Galaxy in Flames by Ben Counter Read Free Book Online Page B

anything that had saved his life as often as the Dies Irae had. Through the fires of uncounted battles, they had fought together and as much as Titus Cassar denied it, Jonah knew that there was a mighty heart and soul at the core of this glorious war machine.
    Jonah took another drink from his flask as his expression turned sour thinking of Titus and his damned sermons. Titus said he felt the light of the Emperor within him, but Jonah didn’t feel much of anything any more.
    As much as he wanted to believe in what Titus was preaching, he just couldn’t let go of the sceptical core at the centre of his being. To believe in things that weren’t there, that couldn’t be seen or felt? Titus called it faith, but Jonah was a man who needed to believe in what was real, what could be touched and experienced.
    Princeps Turnet would discharge him from the crew of the Dies Irae if he knew he had attended prayer meetings back on Davin, and the thought of spending the rest of the Crusade as a menial, denied forever the thrill of commanding the finest war machine ever to come from the forges of Mars sent a cold shiver down his spine.
    Every few days, Titus would ask him to come to another prayer meeting and the times he said yes, they would furtively make their way to some forsaken part of the ship to listen to passages read from the Lectitio Divinitatus. Each time he would sweat the journey back for fear of discovery and the court martial that would no doubt follow.
    Jonah had been a career Titan crewman since the day he had first set foot aboard his inaugural posting, a Warhound Titan called the Venator , and he knew that if it came down to a choice, he would choose the Dies Irae over the Lectitio Divinitatus every time.
    But still, the thought that Titus might be right continued to nag at him.
    He leaned back against the Titan’s leg, sliding down until he was sitting on his haunches with his knees drawn up to his chest.
    ‘Faith,’ he whispered, ‘you can’t earn it and you can’t buy it. Where then do I find it?’
    ‘Well,’ said a voice behind and above him, ‘you can start by putting that flask away and coming with me.’
    Jonah looked up and saw Titus Cassar, resplendent as always in his parade-ready uniform, standing in the arched entrance to the Titan’s leg bastions.
    ‘Titus,’ said Jonah, hurriedly stuffing the hip flask back into his jacket. ‘What’s up?’
    ‘We have to go,’ said Titus urgently. ‘The saint is in danger.’
    M AGGARD STALKED ALONG the shadowed companionways of the Vengeful Spirit at a brisk pace, marching at double time with the vigour of a man on his way to a welcome rendezvous. His hulking form had been steadily growing over the last few months, as though he were afflicted with some hideous form of rapid gigantism.
    But the procedures the Warmaster’s apothecaries were performing on his frame were anything but hideous. His body was changing, growing and transforming beyond anything the crude surgeries of House Carpinus had ever managed. Already he could feel the new organs within him reshaping his flesh and bone into something greater than he could ever have imagined, and this was just the beginning. His Kirlian blade was unsheathed, shimmering with a strange glow in the dim light of the corridor. He wore fresh white robes, his enlarging physique already too massive for his armour. Legion artificers stood ready to reshape it once his flesh had settled into its new form, and he missed its reassuring solidity enclosing him.
    Like him, his armour would be born anew, forged into something worthy of the Warmaster and his chosen warriors. Maggard knew he was not yet ready for such inclusion, but he had already carved himself a niche within the Sons of Horus. He walked where the Astartes could not, acted where they could not be seen to act and spilled blood where they needed to be seen as peacemakers.
    It required a special kind of man to do such work, efficiently and conscience-free, and