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Solemnity – Extract

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SOLEMNITY

Nick Kyme

He had been unprepared, not something that happened often. Practical, theoretical – tactical preparedness was a part of an Ultramarine’s genetic configuration. But how could he have prepared for this? The immensity of it. The spectacle. The sheer weight.

Dressed only in hooded robes, his feet sandalled, Ferren Areios carried no weapons, and had been stripped of all trappings. He would rather have stood naked as a novitiate before Guilliman, the Avenging Son himself, than be here in this place of reverence.

Than be here with him. Maximus Epathus.

Grief was not easy for an Astartes to process.

It had been a few years since the Stygian Gulf, since entering the Blackstone Fortress and all that had transpired there. Together with a band of brave Imperial servants, Areios and his warriors had decimated the so-called ‘Hand of Abaddon’ and ended a threat in the making that could have endangered the Indomitus Crusade itself. Some believed the threat remained, but Areios had long realised he could only fight the enemies he could see and kill. Should the Hand rise again, he would be ready.

More solemn duties awaited him in this moment.

He thought he knew what it meant to be Astartes. He thought – after his wounding by the Dark Apostle, after confronting mortality and the perfidy of the Hand of Abaddon – that he understood. The burden. What it meant. Since then he had taken up the mantle of command, leading his brothers in their former captain’s stead, repressing his anger at Epathus’ death. It had festered, hidden, before the embers grew into flames. A cold fire – he was an Ultramarine, for Throne’s sake, not one of his more volatile cousins – but ice burned all the same.

He had seen where that anger could lead. The Butcher King and his servants. Since his apotheosis, he had come to understand the corruption, the cloth it wore not so dissimilar to his own. But against the Butcher King, against one of the Hand, he had experienced the wild snap of red at the edge of his senses. It had bordered on rage, and despite his conditioning, it had unnerved him. Thus, years later, summoned to stand before his lord primarch, to be officially recognised as captain of the Sixth Company and Master of Rites, Areios had hoped… For what, exactly? Peace? No, that was a fallacy in this benighted galaxy, and his kind would know none until death stole them from duty. Healing? Perhaps. The unseen wounds, the desire to plunge into hell and fight until muscles burned and limbs stiffened… Soothed through the purity of battle? He was not so sure. Closure, then, and through it some small catharsis. A visit to the capital world of the empire, to Macragge itself, would remind him of who he was and help him accept what he had simultaneously gained and lost.

Or so he hoped.

He walked alone, for this was a pilgrimage even if it was not named as such. A gunship had ferried him from the strike cruiser Honour of Iax, where he had left Cicero, Drussus and the others of his brotherhood, to a landing pad within the district of the Tower of Correction and his ultimate destination. He had travelled on foot part of the way, striding amongst the civitas, who bowed, gave way, or else saluted when they saw him. No citizens strayed into the precincts of the tower, though indentured serfs went about their business with lowered heads and appropriate solemnity. It was here, within the august walls of this soaring cobalt edifice, emblazoned with the golden Ultima of the Chapter, that the Temple of Hera and the last resting place of Roboute Guilliman resided.

He had been tempted to visit the temple – there was time enough remaining before his audience with the primarch – to see where his lord had stood in stasis for almost ten thousand years before his dramatic revivification. Unlike others of his kin, he had not spent his time waiting and hoping for this miracle to come to pass. Areios had been born of the Primaris; he had never known a world without Guilliman, and yet he had been intrigued. He had learned that a statue stood in the place a mortally wounded son of the Emperor once occupied, making Guilliman immortal via different means. However, he had seen many statues, several of his lord, and had no particular desire to see another, even one as momentous as this one was purported to be.

He had descended then, once he had passed across the guarded causeway and entered through the great gates. There, Areios had felt it for the first time – the immensity of this place and what it meant to his Chapter. It had awed him, though he kept his emotions from his features and remained outwardly stoic. It had not tempered his anger though; this he felt, an icy sting inside his body. Gauntleted fists clenched, he had made for the armourium, where flocks of serfs fell upon him like carrion birds to divest him of his battle plate and swathed his naked form in cobalt robes threaded with silver, the Ultima shown proudly against his chest. All who came here would be adorned as such, all equal in their remembrance of the dead. Inwardly, Areios was glad of the anonymity the robes afforded. It felt like silence, a shroud behind which he could hide and be left alone.

Pale, bent of back, some with crude augmetics, the serfs had nodded solemnly to their lord as they carried each piece of his battle plate away to be secured until Areios’ return. Each was a sacred artefact, his weapons also, similarly removed – two mortals to carry each blade, and three for the bolt rifle. He had watched them keenly as they did this, feeling as though he had been separated from a limb, unconsciously flexing his fingers as the absence hit him on an instinctual level.

After the serfs had departed, Areios had been allowed a moment of contemplation before his journey. Darkness filled the armourium, the way lit by auto-braziers and a small servo-skull with a wax candle affixed to its crown. It floated just ahead of him, borne on anti-gravitic impellers of a much lesser quality than those deployed by the Repulsor tanks of his brotherhood. A preferred method of warfare for Epathus. A bitter shame his final battle had not been an armoured assault. Another regret to add to the list.

Pulling up his hood, Areios let the servo-skull lead him to the threshold, the entrance to a deep catacomb in the sub-levels of the Tower of Correction. As another gate opened, this one to an underworld, he came at last to his destination.

The Hall of Solemnity.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2024 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by John Michelbach.

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ISBN: 978-1-83609-112-7

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