Descent of Angels (29 page)

He turned from the gathered figures without a word and began to climb the stairs back through the darkness to the Circle Chamber above. From below, he heard raised voices and urgent imprecations, but he ignored them and carried on upwards.

Zahariel’s anger burned like a hot coal in his breast. How could these men have thought he would join them in their mad scheme? And Nemiel… had his cousin lost his reason?

He heard hurried footsteps on the stairs behind him, and turned to face the climber below him, sliding his hand towards the hilt of the knife at his belt. If these conspirators meant to do him harm, they would find him waiting with his blade bared.

A light built from below and shadows climbed ahead of his pursuer.

Zahariel drew his knife and braced himself to fight.

The light drew closer and he let out a breath as he saw that Nemiel climbed from below, the hooded lantern held before him.

‘Whoa, cousin!’ said Nemiel, seeing the knife blade gleaming in the darkness.

‘Nemiel,’ said Zahariel, lowering the knife.

‘Well that was… intense,’ said Nemiel. ‘Don’t you think that was intense?’

‘That’s one word for it,’ said Zahariel, resuming his climb as he sheathed his blade. ‘Treachery is another.’

‘Treachery?’ said Nemiel. ‘I think you’re making too much of this. It’s just some diehards venting some steam. They’re not really going to
do
anything.’

‘Then why did they get you to bring me here?’

‘To gauge your response I suppose,’ said Nemiel. ‘Listen, you must have heard the talk that’s doing the rounds now that the knightly orders have been disbanded. Folk aren’t happy with it, and they need to grumble. Any time there’s change, people like to grouse about it and fantasise about what they’d do.’

‘They were talking about killing the Emperor!’

‘Oh come on,’ laughed Nemiel, ‘how many times when we were in training did we say that we hated Master Ramiel and hoped that a beast would eat him?’

‘That’s different.’ ‘How so?’

‘We were children, Nemiel. They are grown warriors. It’s not the same thing at all.’

‘Maybe it is different, but they’re not really going to try to kill the Emperor, it would be suicide. You’ve seen how tough the Astartes are, so imagine how much tougher the Emperor is. If the Emperor is as magnificent as the Astartes say, then he’s got nothing to worry about.’

‘That’s not the point, Nemiel, and you know it,’ said Zahariel as he continued to climb.

‘Then what
is
the point, cousin?’

‘If this is just talk, fine, I will forget you brought me here and that I heard treason plotted within the walls of our fortress, but if it’s not, I will make sure the Lion knows of it.’

‘You would renounce me to the Lion?’ asked Nemiel, hurt.

‘Unless you can convince the men below to cease this talk,’ said Zahariel. ‘It’s dangerous and could get people killed.’

‘It’s just talk,’ promised Nemiel.

‘Then it stops now,’ said Zahariel, turning to face his cousin. ‘You understand me?’

‘Yes, Zahariel, I understand,’ said Nemiel, his head cast down. ‘I’ll speak to them.’

‘Then we’ll say no more of this.’

‘Right,’ agreed Nemiel. ‘We’ll say no more of it. I promise.’

SIXTEEN

I
T BEGAN WITH
a day like no other.

In all the history of Caliban, in the annals of the knightly orders, in the folktales of the common people, there would never be another day like it.

There would be other momentous days, it was true. There would be darker days ahead as part of an era of death and destruction, but this day was different. This was a day of joy. It was a day of happiness and excitement, a day of hope.

It was the day the Emperor descended from the heavens.

It would become known as the beginning of the time of angels.

At this moment, though, that name was unknown.

Giants, Astartes, First Legion, all these names would be used to refer to the newcomers, but as the day of the Emperor’s descent dawned, the people of Caliban resorted to a name with mythic resonance.

They called them Terrans once more.

It was a good name, for it spoke of humanity’s lost birthright and the origin of the first settlers who had come to Caliban. For two hundred generations, ever since the fall of Old Night, stories of ancient Terra had been told around the hearth-fires of Caliban. Now, those stories were real. They had been given visceral form in the armoured shapes of giants.

The moment of discovery, the moment when the Astartes made first contact with the people of Caliban, was already being mythologised. A vast tree of myth would sprout from the tiny seed of real experience. There would be different stories and competing legends. All too soon, the truth of how it actually happened would be forgotten.

But Zahariel knew he would never forget the truth of that day, for he had been in the deep forest with Lion El’Jonson and Luther when it had occurred.

That Luther had been the first to call them angels was true, for the Astartes had descended on pinions of fiery wings. It was a phrase uttered in the heat of the moment, provoked by wonder and amazement, but Jonson had remembered his words and kept them close to his heart.

Zahariel and the others in the riding party were already being pushed to obscurity, the story needing grander players than them to tell such lofty histories. In time, his name and deeds would be lost, and though his part in the story would soon be pushed aside in the countless retellings, he was not saddened, for he knew that the story was what mattered, not the players who stalked in its background.

In any event, the truth of the tale hardly mattered.

The people of Caliban wanted stories. They needed them. So much was changing in so short a period that they felt the need to be anchored back to reality. Zahariel knew that stories helped them to make sense of their lives.

Of course, there would be dozens of different stories all claiming to be the truth, but in some ways that made his exclusion easier. With so many versions of what had happened that day, each person could pick the one that suited them best. Some would be ribald, others reverential, some full of adventure and others more prosaic.

All would agree on one matter, however.

The name of this tale would remain the same. From the far northern mountains to the great oceans of the south, no matter the variation within the narrative, it would always be known by the same title.

It would be known as the Descent of Angels.

Following the arrival of the angels, wonders and miracles had been shared by those who had come from the stars. But greater even than those was news that the creator of the angels, the Emperor, would descend in all his glory.

In the wake of his arrival, nothing on Caliban would ever be the same.

Z
AHARIEL WATCHED THE
tens of thousands of people as they filled the mighty arena, cleared before the walls of the Order’s fortress monastery. He had never seen such an assemblage of people in one place, and the presence of so many gathered in joy was like a roaring pressure in his head. Come to think of it, he had never seen such a vast open space before, the vistas of Caliban being primarily unbroken swathes of forest, but the machines of the Mechanicum had been thorough in their destructive creativity.

The enormous metal behemoths had rolled across the landscape, slicing down trees and stripping away their branches. Those same machines then swept across the land they had cleared once more, this time uprooting tree stumps and levelling the ground until the whole area was as smooth as the flat of a blade. The tree logs left over from the process were deposited in immense stacks by the side of the newly created clearing to be used as lumber, while the roots and branches were reduced to wood chip to be burned in massive bonfires.

It had been almost apocalyptic, the smoke, the red glow of the fires and the great metal machines so large as to be monstrous. Looking at them, Zahariel was put in mind of the great beasts of Caliban, though those monsters had been hunted to extinction.

Zahariel could hardly believe the good fortune that saw him here on this day of days, for the entire strength of the Order was gathered here, as well as senior knights from those knightly orders that had been gathered together under the banner of the Astartes.

He recalled the words of the hooded men in the room beneath the Circle Chamber and shivered, despite the heat of the day. He had not seen Nemiel this morning, and he was glad, for he was still angry that his cousin had dragged him to that dangerous conclave of rancorous malcontents.

To see such martial power gathered in one place was humbling, for though the knights of Caliban were strong and proud, they were as striplings compared to the might of the Astartes.

Towering giants, the Astartes were golems of men, though to call them men seemed a gross disservice, so removed were they from any common humanity. They soared above Zahariel, their armour burnished black and gleaming, and their voices so gruff and deep that it seemed wholly unnatural that they issue from human mouths.

Even without their armour, they were enormous, more so, for while encased in plate, Zahariel could almost believe that the majority of their bulk was artificial. Seeing them without their armour, such doubts were removed.

Midris had been the first of the Astartes to be seen without his armour, his body massive and lumpen, his flesh packed with too much muscle and hard bone as to be almost without shape or definition. Robed in a simple cream body-sheath, Midris had arms and legs like the great trees of the Northwilds, and the muscles of his shoulders rose to either side of his cranium without apparent recourse to a neck.

One Astartes was impressive enough, but over a thousand of them filled the great space, surrounding it like great black statues, and hundreds more ringed the great amphitheatre at the centre of the plain that had been bulldozed flat by the Mechanicum.

Today was the day the Emperor would descend to Caliban, and Zahariel could barely contain his excitement. Nemiel would be jealous of Zahariel’s inclusion in the Lion’s honour guard, but such was the lot of their friendship and rivalry.

His armour was polished to a reflective sheen, its ancient technologies hardly the equal of the Astartes’ mighty armour. But on this day of days, such differences hardly mattered.

The angle of the ground and the press of bodies around him as he marched through the crowd prevented him from seeing the Lion, but Zahariel knew the Grand Master of the Order was ahead of him without being able to lay eyes upon him.

Cheers and adoring faces pointed the way to the Lion as surely as an illuminated sign, and though it was unusual for their taciturn leader to walk amongst the common folk of Caliban, Luther had suggested it as a means of ensuring that the Emperor knew he was a man of the people, that he was loved by all.

An excited hubbub filled the air, for who would not want to see a being of such magnificence that he could command the likes of the Astartes and inspire such devotion in them? A being with the vision, drive and power to set out on the reconquest of the galaxy was surely to be revered, and perhaps even feared, for what singular purpose of violence must surely lie at his heart?

The thought had risen in Zahariel’s mind unbidden, and he recalled again of the secret meeting last night. His expression turned grim as he thought of the sentiments espoused there, but he satisfied himself with knowing that he had forestalled the seditious talk of the warriors gathered in the deep vaults of the fortress monastery with his threat of exposure to the Lion.

Seeing his gleaming armour, the crowds parted before him, and he nodded in appreciation at the respect accorded to his status as a knight of the Order. The sense of fevered anticipation among the people of the crowd was palpable, and their excitement passed to him so easily that it was like an electric charge running around his body. All here gathered knew they were witnesses to history, the passage of which only rarely allowed the ordinary man the chance to witness its unfolding.

At last he reached the outer circle of knights surrounding the Lion, and Zahariel felt his pulse increase as he stepped towards his fellows. Though much younger than most of them, they parted respectfully before him, allowing him to pass into the clear space between the outer and inner circles.

The senior masters of the Order gathered like supplicants around the Lion, their bearing regal and majestic, but still as children compared to the mighty warrior at their centre.

Zahariel had no doubt that Lion El’Jonson was the single most gifted and remarkable human being who had ever lived. Each time he looked at the Lion he felt exactly the same sensation, a sheer mass of presence that seemed to press inside his skull by some mystical osmosis to create a feeling of wellbeing and trust.

More than that, he felt something else entirely… Awe, he felt awe.

The Lion was a truly imposing physical specimen. A giant, standing at a little under three metres tall, it was impossible to escape the suspicion that he had been cut from a broader canvas than the majority of men. His body was perfectly proportioned and entirely in scale with his height. He was powerfully built, lithe yet muscular.

Given that the people of Caliban had black hair for the most part, the Lion’s most arresting feature at first sight was the russet golden shade of his hair. The combined effect of his physical characteristics paled into inconsequence, however, in comparison with his more intangible qualities.

Jonson exuded a raw majesty, an unspoken aura of such magnetic authority that it was clear from the very first instance why Sar Luther had chosen to give him the name ‘Lion’. There was no other name that could ever have possibly fitted him.

He was the Lion. No word could have better described him.

As Zahariel approached, the Lion turned to him and gave a brief nod of his head, an unspoken acknowledgment of the brotherhood they shared.

Zahariel greeted his companions, knights who in years past had been distant, unreachable figures of authority and might. Now they were his brothers, by virtue and by valour. His past life of insignificance was over. His new life as a member of the Order had begun in blood and would no doubt end the same way.