Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Page 4

  The revel was well underway by the time we arrived, though we soon saw that a Nemetese revel was closer to a funeral by the standards of other cultures. The air was mournful, the chanting songs were a chorus of overlapping dirges. The twin scents of distilled fruit-sourced alcohol and burning wood enriched the breezy air. Men and women beat the beast-hide drums and performed fire-jumping ritual dances. Every physical feat was a test, with the dancers and ritualists dripping sweat from their bare skin, even in the rain. The drums could have been the solemn pulse of the world itself. Little about it felt like a celebration, but there was a dignified ferocity to it all, something that spoke of ­racing hearts and revered tradition.

  My master waited by the edge of the festivities and we stood with him, at a respectful distance. The seven servitors stood guard at our Thunder­hawk, rather than wasting their time hauling our armoury chests through the forest for three hours to the revel. We three helots wore grey-blue storm cloaks, as did the barbarians that populated the revel. Something in the weave repelled rain rather than absorbing it. Kartash huddled in his, looking desperately unhappy. Tyberia wore hers the way an officer would wear a cape, thrown carelessly over one shoulder, introducing self-conscious elegance to the unfamiliar garment. She stood as if expecting everyone to pay attention to her.

  We watched the primitives speaking, trading and chanting in the rain. Infrequent, harsh laughter scudded out from packs of tribesmen, swallowed by the drums or pulled away into the rising wind. A section of the cleared woodland had been given over to both male and female barbarians fighting mock battles, most likely over mating rights or the minutiae of clan honour. Blood marked even the victors of these battles. More than one of the losers lay on the sodden earth, storm cloaks wrapping them as burial shrouds. Other defeated combatants were dragged away and hurled onto the funeral pyres.

  Most of the tribespeople wore leather or hide harvested from various beasts. The bones they wore as talismanic trinkets were similarly taken from any number of variant creatures. Some were human.

  Passive-scanning revealed that six hundred and ninety-seven people were present. Two hundred and eighteen were children in the years of pre-adolescence. Few of these youths clustered around their elders; most ran free in packs or emulated the older tribespeople by recreating the games, prayers and fights. Only twenty-three men and women were of an advanced age, bordering on dotage. These gathered together in an informal court of sorts, surrounded by those who would hear their ­stories and receive their blessings.

  The Spears stood amidst these tribal rituals, yet apart from them. Guarded parents kept their children at a distance from the warriors, and made no effort to speak with the Space Marines themselves. I’d seen humans flee in terror of the Adeptus Astartes before, and I’d seen them dumbstruck with reverential awe, but never had I witnessed a human culture display this distant, cautious fear. At my side, Kartash and Tyberia had noticed the atmosphere as well. We all watched, fascinated by the strange contrast inherent in the Spears’ presence. Our hoods were up, our faces in shadow. We hadn’t spoken a single word since arriving at the bleak revel.

  Yet my master, in his armour of white and green, attracted more attention than the Spears.

  I heard the child approaching. She had been watching us for several minutes and finally gathered the courage to approach. Now she stood a short distance away, just beyond arm’s reach. It would be a lie to say she showed no fear of Amadeus, but where boy-children cringed and hid from the Space Marines in their midst, the girl-children showed something closer to apprehension. This one was no exception.

  She stood, and she stared.

  Amadeus turned a slow glare upon her. His armour joints ­grumbled. His eye-lenses glittered in the rainfall.

  She remained there, trembling now.

  Amadeus stared at the child with weaponised disinterest. Dew drops of rain alighted on his helm, trailing down his faceplate.

  ‘Begone,’ he said to her.

  She fled, shrieking, drawing the gazes of nearby barbarians. Amadeus didn’t watch her leave. He had already returned his gaze to the cold revel.

  ‘Scout the area,’ he commanded us. ‘Return to me when I summon you.’

  Tyberia licked the rain from her lips. ‘Is there anything you wish us to observe, lord?’

  Our master didn’t even spare us a glance. ‘Everything. Go.’

  IV

  THE ARKOSA DEPLOYMENT

  Seven years before Nemeton

  1

  Arkosa was back in the true Imperium, not here on the empire’s rotting edge. I was Helot Solus for the operation, the only thrall assigned to Amadeus for his use. At the time he was still Lieutenant Incarius, five years shy of his promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Several other helots were seated with me at their own control stations, but they served other warriors in the squads under Amadeus’ command.

  Arkosa was my very first assignment, and the first time I witnessed the impossible brutality of a Space Marine in action. Arkosa, with the terrible wrath of the Emperor’s Angels, taught me just what creatures I was serving.

  Many of my augmetics were still untested in the field. The Chapter had reshaped my brain, infusing it with machine parts, flooding its recesses with lore. I knew things I had never learned. I remembered how to do things I had never done. This still threatened to overwhelm me. Fighting the tide of unfamiliar knowledge was like breathing manually. When you stopped to consider the feeling, suddenly it was effort to maintain.

  For a time, I thought madness threatened me. It isn’t enough to say that colours are more vibrant and sounds clearer. You can taste the words you say. Sounds, especially the voices of others, become smears of colour across your field of vision. Memories you reach for become entangled, the moments of your life blurring together as Now and Then become one. You dream of worlds you’ve never seen and know their cultures with a clarity you can’t place in your own childhood. I once lost command of High Gothic for three days, speaking only in a clash of the new languages abruptly implanted within my mind.

  From reading hundreds of reports in the Chapter’s archives, I know this is similar to the process endured by Space Marines when they are new to their ascendancy. When their genetic enhancements are fresh, their senses swim and merge as they adapt to the overwhelming input.

  I did not make planetfall for the Arkosa Deployment. I remained aboard the frigate Victrix, connected to my master through the cogitator bay around me and the enhanced systems of his armour. I had optical feeds from his bolter’s targeter, from the omen-scrye array on his backpack that looked over his shoulder, from both of his helmet’s eye-lenses, and from his bionic right eye. With minimal atmospheric interference, the link between us remained true – what the Adeptus Mechanicus would call ‘the purity of clean data’.

  Arkosa was a verdant world being ground into mud and ash by the uprisings blackening its surface. The people rebelled in the name of starvation. The Pax Imperialis broke down as city after city lost control to the rebellion. Entire regiments of the planetary defence force sided with the rebels. The orbital defence network fired upon itself as well as the surface, as different factions vied for control of its killing power. By the time the Victrix reached orbit, all that remained was a clutch of weakling satellites and orbital platforms in the rebels’ hands. The Victrix torpedoed them from range and cut their wreckage apart with broadsides up close.

  As easily as that, we owned the sky. My master deployed via Thunder­hawk, piloting it himself and accompanied by his two squads. The Victrix remained on station, ready to link its bombardment with Amadeus’ orders from the surface.

  My master’s assignment was simple: insertion within Imperial ranks with an eye to take command of one of the few remaining armies. Eleven warriors to turn the tide of a war. A common enough operation for Space Marine strike forces. Each one of those warriors possessed a helot in orbit, the thralls monitoring
them, feeding them data, linking their insights with their masters’ perceptions.

  My master commanded that the Imperial remnants herald the coming of the Mentor Legion with planetwide propaganda. Cracked screens in besieged cities showed the Space Marines in their ceramite glory, offering bold evidence that the Imperium had not forgotten the defenders. Vox-reports and holos flashed live within enemy-held cities as well, showing the foe that their transgressions had not gone ignored. Vengeance had come.

  Almost at once, there was an offer of armistice. A meeting of commanders and ambassadors was proposed by the leaders of the rebellion. They called upon the legendary honour of the Emperor’s Angels to meet under a ceasefire, requesting the ‘Space Marine Lord’ meet them on neutral ground, to discuss the resolution of the war.

  The helots nearest my station turned in their seats, waiting for my master’s reaction. No one believed it was anything but a trap.

  ‘I accept,’ Amadeus said at once. ‘Helot Solus, broadcast my acceptance from the Victrix’s vox.’

  I did so, but the enemy weren’t finished. The warship in the heavens, they said, was to move out of geosynchronous orbit and hold position where it couldn’t fire upon the surface. The rebels would use the few remaining satellites in the network to confirm this condition was met.

  ‘I accept,’ Amadeus said at once.

  A further request cited that my master come unarmed. He bade me, ‘Explain to them that that will not come to pass. They may bring body­guards, if they fear for their lives.’

  Within the hour, he set out towards the agreed-upon site alone: a war-broken cathedral to the Emperor Triumphant, deep in neutral territory.

  2

  Amadeus was waiting for them at dawn the next day. Motionless. Completely motionless. I watched through my master’s eye-lenses as the six diplomats and commanders approached him in the centre of the fallen temple’s nave. The imagery beneath his boots was a shattered mosaic of the Emperor enthroned and haloed in gold. The white stone pillars supporting the domed ceiling were riven with the acne of small-arms fire. Whatever scenes of divinity the stained-glass windows had once shown were lost to the war. They stood open, as stark as the hollows of missing teeth, now just portals to the morning sky.

  Each of the emissaries had brought a bodyguard. While the diplomats stood in front of Amadeus, a further six armed and armoured worthies waited in a loose ring, surrounding him.

  They honestly thought six would be enough. Throne, but I pitied them for their naivety.

  The ambassadors and their soldiers stood in confident dignity until Amadeus moved. Almost at once they showed instinctive signs of unease and fear: eyes narrowing, lips compressing, micro-shifts in their postures. The bodyguards were no different. Their gloved fingers were tight on the grips of their lasrifles. Four of them maintained poor trigger discipline, either from inexperience or fear. Most of them hid their nervousness well, but their humanity betrayed them to my master’s acute senses and the precision of the wargear we used. In war, information is power, and no one could keep secrets from us.

  ‘Greetings,’ Amadeus said, looking at each of them in turn.

  I was already scanning the gathered emissaries through the optical cogitator that covered my master’s left eye-lens. I matched exposed faces to image files in the planetary archives, assigning names and ranks to each one of them. Although it would have been too optimistic to hope for a full conclave of the rebels’ authority, these six men and women represented a significant portion of the uprising’s leadership in Arkosa’s southern hemisphere.

  The bodyguards wore full-face helms, but four of these had serial numbers and signs of rank on their armour plating, making it a simple matter to ascertain their identities and match them to the planetary census. Before a minute has passed, I had their service records. I tight-beamed my findings to Amadeus’ retinal display as soon as I made each connection. He said nothing and offered no acknowledgement. He expected nothing less. I was merely fulfilling my function.

  The ambassadors greeted my master. One of them, clad in robes rather than the patchwork flak-plate most of the others had scavenged, acted as master of ceremonies. Before the war, he had served as a minor dynast in the Imperial hierarchy. He spoke with the most ostentatious hand gestures to emphasise every point he made, as if the fervency of his monologue compelled him to do so.

  His version of the truth boiled from him. It animated him. He put me in mind of a fevered grox-bull, bloated and poisoned by its own unshed waste, finally able to shit. Self-righteous filth poured from the ambassador in a tide. He recounted the virtues of the war, the necessity of it, imploring ‘Lord Incarius’ to reconsider his allegiance to the falling regime. They had not summoned my master alone to kill him. They had come to convince him their treachery was virtuous. That Amadeus and his Space Marines should be on their side.

  This cause was soon taken up by one of the others, a ranking autocrat in the planetary defence force. This elder claimed that the rebels were no less Imperial than the defenders of the remaining cities, and that they were still pure-hearted servants of the God-Emperor. Their rulers had failed them. They were rising up to prevent the planet from starving.

  My master listened to all of this. It took some time. Throughout their grievances, they called him ‘lord’. He was not swift to correct them.

  ‘You posit that the war would end if the Imperial governor opened the subterranean granaries.’ Amadeus panned his gaze from left to right as he spoke, target locking every single face. ‘Is that the summation of all this rhetoric?’

  They shared glances. Many of them stood straighter. ‘As a first step,’ the Arkosan commander said. ‘Then a more comprehensive reform of global agriculture to safeguard the future.’

  ‘The granaries are empty,’ Amadeus replied, ‘as your governing bodies have repeatedly told you. The stores were opened to feed the vast numbers of refugees sealed within the besieged cities.’

  ‘Not so, Lord Incarius. We have spies within the regency. The granaries aren’t empty. The government lies.’

  ‘Even if your Emperor-appointed governor sought to deceive you, your war has riven this world. You have rendered it worthless for agriculture on a scale necessary to sustain the population. How many farmers lie dead, conscripted by armies of either side? How many fought and died instead of farming the land? How many fields have burned to ash and will never bring forth crops again? You have presided over a rebellion for food, only to ensure Arkosa will starve.’

  I could tell this was nothing new to them. They’d wrestled with these very truths over the years of their war. They had killed their world. It was only natural that they weren’t ready to face up to it. Denial is always fiercest in those that must accept the hardest truths.

  ‘We know that the war has cost us, but once we take control, off-world trade will resume. The trade routes will reopen.’

  My master turned to the man. Most of the humans flinched at the growl of Amadeus’ armour joints. Two of them jerked closer to their sidearms.

  ‘In a generation, perhaps.’ Amadeus’ tone was as calm as the desert itself. ‘Imperial trading in the region will take decades to return after this period of prolonged instability. Additionally, you have bled Arkosa of its valuable resources, ensuring you have almost no currency with which to purchase the imports you require. The trade routes will ­reopen and traders will bring the salvation you crave, only to find a world of bones awaiting them.’

  Orange runes flashed up on my primary monitor. My master’s relayed perceptions: the weapons he had seen thus far among the ambassadors and their bodyguards. I added another three runic markers, believing them to be bayonets concealed within coat cuffs and, from one man’s stance, a pistol strapped to the back of his belt.

  There came a click as my master activated our secure vox-link. The Gothic rune for Obfuscation pulsed blue on my tertiary screen.

&nb
sp; ‘Overlay vox capabilities,’ he said to me, ignoring the master of ceremonies speaking on.

  The data was already primed. My instruments had swept the chamber and picked up eight vox-signals, currently passive. I beamed an overlay to Amadeus’ left eye-lens, marking those among the gathered humans capable of communicating with their forces elsewhere. Every one of the bodyguards, and two of the ambassadors.

  ‘Can you jam them?’ he asked.

  ‘Not from this range, master.’

  Then they would need to die first. They couldn’t be allowed to summon aid.

  ‘Enough,’ Amadeus said aloud to the ambassadors. Several of them flinched. ‘This conclave is at an end.’

  A particularly brave officer stood up to my master. ‘Never would I have thought the Emperor’s Angels would come to our world and deny us all hope. What choice did we have? Should we have lain down and died? Should we have watched our families starve when the rationing first began to fail?’

  ‘Your emotional response to my words is of no concern to me,’ Amadeus replied. ‘I care nothing for the reasons you betrayed the Imperium, nor the justifications you cling to now.’

  The commander knew, in that moment, what was coming. Blood drained from her face, and that has always been the surest sign of a warrior in the moments before a battle. Unprepared men and women will flush, their faces reddening. Veteran fighters go pale, their blood flowing to their muscles.

  It made no difference. My master had sentenced them to death, and die they did.

  When I cleaned his armour that night, I had to use interplate brushes and corrosive oils to gouge the blood from the joints where it had caked.

  ‘Helot Solus,’ he said to me. I flinched as the diplomats had done, turning to where my master sat at a nine-screen console, reviewing the data-feeds of his mission that day.