by Various
Darkness greeted Chaplain Agrata as he entered the reclusiam. As was tradition, the lumo-candles and electro-braziers had been extinguished. There could be no light until the truth was illuminated by the Recountance. Chaplain Devak and Chaplain Karan awaited him at the far end of the chamber, the dark gunmetal of their armour conspiring with the shadows to render them almost invisible. Only the red glow of their optics gave away their position on the pulpit.
Agrata’s armoured boots echoed on the cobbled floor as he joined them.
‘You’re late.’ Devak was the eldest of the trifecta. Age had torn any trace of humanity from his voice.
‘I was consecrating my blade.’ Out of respect, Agrata kept his annoyance from his tone. There was no formal hierarchy within the Death Speakers. There were three, and always three. Each was as important as the other. Yet it was hard not to feel a measure of deference to Devak.
‘Are you prepared?’ asked Karan, his voice laden with feral power, like a mighty tide crashing against the rock-face.
‘I am.’
‘Then let us begin.’
At Devak’s instruction the three Chaplains reached into the bronzed vessel positioned on the lectern, sifting through the ashen remains of Sixth Company’s fallen to retrieve a lumo-candle.
‘Honoured dead.’ Devak began the Recountance, twisting the base of his candle so that the tip sparked into flame.
‘Your deeds will be tallied,’ continued Karan, lighting his candle.
Agrata lit his candle and finished the catechism. ‘Your name remembered.’ Coiling the chain of his rosarius around his hand, Agrata clenched his fist. ‘It is my sadness, and my honour, to begin the recounting of Brother-Captain Jahnu Marut, warlord of the Sixth Company, mortally wounded in the Sargassion Reach battling the forces of Empyrion’s Blight, the plague sons of the Archenemy.’
Agrata paused. He had recounted the deeds of the Executioners’ fallen for almost a century. He had spoken the truths of hundreds of the Chapter’s heroes who had been claimed by battle. But until now, he had never spoken the history of a warrior who had yet to die.
‘Captain Koryn will extract us once our mission is complete.’ Marut had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the drop pod as it thrust them towards Belvasa’s surface.
‘And if the Ravens cannot reach us?’ Sergeant Rudra was harnessed to Marut’s right, an ornate power axe held across his lap.
‘Then our names shall be remembered.’ Marut grinned, though his face held no humour.
Rudra’s reply was lost to a cacophony of noise as the drop pod crashed through the domed ceiling of Belvasa’s central palace. A heartbeat later, its ferrite petals slammed to the ground, disgorging the Executioners attack force into the palace. Marut was first out, spitting a raft of curses, the long braids of his hair whipping free as he tore his twin axes through the bodies of the foe.
‘Their heads or your lives. For the Emperor, kill them all!’ Marut bellowed Sixth Company’s battle cry and charged onwards, bisecting a hulking mutant from groin to shoulder as he powered across the hallway.
The palace had once been the jewel of the sector, a multifaceted building constructed to showcase the wealth of Belvasa’s ruling classes. Now, it was a blight construct, a diseased architecture that dripped with ichor and poison. Pillars of pustules sprouted from the marble floor, which pulsed underfoot with thick veins of translucent flesh.
Lebbeous Sacar sat atop a throne of gibbering wretches, fleshy meat-sacs that had once been human, bent double by Nurgle’s touch.
‘Trespassers!’ Lebbeous’s voice was like warm treacle as it bubbled from his throat. Steaming ichor dripped from his mucous-riven maw, dissolving portions of his bulbous torso. Corroded armour fragments studded the fold of his bloated carcass. Buried under a web of taut flesh, a shorn pauldron still displayed the livery of the Death Guard.
Flanked by Rudra and his assault squad, Marut hacked his way up a set of gore-slicked stairs towards Lebbeous, his twin axes bathing him in putrid filth as he carved apart the Death Guard’s warriors.
‘Lebbeous Sacar, I have come for your head,’ Marut growled as he closed on his prey.
Lebbeous gurgled in laughter, sending a wash of viscous fluid spilling from his lungs to dissolve a pair of his hunched attendants. ‘An irony, then, that I shall take yours, Space Marine.’ The Death Guard rose from his flesh-throne, convulsing as a stream of bile erupted from his mouth to engulf the Executioners.
Marut pulled one of the larger mutants to him, sheltering behind its bulbous form. To his right, Brothers Chaten and Datta died as the corrosive expellant ate through the ceramite of their armour and liquefied their flesh.
‘Rudra, guard my rear. His head is mine.’ Marut dropped the dissolving mutant and charged Lebbeous.
The Death Guard met Marut’s axes with two blades of sharpened bone that erupted from the meat of his forearms.
Marut snarled as Lebbeous turned aside blow after blow. The Death Guard was faster than he had any right to be. Marut could feel himself slowing, his arms tiring as the fog of pestilence surrounding around Lebbeous leeched the vitality from his bones. He did not have long. Roaring in frustration, Marut sacrificed his defence to shear off Lebbeous’s right forearm and bury an axe in the meat of the opposite shoulder. If the wounds troubled Lebbeous, it didn’t show.
The Executioner winced, stifling a cry as one of the bone blades drove through his armour and up into his ribs. Letting go of his weapons, Marut grabbed hold of one of the armour segments lodged in Lebbeous’s chest. Feeling his primary heart beat its last, Marut pulled himself onto the bone blade, impaling himself further until his face was a hand’s span from Lebbeous’s. He had to fight to stay conscious as the Death Guard’s noxious breath permeated his skin. A foetid stench of rank copper and decay ruined Marut’s olfactory senses and forced blood to run from his nostrils.
‘Your head or my life.’ Marut drew a length of monomolecular wire from his vambrace and looped it over Lebbeous’s head, ripping it through the Death Guard’s neck and beheading him.
‘Brother-Captain Jahnu Marut, warlord of Sixth Company, mortally wounded on Belvasa,’ Agrata concluded.
‘Captain Koryn of the Raven Guard pledges oath to this account,’ said Karan.
‘Then this Recountal shall be recorded as truth,’ Devak finished, placing his palm over each of the candles in turn, extinguishing them.
Darkness held sway for a moment before the vaulted reclusiam doors ground open, bathing the chamber in the harsh light from the Castagion’s bridge. A single unarmoured figure stepped over the threshold and knelt.
‘I have come to die, Death Speakers.’
Captain Marut’s voice rumbled into the chamber, resounding like thunder against the vaulted walls as the doors closed behind him.
‘Illuminate.’ Agrata snapped the command and strode towards the captain. Above him, a flock of psyber-cherubs drifted from the chamber’s rafters to light the central brazier. A ghoulish union of stillborn infant and dark technology, the cherubs acted as attendants to the Death Speakers. Any beauty the babes had once possessed was overshadowed by the distended, obsidian skulls that sat between their shoulders in tribute to the skull helms worn by their masters, and the eerie clicking of the mechanical wings that kept them aloft.
Agrata stopped an arm’s length from Marut. The captain was badly wounded, the right side of his torso marred by a dark, pulsating bruise that spread from his ribs up across his shoulder and face. His left arm hung limply by his side and his eyes were pools of cancerous yellow.
Agrata growled, appalled by the stench of the sickness wasting Marut. He could almost taste the disease ruining his captain’s innards. The Death Speaker drew his crozius, flicking its activation stud to send a flicker of charge arcing along its axehead. Agrata raised the weapon and hesitated.
‘If you do not kill me,’ said Marut, ‘Chandak or Prasad will. They will challenge me for leadership of the company, and I will lose.’
> ‘That is the way of things, captain,’ said Agrata. ‘Perhaps it would be for the best.’
‘They are not ready,’ Marut snarled. His eyes blazed with a strength that belied the weakness of his body. ‘The Headhunters will not find glory under their charge.’
‘An axe cannot kill if there is no one to wield it.’
‘You three. You Death Speakers shall lead until another proves themselves worthy.’
‘Our duty is to–’
‘Do not lecture me on duty, Chaplain. I did not come here for a sermon. Do as I command and kill me.’ Saliva flecked Marut’s mouth as he got to his feet. ‘Do it. Kill m–’
Agrata sliced his crozius through Marut’s neck, pivoting with the stroke so that he heard, rather than saw, the captain’s decapitated body slump to the floor.
Sheathing his weapon, Agrata turned to look down on Marut’s corpse. He stood a moment, feeling his chest rise and fall, calming his hearts as they beat in protest against the weight of his actions.
‘The Emperor calls, my axe obeys.’
Whispering the rite of execution, Agrata retrieved a vial of incendiary from a recess in his thigh and smashed it over the captain’s remains, watching as the white flame scoured away his warlord. Stooping low, the Death Speaker scooped up a handful of Marut’s ashes.
‘Honoured dead. Your deeds have been tallied, your name remembered.’
The corpse lay sprawled across the sand, a crimson puddle staining the ground beside it. Fat, carmine-winged bloat-moths buzzed about the body, darting down to deposit their eggs in the dead flesh. Occasionally, one of the soldiers gathered around the corpse would snap the unfolded length of a foil-cloth at the insects, driving them back. Such efforts were half-hearted, however. The soldiers didn’t care if the corpse was desecrated by vermin. Indeed, they’d be only too happy to defile the body with their own blades.
Brother-Sergeant Carius scowled behind the view-scope of his needle rifle. It would be so easy to kill these traitors in the midst of their crass mockery of the body at their feet. He could bring down a dozen of them in less time than it took him to put the thought into words. Brother Zosimus would account for at least eight more. In the wink of an eye, a score of the rebels would be twitching in the dirt. A fitting tribute to the dead Sergius.
Carius let the lust for vengeance drain away. Hate was a powerful emotion, but it was one that had to be harnessed, forced to submit to an even more powerful will. Control and discipline, these were the foundations of what it meant to be Adeptus Astartes, what was at the core of a Space Marine. It was what set the Emperor’s Warbringers apart from the diseased traitors who raved and ravaged across the galaxy.
The soldiers, borderers of the rebel government that had seised control of Feralis IV, snapped to attention as an officer marched amongst them and stared down at Sergius. Carius noted the absence of the stylised Feralian Dragonspider on the officer’s kepi. The pressure of his finger on the trigger relaxed. This officer wasn’t the target they were waiting for. Carius wouldn’t allow Sergius’s sacrifice to go for naught.
More than most, Carius could appreciate the duty and loyalty that had motivated Sergius. Like Sergius, Carius would never become a full initiate of the Chapter, never to wear the power armour of a true Warbringer. Something had gone wrong when the black carapace was being grafted to his body, his flesh rejecting the neural interfaces that would allow him to interact with a suit of power armour as though it were a second skin. His body’s rejection of that final implant had condemned Carius to remain among the neophytes, instructing and training them to advance to places their teacher could never go.
Carius had learned to be content with his lot, appreciating that he was still able to take the field with his battle-brothers. He could appreciate how much worse it must have been for Sergius, an aspirant who had served among the Scout squad under the sergeant over ten years previously. His body had proven itself far less viable, rejecting the neuroglottis when it was implanted in his oral cavity. The Chapter’s Apothecaries had been able to salvage the man’s life, but at the cost of rendering him mute and denying him the hope of ever becoming a Warbringer. The silent wreckage had been allowed to serve as a Chapter serf, a non-combatant menial on one of the Warbringers strike cruisers.
Feralis IV had presented Sergius with the opportunity to perform a more meaningful function for the Chapter. Nearly two centuries of rebel rule over the planet had transformed it into a veritable fortress. Fifty years had passed since an Imperial Guard expedition had been repulsed from the world. The lessons taught by their failure had benefited the Warbringers, highlighting the strengths in the Feralian defence.
And exposing its weaknesses.
Cold as ice, Carius watched as the Feralian officer kicked Sergius’s head, sending the armaplas helmet rolling in the dust. The borderers all laughed, their lilting accents striking the Scout-sergeant’s ears like a physical blow. Through the display in the ocular lens covering his left eye, he could see the chronometer steadily ticking away. If the target didn’t reveal himself soon, the mission would be scrubbed and the Warbringers would be forced to find another way.
For three weeks Carius and his squad had stalked the hinterlands of Quadrant Azure as the Warbringers had designated the vast stretch of desert straddling the planet’s equator. In that time, the Space Marines had killed over two hundred men, dropping them at range with their needle rifles. Always, they were careful when they killed, taking pains to make it seem the work of a single sniper. Always, they ensured evidence was left behind to point to the off-world origins of that sniper.
For three weeks they had been picking away at the discipline and resolve of the borderers, undermining the authority of their commanders with the double poison of fear and hate. Every effort on the part of the rebel military to root out the unseen killer had failed. In their desperation they had even resorted to artillery barrages and air strikes on regions where they suspected the sniper might be hidden. After each attack, the Space Marines had been quiet for a few days, lulling the borderers into a false sense of security, deceiving them that the menace had been eradicated. Then, from some new quarter, they would strike once more and panic would sweep through the rebel ranks.
Now, as the Feralians glared at Sergius, they thought the hunt was truly over. It had been a hard thing, keeping the Chapter serf alive these many weeks, pressing his puny human stamina to maintain the pace of even a neophyte Warbringer. Carius had seen the sense of shame growing in Sergius each day, the knowledge that his weakness was placing an extra burden on the Scout Marines. When the moment came for his sacrifice, Sergius had accepted his role with gratitude.
After the final attack of the ‘sniper’, Carius left behind evidence that the slaughtered borderers had wounded their killer. A trail of off-world blood led the Feralians back to Sergius’s body and the killing ground Carius had prepared.
All that was left now was for the commander of Quadrant Azure to show himself. The colonel had been an officer in the Feralian Cheka before trading his position for a military commission. After all the trouble the sniper had caused his command, it was a certainty that the colonel would come to personally examine the dead man in the natural surroundings of what his analytical mind would consider a crime scene. The psychological profile developed by the Chapter’s cogitators from intelligence siphoned from Feralian relays predicted such a response.
The moment he arrived, Carius would tap the vox-bead around his throat. Simultaneously, both he and Zosimus would fire and eliminate the rebel colonel in a vicious crossfire. At the same time, Brother Domitian and the rest of his squad would begin detonating the charges they had placed in the borderers’ communication hub.
Deprived of both communication and command, Quadrant Azure would be thrown into confusion. It might be a question of only a few hours before order was restored, but for the borderers there would be no time. Without command or communication, the defence batteries scattered about the desert would be incapable of
mounting a co-ordinated attack when the drop pods of the Emperor’s Warbringers began their descent. Once the Space Marines made planetfall, the fate of Feralis IV was sealed.
A rebel world would be purged with bolter and chainsword, brought back into the light of the Imperium. All through the sacrifice of a man who had been deprived of a great destiny.
Carius smiled as he spotted a tall officer with the Feralian Dragonspider on his kepi approach Sergius. ‘For you, brother,’ the sergeant whispered as his finger pulled the trigger.
The power sword falls in a screaming arc, more a thing alive with its own anger than a weapon controlled by his hands. He sees it descend, the fractions of seconds extended by the chem-stimulated processing of his genhanced brain. He sees it at point of impact, the molecule-fine edge slicing though the armour plate of the traitor cultist’s wargear. The momentary flash of sparks as metal is torn apart. The blade sinks into flesh, easy and quick, cutting and burning. Meat-smell. Seared flesh, heavy in his nostrils, triggering scent-memory of a grox butchered for sustenance months ago. The enemy makes a sound that is not a scream, not truly. It is more a moan, a cry of futility. There is understanding in it, now at the end. The cultist knows he is finished.
The blood gushes like wine from a cracked urn, a stream becoming a spray, a jetting, throbbing pulse that pools at the murdered man’s feet. He comes apart, shoulder and arm and half his chest cleaved away, the bone-crack sound as it breaks off.
The traitor dies and the warrior moves on, crushing his opponent’s skull with one great boot of crimson ceramite as he passes. The act is not deliberate, not planned. It is simply that the Blood Angel has finished his task with this particular foe, and there are so many more yet to be killed. A numberless horde, foul of tongue and screaming their black hymns to Chaos. The Blood Angel and his kinsmen will murder them all before the day is done, and soak the earth of this inconsequential world with the spoil.