The Emperor's Legion (Watchers of the Throne #1) - Chris Wraight Page 0,84

and we were thrown about like straw in the thresher. My head slammed against my restraints, opening up a cut that ran from my eyebrow to my cheek.

First blood to this rust bucket, I thought grimly, reaching to wipe it away.

We screamed earthwards, and the lander’s guidance thrusters pulled us down and down into a near-vertical dive before eventually kicking into an arresting counterblast. The vibrations became bone-bruising, the noise deafening, the deceleration crushing.

We hit the ground with a mighty crack, and immediately the crew doors blasted open. My restraints shot back into their grooves, and we were moving, springing from our seats and reaching for our weapons.

I was first out, running down the ramp with Reva at my shoulder.

It was then that I first set eyes on Terra, for so long the distant inspiration for all I had ever done. Holy Terra, the home of saints and the seat of He Who Preserves. The destination of all pilgrims and the origin of our species.

I could have vomited. I could have wept, and I would have done both, assuredly, had the madness and the devilry around me not reached out with both hands and tried to kill me.

So I did what I had been brought for. I killed right back.

Tieron

I do not remember much of that first meeting, high up in Luna’s thin air, surrounded by the starship tombs. I was overwhelmed by his presence, I suppose, as well as by my age and frailty. All I have from that first, brief encounter are the impressions it left on me.

I do not know how long it had taken him to reach us. I never found out later, either. I heard snatches from those who would become the great powers in our new Imperium, and I could scarcely believe them even though I had no reason to doubt the speakers.

In future years our scholars may piece together just what the sequence of events was and assign official date-signs to them. My own supposition is that Cadia fell months before we became aware of it, and that the Great Rift opened long before its effects reached us on Terra. Rumours have come to my ears of the links between the events at the Eye and the resurrection of the primarch on distant Ultramar, though I cannot make proper sense of them, and there is much that I suspect would damn me as a heretic were I to pursue it.

All this notwithstanding, it became clear to me that the journey undertaken by the Lord Guilliman had been arduous in the extreme, a crusade that had taken him halfway across the galaxy even as it tore itself apart. Time may have passed for them very differently, I suppose, for when they spoke of that pilgrimage they gave the impression of months adrift on the ether’s currents, fighting enemies I could scarcely comprehend, let alone picture.

He did not speak of that when we met, of course. None of his captains or advisers did. They had just fought a terrible battle in that place, and their speech was heavy with weariness. I never discovered who exactly it was they fought there – no one who knew would tell me, and I understood enough of Imperial law and custom not to press the matter.

We must have exchanged a few words more. I must have told him who the Lords of Terra were, and what had transpired to bring such turmoil to the world of his creation. I must have tried to tell him something of what we had been trying to do – to bring the ­Adeptus Custodes into the war, to reform our armies into something that might oppose the Despoiler more effectively – though I wonder if he found such scant musings comical or irritating.

It was hard to look directly at him. I don’t know why that was. It was as if the light reflecting from his face came from a source denied to us, a sun that none who beheld him could see.

He spoke softly. He was reasonable, even solicitous. Every command he gave was issued in the same calm, authoritative manner. All obeyed him instantly, not just the Space Marines who shared his lineage, but the Mechanicus constructs, the living saints who accompanied that strange cavalcade, even the Custodians sent from Terra. It felt then as if we had been waiting for him for a long time without knowing it. Now that he was here among us, a terrible doubt began to lift,