Amit held up a hand. ‘Nuriel is right. The Shield must be in a position to capitalise on our attack before the Zurconians can recover.’ Amit tapped the tactical display indicating an area of space just beyond Primus’s second moon. ‘Have the Shield regroup here and stand ready.’
‘Very well, lord.’ Ronja nodded, struggling to hide her anger. This was her bridge, her ship. They had no right to make such decisions without her counsel. In the back of her mind, she felt the Victus’s machine-spirit growl in agreement.
‘I want a strategic review of the planet and its defences streamed to my helm-display before we hit the atmosphere. We’ll work out an assault plan en route.’
‘Of course,’ said Ronja. ‘Once the psychic choir has been eliminated, we will scan for and identify key targets.’
‘Start with the choir’s location and work out from there,’ said Amit. ‘Despite appearances, Zurcon’s seat of power will be close by.’
‘As you wish, lord,’ said Ronja.
‘Nuriel, go with Barakiel and his squad to the target site once the attack is complete. Ensure there are no survivors.’ Amit turned and made for the bridge’s exit.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Nuriel.
‘To wake an old friend.’
Amit had left the prison an abattoir.
Zophal directed the swabbing stave across the cell floor with slow, deliberate care, its thick white fibres indistinguishable from the bloodied entrails they swept into the waste pit. He knew that many of his brothers saw such menial labour as beneath them. They would have had a serf or servitor do this work for them. He paused a moment in thought. Some sins could not be hidden under the toil of others. No one could be allowed to bear witness to such truths. Even if he had employed serfs to clean up the mess, they would have been executed upon their task’s completion, and he would still have been left with a pool of blood to scrub clean. Zophal sighed. Enough lives had been lost through the Blood’s weakness. He would atone for it where he could. This labour was his penance.
Zophal dunked the stave in cleansing fluid and ground it dry against the wall. It was an old implement, less effective and more inefficient than a tox-scrubber or an acid wash. He dragged the stave through gobbets of brain matter. Haste rarely led to purity. Puddles of blood splashed up onto his boots as he disturbed them. Amit had at least restrained himself, butchering the traitors without drinking them dry.
Who will wipe away your blood, Chaplain?+
Zophal dropped the stave, his weapons drawn before its wooden haft clattered to the steel of the floor. He panned his pistol around the room, searching for the speaker.
The voice laughed. +I am not without, I am within.+ Its words cut into Zophal’s skull like a fire-warmed knife. +Were the opposite true, you would be dead where you stood.+
‘Astyanax.’ Zophal snarled the traitor’s name and stepped into the corridor. The same, unfathomable gloom he had left there persisted undisturbed. He knew that the Victus was under heavy assault, that even now its outer armour and crenellated battlements were being blasted asunder. It had been so many times before, and now as then, the darkness around him remained unaffected. Here, cradled in the ancient Martian technology, the conflict manifested as little more than a gentle murmur. There was no reason to think that any of the cells had been breached.
Perhaps I or one of my deranged cousins will see to your end.+ Astyanax’s voice came again.
Zophal took a cautious step towards the traitor’s cell. Like Omari, Astyanax was one of Magnus’s sons, though he had protested no such innocence of embracing his father’s path and turning his back on the Emperor.
You have been a dutiful caretaker these many years, Zophal. Perhaps once we have torn your flesh asunder and drunk the blood from your still-beating hearts, we will scrape your remains into neat, tidy piles.+
Zophal touched a hand to the wall surrounding the outer door of Astyanax’s cell. A string of data scrolled over his helm as the sensoria in his gauntlet confirmed that the psychic wards were still intact.
Caution is the watchword of cowards. It is only the weak who let fear slow them.+
Zophal grimaced as the words tore at his mind. Removing a gauntlet, he pressed his hand to the wall panel and waited for the bio-scanner to chime. A series of panels slid away to reveal a pair of leaden deadbolts. He drew them back one by one, until the door released, hissing with pressure as it disappeared into a recess in the ceiling.
I am waiting, Chaplain.+
Zophal mouthed the catechism of sanctity and stepped to the inner door. Its frame shimmered blue-silver as he approached. The Chaplain nodded, reassured that the second set of wards remained intact. He accessed another bio-reader and pulled back another series of locking bolts. This time the door remained in place, awaiting someone with the strength of an Adeptus Astartes to draw it back. Zophal dismissed the door with a grunt of effort, pulling it back and open.
Still he was not granted entry to Astyanax’s cell. A series of thick adamantium bars blocked his path. Plasma-fused to the deck and ceiling, they could not be opened. Amit. Zophal grinned. When the Chapter Master got around to killing Astyanax, he would first have to cut his way into the cell. Zophal stepped forwards to press his helm to the bars and look in upon the traitor. The floor was etched in runes, wards that echoed the ones found on the cell’s outer wall. At the far end, illuminated by a pillar of light coming from a lumo-lamp in the opposite corner, the traitor hung in chains, suspended from the wall like a joint of meat. Unhelmed, he was still clad in the ruby battleplate of his Legion, his pauldrons and greaves trimmed in war-tarnished gold. What remained of his white tabard was ragged and sodden with filth.
‘How is it that you speak to me?’ Zophal’s voice was little more than a whisper.
Astyanax looked up. His eyes were pools of blood and a wicked smile played across his broken face.
‘You are not Astyanax,’ said Zophal. ‘Who is it that I really speak to?’
Astyanax laughed. +I have many names. For now I wear this flesh and its name shall suffice.+
‘Daemon…’ The word spilled from Zophal’s lips to be met by another cruel smile. ‘How did you come to be he–’ Zophal felt his gut twist in realisation. ‘The Geller field. The breach.’
A moment’s laxity is all that it takes. Is that not what you preach?+
‘What do you want?’
Astyanax said nothing, content to grin at the Chaplain.
‘Answer me or I will kill your meat puppet and deny you this meeting,’ Zophal demanded.
And what would your butcher of a lord think?+ Astyanax spoke without moving his lips. +Amit craves the day when his blade will taste this flesh. He reeks of desire. His depraved thirst grows more desperate each time he visits this oubliette of yours. You would kill his most prized of feasts? No, Chaplain, I do not think so.+
‘You think I fear Amit?’ Zophal gripped one of the cell bars. The servos in his gauntlet whined, spitting in protest as he tightened his grip in an effort to throttle the anger rising in his gut.
Enough.+ Astyanax’s smile widened. +You fear him enough to let him degrade you to this. To leave you cleaning up after his sins like a pious nursemaid.+
‘You will not goad me into the cell.’ Zophal kept his voice flat, bringing his anger in check.
No?+ Astyanax’s eyes widened to fist-sized saucers of crimson. An unceasing wash of blood streamed from them, so that it seemed as though Astyanax’s face were connected to the floor by two arterial pillars. +But I have much to tell you. Much you must hear, and you must come closer to hear it.+
The daemon’s voice was like a heartbeat in Zophal’s mind, a rhythmic pulse calling to him. It spoke in supplication, asking him to enter and be one with the blood, to drink his fill so that he would never thirst again.
‘No.’ Zophal clenched his teeth. ‘I am not here for your confession.�
�� He stepped back from the bars and raised his pistol. ‘Amit should have killed Astyanax long ago. A mistake I will now rectify.’ Zophal pulled the trigger. The single round struck the centre of Astyanax’s head, exploding his skull, and spraying fragments of bone and brain matter across the wall. Zophal fired again, sending a two-round burst into the meat of Astyanax’s chest. The traitor’s corpse juddered under the impacts, rattling in its restraints as the bolt shells ravaged it.
Zophal glared at Astyanax, searching for any sign of the daemon. The traitor hung lifeless in his chains, his eyes closed. ‘You were wrong, heretic. I do not fear Amit. I fear the Thirst.’ He lowered his gun. ‘But it is not for myself that I fear, for my will is iron.’ Zophal turned from the cell and walked back into the darkness of the corridor. There was a daemon on board, and he could not face it alone.
‘Firing range of Primus in twenty seconds.’ The single remaining gunnery serf rasped through the update. His peers lay dead around him, gutted by exploding consoles or buried under flaming rubble.
‘Power the bombardment cannons.’ Ronja tightened her grip on the command rail. None of the Zurconian vessels had peeled off to follow the Shield of Baal. The assault on the Victus had remained constant. The death toll had continued to rise.
‘Entering synchronous orbit,’ said one of the helmsmen.
‘The beacon?’ asked Nuriel.
‘We have a signal. It’s faint but we have it,’ said the surveyor.
Ronja felt the Victus slow as it matched the turning of Primus. She winced as a knot of pain flared in her skull. The Victus was railing against the manoeuvre. It was not used to leaving itself so vulnerable. Faith. Ronja soothed the machine-spirit. I will not fail you. We will have our battle soon. She turned to face Nuriel. ‘If you are wrong, we are all of us dead.’
Nuriel stifled a grunt and kept his attention fixed on the hololith.
‘Range.’ The gunnery serf spoke as a targeting icon swelled onto the tactical hololith.
Sanguinius keep you. Nuriel spared a thought for Sergeant Lior and his warriors. ‘Fire,’ he barked.
The Victus shook as its primary weapons discharged.
‘Good hit,’ said the gunnery serf.
‘Did it work?’ Ronja addressed the nearest surveyor.
‘No change in sensorium returns. Enemy positions fixed as before.’
‘Fire again,’ said Nuriel. He closed his eyes and pushed his mind out beyond the bridge, pressing it through the Victus’s hull to look down on the planet. Below them, a dwindling halo of orange fire blinked and went dark. He hardened his will, forging it into a slender blade of thought, and thrust it downwards to spear into the earth. Fire met him. It rolled over the land, a cleansing tide of flame. Nothing stood, save the scorched remains of a single tower. The choir were dead, and yet… Nuriel struggled to maintain focus, to finish seeing. He did not feel as he had expected to. The psychic backlash of the choir’s deaths had not struck him like a hammer. It had not blown over him like an engulfing gale. It coiled around him, spinning into a storm that held him in its eye.
‘Bombardment on target,’ said the gunnery serf.
‘Surveyor, re–’ began Ronja.
‘It worked. They are dead.’ Nuriel snapped open his eyes. They were as red as the blood in his veins.
‘Confirmed.’ The surveyor motioned to the hololith as one by one the Zurconian vessels began to blink out. Moments later the real vessels appeared on the display. Six in all, staggered in line formation. The Shield of Baal was already bearing down on them.
‘Now,’ Nuriel said, putting on his helm. ‘Now you can kill them, shipmistress.’ And with that, he left the bridge.
Ronja watched him go. Her eyes burning at his back. She should have been the one to give the order to fire. The wretched Flesh Tearer had stolen the honour from her. ‘I will kill everyone that stands in our way, lord.’
‘This is taking too long. We should have translated closer in-system.’ Brother-Sergeant Lycus voiced his concern over a private channel. Though he disagreed with his captain, he would not disrespect him in front of the throng of serfs and human attendants manning the bridge.
‘The distress call was broken, scrambled. We have no idea what we’d be leaping into.’ Captain Nikon’s voice was a measured rumble. ‘This was the surest course of action, Lycus.’
‘Will Namolas trouble you forever, brother?’ Lycus’s voice softened. Namolas had been Nikon’s greatest victory, a daring assault that had allowed the Eagle Warriors to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Yet, he knew the captain thought Namolas his greatest failure.
Nikon was silent a moment before answering. It had been almost a century since Namolas, and not a day had gone by where he had not sought penance for his failure. With an artist’s care, he had cut into his flesh, scarring himself once for each of the hundred warriors he had allowed to perish that day. The practice had almost cost him his own life, and he had refused his serf’s request to clean up the blood afterwards. No, it was impossible to wash away the past, no matter how much blood he spilled in the future. The crimson stains on the worn tiles of his cell would act as a permanent reminder that swift victory was never without cost. ‘I hope so.’
‘Sensorium range achieved, liege.’ The surveyor’s report drew Nikon’s attention to the tactical hololith as the ship’s cogitators began populating it with positional and operational information.
‘The distress call came from here.’ Lycus indicated the furthest of the three central planets.
‘Confirmed.’ The ancient comms-serf spoke in machine idiom, his vocal cords long since replaced by a vox-grille. Like the rest of the serfs aboard The Claw, he was a failed aspirant, a broken warrior unable to complete the arduous tests required to become an Eagle Warrior. To his credit, Jaarek, as he had once been known, had come closer than most, passing every mental and physical test asked of him. But in the end, his body had rejected the bio-implants needed to transform him into a Space Marine. Wracked with pain and crippling organ failure, Jaarek should have been left to die. It had been a wasteful and time-consuming process to stabilise him, and though Nikon was sure many of his brothers would have abandoned Jaarek, he was pleased to have even this small solace to ease his conscience.
‘Unknown vessels detected on the far side of the target planet.’ The hololith shivered as the surveyor spoke. One by one a string of orbs resolved across its surface as the sensorium detected and plotted the location of over a dozen other vessels.
‘Class and identification?’ At Nikon’s request a slew of servitors, one for each of the foreign craft, shuffled forwards and stood to his flank. On each of their chests a hololith hummed into life, ready to receive data on the vessels.
‘Scanning for physical markers and ident-tags.’ The servitors began chattering, sounding like vowels were trapped in their throats, as the surveyor updated the hololiths.
‘Flesh Tearers?’ Lycus failed to keep the surprise from his voice as the Bleeding Fist shimmered onto one of the hololiths.
‘Yes, liege,’ the surveyor confirmed. ‘Four Flesh Tearers ships in all. The Victus is among them.’
‘Amit…’ Nikon rose from his command throne. He had never met the lord of the Flesh Tearers, and knew of him through bloody reputation alone. ‘Gunnery, power the bombardment cannons, charge shields and have weapon crews stand ready. Brother Ampelio, transmit a message to Master Heron.’
The hulking Eagle Warrior stood guarding the chamber’s entrance nodded, the heavy footfalls of his Terminator armour echoing around the vaulted bridge space as he exited.
Lycus looked to Nikon but said nothing. There was a time when such distrust among cousins would not have existed. Horus… Lycus felt his gut coil in anger. Horus’s betrayal had eroded the bonds of blood that had existed between all of the Adeptus Astartes, and trust was no longer given as freely as it had once been. Emperor keep
us. Lycus stared at the image of the Victus as it pivoted on its axis, rotating on the hololith. He hoped the captain’s caution would prove premature.
‘Open comms, establish a channel with the Victus.’ A sharp hiss of static met Nikon’s order. ‘Comms-man, clean up that signal.’
‘I cannot, liege. Weapons fire and atmospheric conditions are making it impossible to get a clear reading at this distance.’ The serf busied himself adjusting a number of dials. ‘We should be able to establish contact once we crest the second sun.’
Nikon tensed and leant forwards to grip the command rail. The thought of sneaking up on Amit unannounced made him uneasy, but he would not give away their position until the Flesh Tearers intent could be determined. ‘Full speed ahead. Use the solar flaring to mask our approach but get us closer.’ The tales of Amit’s brutality were in no short supply. Nikon only hoped that the Chapter Master’s blade still wrought the Emperor’s work.
Amit stepped over the threshold and waited until the blast doors sealed behind him. He hated the chamber. Death clung to its every orifice. It was a place of resurrection and yet, whenever he set foot there, he saw it only as a tomb. He paced forwards, his breath fogging in the air. Tombs – they had felt little different since man first stopped leaving his brothers to rot under the sun. Rows of thick ferrite slabs, each twice his height and engraved with long-worn lines of High Gothic, shadowed him as he emerged into the chamber proper. Lone lumo-candles flickered from shallow recesses that stretched from shoulder height up to the shadows of the vaulted ceiling. The panelled floor was the cold grey of bare ceramite, featureless save for the subtle indentations worn by time and the passage of booted feet.
‘Chapter Master.’ Apothecary Pursun dipped his head in greeting. He was un-armoured, his white robe stained by splashes of bio-fluid and surgical gel; its folds were marred by lines of fresh viscera, remnants of the rites of internment.
Sons of Wrath - Andy Smillie Page 7