The Unremembered Empire Part 6

*You don't need to have the sight to read it,' muttered Euten, casting a disapproving glance over her shoulder in the direction of the Fenrisian huddle. *And they reek likea'

*Enough, Euten,' said Guilliman. *Faffnr seems an honest man, straightforward. He made no attempt to hide his duty, or the egregious burden of it.'

*Nonetheless, I urge caution, my lord,' said Prayto, *precisely because of that. He is like an open book. He is determined to perform his duty even though he knows it is a thankless task. He does not want to make an error. He is aware that the best of us have made many errors so far, not seeing the truth behind the traitors' masks before it is too late, expecting the best because we trust they are our brothers. At Isstvan. At Calth.'

*I understand, t.i.tus.'

*No, my lord, you do not. It means that honest Faffnr is too determined not to fail. He will jump at the slightest thing, the merest doubt. He will err on the side of caution, because the alternative failure is too grim to bear. He and his men are a risk to you, because they would rather strike at you in error than allow the slightest possibility of your disloyalty.'

*I have nothing to hide,' Guilliman said.

*Do you not?' asked Prayto boldly. *What about me? What about the Librarius? We have learned that the Wolves were unleashed on Prospero because your brother defied the Edict of Nikaea. You do the same. Faffnr is looking for the slightest sign. The slightest sign. And I am it. I am proof of your heresy, lord. I am evidence of precisely the wretched warpcraft they have been told to hunt for.'

*Your counsel is noted,' said Guilliman. He looked back at the Wolves one last time. *I think I can handle them. Teach them to come to heel, perhaps. That's why I want them where I can see them.'

*You take liberties with your own safety, lord,' murmured Euten.

*Not now, Eutena'

*You are everything, my lord, and you cannot be everything. The only primarch, the only son, the only loyal son we know yet lives.' Euten began to count the roles off on her fingertips. *You are Lord of Ultramar, king of this world, master of the Five Hundred, commander of the Thirteenth Legion Ultramarines, last champion of the Imperium. You are also the Emperor's proxy, and protector of the Throne. Like the word or not, you will be a regent. You are his surrogate, and possibly his heir. You may indeed, by default, be Emperor already.'

*Mamzel!'

*I will have my say, Lord of Macragge!' the old woman protested. *You cannot be all of these things. You are too valuable to risk. Let others command the forces. Let the tetrarchs do that! Let others do the dirty work. Delegate! Formally appoint commanders from the forces you are a.s.sembling. As a figurehead alone, you are too important. If fate overcomes you, the Imperium is most surely done.'

Guilliman looked at Prayto.

*Tell Mamzel Euten what I am thinking, Prayto,' he said.

*My lord is thinking that he does not wish to call himself regent. If he is building what amounts to a new Imperium, it would be unseemly to place himself on the throne.'

Euten snorted. *Tell my beloved lord that he may yet have to if there is no other heir!'

*That would make me no more loyal than Horus Lupercal,' said Guilliman. *I will not countenance it.'

He saw that Prayto was looking at him.

*What, t.i.tus? Something else?'

Prayto hesitated.

*No, my lord.'

Figures approached through the broad hall doorway. Flanked by Ultramarines in artificer plate, Valentus Dolor approached. Dolor was one of the four tetrarchs of Ultramar, the four princes who ruled the master worlds of the fiefdoms that made up the realm, and whose rank was second only to Guilliman's. Dolor's fiefdom was Occluda. He was a giant, and his master-crafted, modified Mark III plate was painted in the Ultramarines livery, reversed a blue for white and white for blue.

*Valentus,' said Guilliman, *present me with good news and save me from my chamberlain's relentless nagging.'

Dolor looked down at the slender old woman.

*My good and distinguished friend Mamzel Euten is very small, lord,' he said. *I do not know how she could ever be very bothersome.'

*Flies are small!' Euten snapped. *Ticks, they are also small!'

*Ticks get plucked out and squashed,' said Guilliman. *Flies are swatted. Your point, mam?'

*I find myself temporarily without one, lord,' said Euten.

*I do bring good news, lord,' said Dolor. *I knew you'd want it communicated directly. A s.h.i.+p has put in. The pitiful thing has limped all the way from Calth, carrying the wounded and the weary. A sergeant called Thiel is aboard, and commends himself to your lords.h.i.+p.'

Guilliman smiled.

*Aeonid Thiel. He made a practical choice to remain committed to the Underworld War a it will be good to see him. Have him go to the Residency so that we can talk in private. It's been a long time since he was so steadfast by my side at Calth.'

*I will instruct him so,' said Dolor with a courteous head bow. *Is something wrong, Brother t.i.tus?'

Prayto had suddenly winced, and steadied himself against the wall with one hand. With his other hand he clasped his forehead.

*Somethinga' he began.

There was a supersonic bang that shook the windows of the hall and made someone present cry out. Looking up through the tall panes, Guilliman saw a streak of fire stride down the sky. For a stricken moment, he thought of Calth, of the Campanile, of missiles raining down...

But this looked more like a meteorite, an object plunging through the atmosphere.

Others in the hall had hurried to the windows to see.

*A bad star!' one of the Wolves spat. *An omen star!

*A broom star!' snarled another. *Maleficarum!'

The fireball was not large. Guilliman could see that. It fell straight down and disappeared behind the towers of the Civitas. There was no explosion, no sunburst of a warhead.

Dolor was already checking a data-slate.

*Reports of an impact, my lord, in the labouring habs of the southern suburbs. Site is just north of the Octagon Fortress, in Anomie Deme.'

*Take charge of this,' Guilliman told him. *Find out what it was. Find out how in the name of the Throne it pa.s.sed through our orbital screen and detector grid. And someone check there aren't more of them incoming.'

*At once, lord,' said Dolor.

*Report to me directly when you have anything!' Guilliman snapped.

He turned to look at the room. All eyes were on him, all the visitors: Wolves, Fists, Hands, Scars, Salamanders.

*Find them accommodation in the garrison, see to their needs, and begin to a.s.sign them duties,' he said to Prayto. *Form them into companies, according to their strengths. Let us make an army.'

He turned to leave.

*I'll be in the Residency,' he said. His bodyguard made to follow him.

*Stand down,' he said. *I go to speak with an old friend.'

5.

He That has

Returned

*Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil's foot.'

a unknown song of Terran origin, circa M2 Smoke rose above the rooflines of the southern city district of Anomie in a grey horsetail.

Alarms were still sounding, and city watch divisions had moved in to isolate the area and hold back residents and labourers from the fabricatories who had gone out onto the streets to look.

Dolor's lifter flew along the broad colonnades and boulevards of Strayko above the moving lines of ground traffic and beneath the sweeping arches and bridge spans. At Larnis Gate, where Strayko Deme became Anomie Deme, the traffic circulation was blocked. A Warhound t.i.tan stood watch on the gra.s.sy field by the Illyrian Monument, and another strutted with a muscular, crow-like walk across the upper pavement to take up position behind the fabrication plants along Antimon Square.

Dolor's pilot keyed the authority code, and the sentry Warhound tracked the lifter with its weapons for a second before acknowledging the tetrarch's right to proceed.

In the restricted area around the impact site, the streets were empty, except for rescue and emergency teams. A major fire, sparked by the impact, had half-gutted the old Antimon machine works, the smoke from it staining the sky.

*Not a warhead?' asked Dolor, looking at the scene.

His equerry, an Ultramarines captain called Casmir, was monitoring the information feed on a battle-grade data-slate.

*No, tetrarch, not a warhead. Very little metallic registering in the a.n.a.lysis of its down-track.'

*And it was small, too,' he added.

*It set the machine works ablaze.'

*It probably ruptured something flammable. It went down through the roof at the northern end, and then punched through several storeys. Crews are trying to get to it.'

*How did it get past the d.a.m.ned grid?' asked Dolor. *In the name of the Throne, this is the most fortified and sky-watched world in the quadrant!'

*I can't answer that, tetrarch,' Casmir replied. *The data is incomplete. There is no trace of it prior to the point of atmospheric entry. I'll keep working on it, but there is no trace of any in-system plot, not even a cloaked one.'

Dolor frowned.

*So what? Did it just jump out of a s.h.i.+p in orbit?'

Casmir laughed.

*Nothing jumps out of a s.h.i.+p in orbit, tetrarch. Not if it's going to fall like that.'

Dolor looked at the pilot.

*Set us down. Over there.'

The moment the lander had settled, Dolor punched the ramp-hatch key and exited. His immense, armoured boots crunched across a rockcrete quadrangle covered in gla.s.s and ceramic fragments from the machine shop's blown-out windows. Six-legged Mechanic.u.m bulk servitors were firefighting in the steaming ruins of the fabricatory shed's western end, blasting r.e.t.a.r.dant foam from shoulder-mounts. Two of them scuttled past the tetrarch as he approached. They were heading back to the carrier parked in the street to refill their foam reservoirs.

Figures came to meet Dolor. Some were Ultramarines, others were regular humans from the city watch and district medicae. They all snapped to attention.

*Who has authority here?' Dolor asked.

*We have the zone secured, lord tetrarch,' said the leading Ultramarine, his boltgun mag-clamped to his chestplate, *but Consul Forsche has jurisdiction.'

Forsche stepped forward. He was a solemn, dark-haired man in suit and mantle. He made the sign of the aquila.

*Tetrarch,' he said, and nodded.

*The primarch personally sent me to oversee,' said Dolor. *Report, please.'