happened. There’s talk of the Inquisition. Other Chapters too. I hear things I can scarcely believe, if I’m honest, but the sources are impeccable.’
Knowing what we know now, it seems inconceivable that we found out so late, and yet that was always the greatest burden we carried – the paucity of communication across our scattered and stormy domains. There were familiar stories, some apocryphal, many true, of entire wars beginning and ending before we on Terra ever became aware of them. Standard communication conduits were incredibly slow, relying on physical transport between worlds sundered by thousands of light years. Psychic communication was little better – unreliable, prone to madness and disruption, gnomic in its utterances.
So do not blame us overmuch for the disaster of Fenris. It was not as if the Wolves themselves had ever been eager to involve us in their many battles.
‘We gain a grip in one place, another slips into danger,’ I muttered, already wondering what this would mean for our great undertaking. The Imperium, for all its faults, could act decisively and well when confronted with a single grand issue. When the warzones multiplied, that was when paralysis set in. ‘Who else knows?’
By ‘who’, I meant the High Lords. Only they had access to better intelligence than we did.
‘Not all of them,’ said Jek. ‘Not yet. Haemotalion, certainly. Arx, probably. Kerapliades, we can assume, was the first to get tidings, but I’ve had nothing from our agent there. I don’t think the Navy is informed yet, but if they start needing mass fleet movements then Pereth will be next in line.’
‘It’s not an isolated event, though, is it?’ I said, thoughtfully.
Jek waited for me to go on. She knew I wasn’t asking her.
‘You know, I never really listened to all those prophets of doom in the pulpits,’ I went on. ‘I told myself they’ve been predicting the days of darkness for a thousand years, and it never quite gets that bad. But first we have Armageddon, bleeding us white, and then this damned endless war at the Eye, and now this. They keep piling up. I could learn to get religious.’
Jek laughed. ‘You’d have plenty to atone for,’ she said.
I didn’t feel like laughing back. I tried not to think about the number of files I’d passed over bearing the galactic orientation for Fenris – there was always so much else to keep us busy.
I began to think harder.
‘Shocking as it is, it can help us,’ I said. ‘If true, it’ll be another argument to use in camera. Why are we keeping forces held back here, when the threats increase? Throne, we have ten thousand of them here. That’s ten Chapters. It’s insane.’
We only had days then before the great conclave of the camera inferior.
‘Anything back from the Captain-General?’ Jek asked.
That was the one remaining problem.
‘I can’t get close.’
‘I don’t think you will, now.’
I hated to admit defeat. It was the one fault I admitted readily. Back in the old days of schola bullying, when I was beaten bloody by men who would go on to command regiments, I would lie in the dark, aching, and plot how best to come back from the humiliation. I would have tears still wet on my juvenile cheeks, but I would already be considering how to weaken the standing of my enemies, to spread the rumours that would isolate them, to call in the favours that would eventually see them humbled and in debt to me.
Knowing when you’re beaten – that’s the route to certain defeat. I had heard so many high-ranking officials whisper to me over the past few years, ‘It’s over, we’ve had it, we just can’t raise the troops we need’, and I had never believed a single one of them. The only true question was the one I had asked Harster – ‘What can be done?’
But at that point I could see no way forward. I had failed Fadix’s test, and could not guarantee bringing the Captain-General to the High Lords’ table. In his absence, nothing would change, and we would remain passive as our defeats multiplied.
‘You might be right,’ I muttered, hating the sound of the words, but unable to see past them.
I woke up to the sound of the highest alarm-level going off inside my ear. For a moment I had no idea where I was or what was happening – all I could hear was the tinny shriek of my cochlear alert blazing.
I shut it down and sat up, the silk sheets