Pharos Read online

  Silence greeted his words.

  ‘Gellius, you have the authority,’ said Caias.

  ‘I will give the destruct command, my lord.’

  ‘Hellas,’ said Caias. Every word was a gasp of pain. ‘See to the Navigator. He must not fall into enemy hands if we are unsuccessful.’

  On a ship the size of the Probity, there was no palatial dwelling for the Navigator, only a sealed pit situated above the command deck.

  ‘Yes, brother,’ said Hellas. He made for the stairs recessed into the wall that led to the Navigator’s sanctum.

  ‘Navigator Morosi-Hin is a loyal man,’ said Gellius.

  ‘Then he will die without complaint. However the Night Lords got into the Sothan System, we will not make their departure any easier. They cannot be allowed to leave, for they have seen the Pharos. Vratus, tell Master Kivar to send a message to Sotha, request that Mistress Tibanian send one to Macragge.’

  ‘Kivar is afraid to open his mind,’ said Vratus. ‘He fears what he sees in the warp.’

  ‘He is going to die whatever happens. Tell him that if he owes any loyalty to the Emperor, he will gladly give up his life for the Imperium. If that does not work, I shall tell him what the Night Lords will likely do to get him to serve them.’

  Vratus spoke again into the vox. The crew was intent upon its own extinction, but Caias’ orders gave them structure, and they fought back their fear.

  Caias limped to the first step down from the main dais, and crouched there. He leaned against the shallow lip between the dais and the first crew tier, nursing the agony in his chest. Without intending it, his eyes slid shut. He drifted away until a voice called him back. It was only for a moment according to his suit chronometer, but it felt like an age. Perhaps that was what death was like, he thought. In better circumstances he would fall into hibernation, but the circumstances were as they were.

  ‘Lord Caias?’ Vratus said. Caias roused himself. ‘Kivar agrees. What should he send?’

  ‘A simple message. Let Sotha know the Night Lords are coming. Send out a vox-signal, maximum gain, see if you can overpower the Night Lords’ counter-vox. Perhaps we can warn one of the patrols of what has happened here.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Vratus.

  Gellius stood up from his station and solemnly saluted the Ultramarine.

  ‘I have no reply from the engine room, my lord, but have activated the self-death mechanisms here. We have only a few minutes.’

  ‘Thank you, Shipmaster Gellius.’ As crisply as he could, Caias returned the salute.

  A grinding, metallic voice boomed out over the ship’s vox-system. ‘Plasma reactor core destruction sequence initiated. Inhibition governors offline. Magnetic field inductors offline. Fuel injection accelerated. Critical mass will commence in three minutes. Reactor death in three point five minutes. All crew abandon ship. Saviour pods unlocked.’

  Nobody moved. There was nowhere to go.

  A boom sounded on the far side of the door. All eyes went to it. Caias drew his weapon and shifted into a painful kneel, using the step as cover. Hellas returned from the Navigator’s sanctum.

  ‘It is done,’ he said. He took up position at the side of the door. Tiberius joined him.

  ‘The Night Lords will die with the rest of us,’ shouted Caias. ‘We will not wait passively for this to occur. Draw your weapons, servants of Ultramar. When they come through that door, greet them with the hospitality they have earned with their treachery. Show them your hate.’

  ‘Two minutes until reactor death,’ intoned the dead voice of the ship. The bridge crew drew their laspistols and crouched behind the stations where they had lived out their adult lives. Caias was surprised to see a couple of them muttering to themselves, pressing tattered booklets to their lips. Prayers, he supposed. Every day the Imperial Truth looked thinner and thinner. Had anyone but the Legions ever believed it?

  In this time of gods and monsters, he was not sure he did himself.

  Four muffled clanks came from the other side of the bulkhead.

  ‘Melta charges,’ said Tiberius. ‘Stand ready, they are coming through.’

  A quiet whooshing noise broke the silence of the bridge as the fusion devices activated. A quartet of dull red points glowed around the Ultima upon the doors. They spread rapidly across the plasteel, until the whole door shone with furnace heat. The centres glowed brighter, until they became white hot. The harsh smell of burning metal filled the room. Dribbles of liquid fire ran from the doors, becoming a torrent as they expanded and joined together. Hot metal sparked as it splashed on the floor.

  The doors sagged and collapsed inwards.

  Caias opened fire.

  ‘The Emperor protects!’ someone shouted.

  A raging giant burst through the door before it had finished disintegrating. Molten metal streamed from his war-plate as he leapt, the long-handled chain weapon the Night Lords favoured gripped in both hands. Hellas and Tiberius fired several rounds at the warrior. A few hit, but none penetrated his war-plate. The warrior swung his chainglaive around, letting his hands slide to the very end of the shaft. It smashed into Tiberius’ helmet, caving it in. Hellas aimed at him at point-blank range, but the Night Lord was unbelievably fast. He brought his weapon around and batted Hellas’ gun to one side. The bolt exploded in the ship’s wall as his fire went wide.

  ‘One minute until reactor death.’

  Lasbolts and bolt-rounds sparked from the warrior’s armour, sending showers of melting metal from the door all over the bridge. A man screamed as it splashed on his skin. Still the Night Lord did not stop, killing the deck crew indiscriminately. A second was stepping through, bearing a chainsword and pistol. Boltgun fire came from behind him. Caias switched targets and shot at the newcomer, eviscerating him with three carefully placed rounds to the torso. Before he could fall, another ran from behind, pushing the dead man forward as a shield. As he reached the edge of the command dais, he flung his dead comrade outward into the crew tiers, crushing one and scattering others. The crew fired frantically at him, but their laspistols did little more than scorch his armour.

  He too was formidable. Lightning patterns played over his battleplate, and he wielded a huge two-handed power axe. With a roar, he leapt at Caias, his great weapon whistling and buzzing as it fell. The Ultramarine raised his bolter in both hands. The weapon sheared through it in a burst of sparks. Caias stepped back and drew his gladius. Something tore inside him. The vital sign monitors in his helm screamed warnings at him.

  The axeman drove again at Caias, forcing him into another parry that sent a spear of agony through his chest. He tried to raise his weapon back into a guard position, but all the strength fled his arm, then his legs. He wavered on his feet, stumbled and went to one knee.

  More Night Lords had entered and were massacring the crew. Unarmoured, the humans were blown to pieces by mass-reactive rounds. Hellas duelled with the glaive-wielder. He was outmatched. The Night Lord drove the butt of his weapon hard into the Ultramarine’s torso, cracking the metal. Hellas staggered. A swing took his arm off at the elbow, then another his leg. The Night Lord was laughing, toying with Hellas.

  Caias looked up at the Nostraman towering over him. He held in his hand a ragged piece of machinery, like a heart torn from a chest.

  ‘Reactor death. Reactor death. Reactor death. Ave Imperator,’ said the ship.

  Nothing happened. The Nostraman tossed the device onto the floor.

  ‘A good play, Ultramarine, but not clever enough. Your ship is ours.’

  Caias looked at it. He could feel the life running out of him.

  ‘Why did you turn…?’ croaked Caias.

  ‘We will not be slaves to a liar,’ said the other.

  ‘Your kind killed the man who made us. No freedom is worth that.’

  ‘We have not killed him yet!’ said the warrior. He
laughed loudly, the thought evidently amusing him.

  ‘The… The Emperor lives?’ Caias murmured.

  The axeman snorted. ‘So you do not know? Aye, he lives. But let it be no comfort to you, for we shall slay him soon enough.’

  Caias gritted his teeth. ‘You think you will ever be free? You cannot win. You have become monsters.’

  The axeman raised his weapon. ‘We always were.’

  Skraivok stepped over the slagged remains of the bridge’s blast door. Night Lords dragged the crew from their stations, living or dead. Fire burned in one corner, clogging the air with thick black smoke. Skraivok approved. There was just enough damage to the ship to make it all look believable.

  Shattered bodies were draped everywhere. Two dead Ultramarines lay by the breached doors. A headless third lay upon the deck.

  Kellendvar fell to his knees as Skraivok entered, but Kellenkir simply toyed with a Space Marine’s severed head. Both brothers were helmetless. Their faces were so alike, thought Skraivok; the touch of Curze in both could not completely overwrite their common birth heritage. But their expressions were entirely different.

  Kellendvar clasped his hands about the long haft of his axe and presented it to his master. ‘The ship is yours, claw master,’ he said.

  ‘Brother Kellendvar, you never fail me.’

  ‘I never shall, my lord.’

  Kellenkir sneered at his brother’s obeisance. ‘The ship is yours for now, but it will soon belong to Krukesh,’ he said sneeringly. ‘Tell me, Painted Count, how much of the fighting did you do yourself?’

  Skraivok unclasped his helmet. The stale air inside hissed free as the neck seals parted. He lifted the helmet off gently, revealing the pale Nostraman face beneath. Square, black lines ran from his forehead to chin over both his eyes, swelling around his eye sockets to colour the full orbit. Delicate lightning-pattern tattoos decorated each cheek.

  Ship’s air was rarely pleasant to breathe. Either overly dry or overly moist, often too hot or too cold, always tainted with the smell of the machinery that cleansed it and the sweaty odours of many bodies living in close proximity. After a battle one could add the iron-rich stink of blood, voided bowels, fire, smoke, hot metal and the sharp, nose-tickling smell of fyceline to that unpleasant mix. Nevertheless, after two weeks of battleplate-recycled air, it was delightful to Skraivok. He closed his eyes in pleasure, letting the draught of the ship’s air currents dry days-old sweat. He breathed deeply, then maglocked his helm to his hip. He looked Kellenkir dead in the eye and beckoned behind himself.

  Four Night Lords dragged the Ultramarines sergeant onto the bridge and dropped him hard on the floor. The upper part of his body had been stripped of armour. Pain spikes were lodged into several of his interface ports and his face was bloated with decompression damage.

  ‘Their leader?’

  ‘This is Sergeant Lethicus. Does this answer your question, Kellenkir? I was among those who caught him.’

  ‘Among them. So you had help? All hail our mighty warlord!’

  The Ultramarine groaned and his eyelids fluttered. Kellenkir grinned evilly and walked over to him.

  He dropped the severed head onto the deck. He laughed at the Ultramarine’s reaction.

  ‘A friend of yours? He fought well considering his wounds. He dragged himself all the way back here from the station to fight with his comrades, not that it made any difference. He died anyway, as we all shall die.’

  ‘Leave the prisoner be, Kellenkir,’ said Skraivok. ‘He is mine.’

  A feverish light ignited in Kellenkir’s eyes. ‘Let me have him, Skraivok. I will make him scream for death. Give him to me and I will show him the futility of life and the inevitability of pain. Perhaps then you and I will forge a deeper bond, signed in the humours of this man.’

  Kellenkir loomed over the downed sergeant, and pressed hard on a gaping wound in his side. The Ultramarine grunted with pain. He spat a mix of acid and blood into Kellenkir’s face. The Night Lord reared up, his hand going to his burning skin. He held it there as his flesh hissed, and then he laughed again.

  ‘So bold, so sure of yourselves – avenging sons of the Avenging Son. You will learn your fury counts for nothing. Under my careful knife you shall suffer for your arrogance.’

  Lethicus smiled bloodily back. ‘Coward. Face me blade to blade and let that decide who is arrogant and who is not.’

  ‘You will face my blade, only you shall have no hands to hold your own.’

  Kellenkir revved his chainglaive, and raised it to strike.

  Skraivok drew his bolt pistol. With his eyes fixed on Kellenkir and without looking at the dying Ultramarine, he aimed and shot a single bolt into his head. Lethicus’ skull shattered as the mass-reactive detonated, spraying them all with brain matter.

  Kellenkir’s face twisted in fury.

  ‘We do not have time for you to indulge yourself, Kellenkir. Let this be a contract between us – if you wish to sate your appetites, do as I say.’ Skraivok activated his vox-bead and addressed his company. ‘My worthy Forty-Fifth! Hear me now. The cost in blood to our comrades has been high! You shall be avenged! Let slip your bloodlust. End every life on this ship, make them scream to their False Emperor for his aid. The Emperor was to give such creatures as these the things we have earned by conquest and by blood! Let this vessel run with their vitae so that they will know what we sacrificed! Let them remember the fundamental law of the universe, that the strong shall prevail!’

  His men responded eagerly. Screams rang out from the lower decks as Skraivok’s warriors set to work. Tired of their confinement, they attacked with wanton cruelty. Soon blood would gather in the sumps of the ship.

  Kellenkir smiled at the thought. ‘Some days, Skraivok, I almost like you.’

  With a theatrical flourish, Skraivok depressed a button set into his vambrace. Kellenkir howled in agony and fell to the ground as if shot through with a volkite beam.

  ‘My title is claw master, Brother Kellenkir. Use it.’

  Kellenkir spasmed, his kicking feet pulverising the flesh of the fallen and destroying the bridge railing.

  ‘I had not got round to telling you this, Kellenkir, as I was saving it as a surprise for you. But it looks like I just could not wait. I really do hope you are not upset that it is spoiled. So, you see, I had pain spikes installed in all of your armour’s neural links. I rather like the effect. Do not tempt me to overuse it, or I may grow bored.’ Skraivok leaned close to Kellenkir’s face. Kellenkir’s teeth were clamped immovably together, his muscles locked. He glared hatred at his captain. ‘And neither you nor I wish me to become bored.’

  Skraivok left Kellenkir writhing upon the floor, and ignored Kell­endvar’s regard.

  ‘Gallivar,’ he ordered. ‘Send out a message to the Umber Prince, laser pulse only. Inform them that we have our prize and to pass the news on to Lord Krukesh. Quickly now, we have a great deal of work to do.’

  NINE

  Some small paradise

  Mericus

  Light song

  Sothopolis was a dusty city set on the plain between the sea and the rising lands of the interior. Eight parallel streets running along the coast, eight others crossing them, and that was pretty much all of it. The smallest iteration of an Ultramar urban grid, Sothopolis was still too big for the population living there. Consequently much of its footprint was unoccupied by people or buildings. The centre looked impressive, but two streets away from the squat Imperial Adepta precinct empty lots abruptly took over, framed by ferrocrete roads that would not see the shade of a building, not in Mericus Giraldus’ time.

  The city omnibus stopped with a hiss of air brakes. Chain-link fences around the empty lots chinked in the soft sea breeze. The omnibus halt was right at the edge of town. A field of tall cereals began on one side of the road, a square of scraped-down earth waited for the buildings of the
future on the other.

  Mericus climbed down out of the cool interior of the vehicle, dragging his army fieldsack and rifle with him. He was dressed in dappled camo fatigues, the sole passenger on a vehicle designed to carry one hundred. The lack of passengers would not stop the timetable, not in Roboute Guilliman’s realm. The omnibus ran as regularly as Macraggian clockwork, doing a circuit of the tiny city every hour before heading off to the landing fields ten kilometres away, coming back by the Aegida Castellum on the mountain’s slopes, through the fields and the forest edge of Odessa – as equally gridded and well ordered as the young settlement – in case anyone needed to come back from their work early. They never did.

  The only times the omnibus was at full capacity was when it took the agriworkers out and when it brought them back. Transporting them all took three journeys, each timetabled and executed to the second. The remainder of the day the bus trundled round and around the streets, almost always empty, the servitor-driver’s black glass eyes fixed forever forward. Mericus rode it sometimes on his monthly day off; it was hypnotically soothing and a good place to think. But only if the weather was bad, and it rarely was bad on Sotha.

  Behind Sothopolis the ground rose gradually until, all of a sudden, Mount Pharos jumped up and soared relentlessly skywards. It dominated the landscape for kilometres. Sometimes it seemed like there was nothing on Sotha but Mount Pharos. For two-thirds of its height it was covered in the fuzzy green of quicktree forest. A band of shrubs and grasses extended above the treeline a few hundred metres more, to peter out in sheer cliffs of rock. The mountain was in the lower latitudes where it was warm all year, but the summit was cold and bare.

  That it was reckoned a single mountain was due to its sole peak, but in truth Mount Pharos was a great wall of a thing, twelve kilometres long, bracketing the plain around the bay of Sothopolis in protective arms of basalt. It was so much bigger than its brothers and sisters of the Blackrock range, and so far out from them, that it looked out of place, artificial almost. Mount Sotha was a giant anomaly hiding an enigma.