The Path of Heaven Page 10

  He could feel himself losing consciousness. The pain was crippling. His heart was racing out of control, fluttering like a trapped bird. When he felt the hand on his shoulder his first instinct was to pull away, but even that was beyond him now. He looked up to see – with shock – a human face, half hidden behind a rebreather mask. It was a woman, old, her grey hair pulled back severely from thin, fragile features. He had not even noticed her, amid the combat of such horrific beings. She bore the aquila on her breast, pinned to the grey-green uniform of an Army general.

  She looked worried.

  ‘Achelieux?’ she asked, trying to keep Veil from falling. ‘Where is he?’

  He might have laughed, if he hadn’t been in such bad shape.

  Who knows? Who knows where that bastard ended up? If I knew, do you think I’d still be here on this hell-world?

  But he couldn’t speak. He slumped against her arms. The dizziness rose up over him like a smothering blanket, and he felt himself fall away.

  For a moment, he wondered if he was dying. If so, that might have been for the best. What was left now, out of all they had been trying to do?

  Then his vision went black, the pain fell away and he slipped into blessed unconsciousness.

  Seven

  Shiban looked down at his limbs, stripped of their armour now, illuminated by the light of ceremonial candles. Censers burned slowly in the duelling chamber’s alcoves, each scented with sacred oils. The guan dao, powered down, hung loosely in his grip.

  Metal glinted between the slabs of exposed muscle, grafted onto the margins of his black carapace and still thick with scar tissue. The white shift he wore exposed the full toll of his augmentation – forearms gone, calves gone, thighs studded with pistons and braces, his neck a mass of interlocking valves. From far below, the Kaljian’s engines churned and boomed, powering through an aether that was always in turmoil.

  Calligraphic banners hung in the gloom, each one marking battles fought by the brotherhood. The ritual names charted early glorious victories, culminating at Chondax, through to the decisive crisis at Prospero. Thereafter, the marks were more often of defeat, or pyrrhic charges that in the long run conquered no ground. To witness them was to witness the slow degradation of a once proud and wild heritage. The banners would have been created with almost infinite care in the past, but now no time existed to produce them properly, and so the lines were hurried and imperfect.

  All things were done as they had ever been done, but the soul of them was gone. The censer-smoke was empty of spirits, the cold air empty of songs.

  Shiban shifted the guan dao again, rehearsing the moves he had made against the III Legion champion. He had done so a dozen times already, trying to find the error he had committed. So far, he had discovered none. His enemy had simply been better – faster, stronger, more instinctive.

  There was nothing much to learn from that, only an acknowledgement of weakness.

  He could guess what Yesugei would have made of it. The Stormseer would have given him a disapproving glare, and that alone would have forced him back to the training arenas, again and again, until the flaw was corrected. Qin Xa would never have been bested so easily. Jubal either, nor Jemulan, had he lived to see such days.

  There had been a time when Shiban had aspired to match the deeds of those names, to become one of the greats of the ordu. Prospero had ended those chances, and brought him the Shackles instead. Such was war, such was fortune, and there were no longer prizes to be grasped from the mire.

  The guan dao swirled through the dark, carving the air. Shiban stepped into the attack, fighting through memory an enemy who no longer stood before him. He had done that, years ago, on Chogoris, with enemies drawn from the archives, for hours at a time. His blade strokes then had been as free and precise as the strokes of his calligraphy brush, back when he still dared to pen verses in the old tradition.

  Shiban had not written a line since Chondax. None of the old scholars had, as far as he knew. The words were no longer there for them.

  Tachseer, they called him now, the Restorer.

  He had grown in the favour of the Khagan, and his brotherhood had swelled, taking in recruits from the brotherhoods of shamed khans. Along with Jubal, Ghinak, Ohg, Yesugei and Qin Xa, he had risen high in the counsels of the primarch, sharing in the kurultai that plotted out the strikes against the ever-encroaching warfront of Horus. Only the damned of the sagyar mazan had taken on more dangerous assignments, and their losses were purifications.

  The blade angled, dipped, pulled back. Shiban adjusted his weight, compensating for every shift of the glaive. As he dragged his leading foot away, one of the mechanical conduits in his ankle snagged – just a microsecond delay, barely detectible, but enough.

  He held position, gauging how far such micro-delays left him vulnerable.

  A Dreadnought-shell at least would have made me stronger, he thought. Damn our superstitions.

  Slowly, he relaxed. The censers guttered, making the banners waft a little.

  There was nothing more to be done. The Legion champion himself was most likely dead now, caught up in the convoy’s cataclysm. That was scant comfort, of course, for it would have been finer to have killed him face to face, in the way of the plains.

  Shiban let the glaive’s tip fall, and turned from the centre of the duelling circle. As he did so, he caught the outline of an observer in the shadows, hovering outside the light of the candles, waiting patiently.

  Jochi would never have held back before. Before, he would have called out earlier, sharing in the appreciation of the art of bladeplay.

  ‘You have tidings for me,’ said Shiban, breathing a little heavily, moving to where his glaive’s rosewood case hung.

  ‘The star-speakers have completed their scrutiny,’ Jochi said, bowing. ‘We have orders from the Khagan and are to pull back to the inner circle.’

  Shiban nodded. He placed the guan dao into its felt-inlaid casket, pulling the leather straps tight. ‘What of the other raids?’

  ‘Three convoys were taken and carried into the warp. One was a personnel detail, so there are new recruits for the fleet crews.’

  ‘And the others?’

  Jochi paused. ‘Heiyu is taken. Xian Kamag is silent. Our losses were heavy, khan.’

  Shiban moved towards the duelling chamber’s exit, and Jochi fell in alongside him. ‘Such is war,’ Shiban said.

  ‘It is, but...’ Jochi shot him an uncertain glance. ‘It has been like this for a long time, khan. The Amujin is gone.’

  ‘We did what we were ordered. Many Traitors died.’

  ‘More of us.’

  Shiban reached the curtains barring the exit. Soft lumens in the corridor outside bled over the paper floor threshold, illuminating the lines upon lines of inked script. ‘We are no longer fighting xenos. Our enemy is as deadly as we are.’

  ‘My khan, I must speak.’ Jochi held his ground, refusing to cross the barrier. Shiban paused, then inclined his head. ‘At Prospero, more than four years ago, we made the vow for Terra. Much was sacrificed for this. And yet still we are here, out in the void, bleeding on the blades of an enemy that cannot be defeated.’

  Shiban listened impatiently. None of this was new to him.

  ‘We try feints within feints,’ Jochi went on. ‘We lay them trails and hope to gain slight advantage, but they know our games now. We should have had many more hours with the convoy before the enemy arrived. They barely sent enough ships to contest us, and still it was enough. How many cruisers did we divert from Kalium? Did Qin Xa take the Gate? Do we know that yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘The Traitors outnumber us. They are four Legions to our one. So we must kill four of them for every warrior we lose, and still it will not be enough.’

  ‘We slow the advance,’ said Shiban.

  ‘In the beginning, yes.’ Joc
hi’s brown face was intense in the candlelight, marked by the ritual scar on his cheek. ‘Yes, I could see that. But do you believe it now, my khan? Tell me truly, and I will believe it too.’

  Shiban drew in a long breath. His own opinion, which he had come to hold firmly as the blood tally had lengthened, was of no consequence. The Legion’s strategy had been set by the Khagan, and only he would change it. Even as the Hordes were brutalised, beaten back, bled white, they would not go against Jaghatai’s ordinances. Not again.

  ‘So what would you have me do, brother?’ Shiban asked.

  ‘You have the ear of the Khagan.’

  Shiban snorted. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Tell him–’

  ‘Tell him what?’ Shiban blurted, feeling fatigue catch up with him at last. It had been hours of solid practice since Memnos. Three days since he had slept. His mood was already choleric; this did not improve it. ‘We are fighters. Our Khagan throws us into the jaws of the beast, and we rejoice in it. We are broken, and we laugh to see it. We are given no rest, no respite, and it cleanses our soul. That is it. That is all there is. Or did you hope for me to find you somewhere safe to shelter?’

  Jochi flushed. His fingers twitched, just for moment, as muscle memory responded instantly to the impulse to draw a weapon. ‘You know that is not what I seek.’

  Shiban looked away, already regretting the words. There was no lack of valour in the brotherhood – just the long slow grind of weariness, hammered in over continual retreat. He had voiced the same doubts in the privacy of his own meditations, even then castigating himself once they had formed in his mind.

  We might have made the journey, once. We have left it too late. The enemy surrounds us, biting at our heels. All there is left to do is to cultivate our hatred.

  ‘There will be kurultai,’ Shiban said. ‘The losses will be recorded. When the hour is right, the Khagan will rule.’

  Jochi bowed. His frustration had not gone away. ‘I know it, and yet… There are those who…’

  Shiban looked hard at him. ‘Speak, brother. No secrets between us.’

  ‘They say the numbers are now critical. That is what the star-speakers report. We cannot hold even our core. There has been talk of… changes.’

  Shiban studied his deputy. Jochi had always had an honest face. On Chondax, when they had fought freely for the last time, it had been as clear as the skies, prone to the laughter they had once been famous for.

  ‘The oath-breakers, khan,’ Jochi said, looking back at him sidelong. ‘They will be summoned back.’

  Shiban took him by the arm, gripping with a mechanical fist. ‘The sagyar mazan paid for their crimes in death,’ he said, his voice low. ‘All payment has been made.’

  ‘Not all.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Those who can bear arms are being mustered again,’ said Jochi. ‘All of them.’

  Shiban forced a smile, though it came out more like a grimace. ‘You heard wrong, brother. The aether is turbulent. Star-speakers dream badly when the tempest rages.’

  Jochi looked equivocal. ‘Still, the talk runs.’

  Shiban held his gaze. ‘Then hear this new talk, from me, your khan. Do you suppose I know nothing of these gutter-rumours? And do you think, for a heart’s single beat, that I would allow them back, the ones who forgot their loyalty? This thing will never happen. Better to die alone than with the sagyar mazan.’

  Jochi’s eyes dropped. Shiban released him.

  ‘But, see, you did well to speak to me of this,’ said Shiban, trying to give him something. ‘Know that I have no feud with you, brother – nor with those who always ran under the sign of the minghan, who held their loyalty when lies spread through the whole fleet. I could never have. We two swore once, here, on this ship. You remember? That is what remains.’

  Jochi nodded.

  ‘But the oath-breakers are cast out,’ said Shiban. ‘They do not come back from that.’ Even as he spoke, Shiban felt a fresh spasm of pain – a numb jolt from the Mechanicum machines that kept him alive. That was a reminder of what that treachery had cost him – his speed, his joy, his future.

  So much was already destroyed, and the Traitors of the ordu had played their part.

  ‘So they do not come back,’ Shiban said again, turning away from the duelling circle. ‘The price will be paid. If other souls waver in the collection, be assured, I shall see to it myself.’

  The walls shook, hit by repeated flank strikes. Even deep within the battleship, ringed by layer upon layer of reinforced decking, those impacts reverberated.

  Revuel Arvida hurried down the corridors of the Lance of Heaven, heading for the main apothecarion. His limbs still burned from the discharge of warp power. He could feel the flare-up now, and knew it would be worse over the next cycle. Already his eyes burned, his hearts laboured. It would have been best to retire to his chamber, to fight the change, as he had slowly learned to do, in the cool calmness of his sanctum, but these tidings could not wait. Even as the battered White Scars attack group fought its way to the Mandeville point, harried by Eidolon’s fleet, other matters had become pressing.

  He reached the portals, guarded by two hulking warriors of the keshig, and pushed past them.

  Inside, many figures clustered around the main medicae-slab. Most were mortal, drawn from the battleship’s standard crew. Less than half of those were Chogorian, for the turnover in human specialist staff had been particularly savage, and the majority now came from scavenged and pressed technicians from other Legions and Army regiments.

  Jubal Khan stood at the head of the slab, his helm removed, his arms crossed. His face was bloody, and his topknot hung limply over his shoulders. Namahi, Qin Xa’s protege and second-in-command, as well as others of the keshig and the khans of many brotherhoods, were there too. They parted to allow Arvida access, and he leaned over the slab.

  Qin Xa had been cut from his battleplate. His body was exposed under the medicae-lumens – a mass of churned flesh and broken bone. His face was held together with a criss-cross of pins, and nutrient tubes gurgled as they entered the many lacerations made by Jaijan, the battleship’s emchi Apothecary. His armour had been heaped to one side, bloodied and hollow like so much scrap. Atop it all was the dragon-helm, now in two pieces.

  Qin Xa saw Arvida approach through his one working eyeball, and the blood-trails around his mouth bubbled into a weak smile.

  ‘Sorcerer…’ he rasped, barely above a whisper.

  Arvida leaned closer. It was dangerous to use the warp again so soon, particularly when surrounded with the Legion’s elite, but in this case there was little choice.

  Do not weaken yourself,+ he sent, placing his mind-voice within Qin Xa’s. +Speak to me this way.+

  For both of them, the apothecarion dissolved in a white haze, and then they were facing one another, their bodies restored.

  The mind-image of Qin Xa laughed. Freed of the horror of his ruined body, it sounded just as it always had done in life – sonorous, good-natured, preternaturally calm. All the old guard of the plains had sounded the same, though Qin Xa was the last of them, save Yesugei – the last of those who had fought with Jaghatai on Chogoris, braving Ascension beyond the customary age, and surviving.

  We failed, Qin Xa’s thoughts proclaimed, matter-of-factly.

  It was an impossible task.+

  I would have driven them out of that place. I would have seen them run, just as we made them run on Peressimar.

  That had been two years ago now. A great victory, driven by surprise and speed, perhaps the last of them.

  You did your duty, keshiga. That is all he will want to know.+

  In the mindscape, Qin Xa’s craggy features wrinkled in a smile, as if the too-bright sun of the home world glared back from the endless grass. He will blame himself. It will seem to him that we have stayed in the void
too long.

  Arvida nodded. +If he speaks to me, I will tell him otherwise.+

  All the ways were watched. Even if we had wished to, we could not have broken through.

  He knows this.+

  He has been a just master, all the years I served him. Blame is now of no use, for any of us. The search must continue.

  Ravallion said she knew of a way. This is why we did these things. She may yet be proved right.+

  Whether or no, Qin Xa sighed inwardly, he made the oath over the ruins of his brother’s realm, and it will drive him. He must reach Terra.

  And if no path remains?+

  Qin Xa’s outline grew more vague. The wind became chill, and the sky deepened to night-blue. His smile disappeared, to be replaced by growing pain. His soul was shearing from its foundations, pulling free of the body. Do you not see one? You are the fate-scryer.

  Arvida did not know how to respond to that. He could not even see his own future-skein, except for the visions that came while in the warp, and those were not ones he wished to recall.

  And yet, there were times when truth was a cruelty.

  The road will be found,+ he sent, confidently. +If Ravallion is wrong, another way will be made. The Khagan is a force of the universe – we both know this. He will not be denied by it.+

  Qin Xa tried to smile again, and failed. The pain of the real world became etched on that of the imagination, and the old warrior’s once-hale face began to dissolve. You neither, sorcerer. Now take this final command – cure yourself, before you cure any more of us. Promise me.

  Arvida stiffened. How much did he know?

  I no longer make promises,+ Arvida sent. In the real world, moving blindly, he took up Qin Xa’s smashed hand, and pressed his gauntlet against it. +The hunt will be eternal for you. And I swear this – your name will be remembered on Terra.+

  And then the mind-images dissolved, and the spartan apothecarion reasserted itself around him. Qin Xa spoke no more, whether in the mind or in the real world.

  Arvida found himself gazing down on a mangled heap of scorched organs and skin-scraps. Jaijan and his attendants had already moved away, cleaning their instruments, turning off the blood-cyclers, preparing the narthecium.