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  In each hall, the sound of the Speaker’s projected voice echoed from stone walls draped with ancient Imperial banners. The image of the aquila was everywhere.

  It might have been a scene from any of a hundred thousand worlds in the Imperial fold.

  The Speaker addressed his people in Uhrzi, talking of their long struggle, their patience and faith.

  As he listened, Karras noted how many of the words reminded him of the Occludian dialect of his Chapterworld. Thoughts of home began to threaten his presence in the moment. He forced them aside.

  ‘We,’ boomed the Speaker. ‘We, the unbowed. We, the unbroken. We, the faithful. Long have we waited for this day. Raise your heads, brothers and sisters. See before you now the proof, at last. The God-Emperor has heard our prayers. His Space Marines have come!’

  That was Karras’ cue. With a last silent curse, he led the others out onto the platform and into sight of the assembly.

  The reaction was immediate. As one, fifty thousand people fell to their knees.

  At first, raw, stunned silence reigned. Then murmurings began. And spread. And soon, the air was filled with noise.

  ‘Resh’vah!’

  ‘The prophecy fulfilled!’

  ‘They have come!’

  ‘We have not been forsaken!’

  And more – every variant of that emotion that made Karras feel anger and disgust, both at the Kashtu and at Sigma.

  Damn you, inquisitor. Damn you for this.

  The Speaker removed himself to the side of the platform and dropped to his left knee in obeisance before the Space Marines.

  On the vox, Copley spoke. ‘Now, Scholar. A sign they will never forget.’

  Karras alone commanded the centre of the dais. The other members of Talon Squad fanned out in a line behind him with Chyron rearmost of all.

  He removed his helm and gazed out over the kneeling crowd with his blood-red eyes. So pitiable. So ready to pin all their hopes on someone else.

  He spoke with power and clarity, sure to keep his disdain from his tone. Amplified by the vox pickup in his gorget, his words rolled off the walls like thunder, shaking the air and the flagstones on which the people knelt. ‘Brave Kashtu,’ he began in perfect Uhrzi, ‘loyal servants of the Emperor, enemies of the t’au, your prayers have been heard.’

  Silence.

  Then the sound of weeping followed by cries that echoed his words.

  ‘The wait is over! Our prayers have been heard!’

  This ran round the hall like brushfire. Some fainted. Others wept shamelessly, tears rolling off their cheeks, soaking into their robes.

  Karras gazed out at them. Their outpouring of emotion seemed so extreme, so unnecessary. He didn’t doubt it was genuine, but it was unsettling.

  He understood that the Speaker had needed to keep the rebels together, keep the war alive. That meant binding the narrative of their war into their cultural identity, making it the whole context in which they lived their lives. Otherwise they would simply acclimate to the way things were. The fight would go out of them. They would settle for life under the t’au.

  And once-powerful icons would lose their power. Is that not so?

  He looked over at the Speaker as he thought this. The man was a fake. Not a whit of psychic ability in him.

  Karras decided to move things forward. He gestured for the Speaker to stand and approach him. As tall as the man was, Karras dwarfed him, a vision of armoured death in black and silver. He looked down at the Speaker’s face, lined and sparsely bearded, and spoke directly to him.

  ‘You have led these people well, prophet. And you will continue to do so in the Emperor’s Holy Name. Stand now on my left and face them.’

  The Speaker bowed and, though he looked a little unsure, did as Karras commanded.

  ‘Bear witness, all of you, the loyal, the faithful,’ boomed Karras over the crowd. ‘See your prophet at my side. His vision has come to pass. Now the real work begins. A great price must be paid. Rivers of blood must flow before the alien is purged from this world. Many will die on both sides before Tychonis is free. But the alien will not endure.’

  He let the words sink in.

  ‘The Emperor must be served,’ he continued. ‘Are you ready to do what must be done, even if it means your lives? Answer! And let your answer now stand as your unbreakable oath before His Adeptus Astartes!’

  It started with a single man, a cry of ‘My life for the Emperor!’

  Another cried out, ‘For freedom!’

  And yet another, ‘Death to the alien!’

  Then a thousand cries. Then more.

  Almost every voice in that hall was raised in promise. Those that stayed silent were the cowards and the meek, those less sure of their readiness to die for something greater than themselves. But they were so few as to be irrelevant. The Kashtu people had heard the call and answered.

  Karras had his oath.

  ‘Now,’ voxed Copley. ‘A sign to seal it. Something worthy of legend, Scholar!’

  Karras flexed his power, opening himself up to the eldritch energies of the immaterium. In his mind, he formed the shape the power was to take. He projected it outwards, channelling it to manifest in the air.

  New light, much brighter than that of the scores of sconces and lumes, began to shine down on the enraptured crowd. Awareness of what was happening above them spread like a ripple on a pond, only reversed – outward edges first, ripples moving inwards. Faces turned to the air above the centre of the great hall.

  There above them, it took shape, an unmistakable icon made real – a great two-headed eagle feathered in bright golden flames. It was vast, wings spread, their span almost half the width of the chamber. Karras held it there for seconds only, but before he let the manifestation pass, he caused it to loose a deafening screech from both beaks. The people below cowered in terror, innate fear warring with religious rapture.

  Then the monstrous eagle vanished in a sudden burst of brighter light, leaving the people below momentarily blinded, grasping at each other for balance, blinking hard, rubbing their eyes.

  The air above them was empty now, as if nothing had existed there at all. And of course, it hadn’t. It was a lie. But he had done as ordered.

  The people were silent, stunned. What little doubt any had harboured in secret had now been burned away.

  Karras addressed Copley on the command channel, speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I hope you’re satisfied, major. They’d follow us into the Eye of Terror if we asked it.’

  ‘Not subtle, Scholar,’ she said, ‘but it certainly did the job. Let’s put a lid on this now and get organised. I want us to talk to this Speaker in a secure chamber at once. We don’t want to be here any longer than necessary. Every hour we take may be an hour closer to Epsilon breaking under interrogation.’

  Aye, thought Karras, if she hasn’t broken already. If she’s even still alive.

  Twenty

  It was a simple room, the ceiling just tall enough for Karras to stand upright with a few inches’ clearance. Warm colours dominated, the tones and hues of the desert sands at sunset, with a smattering of elements in midnight blue. The floors and walls were draped with traditional hand-woven rugs and wall hangings dating back to the tribe’s desert days. Imperial iconography in red and gold was evident in most of them.

  Copley and the Speaker faced each other in the room’s centre, each seated on large cushions in the Kashtu style. Karras stood to Copley’s right, level with her, like a fortified tower of black-and-silver stone. Nothing in the room would have supported his armoured bulk. He surveyed the space, absorbing every detail, and considered what the Speaker’s choice to convene here might communicate, if anything. The designs and images woven into the fabrics were a link to the age of the great oceans of sand, an age which t’au terraforming had ended. It had been a hard age, one of t
errible scarcity, and most Tychonites had been only too happy to see the end of it. But the Kashtu and Ishtu had seen in it the end of their culture, not to mention the insult of man ruled by alien.

  Karras wondered if they ever stopped to think what it might mean to return to such times. Few alive now had even an inkling of what such hardship was truly like. Hard conditions made for hard people, but once a people had lived with ease and abundance, to regress by choice was as foolish as it would be difficult.

  They might hate the blue-skin oppressors, but throwing off t’au rule should have been the limit of their ambition here. Not a return to a life of thirst and hunger.

  How would that serve the Imperium?

  Some are doomed to find their worth only in their suffering.

  It was a quote from Yubelard’s Hand in the Flames – a thirty-third-millennium work on mankind’s quest for spiritual evolution. Idly, Karras wondered if Rauth would have recognised it.

  As he thought this, an old woman – the oldest person he had yet seen among the Kashtu – entered the room with a small tray. She stopped just inside the doorway and cleared her throat to announce herself.

  ‘Granted,’ said the Speaker without looking at her.

  With permission given, she bowed low, slowly and stiffly, and said in a reedy voice that matched her appearance, ‘If it pleases my lords, an offer of small refreshment.’

  Copley glanced at her and nodded, not paying the woman much attention, but Karras watched her with interest. He noticed something that Copley did not – though she had bowed in a manner commensurate with her advanced age, the tray she held did not shake. Not even a little.

  His power flared gently as he assessed her aura.

  He grinned, finding amusement in his discovery. He doubted Copley would take it as well as he, however.

  The old woman quietly placed small beige cups in front of Copley and the Speaker, making herself as minimal an inconvenience as possible. She looked incredibly frail, her skin like liver-spotted tissue paper, barely covering the tracery of fine veins in her hands and face. She was hooded in the style of all Kashtu women when in the company of men to whom they were not married, so he could not see her eyes at first, but again he noted that her movements were precise and steady despite her great age.

  His eyes were fixed on her while she arranged small dishes of several traditional foods – spiced nuts, dates and the like – before those seated. Again, not even a tremble.

  Karras reached up and removed his helm. ‘Old woman,’ he rumbled. ‘Here. Look at me.’

  Copley turned and stared up at him from her cushion in confusion. Why was he addressing this servant? There was much to talk about with the Speaker and she was impatient to get to the matter of good, actionable intelligence.

  Karras was so tall that it was difficult for the crone to meet his gaze directly, but she straightened as much as her bent back would allow and turned her head a little. So doing, she just managed it.

  Under the dark shadow of her hood, Karras’ superior vision could see a wry glint in her eye.

  ‘My lord is troublesomely tall,’ she said.

  He leaned down towards her, stopping his face just a metre from hers.

  Copley was struck with thoughts of how large a Space Marine’s head is compared to that of a normal human – like the difference between a lion’s and a baby’s.

  ‘Deception has a place and time, Speaker,’ said Karras. ‘This is not it.’

  The old woman nodded, then turned from Karras and wordlessly placed the last of the dishes on the low table. She reached out a straw-thin arm and touched the knee of the Speaker, who, like Copley, had been watching the interaction in silence.

  ‘Sleep now,’ the old woman said softly and with obvious affection.

  Abruptly, the Speaker’s eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped backwards, his formal headwear falling to roll on the floor behind him.

  The old woman patted his knee. ‘My beloved boy,’ she muttered. ‘If only he had inherited my gift… But that is a selfish thought. Better for him that he did not.’

  Copley was on her feet, pistol in hand, fast as a striking snake. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  Calmly, Karras reached out his left hand and forced Copley’s pistol down. She glared at him, but she could not resist his strength.

  ‘What is going on here, Scholar?’ she demanded.

  The old woman turned slowly and straightened, letting her act of exaggerated frailty fall away. Even so, at full height, she was barely level with Copley’s chest.

  She pulled back her hood. Her smile was deep and warm and real. The skin creased around her dark, bird-bright eyes.

  Karras’ grin widened. There was an appealing energy about this old woman. She was immediately likeable, radiating a special kind of good humour that only came with advanced age and depth of experience. It was a quality found in such few souls.

  ‘Major,’ he said, turning his face towards Copley, ‘meet the Speaker of the Sands.’

  Copley looked from the shabby old woman to the slumped body of the man to whom she had been talking since they arrived.

  The true Speaker pressed her palms together in front of her forehead and bowed. ‘Forgive me, honoured lady. But if not for the use of such subterfuge, I would have been dead long ago. And with me, perhaps, the hopes of my people.’

  Copley’s face twisted. She spoke to Karras, but kept her glare solidly on the crone. ‘You knew?’

  Karras shook his head. ‘I knew something, but the woman’s gift is powerful. She cloaked herself supremely well.’ He addressed the old woman. ‘For future reference, you ought to shake a little when carrying trays.’

  In fact, Karras suspected the old woman had been deliberate in giving herself away.

  She pulled a cushion towards the low table, this one for herself, and said, ‘Will m’lady be seated?’

  After a long moment, Copley conceded, but her expression did not change. She sat back down. The old woman now lowered herself onto her cushion so that she was facing Copley with the table equidistant between them.

  Copley’s voice was like cold, hard flint. ‘I could execute you right now for wilful deception of an Inquisition officer.’

  The old woman smiled. ‘You could. But you won’t. And the deception is a necessity, though I’ve long wished I could do without it.’

  Copley bristled. ‘What makes you so sure I won’t?’

  ‘If your information is as good as it ought to be, my lady, you already know my value. It is I who leads the two tribes. I am the spider at the centre of the web. I am the conduit for the information you will need to find your missing inquisitor. Lyandro Karras knows. Or suspects.’

  ‘My gifts are not as yours, Speaker,’ said Karras. ‘I am no seer.’

  ‘Then you will need me all the more,’ said the old woman, ‘if you are not to fail here. I have been preparing for this for a very long time.’

  She gestured at the plates of dates and nuts. ‘Will you eat with me while we talk? It is our custom.’

  Copley’s pointed hesitation indicated her reluctance to forgive the woman’s boldness so easily, but she leaned forward and took a date anyway, and the old woman followed suit.

  ‘My name is Agga,’ she said. ‘At least, that is how I am known to most. It means old mother. To them, I am simply the withered old woman who serves the Speaker.’ She patted the knee of the sleeping man. ‘I bring his meals, clean his robes, do all that a faithful servant would. In truth, he is my son, born brain-addled forty-one years ago. Kashtu culture is strict about such things – it demanded that I leave him out in the elements to die as a baby. But what woman can put tradition over her instincts as a mother?’

  Here, she looked Copley in the eye. Perhaps she thought to find understanding there. If so, she was disappointed. Copley was all soldier. There wasn’t a mother
ing bone in her body.

  Agga shrugged. ‘I hid his condition by using my gifts, by taking over his body and acting out his life whenever it called for him to be around others. Hard at first, but I quickly found my power growing the more I used it. Soon, others noticed that his words – the words I spoke through him – were sometimes prophetic. He began to gather a reputation. I suppose I got carried away. Before I knew what I was doing, he had become an icon of hope for the tribe – a role my gender would never have allowed me.’

  She turned her gaze up at Karras, then back to Copley. ‘I was right not to let him die. A mother’s love at first, but the wisest decision I ever made. I have been able to sustain our people this way. To give them guidance that has saved lives. I have kept us in the fight. I knew you would eventually come. I knew I had to hold out for that.’

  ‘You deceive your people,’ said Copley, ‘and expect them to fight, even die for you. And they think they are dying for someone else.’

  ‘Not for me,’ said the old woman, face thrust forward, suddenly fierce. ‘And not for him. For the end of t’au occupation. For a return to the Imperium. It is the cause for which they fight. My place in that, my son’s place in that… They are matters of need, not of pride.’

  She faced Karras, eyes shining, and said, ‘I am the last psyker my tribe ever produced. It was my duty. I don’t care if or how I will be remembered.’

  ‘Have the t’au not sent assassins?’ asked Karras.

  The old woman settled back into her cushion, her ferocity extinguished as suddenly as it had flared. ‘They tried several times when word of a prophet-leader first reached them. Had they sent psykers of some kind, they might have succeeded, but the t’au have none – at least, not here. Their intent to kill me made their assassins easy to locate along the threads of time.’

  Copley scowled. ‘If your sight is so powerful, Agga, it should be easy for your rebels to cripple the t’au. Why have you not done so?’

  The old woman shook her head. ‘Prescience is like a living thing, my lady. There are times it will show you precisely what you want. Most often, one must let it flow as it will. And we have always been hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. No vision changes that.’