Crusaders of Dorn

by Guy Haley

  The thing was of the same ilk as the cythor’s hunters – black skinned, pale haired, clad in skins torn from the backs of other beings. The cuts in its body glowed with a greenish ghostlight. But this one had four arms with skilful hands that switched the blade with flawless skill, making the direction of its strikes hard to judge. The sword blurred through the air, describing deadly, decapitating arcs, crackling as it went.

  But Helbrecht was no ordinary man, and even among the Adeptus Astartes he was reckoned mighty, skilled at arms beyond the art of any. He matched the creature blow for blow.

  This pleased the monster.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ it said, its voice a dire hiss. ‘Worthy indeed.’

  A blow quick as thought flicked out, scoring Helbrecht’s armour with a bang. The Sword of the High Marshals sliced back in return, cleaving the air where the creature had been. As it leaned from the blow, its ragged fringe fell aside, revealing empty eye sockets as black as those of the skulls arrayed around the chamber.

  Helbrecht and the thing duelled, neither forcing an advantage. They pushed each other back and forth across the chamber, Helbrecht’s boots stamping the bone upon the floor to powder. The creature was quicker than he, but Helbrecht was stronger and far more heavily armoured. The creature’s only defence was its speed. Neither showed any sign of tiring. The daemonkin was possessed of unnatural vitality, while Helbrecht was bestowed with the gifts of the Emperor. He sang hymns of hate as they fought, yelling into the face of the creature’s silence.

  And so the duel could have progressed, the two locked in mortal combat until one stumbled, perhaps days later. But it was not to be.

  The chamber rumbled. A deep, dark section of the wall vanished, and Helbrecht found himself looking into the gatehouse of the cythor upon Grave Core, blazing with light. He saw his men, free now of foes. Gulvein looked at him, his head huge and distorted.

  ‘I see him here!’ Helbrecht heard him say, his voice unimaginably distant.

  The creature made a desperate lunge, a movement too quick for an unenhanced man to see, but Helbrecht deflected it.

  ‘Hurry, Gulvein!’ Helbrecht recognised Sotrnem’s voice. ‘The light is going out!’

  ‘He sees us! Praise be, he sees us!’ said Gulvein. ‘He lives!’

  From the shadows of the alien’s lair an outstretched hand emerged, dripping alien gore and steaming with boiling hydrogen vapour. Gulvein was peering through a crack in space at Helbrecht, distorted horribly. To Helbrecht, Gulvein’s hand was normally sized, but his head appeared monstrous, as if viewed through a flawed lens.

  ‘Hurry, my liege! We must depart! It is over.’

  Helbrecht glanced back, parrying another blow. His return this time caught the creature. It drew shadows to itself and flowed sideways, too slow. The point of Helbrecht’s blade raked across its ribs, only lightly, but such was the sharpness of the edge and the potency of the energy field encasing it that the creature howled in pain and drew back.

  ‘I almost have it!’ he shouted.

  ‘Now, my lord, or we shall perish!’

  Cursing, Helbrecht glared at the eldritch headsman. It laughed wickedly.

  ‘I will end this duel, daemonspawn,’ said Helbrecht. He reached for Gulvein’s hand.

  ‘And I will take your head,’ said the creature, its voice soft and chill as blown snow hissing over ice.

  Helbrecht took Gulvein’s hand. Gulvein hauled upon him, and the dark realm fell away. Helbrecht’s arm emerged through the head of a fallen daemonkin, bursting it apart. Gulvein tugged hard, and Helbrecht was pulled completely from the shadow realm back into the gateroom of the cythor.

  ‘I saw you, I saw you in its dead eyes, a... a reflection,’ said Gulvein. ‘Fell witchery, but you are safe, my liege!’

  Helbrecht was disoriented only a moment by the enormous change in his surroundings. The eldar shadow creatures were either dead or gone, their grisly harvest concluded. The bodies of those slain slowly dissipated into shadow, their white hair wafting on the currents in the liquid air.

  ‘The cythor, did you slay them?’

  ‘No, my liege,’ said Gulvein, and there was shame in his voice. ‘It was almost done. They have escaped.’

  At the cythor gate, the last of the lesser beings fell into the light. It collapsed to a single point, blazing polyhedrons slotting into each other until it was gone. The shepherd creature descended, coming to rest fifty metres before them.

  Things that could have been limbs moved. Light danced over it. It observed them as Helbrecht raged against it powerlessly.

  Somehow, the thing spoke to them. Not with words, nor with the mental powers of a psyker, but in some other way that burst their heads with pain.

  OURS, it said. THIS PLACE. GO. NO RETURN.

  A shaft of light leapt from the cythor shepherd, playing over them. To what effect they would never know.

  The creature regarded them for a moment longer. NOTHING, it communicated. YOU.

  The shapes of its form folded into one another, the colours turning to reds that dulled to a deep glow, and it vanished. The light blinked out with it. The shadows lost their starkness. All life went from the structure, the confusing dimensions of the place catastrophically reverting to accord with the natural laws of the Emperor’s domain.

  The structure groaned. A rumbling spread throughout. With a lurch it fell, pulled in by the planet’s enormous gravity. A section of it broke away, showing the raging, endless storms of Grave Core outside.

  Pressure and temperature gauges in the Space Marines’ Terminator armour screamed. Plasteel and ceramite buckled.

  A ping sounded in their helms – a teleport lock, made possible by the destruction of the habitat. A fizzing sensation prickled their limbs, and they were gone from the world.

  The teleport sequence cycled down. The instant the last translation icon blinked out, six teleport pods blew apart, burst by the sudden pressure change of their contents. Super-dense, hydrogen-rich liquid air catastrophically evaporated, blasting servitors waiting around the pods off their feet. Emergency klaxons blared as the teleport deck was flooded with explosive gas, great fans chopping noisily round to suck the atmosphere free and vent it safely into space before it could ignite

  Throughout it all, the monks of the Monasterium Certituda did not cease their canticle for the safe return of the High Marshal.

  As soon as the all clear sounded, Jurisian was out of his observation galley, limping across the deck to the shattered pods. Five of the six Black Templars were safe, protected by their armour, although they were tangled in the wreckage of their pods. The sixth, Aelfgar, was a crumpled mess of broken ceramite leaking gore. Small fires and explosions went off around the deck as Jurisian reached Helbrecht.

  ‘Emperor be praised!’ he said, his mechanical arms pulling his lord free. ‘We achieved a teleport lock just after the habitats fell from the sky. What happened, my liege? Are the cythor gone?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Helbrecht. He held out his arms for his weapons to be unplugged and their oath chains unlocked by neophytes who hurried to attend to the battered knights. He wrenched his helmet from his head and handed it one. Sweat poured down his face.

  ‘You were successful, then,’ said Jurisian.

  ‘No,’ snarled Helbrecht, raising his hand angrily and clenching his fist. Jurisian feared a blow might follow, but it did not. ‘We were not. My victory was stolen from me by others. Neophytes! Bring me my power armour and clad me in it. I must do penance in the Temple of Dorn.’ He spat upon the floor. ‘This uncanny crusade is over.’

  The Glorious Tomb

  There has been a time of nothing. How long, I do not know. I know nothing when I sleep. There are no dreams, no sensation.

  My first indication that my slumber is done is that I am cold and in pain. Praise be to the Emperor, for the pain and cold tell me that I live, that so
on I will serve Him again from beyond the doors of death. Praise be! Invictus Potens is active, my glorious tomb awakens!

  The cold will be fleeting. The pain is with me always.

  A blinking cursor appears in my mind’s eye. It is all I can see. Invictus Potens’s eyes are inactive, and my own have not seen anything for five hundred years.

  Words scroll across my implanted viewplate.

  Cogitators alpha, beta, gamma, active. Life support systems awakened. He that giveth life, holdeth life. Let His grip be firm. Logos memorandum operational. Blessed are the recollections of the past, for in them are the seeds of tomorrow’s victories.

  Invictus Potens has a mind of his own, a bestial thing that meshes with mine. The logos awakens along with the logic engines that house his spirit. It will record my mental state along with his. My thoughts. These thoughts.

  Initiate testing sequence.

  There is a pause.

  Testing sequence initiated. Engaging engine. Fuel pumps active. Ignition sequence starting… Three… Two… One…

  A shudder rumbles through me, a sense of growing heat. Invictus Potens’s joints move, motive fibre bundles tighten, pistons push against gravity. He stands tall. I feel the Dreadnought’s movements as if they are my own, but the sensations are unreal, as if my flesh were numb.

  I have little flesh remaining.

  Engine test successful. Praise the Omnissiah! Engaging systems array. Engaging weapons links.

  Invictus Potens’s full systems array comes online in a blaze of coloured text, runes and informational dialogues that fill my sensorium. The date and time appears at the top left, chrono stilled at the moment my last sleep commenced. Targeting reticules paste themselves over the blackness. Ammo counts, all at zero, power levels, shell integrity, temperature, lubrication levels, fuel levels, elevation, air pressure, air mix, nutrient levels, amniotic status, biological component status, and more. They glow green against the black. His systems are hale. Beyond this, I still cannot see.

  Remote activation sequence coupling requested. Guard the key, for the key is the gate. Remote activation sequence coupling accepted. Forge pass coding recognised. Identity coding AA/LIF/ 5538 Dreadnought Chassis ‘Invictus Potens’. Remote systems control granted.

  I sense an intrusion from outside, a questing, electric presence that observes and notes. It infiltrates Invictus Potens’s body. His weapons mounts activate and deactivate under this intruder’s control. I watch the power feed graphs flicker up and down. These are phantom sensations. My tomb will be limbless, not yet fitted with weaponry for whatever role I have been woken for. The pain grows. I– Argh!

  Biotic linkage error. Logos Memorandum interrupt. Reinitiating.

  This is not a phantom sensation. It is growing, as it always does. It will reach a crescendo that is not quite enough to consume me, and thereafter become tolerable. The climb to that plateau is the worst part, and is not yet done. I grit what is left of my teeth. The muscles in my jaw are wasted. All of them are. My body is broken. Invictus Potens is my might, his strength replaces my own. His power uplifts me, that I might serve still. Praise be.

  Weapon links functional. Weapon mounts functional. Weapon interface functional. Weapon power couplings functional. Praise the Omnissiah! Engaging auto-senses.

  My vision activates, my hearing, my voice. Invictus Potens’s augurs flare bright, whiting my sensorium out. I would blink, if I could, but I can do nothing but endure the glare until the view stabilises. It duly does. Grainy and imperfect, distorted as if viewed through a fish’s eye. My sepulchre has been moved from my crusade’s strike cruiser, the Majesty. I see the Mausoleum of the Eternal Crusader instead, flagship of our order.

  I am free of the sepulchre’s restraints. The oil bath has been drained, the blast screen lowered into the floor, but I am still within the alcove. Not time yet, then, for me to march to war. This is an initial activation, as is standard. I remember everything and nothing. Only my thoughts are my own, only the moment.

  A Techmarine and an Apothecary stand before me, clad in their battleplate. Chanting forge-serfs are close by, and thralls attend them. A Chaplain in robes strides the room shouting praises to the Emperor. At the edges of my sight, bent around me by the Invictus’s wide-angle augur distortion, I see the stone of my grave, stained yellow by preservative oils.

  ‘Invictus Potens! Awake!’ declaims the Techmarine as he flicks scented lubricants at me. The Techmarines of the Black Templars follow the rites of the Omnissiah-Emperor punctiliously. I do not recognise him.

  ‘I am awake,’ Invictus Potens says. I have never been able to think of it as my voice, so deep and harsh: a machine’s voice, not a man’s.

  ‘Praise be! Praise be! Praise the Ominissiah, who art the Emperor of Man in the form of most holy machine. Praise the melding of the flesh and the steel. Praise the Golden Throne, that which embodies this melding. Praise Invictus Potens, a hallowed reflection of our Lord,’ the Techmarine says, his forge-thralls chanting with them.

  ‘Praise be,’ says the Apothecary, more quietly. The Techmarine looks at my casing, whereas the Apothecary stares deep into the distorting eye of Invictus, as if he would see me behind the machine’s plating.

  ‘All systems operate within holy parameters. Invictus Potens is functioning without the taint of malfunction,’ states the Techmarine.

  The Apothecary leans in to examine some device plugged into Invictus’s front. ‘Biologics read healthy. How are you, Brother Adelard?’

  He speaks into the Dreadnought’s ear, hidden behind the glacis. He addresses me directly, not the machine-man melding I have become, and so uses my old name. I appreciate his attempts to make me welcome, but what is in a name? Invictus Potens is my third. It is a label, nothing more.

  ‘Pain,’ I say. I hear the strain in Invictus’s voice. The pain has yet to reach its maximum level, I know this although there is no gauge to measure it. The Apothecary nods and tweaks something. Warmth pulses through my wizened remains.

  ‘Better,’ Invictus Potens grates. The Apothecary places his hand briefly upon my sarcophagus in sympathy. His gesture is wasted. I feel nothing that is not directly relevant to the prosecution of war.

  I think I recognise the Apothecary.

  ‘What are my orders, Brother Hengist?’ I say.

  ‘What are my orders, Brother Hengist?’ Invictus says for me.

  I am wrong.

  ‘I am Clovis. Brother-Apothecary Hengist was my master.’ He hesitates. ‘He died seventy-three years ago.’ I have nothing to say to that. I have no memory of Hengist having a novitiate. ‘I understand your error. I inherited his blessed wargear when he fell, praise be,’ he says. ‘The Eternal Crusader is en route to the Armageddon sector. An ork invasion, a large one. Many of our brothers have gathered. Do not rouse yourself overly, you will sleep again soon.’

  I see activity behind him. Another Dreadnought – an Ironclad – is being exposed. Flashing lights over his sepulchre indicate his oil bath has drained. His sarcophagus door, marked Cantus Maxim Gloria, is sliding down. Incense curls around his grave. He is truly ancient, an Old One. This information is presented to me, not recalled.

  ‘How long?’ I say.

  The Techmarine adjusts his bulky equipment. A new line scrolls across my vision.

  Time check. Internal chronograph reset. Resetting.

  The date blinks out on my display chronometer. When it returns, it is running again.

  760998.M41.

  Nine-nine-eight.

  I have slept for 89 years.

  Reset complete. Praise the Lord of Man, praise the Lord of Machines. Praise the binary of the twain.

  ‘Eighty-nine years?’ Invictus speaks.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Brother Clovis says. ‘There was deterioration in your nervous system, a viral infection. It has been arrested, but it took time, and Marshal Ricard wa
s unwilling to risk you until you were well.’

  Marshal Ricard? I remember a Ricard. He was a novitiate, a boy.

  ‘You awaken me now?’

  ‘We are waking you all,’ says Clovis.

  Invictus Potens’s engine deactivates. The power bleeds from his systems. The light is receding. I have many questions, but his voice is robbed from me. The clamps of the sepulchre reach out and grasp the shell of my tomb.

  Testing complete. Testing complete.

  Blessed are arms of iron, blessed are feet of steel.

  ‘Blessed is he who impels them, though his own limbs be shorn from his body,’ say the forge-thralls, following the same cant as Invictus’s systems.

  Initiating mid-term temporary shutdown.

  Blackness returns, crowding out the world. My vision overlay blinks out, the strength goes from the muscle bundles. Invictus Potens sags on his legs.

  All that I have left is the pain. That never leaves me. Even as I slip into the dreamless sleep it is there. It is there now.

  There is a mighty clamour on the embarkation deck. Squads run to their drop pods. I see Brusc, for a moment, my last neophyte, leading a Crusader squad. It is he, I am sure of it. I do not remember how long he has been a Sword Brother, but I recognise his battleplate. Then he is gone.

  Prayer, hymns and oaths vie with the noise of machines. Men kneel before Chaplains for the blessings of the Emperor. Ash crosses are smeared upon their brows, oath papers affixed to their armour by serfs with hissing seal stamps.

  There is focus here, amid the clanging and the shouts, but an observer would see only disorder. Once each blessing is undertaken, the squad, brothers and neophytes mixed, leaps up with votive cries and jogs to the drop pods, another squad taking its place for prayer.

  The last few of the pods sway in loading claws tracking across the ceiling, dragging them out of their armoured storage hangars. Chains wider than Invictus Potens’s shoulders rattle as the pods are lowered into position over their launch tubes. The noise is deafening. Auto-worshippers recite endless prayers from metal mouths. Thunderhawk engines whine up and down, and tanks grumble into position. Loading claws bang. Sirens, klaxons, machines, servitors, brothers… All the holy tumult of war’s preparation.