Fulgrim (15 page)

Ostian felt his chest swell with unaccustomed pride at the praise the Astartes had placed upon them, surprised at the eloquence with which the warrior had delivered his speech.

‘Laeran is still a warzone, however, and as units from Lord Commander Fayle’s Palatines secure the planet, it behoves me to tell you that you will see evidence of our war and the raw, bloody aftermath of killing. Be not afraid of this, for to speak the truth of war, you must see it all: the glory and the brutality. You must experience all the sensations of history for it to matter. Any who feel their sensibilities would be offended by such sights should make themselves known and will be excused.’

Not a single soul moved, nor had Ostian expected any to. To see the surface of a new world was too tempting for anyone to resist, and he saw that same knowledge on Kaesoron’s face.

‘Then we shall begin with the allocation of transports,’ said Kaesoron, and the two iterators descended from the platform and moved among the assembled remembrancers with data-slates, checking names against those on their lists, and directing them to the designated transport that would take them to the planet’s surface.

Coraline Aseneca moved towards him, and his pulse quickened as he appreciated the full impact of her beauty, sculpted, elegant and with hair so dark it was like an oil slick. Her full mouth was painted a luscious purple, and her eyes sparkled with an inner light that spoke of expensive augmetics.

‘And what are your names?’ she asked. Ostian found himself lost for words at the silky, liquid sound of her voice. Her words flowed over him like smoke, hot, and making him blink as he struggled to remember what his name was.

‘His name is Ostian Delafour,’ said Serena, haughtily, ‘and mine is Serena d’Angelus.’

Coraline checked her list and nodded. ‘Ah, yes, Mistress d’Angelus, you are to travel on
Perfection’s Flight
, the Thunderhawk just over there.’

She turned to move on, but Serena caught the sleeve of her robe and asked, ‘And my friend?’

‘Delafour… yes,’ said Coraline. ‘I’m afraid your invitation to the surface was revoked.’

‘Revoked?’ asked Ostian. ‘What are you talking about? Why?’

Coraline shook her head. ‘I do not know. All I know is that you do not have permission to visit Twenty-Eight Three.’

Her words were seductively delivered, but cut like hot knives into his heart. ‘I don’t understand, who revoked my invitation?’

Coraline checked her list with an exasperated sigh. ‘It says here that Captain Kaesoron revoked it under the advisement of Mistress Kynska. That’s all I can tell you. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

The beautiful iterator went on her way, and Ostian was left stunned and speechless by the magnitude of Bequa Kynska’s malice. He looked up from the deck in time to see her ascend the boarding ramp of a Stormbird and blow him a mocking kiss from her palm.

‘That bitch!’ he snapped, clenching his fists. ‘I can’t believe this.’

Serena placed her hand on his arm and said, ‘This is ridiculous, my dear, but if you cannot go, then I shan’t either. Seeing Laeran will mean nothing if you are not there beside me.’

Ostian shook his head. ‘No, you go. I won’t have that blue haired freak spoil this for both of us.’

‘But I wanted to show you the ocean.’

‘There will be other oceans,’ said Ostian, struggling to keep his bitter disappointment in check. ‘Now go, please.’

Serena nodded slowly and reached up to touch his cheek. On impulse, Ostian took her hand and leaned forward to kiss her, his lips brushing her powdered cheek. She smiled and said, ‘I’ll tell you all about it in nauseating detail when I get back, I promise.’

Ostian had watched her board the Thunderhawk before being escorted back to his studio by a pair of grim faced Army soldiers.

There, he began to attack the marble in his anger.

T
HE TILED WALLS
and ceiling of the medical bay were bare and gleaming, their surfaces kept spotlessly clean by the menials and thralls of Apothecary Fabius. Staring at them day and night, Solomon felt that he was losing his mind just lying here while his bones healed, unable to look at anything but their utter whiteness. He couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been since his Stormbird had gone into the ocean during the final attack of the Laer atoll, but it felt like a lifetime. He remembered only pain and darkness where, to keep himself alive, he had shut down the majority of his bodily functions until the rescue craft had pulled his shattered body from the wreckage.

By the time he had regained consciousness in the
Pride of the Emperor
’s apothecarion, Laeran had long since been won, but the cost of that victory had been damnably high. Apothecaries and medical thralls bustled up and down the deck, attending to their charges with due diligence, and fighting to ensure that as many as possible returned to full service as quickly as possible.

Apothecary Fabius had personally tended to him, and he was grateful for the attention, knowing that he was amongst the Legion’s best and most gifted chirurgeons. Row upon row of cot beds was filled with nearly fifty wounded Astartes warriors, and Solomon had never thought to see so many of his battle-brothers laid low.

No one would tell him how many of his brother Astartes filled the other medical decks.

The sight made him melancholy. He wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible, but his strength had not yet returned, and his entire body ached abominably.

‘Apothecary Fabius tells me that you will be back in the training cages before you know it,’ said Julius, guessing his thoughts. ‘It’s just a few bones after all.’

Julius Kaesoron had been sitting next to him on a steel stool since Solomon had woken this morning, his armour gleaming and polished, the scars of war repaired by the Legion’s artificers. Fresh honours were secured to his shoulder guards by gobbets of red wax, his deeds of valour recorded on long strips of creamy vellum.

‘Just a few bones, he says!’ replied Solomon. ‘The crash broke all my ribs, both my legs and arms, and fractured my skull. The Apothecaries say it’s a miracle that I’m able to walk at all, and my armour was down to its last few minutes of air when the search and rescue birds finally found me.’

‘You were never in any real danger,’ said Julius as Solomon painfully propped himself up in the bed. ‘What was it you said? That the gods of battle wouldn’t let you die on a piss-poor excuse for a planet like Laeran? Well they didn’t, did they?’

‘No,’ groused Solomon, ‘I suppose not, but they didn’t let me fight in the final battle either. I missed all the fun, while you got all the glory by the Phoenician’s side.’

He saw a shadow pass over Julius’s face and said, ‘What is it?’

Julius shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I’m just… I’m just not sure you’d have wanted to be at the primarch’s side at the end. It was… unnatural in that temple.’

‘Unnatural? What does that mean?’

Julius looked around, as though checking for any who might be listening, and said, ‘It’s hard to describe, Sol, but it felt… it felt as though the temple itself was alive, or something in it was alive. It sounds stupid, I know.’

‘The temple was alive? You’re right, that does sound stupid. How can a temple be alive? It’s just a building.’

‘I have no idea,’ admitted Julius, ‘but that’s what it felt like. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was horrible, but at the same time it was magnificent: the colours, the noise and the smells. Even though I hated it at the time, I keep thinking back to it with longing. Every one of my senses was stimulated and I felt… energised by the experience.’

‘Sounds like I should try it,’ said Solomon. ‘I could do with being energised.’

‘I even went back with the remembrancers,’ laughed Julius, though Solomon could hear the confusion in it. ‘They thought it was such a great honour that I accompanied them, but it was not for them, it was for me. I had to see it again, and I don’t know why.’

‘What does Marius make of all this?’

‘He never saw it,’ said Julius. ‘The Third never made it inside the temple. By the time they fought their way through, the battle was already over. He went straight back to the
Pride of the Emperor
.’

Solomon closed his eyes, knowing the anguish Marius must have felt upon reaching the field of battle and discovering that victory was already won. He had already heard that the Third had failed to reach the battlefield in accordance with the primarch’s meticulous plan, and knew that his friend must be suffering unbearable torments at the thought that he had failed in his duty.

‘How is Marius?’ he asked at last. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘Not much, no,’ said Julius. ‘He’s been keeping himself confined to the armament decks, working his company day and night so they will not fail again. He and his warriors were shamed, but Fulgrim forgave them.’

‘Forgave him?’ asked Solomon, suddenly angry. ‘From what I hear, the southern spur was the most heavily defended part of the atoll, and too many of his assault force were shot down on the way in for him to have had any hope of reaching Fulgrim in time.’

Julius nodded. ‘You know that and I know that, but try telling Marius. As far as he is concerned the Third failed in their duty, and must fight twice as hard to regain their honour.’

‘He must know that there was no way he could have reached the primarch in time.’

‘Maybe, but you know Marius,’ pointed out Julius. ‘He thinks they should have found a way to overcome impossible odds.’

‘Speak to him, Julius,’ said Solomon. ‘I mean it, you know how he can get.’

‘I’ll speak to him later on,’ said Julius, rising from the stool. ‘He and I are part of the delegation that is to meet Ferrus Manus when he comes aboard the
Pride of the Emperor
.’

‘Ferrus Manus?’ exclaimed Solomon, sitting bolt upright and wincing in pain as his wounds pulled tight. ‘He’s coming here?’

Julius pressed a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘We are due to rendezvous with the 52nd Expedition within six hours, and the Primarch of the Iron Hands is coming aboard. Fulgrim and Vespasian want some of the most senior captains to be part of the delegation.’

Solomon pushed himself upright once more and swung his legs from the bed. His vision swam and he held tight to the bed frame as the gleaming walls suddenly grew sickeningly bright. ‘I should be there,’ he said groggily.

‘You are in no state to be anywhere except here, my friend,’ said Julius. ‘Caphen will represent the Second. He was lucky, he made it out of the crash with nothing but a few scrapes and bruises.’

‘Caphen,’ said Solomon, sinking back down into the bed. He was an Astartes, invincible and immortal, and this helplessness was utterly alien to him. ‘Keep an eye on him. He’s a good lad, but a bit wild sometimes.’

Julius laughed and said, ‘Get some sleep, Solomon, you understand? Or did that crash scramble your brains too?’

‘Sleep?’ said Solomon, slumping back onto the bed. ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’

T
HE UPPER EMBARKATION
deck had been chosen as the location where the delegation from the Iron Hands would be met, and Julius felt a great excitement seize him at the thought of once again laying eyes upon Ferrus Manus. Not since the bloody fields of Tygriss had the Emperor’s Children fought alongside the X Legion, and Julius remembered the cries of triumph and the victory pyres with great pride.

He wore an ivory cloak, its edges picked out with scarlet leaves and eagles, and a laurel wreath of gold upon his brow. He carried his helmet under the crook of his arm, as did his brothers who gathered with him to greet Ferrus Manus. Marius stood to his left, his austere features drawn in a sombre expression that stood out amongst the excited faces that awaited this reunion of the Emperor’s sons. Solomon was right, he decided, he would need to keep an eye on his brother and attempt to lift him from the pit of self-loathing he had dug for himself.

In contrast, Gaius Caphen could barely contain his excitement. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, unable to believe his luck at having come through the crash that had so grievously wounded his captain, and then being selected to join this august assembly. Another four captains made up the rest of the gathering: Xiandor, Tyrion, Anteus and Hellespon. Julius knew Xiandor reasonably well, but knew the others only by reputation.

Lord Commander Vespasian talked quietly to the primarch, who stood resplendent in his full battle plate, the golden winged gorget sweeping up over his shoulder to the level of his high, shishak helmet, the lamellar aventail sweeping down across the shoulders of his armour in a glittering cascade.

The golden sword
Fireblade
was belted at the primarch’s waist, and Julius was unaccountably glad to see it at Fulgrim’s hip instead of the silver-handled blade he had taken from the Laer temple.

Behind them, the vicious, beaked prow of the
Firebird
watched over proceedings, the primarch’s assault vessel sporting a fresh coat of paint after her fiery entry into the atmosphere of Laeran.

Vespasian nodded at whatever Fulgrim said and turned to march back towards the company captains, his face set in an expression of quiet amusement. Vespasian was everything Julius could ever desire to be as a warrior, controlled, graceful and utterly deadly. His golden hair was short and tightly curled, and his features were the very image of everything an Astartes ought to be, regal, angelic and stern. Julius had fought alongside Vespasian on countless battlefields, and the warriors he commanded would boast that his prowess was the equal of the primarch’s. Though all knew that such a boast was made in jest, it served to push his warriors to greater heights of valour and strength to emulate the lord commander.

Vespasian was also immensely likeable, for his incredible abilities as a warrior and commander were tempered by a rare humility that made others warm to him immediately. In the manner of the Emperor’s Children, warriors who followed Vespasian would take their lead from him in all things, his example serving as a model of how they might best achieve perfection through purity of purpose.