Angel of Fire

Once the city was well behind us, Macharius set the flyer down in the desert. He did not give any explanations. He merely picked a flat-topped mesa and landed. All of us climbed out and began to inspect the flyer and I understood why he had done so. The aircraft was enormously beaten up. In places the hull looked as if it was just about to fall apart. Somehow the general had nursed the flyer this far but I doubt that it would have gone much further.

‘Never an adept around when you want one,’ said Anton with his usual attempt at humour.

‘There are other things to worry about even if we can fly much further,’ said Macharius.

‘Sir?’ I asked.

‘If we get too close to our army we risk being shot down by our own air-cover. This is a heretic vehicle with heretic beacons and I doubt anyone will believe us if we tell them who we are.’

‘Bad security, anyway,’ Drake said. ‘If any enemy aircraft are in the area and intercept the call, they can kill you with one strike.’

I looked out into the distance. A massive dust storm was moving across the desert, a monstrous, moving cloud that obscured everything in its way. It took me a second to realise it was no dust storm.

‘I think the point has just become moot,’ I said.

Inside all those clouds of dust was a huge army. I could see the enormous shadowy shapes of Baneblades and Shadowswords, each a mobile fortress of plasteel and ceramite, each giving a sense of total invulnerability. All around them were thousands of Leman Russ battle tanks and even more Chimera armoured personnel carriers. Valkyries swarmed the air above them like a cloud of angry hornets. It looked like the Imperial Guard had decided to return to Irongrad in force. Macharius must have seen this from the cockpit. It was obviously why he had chosen this spot.

‘I think we have some trouble,’ said Anton. I immediately understood what he meant. Some of those Valkyries were descending towards us. Eagle-eyed pilots had spotted us and were coming to investigate. I prayed to the Emperor that they would ask questions first and shoot later. I was not entirely sure that I would do that under the circumstances but I hoped that the pilots might prove to be somewhat less aggressive.

Macharius had already thought of that. An emergency flare arced skywards, set by the hands of the Lord High Commander himself. I immediately understood his thinking. If we were scouts and spies we would not draw attention to ourselves like that, not unless we were very stupid, which is a possibility you can never rule out when dealing with some. I hoped the pilots would have more respect for our intelligence than that. I knew it would not be long before we found out.

Soon a Valkyrie hovered in the air above us, weapons trained on us. We kept our hands in the air as a second airship descended and soldiers spilled out covering us with their lasguns.

‘Keep your hands in the air, and don’t make any sudden moves,’ said an officer.

‘Captain Argus, is that you?’ Macharius said. I was suddenly very glad of his talent for being able to remember people’s names. Captain Argus’s jaw dropped. He looked like a man who had just encountered a ghost, which is exactly what he thought he was seeing.

‘Lord High Commander Macharius?’ he said. He looked astonished, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

‘In the flesh,’ Macharius said. ‘We talked when I decorated you after the Battle of Khalion.’

As with so much that Macharius did, it was perfect. It let Captain Argus know that he was exactly who he said he was. No spy could have known a little detail like that. You could see the captain standing a little bit straighter as he came under the general’s eye. All of the other soldiers suddenly looked as if they were at attention. I am somewhat proud to report that they did not stop covering us with their weapons though.

‘And I must see General Sejanus at once,’ said Macharius. ‘There is much that needs to be done and very little time to do it in. This world is in the gravest danger and we are the only people that can save it.’

It should have sounded utterly fantastic, completely implausible. But when Macharius said things like that, men jumped to obey. He strode forwards and no one pulled the trigger of a lasgun. They might have done if it was me or Anton or Ivan but they would not do it to him. Drake followed him and Anna then the Understudy. To my surprise, Macharius beckoned the rest of us forwards as well. ‘You’ve been my bodyguard this long,’ he said. ‘You can manage it for a bit longer.’

It was spoken with just the right amount of weariness and humour. We stepped into the Valkyrie filled with pride and a desire to do our duty.

Within seconds we were aloft and heading into the middle of the great dust cloud raised by the army.

As we flew, the pilot must have made a report, for entire squadrons of Valkyries dropped into place around us and formed an honour guard for our protection. I looked at Macharius again as he stood there, calm and implacable, and I began to feel as if I was standing at the centre of the world and that it was moving around me to wherever Macharius went. I began to understand some of his confidence and some of his self-belief. He was one of those men that the world really did rotate around, the focus of all attention.

Some of it spilled over onto us. I could see some of the soldiers were looking at us and wondering who we were. We were with Macharius so we must be important. It was a heady feeling and I suppose in some ways it was true. We had come out of the inferno of Irongrad along with the Lord High Commander. We had guarded him as he had guarded us. We were in some sense his comrades-in-arms. I wondered if he would remember that after today. I knew I was always going to.

The Valkyrie set us down beside an enormous headquarters tent, a vast self-erecting pavilion of flexi-metal capable of being set up within minutes and taken down just as fast. It was big enough to hold a dozen Baneblades. Arcane science let it blend in with its surroundings like those desert-dwelling, colour-changing lizards. We emerged from the aircraft to be greeted by cheering crowds who had obviously braved the settling dust storm to catch a glimpse of the returned Macharius. Somewhere in the midst of the confusion, Anna simply disappeared. One second she was there, the next she had vanished. I looked around but did not see her. I doubted that anything could have happened to her so it must have been of her own free will.

Such was their joy that you would have thought that Mecharius had risen from the dead, which I suppose in their minds he had. They had thought he was lost in the fall of Irongrad and now, beyond all hope, he had emerged from the desert to lead them once more. I began to understand how stories of miracles can cluster around a mortal man. Some of the stories you hear about Macharius today make it sound as if he was superhuman but he was not, not really; he was just a man capable of extraordinary things in a time when such deeds were necessary.

General Sejanus strode forwards to greet Macharius. His face was alight with joy. They embraced like father greeting son and I understood the friendship that existed between them when I saw that. In any other world than the one that had Macharius in it, Sejanus would have dominated the scene. He was a powerfully impressive man, somewhat shorter than Macharius and swarthy, with great bristling moustaches and eyes that glittered with suppressed fury. In the presence of Macharius though he was just another soldier, greeting a hero returned from the wars.

The two of them spoke but I could not overhear what they said and then they turned and walked beneath the huge awning outstretched beside the command vehicle. In its shadows they sat and exchanged words and Macharius beckoned us over and Sejanus spoke.

‘It seems that the Imperium owes you men a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid,’ Sejanus said. We just looked at him. None of us were going to contradict him. It was the sort of thing that every soldier wants to hear and very seldom does. Believe me, in the Imperial Guard, it is not often that you are found worthy of praise by your superiors. When it happens, you luxuriate in it.

‘When it is time, I will see that they are suitably rewarded,’ Macharius said. ‘But right now there is much to be done and very little time to do it in if we are to save this world from the powers of darkness.’

The two generals began to plan. Orders were barked to servitors, holo-map grids invoked, orderlies came and went. We stood there apparently forgotten. No one had dismissed us so we stayed.

I was on the edge of dozing off when the earth shook. A commotion erupted around the table. I noticed everybody gazing at the map. It crawled and changed even as I watched. In the centre was still the huge angel-topped hive of Irongrad. Around it were still the snaking cables of the great pipelines. There was something else, something new, something that reminded me of what I had seen on my way through Irongrad. The earth was splitting all around the hive. Lines of fire appeared.

‘What is going on?’ Sejanus asked. Macharius looked at Drake.

‘The ritual is nearing its climax. The tectonic plates of the world itself are shifting. The power of the Angel of Fire is manifesting.’

The wastelands were split by great fiery chasms. Lava bubbled forth, forming rivers and lakes. It looked as if a new lava sea was being born in front of us.

‘It’s a moat,’ said Sejanus. ‘It won’t keep us out for long.’

‘It doesn’t have to,’ said Drake. ‘Just long enough for them to finish their ritual and summon the Angel of Fire.’

Macharius looked at them. ‘Suggestions? Thoughts?’ he asked.

Sejanus looked back at him steadily. ‘We could evacuate.’ He said in a tone of utmost seriousness. Macharius just stared at him and then they both laughed. It seemed like it was some sort of joke between them but for whatever reason I could not see the funny side. Evacuation seemed like a good idea to me.

‘No way to get armour through that except airdrop,’ said Sejanus. ‘We could request our comrades in the Adeptus Astartes drop on top of the cathedral and interrupt the ritual.’

‘Without support, with the number of psykers in there?’ Drake asked. ‘With a daemon-god about to manifest. They might be able to do it but…’

‘But we need to be certain,’ Macharius said. ‘I will not ask a Chapter of Space Marines to perform a suicide mission unsupported…unless I have to.’

You could see he had something else on his mind. He really did not want to send the Adeptus Astartes to a potentially fatal last stand but it was not just that.

Later, when I got to know Macharius better, I knew what it was. He did not want them getting all the glory. This campaign was his campaign. The Space Marines were not going to bail out Lord High Commander Solar Macharius. This was going to be a triumph for the Imperial Guard and for its leader or it was going to be nothing.

If that seems selfish and self-aggrandising on the part of Macharius, what can I tell you? He was an Imperial general. Even in the humblest-seeming of those there is a lust for glory. They all want to write their names in the history books and none of them wants to be put there as the fool who was saved, yet again, by the Space Marines. The least of them are like that, even the weakest, the most venal and the most incompetent. Macharius was none of those things.

‘The Death Spectres are tied down on Karsk VII anyway,’ said Sejanus. ‘We need them there.’

Translating that from High Command speak, what he really meant was that he would see himself in hell before he would let the Adeptus Astartes get his share of the glory.

‘Can we neutralise the daemon-summoners?’ Macharius asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Drake. ‘If we mass all of our sanctioned psykers and I call in all of my agents in place, maybe… We would need to get very close though.’

‘We can send in a strike force mounted on Valkyries and Vultures,’ said Sejanus.

Macharius said, ‘They won’t be able to fight their way into the heart of the Cathedral Zone unsupported and we’d lose too many to the air defences. We need to get our armour in and the bulk of our army behind it. We need to call on the people in the city who hate the priests to rise up and they need to know there is a force there that can support them. I am going to stop those damn heretics now and end their threat once and for all.’

You could tell that he meant that and I would not have given a lot for the chances of any pyromancer he personally encountered surviving. Of course that was something a lot different from breaking into the hive and seizing the cathedral.

‘That’s all very well, but how are you going to do it?’ Drake asked. ‘The earth is shifting, lava lakes are bubbling up, there’s no easy way for us to get through in time.’

He was merely saying what we were all thinking. He was probably the only one there except for the Understudy who had the nerve to question Macharius. Macharius glared out through the canopy.

‘We will find a way,’ Macharius said.

We were not the most optimistic of groups. All of us looked at the great holo-map and contemplated the possibility of failure.

We knew we could take the hive. We had already done so once. That was not in doubt. What was in doubt was our ability to bridge the great moats of lava sliding into place around the city in time to stop the ritual. None of us wanted to contemplate what would happen if we were still on-planet when the Angel of Fire manifested. One look at Drake’s sickly features was enough to convince me that it was not likely to be a pleasant experience.

There was a growing horror in the chamber. In part I suspect it was a product of the manifestation of the Angel. Even people with as much sensitivity to psychic events as a desert rock could sense that there was something wrong. There was a pressure in the air such as you get before a great storm. A cloud of gloom and despair had settled over our entire army. Macharius stared hard at the holo-map. All of his attention was focused on it. He glared at it as if he believed his hope of rebirth in the Emperor’s Light depended on it. I suppose in a way it did. Concentrating, Macharius did not fidget. He merely stood there, statue-still, looking completely at rest. His gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the map, on the great hive that it was his desire to reclaim. A cold light burned in his eyes. It was as if he was staring at some hated personal enemy.

The rest of the command bustled around, bringing dispatches, discussing matters in low voices in the corner of the room. Sejanus lolled in an old padded armchair that looked like it had been brought directly from his family estate, and smoked a cheroot. Clouds of vile-smelling smoke drifted towards the ceiling of the pavilion and were sucked out into the even fouler air beyond by the extractors. The flexi-metal sides of the enormous tent bulged and rippled in response to pressure differentials. The Lion Banner of Macharius hung once more beneath the central frame of the tent. I wondered where they had dug that up from.

The Understudy looked like a machine that had shut down. His face was slack. His eyes half-closed. He was staring at the map as well and I wondered what he was seeing with those strange blue eyes.

Anton and Ivan stood in a corner like schoolboys in our old class in Ironforge Academy. They seemed to be hoping that no one would notice them and it was perfectly possible that in this august company no one would. I walked over to them.

Anton ran a bony hand across the scar on his forehead. ‘Tense, isn’t it?’ he said and grinned his idiot grin.

‘They are just waiting for you to come up with a brilliant idea and save the day,’ Ivan said. ‘You think they have anything to drink around here?’

His voice was gruff. Booze was on his mind. I could tell he was just as tense as Anton in his own way.

‘Not many of us left now,’ I said, saying what was on my mind. We had known each other so long they caught my meaning instantly. I had been thinking about Hesse. It had been the first time I really had time to do so. I felt oddly guilty about that. Hesse had been with us for a long time, had been a real link to the old days in the Indomitable and yet his death had completely vanished from my mind until the present. Well, I told myself, I had had plenty of other things to think about.

‘Just us three now and the New Boy,’ Anton said. ‘I am not sure the Understudy is all there.’

‘We’ll raise a glass to them in time,’ said Ivan. ‘If we can find a bloody glass and the bloody time.’

We looked at each other. I could tell we were all thinking about Hesse and Oily and the lieutenant and all the others who had passed on in the Emperor’s service. We had lost comrades and friends before but never so many so quickly. There was something about this place that felt accursed and I put that down to more than the growing influence of the ritual. Now that events had slowed down and I had time to think I felt their absence the way you feel a missing tooth in your mouth. It was uncomfortable and yet you could not stop inspecting it.

‘What do you think is going to happen?’ Anton asked. He sounded scared. I knew then I should be worried. If fear had managed to drill a hole through the solid rock of Anton’s skull, things must be getting really bad.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but if anyone can think of something Macharius will.’

I was astounded to discover as I said the words that I really believed them. I had been mouthing them for reassurance but they came out full of faith, not doubt. I was as much surprised as anybody else. As if I had provoked him, I suddenly heard the Lord High Commander speak. ‘Do you see it?’

All eyes were on him. Sejanus rose from the chair and strolled across to the holo-map. ‘See what?’ Drake said, voicing what we were all thinking.

‘No,’ Sejanus said, with what I thought was commendable honesty.

‘The pattern, Sejanus, the pattern.’

‘There may be one certainly, but I am damned if I see what you mean.’

‘It’s the same one as on the High Priest’s sigil.’

‘It may be so, but I never saw the damn thing.’

Macharius held something out in his hand. It glittered metallically. I realised it was the amulet he had pulled from the High Priest’s neck back in the cathedral. He held it up to the light and it reflected the artificial fires visible in the holo-map. It was as if he was holding a rune made of flame in his hand.

Macharius held the symbol so that the light of the holo-globe was behind it and the shadow of part of the pattern, partially obscured by his clutching fist, fell on the map.

I looked from it to the map, and, you know, by the Emperor I could see that Macharius was right. Those shifting lines of fire were not a moat. They were flowing into the same pattern as the emblem of the Angel of Fire. I did not know whether to be relieved or filled with fear.

It seemed that we were insignificant to whatever power was manifesting itself in Irongrad. It was not creating a flaming barrier to keep us out, except perhaps by accident. It was manifesting a tribute to its own glory and might, reshaping the desert and the earth and the elements of rock and fire into a pattern that was significant only to it.

‘It’s very close to the sign of Tzeentch,’ said Drake. ‘The Changer of Ways. It’s obvious now that you point it out.’

His voice was so soft it was hard to pick out the words. I think he was speaking only to himself. Nonetheless a chill passed through the room. An eerie silence fell. The inquisitor had named one of those names that it is very ill to speak, one of the greatest of all the enemies of humanity. Anton gave out a soft yelp. I understood why. Was it possible that this great daemon-god was going to manifest on the surface of Karsk? If it did, what would happen then? Even the shadow of its power was already beginning to reshape the land. Once it was fully present, what would it not be capable of?

Sejanus said, ‘We can plot a path through that maze if we’re quick.’

‘How much time do we have now?’ Macharius asked Drake.

The high inquisitor said, ‘Not more than twelve hours – the power is spiking again. I can feel it even from here.’

‘We had better get moving,’ said Macharius, with what I thought was considerable understatement.