Lysander stepped between Reinez and the courtroom floor, his own hammer in his hands. ‘Will you spill this one’s blood too, brother?’ said Lysander.
Reinez and Lysander were face to face, Reinez’s breath heavy between his teeth. ‘The day I saw a son of Dorn stand between a Crimson Fist and the enemy,’ he growled, ‘is a day I am ashamed to have seen.’
‘Brother Reinez!’ shouted Vladimir, rising to his feet. ‘Your role is to accuse, not to execute. It is to prosecute alone that you have been permitted to board the Phalanx, in spite of the deep shame with which your own Chapter beholds you. Petitions will be heard and a verdict will be reached. This shall be the form your vengeance shall take. Blood will not be shed in my court save by my own order. Captain Lysander is the instrument of my will. Defy it and you defy him, and few will mourn your loss if that is the manner of death you choose.’
The moment for which Reinez was eye to eye with Lysander was far too long for the liking of anyone in the court. Reinez took the first step back and holstered his hammer.
‘The Emperor’s word shall be the last,’ he said. ‘He will speak for my dead brothers.’
‘Then now the court will hear petitioners from those present,’ said Vladimir. ‘In the Emperor’s name, let justice be done.’
The archivists of the Phalanx were a curious breed even by the standards of the voidborn. Most had been born on the ship – the few who had not had been purchased in childhood to serve as apprentices to the aged Chapter functionaries. An archivist’s purpose was to maintain the enormous parchment rolls on which the deeds and histories of the Imperial Fists were recorded. Those massive rolls, three times the height of a man and twice as broad, hung on their rollers from the walls of the cylindrical archive shaft, giving it the appearance of the inside of an insect hive bulging with pale cells.
An archivist therefore lived to record the deeds of those greater than him. An archivist was not really a person at all, but a human-shaped shadow tolerated to exist only as far as his duties required. They did not have names, being referred to by function. They were essentially interchangeable. They schooled their apprentices in the art of abandoning one’s own personality.
Several of these archivists were writing on the fresh surfaces of recently installed parchment rolls, their nimble fingers noting down the transmissions from the courtroom in delicate longhand. Others were illuminating the borders and capital letters. Gyranar cast his eye over these strange, dusty, dried-out people, their eyes preserved by goggles and their fingers thin bony spindles. Every breath he took in there hurt, but to a pilgrim of the Blinded Eye pain was just more proof that the Emperor still had tests for them to endure.
‘Follow,’ said the archivist who had been detailed to lead Gyranar through the cavernous rooms. This creature represented the dried husk of a human. It creaked when it walked and its goggles, the lenses filled with fluid, magnified its eyes to fat whitish blobs. Gyranar could not tell if the archivist was male or female, and doubted the difference meant anything to the archivist itself.
The archivist led Gyranar through an archway into another section of the archives. Here, on armour stands, were displayed a hundred suits of power armour, each lit by a spotlight lancing from high overhead. The armour was painted purple and bone, with a few suits trimmed with an officer’s gold. Each was displayed with its other wargear: boltguns and chainswords, a pair of lightning claws, a magnificent force axe with a blade inlaid with the delicate patterns of its psychic circuitry. The armour was still stained and scored from battle, and the smell of oil and gunsmoke mixed with the atmosphere of decaying parchment.
‘This is the evidence chamber,’ said the archivist. ‘Here are kept the items to be presented to the court.’
‘The arms of the Soul Drinkers,’ said Gyranar. He pulled his hood back, and the electoo on his face reflected the pale light. The scales tipped a little, as if they represented the processes of Gyranar’s mind, first weighing down on one side then the other.
‘Quite so. Those who wish to inspect them can claim leave to do so from the Justice Lord. Our task is to make them available for scrutiny.’
‘And afterwards?’
The archivist tilted its head, a faint curiosity coming over its sunken features. ‘They will be disposed of,’ it said. ‘Ejected into space or used as raw material for the forges. The decision has yet to be made.’
‘If the Soul Drinkers are found innocent,’ said Gyranar, ‘presumably these arms and armour will be returned to them.’
‘Innocent?’ replied the archivist. The faint mixture of mystification and baffled amusement was perhaps the most extreme emotion it had ever displayed. ‘What do you mean, innocent?’
‘Forgive me,’ said Gyranar, bowing his head. ‘A wayward thought. Might I be given leave to inspect this evidence for myself?’
‘Leave is granted,’ said the archivist. It turned away and left to take up its regular duties again.
Father Gyranar ran a finger along the blade of the force axe. This was the Axe of Mercaeno, the weapon of the Howling Griffons Librarian killed by Sarpedon. Sarpedon had taken the axe to replace his own force weapon lost in the battle. Such had been the information given by the Howling Griffons’ deposition to the court. Its use suggested a certain admiration held by Sarpedon for Mercaeno. It was probable that a replacement weapon could have been found in the Soul Drinkers’ own armouries on the Brokenback, but Sarpedon had chosen to bear the weapon so closely associated with the Space Marine he had killed.
It was a good weapon. It had killed the daemon prince Periclitor. Gyranar withdrew his thumb and regarded the thin red line on its tip. The Axe of Mercaeno was also very sharp.
Across the hall from the axe was a pair of oversized weapons, too big to be wielded by an Astartes, and with mountings to fix them onto the side of a vehicle. Gyranar knew they were the weapons of a Space Marine Dreadnought – a missile launcher and a power fist. They, too, were in the livery of the Soul Drinkers. Their presence told Gyranar that everything the Blinded Eye had foretold was coming to pass. He was a cog in a machine that had been in motion for thousands of years, and that its function was about to be completed was an honour beyond any deserving.
Gyranar knelt in prayer. His words, well-worn in his mind, called for the fiery and bloodstained justice of the Emperor to be visited on sinners and traitors. But his thoughts as they raced were very different.
The archives. The dome being used as the courtroom. The Halls of Atonement. The map being drawn in the pilgrim’s mind was beginning to join up. Soon, he would hold his final sermon, and the contents of that pronouncement were finally taking shape.
‘Everything,’ said Lord Inquisitor Kolgo, ‘is about power.’
The inquisitor lord paced as he spoke, making a half-circuit around the gallery seating, watched by the Battle Sisters who accompanied him. His Terminator armour was bulky but it was ancient, the secrets of its construction giving him enough freedom of movement to point and slam one fist into the other palm, stride and gesticulate as well as any orator. And he was good. He had done this before.
‘Think upon it,’ he said. ‘In this room are several hundred Astartes. Though I am a capable fighter for an unaugmented human, yet still the majority of you would have a very good chance of besting me. And I am unarmed. My weapons lie back on my shuttle, while many of you here carry the bolters or chainswords that you use so well in battle. I see you, the brothers of the Angels Sanguine, carrying the power glaives that mark you out as your Chapter’s elite. And you, Librarian Varnica, that force claw about your fist is more than a mere ornamentation. It is an implement of killing. So if you wished to kill me, there would be little I could do to stop it.’
Kolgo paused. The Space Marines he had mentioned looked like they did not appreciate being singled out. Kolgo spread out his arms to take in the whole courtroom. ‘And how many would like to kill me? Many of you have experienced unpleasant episodes at the hands of the Holy Ordos. I am a symbol of
the Inquisition, and casting me down would be to strike a blow against every Inquisitor who ever claimed his jurisdiction included the Adeptus Astartes. I have, personally, gained something of a reputation for meddling in your affairs, and am no doubt the subject of more than a few blood oaths. Perhaps one of you here has knelt before the image of your primarch and sworn to see me dead. You would not be the first.’ Kolgo held up a finger, as if to silence anyone who might think to interrupt. ‘And yet, I live.’
Kolgo looked around the courtroom. The expression of Chapter Master Vladimir was impossible to read. Other Space Marines looked angry or uncomfortable, not knowing what Kolgo was trying to say but certain that they would not like it.
‘And why?’ said Kolgo. ‘Why am I not dead? I am satisfied that it is not through fear that you refrain from killing me. A Space Marine knows no fear, and in any case, the fulfilling of a blood oath takes far higher priority than the possibility of being lynched or prosecuted by your fellow Astartes. And as I have said, I myself am scarcely capable of defending myself against any one of you. So what is it that keeps me alive? What strange gravity stays your hands? The answer is power. I have power, and it is a force so irresistible, so immovable, that even Space Marines must make way for it sometimes. I say this not to tempt you into action, I hasten to say, but to show you that it is matters of power that determine so much of the decisions we make whether we understand that or not.
‘This trial is about power. It is about who holds it, to which power one bows, and the natural order of the Imperium as it is created by the power its members wield. I say to you that the principal crime of the Soul Drinkers is the flouting of that natural order of power. You have refrained from violence against me because of the place I hold in that order. Sarpedon and his brothers would not. They act outside that order. Their actions denigrate and damage it. But it is this order that holds the Imperium together, that maintains the existence of the Imperium and the species of man. Without it, all is chaos. This is the crime for which I condemn the Soul Drinkers, and thus do I demand to fall upon them a punishment that not only removes them from this universe, but proclaims the horror of their deaths as the consequence for railing against the order the Emperor Himself put in place.’
Kolgo punctuated his final words by banging his armoured fist on the backs of the seats in front of him. He turned, faced the Justice Lord, and inclined his head in as much of a bow as an Inquisitor Lord would give.
‘Are you finished?’ asked Vladimir.
‘This statement is concluded,’ said Kolgo.
‘Pah,’ came a voice from the galleries. ‘One of a thousand he would give if he had leave. The Lord Inquisitor’s desire to hear his own voice borders on the scandalous!’ The speaker was Siege-Captain Daviks of the Silver Skulls. The Silver Skulls beside him nodded and murmured their assent.
‘You wish to make a counter-statement, siege-captain?’ said Vladimir.
‘I wish for the statements to end!’ snapped Daviks. ‘This creature in the dock before us is not deserving of a trial. This thing is a mutant! In what Imperium of Man is a mutant afforded the right to be bedded down in this nest of pointless words? Reinez was right. I have never known a trial granted to such a thing. I have known only execution!’
Several Astartes shouted agreements. Vladimir held up a hand for silence but the din only grew.
‘Kill this thing, kill all the creatures you hold in your brigs, and let this be done with!’ shouted Daviks.
‘I will have order!’ bellowed Vladimir. He was not a man who raised his voice often, and as he rose to his feet the calls for violence died. ‘Apothecary Asclephin has borne witness that Sarpedon is to be tried as an Astartes. There the matter ends. You will get your execution, Captain Daviks, but in return you must have patience. I will see justice done here.’
‘A better illustration of power I could not have created myself,’ added Kolgo.
‘Your statement is concluded,’ said Vladimir. ‘Who will speak?’
‘We have not yet heard from the accused in the dock,’ replied Captain N’Kalo of the Iron Knights. ‘If we are to have a trial, the accused must speak in his defence.’
Vladimir’s recent interjections kept the retorts to N’Kalo’s words to a minimum.
‘I would speak in my defence,’ said Sarpedon. ‘I would have you all hear me. I did not turn from the authority of the Imperium at some perverse whim. For everything I have done, I have had a reason. Lord Kolgo’s words have done nothing but to convince me further that my every action was justified.’
‘You will speak,’ said Vladimir, ‘whether those observing like it or not. But you cannot speak as yet, for further charges are to be levelled against you.’
‘Name them,’ said Sarpedon.
‘That by the machinations of your authority,’ said Reinez, ‘four Imperial Fists died on the planet of Selaaca, three Scouts and one sergeant of the Tenth Company. To the Emperor’s protection have their souls been commended, and to the example of Dorn have they measured themselves with honour. Their deaths have been added to the list of crimes of which you are accused.’ Reinez spoke as if reading from a statement, and the real anger behind his words was far more eloquent. He enjoyed pouring further accusations on Sarpedon, especially one that hit so home to the Imperial Fists on whose forced neutrality Sarpedon depended.
The Imperial Fists around Vladimir made gestures of prayer. The other Space Marines gathered had evidently not heard of these charges, and a few quiet questions passed between them.
‘I know nothing of this!’ retorted Sarpedon. ‘No Imperial Fist died by a Soul Drinker’s hand on Selaaca. My battle-brothers surrendered to Lysander without a fight. The captain himself can attest to this!’
‘These crimes were not committed during your capture,’ said Vladimir. ‘Scout Orfos?’
The Imperial Fists parted to allow a Scout through their ranks. In most Chapters, the Imperial Fists among them, a recruit served a term as a Scout before his training and augmentation was completed. Since he could not yet wear the full power armour of a Space Marine, and since a full Astartes’s armour was ill-suited to anything requiring stealth, these recruits served as infiltrators and reconnaissance troops. Scout Orfos still wore the carapace armour, light by the standards of Astartes, and cameleoline cloak of a Scout. He was relatively youthful and unscarred compared to the Imperial Fists around him, but he had a sharp face with observant eyes and he moved with the assurance of a confident soldier.
‘Scout,’ said Vladimir, ‘describe to the court what you witnessed on Selaaca.’
‘My squad under Sergeant Borakis was deployed to investigate a location that the Castellan’s command had provided to us,’ began Orfos. ‘In a tomb beneath the ground we found a place that the Soul Drinkers had built there.’
Sarpedon listened, but his mind wanted to rebel. He had never heard of any Soul Drinker travelling to Selaaca before he had gone there to face the necrons. The planet was not mentioned in the Chapter archives. It could not be a coincidence that of all the millions of planets in the Imperium, he should stumble upon one where some forgotten brothers had built a tomb thousands of years ago. A tomb which, as Orfos’s evidence continued, had been built to keep all but the most determined Astartes out.
Sarpedon felt a wrenching inside him as Orfos described the deaths of the other scouts. Orfos was well-disciplined and little emotion showed in his words, but his face and intonation suggested the effort he was making in bottling it up. Orfos had been trained to hate, hypno-doctrination and battlefield experience teaching him the value of despising his enemy. That hate was turned on Sarpedon now. Sarpedon felt, for the first time in that courtroom, truly accused. He felt guilt at the Imperial Fists’ deaths, though this, of all his supposed crimes, was the only one that he had not committed.
‘It was a Dreadnought,’ Orfos was saying. ‘The tomb had been built to house it. It had been kept frozen to preserve its occupant...’
‘Justice Lord,’ said Sar
pedon. ‘My Chapter has no Dreadnoughts. The last was lost with the destruction of the Scintillating Death six thousand years ago. It is made clear in the archives of–’
‘The accused will be silent!’ snapped Vladimir. ‘Or he will be made silent.’ A glance from Vladimir towards Lysander suggested how Vladimir would go about shutting Sarpedon up. ‘Scout Orfos. Continue.’
‘The Dreadnought awoke,’ said Orfos, ‘and I voxed for reinforcements. A team of servitors and Techmarines made the tomb safe and disarmed the Dreadnought.’
‘Did it speak to you?’ asked Vladimir.
‘It did,’ said Orfos. ‘It placed itself in my custody, and told me its name.’
‘Which was?’
‘Daenyathos.’
Sarpedon slumped against the pulpit.
Daenyathos was dead. The heretic Croivas Ascenian had killed him six thousand years ago.
His mind raced. The impossibility of it stunned him.
Of all the names he might have heard listed as a traitor, Daenyathos was the last he would have expected. Daenyathos had written down the Soul Drinkers’ way of war, and even after casting aside the ways of the old Chapter Sarpedon had still found infinite wisdom in Daenyathos’s works. Every Soul Drinker had read the Catechisms Martial. Sarpedon had fought his wars by its words. It had given him strength. Daenyathos was a symbol of what the Imperium could be – wise and strong, tempered with discipline but beloved of knowledge. Now the philosopher-soldier’s name had been dragged into this sordid business.
And if he was alive... if Daenyathos truly lived still, as only a Space Marine in a Dreadnought could...
‘I swear...’ said Sarpedon. ‘If he lives... I swear I did not know...’
‘And by what do you swear?’ snarled Captain Borganor from the gallery. ‘On your traitor’s honour? On the tombs of my brothers you have slain? I say this proves the Soul Drinkers are not mere renegades! I say they have been corrupt for millennia, under the guidance of Daenyathos, sworn to the powers of the Enemy and primed to bring about some plot of the warp’s foul making!’
Hammer and Bolter Year One Page 34