None of the other Astartes spoke. Each of them had fallen silent, faces turned over Garro's shoulder. As he cast around to learn why, as one, the men of the Seventh Company came to their knees.
'My battle-captain.'
It perturbed Garro to realise that he had not even heard the approach of his primarch. As in the assembly hall before the assault, Mortarion made issue of his presence only when it suited him to do so.
Garro bowed low to the master of the Death Guard, dimly aware of Typhon at his lord's side, and a servitor lurking behind the first captain's cloak.
'My lord,' he replied.
Mortarion's face shifted in a cool smile, visible even behind the breath collar around his throat and lips. The Sisterhood has taken leave of us. They spoke highly of the Seventh.'
Garro dared to raise his gaze a little. Like him, the primarch was no longer clad in his brass and steel power armour, but instead in common duty robes over a set of more utilitarian gear. Still, even in such simple garb, there was no mistaking his presence. High and gaunt, a man spun from whipcord steel muscle, he was as tall in his deck boots as Typhon was in the First Company's Terminator armour.
And of course, there was the manreaper. Sheathed across his back, the arc of the heavy black blade curved behind his head in a lightless sweep. 'Stand, Nathaniel, please. It becomes tiresome to look down upon my men.'
Garro drew himself up to his full height, looking into the primarch's deep amber eyes and steeling himself not to draw back. In turn, Mortarion's gaze burned deep into him, and the captain felt as if his heart were held in the primarch's long, slender fingers, being weighed and considered.
'You ought to watch your step, Typhon/ said the Death Lord. This one, he'll have your job one day'
Typhon, ever sullen, only grimaced. Before the first captain, the primarch, and at the edges of his sight,
the twin guards of the Deathshroud, Garro felt as if he was at the bottom of a well. The nerve of a common man would probably have broken beneath such scrutiny.
'Lord,' he asked, 'what service may the Seventh Company do for you?'
Mortarion beckoned him. 'Their captain may step forward, Garro. He has earned a reward.'
Nathaniel did as he was told, darting a quick look towards Hakur. His words at the lakeside echoed in his mind. We don't seek accolades and honours. Garro had no doubt that the veteran was keenly amused by this turn of events. 'Sir,' he began, 'I deserve no special-'
That is not a refusal forming upon your lips, is it, captain?' warned Typhon. 'Such false modesty is unwelcome.'
'I am merely a servant of the Emperor/ Garro managed. That is honour enough.'
Mortarion gestured the servitor forward, and the captain saw that it carried a tray of goblets and bowls. Then instead, Nathaniel, might you honour me by sharing my drink?'
He stiffened, recognising the ornate cups and the liquid in them. 'Of… of course, lord.'
It was said that there was no toxin too strong, no poison so powerful and no contagion of such lethality that a Death Guard could not resist it. From their inception, the XIV Legion had always been the Emperor's warriors in the most hostile of environments, fighting through chem-clouds or acidic atmospheres that no normal human could survive in. Barbarus, the Legion's base, the adoptive home planet of Mortarion himself, moulded this characteristic. As with their primarch, so with his Astartes: the Death Guard were a resilient, invincible breed.
They hardened themselves through stringent training regimens as neophyte Astartes, willingly exposing themselves to,chemical agents, contaminants, mortal viral strains and venoms of a thousand different shades. They could resist them all. It was how they had found victory amid the blight-fungus of Urssa, how they had weathered the hornet swarms on Ogre IV, the reason why they had been sent to fight the chlorine-breathing jorgall.
The servitor deftly mixed and poured dark liquids into the cups, and Garro's nostrils sensed the odour of chemicals: a distillate of the agent magenta nerve bane, some variety of sword beetle venom, and other, less identifiable compounds. No Astartes in Mortar-ion's service would ever have dared to call this practice a ritual. The word conjured up thoughts of primitive idolatry, anathema to the clean, impious logic of Imperial truth. This was simply their way, a Death Guard tradition that survived despite the intentions of men like Ignatius Grulgor. The cups were Mortarion's, and in each battle where the Death Lord took the field in person, he would select a warrior in the aftermath and share with that man a draught of poison. They would drink and they would live, cementing the unbreakable strength of the Legion they embodied.
The servitor presented the tray to the primarch and he took a cup for himself, then handed one to Garro and a third to Typhon. Mortarion raised his goblet in salute. Against death.' With a smooth tip of his wrist, the primarch drained the cup to its dregs. Typhon showed a feral half-smile and did the same, completing the toast and drinking deep.
Garro saw a flush of crimson on the first captain's face, but Typhon gave no other outward sign of
distress. He sniffed at the liquid before him and his senses resisted, his implanted neuroglottis and preomnor organs rebelling at the mere smell of the poisonous brew; but to refuse the cup would be seen as weakness, and Nathaniel Garro would never allow himself to be accused of such a thing.
Against death/ he said.
With a steady motion, the captain drank it all and placed the upturned goblet back on the tray. A ripple of approval drifted through the men of the Seventh Company, but Garro barely heard it. His blood was rumbling in his ears as punishing heat seared his throat and gullet, the powerful engines of his Astartes physiology racing to fight down the toxins he had ingested. Decius was watching him in awe, without doubt dreaming of a day when it might be his hand, not Garro's, holding the goblet.
Mortarion's chill smile grew wider. 'A rare and fine vintage, would you not agree?'
His chest on fire, Garro couldn't speak, so he nodded. The primarch laughed in a low chug of amusement. Mortarion's cup could have contained water for all the apparent effect it had upon him. He placed his hand on the battle-captain's back. 'Come, Nathaniel. Let's walk it off.'
As they came to the ramp that led to the balcony above the grand armoury chamber, Typhon bowed to his liege lord and made his excuses, walking away towards the alcoves where Commander Grulgor and the Second Company made their station. Garro cast back to see the Deathshroud following them in lockstep, moving with such flawless precision that they appeared to be automata and not actually men.
'Don't worry, Nathaniel/ said Mortarion, 'I have no plans to replace my guardians just yet. I am not about to recruit you into the secret dead.'
'As you wish, lord,' Garro replied, getting the use of his throat back.
'I know you frown on such things as the cups, but you must understand that honours and citations are sometimes necessary.' He nodded to himself. "Warriors must know that they are valued. Praise… praise from one's peers must be given when the moment is right. Without it, even the most steadfast man will eventually feel unvalued.' There was an edge of melancholy that flickered through the primarch's voice so quickly that Garro decided he had imagined it.
Mortarion brought them to the edge of the balcony and they looked down at the large assemblage of men. Although Endurance was not large enough to hold the entire Legion, many of the Death Guard's seven companies were represented below, in whole or in part. Garro caught sight of Ullis Temeter and his comrade threw him a salute. Garro nodded back.
'You are a respected man, Nathaniel/ said the pri-march. 'There's not a captain in the whole of the Legion who would not acknowledge your combat prowess.' He smiled slightly again. 'Even Commander Grulgor, although he may hate to admit it.'
'Thank you, lord.'
And the men. The men trust you. They look to you for strength of character, for leadership, and you give it.'
'I do only what the Emperor commands of me, sir.' Garro shifted uncomfortably. As honoured as he was to have a private moment with his master, it troubled him in equal measure. This was not the direct, clear
arena of warfare where Garro understood what was expected of him. He was in rarefied air here, loitering with a son of the Emperor himself.
If Mortarion sensed this, he gave no sign. 'It is important to me to have unity of purpose within my Legion. Just as it is important for my brother, Horus, to have unity across the entirety of the Astartes.'
The Warmaster/ breathed Garro. There had been rumours aboard the Endurance for some time that elements of the Death Guard's flotilla would be sent on a new task after the jorgall interception. At the forefront of this talk was the possibility that they would join the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade, commanded by none other than the chosen son of the Emperor himself, Horus the Warmaster. It was clearly more than rumour, he now realised. Garro had fought side by side with the warriors of Horus's XVI Legion in the past, and had only admiration for men like Maloghurst, Garviel Loken and Tarik Tor-gaddon. 'I have served with the Luna Wolves in the past, lord/
They are the Sons of Horus now/ Mortarion corrected gently, 'just as the Death Guard were once the Dusk Raiders. My brother expects great things of our Legion, captain. A battle is coming that will test all of us, from the Warmaster to your lowly housecarl.'
'I will be ready'
The primarch nodded. 'I have no doubt of that, but it is not enough to be ready, Nathaniel.' His fingers knitted together over the iron balustrade. 'The Death Guard must be of one mind. We must have singular purpose or we will falter.'
Garro's discomfort deepened and he wondered if the after-effects of the cup's contents were not still upon him. 'I… I am not sure I understand you, lord.'
'Our men find solace in the lines of command with their superiors and inferiors, but it is important that they also have a place in which the barriers created by rank can be ignored. They must have freedom to speak and think unfettered.'
All at once, the insight Garro had been lacking came to him in a cold rush. 'My lord refers to the lodges'
'I have been told that you have always eschewed membership. Why, Nathaniel?'
Garro stared at the deck plates. 'Am I being ordered to join, lord?'