The Damnation of Pythos

by David Annandale

  He shook it away. For whatever needs doing here, we are strong enough.

  ‘We cannot leave the planet,’ Atticus went on. ‘We cannot communicate with any of our brothers or other Imperial forces outside the system. Even if we could, I would not countenance bringing them here. The risks are too great. The rewards are too little.

  ‘We will die here. You are of the Legiones Astartes, and you are Iron Hands, and I know that death holds no fear for you. But defeat carries a special dread. We have experienced defeat. We have experienced loss. We would be poor warriors to pretend that we have not suffered attendant consequences. He who claims he has not been injured by the death of our ship has no place in my command. I say this to you so that we look to our destiny with clear, rational eyes.

  ‘We will die here. Even our gene-seed is lost. Our company will vanish without trace. Our history is at an end. We shall have no legacy. But we will not die in vain. We will find the enemy. We will grind him beneath our boots. Before we are dust, the enemy will be less than a memory.’ Atticus’s voice rose in volume. ‘We will destroy him with such violence that we will tear him from history. His past, along with his present and future, will be no more.’

  Could Galba believe what was being said? His hearts swelled. Yes, he could. He had seen Atticus stand unbowed before the worst catastrophe this world could throw at them. Atticus had not mourned the Veritas Ferrum. He had simply become possessed by a rage of chilling rationality. He would not surrender. And now there was truly nothing left to lose. The Iron Hands would march until they had taken their foe into oblivion with them.

  ‘You will ask how we will hurt an enemy we cannot find,’ Atticus said. ‘You will wonder what madness prompts me to imagine his death, when we stare at the catastrophe of our last attempt. This is my madness – if what we attempted to destroy defended itself with such violence, then its importance is critical. What we could not do from a distance, we will do at close quarters. What reflected energy weapons will succumb to other means, even if I must smash each stone of that xenos abomination with my fists.’ He paused, then, lowering his voice, and asked, ‘Well? Do you share my madness, brothers?’

  They did. Galba did. He and his brothers roared. They slammed gauntlet against bolter in unison. Yes, they shared his madness. Yes, they would march with him.

  The flesh is weak, Galba thought. Let it be consumed in this manner. Let me give it to the forge of war, that it might be burned to nothing, and leave only the force of the unstoppable machine.

  Behind the legionaries, the serfs were massed. They were exhausted, traumatised. Galba was uneasy when he thought of their fate. They did not have the psychological conditioning of the Space Marines. They did have a fear of death, one that had been intensified greatly during the stay on Pythos. With the loss of the ship, they had nothing to look forward to but endless terror until a hideous fate. Galba could hear sobs over the crackling of the jungle fires.

  ‘Servants of the Tenth Legion,’ Atticus said to them. ‘Your lot has been the most cruel. But you have sworn oaths, and you remain bound by them. I will not release you from your service. In gratitude for your loyalty, I will do something else instead. Something better. I will arm all of you. You will fight alongside us. You will strike back at that which has tormented you. You will wage war as best you can. Your losses have been immense. Your suffering worse. But you shall have honour until the end, and that is no small boon.’ Another pause. ‘Servants of the Tenth Legion! What say you?’

  To the snarling metal rasp of the machine-warrior, they cried, ‘We march!’

  ‘Yes,’ Atticus said, lowering his voice, filling the air with the electronic thrum of vengeance. ‘We march. We march to crush.’

  ‘You will be marching without me, I imagine,’ Erephren said to Atticus. He had come to speak to her after his exhortation. She had listened to him from the doorway of the command unit, then retreated to her chamber. She stood before her throne, unable to use it, yet reluctant to abandon her post. She wondered if Strassny, at least, had believed he was being useful in the final seconds of his life.

  ‘You march on a different path,’ Atticus replied. ‘What would you do with a lasrifle?’

  ‘Nothing very useful,’ she admitted.

  ‘You are now the company’s sole astropath,’ he reminded her. ‘The choir was lost with the ship.’

  ‘I am no use to the Legion in that role, either. The interference is worse than ever.’

  ‘We march for you. We will clear your path.’

  To what end now? she wanted to say. She stopped herself. She had no use for self-pity in anyone, least of all herself. To cry helplessness would be to plunge into the worst indulgence. Atticus was right. She had her own march to undertake. The legionaries were heading off to fight an enemy that had yet to be defined. They could well be marching to futility. But they would not be passive in the face of the loss of the Veritas Ferrum. Nor would she. The 111th Clan-Company could not leave Pythos, but she was an astropath. It was her gift and her duty to bridge the void, to make distance meaningless.

  ‘Thank you, captain,’ she said. ‘March well. I will wage my own campaign.’

  ‘I know it.’ His respect was clear.

  Half the serfs and a third of the legionaries, under Darras’s command, remained to guard the base. The rest moved down towards the settlement. Vindicators at the front, Thunderhawks overhead, it was as large-scale an operation as the taking of the plateau. It was bigger, with the armed serfs following in the wake of the Iron Hands. It was also more vague, its objectives more uncertain. And it was full of desperate rage.

  The lasrifle was turning slick in Kanshell’s hands. He had broken into a jogging run to keep up with the pace of the Space Marines, but his sweat was a cold one. He glanced at Tanaura. He was just able to match her pace. He was breathing hard. She, much older, looked as if she could keep up her unwavering gait for the rest of the day. ‘I don’t know if I can use this,’ he said to her.

  ‘You know very well how to do so. We’ve all been trained.’

  ‘I’ve never been in combat. Have you?’

  She nodded once.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll miss.’

  ‘Take the time to aim before you fire. Anyway, you can’t miss. Not anything on Pythos. Look around.’

  He did. The world had been transformed by the fall of the Veritas Ferrum. The holocaust had incinerated the jungle. For kilometres on either side, the landscape had become a vista of scorched earth and smoking stumps. Gone was the oppressive night of green. In its place was a brown-grey day of ash and smoke. The rumbling growls of the saurians were more distant than they had been. The monsters had fled the conflagration. They were slow to emerge from cover and venture onto the blighted terrain. Some of the larger predators, in ones and twos, were testing the ground. They were in the middle distance, moving parallel with the company. They issued the occasional roar of challenge, but did not approach any closer. There was no war here yet. And Tanaura was right. There was no way of missing a beast that was close enough to attack.

  The flames had washed up against the plateau, scorching the exterior of the palisade. Beyond the blackening of the wood, the wall was intact. The settlement seemed to be untouched. Kanshell could not see any guards at the top. He wondered if all the colonists were dead. He could not imagine anything in proximity to that blast having survived. He was surprised to see the palisade still standing. And as the Vindicators rolled up the low slope of the plateau, the gate opened.

  The company marched into the settlement. As he passed through the gate, Kanshell’s eyes widened. There was no damage. The colonists stood as he had seen the night before, as if they had not moved. There were only two signs of the event. One was the acrid sting of the air. The other was what waited at the centre of the plateau.

  At first, Kanshell thought it was a crater. From the gate, all he saw was the circular depre
ssion. He drew closer as the company spread out around the hole, and saw that he was wrong. It was a shaft. It was a perfect circle, and its walls were vertical. Even as he processed the shape, he still imagined that it had been created by the lance fire.

  That was wrong, too.

  Tanaura was praying under her breath. Kanshell discovered that he was, too.

  The shaft was artificial. It had not been dug. It had been revealed. There were engravings on the walls. They were huge, abstract designs. Looked at directly, they were loops and jagged lines. They suggested runes, but never quite became them. But in the corners of his eyes, Kanshell kept picking up on movement. Things coiled as serpents and squirmed as insects. Shadows flowed up the shaft, whispering knowledge of the terrible nights. Kanshell squeezed his eyes shut. The engravings reached in through his lids, becoming silver lightning in the dark. They began to laugh. He opened his eyes again. The world beyond the shaft was enough to dim the laughter.

  It did not extinguish it.

  A ramp spiralled down into the depths of the shaft. It stuck out from the walls, a ribbon of stone wide enough for two Space Marines to walk abreast. The slope of the ramp was steep. Kanshell thought that if he set foot on it, he would hurtle along its path until his legs outran his balance and he pitched over the edge into the gloom. The ramp looked smooth as marble.

  Kanshell backed away from the edge. He looked at the colonists, trying to decide how he should understand the miracle of their survival. He saw that a large group had begun to gather once again at the primary lodge. He nudged Tanaura and pointed. ‘They’re going to worship again,’ he said.

  ‘Why now?’ she asked. ‘It isn’t even midday. You said their services are always held in the evening.’

  ‘Because we’re here?’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps they are praying for us.’ He glanced at the shaft. ‘Because of where we’re about to go.’

  Tanaura was still looking towards the lodge. ‘That is where you took your Lectitio Divinitatus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wonder why it was taken.’

  ‘I never said it was. Just that it was gone.’

  ‘What else could have happened?’ Her face was grim. ‘I would very much like to know what they want with it.’

  ‘I wish you had seen the ceremony.’

  ‘So do I.’ She did not sound wistful.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Kanshell said. ‘I was in touch with something divine in there. I was closer to the Emperor.’

  Tanaura grunted, sceptical.

  ‘Why do you doubt me?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t doubt you, or that you experienced what you said you did. I worry that you misinterpreted what happened.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Did any of these people actually speak of worshipping the Emperor?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But they should all be dead, and they were spared. Isn’t that a sign of the Emperor’s hand at work?’

  Tanaura turned away from the lodge and gave him a significant look. ‘Is it?’ Then her attention was taken by something over his shoulder. She lowered her head in respect. Kanshell spun around. Galba and Atticus had come up behind him. ‘My lords,’ Kanshell said, bowing.

  ‘You have friends among these people,’ said Atticus.

  Kanshell thought of Ske Vris. ‘I believe so.’

  ‘In the religious caste?’

  ‘Yes, captain.’

  To Galba, Atticus said, ‘I trust your judgement, brother-sergeant. Do as you proposed. Remain in constant communication.’

  ‘Yes, brother-captain. And thank you.’

  Atticus gave his officer a curt nod and moved off towards the top of the spiral ramp. Galba remained. Just behind him were the members of his squad.

  ‘There is something we would like you to do, Jerune,’ Galba said.

  The Thunderhawks overflew the plateau in tight, circular patterns. As Unbending passed beyond the palisade, the Salamanders’ Hammerblow entered the airspace above the settlement. The Vindicator Engine of Fury guarded the gate. Medusan Strength was positioned by the barrier on the other side of the plateau. Atticus did not trust the wooden wall to withstand a truly concerted rush by the saurians. Anything that managed to break through would be blasted to flecks of blood and charred bone.

  The Demolisher cannons were facing outwards, but it would be a simple matter to re-orient them, and unleash their monstrous rage on the settlement. Atticus had not left orders covering this contingency. It was understood. None of the Iron Hands trusted the miracle that had preserved the colonists.

  Mistrust was useful, but it did not provide intelligence. Standing at the lip of the shaft, Galba had said to Atticus, ‘I don’t think we should leave these people unobserved while we descend.’

  The captain had agreed. A day earlier, the idea of a rearguard being necessary would have been laughable. The colonists were mortals, badly armed, and barely competent with the weapons they did have. They could not offer a threat. But a day earlier, the Veritas Ferrum had still been in orbit around Pythos.

  Atticus led the bulk of 111th Company down the xenos ramp. The Raven Guard descended too, using their jump packs to drop quickly from level to level of the spiral. Galba stayed at the surface. He had the tanks, the gunships, his squad, the serfs and suspicion.

  And Khi’dem. While the rest of his brothers flew overwatch in the Hammerblow, he had chosen to bear witness on the ground. ‘Keep watch on the people you have fought to preserve,’ Atticus had said to him. ‘See to it that they were worthy of your efforts.’

  Galba ordered the serfs to arrange themselves along the perimeter of the settlement. Facing inwards. The colonists had split into two groups. One was at the lodge. It was a big crowd, but unlike the last few evenings, all of its members had found room inside the building. The other group, by far the largest, clustered towards the gate. The mortals kept a respectful distance back from the Engine of Fury. They were quiet as they milled about. They were, Galba thought, expectant, as if waiting for their purpose to arrive.

  He and his squad headed towards the lodge, an anxious Kanshell walking before them. Khi’dem said, ‘The confidence these people showed in their survival was well founded.’

  ‘Yes,’ Galba returned. ‘They seem to be the only ones on this planet who are never surprised.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Are you pleased with our good works?’ Galba spat. He still writhed at the thought of how he had been manipulated. He was relieved that Atticus did not appear to have lost all faith in him, perhaps because the enemy had contrived to make the terrible mistake appear the logical course of action. Still, he needed redemption. And Atticus had agreed so quickly to his suggested course of action that he wondered if the captain saw this as a test.

  Or perhaps, he thought, he is sending the tainted to deal with the tainted.

  He needed to lash out. He cursed the flesh that had withstood the impossible, and so whose very existence was suspect. He cursed his earlier mercy for that flesh, a mercy that Khi’dem and the other Salamanders embodied. He needed an enemy he could kill. They all did.

  If the enemy turned out to be these luck-blessed savages, then so be it.

  ‘I don’t know that I am pleased,’ Khi’dem answered. ‘I remain satisfied that we did the right thing.’

  ‘Even if we were tricked?’

  ‘We acted in accordance with what we knew. If we had abandoned these people, we would have demeaned ourselves. We would have acted without honour. There is more at stake in this war than simple military victory.’

  Galba snorted. ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘Really? Will you do anything to defeat the traitors?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘No matter how debasing? No matter how much it distorts who we are? You saw the same things I saw on the Callidora. Are you willing to become the same sort of
abomination as the Emperor’s Children?’

  Galba said nothing. They had almost reached the lodge. He had no answer for Khi’dem. No, the Iron Hands would never follow the path of the Emperor’s Children. And yet no, there should be no obstacle to prosecuting the war against the enemy by any means necessary.

  Khi’dem was not done. ‘This war is about our very identities. If we give them up, even if we win the battles, what will remain of the Emperor’s dream? Will we recognise what we will have made of the Imperium?’

  Galba paused at the base of the rise. Now he had an answer. There was a way out of the impasse of needs. ‘We will embrace the machine,’ he said. He had to raise his voice. The chanting coming from the lodge was deafening in its enthusiasm.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The Emperor’s Children are slaves to desire. We will expunge desire from our beings. Our decisions will be dispassionate. We will fuse absolute rationalism with absolute war.’

  Khi’dem looked mournful rather than horrified. ‘You are justifying my worst surmises. When we met, you did not reject your humanity to the degree that your captain does.’

  ‘I have learned the error of my ways,’ Galba replied. He put his helmet on. Neural connectors plugged into his cortex, removing him further from the flesh, gifting him with the enhanced vision and senses of the mechanical realm. He looked up at the lodge entrance, and the ritual going on beyond the door. The divine? he thought. If you could see as I do, you might know something about the divine. It occurred to him that the adepts on Mars were connected to something far more sublime than whatever delusion was the object of the colonists’ veneration.

  Delusion? Something rattled like bones in a distant wind. It pried at his thoughts. He shook it away and turned to Kanshell. The serf was jittery.

  ‘You are worried, Jerune,’ Galba said. ‘Don’t be. You have done nothing wrong, and you will be protected.’ Kanshell opened his mouth as if he were about to correct Galba on a point, but he said nothing. ‘They want you to celebrate with them,’ Galba went on. ‘They will give you different answers than they would give us. Go and talk to them. We will hear, and act as necessary.’