by Nick Kyme
Naevius had one eye on the auspex and cried out a warning just as the shell storm erupted in front of them.
Bolter rounds struck around the Ultramarines like hot, brass rain. Inviglio took a glancing hit against his shoulder guard and felt his lower leg greave dent with a non-penetrating impact hit before he hugged the wall of the corridor.
The others had done the same: Bracheus, Gordianius and Petronius on the left; he and Naevius on the right.
The two traitors Bracheus had executed were bait, intended to draw the Ultramarines into a narrow bottleneck.
Inwardly, Inviglio cursed his stupidity and briefly considered he might be reaching his physical limits, the point at which his mission efficacy would begin to diminish.
‘Petronius,’ he uttered through the vox, ‘give us some cover.’ Through the shared retinal feed, Inviglio icon-lit Petronius’s strike point.
The burly Ultramarine stepped out from behind the narrow rib-struts where the squad were hunkered down and fed a rapid burst from his meltagun into the cabling and armour plating above. He took a bolt-round in the upper torso for his efforts, and the mass-reactive shell shattered bone and almost tore off his shoulder.
Bracheus and Gordianius dragged the wounded legionary clear. A second later and a chunk of upper deckplate, cabling, pipes and adamantium rebar came crashing down into the corridor section.
Inviglio and the others took up positions behind the improvised barricades, able to adopt a better line of fire and bring their full strength to bear. Even Petronius joined the barrage, hooking the meltagun into a makeshift firing lip and unleashing sustained pulses of focused electromagnetic radiation.
It was over quickly, the three ambushers no match for the expertly trained Ultramarines.
Bracheus kicked through the debris they had used for cover, whilst Inviglio quickly stabilised Petronius so he could fight one-handed.
‘Re-equip,’ ordered the squad leader, prompting Gordianius and Petronius to change weapons.
Once he had rearmed Petronius with a bolt pistol, Inviglio clapped the hulking Ultramarine on the shoulder. ‘Ready.’
Petronius nodded and they swiftly moved out.
The Red-marked were picking their way through the three Word Bearers corpses when Inviglio’s vox crackled in his ear. Inside his sealed helm, the return was strangely neutral and bereft of any ambient noise.
‘Sergeant,’ he said, recognising the Sergeant’s ident as it flashed up on his retinal display. Crouched down, Inviglio raised his clenched fist as a signal to the others to stop.
‘Change to mission parameters,’ the Sergeant replied. In the background, Inviglio could hear the sound of bolter fire and the angry growl of chain weapons.
‘Go ahead.’
At Inviglio’s next silent order, the squad assumed a defensive perimeter.
Overhead, klaxons sounded and the crimson light of emergency lamps tainted the gloom the hue of blood.
‘Primary is inloading to your retinal display,’ the Sergeant said as fresh coordinates and vessel schematics resolved on Inviglio’s left lens corner.
‘Interrogative,’ said Inviglio.
‘Go ahead,’ the Sergeant answered calmly despite the fierce firefight he was obviously embroiled in.
‘Apothecarion? Do we have wounded friendlies on board?’
‘Negative. Theoretical is prisoners.’ He paused a beat. ‘The Word Bearers are not patching them up, Vitus.’
‘Understood,’ said Inviglio. He had known the Sergeant for a long time, but still could not get used to his informal habit of occasionally using first names. The implication was obvious, though.
‘Make it quick,’ said the Sergeant just before cutting the link. ‘We’re drawing a lot of fire.’
‘Updated mission parameters,’ Inviglio told the others as they were moving again. ‘Theoretical – high probability of friendlies on board vessel.’
‘Practical, brother?’ asked Bracheus.
Inviglio briefly met his gaze, answering firmly, ‘We get them off this ship then send it screaming back to hell.’
Shouts echoed down from the next turn ahead.
As much as Inviglio wanted to take the fight to the Word Bearers, he had his orders.
‘Junction left,’ he said, leading the others away from the conflict and towards the apothecarion. He looked down to his left at Naevius’s auspex scanner. Dark green bio-readings had just filled the screen with a profusion of contact blips. ‘With all haste, brothers.’
He could not have been out for more than a few minutes, but by the time Numeon came around again Xenut Sul was gone.
Knowing it was unlikely that he could save the other prisoners, Numeon had to think pragmatically instead.
One wrist already freed, Numeon reached over and unclasped the other. They were simple leather straps, easy enough to remove, but his fingers were numb so it took several minutes.
Removing the ankle restraints was harder, and he kept one eye on the entrance to the abattoir throughout, trying not to imagine the horrors perpetrated within its grimy, bone-yellow confines.
Anger would not serve him here; Numeon knew he must keep a cool head. He also needed information. Something had happened on board the ship. A prisoner revolt, perhaps? His might not be the only chamber where they were keeping legionaries still loyal to the Throne.
He dared to hope K’gosi or one of the others, even his Pyre brother Leodrakk, might have survived and be aboard the ship, but quickly crushed the idea. He had seen his brothers already, in his waking nightmares. They were revenants of memory, spectres who would only be banished when Numeon broke free of this dungeon and took revenge on their killers.
The last ankle strap came loose, and Numeon had to drag himself off the slab. He fell hard onto his knees, almost hitting the next table. The dull pain of his recent inactivity and torture had drained his body. Teeth gritted, he found the edge of the adjacent slab and hauled himself up.
Numeon flinched as he felt a cold hand strongly grip his fingers, and looked down to see the bloody face of an Iron Hands legionary. Numeon’s fall must have woken him. The X legionary’s bionics had all been ripped out, so only a red-raw void remained. His legs had effectively been amputated and the dying son of Medusa stared wildly. Below his missing right eye there was the tattoo of a skull.
Overhead, the lights were flickering as auxiliary power was fed to other more essential systems on the ship.
It must be an attack, thought Numeon.
The flickering glow of the phosphor lamps cast ghoulish shadows about the legionary’s ravaged face.
‘Don’t… lose… hope…’ he rasped haltingly, a lingering mote of his bionics lending a mechanistic tone to his voice.
Like a dying machine, thought Numeon, all of us left to bleed like carrion in the sun, as deep-seated grief threatened to surface.
The Iron Hands legionary gripped harder. Two fingers of his right hand were missing. The other wrist was a stump.
‘Kill them… for us,’ he snarled, wide-eyed.
‘I will,’ Numeon murmured grimly. He drew back his fist, voicing a sharp cry of anguish as he punched through the legionary’s abused ribcage to destroy his heart and end his suffering.
Others were deserving of mercy, but Numeon had no time. A faint draught, the acerbic reek of cordite, wafted through a crack in the chamber. Xenut Sul had left it unsealed. Whether out of carelessness or as part of some crueller ploy, it didn’t matter.
Numeon staggered for the door, finding inner strength returning with every step.
Outside, the ship seemed vast and oppressive after such a long time incarcerated, but he adapted quickly. He realised the vessel was small, certainly no cruiser or battleship. Likely, a frigate or a destroyer, judging by the height and width of its corridors. As if to remind him of the potential proximity of his enemie
s, voices from unseen warriors resounded ahead. They sounded transhuman, and they were shouting, obviously in combat.
Instinctively, he reached for a sidearm that was no longer there. He didn’t even have the sigil, and felt its loss as if it were a missing limb. He had to get it back.
Heading off in the opposite direction to where the voices were emanating from, Numeon went hunting. Xenut Sul had the sigil, and would be made to relinquish it before he died.
Inviglio left the apothecarion and shook his head at the others waiting for him outside.
‘All of them?’ asked Bracheus.
‘Dead, brother. All fifty-three of them. I finished two off myself that could not have lived.’
‘Throne of Earth…’ muttered Petronius, glancing down at his boots.
Gordianius hissed a quiet oath.
Naevius racked the slide on his bolter. ‘At least we can avenge them.’
‘No,’ said Inviglio, his tone severe and brooking no argument. ‘One of the slabs was empty. Bloody marks led to the door. I think someone escaped.’
‘Then we must find him,’ said Bracheus, fiercely.
‘So, where is this errant prisoner going?’ asked Naevius. ‘He could be anywhere on the ship.’
Inviglio met his questioning gaze.
‘What would you do in his place?’
It took two seconds for Naevius’s frown to turn into a scowl.
‘I’d find the one responsible for what happened to my comrades, and I’d kill him.’
‘The master of this vessel,’ Bracheus agreed.
The Red-marked headed for the bridge.
Scavenging weapons in a close-quarters boarding action was easy enough, and Numeon now carried a half-loaded bolt pistol in one hand and a short combat blade in the other. While a far cry from the halberd he had once wielded as one of the Pyre Guard, his purloined armaments would have to suffice.
Xenut Sul was a sadist, but he was also no coward. It was possible he had joined the defenders in trying to repel their boarders, but Numeon thought it more likely he had retreated to the bridge to coordinate the counter-attack from there. In a ship this size, it would be close to the prow. Numeon had enough of his wits about him to know which direction to head in. The bridge would not be far from the apothecarion, and he only needed to go up three decks before finding the right level of the ship.
Numeon had yet to see a single legionary without the dark red battleplate of the XVII, and managed to avoid the Word Bearers. Judging by the distant sounds of fighting, they had greater concerns, but Numeon still needed to convince himself that this was not some deeper plot to further damage his mind and wrench loose whatever secrets they thought he possessed.
Standard tactics during an incursion would be to disperse defenders around the ship, to hold and protect vital bulkheads leading to volatile regions of the ship, where a small insurgent force could cause a disproportionate amount of damage.
It would leave the exterior access corridor to the bridge largely unguarded with only a single Word Bearer at his post outside.
Numeon did not know what strength remained in his body. He only knew he had to endure. If he could find the sigil, somehow get off this ship… Ever since Isstvan, hope had been his guiding principle. He cleaved to it now, readying for the near-suicidal run down the corridor. Three rounds were all that were left in the pistol. It trembled in his grasp, forcing Numeon to admit he could barely raise the weapon, let alone aim it.
Will was everything. Vulkan had taught him that.
It is our will, our determination that lets us fight on when others cannot. It is our will that gives us the strength to self-sacrifice and endure beyond hope…
How Numeon wished his primarch was here to say those words to him now. In spite of the memory, he found he could not recall the sound of Vulkan’s voice. Some said it was the first thing you forgot when someone died and it troubled Numeon greatly that, even with his transhuman abilities, he could not bring its cadence and timbre to mind.
Numeon had no wish to die, to sell his life cheaply in some final, vainglorious act. He hesitated not out of fear but from a desire for his sacrifice to have meaning, for all of this to have some greater purpose.
Vengeance was a petty motive, the province of lesser men. Numeon told himself this was not about revenge. He fooled his head, but not his heart.
Effective kill range for a bolt pistol against an armoured legionary was roughly halfway down the corridor. Given his debilitated condition and paucity of ammunition, Numeon knew he would need to get closer. He turned the combat knife he had clenched in his hand around, so the blade faced down. Quicker to slash, to throw.
His had always been a fool’s hope, he supposed.
‘Vulkan lives,’ he whispered, sighting on his prey…
…when the Word Bearer’s visor erupted in a fount of gore and displaced bone. The traitor gargled blood, clutching at where his face used to be, and fell forwards.
An ally? An insurrection? Numeon could not tarry to consider this sudden stroke of provenance. The resonant clang of the dead Word Bearer’s armoured form hitting the deck had still not faded by the time the Salamander was on his feet and running for the bridge.
‘Did you see that?’ asked Venator, lowering his sniper rifle.
‘A half-naked legionary,’ Finius concurred.
‘Inviglio’s survivor?’ suggested Corvun.
‘Sprinting for the bridge,’ added Laertes.
From the long access conduit leading to the bridge, the Ultramarines and their sergeant watched from the shadows as the onyx-skinned Nocturnean raced from the junction and leapt over the traitor Venator had just executed, before barrelling onto the bridge.
‘He’s going to get himself killed,’ said the sergeant, sourly.
The door to the bridge was neither locked nor barred, and as it parted with a faint hiss of released pressure, Numeon saw his enemy revealed.
Xenut Sul was alone, standing on a command dais with his back to the Salamander.
Cautiously, Numeon stepped inside. He reached halfway up the stepped dais when the Word Bearer spoke.
‘This ship is overrun,’ he said, gesturing to the scenes of carnage described on grainy, incorporeal hololiths surrounding him.
Legionaries emblazoned with the noble sigil of the ultima were marauding throughout the vessel, sons of Guilliman on a rescue mission.
Xenut Sul shut off the hololith array with a clenched fist, extinguishing the circle of jade light around him. In its absence, the bodies of humans wearing the livery of the XVII Legion were revealed at his feet.
‘And I killed the crew.’
‘Where is the sigil?’ Numeon demanded, moving up the dais to where Xenut Sul awaited him unarmed. His hands were by his sides, the fuller held in the left.
‘My honour forbids me from taking my own life,’ Xenut Sul answered, yet to turn, ‘but your interrogators will not force me to betray my Legion.’
Numeon frowned. ‘What?’
It was only when he heard the racking of bolter slides and the sound of booted feet against the deck that he realised Xenut Sul had not been talking to him.
‘Stand down, Salamander,’ uttered a firm, commanding voice.
Numeon turned to find a squad of Ultramarines with their weapons pointed at him and Xenut Sul.
Their sergeant removed his crested helm.
A pair of blades was sheathed at his back, and his bolt pistol was mag-locked to his thigh. Blond, close-cropped hair framed a warrior’s face, youthful but hardened by war. His eyes shone azure, sharp and alert. He was vital, strong and enjoyed his appointed task.
‘I am Pyre Captain Artellus Numeon,’ said Numeon, ‘and I claim this prisoner for Vulkan. And what he carries.’
‘Vulkan? I have not heard that name in a while,’ the sergeant’s face darkened,
‘at least not happily.’
At a silent signal the four Ultramarines in the sergeant’s squad fanned out, two either side of the command dais, to encircle Xenut Sul.
Numeon went to intercede but the sergeant’s voice stopped him.
‘Daresay you have looked better, Captain Numeon, and in your prime you might have even given us a fight.’ He smiled, then shook his head. ‘But not like this, and we are not enemies, the two of us,’ he added, gesturing to the purloined bolt pistol and combat knife Numeon still carried. ‘Put them down.’
‘Not until I have what is mine.’
‘I have known Salamanders to be stubborn, defiant even. That’s a quality I greatly admire, but don’t make me apprehend you. I would prefer not to mark your or my honour that way.’
Numeon was adamant. ‘The sigil.’
Nodding to one of his men, the sergeant took the item after Xenut Sul was relieved of it and gave it back to Numeon.
‘Is in our possession. Now,’ the sergeant said sternly, ‘lower your weapons.’
After gratefully accepting the sigil, Numeon obeyed.
‘You do not know what this means,’ he murmured, cradling the hammer for a moment.
‘I know it led us right to you,’ the sergeant replied, one eye on his men as they pushed Xenut Sul to his knees, and shackled his wrists.
Numeon looked up. Faintly, through the sergeant’s vox, he heard other Ultramarines’ voices.
‘Second squad,’ he explained. ‘They’re securing the ship before we atomise it.’ Looking over Numeon’s shoulder, he nodded up to Xenut Sul, who was now bound and prepared for departure. ‘You’re coming too, traitor. Lord Prayto will have questions.’
Xenut Sul smiled thinly but didn’t rise to the bait beyond that.
The Sergeant returned his gaze to Numeon.
‘Don’t worry, Salamander. Yours will be a warmer greeting.’
‘Where?’ asked Numeon.
‘Where else? Macragge.’
‘The heart of Ultramar?’ asked Numeon.
‘Yes,’ said the sergeant, his face darkening again. ‘There is a lot you don’t know, but for now let’s get you off this ship and into our apothecarion.’