The Flight of the Eisenstein

Hakur raised his bolter, but Garro waved him back. 'Careful! There are oxygen lines and fuel conduits in the walls. A stray round could set off an inferno! Blades only until I order otherwise!'

The catwalks were narrow and they forced the Astartes into single file movement. Garro saw Qruze split off with one of Hakur's squad and make an approach along a different gantry. He nodded and ran forward. The metal decking clanged and shook beneath the heavy boots of the Death Guard. It was hardly built for the weight of men in ceramite and flexsteel.

The swarm's motion was that of a single living, thinking creature. As the Astartes came close, it cut off portions of itself and sent them screeching through the air, separate and distinct clumps of dense, poiso­nous forms clawing at the eyes and skin of the warriors. Bolter fire would not harm this enemy. The tiny bodies resisted their attack, and the men were reduced to snatching at the air, pulping the serrated insects into messes of cracked chitin.

Blue light gathered along his blade. Swinging Liber-tas over his head, Garro cut a swathe through the thickening edges of the swarm and reacted swiftly as a figure in gold cannoned into him, propelled back­wards by a vicious blow. He caught the Sister in a vice-like grip and arrested her fall towards a broken guide rail. She hissed loudly and the captain realised too late that the woman's arm was scored with hun­dreds of slash wounds where razored insect wings had cut her flesh. Garro reeled her back in and found himself looking into the eyes of Amendera Kendel. She was flushed with effort from the fight.

To Garro's surprise, she made a quick string of word gestures in Astartes battle-sign. Nature of enemy unknown.

Aye,' agreed Garro. 'You know this tower better than we do, Sister. Block the escape routes and let my men deal with this mutant.' He had to raise his voice so it

would cany over the chattering squeals of the swarm­ing bugs.

Kendel signed again, getting to her feet. Proceed with caution.

'That time has passed/ he replied and threw himself into the rippling mass of the swarm, the sword's power field crisping great clumps of black flies from the air around him.

The Sisters drew back and followed Garro's com­mand. There had been a moment, just the smallest of instants, when Nathaniel Garro had heard Keeler's cry and feared that the women had turned against them. His own battle-brothers had already raised weapons against him, and it was sad and damning that his first reaction was to assume it had happened once more, this time with Kendel's witchseekers out to murder them. He felt a measure of relief to learn he was wrong. To be confronted by another betrayal added to those of Horus, Mortarion and Grulgor… Was fate so cruel to curse him again?

Yes.

In his heart, in his soul he knew who it was he would find at the heart of the swarm even before he laid eyes upon him. The clawed, reeking monster spread the too-long fingers of his distended left hand in a grotesque greeting as Nathaniel fell into the eye of the swarm storm. The hexagonal steel decking beneath him squealed and moaned, shifting.

'Captain.' The word was a mocking chorus of rat­tling echoes, humming into his ears from all around. 'Look, I am healed.' For all the gruesome malformations of his flesh and bone, the aspect of the man beneath the changed body was clear to Garro's eyes.

He teetered on the brink of despair for one long second, the revulsion at what stood before him threatening to knock the last pillars of reason from his mind. A flash of memory unfolded. Garro remembered the first time he had seen Solun Decius, on the muddy plateau of the black plains on Barbarus. The aspirant was covered in shallow cuts, streaks of blood and a patina of dirt. He was pale from exertion and ingested poisons, but there was no weakness of any kind lurking behind those wild eyes. The boy had the way of an untamed animal about him, brilliantly fierce and cunning. Garro had known in that moment that Decius was raw steel, ready to be tempered into a keen blade for the Emperor's service. Now all that potential was wasted, twisted and destroyed. He felt a terrible sense of failure settle upon him.

'Solun, why?' he shouted, furious at the youth's folly, his voice resonating inside his helmet. 'What have you done to yourself?'

'Solun Decius died aboard the EisensteinV thun­dered the rasping voice. 'His existence is at an end! I live now! I am the pestilent champion… I am the Lord of the Flies!'

Garro spat. Traitor! You followed Grulgor into his grotesque transformation. Look what you have become! A freak, a monster, a-'

A daemon? Is that what you were going to say, you hidebound old fool?' Callous laughter echoed around him. 'Is it sorcery that has renewed me? All that matters is that I have cheated death, like a true son of Mortarion!'

Why?' Garro screamed, the injustice hammering at him. 'In Terra's name, why did you give yourself to this abomination?'

'Because it is the future!' The voice buzzed and chattered. 'Look at me, captain. I am what the Death Guard is to become, what Grulgor and his men are already! Undying, living avatars of decay, waiting to reap the darkness!'

Garro's senses were heavy with the stench of cor­ruption. 'I should have let you perish.' He coughed, faltering for a moment.

'But you did not!' came the scream. 'Poor Decius, trapped at the edge of mortality, wracked with such pain it would grind down a mountain. You could have released him, Garro! But you let him live in agony, tortured him with every passing moment, and for what? Because of your ludicrous belief that he would be saved by your master…' The creature took heavy steps towards him, the claw reaching out. 'He begged you! Begged you to end him, but you did not listen! He prayed to your precious gaudy Emperor for deliverance, and again he was ignored! Forsaken! For­saken!' A slashing blow clipped Garro and he dodged away, falling through a haze of flies. The breathing slits on his armour locked shut, holding out the scrabbling, biting mandibles of the insects.

Garro had the brass icon and its chain wound around the fingers of his gauntlet. 'No,' he insisted, 'you should have survived. If you had held on, if you could give your spirit in the God-Emperor's service-'

'GodV The swarm bellowed the word back at him. 'I know god! The power that remade Decius, that is god! The intellect that answered him when he lay praying for the bliss of decease, that is god! Not your hollow golden idol!'

'Blasphemy!' Garro snarled. 'You are a blasphemy, and I will not suffer you to live. Your heresy, that of Grulgor, Mortarion, Horus himself, will be crushed!'

The battle-captain launched a brutal flurry of coun-terstrokes, chopping at the discoloured armour.

Each blow was parried. 'Fool. The Death Guard are already dead. It is ordained.'

Garro's answer was a vicious downward slash that cut a wide gouge through the rigid planes of chiti-nous shell. The thing that had been Solun Decius staggered with the pain of the blow and jets of thin yellow mucus streamed from the cut. Instantly, flies from the hurricane swarm around them hurtled inward and buried themselves in the wound. In sec­onds, the pulpy mass of writhing insect bodies was bloating and distending, staunching the injury, the flies feasting on themselves to seal it closed.

You cannot kill decay' hissed the voice. 'Corruption comes to all things. Men die, the stars burn cold-'

'Be silent,' commanded Garro. One of Solun's char­acter flaws was that he had never known when to shut up.

Libertas gleamed as it arced through the air, this time cutting horned chunks of the insect armour off the monstrous foe. The distended claw, huge and heavy, swung around and slammed into the Death Guard's chest, denting the eagle cuirass and cracking the ceramite.

The knife-sharp fingers scraped across his arm, try­ing and failing to gain purchase. Garro brought the sword around and attacked again, forcing his enemy to push back along a gantry. Neither of them had room to manoeuvre, but corralling his enemy would only make the fight more difficult.

Blade and claw met over and over, the crystalline blue steel sparking off the chitinous talons. The speed and power behind the blows was stunning. Even at his very best, Decius had never been this deadly. It

was taking every iota of Garro's skill to stay toe-to-toe with his former pupil, and where he felt the edges of tension and fatigue in his muscles, his adversary clearly did not. / must end this, and swiftly, before more people die.

He recalled the fight with Grulgor on the prome­nade deck, but there it had been the warp sustaining the diseased foes. Here, there was only the rage and anger of Solun Decius, convinced that his kinsmen had abandoned him. Garro knew one thing for cer­tain: only he was the match for this Lord of the Flies. None of his battle-brothers had been able to beat Decius before, and in this mutated form, he would certainly kill them.

The gantry they fought upon complained and listed as Garro jumped to avoid a low, sweeping strike. The sound brought a cold smile to the battle-captain's face, and he threw out a powerful downward blow that his enemy evaded with ease.

'Too slow, teacher!' the grating snarl pulled at him.

'Too quick, apprentice,' he retorted. The strike was a feint, never intended to hit his opponent. Instead, the sparking blade sliced though the guard rail and hex-grid of the catwalk, severing cables and leaving red glowing edges where the sword cut molecules in two. The gantry moaned, twisted beneath their weight; and then it snapped, bending along its length to throw the two combatants into the air. Garro and the mutant fell, still clawing and slashing at one another, until they impacted on the wide open deck of the hangar level. The swarm buzzed angrily and came coiling down after them, as if it were furious at being left behind.

Garro got to his feet, ignoring the pain of the fall, and drew his augmetic limb forward just as the

Decius-thing struck out with a sadistic side-kick. Garro took the blow full force on the mechanical leg, the steel bones creaking, flares of hard pain clutching at his abdomen. He backhanded the mutant with the heavy pommel on his sword, smashing the hilt into a face of arthropod eyes and black mandibles. As the swarm came on them, Garro spun the blade and slashed at pallid, fly-blown skin. The cut opened the corpse flesh and spilt powdery blood. The insects reacted, howling and smothering Garro from head to foot in a thick, shifting mass.

He brought Libertas up to his chest and ran the blade at full discharge, the crackling aura dancing about his armour in coils of lightning. The winged mites puffed into dots of flame and perished, black ash smearing his wargear. Garro drew a glove across the lenses of his helmet in time to see the Lord of the Flies filling his vision. His enemy slammed into him, throwing the Astartes off the flank of a cargo pallet. Garro resisted and turned the fight back to the foe, blocking the wicked claw and sending a storm of punches into the damaged muscle and bone of the face. The flies hummed around him, trying to mend the smashed meat even as Garro broke more shards of carapace and gristle. He took a hard blow, a des­perate blow, and disengaged. The mutant Astartes stumbled back a step, over the lip of an inert landing scaffold.

Garro saw the opportunity that presented itself. Beyond the Lord of the Flies and his chattering, shrieking swarm, there was a wide iris hatch that opened directly out to space. He looked up at the fig­ures on the service gantry overhead and shouted into his vox pickup. 'Kendel!' He pointed forward. 'Open the hatch! Do it now!'

The Decius-thing couldn't hear his words, but the creature wasn't slow on the uptake. You think you can stop me? I carry the Lord of Decay's mark!'

Alert klaxons sounded and garish orange lumes blinked in wild strobing patterns over the steel and brass walls. Garro heard the clanking of metal gates parting on the other side of the hatch. The Lord of the Files bayed, his swarm carrying the humming, rattling voice through the air, over the chorus of sirens. 'I was right, Garro! I see the future! In ten thousand years, the galaxy will burn-'

The words vanished into a screaming tornado of sound as the iris slammed open.

With an explosive jolt the air and the loose con­tents of the hangar bay were torn away into the lunar night. Small objects, strips of printout and data-slates, tools and strings of dust raced away, and with them went the swarm. Garro's adversary flailed, reaching out to snag his claw on Nathaniel's boot. He fell and rolled as the vacuum dragged them both towards the roaring black mouth of the airlock. Garro felt the jagged digits score the ceramite of his greaves. He tried to strike with Libertas, but the decompression was stronger than either of them, the breath of a god carrying the two combatants away.

A cargo pod slammed into his back and the Astartes tumbled, rolled and came off his feet, buoyed by the tempest. Garro saw the walls of the landing bay flash past him and glimpsed the shimmer of his foe falling with him. Then they were in the freezing blackness, thrown from the face of the Somnus Citadel, tum­bling down towards the brilliant white sands of the moon amid a cloud of ice crystals. For a brief second, he saw the brass disc of the iris hatch cycling shut

behind him. He spun lazily, end over end, the waste­land racing up to meet them.

He never felt the impact. Time blinked and Garro was in a cauldron of pain, agony tight around every joint in his body. The only sounds were the gruff pulse of his breathing and the hisses of atmosphere inside his armour. Warning runes danced on his visor. There was a puncture somewhere in his wargear, a slow leak issuing air out into the dark. The regulators inside the armour's fusion power pack were flashing alerts. Garro ignored them all, and pushed himself up from the pit of moon dust where he had landed. Spears of hot pain ripped through his shoulder. The joint was dislocated. He tabbed a restorative pill from the auto-narthecia dispenser in his neck ring and gripped his wrist. With a hard yank, Garro snapped the limb back into place with a bark of agony.

He took stock of his surroundings, a small crater, thick with dust and dotted by small porous boulders, with steep walls. The brass tower of the citadel domi­nated the black sky beyond. A man-shaped imprint showed where he had landed, and close by there was Libertas lying flat on the dust. Garro moved quickly towards it in a loping motion, half running, half skip­ping. The gravity out on the lunar surface was much lower than that inside the citadel, where artificial field generators kept it to a Terran one-gee standard, and he had to be careful not to stumble. In full armour, he was suddenly unwieldy, and it took long seconds to adjust.

There was no sign of his opponent, and for a brief moment Garro wondered if the Decius-thing had landed somewhere else, perhaps outside the crater.

Something shattered under his boot as his foot touched the soil and interrupted his train of thought.

Small, glistening objects were scattered all around him, shining like tiny jewels. As he bent down to recover his sword, Garro realised what they were: the frozen corpses of thousands of insects, flies and bee­tles.

Nathaniel!

The forewarning brushed the edges of his thoughts, a faint breath of wind upon the ocean of his mind, but it was not enough.

The moon dust exploded upward in a storm of grey, Libertas tumbling away as the creature lurking beneath the powder burst out, talons reaching for his throat. Garro grappled witir the Lord of the Flies and went off his feet into a slow motion tumble. He grunted with effort as he punched his adversary hard in the sternum, and felt chitin give with the impact.

The Death Guard had known a thousand battles, and in every one the constant clatter of weapons had been the music that accompanied them; the hue and cry of fighting men locked in struggles for their lives. Now, out on the airless sun-blinding whiteness of Luna, there was no sound at all. The silence was bro­ken only by the rush of blood in his veins, the rhythm of his exhalations. There was an absence of scents too: the foetid stink of the creature that wreathed it inside the citadel was gone. In its place Garro could only smell the tang of his own blood and the acrid traces of burning plastics from his armour's damaged ser­vos.

They fought unarmed, hand-to-hand, every battle skill they could draw upon pushed to the fore. Using the low gravity to his advantage, Garro pushed off a rock outcropping and let his momentum flip him up and around. He turned a boot to meet his enemy's face and saw a compound eye burst into a cloud of

polluted blood. The droplets froze instantly into hard black jewels that scattered over the moon dust. Some questioning, analytical portion of the battle-captain's mind wondered how it was that this freak could even exist in the vacuum. It had no suit seals, as Garro's did, no airtight layer of atmosphere to sustain it. There were patches of dark frost on the limbs of the pestilent champion where the cold of space had iced over spilt fluids, but still it lived on, defiant by its very existence.

He took a blow that knocked the breath from him, ignoring the new alert runes that haloed his vision. Streams of white vapour – precious air – issued out from points of damage beneath the eagle cuirass. Eventually suffocation would come, even to an Astartes. 'You must die, abomination/ Garro said aloud, 'even if it be my last victory!'

The Lord of the Flies pressed upon him, and Garro's back slammed into the wall of the crater, into the inky shadows cast by the rock formation. The ruined insect face leered over him and the great claw tore the cuirass from him, tossing it away. He fought back, but the Decius-thing was faster. Burning pain lanced into him as the warped Astartes bored the serrated talons through layers of ceramite and flexsteel. The thing was going to rip his armour open and expose the meat inside to the killing vacuum.

'Is this my duty?' Garro asked. 'I am Death Guard… I am dead…' A sudden sorrow engulfed him, the weight of all his darkest, most morose moments returning as one. Perhaps it was fitting that he per­ished here, in this lifeless stone arena. His Legion was already destroyed. What was he now? No more than a relic, an embarrassment, his warning delivered and his purpose ended. The cold was filling him, leeching

out the life from his bones. Perhaps it was for the best, to accept death. What else was there for him? What did he have left? His vision blurred, the pres­sure pushing him down.

Faith.

The word exploded inside him. 'Who?' he gasped. 'Keeler?'

Have faith, Nathaniel. You are of purpose.

'I… I am…' Garro choked, blood in his mouth sti­fling his voice. 'I am…' His fingers touched loose rock and closed around a fist-sized stone. 7 am!'

With a bellow of exertion, he swung the piece of moon rock and slammed it hard into the Lord of the Flies. The impact echoed up his arm and the mutant fell back, a great curl of dead skin flapping back to reveal a distorted jawbone and a forest of teeth. Garro threw himself forward and clasped at his fallen sword. The chain of Kaleb's icon was snagged around the hilt and he caught the brass links in his fingers, dragging the weapon into his grip. Then Libertas was in his hands and he felt a surge of power from the mere act of holding it once more. He felt complete, he felt right. Garro had told Kaleb of the weapon's origin, and now as the globe of Terra became visible at the lunar horizon, the blade made all his doubts and pains vanish.

With a sword in his hand and the God-Emperor at his back, the Death Guard realised that his duty was far from over. He would not die today. Nathaniel Garro was of purpose.

The creature that he had once called brother was on its knees, trying to gather up the pieces of its face and press them back together. He had blinded it. Garro loped to the mutant's side and drew back the sword. His breath came in shallow gasps and he brought the

weapon to bear. For a moment, there was pity in Nathaniel's eyes. Shame and compassion warred for a brief instant across his expression. Poor, foolish Decius. He was right. He had been forsaken, but only by his own spirit.

The Lord of the Flies looked up to meet the edge of the blade. Garro beheaded the monstrous Astartes with a single strike of the sword, taking his enemy through the neck. The corpse tumbled away and burst silently into a cloud of blackened fragments. The papery twists turned in the darkness and disinte­grated, into ash, into motes of black and then nothing. The head dropped to lie in the moon dust and twitched with unheard laughter. It melted even as Garro watched, curls of skin and flensed bone becom­ing cinders, as if burning from the inside out. Finally, a shimmering twist of smoky energy burst free and shot away, up into the sky, trailing sense echoes of mocking amusement.

You cannot kill decay. The words repeated in his thoughts, and with care Garro sheathed his weapon. 'We will see,' he said, tipping back his head so that he could take in the sight of the Earthrise.

The sphere of Terra shone in the darkness, the eye of a god turned to face a universe ranged against it. Garro placed his hands to his chest, palms open, thumbs raised, in the sign of the Imperial aquila. He bowed. 'I am ready, lord,' he told the sky. 'No doubts, no fears, only faith. Tell me Your will, and Thy will be done.'

SEVENTEEN

The Sigillite Speaks The Oncoming Storm

When the Silent Sisters came for him, he was on one knee in the meditation cell, his sword drawn and the brass icon in his hands. The words of the Lectitio Divinitatus were on his lips, embedded in his thoughts after so many repetitions, and the women exchanged quizzical looks with each other to hear him murmur them beneath his breath. They sum­moned him with brisk gestures and he did as they demanded. His duty robes gathered in close around him, the feel of the roughly woven material on his skin still chafing on the new scars from his injuries and the vacuum burns. He left his power armour in the chamber, but the sword came with him. Libertas had not left his side since the duel in the Sea of Crises.

They led him up the length of the Somnus Citadel, to the glass needle at the very tip. It wasn't until he entered and they closed the doors behind him that he

laid eyes on another Astartes. It seemed like weeks since he had last seen a kinsman.

The figure came closer. The chamber was a cone made of glass triangles and thick coils of black metal, and the architecture cast strange shadows with sharp edges from the reflected earthlight. 'Nathaniel. Ah, lad. We feared the worst.'

He nodded. 'Iacton. I live still, with the grace of Terra.'

The Luna Wolf raised an eyebrow. 'Indeed.' Unlike him, Qruze wore his battle armour, proudly sporting the colours of his old Legion.

There were other figures at the edge of the shadow and Garro studied them. The Oblivion Knight came forward with her novice behind her. 'Sister Amendera,' he said with a shallow bow. 'Why have you summoned us here?' He tried and failed to keep an edge of annoyance from his words. 'What trial must we answer to now?'

Garro glanced at the novice, expecting the girl to provide an answer, but her face was flushed with ten­sion and fear. At once, the Death Guard's hands tensed around the scabbard of his weapon.

'Others…' Qruze warned, nodding into the shad­ows.

'You are here, Astartes, because I have ordered it.' The voice came from the dark. It was firm but quiet, not in the manner of a military commander, but that of an educator, a counsellor. A puff of flame flickered into being in the shadows and Garro saw the shape of a golden eagle sculpted with wings spread as if to take flight. A brazier burned underneath the raptor, trick­ing the eye with the dance of light and heat.

Footsteps approached, and with them came the heavy tapping march of a staff against the stone-tiled

floor. Garro's throat tightened as he flashed back to the assembly hall aboard the Endurance and the arrival of his primarch, but it was not Mortarion who emerged from the shadows this time.

There were two men, but they were much more than that. Even barefoot, the taller of the two would easily have been a match for Iacton Qruze in his full armour. The watchful, hard lines of his face emerged from a suit of golden armour that was cut like that of a Terminator, but worn like that of a normal Astartes. Even at a distance, Garro could see an infinity of worked tooling in the etching that covered the glint­ing metal, the repeated shapes of eagles and lightning bolts. A cloak of rich red material hung around his shoulders and a towering gold helmet with a plume of crimson atop it was held in the crook of one arm. In the ouier, at an angle that betrayed the ease with which the warrior held it, rested a weapon that was half lance, half cannon: a guardian spear, the signa­ture wargear of the Emperor's personal guard, the Legiones Custodes. Garro had often heard it said that the Custodians were to the Emperor as an Astartes was to his primarch, and looking upon this man, he believed it. The warrior studied Garro and Qruze with a level, emotionless gaze.

The guardian's presence alone was enough to indi­cate the lofty status of the man he accompanied, and they bowed to the hooded figure in his simple administrator's robes. The man in the voluminous mantle would blend seamlessly into the masses of any Imperial hive city were it not for the staff he car­ried, atop it, the golden eagle in its basket of flames, with steel chains looping down the length, each inscribed with axioms. This was the Rod, and it could only be held by one man: the Regent of Terra himself,

First of Council, Overseer of the Tithe and confidant of the Emperor.

'Lord Malcador/ said Garro. What do you wish of us?'

He dared to raise his gaze. The Sigillite's hooded glance came to rest upon him and although Nathaniel could not see his eyes, he was immediately aware that he was under intense scrutiny, in ways that he could only guess at. Malcador, so the stories said, was second only in psychic might to the Emperor. So unassuming in aspect, but here in the chamber with them the man exuded a serene kind of power, quite at odds with the brash energy of a warlord primarch, but no less potent.

At the corner of his vision, he saw the witchseeker back away a few steps, as if she were afraid to be too close to him. The Regent's vision fixed Garro like a spotlight, sifting through his spirit like sand. He tasted a greasy, electric taint in the air. The Death Guard met it and did not resist. He had not come this far to keep secrets.

The Emperor protects,' said the Sigillite slowly, as if he were reading the words from the page of a book. 'He does indeed, Astartes, in ways that you cannot begin to comprehend.' Malcador paused, musing. 'I have heard the words of Rogal Dorn, examined the evidence of your testimony and the mnemonic records of the Lady Oliton, and thus I will be direct. Garro, you came home in hopes of seeking an audi­ence with the Master of Mankind so that this warning could come to his ears. This will not be.'

Garro felt a flash of disappointment. Even after all that had happened, he still kept the light of hope alive. 'But he will hear the warning, Lord Regent?'

'You cannot come to Terra, so Terra comes to you.' Malcador nodded at the staff. 'I have heard the

warning and that is enough for the moment. The Emperor is indisposed as he engages in his great works within the Imperial Palace.'

Garro blinked in surprise. 'Indisposed?' he repeated. 'His sons turn against him and he is too busy to learn of it? I do not understand-'

'No,' said the Regent, 'you do not. In time, these matters will become clear to all of us, but until that moment, we must trust in our master. The message has been delivered. Your obligation has been com­pleted.'

Garro saw Qruze tense. 'Is that why he is here, Lord Regent?' The Luna Wolf nodded to the Custodian Guard. Are we to be dealt with, to be removed from the field of play?'

Malcador was very still. 'There are many on the Council of Terra who suggested that just such a reso­lution should take place. Matters of men's loyalties once thought to be solid are now in flux.'

Garro took a step forward. 'I will say to you, lord, what I said to the primarch Dorn. Are not our deeds enough to convince you of our fealty? I know you can see into the truth of a man's heart. Look into mine, and tell me what is there!'

A hand emerged from the folds of the robes. 'There is no need, captain. You have no call to prove your­selves to me. After your ordeal, I felt that you were owed the truth. I came here to give it to you in per­son, so that there would be no misunderstanding.'

And now?' asked Qruze. 'What of us, Lord Regent?'

Aye,' said Garro, clutching the icon in his grip. 'We cannot stay here, watching the stars and waiting for the day that Horns comes seeking battle. I request…' He fixed the Regent with a hard glare. 'No, I demand that we be given a purpose!' Garro's voice began to

rise. 'I am an Astartes, but now I am a brother with­out a Legion. Alone, I stand unbroken amid all the oaths that lie shattered around me. I am the Emperor's will, but I am nothing if He will not task me!'

The Death Guard's words echoed around the glass tower and Kendel's novice shrank visibly to hear them. Malcador gestured with the eagle-head staff. 'Only in death does duty end, Astartes,' he said, with a hint of satisfaction, 'and you are not dead yet. As we speak, the Lord Dorn assembles his plans to oppose Horns and the primarchs he has turned to his banner. Lines of battle are being drawn across the galaxy, arrangements for a war of such magnitude that mankind has never known.'

'What will our place be in it?'

Malcador inclined his head in a tiny gesture. There is a matter to which you will be set, not today, perhaps not for many months, but eventually. The Warmaster's disposition has made it clear that the Imperium requires men and women of inquisitive nature, hunters who might seek the witch, the traitor, the mutant, the xenos… Warriors like you, Nathaniel Garro, Iacton Qruze, Amendera Kendel, who could root out the taint of any future treachery: a duty to vigilance.'

'We are ready/ said Garro with a nod. 'I am ready'

Yes,' replied the Sigillite, 'you are.'

He found Voyen in one of the meditation cells, care­fully ministering to his wargear. The Apothecary bowed slightly to him. Garro noted immediately that Voyen's robes were the plain, unadorned clothes of a citizen petitioner, not the duty mantle pf an Astartes. The sewn patterns of the two-headed aquila and the skull and star of the Death Guard were absent.

'Meric?' he asked. We prepare to leave and yet you have kept yourself isolated from us. What's wrong?'

Voyen halted and glance at his commander. Garro saw something new there, a kind of defeat, a melan­choly that was etching into the lines of his face. 'Nathaniel/ he began, 'I have read the tracts you gave me, and I feel as if my eyes have been opened.'

Garro smiled. That's good, brother. We can draw strength from them.'

'Hear me out. You might disagree.'

The battle-captain hesitated. 'Go on.'

'I have kept this from you, from all of the others. What happened at Isstvan, what Horus and Mortar-ion did, and then Gralgor and Decius…' He took a shuddering breath. To my very core, brother, these things shook me.' Voyen looked at his hands. 'I found myself frozen, my weapons useless.' His eyes met Garro's and there was fear there, true terror. 'It broke me, Nathaniel. These things, I fear I may be a part of them, responsible…'

'Meric, no.'

'Yes, brother, yes!' he insisted. Voyen pressed something into his palm and Garro studied it: a bronze disc embossed with a star and skull symbol, crushed and twisted. 'I must atone for my dalliance with the lodges, Nathaniel. The Lectitio Divinitatus has shown me that. You had me promise that if the lodge ever compelled me to turn from the Emperor, I would reject them, and so I do! The lodges were part of all this, you were right to shun them!' He looked away. 'And I… I was so very wrong to join them/

The leaden certainty in his voice told Garro that no argument would shift his brother from this path. What will you do?'

Voyen indicated his wargear. 'I relinquish my hon­our as an Astartes and warrior of the XIV Legion. I have had my fill of death and treachery. My service from this point on will be to the Apothecaria Majoris of Terra. I have decided to dedicate the rest of my life to search for a cure for the malady that claimed Decius and the others. If Grulgor did not lie, then that horror may already be spreading among our kins­men, and I must hold true to my oath as a healer above and beyond my oath as a Death Guard.'

Garro studied his friend for a long moment, then extended a hand to him. Very well, Meric. I hope you will find victory in this new battle.'

Voyen shook his hand. 'And I hope you will find victory in yours.'

'Nathaniel,'

He turned from the window of the observation gallery and gasped. The woman stepped out from between the two Silent Sisters and touched him on the. arm. 'Keeler? I thought you had been taken.' She smiled a little, and he studied her. She seemed fatigued, but otherwise unharmed. 'They have not hurt you?'

'Is there ever a day when you don't concern yourself with the welfare of others?' she asked lightly. 'I have been allowed a moment of respite. How are you, Nathaniel?'

He threw a look back at the curve of Terra beyond the armourglass. 'I am… uneasy. I feel as if I am a dif­ferent man, as if everything that led up to the flight from Isstvan was just a prologue. I am changed, Euphrati.'

They were quiet for a moment before he spoke again. 'Was that you? In the citadel, when Decius

broke free, and then again out on the surface? Did you warn me?'

"What do you believe?'

He frowned. 'I believe I would like a straight answer.'

'There is a bond,' said Keeler quietly. Tm only just starting to see the edges of it myself: between you and me, between the past and the future.' She nodded at the planet. 'Between the Emperor and his sons. All things, but like all bonds, it must be tested to keep it strong. That moment is upon us now, Nathaniel. The storm is coming.'

'I am ready' Garro's hand found hers and enveloped it. 'I was there when Horus betrayed his brothers. By the Emperor's grace, I will be there when he is called to account for his heresy'

Beneath the light of Terra, the two of them, soldier and saint together, looked to the birth world of their species; and as one, they began to pray.

TIMELINE

Millennia Age Notes

1-15 Age of Terra Humanity dominates Earth.

Civilisations come and go. The Solar system is colonised. Mankind lives on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.

15-18 Age of Mankind begins to colonise

Technology the stars using sub-light spacecraft. At first only nearby systems can be reached and the colonies established on them must survive as inde­pendent states since they are separated from Earth by up to ten generations of travel.

18-22 Age of Invention of the warp-drive

Technology accelerates the colonising of the galaxy. Federations and empires are founded. First aliens encountered and first Alien Wars are fought. First human psykers scientifically proved to exist. Psykers begin to appear throughout human worlds.

22-25 Age of First Navigators are born

Technology allowing human spaceships to make even longer, quicker warp-jumps. Mankind enters a golden age of enlightenment as scientific and technological

progress accelerates. Human worlds unite and non-aggression pacts are secured with dozens of alien races.

25-26 Age of Terrible warp-storms inter-

Strife rupt interstellar travel.

Sporadic at first, the storms eventually prevent any warp-jumps being made. The incidence of human mutation increases rapidly. Mankind enters a dark period of anar­chy and despair.

26-30 Age of Human worlds ripped apart

Strife by civil wars, revolts, alien

predation and invasion. Human psykers and other mutants dominate some worlds and these rapidly fall prey to warp-creatures. Humanity is on the brink of destruction.

30– Age of Earth is conquered by the

present Imperium Emperor and enters an

alliance with the Mechan-icum of Mars. Finally the warp-storms abate and inter­stellar travel is possible again. The Emperor builds the Astro-nomican and creates the Space Marine Legions. Human worlds reunited by the Emperor in a Great Cru­sade that lasts for two hundred years.

About the Author

James Swallow's stories from the dark worlds

of Warhammer 40,000 include Faith &Fire, the

Blood Angels books Deus Encarmine and Deus

Sanguinius, as well as short fiction for Inferno!

and What Price Victory. Black Flame novels to

his credit include Jade Dragon, the Judge

Dredd novels Eclipse and Whiteout, Rogue

Trooper: Blood Relative, and the movie

adaptation The Butterfly Effect.

James's other credits include writing for Star Trek Voyager, scripts for videogames and audio dramas. He lives in London and his website is

hometown.aol. со.uk/Redwingproject/main. htm