Lion El'Jonson- Lord of the First - David Guymer Read online

  Ground crew in fluorescent orange tabards hastened under the Legion's guns, dragging their promethium hoses towards the majestic war machines. On the runway beyond them, a thin line of mortal officials stood, a nervous flock of grey-haired military men and women in ceremonial breastplates, padded shoulders and variously coloured braid, surrounded by an anxious rabble of robed ancillaries.

  'The people of this world are given to melancholia,' the Lion observed.

  'As the Angel noted in his reports, Sire,' said Duriel, walking out onto the ramp behind him.

  'If the sight of my brother cannot stir these people's hearts then perhaps it is too much for me to expect more.'

  The Lion stepped off the ramp and out from under the Stormbird's projecting fuselage. The rain began pattering on his war-harness. His cloak became heavy. Sodden hair traced threads of gold across the elaborate black ceramite of his pauldrons. Only once the Lord of the First had cleared the ramp did Duriel then follow in his footsteps. After him came Holguin, master of the Deathwing, and his voted successor. Veteran-Sergeant Herodael. The two champions were encased in Tartaros-pattem Tactical Dreadnought plate and marched from Nighthawk at the head of a retinue of Companion knights girt in bone-white armour. The colour was an honorific representative of the death blow that each warrior had taken on behalf of their liege and survived. The grey-headed sergeant held the primary's Lion Helm under the crook of one immensely armoured and servo-jointed arm. In the other he proudly bore the banner-of-arms of the First Legion, a black tapestry adorned with Terranic heraldry older than the inception of the l^egiones Astartes themselves.

  To the militant tattoo of waves and rain and the cool-down cycle of the Stormbirds' landing jets, the Companion Terminators formed up behind their lords and the Lion strode towards the waiting dignitaries.

  'There has been fighting here recently,' said Holguin.

  'I see it,' said the Lion.

  The brutal smoothness of the runway was pockmarked, as if it had been raked with heavy auto-fire. Scorch marks and vehicle skids, although partially hidden by rain and foam, marred the surface. Riddling holes originating from something around the calibre of a light autogun perforated the alum flex hangar sheds. The lack of hard physical evidence - bodies, shell casings, actual combatants - spoke of an impressive attempt at concealing the fact that any such altercation had taken place at all.

  'Orbital auguries tell a similar story to that which the Firewing has been putting together from the garrison fleet, Sire,' said Duriel. 'A series of apparently uncoordinated and yet simultaneous uprisings taking place at critical locations all over the city, including this one. But why would they hide that there has been a battle here?'

  'Or try to,' said Holguin.

  'Fear,' said the Lion. 'Or shame.'

  'I do not understand,' said Duriel.

  The Lion smiled, faintly. 'I did not imagine that you would.'

  The Muspellian officials on the runway saluted as the delegation of Angels and their Terminator-encased escort approached. With his officers and staff standing stiffly attentive, the planetary governor stepped forward. He was of average height, with short greying hair, neatly trimmed beard and slender pencil moustache. He wore a bronzed cuirass etched with heraldic beasts of Terran mythology, and crossed by a crimson sash. A similarly coloured horsehair plume billowed from the cavalrymen's helm he held under one trembling arm. An antique sabre lay in an ornate sheath against his hip, power crystals woven through its gilt basket-hilt. It had probably not been drawn since his distant ancestors had fought at Gaduare. A holstered volkite serpenta rested beside it.

  The Lion had long held that the calibre of man was in reverse proportion to their need to make their worth known. It was a belief that had yet to be proven false.

  The governor pressed his palm to his breast and bowed low.

  'I am Baron Selus Hohngerron Marsepian, Lord-General in perpetuity of the Forty-Seventh Lotharingian Grenadiers, and Governor-Marshal of Muspel. On behalf of this loyal world I offer my humble service and unending fealty to the firstborn son of the Emperor.'

  'Beloved by all,' declared the men and women behind him.

  Herodael struck the standard of the First into the rockcrete. The governor could not have misinterpreted the symbolism.

  'The sincerity of your welcome is noted,' said the Lion, 'undone only by your blatant obfuscation elsewhere.'

  'My...?'

  Greater rhetoricians than Marsepian had sought to cross words with the Lion and learned to rue it. High Lords and primarchs alike swallowed their grievances before bringing them before the Lord of the First. Even Magnus the Red, seldom one to concede from defeat in a case he saw as just had chosen not to argue against the annihilation of a pacifist xenos empire and their treasures when confronted by the implacable will of the Lion.

  It was, by said many, like speaking with the Emperor Himself.

  The governor-marshal's will came undone before the first word-sound of his argument had formed. The Lion pinned him beneath the weight of his regard a moment longer before releasing him. The general visibly sagged.

  'There is much work to be done here, Governor-Marshal, and I assure you my sons will know no rest until it is accomplished.'

  'Work to...?'

  The Lion silenced him with presence alone, then turned his face into the sleeting rain. 'There is a predator here. I know it. It is an instinct. The forest is disturbed. I can feel its attentions upon me now.' He turned back to the cowering governor. 'I am not interested in your explanations, nor in your excuses, for it is my belief that I will find no answers in them.' The aged Governor-Marshal began to weep before the cold, eloquent, measured anger of the Lion. Once more he sought to speak up in his own defence, but faced with the Primarch, his sobs were all he could muster. The other gathered dignitaries shrank into their formal attire, mouths closed, eyes averted. 'I will find my own answers. You may consider yourself relieved of your title until I do. Brother Duriel.'

  'Yes, Sire.'

  'I appoint you warden of Muspel and castellan of the Vaniskray.'

  Duriel dipped his head. "Yes, Sire.'

  'Make whatever modifications you deem necessary to improve the castle's defensibility. You have complete freedom to requisition any additional weapons systems or construction materials from the fleet stores.' The Lion turned to the remaining humans. 'My sons do not enjoy the renown of the Fourth or the Seventh for their skill with plascrete and stone, nor do they seek it, for the deed alone is enough, but you will find them their equal in all regards.'

  'Thank you, Sire.' Duriel glanced at the prostrate form of the previous governor, then at the Lion. He lowered his voice. 'Against what am I defending it?'

  The Lion's smile was a fleeting thing, far above the ability of any there present to see it for what it was or decipher its true meaning.

  His hard green eyes turned to the far rock of the Vaniskray.

  'Whatever it is that disturbs the forest.'

  SIX

  I

  Duriel's axe sang as he worked it through the spiral forms, humming through the cold air of the citadel like the wings of a hunting bird.

  Whum.

  Gioliath slabs of gene-forged muscle slid across his shoulders as he managed the double-bladed weapon's weight. His feet shifted, following the path of the weight, moving instinctually on a helical path.

  Whum.

  Perspiration gleamed from the bare muscles of his chest and back, in spite of the salt bite of the air. Freezing rain came into his cell through the narrow balistraria in flurries. Colonies of seabirds squalled. Hundreds of metres below the ramparts and revetments and the artillery casemates he had ordered stapled to the walls, waves crashed over artificial rocks. His muscles throbbed with a dull ache, his secondary heart delivering sporadic kicks to his rib plate. His breathing was hoarse and shallow, but like everything to do with his physiology his body's homeostatic systems were perfect, and no breath clouded the chill air.

  It had bee
n weeks.

  Whum.

  From the Legion level down through that of orders, cohorts and companies, and ultimately the individual knight, the Dark Angels eschewed specialisation, at least overtly, preferring to be the master in every potential arena of war. Nevertheless, he had built his reputation as a siegemaster and a castellan on Sarosh, and then on Carcasarn, conceiving and then commanding the assault that would break the xenos siege lines and relieve the embattled Ultra-marines. He had broken the bastions of uncompliant worlds, of orks and rangda and men, and raised twice as many in the austere mould of Caliban, and the hierarchy of the Ironwing had honoured his achievements accordingly.

  The Vaniskray served as a commendable foundation, but Duriel had yet to meet the redoubt that he could not better.

  Whum.

  Carved from the bleak rocks of Uncus, the outermost dot of the Sheitansvar archipelago chain, the Strife-era fortress was formidable. Troops could be landed only by sea or by air, or marched across the kilometre-long bridge to Nigris, the next isle in the fortress chain. From there, a narrow esplanade ran perpendicular to the escarpment of the Vaniskray, a straight shot towards the fuel dumps and pillboxes on the fort's leeward littoral, and all within range of the entire keep's punishing array of guns.

  The siegemasters of the IV and VII Legions approached their craft in terms of higher walls and heavier guns, superior logistics and crude calculations of risk versus reward. For their counterparts within the knighthood of Caliban it was the maze that dominated. The martial expression of the Spiral Path, it formed the basis of that world's fortress-building traditions.

  To the Vaniskray's already labyrinthine architecture of tunnels and fortalices, Duriel had brought the byzantine rigour of a master of the Calibanite school. He had installed mirrors and holofields, long blind tunnels, installed portcullises that led nowhere, and had devoted weeks of hard labour to engineering a randomised system of openings and closures of the communications and supply lanes that would alter the layout on a half-hourly basis.

  Individual garrison commanders would have as much knowledge as was needed to hold their section of the Vaniskray's defensive circles, but no more. Only Duriel, its castellan, and the Lion himself held the secret codes and encryption algorithms that would allow them to navigate it fully.

  There was a method behind such sparsity of information: if the legion's own officers could not navigate the fortress beyond their own redoubts then an intruder could not help but be confounded, and no single act of carelessness or treachery could ever see the entire bastion fall.

  As a code of war, it was harsh, demanding as its basis the thesis that humankind was fallible and, ultimately, could not be trusted with the tools of its own defence.

  Such was the philosophy of the Lion.

  Whum.

  Close to four thousand knights were garrisoned at the Vaniskray. The same number again had been spread out across the other four islets of the Sheitansvar and the handful of critical structures in the city of Maripose. About a hundred knights of the Ravenwing on Skyhunter jetbikes patrolled the Chattelrad, the transcontinental road that cut east from Maripose to the tiny settlements on the far coast. A handful of Scout squads watched over the isolated farmsteads up in the Namastor Peaks.

  Whum.

  He had engineered choke points, murder holes and enfilades. He had mined the bridges, cleared firing lines, and installed Tarantula sentinel batteries in every corridor. He had doubled the guards, reordered the watches, assigned knights of the 12th order to critical junctions. He had even gone so far as to reinforce the cabling from the void banks, adding backups, doubling the capacity.

  Whum.

  He would man the wall. He would hold the line. The First Legion did not crave the glory that so many of their cousins sought. Victory was not some antlered buck to be mounted on the walls of their keeps, to impress upon all the martial valour of the First. It was enough to fight in the Emperor's wars and to know that they had done their duty.

  And yet each new day saw that commitment to diligence challenged. Each new day saw the Legion's astropaths awakened from their chemically induced torpor with screams of exultation.

  In a void battle that had raged for seven days and cost a thousand ships, Guilliman had broken the ork armadas of the Nalkari subsector, opening the door for an assault on Ullanor itself. The Khan ran riot over a dozen worlds. Constantine Valdor had slain Goff Dakka, the dread lieutenant of Warboss Urg, in single combat while the fortress scrap-world of Calgarix burned around them. Across the Ullanor Sector, fortresses were toppled, fleets put to the torch, tyrants cast down, glory cut from the heart of the mightiest of humanity's foes, and every victory brought the Emperor and Horus nearer to the throneworld of the last great xenos empire.

  After Rangda, he could not keep himself from adding.

  Throughout every astropathic vision of jubilation, he had not wavered in his commitment to this duty. The Lion had bidden him to make of this keep a fortress worthy of the First, and make this a fortress he would. He would not question why.

  But still.

  It had been weeks.

  He thumbed the activation stud on the reverse of the axe's grip, sheathing the two blades in auric light. Rain hissed off the energised weapon.

  Whum-whum-whum-whum.

  Pivoting on the balls of his bare feet he turned with a roar, axe sweeping up overhead, and then down. The axe crashed, spitting and sparking, against the unyielding barrier of a countervailing disruption field. This one haloed a length of dark steel, bocaged and filigreed, a Terranic warblade that was to humbler weaponcraft as the Emperor was to mankind. Duriel's eyes widened as lightning sparked from the grating power fields, biceps bulging as he fought to pull back against the momentum of his blow. The disruption fields wavered like two candles, flickering under the rain that slanted into the cell.

  The wind blustered through the plain white surplice that the primarch wore over his armour, spotting the loosely bound gold of his hair with coppers and bronzes.

  'Damn it, Sire,' Duriel gasped.

  He deactivated the axe, the energy sheath vanishing.

  The Lion lowered his warblade in turn, wearing one of his apoclyphal smiles. 'Your form is flawless, my son. But you could do with better mastering your humours.'

  Duriel raised an eyebrow, still breathing heavily from the shock of his primarch's appearance, and then bowed his head.

  'I will strive to do so, Sire.'

  The Lion nodded in return, but said nothing.

  Some primarchs were able mask their inhumanity behind fraternal smiles and the shared bonds of a common culture, but the ability to put a lesser being at ease was perhaps the one skill the Lion had never truly mastered. He did not inspire with his oratory in the manner of Horus or Guilliman or Fulgrim.

  He preferred to lead by deed and by example, and in battle's aftermath to honour a few favoured knights with his laurels and company rather than permit the sycophancy that so many of his brothers indulged. A solitary childhood in the forests of Caliban had taught him to value his own thoughts to the exclusion of others, and to trust to his own strengths in all things.

  Walking to the unmade slab that served as a bed, Duriel picked up oil and cloth and began to polish the axe-blades.

  'Most of the First Legion favours the sword,' said the Lion, his warblade's power field flickering against the gloss ceramite of his greaves. 'Terran and Calibanite both. One of many things that our two worlds held in common.' Deactivating the weapon's power source, he lay the blade of the mighty sword in his left hand, lifting it to the level of his chest across open palms. 'In the fiefdoms of Old Earth the sword was seen as a nobler weapon. Any man could fashion a spear, or a woodsman's axe, but a sword? It took an artisan of rare skill to make a sword, and it was a difficult weapon to master. It required a devotion of time that most common fighters could ill afford to spare. And as it was on Terra, so it was on Caliban.' The Lion drew the blade across his palm and turned it upright, again wielding
it one-handed. 'It even looks distinctly human, does it not? Its shape. Its intent. You can see why men through the ages have celebrated them. Why we give them names and imbue them with mystical powers.'

  'Axes can have names, Sire. Your brother Ferrus named his hammer.'

  The Lion smiled. Had Duriel not known his lord well, he might have missed it. 'Ferrus will always choose to be the exception, my son.'

  Setting the axe down on the bed slab, Duriel drew a towel from the shelf above it and slung it over one shoulder. Feeling his skin beginning to dimple now that he had ceased his exercises, he moved to close the shutters over the balistraria. Without appearing to move, the Lion was at his side. Had Duriel been mortal, with a mortal's ability to experience fear, he would have jumped from his skin. The father overrode the transhuman strength of the son without apparent effort, holding the shutter back to look out over the roiling black canvas of an ocean at night. The noise of it was greater from the sill than it had been from within the chamber, as was the smell. It was nothing akin to the muggy warmth of decomposing plant matter and toxic pollen to which Duriel was accustomed, but there was an unspoiled vitality to it that nevertheless reminded him of his forest home. A smattering of pinprick lights traced a series of bridges of the Sheitansvar back to the mainland and the veiled, washed-out glow of Maripose beyond. Somewhere amongst the turrets, hidden within the dark and the rain, a gull set up a harsh, croaking wail.

  'A mother,' the Lion mused, looking out over Duriel's shoulder. 'Listen to her, my son. Hear how she attempts to draw our attention from her nest.'

  The Lion had always had an intuitive way with animals, an understanding of their thoughts and frailties that he did not always demonstrate towards men. As always, however, Duriel found himself wondering if there was more to his utterance than was immediately obvious.