‘Of course,’ said Malcador, waving for Corax to precede him onto the ramp of the closest atmospheric shuttle. Inside, the main compartment was furnished like an austere lounge, with low couches and tables on a carpeted deck, the walls covered with hangings depicting scenes from the Unification Wars. Corax assumed it was Malcador’s personal transport. The Sigillite sat down on one of the long couches and instinctively waved a hand for Corax to do the same. The primarch declined with a shake of his head, knowing that the furniture was totally unsuited to someone of his height and weight. He leaned against the bulkhead instead, head dipped beneath the shuttle roof.
‘There are not only those like yourself who escaped the ambush,’ the Sigillite continued, ‘but also brave warriors who have recently arrived from within the traitors’ ranks.’
‘And you can be sure of their loyalty? Misdirection and falsehood seem to be Horus’s primary weapons at the moment.’
‘We are convinced of their continuing support for the Emperor,’ said Malcador. ‘They will have a very important role to play in the waging of the war to come.’
‘The war has started already, if you haven’t noticed,’ growled Corax. He had noticed Captain Noriz using a similar turn of phrase, implying that somehow the massacre at Isstvan had been an end point rather than a beginning.
The two of them were alone in the shuttle, the Custodians and legionaries being directed to the other transports. With a growl, the engines of the craft throttled to full, the hull trembling as the ornithopter’s wings sprang into blurred life. The shuttle lifted quickly away from the starport and turned northwards, rising to clear a range of mountains that thrust up from the ground. The mountains were as much artifice as natural phenomena. Corax could see vast galleries and windows several storeys high cut into the crags and ridges, betraying the labyrinthine structure hidden beneath the snow-capped peaks.
Corax sensed Malcador studying him at length, but the two of them sat in silence for some time as the ornithopter sped over the mountains, shuddering slightly in the buffeting winds. Occasionally the primarch glimpsed one of the other shuttles through the oval windows, their shining fuselages glimmering against the white and grey of the sheer-sided peaks.
‘And what is the opinion of the Emperor?’ Corax asked, realising that Malcador had yet to mention him specifically. ‘Dorn said that he had been placed in charge of the defence.’
‘The Emperor is very aware of the situation and Dorn has his full support,’ replied the regent.
‘That’s it?’ said Corax. ‘His Warmaster turns half the Legions against him and all he has to say is that Dorn has his full support?’
‘He is entirely absorbed in another matter, one which overshadows his thoughts even more than this distraction with Horus. If his current endeavour is successful, this rebellion will be short-lived.’
‘I have come to Terra to seek audience with the Emperor,’ said Corax. He glanced out of the window and saw cranes and earth-movers remodelling a massive shoulder of the mountain below, crafting immense revetments and fortifications from the naked rock. Swarms of thousands of labourers were at work.
‘It is with regret that I must warn you that is highly unlikely,’ said Malcador, his gaze unwavering as Corax turned his stare back on the Sigillite. ‘His current project requires all of his attention. I have seen him only a handful of times since we learned of the events at Isstvan. Dorn has not spoken to him at all, receiving the Emperor’s instruction only through me. I cannot give you any guarantee that our master will grant you an audience.’
The firm expression on Malcador’s face forestalled any further comment Corax might make on the matter. Though he did not say as much, the primarch believed that he would be seen by the Emperor. No matter what Malcador said, there could be no endeavour so pressing that the Emperor could not find time to speak with one of his primarchs at this dark hour.
Then a thought occurred to him, which would explain why Malcador was being slightly evasive and seemed so convinced that Corax would not get an audience.
‘The Emperor isaware of my arrival?’ asked the primarch.
‘No,’ said Malcador. ‘I have been unable to contact him since you first entered the Sol system.’
‘Unable or unwilling?’
If Malcador took any offence at the question, he did not show it. His reply was calm, his face earnest.
‘The Emperor wages a different sort of war to the ones you and I have ever seen,’ explained the Sigillite. ‘To attempt to contact him whilst on one of his… expeditions, would be to endanger his cause. When he has returned, he will be immediately informed of your presence, rest assured.’
‘You make it sound as if the Emperor is not on Terra.’
As before, Malcador hesitated, though Corax did not sense any duplicity in him, merely reluctance. The regent’s thin fingers slowly tapped the haft of his staff as he contemplated his answer.
‘That is not a thing I can easily quantify,’ said Malcador. ‘Forgive my vagueness, but I am not at liberty to discuss the Emperor’s plans, nor am I in a position to fully comprehend them. It would be indiscreet, a betrayal of my position as regent, if I were to furnish you with information that the Emperor has not chosen fit to share with you himself.’
What Malcador was saying unsettled Corax greatly. Ever since his return to Terra after the victory at Ullanor, the Emperor had shrouded himself in secrets, when once he had walked freely amongst his sons and shared his plans and visions. Malcador spoke with such a reverent tone that Corax was left in no doubt that the Emperor’s current campaign was indeed very important, but the Sigillite’s assurances that it was more worthy of attention than Horus’s treachery rang hollow. The Imperium, the spreading of Enlightenment, had been the Emperor’s great scheme, and now it was all for nothing. Surely he would have to emerge from his cloistered endeavours to lead those still loyal to him?
As the squadron of ornithopters swept along a high-sided valley, Corax wondered what he would do if he could not speak with the Emperor. After the debacle at Isstvan, the primarch was not sure of anything, including his ability to effectively command. He needed the Emperor’s guidance now more than ever, and the thought of returning to Deliverance without seeing his gene-father filled him with a subtle dread. With primarch turning on primarch, Corax wanted to bend his knee to the Emperor once more and assure him of the loyalty of the Raven Guard.
THE FLIGHT UP into the mountains took the Raven Guard past the burgeoning fortifications being erected under the leadership of Dorn. The scale of the endeavour was vast, larger than anything Corax had witnessed before, and he had seen the rebuilding of worlds shattered by his Legion.
The mountains themselves were being shaped into great bastions, carved by explosive charges and monolithic machines into buttresses and keeps, curtain walls and towers. The shadows of the ornithopters flitted over many-tracked cargo haulers in convoys kilometres long, bringing loads of ferrocrete and adamantium, ceramite and thermaglas, plasteel and diamatite. With them came cranes with booms half a kilometre long, and shovel-fronted earth movers the size of tenement blocks.
Snaking multi-compartment crawlers edged along newly laid roadways, their cargo more workers to join the hundreds of thousands already labouring on the upper slopes. These caravans were in turn supplied by forage trucks and water tankers numbering in the hundreds. Everywhere was seen the blazon of the Imperial Fists and the splash of their golden livery.
‘My brother does not take half measures,’ said Corax, looking across the cabin to Malcador.
The regent roused himself from a half-slumber and glanced out of the window, barely interested by the gargantuan effort laid out below.