The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘What is it?’ hissed Nohai.

‘Thought I heard something.’

‘Severian? Anything ahead?’

The vox chirruped with burbling static. There’d been a lot of that the closer they’d moved to the vessel’s prow. Voitek said it was the increased density of machine-spirits, but Loken wasn’t so sure, though he couldn’t have named what he thought it might be.

‘Don’t you think I’d have said so?’ answered Severian.

‘Is that a no?’

‘Yes, it’s a no. Now shut up and let me work.’

3

They passed into the forward galleries, taking one of the service tunnels that ran the length of the ship. Following Cayne’s plotter towards the prow, Loken realised that this portion of the ship was one he had seen before.

Or, more accurately, it felt like somewhere he’d visited.

He paused to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.

No, this was one of the places, a lonely forgotten pocket within the ship’s layered superstructure. Dark now as it had been then, brackish water drizzled from conduits bolted to the roof. The remains of burned down tapers floated in oily puddles.

‘Something wrong?’ asked Varren.

‘I can’t say,’ replied Loken.

Varren grunted and moved ahead. Loken let Nohai and Tyrfingr pass him. Rubio paused at his side.

‘You’ll tell me if you start hearing things, yes?’

‘Of course,’ said Loken.

They moved on, entering, as Loken had known they would, a stagnant, vaulted space of old echoes and drifting flakes of ash. Iron bars framed the interior and numerous empty oil drums lay scattered throughout, spilling grey mulch over the deck.

The pathfinders circled around Severian and Cayne, who knelt in the centre of the space, conferring softly over a map hastily scrawled in the ash.

‘Where are we?’ asked Nohai. ‘This doesn’t look like anything worth marking. I thought the plan was to seek out places of importance.’

‘This place is important,’ said Loken. ‘More than you know.’

‘It’s just a hold,’ said Rubio, wrinkling his nose. ‘It stinks.’

‘This is where they first met, isn’t it?’ asked Qruze.

Loken nodded.

‘Where who met?’ asked Voitek.

‘The quiet order,’ said Loken.

‘The what?’

‘A warrior lodge,’ said Rubio, circling the chamber. Scaffolding still clung to the walls, ribbing them like steel bones. Discarded dust sheets hung like unpainted banners, as though a host of craftsmen might return at any moment. ‘This is where it began, the corruption.’

‘No,’ said Loken. ‘It began long before this place, but here’s where it took root.’

‘Were you a member?’ asked Severian.

‘No. You?’

Severian shook his head. ‘After my time. What about you, old man?’

Qruze pulled his shoulders back, as though offended by the notion. ‘I most certainly was not. When Erebus brought it to the Legion I didn’t know why we needed such a thing. Said so then, and I say so now.’

Loken moved through the space, thinking back to the time he’d attended a meeting with Torgaddon at his side.

‘I came here once,’ said Loken. ‘Not this space exactly, but one just like it.’

‘I thought you said you weren’t a member,’ said Bror.

‘I wasn’t. Torgaddon brought me here, thinking I might want to become part of the order.’

‘So why didn’t you?’ asked Varren.

‘I went along to see what sort of things the order did,’ said Loken. ‘A warrior of my company had... died. He’d been a member and I wanted to see if the order had anything to do with his death.’

‘Did it?’

‘Not directly, no, but even after I’d seen that it looked like nothing more than a harmless gathering of warriors, I felt there was something off about it. They’d gotten too good at keeping secrets, and I couldn’t bring myself to entirely trust any group that shrouded itself in that much secrecy.’

‘Good instincts,’ said Rubio.

Loken nodded, but before he could answer, Rama Karayan dropped from the scaffolding lining the walls. A Space Marine in full armour was a considerable weight, but he managed to land almost soundlessly.

‘Get into cover,’ said Karayan. ‘Someone approaches.’

4

They came in groups of three or four, mortal men in masks and heavy, hooded robes. Loken watched them assemble around what he’d at first assumed to be a defunct conduit hub. Roped down tarpaulin covered it, but when the first intruders to the chamber cut the ropes and pulled the covering away, Loken saw how wrong he’d been.

This wasn’t a lodge space, at least, not any more.

He groped for the word.

Temple. Fane.

An altar lay beneath the tarpaulin, a blocky plinth of dusty, baked ochre clay that looked oddly familiar. It took him a moment to recall where he’d seen stone just like it.

‘Davin,’ he whispered. ‘That altar stone, it came from Davin.’

Severian looked up as he spoke, shaking his head and placing a finger to his lips. The devotees continued to arrive, silently and reverently, until the space was filled with over a hundred bodies.

No words were spoken, as though they were about some solemn business. Some knelt before the altar, while others righted the toppled oil drums and relit the fires with rags, sheafs of paper and vials of viscous oils.