The Eternal Crusader - Guy Haley Read online

  ‘Maybe, captain, if you had fought alongside us, the result would have been different.’

  ‘It would not,’ said the captain firmly. ‘We did not fight, because it was pointless to fight. This we said, and this you have discovered for yourselves. Our task is to watch. We are gaolers, not conquerors. Leave these worlds. They tolerate no masters but the fiends.’

  Helbrecht’s eyes narrowed. ‘The crusade never ends. It should never end until every star in this galaxy shines under the benevolent rule of our lord Emperor. You betray our lord’s most cherished aims.’

  Naroosh, who had not moved at all during their exchange, nor exhibited any sign of life beyond his speech and the tinny, near-silent thrum of his armour, pointed out of the windows. ‘This place is not for us. This place is not for any creature. We know, because we once tried what you have tried. We failed – we heard their taunts, as no doubt you have also. We lament our failure to this day.’ His black lenses looked deep into Helbrecht’s smouldering eyes. ‘You will leave this place, they will come crawling back through the gaps in the night, and nothing will have changed. You cannot sterilise their world. You cannot kill that which has never lived. They are beyond our arts of war. They can only be hindered, never subdued. Our shame you have willingly chosen to share. We are sorry that you decided to accept this burden. We are sorry that you did not listen.’

  Theoderic and Helbrecht followed the Death Spectre’s pointing finger. The cythor home world had finally caught fire, burning a sickly green. The bombardment continued.

  ‘You cannot be sure of that, captain. Their dead burn in pyres the breadth of this sector, their world is finally ablaze,’ said Theoderic. ‘They have gone.’

  ‘Gone is not a synonym for destroyed, Chaplain,’ said Naroosh. ‘They will return, as they always have.’

  ‘He is right, Master of Sanctity.’ Helbrecht impulsively drained his cup, but one of his serfs refilled it instantly. A sudden thirst had gripped him.

  Theoderic chose his next words carefully. ‘If your mood has been blackened by what you witnessed on the platforms, the sons of Terra can put no store in the words of…’

  ‘I do not wish to talk of it,’ said Helbrecht, and his tone brooked no disagreement. His fury became momentarily obvious on his face, his teeth clenched. ‘No, Chaplain, this crusade is a failure. We have not won. I will not celebrate.’

  Theoderic dipped his head, letting the matter rest.

  ‘We will depart now,’ said Naroosh. ‘We return to our brothers and the Citadel of the Unsleeping Watch. We thank you that our task will be easier for a while, my lord.’ His thanks might have been sincere or they might have been outright derision, but Naroosh’s tone did not vary. There was no clue as to his intention. ‘We wish you all fortune in your next venture. May it bring you more honour.’

  Naroosh made the aquila over his chest and bowed his head in salute.

  Helbrecht placed his wine aside and made the Templars cross with his forearms. Theoderic did the same.

  ‘Then you have my permission to leave,’ said Helbrecht, with as much civility as he could manage.

  ‘The Emperor guide and protect you, captain,’ said Theoderic.

  ‘We are a long way from the Emperor’s light here, Chaplain,’ said Naroosh. ‘A very long way.’

  Naroosh walked from the room, showing a heraldry as sombre as his voice upon his left pauldron as he turned away – a grim skull with crossed scythes.

  Helbrecht stared at the closed door for a full half minute after Naroosh had gone, rolling his goblet back and forth in his hand.

  Theoderic cleared his throat.

  ‘Other matters await you, High Marshal. Have you given any thought to the matter of Mordred the Avenger’s replacement? We wish to inter his remains within the Sepulcrum Ultimus. His soul deserves rest – he was a good man, and a bold warrior.’

  ‘No doubt you have ideas of your own as to who should be the next Reclusiarch,’ said Helbrecht.

  ‘Not at all, brother,’ said Theoderic, careful not to rise to Helbrecht’s insinuation. ‘The choice is yours and yours alone. You are the High Marshal of the Black Templars – the divine will of the Emperor works through you, not I. I will not make any suggestion as to who you should elevate. You will have my opinion in the Inner Circle as ritual demands, not before.’

  ‘Should it be you, perhaps, Theoderic?’

  ‘If that is the Emperor’s will, so be it. If not, then that is also the Emperor’s will.’ He paused. ‘You are in poor humour today, my liege. I will leave you, and prepare the Ceremony of Crusade’s End. A shriving is also called for. Victory or defeat, after facing such an unclean foe, every brother’s soul requires cleansing. A shining blade is of no use if the spirit wielding it is corrupted. May our next war be more to your liking. Praise be.’

  ‘Praise be,’ said Helbrecht under his breath.

  Theoderic reached for his helmet. It had sat there on the table, a great death’s head grinning at Helbrecht. For an insane moment, he felt it was the Emperor’s own corpselike visage, staring in disapproval.

  Helbrecht sighed, some of the tension passing out of him with the breath. His voice came close to betraying his anguish, but he was his heart’s master, and would not allow his emotions to be known. ‘Brother!’ he called. ‘I am sorry. You are correct. I allow my disappointment to rule my head. This is my first crusade as High Marshal, and I cannot in all good conscience enter it as completed into the record.’

  ‘I understand, my brother.’

  ‘And I have considered the matter of Mordred’s successor,’ Helbrecht went on. ‘I am not yet decided, but I am minded to honour Mordred’s wishes.’

  ‘Grimaldus,’ said Theoderic. ‘Mordred knew his vocation. It is a worthy nomination. The Avenger has been preparing him for the best part of two centuries.’

  ‘There are those who do not believe Grimaldus to be ready to take on the mantle of Reclusiarch,’ said Helbrecht.

  ‘I know, brother.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ went on the High Marshal, ‘it is towards Grimaldus that I lean. I will reveal my decision to the Inner Circle once I am certain. First we must do penance for our failure, and cast off our shame. Say nothing to the others.’

  Theoderic favoured his lord with an understanding look, and dipped his head. ‘As you command, my liege.’ He replaced his helm, and left Helbrecht alone with his servants.

  Helbrecht turned to watch the world roasting in the breath of its own winds. The issue of Grimaldus slipped easily from his mind, and his thoughts returned to what the Death Spectres grim Chapter Master had warned him of several months before, and what he had witnessed there below in the ghouls’ nests of spun glass and acid-etched palladium. A million ossified corpses, calmly staring. And that voice…

  His impassive face twitched, his hand tightening on the goblet. With a sudden, explosive cry of rage, he hurled it at the wall. His serfs rushed to clear the mess as he stalked from the room.

  He went deep into his sanctuary, coming quickly to the Strategium Occultis, where only he might go, a huge, spherical space at the centre of the spire. He walked up steps cantilevered out over the room’s depths to a lectern. He activated it, sending it whirring on tracks around the room. At the base of the pit, a vast holo projector sprang into life, painting a galaxy on the air big enough to lose oneself in. Upon it were described billions of stars: a million human systems and countless others unknown, unvisited, lost or infested by xenos breeds. A hundred thousand wars were picked out in bloody red. Gothic crosses denoted the positions of the other Black Templars crusades. Taking in the endless assaults upon his beloved lord’s domains, his resolve steadied. His gaze travelled to where his knights sought to expand the rule of man. Only he was privy to that information, no one else. Only he had been chosen by the Emperor. If he must know defeat, so be it. A test, nothing more. Let him go on to the next test and pass that.

  He stood there a long while, staring into the false galaxy of light, seeking
a worthy victory to wash away the sickly taste of failure.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Penitence

  The adamantium doors of the Temple of Dorn creaked open, and Helbrecht entered. From the vast crossing of the third transept, three hundred and seventy-six ash-smeared faces watched his approach, their eyes catching the light of the wide iron fire bowl at their centre. The warriors of the Ghoul Stars Crusade were broken into three roughly equal fighting companies, their officers at the front, watched over by several war-priests in full armour. Aside from the Chaplains, the brethren wore the rough robes of penitents. Helbrecht had donned his brazen battleplate again. Newly polished, it reflected a shattered galaxy of candlelight, although his face too was stained with the ash of shame. Behind him came the Inner Circle of the Ghoul Stars Crusade – Champion Bayard, Master of Sanctity Theoderic, Master of the Forge Jurisian, Castellan Ceonulf, and Praeses-Sword Brother Gulvein – the warrior selected by that august brotherhood to be their senior.

  Three banner bearers brought up the rear. The signifer primus bore Helbrecht’s personal standard, a knight in red holding up the lantern broadcasting the Emperor’s light. The signifer secundus carried the icon-heavy pole the crusade took into battle. The signifer tertio had the banner of the Ghoul Stars Crusade. This depicted a whirling vortex in the sky, a bold knight, sword raised, facing the half-glimpsed horrors within.

  The delegation walked down the silent ranks of their brothers. Priceless artefacts of aeons past were rough shapes in the shadowed arcades along the aisle. Between these treasures, the solemn stone faces of heroes of their order looked on with unseeing eyes of statues’. Huge though the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes were, and mighty by any reckoning was their gathering, such grandeur was in the temple that their numbers seemed insignificant. It was a space made for ten times three hundred. The empty floor stretched into blackness around the group, a reminder of greater days.

  The crossing of the third transept with the nave was the very centre of the temple. Four herms depicting the Primarch Rogal Dorn at different times in his life held up the central dome. Half-glimpsed war-saints battled there, their gold and lapis lazuli stained by one hundred centuries of candle soot. At the dome’s apex was a glass lantern, through whose windows cold stars shone steadily in unblinking judgement.

  The procession halted before the fire bowl. Helbrecht took the banner of the Ghoul Stars Crusade from his signifer tertio. Crusade banners were not taken into battle, but created to be hung at the campaign’s successful conclusion. This one would never join its fellows. Helbrecht said nothing as he gazed upon the image. There was silence, underpinned by the ever-present drone of the ship’s mechanical life and the crackle of scented logs.

  ‘I bring you here today, brothers,’ said Helbrecht eventually, ‘not to celebrate victory, but failure. We have scoured the stars of the cythor.’

  ‘Praise be,’ intoned the Chaplains.

  ‘Praise be,’ replied the throng.

  ‘But we have not destroyed them. Your efforts will be well remembered, your individual deeds marked in the hall of records, your honours respected. You, Brother Cadillus, and you, Brother Fethral, and many more of you are worthy of celebration. I am not. I have failed you, my bold warriors.’

  He held the standard up and ripped it free of its mountings. Brass rings pinged upon the floor. ‘This banner will not hang in this temple with the others. The name of the Ghoul Stars Crusade shall be carved upon the Wall of Shame so that all will know of my error, so long as our Chapter persists.’

  He balled the standard up in the fist of his artificial arm, and cast it into fire. The blaze dimmed as it was covered, then leapt up as the cloth caught fire. Helbrecht grasped the haft of the standard in both hands, bringing it down with such force over his knee that the metal was broken asunder. He cast the pieces upon the floor with a clatter. With a rasp, he drew his blade – one of the holiest blades in the Imperium, the Sword of the High Marshals, and the Sword of Sigismund, first Champion of the Emperor – forged from the broken shards of Rogal Dorn’s own weapon.

  ‘But know this, oh Knights of Dorn!’ he shouted. ‘I will seek you out a new war, so that your arms will always be weary from blade work, and my dishonour shall be washed away with the blood of the xenos, the traitor and the heretic! This I swear!’

  ‘Praise be! Praise be! Praise be!’ shouted the throng, and the temple shook. The dusty banners depending from the roof stirred in the drafts of their exultation.

  The Chaplains went among the brothers then. The Black Templars knelt before their priests and were granted benediction. Skull helms leaned in close to hear of sins and failings, to forgive or to admonish, before wiping the stain of ashes away. ‘You are blessed!’ the Chaplains said to each. ‘You are the beloved of the Emperor! Away with shame, and to a new war!’

  Theoderic stepped forwards as they went about their holy business, his voice ringing out from his death’s head in prayer.

  ‘Oh Emperor! We pray for your forgiveness! Bring us a new task, so that we might expunge the sin of failure! Keep us pure in our purpose! Keep us noble in our aim!’ Servitors appeared from the gloom, swinging censer arms. Cyber-cherubim swooped low, brushing the heads of the adepts with the holy scrolls they bore. Their confessional accomplished, the Black Templars broke into song.

  So loud was the hymn of the Templars as they purged themselves of their shame that at first none heard the second opening of the great doors, nor the intrusion of a different tune. Pure and high, it infiltrated and complemented the harsh, basso-profundo hymn of the transhuman warriors. Beginning softly, so softly that even enhanced Adeptus Astartes senses could not hear it, it rose until it was unmissable. Helbrecht sought its source. Finding it, he fell to his knees.

  Making her way down the long aisle from the great portal of Dorn came Mistress Anyanka Dei Osper, Astropath Prime of the Ghoul Stars Crusade. A hundred thralls attended her: a dozen at the fore of her procession sweeping the spotless floor with sanctified brooms, lest her purity be compromised. Five rows of cybernetic castrati followed them, singing the song of annunciation. Beyond these came books containing the names of every member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica ever assigned to the Black Templars and the collected interpretations of their messages. The books were chained to rings sunk into the flesh of bearers whose mouths were sealed by staples of gold. More came – men clutching heavy brass poles topped with candles the thickness of a thigh, censer-bearers, water-bearers, factotums and body servants. Then came Dei Osper’s bodyguard: twenty heavily armed Adeptus Astra Telepathica bonded warriors, each carrying double-handed swords and shields whose heraldry was divided between that of the Black Templars and their mistress’s adepta.

  Finally, the long train of her robes borne by fluttering vat-constructs, came the Most Holy Mistress Osper.

  The Black Templars changed their song to one of lesser volume, forming a counterpoint to the choir of cyber-thralls and relinquishing dominance to the voices of the astropath’s servants. As one, they turned to face her and touched their heads to the floor.

  The Chaplains knelt and bowed their heads except Theoderic, who raised his crozius and shouted,‘Welcome, welcome, bid welcome to Blessed Mistress Anyanka Dei Osper, touched by the Emperor! Pay obeisance, give your awe! Here is one who has seen the light of the Lord of Man!’

  He too knelt then. So the Black Templars remained, softly chanting, until Osper had traversed the two hundred metres to their place of gathering. Her procession parted and halted. The songs diminished to a murmur. Her bodyguards pivoted to line the aisle, clashing their blades upon their shields, and knelt, allowing Osper to come forward to greet the High Marshal.

  The hymns quietened to a drone.

  ‘Blessed Lady, to what do we owe this honour?’ asked Helbrecht. ‘Too infrequently do you bring the light of the Emperor to us. We thank you for the blessing of your presence.’

  Osper’s staff clicked on the stone floor. The buzz and murmuring of her attendants
was pervasive to Helbrecht’s enhanced ears – encouragements and blandishments in the main. Waves of annoyance emanated from the powerful psyker at their fussing.

  ‘Greetings, High Marshal. I am sorry to intrude here, in your order’s most holiest place. I beg your apology.’

  Helbrecht looked up into the blind face of the astropath. She was a handsome woman of middling years, arresting in the strength of her features. When she had her hood down, one could see that her wavy brown hair was streaked with iron grey. Tonight she came on business of the greatest solemnity, and wore the full robes of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Her eye sockets were covered by taut and seamless skin. When she turned her head just so, they became shallow pits of shadow.

  ‘I have a message, one of some import. It has been shouted across the heavens at great volume, repeatedly, and with urgency from many quarters. This is why I come to disturb your prayers. Forgive me,’ she asked again.

  She paused, her sightless face scanning back and forth over the assembled brethren, her cheeks whispering against her green adept’s hood.

  ‘The orks have returned to Armageddon. A plea for aid has been sent across the Imperium, so far and so loud that I received it even here.’

  Helbrecht looked upwards. His expressionless face could not display the ecstasy he felt. ‘Emperor! Oh, Emperor! I thank you for this most welcome sign! A chance, a chance to wash away failure in the blood of our enemies!’

  He stood, and held Sigismund’s sacred sword high. ‘I take a solemn oath before all my brothers here present, and the most holy Mistress Anyanka Dei Osper!’ He turned around to face his men. A wall of prayer emanated from their modified throats, so low it made Osper’s teeth vibrate. ‘Oh Emperor! I swear in the fullness of your sight that I will not rest until Ghazghkill, the Great Beast of Armageddon, lies dead at my feet. I, Helbrecht of the Black Templars, the most faithful of all the sons of your sons, will slay him.’ He knelt suddenly, reversing his blade and planting its point on the deck. Under the barest pressure, it slid into the stone. ‘This oath I take before your vessel, Mistress Anyanka Dei Osper. Hear it, oh Lord, and be certain of its sincerity. Praise be!’