Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Read online

  In the following stillness, Brêac looked to the empty regency throne. ‘Tolmach, I want you to install a governor from among the Novaskyr officers. Arrange which regiments will remain as a garrison force, and ensure the rest return to the Armada for rearming and reassignment.’

  ‘Aye, Lord Brêac.’

  ‘Ducarius, you have the honour of dealing with our dead.’

  ‘At once, lord.’

  ‘Morcant, Faelan, oversee the withdrawal of our forces back to the Hex and the redisposition of Bellonan legionaries off-world.’

  ‘Aye, lord.’

  ‘As you wish, lord.’

  The Spears drifted apart, preparing to manage the fate of the world they’d just won. Only one warrior remained in Brêac’s presence, and he spoke with a sense of reluctant admiration.

  ‘You have just assigned each of them a campaign’s worth of administrative work, Lord Brêac.’

  The Lord of the Third Warhost turned to my master, a dark patience in his eyes. ‘They’re used to it. I ask a lot of my officers, Amadeus. I have to. The Spears are the bond that holds Elara’s Veil together. The other armies, the other worlds, they look to us for leadership. Who do you think leads the Veil’s Armada, in deep space? The core of that force is our Chapter fleet.’

  ‘I would like to see this Armada,’ said my master.

  ‘Pray you don’t, Mentor, for it only gathers in hours of direst need.’ Brêac hesitated then, either unsure what to say or how to say it. ‘You fought with the Guard, even when you deployed with us. Why?’

  ‘I fought where I was needed most.’ Now it was my master’s turn to hesitate. ‘Has that offended you in some way?’

  ‘No. I’d not expected it, but it didn’t offend me.’ Brêac moved to the throne, running his gloved fingertips over one of the golden armrests, shaped into the face of a roaring lion. ‘The Lions should’ve been here. Kouris is at the edge of their protectorate. The dead fool was right about that, at least, even if he was wrong to whore his world out to the Exilarchy.’

  ‘Then where are they?’ my master asked.

  Brêac used one of the throne room’s great silk curtains to clean the blood from his spear. His chuckle was a joyless snarl.

  ‘The Lions? I’m surprised you need to ask. They’re dead, mostly. Surely you know the stories, Mentor. A Chapter condemned for daring to call the Holy Inquisition’s bloodthirsty methods into question. Ships sabotaged, lost in the warp. The brutally coordinated ambushes that decimated them in the defence of Armageddon. All that ill luck, eh? Plaguing them ever since they appealed to the High Lords of Terra to rein in the actions of the Inquisition. Quite the coincidence.’

  Amadeus’ tone was neutral. Reluctant, by his standards – he wanted to tunnel for more information and there was no way of subtly doing so.

  ‘I deal in facts and truths,’ he said, ‘not rumours and hearsay. While I hold no affection for the Inquisition, nor its sanctioned methods, I find it difficult to countenance that they would operate against a Chapter in such a way.’

  Brêac spat acid onto the floor. ‘Believe what you wish. Your doubts don’t change the truth.’

  ‘Regardless,’ my master replied, ‘the last lore pertaining to the Lions that reached the Imperium spoke of hopeful tidings. A new Chapter Master was chosen, and the survivors of the Armageddon Massacre were being supported in their rebuilding by a strike force of Black Templars. Do you mean to tell me this was untrue?’

  Brêac laughed, the sound gruff and bitter, matching the dark clarity in his eyes. ‘A century ago, it was entirely true. But they were down to their last hundred warriors back then, and they’ve been at war every day since the Rift ripped the sky wide open. Noble bastards, the Lions, and twice as stubborn. They’ve never stopped bleeding, because they won’t stop fighting.’

  I registered a slight shift in Amadeus’ posture. He tightened his muscles, a sign, I was coming to recognise, that he was restraining himself.

  ‘Honourable,’ my master allowed, ‘if… imprudent.’

  ‘To the shitpile with prudence,’ said Brêac. He turned, not to Amadeus, but to follow the hovering drift of the closest servo-skull; one of Kartash’s. ‘You three slaves. Which one of you fired into the fight on the Emykarus Avenue?’

  Kartash and Tyberia were suddenly very silent, very still, in the confines of the Damocles tank.

  ‘All of them,’ Amadeus replied on our behalf. ‘They are trained to lend aid when opportunity arises.’

  Brêac’s gaze drifted to our three servo-skulls in turn. ‘Which one of you came in low over the central advance and fired over my shoulder? Which one of you spoke our battle cry through your skull’s vocaliser?’

  Tyberia’s intake of breath was so soft I didn’t know if I imagined it. ‘It was Anuradha,’ she said at once, her skull probe relaying the words, cracklingly adamant. ‘She lingered with the Spears’ advance, master, even when Helot Primus Avik ordered her to withdraw.’

  I looked back over my shoulder, narrowing my eyes at her. ‘God-Emperor help me, Tyberia, you are a petulant and pathetic child,’ I whispered. She didn’t bother turning around, but I saw her self-congratulatory smirk.

  ‘We will discuss your disobedience when we return to the Hex, Helot Secundus,’ said Amadeus.

  I swallowed. ‘Yes, master.’

  Brêac rumbled amusement at the exchange. He pointed with the spear he’d cleaned by making rags of royal drapes. The silver blade aimed at the pulped wreckage that had recently been a living, breathing man.

  Amadeus followed the gesture. ‘Yes? Does the corpse have some significance you want me to note?’

  ‘Not the body, fool. The sword.’

  The regent’s sword was still intact, a yard from the detonated carcass’ slack fingers. Amadeus cast his glance over the ornate blade, the weapon of a ruling dynasty and inarguably beautiful, but little more than a dagger to him.

  ‘I see it, yes.’

  ‘I’m not talking to you, you arse.’ Brêac walked to the body, boots thudding hard and heavy on the throne room’s dressed stone floor, and picked up the fallen sword. In his gauntleted hand, the golden heirloom of generations of Kourian regent-lords caught the light of the setting sun.

  ‘Anuradha,’ he said, ‘it was good to fight with you, brief as it was. Never had a human battleguard before. By way of thanks… Do you want this?’

  Kartash froze, breathing out a soft curse. And Tyberia, it pleased me to note, was no longer smiling. Quite the opposite.

  7

  Later, I tried to refuse the sword. Tolmach was the one to bring it to me, and he offered it with no more ceremony than Brêac had done. The Spears treated Nemetese ritual as seriously as life itself, but away from Nemeton their observances were private and subtler, not a matter for outsiders to see.

  ‘It’s blessed and reconsecrated,’ Tolmach had told me, tossing the sheathed sword to me from halfway across the arming chamber. I caught it, the weapon of kings and queens who’d ruled in the Emperor’s stead for generations: a blade with only a single mark of dishonour in a long and illustrious life.

  ‘Surely one of the Novaskyr officers is more deserving,’ I’d argued, unwilling to even close my fingers around the treasure I’d caught. ‘Surely any of them would be more deserving.’

  Tyberia had said the same, of course, and I wasn’t shy in agreeing with her. Even Kartash winced at such a royal gift coming to me for what he again called, ‘a moment’s overenthusiastic distraction.’

  Tolmach would hear none of it.

  ‘This is the blade of a fallen regency and a symbol of Kouris’ failed apostasy. A new weapon will be forged for the new bloodline we leave in kingship here.’

  I still argued, but Tolmach refused to listen to my protests. He told me that I was boring him, and that his duty was done now the sword had been cleansed of sin.

 
‘Use it to nobler ends than its last wielder,’ he charged me.

  I swore that I would.

  Hours later, when Tyberia and Kartash slumbered, I finally drew the blade clear of its scabbard. I could tell you I marvelled at the craft of the kingsword in my hands, and that would be true. I could tell you of its weight and heft and balance, of the perfection of its killing edge, and how the melded metals of its hilt and grip were shaped into an eagle’s spread wings. I could linger with exacting description over the weapon’s power generator, sculpted into the image of a lion’s head on one side of the blade’s base, and a lioness on the other. All of it is true. None of it matters. One detail overrode all others.

  Tolmach had done more than bless and reconsecrate the weapon. He’d also handed it over to one of the Chapter forgewrights aboard the Hex, for evidently Brêac had additional orders to be carried out before the sword was given over to me.

  Along the flat of the silver blade, an expert hand had acid-carved a stream of Nemetese runes into the steel. The jagged scripture was at absolute odds with the aesthetic of the sword, ruining its beauty without compromising its lethality. A blending of two worlds, like the Spears themselves: the barbaric and the crude clashing with the disciplined and the regal. I ran my thumb along the runes, over the words that read:

  Skovakarah uhl zarûn.

  As I reached the last runic letter, the world around me exploded into sound.

  ‘Battle stations,’ Serivahn’s command thundered over the shipwide vox. ‘All hands to battle stations.’

  XI

  THE WHITE HUNTRESS

  1

  The Hex ripped her way from orbit on howling engines, abandoning Brêac’s unfinished plans on the surface. She raced from Kouris, void shields slamming up and flickering into life, running out her guns as she sprinted. On board, red-stained discipline took hold as the entire ship rattled around us. Fire-teams of Chapter-thralls rushed to defensible choke points and concourses. Key crew sealed themselves in crucial operation chambers, guarded by hosts of utterly loyal Bellonan skitarii.

  Amadeus reached the bridge at a dead run, and I watched through his eyes as he plunged into the ruthlessly ordered chaos of a warship’s command deck bathed in emergency lighting. The oculus screen showed a masterpiece painting of stars with Kouris falling far behind. Serfs and crew called data to each other from station to station. Above it all was the captain’s dais, housing Serivahn’s steel throne.

  The First Primaris was at the heart of all he commanded, his withered arm held close to his chest, his other hand gripping his throne. He stared with all the vicious concentration a Space Marine was capable of, that focus of a transhuman mind locked upon its task. I’ve read other chronicles describing it as analytical or mechanical, but that falls short of the truth. It’s a hunger, a gift that elevates them above human soldiers. They see something before them – a task to be completed, an enemy to be destroyed – and their focus becomes an inhuman need to see it done.

  Amadeus approached the throne, ascending the steps. ‘Greetings, Captain Serivahn.’

  Serivahn didn’t look away from the oculus. You could see on his twisted face how he willed the Hex to greater speed.

  ‘Lieutenant Commander Incarius.’

  Morcant shoved his way past Amadeus, moving to Serivahn’s side. ‘Speak to me, Vargantes. Is it her?’

  The hunger flared in Serivahn’s eyes. His glare was sharp enough to kill wherever it fell.

  ‘It’s her.’

  Morcant smiled his cannibal smile and turned to the oculus. ‘And to think I cursed Brêac for dragging us to this back­water war. He’s never going to let me live this down. Can we catch her?’

  Serivahn still hadn’t looked away from the vista of stars. ‘It will be close. Everything depends on the course she takes and what escorts run at her side.’

  ‘Did I ask for the odds?’ growled Morcant. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  Serivahn met his brother’s savage gaze. ‘I think we’ve got her, Arakanii. I think we’ve got her.’

  Several yards away, observing this exchange, my master politely cleared his throat. Both Spears turned his way.

  ‘Who,’ he asked, ‘or what, are we chasing?’

  2

  Her name was Venatrix Candidus, the White Huntress. It wasn’t the name she’d been born with, but it was the identity that her wrath-maddened machine-spirit shrieked into the void in the heat of battle. I dare say it suited her, for she was plated in black, dark enough to fade into the night sky. Her only visible markings were a heraldic beast on her sides, some chimeric fusion of serpent and lizard: a basilisk, clutching a world in its scaled coils.

  Over the last century, the ships of the Adeptus Vaelarii Armada had come to know her well. She played the roles of outrider and scout for the Exilarchy, breaking warp within a system to bear witness for her masters. A significant number of ambushes identified the Venatrix sailing in the vanguard, and a great many of the Exilarchy’s recorded defeats made mention of her fleeing to fight another day.

  Depending on your preferred patron for luck, fate, fortune or the God-Emperor’s will had delivered the Venatrix to us that day. She’d blasted into existence at the Mandeville point on the edge of Kouris’ system. The Hex’s long-range auspices had marked her at once, and Serivahn ordered the immediate withdrawal of every Spear still on the surface. Kouris would be left to fend for itself in the aftermath of its broken rebellion. Within minutes, the Hex was coming about. Her last gunship slammed into the deck while its mothership was already rising into high orbit. Serivahn and Brêac would have abandoned any Spears that didn’t return swiftly enough, of that I’m sure.

  We burned edgeward, away from the system’s sun. The ­Venatrix saw us coming: an Adeptus Vaelarii strike cruiser modified over a century of the bitterest conflict, the renowned Hex of the Emperor’s Spears. She turned away from us, not even running out her guns or hiding behind her void shields. She dumped all her power into her engines… and she ran. She didn’t even try to bait us. She bolted.

  We were still minutes away when the Venatrix cleaved ­reality apart and slipped into the wound. How could her warp drive be ready again, so soon after terminating a journey? Her crew chose to risk annihilation in the Sea of Souls rather than face our anger.

  With a flare of unholy light, the Venatrix was gone.

  Brêac, now on the bridge, hammered his fist into a control console and let loose a wordless roar of frustration. Servitors and thralls wisely backed away from him.

  ‘She always runs,’ Morcant lamented. ‘Blood of the Emperor, Serivahn, do something.’

  Serivahn was calmer, at least outwardly. Maybe he just lacked the physicality to express his rage.

  ‘We can follow them,’ he said, quiet but commanding. ‘This isn’t over.’

  But it would be too late. By the time we reached the Venatrix’s warp locus, she’d be deep in the empyrean, almost definitely untrackable. Every second was precious.

  And nothing was ready. It takes Navigators hours to ­prepare to sail through the empyrean, and the generation of a ­Geller field isn’t something you can merely conjure into being on a whim. Ignoring these fail-safes threatened the ship, but warping before reaching the safe distance of the system’s Mandeville point threatened the entire world of Kouris. Rending reality so close to a populated world invited the eyes of the Ruinous Powers to turn upon all those ­unprotected souls.

  Thralls called warnings from their stations, but Serivahn wanted none of them. He looked to Brêac.

  ‘Give the order, lord, and we’ll go in after them.’

  Brêac ground his teeth together, watching Kouris recede on the oculus. ‘How far are we from the Mandeville point?’

  ‘Seventeen minutes.’ The deformed warrior looked haggard but stern. ‘Minimum safe distance from Kouris in nine minutes.’

  ‘That�
��s too long.’ Brêac drew his spear, igniting the blade. I thought he would lash out, but instead he stared into the crackling power field, a man lost and seeking an oracular sign in the patterns of energy. ‘Even that’s too damn long.’

  Morcant banged his knuckles against his chest, a three-beat drumming to the rhythm of a heart, a gesture of Nemetese sincerity. ‘Chase them,’ he said without emotion.

  ‘I’m not risking an entire world,’ Brêac replied, though he no longer sounded certain. ‘Druids? Your counsel, brothers.’

  Both war-priests stood by the throne in their black, rune-marked plate. Ducarius of the Kavalei leaned on his force blade, point down against the deck. Tolmach of the ­Novontei had his mace of office in one hand, the crozius’ head resting on one shoulder guard.

  Ducarius spoke first, the cables and wires connecting the back of his skull to his psychic hood pulling taut as he shook his head. ‘Kouris may not be damned if we give chase here. We speak of gambles, not certainties.’

  ‘Hell of a gamble,’ Faelan cut in. ‘Lord, don’t do this. We’ll get another chance at the Huntress.’

  ‘It’s been twelve bloody years since our last chance,’ Morcant snarled, stabbing a finger at the oculus. ‘Emperor’s balls, chase them.’

  Tolmach was the only one still to speak. ‘I share the Arakanii’s hunger to engage, and my Kavalei brother is right – it’s a risk, not an absolute. Faelan speaks from the other side of duty, and I’d not blame you for heeding his words, lord.’

  ‘See? The druids agree with me,’ pressed Morcant.

  ‘I didn’t say I agreed,’ Ducarius pointed out. ‘Three of our brothers gave their lives in the war for Kouris. Do you want to descend into the ship’s barrow and tell their corpses they died for nothing, if the world they saved is to be risked while their bones are still warm?’