It’s time to stop. The end of the day’s toil. Wash up, grace and supper. Oll is weary, but he’s about eight rows back from where he thought he’d be. Too much of the day spent looking up at the sky, at the running lights of ships. Too much of the day wasted watching the heavy landers glinting as they pass overhead.
Graft trundles up to him. The servitor’s huge bulk-extension upper limbs, built for ammo loading, have been replaced by basic cargo shifting arms.
‘Time to stop, Trooper Persson,’ Graft says.
Oll nods. They’ve done what they can with the light.
But he doesn’t feel like it’s time to stop. It feels like something’s about to start.
Ventanus and Selaton watch Arbute talking to another gang of labour guild officials. Behind them, a bulk-lander as huge and drab as a cliff face is slowly backing into a cargo silo. Oil stains shine on the rockcrete ground.
‘I don’t know why it’s so difficult,’ says Selaton. ‘She tells them to work harder, they work harder. She’s got the authority.’
‘It’s more complex than that.’
‘Is it, captain? They’ve been doing it all day. As far as I can tell, the main quibble seems to be the length and regularity of rest breaks.’
‘Fatigue is an issue,’ Ventanus reminds his sergeant. ‘A human issue. We need cooperation. We have to acknowledge their qualities.’
‘Weaknesses you mean.’
‘Qualities.’
‘It makes me profoundly glad I’m not an elective human,’ says Selaton.
Ventanus laughs.
‘Still, it’s us who’ll get strung up by the primarch if the muster falls behind.’
‘No, it’s me who’ll get it,’ said Ventanus. ‘And we won’t fall behind. The seneschal is pretty persuasive.’
‘Really, sir?’
‘I think the guild was dragging its heels because it thought bonus payments should be on offer.’
‘Deliberately going slow?’ asks Selaton, the notion alien to him.
‘Yes, sergeant. They make a fuss about overwork, negotiate themselves some hefty bonus fees, and then have a little slack they can take up so they look like they’re working hard. I think our new friend Seneschal Arbute has made them buck their ideas up by introducing new concepts such as patriotism, and the favourable disposition of the primarch.’
Selaton nods.
The sky over the starport is fulminous grey, with rack rides of cloud chased by the wind and backlit by the setting sun. The lights of incoming transports shine especially bright.
‘We’re losing the light,’ says Selaton. ‘Earlier than estimated.’
‘A result of the storm,’ says Ventanus.
‘Probably,’ agrees Selaton.
The fleet tender Campanile passes the inner Mandeville Point of the Veridian System, outer marker ring 16, and the local picket. It broadcasts full and correct anchorage codes to the watch ships at ring 14, and to the Veridius Maxim Star Fort. The Star Fort retracts its target acquisition lock and signals the tender to pass.
The ship appears to be decelerating.
Teleport flare. The crackle of the energy burst shivers across the open hillside, and ozone taints the cold northern air.
Erebus, Dark Apostle, becomes flesh, and emerges from the scratch of light. He is not clad in ceremonial armour, he is wearing wargear that has been stripped down to fighting weight, darkened with ashes and inscribed over its entire surface with tiny, spidery script.
A strike team is waiting for him. Its leader is Essember Zote of the Gal Vorbak, a warrior of the most incendiary fury. His sword is already drawn. His armour is the colour of blood.
This is how their enemies will know them. Blood red, the colour of fire, the colour of hell, the colour of gore, the colour of the Octed.
Zote has a work party of the Tzenvar Kaul with him, seventy men, all childless. They have been working since they arrived at dawn on one of the first ships.
The Satric Plateau, two thousand kilometres north of Numinus City, is a lonely place. The hard winter has already arrived. Because of its size and terrain, the Satric region was chosen as one of the sixty-eight staging fields for the operation. Landers are parked all along the line of the slope, cargo hatches open to the grey sky.
Erebus inspects the work.
This particular area of the Satric Plateau, sheened with frost, is especially perfect. It took several days of comparative study with the orbital scans to determine its perfection compared to other potential sites. It is consistently flat in relation to sea level. It is aligned according to magnetic north and the tidal process, and has favourable moonrise on the day of the conjunction. It possesses other qualities too, other qualities that could not be disclosed by standard Imperial physics. Immaterium vectors are in alignment. The skin of the empyrean is thin here tonight.
This is the true conjunction. Erebus reflects upon how remarkably perfect it is. Not just workable or suitable or acceptable. Perfect. From today, for the next sixty days. It is as though some power somewhere manufactured the perfection at exactly the right time.
The men of the Kaul have laid the circle. Polished black rocks, each taken from the volcanic slopes of Isstvan V and marked with a sigil, are arranged in a perfect circle a kilometre in diameter.
Erebus takes the last rock from Zote. They are summoning stones. The latent power in them makes him feel sick, just taking one in his hand.
He places it in the gap in the circle. It clacks against the stones on either side as he sets it.
‘Begin,’ he tells Zote.
The men of the Tzenvar Kaul approach, carrying other offerings from the Isstvan system. In procession, they bear along portable stasis flasks like censers in some Catheric worship. The fluid in the stasis flasks is murky with blood. Harvested progenitor glands. Harvested gene-seed. The lost life of betrayed souls now offered for the final blasphemy. There is Salamanders gene-seed here, Iron Hands, Raven Guard. Erebus knows that the Ruinous Powers make no distinctions, so there is other gene-seed here besides: Emperor’s Children, Death Guard, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, even Luna Wolf. Any that fell during the secret abominations of Isstvan III or V are suitable.
Erebus stops the first man in the procession, and strokes the glass of the stasis flask. He knows what’s in it, the mangled tissue in the cloudy suspension.
‘Tarik…’ he whispers.
He nods. The Kaul start to carry the flasks into the circle. The moment they cross the stones, the bearers start to whimper and retch. Several pass out, or suffer strokes, and fall, smashing the flasks.
It doesn’t matter.
The moon is rising, a pale curl in a mauve sky already busy with lights.
Zote hands Erebus a data-slate, and the Apostle checks the approach timings. He is data tracking using anchorage codes.
He hands the slate back and takes the vox-link in exchange.
‘Now,’ he says.
‘Acknowledged,’ replies Sorot Tchure.
He walks back to join the others. His men are mingling with the men of Luciel’s company on the company decks of the Samothrace. They have finished the formal dinner that Luciel had arranged. None need to eat, certainly not the fine foodstuffs that Luciel provided, but it is a symbolic gesture. To dine as allies, as warrior-kings. To bond ahead of the coming war.
‘Problem?’ asks Luciel.
Tchure shakes his head.
‘Some question about loading platforms.’
Tchure looks at Luciel.
‘Why have you changed your markings and armour field?’ asks Luciel.