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Dark Imperium: Godblight – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Chapter One

A HOMECOMING

With a blast of equalising pressure, the Overlord’s assault ramps clanged down onto the deck of the Palatine Hangar. The ramps were locked on to combat settings – hard drop, no dampers – not the done thing when attending the last loyal primarch, but Tetrarch Decimus Androdinus Felix was not in a mood for niceties.

Felix strode out of the gunship first, the Chosen of Vespator at his heels. They were his bodyguard, ten Space Marines in varied livery, one chosen from each of the Shield Chapters of Ultramar. They made a colourful crowd, clashing to some sensibilities, only united by the golden device of the tetrarch emblazoned on their left pauldrons. Their boots rang loudly as they spread out, guns ready. Even aboard the primarch’s flagship, they scanned their surroundings for threat. Each one was a lord of battle, and they could not easily put war aside.

A small delegation of unmodified humans awaited Felix. A chamberlain hurried forward from amid the banners and the floating servo-skulls. Small and feeble though the man was, he stepped boldly into the path of the giants of Ultramar, bringing them to a halt.

‘My lord Felix, welcome back to the Macragge’s Honour.’ The chamberlain sketched a quick yet perfect bow. ‘If I might direct you to the quarters the primarch has prepared for you, you may refresh yourself.’ The official’s critical gaze roamed over the damage marking the battleplate of each and every Space Marine. ‘And perhaps make yourselves presentable?’

A fussy statement from a fussy little man. Felix didn’t intend to growl, but the noise of irritation he made came out as one from the voxmitter of his helm.

‘There will be no need. My errand is urgent. I will see the primarch now.’

‘He bids you wait awhile – he is aware of your efforts at Alveiro and is most pleased that you have come to see him, but requests you await his call for a proper audience.’

‘Now,’ said Felix firmly. ‘I am the commander of the Eastern Tetra of Ultramar. The task I am upon cannot wait.’

‘My lord–’ the human began, but Felix cut him off.

‘You said he requests.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said the chamberlain.

‘Then tell me, does the Imperial Regent command me to my quarters?’ Felix asked. ‘Are these orders you give me, or suggestions?’

The official hesitated. ‘Your comfort and your wellbeing are ever at the forefront of the Imperial Regent’s mind–’

‘Not orders,’ said Sergeant Cominus, head of Felix’s guard, whose armour was the red and white of the Sons of Orar. ‘Is that not right, chamberlain?’

The man’s calm did not waver. ‘Not orders,’ he admitted.

‘Then take me to him. Now.’ Felix leaned forward, a weight of armour and gene-engineered flesh with cold glass for eyes. The joints of his Gravis plate purred menacingly. He still smelled of war, of blood, and oil, and fire. Few men would stand firm in front of something like that.

The chamberlain had a heart of iron, and so submitted gracefully. He gave another bow, even slower this time, and stepped aside.

‘I shall escort you, my lord. I–’

‘Do not trouble yourself, chamberlain, I know the way.’

‘Then I shall send heralds ahead of you to announce your arrival.’

‘If you insist,’ said Felix. ‘If they can keep up.’ By then he was already moving.

The heralds ran to match the Space Marines’ pace, doggedly calling out the name and ranks of the tetrarch in every hall and corridor as they made their way up from the Palatine Hangar into the Palace Spire, the personal domain of Roboute Guilliman.

Several months had passed since the Relief of Parmenio and the battle at Hecatone. Fleet Primus had made great strides in evicting Mortarion’s forces from Ultramar, but one crucial campaign remained. The garden world of Iax, the epicentre of corruption, was still in enemy hands. Felix had not been recalled to take part in the invasion, yet although that might have explained his rage, it was not the cause. Felix was angry for an altogether darker reason.

‘Make way for Decimus Felix! Make way for the Tetrarch of Vespator, lord of the Eastern Marches!’ the heralds called breathlessly. Their announcements caused some consternation, for the corridors were heavily trafficked, and the Chosen proceeded as lightly as bull grox, their marching steps booming around the Macragge’s Honour like artillery. By habit Guilliman kept his palace empty when he could; even a being as singular as the primarch needed space to withdraw, like any man. On the occasion of Felix’s visit the palace was full of rushing scribes and potentates. The men and women the Chosen encountered seemed unused to Space Marines, and scattered out of their way, despite their high ranks. They were all lords and ladies of one adepta or another, for by then Felix and his party were deep into the spire, where only the exalted and their servants went.

‘Is it just me,’ voxed Cominus to Felix, ‘or is this place infested with bureaucrats?’

‘Infested is not the word I would use for such valued Imperial servants,’ said Felix drily. ‘But in essence, your observation is correct. This is not the primarch’s only war. Beyond the Five Hundred Worlds the Indomitus Crusade continues. He will be done soon in Ultramar. He is preparing to move on, once the final blow is struck at Iax.’

They made straight for the primarch’s personal scriptorium, Felix knowing from his long association with Guilliman that this was his preferred place. The heralds evidently expected the Imperial Regent to be within also, and raised no objection, but enquiries with the historitors there revealed the primarch to be elsewhere, and they were redirected further upward to the Chamber Imperius.

They took lifters to the pinnacle of Guilliman’s Palace Spire. It was a dome of armaglass, a meeting place for matters of the most important sort. Felix knew it well.

He led his men down a vaulted approach corridor as ornate and high as a cathedral nave. As they neared the great doors to the Chamber Imperius, twenty of Guilliman’s Victrix Guard trooped out from rooms to either side and stepped in front of the gates, forming a perfect semicircle, and halting Felix’s progress. They stamped once, slammed their shields down, then clashed them together, presenting a blue wall of ceramite decked with skulls and wings to the tetrarch. In the centre they left a gap wide enough for a single Space Marine to pass, and through this stepped Sicarius, once captain of the Ultramarines Second Company, now commander of Guilliman’s personal guard. He came forward unhelmed and stopped before Felix.

‘Greetings, Tetrarch Felix,’ said Sicarius, with a slight bow of his head. He gripped his sword hilt. His hand was never far from the weapon, either resting on its pommel or toying with its decoration. Sicarius had always resented keeping it sheathed, and that appeared to be ever the case since his return from the warp. ‘To what do we owe the honour of your presence?’

‘I think you know why.’

Sicarius stared at Felix. ‘Do I, tetrarch? Enlighten me.’

Felix looked down on him. Sicarius was unusual for so high ranking a Space Marine in not yet having crossed the Rubicon Primaris. He was older than Felix, at least in terms of active service, though if one counted birthdates, Felix had greater years than nearly every human alive.

‘The primarch. He has my prisoner. Let me through.’

‘He does,’ said Sicarius, but he gave no ground. The Chosen of Vespator and the Victrix Guard stared at each other. A tension stretched the air. Wherever the Adeptus Astartes went, violence was not far behind. There was no hatred between them, but there was an aggressive curiosity. Both groups wished to test themselves against the other.

Felix looked past the shorter warrior to the chamber gates. ‘Was the regent expecting me?’

Sicarius inclined his head. ‘What do you think, brother? He is a primarch.’

‘Then whatever I do, he anticipates.’

‘It is not a failing of yours, I assure you,’ said Sicarius.

‘Does he ever make you feel like a fool, captain?’ said Felix.

Sicarius let out a snort. ‘Compared to him, tetrarch, we are all fools. I wonder how he stands us, sometimes. We must seem so limited to him.’

Felix reached up and undid the seal clasps of his helm, eased it off his head and out from under his Gravis armour’s cowl. His face was rough with dried sweat. He had been in his armour for days. He’d intended to bathe before they arrived, for by the standard measures Alveiro was six days’ journey from Iax, but the warp was unpredictable away from the calming presence the primarch had on its storms, and the journey had been accomplished in minutes.

Destiny, perhaps. Felix had expected to arrive once it was all over, to vent his fury after the fact. He was not prepared for this. He suspected the hand of smirking gods in the run of events, pushing him and his master towards confrontation.

‘Never second-guess him,’ said Sicarius. ‘I would have thought you were his equerry long enough to know that.’

‘I was. But it goes against me too, for I forget sometimes that he is not a man.’

Sicarius’ hard face did not change. ‘Neither are we.’

‘He is going to interrogate my prisoner. That is his intention, is it not?’

‘That is for him to say, brother,’ said Sicarius. He looked around at the Chosen, whose weapons were not raised, but not held at rest either. ‘Have your men stand down. They can wait in the portside antechamber. There’s enough room for them. It looks like you have some skilled warriors here. We should test ourselves and our men against one another. You have won a high reputation.’ Sicarius appeared altogether grim as he made his offer. It was not an extension of brotherhood, but came from a need to prove himself against all comers.

Felix ignored the invitation. ‘So you are going to let me in to see him?’ Another unexpected eventuality. He thought he would have to exert his authority, for he outranked Sicarius. Fight, even. He was ready to.

Sicarius was far more phlegmatic, and shrugged. His armour whined as his pauldrons displaced themselves. ‘I am not going to let you do anything, tetrarch. You are being admitted according to the primarch’s express command.’ Sicarius’ battle-worn face became less dour; there was even a hint of a smile about the corners of his eyes. ‘You were right. He was expecting you.’

The doors of the Chamber Imperius swung wide onto darkness. The lumens were out, though the shutters were open, admitting a pale wash of starlight from the high windows that made up the walls. Like the dome overhead, the walls were almost entirely of armaglass, and numerous enough that they gave a near-complete view of the ship, from its gargantuan ploughshare ram to the outer edges of its city-sized engine stack. Felix stopped, momentarily taken aback. There was no better way to see the Macragge’s Honour, one of the last Gloriana-class battleships left in the galaxy, than to view it from the Chamber, and he was arrested by its majesty. It was immense, of a scale that defied description. It was surrounded by many more massive craft, the core of Battle Group Alphus, chief spearhead of Indomitus Crusade Fleet Primus. But these others, though huge themselves, were but slivers of metal against the Macragge’s Honour. There were no women or men who could build its like any more. The science was lost. The will was lacking. The Macragge’s Honour was a relic of a better age, a monstrous weapon from higher times, and in that it was exactly like its master.

Roboute Guilliman was on the far side of the room, near the raised stalls where the Council Exterra sat when in session. Just then, there were no others present, and the chamber was completely empty but for the primarch, making it seem larger than usual despite all the chairs and thrones that took up its floor.

Guilliman cut a lonely figure against the field of stars and ships. The primarch was not looking at the view, but had a hololithic light weave, depicting a world, open in front of him, and it was to this he gave his full attention. The hololith shone a wan glow up into his face, lending him an ashen cast. Even from the far side of the room, Felix recognised Iax. The signs of a planet sickened by Nurgle’s maladies were clear, and seemed to infect the primarch by reflection.

Not for the first time, Felix thought Roboute Guilliman looked tired.

Guilliman looked up from the image. Shadow trapped his eyes.

‘Decimus,’ Guilliman said. Felix’s given name echoed around the Chamber Imperius, as if looking for somewhere to settle. It found no home, but died quietly, lost in the high peak of the dome. ‘It is good to see you.’ He sounded sincere.

Felix approached his lord. In Felix’s body were numerous additional organs, and coiled supplemental strands of gene-code, all taken from the primarch. Guilliman was not truly his father, but Guilliman was as close to kin as Felix had. Their blood was mixed.

Felix knelt with difficulty, his heavy armour hampering his movements, and bowed his head. He waited for Guilliman to speak. When he did not, Felix spoke instead.

‘You are not angry that I came?’ he said quietly, expecting rebuke.

‘Should I be?’ said Guilliman mildly.

‘I have come to recommend you do not do what I think you are about to do.’

Guilliman’s smile was audible in his voice. ‘You disapprove so much you will not specify my actions? How do I know you and I refer to the same matter?’

‘Such things as you intend should not be named,’ said Felix.

‘Perhaps,’ said Guilliman. ‘But you do not have to agree with everything I do, my son. You do your duty as you see best. You are not an unthinking man, you are not afraid to defy me. I gave you the role of tetrarch because of that. If anything, I am pleased you came.’

‘And if I had remained at Alveiro instead?’

‘Then I would also have been pleased,’ said Guilliman. ‘But you are here. Your instincts are good. What we are about to attempt is a risk. You see that. You come to warn me. Good intentions should not be punished.’

Felix looked up. He was mystified. No matter how much he thought he understood the primarch, he realised he never would. If one of Felix’s own men were to behave as he had, then Felix would not hesitate to censure them. Often, Felix felt himself to have left humanity behind, but Guilliman had never been human, not truly.

‘You plan to question it. That is why you called it back rather than allowing me to destroy it when it was found. I am right?’

Guilliman did not answer, but looked down at him, giving him his full attention for the first time. Felix felt his gaze as a weight on his soul.

‘There is no need to kneel, Decimus. Please stand.’

Felix got to his feet. The smallest noises were made large by the chamber. Its acoustics were perfect, designed to amplify the reediest voice of the most ancient sage, and it lent the sounds of his panoply, even the swish of his cloak upon the mosaic floor, great portentousness.

‘There, that is better,’ said Guilliman. He clenched his fist in the heart of the hololith, banishing it. The primarch looked Felix up and down, and approved of what he saw.

‘You seem well. Strong. The office suits you, my son,’ he said. ‘How do you like your new domain?’

Felix was still angry, and could not keep it completely from his response, so his words came out tersely. ‘I was on Vespator for precisely twenty-three hours before I moved on to continue my inspection of the province, my lord. I couldn’t tell from so short a visit, but it seems defensible enough.’

Guilliman smiled again. He had a sad smile, full of the pain of understanding. His melancholy smothered the fire burning in Felix’s heart. ‘I meant the people, Felix, I meant the world.’

‘Both seem pleasant enough,’ said Felix, less angry now. ‘But neither of those things are worth much if they cannot be protected. Your entire realm is under threat. Mortarion’s hordes are not the only danger.’

Guilliman nodded. He was distracted. The running lights of voidships close by the Macragge’s Honour filled his eyes with stars. ‘What about the rest of the Eastern Tetra? Will you be able to bring it under our control?’

‘May I speak honestly?’

‘When have I ever asked that you do otherwise?’

‘It is a shambles,’ Felix said, and in remembering his tour of the worlds he was responsible for ruling, he tasted the primarch’s burden. ‘Nearly every planet is in disarray. Mortarion’s armies have not done much direct harm to the east, but the Sotharan League was hit hard by the tyranids, and there has been raiding by orks, and recently by the necrons. Human pirates are also a problem. But the hive fleets are the worst. There were a dozen inhabited worlds stripped to bedrock at least. I do not know how many unknown planets suffered the same fate. If the xenos were not rapacious enough, years of corruption have hollowed the old League out. I have not been to a single planet where the defences, or any other asset for that matter, military or otherwise, match the records. Tithes have been falsified. A significant proportion of sector finances have been embezzled. Much has been stolen, sometimes openly. They have no fear of Imperial authority there, but they will. I have begun an inquisition. Agents of the Ordo Hereticus and the Adeptus Arbites assist me. There will be executions. A great many.’

Guilliman’s face was unreadable, prompting Felix to apologise.

‘I am sorry, my lord, I do not have time to be gentle. Examples have to be made.’

The primarch shook his head. ‘No, no, you do right, the League was the worst of all political systems,’ said Guilliman. ‘Enough centralised power to embolden the elite, not enough to keep them in check. Untrammelled flow of coin amplifies greed. It allows acquisitiveness while enabling the shirking of responsibility, and so the weak suffer. It must be corrected with maximum prejudice. Again my errors confront me. I say once more that Ultramar should never have been divided.’

‘Things will change,’ said Felix. ‘The Sotharan League is no more. The populace will find direct rule by Ultramar a more just solution.’ He paused. ‘I have wondered what the Scythes of the Emperor were thinking, letting it get so bad.’

‘They had their own wars to fight,’ said Guilliman, ‘and they paid dearly to fulfil their duties. It was not their place to interfere with civilian governance. That too will change.’

Felix could not disagree. The tyranids had stripped Sotha, the capital of the League and the home world of the Scythes of the Emperor, and nearly annihilated the Scythes in the process. He’d exchanged a few messages with the reduced Chapter, continuing negotiations to supply them with Primaris reinforcements to bring them back to full strength, but they were a ruined brotherhood, and shame dripped from every message they sent him.

‘One good thing to be said, is that the people were pleased to see us,’ Felix said. ‘We will not find much resistance there to reimposing direct rule, not if the ruling classes know what is good for them.’

‘In your experience, do people often know what is good for them?’ asked Guilliman.

Felix said nothing for a moment. ‘In truth, I do not know. I was a boy when I was taken by Cawl’s agents. I have been active only a dozen years since my reawakening from suspended animation, during which time I have known nothing but war. You told me I retained much of my humanity when many firstborn Primaris brothers did not, but I have had to take that on trust. I do not know people, my lord. So how can I tell?’

‘You are wrong, Decimus, you do know people. You have a facility for empathy. What does your instinct say?’

‘My gut says that people do not know what is good for them.’ He hesitated.

‘And?’

‘As individuals, people are intelligent creatures, but as a group, they are animals, and animals need a firm hand.’

‘I see,’ said Guilliman, and there was the space for an ocean of disappointment between those two words.

‘The philosophy is unimportant,’ Felix said hurriedly. ‘Action is. I have not had much trouble with the Imperial governors, and if any oppose us the people are ready to rise up. They have had enough of human greed and xenos terror.’

‘Then I trust you to put it right for me, my son,’ said Guilliman. He looked out of the window. ‘This war will never end. We can only fight for brief moments of peace. Once Mortarion is driven off, there will be other foes. The tyranids, the necrons, the t’au. I must leave you and the others to deal with them here. I have a galaxy to save.’

The primarch was unusually troubled. He stared off into space, then seemed to come back into himself.

‘Ultramar is nearly ours,’ Guilliman said briskly. ‘Not before time. This war has been a dangerous distraction from the Indomitus Crusade, and although I have tried to spare most of its assets from my duties here, relying instead upon forces gathered from the surrounding sectors, several battle groups of Fleet Primus are still occupied in Ultramar, where they could be liberating other worlds.’

‘It is all the same fight,’ said Felix. ‘Chaos must be defeated wherever it is found. This is an important war zone.’

‘It is,’ agreed Guilliman. ‘Ultramar is important for all sorts of reasons. But we must take politics into account, and politics do not speak the same language as logic. There are those who use my desire to save Ultramar as a weapon against me, naming it a sign of favouritism for my own people. Terra seethes with discontent still. The agents of the enemy are everywhere. The greed of humanity is not restricted to the dead league of Sotha, but is found wherever mankind goes. Avarice clouds men’s vision, it makes them blind to anything but the short term and their own gain.

‘The Council Exterra does what it can to refute these claims, but its members are not the High Lords, and even its existence is another fact used to prove my desire to become Emperor. The politicians in the Imperial Palace call them lapdogs. There has been rebellion on Terra while we fight for survival,’ he said, referring to a plot of several deposed and new High Lords to usurp him. Guilliman glanced at his gene-son. ‘I have limited time to save the Imperium from the external threats of Chaos and xenos before the whole rotten structure implodes. I must be triumphant here. The heart must be torn from Mortarion’s efforts. The crossing of the Attilan Gap to Imperium Nihilus cannot be delayed any longer. Abaddon pushes hard at the Nachmund Gauntlet and around the remains of the Cadian Gate. Marneus Calgar must return to Vigilus soon. I have been here too long. No doubt this is part of the Warmaster’s plan. He strikes at what I hold dear to distract me, and I am ashamed to say it has worked.’

‘Do you believe Mortarion is working with the Warmaster?’

Guilliman let out a bark of mirthless laughter. ‘He does no bidding but his own. This is not the Heresy. There is no central command, only the whim of madness. No, Mortarion only wishes to humble me. He will care nothing for Abaddon, but his actions play into other plans. He is unaware that by following his supposedly indomitable will he is merely the puppet of others, like all the followers of Chaos. He has been manipulated into this. I need a quick solution. I need to know what is happening on Iax before we attack, and I need to know now. I am in some peril. I cannot go in blindly.’

‘Is that why you are going to speak with the inquisitor’s slave?’

Guilliman’s mouth set. ‘We come to the crux of our disagreement. You disapprove. That is why I knew you would come.’

‘Why did you not tell me?’

‘Because in all honesty, my son, I anticipated this, and realised it would be easier to handle your anger in this situation, rather than having you arrive with the slave. I calculated that you might attempt to destroy it, there and then, at terrible risk to yourself, in order to save me from making a mistake.’

‘You are making a mistake.’

‘That is not impossible. If it calms you, the slave’s destruction is only deferred. It will die.’

‘But not before you use it. It is a thing of the enemy, my lord. Inquisitor Tjejren went too far. He is a dangerous radical who has betrayed his office.’

‘His actions enrage you, and yet he eluded you,’ said Guilliman. Felix felt the sting of criticism.

‘I regret to say he is still at large,’ he admitted, ashamed.

‘No matter,’ said Guilliman. ‘Tjejren was a servant of the Emperor once. He still believes he is. He may yet serve.’

‘I fear he is beyond hope. Everything touched by the warp is corrupted.’

Guilliman looked down at him. ‘Then we are all corrupt, for in the existence of our souls, a fragment of the warp is lodged in us all.’ He shifted. The Armour of Fate growled.

‘Have you seen the slave?’ said Felix harshly. ‘Have you seen what Tjejren did to this interrogator yet?’

‘No, I admit I have not,’ said the primarch. ‘I have many matters to occupy me.’

‘Then you may speak differently once you have, my lord. Remo and his parasite will bring you nothing but evil,’ said Felix.

‘You underestimate the strength of will of the Emperor’s servants. I have been told Interrogator Remo clings on. He is in thrall to the thing occupying him, but he desires to perform one last service, and I trust that will see the creature remain truthful while it is interrogated. It is an opportunity, Felix. Understand that I do not undertake this course of action lightly. Only a thing of the warp can tell us what occurs on Iax. It teeters on the brink. One push may see it turned to a daemon world, or sucked into the empyrean entirely, and it may take many other worlds with it, no matter how much damage we have done to Mortarion’s plans. This is an opportunity that I cannot pass up. It will save lives by the million. It may save my life. I cannot win this war if I am dead.’

Felix was silent a moment.

‘You swear you will kill him afterwards?’ said Felix. ‘My lord, forgive my presumption, but if you witnessed what it did to the kill-team sent to apprehend Tjejren…’ Felix let his sentence trail off. He had no heart to put his memories into words.

‘It will be a mercy to the interrogator, if nothing else.’ Guilliman moved away from the window. ‘Do you wish to attend the questioning, now that you are here? Perhaps if you see the interrogation and execution it will put your mind at ease. I would have no differences come between us.’

‘You will kill him afterwards?’ Felix asked again.

‘I swear,’ said Guilliman. ‘Do not be afraid, it can do no harm. The Concilia Psykana hold it, under Brother-Captain Ionan Grud’s guidance.’

‘The Grey Knight?’ Felix asked. ‘He who bested Typhus aboard Galatan before Parmenio?’

‘The same. He is strong, and incorruptible. I say who better than the Knights of Titan to chain a daemon?’

Click here to buy Dark Imperium: Godblight.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2021.
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