Editing Bleeding Out: A Custodian's Story (Warhammer High) (section)

===The Golden Guardian===

Vigilance began even before the coming of the first light. This was one of the first lessons Aurox Quadriga had been taught many thousands of years ago, the words spoken by the one who had reshaped him within and without. It was a lesson that had been etched into every neuron of his brain and every cell of his body. And though the circumstances might have changed greatly, it was something he still kept up with the same stern nobility.

Quadriga was one of the Ten Thousand, the Custodians, the personal guards of the Emperor of Mankind. Shield-Captain, Prefect of the Kataphractoi and more recently Filias-Securitas, five hundred names were engraved upon the inside of his golden battleplate. He had earned them over thousands of years of war, skills that were still sharp in his mind despite the coming of the Pax Imperialis.

A Custodian armed himself alone. The armouries of the Hall of Armaments were silent, solemn places. The Space Marines equipped themselves as a unit, part of the bonds of brotherhood that had seen them conquer a Galaxy. Custodes were armies of one, and each acted and was treated as such. At this point the process of anointing and strapping each plate of Auramite to his body was as automatic as breathing.

Even in this time of peace the duty of the Custodians never ended. The Palace needed to be guarded, the capital-world of Terra garrisoned, the safety of the Emperor guaranteed. And for Aurox there was a further task, one that he alone had been entrusted with. One that taxed him in ways he had never imagined possible during his years as a pilot.

He found his thoughts sometimes straying back, back into the grand expanse of war that had painted the Galaxy red from one end to another. During the long decades of war that was the Great Crusade the fighter’s cockpit and jetbike’s seat had been his natural domain. He had flown in a thousand alien skies throughout the Great Crusade and brought down countless foes with his jetbike’s lance or his flyer’s cannons.

That was then, and his duty now was a world apart. One which required a more delicate touch than the application of superior firepower on a hostile target. A duty he had not asked for, one that in his darker moments he thought might have been a jest made at his expense. But he was a Custodian, made to be a sentinel, a guardian, a protector, even if the subjects of that protection were not what he could have ever envisioned.

He was ready.

The first order of business was to make the morning report to the Captain-General. A brisk walk down the Colonnade Simulacrux to the Upper Ward and from there to the Heliosicon Tower, where Valdor would be finishing briefing whomever would have the duty of Palace Watch for today. It had been more than thirty years since Quadriga had last taken the watch and held the duty of safeguarding the Palace and the Emperor himself for twenty-four long and gruelling hours. Now he had a new watch, one which was ceaseless and unending. For nearly eighteen years it had taken up all his time and energy. It was his burden and his alone, one he had gotten used to even if on some level it still rankled with him.

The Heliosicon Tower jutted from the roof of the palace, offering some of the most spectacular views of the immense scale of the structure crafted within, upon and around the great mountain range that had truly deserved the title of ‘roof of the world’. Though only a small part of those mountains had not been reshaped by the Emperor’s hand, the views of the rare chunk of blue sky peering through the sickly-brown smog and the white-capped rock with great spires jutting out of it to the stars was something even a Custodian like Quadriga could admire.

Constantin Valdor, Captain-General of the Ten Thousand and the Emperor’s left hand stood on the terrace, attended by half a dozen of his fellow Custodes. Quadriga recognised Sentinel-Securitas Justinian Arcadius, the Legion’s Master of Information as well as fellow Shield-Captain Karstode Valerian, who judging by his bearing and the way he was conferring with Valdor was Master of the Watch for today.

Valerian turned and left, followed by Arcadius and the other Custodians. They nodded greetings to Quadriga as they passed. Once they were gone, Valdor waved him over.

“Is it that time again Quadriga?” Valdor smiled.

Quadriga gave a brief bow of his head. “Yes Captain-General. By the Emperor’s command.”

“The Emperor gave you one of the highest duties imaginable, Shield-Captain.”

Quadriga gazed out at the bright solar disk that burned above the palace and even penetrated the lingering remnants of smog and pollution that had once chocked the earth in a shroud of poison, and gave no reply.

“I know your mind, Quadriga. You may not say it, but you feel like this is a burden that removes you from the rest of us.”

“Captain-General, I would not be so presumptuous as to question the will of the Emperor in assigning me to this duty.”

“And yet the burden of duty rests heavily upon you. I was not chosen as Captain-General for nothing. I can tell the moods of my peers.” He rested one gauntleted hand upon the armoured shoulder of Quadriga. “You are still one of the Ten Thousand, no matter where your duty lies. You may not be Master of the Watch or in the Blood Games, you may not lead a Sodality, but you are one of us. When the day comes the Emperor deems the security of the young ones is no longer one we need to oversee, you will return to our ranks and be lavished with honours for the duty you have done.” Valdor shook his head. “Anything else, shield-captain?”

“No, Captain-General.”

“Then let us proceed with the dawn report.”

Quadriga stiffened, his voice clipped and precise. “Activity was within normal parameters. Subject III was on the vox for 2.89 hours last night to various people including Subjects IV, XIX and XX. Call material was within normal parameters. Subject X was 1.4 hours late to bed, working on that locomotor of hers.”

“And today?”

“Subject VI has business with her father, so there’s no concerns there. Subjects VIII and XIV have plans in town, so several extra netflies will be needed to monitor their activities.”

“Any concerns there?”

Quadriga shook his head. “All the locations are covered by the Treasury. I can see no complications arising.”

“Good. After recent affairs, a bit of peace and quiet on that front will not go amiss. Who would have thought we could have so many headaches through them?” Valdor gave a shallow laugh.

Quadriga could not see the jest. “I still wonder what the Emperor was thinking with them. The Primarchs I understand, they were the ones who forged the Imperium in the fires of war. They built the peace we now enforce. But these one? These ‘girl’s’? I cannot for the life of me see why the Emperor made them.”

“That is a question I have asked myself several times.” Valdor replied. “I’ve even asked the Emperor. Do you know what he told me?”
Quadriga shook his head.

“That in the old faiths of Terra, there were beings known as angels. Higher than man but lower than gods. The bridge between the two. The Valkyrie of the Norse, the Fravashi of the Achaemenids, the Malaʾikah of the great Empires of the Sands. The Daughters are the secular Angels of our times. They bridge the divide between man and the immortals. They link the two into the unbreakable chain of humanity.”

“Did they ever need linking in the first place though?” Quadriga countered.

“Now that is a question I cannot answer.” Valdor tapped the Apollonian Spear against the ground. “Anything of import on your itinerarium?”

“I have a meeting with the head of the Treasury to confer on matters of security following graduation. After that it will be the usual routine.”

“And I wish it a calm and peaceful one.” Valdor turned and without another word left. Quadriga waited until he was well gone, before also pacing off. 
There was much to do.