The Emperor's Legion (Watchers of the Throne #1) - Chris Wraight Page 0,56

not truly known the cause.

I felt dislocated. The Astronomican was a literal lighthouse for the Navigator-mutants, but for the rest of us it also had a grounding function. Only with its withdrawal could we understand just how much its presence had been subliminally detected, a faint aura of assurance amid a galaxy that was tearing itself apart.

And that explained the madness. As the command lifter pulled further out into the maw of the world-city, we could see the enormous crowds spilling out onto the causeways and raised plazas. They were incredible – living seas of humanity, streaming out of every crevice. They clustered in the choked spaces like locusts, and their massed cries of desperation were audible even over the drone of the lifter’s engines.

I remembered my encounter with the far smaller crowd, only a few days ago. I remembered the nervousness of the mortal commander, the sense of impending violence in the air. Now all that was swept away, replaced by naked desperation on such a scale that it almost defied belief. Had they known then that this was coming? Was that what had driven their short-lived magus into his own madness?

To the west lay the Lion’s Gate itself, visible as a mountainous hunk of grey amid flickering swirls of fiery air. The defences were strongest there, but we served as the portal’s eastern flank, a critical location to hold if something were to attempt to force the passage. I found myself wishing for more than twice the troops that Urbo had under his command.

The colonel himself was subdued as we circled the wide zone of engagement.

‘So many,’ he murmured. ‘Throne, they’re all going mad.’

I had always doubted that the greater mass of humanity was sufficiently psychically attuned to detect the presence of the Astronomican, but perhaps I had been wrong. Or maybe this was a baser kind of fear here – a herd response, gathering momentum with every second.

‘Take us out there,’ I commanded, gesturing to the distant pinnacles of a giant basilica.

We passed over more sites of devastation. One entire hive-spire was burning along its eastern face, exposing a skeletal lattice of hab-levels within. Another was stricken with flickering lines of neon-blue as its main power grid overloaded. Even as we swooped lower, a major viaduct arching across a deep canyon collapsed under the weight of the crowds teeming across it, sending a plume of steel-grey debris mushrooming high. Amid all the tumult, the loss seemed hardly to be noticed.

I narrowed my eyes. It was becoming hard to make anything out in that murk of flame and ash. The air was behaving strangely over the basilica’s cupola. There was something there – a dancing, snaking presence, like the reflection of light from a spyglass. As we drew closer, the impression faded, and the concrete outline of the great building rose up to obscure all else – a tiered, many-terraced colossus in slate-grey adamantium, crowned with lines of skulls and tear-streaked angels.

‘Complete your cordon, colonel,’ I said, moving towards the hold doors. ‘I need to see this.’

‘Lord, there are thousands down–’ Then he remembered who he was talking to, and gave an embarrassed half-smile.

‘I will return within the hour,’ I said, pulling the security latch and letting fiery air scream inside. ‘Ensure all is set in place by then.’

Then I pushed myself from the hold and out onto the lifter’s ledge. By then we were no more than ten metres from the ground, and I could smell the human stench of the throngs below.

I dropped heavily, barely evading those directly under my shadow. The basilica’s great doors rose up before me, though the plaza was stuffed tight with labourers and menial-grade workers. Just as before, one look at me was enough to send most of them shrieking and scrabbling to get away, though some of the desperate crawled to touch my cloak or plead for protection. They all reeked of fear and frenzy.

I pushed my way through them, climbed the steps and entered the basilica. The air inside was scarcely less febrile. A huge ­mingled congregation clustered around the mighty columns, wailing and rocking in unison. Frescoes of the Imperial saints hung in the side-chapels, dark with incense stains, and the high altar was throttled with supplicants trying to reach the reliquaries beyond. Servo-skulls zipped and bobbed through the pungent clouds, confused by the sensory overload, their augur-eyes flashing madly.

I moved towards the high altar, a vast construction of crusted gold set below the vault where the transepts