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Fist of Demetrius - Extract

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Prologue

I bathe in the sound of their screams. Their pain renews me. The scent of their fear fills me with joy. Such pitiful things they are. I had hoped, against my better judgement, for the smallest of challenges, something to drive away ennui for this brief moment of eternity, but what I got were mewling animals, barely fit to sully my blades with their blood.

I stand here, surveying the field of battle from atop a mountain of corpses. I would think it a waste of valuable slaves, save for the fact that there are plenty more humans where these came from. They breed like vermin, filling the universe that was once ours with their squalling progeny. It is good to teach them their place once again.

One of the humans raises its crude weapon and points it at me. The creature is so slow. I spring to one side and the las-bolt strikes the corpse on which I had stood. Flesh sears. A stomach bloated with charnel gases explodes.

It matters not to me. I am nowhere near any more.

I see fear written on the human’s clay-made, brute features. There is no appreciation of the beauty of my movements. It does not have any sense of how blessed it is, to be killed by my hand, to give up its life to feed me.

I leap, crossing thirty strides at a suspensor-assisted bound, and land beside it. My blade flickers. It looks at me dumbfounded. It has not felt anything yet. It looks down and sees that its coarsely-woven tunic has fallen apart where my blade cut. It looks relieved for a second, in its last few painless moments of life, then it sees the blood starting to leak from its flesh. It wonders what has happened. It has no concept of how to kill with artistry or die with dignity.

I smile and move my blade again. Delicate as a haemonculus’s scalpel is my movement. I peel back the flesh like the cloth of the tunic. Muscle is revealed, then vein, then the white, white glimmer of bone. The human’s mouth goes wide as its eyes. It gurgles then clamps shut its lips, trying to hold in its whining.

I am careful not to break anything, to sever anything. It has all happened too quickly for the human. Its sluggish nervous system is just starting to register the first glimmerings of true agony. I feel myself flush with a small jolt of pleasure. Its mouth opens again, a fish out of water, drowning in air. A faint trickle of saliva glistens on the corner of its lips, catching the wan sun’s light like dewdrops on a leaf.

I pause for a moment to consider the loveliness of it, and as I do some of the creature’s oafish companions blunder into view. Their faces are distorted with animal rage. They have interrupted me in my meditation, and I resolve to quench their anger with their blood and fan the flames of their fear until it is a sun-hot blaze.

I reach out with my free hand, to caress the dying human’s face with the razor-sharp fingers of my gauntlets. I insert a blade into an eye socket and listen to the scream. It is a simple pleasure but one I always enjoy.

The humans stand their ground. One of their leaders bellows orders. Its harsh speech offends my ears, so I draw my pistol and fire. My shot is not intended to kill, so it does not. It sears the tongue and stoppers the creature’s offensive grunting, changing a bellow to a gabbling whimper. The humans continue their slow, slow movements, raising weapons to their firing positions.

I pick up the dying creature and twirl it like a partner in the Tarentina of Skulls until its body is in front of me. I make sure it has a moment to realise what is happening, to bring its one good eye to bear on the weapons of its comrades. Something wet squirts down its leg; whether blood or urine I do not care.

It stiffens, knowing what is happening. It faces a firing squad of its own companions. Its form partially obscures mine for all the moments I need. It screams, thinking it is going to be a barrier between me and its comrades. It does not even have the wit to realise it is merely a distraction.

I leap as the dying human’s skin sizzles under a storm of las-bolts. The greasy smell of frying flesh penetrates the nasal filters of my armour. I make a note to see that my artificer is suitably punished for its laxity before it dies. One thousand hours of screaming seems appropriate.

My leap carries me to the cornice of an ancient temple building above the squad of humans. They continue to fire, responding to the wails of their dying compatriot, cheering and grunting, somehow under the pathetic delusion that they are harming me. I take a second to look at their jester caperings. Overhead, the huge face carved into the side of the mountain looks down mockingly. I laugh, and the amplifiers in my armour project my mirth thunderously.

They look around, their bestial minds confused, lacking the wit even to look up. I could kill all of them in this moment. It would be simple. One grenade would do the trick, but where is the artistry in that?

There are twenty-seven of them, a figure divisible by three, which has always been a fortunate number for me. I decide to spare every third one of them, to let them survive to face the torturers. I will kill one third of them cleanly, to give the survivors something to regret they did not receive, and I shall make one third of them chorus their screams unto the heavens.

I spring among them, a carnivore among a herd of plant-eaters. For a moment I am amid the press of their bodies, surrounded by so-rippable flesh, looking upon meat puppets made to mock the shape of the eldar. I feel a delicious tingle of utter hatred. I stand stock-still for a moment to appreciate it before springing into action.

They still have not realised what has happened. I strike one down from behind, applying a careful measure of force so that the skull does not break. I snap another’s neck. I punch blade fists into the stomach of one who turns, and pull out the ropes of entrails. They squirm like sticky purple serpents. I see the pulsing of the thing’s heart within its chest cavity and I resist the urge to pull it out. That would be too quick. I loop a rope of intestines around the throat of another and pull tight. It is not intended to kill, merely to mock. I vault over the shoulder of the squirming soldier. My kick snaps the neck of another.

I handspring as they try to track me, panicked, squeezing the triggers of their weapons. Their clumsy crossfire burns each other. I send a razor edge flashing into the throat of one, shoot another. I kill them before they can accidentally slay those I have chosen to let live. I do not wish them to spoil the symmetry of my creation.

I shoot and strike and lunge, killing one, sparing another, maiming a third. They are too slow to stop me. One of them at last realises it and draws a grenade. I see the delicious fear in its eyes and I know what it intends to do. It is so frightened that it thinks it is going to drop the grenade where it stands and die taking me with it.

The grenade begins its slow, slow fall to the ground. I snatch it from the air, grab the human by the head and force the bomb into the creature’s mouth, then down its throat. I backflip away, suspensor-assisted, soaring into the air as its head and chest explode in a fountain of blood.

In the confusion, the humans have lost track of me again. I pick three at random and execute them with head-shots. They mill around, leaderless now, knowing something is killing them but unable to strike back. They are a rabble, not even worthy of contempt.

Sudden boredom strikes me. I am tempted to end the game and simply kill them all, but that would be undisciplined. One must finish what one starts. One must keep to one’s purposes. The true artist never loses sight of his goals, even though the agony is its own reward, as is the terror.

I catch the pheromonal trace of something new, a human scent that, surprisingly, does not speak of fear or horror, that carries an icy tang of calmness and control. I swivel my head, seeking its source.

A human in a long black coat advances on the rabble as they turn to flee. It looks cleaner, more austere and disciplined than the rest, which is like saying one mon-keigh looks less idiotic than another as it flings its excrement at the bars of its cage. It shouts instructions but is ignored by the panicked mob. It draws a pistol and executes one of the fleeing humans. I feel a faint flicker of annoyance. The newcomer threatens to disarrange the symmetry of my work. There is only one way to prevent that, which is to make it take the place of the man it has killed.

I drop to the ground in front of black-coat.

‘Xenos scum,’ it snarls, marginally quicker on the uptake than the others. ‘Die!’

The translation engines give its voice a flat, metallic ring. It raises its pistol to shoot me as it did its fleeing species-mate. I enjoy the way it froths at the mouth as it tries to bring its weapon to bear as I move. I am glad I decided to spare this one for later, because breaking its will and teaching it to worship me will be more amusing than simply killing it out of hand.

I reach out and snap its wrist before it can pull the trigger. I strike a nerve cluster that I long ago learned will immobilise a human, and then slap it unconscious with the sort of contempt I am sure it will understand when it comes to contemplate it. All around, the rest of its pack continues to flee. I pick them off, one by one as suits my purposes, taking a few extra moments to ensure that the corpses fall in a pattern that is pleasing to the eye, that the blood spatters are random but beautiful, and that there is more than a suggestion of intelligence at work amid the havoc.

I pause in contemplation at the centre of the artwork I have created. It has been a pleasant few minutes of relaxation, but now there is work to be done. I allow the communications channels to open again and listen to my followers as they go about their business.

It seems that they have encountered no more resistance than I have among the so-called defenders of this once sacred site. In a way, it saddens me. There are so few challenges left in the universe, so little of interest. I hear reports of captives being taken and that cheers me. Soon there will be feasting and gladiatorial contests and sport to be had with our new slaves. It is good.

This petty world is ours now. We have a secure base. Soon I will open the Gate of the Ancients and claim their lost treasures. I have taken the first step on my long road back to Commorragh and eventual triumph over my enemies.

Reports are coming in from all over this pathetic planet. The defences are every bit as poor as our scouts suggested they would be. Cities have fallen. Citadel towers are under our control. The population of most of this continent is subdued. We are masters of this valley now and will soon have access to its ancient secrets. The humans cannot stop us.

Of course, these valleys have some significance in their primitive faith. It is only natural. They are looking upon the work of their racial superiors, and no matter how weak our ancestors were those eldar were still as far above humans in the great scheme of existence as a human is above a puke-lizard.

I push such thoughts to one side, unsure as to why I am even bothering to contemplate them. I confess there is something mildly disturbing about this place. The temples of our ancestors rise above us like the tombs of forgotten gods, which is, I suppose, what they are. I stride up the hill, acknowledging the respectful salutes of my warriors. Discipline is lax, a few have already begun to feast, flaying alive their still-living prey to consume the delicious agony. I make a note of the miscreants’ names. I will see that some suitably subtle penalty is enforced later. They will get the message.

I stand in the shadow of the Temple of the Night-Dark One. I have come a long way to find sanctuary here, in a place where none of my enemies would think to look. My rivals are still back in Commorragh, enmeshed in their endless schemes. Can it be that I am really the only one who has read the ancient books of lore? It seems unlikely. I have learned to mistrust good fortune. Too often it is a smiling mask that covers the schemes of one’s enemies. It is always wise to look closely when the universe offers you a gift. It proffers many a poisoned chalice in a form that looks like a victor’s cup, as I have learned to my cost. The price of failure in the intrigues of Commorragh is very high.

I inspect the great entrance to the place. Above me stands an enigmatic stone giant. Its face is somewhat like mine, long and lean and beautiful, with pointed ears. Its shape is tall and slender compared to that of the disconsolate human corpses it looks down on.

I pass through the entrance and into the cool interior. This cave was once a spot sacred to my soft ancestors, back when they believed in their milksop gods. There are niches and alcoves with many small shrines where once offerings were left, flowers and incenses and such. I remove my helmet and make an offering of spittle on the face of a deservedly forgotten deity. A human, robed as one of their priestly caste, makes a shocked sound. My lieutenant, Sileria, digs her finger-blade into a nerve cluster and it screams.

‘The forgotten ones have found new worshippers,’ she says. She sounds amused.

‘Deserving ones,’ I say, and she laughs. There has always been an understanding of sorts between her and me. ‘Mon-keigh who have no understanding of what they abase themselves before, who do not even know that the things they worship are themselves long dead, devoured by She Who Thirsts.’

‘I have secured the shrine as you commanded, Lord Ashterioth. No one has approached it, or will until you have inspected it yourself.’

She wears a questioning look. Clearly she is wondering why we are here and not pillaging the human cities of this world, taking slaves for the Dark Feast. I consider taking her into my confidence, but I am not suicidal. She might try to buy her way back into favour in Commorragh by betraying me to my rivals. She will learn what she needs to know when she needs to learn it. I wonder if she has sneaked into the inner sanctum herself to gaze at what we have come so far to find.

Of course, she has, and she is confused because she has found nothing of value.

A beautiful creature, Sileria, but one lacking in both understanding and imagination. For her, if it does not glitter or scream it can have no value. She does not understand what else might be found in an ancient, empty shrine. I can see she is nerving herself to ask me a question, so I nod encouragingly.

‘Is it true that you intend to desecrate all of these shrines, my lord?’ She gives the word lord a faintly submissive erotic twist. I remember her writhing beneath my lash in bedchamber games of dominance and submission. Surely she is not so simple as to think I would let such memories influence me. But, of course, there is value to be had from encouraging her in such a false belief.

‘In a sense, Sileria,’ I say. In a sense it is true as well. If the ancient texts are to be trusted, I will be committing an act of desecration when the gate opens. I will take what the ancients built and twist it to my own purposes, which, most assuredly, were not theirs. She nods as though I have told her something significant; possibly it is something significant as far as her limited understanding is concerned. No matter how much she schemes, Sileria will always be a follower. Some are born to lead and others to follow, even among the Pinnacles of Creation.

‘I go within,’ I say. ‘Make sure I am undisturbed.’

I leave her absently-mindedly stroking the human with her blades. Its whimpers are a mixture of pleasure and horror and pain. She will keep her new pet alive for some time, I am sure. I turn my mind to higher things as I descend into the long darkness beneath the temple complex. I have a long way to go before I find what I am looking for.

It looks like nothing. Even I, who know its significance, cannot suppress a feeling of disappointment. This is what I have come all these long light years for? For this I have travelled through the webways, absented myself from the intrigues of Commorragh and lost my high place among the Exalted? This?

I stand in a large chamber, surrounded by defaced statues of extinct gods. Before me looms an archway large enough to fly a skimship through, except that it would be impossible. There is nowhere to go. The arch looks as if it is a carving emerging from the wall. It leads onto nothing but blank stone laced with shimmering crystal. Is it possible I have made a mistake, I wonder, that the ancient texts are wrong, that I have become the victim of some gigantic, cosmic hoax?

I look at the archway again. On it are carved the faces of the twelve forgotten gods to whom this temple-site was once sacred. Even if I could name them, I would not. She Who Thirsts expunged their weakness from the universe when she took them into herself. They do not deserve to be remembered by the strong. We do not need such deities now, certainly not such feeble ones. We have become like unto gods ourselves.

I strip off my gauntlet and touch the cool stone, feeling at those mask-like visages. I do not know what I am hoping for. There are no secret buttons or pressure plates to be depressed.

I run my fingers over the deep veins of crystal within the arch, hoping despite myself for some response, some glimmer of ancient archeotech to come to life beneath my touch. Nothing happens.

I glance around. For a moment, I have a sense of being watched. I wonder if it is one of my warriors, spying on me, hoping to learn something; Sileria perhaps. I see nothing, and my senses are keener than most. The sense of ancient, shrivelled presence remains. Perhaps the tattered wisps of the ghosts of dead gods still cling to this place.

The time has come, I tell myself. I walk to the altar and place my hands on the ancient psychotropic crystals. They tingle beneath my hands, still responding to the ancient power of the place. I invoke the rituals I learned in ancient books stolen from the forbidden library. I feel a faint shudder in the crystal as the old powers awaken. Lights flicker. The earth quivers as if it is a giant beast whose sleep has been disturbed by an old nightmare. I have started the first pebble of an avalanche that will eventually bring the full geomantic potential of this place into focus and open the gateway. If all goes correctly, the seal will be broken and the ways beyond will become accessible within mere weeks.

There are rituals that I must still perform, powers that must be invoked, but I have begun. I am one step closer to achieving what I have planned all these long centuries.

I stand and contemplate the gateway arch, wondering whether I will really find the key to ultimate power beyond it. The texts hint as much. In this place, at this time, the ancients struggled to create a device that would be the ultimate weapon and the ultimate defence. The hints suggest that the Fall came before it could be tested but that they were close. If that is even only partially correct there is much I could do with their work.

I smile, alone with the ancient ghosts, thinking that for once I have stolen a march on my rivals. No one else knows of this place. No one will come here before the gateway opens.

If they do, I will destroy them. After I have taken my pleasure upon their broken bodies, of course, and taught them that there are worse things by far than the death they will beg for.

Chapter One

Exhibit 107D-5H. Transcription from a speech imprint found in the rubble of Bunker 207, Hamel’s Tower, Kaladon, containing information pertaining to the proposed beatification of Lord High Commander Solar Macharius and to the investigation of former High Inquisitor Heironymous Drake for heresy and treason against the Imperium.

Walk in the Emperor’s Light.

The huge warship rocked under the impact of a glancing hit from the planetary defence batteries. I could tell the Lux Imperatoris had only taken a glancing hit because I was still alive. The hull was still intact. My cold corpse was not floating in interplanetary space. For a moment, there was utter stillness, as if a quarter of a million men, the crew of the ship and all the Imperial Guard warriors it carried, held their breath.

Above me, through the armoured crystal dome of the warship’s command chamber, I could see a world burning. Demetrius had been a globe of giant forests and ancient temples. Orbital strikes had set those forests on fire. As the wings of night swept over the visible face of the planetary orb, continents glowed fitfully. Occasionally the glittering contrail of a weapon blast leapt across my field of vision as the command ship added the fire of its own batteries to the assault. It had a terrible beauty to it.

Demetrius was not the first world I had seen burn in the ten years since I had joined Macharius’s bodyguard, and I felt certain it would not be the last.

All around us huge holoscreens showed three-dimensional topographical representations of this sector of the galaxy, across which the gigantic war machine of the crusade rumbled. Beneath each holoscreen were tables on which scribes and tech-adepts moved representations of armies and fleets. I had no idea exactly what was going on, but then I did not need to possess such a thing. The man for whom I was a bodyguard already knew all of that and more.

The ten years since Karsk had not changed Macharius physically. He still looked like a warrior god. Some of the other generals were starting to show the signs of easy living and the spoils of victory on a galactic scale, but not him.

The juvenat treatments still worked better for him than any other man I have ever met. He quite literally did not look a day older than when I first saw him inspecting the troops before we began our assault on Irongrad. His hair was still golden, his figure was still lithe, his eyes still resembled those of some great predatory beast. But there was a hardness about his features that had not been there when I had first seen him, a grimness that had grown since his encounter with the daemon that waited at the heart of Karsk. He had seen something during that encounter that had transformed him into an even more relentless conqueror of worlds, made him more determined to reassert Imperial control over all the sectors lost to schism.

As he walked around the command centre he projected the same air of confidence that had been so striking when I first saw him. If anything, he seemed even more certain than he had back then, and he had every reason to.

For ten years the crusade had enjoyed almost uninterrupted victories. It had reclaimed hundreds of worlds, bringing them back into the Emperor’s Light and restoring the true faith to countless billions.

I doubt that I had changed much either. Since being inducted into Macharius’s personal guard I too had been given access to juvenat treatments, and they appeared to work pretty well for me. I did not feel any different from those early days on Karsk. The same was true for Anton, who stood nearby scanning all of the assembled personnel for any threats to the Lord High Commander. He still looked tall and gawky as a fisher bird in the deltas of the Great Black River. His green uniform with the lion’s head insignia of Macharius’s family hung on his body as loose as hand-me-downs on a scarecrow. The juvenat treatment had done nothing for the old scar on his forehead. It writhed like a centipede whenever he frowned or squinted.

Ivan watched everything with a cynical glitter in the human eyes that peered out of his partially metallic face. His grin revealed sharp metal teeth, razor-edged. The juvenat treatments had not worked quite as well for him, possibly because his body was riddled with mechanical parts and this interfered with the technical magic of the serums. Of course, the quality of his augmetic systems was much higher now, as befitted one who was the guardian of the highest warlord in existence. They obviously did not cause him quite so much pain as the older versions had, and he did not drink quite as much as he used to, at least not when he was around Macharius.

We had come a very long way from our homes in the slums of the hive-world of Belial.

The Undertaker watched everything with his strange, empty glance. He too was unchanged from Karsk. Of course, back then, he had been changed more than any other man I have ever known by the events we had witnessed. He had gone from being a junior officer on the crew of a Baneblade to the commander of the bodyguard of one of the most important men in human history, and it had not changed anything. Nothing ever seemed to. He watched everything with the same cold, blank expression he had ever since the days when the lieutenant’s brains had been splattered all over his uniform.

We were not the only ones present responsible for Macharius’s security, of course. There were some who had been there longer, retainers of his family, summoned from his home world to replace the casualties of Karsk and beyond. They looked somewhat like Macharius. All of them had the same golden skin and golden hair. All of them looked like smaller, inferior copies of the great man made from a slightly degraded mould. There were men drawn from a hundred different worlds and a hundred different regiments, all of whom had fought for a position in the service of the supreme warlord of mankind. There were Catachans and Hemorans and Mordians and Telusians. All of them were joined in one brotherhood by their loyalty to Macharius and his crusade.

The Lux Imperatoris rocked again as another blast came close. I offered up a prayer to the Emperor and wondered if He could hear me from His throne on distant Terra.

A scribe approached and spoke to Macharius with the mixture of precision, formality and reverence that Macharius inspired in those around him. He was doing his best to ignore the shuddering of the ship and the possibility of instant death as he brought news of another victory. The worlds of the Proteus system had surrendered, bringing another three planets, ten hive cities and nineteen billion people back into the Imperial fold. Macharius nodded an acknowledgement, turned and said something to another clerk, recommending the general in charge of the campaign for some honour or other, and walked on.

Two more uniformed clerks approached and saluted. Before they could even open their mouths to speak, Macharius rattled off orders, sending instructions to commanders who were five star systems away, instructing them on which cities to besiege, which worlds to offer alliances to and which governors to bribe. He had no difficulty dredging up any of this knowledge. It was all there in his head, all of the details of an infinitely vast campaign the like of which had probably not been fought since the Emperor walked among men. He ordered more reinforcements sent to aid them and kept on walking towards the furthest tables.

Sometimes he looked up and gazed upon the surface of the burning planet with a look of longing in his eyes. I felt a certain sympathy for him then. Macharius was a warrior, born to fight. He loved commanding this great force, but I suspect he missed the thrill of physical conflict, the feeling of danger, of taking his own life in his hands. His thoughts were drifting to those final battles taking place on the world beneath us.

I could tell that he wanted to be there. I could tell also that he had something else on his mind, something to do with his current obsession with prophecies and divinations and ancient relics that so exercised his mind when he talked with Drake. It was a topic that drew the two of them together, it seemed, although Drake has never struck me as a superstitious man. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Here on the galaxy’s furthest rim, superstitions were common. These worlds had been far from the Emperor’s Light for a hundred generations; all manner of strange, deviant and heretical faiths had sprung up, and all manner of weird beliefs had infected the populations. Some had even taken root among our own soldiers, although you would have thought they would have been immune to it. Clusters of prophecies had begun to gather around Macharius himself. That was easy enough to understand. The Lord High Commander appeared invincible, gifted with near-supernatural powers of foresight.

There were some who claimed he was blessed by the Emperor. There were others who thought he was a supernatural being himself. Reports had started to arrive of shrines being set up to Macharius on dozens of worlds and not just by those unbelievers whose temples to false prophets had been overthrown.

The ship shook. We looked at each other for a moment before we went back to pretending that nothing had happened. An officer in Naval uniform walked over.

‘A glancing strike to the void screens, Lord High Commander,’ he volunteered. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

‘I am not worried,’ Macharius replied.

‘I doubt they could possibly know this is the Imperial command vessel,’ said the officer. He clearly was more disturbed than Macharius as the possibility that they did occurred to him.

Macharius nodded and the officer pulled himself together, clicked his heels and saluted. As Macharius strode by, his mere presence seemed to reassure people. Worried frowns disappeared from the faces of scribes and star-sailors. Command must always look confident and that was something that Macharius managed supremely well.

We made our way towards one of the great command tables with utter casualness. Indeed, so relaxed was our approach that I knew that we were approaching the spot in which Macharius had the greatest interest. I had learned to read the subtle signals of his moods by then. Or perhaps I delude myself. Few men ever truly knew what the great general was thinking.

Ahead of us was the command sphere for the world we currently orbited. On its flowing surface was a representation of the continent we could see through the dome above us. Instead of being lit by the fires of burning forests, this showed representations of armies as glowing patterns. Ours were green. The enemy forces were red. Various runes indicated the composition of the units, ours glowing steadily to show we were certain of their composition. The enemy forces pulsed with varying speed to indicate the margin for error in our scouts’ reports on their position and strength.

Around the table stood a variety of ranking commanders and Drake. He was in theory an observer but stood with the air of a man who was actually in charge, at least until Macharius arrived. The high inquisitor was tall and slim, with a pale, cold face and dark hair which now had a tinge of grey in it. Obviously the juvenat treatments had not taken so well with him, or perhaps he was simply much older than he had appeared when we first met and the drugs’ effects had started to weaken.

I did not know much of the inquisitor’s personal history, and he never volunteered anything to anyone in my hearing, even Macharius. He was a man much more used to asking questions than answering them. Uneasiness radiated from his person to those around him, in the same way as confidence emanated like solar rays from Macharius.

The high inquisitor looked up as Macharius approached and smiled. I suspect that Macharius was as close a thing to a friend as Drake ever had, if friend is a word you can ever use in the context of an inquisitor. I had seen too much of his business in the past ten years to believe that he looked at the world with any more humanity than the Undertaker did.

Macharius nodded a greeting and went over to stand beside the inquisitor. The two men were of a height but otherwise were as different as two people could be. Macharius was physically powerful, Drake slender and ascetic and deceptively frail looking. Macharius wore the gorgeously braided uniform of the highest ranking Imperial Guard officer. Drake wore a plain black tunic and a scarlet cloak with cowl. Around him, a group of storm trooper bodyguards lounged like attack dogs. They eyed us as warily as we eyed them.

Drake nodded to me, which was not something calculated to make me feel any easier in my skin. He had taken an interest in me since Karsk, as he took an interest in all those close to Macharius. Often I had been summoned to his presence to answer questions about the general’s moods and health. I had reported these conversations to Macharius, of course, and he had told me to answer truthfully. He clearly believed that I had no secrets about him to reveal to the Inquisition that they did not already know, and I suspect he was right.

Macharius turned to the tech-adept who stood by the command altar. ‘Give me a view of sector alpha twelve,’ he said. ‘Close magnification.’

‘In the Emperor’s name, Lord Macharius,’ the adept responded. He intoned a litany and moved his hands in some ritual gestures over the altar. We looked now at a three-dimensional map of a strange city. All around it was a clear, flat zone, where the forest had been burned early to provide a fire-break. The buildings were ziggurats, sheathed in metal, glittering in the light of twin suns. They looked as much fortresses as temples. They bristled with turrets and blister-bunkers and other fortifications.

War raged. Men in the uniforms of the Imperial Guard fought with fanatics in the green and purple robes of the local temple wardens. Blood flowed in the streets. The natives fought stubbornly, with the courage of zealots prepared to die for their misguided faith.

They were going to. So much was obvious. Inexorably, Imperial Chimeras and Basilisks and Leman Russ tanks pushed through the streets surrounding the stepped pyramids, moving in the direction of the gigantic central temple. Macharius looked at the colonel who had been liaising with the ground forces.

‘My orders have been conveyed?’ he said. There was a question in his voice, which was not like him. Normally Macharius gave a command in the full expectation of it being obeyed and then moved on. He did not check on subordinates unless something had gone wrong, in which case he moved swiftly and ruthlessly to correct the errors.

‘The ground commanders have been specifically instructed not to bombard the central temple. The soldiers know there is to be no plundering on pain of death and that demolition charges and heavy weapons are not to be used within its precincts, Lord High Commander. I made your orders very clear on those points. There can be no misunderstandings.’

‘Good,’ Macharius said, and the man seemed to swell with his praise. Like everyone else on the command ship, he knew Macharius would not forget his efficiency or forgive his failures. He had gained credit in the eyes of the most important man in the crusade, and rewards would eventually and inexorably be disbursed.

The ship shook again, more violently this time, as it took another glancing strike from a planetary defence battery. It made me uneasy. I did not like to feel that any moment I might be vaporised and that there was nothing I could do about it. This was a battle fought with weapons so gigantic that ships with the populations of small cities could be destroyed in an instant, and an individual warrior could have no influence on his fate. Give me a ground battle or even trench warfare any time. At least there you can take cover and a few enemies with you.

The glow-globes flickered. A smell of ozone filled the air. Somewhere in the distance someone screamed. Someone else shouted an order. I suspect the screamer was being clapped in irons or assigned to a punishment detail.

‘It seems that the enemy might be finding their range,’ said Macharius. He chuckled and everybody else around him did the same. It was not that what he said was particularly funny, but when a general makes a joke, no matter how feeble, his subordinates laugh. It did dispel the tension.

Drake had ignored the near miss. He had been staring at the battle-map with total concentration, as if he could achieve a spiritual revelation if only he looked hard enough.

‘We must have the Fist,’ he said in a voice so low that only Macharius and those standing close to him could have heard it.

‘Do not worry, my friend,’ said Macharius. ‘We shall get it.’

‘We must,’ said Drake. ‘It may be one of the Imperium’s most sacred artefacts – a relic from the time when the Emperor walked among men, a thing perhaps borne by one of his most trusted primarchs, a worthy gift for potent allies.’

Macharius smiled. He appeared to be considering something for a moment, which was unusual for him. Normally for him to think was to act, and to act with a decision and correctness that most ordinary men could not have achieved with hours or days of contemplation.

‘In that case, I believe I shall secure it myself.’

Drake shook his head like a man hearing something he had feared but which he had hoped not to have to deal with.

‘Is that wise?’ he said. It was phrased like a question, but it was really a statement. Drake was one of the few men who would have dared question Macharius. It was a thing that was happening more and more in those days, as if a rift were slowly opening between him and the Lord High Commander; as if he, so seemingly secure in his faith, were starting to have doubts in Macharius. In this case I was with him, for I could tell from the rare and slightly crazed grin spreading across the general’s face that Macharius was serious. He really had decided to go planetside and lead the assault on the temple.

Drake knew as well as I did that once Macharius had made up his mind there was no possibility of deflecting him from his purpose, but the high inquisitor was not a man to easily admit defeat.

‘You should not put yourself at risk, Lord High Commander,’ said Drake. I suppose he was thinking that he would be in trouble with his superiors if anything happened to Macharius. After all, he seemed to have taken on some responsibility for Macharius’s safety after the events on Karsk.

‘I have no intention of putting myself at risk,’ said Macharius. He was already striding towards the exit arch of the command centre, though, and all we could do was follow in his wake, like the tiny satellites of a gas-giant or a cometary halo whirling around a sun.

Anton shot me a look that I knew well. A grin that was considerably more crazy than Macharius’s flickered across his face and was gone before anyone but me could have seen it.

Drake shrugged and began to stride along beside Macharius. His storm troopers moved in his wake, some of them even surging ahead as though they suspected danger might lurk in every corridor of the command vessel.

‘I shall accompany you then,’ said the high inquisitor. ‘You may need my services down there.’

‘As ever, I welcome your company,’ said Macharius. ‘But admit it, you are just as keen as I to get your hands on the work of the ancients.’

A cold smile appeared on Drake’s face, one of the few I had ever seen. He was a forbidding man in a position of fearful power, and I doubt anyone ever mocked him the way that Macharius did. Perhaps he enjoyed the basic human contact. It must have been rare in his life. ‘I am certainly keen to know whether it is the thing we seek.’

The command ship rocked again under the impact of another planet-based weapon. I was suddenly glad that we were on the move, heading towards the shuttle bay. It would be good to feel ground beneath my feet again, and air in my lungs that had not been recycled through a ship’s fallible systems, a thousand thousand times.

It struck me then that for all his courage perhaps Macharius felt the same way. Even for a man as brave as he undoubtedly was, waiting on a ship under attack, when any moment its walls might explode and you might be cast into the chill vacuum of space, must have been a nerve-wracking experience. I asked myself if it was possible he was just as nervous as I and just hid it better.

I dismissed the idea as ludicrous.

Chapter Two

‘I told you this was a bad idea,’ said Inquisitor Drake.

We were pinned down behind a low wall while heretics poured autogun fire down on us. Bullets whined overhead and ricocheted off the brickwork. The cloud of lead was too dense for anyone to dare attempt to return fire. Merely sticking your head up would have seen it reduced to bloody pulp.

Behind us, an ancient tree, part of the temple gardens, was so riddled with metal slugs that it threatened to topple. The leaves had been stripped from all of the ornamental bushes. The ancient runic stone standing in a fish pond was chipped and splintered. A sundial cast a pockmarked double shadow on the ground.

I wondered if Macharius had finally made a fatal error. Perhaps his keenness to get his hands on the Fist of Demetrius would be the un-doing of us all.

‘Nonsense,’ said Macharius with his infectious utter confidence. I looked over and saw that he was smiling. He was enjoying himself more than he had in weeks. His uniform was dirt-stained, blood was dripping from his cheek, a blister that marked the near miss of a las-bolt had started to rise on the back of one of his hands, and yet he looked like a man who could think of no place he would rather be.

One of his wild moods was on him. He had led from the front as soon as he had arrived on the scene, heading charges, striding across the field of battle as if las-bolts would swerve around him. Of course, Macharius had an uncanny ability to always be where las-bolts were not. He seemed to know instinctively when to step aside, when to take cover in a doorway, when to throw himself flat. His reflexes were almost inhuman. And if his reflexes did not save him, I suspect the high inquisitor’s psyker powers did.

Drake did not look like he was enjoying himself. He saw no humour in the situation. He was a man who considered himself too important to throw his life away in a small skirmish on the side of a minor temple on some backwater world.

‘Nonsense?’ he said. I could tell he was coldly angry and keeping his anger on the leash. It was a novel experience for him. Macharius was one of the very few people who did not quail at the sight of his wrath.

Macharius said, ‘In approximately two minutes Alpha Company of the Bjornian Snow Raiders will appear on that rise over there…’ He pointed off to the south, where some burned out stumps of trees marked all that was left of one of the gardens that had once covered the sides of this temple. ‘In one hundred and fifty seconds, Crimson Company of the Nova World Regiment will take up position on the roof of that observation bunker…’ A nod showed us where Macharius confidently expected the troops to appear. ‘They will pour enfilading fire on the heretic position, and we shall sweep forwards and take the gate.’

He spoke with utter certainty that would have been mad in anyone else but which was justified in his case. I had seen him do this before and ninety-nine times out of a hundred he would be right. He seemed able to foresee the twists and turns of combat amid the chaos of a battlefield.

Of course, not even Macharius was right all the time. I sometimes wondered at what he did, the way he courted death. He was one who needed to put himself in peril. It was only then that he was fully alive. It was a dangerous trait for an Imperial general to have and possibly Macharius’s only weakness.

‘Lord High Commander, the heretics are advancing on us,’ said the Undertaker. He might have been reporting the fact that our lunch had just been delivered from the field canteen.

The storm of fire had slackened over our heads. I could hear the shouts and battle-cries of the oncoming fanatics of the temple guard.

Macharius nodded as though he had expected this all along. Perhaps he had. You could never tell with him how much was skill, how much was knowledge and how much was just a superb bluff. ‘Now all we have to do is hold our ground until the reinforcements arrive.’ He checked the chronometer on his wrist. ‘We have approximately ninety seconds.’

With that he stood up and snapped off a shot with his customised pistol. A heretic went to meet his false god. I looked at Anton and Ivan. Anton held the sniper rifle he had picked up on Dolmen. He had become quite proficient with it. Ivan still carried his standard-issue lasgun. As one we moved into the kneeling position and saw a wave of fanatics rolling towards us as inexorable as the rising of the tide on the third moon of Poseidonis.

I did not need to aim. There were so many of them, packed so close together I could not miss. I just pulled the trigger and pumped the combat shotgun. It tore men apart, but still they kept on coming. The others fired their weapons. They could not miss either. Men fell, robes on fire, flesh seared to burned meat.

Drake stood as well, an eerie glow surrounding him and extending itself to cover Macharius at his side. I shuddered. I had never adjusted to the sight of a man using those inhuman powers, even if they were sanctioned by the Imperium in Drake’s case.

Of course, there were other things with the heretics. Their priestly caste had guardians. They looked like great white apes with heads resembling those of wolves. They looked twice as tall as a man, stronger than an ogryn and about as intelligent. Local superstition claimed they were inhabited by the spirits of warriors chosen by the forest gods. A tech-adept had assured me the transfer was achieved by means of ancient spiritual engines.

To tell the truth, it did not matter to me in the slightest at that moment. The sight of them, with their arms three times as thick around as my thighs, their huge claws and their massive fanged mouths, was almost enough to make me turn tail and flee. Perhaps the most horrific thing about them was the near-human intelligence in their eyes. It was strange to see it gleam out of such savage, bestial faces.

‘Hold your ground,’ Macharius said. ‘Not much longer now.’

One of the huge ape-wolves bounded forwards in a spring that covered thirty strides in a heartbeat. By instinct or design it had somehow managed to pick out Macharius. Possibly it sensed who was the dominant figure in our ranks.

It landed on top of Macharius, bowling him over. It bellowed and screamed and rose, covered in blood. I aimed a shot at its head. The shell tore away flesh and fur, leaving only bone gleaming. I looked down expecting to see Macharius’s torn form, but he was unscathed except for some rips in his uniform where those massive claws had torn.

I looked at the stomach of the great beast as it roared and tottered and stretched towards the sun. I saw that its chest was sheared open, flesh rent and bruised in the distinctive pattern that a chainsword leaves. There had been no need for me to shoot it. Macharius had somehow eluded its grip and struck a killing blow.

I had no time to brood on this idea. The wave of heretics hit us. The only barrier between the two forces was the wall we had been hiding behind, and that was so low a fit man could leap over it with ease. I found myself grappling chest to chest with a burly heretic. Somehow I managed to break out of his grip, knee him in the groin and then bring the butt of my shotgun down on his head with an audible crunch. I turned and caught another man in the stomach.

The fighting was close and deadly. Ivan bludgeoned around him with his metal fist. Retractable studs and blades had emerged, turning it into something far worse than simply an ancient mace. He used his arm to block incoming bayonets. I think his foes were surprised by the nature of his shield for none of them managed to land a telling blow.

I looked around to make sure Macharius was safe. Anton stood near him, sniper rifle in hand, still shooting. His speed and accuracy were impressive. No one managed to get close to him and somehow in all the chaos he managed to pick his targets well. Of course, the shimmering glow of Drake’s shield protected Macharius and the inquisitor from any accidental hits, and he could unleash death with complete confidence that he would not mow down the very people he sought to protect. It was a small advantage, but in that sort of combat you take any you can get.

A heretic pointed a slug-gun at me. I threw myself to one side and twisted. Idiotically, I aimed the shotgun at him and pulled the trigger. The weapon’s kick almost dislocated my shoulder. The shell did a lot worse to the heretic’s stomach.

One of the great ape-wolves bounded towards me, enormous muscles bunching under its fur, great clawed hands flexing as if it intended to rip me apart. Its mouth was open in a howl. Saliva glistened on its yellowish tusks.

I pumped the shotgun, knowing I was only going to get one shot. I took aim at the open, screaming maw. I tried to ignore the fact that it was almost upon me, that all it had to do was reach out and it could crush my head with one enormous paw. I pulled the trigger. The shell passed through the roof of its mouth and took off the top of its head. The impact was enough to send the corpse toppling off-balance onto the heretics behind it.

I let out a long breath, and something hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. My arm went numb. I was spun around like a rag doll tossed across a room. I fell, sprawling, as pain seared my bicep.

For a moment, I had those horrible suspicions you always have when you take a hit. Was this it? Were these my last breaths? Was everything about to go black?

I struggled with the pain, trying to fight off the darkness, determined I was not going to let myself fall forwards into the grave if I had any say in the matter. Out of the corner of my eye, looking up at the purple-tinged sky, I saw something. The Snow Raiders were exactly where Macharius had said they would be. They were firing down into the flank of the heretics from their elevated position. I hoped they had enough sense not to fire their heavy weapons into a melee. The same thought had occurred to Anton. He picked up the fallen banner of Macharius and raised it as high as he could, obviously intending to remind the newcomers exactly who was down here.

I heard screams from the other side now, and I realised that for once Macharius had gotten something wrong. The Nova Worlders had not taken up their assigned position but instead were swarming forwards to take the heretics in the flank and rear. Under the circumstances it was a better thing than firing into the melee, but it was going to cost them in blood. They would have been better off maintaining their distance and pouring on the fire.

But, of course, they had seen the lion’s head banner and realised the general was in peril, so they had leapt to aid him with no thought for their own lives. It was the sort of loyalty Macharius inspired in all those who encountered him. The general responded like the hero he was, charging forwards, chainsword flickering, killing everything that got in his way as he moved towards the newly arrived Nova Worlders and away from the flanking fire of the Snow Raiders.

I picked myself up, shotgun in one hand, unable to move my wounded arm. I looked down at it. It was bleeding but not heavily. I let the shotgun fall at my feet, knelt and fumbled for my knife with my good hand. I peeled away the bloody cloth of the sleeve and looked at the arm. There was bruising and blood and mangled flesh. I was going to have to slap some synthi-flesh on it.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, a heretic leapt at me. He had an ancient curved bayonet attached to the barrel of his rifle, and he intended to skewer me with it. I threw the knife at him. It was a bad cast from an injured man, and all that happened was the hilt of the weapon smacked him beneath the eye. I had just effectively disarmed myself. I thought I was doomed, but at that moment, Ivan hurled himself between us, blocked the stab of the bayonet with his mechanical arm and then leaned forwards. I was tempted to look away, knowing what was coming.

Ivan’s mechanical jaws clamped shut on the man’s windpipe. He shook his head tearing out the man’s throat. Blood spurted as an artery ripped, spraying Ivan’s face. Droplets of blood ran down the metal half of his features like red tears falling on a mirror. I felt someone loom over me and turned ready to strike. Anton took a step back as if scared I would stab him. I asked him if that was the case.

‘You don’t have a knife,’ he said with his idiot grin. ‘It was a nice trick disarming yourself like that. Really lured the heretic into your trap.’

He moved closer, eyes scanning for trouble. Ivan was on top of the heretic’s corpse now, still tearing at it like an attack dog. The fulcrum of the combat had moved away. The melee swirled around us but we were in the clear, surrounded by corpses and those who would soon be corpses.

Something sticky hit me on the arm, and I realised Anton had slapped synthi-flesh on my wound.

There was cheering. Macharius’s banner flowed back towards us, borne by a tide of newly arrived Imperial Guard. I realised Anton must have let it fall or given it to someone else when he had come to aid me. Ivan looked up. All around his mouth was red gore. His metal teeth were red too. It looked as if he had been in a terrible accident but, of course, all the blood belonged to the man whose throat he had bitten out.

All three of us moved towards Macharius. Inquisitor Drake gave us a long hard look. I wondered if he thought Anton and Ivan should have stuck with the Lord High Commander. There was a chilly moment while his cold blue eyes rested on me, then he turned away. His storm troopers kept looking, though, as if they had noticed their master’s gaze and decided that they needed to pay special attention to anyone it studied so. It was hard to tell. I could not see their expressions through the face-masks of their helmets.

Macharius himself did not seem to care. His face was alight with triumph and the pleasure that victory in physical combat always gave him. I was sure that he had noticed everything, though. He always did, and he never forgot.

A field medic came rushing up. First he went to check on Macharius and Drake. I saw Macharius point in my direction, and the adept came over and began to patch me up. In minutes he had adjusted the synthi-flesh sealant. My arm was cool and numb. For the moment I could not use my shotgun, so I hung it over my shoulder and drew a sidearm.

More and more of our troops came into view. Valkyrie troop-carriers were starting to drop storm troopers on the roof of the central step of the ziggurat now that all of the anti-aircraft weapons on the structure had been silenced.

Ahead of us lay the massive ebonwood door of the complex and, beyond it, the ominously silent halls within which the ancient wonder Macharius and Drake sought was said to lie.

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First published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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