by Various
The Angels Resplendent died that day and the Angels Penitent rose from their grave, shadow-bound and bitter.
‘The Emperor condemns.’
– First Psalm
‘This is not the way to the Hall of Thorns,’ Phelion protested.
‘No,’ Montaig admitted. ‘It is not. I am taking you to the Harbinger’s Gate. Head upriver from there and lose yourself in the mountains.’
The neophyte halted, confused. ‘But the Crown of Thorns has summoned me.’
‘It has,’ Montaig said. ‘It has summoned you to tear yourself apart, as all who attempt the Path of Thorns must do.’
‘If that is the penitence for my sin–’
‘You have committed no sin!’ Montaig almost snarled. ‘Your scrimshaw carvings honour the primarch.’
‘No…’ Phelion’s eyes were feverish. ‘Art exalts the tyranny of vanity.’
‘We were warrior artisans before the outsider enslaved us. I’ve seen your skill grow over the years – arms and art in harmony, the true path of the Resplendent.’
‘You knew of my heresy?’ The neophyte was aghast.
‘I am your mentor-sergeant. Of course I knew.’ Montaig shook his head gravely. ‘I strove to shield you, but someone must have spied your work and betrayed you.’
‘Nobody betrayed me,’ Phelion said coldly. ‘I confessed my sin to the Crown of Thorns.’
Montaig stared at him.
‘As you must confess yours, mentor-sergeant,’ Phelion accused, ‘for you have broken faith with–’
Montaig’s fist took him in the face, crushing his words with a savagery that sent the neophyte reeling against the wall. Even so, Phelion’s reflexes were magnificent and he turned the stagger into a wild spin, trying to put distance between them, but Montaig gave him no quarter. Stepping in, he caught Phelion by the throat and swung again, then again, letting the Black Rage claim him, absolving him of virtue or honour or the torment of hope.
We have fallen and we cannot rise for our wings are chained and our blood runs cold…
When it was done Montaig stepped away from the broken corpse, breathing hard as he fought down the rage. It had not felt black at all, but radiant.
‘The heretic tried to flee,’ he said aloud, testing the words that he would offer the Crown of Thorns. ‘I delivered him unto the Emperor’s spite.’
And I will make my stand another day.
Strobing lumens flickered in the vault like the pulse of a dying man. They threw shadows around the arches and pillars, illuminating a tableau of torn cadavers and shattered stone. Ambient light filtered from the ruined eye sockets of the monotask servitors installed in the walls. Their wiry tendons twitched an idiot code that no one would read, sending gibberish into the night.
Bolt pistol raised, Jathrac Leatherhand kicked through a shattered bulkhead and cast about for life signs. He sniffed as he strode into the gloom. The aftermath of the tyranid wyrm’s attack was easy for him to read, even with his symbolic lupine helm lost during the previous day’s drop raid. Two hundred long years spent as a Wolf Priest and still the sharpness of his senses was a source of pride for him.
The vault’s tiled white floor had been opened wide by a burrowing organism the size of a mag-train. The hole the beast had torn in the vault’s centre was surrounded by several slain battle brothers, Jathrac’s packmate Dvujac amongst them. The Wolf Priest shook his head to see his once ribald old friend lying mangled and pale in a lake of his own blood. Next to a fizzing bank of cogitators at the rear of the vault, the top half of a Dreadnought lay on its engine pack, mayday signals glitching.
The rest of the fallen were Iron Hands, by their heraldry. Two had been ripped bodily in half. Three others had been speared through with wide, triangular stab wounds that not even a Space Marine could hope to survive. Xenos blood was spattered about the walls and the smell of bolter cordite hung in the air, but of the tyranid war-serpent there was no sign. Subterranean ambush, thought Jathrac. Highly effective. Even the logic-prophecies of the Medusans couldn’t predict the movements of a worldwide tyranid infestation.
The Wolf Priest sniffed twice, his senses flaring. The smell of burned meat was not wholesome, like that of a roasted ice elk or cinderwolf, but rotten and sharp, a warning taint lingering under the tang of xenos bio-electricity. Servitor-flesh, thought Jathrac. Not good to eat.
Underneath that layer of scent, on the cusp of cogniscence, was the dull hormonal trace of progenoid glands. Jathrac activated the whirring blades of his Fang of Morkai. After carefully harvesting the gene-seed of his brother Dvujac, he made his way to the corpses of the Iron Hands. Machine-lovers they may have been, but they deserved the rites of heritage, the same as any other Chapter. A dozen burned-out servitors stared sightlessly down as the Wolf Priest went about the ritual of reclamation.
Something moved in the corner of the room. Jathrac spun round, bolt pistol raised and lips curled back. Tiny hairs stood up all over his weatherbeaten skin, but it was the Dreadnought, nothing more. The machine’s blunt fist spasmed open and closed with a growl of servos. Still alive, then, thought Jathrac. Systems burned out by bio-electric discharge, crippled beyond recovery and fading fast, but technically alive.
A hiss of static came from the fallen Dreadnought’s vox-grille. Jathrac finished flasking the gene-seed of the fallen Iron Hands and made his way over.
‘Are you awake, brother?’ he asked.
‘Reroute,’ fizzed the vox-grille of the Dreadnought.
Jathrac read the scrollwork on the burnished metal sarcophagus. One Brother Radamarr, of Clan Dorrvok. The Wolf Priest raised his armoured knuckles and rapped the giant’s front plate twice, as if knocking on a door. ‘Xenos war-serpent got you, by the look of it. Cut you in twain and killed the rest.’
‘Reroute complete. Those are ill tidings. We failed, then.’
‘Aye, you did that. No shame in it, though. Big bastards, those burrowers. Love to have a crack at one myself, but duty calls. Speaking of which,’ said Jathrac, tapping the flasks at his waist, ‘got the gene-seed from your kin. All intact.’
‘Eternal thanks, from clan and Chapter,’ said Radamarr, ‘though I am not fit to give it.’
‘Well, I reckon that depends on the manner of your death,’ said Jathrac. ‘You’ve a progenoid tucked away in there too, friend. If I get it back to your brothers, that’s you passing on the torch. You can dine at the All-Father’s table with your head held high.’
‘Negative. My flesh was found wanting.’
‘That’s not the way it works, old timer. Now open up.’
‘Status of sarcophagus clasp unit: disabled.’
‘Disabled, eh?’ said the Wolf Priest with a sigh. ‘Well, I’ve seen this done more than once.’ Jathrac pulled out his plasma pistol from its holster of walrus hide, pressing the maxis-node on the gun’s underside whilst intoning the chant of unbinding.
‘Do not open the sarcophagus, brother Wolf,’ said the Dreadnought sombrely.
‘Why not?’ growled Jathrac impatiently.
‘I am not worthy of the rite.’
‘For Russ’s sake. There are billions of voydwyrms out there, Radamarr. I have no time to play confessor. Let’s get you flasked.’
‘No!’ shouted the Dreadnought, its vox so loud that dust shook from the vaulted ceiling above.
Jathrac tucked the fat barrel of the plasma pistol under the lip of the sarcophagus. He shielded his face to avoid the blast of energy and the subsequent burst of amniotic steam that would leave the Dreadnought’s crippled pilot naked inside. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the trigger. The sarcophagus flew open with a deafening bang.
Nothing came out but a blast of warm, stale air.
Jathrac sniffed once, nose and forehead wrinkled in confusion. His horror mounted as he turned back to the yawning sarcophagus that had swung open before him. The Dreadnought’s interior contained a mass of wires, a few pitted bone cogs… and nothing else.
‘What in the name of Russ?’
‘Expediency,’ said the Dreadnought, its vox-tone flat.
‘Abomination!’ shouted the Wolf Priest, his plasma pistol whipping round with a whine of recharging power cells.
Suddenly the vault went pitch black. There was a whirr, a crunch of ceramite, and then silence.
They gathered on the edge of the Great Eye. A Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, the Brazen Claws, loyal sons of the Gorgon, called to council by their Chapter Master. They assembled for the first time in two decades.
‘Where is my Chapter?’
The words rang out with force, deep and rumbling like distant thunder. Ships floated through the void behind the Chapter Master, oddly serene against the madness. Their hulls were painted pelagic blue and clotted red.
The gathered captains met their Chapter Master’s bloodshot eyes with stoic determination. Five stood where there had once been ten.
The Chapter Master thundered again, eyelids twitching, tics marring his bearded face.
Embrose Kalgach, Third Captain, stepped forward from the knot of his brethren. His right arm refused to move. Sparks showered out from the augmetic that replaced the limb. With his left, he pointed behind him at the four hundred Space Marines of the Brazen Claws standing at attention.
‘They stand here, Caul.’
‘You have called and we have answered,’ said Macklen Eogh, captain of the First Company. The other captains, the other four, echoed his words like a tragic chorus of the ancient Grekans.
There was no honorific, no deference. Just the merest hint of a weary respect. They’d lost what little desire they had once harboured for pomp and ceremony in the past twenty years, after the loss of Talus, after so many had died on this ill-fated crusade of vengeance. Now they were here to speak their minds. Twenty years they had waited to do so. Twenty years ago they should have. Now they had learned the cost of those words, learned the true price of vengeance.
Twenty years of hubris, pride and death.
Caul Engentre, Chapter Master of the Brazen Claws, rested his head in one red gauntlet. The choice was his, uttered in the ashes of his home world, the oath sworn amidst the fires of their fortress-monastery. The memories had lost their fury.
It was minutes before he spoke.
‘Tell me,’ he said. The anger bled from his voice.
Julas Imbolkh, fiery hair turning to grey, face a mess of scars, stepped forward to face the Chapter Master. The Seventh Captain struggled to keep his gaze from staring out of the observation window behind Engentre. ‘Erod took the Second out. He told me he was done. He had no wish to die in this damned place. He had no wish to die fighting this damned war, so he turned tail and went back to what we should be doing.’
The words were bold, brave, brazen. It was their nature, in their blood and in their name. Engentre let them slide, for he knew the truth when he heard it. The Seventh Captain stepped away, tearing his drifting eyes from the window.
‘What of Duro and the Eighth?’ the Chapter Master asked.
‘Lost along with the Ninth,’ answered Firlus Ghad. The words were blunt, suited to the augmetics that crouched on his throat and left his voice awash with static. ‘The fools chased the Children into the Eye after Hrtel. I’ve not seen them since.’
Two companies gone. It was a massive blow to the Chapter, taken away in three sentences.
Engentre stared out at the gathered Chapter, at the battered men left. There were gaps in squads, gaps in companies, once filled by men he had known and called brother. Even now, even standing at attention, they could not remain still. Their limbs danced, machinery grinding, clanking, ill-maintained. Their bodies were beset by random flashes of neuronic misfire as the Eye slowly wore away at their minds.
‘The flesh is weak,’ murmured Engentre. ‘But it can be made strong, unified with the machine. The mind… that we cannot fix.’ The Chapter Master, a hero with four centuries of facing down the slavering darkness, shuddered as his bloodshot eyes fixed on the knot of fifty Castigatii who stood unmoving in the shadows.
‘So many,’ he whispered. He turned to the rest of his Chapter. ‘So few.’
Silence stretched in the wake of his words.
Eogh broke it, arms stretched wide, dented power fist clenching and unclenching. ‘We are dying, Caul.’
The other captains nodded.
‘This crusade is failing,’ added Kalgach.
‘This Chapter is failing,’ continued Ghad.
‘Talus cannot be avenged,’ entreated Eogh. ‘But we can atone for its loss.’
Brave Eogh, voicing the harsh words that knifed to Engentre’s core. The Chapter Master rocked backwards as if slapped. His captains pressed close, pushing him towards the window, towards the view that stained their eyes and cast their features in a thousand shades of every colour.
Engentre roared. Spittle flew from his mouth. ‘Enough!’ he yelled.
His eyes flew towards the gathered Brazen Claws, past his captains. Something clicked in his head. ‘We leave the Eye,’ he whispered.
The captains nodded and moved towards their men, barking orders.
Proximity alarms blared: sudden, loud and wailing. The ship rocked as if caught by a great wave. Guns thundered, massive batteries opening fire.
The vox channels erupted with a screech. Voices spewed out, familiar and haunting.
Their words were Gothic, the accent Talusian. Ships hove into view, blotting out the Eye, but illuminated by it. They were covered in flesh and coated in sickly-looking organs, but beneath it, scrawled in red paint on a field of blue, was a red claw. Clutched in its talons was the number eight.
‘You have called, Lord Engentre, and we have answered,’ hissed a voice thick with corruption, familiar and vile.
‘You take a grave risk, Captain Ventris,’ said Adept Komeda, peering at the Rhino’s hololithic command display. His cherry-red optics flickered as they processed the incoming data.
‘The risk is negligible,’ replied Uriel. ‘My warriors know their Codex.’
‘Adept Komeda certainly hopes so,’ said Komeda. ‘House Nassaur and the Mechanicus will be greatly displeased should our people come to harm.’
‘They won’t,’ said Uriel.
‘Adept Komeda does not share your confidence.’
Uriel pulled Komeda from the display and a binaric squall of irritation pulsed from the adept’s mechanised mouth parts.
‘You are used to dealing with Skitarii, so I will excuse the insult to our competence this once,’ said Uriel. ‘But doubt us again and you and I will have a problem.’
‘Apologies,’ said the tech-priest. ‘Adept Komeda meant no offence.’
‘Then count this a lesson learned,’ said Uriel, nodding to the warriors in the Rhino’s troop compartment. Brutus Cyprian racked the slide on his bolter and tapped the weapon on the metal of his augmetic knee. A pervasive hum filled the compartment as Livius Hadrianus fired up his meltagun’s charge-coils. The warriors returned his nod. No words were needed. The plan was Codex and both men knew their part in it.
Uriel had forgone a command squad for so long, but now it felt strange going into battle without the Swords of Calth assembled. Petronius Nero and Ancient Peleus had other roles to play and Apothecary Selenus was back on Calth, helping root out the last of the Bloodborn from its deep caverns.
The vox-bead in Uriel’s ear chirruped and a gruff voice spoke in clipped, efficient tones.
‘All tier-one targets in sight,’ said Torias Telion.
‘On my mark,’ said Uriel, spinning the locking wheel of the Rhino’s command hatch and pushing it open. The wet, muddy reek of Sycorax’s atmosphere rushed in, an astringent reek of churned earth and volcanic sulphurs.
Uriel hauled himself up, seeing the ugly collection of towers, barricades and titanic drilling equipment ahead, squatting in the haunches of mud-caked hills where Pasanius’s Firebrands squad was concealed.
‘Pasanius,’ said Uriel. ‘Telion has made a positive identification of Fabricatus U
brique, Alexia Nassaur and Casimir Nassaur.’
‘They’re alive?’ replied Pasanius. ‘That’s a new combat blade I owe Brutus. Telion’s sure it’s them? Hard to be sure of anything with all this damn mud.’
‘If the old man says it’s them, I’ll not be the one to question him.’
‘True enough,’ agreed Pasanius, signing off.
The Rhino churned the sodden surface of Sycorax as it laboured towards the ruin of the drilling site. Its structure was partially sunken into the deep mud, its rig-towers listing drunkenly or collapsed entirely. What little remained had been reinforced with ad-hoc panels and hastily-rigged steel props. This had once been a temporary Mechanicus outpost, designed to siphon the promethium oceans beneath the planet’s lithosphere until the mud claimed it, but was now an ork fort.
Crude glyphs defaced the silver aquilas and Icons Mechanicus, and horned totems had been raised over the gateway. These and the pillars of petrochemical fumes testified to the presence of greenskins. It was unusual for the orks to remain fixed in place for so long after a supply raid, but it wasn’t every day they captured the planet’s senior Fabricatus and the highborn twins of the planetary governor engaged in a surprise inspection.
That the greenskins hadn’t just killed them outright told Uriel the orks had recognised their captives as valuable. Response teams of Skitarii and Defence Auxilia were keeping their distance, wary of moving closer for fear of the hostages being executed.
But now the Ultramarines were here.
A chime sounded in Uriel’s ear as the Rhino came within range of the ork-held structure. The vehicle surged forward, throwing up huge sprays of mud behind it.
Rocket contrails bloomed on the walls of the outpost, corkscrewing wildly in the Rhino’s general direction. Two were clearly flying wide of the mark, a third buried itself in the ground before the gate in a shower of mud and rock, but the fourth fang-painted missile was weaving a wobbling path that might actually intercept them.