Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Read online

  The Hex’s strategium was typical of Adeptus Astartes cruiser command decks, with efficiency and antiquity competing for prominence. Towering statues of Nemetese stone, carved into the figures of idolised champions of the Chapter, stood watch over the hive-like domain of busy souls and iron decking that lay before them. Gargoyles shaped as Nemetese sea creatures coiled along the dark metal rafters, while banner after banner hung down in the high darkness, proclaiming the regiments of Imperial Guard and legions of skitarii that had fought alongside the Third Warhost since the Emperor’s Spears’ founding all those centuries before.

  The chamber was large enough that some servitors would spend years in the same cavernous room, not needing to leave it during their duties, retreating only to their respite coffin-sockets beneath the deck flooring in order to feed on protein mush and excrete waste fairly similar to what they ingested. At any time, there might be up to a hundred or more servitors in semi-slumber under the grating floor, recharging themselves for another long day of what passed for their lives.

  I’d tried servitor food before, back during my years in the Mentors’ fortress-monastery. The more intelligent among the servitors, by which I mean those that hadn’t been lobotomised entirely beyond coherent thought or communication, referred to the stuff as Slop. The ooze was ubiquitous across the ­Imperium with a host of variant names, but they called it Slop aboard the Hex as well. It was grey meat processed and reprocessed past any taste of its origins and infused with chemical nutrients. It tasted exactly the way you would expect from that description.

  ‘Anuradha.’

  I turned at the calling of my name. Brêac, up on the central platform, beckoned me over, and I felt about a thousand pairs of eyes on me as I ascended the stairs to answer him.

  ‘Lord Brêac.’ I bowed. ‘Kovulagh shiguth eoska, neia?’

  He grinned, and Ducarius chuckled.

  ‘That greeting only works when you stand under a real sky,’ said Brêac. ‘It means to hope the rain washes away your sorrows.’

  I forced a smile and asked for forgiveness; I’d thought it was a general greeting to wish good fortune upon those you met. So many Nemetese exchanges involved axioms for storms and rainfall. Finding the appropriate ones, and using them in their right context, was no easy feat.

  ‘At least your accent isn’t as bad as it used to be,’ Ducarius added, saving me from mortification. I silently thanked him for that.

  ‘What do you require?’ I asked of them.

  ‘Where’s Amadeus? We thought he’d be here by now.’

  ‘As did I, lord.’

  Providence had it that he arrived right then, striding across the busy bridge, avoiding crowds of working thralls and human officers. His armour was polished and gleaming, dark emerald and pristine white. We’d done all we could to transfer and implant the advanced systems from his previous suit of armour into the new suit of repainted plate. The Mentors’ red raptor showed proud and keen on his shoulder guard. The deck shivered as he made his way up to the dais, and he placed his green helmet on the table’s edge next to the three white ones already in place.

  ‘False Scorpion,’ Morcant greeted him in Low Gothic.

  ‘Agriah uz greagh vosz jajeya,’ Amadeus snapped back in a perfectly accented flow of dialect from the Northern Vargantes tribe. Ducarius and Brêac chuckled at the implication in what he said, which was both obscene and biologically impossible.

  After a moment Morcant grinned his cannibal smile. Like many Spears, he considered insults to be something of an art. His reply brimmed over with thick sarcasm.

  ‘My head’s too big to fit up there,’ the Arakanii replied in Nemetese, ‘but your mastery of our tongue brings a joyous tear to my eye. Look at me, my kinsmen. I weep! Can you believe it? Our beloved cousin is growing up so fast.’

  We were gathered for a sombre war council, that was true, but for a brief moment my master smiled and stood as an equal with the Immortals. Then the main thoroughfare bulkhead rumbled open, and all eyes turned to the reason we were gathering in the first place.

  3

  A great many words have been written about Lord Ekene Dubaku, and a great many stories have been told of his deeds. I’d read all I could of the Lions’ lore within the Hex’s archives, and I was ready for the Warlord of the Adeptus Vaelarii to be a colossal figure in terms of charisma and stature. He was the man that not only commanded his own Chapter and had led them back from the brink of extinction, but who also had been chosen to lead the Sentinels of the Veil and the Armada sworn to them. His authority made him de facto regent of Elara’s Veil.

  Instead of a monarch draped in majesty, the warrior that entered at the head of his men was an unprepossessing example of the Firstborn. His armour was gold, though not the honey-gold of Imperial splendour, as seen in the auramite plating of the princely Custodian Guard. Ekene wore armour reminiscent of a purer, plainer gold, burnished beneath a world’s warm sun. He wore a red cloak, one of his few ostentations, but instead of having it trail behind him, it was cast with nonchalant elegance over one shoulder.

  At his side was a Firstborn warrior of another Chapter, this one clad in the striking black, red and white of the Templars. And behind these two leaders came twelve Templars and thirty-seven Lions into the strategium, their passage disturbing the crew that moved aside for this parade of their masters and greatest defenders.

  At all the gatherings of Adeptus Astartes warriors I’d witnessed in the past, rank after rank of Space Marines stood in dignified silence. Chaplains preached. Officers intoned vows. Oaths were given and taken and exchanged while choirs chanted blessings and evocations. Formality reigned.

  Here, everything descended into brotherly disorder. Squads of Spears welcomed Lions and Templars they knew well from previous campaigns. They laughed and they embraced. If there was some reticence on the part of the Lions, it was only because they carried ill tidings; their joy at uniting with their brethren was hardly diminished. When the Blade had come to the Hex’s aid months before, there had been little time for niceties even after the Venatrix was scrap metal in space. Both vessels had pulled away swiftly once the kill was made and the captives returned, returning to their assigned campaigns.

  The two commanders ascended to the central platform where Serivahn and the Immortals waited. The reunion there was no less jubilant, as the Spears bid the newcomers to join them. Ekene even embraced Serivahn, kissing both of the crippled warrior’s cheeks.

  ‘It is good to see you, my friend.’ Ekene’s voice was a lion’s rumbling purr.

  ‘And you, Warlord.’ Serivahn looked as pleased as I’d ever seen him. Saliva trickled down the side of his crooked mouth, onto Ekene’s red cloak. The Chapter Master made no note of it, though it can’t have escaped his notice. Instead, he showed clean white teeth in a smile that split his dark features.

  ‘You say that now, Vahn, but we do not come with ­hopeful news.’

  ‘The Hex is yours to command, Warlord.’

  Ekene made a gesture – presenting his open hand, palm up, in a slow crescent away from his heart towards Serivahn. A signal of gratitude on his home world, I suspected.

  He turned to Brêac, gripping the Spear’s wrist as they embraced. ‘Brêac, my brother, I fear this time we may be asking for you to save us.’

  Brêac banged his free fist against his breastplate. ‘Whatever you ask, Ekene, it’ll be done.’

  Ekene’s smile was strained. Up close it was easier to see the subtle shadow cast over the reunion by whatever grim word the Lions had come to deliver.

  ‘I trust you are keeping fine care of Nar Kezar?’ he said to Ducarius.

  ‘Are you certain we can’t just execute him?’ the druid replied. I wasn’t sure if it was a jest. Ducarius was smiling as he said it, but that didn’t mean much when it came to the Spears.

  ‘I will take him back with me,’ said Ekene. ‘He and I wi
ll share words aboard the Blade.’

  ‘As you wish, Warlord.’ Ducarius showed no emotion, either way. I didn’t know how I felt, either. Seeing him caged helped me sleep. It kept dreams of the Venatrix at bay.

  The Templar stepped forward, and though his greetings were more formal, he was wholly at ease and well known to all the Spears. He was the oldest of the warriors gathered, older than any of those on the dais by at least a century, perhaps as much as two. Like Ekene and the Spears themselves, he forwent much in the way of the trappings of rank. A short grey beard and moustache framed stern, thin lips, and his hair was trimmed to a severe covering of stubble the colour of steel. This was Zvarin Roist, Castellan of the Elysium Crusade. He led the Templars that had escorted the Lions home after their Chapter’s devastation and remained to fight alongside them during their long road to rebuilding. The dawn of the Great Rift had stranded him here, just as it had my master a century later.

  Roist was the first to notice Amadeus, who hadn’t joined in the familiar greetings. He offered a neutral nod, and was disciplined enough to hide his interest to a momentary flicker of fascination. Here, at long last, was news from the true Imperium. How this stranded, ageing knight must have burned to speak with Amadeus alone, and ask for word of his noble brethren still fighting elsewhere. Amadeus returned the nod, and waited to be acknowledged by the Warlord.

  When I think back now, remembering this meeting, I’m struck by the notion that the Spears and Lions – and even the Templars – loved their Warlord. Simple respect couldn’t fuel the devotion I saw in the eyes of warriors from all three Chapters that day. It was deeper than admiration: he was a living legend to them, an avatar of defiance. He’d inherited a Chapter on the edge of annihilation and now here he was, over a century later, still alive, still leading them. He was more than their commander; he was their talisman.

  And he loved the Spears in return. All the Lions did. You could see it in their eyes and their embraces. The Lions were still badly mauled from their desecration a century ago, and oh, how that had cost them in both pride and shame. They were rebuilding as best they were able, but it had been a hundred years of struggling to meet the demands of protecting Elara’s Veil with so few of their own warriors left alive. The Hex’s archives even made the grim claim that the fortress-monastery on Elysium never received the Primaris lore from the agents of the Indomitus Crusade, and that the Lions were only granted the ability to forge Second Generation warriors when the Emperor’s Spears shared the knowledge with them.

  I saw deep pride in Ekene and his golden warriors, but also abiding recognition. The Scorpions and Spears were their younger brother-Chapters, and one had committed the ultimate betrayal. In the vacuum left by treachery, with the Scorpions turning traitor and the Lions bleeding almost unto death, the Spears willingly shouldered the burdens of the entire Adeptus Vaelarii. The Spears had held the line without hesitation, without grudge.

  This was a fraternal bond like no other I’d ever seen. I felt uplifted, energised, just witnessing it. You couldn’t force this kind of brotherhood. You could only forge it.

  ‘And you,’ the Lord of Lions said, ‘must be Amadeus. The one who sailed to us by running the Straits of Epona. You are a brave man, Amadeus of the Mentor Legion.’

  The Spears flanked Ekene as the golden lord stood before my master. Amadeus made the sign of the aquila and bowed his head deeply with unfeigned respect.

  ‘It is an honour to meet you, Lord Dubaku.’

  Ekene’s dark eyes burned with the same curiosity I’d seen in Roist’s gaze. ‘Brêac has relayed much regarding your presence in the Veil, but… Truly, we wondered at times if you were a ruse by the Archenemy or a poor jest by our Nemetese brothers.’

  God-Emperor help me, even I was smiling now. Some men wield power like a bludgeon and some hide behind it like a shield. Ekene Dubaku used it as an invitation, welcoming you within his aura.

  Amadeus shook his head. ‘I am neither, thankfully. And I wish to thank you for your intervention with the Venatrix. My time aboard her was educational, but I was beginning to tire of the Pure’s hospitality.’

  Grunted laughter met that remark, and Ekene repeated his Elysium gesture of sincerity, this time with a toothy grin.

  ‘Ramming that ship was one of the richest pleasures of my life so far, so no thanks are required.’

  ‘You are gracious, my lord.’ Amadeus replied.

  ‘No, I am merely honest.’ Ekene stepped closer, tapping his knuckles on my master’s pauldron. ‘Ah, these are ill-omened colours to wear in our dominion, my wayward friend. It grieves me to see the Imperium passed down our traitorous brothers’ heraldry to your bloodline. I am sure you deserved better.’

  ‘I am somewhat less than delighted by the truth myself, my lord.’

  Ekene turned to the Spears by his side. ‘You told me the False Scorpion was a humourless wretch and tiresome to be around, Morcant.’

  The cannibal licked his teeth, not bothering to hide his smile. ‘He was, Warlord. But all the pieces of Tolmach and Faelan that we packed into him have cheered him right up. I can almost tolerate him myself, these days.’

  ‘Ever a generous soul,’ Ekene observed. I couldn’t help but notice even Amadeus had stepped closer to Ekene now, and the same regard shone in his eyes. That sense of warmth and fraternity had expanded to wrap around him, as well. I think, in that moment, he no longer felt utterly excluded. An outsider, yes. But no longer an invader.

  Ekene reluctantly cut the reunion short. ‘We have much to speak of, Amadeus of the Mentors. But now, my brothers, if you’ll forgive me for casting a pall over this gathering…’

  The Warlord moved to the planning table and began to summon hololithic images into being. Across the chamber everyone fell silent, and the more Ekene said, the harder it became to remember that there had been any joy at all the beginning of the council meeting.

  4

  They called it the Storm Tide. Psychically gifted warriors among the Celestial Lions had first detected it, but soon enough signs and omens were manifesting across the sector around Elysium. Gutter-psykers and sworn guild astropaths alike suffered visions of vast shadows sailing in the Sea of Souls, cutting like knives towards the heart of Elara’s Veil. The peasant-psykers had no idea what they were seeing in their wrack-dreams, only that death tore through the void in the shape of a storm. More educated and talented astropaths sent cries of warning through the warp, audible to the warriors of the Lions’ librarius division, who were already mustering the lords of their Chapter and sending word outwards, to the Spears and the shared Armada.

  All the reports concurred. A great wave within the warp was surging towards Elysium. That alone would have sounded like naked horror, but it wasn’t the shrieking energies of the etheric ocean that concerned the Adeptus Vaelarii. It was what those waves meant.

  ‘A fleet,’ Ducarius said, utterly certain. ‘A fleet large enough to raze your home world.’

  Ekene nodded. ‘That is what we believe.’

  No one knew how that many vessels were maintaining fleet cohesion in the Dark Imperium’s savage warp. No one knew how the Exilarchy was able to maintain its current warfronts while also possessing a fleet capable of creating such a monumental bow wave in the empyrean. The obvious answers weren’t comforting.

  ‘Reinforcements,’ Brêac growled. ‘The Exilarchy has reinforcements from the Rift, or from elsewhere in Imperium Nihilus.’

  Ekene’s face was drenched in flickering light from the hololithic sphere floating above all of them. The world, Elysium IX, was ringed by an extensive orbital defence array and crowed with star fortresses. Even so, it was a pale shadow of Nemeton’s might. Nemeton had Bellona, and a forge-moon evened a lot of odds.

  ‘If the Exilarchy has managed to add to its ranks from outside the Veil, this changes the war beyond recognition.’

  ‘And we’ll deal with that, Warlo
rd,’ said Brêac, ‘but first… What of Elysium?’

  ‘The Armada is already being assembled.’ Ekene spoke with certainty, but without passion. ‘We encountered you early, so you are among the first of the Adeptus Vaelarii forces to hear of this, but word is being sent across the Veil via astropathic duct.’

  ‘Unreliable,’ Brêac pointed out with reluctance.

  ‘Necessary,’ Ekene said, in a tone of agreement.

  Morcant banged his armoured fist against his chest-plate. ‘If the Armada gathers, we’ve already won. Nothing will break it. We can hold Elysium.’

  Ducarius was far more solemn. ‘Arakanii… A warp-wake of this scale indicates a fleet that may match the Armada. At the very least, they will maul us badly. And they have the advantage of, somehow, being able to maintain cohesion in the Sea of Souls. They’re arriving as one fleet. We’d be reaching the system in a trickling flow, ship by ship.’

  ‘You’re saying we can’t fight them?’

  ‘I’m saying I don’t know how we can. Warlord, how long do we have?’

  ‘Weeks.’ Castellan Roist answered for Ekene. ‘A month at most. They can maintain cohesion in the Sea of Souls, but they’re still slowed by the broken tides.’

  Murmurs broke out across the bridge. Even a month would leave them hard-pressed to gather the entire Armada.

  ‘We can do it,’ Brêac said. He leaned his knuckles on the hololithic table, staring at the vista of stars. ‘We can do it, but we’ll be leaving whole swathes of the Veil undefended. Rains of Nemeton, this might be the end of us. We could lose half our remaining territory in a single season.’

  ‘That,’ Ekene said, ‘is unacceptable.’