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

FIVE Our people A leader Speartip

The bridge of the Vengeful Spirit bustled with activity, the business of ferrying troops and war machines back from the surface of Davin complete, and plans now drawn for the extermination of Eugan Temba's rebellious forces.

Extermination. That was the word they used, not subjugation, not pacification: extermination.

And the Legion was more than ready to carry out that sentence.

Sleek and deadly warships broke anchor with Davin under the watchful gaze of the Master of the Fleet, Boas Comnenus. Moving such a fleet even a short distance in formation was no small undertaking, but the ship's masters appointed beneath him knew their trade and the withdrawal from Davin was accomplished with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel.

Not all the Expedition fleet vacated Davin's orbit, but enough followed the course of the Vengeful Spirit to ensure that nothing would be able to stand before the Astartes speartip.

The journey was a mercifully short one, Davin's moon a dirty, yellow brown smudge of reflected light haloed against the distant red sun.

To Boas Comnenus their destination looked like a terrible, bloated pustule against the heavens.

Feverish activity filled the embarkation deck as fitters, deck hands and Mechanicum adepts made last minute pre-flight checks to the growling Stormbirds. Engines flared and strobing arc lights bathed the enormous, echoing deck in a pale, washed out industrial glow. Hatches were slammed shut, arming pins were removed from warheads, and fuel lines were disconnected from rumbling engines. Six of the monstrous flyers sat hunched at the end of their launch rails, cranes delivering the last of their ordnance payloads, while gunnery servitors calibrated the cannons slung beneath the cockpit.

The captains and warriors selected to accompany the Warmaster's speartip followed ground crews around the Stormbirds, checking and rechecking their machines. Their lives would soon depend on these aircraft and no one wanted to wind up dead thanks to something as trivial as mechanical failure. Along with the Mournival, Luc Sedirae, Nero Vipus and Verulam Moy - together with specialised squads from their companies - would travel to Davin's moon to fight once more in the name of the Imperium.

Loken was ready. His mind was full of new and disturbing thoughts, but he pushed them to one side in preparation for the coming fight. Doubt and uncertainty clouded the mind and an Astartes could afford neither.

'Throne, I'm ready for this,' said Torgaddon, clearly relishing the prospect of battle.

Loken nodded. Something still felt terribly wrong to him, but he too longed for the purity of real combat, the chance to test his warrior skills against a living opponent. Though if their intelligence was correct, all they would be facing was perhaps ten thousand rebellious Army soldiers, no match for even a quarter this many Astartes.

The Warmaster, however, had demanded the utter destruction of Temba's forces, and five companies of Astartes, a detachment of Varvarus's Byzant Janizars and a battle group of Titans from the Legio Mortis were to unleash his fiery wrath. Princeps Esau Turnet had pledged the Dies Irae itself.

'I've not seen a gathering of might like this since before Ullanor,' said Torgaddon. 'Those rebels on the moon are already as good as dead.'

Rebels…

Whoever thought to hear such a word?

Enemies yes, but rebels… never.

The thought soured his anticipation of battle as they made their way to where Aximand and Abaddon checked the arms inventory of their Stormbird, arguing over which munitions would be best suited to the mission.

'I'm telling you, the subsonic shells will be better,' said Aximand.

'And what if they have armour like those interex bastards?' demanded Abaddon.

'Then we use mass reactive. Tell him, Loken!'

Abaddon turned at Loken and Torgaddon's approach and nodded curtly.

'Aximand's right,' Loken said. 'Supersonic shells will pass through a man before they have time to flatten and create a killing exit wound. You might fire three of these through a target and still not put him down.'

'Just because the last few fights have been against armoured warriors, Ezekyle wants them,' said Aximand, 'but I keep telling him that this battle will be fought against men no more armoured than our own Army soldiers.'

'And let's face it,' sniggered Torgaddon. 'Ezekyle needs all the help he can get putting an enemy down.'

'I'll bloody well put you down, Tarik,' said Abaddon, his grim exterior finally cracking into a smile. The first captain's hair was pulled back in a long scalp lock in preparation for donning his helmet, and Loken could see that he too was fiercely anticipating the coming bloodshed.

'Doesn't this bother any of you?' asked Loken, unable to contain himself any longer.

'What?' asked Aximand.

'This,' said Loken, waving an arm around the deck at the preparations for war that were being made all around them. 'Don't you realise what we're about to do?'

'Of course we do, Garvi,' bellowed Abaddon. 'We're going to kill some damned fool that insulted the Warmaster!'

'No,' said Loken. 'It's more than that, don't you see? These people we're going to kill, they're not some xeno empire or a lost strand of humanity that doesn't want to be brought to compliance. They're ours, it's our people we'll be killing.'

'They're traitors,' said Abaddon, needlessly emphasising the last word. 'That's all there is to it. Don't you see? They have turned their back on the Warmaster and the Emperor, and for that reason, their lives are forfeit.'

'Come on, Garvi,' said Torgaddon. 'You're worrying about nothing.'

'Am I? What do we do if it happens again?'

The other members of the Mournival looked at one another in puzzlement.

'If what happens again?' asked Aximand finally.

'What if anomer world rebels in our wake, then another and another after that? This is Army, but what happens if Astartes rebel? Would we still take the fight to them?'

The three of them laughed at that, but Torgaddon answered. 'You have a fine sense of humour, my brother. You know that could never happen. It's unthinkable.'

'And unseemly,' said Aximand, his face solemn. 'What you suggest might be considered treason.'

'What?'

'I could report you to the Warmaster for this sedition.'

'Aximand, you know I would never…'

Torgaddon was the first to crack. 'Oh, Garvi, you're too easy!' he said, and they all laughed. 'Even Aximand can get you now. Throne, you're so straight up and down.'

Loken forced a smile and said. 'You're right. I'm sorry.'

'Don't be sorry,' said Abaddon. 'Be ready to kill.'

The first captain held his hand out into the middle of the group and said, 'Kill for the living.'

'Kill for the dead,' said Aximand, placing his hand on top of Abaddon's.

'To hell with the living and the dead,' said Torgaddon, following suit. 'Kill for the Warmaster.'

Loken felt a great love for his brothers and nodded, placing his hand into the circle, the confraternity of the Mournival filling him with pride and reassurance.

'I will kill for the Warmaster,' he promised.

The scale of it took her breath away. Her own vessel boasted three embarkation decks, but they were poor things compared to this, capable of handling only skiffs, cutters and shuttles.

To see so much martial power on display was humbling.

Hundreds of Astartes surrounded them, standing before their allocated Stormbirds - monstrous, fat-bodied flyers with racks of missiles slung under each wing and wide, rotary cannons seated in forward pintle mounts. Engines screamed as last minute adjustments were carried out, and each group of Astartes warriors, massive and powerful, began final weapons checks.

'I never dreamed it could be like this,' said Petronella, watching as the gargantuan blast door at the far end of the launch rails deafeningly rumbled open in preparation for the launch. Through the shimmering integrity field, she could see the leprous glow of Davin's moon against a froth of stars, as blackened jet blast deflectors rose up from the floor on hissing pneumatic pistons.

'This?' said Horus. 'This is nothing. At Ullanor, six hundred vessels anchored above the planet of the green skin. My entire Legion went to war that day, girl. We covered the land with our soldiers: over two million Army soldiers, a hundred Titans of the Mechanicum and all the slaves we freed from the green skin labour camps.'

'And all led by the Emperor,' said Petronella.

'Yes,' said Horus. 'All led by the Emperor…'

'Did any other Legions fight on Ullanor?'

'Guilliman and the Khan, their Legions helped clear the outer systems with diversionary attacks, but my warriors won the day, the best of the best slogging through blood and dirt. It was I who led the Justaerin speartip to final victory.'

'It must have been incredible.'

'It was,' agreed Horus. 'Only Abaddon and I walked away from the fight against the green skin warlord. He was a tough bastard, but I illuminated him and then threw his body from the highest tower.'

'This was before the Emperor granted you the title of Warmaster?' asked Petronella, her mnemo-quill frantically trying to keep up with Horus's rapid delivery.

'Yes.'

'And you led this… what did you call it? Speartip?'

'Yes, a speartip. A precision strike to tear out the enemy's throat and leave him leaderless and blind.'

'And you'll lead it again here?'

'I will.'

'Is that not a little unusual?'

'What?'

'Someone of such high rank taking to the field of battle?'

'I have had this same argum… discussion with the Moumival,' said Horus, ignoring her look of confusion at the term. 'I am the Warmaster and I did not attain such a title by keeping myself away from battle. For men to follow me and obey my orders without question as the Astartes do, they must see that I am right there with them, sharing the danger. How can any warrior trust me to send him into battle if he feels that all I do is sign orders, without appreciating the dangers he must face?'

'Surely there comes a time when considerations of rank must necessarily remove you from the battlefield? If you were to fall -'

'I will not.'

'But if you did.'

'I will not,' repeated Horus, and she could feel the force of his conviction in every syllable. His eyes, always so bright and full of power met hers and she felt the light of her belief in him swell until it illuminated her entire body.

'I believe you,' she said.

'Tell me, would you like to meet the Mournival?'

'The what?'

Horus smiled. 'I'll show you.'

'Another damned remembrancer,' sneered Abaddon, shaking his head as he saw Horus and a woman in a green and red dress enter the embarkation deck. 'It's bad enough you've got a gaggle of them hanging round you, Loken, but the Warmaster? It's disgraceful.'

'Why don't you tell him that yourself?' asked Loken.

'I will, don't worry,' said Abaddon.

Aximand and Torgaddon said nothing, knowing when to leave the first captain to his choler and when to back off. Loken, however, was still relatively new to regular contact with Abaddon, and his anger with him over his defence of Erebus was still raw.

'You don't feel the remembrancer program has any merit at all?'

'Pah, it's a waste of our time to babysit them. Didn't Leman Russ say something about giving them all a gun? That sounds a damn sight more sensible to me than having them write stupid poems or paint pictures.'

'It's not about poems and pictures, Ezekyle, it's about capturing the spirit of the age. It's about history that we are writing.'

'We're not here to write history,' answered Abaddon, 'We're here to make it.'

'Exactly. And they will tell it.'

'Well what use is that to us?'

'Perhaps it's not for us,' said Loken. 'Did you ever think of that?'

'Then who's it for?' demanded Abaddon.

'It's for the generations who come after us,' said Loken. 'For the Imperium yet to be. You can't imagine the wealth of information the remembrancers are gathering: libraries worth of achievements chronicled, galleries worth of artistry and countless cities raised for the glory of the Imperium. Thousands of years from now, people will look back at these times and they will know us and understand the nobility of what we set out to do. Ours will be an age of enlightenment that men will weep to know they were not a part of it. All that we have achieved will be celebrated and people will remember the Sons of Horus as the founders of a new age of illumination and progress. Think of that, Ezekyle, the next time you dismiss the remembrancers so quickly.'

He locked eyes with Abaddon, daring him to contradict him.

The first captain met his gaze then laughed. 'Maybe I should get one too. Wouldn't want anyone to forget my name in the future, eh?'

Torgaddon clapped both of them on the shoulders and said, 'No, who'd want to know about you, Ezekyle? It's me they'll remember, the hero of Spiderland who saved the Emperor's Children from certain death at the hands of the megarachnids. That's a tale worth telling twice, eh, Garvi?'

Loken smiled, glad of Tarik's intervention. 'It's a grand tale right enough, Tarik.'

'I wish it was only twice we had to hear it,' put in Aximand. 'I've lost count of how many times I've heard you tell that tale. It's getting to be as bad as that joke you tell about the bear.'

'Don't,' warned Loken, seeing Torgaddon about to launch into a rendition of the joke.

'There was this bear, the biggest bear you can imagine,' started Torgaddon. 'And a hunter…'

The others didn't give him a chance to continue, bundling him with shouts and whoops of laughter.

'This is the Mournival,' said a powerful voice and their play fighting ceased immediately.

Loken released Torgaddon from a headlock and straightened before the sound of the Warmaster's voice. The remainder of the Mournival did likewise, guiltily standing to attention before the commander. The dark complexioned woman with the black hair and fanciful dress stood at his side, and though she was tall for a mortal, she still only just reached the lower edges of his chest plate. She stared at them in confusion, no doubt wondering what she had just seen.

'Are your companies ready for battle?' demanded Horus. 'Yes, sir,' they chorused.

Horus turned to the woman and said, 'This is Petronella Vivar of House Carpinus. She is to be my documentarist and I, unwisely it seems now, decided it was time for her to meet the Mournival.'

The woman took a step towards them and gave an elaborate and uncomfortable looking curtsey, Horus waiting a little behind her. Loken caught the amused glint concealed behind his brusqueness and said, 'Well are you going to introduce us, sir? She can't very well chronicle you without us, can she?'

'No, Garviel,' smiled Horus. 'I wouldn't want the chronicles of Horus to exclude you, would I? Very well, this insolent young pup is Garviel Loken, recently elevated to the lofty position of the Mournival. Next to him is Tarik Torgaddon, a man who tries to turn everything into a joke, but mostly fails. Aximand is next. "Little Horus" we call him, since he is lucky enough to share some of my most handsome features. And finally, we come to Ezekyle Abaddon, Captain of my First Company.'

'The same Abaddon from the tower at Ullanor?' asked Petronella, and Abaddon beamed at her recognition.

'Yes, the very same,' answered Horus, 'though you wouldn't think it to look at him now.'

'And this is the Mournival?'

'They are, and for all their damned horseplay, they are invaluable to me. They are a voice of reason in my ear when all around me is confusion. They are as dear to me as my brother primarchs and I value their counsel above all others. In them are the humours of choler, phlegm, melancholia and sanguinity mixed in exactly the right amount I need to keep me on the side of the angels.'

'So they are advisors?'

'Such a term is too bland for the place they have in my heart. Learn this, Petronella Vivar, and your time with me will not have been in vain: without the Mournival, the office of Warmaster would be a poor thing indeed.'

Horus stepped forward and pulled something from his belt, something with a long strip of parchment drooping from it.

'My sons,' said Horus, dropping to one knee and holding the waxen token towards the Mournival. 'Would you hear my oath of moment?'

Stunned by the magnanimity of such an act, none of the Mournival dared move. The other Astartes on the embarkation deck saw what was happening and a hush spread throughout the chamber. Even the background noise of the deck seemed to diminish at the incredible sight of the Warmaster kneeling before his chosen sons.

Eventually, Loken reached out a trembling gauntlet and took the seal from the Warmaster's hand. He glanced over at Torgaddon and Aximand either side of him, quite dumbfounded by the Warmaster's humility.

Aximand nodded and said, 'We will hear your oath, Warmaster.'

'And we will witness it,' added Abaddon, unsheathing his sword and holding it out before the Warmaster.

Loken raised the oath paper and read the words the commander had written.

'Do you, Horus, accept your role in this? Will you take your vengeance to those who defy you and turn from the glory of all you have helped create? Do you swear that you shall leave none alive who stand against the future of humanity and do you pledge to do honour to the XVI Legion?'

Horus looked up into Loken's eyes and removed his gauntlet, clenching his bare fist around the blade Abaddon held out.

'On this matter and by this weapon, I swear,' said Horus, dragging his hand along the sword blade and opening the flesh of his palm. Loken nodded and handed the wax seal to the Warmaster as he rose to his feet.

Blood welled briefly from the cut and Horus dipped the oath paper in the clotting red fluid before affixing the oath paper to his breastplate and grinning broadly at them all.

'Thank you, my sons,' he said, coming forward to embrace them all one by one.

Loken felt his admiration for the Warmaster fill his heart, all the hurt at their exclusion from his deliberations on the way here forgotten as he held each of them close.

How could they ever have doubted him?

'Now, we have a war to wage, my sons,' shouted Horus. 'What say you?'

'Lupercal!' yelled Loken, punching the air.

The others joined in and the chant spread until the embarkation deck reverberated with the deafening roars of the Sons of Horus.

'Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal!'

The Stormbirds launched in sequence, the Warmaster's bird streaking from its launch rails like a predator unleashed. At intervals of seven seconds, each Stormbird fired until all six were launched. The pilots kept them close to the Vengeful Spirit, waiting for the remaining assault craft to launch from the other embarkation decks. So far, there had been no sign of the Glory of Terra, Eugan Temba's flagship, or any of the other vessels left behind, but no one was taking any chances that their might be wolf pack squadrons of cruisers or fighters lurking nearby. Presently, another twelve Stormbirds of the Sons of Horus took up position with the Warmaster's squadron as well as two belonging to the Word Bearers. The formation complete, the Astartes craft banked sharply, altering course to take them to the surface of Davin's moon. The mighty, cliff-like flanks of the Warmaster's flagship receded and, like swarms of bright insects, hundreds of Army drop ships detached from their bulk transporters - each one carrying a hundred armed men.

But greatest of all were the lander vessels of the Mechanicum.

Vast, monolithic structures as big as city blocks, they resembled snub-nosed tubes fitted with a wealth of heat resistant technologies and recessed deceleration burners. Inertial dampening fields held their cargoes secure and explosive bolts on internal anti-motion scaffolding were primed to release on impart.

In the wake of the militant arm of the launch came the logistics of an invasion, ammunition carriers, food and water tankers, fuel haulers and a myriad other support vessels essential for the maintenance of offensive operations.

Such was the proliferation of craft heading for the surface that no one could keep track of them all, not even the bridge crew under Boas Comnenus, and thus the gold-skinned landing skiff that launched from the civilian bay of the Vengeful Spirit went unnoticed.

The invasion fleet mustered in low orbit, orbital winds clutching at streamers of atmospheric gases and spinning them in lazy coils beneath the vessels.

As always, it was the Astartes who led the invasion.

The way in was rough. Atmospheric disturbances and storms wracked the skies and the Astartes Stormbirds were tossed like leaves in a hurricane. Loken felt the craft vibrate wildly around him, grateful for the restraint harness that held him fast to his cage seat. His bolter was stowed above him and there was nothing to do but wait until the Stormbird touched down and the attack began.

He slowed his breathing and cleared his mind of all distractions, feeling a hot energy suffuse his limbs as his armour prepared his metabolism for imminent battle.

The warriors of Nero Vipus's Locasta squad and Brakespur squad surrounded him, immobile, yet representing the peak of humanity's martial prowess. He loved them all dearly and knew that they wouldn't let him down. Their conduct on Murder and Xenobia had been exemplary and many of the newly elevated novitiates had been blooded on those desperate battlefields.

His company was battle tested and sure.

'Garviel,' said Vipus over the inter-armour link. 'There's something you should hear.'

'What is it?' asked Loken, detecting a tone of warning in his friend's voice.

'Switch to channel 7,' said Vipus. 'I've isolated it from the men, but I think you ought to hear this.'

Loken switched internal channels, hearing nothing but a wash of grainy static, warbling and constant. Pops and crackles punctuated the hiss, but he could hear nothing else.

'I don't hear anything.'

'Wait. You will,' promised Vipus.

Loken concentrated, listening for whatever Nero was hearing.

And then he heard it.

Faint, as though coming from somewhere impossibly far away was a voice, a gargling, wet voice.

'…the ways of man. Folly… seek… doom of all things. In death and rebirth shall mankind live forever…'

Though he was not built to feel fear, Loken was suddenly and horribly reminded of the approach to the Whisperheads when the air had been thick with the taunting hiss of the thing called Samus.

'Oh no…' whispered Loken as the watery, rasping voice came again. 'Thus do I renounce the ways of the Emperor and his lackey the Warmaster of my own free will. If he dares come here, he will die. And in death shall he live forever. Blessed be the hand of Nurghleth. Blessed be. Blessed be…'

Loken hammered his fist against the release bolt on his cage seat and rose to his feet, swaying slightly as he felt a strange nausea cramp his belly. His genhanced body allowed him to compensate for the wild motion of the Stormbird, and he made his way swiftly along the ribbed decking towards the pilots' compartment, determined that they wouldn't walk blind into the same horror as had been waiting for them on Sixty-Three Nineteen.

He pulled open the hatch where the flight officers and hardwired pilots fought to bring them in through the swirling yellow storm clouds. He could hear the same, repeating phrase coming over the internal speakers here.

'Where's it coming from?' he demanded.

The nearest flight officer turned and said, 'It's a vox, plain and simple, but…'

'But?'

'It's coming from a ship vox,' said the man, pointing at a wavering green waveform on the waterfall display before him. 'From the patterning it's one of ours. And it's a powerful one, a transmitter designed for inter-ship communication between fleets.'

'It's an actual vox transmission?' said Loken, relieved it wasn't ghost chatter like the hateful voice of Samus.

'Seems to be, but a ship's vox unit that size shouldn't be anywhere near the surface of a planet. Ships that big don't come this far down into the atmosphere. Leastways if they want to keep flying they don't.'

'Can you jam it?'

'We can try, but like I said, it's a powerful signal, it could burn through our jamming pretty quickly.'

'Can you trace where it's coming from?'

The flight officer nodded. 'Yes, what won't be a problem. A signal that powerful we could have traced from orbit.'

'Then why didn't you?'

'It wasn't there before,' protested the officer. 'It only started once we hit the ionosphere.'

Loken nodded. 'Jam it as best you can. And find the source.'

He turned back to the crew compartment, unsettled by the uncanny similarities between this development and the approach to the Whisperheads.

Too similar to be accidental, he thought.

He opened a channel to the other members of the Moumival, receiving confirmation that the signal was being heard throughout the speartip.

'It's nothing, Loken,' came the voice of the Warmaster from the Stormbird at the leading edge of the speartip. 'Propaganda.'

'With respect, sir, that's what we thought in the Whisperheads.'

'So what are you suggesting, Captain Loken? That we turn around and head back to Davin? Ignore this stain on my honour?'

'No, sir,' replied Loken. 'Just that we ought to be careful.'

'Careful?' laughed Abaddon, his hard Cthonic laughter grating even over the vox. 'We are Astartes. Others should be careful around us.'

'The first captain is right,' said Horus. 'We will lock onto this signal and destroy it.'

'Sir, that might be exactly what our enemies want us to try.'

'Then they'll soon realise their error,' snapped Horus, shutting off the connection.

Moments later, Loken heard the Warmaster's orders come through the vox and felt the deck shift under him as the Stormbirds smoothly changed course like a pack of hunting birds.

He made his way back to his cage seat and strapped himself in, suddenly sure that they were walking into a trap.

'What's going on, Garvi?' asked Vipus.

'We're going to destroy that voice,' said Loken, repeating the Warmaster's orders. 'It's nothing, just a vox transmitter. Propaganda.'

'I hope that's all it is.'

So do I, thought Loken.

The Stormbird touched down with a hard slam, lurching as its skids hit soft ground and fought for purchase. The harness restraints disengaged and the warriors of Locasta smoothly rose from their cage seats and turned to retrieve their stowed weaponry as the debarking ramp dropped from the rear of the Stormbird.

Loken led his men from their transport, hot steam and noxious fumes fogging the air as the blue glow of the Stormbird's shrieking engines filled the air with noise. He stepped from the hard metal of the ramp and splashed down onto the boggy surface of Davin's moon. His armoured weight sank up to mid calf, an abominable stench rising from the wet ground underfoot.

The Astartes of Locasta and Brakespur dispersed from the Stormbird with expected efficiency, spreading out to form a perimeter and link up with the other squads from the Sons of Horus.

The noise of the Stormbirds diminished as their engines spooled down and the blue glow faded from beneath their wings. The billowing clouds of vapour they threw up began to disperse and Loken had his first view of Davin's moon.

Desolate moors stretched out as far as the eye could see, which wasn't far thanks to the rolling banks of yellow mist clinging to the ground and moist fog that restricted visibility to less than a few hundred metres. The Sons of Horus were forming up around the magnificent figure of the Warmaster, ready to move out, and spots of light in the yellow sky announced the imminent arrival of the Army drop ships.

'Nero, get some men forward to scout the edges of the mist,' Loken ordered. 'I don't want anything coming at us without prior warning.'

Vipus nodded and set about establishing scouting parties as Loken opened a channel to Verulam Moy. The Captain of the 19th Company had volunteered some of his heavy weapon squads and Loken knew he could rely on their steady aim and cool heads. Verulam? Make sure your Devastators are ready and have good fields of fire, they won't get much of a warning through this fog.'

'Indeed, Captain Loken,' replied Moy. 'They are deploying as we speak.'

'Good work, Verulam,' he said, shutting off the vox and studying the landscape in more detail. Wretched bogs and dank fens rendered the landscape a uniform brown and sludgy green, with the occasional blackened and withered tree silhouetted against the sky. Clouds of buzzing insects hovered in thick swarms over the black waters.

Loken tasted the atmosphere via his armour's external senses, gagging on the rank smell of excrement and rotten meat. The senses in his armour's helmet quickly filtered them out, but the breath he'd taken told him that the atmosphere was polluted with the residue of decaying matter, as though the ground beneath him was slowly rotting away. He took a few ungainly steps through the swampy ground, each step sending up a bubbling ripple of burps and puffs of noxious gasses.

As the noise of the Stormbirds faded, the silence of the moon became apparent. The only sounds were the splashing of the Astartes through the swampy bogs and the insistent buzz of the insects.

Torgaddon splashed towards him, his armour stained with mud and slime from the swamps and even though his helmet obscured his features, Loken could feel his friend's annoyance at this dismal location.

'This place reeks worse than the latrines of Ullanor,' he said.

Loken had to agree with him, the few breaths he'd taken before his armour had isolated him from the atmosphere still lingered in the back of his throat.

'What happened here?' wondered Loken. 'The briefing texts didn't say anything about the moon being like this.'

'What did they say?'

'Didn't you read them?'

Torgaddon shrugged. 'I figured I'd see what kind of place it was once we landed.'

Loken shook his head, saying, 'You'll never make an Ultramarine, Tarik.'

'No danger of that,' replied Torgaddon. 'I prefer to form plans as I go and Guilliman's lot are even more starch-arsed than you. But leaving my cavalier attitude to mission briefings aside, what's this place supposed to look like then?'

'It's supposed to be climatologically similar to Davin - hot and dry. Where we are now should be covered in forests.'

'So what happened?'

'Something bad,' said Loken, staring out into the foggy depths of the moon's marshy landscape. 'Something very bad.'