The Beast Arises

Vangorich nodded. ‘Too many egos. Too many agendas. Too many leaders, and too many of them weak. Their weakness infects the whole. Everyone struggling for supremacy, even when the situation makes that struggle an act of madness, even when we all know better. You were right to unseat Udo. The Council needs a clear leader. You can see the benefit already. You brought Kubik around.’

‘And what happens when I am not here?’

‘A reversion to form.’ Vangorich sounded disgusted. ‘Your influence won’t last without your presence, I’m afraid. You’ll be leading the attack on Ullanor, of course?’

‘Of course,’ he said, the words sharp with doubt.

‘You don’t think you should?’

‘My position is already one based on great presumption. I pronounced myself leader of the united Successor Chapters of the Imperial Fists, declaring my right to command other armies when I am the only one of mine remaining. Now I propose to do the same for the sons of other primarchs. The overreach is stunning, isn’t it? And I don’t even know if the call will be answered.’

‘I think it will be.’ Vangorich paused. ‘Might I offer some advice?’

‘I’ll be pleased to hear it.’

‘Leadership is symbolic as much as anything else. You are not leading the united Successors despite being the last Imperial Fist. You are leading because you are the last.’

‘I doubt that will be enough to sway the Space Wolves.’

‘It won’t,’ said Vangorich. ‘You will have to grow your symbolic worth.’

‘Is that all?’ Koorland looked between the columns, at the vast space to the floor below. I am elevated beyond my station, he thought. He had sought to ease Thane’s doubts while his own had been gnawing at him with greater and greater force. He was not a politician. He belonged in the battlefield. And now he was proposing to invade a legend, at the head of a coalition he had no claim to command.

‘I know,’ said Vangorich. ‘Simple enough, isn’t it?’

Koorland grunted. He stopped walking. He gazed on the dais below. Twelve thrones, twelve competitions. He had, for the moment, beaten the High Lords’ attempts to co-opt him to their own ends. He wished he could say he had risen above them. He saw himself in one of the thrones, a small figure, dwarfed by the space of the Chamber, insignificant in the eyes of the colossal beings depicted in the fresco above him. ‘Thank you, Grand Master,’ he said to Vangorich. ‘What I have to do is clear.’

‘If not how to do so. I’m familiar with that burden. You have my sympathies and my hopes, Lord Commander.’ Vangorich walked away.

Lord Commander. The title grated each time he heard it. It was a grimy necessity. Chapter Master was better, even though it had come to him drenched in tragic irony. Master of a Chapter of one.

There was more than one, now. The Last Wall was a reality. The title did not fit as ill as it once had. He still doubted it would be enough.

Movement to his left. He turned his head. A shadow approached, then resolved itself as Lastan Veritus stepped into the light coming between the pillars from the Chamber. ‘I don’t have to ask if you overheard,’ Koorland said.

‘It is my duty to do so.’

Koorland bit back a retort. He would not give the inquisitor anything to use for his own purposes. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have made clear my concern that the attention given to the struggle against the orks is distracting us from the battle against the true enemy.’

‘Abundantly so.’ He controlled his temper. ‘I find it curious to consider a force capable of destroying an entire Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes a distraction.’

‘I have not come to argue. I concede that the ork occupation of Ullanor is troubling in the extreme. The threats may be more entwined than I suspected.’

Now Koorland fought to master his surprise at the conciliatory tone.

‘Ullanor,’ Veritus repeated. His ancient face creased in pain. ‘The gravity of this…’ He trailed off.

‘Words are inadequate,’ said Koorland.

‘They are. I agree with your course of action, Chapter Master. You were right to send the call. But you are planning to attack a myth.’

‘I am.’

‘Maintaining unity of purpose and of force will require leadership the equal of the task. Only a myth can conquer a myth.’

‘I am well aware that I am no myth. Do you propose to make me one?’

‘No.’

‘Then I fail to see the point of this conversation. There is no myth to lead us.’

‘You are wrong. There is one.’

‘Oh?’ Koorland was sceptical. ‘Does this myth have a name?’

‘He does. Vulkan.’

The dome of the Chamber began to spin. Koorland shifted his stance to steady himself. He looked up. There in the frozen image of the Great Crusade were the figures of the loyal primarchs. He saw Vulkan, hammer upraised. Reality was turning fluid. In his mind’s eye, Vulkan descended from the fresco, called into being by Veritus.

Ullanor. Vulkan. The names of a cataclysmic past. Names that had been legends for a millennium. But one already had re-emerged into lived history.