Some of his neighbours, who have been his neighbours these eighteen years and whose children he employs, laugh at his faith. They call him ‘pious’.
Others attend the little chapel on the edge of the fields with him.
It’s swartgrass season, and the men and boys are in the fields. Two weeks of hard work to go.
There are a lot of ships in the top of the sky today. Troop ships. Munitions ferries. Oll squints into the sun as they pass over. He recognises them. Farmer, colonist, believer, whatever he is, he’s still Army underneath it all.
He recognises them.
He feels an old feeling, and it reminds him of the lasrifle hanging over his fireplace.
At Barrtor, east of the Boros River, 111th and 112th Companies of the Ultramarines are stationed in pre-fab cities in the forest hem. At the word from Vared, Master of the 11th Chapter, they will mount their Land Raiders, Rhinos and long-body Rhino Advancers, and advance to Numinus Port for embarkation.
Ekritus has just taken the captaincy of the 111th from Briende, who fell on Emex. It was a hard loss for the company. Ekritus is a fine commander in the making. He wants a good fight, a fight that will hammer the 111th back into shape and show them he’s a worthy replacement for the beloved Briende.
‘I’ve never seen a man so eager to make shift,’ says Phrastorex, Captain of the 112th. ‘Have you, Sergeant Anchise?’
‘No, sir,’ says Anchise.
They’ve come to join Ekritus on the embankment below the trees. It forms a natural viewing platform. They can see the floodplain, the encampments of Word Bearers companies who made planetfall the night before, the tent cities of the Army, and the fields of Titans. The war-engines are powered-down, dormant, standing in groves like giant metal trees. A column of armour and towed artillery pieces is grumbling down the highway below. Interceptors flash by on a low pass. There is a blue haze.
Ekritus grins at them. Phrastorex is a veteran, an old soul. Ekritus understands that Vared has pushed Phrastorex into a mentoring role during the transition. A company is a considerable entity: you do not take on its command lightly.
‘I know one should not be in haste to greet war,’ Ekritus says. ‘I know, I know. I have read my Machulius and my Antaxus, my Von Klowswitts–’
‘And your Guilliman, I hope,’ says Phrastorex.
‘I’ve heard of him, certainly,’ says Ekritus. They laugh. Even Anchise, at attention, has to cover a grin.
‘I need to close the men on a target. A practical threat, not a theoretical one. There’s only so many rousing speeches I can give before they need me to simply lead by example.’
Phrastorex sighs.
‘I commiserate. I remember when I accepted the commander’s stave after Nectus passed. I just needed that first match to blood the men. Hell, I needed it. I needed them to bond with me against an enemy, not bond against me as an outsider.’
Ekritus nods.
‘Is that right, sergeant?’
Anchise hesitates.
‘Perfectly correct, sir. The theory is sound. The focus of battle makes men forget other issues. It is an excellent way to bind them to a new commander. Gives them an experience they have shared. Of course, in the specific case of Captain Phrastorex, he’s never been able to bond with us or prove his worth.’
All three of them laugh out loud.
‘I might have wished for something more streamlined,’ says Ekritus. ‘The scale of this mobilisation is ridiculous. The logistics alone are slowing everything down.’
‘They say we’ll be away by tonight,’ says Phrastorex. ‘Tomorrow at the latest. Then what? Two weeks’ ship time, and you’ll be up to your eyes in ork blood.’
‘It can’t happen soon enough,’ says Ekritus, ‘because no damn thing is ever going to happen here.’
If you start with many and end with a single victory, then the cost in between is acceptable.
Guilliman reads back what he has written. The tactical sentiment is not original to him: it was told to him by a T’Vanti wartriber. He has… polished it.
He’s not even sure if he believes it, but all military concepts and aphorisms are worth recording, if only to understand how an enemy’s mind works.
The wartribes believed it. They were honourable allies, able fighters. Low tech, of course, nothing compared to his Legion. The T’Vanti had agreed to serve as auxiliaries. It had been a diplomatic move on Guilliman’s part. If he allowed the locals to share in the victory, then they might also take responsibility for maintaining the compliance of their world. But the orks moved mercurially that day; some unpredicted pulse of contrariness fluttered through their mass. They turned west, against all sense. Guilliman’s force was delayed by a day. The wartribes went ahead without them, and took the hill at Kunduki, decapitating – literally – the greenskin command.
The T’Vanti seemed delighted by their achievement, and utterly oblivious to the eighty-nine thousand men it had cost them.
Guilliman turns the stylus in his hand, thoughtful. It takes discipline to die in such numbers. It is one of the reasons that a bladed T’Vanti cordulus hangs on his compartment wall. He believes he has the most disciplined military force in the Imperium, and given the quality of the other Legions, that is quite a claim. Still, he is not sure even his Ultramarines would display such a deep degree of discipline, such a T’Vanti degree.
‘They will never have to,’ he reflects, out loud.
Guilliman sits back. The seat flexes to support his armoured bulk. He is shaped like a man, but he is far more than that, far more than even the transhuman giants of his Legion. He is a primarch. There are only seventeen other beings like him left in the universe.
He is the thirteenth son of mankind’s Emperor. He is the Master of the Ultramarines, the XIII Legion. He is one of the more human of his kind. Some are more like angels. Others are... otherwise.
From a distance, one might mistake him for a man. Only when the distance closed would you realise he is more like a god.
He is handsome, in a plain way. He is handsome the way a regent on an old coin is handsome, like a good sword is handsome. He is not handsome like a ritual weapon, the way Fulgrim is. He is not angelic, like Sanguinius. Not heartbreakingly angelic. None of them are that beautiful.
There is a dutiful line to his jaw, like his good brother Dorn. They share a nobility. There is the great strength of Ferrus and the vitality of Mortarion. There is, sometimes, the rogue glint of the Khan in his eyes, or the solemnity of the Lion. In the architecture of his nose and brow there is, many claim, the energy and triumph of Horus Lupercal.
There is none of the bitterness that shadows Corax, or the persecuted despair that haunts poor Konrad. There is never any of the deliberate mystery that obscures Alpharius or Magnus, and he is more open than that buried soul Vulkan. He is accomplished, very accomplished, even by the standards of the primarchs. He knows that the breadth of his accomplishments troubles his more single-minded brothers like Lorgar and Perturabo. He never displays the pitch of fury found in Angron, nor do his eyes ever ignite with the psychotic gleam of Russ.
He is a high achiever. He knows this about himself. Sometimes it feels like a fault that he has to excuse to his brothers, but then he feels guilty for making excuses. Few of them really trust him, because, he feels, they always wonder what he’s going to get from any compact or cooperation. Fewer still like him: as friends, he counts only Dorn, Ferrus, Sanguinius and Horus.
Some of his brothers are content to be the instruments of crusade they have become. Some of them don’t even pause to consider that is what they are. Angron, Russ, Ferrus, Perturabo… They are just weapons, and have no ambition beyond being weapons. They know their place, like Russ, and are content to keep to it, or they have no idea that any other role might be possible or desirable, like Angron.