‘My lord, you want to draft the citizenry into the ceremonial defence force?’
‘No,’ Kersh told him. ‘That’s what I want you to do. I’m sure under the severity of the circumstances, the Departmento Munitorum would hypothetically approve such measures.’
Proctor Kraski seemed to consider the proposal. The grizzled arbitrator finally said, ‘These here cemetery worlders are mainly diggers and labourers. Many can’t read and write anything beyond the most basic prayers. You’ve got a lot of women and children. None of the men have any combat experience.’
‘Would they know which end of a lasfusil was the most dangerous?’ Kersh put to the enforcer.
‘I expect so,’ Kraski said, chewing on his tobacco.
‘Well as long as they point that end in the general direction of the enemy, I’ll be happy.’ The Scourge looked from Kraski and the lord lieutenant to Oliphant. ‘The women and children can form a prayer cordon inside the perimeter.’
Pontifex Oliphant’s gaze moved about the floor. The ecclesiarch looked deeply unhappy and as though he were going to vomit on the basilica floor.
‘The Sister is right. The Decree Passive is not an obstacle to be circumvented. It is the God-Emperor’s law.’
‘Whether you designate them so or not,’ Kersh told him, ‘the Certusian people are your defence force. When the enemy attacks, they will have to fight for their lives. All I’m asking is that they also fight for everyone else’s. Pontifex, does not the God-Emperor fight on their side?’
The pontifex searched his soul and looked up at the dull stained-glass window above them. ‘Yes,’ he said tightly and left it at that.
‘These backwater wretches against the damned berserkers of the xiith Legion?’ Skase said with ill-disguised scorn. ‘You might as well offer them up on an altar to the Blood God yourself.’
‘There is another consideration,’ Ezrachi said, eager to take Kersh’s attention off the provocative Skase.
‘Apothecary?’
‘With so many losing their minds to this gall-fever, is it wise to indiscriminately arm the population?’
‘Do we know anything more of this madness?’ the corpus-captain asked.
‘Only that it isn’t physiological,’ the Apothecary replied. ‘And it doesn’t seem transmissible like a virus or infection. It is a malady of the mind. Men are no more susceptible than women, young no more than the old. All we do know is that the mental transformation from Certusian to savage is unpredictable, swift and that the first symptom is usually murderous bloodshed. I suspect it is some psychological condition brought on by the comet, but that is not for me as Apothecary to say.’
‘The lord lieutenant here is simply going to have to exercise his judgement. I suppose a cure is too much to hope for?’
Ezrachi grunted. ‘The same as for life, a bolt-round, administered to the heart or brain.’
‘What about our number?’ Kersh asked.
‘Beyond reports of brief visions and disturbed sleep, we seem unaffected. This is probably due to cult observance and psychoindoctrination, but again, I can’t know. I can run further tests.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ the corpus-captain said. ‘I have a different duty for you to perform.’
‘Sir?’
‘Without delay I want you to begin extraction rites and harvest mature progenoid glands from all Excoriators with at least ten years’ service to the Chapter,’ the Scourge said gravely. The announcement was met with an immediate wall of shock, discontent and objection from the company whips and their seconds.
‘Kersh?’ Ezrachi said, falling out of formality.
‘We are facing an enemy infamous for its intolerance of survivors.’
‘You prepare for our failure,’ Squad Whip Joachim accused.
‘We are attrition fighters. We battle with the best but prepare for the worst. If we are faced with failure – and by Katafalque’s blood, I hope that we are not – then we should meet our doom knowing that our legacy lives on through the genetic heritage we bequeath. We do this in the best interests of the Chapter and not ourselves. I do not ask this of you, Dorn does – so that the Imperium’s future, as well as its present, might be secure.’
‘How would we do this?’ Ezrachi asked bleakly.
‘You would transport the collected gene-seed to the Angelica Mortis and oversee its safe storage and containment. The sacred seed would then travel on to the forge-world of Aetna Phall.’
‘Aetna Phall?’
‘It’s nearby,’ Kersh explained, ‘and reachable through the series of short warp jumps Brother Dancred alluded to.’
‘That will take months, this close to the Eye,’ the Apothecary informed him.
‘Yes,’ Kersh agreed. ‘But the Adeptus Mechanicus will appreciate the importance of the cargo and have the resources to see it on to Eschara. You would, of course, be there to impress such necessity upon them.’
‘You want me to accompany the seed?’
‘Our only Apothecary?’ Ishmael scathed. ‘And the company strike cruiser? This is madness.’
‘It is time you fully appreciated the nature of the foe you face,’ the corpus-captain told the squad whips gravely. ‘The Blood God’s servants do not orchestrate and strategise. They have no knowledge of failure – only success or the eternal darkness. They do not wound and incapacitate, attack and withdraw. Victory, both personal and galactic, is everything to them. They live for the death of their enemies and think on nothing but their blades steaming with warrior blood. There will be little for Apothecary Ezrachi to do here, once the fighting begins a-proper. As for the Angelica Mortis – what do you think the Cholercaust will do with her? The Chaos armada will crush the cruiser like a ration can. Which is why Corpus-Commander Bartimeus and the good Apothecary will see our future safely to the Mechanicus forge-world.’
‘I have heard enough,’ Chief Whip Skase told the Scourge. ‘It seems like you have our decimation pretty well planned out – from your decision that we should remain on this deadrock, to trapping us here without orbital support or transportation.’
‘My lord, the Adeptus Ministorum monitor Apotheon and several system ships remain,’ Pontifex Oliphant reminded the Excoriator, but Skase ignored the ecclesiarch.
‘Does this strike anyone else as particularly suicidal?’ the chief whip continued. ‘Is this the quality of tactical advice you gave to the Chapter Master on Ignis Prime? Haven’t the Alpha Legion made us pay deeply enough for your failures? Was Ichabod and the loss of the Stigmartyr not enough for you?’
‘He’s corpus-captain,’ Silas Keturah called coldly from the other side of the nave, ‘by Ichabod’s order.’
‘And was not Horus made Warmaster by the Emperor’s?’
The basilica fell to silence before the heretical suggestion of the chief whip’s statement.
‘You stand here,’ Kersh rumbled, stepping forth, ‘in this holy place, casting aspersions, feeding your fury and sowing the seed of discord in this company…’
‘If the Fifth had been mine, we would already have your lost Stigmartyr back in our possession and our plate would be speckled with traitor blood.’
‘And I think that you’d either be standing on Rorschach’s World scratching your head or in a pool of your own blood after walking into what even a child could see to be an obvious trap,’ Kersh bawled at him. ‘The Alpha Legion are serpents. They only allow you to know what they want you to know. You cannot trust such intelligence. It is either an ambush or a ruse to draw us away from our true duty.’
‘This is not our duty!’ Skase growled.
‘Yes, it is,’ the Apothecary interjected. ‘You were not there on St Ethalberg. We are bound by ancient pacts and promises, as was our Chapter Master. We serve Quesiah Ichabod and must honour his word, as you must honour your corpus-captain’s.’
‘Words…’ Skase marvelled. ‘You talk about words and dusty tracts. I’m talking about our Chapter’s honour and the blood of our enemies on our blades
.’
‘Make no mistake,’ Kersh told the chief whip. ‘They are one and the same. What we fought in the palace was our enemy. Some kind of daemonic harbinger, heralding the bloodshed to come. You would have us run from that? Flee to safety, leaving mere mortals to face the servants of the Dark Gods alone? What would that do for our Chapter’s honour?’
‘You twist my words, Kersh – for you have no honest ones of your own. I will not take lessons in my Chapter’s honour from the likes of you. The Scourge, who failed his Chapter Master, who surrendered our beloved Stigmartyr to the enemy and routinely surrenders himself to his shameful affliction. And while Dorn himself curses you with his Darkness, Chaplain Shadrath runs the company by proxy.’
‘You go too far, Uriah,’ the Chaplain hissed.
‘We have not gone far enough,’ Skase insisted vehemently. ‘We need leadership. Not the fatalistic fantasies of a coward, unworthy to wear Katafalque’s symbol and colours. A failure, who wishes to sacrifice this company on the altar of his guilt and bring the taint of the Darkness to us all.’
‘Skase–’ Shadrath began.
‘I think that the last time I allow you to question my courage,’ Kersh told him through gritted teeth.
‘Well think on, Scourge,’ Skase shot back, taking a step towards the corpus-captain. ‘I demand Trial by the Blade.’
The vaulted chamber echoed with Skase’s challenge.
‘The corpus-captain has more than proved himself in the Feast,’ Ezrachi shouted.
‘Not to me,’ the chief whip said, slapping his boltgun against Ishmael’s chestplate to take. ‘And not to this company – who were denied representation due to our commitments on Vieglehaven – clearing up the Scourge’s mess. Perhaps the other attendant Chapters were easier to impress.’
Brother Micah stepped forwards to present himself, the company champion’s eyes fixed on Skase and hungry for battle.
‘Micah, no,’ Kersh said softly, laying a gauntlet on his shoulder.
‘This Excoriator has forgotten himself and his proper station,’ the young Micah replied, not taking his eyes off the chief whip. ‘Let me put him in his place.’
Kersh shook his head.
‘This is an act of sedition,’ Ezrachi warned. ‘A mutinous revolt against the authority of your corpus-captain.’
‘I plot no more insurrection than the Warmaster’s lieutenants did when they refused to join his ranks and fought for their distant Emperor,’ Skase told the Apothecary. ‘Besides, I encourage nothing more than company fealty in my squad. This is a personal grievance. As such, I have the right – as Excoriators and Dorn’s Fists before me – to settle such disputes through the solemn contestation of a duel. My face will attest to the honour I have taken – and in my youth given – in such rituals.’
‘You would do this now, with the arch-enemy at our gates?’ Kersh said, shaking his head.
‘And now so would you,’ Skase told him, unsheathing his bolt pistol and handing it to his second whip. ‘For I see my accusations hit home. It would be a dishonour to bear them, Scourge. You must fight me.’
Chaplain Shadrath turned his half-skull face to Kersh, who slowly nodded without looking at him.
‘This is insane,’ Ezrachi erupted.
‘I must send for the blades,’ the Chaplain hissed. Such duels were usually fought with ceremonial weapons retained in the company chapel-reclusiam. Kersh drew his Mark II pistol and unhooked his chainsword, giving them to the Apothecary and Brother Micah.
‘No need,’ the Scourge said walking forwards. ‘We’ll contend with what we have.’
Skase nodded his approval and drew his oiled gladius.
‘My lords,’ Oliphant called, getting to his feet. ‘You cannot shed blood in the–’ but Proctor Kraski put a hand on his shoulder and shook his grizzled head.
‘The Rite has been invoked and it has been answered,’ Chaplain Shadrath said, moving down the nave as Excoriators backed between pillars to give the combatants more room. From the shadows, the revenant watched with patient interest. ‘Trial by the Blade. As all Excoriators are equal in Dorn’s image, first blood goes to the victor, when blood is drawn from that image. Brothers will indicate their understanding.’
Kersh drew his relic-blade, taking several practise swings with the gladius. Both corpus-captain and chief whip acknowledged the Chaplain by kissing their right gauntlets.
‘Begin,’ Shadrath told them.
Skase was an ivory blur as he leapt at the Scourge with sword held high. As the blade came down, Kersh feigned a parry, only to slip out from under the cleaving motion. As Skase’s gladius chipped the stone of the basilica floor, Kersh slapped the back of his head with the flat of his relic blade.
‘You will have to do better than that, brother,’ Kersh told him.
The needling comment had its desired effect. Skase came back at him, his gladius glinting its arcs and curves in the candlelit gloom of the basilica. Kersh remained poised, deflecting the blade’s optimistic dance and arching his neck left and right to avoid the venomous stabbing motions the chief whip used to punctuate his spite-driven attacks. Indulging a towering parry, Kersh held the seething Skase at full stretch. Bringing up his left fist, he hammered his chief whip across the jaw before slashing back across his cheekbone with the knuckles of his gauntlet. Skase was battered back, sword in hand, but immediately brought his own fingertips to his face. Stepping closer, Chaplain Shadrath leant in to check for any evidence of blood, but there was none.
‘Proceed,’ the Chaplain barked, backing away once more. Kersh brought his blade in low, but the chief whip battered it aside with an angry grunt. The assault gained in furiousness and before long Skase’s bladework began to lose its discipline. His lip wrinkled into a dogged, hate-fuelled snarl, and his gladius chopped and swept – demonstrating little interest in its target, the Scourge’s duel-scarred face.
‘Come on, meat!’ Kersh called.
Backing from the onslaught, his relic blade barely managing to turn his opponent’s aside, Kersh crashed through iron candelabra and shouldered a stone saint from his pedestal, sending him smashing simultaneously to Oliphant’s horror and the floor. Rounding a column, the Excoriators committed further blasphemies on the pillar-representation of Saint Proulx. Razored edges sparked off crafted stone as the two Space Marines fought for the advantage. Eventually the rhythmic slashing broke and the Scourge’s blade smacked Skase’s into the pillar, pinning the weapon. Kersh’s ceramite boot found the chief whip’s exposed side. The bone-shuddering impact took Skase off the ground, his gauntlet slipping free of his sword hilt and his armoured body clattering across the flags of the nave.
The Scourge ran down on the unarmed Excoriator, eager to end the needless conflict. As the whip shook his head and lifted his face in momentary confusion, Kersh swept in to deliver a duelling scar that Skase would never forget.
Further clattering distracted the Scourge. Before him, gliding across the polished basilica floor, clinked Ishmael’s blade. Squad Castigir’s whip had drawn and slid his own gladius to his battle-brother, and before Kersh knew it the metal of the blade was scraping his ribs. Skase’s thrust from the floor, combined with the force of Kersh running down on the blade had created force enough to slip the sword tip between two ceramite plates and puncture up through the Excoriator’s black carapace. The clash had barely begun, however. Kersh instinctively wrapped a fist around the blade, preventing it from penetrating further. Skase was now on his feet, his face contorted with loathing and the physical effort required to drive the sword home. The whip had little trouble wrapping his gauntlet about Kersh’s fist, which in turn had gone momentarily limp around the grip of his gladius. The two held each other in a feverish grip, paralysed like the statues about them, with their brothers looking on.
His craggy face creased with concern, Ezrachi moved in, but the Scourge shook his head stiffly, bringing the Apothecary to a pause. Skase’s eyes burned with the knowledge that he held the advantage, and Kers
h saw the satisfaction ripple across his features as he tried to twist his blade within the Scourge. The gladius screeched against the ceramite of Kersh’s artificer armour. The corpus-captain fought the compulsion to cry out as the blade’s length tore through his black carapace.
‘Sir!’ Brother Micah implored.
‘No!’ Kersh croaked with brutal defiance.
The Scourge’s arm came once more to life, surprising Skase and wrapping around the chief whip’s neck like a constricting serpent. The two fell in a messy embrace, Skase still holding on to both the Scourge’s clutched sword and the weapon buried in his corpus-captain’s midriff. The Excoriators rolled, roaring like animals, their plate clashing and the vaulted chamber filling with intermittent gasps of pain and exertion. They were soon tumbling back and forth, with plate and limb slapping through a gathering pool of the Scourge’s blood. The desperate struggle painted carnage across the basilica floor, with Kersh’s hold finally slipping on his own gore and off Skase’s armour.
The pair rolled, Skase’s blade turning inside the corpus-captain’s torso. Kersh went over the chief whip and ended up with his back resting against the foot of one of the nave’s many columns. Skase sat astride the bleeding Scourge, the corpus-captain’s relic blade held between them. The chief whip’s other hand still held its feverish grip on the gladius gutting his corpus-captain. Only Kersh’s own pulverising hold on the blade prevented further tragedy. Skase snarled and pushed, forcing Kersh’s own blade towards him. Leaning back against the pillar and into his pack, the Scourge quickly ran out of room to manoeuvre and could only watch the oiled length of the weapon edge towards him with cut-throat keenness.
‘Chaplain!’ Ezrachi called out.
‘The conventions are clear,’ Shadrath hissed, both Excoriators closing in with the rest of the gathering. ‘First blood from the face.’
Skase’s face quaked with the furious desire to win. He knew he had the Scourge and couldn’t help a maniacal grin spreading across his ugly features.
‘Do it, Uriah!’ Squad Whip Ishmael roared from beside the column. He was joined in similar encouragement by Joachim and the squad seconds.
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