by Rob Sanders
Despite being blind, the psyber-eagle snatched the rodent out of the air with predatory grace. It never failed to give the Navigator a thrill. ‘Did you see that beak?’ he marvelled, pointing at the magnificent bird. The hooded vassal didn’t respond. Zaragoza grunted. ‘Of course you didn’t,’ he said to himself. He clicked his fingers to the other side of the throne and another blind servant came forwards with a tray bearing a decanter of amasec and a crystal glass.
The internuncio poured his master the drink and Zaragoza was about to take it when the deck about them began to vibrate. Trinkets and instruments fell from their racks and the servant spilt the amasec. Arkylas flapped its wings.
‘My lord.’ An internuncio came forwards. He wore a vox-headset arrangement around his darkened hood. ‘Corpus-Commander Bartimeus for you from the bridge. He demands to know the source of this turbulence.’
‘He’s not the only one,’ Zaragoza said absently. The Navigator screwed his eyes tight shut and opened the weeping slit of the third that sat in his forehead. The Empyredrome, like Arkylas and the internuncia, was still there – it had just faded to transparence. The Navigator drank in a vista of insanity. About him, with the strike cruiser and even the Empyredrome mere ghostly outlines, the sea of souls raged. A transdimensional medium, it appeared as a polychromatic ocean, viewed simultaneously from above and below. It was unrivalled in its expanse and drama, and through his third eye the Navigator could observe its deranged seascape.
In the ethereal distance Zaragoza could see the heavenly light of the Astronomican, a silvery beacon of serenity in the fermenting pandemonium of the warp. Its beatific beams reached out across the psychic universe, drawing the Navigator to them and filling his being with an angelic chorus of indescribable bliss. It was only by the good grace of the Astronomican that Zaragoza could navigate at all. Much closer, like a puce glower in the warpscape, the nightmarish region of the Eye of Terror broiled and spumed its malevolence, threatening to obscure the Astronomican and swallow the heavenly beacon whole.
Zaragoza looked out beyond the strike cruiser’s prow, beyond the existential static of the Geller field and the glint of warpreal entities impressing themselves on the bubble of reality enveloping the Excoriators ship. There was a psysmic tidal wave of raw immaterial energy rolling towards the Adeptus Astartes vessel for as far as the Navigator could see. The Angelica Mortis was heading bow-on for the monster with little hope of evasive course correction beyond dropping out of warp space and continuing at sub-light speed – which Bartimeus would not hear of. The vessel had encountered numerous smaller displacements on its journey to St Ethalberg. As they had pushed on to Certus-Minor, along the ethereal equivalent of the Andronica Banks and out into Hinterspace, the immateriology had grown increasingly agitated and unsettled. This was not what Zaragoza had come to expect in the region, which was usually relatively free of such stormy conditions.
Strangely, it was not the wave that bothered Zaragoza. The Angelica Mortis had been on the etherwave’s inclining approach for some time, and it was the Navigator’s plan to hold course and either have the sturdy Adeptus Astartes strike cruiser ride the beast out or punch straight through the maelstrom’s churning crestface. The Navigator had observed hundreds of vessels on their voyage seemingly lose their nerve and run before the gargantuan swell. Zaragoza had commented to Bartimeus, however, that such numbers and configurations appeared to him more like disbanded patterns of planetary evacuation than flotillas and convoys directed from their courses. In the presence of such evidence Zaragoza felt a little uncomfortable pressing on. He was an experienced Navigator from a House with long service record with the Adeptus Astartes. But he did not know what was causing such an immaterial phenomenon, and could have no way of knowing if an even larger wave lay behind the first.
Squinting down with one of his other eyes, Zaragoza scanned data from a runescreen detailing readings from the Angelica Mortis’s ethervanes.
‘The Von Diemen Rip currents,’ Zaragoza mumbled to himself, ‘the Pherrier circumpsyclone, Wallach’s Rapidity, the Cascade Borgnino, the Paracelsus Gyres…’ The Navigator’s face creased with confusion. ‘Readings all nominal to profile.’
The Navigator frowned, lost in thought. His thin eyebrows slowly rose. Throwing a lever, Zaragoza sent the throne spinning around so that it was facing aft of the vessel. ‘There you are,’ he announced and held out a spindly hand. A waiting vassal pressed a pair of psyoccular magnoculars into his hand, which the Navigator proceeded to put on. At another hand motion the two other hooded servants put their backs into moving the throne along its rails and up to a large brass telescope. Through both the psyoccular and spyglass arrangement Zaragoza studied the object that had so singularly grabbed his attention.
The Navigator had seen it several times before but at much too great a distance to identify its nature, class or dimensions. It had been barely more than a fuzzy blur in the maelstrom of Chaos and could literally have been anything. It also seemed to appear and disappear, leading Zaragoza to believe it might be some colossal beast of the warp or a daemonic entity attempting to breach the interdimensional barriers of reality. On each of these occasions he had made a note in the translation log but had not deemed it important enough to alert Corpus-Commander Bartimeus. The Excoriator was a blunt instrument and not one for extraneous detail. With the vessel at closer range, Zaragoza knew different now.
The Navigator stared at the object in awe. The etched grid-lens gave him an idea of its true proportions. Snatching up a communications cable hanging beside the throne, Zaragoza screwed it into one of the many mind-impulse ports decorating the back of his head like craters upon a moon’s surface.
‘Translation log entry,’ the Navigator said, prompting a blind vassal to appear beside him with a data-slate. ‘Unknown vessel identified emerging from the Osphoren Flux on an identical course to our own. Vessel signature in absence, but the architecture is distinctive and, along with its size, bears the hallmarks of an ancient vessel. Dimensions are… difficult to measure with this equipment. However, I can confirm that it is the largest vessel I have ever seen and, even with these instruments and at great distance, I estimate that it must be six or seven hundred cubic kilometres. Larger than Lentigo, the largest of the Escharan moons.’ The internuncio inputted the log entry.
Zaragoza shook his head. The explanation for the turbulence and agitation in the region now became obvious. The Angelica Mortis was caught in an immaterial confluence created by the etherwave before them and the psysmic swell being driven before the colossal vessel to their aft.
‘Open a vox-channel with the bridge,’ Zaragoza ordered the nearby internuncio. ‘Inform Corpus-Commander Bartimeus that empyreal conditions are likely to worsen, but that I have detected the source of the turbulence. Tell him I am sending a pict-capture. Tell him that he’s not going to believe it.’
Certus-Minor. Cemetery world.
The venerable Gauntlet had made a high-velocity insertion, leaving the Angelica Mortis in good company with the defence monitor Apotheon, a fat necrofreighter and a small gathering of sprint traders. Coming in low and deep, the Thunderhawk tore up the serene surface of one of the great lakes across which it passed. Behind its tail the gunship threw up a continuous fountain of spray, but below the craft the silvery waters reflected a mirror image of the Gauntlet’s underbelly and banking flank. Like all of the Excoriators’ Thunderhawks, the Gauntlet retained her scars, each bolt-hole, las-blast and impact crater in her ivory plate repaired but preserved and annotated with a date and location. As the oldest of the Fifth Company gunships, the Gauntlet bore her battle scars with pride and distinction, even if, when pressed, the Excoriators within admitted to the knocks and rattles of her advancing age.
Lifting her nose slightly, the Gauntlet cleared the satin surface of the lake. Beneath the Thunderhawk extended an expanse of crafted stone. Grave markers, tombstones and statues of every crafted tradition, built almost one on top of the other, crowded the landscape w
ith barely a scrap of precious cemetery world earth between them. Vaults, mausolea and private crypts sprouted from the sepulchrescape, dwarfed only by the ancestral tombs and necropoli of noble families. Kicking up a storm of grit and dust, the Gauntlet fell in line above an arterial lychway. The cemetery sectors and burial grounds were cut up by a necroplex of labyrinthine lychways that allowed access to individual plots and charnel houses. The crossroads of these stony procession ways were furnished with cenoposts and shack hamlets, housing sextons, grave fossers and hearsiers, along with their families.
Pulling up, the gunship began lowering its landing gear. Before the Gauntlet was the only metropol the cemetery world boasted. Grave dust and burial space existed at a premium on Certus-Minor and sprawling cities were considered a funereal waste. This was why Obsequa City had been built tight and tall. A cluster of steeples and spires betrayed the city’s Ecclesiarchical purpose, with lofty cathedrals competing for sky with basilica towers, shrines and citadel-sacristia. Nestled at the heart of the devotional architecture and adorning the metropolis like a crown was the roof-dome of the Umberto II Memorial Mausoleum – the largest and tallest building in Obsequa City. The vaulted mausoleum housed the preserved bones of Umberto II, former Ecclesiarch and High Lord of Terra. Taking in the breathtaking detail of the colossal dome with a banking pass, the Gauntlet began to rotate and descend. The Thunderhawk dropped down into the only level and open space in the city. Crowded by requitaphs and chapel belfries, the Umberto II Memorial Space Port was little more than a small landing plaza for mortuary lighters and hump shuttles.
With its gear on the ground, the Gauntlet’s tactical bay ramp lowered and Squads Cicatrix and Castigir filed out with weapons drawn. They fell to immediately securing the area around the Thunderhawk. Kersh had ordered vigilance upon arrival. With knowledge of damned monuments to dark gods and cultist activity on the cemetery world, the corpus-captain wasn’t taking any chances. For all the Excoriators knew, heretics could have possession of the space port and be waiting for the Space Marines in ambush. Nobody in the Fifth Company wanted a repeat of Ignis Prime and the Kruger Ridge.
Kersh stepped out onto the level rockrete. The dizzying heights of bethel towers and cathedrals surrounded the landing plaza, extending upwards on a steep incline like a miniature hive. Kersh looked back down at the pict-captures he was holding. As Ezrachi followed, the Apothecary’s leg sighing in hydraulic rhythm, he too held a capture in his ceramite fingertips.
‘What am I looking at?’ the aged Excoriator asked.
‘Psyoccular image captured from the Empyredrome,’ Kersh replied as the pair of Space Marines strode across the plaza. ‘Aft orientation. Censor-cropped by Chaplain Shadrath, in the interests of spiritual licentiousness. Rendered to full magnification.’
Behind them, the Chaplain himself, Epistolary Melmoch and Techmarine Dancred followed. Ezrachi passed the pict-capture to the Librarian and took another from Kersh. From the tactical bay rumbled the tracks of a mobile weapon. The quad barrels of a Thunderfire cannon emerged, followed by the chunky brutality of its itinerant chassis. Its armour plating bore the colours, scarring and annotations of the Excoriators Chapter, the Cog Mechanicum and a name: Punisher. Following the Techmarine like a hunting dog, the cannon’s machine-spirit drove the heavy metal beast on down the ramp. Dancred gave both it and a miserable servitor-loader an instruction in lingua-technis, prompting both drone and weapon to follow.
‘This can’t be a vessel – not if these reticles are anything to go by,’ Ezrachi commented.
‘Bartimeus’s Navigator thinks it is,’ Kersh said.
‘Could this not be some great beast of the warp?’ Melmoch asked. ‘They, for example, look like wings to me.’ He passed the pict-capture to Brother Dancred. The Techmarine’s gearface formed a clockwork scowl and the Space Marine slowed to a stop.
‘That is a vessel,’ he confirmed. ‘Something ancient, abominable and glorious. The Imperium hasn’t made vessels of this size and design for thousands of years.’
‘Again, Bartimeus’s Navigator concurs. It’s probably some mangled hulk that’s been lost in the warp for an eternity. I’ve despatched the Impunitas to observe our translation point from a dwarf moon on the edge of the system. They will inform us of any new arrivals.’
Brother-Contego Micah moved past with heavy, purposeful steps. Micah was the Fifth Company’s freshly promoted champion. His predecessor had lost his life defending Corpus-Captain Thaddeus on the Kruger Ridge. Micah was young for his position but a cool, impassive Excoriator. He was a gifted marksman and took the responsibilities of company champion seriously. Micah seemed just as unhappy about Kersh’s promotion as everyone else in the Fifth, but had studied his corpus-captain’s orders and their mission brief and had volunteered practical propositions regarding the company’s caution and security on Certus-Minor. Like many of his brothers, he was determined that the Excoriators would not fall to the predations of the Alpha Legion again – even if that meant keeping Zachariah Kersh alive. Micah held his combat shield out in front of him, resting it on a cradle attached to the chunky barrel of the champion’s boltgun. Leading the way with the gun shield and the muzzle emerging from its ceramite cleft, he assumed position on point, putting himself squarely between his corpus-captain and possible enemies.
‘The hulk is not our concern,’ Chaplain Shadrath hissed from behind Kersh.
‘How I wish that were so, Chaplain,’ Kersh said, stopping and turning. The Excoriators came to a halt on the landing plaza. ‘Like you, I am eager to be on to Rorschach’s World. Company protocol is clear on this, however. We are bound by reclamation treaties with the Adeptus Mechanicus and Ordo Xenos Carta Contagio. Any hulks appearing within Imperial space must be investigated.’
‘There are priorities…’
‘There are,’ Kersh agreed with an edge, ‘but I have reports of pirate attacks from the sprint trader Avignor Star, an astrotelepathic blackout and Alpha Legion activity in the region to consider. And that on top of the prospect of a space hulk and the taint of Chaos on this Ecclesiarchy world. Our talents are superhuman, Chaplain Shadrath – not supernatural. We cannot be everywhere at once.’
‘Corpus-captain,’ Brother Toralech interrupted. The Space Marine brought a ceramite finger to the side of his helm. ‘The Gauntlet has relayed a vox-message from the Angelica Mortis. Corpus-Commander Bartimeus requests permission to take the cruiser out of low orbit to commence battery practise.’
‘Denied,’ Kersh answered simply. ‘The Angelica Mortis will hold her position.’ The Scourge glowered at Shadrath before turning and striding across the plaza. The towering Toralech relayed the response, resting the shaft of the billowing company standard against the rockrete and the long barrel of his flamer against a battle-scarred pauldron.
As the Excoriators strode across the landing plaza, hearsiers paused in their unloading of sarcophagi from mortuary lighters to watch the giants go by. A delegation of priests and their accompanying honour guard of defence force Guardsmen approached from the Memorial Space Port gate.
‘Salutations, great warriors,’ the priest announced, his eyes to the ground. He bowed his mitre, his vermillion robes flapping in the breeze. ‘I am Vasco Ferreira, the Pallmaster General. We received word – the last in a long time – from his grace Cardinal Pontian of St Ethalberg that assistance was coming. We had not dared hope that the Emperor’s Angels themselves would–’
‘Pallmaster,’ Kersh stopped him.
‘My lord?’ the priest replied fearfully.
‘You have a superior?’ the corpus-captain asked.
‘I answer to the pontifex,’ Ferreira said, ‘as all God-Emperor-fearing people do on Certus-Minor.’
Kersh softened his words with a vague smile. ‘Take us straight to him, please.’
‘Of course, your magnificence. A thousand apologies,’ Ferreira said.
With the Pallmaster General leading the way, the Excoriators were flanked by members of the Certus-Minor Char
nel Guard, dressed in flak, robes and feather bonnets. They were sombre figures, all in black and carrying long, ceremonial lasfusils. The solemnity continued as the Adeptus Astartes were escorted out of the gate and up through the winding alleyways and steep steps of the cemetery world city. About them walls reached for the ivory skies and the incline became increasingly precipitous. In adjoining naveways and alleys, as well as at archways and fenestra, the Excoriators encountered gathered Certusians. The cemetery worlders looked on with sober reverence and wonder. They remained a silent sea of gaunt faces, the Ecclesiarchical baseborn: vergermen, foss-reeves and vestals. Occasional preachers punctuated the torturous route, making the sign of the aquila and offering blessings.
Across a small square, at the top of the city, the Excoriators were confronted with the colossal archway-barbican of the Umberto II Memorial Mausoleum. The pillars of the stately sepulchre were thick and tall, and the darkness of the threshold beckoned pilgrim and cleric alike. Two Sisters of Battle, garbed in the midnight-blue sheen of ceramite and hugging belt-fed heavy bolters to their breasts, flanked the entrance. Standing tall before the arch was a baroque nightmare, a penitent engine housing a wretched, emaciated repentant. Crucified across the walker, the unfortunate seemed at peace. Kersh shuddered to think of the carnage the reformite could wreak, with its caged limbs, mounted chainfists and heavy flamers.
Modest, by comparison with the mausoleum, was the Obelisk or official palace residence of the Pontifex-Mundi. The palace was positioned opposite the mausoleum, across the devotional square, and it was here that Brother Dancred had Punisher and his attendant servitor remain. The ecclesiarch’s reception chambers were housed beneath an enormous bell in the palace belfry, and from his balcony, the pontifex could command a view not only of the domed roof of the mausoleum but also the receding steeple-skyline of Obsequa City. The palace chambers were dark and dour, and Kersh noticed the retinue of priests and affiliates haunting its shadowy recesses. Pallmaster General Ferreira peeled off and joined their ranks. Amongst their number Kersh also spotted the sickly glow of his revenant’s eye, peering out from the crack in its benighted helm. The ethereal presence watched and waited with immutable patience.