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Shadowsword - Extract

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Chapter One

The devil’s choice

IMPERIAL GOVERNOR’S PALACE, MAGOR’S SEAT

GERATOMRO

0458394.M41

They came always to the droning of priests. The rapturous, augmitter-amplified singing of a hundred Adeptus Ministorum clerics penetrated the doors to the Grand Hall of Magor with ease. A hundred yards away, on the other side of thick wood clad in bronze reliefs, and still Governatrice Missrine Huratal could hear them. They did not stop singing when the gong of audience, hung outside the Hall of Magor, sounded the customary four times to request admittance. They did not stop while Huratal made them wait.

Oravan, captain of Magor’s Yellow Guard, looked to her for permission to open the way to the delegation. She ignored him and bent down to fuss over her canids, her corpulent body shifting painfully in a throne that would once have swallowed her four times over with room to spare. The gong sounded again. Four sonorous notes. She ignored it. The canids yapped.

‘My lady!’ cried Oravan from the gates, hesitant in his concern that she leave the emissaries of the Emperor waiting so long. ‘The adepts demand admittance.’

From the floating crib behind Huratal, Heir the First Missrine II set up her squalling.

‘Stop your bellowing, foolish man,’ said Missrine, making her chins wobble. ‘You disturb our daughter.’ The rest of the court, arrayed in all their finery, stood in silence.

‘Mother, mother! The noise!’ squawked the vat-born infant. ‘It scares me so.’ Wet nurses scurried to the Heir the First’s bed, crooning and fussing over the thing within to no avail.

Many in the court looked to the floating crib from the corners of their eyes, their revulsion showing behind masks of deference.

Missrine II continued with her gurgling, half-human cries. Huratal gave her clone-daughter’s nurses a glower. With panicked faces they shushed harder, until Missrine II finally quieted.

The audience gong resonated to a third set of four notes.

The mistress of Geratomro plucked up Mikki, her favourite canid, from the barking mass at her feet. She kissed and petted it. ‘Shall we let them in, dear one?’ she said. ‘Shall we?’

Mikki yapped piercingly. Her sisters joined in.

‘My lady...’ said Oravan.

‘Oh, let them in,’ said Missrine with a slow wave.

Oravan saluted crisply and turned on his heel. At his command the gates were swung wide by the yellow-cloaked guard. A wave of blue incense smoke roiled through the door, thick and sudden as a sea fog. Thus shrouded, the Departmento Munitorum mission entered the heart of her domain. They strode up the aisle between the crowds of silent courtiers to the throne dais, expressions severe, as bold as if they owned the world. Her world. She curled her lip at their presumption.

There was a crowd large enough to intimidate a lesser soul than she. For all this show of strength, in reality there were only two – Borowik and Querol – who mattered out of the lot of them. Missrine kept her mind fixed on that. She had decided not to be cowed long since.

Borowik and Querol were opposites in every regard. Senior Assessor Borowik behaved like a conquering general and not the pen-pushing parasite among a billion similar creatures that he was. A low-gravity upbringing was apparent decades after he had been taken from his home. He was tall and thin to the point of cadaverousness. Callipers hissed on his arms and legs, supporting his delicate frame against Geratomro’s entirely average pull. Typical of the Imperium, to send one such as he here rather than to a low-density world or orbital habitat to which he might be better suited, thought Missrine. The Imperium was unthinking, unfeeling, a mess of illogicality and inefficiency. They treated her the same way, but there was no sense of kinship at her and Borowik’s shared misfortunes; Huratal thought only of her own power. Her jaw set harder. Thoughts like that were good. They steeled her resolve at what she must do. Heir the Second Dostain had laid it all out to her in impressive detail. She hated to listen to the boy. He was weak-willed and feeble. But in this matter he was right; there was no other choice.

Tithemaster Querol was short, tubby and relatively young to Borowik’s emaciated antiquity. Where Borowik carried a metal shako loosely under his arm, Querol clutched a data-slate as tightly as a child holds a comfort blanket. He hurried along beside his master, taking two steps to his every one. Where Borowik kept his gaze fixed on Huratal, Querol’s went everywhere but the Governatrice, most often lighting on Borowik in an obvious need for the older man’s approval. Borowik studiously ignored him.

An army of black-armoured guards, modified savants, robed functionaries and servitor automata followed them – and the damn priests, of course: a clanking, mumbling, wailing parade of Imperial power. The score of middle-ranking Adeptus Administratum bureaucrats that afflicted her planet skulked in the centre of the crowd in a pathetic bid for anonymity, for it was they who had summoned the assessor, an act of craven treachery which she had been powerless to punish. She recited their names to herself. She would forget not a single one.

Borowik and Querol continued their mismatched march down the aisle of the Hall of Magor, the former stalking like a bird, the latter scampering in the manner of a rodent between the massed assemblage of Huratal’s court. The nobility and officers of her government were numerous, and resplendent in their plumes and breastplates, dresses and lofty headgear, most of them large, for weight was a sign of status upon Geratomro. To them Borowik gave no attention, while Querol stole furtive, nervy glances at their well-fleshed faces.

The parade stopped with a crescendo, the hymns, chants and proclamations ceasing in perfect time with Borowik’s last footfall. The delegation arrayed themselves at the foot of the stairs leading up to Huratal’s throne with practised precision. Servitor power plants puttered in the uneasy silence. Servo-skulls whined overhead, sweeping the chamber and its occupants with wide-spread augur beams for who knew what purpose. A measurement of hats? A survey of powder usage? A cross referencing of tooth size? Mikki yelped as Huratal’s hands tightened around her. The demands of the Adeptus Administratum for pointless information was one of the many things the Governatrice would not miss.

The court herald stepped forwards to the foot of the dais steps, his round head lost in the layered ruffs and lace-trimmed lapels of his yellow uniform.

‘Senior Assessor Borowik!’ he proclaimed. ‘Tithemaster Querol! Arrived this day from the deeps of space and the peril of the warp, here to treat with our most blessed and wise lady, Governatrice Missrine Huratal, of the House of Magor, of the line of Magor, planetary governor of Geratomro, mistress of all human souls within the bounds of the system of Gerat by holy fiat of the God-Emperor of mankind. Queen under the sun. Our queen.’

Trumpets blew. The herald rolled his parchment and bowed so low to his lady that the yellow plumes of his helmet brushed the floor. He stood and waited to be dismissed with a look of nervous adoration. She nodded, generously she thought, to show that he had done well.

Borowik waited with stony patience for the herald to finish, his unblinking, deep-set eyes not leaving Huratal’s face once. Such impertinence from any other man would be met with blinding. But not he! No, Borowik thought himself above her. He would learn.

‘Lady Governatrice, your tithe is overdue!’ Borowik said. His powerful voice contrasted with his weak body, and Huratal’s determination wavered. With the Imperial authorities, it was always what you could not see that was important, and Borowik’s voice was an uncomfortable reminder of that. ‘You flout the primary and only rule of planetary governership. You refuse the tithe. Release the military assets owed or pay the consequences. This is your only warning.’

Silence but for the scratch and whir of the autoscribe embedded in the torso of Borowik’s Keeper of Records, and the whisper of creamy paper folding onto the floor, every word recorded. Huratal’s misgivings burned up in the fire of her anger. The autoscribe caught up and fell quiet. How dare he, this ink-stained drone, threaten her? Huratal made a dismissive noise in her throat. She levered her huge bulk forwards to better glare at her challengers, dislodging Mikki and several cushions. Gripping the armrests with her chubby hands, she spoke, her chins rippling with her anger.

‘In the wilds of Geratomro, in the mountains near this palace, in fact,’ she said, ‘there is said to dwell a puckish creature no taller than a child and covered in hair.’

A servitor piped a shrill whistle for silence. Ordering her, in her own throne room.

‘I fail to see the relevance,’ said Borowik. ‘I come with but one command – obey the High Lords, or the light of the Emperor will turn from your world.’

‘They call it the Devil-in-the-bush,’ she continued. Borowik’s fingers curled around his hat and his eyes narrowed, but he held his peace. ‘Not a thing of this world or any other, but perhaps from somewhere else. It is dangerous, as such uncanny things can be, but not to the body. Rarely is it seen by day. Sometimes at night. But almost always by dusk or dawn. It dances, they say, on the line of the night and the day.

‘The story goes that those who meet this fiend are offered a choice between two seemingly unconnected things,’ she continued. ‘Single words only, usually. Such things as “heartfelt or stones” it might say. “Money or eggs”, “time or deliverance”. It has deep brown eyes wiser than those of any human, and a grin of delight plays across its face throughout every encounter. In the legends – they are all the same, since such beings always have the wiles to force the unwary to undergo the prescribed course of the story – one cannot look away from those eyes until one chooses. They seem to grow bigger and bigger until they swallow up the world, and the victim – make no mistake, lord senior assessor, those that the Devil-in-the-bush meets are its victims in every way – feels they will be lost inside, and blurts out a choice to avoid that fate. At which point the Devil-in-the-bush laughs, skips away along the line between the night and the day, and vanishes. “Spice or lace”, “Earth or sea”, “Matter or vapour”.’

‘Heresy!’ muttered a priest. Episcope Chulux, caught in an unenviable position between his Planetary Governor and outraged Imperial authority, shushed him and gave Huratal a queasy smile.

‘And what is your meaning in reciting this charming, if possibly heretical, folk tale, my lady?’ asked Borowik.

‘A myth, that is all,’ said Huratal with deadly sweetness. ‘A story as likely to be found on this world as on any other, and meaningless.’

Borowik opened his mouth. Huratal held up her hand.

‘We have not finished! Pray let us conclude our argument. Inscrutable though they sound, the choices the Devil-in-the-bush offers most definitely have a bearing on the chooser. Their life will be changed, they can be assured of that. For but a few, a very fortunate few, one of these choices will precipitate a cascade of events that bring great reward twined inextricably with unbearable loss. The other might simply see the chooser dead. Either way, the chooser is doomed to sorrow from the outset. The outcome of neither choice offered is predictable, and very rarely desirable. To we of Geratomro, the legend gives the aphorism of “the devil’s choice”. Can you guess what that might mean to us, my lord assessor?’

‘Enlighten me,’ said Borowik tightly.

‘To be given the devil’s choice is to be given a pair of options which cannot be chosen between in any good conscience. You see, we face the devil’s choice today. A choice you give us.’ She sat back and stared imperiously at the representatives of the Adeptus Administratum. At the bottom of the dais’ twenty-seven steps they seemed small and insignificant. She was set high over them by birth and circumstance, a planetary governor, whereas they were merely functionaries of a remote, half-dead god. They were surrounded by her officials, her officers and family, who glittered in their finery brighter than the stars of any firmament. The various lords-superior of her council and the minor lords-civil were useless to her in this choice. But they outnumbered the delegation several times over, and that counted for something. The local Administratum functionaries, uncomfortable looking in the group, were the delegation’s only allies, and unreliable ones at that.

However distant the Imperium, however small its agents seemed, its reach was great. Huratal held a planet by her birth; these men, these scribblers, could put her off her throne with the stroke of a pen. She was gambling everything. A devil’s choice indeed.

‘We do not have the men,’ she said. ‘We cannot comply.’ Three hundred noble faces looked from her to the visiting adepts.

‘You proclaim open rebellion. To withhold men from the tithe of the Departmento Munitorum is gross treason, Governatrice,’ said Borowik.

‘How many times do we have to say it?’ she said. Her face flushed. ‘We relayed this information to you via astropath. Again by direct hololith whilst you were still in orbit. We have been visited by the recruitment fleets of the Departmento Munitorum eight times in the last seven years. Every one of those eight times, we have complied quickly and to the letter. You already have every able-bodied man we can spare. This ninth time, we say no! We do not have the men,’ she said, enunciating her words very carefully. ‘Can you comprehend what we are saying?’

Querol stepped forwards. ‘If... if I may?’ he said apologetically. Borowik nodded. ‘What of your planetary garrison?’ Querol said. He licked his lips and consulted his data-slate. ‘Our records indicate you have thirteen regiments under arms.’ He was a small, sweaty man, with a small, sweaty man’s stridulating voice.

‘Had, Tithemaster Querol, had. Do you note our use of the past tense there? Had! You have had your one-tenth of men, and then another, and another, and another. We have fewer than five hundred thousand men under arms to defend this world and all its dependencies in our system. Our factories are empty. The husbands of our wives are missing. The fathers of our children,’ she opened one pudgy hand quickly, ‘gone.’

‘If you have men, then you must give them, and freely,’ said Borowik. ‘Or you shall suffer the consequences.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It is not enough. It never will be enough for you.’

Querol licked his fat, purple lips and tried a conciliatory smile. ‘This is but a little misunderstanding, senior assessor. I am sure our lady can spare them for the greater glory of the Imperium. The Lord Solar Macharius requires more troops if he is to conclude his glorious conquests.’

With great effort, Huratal heaved herself from her throne. Scattering cup-sized canids before her, she descended the steps, forcing aside the gaggle of minor heirs she had to attend on her, and came to a halt only three steps from the bottom. Shock at her descent whispered around the court like wind through reeds.

‘No! You do not hear, though you have ears. We say again, we cannot spare them. The Lord Solar’s crusade has bled this planet dry. All systems in this subsector report increased incidences of xenos raids. Five months ago, our outermost outposts were attacked. They will be attacked again. The enemies of mankind smell blood in the water. If we are weak, then we will perish.’

‘Then raise more troops,’ said Borowik.

‘From where? Who will man our factories and our fields?’ she said, her voice trembling with anger. ‘If we give my men to you, we will not be able to pay the due exacta, a tithe as important as yours, as so many other parasites like you impress upon us. On the one hand, we have the Departmento Exacta, on the other, the Departmento Munitorum. Who shall go without?’

‘Then put your women to work, your children,’ said Borowik. ‘You have a population of one point five billion on this world alone. Four times that much in the Gerat star system. Cogitator simulation suggests you can rearrange your workforce sufficiently to provide Terra’s due with a drop-off of a few tenths of a per cent and fulfil the requirements of the Astra Militarum immediately. I am sure my colleagues of the Departmento Exacta will be merciful.’

Huratal laughed, sending her pulse skyrocketing and her chins jiggling. ‘Mercy? Your kind knows nothing of mercy. You have ink in your veins. What happens when you return again for more men?’ she said. ‘Who do we give you? Our babes? Our livestock? This then, is the devil’s choice we have. Give you what you demand, and risk disappointing another coterie of bureaucrats. Neither branch of your organisation is tolerant of failure. What would you have us do?’

A nervous titter sounded from somewhere in the court. She silenced it with a glare that swept out over her relatives and vassals like a las-beam.

‘Local governance is not our concern,’ said Borowik. ‘The fulfilment of the tithe is. Every problem must be overcome individually. This matter at hand can be addressed immediately. You choose not to do so. Other issues that arise may be dealt with as they emerge. Dozens of worlds fall to the Lord Solar Macharius. The Imperium expands on your doorstep. Your system stands to benefit much from the increase in trade and shipping passing through this subsector from the new territories.’

‘Pain now, plenty tomorrow?’ she snorted. ‘We have heard that too many times from the mouths of Imperial officials. What do I tell my people when the xenos come and burn their cities? We have heard the reports from nearby systems. We are not the only ones to refuse. Genthus has declined.’

‘Ah, well. Genthus has been retaken, and its governor replaced,’ said Querol gently.

‘Yes. But if we decline, and then another world and another, can you retake them all? This level of recruitment is unsustainable. The subsector strains under your demands. We cannot bear it. We will not. We refuse. Others will follow.’

‘I ask you one more time for the Imperial record, Governatrice, are you denying us our due?’ Borowik looked down his nose, nostrils arched at the smell of stale perfume and sweat coming off her.

‘Listen to us, you foolish man!’ she bellowed. ‘We are denying you. The line has to be drawn here, before we run out of sand to mark.’

Borowik looked around the court, its high ceilings of marble, the glittering chandeliers, the gold and statuary and other trappings of Huratal’s wealth.

‘Do you see this, Querol? Such riches. All this glory is not yours, Governatrice. This belongs to the Emperor of Mankind. You belong to Him. We all do. To deny our request is to defy His Will. I say one final time, comply with the tithe. I will give you no more chances to redeem yourself.’

Huratal smiled, an expression made up of sorrow, bitterness and despair. ‘We are sure we can come to an accommodation to prevent any unpleasantness. Give Geratomro a few more years.’

‘We cannot,’ said Borowik. ‘The data says you can pay, so pay you shall.’

‘The data is wrong,’ said Huratal, vainly attempting to hide the plea in her words.

‘Nevertheless, it says you can pay. There is no negotiation.’

‘Then so be it!’ she said. She exhaled with relief. There was no backing out now. ‘Our ancestor, Magor, settled this world seven thousand years ago. For long periods we have known no Imperial interference. We have fared well enough. This is our world by right. Take your empty threats away.’

‘They are not empty. Think you that we shall cut ties and let you drift, to return with the world on its knees once you have tasted the poisonous fruits of liberty? Geratomro is of too high value to be allowed to secede. You will be invaded,’ said Borowik unpleasantly, as if he savoured the prospect.

‘There is no force in this part of the segmentum big enough to take a planet like Geratomro, unless you divert fleets and men from the crusade. Withdraw your demand, understand our position. Leave us be, and you will be short fifty thousand men. If you do not, the deficit will be ever so much greater.

‘My lady, we cannot. There is no space for discretion in the workings of the Departmento Munitorum. If our orders say fifty thousand men, then fifty thousand men you must provide. You court censure already with that thing you have bred,’ he said, looking to Missrine II’s crib.

‘Succession must be assured,’ she said. ‘Another duty.’

‘Not in that manner. But it shall be overlooked, if you comply.’

‘Now you threaten our daughter. No and no again. It is our final answer.’

Borowik bowed. ‘Then you know what will occur now.’ Borowik’s guards aimed their guns at Huratal. The court babbled in fear. Huratal raised her hand. The crowds seethed as yellow-robed warriors pushed their way out, and raised their own weapons. Along the galleries of the hall, others emerged from auspex-shielded positions and pointed their guns down at the delegation.

‘Unwise,’ said Borowik.

The Departmento Munitorum’s soldiery opened fire. A fraction of a second later, so did Huratal’s men.

Ruby beams of las-light snapped around the chamber, sending the court scattering. Obese nobles fled in all directions in an explosion of yellow and gold. Dozens of them were cut down in the cross-fire, but fewer than might be expected, for the soldiers in black were gunning only for Huratal.

She stood in the heart of destruction, a score of las-beams striking at her. Her conversion field flared brightly with every shot, absorbing and re-emitting the energy of the weapons as blinding light. Behind her, Missrine II’s crib wobbled as its in-built field did the same. Through the field glare she saw men topple, cut down by her personal guard’s merciless shots. Most of Borowik’s entourage were unarmed. Priests died with prayers on their lips. Cyborgs bled blood and oil. Querol ducked behind his gaunt master, only to be taken by a shot from behind. His data-slate, that instrument of Terran tyranny, shattered upon the floor. More than any amount of spilt blood, that gave her satisfaction.

The last of the black-clad guards died. Hopeless defiance. They never stood a chance. Never advance into enemy territory when your enemy holds a superior firing position. Huratal had learned that at her father’s knee.

‘Cease firing!’ bellowed Oravan.

The Yellow Guard rounded up the few survivors. Huratal’s conversion field sparkled and went out. She breathed in deeply, tired by her exertions. Behind her, her monstrous child wailed in its crib, but her wet nurses were all dead and she went uncomforted. Picking her way through the corpses of her minor heirs Huratal huffed her way up the twenty-seven stairs and settled herself back into her cushions. She plucked one up that smoked with multiple las-burns and tossed it aside. Canids lapped at bloody puddles.

‘My lady Governatrice,’ said Oravan. ‘Our artillery is ranged against the Adeptus Arbites precinct house. The ordnance of the polar defence fortress is locked upon Borowik’s ship. Both await your command to fire.’

‘It is given,’ she said. ‘Obliterate them. Geratomro stands apart.’

‘My lady Governatrice,’ said Oravan, and bowed. He made to go. Huratal halted him.

‘Beware guilt, captain. Their protestations of common cause hid that they were trespassers, for all their writs and parchments that said otherwise,’ said Huratal. ‘Find us the Lord-At-Peace. Tell him he is relieved of duty while hostilities continue. Bring us the Lord-At-War. He is needed now.’

‘Yes, my lady Governatrice,’ said Oravan.

The surviving members of the court crept out from their hiding places, aghast at the carnage wrought upon their fellows. Huratal did not mourn the court’s thinning; it had been getting unmanageable.

‘And find us Heir the Second Dostain,’ she said. ‘We must tell him he was right.’

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