The Unremembered Empire Part 24

*The entire interior is coated with blood, sergeant.'

*What did you just say?' asked Menius.

*Blood, sergeant, about eighteen litres of it.'

From the portico above Barium Square, Curze watched the Ultramarines trolling around the drop pod. So stupid!

Curze had targets elsewhere, and he intended to find them, but the stupid Ultramarines were so terribly inviting.

He'd never killed one of Guilliman's. It was enticing, even though they did have a big, bad Land Raider with them.

The Night Haunter stood up, proud and tall, and opened his wings and his dreadful claws.

*Death,' he murmured, as a sentence.

Eighty-eight seconds later, Sergeant Menius and his entire squad were dead and the Land Raider was on its side and burning.

Konrad Curze had come to Macragge.

14.

Death in the Fortress of Hera

*I am a brother to dragons and

a companion to owls. My skin is black upon me

and my bones are burned with heat.'

a from the Old Earth religious text known as *Job's Book'

*Our guests, my lord,' said Verus Caspean, Master of the Second, *are being escorted to the Campus Cohortum.'

*Any resistance?' asked Guilliman.

Caspean shook his head. He had a sleek skull with very tightly cropped grey hair, and high cheek bones framing a blade of a nose. The shake of his head made Guilliman think of the warning sway of a mountain hawk.

*Our guests have made no resistance,' he replied, again stressing the word *guests'. *They have allowed themselves to be escorted to confinement.'

*Have they surrendered weapons?'

*Some of them have, lord,' said Caspean, *but we have not made that demand of them. As per your instructions, we are treating them as respected battle-brothers, and regarding this as the unfortunate accident their lord claims it to be.'

*How many?'

*A strength in excess of five companies... as our Legion would consider it. I have little patience with their "wings" and cohort divisions.'

*So... enough to kill this city?'

Caspean paused.

*Easily,' he replied. *Whatever else I think of them today, I am in no doubt of the capability and ferocity of the First. If we had dropped the city shields and their intent had been malicious, the Civitas would be burning, and the death toll unthinkable.'

*Tell me when they are all confined,' Guilliman said. *Have their drop pods recovered and transported for holding at Fortress Moneta. I will not have the reminders of an invasion, no matter how peaceable and unintentional it may have been, littering my city and scaring my population. Has Auguston made the announcements?'

*Yes, lord,' said Caspean. *He has made two statements over the Civitas address system, and they are being looped on the civilian datafeeds. I was impressed. He was quite rea.s.suring. He insisted that there was no cause for general concern, and that it was merely a practical training exercise conducted in conjunction with the Thirteenth.'

*Whose idea was that?' asked Guilliman.

*Auguston's. It also helped that Holguin of the Dark Angels stood with him during the address and added his voice to the statement.'

*For that we can be thankful,' said Guilliman. He glanced along the length of the room. Through open doors, in an adjacent part of the Residency, he could see the Lion sitting alone, deep in thought.

*Have the confined officers interviewed,' Guilliman told Caspean. *Make it a polite but firm de-briefing. Make sure their story matches my brother's. This may well be an accident, but I want to know how it happened.'

Caspean saluted, his mailed fist clunking off his breastplate. He turned and left the chamber.

Guilliman turned and looked at Valentus Dolor. The tetrarch was waiting attentively by the windows.

*An accident?' Guilliman asked.

*A strange one,' Dolor replied, *but why would you not trust his word?'

*Because he is the Lion.'

*He seemed mortified.'

Guilliman snorted. *He had a drop force loaded and waiting. A readied invasion. As he received my toast and sat at my table, he had an a.s.sault force of four companies set to fall upon this city.'

*Consider, my lord,' said Dolor, *if the situation were reversed, and we stood, at fleet-strength, off the proverbial green sh.o.r.es of Caliban, would you not have done the same? Would you not have had your finest prepped to move without any delay if the need arose?'

Guilliman did not reply.

*I think you would,' said Dolor with a sad smile. *In fact, I know you would. The core values of theoretical and practical would not have allowed you to do anything else. These are dark days, the darkest we have known. The events of this night are his fault.'

Guilliman shot another glance down the length of the chamber to look at the brooding Lion.

*My brother?' he asked.

*Yes, but not the one you stare at,' said Dolor. *I mean the Warmaster. This blight of conviction, this loss of faith, this caution and suspicion that means that the proud sons of the greatest family in the cosmos cannot trust one another... It is down to him and what he has done.'

Guilliman realised he had clenched both of his fists. He forced himself to uncurl them.

*I believe I would have shown more trust in him than that,' he said.

*Would you?' asked Dolor. *Do you? The long shadow of the Lupercal means we play our cards closer to our chests than ever. We keep our secrets tight. Have you, for example, told your brother of the one who resides, howling like a bedlam fool, in the medicae hall?'

*I have not,' Guilliman hissed, quickly raising his left hand to excuse his spark of anger.

*Then think of your secrets and the reasons you keep them, while you examine his.'

*Good counsel as ever, Valentus,' said Guilliman. *Wait upon me here. I think it is time my brother and I talked more frankly.'

Dolor made his salute and a respectful bow of his head. Guilliman walked through the doors into the chamber where the Lion sat. The Lord of the First occupied one of the large-scale chairs. A fire had been lit in the chamber's grate, and the Lion was intently watching the flames as they softly consumed the wood.

What was he thinking? Of forests, dark forests beloved by him, similarly consumed? It was a burden. Guilliman reminded himself that at least he knew the fate and status of his home world. What fears filled the Lion's heart when he thought of his forested fortress, now presumably inaccessible beyond the Ruinstorm's wrath?

*Not the evening of feasting and good comradeship I was expecting,' said Guilliman.

*Nor I,' the Lion agreed, looking up.

*How much would you have needed, brother?' Guilliman asked. He walked to a side table and poured wine from a jug into two goblets of frosted white gla.s.s.

*How much what?' asked the Lion.

*Provocation,' said Guilliman. *How many lines would I have had to cross? How many failings would you have needed to detect in me and my Legion?'

*What, to attack you?'

*Yes. It may indeed have been prudent, brother, but you came to my world fully prepared to strike at me if I was found wanting. Your men were loaded and ready, your pods primed, the vectors set. You have admitted to my face that you came here with no qualms about sanctioning me if I was found fit to sanction. So what would it have taken?'

The Lion took the goblet that Guilliman proffered.

*Your ambition, Roboute. It was always your greatest strength and your greatest flaw. No two brothers more ambitious than you and Horus. It has seen you build an empire. If I had come and found you stealing another, then I would have struck.'

He rose to his feet and sipped the wine.

*Honesty is your other great strength, brother,' the Lion said. *Again, it is another strong trait you share with Horus.'

*That name can only be spoken so many times within the Residency before I reach for my sword,' said Guilliman.

The Lion laughed. *Quite so. But my point is a valid one. Before... before he fell, Horus was an honest creature. n.o.ble and honest. I always thought of the two of you as very alike. Admire him or despise him, one was never in any doubt as to his ambitions. He was honest. He made no secret that he wanted to be the best of all, the first amongst equals, the first son by merit and not numerical fact. He wanted to be Warmaster. He wanted to be heir. His honesty was naked.'

*But that honesty has gone.'

*Indeed it has,' said the Lion. *When he fell, however he fell, his honesty peeled away from him. He became a lord of lies, a great betrayer, a being capable of the worst deceit and falsity that we can imagine or even bear to think of. But you are honest still.'

The Lion looked at Guilliman.

*When I came to you, you opened your heart to me. You told me of your fears, of the wounds you carry, of the principle and nature of your fight, and of your intentions for Imperium Secundus. That stayed my hand, to see the honesty in you still.'

He took another sip of wine. The goblet was made of white Servian gla.s.s, and it glowed like a chalice. It contrasted sharply with the dark gauntlet that held it, with the armour hued a shade of black known in the ancient language as calibaun. The goblet had more warmth in it than shone from the Lion's pale skin. The wine looked like blood.

*Part of your honesty, Roboute,' he said, *was to remind me that I am not an open book. I have always found it hard to trust and be trusted.'

*But you are admired and beloveda'

*That is not the same thing at all. I have my secrets. Men may keep secrets for good reasons.'

*Then if we are to put this behind us, and step forward from this day side by side as allies, I must open my heart further,' said Guilliman. *There is somethinga'

The knock of a fist against the chamber door interrupted him. Guilliman paused, annoyed, wishing to unburden himself fully now that he had begun. Yet he knew full well that no one would knock without a pressing reason.

*Enter,' he said.

It was Niax Nessus, Master of the Third.

*I apologise for the intrusion, my lord,' he said, *but it is imperative that you see this. Also, your n.o.ble brother's voted lieutenant wishes to speak with him urgently.'

Farith Redloss stood in the doorway behind Nessus, flanked by several of Gorod's hulking warriors.

*We will continue this conversation in a moment,' Guilliman said to the Lion, drawing Nessus to one side and taking a data-slate from him. The Lion went to the door and stepped out to meet Farith Redloss. Redloss moved his lord down the hallway a little away from the bodyguards. He pa.s.sed the Lion a data-slate marked with the First Legion's icon.

The Lion read it.

*Tell me this is not so,' he said.

*It is confirmed.'

*This? This is the cause?' the Lion growled.

*It took a gene-print to launch the a.s.sault. We have swabbed the device. It is confirmed.'

*Then he's on the surface?'