Legion (12 page)

‘Anybody?’ Namatjira asked.

There were almost a hundred high officers and uxors in the chamber, the senior unit commanders of the serried forces deployed at Mon Lo, some three-quarters of a million men. The two dozen uxors represented the Geno Five-Two, and stood solemnly amongst various dress-uniformed officers of the Zanzibari Hort, the Crescent-Sind Sixth Torrent, the Regnault Thorns, the Outremars, and a clutch of support and auxiliary detachments. No one seemed especially willing to risk framing a response.

Towards the rear of the gathering, Honen Mu watched the Lord Commander carefully. She had only arrived in Mon Lo the day before, bringing with her the geno forces freed up by the conclusion of the Tel Utan offensive. She’d arrived in time to see the dispiriting disaster Mon Lo was turning into, and was therefore thankful that Namatjira could not direct his wrath at her. What was happening at Mon Lo had not occurred on her watch.

She pitied Nitin Dev. A major general in the Zanzibari Hort, and a damn fine warrior in Mu’s experience, Dev held overall field command of the Mon Lo theatre.

Namatjira looked directly at Dev. ‘Major general?’ he asked. ‘Anything to say?’

There was a pause. Lord Commander Teng Namatjira seldom toured a fighting zone in person, except to join the victory celebrations at the end of a compliance war. He preferred to orchestrate his campaigns from orbit. For him to make the drop to the surface, to risk exposure by visiting the sharp end of things, was a very big, very telling detail.

‘No, my lord,’ said Dev. ‘I haven’t.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, my lord. I cannot add anything to what you already know.’

Honen Mu narrowed her eyes in admiration. The major general had balls of steel. Many times, she’d seen officers whine and dissemble and make excuses when brought to task by their superiors. Dev was making no attempt to wriggle out of this. He was taking it face on.

Namatjira gazed at the major general. Dev stood stiff and straight-backed, his eyes as glossy and black as the tight folds of the durband that secured his spiked helm to his head. Without expression, Dev half-drew his sabre with his right hand, his left hand clutching the top of the scabbard, and waited. Dev was showing he was prepared, at a simple nod from the Lord Commander, to snap his sword blade against the braced scabbard, to symbolise his disgrace and discharge, forfeiting forever his rank and rights. It was a brave offer.

‘Perhaps later, Major General Dev,’ Namatjira said, mildly. Dev resheathed his sword. The Lord Commander stepped forwards and the gathered officers parted to let him through. He strode down the chamber through the midst of them, heading towards the windows at the far end. His Lucifers followed him. The thylacene padded with them, lean as a coursing hound, its tongue lolling from its long, rapacious jaws.

‘Eight months,’ Namatjira said as he walked, ‘eight months we’ve had to slog at this world, and still the sorcerous bastards confound us. I thought we’d finally broken the deadlock when Tel Utan fell. I thought we were about to prise victory from their dead hands at last. But now this, this
nonsense.
It’s as if we’ve taken a backwards step. No, a
dozen
backwards steps. It feels like this bloody war is only just getting started and, Terra knows, it’s cost us enough already. It’s cost us blood, it’s cost us men, it’s cost us time. They’re barbarians! This should have been over and done inside two weeks!’

He stopped in his tracks halfway down the chamber. The Lucifers halted smartly and stood with him, eyes front. The thylacene pulled up sharp on the golden lead and sat. Namatjira turned slowly, running his gaze across the gathered commanders on either side of him.

‘It has been my recent privilege,’ he said solemnly, ‘to have shared communication with the First Primarch. Do any of you know where Lord Horus is, just now?’

No one answered.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Namatjira. ‘Great Lupercal is fighting on a rock called Ullanor. He stands at the Emperor’s side, at our most glorious Emperor’s side, and together, for the benefit of our future, they are making war upon the greenskins. The bestial monsters have gathered in unprecedented numbers, and the Emperor has met their attack head on. Can you imagine that? Ullanor may prove to be the single most important combat in the history of our new Imperium. We may, in time, regard Ullanor as
the
defining victory of the Crusade, the moment mankind confirmed his mastery of the void, the moment our xenos adversaries turned tail and fled forever.’

Namatjira hesitated before continuing. He was still turning slowly, watching them all, his eyes shining with passion. ‘And in the thick of it, the First Primarch finds enough time to contact the Crusade commanders, to check on their progress and encourage their efforts. What do I tell him? What? Do I tell him,
Good luck with the greenskin horde, we’re having a terrible problem with a bunch of subhuman peasants
?’

He let the words hang. He raised his hand and gestured towards the ceiling with outstretched fingers. ‘Out there, immortal combats are being waged in the name of humanity. The stars are quaking with the Emperor’s might. Yet this is the
best
we can do?’

He started walking again, and reached the window. The chamber was high up in the palace, and afforded a good view out towards the city of Mon Lo.

The officers and uxors gathered in behind him. There was no doubt, even from that distance, that the city was screaming.

A
CCORDING TO
H
ONEN
Mu’s sources, the port city had started its eerie screaming during the early morning, three days previously. Within half an hour, the besieging forces had realised something momentous was afoot. Dark clouds, like the stain of vapour from a slumbering volcano, had spread above Mon Lo, and a wind had picked up. Oddly, despite the wind, the cloud cover in the broad sky above had slowed down, as if the planet had become retrograde on its spin. All of the astrotelepathic resources of the fleet had gone blind, or suffered sudden trauma shock. Word was, a powerful psychic force had been born in Mon Lo, the last bastion of the Nurthene.

The city had begun to emit a howling scream, a scream audible to both the regular soldiery camped outside, and the minds of the fleet’s wounded sensitives. The screaming, both acoustic and psychic, sounded like the anguish of the damned.

The uxors and their aides had suffered particular discomfort, but everyone had been affected. Vox links had been impaired, and many Army units had been rendered nervous and undisciplined. Assuming that some calamity had stricken the city, Major General Dev had ordered an immediate attack to take advantage of the situation. The attack had stalled when significant portions of the besieging force had simply refused to advance.

Other stories had surfaced: plagues of lizards and frogs had been seen around the city’s sewer outfalls, and petals of sloughed snakeskin had blown into the Imperial lines on the wind. Forward observers claimed to have seen giant things, great saurian shapes, moving around in the dust storms that had whipped up outside the city walls. Orbital scans revealed that the basin of Mon Lo harbour had turned pink overnight, perhaps due to algae infection, and that the pink stain was spreading out of the harbour area into the open sea.

Still, through it all, the plangent screaming had continued.

Q
UITTING THE MAIN
chamber, Namatjira retired to his private quarters. He left one of his Lucifer Blacks to announce a list of the persons he wished to meet with personally.

‘Attend! Major General Nitin Dev,’ the Lucifer called out in his thick, Ischian accent, ‘Colonel Sinhal Manesh, Colonel Iday Pria, Princeps Amon Jeveth, Uxor Rukhsana Saiid, Uxor Honen Mu.’

Honen Mu froze.
What?

‘D
O YOU KNOW
what this is about?’ Honen Mu asked Rukhsana as they walked briskly along the hall to the Lord Commander’s quarters. They didn’t know one another especially well, having served in different theatres during their careers. Honen was much younger and much shorter than the long-limbed Rukhsana. She was also much stronger, perceptively, and rather despised Rukhsana, though she didn’t mean to. The older uxor was in the last days of her command, and her ’cept powers were eroded. To Honen Mu, Rukhsana embodied the inevitable frailty that awaited all uxors.

‘I have no idea, Mu,’ Rukhsana replied.

‘This is a mess, though, isn’t it?’ Honen Mu replied, scampering her little feet to keep pace with Rukhsana.

‘Oh, quite a mess indeed. I understand you had some success, though. Tel Utan?’

Honen Mu shrugged. ‘I was lucky.’

‘Define luck, sister.’

Honen Mu glanced up at Rukhsana. Rukhsana’s strong features were almost entirely veiled by her long, blonde hair.

‘That is, I’m afraid, confidential,’ Honen replied.

They had left their respective bands of aides waiting in distant anterooms. At the end of the corridor, a stern Lucifer opened a door and let them into the Lord General’s suite. Namatjira sat on a low couch, with data-slates and furls of reports scattered around him. The thylacene lay at his feet, and he scrunched at its scalp and neck with his fingers, making it tilt its head back and purr. Major General Dev lurked in the background like a reprimanded schoolboy. Lucifer Blacks flanked the room.

Princeps Amon Jeveth was leaving as the uxors arrived, heading back to his Titan legio with a fierce scowl on his face. Colonels Manesh and Pria were standing to attention as they weathered Namatjira’s abuse.

‘Not good enough,’ Namatjira was saying. ‘Not good enough, sirs. Your forces baulked and refused to obey a direct order. I want to see some damn discipline!’

‘Yes, sir,’ they mumbled.

‘Proper damn discipline! You hear me?
You hear me?
I aim to bring this compliance to a swift and brutal end, and when that end comes, I want your men in at the kill, no questions. I tell you to advance, you advance! Do not fail me the way you did Dev.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Get out of my sight.’

The officers hurried away. The thylacene opened its huge jaws and yawned languidly. Namatjira studied a data-slate one of the Lucifers handed to him, and then looked up.

‘Uxors,’ he smiled. ‘Come close.’

They came forwards, side by side. ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘I want to build the full picture here. Rukhsana, I’m told you were responsible for reconnaissance and scouting at Mon Lo?’

‘That was my role, sir.’

‘You had agents in the field?’

‘I did, Lord Commander,’ Rukhsana said. ‘Most of them were long-range observers and spotters.’

Namatjira consulted the data-slate. ‘But you had at least one intelligence officer inside Mon Lo the morning this hubbub began?’ He waved his hand distractedly in the direction of the window.

Rukhsana pursed her lips and looked down. ‘Yes, sir, I did. Konig Heniker.’

‘Heniker? Yes, I know him. He’s a reliable man. What happened to him?’

‘He had entered the city covertly once already, sir, and briefed me afterwards. His intelligence was of good quality. He inserted that morning, very early, intending to collect data on the Kurnaul and north wall areas. He never came back.’

‘Ah, I see,’ the Lord Commander sighed. ‘Thank you, Uxor Rukhsana.’

Honen Mu stiffened. The ’cept link between uxors was never that strong, especially between a fading veteran and a blossoming youngster, but Honen Mu could feel it all the same, a cloying dampness in the mind. Rukhsana was lying or, if not lying, shielding some truth.

She looked at Rukhsana. The other woman did not meet her eyes. She turned to go.

‘You might as well stay, Uxor Rukhsana,’ Namatjira told her. ‘You’ll hear of this soon enough.’

He looked at Honen Mu. ‘Uxor Honen. My compliments. You, of course, know something these others do not. Tell them, because it’s about to become common knowledge.’

Honen Mu cleared her throat. ‘Tel Utan was taken thanks to the secret contrivance of the Astartes Alpha Legion,’ she said.

Major General Dev’s mouth dropped open. Rukhsana blinked.

‘That’s right, the Astartes have sent forces to assist us,’ Namatjira said. ‘Not before time. Lord Alpharius has committed units to help us break this struggle. We will meet with him tomorrow, openly.’

Namatjira rose to his feet and looked at them. ‘In his messages to me, the Lord Alpharius has confided that the First Primarch personally urged the Alpha Legion to assist with this compliance. Furthermore, he has recognised that there is something about Nurth that defies conventional attack, and claims to possess special techniques that will remediate the Nurthene’s ghastly wizardry. Those techniques seemed to work at Tel Utan, as Uxor Honen will testify. Let’s hope they work here too.’

Namatjira looked around at Major General Dev. ‘So it’s all right, Dev,’ he smirked, ‘the Astartes are coming to rescue your reputation.’

‘I’ll take care of my own reputation, thank you, sir,’ Dev replied.

‘Good man, well spoken. Mu? You’re the only one of us who has dealt with the Legion face to face. What do you make of them?’

‘I have found them to be highly effective, sir,’ Honen replied. ‘They are Astartes, after all.’

Namatjira nodded, but seemed unconvinced. ‘I cannot help wishing,’ he remarked, ‘that it was a different Legion coming to our side. One of the first, the old breed. Lord Alpharius and his warriors are comparative newcomers, with only a few decades’ experience. I know, I know, they’re Astartes, and our beloved Emperor does not found a Legion without full confidence in its abilities, but still…’

‘What is it that troubles you particularly, sir?’ Honen asked.

Namatjira frowned. ‘They’re not like the other Legions. They don’t fight like the other Legions. They practise war in the most insidious way. Guilliman has said to me, on more than one occasion, that he finds their methods underhand and discreditable. They are sly and devious, and unnecessarily opaque.’

‘Perhaps,’ Dev ventured, ‘that is why Lord Horus thought them ideally suited to this devilish war?’

Namatjira nodded. ‘Perhaps. All I know is, they were already operating here, undisclosed, before I knew anything about it. Name me one Lord Commander who would be pleased to discover other men fighting his wars for him, without invitation, consultation, or consent?’