But such was the design and solidity of the Adeptus Astartes’ wargear such corrosion did not happen for decades, unless it were in an environment in which the process was hastened. He had not been here for decades, so he had to assume the latter.
‘The sooner we get off this ship, brothers,’ he muttered to the empty air beside him, ‘the better.’
Korydon’s armour and body were withstanding the effects of his predicament. His mind was not faring so well.
Iakodos had never been in such close proximity to a daemon of this power before. He had faced them on the field of battle but they had always been small and insignificant things, foul and bloodthirsty certainly, but easily defeated with faith and fire. This thing, this mighty horror that was forming in front of him, was anything but insignificant.
The first sign of its manifestation was a strong scent of coppery blood in the air, as though a body had been freshly butchered. Iakodos and the Star Dragons took up positions beside the inquisitor, ready to fire as soon as there was something to actually fire upon.
‘Lower your weapons,’ said the inquisitor. There was firm resolve in his stance. ‘They will only stoke the daemon’s wrath.’
‘We are sworn to protect you,’ retorted Evander, and Iakodos noted that the words were spat rather than spoken. It was clear that the sergeant’s urge to kill the inquisitor was still strong. ‘And we will do that,’ Evander continued, ‘for the honour of our Chapter.’
Evander shifted the weight of the bolter in his grip and whether consciously or not, it ended up with the muzzle pointed directly at Remigius. Iakodos stepped forwards and nudged it discreetly away.
‘There is a lust to kill in you, Adeptus Astartes.’ It was the daemon’s voice again and it broke the tension of the moment. ‘I approve of this. My master will approve of you. You may bargain for your life with that bloodlust.’
‘Show yourself, daemon,’ said Remigius. ‘Show yourself so that we may end this charade.’ He casually shook the sword in his hand and Iakodos stared at it. The runes that had been burned into the carefully crafted blade were now glowing with a hateful red light. Eldritch lightning crackled along its edges as it responded to the presence of…
…still nothing. Only the same powerful scent of fresh blood and the images of a body-strewn battlefield it evoked. In his mind’s eye, despite the urgency of the situation, Iakodos recalled his last deployment. He remembered with absolute clarity the aftermath; he had walked the ruins where the dead and dying had lain, bringing the words of the Emperor to those beyond the Apothecary’s aid. It stirred his ingrained desire to fight. Yet he struggled against it. It would be too easy to fall prey to such a weakness. His judgement would be impaired.
He had little time to linger on it because with a sudden, violent shudder, the Accursed Eternity lurched hard to starboard. They all stumbled and the inquisitor lost his balance completely, tumbling to the ground. The sword fell from his grip and clattered to the floor.
‘The blade! Recover the blade!’ Remigius’s scream cut through the calm resolve he had previously demonstrated.
‘Why, certainly.’ The daemonic voice was filled with amusement.
Iakodos did not know what he had expected from the manifestation of such a daemon, but he had not expected the sudden, raw aura of power that filled the enginarium. He felt an overwhelming urge to turn to those around him, take out his anger on them and smite them where they stood. But Iakodos was a Chaplain. His faith in the Emperor was unshakeable and all of his years of service overrode his basic, primal urges.
‘Brothers, control your emotions!’ The Chaplain bellowed the order to the few brothers who had not withstood the mental assault. They were drawing their blades or aiming their bolters, turning the weapons on their own kin.
Appalled at the lack of control that his brothers were demonstrating, Iakodos strode to the closest. He pulled back his clenched fist and struck his brother squarely in the centre of his helmet. ‘Orestes, stop this. Remember who you are, brother.’ He flung the dazed battle-brother towards Evander who still wavered between pointing his bolter at the inquisitor and the swirling mass of particles that was taking shape before him. ‘Sergeant, control your squad or I will take over the command of this mission. Get your men into a semblance of order now.’
Not waiting to see whether or not Evander complied, Iakodos strode over and dragged Remigius to his feet. The inquisitor’s eyes were transfixed by the coalescing apparition. Iakodos turned his head to look up on the daemon for himself and was staggered by its immense size. What had, mere seconds before, been a swirling mass of intangibility, was now quite visible.
Twice as tall again as the largest of the Star Dragons, bigger even, perhaps, than one of the Chapter’s Dreadnoughts, the daemon burst into full corporeal form as though it had torn its way into reality through nothing more substantial than paper. Its entire body was a uniform shade of blue and almost translucent, rippling as though warp tides ebbed and flowed just beneath the skin. Its lower limbs were heavily muscled and even the tiniest movement was traced in sinew beneath the surface. Its forearms ended in long and strangely delicate fingers that were tipped with lethal-looking claws. Vast wings, presently folded tightly against its back, sprang from its shoulders. Iakodos suspected that if the daemon were to unfurl them, they would be too big for the confines of the enginarium.
His eyes travelling upwards, Iakodos stared at the two heads of the creature. Avian, with a wicked beak, its eyes burned with something he could not relate to. It was not the hatred of a Space Marine for his enemy, but something unfathomably complex.
‘Kill it,’ the Chaplain said in a hoarse voice. ‘Evander… We must kill it!’
Evander had regained control of his senses and once he had begun issuing orders the rest of the Star Dragons slowly came out of their semi-daze. As a unit, they stepped forwards and opened fire simultaneously. Every bolter shell impacted on the daemon’s scaly body, but none of the direct hits seemed to have any effect.
‘You humans are pathetic creatures. Always so keen to die,’ the daemon said. It stepped forwards, the ground shaking beneath its tread. In a single move it swiped a clawed hand towards the closest Space Marine, impaling him on the end of one of its claws. It turned and flung the unfortunate warrior towards the wall at the far end of the enginarium. Orestes struck the wall with a sickening crack of bone and slumped to the ground, blood surging so quickly from the gouge in his chest that there seemed no way his constitution could hope to withstand it. But there was no time to check if Orestes would live or die. If he lived, he would be useless to them right now. If he was dead then there was nothing that could be done.
Another round of bolter fire sounded as the Star Dragons attempted to vanquish their enemy. Two battle-brothers pressed forwards, their chainswords roaring in hungry anticipation. They were cast back, dashed against the wall as easily as Orestes had been as soon as they got within a few metres.
‘This is not your fight, sons of the Imperium. But I will never turn down such sport. If you wish to die at my hand, then I will not stop you.’
The daemon leaned down and took up the blade that the inquisitor had wielded. It sparked ferociously in its long fingers, red fire burning down the length of the weapon’s blade. Though it growled as the fire curled around its flesh, the daemon seemed otherwise unaffected. There was a stench of burning meat as it raised the sword to eye level and studied the weapon closely. Its burning eyes considered the weapon’s design and the runes burned into its steel.
‘An amateur attempt at best, mortal,’ it said, directing its comments towards the inquisitor. ‘Pathetic at worst.’ Without skipping a beat, without even turning its heads, it flung the sword away and it speared through Evander’s torso. The sergeant cried out in pain at the sudden impact and toppled over backwards. He lay still for a few heart-stopping moments before slowly sitting back up with a groan, the sword having been stopped in its path through his body by his now-cracked ceramite plate and heavy power pack. He
had sustained a severe injury, but with an Apothecary’s attention he would live.
Momentarily abandoning his place at the inquisitor’s side, concerned far more with Evander’s well being than the squeaky, stuttered rage that came from Remigius, Iakodos helped the sergeant to his feet and pulled the sword from his belly. It freed with a sickening squish, the blade smeared in blood. The Chaplain voxed both the Blood Swords and Third Scale to make all haste to the boarding torpedoes that had brought them to this place.
‘This is Sergeant Ardashir. Message received. Understood.’
There was no response from Third Scale. Iakodos voxed them again. The Chaplain felt a sudden surge of anxiety for Korydon’s squad. He had been so caught up in the unfolding drama that he had temporarily put the other sergeant’s disappearance to the back of his mind.
‘Third Scale, report in!’
‘Message received. Understood.’
Iakodos’s relief gave way to sudden doubt. He had received nothing but that response from Tylissus for some considerable time. There was no time to linger on the concern, however. They would hold this thing off for as long as possible as they made their retreat. Then he would determine Korydon and Third Scale’s fate. He felt increasingly certain that it would not be a good one.
The daemon was massive, so huge that the walls of the enginarium kept it largely contained, preventing it from moving much further forwards to attack. The Space Marines used this to their advantage, peppering it with more rounds from their bolters and bolt pistols. But the shots were little more than a distraction, nothing seeming capable of penetrating whatever warp trickery protected it.
‘You said that the sword would end this daemon, inquisitor.’ Iakodos was long past pleasantries and cordiality. He snarled at the desperate-looking Remigius even as he turned to face the daemon, his hands gripped tightly around the haft of his crozius. ‘That does not look to me like the face of defeat!’
Remigius shook his head, seemingly lost for words. His voice recovered enough to stutter out an explanation. ‘It was designed to defeat the daemon at the heart of this vessel. It looks…’ The inquisitor stared up at the daemon. ‘Its appearance. Exactly as we had come to understand. It is everything it should be. The sword was perfect. Perfect! The situation is somehow wrong.’
‘Well done, inquisitor. It appears that you have caught me out!’ The daemon ceased its snarling at the inquisitor’s words. With a pop, a sudden inrush of air, the creature decreased dramatically in size. One head folded in upon itself in the most hideous fashion, the other moving in a sickening way to a more central position.
‘That shape was a memory,’ it said. ‘A guise that the former – how shall we put this – controller of this vessel wore. It seemed the most appropriate way to greet you.’ Its sharp, intelligent eyes fixed on the inquisitor.
‘The blade,’ moaned Remigius, wringing his hands together in horror. ‘The blade must have been forged incorrectly. Such a careful process… One error and everything is wrong. This mission–’
‘This mission,’ said Iakodos furiously, ‘is killing my battle-brothers. We are withdrawing from this fight.’ With Evander down, he had made the decision to take over command of the mission.
The Chaplain turned his head to the inquisitor, his red lenses glowing. For a fleeting moment, to the inquisitor’s increasingly desperate mind, the Space Marine looked every bit as daemonic as the thing in front of them had been mere moments before. Now, it was standing there, half its previous size and apparently preening its wings in affected disinterest. No longer too big for the confines of the enginarium, it could attack at any time.
‘Brothers, fall back. We are retreating.’ Iakodos ordered.
‘No! Wait!’ Remigius leaped forwards and grasped the Chaplain’s arm. ‘Let me at least try the banishment. It is a daemon of the Chaos god of change! This could be a double-bluff. Give me a few moments more. Just hold it at bay for as long as it takes me to perform the necessary rites to invoke the power of its name! Let me try that one last thing, then we can retreat! It is your duty, Chaplain!’
The heads of the rest of the squad turned to Iakodos, awaiting his orders. Evander was stumbling, but on his feet. The injury had clearly injected sense back into him because his bolter was very firmly trained on the daemon. He flipped the weapon to semi-automatic and opened fire. As before, every shell impacted harmlessly against the daemon, but this time instead of clattering uselessly to the ground, they were repelled by the thing’s invisible defences. Several shells were fired straight back in Evander’s direction and only by throwing himself to the floor did he escape their impact. They struck the wall behind him, detonating one after the other. The damage to the walls of the ship repaired itself even as the Space Marines watched.
‘How is that possible?’ Evander voiced his disbelief.
‘This is my ship,’ said the daemon, its tone almost conversational. ‘I can shape it as I wish. I can shape myself as I wish and that extends beyond my body to the vessel I inhabit.’
Its attention seemed largely focused on the inquisitor now. Remigius had dropped to the floor and was drawing a number of incomprehensible runic shapes on the floor with the tip of his blade. The runes were being drawn in Evander’s own blood and the arterial red sigils stood out on the hard, metal deck.
‘What are you doing, inquisitor?’
Remigius didn’t answer and the daemon advanced, pausing as it encountered another round of covering fire from the Space Marines. It stared at them in irritation and thrust out a hand. Instantly, the walls of the enginarium came to life in much the same way as they had done in the corridor. But no corpses tore free from the walls this time. Instead, disembodied arms stretched from the skin of the daemon-ship and grasped blindly for them. For the first time, Iakodos noted that the ghosts on the deck had stopped moving. They were still, as though someone had paused a hololith in the middle of playback. Perhaps, he thought wildly as he struck at the reaching limbs with his crozius, the daemon only has strength enough to manifest one aspect of this madness at a time.
‘What are you doing, inquisitor?’ There was a strange catch in the daemon’s voice and it stepped closer again to Remigius who was scribbling frantically. All the while, inaudible to human ears but perfectly clear to the enhanced aural sense of the Space Marines, he was muttering words in an unfamiliar language.
‘Your time is at an end, daemon of Tzeentch,’ said the inquisitor as he finished his work. ‘With this sword, I could not defeat you. But with this weapon and with the one true word I have at my command, I can banish you back to the heart of the warp.’
With that said, he began to speak the guttural words he had been uttering before. He used the sword to help him back to his feet and raised his head to stare the daemon directly in the face. Iakodos felt an ethereal wind whipping up in the enginarium and despite the distraction of his own battle could not help but watch the unfolding events.
‘I name you, daemon,’ said Remigius, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Mortal man may know you by the name Fateweaver, but now I invoke the true power of the name which binds you.’
He slammed the blade of the sword down in the centre of the runes he had hastily drawn. A glaring white light spewed forth from the tip of the weapon, boiling around the wards on the deck and around the inquisitor.
It was so bright that Iakodos had to turn his eyes from it. The wind rose to a crescendo of howling and he could not hear the rest of the words that the inquisitor spoke. Then, with a primal scream of terrible rage and agony the daemon dropped to its knees. It buried its bestial head in its claws and roared its terrible fury. It was a sound that caused every hair on Iakodos’s body beneath his armour to stand on end. It was horrific. Yet again, the Chaplain felt blood trickling from his ears. The power of a daemonic name to harm extended far beyond its bearer, it seemed.
The old inquisitor for his part was channelling every last shred of his psychic power through the force sword. The light still roiled from the
runes on its blade although it was no longer blinding. Iakodos could see, from the way that Remigius’s body was shaking that he could not possibly support himself for very much longer. But the grasping hands had stopped and been absorbed back into the walls, and the daemon seemed far too concerned with its own horrific and impending demise.
‘This is our chance, Chaplain.’ Evander’s voice whilst wracked with pain was clear and firm. ‘We should leave. Now.’
‘The inquisitor has to finish the ritual. We cannot just walk away.’
‘That thing said that this was not our fight. We cannot harm it. What good can we do by staying here? Look at him, brother. The inquisitor is giving his life for this. He cannot survive that much power. We have done our duty. We should go whilst we still can.’
Evander was right. The inquisitor’s face was a vision of exquisite pain, his psychic power tearing the very essence of his being free. The daemon had stopped screaming now which was a blessed, merciful relief, but its face was contorted in a silent agony. The Chaplain considered his options, then he nodded to Evander.
‘Take the squad and make your way back to the boarding torpedo. Do what you can to establish the fate of Third Scale.’
‘Chaplain Iakodos?’
‘I will cover your retreat. Remigius may be a bastard, I do not dispute that. But he is giving his life to rid the Imperium of this creature. We owe it to the Inquisition to return his body.’
‘I will not accept this.’
‘You are presently unfit for command and Sergeant Korydon is absent. I am therefore in charge of the mission and I am giving you a direct order. Take Orestes and the squad. Get out of here now. If you locate Korydon on the way, then bring him too.’ The Chaplain paused for a heartbeat. ‘Do not linger in your search, though.’ Iakodos spoke softly but with such command in his voice that the only thing Evander could do was nod in acquiescence.
The inquisitor was slowly sinking to his knees, his shaking legs unable to support him any more, and he stared up at Iakodos as the Chaplain came towards him. Weakly, he put a hand up to stop him coming any closer.
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