War Without End Read online

Where the rest of the Dawn Citadel was built from the same ochre stone of the mountains, the Sanctuary had been constructed by Molech’s first settlers, and its structure bore little resemblance to the fortress raised around it.

  That it was ancient beyond imagining was clear, its circular plan evident in the geodesic dome that had clearly once graced the hull of a starship. Almost the entirety of the Sanctuary’s structure had once been part of an interstellar vessel – its structural pylons scavenged from the ship’s superstructure, its walls from exterior hull plating and its towering black and silver gates from some vast internal chamber.

  This was the gateway to the Vault Transcendent. When the Knights of Molech rode to battle, they sallied forth from this portal.

  The Sanctuary had been added to and embellished over the millennia since its construction, and what might once have been functional and drab was now garlanded with colourful banners, steel-formed gargoyles and bladed finials. An Imperial eagle banner streamed from a spired cupola at the dome’s centre, with flags bearing the heraldry of the various Knightly Houses arranged around it on a lower level. The symbolism of the banners’ arrangement was obvious, and Raeven marvelled at its lack of subtlety.

  When the Emperor snapped his fingers and called the people of Molech to war, they had no choice but to answer.

  Was it just him who was angered at the dominance evident in the way every element of Imperial iconography was elevated beyond that of Molech? Surely he couldn’t be the only one to see it, but it appeared he was the only one who cared.

  Grand processional stairs of black iron began at either side of the main gateway, circling around the building before meeting above it at a smaller circular entrance – one more suited to the scale of mortals. This upper entrance irised open and twin columns of red-robed Sacristans emerged, descending the stairs to bring the sons of Lord Devine to their Ritual of Becoming. Raeven put aside his resentment towards the Imperium as he imagined riding through the Transcendent Gate, hardwired into his own suit of Knight armour.

  He glanced over at Albard, expecting to see the same flush of excitement in his scarred features as he knew must be evident on his own.

  But his brother’s face was deathly pale and a sheen of sweat coated his skin.

  The Chamber of Echoes was not named for its acoustic properties, though they were impressive enough. Raeven’s booted footfalls rang from the distant ceiling, a suspended canopy of thick cables and hissing pipework like jungle creepers or an impossibly vast nest of snakes. The floor was a patchwork of steel grilles, deck plates from the forgotten starship that had been cannibalised to create the structure of the Sanctuary.

  A dim ultraviolet light shone through the pipes above, and flickering electro-flambeaux burned in iron sconces that had once been the piston covers of an engine housing. Two enormous mechanised thrones stood upon an elevated rostrum at the heart of the chamber, arranged so that those who sat upon them would be facing each other.

  ‘The Throne Mechanicum,’ said the acolyte who had led them within, ‘through which you will each bond with your armour.’

  They made several circuits of the internal structure of the Sanctuary, shedding their accompanying Sacristans as the robed acolytes of the Mechanicum took up positions throughout the building in preparation for the ritual. Eventually, only one was left, a shaven-headed drone who normally attended their father.

  Without needing to be told, Raeven knew which of the Thrones was his, and he climbed the iron steps of its heavy, drably functional machinery to sit down. No sooner had he done so than heavy steel bands snapped into place at his ankles and wrists. A silver cowl rose from the rear portion of the throne and slipped smoothly over his head. Raeven felt the heat of electrical contact as whirring cable plugs slotted home in the input sockets bored into the back of his neck and spine.

  The sense of invasive penetration was sharp and cold, but not unpleasant.

  With connection established, Raeven blinked as he heard a susurration of half-heard voices around him, as though an invisible host of distant observers had silently entered the chamber to witness his Becoming.

  ‘My lord,’ said the Sacristan, gesturing to the throne opposite Raeven’s.

  Albard nodded, but made no move to climb the steps to his throne.

  ‘What’s the matter, brother?’ said Raeven. ‘Nervous?’

  Albard shot him an angry look. ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to work,’ he said. ‘The catechisms, the words we are to speak. This isn’t what I expected.’

  The Sacristan nodded. ‘Given the unfortunate incident before the Argent Gate, Lord Devine has instructed us to dispense with much of the formal ritual associated with the Becoming.’

  The Sacristan’s tone left no room for doubt as to what he thought of that particular instruction. Like their Mechanicum overseers, the Sacristans were great respecters of tradition, ritual and dogma.

  ‘But that’s to help us bond with the Knight armour,’ protested Albard.

  ‘Lord Devine felt you would be more than capable of establishing a connection without it,’ said the Sacristan. ‘He was most insistent.’

  Albard swallowed hard, and Raeven savoured his brother’s discomfort. Normally as brusque and arrogant as their father, to see him so obviously frightened was a rare treat.

  ‘My lord, if you please,’ said the Sacristan.

  ‘Alright, damn you,’ snapped Albard, finally climbing the steps and sitting upon his throne.

  The restraint mechanisms fastened around his brother’s limbs and the silver cowl rose to envelop the upper portion of his skull. Albard jerked as the communion umbilicals slotted into his body, grimacing as their whirring mechanism scraped the infected skin around his input sockets.

  Raeven’s eyes met Albard’s, and he allowed himself a moment’s satisfaction as he saw the weakness deep within his brother – buried, and all but invisible to most people who knew him. But it was there now, horribly exposed and glaringly obvious.

  ‘Ready, brother?’ said Raeven.

  Albard said nothing, his jaw clenching and unclenching in fear.

  Satisfied that both men were secured within their thrones, the Sacristan leaned down and whispered into Albard’s ear. Such were the perfect acoustics of the chamber that Raeven heard every word, and his eyes widened at the look of horror on his brother’s face.

  ‘The Serpent Gods live,’ said the Sacristan.

  Dawn was making its way up the valley as Cebella Devine watched Lyx climb the steps to the high walls overlooking the scene of the previous day’s carnage. Cebella’s huscarl bodyguards were keeping a respectful distance, and she felt her heart race as Lyx approached.

  ‘Is it done?’ asked Cebella, without turning to face the girl.

  ‘It is,’ confirmed Lyx.

  ‘And?’

  ‘There were... complications,’ said Lyx, clearly relishing the look of irritation that flitted across Cebella’s face.

  ‘Don’t draw this out, Lyx. Tell me.’

  ‘Raeven imprinted successfully. His Knight is a colt in the stable, wild and strong.’

  ‘And Albard?’

  Lyx paused, her face a mockery of loss. ‘It grieves me to say that after the incident on the Via Argentum, Albard’s mind was unprepared to endure a night in the Chamber of Echoes.’

  ‘Does he live?’ asked Cebella.

  Lyx nodded. ‘He does, but his Knight refused to bond with him and the bio-neural feedback from that rejection has irreparably damaged his mind. I fear he is lost to us.’

  Cebella finally deigned to face Lyx and the two women shared a look that an outsider might have mistaken for shared grief, but which was in fact shared complicity.

  ‘Your pet Sacristan made quite a spectacle of himself,’ said Cebella at last.

  ‘A man will do foolish things for the sake of lust,’ agreed Lyx.

&n
bsp; ‘But he failed to kill Cyprian,’ said Cebella. ‘Impaled twice and the cantankerous old bastard still breathes. I almost admire him for that. Almost.’

  ‘Yes, Cyprian still lives, but look at what Raeven achieved,’ pointed out Lyx. ‘The people saw him stand and fight a mallahgra with only a powerless sword. From such tales are legends born.’

  ‘Do we have need of legends?’

  ‘We will,’ said Lyx, as a momentary dizziness swept through her and she blinked away the image of a fiery amber eye and a sweeping storm that stretched from horizon to horizon.

  ‘Another vision?’ asked Cebella, extending a hand to steady her.

  ‘Perhaps,’ nodded Lyx.

  ‘What do you see?’ demanded Cebella, keeping her voice low.

  ‘A time of great change is coming to Molech,’ said Lyx. ‘It will be many years from now, but when it comes, a terrible war will be fought. House Devine will play a pivotal role in it.’

  ‘Raeven?’

  ‘He will be a great warrior, and his actions will turn the tide of the war.’

  Cebella smiled and released Lyx’s arm. She looked up into the lightening sky and pictured the worlds over which her son would claim dominion. Lyx was not the only Adoratrice to have the sight, but her secret powers waxed stronger than any that Cebella had known before.

  ‘You have grand ambitions for your twin brother,’ said Cebella.

  ‘No more than you, mother,’ said Lyx. ‘No more than you.’

  His name was Thirteen Stars Falling. He was the one to spit upon the ground before the Lord of Winter and War.

  ‘There’s your answer, Russ.’

  The Lord of Winter and War was a king without a throne. When he gathered the Einherjar blood-sworn, he did so without ceremony, holding a warriors’ court on the bare earth. Every soul stood equal to his kinsmen, and every warrior present knew that the day would end with the fall of an executioner’s axe.

  All eyes lay upon the six souls awaiting judgement beneath the weeping storm. They stood without any attempt at formation, though instinct had each of them standing with enough room to draw and swing a blade. Rain drenched the brothers as they stood before their master, soaking their wolf pelts and polishing their grey ceramite to a greasy sheen.

  The wind still carried the chemical reek of burned fuel, a legacy of the Legion’s recent planetfall. No warriors’ court would ever convene in the void; tradition was tradition, and not even the Lord of Winter and War could decree otherwise. Fenrisians and Terrans alike had a right to die with their boots upon honest earth.

  Jarls and thegns from other companies formed a ring around the accused. Armed and armoured for battle, these chieftains murmured amongst themselves, their voices as deep and low as rousing bears. Talismans and charms were exchanged in place of meaningless coins as they gambled without shame on the lives of their kinsmen.

  At last, Russ spoke. Outsiders often likened his voice to a canine’s snarl, yet here amongst his sons he was but one of many with a feral edge to his words.

  ‘That’s the last refusal I will hear from Howl of the Hearthworld.’

  Thirteen Stars Falling nodded. ‘Then don’t ask us again.’

  The high king smiled, a thing of bared teeth and flashing eyes. He was ageless in the way that only godlings are ageless, and scarred in ways that a coward would never be scarred. Two wolves prowled by his side, loyal and hunter-keen. The Lord of Winter and War idly ran gloved fingers through the nearest beast’s fur.

  ‘I offer you honour,’ he said, ‘and you return it with defiance.’

  ‘You have offered us banishment, my king. We refuse it. We will stay and hunt. We will fight with the Legion, as we were born to do.’

  ‘I see.’ The Imperium might know the primarch by a wealth of names and titles, but to his warriors he was the Lord of Winter and War, or more recently “the Russ” – first and most noble son of the old Russ Tribe.

  And in the face of his son’s defiance, Leman of the Russ was still smiling. Morbid merriment twisted the scars on his weathered features. Privately he wondered, as he often did in these moments, if the weeping sky was an omen. If so, it seemed an unsubtle one.

  ‘You know I’m within the rights of the blood-sworn to take your skulls for this. Is Howl of the Hearthworld so keen to surrender its heads to my sword’s edge?’

  Thirteen Stars Falling stepped forward, proud in his war-mauled Crusade plate, prouder still of the brown fur cloak now turned sodden-black by the rising storm. By the reckoning of his people, Thirteen Stars Falling was an old man: one of the very first Wolves to sail from Fenris at his primarch’s side, scarred but still breathing despite all that the galaxy had thrown at him. Many of the first Fenrisian generation were gone into ash and memory, fallen amongst the thousands of battles fought by the Vlka Fenryka across the emergent Imperium. Most of the survivors were long since promoted out of the first packs, assigned with all honour to roles within the life-sworn Wolf Guard, or given the right to lead whole companies.

  Thirteen Stars Falling had fought hard, not in order to rise but in order to remain where he was. He was a hunter, a stalker, a tracker, a killer – let the logistics of marching armies and sailing fleets fall to other men. His place was with his pack, leading Howl of the Hearthworld through the blood and smoke, an axe in his hand and a roar in his throat.

  He scratched his chin through his braided beard, his fingers meeting the ivory rings fastened there. To him, it might seem only yesterday that his beard had been black with flecks of white; now it was white with streaks of grey. A warrior could fight everything but time and fate.

  Before he spoke, Thirteen Stars Falling curled his lip to show his long fangs: the gesture of an elder sharing wisdom with a whelp.

  ‘It is not honour, my king. It is banishment. No matter how much you swear this is a hero’s duty, exile is still exile.’

  The Russ turned a toothy smile upon the other warchiefs. ‘The Sigillite asked this of us, kinsmen. Answer me in truth, here in the warriors’ court – do you see no honour in this? The Regent of Terra himself beseeches us to watch the Lords of the Legions.’

  A few of the thegns banged fists to breastplates, while others gave a low cheer not far from a murmur. The Russ laughed at their lukewarm display. He was well aware that this was a duty desired by none of them, and loved his sons for their honesty in saying so. But duty was duty.

  Thirteen Stars Falling was unmoved. His cragged features, weathered and darkened by countless wars beneath countless suns, stared flatly towards his king.

  ‘If Malcador asks for watchers, then send watchers. We are warriors, Russ.’

  ‘And yet every other pack has agreed without this stench of rebellion.’

  ‘It is not our place!’ Thirteen Stars Falling bared his teeth in a snarl, saliva spraying from his clenched jaws. ‘We have spoken with Shadow of the Low Moon, as well as Night’s Voice. You send them towards battle, even if it means serving with the other Legions. Yet you send us away from all hope of war. The other packs offered no defiance because they aren’t being chained up in a cargo hold and shipped to Terra. You offer them new battlefields. You offer us only exile.’

  Russ was no longer smiling. Proud he might be, but patient he was not.

  ‘The time for spit and spite is past, and the time for responsibility is upon us. Malcador asked this of me, and I will provide him what he requires.’

  Thirteen Stars Falling shook his head, defeat creeping up his spine. There was no hiding the rage in his eyes, but it was the rage of a beaten beast.

  ‘We are not his thralls to order here and there at a whim. Rogal Dorn needs no watch-pack trailing at his heels – and if he does, then the Imperium is already lost. There’s no honour in this exile to Terra, Russ. How are we to take pride in the bloodless, warless fate of peasants and traders and farmers?’ He said the last word as a foul-tas
ting curse.

  ‘I care little for what pride you take in this purpose, kinsmen. I’ve enjoyed your defiance and I commend you for the fire in your hearts. But press on with it, and Sixth Legion archives will forever record you as the first and only pack to refuse the orders of its primarch. Is that the legacy you wish for Howl of the Hearthworld?’

  Silence reigned, sudden and sharp. No one was willing to speak, not even Thirteen Stars Falling.

  ‘I thought as much,’ Russ said at last. ‘I will grant you the Damarchus for your journey to Terra. Be ready to leave within twelve hours.’

  Howl of the Hearthworld stood motionless, going nowhere, saying nothing.

  Instead it was Laughing Jaurmag who stepped forward, taking the place of Thirteen Stars Falling. As warchief of Cry of the Grieving Dragon, jarl of Tolv and master of many packs, he had the right to speak for any of them at a warriors’ court.

  And speak he would.

  ‘My king,’ he said, looking up at Russ with eyes the same grey as the storm above.

  ‘Your king listens, Laughing Jaurmag.’

  ‘Russ,’ the chief said in his stern and unsmiling manner, ‘it cannot be this way. I cannot send warriors of my company to do a task that I would refuse myself. If you send Howl of the Hearthworld to Terra against their will, I will journey with them.’

  He gripped the bronze torc around his throat, one armoured hand holding tight to the thick, tarnished metal ring. Leman of the Russ had bent that torc around Laughing Jaurmag’s neck himself, when the warrior first ascended to command.

  For the first time since the court was convened, the primarch hesitated.

  Rare were the nights when his sons could surprise him, and yet here was one of the Legion’s great warlords ready to tear the torc of rank from his neck, abandoning his forces to serve with a single wayward pack. The air felt colder, and not from the wind’s chill. Cry of the Grieving Dragon was a significant force within Tolv Company. Losing one of their packs was nearly meaningless, but losing their leader would be a different tale.

  ‘A noble sentiment. Yet who would lead the Cry of the Grieving Dragon in your absence?’