Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx

by Ben Counter

  approached Sarpedon.

  Sarpedon thought again of escape. Or, at least, of fighting. He had

  beaten Borganor before, as evidenced by the bionic leg Borganor

  sported. But attacking the Howling Griffon would not get him free. More

  to the point, it would not achieve anything. Sarpedon had no particular

  hate for Borganor. The Howling Griffon was a victim of the viciousness

  of the Imperium, in his own way. Sarpedon backed down mentally, and

  decided that he would not fight here.

  ‘What do you wish to know?’ said Sarpedon.

  Borganor was close to him now. He had been as bellicose as

  anyone in the courtroom, but Borganor seemed to have calmed down a

  little since then. Perhaps the certainty that the end was close, that

  Vladimir and the other Space Marines were even now deciding how

  Sarpedon was to be executed, had cooled some of the fires in him.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Borganor. ‘I want to know why.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why you turned on the Imperium. In all the debating and argument,

  no one has yet understood why you turned the Soul Drinkers

  renegade. Was it Abraxes? Did your rebellion start with corruption?

  Speak the truth, Sarpedon, for there is no use for lies now.’

  ‘We saw,’ said Sarpedon, ‘what the Imperium really was. I believe

  we had already known it, but that the weight of history and tradition

  muted that understanding in us. The Imperium is a wicked place,

  captain. How many citizens live free of fear and misery? I doubt you

  could name a single one. It is built on cruelty and malice. And in

  punishing its people and committing the evils it says are necessary, it

  gives a breeding ground to those enemies it claims to be fighting. The

  armies of Chaos do not materialise from thin air. They are made up of

  those who were once citizens of that same Imperium, but who were

  corrupted first by its horrors. That is what leaves them susceptible to

  the whispers of the dark gods. Were the Emperor able to walk among

  us still, He would look on what mankind has created in horror and

  seek to tear it down. The Imperium is not the last bastion against the

  enemy. It is the enemy.’

  ‘Then you claim what Varnica said is untrue? That Abraxes never led

  you down his own path?’

  ‘Abraxes used us, that is true,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘He took our anger

  at the Imperium and used it to manipulate us into destroying his

  enemies. But that anger was there before he got his claws into us, and

  we killed Abraxes for what he did. I am not proud of how blind he once

  made us. It was his touch that gave me these mutations, and I was

  ignorant of what they truly meant until Abraxes was gone. But he did

  not teach us to despise the Imperium. We managed that on our own.’

  Borganor shook his head. ‘So deep your delusions cut that you see

  them only as truth,’ he said.

  ‘I am minded to say the same about you, captain.’

  ‘I begged of Vladimir the right to kill you myself,’ continued

  Borganor. ‘To pay you back for all my battle-brothers you killed. For

  Librarian Mercaeno, a man far better than any of your brethren.’

  ‘And did he grant you that right?’

  ‘He did not.’

  ‘You could do it now,’ said Sarpedon calmly. ‘These Imperial Fists

  would not turn their guns on you. You would finish me off before they

  could stop you, I have little doubt about that.’

  ‘No, Sarpedon. I wanted to do it slowly.’ Borganor was almost face

  to face with Sarpedon now. ‘To pull your legs off like a child does to a

  fly.’

  ‘Because I took your leg?’

  ‘Because you took my leg. But I wanted to understand what could

  drive a Space Marine as far as you have gone, before I did it.’

  ‘And do you understand?’

  Borganor took a step back. ‘I understand that Abraxes warped your

  minds and implanted in you the belief that your rebellion was your own

  idea. There must have been something dark and heretical in your souls

  to begin with, to let his influence in. You were the weakest of all your

  Chapter, which is why it chose you as its instrument. You are

  damned, and death is too merciful for you however it is administered.

  That is what I believe.’

  ‘What a comfort it must be, Captain Borganor, to have the Dark

  Gods to blame for anything you are too afraid to understand.’

  ‘Brothers!’ came a cry from down the corridor. An Imperial Fists

  Scout was running towards them. He paused to salute Borganor.

  ‘Captain! Lord Vladimir requests your return to the Observatory. A

  verdict has been reached.’

  ‘Already?’ said Sarpedon.

  ‘There can have been little debate,’ said Borganor with a grim smile.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Then follow,’ said the Scout. ‘The accused must be present. Any

  sentence will be carried out immediately.’

  ‘Oh, I do not think anything will be immediate,’ said Borganor.

  ‘Remember, Sarpedon? As a child does to a fly?’

  The Imperial Fists closed in around Sarpedon, shepherding him

  back towards the Observatory of Dornian Majesty. Sarpedon glanced

  back at Borganor, who followed. There was nothing in the Howling

  Griffon’s demeanour to suggest he had any intention but to pull

  Sarpedon apart piece by piece, regardless of what Vladimir decreed.

  But he would decree execution, whatever form it was to take. There

  had been no doubt about that from the moment Sarpedon had squared

  up to Lysander on Selaaca. He had come to the Phalanx to die. He

  had taken comfort that his Chapter would be executed under the eye

  of Rogal Dorn, who at least would know that the Soul Drinkers were

  not the traitors the Imperium perceived them to be… But now, with

  Gethsemar’s revelation, even that was in doubt.

  Sarpedon would die alone. The galaxy was too cruel, he supposed,

  to have expected anything else.

  ‘It is done,’ said Brother Sennon. He clambered to his feet, unsteady,

  his knees having locked up during his long prayer.

  ‘What did you ask Him for?’ said Luko. There was sarcasm in his

  voice, but Sennon didn’t seem to have picked it up.

  ‘I asked Him for what He promises everyone. He grants us, if there

  is any piety in our hearts, a second chance. In our final moments we

  can be redeemed, if we are pure of heart when our souls come to be

  weighed against His example.’

  ‘We must leave,’ said one of the Imperial Fists escorting Sennon.

  ‘Time in the heretics’ presence is rationed. They are a moral threat.’

  ‘My soul is steeled against such things,’ replied Sennon. ‘I am frail

  on the outside, but there is none stronger within than a follower of the

  Blinded Eye.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said the Imperial Fist, ‘we all have our orders.’

  ‘Of course.’ Brother Sennon looked up and down the corridor of the

  Atoning Halls. At one end was a complicated rack, where Imperial

  Fists in the past had mortified their flesh to atone for some slight

  against the honour of their Chapter. At the other was a pair of blast

  doors, sea
led. ‘Is this where the Dreadnought is held?’ asked Sennon,

  walking towards the doors.

  ‘It is,’ replied the Imperial Fist. ‘We have no business there.

  Daenyathos, if it truly is he, will be dealt with separately when the

  judgement has been pronounced.’

  ‘To think of it,’ said Sennon. ‘He must be six thousand years old. He

  fought at Terra, you know, during the Wars of Apostasy. To us a time

  of legends, to him, living memory.’

  ‘Past deeds mean nothing when corruption rules the present,’ said

  the Imperial Fist. ‘Brother Sennon, we must leave.’

  Sennon was right in front of the blast doors now. He placed a hand

  against them, as if feeling for a heartbeat. ‘Just a moment more,’ he

  said. ‘Just a moment.’

  Sennon turned back towards the Imperial Fists, a smile on his face

  like that of a saint rendered in stained glass. He seemed about to

  speak again, and then Brother Sennon exploded.

  The court was full, all the Space Marines in attendance to witness the

  condemnation of Sarpedon. After him the rest of the Soul Drinkers

  would be filed through here to receive their death sentences, but it was

  Sarpedon’s that really counted. In the eyes of those who wanted

  vengeance against them, Sarpedon was the Soul Drinkers, and his fate

  fell on them all.

  Reinez stood, arms folded, waiting for the sentence as if he were in

  attendance as executioner. It was more likely that Captain Lysander

  would do the deed, standing as he was beside the pulpit with his

  hammer in his hand. Commander Gethsemar wore his weeping mask

  again, perhaps to remember the Space Marines who had died at Soul

  Drinker hands. N’Kalo wore his helmet again – presumably it had been

  hammered back into shape in the forges of the Phalanx, and N’Kalo’s

  twice-ruined face was hidden once more. Chapter Master Vladimir

  stood among the Imperial Fists, ready to pronounce his findings.

  ‘The accused will take to the pulpit,’ said Vladimir.

  Sarpedon did as he was told. If there had been a time to fight back,

  save for the ill-fated lashing out in the Apothecarion, then it had long

  since passed. It would serve no purpose, either. He had no particular

  hate for the Space Marines who had gathered here to see him killed.

  He had been like them once, except perhaps a little more prideful, a

  little more arrogant. He did not even hate Reinez. A moment of pity,

  perhaps, but not hate.

  ‘Sarpedon of the Soul Drinkers,’ began Vladimir. ‘Words have been

  said for and against your conduct. The evidence gathered has been

  examined with criticism as well as zeal. I am confident that honour

  and tradition have been served in every action of this court, and that

  the conclusions we draw are true and just before the sight of Rogal

  Dorn and the Emperor Most High.’

  ‘May I speak?’ said Sarpedon.

  ‘Speak if you will,’ said Vladimir, ‘but our conclusions have been

  arrived at, and need only pronouncement. Your words will mean

  nothing.’

  ‘My gratitude, Lord Justice,’ said Sarpedon. ‘Space Marines, I call

  you brothers, though I know you think yourselves no brothers of mine.

  When I turned on Chapter Master Gorgoleon and took command of my

  Chapter, I did it because I saw in us a terrible corruption. Not the

  corruption of the warp, nor some darkness of the xenos, but a very

  human corruption of the soul. We believed ourselves to be superior, to

  be the shepherds of the human race, for we were ordained within the

  priesthood of Terra with the role of watchdogs and executioners. Yet

  that priesthood, and the Imperium it ruled, were the true enemy. For

  every human killed or made to suffer by the predations of the warp or

  the alien, a billion more are dealt the same fate by the Imperium. The

  Emperor is just a hollow figurehead now, an excuse for the cruelty the

  Imperium inflicts, yet when He walked among us He strove for the

  safety and glory of every man and woman. Would you have me grovel

  and beg for forgiveness, for leading my Chapter to do the will of the

  Emperor when it conflicted with the malice of the Imperium? The death

  of every Space Marine weighs on me. The Howling Griffons and

  Crimson Fists who died in our conflicts I feel as sharply as the deaths

  of my own brothers. But I will not say that I am sorry. I have done

  nothing wrong. And if the story of the Soul Drinkers causes any one of

  you to doubt the right of the Imperium to oppress and murder the

  Emperor’s faithful, then our deaths will not have been in vain.’

  Reinez met Sarpedon’s words with sarcastic applause, slow hand

  claps that echoed in the Observatory of Dornian Majesty. Everyone

  else was silent.

  ‘Then I pronounce on you the sentence of death,’ said Vladimir, ‘to

  be administered by the Imperial Fists swiftly, as befits the death of

  another Space Marine, and the striking of the name Sarpedon and

  those of all the Soul Drinkers from any bonds of oath or honour. To

  carry out this sentence I appoint Captain Lysander as executioner and

  Apothecary Asclephin as overseer. Sarpedon, you will be taken from

  this place to the Chapel of Martyrs where you will be killed, your body

  incinerated and any remains jettisoned into space. Your battlebrothers

  will follow. That is the pronouncement of this court.’

  Sarpedon bowed his head. It was as good as he could have

  expected.

  A stirring in the assembled Space Marines broke his train of

  thought. Several of them were looking upwards, through the dome. The

  smeared lights of the Veiled Region silhouetted a form approaching

  rapidly – a spaceship, smaller by magnitudes than the Phalanx, its

  engines burning full thrust as it hurtled right towards the dome.

  Fire spat towards it. The automated turrets of the Phalanx had

  activated in time and the shape exploded in the brief burst of flame that

  was sucked away by the vacuum a split second later. But the ship

  was not vaporised, merely blown apart, and a chunk of its hull still

  spun on its original course towards the dome.

  ‘The pilgrim ship,’ said Lysander. ‘Close the dome!’

  The dome was protected by armour plates that began to close like

  the lids of a huge circular eye, but every Space Marine could see it

  would not close fast enough.

  ‘Everyone out!’ yelled Vladimir. ‘We are betrayed! Enemies abound!

  Brothers, flee this place!’

  ‘The condemned seeks vengeance!’ shouted Reinez over the

  growing commotion as the Space Marines left their seats and headed

  for the exits, the burning mass of the pilgrim ship’s hull looming larger

  through the dome. ‘His allies want to take us with him! I will not flee

  while this traitor yet lives!’

  ‘Damnation, Reinez!’ yelled Lysander. ‘Get–’

  The hull segment crashed into the dome. The armoured shutters

  were halfway closed when it hit. The dome shattered, shards of thick

  armoured glass falling like knives. The air boomed out and a terrible

  half-silence fell, the shrieking of metal and the howling of flame muffled
/>
  as if coming from beneath the earth.

  Sarpedon’s augmented lungs closed his windpipes to preserve what

  air he had in his body. The disaster unfolded around him in slow

  motion. Space Marines were diving for cover from the chunks of

  burning metal raining down. In surreal slow motion, one Imperial Fist

  lost his leg at the knee, sheared off by a shard of the dome. Another,

  along with a Howling Griffon, disappeared under a torrent of twisted

  steel and fire. Space Marines were thrown aside as Vladimir’s honour

  guard fought to force him through the doors. Gethsemar’s Angels

  Sanguine leapt from the seats out through the entrances on the

  exhaust plumes of their jump packs.

  All was chaos. The bulk of the pilgrim ship’s hull was wedged in the

  blinded eye socket of the dome, but it had split open along the lines of

  its hull plates and was spewing torrents of burning wreckage into the

  dome. Sarpedon couldn’t see Reinez or Lysander, the two Space

  Marines who had been closest to him, and his body instinctively fought

  against his restraints.

  One part of him was screaming that he had no air, and that even a

  Space Marine’s three lungs could not hold out for long in hard vacuum.

  The other part fought to escape. Sarpedon had never tested his bonds

  in the pulpit properly, for there had never been any chance of him

  escaping beneath the sight of so many Space Marines. Now he pulled

  against the manacles and shackles with strength he was not sure he

  still had.

  The structure of the pulpit gave way. Hardwood and steel broke

  under the force. Sarpedon ripped his manacles off and grabbed the

  struts of the shackles that held his six remaining legs in place. They

  broke away, too, and Sarpedon, though still dragging his restraints

  behind him, was free.

  He ran for the nearest exit. A sheet of steel, a section of the pilgrim

  ship’s deck, fell like a giant guillotine blade, and he skidded to a halt

  just before it sliced him in two. He scrambled up it, almost as nimble

  over a vertical surface as a horizontal one, and saw ahead of him the

  blast doors closing. A klaxon was blaring, the sound transmitted

  through the floor and his talons, explosions like dull thuds all around,

  the whole chamber vibrating as metal tore. He saw a dying Howling

  Griffon, one side of his torso opened up, organs trailing from his torn