FIFTY-ONE

The old sea fort gaped open like a rotten wound. Fire had ravaged it and scorched timbers jutted from the piles of rubble like shafts of bone. A heavy fog lay across Karcas, shrouding parts of the battlefield, lingering, grey and funereal.

First Sons and a few squads of Volpone veterans hunted through the ruins for the last of the Archonate forces. They found a few scattered cultists and chirurgeons, the wretched leavings of whatever plan had been in the making here in Rakespur. Of Scylla, they found few signs. Much of the fortress had been gutted, the fire apparently hot enough to melt iron and crack stone. Pieces endured, strange machineries entangled with bits of skeletal remains that fell to powder the moment they were touched. A burn mark scarred the half-collapsed ceiling in one room, the shape of it reminiscent of a great eye, but soldiers knew that shadows played tricks and it was quickly dismissed. Whatever secrets Rakespur had once harboured, they were now ash.

Barring one place.

‘What do you think happened here?’ Rensaint paced the outside of the stone circle, his gaze lingering briefly on the sigils daubed on its outer edge.

‘Nothing good,’ remarked Regara, casting about for signs, for anything that might suggest what the Archonate had been doing.

Both men had accompanied the initial purges, a handful of Volpone staying behind as the others moved on to act as bodyguards that neither needed. Vellans, Bruchard and a young Blueblood Regara didn’t recognise. The troopers kept sentry out in the corridor, whilst the officers conducted their investigation.

Several bodies lay strewn about the chamber. From a cursory examination, Regara found their throats had been slit.

‘Ritual sacrifice…’

The middle of the stone circle had been scorched black but very specifically. He swore it resembled the silhouette of a large bulky figure, like a shadow absent of whatever should be casting it.

Rensaint toed a piece of iridescent glass broken on the floor. Small shards of it littered the extremities of the room outside the circle. ‘We should bring in flamers, and then have the priests sanctify it.’

Regara nodded. ‘Or bury it.’

Beyond the crumbling walls of the citadel, the dregs of battle wore on. Snaps of belligerent weapons fire quickly silenced. The dull plosive impact of a grenade detonation, muffled through stone.

Rensaint struck up his pipe, his back to Regara. ‘It’s over at last,’ he said, releasing a long plume of smoke. ‘Thank the Throne for that.’

‘Almost…’

Rensaint stiffened, just for a moment, but Regara saw it well enough as he trained a pistol on the lord commissar’s back.

‘You sound almost mournful, Vasquez.’ He didn’t turn around, which should have told Regara something.

‘Not for the end of the war.’

‘Ah, I think I see.’

‘I believed you to be a different kind of man, Owyn. I also thought you a friend.’

‘I am… I was.’

Regara fed charge to the laspistol’s powercell, priming it.

‘You know,’ said Rensaint, his tone collegiate, ‘I brought us here to kill you, Vasquez.’

‘I’m not planning on killing you.’

‘You said the same about Mattias Grussman and look how that turned out.’

‘That fine volkite serpenta you carry… throw it away.’

Without hesitation, Rensaint unclasped his weapons belt and tossed it and the holstered serpenta a few feet across the room. Then he raised his hands, his thin-necked pipe held in the left. ‘Might I at least face my accuser?’

‘Turn… slowly.’

Rensaint turned, his expression calm.

‘You don’t look surprised.’

‘You are everything I expected you to be, Vasquez. That’s why I have to kill you. Though I take no pleasure in it.’

Regara gave a slight nod to the pistol in his hand. ‘Not to state the obvious…’

Two shots echoed in the corridor, las-blasts. Regara whirled around too late to see the young-looking Blueblood with a hellpistol pointed at him. His eyes were cold, unfeeling. A killer’s eyes but not a soldier’s.

Regara let out a resigned breath. ‘Didn’t see that coming.’

‘I always have a contingency,’ said Rensaint as he retrieved his weapons belt and cinched it back around his waist. He glanced at his pet assassin, his expression darkening. ‘Bring him.’

Regara tossed his own gun, and it clattered like a death knell against the stone circle.

The sounds of the skirmishing fighters outside rose for a moment, lifting Regara’s hopes of a reprieve but the noise faded again, leaving them dashed.

Rensaint led them from the chamber, through the rubble and outside into the pale morning light. His hound followed after Regara, ensuring the major did as he was told. The air was thick with fyceline and spent promethium. Between that and the wretched fog, visibility was poor. So despite the last-gasp battles, no one would see them on the south-facing side of the fortress and intervene.

The land had been flattened here, churned by war and industry. A town had encircled Rakespur once. It was just dark earth now, threaded with the bones of a dead civilisation. In the distance, nearer the coast, muffled cruciform shapes seemed to hover against a tepid sky. Bodies still clung to them by their rag-clad skeletons.

Rensaint gestured to the hard earth. ‘On your knees…’

‘An execution is it?’ Regara sank down as ordered, wincing at the old pain in his phantom limb. ‘For what crime am I being accused and judged? Cowardice? Betrayal?’

‘Tell me, major, what gave me away? I mean, I knew you would be a problem back in the infirmary with Leto…’

Regara arched an eyebrow.

Rensaint caught his look. ‘As in Leto and Zeus. Both sobriquets, but I have always liked the ancient stories.’

‘Filip’s letter,’ answered Regara, aware of the presence of Zeus’ hellpistol as it aligned with the back of his head, ‘I didn’t understand it at first. I wasn’t thinking clearly then. I did later. Musk and cinnamon, it was the cologne he was wearing when your assassin murdered him in cold blood.’

The words resounded in his memory… And let it be a matter of record that I always did love your wonderful music.

A record, a literal record, of a man’s confession and testimony. Filip had committed it to a phonogram cylinder and left it for Regara to find, the air still redolent of his scent, trapped by the privacy field. A visitation, one Regara had missed whilst he failed to drown his sorrows.

He nodded, rueful. ‘I knew it, I knew. Grussman could not have conceived of this plan on his own. A fourth hand, an architect. I suppose Enghart was a means to an end, a willing conspirator.’

‘He had his use. I needed his sanction on the kill order. His death during Godsword’s destruction made removing him unnecessary.’

‘And you planned on removing them all, didn’t you? That’s why you let me kill Grussman. He knew you were betraying him but I didn’t see it then, not through the grief. Your second assassin as insurance in case events played out differently?’

‘You are an intelligent man, Vasquez. Believe it or not, I have a great deal of respect for you but whatever it is, whatever proof you think you hold of my involvement, I will find it. I will shape the narrative as I must.’

‘As you shaped Darian Deviers?’

‘Another means to an end. For all his many, many faults, Grussman had the right of it. A boy could not lead the army to victory at Karcas. Oh, I don’t care about your traditions, the Volpone’s antiquated notions of society, the grotesquery of your aristocratical privilege. Lowborn or noble-blooded, it made no difference. As a leader, a talisman, Darian was useful. He gave us hope when we teetered on the brink, but as a martyr… that kind of fire burns quickly but intensely. That brought us Agria.’

‘And for that you would sanction murder.’

‘I would sanction a hundred murders if that is what it took. Victory for the Imperium has always been my goal. As a commissar, I have to make hard choices. Some are unpleasant but every one of them is necessary.’

‘I’m sure you believe that.’

Rensaint sighed, a sign that this, whatever it was – an unburdening of the soul, an apology – was nearing its end.

‘It is a great shame,’ he said. ‘Were it you at the helm from the beginning and not Grussman… Alas, privilege and succession of command do not always provide the most fitting incumbent. In fact, it is usually the contrary. And I am sorry about Barbastian. If it’s any consolation, he regretted what he did the moment after he did it. I think he wanted to serve. A career of never questioning, always obeying… it was ingrained. Duty. A pity he changed his mind.’

‘You would have killed him anyway.’

‘Yes, I would.’

‘None of this matters,’ said Regara. ‘It doesn’t change anything. Though I have reconsidered my position.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, I have decided to kill you after all.’

Rensaint gave a sad smile. ‘I think you should lower your head now, major.’

As Regara obeyed, he discerned a hazy figure in the distance, muddied through the fog. It staggered fitfully, as if wounded. Rensaint had his back to it as it approached. A man, barefoot and in ragged Militarum fatigues. As he closed, he scratched at his forehead, head bowed and in pain.

‘Someone’s coming…’ Zeus’ gravelly voice was utterly at odds with his youthful appearance.

Rensaint glanced over his shoulder, drawing the serpenta and aiming it at Regara. ‘See to it.’

The assassin nodded, holstering his pistol as he made for the figure.

Too late, Rensaint turned back. ‘Wait!’

Zeus walked ten feet before he stopped moving. His body shuddered, trembling apart even as he reached for his gun. He barely got it out of the holster when his legs collapsed and he fell, screaming. Then he lay still, the sockets of his eyes burnt out, exuding thin trails of smoke.

Averting his gaze, Rensaint blind-fired and the rasp-whine of the serpenta struck out into the dust squalls. Head down, Regara heard the man fall, the grunt of a last breath. Not knowing if the pistol was trained on him again, he lunged, his bionic leg like a sprung catch as he barrelled into the commissar.

A sudden flare of intense pain in his shoulder told him Rensaint had managed to get off a shot. He tackled him around the midriff, both men sent flying.

Regara landed hard, the wound in his shoulder like a hot iron but it made him sharp, got him to his feet first. The hellpistol lay nearby and sweeping it up, he fired. The shot hit Rensaint in the chest but his armour took the brunt of it. He’d dropped the serpenta, so drew his sword. It shimmered like white gold as he advanced on Regara, a second las-bolt deflected by its blade. A flash of light on metal and a ragged line burned Regara’s hand, forcing him to drop the pistol.

He scrambled back, preparing for the sword thrust that would end his life.

It didn’t come.

Rensaint stopped, injured beneath his armour and breathing hard. He gestured to the dead assassin.

‘An even contest, I believe you said,’ he gasped, still a little out of breath but recovering.

Regara pulled the trooper’s sword from its sheath, a rapier. Finely made, too fine for a common ranker. But the assassin had been anything but common.

Blood streamed down his shoulder and he moved it stiffly, the flensed layers of skin raw and hot.

‘Not your sword arm, I hope,’ said Rensaint.

‘I am proficient with both.’

‘Good, though I plan to humble you, Vasquez.’

Regara gave him a withering look. ‘And here I thought we were friends.’

‘I changed my mind. Lot of that going around.’

‘That can’t be it.’

‘Your privilege, you Volpone…’ His lip curled and for the first time, Regara believed he was seeing the real Owyn Rensaint. ‘I am an orphan of the Imperium, born out of privation and grief. My parents died with nothing, and I would have too were it not for the Prefectus. I have never met a more loathsome race as yours, though know I consider you an outlier.’

‘Very gracious of you,’ said Regara as he slid into stance.

‘It is, but enough talk.’

Rensaint raised his blade into a window guard, the pommel up to the level of his ear, sword pointed outwards. Regara adopted a short guard, the hilt of the rapier at his hip, the sword point angled up and towards the commissar.

‘Shall we begin?’

The pain in his shoulder had lessened to a dull throb but Regara nodded.

Rensaint advanced, a rapid two-step-and-thrust forcing Regara to slip back. He pressed, a slash that cut open the major’s uniform, then slashed again, this time cutting only air as Regara found his opponent’s measure. He had to fade, leaping back from a flurry of beautifully timed attacks – thrust, slash, thrust. Rensaint’s sword was like reflected light, slipping quickly from one angle to another, his form almost perfect, his stance impeccable.

A switch to a front guard saw Regara deflect the commissar’s next attack, allowing him to craft one of his own, a thrust that was swiftly parried. He shed the next blow, passing back to let Rensaint’s sword point impale air and then passed forward, his back foot moving to the front position as he cuffed his opponent’s shoulder with the hilt.

The two men came in close, each clutching the sword hand of the other, grappling intensely. For all his poise, Rensaint was fighting hard and Regara saw in the man’s eyes that he had expected this to be over by now. That gave Regara hope.

They broke apart, but not before a push cut opened Regara’s cheek. He retaliated, a draw cut across the commissar’s midriff, finding flesh.

Both men retreated, bleeding and tired.

‘Catching a breath?’ Regara ventured, gasping.

‘You’re much better than you let on against Grussman.’

‘I was fighting an overconfident savage. A man is forced to adapt. It is seldom pretty.’

‘I helped train that savage.’

‘Then you did a poor job.’

They engaged again, thrusts and parries landing and turning in a chorus of clashing steel. So fast, almost blinding, dirt churning as each sought advantage over the other, passing back and forwards, slipping back, pressing the attack, their rhythm and measure never less than exemplary.

Regara feigned a slip, Rensaint seizing on the opportunity before he realised the trap. His lunge deflected into the major’s side, the blade thrust fierce enough to pierce right through and out of his back. He gasped, coughing flecks of blood into the air, but his own blade had impaled Rensaint through the upper chest. It went deep, the armour split open. The commissar gave a ragged exhalation, his face pained.

‘Damn fine… swordsmanship,’ he rasped. ‘Not… an even contest… at all.’

He faltered backwards, unsteady, his weight pulling his sword from Regara’s body, the major giving a strangled cry as the blade slid free. The rapier left Rensaint’s flesh at the same time, both men freed of the metal briefly conjoining them.

A clatter announced that Rensaint had dropped his sword. He clutched a hand over the chest wound that was now pouring blood, spilling through his gloved fingers in a torrent.

Regara fell down onto his backside, legs splayed, and hunched over. Throne, his side hurt, and his shoulder. He almost passed out, the feeling slowly bleeding out of his limbs as he watched Rensaint lurch and stagger across the ground. He kept going, falling and picking himself up, slowly fading into the fog, as incorporeal as a ghost.

The hellpistol lay nearby and Regara reached for it, the agony so sharp he nearly passed out again. Fingers wrapping determinedly around the grip, he raised it up but Rensaint had already disappeared. He took a few hiking breaths, the warm patch at his injured side turning colder by the second. Just before he passed out, he saw a figure moving through the fog towards him. He tried to raise the pistol but his arms refused to rise. Blackness crowded his vision, until everything turned black.

And then he heard the voice of Armand Culcis.

Rensaint knew he was losing too much blood. It dripped through his fingers like wine as he blundered through the fog. He need only find a First Son or even one of the Volpone and fashion whatever narrative would serve. The air was thick and grey. It weighed heavy, and he doubted anyone would find Regara in time. It didn’t matter. The major was mad with grief. Raving. Something happened to him in the ruins of the fortress… a part of the Scylla experiments left behind. It afflicted him somehow. Warp corruption. He had killed three troopers, too. They had died from las-wounds, after all.

It would cast doubt, it would be enough. That’s if Regara even lived.

These thoughts tumbled through Rensaint’s mind, slowly finding shape and definition as a Guardsman appeared out of the fog ahead. He materialised so suddenly, so silently, at first Rensaint thought it was a revenant or some half-dreamt thing, brought on by an egregious loss of blood. But it was real enough. Salvation, after all.

‘I need a medic,’ he began, ‘and Colonel Staddish on the vox at once.’

‘I wish that I could, lord commissar,’ answered the Guardsman, a knife slipping into his hand, ‘but that’s not how this works.’