James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

'Did the crewmen of the Valley detect anything else of import, master?' he asked. 'Perhaps if the men aboard the transport were fully debriefed-'

Mortarion glanced away, then back. 'The Valley of Haloes was a casualty at the Arcturan engagement. It was lost with all hands. Fortunately, this recording of the Isstvan signal was conveyed to the Terminus Est before that regrettable event.' The primarch spoke with a leaden finality on the matter that Garro felt compelled to accept.

The Death Lord placed the spool in the battle-captain's hand. 'Carry this burden for me, Nathaniel. And remember, watch and learn.'

Inside, the Vengeful Spirit was no less impressive than it had been from a distance, the vast open space of the landing bay so wide and long that Garro imag­ined it would be possible to dock a starship the size of a small cutter in here with room to spare. An hon­our guard slammed their fists to attention in the old martial manner, saluting with hand to breast instead of the usual crossed palms of the aquila.

The battle-captain kept pace behind the Deathshroud and Mortarion, while Garro in turn was followed by a contingent of warriors from Typhon's First Company, their lockstep footfalls pulsing like ready thunder as the XIV Legion's contingent marched on to the Warmaster's flagship. Garro could not help but glance around, taking in as much as he could of Horus's vessel, committing everything he saw to memory. He noticed other Stormbirds on landing cradles in the process of refuelling for return flights, one adorned with the snarling fanged mouth of the World Eaters and another trimmed in regal purple with the golden wings of the Emperor's Chil­dren.

'My brother, Fulgrim, has not graced us with his presence/ murmured Mortarion, casually dismissing

the purple Stormbird with thinly veiled sarcasm. 'How like him.' Garro peered closer and saw that the ship did not fly the pennants associated with the car­riage of a primarch. Indeed, he recalled that there had been no sign of the Firebird, Fulgrim's assault ship, among the war fleet.

He found himself wondering if this was some ele­ment of the politics that his master had spoken of before. Garro frowned. He had always fancied that the primarchs were an inviolate fraternity, comrades of such exalted status that they were beyond any petty emotions like rivalry or contention, but suddenly such thoughts seemed naive. Astartes warriors like Garro and Grulgor were raised above normal men, and yet they still disagreed in their manners, more often than Nathaniel would have liked. Would it be surprising then to learn that the primarchs, who stood above the Astartes as much as the Astartes stood above mortal men, were also prey to the same differences?

Perhaps it was a good thing, Garro decided. If the primarchs were elevated too far towards godhood, they might lose sight of the fact that this was the Imperium of Man, and it was for the good of the common people of the galaxy that they served the Emperor.

With a silent member of the Sons of Horns leading their party, the Death Guard contingent moved across the cavernous bay to where a pneu-train carriage awaited to speed Mortarion to the bow decks of the Vengeful Spirit and the Lupercal's Court. Garro let his gaze turn upward, to the maze of skeletal gantries and walkways overhead, some heavy with cranes and weapons pallets, others ringed with catwalks for servi­tors and crewmen. It seemed oddly static up there for

a working starship in preparation for a major combat operation. The battle-captain had expected dozens of figures clustering in the metal galleries to observe the arrival of the primarchs. Even aboard so illustrious a ship as the Warmaster's personal barge, it would have been a rare occurrence for parties from not two, but three other Legions to be aboard at one time. He looked hard, expecting to see men from Horus's Legion watching the proceedings, but saw only a handful, a scattering of deckhands and nothing else. Garro shook his head. Had the circumstances been reversed and the war council been taking place on Endurance, he would warrant that every Astartes on the ship would have come to see. It seemed as if something were missing.

'What troubles you, Nathaniel?' The primarch had halted at the pneu-train and was studying him.

Garro took a breath and the nagging thoughts in his mind abruptly crystallised. 'I had been told, lord, that the 63rd Fleet carried a substantial contingent of remembrancers with it. Considering the import of this day's meeting, it seems strange to me that I see not a single one of them hereabouts to record it.' He cast around with open hands.

Mortarion raised a pale eyebrow. 'Are you con­cerned that your heroic profile will be rendered incorrectly in some poet's doggerel, captain? That your name might be misspelled, or some other indig­nity?'

'No, my lord, but I had expected that they might mark such an uncommon moment as this gathering. Is that not their function?'

The primarch frowned. The Emperor's edict to introduce the army of artists, sculptors, composers, poets, authors and other sundry creatives to the fleets

of the Great Crusade had not met with positive response from his sons, and despite the insistence from Terra that the endeavours of the Astartes were to be documented for posterity there were only a few in the Legions that were willing to tolerate the presence of civilians. Garro himself was largely indifferent to the idea, but he understood in an abstract way the value that future generations of humanity might gain from true accounts of their mission. For his part, the master of the Death Guard had been careful to ensure that the ships of the XIV were always engaged else­where, somewhere beyond the reach of the remembrancer delegations that were part of the larger expeditionary fleets.

Mortarion's character, like that of his Legion, was inward-looking, private and guarded in the face of those he did not regard. The Death Lord considered the remembrancers to be little more than unwanted intruders.

'Garro,' he replied, 'those gangs of ink-fingered scribblers and salon intelligentsia are here, but they do not have the run of the fleet. The Warmaster informed me that there was… an incident in recent days. Some remembrancers lost their lives because they ventured into areas that were unsafe for them. As such, tighter controls have been placed on their movements, for their own safety, of course.'

'I see,' replied the captain. 'For the best, then.'

'Indeed.' Mortarion entered the carriage. After all, what we discuss today will be its own record. There will be no need for scribes or stonecutters to immor­talise it. History will do that for us.'

Garro took one last look around the bay as he ascended the boarding ramp, and from the corner of his eye a swift movement drew his attention. He

glimpsed the figure only for a moment, but his occu-lobe optic implant allowed Nathaniel's brain to process every facet of the moment with pin-sharp clarity. It was an elderly man in the robes of an itera­tor of some senior rank, quite out of place in among the steel stanchions and rail tracks of the landing bay. He was quick and furtive in motion, keeping to the shadowed places, intent on some destination that he seemed fearful of ever reaching. In one of the itera­tor's hands was a fold of paper, perhaps a certificate or a permission of some kind. The old man was puffing with effort, and almost as soon as Garro registered him, he was gone, ducking into a companionway that disappeared within the depths of the warship.

The Death Guard grimaced and boarded the tram, the curious moment adding more definition to the sense of ill-ease he had felt from the moment he had arrived on the Spirit.

What should one think of a place that was named the Lupercal's Court? The title had great vanity to it. It seemed to come with a sneer on the lips of the Sons of Horus, as if the chamber were in some manner a pretender to the grand court of the Emperor on dis­tant Terra. Garro marched in at his rightful place, his chest stiff inside his ornamental cuirass from expec­tant tension. He did not know what to anticipate before him. The battle-captain had seen the Warmas-ter in the flesh only once and that was in passing, as he led the Seventh Company in review by the stands during the great parade after Ullanor.