The Lords of Silence Page 27

  These are the citizens of Sabatine who took refuge in the citadel, dragged up from the deep places, chained together and hauled into the chapel. Their faces are grey, their mouths slack, staring at the swinging lights as if mesmerised. Their clothes are ripped, hanging off them like ribbons, their movements sluggish. Cult-priests swagger among them carrying flails and smouldering censers, declaiming in a language Dragan does not understand. Other cultists, arranged in choirs around the edges of the crowds, are chanting, repeating a sequence of syllables over and over. The sound makes the stone itself resonate, a vibration that thrums up from the crypts below, running up the pillars and shivering the high arches.

  Dragan has emerged through east-facing doors set several metres above floor level. He can see Word Bearers stationed all through the grand chapel, at least a hundred, guarding every ingress and overlooking the teeming throngs. He hears Naum and Philemon fighting in the chambers beyond, sloughed into combat by those outside and struggling to make headway. Even if they slaughtered all that opposition in moments, they would struggle to make any dent against those ranged against them in here.

  He can already feel the rites accelerating. Dragan has little sympathy with the nature of the warp, but he does not need to – a child could detect what is happening. The chapel’s ceiling is already translucent, bowing under enormous pressures from above. He can see frail shapes on the far side – enormous figures, coiled like foetuses, struggling hard against shackles imposed by the damaged physical universe. There are three of them, gigantic beyond reason. One is lithe and disturbing, a pale shade with barbed hands and a crown-of-thorns head. Another is bullish and blood-red, already roaring. The third is bird-like, spindly and scrawny but reeking of sour magicks. They are so close, tearing at the thin wards that keep them from bursting into physicality. In their wake he detects legions, cohorts, ranks of the Neverborn on the cusp of spilling down from that incipient rift, scrabbling with cold fingers to make the leap into reality.

  Such desecrations are easier now. This is what they are learning, what the priests of sacrifice already know. He cannot understand why Vorx was so trusting.

  ‘Desist!’ Dragan roars, preparing to vault down from the balcony, to make at least a gesture of defiance.

  At the far end of the nave, the master of ceremonies turns to face him. He has taken himself up into the great Imperial pulpit and stands beneath the shadow of a desecrated aquila. Dragan recognises Mor Jalchek’s vaned armour from the Ayamandar, the tides of black flame that hiss across his ceramite plates, the crozius that he now bears openly and unchained. The Apostle is surrounded by his retinue, a motley collection of the warp-sick and the void-touched.

  The air is singing. It tastes of blood already, and there is more to be spilled. Rage is futile here, for the preparations have already been made. There is a crackle of ozone, a leap of green-edged lightning, and a gust like stormwind races down the long, tall nave. Before Dragan can move, he feels the ice-chill of a warp translation – a teleport, or some other location-shift sorcery, wrapped in a smoky cloak of foul, fly-blown detritus.

  Vorx shudders into being at the opposite end of the nave, far from both the pulpit and Dragan’s vantage, his outline clattering with broken hoarforst, his scythe glassily caked in it. As the ether winds gust he looks briefly magnificent, unveiled into hidden splendour with bone-pale armour and an erect, warlord-like bearing, before the clouds thicken about him again, his spine curves and his battleplate curdles, and he is just Vorx once more, the siegemaster, relic of the ancient world thrust like a canker into the agonised present.

  Mor Jalchek deigns to acknowledge him. ‘In time to witness the taking of this world from you!’ he shouts, his hard voice ringing down the long vaults. ‘You should never have shown us the way here.’

  Vorx stands there, isolated, the last fronds of his sorcerous passage still spitting around him. He does not respond to Mor Jalchek, but shoots a final glance, meaningfully, at Dragan.

  ‘Do nothing,’ he voxes, a dry whisper among the cacophony of massed chants and cries.

  The Apostle raises his crozius, which crackles and shudders with black flame gusts. The air is ripe now, ready to catch, spitting like boiling oil. Naum’s cries are still audible, getting closer, but Dragan follows the order, remaining where he is.

  Mor Jalchek throws his arm down again, sweeping it like a dagger-strike, and every priest on the floor of the chapel plunges their knife into the heart of a captive. Then they work their way through the crowds, going quickly, expertly slaughtering in their practised, efficient ranks. The flames in the braziers leap, the air flexes, a hundred blades flash, again and again, the crescendo of sacrifice that will rip the last shreds of the veil aside and unleash the daemonic apocalypse.

  Dragan looks up to the translucent vaults. He braces himself for their collapse, for the rush of the Neverborn and the hurricane of murder. Every Word Bearer in turn lifts his blade, saluting the eldritch army they have ushered into being. Mor Jalchek cries out in ecstasy, a shout of triumph that echoes from chancel to chancel.

  And nothing happens.

  The priests keep stabbing, but the bodies do not fall. No blood splatters on the marble, just a thin black dribble where the steel is withdrawn. The citizens sway a little, wince a little, but then the blank looks return. The priests grow panicked and hack away, but nothing changes, nothing is sacrificed.

  ‘They are already dead, Mor Jalchek,’ says Vorx dryly, the cloud of flies growing around him, multiplying exponentially. ‘Stab as much as you like – we got to them first.’

  Mor Jalchek is slowly realising the truth. He calls out to his warriors, and they lower bolters at the crowds. The priests, seeing what is happening, scramble to get out of the way.

  ‘There will be no rituals here,’ Vorx says calmly, striding down from his teleport locus and swinging his scythe in lazy arcs. ‘No daemons, no magicks, no gifts from the gods. We have claimed this world, and our plagues now encompass all of it.’

  The Word Bearers open fire, sending volleys of mass-reactives into the crowd. The mortals go down in clumps, blown apart and hurled into one another, but still no blood is spilled, and still no souls are released. These are just meat-sacks, flesh puppets and revenants, the product of Slert’s piped poisons, and no god will dignify the culling of such spoiled goods.

  Dragan finds himself laughing as he watches. He looks out at the terror on the faces of the priests and laughs harder. Vorx is striding into the heart of it now, swinging his scythe in those crushing parabolas, taking on the Word Bearers who are belatedly turning to face him. Above it all, the vaults begin to solidify, darkening back into stone and iron. The whirling lights fade as an angry howl of frustration shimmers across the gulfs.

  And now the flesh puppets are rising up too. They are limping towards their tormentors, reaching out to grab at the necks of the robed cultists and drag them into the quagmire. The Word Bearers wade into the midst of them, firing solidly, but even they begin to get bogged down, snagged into a thickening slush of clutching fingers.

  Naum finally emerges then, smashing his way through the wall behind Dragan and lurching wildly into the fray. More Unbroken pour through the gap, locking on to the fighters of the Weeping Veil, firing with steady precision. Teleport loci begin to whirl into life on the fringes of the chapel, all of them pale green and tainted with blowflies. Garstag strides out of a mist of smashed crystal, his armour seething from the transition and his toothed chainsword snarling.

  This is carnage now. This is sudden, glorious carnage.

  Dragan leaps from the balcony, crunching down to ground level, and races at the beleaguered Word Bearers. They are suddenly easy prey, hampered by the bodies lurching into them, stricken with uncertainty. Dragan lashes out, catching one at the neck with his talons. The warrior swings round, shaking him off and aiming his bolter, but Dragan is already at him again, cracking the weapon away and going
for the throat. The blades bite deep, severing the helm and wrenching it off. Then he is moving further in, striking out, hunting the next target.

  The numbers have turned. The crowds are almost inexhaustible, a half-living wave of insentient meat that clutches and throttles. More Unbroken arrive, and Dragan begins to realise that they were not all summoned by him – this has been planned, timed, measured for maximum impact. There is calculation here. There is numerology.

  He fights his way out into the centre of the nave, beginning to feel the sharp kick of battle-lust again, the first time he has enjoyed it for a very long time. Soon he is with Vorx and the two of them charge the enemy, scythe and talons in concert.

  ‘Most trusted servant,’ says Vorx dryly, slicing across a retreating Apostle with that terrible blade.

  ‘Siegemaster,’ Dragan replies, falling in alongside, joining in the killing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  That is not quite the end. It is a defeat, one that forces a hurried withdrawal, but it is not quite the end.

  The Apostles of the Weeping Veil remain cohesive, and they remain powerful. They are driven from the chapel by force of numbers and the sudden switch of momentum, but Mor Jalchek does not die in the rout. He leads them out into the shattered remains of the fortress, and there they rally.

  For a while after that, the outcome remains uncertain. Remnants of the White Consuls make a final counter-offensive, led by their Captain Memnon, which retakes one of the main bastion towers. The Death Guard, having committed heavily to contain the threat at the chapel, are beaten back across three other sectors by vengeful squads of Word Bearers. Amid the smoke and the debris, orders are lost, mistakes are made. The attrition rate begins to bite, and gunships come down in gouts of burning promethium.

  But the time of decision has been passed, and now fate runs in one direction only. Slert’s toxins have filtered through every part of the under-fortress, and more of the living dead emerge, steadily adding to the hosts that now march with the Lords of Silence. The threat of the Neverborn recedes, the barrier between worlds does not weaken further, and soon the only daemons stalking down those flame-raked streets are plaguebearers and Little Lords, spreading their blights gleefully like pheromones.

  With his great objective denied him, there is only so much of this pain that Mor Jalchek is willing to tolerate for Sabatine. After a savage feint in which an entire segment of the inner citadel is demolished by timed incendiaries, his orbital landers finally fight their way down. This is a dangerous manoeuvre, and a number of the drop-ships are lost before they can pull away again, but a substantial proportion of the Weeping Veil makes it into orbit, pursued by the Death Guard’s surviving Thunder­hawks. With their numbers thinned and their pride crushed, there is no reckoning to be had in the void, and the Ayamandar beats for the Mandeville Point. Vorx lets it go, for there is still hard fighting on the surface, though he permits Hovik to shadow for a while, keeping all guns trained on the cruiser until it retreats fully into the void.

  Then there is merely the slow death of the fortress to be attended to. The last of its defenders are hunted, run down in their final bastions, overwhelmed at last by the air that chokes and the flies that blind. The baseline humans by then are either truly dead or corrupted by the gathering smog, and it is only the Space Marines who remain, incapable of despair even as their world finally comes crashing in on them and all hope is snuffed out.

  There is no wanton cruelty. Vorx is true to his word – those who are not killed in the fighting are given an honourable death. Countless numbers of humans are inducted into the half-life of thralldom, their wills extinguished and their souls crushed, but the Lords of Silence do not see that fate as something to mourn – for them, it is an improvement on what went before.

  And so Vigilia Carceris is taken, its foundations scoured and its archives burned. Little Lords dance across the proud parapets, defecating on the symbols of the immortal Imperium, while the waves crash futilely below, starved of their energy by the unnatural humidity.

  It will be recorded in later years that this was the first great loss of an Adeptus Astartes home world in the aftermath of the Cicatrix Maledictum. Scholars on Terra will make note of Sabatine’s destruction, and fear that it presages the start of an unstoppable tide. Events will be set in motion as a result, decisions made, desperate pacts sealed.

  At the time, though, whether on Terra or within the Imperium Nihilus, none of this is guessed at. All that is known is that a battle has been won and the god of decay has been well served.

  The last of the flags come down. The guns fall silent.

  Hunched monsters with pale green eyes emerge into an uncertain haze, their movements slowing again, their helms venting breathily.

  Over the burning metal and the rotting flesh, a pall descends. Slowly, uncertainly, as if all such mundane things are now to be questioned in this universe of changes, it begins to rain.

  He stumbles through the ruins, breathing heavily. The pain in his chest seems to have gone now – he barely remembers he had it.

  He does not see well. Everything is grey, like rancid milk. Other bodies, rough around the edges like his, are like ghosts. Occasionally one will blunder up to him, and they will stare at one another, trying to recall something important. Then the other one will lose interest and shuffle back into the mists.

  He has killed many people. He knows this because their blood is still hot on his hands. He licks this blood from time to time, and for a while afterwards he feels more… defined. It is not necessarily a pleasant sensation, for the pain comes back quickly too, and his eyes are sore. It feels better to sink back into that vague sense of not-quite-there, the blurring of awareness and the softening embrace of dreams.

  He is conscious of a narrowing. It is like the world is closing in around him, both fading and becoming heavier. He is permanently cold now, and things are drying up. He does not sweat, and his mouth is parched.

  He limps past the sharp edge of a bombed-out building. One half of an eagle motif, double-headed, lies in the ruins. He stares at it for a while, wondering why it is making him feel terrible. He doubts that he could be properly sick now even if he wanted to, but the feeling of nausea is still possible, so he hurries on.

  Eventually he is on the edge of the city. He can smell salt, and he feels a chill wind against his face. He shivers, wondering if he should go back the way he came. The walls are little more than piles of broken stone. He could just keep on walking, and the cliff edge will come. For some reason, he knows how steep those cliffs are, and how far he would fall.

  The rain is freezing, and what remains of his clothing sticks to his body. He staggers, he slips. Before long the walls are behind him and the rocks are becoming slippery with foam. He can hear the crash of surf, and he sees clouds racing.

  It will not take long. He will hardly feel it.

  But then there is a shape in the mist, a pillar of stone that slides out of the fog.

  ‘Captain Dantine,’ says the pillar.

  He concentrates, hard. The pillar becomes larger and more defined, swelling into the colossal shape of a monster. It moves, and he sees arms and legs. There are fat little horrors that squat all over it, and books hanging from chains about its neck. A ragged cowl is sodden in the downpour.

  ‘Captain Dantine,’ the monster says again. ‘Stay where you are.’

  The thing comes closer. He does as he is told, of course. He waits, panting softly, the rainwater coursing over what remains of his body.

  From somewhere, he pulls out a name. Philemon. The corpse-counter. The monster looks in bad shape – wounded, perhaps, or merely bedraggled. Amid all the flotsam and junk that festoons his body, there are bags hanging at his belt, and some are damp with something thicker than water.

  ‘You were hard to find,’ says Philemon irritably. ‘I thought we might have lost you already. By the god, look at
you.’

  He can barely understand the words. Everything is grey. His only motivation, to the extent that he still has one, is to keep walking, and maybe find that drop into oblivion.

  Philemon reaches for his belt and pulls out a pouch, one that looks vaguely familiar.

  ‘Vorx is not wholly pleased with me,’ he says. ‘I should have trusted him a little more, he thinks. Not taken so much initiative. And so I have a number of penances to perform. And one of them, it seems, is you.’

  The monster comes closer, and he can feel rotten breath on his face. That stirs a memory. He reaches up to his chest, and a faint throb can be detected there again.

  ‘Vorx is grateful to you,’ Philemon says. ‘Vorx thinks it would be a waste to let you go. He wants to find a way to keep you.’

  He looks at the bag. Dimly, he is horrified by it.

  ‘I don’t know what we’ll do exactly, given how far you’ve dropped, but something might be worked out,’ Philemon says. ‘There are ways and there are means, restorative magicks. Come with me, now.’

  He hesitates. He could keep going, head into that grey obliteration. It would be the end of all of it. His fingers are shaking. It is so, so cold.

  He looks up at the monster. It is waiting for him. Then, inevitably, his head drops. He nods. He begins to turn back towards the ruined city.

  The monster falls in alongside him.

  ‘Don’t look so miserable,’ it says. ‘You’ve been chosen, for some reason. Vorx will find a way for you to serve.’