‘The Beast survived?’ Vangorich asked.
‘No. It can’t have. Yet something with its voice lives on. And that palace on Ullanor…’
‘Yes,’ said Vangorich. He understood. The horror was not lost on him.
‘They are creating an empire,’ Koorland said. ‘They plan to build it on the ashes of our own.’
Vangorich nodded. ‘The ambassadors,’ he said.
‘What about them?’
‘More evidence of the construction of an empire. The greenskins are evolving the classes that will be needed for an empire to function.’ He nodded to himself again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘no matter what died on Ullanor, the force of the Beast lives on. We have to consider what this means for our strategy.’
‘Our attack was too blunt. We were not a surprise. The orks knew what was coming, and prepared for us.’
‘What do you conclude, then?’
‘We need to keep looking for the Beast. In whatever form the guiding power of the orks exists, let us call it that. If we destroy it…’
‘The ork empire will fall,’ Vangorich finished. ‘A decapitation. You need to commit yourself to that, Lord Commander.’
‘We are. We were. We have to change our methods, though. If we come at the orks again as we did, even if we could assemble such a force again, they will win again. They outnumber us, and they outgun us.’ The last admission was the hardest. The entire history of the Imperium’s fight against the orks had involved the superiority of humanity’s technology against the orks’ vast tide of savagery. Recognising that the orks’ technology had outstripped the Imperium’s was a perpetually reopened wound. It had been the most basic fact of the war since Ardamantua, but speaking the words aloud sounded perilously close to capitulation. Not to face that reality would lead to true defeat. ‘We have to hit them another way.’
The inspiration that had teased the edge of his consciousness burst upon him. It had the clarity of revelation. He had known the same certainty when he had called for a unified command of the Imperial Fists Successor Chapters. Then, as now, the epiphany had come in the wake of devastating loss. Then, as now, he saw his course of action allowed for no doubt. He might question his own worthiness. He knew he would. But the path to follow shone before him.
He did not look at what he must do as cause for hope. It might yet fail. It was, instead, the thing that must be done. It was the one move left that the orks might not be able to counter.
‘Sometimes,’ Vangorich said, unknowingly giving voice to Koorland’s revelation, ‘a single knife can be more effective than a broadsword.’
‘Yes,’ Koorland said. ‘Yes. As your Officio has shown throughout its history. I’m interested in your tactics, Drakan. We need to learn from them. That is the counsel I would welcome from you.’
‘The Adeptus Astartes are not assassins,’ Vangorich said. He sounded cautious. ‘There are paths we must be careful not to take, if we do not want to repeat mistakes a thousand years old.’
‘We aren’t assassins,’ Koorland agreed. He respected Vangorich, but more, the Grand Master was the one member of the High Council for whom he felt anything even remotely approaching trust. He respected Veritus and Wienand, but he did not trust either. They were too immersed in the political machinations of the ordos. Veritus, in particular, he did not trust to act as the needs of the immediate crisis dictated. But now, as Vangorich spoke, Koorland saw the politician emerge in him. His caution was genuine. Even so, Koorland sensed an instinctive territorial defence.
Vangorich did not have to worry. Koorland had no interest in assassination. Decapitation was still the goal. And now he could imagine a new means to that end.
‘I don’t want to know about your organisation, your weapons or your specific tactics,’ Koorland said. ‘I want to hear about the broader strategy. Your philosophy of war.’
Vangorich gave him a half-smile. ‘You think the Officio Assassinorum goes to war?’
‘Of course it does, even if it might use a different name.’
Vangorich parted his hands, conceding the point. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Tell me about the knife, and how it strikes.’
Two
Wienand sat in the lowest gallery of the Great Chamber. She had what amounted to a private stall. It had not been built as such; rather, a large fall of rubble had sectioned this small area of the benches from the other tiers. None of the minor lords who still attended council sessions had attempted to lay claim to it. Many likely did not even know about it. The heaps of tumbled marble and rockcrete shielded it from view of the other tiers. It was easily visible only from below, on the floor of the Chamber. If any of the nobility or Administratum officials were aware of this corner, they ignored it, preferring not to sit alone, and so Wienand had it for herself. She was unseen by the other spectators, and she had a good view of the dais.
Around the Chamber, the banners of the Imperium hung at half mast. So did every banner on every spire of the Imperial Palace. Green bands adorned the arms of the High Lords and of the spectators. The Council, the Palace and all of Terra mourned the loss of the last primarch.
Wienand knew that for many, it was not a pure form of grief. It was coloured by too much fear.
Veritus sat with the Council. Wienand was the joint Inquisitorial Representative, but she was content to be away from the dais today. The truce with Veritus was holding. They had not signed a peace accord, but they had found a way of working together. She could make her voice heard again, and, more importantly, she could watch the Council work through its contortions. Being at one remove from some of the debates was useful. It granted her perspective. She could observe the currents of the struggles, the developing fault lines, the weaknesses and pressure points.
All information was useful, she thought. All knowledge was power. In the present crisis, there were limits to what anyone, in the Council or outside it, could accomplish. She was determined to push against those limits. She would do what was needed to safeguard the Imperium.
Koorland, she could see, held fast to the same philosophy. The last Imperial Fist’s armour was polished, but bore the marks of the battle on Ullanor. The ceramite was cracked from bullet impacts, scarred by blades, scorched by flame. Koorland’s face bore the traces of almost as many wounds. His genhanced physiology had healed them, the new flesh roughened and thick. Koorland towered over the High Lords, but it was more than his height that made him the dominant force on the dais. It was more, too, than the fact he had fought and bled for the Imperium. He was not the only veteran on the dais. Abel Verreault, the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard, Lord High Admiral Lansung, Vernor Zeck, the Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites — all had their own scars of war. Zeck had lost much of his original flesh.
Perhaps it was the degree of Koorland’s sacrifice. Perhaps it was the scale of his loss, immeasurably beyond the trivialities of corporeal injury. He had lost his Chapter. And now, after the almost inconceivable casualties on Ullanor, after the death of the last primarch, what he had not lost was his inflexibility of purpose and his aura of command. What he announced to the High Lords had the weight of law.
They’re going to fight you on this one, she thought. They’re going to fight very hard indeed.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Tobris Ekharth, Master of the Administratum. ‘You’re talking about a united mission of the Adeptus Astartes? How is that different from what was already attempted on Ullanor?’
Wienand stifled a cynical chuckle. Koorland had barely begun to lay out his vision, and Ekharth was interrupting. Perhaps he was already confused. She didn’t think so. He was already anticipating where Koorland was going, and was impotently trying to stop him from speaking those words.