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  Jurik stayed silent, a bead of sweat forming on his brow.

  ‘What do you have to report?’ Agrafena motioned for Jurik to continue.

  ‘The fleet, governess. Our fleet is gone.’

  ‘And our divisions? What news of them?’

  Jurik faltered before answering. ‘Gone, too. They are all gone, my lady.’

  Agrafena turned, fixing Jurik with a granite stare. ‘Gone? Explain yourself, footman.’

  Jurik allowed himself a quick glimpse of his ruler’s face. Her eyes were hard, as they always were, her skin ice-smooth like the northern lakes. A mist of ruby and crimson coloured her cheeks, and though it did little to warm her demeanour, Jurik almost smiled. It lifted his spirits to see that she had not lost herself completely to the chaos ruling around her. ‘My lady, our armies have been scattered, destroyed. Every soldier beyond the shield… everyone outside the palace… is… they’re all dead.’

  Agrafena stared at him for a moment, her eyes unwavering as she received the news that her world had been reduced to a mortuary. ‘The Brigade Halka?’ Agrafena asked after her personal regiment. The thousand elite warriors who protected the Primus.

  ‘Captain Aleksander and his men stand ready, governess…’

  ‘Then we shall win the day. We shall show the Secundians our true mettle. The Brigade Halka has never been bested. These walls never breached. Never. I will not yield to them, Jurik. I will condemn all to ash before I make peace with those treacherous cowards.’

  ‘You cannot mean…’

  ‘I mean exactly that.’

  Behind Jurik, the noble visage of Stavros Halka, her father, looked down upon her. The oil on canvas portrait of Stromark Prime’s most celebrated leader hung over the chamber’s far wall, next to the family crest. Stavros had been a great tactician, a peerless swordsman and beneficent ruler.

  Agrafena lingered on the painting, finding her own face in her sire’s. She would not disgrace his memory by failing, whatever the cost.

  ‘Forgive me, governess… but it is Space Marines we face. The Emperor has sent His immortal champions to destroy us. We cannot… we cannot best them.’

  ‘Lies!’ Agrafena lashed out with her arm, striking a crystal sculpture of Stromark Prime from its place on the mantel. The irony was not lost on Jurik as the fragile globe shattered across the floor. ‘Everything can be killed.’ Agrafena spread her arms, gesturing to the dozen members of her honour guard that stood watch around the chamber. They were gene-bulked warriors, armoured in thick carapace and carrying heavy plasma rifles. She lowered her voice. ‘You need only find the right weapon.’

  ‘Balthiel.’ Appollus’s voice burst across the vox-link, shaking the Librarian from his reverie. ‘I am not against dying today, brother,’ the Chaplain’s voice thundered. ‘But it shall not be because you failed to do your duty.’

  ‘Patience,’ said Balthiel. ‘I will not be able to hold the shield for long. We must wait as long as possible.’

  ‘You sound like Zargo. The coward waits in orbit around Secundus while hundreds bleed to save him sullying his hands. He is a disgrace to our warrior bloodline.’

  ‘You cannot force his hand, brother,’ said Balthiel.

  ‘Have you ever known anything that I cannot force?’ Appollus let the words hang for a few seconds so their meaning would properly sink in. ‘Just don’t wait too long, Librarian.’

  Balthiel bit down a reply. He understood Appollus’s agitation. It went against everything the Chaplain stood for to trust his life to a psyker.

  Warning runes twinkled like bloodied stars from the drop pod’s ceiling as another barrage of anti-aircraft fire barked at its hull.

  Balthiel opened a comm-channel. ‘Brother Jophiel.’ He looked up as he spoke. Back on board the Cowl Jophiel was watching, monitoring Balthiel through the pict-recorder mounted on the wall of the drop pod. ‘You are my keeper.’ Balthiel stared down at the remote melta charge locked to his thigh. ‘Do not hesitate.’

  The light on the pict-recorder blinked twice in acknowledgment. Balthiel closed his eyes. ‘Emperor, defend my soul this day of battle. Let my weaknesses be overcome by Your strength that I may serve the Chapter.’ The temperature inside the drop pod plummeted as Balthiel reached out with his powers. A layer of unnatural frost formed on the walls, crusting the Death Company’s armour as Balthiel eased his consciousness from his body.

  The shield of Sanguinius, as it was known amongst Balthiel’s order, was a psychic barrier, a physical manifestation of a Librarian’s will. He knew of no one who had ever attempted to manifest the shield on the scale he prepared to. Drawing on such power was dangerous. His soul would blaze in the warp, a refulgent feast for the denizens of that daemon realm. Should he succumb to their seditious whispering, should the foul powers take command of his flesh, Jophiel would end him.

  Free from his flesh, Balthiel’s mind ghosted through the cold ceramite of his armour, pushing out beyond the drop pod to hang in the Stromarkian air. Above him, a dozen dark stars were burning downwards. He let his mind wander over them, the way Cretacian children ran their hands through acaulis bushes. Appollus and the rest of the Death Company’s minds shone like hot embers, their thoughts fixed on the slaughter to come. Balthiel pulled back, turning his attentions to the ground below.

  The palace void shield shivered violet-blue as another piece of the Emperor’s Guardian finished its fall from orbit and dissolved against it.

  The Stromarkian defence guns flared from under the shield’s protective mantle, spewing a torrent of explosive rounds towards the Flesh Tearers assault force.

  Balthiel turned his back on the weapons to look up at the drop pods. He held out his hands. Thread-lines of golden energy grew from his fingertips, weaving into a shimmering blanket that expanded to fill the air beneath the Flesh Tearers vessels.

  The Librarian focused on the barrier, strengthening it with his mind. It was as unbreakable as his spirit, an indomitable shield without flaw or weakness. It could not be breached by man or daemon. Unless he was weak. Unless he was flawed.

  ‘We are fury,’ Appollus’s voice snarled over the vox.

  Blood ran from Balthiel’s nose and ears as the Stromarkian guns hammered his psychic barrier.

  ‘We are wrath.’ The Chaplain’s voice barely registered as Balthiel fought to maintain the shield.

  ‘Sanguinius, my father. Sanguinius, my armour. Aid me now.’ Balthiel’s body trembled as he forced the words through bloodied lips.

  The drop pod shuddered as it tore through the palace’s defences, bucking violently as it struck the earth.

  ‘We are death!’ Appollus finished the axiom as the Death Company burst from the drop pods to taste Stromarkian blood.

  The polished marble of the palace floor was slick with blood. The torn remains of governess Agrafena’s bodyguard lay strewn around the antechamber. The elite of the Stromarkian army were now little more than fleshy gobbets, churned up by chainweapons and blasted apart by bolt-rounds. Balthiel stood in the middle of the chamber, a halo of psychic energy glistening around his body as the quickening faded.

  ‘It is done,’ he said, exhaustedly.

  Outside Balthiel could hear the roar of chainweapons and the harsh crack of bolt pistols as the Death Company continued to vent their rage upon the corpses of the Stromarkians.

  ‘Bring them to heel.’

  Appollus slammed a fresh clip into his bolt pistol. ‘Not yet. Stromark Secundus has yet to be cleansed.’

  ‘That is not our fight.’

  ‘There will be no fight.’ Appollus gestured towards a heap of bodies at the far side of the room. One of them was moving.

  Agrafena’s vision swam. She felt cold, weak. Shaking with effort, she pushed Jurik’s corpse from on top of her. The footman had taken a round meant for her. Touching a hand to her abdomen, Agrafena felt the sticky wetness of blood. Jurik’s sacrifice had been for naught. The explosive bolt had torn through his chest, showering Agrafena in lethal fragments. S
he was dying.

  The governess didn’t spare the footman a second thought, her mind fixed on what she must do. She dragged herself up against the wall, wiping away blood from her lips. A wracking cough doubled her over. She gritted her teeth against the pain, bracing herself against the wall, and straightened. She would die on her feet and she would not die alone.

  Balthiel snapped his bolt pistol up to fire.

  ‘Wait.’ Appollus grabbed Balthiel’s wrist, staying the Librarian’s hand. The governess had fought to the last. Even now, in the face of certain oblivion, she refused to accept what her body told her to be true. She would kill with her last action.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Balthiel.

  Behind his skull mask, Appollus grinned darkly. The governess was one of his flock whether she knew it or not. ‘Wait… and watch.’

  Agrafena bit down and depressed the data chip secreted under her tongue, opening a vox-link. ‘Omega One. Epsilon Nine…’ she struggled through the command, each word costing her more blood. ‘This is Governess Agrafena. By my father.’ Pain crushed the beauty from Agrafena’s features. ‘For our children. Launch.’

  ‘Brother…’ Balthiel looked to Appollus as the governess slid to the floor.

  ‘Zargo has yet to set foot upon Secundus,’ said Appollus. ‘They have deployed more Guard regiments and requested a further force to hold orbit so that they may depart the system. This will force Zargo to act, and expedite the resolution on Secundus.’

  ‘Brothers.’ Zuphias’s voice crackled over the vox, his communication distorted by the charged particles lingering in the world’s atmosphere, an after-effect of the orbital bombardment the Cowl had rained down upon it. ‘Surveyors detect a massive energy build-up on the near side moon.’

  ‘You knew?’ Balthiel looked to Appollus.

  The Chaplain nodded.

  ‘I knew you were a bastard, Appollus…’

  ‘From the Blood are monsters born, brother.’

  On Stromark Prime’s second moon, within one of the many mining complexes operated by the Halka consortium, thousands of long-dormant Apocalypse missiles rumbled to life. The missiles crested the surface, arcing round the moon’s orbit to burn towards the manufacturing and population centres of Stromark Secundus.

  Above Agrafena, the marble visages of her ancestors stared down approvingly. A final bout of coughing sent her into spasms. Blood filled her mouth and trickled from her ears. She let her head loll to the side, and found her father’s portrait. The artist had done well to capture his rugged nobility. Agrafena gazed into her father’s eyes and smiled.

  Her legacy would outlast his – her final thought, as the last Halka blood bled from her veins.

  The gentle hum of the luminator was lost under the heavy chatter of keys being depressed in rapid succession. A hundred thousand servitors stood in regimented rows, tirelessly inputting the endless information that defined the Imperium of Man. The lobotomised serfs worked in total darkness, their augmented eyes having no need of the light.

  Senior Clerk Mathias Wido was just as able to see unaided but he enjoyed the luminator’s warm glow. It made him feel more… human.

  Mathias scribbled on the record slate with his data quill, double checking his calculations. Yes, everything was as he’d concluded. He placed the slate down on his desk and sat back in his chair.

  The aged Jovian oak creaked as it adjusted to one of Mathias’s rare movements. His skin ached as his lips pulled to a line across his face in the closest approximation of a smile that he could muster. He’d checked the data thoroughly. The numbers had stayed the same: Three hundred billion, dead. Eight million structures reduced to rubble. A further fifteen million ruined. Seven continents declared uninhabitable. Four oceans boiled to dust. Some would describe this as a catastrophe. To the war machine of the Imperium it was merely an inconvenience. The population of Stromark would be recovered to acceptable production levels within only seven generations. Full output could be regained in as little as ten.

  Mathias picked up the slate and closed the file, tagging the Stromark incident as an occasion of minor loss.

  He paused, before pulling another data-slate from the pile towering beside his desk and beginning the process again.

  the trial of gabriel seth,

  act ii

  ‘Your Chaplain forced my hand at Stromark. Killed millions with needless haste and callous disregard.’ Zargo’s voice was like the idling of a chainweapon, his earlier animosity given way to aggression.

  ‘Appollus did what was needed. You would have bled Guard regiments for months before committing to battle. Better we slaughter those too weak to have thrown off their oppressors than throw away the lives of those who would at least try,’ Seth answered with steely resolve.

  ‘And what of Corvin Herrold?’ asked Malphas. ‘It was your pride that damned the inquisitor. You could have killed him. Bought his silence with swift oblivion.’ The master of the Exsanguinators bristled with rage. ‘No. You had to prove that your will was stronger than his.’

  ‘It is!’ Seth roared. ‘It must be.’ He pressed his fists against his head in an attempt to blot out the rising pain in his skull, to stifle the anger that would rob him of all sane defence. ‘The curse ravages my Chapter. It steals my brothers and hands me monsters. It is as inevitable as death, and yet we fight. It would be far easier for us to lay down our arms and give in. To accept the madness and the freedom from guilt. Yet we fight on.’

  ‘A fight you have lost.’ Malphas thrust a finger at Seth.

  ‘This curse. It is all of our burden to bear.’ Seth spread his arms, encompassing the assembled Chapter Masters. ‘Yet through fate and fortune not of our making, we face it in different degrees. You, Malphas. I would have thought you more understanding. The curse claims your brothers almost as often as it does mine.’

  Malphas growled. ‘You think I do not know?’

  ‘Then know that were it not for the blood in your veins, if your blood were as susceptible to the Rage as mine, you would be here now instead of I.’ Seth gestured to the chamber floor.

  Malphas made to reply but found himself lacking for words.

  ‘The Exsanguinators are not on trial,’ said Zargo.

  Seth looked to the Angel Encarmine and imagined gutting him. If he survived the day, there would be a reckoning between them. Of that he was certain. ‘We have not won the war against the Archenemy. They dog us every moment of our existence. The sins of our traitorous cousins demand we fight for atonement. We have lost entire worlds to the slaves of the old Legions, and yet never has this council gathered to discuss whether or not we should give up that fight.’

  ‘You dare say this?’ asked Techial. Tradition demanded the Chronicler remain silent but the Disciple of Blood was shaking with rage, his scarred features twisted into a cruel mess. ‘You sully our father’s name with such words.’ The wood of the lectern began to split and snap under Techial’s grip.

  ‘Spare me your rhetoric, Disciple.’ Seth turned from him with a snarl. ‘The curse is as real a threat as anything the Eye spawns.’

  ‘I agree with Techial. This is heresy,’ said Orloc.

  ‘Is it?’ Seth shook his head. ‘The Archenemy can be defeated. They can be killed. We will fight them with all that we are and we will kill them. We will kill them all if we must bleed the galaxy to do so. But the curse, the curse cannot be faced in battle. It cannot be brought to account. We have nothing to wage war against when it is all that we are.’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said Lord Sentikan of the Angels Sanguine, his features hidden by a thick hood.

  Seth shot him a glance in challenge. ‘And what truths should I accept from one who hides his face even from his own brothers?’

  If the insult riled the Angel Sanguine he disguised it within the folds of his cowl, and spoke with a calm certainty. ‘Lord Mephiston is living proof of the victory that awaits. He emerged from the throes of the curse sane of mind and whole of body. He is hope enough.�
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  ‘You are as a naïve aspirant if you believe that monster to be our salvation. Mephiston is an abomination. A wraith who should be clad in armour as dark as his soul.’

  The remark sent a tide of discord washing through the chamber, drawing cries of sanction and outcry in equal measure.

  ‘And yet he does not butcher with the same abandon of your Flesh Tearers,’ Malakim of the Lamenters sneered. ‘Even those you deem fit to wear crimson make the butchers of my Death Company seem sane by comparison.’

  Seth growled, allowing his anger to get the better of him. ‘And what would you know of battle, Lamenter? Look at you. Yellow in a room of red. A coward in a sea of blood.’

  Malakim made to reply, but Dante cut him off.

  ‘Anger and despair, Seth. They saw the end of Nassir.’

  Seth sighed, sobered by Dante’s words. Nassir Amit had been the first of the Flesh Tearers Chapter Masters. A brutal, vicious warrior, his deeds were great and many. He had fought in the Great War and conquered Cretacia, the world Seth now called home. Amit had been the best of them before his thirst for blood and violence had consumed him.

  ‘I have stood consumed by darkness and led an army of monsters in defence of the light. I have done what must be done to ensure the future of the Chapter,’ said Seth.

  ‘Your first duty is to the Emperor, whether you survive or not is of no consequence,’ said Geron. His face burned with disdain. Like the others of his Chapter, the Angel Numinous held the cursed in callous disregard. He loathed them, despised their weakness and the legacy it bore of their father.

  ‘My first duty is to Sanguinius and the sons he left me stewardship of.’

  ‘And what of your duty to us? What of your promise to me? Do you not remember your oath?’ asked Dante.

  Seth looked to Dante. He said nothing. He remembered.

  ‘On the day of your rise to Chapter Master, you came to me. You came to me!’ For the first time, Dante’s composure slipped, his grip tightening on the balustrade. ‘You vowed to bring the Flesh Tearers to heel. To put an end to the violent outbursts, and the heedless, unnecessary slaughter. You were to bring honour back to the Chapter and glory to the memory of Sanguinius.’