Warriors of the Imperium - Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell Read online

  – The Heretic Archivist of the Gethsemane

  Reclusiam, Third Book of Quothes (redacted)

  Chapter 3

  Quintus

  Ekit Skarl, equerry to Lord Voldorius, paused in the vestibule before stepping onto the bridge of The Ninth Eye. He took a deep breath, steeling himself to face his infernal master, to enter the baleful presence of the daemon prince that had ravaged the hated Imperium for so many long centuries. Skarl was but the latest in a long line of mortals Voldorius had employed to deal with the tiresome and mundane realities of administration, logistics and politics. He had not chosen the role for himself, though he accepted that he had certainly invited it by his dabbling in the forbidden doctrines of the Ruinous Powers. The equerry’s continued existence relied solely on his fulfilling his master’s needs, without doubt or hesitation. He could afford to show not a single iota of weakness.

  Beyond the shadows in which the equerry lurked sprawled the bridge of the Desolator-class battleship that had served as Voldorius’s flagship for three millennia, since the daemon prince had wrested it from the fleet of his rival Lord Commander Amexon of the Alpha Legion. A raised central walkway stretched a hundred metres forwards, terminating in armoured viewports ten metres tall. Below the level of the walkway were the bridge crew stations, in which hundreds of hard-wired crew-serfs spent every moment of their tortured existence tending to the operation of the vessel’s ancient systems.

  Straightening his black robes and assuming a suitably meek stoop, Skarl stepped out from the vestibule’s shadows and onto the decking plate of the bridge. Two dozen crew-serfs glanced upwards in his direction, their jealousy at his freedoms and privileges writ large across their scabrous faces. Fools, Skarl thought, all of them. They should count themselves blessed that they lived such uncomplicated lives, he mused bitterly as he stalked past.

  As he walked the length of the walkway, Skarl reviewed in his mind the news he had come to deliver to his master. The Ninth Eye was closing on the world of Quintus, a planet that Lord Voldorius had invested much in subjugating, for it was the perfect base for his forthcoming plans. The daemon prince’s followers had fought a month-long war to crush the planet’s militias, crippling its contacts with the greater Imperium in short order so that no outside interference would be forthcoming. Now, that conquest was largely complete, allowing the next phase of his master’s plans to begin.

  The equerry bore other news too.

  Approaching Lord Voldorius, Skarl assumed an even deeper bow, feeling the fell power that radiated from his master’s huge form in sickening waves. Some were so afflicted that they would vomit, void their bowels or collapse upon the floor bleeding from every orifice. Skarl knew how pathetic his master found such displays, and it was one of the equerry’s many tasks to ensure such weaklings were not allowed to enter the master’s presence or his service, unless of course it served the daemon’s own purposes to see his enemies reduced to vomiting, quivering wrecks at his feet.

  Casting off such thoughts, Skarl sidled up to his master and assumed a posture of abject subservience. His forehead pressed to the corroded metal decking, he awaited his master’s acknowledgement.

  ‘You may stand, equerry,’ Voldorius said. The daemon prince had never once addressed Skarl by name.

  Allowing himself to breathe, Skarl rose, though only to a low bow. He dared not stand fully erect in his master’s presence lest the action be taken for insubordination.

  ‘Speak, equerry,’ Lord Voldorius ordered, his voice laced with ancient menace that filled Skarl with cold dread no matter how many times he heard it.

  ‘My master, I bring word that the resistance on Quintus is all but crushed.’ He was mindful to phrase the missive in such a way that it was not his own assessment of the situation on the world below, but someone else’s. Someone who would bear responsibility were it proved incorrect.

  Skarl awaited a response from his master, not daring to raise his gaze any higher than the daemon’s power armour-encased feet. It was long moments before Voldorius replied. ‘What of Nullus?’

  ‘My lord Nullus has come aboard this past hour, my master. He and his warriors are returned from Cernis Four in glory.’

  A palpable wave of displeasure washed over Skarl as his master reacted to this last statement. Dread welled up inside the equerry. ‘Why then is he not before me, apprising his master of his great victory?’ Voldorius grated.

  ‘My master, I…’ Skarl stammered, dropping to the deck once more and pressing his face against the metal at his master’s feet. Then, another voice sounded from the far end of the bridge, and Skarl allowed himself to breathe a sigh a relief.

  ‘I came as soon as I was able, Voldorius.’ The voice belonged to Nullus, his master’s most trusted servant, if trust could be said to exist between such fell beings. Skarl remained prostrate as he listened to the metallic tread of Nullus’s armoured boots approaching along the walkway.

  ‘I had certain dedications to make,’ Nullus said. ‘In honour of my victory.’

  ‘What of Cernis?’ Voldorius growled. Skarl became aware that a tense hush had descended upon the bridge, as if all present knew that bad news would bring their master’s displeasure down upon them.

  ‘The spawn of Jaghatai took the bait,’ Nullus replied, relish obvious in his voice. ‘They thought they had us, but were disabused of that notion.’

  ‘Survivors?’ Voldorius enquired.

  ‘The beast ate its fill, Voldorius, of that I am quite sure.’

  ‘How sure?’ Voldorius snapped back.

  ‘None could have survived the destruction we unleashed upon the refinery. And I took the life of their champion with my own blade.’

  ‘And none could have followed?’ Voldorius growled, his voice low and tainted with menace.

  ‘None, my master,’ Nullus responded. ‘Their hunt is ended for good.’

  Voldorius considered Nullus’s words for some time before he replied. ‘You have served well, as ever you do when facing the scarred ones, Nullus. You shall be rewarded.’ The daemon turned his mighty bulk towards the viewports, and raised a clawed hand to point into the void. ‘What of Quintus, Nullus? The equerry tells me the subjugation is all but complete.’

  At the mention of his name, Skarl allowed himself to straighten up, knowing that he would be addressed again soon. As he did so, he saw that the scarred face of Nullus was upon him, those soulless eyes boring into his own.

  ‘The subjugation is entirely complete, Voldorius,’ Nullus said without turning his gaze from the equerry. ‘On that you have my word.’

  Nullus broke eye contact with Skarl, and turned his black gaze towards the scene beyond the viewports. Skarl felt profound relief that he was no longer the subject of Nullus’s attentions, for the lieutenant was known as a capricious and callous individual ill-disposed towards rivals or those who gainsaid his word. Nullus was, after all, Alpha Legion, while Skarl was but a man, and his continued existence was entirely at the forbearance of his masters.

  ‘What of the resistance?’ Voldorius asked. The daemon prince spoke the last word as if describing the foulest of deeds, as if the notion that mere mortals might attempt to stand before his designs was the worst possible affront.

  Nullus hesitated before making his reply. It seemed to Skarl that the lieutenant was gathering his thoughts, lest he give Voldorius cause to become displeased. Then, Nullus answered.

  ‘What little opposition to your rule still remained after the purges of the Klanik Peninsula and the Olsta Line is now entirely crushed, Voldorius. The processing sites are now fully operational, and those who do not display total loyalty to their new masters are being culled.’

  ‘At what rate?’ Voldorius interjected.

  ‘The example we made of the Fourth Division paid dividends, my master,’ Nullus continued. ‘Twenty thousand heads now adorn the walls of the capital. Since then, the
cull rate has dropped to around ten thousand a day, and I expect it to drop further still as the point is driven home. For every act of defiance, a thousand die as punishment. Soon, the resistance shall be entirely spent.’

  Voldorius considered his lieutenant’s words. ‘A shame that the offerings must cease. The warp resounds to the death of multitudes, singing our glory across light years.’

  Skarl scarcely dared interrupt his master, but he had other news to deliver. ‘My master… I…’

  The bridge fell deathly silent, and Skarl felt not only the eyes of a hundred crew-serfs upon him, but those of his master too. Nausea welled up inside him as Voldorius radiated anger. The equerry swallowed hard to avoid vomiting across his master’s boots, for his life, at this moment, hung in the balance.

  ‘Speak, equerry,’ Skarl heard his master say. Behind the voice he could hear the wailing of anguished souls, those of the many thousands that had displeased the daemon throughout the millennia and paid the terrible price for doing so.

  ‘My master,’ Skarl said, fighting desperately to keep his voice level. ‘I bring word that the prisoner is awakened at last. The cell-masters await your coming.’

  ‘Be seated, my brothers,’ said Kor’sarro as he entered the strategium of the Lord of Heavens. The Space Marines inside bowed their heads before seating themselves around the circular chamber. The Master of the Hunt took his own seat, a marble throne surmounted with the skull of a fearsome tusk-drake. The beast had been slain in combat by old Jamuka Khan, Kor’sarro’s honoured predecessor, teacher and greatly-missed friend.

  A week had passed since the destruction of the Cernis Four refinery, and the Master of the Hunt had been afforded plenty of time to brood upon the whole affair. He had gone over every single detail of the events leading up to the assault, as well as the battle itself. He had gathered the most senior of his officers to the strategium. In his endless poring over every detail of the action on Cernis Four, he had found something.

  ‘Brother Sang,’ Kor’sarro addressed the Techmarine seated opposite him across the chamber. ‘The sensorium upload, if you will.’

  ‘By your command, my khan,’ replied Brother Sang. A multi-jointed, mechanical limb at the Techmarine’s back reached forwards, a data-spike at its end plugging into a terminal set in the decking. The spike whirred and buzzed, and then the light in the chamber dimmed. For a moment, all was dark, before a bright shaft of light formed in the centre of the chamber. Within the glowing column danced tiny motes, slowly resolving into an image of a frozen scene from the closing stages of the battle at Cernis Four.

  All eyes in the chamber were turned towards the slowly spinning scene, projected in a three-dimensional image by ancient holo-generators set in the floor and ceiling.

  ‘My brothers,’ Kor’sarro said, looking to each of the Space Marines, one at a time. ‘What you see before you is a single frame, taken from the sensorium-core of my own power armour.’

  After a few seconds, Kor’sarro nodded towards the Techmarine, and the scene blurred, before resolving itself again.

  ‘And here is the same scene, from Brother To’ban’s perspective.’ He nodded again, and the scene cycled through five more frames, each showing the same patch of rubble-strewn ground from a different angle.

  ‘None of us took note at the time, as we were all otherwise engaged,’ Kor’sarro went on, a wry smile forming at his lips. ‘But I have reviewed every upload, and I believe we have him.’

  Several of the officers present began to speak, but Kor’sarro raised a hand, forestalling their questions. At another nod, Brother Sang caused the image of the war torn scene to zoom in on a single patch of ground. At the centre of the strategium, as if suspended in the column of bright light, was projected the image of a blood-splattered segment of armour.

  ‘This armour, brothers, was worn by one of the soldiers accompanying the traitors.’ Several of those present nodded in recognition as memories of the confrontation with the Alpha Legion and their human followers came to mind. ‘I have asked Brother Qan’karro to identify it.’

  All heads turned towards the strike force’s most senior psychic warrior, a Space Marine Librarian. The White Scars knew them as Stormseers. Brother Qan’karro stood, his gnarled force staff in hand, and scanned the chamber. The Stormseer’s face was lined with age and honour scars, his skin having the texture and hue of old oak. Though he was ancient, Brother Qan’karro was counted amongst the Chapter’s most fearsome warriors, his rank and seniority broadly equal to the Master of the Hunt’s. Though Kor’sarro held command of the Third Company, there were few matters in which he would not welcome the counsel of the old Stormseer.

  ‘The armour bears a device, four stars on a red field,’ Qan’karro said. ‘We have consulted the archives, and found three hundred and nine instances of this device in current use in this Segmentum alone’. Kor’sarro saw several of his officers make eye contact with one another, evidently believing the odds too long. But the Master of the Hunt felt wry amusement as the Stormseer continued.

  ‘Many we can ignore,’ Qan’karro said, ‘for they represent only mercantile concerns of one sort or another. One more we can most certainly eliminate, for the device was used as the standard of Rogue Trader Huss, emblazoning every vessel in the disastrous Magellanic Expedition.’

  Several of Kor’sarro’s officers nodded at the mention of that cursed venture, which several Space Marine Chapter Masters had spoken out against to little avail.

  ‘In another case, the kin-slavers of the Alcaak Dystopia used the device to brand their victims, but we all know what befell those cruel bastards.’ Many of those slavers were now themselves enslaved. They deserved every torture the dark eldar had inflicted on them.

  ‘Of the dozen or so uses of the device that remain, one stands out. Having meditated long on the matter, my brothers and I are in agreement.’ The Space Marines waited for Qan’karro to expound on his deduction, and Kor’sarro knew that the old warrior was now fully in his element, even enjoying himself, if such a thing were possible.

  ‘Go on please, honoured seer,’ Kor’sarro said, bowing his head slightly towards Qan’karro, the faintest of smiles touching his lips. ‘We await your wisdom with great anticipation.’

  The Stormseer’s glance told Kor’sarro that he was well aware that he was being made sport of, if only in a friendly manner. Qan’karro got to the point. ‘The household guard of the governor of a world called Quintus,’ the Stormseer announced. ‘A world a mere five light years distant, and on the same secondary conduit as Cernis.’

  Kor’sarro delved into his memories of nearby space, calling to mind the endless charts and maps he and his senior commanders had gone over time and again in their hunt for Voldorius. Yes, the Quintus system came to him.

  ‘The bulwark-world?’ Kor’sarro said.

  ‘Aye, huntsman,’ the Stormseer replied, before expounding. ‘But Quintus has of late been afflicted by a warp storm, codified Argenta. It is only in the last months that Argenta has quietened to an unprecedented degree, allowing free passage to and from the system for the first time in months.’

  ‘You believe this significant?’ asked Kor’sarro.

  ‘Indeed I do,’ the Stormseer replied, looking around at the gathered Space Marines before his gaze settled on the slowly revolving image of the blood-splattered armour. ‘Quintus represents a convergence, in more ways than one. For a start, it is a warp nexus, a point at which several dozen conduits meet. Whoever controls the system can extend his influence to a score of others and dominate the entire region.’

  Kor’sarro nodded, picturing the stellar maps. Quintus did indeed sit at a strategically desirable meeting of warp routes. For centuries, the world had stood guard against alien incursions from nearby wilderness space. Until, that is, warp storm Argenta had caused the world to fall from power. With the warp storm receding, the balance of powers would shift once more.
But in whose favour?

  Even as the thought came to him, another of those present spoke up. ‘Something tells me this convergence of which you speak is not merely a strategic matter, Brother Qan’karro.’ The speaker was the Third Company’s senior Chaplain, a black-clad veteran by the name of Xia’ghan. ‘Other forces are at work here, are they not?’

  The Stormseer nodded to his comrade, a dour expression falling across his features. ‘Indeed, honoured one,’ he replied. ‘All of the signs point to something being unleashed upon Quintus. Something from the dark times. Something terrible.’

  Silence fell across the strategium as the Stormseer’s message sank in. After long moments, Kor’sarro looked around at his senior officers, and spoke.

  ‘If what our brother tells us is true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, then Voldorius must be stopped before he can bring about whatever calamity he has planned. I am pledged to bring the head of the vile one to the Hall of Skies, this I have promised to the Great Khan himself. I will not allow the daemon to entrap us again, or to escape our grasp, and I expect every one of you and your men to stand with me on this. Much rides upon it.

  ‘Brothers, we go to Quintus, for there our hunt must end, for our honour, for the Great Khan’s, and for our primarch’s.’

  Every Space Marine in the strategium responded as one. ‘Honoured be his name!’

  Skarl bowed deeply as he stepped aside to allow Voldorius and Nullus by. In front of the equerry was a pair of mighty iron doors, deeply corroded and encrusted with the forbidden runes of the Chaos Gods. Skarl had spent most of his life in the presence of such fell sigils, but even he was cowed by the sheer malignance that radiated from this particular combination.

  With a deep rumble, the doors slid apart, a hellish, flickering glow filling the widening gap. Before the entrance was even fully open, Voldorius stepped through into the cell. Skarl waited as Nullus followed his master, cowering despite himself as the lieutenant cast a threatening glance his way.