by Various
‘The answer to what?’ calls Morn.
‘Four…’
What is about to happen will change everything. He is about to step through a doorway into a new age, a new meaning of what it means to be a warrior of the Imperium.
‘Three…’
And beyond that, another future waits for him.
‘Two…’
‘I have never killed my own kind,’ he admits.
‘One…’
The Temple of Oaths, Phalanx
977.M30
Sigismund did not move when he heard the footsteps approaching. It had been twenty hours since he had set himself before the temple doorway, and it would be four more before he moved. His armour had gone into a low power cycle, runes winking in slow amber at the edge of his visor. His hands remained still upon the hilt of the sword, which rested point-down between his feet.
Overhead, the domed vault of the temple hung above the candle-diluted gloom. Great pillars soared, shadows snagging on the names cut into the black granite. Banners hung beneath the vault, their designs ragged and stained by the blood and fire of a hundred battles.
Silence always filled the great space, unbroken by the sounds of the star fort beyond its walls. Even in times of battle, the Temple of Oaths was a void of calm amidst the clamour. It had been designed that way, a reminder from Rogal Dorn that what this chamber represented stood untouched by all else.
Here, carved into every surface, were the names and oath words of every Imperial Fist who served or had served the Imperium. On this floor, all – from highest praetor to lowest legionary – had knelt and pledged loyalty. No door sealed the arch of its only entrance, but no one entered it unbidden.
To be a Templar was to be a guardian of that tradition, and with it the oaths of all Imperial Fists.
A lone figure walked out of the darkness beyond. The candlelight caught the gloss of black lacquered armour, and folded across a long robe of pale fabric. A hood cowled the warrior’s features, but Sigismund did not need to see the face to know the man.
The figure stopped five paces from the doorway. Sigismund did not move.
Slowly, the figure reached up and slid the hood from his head. Dark hair framed a face set with green eyes. His name was Alajos, Captain of the Ninth Order of the Dark Angels, and one of the finest warriors ever to raise a blade in battle.
‘You may not enter here, kinsman,’ said Sigismund.
‘I have no wish to,’ Alajos replied.
‘Then why have you come?’
‘I have come to talk to you.’
Sigismund shook his head once, but did not move from beneath the arch. There was no point in talking, not now, not while the brooding anger of Dorn and the Lion filled the Phalanx like a growing thundercloud. A dispute between these two paragons of war and nobility should not have been possible, but that had not stopped it from happening.
It was not a matter of pride, or of insult. It was simply a matter of two beings – both so vast in power, so alike, and yet so different – clashing together like land and sea.
There had been other incidents in the past, other moments when the ideals of the Great Crusade seemed to do little but fuel discord. Curze, Ferrus Manus, Perturabo. The anger of all had risen against Dorn, at one time or another. Sigismund hoped that this new divide with the Lion would pass as quickly as it had formed. It was wasteful, a crack in what should be the perfect blade of the Legiones Astartes.
‘There is nothing to say, Alajos. My lord has spoken.’
‘Yes, and my father also has spoken,’ the Dark Angel replied.
‘This… dispute will pass.’
‘And if not? How will it be resolved then?’
‘Not by blood.’
‘No?’
‘No. We are warriors of the Imperium, we were made to fight its enemies, not one another. Break that brotherhood and we are nothing.’
Alajos smiled. ‘Tell that to the World Eaters. Tell it to the Wolves.’
‘Such bloodshed serves nothing. It will not happen, not between our Legions. Not now. Not ever.’
Sigismund remained unmoving. After a moment Alajos nodded at the vaulted space behind him. ‘This is the Temple of Oaths, is it not?’ he asked, stepping forwards as he spoke.
Suddenly, Sigismund’s blade was barring Alajos’ path.
The Dark Angel raised an open hand. ‘Peace, brother. I will not cross the threshold. No Imperial Fist may do so, save to make or renew an oath, and none who are not of the Seventh Legion may enter and live. That is right, isn’t it?’
‘The primarch has permitted three of his brothers to enter, over the years.’
‘And if I took one more step…’
‘Then you would never take another,’ Sigismund replied curtly.
‘What would my blood shed upon this floor serve?’
‘Duty.’
The Dark Angel smiled, though the warmth did not reach his eyes. ‘What are we? Us two, what are we?’
‘We are warriors.’
‘But here and now we are more than that. We are champions. If blood is needed to satisfy honour, then it will not be our brothers’ or our fathers’. It will be ours. We are our Legions, and we are our oaths. We draw our swords, but they do not belong to us. The hand that cuts, and the eye that guides the cut are not the same.’ Alajos gestured to Sigismund’s drawn blade. ‘Duty. It binds us, it keeps us, it guides us. It is–’
‘Everything.’
‘Aye. No matter where it leads us, or to what end.’ He smiled again, and Sigismund recognised the emotion in the Dark Angel’s eyes. It was sorrow. ‘The storm may pass, but if it does not, then I wanted to be certain that we… understood one another.’
Sigismund explodes from the assault ramp, into the clamour of battle. The outer chamber of the shrine extends before his eyes. He has never set foot upon the comet before, but he has heard his father speak of it many times.
Walls of stacked skulls and polished bone arch above him. Words cover their faces, words that tell of who they were in life, and the deeds that brought them here in death. Each bone and skull belonged to a hero of the long Terran wars for Unity, sent here to orbit in the light of Sol as a memorial to the price paid for humanity’s dream, for all time.
The XVII Legion had been the appointed keepers of the comet shrine since its creation. A hundred warriors of the Word Bearers stood guard within its halls, ever watchful, ever dutiful.
But now that duty had become treachery.
Left here by their brothers, they would die beneath the empty eyes of dead heroes.
Boltgun fire greets him as he charges. Shrapnel rings from his armour, but he does not falter. He is a blur, a flash of hard edges and blade’s sharpness. The first Word Bearer is in front of him, bolter rising, his desecrated crimson armour glistening with reflected gunfire. Sigismund sees unspeakable glyphs etched through the glossy red and into the grey ceramite beneath.
There are more Word Bearers close behind the first, ten at least. The barrel of the boltgun is a wide eye staring back into his own. The steady drumroll of his twin heartbeat rises as the last stride of his charge falls.
The Word Bearer’s finger grips the trigger.
Sigismund cuts.
Blood, wet-black in the flicker of bolt detonations, slashes outwards. The dead Word Bearer’s grip tightens and a spit of flame roars. Sigismund feels the fiery breath of the boltgun rattle his helm.
He is already moving before the corpse even begins to fall.
He cuts again and again, each step a fresh kill. He is moving forwards, and his world is a rising beat of fragmented sensations. A torso cleaved from clavicle to groin. A hand reaching for a blade. The roar and surge of bolt-fire.
He hears and feels it all, but he is not a part of it. He is a single line of focus, slicing forwards, flowing from
blow to blow like a river.
He is aware of his brothers following behind him, forming a wedge with him at its tip. They are driving forwards, firing at sentry turrets, hacking at red-armoured figures. Voices flicker across the vox as the rest of the force strikes directly into the shrine itself.
The resistance they have encountered so far is weak – the enemy numbers few, their tactics poor. Sigismund knows all this without thinking, without pausing from the scything rhythm of his sword.
A Word Bearer comes at him, faster than the rest, his head bare and skin webbed with inked sigils. Sigismund sees a blade whipping towards his neck, broad and jagged-edged. The blow is powerful, the product of training and experience. It is intended as a kill stroke, and a clean one at that.
Sigismund’s murderous rhythm does not even falter. He slips the blow, turns and brings his own sword down.
Only then does he see the dagger. It is small, a spike of rough obsidian bound to a bone handle, and seems to shimmer in and out of sight as though dissolving in a heat haze. The Word Bearer thrusts the blade up – his eyes are wide in his tattooed face, his teeth bared in a snarl of triumph.
Sigismund twists aside, yanking his sword down to try and block the thrust. The black knife gouges across his plastron plate. Pain whips through him as his flesh burns against the armour. His sword strikes the Word Bearer’s left arm, but the blow lacks power. The Word Bearer stumbles, recovers and thrusts again.
An axe head mashes into the Word Bearer’s skull. Lightning explodes from the impact in a thunderclap of pulped meat and shattered armour. Rann shoves the corpse out of his way.
‘You deserved to die to that, First Captain. You are getting sloppy.’
His armour and the face of his shield are a mass of metal scars and blood splatter. He does not look around as Sigismund closes with him. They stand shoulder to shoulder, the scarred butcher and the knight. More Imperial Fists lock into line beside them, shields and swords ready, firing as they reform.
A spiked mace crashes into Rann’s shield and he rocks back under the force of the blow. Another Word Bearer stands before them, his armour bloody, his feet planted on the bodies of the dead. Sigismund waits for a fraction of a heartbeat, waits until he can feel the Word Bearer begin to pull the mace back.
‘Now!’ shouts Sigismund.
Rann slams his shield forwards. The Word Bearer staggers for an instant, recovers and swings down. Sigismund’s sword takes him in the gut. He feels the blade shiver as it punches through armour, flesh and bone. Rann’s axe takes the Word Bearer’s head in a single blow.
‘You still know nothing about war, brother,’ Rann calls, and Sigismund can hear the grin in his words. ‘But you are learning.’
Sigismund feels the flat of the seneschal’s axe-head clash against his shoulder. They drive forwards over the heaped corpses. Ahead of them Word Bearers are pulling back, firing as they move. Behind them high doors of brass and bone are closing over the mouth of a wide passage.
‘Secure the doors,’ Sigismund barks.
His brothers are moving to answer the order as soon as it leaves his lips. Five warriors, their shields held in a tight wall, sprint forwards. Bolt-rounds smack against them, spinning two back off their feet, but the remainder do not falter. They fire when the doors are almost closed, when the Word Bearers beyond can only be seen by their glowing eyes and muzzle flashes.
The meltaguns scream lines of thin, burning atmosphere at the closing doors. Plasteel and brass ripple like fat under flame. The graviton gun fires a second later, and the doors cascade from their frames in a ragged spill of white-hot metal. Sigismund is running again, Rann at his side, heat warnings chiming as glowing sparks splash around them.
And then they are through, into the passage beyond, molten slag scattering in their wake.
The killing rhythm flows through Sigismund. It feels different, detached, like a tableau moving before him, painted in blurred speed and the spray of blood.
He stops.
The passage is a wide darkness before him, now silent and empty. A false wind is gusting around him, as air sucks out through the breach in the outer chamber wall. Rann breaks away, pressing forwards, his shield bearers bracketing him in a tight wall.
For a second in the silence, Sigismund thinks he catches a distant voice that is just below hearing. He looks down at his sword. Blood has clotted in the links of the chain binding it to his wrist.
‘This is only the beginning,’ says Morn from the passage mouth. He looks up. She walks towards him, the pistols in her hands trailing heat haze and vapour from their barrels. Her two bodyguards walk a pace behind her, their rotor cannons cycling down. ‘You are wondering why, after all your anger at the betrayers, this now feels like nothing.’
Sigismund looks back through the doors. Blood-shrouded shapes cover the floor. There are bodies armoured in yellow amongst the crimson gloss. His eyes focus on a severed arm, still clutching a gladius in its gauntleted fingers.
‘You are thinking that you are a blood-killer now,’ she continues, ‘a slayer of your gene-kin.’
He looks up at her. There is no longer any laughter in her eyes.
She nods once. ‘You are, First Captain. That is exactly what you are.’
He turns without replying and moves to follow Rann. His sword feels heavy in his hand, and the chain binding it clinks against his wrist.
It has been less than two minutes since he killed the first Word Bearer.
The duelling cages aboard the Conqueror
995.M30
Khârn grinned as the sword sliced towards his ribs. He was still grinning as he lashed the falax blade towards Sigismund’s throat. The blow was fast, fast enough that a human would barely have seen it, but Sigismund was already stepping back and slicing downwards.
The World Eater caught the descending strike between his paired blades, scissoring past the sword, and slashed out again. Sigismund met the cut with the flat of his sword, point down, guard high. Khârn’s blade slid past. Sigismund flicked his sword over and cut back.
Khârn froze. Sigismund watched the vein in the side of the World Eater’s neck beat once against the sword edge. A thick worm of blood crawled across the polished plasteel, clotting even as it ran down his bared chest.
Khârn snarled. The muscles of his neck bunched against the sword. The flesh around his eyes was twitching, and he was breathing hard, though not from fatigue.
Sigismund raised an eyebrow. Khârn spat, reversed his grip on his twin blades, and turned away. Beneath the waist, he wore simple black trews tied with a length of rope.
Sigismund whipped the sword blade through the air, blood drops shaking from it to scatter on the sand-covered floor. In contrast, he wore a simple robe of white crossed with black, cut so that the flesh of his arms was bare to the dull light.
Armour was customary for the fighting pits of the World Eaters, but not in this case. Not between these two.
The curved walls of the pit were raw iron, marked by gouges from weapons, and dappled with dried blood. Sigismund sniffed as he lifted his gaze to the ranked tiers above the lip of the pit. Silence and emptiness stared back at him. He looked to where Khârn hung his paired blades from a weapon rack. The World Eater’s breath was still ragged, his scalp still twitching around the metal of his aggression implants – his Butcher’s Nails.
‘Again?’ asked Sigismund.
Khârn’s hands moved over the weapons on the rack, touching the haft of a long chainaxe, lingering on the coils of a meteor hammer. But he picked out a sword, the blade as wide as his arm. Golden wings spread above the quillons to form a cross-guard, and a single ruby blood drop looked out from between their pinions. Khârn tossed it from hand to hand as a human might with a knife, weighing it, judging it. ‘I am always surprised that you like it here,’ he murmured.
‘I don’t.’
�
�Yet, here we are again.’
Khârn let the weapon rest in his grip. He frowned down at the long blade, and shook his head. Then he turned to the rack, and slotted the sword back into place.
Sigismund watched the World Eater pick up each weapon in turn. He waited. He knew why Khârn did this, and he knew that it was nothing to do with which weapon the World Eater eventually chose. He appreciated the reason, even though the two of them had never spoken of it.
At last Khârn gripped the handle of an axe that was more cleaver than war weapon. He rolled his shoulders, muscles flowing smooth under skin. The twitching in his face faded to almost nothing, his breath barely a murmur between his teeth.
Sigismund held his sword low, its point almost touching the sand. The chains around his wrists clinked as he settled into stillness. Khârn’s eyes flicked up to the plasteel links. He grinned, the light dancing in his eyes.
‘Imitation is flattery, I suppose,’ he said with a grin. ‘What was it that Jubal did?’
‘He cut them.’
‘Ha! I always liked him.’
‘He…’ Sigismund paused for a moment. ‘He asked if I was afraid of dropping my sword.’
‘Are you?’
‘No. He said the chains were like a prison.’
Khârn’s grin drained from his face. The skin of his scalp twitched around the Nails again, and a shiver ran through him. ‘Shall we carry on with this foolishness?’
Sigismund nodded, and a thunder-clash of steel replaced the silence. Once again, they were two figures whirling and striking at one another.
Khârn’s axe rang against the sword, swept away and lashed back again. He was breathing hard. Spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were wide, the pupils black wounds in bloodshot white. Sigismund took one step backwards, deflecting each blow as it came. Khârn pulled away, growled, and hammered in again.
Sigismund parried lightly, and the axe whistled past his shoulder. He slammed the pommel of his sword into Khârn’s forearm, and then at his face. The World Eater ducked and came up, and crashed his skull into Sigismund’s forehead.