The Emperor's Legion (Watchers of the Throne #1) - Chris Wraight Page 0,54
our master still held sway against the tides of unreason was the light He guided through the empyrean. While that endured, He endured. If that failed, we would know that He had failed.
Italeo raised a gauntlet to still the murmuring, and I saw that the metal glove had been mauled and twisted out of shape.
‘As I speak, savants of the Red Planet are attending,’ he told us. ‘A Level Eight delegation from the Adeptus Mechanicus will be making planetfall within the hour, and the Fabricator-General will attend to repairs in person. I have spoken with Tribune Heracleon, who remains within the presence of the Emperor, and who reports that the operation of the Golden Throne is within normal parameters. We do not yet know the cause. Until it can be resolved, our fleets are blind and our armies are becalmed.’
I stole a glance at my brothers as the news sank in. In those who went without helms I saw a range of emotions playing across normally impassive faces – shock, a swift-kindling resolve, even anger, which was rare with us. I saw the varied vocations represented there – the artisans, the theologians, the sentinels and the lore wardens – and saw them all slowly assume the aspect of the warrior.
‘The Captain-General remains with the High Lords in High Council,’ Italeo said. ‘As of this moment, the Throneworld is declared in a state of extremum bellum and all provisions of the peacetime Lex are suspended. The Hataeron will remain within the Sanctum Imperialis, and all others are commanded to secure the Outer Palace according to the defence patterns laid down by precept.’
He looked out across us all. More of my brothers had arrived by then, swelling in number until the chamber floor was almost hidden under a field of gold. A second Dreadnought clanked into position, his blade swimming with simmering energies. Above us hung the banners of our ancient campaigns, their livery sealed behind stasis fields and the bloodstains still vivid.
‘The day is dark, brothers,’ Italeo said, clenching his damaged gauntlet into a fist. ‘But we are the sons of Unity, the immaculate talons of the Emperor, and no enemy has ever crossed a threshold that we guarded. Remain true, remain indomitable, and He will guide you as He did before.’
We uttered no battle-cry then, such as the Space Marines did. We did not possess any, for we fought in silence and the roars of aggression they used to augment their prowess had no purchase for us.
But I was moved, all the same. My brothers were moved. We felt the fabric of our world, of our species’ existence, begin to unravel, and all that remained was defiance.
We raised our weapons. Several hundred guardian spears and longswords surged up into the air, all in silence, many etched with killing disruptor-charge, all as primordial and storied as our peerless battleplate.
‘By His will alone,’ said Italeo, invoking the eternal mantra.
‘By His will alone,’ we responded, the only thing we would say, or had ever said, before battle summoned us.
We knew our roles. Given the vastness of the Outer Palace, each Custodian acted as the figurehead for a whole host of lesser warriors. I knew the name of the senior mortal officer under my command – Colonel Slan Urbo of the Katanda 143rd Stalwarts. By the time I reached my assigned destination he had already mustered his regiment, close to four thousand troops in olive-green fatigues and carapace plate, all in full order and ready for deployment.
Our watch-sector was a few kilometres east of the fabled Lion’s Gate, site of some of the heaviest fighting during the Great Heresy and now a shrine zone full of cathedrals. The great processional avenue that led from the outer hab-regions all the way to the Eternity Gate itself passed through that region, overlooked by a hundred defence towers and stalked by Titans.
By the time I arrived at the schedule rendezvous, the signs of battle preparation were everywhere. I knew that gun lines would be angling and blast shields grinding closed. The defence stations in orbit would be cycling up to full power, activating long-dormant plasma coils and feeding the energy to colossal ship-killer howitzers. Incoming void traffic would be halted, and reserve Navy forces pressed into immediate action. From Luna to Jupiter, squadrons would already be prowling, sending exhaustive augur sweeps deep into the void.
Even before a shot had been fired, these actions doomed millions. Terra could not feed itself, and had not been able to do