Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx

by Ben Counter

  been a dream and he had never left that stretch of marshland.

  But no. Iktinos was the enemy. Sarpedon was somewhere nearby.

  Iktinos dragged N’Kalo to his feet and wrapped an arm around his

  throat, hauled him into a corner and grabbed his bolt pistol off the floor.

  The muzzle of the pistol was against the side of N’Kalo’s head.

  Sarpedon stood in the middle of the gallery, unarmoured as he had

  been in the courtroom.

  ‘Iktinos!’ yelled Sarpedon. He could barely believe that the first Soul

  Drinker he had come across since his escape was engaged in fighting

  the one Space Marine who had stood up for the Chapter at the trial.

  Still stranger was that it was Iktinos, and that he had already found his

  armour and weapons.

  N’Kalo looked nearly dead. His face was barely recognisable as

  belonging to a human. One eye socket was a gory ruin. Iktinos had

  disarmed him, and now had him up as a human shield with a gun to

  his head.

  ‘Chaplain,’ called Sarpedon. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I am surviving,’ said Iktinos.

  ‘N’Kalo is my friend. Let him go.’

  ‘The Soul Drinkers have no friends. N’Kalo is coming with me.’

  ‘Hostages will do us no good, Iktinos! You know that!’

  ‘Then it is for the best that I have him, not you. Do not seek to follow,

  Sarpedon. There is only sorrow this way. Go to your brothers. They

  are rearming in the archives.’

  ‘What are you speaking of, Chaplain? Whatever fate waits for us

  here, are you not a part of it?’

  Iktinos dragged N’Kalo towards a pair of double doors at the far end

  of the hall. ‘Fight, Sarpedon! Fight on! That is what fate demands of

  you. Stand by your brothers and die a good death!’

  ‘I know that someone has guided us here without my realising.

  Someone has used me just as surely as Abraxes did. Is it you,

  Iktinos?’

  ‘Goodbye, Sarpedon. A good death to you, my brother!’

  ‘Is it Daenyathos?’

  Iktinos hauled N’Kalo through the doors. They boomed shut behind

  him. Sarpedon rushed forwards, trying to cover the ground to the doors

  before Iktinos could turn a corner and get out of sight.

  Sarpedon heard the tiny sound of the grenade hitting the floor. He

  threw his arms up in front of him, supernatural reflexes giving him the

  warning a split second before the grenade went off in his face. The

  doors were ripped off their mountings and slammed into him, throwing

  him back across the display room, crashing through captured arms

  and victory monuments.

  Sarpedon skidded along the floor on his back. When he came to a

  halt he brushed the debris from his eyes and saw the doorway was full

  of smoke and rubble. Sarpedon had no way of following Iktinos.

  Daenyathos. Rogal Dorn. The pilgrim ship’s suicide attack. Now

  Iktinos, with an agenda of his own. Everything Sarpedon had believed

  about the galaxy was falling apart, and he did not know how it could

  end but with his death and the deaths of every one of his battlebrothers.

  One thing that Iktinos had said made sense. Sarpedon had to fight.

  He had to win a good death, and help his brothers do the same. He

  owed himself that much. It was not much to fight for, but at that

  moment it was all he had.

  Sarpedon snatched up a sword from a fallen display behind him, and

  struck out for the archives.

  Sometimes a cold wind blew through the Phalanx. It was a trick of the

  ship’s atmospheric systems, or perhaps a random current created by

  the coolant pipes and superheated reactor cores of the engine sectors.

  It howled now through the science labs and triumphant galleries

  around the Observatory dome, strewn with wreckage. It picked up

  shards of debris and flapped the Imperial Fist banners that lined the

  way Chapter Master Vladimir had used to enter the now-ruined

  Observatory of Dornian Majesty.

  It stirred the dust in the Atoning Halls, whistling between the frames

  of the wrecked torture racks and the bars of the empty cells. A few

  Space Marines lay there, Soul Drinkers who had been caught in the

  worst of the explosion and killed. Their battle-brothers had taken a few

  bodies with them but some still lay where they had fallen, their torn

  bodies still chained in their cells.

  It turned the pages that lay on the reading tables in the archives. The

  reading hall was held by only a handful of Soul Drinkers, among them

  Librarian Scamander, the pyrokine who had not so long ago served as

  a Scout. He crouched in the shadows cast by the dim light and the

  enormous parchment rolls, waiting with the Soul Drinkers chosen to

  stand watch with him. When the enemy came – for they had to be

  called the enemy now, no matter what they had once been – they

  would come through here, and in force.

  The enemy was now gathering in the crew mess hall, which Captain

  Lysander had designated as the staging post for the assault on the

  Soul Drinkers. The Imperial Fists and Howling Griffons made up the

  bulk of the force and Lysander had already had to deal with the

  competing demands to be the first in against the Soul Drinkers. The

  Phalanx was Imperial Fists ground and they had the say on who

  should have the moments of greatest honour in the fight to come, but

  Captain Borganor had demanded that his Howling Griffons be given the

  task of charging into the archives and letting the first Soul Drinkers

  blood. Lysander had agreed, for the Soul Drinkers were enemy enough

  and he did not need vengeful Howling Griffons facing up to him as well.

  Commander Gethsemar picked up a handful of rubble dust from a

  collapsed wall, felled by the shockwave from the Atoning Halls

  explosion. He let the dust drift on the wind, as if it was a form of

  divination and from the eddies of the wind he could read the pattern of

  bloodshed unfolding into the immediate future. His war-mask was a

  death mask of Sanguinius, cast from the features of the divine

  primarch as he lay dying, felled by the Arch-Traitor Horus ten thousand

  years before. Sanguinius was unspeakably beautiful, and even stylised

  in gold and gemstones the death mask cast an aura of supernatural

  majesty that the Sanguinary Guard used as one of their deadliest

  weapons.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked Librarian Varnica of the Doom Eagles.

  Gethsemar turned to Varnica but his eyes were hidden behind ruby

  panes set into the mask’s eye sockets and his expression could not

  be read. ‘Such fates that intertwine here, my brother, are beyond any

  of us,’ replied Gethsemar. ‘Long have our sages tried to unravel them.

  Long have they failed. They strive even now, knowing that the future

  will be forever hidden from them, but that to endeavour in such an

  impossible task is its own reward. Our immediate task here is far from

  impossible, but I fear a greater undertaking is revealed that will never

  end.’

  ‘Explain,’ said Varnica. ‘As you would to a layman.’

  ‘Think upon it, brother,’ said Gethsemar. ‘Here Space Marine fights

  Space Marine. Ther
e is nothing new about that. But will it be the final

  time?’

  ‘I think not,’ replied Varnica.

  ‘Then you begin to see our point. What is a Space Marine? He is a

  man, yes, but he is something far more. He is told that he is far more

  from the moment he is accepted into his Chapter, when he is little

  more than a child. His earlier memories may not even survive his

  training. He may conceive in his own mind of no time but one where he

  was superior to any human being. What might result from a mind so

  forged?’

  ‘He has no doubt and no fear,’ replied Varnica. ‘Such alteration of a

  man’s mind is necessary to create the warriors the Imperium needs. I

  see it as a sacrifice we make. We give up the men we might have

  become to instead serve as Adeptus Astartes. If you believe this is a

  mistake, commander, then I would be compelled to differ with you.’

  ‘Ah, but there it is! Do you see, Librarian Varnica? It is true that what

  we do to our minds to make us Space Marines is as necessary as

  teaching us to shoot. But what sin is locked in to us through such

  treatment?’

  ‘Brutality?’ said Varnica. ‘Many times Space Marines have gone too

  far in punishing the Emperor’s enemies, and ordinary men and woman

  have suffered as a result.’

  ‘Brutality is a necessity,’ said Gethsemar. ‘A few thousand dead

  here and there mean nothing compared to the millions spared through

  the intimidation of our foes that our potential for brutality allows. No, it

  is a far deeper sin of which I speak, something not so far removed from

  corruption.’

  ‘Corruption is a strong word,’ said Varnica, folding his arms and

  straightening up. The threat was clear. ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘It is pride,’ replied Gethsemar. ‘A Space Marine does not just think

  he is superior to the ordinary citizens of the Imperium. He thinks,

  whether his conscious mind accepts it or not, that he is superior to

  other Space Marines, too. We all have our way of doing things, do we

  not? Would we all resist any attempt to change us, though violence

  may be the only route doing so can take? So prideful we are that

  Space Marines will never stop killing Space Marines. For every Horus

  Heresy or Badab War, there are a thousand blood duels and trials of

  honour brought about by our inability to back down. That is the real

  enemy we face here. The Soul Drinkers were turned from the Imperium

  by pride. It is pride that motivates us in destroying them, for all we talk

  of justice. Pride is the enemy. Pride will kill us.’

  Varnica thought about this. ‘Throne knows we all have our moments,’

  he said. ‘But the mind of a Space Marine is a complicated thing. Can

  such a simple thing as pride really be its key? And from the way you

  speak, commander, I would imagine you have a solution?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ protested Gethsemar. ‘The Sons of Sanguinius all accept

  that we are doomed. A Space Marine’s destructive pride is the only

  thing keeping us all fighting, and we are the only thing keeping the

  Imperium from the brink. No, it is our way to observe our in-fighting for

  the death throes they are, to understand what we truly are before the

  end comes.’

  Varnica smiled grimly. ‘For all your gilt and finery, Angel Sanguine,

  you are a pessimist. The Doom Eagles seek out the worst atrocities

  the galaxy commits because we want to put things right. It will not

  happen in any of our lifetimes, but it will happen, and it is the Space

  Marines who will do it whether we are too prideful for our own good or

  not. Why fight, if you believe all is lost no matter what you do?’

  Gethsemar shook out his hand, and the dust drifted away on the thin

  wind. ‘Because it is our duty,’ he replied.

  Lysander stomped past, hammer in hand. ‘Daviks and the Castellan

  are in position,’ he said. ‘Make ready. Two minutes.’

  Gethsemar and Varnica broke away to join their own squads. The

  main assault force, gathered in the mess halls, consisted of the Ninth

  and Seventh Imperial Fist companies and the Howling Griffons’

  Second. Varnica and Gethsemar’s squads were to follow the Griffons

  in and, if Borganor was to be believed, clean up the mangled remnants

  of the Soul Drinkers the Howling Griffons were sure to leave in their

  wake. Lysander was walking the lines, inspecting the Imperial Fists

  ranked up along the width of the crew mess hall. The rooms had been

  built for the normally proportioned crew of the Phalanx and the Space

  Marines could barely stand upright in it.

  Whole planets had been broken by fewer than the two hundred

  Space Marines that the Imperial Fists fielded for this battle. The

  Howling Griffons were impatient, broken up by squads to be spoken to

  in turn by Borganor. Lord Inquisitor Kolgo was there, too, at the back

  of the hall with his Battle Sisters bodyguard, looking more like a battle

  observer than a combatant in spite of his Terminator armour.

  Varnica returned to his squad. Sergeant Beyrengar, who had been

  elevated to squad command after Novas’s death, had gone through the

  pre-battle wargear rites and prayers already. There was little for

  Varnica left to do.

  ‘This is where the solution to that puzzle box lies,’ he said. ‘We have

  pursued the Soul Drinkers, though we did not know it, from the

  moment the heretic Kephilaes made the mistake of drawing our

  attention. What we began then, we finish here. We know what the

  Soul Drinkers are, and more importantly, we know what they are not.

  They are not our brothers. When you face one of them through a haze

  of gunsmoke, do not see a brother. See one more symptom of

  corruption, and excise him as you would any cancer of the human

  race.’

  ‘Borganor!’ came Lysander’s yell from the Imperial Fists lines. ‘The

  honour is yours!’

  ‘Gladly taken!’ cried out Borganor in reply. ‘Howling Griffons! Roboute

  Guilliman looks on! Let us show him a fight he will not forget!’

  The deck of the Phalanx shuddered as the Howling Griffons

  advanced.

  Scamander almost raised the alarm, but he realised that the silhouette

  entering the reading room was multi-legged. He stood and saluted.

  ‘Commander!’ he said. ‘We did not know if you were still alive.’

  ‘I had plenty of opportunities to die,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘I failed to

  grasp any of them.’ He shook Scamander’s hand. ‘How long do we

  have?’

  ‘Not long,’ said Scamander. ‘The Imperial Fists are gathering to

  attack us even now. They know we are here.’

  ‘And the plan?’

  ‘Hold the library stacks. Don’t die. Circumstances demand our

  tactics be simple.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We have your armour, and the Axe of Mercaeno.’

  ‘Then at least I will not die here unclothed! That would be too

  humiliating a way to go.’

  Scamander smiled. For all the battles he had fought and the dangers

  his psychic powers posed, he was still a youth. By the standards of

  the Soul Drinkers, he was just a
boy.

  Sarpedon headed through the reading room to the archway

  Scamander had indicated. It led to a maze of bookcases and tables,

  shelves of volumes stacked high to the ceiling, a thin layer of dust

  covering everything disturbed by the armoured footprints of the Soul

  Drinkers. Sarpedon glanced at the books – histories of Imperial Fists

  actions, battle-philosophy, stories of individual Imperial Fists and their

  deeds. Sarpedon was reminded of the chansons the Soul Drinkers had

  once written, epic poems to glorify themselves. Sarpedon had

  abandoned his own chanson when he had thrown Michairas, his

  chronicler, out of an airlock during the First Chapter War. The thought

  gave him an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

  Soul Drinkers saluted as he passed. He saw battle-brothers he had

  fought alongside for years. Some had argued against him, some had

  sided with him in everything, but they had all followed him into the

  Veiled Region. They had all accepted capture by Captain Lysander

  and the Imperial Fists without a fight, because he had ordered it. And

  they would die here, ultimately because he had ordered it.

  ‘Commander,’ said Sergeant Graevus as Sarpedon walked past.

  Sarpedon returned his salute and noted the Assault squad that

  Graevus had assembled from the Chapter’s survivors. He had picked

  veterans, bloody-minded Space Marines who could be trusted to give

  each centimetre of the stacks in return for buckets of blood shed by

  their chainblades. Sergeant Salk was instructing his squad, and

  paused to nod his own salute to Sarpedon. Sarpedon scuttled over

  makeshift barricades of upturned tables, and squeezed through the

  bottlenecks formed by the chaotic layout of the stacks. In the centre of

  the book-lined labyrinth, he found Captain Luko standing at a reading

  table.

  Luko grabbed Sarpedon around the shoulders. ‘Good to see you,

  brother,’ he said. ‘I thought the festivities would begin without you.’

  ‘I would not miss it for the galaxy,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘How many of

  our brothers do we have here for the celebration?’

  ‘A little under sixty,’ said Luko. ‘A few were lost in the escape.

  Pallas stayed behind. And others have gone missing. It is to be

  expected, I suppose, but it is strange…’

  ‘Iktinos’s flock,’ said Sarpedon.

  Luko took a step back. ‘How did you know?’