Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Read online

  ‘Master?’

  ‘Is there some instinct inside you that cried out this morning?’ He didn’t look at me when he asked, and I wondered if this was a test.

  ‘I don’t understand. Elaborate. Contextualise the query.’

  He still didn’t look at me. ‘Is there something intrinsically human within you that revolts at the death of other humans?’

  If this was a test, its nature was beyond me.

  ‘They were traitors,’ I replied. ‘And they died as traitors should die.’

  He didn’t nod. He didn’t acknowledge me at all. He kept parsing his eye-lens data-feed, watching and rewatching the bodies of aristocrats and their dynastic bodyguards breaking beneath his fists, his boots, his bolt shells.

  I told the truth that day. I felt no revulsion at the death, at the destruction of those treasonous men and women. But it was the first time I had seen Amadeus in an operational capacity, fighting in the field.

  I never mistook a Space Marine for human after Arkosa.

  V

  THE LIVING, LIT BY FIRE

  1

  Kartash trembled as we walked around the gathering. The hunchback cast his gaze across the barbarians, still shivering with the aftershocks of planetfall. For a time, he said nothing to me. I said nothing to him. Tyberia trailed behind us, constantly looking towards the trees.

  On occasion, painted Nemetese brutes approached us with wary gazes and cautious body language, their hands straying close to sheathed blades. Kartash spoke for the three of us, replying to their caution with simple Low Gothic assurances that we meant no harm. His replies were brief and polite, his eyes downcast and unchallenging. Most of the barbarians warned us away from their groups entirely. There wasn’t a friendly eye among them.

  We walked on, skirting the crowds of chanting, mourning, fighting tribespeople. What interested us most was the way the clansfolk acknowledged the nearby Spears with none of the reverence or devotion we knew so intimately in our duty for the Mentors. Adult barbarians bowed their heads to the Spears, murmuring words that we first took to be blessings and invocations. It wasn’t long before I amended that belief; the murmurs sounded more like prayers spoken against a threat.

  Most curious of all was the way parents placed hands over their boy-children’s eyes, stopping the youths from watching the Space Marines pass, preventing any eye contact between Space Marine and child. Yet girl-children stared, untouched by their parents’ guarding hands. Several adults with young sons sprinkled fistfuls of salt on the ground near the Spears, in gestures reminiscent of shamanic warding.

  ‘They don’t want their sons taken,’ Tyberia observed quietly. ‘They don’t want their sons to be reborn among the Adeptus Astartes.’

  Kartash agreed. ‘This is not a culture that celebrates its Chapter.’ He glanced to me, seeing me scanning the tribal crowds. ‘What are you thinking, Anuradha?’

  I’d been thinking much the same as my companions. ‘They’re not showing hostility, exactly. It’s more like caution, a guardedness. The Spears don’t belong among their people any more. They’re treated as outcasts. As condemned.’

  ‘Go on,’ Kartash prompted me. ‘These are worthy insights.’

  ‘The Spears themselves aren’t as barbarous as we were led to believe. It’s as if they’ve been elevated from these tribal roots.’ But immediately I knew the word was wrong. ‘No, let me restructure that thought. Elevated is wrong. It’s as if they’ve had civilisation grafted over their barbarism. In my studies of the more primitive Chapters, including the Wolves of Fenris and the Cretacian Flesh Tearers, they remain exemplars of the cultures that gave birth to them. They possess the tactical acumen of any Space Marine Chapter, yet are indelibly bound to the primal aspects of their parent culture. The Cretacian hunting-clans make for bloodthirsty Adeptus Astartes ­warriors, prone to slaughter. The warrior-clans of Fenris give rise to hardy Space Marines, glorying in tribal fellowship and primitive superstition. They belong to their cultures in tangible ways. But the Spears… They’re a blend of both worlds, the savage and the civilised, with aspects of both, yet belonging to neither.’

  I paused, still staring at the fireside silhouettes.

  ‘Is there something more?’ Kartash prompted me again. How smoothly he took the role of tutor.

  ‘Primitive cultures on Adeptus Astartes home worlds often worship, in some ignorance or fear, and with some precedent, the Chapters that draw from the tribal population. Children of the Baalian wastelands journey for months across irradiated wilderness for the chance to become Blood Angels. Fenrisian youths crave the honour of ascending to the ranks of the Wolves. But here? Fathers cover their sons’ eyes as the Spears pass. Mothers move to stand in front of their boys, guarding them. Many cultures honour their Chapters as demigods, but these Spears… They walk wherever they wish, but they’re received with all the warmth of executioners.’

  As soon as I said the words, they felt right. The final thought came at once. ‘To be a Spear is a sacrifice, cast out of their clans. They’re treated not as gods, but as ghosts.’

  Kartash dwelled on this awhile, watching the taller shapes amidst the gathered humans.

  ‘An accurate and valuable assessment,’ he told me. ‘You will have the honour of entering it into the mission archives, Anuradha.’

  I felt myself flush with pleasure, and I marked the way Tyberia’s lip curled. ‘Nothing she noted wasn’t already obvious,’ she said to Kartash.

  But I ignored her. ‘Thank you, Helot Primus,’ I said.

  Now the deployment had begun in earnest, he was stepping up his role. The look in his eyes was kind, even indulgent. ‘After all the three of us have been through, it wouldn’t be inappropriate to call me Kartash.’

  2

  I had only seen Kartash twice before we were assigned to this operation together, both times aboard the strike cruiser Haloed by Vigilance in the year before we set sail to cross the Great Rift. We had never spoken, merely passed in the vessel’s industrial maze of corridors, offering brief bows of greeting, recognising and offering respect to those of a shared, distinguished rank. This unfamiliarity wasn’t unusual; the Mentors’ helots are trained and stationed across entire sectors, wherever the Chapter requires our presence.

  Before the Nemeton Deployment I had never met Tyberia. She was young, early in her second decade, with thin lips, golden teeth and a thoughtful stare. Her record spoke of great aptitude, a studious demeanour and significant promise. It neglected to mention the snideness and servility, which I suspected was born of her ambition to excel at any cost.

  I’d served Lieutenant Commander Incarius once before, in the Arkosa Deployment I have already described. He’d remarked on this, when the three of us had first been brought before him.

  ‘I have studied your service archives,’ he said, ‘in advance of the Nemeton Deployment. Kartash, with seniority of experience you will serve as Helot Primus. Anuradha, you will serve as Helot Secundus. You performed commendably for me on the Arkosa Deployment. Tyberia, you will serve as Helot Tertius.’

  Kartash had bowed in respect, but I felt Tyberia’s eyes upon me in that moment of rare praise from one of our masters. I flattered myself by believing she was envious of my citation.

  After that initial encounter with Amadeus, we were summoned to a briefing chamber and granted access to the Mentor Legion’s scant databanks pertaining to Nemeton and the Emperor’s Spears. Data-branches led to the archives of the Celestial Lions and Star Scorpions Chapters, as well as Elara’s Veil itself. The lore was thin but useful – the three Chapters were collectively chronicled by the name of their allegiance: the Adeptus Vaelarii, more informally as the Sentinels of the Veil. Three Space Marine Chapters, oathbound to stand in guardianship over an entire subsector. Dispositional data was clear on one matter right away: the Chapters had been stretched thin even when all three had been at full strength.
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  Tyberia studied the databanks with a focus that bordered on ferocity. Kartash was more passive, committing data to his cranial banks in spurts between training sessions. I let my eyes flow over the words, to record them rather than to memorise them immediately, and spooled them in streaming repetitions during my sleep cycles. Such were the advantages of a mind remade by the artificers serving one of the most technologically advanced Chapters in the Imperium.

  Kartash, Tyberia and I hardly spoke while preparing in the weeks leading up to the mission. Even on the long journey towards the Great Rift, we had scarcely interacted. As helots we existed in the same space, blessing and reblessing our master’s wargear in Amadeus’ presence, speaking the necessary prayers, rarely saying an informal word to the Space Marine we were bound to serve. When armouring Amadeus, we moved with the accord of purpose and training. We performed the arming rites without needing to rely on speech.

  And once we’d passed through the Rift, what was there to say? The crew of the warship died in droves around us. Our ranks left us isolated from the decks of the ship locked in the throes of starvation, but the misery of the dying crew still reached us. We could do nothing for them. Slaves have always died suffering while those of higher castes survived. This is life. This is civilisation.

  Tyberia ignored the deaths as events beneath her station. Kartash cata­logued the figures but forbore comment. Both of their demeanours seemed callous to me; the dead and the dying were servants of our Chapter, and they deserved to be honoured for their sacrifice. I collated the images from the servo-skull probes I sent into the other decks, ­filing them alongside Kartash’s numerical analyses. If I couldn’t help the dead, I could at least ensure they were remembered.

  Meanwhile, we prayed we would reach Nemeton alive.

  According to Kartash’s archived curricula aboard In Devout ­Abjuration, the Nemeton Deployment marked his eleventh assignation since he had ascended from thrall to helot rank. All of his previous operations had taken place in boarding actions or void installations. The Nemeton Deployment was my seventh assignment as helot, at twenty-eight Terran standard years of age. Tyberia, at twenty-three, was on her first field operation.

  3

  The three of us walked on together, through the revel, through the storm. The revel pyres burned hotter and higher as the night deepened. They were fed with such eagerness that the storm couldn’t kill them, and despite the rain’s chill, we found ourselves sweating.

  The rituals went on as druids and witches led the gathered clans, using dirges and duels to celebrate life and mourn the recently dead. Some of the feats of courage, such as leaping the blazes, seemed to be performed with an eye towards impressing the watching spirits of ancestors, proving that heroic blood ran through the veins of their living descendants. Life boiled off the Nemetese barbarians the way heat radiated from the revel fires.

  Since landing there, I’d found myself breathing deeper, filling my lungs with the unrecycled air, enjoying the sharpness of the storm’s ozone scent. My hooded robe served me well, the cowl preventing me from needing to constantly cuff the rain from my bionic eyes. I looked across the revel with its dirge voices, pounding drums and clashing blades. Many of the barbarians roared their emotions skywards, beating their chests, moving around the great fires in heaving packs. Rain sprayed from them as they leapt and danced around the funeral pyres. Sweat steamed from them as they fought by the flames.

  Much of what they said was a mystery to me. We knew precious little of the Nemetese branches of Gothic; the datacores aboard In Devout Abjuration were far from thorough. Many Chapters see no reason to take pains to teach others the tongue of their home worlds.

  Tyberia panned her gaze across the clearing, ending by turning to me. Her eyes were still half-lidded. Her irises flickered red with the workings of the augmetics inside her skull.

  ‘Was it like this when you served with the White Scars?’ she asked me. ‘They are also bred from barbaric stock.’

  I almost laughed at that. There was no resemblance at all between the White Scars’ boisterous, cheering brotherhood, and the Spears’ unnerving, ghostly barbarism.

  ‘No,’ I replied, tempering my smile so she wouldn’t take it as mockery. ‘No, this is something else entirely.’

  Kartash mused as he scratched at his stubble. ‘This is a miserable place. I fear we aren’t destined to enjoy our time on this world.’

  Tyberia gave a wordless murmur of displeasure, yet I saw her look across at the slain form of a barbarian, cut open by a rival’s axe and left to lie alone in the rain. For the first time since arriving on Nemeton, there was a flicker of emotion in the depths of her hood. She smiled.

  4

  Soon after, the three of us wandered apart. Tyberia chose to return the way we came, scouting the path back to the gunship. Her decision surprised me, and I said as much to Kartash. He regarded me strangely, unsure whether I was joking.

  ‘One of us should scout the path back,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I know, but Tyberia is ceaseless in her attempts to impress Amadeus. Why decide to take the path where she’ll have far less to report to him?’

  Understanding dawned on his hooded features. ‘How scornful you are, Anuradha. Tyberia wants to be away from the crowds. That’s all.’

  The revel was an assault on the senses after the dignified years of our training and duty, and then the funereal silence of our dying warship. I couldn’t argue with that. But Kartash’s excuse still rang hollow.

  He continued in the face of my scepticism. ‘She is newer to this life than you and I. I warned you already, we should give her time to adapt.’

  ‘She must gird herself,’ I said quietly. ‘Such weakness is unbecoming.’

  Kartash wouldn’t be moved by my logic. ‘It isn’t weakness. It’s just who she is.’

  I held my tongue on that judgement.

  While Kartash elected to remain amidst the celebrations, watching the clansfolk, I chose to walk beyond the revel’s borders. I moved through the forest in a spiralling search pattern, and if there was anything worth reporting beyond the gathering’s boundaries, I intended to find it.

  I was as guilty as Tyberia in a way. After so long aboard In Devout Abjuration, passively sucking in the refiltered, sweat-scented air for months on end, I wanted to breathe freely beneath Nemeton’s sky. The farther I roamed, the quieter the drums became. Soon, they were nothing but a shiver through the forest floor.

  With the revel set so high atop the mountain, most of my journey was a descent. Down through the trees, away from the well-worn pathways, through the woodland blanketing the ­uneven land.

  Just over a mile from the path, a chunk of eroded white stone gleamed through the muddy earth. Centuries of rainfall had smoothed it to a marble nub, scarcely noticeable, but once the eye fell upon it, it couldn’t be missed. I turned, scanning the undergrowth. Sure enough, the dirty floor of the forest hid several other lumps of the same stone. More echoes of an abandoned civilisation.

  Once, there was a building here. A structure of marble. One of those lost cities we saw in orbit. A watchtower, perhaps?

  I kept walking. At the forest’s western edge, a cliff overlooked the ocean. The wind wanted me, pulling at me with grasping claws. The storm reached the horizon in every direction, soaking an already drowned world. There, as the rain scythed through me, I at last looked upon the true Nemeton.

  The ocean.

  The night-water was black, the black of the deep void, though with none of the void’s haunting serenity. The ocean seethed, alive under the roaring wind. And beneath the foaming water… Snaps of lightning offered suggestions of immense shadows. Our archives were vague on what aquatic life thrived in these oceans, so perhaps it was only doubt that fired my imagination. Was that silhouette under the water just a trick of the storm, or the dark bulk of some nameless leviathan?

  Misted b
y the rainfall and half hidden by the rough seas, the shadow broke the water’s surface. Something vast, something black and spined, reaching its curling tendrils skywards. Something that flashed moonlight back from its wet scales. A great eruption of water burst as the thing exhaled. And then it was gone, whatever it was, back beneath the waves.

  I returned to the shelter of the trees, pulling my storm cloak tighter against the rain.

  Not long after, I found the statues.

  5

  The first statue stood alone, mutilated by time and merciless rainfall. A Space Marine, that much I could tell, even weathered down to featurelessness. It stood as a sentinel outside a stone-worked entrance leading into the hillside. The white granite figure was too old to be one of the Second Generation, the Primaris, like every Spear I had seen so far. This statue depicted one of the Firstborn, those Space Marines from the same genetic stock as my master: the warriors that had that served the Emperor so loyally for thousands of years.

  Another statue once shared this vigil; now it was reduced to an eroded plinth in the heart of a nest of tangling forest vines. The woods were reclaiming this place, year by year. The inscriptions on both plinths were written in Nemetese script, a series of slashed lines and jagged runes, softened in the stone by the passing of years.

  I ran my fingers over the indentations in the stone, taking a pict-record with a blink-click for future analysis. Actual Nemetese script, in context. Every shred of lore would be useful.

  The archway leading into the hillside was worn grey stone, doubtless ancient even when my master was young. Whatever engravings once stood out in stark relief were now just impressions of warring figures and the shapeless hulks of great beasts. I saw a claw here, a row of spines there. Above those scenes, the stars were carved with radiant beams of poetic licence. Bellona featured prominently in this etched night sky, looking down upon the people of Nemeton and their Space Marine overlords. The Eye of the Emperor, as the barbarians believed.