by C Z Dunn
Both. But our journey into the Eye gained us far more than that, as well you know. It gave us the opportunity of escape, to be rid of the Balethu curse forever.
How many times do we have to tell you that you made a false bargain? That the Hellfire Stone is not the route to your salvation? Why would Khor’en release you from his service when you claim so many skulls for his throne?
You lie. Another one of your tricks designed to stop us from vanquishing you and damning your souls to eternal torment.
No, Kranon the Relentless, it is the truth and you have always known it to be so. You know that activating the Hellfire Stone will open up a rift in the warp and allow a daemon to pass through into the material realm. You know this, yet still you have continued with your quest to find the stone. Why is that? Is it because you never truly believed that you would find it? That the journey would be a means to an end in itself with all the excuses it presented for slaughter? Or did you always believe you would find it and that is why you prosecuted the search with such zeal? Because by opening the rift and allowing my master’s servant through it would grant you even more favour with him? Do you know why you remain silent, Kranon the Relentless? Why you do not issue a denial? Why you do not drive your blade into the spine of the Dark Angel at your feet and silence us?
Please, enlighten me.
It is because our master chose well when he chose you.
Sergeant Barachiel
The sound of the klaxon still echoes in my ears as the metallic confines of the teleportarium chamber are instantaneously replaced by the lush green vegetation and blue sky of Bane’s Landing. My sensorium array adjusts to my new surroundings and I breathe in the smell of battle as I visually assess the combat zone. The stench of burning flora, the chemical tang of superheated plasma and the iron-tinged scent of blood mingle with the odour of unwashed cultist, unholy oils and unguents and the barely perceptible redolence of adrenaline.
In front of me, seven red-armoured Traitor Astartes are firing their bolters on full-auto at the Dark Angels taking cover behind me on the opposite edge of the clearing. A handful of cultists provide them supporting fire with an array of crude auto-weapons. The remains of two black-armoured figures lie in the dirt, while the twisted form of a third lies at the feet of another crimson-clad Traitor. Sergeant Raphael sits slumped against a ruined tree stump, blood seeping through cracks in his smashed armour. He is alive but his breathing is shallow. With their sergeant incapacitated, Librarian Turmiel is directing Squad Raphael’s fire but only eight weapons are directed at the enemy position and I know that two more battle-brothers are lost to us.
Master Balthasar is engaged with a thrashing Helbrute, the leviathan’s arms flailing wildly as the robed Dark Angel fires and then rolls to avoid its retaliatory slash. One side of the Helbrute’s face is melted and slipped, as if the beast is palsied, and it emits a near-constant bass whine of pain. Though the Company Master’s shots all find their mark, such is the size and strength of the Chaos war engine that all he is doing is distracting and annoying the thing rather than inflicting any real damage.
‘Dardariel, Varhmiel, Narcariel: clear those traitors from cover,’ I bark across the general vox-channel. ‘Mendrion, with me. I think Master Balthasar could use some assistance.’
I coax my power sword to life with a flick of the activation stud and, with Mendrion in tow, charge the Helbrute. Still distracted by the Company Master’s stinging shots, the beast does not notice our attack until it is too late and both my blade and Mendrion’s chainfist bite into the thing’s leg, sparking as gouges are scored in its armour. It sways and lists, arms whipping madly as it howls once more but does not go down. Master Balthasar aims another plasma shot at its head and Mendrion and I do likewise with our storm bolters. The barrage finds its mark and instinctively the Helbrute raises its arm to cover its face.
With its vision obscured, Mendrion and I move position again and once more attempt to chop the thing down with our blades. Though my power sword finds more purchase as a result of the damage I’ve already caused, the result is the same and I narrowly avoid taking the full force of the Helbrute’s leg as it kicks out in anger.
On the edge of the clearing, the fire from the rest of my squad is relentless, forcing the heretics further back into the jungle. Dardariel’s assault cannon made short work of the cultists and the bolter fire aimed at the three Deathwing is sporadic and inaccurate. With the enemy fire now concentrated elsewhere, Squad Raphael and Turmiel emerge from cover and join the battle against the Helbrute.
Bolter shell after bolter shell impact harmlessly against the thing’s hide and the ricocheting rounds bounce crazily around the clearing, posing the same amount of threat as the enemy fire which has only just abated. On the fringes of the clearing, Brother Heskia waits impatiently for his plasma cannon to spool up, the heat of the weapon reaching critical levels through overuse.
For a third time, Mendrion and I attempt to bring the Helbrute down. With a vicious downward thrust, a fissure in the beast’s armour becomes an opening and the blade slides down into the mess of mechanics and organic matter. Black liquid issues forth from the wound, though I cannot tell whether it is blood, oil or something different entirely. As I attempt to remove the power sword to make a follow-up strike it becomes snagged and I am forced to abandon my weapon as the beast kicks back, narrowly avoiding making contact with my head.
Mendrion is not so fortunate. His chainfist becomes trapped between the plates of armour where calf meets thigh and in his struggle to free it, he does not notice the Helbrute’s left arm swinging around. It grips Mendrion in its vast fist and lifts him up into the air as if the tonnage of Terminator armour he is wearing is nothing more than aspirant’s robes. The Helbrute stares at him like a child looking at a new toy, oblivious to the intensified fire aimed in its direction now that my battle-brothers realise the danger their Deathwing comrade is in. For several seconds, Mendrion hangs there suspended while the Chaos beast examines him before a look that could only be interpreted as boredom crosses its features and it tosses the Terminator several metres in the air.
‘No!’ I scream across the general vox-channel, in anticipation of what is to come next.
As Mendrion falls back towards the ground, the Helbrute bends its fist at the wrist, fully exposing the three wicked spikes at the end of its vambrace, and thrusts its arm out, impaling him. Gravity continues to have its effect and as the Helbrute’s arm swings upwards, Mendrion continues his descent and both Terminator suit and the Space Marine inside are sliced in twain. There is a screech of metal on metal followed by two wet thuds as the shorn warrior hits the ground.
Dardariel, Varhmiel and Narcariel simultaneously issue curses and oaths over the vox, though their constant stream of fire aimed at the retreating traitors does not abate. Though they had their backs to the Helbrute at the time of their battle-brother’s death, every grisly detail was relayed to them by the shared pict feed in my armour’s sensorium array.
‘Barachiel, have your squad break off pursuit and engage the Helbrute instead.’ Master Balthasar’s tone has a hint of desperation about it. ‘Heskia? How long before that plasma cannon is able to fire again?’
‘At least a minute,’ comes his reply across the vox.
‘We could all be dead in a minute if we don’t stop this thing.’
Master Balthasar?+ Turmiel’s voice invades my head. From the way the other Dark Angels’ heads incline it is apparent they can hear him too.
The Librarian had been tending to Raphael on the edge of the clearing since the enemy fire ceased but the blue-armoured figure now strides out into the centre of the clearing to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Company Master.
Please, allow me.+
Mortis Metalikus
You are nothing more than a beast of war to them, they unleash you to do battle then put you back in your cage until they need to call upon you ag
ain to shed more blood. But you were a mighty hero once, remember? You do remember, don’t you, Mortis Metalikus?
I looked down at the two pieces of the ivory warrior and it reminded me so much of the little pieces of the game I used to play with him, before he made me like this, when my body was my own and I didn’t hear the voices.
The voices. Thousands of them at war in my skull. They taunted me, robbed me of my sanity and amplified my pain.
I didn’t want to listen to them, never wanted to listen to them, just as I didn’t want to kill and kill over and over again just to make them stop for the briefest of moments. But the voices wouldn’t stop, every waking moment they spoke to me and when rest did come, despite being conditioned not to dream, their dying faces pursued me beyond the realm of sleep.
Still, I refused, and the voices grew louder. My brother, my true brother, argued with me, tried to reason with me. He told me that I had to kill if I wanted the voices to stop, but again I refused and they only grew louder.
You should have heeded him, you pathetic wretch. He was always the strong one, always the leader. If only you’d listened to him while you had the chance then you wouldn’t be like this now.
A planet burned.
He was already set upon his path but I would have no part of it. When I defied him, he made me his prisoner, the bonds of true brotherhood being all that prevented him from slaying me, and while the Crimson Sabres metamorphosed into the Crimson Slaughter, I rotted in a cell and slowly went mad.
Sometimes, at night, he would come to me in my prison and urge me to reconsider. The voices would add support to his words but I resisted. He told me that my mind was no longer my own, that I was no longer responsible for my actions and should give myself over to the slaughter. My brother, this true brother, could not break me, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard the voices tried.
The Eye that does not blink.
Many years passed, years in which I did not feel a sun against my skin or alien ground beneath my feet. I existed in a dark void, the voices my only companions. From time to time, he still came to see me in my cell but the visits were more infrequent and every time I saw him, he resembled less and less the warrior I once called brother. The voices were so many and so loud by then that their words no longer made any sense to me, just a dirge that served to block out his words of coaxing.
The warrior in blue, what is he doing?
I lost all sense of time, all sense of space, all sense of identity. In those scant moments when the voices were cogent they whispered to me of the horrors wrought by my brothers – and my true brother. They showed me glimpses of things as I slept: streets running with rivers of blood; children watching in terror as their parents were slaughtered, knowing that they were next for the butcher’s knife; millions of souls crying out in horror as their world was set ablaze; the new prison that was being constructed for me.
Did we show you these things, Mortis Metalikus, or were you already seeing them through your own eyes by this point?
Then they came for me.
My brothers had changed so much during my incarceration; though my madness had claimed enough of my memory that I could not remember their names, I knew that much to be true. Where once were the smooth curves of their Space Marine power armour, there were now spikes and ridges, horns protruding from helmets. Those that eschewed helmets had strange marks upon their skin and when I saw them the voices grew ever more excited. Even the ship on board which I had been kept prisoner had been altered since the last time I had seen outside my tiny cell.
They mocked me, my brothers, just as the voices had mocked me all these years and I fought them. Not because they mocked me, or because they had turned their backs on me all these years, locked me away so they did not have to face a reminder of their former glory. Nor was it the madness that drove me to do battle with them, or a desire to use their souls to bargain with the voices for silence. It was survival that led me to bite and kick and scratch them that day, as they carried me through the now organic corridors. The voices had told me what awaited me and an eternity spent dwelling in a dank, dark cell was infinitely preferable to what my brother, my true brother, had in store for me.
I wish I had no memory of what happened next, that my insanity would obscure any kind of recollection of the atrocity he committed, but the voices constantly remind me and I am forced to relive the horror every second of my existence.
We do not have to. That moment was the greatest of your life and you bask in it constantly knowing that it was the making of you.
The chamber was filled with all manner of instruments and devices and black-robed acolytes muttered prayers in dark tongues while burning vile-smelling incense over them. My brothers placed me on an obsidian plinth–
Your brothers didn’t have to, you went willingly once you knew the glorious new form you were about to take.
–and strapped me down with thick chains that burned my flesh. I fought them until the very last, biting and gouging them even as my bonds were tightened and all hope of escape was lost.
Liar! You thanked every one of them for giving you the opportunity to serve, embraced them each in gratitude for allowing you to become more than what you were.
My brother, my true brother, came to me then, having stood to one side while his Crimson Slaughter laid me down like an animal to sacrifice.
‘Brother, I have found a way to rid us of our curse, to be free of the voices once and for all. But I need your help. Will you help me? Will you help us?’ He swept his arm around theatrically to indicate the other former Crimson Sabres in the chamber.
My years of captivity had deprived me of the ability of speech but I did not need words to issue my response. With every fibre of my being, I tapped into memories long since forgotten, activated my Betcher’s gland and spat a gobbet of acid in his face. My brother, my true brother, did not flinch but the voices told me he still bears the scar to this day.
‘So be it.’
He reached down and grabbed me by the throat, pulling against my jaw until I felt bones separate and flesh tear. In one clean action, he ripped my head and spine clear of my body and turned me so that I was looking down at my bloody remains. I tried to scream but no sound came out, my mouth no longer connected to anything capable of generating noise.
‘Just as we were reborn and shaped anew, so shall you be,’ he said as he handed my silently screaming head to a black-robed priest.
I remained conscious for the rest of the procedure.
I know not if it was days, weeks or months those dark acolytes toiled in that chamber of horrors, but they took what little was left of me and interred me in the Helbrute. Pain wracked me constantly as control of my new body’s life support and weapon systems were hardwired into my brain and my spine fused to the daemonic workings that controlled my motor functions. One of the last systems to be brought online was my vocal array and the pent-up scream of agony I unleashed, once I was finally able, left half a dozen acolytes dying a slow painful death as they bled out through ruptured skulls.
The warrior in blue, what is he doing?
When the acolytes were through, my brother, my true brother, came to see me again, just as he had done so many times in my previous prison. He looked upon my new body and smiled.
‘Oh, the things we will achieve,’ he said as he circled me, inspecting me up and down. ‘The Crimson Slaughter will no longer be slaves to the dead souls we massacred so long ago.’
You will! You will!
‘No longer will we have to kill to silence their voices, to cease the waking nightmares that haunt us.’
You will! You will!
‘Together, brother, you and I will rid us of our curse and make us masters of our own destiny once again.’
Poor deluded fool.
‘But now that you are ready to take your place alongside your brethren, we sha
ll have to give you a name.’
My name. The voices had riven my mind to such a degree that I could no longer remember my own name.
‘Your old one will not do, as in the currency the Crimson Slaughter now trade, a true name is the most valuable coin of all. Instead you shall be known as Mortis Metalikus and in time the Imperium will tremble at the utterance of those words.’ My brother, my true brother, motioned to one of the acolytes. ‘But for now, you must rest. I will come for you again when the Crimson Slaughter have need.’
I wanted to strike him where he stood, to eliminate him in revenge for the thing he had turned me into, but before I had the chance the acolyte deactivated the Helbrute’s mechanics and as my brother, my true brother, strode out of the chamber I was left only with the voices to provide any distraction from the constant pain.
The warrior in blue, what is he doing?
Brother Turmiel,
Dark Angels Librarian
In 0.1 seconds’ time one of the Crimson Slaughter Chosen who has fled into the forest will turn and fire a retaliatory shot back towards the clearing, aiming for me. Zero point two seconds later I will lean slightly to the right to avoid the bolter shell but I am not quite quick enough and it will catch the rim of my blue pauldron. The vibration will run through my shoulder reminding me that although I am psychically gifted I am still fallible.
Another 0.5 seconds will pass before the constituent parts of poor Mendrion’s corpse stop twitching but it is another 13.2 seconds before the ripples in the pool of blood he created when the Helbrute tore him in two subside. During that time, many things will happen.
One point seven seconds after the bolter shell ricochets off my shoulder pad it will detonate three hundred and twelve metres away in the trunk of an ancient tree. At the same time, the Helbrute realises that my battle-brothers have stopped firing at it and that I am approaching. Psychic flashes will flicker across my consciousness, the heightened mental state of a Space Marine in battle making their thoughts as loud to me as a shot from Brother Heskia’s plasma cannon is to them.