Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Page 10

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I lied. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  IX

  BEFORE THE LORDS OF THE THIRD WARHOST

  1

  For the second time in a week, we bound Amadeus into his armour. This time, we weren’t alone. Other thralls tended to Brêac nearby, while still others knelt at the chamber’s edge, pounding out a slow rhythm on drums of animal hide. The sound was a god-beast’s heart, thudding and rolling. It was a noise too big, somehow, too alive for the dark iron chamber in which we stood.

  Brêac was at the chamber’s heart. Thralls surrounded him, drills whining and tools scraping as plate after plate was lifted from trestles and machined into place upon his massive frame. Arming and armouring a Space Marine was never a swift process, and here it was slowed further by whispery tribal chants that shifted in tone with every piece of armour.

  As Amadeus had said, Brêac had granted us access to the Chapter’s archives aboard the Hex, albeit at the shallowest levels. Although I was grateful, the information strands were stunted and horrifyingly incomplete. Even the Chapter’s current strength was hidden from my data-probes, but at the very least it offered an overview of the Third Warhost. In the spirit of many Adeptus Astartes Battle Companies, a warhost operated as an autonomous strike force. That much, at least, I could glean without coming up against encryption buffers or deleted data strands.

  This squad we were to meet was listed by an informal sobriquet in the archives. They were called the Immortals. Tyberia suspected they’d given themselves the title. For once I agreed with her; the name reeked of barbarian posturing.

  I closed my master’s vambrace around his forearm, fusing the plates and drilling the connectors down into the sockets implanted within his flesh. As I withdrew the spike, I glanced over at Brêac’s thralls, unexpectedly meeting the eyes of one male, close to my age, watching us from beneath his hooded cloak. Clan tattoos marked his face, staining his features blue. Long, black hair framed his unshaven face.

  I’d expected them to stink, to be as unwashed as their tribal kin back on Nemeton. One of the strangest elements in travelling to other worlds is the way people smell. It isn’t a matter of hygiene, simply a case of different foods, different oils and soaps for cleaning, meaning skin, hair, sweat and breath is always vastly different, world to world. These Nemetese thralls looked little different to their tribal kindred, but there was no trace of the barbarians’ sweat or Nemeton’s rain on them. Instead, there was a musky tang of cleansing powders – not unpleasant, but unexpected.

  To them, we likely smelled of off-world sweat and Kartash’s sacred incense.

  The male thrall nodded to me in cautious greeting. I returned it, and though we both stayed focused on our duties, the Spear serfs watched us far more keenly. They’d never seen warriors or slaves from Chapters other than the Spears or the Lions. I had a rare moment of amusement with Tyberia while we fitted our master’s breastplate into place, and we shared a smile at the other thralls’ curiosity. They watched Amadeus as if expecting him to do something revelatory.

  Morcant was the second warrior to arrive. I knew him from his grainy image in the warhost’s records: Morcant, battleguard to Lord Brêac. The drumbeat changed as he entered, adding a second heartbeat to the booming rhythm. The breathy, primitive chants melted into a new flow. They were singing of battles, duels and distant worlds. For all their rituals were different to ours, much was the same: back before the beginning of the Nemeton Deployment, a scribe-serf solemnly read aloud from Amadeus’ honour scroll while we prepared him for the journey. Here, the Spears’ barbarian kin chanted the warriors’ deeds.

  Morcant was even less enamoured of formality than Brêac. No greeting, no gesture of respect to either Brêac or Amadeus, let alone the thralls. He held his arms out to the side as the serfs began to work on him, and Brêac acknowledged him not by name, but by tribal bloodline.

  ‘Arakanii. Today’s the day.’

  Morcant nodded, standing still as the squad’s robed thralls started binding him into his armour, layering plate over his body­suit, then plate over plate. Layers of azure ceramite, the blue of untainted skies, of Terra’s daylight heavens in a time now relegated to myth.

  Like Brêac, he was tattooed with an impression of red woad, and like Brêac, if the ragged pattern had a meaning, it was beyond me. Morcant tilted his head to allow the ablutions slave to shave his blond stubble. He didn’t say anything more, and Brêac didn’t press him. Instead, it was Amadeus that spoke up.

  ‘Greetings, Morcant of the Arakanii. It is good to see you again.’

  This, then, was the warrior that had led the boarding party. Kartash hadn’t mentioned that.

  Morcant spat on the deck in front of my master’s boots. The insult was delivered without aggression, almost indifferently. Brêac chuckled at the gesture. Amadeus did not.

  The Hex’s datacore listed historical lore about Nemeton’s clans, and those records weren’t kind to the Arakanii. A coastal clan, known for their battlefield scavenging, looting the dead of other, larger clans after tribal wars. Some of the oldest chronicles even recorded witness-oaths seeing the Arakanii devouring the flesh of the dead.

  I watched him, this tattooed warrior from a clan of cannibals, as his thralls drill-locked his gauntlets into place. He shivered as the connectors bit into his wrists, and shifted with the infusion of weight once the serfs pulled their drills free. The ceramite weighed heavily upon him for now, with the fibre-bundle muscle cabling on only functional charge as the outer layers were sealed in place.

  The next warrior to arrive was Ducarius. Tall, proud, preternaturally graceful. He, too, was greeted not by name but by clan.

  ‘Kavalei,’ Brêac hailed him.

  Ducarius rolled his shoulders and returned a nod. ‘Vargantes.’ Then he looked to my master. The fact there was no derision in his keen blue eyes was a relief to me. ‘False Scorpion, we meet at last. Are you well?’

  Amadeus inclined his head. ‘I am well, Ducarius of the Kavalei.’

  The Kavalei. The Clan of Kings, a vast and sprawling tribe that eclipsed all others in terms of territory and victories in tribal war. As the most populous clan, most Spears serving aboard the Hex claimed descent from the Kavalei. Ducarius’ beard was dark, as was the stubble cut close to his scalp. The blue tattoos marking his face were in the impressions of talon scars raking his cheeks.

  Clearly, he was no line warrior. The war-plate held in his thralls’ hands was burnished black, and several slaves came forward bearing priceless enhancements for his left arm and backpack. These slaves were separate from their brethren: they wore black robes instead of azure, and their chests were marked with the knotted, ray-bladed sun symbol of the Spears’ Druidic Circle.

  ‘You’re staring, false Scorpion,’ Ducarius said.

  ‘I am observing and learning,’ Amadeus corrected him.

  Another warrior entered. This one had the dark skin of a Southern Isles clansman, rather than the equatorial duskiness of Ducarius or the Northern Reach paleness of Brêac and Morcant. He had no face – at least, no features. In its place was a nightmare of riven flesh and bone-grafted augmetics. Both eyes were replaced by heavy bionics, and a rebreather mask was surgically bound to the bone of his skull over the wrecked holes that had been his nose and mouth. Even his ears were replaced by small aural receptor plates.

  ‘Amadeus Kaias Incarius,’ he said in his machine voice.

  ‘Battleguard Faelan of the Kavalei.’

  The thralls immediately began to bind Faelan into his azure ceramite, though he disrupted their reverent work by taking his helm from the sterilised trestle where it lay, turning it over in his hands. The warrior ran his callused fingertips over the white surface and over the officer’s crest, starkly red and black against the ceramite. He held it for a moment before replacing it on the table.

  ‘You are new to your rank?’ Amadeus asked. />
  ‘Aye. A sergeant until last season.’ I couldn’t imagine what he looked like before his face was destroyed. There wasn’t enough evidence remaining to tell.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Morcant spoke for the first time. ‘How does your face feel, Kavalei?’

  ‘The pain has gone.’

  Morcant, son of the cannibal clan, leered like a simian at his mutilated brother. ‘And what did they do with the ruined meat they scraped off your skull?’

  Amadeus tensed at the insult. I expected the Spears to do the same, but Faelan only tilted his head in inquiry.

  ‘Why, Arakanii? Are you hungry?’

  The Spears shared comradely smirks. I felt Amadeus relax. Just a little.

  The last to arrive was Tolmach. He was more mannerly than any other so far: he made the sign of the aquila to my master and offered his hand, gripping wrist to wrist in the ancient greeting between Adeptus Astartes bloodlines. Amadeus welcomed the gesture, and returned it, speaking as formally as ever.

  ‘War-priest Tolmach of the Novontei.’

  ‘You’ve studied our tribes?’

  Amadeus nodded. He had, of course. The Novontei were wanderers and scavengers, going from region to region, island to island, offering their services as mercenaries and itinerant druids, preferring to serve rather than raid. The other tribes saw them as a breed of necessary vermin, useful in battle and for the secrets kept by their druids, but disparaged for their lack of territory and loyalty.

  I’d expected furtiveness, perhaps even wretchedness, from a Spear of that tribe. Instead Tolmach, with his whorl tattooing circling his neck like a torc, was the warmest of them all.

  He released my master’s wrist. ‘Strange seeing those colours again. The heraldry you wear hasn’t proven lucky in Elara’s Veil. If you come with us, we’ll try our best to keep you alive, little brother.’

  Beneath the jest, there was something in his eyes. Perhaps the memory of pain rather than the fresh bite of it. This would have been the perfect moment for Amadeus to reply with a fraternal remark of his own, perhaps even a jest, something to reach out as this warrior had reached out to him. But that was asking for more than my cold-blooded master could give. He answered with all the charm of a servitor.

  ‘I will endeavour to stay alive. I have a vital duty.’

  Tolmach moved away to his arming thralls, and they began their work. One of the serfs approached him with a bowl of oil-scented water and a straight razor. The warrior scratched his close-cut beard and moustache.

  ‘Don’t try it,’ he said. The Chapter-thrall bowed and moved back.

  Amadeus, whom Kartash shaved daily to Mentor Legion standards of deployment cleanliness, watched without a word.

  The Nemetese chanting, still at the level of a whisper, rolled on with the heartbeat-drums. The drummers worked in a shared rhythm, overlapping their beats to simulate the thudding pulse of the five Spears present in the chamber. They were quieter as the ceremony went on, letting the warriors speak.

  Servos whirred in Morcant’s knuckles as he formed a fist. The motion made two of his slaves flinch away, and he apologised with a flash of teeth. That was the moment I learned that when a cannibal smiles, it looks far more like a threat than an apology.

  Serfs handed each warrior his helm. Brêac’s was crested with a black-and-white plume, marking him as a lord; the battleguards Faelan and Morcant carried helms crested with striped black-and-red plumes. The two war-priests, clad in rune-etched black ceramite, had no crests on their helms, though their faceplates were painted ivory in obvious, skull-like symbolism. Both war-priests had an Apothecary’s tools – the narthecium; the Absolver pistol; the vials and combat narcotics of the battlefield healing art – though Ducarius’ white helm was reinforced with a ceramite psychic hood, and Tolmach carried a Chaplain’s mace of office, a sacred crozius arcanum, forged in the shape of a spread eagle’s wings.

  The drums slowed, then ceased. The chanting died out alongside. The chamber was left with the aggressive hum of the warriors’ active armour, as serfs applied final purity seals and honour parchments to their plate.

  Amadeus’ armour gleamed. We’d done our best work to make him stand out and represent the Mentor Legion with pride.

  ‘Would it be possible for me to meet with the captain?’ he asked.

  Brêac grunted a reply, ‘He’ll be on his way soon. Trust me, he wanted to meet you, too.’

  2

  The bulkhead rumbled open.

  Kartash, with his back to the door, flinched and looked over his crooked shoulder. His face was naked of emotion and thought, his eyes locked like charging lasers upon the movement. It passed in the brevity of a half-breath, but I saw it. I saw his frustration becoming a killing urge.

  Tyberia and Kartash didn’t recognise the newest arrival. I did. Amadeus did. We were both ready for this.

  The dead man stood in the doorway. The dead man from the barrow, the corpse that walked and spoke to me in the darkness where his brothers slept. In the light of the arming chamber, he was both more twisted than the gloom revealed and infinitely more regal. He wore a robe in the colours of his Chapter, the blue of his world’s rings and the white of rejected marble monuments. He wore a pilgrim’s cloth in place of a warrior’s ceramite, but I knew a uniform when I saw one, and I knew the pride in a soldier’s eyes when they wore it.

  Do not trust the broken man’s promises, the witch had said. And here, surely, was the broken man.

  Any illusion that this man was a slave or a serf was banished when the Spears greeted him as they did each other, by tribe.

  ‘Vargantes,’ they said in union.

  ‘Immortals,’ he hailed them in return. This mangled vision of a Space Marine looked at all present from beneath his hood. He made no sign of recognising me, regarding all three helots in the same gaze.

  ‘How stands the Hex?’ asked Brêac.

  Serivahn sucked in a wet breath through the crooked snarl of his mouth. ‘She’s ready. We sail in an hour. And hail to you, Amadeus Kaias Incarius. Welcome aboard my ship.’

  He offered his pure-formed hand for my master to grip, wrist to wrist. Even ruined as he was, Serivahn was tall, almost a height to match the others. He addressed my master face to face, warrior to warrior. I saw spit shining on the teeth revealed by his drooping lips. The other Spears watched closely, sharing glances and half-smiles.

  ‘You are the first Primaris Spear,’ Amadeus ventured. ‘I know you from my Helot Secundus’ memories.’

  Kartash and Tyberia glanced at me, the former with curiosity, the latter with shocked irritation.

  ‘The first Primaris Spear that lived,’ Serivahn gently amended. Then he turned to me, offering a shallow bow of unnecessary respect. ‘Hail, little Anuradha, explorer of tombs.’

  ‘Captain.’ I lowered my head in apology as he brought up my transgression, but instead of anger among the other Spears, I heard their guttural rumbles of amusement. At the edge of my sight, there was Tyberia, glaring at me.

  Serivahn drew his robe’s cuff along his mangled mouth, wiping away the saliva. ‘Brêac tells me that you’ll be sailing with us against the Exilarchy. I trust my brother’s judgement, and you have a place aboard the Hex.’

  Amadeus inclined his head in gratitude. His eyes raked over Serivahn’s ruined form, but he was at least diplomatic enough not to speak of what he saw. I’d feared his bluntness, which he took for simple honest observation, would make an awkward meeting even worse. His tact now was a pleasant moment of mercy.

  ‘You asked a question of my Helot Secundus,’ said Amadeus. ‘I would like to answer it now, if I may.’

  The Spears looked on, intrigued. Serivahn stretched his curled and twisted arm in a gesture for my master to continue.

  ‘You wished to know my capacity to keep secrets. I can only assume, therefore, the Adeptus Vaelarii has somethi
ng to hide.’

  ‘Every Chapter has something to hide,’ Brêac pointed out.

  Amadeus agreed with a curt nod. ‘I was sent by Lord Commander Guilliman to observe, but my oaths to my Chapter still bind me. The Mentor Legion holds many covenants in its care. When I return to the true Imperium–’

  ‘If.’ This, from Ducarius, who said it not as a barb, but with priestly gentleness.

  ‘When I return,’ my master continued, ‘I will keep any covenants sworn here, so long as they do not pertain to heresy amidst the Adeptus Vaelarii. In short, you can trust me, brothers… as long as you are trustworthy yourselves.’

  The Spears kept their eyes on his. Tolmach nodded, accepting. Morcant’s gaze was ice. Faelan’s facelessness could have meant anything, and Ducarius wore no expression at all.

  ‘You will see much,’ Serivahn said. ‘I’ve no doubt of that. But nothing of treason or apostasy within the ranks of the Lions and the Spears, Amadeus.’

  And, again, the witch’s words came back to me, an unwanted echo. Perhaps Amadeus recalled them in the same moment, for his reply was markedly neutral.

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  Brêac, his armour cloaked with the white fur of some unknown Nemetese beast, thudded his knuckles against his breastplate, commanding our attention.

  ‘Enough. It’s agreed, and we have a thousand things to prepare for. Amadeus, you and your thralls have the run of the ship. We sail for Kouris as soon as Bellona allows it.’

  Tyberia, stinking of sudden adrenaline, closed her eyes at the words. Kartash offered a whispered prayer, palms up, to the immortal God-Emperor.

  For myself, I felt relief. Sheer relief.

  We were going to war.

  Book Two

  THE EXILARCHY

  ‘I have lost brothers, aye, and wept over their graves. Good men deserve tears to mark their passing. Even the Emperor weeps when His warriors fall. Royal thralls gather that mourning dew in blessed vials, to be t­reasured as relics forevermore.