by David Guymer
In one large cage with fortified bars, a feral-looking youth from some highland clan fended off a mountain yarrk with a stave whilst simultaneously trying to re-load a stubber one-handed.
The yarrk stood several metres tall at its boulder-like shoulders, something between a primate and a giant leopard. Shaggy hair the black of Medusa covered its long arms and powerful body; a mane of the same hung over its face. It slobbered, smacking at the boy’s staff as he struggled with his pistol. Stronos found his fingers reaching for his bionic eye. He had lost the original in his own proving cage, to the antlers of a wild oryx. His fingers traced the scar in the bone as the yarrk tore the staff from the current hopeful’s grip and bellowed. Stronos felt pity. It was just a stick. He, at least, had been given a spear.
With a cry of raw triumph, the youth swung his stubber up and unloaded it into the monster’s chest, six tiny pops before the yarrk flattened the challenger under its foot.
The beast’s lips peeled back over creamy white fangs, and it head-butted the cage, then emitted a snuffling laugh as the onlookers leapt back in dismay. The giants amongst them merely observed, their presence a chilling one that soon had the mortals returning to their prior positions against the cage. The belief that the Iron Hands would come to the aid of anyone foolhardy enough to be dragged into the yarrk’s pen was not one that Stronos shared.
While servitors with hooked rods in place of their hands dragged the corpse from the cage, another hopeful took the acclaim of the clans. A magos biologis, hooded and robed, a pale half-moon of a chin visible under his cowl, ran his fingers over the new challenger’s muscles, prodding and grasping for reasons both mysterious and arcane. He turned to the cagemaster, a huge mortal with a matted chest wrapped in nothing but a length of chain, and nodded to indicate that the boy was acceptable. What parameters such pre-assessments were conducted to, Stronos did not know, but the clans roared their approval of the magos’ assessment.
‘That's a Felgarrth boy there,’ spoke a weathered old man at Stronos’ side, referring to the Felgarrth clan that eked their livelihood from the plains beyond Meduson. Stronos turned briefly towards him. The elder had one eye sewn shut and an arm socketed by a crude iron cuff. Stronos looked back to the aspirant as he took up his weapons and stepped confidently into the cage.
Most clansmen were blood relations; inbreeding was inevitable, but the resemblance to the challenger was near enough for Stronos to infer that the old man was a direct relative, perhaps even a father. He showed no concern for the boy’s danger.
‘Mark him well, lord. He’ll bring strength to your clan.’
The old man had clearly noted the emblem of Clan Garrsak on Stronos’ pauldron plate and mistaken him for one of the recruiting sergeants. ‘Your son?’
‘Nephew,’ the man replied, surprised at being answered. ‘His father’s dead.’
‘Do you not fear for his life?’
The old man’s rotator cuff clunked as he shrugged, and he scowled as he worked out the seized joint. ‘He could die feeding the engine, he could be dragged into the fans or be exposed to the wind. Both his sisters fell to the black lung before they came of age and his cousin, my son, died in battle.’ He shrugged, unmoved by the litany of the dead. ‘Or he could chance it all on immortality.’ He showed Stronos his shoulder. ‘I did.’
A throaty cry went up from the crowd as the youth ran at the yarrk and struck it on the snout with his staff. The uncle gave a coarse laugh, and slipped into a clan dialect with which Stronos was unfamiliar to yell encouragement. ‘You like what you see, lord?’
Stronos looked away to take in the totality of the proving cages. There were scores of them just in this one square. In addition to the gladiatorial challenges there were tests of technical ability, physical endurance, trials of pain. In one cage, Stronos witnessed a boy subjected to electrocution under the ministry of a Mechanicus priest, the object being not only to endure but to suppress entirely the body’s reaction to the pain. The boy did well. Stronos saw two Iron Hands argue briefly, before the victorious sergeant of Clan Haarmek dragged the stumbling boy from the cage to be corralled with the handful of bloodied and dazed aspirants already secured for his clan.
Stronos looked back to the yarrk cage. Angered, the yarrk had unfolded from its hunch. It wound back its arm as if to strike, then, with a roar, it lunged with its entire body. The boy scrambled to get out of the way, the brushing contact with the beast still enough to fling him across the cage. The yarrk slammed into the bars where the boy had been, then sat back down to pick up the staff he had dropped and scratch its gums with it. Behind it, the boy picked himself up, giving no indication of the broken ribs Stronos could see he was carrying.
Such a waste: manpower was a resource like any other, and the whole bloody affair struck him as pointless. Perhaps this was the real reason he stayed away.
‘Would you like to know how I would fight such a beast?’ he said to the old man.
‘Lord, I would.’
‘The pistol. I would shoot the beast in the eyes before entering the cage, and then wait for it to bleed.’
The old man looked up at Stronos as though waiting on the explanation of the joke. ‘But lord, the honour of the–’
‘Honourable men are beloved of those who make medals, and those who dig holes in the ground for the dead. Iron is unbeholden to honour.’ Stronos turned to leave. He had seen as much as he cared to.
‘My condolences for your nephew.’
>>> SIMULUS INLOAD
>>> SOURCE >>> BATTAKKAN
>>> ORIGIN >>> LYDRIIK, CODICIER
>>> DATESTAMP >>> 088282.M41
>>>>> SIMULUS COMMENCING >>>>>
Blood and ordure splashed Lydriik’s boots. Battakkan was an Iron Age feudal world, its ideas of drainage at considerable variance to Lydriik’s. And yet, even the most sanitised of core territories would have been tested by the volume of fluid that the Iron Hands had spilled here. The smoke smelled of wood and dung walls. Bolter-fire crackled like burning thatch. And screams. With the incandescence of his mind’s eye, he could see the soul-embers that floated above the fire like chaff on the wind. With a handful of archaic lasrifles distributed through a force that, though thousands-strong, was otherwise outfitted with wooden shields and iron axes, they had never stood a chance.
Genocide had never been so effortless.
Lydriik scattered a pair of weaselfowl, some local aberration of chicken and rat that had been drinking from a blood pool that had collected in a wheel rut in the middle of the road. His boots squelched in soft mud as he passed the picket of Centurion Destroyers that held the main square.
The battle-suited Devastator elite of Clan Vurgaan had already torn down most of the surrounding structures to create kill-zones. There they waited like ambush predators, heavy bolters, autocannon and ultra-rare examples of volkite weaponry, phosphex incinerators and bio-alchem launchers, emerging from what ruins remained. The magos calculi had determined that anti-armour firepower would be superfluous, and so it had proven. They were so still that the weaselfowl had overcome their fear sufficiently to peck the gore from their boots. Compared to the bonfire of mortality that Lydriik could see burning into the warp, even their souls were dim, quiet things, cold spaces in a maelstrom of dying light. The Centurion sergeant admitted Lydriik onto the village square without a word.
The square was enclosed on three sides by half-stone buildings with high, sloping roofs, their gables blackened with soot. The building on the fourth side, though smaller than the great longhouses, was remarkable in its incongruity, neither wood, nor stone, nor endemic material unique to Battakkan. It was a creamy alien ceramic that Lydriik had encountered on worlds across the Western Veil. By the fractal glow of the windows’ energy shutters, the Iron Father conducted the local chieftain’s interrogation.
The man was big for a mortal, his thick arms covered with warrior tattoos
. He was dressed in rich furs with a circlet of iron on his head. His face was beginning to turn blue, his eyes to bulge, feet kicking a metre and a half off the ground where his entrails roped in the dirt. A flock of crowing weaselfowl flapped around the Iron Father’s legs to get at the man’s offal.
The Iron Father’s name was Verrox, which meant that the man talked.
Lips quivered in their final attempt to make words. Verrox grinned and turned his head to listen. His eyes shone like bolters at dawn.
‘Objection – engrammic extraction post-mortem would be more efficient,’ complained the magos beside him, fully shrouded in his red cloak as though braced for cold, surrounded by a cacophony of semi-flightless birds.
‘It would take you two hours at least to set up your instruments.’
‘More reliable then,’ said the magos as a death rattle jerked the chieftain’s feet.
‘He told me what I need to know.’ There was a crunch of bone as Verrox allowed the man’s head to snap. His head flopped to one side. Verrox tossed the corpse away, pursued by a cawing flurry of weaselfowl. ‘But perform your extraction.’ The magos executed an elaborate bow, then directed his servitors to salvage the body.
Verrox turned Lydriik’s way and gestured with his hand to summon him, then slid his bloodied fingers into his mouth as the Librarian approached. His mouth was very deep and very wide. His eyelids flickered as his omophagea digested the dead man’s memories. ‘I can taste it when a man lies. The alien will be here within the hour. Believe it. And after Magos Tarl is forced to abandon his rituals half finished to attend to his war machines he will not question me again.’ He produced a simian grin, his lips smeared with human blood. ‘You know why I ordered your transfer.’
It was not a question. Verrox did not ask questions.
‘Yes.’
‘My Librarian was weak enough to be slain, and I still have neophytes to blood.’ The Iron Father waved a hand over Lydriik as though in blessing. ‘You are Clan Vurgaan now. Congratulations.’
Lydriik blinked in surprise.
>>DISREGARD FOR PROPER RITUAL IS A MARKED TRAIT OF THE VURGAAN. HOWEVER, THE PROBABILITY THAT THE CODICIER MISREMEMBERS THE PRECISE ORDER OF EVENTS IS CALCULATED AT 48%>>
Lydriik handed the Iron Father the dataslate he was carrying.
‘Summarise.’
‘Temperamentally unsuitable,’ said Lydriik, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘His emotions rule him still, despite my predecessor’s efforts. I would advise his training be terminated, and that he is transferred to your apothecarion for repurposing.’
‘Stronos is only half a year from his Iron Moon. It would be wasteful to discard him now. Raise Scout Clave Jerikko and see that he’s attached.’ Verrox’s too-large mouth split like a wound tearing at a stitch. ‘Let’s see what the tau make of his temperament.’
>>>TERMINATING SIMULUS.
IV
A laager of superheavy armoured vehicles caused the world to roar, aping the prehistoric Terran mythos of a flat earth ringed by an eternal waterfall. In place of falls there rose an avalanche of rumbling steel and belched smoke. The Broken Hand, along with its counterparts from clans Vurgaan, Haarmek and Raukaan carved a circle several thousand metres in diameter from the desert. Dust from their tracks made the vehicles little more than shapes and thunder, the reddening sky turned once more to black, the towering idols of the Felgarrthi Mountains those of absent gods.
‘Many tried. Few succeeded.’ Iron Chaplain Huygens stood tall within the swirl of dust as though it rose from the earth at his command, his voice booming from a triad of slaved servo-skulls. ‘Those that faltered were weak. By your presence here you prove that you are strong. Rise.’ With one arm, he gestured. ‘You will never kneel again.’
Rauth and the other neophytes rose. Khrysaar and Borrg were there, as were two others that Rauth didn’t know. They were all naked except for their bionics and surgical scars. Not a sight for the squeamish. The Iron Chaplain walked the line of huge, ironclad young men, pausing to regard each one. Rauth glared back when it was his turn.
‘You are as iron, melted down, re-made as one. What the Iron Creed alloys let no force sunder.’
Tartrak and Dumaar and a handful of senior Iron Hands of the four clans observed in stormswept silence. Rauth could feel the empty weight of the Apothecary’s stare on his spine, a fleshy itch that wanted to be cut. A reminder that there was no retreat for him now. At a signal from one of the delegation, the ever-circling laager of clan crawlers fired off a shrieking barrage of noise from horns and loud-hailers.
The blast lingered, even as the rumble of tracks and armour shredded it, hollowed it and finally crushed it back into the wind.
A muscular growl answered the call, and Rauth saw several convoys of light vehicles stream through the moving gaps in the laager. Hidden by the dust and noise except for their headlamps, they swept into a second, tighter ring, myriad clan icons flashing by, emblazoned in fresh paint over the corroded bodywork of half-tracks and buggies. The human clans. Rauth wondered if his own clan was out there, his parents straining for a fleeting glimpse of the man who would bring honour and trading rights to their clan. Was it worth it? He did not think he would even recognise them now if he saw them. Pity. He would have crushed their throats with his bare hands had he been able to pull them from the crowd.
Half a dozen open-topped transports split from the mass of vehicles and roared towards Rauth and the others. They were black, heavily armoured, driven by Iron Hands. Loaded into the backs like cattle were several score of the new intake from the mortal clans. Rauth would have pitied them. If I had any pity to spare.
The vehicles approached without further fanfare. The Iron Hands killed their engines and disembarked. The aspirants themselves emerged under greater duress. Not so eager now, are we? That, I do remember. They looked fearful. Most had been injured during the proving or so hard-pressed that they were practically unconscious on their feet. Or so they think. They’ll learn just how far a body can be pushed. Under the firm guidance of the recruiting sergeants and the steely gaze of Iron Chaplain Huygens, the dispirited mob of youngsters lined up before the neophytes. Two lines of battle, present versus future, man versus metal. Sixty versus six.
It should be clear to all which line will win.
‘You have been hardened by challenge and you have overcome.’ Huygens now prowled the friendless space between the two lines. ‘You are no longer the men you once were. You are no longer men. You have plunged your hands into the raging fire and by your resolve they have been withdrawn as iron.’ He stopped at the end of the row and turned back. ‘But this is not the end. You will take the legacy of the Father into the galaxy and you will show it strength.’
The neophytes had no cheer for the Iron Chaplain’s words. They stared at him, sullen, expressionless, as the Iron Hands shoved their mortal charges towards them. The cacophony of trucks and horns clearly had the young men disoriented for they stumbled ahead of their new masters like herded livestock. Their eyes were wide, their mouths tight shut out of habit from life on a dusty world, but taut with awe and horror at the gene-bred musculature and bio-augmentation arrayed against them.
‘You will grow stronger yet,’ Huygens growled. ‘For before you stand those that will replace you should you fail.’
Scouring the unlikely candidates immediately before him, one caught Rauth’s eye. He stared back with as much defiance as Rauth sent his way in contempt.
With a flash of anger Rauth punched the youth in the face, breaking the boy’s nose and hurling him back into the group. Two other boys were knocked down before the press of bodies brought the defiant youth down. A surge of bittersweet satisfaction made Rauth smile. He didn’t know why he’d done it, only that every muscle in his body trembled with the shaking ground and that he was afraid. And the boy was weak and he was strong.
And it had felt good.
Tough little human. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Morvox.’
Rauth pointed to him and shouted, ‘This one!’
The other neophytes similarly picked out candidates and drew them off while the Iron Hands bullied their brothers back towards the transports. Your time will come. Huygens deposited a serrated knife into the hand of each of the neophytes in turn. Rauth was eldest, angriest and last. When he was finished, the Iron Chaplain delivered a blistering sermon in ancient Medusan that Rauth didn’t understand. Morvox couldn’t have understood it either, but he seemed to grasp what was required of him. He held out his left hand. Rauth brandished the knife. The boy’s eyes were unwavering. Rauth’s knuckles were printed onto his shattered nose in blood.
Here it is. The chance to pass on the pain. I would have let it end by now if I hadn’t had this moment to look forward to. Cry out. By the living Emperor, cry out.
He didn’t cry out. None of them did. There were grunts, tears that streamed from clenched eyes, but no one screamed for they knew they had been blessed above their peers. They would be re-made.
Rauth looked at the severed hand on the ground. The warmth leached out of it as it did out of him. What little pleasure cutting it off had brought trickled away like blood into the black sand. Morvox’s expression had reverted to what it had been, paler, more effort going into it, but no less defiant.
‘You weaken, but soon you will become strong.’
Rauth held Morvox’s glare as Huygens hauled them unceremoniously apart.
No sooner had the Iron Chaplain moved on to the next pair than Rauth felt Apothecary Dumaar’s hand on the back of his head and he was driven to his knees. And Huygens promised. Rauth was strong, but the strength in the Apothecary’s arm was astounding. Dumaar bent Rauth’s head forward until his chin dug into the naked flesh of his chest and he felt vertebrae stand up from his neck. He closed his eyes. He was afraid.