Victory was hard-won, right unto its final moments. Along with a score of others, as the creature faltered I charged. I took my blade two-handed and hacked without much skill, arms working more by boon of my powered armour than the weary muscle within. Its face a bloodied mess, blood pouring in a river from its wounds, when the beast finally died it buried two more of my keep-kin beneath its collapsing bulk and its death-animated tail smashed aside another.

  Forty-one warriors of Storrock gave their lives that day while the knights of Ardford looked on from their walls.

  ‘Not a pint of blood thicker than cat’s piss between them all,’ Tancreth declared, now commander of our troop. There was certainly no evidence of the bravery Forstor had so vocally announced the night before, and it seemed Tancreth had reasoned rightly their cause for wishing to quit the defences before the Great Beast had arrived.

  We gathered the dead and wounded, and though messengers swiftly arrived from the nearby township none of us was of a mind to spend that night amid strangers. I and no few others were also vehemently opposed to coming into the presence of Forstor and his knights, for the laws of hospita­lity would surely have been broken if I had come face to face with a man that had abandoned my gain-father before his final battle. That they had brought this doom to our walls and we had not returned the ill-favour was high in my thoughts for several days after.

  The whole matter soured relations between Storrock and the river keeps, fomenting a border skirmish that had not been resolved before the coming of the Lion and the ascendancy of the Order years later.

  We returned with heavy hearts to our homes, but found the walls well-guarded and those within safe, and judged the sacri­fice to have been necessary. We mourned the lost, tended the injured and hailed the feats of those that deserved it.

  Two days after our return, squires came back from a patrol to the south. A Great Beast had been sighted in the Wellvale, a day’s journey from our halls. As swiftly as that, the Horn of Ruin, our worst foe and largest of the Great Beasts ever to plague the Dordred Heath, became history.

  Puriel regarded Luther for some time, brow knotted.

  ‘I ask of orks and you speak of forest beasts,’ he said eventually, shaking his head. ‘If I thought you might be of aid, I was mistaken. You do nothing to level the debt you owe the Lion and his sons, but spin tales of your own past glories.’

  ‘If that is what you take from the story, then I can do no more for you. I could speak more plainly, but would knowing your doom help you avoid it or bring it about? I am no seer of talent, I dabbled in the foresight but swiftly learned that it is a road that leads to more peril than answers.’

  ‘Do not speak so freely of such sinful sorceries!’ Puriel raised a fist and Luther drew back, fearing a blow. The legionary held his clenched hand for several seconds and then let it fall to his side, eyes narrowing.

  ‘You speak of foresight and in your story your leader died fighting the Great Beast. Is this a warning? Or guidance… Your gain-father succeeded even in death. Am I to perish while breaking the last of the Beast’s strength?’

  ‘The warning is in the whole story, not the parts.’ Luther sighed and turned his head away. ‘What happens to you is unimportant. There is always another beast.’

  Puriel snorted and footsteps receded, followed by the slam of the door. Luther felt the momentary tingle he now knew preceded the stasis of the Watchers.

  TALE OF THE LION

  Whether by the sorcerous curse of the storm or the temporal manipulations of the Watchers, Luther’s perception became increasingly detached from the linear flow of time. What was memory blurred with what was to come and what was happening, at times so fractured that he went insane, losing even himself amid the riotous flurry of images and recollections. He saw Puriel again several times, and others came to him with threats and admonishments. Always it was one, the Supreme Grand Master, accompanied only by the Watchers and no other Space Marine. He was, it seemed, held in secret even from the rest of the Dark Angels.

  Others sought insight into the whereabouts of his followers and through fleetingly lucid encounters, Luther pieced together some idea of what might have happened, though he also learned that at least two thousand years had passed since Caliban had died and a warp storm had engulfed his host. His people had been scattered, it seemed, all but for Luther. Two thousand years was a long time and even though he did not truly know how long a Space Marine could live, he found it hard to believe that any Calibanites could have survived so long. Yet the questioners kept coming, demanding to know of this individual or that, reading from a growing list of names. Some he recognised, many he did not, and he was forced to remind his captors that the Order had numbered tens of thousands of knights when the Lion had returned.

  Most of his interrogators left in anger, but no few encounters ended in pain, either inflicted by his visitor or through the mental torture of his temporal dislocation. It was not rare for the questions put to him to trigger visions and memories at the same time, and the intervening periods of stasis only served to further his uncoupling from the natural course of events. He remembered fighting in battles that had not yet taken place, and seeing the faces of warriors not yet born as they died beside him. He visited planets whose names he did not know, or lifted blade against aliens the like of which he had never seen in real life. Nightmare, prophecy and recollection became inseparable.

  Then came a period when he was visited by a lord of the Dark Angels called Morderan, who kept him free of stasis for some time. The act was not out of any compassion but a desire to centre Luther’s thoughts on current events.

  ‘I am something of a student of yours, you could say,’ Morderan told him during his fourth visit.

  Luther had been washed, the wound on his cheek dressed by Morderan himself, who had also delivered fresh clothes. After many days, twenty or thirty perhaps, Luther’s ravings had subsided and though he still suffered flashes of nauseating other­sight, sometimes he went for hours without experiencing any kind of warp hallucination.

  ‘My predecessors and I have been thorough in the taking of notes, even when you have been at your most incoherent,’ explained Morderan while Luther finished a bowl of tasteless protein gruel. ‘I have read them many times, trying to glean some substance, a single thread, from your disparate meanderings.’

  ‘I am at a loss to aid you,’ Luther confessed. ‘The tether of my mind to one time is thin and swiftly broken. I do not choose what I see, and cannot choose to unsee what has been presented.’

  ‘I fear there is something else that guides your visions, and not to the good purpose of my Chapter,’ Morderan replied. ‘Sometimes we must risk drinking from the chalice even though we suspect it to be poisoned, lest we die of thirst anyway.’

  ‘Is that what I am? A poisoned chalice!’

  ‘Certainly.’ Morderan scratched a brow scarred and creased. ‘One from which I must drink again, it seems. Tell me of Cypher.’

  ‘You mean the Lord Cypher?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You need to be more specific. I say this not only for your sake, but for mine. If I delve into the past too broadly I fear I will go astray again, and that does neither of us any good.’

  ‘Cypher was one of your closest advisors.’

  ‘The Lord Cypher was a ceremonial role for much of its history, dating back to the earliest days of the Order. But the Lord Cypher in the latter days of my command was an important member of my retinue. There was little of my design that I did not confide in him, and he was chief among my advisors on all matters of the arcane. But you know this if you have read my previous utterances.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘During the defence of Caliban, but you should know that even before my tribulations in prophecy my memories of that time were unreliable. The storm, you see. Even as it stole parts of my mind, it scrambled what had happened. These days you have granted me have been little use, I am sorry to say. I can place many events, but out of sequence and some may be entirely fictitious, products of imagination.’

  ‘He survived the fighting, yes?’

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t recall seeing him die, but that does not mean it did not happen. I have a recollection, vaguely, of hearing that he had been cornered by Corswain. If true, it seems unlikely he left the encounter if Corswain survived.’

  An odd look passed across Morderan’s features, which Luther could not wholly decipher. It seemed connected to the mention of Corswain rather than Lord Cypher, but Luther had no chance to pursue the matter before the Dark Angel spoke again.

  ‘You recall my predecessor, Alloken? He died fighting orks recently.’

  ‘I have decided it is better not to enquire after faces no longer seen. It only leads to more confusion, and often anger against me.’

  ‘A stranger clad in the livery of the old Legion seemed to intervene on behalf of my brothers, aiding us against the orks. It is not the first time we have encountered him, wielding bolt pistol and plasma pistol. My research leads me to believe that this individual may be Cypher, but I do not know why he would help us.’

  ‘I assume that you did not treat him as friend on previous occasions?’

  ‘There are times he has been seen assisting our foes, that much I have as fact. I think he knows more about the Fallen and the storm that took them than you do.’

  ‘Fallen?’

  ‘Your followers. The traitors saved from retribution by the powers of the warp. They have fallen from the light of the Emperor.’

  Luther suppressed a laugh, knowing it would invite physical censure. It astounded him to hear a Space Marine speak of the Emperor in such terms, as though He was almost… divine?

  ‘If it is indeed Lord Cypher that you seek, then tread carefully. Not all hunts end with a kill.’

  I was twenty-six years old when I returned to the Order. The encounter with the Horn of Ruin and other quests had established me as a courageous warrior and a capable leader in the eyes of the Lord Torchwarden. Along with seven others I was despatched to Aldurukh to face the decision of the Grand Master. Would he readmit me to the ranks of the Angelicasta or send me back to Storrock? My friends were likewise eager to impress, for it brought honour to their families to be accepted into the Order.

  To understand why the Order was so special, it is important to remember that neighbours were as likely to war with each other as form alliances, and both in the turning of a few years as circumstance changed. Caliban was unforgiving and although some preached the code of tolerance and cooperation, since the terrors of Old Night and the resurgence of the planet’s biosphere, nothing like any central or even regional authority survived. The lands within sight of the peak of Aldurukh were considered the domain of the Order, under its protection, but it was no nation, the Grand Master was no king. Some rulers, like the Lord Torchwarden and the lords of the riverbanks, were bound by ancient familial and civil oaths to respect the boundary of Aldurukh and offer mutual assistance should it ever be threatened by foe of bestial or human origin. The Order itself remained apart from the politics of the settlements, and to towns further afield was regarded almost as myth.

  Yet the Order was the bastion of strength around which human life on Caliban revolved, whether they knew it or not. It accepted only volunteers, not heirs, as my own young adulthood ­demonstrated. Skill at arms was tested, but all that were accepted began training anew as if born as squires or serfs until they exceeded the requirements of their tutors. Temperament was equally examined. The Order was founded upon merit, a last bastion of ideals that had been swallowed by Old Night. Its knights were expected to be true to their word, to uphold the honour of Aldurukh, to forsake all titles and inheritances of the outside, and to dedicate their lives to the improvement of oneself through martial prowess and the protection of others.

  Human nature cannot be wholly ignored, and there were knights of the Order who were brash or ambitious, sometimes vain or aloof. Yet in spite of their personal weaknesses they placed fraternity above all else and strove to overcome their worst qualities. There was no concept of perfection, no thought of pinnacle, as embodied by the spiral, which can get ever tighter no matter how far one travels. To progress, to show willingness to learn and to serve was as important as sword arm and bolt pistol aim.

  I am pleased to say that all eight of us passed the scrutiny, bringing with us testimony of our peers and lords that shone light on our deeds, while mock battle proved skill at arms. Lord Cypher scrutinised the soul, as he did until the end, and found the best knights of Storrock were fit to the purpose of the Order.

  In leaving Storrock we had renounced all other oaths, being released from bondage to our former lords as preparation for our admission. If we had failed, we would have been too shamed to return, becoming freelances and the Wandered. Instead we pledged allegiance to Aldurukh and its folk, and on naked blade shed our blood to the brothers and sisters of that place, and in kneeling before the Grand Master submitted to his authority alone.

  I was reunited with my mother and father, now as equals rather than parents and child, for it was possible that I might one day be their superior. The Order was a family of a different kind of love, surpassing the bonds of blood that happened to exist between us.

  It was not long before I regained my rank of serjeant, for I had not forgotten the lessons of my youth. As such I was second-in-command of the patrol to which I was assigned. All about the mountain the forests were divided into wards, to each assigned a squadron of ten knights. A small enough force to move at will and pose no threat to local lords, but potent enough to handle all but the fiercest Great Beasts. And should such a threat arise, the Order was not slow in sending reinforcements nor calling on the lieges of the lands they helped keep safe. We were kept separate from the lands where we had been raised, in my case being assigned to the squadron that patrolled north of Aldurukh, far from Dordred Heath.

  The following winter was harsh, with blizzards faster and longer than many a scarred serjeant had seen, and certainly the worst of my young life. For days at a time the patrols were unable to leave Aldurukh or forced to seek shelter in the homes of the local rulers. After weeks of incessant snow some passes and valleys were entirely closed to us, and the Grand Master, at that time a venerable commander called Tomsas Karrad, feared for the settlements that lay beyond. He initiated a plan of clearance expeditions to open up the worst-afflicted areas, sending out hundred-strong work teams with axe and shovel to clear what they could.

  It is a sorrow that the Great Beasts were not so waylaid by the snows as our knights, and many strange and dangerous creatures were drawn down from the high peaks and the northern glaciers by the brief ice age. Great Beasts were not the only threat, for natural predators like mountain wolves and timber lions were starved of prey, and driven by hunger they ranged further and further afield, into the domains of the lords.

  The clearances were perilous enough, the elements and terrain accounting for several dozen of our people in the first days until we honed our practices. Ice crevasses swallowed some, others were caught in avalanches, while at least a score were picked off by hungry animals when they had become separated from their companions. Progress was slow but steady, and still the dark storms showed no sign of relenting. On the fourteenth day since the clearances had started, a team reached the far end of a canyon known as the Shouldersplit Pass. As might be guessed by the name, some ancient upheaval of the rocks, or perhaps the artifice of our forebears, had split a mountain almost in half, so that a great ridge rose on either side of the valley. Generations of melt flow and spring rain had softened the valley floor and it caught the sun until past noon – when sun could be seen, of course, which it hadn’t for nearly the whole winter. Significantly for me, Shouldersplit Pass was within the ward that was allocated to my squadron. It came to us to protect the workers as they continued. So we rode forth from Aldurukh with that objective.

  The forests were almost unrecognisable, boughs heavy with white, many trees splintered under the weight of their snowy burden. Beneath the canopy the going was easier, only knee-deep for a knight and of no hardship for our destriers.

  Let me tell you now a little more about our mounts, for one might not understand what magnificent creatures they were, and it is a lament of mine that their breeding was forgotten after the coming of the Imperium. Told to me by my birth-father, as he had learned from generations before, the destriers had been created from the finest equine genetic stock during the Dark Age, before such resources were lost during Old Night. Large and swift, these animals were bred also for their intelligence and, so the legends claimed, the grandsires of the destriers that we rode had once been grafted with devices that even made them capable of speech. We no longer had the means for such communi­cation, but to the last of them the destriers remained capable of high empathy with their riders and I would happily swear they understood all that we spoke to them even if they were physically unable to reply.

  Not only intellect but other features were enhanced far beyond natural evolution. Stamina and strength, enough to carry an armoured knight for many days with only a few hours’ sleep each night. And by armoured I mean the battery-powered warsuits I and my companions of the Order wore, not simple metal plate. The greatest of them could bend steel with a kick and easily snap bone with flailing hooves. They were loyal, bonding with a rider for life, and tales abounded of mounts that had fought to the death to defend a fallen knight, and of destriers that would not return to their homes when their rider was lost but disappeared into the woods seeking their mistress or master.

 

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