The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee Read online

  Every year, the winter was getting marginally worse, or so it seemed to him. Life in the Hellblade Mountains became that little bit harder, and the Month of First Warmth all the more welcome when it came. But he knew it wasn’t the climate that was changing. Not really. It was his body, plain and simple. His best years were well behind him. Soon, he would have to approach the master about selecting an apprentice. Pride and simple stubbornness had delayed that particular conversation for far too long already.

  He had been waiting for almost an hour now, standing on the periphery of the Tarvo Peak landing pad, just beyond the thick yellow line that marked the edge of the safety zone. The pad was a broad circle about a hundred metres across, projecting slightly outward from the gentle lower slope of the mountain like an oversized discus, supported from underneath by massive iron stanchions as thick as any of the limlat trees that grew in the far north. Tiny red lights winked in unison all along its circumference and, painted in the very centre with its wings spread wide, was a massive white icon – a stylised eagle with two heads. He had supervised the repainting of it himself last summer. Its lines were still fine and sharp, though the day’s snowfall was just starting to cover them.

  Above the mountains, the clouds were the colour of wet slate. Bright, fat snowflakes spiralled down onto the shoulders of his all-weather greatcoat.

  Underneath the coat, Savales wore a formal dress tunic, midnight-blue like the armour of his lords and decorated at the breast with the icon of the Chapter. It was a great honour to wear that icon, but the tunic wasn’t doing much to keep him warm. Idly, he wondered how much more comfortable he might have been in the robes he usually wore about the fortress. His winter set, woven from thick raumas wool, was much more suitable for this weather. He donned the dress uniform only once or twice a year, and was thankful that most of those occasions fell within the spring and summer seasons.

  A freezing gust of wind from the slope behind him cut through his coat and made him curse out loud. He turned to look over his shoulder, but neither the wind nor the curse seemed to bother the silent, stationary figures standing in a long double row behind him.

  Servitors. Nothing bothered them. They patiently awaited his command, each pair holding a lacquered black palanquin between them.

  Savales faced front again, muttering to himself.

  Damn it, he swore, have I really become so fragile?

  To think that he had once been an aspirant, had even passed the Trial of the Bloodied Hand. He might have been a battle-brother now, practically impervious to pain and discomfort, but the critical implant process had failed. Without the sacred implants, no matter how good a fighter he was, he was still just a man, and his destiny was to live and die as one, and to feel the cold in his aching old bones.

  The seventeen sacred implants that would have made him a Crimson Fist…

  He had been only fourteen summers old when the Chapter’s Apothecaries had attempted the first procedure, and he would have given anything, anything at all, for it to have succeeded.

  How cruel the fates had been!

  How many nights since then had he dreamt of the life he might have led, sharing in the strength and glory of the armoured giants who had traversed the gulf between stars to find him and test him? How many nights had he awoken, cheeks damp with tears, weeping quietly into the dark silence of his room, lamenting all that might have been?

  He had passed every test administered, mastered every task set. Death had done its best to stop him, and had taken all but one of his rivals, but it had not been able to reap the soul of Ramir Savales. He had survived, and he had earned his rightful place among the mighty while the other boys, all but Ulmar Teves, lay paralysed, drowning or bleeding to death in the stinking black marsh-waters of their home world.

  The last test had been the hardest. The vicious sting of the bloated barb-dragon had almost pierced his skin. Just one microgram of its burning venom would have brought him unbearable agony, then madness, then finally death. Three times that lethal barb had almost pricked his wrists as he grappled with the noxious creature, but he had won out in the end. He had earned his place. No one, least of all Savales himself, had imagined that his own body, his own blasted flesh, would undo all his dreams.

  With the cold momentarily forgotten, his face twisted at the thought. Fifty-seven years had passed, and he could still hear the words of the hard-eyed Apothecary who had leaned over the table to which he had been strapped – words that had all but crushed his soul:

  It is not to be, young one. Your body rebels. The implants will not take.

  You are not destined to serve as we do.

  You will never be Astartes.

  It stung him even now, a wound that had never fully healed, though it had dulled significantly over the long years. Back then, he had wished for death to take him, to end the agony of his disappointment. It would have been the ultimate kindness. Instead of death, another kind of salvation presented itself, and it had come from an unexpected quarter. Pedro Kantor, Master of the Chapter, Lord Hellblade himself, had come to the teenage Savales in person as the boy sat weeping in the solitude of a dark stone cell deep below the surface of the Chapter’s mountain home.

  The master had spoken of the worth he saw in the broken-hearted youth, of potential that should not be wasted. So Savales was not to be an Astartes, the master had said. Regrettable, certainly, but perhaps the Emperor had another destiny laid out for him. The Chapter did not survive by the blood of its Space Marines alone. In his wisdom, Pedro Kantor had offered the failed neophyte another means by which to serve.

  The young Savales had been apprenticed to the lord’s ageing major-domo, Argol Kondris, eventually replacing him when the older man passed away.

  Ordinator of the House, the master’s seneschal, highest ranking of all the Chosen – it was as grand a destiny as any mere mortal had the right to hope for, an honour beyond words. Savales had given thanks to the Emperor and His saints every single day since, just as he had prayed for the safety and long life of the one who had given him his glorious second chance, the very one who had charged him with greeting the Rynnite nobles out here on this bitter winter morning.

  Yes, he thought, it is on the master’s behalf that I stand here now. It is my duty, and that duty is a great blessing. So to hell with the blasted cold!

  Mouthing Saint Serpico’s Ninth Litany of Resilience, he lifted his eyes to the sky once more and tried to pierce the veils of falling snow for sign of an approaching craft.

  Nothing.

  His brow furrowed. He was about to check his chronometer again when he heard, ever so faintly, the distant, throaty hum of powerful turbine engines. The noise grew steadily louder and, seconds later, a black bulk resolved itself in the distance, just a shadow at first, but growing more solid, more detailed, as it closed the gap.

  So it begins, thought Savales. At least they are on time.

  Within minutes, the roar of the shuttle became deafening. As it swung in for its descent, vertical thrusters scorching the surface of the pad, its underside blotted out a good portion of the sky, and Savales allowed himself a moment in which to be impressed. The Peregrine was a fine craft, almost thirty metres long, he judged, and perhaps fifteen in height, with a wingspan to match. Its prow was decorated with a gleaming eagle sculpted from solid gold. Unlike the icon painted on the landing pad, this one boasted only a single head. The craft’s sleek gunmetal flanks bore the crests of the planetary government and each of the families that ruled the nine provinces, all beautifully rendered in gems and precious metals.

  As the engines powered down, shifting from a rib-shaking roar to a gentle purr, Savales adjusted the lapels of his coat, smoothed his thinning grey hair, tugged his sleeves down, and stepped forward. He could feel welcome heat radiating from the massive turbines and willed his body to soak it in. Then, as he stood there in the shadow of the long, pointed prow, he heard a new sound – the whine of electric motors. The shuttle’s belly eased open, forming a
ramp down which two men marched in the bright, cream-coloured livery of the Rynnsguard. At the bottom of the ramp, each stepped aside, one to the left, the other to the right, and rested highly-polished lasguns against their right shoulders. They did not make eye contact with him.

  Savales felt a smile twitch the corners of his mouth. Overgrown pageboys, he thought with a private chuckle. They wouldn’t last half a day back on Blackwater. The drechnidae would eat them alive, if the marsh-wallocs didn’t get them first.

  But that was unfair, and he felt a momentary stab of guilt. Lord Kantor had taught him better than that. The planetary defence forces did have a role to play. The nobles needed their bodyguards, and there were always some segments of the populace that needed to be kept in line, even here on Rynn’s World, both of which were duties far beneath the notice of the legendary Adeptus Astartes.

  More footsteps rang on the polished metal plates of the ramp now, and a pair of slender ankles appeared at the top, soon joined by more as the planetary governor and her entourage began descending towards Savales.

  He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and readied himself to greet the most powerful bureaucrats on the planet, hoping to Holy Terra that they wouldn’t do anything stupid while they were here.

  Lady Maia Cagliestra’s palanquin was well cushioned, but the ride was rough and the mountain road was often steep and uneven. Still, nothing could dampen her spirits on this most auspicious of days. She had waited all her life for this. To imagine that she would finally enter Arx Tyrannus. She almost felt like singing. Only decades of well-practiced restraint, of rigidly adhering to the rules of conduct her late mother had so sadistically impressed on her, kept her from externally expressing her joy. Ninety-seven years old – though anyone asked to guess would have wagered her a strikingly beautiful forty – yet she felt as giddy as a child on the morning of the Harvest End festival.

  Even the icy air and the dark vista of the brooding black crags to either side of the road merely served to heighten the experience. These were the Hellblade Mountains, the domain of the legendary Crimson Fists.

  He was here.

  She had waited seven years just to see him again, and soon he would be before her, resplendent as always in his ceramite plate of blue and red and gold.

  At a signal from the man who had introduced himself as Ordinator Savales, the hooded servitors carrying her conveyance came to a complete stop. The convoy had reached the end of the mountain road. Leaning out of her palanquin’s left aperture, she saw that the column stood on the precipice of a yawning black chasm which separated them from their destination.

  The Ordinator walked back to the side of the governor’s carriage, and, bowing slightly, said to her, ‘We’ve reached the main gates, ma’am. I thought you might like to watch the bridge extend.’

  From the palanquin’s shadowed interior, Maia smiled up at him and held out her hand. Her senior secretary, whom she affectionately called Little Mylos, was already hurrying forward from the rear of the column to attend to her, but he was too late. Savales gently helped her to her feet. As she grasped the seneschal’s forearm for support, she remarked to herself on the ropey hardness of his muscles.

  He must have been a fine specimen once, she thought. I wonder how old he is.

  Once she was standing, Ordinator Savales gestured to his left, and Maia turned her eyes to follow. There before her, towering above the far lip of the chasm, were the great outer gates of the fortress-monastery Arx Tyrannus.

  For a few seconds, Maia Cagliestra forgot to breathe.

  ‘By the Golden Throne,’ she gasped at last.

  None of the pictographs in her extensive library could hope to do the sight justice. The gates were at least a hundred metres tall. As a child, so very long ago, she had read all about them. She knew that they had once comprised the prow armour of the legendary starship, Rutilus Tyrannus, the original spacefaring home of the Chapter in the long millennia before the Crimson Fists had been given domain over Rynn’s World. Even today, the heritage of those gates was unmistakable. They still bore the vast shining aquila design that had decorated the front of the mighty craft.

  The gates were set between two massive, square-cut towers that bristled with artillery and missile batteries, all pointed upwards at the dark grey sky, ready to fend off a threat that Maia couldn’t imagine ever daring to approach. Even the foulest and most violent of the xenos races surely weren’t foolish enough to attack a Space Marine home world.

  Extending from either side of the towers were the fortress-monastery’s gargantuan ramparts, thrusting up at sharp angles from the black rock, as timeless and immovable as the mountains themselves, as if they, too, had been formed in some distant, pre-historic age. The walls, like the gates, had been built from the stuff of Rutilus Tyrannus, and were studded all along their length with devastating long-range weaponry, much of which had no doubt once graced the port and starboard batteries of the ship.

  How many enemy craft had those guns obliterated in their battles between the stars, Maia wondered?

  High on the slopes of nearby peaks, she saw other structures, smaller but similarly fortified against attack. The appearance of most of these gave little clue as to their purpose, but one bore large arrays of deep-space receivers and transmitters, and she recognised it from her books as the Communicatus. As she looked, a bulky Thunderhawk gunship hove into view just below the cloud line, arriving from the north-west and slowing to land on the roof of a large cylindrical building that jutted from a hazardous-looking slope to the north.

  She heard Savales say something – she didn’t quite catch it – and turned to look at him. He had one finger pressed to a small mechanical device that encircled his left ear.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ordinator,’ she said. ‘Were you talking to me?’

  Savales didn’t answer immediately. Any words would have been drowned out by the tremendous metallic groan that now issued from the far side of the chasm.

  Maia turned and watched, her mouth slightly agape, as the gates of Arx Tyrannus creaked slowly open and, from a broad horizontal housing in the rock below them, a metal bridge extended.

  It was almost four minutes before the noise finally stopped. When it did, the bridge was firmly locked into place, spanning the width of the chasm, and the gates were thrown as wide as they would go.

  On the far side, Maia saw large humanoid figures marching out to meet them. Her heart leapt. Surely these were the first Crimson Fists she would lay eyes on today. As they moved out from the shadows of the gates she saw instead that they were hulking gun-servitors led by one of the Chapter’s senior serfs. They took up positions on either side of the bridge, facing inward like statues lining a long hall. They did not look in the direction of the nobles.

  Perhaps reading disappointment on Maia’s face, Ordinator Savales said, ‘It is a rare occasion that no Astartes mans the gates, but today is just such an occasion, my lady. On the Day of Foundation, every battle-brother who is able is required to attend the ceremonies.’ He gestured to Maia’s palanquin. ‘Shall we proceed?’

  Maia was still a little overwhelmed by the cold, dark grandeur of Arx Tyrannus and didn’t trust herself to speak, but she nodded and accepted the Ordinator’s help in returning to her seat, absently noting his quiet strength for the second time. Moments later, as the palanquins passed before the dull, expressionless eyes of the gun-servitors, Maia felt a chill that even her thick furs could do nothing to abate. This was most definitely not the warm welcome she had imagined. On either side of the bridge, the lobotomised living weapons tracked the palanquins as they passed. Their weapons were powered up. Maia could hear the hum of deadly, constrained energies. Her skin prickled and her breath became tight in her chest. No one had ever aimed a weapon at her before, at least not overtly. There had been a few failed assassination attempts over the years, but she had only learned of those after the fact.

  Now, she forced her eyes forwards, willing her heartbeat to slow back down.<
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  It didn’t return to its regular rhythm until she was beyond the gates.

  Three

  Arx Tyrannus, Hellblade Mountains

  From high atop the black stone walls of the central keep, banners of blue, crimson and gold rippled and snapped in a cold wind, each beautifully decorated with the proud heraldry of the Chapter’s ten companies and the iconography of a thousand glorious crusades.

  On the spacious, snow-dusted grounds of the Protheo Bastion, a hundred metres below those banners, the Space Marines of the Crimson Fists stood in perfect formation, each armoured warrior a metre apart from the battle-brothers to either side, all arranged according to company, squad and seniority.

  Trails of steamy breath and exhaust fumes rolled into the air from the vents in their helmets and backpacks. Their broad-barrelled boltguns were held rigidly in front of them, gripped in gauntleted hands, muzzles pointing skyward.

  Behind the Space Marines stood over six thousand of the Chosen, all robed in blue to match the armour of their masters, all with hooded heads bowed.

  No one, neither Space Marine nor serf, turned or gave even a flicker of notice as Ordinator Savales led Lady Maia and her party beneath the vast south-western archway and out onto the grounds.

  From the line of nobles following in Savales’s wake, there came a jumble of gasps and suitably hushed exclamations. Savales let the moment pass of its own accord and kept walking, anxious that his charges be seated out of the way as quickly as possible. To that end, he led them north along the base of the towering inner wall, thirty metres back from the closest row of Crimson Fists, guiding the nobles straight towards a small wooden terrace that had been constructed by the Chosen specifically for the purpose of their visit.

  Despite the brisk pace he set at the front of the line, he suddenly found himself addressed by the governor. She had come up alongside him, matching his stride easily with her long slender legs. ‘They’re incredible, Ordinator,’ she breathed, making no effort to disguise the depth of her awe. ‘I mean, I’ve seen them before in the capital, but never like this. Never all together like this. I… I don’t think I’ve ever felt the Emperor’s presence as surely as I do right now.’