Lysander said, ‘If we strike quickly and hard it is possible. We could overrun these sectors before they knew what hit them. Amass a big enough hammer and you can crack any nut with one swing.’
‘The scale of your ambition is breathtaking,’ said Drake, and at his words the generals’ faces froze. They waited to hear what he had to say. ‘I have seen no additional requisitions for men and materiel put through to the Munitorum, though.’
‘The campaign can be funded by the worlds we have already conquered,’ said Macharius. ‘And supplied by the worlds we have added to the Imperium, and will add. The crusade will be self-sustaining and self-funding.’
‘And your authority for this?’ Drake asked.
‘I was tasked with returning worlds into the Emperor’s Light. I will do so, and I will not slack.’
‘Very good,’ said Drake. ‘I shall see that the scale of your ambitions are reported to the appropriate authorities.’
‘By all means do so. Be sure to add that my ambitions are in the service of the Imperium and not of myself.’
‘I will certainly report your words accurately,’ said Drake. ‘But in my enthusiasm I have interrupted your council. Pray, gentlemen, return to your planning.’
Macharius stood and walked over to where the inquisitor sat. He stood looming over him. There was a smile on his face, but his shadow fell upon the other man. I can still remember the sense of ominous forces gathering about the two of them even now. There was a tension in the air. The two of them seemed to have come to a fork in the road they had walked along for so long.
At that moment, the door burst open and something huge erupted into the room.
Chapter Fourteen
The guards on the door could not have stopped them even if they had wanted to, and they did not want to. They were on their knees in positions of deference, overcome at once with wonder and awe.
The newcomers were big men in ceramite armour. Let me rephrase that. They were huge men in ceramite armour, and they seemed even bigger. They moved with deadly, feral grace, and they confronted the highest warlords of the Imperium as if they had every right to simply burst into their council chambers.
All of the assembled generals gawped at them. Even Inquisitor Drake for once looked surprised, and I could not fault him for it. It is not every day the Emperor’s Angels step out of legend and into your life. Only Macharius kept his poise and made a gracious gesture of welcome.
The strangers growled and advanced upon him. I considered my action for a second. It was probably going to be suicidal to draw a shotgun on a Space Wolf, but if they had come for Macharius I did not see what else I could do. I was his bodyguard after all. I moved to put myself between the Lord High Commander and the Space Marine, convinced it was most likely going to be the last thing I did.
I found myself looking up into the face of an armoured giant. He showed long fangs that were in no way reassuring and grinned as though I were not pointing a shotgun directly at his head. I swallowed but I held my ground. Eyes that caught the light like those of a dog studied me for a moment. The pupils contracted. He sniffed the air, wrinkled his nose as if he caught wind of something he didn’t like.
‘Did I fart?’ I said. It sounds ludicrous but at that exact moment I could not think of anything else to say. The giant’s booming laughter washed over me.
‘By the Allfather, you don’t lack courage, son of man,’ he said. ‘Now point your shooting stick somewhere else before I take it off you and ram it up your arse.’
Macharius’s hand fell on my shoulder. ‘Do as he says, Lemuel.’
I took a step back then, and so I was in the perfect place to observe the meeting between the Lord High Commander Solar Macharius and the legendary Ulrik Grimfang, Great Wolf of the Space Wolves Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.
It was difficult to decide who looked more regal. There was never a man more commanding than Macharius, but Grimfang was something more than a man. He had been altered by processes developed when the Emperor walked among humankind, and still carried within his body the gene-seed of the first primordial Space Marines. He looked more wolf than human, his face long and narrow, one hand replaced by a huge metal claw that reminded me in some ways of the one Macharius had lost.
He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Macharius, and the air fairly crackled between them. I don’t know how Macharius managed to hold that superhuman gaze without looking away. I could not have done so. The Wolf walked around him, sniffing the air, all the time, inspecting the Lord High Commander from every angle.
Macharius did not flinch. You can still see the scene depicted on the walls of Macharius’s palace on Emperor’s Glory by Antiarchus. The choirs of watching angels are a somewhat unhistorical touch, but the rest is more or less accurate. My face was probably a lot paler and more frightened than the artist makes it look. I was fighting to stop myself shaking. Confronting a Space Wolf like that was like coming unexpectedly face to face with a large and hungry sabretooth. Now that the moment had passed, reaction was setting in.
The other generals continued to gape. I can’t say as I blame them. Inquisitor Drake was first to recover his poise. He rose to his feet and said, ‘Great Wolf, we welcome you to–’
‘Sit down and shut up,’ Grimfang bellowed. ‘I did not come all these light years to listen to your gabble!’
Drake sat down as if poleaxed. I would have done so myself if I had been near a chair, and I was only caught in the backwash of that fierce command. The Space Wolf stabbed out a finger at Macharius. ‘It is this one I have come to see… and to smell.’
I thought for a moment that he was going to bite out Macharius’s throat with those great fangs, but then I noticed he had merely placed his head close to Macharius’s and was sniffing the air as though catching a scent. After a long, tense moment, he released the Lord High Commander.
‘Are you done?’ Macharius asked. His voice was cold and just as commanding as Grimfang’s.
The two of them eyed each other again, like two wolves about to fight for control of a pack. Macharius obviously did not appreciate having his personal space invaded. They glared at each other for long moments that seemed to pass as glacially as the Ice Winters of Taran.
The Great Wolf began to laugh, checked himself and said, ‘So you are the one who has started this new crusade. I heard what you had to say about conquering new worlds for the Imperium. You do not lack ambition, little man.’
Only a Space Wolf would have thought to describe Macharius as a little man. I was busy trying to understand Grimfang’s words. He had heard what Macharius had to say? Even if he had been waiting outside, which given his impetuous manner was unlikely, the door was sufficiently thick to make words inaudible to mortal ears. And Grimfang had most likely been striding through the corridors of the palace. Had he really been able to make out the words? Presumably so.
‘You object, do you?’ Macharius said. His voice held a measure of insolence that I feel certain Grimfang was not used to. He eyed the Lord High Commander as if considering smiting him with his chainsword.
‘You will bring war and havoc to thousands of worlds,’ said the Space Wolf. ‘You will make it rain blood and snow skulls. Billions will die.’
‘Do you object?’
‘No, little man. How could I object? It is good. There will be glory and conquest and the reaping of souls for the Allfather. We have come because we smell battle, strife such as has not been seen in millennia. This is our place and these are our times. We have come to aid the Allfather’s crusade and to take our share of the plunder of worlds.’