Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx

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Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx Page 11

by Ben Counter


  the Doom Eagles were not like those other Chapters. They wanted to

  understand.

  The Librarium’s scribe-servitors were still transcribing the complex

  code-language into High Gothic, and filling ledger after ledger with the

  ramblings that resulted. Varnica had one such book in front of him,

  leafing through the parade of obscenity. Kephilaes had been a prophet,

  in part at least, and the endless train of prodigies and omens filled

  Varnica’s mind with images of stars boiling away and the galaxy

  burning from core to rim.

  ‘Librarian,’ came a familiar voice.

  Varnica looked up to see Techmarine Hamilca walking among the

  small forest of servitors that chittered away as they wrote. ‘I had heard

  tell I would find you here.’

  ‘Where else would one find a Librarian,’ replied Varnica, ‘but in a

  library?’

  Hamilca smiled. ‘Your levity need be a shield no longer, Librarian.

  Not while you and I are the only ones to see it. The loss of Novas has

  affected you more deeply than an Adeptus Astartes is apt to admit.’

  ‘One more trial on the path, brother. One more trial.’

  ‘What did Kephilaes have to say for himself?’

  Varnica closed the tome he had finished scanning through. ‘At the

  last count, Techmarine, seventeen million people died so he could tell

  us that a great feathered serpent was going to swallow the sun. And

  that a plague of cockroaches would devour a great empire. No details

  on which sun or which empire.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hamilca, ‘this is a task that could be shared?’

  ‘One mind, I fear, is better than two when it comes to such things. I

  consider reading Kephilaes’s drivel a penance for losing good Doom

  Eagles under my command.’

  ‘So be it, Librarian. I and my servitors shall be ready to assist you.’

  Hamilca finished making a few adjustments to the scribe-servitors, and

  the hum of their scribbling autoquills changed pitch slightly. ‘And so,

  brother I leave you.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Varnica. Hamilca stopped just as he was turning away.

  Varnica had opened another volume of the heretic’s writings. ‘Here.

  And here. The same name. A daemon prince. This is a record of its

  deeds.’

  ‘Kephilaes’ patron?’ asked Hamilca.

  ‘Perhaps. It was one of the most powerful of its kind, one of the

  brood of the Change God. Throne alive, I fear I shall need the services

  of the Flagellants’ Guild to purify myself after reading this. It was... it

  was a plotter without compare. A manipulator. “There was not one

  living soul without a flaw that he could not widen to a chasm into which

  that soul would fall. A saint would be prey to this great cunning.”’

  ‘This daemon prince,’ said Hamilca, sitting opposite Varnica and

  taking a book for himself. ‘It is active now? The Red Night was some

  form of sacrifice to it?’

  ‘It is possible. There is more. Here – a record of its deeds. It polluted

  the gene pool of a triad of worlds, so they became barbarians and

  warred with one another. An obscene tale about Saint Voynara, who

  before she died gave in to despair and called upon this prince to deliver

  her. And its masterpiece, the crowning glory... by Terra, what foulness

  I see before my eyes!’

  Hamilca leaned forwards. ‘Librarian? What is it? What have you

  seen?’

  ‘It took a Chapter of Adeptus Astartes,’ read Varnica, ‘and it found in

  them a fatal flaw. It was their pride. That same sin we all commit,

  brother. Our pride, our weakness. And it turned this Chapter into an

  instrument of its will, through trickery compelling them to do its bidding

  while they thought they were doing the Emperor’s work.’

  ‘What Chapter was this?’ asked Hamilca. ‘Many have fallen from

  grace or disappeared. Is this the truth behind the fall of the Brazen

  Claws or the Thunder Barons?’

  ‘No,’ replied Varnica. ‘This daemon prince, when its name was

  spoken, was called Abraxes. The Chapter it commanded was the Soul

  Drinkers.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘It will not hurt, brother,’ said Sister Solace to Brother Sennon. In the

  cramped cell, once the living space of an engineer among the

  cavernous workings of the Phalanx, a few candles guttered, giving a

  struggling yellowish light. In Solace’s hands was a wide-gauge needle

  hooked up to a pump and an intravenous bag.

  ‘I do not fear pain,’ replied Sennon, who lay bare-chested on a

  mattress. Sweat beaded on his face in spite of his words, and his

  voice came from a dry throat. He had never looked younger. In the

  shadows he seemed a child, defying the cowardice that his youth

  should have brought him.

  ‘We need not make ourselves suffer now,’ replied Solace. ‘The time

  for such things is over. Let the Emperor’s kindness soothe you, and I

  shall make you as comfortable as possible.’

  Sennon swallowed, and winced as the tip of the needle touched the

  vein Solace had located on the inside of his elbow. The needle slid

  under his skin, the pump began to work and the intravenous bag filled

  up. Solace hooked up a second bag, this one filled with a clear bluish

  liquid.

  ‘Speak to me, my brother,’ she said as Sennon’s eyes drifted out of

  focus. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘I see you, my sister,’ said Sennon. His throat constricted and he

  grimaced as he fought to breathe. Solace took his hand and

  squeezed. ‘I see… this place is gone. There are no walls. The Phalanx

  is gone.’

  ‘What is it? What do you see?’

  ‘I see… a battlefield.’ Sennon’s body relaxed and his eyes seemed

  to focus on a point far off, past the ceiling of the cell with its rag-tag

  collection of mementos from a life among the engines of the Phalanx.

  Cogs and valves were piled up on a shelf beneath a metal icon painted

  with the symbol of the Imperial Fists. A few ragged sets of protective

  clothing were hung up above an alcove containing three pairs of

  battered steel-toed boots. A paltry collection of religious verses and

  children’s stories filled a small cupboard beside the mattress on which

  Sennon lay, and on the ceiling a previous occupier had drawn images

  of stars and crescent moons. Sennon saw none of it. Solace thought

  for a moment that she could see an endless landscape of rolling plains

  and mountains reflected in the youth’s eyes as his pupils expanded to

  black pools.

  black pools.

  ‘It goes on forever,’ said Sennon, his breath hushed. ‘They are all

  there, all those who have died in the Emperor’s name. They are there

  to join him in the battle at the end of time.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Sister Solace. She adjusted the pump, which

  hummed louder as the liquid coursed faster through Sennon’s veins.

  Gauges on the side of the pump read various pressures and she tried

  to keep them aligned. Too fast or too slow and the youth would die.

  ‘I see billions of them, the uniforms of the Imperial Guard,’ said

  Sennon. A million regiments, bayonets f
ixed, stretching across a

  world. And others too, ordinary men and women in a great throng. All

  the pious souls that have ever died. And at the forefront are the

  Adeptus Astartes, the Angels of Death!’

  Solace looked up. A trickle of blood ran from Sennon’s nose. ‘As

  Gyranar told us?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes! Oh, sister, they are beautiful! Their armour gleams, and they

  have wings of gold on which to fly!’ Sennon’s face spread into a

  rapturous smile, even as blood collected in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Their eyes are aflame! Mighty blades shine in their hands. But… but

  the Enemy is here also. The Adversary. All the foul tongues of the

  warp have spoken into existence an army even greater!’

  Sennon’s body began to shudder. Solace took the youth’s pulse

  from his wrist: his heart was hammering, his face now showing an

  awestruck fear.

  ‘Speak to me of them, brother,’ said Solace. ‘There is nothing to fear

  in them. They cannot harm you. Speak to me.’

  ‘Monsters without form. Flesh turned liquid, bathed in fire. Legions of

  the hateful warp-spawned, like regiments on the parade ground. Things

  of living corruption, smothered under a blanket of flies, seething

  masses of filth! Mountains of rot that vomit torrents of their progeny

  onto the field! And worse… sister, worse things, so sinful and

  lascivious in form that I cannot look away! Tear my eyes from them,

  sister, before they infect my soul!’

  ‘Do not fear, brother. I am with you. The Emperor is with you. No

  harm can befall you, for you are under His protection. Believe in Him,

  believe, brother!’

  ‘And still more,’ continued Sennon, his voice speeding up into a

  near-gabble. ‘The generals and the overlords of the Adversary. They

  tower! Their shadows cast whole continents into darkness! Mighty

  horned things, wielding blades wreathed in flame! I see a beast with a

  hundred heads, crowned with laurels of entwined bodies. I see… I see

  a creature red-skinned and immense, its wings blocking out the sun,

  the axe in its hand oozing blood! I can see all the galaxy’s hatred in its

  twisted face. But it cannot harm me. Though its eyes fall on me, it

  cannot harm me!’

  ‘No,’ said Solace. ‘It cannot.’ She lacked the equipment to read

  Sennon’s vital signs properly, so she had to do it by eye, reading the

  youth’s pulse and the dilation of his pupils, the spasming of his fingers

  and toes, the alternating rigidity and weakness of his limbs. The

  Phalanx had some of the finest medicae facilities in the Imperium

  within its apothecarion and the sickbays used by the crew, but Solace

  had to do this work away from the eyes of the Imperial Fists and the

  Phalanx’s crewmen. It had to be done this way.

  And if Sennon died, there were others. She would go through the

  whole Blinded Eye if she had to. If it came to it, she would do this to

  herself.

  ‘I see the gods of the warp!’ gasped Sennon. ‘Saints take my eyes!

  Faithful hands strip me of my senses! I see such things that creation

  cannot contain! Talon and hateful eye, wing and feather, an ocean of

  rotting flesh and the awful knotted limbs of the eternal dancer! And

  yet… and yet they are in shadow, cast by a far greater light…’

  Solace checked the gauges. Most of Sennon’s blood was gone. The

  fluid that replaced it was pumping through him, but it might not be fast

  enough. This was the most dangerous point, where the body hovered

  between bleeding to death and being suffused with its replacement

  blood.

  ‘The Primarchs stand ready to command the host. Sanguinius the

  Angel paints his face with a million tears, one for every blood-brother

  who stands by his side. Russ and the Lion are side by side, their

  hatred for one another gone, the Wolves of Fenris and the Dark Angels

  standing proud. Guilliman and his host, vaster than any other army

  ever assembled. The Khan, the Iron-Handed One, and Vulkan, all

  gathered exhorting their brothers to war! And Dorn, holy Dorn, sacred

  Dorn, the greatest of them, I see the banner in his hands spun from

  the starlight of every sun within the Emperor’s domain! He is the

  Champion of the Emperor, the first to fight, the tip of His spear and the

  lightning that shall be cast down among the enemy! He shines like

  gold, such a blaze of fire that the enemy are blinded and they howl in

  anguish at the presence of such holiness!’

  Sennon gasped and his eyes rolled back. Solace grabbed his hand

  and squeezed it tighter. ‘Brother! Keep talking, brother! Tell me what

  you see! Sennon, tell me what you see!’

  Sennon just gasped in response, spraying flecks of blood down his

  chin.

  Solace scrabbled in the meagre selection of medical gear that lay

  on the floor around her. She found a syringe and tore its wrapping

  open. The syringe was pre-loaded with a fat needle as long as a finger

  and a steel cylinder of a body. Solace held the syringe point-down over

  Sennon’s chest, muttered a prayer, and stabbed down.

  The needle punched between Sennon’s ribs. The liquid inside

  flooded into his heart and his whole body juddered as if hit with an

  electric shock. Solace had to lean over him and put her body weight

  on him to keep the needle from breaking off or tearing too big a hole in

  the youth’s heart. Sennon gasped, sputtering more blood. A mist of it

  spattered against the side of Solace’s face. His body tensed and

  arched, joints creaking.

  Sennon slumped down again. He let out a long rattling breath from a

  painfully dry throat.

  ‘I see the Emperor,’ he murmured. ‘He tells me not to be afraid. He

  tells me to fight.’

  Solace looked down at the gauges and readouts again. They had

  stabilised. The exchange was complete.

  She withdrew the needle from Sennon’s arm and placed a dressing

  on the wound. She wiped the blood from his face with a wet cloth.

  ‘You will fight, my brother,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’

  In the tumult following Librarian Varnica’s evidence, Chapter Master

  Vladimir had called an adjournment to the trial. Sarpedon had been led

  back to his cell, the Imperial Fists refusing any answer to his requests

  to speak with Daenyathos. The alleged presence of the Philosopher-

  Soldier still had his mind in a whirl. The dismay that he had felt to have

  Abraxes’ existence revealed to the trial was a new counterpart to that

  confusion. Piece by piece, everything he had been sure of was falling

  apart.

  He was grateful for the cell, though he had never thought he could

  think so. Its cramped walls and deadening psychic wards, smothering

  though they were, were preferable to the hatred that surrounded him in

  the courtroom. He crouched against one wall, and stared for a few

  minutes at the heap of crumpled papers, all that remained of his

  attempts to pen final words to his battle-brothers.

  What could he say? What would make any difference? He had

  thought he would face this trial with dignity and courage, perhaps even


  to make his execution, when it came, a reluctant act on the part of the

  executioners. Now even that small victory felt very far away.

  ‘I will not kneel,’ he said to himself. ‘I will not despair. I am Adeptus

  Astartes. I will not despair.’

  ‘I fear for your sake, Chapter Master, that whether to despair is not

  your decision to make.’

  Sarpedon’s eyes snapped to the opening in the cell door. It was not

  the voice of a Space Marine – it was a woman. This one had a note of

  familiarity to it, though.

  Sarpedon scuttled up to the door. Beyond it, flanked by a pair of

  Imperial Fists with bolters at the ready, was Sister Aescarion of the

  Adepta Sororitas. She, like the Space Marines, wore her full armour to

  the trial and still had it on now, a suit of polished black ceramite

  emblazoned with the iconography of the Imperial Church. Her own

  weapon was the power axe but it was strapped to the jump pack of her

  armour now and she did not have it to hand. She was a full head

  shorter than a Space Marine for she was not augmented like them,

  and had a stern, angular yet handsome face with red-brown hair tied

  back in a ponytail.

  ‘I recall you from Stratix Luminae,’ said Sarpedon.

  ‘An encounter I would sooner forget,’ replied Aescarion.

  ‘None of us wish to remember the sight of an adversary who departs

  the battlefield alive.’

  ‘And you are still my adversary,’ said the Battle Sister. ‘Nothing has

  changed on that score. You are a traitor.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Sarpedon, ‘you willingly exchange words with me. It

  seems women are as a strange a breed of creature as men say.’

  ‘Not as strange as a condemned prisoner who makes light of his

  situation,’ said Aescarion with a withering look that had no doubt been

  the scourge of the Sororitas novices she had trained.

  ‘I trust you have not come here to swap insults, Sister,’ said

  Sarpedon.

  Aescarion glanced at the Imperial Fists flanking her. ‘If you please,’

  she said to them. ‘A few minutes are all I ask.’

  ‘Stay in sight,’ replied one of the Imperial Fists. The two Adeptus

  Astartes parted and walked several paces down the corridor outside

  Sarpedon’s cell, out of earshot.

  ‘They run a tight ship, these sons of Dorn,’ said Sarpedon, As straitlaced

 

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