Away from the council of Chapter Masters, Bohemond was risking more, goading the Imperial Fist directly. Koorland refused to rise to the bait. ‘Then you think Terra is lost,’ he said calmly.
As Koorland expected, Bohemond did not answer directly. Instead he said, ‘Targets of greater opportunity present themselves to us, brother. We must strike now, and throw the orks into confusion. Should we kill three or four of their moons, they will be forced to deal with us. Strike at Terra, and we leave much of the Imperium to burn.’
‘And so Terra will be lost. What then of the Emperor?’
A strange look crossed the remains of Bohemond’s face. ‘The Emperor is eternal.’
‘At your waist, High Marshal, you carry the Sword of Sigismund.’ Koorland pointed at Bohemond’s great sword. ‘Within it is bound a fragment of Dorn’s own blade, broken in a rage when he failed to protect his lord. And yet you would willingly let the same happen again. Tell me, High Marshal, whose oaths are the more important to you? Those of your founder, who while a great warrior, the Emperor’s Champion, the first Templar, was still but a Space Marine? Are those of your primarch not of a higher order, forged as he was by the Emperor Himself, and set above the common run of humanity for its betterment? Do you deny your father in favour of his son? Will you honour your oaths?’
Bohemond’s gaze hardened. ‘Do you accuse me of hypocrisy, Koorland?’
‘I ask you to clarify your priorities, that is all. If there is an accusation of hypocrisy, it comes from within your own heart, and not from my lips.’ Koorland leaned forward. ‘We cannot always pursue the desires of our hearts, righteous as they might be.’ He paused. ‘You hold your Eternal Crusader as dearly as your oaths?’
‘Absolutely. Both ship and oaths were the gift of Dorn.’
‘But this, the Abhorrence that serves as your flagship while Sigismund’s craft repairs, is it a good ship?’
Bohemond’s eye narrowed. ‘It is a fine ship, a righteous tool of the Imperium.’
‘So you see, son of my father, the power of choice is not always ours to wield.’ Koorland bladed his right hand and brought it down in a slow chop to point at Bohemond. ‘At the gathering of the Last Wall at last watch today, I will command that we strike for Terra. And you will not demur, lord High Marshal, but heartily concur.’
Koorland turned on his heel and left before Bohemond could respond. Both hearts pounded hard in his chest, the secondary activated by stress levels he had felt at no other time outside conflict. Nevertheless, he permitted himself a smile.
The Black Templars would sail for Terra, or Bohemond was worth none of his regard at all.
Two
The Palace of the God-Emperor
Far from the gates leading to eldar lands, the children of Isha bent their efforts to their race’s salvation. The non-matter that made up the fabric of the tunnel was dim, sleeping. A minor branching to a nowhere world, none had trodden this path for many centuries, and it slumbered. The organic convolutions of the tunnel were barely wide enough to accommodate the party and their transport. It tapered away to nothing not far ahead, truncated by unnatural forces. A waysinger choir chanted interweaving melodies under the watchful gaze of Farseer Eldrad Ulthran, most ancient of his kind. Sorrow as thick as poison fog wreathed them all. To force an opening here spelled death to the eldar waysingers, and only a handful of their choir remained alive.
Shadowseer Lhaerial Rey waited with five more of Cegorach’s own for egress. The song rose and fell, become more complicated with every passing hundredth. The way remained shut. Dressed in their motley, the Harlequins made a play of lounging and preening as their kin expended their life force, a performance that celebrated through mockery the sacrifices of the others.
Though they seemed indolent, any who had seen the warrior dancers fight knew they could be up and moving, weapons in hands, in the blink of an eye. The other eldar — those on the path of mourning and service sent to bring the dying waysingers home, the warlock and the Dire Avengers sent to guard them — regarded the Harlequins with suspicion. Only the Dire Avengers showed no fear of them, but then they showed nothing at all.
The song of the waysingers faltered as another of their number collapsed, his soul fleeing into his waystone.
‘Sing your song!’ urged Eldrad Ulthran. He set his staff and bowed his ornate helm. The gems studding his wargear glowed with power as he poured more of his own might into the waysingers.
A gleaming slit ran down the side of the changeless stuff of the webway.
‘Your song is one of power and beauty. Success is within our grasp! Your sacrifice will be remembered for a thousand cycles,’ said Ulthran. ‘A final effort, brothers and sisters — your deaths bind a favourable skein for the fate of Ulthwé! Sing, and usher in the rebirth of our race!’
With a melodic shout, the last of the waysingers fell dead, her dying breath sung out to open the path. Twenty of them had paid with their lives so that Lhaerial Rey could do what she must do, and their corpses littered the webway. Those sent to watch over them radiated sorrow. Lhaerial Rey did not grieve. One day Cegorach would free them all from death.
The webway parted to reveal a dark and soulless place beyond.
Ulthran approached the shadowseer. Lhaerial leapt to her feet, performing an elaborate bow.
‘Take this token, given to me fifteen hundred cycles ago,’ said Ulthran. He held out a large, finely carved tooth hanging from a chain. ‘It will convince the mon-keigh of your deadly sincerity.’ Lhaerial Rey took the tooth and spoke her gratitude with a gesture. Ulthran pointed his staff at the portal. ‘Go! Go now! The door is open, but will not remain so for long.’
The webway spur convulsed in sudden peristalsis. The grav-barge that had borne the party there rocked, disturbed by shifts in the physics of that in-between realm. The attention of the Great Enemy pressed down upon the walls, whispering her seductive call to the annihilation of self that every eldar felt. The webway was damaged here, and perilous.
Lhaerial Rey’s troupe tensed. No other but a Harlequin could see it, the micro-shifts in stance and muscle.
The doorway peeled itself back, just wide enough to admit a single eldar at a time.
‘We dance,’ said Lhaerial Rey.
In a bright flurry of shattering silhouettes, the Troupe of Joyful Tears departed the webway.
The hall on the far side of the portal was of lifeless stone, part-panelled in wood killed a thousand light years away and brought in slow-drying agony across the stars. This world was as dead as its ruler. The stink of humanity lay thick upon it, the statues near the ceiling coated in dust, the shed skin cells of people five hundred cycles gone. The psychic effect was a hideous weight, thousands of years of human suffering pressing in on Lhaerial’s sensitive mind, and that was the least of it. Crushing the sensation of the dead of the Earth was the titanic presence of the Corpse Emperor.