Fall of Macharius

Chapter Thirty-One

‘As I was saying, we have much to talk about,’ Richter said. ‘I do not see how that can be the case,’ said Macharius. ‘I require only your death.’

Richter smiled. ‘You are dying, Lord High Commander. Mortality has finally caught up with you. The servants of the Father of Plagues are already working away within your body, within your brain. You have lived too long. You are not what you were. Your enemies can see this, too – and some of those you think of as friends.’

Macharius tilted his head to one side. He appeared to be listening.

‘How much longer do you have? A week? A month? Not more. And what happens to all you have achieved when you are gone? It disintegrates, torn apart by the ambition of fools. Your life is ending in defeat. All you have worked for is turning to dust. With a few more years you might have left a monument that would have endured as long as men remember. Now you will fall and your memory will fade.’

‘It is the fate of all men,’ said Macharius.

‘Not so. It has not been the fate of the False Emperor. It has not been the fate of those who have accepted the gifts of my liege lord.’

‘As you have divined, I have already had more than enough of his gifts for my liking,’ said Macharius. Drake’s gaze flickered between Macharius and Richter. He clearly did not like the way things were going here.

‘It does not have to be that way,’ said Richter. ‘My patron can reverse his gifts. The seeds of death within you can be turned into the seeds of immortality. You do not have to die, Lord High Commander. You do not have to watch your empire turn to dust and see your legacy destroyed by lesser men. You could join with us and gain life eternal and power immeasurable.’

‘You mean I could serve a daemon.’

‘No. I mean you could become one. In the long run, you are worthy. You could become the mightiest champion of Chaos in this millennium. You could overthrow the False Emperor and take his place as the ruler of mankind.’

I should have thought Richter was lying. I should have known it, but instead I knew he was telling the truth. He believed what he was saying implicitly and because he did, it made him convincing. I believed him and I was not the focus of his power and attention the way Macharius was.

I thought of what it meant to be Macharius. Any man would have wavered in the face of such temptation, but Macharius had been tempted before, back on Karsk, by the Angel of Fire and I knew what he was made of.

‘And all I would have to lose would be my soul,’ Macharius said. His face was grim. He raised his bolt pistol and aimed it squarely at Richter.

‘Go ahead and pull the trigger,’ the traitor said. ‘I am invulnerable to your puny weapons now. My god makes me so.’

Macharius pulled the trigger. The bolter shell ricocheted off the field of force surrounding Richter. All eyes went to it. Distracted.

Drake gestured. A bolt of psychic energy smashed into the screen and just for a moment, parted it. Macharius dived forward, his chainsword arcing down, and smashing into the traitor’s forehead, splitting it open as far as the nose. Bits of brain and skull spurted off the teeth of the chainsword.

Richter did not fall. He stepped away from Macharius, his eyes now several centimetres further apart than they had been but still focused on his former commander. When he spoke his words seemed to come from the surrounding air, the voice of an angry god who had been defied.

‘I told you I am immortal,’ he said. ‘It appears you do not understand what that means.’

His flesh and bone started to knit together again, leaving his features deformed but intact. I noticed that the amulet at his throat had changed colour, losing some of its lustre as it did so. More bolter shells impacted on his body, ripping flesh to the bone.

Instead of blood a strange green pus emerged. With a hideous sucking sound, the flesh began to flow together again, leaving the heretic’s form intact but a little more deformed. I glanced around to see where the bolter shells had come from. Grimnar had risen, his carapace armour cracked and bloody. His bolter was steady in his hand. Drake’s bodyguard too had taken careful aim and opened fire.

‘Do not let up,’ Drake shouted. ‘Do not give him a chance to concentrate or we are doomed. That amulet holds awesome power.’

He unleashed another psychic bolt at Richter. The heretic screamed and shuddered and Macharius brought his chainsword down once more. Richter stepped aside and grabbed Macharius by the wrist. His strength was daemonic. Bones splintered as his fingers closed. The chainsword dropped from Macharius’s grip.

The two generals went to the ground still grappling. Macharius fought like a wounded lion but Richter was stronger and appeared to feel no pain. The baleful amulet glowed on his chest as he exerted his greater strength. Macharius rolled over and over, his motions taking the two of them towards the chainsword. No one save Grimnar and Drake’s bodyguards continued to pump bolter shells into the heretic’s body. I held my fire for fear of hitting the Lord High Commander.

With the force field down, a melee erupted. The heretics raced forward, as did the Lion Guard. Like their leader they seemed superhumanly strong, and like him they had no doubts as to ultimate victory. I pulled the trigger on my shotgun and sent them tumbling backwards, flesh torn, but they rose again, apparently as unkillable as Richter. Their wounds knitted more slowly but the same process seemed to be in effect.

I fired again, moving towards Macharius. I heard wolf howls as more of the Space Marines recovered and hurled themselves into the battle. One of the cultists launched himself directly at me. I sidestepped and smacked him on the side of the head with the butt of the shotgun. Bone broke but the cultist still moved. His fellows opened up. A hail of bullets erupted around me. Something heavy hammered into me and I hit the ground, convinced for a moment that I had taken a bolter shell.

A heavy weight lay on top of me and I felt metal touching my flesh. I looked around and saw it was Ivan, his body riddled with bullets. He had thrown himself forward to push me out of the way and taken the blast of fire meant for me.

‘What th... Where’s Anton when you need him, the useless frakker? He’s the one who’s supposed to stop bullets.’ He looked around, the light dying in his eyes. ‘Protect Macharius!’

They were the last words he said. I pulled myself out from beneath him and looked around. Macharius and Richter had rolled right over to where the chainsword lay, still sparking as its teeth bit into the rocky floor. Macharius tried to reach it but Richter was on top of him, casually battering him with his mighty hands. In the surge and press of the melee, no one else could get a clear shot. I pushed forward until I could get the barrel of the shotgun against the heretic’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The shotgun kicked. The force of the blast lifted Richter off Macharius. The Lord High Commander rolled to one side and grasped the chainsword with his off-hand. He raised it up and slammed it down against the heretic’s neck, pushing it forward, cutting through muscle, vein, gristle and vertebrae. The expression froze on Richter’s face as his head rolled clear. Macharius grasped the chain of the amulet and tugged it from the body, pulling it away until it separated from the flesh.

A wailing noise emerged from Richter’s mouth. His body suddenly collapsed in on itself like a balloon deflating. Black corruption boiled up from the middle of it. Rot spread across the flesh and drove along a tide of white mould – within a few seconds his armour was all but empty, leaving only blackened bones and a scum that might once have been his flesh. His henchmen lost all cohesion, seeing their champion defeated. Their wounds ceased to mend, as if the killing of Richter had caused his unholy sorcery to stop working.

We tore through the heretics like a chainsword through diseased flesh and then the battle for Richter’s citadel was over, leaving us to count the cost.

Grimnar surveyed the carnage around the cathedral nave with something like satisfaction. He wrinkled his nose when he looked upon the outline of Richter’s fallen form. He strode over to Macharius and extended a hand to aid him to his feet. Macharius was not too proud to take the Space Wolf’s grip. He stood triumphant in the midst of his final battlefield.

‘I thank you for your aid, Logan Grimnar,’ he said. ‘Whatever debt of honour you feel you owed me is more than repaid. I am in your debt now.’

Grimnar shook his head. ‘Such a battle as this is its own reward. By the Allfather, there will be those among my battle-brothers sorry to have missed this fray.’

‘It is done here,’ Macharius said. ‘Richter is defeated.’

He looked down at the amulet he held in his hand, ‘And this thing – it must be destroyed.’

He looked at the Space Wolf expectantly.

‘I will see to it,’ Grimnar said. ‘It is a bauble not meant for mortal men.’ He picked up an ammunition drum, dropped the amulet into it and then sealed it. ‘This will do until it can be properly dealt with.’

He tipped his head to one side, obviously listening to something on the comm-net and then said, ‘There is still a battle to be fought out there and I must go and aid my brothers. Till we meet again, Lord High Commander,’ he said, tipping his arm in salute and with that he was gone.

Drake watched him go with something like an expression of relief on his face.

‘It seems we have survived after all,’ he said. He sounded like a man who did not quite believe it. His bodyguard returned; it seemed he had been exploring the chambers at the back of the cathedral.

‘Inquisitor, Lord High Commander, there is something you should see,’ he said. Drake nodded and looked inquiringly at Macharius.

‘Lead on,’ Macharius said, clutching his crippled hand. The pair of them moved towards the chamber. I moved to follow. The bodyguard raised a hand. ‘This is for the eyes of my master and the Lord High Commander alone.’

There was something familiar about the voice. ‘I don’t take your orders,’ I said. ‘I take them from General Macharius.’

‘As you wish,’ said the storm trooper.

The room was a small antechamber. The corpse of a cultist sprawled on the floor, a heavy autopistol clutched in his hand. On an altar table were spread a number of grimoires and sheets covered in strange and evil runes. Macharius stood over them and shook his head uncomprehendingly. I heard the door click closed behind me.

Drake stood alongside him, shaking his head. ‘These are an unholy ritual. With the amulet and these words, a man could draw on the Ruinous Powers. How long were these in Richter’s possession, I wonder?’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’ Macharius said.

‘What do you mean?’ the inquisitor asked.

‘You have been in contact with him all along. That is where your information about the location of his headquarters came from.’

‘I had agents in place,’ said Drake.

‘No. It was not as simple as that. I saw his followers. None of them were sane enough to be your agents. They had lost all semblance of intelligence long ago. Someone informed Richter of my plans. It was the only way he could have kept anticipating my moves. You saw that ranting madman. He was not capable of it.’

‘Crassus,’ said Drake. I saw the storm trooper bend down over the cultist’s corpse, examining it as if he had found something curious.

‘Crassus could not have known all the details. He was too far away, and interstellar communication is too unreliable.’

Drake sat down at the table wearily. ‘He had an agent in place, just like I did.’ He offered it up as if he did not expect to be believed. He was just going through the motions.

‘Why?’ Macharius said.

‘Why what?’

‘Why betray me, betray the crusade and then come here with me to die? Do you feel so guilty?’

My gaze jumped between the two of them. I felt trapped in a nightmare. Had Macharius finally fallen victim to madness? Had the idea that everyone was plotting against him cracked his mind? Or was there something to his theory? It seemed impossible. Drake had been with us so long, had supported Macharius so fervently.

‘A martyr was needed,’ Drake said at last. ‘You were dying. What better way for you to leave the Emperor’s service than in one last battle against overwhelming odds, leaving an example of service unto death.’

‘And I spoiled it by winning,’ said Macharius. He smiled as if he saw some humour in the situation.

The storm trooper moved so swiftly I could not even follow his actions. There was no chance to even raise my shotgun. He lifted the cultist’s pistol, aimed it squarely at Macharius’s head and pulled the trigger. The greatest general of the age died victorious, with his smile still on his face.

Drake looked at his bodyguard and then at me. ‘What are you waiting for? We don’t need any witnesses. We have our martyr, gunned down by a hidden cultist in his moment of triumph.’

The pistol was turned on me. I found myself staring down its maw. I started to raise the shotgun but I had seen how fast the storm trooper was. I knew I had no chance. The pistol spoke again. I expected a blast of pain to tear through me and closed my eyes involuntarily. When I opened them again, Drake was dead, killed just as messily as Macharius. I looked at the storm trooper.

‘What?’ I said.

The storm trooper raised his visor. I saw Anna’s face. She winked at me, took my shotgun and pulled the trigger, blasting the cultist’s corpse with it. A moment later, she was gone from the chamber, announcing that a hidden assassin had killed Macharius and Drake and that I had killed them in turn.

And so all the great men died. And my friends. And I wonder to this day about what happened. There are times when I think that Anna killed Drake because, like Macharius, he had outlived his time and become a liability. There are times I think she was employed not by the inquisitor at all but by his rivals, or by the High Lords of Terra, and she was simply making sure that all the loose ends were tied up.

Which of course does not explain why she spared me. There are times when I think it was because she wanted to leave a witness who could both corroborate her story or be called upon to tell a different version if it was required. There are times when I wonder if it was because she actually cared for me. I do not know.

I do know that we fought our way out of Richter’s citadel and brought the corpses of Macharius and Drake with us. They both burned on funeral pyres. I stuck with the story Anna had given about the cultist, in part because she had spared my life, in part because it was her wish and in part because it was a better story for the Imperium. Of course Macharius died a hero in his hour of triumph. Of course Drake fell valiantly trying to protect him. Of course I cut down the heretic responsible.

And in the end it was all for nothing. Most of the men who fought on Loki died of the plagues they caught there. Macharius’s generals fell to fighting over the spoils of the empire he had built. The Schism returned in a new form and the threat of a Secessionist empire disappeared like morning mist, if it had ever really existed.

I was decorated for killing the monster that killed two of the Imperium’s heroes. Anna vanished into the night between the stars. I never saw her again and for that at least I am glad.