by Rob Sanders
‘Only you,’ Kersh announced to the temple without turning. ‘Phantom.’ There was no reply but for the chill on the air. The Excoriator turned but the revenant was nowhere to be seen. Kersh suddenly became aware of footsteps in the corridor approaching. The lamps returned to full brightness and the coolness dissipated. Snapping shut the casket and re-engaging the stasis field, Kersh turned just in time to see Gideon enter with Chaplain Dardarius. The Chaplain’s eyes narrowed and his gaunt expression soured. He made it clear he was unhappy with the Scourge’s proximity to the relic blade. Apothecary Ezrachi followed and behind him two strangers entered the chapel-reclusiam.
They were Adeptus Astartes. Excoriators. The first was like Dardarius, a Chaplain, also dressed in midnight black but sporting a hood and cloak mantle in the Chapter’s colours. The second wore the faded blue plate of the Librarius and a surcoat of tattered white identifying his rank as that of an Epistolary. Instead of a helm, a crafted metal hood protected the Librarian from both physical and psychic attack, and the willowy shaft of a war scythe rested in one gauntlet, the wicked blade-tip of the force weapon barely scraping the deck.
‘Corpus-captain,’ the Scourge acknowledged. Gideon looked uncomfortable.
‘May I introduce Chaplain Shadrath and Epistolary Melmoch,’ Gideon said, ‘attached to the Fifth Battle Company.’
Kersh looked to Ezrachi, whose eyes failed to meet his own, and then to Chaplain Dardarius, who glowered back. Both Shadrath and Melmoch walked out before the altar and the case containing the Dornsblade. Shadrath pulled back his hood to reveal a Chaplain’s helmet. From temple to jaw, the faceplate was decorated with a half-skull. He knuckled his forehead, the half-grille of his helm and then his breastplate – crossing from one heart to the other – before kneeling in front of the relic. Melmoch, whose piercing eyes and unguarded smile seemed out of place on the psyker’s weather-beaten face, merely kissed his fist before joining the Chaplain on the chapel flagstones.
‘No champions for the Feast were selected from the ranks of the Fifth,’ Kersh stated. ‘No offence intended, Chaplain.’
Shadrath said nothing, but came up off his ceramite knee and stared at the Scourge through the darkness of his helmet optics. The Epistolary looked to Kersh also, a knowing smile fixed on his odd features. ‘Then this is about the Stigmartyr,’ Kersh concluded. ‘You have found our sacred standard?’
‘We have not,’ Shadrath admitted, the grille of his helm reverberating with his grave words. ‘Though, we have lost over half our number in the endeavour.’
Kersh felt his face tighten. ‘I…’ he began.
‘…don’t have the words to express the loss of these brothers,’ Shadrath interrupted with plain but savage honesty, ‘both to their company and their Chapter.’
Kersh bridled. ‘Do you have intelligence of the Stigmartyr’s whereabouts or the movements of the traitors who took the standard?’
‘Our reconnaissance is sketchy,’ Shadrath said. ‘The enemy had the benefit of a clean escape and unchallenged withdrawal.’
The Scourge stared hard at the Chaplain’s half-skull helm. Without diverting his eyes, he said to Gideon, ‘Corpus-captain, we have returned the Feast’s contestants to their battle-brothers. Although Chaplain Shadrath is welcome to bathe in the hard-won honour of our contest victory, the Scarifica’s schedule is tight and we are needed above Eschara.’
‘You will not be travelling on to Eschara,’ Gideon told him.
‘What?’ the Scourge seethed, at last turning to face the corpus-captain.
‘Chaplain Dardarius and myself will see to it that the sacred Dornsblade is delivered safely to our home world. Have no fear of that.’
‘I am the victor, the champion of champions. It is my right to bear the blade back to our brothers and present it to Chapter Master Ichabod.’
Gideon offered him a data-slate he held in one gauntlet.
‘The Chapter Master has greater honours and greater need for you elsewhere, Scourge. You will not return to his side or even to the decimated First Company. You have been promoted, Kersh. You are corpus-captain of your own company, with all the power and responsibility that entails.’
Zachariah Kersh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Silence intruded on the gathering.
‘The Fifth…’ he said finally.
‘What is left of it,’ Chaplain Shadrath hissed.
When Kersh didn’t take the data-slate, Gideon stepped forwards and placed it in his ceramite fingertips. ‘Corpus-Captain Thaddeus is dead. Long live Corpus-Captain Kersh. Your orders, corpus-captain,’ Gideon said. ‘From Eschara. From the Chapter Master himself.’
Kersh stared down at the slate. ‘There must be some kind of mistake,’ he insisted. ‘An astrotelepathic error. A garbled communication. Some confusion with the message terminus or destination.’
‘I was the terminus,’ Epistolary Melmoch told him, the broad smile still clear on his warrior’s features. ‘There was no mistake. I transcribed Master Ichabod’s orders personally. He was very specific, as you can read on the slate I’ve prepared for you.’
The Scourge’s gaze was on the floor. His mind light years away.
Gideon spoke. ‘I have taken the liberty of setting your personal serfs to work on packing up your… belongings and transporting them across to the Angelica Mortis, the strike cruiser in whose shadow the Scarifica currently resides. Your strike cruiser, corpus-captain. You will not be alone, either. I’m sending Ezrachi with you. Shadrath tells me the Fifth are bereft of their Apothecary as well as their commanding officer and, Emperor willing, we shall make Eschara without need of his talents.’
Kersh looked to the old Apothecary. Ezrachi raised a crabby brow. The Scourge said nothing for a while. ‘Kersh,’ Gideon said. ‘This is a great honour.’
Kersh’s face was creased with lines of fresh vexation and responsibility. ‘I am corpus-captain of the Fifth…’ he said.
‘You are,’ Chaplain Shadrath confirmed.
‘Then may I have the chamber once more, to fully take on board the magnitude of such an honour and consult the Chapter Master’s orders?’
Melmoch, still smiling, bowed his head and withdrew from the chamber.
‘As you wish,’ Shadrath hissed through his helmet half-grille and followed.
Gideon offered his gauntlet. ‘I know we’ve had our differences,’ he said, ‘but what I saw you accomplish in that arena will stay with me the rest of my days. Let me be the first to congratulate you, corpus-captain.’
Kersh didn’t take the offered hand. He turned to face the altar. Eventually, Gideon let it drop and nodded. It was the Scourge’s way. As he left, with a sneering Dardarius at his heels, Kersh called, ‘I fear you may be the last to do that.’
Gideon stopped and nodded once again.
‘Kersh, to command is not to be liked, feared or even respected. It is to be followed. Every corpus-captain finds his way. Some ways are harder than others, but they are all lonely paths,’ Gideon told him. ‘That’s why I left you Ezrachi.’ With that, Gideon left the chapel-reclusiam.
Once again, silence reigned.
‘This is a mistake,’ Kersh said, looking up at the towering stained-glass tessellations of Katafalque and the Primarch Dorn.
‘As corpus-captain you must master the art of the politician,’ Ezrachi answered. ‘It’s never a mistake when the Chapter Master makes it.’
‘I’m the Scourge,’ Kersh said, not seeming to hear the Apothecary. ‘I was born a warrior. I was engineered to kill.’
‘You’re a killer, yes. But killers need to be led, sometimes by other killers. You think yourself not worthy?’
Kersh let the question hang.
‘You are the first Excoriator to win the Feast of Blades. The first of our kind to earn the primarch’s sword. This promotion is just reward for your efforts at the Feast. Also, you are justly qualified for such a position. Before you were the Master’s Scourge you were a squad whip.’
‘First with t
he Eighth, second squad. Then, like Tiberias, with the Vanguard – First Company.’
‘Then I fail to see the mistake.’
‘The Feast is a distraction. I am afflicted. The Chapter has lost its standard and shares that affliction. I must assume responsibility for the Stigmartyr’s loss and the damage done as a result. I was a fool to think the Master would welcome my return – with or without the Dornsblade. He cannot trust me by his side. This promotion is a convenience. A way to keep me at arm’s length. Like sending me to the Feast in the first place.’
‘From what I know of the Chapter Master, that seems unlikely.’
‘Have you fought by his side for most of your life, Ezrachi?’ Kersh challenged. ‘Been his blade where his could not be, bled in his stead and been the moment between his life and death?’
‘No,’ the Apothecary admitted.
‘Then tell me not of your observations from afar. I know Quesiah Ichabod. He is a fair and honourable master, the best of us by a light year. He is more than a man, but he is still human and feels as humans do. He is dying. Slowly and in agony because he took an assassin’s blade that should have been mine to turn aside or receive. I am the Scourge!’
‘You are human also,’ the Apothecary reminded him. ‘You may think this promotion a return for some perceived failure or betrayal, but I watch as your all-too-human guilt eats away at you, corpus-captain. You punish yourself enough for both you and the Chapter Master. You view the Darkness as an affliction, but perhaps this is the primarch’s wish. Like Ichabod you were spared the butchery of that dark day on Ignis Prime. You both live your pain but are meant for greater things. The Feast of Blades. Company command.’
‘Command?’ Kersh snorted. ‘You honestly think of me as a commander? I am my brother’s right hand and the blade in his blind spot, not a voice on the vox directing that blade. I am not strategist or tactician. I am an attrition fighter in the best traditions of our Chapter, but when I cross blades I little know what I am going to do next, let alone a hundred others. And of the hundred, why the Fifth? Why did it have to be the Fifth?’
‘There is a poetry to the thinking,’ Ezrachi admitted. ‘You think that you earned the displeasure of your Excoriator brothers at the Feast? Wait until you meet the remainder of the Fifth Company. Then you will come to understand the true hatred of brother for brother.’
‘Like the loathing Master Ichabod must hold for me?’
‘Perhaps that is the point. Or perhaps the Master still has much to teach you and this is in turn a much needed lesson. You said it yourself, we are attrition fighters. We endure as you will endure this new responsibility and all that goes with it.’
‘Does your tiresome advice go with it, Apothecary?’
Ezrachi chuckled. ‘I will give you honest counsel when I can. To be corpus-captain is not to have all the answers. You will lead the way and your brethren will follow, it is as simple as that.’
‘I am a poor choice.’
‘But you are the choice. These are the chains of command, Kersh, and they are binding.’ The Scourge nodded.
‘Now, corpus-captain, if you’ll excuse me I have staff and equipment to transfer to the Angelica Mortis.’
Kersh nodded once more and the Apothecary withdrew, leaving him alone again in the chapel-reclusiam. He approached the altar, looking up at Katafalque and Dorn. He placed his helm and the data-slate of Ichabod’s orders next to the Dornsblade and knelt before the glass representations. He thought on the trials of the Second Founding. Dorn’s own guilt and the agony of the Codex Astartes’ decree, the division of the Legion into autonomous Chapters. He considered the noble features of Demetrius Katafalque at his primarch’s side. The captain who bled with his men before the walls of the Imperial Palace, under the horrific onslaught of the Warmaster’s siege. Holding out for as long as he could. Putting his body between the enemy and his Emperor. Making them pay in blood for every treasonous step. Demetrius Katafalque, whom Rogal Dorn had designated the first Excoriator. The first Master of their Chapter. The Scourge rested his gauntlet on the pommel of his gladius. The weapon he’d received upon becoming a fully-fledged battle-brother, so many years before.
‘Were you ready?’ Kersh put to the stained-glass Katafalque.
The four men of the God-Emperor knelt before the cardinal’s throne.
‘You think it wise to treat the Adeptus Astartes thus?’
‘How many of their calling have you encountered?’ Pontifex Nazimir asked his brother ecclesiarchs across the ancient’s lap. They too wore their years of faith on their faces, but where the cardinal drooled into his vestments, his sycophants still revelled in the wiles of old men.
‘None,’ Convocate Clemenz-Krycek admitted.
‘They’re solemn bastards,’ Confessor Tyutchev complained bullishly. ‘Much in love with their own self-importance and genic heritage.’
‘Common Imperials fear them,’ Nazimir said. ‘They are in awe of their blood-bond with the God-Emperor – but in reality the Adeptus Astartes are little more than genestock slaves.’
‘We are still right to fear them,’ Clemenz-Krycek replied. ‘Surely it is hubris to ensnare the Emperor’s Angels and shackle them to our bidding.’
‘You talk of hubris – an Angel’s prerogative,’ Tyutchev interrupted.
‘I will, of course, be guided by your excellencies in this,’ Arch-Deacon Schedonski told them. ‘But I too have some misgivings about using the Adeptus Astartes in this way.’
‘You would ask them politely for assistance, would you?’ Nazimir teased.
‘No–’
‘For it would be futile. They think themselves removed from the concerns of modern men.’
‘They think of themselves,’ Tyutchev repeated, ‘as the giants of old, battling alien barbarians on far-flung worlds, repeating the mistakes of their failed crusade.’
‘They still look outwards,’ Nazimir said, ‘acting on orders given ten thousand years hence, from an Emperor who was not all He would be. They do not appreciate as we do, the God-Emperor’s divinity.’
‘They deny it.’
‘A brand of heresy in itself,’ Clemenz-Krycek agreed.
‘It would not be the first heretical thought an Adeptus Astartes has entertained,’ Nazimir chuckled darkly, and the four priests made the sign of the aquila.
‘Perhaps a deceit would be preferable,’ the convocate advocated. ‘A truth even, one that played to the Angel’s noble inclinations.’
‘There is no need for such subtlety,’ Nazimir insisted. ‘The Adeptus Astartes were built to fight, not to think. Obedience is wired into their cult observance and fealty to their forefather. Being a martial breed, they are at their best when issued with straight orders and instruction. Their power is ours to wield.’
‘What do you know of these Excoriators?’ Schedonski said.
‘They descend from Dorn’s blood, I think, and favour mortifications of the flesh. They are, of course, one of the Astartes Praeses and have many honours to their name, won garrisoning the Eye and battling the dark forces of the Black Crusades. Their recent history escapes me.’
‘What if this does not go to plan?’ Clemenz-Krycek asked. ‘What if they refuse?’
Nazimir considered the question. ‘The Angels Eradicant Third Company takes supplies and munitions at Port Kreel. A sizeable contingent of White Consuls approaches the subsector from victory in the Ephesia Nebula to the galactic east. Then, there is the Viper Legion on Hellionii Reticuli. We exchange one of their names for the Excoriators Chapter in the record and repeat, until some of these wayward scions finally listen to their God-Emperor’s wishes from our lips.’
‘What if they become unruly?’ Clemenz-Krycek put to the gathering.
‘The convocate has a point,’ Schedonski agreed. ‘We’ll be exposed. Defence force troops garrison the palace – common soldiers are not traditionally tolerated within its holy chambers.’
‘Worry not about our security,’ Confessor Tyutchev assur
ed them. ‘Our frater brothers will not allow violence against us.’
‘You are too close to the Redemptionists,’ Clemenz-Krycek warned.
‘To every shepherd a flock,’ the thick-set confessor replied. ‘Besides, we have the Sisters.’
‘It is settled then,’ Nazimir said and watched Tyutchev and Schedonski nod, followed finally by Clemenz-Krycek. Tyutchev took Cardinal Pontian’s hand. It was thin and frail with swollen joints and skin spotted with age. On one finger the cardinal bore a ring of office bearing the holy symbol of the Adeptus Ministorum. Tyutchev bowed his head to kiss the ring. With his lips to the sacred symbol he squeezed the cardinal’s hand. Crushing several bones within, the confessor prompted the dribbling ecclesiarch to momentarily break his aged insensibility and groan.
‘The cardinal has spoken,’ Pontifex Nazimir proclaimed. ‘And through him, the God-Emperor’s will is known to us…’
I am tempted to think of this as a dream, but know it to be a mere daydream of a nightmare. I lie in my private cell, with space and sparse luxury that as corpus-captain I am yet to get used to. I feel a claustrophobic anxiety crushing me into the stone slab of the berth, regardless. The weight of a responsibility that had not existed before. Ezrachi insists I will grow into it, comparing the feeling to the deadweight of plate first worn and the way in which before long the suit becomes part of the body and no more of a burden than the weight of the limb lifted to swing a gladius or aim a bolter. I am not so sure. Fifty Adeptus Astartes now live or die at my command, with a full squad of those Space Marine Scouts from the Tenth Company, assigned to bolster our numbers. I can feel the weight of their expectations within my chest, making it difficult for me to catch my breath.
There are far worse things waiting behind the lids of my eyes, however. For days now I seem privy to a slideshow of the mind. Images stab into my consciousness without warning during purification, briefings, cage practise and moments of calm reflection in the cruiser reclusiam. Experiences of wanton violence, delivered or received, with perspectives changing between horrible visions from perpetrator to victim. There is blood always, accompanied by suffering and screams, sometimes my own. When I’m not screaming, I’m roaring my jubilant rage. The horror is there and then it is gone, leaving me an irregular beating of the hearts and the copper-tang of blood in the mouth.