Knights of the Imperium

  ‘Yes,’ said Nemonix.

  My limbs feel stiff and ungainly, weak after days spent as a giant with the strength to tear apart battle tanks. Despite the cold, my Cadmus uniform jacket is soaked in sweat. My skin runs hot as my bloodstream filters out the numerous chemicals not yet purged from my circulatory system.

  Together with Aktis Bardolf, Roderick, Anthonis and William, I follow Magos Vril through the frozen data holds at the heart of the main temple structure. Hundreds of harried-looking tech-priests fill the cavernous space, together with coffles of calculus-logi linked by loops of pulsing brass cabling.

  Clattering engines plunge into abyssal vaults far below, and coiled generator towers soar into the upper peaks of the temple.

  Geysers of warm, oil-scented mist billow up from below. Crackling arcs of lightning leap between the titanic machines.

  ‘Is it supposed to be doing that?’ asks Anthonis, peering over a slender railing.

  ‘Information [clarify]: no, Sir Anthonis of House Cadmus, it is most certainly not,’ answers Vril, working at a line of control slates with the hunched gait of someone who spends altogether far too much time poring over technical specs. ‘What you are seeing is the physical manifestation of an ancient mind in free-fall towards self-extinguishment.’

  ‘Can’t you stop it?’ asks William.

  Vril pauses in his shuffling progress and turns to face William. He has a face quartered into differing metallic elements, not unlike the heraldic plates of a Knight. The upper two segments are bronze and iron, the lower two gold and brushed pewter. Each quadrant has an implant of some kind; either ocular, olfactory or vocal, though it is impossible to tell which is which.

  ‘Sir William of House Cadmus, the workings of encoded memory engrams are a mystery to all save the Omnissiah, dizzyingly more complex than your own meat brain and far more efficient. To have survived for so long, the Binary Apostle has had to evolve into a singularity of being, the mechanics of which are beyond your feeble reach of comprehension.’

  ‘And yours, by the sound of it,’ counters William, always ready with a rejoinder.

  ‘Does he even have a name?’ asks Roderick.

  ‘Is it even a he?’ puts in Bardolf.

  Vril is greatly perturbed by these questions and flaps his arms like some hunched, flightless bird.

  ‘Yes, the Binary Apostle has a name, though it is one unknown to us,’ says Vril, before adding in a moment of rare largesse, ‘and perhaps even to itself.’

  Before the others can rise to bait the magos some more, I cut to the more important matter at hand.

  ‘You said self-extinguishment,’ I say. ‘Is the Saint dying?’

  ‘Baron Roland, House Cadmus,’ says Vril, as though only now just confirming my identity. ‘The Binary Apostle is maintaining the brane shield, which is, as you are aware, keeping us alive, but the effort of doing so is destroying him.’

  ‘I have never heard of a brane shield,’ I say.

  ‘I should be surprised if you had,’ he says, holding up a hand to forestall any response at the implied insult to my intelligence. ‘It is incredibly ancient techno-arcana that relies on an understanding of M-theory. Do you possess such an understanding, Baron Roland?’

  ‘No, but I am a quick study.’

  Vril pauses, no doubt trying to think of how he can explain something complex to a man he believes to be mentally subnormal.

  ‘The central conceit is that our visible, four-dimensional universe is restricted to a brane, that is, a membrane, inside a higher dimensional space,’ he begins, and already I feel any hope of comprehension fall away. ‘A theoretically infinite number of dimensions of potentially infinite scale occupy other branes, which, in effect, means there can be an endless series of alternate realities, intersecting with our own in ways we cannot possibly imagine in any currently posited cosmological model.’

  The silence that follows his ‘explanation’ tells him all he needs to know of how much we have understood.

  ‘So a brane shield moves us out of the brane in which our known universe exists and into another,’ says Anthonis. ‘Now is that a pre-existing brane or a newly created one?’

  We turn to look at Anthonis and he shrugs.

  ‘I have a lot of time to read now,’ is his explanation, and I almost burst out laughing until I remember why he now has a lot of time to read.

  Adept Vril has the good grace to sound impressed when he says, ‘A simplistic way of interpreting a complex theory, but, in essence, correct. And in answer to your question, the field generator shifts us into the nearest unoccupied brane, one yet to develop its own internal universe. There we reside in splendid isolation. Nothing can interact with us, but nor can we interact with anything beyond the extent of the field until its deactivation returns us to our origin point.’

  ‘I can see why the Mechanicus want the Binary Apostle back,’ says Aktis Bardolf.

  ‘Indeed,’ says Vril.

  ‘How long will it take you to unhook the Manifold engine from this temple?’ I ask, returning to the matter at hand.

  The hesitation between my question and Vril’s answer is not what I hope to hear.

  ‘The Apostle has dwelled within this temple for millennia and will not easily be parted from it,’ says Vril. ‘Like all of us, the Apostle is mistrustful of change, as there is no guarantee what is left of the memory engrams will survive such a severance.’

  ‘Then we will cease distracting you, Magos Vril,’ I say. ‘Work as fast as you can, and inform me of when you are ready to move the Manifold engine. But a word to the wise, be quick if you want it to survive.’

  Our armour stands immobile in the circular courtyard towards the rear of the temple, like transhuman giants on a parade ground. Strange light diffracts over the curved plates, reflections that look like the underside of a frosted lake surface.

  After hearing Magos Vril describe how we are kept safe from the tyranids beyond the temple, it is all I can do to keep my eyes from drifting to the disturbing sky I now know is not part of the universe to which I belong.

  Workbenches dragged from the forge are arranged around the courtyard, and the warriors of both houses mingle and talk as we eat and drink.

  As it turns out, we are not the only ones to have taken refuge here.

  A nearby scholam has found sanctuary within the walls of the forge-temple. Perhaps a hundred progena and a few instructors, displaced from their training barracks, are also here. They sit on the other side of the courtyard, the youngsters staring in open-mouthed wonder at our armour.

  No sooner had we climbed from within than a leather-tough veteran introduced himself with a powerful handshake and brisk salute.

  ‘Raym Bartaum, Drill Abbot of Scholam Vikara, Sir Knight. Myself and our progena are at your disposal,’ he’d said, and I accepted his declaration with pride.

  Since then, Bartaum and his fellow drill abbots have been working their charges mercilessly with what few weapons they have left. That they will never survive to reach Vondrak Prime goes unsaid.

  Before me, I have a tin cup filled with electrolyte-rich water, a plate of what I am assured is a high-calorific meal of sweet nutrient bars and a soup laced with slow-release stimulants.

  I will need them all for the return leg of our journey.

  Aktis Bardolf sits across from me, looking tired and pale. He is a mirror for how I feel. My initial low opinion of Hawkshroud has been banished. I have seen Bardolf and his Knights in action, and know they can be relied upon.

  ‘Have you seen the Freeblade?’ asks Bardolf.

  ‘No,’ I reply. ‘Not since he guided us in. And how do you know he is a Freeblade?’

  ‘What else would he be?’

  I shrug. ‘The last of his house, or a lone survivor like one of your Oathsworn.’

  Bardolf shakes his head. ‘The heraldry of a rear
ing unicorn? It’s not one of the major houses, nor any one of the minor ones.’

  ‘Perhaps he belongs to a house unknown to you.’

  Bardolf snorts. ‘If I don’t know of a house, it’s because it doesn’t exist. Trust me, I know my houses.’

  From anyone else I would chalk such a comment up to boastful arrogance, but from the little I have learned of Aktis Bardolf, such a trait does not feature in his makeup.

  ‘So what house do you think he was?’

  ‘Impossible to know,’ says Bardolf. ‘That’s the whole point of a Freeblade, isn’t it? The mystery.’

  I hear the heavy clank of grinding metal I recognise as a damaged Knight. I turn from my food as the frost-blue and white form of the Freeblade limps into the courtyard. The progena halt their training until the drill abbots bellow at them to continue.

  The trailing banner of a rearing white horse with a fluted horn at its forehead hangs tattered from the Knight’s shoulder plates. The Freeblade’s armour is badly damaged. Corrosive burns have exposed much of its inner mechanisms, and a portion of its right leg has fused together, giving the armour a swaying gait and an arrhythmic foot pattern.

  The Knight stomps over the courtyard towards us.

  Freeblades are notoriously unpredictable. Honourable, yes, and still bound by the knightly virtues, but they follow a solitary path. Whatever has driven this Knight to walk the lonely road of the Freeblade, sundered from all ties of kith and kin, gives him a purpose that no one but he can know.

  I experience a momentary thrill at the sight of the power and majesty of a Knight as it towers over us. It is one thing to wear such a magnificent suit of armour, another to see it loom over you with its weapons armed.

  ‘I am Tellurus,’ says the Knight, an obviously artificially-generated voice emerging from a vox-grille concealed beneath his armour’s head-section. ‘Do I have the very great honour of addressing Baron Roland of House Cadmus and Viscount Bardolf of House Hawkshroud?’

  ‘You have,’ I say, looking over at Bardolf with an eyebrow raised.

  ‘What?’ he says to my wordless question. ‘I told you I wasn’t a lord.’

  I look back up at the frost-blue Knight and say, ‘Will you not address us face to face, Sir Tellurus? Even if you wish to remain connected to your armour, at least open the canopy that we might converse as men.’

  ‘I will not, Baron Roland,’ says the Freeblade.

  ‘A man could take issue with such behaviour.’

  ‘A man might well, but no insult is intended,’ replies Tellurus. ‘I have vowed to speak only when clad in armour.’

  I share a look with Bardolf. The few Freeblades I have met have all been individuals in the truest sense, each with their own quirks and foibles. Why should Tellurus be any different?

  ‘Very well,’ I say, willing to indulge Tellurus and his vanity. ‘What service might we render you, Sir Tellurus?’

  ‘How long have you been on Vondrak?’

  ‘House Cadmus is only recently arrived,’ I say.

  ‘House Hawkshroud has been in theatre for two months, give or take.’

  Tellurus turns his head to Bardolf, as though the time I have spent on Vondrak is an irrelevance.

  ‘Tell me, Viscount Bardolf, in your time fighting the spawn of Hive Fleet Hydra, have you borne witness to their greatest abomination, a tervigon brood mother with crimson and cerulean plates across its back and a skull of bleached ivory?’

  Tellurus raises his reaper blade, and I see that many of the serrated teeth are missing.

  ‘This monster would bear a great wound upon its flank. Deep enough to leave the metal of this blade in its exo-armour. Tell me, Sir Bardolf, have you seen the beast?’

  Bardolf looks over at me and I shake my head. ‘We have not seen it, Sir Tellurus. I take it this is a beast you have crossed paths with before?’

  ‘Once,’ says Tellurus. ‘When it murdered my family and destroyed my house.’

  Even though the Knight’s voice is generated by a machine, I hear a lifetime’s worth of pain.

  ‘You followed the beast to Vondrak?’ I ask.

  ‘I did,’ says Tellurus. ‘Reports of a Hydran tervigon that matched its description drew me to Vikara, but the beast is cunning and has thus far eluded me. Before I could follow rumours of fresh sightings, I was trapped in Magos Vril’s forge-temple.’

  I stand and gesture to the many gashes on his armour. ‘You have seen vicious fighting in your pursuit of the tervigon. Could none of Vril’s tech-priests minister to your armour?’

  ‘No!’ snaps Tellurus. ‘I have my own hand-chosen Sacristans, but they remain sequestered in Vondrak Prime. They and they alone are permitted to tend my armour.’

  Despite his tragic past, the Freeblade’s obstinacy is beginning to irritate me. I return to my seat.

  ‘We have not seen your beast,’ I say. ‘So is there anything further you require of us?’

  ‘Magos Vril has successfully coaxed the final engram of the Binary Apostle back into the Manifold engine,’ says Tellurus. ‘We abandon this temple within the hour.’

  ‘And you’re sure this is exactly how it happened?’ said Malcolm, pacing the echoing vault in which the Knights of House Cadmus were being repaired. ‘You can’t be wrong about this. Only absolute bloody certainty will do. You understand that, yes?’

  ‘Of course, Malcolm,’ replied Cassia, putting the book into her shoulder bag.

  The noise filling the repair hangar drowned out their voices. Only they could hear the words that passed between them over the beating of forge hammers, rivet guns and sparking arc-welders.

  ‘What did you tell Cordelia?’

  ‘Exactly what you said to tell her,’ said Cassia. ‘That I’d told that terrible adept you’d never turn on Roland.’

  ‘Good,’ said Malcolm with a feral grin of raw ambition.

  I do not pretend to comprehend the techno-sorcery of a brane shield, but to see it in action is to feel its working on a visceral level.

  Its outer limits are marked by the same undersea-haze, desert-mirage we saw from the outside, with one crucial difference. From the outside, we saw a static image of the forge-temple as it was at the instant of the shield’s activation. From the inside we see the tyranid host, but they are ghosts to us, moving among us as phantoms.

  The beasts are oblivious to us, as insubstantial as mist. They move among us like reflections on still water, separated by an infinitesimal skein of interdimensional membrane.

  My Knights and those of Hawkshroud stand before the forge-temple’s vast, smoke-belching stacks. As Magna Preceptor, I stand at the point of our spearhead formation, with Aktis Bardolf to my right, Freeblade Tellurus at my left.

  Our shadows leap and dance before us, thrown out by blazing spears of lightning rippling from every port in the temple as it counts down to extinction. Its regulatory systems are failing one after another. A Mechanicus forge-temple is basically a controlled reactor like those that hurl starships through the void. Only with constant rites of maintenance and continual calibration can they operate.

  By Vril’s order, that control has now been removed.

  Within the hour, the forge-temple will cease to exist.

  As will everything within two kilometres.

  Vril grieves the loss of his temple, but is practical enough to know that some of its data surviving is better than none.

  A Mechanicus-grade Capitol Imperialis belches fumes from its upper surfaces, its cavernous vaults packed with tech-priests, lexmechanics and calculus-logi. They carry the combined data burden of the temple’s memory-engines. Protecting a Capitol Imperialis is a burden we could do without, but it is the only vehicle with a reactor capable of powering the Manifold engine holding the Binary Apostle over the journey to Vondrak Prime.

  Atop the vehicle’s prow section sits a vast turre
t the size of a palace dome. Jutting from this turret is the enormous barrel of a macro cannon. Called by some a doomsday gun, it is a weapon capable of bringing down Titans with a single shell and punishing starships in low orbit.

  The refugees of Scholam Vikara are spread around the Capitol Imperialis in their rag-tag fleet of vehicles. Most of them are thin-skinned cargo conveyors, open-topped and vulnerable.

  Raym Bartaum, who it transpires has previous experience in tinkering with the engines of Imperial Guard super-heavies, has overcharged the engines, hoping to coax some extra speed. Magos Vril has turned a blind eye to his transgressions.

  No matter how fast they can go, most, if not all of them, will be destroyed before we reach the mountains.

  ‘Are we ready?’ I ask Bardolf and Tellurus.

  The Hawkshroud Knight crouches and rolls his shoulders.

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  The Freeblade raises his reaper blade and the teeth begin to spin around its killing edge. They turn slowly, as though fighting to build up speed.

  ‘I am ready,’ says Tellurus.

  Greasy smoke leaks from his reactor housing, streaking the rearing horse banner with a sheen of polychromatic oil burns. Hydraulic fluids leak from pulsing feed lines at his legs and shoulders. Were Tellurus a House Cadmus Knight, I would send him back to the Vault Transcendent, but he is a Freeblade and goes where he wills.

  He will die today, and I will not dishonour his courage by asking him to abandon his armour.

  ‘Magos Vril?’ I say. ‘Initiate the shutdown.’

  The panel before me hisses static, then Vril’s voice comes over the vox. Though he understands the necessity of what he has to do, it is still difficult for him.

  ‘Confirmation: initiating now.’

  On the opposite side of the forge-temple, an eclectic mix of bulbous refinery carts attached to simple engines and ore haulers are moving. Crewed by the temple’s servitors, a hundred or more of these vehicles are now rumbling out to the edge of the brane field.

  I know the instant the servitor convoy breaches the field. The apparitions of gaunts and larger beasts lift their heads as one, their screeching cries going unheard. Their motion reminds me of the behaviour of oceanic shoals, so precise and coordinated.