by Nick Kyme
Only a massive convective input would provoke the fusion reaction to reignite the core. It was a failing dwarf star, bleeding out radiation pressure and fighting a cascade of falling hydrogen layers. Heat death was imminent. Stepping back from the porthole, Haephestus’ servo-armature unclamped the separate generator for his armour. At the moment of disconnection, he felt a sudden divorcement of flesh, cybernetics and suit. It immediately weighed much more heavily. The power plant’s housing contained a small nuclear reactor. Its concomitant parts were hard-bonded, proofed against extreme kinetic stress and temperature shielded. He took a pair of krak grenades from his weapons belt and attached them to one side of the generator. Their combined incendiary reaction would magnify and split the housing, exposing it to the dying furnace.
It was crude and ill-considered.
If it worked, it would also very likely result in his death.
‘Forgive me, Omnissiah,’ uttered Haephestus as he dropped the generator into the furnace, praying for a vital spark.
I AM HIS SHIELD…
Pillium could barely stand. Though his body strived to repair his wounds, it could not restore him enough to face this monster and prevail.
‘Run,’ he told Sharna.
She was weeping, clinging to the arched door frame. ‘I can’t. You have to carry me…’
‘I can’t outrun it, quartermaster. I’m sorry. If we both run, it will follow.’
Since the flight from the muster hall, Pillium had begun to get some sense of the beast. The only reason it had not already borne him down was because he had turned to face it. He would die in this place, but at least his wounds would be to the front.
‘Is anyone coming to help us?’ Sharna whispered.
Pillium shook his head, his eyes on the darkness and the monstrous silhouette slowly stalking through it. His vox was dead, damaged when he had been struck. He had to hope reinforcements were on the way, not for his own sake but for the rest of the crew. This beast would devour them all.
‘Close your eyes,’ he told Sharna. Pillium was about to head back into the chamber and confront the beast when a voice stopped him.
‘Stand aside.’
He turned. A warrior walked in front of him and stepped beyond the threshold of the stalled gate to deck thirteen. He was unarmoured, barring a simple leather cuirass, and a blue cloak swept behind him. At first Pillium thought he might be suffering from some form of delirium brought about by his injuries and exposure to the warp, for the warrior was a head and a half shorter than he and only seemed to be carrying a silver gladius and a buckler in his scarred hands.
But he was real, a white-haired warrior, a veteran of old wars.
‘You can’t…’ Pillium growled. Pain knifed into him with every drawn breath. ‘You can’t face that thing alone.’
The beast had stopped, silently brooding amidst its own darkness, seemingly content to wait. Perhaps it had sensed the challenge, tasted the imminent violence on the air and welcomed it. Pillium did not know what appalled him more, the bestial and unfettered rage or the sudden rush of martial honour. Savage intellect glinted in its burning cinder eyes.
‘Stay behind me,’ said the warrior, his voice measured and calm. He glanced over his shoulder at the wounded Primaris Marine. ‘And do not follow.’
Pillium recognised him then. This was Gaius Prabian, one of Sicarius’ old Lions and martial Champion of the Second Company. An incongruous thought struck him in that moment of recognition, of how he had never sparred with the Champion, of how he had never seen him in the arena at all. But Prabian had a swordsman’s gait, a light-footed tread and a loose readiness about his every movement. He considered then that he might have been fortunate not to have ever faced the Champion.
Pillium was about to go after Prabian when another voice stopped him.
‘Do as he says.’
This one he knew instantly. Cato Sicarius was standing behind him, barely armoured, a red cloak across his shoulder and the unsheathed Tempest Blade in his hand.
‘He’ll die alone against it,’ said Pillium.
Sicarius’ reply was solemn. ‘He isn’t alone.’
The captain looked down at Sharna, who stared back with eyes wide.
‘It won’t close, sire,’ she said. ‘I can’t get it to close.’ She began to gibber, entering the lock codes over and over but without success.
‘You’ve done all you can, Brother Pillium,’ Sicarius told him. ‘Get her to safety.’
‘There will be no safety if that creature is not–’
‘Do it now.’
Pillium thought about arguing further but this was Sicarius. Even if duty and discipline were insufficient to hold his tongue, the Knight of Talassar had a presence, an undeniable authority that went beyond Primaris Marine and first born.
‘I vow to return, captain,’ he said, gathering Sharna into his arms. His last sight as he hurried to get the quartermaster away was of the two Ultramarines, standing one in front of the other and facing down the beast.
Then the door began to move as power was restored throughout the ship, and Pillium stopped.
Sicarius cried out, ‘Gaius!’ but the way was swiftly closed and too narrow for him to get through. The Champion did not react. Instead, he swept his cloak aside and it fell, rippling and as blue as an ocean. The beast bellowed, beating massive wings and signalling its intent to charge. The restored lumens defined its horror and monstrosity in sickly yellow light. Prabian brought the gladius up to his forehead, pressing the blade to his skin. A last salute. The Ultramarines sigil on his buckler glinted as his litany of battle began.
‘I am His shield…’
Courage.
Honour.
The door shut, and a heavy toll resounded across the ship.
A GATHERING OF MIGHT
Argo Helicos had his sword drawn and Aequitas in a ready hand as he prepared to face what awaited him beyond the door. The auto-bolt rifle had been master-forged. It had a gilded stock and even its ammunition was machine-blessed with runes of accuracy. The sword’s name was Vindicta, an honorific Helicos was determined it would earn this day.
He wore no helm, but the rest of his armour shimmered like a deep blue sky. He wanted them to see his face. He wanted it to see it, too.
Standing in the vanguard, the very tip of the spear, Helicos felt the regard of his men upon him. ‘Beyond this door,’ he said, his strident voice carrying, ‘we face hell. It is why we exist. To fight the monsters in the darkness. It is our purpose. War and death are our creed. They call us angels, but we know better, don’t we? We are not angelic. We are dread and we are blood, we are the red sword and the thrown spear. We are the final battle, the end, and we shall know no fear. This is what we are.’
A bellicose cry erupted from the ranks.
‘Ah ugh! Ah ugh!’
They twice rapped weapons against their vambraces, curt and precise.
It was an affirmation and a call to arms.
‘We are Macragge,’ declared Helicos. ‘We are Ultramar!’
At this signal, a host of Primaris Marines readied their weapons.
Thirty warriors in cobalt-blue armour stood at the lieutenant’s command. On one side, a knot of tank-like Aggressors. Clad in bulky Gravis plate, they had the look of heavily armoured pugilists with their weapon gauntlets thrust forwards pugnaciously. Ammunition feeds ratcheted into position, a semicircle of bronze shell casings locking into every breech. Back-mounted grenade launchers angled into firing arcs. On the opposite side, the Hellblasters ignited plasma incinerators and a hot, azure glow lit up the energy coils of their weapons. Behind them, in the rear ranks, was every other Primaris Marine under Helicos still able to fight. Bolt rifles clacked to attention, each lethal barrel aimed at the sealed door to deck thirteen.
Not all were armoured. Some had come in light training plate as the warp siphon continued to wreak havoc and rob the Adeptus Astartes of one of their greatest assets. They went bare-armed, these Ultramarines, t
he interface ports rooted in their flesh visible and empty. Each of them had the tattoo of the ultima on his left shoulder, the inverted omega sigil of the Chapter inked in blue. Swords were drawn. Spears brandished. In their rudimentary armour, they had the look of much more ancient warriors so as to be almost anachronistic.
Silence descended. The hammering from behind the door had ceased. It had taken a battering. Huge fist-shaped indentations deformed the metal. The door was thick enough to deny a tank. Against the beast, it had barely held.
The light caught the bronze-coloured blade of Vindicta as Helicos raised it aloft.
‘Open the gate,’ he declared.
The lumens within the next chamber flickered frenziedly, animating a horrific scene.
Gaius Prabian hung for all to see. His grisly perch had been made from the ship’s frame, struts ripped from its walls and bent with brute strength into the shape of an eight-pointed star. Prabian’s arms were draped over two of its tines and nailed down with a jagged piece of metal. His legs dangled freely, blood slowly dripping from his feet and gathering in a shiny dark pool beneath. He had been eviscerated, his ribcage split and spread apart. His organs were scattered about like unwanted offal. A sword lay in front of him, half drowned in the blood pool. The blade side bearing the word ‘animo’ was face up. This was how Helicos identified him, for Prabian’s head was missing and only a savaged stump of neck remained.
Helicos’ expression hardened further when he saw what else was revealed in the lumen light. Grimly, he spoke into the vox.
‘Brother Prabian is dead,’ he uttered, ‘and the beast is gone.’
Acid burns marked the sides of a massive pit. Tufts of wiry hair and thick, syrupy blood clung to its ragged edges. The beast had dug down into the ship, rending and burning its way through the metal and leaving a yawning, dark chasm in its wake. It had to be over a hundred feet straight down into a wretched mess of jagged, scything struts and rebar. There was no further sign, only the reek of blood, cinder and spoiled meat.
‘You were right…’ said Helicos, and felt his failure chafe. ‘It’s coming for you.’
Sicarius sent an acknowledgement and looked up into the vaulted ceiling. Not so long ago he had descended from that darkened place, wrapped in fire and bringing wrath. Now something else would follow in that wake, not an angel but a devil, bringing wrath all the same.
The warp engine roared behind Sicarius, its uncanny energies casting strange, flickering shadows upon the wall. They looked skeletal and loomed like destiny.
Daceus’ voice broke their brief hold over him.
‘Is he dead?’
Sicarius nodded, not meeting the veteran’s gaze.
‘He is, Retius. The Lions have lost another.’
‘I shall mourn him,’ said Daceus. ‘After we have taken retribution.’
Sicarius could not argue with that. He donned his crested war-helm, the Suzerain’s Mantle a reassuring presence clad upon his body.
‘No quarter for this thing,’ he said, his hand upon the pommel of his sword. ‘No restraint.’ He activated Luxos and heard the plasma coils build to a satisfying whine. He addressed the warriors stood with him, the last of the Second Company Ultramarines.
‘We were once known as the War-Born and served a battle king of Macragge. These were elder days, remembered by a few,’ he said, his powerful voice echoing around the warp engine chamber. ‘Elianu Trajan remembered. Our dead Chaplain, he gifted me this truth. Of our proud heritage and the legacy of our forebears. We are not Ultramarines this day. We are not. For our realm is a civilised place that cleaves to the virtues of order and peace. This day we are the savage, we are the blood hungry, we are the slayers of monsters… It comes, this abyssal thing that has killed our brothers. It expects to find mere warriors. Instead it will find unfettered fury. It will find agony and bloody vengeance. Draw swords with me now, brothers,’ he cried, letting the Tempest Blade slip free of its sheath, a cascade of lightning briefly crackling along its edge. ‘Become wrath! Become terror! And let us kill this bloody thing!’
Fifty or more swords drew in concert, a feral shout of metal and defiance.
Above them, in the vaults of the chamber, the cacophony of the beast sounded, guttural and bellowing. The stench of dead things and fire and smoke choked the air in a filthy stranglehold. The ceiling caved with no further warning, and the beast came with it, dragging huge chunks of metal and stone. A deluge fell upon the Ultramarines, crushing bodies. Bolters sang their belligerent battle hymns in reply, sparking and ricocheting off the beast’s impenetrable hide. It barely slowed down. A beat of its massive, leathery wings and it was amongst them, goring and hacking. It bit off heads and turned veteran warriors into shredded meat. It revelled in it, the blood and slaughter, seemingly empowered and emboldened.
Skulls rattled against its chest as it fought, strung around its neck with cords of human sinew. Sicarius knew that Gaius’ head would be amongst them, his bleached-bone visage staring sightlessly, demanding revenge. He made his way through the throng, furious that the beast had put itself clear of his blade through sheer chance. Ultramarines were dying, cut apart as if they were nothing, but those who lived fought like bastards.
A flung spear embedded in the beast’s flank and it roared, hissing pain through clenched teeth. A sword impaled its thigh, tainted meat run through on a silver spit. A blur of chain teeth snagged against its hip, chewing up tufts of greasy, black hair until a mechanism fouled. An axe nicked a piece of wing. The beast retaliated, tearing limbs and ripping off heads, war-helms and all. It threw the wretched trophies back at its aggressors, hailing them with the body parts of former comrades.
Sicarius ducked the grisly ammunition, bounding now as the ranks of his brothers thinned and the corpse piles grew. He leapt a falling warrior who had buckled over, hands clamped around his stomach to stop his innards spilling out, and fired Luxos. The bright blue beam seared the beast’s right eye, bursting it and blinding it.
Such rage. Sicarius felt it buffet him, the unnatural heat blistering his armour.
‘Here I am!’ he shouted.
The beast turned, a warrior crushed in its fist. Casting the dead Ultramarine aside, it barrelled towards Sicarius.
Sicarius swept his sword as he lunged out of harm’s way. He felt the storm-wrack adamantium connect and heard hot blood hiss against the blade. Then he was up, turning on his heel and moving, even as the beast moved with him. It ignored the other blades now, the spears sticking from its hide like mighty arrow shafts. It had found worthy prey, and though it still killed and maimed as it went, it only wanted Sicarius. The beast bore down upon him, sweeping its massive wings around Sicarius. He stabbed with the Tempest Blade, a thrust into its chest that drew an almighty bellow of pain. Wrenching the sword loose, he weaved aside as the beast threw out a claw. Sicarius hacked down, severing hand from wrist, and sent lightning coursing up its arm. Another roar. Ultramarines rushing to intervene were battered back and slain. Only Sicarius could stand his ground, as the dead began to amass around him. The war cry of bolters barely registered as he duelled the beast, cutting and slashing, determined to weaken it for the death blow and knowing any significant hit in return would see him ended, and another skull for its neck.
It was weakened. The sustained attack by his battle-brothers had begun to wear at it, as friction would fray a rope. The beast frayed too. It diminished, its dark skin paling to grey, its thick hide growing piebald. The heat of it dimmed, a smouldering flame. Its wings tore apart like gossamer, spittle-thin strands of sinew holding them together.
Whatever purchase it had on the ship was slowly being eroded.
‘Hold your blades!’ shouted Sicarius as he stood before the beast bowed and broken before him, now no larger than a man. It snarled its contempt, its eye upon the shimmering warp engine.
‘I know what you are,’ Sicarius told it. His sword dripped with hissing ichor as he held it to the beast’s neck. ‘Your kind. You chose poorly comin
g here. And you have met your end.’
The beast opened its dripping maw to speak, barely clinging to physical form at all.
‘I am the end, I am Kha–’
It choked on the rest, Sicarius’ sword thrust deep into its gullet and piercing the back of its head.
‘We are the end,’ he uttered softly, staring the beast down as it began to discorporate. ‘We are Macragge.’
DYING LIGHT
The warp had come. Not as an ephemeral, incorporeal thing. Not merely as conjured visions inflicted upon a weary mind, or creeping paranoia, or the glimpse of the uncanny in a poorly lit corridor, or a strange sickness or profound madness. It had reached out with an infernal hand.
And it had touched the ship, and everyone aboard.
Vedaeh had felt it, as all amongst the crew must have. It resonated in her bones, set her hackles up, her skin hot and perspirant. Dread. That’s what had come upon her. That sense of something horrible and inevitable, but without form or tangible evidence of its presence. She had vomited, a violent and prolonged upheaval that had left her gasping and afraid on the cold floor of the Reclusiam. She knew now that this was the beast, the thing wrought from the stuff of the warp and made corporeal by death and slaughter. It had fallen in the end, despatched back to the ether by Sicarius’ hand. Rumours persisted, even eight days later, when the facts should have been well established. That Sicarius had fought it alone with only his sword to protect him. That he had vanquished it with a single blow. That Guilliman or the Emperor Himself had invested him with power and the beast had quailed before it.
Vedaeh expected the truth to be uglier and yet somehow braver than all of that. She had not seen Sicarius since their last session, and as she knelt before the shrine to Elianu Trajan, she glanced up at the many volumes she had committed to his discourse. For five years, she had chronicled the journey of the Emperor’s Will. She knew her history, even very, very ancient history, of the order known as ‘remembrancers’. They too had been chroniclers, though during a time of great hope and aspiration that had turned to bleak and bitter darkness. She had only ever known darkness, for this was the galaxy they had made for themselves and now they had to live in it. Or survive it.