THE LORD OF LIONS
1
Two days later I saw the Blade of the Seventh Son up close for the first time. She wasn’t the Hex, and I’ve made clear before now how I loved the Hex the second I first saw her, but what she lacked in the Hex’s lethal grace she more than made up for in blunt brutality. Her origins among the Black Templars were well documented, but she’d served for a century as the flagship of the Celestial Lions, granted as a gift from one brother-Chapter to another. The Lions had welcomed the gift, and added to her bulk in the decades since.
She was fast, with those colossal and enhanced engines, though too bulky and armoured to be truly nimble. When it came to void manoeuvres, she’d be bloated and at the mercy of smaller vessels. In a chase, or as a battering ram to break enemy blockades, there was no finer warship in the Armada.
I watched her as she drifted at anchor off our starboard bow. She was damaged, even more battered than the Hex, from her collision with the Venatrix several months ago, and all the battles she’d fought since. Fighter wings haloed her pitted battlements, leaving faint contrails from their streaking plasma drives.
Even from this distance, the Blade shone in the dark. She was quite a sight, that ancient killer with her hull of scarred gold. She kept drawing my eye as she turned slowly in the void, several thousand miles away and still clearly visible through the great bay windows of the Hex’s command deck. Behind her, the stars were stained red from a curling tendril of the Elara’s Veil nebula.
I was nervous. Not because of the Blade, but because of who would be coming aboard from it. Brêac was the most powerful and influential figure I’d met among the Adeptus Vaelarii, and as one of the senior officers of the Emperor’s Spears, his rank couldn’t be ignored.
There were only two souls that stood inarguably above Brêac in respect and authority. The first was Arucatas of the Kavalei, Master of the Emperor’s Spears, called Swordbearer by his brothers and foes alike, and the ruling High King of Nemeton. I would eventually meet the High King. Fate would have us meet at a mustering of the Armada, mere months after the conclusion of this part of my chronicle.
The other soul, whose primacy eclipsed even that of Arucatas the Swordbearer, would be boarding the Hex soon. His name was Ekene Dubaku, called Kine-bane, Lord of Lions, the Claw of Dorn, and the unchallenged Warlord of the Adeptus Vaelarii.
2
We gathered on the bridge. Kartash and I were permitted to be present, though Kartash had chosen not to attend, citing sundry duties. I was delaying several of my own secondary duties by attending, but I was glad to be without his pious stink in my nostrils, and gladder still to be back on the command deck.
Amadeus sent me ahead, to record anything of import that took place before his arrival. My new eye lacked many of the more exotic qualities of my lost and much-missed terminus-eye, but it suited for imprinting visual feeds onto my cranial data-spools.
Every Spear on board had gathered on the command deck, many of them attended by their robed serfs, all of whom displayed tattoos on their arms and faces, hearkening to tribal bonds or newer deeds performed in the Chapter’s service. Brêac, Ducarius, Morcant and Serivahn held court on the bridge’s central platform, by the command throne and the primary tactical hololith table. They shared quiet words and grim, low laughter. The other Spears watched from gantries and platforms. I could hear the low buzz of conversation among each squad.
The Hex’s strategium was typical of Adeptus Astartes cruiser command decks, with efficiency and antiquity competing for prominence. Towering statues of Nemetese stone, carved into the figures of idolised champions of the Chapter, stood watch over the hive-like domain of busy souls and iron decking that lay before them. Gargoyles shaped as Nemetese sea creatures coiled along the dark metal rafters, while banner after banner hung down in the high darkness, proclaiming the regiments of Imperial Guard and legions of skitarii that had fought alongside the Third Warhost since the Emperor’s Spears’ founding all those centuries before.
The chamber was large enough that some servitors would spend years in the same cavernous room, not needing to leave it during their duties, retreating only to their respite coffin-sockets beneath the deck flooring in order to feed on protein mush and excrete waste fairly similar to what they ingested. At any time, there might be up to a hundred or more servitors in semi-slumber under the grating floor, recharging themselves for another long day of what passed for their lives.
I’d tried servitor food before, back during my years in the Mentors’ fortress-monastery. The more intelligent among the servitors, by which I mean those that hadn’t been lobotomised entirely beyond coherent thought or communication, referred to the stuff as Slop. The ooze was ubiquitous across the Imperium with a host of variant names, but they called it Slop aboard the Hex as well. It was grey meat processed and reprocessed past any taste of its origins and infused with chemical nutrients. It tasted exactly the way you would expect from that description.
‘Anuradha.’
I turned at the calling of my name. Brêac, up on the central platform, beckoned me over, and I felt about a thousand pairs of eyes on me as I ascended the stairs to answer him.
‘Lord Brêac.’ I bowed. ‘Kovulagh shiguth eoska, neia?’
He grinned, and Ducarius chuckled.
‘That greeting only works when you stand under a real sky,’ said Brêac. ‘It means to hope the rain washes away your sorrows.’
I forced a smile and asked for forgiveness; I’d thought it was a general greeting to wish good fortune upon those you met. So many Nemetese exchanges involved axioms for storms and rainfall. Finding the appropriate ones, and using them in their right context, was no easy feat.
‘At least your accent isn’t as bad as it used to be,’ Ducarius added, saving me from mortification. I silently thanked him for that.
‘What do you require?’ I asked of them.
‘Where’s Amadeus? We thought he’d be here by now.’
‘As did I, lord.’
Providence had it that he arrived right then, striding across the busy bridge, avoiding crowds of working thralls and human officers. His armour was polished and gleaming, dark emerald and pristine white. We’d done all we could to transfer and implant the advanced systems from his previous suit of armour into the new suit of repainted plate. The Mentors’ red raptor showed proud and keen on his shoulder guard. The deck shivered as he made his way up to the dais, and he placed his green helmet on the table’s edge next to the three white ones already in place.
‘False Scorpion,’ Morcant greeted him in Low Gothic.
‘Agriah uz greagh vosz jajeya,’ Amadeus snapped back in a perfectly accented flow of dialect from the Northern Vargantes tribe. Ducarius and Brêac chuckled at the implication in what he said, which was both obscene and biologically impossible.
After a moment Morcant grinned his cannibal smile. Like many Spears, he considered insults to be something of an art. His reply brimmed over with thick sarcasm.
‘My head’s too big to fit up there,’ the Arakanii replied in Nemetese, ‘but your mastery of our tongue brings a joyous tear to my eye. Look at me, my kinsmen. I weep! Can you believe it? Our beloved cousin is growing up so fast.’
We were gathered for a sombre war council, that was true, but for a brief moment my master smiled and stood as an equal with the Immortals. Then the main thoroughfare bulkhead rumbled open, and all eyes turned to the reason we were gathering in the first place.
3
A great many words have been written about Lord Ekene Dubaku, and a great many stories have been told of his deeds. I’d read all I could of the Lions’ lore within the Hex’s archives, and I was ready for the Warlord of the Adeptus Vaelarii to be a colossal figure in terms of charisma and stature. He was the man that not only commanded his own Chapter and had led them back from the brink of extinction, but who also had been chosen to lead the Sentinels of the Veil and the Armada sworn to them. His authority made him de facto regent of Elara’s Veil.
Instead of a monarch draped in majesty, the warrior that entered at the head of his men was an unprepossessing example of the Firstborn. His armour was gold, though not the honey-gold of Imperial splendour, as seen in the auramite plating of the princely Custodian Guard. Ekene wore armour reminiscent of a purer, plainer gold, burnished beneath a world’s warm sun. He wore a red cloak, one of his few ostentations, but instead of having it trail behind him, it was cast with nonchalant elegance over one shoulder.
At his side was a Firstborn warrior of another Chapter, this one clad in the striking black, red and white of the Templars. And behind these two leaders came twelve Templars and thirty-seven Lions into the strategium, their passage disturbing the crew that moved aside for this parade of their masters and greatest defenders.
At all the gatherings of Adeptus Astartes warriors I’d witnessed in the past, rank after rank of Space Marines stood in dignified silence. Chaplains preached. Officers intoned vows. Oaths were given and taken and exchanged while choirs chanted blessings and evocations. Formality reigned.
Here, everything descended into brotherly disorder. Squads of Spears welcomed Lions and Templars they knew well from previous campaigns. They laughed and they embraced. If there was some reticence on the part of the Lions, it was only because they carried ill tidings; their joy at uniting with their brethren was hardly diminished. When the Blade had come to the Hex’s aid months before, there had been little time for niceties even after the Venatrix was scrap metal in space. Both vessels had pulled away swiftly once the kill was made and the captives returned, returning to their assigned campaigns.
The two commanders ascended to the central platform where Serivahn and the Immortals waited. The reunion there was no less jubilant, as the Spears bid the newcomers to join them. Ekene even embraced Serivahn, kissing both of the crippled warrior’s cheeks.
‘It is good to see you, my friend.’ Ekene’s voice was a lion’s rumbling purr.
‘And you, Warlord.’ Serivahn looked as pleased as I’d ever seen him. Saliva trickled down the side of his crooked mouth, onto Ekene’s red cloak. The Chapter Master made no note of it, though it can’t have escaped his notice. Instead, he showed clean white teeth in a smile that split his dark features.
‘You say that now, Vahn, but we do not come with hopeful news.’
‘The Hex is yours to command, Warlord.’
Ekene made a gesture – presenting his open hand, palm up, in a slow crescent away from his heart towards Serivahn. A signal of gratitude on his home world, I suspected.
He turned to Brêac, gripping the Spear’s wrist as they embraced. ‘Brêac, my brother, I fear this time we may be asking for you to save us.’
Brêac banged his free fist against his breastplate. ‘Whatever you ask, Ekene, it’ll be done.’
Ekene’s smile was strained. Up close it was easier to see the subtle shadow cast over the reunion by whatever grim word the Lions had come to deliver.
‘I trust you are keeping fine care of Nar Kezar?’ he said to Ducarius.
‘Are you certain we can’t just execute him?’ the druid replied. I wasn’t sure if it was a jest. Ducarius was smiling as he said it, but that didn’t mean much when it came to the Spears.
‘I will take him back with me,’ said Ekene. ‘He and I will share words aboard the Blade.’
‘As you wish, Warlord.’ Ducarius showed no emotion, either way. I didn’t know how I felt, either. Seeing him caged helped me sleep. It kept dreams of the Venatrix at bay.
The Templar stepped forward, and though his greetings were more formal, he was wholly at ease and well known to all the Spears. He was the oldest of the warriors gathered, older than any of those on the dais by at least a century, perhaps as much as two. Like Ekene and the Spears themselves, he forwent much in the way of the trappings of rank. A short grey beard and moustache framed stern, thin lips, and his hair was trimmed to a severe covering of stubble the colour of steel. This was Zvarin Roist, Castellan of the Elysium Crusade. He led the Templars that had escorted the Lions home after their Chapter’s devastation and remained to fight alongside them during their long road to rebuilding. The dawn of the Great Rift had stranded him here, just as it had my master a century later.
Roist was the first to notice Amadeus, who hadn’t joined in the familiar greetings. He offered a neutral nod, and was disciplined enough to hide his interest to a momentary flicker of fascination. Here, at long last, was news from the true Imperium. How this stranded, ageing knight must have burned to speak with Amadeus alone, and ask for word of his noble brethren still fighting elsewhere. Amadeus returned the nod, and waited to be acknowledged by the Warlord.
When I think back now, remembering this meeting, I’m struck by the notion that the Spears and Lions – and even the Templars – loved their Warlord. Simple respect couldn’t fuel the devotion I saw in the eyes of warriors from all three Chapters that day. It was deeper than admiration: he was a living legend to them, an avatar of defiance. He’d inherited a Chapter on the edge of annihilation and now here he was, over a century later, still alive, still leading them. He was more than their commander; he was their talisman.
And he loved the Spears in return. All the Lions did. You could see it in their eyes and their embraces. The Lions were still badly mauled from their desecration a century ago, and oh, how that had cost them in both pride and shame. They were rebuilding as best they were able, but it had been a hundred years of struggling to meet the demands of protecting Elara’s Veil with so few of their own warriors left alive. The Hex’s archives even made the grim claim that the fortress-monastery on Elysium never received the Primaris lore from the agents of the Indomitus Crusade, and that the Lions were only granted the ability to forge Second Generation warriors when the Emperor’s Spears shared the knowledge with them.
I saw deep pride in Ekene and his golden warriors, but also abiding recognition. The Scorpions and Spears were their younger brother-Chapters, and one had committed the ultimate betrayal. In the vacuum left by treachery, with the Scorpions turning traitor and the Lions bleeding almost unto death, the Spears willingly shouldered the burdens of the entire Adeptus Vaelarii. The Spears had held the line without hesitation, without grudge.
This was a fraternal bond like no other I’d ever seen. I felt uplifted, energised, just witnessing it. You couldn’t force this kind of brotherhood. You could only forge it.
‘And you,’ the Lord of Lions said, ‘must be Amadeus. The one who sailed to us by running the Straits of Epona. You are a brave man, Amadeus of the Mentor Legion.’
The Spears flanked Ekene as the golden lord stood before my master. Amadeus made the sign of the aquila and bowed his head deeply with unfeigned respect.
‘It is an honour to meet you, Lord Dubaku.’
Ekene’s dark eyes burned with the same curiosity I’d seen in Roist’s gaze. ‘Brêac has relayed much regarding your presence in the Veil, but… Truly, we wondered at times if you were a ruse by the Archenemy or a poor jest by our Nemetese brothers.’
God-Emperor help me, even I was smiling now. Some men wield power like a bludgeon and some hide behind it like a shield. Ekene Dubaku used it as an invitation, welcoming you within his aura.
Amadeus shook his head. ‘I am neither, thankfully. And I wish to thank you for your intervention with the Venatrix. My time aboard her was educational, but I was beginning to tire of the Pure’s hospitality.’
Grunted laughter met that remark, and Ekene repeated his Elysium gesture of sincerity, this time with a toothy grin.
‘Ramming that ship was one of the richest pleasures of my life so far, so no thanks are required.’
‘You are gracious, my lord.’ Amadeus replied.
‘No, I am merely honest.’ Ekene stepped closer, tapping his knuckles on my master’s pauldron. ‘Ah, these are ill-omened colours to wear in our dominion, my wayward friend. It grieves me to see the Imperium passed down our traitorous brothers’ heraldry to your bloodline. I am sure you deserved better.’
‘I am somewhat less than delighted by the truth myself, my lord.’
Ekene turned to the Spears by his side. ‘You told me the False Scorpion was a humourless wretch and tiresome to be around, Morcant.’
The cannibal licked his teeth, not bothering to hide his smile. ‘He was, Warlord. But all the pieces of Tolmach and Faelan that we packed into him have cheered him right up. I can almost tolerate him myself, these days.’
‘Ever a generous soul,’ Ekene observed. I couldn’t help but notice even Amadeus had stepped closer to Ekene now, and the same regard shone in his eyes. That sense of warmth and fraternity had expanded to wrap around him, as well. I think, in that moment, he no longer felt utterly excluded. An outsider, yes. But no longer an invader.
Ekene reluctantly cut the reunion short. ‘We have much to speak of, Amadeus of the Mentors. But now, my brothers, if you’ll forgive me for casting a pall over this gathering…’
The Warlord moved to the planning table and began to summon hololithic images into being. Across the chamber everyone fell silent, and the more Ekene said, the harder it became to remember that there had been any joy at all the beginning of the council meeting.
4
They called it the Storm Tide. Psychically gifted warriors among the Celestial Lions had first detected it, but soon enough signs and omens were manifesting across the sector around Elysium. Gutter-psykers and sworn guild astropaths alike suffered visions of vast shadows sailing in the Sea of Souls, cutting like knives towards the heart of Elara’s Veil. The peasant-psykers had no idea what they were seeing in their wrack-dreams, only that death tore through the void in the shape of a storm. More educated and talented astropaths sent cries of warning through the warp, audible to the warriors of the Lions’ librarius division, who were already mustering the lords of their Chapter and sending word outwards, to the Spears and the shared Armada.
All the reports concurred. A great wave within the warp was surging towards Elysium. That alone would have sounded like naked horror, but it wasn’t the shrieking energies of the etheric ocean that concerned the Adeptus Vaelarii. It was what those waves meant.
‘A fleet,’ Ducarius said, utterly certain. ‘A fleet large enough to raze your home world.’
Ekene nodded. ‘That is what we believe.’
No one knew how that many vessels were maintaining fleet cohesion in the Dark Imperium’s savage warp. No one knew how the Exilarchy was able to maintain its current warfronts while also possessing a fleet capable of creating such a monumental bow wave in the empyrean. The obvious answers weren’t comforting.
‘Reinforcements,’ Brêac growled. ‘The Exilarchy has reinforcements from the Rift, or from elsewhere in Imperium Nihilus.’
Ekene’s face was drenched in flickering light from the hololithic sphere floating above all of them. The world, Elysium IX, was ringed by an extensive orbital defence array and crowed with star fortresses. Even so, it was a pale shadow of Nemeton’s might. Nemeton had Bellona, and a forge-moon evened a lot of odds.
‘If the Exilarchy has managed to add to its ranks from outside the Veil, this changes the war beyond recognition.’
‘And we’ll deal with that, Warlord,’ said Brêac, ‘but first… What of Elysium?’
‘The Armada is already being assembled.’ Ekene spoke with certainty, but without passion. ‘We encountered you early, so you are among the first of the Adeptus Vaelarii forces to hear of this, but word is being sent across the Veil via astropathic duct.’
‘Unreliable,’ Brêac pointed out with reluctance.
‘Necessary,’ Ekene said, in a tone of agreement.
Morcant banged his armoured fist against his chest-plate. ‘If the Armada gathers, we’ve already won. Nothing will break it. We can hold Elysium.’
Ducarius was far more solemn. ‘Arakanii… A warp-wake of this scale indicates a fleet that may match the Armada. At the very least, they will maul us badly. And they have the advantage of, somehow, being able to maintain cohesion in the Sea of Souls. They’re arriving as one fleet. We’d be reaching the system in a trickling flow, ship by ship.’
‘You’re saying we can’t fight them?’
‘I’m saying I don’t know how we can. Warlord, how long do we have?’
‘Weeks.’ Castellan Roist answered for Ekene. ‘A month at most. They can maintain cohesion in the Sea of Souls, but they’re still slowed by the broken tides.’
Murmurs broke out across the bridge. Even a month would leave them hard-pressed to gather the entire Armada.
‘We can do it,’ Brêac said. He leaned his knuckles on the hololithic table, staring at the vista of stars. ‘We can do it, but we’ll be leaving whole swathes of the Veil undefended. Rains of Nemeton, this might be the end of us. We could lose half our remaining territory in a single season.’
‘That,’ Ekene said, ‘is unacceptable.’
‘Hear me out first,’ argued Brêac.
‘My brother, the decision is already made. I am not here to listen to you, I am here so you may listen to me.’
The Spear lord spoke through gritted teeth. ‘But we can draw our defences away from Nemeton, and–’
The Warlord cleared his throat. That was all it took to silence the respected and mighty Lord of the Third Warhost. It was done without anger, with visible sympathy, and all eyes returned to Ekene’s scarred face. The Warlord spoke his next words with measured gravity, knowing the true weight of them better than any other soul present.
‘Brêac, my brother. Your loyalty breeds an ache in my chest, and I love you for it. But I will not have Nemeton and half the Veil put at risk for the chance we can hold Elysium. Even if we hold it, what will be left of the Armada?’
Silence. Not absolute silence, for all across the bridge armour still hummed and joints still purred and robes still rustled. But it was as close to silence as a thousand men and women can come.
‘What are you saying?’ asked Brêac.
‘I am saying nothing you do not already know in your heart.’ Ekene nodded to the slowly turning world composed of trembling light. ‘Elysium has always lain within the Exilarchy’s reach. We knew this day would come. Now is the time for us to face reality, not cling to our rage.’
‘No.’ Morcant stared wide-eyed at his Warlord, helpless in his denial. ‘No. The Armada will crush whatever is coming. We. Can. Hold.’
Ekene was braced for this. ‘Elysium cannot be defended, Morcant of the Arakanii. And more importantly, I will not let you try.’
‘You coward,’ the battleguard snapped. ‘You dare give in like this? We can protect you!’
Ekene met this fury with fire in his eyes and serenity on his lips. ‘This is not about you, my brother. It is not about what you can or cannot do. It is about the Veil. Elysium is one world. Just one world. I will not sacrifice twenty planets and vast reaches of territory for a single world. Not even the world of my birth.’
Throughout the chamber, Spears warriors were turning to their Lions brethren. Brêac let out a slow breath.
‘Ekene…’
The Warlord raised a hand to forestall yet more prideful protests. ‘Brêac, please. You and your Spears have bled in rivers, shouldering the burdens of three Chapters these last decades. You are not seeing this with a tactician’s clarity. Instead, you see it as a loyal brother, all heart and no rationality. You see this as your failure, do you not? If Elysium falls, the Spears have failed, after all this time, to protect their wounded brothers.’
Brêac said nothing. The truth was etched, damningly clear, across his face.
‘That is noble of you,’ Ekene said. ‘Noble and worthy and every Lion thanks you for it. But we are not children, to be protected from all harm. Death is coming with the Storm Tide. This much we know. Now is the time to plan for what will come, and not mourn what we wish would be.’
Brêac tried one last time. ‘Zvarin,’ he appealed to the Black Templar at Ekene’s side.
‘The decision is made,’ the old knight said at once. ‘Though I commend you for your loyalty and zeal, Spear. I expected nothing less from you.’
‘He warned me,’ Ekene said with a half-smile, ‘that you would be difficult to convince. As if I could not have guessed, myself.’
With those words, a hush descended on the command deck once more. Ekene took advantage of it.
‘We will gather as much of the Armada as we can spare without ceding territory to the Exilarchy. No current campaigns will be abandoned. No worlds will be left undefended.’
‘This is the death of your Chapter,’ Brêac said at last.
‘That may be true,’ Ekene admitted. ‘But there is hope yet.’
‘Hope?’ Morcant narrowed his eyes. ‘Why gather any of the Armada if you don’t intend to fight for Elysium?’
Amadeus grasped it before anyone else.
‘Evacuation.’ With the single word, all eyes settled on my master.
‘As the Mentor says,’ Ekene confirmed. ‘We will evacuate as much of the population as we are able in the time that remains. We cannot defend our world, but we may be able to preserve some of our culture.’
Evacuating a city is a process of infinite complexity and punishing slowness. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and seen it fail as often as I’ve seen it attempted. Evacuating a whole world is a feat of supreme effort that defies words. Truthfully, it simply can’t be done. Ekene and his Lions knew that, and I knew what they really meant. Their civilisation was doomed, but their culture might yet survive in bands of refugees. Crucially for the Chapter, future generations of children might survive to become Lions.
Hope is often a slender thread, but that never stops anyone reaching for it.
Ekene looked to Brêac, for the first time seeming reserved. ‘If we save enough of our people, there are worlds elsewhere… Worlds that lie deeper in the Veil. Places we might settle.’
‘Nemeton,’ said Brêac.
‘That would create significant tensions,’ Ekene said guardedly, ‘and no few difficulties with the population displacement. But if there were enough land…’
‘Bring them to Nemeton.’ Brêac was adamant.
‘We have considered it,’ the Warlord admitted. ‘I am drafting a petition to offer the High King. If the Swordbearer allows it, it is a tempting possibility.’
‘Arucatas won’t refuse you.’
‘Your confidence girds me, my brother. May I ask, will the Hex sail to Elysium? Will you protect the evacuation convoys?’
Brêac offered his hand. ‘You insult us by even asking, Ekene. We’ll sail at once.’
Ekene grinned and took the offered hand.
Then his head rolled forward, and his body toppled back.
5
If you’re reading these words and have never seen a Space Marine in the flesh, I hope my efforts so far have managed to capture some of the unreal speed with which they move in battle. If you’re reading these words and you are one of the Adeptus Astartes, then try to contextualise the speed with which the rest of us act and react to the world.
I used the word unreal, and it’s the best match for what they do. Over a hundred of them stood together in the command deck that day; a hundred transhuman warriors with preternatural reflexes and cognitive senses that processed information faster than unaltered biology allowed.
When I relate this now, it’s with the clarity of hindsight, analysis and data-spooled memories. When it happened then, it took place in the time it takes to blink. All that transhuman speed and power meant absolutely nothing.
6
Ekene’s head tumbled from his shoulders and his headless body began to fall. The Warlord’s blood flecked Brêac’s armour and dappled across his face.
Warriors tore weapons free from holsters and scabbards. Lions and Spears roared in the same breath. I screamed something that may have been a useless denial or an equally worthless warning. I know I shouted Kartash’s name more than once.
None of it mattered. Shock had stolen the first second from all of us, and the first second was the only one that counted.
A chorus of explosives detonated around the central dais, blasting meat and bionics and bloody bones in every direction. A servitor’s iron claw crashed and skidded along the deck scarcely a yard from my foot, while around the dais smoke poured up from the grated flooring: a platoon’s worth of gas grenades, ruining any hope of seeing clearly.
But I’d seen the sword that cleaved the Warlord’s head from his shoulders. I knew it by memory and from my recurring dreams. There was no chance I could forget that blade of circuit-laden xenos-iron, the colour of jade.
7
The machinery that serves as my memory shows everything in excruciating detail, pict by pict, frame by frame, and even in these perfect recollections Ekene’s assassin is a ghost. One moment she is there. The next, she is gone.
Poison gas whirled around the central platform, thick as exhaust smoke in a tank bay. The warriors slammed helms over their heads, insulating themselves from the toxins. Such was the speed of all this that Ekene’s headless body hadn’t yet tumbled back. If I freeze my recollections, I can track the black smears of the murderess’ silhouette as she plunged into the smoke. When I let the scene play out as it did on that distant day, everything is reduced to gas and mist and the roaring voices of warriors unable to believe the evidence of their eyes.
She was fast, faster than any living being or robotic invention I’d ever seen. Witch-fast. Nightmare-fast. Bolters kicked and roared, firing into the smoke. More than one human crew member died in the assassin’s place that day.
Intrusion protocols took hold. Doors sealed, room by room, hall by hall, deck by deck. Castigation-teams, the Armada’s naval soldiers, deployed from their barracks across the ship, closing in around the bridge. War-horns howled down the Hex’s great corridors, a call to hunt and fight in an hour of direst need.
Later, we would learn that the assassin had lain in wait in the high rafters, her body contorted and her joints dislocated in order to stay hidden from view below.
Later, we would learn that she had been accosting command deck servitors for months, forcing dozens of the mindless cyborgs to ingest toxin grenades and smoke incendiaries. The lobotomised slaves’ stunted digestive tracts were unable to excrete the explosives, which locked inside the abdominal cavity and lay dormant, waiting for the signal to explode. When the assassin downed her prey and sought to sow confusion, she triggered the detonations, many of which were in the guts of servitors slumbering beneath the grated floor. Smoke and poison gas steamed from the burst-open bodies, adding hallucinogens to the anger and confusion.
Later, we would learn everything. But what use was the knowledge by then? The deed was done and everything was fated to change.
They blamed us, of course. And why wouldn’t they? We were the outsiders there.
A ceramite fist closed around my throat and lifted me from the ground. I felt my spine crackle from the pressure, and gasped for breath as I looked into the eyes of an enraged Lion. His armour was polished to such a sheen that I could see my flailing struggles reflected in his golden ceramite.
‘I have the False Scorpion’s slave!’ he called out. I don’t know if any of his brethren heard him in the press of screaming humans and armoured bodies. He dragged me away with no effort at all, ignoring the crash of my bionic claw-foot scraping against his plating like an industrial talon.
Lions and Spears alike were convulsing around us. A high-pitched screech, sickly undulating, made the insides of my ears throb fit to rupture. Covering my ears did nothing to ward my senses against that sound. The precious slivers of air I fought into my lungs tasted of acrid chemicals. Either I would die of asphyxiation in this warrior’s grip or I would die of the poisonous gas.
‘You will pay for this,’ the Lion snarled at me.
It wasn’t us! I lacked the breath to plead my case, all I could do was cry the words inside my mind. It wasn’t me! In a moment of inspiration, I tried to signal my denial in Codex-standard battle-sign. He ignored the movement of my hand and the message I was trying to impart. He saw I carried no weapon, and paid no further heed.
I had no idea where he was dragging me. I couldn’t see anything through the smoke – nothing but the huge forms of Adeptus Astartes warriors swinging blades or falling to the deck, clutching at their heads. Whatever that pulsing screech was, it was slowing the Spears and Lions down to the level of mere mortals.
My eyes were on fire. The mist was getting into them, whatever that gas and smoke really were. My augmetic eye stung behind the eye socket where the bionics met biology. My real eye gushed with what I hoped were tears and what I feared was blood.
The Lion holding me saw my master in the same moment I did. Amadeus charged from the smoke, his eye-lenses glowing, his fist cannoning into my captor’s helmeted head. His armour joints barked in mechanical protest as he pounded his fist another three times into the Lion’s faceplate, cracking it on the last blow and sending the warrior down to the deck.
‘Traitor!’ the Lion bellowed.
‘Fool,’ Amadeus grunted back. He didn’t waste time arguing or pleading our innocence; he dragged me by the wrist, moving at a lope that required me to maintain a dead sprint to keep up with him. My chest was tightening. My lungs were rocks in my ribcage. What little I was managing to breathe in was probably poison.
‘Master!’ He was just an impression ahead of me now. Just a smear of movement in my dying sight. I stumbled, and he dragged me another ten yards before snarling a curse back at me.
‘Run, damn you!’
‘I can’t see! Amadeus, I can’t breathe!’
He lifted me. It was like being in the cold embrace of a lifter-Sentinel, crushed against his armour plating like that.
‘Hold your breath. Keep your eyes closed.’
I did.
He ran.
As his boots hammered on the deck I thought, just for a moment, that we would actually make it.
I don’t know who brought Amadeus to the ground, only that it was several armoured bodies raising a storm of sound. He held on to me until I was pulled from his arms. He struggled until he was subdued. He swore his innocence until they levelled a boltgun at his face. I didn’t see it, but I heard its stock crunch against the bearer’s shoulder as he drew aim.
‘Enough.’ I recognised Brêac’s voice. ‘Enough. It’s over, Amadeus.’
By the time my sight returned, we were in a cell.