Sedition's Gate - Nick Kyme & Chris Wraight Read online

  The cohort's orders are clear: hold the Alpha Legion on the sub-levels. The same is being reported across the Omnissiax. Alpha Legionnaires held at choke points and gauntlets. Mechanicum forces are bedding in, establishing heavily defended positions. It would take more than a demi-hort to work their way through such a

  nightmare, especially upholding the kill ratio that the Alpha Legion had come to expect. Like a regicide player, Varix has always thought little of sacrificing individual pieces as part of a strategy to win the game. This, however, would be wasteful slaughter. The Mechanicum are no longer intent on destroying their attackers. Such a strategy has cost them. They had been caught up in the slick machinery of the Alpha Legion's relentless onslaught. Now their intention seems to be to jam that machinery and hold out for the reinforcements that they are sure to find at Callistra Mundi.

  Dartarion Variux cannot allow that. Besides, the assault is about to enter its final stage.

  By elapsid/betakhi-upsilon-gamma the decision is made, the order given.

  'All legionnaires,' he calls across the encrypted channel, 'call in the location of sighted enemy contingents and then hold your own position.' As the lightning rages about him like the judgement of an angry god, the Alpha Legion strike commander listens to the squads and coordinates coming in. Varix retracts a gauntlet as crackling impact energies reach out for him across the grille of the stairwell. 'Darrieux, tell me you have that.'

  He does. The data has been relayed. His voice reaches through the chaos, almost drowned out by the relentless storm of anabaric streams coursing down through the stairwell.

  'Abyssus Edax online,' I tell him from the command deck of the colossal Warmonger Titan. 'Moderati Tessera has a hololithic fix on received coordinates. Confirm - request for fire support received. Stand by, ten seconds.'

  'Be accurate,' Varix orders. 'Be devastating.'

  With bolt blasts and lightning streams exchanged about him, Varix pauses. He undoubtedly enjoys the promise of what is to come, the power of the god-machine at his command. It is elapsid/betakhi-upsilon-xi exactly - the assault about to reach its climax.

  Dartarion Varix switches back to the open channel. 'Incoming...'

  The Titan opens fire from its berthing damps and the ship's torment can be felt immediately. The Omnissiax trembles with the devastation unleashed within it. The sound is excruciating. Decking. Superstructure. Hull. Metal blasted to shrapnel. Ancient architecture twists and warps before the onslaught. Gaping holes and paths of destruction cut through the ark freighter's interior. Even at a distance, the sound of the god-machine's weaponry is a horrific boom. Through passageways, chambers and sections, the rhythmic thunder of the Titan's colossal gatling blaster reaches the Alpha Legion. The rate of fire is staggering - literally. The decks shudder beneath their boots. Huge calibre shells rip up through the ship, decimating entire compartments and the Mechanicum constructs holding position within them. Skitarii soldiers, thralls and automata are blasted into oblivion as the wrath of the god-machine chews through the ark freighter.

  Around Dartarion Varix, the ship feels like it is dying, like some great, mortally wounded beast.

  Then he hears the Titan's quake cannon.

  The deck bucks and even the strike commander almost loses his footing. Like a gargantuan gut-punch delivered amidships, the ordnance rockets through the vessel, destroying everything in its path. Again and again it fires, punctuating the almost constant roar of the gatling blaster.

  'Boots,' Varix calls as one of the quake cannon shells blasts a path out through the ark freighter's hull. Engaging the mag-lock anchors on their armoured boots, the Alpha Legionnaires hold positions as air, debris and the ragdoll bodies of thralls and servitors howl past them, sucked through the labyrinth of passageways and out into space. Dartarion Varix slams my thrall-form into the wall and anchors me there. Quorvon Krish receives similar treatment.

  In the vacuum I can hear nothing. The klaxons are silenced, but the emergency lighting still flashes, bathing us all in a bloody twilight. I can barely imagine the reaction on the bridge, and the data - or the lack of it - that must be greeting the strike commander's Mechanicum opposite. Their great push to meet their enemy head

  to head and pin them down in gauntlets and bottle necks has rapidly evolved into a catastrophe. While the Alpha Legion contingents hold the safety of their reported positions, Abyssus Edax has decimated the Mechanicum forces despatched to hold them in check. Already stretched by the diversionary calamities unleashed by the sparatoi agents and then forced to repel a Legiones Astartes assault from within the very ship they were garrisoning, even the cold constructs of the Machine-God might be tempted to lose their nerve. Perhaps even their faith?

  That is not enough. Not for the XX legion. Not for the strike commander.

  The hydra's heads must strike in unison. The mission cannot be declared accomplished until a disorientated enemy, hit from all sides simultaneously and bereft of hope, falls to the final bolt-round. As the howling evacuation becomes an eerie silence and the reverberating cacophony of titanic gunfire dies away in the void, Varix nods to a nearby legionnaire who closes the bulkhead behind them.

  'Report in,' the strike commander calls.

  One by one, legionnaires from across the ark freighter announce themselves. With air pressure re-establishing itself in the sealed section, Varix has one of his warriors check that the Thallaxii holding the stairwell are no more. This is swiftly confirmed. The floors above are a mangled mess of twisted metal and blasted bodies.

  The strike commander nods, satisfied. 'All units converge on the command decks,' he voxes before turning to me. Then he makes an unusual request. 'Find me prisoners. There must be something left alive on this wreck.'

  Liapsid/betakhi-sampi-koppa-beta. Magos Dominus Oronti Praeda slumps into the command throne of the Omnissiax. Constructs stand around him in grim silence. The air is thick with expectation. The loss of so many servants of the Omnissiah and the turning of their own god-machines against them weighs heavily, even upon the more

  detached Mechanicum priests. But they are not done. Not yet.

  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 anni-hilatory 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 hort 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.'

  Every day he would wake and think he was on Prospero again.

  His chamber's chime would sound at the start of each diurnal cycle, dragging him from sleep. For a moment then, lying in the dark, he would taste the crystal dust. He would look up, expecting to see the scud of charcoal clouds and the capillaries of lightning.

  Then the chamber's lumens would glow into life and he would see the painted walls, the weapon racks, the empty incense burners.

  He never used those burners, even though menials provided him with fresh vials of oil at regular intervals. He wouldn't have known how to do so properly.

  The Swordstorm was the flagship of another Legion. Everything about it - its smells, sounds, the tang of its air and its myriad customs - was unfamiliar. He'd never been on a White Scars vessel before. He knew of no one who had.

  His hosts had been solicitous. They seemed to know more of his Legion's peculiarities than he did of theirs, whi
ch was a minor irritant.

  He learned quickly, though. He studied them as closely as they studied him. When it didn't feel invasive, or if he thought it would go unnoticed, he employed his cult discipline's arts, gently prying open the paths of the past and the future. That helped him. He understood more.

  Using those same arts on Prospero had been dangerous in the last days. The ghosts that remained there had been drawn to him, so he had learned to associate the exercise of gifts with peril. It was hard to let go of that association, especially when the dreams were still so vivid.

  But as time passed, as the Swordstorm ran through the deep void and put more distance between him and the world of waking dreams, it became easier. Yesugei helped him. The Stormseer was a sympathetic guide. It came back, bit by bit, and with it the sense of pleasure in command.

  He was returning to himself. Revuel Arvida, of the Fourth Fellowship, Corvidae, was remembering what he had been, and giving thought to what he might become.

  At times, in his mind, he still trod the vitreous rubble of Tizca, searching for something - anything - amid the slumped heaps of ashes.

  In the real world, though, he had escaped.

  'Did you know Ahriman?' asked Yesugei.

  Arvida shook his head. 'We spoke, a few times.'

  'He was respected? I assume so.'

  Arvida found the questions uncomfortable. The XV Legion was not one of the largest, but there had still been tens of thousands of warriors in the ranks. Yesugei seemed to expect him to know everything about every fellowship.

  'He had the primarch's ear. Few others did.'

  Yesugei sat facing him, dressed in white Stormseer’s robes. Candles were set about them in the modest chamber, and they burned

  brightly, illuminating long paper strips daubed with calligraphy.

  Arvida could sense the quiet power cloistered within the warrior opposite him. It was not at all the same as his, but it was still potent. Warp gifts were like accents - the language was the same, but the treatment varied. Arvida guessed that Yesugei didn't have the full range of command available to a Magister Templi, but there was no shame in that. The capabilities of the Stormseers felt somehow... shackled, as though self-imposed bonds had been placed around the action of drawing from the Great Ocean.