The hit connected and the youth went down hard. The others reacted, falling back. One of them had a half-brick in his hand, weighing it like he was considering a throw. Yosef scanned their faces. They had scarves around their mouths and noses, but he knew railgangers when he saw them. These were young men from the loading terminals, who by day worked the cargo monorails that connected the airdocks to the vineyards, and by night made trouble and engaged in minor crime. But they were out of their normal patch in this residential district, apparently drawn here by their victim.
‘Bind him!’ shouted one of them, stabbing a finger at the injured youth. ‘He’s a traitor, that’s what he is! Whoreson traitor!’
‘No…’ managed the youth. ‘Am not…’
‘Sentine are no better!’ snarled the one with the half-brick. ‘All in it together!’ With a snarl he threw his missile, and Yosef batted it away, taking a glancing hit on his temple that made him stagger. The railgangers took this as a signal and broke into a run, scattering away down the curve of the street.
For a split second, Yosef was possessed by a fury so high that all he wanted to do was race after the thugs and beat them bloody into the cobbles; but then he forced that urge away and bent down to help the injured youth to his feet. The young man’s hand was wet where he had cut himself on the broken glass. ‘You all right?’ said the reeve.
The youth took a woozy step away from him. ‘Don’t… Don’t hurt me.’
‘I won’t,’ he told him. ‘I’m a lawman.’ Yosef’s skull was still ringing with the near-hit of the brick, but in a moment of odd perceptivity, he saw the lad had rolls of red-printed leaflets stuffed in his pocket. He grabbed the youth’s hand and snatched one from the bunch. It was a Theoge pamphlet, a page of dense text full of florid language and terms that meant nothing to him. ‘Where did you get these?’ he demanded.
In the glare of the streetlights, Yosef saw the youth’s pale face full on; the fear written large there was worse than that he had shown to the thugs with the bottles and bricks. ‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted, shoving the reeve back with both hands.
Yosef lost his balance – the pain in his head helping that along the way – and stumbled, fell. Shaking off the spreading ache, he saw the youth sprinting away, disappearing into the night. He cursed and tried to get to his feet.
The reeve’s hand touched something on the cobbles, a sharp, curved edge. At first he thought it was part of the scattering of broken glass, but the light fell on it a different way. Peering at the object, Yosef saw what it actually was. Discarded in the melee, dropped from the pocket of… who, he wondered?
It was a harvesting knife, worn with use and age.
THREE
What Must Be Done / The Spear / Intervention
Stripped to the waist, Valdor strode into the sparring hall with his guardian spear raised high at the crook of his shoulder, the metal of the ornate halberd cool against his bare flesh; but what awaited him in the chamber was not the six combat robots he had programmed for his morning regimen, only a single figure in duty robes. He was tall and broad, big enough to look down at the Chief Custodian, even out of battle armour.
The figure turned, almost casually, from a rack holding weapons similar to the one Valdor carried. He was tracing the edge of the blade that hung beneath the heavy bolter mechanism at the tip of the metal staff, considering its merit in the way that a shrewd merchant might evaluate a bolt of fine silk before a purchase.
For a moment, the Custodian was unsure what protocol he was to observe; by rights, the sparring hall belonged to the Legio Custodes and so it could be considered their territory. For someone, a non-Custodian, to appear there unannounced was… impolitic. But the nature of the visitor – Valdor was loath to consider him an intruder – called such a thing into question. In the end, he chose to halt at the edge of the fighting quad and gave a shallow bow, erring on the side of respect. ‘My lord.’
‘Interesting weapon,’ came the reply. The voice was resonant and metered. ‘It appears overly ornate, archaic even. One quick to judge might even think it ineffective.’
‘Every weapon can be effective, if it is in the right hands.’
‘In the right hands.’ The figure at last gave Valdor his full attention. In the cold, sharp light tracing through the windows, the face of Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, was like chiselled granite.
For a moment, Valdor was tempted to offer Dorn the chance to try the use of the Custodes halberd-gun, but prudence warned him to hold his tongue. One did not simply challenge the master of an entire Astartes Legion to a sparring match, no matter how casually. Not unless one was prepared to take that challenge as far as it would go.
‘Why am I here?’ said Dorn, asking Valdor’s question for him. ‘Why am I here and not attendant to my duties out on the Palace walls?’
‘You wish to speak to me?’
Dorn continued, as if he had not heard his answer. The primarch glanced up at the ornate ceiling above them, which showed a frieze of jetbike-borne Custodians racing across the skyline of the Petitioner’s City. ‘I have blighted this place, Valdor. In the name of security, I have made this palace into a fortress. Replaced art with cannonades, gardens with kill zones, beauty with lethality. You understand why?’
Something in Dorn’s tone made the Custodian’s hand tighten on his weapon. ‘Because of the war. To protect your father.’
‘I take little pride in my defacement,’ Dorn replied. ‘But it must be done. For when Horus comes here, as he will, he must be met by our strength.’ He advanced a step. ‘Our honest strength, Valdor. Nothing less will suffice.’
Valdor remained silent, and Dorn gave him a level, demanding stare. In the quiet moment, the two of them measured one another as each would have gauged the lay of a battlefield before committing to combat.
The Imperial Fist broke the lengthening silence. ‘This palace and I… We know each other very well now. And I am not ignorant of what goes on in its halls, both those seen and those unseen.’ His heavy brow furrowed, as if a choice had been made in his thoughts. ‘We shall speak plainly, you and I.’
‘As you wish,’ said the Custodian.
Dorn eyed him. ‘I know the assassin clades and their shadow-killers are mounting an operation of large scope. I know this,’ he insisted. ‘I know you are involved.’
‘I am not a part of the Officio Assassinorum,’ Valdor told him. ‘I have no insight into their workings.’ It was a half-truth at best, and Dorn knew it.
‘I have always considered you a man of honour, Captain-General,’ said the Primarch. ‘But as I have learned to my cost, it sometimes becomes necessary to revise one’s opinion of a man’s character.’
‘If what you say was true, then you know it would be a matter of utmost secrecy.’
Dorn’s eyes flashed. ‘Meaning, if I am not informed of such a thing, then I should not know of it?’ He advanced again and Valdor stood his ground. The stoic, unchanging expression on the face of the Imperial Fist was, if anything, more disquieting than any snarl of annoyance. ‘I question the purpose of anything so clandestine. I am Adeptus Astartes, warrior by blood and by birth. I do not support the tactics of cowardice.’
Valdor let the guardian spear’s tip drop to the floor. ‘What some consider cowardly others might call expedient.’