by Ben Counter
Sergeant Phraates stumbled against the barricade beside Cyvon, snarling in frustration. The armour of his left forearm was split open and bloody. His power sword smouldered with the blood crackling in its power field.
The Soul Drinkers could shelter from the fire, and weather it. But they wouldn’t be moving, and the enemy could close in on them, surrounding them from all sides as Hollowmount’s heretic population drained into the avenue. They could hold out for days like that, never sleeping, but not forever.
The realisation that they could die here forced its way into Cyvon’s brain. That the Soul Drinkers could lose.
Unless they broke out now.
As if to punctuate his thought, a missile streaked from the mass of statuary and desecrated shrines along the south side of the road. It impacted among the heretics’ vehicles and one of them cartwheeled into the air as its fuel tank exploded. The deep thunder of erupting fuel was followed by a chatter of gunfire from the same direction, and suddenly the heretics were in disarray, sprinting between cover to take up positions opposite this new threat.
The enemy’s gunfire faltered. Phraates stood clear of cover, his wounded arm hanging by his side. ‘Now!’ he yelled. ‘Cold and fast as your blades!’
The Soul Drinkers slammed into the heretics fighting them. Cyvon jumped to his feet and fired the last shells in his bolt rifle’s magazine into the two maniacs rushing at him, before pivoting on his back foot as another dived towards him talons first. He rammed the point of his knife into the back of the enemy’s head and felt the life go out of it before it slid off the blade.
He gave himself a half-second to get his bearings. The newcomers to the battle were more citizens of Hollowmount, fewer in number than the heretics massing down the road. He saw the marks of the Imperium on them. Some had painted the symbol of the aquila across their faces. Others had the trappings of the Imperial creed – chained books hanging from their belts, handmade shields painted with the image of the Emperor in golden armour, rosarius beads clutched in their hands. A few wore the robes of the clergy. Like the heretics, they were armed with a mix of looted weapons. One of them was reloading the missile launcher he had just fired.
Another man jumped up onto one of the barricades, ignoring the autogun fire spattering around him. He wore the uniform of the Imperium’s Naval aristocracy, black with dark-blue panels, a pelisse over one shoulder and the high, starched collar of a bridge officer. He carried a plasma gun and fired it one-handed as he moved with a grace and poise that suggested augmentations to his muscles and skeleton. His face was high and proud, with pale brown skin, thick dark hair and a cut of dashing handsomeness that helped explain why these Imperial loyalists would follow him into the fray.
What Cyvon noticed most keenly was the symbol the man wore around his neck. It was the stylised letter ‘I’, wrought in gold, with a ruby-eyed skull in the centre.
A symbol rarely worn openly, but one that carried immeasurable weight whenever it was displayed. Much like the Space Marines themselves, many knew of its significance even if few ever saw it in person. It was more than a badge of office. It was a key that opened every chamber in the Imperium and gave access to every level of power. Even more than that, it spoke of how the person carrying it occupied the highest stratum of the Imperium’s many power structures, a position that let them decide the fate of worlds. The Inquisitorial Rosette.
‘These people know this city,’ said Brother Sasan, who had found Cyvon through the melee. ‘They have what we don’t.’
‘Swing south!’ ordered Tiridates over the vox. ‘Their lives will buy us time! Spend it well!’
The man bearing the symbol of the Inquisition bounded through the volleys of fire, launching bolts of plasma at the heretics as he went. He slid into cover near where Phraates was sheltering.
‘Thought you could use a guide, good sirs!’ he said. Through the heat shimmer from his plasma gun, Cyvon could see the delicate scarring around his face from the implantation of high quality bionics. ‘I hate to see your grand entrance into Hollowmount ending in despair. Even the Adeptus Astartes cannot fare well against a whole city’s population, and believe me, that is what you will face if you stay here.’
‘Who is this that jests with me?’ growled Phraates.
‘Stheno of the Holy Orders of the Emperor’s Inquisition,’ the stranger replied with a flourish, and a finger touched to the rosette on his chest.
Phraates’ anger subsided as he recognised the symbol. Even a Space Marine had to respect it. ‘Strange days, these, to find an inquisitor in our midst. I am Sergeant Phraates of the Soul Drinkers.’
Confusion passed momentarily over Stheno’s face. ‘The Soul Drinkers? I know not that name. Newborn Angels of Death from the Ultima Founding, then?’
‘Is that a problem, inquisitor?’
The confusion was gone. ‘By no means, sergeant! Hollowmount is in dire need of the Adeptus Astartes’ brand of violence.’
‘And your solution to our situation?’
‘Yeceqath’s dogs haven’t taken the Weldworks,’ said Stheno. ‘The city’s loyalists have held on to it. It won’t be for long, but it’s better than here.’ Stheno broke off to fire a bolt of plasma into the torso of a charging madman. The blast caught the enemy full in the face and by the time he fell to his knees, his head and upper torso had burned away in the glowing liquid fire.
‘Tiridates!’ voxed Phraates, transmitting to all three squads to keep them aware of the situation. ‘We have an ally of a most inquisitive nature. He says he can find us a foothold in the city.’
‘Then follow him,’ grunted the First Sergeant. Across the barricades, Cyvon could see Tiridates slamming the skull of an enemy against a rockcrete wall. ‘I tire of killing these lackwits.’
Alert chimes sounded across the vox, and the Soul Drinkers reacted in subconsciously drilled unison. They fired into the manic assailants to buy a few seconds of time, and used it to break cover and head for the southern edge of the street. They vaulted the loyalists’ cover and joined them, turning to lend their own fire against the heretics.
The couple of hundred loyalists were losing the firefight, and several of them lay draped over the walls and statue bases, but even as their brethren fell the survivors looked at the Soul Drinkers as if they saw the face of the Emperor reflected in the Space Marines’ armour.
Cyvon knew the citizenry of the Imperium grew up with images of the noble and terrifying Space Marines all around them. They were the Emperor’s finest, the hands of Terra. When the Emperor raged, His anger took the form of the Space Marines. Most people went a lifetime without seeing a member of the Adeptus Astartes, but when they did see them, they were filled with awe at their presence and sheer stature. But he had still never before been looked on with the veneration he saw in the eyes of the loyalists of Hollowmount.
‘He answers!’ cried one of the loyalists’ leaders, an elderly man with straggling white hair and beard, wearing the grimy ivory-and-gold robes of the Imperial clergy. He carried an ornate crook rescued from some place of worship, and clutched an autopistol in his other hand. ‘We prayed, and He led us back from the edge of despair. He promised, and He delivers! The Angels of Death are come!’
Another loyalist, a woman in filthy work clothes carrying a well-worn lasgun, walked in a daze as gunfire continued to whicker and ping between the statues. She laid a hand on Cyvon’s arm, as if checking to see if he were real. Tears glimmered in her eyes as she looked up at him. He put a hand against her back and guided her behind one of the statues, out of the open.
‘It’s a little over a mile into the city,’ Stheno was saying. ‘The Weldworks are sealed against toxic leaks. We control the ways in and out. If anywhere in this filth-heap is safe, it’s there.’
‘What does the Inquisition want on Kepris?’ asked Epistolary Oxyath, who trailed a corona of purple electricity as he followed the
rest of the force off the street.
‘The rightful rule of humanity,’ replied Stheno smoothly. ‘The glorification of the Emperor. The extermination of the blasphemer. What we all want, Lord Librarian.’
‘They’re closing in,’ voxed Sergeant Respendial. The enemy were winning the gunfight with the loyalists, and were vaulting the barricades ahead of them to advance.
‘Then we move,’ replied Sergeant Tiridates. ‘Brethren! We have our foothold! Move out!’
Part II
BREAKTHROUGH
Chapter Three
What deliverance could there be from such blasphemy?
The only answer is death.
– Father Balthan Eugenivov, The Keprian Vengeance
‘They started with the priests,’ said Father Eugenivov. In spite of the layers of grime and the scars of various skirmishes, he had maintained the air of an Imperial cleric. His Ecclesiarchy robes were overlaid with belts of ammo pouches and bandoliers. He leaned on his crook as he spoke, and in the gloom of the Weldworks he looked like the priest he had been. ‘They dragged us out from the cloisters in the Cathedral of the Sanguinary Fall. They cracked our heads open and heaped our brains into the aisle. Bodies… hanging from the statue of Blessed Sanguinius. They defiled every stone of that place.’ Eugenivov looked at Cyvon, and his face was suddenly full of apology and regret. ‘I… I hid,’ he said weakly.
As soon as he had seen the place, Cyvon had understood how the Imperial loyalists had held out there. The Weldworks was a network of forges and smelting-houses where ore and scrap were turned into raw materials for Hollowmount’s manufactoria. Huge doors served to cut off the Weldworks from the surrounding districts in case of spills and breaches. Now they had been used to seal its entrances from the Cult of Yeceqath. The cult had tried to force its way in, and in places the floor was littered with charred bones and heaps of slag where the forges had been emptied and the cultists buried in a flood of molten steel.
The loyalists were encamped in the cavernous, empty forges. They were empty of materials now and bivouacs and bunks had been set up in the gloomy, grime-caked corners of the Weldworks. One of the forges was a hospital, where the wounds from the battle by the gate were tended. A small furnace still burned, and was used to incinerate the dead so they would not decay and spread foulness. The scorched dark grey of the walls loomed down and turned the space into a single mass of shadow, broken only by the few lights salvaged by the loyalists. They prayed in every corner, for illumination both spiritual and literal.
Cyvon slid the action of his bolt rifle back into place. He had fixed the warped mechanism and replaced a broken component inside the housing, and now it clicked back into place as if the weapon were fresh from the armoury. The wargear rites were a reflex action to him, like sighting down the bolter’s barrel in battle. It calmed his mind to clean and maintain the weapon, for in a galaxy of perpetual change and conflict it was something constant that he could trust. ‘Go on,’ he said to the cleric.
Eugenivov nodded. ‘They attacked the seminary… The heretics burned down the House of the Pure. The offices of the Administratum…’ The old priest’s voice trailed off and he seemed to be looking at something far off that only he could see.
‘When did you first hear of Yeceqath?’
Eugenivov nodded. ‘Sorry. Yes, Yeceqath. The Voice of All. I had heard there was a… a mystic, I suppose. A prophet. She had a following in the city. The synod was about to discuss whether she was something to be dealt with when the uprising began. She had an army, and she had gathered it right under our noses. The governor, the city enforcers, no one knew. And she had the Thricefold…’
‘Those are the ones we fought. With the split faces. The madmen.’
‘Anyone who resisted,’ said Eugenivov, ‘they punished with the Thricefold. If you spoke out, you were dragged down by the mob, and if you fought them off the Thricefold would follow. She knew how to use fear. And enough fear will turn into belief.’
‘How many loyalists are there?’ asked Cyvon.
‘A few hundred,’ said Eugenivov. ‘We had more before we reached you at the gate. Every time we face the heretics, we lose souls we cannot replace.’
‘But no more,’ said Cyvon. ‘Now we are here.’
Eugenivov smiled at that. His weary eyes were wet with tears. ‘Yes. The Angels of Death. He has answered our prayers.’
Inquisitor Stheno and Epistolary Oxyath approached. The loyalists watched them in unashamed awe and adoration as they passed. ‘Cyvon here is the battle-brother who saw the executions at Sacerdotes’ Square,’ said Oxyath. ‘That was why we knew what was waiting for us at Hollowmount.’
Stheno raised an eyebrow. ‘Useful,’ he said. ‘I always prefer to know my enemy.’
‘I always prefer to kill them,’ replied Cyvon, ‘and learn of them from the history written of our victory.’ Cyvon had spoken out of turn, and to an inquisitor no less, but he had taken an instinctive dislike to this man who spoke to the Soul Drinkers as if he were born to be their lord and master. ‘Epistolary, when do we move out?’ he asked.
‘When, my brother, we have a plan of attack,’ said Oxyath. ‘House Yathe is well defended.’
‘Where?’ asked Cyvon.
‘The cult’s closest power base,’ replied Oxyath. ‘Deeper into the city, one point two miles north-west, accessible through ways the loyalists believe are safe.’
‘House Yathe was one of the first to put their money and power behind the cult,’ said Stheno, who seemed not to have taken offence at Cyvon’s earlier snipe. ‘The Uppermost Hand operates from their estate.’
‘The executioner,’ said Cyvon, remembering the bestial mask and the ivory robes, spattered with the blood of the Administratum prisoners who had been ripped apart by the Thricefold.
‘Quite so,’ said Stheno. ‘Your arrival allows us to cut off the head of the serpent, so to speak. The Space Marines descend and eliminate the Uppermost Hand, and the cult loses a leader and a mouthpiece. The cult will be afraid. They will run and make themselves vulnerable. First the Hand, then the other pillars of the cult as word of the Emperor’s avenging angels spreads. Finally the prophetess herself.’
‘And these people?’ asked Cyvon, indicating the loyalists watching them. ‘Will they go with us?’
‘If they wish to be used, then we shall use them,’ said Stheno. He knelt down by Cyvon, although Cyvon was almost as tall sitting as Stheno was standing. The inquisitor pointed at Cyvon’s bolt rifle. ‘Tell me, Brother Cyvon. What is this?’
Cyvon knew there was a trick in the question somewhere, but he thought better of trying to find it. ‘A Mark II Cawl-pattern Astartes bolt rifle,’ he said.
‘I see the same,’ said Stheno. ‘And I see much more. This weapon does not do what it does in a pretty manner, does it? It blasts bodies apart. It is an ugly thing. It has no ornamentation or airs. And yet we tend to it, and feed it ammunition when it needs it. Because without it, we will die. Brother Cyvon, what do I see?’
‘The Imperium,’ replied Cyvon.
Stheno turned to Oxyath. ‘Watch this one,’ he said.
‘House Yathe held against every loyalist attack in the first days of the cult,’ said Oxyath, who did not seem impressed by the inquisitor’s metaphors. ‘It has only been reinforced since. Yes, brother, these people will be with us, every gun and blade will have its use.’
‘I doubt I could hold them back if I wanted to,’ added Stheno. He turned to Eugenivov. ‘Is that not so, father?’
‘We will die on the barricades for the chance to get our hands on Yeceqath’s dogs,’ said Eugenivov. ’There will never be a better chance to get past those walls at last. We will be there.’
‘Once your First Sergeant has a plan of attack, we’ll move out,’ said Stheno to Cyvon. ‘We can break the back of this cult if we strike hard. The war is out there, for the shrines, but the v
ictory can be here if we cut off the head. And from what your Librarian says, Brother Cyvon, you could be the best weapon we have.’
Stheno and Oxyath moved on, heading for the makeshift command post Tiridates had set up in an abandoned forge.
‘Who is Yeceqath?’ Cyvon asked the old priest.
‘That is a more complicated question than it seems,’ said Eugenivov. ‘She is the Voice of All. A prophet of the people’s will. She is the symbol they rally towards. The highest authority among them. But the true answer, brother, is that we do not know. I have never seen her, I have only heard her voice broadcast over the citywide vox.’
‘A mystery,’ said Cyvon.
‘To all but her most favoured servants.’
‘When the enemy represses knowledge of themselves, then that knowledge is dangerous to them,’ said Cyvon. ‘The inquisitor may be right. The fighting at the shrines will secure the relics, but the cult’s response depends on how badly we hurt them here.’
‘Yeceqath turns Emperor-fearing citizens into those Thricefold monsters,’ said Eugenivov. ’What she has done to us is a heresy beyond what I once thought possible.’
Brother Sasan approached through the gloom. Wondering eyes followed him from every corner. It seemed strange to Cyvon, almost comical, that Sasan of all people should be the object of veneration. Sasan clapped Cyvon on the shoulder guard. ‘If you clean your gun too much, you’ll wear it away.’
‘Speak too loosely, Brother Sasan,’ said Cyvon, ‘and these good people might start to think we are human after all.’
Sasan’s armour was patched up from the scars and nicks he had suffered in the firefight. In spite of his words, he had been busy with post-battle wargear rites, too. ‘Tiridates says we move out immediately. Should be a bracing run-out!’
‘My thanks for the warning,’ said Cyvon. ‘What do you think of this cult? Yeceqath, the Thricefold, the Voice of All?’
‘After careful consideration, Brother Cyvon, I find them eminently killable.’