Warhawk, p.28
Warhawk, page 28
From above, from below, from all around them, the echoes of combat were growing in volume. Morarg had to leave, to take his place with the defenders. Every second counted.
‘You speak as if I wasn’t a part of it,’ he said. ‘As if what I saw was all a mistake.’
‘What did you see, Caipha?’
And, instantly, as if a switch had been flicked, he was there again, in the heart of the deep dark, on the ship as it came apart around him. There was no time even to scream, to protest, because the pain came back, just as before, the all-consuming, all-enveloping agony that made it seem as if he had no limbs, no eyes or ears, only a raw lattice of nerves, all firing, all burning.
The howls rang down the corridors, the sound of Space Marines weeping and roaring, trying to vomit more blood up from empty guts, blinded and rendered lame, mutilating themselves in the madness of their agony. And it had gone on for days, months, years, forever, so that time itself had become just one more aspect of the pain, just another dimension of that unbearable suffering. It was beyond anything, not just damage, but erasure, annihilation, all of it fully conscious and never-ending and impossible to counter.
And then, just as suddenly, it was gone, and the two of them, Morarg and the Remnant, were on another world. Morarg fell to his knees, his mind reeling, his skin sheened in sweat. It took a moment to calm himself, for the howls to shudder out of his hearing, so that he didn’t even notice at first how unbloated he had become again, and how pristine his armour now seemed.
‘This is… before,’ he murmured.
The two of them were high up on the edge of a huge amphitheatre. A vast conclave of bodies filled it – Imperial officials, legionaries, priests of the Mechanicum, even primarchs. One of them was speaking now, railing from a lectern. It was Mortarion, just as he was years ago, his body not yet transformed, the livery of his loyal Legion hanging proudly from the banners around the theatre’s rim.
‘Nikaea,’ Morarg breathed.
‘Where it all started. Or, at least, where this particular thread started. See how fervent he is, your primarch! No voice was raised more strongly against the witch. He believed it, too. You can see that, even from here. Ah, how he hated the very thought of it.’
And then the impressions shifted once more, racing wildly through time and across space, until they were on Molech, that great clash of arms masterminded by the Warmaster himself. Mortarion was there too, but changed again, on the first stages of his long transformation. The sky rippled with sorcery, the earth split open with visceral exuberance. At the forefront of the fighting was Grulgor, that distended old monster, brought back to life in order to kill in quantities even the Death Guard had never dealt with before. He raged and raged, lost in his own world of daemonic excess and fury.
Then that, too, was gone, all the visions quickly swallowed up in darkness. Morarg took a breath, looked around himself. It was pitch-black, and the air smelled rank, a mixture of body odour and rust. He could see nothing, only hear a strangled sound, echoing strangely as if buried deep in a ship’s hold.
‘How did such a thing happen?’ the Remnant asked, whispering softly in the enclosed space. ‘How did this preacher against witchery succumb so completely to its spell?’
‘Because he learned its power,’ Morarg said. ‘It was necessary.’
‘Was it?’ The Remnant smiled. ‘Or did he like it? Maybe there were days when he revelled in it, and others when he could barely look at himself in the mirror. Maybe that was the torment.’
Morarg couldn’t take his mind off the strange sound. It was as if an animal were trapped in there with them, but he couldn’t see it yet. ‘You have no idea what he suffered for us. He guided us out of hell, marching with us at every step. If he did something, anything, it was to keep us alive, so we would never have to go back.’
The Remnant nodded. ‘Ah, now that is true,’ it said. ‘Who, in this universe of suffering, has suffered more? Look at him. He is here, with us now.’
Morarg still saw nothing. ‘When is… now?’
‘After the deed was done. After seven of his sons were slaughtered, all to create the monster you saw on Molech. This is the aftermath.’
The Remnant shuffled a little, and a pale grey light crept across the chamber. Morarg caught sight of Mortarion again, alone, crouched over the body of a slain Deathshroud warrior and racked with horrified sobs. Morarg got just a glimpse of the primarch’s face, torn apart in a mask of anguish and loathing, before the vision switched out again.
Now they were on another war-torn world, with the Death Guard marching en masse towards another doomed Imperial fortress. All sorcery had been put aside – they were doing what they had always done, constricting, controlling, wearing down. The artillery boomed, the bolters laid down withering fire-lanes. Mortarion marched at their head, marshalling them all, issuing his commands in that habitual cold-as-death manner. His scythe swung about him, dazzling in its disruptor-wreathed power.
‘He has put it aside again,’ said the Remnant, gazing in appreciation at the scenes of slaughter. ‘Just for a moment, he has convinced himself that he can live without it, and that Molech was a mistake he will someday be able to forget.’
‘The weapons were always chosen for the war,’ Morarg insisted. ‘When we required sorcery, it was used – when we didn’t, it wasn’t.’
‘Or was it this – that he tried to push it away, but failed? That, like an addict who loathes his poison, he kept putting it behind him, and then coming back to the well? Did you never even question it? How, one moment he would be spitting with fervour in his denunciations, only to slay his most precious sons just for the chance to outdo his brother on the battlefield? Did you never wonder at that? Did no one say a word?’
Morarg looked across the scenes of fighting. Even here, while abominations like Grulgor were banished, there was something different in the aromas. A sickening, a sense of decay. Their armour was so degraded, so filthy. And yet, they were winning.
‘He did what he had to,’ said Morarg, sticking doggedly to his mantra. ‘We had to survive.’
‘Yes, he did what he had to.’ The Remnant blinked again, and the visions rippled away. Then it was just the two of them again, surrounded by complete darkness, complete silence, as if taken out of time and space entirely and marooned at the end of the universe. ‘So imagine if you had learned these two truths, each of them necessary. Imagine if you learned that the only way to guarantee your Legion’s survival was to immerse it in the most profound sorcery of all, thereby giving it gifts so potent that no force in the galaxy would ever be able to dominate it again. But then imagine that all your old fears were still true, that you had been in the right of it at Nikaea, so that any involvement with it would damn you all to suffering beyond mortal conception. Imagine knowing both those things. How could you live with it? What would you do?’
‘What was right.’
‘But they were both right, and they were both wrong. Resist the empyrean, and you will never become as powerful as you were always destined to be. But embrace it, and the agony will be eternal. You can be pure but weak, or corrupt but strong. What a conundrum! What a perversion for a Barbaran to contemplate! And so there is the mystery of why your master swung from one pole to the other, never able to plot his course with surety. It was as simple as mortal indecision. He didn’t know. Every course ended in disaster. And he couldn’t even pretend that he didn’t care, because he did. God of Decay, no father ever cared more.’
At that, Morarg suddenly remembered what Mortarion had told him. I loved you all too much. That is the only error I will admit.
‘But the decision was made,’ Morarg said, though no longer with much certainty. ‘He solved the riddle and brought us to Terra.’
‘That he did, but not in the way you think,’ said the Remnant. ‘Which brings us to the final element.’ His grey face flickered into a warped smile. ‘So let me talk now of Typhus.’
The rumble of gunfire never stopped, even after the army itself was long gone. Deep down in the caverns under Colossi, Ilya Ravallion tried to put it out of her mind, to forget how vulnerable they were there, and concentrate on her work.
It was true that their precise location would be hard to find, hidden behind thick rock walls designed to look like tunnel collapses from the outside. Few souls would even be searching for them – the bulk of the main enemy attack was over a hundred and sixty kilometres westward, and the Death Guard themselves were fully occupied at the space port. But still, only the bare minimum of guards and weaponry had been left behind, just enough to keep a tiny portion of the old fortress in working order. If anything did sniff its way down here, the battle would be brief and brutal.
She leaned forward at her station, her head pounding. She needed something to drink, but suspected the reservoirs were virtually gone now. Best to leave it for the soldiers, in case they were called on to fight again.
She looked away from her terminal lens, unable to bear the glare from the glass, and let her eyes run across the cramped interior. A few dozen Imperial officers, maybe three times that many V Legion menials, all working away at the comms arrays and augur intakes. Ilya wondered if any of them were doing better than she was – the quality of the signals was atrocious, and getting worse all the time. Still, at least they were able to forward some scraps to the field commanders, to give them some idea of the tactical situation.
She heard the low hum of power armour behind her, and turned to see Sojuk. The warrior bowed.
‘You have been working long beyond your allotted stretch, szu,’ he said. ‘I must request that you take a rest period.’
‘Who organised the work-schedules, Sojuk?’ she asked.
‘You did.’
‘Then I think I’m entitled to ignore them, aren’t I?’
‘Permit me to insist. If you require physical assistance to take you to your quarters, I am able to render it.’
Ilya laughed, and sat back in her chair. He was right, of course. She could barely see straight, let alone process the low-quality scanner signals. ‘I don’t need help,’ she said. ‘Come with me anyway, though.’
She pushed herself back up to her feet, feeling every muscle ache. Just walking unaided was an achievement. She should have used a stick, ideally, but didn’t want to make the visible concession. Limping, she made her way past the ranks of huddled operatives, all of whom were too busy to notice her leaving. Sojuk clunked along at her side, knowing better than to offer her a hand.
‘They’re inside the space port now,’ she told him, just in case he didn’t know.
‘So I understand.’
‘We’ll be lucky to maintain contact with them for long.’
‘That is understood. Though we may indeed be fortunate – such things have happened before.’
They passed through the blast doors and into the narrow underground corridor. It was horribly hot and humid.
‘I’m sorry you’re not with them,’ she said. ‘I know you must long to be there.’
Sojuk smiled warmly. ‘The honour is to be here. If one of my brothers had tried to take it from me, I would have killed him.’
Ilya laughed. ‘Nice of you to say. Though I doubt your master would be pleased.’
‘He would understand, I think.’
They reached the door to her dorm-unit, shared normally with two others, although empty for the time being. The remnants were all crammed together in this little hideaway, hunkered down and invisible as the earth burned above them.
She needed to sleep now. Even though the cot was hard, the bolster lumpy and filthy, she knew she would pass out as soon as her head hit the plasfibre.
‘So do you believe it, then, Sojuk?’ she said then, almost without meaning to. The thought ran through her head all the time, as if stuck on repeat, tormenting her. ‘Do you believe he can do it?’
‘Of course.’
‘But I was there. On Prospero. They were matched, the two of them, and now the enemy has grown, and we have been worn down so much…’ She leaned against the door frame. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t say it.’
Sojuk didn’t smile again. For all his equanimity, the worry must have occurred to him, too. ‘He would not attempt it, if it were not possible.’
‘But if he were… If he died? What then?’
‘Another Great Khan would be chosen.’
That startled her. ‘No. Not possible.’
‘We would grieve, szu. We would be angry, like no force of the heavens has ever been angry, but then we would fight again. The hunt would continue. An outsider might never even know the truth, even for centuries after – there is always a Great Khan.’
‘But I cannot… I mean, the way you say it…’
‘Only the way he has always been with us,’ Sojuk said, calmly but firmly. ‘Some primarchs are bound up with themselves, wrapped in their own power. Jaghatai, though, always made us all stronger. He is of the Legion. We are the people of the Khan.’ He looked straight at her throughout, as if warning her of how to be, should the moment come. ‘The gift was never hoarded. It was shared freely.’
She didn’t even want to think about it. She didn’t know why she’d brought it up. Overtired, maybe, in need of a break. Or sick of it all.
‘Oh, hells,’ she said. ‘This… waste. When I joined up, at least we were doing something constructive. Or it felt like that, anyway. But this… Even if we survive it, what will be left?’
Sojuk reached into the dorm-unit and activated the sodium-strip lumen.
‘Rest, please,’ he said, more firmly now. Then he seemed to relent. ‘The Qo taught us that the universe is a cycle. One day, we construct, another day, we knock down. There is no end, no day when we can say it has all been achieved, only another day of struggle. But it is better to be there, to be part of it, all the same. And I very much wish for you to be there, with us, when we cease destroying and begin to build again. So I say for the third time, my lady, take rest.’
Ilya smiled, and placed a time-worn hand on Sojuk’s enormous breastplate. ‘Very well. You have been patient with an old woman. Wake me in four hours.’
Then she left him, wrapped a blanket around herself, and collapsed onto the narrow cot. Even before the lumen died she could feel herself slipping away.
‘For all that, it cannot happen,’ she murmured, tossing uneasily. ‘Not him, too. I will not let it.’
‘Fire at will! Fire at will!’ Kaska shouted, trying hard not to lose it completely.
Aika 73 bucked and rolled over the smashed decking, its engine hammering as the tracks slipped before finding a grip. The terrain was nightmarish – a slick mat of faintly glowing vegetation, rapidly ground up into a black slurry as the tanks skidded and revved across it.
The crew were all sweating now, breathing heavily, working the air filters hard. Merck reached for another shell with shaking hands, fumbling the catch before shoving it into the breech. Dresi was as silent as ever, though the constant jarring motion of the hull must have been making things hard for her. Jandev had been firing constantly ever since they had driven up from the wastelands and broken inside the enormous port complex.
Kaska didn’t like to remember the passage inside. He’d only had glimpses of the action anyway, locked down as they were inside their humid, overheated, already malfunctioning box of death.
The super-heavies had done most of the core lifting. Once the skies had cleared of the overhead firestorm, those had been the ones to smash a path through the ranks of enemy armour, using their numerical superiority to bludgeon the slower-moving traitor units. They had suffered for it, though, and Kaska had lost count of the number of burning wrecks he had had to skirt around. The impacts had been tremendous on both sides, with heavy-calibre ammunition ripping clean into thick armour and punching through crew-stations and fuel tanks. Some of the traitor units had kept on coming through firestorms that should have blasted them clean from their tracks, taking several direct impacts to finally bring them to a halt. Once the lead super-heavies had pulverised each other into straggling heaps of scattered machine parts, the main battle tanks had had to negotiate veritable hull graveyards, trying not to crash straight through the raging promethium slicks and ignite their own fuel tanks.
Las-fire had been useful in that confused scrum – Jandev could fire faster than Vosch while the tank was on the move, as well as swivel his barrel more easily than a full turret-swing. Aika 73 had scored two more hull-kills before the threshold had finally beckoned. Kaska, trying to keep his eyes clamped tight to the periscope sights as his tank rocked and jerked, had caught sight of the gaping maw of the objective from a long way out. That gate had once welcomed heavy ground-conveyers for void-ship components, and soared away sixty metres up. By then, its gun-points had been obliterated, its guard towers ruined and hollowed out, but it was still a daunting place to run at. If it hadn’t been for the heavy White Scars presence, already up into the high battlements and tearing across them like wildfire, it might have been impassable.
Aika 73 was not the first across the gate’s edge, though – it had broken through the barrier alongside the two units remaining in the squadron, in the lee of a trio of huge Stormblades, all of which had taken heavy damage on the way in. More Leman Russ units had followed them, some partly on fire or with damaged turrets, but soon the numbers started to add up. You could begin to believe, Kaska had dared to think, adding up all the locator runes on the close-range augurs, that they might even pull this off.
Until, that was, they had got inside.
It had already been claustrophobic, stuck in that shaking, rattling casket for hours on end. Once under the shelter of the space port’s colossal innards, it felt like being buried alive. The air tasted foul through the filters of the tox-guards. The narrow viewer-slits silted up instantly. Black mould started to spread across the interior panels, almost in real time. The ground, which should have been solid rockcrete, degenerated into sloughs and mires. Visibility dropped to a few dozen metres, blocked by a miasma of dark green that barely shifted even as you fired through it.
