Speak for Me
The Akum-Sothos Cluster, Solar Segmentum, Vengeful Spirit.
"Lord Nimrod, the road we have walked is the Road of Glory and Mourning." Ezekyle Abaddon, ordered to welcome Nimrod on the Warmaster's behalf, proudly drew himself up.
The long, narrow space leading to the strategy chamber's antechamber had a glass ceiling two hundred meters high.
Transmitted starlight spilled across the walls between the colonnades, where millions of handwritten names and serial numbers were recorded. They belonged to the Imperial soldiers who had fallen in every military operation the flagship had taken part in, including the Expeditionary Fleet, the Astartes, the Auxilia, and the Titan Legions.
Chief Chaplain Pat looked out and saw that two thirds of the antechamber had been filled with gilded lines, each recorded beneath the major battles and glorious victories of worlds now past.
No such record existed aboard Shadow of the Throne, nor could one exist.
For the flagship of "Shadow of Order," among the major battles it had joined over the past century, the numbers reported to the War Council differed more or less from the reality.
If a visitor examined them one by one, they would discover the anomaly.
Inventing fallen warriors would also violate the original meaning of recording honor.
Yet the death culture of "Shadow of Order's" Fourth Legion had a similar form of memorial. The lower decks of their warships had been built into tombs, where dead battle-brothers were laid to rest.
Abaddon stopped before a column near the great doors. His gaze swept past Lord Nimrod to Ramsey, who looked exactly like the Primarch, then lingered on Howard Fender, Chapter Master of the First Chapter, and Bukayo Arshavin, Chapter Master of the Third Legion.
He pointed to the mark at the top of the column. "The Akum-Sothos Cluster, the