The Flight of the Eisenstein (36 page)

'No, lord,' Garro admitted. 'I had no wish to believe it either, but the truth cares little for what we wish.'

Sigismund looked to his commander. 'Master, what shall we do?' Garro felt a stab of compassion for the first captain. He knew the pain, the shame that the Imperial Fist had to be feeling at that moment.

'Convene the captains and brief them, but see this goes no further,' Dorn said after a moment. 'Garro, Qraze, that order includes you. Keep the
Eisenstein
survivors silent. I will not have this news spread through my fleet uncontrolled. I will choose when to reveal it to the Legion.'

The Astartes nodded. 'Aye, lord.'

Dorn walked away. 'You will leave me now. I must think on this matter.' He threw a last look at Sigismund. 'No one is to enter my chambers until I emerge.'

The first captain saluted. 'If you wish my counsel, lord-'

'I do not,' The primarch left them, and after they left, Garro could not help but see the expression of deep concern on Sigismund's face as he sealed the sanctorum shut behind them.

Garro saw Keeler standing by the door and glimpsed a single tear tracing a line down her cheek. "Why do you weep?' he asked. 'Is it for us?'

Euphrati shook her head and gestured to the heavy locked hatch. 'For him, Nathaniel, because he can't. Today you and I have broken a brother's heart, and nothing will ever mend it.'

Dorn's fleet readied itself for a return to the warp, and the men and women of the
Eisenstein
found themselves left outside the work and progress, isolated in temporary quarters deep inside the stone corridors of the
Phalanx.
Meditation did not come so easily for Garro, and so he prowled the archways and passages of the great star fortress. Once, the
Phalanx
might have been a planetoid or a minor moon of some distant world, but now it was a cathedral dedicated to the business of war and the glories of the VII Legiones Astartes. He saw galleries of battle honours that went on for kilometres and corridors to whole sections of the fortress that duplicated the conditions of different combat environments for training purposes. Garro dallied in a vast chamber that replicated the Inwitian frost dunes where legend said Dorn had grown to manhood. All around him, warriors in golden armour moved with sober intent, without pause or doubt as he stepped carefully, still smoothing out the limp from his battle injury. He felt out of place, the marble and green of his wargear ringing a wrong note among the hornet-yellow and black trim of the Imperial Fists.

Finally, in such a way that he could almost fool himself into thinking it was happenstance, Garro found himself outside the quarters that had been granted to Euphrati Keeler.

She opened the door before he could knock. 'Hello, Nathaniel. I was preparing a little tisane. Would you like some?' Keeler left the door open and vanished back into the chamber. He sighed and followed her in. There has been no word from Lord Dorn yet?'

'None,' confirmed Garro, examining the spare space of the quarters. 'He has not left his sanctorum for a day and a night. Captain Sigismund maintains command authority in the meantime.'

'The primarch has a lot to consider. We can only begin to imagine how troubled our news has made him.'

'Aye,' he admitted, taking a cup of the pungent brew from Keeler's delicate hands. He shifted, taking the weight on his augmetic. The machine limb was the least of his concerns these days.

'What of you?' she asked. 'Where has this turn of events brought you?'

'I had hoped that I might find some time to rest, to take sleep. It has been elusive, however.'

'I thought you Astartes never slept.'

A misconception. Our implants allow us to maintain a semi-dormant state while still being aware of our surroundings' Garro sipped the infusion and found it to his taste. 'I have tried this past day, but what awaits me there is disquieting.'

'What do you see in your dreams?'

The Death Guard frowned. A battle, on a world I do not know. The landscape seems familiar but difficult to place. My brothers are there, Decius and Voyen, and Dom's warriors as well. We are fighting a creature of some loathsome aspect, a beast of disease and pestilence like the things that boarded the
Eisenstein.
Clouds of carrion flies darken the air, and I feel sickened to my very core.' He looked away, dismissing it. 'It is just a mirage.'

There was a sheaf of Divinitatus tracts on her desk, and a thick candle burning on the mantle. 'I read Kaleb's papers. I think I have a better understanding of what you people believe.'

Euphrati saw where he was looking. 'The flock have been keeping to themselves since the rescue,' she explained. There haven't been any more gatherings.' She smiled. 'You said "you people", Nathaniel. Is that because you don't think you're one of us?'

'I am Astartes, servant of the Imperial truth-'

Keeler waved him into silence. 'We've had that conversation before. The two do not have to be mutually occlusive.' She looked into his eyes. 'You are carrying so much weight upon your shoulders, but you're still reluctant to let others bear it with you. This message. .. the warning, it is not yours alone. All of us who fled the murder at Isstvan, we carry it as well.'

'Perhaps so,' he allowed, 'but that does nothing to lighten my burden. I am in command...' He faltered for a moment. 'I was in command of the
Eisenstein,
and the message remains my duty. Even you told me that it was my mission.'

Keeler shook her head. 'No, Nathaniel, the warning is just an aspect of it. Your duty, as you said just now, is the truth. You have risked your life for it, you have gone against every will in your heart to join your kinsmen to serve it, you even stood in the face of a primarch's fury and did not flinch.'

'Yes, but when I think of all the darkness and destruction that will come of it, I feel as if I am about to be crushed! The import of this, Keeler, the sheer magnitude of Horus's betrayal... It will unleash a civil war that will set the galaxy alight.'

'And because you carry the warning, you feel responsible?'

Garro looked away. Tm only a soldier. I
thought
I was, but now...'

The woman drew closer. "What is it, Nathaniel? Tell me, what do you believe.'

He put down the cup and produced Kaleb's papers and the brass icon. 'Before he died, my housecarl told me I was of purpose. At the time I did not understand what he meant, but now... now I cannot question it. What if Kaleb was right, if you are right? Am I the instrument of the Emperor's will? Your prayers say that the Emperor protects. Did He protect
me
so I could fulfil this duty?' Garro spoke faster and faster, his words racing to match the pace of his thoughts. 'All the things I have seen and heard, the visions that touched my thoughts... Were these to strengthen my resolve? Part of me cries out that this is the highest hubris, but then I look around and see diat I have been chosen by Him. If that is so, then what manner of being can the Emperor be but a... divine one?'

Keeler reached out a hand and touched his arm. Giving voice to the words tore the breath from his chest. 'At last you see with clear eyes, Nathaniel.' The woman looked up at him and she was crying, but they were tears of joyous faith.

A summons was waiting for him in the sleeping cell where Garro had been billeted. He followed Sigis-mund's terse message to a pneu-tram that canied him up through networks of rail tunnels more complex than those of a planet-bound hive meUopolis. He arrived at the fortress command centre and a hard-faced Imperial Fists sergeant escorted him to an audience chamber that rivalled the Lupercal's Court for size and grandeur. Garro felt an uncomfortable flash of memory. The last time he had been called to an assembly like this, it set in motion the events of the Warmaster's heresy.

Iacton Qruze was already there, along with the captains from each of many companies of the Imperial Fists. The warriors in yellow barely acknowledged the arrival of the Death Guard, with only Sigismund granting him a terse nod in greeting.

'Ho, lad,' said the Luna Wolf. 'It seems we're to know our fate soon enough.'

Despite it all, Garro felt a new wellspring of vitality deep inside, the words of his conversation with Keeler still fresh in his thoughts. Tm ready to meet it,' he told the veteran, 'whatever it is.'

Qruze smiled a little, sensing the change in him. 'That's the spirit. We'll see this through to the end.'

'Aye.' Garro studied the other men in the room. This is Dorn's senior cadre? They seem a sombre lot.'

'True enough. Even on the best of days, the Imperial Fists are a stiff breed. I remember battles my lads of the Third fought with Efried, my opposite number.' He indicated a bearded Astartes in the other group. 'Never saw him crack a smile, not once in a year-long campaign. That's Alexis Polux over there, Yonnad, and Tyr from the Sixth... It's not for nothing they call them the Stone Men.' He shook his head. 'And now, they'll be grimmer still.'

'Sigismund told them about Horns?'

Qruze gave him a nod. 'But that's not the sum of it. I've heard rumours that sounds of violence were heard inside Dorn's quarters. One can only imagine the destruction a primarch's temper might wreak when awakened.'

'And Rogal Dorn would never be one to vent his frustration openly.' He studied the other captains again. The humour of a primarch sets the manner of his Legion.'

'It's their way,' Qruze noted. 'They bury their rages under rock and steel.'

The tall doors at the end of the chamber yawned open and from the dimness beyond came the master of the Imperial Fists. The battle armour he had worn when Garro had first seen him was gone, and instead Dorn was clad in robes of a simple cut, but the change in dress did nothing to diminish his presence. If anything, the primarch seemed larger still without the trappings of ceramite and flexsteel to confine him. Sigismund and the other captains bowed, with Garro and Qruze following suit.

Given what he knew of the Imperial Fists, Garro expected some sort of ceremony or formal procedure, but instead Dorn strode firmly to the middle of the chamber and cast around, looking at each man in turn.

Garro saw anger set hard in granite behind those eyes, the echo of the rage that he had briefly seen directed at him. His mouth went dry. He had no desire ever to come that close to it again.

'Brothers,' rumbled the primarch, 'something has begun in the Isstvan system that goes against every tenet of our oath to the Lord of Terra. While the full dimensions of it are not yet clear to me, the matter of what must be done about it is.' He took a step towards the Death Guard and the Luna Wolf. 'For good or ill, the statement brought to us by Battle-Captain Garro must be taken onward to its ultimate destination. It must reach the Emperor's ears, as only he can decide how to act upon it. That choice, as much as I regret it, is beyond even me.'

'My liege, if I may speak,' began Captain Tyr. 'If the veracity of this horrifying act is undoubted, then how can we allow it to go unanswered? If treachery is stirring in the Isstvan system, it cannot be given time to gain a foothold.' A chorus of nods came from the other men around him.

'We will answer, of that you may be assured,' replied Dorn, with quiet force. 'Captain Efried, Captain Hal-brecht and their veteran companies will form a detachment with my personal guard and remain aboard the
Phalanx
with me. At the conclusion of this audience, I will order our Navigators to set a course for the Sol system. Captain Garro has fulfilled his responsibility in bringing this warning to us, and it is my aim to personally see that task completed. I will go on to Terra, as we originally intended.' He glanced at his first captain. 'Sigismund, my strong right arm, you will take direct command of the rest of our Legion and its war fleet. You will execute a return voyage to the Isstvan system under the auspice of a combat deployment and consider yourself to be entering hostile territory. The journey back will be difficult. Warp storms still rage in that sector and you will find the passage challenging. Go there, first captain, support our kinsmen loyal to the Emperor and learn what is occurring on those worlds.'

'If the Warmaster has turned his back on Terra, what are my orders?' Sigismund asked, ashen-faced.

Dorn's countenance became rigid. 'Tell him his brother Rogal will have him answer for it.'

The Fate of the Seventy

Sea of Crises

Rebirth

The Death Guard captain entered the tiers of the fortress's massive infirmary, and inside he found his way to the ward where Decius was being held. He approached the isolation chamber. Along with the dedication plaque that Carya had taken with him, it remained the only other component of the starship
Eisenstein
that had survived the frigate's destruction. Huge cargo servitors had physically disconnected the module from the vessel's valetudinarium and transplanted it to here, where Dorn's medicae could turn their skills to the warrior's injuries.

The Apothecaries of the Imperial Fists had met with no more success than those of the Death Guard. Through the walls of the glass pod, Decius seemed closer than ever to his end. The livid knife wound was a sink for his colour and complexion, fingers of pallid corpse-flesh reaching out from the injury. Seeping sores collected at the corners of Decius's lips and nostrils, and his eyes were gummed shut with dried runnels of pus. The infection from whatever poison had soaked Grulgor's debased blade was overcoming the defences of the young Astartes, moment by agonising moment.

Garro became aware of someone standing close by. He saw Voyen's face reflected in the glass wall. 'He has spoken once or twice. His words are largely incoherent.' The other man was muted, as if he were afraid to speak to the captain. 'He calls out war cries and battle orders in his delirium.'

Garro nodded. 'He's fighting the disease just as he would any other adversary.'

'There is little we can do,' Voyen admitted. 'The virus has moved to an airborne stage of contagion in recent days, and we cannot enter the chamber to minister to him, even in fully sealed power armour. I have done what I can to ease his pain, but he's on his own.'