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The Pact – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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The Pact

Sarah Cawkwell

‘And the stolen voices of his venerable kin will welcome him, embrace him and bear him to the heart of our scarred past, the first home of the Argent Order. There, the ashes of the great destroyer lie mingled with the fading embers of our birth, two banners falling as one to call him back. Back to the beginning. Then will the past be revealed.’

– From The Orthodoxy of Varsavia, Author Unknown, 221.M37

Nothing had survived.

Once, according to the records, the planet Lyria had boasted fertile and verdant grassland which generated seemingly endless supplies of food for the people of the Imperium. Agri-habs had dotted the landscape in the south of the single large continental mass and people had worked the soil diligently. The mountains and rockier terrain in the north had been far less hospitable. But as the saying went, where there was a will there was a way and the indigenous tribal people of the world settled wherever they could find flat ground. Thus they had lived and thus they had prospered as was humanity’s way.

Now it was all gone. The combined might of the Silver Skulls fleet as they had unleashed the full wrath of the Emperor’s fury on the surface had made certain of that. Rendered essentially sterile with a hostile, barely breathable atmosphere by the missiles and guns of the fleet, Lyria fell into decay and became a forbidden place; an unsightly mark on the exceptional record of those who consider themselves amongst the Emperor’s most loyal.

Lyria, a world of beginnings; the former home of the Silver Skulls Chapter had become a tomb world, rendered to ashes and dust.

The air was acrid and stifling from the heat that bubbled up through rifts in the ground. Volcanoes that had lain long dormant had been awakened by the orbital onslaught and seismic activity rocked the planet almost continually. It was a world that would have been better left dead.

Six figures picked their way across the broken landscape, ascending a mountain path that would take them to the long-deserted fortress-monastery. For eight thousand years, no Silver Skulls battle-brother had laid eyes on their ancestral home. Now they did so in silence, each absorbing the impact of this horrific sight in their own way.

Five of the figures were massive, clad in ancient Terminator armour. The other was wearing the blue battle plate of a Prognosticator, a psychic hood rising about his bare head and a force axe slung comfortably across his back. It was this warrior who crossed into the entrance first.

By Adeptus Astartes standards, Prognosticator Bhehan was young. Barely thirty solar years old, he had nonetheless acquitted himself admirably upon the field of battle. His ability to divine the skeins of fate had proven itself over and over again. He had served with both Eighth and Fifth Companies with distinction, but had never once imagined that he would end up deployed with the Talriktug; the First Company’s elite squad. Especially following his vision; a vision that had led to Chapter Command agreeing that the time was right for them to return. A vision that had married up unfailingly with words penned in the Orthodoxy millennia before. The two war banners.

He should be honoured to be amongst them, he knew. Led by the courageous, plain-speaking and stalwart First Captain Kerelan, they were heroes of the Chapter. They had been heroes of the Chapter for hundreds of years before Bhehan had even been born. Perhaps it was this last fact which made him uncomfortable and which had led to much of the silence that had accompanied their journey here. Whenever he had spoken, their respect for him seemed disproportionate given their standing and experience.

Such was the way of the Silver Skulls. They valued their psychic battle-brothers highly, no matter their age or seniority.

As the rest of the warriors lumbered into the vestibule behind him, he allowed his senses to roam freely amongst the rubble. A smashed stained glass window stood several metres above his head, admitting the only light that the interior of the place had seen for years. Closing his eyes, he tried to picture it as it had once been. A thousand ghostly echoes rippled through him, clamouring for his notice. Voices that had been desperate to be heard for millennia. It was a near-overwhelming din and Bhehan employed every ounce of his training to keep his calm. The filigree-fine crystal mesh of his psychic hood glowed softly as he walked. The First Captain glanced at him.

‘What are your senses telling you, Brother-Prognosticator?’ The ruby lenses in Kerelan’s helm gave away nothing.

‘No less than I anticipated. This place swarms with memories, First Captain,’ Bhehan replied in his soft voice. ‘So many voices crying out at the horrors wrought upon this world.’ His youthful face creased in a frown. ‘There is more, too. Something… I cannot quite place. I may be able to concentrate more if I make direct contact with the stone.’

‘Do what you must, brother. We will ensure there are no interruptions. Our primary duty is to defend and protect you on this mission.’

‘Aye, First Captain. I warn you, however. This process is not likely to be swift. The echoes here are old and worn by time.’

The warrior glanced from side to side, then shrugged. ‘I see no other pressing engagements demanding my time and resources, brother. Proceed as you see fit.’

A smile flickered over Bhehan’s lips. He had learned that for all his stoic reticence and unshakable pragmatism, Kerelan possessed a dry wit that was frequently startling. He reached down and unsnapped the fastenings of his gauntlet, sliding his hand free. He turned his body sideways to the wall and set his bare palm against the stone.

Amongst the Prognosticators of the Silver Skulls, Bhehan was rare. Not only did he have a staggeringly accurate ability to read the skeins of Fate with the use of his rune stones, but he had discovered an affinity for forging tenuous links with past events, simply by laying hands upon the thing of interest. It didn’t always work. If psychic echoes were not deeply embedded then an inanimate object would remain just that. Inanimate.

But the walls of this desecrated fortress ran thick with tendrils of memory and the moment Bhehan’s hand came into direct contact with them, he was thrown instantly into a thronging mass of bodies. His body stiffened. The psychic hood about his shoulders crackled with energy and the unmistakable ozone-like odour of spilled power joined the aroma of dust and burning ash that filled the air.

He no longer saw the ruined fortress and the five Terminators. Instead, he was…

…somewhere else entirely.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Hammer & Bolter 15 in Great Britain in 2012.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-970-6

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