Sons of the Emperor Read online

  Pain ghosted across the Angel's face as he smiled, the expression equal parts affection and sorrow.

  'You were all made from humanity, my son. I am not. The darkness that we must bring is not something I can put aside. It is me. In the shadow of my wings life withers and blood salts the ground.'

  Alepheo bowed his head, and knelt to pick up the silver helm.

  Then he stood, the bowl of black-stained water still held in his other hand.

  'I will become death,' he said, and poured the seventh bowl onto the stone floor.

  My sons descend around me. Grenades scatter from them like seeds. Phosphex ignites, burning white as it flares and eats the stones of buildings. Radiation grenades land, and rest silent amongst the spreading flames. They will not kill now. They will linger here, the shadow of our passing.

  Troops pour from towers. Light shatters from the angles of their black glass armour. One of my sons lands on a tower top. The launcher slung under his arms roars, the radiation missile bursting amongst a dense cluster of soldiers. I can taste the uranium and barium as it salts the air.

  A buzzing clank echoes up the streets. I turn, knowing what I will see. The H_______ have kept many wonders from the ages before Old Night, but have also preserved many of its horrors. The things that stalk over the stone and steel road are black mirror-skinned, beetle-carapaced, and skitter on seven legs. Eyes held in crystal capsules stud their abdomens. Human eyes, lidless, blood-shot and rolling. These creations were punishment for the crimes of dissent or treachery against the monarchs of the H_______. Each one is a family stripped of flesh and remade. Brothers, mothers, sisters and fathers - their nerves, mutilated brains and sense organs spliced into a single cyborg frame. At their core is blind rage and confusion, and lethal purpose.

  I look into the eye clusters of the nearest one as it races up the road. A blur of needle-fine rounds sprays from its weapon pod. My wings raise me into the air. It looks up at me, guns and blood-shot eyes tracking as I rise. I throw my spear. It strikes the first abomination and lightning rips through it. Shards of black glass armour, chrome and flesh scatter out. For a second the reek of static blots out the smell of the burning city. I land on top of the dead thing as it collapses, pull the spear free and am striking the second and the third cyborgs without pause, spinning and bounding through the air.

  Above me, I see the shield pylons topple from the summit of the mountain city. The skin of its energy shields blinks out of being in a boom of dry thunder. The gunships and fighter bombers come out of the cloud layer an instant later. They loose their payloads. Inferno bombs, phosphex cylinders and radiation missiles burst amongst the tiers of already burning buildings. The heat lights the edge of my wings. Through and above it, my sons, my destroying angels move, silver-faced, armour darkening with soot, firing at anything that moves.

  A human is in front of me, gun rising, and then ceases to be as I strike and I am not stopping. I am amongst the throng that pours into the streets, picking men up and casting them down to burn, splitting armour, turning, piercing, slicing. And I do not hesitate. I do not pause in thought or consideration. The condemned run from me burning, blind as their eyes boil. I release them from life as I pass. I do not even feel the spear strikes. Gunfire rips from buildings to tatter my wings. Blood marks my passing, scattering from the slaughter. I am not alive. I am not a creature that lives. I am just judgement I am death. And for now I feel no sorrow.

  Horus Lupercal, primarch of the XVI Legion, smiled as his brother stepped through the door. He was unarmoured, his grey-white battleplate shed, hanging from a rack at the chamber's edge. In place of armour, he wore a tunic of plain black. The room was small and bare, and the light of the single glow globe did not reach into its corners. The audience and command chambers of the Vengeful Spirit could have swallowed it many times over, but it was here, in a space that a mortal human could cross in ten strides that the two brothers had chosen to meet.

  'You are late,' said Horus, without rising.

  'I am,' said Sanguinius, glancing over the chamber's sparse furnishing: a low table set with a game board and two metal stools. 'But I did not want to deprive you of the opportunity to point it out.' He looked at his brother, his face emotionless. 'So, I did not hurry.'

  Horus laughed. Sanguinius smiled and sat. He wore a black and red robe, tied at his waist by a golden cord. His wings were tucked tight against his back, and he had cropped his golden hair close so that he seemed the image of ancient heroes given life. He picked up the clay cup from beside the board and took a mouthful. Horus watched his brother as Sanguinius nodded slowly, looking down into the dark liquid in the cup.

  'If I did not know better, I would suspect that you went to considerable trouble to find something that tastes this bad.'

  Horus took a swig from his own cup, paused, and frowned.

  'You are wrong…' He took another swig. 'I did not go to much trouble.' He winced and then began to laugh again. 'But it does taste truly terrible.' He gestured at the board set out between them. Tall pieces carved from blood ivory and ebony sat on hexagons of mother-of-pearl and jet. 'Something new that might entertain, it is—'

  'A variant of Ullatur played by the scholar caste of the Noonreach cluster, in form similar to its Terran forebears but with the addition of two pieces - the Messenger, and the Fiend.' Sanguinius picked up one of the blood ivory pieces and turned it in his fingers, letting light play over the three fanged heads sprouting from its top. 'These were made by the blind master Heydosia after she lost her sight.' He put the piece down on a different space to the one he had picked it up from. 'Your move.'

  Horus raised an eyebrow.

  Sanguinius blinked slowly. 'It is all right, brother. In this variant, going first is considered a disadvantage.' He took a swig from his cup.

  'I know,' said Horus, and moved a black raven to take a red crone. He placed the piece next to his cup. 'It's just good that you think you can give me an advantage and win.'

  'Oh, I know I can win, brother - I just like watching you think you can win too.'

  Horus did not reply, and the sound in the chamber faded to the distant rumble of the Vengeful Spirit's engines pushing it through the void. The walls vibrated, the note just enough to send ripples across the surface of the two cups of wine.

  'You are troubled,' said Horus at last. Sanguinius' eyes flicked up from the board. A frown creased the perfection of his face.

  'As are you,' said the Angel, taking two pieces one after another, the base of his messenger tapping the board as it jumped from kill to kill.

  'True,' said Horus, switching the positions of his light bearers and knights. 'But I asked first.' Sanguinius sat back. His wings twitched. 'The old question?' said Horus.

  Sanguinius nodded.

  'The paradox of our existence,' said Horus, looking back to the board. 'It is not a paradox, though - it is simply a fact. We exist to destroy and by doing so we create.'

  'And what of that we must destroy?' asked Sanguinius.

  'Tragedies, necessities, sacrifices - everything that shall come shall be greater than anything that is lost.'

  Silence slid back into the space as pieces clicked across the polished wood and seashell.

  'And you, my brother?' said Sanguinius. 'Your star shines brighter and brighter. Your sons honour you by rising to be exemplars to all. Our father calls you to his side in war and council more than any other…' Horus' gaze was fixed on the board. He reached out and placed a finger on a black prince. 'And yet you are troubled.' Horus looked up, his gaze dark and hard for an instant, and then he shook his head.

  'I am not troubled. Questions are part of understanding, part of wisdom.'

  'And if they go unanswered?' said Sanguinius. 'I can see it, Horus. I can feel it. You are letting something small feed on the silence inside you.'

  Horus moved the prince, but kept his finger on its carved head.

  'We are creating a future. We are making it with blood and ideas and symbols
and words. The blood is ours and we are the symbols. But the ideas? Has our father ever spoken of the future to you?'

  'Many times, and many more times to you.'

  'He has spoken of ideas of both unity and humanity in grand terms, but has he ever said what will happen between the bloody present and that golden time?'

  Sanguinius' frown sent shadows across his face.

  'To think of such things does nothing good, brother.'

  Horus smiled.

  'Surgeon, heal thyself.'

  Sanguinius' expression did not change.

  'The present is far from complete, Horus, and the future will hold many sorrows and many honours. The stars remain wild and unconquered.'

  Horus held his brother's gaze for a second, and then shrugged.

  'What happens after that? What happens to angels after a new heaven is made?'

  Horus gripped the black prince and moved it. The angel looked at the play, and toppled his red king onto its side.

  'Shall we play again?' asked Horus.

  Sanguinius smiled, his frown clearing like clouds from the face of the sun.

  'By all means - I think you might even be getting better.'

  I stand on the topmost tower of the mountain city. The heat of the flames is crawling into the bare flesh of my face. Soot marks my features. My hair has burned to my scalp, and the gold of my armour is black with the touch of fire and blood. My cheeks are blistered by radiation and charred by the fire I have passed through. It will heal in the time it takes me to return to my ship in orbit, but for now I do not look like an angel of light and beauty - I am the angel of ruin, whose passing makes the sleeping wake in terror.

  Alepheo drops into the ruins beneath me. His red armour is scarred and flame darkened. He looks up at me with a dead silver face that is shedding eternal tears.

  'It is done,' he says. I can hear the weight in the words. He will bear the scar of this in his dreams, and it will creep into the poems he paints in the languages of the dead. He will understand then that we are angels. Beauty does not belong to us; it is what we must burn to be what we are.

  Beneath us in the city, the stones of the buildings have begun to melt in the sea of fire.

  I look up. Beyond the pall of smoke, the clouds are clearing to greet the dawn. The sun touches my eyes. 'Yes,' I say. 'It is done.'

  And then I stretch my wings and take to the air, rising from flames and atrocity towards the light of the future.

  I

  'Whatever the officers of the Eighth Legion are recording in their own archives at this moment is a matter for their own black consciences. I am a legionary of the Thousand Sons. I deal only in truth.'

  II

  'Part of me wonders if my primarch will soften his own accounting so as not to speak ill of his brother, the barbarian Curze. I do not believe for a moment he will be anything but honest, but honesty can be naked, or it can be dressed in veils of mercy. Lord Magnus is a forgiving man - wise, where his brother is spiteful. Beneficent, where Curze is bitter.'

  III

  'The Devastation of Zoah marks only the second time I have stood by my primarch's side in battle. I am not blind to the honour done to me during this compliance, when I was in the presence of not one but two of the Emperor's sons. Nor am I blind to the mistakes made that led to the campaign's catastrophic failure.

  I seek not to shift blame according to subjective whim. I intend instead to assign fault, objectively and thoroughly, where it belongs. The Night Lords have already disengaged, leaving us alone. Doubtless they go to take their moronic viciousness elsewhere, parading their ignorance as the ultimate virtue, claiming they did only what had to be done.'

  IV

  'And so it comes to be that we stand here in the ashes, sifting through the powdery remains of revelation. It is too late to change a thing. Too late to do anything but mourn what was lost.

  Everything is gone. All is dust.'

  Ulatal lowered the data-slate. For a time there was silence, or at least something close to it. The sound of his own laboured breathing was wet and tidal, punctuated by occasional draws on his aspirator. Beyond the gentle, unhealthy sounds of his own continuing life, the chamber had fallen entirely quiet.

  'What do I do with this?' He tossed the data-slate onto his work desk, feeling the fluid in his respiratory tract shift as he leaned forward. Ulatal was more than a little weary of that liquid gurgle in his chest.

  'Forgive me,' said the servitor standing in the corner. 'I am having trouble parsing your query. To what are you referring?'

  Ulatal looked over at the dead-eyed, monotone creature, and waved a hand in the vague direction of the data-slate.

  'This. What exactly am I supposed to do with this?'

  'Forgive me, I am having trouble parsing your query. You appear to have indicated the chamber wall. Is this accurate?'

  Ulatal resisted the urge to scream. Instead he jabbed his finger against the data-slate's screen, hammering it half a dozen times with his fingertip. 'No, you piece of… This. This. The report. What do I do with the report?'

  The servitor didn't move, didn't even blink. 'Reports are to be organised, notarised and filed for pre-archival secondary processing.'

  'Why did they assign you to me?' This wasn't the first time Ulatal had asked the question. 'You're as much use as a rock in a game of regicide. How do I deal with a report like this?'

  'Reports are to be organised, notarised and filed for secondary processing.'

  'Shut up,' Ulatal said with dangerous calm.

  'Compliance,' the servitor replied obediently, and entered silent running.

  'And if you speak again in the next day cycle, I'll shoot you. That's not just a promise, it's a solemn vow.'

  He could do it, too. They'd not taken his sidearm away. Admittedly, he was never likely to use it in an occupational capacity again, but its familiar weight on his hip did a little to counterbalance the feeling of helplessness from the bloody fluid in his lungs and guts.

  The servitor stared at him, caught between conflicting imperatives. 'I must remind you that destruction of Expeditionary Fleet resources and materiel is prohibited under the codes of cond—'

  A needle-thin beam of concentrated energy speared through the servitor's chest. There was no dramatic impact, no bodily momentum crashing the cyborg back against the wall, just a scorched hole about the size of a thumbnail directly through the servitor's heart. It tried valiantly (or irritatingly, from Ulatal's perspective) to finish its sentence, then slumped down where it had stood. The bionic plate of its skull clanked almost tenderly back against the wall.

  Ulatal lowered the laspistol, cursing softly. Another thing the damn crash had taken from him: he'd been aiming for the bastard's head.

  Annoyed, and using that annoyance to mask his unease, he holstered his sidearm and rubbed his temples.

  'Now shut up,' he said to the twitching servitor.

  It said, 'Compliance…' on the third attempt. Then with blood bubbling from its mouth, the servitor obeyed its final order.

  Perdita came to see him later that day. A maintenance crew had cleaned the servitor away by the time she arrived. Ulatal's gaze flicked to where Perdita wore her new rank insignia on her shoulders and chest - and damn if that didn't hurt a little. She picked her way through the tumbledown chaos of his chamber, glancing at the las-burn scorch in the wall.

  'Don't,' Ulatal warned her. 'Maintenance already lectured me.' He gave a nasty little smile that only lifted one side of his face. 'I told them it was an accidental weapon discharge.'

  'I wasn't going to say a word, sir.' After a moment, she wrinkled her nose. 'Except that it smells like something died in here.'

  Ulatal took that judgement in the spirit it was intended. Bathing hadn't been all that high on his priorities since the crash. Bathing took three times longer than it used to, and hurt an order of magnitude above that. He could've taken the nerve-suppressors allotted to him by the medicae, but they left him dazed and exhausted.


  'It's not sir any more,' he pointed out.

  She could have flinched at his bladed tone, and he was surprised she didn't. It probably would've been better if she had; then he'd have been spared the gentleness in her reply.

  'It will always be sir,' she said.

  'Don't patronise me, Dita.' Ulatal practically grunted the words. 'How's the squadron?'

  'Adjusting. Did you see we're flying fleet patrol again?'

  Of course he'd seen. She was still sending him the bloody duty roster every week. He didn't know how he felt about that. Was it charity? Sympathy? Pity?

  He nodded to her question, not trusting his voice for a moment. Perdita straightened her uniform as she looked around the room again, not meeting his eyes. Throne, if Dita was coming in here and looking awkward, things really were bad.

  'You forgot to say I'm looking better,' he goaded her.

  As easily as that, the tension vanished. She grinned. 'You look no different from a week ago.'

  'Yeah, I'm a prince these days. I hear they're going to put my face on the two-credit coin.'

  She stood at sudden attention. 'Permission to lie, sir.'

  Now that was more like it. Ulatal found himself smiling too. 'Permission denied, commander.'

  'Yes, sir. Then it's with regret that I inform you that you look like shit, sir.'

  Ulatal chuckled. The slime in his lungs and guts chuckled with him, and he could've lived without that, but it still felt good to laugh.

  'At ease, commander.'

  Perdita stood at ease, then wordlessly used the edge of her boot to scuff some of his smallclothes under the bed. In her eyes, he read the disapproval she was too polite to speak aloud. His officer's quarters, once so ordered and pristine, were becoming a little… domestic.

  'So why am I here?' she asked.

  'Because I need a new archival servitor. The last one died in an accidental weapons discharge.'

  She raised an eyebrow and hiked a thumb at the door. 'I can just leave, you know.'

  Ulatal smoothed his palm down his unshaven face and, with the awkward gait of the newly-mutilated, he limped forwards on the bionic limb that replaced his lost leg. He had to suck on his aspirator, and after that wonderful indignity, what was left of his face twisted into a half smile amidst the burn scarring.