Spear of the Emperor - Aaron Dembski-Bowden Read online

  She turned my hand as my blood welled, and we watched it dribble into her palm. I counted the droplets. She stopped at twenty, releasing me from her ancient talon. From my monitron bracer I ejected a thumb-size canister of skin sealant, spraying it over the wound. The brief khlaurine scent of the chemical mist was a merciful respite from the stink of this witch’s haven.

  The crone did just as she did with Amadeus, though before she spoke, she gave a dry, creaking sound in her throat. I took it to be laughter from a woman that laughed so rarely she barely knew how to do it.

  ‘Do not believe the broken man’s promises.’

  I stared back at her, not even knowing what expression was moving across my face. She was already wiping my blood from her palm, cleaning her skin with her wet hair.

  ‘But–’

  ‘Did you hear nothing?’ she cut into my question. ‘Did you hear nothing I told your master? Do not ask me for meaning. I know not. I care not. This is your geas, as is written in your blood, as whispered on the winds in the breath of my ancestors. Do not believe the broken man’s promises.’

  ‘The broken man,’ I repeated.

  Amadeus was watching me closely. ‘Do you know of such a man?’

  ‘I don’t know, master. Perhaps.’

  Serivahn, I thought. The cripple in the tomb. Had he promised me anything?

  ‘You will debrief me later,’ commanded Amadeus.

  When I agreed, the witch grinned once more, rubbing her gnarled hands together with a grandmother’s glee. The wheeze she rasped out was almost a laugh.

  ‘She despises you, warrior. Ah, but what is the story here? What taints your aura with such sweet hatred?’

  Amadeus looked to the witch, then back to me. He said nothing and wore no expression, which did nothing to ease my confusion or discomfort.

  ‘You’re mistaken,’ I said to the crone. I could hardly relate my role to her and expect a primitive shaman to grasp the concepts of my service and training. I had to be blunt and simple. ‘He’s my master. I serve willingly, and with pride.’

  But that only delighted her more. ‘I did not see it in your blood, no, for the blood tells of what will be. I speak of what is. I see it now in the shadows behind your eyes. Such sweet hate. Did he wrong you? Or do you hate all of his kind?’

  I turned to Amadeus, hoping he would pay the witch’s foolish words no heed. He sensed the threat of this madness lasting even longer, for he rose on humming armour joints.

  ‘Come, Helot Secundus. Attend me outside. We are done with this.’

  He left without a word to the witch. Brêac bid her a more formal farewell, as did I, offering her a brief bow.

  She returned a smile, hideously toothless and hideously knowing.

  Outside in the rain, as Amadeus replaced his helmet, I swore to him that I had no clue what the crone was speaking of. He shook his head, dismissing the subject. It, too, was evidently beneath him.

  Brêac broke the silence that followed. ‘She was speaking of me.’

  We looked at him, waiting for more.

  ‘My geas,’ Brêac clarified. ‘“You will die on the night you turn your back on a foe.” She was speaking of me. She gave me that geas, when she was a child first coming in to her powers.’

  ‘Have you any insight into what she meant by it?’ my master asked.

  The Spear shrugged, his pauldrons snarling with the movement. ‘Who can know for certain? I try not to run from a fight, though. No sense in tempting fate, eh?’

  Brêac’s chuckle was a vox-tainted grind, a thawing of his Nemetese solemnity. We had geases now. Did that make us, if not part of the Spears’ culture, at least welcome on its edge? I wondered what would have happened had the witch refused to read the words in our blood.

  My master wasn’t blind to any of this. He regarded Brêac as we walked through the clearing, far from the tribesmen with their heartbeat-drums and their chanted dirges.

  ‘The ritual was a test of trust, was it not? Something in the witch’s judgement let you know whether you would trust me or exile me.’

  Brêac grunted, the sound ursine and irritable. ‘You break every­thing down so literally.’

  ‘So I am incorrect?’

  The Spear let his gaze wander over the fires, over the silhouettes of distant kin that believed him to be nothing more than a lingering spirit. ‘I didn’t say you were wrong, Mentor, just too literal. Maybe I trust you because you have the same soul-bond as the rest of us. Maybe I just realise a truth you haven’t yet faced.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘Your mission,’ the Spear replied. ‘It will never be completed.’

  Amadeus watched the other warrior intently now. ‘How do you come by this belief?’

  Brêac’s sweeping hand took in the cloudy sky, and the few patches of nebula-stained starfield between the rolling thunderheads. ‘Your ship in orbit. What is its name?’

  ‘In Devout Abjuration,’ Amadeus replied.

  ‘Aye. From the reports I’ve received, that vessel is going nowhere for at least another season. It’s well and truly shitted.’

  Amadeus cleared his throat. ‘That is an indelicate turn of phrase, but an accurate one.’

  ‘Even when your ship is starworthy, she won’t run the Straits again. You have, what, a third of your crew left alive? Even if we gave you ten thousand more souls to crew the ship, you’ve already said it yourself – there’s no record of any Spears vessels making it through to your side of the Rift. What makes you think you’ll survive the journey home?’

  Brêac paused, resting a hand on my master’s shoulder guard. The first gesture of brotherhood. ‘We’ve sent nine of them, Amadeus. Nine. That’s almost half a million souls and servitors, never seen again. Almost a hundred of those souls were Spears. Gone. Lost. Dead.’

  My master considered that. ‘Why did you send them through?’

  ‘Why?’ Brêac snorted at the question. ‘We’re under siege here. We sent those ships to reach the Imperium. To request reinforcements. To see if the Emperor still lives and Terra still holds. We sent one every five years at first, but it’s been decades now. We can’t risk the losses. We need every blade and boltgun, let alone every warship.’

  Amadeus touched his armoured fingers to his own mouth grille, as though contemplating the now-sealed wound on his tongue. ‘I accept the odds of returning through the Rift are not in my favour. Still, once my mission is complete and I have seen what I need to see, I must try. Duty is duty. Orders are orders.’

  ‘Orders from who? Guilliman?’

  ‘Yes. Orders from the Primarch Reborn and from my Chapter Master, Nisk Ran-Thawll.’

  ‘So be it.’ Brêac let the matter lie. ‘For now, return to your ship, Mentor. I will consult with my brethren. We will decide if you’re to be allowed to join us when we wage war.’

  ‘I thought the decision was yours. Are you not Lord of the Third Warhost?’

  ‘It is, and I am. But I wish to speak with my kinsmen. This isn’t just about the Spears, Amadeus. What I decide here will affect the entire Adeptus Vaelarii. Return to your ship and wait. It will not take long. A few days at most.’

  My master was guarded. ‘And if you refuse?’

  ‘Then your ship will still be repaired. But the Veil isn’t safe, Mentor. Strike out into our territory on your own, and you’ll be dead even swifter than you would be if you sailed home.’

  ‘To sail back into the Rift is to die. To sail alone into Elara’s Veil is also to die. You do not present me with any appealing options, Brêac.’

  The barbarian was unmoved. ‘I don’t, do I? You’ll have to settle for the truth, instead.’

  Amadeus held his tongue. He nodded, accepting the other warrior’s judgement. I’d not realised I was about to speak until I heard my own voice.

  ‘I have a question, if
I may?’

  My master nodded. ‘Speak, Helot Secundus.’

  ‘It’s a question for Lord Brêac, master.’

  Brêac regarded me through his red eye-lenses. I could see nothing of the man behind them. ‘Ask, Anuradha.’

  ‘What if the witch had seen something in our fates that troubled her or suggested treachery?’

  Brêac drew a bronze blade from his belt. In his hand, it was a dagger. If I’d held it, it would have been an Iron Era longsword. Rain slicked the blade from the moment it touched the air. The bronze shone in his armoured hands, lit by wet moonlight.

  ‘Had that been the case, I would have plunged this gladius into the side of your master’s throat while he was distracted by the old sorceress. Then I’d have snapped your neck before you could use your terminus-eye. After your bodies were burned, we would’ve killed every­one aboard your vessel and taken it for ourselves.’

  Amadeus went still. I imagined his eyes narrowing inside his helm.

  ‘Do you jest?’ he asked the Spear.

  ‘From time to time.’ Brêac paused, looking back over the revel fires. ‘Not right now, though.’

  VIII

  CIVILISATION’S GRAVEYARD

  1

  Before the Spears reached their decision, the three of us took counsel without Amadeus. It was Tyberia that initiated this little conclave. She gathered us in our communal chamber aboard In Devout Abjuration while our master was locked away in seclusion.

  The ship was crawling with repair crews and tech-adepts from Bellona that gazed at us as if we had descended from pages of myth – and then entirely failed to inspire them. We were emissaries from the Imperium yet we brought them no hope at all. Undergoing heavy repair in orbital dock above Nemeton’s moon, the ship’s superstructure groaned and whined as if resenting the flashing scratches of cutting torches and fusion-sealers.

  In our chambers, Tyberia was in fine form.

  ‘The Spears will refuse,’ she insisted. ‘They have no trust in their hearts.’

  Kartash took issue with her simplistic grasp of the situation. ‘They have weathered almost a century of warfare against this “Exilarchy”, unaware whether the Imperium still exists. These are warriors that have bled and bled, alone out here, with almost no hope of reinforcement. They will take us with them. They cannot afford the luxury of mistrust.’

  Tyberia’s smile was a servile patina over a sneer. It was an expression I was already weary of seeing on her face. ‘I respect your experience,’ she told Kartash, ‘but mistrust is a wellspring that never runs dry. What does our arrival signify in their eyes? They’ve cried out for reinforcements for decades. Such is their desperation that they’ve sent several of their ships into oblivion on the chance of breaking through to the Imperium. Now they’re met with a single warship, captained by a single warrior, one that wears the heraldry of their long-dead brother-warriors among the Star Scorpions. Our presence is an insult to them. And worse, they see it as a judgement.’

  She was sermonising now. Any temptation I’d felt to engage with either of them drained away.

  ‘They see our master as an arbiter,’ Tyberia continued, ‘sent to weigh their actions over the last century and judge them. I believe they will judge him and find him wanting.’

  Kartash disagreed at once. ‘Amadeus’ service record is faultless.’

  ‘Will that be enough?’ countered Tyberia. ‘An exemplary soldier, yes. But an exemplary ally? A trustworthy brother?’

  On and on they argued, in the polite bickering of two souls forced to share the same space day after day when tolerance begins to erode. Kartash’s tone turned from generous to condescending. Tyberia’s rejections went from eloquent to petulant.

  The only thing they agreed on was that we would not be kept waiting long. We’d all marked the hasty repairs going on in orbit above Bellona. The ships in Nemeton’s system had taken a recent beating and were undergoing rapid maintenance to redeploy. The Spears plainly couldn’t spare these warships from battle for long.

  ‘What is it about the Exilarchy that makes them such vicious foes?’ Tyberia asked.

  ‘Numbers.’ Kartash looked at her, surprised she even asked. ‘It can only be numbers. What else would force two Chapters to fight defensively for years on end? They likely face an overwhelming tide of enemies.’

  Tyberia accepted the answer, but not without doubt. ‘I think it’s more than that.’

  Kartash chuckled. ‘And what brings you to such a conclusion with such little information?’

  ‘Because of Brêac’s demeanour when we landed.’ Tyberia was speaking softly, her eyes lowered in thought. ‘He mentioned the Exilarchy’s tricks. And his voice was modulated with a degree of frustration. I’d argue these elements suggest the enemy is cunning, and possesses skilful leadership.’

  Kartash mused on the possibility, then turned to me. ‘And you, Anuradha? What are your thoughts?’

  I’d been hoping they wouldn’t ask me. I had no desire to descend into their point-scoring chatter. I didn’t care which of them was the rightest.

  ‘Anuradha?’ Tyberia pressed.

  ‘I think we’ll find out soon enough.’

  But she wouldn’t let it lie. ‘You think more than that. I can tell.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re both right.’

  Kartash adopted a lecturing tone. ‘Consider this a thought exercise, Helot Secundus. Speculate, please. Consider it an order.’

  Fine. ‘I think you’re both right, but there’s a graver truth at play.’

  They both waited for me to continue. Even Tyberia had stopped smirking – a small but welcome mercy.

  Ultimately, it hadn’t been Brêac’s reaction that awakened my suspicions. It was the words of Serivahn, in the tomb. Every warrior is precious.

  ‘If the war between the Adeptus Vaelarii and the Exilarchy has been raging for a century,’ I said, ‘it may mean more than overwhelming numbers or intelligent, tactical leadership. Remove all other variables, and what remains? What’s the simplest reason a deadlock would occur?’

  Kartash nodded, taking my point. ‘Because the odds are even.’

  ‘Exactly. I believe the Exilarchy has Adeptus Astartes warriors, as well.’

  They began to discuss that dread possibility, but I left them to it, focusing instead on preparing my armour. The suits of carapace armour we wore in the field were white. We were forbidden to wear the heraldic mix of white and green worn by the Chapter’s battle-brothers, for they are a breed apart from mortal men and women. To emulate them too closely would disrespect the machine-spirits of their ceramite suits. We weren’t soldiers, no matter how highly we were trained. Our place wasn’t on the battlefield in regimental numbers, clogging trenches or leaping from Valkyries. We were operatives and agents, not ground-pounders.

  Our personal armouries were similar to those possessed by storm troopers, though in the field each of us wore a communication relay backpack far in advance of Tempestus Scion technology, and our helms were sequenced with rangefinder monocles and target designator auspex feeds that were closer to Adeptus Astartes wargear than anything seen in service within the Astra Militarum.

  I was permitted to own three weapons drawn from the Chapter armoury. Each one of these instruments of war would have been worth a fortune on the black markets that plague every civilised Imperial world. That is, they would be, if they could be activated and made to function. Our wargear possessed numerous fail-safes to prevent their misuse in enemy hands.

  My primary weapon was a pump-action Engager-pattern assault shotgun, keyed to my biometrics. It could only be fired, reloaded or dismantled if its receptor plates detected my touch. Engagers were designed and crafted by the Mentor Legion’s Techmarines with one use in mind: they were Space Marine-killers.

  I had never fired mine against such a target. At standard range, it would breach
ceramite. At close range, it would buckle adamantium. As with all Mentor weaponry, additional modifications were made after its initial creation. Most notable of these was mounted on the weapon’s underside and studded with suspensors for weight compensation: a three-shot auxiliary grenade launcher. Our Engagers were capable of launching vortex grenades, such was the level of training and trust we’d received in our roles as helots.

  The second weapon was at once the simplest and most complicated. My left eye had been replaced by an augmetic sphere, smooth and silver. This was a terminus-eye, capable of discharging a pulse of energy equivalent in strength and intensity to an Imperial Guard hellpistol. I had possessed this implant for six years, and it had never stopped itching in its socket. The discomfort was minimal, so I lied at each medicae assessment, assuring my examiners that there was no such sensation, for fear of the Chapter removing such a precious and honoured gift.

  The third weapon was a foot-long combat blade, mounted in the housing of my right vambrace. It could be deployed as a punch dagger or, with time to dismantle the vambrace, removed and wielded as a short sword. It possessed a modest generator capable of energising the blade, though its function as a power weapon was limited to short bursts.

  Beyond this arsenal, I was also allowed to own various mundanities: a laspistol of unremarkable make; a bandolier of grenades; several short knives of the kind seen on countless worlds in the hands of any ganger, thug or mercenary.

  I looked over my personal armour as I placed the last blade back in the stowage trunk. Its newest addition was the storm cloak I was given on Nemeton, which I folded and placed next to my rebreather helmet.

  ‘Anuradha?’

  I turned at the sound of my name. Both Kartash and Tyberia were watching me. What, they asked, did I believe would happen? Would the Spears allow us to accompany them?

  ‘I’ll be back later,’ was my reply.

  Then I walked away. The bulkhead sealed behind me with a metallic slam.

  2

  My master was working, reviewing data spilling down three screens at once. He deactivated one of them as I entered his chambers, but not swiftly enough. I cycled back through the last few seconds of imagery recorded by my terminus-eye to see what he had been studying: binaric information pertaining to Elara’s Veil. Specifically, the region of the nebula that surrounds Khamun-Sen, abandoned home world of the long-dead Star Scorpions.