It was hard to remember that now. The air around him was like an electric soup, thick with incense and heady with the accumulated decay of sacred banner-fabrics.
‘And you tell me,’ said Navradaran, ‘that a weapon brought down from a single ship and given to cabals of flesh-cutters could jeopardise this place. This place, where the Angel stood, where the tides of darkness crashed, then foundered.’
Nothing could break that gate. No army, no power, no mind could break it — not then, not now, not ever.
‘If Phaelias thought it, he was wrong,’ said Navradaran. ‘If you continue to believe it, you will be in error also. When the elect come before the Gates, they will be as secure as any place in the sacred realm of mankind. This is the last bastion. This is the ward against the Outer Dark.’
‘So you brought me here,’ Crowl said with effort, ‘to demonstrate this?’
‘I brought you here to show you how things stand.’
‘Have you been… beyond?’
‘I have.’
Crowl wanted to ask more. Despite all his training, he was desperate to know what it was like. Even from the far side he could sense the titanic power locked down there, and it made him nauseous and light-headed.
He collected himself. ‘But there is a threat,’ he insisted. ‘Phaelias studied this for longer than you or I. He believed the Gate was the target.’
‘This place was built to keep out armies,’ Navradaran said. ‘There is a reason that Titans guard it, for it is the only passage inside that a god engine can traverse. But you know Terra, inquisitor. You know that there are ways beneath ways.’
At that, Crowl finally understood. He looked back out across the emptiness towards the mute Titan guardians. ‘This is where all eyes will be turned,’ he said.
‘We cannot watch every crack in every catacomb. We will have millions entering the Palace, and only a fraction will be permitted to come this far. All must be watched, and that strains us further.’
‘But you must be able to-’
‘I could show you things, inquisitor, if the time remained,’ said Navradaran. ‘I could show you wells running under the crust of buried mountains, many of which have never been sounded. I could show you whole cities lying under the crypts of our cathedrals, some still bearing dregs of life, harbouring relics that entire sectors would go to war to possess. I could show you tunnels bored ten thousand years ago that have never been capped. You understand me, I think.’
Crowl still could not take his eyes off the Titans. Somehow there, in the shadows and the silence, they looked even more formidable than on the open battlefield. ‘I do not know where,’ he said, trying to think if he’d missed something, if the clue existed in something that Phaelias had said. ‘Neither do I,’ the Custodian said. ‘None of my agents have come close.’ Crowl finally pulled his gaze away from the fields of banners. ‘It came down in Skhallax,’ he murmured. ‘From there it has stayed hidden, moving closer but remaining out of the light.’
‘And Quantrain?’
‘He must be found, but even if we locate him we are still no closer to our real target.’ Crowl laughed bitterly. ‘It’s escaped him, you see? He let it slip through his fingers. No doubt he’s hunting just as hard as we are.’ He shook his head, as if in self-reprimand. ‘No, you were right the first time we met. The killings, escalating since this thing arrived, they’re the key. I didn’t want to believe it — it was too neat — but having seen inside Skhallax my mind has changed.’
‘I have catalogued the sites of atrocity,’ said Navradaran. ‘For a week my loremasters have been collating the records, seeking a pattern.’
‘They won’t find one,’ said Crowl. ‘Not one they understand. You people spend your lives in these temples — you have no idea what it’s like outside.’
‘Then it is well you are here with us, Crowl.’
Crowl smiled. ‘Show me what you have.’ Then he turned for the last time, looking out over the twilit marches beyond, feeling the numinous press against his temples once more.
‘It is too much, though, this close,’ he said, quietly. ‘I don’t know how you stand it.’
Navradaran reached for the heavy curtain, and drew it across the balcony’s railing, sealing off the visions of Imperial mourning.
‘For me,’ he said, ‘I do not know how a man lives without it.’
For the first time, Hegain truly resisted an order.
‘He is a heretic, lord,’ he protested.
‘He knows the source of the flesh-cutters,’ said Spinoza.
‘Then take it from him, if you pardon me, and we may use it ourselves. Summon the Lord Crowl, if that remains possible, and bring in more of us. Sanctioned troopers, lord — ones that may be trusted to it.’
‘Take it from him? We are under his sufferance here. And you identify the problem yourself, sergeant — no time remains. Lord Crowl believed the weapon would be brought to bear when the procession reached the Gate, and we have already seen the calibre of those who would use it.’
Khazad said nothing. She slumped in the corner of the cell, arms around her knees. Bandages had been wrapped around her wounds, but she looked in a bad way. For all her skills, surviving in the underhive for so long had weakened her.
The other storm troopers of Hegain’s command also said nothing, letting their sergeant speak for them. Their looks, though, gave away what they thought of allying with the Angel’s Tears.
‘I’ve seen the things these people do, lord,’ said Hegain, clearly unhappy about protesting against her will but unwilling to concede. ‘You have too. I took vows, and my soldiers too. You ask for them to be broken now.’
‘I ask nothing,’ said Spinoza. She looked across the assembled dregs of her task force. They were battered but essentially whole. ‘Listen. I do not trust this man. His sins are many, and they will catch up with him. For now, though, for now, we have a more urgent target. This is what the Lord Crowl was pursuing. If he has been successful, then he will be ahead of us. If we do not act then we endanger everything he has done. Lermentov has many hundreds under command, perhaps more than we’ve seen, but you witnessed how they fight — they are hab-dwellers and menials, not soldiers.’ ‘And what cause do they fight for, lord?’
‘Their own, and that is sinful, but for the time being it elides with ours. We do this now, we join their hunt for the xenos pain-bringers, and then things go back to how they were.’
‘This is dangerous, lord.’
‘Life is dangerous, sergeant. That is how we like it.’
At that, Hegain let slip his old half-grin. ‘Throne, I knew it when I saw you,’ he mumbled, grudgingly. ‘You will give account of yourself, I said.’ ‘They are the dark eldar,’ said Khazad then, grimly. ‘It take more than rabble to hunt them. Even you, even me. Grotesques — they are not masters.’
‘There cannot be many,’ said Spinoza. ‘It was a single landing.’
Khazad laughed scornfully. ‘That was not landed. I tell Lermentov this. It is made. Here, on Terra, maybe one week ago, maybe two. May be tens now. May be hundreds. And they are not worst. Ever fight a wych, interrogator?’
‘Not yet. But I matched a Shoba, so my expectations are high.’ Spinoza ran her gaze over the rest of them. ‘We have our armour, we have our weapons. Lermentov’s army is already moving, and we will join them. Enough talk. Remember your vows, and get to your feet — time is running short.’
The storm troopers, led by Hegain, complied. Whatever reservations they retained were subsumed for now under the absolute authority of an order. Khazad clambered up more slowly.