Саймон Спуриэр - Fire Warrior

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers arc the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms arc legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants — and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

Is this real?

Someone, somewhere, is screaming. The world becomes phosphor and ozone; iridescent nebulae fire-bursting across the retina, purple and blue blemishes that gyrate then fade to black. A riot of percussive madness tears at the eardrums: angry chattering that pounds the air. Everything seems alive with its ugly, echoing resonance. Bolter fire.

I can’t feel my legs.

So: gather information. Analyse your surroundings. Commit details to memory. Concentrate.

The mind has been prepared for this. It is a fortress, impregnable and implacable. Use it.

There, directly above: a series of looping coils of ducting, once taut and efficient, now beginning to sag with the weight of years, smeared with desiccated rust, dribbling incontinently from elderly cracks and fissures. To the left, perhaps, something moving. Legs? Maybe. Colours are uncertain — a lifeless melange of pastels and blacks phasing in and out of the pain fog. Shadows and icicles. Metal clothing. Maybe blue.

I can taste blood...

More gunfire. The familiar strobelight of a bolter barrel, flickering nearby. The distant report of detonating shells, finding their targets. Smoke and ashes, fire and pain.

Something screams again. Is it me?

There’s a voice I recognise, ordering me not to die. Be still, it says. Save your strength, brother. Help is on its way.

The voice is lying, of course. Bitter words of comfort to the dead. My second heart just stopped.

More details! Something unique, so I’ll know. Something recognisable to warn me when this, all of this, is ready to come true. There! To the right: an arrangement of cables and components, hanging in disarray from a breached console. At its centre, blinking with a particular rhythm, a pearl of perfect white light broadcasts its meaningless pulse to the world.

Flash. Flash. Pause. Flash. Pause. Flash-Flash. Pause.

I must remember it. I must synchronise the faint beating of my remaining heart so I’ll never forget; exerting every last part of my will to detect and perceive that jumbled electrical rhythm wherever it might be.

More gunfire. More screams. Someone gurgles. Maybe it is me.

The fog closes in, the blackness rolls over, the Emperor smiles.

The man in the dark forced open his eyes and took a deep breath, dormant lungs cobweb-choked and starved of oxygen. Motes of serpentine incense roiled insidiously around his head, as suffocating as it was comforting. He beckoned it away into the dark corners of the meditation cell with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Arranged as he had left them in a neat phalanx on the floor, the Imperial Tarot cards misted and returned to their neutral grey pallor, brittle psychic images bleeding away as the vision-dream concluded. One lingered briefly, the strength of its warp resonance palpable even to his exhausted mind.

The Masked Fiend, inverted.

Not a card of either major arcana, precisely, it was one of only three “wild” images, the significance of which depended entirely upon circumstance, timing and the preceding draw. It had been a long time since he’d last encountered the ghostly form, the angel-smooth mask concealing a reptilian visage of shadows and grins, as the last to fade: the endura priamator . Its translation was quite precise, in such an instance.

Hidden evil, awaiting exposure.

His heartbeat returned to normal by degrees, the blood rushing in his ears diminishing in force, no longer eclipsing the uneasy drone of the ship’s massive generarium. Gauntlet-clad fingers shaking minutely with the force of the prescient revelation, he allowed himself longer than usual to clear away the ritual icons and incense candles the ceremony required. His nerves needed the time to settle themselves, his mind gradually uncovering the significance of its illusory experiences.

He was forewarned, at least. He had the time to prepare, Emperor be praised. He must be grateful for the receipt of this foreknowledge and not squander the gift in fear and regret.

He closed his eyes and it was there again, lurking beneath his eyelids, mocking him. It was a vision of himself, flailing and screaming, draining away to nothingness, choking on his own blood. In the fortress of his mind, he watched himself die over and over again.

The Enduring Blade moved across the void, impossibly massive, and deep inside its viscera of metal and stone, Librarian Delpheus, Epistolary of the mighty Adeptus Astartes Ultramarines, gritted his teeth and imagined the seconds counting away the last of his life.

The storm was coming.

Shas’la T’au Kais closed his eyes and tried not to think of it.

There would be noise and confusion, he supposed. There would be guns and blood, comm chatter and smoke. There would be screams.

He’d been taught since birth that anxiety, especially when dwelt upon, was an inefficient sentiment. Mentally reprimanding himself, he closed his eyes and set his mind adrift, not caring to dwell upon his nascent fear.

He remembered...

On the eighth-tau’cyr anniversary of his birth there had been a brief pause in training.

The sand settled in the basin of the battledome, its tiered auditorium rising in silent rings overhead. Devoid of the massed crowds that gathered for the festivals every kai’rotaa, it seemed almost unreal in its emptiness. Kais preferred it this way, grateful that his training was conducted beyond the public gaze.

The other youths, glad of the hiatus, watched with casual interest as the shas’vre supervisor conducted a bemused conversation with the communicator on his cheek.

“It’s impractical,” he declared, apparently addressing the open air. “No. Well, yes, of course I appreciate that, but today’s exercises are uncompleted an — Who? Oh. Oh, I see.” He swivelled briefly to regard Kais, one eyebrow lifting subtly. “Yes, he’s here. Very well.”