Part 29 (1/2)

17.

Hearth and

Home

*Death does not discriminate. It is so even-handed,

so scrupulously fair, that it seems not fair at all.'

a Eeron Kleve, X Legion Iron Hands *Tell me, I implore you, what was that?' Euten asked the captain of the praecental guard.

Vodun Badorum shook his head.

*Mamzel, it is hard to say. Reports from the Fortress are... contradictory. Some say it is the Night Haunter, unleashed upon the Castrum, others claim it is an entire host of night haunters. There are reports of attacks and incidents on every level of the Fortress anda'

*But you cannot tell me what the blast was that shook these very walls?' she snapped.

Badorum shook his head again. At his side, four of his praecentals were urgently conducting conversations by vox, trying to gather accurate intelligence from the Fortress.

*Then I will trust my own eyes,' Euten announced, and stood up abruptly. Badorum had, previously, ordered her escorted into the private wing of the Residency for safety, but now she marched straight across the outer hall to the head of the main staircase. He hurried after her, calling her name. The August Chamberlain Princ.i.p.al moved with surprising speed when she wanted to.

Down below, at the foot of the staircase, warriors milled and waited. They looked up at her as she strode past. They were all Legiones Astartes, all castaway visitors to Macragge from the Shattered Legions. The lower halls of the Residency had become their barracks.

Like her, they awaited news.

*Mamzel. My lady!' one called.

Euten did not stop for him. She crossed the landing, opened the glazed doors to the west balcony and stepped into the night. Badorum followed her.

The night was especially dark. The Pharos glowed frostily like a white lamp in fog. A swathe of black air hung across the great Civitas below the wall.

From the unlit balcony, in the cold night, they had a direct view to the Porta Hera and the cyclopean eastern ramparts of the Fortress proper. Smoke and, in places, flames rose from the Fortress at several locations. They were all dwarfed by the huge coil of underlit smoke belching from the inner part of the Fortress into the night. It reminded Euten of the great, grumbling volcanoes in the far north of Macragge.

*Great Darknesses!' she whispered, that old Illyrian curse. *What has been done?'

*Mamzel, you must come inside,' said Badorum.

*The Chapel of Memorial is burning, Vodun,' she said, staring at the appalling view.

*I think perhaps so,' said Badorum. *Or perhaps the Praetorium.'

*It is the Chapel,' she insisted. She turned to look at him.

*We must know something of what is transpiring in the Fortress. Guilliman is in there.'

*And the Lion too, both gone to hunt their fell brother, who makes war on us tonight.'

*War. Mischief. Dissent. Terror,' Euten said, uttering each word as though she were spitting out pebbles. *The Night Haunter searches for one victim above all others: Ultramar. Macragge Civitas is the last stable, loyal place in the galaxy, Vodun, for our lord has made it that way, steadfast when all else withers and fails. This is what Curze has come to murder a our peace, our faith, our fort.i.tude.'

*They will stop him,' said Badorum.

*Will they? Or by dawn, will there be panic and rioting in the streets of the city? Will terror reign and blight the hearts of the citizenry? Will Macragge catch afire and blaze, the last true stronghold lost?'

*No, my lady,' he said. *Come, please, I fear it is not safe. Come, please, within.'

Euten allowed herself to be walked back into the Residency.

*My lord has taken almost all the Ultramarines on the Castrum into the Fortress with him, and he has in addition his n.o.ble brother and good strengths of Dark Angels legionaries. Furthermore, the gates and base of the wall are guarded to prevent access to the Civitas.'

*The monster Curze got in, Vodun. He can get out again, I expect.'

*With every pa.s.sing second, he has less and less surprise on his side, mamzel,' Badorum replied.

She stopped at the head of the staircase and looked down at the patiently waiting s.p.a.ce Marines: Salamanders, Iron Hands, Raven Guard, a White Scar or two.

*What have we here, Vodun?' she asked.

*My praecentals hold the Residency, mam,' the commander replied. *Lord Guilliman's direct order. He made me pull my men back from the Fortress.'

*Because the praecentals would be outcla.s.sed?'

*This hunt is a task for the Legiones Astartes at the very least. It is no small thing to corner and kill a primarch.'

*We have not used our full resource,' she said. She took a few steps down the staircase and addressed the waiting warriors.

*My dear battle-brothers, worthy souls a this night is a grim one, a darkness through which we must abide and come out whole, together.'

*We have come through much already, my lady,' said one of the Iron Hands. *We have learned to endure. It is the steel in us.'

Many of those around him nodded.

*Well spoken, Sardon Karaas.h.i.+son,' Euten said.

*We are yet in ignorance, lady,' said a Raven Guard captain near to Karaas.h.i.+son. *We are merely obliged to wait, robbed of action and purpose.'

Euten nodded. This was a problem that had yet to be overcome. Since the light of the Pharos had been turned on Macragge, nigh on a thousand souls had come to the city from the Shattered Legions of Isstvan. They were sequestered in the Residency, and in several other barracks across the city. They were a resource of great potential, and their resolve and determination, having been witnesses to treason and atrocity, was beyond doubt.

A way had not yet been found, however, to resolve them into one force. Guilliman had begun to find duties for some, as suited their specialisms, and it was, of course, straightforward to place Iron Hands with Iron Hands and Raven Guard with Raven Guard. But to alloy them more permanently threw up problems of differences in Legion practices and methods, of motivations and loyalties, of intentions and desires. Would the flesh-spare leaders of the Iron Hands form a command backbone to a force of survivors? Would the Raven Guard or the Salamanders be content to follow that? Could command be shared? Could orthodoxies be matched? Could the survivors be inducted as additional squads to the Ultramarines or the Dark Angels?