Isabella and Sydney looked different in the red lamp light. There was something more ominous in the shadows underlying their eyes and jaws. Those happy smiles they wore seemed more knowing and sinister.

  Hyram gazed at the pict of his wife and son. His thumb ran back and forth across the smooth, glossy texture. Eventually, when he could not look any longer, he placed it back in a musette bag he kept strapped on his chestplate. It was attached to webbing over his heart. He thumped it once and lowered his Night Eye goggles once again, illuminating the interior of Lieutenant Namgung’s Taurox Prime.

  All of the Kasrkin of the platoon command squad wore the same night vision equipment. In conjunction with their helmets and masks, whether these were bandannas, hoods, or supplemental armor pieces, they obscured their faces. Commissar Fremantle and Jacinto both had their own set but hadn’t put them on yet. Their faces were illuminated by the former’s lighter and the psyker spun his finger around the flame. It rose higher and swirled slowly in a miniature cyclone.

  “I-I n-n-never play with f-fire,” Jacinto whispered to the Commissar. “I t-try to main-t-tain my skills with s-s-small flames.”

  “Surely, you would better hone your power by practicing with larger flames,” Fremantle pointed out. “It is the smallest fire which the untrained and improper must practice with.”

  “S-sometimes, the smallest light burns brightest,” Jacinto murmured. “A psyker c-c-can underestimate their own p-power. They m-m-muh-may let it grow b-beyond their control. Something so small might ex-ex-explode. F-focusing all thought o-on s-s-something so miniscule requires re-refinement of your energy and t-teaches discipline and c-control.” The psyker looked up at the Commissar. “Control takes precedence.”

  Fremantle nodded, his stern expression moderated by the curious glint in his purple eyes. Jacinto waved his finger and the swirling tendril of flame returned to its spout. The Commissar flipped the cap over it and tucked the lighter away.

  Freya’s panting caught Hyram’s attention. The dog was excitedly wagging her tail. Cobb scratched the top of her head.

  “Don’t worry girl, we’re almost there.” When the handler sat up, he looked up at Cornelius. The preacher sat beside him with his prayer beads laced between his fingers. “Beg pardon, but why have you not taken Night Eye goggles, sir?”

  “Why illuminate the darkness when the Emperor does so for me?” Cornelius asked boisterously.

  A yellow-green flash on Hyram’s left drew his gaze. Marsh Silas projected a holographic map from his Slate-monitron. In the darkness of the Taurox Prime’s interior cabin, it cast an eerie, wide glow. The dashboard monitors emanated white, creating stark slivers through the gloom of sickly green. Hyram got up and stood behind Marsh’s seat to get a better look.

  The holographic map display denoted the convoy’s position with a miniature yellow Aquila. It ran up the long, winding road which spanned across the map. Bloody Platoon and their comrades in 3rd Platoon were very far to the east. Practically on the fringe of the area of operations, there were few Imperial facilities. Most were drawn back to the coast or the flat ranges and river plateaus. The surrounding mountains, ridges, and spurs were home to artillery forts and mountaineering regiments. Not even the Marked Men or the other Traitor Guardsmen dared to press that far, choosing the vastness of the east to move and hide.

  There was only one more kilometer to the proposed meeting point between the Kasrkin and Romilly’s assets. Marsh closed the projection and the light winked away.

  “Just a few minutes more, sir,” Womack, the driver, said eagerly. “See? I told you we wouldn’t run into anything. I’m quite used to night-driving. I used to drive Cargo-8’s and—”

  “Keep your eyes on the road before you do crash into something,” Marsh grunted. Womack snapped his head forward again and muttered an apology. The platoon leader shook his head before looking over his shoulder. “Not long.” He turned more in his seat and looked back into the troop compartment. Behind his goggles, he frowned uncomfortably. Reaching up to his micro-bead, he flipped over to a secure channel and contacted Hyram. “Why did they have to come?” His voice was agitated through the comms.

  Those in question were Prince Constantine and Major Bristol. Before the task unit clandestinely left Kasr Prolieum before sunrise that day, the two officers approached Hyram and Marsh Silas in full wargear. They did not ask to come along, they merely stated they were without the likelihood of compromise. Neither of the two Cadians could deny both the executive officer of the entire regiment nor their top liaison officer.

  Instead of wearing a typical camouflage set of Carapace Armor and green fatigues, Constantine wore dark green armor and a grayish field uniform. Between his legs was the Black Bolter and he gently ran a rag doused in sanctifying, cleansing oil along the barrel. Beside him, Bristol wore a black set of fatigues and equally dark Storm Trooper Carapace Armor trimmed with white. The helmet was fully enclosed and two dull red orbs appeared on the visor. They were complemented by the crimson Monoscope mounted on his shoulder. A pale skull was painted on the front of his helmet. Unlike the Prince, who traveled light, he carried three weapons; a chainsword, a Bolt Pistol, and a Ryza pattern Hot-shot Hellgun. Compared to the Mk. 2 Hellgun carried by the Kasrkin—a much larger weapon—the Ryza was sleek, with a compact body and an elongated barrel.

  Bristol remained very still and his gaze remained fixated on the bulkhead. Constantine finally finished anointing his weapon and tucked it away. Hyram’s gaze lingered for a few minutes.

  “If I were to indulge the wider tactical and strategic purpose, they’ve more than likely joined us on our delicate mission to not only confirm our single reliable source of intelligence is loyal but also to keep him secure. If I were to entertain their trustworthiness, I suspect they volunteered out of comradeship and dedication to the Emperor. But if I were to actually use my head, I suspect they doubt our ability to handle this mission and wish to confirm we ourselves are not turncoats.”

  “They’ve no reason to doubt our loyalty,” Marsh Silas said.

  “They’re high-ranking officers, they do not require a reason,” Hyram said in reply. “Isaev, Battye, Osniah—they were ready to kill you, a Hero of the Imperium.” Marsh didn’t respond.

  Womack steered the vehicle onto a dirt road adjacent to the paved road. The Taurox Prime decelerated along the bumpy, uneven, pot-hole studded path. High grass grew on either side, mere blurs in the green filter of the Night Eye goggles.

  Eventually, the convoy arrived at a large, cleared area. Lieutenant Namgung ordered his platoon of Taurox Primes to assemble in a coil while the vehicles conveying Gabler’s platoon remained strung out on the dirt road. Ramps dropped and Kasrkin formed a perimeter between the vehicles. Gunners stood in the open hatches of the Tauroxes and scanned the landscape and sky.

  Marsh Silas sent a patrol to examine the immediate surroundings of the coil and they returned without finding a disturbance. Hyram sent another group down the road to observe the main route in case hostile forces observed their movements and desired to send a strike force.

  The initial excitement settled down as the Tauroxes disengaged their engines. Far in the distance, artillery forts carried out fire missions. Such deep, low rumbling sounded like distant, rolling thunder. From this elevated plain, much of the river plateau country below them was plain to see. Convoy lights twinkled and the concentration of Militarum facilities created white light pollution which rose high into the sky. Far off to the west, Kasr Prolieum cast an even brighter radiance. Valkyrie flights, visible only by their bow and tail lamps, soared through the sky. The wake of their engines whispered through the still air.

  All they could do was wait. Hyram checked his Slate-monitron for the time. It was almost zero hour. They’d been on the road for nearly twenty hours. Men stretched, bent over, and stamped their feet. Even Hyram had to twist his center and shake his legs out just to rid himself of the stiffness. When he finished, he leaned back against the side of Namgung’s Taurox Prime. His hand clutched the musette bag over his chest. Marsh Silas walked back from his inspection and stopped in front of him.

  “I saw you looking at the pict,” he said. “What ails you?”

  “It has been some time since I saw Isabella and Sydney. I miss them. How sinful I am, to spend so much time away from my family.”

  Marsh Silas holstered his Ripper Pistol and stood beside him.

  “I don’t get back to Kasr Sonnen enough. Oft, I suffer guilt for not doffing my armor and taking up the scholar’s robe at Lilias’s center. She left her legacy in our hands and we ensured the creation of that institution. Should I not also stay and be a part of it? But I remind myself it was a part of our plan to reach out to as many people as possible. I could not do that sitting in a tactica classroom.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Marsh folded his arms across his chest and leaned towards Hyam so their shoulder plates touched. Hyram found his friend smiling that old crooked grin of his. “Lilias understood me. She understood our vision; we would build not just one institute, but many. To do that, we would have to keep fighting and go further into this Imperium. Along the way, we would discover what more we could do, outside and inside a schola. Every day, that is what I do. That is what I remember when those feelings creep into my heart. Isabella understands what you must do as well, for you pursue these dreams also. Duty, honor, aiding your fellow man, bettering the Imperium—these speak to her as they do us.”

  “That does not make my absences from home lighter to bear. It does little for our marriage,” Hyram ran his hand over his lower face. “I hate that she is so accepting and understanding of me. Sometimes, I wish she would just lay into me as soon as I walked through the door. Tell me what a rotten bastard I am for leaving her and our son unattended and far away, decrying the marriage which has left her unfulfilled.”

  “She doesn’t feel that way. The woman loves you and wishes for your happiness.”

  “My happiness? Yes, at the cost of her own,” he scoffed. “Do you know what she said to me one night not long after her arrival here on Cadia? ‘I know you do not love me as I love you; I wish you to be happy. If that means you must lay with another woman, I can accept that.’ Can you believe that? Free license to break the solemn vows I swore to her.”

  “You’ve thought about it,” Marsh said quietly. There was no venomous, insidious hint of judgment in his voice. Barlocke had caused Marsh Silas to renege on the Cadian policy for repopulation. Further still, his friend had experienced love in its purest and most passionate form. Hyram put himself in Marsh’s boots and thought that, from those experiences, the idea to share a bed with another woman was just unthinkable. Despite that, Marsh Silas would not criticize his companion—Hyram loved his brother for that.

  “I’m ashamed to admit I have. But I’ve never carried through with it.” Hyram shook his head. “I love her, just not in the way she wants. I will not insult her by keeping a mistress, nor will I cast her from my home and strip her of my name. How trapped I am, between my desires and my dedications.” He felt Marsh’s arm slide across his shoulder but he pulled away. “I tire of this. Throne, I’m a Cadian officer, I oughtn’t be bleating like a sick lamb. Let us speak of anything else

  “I wonder what Romilly will say when we tell him about Haight.”

  “The indications of our theory are strong, though we need more proof,” Hyram said. “Do you bear this worthily? Knowing this man whom you called a friend has betrayed us?”

  Marsh’s face was obscured by his helmet and goggles but that mattered little. Even as Marsh Silas grew more stoic since his days as a platoon sergeant, Hyram could still read his friend. The subtle twitches at the corners of his mouth, cheek muscles momentarily rising or falling, the sinews of jaws tightening—these spoke to him just as the theatrics of a stage actor did.

  “We must bear all struggles worthily,” Marsh deflected. But he took a breath and looked at his boots. “At first, Haight appeared as just another Naval Security spook. But, that changed. It was not his support in the Tactica Operations Center or the drinks he bought the platoon night after night. I saw a man receptive to our ideals and more than that, someone who was sad. In conversations with him, I realized he carried some deep hurt inside. Here is a man, I thought, who has had no one to treat him as he ought to be. No respect for his manhood, no dignity per his station, no brotherly affection for his soldiery. Let me help him, I thought, as we’ve helped those captured Guardsmen, and Romilly, Foxley, Lauraine, all those souls who risked execution at Drasquez Tower.”

  His hands tightened on his harness. “To have it manipulated and used against me fills me with anger I so readily wish to indulge. It took all of my power to not cleave his head from his shoulders, damn the consequences.”

  “It is good you have not. We cannot avoid anger and to sustain it is not an evil thing. But it is when we act on it without regard that it becomes a poison to the self and those around us,” Hyram murmured. “Then, it becomes rage. To act upon that is to become subservient to destruction.”

  Freya suddenly growled. Hyram and Marsh looked in the dog’s direction. She hunched low on her legs, bared her teeth, and looked to the north. Cobb, holding her leash, pointed in the same direction.

  “Red Six to all stations,” Marsh whispered over the comms. “Weapons up, be on your guard.”

  “Have you led us into a trap, Cross?” Bristol asked tiredly.

  “Major, I politely ask you not to intercede with my mission,” Marsh snapped.

  “I had no plans to. Verily, I was quite hoping for an ambush. Been too long since I’ve gotten to pull the trigger on a foe. Smiting bastards is far more pleasant than signing paperwork.”

  Marsh, Hyram, Walmsley Major, Gabler, Prince Constantine, and Bristol assembled on the northern perimeter. Nothing appeared to be moving in the high grass around them. Hyram and Marsh exchanged a quick glance and the former nodded.

  “Imperialis,” Marsh whispered to the nothingness.

  “Obscurus,” came a whisper in return. A single man arose in Kasrkin Carapace Armor. Romilly approached and lifted his Night Eye goggles. “Throne, thank you for coming. I am very happy to see you all here.”

  “Romilly, I have grave tidings,” Marsh Silas said. “I believe Haight is to be one of the traitors among us. I know he is your friend also and you have served together for some time—”

  “I knew it,” Romilly said through gritted teeth. “I felt it, I felt it in my gut. Something was off. Every time he and I worked together, missions would upset, information became skewed, and people died unnecessarily. Just as the sensation to investigate him grew, I always thought better of myself. I reminded myself this was a man who was once captured by the enemy.”

  “Captured?” Hyram echoed. “He was taken by the enemy and survived?”

  “When we were both junior officers, we were conducting a reconnaissance mission with the Macharian PDF,” Romilly explained. “We were ambushed and Haight disappeared. Months ran by and all my searches for him proved fruitless. Then, one day, he returned, claiming he escaped. How could such a man so emaciated and cut up have escaped, I thought. But my dwelling did not persist, for I was happy to have him back. Even when all our missions proved to be unsuccessful, I did not doubt him for long.”

  Romilly took a breath and unclenched his fists. “I suspect that he was taken prisoner and turned to their side. What gifts they bestowed, what promises they kept, who can say? But all our recent difficulties and setbacks now make sense. Is he in custody?”

  “We do not have enough proof for an official investigation.”

  “That is safer. We may fight the Marked Men’s foes tonight, but we may yet uncover something that will frame him for the spy and traitor that he is.”

  “Wait, before you speak of our target, it is just you?” Hyram asked. “What of your assets?”

  “They are here.” Romilly turned around. “Captain, you may rise.”

  Out of the grass emerged the massive hulk of an Astartes. He was clad in black power armor with turquoise shoulder plates and a red visor. Instead of wearing the typical emblems and badges as prints on his plates, there were instead pieces of parchment stretched over them. On the left plate was a page with ancient glyphs written vertically rather than horizontally. In the center was a blood-red sun behind the shadow of a bonsai tree.

  More Astartes appeared. One bore a red helmet—Hyram remembered the lessons Captains Thule and Galen taught him and Marsh Silas; this denoted a Veteran Sergeant. An apothecary that had white shoulder plates instead of turquoise, an ancient who carried the banner not in his hand but on his back, and a champion who carried a shield and sword, also stood. Two other Astartes emerged as well as a Scout Sergeant.

  The Captain strode forward until he was beside Romilly. Hyram and Marsh Silas looked up at him.

  “I am Captain Yori of the 3rd Company of the Emperor’s Shadows. In darkness, we hunt. By daylight, we melt away. While the drums of war beat, we go forth silently. When the enemy plots and schemes, we strike.”

  “I am Knight-Lieutenant Silas Cross,” Marsh greeted. “1st Platoon of the 1st Company, Avalanche, 10th Kasrkin Regiment—the Red Banner Regiment. I am honored to treat with your erudite excellence, Captain Yori.”

  “Warrant Officer Romilly assures me of your valor and dedication,” Yori said astutely. “The Astartes of the Emperor’s Shadows take heart to serve alongside humble and dedicated mortal warriors.” He then raised his gauntlet. “To the east is a disused airfield. The Traitor Guardsmen have used it to hide their fleet of stolen Valkyries. To minimize their capabilities to conduct operations in the sector, we must eliminate their air power. Scout Sergeant Tōru?”

  “My Scouts have observed the enemy fortifications. The majority of the hangars and structures are too degenerated to be of any use. But the control tower, administrative center, bunkers, a barracks, and one of the hangars are still in use. The garrison numbers two hundred.”

  “We propose to conduct an attack similar to our use of the sword; dispatch the enemy in as few strokes as possible,” Captain Yori explained. “A silent strike to decapitate their leadership, an armored thrust to divert their defenses, and then a rapid assault to overtake the airfield. Knight-Lieutenant, I trust you and Sergeant Tōru to infiltrate the control tower from the south. I will lead my company from the north with our armor.”

  “Gabler can then approach with her Kasrkin and our own armor from the western end of the airfield,” Marsh Silas added. “Aye, Captain Yori, in three blows we shall destroy this foe.”

  “Let us go forth under a veil of shadows for our Emperor, Knight-Lieutenant.”