Valdor: Birth of the Imperium Read online

  The perimeter cities were conquered relatively quickly, for the taint of the Priest-King was lightest there, and the heartlands of the confederacy had always been inland, up in the high peaks where the skies flew with shards of wind-blown ice. We secured a beachhead on the south-western lowlands and flew in heavy landers to anchor our supply routes north. We were operating far from home, but had our familiar advantages – technology, confidence, energy. After only a month, we were planning our incursions further in.

  As I have said, the terrain was always against us. The unenhanced warriors suffered high rates of attrition, something that was hard to minimise. As we advanced north, many of them lost their minds. There were voices in the wind, and the cold was crushing. Those who died would be encountered again, ghosts in the gales, and it preyed on the nerves of our line troopers. We would not have been able to continue, had we only been able to draw on their services. This was not unforeseen, and underscored the necessity of the genecrafted detachments. I tell you this truly, for some are already beginning to doubt it – Terra could not have been conquered without them. We had fallen too far, and let too many monsters loose. They were the weapons that allowed us to advance into that ice-locked night.

  So it was a hard contest, even if, with the Emperor with us, the outcome was never truly in doubt. Every citadel was contested, every offensive was met by a counter-offensive. They knew the conditions, they knew the pattern of the landscape, they had nowhere to withdraw to. More than seven thousand of our genecrafted shock troops died in the final assault. If you had seen how the Thunder Warriors fought, how committed they were and how unrestrained in slaughter, you would appreciate the nature of what we faced there.

  Some of the weaknesses we displayed in Nordyc have now been addressed. All the armour we use now is of ceramic and metallurgical alloys, rather than the steel plate and hardened leather some of us wore back then. Our blades are equipped with energy fields, and the boltgun has replaced the old carbines and lasrifles. At Maulland Sen, in those days, the levels of technology were roughly comparable. What set us apart was our belief. The Priest-King had been hollowed out – his rantings were transparent even to those whom he had led into damnation – but we were led by Him. That, in the end, was always the difference, wherever we fought.

  [But what was it like?]

  Your pardon?

  [What did it feel like, to be there?]

  I am uncertain how to answer. I will do my best.

  There was a… sickness. We could all taste it. I have encountered similar sensations since, when fighting other enemies of allied origin, but then it was new to me. It generated little but disgust in me and my brothers. For the Thunder Warriors under Ushotan, it seemed to have a different effect. They thrived on it, at least for a time. They had, I surmised, the capacity to magnify whatever foulness they faced. That ferocity was useful, but it had its weaknesses. The walls around the final stronghold had been constructed in the mountains. The fortifications were set high and were well defended, and they had prepared for us over many years. I remember looking at it on the final night before the order was given to destroy it. It was lit from behind by a greenish light, and its black walls gleamed. There was an art to its construction, but a twisted one. Every angle of its immense defences seemed to embody pain, in one form or another. Set alongside the physical challenges, there was also the presence of other obstacles. Ghosts dogged us.

  [You mean that figuratively, I presume?]

  No. I use what seems to me the proper term.

  It might have been wiser to slow the pace of the assault, to limit our eventual casualties, but by then the Cataegis were caught in a cycle of aggression. Death meant nothing to them. For a time, it seemed that orders meant nothing to them, either – they were elemental in their violence.

  So I remember that city, lost in the dark and the ice at the edge of the world. The snow was piled up around it in drifts ten metres deep. Its high battlements were lined with flame weapons. When we assaulted, and brought up our own heavy guns, we created a flood of meltwater. We were advancing through torrents of it, a grey sea of filth that found its way inside our armour-seals. The tanks stalled, and the electrical relays burst. We were reduced to infantry engagements faster than anticipated, and still the walls were intact.

  Ushotan made the first breakthrough. There was more slaughter than I would have countenanced, once he was inside. Not all the Priest-King’s people were corrupted – some were slaves, and others might still have been salvaged for productive employment within the Imperium. In that, though, the Thunder Warriors demonstrated their greatest weakness. They were like the munitions we used back then – powerful, but unstable. Once loosed, they were hard to control. They broke through the inner chambers like a tide, slaughtering all they encountered. They demonstrated then the sheer power of the genecrafted soldier. If we had wished for an indication of their prowess, we could not have had a clearer one. And yet, so many had died, on both sides. It felt… wanton.

  I spoke to Ushotan after the citadel had finally been taken, its roofs broken and its walls pounded into rubble. It was by then far into the following night – an entire diurnal cycle had passed in fighting, and we had barely looked up to notice it. I remember how his armour was, covered in already-freezing blood. His helm was gone, and his arm was broken. A fresh storm had descended, and the battlefields were buffeted with new snow, covering up the tracks of grey slush we had exposed.

  He was laughing, when we met. He had a vivid light in his eyes. I thought he looked like the ghost of all murders.

  [What did he say?]

  He told me that he understood, for the first time, the reason he had been made. He told me that I would never feel the same way, and that he pitied me for that.

  [Did you respond?]

  I was troubled, as I recall. Not by the comment, nor the implied insult, but by the sentiment expressed. I felt as if we had unleashed something that would be hard to keep within bounds.

  [Where did this feeling lead you?]

  [Where did this feeling lead you, captain-general?]

  -- Transcript ends --

  Six

  ‘You did insult him,’ said Armina.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘But he cut things off, just then.’

  Kandawire sighed. ‘We were out of time. My fault. I shouldn’t have arrived so late.’

  The two of them walked briskly down the lumen-lit corridor, hurrying from the inner Council chambers towards the reception suites. Guards stood passively at the intersections, trying to look alert as a High Lord passed by. It was late, though, and the shifts were soon to switch over. The entire complex seemed semi-dormant, as if caught in half-slumber and now wondering how long it would be until dawn.

  ‘He’s given me another audience,’ Kandawire said, as they turned into the long passageway leading down towards the inner gates.

  ‘I thought you could demand as many as you liked?’

  ‘I’ve never demanded anything,’ Kandawire said. ‘Now that I’ve met him properly, it seems even more ludicrous than ever. I sense he wants to talk. Imagine that. I thought it would be like drawing blood from a stone.’

  Armina hesitated, and they both came to a brief halt. ‘I’ll say it again. I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish with this, even if you have as many hours as you need. We are already committed. We have been committed for months.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Kandawire. ‘We can still pull back, if we need to. I want to hear it, first, from his lips.’ She smiled. ‘It’s procedure. Still a stickler for it.’

  ‘When it suits you,’ Armina said, under her breath, as they started to stride out again.

  ‘I thought, somehow, he’d be… prouder. He talks like a man without pride. Imagine that, after all he’s done.’

  They reached an anteroom with two mail-clad guardians posted at the doors
beyond. Kandawire gestured, and they pulled them open, revealing a plush room of fine fabrics and soft lumen-glare. A pair of long couches flanked a polished table, on which rested a half-drunk cup of recaff and a crumb-topped napkin. The man sitting on the left-hand couch looked the wrong size for his robes.

  ‘Ophar,’ said Kandawire, rushing up to him and taking him by both hands. ‘Back safe. When you’re away, I–’

  The man smiled, nodding. ‘Ai, kondedwa. Worry less. It was worth the trip.’

  Armina sat primly in the background, and the guards shut them in again. Kandawire sat opposite Ophar, hitching her long skirts and shuffling forward. ‘Tell me everything.’

  He reached for the data-slate and handed it to her. ‘All in here. Read it, if you wish to become sleepy. In case you don’t wish to, here are the two things you need to know.’

  Armina quietly reached up to her collar and activated a clandestine sweeper-baffle. Having listening devices in the Council chambers of the High Lords was unlikely, but not impossible; in its short life, the civilian administration of the Imperium had become almost as paranoid as the military. The only sign of her action was a slight tingle in the filtered atmosphere.

  ‘First,’ said Ophar, ‘the observation of the Tower and Inner Walls. You were right. The Custodians are withdrawing from the main patrol routes, and concentrating on the Senatorum complex. I could not follow many of them, but they appear to be going somewhere underground. Literally, underground. I suspect there are chambers down there that none of us has access to. Quite why they need to gather there is mysterious. But, here’s the thing – whatever the truth of that, it’s clear to me that there are very few of them here. Tiny numbers, far fewer than I expected. Of course, we can’t be sure. But I suspect, High Lord. I suspect that so many are fighting elsewhere, that the ones here are stretched to breaking. Perhaps that’s why he’s come back now? There will never be a better time, but it can’t last.’

  Kandawire nodded. ‘Understood, though it would be folly to underestimate them. That creates a vacuum, which must be getting filled. What’s doing that?’

  ‘The Seneschals of the Departmento Regia Interior, as you’d expect. I’ve seen others drafted in south of the Senatorum. One new regiment – the Castellan Exemplars. Heard of them?’

  ‘Never. The second thing?’

  Ophar leaned forward, jabbing a long finger at the data-slate in Kandawire’s hands. ‘Small-arms, advanced type. Boltguns, personnel grenades, a lot of incendiaries. I can make little sense of the batch markings, but the quantities are there to see. Nothing like these is manufactured here. I have no idea at all where one could get hold of such things. All highly illegal, but it’s been waved through. The crates are somewhere in the Palace now. That’s your second problem.’

  ‘As you predicted.’ Kandawire sat back, and scanned through the data-slate’s figures. ‘And right on time.’

  Armina looked at Ophar warily. ‘Were you detected?’

  Ophar shrugged. ‘Who knows? It’s said that they see every scrap of shadow under the sun. But I don’t think so.’ He turned to Kandawire. ‘I do not think that you need any more reasons.’

  Kandawire smiled wryly. ‘Oh, I could do with many more. And more time.’

  ‘They are already moving. This thing has started. If I were you, then–’

  ‘You are not me, Ophar, and that is certainly for the best. I have another appointment with him.’

  ‘I already voiced my concern about that,’ interjected Armina.

  ‘He wishes to keep you talking now,’ said Ophar. ‘Just more delays. He’s no fool, and will not mistake you for one either.’

  ‘I never thought he was,’ said Kandawire. ‘But I have my own reasons for wanting this. So little is known, even now, about where this all came from. It should come from his lips, if poss­ible, and it is all being recorded.’ She put the data-slate down and clasped her hands together. ‘Evidence. A case. That is how it must be done.’

  ‘Dangerous,’ said Armina.

  ‘He’s a killer,’ said Ophar. ‘They say he can kill with a glance.’

  Kandawire snorted. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘You are hesitating, kondedwa. If I had done so, back then, we would never have made it out of Afrik. Remember that lesson.’

  Kandawire shot him an irritated glance, and for a moment, she was that little girl again, too spoiled to be fearful, irritated at leaving her vids behind as the world burned. Then the expression melted away, revealing older, harder features. ‘I have enough to give the signal. But they can be called back, any time.’

  ‘Any time,’ said Armina.

  ‘Any time,’ said Ophar.

  The chamber fell silent. From somewhere, everywhere, the low hum of machinery filtered through the thick walls. They never rested, those machines, building, building, building.

  Kandawire looked up at the whitewashed ceiling. Even here, right at the heart of the most powerful empire the world had ever known, the cracks were already visible. It was all happening too fast, and things were not setting right.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, softly. ‘Tell them to begin.’

  Liora Harrad had been in the Dungeon for six hours, and the extended shift was getting to her.

  She lifted her hand, encased in a translucent layer of antibacterial synthskin, and observed the minor tremble there. She was hungry. She was tired. Still, she could hardly leave her post yet, not without authorisation from Ilaed.

  She let her hand fall again, and glanced from side to side, down the rows of technicians at their cell-like stations – four thousand, in both directions. Not for the first time, she wondered what she was doing there among them.

  It was not a real dungeon. They all called it that, however, for the old tropes were present and correct – stone walls blotched with algae and damp; heavy archways sunk in darkness; thick flags on the floors, all uneven, many cracked. Liora had no idea when the place had been built, but it was clearly a very long time ago.

  It was a long way down. It took her over an hour to travel by turbo-lift from the upper reaches of the secure workers’ compound, through the many levels of increasing darkness and secrecy, before finally the mouldering heart of the Dungeon welcomed her for another day of toil.

  The daily journey was like travelling in time. You started at the top, where the gleaming walls were being raised in defiance of the climate and altitude, all gold and alabaster to catch the blaze of the unveiled sun. Then you were descending fast through the pre-Imperial zones, piled atop one another in blocks of cracking rockcrete, and the light began to fade, giving way to rows of industrial lumen-banks. A little further, and then you were truly underground, sliding along transit shafts on chain transports and glimpsing the flicker of under-hab levels in the dark. There were many things tantalisingly beyond view – the foundations of the mighty reactors that kept the growing city supplied with power, the water processors, the waste caverns with their endlessly rotating purifier turntables. Tunnel entrances opened, gaping invitingly, but with no signage or proper illumination it was impossible to know where they led.

  Down, down, down. The enclosed atmosphere warmed up, and travellers in the conveyer cages shed their cold-weather gear. There were security stops, a dozen of them. The initial checkpoints were manned by Seneschals of the Departmento Regia Interior. The guards became more fearsome the further you went, until, right at the bottom, they were the gold-plumed mortal servants of the Tower itself. Now and again, the process would even be supervised by one of the Custodian Guard themselves, towering silently over the queues of technician-caste workers seeking entrance to the Dungeon precincts.

  They scared Liora. They scared everyone. That was their function, of course – to loom in the shadows, saying nothing, doing nothing, just watching. On the rare occasions they moved, their armour whispered with a spectre-hum of perfectly aligned machinery. They smelled fai
ntly of ritual incense. In this hyper-rational Imperium, they were throwbacks to a mystical past, possessed of such raw physical prowess that it daunted the soul just to contemplate it.

  And then, beyond the last sentinel station, was the Dungeon. Its size was similarly daunting – an entire city buried in the roots of the mountains, lightless save for its constellations of floating suspensor lumens, themselves poised over deeper shafts that carried on down, seemingly towards the heart of the planet itself. Some of the chambers were of standard human dimensions, others were truly cyclopean. All were humid, cloying and scored hard with age. Breathing that heavy air felt like ingesting the dust of innumerable generations, locked away down here while the world above burned with unleashed atomics, hibernating in safety, planning, building, waiting for the moment to emerge again.

  Liora sighed. She rolled her shoulders. The station in front of her looked much as it always did – racks of dishes and vials, glowing softly from the photosensitive chems in the solutions. A micro-cogitator chattered away, producing a narrow ream of marked archive-parchment. Her analyser lenses tilted in from the right-hand side, the injectors and the centrifuges from the left. Comm-tubes snaked around her, each loaded with vacuum canisters ready for despatch to the laboratorium collator hoppers. Mecha-arms twitched overhead, hung from the rails that ran the length of the echoing hall, ready to scoop up burdens and clatter them down the long trails towards the incubators.

  All around her, technicians were working. Their backs were curved, their hands busy, their faces hidden behind refractive clusters of zoom-lenses. Transistor-beads hummed with static electricity. Every so often, snatches of it would skip and flicker down the long aisles, briefly illuminating the coal-black vaults above. The space stank of ammonia, and vents of steam curled from wheezing atmospheric scrapers.