Descent of Angels (25 page)

‘I know this,’ said the Lion, his voice barely more than a whisper.

As the Lion spoke, a strange wind blew, a hot and urgent ripple of air with an acrid aftertaste, like the tang that hung in the vicinity of the armourer’s forge.

Zahariel looked up, seeing something huge and dark roar overhead, a massive winged shape with glowing blue coals at its rear. Another passed overhead, and he cried out as the heat from their passing washed over him.

The knights circled their mounts, and Zahariel drew his sword as the mighty flying beasts roared overhead once more.

‘What are they?’ shouted Zahariel over the din of the roars that filled the clearing.

‘I don’t know,’ cried Nemiel. ‘Great beasts!’

‘How can that be? They are all dead!’

‘Apparently not,’ said Nemiel.

Zahariel glanced over at the Lion once more, seeking some sign that what was happening had been expected, but their leader simply sat in his saddle looking up at the behemoths as they flew over them.

Luther was shouting something at the Lion, but his words were lost in the screaming roar as one of the giant flying beasts blotted out the sun and hovered above them. Its terrible howls filled Zahariel’s senses and the hot, bitter tang of its odour was almost unbearable. A powerful downdraught scattered leaves, and bent the branches of the trees with its force.

The eagle took to the air and soared over the great pool at the base of the waterfall, the misting water catching on its wings as it flew, making them shine like beaten gold.

Zahariel followed the mighty bird’s course and looked up, shielding his eyes from the baleful blue glow on the hovering beast’s belly, as a horrific squealing, like metal on metal, built from above.

‘Put your weapons away!’ shouted Luther as he rode through their number. ‘Sheath your swords by the order of the Lion.’

Zahariel tore his gaze from the shrieking, stinking beast above them, incredulous that they should put themselves at such a monstrous disadvantage.

‘Sar Luther,’ he yelled over the noise and wind. ‘You would leave us unarmed?’

‘Do it!’ shouted Luther. ‘Now!’

Though it violated everything he had been taught, the power of Luther’s voice was enough to make him cease his questions and slide his sword home in its scabbard.

‘Whatever happens,’ shouted Luther, through the whirling hurricane that surrounded them, ‘do nothing until the Lion acts! Understood?’

Zahariel nodded reluctantly as he heard what sounded like distant shouts from above.

Then amid the noise and confusion, he saw shapes resolving from the howling winds and noise.

Dark shapes, armoured and descending on wings of fire.

Beside him, Luther shielded his eyes and said, ‘And the Angels of Darkness descended on pinions of fire and light… the great and terrible dark angels.’

Zahariel recognised the words, having heard the fables of ancient times when the heroic dark angels, mysterious avengers of righteousness had first fought the beasts of Caliban in the earliest ages of the world.

His heart leapt as the first of the fiery angels landed, his armoured bulk enormous, the detail of his form obscured by the smoke of his landing. Others landed beside him, until ten hulking giants stood before the Lion’s group. Zahariel was immediately struck by the similarity between the giants and the armour of the Order.

As the first of the giants took a step forward, he was struck by the similarity in size between him and the Lion. Though the Lion was taller even than this giant, there was a similarity in scale and proportion that was unmistakable.

The fearsome downdraught of air from the great flying beast dissipated the smoke of the giants’ arrival, and with its cargo apparently delivered, it moved off. The clearing was suddenly silent but for the crash of water in the pool behind them.

Though there was a fearsome martial power to each of these giants, Zahariel also saw a real sense of awe, a feeling that they had found something precious, with a value they had not previously dared believe.

The giant reached up to his helmet, and Zahariel saw that he was armed with a sword and pistol similar in appearance to his own, though of an order of magnitude larger than those employed by the Order.

A twist of a catch brought a hiss of escaping air, and the giant lifted clear his helmet to reveal a startling face of human proportions, though his features were more widely spaced and gigantic than most men’s.

The face was handsome, and an uncertain smile began to develop as the giant looked upon Lion El’Jonson. Curiously, Zahariel felt no fear, his apprehensions fleeing his body at the sight of the giant’s face.

‘Who are you?’ asked the Lion.

‘I am Midris,’ said the giant, his voice impossibly deep and resonant. He turned to his fellow giants and said, ‘We are warriors of the First Legion.’

‘The First Legion?’ asked Luther. ‘Whose First Legion?’

Midris turned to Luther and said, ‘The First Legion of the Emperor, Master of Mankind and ruler of Terra.’

FOURTEEN

‘I
T
’
S THE MACHINES
,’ Nemiel said from his position on the battlements. ‘That’s what I find most impressive. What did you say they called them again?’

‘Crawlers,’ replied Zahariel.

‘Right, crawlers,’ nodded Nemiel. ‘They cut down the trees, pull out the stumps, and level the land afterwards, and all three tasks are completed by just one machine, controlled by a single rider.’

‘Operators,’ corrected Zahariel. ‘The men who work the machines are called operators or drivers, not riders.’

‘Operators, then,’ shrugged Nemiel. ‘I ask you, have you ever seen anything like it?’

Looking at the scene below them, Zahariel shared Nemiel’s sense of amazement. The two of them stood on the battlements at Aldurukh, gazing down at the forest. Except, there was no longer very much forest left, at least not directly in their line of sight.

As far as the eye could see, across the entire parcel of land below the northern slopes of the mountain, the ancient woodlands were disappearing.

From their vantage point, it was difficult to pick out much detail, but the scale of the operation unfolding below them was awe-inspiring.

‘If you ask me,’ said Nemiel, without waiting for an answer, ‘they look like insects, impossibly large insects, I’ll admit, but inserts, all the same.’

Watching the machines at work, Zahariel agreed that there was something in what his cousin said. The restless activity below the mountain did put him in mind of the regimented movements of an insect colony, an image undiminished by the fact that the fortress battlements were high enough above the scene to make the people below them look like ants.

‘Can you imagine how long it would take to do that much work without the machines?’ asked Nemiel. ‘Or how many men and horses you’d need to clear that much land? I’ll say this about the Imperials, they don’t do things by halves. It’s not just their warriors who are giants, their machines are as well.’

Zahariel nodded his head absently in reply, his attention still riveted on the activities of the crawlers.

The last few weeks had set them all reeling.

By any standard, it had been the most remarkable period in the entire history of Caliban. Nearly six months had passed since Zahariel had become a knight. The campaign against the great beasts was over, the Knights of Lupus were dead and Lion El’Jonson had ascended to the position of Grand Master of the Order, with Luther as his second-in-command.

All these events, however, were as nothing compared to the coming of the Imperium.

The news had spread across Caliban like wildfire, within hours of the first sightings of Imperial flying ships in the sky. Soon, it had become known that a group of giants in black armour had come to Caliban proclaiming themselves as envoys of the Emperor of Terra.

They were called the First Legion, and they had been sent as messengers.

Zahariel well remembered the moment the Imperials had come to Caliban.

‘We are your brothers,’ the warrior who had introduced himself as Midris had said, as he and his fellows bent their knees and bowed their heads in front of the Lion. ‘We are emissaries of the Imperium of Man, come to re-unite all the lost children of humanity, now that Old Night is ended. We have come to restore your birthright. We have come to bring you the Emperor’s wisdom.’

Not all the Terrans were giants. In the aftermath of their arrival, it had become clear that the giants – or Astartes, as they were called in the Terran language – had come to Caliban as the pathfinders of a larger expedition. Once it was apparent that the people of Caliban were inclined to welcome them with open arms, more normally proportioned human beings had followed in the giants’ wake, like the operators responsible for the crawlers, along with historians, interpreters and those skilled in the arts of diplomacy.

Whether giants or normal men, the Terrans were united in one thing: they all spoke glowingly of their Emperor.

‘I wonder what he’s like?’ said Zahariel, apropos of nothing.

‘Who?’

‘The Emperor,’ said Zahariel, feeling a thrill of anticipation run through him. ‘They say he created the Astartes, and that he can read minds and perform miracles. They say he is the greatest man who ever lived. They say he is thousands of years old. They say he is immortal. What does a man like that look like?’

Earlier that morning, Imperial envoys had announced that their Emperor intended to visit Caliban. He was nearby, they said, no more than three weeks’ travel time away. With the agreement of the Order’s supreme council, it had been decided that a landing site would be cleared for the Emperor’s arrival in the forests below Aldurukh.

The crawlers the Imperials had brought with them had been put to work, and the ever-expanding clearing below was destined to become the place where the Emperor would first set foot on Caliban.

Zahariel was not alone in looking forward to the prospect of seeing the Terran Emperor in the flesh, his imminent arrival sparking most of the discussions that had taken place in knightly circles since the giant warriors had arrived. Few could credit the tales the giants told of their leader. If their stories were to be believed, the Emperor was the absolute embodiment of human perfection.

‘I’d imagine he’ll be at least ten metres tall,’ said Nemiel sardonically, ‘perhaps even twenty, if his followers are anything to go by. He’ll breathe fire and his eyes will be able to shoot out deadly rays like the beasts of legend. Perhaps he’ll have two heads, one like that of a man and one like that of a goat. How should I know what he looks like? I’m as much in the dark as you are.’

‘Be careful,’ warned Zahariel, ‘the Terran giants don’t like it when you speak of their leader like that. You’ll offend them.’

Like most Calibanites, Zahariel found it breathtaking that the Imperials not only had such extraordinary technology at their fingertips, but also that they seemed to take it so much for granted. Even the things his people held in common with the Terrans only served to underline the breadth of the gap between them.

The knights of Caliban were armed and armoured in the same style as the Astartes, but the motorised blades, pistols and power armour the Terrans were equipped with were demonstrably better and more effective in every aspect than the versions used on Caliban.

Zahariel found the difference most visible when he compared the merits of his armour to that worn by the Astartes. Even beyond the gulf in physical stature, Astartes power armour was superior in every possible way. Zahariel’s armour protected him from blows and impacts, whether from the claws of predators or the swords of men. He could even close his helm to filter out smoke or other hazards to breathing like the deadly pollen of Caliban’s sweetroot flower.

In comparison, Astartes armour offered a much higher level of protection. It gave its wearer the ability to see in absolute darkness. It allowed him to survive extremes of heat and cold that would otherwise be unthinkable. It included its own separate air supply. Equipped with this technology, the warriors of the Astartes could survive and fight in any environment, no matter how hostile.

While such things seemed commonplace to the Terrans, among the people of Caliban they were regarded as little short of miraculous, even more so when it came to the wonders of Imperial medicine.

A few days after the Imperials had arrived, one of the Order’s supplicants had suffered an accident in training. A boy named Moniel had been practising walking the spiral with a live blade when he had slipped, inadvertently cutting into his knee with his sword as he fell.

The Order’s apothecaries had successfully managed to stem the flow of blood, saving Moniel’s life, but they could do nothing to save his leg. In order to prevent the flesh from turning gangrenous, the apothecaries had been forced to amputate the wounded limb.

It went without saying that anyone missing a leg could no longer hope to become a knight. Ordinarily, Moniel would have been returned to the care of his family in the settlement of his birth.

In this instance, however, the Imperials had intervened to ensure a happier ending.

Upon hearing of Moniel’s injury, a Terran apothecary had overseen his treatment, a treatment which, in this case, involved using esoteric methods to cause a new leg to re-grow from the stump where the old leg had been amputated.

N
ATURALLY, THE
I
MPERIALS
did not call the world Caliban.

The Imperials had no way of knowing what name the people before them had given to their world. Nor could they know of Caliban’s culture. They had learned of the knightly orders, and it had been a source of surprise and delight to both cultures that the hierarchical structure of the knightly orders was very much like the structure of the Legions of the Astartes.

These were strange days, interesting times.

T
HE BATTLE HALLS
of Aldurukh resounded daily to the clash of arms, supplicants and knights put through gruelling training rituals overseen by the Astartes. Giants in black armour marched the length and breadth of the halls every day, working with the Masters of the Order to gauge the level of martial prowess and character of every member of the knightly brotherhood.