Hammer and Bolter Year One

by Christian Dunn

  Goedendag climbed the pile of the dead, and finally he came face to face with Gutor Invareln, latent psyker, the cause of all the chaos.

  Around the human, Goedendag could see the outline of the creature that had possessed him. Huge and powerful, with a bovine face, one female breast and four arms. Two of them ended in human-like hands, two of them in crab-like claws.

  A greater daemon of Slaanesh. A Keeper of Secrets.

  The daemon had not achieved full corporeality; it seemed to be still existing in some halfway state as it entered this universe. The psyker was completely possessed, looking out from the translucent form of the demon that surrounded him, eyes vacant, an idiot grin on his face.

  The daemon giggled at the sight of Goedendag.

  ‘How appropriate,’ said the daemon. ‘For the Iron Knights have their secrets, do they not?’

  ‘And you are a Keeper of Secrets,’ replied Goedendag.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Goedendag Morningstar.’

  There was silence, broken only by the ever present dripping of blood.

  ‘Don’t you wish to know my name?’ asked the daemon.

  ‘No.’

  A look of petulance crossed the daemon’s face, like that of a small child denied a toy. It quickly passed.

  ‘And yet I believe I do hold a secret you wish to know. Do you wish to know the location of your brethren?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  The daemon laughed.

  ‘I know that you are lying. Everyone knows of the penitence of the Iron Knights. Few outside the order know the reason. I am one of them. I am a Keeper of Secrets, and I know the location of your traitor brethren. It lies beyond the portal, Goedendag Morningstar, but I think you know that already. Why else would you have come here?’

  ‘To kill you, of course.’

  The daemon looked beyond Goedendag’s shoulder. Goedendag did not turn. He could hear the skittering, giggling sound made by the Daemonettes who filed into the room behind him.

  ‘My daughters are here. It would appear the comrades you left behind on the floor below have fallen, Goedendag Morningstar.’

  ‘It is no disgrace to die in battle.’

  ‘The traitors you seek thought otherwise, Goedendag Morningstar. They chose Chaos, Goedendag Morningstar. And you nearly chose the same!’

  Goedendag said nothing, for to speak with a daemon was to be drawn into an argument with a daemon.

  ‘I will take your silence as agreement.’ The half seen features of the daemon looked down. Within its form, the psyker beamed with happy idiocy. ‘There is no need for you to lie, Goedendag Morningstar. I can sense the shame within you. It is the only thing that you have that outshines the temptation you feel, for you are full of lust for the pleasures of life. The pleasures denied to a Space Marine.’

  Still Goedendag was silent.

  ‘And I should know. Isn’t that what I am about? The Keeper of Secrets? What secrets could be greater than those we do not want to know about ourselves?’

  ‘What secrets, indeed?’ said Goedendag tightly.

  ‘See? You speak! You should not be ashamed, Goedendag Morningstar. Your behaviour does not surprise me. Who is more zealous in following a path than one who has almost fallen from it? A man who was never tempted would not have half your ferocity. Look, it brought you to the top of this tower!’

  ‘I came to destroy you.’

  ‘So you say. Come, Goedendag Morningstar. Soon the portal will open fully. Why not pass beyond it? Join your dark brethren. Join the Iron Knights that you call traitors.’

  ‘Enough talk, Daemon. It is time to fight.’

  The daemon laughed.

  ‘Fight? It is all that you can do to stand, Goedendag Morningstar. Look at you. My very presence induces anguish and ecstasy within you.’

  Goedendag looked down at the floor, focussed on the corporeal feet of the psyker that stood within the outline of the daemon, and he tried to concentrate on the reality of the situation. In truth, he felt a savage joy within him that he usually knew best from battle, but this time it was mixed with something more innocent, something that rang with the purity of childhood, but a tainted purity, something polluted by blood and perverted in daemonic fashion. He felt the excitement that he had known when, as an Aspirant, he had first begun the transition to Space Marine, when the gene-seed had been implanted and he had begun the long process of modification. Except now he felt something that he hadn’t known at the time. A deep anguish, a total certainty that the procedure would fail, that his body would reject the process and he would be branded a failure, that he would let down those who had come to depend upon him.

  ‘You’re strong, daemon’ admitted Goedendag. ‘You are affecting even me.’

  ‘This human is strong,’ said the daemon, indicating the psyker within himself. ‘Strong enough to offer himself in sacrifice in order to open the portal.’

  ‘He was a weak man!’ shouted Goedendag.

  ‘He was a bitter man. Bitter that his powers were overlooked by the Imperium.’

  ‘He should have been executed as a danger to all.’ Goedendag felt his willpower draining away.

  ‘Lucky for us that he was not. You know what price he asked in order to sacrifice himself to the portal? Only that he lived long enough to see us succeed. That was one bargain that we were happy to keep.’

  Goedendag felt the chainsword getting heavier in his hands.

  ‘You’re getting weaker,’ said the daemon, as the chainsword slipped though Goedendag’s fingers and clattered to the floor.

  ‘I can still fight.’

  ‘I don’t think so. And so, Goedendag, before you die, I have one final question to ask you. Goedendag means Morningstar, does it not?’

  ‘It does. This is the last question you wish to ask me?’

  ‘No, you interrupt me. Your name, therefore, is Morningstar Morningstar. Why is that?’

  ‘Because of this,’ said Goedendag. And he crossed his hands over his chest and, gripping the two morning star handles that were fastened on his back, he swung them up and around, through the translucent outline of the daemon and brought them together, crushing the psyker’s head. There was a crunch of bone, grey matter exploding in a disk between the spikes of the two balls.

  The daemon shrieked, and immediately Goedendag felt the sense of anguish and ecstasy decrease.

  ‘The portal is closing,’ said the daemon. ‘But I will make my mark in this world first!’

  Goedendag stooped and scooped the chainsword from the floor. The daemon saw what he was doing and laughed.

  ‘That will not harm me in this form!’

  ‘I am not aiming for you,’ replied Goedendag coolly as he triggered the chainsword and used it to cut through the dead psyker’s neck. ‘Removing the head will speed the closing of the rift.’ He straightened up and moved around so that his back was to the shrinking portal.

  ‘And now,’ he said. ‘What will your daemonettes do? Will they attempt to pass me as they flee for the closing warp?’

  The daemon laughed.

  ‘One man against the force of the daemonettes? I only wish I could sustain corporeality enough to watch you die under their onslaught! As it is, I will take comfort in the fact the location of your Iron Brethren will remain my secret!’

  ‘Daemon, when I have disposed of your daughters, I will come looking for you. You have my word on that.’

  The daemon laughed louder.

  ‘You say that when you fight only with a chainsword? And listen! My sisters approach now!’

  It was true. Goedendag heard the skittering of claws on blood and iron.

  ‘Only a chainsword, you say,’ said Goedendag, smiling grimly. ‘You forget my morning stars.’

  ‘And will that be enough?’ laughed the daemon.

  ‘Let us see,’ said Goedendag, and he triggered the chainsword. The angry buzzing was an invitation to the approaching daemons. He stepped forwar
d and raised his sword.

  Simultaneously, eight white-bodied daemons leapt at him, screaming in unison. They raised their crab-like claws and plunged towards Goedendag, teeth bared. Eight more leapt up behind them.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said the daemon, and Goedendag stepped forward to meet the lithe attackers. The first lunged forward with one snapping claw. Goedendag swung his chainsword in a tight circle that sliced through the claw and into the side of the daemonette that followed. A clawed foot lashed out and took hold of his armoured boot. Goedendag ignored it and slashed at another attacker.

  ‘Come on!’ he called. ‘Come on, all of you!’

  White bodies advanced on all sides. Claws, screaming, blood, ichor. Goedendag stood at the top of a mound of naked, bound bodies, bathed in blood, and he fought like a daemon himself. But there were too many of them. The sheer weight of numbers began to overwhelm him.

  And then he heard a shout. There, in the distance, he saw Telramund, armour half broken, bathed in blood and ichor. And behind him, Fastlinger, and then Franosch.

  The shout came again.

  ‘The humans are clear.’

  Tired though he was, Goedendag smiled.

  ‘Now,’ he said, holstering his chainsword, ‘Now it is time for meltaguns!’

  The Iron Knights looked at the bodies of the fallen. Goedendag and Franosch watched the shrinking remnants of the closing portal.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Goedendag.

  Franosch shook his head.

  ‘Sorry. Nothing.’ He wiped his forehead, removing a splash of blood. ‘Did it occur to you that the daemon could be lying?’

  Goedendag looked thoughtful.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘It knew too much.’

  ‘Then the Iron Brethren exist somewhere in the warp. The story is true.’

  ‘Perhaps…’ He place a warning hand on Franosch’s arm. Kelra, the Imperial Guardswoman had entered the room.

  ‘So, Goedendag,’ she said, ‘you succeeded. The tower is secure. The civilians are safe. Thank you.’

  ‘We don’t do this for gratitude,’ said Goedendag. ‘Don your helmets, brothers. It’s time to leave.’

  ‘But–’ called Kelra.

  ‘Thank you, sister,’ said Goedendag. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

  The First Duty

  Joshua Reynolds

  ‘What is the first duty, young Goetz?’

  ‘To go where we are needed, hochmeister,’ Hector Goetz had said promptly. Goetz was a young man, tall and broad in all the right places with the pale, fair features of the Talabheim aristocracy. His hair was shorn close to the scalp, as was proper for one of his station, and his wrists and shoulders were thick with muscle. It had been only three short weeks since he’d won his spurs in his final test – a bloody melee with a band of orcs in the hills near Talabheim.

  ‘And what is the second?’

  ‘To do what must be done!’ Goetz had replied, crashing a fist against the embossed twin-tailed comet on his brightly polished cuirass.

  And the hochmeister had smiled sadly. Goetz hadn’t realised why at the time.

  Now, however, he was beginning to understand.

  Armour the colour of brass reflected the light of the burning mill as the horse reared, steel-shod hooves lashing out to connect with brutish skulls. A man howled as a sword sheared through his raised arm, sending both his blade and the hand that wielded it flying off into the smoke. Another warrior staggered as the sword whipped around to chop through its shield and into the skull beyond.

  Hector Goetz grunted and ripped his sword free with a surge of muscle as his horse spun, bugling a challenge to the stallion charging to meet them. Goetz, eyes narrowed within his helm, set his horse into motion to meet this newest threat. The rider, a pale-skinned, spade-bearded brute, gave a guttural cry as he swung his heavy, chopping blade wildly.

  Goetz twisted to the side as the horses crashed against one another and swung his shield between himself and his opponent’s weapon. As the blade chunked into the surface of the shield, Goetz shifted, pushing the sword away and his opponent off balance. His own blade met the bared surface of the man’s neck in a spray of blood. The head toppled, jaws still champing. Goetz grabbed the reins and turned the horse.

  With a rending crash, the mill wheel collapsed into the Talabec, taking part of the mill with it. His attention diverted, the young knight barely managed to avoid the stroke of the axe that was aimed at his hip.

  Goetz threw himself from his saddle, crashing to the ground with a clatter. Rolling to his feet, he stumbled back as the axe chopped towards him.

  It was a crude thing, battered and beaten into a rough approximation of shape. Despite its crudity it was still dangerous and Goetz bent backwards as it looped past his visor. Its wielder wore the stink of death like a cloak, and his grunt of effort as he regained his balance was bestial.

  He swung the axe up again and brought it crashing down on Goetz’s shield. The ill-treated blade shivered and splintered, and Goetz swept it aside without thought as he drove his sword point-first into the man’s belly. The man folded up over the blade and dropped, screaming.

  Goetz wrenched his weapon free and stepped back, fighting a surge of nausea as his opponent thrashed on the ground.

  ‘Sir Hector, look out!’

  Goetz ducked as a hammer pummelled the air inches away from the back of his skull. He reversed his blade and stabbed it back into his attacker. The man wailed and slid off the blade as Goetz turned. Breathing shallowly, he looked around. ‘Thank you, Captain Hoffman,’ he said.

  ‘Think nothing of it, Sir Hector.’ Dressed in the crimson and gold finery of an officer in the Talabecland militia, now smudged and fouled with soot, Captain Hoffman leaned on his sword and spat. ‘All dead, curse the luck.’

  ‘All–’ Goetz pushed up his visor and looked around. Bodies lay scattered everywhere around the burning mill. ‘No! No!’ he said. Then, more quietly, ‘Too late.’ He stabbed his sword into the dirt to clean it. ‘Again, too late.’ He looked at the other man. ‘Call your men together, Captain Hoffman. We need to put this fire out and check for–’

  ‘Let it burn,’ a rough voice interjected. Goetz turned. A man clad in the tanned leathers and rough pelts of a forester gestured towards the fire with his blood-stained hatchet. ‘Let it burn. There won’t be any survivors and no sense wasting the effort. Not when we could be putting it to better uses.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ Hoffman snarled, wiping sweat and soot off of his brow. He looked at Goetz. ‘Sir Hector, we have to at least try!’

  Goetz hesitated but then regretfully shook his head as he looked at the crumbling mill. ‘No. No, Lothar is correct. Let it burn out.’ He spat, trying to clear his mouth of the taste of smoke. ‘They’re all dead.’

  Just like last time. Just like every time. Every person they had come to save, every person in every isolated mill and farmstead between the river and Volgen. ‘It was just wishful thinking, I suppose.’

  He forced himself to breathe and planted his sword point first into the ground. Prayer wasn’t something he was normally comfortable with, being from the aristocracy. He knelt and bowed his head, murmuring a swift prayer to Myrmidia, the patron-goddess of the Order of the Blazing Sun. It seemed fitting that he ask the Goddess of Battle to take in the souls of those slain in such a manner. Six times he had done such, and this time made him feel no better than the first.

  If anything, he felt worse.

  A shadow fell over him, and he broke off and looked up at Lothar. Yellow, square teeth surfaced in a mocking grin from beneath the man’s thick beard. ‘Begging your pardon, sir knight, but when you’re finished, there’s doings afoot.’

  Goetz rose stiffly, armour creaking. ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘Something you ought to see,’ the forester said, crooking a finger. ‘Since you’re here and all and in charge, so you are.’

  Goetz sheathed his sword with a touch more force than was necessa
ry and, squashing the flare of indignation that the man’s impertinent tone had brought up, followed him. The hochmeister had warned him that the foresters were an unruly lot, and impatient with rank.

  Not at all like the stiffly formal militiamen that had accompanied Goetz from Volgen. Captain Hoffman was a stickler for the rules and formalities that he likely had little enough opportunity to use in a town like Volgen. Goetz joined Lothar and the captain in examining the body of one of the men he’d killed.

  ‘First time we’ve been able to catch the devils at their work,’ Hoffman said. ‘Too bad we didn’t get them alive.’

  ‘They’ll talk all the same,’ Lothar said, dropping easily to his haunches.

  The contorted body was well-illuminated by the light of the flames. He wore cast-off leathers and rags of chainmail that had proven more decorative than protective in the end. Lothar grunted and used the blade of his hatchet to rip open the man’s filthy tunic. He grimaced at what was revealed and made a sign in the air.

  ‘Witch’s mark,’ he said, looking up at Goetz. ‘Sure as I’m alive.’

  ‘A tattoo,’ Hoffman said, slapping his leather gloves into his palm. ‘A bit of peasant crudity. It proves nothing.’

  ‘It proves what we’ve been saying is all,’ Lothar said, cramming his helmet back on his head. ‘Even a lack-wit townie like you should be able to see that. These men are devil-spawn!’

  ‘Insulting a superior officer?’ Hoffman said, his eyes narrowing. ‘A man can get the lash for that.’

  ‘True. But who would you get to wield it?’ Lothar said, grinning in an unfriendly fashion. The two men had been at each other’s throats since they’d set out from Volgen. The foresters were nominally under the command of the local militia commander, but in reality they were completely autonomous. They functioned as scouts most of the time, but rarely responded when the Imperial Levy was called, unless it was a case like this. Most local authorities turned a blind eye – the foresters were far too useful, given that Talabecland was mostly forest and hills.