The Ebonite Archymsts 9 страница

Kaesoron stepped back, contrite but also appearing energised by the threat of death.

Perturabo put Kaesoron from his mind and scanned the high reaches of the amphitheatre, his eyes coming to rest on the spot from where the assassin’s shot had been fired. A good position, with commanding views of all the major entrances to the amphitheatre. Plenty of shadows from which to shoot, and a convenient escape route at the rear. Whoever had taken the shot could not have wished for a better sniper’s perch.

Perturabo found that he hated the Thaliakron now. Its grandeur was sullied and its function perverted. Once again, a wonder he had created as a thing of beauty had been tarnished by those he had once loved.

Could nothing he raised up in glory be allowed even a moment to shine?

Perturabo turned as a Land Raider in the purple and gold of the Emperor’s Children drove into the Thaliakron through the main gates, its bulk dominating the stage and crushing the flagstones beneath its heavy tracks. Its guns were ornamented in filigree and carved scrollwork had been embellished with garish smears of blood and other bodily fluids. A row of Legion helmets hung from butchers’ hooks suspended on iron chains from the upper track guards: Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard for the most part, but Perturabo recognised a World Eaters helm and a Death Guard rebreather amongst the battlefield plunder. If Fulgrim possessed an Iron Warriors helm, he at least had the sense not to display such a trophy.

The Iron Circle disengaged from their defensive posture, straightening their legs and returning their shields to the locked position at their sides. Fulgrim stood proud in the centre of the battle-constructs, reborn from the ashes of his death. His features were still bloody, but where before Perturabo had seen the face of a martyr, now it was that of the resurrected.

‘Brother,’ said Fulgrim, coming forwards to embrace him again. ‘A miracle.’

Perturabo shook his head and said, ‘You live.’

Fulgrim lifted his hand to show Perturabo a long sliver of bloodstained steel, finely tapered and bent around its middle where its tip had flattened.

‘Barely,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Fabius had a devil’s job fishing that out. The angle of impact was just obtuse enough for it to deflect rather than penetrate. It travelled over the crown of my head and lodged on the opposite side.’

Fulgrim swept his bone-white hair back to show the raw incision Fabius had made in his opposite temple in order to remove the needle. A vivid purple line traced the route the projectile had taken, an arcing path of graceful curves and whorls that linked the two wounds and which had a pleasing symmetry to it.

‘Just as well you have a thick skull,’ said Perturabo.

Fulgrim laughed and said, ‘You have the truth of it, brother.’

Safely ensconced in the underground sanctuary of the Cavea Ferrum, Perturabo poured two tankards of heavily spiced wine and passed one to Fulgrim, who made a grand show of testing its vintage and aroma before sipping like an ingénue at her first performance. A convoy of Land Raiders had brought them from the chaos at the Thaliakron to the heart of the circumvallation at speed, as whooping bands of Fulgrim’s lunatic devotees spread the word of his miraculous survival.

‘You tell a grand tale,’ said Perturabo, draining his tankard and refilling it. ‘How much of it was true?’

Fulgrim grinned and shrugged. ‘Who knows? All of it, none of it. It does not matter how much is true and what is the sedimentary accretion of tale-tellers through the ages.’

‘If you’re looking for my Legion to join yours, then it damn well matters to me.’

‘You misunderstand, brother,’ said Fulgrim, idly scratching at the twinned wounds at his temples. ‘Gods and wars, ancient prisons… it is all mythic window-dressing. Yes, I may have… embellished some elements of the legend for dramatic effect, but the eldar bardic tradition is so dry it must be enlivened with a healthy dose of sturm und drang. ’

‘So what is the truth of the legend?’ asked Perturabo, circling the plotting table piled high with his hundreds of architectural plans, knowing he would destroy them all when Fulgrim was gone. ‘Is there any at all?’

‘There is indeed,’ said Fulgrim, beckoning Karuchi Vohra to his side.

Perturabo halted in his circling, and fixed the eldar with his cold gaze.

‘So tell me, Vohra,’ he said. ‘What is the truth? And spare me my brother’s embellishments.’

‘The truth is that these weapons are real.’

‘You infer a lot from legends.’

Fulgrim put his hand on Perturabo’s shoulder. ‘Whether there ever was a creature known as the Angel Exterminatus means nothing at all. In all likelihood it is simply a constructed fantasy invented to conceal the darker truth of these weapons’ very existence,’ said Fulgrim.

‘Why would the eldar bother inventing such a fantasy?’

‘A terrible daemon god is a convenient way to excuse the creation of such dreadful things,’ answered Fulgrim. ‘Better for history to believe in its existence than the unpalatable truth that their so-called advanced species was capable of such destructive invention.’

‘I still don’t understand how you can say that their existence is fact,’ said Perturabo.

‘Because Karuchi Vohra has seen them,’ said Fulgrim.

Perturabo turned to face the amber-eyed eldar.

‘You have seen them?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ confirmed Vohra with a curt nod. ‘I have walked the spectral halls of the ancient citadel at the heart of what you know as the star maelstrom. A place called Amon ny-shak Kaelis. ’

‘The city of unending night,’ translated Perturabo. ‘Sounds inviting.’

Vohra ignored his sarcasm and said, ‘I saw its great vaults and the wards placed around the weapons. It is a fastness of such strength that only the greatest siege-master could defeat its defences in order to seize the weapons.’

Perturabo ignored the blatant flattery and turned to Fulgrim. ‘Now I see why you want my Legion, brother. You need my warriors to break this eldar fortress open.’

‘True,’ admitted Fulgrim. ‘But that is not the only reason I come to you. This is your destiny, brother. Every path of your life has been leading you here. Why else would you alone have been plagued by visions of the star maelstrom since your earliest days?’

‘How do you know of that?’ asked Perturabo, suddenly wary and angry. ‘I told only Ferrus Manus, and he mocked my question.’

‘You forget, brother, I killed Ferrus,’ whispered Fulgrim with a conspiratorial grin that made Perturabo complicit in the act. ‘And there is no bond more intimate than murder. The Emperor saw to it that we primarchs are bound by ties of blood, Perturabo, blood and so much more. When Ferrus died, I drank down his thoughts and dreams – bitter and bland as they were – and learned something of his memory.’

Fulgrim tapped the pommel of his sword and said, ‘To be frank, I did him a favour by cutting off his head. He was such a mono-directional fool, so shut off to all the myriad sensations life has to offer. His was a wasted life, one that did not appreciate that gift for the boon it truly was.’

‘I suspect he might have seen things differently.’

‘Perhaps,’ laughed Fulgrim. ‘But that is the past, and I waste no time there. Only the future concerns me, and our future lies together. This is where you are meant to go, to help me in obtaining these weapons for the Warmaster. Help erase the memory of Phall by seizing this opportunity to remind Horus of the Fourth Legion’s power. This is your moment to claim the glory you have always been denied!’

‘You’re forgetting these weapons are still in the heart of a warp storm.’

‘Karuchi Vohra can guide us.’

‘How did you traverse the storm?’ asked Perturabo, rounding on Vohra. ‘You’re no Navigator.’

The eldar nodded and said, ‘I have travelled the Paths Above, my lord.’

‘The Paths Above?’

‘A secret and stable route that leads right to the heart of the star maelstrom, known only to a handful of my people. It is one of our most closely guarded secrets, and I offer it to you freely, my lords.’

Perturabo was sceptical, yet the prospect of such weapons lying in wait for someone to give them purpose once again intrigued him. The siege guns the Lion had handed over at Diamat were powerful, yes, but they were powerful in a mortally obvious way. They could level walls, decimate cities, but devices capable of toppling a galactic empire…

‘I don’t believe a lot of what you’ve told me, Fulgrim, but if there’s even a hint of truth in this, then we should act on it.’

‘The Emperor clearly believes in its truth,’ said Fulgrim, reaching up to tap the scar on his forehead. ‘He sends assassins to prevent me from harnessing your aid. A fraction of a degree higher and I would be as dead as Ferrus. We have to act now. If we don’t, our enemies certainly will.’

Perturabo hated the feeling he was being railroaded by Fulgrim’s argument, but without instruction from the Warmaster, this would at least put his Legion to good use until such orders arrived.

‘Very well, he said. ‘If they exist then we need to take possession of them. They can end this war by the threat of their existence alone.’

Fulgrim looked disappointed at his lack of imagination, but Perturabo hadn’t finished.

‘Of course, we’ll need to use them for that threat to be taken seriously, though the Emperor will have no choice but to surrender when he sees such awesomely destructive power.’

‘Surrender?’ said Fulgrim, his voice a low, seductive purr. ‘Horus does not look for surrender. Leave an enemy alive behind you and he will only turn on you. No, once the weapons are in our hands, we must use them to utterly annihilate the Emperor’s armies.’

‘Then you will do this without me,’ said Perturabo.

‘What did you say?’ said Fulgrim, setting down his tankard.

‘I will only join my Legion to yours if I take complete control over the weapons,’ said Perturabo with unbending finality. ‘I shall be their keeper and I will choose where and when they are used. The threat of their power must end this war before it gets out of control.’

‘Out of control?’ laughed Fulgrim with a mocking lilt. ‘We have long since passed that point. Please, brother, what is the point of having such weapons if we shrink from using them? Like your grand amphitheatre, that once existed only as a dream on wax paper. Look how wondrous it is. You would build it just to leave it empty and bereft of function?’

‘It has served its purpose, so I could tear it down without regret.’

‘Truly?’ said Fulgrim. ‘All that effort to raise it, and you could tear it down without a moment’s sorrow? You would not leave its legacy for others to chance upon and wonder at the genius of its creator?’

Perturabo shrugged. ‘It was built for you, brother. Do what you want with it.’

‘I shall,’ snapped Fulgrim.

Pain. It always came back to pain.

Cassander’s eyes flickered behind their lids, gummed shut by blood and dust. His mouth was dry and his flesh was hot. He let out a soft sigh as he realised he was still alive. His genhanced biology was re-knitting his broken body, regrowing blood vessels, weaving dense organ tissue and extracting every last molecule of his bodily reserves to heal his wounds.

Taking slow breaths, he appraised the biological messages his damaged flesh was sending him. He remembered a grazing shot to the head, and the throbbing tightness at his right temple told him that he would have a vicious scar to remind him not to lose his helmet. His breathing was laboured, most likely a lung collapsed, and the sluggishness of his limbs could only be the result of his secondary heart taking up the burden of his blood’s circulation.

He was cold and lying prone, but beyond that he knew little else.

His armour was gone, though he felt the invasive penetration of biometric trunking slotted home in many of his body plugs.

Apothecarion?

No, his last memory was the twin bloom of fire from a bolter’s muzzle, followed an instant later by searing pain in his chest. He’d been shot before, but never with such anger. It seemed a ridiculous notion – what did it matter how you were shot? – but the venom he’d felt from the Iron Warrior as he pulled the trigger was palpable.

He’d hated Cassander, more than anything else in the galaxy.

The citadel had fallen, that much was obvious, and a corollary to that was that he was now a prisoner of the enemy. Cassander tried to sit up, but he couldn’t move. His wrists, ankles, waist, chest and neck were secured by heavy clamps of leather and steel. He grunted and pulled against them, feeling something tear within him as he strained to break his bonds.

Conserving his strength, Cassander forced his eyes open, twisting his head around to learn of his surroundings. A domed ceiling of black bricks curved above him, and a bare lumen globe swayed in a cold breeze blowing through a low arch to his right. Water glistened on the tiled walls and banks of strange machines lurked in the shadows, bearing gurgling, hissing dewars of green glass. Strange scraps of flesh floated within each one, unknown things that defied any easy classification of form.

He smelled blood and ordure, the stench of large animals and cold metal.

The slab on which he lay was part of an arrangement of eight identical mortuary slabs arranged in a circular pattern around an encrusted drainage grille at the centre of the chamber. Several of the slabs bore opened bodies, the leavings of what looked like failed experiments in hideous transplant surgery, and a device of bronze and flesh hung suspended from the dome’s cupola. Its structure was a horrific meld of several combat servitors and surgical apparatus, a collection of withered scalpel limbs, drill appendages and cabling that looped around like intestines.

‘You shouldn’t struggle,’ said a voice. ‘He’ll hear you…’

‘Who’s that?’ demanded Cassander. ‘Locris? Kastor? Is that you?’

‘I don’t know those names.’

As more of his senses returned to normal, Cassander realised that one of the other slabs was occupied by a living being. Though much of the speaker’s body was encased in a full-body splint cage, Cassander saw the voice belonged to a Legion warrior.

And not just any Legion.

‘Imperial Fists,’ said Cassander, seeing the tattoo on the man’s exposed shoulder.

Even within the immobilising cage of the splint, his fellow legionary flinched. ‘I was. I failed. I don’t deserve to bear the name.’

‘Who are you?’ demanded Cassander. ‘How did you come to this place? Where are we anyway?’

‘You ask too many questions,’ said the Imperial Fist. ‘I’m no one. I should be dead. You shouldn’t talk to me.’

‘I am Captain Felix Cassander,’ he said slowly. ‘Identify yourself, legionary.’

The immobilised warrior didn’t speak, and Cassander was about to repeat his order when he received his answer.

‘Navarra,’ he said. ‘Legionary of the 6th Company, weapon bearer to Captain Amandus Tyr of the Halcyon. En route to Isstvan III.’

‘Isstvan III? Then how are you here?’

Again a long pause before answering. ‘We never reached Isstvan. Ambushed. I was taken. On the Iron Blood. ’

‘An Iron Warriors ship?’ guessed Cassander.

‘Aye,’ said Navarra. ‘Captain Tyr led an assault onto Perturabo’s vessel. We were to kill the enemy primarch. We failed. Thirteen hundred warriors dead for nothing. We reached the bastard’s throne room. He killed Tyr with one blow. The rest of us didn’t last much longer.’

Anger and guilt gave Navarra strength, but it was fleeting and his tortured voice drifted into silence. Cassander looked closer, peering through the complicated lattice of steel pins and bone-drilled splints that covered his body. Navarra’s flesh was hideously scarred and Cassander saw his legs ended at mid-thigh. Numerous feed lines had been inserted into his arms and neck and the stumps of his legs, and whatever these were, it was clear they were not pain balms.

‘Are we aboard an Iron Warriors vessel?’

‘No,’ said Navarra. ‘Would that we were.’

‘What do you mean? Where are we?’

‘This is the lair of Apothecary Fabius,’ said Navarra, his voice dropping to a whisper.

‘Who is Fabius?’

‘Emperor’s Children,’ hissed Navarra, his eyes screwed shut and his entire body tensed.

‘Fulgrim’s warriors?’ said Cassander. He hadn’t expected that, but it made no difference which of the Traitor Legions held them. As Imperial Fists, it was their duty to try and escape and wreak as much harm on the enemy as possible.

‘How long have you been here? What do you know of the layout of this place?’

‘Nothing,’ said Navarra. ‘I should be dead.’

Anger flared in Cassander’s breast. ‘You have been grievously hurt, legionary, but you are not dead. You are an Imperial Fist, and you never stop fighting until they kill you. You disgrace the memory of your battle-brothers by giving up. We will find a way to fight back or we will die trying. Do you hear me?’

‘I hear you,’ said Navarra, and Cassander wondered what pain and tortures the Iron Warriors had inflicted upon him to so break his spirit. But hearts could be repaired, spirits mended and courage restored.

‘We are proud sons of Dorn, Navarra,’ said Cassander. ‘Our gene-father is the bulwark in our soul, the cold wind of Inwit that cools the reckless urges. We will either find a way to survive or we will make one.’

‘A noble sentiment,’ said a voice with the rasping dryness of a belly-crawling serpent. ‘But a misplaced one. There is no escape from my vivisectoria, Captain Cassander. Not alive anyway.’

The speaker slid into the room, silently and without apparent locomotion. Cassander hadn’t heard his approach, and a primal sense for loathsome things raised the hackles on the back of his neck at the sight of the flesh-cloaked surgeon who drew level with his chest.

The man was genhanced like him, but there the resemblance ended. Gaunt and hunched, his armour’s power unit clung to his back like a parasite, and clicking, wheezing armatures reached over his shoulders. Several of the organic-looking tubes had detached from the central apparatus and were busy suckling the bio-mechanical creation, retching gobbets of a foul-smelling black ichor into its veinous structure.

The man’s lips parted, as though enjoying the sensation.

‘I am Fabius,’ he said, stroking Cassander’s scarred chest. ‘And this is my chamber of wonders.’

‘Wonders? It is a place of abomination,’ hissed Cassander, struggling once again at his bonds. ‘You are a madman, and I will kill you.’

Fabius laughed, genuinely amused. ‘You would be surprised how often I hear that,’ he said. ‘But everyone who is transformed by my knives and nightmares soon learns to love the pain I give them. Pain leads to pleasure and pleasure can be such sweet suffering. I know you don’t understand that yet, but you will.’

The intestinal tubing released the bio-mechanical contraption on the Apothecary’s back as he moved to the edge of the chamber with soft footsteps. Cassander followed him as far as his restraints allowed, but lost sight of Fabius as he busied himself in the shadows with apparatus that clinked with the sound of metal on glass.

‘So kind of the Lord of Iron to present us with flesh tributes,’ said Fabius as a number of lumen orbs spontaneously ignited. ‘Gifts from a vassal to a master, you might say.’

Cassander now saw the full horror of the green glass dewars arranged around the room – a menagerie of body parts, harvested organs and preserved heads. Even in his horrified shock, the scale of these grim specimens told Cassander that they had come from the bodies of Space Marines. He saw markings denoting at least eleven Legions.

‘A hobby of mine,’ explained Fabius, relishing Cassander’s disgust. ‘I have viable tissue samples from all the Legions present on Isstvan V. Some given willingly, others… less so. But of all the samples I have in my collection, yours is the one I most anticipate unlocking. I imagine Dorn’s gene-seed is closest to the source.’

‘You would not dare tamper with the Emperor’s great work,’ said Cassander.

‘Dare?’ snapped Fabius. ‘I dare what even the Emperor fears to repeat. I have already learned much of His knowledge, and with every step I draw nearer to perfecting what He began in ignorance – the creation of the ultimate warrior.’

Cassander struggled against the bindings holding him fast to the slab, but there was no give in them.

‘Don’t waste your strength,’ chuckled Fabius, leaning over him as a host of blades unsheathed from his gauntlets with a loud snick. ‘You’ll need it for screaming.’

EIGHT

Departures Little had changed in Perturabo’s command chamber since the Imperial Fists had boarded the Iron Blood. Its rivet-stamped beams arched up to a cross-latticed vault hung with empty bird cages, and the thrum of powerful machinery echoed in the depths of the walls. Dusty banners and tattered maps of Old Earth were hung with strips of oath paper, recording victories no one beyond this room could name and of which no remembrancer had ever taken note. The door would never be closed again and the bloodstains on the wall had dried to a sticky brown. A broken console on one wall still spat sparks whenever current surged through the local circuits.

Only the fragmented corpses of the Imperial Fists had been removed, tossed from an airlock in the wake of the engagement at Phall like so much waste.

Perturabo’s throne of cold iron, crafted from the molten remains of his adopted father’s treasury, stood empty at the far end of the chamber beneath high lancet windows of latticed armourglass that looked out onto the ruddy sphere of Hydra Cordatus. Reflected light from the system’s sun bathed the chamber in a cold, sepulchral light, and glittering points moved against the starfields, exposing the lie that they were stars themselves.

A vast fleet of ships orbited at high anchor, the bulk of two Legions jostling for space, but Forrix paid the sight no mind. His entire attention was focused on Perturabo, who stood staring at the fleet as it prepared to break orbit.

The order to withdraw from the planet’s surface had come swiftly, and he had broken down the circumvallation works in a matter of hours. Bulk lifters and siege-train workhorses had hauled the shaped ironworks and prefabricated elements back to the Legion freight ships, leaving the once-fertile valley an irradiated wasteland of churned earth, bare rock and iron-rich dust. Specialised bulk-haulers had dismantled the Cavea Ferrum in darkness and transported its component parts back to the Iron Blood under a shroud of secrecy. Barban Falk had once again made his boast that he would return and build here, but Forrix ignored his ingratiating words.

Yet even as the last ship had climbed into orbit, Forrix had a powerful sense that perhaps Falk might not be the only one returning to this world. With the siege works removed, the fleet had assumed position ready to depart orbit, a graceful ballet of efficiency that cared not for which master it fought.

The primarch stood on a raised dais, upon which sat his bloodstained throne, with the Legion’s senior warsmiths arranged before him in precise ranks, nearly two hundred warriors of superlative skill and genius. There at the front was Toramino, still eager to impress despite his earlier humiliation. Several of his fellow Stor-bezashk warsmiths gathered around in a show of solidarity, and Forrix again felt the stirrings of some vague unease at the sight of Toramino’s white hair and cold eyes.

Perturabo stepped forwards to the edge of the dais. ‘We are done with this world. Its fortress is dust, and its defenders ash.’

No cheer greeted Perturabo’s words, for he did not court the passions of his warriors, only their understanding.

‘We join our forces with that of the Third Legion, our mission to break open a xenos fortress and obtain weapons of such power that we will no longer need to take the metal to the stone. Win this war and our days of breaking earth will be over. We will be warriors again.’

Before Perturabo could continue, Toramino spoke up. ‘My lord, do we now take our orders from the Phoenician?’

Forrix held his breath and awaited violence, but Perturabo shook his head. ‘No, Toramino, we do not. Brother Fulgrim presented me with an opportunity to wipe away our failure to destroy the Imperial Fists at Phall, and I chose to take it. In the absence of orders from the Warmaster, we will seize the initiative and become stronger then ever before.’

Perturabo shifted his focus from Toramino and said, ‘That is all. Return to your Grand Battalions.’

The warsmiths snapped to attention, hundreds of booted feet slamming down in unison as they turned and marched from Perturabo’s chambers. Toramino and his cohorts were the last to leave, and Forrix watched them go with a mixture of trepidation and eagerness to achieve something worthwhile.

With the warsmiths gone, Perturabo turned and sat upon his throne, sitting back and letting the echoing silence of the chamber settle upon him. Forrix, Kroeger and Falk moved to their allotted positions before the primarch, each at the tip of a trident blade carved into the iron deck plate.

‘Opinions?’ asked Perturabo.

‘I don’t trust… the Emperor’s Children,’ said Forrix.

‘Diplomatic,’ said Perturabo. ‘But I can be more honest. I don’t trust Fulgrim. ’

‘My lord?’ said Kroeger. ‘Then why are we going along with his scheme?’

Perturabo sighed. ‘Because we have no choice.’

Barban Falk spoke up. ‘We always have a choice, my lord. We are not slaves to the whims of the Phoenician’s… questionable honour.’

‘Once I would have killed you for a remark like that, Falk,’ said Perturabo. ‘Now I think you are being too lenient on my brother.’

‘Then why do we trust him?’ asked Forrix.

‘We don’t,’ answered Perturabo, leaning forwards to rest his chin on his steepled fingers. ‘I don’t know what lies in the star maelstrom, whether it’s some dead eldar god, a stockpile of weapons or something else entirely. But there’s something valuable there, that’s for sure.’

‘How can you know that?’ said Kroeger.

‘Because my brother knows the best lies are the ones with a measure of truth at their heart,’ said Perturabo. ‘And if there are weapons there, I think Fulgrim intends to seize them for himself and claim the glory of their discovery as he presents them to the Warmaster.’

‘If he even hands them over,’ added Kroeger.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-13