Angel Exterminatus
Lucius backed away from Vairosean as the warrior unslung his poleaxe, its long haft enveloped in flickering blue light and its body thrumming with power. Vairosean slammed his hand down upon it, and a blazing whipcrack of lightning-wreathed noise pounded the air with ferocious disharmony. The facade of the tomb split open and a bomb-blast shockwave punched a ten-metre-wide crater in the road.
Awareness of the gemstones’ bounty spread through the Emperor’s Children like an infection. And what had begun as a ragged but relentless advance devolved into a raging free-for-all as every statue within reach was torn down and smashed apart in an orgy of destruction.
Barban Falk’s Iron Warriors pressed on, leaving the Emperor’s Children behind.
Nykona Sharrowkyn watched the riot spread to encompass the entire Emperor’s Children component of the traitor advance on this axis. Statues were smashed apart and the stones within them crushed underfoot, swallowed whole or placed within freshly cut, self-inflicted wounds. The screams were orgiastic, their actions inexplicable.
‘What new lunacy is this?’ wondered Sabik Wayland, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘Ever since Isstvan and the attack on the Sisypheum I’ve given up trying to rationalise the motivations of traitors,’ answered Sharrowkyn.
‘What happened to “know your enemy”?’
‘I’m coming to understand that’s not always sound advice,’ said Sharrowkyn slowly. ‘To know the Emperor’s Children would be to invite a terrible madness into your soul.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me on that,’ agreed Wayland as Sharrowkyn leaned out over the parapet of the strangely glowing sepulchre upon which they perched. Wayland had climbed hand over hand to reach this place, where Sharrowkyn had used his heavily modified jump pack. Its cross-section was less than half that of an Assault Marine’s standard equipment, and its emissions were almost invisible unless you were looking right at it.
Two hundred metres below them, the Emperor’s Children clawed and tore at each other as they fought for possession of the warmly glowing stones within each of the crystal statues. Sharrowkyn had no idea what inherent quality they possessed that had triggered such destructive behaviour, but even he felt the terrible sadness that accompanied each one’s destruction.
The Iron Warriors ignored the antics of their brethren, advancing deeper into the city. Sharrowkyn didn’t blame them. Better to have no allies than ones you couldn’t count on.
At least Sharrowkyn could count on the Iron Hands. He had fought beside a great many of his brother legionaries, but he held none in such esteem as the fatherless sons of Ferrus. A hundred and forty-six warriors of the X Legion were concealed in the shadows around the citadel’s central mausoleum-temple, the obvious focus of the traitors. Their deployment, advance and formation only confirmed that they were heading straight for the battered warriors of Ulrach Branthan.
Sharrowkyn had known where the Iron Warriors would make their ingress, and brought the Iron Hands in on the opposite trajectory once the dust had settled from the bombardment. Cadmus Tyro led the incursion force, with the veterans of Vermana Cybus spread through the Iron Hands like structural pins in a weakened facade. Cybus had more or less recovered from his encounter with Perturabo. The crushed mechanised portions of his anatomy had been replaced with fresh augmetics cannibalised from the Sisypheum and those organic parts that couldn’t be fully restored were coated with synth-skin and implanted plasteks.
Yet more of his humanity sacrificed in the fight against the Warmaster.
The Sisypheum remained in low orbit; as close as the heavily damaged ship dared. Her encounter with the Andronicus had left her broken and torn, but like the Legion she served, the Sisypheum would endure. She was pulled in tight to the planet, skimming the zones of interference between atmospheric layers to avoid detection. She was close, but still far too distant if they were detected. Only Frater Thamatica and Atesh Tarsa remained aboard, one as a punishment, the other as a guardian. The Stormbirds and Thunderhawks that had brought them to the surface sat atop sepulchres deeper into the city, clustered on rooftops like raptors waiting patiently in their eyries.
It was beyond foolish to be here.
Yes, Raven Guard squads were frequently outnumbered when they operated behind enemy lines, but this was ridiculous. Tens of thousands of Iron Warriors and Emperor’s Children were drawing near a group of warriors who couldn’t hope to fight them off. Odds of a thousand to one and beyond were the stuff of legend, but most of them were precisely that. Legend. All very well to toast such ancient victories until you had to face those odds yourself.
Sharrowkyn’s vox crackled and the brusque tones of Vermana Cybus filled his helmet.
‘What do you see?’ asked the commander of the X Legion’s Morlocks.
‘One column of Emperor’s Children is slowing down, but the Iron Warriors are pressing on,’ he said. ‘Multiple company strengths of armour, minimum of fifteen thousand warriors and supporting artillery. And two Reaver battle engines.’
To Cybus’s credit, the vast array of enemy power advancing on his position didn’t appear to faze him.
‘How long until they reach the sepulchre?’ he demanded.
‘No more than ten minutes.’
‘Right, we’ll be waiting,’ said Cybus. ‘Get back here now.’
The vox spat static and went silent.
Wayland had heard the exchange and felt Sharrowkyn’s aversion to Cybus. ‘A hard man to like, but a good one to follow.’
Sharrowkyn shook his head. ‘He’s forgotten that he is a leader of men. He takes your Legion’s reverence for iron and makes a virtue of flesh-hate.’
‘You misunderstand us,’ said Wayland. ‘My brothers and I, we do not hate flesh, we just know that it cannot be relied upon like iron.’
‘Too subtle a distinction for me,’ said Sharrowkyn.
‘I highly doubt that.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Sharrowkyn. ‘You know as well as I that warriors need to feel they’re following a being of flesh and blood, someone who understands and shares the risks they’re being asked to take.’
‘Deliverance?’
Sharrowkyn nodded. ‘The lessons learned during the uprising are still fresh, and any Raven Guard commander who forgets them will soon find he has no army left to lead.’
‘Perhaps you are right, but this is not the time to speak of it,’ said Wayland. ‘They are on the move again.’
Sharrowkyn followed Wayland’s gaze and saw that his comrade was right. Whatever madness had seized the Emperor’s Children had abated, and a measure of order had been restored. Among the traitors, Sharrowkyn recognised a whip-wielding warrior, the consummate swordsman he had faced aboard the Sisypheum.
He felt an unseemly thrill of recognition, reliving their duel on the embarkation deck in a heartbeat. Sharrowkyn had never faced an opponent like him and he could not have predicted the outcome had their dance of blades not been interrupted.
‘What is it?’ asked Wayland.
‘A familiar face,’ said Sharrowkyn. ‘Someone I want to kill.’
TWENTY
Isha’s Doom
This World is Alive
I Know Labyrinths
Kroeger’s column of rumbling vehicles, marching infantry and mobile artillery – with their barrels raised to the heavens – reached the heart of the citadel first. Moving unopposed, there was little need for caution, for Kroeger felt emptiness like a physical absence in his gut. Only by an exercise of his will was he able to quell the urge to charge at speed for their objective.
The advance through the citadel had grated at his nerves. The rasping, unfocused hostility he felt from every lambent green wall was like a weapon aimed at his head. His body was flooded with combat stimms and he flexed his fingers on the grip of his chainsword. He wanted to kill something, anything, just to feel the release of the tension that had been building in him ever since they had landed on this world.
The column spread out a
s it emerged from the wide plaza-street, moving smoothly into a staggered line. Despite his avowed distrust of Harkor, the warriors of his former Grand Battalion were well trained and highly disciplined.
And if there was one place capable of sealing in the remains of a doomed god, the building at the heart of Amon ny-shak Kaelis was it. The Sepulchre of Isha’s Doom was a monumental palace, sprawling and richly ornamented with bulbous mourn-towers and sweeping, ivory-roofed domes. Its facades were awash with curling arches and lofty processionals that were at once airy and crafted as if spun from moonbeams, and yet possessed of a strength that belied their gossamer fragility. The entire structure was like a great sculpture of ice and glass, like a natural accretion of organic crystal that had grown in some dark cave and which, once exposed to the light, had furiously accelerated its growth in new and unexpected ways. It was a wholly natural-looking formation, but the subtlety of its precise ratios was impossible to miss; organic and artificial at the same time.
The enormous structure was all contradiction – fortified and open, geometric and yet seemingly unfettered by the constraints of an architect. Thousands of the same crystalline statues that lined every roadway stood immobile in glittering alcoves and atop ranked plinths along the curving walkways that led up to a tall opening in its frontage, a narrow portal flanked by two enormous replicas of the smaller sentinels. They were easily the equal in size – if not stature – of the Mortis engines; Kroeger had seen similar war machines wreak havoc on the battlefield.
But these representations were unmoving and glassy, fragile and easily broken.
The undersea light that permeated the entire citadel was strongest here, the walls of the Sepulchre of Isha’s Doom radiant with their own inner illumination. The smooth stone of the ground was veined with that same glow, capillaries of energy and a network of living light. Kroeger’s footfalls left lightless bruises on the ground and he felt as though he were walking on the surface of some planet-wide neural network.
A Rhino forested with vox-aerials ground to a halt next to him, black worms of unlight spreading from the pressing weight of its bulk. Kroeger felt Harkor’s presence before his lieutenant spoke.
‘Something you should hear,’ said Harkor, a vox headset pressed to his ear.
‘What is it?’ snapped Kroeger; angry, but unable to say why.
Harkor held out the headset and said, ‘Listen.’
Kroeger removed his helmet and climbed onto the running board of the vehicle. He snatched the headset and mashed it to the side of his head. He heard nothing beyond a mournful howl of static, rising and falling like a desert wind at night.
‘What am I supposed to be hearing?’ he asked.
‘Keep listening,’ urged Harkor.
Kroeger kept the headset pressed to the side of his face as the lead elements of Perturabo’s column emerged from the wide streets a kilometre and a half to the east. Streaming honour banners were just visible over the roofs of the intervening structures, and the honking bellows of the two Titans echoed dully through the open plaza. Kroeger’s gaze strayed farther east, but there was no sign of Falk’s column yet.
‘I’m not hearing anything apart from static,’ he said.
‘Listen harder.’
Kroeger glared at Harkor, wondering how much trouble it would cause were he to kill the former warsmith right now. He dismissed the idea as he heard snatches of what sounded like Imperial Gothic mired in the static. Nothing certain and nothing he could fully understand, but there was something there.
‘What is it?’
‘Encrypted vox traffic,’ said Harkor. ‘Tenth Legion comms.’
Harkor watched as Kroeger’s commandeered Rhino raced off to rejoin Perturabo’s blade of the Trident thrust at the citadel’s vitals. He found it impossible to keep the sneer from his lips at the thought that he had been displaced from command by a common thug like Kroeger. The man had no nobility to him and possessed little in the way of culture. Harkor had done his research and knew that Kroeger had no blood worth a damn in his lineage. He was peasant-born, a ragamuffin child with a fortuitous confluence of genes and a barely acceptable level of genetic variance that only just kept him from being rejected by the Legion’s fleshsmiths.
To have such a low-born fool in command of a Grand Battalion was an insult to the honour of the Legion. The thought made him shiver in disgust, and he keyed the vox to the previously agreed-upon frequency, one at the very edge of usability.
‘You were right,’ he said, not identifying himself and knowing that only one person would be listening on the other end. ‘His anger is growing beyond his control.’
A swoop and sway of static followed, with clicks and burps of encryption.
‘You told him of the Tenth Legion vox traffic?’ said a voice heavy with distortion.
‘I did,’ said Harkor. ‘And it was all he could do not to charge the sepulchre all by himself with his sword waving.’
‘He is low-born,’ said the voice. ‘You can expect little else from those not of noble lineage.’
‘It galls me that Perturabo cannot see it.’
‘The Lord of Iron is wise in many things, but he was wrong to remove you from leadership,’ said the voice. ‘Having mongrels like Kroeger in command is the thin end of the wedge. It is indicative of a slide into mediocrity that will lead to polluted bloodlines being raised to the fighting ranks.’
‘Over my dead body,’ spat Harkor.
‘We are the noble blood of Olympia,’ said the voice. ‘We have that uniting factor, and blood will prove true in the end.’
‘But we can hasten that end, yes?’
‘Indeed we can,’ said the voice. ‘And not just for Kroeger. Forrix can trace his blood to one of the Twelve, but he will never support your reinstatement.’
‘Then he has to die too,’ said Harkor.
‘I am master of the Stor-bezashk,’ said Toramino. ‘I can make that happen.’
Perturabo didn’t need the flickering data streams cascading down the side of his visor display to know that they had reached their destination. The Sepulchre of Isha’s Doom was an edifice like no other he had seen or imagined. The proportions were effortlessly harmonious, its structural elements innately perfect in a way that no amount of training or study could replicate. There could be no other temple raised that would do justice to the final resting place of a god.
Except there likely was no god, he reminded himself.
‘Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?’ said Fulgrim, approaching with his Phoenix Guard and the cringing form of Karuchi Vohra. ‘Beyond anything you or I might design and commit to the earth.’
Perturabo bristled at the thinly veiled insult, and only bit back a bitter response because he knew Fulgrim was correct. Just looking at the spun sugar of its web-like flying buttresses and coiling walkways, he knew he could never have designed anything like it. Yet that did not lessen the sting of Fulgrim’s words or the apparent pleasure his brother took in voicing them.
‘No, perhaps not,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s what’s within that interests me more.’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Fulgrim, staring with undisguised hunger at the wondrous tomb-palace. ‘It gladdens my soul to finally see the object of our quest.’
Perturabo looked past his brother to Karuchi Vohra. The eldar guide seemed even more apprehensive now that they had finally reached their goal, as though just being here was making him ill. He had the sickly pallor of withdrawal and body-wide shivers.
‘Your guide doesn’t appear to think so,’ he said. ‘Why is that, Vohra?’
The eldar swallowed heavily and looked up at Perturabo through eyes the colour of bloodstained milk, ‘Would you be happy to visit a mass grave? Does being in the presence of the dead make you smile?’
Vohra’s tone was insubordinate, verging on hostile, and Perturabo thought of killing the eldar right now.
‘This is no grave,’ he said. ‘This is a city built to the memory of the dead, nothing more.’
‘Be kind to the creature,’ said Fulgrim, though even he was openly sceptical of the eldar’s explanation. ‘We are here and that is in no small measure down to my allowing him to live.’
‘So we’re here, now what?’ asked Perturabo.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Fulgrim. ‘We go in.’
To a warrior raised on a volcanic world of molten rivers and sulphurous skies, cold was normally something Atesh Tarsa felt keenly, but he no longer felt the chill of the apothecarion. Though he had stripped down to his thin bodyglove to avoid any possible secondary heating of Ulrach Branthan’s casket from the power plant of his warplate, the discomfort of the low temperatures was more than offset by the stasis-sealed mystery before him.
Frater Thamatica had run diagnostic checks on all the machines keeping Branthan alive and had found no flaws, no unexpected quirks in their construction and nothing that could adequately explain how a bolter wound had miraculously vanished from a warrior kept entirely in a time out of time.
Miraculous…
A word so casually deployed, but one that silences inquisition. Calling something a miracle denied enquiry by attributing an ineffability to its occurrence. The credo of the apothecarion was that there were no such things as miracles, only events. Only when the explanation of an event was more incredible than the event itself could such a thing be counted as miraculous.
Right now, Tarsa was inclined to believe in miracles.
He had examined the wound as best he could through the inviolable bubble surrounding Branthan, and there could be no doubt that the wound had almost entirely vanished. Not completely, for there was a pinkish cast to the skin, indicative of scarring and healing.