by Rob Sanders
‘Well, Brother Dancred, that simply will not do,’ Kersh said. ‘The Fifth Company will need all of its weapons of war.’
‘The Gauntlet is our oldest and most decorated Thunderhawk. Her firepower will be yours shortly, my lord.’
‘Make sure it is, brother,’ the Scourge said, and then a little softer, ‘and know your efforts are appreciated.’ The Excoriator turned to Ezrachi. ‘Have you had opportunity to inspect the gene-seed?’
‘Apothecary Philemon gathered the progenoids of the dead and dying at the Chapter house, as his solemn duty demanded,’ Ezrachi reported. ‘He lost his life to the Alpha Legion’s second ambush with Corpus-Captain Thaddeus. Squad Cicatrix had the honour of driving back the Traitor Legionnaires and recovering the bodies.’ The Apothecary nodded respectfully across the table at a smouldering Skase who, disarmed at such diplomacy, managed an almost imperceptible nod back. ‘In doing this Chief Whip Skase and his men saved the harvested gene-seed of their fallen brothers, and the company is rightfully in their debt.’
Kersh would not be drawn into the Apothecary’s placation. ‘The seed itself?’
‘In good condition and stored in the apothecarion frigocombs–’
‘And what of the brothers to whom the seed belonged?’ Skase boiled over. He stood, slamming the palms of his gauntlets into the surface of the table. ‘Who knows the price of their esteem? We taketh away. When do we giveth – that’s what I demand to know.’
Kersh burned into him across the stone. ‘Take your seat, brother.’
‘I will not.’
‘What would you give them, whip?’ Ezrachi cut in. ‘Was not their loss lamented in ritual?’
‘He does not speak of ritual,’ Chaplain Shadrath hissed.
‘He speaks of vengeance,’ Kersh said. ‘He speaks of a battle-brother’s gift to his fallen brethren: avengement.’
‘You have intelligence from the Angels Eradicant of Alpha Legion sightings amongst the petrified hives of Rorschach’s World, yet you do nothing,’ Skase accused.
‘You think I hide upon this cruiser – afraid to engage our enemies?’ Kersh seethed. ‘Filth to whom we have both lost so much?’
Skase considered his words. ‘You are the Scourge. You are victor in the Feast of Blades. You have not a cowardly bone in your body… and yet you have found one.’
Within the blink of an eye Kersh was on his feet and had kicked his chair back behind him. Both Excoriators had their gauntlets to their weapons. Kersh gripped the hilt of his chainsword; Skase had his palm on the haft of his power axe, just below the dormant blade, ready to snatch the weapon from his belt. ‘Found your spine, Scourge? Going to cut me down with my corpus-captain’s sword?’
Kersh’s lip curled.
‘I have lived your pain,’ the Scourge told him honestly. ‘No one wants to face the Alpha Legion more than I. They have the Stigmartyr and I am honourless without it. I have pledged on the primarch’s blade that I shall reclaim it, but until I do the blood of those who lost their lives in its taking, and the attempts to reclaim it since, stains these hands.’ Kersh released his weapon and presented his palms to the squad whip. ‘Know that the loss of the Stigmartyr, for me, is more a punishment than you could ever devise. So be satisfied, loyal whip, for no more blood of the Fifth Company will be spilt here today – by my hand or yours. As corpus-captain, I will not permit it.’
‘That’s not good enough…’
‘Well, it will have to be, Chief Whip Skase.’
Skase looked about him at the frozen masks of alarm and expectation around the table. Releasing his axe, the squad whip slowly presented his own open palm and took his seat. ‘I have my orders,’ Kersh announced to the gathering, but his eyes were still on Skase, ‘and you have yours. The reason we do not make straight for Rorschach’s World to act upon this intelligence is because Chapter Master Ichabod has already designated our present duty. His orders take us to St Ethalberg. These are the chains of command,’ Kersh repeated from his earlier conversation with Ezrachi. ‘And they are binding.’ The Scourge let his words sink in. He detected faint nods about the table.
A bridge serf entered. Bowing before Kersh he delivered a whispered message to Commander Bartimeus.
‘We are about to make the cardinal world system,’ Bartimeus relayed gruffly.
‘Oversee the warp translation,’ Kersh ordered, prompting the Excoriators commander to follow the serf out of the oratorium. When the young Joachim and Squad Whip Ishmael got to their feet the Scourge turned on them. ‘Remain!’ he barked, causing the pair to sink moodily back to their seats. ‘Damned insolence,’ Kersh told them. ‘You will leave when you are dismissed and not a moment before.’ He turned back to Skase. ‘You forget yourselves but you can be forgiven, given the poor example set by your chief whip. Therefore, after due consideration, I have decided his punishment to be a three day cessation of ritual observance. Over this time he should consider himself unfit to don the mantle of Dorn.’
Chaplain Shadrath’s helm turned sharply. Ishmael and Joachim glared. Skase sat enraged but silent.
‘Mortification of the flesh is every Excoriator’s right,’ Squad Whip Ishmael shot back.
‘No, brother,’ Kersh returned, ‘it is not. Union with the primarch is a privilege and should be denied to those whose actions have proved unworthy of his ideals. I’m sure Chaplain Shadrath would agree.’
Shadrath said nothing.
‘Then I too volunteer for punishment,’ Ishmael said.
‘Seconded,’ Joachim echoed.
‘As you wish,’ Kersh told them. ‘Your confessed unworthiness is noted. The Chaplain will oversee the implementation of this punishment.’
The oratorium felt the cold sting of the corpus-captain’s orders. The chamber was silent. ‘Dismissed, brothers.’
As the Excoriators left, Ezrachi held back.
‘That could have gone… smoother,’ the Apothecary said. Kersh wasn’t in the mood, however.
‘Why don’t you devote your talents to the wounded pride of my officers?’ Kersh bit back.
‘I fear they are wounds that are already festering and beyond my abilities,’ Ezrachi admitted.
Kersh nodded, appreciating the Apothecary’s appraisal. The Apothecary went to leave.
‘I want you to accompany me down to the cardinal world,’ Kersh called as he reached the oratorium archway.
‘As you wish, my lord,’ Ezrachi said.
‘I need someone who can cut through the Ecclesiarchy politics and subtlety,’ Kersh admitted. ‘I haven’t the ears for Adeptus Ministorum guile and sermonising. I am not much of a politician.’
‘I think you have already proved that today,’ Ezrachi said, allowing himself a dark chuckle before disappearing through the arch. The bulkhead fell to closing and Kersh was left in the empty oratorium.
Looking down the length of the table, the Scourge found himself staring at the revenant, who had been there all the while, like a macabre ornament. The otherworldly eavesdropper sat still and said nothing.
‘What are you looking at?’ Kersh said irritably.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUSPIRIANA OBLIGATIO
The Thunderhawk Impunitas dropped out of the heavens.
St Ethalberg was a bitter, unforgiving world. As soon as the gunship broke the upper atmosphere it tumbled through a maelstrom of glass-shard gales and caustic snowstorms. Below, the planet surface was a stake trap of steeple-colossi, lofty towers and hive-shrine spires. A dark world of vertiginous devotion, reaching up into the chemical blizzard above.
Zachariah Kersh entered the cockpit. The helmscarl and his crew went to kiss their fists but the corpus-captain stopped them.
‘As you were.’
Kersh stared out through the hail-dashed canopy. Ahead was their destination. Carved from the frost-shattered peaks of the Vatic Heights was St Ethalberg’s administrative and episcopal capital. Here the monstrous pinnacles of the Palace Euphorica breached the clouds, the palace in turn nestling
like a behemoth amongst the dark and forbidding sprawl of the grand cathedrals. It was from the daunting heights of the Palace Euphorica that the Ecclesiarchy provided spiritual guidance for the billions of pious St Ethalbergers below and for trillions more beyond the cardinal world and across the subsector. Highest of all was the bulbous tower known as the Pulpit, containing both the cardinal’s throne room and an Adepta Sororitas Preceptory.
‘My lord,’ the co-helmscarl called. Looking out to the left and right of the Thunderhawk, Kersh saw a pair of Vendetta gunships falling into escort position.
‘Identify.’
‘Ethalberg Inclements, fourth reserve.’
‘Defence force?’
‘Aye, my lord.’
‘Confirm our credentials and take us in,’ Kersh commanded.
Flanked by the local military aircraft, the battle-scarred Impunitas made for the landing pads that sprouted from the tower minaret like a crown. With the pock-marked Thunderhawk on the deck and Vendettas hanging with ominous intent in the sky like scavenging raptors, the Excoriators disembarked. Striding out into the cruel bluster of the cardinal world stratosphere, Kersh watched Scouts from Tenth Company’s Squad Contritus fan out with their silver-haired squad whip ahead.
Silas Keturah and his neophytes were all clad in their ceremonial carapace and dark, hooded cloaks, which streamed behind them in the relentless gales. They clutched slender sniper rifles to their chests. Each trailed a clutch of neat cables that disappeared beneath their mantles as well as large magnocular sights, laser guidance and long barrels terminating in a chunky muzzle, decorated with a fluttering Chapter pennant. The Scout squad took ceremonial flanking positions and walked the Excoriators party into the cardinal’s palace. For his unpurged sins, Kersh had Ezrachi, Epistolary Melmoch and Chaplain Shadrath accompany him.
Above the landing pad, amongst the busy Gothic architecture of the Pulpit, Kersh spotted gun emplacements and demi-turrets mounting heavy stubbers and autocannon. This didn’t surprise the Scourge. The Palace Euphorica was not only the cardinal’s seat, it was also the residence of the planetary lord. On St Ethalberg these positions were one and the same. The local defence force therefore had the responsibility of securing the palace perimeter, though they were rarely tolerated beyond its gates. Kersh looked up at a crow’s nest and watched the Ethalberg Inclements shiver in their Guardsman’s flak and sink down into the moth-eaten fur of their lined jackets.
The Excoriators marched, dwarfed by the gargantuan archways, naves and vaulted aisles of the cathedral palace. They were greeted by a gushing wretch of a cleric-warden, whose responsibility it was to officiate the north-west advent-archway. Due to the altitude, and like everyone else who worked within the palace, the warden wore a smeared plas altitude mask. The warden chattered inanely as he led the Space Marines inside, the warmth of his breath a continual stream of white haze escaping his mask.
Inside the monstrous dimensions of the Palace Euphorica, flocks of ancient priests and miserable novitiates moved across the polished obsidian expanse like birds, while others emerged from the myriad confessional booths and private chapels lining the chambers. Muscular fraters in sectarian skirts and conical sackcloth hoods observed the Adeptus Astartes with obvious suspicion from the darkness of ragged eyeholes. Kersh observed the Redemptionists with equal suspicion, and in particular, the slung-straps and crescent clips of grubby autoguns that were protruding from behind their bully-boy backs.
The ambulatory along which they walked was punctuated with lecterns, pulpits and altars, while statues of all-but-forgotten saints and ecclesiarchs seemed to watch the Excoriators pass beneath their stony gaze. Behind these, at intervals along their path, Kersh spotted the gleaming darkness of the revenant’s plate – the deathless thing appearing much like a statue itself. The open space about the Excoriators was thick with the bass of devotional choirs and sibilant chanting, but the air itself was thin and gelid.
Through an endless succession of cavernous chambers, the Space Marines were led by the warden into the equally enormous palace throne room. Kersh snorted. A chill mustiness assailed his nostrils like the smell of bad meat in an ice-locker. The throne room itself boasted power-armoured sentinels: bolter-wielding members of the Adepta Sororitas. With their claret-coloured plate and dusty black vestments, Kersh recognised the Daughters of the Emperor as belonging to the Order of the Bloody Rose. He nodded his head at the Celestian in respect but found that his generous gesture was not returned.
Although the throne room was large, it seemed crowded, as befitting a centre of episcopal and administrative authority. A woebegone choir seemed to hold the same despondent note while a small legion of cenobite scribes scratched commandments and observances into vellum with barbed quills. Armed Redemptionists milled about the devotional throngs, while vergers lit candles and restocked globes of billowing incense that swung on extensive lengths of chain suspended from the chamber ceiling.
At the epicentre of the activity was a vaulted throne, sat atop a tall stone column. The column was situated between a nest of other stunted pillars, each displaying a fully armed Sister of Battle, standing statuesque around the throne. A rickety scaffold had been constructed about the structure to enable access to the column’s summit and the frame was swarming with Sisters of various Orders Hospitaller. The throne itself was illuminated by a shaft of kaleidoscopic light falling from a circular stained-glass window situated in the ceiling. The desiccated husk who sat upon the throne was buried in a mitre and the heavy robes of his calling. A mind of mulch, within the wasted body of an ancient, Cardinal Bonifacius Pontian occasionally dribbled recitations or befuddled prayers to the gathering.
At first Kersh took Pontian to be the source of the chamber’s crisp stench. The cardinal had probably been quietly rotting away on the throne for the best part of a half-millennium. But the smell was not Pontian. Casting his eyes up the wall of both sides of the throne room, the Scourge regarded what he thought at first glance to be decorative stone statues and gargoyles. Water ran from the goylespouts and down the architecture in the manner of an ornate water feature, to be collected in the fonts that lined the wall below. The water was clearly collected from the steeple architecture, after falling as caustic sleet from the bitter cardinal world sky. Upon second inspection, however, Kersh saw that the forms were not statues built into the wall but unfortunates chained from it. Heretics, witches and mutants – unbelievers all – suspended from the cathedral-palace walls. Their faces and extremities were black and frostbitten, their features dissolved in the baptism of an agonising chemical-freeze. Their slow suffering, in turn, blessed the waters of the fonts below – waters that were being collected and distributed in vials to favoured priests and devout clerics across St Ethalberg and the subsector beyond.
‘Sir,’ Ezrachi said, drawing the Scourge’s attention back to a pack of priestly jackals who were approaching the Excoriators. The cleric-warden backed away like a beaten dog. Four ecclesiarchs presented themselves; old, wiry men, knotted with age and cunning. The first had been surrounded by Sisters of the Order of the Eternal Candle, who had parted at his brusque insistence. He limped over to the Adeptus Astartes using an ornate cane and was joined by a priestly inferior, who had fire in his eyes. Another ecclesiarch had been in deep discussion with a Guard officer and his ensign, while a thick-set third had been flanked by two brutish Redemptionists, who looked more like bodyguards than part of the priest’s pious congregation. Peeling off from their retinues, the four converged on the advancing Excoriators.
‘Corpus-Captain Kersh,’ the first announced with a sickly smile. He jabbed his cane towards the Scourge. ‘I am Nazimir, Pontifex-Urba of the Palace Euphorica. Welcome to St Ethalberg.’
Kersh cast his eyes over the pontifex at the heretics suffering on the wall. ‘Thank you, pontifex, but I can think of few places in the galaxy less welcoming than this,’ he told him.
Nazimir managed a sardonic laugh, passing Kersh’s reply off as a joke. ‘Can I int
roduce Convocate Clemenz-Krycek, Confessor Tyutchev and Arch-Deacon Schedonski.’
‘You can,’ Kersh said, ‘but I’m even less interested in meeting them than I was in meeting you.’
Nazimir’s smile died on his face.
‘We have invited you into our–’
‘No, sir,’ Kersh corrected him. ‘You have demanded an audience with the Emperor’s Angels. You now have that audience. You have applied some mysterious pressure, through your wiles and politicking, that has meant that Quesiah Ichabod – Master of the Excoriators Chapter – has insisted I exchange words with Cardinal Pontian of St Ethalberg. I am here to do just that. No less. No more.’
‘We speak for the cardinal,’ Nazimir said, leaning on his cane.
‘The cardinal cannot speak for himself?’
‘Not for many years now.’
‘Then the cardinal and I have said all that we are ever going to say,’ Kersh told them and turned away. Marching for the colossal archway egress, the Scourge said into his vox, ‘Impunitas, this is Kersh. Prepare–’
‘Corpus-captain!’
‘Excoriator!’
‘Kersh!’
Something hit the Scourge’s pauldron. With blistering reflexes the corpus-captain turned and snatched the object out of the air, his face a mask of grizzled venom. In his gauntlet he held a crumpled vellum scroll. The stunted Schedonski held the other end in his gnarled claws with the length of manuscript taut between them.
‘That was unwise, mortal,’ Ezrachi warned.
‘This is the Suspiriana Obligatio,’ Schedonski continued. ‘It details the mysterious pressure you speak of, Excoriator. It is the holy covenant that binds us and blesses our union with common purpose.’
Snatching it from the priest’s grip, Kersh slapped the tattered scroll into Melmoch’s chestplate. The Librarian scanned through the manuscript, feeding the length of the scroll through his gauntlets as he read. The Epistolary’s eyes blazed across the complexities of Adeptus Astartes Chapter commitments, blood oaths and the resolutions of antiquity. His shoulders sagged.