The Buried Dagger - James Swallow Read online

  ‘I didn’t kill it,’ Malcador told him, with a weary sigh. ‘I’ve learned that you can’t eradicate them, not really. Not in the sense that a warrior would understand.’

  Garro jutted his chin at the black iron staff. ‘Give me a weapon like that and I will try, as many times as I need to.’

  ‘It’s more of a tool than a weapon,’ said the Sigillite, before he caught himself and fell silent, showing a thin smile. He started again. ‘We are finished here, and we should court no further delay. You and the others will return with me to the Imperial Palace.’ Malcador turned back towards the mountain. ‘With luck, the rest of the incursions will have been put down by the time we land.’

  ‘The rest of them?’ Garro looked back at the cooling, crackling stone.

  ‘Do try to keep up, Nathaniel.’

  Garro scowled and fell in step with the Sigillite. He nodded towards the gate. ‘I take it you found the answers you needed?’

  For the first time, Garro noticed the dried blood marring the front of Malcador’s robes. He could smell the faint odour of it, his olfactory senses picking out the particular scent of human vitae.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself,’ replied the Sigillite. ‘The matter is concluded.’

  ‘And the Sisters?’

  ‘Their battle is ended. The Warmaster has played his last shrouded pieces before committing to the endgame, at the cost of their lives. We’re walking through his final gambit.’

  Garro couldn’t stop himself from looking up into the grey sky. ‘He’s on his way.’

  ‘That has been true for seven hard years,’ Malcador noted. ‘Longer than that, even.’

  Garro’s gaze fell and found Rubio. The psyker turned away, but not so swiftly that he didn’t see that haunted look again. ‘What happened in there?’

  ‘I told you not to concern yourself.’ Malcador raised his voice to be heard over the rumble of thruster jets, as a slate-grey Thunderhawk descended from the White Mountain’s landing bay to touch down beside them.

  Garro kept watching Rubio. ‘I know a grave wound when I see it.’

  ‘He’s more resilient than you give him credit for,’ said the Sigillite, as the aircraft’s drop-ramp fell open. ‘You all are. That’s why you were chosen.’

  The flight passed in the blurry, time-shifted state of the catalepsean phase, as Rubio allowed his brain implant to enter the half-woke state that was a legionary’s closest approximation of sleep. Eternally conscious, it was in this demi-aware mode that he rested and gathered himself.

  Partly, Rubio entered the trance because his body was fatigued and he had learned through bitter experience to snatch rest wherever he could; but he also dropped away from his fellow Knights-Errant so he could look inward and probe the gap in his memory.

  The void was seamless and perfect, so firmly threaded into the weave of his experiences that it appeared as if it had always been there. Already, Rubio found himself subconsciously accepting the new pattern of memories, and he had the unpleasant feeling that in days from now, he would not see anything amiss at all.

  Malcador’s bright telepathic presence hovered on the edges of his preternatural sense, a far sun in an inconstant sky. He had no means to prove that the Sigillite had done something to him back at the White Mountain… But in a strange way, that absence of evidence was the proof. Only a near-sublime psyche as powerful as Malcador’s could have re-sculpted a consciousness and left virtually no trace.

  Rubio thought about the missing moments and wondered what else the Sigillite might have taken – or left behind.

  His sense of time shifted, returning to normal synchrony, and Rubio absorbed the conversations going on around him, as multiple voices overlapped across the vox-channels.

  The war-to-come had touched places other than the White Mountain. Reports of insurrectionist supporters, fifth columnists and sapper attacks filled the communications net. Some of the flashpoints were low-scale affairs left to the Imperial Army, the Adeptus Arbites or local city watches to deal with – riots that metastasised out of so-called peaceful demonstrations against the strictures put in place by Lord Dorn’s edicts of defence, and the like. But others had the character of carefully planned sabotage and covert strikes. There had been armed assaults on the starports of the Nihon archipelago, running battles on the Atalantic Scarp, terrorist bombings in half a dozen hive cities. And amid these conventional attacks, there were reports of the uncanny and the impossible.

  Every one spoke of the flies. Swarms appearing where none should have been possible.

  Months of searching for and neutralising such things had given Rubio an ear for these phenomena. The tone of voice of common men confronted by unreal terrors had a particular cadence that he had learned to listen for.

  These sort of engagements were where the Knights-Errant were dispatched, but now more than ever Rubio was coming to the belief that their numbers and their weapons were not enough to stem the tide. The Thunderhawk landed hard on one of the Palace’s upper pads and Rubio chose to be the last to disembark, prizing his silence. As he exited the ship with the crew-servitors trailing behind him, he took in the scene. Other ships of similar tonnage, along with bristling gunships and Aquila-class shuttles, were crowded on the pad, each besieged by a gang of minor mech-adepts busily patching damage or preparing the craft to go back out into the field. Armsmen in the carapace gear of the Chosen patrolled the edges of the great platform, facing out over the capped mountain, the elegant towers, and far below, the shanty-city of the common-folk.

  But what held Rubio’s attention was the number of figures in storm-shade legionary battleplate, standing to attention as the Sigillite moved among them.

  In all the time since that fateful day on Calth – the memory made him wince, for some reason – Rubio had never seen more than four Knights-Errant in the same place, at the same time. Along with himself, Loken, Garro and Gallor, there were eleven of them.

  He had always suspected that there were more than he knew, of course, and in the past he had glimpsed warriors whose gait did not match those he was familiar with. He thought of the one he had seen leaving Malcador’s chambers, and searched the unknowns, looking for commonality.

  A familiar face passed beneath his gaze. Vardas Ison gave him a solemn nod that communicated a whole series of intentions, and he returned it. Nearby, another Knight-Errant unhooded, and Rubio saw the motion of carved charms about his neck-ring. Those were this warrior’s sole keepsake, just as Rubio’s was the Ultima-emblazoned gladius he had been allowed to retain from his parent Legion. The charms were a talisman favoured by the so-called Rune Priests of Lord Russ’ feral Rout, and if that were not enough, the ashy-rust colour of the warrior’s ragged hair all but confirmed his origin as a child of Fenris.

  The former Space Wolf grinned at him as he stepped off the Thunder­hawk’s ramp. ‘Brother Rubio. Well met.’

  ‘Yotun?’

  He nodded. ‘Or is it Koios now?’

  Rubio didn’t answer the question. ‘The lander… You crashed it into the traitor encampment. And lived.’

  Yotun’s grin widened. ‘It’ll take more than that to finish me.’

  ‘Clearly.’ Rubio thought about the silver coin Malcador had given him. ‘Who did you used to be, brother?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Yotun nodded towards Malcador. The Sigillite was in hushed conversation with his adjutant, the tall, slight man called Wyntor.

  ‘I suppose not.’ Rubio watched Wyntor carefully. The thin human’s eyes darted nervously from side to side when Malcador’s attention was not upon him.

  Rubio had seen that agitation in him before – or at least, he had seen it in someone who looked like Ael Wyntor, spoke like him. The mystery of the man sent Rubio’s musings back to the gloom that troubled his own thoughts.

  ‘The shadow attacks have been put down,’ announced Malcador, pitching his voice
so all of them could hear it. ‘We were ready, and we were in place when Horus’ lackeys triggered them. But these will not be the last. I have no doubt that other weapons and other poison lies in wait.’ He took a breath, and nodded to himself. ‘But know this. These attacks are the tolls of a bell that sounds the beginning of the end. The plans and preparations that the insurrectionists have made are about to blossom. There will be fires and there will be death. There will be confusion and panic in the streets – this and worse, before the Warmaster’s ships blacken that sky.’ Malcador pointed a bony finger into the air, walking back through the group. As he did, Rubio saw Wyntor take the opportunity to slip away while his master was otherwise occupied.

  ‘And what would you have us do about it?’ The question came from another of those warriors unknown to Rubio, but the pallid cast to his features and the sable of his half-shorn mane suggested that this one was of Lord Corax’s Legion.

  ‘Nothing, Brother Ogen. Nothing at all.’ Malcador paused, resting on his staff, taking in their faces. ‘You should use this moment to rearm, repair your armour and replenish what is depleted. This is the calm before the storm, and it will never come again.’

  ‘Calm?’ Garro made no effort to keep the irritation from his voice. ‘Cities are aflame across the planet. The people are dying. The war is already here.’

  Malcador did not answer. Instead, the reply came from a dark-eyed warrior who stood in the shadows beneath the wing of a shuttle. ‘This is not the war, Death Guard. These are just the ripples ahead of the wave, lapping at the shoreline. You should look up. The flood tide will be so great and so vast, you may mistake it for the sky.’

  Rubio briefly considered the dark-eyed one through the lens of his psychic sight, and frowned in confusion. The shape of the warrior’s soul was off-kilter, a form that seemed to be sculpted from shards rather than born into a whole. He drew the other Knight-Errant’s attention and instinctively withdrew, but not before he glimpsed the image of a silver coin and a word etched upon its surface, ­fading as it was said aloud.

  Ianius.

  Garro’s expression turned stony and he walked away. The endless, grinding weariness of this maddening half-war constantly dragged on his focus, forever threatening to pull him from the true path laid out before him.

  He took a long, deep breath. Now was not the time to become subsumed into another of Malcador’s labyrinthine schemes. What he required was the clarity of his faith, and the strength that knowledge would bring.

  The Sigillite continued to converse with the dark-eyed Knight-Errant and the others, but Garro’s thoughts were elsewhere. He moved to Gallor’s side, where the other warrior sat atop an arming crate, and spoke quietly so that only he would hear his words. ‘Brother, I have need of you.’

  ‘I am familiar with that tone of voice.’ Gallor gave him a sideways glance. ‘I heard it every time you tasked the Seventh Company to do something… defiant.’

  Garro smiled, despite himself. ‘True. And we did defy the odds with such zeal.’

  ‘Aye, captain. Those days are another life to me now.’

  The smile faded. ‘To us both.’

  Gallor looked away. Since returning to Terra, Garro’s former rank of battle-captain had been reduced to little more than an honorific, and while he did hold the status of the Sigillite’s Agentia Primus, the unspoken rule was that no Knight-Errant truly outranked another. If Garro gave Gallor a command, he could not enforce it except by invoking Malcador’s proxy.

  But that point became moot when the other Death Guard nodded slowly. ‘I do not forget. Tell me what you need, captain.’

  ‘You will find what remains of the Seventy, our brothers who escaped treachery aboard the Eisenstein.’

  ‘Less now,’ Gallor noted. ‘And not all may be on Terra. They were not chosen as we were.’

  ‘Gather who you can. Our last battle is almost upon us, Helig.’

  Gallor gave a grim nod, and glanced in Malcador’s direction as the Sigillite excused himself, leaving the assembled Knights-Errant to attend to their preparations.

  Garro shook his head, answering the unspoken question. ‘This is not a matter for the Regent to be concerned with. I ask you to do this, not as your former captain, not as a Knight-Errant. I ask as one Death Guard to another.’

  The other warrior stood up. ‘Then it will be done.’ Gallor walked away without looking back.

  Gathering the battered material of his combat cloak around him, Garro made for the gaping maw of a null-grav drop tube on the far side of the landing pad, deliberately avoiding the rest of the Knights-Errant. However, there was no way around Rubio, who stood waiting at the edge of the platform as if he had expected him.

  ‘You are looking for something,’ said the psyker, and Garro felt the gentle pressure of a telepathic probe.

  He gave Rubio a warning glance. ‘Keep your own counsel, Tylos.’

  ‘There is much about you I have never understood, Nathaniel. The hidden places in your thoughts.’ Rubio folded his arms across his chest. ‘And questions unresolved. It seems those are falling like rain in these hours.’

  Unbidden, the memory of a dead soldier’s votive charm – a golden aquila upon a chain – rose in Garro’s mind. Was that Rubio’s doing, or something else? He hardened his resolve. ‘I have never challenged you, Codicier. Do me the same honour.’

  ‘How can I challenge what you believe in?’ Rubio replied. ‘The Emperor Protects, yes? How can such a statement be assailed by any one of us?’

  Garro pushed past him, and stepped onto the elevator platform. He left a warning in his wake. ‘Look to yourself, brother. Soon, there will be no respite to do so.’

  But Rubio could not end the conversation without one final push into Garro’s surface thoughts, snatching his intentions from the ether. ‘You are going to the deep dungeon tiers… Who do you hope to find there?’

  Garro said nothing, and let the darkness take him down and away.

  Ael Wyntor’s hands were shaking so much that he almost dropped the cypher key, and it took a physical effort for the adjutant to slow his racing breathing to the point where his mind had clarity.

  He laughed bitterly at that as he padded across the central atrium of the Sigillite’s chambers, skipping from one ornamental rug to another as he tried to fox the sensing globes drifting up in the eves.

  Clarity. The mere suggestion that he had something like that was ridiculous. If anything, Wyntor’s thoughts were thickening, gaining a fog of confusion that became more opaque with each passing moment.

  ‘If only they knew, if only I could say,’ he muttered to himself. He glanced in the direction of the great arched window visible through the open door to the bedroom, and a blunt, suicidal impulse juddered through his body. A barrage of harsh, invasive thoughts struck him.

  Wyntor imagined suffocating in the red silk sheets of that bed, releasing control of himself and thrashing wildly until he asphyxiated–

  –Smashing a hole in the glassaic window with a chair and diving out of it–

  –Stabbing himself in the heart with one of the antique knives in the dining room–

  –Tasting the metal of a lasgun’s muzzle on his tongue before squeezing the trigger stud–

  –Swallowing the ink from Malcador’s study in volume enough to be poisoned by it–

  –Hurling himself off the edge of the Eagle’s Highway–

  He screamed and slapped his own face, the sounds rebounding off the carved walls. Wyntor gulped and hugged himself, fearful that his outburst might have set off some kind of alarm. But there was no siren, so he moved on, shaking his head, struggling to return to his previous train of thought.

  ‘What would the people say if they knew what I know?’ he asked the silent air. ‘What if they could see the truth behind the insurrection?’ Wyntor felt the tears coming. ‘Why did I have to be told? Why did he
have to tell me?’

  He took a shuddering breath, and there was the scent of rich amasec on the air. A rare vintage. He had shared a glass of it with Malcador the night before.

  No. That was not correct. Not last night. Months ago. Or was it years?

  Wyntor clasped his face, the stolen cypher key pressing into his thin flesh. This was not how it was supposed to happen.

  In his ideal, perfect version of this plan, the Sigillite would still be away at the White Mountain, gone for another day at least. Wyntor would have more time. But things had become complex. He had underestimated how long it would take him to get the key, to fabricate the permissions and get into Malcador’s inner sanctum without being detected.

  The memories of years of serving the Sigillite – or was it months? – gave him all the tools he needed. It was only the application that he had misjudged.

  Then, what now? He skidded to a halt in front of the doors to the grand study. The sensor grid would let him in here without comment, but still he hesitated.

  ‘I can still run. Flee and flight, yes…’ The idea formed, but then it broke beneath another jagged bolt of reality. ‘No. No. They’ll find me before I make it to a flyer. So I need to know.’ He steeled himself and entered the study. ‘I needed to know. I won’t go back.’

  Malcador invited him into this chamber only rarely, and at first it had been something Wyntor enjoyed. At first, he had enjoyed all of their conversations. The Sigillite was learned, diverting company, and his vast collection of art and literature was compelling to Wyntor’s questing mind.

  They would talk, they would play regicide, and they would engage over amasec and speak of things that could not be discussed elsewhere. At first.

  But looking backward from here, Wyntor now understood it had been an elegant, gilded trap, no different from any of Malcador’s other schemes.