She turned around, seeking a way out. Seeing none, she went to the cave wall where she found a door, hidden by a natural camouflage of frost.
‘This is Inquisitor Wienand, I have done as instructed. Are you going to leave me here?’ The imperiousness of her voice in the silent chamber abashed her.
Lights blinked over the door. With a sighing groan, it cracked open, shedding plates of ice and showers of hoarfrost upon the threshold.
Beyond the door stood a Space Marine unlike any other she had ever met. He was ageless in the way of the Adeptus Astartes, but carried an air of great venerability that outmatched even that of Veritus. His face was leathery, tanned by the light of myriad suns, and wrinkled with fine lines. The skin was folded with age over his eyes, one of which had a pronounced squint — the mark of an old injury, perhaps — and his forehead was a mass of long-service studs.
In the deadly cold he was barefoot and wore simple robes. Plumes of steam blew from his nostrils with each steady breath. Despite his great age he was tall and proud, his physiology distorted by his enhancement, neural plugs glinting in the grotesque musculature of his arms, but it was his psychic potency that took her aback. Wienand was no psyker, although many inquisitors were, but still she could feel his power emanating from his eyes. A nimbus of light from some internal source shone around his head. Wienand was overwhelmed by a sense of the holy; this was a warrior saint. She was one step from the Emperor Himself, and she fought the urge to prostrate herself before him.
‘I am Supreme Grand Master Janus of the Grey Knights,’ he said. He looked on her.
She felt the touch of his mind on hers and she shivered.
‘I am Inquisitor Wienand. I bring you news of a reorganisation within our ordos, and the formation of an order of specific relevance to your brotherhood.’
‘Sindermann told me this day would come. I grieve for his passing. He was an old friend and will be missed. But it is best not to dwell on the past. What has gone cannot be helped, only the future may be saved. I sense now is the time for new friendships.’ He stood aside, and held open his arms in welcome. ‘You may enter, Lady Inquisitor Wienand. Come, we have much to discuss.’
Chapter Sixteen
Fury of the Space Marines
Four hundred Space Marines came to Terra. A company each from two of the newly founded Chapters, the Halo Brethren and the Sable Swords. Flying with them were two hundred Imperial Fists of the First, Fourth and Fifth Companies. This time, the crowds were not out to meet them.
‘I thank you for the honour of leading this expedition, Lord Thane.’
Unhelmeted, Qublicus Amar, lord of the Sable Swords, was forced to shout over the noise of the Thunderhawk as it battled its way down through Terra’s atmosphere. ‘It has been said that you should lead it. The Imperial Fists have accrued many battle honours since the fall of the Beast.’
‘Not I,’ said Thane. He did wear his helmet, and his vox-grille boosted his voice. ‘Vangorich was my error. I have come to put it right, but I should not be the one to lead. My judgement regarding the Grand Master is compromised.’
Amar resettled himself in his drop cradle. The Thunderhawk banged and leapt as it encountered a pocket of rising warm air.
‘It is over a century since you last trod the Throneworld’s surface, you could not have predicted what happened. A new golden age approaches, Thane, and your efforts are to thank. Beyond Terra, the Imperium has recovered. Hundreds of worlds have been reclaimed and rebuilt. The armies of the Imperium are larger and better organised. New fleets ply the stars and the warp, while the eyes of the Inquisition are everywhere alert to new threats. It will soon be time to crusade again, and expand our borders in the name of the Emperor.’
‘All you say is true. But Terra itself, and many other worlds have suffered. That is on me. I cannot lead this expedition.’
Thane would speak no more of it, and Amar let him be to check his equipment one final time.
Thane had expected a fight, but the taskforce did not get one. Kubik greeted them cordially from Mars. No fire was loosed at them by star forts or solar defence ships. The new orbital fortresses greeted the Space Marines and offered their fleet berths.
Several tense hours ensued after the fleet put in to high orbit over Terra. A party of High Lords met with Thane and Amar aboard the High Wall, a new Goliath-class star fort in orbit over the Palace. After swift negotiation, twenty Thunderhawks flew to the surface. Thane suggested Amar have the gunships put down in a ring in the Fields of Winged Victory. It seemed apt somehow. The paving was dirty and cracked, the spires surrounding it tarnished and in ill repair. Thane had a feeling this neglect was only a taste of what there was to come.
Unopposed, Thane and Amar walked down the ramp of the gunship and onto Terra’s hallowed surface. Squads of Space Marines spread out in defensive order. Land Speeders dropped from passing transports made controlled descents to the surface then raced off into the Palace.
‘My lords Chapter Master,’ said Captain Ethratan, Second Captain of the Sable Swords. ‘There are no signs of an enemy anywhere.’
Thane looked around the Fields. They were a good place to land, so big ambush was impossible. ‘Everyone wants Vangorich gone. We’ll suffer no attention from the Adeptus Militarum, Arbitrators or Adeptus Custodes,’ he said to Ethratan and Amar. ‘But there will be opposition. Vangorich’s Assassins are loyal to him, and he has expanded his officio since I was last here. Be careful. Watch the shadows. This will not be an easy fight.’
‘Understood, my lord,’ said Amar.
Dissatisfied, Thane watched Amar head out; Amar should have more confidence. The members of the newer Chapters were too deferential to him, and it made him uncomfortable. Warriors that adulated their heroes could be led astray by the wrong leader. If the likes of Ethratan or Amar knew that the Imperial Fists had briefly fallen, they might not be so worshipful.
A Thunderhawk transporter came down slowly, engines roaring, Dorn’s Fist slung in its cradle. It released its cargo claws three metres above the ground, dropping the Land Raider onto the Fields. The assembled forces of the three Chapters spread out in groups, heading into the deathly quiet city.
Dorn’s Fist was the very Land Raider in which Thane had arrived in triumph at the Fields a century before. He boarded the great vehicle. Reversing the course he took on that day, he headed for Bastion Gate and rode for the Widdershins Tower.
They passed through without incident, the Bastion Gate’s bristling weapons arrays inactive. The lights were out in the wall tunnel, and beyond. There were no people on the streets. There was an expectant quiet everywhere. Terra wanted rid of Vangorich, but it irked Thane that the worthies of the Throneworld were too spineless to do it themselves.
The buildings of the Palace were in various states of disrepair. Some still bore the scars of the ork attack. Instead of proper reconstruction, vast sums of money had been spent on great monuments, from whose half-finished edifices hung the corpses of those who had displeased the Lord Protector. The dead were more evident than the living. Tall informational posters adorned every major intersection and transit station, laying out the duties of the Terran citizen. The penalties for failing to comply were invariably death.
The Great Chamber’s domed roof rose pregnantly from the surrounding blocks and spires. Still they saw no one.