Kjarvik rushed in behind with a howl, the rest of Kill-Team Umbra at his back, ready to administer the duty for which Koorland had brought them together.
They brought death to the alien.
Once before, Laurentis had witnessed the end of the Imperial Fists. It seemed horribly fitting that he should bear witness again.
He was aware of the Deathwatch and Inquisitorial storm troopers that came in firing through the main doors.
He was aware of the Beast — and it was the Beast, he had no doubt. The titanic ork withdrew its foot from Koorland’s chest, and then, with a rumble of mockery booming from the hollow spaces of its visor, it reached up to unhook its helmet from its gorget. Its flesh was a blackish green, crusted like scar tissue or lignified plant matter. The look it gave Koorland was at once contemptuous and triumphant. Helmet held underarm, it gave the remaining Space Marines and their efforts a derisive look.
It turned and walked away with a sneer.
Once more mankind handed up its best, and again the caprice of the gods had accepted that sacrifice and repaid it in blood.
Asger Warfist howled after it in futility as the Beast waded back into its bodyguard.
The Space Wolf led Kill-Team Stalker and the Sisters of Silence into the attack, Kill-Team Umbra falling on the assaulting mob from the rear. Laurentis was aware of the battle. Retribution so savage and total that even in the narrow-band focus of grief, Laurentis could not have missed it entirely. His eye was blinkered with sorrowful code. His ears carried the nothing whistle of a fluid-pump that did not beat. His small mechanical body was numb in a way that went beyond what its makers had intended.
Glory to the Ominissiah.
He was aware of Bohemond, on his knees and weeping unashamedly over Koorland’s broken body.
In a way that only one whose sensory apparatus was removed from their largely organic brain could experience, Laurentis was aware of it all. It took place in another reality, a noosphere of data-irrelevancy in which he had no interest and had lost the rites to access. All that felt real at that moment lay within the ruin of human flesh and golden-yellow ceramite draped through Bohemond’s arms.
Koorland had not just been humanity’s great symbol of hope. He had been Laurentis’ friend.
‘He needs an Apothecary,’ said Bohemond. The Black Templar wasn’t really looking at Laurentis at all. Much like himself, the Space Marine existed in his pocket space of grief. Behind them a battle raged.
They were both aware of it.
‘There is none,’ said Laurentis.
He knew more about Space Marine biology than most non-Space Marines could profess. He could pinpoint the secondary heart, the oolitic kidney, the pre-stomach. He knew enough to ask the right questions. Not enough to help his friend in any way. Trying not to think too much about what he did, he prodded Koorland’s purpled throat with a digital manipulator. Sensory feedback flowed back through its synthetic axon fibres. Fluid oedema. Larraman coagulation. Crushed cartilage. Like scrunching one’s finger through packing plastek. The incongruous likeness made him squirm and he withdrew the appendage.
The prime-ork had known exactly what had to be destroyed. To eliminate the one thing its rival could not afford to lose.
‘I think… I think that…’
‘No!’ said Bohemond. ‘No, I will not accept it. The line of Dorn must live on.’
Laurentis deployed his extensors for a second examination, this time preparing a full suite of electro-probes and echo-feelers. More out of due diligence than hope. As he extended his tools, a terrific explosion shook the ceiling, ferocious enough to force him to notice it. He rolled his eyeball up and saw light.
The ceiling was cracked. A second detonation blew a hole in it and brought a cataract of frescoed rubble pieces the size of battle tanks crashing down. Immediately under the downfall, the great dais of the six prime-orks was crushed. Spotlights swiped the throne room’s scarred mosaic, followed by the thunderous reports of heavy bolters and the empty prang of return fire from the ground. The signature, circular roar of turbofan engines angled for vertical lift.
An intense beam shone in Laurentis’ eye as it tracked. He blinked, but in the split-second before, he saw a pair of Deathwatch-black Thunderhawk gunships descending through the breached ceiling. They spat fire. Heavy bolters. Lascannons. Too tight for missiles. Lord Thane stood on the assault ramp, waving the embattled storm troopers and Deathwatch aboard.
With no one else of a mind to step into Koorland’s still-warm boots, Inquisitor Wienand gave the order to retreat.
Laurentis was aware of it.
Barely.
But only when Asger Warfist lifted him up under one arm and Bohemond reverently raised Koorland’s body did he pay it any mind.
They had lost.
The last son of Dorn was dead.
Epilogue
‘The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.’
Candles flickered, wavering to the hull-dispersed groan of shield hits. The scent and the ethereal haze of incense swirled around the chamber, in and out, with the soft breath of the air cyclers. The small chapel of Alcazar Remembered was buried deep within the heart of the battle-barge. Reliefs portraying the works of the Emperor and the VII Legion were sparse on the walls. A single, unpainted statue of Rogal Dorn stood behind an altar, flanked by a pair of candelabra and an oil-burner made of plain, simple brass.
The last of the Imperial Fists lay in state. The Chaplaincy serfs had done their best with the damage. His shattered torso had been oiled and bound and hidden under full honours. His relic plate had been reassembled and polished until it shone like gold in heaven. His eyes had been closed. The Fists Exemplar no longer had a Chaplain, but the mortals had risen to fill the void and excelled. Perhaps humanity could prosper without the Space Marines after all, as Koorland had suggested they one day must. The space-time cocoon of a stasis field shimmered like a thermal blanket. It made it appear as though Koorland was resting, but somehow it was easier to believe that he was dead.
In the brief time that Thane had known him, he had never seen his Lord Commander rest.
The chapel had space for two dozen Adeptus Astartes, half that if they were in armour, as Thane was. Bohemond and Issachar stood beside him. The High Marshal was in almost as bad a shape as Koorland. He seemed almost angered by that, each slow, deliberate breath coming hotter than the last. The Excoriator’s armour bore no new scars, tasked with fleet command aboard Punished while Thane and Bohemond were engaged on the planet. Whether or not he was plagued by the same sense of dereliction as Thane, the ancient Chapter Master’s face showed nothing.
If he had been but a little quicker…
If he had been able to re-establish contact with that gunship wing just two minutes earlier…
It should have been Thane that had died. Or Bohemond even.
Anyone, but Koorland.
Thane returned to Koorland’s face. He leaned forward, ignoring the tightening stiffness that pulled on his side and made him want to wince. He looked deep into the set of the Imperial Fist’s jaw.
It was not reproach.
‘He looks peaceful.’
‘He looks angry,’ said Bohemond. ‘The Imperium is but half remade. The Emperor’s vision, Vulkan’s admonition — his work is unfinished.’ Thane thought the words disingenuous, since none had protested Koorland’s mission of revivification more sternly. ‘When we return I will stand before the Golden Throne and call a new Crusade in his name.’