The Last of the Light
ONE
Ad Vesperum
There was a beauty in the bitterness of it.
So cold was the surface of the planet that in the lulls between the katabatic storms the very atmosphere itself would freeze, and ice crystals would shimmer in a penumbra of glittering rainbows from one horizon to another.
Phobian was enveloped in gloom for most of its long year, and the planet was called the Dark World sometimes. But in those fleeting days of sunlight, there was a majesty to the place. The Argahasts lived up to their name in a brief blaze of silver glory – brutal, immense and as bright as the ire of the Emperor Himself. Twelve-thousand metre mountains encased in a kilometre of ice; a man might die happy having once seen the sun on them. Even if he were more than a man. Even if he were one of the Adeptus Astartes.
Not on a whim had the Dark Hunters made their fortress there. Phobian was a world made to embed awe within the soul. It brought peace to those who had been created never to know it.
It was his home.
Jonah Kerne turned away from contemplation of the winter mountains, that savage landscape, and resumed his pacing down the broad granite-paved cloister. His bare feet slapped on the stone, and his arms were buried in the wide sleeves of his habit. A deep cowl fell forward to conceal his face; there was a hint of a long, crooked nose and the silver glint of ocular augmentation in the shadow of the hood.
His habit was midnight blue, so dark it was almost black, and on the breast was sewn the ancient symbol of justice, the double-headed axe. It had been the badge of the Chapter since the Founding, three thousand years before.
The symbol, the Founding, the Heresy which had preceded it; these events were historical, but were all now buried so deep in legend that the truth of them had long been lost.
But all legends contain truth at their core. And the Emperor remembers how they began, every one.
An observer, watching Kerne pad slowly down the snow-bright cloister, would see a towering shape well over two metres tall, and broader than a man’s anatomy had any right to be. And yet for all its bulk, this midnight giant moved swiftly and with something approaching grace. There was no lumbering swagger, but instead the poise of an athlete. A staggering sense of innate power which even the dark habit could not wholly conceal.
The observer would have to conclude that Jonah Kerne was not human, and he would be right and wrong in equal measure.
At the end of the cloister the austere basalt-block ceiling reared up and expanded into a huge, vaulted space, a dome thirty metres high and twice that in diameter. At its apogee the dome was open to the sky, a circular opening through which the light poured, and in that light the snow was falling, flakes circling and dancing, disappearing before they reached the floor below.
Dark and light, worn and unworn, the stone blocks of which the dome was constructed were varied in age, consistency and colour, as though massive repair work had been necessary in the recent past. And all around the chamber, a keen observer would notice odd scars and holes in the patient stone. One might almost surmise that a battle had once been fought in this austere, serene space.
There were alcoves set in the walls, and in each a towering shape loomed, half in shadow. Some of these shapes were sculpted in red and grey and slate-dark granite. Others seemed to have the sheen of metal, the gleam of lacquered alloy. At the foot of each a red votive light flickered.
Two cowled figures, their shadow-blue habits marked with a single white stripe, bowed as Jonah Kerne entered, and then turned back to the regard of a statue. Jonah touched thumb to forehead. The sculpted effigy was of a huge armoured warrior bearing a broad-bladed sword in one fist. His other hand was raised, and it grasped a glittering orb of purest lapis lazuli as big as a man’s head. The figure wore no helm, and the face was long, stern, a braided scalp-lock trailing down beside one ear.
The eyes had also been set with lapis lazuli, and they seemed to follow all movement in the great domed chamber, the votive light reflected as a red mote in the twin blue gems.
The figure was resting one foot on the severed, barbarous head of an ork.
On the pedestal which supported it was engraved a single word;
Lukullus.
‘He is with us even now. His legacy is in us all,’ a voice said.
Jonah turned and bowed. ‘My Kharne.’
Beside him stood a shape as massive as himself, but the newcomer’s habit was true black, with only a whisper of blue at the hood. This was thrown back, and Jonah looked upon the features of his Chapter Master.
It was a brutal face, scarred and seamed and stretched with an old burn that darkened the pale skin from temple to jaw. The eye on that side had been replaced by an implant which glittered as red as the votive lights in the chamber, but the other was warm, human – surprising in that grim visage. He smiled at Jonah, and set one hand upon Kerne’s shoulder. Jonah felt the steel approximation of fingers, the flesh long ago replaced by moulded alloys and chromate wire. There was warmth in the gesture, but no humanity in the grip.
‘Brothers,’ the Kharne said softly, ‘the captain and I wish to speak alone. My apologies for disturbing your devotions.’
The two others rose, bowed, and filed silently out of the chamber. They tugged closed the massive doors at its far end with a slow, sonorous boom.
The Kharne looked up at the ocular in the dome, the snow drifting down through it.
‘The light is failing. Soon we’ll have the blue shadows all about us again.’
‘If we had the sunshine all the time, we’d have to find ourselves a new name,’ Jonah said.
The Kharne gave a bark of laughter. ‘Is Fornix teaching you how to joke?’
‘It rubs off on me from time to time.’
‘Take a turn with me round our heroes, Jonah, and let me see your face. We have not spoken in an age.’
Jonah lowered the cowl. He and the Kharne might have been brothers – they were, at any rate, hewn out of the same monumental flesh. He had fewer scars, and his eyes were both his own, so black the pupils could barely be discerned. A silver glint now and then betrayed the optics embedded within them.
His skull was shaven, but a crop of dark hair had begun to bristle on it, except around a whorl of scar-tissue near the crown, which looked like an old bullet-wound.
They walked slowly, side by side, robed twins that in turn were uncannily similar to many of the graven faces on the statues they passed.
‘How are the Mortai?’ the Kharne asked. From such a huge frame, it was odd to hear his light, even melodious voice. He was nicknamed Al Murzim, which in the ancient earth tongue of A’rabik meant the Roarer. The Kharne never raised his voice, even in battle.
‘Mortai is blessed. Brother Ambros is sending me eleven of the Haradai in the next day or so who have passed their Provenance. That brings us up to seventy-eight effectives.’
‘Ah, excellent. Seven-man squads then?’ the Kharne asked.
‘Yes, lord, if we are to remain Codex-compliant.’ There was almost a question in the way Jonah raised his tone at the end of this sentence. The Kharne looked at him quickly.
‘You would prefer to consolidate.’
‘I would. Seven become five very quickly in battle, and when that happens a half-squad is doing the work of a full one.’
The Kharne nodded slowly. ‘Brother Malchai will disapprove… but in this I concur. The fist must be hard-clenched before the blow falls, else it is no blow at all. Seven squads, plus command. Fornix as first sergeant – one might think that he would be restless after a century in the post–’
‘It is as far as his ambition climbs. He would make a fine company commander though.’
‘You would hate to lose him.’ Al Murzim’s mouth quirked up at one corner.