Chapter Text
It was a night for murder.
There was no putting a brave face on it. No hiding behind the bureaucratic shield of words like ‘civil unrest’ or ‘escalated tensions’. There was panic aplenty, to be sure, fear and terror behind many a locked door. That made a bad enough stew - come morning, the shame-faced would slip out onto the streets, to wherever it was that their now-ruined lives would take them. Some would inevitably turn themselves in to local justice. Others would prefer more direct action. They’d be picking corpses out of manufactorum gears and off paving stones for a week.
But that was an ordinary evil, one that happened every day, and those possessed by it would come to a bad end one way or another. They still had a soul, whatever that counted for, and would find no rest with it stained by wicked deeds.
It was the ones that would go home afterwards, who would fold their robes and hide their knives, that were the true threat. They felt no remorse for their crimes. Only a sense of satisfaction, of grim pride, as those they considered unworthy to share a street with were cleansed. That’s all they saw their fellows as - pests, vermin, not even worthy of anger or revulsion.
That was fine. Shas’El Vol’han had enough anger for all of them. Every one of the bastards.
She glared down into the Gimlet District as though by fury alone her unaugmented vision would pierce the columns of smoke that rose to mingle with stormclouds above. It was a rare day that Sartheno was not pummeled by inclement weather, but that, too, was symbolic. When man killed man in the poor quarter, the sky had no tears to shed. There would be no cleansing rain. The bodies and blood would remain until the Tau came to clear away this latest bout of racial violence.
That was the way of it. Vol’han’s hands clenched into fists at her side. Always cleaning up after the gue’la. She was sick of it. Gut-sick. Heart-sick. She hadn’t come this far across the galaxy, through the agony of the Startide Nexus, to stand by and watch death in the streets of her city.
The sight was becoming too familiar. Three times in the last local month she’d stood this vigil atop the local barracks, waiting for the sun to rise and her shift to end. Breathing the smoke, hearing the screams and cursing the brute ignorance of those she was ostensibly stationed to protect. What the barracks truly did was serve as a tidewall, a hardpoint should the violence threaten to spill out into the city proper.
Only then would the Fire Warriors deploy. Only then would the Kroot be tasked to clear the streets. To descend into that chaos without cause would invite a slaughter on either side.
So it was, for the most part, ignored. The reports went up. The answer remained the same.
Watch. Wait. Act only if necessary to preserve the Greater Good.
More and more, it seemed the Fourth Expansion Sphere and the Empire disagreed on what that meant.
A smooth hiss and cool breath of air at her back announced a new arrival to the roof of the barracks. Moments later, a rangy human little taller than the suited Fire Warrior had joined her at the armoured paling. Vol’han knew him by sight: a black bodyglove, a stylised carapace clamshell, and a badge whose dull face showed a simple gue’la letter. The Tau occupation of Sartheno had resulted in some strange bedfellows. The Imperium’s agents had determined that the Atoll’s stability at large would serve their far-off Emperor better than its destruction.
For the moment.
‘Glad you’re not down there, eh?’ the man asked, cupping a hand to light a narcotic stick against the climbing wind. He didn’t wait for the Fire Warrior’s answer to continue. ‘It’s true, you know.’
Unwilling to be baited, unwilling to let her anger be seen by the gue’la, Vol’han steadied herself. ‘What is?’
‘The rumours. Ultramar. Guilliman. The war’s over.’
Reaching into his carapace with one hand, the man took a deep draw. Vol’han could see his breathing hitch as he did. Prolonged lho exposure. An Empire medicae could resolve such trifling issues with little effort, as could the man’s masters. He withdrew a tattered sheet of parchment and offered it.
A crude etching of a lightning-crowned eagle. Drops of darkening red that could only be fresh blood. Vol’shan’s lip curled in disgust. More cults, more zealots. Another pogrom.
‘How can they know?’ the man was still speaking, his voice strange, half-dazed. ‘I didn’t. But some underhive cult knew that the Primarch Reborn banished his brother, tore the heart out of the Plague Wars. I didn’t even think he was real, and they know he’s triumphed. And look.’
Once again, the gloved hand dipped beneath body armour, and returned with a battered necklace. Vol’han was familiar with this: the two-headed aquila that had been chiselled off the overwhelming majority of Imperial structures seized during the occupation. The Imperium’s fascination with the half-blind creature was challenged only by their love of skulls and bone as decor.
She looked back at the parchment. One head.
‘It’s different,’ she said. ‘So? Your Ecclesiarchy has many interpretations, many symbols.’
‘Not like this. This eagle has only the head that faces the future, unblinded. This isn’t the Emperor’s symbology.’ The Inquisitorial agent shivered, though the wind was hot with embers. ‘It’s Guilliman’s. They think the Throne has a new occupant.’
‘Rulers come and go. Even Aun’Va, great in his wisdom, will give way to another.’
For the first time the man turned to face her. The lho-stick shook in his hand. ‘That’s not how it works. Not for us. There is only one Emperor, past, future, present. Do you understand this…’ his voice shook now, too, as he sought to collect himself. ‘This means our leverage is lost. This explains everything. The riots. The sickness. The elimination of assets. We’ve never had trouble like this before. We’ve never lost control.’
Vol’han didn’t meet his eye, or she would likely have struck him. ‘This is your doing?’ she sneered. ‘This is your idea of control?’
‘The ones down there, they’re following higher orders, now. Or they believe they are.’
‘And now your failure is ours to resolve.’
‘There are those still loyal.’ Over the wafting cries came new tones - the hiss-crack of lasrifles, the sharp bang of bolt weapons. ‘This will be put down. But you need to know what’s happening. You need to take this to your superiors, as I will to mine. They need to know the danger we’re facing, what conspiracy is brewing across the city. Don’t think this is confined to the Gimlet. They just didn’t have the patience to wait.’
It was Vol’han’s turn to be surprised. ‘Sartheno would not dare. We have enriched your lives tenfold. Work in the gantries, alms for the poor, largesse for your merchants and nobles. Why would they throw away these gifts?’
‘For the Emperor,’ the man replied, exhausted beyond all measure. ‘Why else?’ He dropped the lho-stick, crushed it under a booted heel, and turned to go.
Flames sprung up from the Gimlet’s centre, the ramshackle market, slum and shanty-houses where the blameless hid from the killers who walked amongst them. Secondary explosions tore away the wall of a squat workshop. Dust mixed with smoke, obscuring the district from sight again, before the screams redoubled in intensity. Vol’han felt for her helmet reflexively, then steeled herself.
She would face it, eyes unclouded. She would face it until dawn.
A new scent drifted upwards. It took a moment to register.
‘Did they keep livestock in the Gimlet market?’ she asked.
‘What market?’ A bitter laugh. ‘What livestock?’
The door hissed again, and the Fire Warrior was alone.
Until the dawn. If it ever came.