Galaxy in Flames (20 page)

That was what the Imperial Truth meant, he realized at last.

It meant hope: hope for the galaxy; hope for humanity.

Tarvitz gunned the Thunderhawk’s engine, fixed its course towards the Precentor’s Palace and arrowed it towards the heart of the Choral City.

TEN

The most precious truth

Praal

Death’s tomb

T
HE SUB
-
DECK
was packed with people come to hear the words of the saint’s apostle. Apostle: that was what they called him now, thought Sindermann, and it gave him comfort to know that even in these turbulent times, he was still a person that others looked up to. Vanity, he knew, but still… one takes what one can when circumstances change beyond one’s control.

Word had spread quickly through the
Vengeful Spirit
that he was to speak and he glanced nervously around the edges of the sub-deck for any sign that word had reached beyond the civilians and remembrancers. Armed guards protected the approaches to the sub-deck, but he knew that if the Astartes or Maggard and his soldiers came in force, then not all of them would escape alive.

They were taking a terrible risk, but Euphrati had made it very clear that he needed to speak to the masses, to spread the word of the Emperor and to tell of the imminent treachery that she had seen.

Thousands of people stared expectantly at him and he cleared his throat, glancing over his shoulder to where Mersadie and Euphrati watched him standing at the lectern raised on a makeshift platform of packing crates. A portable vox-link had been rigged up to carry his words to the very back of the sub-deck, though he knew his iterator trained voice could be heard without any mechanical help. The vox-link was there to carry his words to those who could not attend this gathering, faithful among the technical staff of the ship having spliced the portable unit into the ship’s principal vox-caster network.

Sindermann’s words would be heard throughout the Expedition fleet.

He smiled at the crowd and took a sip of water from the glass beside him.

A sea of expectant faces stared back at him, desperate to hear his words of wisdom. What would he tell them, he wondered? He looked down at the scribbled notes he had taken over the time he had been sequestered in the bowels of the ship. He looked back over his shoulder at Euphrati and her smile lifted his heart.

He turned back to his notes, the words seeming trite and contrived.

He screwed the paper into a ball and dropped it by his side, feeling Euphrati’s approval like a tonic in his veins.

‘My friends,’ he began. ‘We live in strange times and there are events in motion that will shock many of you as they have shocked me. You have come to hear the words of the saint, but she has asked me to speak to you, that I may tell you of what she has seen and what all men and women of faith must do.’

His iterator’s voice carried the precise amount of gravitas mixed with a tone that spoke to them of his regret at the terrible words of doom he was about to impart.

‘The Warmaster has betrayed the Emperor,’ he said, pausing to allow the inevitable howls of denial and outrage to fill the chamber. Shouted voices rose and fell like waves on the sea and Sindermann let them wash over him, knowing the exact moment when he should speak.

‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘You think that such a thing is unthinkable and only a short time ago, I would have agreed, but it is true. I have seen it with my own eyes. The saint showed me her vision and it chilled my very soul to see it: war-filled fields of the dead, winds that carry a cruel dust of bone and the sky-turned eyes of men who saw wonders and only dreamed of their children and friendship. I tasted the air and it was heavy with blood, my friends, its stink reeking on the bodies of men we have learned to call the enemy. And for what? That they decided they did not want to be part of our warmongering Imperium? Perhaps they saw more than we? Perhaps it takes the fresh eyes of an outsider to see what we have become blind to.’

The crowd quietened, but he could see that most people still thought him mad. Many here were of the Faithful, but many others were not. While almost all of them could embrace the Emperor as divine, few of them could countenance the Warmaster betraying such a wondrous being.

‘When we embarked on this so-called “Great Crusade” it was to bring enlightenment and reason to the galaxy, and for a time that was what we did. But look at us now, my friends, when was the last time we approached a world with anything but murder in our hearts? We bring so many forms of warfare with us, the tension of sieges and the battlefield of trenches soaked in mud and misery while the sky is ripped with gunfire. And the men who lead us are no better! What do we expect from cultures who are met by men named “Warmaster”, “Widowmaker” and “the Twisted”? They see the Astartes, clad in their insect carapaces of plate armour, marching to the grim sounds of cocking bolters and roaring chainswords. What culture would
not
try to resist us?’

Sindermann could feel the mood of the crowd shifting and knew he had stoked their interest. Now he had to hook their emotions.

‘Look to what we leave behind us! So many memorials to our slaughters! Look to the Lupercal’s Court, where we house the bloody weapons of war in bright halls and wonder at their cruel beauty as they hang waiting for their time to come again. We look at these weapons as curios, but we forget the actuality of the lives these savage instruments took. The dead cannot speak to us, they cannot plead with us to seek peace while the remembrance of them fades and they are forgotten. Despite the ranks of graves, the triumphal arches and eternal flames, we forget them, for we are afraid to look at what they did lest we see it in ourselves.’

Sindermann felt a wondrous energy filling him as he spoke, the words flowing from him in an unstoppable torrent, each word seeming to spring from his lips of its own volition, as though each one came from somewhere else, somewhere more eloquent than his poor, mortal talent could ever reach.

‘We have made war in the stars for two centuries, yet there are so many lessons we have never learned. The dead should be our teachers, for they are the true witnesses. Only they know the horror and the ever repeating failure that is war; the sickness we return to generation after generation because we fail to hear the testament of those who were sacrificed to martial pride, greed or twisted ideology.’

Thunderous applause spread from the people directly in front of Sindermann, spreading rapidly through the chamber and he wondered if such scenes were being repeated on any of the other ships of the fleet that could hear his words.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he spoke, his hands gripping the lectern tightly as his voice trembled with emotion. ‘Let the battlefield dead take our hands in theirs and illuminate us with the most precious truth we can ever learn, that there must be peace instead of war!’

L
UCIUS SKIDDED TO
the floor of what appeared to be some kind of throne room. Inlaid with impossibly intricate mosaic designs, the floor was covered in scrollwork so tightly wound that it seemed to ripple with movement. Bolter fire stitched through the room, showering him with broken pieces of mosaic as he rolled into the cover of an enormous harpsichord.

Music from the dawn of creation boomed around him, filling the central spire of the Precentor’s Palace. Crystal chandeliers hung from the petals at the centre of the great granite flower, shimmering and vibrating in time with the cacophony of battle far below. Instruments filled the room, each one played by a servitor refitted to play the holy music of the Warsingers. Huge organs with pipes that reached up through the shafts of milky morning light stood next to banks of gilded bells and rank upon rank of bronze cages held shaven-headed choristers who sang with blind adulation.

Harp strings snapped and twanged in time with the gunfire and discordant notes boomed as bolter shots ripped through the side of the organ. Storms of weapons’ fire flew, filling the air with hot metal and death, the battle and the music competing to make the loudest din.

Lucius felt his limbs become energized just listening to the crashing volume of the noise, each blaring note and booming shot filling his senses with the desire to do violence.

He glanced round the side of the harpsichord, exhausted and elated to have reached so far, so quickly. They had fought their way through the palace, killing thousands of the black- and silver-armoured guards, before finally reaching the throne room.

From his position of cover, Lucius saw that he was in the second ring of instruments, beyond which lay the Precentor’s Dais. A mighty throne with its back to him sat upon the dais, a confection of gold and emerald set in a ring of lecterns that each held a massive volume of musical notations.

Gunfire blew one book apart and a blizzard of sheet music fluttered around the throne.

The palace guard massed on the opposite side of the throne room, surrounding a tall figure in gold armour with a collection of tubes and what looked like loudspeakers fanning out from his back. A storm of silver fire flew and Lucius saw yet more guards charging in from the other entrances, a ferocious struggle erupting as these new arrivals charged the Emperor’s Children.

‘They have courage, I’ll give them that,’ he muttered to himself.

Chainblades and bolt pistols rang from armour and storms of silver fire ripped between the patches of cover offered by the gilded instruments. Each volley tore up the hardwood frames and sawed through servitors as they sat at the ornate keyboards or plucked at strings with metal fingers.

And still the music played.

Lucius glanced behind him. One of Nasicae fell as he ran to join Lucius, silver filaments punched through his skull. The body clattered to the floor beside Lucius. Only three of Nasicae remained, and they were cut off from their leader.

‘Ancient Rylanor, engage!’ yelled Lucius into the vox. ‘Get me cover! Tactical squads, converge on the throne and draw the palace guard in! Purity and death!’

‘Purity and Death!’ echoed the Emperor’s Children, and with exemplary co-ordination they surged forward. A silver-armoured guard was shredded by bolter fire and flopped, broken, to the ground. Glass-armoured bodies lay shattered and bloody over bullet-scarred instruments. Servitors moved jerkily, still trying to play even though their hands were smoking ruins of bone and wire.

The Emperor’s Children moved squad by squad, volley by volley, advancing through the fire as only the most perfect of Legions could.

Lucius broke cover and ran into the whirlwind of fire. Silver shards shattered against him.

Behind him, Rylanor’s dreadnought body smashed through a titanic bank of drums and bells, the noise of its destruction appalling as Rylanor opened fire on the enemy. Acrobatic guards, clad in armour wound with long streamers of silk, darted and leapt away from chainblades and bolts like dancers, slashing limbs with monofilament wire-blades.

Glass-armoured guards charged forward in solid ranks, stabbing with their halberds, yet none of the foes was a match for the disciplined countercharges of the Emperor’s Children. The slick perfection of their pattern-perfect warfare kept its edge even amid the storm of fire and death that filled the throne room.

Lucius ducked and wove through the fire towards the gold armoured figure, shrapnel flashing against the energised edge of his sword blade.

The man’s armour was ancient, yet gloriously ornate, the equal in finery of a lord commander of the Emperor’s Children. He carried a long spear, its shaft terminated at both ends by a howling ripple of lethal harmonies. Lucius ducked under a swipe of the weapon, stepping nimbly to the side and bringing his sword up towards his opponent’s midriff.

Faster than he would have believed possible, the spear reversed and a tremendous blast of noise battered his sword away before it struck. Lucius danced back as a killing wave of sound blared from the tubes and speakers mounted on the golden warrior’s back, a whole section of the mosaic floor ploughed in a torn gouge by the sound.

One of the palace guards fell at Lucius’s feet, his chest blown open by Rylanor’s fire, and another toppled as one of Nasicae sliced off his leg.

The Emperor’s Children surged forwards to help him, but he waved them back – this was to be his kill. He leapt onto the throne pedestal, the golden warrior silhouetted in the light streaming from the distant ceiling.

The screaming spear came down and Lucius ducked to avoid it, pushing himself forwards. He stabbed with his sword, but a pitch perfect note sent his sword plunging towards the floor of the dais instead of its intended target. Lucius hauled his sword clear as the spear stabbed for him again, the musical edge shearing past him and blistering the purple and gilt of his armour. The battle raged ferociously around him, but it was an irrelevance, for Lucius knew that he must surely be fighting the leader of this rebellion.

Only Vardus Praal would surround himself with such fearsome bodyguards.

Lucius pivoted away from another strike, spinning around behind Praal and shearing his sword through the speaker tubes and loudspeakers upon his back. He felt a glorious surge of satisfaction as the glowing edge cut through the metal with ease. A terrific, booming noise blared from the severed pipes and Lucius was hurled from the dais by the force of the blast.

His armour cracked with the force, and the music leapt in clarity as he felt its power surge around his body in a glorious wash of pure, unadulterated sensation. The music sang in his blood, promising yet more glories, and the unfettered excess of music, light and hedonistic indulgence.

Lucius felt the music in his soul and knew that he wanted it, wanted it more than he had wanted anything in his life.

He looked up as the golden warrior leapt lightly from the throne, seeing the music as swirling lines of power and promise that flowed like water in the air.

‘Now you die,’ said Lucius as the song of death took hold of him.