Chronicle, entry number twelve.
They lied to me.
Things do happen on Terra.
I reached the Palace just in time to see a hole open in the air in the middle of Ginza square—a square from an ancient Terra that our guardian Primarchs were inspecting under an “archive exchange agreement”—and out of it came knights, legions of spearmen and, I swear by my pen, dragons.
I hid behind a statue of the Primarch Dorn.
It was the safest thing I have ever done in my life, because behind that statue there was a bunker.
Behind every statue of the Primarch Dorn there is a bunker.
I.
Those Who Watch the House
Six days after the fleets departed, the war room of the Palace on Terra looked like anything but peaceful.
Rogal Dorn and Perturabo stood before a map table the size of a swimming pool, moving regiments between star systems the way someone rearranges furniture.
“Luteus needs support,” said Perturabo.
“The orks are pressing the southern line. The White Scars left behind as garrison are holding, but there are fewer of them every day.”
“Let’s send battalions twelve and…”
The alarm sounded.
Not just any alarm: the Terra intrusion alarm, which had not sounded in centuries, and which, for that very reason, nobody was entirely sure how to turn off.
The two Primarchs stepped out onto the balcony.
In one of the ceremonial squares of the archive subsector—an exact reproduction of a neighborhood of old Tokyo that the Emperor preserved for reasons he never explained—a gate had opened.
Not a Webway portal: a gate, made of stone, carved with ancient reliefs.
An army was pouring out of it.
Legionaries with rectangular shields, archers, heavy cavalry, orcs (the tusks-and-loincloth kind, not the green ones), trolls and, flying over it all, dragons whose riders were armed with lances.
“What the hell is this?” Perturabo growled.
“Whatever it is,” Dorn replied, already walking toward the vox, “it chose the worst possible place to pay us a visit. Deploy every squad.”
It was, in the words of an Imperial Fist who later told the story in the mess hall, “the easiest target practice in the history of the Legion.” Arrows bounced off ceramite.
Spears snapped.
The dragons, which for centuries had been the terror of their world, fell from the sky like ducks in hunting season under the Iron Warriors’ anti-aircraft fire.
In less than an hour the invading army had turned tail, and those who didn’t make it back to the gate were captured.
“Have the Mechanicus study that gate,” Dorn ordered.
“I want to know how it works. And I want it not to close.”
“Not to close?” asked Perturabo.
“They attacked us, brother. We have to return the visit.”
Perturabo smiled.
It was the first time in six days.
* * *
The interrogations revealed the rest.
The gate had been opened by the Saderan Empire, an empire from another world that had spent centuries conquering neighboring kingdoms and which, upon discovering the portal, had decided that Terra—or what they believed to be a defenseless city—would be its next province.
“We must counterattack,” said Perturabo.
“With the same card.”
“I agree. But we can’t leave Terra without us. We promised Father.”
“Then let’s send our captains. Forrix. Sigismund.”
“Forrix and Sigismund,” Dorn nodded.
“Let those heretics regret ever knocking on our door.”
* * *
On the other side of the portal, the world was green, full of forests, rivers and mountains.
The Tech-priests accompanying the expedition would not stop murmuring about “untouched mineral deposits” in the same tone other men use to talk about chocolate.
On the first night, the scouts saw a Saderan army of tens of thousands of men approaching.
“Launch flares,” Forrix ordered.
“Get the trenches ready. We’re going to teach these savages how to hold a position.”
The flares turned night into noon.
The Saderan soldiers were blinded, confused, and when they could see again, what they saw was a perfectly dug trench line, behind which waited Imperial Guardsmen, gray and yellow Astartes, and a regiment of the Death Korps of Krieg that had not said a single word since it arrived.
The cavalry charged.
The Saderans’ lances exploded on touching the first Imperial shield, because the guardsmen had had the idea of strapping charges to them.
The rest was a long, noisy night that the historians of the Saderan Empire, the few who survived, would rather never write about.
At dawn a whistle blew.
The Korps of Krieg advanced without shouting, without singing, without saying anything.
That was the part that frightened the surviving Saderans the most: that they said nothing.
* * *
The Saderan capital fell in three days.
Forrix and Sigismund entered the throne room and stood to attention before a holographic screen from which the two Primarchs watched them from Terra.
“We have taken their capital, my lord.”
“Ready for phase two.”
“Excellent,” said Dorn.
“Let every kingdom of this world know who we are.”
Thousands of screens were projected across the sky of that world.
The faces of Perturabo and Dorn appeared above castles, villages and cathedrals.
“People of this world,” said Perturabo.
“We are the Imperium of Man. You made a fatal error in attacking a superior force.”
“This is a conquest,” Dorn continued.
“Any kingdom that opposes it will be wiped off the map.”
So that no doubts remained, a ship in orbit fired a single shot at an empty fortress in the mountains.
Where there had been a fortress there was now a crater.
The kings of the neighboring realms, who for centuries had feared Sadera, arrived to surrender before lunchtime.
“Your submission is accepted,” said Forrix.
“The resources of your lands now belong to the Imperium.”
“Including your armies,” Sigismund added.
“Any attempt at rebellion, however small… well. You saw the mountain.”
* * *
On a distant hill, sitting on a rock beneath a flock of crows, a young woman dressed in black watched it all with an amused smile.
She had a halberd bigger than herself resting on her shoulder, and though she looked like a girl of thirteen, her eyes were much, much older.
“How interesting,” she said to no one in particular.
“It’s been centuries since I saw someone who wasn’t afraid of death.”
A crow landed on her shoulder.
She stroked its head.
“Let’s watch a little longer, shall we? I have a feeling these ones are going to put on a good show.”
No one saw her leave.
Not even the servo-skulls.
That night a Tech-priest would record, in a report no one read, “an anomalous energy signature, type unknown, of an apparently… amused character.”
* * *
That same night, on Terra, Malcador visited the war room.
He spent a long time looking at the data on the stone gate.
“It isn’t the Webway,” he said at last.
“No,” Perturabo confirmed.
“It’s local magic from their world. Nothing to do with us.”
“I know.” The Sigillite frowned.
“But it’s the second time this week that something has entered Terra through a door we didn’t build. The other was an echo in the Webway logs that lasted three seconds and then vanished.”
Dorn looked up.
“An echo of what?”
“If I knew that,” Malcador replied, “I wouldn’t be here at three in the morning talking to two architects.”
II.
Two Warriors on the Prairie
In another reality, across an endless plain of green grass, a white motorcycle was racing at a speed that made no sense.
Riding it was a giant in white and red armor, his black hair tied back and his face weathered by a thousand winds.
Jaghatai Khan, Primarch of the White Scars, had learned the essentials of that world from a colony of scientists he had met in orbit.
They told him that the Earth was under the rule of Aku, a demon who had conquered it thousands of years before.
They also told him there was a warrior who fought him alone: a samurai from another age, flung into the future by Aku himself, who searched tirelessly for a way to return to the past.
Jaghatai wanted to see him with his own eyes.
So he went down alone, in a pod, with his bike.
The prairie reminded him of Chogoris.
Of the free wind, the open sky, his tribe before the Emperor came looking for him.
That was why, when he saw in the distance a solitary figure dressed in white, walking calmly in the middle of nowhere, he knew who it was before he saw the face.
He accelerated.
* * *
Jack had been walking for days.
He had learned to read the sound of Aku’s hunters, and the roar of that machine was different.
He drew his katana slowly.
The bike stopped ten paces from him.
Neither of them spoke.
The wind blew, kicking up dust between them.
Jack studied the newcomer: gigantic, armored, but with no hatred in his gaze, no greed, none of that gleam of ambition that everyone who came to collect the bounty on his head had.
Jaghatai studied the samurai: discipline, serenity, a determination so firm you could almost touch it.
Then Jaghatai did something Jack didn’t expect.
He got off the bike, sat down cross-legged in the grass and closed his eyes.
Jack stood still.
A trap?
A provocation?
A minute passed.
Two.
The giant remained seated, breathing slowly.
“You are not like the ones who come for my head,” Jack said at last.
“Who are you?”
“Jaghatai Khan. Lord of the Skies. Primarch of the White Scars.” The giant opened his eyes.
“I came to this world to understand its war. And, perhaps, to find a worthy ally.”
Jack studied him a moment longer.
Then he sheathed his sword, sat down across from him, crossed his legs and closed his eyes as well.
The wind kept blowing.
The birds kept singing.
Two warriors from different worlds sat in silence for a long while, sharing something neither of them had had in years: a moment without war.
* * *
“What is your purpose?” Jaghatai asked, much later.
“To defeat Aku. To return to the past. To undo what he has done.”
“A man who seeks to overthrow a false god and give his people back their freedom.” Jaghatai nodded.
“I like that.”
“And yours?”
“To conquer the skies. To break the chains of fate. To secure the future of humanity.”
Jack opened his eyes.
“If you come to conquer, you are my enemy. I will not allow another tyrant to subjugate this world.”
Jaghatai let out a short laugh.
“I am not a tyrant, samurai. I do not conquer for ego. Aku is an abomination. If you truly wish to be rid of him, we share an enemy.”
“Words are easy.”
“That is why I don’t ask you to believe me.” Jaghatai rose to his feet.
“I am going to prove it to you.”
“How?”
“They say that whenever you find a portal to the past, Aku destroys it before you can use it.” Jaghatai smiled fiercely.
“So let’s give him something more important to look at.”
* * *
The plan was drawn up that night in the camp of the White Scars, who had quietly descended after their Primarch.
Jack took it all in with amazement: the technology, the discipline, the warriors training with curved swords with an elegance that reminded him of the masters of his youth.
At dawn, squads of marines and Imperial Guardsmen simultaneously struck Aku’s factories and laboratories on five continents.
Swift, precise blows that withdrew before the enemy could respond.
The demon’s legions fell like dry leaves.
And Aku, furious, did exactly what Jaghatai had foreseen: he went in person to crush the invasion.
“Lord Khan,” a commissar reported over the vox, “it’s working. We have demon assets heading toward our position.”
“Excellent. Keep up the pressure. We’re going for the portal.”
Jaghatai’s bike crossed the plain like a lightning bolt, with Jack sitting behind him clinging to his armor and wearing the face of a man reconsidering several of his life choices.
“Do you always drive like this?” the samurai shouted into the wind.
“No.” Jaghatai accelerated further.
“Usually I go fast.”
* * *
They were a hundred meters from the portal when a black stain appeared in the air before them.
It became a gigantic hand that smashed into the bike.
Jaghatai and Jack leapt clear at the last second.
The bike exploded.
“Fools!” Aku thundered, materializing amid green flames.
“Did you think your distraction would fool me? I am the master of this world! I see everything that happens in it!”
“You are a coward who hides behind armies,” Jaghatai replied, drawing his power sword.
Beside him, Jack drew his katana.
Aku transformed into a tentacled creature.
The two warriors shouted at the same time, a cry that sounded like thunder splitting the sky, and charged.
They moved with a coordination impossible for two men who had known each other for a single day.
Every monstrous form Aku took ended up cut to pieces.
Desperate, the demon created a gigantic hand to crush the portal.
Jaghatai stopped it with both arms.
“Jack!” he shouted, his feet sinking into the earth.
“Go! Change the future of this world!”
Jack ran.
Leapt.
And vanished into the light.
“NOOOOOOO!” Aku roared.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”
“Ended your reign,” Jaghatai replied.
* * *
Jack fell to his knees on fresh grass.
The sky was blue.
In the distance, his father’s castle still stood, intact, just as he remembered it.
He felt a lump in his throat.
And before him, in his original form, Aku was roaring with fury.
“How is this possible?! You cannot have escaped my future!”
Jack raised his katana.
He was alone, as always.
Then the air trembled.
From the still-open portal came a roar of engines, and behind it, like a white storm, emerged Jaghatai Khan and his White Scars, mounted on spare bikes.
The Primarch leapt from his and landed beside the samurai with a fierce smile.
“Did you think you were going back alone, Jack?”
The battle lasted as long as a summer storm.
The White Scars cut through Aku’s shadows as if they were thread; the swords of Jack and Jaghatai hemmed him in from two sides.
And in the end, it was Jack who struck the final blow, plunging his katana into the demon’s heart.
Aku came apart in a black whirlwind that the wind carried away.
Time rearranged itself.
The demon’s reign had never existed.
Jack sank to his knees, drained, and looked up at Jaghatai.
The Primarch only nodded.
“Your war is over, samurai. Ours goes on.”
The White Scars crossed back through the portal.
Jack remained in his home, in the peace he had fought so hard for.
But in the archives of the Imperium of Man, that world already had a name and a number.
And someday, when the Imperium returned, it would find it at peace… and ready to listen.
* * *
Chronicle, entry number fifteen.
I told the story of the samurai to a White Scar I met in the mess hall.
He listened attentively and at the end corrected a single detail: “It wasn’t a day. It was a day and a half. We spent half a day sitting in the grass without talking.” I asked him whether they hadn’t gotten bored.
He looked at me as if I had asked whether the sky is blue.
“Remembrancer,” he said, “those who have never sat in silence with another warrior do not understand why we fight.”
Tomorrow they’re sending me to the Primarch Mortarion.
They gave me a gas mask “just in case.” Nobody told me just in case of what.
Two chapters will be released daily until we reach the final 10 chapters.
From that point onward, the release schedule will change to one chapter per day.