The Flight of the Eisenstein (35 page)

'I cannot hear this without answer! If this is true, then tell me how the Warmaster allowed Death Guard and Emperor's Children alike to make these plays for power under his very nose? The unsanctioned virus bombardment of an entire world? The execution of civilians? How did he become so blind overnight, Garro?'

'He was not blind,' Garro said grimly. 'Horus sees only too well.' He looked the primarch in the eye. 'Lord, your brother is not ignorant of this duplicity. He is the author of it, and his hands are stained with the blood of men from his own Legion, from mine and from those of the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children as well-'

Dorn moved so quickly that Qruze flinched, but the Master of the Imperial Fists was not coming for him. There was a crack of sound and Garro fell away, skidding back across the bright blue marble of the sanctorum's flooring. Qruze saw Garro hover on the edge of unconsciousness, a livid bruise forming on his face. With care, the Death Guard blinked back to wakefulness and worked at resetting his jawbone.

'For even daring to think of such a thing in my presence, I should have you flogged and then vented to the void,' growled the primarch, every word a razor. 'I will not hear any more of this fantasy'

'You must,' Qruze blurted, taking a half-step forward. He ignored the ratcheting of slides on the bolters of Sigismund's men. 'You must hear him out!'

'You dare to give me an order?' Dorn faced the old warrior. 'A relic who should have been retired centuries ago, you dare to do so?'

Iacton saw his opening and took it. 'I do, and furthermore I know that you will. If you truly thought that Garro's words had no value then you would have killed him where he stood.' He moved to help Garro to his feet. 'Even in your moment of anger, you pulled a blow that could have broken his neck... because you want to hear everything. That is what you asked for, isn't it? The complete truth.'

For an instant, Qruze saw a flash of titanic rage in the primarch's gaze, and felt his blood run cold. That's it, you old fool, he told himself, that was a word too far. He's going to kill us both for our boldness.

Then Dorn gestured to Sigismund and his Astartes lowered their guns. 'Speak,' he told Garro. 'Tell me it all.'

Garro fought down the giddiness and pain. Dorn was
so fast, even
in that tonnage of armour, he was lightning. Had he intended real harm against him, Garro knew that he would never have seen it coming. With care, he swallowed and took a painful breath. 'After the bombing, I knew that I had no other choice but to do as Saul Tarvitz and I had discussed, and take a warning to Terra. With Grulgor dead, I ordered my men to secure the
Eisenstein.
In the interim, Captain Qruze had come aboard with the civilians.'

The remembrancers and the iterator,' said the primarch. They had been aboard Horus's flagship.'

'Aye, lord,' added the Luna Wolf. 'My battle-brother, Garviel Loken, entrusted their safety to me. The girl Keeler, she...' He paused, marshalling his thoughts. 'She suggested that Captain Garro could help us.'

'Loken,' said Sigismund. 'My lord, I know him. We met aboard the
Vengeful Spirit!

Dorn glanced aside. 'What was your measure of him, first captain?'

'A Cthonian, and all that entails, with a strong spirit if a little naive. He seemed trustworthy, a man of principles.'

The primarch absorbed this. 'Continue, Garro.'

Nathaniel ignored the tension in his jaw and relayed the details of the signal sent to Typhon and the
Eisenstein's
pursuit by the
Terminus Est,
then the catastrophic voyage through the warp. There was a moment when one of Sigismund's men made a derisive noise under his breath as Garro described the freakish revivification of Grulgor's dead men, but Dorn silenced that with a hard look.

'There are stranger powers that lurk within the immaterium than we may know,' the warlord said darkly, 'but what you say tests reason even with that qualification. These things you speak of come dangerously close to primitive ideals of sorcery and magic'

The Death Guard nodded. 'I do not deny it, Lord Dorn, but you asked me to give you the truth as I saw it, and this is what I saw. Something in the warp brought Grulgor back to life, it animated his contaminated flesh through the very disease that had claimed him. Do not ask me for an explanation, sir, as I have none.'

'This is what you come to me with?' The primarch's slow anger filled the room like smoke, heavy and dark. 'A convoluted story of treachery and conspiracy among the Emperor's sons, a collection of ill-informed opinions and rash actions made with base emotion and not cold clarity?' He advanced slowly on Garro, and it took all of Nathaniel's courage not to back away. 'If I were to have my brothers in this room right now, Mortarion, Fulgrim, Angron, Horns... what would they say of your tale? Do you think that you would even be able to draw a breath before you were struck down for such an outright fiction?'

'I know it is difficult to accept-'

'Difficult?'
Dorn raised his voice for the first time and the room shook with it. 'Difficult is a winding labyrinth, or a complex skein of navigational formulae! This is against our very creed and character as the Emperor's chosen warriors!' He glared at Garro, eyes aflame. 'I do not know what to make of you, Garro! You carry yourself like an honest man, but if you are not a traitor and a deceiver then you can only be possessed by insanity!' He stabbed a finger at Qruze. 'Should I make a concession for some contagious senility perhaps? Did the warp addle your minds and create this hallucination between you?'

Garro heard the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. Everything was going wrong, falling apart around him. In his rush to find a rescuer for the
Eisen-stein
and a way to get the message out, it had never occurred to him that he would not be believed. He looked away.

'Look at me when I speak to you, Death Guard!' snapped the primarch. 'These lies you bring into my personal chambers, they sicken and disgust me. That you would dare to say such things about a hero of such matchless character as my brother, Horus, it vexes me beyond my capacity for description!' He placed a massive finger on the sternum of Garro's armour. 'How cheap you must hold your integrity to give it up so easily! I weep for Mortarion if a man of such low honour as you could rise to command a company of the XIV Legion.' Dorn's hand closed into a massive brass fist. 'Know this - the only reason I do not tear you limb from limb for your defamation is that I know my brothers will reserve that pleasure for themselves!'

Garro felt the decking turn to mud beneath his boots and his chest caught in an invisible vice, returning to him the same sickening sensations that he had felt in the corridor outside the navis sanctorum and in the grip of the xenos war beast. As he had there, he reached for and found the strength of will that had carried him this far.

My faith.

'Are you blind?' he whispered.

Dorn was thunder incarnate. What did you say to me?'

'I asked if you were blind, lord, because I fear you must be.' The words came from nowhere, even as some part of Garro marvelled at the mad daring of what he was saying. 'Only one struck by such a terrible ailment could be as you are. Yours is the blindness that only a brother might have: that of a keen judgement clouded by admiration and respect, clouded by your love for your kinsman, the Warmaster.'

It was not often that Rogal Dorn's stern mask cracked, but it did so now. The fury of a god made flesh erupted upon his aspect and the primarch drew his powerful chainsword in a flashing golden arc of roaring death. 'I rescind my former statement,' he bellowed, 'get to your knees and accept your death, while you still have the chance to die like an Astartes!'

'Lord Dorn, no!' It was a woman's voice and it came from across the room, but it carried with it a wave of such emotion that every man in the sanctorum, even the primarch himself, hesitated.

Qruze turned and saw the girl Keeler running across the blue marble tiles, her boots clacking against them. Behind her were Sindermann, Mersadie Oliton and a pair of Imperial Fists with their guns at the ready. Iacton felt the echo of Euphrati's voice resonate through him and he remembered the strange warmth he had felt from her hands upon his chest, aboard the
Vengeful Spirit
as things had turned to hell.

'What is this intrusion?' snarled Dorn, his humming blade still hanging at the end of his swing towards Garro's throat.

'They demanded entry,' said the one of the guards. 'She... The woman, she...'

'She can be very persuasive at times,' noted Qruze.

Fearlessly, Euphrati stepped forward to face the primarch. 'Rogal Dorn, Hero of the Gold, Stone Man. You stand upon a turning point in the history of the Imperium, of the galaxy itself. If you strike Nathaniel Garro down for daring to give you his candour, then you truly are as blind as he says.'

'Who are you?' demanded the figure in gold.

'I am Euphrati Keeler, formerly an imagist and remembrancer of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet. Now I am only a vessel... a vessel for the Emperor's will.'

'Your name means nothing to me,' Dorn retorted. 'Now stand aside or die with him.'

He heard Oliton whimper and bury her face in Sin-dermann's shoulder. Qruze expected to see fear bloom on Keeler's face, but instead there was sadness and compassion. 'Rogal Dorn,' she said, holding out a hand to him, 'do not be afraid. You are more than the stone and steel face that you show the stars. You can be open. You must not fear the truth.'

'I am the Imperial Fist,' he shouted, and the words hit like hammers, 'I am fear incarnate!'

Then see the fidelity of Nathaniel's words. Look upon the proof of his veracity.' She beckoned Oliton forward, and with the iterator giving her support, the documentarist came closer. Qruze smiled a little as the dark-skinned woman composed herself enough to show a facade of her more usual elegant manner.

'I am Mersadie Oliton, remembrancer,' she announced with a curtsey. 'If the lord primarch will allow, I will provide a recollection of these events to him.' Oliton pointed to a hololithic projector dais mounted in the floor.

Dorn brought his sword to his chest, fuming. 'This will be my last indulgence of you.'

Sigismund stepped up and directed Mersadie to the hololith. With care, the documentarist drew a fine cable from among the brocade of her dress and traced it along the seamless crown of her hairless, elongated skull. Iacton heard a soft click as a concealed socket beneath the skin mated to the wire. The other end she guided to an interface plate on the dais. This done, Oliton sank into a cross-legged position and bowed her head. 'I am gifted with many methods in which I may remember. I will write and I will compose image streams, and this is aided by a series of mnemonic implant coils.' She brushed a finger over her head once more. 'I open these now. What I will show you, my lord, is as I witnessed it. These images cannot be fabricated or tampered with. This is...' She faltered, trembling, her words thick and close to tears. This is what happened.'

'It's all right, my dear,' said Sindermann, taking her hand. 'Be brave.'

'It will be difficult for her,' explained Keeler. 'She will experience an echo of emotions from the events.'

The hololith came to life with an opaque jumble of images and half-formed shapes. In the dreamlike mass, Qruze saw glimpses of faces he knew and some he did not:
Loken, that degenerate poet Karkasy, the astropath Ing Mae Sing, Petronella Vivar and her bloody mute Maggard.
Then the mist shifted and for a moment Oliton looked around the room, the hololith screening what she saw. Her gaze froze on Dorn and he nodded.

The haze of the hololith changed and Garro found his attention was caught by the dance of motion and replay within it. He had only heard Qruze's secondhand explanation of what had transpired in the
Vengeful Spirit's
main audience chamber, but here he was seeing it first-hand, through the sight of an eyewitness.

Scenes of battlefield butchery transmitted from the surface of the Choral City on Isstvan III hovered before them and Oliton sobbed a little. Garro, Qruze and the men of the Imperial Fists were no strangers to war, but the obvious, wanton horror of the combat was enough even to give them pause. He saw Sigismund grimace in disgust. Then the recording turned as Mersadie looked to the Warmaster upon a tall podium, his face lit with a cold, hard purpose. 'You remembrancers say you want to see war. Well, here it is.' The relish in his voice was undeniable. This was not a warrior prosecuting a necessary battle, but a man running his hands through tides of blood with open satisfaction.

'Horus?' The name was the ghost of a whisper from Dorn's lips, but Garro heard the question in it, the puzzlement. The primarch saw the wrongness in his brother's manner.

Then, through Mersadie Oliton's eyes, they watched the bombing of Isstvan III and the Choral City. Darts of silver surged from the ships in orbit like diving raptors falling on prey, and as the voices of remembrancers long since gunned down by Astartes bolters gasped and screamed, those darts struck home and coiled into black rings of unstoppable death.

'Emperor's blood,' whispered Sigismund, 'Garro told the truth. He bombed his own men.'

'What... what is it?' asked Oliton, speaking in unison with her own voice on the recording.

Keeler's recorded words answered her.
'You have already seen it. The Emperor showed you, through me. It is death.'

The recording jumped and unspooled. In fast blinks of recall, they saw Qruze fight the turncoat bodyguard Maggard in the launch bay, the escape from Horus's warship, the attack of the
Terminus Est,
and more.

Finally, Dorn turned away. 'Enough. End this, woman.'

Sindermann gently detached the cable from the hololith and Mersadie jerked like a discarded marionette as the images died.

The cold, clear air inside the sanctorum was rich with tension as the primarch slowly sheathed his chainsword. He ran his fingers over his face, his eyes. 'Perhaps... Did I not see?' Dorn looked to Garro and some measure of his great potency was dimmed. 'Such folly. Is it any wonder I would rebel at the reality of so mad a truth, even to the point of killing the messenger who brought it to me?'