Descent of Angels (2 page)

The Emperor was coming, but the first currents of change in our society were already at work long before his arrival. Some time before the Emperor came to Caliban, a new knightly order had been founded among our people. It called itself simply ‘the Order’, and its members put forward the startling proposition that all men were created equal.

Previously, it had been traditional for knights to be recruited strictly and solely from among the nobility, but the Order broke with accepted practice to recruit from all layers of society. So long as an individual could prove by his deeds and his character that he was worthy of knighthood, the Order did not care whether he was a noble or a commoner.

It may seem a minor matter now, but the issue sparked no small amount of turmoil and controversy at the time. Traditionalist diehards among the more established orders regarded it as the thin end of a wedge that they thought would inevitably bring the whole edifice of our culture crashing down, and leave us as easy prey for the great beasts. In one case, this issue even led to open warfare.

A group calling itself the Knights of the Crimson Chalice attacked the Order’s mountain fortress at Aldurukh and laid siege to it. In what would later be seen as one of the defining moments of Caliban’s pre-Imperial history, the knights of the Order sallied forth and counter-attacked before the enemy had completed their siege lines.

The resulting battle was decisive. The Knights of the Crimson Chalice were routed, and the survivors hunted down to the last man. With this victory, the future progress of the Order was guaranteed. Supplicants flocked to them from all walks of life and, within the space of barely a few decades, the Order had become one of the most powerful and well-regarded knightly groups on Caliban.

This was only the beginning, however. Whatever subtle changes were brought to our society by the rise to prominence of the Order were as nothing compared to what would happen when the Lion came to Caliban.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Lion El’Jonson is one of the primarchs, wrought in gene-labs by the Emperor to lead the armies of his angels, but at the time he was far more extraordinary to us.

We were not an unsophisticated people, nor were we primitives. Imagine the effect, though, as word spread across our planet that a man had been found living wild, like an animal, in the deep forests of the Great Northwilds, his features handsome and beautiful beneath the matted hair and the mud caked to his body.

No one knew who he was, and he spoke not a word of human language. He had survived for years, naked and unarmed, in the wilderness of the most dangerous region on Caliban – a place where even fully armoured knights hesitated to venture unless as part of a larger group. Nor was it the end of the wonders associated with this strange figure.

In light of the details of his discovery, the wild man came to be called Lion El’Jonson, meaning ‘‘The Lion, the Son of the Forest’’ in the old tongue of Caliban. Having been brought to human society, Jonson soon demonstrated a prodigious talent for learning.

He quickly assimilated human ways, learning the habit of speech within a matter of days. From there, his rate of progress increased exponentially. Within a few short months, he was the equal in mind of our finest savants. A month later, he had exceeded their greatest achievements and left them trailing in his wake.

He never spoke of his days in the forest, nor could he account for how he had come to be living there or where he had come from, but his powers of reason and intelligence seemed unaffected by his time in the wilderness.

His intellectual capacity was matched only by his physical power. None could match his strength or prowess in combat, and he swiftly mastered the skills of knighthood to be accepted into the Order.

As might be expected, given his abilities, Jonson rapidly ascended through the Order’s ranks. His achievements were legendary, and coupled with a natural talent to inspire intense devotion in others, his presence soon led to a marked upsurge in recruitment. As the number of knights within the Order increased, and new fortress monasteries were built to accommodate them, Jonson and his supporters started to press for a crusade to be mounted against the great beasts. Their proposal called for a systematic campaign to clear the beasts from the forests, region by region, until Caliban was finally free from their scourge.

Objections were raised to the proposal, of course. The Order was the dominant military power on Caliban, but it was still only first among equals in the eyes of the other knightly orders. Given the size of the scheme Jonson had put forward, it would require the actions of every knightly order working in unison to a common plan to have any hope of succeeding. This was no small undertaking, considering that the knights of Caliban had always been inclined to feud and squabble amongst themselves. Combined with this, the plan would also need the support of the wider nobility and the common population. In general, though, we are not the kind to easily follow after leaders on Caliban: each man has too high a regard for his own opinions.

Then, there were other problems. The faint-hearted said it would be impossible to truly clear the beasts from the forests. It was too grand a scheme, too much the product of hubris. Some viewed the great beasts with supernatural dread, believing that any plan of extermination would only awaken an apocalypse by uniting the beasts against humanity.

Finally, there were concerns, even among those who backed Jonson’s aims. Some of them counselled caution. Jonson had envisioned a span of six years from the beginning of his war against the beasts to victory, but even his allies thought this was not enough time to achieve the plan’s objectives. They feared he had failed to take full account of the human factor. He had forgotten that the plan would be carried out by individuals who did not share his own extraordinary mental and physical abilities. Jonson might be superhuman, but he was the only one of his kind on Caliban. His plan would not be carried out by supermen. The real, hard work would be done by mortal men.

In the end, Jonson carried the day. His supporters argued that the people of Caliban had skulked for too long behind the walls of their settlements. They had lived too much in fear of the beasts. Man was made to have dominion over the wilderness, they said, not vice versa. It was time to restore the world to balance, to end the reign of the beasts and give mankind dominion over the forests.

‘This is our world,’ he said. ‘It is not the world of the beasts. It is time we took our stand.’

So, the decision was made and Jonson would have his campaign. One by one, the beasts were hunted down and killed. They were driven from the forests. They were tracked to their lairs and destroyed. In one thing at least, though, some of those who had opposed Jonson were proven right, for it took more than six years to finish the campaign.

It took ten years of constant campaigning, ten years of hardship, ten years of friends maimed and lost, but ultimately it was worth it. Our cause was just, and we achieved our ambitions. Ten years, and not one of the great beasts remained.

It occurs to me that I have been slapdash in one respect in telling this story, for I have made no mention of the one man who could hold forth knowledgeably on all the topics before us. I have talked of Caliban, of Lion El’Jonson and of the campaign against the great beasts, but I have neglected to mention the most important player in our drama.

I am talking about Luther.

He was the man who found Jonson in the forest and gave him his name, the man who brought him to civilisation and taught him the ways of human society. He was the one who, through all Jonson’s exploits and honours, stood side-by-side with him and matched him. Luther had not Jonson’s advantages in matters of war and strategy. He was born a man, after all, not created to be more than human. Yet, as Jonson’s actions began to change the face of Caliban, Luther kept stride with him, equalling the wild man’s accomplishments with his own.

Too often, the Imperium portrays Luther as the devil. Some say he grew jealous of the Lion, for though the two of them had shared in many victories, it was always Jonson who was lauded for these triumphs. Others say Luther grew increasingly bitter at being so much in the Lion’s shadow. They say a secret seed of anger was born in Luther’s heart in those days, the seed of future hatreds.

But those who repeat such things are liars. Luther always loved Jonson like a brother.

I know Luther well, and you may be assured I am well-placed to comment on his secrets. Luther is the key to understanding so much of how our world came to be where it is today, but it is better if we do not speak too much of Luther now. It will only work to the detriment of my story. To begin a tale with too many secrets tends to cause confusion after all. In my experience, it is always better if you build towards these things more slowly.

Poor, poor Luther: we will get to him in time, you may be certain of that point. We will get to it all in time. I will account for everything in time.

For now, though, the stage of my story is set.

It is the tenth year of Jonson’s campaign against the great beasts. Nearly all the beasts have been killed, and only a few stragglers remain in the less hospitable and more thinly populated regions of the planet.

Once the last of the great beasts are gone, we will all be able to build new lives. We can found new settlements. We can clear the trees for fuel and lumber, and plant new fields. For the first time, we will have control over our existence in ways we never had before.

A golden age beckons our people.

It is before the Emperor came to our planet, and before the time of angels, but the old ways are already dying. The world of our childhood will not be the world of our future. Many are unhappy at the prospect, but it is entirely possible that the world we inhabit tomorrow will be like nothing we could have foreseen.

Change can bring out the worst and best in us, or something of both qualities at the same time. Some look to the horizon and fear the future, while others look and see it shining in welcome.

It is the tenth year of Jonson’s campaign and the world turns beneath our feet. Unknowing, we stand on the brink of a bright new age of progress. We stand on the brink of learning of the Emperor, of the Imperium. We stand on the brink of becoming angels, but, as yet, we know nothing of these things.

On Caliban it is a time of innocence, but already the storm clouds gather. It is said that a man should be wary of weeping angels, for wherever their teardrops fall, men drown.

This is the shape of our lives. These are the days that made us, that formed our conflicts and decided our future. This is a time of which much will be written, but little understood. The histories created by those who follow after us will be riddled with falsehoods and fabrications.

They will not know why we turned from the Lion.

They will know nothing of our motives, but you can know them. You can know it all. Come listen, and you will hear my secrets. Come listen, and we will talk of Luther and Lion El’Jonson. We will talk of schism and civil war.

We will give voices to the dead.

Come, listen, hear my secrets.

Let us talk of the Dark Angels and the beginnings of their fall.

BOOK ONE

CALIBAN

ONE

I
T BEGAN IN
darkness. Zahariel’s eyes snapped open an instant before Lord Cypher’s men came for him. He awoke to find a hand descending to clamp across his mouth. They dragged him from his bed, put a hood over his head and tied his arms behind him. With that, he was hauled blindly down a series of corridors. When at last they came to a halt, he heard one of his captors knock three times on a door.

The door opened and he was pushed inside.

‘Who is brought before us?’ asked a voice in the darkness.

‘A stranger,’ Lord Cypher said beside him. ‘He has been brought here bound and blinded. He comes seeking entrance.’

‘Bring him closer,’ said the first voice.

Zahariel felt hands at his arms and shoulders. He was propelled roughly forward and forced to kneel. A shock ran through him as his bare knees met the cold stone floor. Unwilling to let his captors think he was afraid, he tried to suppress a shiver.

‘What is your name?’ he heard the first voice again, louder this time. Its tone was rich and deep, a voice accustomed to command. ‘Who are your people?’

‘I am Zahariel El’Zurias,’ he replied. In keeping with ancient custom, Zahariel recited his full lineage, wondering if it would be the last time he ever spoke the words. ‘I am the only living son of Zurias El’Kaleal, who in turn was the son of Kaleal El’Gibrael. My people are descended from the line of Sahiel.’

‘A nobleman,’ said a third voice. In some ways this voice was more arresting than the others, its tone even more magnetic and compelling than the first. ‘He thinks he should be allowed among us because his father was important. I say he isn’t good enough. He isn’t worthy. We should throw him from the tower and be done with it.’

‘We will see,’ said the first voice. Zahariel heard the telltale rasp of a knife being slid from its sheath. He felt the uncomfortable sensation of cold metal against his skin as a blade was pressed to his throat.

‘First, we will test him,’ said the voice in the darkness. ‘You feel the blade at your throat?’

‘Yes,’ replied Zahariel.

‘Know this, then, a lie is a betrayal of our vows. Here, we deal only in truth. If you lie, I will know it. If I hear a lie, I will cut your throat. Do you accept these terms?’