‘I would. We have become used to one another over the decades. He tolerates my temper and I tolerate his jokes.’
Al Murzim nodded, still with that half-smile on his scarred face. ‘Someone must, I suppose. I cannot begin to guess how many times I have heard the tale of how he lost that eye. And like you, I was there when it happened.’
Then his face grew serious again.
‘Brother Venann of the Librarium tells me you look with favour upon Elijah Kass’s petition.’
‘To become Mortai’s Epistolary? Yes. He did well in the border-fights against the Gulbec pirates two years ago. He’s young, it’s true–’
‘Too young, most would say. A mere boy.’
‘His psychic readings are in the alpha range.’
‘He has never seen a real war – not as you and I define it.’
‘How do we define real war, my lord?’ Jonah asked.
‘Do you jest with me, captain?’ The Chapter Master’s voice was stern.
‘On my faith, no.’
Al Murzim’s chin sank onto his breast. His pacing slowed.
‘When you were young, and I commanded Mortai as you do now, brother, back then we saw what real war was.’ He looked up. ‘It was here, fought in the very chambers of Mors Angnar itself.
‘You were my first sergeant back then, and Fornix a mere stripling, fresh out of the Haradai. There is a new generation of Dark Hunters now who did not know that fight, the six years of hell we endured.
‘Kass is one of them. I know his quality, but are you so sure he warrants this step?’
‘Mortai has no Librarian, as it has no Chaplain,’ Kerne replied. ‘That cannot be allowed to continue. My Kharne, we have the skeleton of a Chapter in many respects, but surely we can fill some of the more gaping holes.’
‘You were never enamoured of Chaplains, as I recall.’
‘Perhaps. It is a slow business, is it not though? Filling out those bare bones.’
They looked at one another, and in the shared glance there were a thousand memories.
‘Bare bones – I suppose that is what we are,’ the Chapter Master said at last. ‘And yet there is now a generation of our brethren who did not fight the war which so reduced us, who may not yet comprehend the true import of such a conflict.’
He drew a breath, like a man laying down a heavy load.
‘But some of them, at least, may know it presently.’ From the sleeve of his habit the Chapter Master produced a coil of plasment. It quivered in his metal fingers as he held it out to Kerne.
Jonah bowed and unrolled the document. His face changed as he read; the muscles bunched along his jaw and his dark eyes glittered.
+++ Incoming transmission – Cypra Mundi Administratum – Felix Galerius – URGENT – attention of Kharne Al Murzim – Chapter Master Dark Hunters – Adeptus Astartes – Phobos System – Finial Sector: IMMEDIATE ACTION +++
Fleet belonging to Traitor Chaos faction known as Punishers sighted in Finial Sector, Kargad System: coordinates 22/394/J19. Fleet complement Dauntless class or lighter. Contact lost with Imperial detachments on Peronnen, Asranak and the Tellik Asteroids.
Intercept. Interdict. Destroy.
By the Emperor’s Will
Message ends
5.236.982.M41
‘Phobos!’ Jonah grated, using the nearest thing he had to profanity. He looked his Chapter Master in the eye. ‘This is all we have?’
‘All we have,’ Al Murzim said calmly. He resumed his pacing once more. The light was dwindling in the vast chamber and the votive candles flickered like the coals of little dying fires.
‘Dauntless class. Light cruisers then,’ Jonah said. ‘We still have heavier metal than that.’
‘We have the Ogadai,’ the Kharne said. ‘And it is close on four thousand years old.’
‘But still spaceworthy.’
‘Massaron assures me that is so. One Gothic class heavy cruiser – would that be enough, Jonah?’ Al Murzim smiled again.
‘I would take out a harbour scow to meet these scum in battle. In our own sector! And I thought we had seen the last of the Punishers. It’s been–’
‘One hundred and fifty-seven years,’ the Chapter Master interrupted him. ‘Over one and a half centuries since we threw them out of this system, and nearly destroyed ourselves in the process.’
‘I remember, lord.’
‘Of course you do. How many of us from Mortai Company were left standing when it was over?’
A cold light kindled in Kerne’s eyes. He spat the words out through bared teeth. ‘Eighteen.’
‘So you still dwell on it. As do I. Eighteen out of the ninety we numbered before the Punishers landed. You know better than anyone, Jonah, how dangerous these renegades are. They are our dark brethren, the shadow cast by our light. They are an abomination which cannot be allowed to exist.’
‘“The Great Enemy will be destroyed wherever he is found, hunted wherever he flees, and afforded neither pity nor quarter.”’
‘Quoting the Adeptus Terra at me? Not like you,’ Al Murzim said.
‘In this, I am one with the Administratum.’
‘As are we all. No matter how far we are from Earth, the Emperor’s Word will always reach us, and we will obey it.’
They paced in silence again. Jonah was afire with questions, burning to begin preparations for the mission that he was now sure was his. Tables and numbers filed through his brain: the roster of his company, the faces and names, the sergeants and the servitors.
He brought up the memory of the Ogadai, that vast starship which had been laid down before the Dark Hunters themselves had been founded. In its youth it had been part of the battle fleet of the White Scars Chapter. The Primarch himself, Jaghatai, had travelled in it, sanctifying the ship with his presence.
And ancient though it was, it still possessed enough firepower to lay waste to a planet.
Al Murzim spoke at last, in that quiet, even voice of his.
‘The last time they came, it was an invasion. They landed a quarter of a million in the first wave, and they had Emperor-class ships to back them up. It took the help of six other Chapters of our brethren to finally extirpate the Punishers from this system.’
‘Emperor bless them,’ Jonah said automatically.
‘Indeed. But for the Brazen Fists and the Dark Sons and the other four Chapters of our Adept, we would have been annihilated. As it is, even after a century and a half, we have not regained our numbers.’
Al Murzim sighed.
‘We are a poor Chapter, brother. Not for us the glorious campaigns of the Ultramarines or the Blood Angels. Three times in our three thousand years we have been reduced to a remnant.
‘Three times we have had to fight back from the verge of extinction. The Umbra Mortis, our battle barge, is at present nothing more than an orbital battery, stripped of parts and incapable of travelling the warp. The Ogadai is the only capital ship we have which is ready for immediate deployment, and it has been overdue a full refit for these last fifty years.
‘We have eleven Dreadnoughts left, and one of those encases Breughal Paine, our Forge-Master, who cannot leave this world lest his knowledge be lost forever. Even the Ardunai, our First Company, can clad barely half its brethren in the blessed relics of Terminator armour, and its captain, Ares Thuraman, is older even than I.’
‘He is a warrior beyond compare–’ Jonah said stoutly.
‘He is old, and his wounds trouble him without surcease. He will do his duty – he would even accept Dreadnought symbiosis if I asked him to endure it, but sometimes I believe what he really craves is the Emperor’s Peace.’
‘Thuraman has more ambition than that,’ Jonah said before he could stop himself.