‘Noctua is a fine soldier,’ Abaddon mused.
‘A captain in the making.’
‘He’s young.’
‘We were all young once, Ezekyle.’
Abaddon took up a cup of his own, not to drink, just to have something to toy with while he considered.
‘There is precedence, of course,’ said Aximand. ‘To remind you, Syrakul was a squad leader when Litus proposed him. He was ascendant. He was young, but Litus saw his qualities. You’ve said yourself, Syrakul would have been first captain if he’d lived.’
‘The same could be said for many,’ Abaddon replied. ‘We should consult Lupercal and–’
‘Why would we?’ asked Aximand. ‘The Mournival has always been an autonomous body. Lupercal likes it that way.’
Abaddon frowned.
‘I suppose. So, Kibre and Noctua?’
‘Yes.’
‘You will approach Noctua, if I make the overture to Falkus?’
‘Agreed.’
‘Put him in the line with you at Dwell,’ said Abaddon. ‘Measure him one last time to be sure. You know the old saying? Measure twice, cut once.’
THE MAUSOLYTIC PRECINCT was regarded as one of the top three objectives, along with the primary port and the city of the Elders. The Precinct was sited on a high plateau overlooking Tyjun and the Sea of Enna. In its great, stone structures lay the dead of Dwell, each previous generation interred in ritual cybernation so that their collective thoughts, memories and accumulated knowledge could be accessed and consulted, like books in a library.
The Mausolytic Precinct was Aximand’s responsibility. First Company would lead the attack on the city of Elders. Lithonan, the acting Lord Commander of the Army, would take responsibility for the port, with Jerrod and the Thirteenth as their spearhead.
‘I would be disappointed if we were forced to lose a resource like the Mausolytic Precinct,’ the Warmaster told Little Horus. ‘But I would be more disappointed if we lost this fight. Burn it only if the alternative is losing.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Aximand.
‘I WOULD BE disappointed if we were forced to lose a resource like the Mausolytic Precinct,’ the Warmaster told Little Horus. The only light in the chamber came from the fire crackling in the great stone bowl.
‘But I would be more disappointed if we lost this fight. Burn it only if the alternative is… Aximand?’
‘Yes, my lord?’ said Aximand.
‘Your attention is elsewhere, I think.’
‘Lupercal, I’m sorry. For a moment there…’
‘What?’
‘I could hear breathing, my lord.’
The Warmaster regarded him with what looked like amusement.
‘We all do it,’ he said.
‘No, I mean… Do you not hear it?’
‘I hear weakness,’ said the Warmaster. ‘Where is this frailty coming from, Aximand? You’re jumpy.’
‘My lord, is there somebody else in your quarters with us?’
‘No. No, there isn’t. I know this for a fact.’
Aximand rose to his feet.
‘Then who is that?’ he asked. ‘Lord, who is that, standing just there, on the other side of the fire?’
‘Oh Little Horus,’ said the Warmaster, ‘you are beginning to speak with the tongue of madness.’
And just as Aximand realised that he was, he woke.
HE ASSEMBLED HIS squad commanders, and reviewed the tactical data. Aximand was, perhaps, the most scrupulous of all the Sixteenth Legion’s captains. He was not one, like Targost for example, who only ever wanted to know the fundamentals of a target, or was annoyed by extraneous detail. Aximand liked to know everything, every last facet. He studied climate charts. He learned the names and phases of Dwell’s eighteen moons. He studied the intelligencer plans of the Mausolytic Precinct, and had the Fleetmaster’s strategic architects fashion a sensory simulation he could walk through.
He learned the names of his foe. The Tyjunate Compulsories, a high-calibre division of ceremonial city troops whose duty it was, by tradition, to protect the Precinct. The Chainveil, an elite corps named after the ritual screen surrounding the thrones of the Elders of Dwell, who were rumoured to be supplementing the Mausolytic defence.
No confirmation had yet come of Meduson or any of his agents reaching Dwell. If he had beaten the 63rd in the race, it was thought unlikely he would position himself at the Precinct. This role would probably be handed off to one of his trusted warleaders, perhaps Bion Henricos, or to one of the White Scars captains such as Hibou Khan or Kublon Besk.
‘Let us hope for the Fifth,’ said Lev Goshen, Captain of the Twenty Fifth Company, who was to command the second wave behind Aximand. ‘Ill-favoured for static defence, they will make themselves crazy waiting for our overture, stuck in one place.’
‘The Scars should not be underestimated,’ said Grael Noctua, Sergeant of the Warlocked Tactical Squad.
Goshen glanced up from the strategium display, looked at Noctua, and caught Aximand’s eye.
‘He’s got a voice, then,’ he remarked.
There had been some murmuring amongst the upper ranks of the Legion when Noctua’s role as second to Aximand for the Mausolytic assault had been announced.
‘I have been advised I had better use it well, captain,’ said Noctua. There was a reserve to him, a restraint that reminded Aximand of someone. Noctua had that true sonface, but the balance of humours was unusuaclass="underline" there was less of the arrogant charismatic and more of the calculated intellectual. Abaddon described Noctua as a blade weapon rather than a firearm.
Goshen grinned.
‘Let’s have your wisdom, Noctua,’ he said.
‘I had the honour to serve alongside a detachment of the Fifth Legion seven years ago during the Tyrade System Compliance. They impressed me with their battlecraft. I was reminded of the Wolves.’
‘The Luna Wolves?’ asked Goshen.
‘The Wolves of Fenris, sir,’ Noctua replied.
‘That’s twoenemies you’ve mentioned,’ said Goshen. ‘You understandthey are our enemies, don’t you, Noctua?’
‘I understand they are both utterly lethal,’ replied Noctua. ‘Should we not appreciate the qualities of our enemies above all else?’
Goshen hesitated.
‘This terrace here, this parade,’ he said, returning to the chart display. ‘We will need air cover to achieve it.’
The briefing continued. Aximand thought for a moment that someone else had something to say, someone who had come into the room late, to stand at the back of the grouped officers.
But there was nobody there.
‘I HEAR YOU’RE considering Kibre and Noctua,’ said the Warmaster.
‘You hear everything, as usual,’ Aximand replied.
‘Not Targost, then?’
‘He has other responsibilities,’ said Aximand, ‘and we did not wish to dilute them.’
The Warmaster nodded. He moved another carved bone counter across the board between them. Of all his sons, Aximand most enjoyed the practice and discipline of strategy games. The anteroom was furnished with many fine sets, most of them gifts from war leaders or brother primarchs. There was regicide, chatranj, caturanga, go, hneftafl, xadrez, mahnkala, zatrikion… It was rare to find a primarch’s homeworld where a skill-honing wargame had not evolved.
‘Ezekyle favoured Targost, didn’t he?’ asked the Warmaster as Aximand studied the field and contemplated his reply.
‘He did, sir.’
‘And when you persuaded him against the choice, did you tell him the real reason, or did you manufacture one that would be more palatable to him?’
Aximand hesitated. He remembered the conversation with Abaddon, wherein he had not chosen to say that Targost, the Captain of the Seventh Company, was not a son, a trueson. He was Cthonic stock. Aximand had not chosen to reveal that part of his disinclination.