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ONE

Recital/See it Through/Laeran

‘The danger for most of us,’ Ostian Delafour would say on those rare occasions when he was coaxed to speak of his gift, ‘is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we hit it.’ He would then smile modestly and attempt to recede into the background of whatever conversation was under way, feeling exposed under the spotlight of adulation, and uncomfortable with the attention.

Only here in his chaotic studio, surrounded by scattered piles of chisels, hammers and rasps, chipping away at the marble with deft strokes to create wonders, did he feel comfortable. He stepped away from the block of stone that stood in the centre of his studio and ran a hand across his high forehead and through his short, tightly curled, black hair as he took in the measure of this latest session.

The marble column was a gleaming white rectangle, some four metres tall, its surfaces as yet unblemished by chisel or rasp. Ostian circled the marble, running his silver hands across its smooth surface, feeling the structure within and picturing where he would make the first cut into the stone. Servitors had brought the block up from the Pride of the Emperor’s loading bays a week ago, but he had yet to complete his visualisation of how he would bring forth his masterpiece from the block.

The marble had come to the Emperor’s Children’s flagship from the quarries at Proconnesus on the Anatolian peninsula, where much of the stonework that comprised the Emperor’s palace had been sourced. The block had been hand-quarried from Mount Ararat, a rugged and inaccessible peak, but one known to contain rich deposits of pure white marble. Its value was incalculable and only the influence of the Primarch of the Emperor’s Children had secured its shipping out to the 28th Expedition.

He knew others called him a genius, but Ostian knew that his hands were but the means of freeing what already lived within the marble. His skill (modesty forbade him from calling his talent genius) lay in seeing what the finished product would be before he laid so much as the first subbia upon the stone. The marble not yet carved could hold the form of every thought the artist could conceive.

Ostian Delafour was a slight man with a thin, earnest face and narrow, long-fingered hands sheathed in silver metal that gleamed like mercury and which constantly fidgeted with whatever came to hand, as though the digits had a life beyond that dictated to them by their master. He wore a long white smock over a finely cut suit of black silk and a cream shirt, the formal nature of his clothes at odds with the untidy workshop in which he spent most of his time.

‘Now I’m ready,’ he whispered.

‘I should hope so,’ said a woman’s voice behind him. ‘Bequa will have a conniption if we’re late for her recital, you know how she gets.’

Ostian smiled and said, ‘No, Serena, I meant I’m ready to begin sculpting.’

He turned and undid the ties holding his smock, lifting it over his head as Serena d’Angelus swept into his studio like one of the terrible matriarchs played so well by Coraline Aseneca. She tutted in distaste at the scattered tools, ladders and scaffolds. Ostian knew that her own studio was as neat and immaculate as his was dis-ordered; the paints stacked neatly by colour and tone to one side, and her brushes and palette knives, as spotless and sharp as the day she had first acquired them, on the other.

Short and with the kind of attractiveness that completely eluded her as to why men found her desirable, Serena d’Angelus was perhaps the greatest painter of the Remembrancer order. Others favoured the landscapes of Kelan Roget, who travelled with the 12th Expedition of Roboute Guilliman, but Ostian felt that Serena’s skill was the greater.

Even if she doesn’t think so, he thought, stealing a glance at the long sleeves of her dress.

For Bequa Kynska’s recital, Serena had chosen a long, formal gown of cerulean silk with an unfeasibly tight gold basque that accentuated the swell of her breasts. As always, she wore her hair unbound, the long, raven-dark tresses reaching to her waist and framing her long, oval face and dark almond-shaped eyes perfectly.

‘You look beautiful, Serena,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Ostian,’ said Serena, standing before him and fussing with his collar. ‘You, however, look as though you’ve just woken up in that suit.’

‘It’s fine,’ protested Ostian as she undid his necktie and painstakingly retied it.

‘Fine, darling, is not good enough,’ said Serena, ‘as well you know. Bequa will want to preen once this damn recital is over and I won’t have her saying we artists embarrassed her by looking shabby and bohemian.’

Ostian grinned. ‘Yes, she does have rather a dim view of the prac-tical arts.’

‘It comes of a pampered upbringing in the hives of Europa,’ said Serena. ‘And did I hear you say that you were ready to begin sculpting?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Ostian, ‘I am. I can see what’s inside now. I only have to set it free.’

‘Well I’m sure Lord Fulgrim will be glad to hear that,’ said Serena. ‘I hear he had to ask the Emperor personally to have that stone shipped all the way from Terra.’

‘Oh, well no pressure then…’ said Ostian as Serena turned away from him, satisfied that he was as presentable as he was going to get.

‘You’ll be fine, darling. You and your hands will soon have that marble singing.’

‘And your work?’ asked Ostian. ‘How are you getting on with the portrait?’

Serena sighed. ‘It’s getting there, but with the pace Lord Fulgrim is setting for the fighting, it’s a rare day I get him to sit for me.’

Ostian watched as Serena unconsciously scratched at her arms as she continued, ‘Every day it sits unfinished I see more and more I hate about it. I think I may start again.’

‘No,’ said Ostian, prising her hands away from her arms. ‘You’re exaggerating. It’s fine, and once the Laer are defeated, I’m sure Lord Fulgrim will sit for you as much as you need him to.’

She smiled, but Ostian could see the lie behind it. He wished he knew how to lift her from the melancholy that weighed upon her soul, and undo the harm she was doing to herself.

Instead, he said, ‘Come on. We shouldn’t keep Bequa waiting.’

Ostian had to admit that Bequa Kynska, former child prodigy of the Europa hives, was now a beautiful woman. Her wild blue hair was the colour of the sky on a clear day, and her features were sculpted by good breeding and discreet surgery, though she wore an overabundance of facial cosmetics that, to Ostian’s mind, only detracted from her natural beauty. Just beneath her hair, he could make out aural enhancers and a number of fine wires trailing from her scalp.

Bequa had been educated at the finest academies of Terra and trained at the newly established Conservatoire de Musique – though, in truth, the time she had spent at the latter institution had largely been wasted, as there had been little the tutors there could teach her that she did not already know. People the length and breadth of the galaxy listened to her operas and harmonious ensembles, and her skill in creating music that could lift the soul and raise the rafters with its energy was second to none.

Ostian had met Bequa twice before aboard the Pride of the Emperor, and each time had been repulsed by her monstrous ego and intolerably high opinion of herself. But, for some unknown reason, Bequa Kynska seemed to adore him.

Dressed in a layered gown the colour of her hair, Bequa sat alone on a raised stage at the far end of the recital hall, head down and perched before a multi-symphonic harpsichord linked to a number of sonic projectors spaced at regular intervals around the hall.

The recital hall itself was a wide chamber of dark wood panelling and porphyry columns illuminated by subdued lumen globes bobbing on floating gravitic generators. Stained glass windows depicting purple-armoured Astartes of the Emperor’s Children ran the length of one wall and a row of marble busts said to have been carved by the primarch himself lined the other.

Ostian made a mental note to examine them later.

Perhaps a thousand people filled the hall, some clad in the beige robes of remembrancers, others in the sober black robes of Terran adepts. Others still wore classically fashioned brocaded jackets, striped trousers and high, black boots that marked them as Imperial nobility, many of whom had joined the 28th Expedition specifically to hear Bequa play.

Amongst the crowd were soldiers of the Imperial Army: senior officers bearing feathered helmets, cavalry lancers in golden breastplates, and discipline masters in red greatcoats. A profusion of different coloured uniforms circulated through the recital hall, the click of sabres and spurs loud on the polished wooden floor.

Surprised at the sheer number of uniforms he saw, Ostian said, ‘How can all these army officers afford the time to attend events like this? Aren’t we at war with an alien species?’

‘There’s always time for art, my dear Ostian,’ said Serena, procuring two crystal flutes of sparkling wine from one of the liveried pages that passed quietly to and fro among the crowd. ‘War may be a harsh mistress, but she’s got nothing on Bequa Kynska.’

‘I don’t see why I have to be here,’ said Ostian, sipping the wine and enjoying the refreshing crispness of the beverage.

‘Because she has invited you, and one does not refuse such an invite.’

‘But I don’t even like her,’ protested Ostian. ‘Why would she bother to invite me?’

‘Because she likes you, you silly goose,’ said Serena, nudging him playfully in the ribs with her elbow, ‘if you know what I mean.’

Ostian sighed. ‘I can’t imagine why, I’ve barely spoken to the woman. Not that she let me get a word in edgeways anyway.’

‘Trust me,’ said Serena, placing a delicate hand on his arm, ‘you want to be here.’

‘Really? Enlighten me as to why.’

‘You haven’t heard Bequa play, have you?’ asked Serena with a smile.

‘I’ve heard her phonocasts.’

‘My boy,’ said Serena, theatrically pretending to swoon, ‘if one has not heard Bequa Kynska with one’s own ears, one has heard nothing! You will need lots of handkerchiefs, for you will cry a great deal! Or failing that, take a sedative because you will be exalted to the point of delirium!’

‘Fine,’ said Ostian, already wishing he was back in his studio with the marble, ‘I’ll stay.’

‘Trust me,’ chuckled Serena, ‘it will be worth your while.’

Eventually the hubbub of conversation in the hall began to subside. Serena took hold of his arm and placed a finger to her lips. He looked for the source of the gathering silence then saw that a vast figure in white robes with long flowing blond hair had entered the recital hall.

‘Astartes…’ breathed Ostian. ‘I had no idea they were so huge.’

‘That is First Captain Julius Kaesoron,’ said Serena, and Ostian caught the smug tone to her voice.

‘You know him?’

‘He has asked me to create a likeness of him, yes,’ beamed Serena. ‘It transpires that he’s quite the patron of the arts. Pleasant fellow, and he has promised to keep me informed of opportunities that might arise.’

‘Opportunities?’ asked Ostian. ‘What kind of opportunities?’

Serena did not reply and an expectant hush fell upon the privileged assembly as the lumen globes dimmed yet further. Ostian looked towards the stage as Bequa moved her hands across the keyboard of the harpsichord. A sudden, energetic and romantic feeling overcame him as the sonic projectors precisely magnified the intensity of her overture.

Then the performance began, and Ostian found his dislike of Bequa swept away as he heard the sound of a storm take shape in the music. At first he heard raindrops, then the symphonic wind picked up and suddenly there was a downpour. He heard torrents of rain, lashing wind and the throb of thunder. He looked up, half expecting to see dark clouds.

Trombones, a shrill piccolo and thundering timpani swelled and danced in the air as the music grew bolder, transforming into a passionate symphony that told its epic story in the tones and moods created, though Ostian would later remember nothing of its substance.

Vocal soloists combined with an orchestra, though he could see no trace of either, the soaring music yearning for peace, joy, and the brotherhood of Man.

Ostian felt tears pouring down his face as his soul was given flight, then plunged into despair, before rising towards a majestic, exultant climax by the power of the music.

He looked over at Serena, and seeing that she was similarly moved, wanted to pull her close and share in the joyous expression of his feeling. Ostian looked back to the stage where Bequa swayed like a madwoman, her sapphire-blue hair whipping around her face as she played, her hands moving like dervishes across the keyboard.

Movement drew Ostian’s eyes to the front of the enraptured audience, where he saw a nobleman in a silver breastplate and high- collared jacket of navy blue lean over to his consort and whisper something in her ear.

Instantly, the music ceased and Ostian cried out as the beautiful concerto came to a crashing halt. Its absence left an aching emptiness in his heart and he felt an unreasoning hatred towards this boorish noble who had caused its premature end.

Bequa stood from her instrument, her chest heaving with exertion and an expression of fury plastered across her face.

She stared thunderously at the nobleman and said, ‘I do not play for such pigs!’

The man stood angrily from his seat, his features flushed. ‘You insult me, woman. I am Paljor Dorji, sixth Marquis of the Terawatt Clan and a patrician of Terra. You will show me some damned respect!’

Bequa spat on the wooden floor and said, ‘You are what you are by an accident of birth. What I am, I created myself. There are thousands of nobles of Terra, but there is only one Bequa Kynska.’

‘I demand you play on, woman!’ shouted Paljor Dorji. ‘Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull to have myself assigned to this expedition in order to hear you play?’

‘I neither know nor care,’ snapped Bequa. ‘Genius such as mine is worth any price. Double it, triple it, you have not even begun to place a value on what you have heard tonight. But it is irrelevant, for I shall play no more this day.’

A chorus of denials filled the air as the audience begged for her to resume playing. Ostian found his voice joined with that of the audience. It appeared, however, that Bequa Kynska was not to be swayed until a powerful voice at the door to the recital chamber cut through the clamour and said, ‘Mistress Kynska.’

All heads turned at the commanding sound of the voice and Ostian felt his pulse quicken as he saw who had stilled the crowd: Fulgrim, the Phoenician.

The Primarch of the Emperor’s Children was the most magnificent being Ostian Delafour had ever laid eyes upon. His amethyst-coloured armour shone as though fresh from the armourer’s hand, its golden trims gleaming like the sun, and exquisite carvings twisted in spiral patterns on every plate of his armour. A long, scaled cloak of emerald green hung from his shoulders, a high collar of purple and the great eagle’s wing sweeping over his left shoulder perfectly framing his pale features.

Ostian longed to render Fulgrim’s face in marble, knowing that the coolness of the stone was perfect for capturing the luminosity of the primarch’s skin, the wide, friendly eyes, the hint of a smile playing around his lips and the shimmering white of his shoulder-length hair.

Ostian and the remainder of the audience dropped to their knees in awe of Fulgrim’s majesty, humbled by perfection they would never come close to achieving.

‘If you will not play for the marquis, would you consent to do so for me?’ asked Fulgrim.

Bequa Kynska nodded and the music began anew.

The battle on Atoll 19 would later be described as a minor, opening skirmish in the Cleansing of Laeran; a footnote to the fighting that was yet to come, but to the warriors of Solomon Demeter’s Second Company of the Emperor’s Children, it felt considerably more intense than a skirmish.

Shrieking bolts of hot, green energy flashed down the curving thoroughfare, melting portions of the angled walls and dissolving Astartes battle plate whenever they struck one of the advancing Space Marines. The hungry crackle of fires and the whoosh of missiles mingled with the hard bangs of bolter fire and the shrieking horns from the coral towers as Solomon’s Astartes fought their way up the serpentine street to link with Marius Vairosean’s squads.

Coiled towers of glittering crystal coral reared above him like the gnarled conch shells of some great sea creature, with smooth-rimmed burrow holes piercing the spires like the touch holes of a musical instrument. The entire atoll was formed from the same lightweight, but incredibly tough material, though how these structures floated above the vast oceans was a mystery the Mechanicum adepts were eager to solve.

Screeching cries echoed from the disturbingly alien architecture, as though the spires themselves were screaming, and the damnable metallic slither of the aliens’ movement seemed to come from all around them.

He ducked back behind a sinuous column of pink veined coral and slammed another magazine into his customised bolter, its every surface and internal working hand-finished by his own artifice. Its rate of fire was only marginally faster than a regular issue bolter, but it had never once jammed, and Solomon Demeter wasn’t the kind of man to trust his life to anything he hadn’t worked towards perfection.

‘Gaius!’ he shouted to his second in command, Gaius Caphen, ‘Where in the name of the Phoenician is Tantearon squadron?’

His lieutenant shook his head, and Solomon cursed, knowing that the Laer had probably intercepted the Land Speeder squadron en route to them. Damn, these aliens were clever, he thought, remembering the grievous loss of Captain Aeson’s flanking force, which had revealed that the Laer had somehow managed to compromise their vox-net. The idea of a xenos species with the ability to wreak such a violation on a Legion of the Astartes was unthinkable, and had only spurred Fulgrim’s warriors to greater heights of wrath in their extermination.

Solomon Demeter was the very image of an Astartes, his short dark hair kept shaved close to his scalp, his skin tanned from the light of a score of suns, and his animated features rounded and wide-spread on thick cheekbones. He disdained the wearing of a helmet to prevent the Laer from deciphering his orders over the vox-network, and because he knew that if he were hit in the head by one of the Laer weapons, he was as good as dead, helmet or not.

Knowing he could not expect any immediate help from the aerial units, he knew they were going to have to do this the hard way. Though it railed against his sense of order and perfection to undertake this assault without the proper support in place, he couldn’t deny that there was something exhilarating about making things up as he went along. Some commanders said that it was an inevitable fact that they would often fight without the forces they wanted, but such a belief was anathema to most of the Emperor’s Children.

‘Gaius, we’re going to have to do this ourselves!’ he shouted. ‘Make sure we’ve plenty of fire keeping those xenos heads down!’

Caphen nodded and began issuing curt, concise orders, with sharp chops of his hand, to the squads spread through the rubble of what could laughingly be called their landing zone.

Behind them, the wrecked Stormbird still burned from where the alien missile had blown off its wing, and Solomon knew that it was a miracle the pilot had managed to coax the stricken aircraft to stay in the air long enough to reach the floating atoll. He shuddered to imagine their fate had they plunged to the vast planetary ocean below, lost forever amid the sunken ruins of the Laer’s ancient civilisation.

The Laer had been waiting for them, and now at least seven warriors were down and would never fight again. Solomon had no idea how the other assault units had fared, but couldn’t imagine they had suffered any less. He risked a glance around the column, its height oddly distorted by the eye-watering curves and subtly wrong dimensions. Everything on this atoll jarred upon his sensibilities, a riotous excess of colour, form and noise that offended the senses with their sheer frenzy.

He could see a wide plaza ahead, in which a flaring plume of searing energy was enclosed by a ring of bright coral that shone with a dazzling light. Dozens of such strange plumes were spread throughout the atolls, and the Mechanicum adepts believed that it was these peculiar devices that prevented the atolls from falling from the sky.

With no major land masses on Laeran, capturing the atolls intact was deemed integral to the success of the coming campaign. The atolls would serve as bridgeheads and staging areas for all further assaults, and Fulgrim himself had declared that the energy plumes keeping the atolls in the air were to be captured at any cost.

Solomon caught glimpses of Laer warriors slithering around the base of the energy plume, their movements sinuous and inhumanly quick. First Captain Kaesoron had personally tasked the Second with securing the plaza, and Solomon had sworn an oath in the fire that he would not fail.

‘Gaius, take your men right and work your way through cover towards the plaza. Keep your head down. They’re sure to have warriors positioned to stop you. Send Thelonius on the left.’

‘What about you?’ Caphen shouted back over the din of gunfire, ‘Where are you going?’

Solomon smiled. ‘Where else but the centre? I’m going to take Charosian’s lot, but make sure Goldoara are in position before I move. I don’t want anyone moving before we’ve set down a weight of fire so heavy I could walk on it.’

‘Sir,’ said Caphen, ‘without wishing to appear impertinent, are you sure that’s the right choice?’

Solomon racked the slide on his bolter and said, ‘You fuss too much over making the “right” choice, Gaius. All we need do is make a good choice, see it through and accept the consequences.’

‘If you say so, sir,’ said Caphen.

‘I do!’ shouted Solomon. ‘We may not be able to do it by the book this time, but by Chemos, we’ll do it well! Now pass the word.’

Solomon waited as his orders were issued to the warriors under his command, and felt the familiar thrill of excitement as he prepared to take the fight to the enemy once more. He knew that Caphen disapproved of his cavalier attitude, but Solomon firmly believed that only through such testing circumstances could warriors better themselves and so more closely approach the perfection embodied by their primarch.

Sergeant Charosian edged up behind him, his veteran warriors gathered around him in the shadow of a Laer burrow complex.

‘Ready, sergeant?’ asked Solomon.

‘Indeed, sir,’ replied Charosian.

‘Then let’s go!’ shouted Solomon as he heard Goldoara squad open up with their support weapons. The bark and thump of heavy calibre shells thundering up the road was the sound he’d been waiting for, and he slid from the cover of the pillar and charged up the centre of the street towards the crackling energy tower.

Bolts of deadly green energy flashed past him, but he could tell they were not aimed, the weight of suppressing fire keeping the aliens from showing themselves. He heard gunfire from either side of him and knew that Caphen and Thelonius were having to fight their way towards the tower. The veteran Space Marines of Charosian followed him, firing from the hip and adding to the weight of fire provided by Goldoara.

Just as he thought they might reach the spire unmolested, the Laer attacked.

Gathered together in a single system, the Laer had been one of the first species encountered by the Emperor’s Children after taking their leave from the Luna Wolves and the great triumph on Ullanor. The cheers of that momentous day still rang in their ears, and the sight of so many primarchs gathered together remained a vivid, joyous memory in the minds of the Emperor’s Children.

As Horus had said when he and Fulgrim had shared a heartfelt farewell, it was an end of things and a beginning of things, for Horus was now the Emperor’s Regent, Warmaster of all the Imperium’s armies. Now that the Emperor had returned to Terra, entire fleets, billions of warriors and the power to destroy worlds were his to command.

Warmaster…

The title was a new one, created for Horus, and its unveiling had yet to find its fit in the minds of the primarchs, who found themselves subject to the command of one who had, until then, been their equal.

The Emperor’s Children had welcomed the appointment, for they counted the warriors of the Luna Wolves as their closest brothers. A terrible accident at the inception of the Emperor’s Children had almost destroyed them, but Fulgrim and his Legion had risen, phoenix-like, from the disaster with greater resolve and strength. In the process Fulgrim had earned the affectionate sobriquet of ‘the Phoenician’. During this time, while Fulgrim rebuilt his shattered Legion, he and his few warriors had fought alongside the Luna Wolves for almost a century.

With a stream of fresh recruits drawn from Terra and Fulgrim’s home of Chemos, the Legion had grown rapidly and, under the aegis of the Warmaster, become one of the deadliest fighting forces in the galaxy.

Horus himself had praised Fulgrim’s Legion as one of the best he had fought alongside.

Now, with decades of war behind them, the Emperor’s Children had the numbers to embark on crusades of their own, to make their own way in the galaxy, battling alone for the first time in over a century.

The Legion was hungry to prove itself, and Fulgrim had thrown his all into making up for the time lost while he had rebuilt his Legion, seeking to push the boundaries of the Imperium yet further and prove the courage and worth of his Legion.

First contact with the Laer had come about when one of the 28th Expedition’s forward scout ships had discovered evidence of civilisation in a nearby binary cluster and determined that it was a culture of some sophistication. Though initially not hostile to the Imperial forces, this alien race had reacted violently when one of the 28th Expedition’s scout forces had been sent towards their home world. A small, but powerful alien war fleet had attacked the Imperial vessels as they approached the system’s core world, destroying every one of them without the loss of a single vessel.

From what little information had been gathered before the scout force’s destruction, the Mechanicum adepts had discovered that the aliens called themselves the Laer and that their technology was capable of matching and, in many cases, exceeding that of the Imperium.

The bulk of Laer society appeared to exist on numerous, city-sized atolls of floating coral that plied the skies of Laeran, an oceanic planet that bore all the hallmarks of a world submerged by the melting of its ice caps. Only the peaks of what had once been its tallest mountains and structures protruded from the mighty seas that covered its entire surface.

Administrators from the Council of Terra had postulated that perhaps the Laer could be made a protectorate of the Imperium, since conquering such an advanced race could prove a long and costly endeavour.

Fulgrim had rejected such a notion out of hand, famously saying, ‘Only humanity is perfect and for an alien race to hold its own ideals and technology as comparable to ours is profane. No, the Laer deserve only extinction.’

And so the Cleansing of Laeran was begun.

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For my friends, who kept me sane through the long, dark watches of writing the madness.

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