As the archway door rose beyond, light from the corridor lamps blazed through the window. The illuminated window, bringing Rogal Dorn’s depiction to dazzling radiance, held Maximus Thane’s attention — so much so that he hardly noticed Brother Zerberyn enter the company chapel.
‘My lord,’ Zerberyn said, taking to his knee before the altar and kissing the ceramite knuckles of his gauntleted fist one after another.
‘Brother?’
‘My lord,’ Zerberyn said, getting up, ‘sentries report a strange disturbance at the east barbican lock.’
‘What kind of disturbance?’
‘Impacts on the outer doors,’ Zerberyn said, ‘like something trying to get in.’
‘No greenskin survives the attentions of Frankenthal’s Star,’ Thane averred.
‘The alien invader is much invested in terrible new technologies,’ the honorarius said. Thane nodded.
‘Have Sergeant Hoque meet me at the barbican with a squad,’ Thane said. ‘Then lock off the section interior bulkheads surrounding the barbican. If it is the invader, we’ll see to it that he won’t get far.’
‘Very good, my lord,’ Zerberyn said, and left Maximus Thane alone with Dorn once again.
Taking up his helmet and setting off for the East Transept, the captain encountered Sergeant Hoque en route past the company chapel. He marched with Hoque and his squad down to the barbican lock.
‘Opinion, brother?’ Thane put to Gaspar, the sentry whose post the barbican had been.
‘Sounded too measured and deliberate for the greenskins, sir,’ Gaspar said, but his boltgun was still aimed at the barbican portal. Thane waited. Behind them, the section bulkhead hatches began to lower.
Then they heard it. The sound of something smashing a great fist against the thick metal door. It didn’t sound like a rabid savage or alien invader.
‘Sergeant,’ Thane said, prompting Hoque and his men to form a gauntlet of gaping barrels in the barbican chamber. If their visitor was indeed hostile, Hoque and his men would ensure that its welcome would be brief. Thane put on his battle-helm. ‘Brother Gaspar, if you will.’
The sentry fired the airlock mechanism and the massive door began to rumble towards the ceiling. Blinding Eidolican daylight seared its way under the door and began to fill the barbican, prompting the auto-senses of the captain’s plate to respond and initiate optical filters.
As the portal shuddered open and the Fists Exemplar leant into their boltguns, a single silhouette appeared at the door. A black shape in a power-armoured suit waited for them. As the boltgun barrels lowered, the Adeptus Astartes framed in the blinding light of the doorway stepped inside. He was swiftly joined by several other battle-brothers in sealed plate.
‘Lower it,’ Thane commanded Brother Gaspar. As the armoured door lowered and the barbican turned to darkness, the filter optics of Thane’s helmet returned to normal spectra. Not fast enough for the captain, however, who promptly removed his helmet.
Before him stood a crusade marshal in the roasted midnight plate of the Black Templars. A skull-helmed Chaplain stood to his side, while two Sword Brethren flanked the pair with their power swords and crusader shields. The final member of the group was a Fists Exemplar captain, clad in the temperature-tarnished bare ceramite of the Chapter. As the captain took off his helm, Thane could see that it was Dentor of the Seventh.
‘It’s a relief to see you, captain,’ Thane told him.
‘Likewise, Maximus,’ Dentor replied.
As the Black Templars commander relieved himself of his burning helm, Dentor introduced him. ‘Captain Thane, this is Marshal Bohemond of the Vulpius Crusade.’
‘An honour, brother-captain,’ Bohemond offered.
‘Likewise, marshal,’ Thane said, ‘and a surprise: we sent out broad-range requests for fraternal assistance, but did not think you so close. You are, of course, warmly welcome to Alcazar Astra and a share of the honour to come. How many battle-brothers do you have at your command, marshal?’
Bohemond’s eyes were hard but understanding. He seemed to nod to himself.
‘Second captain,’ Dentor said, ‘the Marshal does not…’
‘Thank you, captain,’ Bohemond said, cutting him off. ‘You are ranking Adeptus Astartes here?’
‘I am.’
‘I wonder if we might speak alone, sir?’ The Black Templar’s eyes never left his Fists Exemplar opposite.
‘Of course, marshal,’ Thane said. ‘I know just the place.’
With the barbican re-secured and Bohemond’s men entertained, Thane led the Black Templar Marshal into the company chapel. It was closer than the oratorium and, with the daylight hours filled with repair and industry, still deserted. Bohemond fixed upon the stained glass representation of Dorn immediately. Falling down to his knees, he hammered his armoured fist into his breastplate at the four points of the crusader cross.
‘Beautiful,’ Bohemond said as he got back up.
‘Marshal,’ Maximus Thane said, staring across the altar, ‘I do not wish to break with ritual or tradition but my world turns. With night comes the enemy and an opportunity to avenge our fallen.’
‘I’ve seen your world,’ Bohemond said, ‘and the xenos attack moon hanging over it. Your black sands swarm with orks. They travel with the terminator. In their cunning they have become wise to your planet’s lethalities. Tomorrow, the enemy takes this fortress: from orbit it is plain to see.’
‘It is not as simple as that.’
‘Captain, it is every bit as simple as that,’ Bohemond told him.
‘I expected more from Sigismund’s crusaders,’ Thane told him. ‘It does not become a Templar to turn his cheek from the fight. You speak of odds. What are odds to a son of Dorn?’
‘It smarts, doesn’t it, captain?’ the Black Templar said as he wandered about the chapel. ‘I should know. You’re right: it does not become us. But our cheek is not turned. We are simply facing the other way. We are crusaders, and crusades are not won on single days or single worlds. And that is all Eidolica is: a single world with a single day.’
‘You speak cavalierly about our prospects, marshal,’ Thane said. ‘Why don’t you help us improve them?’
‘I already have,’ Bohemond replied. ‘My Thunderhawks pulled Captain Dentor and what was left of his company from the greenskin-drenched wilderness.’
‘You had no right, Templar,’ Thane spat.
‘They would be dead now if I hadn’t.’
‘And what of the populations they were protecting? What is to become of them?’
‘Nothing, captain,’ Bohemond said, ‘for they are dead already.’
‘I need your men, Bohemond.’
‘You can’t have them,’ the Marshal said. ‘For they are needed elsewhere — as are yours, captain.’
‘Marshal…’
‘I have been where you are now,’ the Black Templar told him. ‘It is not easy for an Adeptus Astartes to turn and run, but as my castellan told me, it is merely a matter of perspective. There is running from and there is running to. We were at Aspiria, and yes, I could have sent my Templars to their deaths in the name of obstinacy and honour. But then I heard the call — as you hear now. Dorn’s call. I heard it in Imperial Navy recalls, in my battle-barge’s klaxons, in mortis-cries echoing across the immaterium. The call home, brother. Coreward.’
‘You are a crusader,’ Thane accused. ‘You call no world home. Eidolica is home to the Fists Exemplar.’
Bohemond smashed his fist against the plate of his chest.
‘No,’ the marshal hissed, ‘this is your home. You say your Eidolica needs you. I say your Imperium needs you. Do you have any idea how many astropathic calls for assistance I had to ignore to reach you, brother? Worlds die about us and sectors fall. This is not localised. The invader has not a conqueror’s eyes for your piecemeal world, captain. Eidolica is an afterthought — the enemy’s bloody gaze is fixed on the segmentum whole. What good can you do here?’
‘This is my world,’ Maximus Thane roared through the window at the marshal. ‘These are my people. This is my bastion.’
‘Your people are finished,’ Bohemond told him. He let the cold sentiment hang in the descending silence of the chapel. ‘Through no fault of your own or your commanders’, your world belongs to savages of the void. This was never a battle you could win. How long can you keep this up: fighting through the night and hiding in the light? How long will your armouries sustain you? A day? A week? And should you slaughter every living greenskin on the surface of your desert world, what then? The xenos attack moon will tear this tiny planet apart and feed it to its guardian star.’
‘What would you have me do?’
‘I would have you do nothing, captain. What we must do — brothers all — is gather our strength. The savages will be stopped here no more than they would have been at Aspiria. We must consult with Chapter Master Mirhen; with my own High Marshal; with Scharn; with Quesadra of the Crimson Fists and Issachar of the Excoriators. It is time for the scattered successors of all loyal Legions to join once again in defence of humanity. This will not happen here, Thane; it will not happen now. But we must be as one and ready for Dorn’s call, when it comes.’
Maximus Thane hadn’t been looking at Bohemond for a while. His eyes were fixed on his primarch, picked out in coloured glass. Neither battle-brother spoke for what seemed like a long time.
‘Look, Thane,’ Bohemond said. ‘I speak like a brother of wisdom, when I learned this just like you, in the fires of battle. I found this decision no less difficult or painful.’
‘Your vessels wait ready in orbit?’ the Fist Exemplar asked.
‘Yes,’ the marshal replied. ‘They hold position in the sun-blind. My gunships could have your brothers and materiel evacuated within the hour.’
Thane didn’t need to check with a chronometer. Night was coming. He could feel the seconds ebbing away.
‘Well, an hour is about all we have,’ he said. Bohemond nodded his understanding.
The Fists Exemplar captain and the marshal went to leave the chapel. At the archway bulkhead, Thane turned to take one last look at the stained glass window.
‘You think that it hurt Dorn, to break his Legion thus?’ Thane asked, his voice echoing about the company chapel.
‘More than the most grievous of wounds received in battle,’ Bohemond said gently. ‘But sometimes, you have to destroy something old in order to make something new. The Fists Exemplar know that better than any of Dorn’s sons.’
Maximus Thane nodded slowly in grave agreement.