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Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar – Extract

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One empire came to Thoas to crush another.

The empire of order and light arrived in the form of an armada. If the eyes of the other empire had turned to the void, perhaps they would have witnessed the final approach. They would have seen a swarm of blades. Each blade was a ship thousands of yards long. The greatest of them spanned fifteen miles from stem to stern. It was both sword and mountain chain. From the surface of Thoas, it would have appeared as an elongated star, moving with unalterable purpose with its smaller brothers. A constellation of war filling the night sky.

But in the second empire, there were no eyes to look upwards, or none to understand what they saw. This was not an empire worthy of the name. Yet it had held a dozen systems. One by one, they had been ripped from its grasping claws. Now the empire unworthy of the name was reduced to its core. Its seat of strength. Its source of contagion.

It did not see its doom arrive. If it saw, it did not understand. If it understood, it did not care. Such was its nature. That reason alone was enough to warrant its extermination.

Remark 73.44.liv: The visibility of the leader at significant moments of a campaign carries its own signification. It reinforces his interest not just in the goal, but in those sworn to carry it out. The leader who lacks these interests invites and deserves defeat.

Roboute Guilliman stood at the lectern of the bridge of the Macragge’s Honour. Below him, in a tiered space the size of an arena, the level of activity had risen in urgency, but proceeded with no loss of calm. Officers performed their tasks with the same efficiency as the servitors. The bridge hummed with the sound of human machinery, gears meshing smoothly, readying for war.

Guilliman had been at his station five hours already, ever since the translation to the system. He was here to witness and to be witnessed, as was proper. Addendum to 73.44.liv, he thought. Interest cannot be feigned. He would insert the correction to the manuscript later.

He had watched Thoas grow large in the forward bridge windows. He had seen its details resolve themselves as the layers of augur scans built up the composite picture of the target. The forward elements of the fleet were now at low anchor, awaiting his command for the next stage of reconnaissance.

‘Another message from Captain Sirras,’ said Marius Gage.

‘Reconfirming that his Scouts are ready?’ Guilliman said.

The Chapter Master Primus of the XIII Legion grinned. ‘That would be correct.’

‘He’s contacting you directly now?’

‘We were together on Septus Twelve in the Osiris Cluster.’

‘In the hive?’

‘Yes,’ said Gage. ‘We both made it to the surface in time to see the flares of the fleet burning when the Psybrid ships sprung the ambush.’

‘So he presumes this gives him leave to bypass the chain of command?’ Guilliman asked.

‘The Twenty-second is still without a Chapter Master,’ Gage reminded him.

‘I haven’t forgotten.’ The orks of the Thoas Empire had taken Machon’s head in the final stages of the campaign to purge them from the Aletho system. ‘There will be a new Chapter Master before we land on Thoas. The current lack does not justify Sirras trying to make an improvisational end run around my timing decisions.’

‘An official reprimand?’ Gage asked.

‘No. But inform him that if he contacts you again, the next voice he hears will be mine.’

The old warrior nodded. His features were worn by his centuries of campaigning, and had been weathered into wry, intelligent cragginess. He walked a few steps away to vox the captain of the 223rd Company.

‘Wait,’ Guilliman said. Remark 73.42.xv: It is the duty of the soldier to accept an order without a rationale being provided, but the absence of a rationale should never be the default condition. ‘Let him know the scans are still being collated. He isn’t waiting on a whim. He’s waiting for a worthwhile target.’

In the bridge window, another layer of topographical detail was added. The image of Thoas sharpened. Coastlines changed from fractal abstractions to specific geological characterisations. The world was becoming a real place. It was tidally locked by its blue star. Half of the planet burned forever while the other half froze. The Ultramarines fleet was anchored over the region of the terminator, where twilight and dawn would never end.

Guilliman examined the sphere. He frowned. ‘Magnification of the northern tropic,’ he said.

The image grew.

‘Increase magnification.’

There.

A cordillera ran along a north-to-south-west diagonal down the western region of the largest continental mass. To the east, the land was wrinkled with mountains, canyons and plateaus for close to five hundred miles. To the west was a vast plain that reached almost to the coast before it ran up against a narrower, lower chain of peaks. In the western flank of the cordillera, Guilliman saw lines that were too regular. There were structures there, almost as big as the mountains in which they nestled.

‘Biomass readings in this sector?’ Guilliman asked.

‘A very high concentration of orks, lord,’ the Augur Master reported.

Given the inviting geography of the plain and the easier slopes of the foothills, that was to be expected. ‘Compared to the other principal land masses?’

‘Higher,’ the officer confirmed.

‘Are you seeing this?’ Guilliman said to Gage.

‘I am. Are those human?’

‘Records about Thoas are fragmentary in the extreme. To date I have found only two references to any form of human colonisation.’

‘Those are big,’ said Gage. ‘This was more than a colony.’

Guilliman nodded. ‘It was a civilisation.’ The prospect was pleasing. If there had been human colonies in the other systems reclaimed from the orks, all traces had long since vanished. That such signs would appear on this world, where the final battle against the greenskin empire would take place, was a gift of inestimable value. If the ruins were human. ‘Tell Sirras we have a target for him.’

‘Evido Banzor has Scouts ready for a low orbit drop too,’ Gage said. ‘Part of the 166th, under Captain Iasus.’

‘Good. Send them both down. I want their eyes on the ork dispositions with particular respect to those structures. The Thoas campaign begins there.’

‘“When presented with a choice of beginnings, choose the one with meaning,”’ Gage quoted.

‘Remark 45.xxx,’ said Guilliman. ‘Flatterer.’

‘Merely a manifest truth,’ Gage said, his eyes on the traces of immense ruins.

‘Our captain honours us with his presence,’ said Meton. His voice was a whisper, inaudible except over the vox. The orks were a long way beyond earshot. The visible ones, at least. Meton was observing proper discipline, taking no chances as the squads made their way up towards the ridge.

‘Theoretical – our captain is merely eager to get his hands dirty with greenskin gore,’ Sergeant Phocion said.

‘Practical – your captain would like you both to shut up,’ said Eleon Iasus. They were both partly correct. There was no compelling necessity for him to have left the Praetorian Trust to accompany the Scouts on their reconnaissance. There was no dereliction of duty either, though. As a sergeant, he had held Phocion’s position for decades. And he had cleared his venture with Chapter Master Banzor. Yes, he wanted the feel of Thoas’ surface under his boots as soon as possible. There was more, though. Theoretical: there is no such thing as superfluous advance knowledge of the battlefield. Practical: where possible, add first-hand experience to intelligence gathered from a distance. He wanted to see the ruins. He wanted to know what would be the epicentre of the campaign.

The Scouts of the 166th prowled along the western spines of the cordillera to the south of the ruins. They maintained vox contact with the squads from the 223rd coming in from the north. Both had come down by Thunderhawk, deposited on ledges a short way down the east-facing slopes. There had been no contact with the enemy. There was nothing to attract the orks here. The mountainsides were sheer, the valleys narrow and barren. There was nothing to fight over, and no room to fight either. The tectonic upheavals in this region had been so violent, so sudden, and involved so much compression that the chains of the cordillera were as narrow and sharp as rows of fangs.

Footing was treacherous. Iasus and the Scouts climbed, working their way up the nearly vertical mountain face. The sharp folds of the granite caught and held shadows. Both of Thoas’ moons were full, but the mountains had draped themselves in a dark more profound than night. Even with his enhanced sight and the night-vision lenses, Iasus was blind when his climb took him deep into the vertical crevasses. He climbed by feel, reaching up, digging his gauntleted fingers into the cracks, holding onto jagged protrusions with certainty they would not crumble beneath his weight. Long before he reached the top, the drop below, a fall from dark into dark, would have been far enough to kill him.

He was glad he had come. Each foot of the climb instilled a greater sense of Thoas in him. The theoretical knowledge transforming into the practical experience.

The ridge was as sharp and narrow as he had imagined it would be. He stood on the edge of an immense, rocky sawblade. It was difficult to stand.

‘Theoretical,’ said Meton. ‘If we drive the orks into these mountains, we’ll smash them.’

‘We’ll smash them regardless,’ Iasus said. The Scout was correct, though – an army that retreated into the mountains would be devoured by their teeth. And if by some chance the orks survived, if they went any further east, they would reach sunrise, and be cremated.

Iasus looked down. The orks were all to the west, the clans gathered in their hundreds of thousands on the plain near the base of the foothills and on the gradual slopes of the start of the mountains.

And they infested the ruins.

Phocion’s squad had advanced to a point several thousand yards from the nearest structure. The edges of the ork horde were directly below. The growls and snarls of the brutes rose to the heights like the roar of a violent surf. There were orks on the plain too, but the bulk of their numbers were sticking to the high ground. There was no reason to think these greenskins were intelligent enough to understand what force was coming for them, but they were readying for battle. As the Ultramarines had taken apart their empire, they had left no survivors in their wake. The beasts lacked anything but the most rudimentary technology. They had nothing resembling interplanetary vox communication. Yet somehow, they knew. Some collective instinct of the species told the greenskins to prepare.

Iasus turned his attention from the orks to the ruins. He raised magnoculars to his helm lenses. The structures snapped into clearer focus. They were badly damaged. The upper levels had collapsed. Apertures gaped, open to the winds and storms of Thoas. The roofs were gone from the buildings he could see. They were still colossal. They were constructed of huge blocks carved from the mountains. Iasus estimated that each brick was larger than a Thunderhawk. He saw pillars as high as Warhound Titans. They too were monoliths.

So much had fallen that the original shape of the ruins was difficult to discern. What Iasus could make out looked like terraced pyramids, each the size of a small city. The terraces were narrow in proportion to the levels’ soaring height. The effect was less of broad, squat structures, more of towering massiveness. The architecture was aggressive and brutal even in its decay. But it was not alien. Colossal as the scale was, the shape of the vaulted apertures was recognisable. There were smaller doorways in the walls, openings where orks had to bend down to pass through.

‘The greenskins did a thorough job,’ Phocion said.

‘So will we.’ Iasus lowered the magnoculars. ‘This was a human world once. It will be again.’

Guilliman met with his Chapter Masters in his compartment. Twelve Chapters had come to rout the orks from Thoas. Eleven Masters stood in a precise arc before Guilliman’s desk. With them were two captains – Hierax, the senior captain of the leaderless 22nd, and Iasus, who had earned his place at the audience with the knowledge he had brought back from Thoas.

That, Guilliman knew, was what was widely assumed to be the reason for the honour granted to Iasus. For the time being, he did nothing to correct that perception.

Behind the primarch, the crystalflex walls showed the orb of Thoas below the Macragge’s Honour. The flagship was at low anchor, in geosynchronous orbit above the great plain at the foot of the cordillera. The ruins were not visible at this altitude. Even so, if Guilliman turned around, his gaze would zero in on their location in the mountains.

He gestured to the data-slates on his desk. ‘The reports from the Scouts are conclusive,’ he said. ‘Humans once called Thoas home. They built great cities. That civilisation has fallen, but humans will lay claim to this world once more, and towers will rise again. There is more. Thermographic imaging and geologic auguries have revealed the presence of an extensive network of caves beneath the ruins.’

‘Do we know how deep they run?’ Atreus, Chapter Master of the Sixth, asked.

‘No,’ said Guilliman. ‘There are significant radiation blooms in the area too. They made imaging difficult. We know the tunnels are there. Beyond that, we’re indulging in conjecture. An unhelpful application of the theoretical.’

He stopped speaking. He observed the two captains. Their stances were perfectly formal, perfectly motionless. The Chapter Masters were more relaxed in their bearing. They understood that this compartment was a space for inquiry and debate, and the free exchange of views. Here was where theoreticals were worked over and modified, demolished and reconfigured. Absolute deference to his authority here was counterproductive. It undermined what he hoped to accomplish.

Though Iasus and Hierax might as well have been statues, Guilliman could still detect minor variations in their bearings. Iasus was content to wait until he was called upon. His stance was one of simple patience. Hierax, on the other hand, was on the verge of an explosion. He was leaning forwards slightly. Awareness of rank and the nature of his position held his tongue. The reason for his presence urged him to speak.

Guilliman relieved him of the dilemma. ‘You have a recommendation, Captain Hierax?’ he said. Surprise me, he thought. Say something other than what I’m expecting.

‘The ork infestation on Thoas is the worst we’ve seen in this campaign.’

‘This is the heart of their empire,’ Guilliman pointed out.

‘Exactly,’ said Hierax. ‘We should rip it out at a stroke. There are no humans in those ruins. There haven’t been for a long time. There is no reason to hold back.’

‘No holding back,’ Guilliman echoed, keeping his tone neutral.

‘The Second Destroyers will purge the orks from Thoas within the day.’

‘Along with all other life.’

‘Primarch–’ Hierax began.

‘Captain,’ Guilliman interrupted him, ‘how expedient were you planning to make this invasion? I assume you imagined keeping Thoas intact, so that eliminates cyclonic torpedoes. Virus bombs, then? Would you go that far?’

Hierax said nothing at first. His face was closed, so carefully neutral it lacked any expression at all. Like Gage, Hierax joined the XIII Legion on Terra. His rough features bore layers of scars. His face had a geologic history, as if roughened by successive lava flows. The nobility of the Ultramarines shone in his armour. Hierax himself embodied the harshness of war. The Destroyers were the necessary violence of the Ultramarines. They represented the moments when the heart was hardened, and the terrible act undertaken. They lived their name. They were the blood spilled by the blades of the Great Crusade. The Destroyers were not its hope, its promise and its creation. When Hierax spoke again, his voice was strong but cold. He already knew that Guilliman would refuse his recommendation.

Just as I know what it will be, Guilliman thought. I’m disappointed. It would have been nice to be proven wrong.

Hierax took a breath. ‘If necessary, yes,’ he said. ‘Our mission…’ He stopped, realising he had overstepped. The mission was not his to define.

‘Go on,’ Guilliman urged. ‘Speak freely, captain. If we cannot do that in this space, half of its utility vanishes.’

Hierax nodded his thanks. ‘Theoretical – our mission here is one of extermination. Practical – the most efficient way of ending the enemy while minimising our expenditure of lives is though the weaponry of the First and Second Destroyer companies.’

‘You see no other value to the world?’

‘Mining will still be possible after the worst of the radiation subsides. Its agricultural possibilities are poor. What Thoas offers will survive the worst we can do on the surface.’

‘I see.’

The Chapter Masters remained silent. You know me well, Guilliman thought. They knew the debate was about more than a tactical decision.

‘Captain Iasus,’ Guilliman said. ‘You were on the surface. What are your views?’

‘I respectfully disagree with my brother’s evaluation.’ The captain of the 166th was younger than Hierax, and a native of Macragge. His features were far less worn than Hierax’s. The long, livid scar that ran from his right temple down the length of his jaw made his profile seem even more aquiline. ‘The value of Thoas is more than industrial. There was an important culture there. Its memory should be preserved.’

‘That culture failed,’ said Hierax.

‘It did,’ Guilliman agreed. ‘Does that mean it should be expunged from our collective memory? Do we have nothing to learn from it? Does that mean its stand against the orks does not deserve to be commemorated? That there were no battles worthy of song?’

‘It does not,’ Hierax admitted.

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Guilliman placed his hand on a stack of bound vellum manuscripts on the side of his desk. ‘There is no tactical value to the remembrancers on our vessels. They contribute nothing to the battlefields of the Great Crusade. What they contribute in between the battlefields is inestimable. The records of the pacifications. The celebrations of victories. The memorialisation of the fallen. The analyses of the recovered cultures. This is the living tissue of the Imperium’s culture, Hierax. Even the dead civilisations are part of the human story. They have a life beyond the dust of their citizens.’

He turned to look at Thoas. Most of the planet was a dark brown, but it was far from dead. Its atmosphere was turbulent with the flashing energy of storms. The coasts were green with vegetation. Thoas was alive. Even with the cancer of the orks upon it, it was alive. He would not kill it. And he would not kill its history.

‘The orks took Thoas from humanity,’ he said. ‘We will take it back. We will not lose its heritage in the process.’

‘The radiation levels…’ Hierax began.

Guilliman raised a hand. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘They are high in the region of the ruins. Will we make them higher yet? We come to reclaim and to build. We will take Thoas back, and we will build a new civilisation here. Of course it will surpass what was there before, but it will also honour this world’s history.’

He smiled at Hierax. ‘Do you understand, captain?’

‘I do.’ The Destroyer’s tone was flat.

I wonder if you do, Guilliman thought, even more disappointed. Hierax was a good officer, but he was limited. He also symbolised a larger problem Guilliman had seen growing in the Legion, one the time had come to deal with.

‘The Nemesis Chapter stands ready to deploy when and as ordered,’ Hierax said.

‘I’m sure the Twenty-second does.’ Guilliman’s use of the numeral designation sounded like a rebuke. ‘And deploy it will.’

‘All of it?’ Hierax asked.

Guilliman raised an eyebrow at the shade of anger in the question. More evidence of the necessity of what he was about to do. He was glad he had asked Hierax to be here. Listening to the captain had confirmed him in his resolution.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not all of it. There are some actions that will not be necessary.’

Hierax’s lips thinned.

‘The time and the place must be the correct ones,’ Guilliman said. ‘These ones are not.’

Hierax bowed his head. He said nothing.

To the Chapter Masters, Guilliman said, ‘You have seen the intelligence gathered by the Scouts of the 166th and 223rd Companies.’ He emphasised the credit. He had just informed Hierax he would, once again, not be seeing action. He wished the captain to know, also, that the contribution of his Chapter had value.

‘We land in the plain?’ Banzor asked.

Guilliman nodded. ‘Your thoughts?’

‘A good staging area. The orks have the high ground, but our presence will draw them down.’

‘Their high ground is a dead end,’ said Atreus. ‘If we force them back there, that is where they die.’

‘And they will be a diminished enemy in retreat,’ Klord Empion of the Ninth mused.

‘That practical depends on the theoretical of the orks abandoning the ruins,’ Banzor said.

‘When have greenskins ever resisted the bait of a fight?’ said Gage.

‘Good point,’ Banzor admitted.

‘We see no chance the ruins are so important to them that they might hold their ground?’ said Vared of the 11th.

‘Highly unlikely,’ Guilliman said. ‘It would be unprecedented.’

‘“The unprecedented,”’ said Iasus, quoting Axioms 17.vi, ‘“is the catalyst for adaptability. Do not hope to expect every eventuality. Meet it instead.”’

Hierax frowned at the other captain’s temerity. Gage raised an eyebrow, amused.

‘The very words,’ Guilliman said, grinning.

He ended the briefing a few minutes later. The target was clear. So was the strategy. This wasn’t an attack that called for finesse. It would have bored Lion El’Jonson or Fulgrim senseless. Angron might have appreciated the straightforward application of overwhelming force, though he would have been baffled by the decision to capture and preserve the ruins. This was the strategy the enemy and the goal called for, though, so it was the strategy that would be employed. The difference between doctrine and dogma is the gulf between triumph and defeat.

‘Evido,’ Guilliman called to Banzor as the Chapter Masters and the captains filed out of the compartment. ‘A brief word, if you would.’

Banzor walked back to the front of the desk. Gage remained where he was, off to the side and between the desk and the crystalflex walls. Guilliman had told him some of what he had planned, but not all. He was visibly startled by the fact Guilliman had asked the Chapter Master of the 16th to stay. Banzor merely looked puzzled.

When the doors had closed behind the others, Guilliman said, ‘What is your evaluation of Captain Iasus?’

‘In what sense?’

‘In general. And in his ability to command, in specific.’

‘A fine warrior. An excellent captain.’

‘He inspires loyalty?’

‘He does. He doesn’t just lead from the front. He’s fought at one point or another with just about every squad in the company. They know he knows what they do and what they need to do it.’

‘So his mission with the squads was typical rather than unusual.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Adaptable, then.’

‘Very.’

‘And his overall command of the company? I appreciate his fine knowledge of the workings of the squad, but a captain needs to be more than a very flexible sergeant.’

‘You need have no reservations on that score, primarch. The 166th has been exemplary under his leadership.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Thank you, Evido.’

Banzor left, still puzzled. He had questions, but he did not ask them. Guilliman did not offer him answers. He had not made a final decision yet. Until he did, there were no answers for Banzor’s questions.

Guilliman moved to his seat behind the desk. He looked at Gage. The Chapter Master Primus looked less puzzled. He’s guessed, Guilliman thought. Even so, he would not open this particular discussion with Marius. He wanted the quiet of his own counsel first.

Gage understood. Gage knew him well. So Gage spoke of something else. ‘Thoas,’ he said. ‘Are the ruins that important?’

‘You think I should let Hierax off his leash.’

Gage shrugged. ‘The Destroyers haven’t been planetside at all on this campaign.’

‘Their tactics and their weapons have not been called for. We are not fighting that kind of war.’

Gage hesitated. ‘Will we ever?’

‘For those companies as they are presently constituted, I hope not.’

‘“As they are presently constituted”?’ Gage asked.

Guilliman waved off the question. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘To answer your first question – yes. The ruins are that important.’

‘Why?’

‘Their symbolism. Thoas is a culmination. We will crush the ork empire here. We will reclaim a world that we know was once a human one. Another piece of what is and must be inherent to the Imperium will be restored.’

‘All that would be true regardless of the state of the planet.’

Guilliman gave the old veteran a sideways look. ‘Since when are you such an advocate for the Destroyers’ way of war?’

‘I just don’t think we should reject Hierax’s approach out of hand.’

‘I haven’t. I said the symbolism of the ruins is important. It is for two reasons. We are not destroyers, Marius. That isn’t why my Father created us. It can’t be. It won’t be. So preserving a city, even a dead one, is important. Especially now.’

‘Because of the one we destroyed,’ Gage said after a moment.

‘Yes,’ said Guilliman. ‘Because of the one we destroyed.’

Monarchia. Lorgar’s pride. The city raised to glorify the Emperor. The city razed because it had deified the Emperor. A place of architectural wonder. A beautiful city. The XIII Legion had come to the jewel of Khur. The Ultramarines had taken possession of the city. They had rounded up the population. They had reduced the empty city to ash and glass.

The people of Monarchia had committed no crime. They were loyal to the Emperor. Loyal to a fault, Guilliman thought. They were guilty only of believing the lie taught them by Lorgar, a lie Lorgar had believed himself. The memory of the grief on Lorgar’s face during his confrontation with the Emperor haunted Guilliman. It had been the terrible agony of a son punished for doing what he had thought would be pleasing to his father.

The Ultramarines had destroyed a city and the spirit of its populace to chastise Lorgar. To humble his pride.

To make a point.

Symbolism.

‘I keep wondering,’ Gage said, ‘why us?’

‘Because my Father could trust us to perform the task as it needed to be done. Would you have wished it on any of the others?’

Gage shook his head.

‘And Angron might have enjoyed himself,’ Guilliman added. ‘We did what we had to. We were deliberate. We were dispassionate. My Father’s chastisement was measured.’

With a sigh, Gage said, ‘I did not feel measured when we flattened Monarchia.’

‘None of us did.’ The destruction had taken its toll on the Word Bearers. That had been its purpose. There had been a cost for the XIII Legion too. ‘We suffered a blow because of what we did there. We took that blow because it was necessary and because we could stand it. Do you see what Thoas can be for us?’ Symbolism. He tapped a data-slate, summoning the picts Iasus and the Scouts of the 166th had captured. ‘There is majesty there. Majesty worth preserving, and worth building upon. We will take back this city, and in time we will see a new civilisation rise here.’

‘We’ll be creators again,’ Gage said.

‘Thoas will wash the bitterness of Monarchia from our mouths.’

As he spoke, Guilliman turned his seat to look out through the crystalflex at the planet below. He saw the plain where his legions would land. His eyes locked onto the spot where he knew the ruins stood. He thought of absent cities. He tried to make himself think of cities yet to be, not of cities unmade. He failed. He thought of both.

He thought of the force of symbolism, and of the choice he knew he had already made.

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