by Paul Kearney
‘I spoke them myself once. I led my brothers into the Eye of Terror itself, along with other proud Chapters of your Adeptus. We went there intent on upholding our faith, redeeming our honour.
‘Shall I tell you what we found there? Anger and despair! Your arrogance should choke you – you have no idea how long we battled in the warp, how many years we struggled to hold on to the memory of what we were – I held them together, my poor brothers – I watched them die, one by one, bereft of hope, tainted by doubt, orphans repudiated by the Imperium they had given their lives to serve!’
It took another step forward, and its hooves clanged like clashing iron. The daemon’s flesh glowed; rage emanated off it like some pulsing radiation. The flies that settled on its red armour sizzled and fell dead.
‘Ultramarines! The much vaunted Thirteenth Legion of Guilliman! We too were scions of your primarch, a Chapter of the Second Founding, as proud and undaunted as you are now. We too set our faces against the glorious truth of the uttermost dark, and sought to preserve your Emperor’s pale reflection of the true, endless night that is the real universe.
‘We fought for decades, before we were admitted to the true brotherhood, the reality of life and unlife that binds together all existence.
‘You blue-clad worm! You hide behind your faith like a child afraid of the dark. What do you know of the warp? Your very existence is naught but a single droplet lost in the ocean of night.’
‘I know evil when I see it,’ Calgar said quietly. ‘I know when a man has become so twisted by hatred of himself that he repudiates all that makes him what he is. You were betrayed, it is true, but you let that betrayal destroy you. You could have died fighting – instead you bowed the knee to that which is pure evil. For that, there can be no excuse. And for what you have done to your brethren, no forgiveness.’ The last sentence came out as a snarl.
The Witness stepped forward again, dragging the blade it carried so that its tip carved a smoking furrow in the floor.
‘I preserved my brethren – those who accepted the truth I had revealed. They serve me yet – they stand around you now, the Broken, immortal warriors of a valour you cannot even guess at.
‘We attacked this hulk when it was but an experiment of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a fragment of a world they had dragged out of the Eye of Terror to practise their tinkering filth upon. They scoured a planet clean, and took its hot heart to make their wheels go round – but we seized it from them and made it our own. We built this. I built this – I made it, and I am master of it. My dark benefactors have given it to me, and–’
‘Master of your own prison. You did not even have the strength to keep it clear of the Adeptus Mechanicus – they have been on the upper levels for a thousand years, imprisoning you here. They are below us right now, fighting their way to this very keep. You have already been defeated, and you do not even know it.’
‘If that is true, Marneus Calgar,’ the Witness said with soft venom, ‘then it is one thing that you and I have left in common.’
And it raised the immense smoking sword to smite.
Inquisitor Drake felt the massive impact as the blade came down and smashed into the upraised fist of Marneus Calgar. There was a detonation of competing energies in the chamber that lit it up bright as sunlit day for a second. Even the two Ultramarines honour guards were knocked off their feet.
He saw Calgar fall to one knee, the storm bolter which was attached to his right arm sheared away with a flash of flame, the rounds in it igniting as it tumbled through the air. But the Chapter Master raised his other arm and opened up with a thunderous volley of fire from the storm bolter under his left fist, and the impact of that barrage sent the Witness staggering backwards.
‘Guilliman!’ Calgar roared, and rising off his knee he hurtled forward, a blue blur, like lightning at the base of a storm cloud.
The Witness tossed aside the smoking hilt of its shattered blade, and with a bellow it lunged down at the Chapter Master, great wings spread wide, the hooks on their pinions scoring the pillars beside him as though they were made of clay. Both the daemon’s great clawed fists swooped down and slammed into Calgar even as the Lord of Macragge tore at its belly armour with his power fists.
Another staggering detonation, and then Calgar was on the floor, his helm dented, his artificer battleplate fizzing and sparking, rent and torn. As he tried to rise, the Witness flapped its wings, lifted up, and then came down upon him with crushing force, the cloven hooves smashing into his power pack. It flared up in a series of sputtering explosions.
Drake sent out an urgent psychic plea. +Brother Ulfius – you must come to us, all of you. He is going to die here. Calgar needs your help.+
There was no answer.
The Witness laughed, and stepped back from its fallen foe.
‘Do you think you came here by your own prowess alone, Lord of Ultramar? I allowed you to, because it was here that I wanted you to recognise the hopelessness of your plight.
‘You have two choices, as I had. Either you will bend the knee to the rightful lords of creation, the dark powers who are the true rulers of all, or you will die here. I will dedicate your destruction to Khorne, the red god, and he will take great and bloody joy as I break you. And of your body I will make a gift to the Plague Father, Lord of Death. He will oversee the decay of your mortal form, and in your corpse I will set the seeds of his spawn so that they may come into the world from your rotting remains. They will be your children, the only thing you will ever leave behind save the fading memory of your name.’
Somehow Calgar rose to his knees, and then climbed to his feet, swaying. Sparks flew from the sundered connections in his ancient armour, and there was blood trickling from the splits in the ceramite.
‘You talk too much,’ he said. And then he charged forward again.
While the two fought, Inquisitor Drake scanned the great chamber both with his eyes and with his psychic insight. The great nave had once been the bridge of a ship, the control-room. His gaze ranged swiftly along the blinking, baroque consoles that lined the walls, the side-chapels that housed towering arrays of data-cogitators and logi-stacks. They were ancient beyond belief, defaced, defiled but still fully operational. Here was the heart of the hulk. Here was the glue that held it all together.
He looked across at Calgar. The Chaos Marines in the chamber, some of them Khornate worshippers, were gibbering with delight at the battle; others were plaguebearers who stood like collections of running abscesses set upright – all stood by and watched, as no doubt they had been ordered to do.
The breaking of Marneus Calgar was a triumph that the Witness did not want to share. The daemon wanted the deed to be all its own, a gift for its unholy masters.
And Calgar was buying time with his life, time for Drake to complete their mission.
‘Do something,’ Brother Morent said in a strangled voice. ‘His orders – we are here to help you, not him. Whatever it is, do it fast, inquisitor. I will not let him stand alone, not like this. I cannot.’
His heart racing, Drake identified the various configurations which ran down the length of the great chamber. He had been in Adeptus Mechanicus ships many times. This one was of enormous antiquity, but he thought he could still identify the key aspects of its layout.
He looked round at his followers. They were crouching like men lost and afraid, though they were veterans of their kind. He could not expect too much of them, not here; but they, too, had their part to play.
‘Clear the way left,’ he said to Brother Morent. ‘I want a path to the tall console with the column of lights and dials that rises up out of it, thirty yards ahead, behind the pillar. I believe it to be the drive controls.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Brother Ohtar demanded, not taking his eyes off the Chapter Master for an instant.
‘I mean to complete the mission. To end all this. Now, do it.
’
As if released by a hidden spring, the two honour guards sprang forward with a speed that was astonishing in such enormous figures. ‘Guilliman!’ they shouted, and they hurled themselves at the line of Chaos Marines that snaked down the length of the chamber on the left.
‘Regan, Kastiro, cover our rear – as long as you can,’ Drake snapped. He did not wait to see if he was obeyed, but sped off in the wake of the two Ultramarines.
The honour guards slammed into the Chaos minions like a storm of steel, the great power axes they bore sweeping through the air leaving streaks of bright light in their wake. They carved four of the enemy to bloody fragments before the rest of the Broken even had time to react, and smashed clear a path to the side-chapel Drake had indicated.
Once, it had been a shrine of the Omnissiah, housing the means to regulate the very power which maintained the ship. Now it was an encrusted monstrosity – but the power remained, and the controls still reared up, massive brassy levers and wheels, flickering data streams and whirring cogitators.
Gunfire broke out, bright and deafening, as Drake pushed between the two battling honour guards. Behind him, his men were firing their own bolters, but two went down almost at once as a hail of fire followed them. The three survivors went to one knee and put down a blaze of bolter rounds, and Regan threw out frag grenades to add to the mayhem.
Drake had no eyes for the fight. He staggered against the cluster of levers and cabling which spilled out before him like the steaming innards of some vast gutted beast. A long-forgotten prayer to the machine-spirit rose in his mind. He studied the data output through the smeared screens of the vid-array. Power levels, coolant injectors, drive initiators – they were all here. He had guessed right. He gave wordless thanks.
Then he grasped one of the great levers, slippery with the organic muck that coated it, released the failsafe and began pushing it forward, seeing the power indicators climb, the runes lighting up as they climbed the tall display before him.
See what you make of this, he thought. And he watched as the runes began to burn red, and the enormous power source at the heart of the hulk climbed towards critical mass.
Out on the smoking, death-filled battlefield, Captain Caito Galenus raised his bloody fist and shouted, ‘On me! Fifth Company, on me!’
They fell back from the ruins of their line, leaving their dead behind them. Immediately around Galenus stood Chaplain Murtorius, banner bearer Gerd Ameronn, Warspite glittering in his hand, and Librarian Ulfius.
Apothecary Philo was dead, trampled by a massive juggernaut and then cut to pieces by the sword-wielding daemons that were rampaging across the field, their blades shining light and dark, the warp powering them, augmented by the bloody hate which infested their owners.
Half the company lay back there in the wreckage of the juggernaut charge. They had destroyed all the great beasts along with the riders, but the price had been high. Just over two dozen line Ultramarines gathered together under their officers, most of them wounded, some so seriously that they could barely drag themselves along.
Captain Galenus now had twenty-six phials of gene-seed in a ceramite container strapped to his thigh, taken from Philo’s body. It was pointless, he knew, but to leave it behind was to abandon all hope, to consign Fifth to utter oblivion, and despite the terrible toll he was not ready to do that. He would never be.
‘You’re sure that’s what he said?’ he demanded of Brother Ulfius. ‘You’re sure it was him, and not some trick?’
‘It was him,’ the Librarian replied. ‘His psychic signature is that of an Imperial inquisitor. It cannot be replicated. Caito, we are wanted up there. Lord Calgar needs us. We must go to him now, whatever it takes.’
It would take everything, Galenus knew that. He would have to make a terrible choice, here and now, and there was no time to dwell on it, no time for sentiment. The Chaos forces were massing afresh – in moments they would come to grips again, and this time would be the last.
‘Go to him,’ Brother Ameronn said. ‘I will stay here, Galenus, along with the badly wounded. We will buy you a few minutes.’
‘I too will stay,’ Chaplain Murtorius said. ‘I have a few curses left in me yet.’ The Chaplain had a great wound in his belly where a juggernaut had gored him, and even the recuperative powers of his mighty frame could not halt the steady flow of bright blood which now coursed down his black armour, staining the ground at his feet.
Galenus made his decision. ‘Brother Sergeant Greynius, Librarian Ulfius and Brother Salvator are with me, along with the able-bodied of third and fourth squads. All others, fight here and hold them for as long as you can.’ He looked at his brothers, blank helms, bloodied and blackened, hiding faces he knew so well, comrades he had fought beside for decades; friends. Brothers.
‘Stand here for the Chapter. We shall all meet again, soon enough.’
‘Courage and honour,’ Brother Ameronn said firmly, and he punched Galenus roughly on the shoulderplate. ‘Now get moving before I say something I’ll regret.’
They took off without another word, a dozen Ultramarines running from the enemy, running with death in their hearts, leaving their brothers behind. A few minutes later they poured through the gate that Marneus Calgar had broken down before them, but Captain Galenus held back to the rear, and looked back once.
Those he had left behind were already surrounded, but still fighting. He saw the flash of Murtorius’ crozius raised high and heard the Bull’s voice bellow defiance at the foe.
Then Galenus turned and ran on, into the high, echoing filth of the Blood Keep.
Marneus Calgar raised his head and tried to see past the fizzing broken lines in his helm readout. Sigils blazed red everywhere, and he could smell his own blood, as well as the acrid reek of burnt-out circuitry and broken metal. Added to that was the vile stench of the chamber around him, its atmosphere leaking through the broken seals in his artificer armour.
His multi-lung had already kicked in, dealing with the foul air, and the fractured bones in his arms and sternum were doing their best to knit, aided by the last reserves of analgesics and stimulants in his battleplate.
Power levels were sinking, his dorsal reactor broken and leaking coolant. Even without further damage, in a few hours his armour would be a dead weight on his back. It would take the skill of a veteran Techmarine to keep even the basic systems online. It had taken many hard knocks over the years, but the assault of the Witness had damaged it heavily, perhaps beyond repair.
Once again, Calgar laboured to his feet. The Witness towered over him, that stinking daemon that had once been of his own kind. The creature was also wounded, its armour rent wide open by the Gauntlets of Ultramar, its innards bulging through great tears in the flesh of its torso – and the flesh of one leg hung in ribbons, so that it limped as it moved in again.
There was more happening in the chamber now, though; gunfire, the sounds of combat. Calgar backed away slowly as the daemon advanced and looked around. Frustrated by the damage to his autosenses he ripped off the broken Corvus helm he wore and tossed it to the ground. His bionic eye was still intact, still able to send him data relays and spectral analysis, and his mighty frame was still proof against the mephitic atmosphere, but the radiation would begin to eat into his exposed flesh now.
The Witness knew this also. The daemon smiled horribly, blood and saliva trickling down its chin. ‘Now you can feel the touch of the world I have made at first hand, Calgar,’ it said. ‘You have fought well – better than any other foe I have ever faced. Kneel before me, and when you rise, it shall be as a prince, a lord of my realm.’
Calgar spat blood on the floor. There was no mistaking it. His honour guards were fighting with their backs to an alcove, holding off a horde of plaguebearers and Khornate berserkers and the foul air was now redolent of cordite. The long chamber rang with the din of combat. The Witness ignored it – the dae
mon had eyes only for Calgar, and was advancing on him once more.
‘Drake–’ Calgar said on the vox.
‘Stay alive,’ Drake grated. ‘Better yet, destroy that abomination. I need more time.’
Calgar smiled. ‘You shall have it.’ And then he brought up the green ready sigil that throbbed in his bionic eye’s display.
‘Brother Starn. To me, now.’ He keyed the homer.
‘Acknowledged.’
Calgar charged the daemon, lighting up his remaining storm bolter and emptying the last rounds in the ammo belt which hung loose from his smashed dorsal magazines. Thirty rounds, blazing into the creature’s face – and then Calgar was at grips with it once again, the stench suffocating, foul beyond belief without the helm to protect him.
Secreted poisons from the thing’s unnatural flesh burned streaks down his face as he lunged at it with the last guttering energies of his power fists, tearing at its armour and the meat beneath. He felt the clawed hands reach down and grasp him, seizing him about the shoulders. He was lifted up to stare into the broken maw, the steaming hole where one eye had been, the furious starlit blackness of the other. The thing’s mouth opened, and became a long, fanged muzzle. He struggled mightily, jerking his head to one side, and the Witness snapped at thin air where his face had been.
Then it cried out in agony, and dropped Calgar, staggering backwards, the great wings flailing.
Four Ultramarines Terminators stood behind it, blazing on full automatic with their storm bolters, the light from their teleportation a fading blue haze about them. The energies of the warp still crawled about their armour as they fired, and they ran the rounds up and down the back of the Witness, shredding the daemon’s wings, blasting huge divots out of its flesh. The huge creature roared in pain and fury, and as it did, so the Chaos Marines in the chamber hesitated, and for a moment stood aghast in outrage and disbelief.
The Witness spun round, knocking one Terminator backwards to crash to the ground. But the other three lunged in close, punching it with vicious crackling slams of their power fists, the massive bunched flesh of the daemon quivering and smoking under the blows.