Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx

by Ben Counter

  wraiths that had nearly killed so many of them. Sarpedon’s armour

  was there, battered by his struggle with the necron overlord. Luko’s

  own armour, too, with the haphazard heraldry of his career as a

  renegade painted over the dark purple of the Chapter’s livery.

  Beside the armour were the weapons. Boltguns racked up as if in an

  armoury. The Axe of Mercaeno, Sarpedon’s own weapon. Sergeant

  Graevus’s power axe and Luko’s lightning claws, the huge armoured

  gloves with their paint scorched and peeling by the constant

  discharging of the claws’ power fields.

  ‘The evidence chamber,’ said Tyrendian with a smile.

  ‘Arm up!’ yelled Luko. ‘Tyrendian, check around and find ammunition

  and power packs.’

  ‘Perhaps we can make a stand after all,’ said Salk as he saw the

  arms displayed before him. Several Soul Drinkers were already going

  for their armour, while Sergeant Graevus had gone straight for his

  power axe. With the axe in the sergeant’s mutated hand he suddenly

  looked more like a Soul Drinker, more like a warrior, and less like

  anyone who could have been held captive.

  Luko slid a hand into one of his lightning claw gauntlets. Its weight

  felt tremendous, and not just because Luko hadn’t yet donned the

  power armour that would help compensate for its size.

  ‘I used to dream,’ he said to Salk, ‘of all this ending peacefully. At

  least, I told myself, an execution is not a battle. But there is one last

  battle now. You would have thought I’d have learned by now that there

  is always one last battle.’

  ‘Captain?’ said Salk.

  ‘I hate it,’ said Luko. ‘Fighting. Bloodshed. I have come to hate it. I

  have lied about this for a long time, Sergeant Salk, but there hardly

  seems much point now.’

  ‘I can barely believe you are saying these things, captain.’

  ‘I know. I disgust myself too, sometimes.’

  ‘No, captain,’ said Salk. ‘You don’t understand. You hate war, but

  you fight it because you know you must. There is nothing to disgust in

  that. Sometimes I take pride, or even pleasure, in it, and I take that

  and carry it with me to bring me through the worst of it. But without

  that, I do not know how I could fight. You are braver than I, Captain

  Luko.’

  ‘Well,’ said Luko, ‘that’s one way of looking at it.’

  ‘Let’s make our execution a little more interesting, brother,’ said

  Salk.

  Luko clamped one of his greaves around his left leg. ‘Amen to that,

  brother.’

  The commanders gathered in the Crucible of Ages, safe from the

  decompression zones around the Observatory. In the ruddy glow of the

  forges they first counted off their surviving battle-brothers, appointed

  officers to take note of the dead, and then turned to the task of

  recapturing the Soul Drinkers.

  There was no doubt that the Soul Drinkers had engineered their

  escape, with the use of accomplices among the pilgrims who had

  been allowed onto the Phalanx to observe the trial. Castellan

  Leucrontas had been silent as the commanders discussed their

  losses and the state of the Phalanx, for it was only a matter of time

  before his decision to allow the pilgrims onto the ship was examined.

  No Angels Sanguine had been lost, added to which Commander

  Gethsemar and his Sanguinary Guard seemed completely

  unblemished by the carnage. Howling Griffons had died. Imperial Fists,

  present in the greatest numbers, had lost correspondingly the most.

  One Silver Skull and two Doom Eagles were missing, presumed dead

  and cast into the void by the explosive decompression. Crewmen in

  void suits were already taking their first steps into the Observatory

  dome, to hunt for the fallen among the torrents of scorched wreckage,

  but hopes were not high that survivors would be found.

  ‘Brothers!’ came a shout from the entrance to the Crucible of Ages.

  Reinez, severely battered and bloodied, walked in, dragging an

  unarmoured Space Marine behind him. Reinez’s armour, which had

  been in poor repair when he had arrived on the Phalanx, was now so

  filthy with blood and scorch marks that the colours of the Howling

  Griffons were barely discernible. ‘Are you looking for answers?

  Perhaps a few explanations? I have done what you cannot do by

  bickering among yourselves, and found you some!’

  Reinez shoved the Space Marine into the centre of the Crucible. The

  captive showed no resistance, and fell to his knees.

  ‘It is good that you are alive, Reinez,’ said Chapter Master Vladimir.

  Siege-Captain Daviks stepped forwards and lifted the bowed head of

  the Space Marine.

  ‘He’s a Soul Drinker,’ said Daviks, pointing to the chalice symbol

  that marked the centre of the surgical scars on the Space Marine’s

  chest. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Apothecary Pallas,’ said the Soul Drinker.

  ‘One of the accused,’ said Vladimir. ‘You were to be executed. Why

  did you not flee with the rest of the condemned?’

  ‘Because we are not free,’ said Pallas. ‘I do not know why we were

  released, or who is responsible, but we did not seek it. I have been

  manipulated before, by Abraxes when our Chapter first turned from the

  Imperium, and I will not be used like that again. If I am to be executed

  here then so be it. I do not care about that any more. But I will not be

  a pawn in the scheme of another.’

  ‘Then who?’ demanded Daviks. ‘Who committed this outrage? My

  battle-brothers died because someone set the Soul Drinkers loose.

  Answer me!’

  ‘I don’t know!’ retorted Pallas. ‘Someone who benefits from a battle

  on the Phalanx. Someone who wants a last laugh from the Soul

  Drinkers before we are gone. Your guesses are as good as mine.’

  ‘They have left this one behind to sow confusion,’ said Daviks to the

  other Space Marines. ‘Recall the strategies of cowardice, as

  recounted in the Codex Astartes!’

  ‘There has been dissent in the ranks of the Soul Drinkers before,’

  said Vladimir. ‘They turned on one another at Nevermourn. Reinez, you

  witnessed that, I believe. That this Apothecary chose not to follow his

  brothers in evading justice is not impossible.’

  ‘Dissenter or not,’ said Reinez, ‘we should get everything he knows

  out of him.’ Reinez took a tool from the closest forge – its metal

  prongs glowed from the heat. ‘I suggest we not delay.’

  ‘There will be no need for that,’ said Vladimir. ‘If he is here to

  misinform us then he will be prepared to spread lies under duress. If he

  is not, then there is no need for the infliction of suffering.’

  ‘Then what are we to do with him?’ sneered Reinez. ‘Give him a

  commission?’

  ‘He is an Apothecary. He can help tend to the wounded,’ replied

  Vladimir. ‘Apothecary Asclephin, you will oversee his work once he

  has answered one question.’

  ‘Name it,’ said Pallas.

  ‘Where is Sarpedon?’

  Pallas looked up at Vladimir. ‘The last I knew of it, he was in the


  courtroom. You are in a better position to know his whereabouts than

  I.’

  ‘Space Marines died in his escape’ said Vladimir. ‘You understand

  that justice will fall on him sooner or later, and that your own manner of

  death will depend on how satisfied we are with your part in that

  justice.’

  ‘I barely care for life or death any more, Chapter Master,’ said Pallas.

  ‘I do not know where he is. Decide among yourselves if I speak the

  truth, but I know that I do.’

  ‘Another question, with which our Soul Drinker friend may not be

  able to help us,’ said Gethsemar smoothly, ‘is the location of Captain

  N’Kalo.’

  Instinctively, the Space Marine officers looked around the Crucible.

  They were all there save for N’Kalo. His Iron Knights were present, but

  not their commander.

  ‘He made it out of the dome,’ said Daviks. ‘I saw him.’

  ‘But he did not make it here,’ answered Gethsemar.

  ‘Then locating him is a priority,’ said Vladimir, ‘but not one as high

  as locating Sarpedon and the Soul Drinkers who broke out of the cell

  block. If they have a plan then it most likely involves them staying

  together. If we are to break them with a minimum of losses, we must

  do so quickly, before they dig in. Lysander!’

  ‘Chapter Master?’ said Lysander with a salute.

  ‘You will lead the hunt. You have our three companies at your

  disposal. Officers, I ask that you cede command to Lysander in my

  name, and that he send your battle-brothers as he sees fit. I need no

  reminding of the protocols it breaks to request you place yourselves

  under the command of another Chapter, but this is not the time to

  dally over such things.’

  ‘I will kill Sarpedon,’ said Reinez.

  ‘You will not put the lives of my battle-brothers at risk,’ said Vladimir.

  ‘If it is expedient, another will eliminate Sarpedon, not wait for your

  permission.’

  ‘My oath of revenge is more important than life.’ Reinez shoved

  Pallas aside as he took a few steps closer to Vladimir. ‘Even the life of

  a brother.’

  ‘And delivering Dorn’s justice upon the Soul Drinker is more

  important than either,’ said Lysander, putting a hand on Reinez’s

  shoulder pad. Reinez shrugged it off angrily.

  ‘For one who despises time wasted in talking,’ said Gethsemar,

  ‘Brother Reinez does enjoy his little speeches.’

  Reinez gave Gethsemar a look that could have killed a star, as the

  officers rallied their Space Marines for the hunt.

  Captain N’Kalo forced off the slab of wreckage that pinned him down.

  His ears rang and the world was painted in blotchy blacks and reds.

  He was somewhere in one of the Phalanx’s tribute galleries, the deck

  divided into displays of art, standards and captured arms evoking the

  history of the Imperial Fists.

  The ceiling had collapsed on him as he fled the dome. The galleries

  had sealed behind him before they were decompressed, but the

  shockwaves of the pilgrim ship’s suicide attack had caused enough

  damage of their own. N’Kalo saw he had been trapped beneath a

  spiderlike carapace, complete and preserved in a transparent layer of

  resin, which had been mounted on the ceiling to give the impression it

  was about to ambush visitors to the galleries from above. The

  carapace was that of a creature with ten legs and a span of four or five

  metres across, and still bore the charred bolter scars that had felled it.

  It was the relic of a battle millions of miles and probably thousands of

  years distant.

  On one side of N’Kalo was a mural of Imperial Fists dragging the

  enemy dead from sucking tar pits on a primeval world of volcanoes and

  jungle. The enemy had the blue-grey skins and flat features of the tau,

  xenos who had tried to expand into Imperial space and been fought to

  a stalemate at the Damocles Gulf. On the other side were armour

  plates torn from a greenskin vehicle, a strange, brutal majesty in the

  savage simplicity of their skull and bullet designs and the blood that

  still stained the lower edges of a tank’s dozer blade.

  N’Kalo tried to get his bearings. He did not know if he was alone. He

  looked and listened around him, trying to find crewmen or Space

  Marines through the displays and sculptures.

  The hiss of a nerve-fibre bundle reached his ears. The clicking of one

  ceramite plate on another.

  ‘Brother?’ called N’Kalo. ‘Are you hurt? Speak to me!’

  There was no reply.

  N’Kalo tensed. Perhaps Sarpedon had survived the attack, and was

  free. Perhaps the other captive Soul Drinkers were free, too. He could

  not afford to think of the Phalanx as safe ground any more. For all he

  knew, this was enemy territory.

  N’Kalo drew his bolt pistol. He wished he had his power sword with

  him, but he had stowed it in his squad’s cell-quarters when he had

  exchanged it for the executioner’s blade in the duel.

  On the wall next to the vehicle armour plates hung a bladed weapon

  shaped like a massively oversized meat cleaver, with teeth and jagged

  shards soldered to its cutting edge. A greenskin weapon. N’Kalo felt

  distaste as he lifted it from its mountings and tested its weight. A

  xenos weapon, and one that no Iron Knight should ever use, but

  circumstances were extreme.

  A shadow upon a shadow, through arches between the trophies and

  memorials, coalesced into the shape of a power-armoured figure.

  N’Kalo ducked out of sight, behind the mural of the Imperial Fists’

  victory over the tau.

  ‘I spoke for you,’ said N’Kalo. ‘No one else would. I spoke up for your

  Chapter! Do what the court did not and listen to me.’

  Something metal clattered to the floor. Ceramite boots sounded on

  the tiles.

  ‘Give yourself up, brother,’ continued N’Kalo. ‘If you will not, if you

  fight us here, your fate will only be worse.’

  ‘It is not my fate,’ came the reply, ‘with which you should concern

  yourself.’

  N’Kalo did not recognise the voice. It had an edge of learning and

  confidence, a calmness quite at odds with its potential for violence.

  ‘Name yourself,’ said N’Kalo.

  ‘You will know my name soon enough,’ came the reply.

  N’Kalo risked a glance past the mural. The muzzle of a bolt pistol

  met him. He ducked back as the gun fired, blasting a shower of

  wooden shards from the edge of the wall.

  N’Kalo dived past the other side of the mural, head down, barrelling

  forwards. He crashed through a display of captured standards, leaping

  the plinth to close with his enemy.

  The bolt pistol fired again. N’Kalo took the shot on his chest, feeling

  blades of ceramite driven into his ribs. Not too deep. Not too bad. He

  would make it face to face.

  N’Kalo led with his shoulder and slammed into his assailant. He saw

  not the purple armour of a Soul Drinker, but the skull-encrusted black

  of a Chaplain. The chalice on one shoulder pad confirmed the Chapter,

  however.
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br />   Iktinos. The Chaplain of the Soul Drinkers, and the man considered

  the most likely moral threat among the captives until Daenyathos had

  been dug up. The second man slated for execution after Sarpedon.

  Armed and armoured, and free.

  N’Kalo drove the greenskin blade up under Iktinos’ arm. Iktinos

  wrenched his own weapon around quickly enough to lever the blade

  away from him, throwing N’Kalo onto the back foot. N’Kalo realised

  with a lurch that Iktinos carried the crozius arcanum, the mace-like

  power weapon that served as a Chaplain’s badge of office.

  Iktinos smacked his bolt pistol against the side of N’Kalo’s head.

  N’Kalo reeled, one side of his battered helmet caved in again along the

  cracks opened up by Reinez.

  ‘Kneel,’ said Iktinos, bolt pistol levelled at N’Kalo’s face. ‘Kneel and

  it will be quick. Is that not what the Soul Drinkers were offered?

  Submission for a quick death? Then that is what I offer you, Captain

  N’Kalo of the Iron Knights.’

  N’Kalo dropped to one knee and grabbed one of the standards he

  had knocked onto the floor. It was an iron spear with a ragged banner

  hanging from it, the standard of some rebellious Imperial Guard

  regiment.

  Another shot caught N’Kalo in the head. His helmet was torn open

  and one eye went black. N’Kalo thrust the standard pole forwards with

  everything he had, catching Iktinos in the hand and throwing the bolt

  pistol off into the shadows.

  N’Kalo fell back onto one knee. He wrenched the ruined helmet off

  his head. He felt hot blood flowing down his face and his fingers

  brushed wet, pulpy mass where one eye had been. His head rang, and

  it felt like his skull was suddenly a few sizes too small.

  A fractured skull, then. He had suffered that before. Not the worst.

  He could fight on.

  Iktinos strode forwards, crozius in his good hand. He swung it down

  at N’Kalo, who deflected it away with the greenskin blade he snatched

  off the floor at the last second. The blade shattered like glass and

  N’Kalo was driven onto his back by the force of the blow. He reeled,

  his good eye unable to focus, Iktinos just a black blur over him.

  ‘Iktinos!’ yelled Sarpedon. For a moment Iktinos thought that

  Sarpedon was the man attacking him, that he was back in the

  Eshkeen forests with his battle-brothers. Everything since then had