The Last Son of Dorn by David Guymer

Author:David Guymer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2016-07-29T12:37:43+00:00

‘Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.’

– the remembrancer Thucydides, pre-M0

Twelve

The void

The conference room aboard Alcazar Remembered was as puritanical as Koorland had come to expect. It was oval in shape, its walls bare metal, its space dominated by a sturdy metal table and chairs enough for fifty warriors of the Adeptus Astartes. Hololith crystals studded the unpolished surface at intervals, returning the dim illumination of the ceiling lumen points like chipped glass. It was in this room that an argument over whether orbital barrage or drop strike was the surer method of pacifying the capital world of the abhuman Kivor Enclavium had famously brought Oriax Dantalion and Sigismund to blows, Koorland had learned (Shipmaster Weylon Kale being a remarkably informed historian). ‘I knew there was some life to these stone men,’ the Death Lord, Mortarion, commander of the compliance mission, was reported to have said as he pulled brother from brother.

If true, it was a damning indictment of them all, and another story altogether.

Two dozen Deathwatch sergeants were gathered in and around the available chairs. Koorland recognised the Raven Guard, Tyris, who had performed so superbly on Incus Maximal, in muted conversation with a Brazen Claw who must have travelled with Abhorrence, for Koorland did not know his name. The red-haired Wolf, Kjarvik, laughed harshly over the subdued chatter at some tale of Asger’s. The Watch Commander, for reasons known best to himself, had his boot on Oriax Dantalion’s austere table, hands afloat in demonstration of some grapple manoeuvre.

Issachar and Thane walked amongst them, speaking little, thus far avoiding a reprise of Sigismund and Dantalion’s infamous bout.

Field-Legatus Otho Dorr of the Ullanor Veterans, Astra Militarum, stood against a wall and sipped at a glass of clear wine. It was a plant fermentation product formulated to complement the nutrient gruel favoured by the Fists Exemplar. Despite all that he had survived on Ullanor and before, a social encounter with so many looming Adeptus Astartes clearly had him mortified. If he was hoping for the wine to loosen some of those nerves then he was due another disappointment. Intoxication was but one of the many things that the Fists Exemplar disapproved of.

Confessor-Militant Rawketh was arguably a natural companion under such circumstances, but the commander of the freshly raised Ecclesiarchy drafts stood alone by the viewports, captivated by the massed bow lights and engine flares of the combined fleets.

Phaeton Laurentis’ attempts at making small talk with Weylon Kale and Dominus Gerg Zhokuv appeared to be a waste of the magos’ synthised breath. The brain of the ancient dominus bubbled thoughtfully in its armoured jar. Kale, meanwhile, listened politely, but was finding it difficult to keep himself every few seconds from checking the vox-pin in his collar or glancing at the ship lights in the viewports. The coordinates Koorland had provided them were deep inside the orks’ burgeoning empire. The old shipmaster felt the phantom itch of sensor ghosts on the back of his neck whenever he turned his back on the viewports.

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