The Harrowing - Rob Sanders Read online

  ‘The Dentilicon?’

  ‘As predicted, magos,’ Logista Minora Auxabel informs him. ‘Our sudden vox-silence and hull damage is drawing her to us. Her shipmaster probably assumes we have suffered some sort of accident or malfunction, and is offering support as a courtesy. We have no way of warning them otherwise. Steps must be taken, magos. Even Arkmaster Cruciam concurs. The Omnissiax and her deific cargo cannot be allowed to fall into the Archenemy’s hands.’

  Praeda’s cogitator burns hot with the possibilities.

  ‘So ordered,’ he tells them, finally.

  The logista nods to Praeda’s personal ward engines, who exit the bridge by the command deck elevators. For a while, no construct communicates on the bridge by any means that this unit can monitor.

  Rune banks spark and smoke. Deck servitors go about their business with ghoulish obliviousness. Manus Cruciam says nothing. He fastidiously adjusts settings on nearby rune-screens. Collegium-Mandati Jerulian Hax is similarly silent. They are constructs without purpose. Hax’s Titan payload is already in the hands of the enemy, and the arkmaster now commands a floating wreck. They watch the lancet screens. The Omnissiax glides through the thin belt of colossal rubble and debris that encircles the Gnostica System like a belt. In the dull glow of the system’s star, Cruciam spots the tiny speck that is the contested world of Callistra Mundi, where Battle Group Astramax were to prove their worth. Instead, the god-machines are tainted with the blood of their loyal Mechanicum creators. He fancies he can see sparks of ship-to-ship combat about the world.

  The light frigate Dentilicon has made its turn and is returning to the slowing ark freighter it escorts. The light cruiser runs alongside the Omnissiax in the hope of offering some kind of support.

  At elapsid/gamma-khi-omicron-zeta, the command deck elevator announces its arrival. Deck thralls train their weapons on the opening doors, but it is only a group of horrifically damaged servitors. The constructs limp onto the command deck. They seem confused and agitated. A lexmechanic demands their identifiers.

  Their stumbling silence draws the attention of the bridge crew. The lexmechanic approaches. As she does so her optical relays inform her that the servitors have objects wedged between the gleaming white ceramic teeth of their mouths. Her auxiliary cogitator tells her that there is an eighty-two per cent chance that those objects are grenades.

  She turns to warn the arkmaster and magos dominus, but she doesn’t get the chance. The servitors detonate in unison, tearing up the command deck and blasting the equipment and constructs on bridge with splintered frag.

  Magos Dominus Oronti Praeda is knocked from the command throne. As he shakes the functionality back into his cogitator links, he hears the heavy metal thud of armoured enemies dropping down into the elevator carriage from the roof hatch. Space Marines in the colours of the Alpha Legion sweep forward through the smoke, their boltguns aimed and ready. The brief gunfire is precise and economical. Deck thralls that yet live are executed where they stand. Drone weaponry is blasted to uselessness and even Jerulian Hax’s armed cherubim escort is put down with a single shot to its angelic head.

  Strike Commander Dartarion Varix and the veteran legionnaires of the First Hort, Third Harrow have taken control of the bridge and, by extension, the Mechanicum ark freighter Omnissiax. Varix removes his battle-helm to reveal the bronzed skin of his shaven head, the dark disdain of his primarch’s echoed features.

  ‘Report.’

  Oronti Praeda goes to make a proud retort, but instead Logista Minora Auxabel replies.

  ‘All goes according to plan, my lord,’ she tells her strike commander. ‘The Dentilicon is pulling alongside and sending skiffs across to us.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ the magos dominus manages. Cruciam and Hax similarly stare on in disbelief at the logista.

  ‘But the magos dominus has despatched his ward engines to the engineering section, my lord,’ she continues. ‘Their orders are to detonate the plasma drive and destroy the ship.’

  Dartarion Varix nods before raising his eyebrows at Oronti Praeda.

  ‘Nice try,’ Varix tells the magos dominus. Then to Auxabel, he says, ‘Have Phasal Scolton and his unit divert to intercept the ward engines.’

  ‘Very good, my lord.’

  ‘Our defensive capabilities?’ Varix asks with a thin, ironic smile.

  ‘Port and starboard short-batteries charged and run out as a precautionary measure,’ the logista tells him.

  ‘Have the bridge inform the masters of gunnery decks that we continue to be under attack. Use the magos dominus’s authorisation codes. The batteries are ordered to fire as they bear.’

  ‘As you command.’

  ‘Auxabel…’ Praeda says. He looks from the logista to Quorvon Krish and myself. From my thrall form he moves the disbelief of his optics on to the strike commander. ‘Please, have mercy–’

  Varix raises one armoured finger to silence him.

  ‘There it is,’ Varix says, pointing at the magos dominus’s stricken face.

  As the Alpha Legion strike commander and the Mechanicum magos regard one another, the meagre cannonry of the ark freighter fires. It is a ragged salvo, but it serves at point-blank range to blast the shieldless Dentilicon into fiery void-scrap.

  As shattered sections of the escort fall away, floating before the viewscreens of her larger charge, Dartarion Varix tells Praeda, ‘The desperation. The overwhelming hopelessness. The pleading – perhaps not for your life, tech-priest, but for the lives of others. There is proof that our work is its own reward.’

  Then the strike commander nods to his warriors, and the bridge flashes briefly with precision gunfire. At elapsid/gamma-khi-sigma-lambda-delta, the enemy commander, Oronti Praeda, dies. As do Manus Cruciam and Jerulian Hax.

  Varix turns to Minora Auxabel. ‘So, you got my message.’

  The sparatoi agent taps the implant in her tooth by way of a reply.

  ‘Good work,’ Dartarion Varix tells her. He nods also to me and Quorvon Krish. ‘Logista Auxabel,’ Varix calls, playfully using the agent’s assumed name. ‘Do we have steerage?’

  ‘Barely, my lord.’

  ‘Well, use what we have to get the Omnissiax system-bound. Has contact been established with the Alpha Legion commander?’

  ‘Legionary signatures have been traced,’ I inform him. ‘Harrowmaster Armillus Dynat in command.’

  ‘Armillus Dynat,’ Varix repeats. ‘The uprising?’

  ‘Spreading to the surrounding moons,’ Auxabel tells him. ‘It’s being reported as a rebellion, but the outbreaks are systematic and betray highly coordinated patterns. The precursor to a planet-wide annihilatory action, I suspect, my lord.’

  ‘The Legion reveals itself,’ the strike commander confirms. ‘If Armillus Dynat commands from the surface, then he is likely to have three to four battalions of legionnaires at his disposal, plus sparatoi support structures. There are likely more forces en route. Astropath?’

  ‘Three Alpha Legion heavy cruisers confirmed system inbound,’ Quorvan Krish offers. ‘And the battle-barge Omicron emerges from the Byssda-Escona Deeps, carrying further reinforcements.’

  Varix nods with approval.

  ‘Master Krish,’ he tells the astropath, ‘I wish to send a message to Harrowmaster Dynat.’

  ‘The content, strike commander?’

  ‘Tell the Harrowmaster that the Mechanicum forces and Titan battle group re-routed to crush the rebellion on Callistra Mundi have been neutralised. The god-machines and their transport are in Alpha Legion hands. Inform him that his action has forced a deviation from our mission directives, but that secondary objectives have been met with… Elapsid?’

  ‘Elapsid/gamma-khi-sigma-omicron-zeta,’ this unit reports.

  ‘With five minutes to spare,’ Dartarion Varix finishes. ‘The Omnissiax is en route to assist him, and my veteran ho
rt wait on his pleasure.’

  ‘We go to Callistra Mundi, my lord?’ I ask.

  ‘We do,’ Dartarion Varix confirms. ‘My brother-commander wishes there to be a Harrowing.’

  ‘My lord,’ I acknowledge.

  A Harrowing.

  It is more than just a word.

  My internal data-banks mark it as a signifier. A stratagem.

  It is an expression of the XX Legion’s art of war. An experience, as both prosecutor and victim. Confusion. Disorder. Betrayal. Panic. Horror. An enemy force chasing phantoms. Our foes at war with themselves. We watch as they expose their vulnerabilities. As they make their way from desperation to annihilation. We bring them to the boil. Then, when they can take no more, as they lie across the altar of our tactical perfection, we sacrifice them to inevitability. A storm of coordinated attacks. Alpha Legionnaires appearing from every corner, from every shadow, from behind the face of every seeming friend and ally, boltguns blazing.

  It will be a decimate wonder to behold.

  ‘The Harrowmaster calls on the legionnaires of the Twentieth,’ Dartarion Varix tells us, ‘for he wishes to murder this world. My brothers, we are to be part of something very special indeed. The Harrowing of Callistra Mundi begins.’

  About the Author

  Rob Sanders is the author of The Serpent Beneath, a novella that appeared in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy anthology The Primarchs. His other Black Library credits include the The Beast Arises novels Predator, Prey and Shadow of Ullanor, the Warhammer 40,000 titles Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and Tech-Priest, Legion of the Damned, Atlas Infernal and Redemption Corps and the audio drama The Path Forsaken. He has also written the Warhammer Archaon duology, Everchosen and Lord of Chaos along with many Quick Reads for the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in the city of Lincoln, UK.

  The Shattered Legions gather for a dangerous mission at the behest of Shadrak Meduson. But would their greatest hero rather make such a bold move, or is something else at work?

  A Black Library Publication

  First published in Sedition’s Gate in 2014

  This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,

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  Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

  Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.

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