Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx

by Ben Counter

  of brotherhood has its benefits, but taken to extremes, I fear it can

  become a weakness as much as a strength. The history of the

  Imperium is a litany of failings caused by brotherhood misplaced.’

  Graevus bit back any reply. The Path of the Lost closed around

  them, the cramped warrens of cells forcing the Space Marines to split

  up, and it felt for all the galaxy as if the Phalanx was swallowing them

  whole.

  By the fires of the forges they had built, the daemons’ war engines

  were taking shape. One of them was a huge horned thing, a battering

  ram with cylindrical cages for wheels in which some of the lumbering

  daemon-beasts would doubtless be herded to drive it forwards. Another

  was a catapult with a shield mantlet reaching almost to the deck’s

  high ceiling, piles of alien skulls being heaped up behind it as

  ammunition. A machine like a massive mechanical crab was being

  assembled with tanks of some caustic bilious substance on its back,

  hooked up to the cannon on its coiling tail. Impish daemon-wrights

  scrambled over the surfaces of the war machines, while legions of

  bloodletters stood guard and the shapeshifting horrors of Abraxes

  swarmed in an endless squirming dance. The remains of the greater

  plague daemon had been dragged behind the tumbledown fortifications

  and putrefied into a cauldron of bubbling rot, from which more

  plaguebearers were being birthed by the minute.

  Lord Inquisitor Kolgo watched the flickering fires reflected off the

  pitted metal of the half-finished daemon engines. His Battle Sisters

  retinue shadowed him at a respectful distance as he leaned against a

  fallen wall behind which a couple of Imperial Fists had taken up their

  position in the line. ‘We will have to attack before they are finished,’ he

  said.

  ‘I know,’ replied Chapter Master Vladimir. ‘That is why Abraxes is

  building them. He wants us to emerge from safety and march towards

  them, to give them the defensive ground instead of us.’

  ‘And we will attack,’ said Kolgo. ‘We cannot stand back and give

  them the Phalanx. It is written in the fate that Abraxes loves to weave

  so much.’

  ‘It seems that you have divined the future, lord inquisitor,’ said

  Vladimir. Any bitterness in his voice was well hidden. ‘Abraxes is not

  the only one reading the runes.’

  ‘Fate has us all in its snares, Chapter Master. It is an inquisitor’s

  duty to perceive it.’

  ‘And what does fate say will happen to us?’

  ‘Truly? If you so wish, Chapter Master. Fate has decided that

  Abraxes shall bring his great cunning to bear and with it, defeat a force

  of brave but bull-headed Space Marines, bringing a great tragedy to

  pass.’

  ‘That is fate?’

  ‘That is fate.’

  ‘Then, lord inquisitor, I shall fight fate.’ Vladimir pointed to a knot of

  rubble in the no-man’s-land between the armies. It was the remains of

  a hero-chapel that had been toppled by the daemons’ advance. ‘There

  still stands the statue of Chaplain Pausanias,’ he said. ‘They could not

  topple him. See? He lacks an arm, and the rest of him has seen better

  days, but he stands.’

  ‘Like us?’ said Kolgo.

  ‘You miss my point. Pausanias was a dark seed. He was brought

  onto the Phalanx as a novice, recruited like thousands of others.

  Unlike most of them, he was found worthy as an Imperial Fist. But

  there was a darkness in him. A pride. He sought the greatest glory in

  battle, and battle-brothers died for his failings.’

  ‘A warrior’s sin, rarely acknowledged,’ said Kolgo.

  Vladimir ignored the inquisitor. ‘We saw too late what he was,’ he

  continued, ‘and when his charge against a gunline, seeking to capture

  the standard of the enemy, cost the life of his squad’s sergeant, he

  was banished to the Atoning Halls for his paucity of spirit. Fate had

  decided that Pausanias should be a lesson to us, lord inquisitor. He

  was destined to be a parable of warning to future novices, a disgrace

  as a Space Marine to be mourned and despised. But Pausanias was

  not resigned to accepting that fate. He scourged away his pride in the

  Atoning Halls. He returned lower than the novices, lower than our crew.

  He worked in the engines of the Phalanx, until the Chapter welcomed

  him back into its ranks. He died a Chaplain, a spiritual guardian of our

  battle-brothers, because he had fought that fate which had bound him

  so tightly and fought to live beyond it. He defeated his fate and is

  remembered here for it. I shall emulate him, if the Emperor wills it, and

  confound the designs of this daemon prince.’

  ‘It sounds to me, Chapter Master, that an Imperial Fist does not

  know when to give in.’

  ‘We do not know, lord inquisitor, what giving in even means.’

  From the shadows cast by the daemons’ fires, a Space Marine

  scout crept towards the Imperial Fist lines. The yellow of his armour

  was smeared with ash, as was his face, to break up his outline in the

  gloom.

  ‘Scout Orfos,’ said Vladimir as the scout got closer, ‘if these old

  eyes fail me not.’

  ‘You shame me, Chapter Master,’ said Orfos as he took his place in

  the line. ‘I should aspire to get within a knife thrust of you before you

  notice me.’

  ‘Friend and foe have tried, brother. That I still stand suggests no foe,

  at least, has succeeded yet. What news do you bring of the enemy?’

  ‘Within two hours, they will finish building their war engines,’ replied

  Orfos. ‘They are preparing rituals to possess them with daemons.

  Heaps of skulls and entrails piled up, and sigils wrought in blood, I

  have seen. They have brought supplicants through, still human, though

  barely, and they writhe and chant to gain the attention of their gods.

  Such rites of the flesh I hesitate to describe, but the beasts they build

  will have a cunning born of their possession as well as their own raw

  strength.’

  ‘Can we survive them, if they are sent against us?’ said Vladimir.

  ‘I do not know if the Phalanx itself will survive them,’ said Orfos. ‘We

  counted six of them. The scorpion beast, the battering ram and the

  catapult are clearest to us from here. A burrowing worm of steel lies

  coiled and slumbering out of our view, with a contraption of brass and

  skulls that I suspect will house the spirit of a greater daemon and a

  beast of flesh knitted together, as if predators of the warp had been

  butchered and their carcasses divided to be formed into one single

  monstrosity. All look as if they are nearing completion.’

  ‘You and your brother scouts have done well,’ said Vladimir.

  Orfos saluted and headed back through the lines to join the other

  scouts arriving in ones and twos from their mission.

  ‘Then within two hours,’ said Kolgo, ‘we attack.’

  ‘That is one fate I will not seek to avoid. My Fangs of Dorn have not

  seen enough blood yet, not quite.’

  ‘If Luko’s mission does not succeed, this will be the last the Phalanx

 
; sees of any of us.’

  ‘Are you afraid, lord inquisitor?’

  Kolgo replied with a smirk and turned back towards the centre of the

  Imperial Fists position, where his Battle Sisters were waiting patiently

  for their master.

  When Kolgo was out of earshot, Vladimir looked again towards the

  daemon engines growing more complete by the moment. He took the

  Fangs of Dorn in his hands, their blades scarred with burning daemon

  blood and muttered to himself.

  ‘Is it wrong that I have prayed for this?’

  By the time the strike force of Imperial Fists and Soul Drinkers

  reached the Panpsychicon, two more of Prexus’s squad had been

  lost. In the warren of cells and tunnels, where the Space Marines were

  forced to move through each junction and bottlenecks in knots of two

  or three, unseen foes had snatched at them from the darkness.

  Befanged faces had loomed, gnashing and spitting bile. The walls

  had fallen in, or pits had opened in the floor. Cackling creatures had

  flitted past junctions ahead, too quick to see or shoot. One Imperial

  Fist had been dragged into a cell by hands of shattered, bloody bone;

  by the time his battle-brothers had reached him, there was nothing left

  in the cell but torn scraps of ceramite and the blood slathered across

  the walls and ceiling.

  The second had been killed by invisible hands as his brothers

  watched. Even as they tried to haul him down from the ceiling where

  he had been carried, his head was wrenched around almost

  backwards and his spine snapped. The forces holding him had

  dissipated instantly, dropping the corpse to the deck and leaving only

  silence behind.

  So the strike force warily emerged into the wide space ahead of

  them, leaving the labyrinth behind, only to wonder where the next

  threat would come from.

  ‘What is this place?’ said Luko, the first to step out of the cell block

  tunnel.

  ‘The Panpsychicon,’ said Prexus behind him. ‘An experiment.’

  ‘Was it successful?’ asked Luko.

  ‘It had lain down here unused for two hundred years,’ replied Prexus.

  ‘Is that answer enough?’

  The circular expanse of the Panpsychicon was bounded by smooth

  walls inlaid with mosaics. The names of a hundred great battles from

  Imperial Fists history were depicted there in patterns of brightly

  coloured stone shards, surrounded by complex heraldries that

  spiralled into an unbroken pattern. Even the name Terra was picked

  out among the heraldry, commemorating the part the Imperial Fists

  had played in the battle for the Emperor’s Palace ten thousand years

  before.

  In the centre of the Panpsychicon was a device of steel and crystal

  that reached the ceiling, something like a set of interlocking spider’s

  webs in which were suspended cut slabs and chunks of crystal like

  giant gemstones. A rainbow of colours reflected from every surface,

  creating a maddening nest of shapes and light that refused attempts to

  view it as a normal object in three dimensions.

  Luko’s foot disturbed a manacle set into the floor. It was one of

  dozens set in concentric circles around the central device.

  ‘Some enemies resist traditional interrogation techniques,’ said

  Prexus. ‘Psykers amongst them. The Panpsychicon was built to rid

  them of their mental barriers.’

  ‘It is a machine,’ said Sister Aescarion, ‘for grinding down men’s

  souls? The Inquisition makes use of such things, but with varying

  success. And never have I seen one on such a scale.’

  ‘These are matters of the past,’ said Prexus. ‘We must press on.

  We close on the cargo sections, but we must not allow ourselves to

  be slowed further.’

  The whole room shuddered. Handfuls of dust spilled from cracks in

  the ceiling and the mosaiced walls shed their tesserae. The

  Panpsychicon’s device shone and glimmered as its crystals shook

  and, with a grinding sound from beneath the floor, began to rotate.

  ‘How many died down here?’ asked Luko, crouching to keep his

  footing as the room shuddered with greater strength.

  ‘That depends,’ said Prexus, ‘on what you mean by “die”.’

  Shapes of captives, manacled to the floor, flashed in the strange

  colours of light emitted by the spirit-grinder device. Crackles of light

  played across the walls.

  ‘Go,’ said Luko. ‘Go, get through. Do not give it the chance to…’

  Luko’s sentence was cut off by the burst of energy that tore across

  the Panpsychicon. The Space Marines were picked off their feet and

  slammed into the wall, shattering the mosaics beneath them.

  Shackles of lightning held them there, struggling against the force.

  Graevus’s mutated arm pushed free of his restraints but the rest of him

  was held fast.

  Luko tried to shut his eyes, but the same force holding him in place

  was prising them open. He forced himself onto his side and pushed

  with an arm and a leg, feeling some give in his bonds.

  ‘Resist!’ he yelled over the growing sound, a rumble combined with a

  skull-shuddering whine, emitted by the spirit-grinder as it opened up

  into a mass of articulated arms dripping with shimmering crystals.

  ‘Resist it. Fight back!’

  Luko’s bonds snapped. He slid to the floor, still pushed back by the

  wall of psychic power pulsing from the centre of the room. He could

  see Sister Aescarion screaming as her body, without the

  strengthening augmentations of a Space Marine, was battered against

  the wall like a plaything in the hand of a spiteful child.

  Luko took a painful step towards the centre of the room. The

  apparitions manacled to the floor were writhing, contorted impossibly,

  as he stepped through them, forcing himself forwards.

  All I want is peace, said a voice in the back of his head.

  ‘No,’ said Luko. ‘No. Get out! Get out!’ He pushed forwards another

  step.

  He caught sight of his hands. The lightning claw gauntlets were

  gone. His hands were pitted and rotten, dead flesh peeling away from

  bone eroded by disease.

  He forced himself to see the gauntlets and they crackled back into

  view, the illusion banished from his mind.

  ‘Do not believe it!’ he shouted, not knowing if anyone could hear him.

  ‘We are Space Marines! We shall know no fear!’

  The force was gone. Luko fell to the floor. But it was not the deck of

  a spaceship – it was mud, wet and deep. The hand he threw out to

  steady himself sunk into the mud up to his elbow and he felt it cold

  against his face.

  Something whistled overhead. An artillery shell. Gunfire crackled

  from all directions.

  Luko was surrounded by war. Mud and trenches, battalions charging

  to their deaths, armies locked face to face in dense jungles and

  shattered cities. Burning fighter craft fell like comets overhead.

  Battleships overturned, spilling thousands into an ocean covered with

  burning oil.

  Luko had been in wars before. He had spent his life in them. But this

  was different. This was every war he had eve
r seen, every one he had

  ever heard of or imagined, all layered on top of one another in an awful

  mass of solid conflict and death.

  He could see billions dying. He could see the face of every man and

  woman, no matter how distant or confused the slaughter, as they died.

  They struggled along the gore-filled trenches holding their guts in, laser

  burns all over their bodies, begging for the Emperor to deliver them

  death. A legion of them crawled on their bellies, blinded by clouds of

  corrosive gas, vomiting up a bloody torrent as their insides were eaten

  away. They screamed in silence, the sound robbed from their voices

  as they fought against the mudslides and building collapses that

  entombed them, their lungs crying out for breath they could not draw,

  limbs and organs crushed. They fell from the sky and were driven mad

  by the blind horror of a thousand battlefields hurtling up at them. They

  drowned. They burned alive.

  The endless battlefield spread out as far as Luko could comprehend

  in every direction, and some monstrous trick of dimension told him

  that it went on forever. It was above him, where the embrace of the void

  snatched the breath and life from crewmen thrown from ruptured

  spacecraft. It was below him in the intense heat and pitch darkness

  where armies fought like rats, ignorant of friend or foe, reduced to

  terrified animals murdering one another with bare hands and teeth.

  The weight of it, the certainty of its unending malice, slammed down

  on Luko and he could not get to his feet. He was in a filthy trench

  choked with bodies, a carnivorous jungle humming with disease and

  the bloating foulness of the dead, a ruined city where men died over a

  bullet-ridden room or a deathtrap crossroads, the hull of a dying

  spacecraft where all was darkness and fire. He was at the heart of

  every war that had ever been fought or ever would, and before him was

  played out every violent death that the galaxy would ever see.

  His body was rotting away because he was dead, and yet he could

  not die. Death itself was not an escape. He would be here, witness

  this, forever.

  It was not real. Luko knew it was an illusion. But it was not

  something projected into his mind – it came from inside him.

  ‘Captain!’ yelled someone very far away, with the unfamiliar cadence

  of a woman’s voice. ‘Captain, focus! Drive it out! Hear me!’