Blades of Damocles

by Phil Kelly

  Lit by the fires of the tank’s demise, a dozen Guardsmen lay in the shallow water, horrifically wounded. Great wedges of shrapnel pierced faces and necks, still-burning tanker fuel turned men to floundering charcoal effigies and soldiers bawled like children as they gazed in horrified disbelief at the squirting stumps that had once been their limbs. Malagrea sobbed through a mask of blood, scrawny legs cut in a hundred places by a stumble through the razorgrass. One pink hand grasped a blackened, bony claw.

  Numitor felt something watching him. He looked up, eyes still wide with shock.

  Hovering beyond the burning wreckage of the tank was a diabolic figure. It was a female tau, but at that moment it appeared to Numitor’s stunned senses more like a daemon in the flames. Xenos camo-tech made the figure’s elegant white battlesuit appear like a mantle of fire, the disc-like drones on either side of her glowing like familiar spirits. A long and decorated scalplock swayed in the thermals. Her eyes bored into his, the intensity of her contempt obvious despite her inhuman features.

  Numitor saw red. With a roar, he leaped at the alien warrior, his jump pack firing. She swept away from his bullish charge and up into the skies.

  Then Malagrea’s sobbing turned into a scream, and Numitor fell into blackness.

  Waves of nameless energy broke across the Eighth, battering their minds as a stormy ocean batters a weak swimmer. The screaming drove hot nails of pain into Numitor’s body, his mind, his soul. He felt his ears fill with scalding liquid and his eyeballs swell as hundreds of tiny capillaries burst to fill the whites with blood.

  The sound was horribly eloquent, conjuring unstoppable visions in Numitor’s mind. Shattered panes of stained glass, each depicting a different atrocity, were stabbed hard into his psyche. He heard the screams of a coven of witches trapped in a burning building, of a generation of newborns pushed into the cruel cold of the real world, of a thousand sudden and violent deaths thrust upon the ignorant and the unprepared. They blurred together into a horrifying cacophony, roiling back and forth, robbing all conscious thought and making Numitor’s eyes roll back into his head.

  Drooling froth bubbled from his lips as he saw a vision of a giant spherical room, rank upon rank of psykers strapped to its insides, their souls drained by the impossible sentience at the cavernous chamber’s heart. This was the home of true agony, of the most hideous sacrifice. Against this, physical pain seemed a gentle and compassionate friend.

  Then, in an instant, it was over. Numitor felt as if his brain had been submerged in ice water as consciousness returned, his senses awakening just as his jump pack leap came to an ungraceful end. He landed in a tumbled heap in the mud, but swiftly got back upright with his bolt pistol aimed and ready. His hand, for the first time since his initiation into the Adeptus Astartes, was shaking like that of a palsied old man.

  The sergeant forced himself to focus. Years of hypnotically reinforced training fell back into place, restoring order to his aching soul like slabs of thick ferrocrete covering an unquiet grave.

  Around him was a charnel house. Those already grievously wounded, whether because of old wounds, the one-sided firefight, or the explosion of the Chimera, had been pushed over the threshold. Apart from the crackling pop of a burnt-out Chimera hull and the occasional low groan, the razorgrass field was silent. Not a single gunshot marred the strange atmosphere of disbelief.

  ‘Sergeant?’ said Aordus as he stepped closer to stand in front of Numitor. ‘Are you sound?’

  ‘I am if the tau are all dead,’ said Numitor, ‘but somehow I doubt that.’

  ‘Then you’ll want a look at this,’ said Aordus, pointing out into the fields.

  Numitor frowned, using his lenses’ magnocular function to scan the periphery of the firefight. At first he thought Aordus was pointing out pale rock formations, but then he saw them for what they were – the bodies of tau stealthers, their bulbous battlesuits slumped lifeless as if they had simply fallen dead where they stood.

  A shiver crept across Numitor’s crested scalp as he realised that was exactly what had happened.

  ‘A psychic attack, then? From that one they called the Hag?’

  Aordus nodded. ‘Malagrea, her name is. She lost a hand when the Demolisher went up.’

  ‘Is she bleeding out?’

  ‘I saw to her. It’s ugly, but she’ll live.’

  ‘Good work. She’s… she’s good at her job, it seems.’

  ‘Used the pain, maybe.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Numitor softly. ‘All of it. More than we could ever understand. Have Squad Sicarius reported in?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Aordus. ‘Searching now.’

  ‘Do so,’ said Numitor. ‘I shall join you.’

  The two Assault Marines moved off to join the search. At first Numitor walked as if in a daze, but as the ordered, concentric circles of their recovery pattern gave him focus, he found his surety returning. There was a strange kind of comfort in the mundanity of repetitive tasks.

  ‘Magros, Duolor,’ said Numitor, ‘keep vigil. The rest of us, regroup duty.’

  Glavius was first to be found, shaking his head in disbelief as he checked the integrity of his stricken battleplate. Four dark scorch marks, each wider than Numitor’s hand, surrounded the areas where the tau cannonades had taken chunks out of his ceramite armour. Yet still the battleplate’s integrity held.

  ‘Four more on the back,’ said Glavius, his tone shaky. ‘I’m lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Praise the Machine God,’ said Numitor drily. ‘Next time don’t be so quick to jump into the jaws of a trap.’

  ‘Hmmph. Tell that to Sicarius.’

  ‘I will if I can find him.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Cato Sicarius as he splashed up through the razorgrass. ‘You found him.’

  The sergeant was a mess. Almost every slab-like plate of his armour bore a deep gouge or a smoking hole, the cobalt blue of the Ultramarines heraldry blistered and blackened. Layered ceramite was visible where plates had shattered and broken away, and subcutaneous wiring fizzed sparks whenever the sergeant took a limping step.

  ‘Looking worse for wear, Cato,’ said Numitor. ‘Not a good idea to go haring off like that against an unseen foe.’

  ‘I used to know a brave and fearless warrior named Jorus Numitor,’ said Sicarius gruffly. ‘You would have liked him. I’m not sure he’d have liked you so much.’

  ‘Well, maybe he’s grown a little wiser.’

  ‘Maybe he’s forgotten his Codex Astartes,’ said Sicarius. ‘When the enemy’s reach is long, and yours is short…’

  ‘Close the distance and wrest victory from his grip,’ finished Numitor. ‘I know that well enough, but I’m not sure I remember the next part saying “charge like a maddened grox into the teeth of the enemy guns”. And how did your victory-wresting go, by the way?’

  ‘I took heavy fire, and they almost killed me,’ said Sicarius, all trace of levity gone. ‘Then… then came that scream. My head’s still ringing fit to burst. But at least the xenos fared worse.’

  ‘That they did,’ said Numitor.

  Sicarius strode past one of the fallen tau, spitting on its corpse. The acid in his saliva burned a hissing hole in the sensor plate that formed the alien warsuit’s face. Numitor walked after him, shaking his head in warning when Glavius tried to follow.

  As the two sergeants walked out of earshot, Numitor spoke once more. ‘You left half your squad, Cato.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sicarius. ‘It was a mistake. I acknowledge that. It won’t happen again.’

  Numitor said nothing in response.

  ‘Is Glavius still able to fight?’ asked Sicarius.

  ‘He’s in a better state than you, certainly. Tough, that one.’

  ‘In body, at least.’

  ‘Who better to teach him independent thought than you? After this, even he will th
ink twice about blindly following your lead.’

  ‘I imagine so,’ said Sicarius.

  A long silence stretched between the two sergeants as they stared out across the waving razorgrass.

  ‘I cannot believe Atheus is really dead,’ said Sicarius.

  Numitor gave a tired sigh. ‘I think Malagrea was telling the truth. You could tell by her demeanour. A sad loss to the Chapter.’

  ‘I know. It’s just…’

  ‘What is it, old friend?’ asked Numitor softly.

  ‘With him dead,’ said Sicarius, ‘who will be promoted to captain in his stead?’

  Numitor stared at his fellow warrior for a second. Then he shook his head in disbelief, turning away from Sicarius and walking back to the rest of his squad.

  ‘They had us trapped, trussed and ready to kill,’ said Kaetoros. ‘When we hunted for them, they faded away. When we stayed put, they hammered us from all sides. When we took to the skies, they caught us in a crossfire. We cannot fight like this.’

  ‘It does look like they have our measure,’ agreed Veletan. ‘From a tactical viewpoint, they had us out-planned and outgunned from the start.’

  ‘Until Malagrea joined the fight,’ said Numitor. ‘We owe her our thanks.’

  The wizened old astropath, still clutching the wrist of her blackened and claw-like hand, gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. She had managed to keep a dignified expression since the impromptu gathering began, but Numitor could see she was still in a lot of pain.

  ‘Is it possible the tau have no experience of psychic attack?’ Numitor asked her. ‘Or are particularly vulnerable to it?’

  Malagrea inclined her head. ‘I would not be surprised. These creatures are not soulless, as such–’ At this she gave an involuntary shiver, followed by a grimace of pain. ‘But they have little in the way of spirit. Their will is communal. Individually, it is easy enough to overcome.’

  ‘Have you knowledge of any other psykers, in your battlegroup?’ asked Numitor. ‘It could be that’s our best shot at disrupting the tau war machine before it repels the invasion altogether.’

  Kinosten and Nordgha exchanged a look.

  ‘Do we know any psykers, he asks,’ said Nordgha. ‘Haven’t you heard the stories about the Baleghast Castellans?’

  ‘Enlighten us,’ growled Sicarius.

  ‘We’re the One Hundred and Twenty-Second Baleghast Castellans,’ said Nordgha. ‘Between us and the One Hundred and Twenty-Third, we’ve got more psykers per platoon than any other regiment in the Gel’bryn theatre.’

  ‘It is true,’ agreed Malagrea in her thin, quavering voice. ‘We are… lucky enough to have not only Primaris Psyker Vykola Herat, but the three-man mindchoirs sanctioned by the Scholastica Psykana.’

  ‘Can you get us to them?’ said Numitor. ‘Marshal as many as possible, and rendezvous within reach?’

  ‘In theory, yes,’ said Sergeant Kinosten, his voice still hoarse from Sicarius’ violence, ‘though your friend there seems hell bent on seeing us lined up in front of a commissar’s bolt pistol. After escaping a tau ambush I’m not feeling so keen on death by court martial.’

  ‘That can wait. And there’s still a chance you will redeem yourselves.’

  Kinosten raised an eyebrow.

  ‘If we can gather as many psykers as possible in one place,’ continued Numitor, ‘we’ll have an advantage that even the tau have no way of anticipating. We strike a vicious blow, and we take their finest commanders out in one fell swoop. We already know where to find them.’

  ‘A commendable concept, sergeant,’ said Veletan, ‘But these deserters have sabotaged every one of the tanks’ voxes, not just the one examined by Brother Glavius, in order to escape detection.’

  ‘There are other ways to communicate,’ said Malagrea, brushing her lank hair behind her ears. ‘I specialise in them.’

  ‘Then get it done,’ said Numitor. ‘Send a psychic message, gather your kin, and we’ll conveniently forget to mention your platoon’s… lapse of judgement. Won’t we, Sergeant Sicarius?’

  The Talassarian bladesman stared at Numitor for a long time, his expression sour. Then he gave a curt nod.

  ‘Then it’s agreed,’ said Numitor, extending a hand clad in ceramite. Kinosten grasped his forearm as best he could in the warrior’s handshake. The Imperial Guardsman’s muscled arm seemed like that of a child in comparison to Numitor’s.

  ‘But if you betray us, Sergeant Kinosten,’ said Numitor, ‘if you even think of straying from this path…’ The Ultramarine sank his fingers into Kinosten’s flesh and squeezed hard, pulling him in close enough to smell the sharp tang of human fear. ‘…I will crush you limb by bloody limb, and every one of your men will hang.’

  Chapter Twelve

  BETRAYAL/THE PRODIGAL RETURN

  Farsight looked up the mountain path to the tallest of Kan’ji’s perilous peaks. Tiny puffs of condensation misted in front of his olfactory fissure as he caught his breath. The snow-capped mound was swathed in morning mist, but he could make out the buildings dotting its sides as patchy shadows in the distance.

  The commander stopped for a moment to revel in the crispness of the air. It had been a punishing climb. The aching in his lungs and the hot feeling of exertion under his skin was all too familiar. It was a by-product of an altitude that he had learned to appreciate, even enjoy, over the harsh tau’cyr he had spent here. Despite the circumstances, it was good to be back.

  Looking back down the slope, Farsight saw the Devilfish that had brought him pivot and turn away, gliding silently along the crevasse that led back to Gel’bryn City. It had felt very much like cheating, riding in the TY7 to the sloping shoulders of the peak before climbing the rest of the way. He had been told that only the worthy made it to the top, and laboured hard to prove it. To his knowledge, this was the first time a student of the master had simply been transported there.

  Farsight watched the Devilfish fade from view over the lower mountain slopes, where gnarled ovidu trees spread their carpets of mauve blossom in the springtime.

  No going back now.

  Shouldering the long military satchel he had been given on his departure, Farsight walked up the slope towards the mountain peak. By the side of the path, patches of winter snow glowed and glistened with the pinks and oranges of the dawn.

  Farsight walked on past the simple huts of the first Kan’jian pioneers, humble wooden constructions built to last. Each had housed a dozen of the fire caste’s finest over the years. Farsight had mended several of the roofs himself, and received a beating for it. It was not for the leaders of the Tau’va to rest in comfort, Master Puretide had said – nor to take the work of other castes upon himself, come to that. How true that was. Perhaps if he had remembered it, he would not be here now.

  Farsight followed the path along the banks of the ice river, where the Master had made him stand one-legged in the freezing water before making him hobble into an icho stick duel against Kauyon-Shas. He had fought her with his feet bare and one eye still swollen closed by the bruise of their fistfight the night before. Seeing that as a great injustice at the time, he had railed against it, especially after she had unceremoniously dumped him right back in the river at duel’s end. She could beat him even on his best day, and they both knew it. But learning to fight at a disadvantage had saved Farsight’s life on many occasions since, and thousands of fire caste lives to boot.

  Up past the Seeing Tree he walked, half-expecting Monat-Kais to still be meditating up there with eyes closed. What secrets the distant young tau had kept behind those hooded lids. He was a silent inspiration to all those who followed the monat’s lonely path, but only Farsight and Shadowsun really knew him, and even then, there were depths they dared not plumb.

  Not since the night of the failed ta’lissera.

  Walking onward, the commander passed the sloping grove where Kauyon
-Shas had taught him to look in two directions at once. There he had caught two of the drifting leaves she had dropped, twirling them into a bird in flight and offering them to her as a gift. She had been the best of rivals, seeing each new challenge as a chance to spin her traps like the arctic spiders she admired so much. Her lethal patience had served her well; in time, the young warrioress had become one of the fiercest and most widely respected leaders in the tau empire.

  And there, atop the mountain, was the mentor who had taught them both – them, and entire generations of the fire caste.

  The warrior sage was seated with his back to Farsight, crosslegged upon a simple hover-throne discoloured by use. He was looking out across the Grey Crevasse to the waterfalls of amethyst-hued water that cascaded down the opposite peak. It was the same position he had been sitting in when Farsight had first met him so many tau’cyr ago. His poise was perfect, his body so still he could have been one of Kauyon-Shas’ ghosts.

  A few spots of chill rain fell from the skies, quickly growing into a light spattering. Farsight felt his skin pucker, the old sensation of trepidation rising in his throat. He pushed it down, straightening his back. He was a well-respected commander of the fire caste now, not some awestruck student.

  ‘Come forward, Mont’ka-Shoh,’ said Master Puretide without looking. ‘I can hear you back there, failing to control your breathing.’

  Farsight forced himself to calm. The disapproving tone of his master’s voice still had a potent affect on his mood, and part of him already felt chastened.

  ‘You forget your focal rhythms,’ continued Master Puretide. ‘It is like listening to a wounded boar, snuffling away. Kauyon-Shas would have spitted you long ago. Were she ever here.’

  ‘It is good to see you too, master,’ smiled Farsight, stepping forward and kneeling in the posture of the supplicant-bearing-his-sword. ‘You have not changed, I note.’

  Puretide turned in his throne, fingers laced in the gesture of elder-accepting-the-gift. His face was as craggy and lined as the cliff opposite, deep lines in his upper lip leading to a thin slit of a mouth. Eyes as hard as diamonds glinted under a noble brow. He looked old, older than any tau Farsight had ever seen, but still strong.