The Unremembered Empire Part 29

17.

Hearth and

Home

*Death does not discriminate. It is so even-handed,

so scrupulously fair, that it seems not fair at all.'

a Eeron Kleve, X Legion Iron Hands *Tell me, I implore you, what was that?' Euten asked the captain of the praecental guard.

Vodun Badorum shook his head.

*Mamzel, it is hard to say. Reports from the Fortress are... contradictory. Some say it is the Night Haunter, unleashed upon the Castrum, others claim it is an entire host of night haunters. There are reports of attacks and incidents on every level of the Fortress anda'

*But you cannot tell me what the blast was that shook these very walls?' she snapped.

Badorum shook his head again. At his side, four of his praecentals were urgently conducting conversations by vox, trying to gather accurate intelligence from the Fortress.

*Then I will trust my own eyes,' Euten announced, and stood up abruptly. Badorum had, previously, ordered her escorted into the private wing of the Residency for safety, but now she marched straight across the outer hall to the head of the main staircase. He hurried after her, calling her name. The August Chamberlain Princ.i.p.al moved with surprising speed when she wanted to.

Down below, at the foot of the staircase, warriors milled and waited. They looked up at her as she strode past. They were all Legiones Astartes, all castaway visitors to Macragge from the Shattered Legions. The lower halls of the Residency had become their barracks.

Like her, they awaited news.

*Mamzel. My lady!' one called.

Euten did not stop for him. She crossed the landing, opened the glazed doors to the west balcony and stepped into the night. Badorum followed her.

The night was especially dark. The Pharos glowed frostily like a white lamp in fog. A swathe of black air hung across the great Civitas below the wall.

From the unlit balcony, in the cold night, they had a direct view to the Porta Hera and the cyclopean eastern ramparts of the Fortress proper. Smoke and, in places, flames rose from the Fortress at several locations. They were all dwarfed by the huge coil of underlit smoke belching from the inner part of the Fortress into the night. It reminded Euten of the great, grumbling volcanoes in the far north of Macragge.

*Great Darknesses!' she whispered, that old Illyrian curse. *What has been done?'

*Mamzel, you must come inside,' said Badorum.

*The Chapel of Memorial is burning, Vodun,' she said, staring at the appalling view.

*I think perhaps so,' said Badorum. *Or perhaps the Praetorium.'

*It is the Chapel,' she insisted. She turned to look at him.

*We must know something of what is transpiring in the Fortress. Guilliman is in there.'

*And the Lion too, both gone to hunt their fell brother, who makes war on us tonight.'

*War. Mischief. Dissent. Terror,' Euten said, uttering each word as though she were spitting out pebbles. *The Night Haunter searches for one victim above all others: Ultramar. Macragge Civitas is the last stable, loyal place in the galaxy, Vodun, for our lord has made it that way, steadfast when all else withers and fails. This is what Curze has come to murder a our peace, our faith, our fort.i.tude.'

*They will stop him,' said Badorum.

*Will they? Or by dawn, will there be panic and rioting in the streets of the city? Will terror reign and blight the hearts of the citizenry? Will Macragge catch afire and blaze, the last true stronghold lost?'

*No, my lady,' he said. *Come, please, I fear it is not safe. Come, please, within.'

Euten allowed herself to be walked back into the Residency.

*My lord has taken almost all the Ultramarines on the Castrum into the Fortress with him, and he has in addition his n.o.ble brother and good strengths of Dark Angels legionaries. Furthermore, the gates and base of the wall are guarded to prevent access to the Civitas.'

*The monster Curze got in, Vodun. He can get out again, I expect.'

*With every pa.s.sing second, he has less and less surprise on his side, mamzel,' Badorum replied.

She stopped at the head of the staircase and looked down at the patiently waiting s.p.a.ce Marines: Salamanders, Iron Hands, Raven Guard, a White Scar or two.

*What have we here, Vodun?' she asked.

*My praecentals hold the Residency, mam,' the commander replied. *Lord Guilliman's direct order. He made me pull my men back from the Fortress.'

*Because the praecentals would be outcla.s.sed?'

*This hunt is a task for the Legiones Astartes at the very least. It is no small thing to corner and kill a primarch.'

*We have not used our full resource,' she said. She took a few steps down the staircase and addressed the waiting warriors.

*My dear battle-brothers, worthy souls a this night is a grim one, a darkness through which we must abide and come out whole, together.'

*We have come through much already, my lady,' said one of the Iron Hands. *We have learned to endure. It is the steel in us.'

Many of those around him nodded.

*Well spoken, Sardon Karaashison,' Euten said.

*We are yet in ignorance, lady,' said a Raven Guard captain near to Karaashison. *We are merely obliged to wait, robbed of action and purpose.'

Euten nodded. This was a problem that had yet to be overcome. Since the light of the Pharos had been turned on Macragge, nigh on a thousand souls had come to the city from the Shattered Legions of Isstvan. They were sequestered in the Residency, and in several other barracks across the city. They were a resource of great potential, and their resolve and determination, having been witnesses to treason and atrocity, was beyond doubt.

A way had not yet been found, however, to resolve them into one force. Guilliman had begun to find duties for some, as suited their specialisms, and it was, of course, straightforward to place Iron Hands with Iron Hands and Raven Guard with Raven Guard. But to alloy them more permanently threw up problems of differences in Legion practices and methods, of motivations and loyalties, of intentions and desires. Would the flesh-spare leaders of the Iron Hands form a command backbone to a force of survivors? Would the Raven Guard or the Salamanders be content to follow that? Could command be shared? Could orthodoxies be matched? Could the survivors be inducted as additional squads to the Ultramarines or the Dark Angels?

As things stood, the Shattered Legions were hard to wield as one force. In an emergency, such as the one that presently hung like a shroud across Macragge, they could not be deployed with unified effect as could the Ultramarines or the Dark Angels.

The question of it had vexed Guilliman. Euten had seen him struggling to resolve the issue many times in the previous few days.

*The individual character and characteristics of the Legions is what invests them with their strengths, and makes them wonders,' he had said to her. *The idiosyncrasies of composition and method are precisely why there are eighteen Legions, rather than one Legion eighteen times the size. But it is a weakness too, a mortal flaw, when it comes to forging them together as one. It makes one long for a formal, martial codification that would burnish away the rough edges, clean out the differences, and provide for a perfect, easy fit.'

*I sympathise with your ignorance, Verano Ebb,' said Euten. *We all dwell in darkness this evening. I will tell you what I know, which is too little. Through guile and skill, and by exploiting the good faith of good men, Konrad Curze has made a visitation to our city this day.'

There was a general murmur of disquiet and anger.

Badorum, at Euten's side, held up a hand for quiet.

*To my best knowledge,' the chamberlain continued, *he is loose in the Fortress, seeking to undermine the authority of Ultramar by breaking morale and the rule of law, and by magnifying hatred and fear.'

*These were always his weapons,' said an Iron Hands officer in mourning robes.

*They always were, Eeron Kleve,' said Euten with a solemn nod. *And they always shall be, until he is stopped or finished. My lord Guilliman and the n.o.ble lord of the Dark Angels are even now in the Fortress hunting for him. I pity any man, any demiG.o.d even, who has the like of those two at his heels.'

Another general murmur filled the entryway, but this time it was more emphatic and eager.

*I dare say,' said Euten, *that against a foe like the Night Haunter there is no such thing as too much help. If you can, go from here to the Fortress and add your power to the hunt. But hear me well... Do not do this thing if you are not prepared to respect and follow the commands of Ultramarines or Dark Angels officers. The field is theirs tonight. Order and discipline must be maintained, especially against a foe whose singular purpose is to breed disorder and chaos. There is no room for pride or individual action, battle-brothers. If you can obey and serve, then my lord will be glad of you.'

*We will not abuse this trust, my lady,' said Eeron Kleve.

*Horus, cursed be his name, has done one good deed in this great treachery,' said Verano Ebb. *He has made the greatest and truest sworn comrades of those he has wounded.'

*It gladdens my heart to hear it on this cold night, sirs,' said Euten. *As Chamberlain Princ.i.p.al, I own the full authority of the Lord of Ultramar in his absence. So with that power and pitch of command, I charge you all to go from here to the gates of the Fortress, and make perfect war upon the Night Haunter. Serve Guilliman, serve the Lion, and serve Macragge. Let no disobedience weaken this endeavour. May your blades, before dawn comes, run wet with traitor blood.'

The gathered legionaries, all looking up at her, made immediate salute, crashing mailed fists against their breastplates.

*We march for Macragge!' declared Timur Gantulga.

It was odd to hear the cry uttered in a strong Chogorian accent, but in an instant the declaration was echoed with vigour by his fellow White Scars, and then by every battle-brother in the hall. The war cry of Ultramar was coloured and invested by the accents of cold-hearted Medusa, of lofty Deliverance, of feral Fenris, of fire-forged Nocturne, of glacial Inwit and distant, holy Terra.

*My lord Badorum,' said Euten, turning to him. *Make it known by my seal and authority, via all channels, that this force of warriors is coming to the Fortress to render aid. Have the gates opened for them, and have them admitted and a.s.signed without delay. Let us not waste this intent.'

*At once,' he a.s.sured her.

*And, Badorum,' Euten added, *make sure my lord Guilliman personally knows that I am sending this strength. Tell him they are of one resolve and ready for his command.'

*I will,' he said.

He had neither the heart nor the words to tell her that, since the blast that had ripped through the Chapel of Memorial ten minutes past, no contact had been made with Guilliman or the Lion at all.

*Gorod!'

The fief commander of the bodyguard turned his ma.s.sive armoured form and saw t.i.tus Prayto approaching him. Prayto was limping and clutched a deep and b.l.o.o.d.y injury to his side.

*Tell me,' said Prayto.

*I tell you squarely, Prayto,' rumbled the Cataphractii, *I am a man of no honour. I have failed in my duty. My oath was to protect him, and I have not done so.'

He looked at the Master of the Librarius.

*Guilliman is dead,' Gorod said. *So too the worthy Lion.'

Behind them, across the courtyard, the great Chapel of Memorial was blazing in the night. Its roof and upper walls had collapsed. The heat was so intense that even armoured legionaries had been driven back while rescue crews were summoned.

*No,' said Prayto.

*I may wish on every minute of every day for the rest of my life that it was not a truth to be spoken,' said Gorod, *but it is plain. Curze has struck the foulest blow of all. He rigged the chapel, and made it so that our lord and the Lion found him there. Curze was bait in his own trap. He has murdered our master, and with him the n.o.ble king of Caliban. I only hope that this crime has cost him his life.'

*No,' Prayto repeated.

*Why do you refute me?' asked Gorod. *With my own eyesa'

*Drakus,' said Prayto, *I have, perhaps at penalty to my own soundness of thought, touched the mind of Konrad Curze. He showed it to me, so that I might know the nightmares that live there and be driven mad. Drakus, listen. I feel it still... still, in my head!'

Wincing and drawing sharp breath as he moved, Prayto looked around.

*Curze lives. And if he escaped this conflagration, then so could better men.'

*He knew what was coming. He planned his exit.'

*If Lord Guilliman had died, Drakus, I swear I would have felt that too. He trusts me and lets me wait at his shoulder. I would have felt the instant of his annihilation.'

*Then I do not know how or where he lives,' said Gorod. *Forgive me, brother, but you have taken a great wound. I wonder if your perceptions are as sharp as they might be?'

*In this, they are.'

Farith Redloss approached them. The Dreadwing commander showed no expression in his face.

*A signal has come, of reinforcement sent from the Residency. You are to open the western gates. There is no trace of Curze, nor of...'

His voice fell away, wordless.