Horus Rising (31 page)

‘So the Mournival does the rebuking for him?’

‘Just so,’ Aximand had smiled. ‘The Luna Wolves are feared anyway, so let them fear us. Let them hate us. We’ll be the mouthpiece of discontent and rancour. All accusations must come from us. Play the part, speak as bluntly and critically as you like. Make them squirm in discomfort. They’ll get the message, but at the same time, the Warmaster will be seen as a benign conciliator.’

‘We’re his war dogs?’

‘So he doesn’t have to growl himself. Exactly. He wants us to give them hell, a dressing down they’ll remember and learn from. That allows him to seem the peacemaker. To remain beloved, adored, a voice of reason and calm. By the end, if we do things properly, they’ll all feel suitably admonished, and simultaneously they’ll all love the Warmaster for showing mercy and calling us off. Everyone thinks the Warmaster’s keenest talent is as a warrior. No one expects him to be a consummate politician. Watch him and learn, Garvi. Learn why the Emperor chose him as his proxy.’

‘Well played indeed,’ Horus said to the Mournival with a smile. ‘Garviel, that last comment was deliriously barbed. Eshkerrus was quite incandescent.’

Loken nodded. ‘From the moment I laid eyes on him, he struck me as man eager to cover his arse. He knew mistakes had been made.’

‘Yes, he did,’ Horus said. ‘Just don’t expect to find many friends amongst the Emperor’s Children for a while. They are a proud bunch.’

Loken shrugged. ‘I have all the friends I need, sir,’ he said.

‘August, Eshkerrus and a dozen others may, of course, be formally cautioned and charged with incompetence once this is done,’ Horus said lightly, ‘but only once this is done. Now, morale is crucial. Now we have a war to design.’

I
T WAS ABOUT
half an hour later when August summoned them to the bridge. A sudden and unexpected hole had appeared in the shield-storms of One Forty Twenty, an abrupt break in the fury, and quite close to the supposed landing vectors of the Emperor’s Children.

‘At last,’ said August, ‘a gap in that storm.’

‘Would that I had Astartes to drop into it,’ Eshkerrus muttered to himself.

‘But you don’t, do you?’ Aximand remarked snidely. Eshkerrus glowered at Little Horus.

‘Let’s go in,’ Torgaddon urged the Warmaster. ‘Another hole might be a long time coming.’

‘The storm might close in again,’ Horus said, pointing to the radiating cyclonics on the lith.

‘You want this world, don’t you?’ said Torgaddon. ‘Let me take the speartip down.’ The lots had already been drawn. The speartip was to be Torgaddon’s company, along with the companies of Sedirae, Moy and Targost.

‘Orbital bombardment,’ Horus said, repeating what had already been decided as the best course of action.

‘Men might yet live,’ Torgaddon said.

The Warmaster stepped aside, and spoke quietly, in Cthonic, to the Mournival.

‘If I authorise this, I echo August and Eidolon, and I’ve just had you take them to task for that very brand of rash mistake.’

‘This is different,’ Torgaddon replied. ‘They went in blind, wave after wave. I’d not advocate duplicating that stupidity, but that break in the weather… it’s the first they’ve detected in months.’

‘If there are brothers still alive down there,’ Little Horus said, ‘they deserve one last chance to be found.’

‘I’ll go in,’ said Torgaddon. ‘See what I can find. Any sign that the weather is changing, I’ll pull the speartip straight back out and we can open up the fleet batteries.’

‘I still wonder about the music,’ the Warmaster said. ‘Anything on that?’

‘The translators are still working,’ Abaddon replied.

Horus looked at Torgaddon. ‘I admire your compassion, Tarik, but the answer is a firm no. I’m not going to repeat the errors that have already been made and pour men into—’

‘Lord?’ August had come over to them again, and held out a data-slate.

Horus took it and read it.

‘Is this confirmed?’

‘Yes, Warmaster.’

Horus regarded the Mournival.. ‘The Master of Vox has detected trace vox traffic on the surface, in the area of the storm break. It does not respond or recognise our signals, but it is active. Imperial. It looks like squad to squad, or brother to brother transmissions.’

‘There are men still alive,’ said Abaddon. He seemed genuinely relieved. ‘Great Terra and the Emperor! There are men still alive down there.’

Torgaddon stared at the Warmaster steadily and said nothing. He’d already said it.

‘Very well,’ said Horus to Torgaddon. ‘Go.’

T
HE DROP
-
PODS WERE
arranged down the length of the
Vengeful Spirit
’s fifth embarkation deck in their launch racks, and the warriors of the speartip were locking themselves into place. Lid doors, like armoured petals, were closing around them, so the drop-pods resembled toughened, black seed cases ready for autumn. Klaxons sounded, and the firing coils of the launchers were beginning to charge. They made a harsh, rising whine and a stink of ozone smouldered like incense in the deck air.

The Warmaster stood at the side of the vast deck space, watching the hurried preparations, his arms folded across his chest.

‘Climate update?’ he snapped.

‘No change in the weather break, my lord,’ Maloghurst replied, consulting his slate.

‘How long’s it been now?’ Horus asked.

‘Eighty-nine minutes.’

‘They’ve done a good job pulling this together in such a short time,’ Horus said. ‘Ezekyle, commend the unit officers, please. Make it known I’m proud of them.’

Abaddon nodded. He held the papers of four oaths of moment in his armoured hands. ‘Aximand?’ he suggested.

Little Horus stepped forwards.

‘Ezekyle?’ Loken said. ‘Could I?’

‘You want to?’

‘Luc and Serghar heard and witnessed mine before the Whisperheads. And Tarik is my friend.’

Abaddon looked sidelong at the Warmaster, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. Abaddon handed the parchments to Loken.

Loken strode out across the deck, Aximand at his side, and heard the four captains take their oaths. Little Horus held out the bolter on which the oaths were sworn.

When it was done, Loken handed the oath papers to each of them.

‘Be well,’ he said to them, ‘and commend your unit commanders. The Warmaster personally admired their work today.’

Verulam Moy made the sign of the aquila. ‘My thanks, Captain Loken,’ he said, and walked away towards his pod, shouting for his unit seconds.

Serghar Targost smiled at Loken, and clasped his fist, thumb around thumb. By his side, Luc Sedirae grinned with his ever half-open mouth, his eyes a murderous blue, eager for war.

‘If I don’t see you next on this deck…’ Sedirae began.

‘…let it be at the Emperor’s side,’ Loken finished.

Sedirae laughed and ran, whooping, towards his pod. Targost locked on his helm and strode away in the opposite direction.

‘Luc’s blood is up,’ Loken said to Torgaddon. ‘How’s yours?’

‘My humours are all where they should be,’ Torgaddon replied. He hugged Loken, with a clatter of plate, and then did the same to Aximand.

‘Lupercal!’ he bellowed, punching the air with his fist, and turned away, running to his waiting drop-pod.

‘Lupercal!’ Loken and Aximand shouted after him.

The pair turned and walked back to join Abaddon, Maloghurst and the Warmaster.

‘I’m always a little jealous,’ Little Horus muttered to Loken as they crossed the deck.

‘Me too.’

‘I always want it to be me.’

‘I know.’

‘Going into something like that.’

‘I know. And I’m always just a little afraid.’

‘Of what, Garviel?’

‘That we won’t see them again.’

‘We will.’

‘How can you be so sure, Horus?’ Loken wondered.

‘I can’t say,’ replied Aximand, with a deliberate irony that made Loken laugh.

The observing party withdrew behind the blast shields. A sudden, volatile pressure change announced the opening of the deck’s void fields. The firing coils accelerated to maximum charge, shrieking with pent up energy.

‘The word is given,’ Abaddon instructed above the uproar.

One by one, each with a concussive bang, the drop-pods fired down through the deck slots like bullets. It was like the ripple of a full broadside firing. The embarkation deck shuddered as the drop-pods ejected free.

Then they were all gone, and the deck was suddenly quiet, and tiny armoured pellets, cocooned in teardrops of blue fire, sank away towards the planet’s surface.

I
CAN
’
T SAY
.

The phrase had haunted Loken since the sixth week of the voyage to Murder. Since he had gone with Little Horus to the lodge meeting.

The meeting place had been one of the aft holds of the flagship, a lonely, forgotten pocket of the ship’s superstructure. Down in the dark, the way had been lit by tapers.

Loken had come in simple robes, as Aximand had instructed him. They’d met on the fourth midships deck, and taken the rail carriage back to the aft quarters before descending via dark service stairwells.

‘Relax,’ Aximand kept telling him.

Loken couldn’t. He’d never liked the idea of the lodges, and the discovery that Jubal had been a member had increased his disquiet.

‘This isn’t what you think it is,’ Aximand had said.

And what did he think it was? A forbidden conclave. A cult of the
Lectio Divinitatus
. Or worse. A terrible assembly. A worm in the bud. A cancer at the heart of the Legion.

As he walked down the dim, metal deckways, part of him hoped that what awaited him would be infernal. A coven. Proof that Jubal had already been tainted by some manufacture of the warp before the Whisperheads. Proof that would reveal a source of evil to Loken that he could finally strike back at in open retribution, but the greater part of him willed it to be otherwise. Little Horus Aximand was party to this meeting. If it was tainted, then Aximand’s presence meant that taint ran profoundly deep. Loken didn’t want to have to go head to head with Aximand. If what he feared was true, then in the next few minutes he might have to fight and kill his Mournival brother.

‘Who approaches?’ asked a voice from the darkness. Loken saw a figure, evidently an Astartes by his build, shrouded in a hooded cloak.

‘Two souls,’ Aximand replied.

‘What are your names?’ the figure asked.

‘I can’t say.’

‘Pass, friends.’

They entered the aft hold. Loken hesitated. The vast, scaffold-framed area was eerily lit by candles and a vigorous fire in a metal canister. Dozens of hooded figures stood around. The dancing light made weird shadows of the deep hold’s structural architecture.

‘A new friend comes,’ Aximand announced.

The hooded figures turned. ‘Let him show the sign,’ said one of them in a voice that seemed familiar.

‘Show it,’ Aximand whispered to Loken.

Loken slowly held out the medal Aximand had given him. It glinted in the fire light. Inside his robe, his other hand clasped the grip of the combat knife he had concealed.

‘Let him be revealed,’ a voice said.

Aximand reached over and drew Loken’s hood down.

‘Welcome, brother warrior,’ the others said as one.

Aximand pulled down his own hood. ‘I speak for him,’ he said.

‘Your voice is noted. Is he come of his own free will?’

‘He is come because I invited him.’

‘No more secrecy,’ the voice said.

The figures removed their hoods and showed their faces in the glow of the candles. Loken blinked.

There was Torgaddon, Luc Sedirae, Nero Vipus, Kalus Ekaddon, Verulam Moy and two dozen other senior and junior Astartes.

And Serghar Targost, the hidden voice. Evidently the lodge master.

‘You’ll not need the blade,’ Targost said gently, stepping forwards and holding out his hand for it. ‘You are free to leave at any time, unmolested. May I take it from you? Weapons are not permitted within the bounds of our meetings.’

Loken took out the combat knife and passed it to Targost. The lodge master placed it on a wall strut, out of the way.

Loken continued to look from one face to another. This wasn’t like anything he had expected.

‘Tarik?’

‘We’ll answer any question, Garviel,’ Torgaddon said. ‘That’s why we brought you here.’

‘We’d like you to join us,’ said Aximand, ‘but if you choose not to, we will respect that too. All we ask, either way, is that you say nothing about what and who you see here to anyone outside.’

Loken hesitated. ‘Or…’

‘It’s not a threat,’ said Aximand. ‘Nor even a condition. Simply a request that you respect our privacy.’

‘We’ve known for a long time,’ Targost said, ‘that you have no interest in the warrior lodge.’

‘I’d perhaps have put it more strongly than that,’ said Loken.

Targost shrugged. ‘We understand the nature of your opposition. You’re far from being the only Astartes to feel that way. That is why we’ve never made any attempt to induct you.’

‘What’s changed?’ asked Loken.

‘You have,’ said Aximand. ‘You’re not just a company officer now, but a Mournival lord. And the fact of the lodge has come to your attention.’

‘Jubal’s medal…’ said Loken.

‘Jubal’s medal,’ nodded Aximand. ‘Jubal’s death was a terrible thing, which we all mourn, but it affected you more than anyone. We see how you strive to make amends, to whip your company into tighter and finer form, as you blame yourself. When the medal turned up, we were concerned that you might start to make waves. That you might start asking open questions about the lodge.’

‘So this is self-interest?’ Loken asked. ‘You thought you’d gang up on me and force me into silence?’

‘Garviel,’ said Luc Sedirae, ‘the last thing the Luna Wolves need is an honest and respected captain, a member of the Mournival no less, campaigning to expose the lodge. It would damage the entire Legion.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course,’ said Sedirae. ‘The agitations of a man like you would force the Warmaster to act.’

‘And he doesn’t want to do that,’ Torgaddon said.

‘He… knows?’ Loken asked.