Although the throne room was large, it seemed crowded, as befitting a centre of episcopal and administrative authority. A woebegone choir seemed to hold the same despondent note while a small legion of cenobite scribes scratched commandments and observances into vellum with barbed quills. Armed Redemptionists milled about the devotional throngs, while vergers lit candles and restocked globes of billowing incense that swung on extensive lengths of chain suspended from the chamber ceiling.
At the epicentre of the activity was a vaulted throne, sat atop a tall stone column. The column was situated between a nest of other stunted pillars, each displaying a fully armed Sister of Battle, standing statuesque around the throne. A rickety scaffold had been constructed about the structure to enable access to the column’s summit and the frame was swarming with Sisters of various Orders Hospitaller. The throne itself was illuminated by a shaft of kaleidoscopic light falling from a circular stained-glass window situated in the ceiling. The desiccated husk who sat upon the throne was buried in a mitre and the heavy robes of his calling. A mind of mulch, within the wasted body of an ancient, Cardinal Bonifacius Pontian occasionally dribbled recitations or befuddled prayers to the gathering.
At first Kersh took Pontian to be the source of the chamber’s crisp stench. The cardinal had probably been quietly rotting away on the throne for the best part of a half-millennium. But the smell was not Pontian. Casting his eyes up the wall of both sides of the throne room, the Scourge regarded what he thought at first glance to be decorative stone statues and gargoyles. Water ran from the goylespouts and down the architecture in the manner of an ornate water feature, to be collected in the fonts that lined the wall below. The water was clearly collected from the steeple architecture, after falling as caustic sleet from the bitter cardinal world sky. Upon second inspection, however, Kersh saw that the forms were not statues built into the wall but unfortunates chained from it. Heretics, witches and mutants – unbelievers all – suspended from the cathedral-palace walls. Their faces and extremities were black and frostbitten, their features dissolved in the baptism of an agonising chemical-freeze. Their slow suffering, in turn, blessed the waters of the fonts below – waters that were being collected and distributed in vials to favoured priests and devout clerics across St Ethalberg and the subsector beyond.
‘Sir,’ Ezrachi said, drawing the Scourge’s attention back to a pack of priestly jackals who were approaching the Excoriators. The cleric-warden backed away like a beaten dog. Four ecclesiarchs presented themselves; old, wiry men, knotted with age and cunning. The first had been surrounded by Sisters of the Order of the Eternal Candle, who had parted at his brusque insistence. He limped over to the Adeptus Astartes using an ornate cane and was joined by a priestly inferior, who had fire in his eyes. Another ecclesiarch had been in deep discussion with a Guard officer and his ensign, while a thick-set third had been flanked by two brutish Redemptionists, who looked more like bodyguards than part of the priest’s pious congregation. Peeling off from their retinues, the four converged on the advancing Excoriators.
‘Corpus-Captain Kersh,’ the first announced with a sickly smile. He jabbed his cane towards the Scourge. ‘I am Nazimir, Pontifex-Urba of the Palace Euphorica. Welcome to St Ethalberg.’
Kersh cast his eyes over the pontifex at the heretics suffering on the wall. ‘Thank you, pontifex, but I can think of few places in the galaxy less welcoming than this,’ he told him.
Nazimir managed a sardonic laugh, passing Kersh’s reply off as a joke. ‘Can I introduce Convocate Clemenz-Krycek, Confessor Tyutchev and Arch-Deacon Schedonski.’
‘You can,’ Kersh said, ‘but I’m even less interested in meeting them than I was in meeting you.’
Nazimir’s smile died on his face.
‘We have invited you into our–’
‘No, sir,’ Kersh corrected him. ‘You have demanded an audience with the Emperor’s Angels. You now have that audience. You have applied some mysterious pressure, through your wiles and politicking, that has meant that Quesiah Ichabod – Master of the Excoriators Chapter – has insisted I exchange words with Cardinal Pontian of St Ethalberg. I am here to do just that. No less. No more.’
‘We speak for the cardinal,’ Nazimir said, leaning on his cane.
‘The cardinal cannot speak for himself?’
‘Not for many years now.’
‘Then the cardinal and I have said all that we are ever going to say,’ Kersh told them and turned away. Marching for the colossal archway egress, the Scourge said into his vox, ‘Impunitas, this is Kersh. Prepare–’
‘Corpus-captain!’
‘Excoriator!’
‘Kersh!’
Something hit the Scourge’s pauldron. With blistering reflexes the corpus-captain turned and snatched the object out of the air, his face a mask of grizzled venom. In his gauntlet he held a crumpled vellum scroll. The stunted Schedonski held the other end in his gnarled claws with the length of manuscript taut between them.
‘That was unwise, mortal,’ Ezrachi warned.
‘This is the Suspiriana Obligatio,’ Schedonski continued. ‘It details the mysterious pressure you speak of, Excoriator. It is the holy covenant that binds us and blesses our union with common purpose.’
Snatching it from the priest’s grip, Kersh slapped the tattered scroll into Melmoch’s chestplate. The Librarian scanned through the manuscript, feeding the length of the scroll through his gauntlets as he read. The Epistolary’s eyes blazed across the complexities of Adeptus Astartes Chapter commitments, blood oaths and the resolutions of antiquity. His shoulders sagged.
‘Well?’ Kersh pressed, his snarling face still fixed on Schedonski.
‘It’s a small avocation, my lord, but it exists. The cardinal world is granted succouricance rites for their role in the prayer-suppression of the daemon Chorozramodeus. These are guaranteed through the Conclave Suspiria and the Decree Vinculum, sworn on the bones of Constantine of Alamar. These rites extend through the unhonoured obligations of the Relictors, an existing accord between Chapter Masters Bardane and Abadiah – and through Abadiah, Master Ichabod. The rights also extend through the reassignment of the Aquinas and Ptolemy subsector boundaries. This, sir, all reinforced by a solitary but significant verse from the Mythos Angelica Mortis.’
‘The witchbreed speaks true,’ Schedonski spat, ill-disguising his disgust at the presence of the psyker.
‘Kersh,’ Nazimir sneered as Schedonski gathered the vellum. ‘You have obligations, corpus-captain. The weight of history lies on your broad shoulders. It would be a shame to see you falter and have such responsibilities pass from the penitent Relictors, through your failings, to another Chapter.’
‘That is why your Chapter Master has sent you here,’ Confessor Tyutchev pitched in. ‘He appreciates the import of pact and decorum. Mind you do the same, Excoriator.’
‘Be guided by the God-Emperor’s will in this, Angel,’ Convocate Clemenz-Krycek instructed.
Kersh let the ecclesiarchs’ insults wash over him. He looked to Ezrachi. He had brought the Apothecary along to help him cut through such chicanery.
‘You have words for these words?’ Kersh asked him.
Ezrachi’s face was taut with tension. The priests’ conduct had irritated him as much as any Excoriator in the chamber.
‘We are the Adeptus Astartes,’ he replied. ‘Our actions speak louder than our words.’
Kersh nodded. ‘Squad Contritus, are you in position?’ the Scourge said simply. His vox crackled back a short confirmation. Nazimir’s hooded eyes narrowed with confusion. The priests looked about the throne room. The Excoriators’ escort of Scout Marines had vanished. Only Kersh and his power-armoured brothers remained. ‘Pick your targets,’ Kersh said, his eyes burning into Nazimir. Red dots appeared on the hoods of armed Redemptionists about the room, causing consternation and panic in the hordes of clerics, scribes and menials about them.
‘You would mount an operation within the Palace Euphorica!’ the pontif
ex screamed incredulously.
‘Execute,’ Kersh commanded.
A thud-whoosh reverberated about the chamber. Headless bodies crashed to the cathedral floor in unison. The response was immediate. The statuesque Sisters of Battle in their crimson power armour turned to present arms – the gaping barrels of their bolters pointing at the Excoriators. The Inclement Reserves immediately went for their officer sidearms and, like the fraters who had got their chunky fingers to their secreted autoguns, were scanning the alcoves, statues and doorways to private chapels for any sign of their assailants. Squad Whip Keturah and his Scouts had all long secreted themselves, peeling off one by one unnoticed to take concealed positions about the colossal chamber. They had attached sonic-suppressors and set their rifles to non-visible wavelengths.
‘What are you doing?’ Convocate Clemenz-Krycek shouted.
‘Again,’ Kersh ordered. Spinning around, the priests watched a fresh set of frater bodies hit the throne room floor. Scribes and clerics shrieked and scattered like a flock of frightened birds. Kersh spotted the phantom at the heart of the horror and confusion. It watched and waited. The thunder of bells rang through the palace.
‘My lords!’ Schedonski called.
‘The Angels have gone mad,’ Nazimir screamed at the Adepta Sororitas, waving his cane about. ‘Defend the cardinal!’
‘Kill the interlopers!’ Tyutchev yelled to his frater militia.
‘Hit them again,’ Kersh said impassively. Once more, the bodies rained to the ground.
The thick-set confessor stepped over the dead and walked fearlessly towards the Excoriators. ‘Heretics in our midst, corrupted by the dark power of the Eye,’ Tyutchev blurted, before finding the broad blade of a ceremonial kris come to rest beneath his wrinkled chin. A helmeted Sister Superior stood behind the confessor.
‘Stop this!’ the ancient Nazimir wheezed.
‘The confessor is correct,’ Kersh announced calmly. ‘There are heretics in our midst. Do your duty, Sister.’
Nazimir, Clemenz-Krycek and Schedonski all exchanged horrified glances. The battle-sister hesitated long enough to demonstrate that the Excoriator’s words were encouragement rather than instruction. Then she slit the confessor’s throat, spraying Nazimir with blood, and allowed Tyutchev’s body to fall with his Redemptionists. For a moment the throne room was lost for words.
‘What are you doing?’ Clemenz-Krycek finally repeated.
‘Tell them,’ Kersh ordered.
Chaplain Shadrath gave the fool ecclesiarchs the horror of his half-skull helmet. ‘The Adeptus Ministorum is forbidden to keep men under arms,’ he hissed, ‘by order of the High Lords of Terra. You have broken the Decree Passive – a violation punishable by death.’
A clumsy stampede could be heard in the adjoining chamber accompanied by the echo of hastily issued orders. The bells had summoned the Ethalberg Inclement Reserves in their threadbare furs and cheap flak.
‘Squad Contritus, stand by,’ Kersh spoke calmly into his vox-link.
‘No, no, no!’ Arch-Deacon Schedonski shouted, waving his arms at the giant archway entrance to the throne room. He was swiftly accompanied by the Guardsmen to whom he had been talking. The officer and his ensign ordered the charging defence force troops to stand down.
‘We had no knowledge of the Redemptionist transgression,’ Convocate Clemenz-Krycek said.
‘For the love of the God-Emperor, please, I beg of you,’ Nazimir pleaded. Kersh looked to Epistolary Melmoch and found the psyker’s disarming smile waiting for him.
‘I hear enough of this God-Emperor from my Librarian,’ Kersh told them. ‘The love of our Emperor?’ Kersh marvelled. ‘You think yourself worthy of that?’ Nazimir fell to his arthritic knees. ‘You think you can earn his love through your worthless words? Your hives and palaces of soulless devotion? Your veneration of an empty idea? I feel the love of my father, as he felt the love of his. This flesh – these hearts – were made to feel. His blood courses through my veins. His loss lives on behind these eyes. He is more than man, but he is not a god. It is your fear that casts him as such. You are weak and foolish, and in your billions need him to be more than he is. But you are wrong, mortal. He is more than man for not being some all-powerful deity. His deeds are his own and we aspire to his greatness – not appropriate it, mythologise it and worship it as a shield against a galaxy of petty doubt, dread and pain. For his love I would do anything. I would obliterate this palace from orbit, for example.’
‘And you should,’ Chaplain Shadrath hissed with masked menace.
Nazimir gagged and vomited in his altitude mask. The stringy gruel dribbled out onto the throne room floor. Kersh looked from the Chaplain to the approaching convocate.
‘We ask only mercy, my lord,’ Clemenz-Krycek implored him.
‘But I won’t,’ Kersh said finally. ‘I will not destroy a world on a technicality.’ Shadrath turned away in silent disgust.
‘An Angel’s wisdom indeed,’ Clemenz-Krycek gasped and kissed the Excoriator’s gauntlet.
‘As the Fifth Company will not shirk their responsibilities on a technicality, either,’ Kersh said.
‘Rorschach’s World waits for us,’ Shadrath insisted. ‘It will not wait forever.’
‘Noted, Chaplain,’ the Scourge answered. ‘But Chapter Master Ichabod’s word has been given and we will honour it.’
‘Thank you, my lord. A thousand thanks,’ Clemenz-Krycek said.
‘Now, mortal,’ Kersh said, looking up briefly at the insensible ecclesiarch in the elevated throne above. ‘What does the cardinal ask of the Excoriators? Be brief – our patience wears thin.’
Clemenz-Krycek bent down and rifled the vomit-splattered robes of his pontifex. He extracted a data-slate and handed it to the corpus-captain.
‘The Keeler Comet blasts across the night skies of the subsector,’ the convocate said. ‘The crimson comet brings doom to all the planets on its path. This is well known. But it brings fear and madness to the region as a whole. An explosion of cultish activity. Insanity, violence, bloodshed. The statues of the Notre Dumas shrineworld bleed for the ungovernable atrocities committed there. Our sister cardinal world of St. Faustina is in uproar, with the enforcers forced to put down riot and rebellion with brutal force. The sanctuary worlds of Frau Mauro and Benedictus Secundus suffer blood cults and outbreaks of vampiric contagion. We have also lost contact with the Preceptor retreats on Caritas Minoris, Boltoph’s World and VII-Solace-Sixteen. We despatched the cloister-corvette Seraphic Dawn to investigate these mysteries, but she too has not returned. And this is but the Ministorum worlds in the subsector. Emperor only knows what is happening on the others. We fear for what might be in store for St Ethalberg itself. We have trebled persecutions within our jurisdiction, requested more Sisters from the Convent Prioris on Terra and prayed for the intervention of the Holy Ordos.’
‘We are the Astartes Praeses,’ Kersh announced. ‘It is the Excoriators’ sacred duty to garrison damnation’s borders. What you speak of is not unusual in such regions. The Eye of Terror is a storm. Its immateriology is unpredictable and cruel.’
‘But the comet, my lord–’ Clemenz-Krycek insisted with his eyes to the floor.
‘Is a new manifestation, I grant you,’ Kersh admitted. ‘As you have observed yourself, however, we are the Emperor’s Angels. We are not investigators. We are not charged with keeping order on Imperial worlds. I suggest you pursue the advice of the Inquisition. If the local military forces on these worlds cannot cope, then the Ordo Hereticus will use its influence with the Imperial Guard to have regiments brought in-sector and assigned to peace-keeping and security duties.’
‘Corpus-captain,’ the convocate said, ‘there is a small planet, out in the Andronica Banks, close to Hinterspace – a cemetery world called Certus-Minor.’
‘Go on,’ Kersh prompted.
‘Like the Preceptor retreats, we have lost contact with the cemetery world. We have stopped receiving astrotelepathic messages, and our la
st convoy of necrofreighters have not returned. Pontifex-Mundi Oliphant is both planetary governor and senior ecclesiarch of the cemetery world. The last few messages we did receive from him indicated that Certus-Minor was experiencing the same problems as other worlds with heretic cults. The very last, that his people had discovered a colossal monument, made of human skulls and bearing the markings of the Ruinous Powers.’
‘This giant monument just appeared?’ Kersh frowned. ‘I find that hard to believe. Were there no witnesses to its construction?’
‘I cannot answer to that. Pontifex Oliphant communicated fears that cultists operating on the planet might be trying to summon some unholy creature from the warp – that the object might be a gate or portal. He was instructed to quarantine the region around the object, establish a prayer-cordon and not interfere directly with it. He was told we were sending for assistance.’
‘You want us to destroy this dread monument?’ Kersh asked.
‘And whatever might proceed from the infernal artefact,’ Clemenz-Krycek replied. ‘We have heard nothing from Oliphant since – and that was over a month ago.’
Kersh looked at Epistolary Melmoch. ‘Opinion.’
‘This close to the Eye, anything is possible. I echo your concerns about this portal’s construction, but with the right tracts and dark knowledge a group of accomplished cultists might be able to achieve such a Ruinous wonder.’
Kersh looked to Ezrachi.
‘It is the Chapter Master’s wish that these obligations be honoured,’ the Apothecary commented, adding with a harsh edge, ‘no matter how foolishly these miserable wretches have acted in our midst. They are but mortal, after all.’
Kersh turned back to Clemenz-Krycek. ‘You went to a great deal of trouble to secure our involvement. What is the significance of this cemetery world?’
‘Certus-Minor is the birthplace of Umberto II – Ecclesiarch and High Lord of Terra. It is also the location of the memorial mausoleum containing his bones. It was the Ecclesiarch’s dying wish that he return. Such a prestigious burial ground is secured at a premium by the great and good of our fair Imperium. It is a holy place – we cannot allow the unclean to contaminate its sacred soil.’
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 183