Lazarus, p.22
Lazarus, page 22
She blinked her copper-red eyes at him, then beamed. He grasped her tiny hand in his, then picked her up, moving to the narrow conduit the Fabricator Locum had indicated. A skitarius had cut a hole in it, and Lazarus lifted Ysentrud so that she could crawl inside. She fit, barely, and placed the nerus cord where she could drag it along behind. Clicking on the tiny lumen that hung around her neck, she took a breath and sang softly.
‘Into the dark, into the night. Should I lose my way, pray I’ll find the light.’ She looked at Lazarus and smiled, a little less brightly. ‘It’s traditional.’
He nodded. ‘You will do this. The Emperor protects.’
‘The Emperor protects,’ she echoed, and began to crawl forward, the cord slowly uncoiling behind her. As her light disappeared, Lazarus started to turn away, but he stopped when he heard a faint whisper coming down the conduit. ‘I’m probably going to die in here. Praise the Throne I’m stimmed out of my mind.’
Time crawled like the Learned, but Lazarus busied himself staging probing raids with his squads at one exit then another, testing the defences of each one without wasting his men or ammunition.
‘They do not rush us,’ Demetrius said.
‘They want us contained and alive,’ Lazarus said, looking over the schematics again, gauging distances to the surface, marking areas that looked likely to collapse if hit with explosives. ‘Otherwise they would have collapsed the ceiling of this cavern from above. Or pumped it full of promethium and struck a spark.’
‘Why?’ the Interrogator-Chaplain asked.
‘To take us over,’ he answered. ‘Like the mortals in the Reis Home Levies. To make us into gris.’
‘Impossible.’ Apothecary Asbeel was standing with them, along with Librarian Raziel. ‘Our immune systems would destroy that fungus before it could find any kind of purchase in our systems. We are immune to this grey pall.’
‘That is how it should work. But in the same way we are looking for weaknesses in this trap, the gris are searching us. That is likely why they ambushed us at the stimm farm, to claim our brothers from the Tenth Company. They are examining us, the way they examined the mortals here to determine how to take them over.’
‘It may have been more than that,’ Demetrius said. ‘I questioned the Learned earlier about the Regent Next. She told me that he hated his father and this place, treachery that was easy enough to read. But she also mentioned that he was strangely focused on the location and disposition of the Reis Home Levies.’
Lazarus took a long moment to think, letting things fall into place. ‘There are too many Home Levies soldiers among the gris. Far more than they should have just from prisoners of war they might have taken. But if a spy was telling the gris where to take patrols, or remote camps…’ Lazarus considered it. The evidence was paper thin, but it fit.
‘Sebastian working for the gris would explain how the ambush at the stimm farm happened,’ Interrogator-Chaplain Demetrius said. ‘And how he disappeared so quickly in that fight. It would have been a rescue for him, not a capture.’
‘A rescue.’ Lazarus twisted his mouth into a cynical smile. ‘Sebastian is the one who called us here. Against his father’s strict orders. To rescue Reis.’
‘So the gris wanted us here,’ Demetrius said. ‘Why?’
‘An important question,’ Lazarus said. ‘Let us ask someone who might know.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The vox crackled, meaningless static filling Lieutenant Zakariah’s helmet. ‘How long has it been like this, brother?’ he asked, moving through the bands. There was nothing but noise, the senseless electronic screaming of stars.
‘Minutes only.’ Techmarine Meshach was seated beside him in the cockpit of Vengeance is Prayer, fixing a prayer ribbon to the Thunderhawk’s vox-unit as he adjusted its controls. ‘I had just received a report from Brother Ephron saying they had engaged with the gris force that attacked the Adeptus Mechanicus forge, and defeated them. And then a moment later, this. I cannot reach Master Lazarus in the north, Ancient Jequn at the Redwash Gate, or the Sword of Caliban.’ He dropped his hand from the vox, shaking his head. ‘This is not a problem with our equipment. Something is jamming us.’
‘Something,’ Zakariah echoed. ‘The gris?’
‘They are our enemy here,’ Meshach said. ‘But to block us so thoroughly shows an affinity with technology which they have not shown before.’
Zakariah nodded. ‘Make this work, brother. We must tell Master Lazarus and Ancient Jequn what we have learned.’ Knights, a whole company of them, hidden away for centuries. And one of the two men who knew where they were had been captured by an enemy that took its prisoners over from the inside out. ‘The Knights of House Halven. What do you think, Brother Techmarine?’
‘I know little, lieutenant,’ Meshach said. ‘The reports I have seen indicate that the interface to the pilots was sabotaged, which may mean that they are mostly intact, and those machines were made to last. Their spirits are fierce. But they obviously have not been functional for a thousand years.’
‘Else the Regent Prime would be in one now,’ Zakariah said. ‘House Halven covets that power, that prestige.’
Meshach nodded. ‘I do not understand how they could have given it up for so long. The Adeptus Mechanicus could have fixed their war machines centuries ago.’
‘But to do that, they would have had to admit that they had stolen them,’ Zakariah said. Once the Regent Prime had admitted that the Knights still existed, that House Halven had taken them in secret from the Adeptus Mechanicus tasked to repair them, he had answered every question Zakariah had put to him, spilling the secret his house had spent a thousand years concealing. ‘They would have had to admit that they went against the commandments given to them by our forefathers, the Dark Angels who just saved them, and faked the Knights’ loss. Then they would have to admit that they could not learn to fix their own machines after centuries of study to the Adeptus Mechanicus, the rivals they believed betrayed and attacked them. If they did all that, they would risk being judged as incompetent at best, traitors at worst. The heritage they have spent a thousand years hiding and protecting might be stripped away from them by the Imperium. No. Their motivations are base, the actions of cowards, but that is what fear does to men. That is why the Emperor stripped it from us. But this Oskaran, and all his ancestors, they had no such boon, and it is no wonder the Regent Prime is a bitter, angry man. He would rather hold on to the hope that his Knights will rise again through some sort of miracle than risk losing them by doing anything.’
‘The Omnissiah works in mysterious ways. But not illogical ones.’
‘That is a talent of mortals.’ Secrets and lies, stretching back so long. Zakariah shook his head. It was better to be a Dark Angel, and walk in the clear light of the Emperor. ‘I will go back to Oskaran and see if I can press any more truth from him. And while I do, I will question the Regent Prime about their communication network.’
Meshach was wrapped in his armour, seated in the couch of the pilot’s chair, but still Zakariah could read his disdain. ‘I am sure the locals will have an answer,’ the Techmarine muttered.
Zakariah smiled, but it was gone before he left the ship. Losing vox was bad enough. Having it taken away was worse. This mission had been a tangle from the start, with an enemy that refused to take the field and fight. It made him almost miss the orks.
He strode back into the palace, turning before he reached the Hall of the Fallen. The Regent Prime had retired to his office, a room panelled in golden wood with an intricate pattern of dark stripes running through it. Ancient holo-picts hung from the walls, depicting the Imperial Knights that had once belonged to the house, striding through battles which took place over a millennium before. How it must dig into Oskaran Halven’s soul to stare at them, knowing those Knights lay still and useless, dead to him and his house unless he chose to reveal them – and that doing so risked losing them forever.
The Regent Prime sat behind a desk, staring at nothing. When Zakariah strode in, he managed to push himself to his feet and bow his head, but his skin was pale, his features slack. Giving up his secret had broken something inside him, probably his last hope that his family’s heritage might ever be salvaged.
‘Have they found him? Have they killed him?’ Hope and bitterness were twisted together in his words.
‘Not yet.’
‘Not yet.’ The Regent Prime slumped back down in his chair, somehow looking even more defeated. ‘That boy… He went from being more fanatical about our heritage than I to denying it! He stood before me, where you stand now, dread Dark Angel, and told me our prophecy was a lie! He told me once that the only way I would ever ride a Knight into battle was on the bottom of its foot, do you believe–’
‘We cannot reach them, Regent Prime.’ Zakariah cut off the man’s tirade, profoundly uninterested in his familial battles. ‘The gris have done something to jam our vox signals. What is the status of your communications?’
‘Communications?’ the Regent Prime said, confused. ‘I… Someone came in to tell me that Lash Commander Karn had disappeared. And that our communications were failing. I told them to get out.’
Orks were definitely better sometimes, Zakariah thought. Their incompetence didn’t hurt you, and you could simply shoot them on sight, without wasting time with their blather. ‘Get them back,’ he said, instead of drawing his plasma pistol. ‘And–’
There was a noise, faint in his ears, but one that he was honed to hear. The crack of gun fire. The Regent Prime made no sign of hearing it. But as the lieutenant turned, he saw a mortal rushing into the office behind him.
‘My lord, the Levies–’ The man cut off when he saw Zakariah and froze, gaping, useless.
‘Are they attacking or being attacked?’ the Dark Angels lieutenant asked, and waited a frustrating few seconds while the man tried to find his voice.
‘Both? My lord!’
‘Of course,’ Zakariah said. The ones the gris had taken against the ones that they had not, but he had little faith that the soldiers of the local Levies would be able to tell the difference in battle, even with the grey fungal masks covering the gris’ faces. ‘Regent Prime–’
There was a sudden squealing from the vox-unit on the corner of the Regent Prime’s desk, and in his helm Zakariah saw the alerts bloom. Some transmission had cut through the gris’ jamming, and it was flooding every band. A voice transmission, and the lieutenant could hear it spilling from the Regent Prime’s vox and who knows how many others from outside the room.
‘Citizens of Reis! This is an emergency warning from the Reis Home Levies. Listen, and attend!’
‘That’s Lash Officer Petra Karn,’ the Regent Prime said. There was a crackle of static, and then the woman’s voice returned. ‘–opened. Repeating, the Redwash Gate has been reopened. The Regent Prime has betrayed us. He has sold Reis to the Dark Powers, and now their servants are here. Again, the Regent Prime has betrayed us and is now being hunted by the Dark Angels. Because of him, the Space Marines have declared this world tainted, our population unclean. They are blocking our communications while they prepare to exterminate us.’ Static filled the air again, but this time the Regent Prime didn’t speak. He was staring at the vox as if it had become a venomous serpent, coiled on the corner of his desk. Then the static faded again.
‘–flee. Make for the shelters in the western mountains, or find a place in the jungle. Repeat, all citizens of Kap Sudsten are advised to flee. The gris are in the city, disguised as Levies soldiers. The daemons gather at the gate to march on us. The Dark Angels have declared us enemy. Your only hope now is flight! Repeating. The only hope you have is–’ Then there was nothing but static.
‘She lies,’ gasped Oskaran. ‘She’s lying! She’s–’
‘Destroying the morale of your people,’ Zakariah said. ‘Many will run now, and be easy prey for the gris to pick off. Others will turn on you, on your soldiers and on us. She sows chaos, and your people will die from it.’
‘What do I do?’ the Regent Prime gasped.
‘Shut up, follow me and listen,’ Zakariah snapped as he strode out of the office, moving to meet up with his men and see what bloody order he could sort out of this mess.
Jequn stood before the massive blast doors, silently cursing his vox.
The bands had all gone to static minutes after the fight had ended. He had just contacted Brother Cadus, who he’d left behind to man the Thunderhawk waiting in the stimm farm where they had been attacked, and to send messages back to Master Lazarus using the ship’s powerful vox-system. He’d briefed the Techmarine on what had happened so far – the strange, deadlier gris, the brothers who had fallen into torpor, and the recovery of the Regent Next. The vox had been operational then, the occasional cracks and pops of static not unexpected when there was this much distance and dirt between them. But then, right at the end, the vox had fallen apart into static and noise, and Jequn couldn’t even use it to communicate with the Dark Angels who stood around him.
Maybe it had been a mistake to leave Cadus up top. The Techmarine might have corrected the issue with skill and prayer. But Jequn threw that doubt away. The vox failing in this way, now, was no malfunction. This was an attack, something the gris were somehow doing to cut them off. Cadus would do what he could from the ship to correct it. Meanwhile…
Meanwhile they would see what this place was, and why the gris had camped on its doorstep.
Sebastian stood before those doors now, staring at them with a hungry look in his eyes. While Jequn had been dealing with the vox, the Regent Next had done nothing but this, silent, impatient.
‘You know this place,’ Jequn said.
‘My father brought me here. Once.’ Sebastian flipped a panel open on the doors, showing a dark square of something that looked like smoked glass. ‘He told me this place was built when Reis was first settled. The first home of the Knights of House Halven. It was deserted a century later, when a magma plume formed below and the volcano began to rise. Abandoned, but not forgotten.’ He pulled a knife from an inner pocket of his suit, a toy of a weapon studded with jewels, and pressed its tip against one finger. When blood began to flow, he pushed his hand against the black panel, smearing the blood against it.
‘After the Redwash War, we claimed it again. For our Knights.’
‘The Knights that were supposed to be lost,’ Jequn said.
‘That is the story we told our people, and the Adeptus Mechanicus. That our Knights had been lost beneath the waves, gone forever. But that was just a story.’ The dark panel slipped silently aside, revealing a runeboard. Sebastian raised a finger to tap at its keys, but Jequn laid a hand on his shoulder, his fingers almost wrapping around the mortal.
‘What lies beyond?’
‘My heritage. The Knights of House Halven, hidden for a thousand years. Unbroken, but inaccessible. All our power, within our reach but outside our grasp.’ The mortal looked up at him, eyes burning, but then they flashed away. ‘The gris were not here when we came before. Obviously. They found this place somehow. They may have been trying to get in. I need to see… I need to make sure that our Knights are still there, waiting and ready.’
Knights were formidable weapons. The gris should never be able to control them – the machine spirits that animated them were fierce things, jealous of their house’s honour. But their mould-infected enemy had shown some cunning in their ability to steal weapons and equipment. If they had found some way into this base, they might have stripped the war machines of their deadly armament.
‘Open it,’ Jequn ordered. ‘But I will take the lead.’ He raised his voice, so all his brothers could hear. ‘Squad Invis right behind, Squad Jotha watching our backs.’ He looked back at the mortal. ‘Do you understand?’
‘I do,’ the Regent Next said, and when Jequn lifted his hand, Sebastian tapped a code into the panel. The doors began to rumble, then slid aside, parting down the middle. Behind them was a room, shadowy and vast, a great circle of rockcrete topped with a vast dome. The walls were sixty feet high, and a dome rose another fifty feet above them. Great buttressed ribs supported it, and from these hung huge lumens, most of them dark, their lenses grey and blind as cataracts, but a few still worked, spilling enough light for Jequn to see, even with all the equipment that filled the room.
There was some kind of huge lift in its centre, great rails running from the floor to what looked like a hatch set in the centre of the dome. Around the edges of the walls were gigantic docking stations. In each one stood a figure, tall and still. The Knights, waiting.
They were roughly humanoid, armoured giants with helm-shaped heads set between massive shoulders. They balanced on heavy legs with great clawed feet, made for walking through rubble. Their arms were weapons, huge guns like battle cannons, las-impulsors and plasma decimators. Some had melee weapons like lances, power fists or gigantic chainswords. They varied in size, from twice Jequn’s height to more than three times it, but each of them was an imposing, hulking shadow that stood still as stone, gargoyles waiting to spring to life.
Jequn stepped into the room, sword raised, head sweeping back and forth. The docking stations for the Knights were tangles of steel beams, cables, struts and arcane equipment. Much of it seemed to be dead, but around each war machine at least a few panels were working, with tiny coloured lumens flashing and winking, pict screens drawing columns of numbers and runes, or displaying graphs of flowing waves or spiked lines. It was a mix of shadows and light, of vast openness and tight spaces, and a thousand gris could have hidden themselves here. But as Jequn moved he saw nothing but darkness and blinking displays. Heard nothing but the soft scuff of his feet against the rockcrete and the low electronic hum of equipment. Smelled nothing but metal and hydraulic fluid, the sharp stink of electronics and the dry smell of dust, and that awful, sour smell of the monstrous mound of mould that lay beyond the doors. He moved forward carefully, and he could sense Squad Invis right behind him. ‘Jotha,’ he said quietly, but the Scouts heard, filing in on either side, spreading out through the gloom, moving silently. Jequn walked until he reached the massive lift in the room’s centre. At its edge, he stopped and turned a circle, searching again. Nothing. Back at the door, Sebastian waited, a restless shadow standing on the threshold.
