Zerberyn aside, no one had worked more closely alongside their new allies than the Epistolary.
‘What news?’ said Honorius. The subtle power woven through the old warrior’s deep voice never failed to give Zerberyn pause.
‘Nothing yet. But it is the Last Wall.’
‘Then the fight continues. Good.’
‘Of course it continues. Do you think that brothers of ours would surrender?’
‘Do you intend to rejoin them?’ said Barban.
The Apothecary’s gunmetal and bronze battleplate was extensively modified and appended with bionics. A pair of bulky, muscular youths, perhaps eleven or twelve standard years of age, hovered behind him. They looked sickly from blood loss and enforced genhancement. There had been no time to assess the men for worth or for biological compatibility. As much as they needed strong walls, they needed strong warriors to hold them. Zerberyn examined the two neophytes. Their throats and chests were scarred from the implantation procedure. Both were already showing bruise-like discolourations to their skin, the first dermal deposits that would, over time, develop into the black carapace that would enable them to wear power armour. Zerberyn could not tell just from looking whether they were Iron Warriors or Fists Exemplar.
Presumably Reoch knew.
Zerberyn drilled the Iron Warrior with his gaze. Neither spoke.
‘My lord!’ came the relieved gasp of the Librarius adjutant, stumbling down the steps and onto the sunlit rampart. He offered the Epistolary a low bow and turned breathlessly to Zerberyn with his report. ‘The communication is from Euclydeas, lord.’
‘The Chapter Master of the Soul Drinkers,’ said Honorius, one eyebrow lifted, peeling the infinite black lens a little wider. ‘Our absent brothers join the war. Perhaps all is not yet lost.’
‘What does it say?’ said Zerberyn.
‘A call for aid. They are beset, lord, by orks in great number.’
‘How far?’
‘The next system. Coreward.’
‘Reachable,’ said Honorius.
‘Just,’ Zerberyn corrected. Barban was watching them both without expression, as though assessing their decision. ‘Tell no one of this,’ he said, turning to the mortal serf. ‘You are to ignore all further attempts at communication from this source.’
‘But lord—’ Honorius began before falling silent.
On some deep, human level, it troubled Zerberyn that one so ancient and powerful could be silenced by a glance from him.
‘We are not ready yet, brother,’ he said, listening to the sounds of forced labour that continued far below his feet. ‘When we are strong again, then we will make our presence known.’
Twelve
‘Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.’
The conference room aboard Alcazar Remembered was as puritanical as Koorland had come to expect. It was oval in shape, its walls bare metal, its space dominated by a sturdy metal table and chairs enough for fifty warriors of the Adeptus Astartes. Hololith crystals studded the unpolished surface at intervals, returning the dim illumination of the ceiling lumen points like chipped glass. It was in this room that an argument over whether orbital barrage or drop strike was the surer method of pacifying the capital world of the abhuman Kivor Enclavium had famously brought Oriax Dantalion and Sigismund to blows, Koorland had learned (Shipmaster Weylon Kale being a remarkably informed historian). ‘I knew there was some life to these stone men,’ the Death Lord, Mortarion, commander of the compliance mission, was reported to have said as he pulled brother from brother.
If true, it was a damning indictment of them all, and another story altogether.
Two dozen Deathwatch sergeants were gathered in and around the available chairs. Koorland recognised the Raven Guard, Tyris, who had performed so superbly on Incus Maximal, in muted conversation with a Brazen Claw who must have travelled with Abhorrence, for Koorland did not know his name. The red-haired Wolf, Kjarvik, laughed harshly over the subdued chatter at some tale of Asger’s. The Watch Commander, for reasons known best to himself, had his boot on Oriax Dantalion’s austere table, hands afloat in demonstration of some grapple manoeuvre.
Issachar and Thane walked amongst them, speaking little, thus far avoiding a reprise of Sigismund and Dantalion’s infamous bout.
Field-Legatus Otho Dorr of the Ullanor Veterans, Astra Militarum, stood against a wall and sipped at a glass of clear wine. It was a plant fermentation product formulated to complement the nutrient gruel favoured by the Fists Exemplar. Despite all that he had survived on Ullanor and before, a social encounter with so many looming Adeptus Astartes clearly had him mortified. If he was hoping for the wine to loosen some of those nerves then he was due another disappointment. Intoxication was but one of the many things that the Fists Exemplar disapproved of.
Confessor-Militant Rawketh was arguably a natural companion under such circumstances, but the commander of the freshly raised Ecclesiarchy drafts stood alone by the viewports, captivated by the massed bow lights and engine flares of the combined fleets.
Phaeton Laurentis’ attempts at making small talk with Weylon Kale and Dominus Gerg Zhokuv appeared to be a waste of the magos’ synthised breath. The brain of the ancient dominus bubbled thoughtfully in its armoured jar. Kale, meanwhile, listened politely, but was finding it difficult to keep himself every few seconds from checking the vox-pin in his collar or glancing at the ship lights in the viewports. The coordinates Koorland had provided them were deep inside the orks’ burgeoning empire. The old shipmaster felt the phantom itch of sensor ghosts on the back of his neck whenever he turned his back on the viewports.
Two seats around from the table’s head, Kavalanera Brassanas sat, straight-backed, straight-armed, hands flat on the table, staring into the nothing between her and the bulkhead and through it to the fleet anchorage beyond. Wienand laid a hand on the knight abyssal’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear as she sat down beside her. The inquisitor’s aides spoke around them, exchanging slates, comparing notes, while the Assassin, Krule, lowered himself into the chair directly opposite. His muscles were tensed, his jaw firm, seemingly set on matching the Sister’s light-year stare and rising high in Koorland’s estimation simply for possessing the self-belief to imagine that he could.
All of it stopped as Koorland entered. The only sound was of the doors hissing shut and the seclusion field re-engaging with a hum. With one exception, those yet to be seated abandoned their conversations and found chairs.
Koorland’s muscles instinctively tensed for combat as Bohemond strode towards him and grabbed his forearm. He clasped it tight, and closed the fingers of his left gauntlet over his right hand, pulling Koorland in close. The High Marshal’s witch-burned face was a grimace of uncompromising wrath, but the embrace was fit for a brother.
‘I tire of waiting,’ he said.
‘Part of me doubted that you would wait,’ said Koorland, returning the pressure to the other warrior’s vambrace. ‘We did not part on best terms.’
‘Time spent alone with the void is time spent alone with one’s thoughts. That is why it is to be avoided.’ His augmetic eye clicked as it focused on Koorland’s. ‘But I came to question the direction you might lead us all without me beside you. I will be your Chaplain, brother, your evangelist, particularly if you tell me that you do not want me.’