The Buried Dagger - James Swallow Read online

  Something greater than all of them – Horus, Garro, Keeler herself – had been unlocked in those early, turbulent days. The woman had been forever changed, becoming a conduit for a higher power. Euphrati Keeler the artist and commoner had become Euphrati Keeler, Saint and Hallowed Soul.

  She returned his smile. ‘We are a strange pair, you and I. Both of us reborn in the same transformative fire.’

  ‘Both on the same path?’

  Keeler cocked her head. ‘It will be your hand that sees me set to freedom.’ She had said those words to him once before. ‘It will be your sword that holds fast my safety. But not today.’ She let her hand drop and stepped away. ‘You are too early. It is not time.’

  He put down the untouched wine cup. ‘The Warmaster is close. You must know that. His forces advance on Sol even as we speak.’

  ‘Horus has always been close,’ she countered. ‘It’s not a matter of crude distance. He’s here, right now, in the walls of this place. In every hive city and settlement. Everywhere a slow knife glitters and the wings of black flies rasp.’ Keeler gestured at the cell around them. ‘Be thankful you don’t have the eyes with which to see.’

  ‘All the more reason to get you away from here.’ Garro felt himself falling towards an old and familiar argument once more.

  ‘Horus isn’t the one you are concerned about,’ said Keeler, cutting down his next words before he uttered them. ‘It is your gene-sire who haunts you.’

  ‘Aye.’ It took Garro a moment to allow himself to admit it. Before the Saint, there was no point denying anything.

  ‘Mortarion has changed.’ The warmth and light in Keeler’s face faded and she became solemn. ‘In ways you cannot imagine.’

  Garro thought of the warped creatures he had first seen on the Eisenstein and then several times since – his old rival Grulgor and the abhorrent Lord of Flies. ‘Will I face my primarch again?’ Garro was suddenly aware of the weight of his weapons, his sword and his Paragon bolter hanging heavy from his battleplate.

  ‘What would you do if you did?’ Her hand went to her mouth, as if she wanted to shroud the question from the world. ‘Do you believe that you could stop Mortarion? Kill him? Redeem him?’

  ‘I have to try. I am sworn to you, and if you ask it, I will turn away from any confrontation. But–’

  ‘But you wish it,’ she said, and he nodded. After a long moment, Keeler spoke again. ‘You look to me, Nathaniel. You look to the words of the Lectitio Divinitatus and the God-Emperor Himself for guidance… But in truth, you have never needed to find it in any of those places.’ She walked back towards the far end of the cell. ‘You’ve always known what to do, my captain. Trust your instincts.’

  ‘I–’ Garro raised his hand, words forming on his lips, but before he could utter them, a tone sounded from the vox-bead in the neck ring of his armour.

  ‘Agentia Primus,’ said a mechanical voice, ‘the Sigillite summons you to the Hall of the Ages with all due alacrity.’

  ‘Malcador will be annoyed if you disobey him again.’ Keeler showed that radiant smile once more, as she ducked under the makeshift curtain. ‘Don’t worry, Nathaniel. We will see each other once more, before the end.’

  Loken was at the back of the group as the loose pack of Knights-Errant strode into the tall, brightly lit chamber. It resembled the cathedrals of antiquity, all high arches and fluted stone columns supporting a vaulted ceiling – but unlike those buildings, the Hall of the Ages had no walls.

  In each arch, where a place of pious worship might have sported chancels and great stained-glass windows of devotional art, there were ever-moving panes of holographic imagery.

  The three-dimensional projections showed renderings of events from the history of the Imperium. Loken saw the volcanic obliteration of Ixlund from the Wars of Reunification on one side, and across the way, the Fall of the Hadean Spire in all its gore-spattered glory. He resisted the temptation to stand awhile and watch the projections loop through their short moments of theatre. Each was scaled to true size, so that an observer could walk amid the instance, side by side with war engines and Thunder Warriors, to capture some sense of what it might have been like to be there.

  He wondered if, after all this was over, some holo-artist would commemorate the insurrection in the same way. Or will this era be so shameful that we forever turn our faces from it?

  The thought brought a chill to him, abetted by the cold breeze coming through the arches. The Hall of the Ages was high up on the eastern ranges of the Palace, high enough that a human would need a heat-cloak if they strayed too far from the invisible thermal fields in the middle of the chamber.

  Loken’s attention drifted from the gigantic hololiths to pass over the last few Knights-Errant gathering in the hall. Those he did not know drew his gaze once again, and he couldn’t help but allow his martial nature to come to the fore. He analysed them automatically, as if they were potential enemies. Which ones moved with the telltale motion of a legionary with an augmetic limb? Which gravitated towards the comfort of the shadows? Which stood boldly in the centre of the chamber, eschewing the merest suggestion of concealment?

  Once, to look upon a fellow Space Marine and consider how one might be called upon to kill him was a fanciful idea, a notion bordering on crass and discreditable. How things have changed for the worst, Loken thought grimly.

  On the way here, it had been impossible to miss the surge in activity taking place throughout the Palace’s domains. Troops of Chosen jogged past the Knights-Errant, bearing weapons and equipment towards strongpoints, and flyers darted around in the hazy sky. Snatching surreptitious looks where he could, Loken spotted the bright yellow of Imperial Fist colours down on the lower tiers, as heavy tanks and companies of Dorn’s legionaries deployed to their battle stations. The silent, crackling energy of warfare-to-come threaded through the air, and if Loken was honest with himself, the dread he felt at knowing Horus’ arrival was imminent was tempered by a fierce kind of excitement.

  And perhaps there was relief, too. One way or another, the war was going to end on Terra’s shores, and after long years of enduring this bloody, horrific revolt, Loken was ready for it to happen. In battle, there was always clarity.

  He looked into the sky, past the ghostly shapes of the few remaining suborbital plates, sighting the pale disc of Luna. The moon had been turned into a hardened strongpoint, her defences augmented with combat flotillas, automated systems and defensive grids. Further out towards the ranges of the asteroid belt and afar, he imagined battle preparations already under way. Some stations and war platforms had already gone vox-silent, locking down and preparing for the worst of fates.

  What did the long-range scry-sensors see out there? he wondered. What great terrors has the Warmaster held in reserve, saving them to be unleashed on this day?

  ‘That question will be answered soon enough.’ Rubio moved up to stand by his side.

  ‘I didn’t speak it aloud.’ Loken shot him a hard glare.

  ‘In here, your thoughts are as loud as gunshots,’ replied the psyker. Then he gave Loken a long, measuring look. ‘Have you ever wondered why that is?’

  ‘Whatever you are implying, Rubio, spit it out. Now is not the time for prolixity.’

  Rubio tapped his temple. ‘I think there is a touch of the warp in you.’

  ‘Did Tormageddon knock something loose in your head, psyker?’ Loken snapped back. His traitorous brother had almost killed Rubio during their mission to the Vengeful Spirit. ‘Don’t insult me.’

  ‘Far from it. Although I did have time to think on this whilst I rested in a healing coma.’ The other Knight-Errant raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I am merely commenting on… Well, call it an unexplored possibility.’

  ‘Let it remain that,’ Loken replied firmly. ‘And in the interim, stay out of my head.’

  ‘The pair of you quarrel too m
uch.’ The comment shot at them from the depths of a hooded cloak over a suit of aged, clanking battle armour. The voice was all too familiar.

  ‘Severian?’ Loken’s eyes widened as the hooded figure revealed his face, showing the craggy, scarred map of all his years to the open air. ‘I did wonder what had become of you.’

  ‘You’re not to call me that any more,’ said the veteran Luna Wolf. ‘By Malcador’s edict, the man called Severian no longer exists.’

  Rubio gave a wary nod. ‘Show us the coin.’

  ‘What coin?’ said Loken.

  Reluctantly, the other warrior fished into a pocket of the cloak and his hand returned with a silver disc, not unlike the ones Loken had seen as tokens of the Davinite Lodges in the days before Horus’ rebellion. ‘Name me Iapto,’ he said, his breath emerging in a white cloud of exhalation as he rolled the coin between his thick fingers. ‘It will fit me eventually.’

  ‘As you wish… Iapto,’ Loken allowed.

  The warrior whom he knew as Severian had also been part of the ill-fated pathfinding mission to the Warmaster’s flagship, but he seemed different now – like all of them gathered here. Each of the Knights-Errant was a changed soul. Some, like Loken, had been broken and made anew by the events of the insurrection. Others, like Garro and Rubio, had been torn from their previous existences and thrust into roles they had never expected. And then there were those like Severian, the warrior they called ‘the Wolf’, who seemed to grow to fit whatever circumstance the war put upon them.

  ‘He summoned you too, then,’ said Iapto, looking around. ‘Do you feel it, lad? This isn’t like before.’ He raised a hand, fingering the cold air as if it were a tangible thing. ‘The last apocalypse forms beneath our feet. I see it. Don’t you?’ He looked towards Rubio, who gave a slow nod of agreement. ‘We’ll be at the end soon enough.’

  ‘I am not ready to die just yet,’ Loken replied, answering without questioning where the words came from.

  ‘No,’ agreed the older warrior, turning towards the entrance as Malcador entered the great hall. ‘But you are ready to die.’

  Loken followed Iapto’s line of sight and saw the Sigillite walk doggedly across the baroque mosaic flooring of the chamber, ignoring the panoply of simulated history around him. Silence fell, save for the metal clacking of Malcador’s staff as he came closer. The great psyker looked refreshed and renewed, a different man from the solemn and grim one that had travelled back with the Knights-Errant from the White Mountain. Trailing behind him came his tall, waif-like adjutant, and he too was changed, but not for the better. The nervous, wavering energy the man had shown only hours before was gone and now he seemed a hollow vessel, a fragile mimic of the person Loken had previously seen.

  Rubio observed the same thing and muttered darkly under his breath. Loken caught a name – Wyntor. ‘You know that one?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t think I do.’ Rubio’s reply was distant and cautious.

  ‘This has been a long time coming,’ said Malcador, his voice carry­ing. ‘But as true as that is, it has come too quickly. What you have heard… What you suspect. It is so. The Warmaster Horus Lupercal, the turncoat allies at his banner and the Ruinous Powers he has made his pacts with… They will be here very soon. The invasion of Sol will rage, and the page will turn to the siege of Terra in short order.’

  None of the Knights-Errant spoke, but they exchanged glances and the same implicit question. Why are we here?

  Malcador looked from one face to another. ‘Some of you were recalled in the middle of a mission. Some have been waiting, ­biding their time…’ He paused, and showed a cold smile as another armoured figure emerged from among the hololiths. ‘Others have been following their own paths.’

  The last arrival, the tenth Knight-Errant, resolved into Garro. The battle-tarnished gold of his cuirass caught the light of a low sun as he nodded to the Sigillite, then found Loken and gave him the same gesture of acknowledgement. But of Helig Gallor, the other former Death Guard, there was no sign.

  Malcador went on. ‘I have assembled you here for one reason. Each legionary in this hall is of greater purpose than you can know. Each of you are bound by fate to become titans. In the crucible of the most brutal war the galaxy has ever known, you were tempered. But the duty which lies ahead is of such scope it dwarfs that conflict.’ He paused to let them take in his words. ‘When we leave this place, it will be to undertake the last orders I shall ever give you.’

  ‘We will lead the fight to the Arch-Traitor, then?’ The question came from Yotun, who stood with his arms folded and a ready challenge in his manner. He gestured at his face. ‘Blind the baleful eye?’

  The Sigillite’s cold smile returned. ‘No. That work is destined for other hands. You, my friend, will never raise your axe against Horus Lupercal.’ Loken stiffened at Malcador’s words, and he sensed the consternation spreading through the other assembled Knights-Errant. ‘Let me say it clearly, so there is no misunderstanding,’ continued the Sigillite. ‘You believe you are gathered to meet the spear-tip of the Warmaster’s invasion. You are mistaken.’

  Disbelief swirled in Loken’s thoughts, and he could not remain silent any longer. ‘If we are not to take up arms against Horus, then what worth are we?’ He cast around, meeting Garro’s troubled gaze and Rubio’s hooded glance. ‘Everything we have done, everything we have become since the first shot was fired in anger on Isstvan, all of that has led us to this moment!’ Loken took a step towards Malcador, and he saw the Sigillite’s aspect shift, becoming defensive. ‘Now the most decisive battle of the rebellion is unfolding and you wish us to… stand down?’

  ‘The lad is right,’ said Iapto. ‘If this is some sort of test of our obedience, Sigillite, it’s a poor one.’

  Fittingly, it was Garro who summed up the mood of the gathered warriors. ‘What if your order is refused?’

  ‘Then untold trillions of human lives are doomed to vassalage and degradation,’ Malcador answered, but his piercing gaze remained on Loken, lancing into his soul. ‘An eternity of darkness falls across all the stars. And horrors will be unleashed. Things of such terrible dimension that their predations would make the worst deeds of Horus Lupercal seem like the bite of a fly.’

  His words echoed around the hall with enough power behind them that Loken could not immediately summon a reply.

  Then finally, mercifully, the Sigillite broke his gaze. ‘I will show you,’ he said to them, his words hushed but their force undiminished. ‘Look here, and see what fate will transpire if my word is denied this day.’ Malcador raised his hand and every one of the hololiths about the Hall of the Ages crackled and writhed. ‘What appears next is not an illusion. Rather, it is a window into one of a billion skeins of time where the deed is left undone. Look without flinching, and you will see.’

  At the Sigillite’s unspoken command, the hololithic fields grew and merged into a twisted, flickering dome that enveloped them, blotting out the pillars of the chamber and the ceiling high above. The lambent forms of the historical projections fused into one another, flowing like mercury as figures from long-forgotten wars and distant vistas were repurposed into new forms.

  And suddenly they were standing on a ridgeline staring at the Imperial Palace many kilometres distant, through a battle haze of aerosolised blood and human ash. As Loken watched, the massive, majestic keep of the Terran capital cracked from within, as if it were the shell of a gargantuan egg.

  From the jagged fissures in the donjons and shield walls came floods of black oil as a dreadful colossus was birthed within. Tentacle-like appendages as big as battle cruisers burst out into the tainted air, and the Palace collapsed in on itself, bursting with fire and dust as its towers and gardens were torn asunder.

  Out of the tumbling mountain of wreckage emerged a cephalopod creature covered in rheumy eyes and clacking beaks. It reached for the sky and screamed a blood-chilling birth-cr
y.

  The scene reformed.

  Now the blackness of space was the arena, and drifting before them was Terra herself, the wounded globe lit by millions of corpse-pyres across its nightside. Off to the edge of the shimmering vision, Loken beheld a broken grey hemisphere amid a slick of thick dust and planetesimal masses. It was all that remained of Luna, ripped apart by incredible forces and remade into a lethal ring system of blasted rock.

  Warships by the thousands fought in this death zone, trading fire from massed batteries of mega-lasers and salvoes of cyclonic torpedoes. Then the distant yellow disc of Sol flashed with a sickly shimmer and in a blink it grew to fill the black sky. The unstoppable wave of a supernova shock-front engulfed the remnants of the moon and the dying ember of the Throneworld, and in the last moment before the white-out filled his vision, Loken glimpsed a cackling daemonic face at the heart of the fire.

  And now the images picked up speed, each one changing faster than the one before.

  Loken saw what could only be the grand capital of Ultramar laid out before him, but the once majestic boulevards of Magna Macragge Civitas were drenched in rivers of crimson, and where the great banners of the XIII Legion had once flown there were only ragged flags made of flayed human skin.

  Everything that lived on this world was a slave to the monsters prowling in hell-forged shadows, the few survivors chained for their pain and suffering, alive only so they could be continually despoiled and abused for the amusement of these immortal fiends.

  Another transition, swift and disturbing with its velocity: the endless night of deep space, and ranged against that backdrop a flotilla of desperate refugee ships of all kinds, engines flaring as panicked crews attempted to escape.

  Then the night moved, great jaws as wide as worlds opening. The blackness came alive with a million laughing maws that swelled to savage the ships, biting them in twain, swallowing them whole.