Vogel followed the huntsman’s gaze to the other sniper, who had his rifle trained and ready. The belligerent Word Bearer raised his hands in a placatory gesture and Narek let him step away. When he was certain Vogel was content just to curse him and not retaliate, Narek looked down on the stricken Salamander his comrade had been about to defile.
‘ Thank… you…’ the warrior muttered, close to death.
‘It wasn’t for you, legionary,’ Narek uttered, and plunged the gladius into his heart.
The sound of a turbine engine getting louder and closer made Narek turn. He saw the Stormbird that belonged to Elias, and wondered what had happened to bring him here.
‘Gather,’ he voxed to the others. ‘The Dark Apostle is here.’
Elias was wounded. He had also been paid a visit by Erebus himself. As he stood before the Dark Apostle in the lee of the landed Stormbird, it suddenly made sense to Narek why his master had come. He had been ordered to.
‘Another failure?’ asked Elias, surveying the carnage.
‘Not entirely,’ the huntsman replied. He had removed his battle-helm in the Dark Apostle’s presence and held it in the crook of his arm.
They were alone, in so far as the rest of the legionaries were standing guard or rounding up still-living prisoners. Narek wished dearly he’d had the time to give all of them clean deaths. Irritating Vogel was one thing; he wouldn’t defy the Dark Apostle.
‘Did you kill all of them, and apprehend the human?’
‘Not yet.’
‘A failure then.’
Narek briefly bowed his head. ‘One I shall rectify.’
‘No, Narek. Your chance has passed for this glory. Erebus himself comes and has asked me to eliminate our enemies and recapture the human, John Grammaticus.’
‘He asked you, did he?’
‘Yes,’ hissed Elias with more than a hint of anger. ‘I am his trusted ally in this.’
‘Of course, master,’ Narek responded coolly. His eyes strayed to the fulgurite spear scabbarded at Elias’s waist.
It still gave off a faint glow, and seemed to make the Dark Apostle uncomfortable to wear it. Narek realised that the spear had somehow burned Elias’s arm to all but a scorched mess.
‘You are wondering if we were right to worship the Emperor as a god,’ Elias said to him, when he noticed Narek looking at the sheathed spear.
‘I am.’
‘We were, brother. But there are other gods, Narek, who would give us favour.’
‘I see no boon in it,’ he admitted.
Elias laughed. ‘I could have you executed for that, for your lack of belief.’
‘I believe, master. That is the problem – I just do not like where that belief is taking us.’
‘You will come to like it, huntsman. You will embraceit, as we all will. For it is the desire of Lorgar and the Pantheon that we do so. Now,’ he added, growing bored of his sermon. ‘Where is the man, where is John Grammaticus?’
‘He is almost certainly still with the broken Legion survivors. Their trail won’t be hard to track.’
Elias dismissed the idea with a desultory wave of his hand.
‘It’s of no consequence. I can find him through different means.’ He eyed one of the legionary prisoners, one yet to be given a clean death, and pulled out his ritual knife.
Domadus was alive, but somehow pinned. Since the battle had ended, they had been raking through the casualties, looking for survivors. He dimly recalled being dragged, and half-heard guttural laughter from one of his captors. Part of his spinal column had been severed. He was paralysed from the waist down. He also had several potentially fatal internal injuries, and was too weak to fight back.
His bionic eye no longer functioned, so he was left blinded in it. His organic one opened, and the view this received was of the ground. At the edge of his reduced vision he thought he saw the open hand of a legionary lying on his back. The gauntlet was emerald-green, the fingers unmoving. A bolter lay a few centimetres away from it grip.
‘This one,’ he heard a voice say. He sounded cultured, almost urbane.
Firm, armoured fingers seized the Iron Hand’s chin and lifted it up so that Domadus could see his oppressors.
Word Bearers. One, standing behind the other, had scripture painting his cheekbones in gold. His black hair was short with a sharp widow’s peak. One of his arms was badly burned, and he held it protectively to his body. This was the cleric, it had to be. The other one who was holding Domadus’s chin was a veteran, definitely a soldier in the most pugnacious sense of the word. He was flat-nosed, but thin of face, and carried a slight limp.
Through dulled senses, Domadus became aware that his wrists were bound with razor-wire and he was attached to the side of a Word Bearers gunship. His breastplate had been removed, as well as his mesh under-armour, exposing the skin beneath.
‘There is no other way?’ asked the soldier.
The cleric drew forth a jagged ritual knife and Domadus steeled himself for what he knew was coming next.
‘None,’ answered the cleric, who traced a long nailed gauntlet across the flesh of the Iron Hand’s cheek, before taking up a chant.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Enter the labyrinth
‘Go forwards, ever forwards and always down. Never left. Never right.’
– from the dramatic play, Thesion and the Minatar
Ferrus was already watching me when I rose again from death. I think he was smirking, though he always smirked now with that permanent rictus grin of his.
I clenched my fists and fought down the urge to strike the apparition.
‘Amuses you, does it, brother?’ I spat. ‘To see me like this? Am I weak then? Not as weak as you. Idiot! Fulgrim played you like a twisted harp.’
I paused, and heard my own heavy breathing, the anger growing within. The abyss, red and black, throbbing with hate, pulsed at the edge of my sight.
‘No answer?’ I challenged. ‘Hard to chide without a tongue, brother!’
I stood up, unshackled for once, and advanced on the wordless spectre. If I could have, I believe that I would have wrapped my hands around his throat and choked him as I had almost done to Corax in my mind.
I sagged, gasping, fighting down the thunderous beating of my heart. Feverish sweat lathered my skin, which glistened in the flickering torchlight. Another dank chamber, another black-walled cell. Curze had many of them aboard his ship, it seemed.
‘Throne of Terra…’ I gasped, collapsing to one knee, my head bowed so I could breathe. ‘Father…’
I remembered the words, such a distant memory now. Hehad spoken them to me on Ibsen. After my Legion and I had destroyed the world, turned it into a place of death, I renamed it Caldera. It was to be another adopted world, like Nocturne, and with it the Salamanders would be reforged. That dream ended with the end of the Great Crusade and the beginning of the war.
It pains me, but I will have to leave you all when you need me the most. I’ll try to watch over you when I can.
‘I need you now, father,’ I said to the dark. ‘More than ever.’
Ferrus clicking his skeletal jaw made me look up. His hollow gaze met my own and he nodded to the shadows ahead of us where a vast, ornate gateway had begun to appear.
It was taller than the bastion leg of an Imperator Titan and twice as wide. I could not fathom why I hadn’t noticed it before.
‘Another illusion?’ I asked, calling out to the shadows I knew were listening.
The immense gate appeared to be fashioned of bronze, though I could tell by looking at it that the metal was an alloy. I saw the vague blueish tint of osmium, traces of silvery-white palladium and iridium. It was dense, and incredibly strong. The bronze was merely an aesthetic veneer, designed to make it look archaic. A blend of intricate intaglio and detailed embossing wrought upon the gate described a raft of imagery. It was a battle scene, which appeared to represent a conflict of some elder age. Warriors wielded swords and were clad in hauberks of chain, and leather jerkins. Catapults and ballistae flung crude missiles into the air. Fires raged.