down.

‘The Emperor sends warriors when he really needs ambassadors, those who won’t embarrassthemselves in unfamiliar surroundings where a bolter and blade is of no import.’

‘I don’t need my weapons to break you!’ Arcadese was raging again and stepped towards the iterator.

And there it is. Vorkellen smiled, just for the Ultramarine. You cannot fight nature.

A squad of marshals wielding flash-sabres moved in to intercept him.

IV

ARCADESE KNEW HE could crush them without his weapons, do it so quick and clean he’d be at Vorkellen’s throat before the emergency command be given and the chamber flooded with armed men.

Instead, he put up his hand.

The guards backed off.

Arcadese sagged, feeling the tendrils of defeat tighten around his heart.

Heka’tan, where are you?

Bodies

I

THE LEVELS BELOW the auditorium were vast and labyrinthine. It would take an army of men weeks to find an individual in its depths if it didn’t want to be found. Heka’tan was but one man, and he had a few hours at most.

At least the shaking had ceased. When he’d forced the guard to let him go below and the dark had enveloped him, he’d leant against the wall and closed his eyes. Images of the dropsite massacre had sprung unbidden into his mind. He remembered his last sight of Vulkan, the primarch engulfed in bright magnesium light.

Dead? No one knew. It was a mystery that haunted the Legion. Ferrus Manus was dead. A terrible fate for any Legion to lose their father, but at least the Iron Hands had closure, at least they knew. In many ways, for the Salamanders, it was worse. And what now for them? A bit part in a galactic war where the fate of humanity and Terra was the prize and cost.

Heka’tan put the thoughts from his mind and started to search.

He found Persephia’s body after thirty minutes.

She lay discarded like refuse in one of the archive chambers, her innards pooled in her lap like glossy red ribbons. The artificer’s face was locked in a horror-grimace, flecked by her own dried blood.

She hadn’t died here. There were drag marks on the floor, hastily concealed. Heka’tan held out his hand and detected a tiny prickling sensation on his fingertips. Heat. It was bleeding upwards from below.

Heka’tan looked back to the corpse. The wound in Persephia’s chest was familiar to him. He knew what had caused it. She had been eviscerated by a chainsword. It was a Legion weapon. Arcadese was right, Horus hadsent warriors.

The Salamander followed the source of the heat.

II

THE SHADOW SHIFTED on the balcony. It caressed the rifle in its hands now. The red-eyed one was missing, and it didn’t like that. Made it feel vulnerable, potentially exposed when there was a Legionary unaccounted for. The work below was supposed to be finished, now the second phase began. There were four marshals below, watching the stairways into the lower chambers. Another four stood nearby in the dark. No guns here. No weapons of any sort. How foolish they were. How arrogant.

The high-marshal was alone and pensive as the proceedings went on. He was blind, just like the clave-nobles and the other onlookers were blind. They would see. Everyone would see. But then it would be too late. Then there was the iterator and his cronies, and the other warrior; the broken one, the half-Space Marine. Little did he realise it wasn’t just his body that had been ripped by the greenskin.

It was nearly time. The shadow shifted on the balcony, bringing the rifle sight up to its eye. The target sat snugly in its crosshairs. A second and it would be over. Just one second, the time it takes to squeeze a trigger. Soon.

III

THEY WERE LOSING. Hewas losing. Not a bolt fired, nor a blade drawn and still Arcadese knew the battle was being lost, metre by agonising metre. For a warrior, it was a strange sensation, not how he had pictured his service to his Legion.

The human iterator, despite his outward frailties, had a formidable intelligence; in a fit of pique, Arcadese thought he’d been mind-augmented or hypno-conditioned.

Dagonet was a disaster. Vorkellen painted Horus as victim and the Imperium as dishonourable murderers. A fortunate twist of fate had allowed the Warmaster to escape a heinous assassination attempt; whilst leaving one of his captains and a vaunted Legionary, Luc Sedirae, slain in cold blood. The massacre that followed was retaliatory, an effort to find and execute the perpetrators. Collateral damage was inevitable. The Emperor’s hand had caused this, or the agents acting in his stead.

Prospero was no better. Wolves unleashed on a cultured world and a son that desired only to please his father. The subsequent razing of the Planet of the Sorcerers was made to show the Emperor’s inability to forgive or grant mercy. Was Magnus reallysuch a threat? Leman Russ and his Legion made sure that question could never be answered.

None of it added strength to Arcadese’s cause, and he felt the allegiance of Bastion slipping from his grasp. He had only one argument left, but the one to give it was nowhere to be found.

IV

UNARMED AND WEARING robes, Heka’tan knew he was at a distinct disadvantage against another warrior of the Legiones Astartes.

He could have gone back, raised the alarm, but then Persephia’s murderer might have already escaped and they would never know what was really going on here. He told himself this was the reason but the truth of it was his rage for Isstvan V had been impotent for too long; he needed to vent it.

It didn’t take long to follow the murderer’s trail. It led Heka’tan to a steel gantry looking down on Bastion’s nuclear core. He recognised the figure still toiling in its depths. Memories of fighting a desperate last stand in the Urgall Depression came back to him.

‘Iron Warrior!’

The grey-metal Legionary turned, his helmet lenses glinting coldly in the reflected nuclear light.

He scoffed, a harsh and tinny sound that emanated from his vox-grille. ‘Aren’t your kind all dead?’