Storm of Damocles

by Justin D Hill

  ‘You speak to me of guilt?’ Batbayar’s anger flared again.

  ‘Yes,’ Nergui said. ‘There is guilt in omission, just as there is guilt in inaction. I come here to ask for your help, and you deny me. That makes you guilty.’

  Batbayar thumped a clenched fist against the intricately worked breast of his suit of Mark VIII power armour. ‘I am not guilty. Chogoris burns. The tribes have fallen back to the Empty Lands. They hide from the enemy that comes from the sky.’

  ‘If you destroy this place, it will not take you more than a month. Can Chogoris last that long? I say yes. We know our people. They do not succumb. They do not bow. They fight and they die, and in killing their enemies they are glad to die.’

  Batbayar paused for a long time, considering. ‘I would like to help you, but Kor’sarro has the Eagle Brotherhood on Agrellan. To have two companies fighting the tau… Are these xenos worthy of so many of our Chapter? We would just get in each other’s way.’

  ‘What if I told you Shadowsun was on this planet that I wish you to attack?’

  Batbayar Khan put up a hand and the roar of bikes came to a sudden halt. For a moment it seemed that the only thing moving in the room was the dust and fumes of their exhausts. A sly smile played about Batbayar’s lips. ‘I knew you were hiding something, Nergui of the Chaoge. I could smell it on you. It hangs about you like a cloud of flies over yak’s dung. Tell me true. Is this Shadowsun on the planet?’

  It was like pushing at an open door. Nergui could not hold himself back. The lie came easily, even to his own gene-brother. ‘Yes. We think she is there. You do the killing. The glory will be all yours.’

  Batbayar licked his lips. ‘I could bring her head to Kor’sarro Khan. As a gift from the Tulwar Brotherhood. Both our companies could return to Chogoris.’ Batbayar smiled as he savoured the thought. ‘Kor’sarro would not be pleased.’

  Nergui frowned and nodded. ‘Oh, no. He would not.’ It was as if the decades of separation had never been. The two of them slipped back into their old friendship. ‘Kor’sarro has worked so hard to find her. He has lost so many of his warriors. He has sworn to kill her.’

  ‘He would be foresworn,’ Batbayar laughed, and then remembered himself. ‘Poor Kor’sarro. We should not shame him so.’

  ‘No,’ Nergui said. ‘We should not.’

  ‘We should not,’ Batbayar sighed. ‘But let us do it anyway!’

  Chapter Eleven

  As soon as he returned from the Northwind, Nergui started putting his plan into action.

  Kill Team Zeal were to lead the way, preparing the ground before the rest arrived.

  Nergui gave them their orders, and came to see them off.

  He stood with Corith at the side of the landing port as the others climbed aboard the shuttle. Their strike cruiser, the Valete, was ready above them.

  ‘Remember. Secrecy is paramount.’

  Corith nodded curtly. ‘I understand.’

  They clasped forearms.

  ‘Good winds,’ Nergui said. It was a traditional White Scars farewell, and Corith nodded.

  ‘I shall see you there,’ the Brazen Minotaur said.

  Nergui stood alone as he watched their Thunderhawk lift off and disappear into the black of the galaxy. In his mind’s eye he could trace them up to the docks, aboard the strike cruiser Valete, and then out towards the Mandeville point. He never liked to be left behind, but as he turned to walk back towards the inner courtyard, he consoled himself that soon the rest of them would be following.

  Leonas was in the inner courtyard when he returned. ‘How was it meeting your gene-brothers again?’ he asked.

  ‘It has brought back many… memories.’

  ‘Do you want to return to them?’

  Nergui smiled. ‘No. Not yet.’ He thought about saying more, but the Black Consul did not have the option of returning to his Chapter, and so he held his tongue.

  ‘When are we leaving?’ Leonas asked.

  ‘As soon as the White Scars are ready.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming to the Remembering?’

  Nergui cursed. ‘No. I must speak with Jotunn. Be there for me.’

  Leonas nodded. ‘I shall.’

  Sometimes Westkeep reminded him of Quan Zhou, the fortress-monastery of the White Scars.

  It bore the nickname of the Fort of Ten Thousand Doors. But deep, deep in the old palace’s heart were the remains of an older temple, and occasionally Nergui had found himself walking there, on steps worn almost flat with age.

  The depths of Picket’s Watch had the same ancient air about them. The same smell, the same damp touch, the same musty air that had lingered there for centuries, undisturbed, and barely even breathed. It was to those deepest chambers that Jotunn summoned him. The Lone Wolf had insisted. ‘See Kill Team Zeal off, then come to me. I shall be waiting on the first level.’

  ‘The first?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jotunn had said. ‘You have never been so deep before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You will find the way.’

  The conversation echoed through Nergui’s mind as he took the long stair down. The blast doors opened at his touch, and he went through doorways he had not known even existed.

  The stairs plunged past ground level, deep into the heart of the rock, the steps no longer slabs of masonry, but carved from the mountain itself. The White Scar passed ancient chambers where narrow shafts of light from lumen-globes stabbed down to the dark hollows, where the dust of xenos bones lay thick on the floor, past crude shrines of uncarved rock, where paintings of extinct xenos races lined the wall, down to where the hum of the vast generatorium was just an echo.

  Nergui’s enhanced vision could only make out rough shapes of light and dark. This was the purest darkness, which had lain undisturbed for millennia. He put out a hand to feel his way. The walls fell away to either side as he stepped into the dark mouth of the cave, and he felt his skin prickle.

  He spoke to the darkness. ‘Are you there?’

  He felt he was being watched, and marched with one hand out into the centre of the cave. Then there was light from across the cavern.

  Faint, distant, wan – but it was enough to illuminate the white head of Jotunn.

  ‘You have come,’ the Lone Wolf growled. ‘Now follow.’

  Nergui followed the Space Wolf down another staircase of worn steps. The air grew colder. The steps became irregular and there was a faint hum.

  ‘I did not think there was anything down here,’ Nergui said after they had passed ancient doors, each marked with the clenched fist.

  ‘There is much down here, brother. There is much that you do not know that dates back to times beyond our ken. These are the ancient catacombs. I will show them to you, perhaps. It is where the Imperial Fists laid their most honoured warriors.’

  The Space Wolf stopped at a brass door set into the rock. It bore no sigil, just a pair of holes in the interlocking ceramite plates. Jotunn fitted the two prongs of his clavis key into the lock. There was a faint hiss as the door unsealed, and then it swung open before them.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It is named the Ubliet, though that is a poor name, for this part of the fortress is used for many things,’ Jotunn said. ‘It is a place of keys and doors and hidden chambers. It is where all doors are locked. It is both a prison and a safe. It is the deepest vaults of our fortress.’

  Nergui stopped and put a hand to his ear. He turned and looked behind him, but the corridor was empty. ‘I heard my mother’s voice,’ he said. ‘I heard a shout. She called me by the name she used when I was a child.’

  Jotunn sniffed the air. ‘All I smell is us,’ he said.

  ‘There!’ Nergui said. ‘I heard her again.’

  ‘You heard our enemies. Some of the things locked away here have refused to die. The
y are too dangerous to be let out. One of those touched your mind.’

  Nergui listened again. There was a strange call, like a muffled voice. It came clearer this time. ‘Shao-shao!’ his mother called to him. It meant ‘little one.’

  Jotunn watched Nergui’s face intently. ‘What do you know of the Nicassar?’

  ‘Little.’

  ‘They are creatures that the tau have used, in a way we are not yet sure about. Domitian is studying this. They are psychic. They sleep for years, sometimes. They are strange to us. But when they dream their minds lash out emotions. When we took this one, its dreams were all of war and violence. Now, it dreams of home. So when its psychic tendrils touch your mind, it brings forth memories so vivid and real, you are convinced that they are true.’

  ‘Is it safe to keep this thing here?’

  ‘Nothing is safe in this world,’ Jotunn said. ‘Least of all the xenos. But if it was not safe, I would not have brought you. Come, follow me.’

  Nergui did as he was told. Shao-shao, he heard over and over, and had to will himself not to turn and look.

  ‘Do you know what I hear when I pass the Nicassar’s chamber?’ Jotunn said as they approached another doorway.

  ‘Wolves howling?’

  ‘No.’ Jotunn grinned long, yellow fangs. ‘I hear the bell chime for our lost brothers.’

  The interlocking blast doors rolled back, and the corridor that was revealed was lit with low lume-globes. There were ten niches to either side, which appeared to have once held statues or busts, perhaps, but which were now empty, and at the end another door.

  Again Jotunn inserted the twin prongs of the clavis key. There was another low hiss as cold air escaped, and the lume-globes flickered to life, revealing a wide gallery.

  The door closed behind them and Nergui looked about him in wonder. To either side suits of ancient armour stood in gothic alcoves. The air was warm. It had a clean, fresh feel. Nergui stopped before the first suit, finely crafted Mark VI armour with ornate black scrollwork about the chest-plate and greaves. The next was an ancient suit of armour, with gold-trimmed greaves and gloves. It had once belonged to Watch-Captain Titus, who had founded this fortress, his three-flanged maul still gripped in the suit’s fist.

  In the next niche was a suit of Terminator armour, and beside it was a twin-headed power axe with a handle of solid steel, cast with the shapes of coiling serpents.

  ‘That belonged to my predecessor,’ Jotunn said. ‘With it he slew the Tyrant of Rangarr. A single blow to the neck.’

  At the end was a suit of silver armour.

  ‘Do not touch,’ Jotunn said quickly.

  Nergui pulled his hand back. ‘Mark II,’ he said in wonder. There was a pause. ‘What is that sigil?’

  ‘That is the symbol of Malcador.’

  The suit had been cared for and cleaned, but there were nicks in the armour, scratches and dents where it had seen combat.

  ‘Can it still be used?’

  ‘It could,’ Jotunn said. ‘But the spirit of the armour would have to be placated before it could be painted black. There are only so many times that a suit of armour can be changed.’

  ‘What colour was it before?’

  ‘I cannot tell you. It is beyond the reach of the sagas of my Chapter, and the sagas we tell ourselves here. But I did not bring you here to wonder about such things, Nergui. Come, follow me.’

  Jotunn led him along niches holding weapons: beautifully crafted boltguns, swords, axes, a pair of curved tulwars such as the White Scars used, but it was at the end of the row that they stopped before an exquisitely damasked halberd. Jotunn stepped forwards and lifted the blade from its mountings. The blade was wide, the shaft solid brass, a pair of gold-worked bolters incorporated into the weapon, the magazines fashioned in the shape of coiled serpents.

  ‘This is a guardian spear,’ Jotunn said. ‘Forged in the Holy Palace on Terra.’ The Space Wolf spoke with awe. He turned it in the light so that they could see the fine damasking of light and dark in the blade. ‘There are over a thousand rods of steel folded in this blade,’ Jotunn said at last, his voice lowered. ‘I counted them once. No smith could fashion this now. Not even among the Salamanders. Harath said that there was a blade with eight hundred folds that he had seen. But nothing like this. And,’ he said, giving Nergui a long look, ‘there were hundreds of these weapons made. Thousands, even. Once.’

  Nergui’s mouth was dry as he ran his hands along a weapon that was as old as the Imperium itself.

  ‘Why bring me here?’

  ‘What use are weapons if they are not used?’ Jotunn said.

  ‘You are going to risk it in battle?’

  ‘We shall not fail,’ Jotunn said. ‘We are few and our enemy are many. This will inspire each of us to fight harder.’ As he spoke the bell in the high tower rang out. A single note that brought a deep silence after, which stretched on, before another mournful knell.

  Nergui knew he should have been there, and he lowered his head in silence.

  The Remembering had begun.

  As the bell rang Leonas led the members of Kill Team Faith into the armoury furnace chamber.

  In the centre of the room a vast crucible was half embedded into the rockcrete floor. Red flames and black smoke licked up about its heavy stand as the bellows drove a storm of sparks up from the furnace floor, and the colour of the molten steel inside went from black to red to glowing yellow – the surface washed by flames.

  One by one the Adeptus Astartes entered. When all the warriors were gathered, the arco-smiths bowed and filed out. ‘All who are living, and who remember, are gathered here.’ As Leonas spoke, the bellows whined and sparks flew up from the crucible fires, until the metal within was white.

  Leonas stepped to the edge of the wide crucible. One by one the other Space Marines stepped forwards to join him. They stood in a circle, their faces uplit with the glowing light. High above them, in the chapel, a lone bell rang out a steady knell. One toll for each year of service that the lost Space Marines had given to the Deathwatch. When the count reached thirty-seven, ‘Last’ Leonas put his hand over the crucible. He did not flinch at the heat as he held out his bare arm and opened his fist. A metal ingot dropped onto the crust of molten slag. It broke under the weight and showed cracks of dull red fire that widened to yellow. The lead ingot sank slowly, dissolving as it did so, until it was a thin lozenge and the name inscribed upon it was lit from beneath by fire.

  The inscription read: Nidal Franz, Warmonger.

  The words glowed brighter as the bar dissolved, before finally slipping into the molten liquid and fading from sight.

  Konrad Raimer, the grizzled Black Templar, carried the tablet with Priam’s name. Sardegna, the Scion of Sanguinius, held the tablet of Gualtino. Harath carried Tula’s. Elianus carried Branstonio’s. Each of them stepped forwards, bearing their ingot. Each one spoke the name of their lost brothers, and the darkness heard and remembered as each lead tablet fell into the crucible and was devoured.

  The last to fall was carried by Cadvan, the Storm Giant. The name read Ellial, Mortifactor. As the glowing ingot began to dissolve at the edges, they chanted.

  ‘They died holding back the darkness of the alien. Let their memory bring light. Let their legacy be death to the xenos.’

  The forge bell rang, a different note to the death knell that had rung above, and the arco-smiths filed back into the room, their goggle eyes reflecting the light of the furnace as their vox-grille mouths began chanting the litany of perfect casting. As the crucible tilted, the Deathwatch warriors stood back. Molten metal lit up the grooves in the floor. There were hundreds of moulds, in neat lines of glowing lead, cooling from white to yellow to red, and then a dull, shiny black.

  The Ritual of Casting was complete. The mould cases opened and hundreds of bolter shells rattled into the basin before them.


  ‘Last’ Leonas lifted his up. Nidal, it read, with the Warmonger’s sword-and-skull icon emblazoned on the side. It was a lucky sign to pick out the same name you had put in. One by one they took their pick.

  Harath, the Salamander, was always last. He chanted an old Nocturne smith’s charm as he reached in with his ungloved hand and took a handful of the fresh, hot shells. ‘I shall honour you all,’ he said.

  As the Space Marines returned to their chambers the names of the fallen were inscribed in the wall of the feast hall, and the high bell tolled a melancholy note.

  The Remembering was done.

  The note of the bell changed from grief to one that sounded vengeance, and the fortress of Picket’s Watch began to charge with anticipation.

  Thunderhawks were fuelled, ammo-carriages brought up missiles from the armoury, tech-savants checked over Land Speeders, Rhinos were cleaned and loaded onto the lifters – even the Land Raider, Moab’s Revenge, was brought out of seclusion, her promethium tanks checked and refitted and tested once more.

  Now it was time for war.

  Chapter Twelve

  In their own quarters, and in their own ways, the warriors of Kill Team Faith spent their last hours in Picket’s Watch, preparing for their mission.

  In his painted chambers, Sardegna of the Scions of Sanguinius examined the fine tracery of the stone block before him. The statue is there, so the old masters liked to say – the trick is in uncovering it. But it was odd thinking of his primarch locked inside this white marble slab. Sardegna bent once more and tapped away the line of Sanguinius’ wing. He would free him from it, as he had freed him so many times before. It was the perfect way to prepare for battle, to feel your hearts slow almost to nothing, your breathing become measured, the only sound in the world the clang of the mission bell, and the gentle tap of hammer and chisel upon stone.

  Next to Sardegna’s chambers were those of Imano, the Lamenter.

  Imano and Ragris the Celebrant were wrestling as the bell tolled. Imano tipped Ragris over, and the Celebrant fell on his back with a grunt that drove the wind from his lungs for a moment before the other let go.