Shadowsword

by Guy Haley

  ‘Epperaliant, I respect you greatly as a second in command and as a soldier. But if you do not swear to hold your tongue, then I will shoot you myself. All our lives are in danger, do you understand?’

  Engines sounded outside then stopped. Muffled shouts came closer.

  Epperaliant sat up straight, and pulled down his jacket to smooth away some of its wrinkles. ‘Then shoot. I will not lie. The commissar must have had his reasons. I cannot perjure myself, not on the say so of Shoam.’

  Footsteps clanked on the ladder at the rear.

  ‘Damn your pride!’ said Bannick desperately.

  ‘It’s not pride, sir.’

  ‘Epperaliant, please.’

  Epperaliant shook his head. ‘You will not kill me. I know you Colaron Vor Artem Lo Bannick. You are a good man, an upstanding man. You know what Shoam suggests is wrong. We must go to a higher authority. You will see I am right and he is wrong.’

  Bannick thumbed the catch back on his laspistol. Charge lights blinked from red to green. The sound of men scrabbling at the roof hatches penetrated thick metal.

  Epperaliant’s eyes widened. Maybe, at the last, he was surprised that Bannick would go through with it. ‘Sir, I...’

  Bannick discharged his pistol. A sharp crack heralded murder. Epperaliant slumped over his desk, smoke rising from either side of his torso.

  Bannick let his gun clatter to the floor. The blood drained from his face and he fell into his chair. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘The right thing,’ said Shoam.

  The hatch opened. Weak sunlight filtered into the command deck, making the crew screw up their eyes.

  ‘Get word back to high command, they’re still alive.’ A trooper’s face poked through the hatch. ‘You won the war!’ he said, then his face wrinkled as he took in Epperaliant. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘Some enemy witchcraft turned him against us,’ said Bannick.

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Dead. In combat,’ said Bannick. ‘They were heroes.’

  The man withdrew, shouting for medicae and stretcher-bearers. More engines and voices approached.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  There is only war

  MEDICAE FRIGATE MERCIFUL SISTER

  GERATOMRO ORBIT

  088298.M41

  Rank bought many things in the Astra Militarum, but all of them started small. A little extra food, a few luxuries, incrementally more until one reached the highest echelons, where a man might live like a lord. But for one such as Honoured Captain Kandar Ostrakhan Lo Hannick, rank afforded little consideration. He had a little space to himself in the medicae frigate, partitioned from the rest of the ward by plastek screens, and no more than that.

  Bannick sat in the cramped space by the captain’s cot, his dress uniform immaculate and boots polished to a mirror shine, a rack of new medals pinned to his chest. Propped up on hard pillows Hannick looked shrunken by comparison. Lank, untrimmed hair framed a pale face.

  ‘It is secondary silicosis, a delayed effect of the environment on Kalidar,’ he said to Bannick.

  ‘Dust Lung,’ said Bannick.

  Hannick sighed. ‘A delayed and pernicious kind, yes. I performed all my rituals properly, from my personal cleansing to petitioning the spirit of my respirator for safety,’ he smiled. ‘Yes, Bannick, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe I wasn’t enthusiastic enough, but it’s more likely the equipment wasn’t good. Emperor knows how many others have got it waiting inside them to push their lungs out of their windpipes. I have been informed a screening programme of the Kalidar veterans is being undertaken, but it is a little late for me.

  ‘I thought one day I’d complete my fifty subjective years’ service and take the Emperor’s gift, get a patch of land somewhere. It’s a hard life, but better than a quick death.’

  ‘Be a farmer? Why by Terra would you want to do that?’

  Hannick’s laughter at Bannick’s expression set off another round of coughing. He feebly dabbed the blood away from his lips. ‘Why not? Do you remember what it was like to be a Vor back home, Bannick? We remember Paragon as perfect, but it rarely lived up to its name. I just wanted to go somewhere quiet, where I’d be left alone for a handful of years.’

  ‘You retire with honour, sir.’

  ‘I’ll be dead in four months if I can’t find someone to fit me with augmetics,’ said Hannick plainly. ‘Good quality lungs that’ll leave me still able to move about are expensive. The Hannick clan has the funds, if I can get them across thirty light years, into a warzone and find a sympathetic medicae. And even if I could get replacements as good as my originals were, what will they mean? Twenty-eight more years of war.’ He spoke now to himself more than Bannick. ‘I don’t think I can do it.’

  ‘That’s it, you’re giving up?’

  ‘No, no, I’m not giving up,’ said Hannick ‘I’ve only got one life. If the Departmento Munitorum want to squander it for me in battle, that’s their business, but I’m not lying down and letting night fall on me without putting up a fight. What use is the Emperor’s protection...’

  ‘...if we choose not to protect ourselves?’ said Bannick, finishing the saying along with the captain.

  ‘Right. So I’ll do my best. I’ll probably die. If I don’t, and I’m lucky, I’ll be able to walk but I’ll be discharged on medical grounds. New lungs aren’t like a new eye or arm. They can limit a man. If I’m a little less than lucky, I’ll be put behind a desk and forgotten about. If I’m really unlucky, I’ll be back in that basdacking tank.’

  Bannick was taken aback. Hannick rarely swore.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’ve seen too much. You know what I mean. You’ve been in service now for three years subjective, seven actual. How many men have died by your side?’

  ‘A lot,’ Bannick answered. He knew the number, but would not speak it.

  ‘One hundred and ninety-nine, Bannick. I’ve lost one hundred and ninety-nine men. How fitting that I might make the two hundredth?’

  ‘What will happen to the company?’

  ‘We’ll be out of commission for several weeks. So much of our armour took a beating down there, and the Arks Mechanicus have a backlog that’d stretch all the way to the next star system. There’s the pacification of course...’ said Hannick, his voice trailing off. ‘After that, well. Ostrakhan’s Rebirth will probably require a new master, as will the Seventh. I’m recommending you.’

  ‘Marteken has seniority. He’s served far longer than me.’

  ‘Marteken is not ready, and never will be. He’s a good enough commander, but lacks the foresight to manage a full company in battle as well as his own tank. Besides, he’s getting nervy. Most importantly he does not want to do it.’

  ‘He’d have no choice if ordered.’

  ‘You know men do not work that way. Another reason you’re fit for the post, and he is not.’

  ‘What about Hurnigen? He’s served barely less time than me.’

  ‘Well, he is a better prospect, or he will be, one day. The master of a Shadowsword requires different skills to those of the other tank roles, skills he’s only now acquiring. He is best where he is, for the time being at least. No, it is your name I am putting forward as my replacement. I am sorry.’

  ‘There is no need to apologise. I am honoured, sir.’

  ‘Is the appropriate response, but there is every reason for me to apologise. It might not happen. My recommendation is only that. The appointment is the army group’s to make, and that means, ultimately, the Departmento Munitorum’s, with a big helping, meddlesome hand from the Martians. But, but...’ Hannick coughed again; his chest twitched with the effort of keeping the coughs shallow, but he failed. Soon he was bent double, Bannick holding a kidney bowl beneath his lips as red mucus dribbled out. Finished, he sank back into his pillow with a long groan.
r />   ‘Emperor, this is tedious. I half wish I could just get on and die.’

  ‘Don’t say that, sir.’

  ‘It bloody hurts.’

  ‘I have experience.’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember. You had the lung wash.’

  ‘Also deeply unpleasant.’

  ‘Well, that won’t help me. Not now.’ His eyes closed a moment, and he breathed raggedly. His face had sunk in on itself, the skin waxy and sallow. Bannick sat there until Hannick roused himself a little. ‘I’m tired, Bannick. Leave me.’

  ‘Sir.’ Bannick stood to attention and gave the honoured captain a crisp salute. ‘Thank you, sir. For everything.’

  ‘If you ever get the chance to live out the last years of your life in peace, remember me. Light a candle or something. It’s the little things like that which keep us human. Without remembrance, loss, grief, mercy... we’re nothing. We’re just killers.’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  Hannick smiled at that. He turned his pallid face, now sheened with sweat, to look at Bannick.

  ‘It was a good last battle though, wasn’t it, Bannick? While you were waiting for that one shot, I led those tanks right into the teeth of the enemy. I wish you could have been there to see it.’

  ‘I hear it was a charge worthy of a song, sir.’

  Hannick nodded. Still smiling, he fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Three days later, he died.

  Bannick walked quickly along the portway of the medicae frigate. In his pocket, his crumpled order papers rustled. Geratomro was not done with him yet. On the surface were three hundred million civilians the Inquisition had declared as traitoros in extremis. The planet was to be depopulated and resettled. It looked like Bannick’s uncle and the others would get their wish. A new Paragon was to be born from the bone and blood of an alien world. Every man, woman and child below was being assessed and vetted. Many would die in the penal legions. Others would be sent to provide slave labour on other worlds. Bannick had his part to play in this awful task.

  Bannick halted by an observation cupola and stepped inside. Blue light reflected from the planet made it feel colder than it actually was.

  The first of the ships bearing the new slaves rose from the surface to the fleet. The funeral pyres of those deemed unsuitable for servitude were visible from orbit.

  He would do his duty, though he did not relish it. The thought that he could defy his orders crossed his mind. He had done so already, and it had cost a man his life so that Bannick might spare his own. Cravenly, he still wished to live.

  Sword Brother Adelard had sought him out some days after the battle, striding into the Imperial castella where Bannick was overseeing repairs to the Seventh’s tanks. His armour had been repaired and repainted so well it appeared that he had not been in combat at all.

  ‘You need not worry,’ he had said. ‘I told the Inquisition that you saw nothing. By datapacket, naturally.’

  ‘They would have executed you?’

  ‘With warriors such as myself, they prefer a full mindwipe. But that is a form of death in itself. My Chapter would never allow that to happen. It is wasteful of experience and time. While I was being remade, many wars would go unfought.’

  ‘Then maybe you better leave. You are vulnerable here.’

  ‘They will not take me. We Space Marines are nearly autonomous in our actions for the Imperium, but even we must obey the Inquisition. However, if they were to attempt to come against me in violence, my crusade would retaliate. So the Inquisition will not ask, and thus the delicate balance of power is maintained, and every agency may keep face. That we work to protect mankind and the Inquisition does also is all that matters, in the end.’

  ‘But they would kill me.’

  ‘Without hesitation,’ Adelard said bluntly. ‘My Chapter teaches that this is wrong, that the bravest souls can bear the weight of the truth, and that without it they cannot be properly tested and forged into weapons for the Emperor. You are one of those brave men, Honoured Lieutenant Bannick. If you were not, I would kill you myself.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Take heart. Do not be sorry that you live. There are men who strive for their own goals without thought to the consequence. You are not one of those men. In you, the Emperor has a worthy servant. Praise be.’ The Black Templar clashed his arms in a cross over his chest.

  ‘Praise be,’ said Bannick, and saluted back.

  Adelard left him then. Bannick realised he had never seen him without his helmet.

  Bannick could not fully agree with Adelard about his worthiness. Dark dreams plagued him. Only constant occupation kept the images of the square from his head, and sleep brought terror. In light of this he saw his own desire to survive not as the Emperor’s judgement, but as a selfish urge that made him no better than the Paragonian clan lords now lining up to take control of Geratomro. These lesser sons had been sent to join the military by families to whom they were surplus, but their desire for power never left them, and privileged men will always seek to take more to themselves, and carve out their own little empires. They wanted the good life, Bannick wanted to live. The impulses were not so different. Once more, others had suffered for Bannick’s motives.

  Trying not to think about what awaited him in the transit camps and cleansing centres on the surface, Bannick headed for his shuttle.

  About the Author

  Guy Haley is the author of the Space Marine Battles novel Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor, Baneblade and Shadowsword and the novellas The Eternal Crusader, The Last Days of Ector and Broken Sword, for Damocles. He has also written Throneworld for The Beast Arises series. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

  An extract from Baneblade.

  Mars Triumphant sat upon a darkened plain, engines quiet, drawn up in readiness for the coming battle. For nearly two years it had lain in its cradle within the depths of a transport barge; tomorrow it would assail the orks of Kalidar.

  The tank rocked in time with the barrage; shells flung by artillery batteries ten kilometres behind the tank’s position, falling onto the ork army still kilometres ahead. Honoured Lieutenant Cortein felt rather than heard the distant thunder through the Baneblade’s armour as a steady metronome of destruction. Fine veils of Kalidar’s ever-present dust sifted down from the tank’s ceiling with every explosion.

  Three days on Kalidar, and already Mars Triumphant was being asked to fight.

  Cortein was unconcerned by the speed of their deployment, he understood this as his duty. If the tank had been asked, and could have replied, Cortein was sure it would hold similar sentiments. But the new regiments, raised on Cortein’s home world of Paragon, trained as they made their slow, dangerous way through the warp to Kalidar… He was not so sure he could say the same of them. Instinct told him that they needed more time, that this rush to smash the ork force besieging the mine complex of Urta was unwise.

  There was little he could do about that. Tomorrow, the 7th Paragonian Super-heavy Tank Company would form the lynchpin of one of two large arrow-headed tank formations, the remainder of them made up of Leman Russ squadrons and mechanised infantry, the two formations part of a large action involving men from three worlds. A hundred tanks, four regiments of infantry, a surprise for the orks besieging Urta at the heart of the lorelei-rich Kostoval Flats.

  That was the idea. Cortein was suspicious of ideas like this. Perhaps the thick armour of Mars Triumphant had made him cautious, inclined to sit things out, he thought, behind the fortress-like walls of the Baneblade. Maybe, but as they said at home, one does not weather a storm by casting oneself into the sea.

&
nbsp; Cortein stood before Mars Triumphant’s dimly lit wall of honour, near the reactor, the plant at the heart of the Baneblade. Names on brass plaques filled the wall almost entirely, a proud list ending with his own. The green and red glows emitted by Mars Triumphant’s dim lights struck strange reflections from the metal, alternately revealing and obscuring the heroisms of the tank’s long past.

  The first plaque was worn smooth by time to leave but traces of archaic battle honours and the curve of what might have been an S or a G. Perhaps, thought Cortein, other commanders of Mars Triumphant had stood here like he did before every engagement, their fingers tracing out the names of those who had come before them. How many times had he stood there? He did not know, the battles and campaigns of thirty years blurring into one endless war, a lifetime of conflict. Such was the sacrifice the Emperor had demanded of him. It was a sacrifice Cortein bore gladly. He’d give his life over again, and again a score of times, having seen what he had seen. Humanity was besieged as surely as the orks out there in the desert besieged the lorelei mine complex. If it were not for the sacrifice of men like him…

  But there were men like him, many men, the passing of some remembered on this wall, and so the Imperium would stand. He had faith in the Emperor and His servants.

  Still he felt fear at his own end, its edge dull and worn by experience and hard-won courage; present nevertheless.

  He heard a faint scuff behind him and glanced back. Crimson robes moved in the shadows, deeper shadows within the hood.

  ‘Enginseer Adept Brasslock,’ Cortein said. He returned his attention to the wall.

  ‘Honoured Lieutenant Cortein,’ said the other. He whispered as a priest does in a cathedral, his low voice hard to make out over the hiss of artificial lungs.

  ‘I saw your bodyguard outside and assumed you were within. But I did not hear you approach. In this machine you are as quiet as a monk in a cloister.’

  The enginseer gave forth the mechanical cough that passed for his laugh. ‘And that I am, in here, within Mars Triumphant. Any of the adepts of Mars are but supplicants before such a machine. You hold your vigil?’