The Silent War Read online

  ‘The flask,’ said Jarulek.

  There were two glass vessels that Jarulek had set aside before he had begun his work. One had something oily and writhing within it. The other was empty but for a measure of inky fluid. Sor Talgron unstoppered the lid of this second flask and held it out, and Jarulek slid Wreth’s heart into it before sealing it shut.

  ‘The other one,’ said Jarulek, gesturing. ‘Give it to me. Quickly!’

  ‘I will not touch it,’ said Sor Talgron, holding up the vessel containing Wreth’s heart before him. It had stopped beating.

  With a hiss, Jarulek stood and retrieved the flask himself before kneeling once more before Volkhar Wreth. The legionary’s face was pallid and his eyes were unfocused. His breathing had shallowed. His body was shutting down, putting him into hibernation.

  Jarulek muttered a string of un-words that made his mouth bleed and the candlelight flicker. He slammed the flask in his hand into the stone floor, and a spiderweb of cracks crazed its glass surface. Dark liquid seeped from the cracks, oily and steaming, and a stench like spoiled meat filled the air. The wriggling thing inside went wild, thrashing and undulating, pressing against its fractured prison. Jarulek still held it in his hand as pieces of glass began to fall away and worm-like appendages the colour of a bruise probed their way free.

  Volkhar Wreth had now faded out of consciousness, his breathing slowing until it was barely perceptible. Jarulek leant over him, still speaking in the tongue of the daemon, blood dripping from his lips. Tainted glass fell from the shattered flask as the thing held within struggled to emerge. Sor Talgron could feel its presence, clawing at the edges of his mind as it strained to haul itself into reality. The squirming thing in the flask was but a tiny part of the creature – the rest dwelt in the roiling chaos of the warp.

  ‘If I can feel that, others may,’ he snarled. ‘Control it.’

  ‘This room is shielded,’ said Jarulek. ‘No one will pick up anything.’

  ‘Just be quick about it.’

  Jarulek thrust the broken flask into the gash he had carved in Volkhar Wreth’s body, and pushed it up into the void where his heart had been. He pulled his hand out, and wiped away the oily residue.

  Volkhar Wreth shuddered, his body convulsing. His eyes shot open, a look of unutterable horror ingrained in them. He moaned, shaking his head from side to side. He looked up at Sor Talgron, pleadingly. He was managing to gasp, though the muscles of his neck were bulging, the veins in his temple straining fit to burst. He tried to scream, to beg, to curse them, but he could not.

  Sor Talgron felt a shudder in the flask in his hand. He lifted it, wonder and disgust warring for his attention. The predicant’s heart within had started beating once more.

  ‘It’s working,’ said Sor Talgron.

  ‘It is bonding with him,’ said Jarulek. He was stitching up Wreth’s midsection, pulling the skin tight and sewing it shut with thick thread and a jagged hook. It was crude work, and hurried, but it would suffice.

  When he was done, he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘These wards will contain it,’ he said, gesturing vaguely to the symbols carved in Wreth’s flesh. ‘Until the time is right.’

  ‘And then the minds of these frozen psykers will power its release,’ said Sor Talgron.

  ‘Correct,’ said Jarulek.

  ‘As I said – if it doesn’t work, I will cut your throat.’

  ‘It will likely be some years before we know.’

  ‘I can wait,’ said Sor Talgron. He placed a hand upon Volkhar Wreth’s bloody brow. ‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ he said.

  Almost wilfully, a burning white-green mist fell upon one of the siege squad legionaries as the doors slid open. He staggered, steam rising from his armour, which instantly began to hiss, its surface dissolving as the phosphex began to work.

  Sor Talgron and one of the other Word Bearers hauled the stricken legionary back, but the damage was done. They dumped him on the floor as his heavy plate began to blister and crack. It was his rubberised armour seals that were compromised first, but he roared as his flesh began to sizzle and burn inside his plate. The floor beneath him began to hiss as the corrosive chemical mist began to eat away at it.

  Burning vapours crawled across the landing pad. The mountains were on the very edge of one of the detonations, yet even so, the carnage was devastating. Everything touched by it was being voraciously devoured. Metal dissolved as though bathed in acid, and the bare rock blazed with green fire. Even the air itself was being consumed in the choking, metallic clouds.

  ‘Gods,’ swore Loth. ‘The ships.’

  The Word Bearers craft were gone. The XIII Legion lighter craft was there, but a glance assured Sor Talgron that it was not taking them anywhere – the cockpit canopy sagged inwards, liquefied by corrosive alchemical poisons, and its metal fuselage was dissolving before his eyes.

  There was no way off the platform.

  The fallen legionary was sinking into the floor as it sagged and melted beneath him. His screams were almost pitiful, so Sor Talgron ended him quickly with his combat blade. The flooring gave way, and the body of the Word Bearer dropped into the conveyor shaft. The corrosion in the floor was spreading.

  ‘Out,’ he ordered.

  The platform was burning, but the corrosive mist had not yet consumed it. There were still pockets of safety. In the distance, alchemical flames were engulfing the mountains, flowing over them like an avalanche. They were lucky, here, he realised. The other mountains must have acted as a buffer, an aegis protecting them from the worst of the phosphex fallout, but the rising mist was coming for them at high speed. They had a matter of minutes at best.

  ‘Dal Ahk,’ snarled Sor Talgron, scanning the skies.

  ‘The vox is still out,’ said Loth.

  ‘Get a flare up,’ ordered Sor Talgron. Before the recon sergeant could comply with his captain’s orders, however, they caught sight of a final missile screaming down through the upper atmosphere. It disappeared beyond the mountains, but it wasn’t hard to judge that it would fall closer to them than any other had.

  They didn’t feel the impact underfoot – not right away. The shock wave would take some time to reach them, but when it did, it would be devastating. Nor did they hear anything at first.

  There was a retina-burning flash, however. It blanketed the sky. The optic dampeners of Sor Talgron’s helmet cancelled out the searing blast, saving his eyes and turning everything dark as they compensated.

  In the wake of the detonation, a giant cloud of roiling dust, smoke and pale flame rose into the air, its momentum building even as it soared into the stratosphere. The fallout of that detonation roared over the tops of the mountains in a searing, burning shock wave, hurtling towards them in a wall over a dozen kilometres high. That wall obliterated the peaks from view, one after another, coming at them at colossal speed.

  There was no way to outrun it. There was nothing to do but stand and watch as it howled towards them, consuming everything in its wake. It was death, and it was coming for them.

  There was no way anyone would believe that one of Guilliman’s sons would sanction the use of phosphex on such a scale, particularly against one of their own worlds. Sor Talgron knew that his own Legion would be blamed for this atrocity.

  ‘Perhaps this is what we deserve,’ he muttered.

  Twelve

  The wall of roiling, pale green alchemical fire crashed over them, lifting them from their feet and hurling them back.

  Sor Talgron bellowed as he was smashed against the mountain with bone-shattering force. His cries were lost in the deafening roar of the poisonous inferno. He could see little, the white mist and pale flames surrounding him, though he caught glimpses of legionaries being tossed around like the playthings of cruel gods. It was like being in the grip of a fiery cyclone, though the winds were made up
of the strongest corrosive chemicals ever devised by man.

  Loth and his recon squad were the first to perish, their stripped-down armour the least able to resist the toxic winds. Their plate dissolved upon their flesh, consumed by a fierce, burning coldness. Skin and muscle tissue turned molten, and bones burned as meat slipped from them. Helm lenses shattered, and eyes and brains were liquefied, burned out within their skulls in an instant.

  Sor Talgron felt the acidic burn as his armour seals gave way. The agony was excruciating, worse than anything he had ever experienced. His face already bore evidence of rad-scarring and nuclear burns, but the pain of those injuries was as nothing next to the horrific sensation of the phosphex melting into his flesh.

  The blast wave was past them, leaving Sor Talgron and his warriors reeling, stumbling around on the melting platform, their bodies awash with choking, corrosive fire. None of them had escaped its rage. Half the legionaries were dead already, their bodies burning fiercely on the deck. Sor Talgron’s flesh was aflame, and he dropped to his knees, as the tendons, ligaments and muscles in his ankles and knees were consumed, his integrity seals finally giving way completely.

  His entire body was awash with burning agony, without and within. His muscles turned to fire. Both hearts began to blaze.

  His helm’s grille dissolved inwards and he inhaled the burning, acidic mist, breathing it into his lungs. His visor lenses had been eaten away and his eyes melted, running down his searing cheeks.

  He fell, writhing, agony searing through every nerve ending. His flesh was being broken down, eaten off his bones, flickering with pale flame. His armour was alight, being stripped back to its base constituents and devoured. The very air he breathed was poisoned fire.

  He struggled to push himself upright, but it was a battle that he could not win. His will alone was not enough. He fell again, and this time he did not rise.

  In his last moments, he thought of Volkhar Wreth. Better to die than to suffer that fate.

  Sor Talgron and his companion, cloaked in a dark crimson robe and the hood drawn low over his face, strode down the umbilical corridor towards the waiting drop shuttle. A voice, authoritative and altered by a high-end vocabulator, called after them.

  ‘Halt!’

  The two Word Bearers slowed, and turned towards the voice.

  ‘Problem?’ breathed Jarulek from the concealing shadow of his hood. Sor Talgron knew that he would be clutching his athame beneath his robe, ready to strike. Against those that approached, it would do little.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  A trio of Custodians strode towards them, artery-red capes and plumes flowing out in their wake. They came to a halt before the pair of legionaries, the bases of their guardian spears ringing sharply on the deck.

  ‘Yes?’ said Sor Talgron. His hand itched for a weapon.

  The faceplate of the lead Custodian slid back, revealing the stern features of Tiber Acanthus.

  ‘You are leaving us, then,’ he said.

  ‘We are,’ said Sor Talgron. ‘Dorn has ordered all legionaries of the Seventeenth within the Solar System to Isstvan. We go to join the muster.’

  Tiber Acanthus nodded. ‘You had some delays getting here? Servitor pilot failure?’

  ‘On the ornithopter, yes. A slight delay. An inconvenience, but nothing more.’

  The Custodian’s gaze lingered on the hooded and cowled figure of Jarulek.

  ‘Was there something else that you wanted, sentinel?’ said Sor Talgron, and Tiber Acanthus’ attention turned back to him. His expression was severe for a moment, then broke into something only a little warmer.

  ‘Merely to wish you well,’ he said. ‘It has been an honour to know you during the years you’ve served within the system.’

  Sor Talgron removed his helm to look the Custodian in the eye. The respect he felt for the sentinel was genuine. He extended his hand, and they shook in the old warrior manner.

  ‘Fight well,’ said Acanthus. ‘May we meet again.’

  ‘I feel certain that we will,’ said Sor Talgron.

  The Stormbird descended, buffeted by the roiling eddies left in the wake of the detonation. It came in hard, and the writhing, cloying mists clinging to the mountains rose to meet it, reaching out with tendrils of flame.

  Jet turbines rotated downwards, and the gunship roared in under the deep overhang of the landing platform. Its clawed landing gear was not extended – the platform was no longer solid – but its assault ramp lowered, opening to the roiling tumult beyond. It hovered unsteadily in the air, shuddering and reeling as the white flames licked across its chassis and began to burn.

  Two figures bedecked in flaming Cataphractii armour stood awaiting it, a charred figure held between them. Half crawling, half limping, they staggered towards the gaping ramp, dragging the lifeless warrior. It was too much for the first of them – even the immense void-hardened Cataphractii suits were not able to maintain their integrity against the ravages of phosphex. He collapsed, and the last standing legionary on Percepton Primus hauled the charred body up onto the ramp alone, pushing it in before clambering up and collapsing inside.

  The Stormbird’s vectored engines roared. Its hull was being eaten away now where the gelid, living flames had licked at it. It pulled away, its engines rotating, turning down towards the blanket of white-green death that was consuming the land below from horizon to horizon, and it rocketed skywards, screaming back into the upper atmosphere.

  Only once it reached the void was it given a reprieve from the phosphex. Extended exposure to a cold vacuum was the only way to put out those flames once they had taken hold.

  In the Stormbird’s troop bay, the Terminator-armoured legionary held the burned husk of his commander as all the air within was vented into the void. Then he collapsed, finally succumbing.

  ‘Infidus Diabolus, this is Stormbird AT-394, inbound on aft launch deck fourteen,’ said Dal Ahk from the cockpit of the gunship. ‘I need an emergency medicae crew prepped and waiting. Ready the apothecarion to treat extreme phosphex and void-sustained injuries. Priority primus.’

  ‘There are no free medicae units, Stormbird AT-394,’ came the static-infused response. ‘The apothecarion is already overrun with the influx of casualties.’

  ‘I am bringing in Captain Sor Talgron,’ Dal Ahk said, simply. There was a momentary pause, then the connection clicked to another channel. A new voice spoke then.

  ‘Understood, Stormbird AT-394. A medicae team will be ready and waiting.’

  Thirteen

  ‘Will he live?’

  Urhlan glanced back to the one who had spoken; the Dark Apostle, Jarulek. He stood with arms crossed over his chest. There were a handful of other officers and legionaries clustered around the slab. All of them bore evidence of battle, and most sported wounds of varying severity.

  ‘I am surprised he is even alive now,’ Urhlan said, making a vain attempt to wipe the blood from his helmet’s visor lenses. ‘I was surprised that he was alive when he got here.’

  ‘But can you save him?’

  Urhlan looked down at his patient, writhing on the slab before him.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Then his fate is in the gods’ hands,’ said Jarulek.

  Urhlan turned back towards the now comatose, twitching mass of chem-melted flesh on the slab before him. It was hard to believe that this was his captain.

  ‘Get out,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Let me work. I will do what I can.’

  He was in the hole with Volkhar Wreth.

  The predicant’s chest was closed, the shattered warp-flask sealed within him. They had dropped him into the oubliette that Jarulek had prepared, and he’d hit the bottom of the shaft hard – his useless, paralysed legs folding beneath him. The tight confines had pressed in around him, keeping him partially upright, but he was a sorry sight, crumpled into an awk
ward foetal position at the bottom of the hole. Jarulek had stitched his eyes open before they’d thrown him in. It was a spiteful act, and one that Sor Talgron regretted not halting.

  They had then wedged flagstones and rock down into the oubliette on top of him, the first pieces lowered carefully, the remainder hurled in haste. Many of the pieces were large, the gaps between them substantial; he wouldn’t run out of air for a while, at least. Finally, they had dragged the heavy stone altar back over the hole and locked the tomb, sealing it with chains and heaped rubble.

  Wreth had been awake when they had dropped him in and he lived still. The things that had replaced his heart kept him awake and compos mentis, his sus-an membrane suppressed. How many years could a mind remain crumpled in darkness, conscious but unable to move, before he went mad?

  Sor Talgron would find out, now.

  He was in the hole with Volkhar Wreth.

  They were pressed together. The darkness was complete, but he was able to see. He didn’t question why. Wreth’s breathing was coming in short, sharp gasps, and it became more rapid as he sensed that Sor Talgron was so close by.

  His skin was an unhealthy shade of grey, and thick purple-black veins throbbed within the meat of his body. Things were moving within his flesh; things that writhed and pulsed. He was an incubator, a host, and what was contained within wanted to come out. Sor Talgron could hear its whispering, maddening voices in his mind. It wanted to emerge through Wreth’s corporeal form, to enter this realm of existence using his flesh as a gateway.

  It was not yet time, though. Not yet.

  What dwelt within Volkhar Wreth’s flesh was but a tiny portion of its whole – the rest resided in the roiling depths of the warp, waiting, impatient and full of hatred.