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Solemnity – Nick Kyme

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

SOLEMNITY

Nick Kyme

He had been unprepared, not something that happened often. Practical, theoretical – tactical preparedness was a part of an Ultramarine’s genetic configuration. But how could he have prepared for this? The immensity of it. The spectacle. The sheer weight.

Dressed only in hooded robes, his feet sandalled, Ferren Areios carried no weapons, and had been stripped of all trappings. He would rather have stood naked as a novitiate before Guilliman, the Avenging Son himself, than be here in this place of reverence.

Than be here with him. Maximus Epathus.

Grief was not easy for an Astartes to process.

It had been a few years since the Stygian Gulf, since entering the Blackstone Fortress and all that had transpired there. Together with a band of brave Imperial servants, Areios and his warriors had decimated the so-called ‘Hand of Abaddon’ and ended a threat in the making that could have endangered the Indomitus Crusade itself. Some believed the threat remained, but Areios had long realised he could only fight the enemies he could see and kill. Should the Hand rise again, he would be ready.

More solemn duties awaited him in this moment.

He thought he knew what it meant to be Astartes. He thought – after his wounding by the Dark Apostle, after confronting mortality and the perfidy of the Hand of Abaddon – that he understood. The burden. What it meant. Since then he had taken up the mantle of command, leading his brothers in their former captain’s stead, repressing his anger at Epathus’ death. It had festered, hidden, before the embers grew into flames. A cold fire – he was an Ultramarine, for Throne’s sake, not one of his more volatile cousins – but ice burned all the same.

He had seen where that anger could lead. The Butcher King and his servants. Since his apotheosis, he had come to understand the corruption, the cloth it wore not so dissimilar to his own. But against the Butcher King, against one of the Hand, he had experienced the wild snap of red at the edge of his senses. It had bordered on rage, and despite his conditioning, it had unnerved him. Thus, years later, summoned to stand before his lord primarch, to be officially recognised as captain of the Sixth Company and Master of Rites, Areios had hoped… For what, exactly? Peace? No, that was a fallacy in this benighted galaxy, and his kind would know none until death stole them from duty. Healing? Perhaps. The unseen wounds, the desire to plunge into hell and fight until muscles burned and limbs stiffened… Soothed through the purity of battle? He was not so sure. Closure, then, and through it some small catharsis. A visit to the capital world of the empire, to Macragge itself, would remind him of who he was and help him accept what he had simultaneously gained and lost.

Or so he hoped.

He walked alone, for this was a pilgrimage even if it was not named as such. A gunship had ferried him from the strike cruiser Honour of Iax, where he had left Cicero, Drussus and the others of his brotherhood, to a landing pad within the district of the Tower of Correction and his ultimate destination. He had travelled on foot part of the way, striding amongst the civitas, who bowed, gave way, or else saluted when they saw him. No citizens strayed into the precincts of the tower, though indentured serfs went about their business with lowered heads and appropriate solemnity. It was here, within the august walls of this soaring cobalt edifice, emblazoned with the golden Ultima of the Chapter, that the Temple of Hera and the last resting place of Roboute Guilliman resided.

He had been tempted to visit the temple – there was time enough remaining before his audience with the primarch – to see where his lord had stood in stasis for almost ten thousand years before his dramatic revivification. Unlike others of his kin, he had not spent his time waiting and hoping for this miracle to come to pass. Areios had been born of the Primaris; he had never known a world without Guilliman, and yet he had been intrigued. He had learned that a statue stood in the place a mortally wounded son of the Emperor once occupied, making Guilliman immortal via different means. However, he had seen many statues, several of his lord, and had no particular desire to see another, even one as momentous as this one was purported to be.

He had descended then, once he had passed across the guarded causeway and entered through the great gates. There, Areios had felt it for the first time – the immensity of this place and what it meant to his Chapter. It had awed him, though he kept his emotions from his features and remained outwardly stoic. It had not tempered his anger though; this he felt, an icy sting inside his body. Gauntleted fists clenched, he had made for the armourium, where flocks of serfs fell upon him like carrion birds to divest him of his battle plate and swathed his naked form in cobalt robes threaded with silver, the Ultima shown proudly against his chest. All who came here would be adorned as such, all equal in their remembrance of the dead. Inwardly, Areios was glad of the anonymity the robes afforded. It felt like silence, a shroud behind which he could hide and be left alone.

Pale, bent of back, some with crude augmetics, the serfs had nodded solemnly to their lord as they carried each piece of his battle plate away to be secured until Areios’ return. Each was a sacred artefact, his weapons also, similarly removed – two mortals to carry each blade, and three for the bolt rifle. He had watched them keenly as they did this, feeling as though he had been separated from a limb, unconsciously flexing his fingers as the absence hit him on an instinctual level.

After the serfs had departed, Areios had been allowed a moment of contemplation before his journey. Darkness filled the armourium, the way lit by auto-braziers and a small servo-skull with a wax candle affixed to its crown. It floated just ahead of him, borne on anti-gravitic impellers of a much lesser quality than those deployed by the Repulsor tanks of his brotherhood. A preferred method of warfare for Epathus. A bitter shame his final battle had not been an armoured assault. Another regret to add to the list.

Pulling up his hood, Areios let the servo-skull lead him to the threshold, the entrance to a deep catacomb in the sub-levels of the Tower of Correction. As another gate opened, this one to an underworld, he came at last to his destination.

The Hall of Solemnity.

It was beyond his imagining – a vast and twilit cavern that stretched for miles in either direction, its vaulted ceiling seemingly in defiance of the fact it was burrowed into Macragge’s earth. The light from iron torches clutched in the skeletal fingers of winged cherubim glittered against metal: a host of silver sigils, each the size of a human skull. This huge wall of thousands of Ultimas spread out below him, soared up, then peeled off into the crepuscular darkness to his left and right. Each marker represented a fallen Ultramarine. Whether these tombs contained bones, some fragment or memento mori for the dead, he did not know, and there was no Chaplain to ask. They might merely be hoops of silver nailed into rock. It didn’t matter: the intangible legacy they represented outweighed any physical thing.

Stone steps carved into the bedrock of the world led down to the mausoleum floor. As he descended, Areios was briefly accompanied by a flock of servo-skulls and cherubim disturbed from their roosts. Each of the cybernetic creatures clutched a tool or leather cloth. His gaze strayed across the vista, his grim companions keeping their distance, as he saw more of their ranks cleaning and polishing. Despite their efforts, several of the metal sigils were showing their age. Tarnished silver still shone, however, despite its dark patina.

At the base of the stairs, his footfalls echoing despite his softened step, Areios was handed a torch by one of the flying denizens. He took it wordlessly and used it to navigate, trying to get his bearings. He had no idea where he would find Epathus. He saw other names, several he recognised from his training and the lessons of his Chaplain. The mantle he would soon bear carried a similar weight of tradition, and as Master of Rites he would be expected to be a guide as well as a battle commander. The thought, he admitted to himself in the half dark, daunted him. Names like Invictus and Agnathio stood out, high in the vaults and visible to his enhanced Astartesian eyesight. He didn’t need the torch, but ceremony must be observed.

He searched, trying to discern some meaning or scheme to the arrangement of the sigils. By campaign, by date, by company? No approach made the task any easier. He began to feel time ebb, and the undercurrent of his anger stirred. The hours passed, each more frustrating than the last. He had walked miles, traversed via anti-gravitic lifter plate to the upper rows of the sigils, and still nothing. If he did not find it soon, he would be forced to leave his task unfulfilled, still burdened. Another small failure to work at the cracked dam holding back his fury.

‘Avenging Son!’ he swore, the rasp echoing in the cold space. All these hours and still he trawled the hall, a palpable feeling of grief manifesting at thoughts of the honoured dead.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing hard as he shut his eyes. Letting it hurt, exhaling his annoyance. Finding a measure of calm. Just as his mentor had taught him.

As he opened his eyes again, he noticed something new, and it sparked his interest with the hope of discovery. It was a mark in the stone, denoting an absence – as if the Ultima had been removed at some point. He had wandered far from the entrance now and assumed this one was at least a few years old. He could detect the outline and reached out to trace it with a finger.

‘Humbling,’ said a cultured voice from behind him.

Areios had assumed he was alone and turned sharply to face the speaker, annoyed at being surprised.

They were hooded like him, of the same Astartes stature, if a little less broad, a little shorter perhaps. He caught a flash of their eyes, the shape of the face, but nothing more. Patrician, like most of their kind in Ultramar. Something noble about him though, as if from an aristocratic upbringing. He held himself like a king, or perhaps a knight. Areios considered himself neither. He was a soldier from humble beginnings.

‘It is…’ Areios began, ‘a labyrinth.’

A pause then as the stranger appeared to get a measure of the other Astartes. ‘You seem troubled, brother.’

‘My demeanour is not of your concern.’ He regretted the acerbic words almost as soon as they passed his lips, but pride would not let him recant. ‘Are you my Chaplain? Is this a confessional dressed as a tomb?’ Areios felt his grip around the torch tighten, his anger irrational yet still piqued.

‘Many who come here feel the anger of loss, of pain,’ said the stranger calmly, and his reason only enraged Areios further. ‘Our only task is to come to accept it.’

‘I assure you, my humours are in balance, brother, and I need no counselling from you.’

‘All evidence points to the contrary.’

‘You speak as if you know me, brother,’ Areios said, an edge to his voice.

If he noticed, his new companion gave no sign and remained calm. ‘I do not need to know you to see you are seething with anger. And I think a little self-hatred into the bargain. It can be dangerous.’

‘I can be dangerous.’ Areios took a forward step. It wasn’t the stranger, not really; it was grief driving him. He had been seen by this warrior, a flaw exposed, and it rankled deeply.

The stranger smirked, gave a short laugh. It was meant to be disarming, Areios assumed, yet it had the opposite effect.

‘Do I amuse you, brother?’ His eyes narrowed, the cold burn grew sharper. His fists clenched; the knuckles gave an audible crack.

‘Here,’ the stranger queried, ‘in this place? Have I insulted you so gravely? Has your honour been so impugned that you would dishonour the dead?’

‘I would…’ Areios began, before he blinked and the fog lifted for a moment. That weight lifted.

‘You remind me of someone,’ the stranger cut in, seeing his moment of indecision. ‘He let anger muddy his emotions too, though it manifested differently to yours. He let arrogance blind him. It nearly led him to his death. Many believed he was dead. I think perhaps he died too, and when he came back he was greatly changed.’

Areios noticed the stranger’s gaze alight on the void in the honour wall, where a sigil appeared to have been removed. ‘If you are trying to antagonise me, you are succeeding,’ he warned, his fury not so easily quenched – but he would not sink to blows here. The stranger was right about that, if nothing else. ‘Shall we continue this conversation in the cages? Perhaps you can school me further?’

The stranger smiled: thin, dangerous. A knife of a smile. Areios had the sudden impression that this wasn’t the first time he had received and met a challenge. The way he held himself – it was aristocratic, displaying the confidence of a warrior-born and trained to be a master, honed by warfare. He wanted to back down – out of respect, not fear of defeat – but found he could not and so stood his ground.

‘I think that would serve neither of us well. A blade drawn in anger is as likely to cut its wielder as its enemy.’

‘Or perhaps you realise I would have the better of you?’

‘The confidence of youth,’ the stranger remarked.

Areios bristled, certain this man was trying to goad him now. ‘I have fought for the Emperor for over ten years.’

‘And I had far more years under my belt when I learned my hardest lesson. And the cost of it…’ The stranger’s face hardened, and Areios saw his own grief reflected. He was standing by one of the sigils. A name emblazoned beneath in Ultramarian script.

Praxor Manorian.

Areios didn’t recognise it, suddenly ashamed at his ignorance. His boast of a decade’s worth of service rang hollow and petty.

He saw the other names.

Gaius Prabian.

Justus Pillium.

Elianu Trajan.

A great swathe of them, and he could imagine the stranger visiting each and every one to pay his respects.

‘All of them?’ he asked, aghast.

‘And a great many more I am responsible for. I lost myself, brother, and then I literally became lost. And only then, as the darkness closed around me and old enemies and past defeats came back to haunt me, did I find myself. Tell me,’ he asked, ‘what is it you are looking for?’

‘The void in the wall…’ said Areios, realising despite the cryptic nature of the stranger’s words. ‘It is you?’

The stranger gave a solemn nod.

His name had been removed, so Areios had no way of knowing who he was addressing, but he felt foolish for his behaviour then, for treating such a vaunted warrior of the Chapter with disrespect. The anger stirred, self-directed, but he kept it checked.

‘I failed to protect my captain, Maximus Epathus. I am here on Macragge to be raised up in his place. At first, I felt worthy of the honour. Ready, do you understand?’

‘Painfully so. And now?’

‘Now…’ He cast around at the sigils, at the names. ‘I feel anger, and far from worthy. I did not plan on coming here. I came to honour the dead in the hours before I am to be honoured myself, but did not realise how much I needed this until I walked through the door to this mausoleum.’

‘You want his blessing, his forgiveness? Maximus Epathus was a son of Guilliman. He knew his duty, and you know yours. He did not fight for honour, though he fought honourably. I knew him as a stalwart, the kind of captain who would put his own aggrandisement behind others’ if it meant accomplishing the mission. I wish I had always possessed his temper and judgement.’

‘You knew him? You are a captain also?’

‘I did, and I was. Once.’

‘Some transgression, some error of judgement’ – Areios gestured to the names where the stranger had been paying his respects – ‘saw you stripped of rank?’ Realising his lapse in decorum, he said, ‘I apologise if that was impertinent.’

The stranger shook his head, dismissing his concern.

‘Yes and no. I made errors. I did not follow the same path as Maximus Epathus. I learned a harder lesson. But I was not demoted either. I died. In a way. When I returned the Chapter had changed, moved on. The galaxy had changed.’

‘Did that not anger you?’

‘I found a different purpose.’

Areios cocked an eyebrow. ‘Wandering the Hall of Solemnity and surprising unsuspecting mourners?’

It was a poor joke, but the making of it defused some of his inner tension.

The stranger merely laughed, a generous sound.

‘I wish I could express your lightness of humour as readily, brother,’ Areios confessed, regretting his earlier outburst.

‘It was not always so. Afterwards, after the veil of darkness closed upon me, I did not laugh or smile. My only thought was vengeance. It is a good emotion, but only if properly directed. Without careful attention, it can turn inward. Become destructive. And destruction is not only reserved for the one who feels the desire for vengeance. Do you understand?’

Areios wasn’t sure he did, not entirely. A frown creased his features.

‘Walk with me?’ the stranger invited.

Areios nodded, and they trod the sombre path through the Hall of Solemnity together.

‘How does one marshal it then? The desire you spoke of?’ he asked eventually. The silence had felt awkward at first but had fallen into something more companionable. As pleasant as this unspoken camaraderie was, Areios had only an hour or so remaining; he either needed to find Epathus or bid his companion farewell and return to the surface.

‘There must be equanimity in a warrior’s heart and a leader’s soul. As a captain, you must have both. You were made for this, forged to be it.’

‘A maker’s design is not the sum total of what I am, what I will become.’

‘No, that is the role of experience. Loss is inevitable for our kind. Victory also. We must learn to react equally to both. To drive our own tempers and not allow them to drive us.’

‘I am not sure I fully understand.’

‘We are not immortal, we are not entirely human, and yet we possess human traits, for that is the raw material from which we are made. Refined. Yes?’

Areios nodded.

‘And as such we are subject to human emotion, dulled perhaps, realigned towards aggression, endurance. Why do you think we have Chaplains?’

‘To hold the Chapter’s history, to shore up our faith in our purpose and our brothers.’

‘They are shepherds, brother, to hold us to account and help us keep our humours in balance. My sin was arrogance, hidden by success, driven by ambition. I became obsessed by my own self rather than acting wholly in service of the Chapter, do you see?’

‘I believe I am beginning to.’

‘Good. Honesty. That is a formative step. Blind to my own failings, my hubris, I suffered a defeat. The fall was great, greater than I could have imagined, for I had not been aware of the height of the pedestal I had crafted for myself until it crumbled beneath me. Close to death, I beheld a vision, and it changed me. I thought my evolution complete, my trial ended. I was wrong. It was not enough to know – I had to exorcise the old parts of me, those old burdens I carried on invisible chains around my neck. I went to hell for five years. I suffered loss after loss, not knowing if we would survive. I can scarcely count the dead any more, but I let the pain in – not out of some misguided attempt at masochism but to remember. To remember who I was, and how I came to be as I now am. I passed through hell, and I became a symbol for those around me. Everything I had ever wanted in the years of my arrogance, it came to me, and all I wished to do was reject it. But I did not. I used it. Not for myself, but for the Chapter and those who depend on the Chapter. I faced an old foe, one I had not realised I had left unburied, and I overcame it. I stared into its deathless gaze and lived. It did not.’

‘And after this trial, you came back?’

‘To a world I scarcely knew, but I knew myself and I could live with my past failings, and I could live with the dead. You must decide if you can live with the dead too. For the dead do not change, even though we must.’

‘What if I cannot? What if the anger is too great?’

‘Then you will face your own moment of reckoning. I hope you remember these words if and when you do. For now, though, we are here.’

They had stopped. Engrossed in the conversation, Areios had barely noticed.

‘Here?’

The stranger stepped aside, and Areios saw the sigil, his eye inexorably drawn to it.

Maximus Epathus.

‘The dead are arranged according to when they joined the Chapter,’ the stranger explained. ‘I knew Epathus would not be so far from my own tomb.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I will leave you to your remembrance, brother.’

The sigil was low on the wall, and Areios knelt before it.

He turned as the stranger was leaving.

‘I am in your debt, brother,’ he said, standing again to extend his hand. ‘I am Ferren.’

The stranger reached out in turn, and they grasped forearms in the way of Ultramar. He nodded before departing and answered, ‘Cato.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nick Kyme is the author of many Horus Heresy novels, novellas and audio dramas, including Old Earth, Promethean Sun and Nightfane. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection The Primarchs. For Warhammer 40,000, Nick has written Volpone Glory and the Dawn of Fire novel The Iron Kingdom. He is also well known for his popular Salamanders series and the Cato Sicarius novels Damnos and Knights of Macragge. His work for Age of Sigmar includes the short story ‘Borne by the Storm’, included in the novel War Storm, and the audio drama The Imprecations of Daemons. He has also written the Warhammer Horror novel Sepulturum. He lives and works in Nottingham.

An extract from Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son.

‘I was there at the Siege of Terra,’ Vitrian Messinius would say in his later years.

‘I was there…’ he would add to himself, his words never meant for ears but his own. ‘I was there the day the Imperium died.’

But that was yet to come.

‘To the walls! To the walls! The enemy is coming!’ Captain Messinius, as he was then, led his Space Marines across the Penitent’s Square high up on the Lion’s Gate. ‘Another attack! Repel them! Send them back to the warp!’

Thousands of red-skinned monsters born of fear and sin scaled the outer ramparts, fury and murder incarnate. The mortals they faced quailed. It took the heart of a Space Marine to stand against them without fear, and the Angels of Death were in short supply.

‘Another attack, move, move! To the walls!’

They came in the days after the Avenging Son returned, emerging from nothing, eight legions strong, bringing the bulk of their numbers to bear against the chief entrance to the Imperial Palace. A decapitation strike like no other, and it came perilously close to success.

Messinius’ Space Marines ran to the parapet edging the Penitent’s Square. On many worlds, the square would have been a plaza fit to adorn the centre of any great city. Not on Terra. On the immensity of the Lion’s Gate, it was nothing, one of hundreds of similarly huge spaces. The word ‘gate’ did not suit the scale of the cityscape. The Lion’s Gate’s bulk marched up into the sky, step by titanic step, until it rose far higher than the mountains it had supplanted. The gate had been built by the Emperor Himself, they said. Myths detailed the improbable supernatural feats required to raise it. They were lies, all of them, and belittled the true effort needed to build such an edifice. Though the Lion’s Gate was made to His design and by His command, the soaring monument had been constructed by mortals, with mortal hands and mortal tools. Messinius wished that had been remembered. For men to build this was far more impressive than any godly act of creation. If men could remember that, he believed, then perhaps they would remember their own strength.

The uncanny may not have built the gate, but it threatened to bring it down. Messinius looked over the rampart lip, down to the lower levels thousands of feet below and the spread of the Anterior Barbican.

Upon the stepped fortifications of the Lion’s Gate was armour of every colour and the blood of every loyal primarch. Dozens of regiments stood alongside them. Aircraft filled the sky. Guns boomed from every quarter. In the churning redness on the great roads, processional ways so huge they were akin to prairies cast in rockcrete, were flashes of gold where the Emperor’s Custodian Guard battled. The might of the Imperium was gathered there, in the palace where He dwelt.

There seemed moments on that day when it might not be enough.

The outer ramparts were carpeted in red bodies that writhed and heaved, obscuring the great statues adorning the defences and covering over the guns, an invasive cancer consuming reality. The enemy were legion. There were too many foes to defeat by plan and ruse. Only guns, and will, would see the day won, but the defenders were so pitifully few.

Messinius called a wordless halt, clenched fist raised, seeking the best place to deploy his mixed company, veterans all of the Terran Crusade. Gunships and fighters sped overhead, unleashing deadly light and streams of bombs into the packed daemonic masses. There were innumerable cannons crammed onto the gate, and they all fired, rippling the structure with false earthquakes. Soon the many ships and orbital defences of Terra would add their guns, targeting the very world they were meant to guard, but the attack had come so suddenly; as yet they had had no time to react.

The noise was horrendous. Messinius’ audio dampers were at maximum and still the roar of ordnance stung his ears. Those humans that survived today would be rendered deaf. But he would have welcomed more guns, and louder still, for all the defensive fury of the assailed palace could not drown out the hideous noise of the daemons – their sighing hisses, a billion serpents strong, and chittering, screaming wails. It was not only heard but sensed within the soul, the realms of spirit and of matter were so intertwined. Messinius’ being would be forever stained by it.

Tactical information scrolled down his helmplate, near environs only. He had little strategic overview of the situation. The vox-channels were choked with a hellish screaming that made communication impossible. The noosphere was disrupted by etheric backwash spilling from the immaterial rifts the daemons poured through. Messinius was used to operating on his own. Small-scale, surgical actions were the way of the Adeptus Astartes, but in a battle of this scale, a lack of central coordination would lead inevitably to defeat. This was not like the first Siege, where his kind had fought in Legions.

He called up a company-wide vox-cast and spoke to his warriors. They were not his Chapter-kin, but they would listen. The primarch himself had commanded that they do so.

‘Reinforce the mortals,’ he said. ‘Their morale is wavering. Position yourselves every fifty yards. Cover the whole of the south-facing front. Let them see you.’ He directed his warriors by chopping at the air with his left hand. His right, bearing an inactive power fist, hung heavily at his side. ‘Assault Squad Antiocles, back forty yards, single firing line. Prepare to engage enemy breakthroughs only on my mark. Devastators, split to demi-squads and take up high ground, sergeant and sub-squad prime’s discretion as to positioning and target. Remember our objective, heavy infliction of casualties. We kill as many as we can, we retreat, then hold at the Penitent’s Arch until further notice. Command squad, with me.’

Command squad was too grand a title for the mismatched crew Messinius had gathered around himself. His own officers were light years away, if they still lived.

‘Doveskamor, Tidominus,’ he said to the two Aurora Marines with him. ‘Take the left.’

‘Yes, captain,’ they voxed, and jogged away, their green armour glinting orange in the hell-light of the invasion.

The rest of his scratch squad was comprised of a communications specialist from the Death Spectres, an Omega Marine with a penchant for plasma weaponry, and a Raptor holding an ancient standard he’d taken from a dusty display.

‘Why did you take that, Brother Kryvesh?’ Messinius asked, as they moved forward.

‘The palace is full of such relics,’ said the Raptor. ‘It seems only right to put them to use. No one else wanted it.’

Messinius stared at him.

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* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

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