‘It’s still wrong,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘It’s… not working how it should.’
The daemon was furled in a foetal ball, its back to the inquisitor and the Chaplain. It suddenly stopped moving, but an instant later bounded to its feet, a cackling screech of gloating laughter emanating from its beak-like mouth.
‘Twice wrong, inquisitor! Your words have no power over me, for I am not the Oracle of Tzeentch!’
‘No… This cannot be.’ Remigius’s voice was a croak. ‘Years of research. You are Fateweaver. You must be. How can you be ano–’
‘Enough of this. What has taken place on this ship is not the business of pathetic fleshlings. Accept the simple truth of the matter. Your precious “research” has led you to your demise. You are wrong. And now you die.’ It prowled sinuously towards the weakened inquisitor.
Iakodos closed his grip tightly around his crozius and placed himself squarely in its path.
‘Out of my way, Adeptus Astartes warrior. I told you before that my fight was not with you.’
‘Regardless, you will have to go through me to get to him.’
‘A noble intention. But really?’ With an almost idle wave of its hand, the daemon caused Iakodos to fly backwards into the wall. Undeterred, the Chaplain got to his feet once again and calling upon every ounce of his strength began to charge towards the daemon.
The creature let out some foul epithet in its besmirched guttural language, which took on warp-fuelled substance and crawled over the Chaplain’s armour, peeling away the ceramite and crippling him with agonising seizures. He watched, helpless to move or act as the daemon reached Remigius. It looked down on him almost as though it pitied him, then took the failing man up in its vicious grasp. Its clawed hands closed around the inquisitor’s throat.
‘I have a gift for you, Shadrach Remigius,’ it said to the stricken man who, unable to respond, stared back at the daemon in horror. ‘Since you have gone to so much trouble to track me down, I will give you what you seek. You desire my name? You shall have it. A tragedy that this lesson will be your last. The power of a true name works both ways...’
These last words were spoken in no more than a whisper, but even from the distance he was presently at, Iakodos could feel the raw warp power that came with them.
The inquisitor tried to turn his face away from the shards of sorcery in the daemon’s breath as it spoke, but he was held tight and could not move. Iakodos watched with a mixture of disgust and fury as the skin on the old man’s face began to peel away. Strips of raw meat that had once been the inquisitor’s visage blended with chunks of metal from his implants. His eyes bubbled and melted and eventually all that remained of Shadrach Remigius was a bloodied skull attached to a ruined body.
With arrogant indifference, the daemon crushed the skull in its grasp until it was dust. Then it dropped the corpse to the floor and turned to Iakodos.
‘You had a chance to leave and you did not take it. You sealed your fate with that lack of foresight. The others you sent to investigate elsewhere in the ship – their unknowing sacrifice gave me quite a taste for your kind’s flesh.’ Its eyes narrowed sardonically. ‘Message received,’ it said in a disturbingly passable impression of Tylissus’s voice. ‘Understood.’
A soft groan escaped Iakodos’s lips. Now that the fate of Third Scale had been revealed, his desire to exact revenge on this thing grew. But still caught in the coruscating power of the creature’s sorcery, his armour smoking, he remained helpless.
Whether to enrage him further or merely out of a sadistic desire to reveal its dark nature, the daemon continued.
‘It was their presence which awoke my consciousness. I’ve been alone on this accursed ship for an eternity. But their minds… were sharp. They were delicious. And their imaginations! They expected bleeding walls, creatures of the warp, and I was all too glad to oblige.’
A sickening knot tightened in Iakodos’s gut as he realised that it had been their very thoughts which had brought about the demise of Third Scale and the deaths of the Blood Swords. He fervently hoped that Evander was heeding his order.
His demise was imminent and he faced it stoically. The daemon considered him for a moment and took a step towards him. Then it stopped short, its eyes narrowing as it looked over Iakodos’s shoulder to a point just beyond him.
‘What do you mean?’ the daemon said, to Iakodos’s surprise.
Korydon had reached the enginarium just in time to see the daemon crush Remigius’s skull. He had stared at the unfolding scene. His battle-brothers seemed hazy and pale: flickering images that had no substance. Only the inquisitor and the daemon seemed real to him. Iakodos was a pale, shimmering ghost that only the daemon seemed able to communicate with.
The Star Dragons sergeant had stared down at his old, scuffed armour. It was corroded with age and wear. He knew with absolute certainty that he had witnessed this exchange before. It was how he had known what his battle-brothers would find behind the door of the enginarium. Korydon had fathomed with absolute clarity the nature of the Accursed Eternity and that, combined with all the hypno-doctrination that had shaped his early years, had led him to a simple conclusion.
‘You will not kill him,’ he repeated to the daemon. It was not a threat, not a plea. It was merely a statement.
‘How do you know?’ The reply was filled with deep curiosity. And then the daemon smiled nastily, understanding in an instant what Korydon had taken a lifetime to realise.
Iakodos was released from the trap that had snared him and he fell to the ground with a thud. He paused for a few moments, catching his breath. He gripped his crozius and stood, ready to fight for what he knew and believed was right.
The daemon was distracted by something, though what it was Iakodos could not understand. It seemed to be staring directly at one of the white figures that had bustled around the deck previously. This one, however, was different. Its armour was far from pristine, old and uncared for. The insignia had long been erased. And yet there was something hauntingly familiar about it. It was as still and unmoving as the others, but the daemon’s attention seemed intent upon it. Considering his options carefully, the Chaplain reached the conclusion that a tactical withdrawal was rapidly becoming the best course of action.
‘You will not kill him.’ Korydon squared his shoulders. ‘It is not something that you have ever done and you will not do it this time. You are trapped in this course of events just as much as I have been. I have seen that you will not kill him.’ Korydon took a breath. ‘Ergo, you will not.’
‘A self-fulfilling prophecy. Clever.’ The daemon flexed its powerful shoulders and shifted its gaze to linger on Iakodos. The hunger that lay within the infinite depths of its oil-black eyes was palpable and for several brief moments tension crackled between the two, Adeptus Astartes and daemon-spawn of the warp.
‘Why are you still here, mortal?’
It was all Iakodos needed. He did not understand what it was that had transpired. All he knew was that he had been given an opportunity to withdraw, possibly even the chance to get back to his ship alive, although he was not prepared to trust the daemon in the slightest. Nonetheless, he made his way to the exit leaving the corpse of the inquisitor lying on the floor.
The daemon watched him go, then turned its attention back to Korydon. The Star Dragon’s armour was corroded, where it still held together. The sergeant showed all the signs of having spent decades, maybe centuries, in the same wargear. The warp taint that infused the vessel created things that even the daemon did not fully understand. It had seen this before, though. Mortals caught in pockets of time.
Tricked many thousands of years ago by the daemon Fateweaver, the creature now bound at the heart of the Accursed Eternity lived a cursed existence, doomed to live the same sequence of events in endless repetition. Yet every time history repeated itself, something changed. Sometimes it was something small and seemingly insignificant: a word spoken out of place, a head of hair where pr
eviously a warrior had borne a shorn scalp. Other times something more important had altered, but the daemon could not quite fathom the nuances of its prison. It was not the warp creature’s nature to understand – or even care – about the nature of causality.
‘You said I would not kill him,’ the daemon said to Korydon eventually. A slow, cruel smile raised its peculiar mouth in a sadistic twist. ‘But the ship itself may have other ideas.’
VII
The first of the boarding torpedoes was already loaded with Adeptus Astartes by the time Iakodos sighted the landing zone. His eyes sought eagerly for Third Scale only to realise disappointment and sorrow at their continued absence. With that came the memory of the dead Blood Swords. He took some comfort from the fact that some of their fallen had been recovered, at least. The daemon’s words regarding the fate of his brothers had been truth, he suspected. He slowed from a run to a steady walk and Evander raised a head, nodding at him curtly. The sergeant was clearly feeling the pain of his injury, but he lived.
‘Get the first torpedo out,’ he was saying to those aboard. ‘We will follow as soon as we can. I want to do a final sweep for Third Scale…’
‘They are gone, brother. We have to retreat ourselves.’
Evander stared at the Chaplain and his face showed a moment of grief. ‘You are sure of this?’
‘I am positive. And there is no time to investigate the daemon’s claim any further. You know as well as I do. Here.’ The Chaplain clapped a hand against his breastplate.
The sergeant nodded abruptly and leaned into the boarding torpedo. ‘As soon as you are in communications range, tell the Ladon that once we are clear, they should open fire on this cursed ship.’
The battle-brother closest to the open end of the boarding torpedo acknowledged the order and reached for the lever that would seal it closed and begin the retraction process. Gears ground back into life and slowly the tube began to scrape back through the hull of the ship. Whatever it was that passed for intelligence aboard the Accursed Eternity acted instinctively, the ship sealing the gaping hole in its hull like skin closing over an open wound.
The first torpedo had barely completed inching its way into the void of space when the howling began: a low, keening wail that set hair and teeth on edge, and brought with it the banshee promise of certain death. The remaining Space Marines, most of Ninth Scale and three of the remaining Blood Swords, watched in a state of horrified disbelief as the remaining rent in the hull of the Accursed Eternity began to warp. It shifted and distorted impossibly before their eyes becoming a fanged maw that closed tightly around the second boarding torpedo.
‘It will tear it apart!’ The Blood Sword who had spoken merely voiced what they were all thinking. But it was nothing so simple. The malformed mouth, a circular series of razor-sharp fangs, merely clamped itself down on the boarding torpedo, locking it in place.
The blood-curdling wail sounded again, accompanied by the sound of many scurrying feet as though the entire corridor was filled with rats or other rodent-like creatures. So vivid was the sound that Evander and several others turned the muzzles of their guns to the floor.
Iakodos held his crozius aloft. With the unswerving devotion and loyalty that had earned him his rank and title, he spoke in a steady voice that fuelled the faith and fire of his battle-brothers. The Litany of Devotion was one of the first things that he had committed to memory as a young novitiate and never had its words felt more true and meaningful than they did right now.
‘Where there is uncertainty, I shall bring light. Where there is doubt, I shall sow faith. Where there is shame, I shall point atonement…’
His voice never changed pitch and never wavered, even as he caught sight of the daemonic pack-beasts thundering at full speed down the corridor towards him. He could hear Evander barking out commands to set melta charges around the sides of the torpedo in an effort to free it, but he focused on the words he was speaking.
‘Where there is rage, I shall show its course… My word in the soul shall be as my bolter in the field.’
The Litany complete, he held his crozius out in front of him and spoke a final time. ‘All of this I say and all of this I am. Die!’
In an effort to buy some of his companions time to blast the torpedo free from the infernal grip of the daemon, Iakodos led a counter-charge against the creatures. Spent shell casings hit the floor like rain as bolters spat out one round after another. When the magazines were spent, the Space Marines resorted to blades and pistols. Every shot that was fired and every blow which was landed was a singular strike against the dark forces that contrived to keep them prisoner and to overwhelm them.
The first of the two boarding torpedoes had achieved a perfect exit and had cleared the hull. The Space Marines within took a moment to check their weapons. They might have retreated successfully from the ship, but that did not mean by any stretch that they considered the mission to be at an end.
Ardashir switched vox-channel and hailed the Ladon. He had his orders from Evander, who had once again taken command in Korydon’s absence.
‘Boarding party first vessel returning. Complement…’ Looking around the interior of the torpedo, Ardashir felt a sting of loss. They had travelled across with three full squads as well as the Chaplain and the inquisitor. Thirty Adeptus Astartes. They had lost the entirety of Third Scale and several others to boot. ‘Complement twelve souls,’ he finished, his voice heavy. ‘Five remaining on board the Accursed Eternity. Once they are in transit, unleash hell. Tear that ship from the void.’
Silence followed his report but for a few bursts of crackling static. Ardashir repeated his report, and then the vox officer’s voice came timorously across the distance that separated them from the Ladon.
‘Ship’s chronometers have your insertion at less than an hour past, sergeant.’
An hour? They had been trapped in the horror of the daemon-ship for what had felt like an eternity. Had it really been only an hour? For a moment, Ardashir doubted himself. Perhaps he had simply lost his mind. But the gravely injured form of Orestes, slumped in the corner, reminded him that his experience had been anything but based in imagination.
‘We will debrief fully when we get back on board. Repeat message. Once Sergeant Evander and his remaining warriors are extracted, destroy the Accursed Eternity.’
‘Message received. Understood.’
The words, the same that Third Scale had repeatedly responded with across the vox, sent a chill down Ardashir’s spine.
There was no way that the melta charges could be placed any faster than Evander was managing. He moved as swiftly as he could, his ears ringing with the jumbled sounds of his remaining four battle-brothers fighting the daemonic creatures. Their snarls and shrieks of bitter hatred cut through everything and Evander longed more than anything for Iakodos to end the monsters’ existence. Ammunition was running low, but the sheer ferocity of the combined force of Star Dragons and Blood Swords was at least keeping the horde at bay.
‘Charges set,’ Evander said finally, speaking the words that Iakodos was longing to hear.
Pressing forwards, the Chaplain renewed his attack on the daemon-beasts, every one of his brothers, including Evander, joining him. They forced their attack, pushing the daemons back a little further down the corridor but not so far that they were putting themselves out of the range of their escape route. When the charges blew, the hull of the ship would be torn open to space and they would have to move swiftly.
With tremendous force, the melta-bombs detonated, the sound and reverberation shaking the very ground beneath the Space Marines’ feet. The hull of the Accursed Eternity ripped apart and the torpedo was freed.
Bellowing the retreat as loudly as he could, Evander called the five Space Marines to the boarding torpedo. Four of them dived in leaving only Iakodos facing down the daemons. With a final roar of defiance, the Chaplain turned, ran and dived into the torpedo. Evander slammed the release lever and the tube closed up even as the
creatures hurled themselves at them.
They could feel them scrabbling against the smooth surface of the torpedo but they all held tightly to their faith. They had come too far and endured too much to give up the belief that they would make their way to freedom and that they would see this foul ship destroyed.
A scream of daemonic fury reached them even through the armour-plated hull of the boarding torpedo as it made its way slowly out of the Accursed Eternity. Then the scream was joined in a sinister harmony by an answering shriek, then another, and then another. Within scant moments the sound of multiple screaming daemons could be heard as the monstrous host of the vessel threw everything it had at its escaping prey.
It was too little too late. The boarding torpedo dropped into the void and moved agonisingly slowly away.
‘This is Evander. We are clear. Repeat, we are clear of the hull. Fire on my mark.’
‘Received, Sergeant Evander.’
Timing would be critical. If they were too close when the fleet fired, they would be vaporised along with its target. The viewing aperture in the torpedo was little more than a slit and it was difficult to gauge the distance between them and the Accursed Eternity…
Far enough. Evander let out the breath he’d not realised he was holding and spoke a single word.
‘Mark.’
Both of the strike cruisers, as well as their escort fleet of destroyers and frigates, opened fire simultaneously and a relentless stream of ordnance razored across space, striking the daemon-ship with unerring accuracy. Light flared brightly through the viewport of the torpedo and Evander was forced to turn his face away. Their vox crackled and spat in relation to the proximity of the various weapon discharges, until finally there was nothing but silence.
And in the silence there was nothing. The Accursed Eternity was no more. But to Evander, staring over at Iakodos who was knelt in fervent prayer, simple destruction was not nearly enough. He voiced this concern to the Chaplain who looked up at him and reached up to remove his skull-helm.
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