Deliverance Lost

Stepping up the nearest cabinet, Corax stooped to examine the contents. He felt a tingle of static and heard the faint buzz of a stasis field generator. Enclosed within was a small circuit board, its function unknown. On the stand below, a small steel plate etched with plain text revealed its importance:

Navigational Circuit from the first warp-capable starship

Corax stepped back in surprise. Intrigued, he turned around and found himself looking at the skeletal form of a wheeled vehicle, barely large enough for a normal man to sit inside. Its balloon tyres made up the greater part of its bulk. Corax stepped up to examine the title plate.

Titan Rover

The primarch was not sure what to make of it. It certainly looked like no Titan ever produced by the Mechanicum, which were towering war machines tens of metres high. He looked more closely at the vehicle, but could not see anything that might be a weapon mount.

With a grunt of confusion, he moved on, eyes passing over various technological artefacts and coming to rest on a glass tube filled with a pulsating liquid coloured a deep blue, located about a dozen metres further down the hall. The words beneath, though written in Imperial Gothic, might well have been an alien or lost language, for all the sense Corax could make of them.

Mendelian Eukaryotic Genesis Formula

Raking his fingers through his hair, which had slipped across his face, Corax straightened, bringing something else into his eyeline. It was a small cabinet, less than half a metre to each face, but its positioning on the central aisle seemed to mark it out as of particular importance.

Within was a broken piece of pottery. It was utterly unremarkable, shattered into eight curved shards of crude unpainted clay, marked with fingerprints and dents. Piercing the parts together in his mind, Corax worked out that it was a bowl of some kind.

He heard the whisper of the doors opening and turned back to see Malcador entering the hall, striding with purpose. His face was flushed with blood, his eyes bright and alert.

‘What is this place?’ Corax asked. ‘What ma

‘The most important kind,’ said the Sigillite, joining Corax beside the shattered bowl. He pointed with a skeletal finger at the contents of the cabinet. ‘One of the first pieces of pottery ever made by human hand. Hundreds of thousands of years old.’

‘It doesn’t seem like much of an achievement, compared to some of the things in here,’ said Corax. ‘It’s so simple, a child could make it.’

‘And yet perhaps one of the most important advances in our entire history, Corax,’ said Malcador. ‘Without this bowl, without the mind that devised it and the hands that shaped it, the rest of the hall would be empty. We have come a long, long way since one of our ancestors noticed a certain type of mud hardening in the sun and decided to make something, but without a first step, no journey is ever begun.’

‘All of these are technological achievements? First steps into new epochs of human history?’

‘Most are technological or scientific, a few are cultural,’ said Malcador. He waved his hand towards the far end of the hall where a number of paintings, statues, carvings, tapestries and other works of art were stored.

Before the primarch could investigate, the doors opened again, revealing a figure almost as tall as Corax and broader at the shoulders. Rogal Dorn’s white-blond hair was cropped short and spiked, framing his weathered features like a corona. He was dressed in demi-armour: chest, shins and forearms protected by plates and sheaths of golden metal etched with swirling designs similar to those on Corax’s own suit. A cloak of deep red reached down to Dorn’s ankles, held with a clasp shaped into a clenched fist on his left shoulder, pi

‘Brother!’ Dorn called out with a hand raised in greeting, his voice booming down the hall, disturbing the air of quiet reverence.

The two primarchs met and clasped wrist-to-wrist in welcome. Dorn slapped a hand to Corax’s shoulder and smiled briefly.

‘I promised I would be here today,’ said Dorn.

‘As ever, your word is as secure as the fortresses you raise,’ replied Corax, stepping back and releasing his grip on his gene-brother. Dorn’s expression darkened.

‘I hope that my latest work proves equal to the task.’

‘Your work is as exceptional as ever, Rogal,’ said Malcador. He waved for them to accompany him to the line of benches beneath the high windows. ‘There is not another in the galaxy the Emperor would want to raise up his walls for him.’

Corax stopped before sitting and looked out of the windows. Beyond was a wide valley, which appeared to be made entirely of metal. Glancing up, he saw the dull sky several hundred metres above. The entire edifice was delved into a deep fissure and continued to stretch below out of sight, storey after storey of windows and walkways, the divide criss-crossed by covered bridges, curving railway tracks and black roads.

‘The clerical tenements,’ explained Malcador, peering past Corax. ‘Three million men and women devoted to the administration of Terra and the Sol system.’

‘Three million? For one system?’ Corax could not believe what he heard. ‘Why so many?’

‘Oh, that’s just a fraction of the civil population, Corvus,’ said the Sigillite. ‘It’s barely enough to keep track of all the comings and goings here. Most of the others live in the service towers over at the Chivolan Heights, about seven hundred million of them.’

‘It is barracks space that concerns me more,’ said Dorn, lowering himself to the dark blue couch. ‘Your army of scribes and auditors are not going to keep Horus at bay.’

‘Give them guns and I am sure they will do their best,’ countered the Sigillite, sitting on the next bench.

‘I’ve already sent your honour guard to the new garrison quarters not far from here,’ Dorn told Corax as the Raven Guard primarch continued to look out of the window. ‘There is room for several thousand more, once the rest of your Legion arrives.’

Corax turned, eyebrows raised in surprise.

‘You think I’m bringing the Raven Guard here?’

‘Where else would they go? By the sounds of it, there are barely enough of you to make Deliverance look inhabited. We need every warrior we can to defend Terra. Captain Noriz tells me that you had one thousand, seven hundred and fourteen legionaries and other ranks on board Avenger. How many more can I factor into my plans to arrive from Deliverance?’

‘You are getting ahead of yourself, brother,’ Corax said, crossing his arms. ‘I came here to see the Emperor and will seek his permission to launch attacks against the traitors.’

‘Unwise,’ muttered Malcador, obviously to himself yet not quiet enough to avoid Corax’s keen hearing. The primarch rounded on Malcador.

‘I am not staying here to get trapped like a rat in a hole,’ snapped Corax. He calmed down and looked at Dorn again. ‘You know how we fight, brother. We were never expert at ma

‘Impossible,’ said Dorn. ‘Like it or not, I must insist that your Legion be stationed here to bolster the defence of the Emperor. Horus will be coming here, make no mistake about that. Our first duty – our onlyduty – is the protection of Terra. What damage do you think you can do on your own? You have, what, three thousand warriors? Horus now has many hundred times that number, and who can say how his ranks might swell? Your place is here, on Terra, like it or not.’