"False Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (McNeill Graham)

FOUR Secrets and hidden things Chaos Spreading the word Audience

Abbadon froze at Karkasy's words.

Loken recognised the signs and quickly moved to stand between the first captain and the remembrancer.

'Ignace, get out of here,' he shouted, as Abaddon turned and lunged for Karkasy.

Abaddon roared in anger and Loken grabbed his arms, holding him at bay as Karkasy squealed in terror and bolted from the yurt. Abaddon pushed Loken back, the first captain's massive strength easily greater than his, Loken tumbled away, but he had achieved his objective in redirecting Abaddon's wrath.

'You would raise arms against a brother, Loken?' bellowed Abaddon.

'I just saved you from making a big mistake, Ezekyle,' replied Loken as he climbed to his feet. He could see that Abaddon's blood was up and knew that he must tread warily. Aximand had told him of Abaddon's berserk rages during the desperate extraction of the commander from the Extranus, and his temper was becoming more and more unpredictable.

'A mistake? What are you talking about?'

'Killing Ignace,' said Loken. 'Think what would have happened if you'd killed him. The Warmaster would have had your head for that. Imagine the repercussions if an Astartes murdered a remembrancer in cold blood.'

Abaddon furiously paced the interior of the yurt like a caged animal, but Loken could see that his words had penetrated the red mist of his friend's anger.

'Damn it, Loken… Damn it,' hissed Abaddon.

'What was Ignace talking about, Ezekyle? Was it a lodge medal that passed between you and Erebus?'

Abaddon looked directly at Loken and said, 'I can't say.'

'Then it was.'

'I. Can't. Say.'

'Damn you, Ezekyle. Secrets and hidden things, my brother, I can't abide them. This is exactly why I can't return to the warrior lodge. Aximand and Torgaddon have both asked me to, but I won't, not now. Tell me: is Erebus part of the lodge now? Was he always part of it or did you bring him in on the journey here?'

'You heard Serghar's words at the meeting. You know I can't speak of what happens within the circles of the lodge.'

Loken stepped in close to Abaddon, chest plate to chest plate, and said, 'You'll tell me now, Ezekyle. I smell something rank here and I swear if you lie to me I'll know.'

'You think to bully me, little one?' laughed Abaddon, but Loken saw the lie in his bluster.

'Yes, Ezekyle, I do. Now tell me.'

Abaddon's eyes flickered to the entrance of the yurt.

'Very well,' he said. 'I'll tell you, but what I say goes no further.'

Loken nodded and Abaddon said, 'We did not bring Erebus into the lodge.'

'No?' asked Loken, his disbelief plain.

'No,' repeated Abaddon. 'It was Erebus who brought us in.'

Erebus, brother Astartes, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers…

Trusted counsellor of the Warmaster…

Liar.

No matter how much he tried to blot the word out with his battle meditation it kept coming back to haunt him. In response, Euphrati Keeler's words, from the last time they had spoken, swirled around his head, over and over.

She had stared him down and asked, 'If you saw the rot, a hint of corruption, would you step out of your regimented life and stand against it?'

Keeler had been suggesting the impossible, and he had denied that anything like what she was suggesting could ever take place. Yet here he was entertaining the possibility that a brother Astartes - someone the Warmaster valued and trusted - was lying to them for reasons unknown.

Loken had tried to find Kyril Sindermann to broach the subject with him, but the iterator was nowhere to be found and so Loken had returned to the training halls despondent. The smiling killer, Luc Sedirae, was cleaning the dismantled parts of his bolter; the ''twins'', Moy and Marr, were conducting a sword drill and Loken's oldest friend, Nero Vipus, sat on the benches polishing his breastplate, working out the scars earned on Murder.

Sedirae and Vipus nodded in acknowledgement as he entered.

'Garvi,' said Vipus. 'Something on your mind?'

'No, why?'

'You look a little strung out, that's all.'

'I'm fine,' snapped Loken.

'Fine, fine,' muttered Vipus. 'What did I do?'

'I'm sorry, Nero,' Loken said. 'I'm just…'

'I know, Garvi. The whole company's the same. They can't wait to get in theatre and be the first to get to grips with that bastard, Temba. Luc's already bet me he'll be the one to take his head.'

Loken nodded noncommittally and said, 'Have either of you seen First Captain Abaddon?'

'No, not since we got back,' replied Sedirae without looking up from his work. 'That remembrancer, the black girl, she was looking for you though.'

'Oliton?'

'Aye, that's her. Said she'd come back in an hour or so.'

'Thank you, Luc,' said Loken, turning back to Vipus, 'and again, I'm sorry I snapped at you, Nero.'

'Don't worry,' laughed Vipus. 'I'm a big boy now and my skin's thick enough to withstand your bad moods.'

Loken smiled at his friend and opened his arming cage, stripping off his armour and carefully peeling away the thick, mimetic polymers of his sub-suit bodyglove until he was naked but for a pair of fatigues. He lifted his sword and stepped towards the training cage, activating the weapon as the iron-grey hemispheres lifted aside and the tubular combat servitor descended from the centre of the dome's top.

'Combat drill Epsilon nine,' he said. 'Maximum lethality.'

The combat machine hummed to life, long blade limbs unfolding from its sides in a manner that reminded him of the winged clades of Murder. Spikes and whirring edges sprouted from the contraption's body and Loken swivelled his neck and arms in readiness for the coming fight.

He needed a clear head if he was to think through all that had happened, and there was no better way to achieve purity of thought than through combat. The battle machine began a soft countdown and Loken dropped into a fighting crouch as his thoughts once again turned to the First Chaplain of the Word Bearers.

Liar…

It had been on the fifteenth day since leaving interex space, and a week before reaching Davin, that Loken finally had the chance to speak with Erebus alone. He awaited the First Chaplain of the Word Bearers in the forward observation deck of the Vengeful Spirit, watching smudges of black light and brilliant darkness slide past the great, armoured viewing bay.

'Captain Loken?'

Loken turned, seeing Erebus's open, serious face. His shaved, tattooed skull gleamed in the swirling vortices of coloured light shining through the glass of the observation bay; rendering his armour with the patina of an artist's palette.

'First chaplain,' replied Loken, bowing low.

'Please, my given name is Erebus, I would be honoured if you would call me by it. We have no need of such formality here.'

Loken nodded as Erebus joined him in front of the great, multicoloured vista laid out before them.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Erebus.

'I used to think so,' nodded Loken. 'But in truth I can't look on it now without dread.'

'Dread? Why so?' asked Erebus, placing his hand on Loken's shoulder. 'The warp is simply the medium through which our ships travel. Did not the Emperor, beloved by all, reveal the ways and means by which we might make use of it?'

'Yes, he did,' agreed Loken, glancing at the tattooed script on Erebus's skull, though the words were in a language he did not understand.

'They are the pronouncements of the Emperor as interpreted in the Book of Lorgar and rendered in the language of Colchis,' said Erebus, answering Loken's unasked question. 'They are as much a weapon as my bolter and blade.'

Seeing Loken's incomprehension, Erebus said, 'On the battlefield I must be a figure of awe and majesty, and by bearing the Word of the Emperor upon my very flesh, I cow the xeno and unbeliever before me.'

'Unbeliever?'

'A poor choice of word,' shrugged Erebus dismissively, 'perhaps misanthrope would be a better term, but I suspect that you did not ask me here to admire the view or my scripture.'

Loken smiled and said, 'No, you're right, I didn't. I asked to speak to you because I know the Word Bearers to be a Legion with many scholars among their ranks. You have sought out many worlds that were said to be seats of learning and knowledge and brought them to compliance.'

'True,' agreed Erebus slowly. 'Though we destroyed much of that knowledge as profane in the fires of war.'

'But you are wise in matters esoteric and I desired your counsel on a… a matter I thought best spoken of privately.'

'Now I am intrigued,' said Erebus. 'What is on your mind?'

Loken pointed towards the pulsing, spectral light of the warp on the other side of the observation bay's glass. Clouds of many colours and spirals of darkness spun and twisted like blooms of ink in water, constantly churning in a maelstrom of light and shadow. No coherent forms existed in the mysterious otherworld beyond the ship, which, but for the power of the Geller field, would destroy the Warmaster's vessel in the blink of an eye.

'The warp allows us to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other, but we don't really understand it at all, do we?' asked Loken. 'What do we really know about the things that lurk in its depths? What do we know of Chaos?'

'Chaos?' repeated Erebus, and Loken detected a moment of hesitation before the Word Bearer answered. 'What do you mean by that term?'

'I'm not sure,' admitted Loken. 'It was something Mithras Tull said to me back on Xenobia.'

'Mithras Tull? I don't know the name.'

'He was one of Jephta Naud's subordinate commanders,' explained Loken. 'I was speaking to him when everything went to hell.'

'What did he say, Captain Loken? Exactly.'

Loken's eyes narrowed at the first chaplain's tone and he said, 'Tull spoke of Chaos as though it were a distinct force, a primal presence in the warp. He said that it was the source of the most malevolent corruption imaginable and that it would outlive us all and dance on our ashes.'

'He used a colourful turn of phrase.'

'That he did, but I believe he was serious,' said Loken, gazing out into the depths of the warp.

'Trust me, Loken, the warp is nothing more than mindless energy churning in constant turmoil. That is all there is to it. Or is there something else that makes you believe his words?'

Loken thought of the slavering creature that had taken the flesh of Xavyer Jubal in the water fane under the mountains of Sixty-Three Nineteen. That had not been mindless warp energy given form. Loken had seen a monstrous, thirsting intelligence lurking within the horrid deformity that Jubal had become.

Erebus was staring at him expectantly and as much as the Word Bearer had been welcomed within the ranks of the Sons of Horus, Loken wasn't yet ready to share the horror beneath the Whisperheads with an outsider.

Hurriedly he said, 'I read of battles between the tribes of men on old Terra, before the coming of the Emperor, and they were said to use powers that were—'

'Was this in The Chronicles of Ursh,' asked Erebus.

'Yes. How did you know?'

'I too have read it and I know of the passages to which you refer.'

'Then you also know that there was talk of dark, primordial gods and invocations to them.'

Erebus smiled indulgently. 'Yes, and it is the work of outrageous taletellers and incorrigible demagogues to make their farragoes as exciting as possible, is it not? The Chronicles of Ursh is not the only text of that nature. Many such books were written before Unification and each writer filled page after page with the most outrageous, blood-soaked terrors in order to outdo his contemporaries, resulting in some works of… dubious value.'

'You don't think there's anything to it then?'

'Not at all,' said Erebus.

'Tull said that the Immaterium, as he called it, was the root of sorcery and magic.'

'Sorcery and magic?' laughed Erebus before locking his gaze with Loken. 'He lied to you, my friend. He was a fraterniser with xenos breeds and an abomination in the sight of the Emperor. You know the word of an enemy cannot be trusted. After all, did the interex not falsely accuse us of stealing one of the kinebrach's swords from the Hall of Devices? Even after the Warmaster himself vouchsafed that we did not?'

Loken said nothing as ingrained bonds of brotherhood warred with the evidence of his own senses.

Everything Erebus was saying reinforced his long held beliefs in the utter falsehood of sorcery, spirits and daemons.

Yet he could not ignore what his instincts screamed at him: that Erebus was lying to him and the threat of Chaos was horribly real.

Mithras Tull had become an enemy and Erebus was a brother Astartes, and Loken was astonished to find that he more readily believed the warrior of the interex.

'As you have described it to me, there is no such thing as Chaos,' promised Erebus.

Loken nodded in agreement, but despaired as he realised that no one, not even the interex, had said exactly what kind of weapon had been stolen from the Hall of Devices.

'Did you hear?' asked Ignace Karkasy, pouring yet another glass of wine. 'She's got full access… to the Warmaster! It's disgraceful. Here's us, breaking our backs to create art worthy of the name, in the hope of catching the eye of someone important enough to matter, and she bloody swans in without so much as a by your leave and gets an audience with the Warmaster!'

'I heard she has connections,' nodded Wenduin, a petite woman with red hair and an hourglass figure that ship scuttlebutt had down as a firecracker between the sheets. Karkasy had gravitated towards her as soon as he had realised she was hanging on his every bitter word. He'd forgotten exactly what it was she did, though he vaguely remembered something about ''compositions of harmonic light and shade'' - whatever that meant.

Honestly, he thought, they'll let anyone be a remembrancer these days.

The Retreat was, as usual, thick with remembrancers: poets, dramatists, artists and composers, which had made for a bohemian atmosphere, while off-duty Army officers, naval ratings and crew were there for the civilians to impress with tales of books published, opening night ovations and scurrilous backstage hedonistic excess.

Without its audience, the Retreat revealed itself as an uncomfortably vandalised, smoky bar filled with people who had nothing better to do. The gamblers had scraped the arched columns bare of gilt to make gambling chips (of which Karkasy now had quite a substantial pile back in his cabin) and the artists had whitewashed whole areas of the walls for their own daubings - most of which were either lewd or farcical.

Men and women filled all the available tables, playing hands of merci merci while some of the more enthusiastic remembrancers planned their next compositions. Karkasy and Wenduin sat in one of the padded booths along the wall and the low buzz of conversation filled the Retreat.

'Connections,' repeated Wenduin sagely.

'That's it exactly,' said Karkasy, draining his glass. 'I heard the Council of Terra - the Sigillite too.'

'Throne! How'd she get them?' asked Wenduin. 'The connections I mean?'

Karkasy shook his head. 'Don't know.'

'It's not like you don't have connections either. You could find out.' Wenduin pointed out, filling his glass once more. 'I don't know what you have to be worried about anyway. You have one of the Astartes looking after you. You're a fine one to be casting aspersions!'

'Hardly,' snorted Karkasy, slapping a palm on the table. 'I have to show him everything I damn well write. It's censorship, that's what it is.'

Wenduin shrugged. 'Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but you got to go to the War Council didn't you? A little censorship's worth that, I'll bet.'

'Maybe,' said Karkasy, unwilling to be drawn on the subject of the events on Davin and his terror at the sight of an enraged First Captain Abaddon coming to tear his head off.

In any event, Captain Loken had later found him, trembling and afraid, in the commissariat tent, making inroads into a bottle of distilac. It had been a little ridiculous really. Loken had ripped a page from the Bondsman number 7 and written on it in large, blocky letters before handing it to him.

'This is an oath of moment, Ignace,' Loken had said. 'Do you know what that means?'

'I think so,' he had replied, reading the words Loken had written.

'It is an oath that applies to an individual action. It is very specific and very precise,' Loken had explained. 'It is common for an Astartes to swear such an oath before battle when he vows to achieve a certain objective or uphold a certain ideal. In your case, Ignace, it will be to keep what passed here tonight between us.'

'I will, sir.'

'You must swear, Ignace. Place your hand on the book and the oath and swear the words.'

He had done so, placing a shaking hand atop the page, feeling the heavy texture of the page beneath his sweating palm.

'I swear not to tell another living soul what passed between us,' he said.

Loken had nodded solemnly and said, 'Do not take this lightly, Ignace. You have just made an oath with the Astartes and you must never break it. To do so would be a mistake.'

He'd nodded and made his way to the first transport off Davin.

Karkasy shook his head clear of the memory, any warmth or comfort the wine had given him suddenly, achingly absent.

'Hey,' said Wenduin. 'Are you listening to me? You looked a million miles away there.'

'Yes, sorry. What were you saying?'

'I was asking if there was any chance you could put in a good word for me to Captain Loken? Maybe you could tell him about my compositions? You know, how good they are.'

Compositions?

What did that mean? He looked into her eyes and saw a dreadful avarice lurking behind her facade of interest, now seeing her for the self-interested social climber she was. Suddenly all he wanted to do was get away.

'Well? Could you?'

He was saved from thinking of an answer by the arrival of a robed figure at the booth.

Karkasy looked up and said, 'Yes? Can I help—' but his words trailed off as he eventually recognised Euphrati Keeler. The change in her since the last time he had seen her was remarkable. Instead of her usual ensemble of boots and fatigues, she wore the beige robe of a female remembrancer, and her long hair had been cut into a modest fringe.

Though more obviously feminine, Karkasy was disappointed to find that the change was not to his liking, preferring her aggressive stylings to the strange sexless quality this attire granted her.

'Euphrati? Is that you? '

She simply nodded and said, 'I'm looking for Captain Loken. Have you seen him today?'

'Loken? No, well, yes, but not since Davin. Won't you join us?' he said, ignoring the viperous glare Wenduin cast in his direction.

His hopes of rescue were dashed when Euphrati shook her head and said, 'No, thank you. This place isn't really for me.'

'Nor me, but here I am,' smiled Karkasy. 'You sure I can't tempt you to some wine or a round of cards?'

'I'm sure, but thanks anyway. See you around, Ignace, and have a good night,' said Keeler with a knowing smile. Karkasy gave her a lopsided grin and watched her as she made her way from booth to booth before leaving the Retreat.

'Who was that?' asked Wenduin, and Karkasy was amused at the professional jealousy he heard in her voice.

'That was a very good friend of mine,' said Karkasy, enjoying the sound of the words.

Wenduin nodded curtly.

'Listen, do you want to go to bed with me or not?' she asked, all pretence of actual interest in him discarded in favour of blatant ambition.

Karkasy laughed. 'I'm a man. Of course I do.'

'And you'll tell Captain Loken of me?'

If you're as good as they say you are, you can bet on it, he thought.

'Yes, my dear, of course I will,' said Karkasy, noticing a folded piece of paper on the edge of the booth. Had it been there before? He couldn't remember. As Wenduin eased herself from the booth, he picked up the paper and unfolded it. At the top was some kind of symbol, a long capital ''I'' with a haloed star at its centre. He had no idea what it meant and began to skim the words, thinking it might be some remembrancer's discarded scribblings.

Such thoughts faded, however, as he read the words written on the paper.

'The Emperor of Mankind is the Light and the Way, and all his actions are for the benefit of mankind, which is his people. The Emperor is God and God is the Emperor, so it is taught in this, the…'

'What's that?' asked Wenduin.

Karkasy ignored her, pushing the paper into his pocket and leaving the booth. He looked around the retreat and saw several identical pamphlets on various tables around the room. Now he was convinced that the paper hadn't been on his table before Euphrati's visit and he began making his way around the bar, gathering up as many of the dog-eared papers as he could find.

'What are you doing?' demanded Wenduin, watching him with her arms folded impatiently across her chest.

'Piss off!' snarled Karkasy, heading for the exit. 'Find some other gullible fool to seduce. I don't have time.'

If he hadn't been so preoccupied, he might have enjoyed her look of surprise.

Some minutes later, Karkasy stood before Euphrati Keeler's billet, deep in the labyrinth of arched compan-ionways and dripping passages that made up the residential deck. He noticed the symbol from the pamphlet etched on the bulkhead beside her billet and hammered his fist on her shutter until at last it opened. The smell of scented candles wafted into the corridor.

She smiled, and he knew she had been expecting him.

'Lectitio Divinitatus?' he said, holding up the pile of pamphlets he'd gathered from the Retreat. 'We need to talk.'

'Yes, Ignace, we do,' she said, turning and leaving him standing at the threshold.

He went inside after her.

Horus's personal chambers were surprisingly modest, thought Petronella, simple and functional with only a few items that might be considered personal. She hadn't expected lavish ostentation, but had thought to see more than could be found in any Army soldier's billet. A stack of yellowed oath papers filled a footlocker against one wall and some well thumbed books sat on the shelves beside the cot bed, its length and breadth massive to her, but probably barely sufficient for a being with the inhuman scale of a primarch.

She smiled at the idea of Horus sleeping, wondering what mighty visions of glory and majesty one of the Emperor's sons might dream. The idea of a primarch sleeping was distinctly humanising, though it had never crossed her mind that one such as Horus would even need to rest. Petronella had assumed that, as well as never aging, the primarchs did not tire either. She decided the bed was an affectation, a reminder of his humanity.

In deference to her first meeting with Horus, Petronella wore a simple dress of emerald green, its skirts hung with silver and topaz netting, and a scarlet bodice with a scandalous decolletage. She carried her dataslate and gold tipped mnemo-quill in a demure reticule of gold cord draped over her shoulder, and her fingers itched to begin their work. She had left Maggard outside the chambers, though she knew the thought of being denied the chance to stand in the presence of such a sublime warrior as Horus was galling to him. Being in such close proximity to the Astartes had been a powerful intoxicant to her bodyguard, who she could tell looked up to them as gods. She regarded his pleasure at being amongst such powerful warriors as quietly endearing, but wanted the Warmaster all to herself today.

She ran her fingertips across the wooden surface of Horus's desk, anxious to begin this first session of documenting him. The desk's proportions were as enlarged as those of his bed, and she smiled as she imagined the many great campaigns he had planned here, and the commands for war signed upon its stained and faded surface.

Had he written the order granting her previous audience here, she wondered?

She remembered well receiving that instruction to attend upon the Warmaster immediately; she remembered her terror and elation as Babeth was run ragged with half a dozen rapid changes of costume for her. In the end she had settled for something elegant yet demure - a cream dress with an ivory panelled bodice that pushed her bosom up, and a webbed necklace of red gold that reached up her neck before curling over her forehead in a dripping cascade of pearls and sapphires. Eschewing the Terran custom of powdering her face, she opted instead for a subtle blend of powdered antimony sulphide to darken the rims of her eyes and a polychromatic lip-gloss.

Horus had obviously appreciated her sartorial restraint, smiling broadly as she was ushered into his presence. Her breath, had it not already been largely stolen by the constriction of her bodice, would have been snatched away by the glory of the Warmaster's physical perfection and palpable charisma. His hair was short, and his face open and handsome, with dazzling eyes that fixed her with a stare that told her she was the most important thing to him right now. She felt giddy, like a debutante at her first ball.

He wore gleaming battle armour the colour of a winter sky, its rims formed of beaten gold, and bas-relief text filling each shoulder guard. Bright against his chest plate was a staring red eye, like a drop of blood on virgin snow, and she felt transfixed by its unflinching gaze.

Maggard stood behind her, resplendent in brightly polished gold plate and silver mail. Of course, he carried no weapons, his swords and pistols already surrendered to Horus's bodyguards.

'My lord,' she began, bowing her head and making an elaborate curtsey, her hand held palm down before him in expectation of a kiss.

'So you are of House Carpinus?' asked Horus.

She recovered quickly, disregarding the Warmaster's breach of etiquette in ignoring her hand and asking her a question before formal introductions had been made. 'I am indeed, my lord.'

'Don't call me that,' said the Warmaster.

'Oh… of course… how should I address you?'

'Horus would be a good start,' he said, and she looked up to see him smiling broadly. The warriors behind him tried unsuccessfully to hide their amusement, and Petronella realised that Horus was toying with her. She forced herself to return his smile, masking her annoyance at his informality, and said, 'Thank you. I shall.'

'So you want to be my documentarist do you?' asked Horus.

'If you will permit me to fulfil such a role, yes.'

'Why?'

Of all the questions she'd anticipated, this simple query was one she hadn't been expecting to be thrown so baldly at her.

'I feel this is my vocation, my lord,' she began. 'It is my destiny as a scion of House Carpinus to record great things and mighty deeds, and to encapsulate the glory of this war - the heroism, the danger, the violence and the full fury of battle. I desire to—'

'Have you ever seen a battle, girl?' asked Horus suddenly.

'Well, no. Not as such,' she said, her cheeks flushing angrily at the term "girl".

'I thought not,' said Horus. 'It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the dying who cry aloud for blood, vengeance and desolation. Is that what you want? Is that your "vocation"?'

'If that is what war is, then yes,' she said, unwilling to be cowed before his boorish behaviour. 'I want to see it all. See it all and record the glory of Horus for future generations.'

'The glory of Horus,' repeated the Warmaster, obviously relishing the phrase.

He held her pinned by his gaze and said, 'There are many remembrancers in my fleet, Miss Vivar. Tell me why I should give you this honour.'

Flustered by his directness once more, she searched for words, and the Warmaster chuckled at her awkwardness. Her irritation rose to the surface again and, before she could stop herself she said, 'Because no one else in the ragtag band of remembrancers you've managed to accumulate will do as good a job as I will. I will immortalise you, but if you think you can bully me with your bad manners and high and mighty attitude then you can go to hell… sir.'

A thunderous silence descended.

Then Horus laughed, the sound hard, and she knew that, in one flash of anger, she had destroyed her chances of being able to accomplish the task she had appointed herself.

'I like you, Petronella Vivar of House Carpinus,' he said. 'You'll do.'

Her mouth fell open and her heart fluttered in her breast.

'Truly?' she asked, afraid that the Warmaster was playing with her again.

'Truly,' agreed Horus.

'But I thought…'

'Listen, lass, I usually make up my mind about a person within ten seconds and I very rarely change it. The minute you walked in, I saw the fighter in you. There is something of the wolf in you, girl, and I like that. Just one thing…'

'Yes?'

'Not so formal next time,' he smirked. 'We are a ship of war, not the parlours of Merica. Now I fear I must excuse myself, as I have to head planetside to Davin for a council of war.'

And with that, she had been appointed.

It still amazed her that it had been so easy, though it meant most of the formal gowns she had brought now seemed wholly inappropriate, forcing her to dress in unbearably prosaic dresses more at home in the alms houses of the Gyptus spires. The dames of society wouldn't recognise her now.

She smiled at the memory as her trailing fingers reached the end of the desk and rested on an ancient tome with a cracked leather binding and faded gilt lettering. She opened the book and idly flipped a couple of pages, stopping at one showing a complex astrological diagram of the orbits of planets and conjunctions, below which was the image of some mythical beast, part man, part horse.

'My father gave me that,' said a powerful voice behind her.

She turned, guiltily snatching her hand back from the book.

Horus stood behind her, his massive form clad in battle plate. As ever, he was almost overwhelmingly intimidating, physical and masculine, and the thought of sharing a room with such a powerful specimen of manhood in the absence of a chaperone gave her guilt a delicious edge.

'Sorry,' she said. 'That was impolite of me.'

Horus waved his hand. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'If there was anything I didn't want you to see I wouldn't have left it out.'

Despite his easy reassurance, he gathered up the book and slipped it onto the shelves above his bed. She immediately sensed great tension in him, and though he appeared outwardly clam, her heart raced as she felt his furious anger. It bubbled beneath his skin like the fires of a once dormant volcano on the verge of unleashing its terrible fury.

Before she could say anything in reply, he said, 'I'm afraid I can't sit and speak to you today, Miss Vivar. Matters have arisen on Davin's moon that require my immediate attention.'

She tried to cover her disappointment, saying, 'No matter, we can reschedule a meeting for when you have more time.'

He laughed, the sound harsh and, she thought, a little too sad to be convincing.

'That may not be for a while,' he warned.

'I'm not someone who gives up easily,' she promised. 'I can wait.'

Horus considered her words for a moment, and then shook his head.

'No, that won't be necessary,' he said with a smile. 'You said you wanted to see war?'

She nodded enthusiastically and he said, 'Then accompany me to the embarkation deck and I'll show you how the Astartes prepare for war.'