Dan Abnett - The Beast Arises

Thane was grateful for Wienand’s preparatory efforts to ensure that Vangorich could not rouse the population of Terra against him, and even more glad that the Adeptus Custodes had decided to remain neutral. The Assassins were trouble enough, and even though people were off the streets in the central districts, Thane’s strategos serfs and his own best guesses put the casualties among civilians well into the thousands. In the more distant parts of the Palace it was far worse, with many of them still attempting to go about their business, driven by duty and fear to reach their places of service. Battles burst into vast scriptoria where thousands laboured. Artisanal workshops became the sites of brutal firefights. It was inevitable people would die.

Thane added their deaths to the tally of Vangorich’s sins as the Imperial Palace dropped away under the Thunderhawk.

Layers of brown smog cloaked the Palace but could not hide the sheer immensity of it. The Palace was more than a city, it covered the site of the old continent of Europa from north to south, spilling out into the dry seabeds. At six thousand metres, the lower portions were lost to view, the higher towers and spires thrusting up through the polluted air like islands in a dirty sea. The Thunderhawks turned towards the pole and rose higher. Auspex sweeps pinged repeatedly in the cockpit but Terra’s substantial anti-orbital and anti-aircraft firepower remained inactive.

Vangorich was completely isolated.

As they flew over the Palace and towards the dirty ice fields of the north, Thane called the battle-barge Storm of Might and ordered Scout teams to land nearby and guide orbital strikes on the temple.

‘Precision only, remove its air defences, target the barracks. Do not destroy it,’ he concluded his orders. ‘I will take Vangorich alive. He must answer for his crimes.’

The Space Marines put down in a plaza still smoking from a stray lance hit. Defence laser towers burned at the four corners of the temple. Temple Eversor occupied the planed-off summit of a mountain near to the magnetic pole. A dreary vista of exposed seabed and eerily sculpted sails of ice caked in dirt and pollutants receded into the distance.

The temple staff were dead. Their bodies were scattered wherever Thane looked. A few had been killed by the Space Marine reconnaissance teams, but most had no visible injuries, but exhibited signs of poisoning of a dozen different kinds.

‘Who did this?’ asked Thane’s standard bearer.

‘He has. Vangorich slaughtered his followers,’ said Thane. ‘He is insane.’

Cold wind blew over the arid landscape. Thane marshalled his one hundred and fifty warriors. The main temple was ahead.

Setting the Scout teams to guard the Thunderhawks, the battle-brothers of three Chapters advanced.

The entrance to the temple was deceptively small and unassuming, but the first hall was as grand as a cathedral. Stone blocks with no visible names upon them acted as memorials to the unsung heroes of the Imperium. More temple staff lay dotted around, their skin green, mouths thick with frothed saliva. The Space Marines spread out. Ahead, a broad stairway led downwards into the main part of the temple; an extensive underground complex of training chambers, barracks, surgeries, cells, hypnosariums and huge machine rooms. Thane had his warriors check them all, though he knew in his gut they would be deserted by all but the dead.

Vangorich waited for them in the depths of the temple, a spider at the heart of its web. He was in the largest hall of all, dominated by monumental statuary and massive glassaic windows whose colours were dulled by the black rock behind them. A vaulted ceiling stretched a hundred metres above their heads, supported on a row of columns running down the walls where they divided the spaces between the windows into cylindrical alcoves, fifty either side of the hall.

Vangorich sat on the steps of a dais at the end of the hall, one knee upraised, his elbow resting on it and his hand cupping his chin. Once so neat and well presented, he had become filthy and unkempt. His nails were long and ragged, and his hair lank. He had become thin, but there was still a hint of his old strength visible in the sinewy cords of his neck and wrist. Though old by the standards of mortals, he was without mechanical aid. He was still dangerous.

‘Drakan Vangorich,’ pronounced Thane. ‘I am here to arrest you for high treason to the Imperium of Man, and gross abuse of privilege that goes against the fundamental principles of Imperial government.’

Vangorich yawned. ‘You always said you’d come back. Here you are, making good on your threat.’ His voice had a new, wild edge. ‘You took your time.’

‘I never intended that you rule alone,’ said Thane. He stepped closer, and drew his power sword. Its field glowed faintly in the gloom.

‘I discovered fairly quickly that it was either rule alone, or not rule at all,’ said Vangorich. ‘The Senatorum was ungovernable. I had to act. Kubik moved Ullanor, that’s why I had to kill them. It’s still out there, not too far from Terra.’

‘Why did you not recall me? Why did you kill them all?’

‘Because you would not have come back,’ said Vangorich. He stood up, his stale scent wafting out to Thane. ‘I did my best. You should have ruled, Thane, you would have done better. But you wanted your crusade. I didn’t want to be Lord Protector.’

‘You did,’ said Thane. ‘You lied for so long that you cannot stop. You lied even to yourself. Look into your innermost self, Grand Master. I believe you will find that you intended to rule all along, and I was blind not to see.’

Vangorich smiled, exposing dirty teeth. In the smile, the lines around the mouth, the set of the head, there was a flash of the man he had been.

‘Give me time, everything will be set to rights. Protecting the Imperium and protecting humanity are not always the same. I will make it better, you will see.’

Thane looked at the filthy Vangorich. His suaveness, intelligence and wit were gone. Time was cruel to mortal men. What bit at Thane the most was that Vangorich was right, he should have stayed. He had set personal honour over duty.

‘It is too late. You failed in your ambition as you failed your Emperor,’ said Thane. ‘It is time for you to step down, Vangorich. Come and face judgement. You shall be tried by the new High Lords of Terra. Justice served shall be a warning to all those who think themselves mightier than the Emperor’s will.’

Vangorich stood and laughed, clapping in delight.

One hundred and fifty boltgun slides were racked back.

‘What a marvellous speech,’ he said. ‘But no, I must decline. You see,’ he said impishly, ‘you are making a terrible mistake.’

‘I made my mistake a hundred years ago,’ said Thane. ‘I should have heeded your suggestion, and let Veritus lead the Senatorum.’

‘You’re making another one now,’ said Vangorich. His eyes gleamed with incipient madness. ‘And it shall be your last.’

A klaxon blared its rising-falling song. Blinking lights shone in the alcoves along the temple walls. A hundred capsules rose from the floor into them, rotating amber lights on their tops. They locked into place with loud thunks. Swirling gas filled each, lit with blue light. Inside them were the indistinct forms of human bodies, clad in tight-fitting synskin. In an asynchronous cacophony, the gas vented from the capsules.

‘This is Temple Eversor,’ said Vangorich. ‘Allow me to introduce its acolytes.’

The Space Marines opened fire, shooting at the capsules, but they were made of centimetres-thick armourglass, and though they cracked and fractured, they did not break. One by one the shapes inside came alive, twitching gauntlets raking against their prisons.