Praetorian of Dorn Read online

  Luna

  The lighter skimmed low over the dark side of Luna. Gun turrets tracked it briefly, then heard its clearance signal and went back to covering the void. The lighter banked and descended, hugging the surface. Towers projected from the rims of crater cities. Transport ducts crossed the grey wastes between clusters of buildings. Void shields glittered above the city clusters like blisters of ice. Dead and burned ruins were dotted here and there, the edges of their metal bones catching the weak light. Terra shone as a thin crescent in the black sky, its satellite cities and defences a halo of diamonds glinting in the night.

  Within the lighter’s small crew compartment, the sight of Luna’s surface flickered beneath the static of a pict screen. The lighter was marked as one serving in the Terran Militia bonded to one of the orbital defence platforms. Its clearance was from one of the Regent of Terra’s vassal organisations. Archamus had obtained the codes without asking either the Regent or his servants.

  ‘Approaching ordained destination,’ droned the servitor pilot.

  ‘Proceed,’ said Archamus.

  ‘Compliance.’

  ‘This will be delicate,’ he murmured. ‘The Selenar Matriarch is an individual...’

  He looked at Kestros. The sergeant nodded, but said nothing. Archamus looked back to the screen.

  ‘Do you have any questions, sergeant?’

  Kestros shook his head. His frown caught the light of the screen, and sharpened the edges of his expression.

  ‘You are troubled,’ stated Archamus. ‘Speak your mind. You are not here to remain silent.’

  The frown deepened and then pinched into something sharper. He let out a short breath and shook his head without meeting Archamus’ eye.

  ‘To speak truthfully, my lord, I am not sure why I am here at all.’ He leant forwards, before Archamus could reply. ‘I am not a warrior of strategy or mysteries. The edge of the blade and the bolt shell are my realm. I understand what we are doing, just not my place in it.’

  Archamus gave a brief smile.

  ‘Then we stand at the same place.’

  Kestros gave a snort of laughter, and his frown lightened slightly. Then he shook his head again, as though to clear it of thought.

  The lighter suddenly slammed level. The frame vibrated as thrusters fired.

  ‘Descending to landing platform,’ said the servitor. The screen was suddenly filled with the coal-black cliffs and dots of light racing past in a blur.

  ‘This is still a war,’ said Archamus, as the lighter shuddered down through the dark. ‘It is just a war with a battlefield that is difficult to recognise. We are the Seventh Legion. We do not flinch and we do not fail. Our strength will serve the primarch and the Emperor now just as it always has before.’

  Kestros clamped his helm over his head and then began to glance to either side, to check squad brothers who were not there. His head twitched up towards Archamus.

  ‘What is the root of victory?’ he said. ‘What is the foundation of strength?’

  Archamus smiled as he pulled his own helm over his head.

  ‘Focus,’ he said, and heard his own voice boom from his speaker grille, as the whine of the lighter’s thrusters became a scream. ‘But the key to strength in war is not just focus, but balance. Too much choler and you can be blind, too much caution and you let the enemy strike as they would choose.’

  ‘So my purpose is to bring balance, then – that is why I am here?’

  Archamus said nothing. He thought he could almost feel the young warrior’s anger pressing out from behind the faceplate of his armour. He could understand why. He had told Kestros about the attack within the bounds of Terra, and that they had the task of hunting down the Alpha Legion within the system. With every additional detail he had seen Kestros’ face harden. This was not an honour; it was a dark and bitter duty that had taken him away from other, purer battles. Neither the highness of the calling, nor Archamus’ renown, seemed to dim the core of his dissatisfaction. Secrecy, shadows and deeds done for necessity were not the duty he had hoped to perform for his primarch.

  The lighter rocked as it landed. The engines began to cycle down immediately. Kestros came out of his harness instantly, moving towards the rear doors. Archamus followed, bionics whirring as he moved. The doors opened, and the air within the cabin vented into the darkness outside.

  Archamus stepped out onto the landing platform. A canyon was extended above him, towers and bastions jutting from its face, each dotted with lights. A set of silver doors sat in the face of the cliff at the opposite end of the platform. The crescent of Terra shone down on them with a cold light.

  Kestros was silent as they walked towards the doors, their boots mag-locking to the deck as they took each step. The doors opened and figures leapt out from the darkness within. Kestros had his weapon in his hand before the first of them had made five metres from the door. Archamus’ hand snapped out and slammed the barrel down just as the bolt pistol flared. The round hit the edge of the platform and exploded. Kestros tensed to resist, then stilled at a shake of Archamus’ head.

  More figures bounded onto the platform, forming a wide circle around them. Each of the figures was humanoid but very tall. Segmented black carapace encased their torsos. Enclosed helmets covered their faces, and blue light shone from slits that ran across their visors. Three sprung silver struts extended from their feet and clamped to the deck as they moved. Each of them carried a volkite charger. The charge rings of the weapons glowed as they levelled them at Archamus and Kestros.

  ‘The last time the Seventh Legion came to Luna uninvited and unannounced it ended badly,’ said a voice across the vox. A figure moved onto the platform. She did not walk, but floated. A gloss black coating hid her skin, as though she were wearing a layer of oil. Her feet hung beneath her body, the flesh withered on her elongated bones. Her arms extended to either side. Silver tubes arched across her shoulders and burrowed through the black coating into the flesh beneath. She wore a silver mask shaped to resemble a serene face with closed eyes. Spills of silver gauze formed a halo around her, billowing slowly in the thin gravity. She halted halfway between Archamus and the open doors.

  ‘Badly for whom?’ asked Archamus, tilting his head to one side.

  ‘Given the current flow of history, a case could be made for all parties, don’t you think?’

  Kestros glanced at Archamus, but he held his gaze on the figure.

  ‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Matriarch Heliosa,’ said Archamus, with the smallest nod. ‘I am sorry if this visit comes as a surprise.’

  A laugh bubbled across the vox in reply. Archamus repressed the instinct to wonder how she had latched into their communication channels.

  ‘Not at all. It’s always a pleasure to receive Rogal’s gene-breed.’ Kestros tensed at the casual mention of the primarch, but Archamus stilled him with a gesture. Matriarch Heliosa had pivoted in place and drifted towards the open doors, then stopped when they did not follow. ‘You have come this far, are you afraid to go a little further?’

  ‘You know what we are here for,’ said Archamus, his voice a low rumble of authority. ‘Give it to us, and we will be gone.’

  ‘You make it sound like you don’t want to be here.’

  ‘Carry out your orders, and give us what we came for,’ growled Kestros.

  Heliosa pivoted towards Kestros. The silver-masked head tilted to the side.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not now. Not without you giving me the brief pleasure of your company and conversation.’

  ‘You would defy the will of the Praetorian?’ snapped Kestros.

  ‘I would demand that you do as I request, so that I don’t have to defy him.’ She turned back to the door. ‘Come – are a few more steps and a few words too high a price to ask?’

  Archamus watched the Matriarch for a second. He had never met her be
fore, but there was something unsettling about her – an air of familiarity, as if she were someone who knew him, but who he could not remember. He looked at Kestros, noticing that the sergeant’s hands were hovering close to his weapons. He gave a small but obvious shake of his head and looked back to Heliosa.

  ‘You are most gracious, honoured Matriarch.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘Welcome to the last Fane of the Selenar, sons of Dorn.’

  Scavenger vessel Wealth of Kings

  Messalina debris drift, near-Terran void

  The memory came so fast it felt like being shot.

  In one instant Silonius was standing in the cargo container, the clang of magnetic clamps fastening to the outside fading in his ears. And the next...

  He was falling from the light of the world, falling down through the blank pit of his own memory, falling with the sound of names from forgotten myths following him down.

  Orpheus...

  Eurydice...

  Hades...

  And then a voice...

  ‘Will you serve the Legion in this way?’

  ‘Of course,’ said a voice that he knew was his.

  ‘There is not one mission parameter in play. There are several. We are also using assets that were put in place a long time ago. They have slept under the earth of Terra for a decade. The mission parameters they will follow initially will serve our ends, but they are not specific to the current need. You will provide that specificity.’

  ‘Yes, of course, lord,’ said Silonius, and now the memory gifted him sight. He was standing in a long chamber. Columns of light marched away from him through the gloom. Within each pillar the dome of a stasis field buzzed. He could see the shapes of small objects: a near-human skull with canine teeth like knife blades, a silver pendant in the shape of a winged sword, a vial of pale green liquid. A figure stood before him. No, not a figure – a very specific individual. Alpharius looked at Silonius, his eyes still, his face blank of emotion.

  ‘There are security matters that must be accounted for,’ Alpharius said. ‘This operation’s importance cannot be overstated. The future of the Legion and the outcome of this war rest on it.’

  Silonius nodded.

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  ‘No, you do not. But you will. You are carrying the key to this operation, and it must remain secret. But you are going to carry these secrets to Terra, and there you do not need to speak a secret to have it taken. Even ignoring the powers of Malcador, or my father, there are others who might see the truth in your thoughts, and once they have seen that truth then it is not your own silence that will matter, but theirs. The only way to truly keep a secret is to keep it from yourself.’

  Silonius had nodded, and made himself hold his primarch’s gaze.

  ‘Psychic reconstruction,’ he stated, and Alpharius nodded.

  Two figures slid from behind the columns of light. Both were armoured, their identical faces uncovered. Silver wires and blue crystals gleamed on their bare scalps.

  ‘What is needed will be given back to you when it is required.’

  The two psykers watched him without blinking as they moved to stand either side of him. The Emperor had forbidden the use of psykers within His Legions, but the Alpha Legion always followed their own will rather than the rules of others.

  ‘How will recall be triggered?’

  Alpharius smiled and shook his head.

  ‘That will remain buried far below your consciousness, but trust that when it is needed, you will know.’

  Silonius glanced at the two psykers. They had become perfectly still. Strands of pale energy gathered around their heads. Their eyes had become utterly black.

  ‘What will they take from me?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything,’ said Alpharius.

  And he was falling upwards through darkness, the sounds of the memory vanishing into an echo, and the names followed him like a chanted curse.

  Orpheus...

  Eurydice...

  Hades...

  ‘Brother?’

  Silonius turned his head.

  He had not moved. He had lost awareness for an instant, but it had been enough for Phocron to notice. The Headhunter Prime was looking at him, turning his head slowly as though to examine Silonius from slightly different angles.

  ‘Is all well, brother?’ asked Phocron. Silonius noted the rune blinking at the edge of his helmet display. They were talking over a private channel.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Everything is as it should be.’

  Fane of the Selenar

  Luna

  ‘I cannot help you.’ Matriarch Heliosa’s voice came from all around the chamber, echoing from the walls as though the substance of Luna itself were speaking.

  Kestros bit back his instinct to growl at the Matriarch’s arrogance. Beside him Archamus did not move or say anything; Kestros could feel the control in that silence, the power.

  The floor of the chamber was small. Kestros could have crossed it, corner-to-corner, in ten strides, but the walls went up and up, beyond the range of his helmet sensors. A crescent moon of pale crystal occupied the centre of the granite floor. Six circular pools of water encircled the crescent, the surface of each a black mirror perfectly level with the floor. Lines of inlaid silver spread across the floor from the pools. A circle of symbols marked wherever two or more lines intersected. There were only four symbols, but Kestros could not see the same sequence repeated across the entire chamber.

  He did not like it. He did not like it at all.

  They had walked across the rock of the moon to get here, passing through black crystal and crossing canyons on silver bridges. Once he had looked down as he crossed a bridge, and seen the reflection of his own face staring back at him from the surface of still, black water. There must have been ways that branched from theirs, but he never saw a doorway or junction along their path. Dust and damage marked much of what they passed: rust bled from bolts, and tarnish crawled over the silver crescents and discs set into the floor. With every step he had felt as though he were walking back into some half-forgotten mystery that was waiting to die.

  ‘This place should not exist,’ said Archamus at last, turning and stepping towards the nearest of the six pools. ‘The ways of your cult were proscribed when you joined the Imperium.’

  ‘Joined?’ said Heliosa. ‘That’s a kind way to put it.’

  ‘You had a choice,’ said Archamus flatly.

  ‘Extinction or service, the choice offered by all conquerors and tyrants.’

  Kestros felt the anger pour through him. It beat at the inside of his skull, and screamed at him to draw his pistol and put a shell through the Matriarch’s head.

  Yet beside him Archamus did not move.

  ‘But you did choose, and because of that I will indulge your words, this time, Matriarch.’

  ‘And if you did not indulge them, what then? Would the Seventh Legion come here again to finish the work they left undone two centuries past? That threat lost its teeth long ago. We are dying already. With every year we are fewer in number. I might even take up your offer of execution. It would be swift at least.’

  She is lying, thought Kestros. He could hear it in her voice, in the uncontrolled vibrations at the edge of the words. She wants more than anything to survive.

  ‘I have no interest in you, Matriarch, nor the fact that you are lying,’ said Archamus. ‘I am here only for what you have been ordered to give us.’

  ‘I cannot help you,’ hissed Heliosa.

  ‘Then we will see if the Imperium still has mercy in its heart for you,’ said Archamus, as he turned and took a step towards the entranceway.

  ‘No!’ The word rang clear from the walls. Ripples spread across the surface of the six pools.

  Archamus turned back slowly, his head tilted in question.
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  ‘I said that I cannot help, not that I refused to.’

  ‘Why can you not help?’ said Archamus, his voice as flat and unfeeling as ice.

  ‘Because she refuses to obey me,’ said Heliosa.

  ‘Bring her here,’ said Archamus. ‘I would talk to her myself.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said.

  ‘I already said that I have no interest in whatever you want of me,’ said the girl in the grey robes. She looked up at Archamus and gave a bored shrug. ‘There is nothing else that needs to be clarified further.’ Then she sat down on the floor and began to glance around the room, as though looking for something that was more interesting than the two Imperial Fists standing above her.

  Her face was thin and pale, and marked only by a single bright red circle just beneath her left eye. Braids of silver wire hung from her scalp in place of hair. She was tall for a mortal, but in that stretched willow-thin way of one born and raised in low gravity. Her eyes were green. The robes were plain, dust-grey. She looked young, but there was a way that she watched the world that seemed knowing beyond her years. Her name was Andromeda-17. That meant, in the traditions of the Luna gene-cults, that she was the seventeenth resurrection of a single gene-identical individual.

  Archamus watched her for a second.

  ‘Matriarch Heliosa, please give us a moment,’ he said without moving his eyes.

  The Matriarch shifted position slightly, and Archamus thought she was going to object, but then she glided to the arched door without a word.

  ‘She will still hear what you say, you know,’ said Andromeda. Archamus ignored the words.

  ‘The Imperium has need of you,’ he said.

  ‘The Imperium can go and need something else,’ said Andromeda with a shrug. Kestros started forwards, hands clenched. Archamus put a hand on his chest before he could take a step. Amusement danced in Andromeda’s eyes as she looked at Kestros. ‘A level of psychological imbalance in regard to temperament. You know, I have never met one of your kind before.’ She turned her gaze back to Archamus and jerked her chin at Kestros. ‘Is this one primarily here for intimidation, or because you find him reassuringly straightforward?’