Galaxy in Flames (10 page)

He followed the bitter smell to the standard of the Seventh, Targost’s company. Had the lodge master flown the banner in some ritual ceremony of the warrior lodge?

No, the scent was too strong for it to be simply clinging to fabric. This was the aroma of burning incense. Loken pulled the banner of the Seventh away from the wall, and he was not surprised to find that, instead of the brushed steel of the strategium wall, there was the darkness of an opening cut into one of the many access passages that threaded the
Vengeful Spirit
.

Had this been here when the Mournival had gathered? He didn’t think so.

Look for the temple,
Sindermann had said, so Loken ducked beneath the banner and through the doorway, letting the banner fall into place behind him. The smell of incense was definitely here, and it had been burned recently, or was still burning.

Loken suddenly realized where he had smelled this aroma before and he gripped the hilt of his combat knife as he remembered the air of Davin, the scents that filled the yurts and seemed to linger in the air, even through rebreathers.

The passageway beyond was dark, but Loken’s augmented eyesight cut through the gloom to reveal a short passageway, recently constructed, that led to an arched doorway with curved sigils etched into the ironwork surrounding it. Although it was simply a door, Loken felt an unutterable dread of what lay beyond it and for a moment he almost considered turning back.

He shook off such a cowardly notion and made his way forwards, feeling his unease grow with every step he took. The door was closed, a stylised skull mounted at eyelevel and Loken felt uncomfortable even acknowledging that it was there let alone looking at it. Something of its brutal form whispered to the killer in him, telling him of the joy of spilling blood and the relish to be taken in slaughter.

Loken tore his eyes from the leering skull and drew his knife, fighting the urge to plunge it into the flesh of anyone waiting behind the door.

He pushed it open and stepped inside.

The space within was large, a maintenance chamber that had been had been cleared and refitted so as to resemble some underground stone chamber. Twin rows of stone benches faced the far wall, where meaningless symbols and words had been painted. Blank-eyed skulls hung from the ceiling, staring and grinning with bared teeth. They swayed gently as Loken passed them, thin tendrils of smoke rising from their eye sockets.

A low wooden table stood against the far wall. A shallow bowl carved into its surface contained flaky dark detritus that he could smell was dried blood. A thick book lay beside the depression.

Was this a temple? He remembered the bottles and glass flasks that had been scattered around the water fane beneath the Whisperheads.

This place and the fane on Sixty-Three Nineteen looked different, but
they felt
the same.

He heard a sudden rustle on the air, like whispers in his ear, and he spun around, his knife whipping out in front of him.

He was alone, yet the sense of someone whispering in his ear had been so real that he would have sworn on his life that another person had been standing right beside him. Loken took a breath and did a slow circuit of the room, his knife extended, on the defensive in case the mysterious whisperer revealed himself.

Bundles of torn material lay by the benches, and he made his way towards the table – the altar, he realized – upon which lay the book he had noticed earlier.

Its cover was leather, the surface cracked, old and blackened by fire.

Loken bent down to examine the book, flipping open the cover with the tip of his knife. The words written there were composed of an angular script, the letters written vertically on the page.

‘Erebus,’ he said as he recognized the script as identical to that tattooed upon the skull of the Word Bearer. Could this be the
Book of Lorgar
that Kyril Sindermann had been raving about following the fire in the archive chamber? The iterator had claimed that the book had unleashed some horror of the warp and that had been what caused the fire, but Loken saw only words.

How could words be dangerous?

Even as he formed the thought, he blinked, the words blurring on the page in front of him. The symbols twisted from the unknown language of the Word Bearers to the harsh numerical language of Cthonia, before spiraling into the elegant script of Imperial Gothic and a thousand other languages he had never seen before.

He blinked to ward off a sudden, impossible, sense of dizziness.

‘What are you doing here, Loken?’ a familiar voice asked in his ear.

Loken spun to face the voice, but once again he was alone. The temple was empty.

‘How dare you break the trust of the Warmaster?’ the voice asked, this time with a sense of weight behind it.

And this time he recognized the voice. He turned slowly and saw Torgaddon standing before the altar.

‘D
OWN
!’
YELLED
T
ARVITZ
as gunfire streaked above him, stitching monochrome explosions along the barren rock of Isstvan Extremis. ‘Squad Fulgerion, with me. All squads to position and wait for the go!’

Tarvitz ran, knowing that Sergeant Fulgerion’s squad would be on his heels as he made for the cover of the closest crater. A web of criss-crossing tracer fire streaked the air before the monitoring station the Isstvanians had set up on Isstvan Extremis, a tall, organ-like structure of towers, domes and antennae. Anchored on the barren rock surface by massive docking claws, the station was dusted in a powdery residue of ice crystals and particulate matter.

The Isstvan system’s sun was little more than a cold disc peeking above the horizon, lining everything in a harsh blue light. Automatic gun ports spat fire at the advancing Emperor’s Children, more than two hundred Astartes converging in a classic assault pattern to storm the massive blast doors of the station’s eastern entrance.

Isstvan Extremis had little atmosphere to speak of and was lethally cold; only the sealed armour of the Space Marines made a ground assault possible.

Tarvitz slid into the crater, turret fire ripping up chunks of grey rock around him. Sergeant Fulgerion and his warriors, shields held high to shelter them from the fire, hit the ground to either side of him. Veterans only truly at home in the thick of the hardest fighting, Fulgerion and his squad had fought together for years and Tarvitz knew that he had some of the Legion’s best warriors with him.

‘They were ready for us, then?’ asked Fulgerion.

‘They must have known that we would return to restore compliance,’ said Tarvitz. ‘Who knows how long they have been waiting for us to come back.’

Tarvitz glanced over the lip of the crater, spotting purple armoured forms fanning out in front of the gates to take up their allotted positions. That was how the Emperor’s Children fought, manoeuvring into position to execute perfectly co-ordinated strikes, squads moving across a battle zone like pieces on a chess board.

‘Captain Garro of the Death Guard reports that he is in position,’ said Eidolon’s voice over the vox-net. ‘Show them what war really is!’

The Death Guard had been assigned the task of taking the western approach to the station, and Tarvitz smiled as he imagined his old friend Garro marching his men grimly towards the guns, winning through relentless determination rather than any finesse of tactics. Each to their own, he thought as he drew his broadsword.

Such blunt tactics were not the way of the Emperor’s Children, for war was not simply about killing, it was art.

‘Tarvitz and Fulgerion in position,’ he reported. ‘All units ready.’

‘Execute!’ came the order.

‘You heard Lord Eidolon,’ he shouted. ‘Children of the Emperor!’

The warriors around him cheered as he and Fulgerion clambered over the crater lip and gunfire streaked overhead from the support squads. A perfect ballet began with every one of his units acting in complete concert, heavy weapons pounding the enemy guns as assault units moved in to attack and tactical units took up covering positions.

Splintering explosions burst in the sub-zero air, chunks of debris blasted from the surface of the entrance dome as turret guns detonated and threw chains of bursting ammunition into the air.

A missile streaked past Tarvitz and burst against the blast doors, leaving a flaming, blackened crater in the metal. Another missile followed the first, and then another, and the doors crumpled inwards. Tarvitz saw the golden armour of Eidolon flashing in the planet’s hard light, the lord commander hefting a mighty hammer with blue arcs of energy crackling around its head.

The hammer slammed into the remains of the doors, blue-white light bursting like a lightning strike as they vanished in a thunderous explosion. Eidolon charged inside the facility, the honour his by virtue of his noble rank.

Tarvitz followed Eidolon in, ducking through the wrecked blast doors.

Inside, the station was in darkness, lit only by the muzzle flashes of bolter fire and sparking cables torn from their mountings by the furious combat. Tarvitz’s enhanced vision dispelled the darkness, warm air billowing from the station through the ruptured doors and white vapour surged around him as he saw the enemy for the first time.

They wore black armour with bulky power packs and thick cables that attached to heavy rifles. The plates of their armour were traced with silver scrollwork, perhaps just for decoration, perhaps a pattern of circuitry.

Their faces were hooded, each with a single red lens over one eye. A hundred of them packed the dome, sheltering behind slabs of broken machinery and furniture. The armoured soldiers formed a solid defensive line, and no sooner had Eidolon and the Emperor’s Children emerged from the entrance tunnel than they opened fire.

Rapid firing bolts of ruby laser fire spat out from the Isstvanian troops, filling the dome with horizontal red rain. Tarvitz took a trio of shots, one to his chest, one to his greaves and another cracking against his helmet, filling his senses with a burst of static.

Fulgerion was ahead of him, wading through the las-fire that battered his shield. Eidolon surged forwards in the centre of the line and his hammer bludgeoned Isstvanians to death with each lethal swing. A body flew through the air, its torso a crushed ruin and its limbs shattered by the shock of the hammer’s impact. The weight of enemy fire faltered and the Emperor’s Children charged forward, overlapping fields of bolter fire shredding the Isstvanians’ cover as close combat specialists crashed through the gaps to kill with gory sweeps of chainswords.

Tarvitz’s bolt pistol snapped shots at the darting black figures catching one in the throat and spinning him around. Squad Fulgerion took up position at the remains of the barricade, their bolters filling the dome with covering gunfire for Eidolon and his chosen warriors.

Tarvitz killed the enemy with brutally efficient shots and sweeps of his broadsword, fighting like a warrior of Fulgrim should. His every strike was a faultless killing blow, and his every step was measured and perfect. Gunfire ricocheted from his gilded armour and the light of battle reflected from his helmet as if from a hero of ancient legend.

‘We have the entrance dome,’ shouted Eidolon as the last of the Isstvanians were efficiently despatched by the Astartes around him. ‘Death Guard units report heavy resistance inside. Blow the inner doors and we’ll finish this for them.’

Warriors with breaching charges rushed to destroy the inner doors, and even over the flames and shots, Tarvitz could hear muffled explosions from the other side. He lowered his sword and took a moment to survey his surroundings now that there was a lull in the fighting.

A dead body lay at his feet, the plates of the man’s black armour ruptured and a ragged tear ripped in the hood covering his face. Frozen blood lay scattered around him like precious stones and Tarvitz knelt to pull aside the torn cowl.

The man’s skin was covered in an elaborate swirling black tattoo, echoing the silver designs on his armour. A frozen eye looked up at him, hollow and darkened, and Tarvitz wondered what manner of being had the power to force this man to renounce his oaths of loyalty to the Imperium.

Tarvitz was spared thinking of an answer by the dull thump of the interior doors blowing open. He put the dead man from his mind and set off after Eidolon as he held his hammer high and charged into the central dome. He ran alongside his fellow warriors, knowing that whatever the Isstvanians could throw at him, he was an Astartes and no weapon they had could match the will of the Emperor’s Children.

Tarvitz and his men moved through the dust and smoke of the door’s explosion, the autosenses of his armour momentarily useless.

Then they were through and into the heart of the Isstvan Extremis facility.

He pulled up short as he suddenly realized that the intelligence they had been given on this facility was utterly wrong.

This was not a comms station, it was a temple.

T
ORGADDON
’
S FACE WAS
ashen and leathery, puckered and scarred around a burning yellow eye. Sharpened metallic teeth glinted in a lipless mouth and twin gashes were torn in the centre of his face.

A star with eight points was gouged in his temple, mirroring its golden twin etched upon his ornate, black armour.

‘No,’ said Loken, backing away from this terrible apparition.

‘You have trespassed, Loken,’ hissed Torgaddon. ‘You have betrayed.’

A dry, deathly wind carried Torgaddon’s words, gusting over him with the smell of burning bodies. As he breathed the noxious wind, a vision of broken steppes spread out before Loken, expanses of desolation and plains of rusted machinery like skeletons of extinct monsters. A hive city on the distant horizon split open like a flower, and from its broken, burning petals rose a mighty tower of brass that punctured the pollution-heavy clouds.

The sky above was burning and the laughter of Dark Gods boomed from the heavens. Loken wanted to scream, this vision of devastation worse than anything he had seen before.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. He did not believe in ghosts and illusions.