The Beast Arises

‘Your garb tells another story than humility,’ said Thane. ‘You tell me the Emperor is pleased? Who are you to know?’

‘You gainsay the will of the Holy Emperor?’ said Mesring.

‘Your religion means nothing to me,’ said Thane. ‘My Chapter follows the tenets of the Imperial Truth, set down by the Emperor during the Great Crusade. How quickly you have forgotten it. We are not holy. Do not treat us as such.’

‘One thousand five hundred years is a long time, Chapter Master,’ said Mesring. ‘The Imperial Truth is all but forgotten. The scriptures tell us that the Emperor conceived of it as a necessary lie. The very name is an exercise in irony. Only in death has the Emperor cast off His corporeal cloak and revealed Himself to us in His true glory!’

‘I disagree,’ said Thane. ‘Your cult profanes His memory with idolatry.’

‘When will the Adeptus Astartes see the light?’ said Mesring. ‘It troubles me, my son, that the Emperor’s own angels deny the truth.’

‘We are not angels!’ snorted Thane.

‘You were among those who urged the populace to take the oath of crusade?’ said Koorland.

‘I did, I did! As was only right.’

‘It proved to be wholly wrong,’ said Koorland. ‘A rash move that risked provoking the orks, and cost the lives of millions, while you and Tull and the others who promoted it remain alive and well.’

A flicker of consternation crossed Mesring’s face. ‘Then it is good that you are here now, to fight them on our behalf.’

‘Aye, that is what we are, priest — warriors,’ said Thane.

‘One day, I hope to bring all our mighty warriors into the truth of the faith. Some are perhaps more amenable than others.’ His gaze strayed around the room, looking for someone. He smiled secretly to himself.

‘Then go and speak to them,’ said Thane. He glared menacingly at Mesring until the Ecclesiarch made his excuses and left.

A surge of anger built in Koorland’s chest. The men and women around him had been scheming while Terra burned. The temptation to sweep it all aside was great.

‘I am done here,’ he told Thane. ‘I return to the fleet. The Senatorum is broken, all the High Lords invested only in their own advancement. I have heard the name of the Emperor invoked by every charlatan in this house. This cannot be allowed to continue.’

With that he departed the room, the crowd parting hurriedly before him.

Seventeen

War in the dust

Magneric stamped over the gritty ruin of Dzelenic IV, assault cannon blazing. Orks filled the surface from horizon to horizon. More came thundering down from orbit in rickety landing craft, little more than balls of scrap that bounced to a halt on the ground before bursting into pieces. Sometimes they fell apart to reveal their mangled occupants, but more often than not mobs of howling greenskins came running out, shooting their weapons into the air. Magneric ploughed through them unconcerned, killing them without thought, the eye of his Dreadnought fixed upon the low ruin the Iron Warriors had occupied, visible over the ridge of a dune. By the gunfire flashing out, Kalkator still lived.

The ammunition counters in Magneric’s display blinked to orange as his assault cannon ran to below half capacity. The view Magneric had of the outside world was grainy, bleached out, striped with the lines of inferior pict capture. Reticules danced over his view, highlighting targets of priority, data-screeds and numerical data further crowding his vision, but he saw well enough to kill.

His flesh body floated in the sarcophagus at the machine’s heart. He was dimly aware of it, the hurts that it still suffered, the limbs that it lacked. It did not trouble him. Others given the singular honour of internment spoke of disassociation, a feeling of distance from the world of the living and a weariness that became harder and harder to bear. Magneric did not feel this. He considered the metal behemoth he dwelled within as his own flesh and blood, an extension of his will. Magneric refused to sleep like the others, and retained his rank and his own name, for Magneric had hatred to drive him onward. Kalkator was the wellspring and the object of this fury, an emotion pure in its heat and ferocity. Magneric lived for Kalkator’s death.

‘Kalkator! Kalkator! I will come and end you!’ He caught an ork in his power fist and crushed it flat, hurling the gory remains back into its fellows and bowling them over. Those that got back up again he gunned down with a spray of fire from his storm bolter.

‘The Emperor has decreed that I slay you, traitor! I am coming for you!’