by Mark Clapham
Then, when Huron had defied the Imperium authorities by strengthening the Astral Claws so that they might continue to fulfil their sacred mission, rather than letting themselves be defeated while adhering to the petty rules set down by Terran bureaucrats light years from Badab, they had found themselves fighting other Space Marines, loyalists from many Chapters sent to depose the Tyrant of Badab.
It had been in the last months of that conflict, the steps towards the defeat they now faced, that Iltz had withdrawn to his books. How he had been allowed to retire from the battlefield without censure Rotaka could not imagine, but somehow he had.
And now, at the end, he was back by Rotaka’s side, and with a question.
Who were they fighting? Their brother Space Marines, that was who they fought. That was the answer Iltz sought from Rotaka, though he did not know why.
‘Enemies,’ said Rotaka, refusing to play. ‘We fight our enemies.’
Iltz seemed to think this through, his thick eyebrows furrowed. ‘Come with me,’ he said, stepping away from the edge.
Rotaka followed as Iltz led him back into the palace, beneath the thorned arches and down a winding stairwell.
‘Where have you been these last months, Brother Iltz?’ Rotaka asked, cursing himself for being drawn into Iltz’s mind game, whatever its purpose. Iltz had always been the nimble thinker, even before he became a Librarian, while Rotaka was always the simple soldier.
‘Studying the archives,’ said Iltz. ‘Seeing where we came from, thinking about what we have become.’
Rotaka did not like this kind of talk, and stared silently at the back of Iltz’s head as they descended the stairs.
‘I have also been uncovering some of our Chapter’s secrets,’ said Iltz. ‘Secrets unknown to even Huron himself.’
Iltz stopped, and Rotaka stopped too, not without annoyance – they had arrived nowhere, instead halting at a point between floors, where sculpted tendrils surrounded a small alcove containing a reliquary. Rotaka must have passed it a thousand times before, and had never given it much thought.
‘Iltz,’ he said. ‘Have you lost your mind in your isolation? This is no time to be inspecting relics.’
‘I’m not,’ said Iltz. He lifted the reliquary, turning in the narrow spiral stair to wave the box at Rotaka. ‘Do you know whose remains are in here?’
Rotaka sighed. ‘No idea.’
‘No one’s,’ said Iltz. ‘It’s set dressing, a fake memorial. Who would notice another mark of death in a palace like this, filled with such things?’ He threw the reliquary over his shoulder, where it clattered down the stairs, and punched four seemingly random points inside the alcove with his gauntleted fist.
An entire section of wall swung open with a creak and a release of musty air.
Iltz looked up at Rotaka and shook his head. ‘You thought me insane for a second there, I could tell,’ he said. ‘Such little faith, old friend.’
Rotaka began to speak, unsure himself as to whether he was about to apologise or justify himself, but Iltz waved him silent.
‘Don’t say anything yet,’ said Iltz. ‘If you don’t think me mad yet, you probably will when I explain my intentions.’
Iltz ducked through the hidden door, and Rotaka followed.
The room they entered was wide, but low ceilinged, a dust-covered control room with a central cogitator covering a whole wall. A panel on the front of the cogitator displayed a line of glowing glyphs. Burbling pipes stretched across the ceilings and walls – someone had built this room in the space between the floors, hidden it in the functional absences within the palace structure.
‘What are they?’ Rotaka asked, indicating the glyphs.
‘Those,’ said Iltz, patting the cogitator as if it were a pet, ‘trigger certain high explosive packages embedded in the superstructure of this palace. A weapon of last resort, to lash out at the end. And now, that end is here.’
Rotaka weighed up the options. ‘If you know which explosives these control, we can detonate certain sections of the palace as the enemy attack,’ he said, a wave of hope rising. ‘We could trap and kill the first few waves, or at least take them down with us.’
‘We could,’ said Iltz, standing tall and looking Rotaka straight in the eyes. ‘But that is not my intent.’
‘Then what is?’ asked Rotaka. ‘If you have a better plan, tell me.’
Iltz paused. The chamber was dark, lit only by a series of low lights strung above the cogitator and the glyphs themselves. Iltz’s face was partially in shadow, hard to read.
‘I intend to destroy the outer defences of the Palace of Thorns before the final attack,’ said Iltz. ‘I intend to let “the enemy”, as you call them, walk right in and kill us all.’
Rotaka laughed. He had never grasped the subtleties of his friend’s arcane sense of humour, but he did appreciate it.
Iltz wasn’t laughing. He didn’t react as Rotaka laughed, and he didn’t flinch when Rotaka stopped laughing and swung his bolter up in one fluid motion.
‘Why?’ said Rotaka, staring down his bolter at Iltz. One squeeze of the trigger and his friend’s head would be dripping off that low ceiling. ‘For the sake of the Chapter, why?’
‘We have lost our way,’ said Iltz. ‘Our Chapter was formed to protect this sector for the Emperor, yet now we lash out against our own brothers.’
‘They are trying to kill us,’ snapped Rotaka. ‘Should we have just let them invade, put us all to the sword?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Iltz. ‘I believe they may be right to chastise us, brother. Huron has led us down the wrong path. The experiments, the subterfuge? These are the ways of the heretic Legions, the same mistakes Horus made when he betrayed the Emperor. We have strayed down the same path, and we should repent now.’
‘Repent?’ snapped Rotaka. ‘We are under threat of extinction, and you talk of the battles of dead men long gone, myths from millennia ago. Everything we have done, everything Huron has led us to do, has been to strengthen our position, to fight for Badab and to take the rewards we deserve. If the Imperium would see us die rather than break ancient rules, then to hell with the Imperium and its superstitions.’
‘And the Emperor?’ said Iltz. ‘What of Him?’
Rotaka didn’t answer. Instead, they remained in silence for a short while, Rotaka pointing his bolter, Iltz standing silently.
‘If you are so determined to betray us, why did you bring me here where I could stop you?’ said Rotaka.
‘I hoped you would agree with me,’ said Iltz. ‘I have always trusted your judgement, old friend, and I hoped you would see that we are traitors already, and that the only honour for us is in death.’
‘I will not die easily,’ said Rotaka, shaking his head. ‘I am not a traitor. I have stayed loyal to my Chapter Master, who has sought only to defend us. Why should I show fealty to an Emperor whose armies would end us all? Why should I let you help them?’
Iltz shrugged. ‘We are already dead.’ He raised his hand, slowly and clearly so Rotaka saw he wasn’t drawing a weapon. ‘Those mortals, dying in their habs for our sins, they have lived.’
‘Mortals,’ spat Rotaka. ‘Pathetic, terrified creatures. Their lives are worthless.’
Iltz shook his head. ‘They fear because they have lives to lose, while we are so fearless because we have nothing. We are machines made to kill, to serve a cause, and now we have betrayed that cause we have nothing left. It’s time to end this.’
Iltz’s words were so perfectly calm, so placid, that Rotaka was completely taken by surprise when the Librarian’s raised hand whipped across and batted his bolter away. The Librarian pushed the bolter down, pulling Rotaka forwards, then smashed his armoured elbow into Rotaka’s unguarded face.
The blow stunned Rotaka, and the bolter slipped out of his grip and fell to the floor.
‘I’m sorry,’ whi
spered Iltz, leaning in close as Rotaka slumped forwards. ‘You may not agree with me, but I cannot let you stop me.’
Rotaka roared as he pushed himself up, ramming his full body up into Iltz, shoulder first. His rage gave him enough adrenaline to lift Iltz off his feet, slamming him into the ceiling. Dust and masonry fell down on them like rain as Rotaka stumbled beneath Iltz’s weight before flinging him to one side.
Iltz crashed into the pipes on the walls, and oily water began to leak across the rough stone floor.
‘Stay down, traitor,’ said Rotaka, spitting blood. ‘I will break you and take you before our master, so that justice can be done.’
Iltz pushed himself up onto one knee, drips from the broken pipes rolling down his arm as he dragged himself up the wall, the fingers of his gauntlets digging into the masonry, which powdered in his grip.
‘We are all traitors now,’ said Iltz. ‘We are not fit to decide what justice is.’
Rotaka’s bolter lay on the floor between them, and Iltz lunged forwards to grab it.
Rotaka was ahead of him, and kicked the bolter aside before bringing his armoured fist down hard on the back of Iltz’s head. They were Space Marines, gods amongst mortal men, but their unarmoured heads were no match for a blow from their own power armour, and Iltz collapsed, blood dripping down his shaved skull.
‘Why are you not armed?’ spat Rotaka. ‘Do you want to die?’
Iltz laughed a delirious laugh, low and bubbling.
‘And you say my humour is strange,’ said Iltz through pained gasps. ‘Why do you think I’m here if not to die?’
Rotaka shouted with exasperation, his voice echoing in the narrow, empty space. ‘You want me to help you, you want me to kill you? Which is it?’
‘Either,’ spat Iltz, crawling on his elbows towards the cogitator. ‘Both.’
As Iltz slowly crossed the room, too stunned to raise himself even to his knees, Rotaka walked in the opposite direction and tore a long length of pipe from the wall. He weighed it in his hands: it was crude, but it would do.
He walked back and smacked the pipe into the back of Iltz’s head three times.
‘Stop,’ Rotaka barked. ‘Stay down.’
Iltz reached up to the nearest glyph with a shaking hand.
Rotaka screamed, a visceral noise from deep within himself, and thrust the pipe downwards. It pierced Iltz’s neck and cut deep into his body.
Iltz looked up at Rotaka, and tried to grab the pipe, to pull it from the wound. But his hands couldn’t move with enough dexterity to get near to it.
Rotaka held the length of pipe and kept pushing it down. Iltz’s body shuddered, the vibrations quivering up the pipe, and it nearly slipped out of Rotaka’s grip.
There was an expression of distant confusion in Iltz’s eyes, then nothing more.
Rotaka pulled the pipe free, then tossed it away in disgust. He staggered away from Iltz’s body and sat against the broken wall, letting the foul, dripping water flow over him.
He stayed there for some minutes.
Then he stood up, walked over to Iltz’s body, and lifted up the Librarian’s boots. He dragged the body away by the ankles, a heavy mass of muscular flesh and power armour.
Rotaka didn’t know where he was taking the body, or what he would do with it, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave Iltz behind.
Twenty-Three
Weeks after the destruction of Hacasta
It was a winter such as even the Sons of Russ had never seen, of a kind entirely unlike the bitter, never-ending winters that forged the people of Fenris into warriors, nor the perpetual winter of swirling, slicing blizzards that had plagued now-lost Hacasta.
This winter was not that of an icy death world, no inhospitable weather phenomenon. No lighter, warmer seasons would come; the cold would never break, only slowly worsen. There would be no spring.
This was a final winter for Kerresh, the winter at the end of a world. The destruction of Hacasta and realignment of the Hollow Worlds’ Archways had catastrophically broken the flow of power in the system, and Kerresh’s artificial sun was dying, flickering like a broken lumen globe. What light it gave out was impure, the broken sun leaking radiation, its very rays poisonous.
Under the fading sun, winter had descended, not from internal weather systems – they too were failing – but from the draining of life and power from the world itself. The ground became dry and cold; the air chilled and became thinner.
The mortals left on Kerresh began to die. The weakest first, the oldest and youngest, left short of breath as the atmosphere worsened, poisoned by increasingly harsh water, starved as food withered, slowly killed by the poisonous sun overhead. First the weak, but then the stronger ones too. Only those who had the resources to find clean water and protect themselves from the harshening environment could survive on a dying world.
Those mortals, resourceful as they were, mainly walked alongside the immortals, who were unaffected by the devastation of dying Kerresh.
Across a cold and hostile plain, a rider sat low in the saddle, covered in layers of protective clothing. Beneath her scarves, she wore a rebreather, and her eyes were covered with thick goggles. Leather gloves gripped the reins, and ran all the way up to her elbows. No patch of skin was visible to be touched by the sun’s poisonous light, and the canteens hanging from her saddle were full of purified water.
Her mount was one of the few creatures to thrive in this atmosphere. Anju Badya had found it, alongside the others the mortals in their company now rode, in some kind of farm a short distance from the ruins of the Kerresh/Hacasta Archway. It was tall, with spindly legs and a plump body, with a long neck and small head. Covered in scaly red skin, it was presumably some kind of lizard, or maybe an amphibian.
Odd as they looked, the creatures had proven to be excellent riding stock, and could traverse long distances with only minimal sustenance.
Anju had grown quite fond of her red-lizard-chicken-thing. It wasn’t a horse, but for the purposes of scouting this desolate world, it would do. She had called it Folly, as she thought that the surviving Space Wolves would take unkindly to her naming it directly after Folkvar.
Folly slowed to a trot on entering the encampment, and ducked down to allow Anju to dismount. She did so, legs aching from stretching themselves over the creature’s rotund body, then led it back to its pen so it could eat and drink.
The camp was a temporary one. The Imperial forces moved every couple of days, once the next target or stopping point had been scouted. They were tracking the Red Corsairs across this dying world, eliminating their outposts when located, seeking information as to where their enemies were moving next.
The worlds had been realigned, and everything had been thrown into confusion. At least one old Archway had gone, but intelligence gained from raiding enemy camps suggested that, somewhere on Kerresh, another had risen to take its place, and that the traitors would be using that to escape this dying world, and moving on to the next stage of their plan.
So scouts like Anju, who could cover great distances at speed, were sent out to discover what they could.
She found the Space Wolf she needed to report to by a fire, as was his way. The flame was weak and purplish in colour, an unnatural blaze, but still he sat by it. He was helmless, as the Space Wolves had no problem breathing the failing air of Kerresh, though his greying beard looked filthy and lank from the pollutants in the atmosphere.
‘So,’ said the Space Wolf. ‘Have you found the Archway?’
‘No, my lord,’ said Anju. ‘But–’
Before she could speak the Space Wolf spat on the fire. She was unsure whether this was in contempt of her, or their lack of progress in general.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘An enemy stronghold, my lord,’ Anju reported. ‘Some kind of secure facility they have overrun. They seem to be in the midst
of evacuating.’
‘What kind of facility?’ asked the Space Wolf.
‘Hard to tell from a distance, but heavily guarded,’ said Anju. ‘The Red Corsairs protect it themselves, rather than trust mortal slaves.’
The Space Wolf grunted.
‘There was one other thing I saw, my lord,’ said Anju. ‘The patrol patterns and movements were unusual. A heavy presence at ground level within the perimeter, but few high-placed sentries and no hardpoint defences on the walls.’
This aroused the Space Wolf’s interest and he was on his feet with such speed that Anju instinctively stepped back.
‘Prepare to ride again within the hour, Sergeant Badya. We will strike at the first opportunity,’ said Anvindr Godrichsson. ‘For the traitors to order their defences that way, they must be more concerned with someone getting out of there rather than anyone getting in. I would meet the prisoner who requires such measures.’
‘Your brothers will believe you are dead,’ Garreon had told him, back when his ordeal was still fresh. ‘They have seen the station destroyed with you in it. Before they have time to dig through the ruins, looking to harvest your precious gene-seed and salvage your armour, our forces will already have driven them back from this world, and many of them will be dead.’
Tormodr had wanted to bite the side of the heretic’s face off, but the chains restrained him.
‘You will wish you had died too,’ Garreon said, leaning in close, seeming to savour each word. ‘That would have been glorious, wouldn’t it, dog? A noble death, with honour. There will be no honour for you now, though, only pain.’
It had taken three Red Corsairs to drag the struggling Space Wolf away, onto the ridge runner that had taken them from the factorum on Kerresh to the facility he had been imprisoned in for these last weeks. Sindri, his head injured in the battle with the Corsairs, had been unconscious through the entire journey, and Tormodr had not seen him since.