Koorland stepped back. Sweat poured off them both. A Black Templars bondsman stood by the doors, framed by the cage bars.
‘The High Lords have made contact, my lords,’ said the bondsman. He wore the weapons of a warrior, and had the physique to match. His attitude to Koorland was deferential without servility. There was pride in the hearts of the Black Templars’ men; they did not creep about as the servants of some Chapters did.
‘No news from Mars?’ said Koorland. He wiped down his face and naked torso with a towel handed to him by an arming servitor, and stepped out from the practice cage.
‘Alas, we have heard nothing from them, my lord.’
‘Continue our attempts to raise them. Have your astropaths and vox-officers make the implication the Last Wall may alter course to put into orbit around the forge world and investigate their silence. That will focus the tech-priests’ attention,’ said Koorland. ‘Have my armour prepared. I will speak with the High Lords garbed for war.’
‘Shall I inform my liege Bohemond?’
‘I shall speak to this representative alone,’ said Koorland.
‘My lord,’ said the bondsman, and departed.
‘If the High Lords contact us, we can rest easy that there is at least authority still upon Terra,’ said Issachar.
‘Yes, but whose?’ said Koorland. ‘And if the old authority, how effective can it be? The High Lords have proved nothing but their own incompetence.’
‘You are learning, Chapter Master Koorland.’
While in the arming chamber Bohemond had provided him, Koorland was informed that the representative of the High Lords was now present via lithocast. Koorland did not hurry. Arming servitors and bondsmen clad him in his armour, polished now but still bearing the marks of the conflict on Ardamantua. While the men worked silent around him, bolting him into his battleplate, he thought on what he must say to the lords of all the Imperium. Politics. How he loathed them, all the worse as he lacked the detail to make an adequate tactical plan. Idle fantasies of usurping them and replacing their corrupt rule with that of the Space Marines played through his mind. But Space Marines were no less fallible than mortal men, and far more dangerous for the belief many of them had in their own rectitude. The galaxy had suffered enough already because of transhuman arrogance. He chastised himself inwardly. Issachar’s sentiments were infectious. He could not succumb to them.
The last clasp of his armour fastened with a snap. The bondsmen oiled Koorland’s hair, set a cloak of rich red velvet about his shoulders, and he departed for the Chamber of Audience, high up on the Abhorrence’s superstructure. As befitted its purpose as a tool of diplomacy, the chamber was cavernous, possessing enough holoprojectors to accommodate the remote meetings of many hundreds of men. Only one awaited him, the slight phantom of an unremarkable man in the room’s centre, his full-size lithocast eerily lifelike.
‘My lord, my apologies for keeping you,’ said Koorland. The room swallowed his voice whole. His footsteps echoed sharply from the ornate walls.
The representative of the High Lords waved away the apology. He was plainly dressed, small.
‘These are trying times. I have not been waiting long. Rather, it is my own eagerness to speak with you that brings me to the lithocast chamber ahead of you, Second Captain Koorland.’
‘I am Chapter Master now,’ said Koorland.
‘Ah,’ said the man. His face expressed his concern, the long scar cutting across it wrinkling oddly. ‘Your losses were grave, we understand. Tell me, were there other survivors?’
‘They are dead,’ said Koorland icily. ‘You do not understand, I think. They are all dead, every one of my brothers. I am the last of the Imperial Fists. When I fall, the Chapter shall be no more.’
‘All of them are dead?’ said the man softly.
‘All.’
The man nodded. ‘I feared as much. On hearing of your survival, some of my colleagues were more hopeful that others might have been retrieved, but…’ His demeanour changed. ‘We are forgetting ourselves, Chapter Master. I have yet to introduce myself. I am Drakan Vangorich, head of the Officio Assassinorum, and one of the High Lords of Terra, though sadly not one of the Twelve.’
‘You? You are the Lord of Assassins?’ said Koorland.
‘You cannot hide your incredulity. That is understandable.’ The man’s slight pleasure offended Koorland. ‘You have yet to grasp the diplomatic niceties of your new role. I do not look like a master of murderers, and intentionally so. If I looked like death himself, I would be performing my job poorly, would I not?’
‘Why have you been chosen to speak with me?’ Koorland’s mind raced. Battle. He must see this as battle. There were tactical considerations in the choice of his words. Koorland chose to be blunt. ‘Is this a warning?’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose there is a warning in what I’m saying to you, Chapter Master,’ said Vangorich amiably. ‘But not the kind you are thinking of. Doubtless you believe my communication is meant to convey the power of the High Lords. At my command are killers who would tax and quite probably kill even you, should I command it. And it is true, the arrival of your fleet has caused as much consternation as it has celebration. But my warning is not of that sort. I ask that you pay attention to what I said regarding my appearance. Things are so very rarely as they seem.’
‘You are speaking obtusely.’
‘I really am not,’ said Vangorich.
‘Then tell me plainly, what is the High Lords’ message?’
‘There’s the crux of it. I am reasonably confident the High Lords’ message would be that you stay far away from Terra. They’d say this because you will provoke the orks, who for the four days since their ambassador was sent to us have done nothing. In fairness, the High Lords may genuinely fear provocation. What they really fear, however, is the threat to their power your — several thousand, is it? — Space Marines pose. Even at this late hour, they scheme still, and you are forcing them to act in concert. Nothing is more apt to form a concord among them than a challenge to their power from within the Imperium. A shame they do not categorise this ork invasion similarly. Terror is at the forefront of their minds, but behind it self-interest, ambition and envy still slide over one another, poisonous as serpents.’
‘I do not understand,’ said Koorland. ‘I requested, politely, that you speak plainly. Do not make me demand.’
Vangorich pointed at Koorland somewhat impishly. ‘A little steel I see there, Chapter Master. Good. We are sorely in need of a man with steel. You must also learn a certain flexibility of mind. You see, I am not speaking to you on behalf of the High Lords at all. I am currently at the Inquisitorial Headquarters. I am afraid I am very much on a frolic of my own.’
‘I was expecting instruction. Plans. Disposition of the enemy.’
‘Very commendable. Instruction I can manage. I have with me one of my colleagues, Veritus, the Inquisitorial Representative to the Senatorum Imperialis, and one of the High Twelve. He and I unfortunately do not constitute a quorum, but Veritus has something our fellows in the Senatorum lack. He speaks with the voice of the Emperor.’
The hololith blinked. A second figure appeared on the focusing platform alongside the one projecting Vangorich. An indefinably ancient man, encased in a suit of golden power armour.
‘I am Veritus, the Inquisitorial Representative, and one of the High Twelve,’ said the newcomer. ‘Will you heed my command, Chapter Master Koorland? Will you obey the word of the Emperor Himself?’
Koorland’s relief at having made contact with some authority was undermined by the uneasy feeling a trap was opening before him. The Chapters were autonomous but even they could not deny a direct order from a High Lord. He must tread carefully. ‘State your orders, inquisitor.’