The Silent War Read online

  Sor Talgron had always been surprised that others did not see through the poisonous First Chaplain. He had too much influence over the Legion, and his corruption was contagious. Sor Talgron prayed that the snake would not survive Calth.

  Prayed. A poor choice of words on his part. He had never prayed a day in his life, not even as a child on Colchis. He was not planning on starting now.

  He had seen the same cancer that festered in Erebus within some members of the Chapter. It was not to the same degree as in the other chapters of the Legion, but it was there, much to his chagrin. It was worse among the newer recruits – those more recently indoctrinated into the XVII Legion seemed more corruptible, more drawn to immersing themselves in the new faith and the lust for power. It did not bode well for the future and he had grave concerns for the Legion. Would it even be recognisable in a decade, or a hundred years hence?

  He had done what he could to keep the ranks of the 34th as clean as possible – those he’d judged most inclined to fall to Erebus’ corrupting influence had been sent on to Calth. He would not be displeased if none of them came back. It was another purge of the Legion’s ranks, in a sense. Not of the scale of the one that had come before, but an important one nonetheless. He did not care if martyrs were made. Cut out the corruption and the whole may be diminished, but the Legion would be the stronger for it in the long run.

  He was not normally one to dwell on introspection – at least he had not been before Forty-Seven Sixteen – and he had a task at hand. Less than fifteen minutes had passed when word came from the scouts.

  ‘Four explosive devices disengaged, and the beacon is set,’ came Loth’s cold whisper in Sor Talgron’s ear, breaking his self-imposed vox-silence. ‘Power has been restored to the conveyor. On the way topside.’

  Moments later, the grinding of mechanical gears announced the carriage beginning its ascent.

  ‘There are enemies back down there,’ added Loth. ‘Legionaries and Imperial Army.’

  ‘Numbers?’

  ‘Difficult to say, our scanners were being blocked. Not many, but dug in and waiting.’

  ‘Master of Signal,’ said Sor Talgron, cutting off his vox-link. ‘Does the fleet have a lock on the beacon?’

  ‘They do, captain,’ said Dal Ahk. ‘They are calibrating now.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘They will be ready to sequence in seven minutes.’

  ‘What are your orders, my lord?’ asked Jarulek, joining them. ‘How are you going to play this?’

  ‘We go down there. We kill everything we find,’ he said.

  ‘Good plan,’ said Jarulek, with a smile. That smile never touched his eyes, Sor Talgron noted. In his eyes lurked only darkness.

  Six

  Korolos knew that true death was coming down the conveyor shaft, and he welcomed it like a friend he thought had long abandoned him.

  There was nothing to be feared in death; only failure in life was to be feared. This he had learnt by bitter experience.

  Once, his helm had borne the transverse centurion crest of an officer, but no more. He had been marked for greatness, serving first as the champion of the 178th Company, then rising through the officer ranks. Pride had been his downfall. Now, his helm was red with the mark of censure, the mark of his shame. He had woken after Senosia IV to find it had been removed, a cobalt-blue helm fixed in its place, but he had been insistent.

  ‘Your time of penance is passed, old friend,’ Chapter Master Levianus had said – this was before young Aecus Decimus had risen to the post. ‘You carried that burden long enough. Too long. That fault is mine, and for that I am sorry. You’ve suffered enough.’

  He would have none of it. His honour was forever stained, he said – he could not let it go. The red helm ensured that his dis­honour was externalised, plain for all to see, and he would not hear of putting it aside while he still felt the burning shame that ate away at him. That could only be achieved in death.

  In the end, they had relented.

  He had yearned for this release for more than a century. He could never right the wrongs that he had wrought – he could never bring back the lives of battle-brothers lost through his arrogance and hubris – but perhaps in death he could go some way towards atoning for those mistakes.

  All his friends and comrades were dead. All those proud Ultramarians that he had trained with in the academies of Armatura. All those who had been at his side as the Great Crusade pushed out beyond the edges of the map, expanding the domain of the Imperium. All his closest brothers, those he had laughed with, bled with and killed with, all of them were as dust – gone but not forgotten. At least not by him. Even the tough old war-dog, Chapter Master Levianus, was dead and gone, his ashes entombed in the halls of Macragge, placed within a bronze urn at the feet of a seated statue of his likeness.

  Only he was left.

  He was not alone, not in a literal sense; the handful of legionaries around him, waiting with weapons trained upon the conveyor carriage doors bore the same Chapter livery that bedecked his own armoured form, but he felt little true kinship with them. He had been old by the time they were inducted into the XIII Legion. A relic of the Terran past. They paid him considerable respect – they knew of his battles and triumphs, though he never spoke of them – and they bowed their heads when he walked the decks of the Legion’s warships. But that only served to emphasise the gulf that existed between them. They revered him, but in doing so elevated him beyond themselves. There was no true brotherhood between them. How could there be? They could not relate to him any more than he could to them.

  The carriage reached the bottom of the shaft, and he clenched his immense powered fists, the servos and gears growling. A sheen of energy flickered over his colossal armoured knuckles, and electricity danced between his tapering fingers. He crouched, ready to attack.

  Pistons groaned. Gears turned. Locking devices lifted.

  It was time to kill. And then, finally, it would be time to die.

  The conveyor doors opened.

  Smoke filled the interior of the carriage, concealing the Word Bearers from sight. Sor Talgron heard the metallic clink of grenades as they were hurled into the enclosed space, just as he had expected.

  ‘Lock!’ he roared, and the siege squad responded instantly. As one, moving in perfectly drilled unison, they dropped to one knee, planting their shields in front of them. They were in close formation, their shields locked, forming a solid barrier. Those in the second rank lifted their shields high, protecting from above, and those on the flanks turned their shields outwards. They butted up against the back of the conveyor carriage, using the reinforced plasteel wall to protect their rear, forming a nigh-on impenetrable shell. On ancient Terra that formation had been utilised by warriors armed only with spear and blade, but it proved equally effective here.

  The grenades exploded, filling the space with fire and shrapnel, but the armoured shell held, protecting the legionaries within.

  ‘Shroud!’ ordered Sor Talgron, and every second shield in the front line was lifted long enough for blind grenades to be rolled out beneath them, bouncing and skittering into the chamber beyond. Then the shields slammed down again, echoing loudly.

  The first bursts of gunfire cut through the smoke, impacting on the inside of the carriage and striking the reinforced shield wall. Las-fire for the most part. A few bolters.

  A smattering of solid, high-velocity shells struck Sor Talgron’s own shield, battering against it like a jackhammer, and he was pushed back a step even as he braced against it, feet sliding beneath him. The shield held, and he edged back into line, keeping the wall unbroken.

  ‘Forward!’ he barked, and the formation began to advance.

  They moved slowly, one crunching step at a time, and they began to return fire, bolters resting on the edge of the gun ports cut into their upper rims. They directed their shots wher
e tracer-fire gave away the enemies’ positions. While they were firing blind, the choking smoke obscuring their vision as much as their foes’, their fire was not intended to kill, rather to suppress.

  The Word Bearer to Sor Talgron’s right went down, a lucky shot taking him in the head, but the gap was filled instantly, another legionary stepping forward to take his place. The captain felt a precision round scream overhead, coming from behind him, and one of the enemy warriors fell dead – Loth and his recon squad had joined the fray. They had ridden down atop the conveyor, slipping through the top hatch only once the siege squad had pushed out into the chamber beyond.

  The smoke was beginning to clear. Unaugmented humans – around a score of them – garbed in black and wearing full-faced rebreathers could be vaguely discerned in front and to either side, kneeling behind hastily reinforced barricades.

  Sor Talgron’s auto-senses locked onto three enemy legionaries amongst them. These three wore red helms rather than the usual cobalt-blue. An honour rank, most likely, denoting them as veterans or perhaps a bodyguard unit.

  Of more concern were a pair of servitor-controlled turrets rotating towards them, power couplings humming and shuddering with energy as they came online.

  ‘Loth,’ said Sor Talgron.

  ‘I see them,’ replied the recon sergeant, and the skull of one of the hard-wired servitor controllers disappeared, exploding into wet fragments.

  The other locked onto the advancing legionaries, however, and armoured plates like the petals of a flower unfurled around the servitor. Its turret barrels lit up and fired as one.

  There was a blinding flash and a roar of superheated air, and four incandescent beams tore through the dissipating smoke. Three Word Bearers were bisected; the refractor fields in their shields were useless against such energy. One of Loth’s squad fell too, his left leg neatly severed below the hip as the beams passed right through the shield wall.

  Another two Word Bearers were cut down by combined bolter and las-fire before the gaps in the shield wall were closed. They were only halfway across the hazy kill-zone, and the sentry laser array was humming loudly as it powered up to fire again. Sor Talgron was about to call for the formation to advance double-pace, taking them into blade-range, when a huge shape loomed out of the smoke, coming at them at a run.

  ‘For Ultramar,’ it bellowed. The sound of its pounding footfalls made the entire metal concourse shudder.

  ‘Break!’ roared Sor Talgron. ‘Break!’

  Seven

  Korolos’ memories of the early days of the Great Crusade were stark. Those dawning years had been proud, filled with hope and certainty. The doubts had come later.

  He remembered it so clearly. He could see the eldar bladesman before him, taunting him, drawing him on. The xenos commander was a blur of movement, cutting through the Harkon Geno troops like chaff. They were chaff, just augmented humans of the Imperial Army. So intent on killing the alien fiend had he been, so intent on claiming that honour, that he’d become isolated from the main vanguard. He had two hundred Ultramarines with him, cut off from the rest of the company – just as the enemy had intended.

  The keening screams of the xenos haunted him, even now. The eldar had fallen upon them from all sides, cutting them down with their exotic, deadly weapons, tearing through the ranks on scything jetbike attack runs, their screaming witches somersaulting through whole squads, leaving severed limbs and shattered dreams in their wake.

  He had lost more than just the one hundred and seventy-four loyal sons of Ultramar that day, more than the additional three hundred and eighteen that had died coming to his aid. He had lost more than just his captaincy.

  He had lost the respect of his Legion. He had lost respect for himself. Worst of all, he had seen disappointment in the eyes of his primarch. That disapproval had cut him to the core, and it was a wound that would never heal.

  For seventeen years he wore his shame outwardly, fighting as a common legionary with his helm painted red, seeking an honourable death in battle. Finally, it had come for him. On Senosia IV he had collapsed, surrounded by a circle of slain foes, blood spilling from his lips. At last he would have peace.

  But even then, his trial was not yet done. The oblivion he craved was not to be his fate.

  He had fallen as Brother Aventine Koriol, but he had awoken again in an armoured shell, that he might live on. He bore his new name, Korolos, engraved upon his chest-plate, yet his shame was not lessened in this new incarnation. His pain was as strong as ever. He had not yet done enough to atone for his misdeeds to be allowed the peace of oblivion. How could he ever atone?

  He saw the Word Bearers before him now as grey, pixelated blurs. Blinking target locks identified them, and he processed the abundance of information delivered directly into his cortex in a nanosecond – the power levels of their armour, their heart-rates, the clipped commands being streamed back and forth across their vox-network, the mark and place of manufacture of their armour plate, the model and threat-level of their weaponry.

  Within the stinking amniotic fluid of his cramped sarcophagus, his atrophied claw-like hands twitched, and the immense power-fists of his newer, mechanical flesh clenched into fists. He vocalised his anger, shame and frustration as he thundered towards them. While a few errant bubbles did escape his withered organic throat, the roar that blared from the vox-emitters on his carapace was the bellow of a beast of iron and rage.

  Sor Talgron walked beneath the mountain, his steps echoing in the empty silence. The halls were narrow but tall, their upper reaches brightly lit in sterile white light. There were no shadows in the prison complex known as the Vault. There was nowhere to hide.

  His path was circuitous and winding, but he did not hesitate. The data-upload of the complex’s layout guided him on. The doors, elevators and corridors that he passed were heavily reinforced, security locked and encoded, but those before him opened willingly, ushering him deeper into the belly of the mountain. Everything had been organised. His way had been cleared. He would encounter no resistance and no difficulties.

  He had not seen a soul since disembarking from the black ornithopter that had brought him here to Khangba Marwu, far beneath the icy peak of Rakaposhi. Stepping onto the landing pad, sunk hundreds of metres below the mountain’s surface, there had been no welcoming party, no armed guards, no security detail. Sentry cannons sat idle, their barrels turned passively aside. The entrance into the vast prison complex lay open before him, the adamantium-reinforced portal gaping, beckoning him in.

  The complex was one of the most highly secure locations on Terra, yet Sor Talgron walked straight into it without any challenge. A hint of a smile touched his lips, though none would have seen it, hidden beneath the barbarous scowl of his battle helm, even if there had been anyone nearby.

  Ceiling-mounted pict-recorders turned aside at his approach. There would be no record of his passing in the data archives.

  A green, blinking icon in the corner of his eye indicated that he was approaching his destination. He tapped a code into a keypad, which retracted sharply into its console, and a wall panel slid aside to reveal a black screen. Sor Talgron removed his helm and stared into its depths as a retinal scan was conducted. The bulk of the Vault’s security protocols had been overridden, but a few of these last measures were not so simply bypassed. Nevertheless, his biometrics had been inputted into the system and marked with the highest clearance – at least in this one small sub-section of the gaol.

  The door’s interlocking mesh-fingers released their grip, and the two halves of the portal slid aside. Sor Talgron stepped through into a small holding area similar to an airlock on a void-capable ship. He saw himself reflected in the mirrored windows on either side of the cell – a hulking, grey warrior in functional, brutish Iron armour. The lenses of his helmet glowed like burning embers. His worn battleplate looked out of context in these clinical, harshly lit surrounds.
He was an anomaly here.

  His suit’s internal systems told him that he was being scanned, checking him against the data that had been logged into the system at Dorn’s order. He resisted the urge to clench his fists.

  A moment later, whatever security protocols were in play were met and the last door retracted before him, allowing Sor Talgron access to the prisoner beyond.

  The room was circular and expansive, and targeting icons instantly flashed up on his helm’s visor display, latching onto the autocannon-slaved servitor turrets hanging from the ceiling. They were surgically grafted into articulated cupolas at various points around the room, hardwired to their mono-task. He watched them cautiously, but they panned by, not appearing to register his presence. Sor Talgron blink-scrolled the icons away and stepped across the threshold.

  In the centre of the room was a fully enclosed cylindrical cell. The curved walls were made of thick armourglass, revealing the occupant within – a figure with the build of one of the Legiones Astartes, kneeling as if in meditation, or perhaps even prayer. Sor Talgron walked closer, studying him.

  He was clad in a yellow prison bodyglove which did nothing to hide his immense physique, and he sat motionless with his hands upon his thighs, legs folded underneath him and eyes closed. His eyelids were tattooed – as was the entire left half of his face – with Colchisian cuneiform. His hair was black gone to grey and shoulder-length, and he wore it braided at his temples in the manner of an acolyte in the Colchisian custom. He had bone and iron earrings hanging from his lobes, another concession to the customs of the homeworld of the Urizen. His skin was the colour of rich teak, and deeply lined.

  Sor Talgron hit the simple, coded door release and stepped inside. The walls within were frosted and impermeable – one-way glass. Sor Talgron removed his helmet, and the other Word Bearer opened his eyes, slowly, as though waking from a deep sleep.