by Ben Counter
Imperial Fists and the Howling Griffons, and all the souls who had
come to the Phalanx for the trial of the Soul Drinkers, were going to die
there.
A terrible scream erupted from every direction at once. It was a
strong as a gale, and it shuddered the fabric of the Phalanx. Space
Marines stumbled, stunned by the force of the noise. But daemon
hands and blades did not take advantage of the distraction to cut the
Space Marines down.
The daemons were howling, but not with rage – they were struck
with a terrible anguish, dropping to their knees or just standing and
screaming. Iron swords fell from bloodletters’ hands. Horrors turned in
on themselves, liquid flesh imploding constantly as if trying to escape
to some place inside.
Vladimir shook the bedlam from his head. It was a sound of
abandonment and death, the dying cry of something tremendously
powerful, something that had not believed it could die.
‘Abraxes has fallen!’ yelled Vladimir, barely even to hear himself over
the echo in his ears. ‘The head of the beast has been struck off!
Brothers, sisters, sons and daughters of the Emperor! Call down death
on what remains!’
The Fangs of Dorn seemed to flash of their own accord in his hands,
stabbing through the crush of daemons around him. Gethsemar and
Daviks got to their feet, pushing back the horrors that had closed in
over them, and fought side by side as the warriors of their Chapters
carved through the mass to reach them.
Lord Inquisitor Kolgo shouldered his way into the shadow of the
daemon engine. His rotator cannon hammered volley after volley into
the bronze skull of the engine, and the machine reeled as if in shock,
the daemons possessing it unable to strike back. The Battle Sisters
accompanying the inquisitor lent their own fire, and heavy weapons
from Imperial Fists at the back of the battlefield sheared its legs off
and bored bleeding holes in its carapace. A burst of lascannon fire
severed its tail and the weapon toppled to the ground without firing a
shot. Stricken, the daemon engine let out a metallic groan as it sunk
to the ground, accompanied by the shrieks of the daemon spirits
inhabiting it.
Lysander led the way. His thunder hammer was a beacon that the
other Imperial Fists followed. It rose and fell, leaving mountains of torn
bodies and lakes of daemon blood in its wake. The Imperial Fists
rampaged over the barricades and stormed through the daemon forges,
clambering over the unfinished war engines to batter back the warp
spawn that tried to regroup to face them.
The daemons fought with no coordination or intelligence. Many
collapsed, flesh discorporating as the warp-magic that sustained them
in realspace failed. The Imperial Fists gathered in firing lines to shred
their enemies with bolter fire, or launched massed assaults with
chainblades and glaives. Siege-Captain Daviks and the surviving Silver
Skulls directed the heavy weapons towards the largest daemons, the
warp-heralds, before they could organise a resistance.
It was grim, bloody work. There was no joy in this victory. It was a
crude and brutal business, wading through the remains of the enemy,
as the Imperial Fists passed through the forges and pushed on
towards the cargo bays where the heart of the infestation had been
planted.
Varnica picked up the semi-conscious Sister Aescarion and carried
her clear of the collapsing portal. Abraxes was dead, his physical form
split almost in two by the shrinking portal, and his spirit ripped out and
thrown back into the cauldron of the warp to be punished. Luko and
Graevus knelt by the portal and Varnica followed their gaze as they
looked across the cyst to where the first of the Imperial Fists were
entering.
Lysander was the first to wade towards the collapsing portal,
through the blood which was choked with the bodies of daemons and
the strike force’s Imperial Fists. The captain cast an eye over the
carnage, over the unnatural warping of the ship around him, at the
sorry remains of Apothecary Pallas, Reinez, and the last of Prexus’s
squad.
‘Brother Varnica,’ said Lysander. ‘Is it done?’
‘It is done,’ said Varnica. ‘I and this Battle Sister, and these two
Soul Drinkers, are the only survivors. But it is done.’
Lysander stepped up onto the ground that broke the blood surface
around Abraxes’s throne. The throne of corpses was withering and
flaking into dust, as if years of decay were piling on them at once.
‘Captain Luko. And Brother Graevus, if I am not mistaken.’ He held out
a hand. ‘There is nothing left for you to fight for. I am sure that many
will argue for leniency, but you are still in the custody of the Imperial
Fists. Come with me.’
Luko stood up, and hauled Graevus unsteadily onto his feet. Beside
him, the portal had shrunk to just over head height, and Abraxes’s
body was cut all the way down through his abdomen, leaving the half
outside the portal completely severed.
‘Captain Lysander,’ said Luko, ‘there is no place in this galaxy for
the Soul Drinkers. Not in the cells of the Phalanx, or in the grip of
whatever punishment is decided for us. Not even in freedom. The whole
galaxy has been against us for so long that there is nowhere we could
go and nothing we could do. So no, we will not hand ourselves over to
your custody.’
‘I’m ready,’ said Graevus.
‘As am I, brother,’ said Luko. He looked back towards Lysander,
and the other Imperial Fists making their way into the cyst. ‘Wish us
luck. You are our brothers, in spite of everything. I have one thing to
ask of you. The inquisition tried to delete us from history. Please,
make sure that we are not forgotten.’
Luko helped Graevus limp towards the portal. Lysander watched
them go, and with a wave of his hand stayed the guns of his Imperial
Fists.
Luko and Graevus walked through the portal, into the warp, into
whatever waited for them there.
The portal closed completely, cutting off the madness of the warp
from realspace, and the cyst fell dark.
It was some time later, as the Imperial Fists and Howling Griffons were
killing off the last of the daemons running loose around the cyst, that a
blade of black energy sliced through the fleshy growths on the walls.
Behind the growth was a doorway from one of the other cargo holds, in
the direction of the Phalanx’s bridge. The blade was that of the
Soulspear, and it was in the hand of Sarpedon.
The Chapter Master of the Soul Drinkers was near death. Torn
stumps of legs dripped ichor. Half his face and one eye were a torn
mess, shredded by shrapnel still poking from the pulpy flesh. Open
bullet wounds, plugged by congealed blood, were livid against his
chest, and one arm hung shattered from a twisted shoulder joint.
Sarpedon seemed barely able to walk on the three legs that remained
– but the Imperial Fists did not see a defeated man. Wounded,
near
death, but not defeated.
Sarpedon placed the Soulspear’s haft back in an ammo pouch and
picked up a pale, tangled shape at his feet – a body, atrophied with
age, which had once been that of a Space Marine.
The Imperial Fists gathered without an order, their bolters levelled at
Sarpedon. Chapter Master Vladimir stood to their front, both Fangs of
Dorn in hand.
Sarpedon limped to where half of Abraxes’s corpse still lay, his
blood drying on the sigils scorched into the floor. They were all that
remained of the portal that had opened there. The Imperial Fists saw
the wounds on Sarpedon, the torn stumps of severed legs, the twisted
shoulder and dented armour. Sarpedon looked like he had gone
through enough to kill any other warrior of the Adeptus Astartes twice
over.
Sarpedon held up the body in his hand, carrying it by the scruff of
the neck. It was alive, and it looked across the assembled Imperial
Fists with fear on its face.
‘This is Daenyathos,’ said Sarpedon, ‘This is the man who brought
Abraxes forth from the warp. This is the man who manipulated my
Chapter and yours, because he believed that mankind had to suffer to
make it stronger.’
Imperial Fists took aim along their bolter sights at the mutant.
‘Hold your fire, brothers,’ said Vladimir.
‘But he was wrong.’ Sarpedon dropped his arm and let Daenyathos
hang down, dragging along the floor. ‘He thought mankind did not
suffer enough. But it suffers too much. Men like Daenyathos, like the
powers of the warp themselves, are symptoms of humanity’s misery.
But we can put it right.’
‘Just as you did, Sarpedon?’ said Vladimir. ‘You are the only one of
your Chapter remaining. Even if your path could redeem the Imperium,
how can it be walked when you yourself could not walk it?’
‘Because I was a fool,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘I did not see that
Daenyathos was pulling the strings. I walked into the role he had
prepared for me, and I almost played it to the end. But you have seen
my failings. You know the pitfalls. And when you fail, those who follow
you will learn from you, too. And we are the only ones who can begin
it. We, the Space Marines, we have the closest thing this Imperium
has to freedom.’
Lysander stepped forwards. ‘And what is to say that one of us will
take up this torch, Sarpedon?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘If you can ignore your conscience. If
you can see the Imperium in the new light the Soul Drinkers have
shone on it, and yet still do nothing to stem its suffering, then I
suppose there is nothing to say that. If you are content to continue
witnessing the death throes of the human race, that is. If you can think
your work complete when the Imperium devours itself day by day. If
you can do all that, then the light will die out here, with me. But if the
conscience of a single battle-brother here, or of any who even hear of
us, is inflamed as ours was, then it will burn on.’
‘You have said your piece, Sarpedon, ‘said Vladimir. ‘We must take
you back in. Your case will be decided anew. Daenyathos must be
punished. Cast down the Soulspear and let Lysander place you back
in custody. It’s over, all of it.’
Sarpedon looked down at the sigils branded on the floor around his
feet.
‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that only the blood of Rogal Dorn could open
the Eye of Kravamesh. And whatever flows through me, it is not Dorn’s
blood. Correct?’
The floor beneath Sarpedon glowed and smouldered. The thrum of
caged power reverberated through the cyst.
‘Sarpedon,’ croaked Daenyathos. ‘What are you doing?’
Light gathered and crackled, sending haphazard shadows across
the cyst.
‘Stop!’ shouted Vladimir. ‘We will open fire!’
‘The blood of Dorn,’ shouted Sarpedon over the growing sound,
‘flows through those who fight his fight. When he marched in the Great
Crusade, it was to save humanity in unity, not to unite it only to cast it
back into the dark. This was the Emperor’s goal. Though His road has
not been travelled for ten thousand years, you can put the human race
back on it. If you choose to. If you dare.’
Light crackled, flaring across the cyst like a tongue of flame from a
star. A crack in reality re-opened, the impossible colours of the warp
seething beyond.
‘Sarpedon! Screamed Daenyathos. ‘No! You do not know what lies
beyond!’
‘But you do,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘And I see how you fear it. Perhaps I
should fear it too. But I can fight it, and you cannot.’
Daenyathos’s last words devolved into a scream as Sarpedon
carried him through the portal, dragging the Philosopher-Soldier over
the threshold and out of reality.
The portal slammed shut behind them, its fires darkening again,
leaving only an echo of its power.
Sister Aescarion blinked in the light, her eyes struggling to kill the
glare. She had been asleep for a long time, and her head still pounded.
The last thing she remembered was Abraxes standing over her, his
grin turning to a scowl of frustration just as Luko dived into him, ripping
out the daemon’s eye. Everything after that had been a blur of noise
and fury.
She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed in which
she had awoken. She was in the apothecarion of the Phalanx. Dozens
of Imperial Fists lay comatose in the beds around her, their armour
piled up beside them, lifesign monitors blinking and beeping. A spindly
medical servitor trundled between them, reading off vitals and
administering doses.
Aescarion was a little unsteady on her feet. She was wearing the
shapeless under-robes that Battle Sisters wore when not in armour.
Her wargear was piled up beside her bed, and from the scars on her
armour and the blade of her power axe she wondered that she could
walk now at all.
She wandered through the apothecarion. All was cool and quiet, the
wounded tended by servitors or lying in suspended animation induced
by their catalepsean nodes. Aescarion felt the cold metal of the deck
on her bare feet as she walked out of the apothecarion and into the
great lofty passageway, one of many running most of the length of the
Phalanx.
Scaffolding stood against the walls, servitors and crew members
working at the dark stone that clad the passageway. Statues and
inscriptions lined the passage and a great panel of plain stone could
be seen between the scaffolds. The servitors and masons were
working at one of the lower corners with chisels and granite saws, a
drift of stone dust building up at the base of the wall.
Chapter Master Vladimir approached. His armour was clean and
repaired, but he still had the minor scars of the recent battles on his
face. The crew saluted and bowed their heads as he approached.
‘Sister!’ he said. ‘It is good that you are again among us. Varnica
explained to me your
actions at the portal.’
‘They are not something I wish to revisit,’ replied Aescarion. ‘I shall
meditate on them myself. Such things should be considered in
private.’
‘An Imperial Fist would be lauded as a hero,’ said Vladimir.
‘I am not an Imperial Fist. A daughter of the Emperor cannot be
prideful.’
‘Perhaps the same can be said of a Space Marine,’ said Vladimir.
‘Though even a Chapter Master must be careful to whom he says it.
Our next journey is to the Segmentum Solar, Sister. Lord Inquisitor
Kolgo suggested that we take the Phalanx to Saturn, where his
colleagues from the Ordo Malleus can assist in cleansing the
deamonic stench from this ship. It will take time, and no little
negotiation with the daemonhunters, but the Phalanx will fly as holy
ground again.’
‘That we stand her now tells me that Abraxes was defeated,’ said
Aescarion. ‘But what of our own? How many were lost?’
‘More than half those who fought,’ replied Vladimir. ‘A terrible blow.
But we will recover. We have done so before.’
‘And the Soul Drinkers?’
‘None remain,’ said Vladimir.
‘Then it is over.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Vladimir. He turned to continue up
the corridor in the direction of the bridge. Aescarion watched him go,
not sure what to make of his parting words.
She turned back to the wall, where the masons were starting to
work again. She walked between them, running a hand over the
surface, the still-rough letters awaiting detailing and polishing.
TYRENDIAN, read the letters that passed under her fingers.
LUKO.
GRAEVUS.
The next column bore the names of Imperial Fists – Sergeant
Prexus, who had died in the Panpsychicon, Castellan Leucrontas, all
the Imperial Fists who had died. And alongside them, listed as
brothers in death, were the Soul Drinkers.
SARPEDON, read the last name to be inscribed.
In a manner of speaking, it was over. The Soul Drinkers were gone.
Abraxes was destroyed. But the idea of them remained. Their names
were listed among the fallen, and in the Tactica Sigismunda the battle
in the cyst would be recreated. Generations to come would live in a
galaxy where the idea of the Soul Drinkers existed, an idea that had
so nearly died in the execution chambers of the Phalanx and the book