Dan Abnett - Know no fear. The Battle of Calth

‘Where are we?’ asks Bale Rane.

‘North,’ says Oll. ‘The Satric Coast. The great plateau is that way.’

He gestures at the darkness.

‘Fine country,’ Oll says. ‘Even been up that way and seen it?’

Rane shakes his head.

‘What are we doing here?’ asks Zybes.

Strange, daemonic voices hoot and gibber in the distance, echoing down the inlet.

Zybes repeats his question with more urgency.

‘I don’t understand any of this,’ he says. ‘We’ve come all this way in that damned boat! Why? It’s no safer here. It sounds like it’s worse, if that’s possible!’

Oll glances at him, tired and impatient.

‘We’ve come here,’ he says, ‘because this is the only place we can get out through. The only place. It’s our one chance to live and do something.’

‘Do what?’ asks Krank.

‘Something that matters,’ Oll replies, not really listening. He’s seen something. Something on the beach by the boat.

‘Who is that, Trooper Persson?’ Graft asks.

There is a man on the beach behind them. He’s following them. He passes their grounded skiff, walking briskly. Another small launch, presumably the one that brought him in, is turning slowly in the black water off the beach, abandoned.

‘Shit,’ murmurs Oll. ‘Get behind me, all of you. Keep moving.’

He turns, sliding his rifle off his shoulder.

Criol Fowst is black on black, a shadow of a figure. Only his face is pale, the drawn skin white and streaked with dried blood from his head wound. He approaches, his feet crunching over the shingle. A laspistol hangs in his right hand. Oll faces him, weapon ready.

‘No closer,’ Oll calls out.

‘Give it back,’ Fowst shouts. ‘Give it back to me!’

‘I don’t want to fire a weapon or spill blood here,’ Oll warns, ‘but I will if you make me. Go back and leave us alone.’

‘Give me my blade. My blade.’

‘Go back.’

Fowst takes a step forward.

‘They can smell it, you know,’ he hisses. ‘They can smell it.’

‘Let them smell it,’ replies Oll.

‘They’ll come. You don’t want them to come.’

‘Let them come.’

‘You don’t want them to come, old man. Give it back to me. I need it.’

‘I need it more,’ says Oll. ‘I need it for something. It’s why I came here. I need it for something more important than you can possibly imagine.’

‘Nothing is more important than what I can imagine,’ replies Fowst.

‘Last chance,’ says Oll.

Fowst screams. He screams at the top of his voice.

‘He’s here! Here! Right here! Come and get him! Come and feast on him! Here! Here!’

The rifle cracks. Silenced, Fowst falls back on the stones of the beach.

But things are stirring. Things disturbed and drawn by the sound of Fowst’s cry and the noise of the shot. Oll can hear them. He can hear batwings flap in the darkness, hooves scrape on stone, scales slither. Voices mutter and growl abhuman sounds.

‘Hey!’ Oll shouts to his travelling companions, who are cowering in the dark. ‘Come back to me! Come back. Gather round.’

They hurry to him. Krank and Rane. Zybes. The girl. Graft is the slowest.

‘What is that?’ Krank asks, hearing the sounds that the things are making as they close in around them through the darkness. ‘What’s making that noise?’

‘Don’t think about it,’ Oll says, working hard, trying to remember a simple sequence of gestures. ‘Just stay close beside me. It might be all right here. It might be thin enough.’

‘What might be thin enough?’ asks Rane.

‘What’s making that noise?’ Krank repeats, agitated.

‘Something’s coming,’ says Zybes.

‘It’s all right,’ says Oll. ‘We’re just leaving anyway.’

He has the dagger in his hand. The athame, unwrapped. He murmurs to his god for protection and forgiveness. Then he makes a cut.

‘How are you doing that?’ asks Katt.

They all look at her.

Oll smiles.

‘Trust me,’ he says. He pushes the knife harder, deepens the cut. He makes the slit vertical, the height of a man. He makes a slit in the air, so that reality parts.

The daemon sounds come closer.

Oll draws back the edge of the cut like a curtain. They gasp as they see what’s on the other side. It isn’t here. It isn’t Calth. It isn’t a broken, pitch-black beach.

Oll looks at them.

‘I won’t pretend this is going to be easy,’ he says, ‘because it isn’t. But it’s better than staying here.’

They stare at him.

‘Follow me,’ he says.

Colchis, at the bitter, broken end; the mark of Calth still running after all these damned years. It is essentially a futile measurement, merely symbolic, but sometimes symbolism is all you have left. A ritual. The scum of Colchis should understand that much, at least.

The world burns, devastated. A world for a world. There is little retribution left to be extracted, little punitive satisfaction to be savoured. But the deed must be finished, so the count can be finished, and this is one great step towards completing the process.

Ventanus, veteran captain, battered by fortune and service, stands on the outcrop of rock, looking out over the benighted landscape. The firestorms reflect off his polished plate and his grim visor, bright orange patterns dancing on the cobalt-blue and gold. So much has passed since this began. The galaxy has changed, and changed again. The revolutions that stunned his mind on Calth seem insignificant beside what he has witnessed since. The end. The fall. The start. The loss.

He has not known fear, but he has known pain. The breaking of the order of things. He has seen his species discover that the greatest enemy of all is itself.

The years spent waging the Underworld War seem so distant. They are fading, almost unremembered, like the empire that followed them, and the Heresy that ended it all.

His officers are waiting, sergeants in red helms, junior captains with their crests and swords. Ventanus can still remember a time when a red helm meant–

Times change. Things change. Ways change. They are waiting for him, impatient to get on, wondering what the old bastard is thinking about, wondering what’s taking him so long.

In low orbit above, the barge Octavius waits, cyclonic torpedoes primed.

Ventanus turns. He thinks of brothers lost, and looks at the brothers with him. He holds out his mailed hand.

The colour sergeant passes him the standard. It is old and battered, dented, with a slight twist or two in the haft. Surely, the sergeant thinks, the damned thing could have been cleaned and mended.

Ventanus takes it, honouring every mark upon it.

He plants it upright in the burning rock of Colchis. The flickering firelight catches at the golden crest of the standard.

‘We march for Macragge!’ the sergeant declares.

‘No, not today,’ Ventanus replies. ‘Today, we march for Calth.’

While Word Bearers still live, in the madness of the Maelstrom or in the depths of the warp, the mark of Calth will continue to run.

It is running now.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Richard Dugher, Bruce Euans, Laurie Goulding, the High Lords of Lenton, Nick Kyme, Graham McNeill, Lindsey Priestley and Nik Vincent.

Dan Abnett is a multiple New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning comic book writer. He has written over forty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies. His previous Horus Heresy novel, Prospero Burns, topped the SF charts in the UK and the US. In addition to writing for Black Library, Dan scripts audio dramas, movies, games, and comics for major publishers in Britain and America. He is also the author of other bestselling novels, including Torchwood: Border Princes, Doctor Who: The Silent Stars Go By, Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero, and Embedded. He lives and works in Maidstone, Kent.