Warhammer - Ultramarines 03 - Dead Sky, Black Sun (McNeill, Graham)

by Graham McNeill

  Uriel ducked beneath a scything punch and leapt backwards in time to dodge a thunderous kick to his groin. Despite his speed, the heel of Pasanius's foot still hammered into his side, and he grunted in pain as the breath was driven from him.

  Uriel dodged away from the next blow, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as his opponent came at him again, blocking and countering everything Pasanius threw at him. The big man was faster than he looked and Uriel knew he could not avoid being hit forever. And when Pasanius landed a clean blow, very few got back up.

  He threw murderous punches towards Pasanius, pivoting his hips and shoulders to get his full weight behind his blows, while ducking in to deliver rapid-fire punches to his opponent's ribs. Pasanius stepped back, untroubled by such strikes, and Uriel swiftly followed him, throwing a hooking punch at his head. It was a risky gambit and easily blocked, but instead of Pasanius's gleaming forearm coming up to block the blow, Uriel's fist smashed home against his right temple.

  Pasanius stumbled and dropped to one knee, bright blood weeping from where the skin had split above his right eye. Uriel stepped away from Pasanius, dropping his fists and easing his breathing as he stared in puzzlement at the gash on his former sergeant's forehead.

  'Are you all right?' asked Uriel. 'What happened? You could easily have blocked that.'

  'You just caught me by surprise.' said Pasanius, wiping away the already clotted blood with his fleshy hand. 'I expected you to go for the legs again.'

  Uriel replayed the last few seconds of their bout again in his mind, seeing again his and Pasanius's positions and movements as they sparred.

  'The legs? I wasn't in a strong position to attack your legs.' said Uriel. 'If I wanted to attack from that position, I had to go for the head.'

  Pasanius shrugged. 'I just didn't get my block up in time.'

  'You didn't even try, not even with the other arm.'

  'You won. What are you complaining about?'

  'It's just that I've never seen you miss such an easy block, that's all.'

  Pasanius turned away, picking up a towel from where it hung on the brass rail that ran around the circumference of the geodesic viewing dome Captain Laskaris had given over to them for sparring and training. The blackness of space filled the view from the dome: stars spread across it like diamond dust on sable. Reflected light from the distant star of Macragge glittered on the dome's many facets and cast a soft pall of ghostly light throughout the viewing bay.

  'I'm sorry, Uriel, this whole situation has me a little... off balance.' said Pasanius, draping his towel over his augmetic arm. 'To be exiled from the Chapter...'

  'I know, Pasanius, I know.' said Uriel, joining his sergeant at the edge of the dome. He gripped the rail as he stared through the toughened arrhaglass at what lay beyond.

  The gothic, cliff-like hull of the bulk-transporter, Calth's Pride, stretched away into the darkness of space and beyond sight as the vessel journeyed from Macragge towards the Masali jump point.

  Uriel stepped into his quarters, throwing his towel onto the gunmetal grey footlocker at the foot of his bed and walking into the small ablutions cubicle set into the steel bulkhead. He pulled off his sweat-stained chiton and hung it from a chrome rail, turning the burnished lever above the chipped ceramic basin and waiting for it to fill. He scooped up a handful of ice-cold water, splashing it over his face and letting it drip from his craggy features.

  Uriel stared at the foaming water in the basin, its spray reminding him of his last morning on Macragge, kneeling on Gallan's Rock and watching the glittering spume in the rocky pool at the base of the Falls of Hera. He closed his eyes, picturing again the distant seas, shimmering like a blanket of sapphires beyond the rocky white peaks of the western mountains, themselves sprinkled with scraps of green highland fir. The sun was setting, casting blood-red fingers of dying light and bathing the mountains in gold. It had felt as though the homeworld of his Chapter had been granting him one last vision of its majesty before it was denied to him forever.

  He would hold onto that vision each night as he lay down on his simple cot bed, recalling its every nuance of colour, sight and smell, anxious that it should not fade from his memories. The stale, recycled taste to the air made the memory all the more poignant, and the harsh, spartanly furnished quarters he had been allocated aboard the Pride were a fond reminder of his captain's chambers back on Macragge.

  Uriel lifted his head and stared at the polished steel mirror, watching as droplets trickled like tears down his reflection's cheek. He wiped the last of the water from his face, the grey eyes of his twin watching him, set beneath a heavy, brooding brow and close-cropped black hair. Two golden studs were set upon his brow and his jawline was angular and patrician. His physique dwarfed that of the ordinary human soldiers who filled this enormous starship, genetically enhanced by long-forgotten technologies and honed to the peak of physical perfection by a lifetime of training, discipline and war. His arms and chest were criss-crossed with scars, but greater than them all combined was a mass of pale, discoloured flesh across his stomach where a tyranid Norn-queen had almost slain him on Tarsis Ultra.

  He shuddered at the memory, turning and sitting on the edge of his bed, remembering his last sight of Macragge as the shuttle had lifted off from the port facility at the end of the Valley of Laponis. He had watched his adopted homeworld shrink away, becoming a patchwork of glittering, quartz-rich mountains and vast oceans that were soon obscured as the shuttle rose into the lower atmosphere.

  Slowly the curve of the world had become visible, together with the pale haze that marked the divide between the planet and the hard vacuum of space. Ahead, Calth's Pride had been an ugly, metallic oblong hanging in space above the planet's northern polar reaches.

  He had reached out and placed a gauntleted hand against the shuttle's thick viewing block, wondering if he would ever set foot on Macragge again.

  'Take a good look, captain.' Pasanius had said gloomily, following Uriel's gaze through the viewing block. 'It's the last time we'll see her.'

  'I hope you're wrong, Pasanius.' said Uriel. 'I don't know where our journey will take us, but we may yet see the world of our Chapter again.'

  Pasanius shrugged, his massive armoured form dwarfing his former captain. The late Techmarine Sevano Tomasin had forged the armour upon Pasanius's elevation to a full Space Marine, its armoured plates composed of parts scavenged from suits of tactical dreadnought armour that had been irreparably damaged in battle.

  'Perhaps, captain, but I know that I'll never lay eyes on Macragge again.'

  'What makes you so sure? And you don't need to call me "captain" any more, remember?'

  'Of course, captain, but I just know I will not return here.' replied Pasanius. 'It's just a feeling I have.'

  Uriel shook his head. 'No, I do not believe that Lord Calgar would have placed this death oath upon us if he thought we could not honour it.' he said. 'It may take many years, but there is always hope.'

  Uriel had watched his former sergeant, understanding his grim mood as his eyes drifted to the huge shoulder guard where the symbol of the Ultramarines had once been emblazoned. Like his own armour, all insignia of the Ultramarines had been removed following their castigation by a conclave of their peers for breaches of the Codex Astartes on Tarsis Ultra and they had taken the March of Shame from the Fortress of Hera.

  Uriel sighed as he thought of all that had happened since he had first taken up his former captain's sword to take command of the Ultramarines Fourth Company: so much death and battle that was a Space Marine's lot. Battle-brothers, allies and friends had died fighting renegades, xenos creatures and entire splinter fleets of tyranids.

  He sat back against the bulkhead, casting his mind back to the carnage the tyranids had wreaked on Tarsis Ultra. He still had perfect recall of the horrific battles fought on that ice-locked industrial world, the fury of the extra-galactic predators' invasion indelibly etched on his memories. The battles on Ichar IV - another world
ravaged by the tyranids - had been terrible, but the gathering of Imperial forces there had been magnificent, whereas those assembled on Tarsis Ultra had been horrifically outnumbered, and only desperate heroism and the intervention of the legendary Inquisitor Lord Krypt-man had brought them victory.

  But it was a victory won at a cost.

  To save the planet, Uriel had taken command of an Ordo Xenos Deathwatch squad - in defiance of his duty to his warriors and the tenets of his primarch's holy tome, the Codex Astartes - and fought his way to the heart of a tyranid hive ship. Upon the company's return to Macragge, Learchus, one of his most courageous sergeants, had reported Uriel's flagrant breaches of the Codex's teachings to the High Masters of the Chapter.

  Tried before the great and good of the Ultramarines, Uriel and Pasanius had waived their right to defend themselves, instead accepting the judgement of Marneus Calgar to prevent their example passing down the chain of command. The penalty for such heresy could only be death, but rather than waste the lives of two courageous warriors who might yet bring ruin to the enemies of the Emperor, the Chapter Master had bound them to a death oath.

  Uriel could vividly remember the evening they had set out from the Fortress of Hera, accepting the judgement of Lord Calgar and showing the Chapter that the way chosen by the Ultramarines was true. They were bound to the death oath that the Chapter might live on as it always had.

  Chaplain Clausel had read verses from the Book of Dishonour and averted his eyes as Uriel and Pasanius marched past him towards the doors of the gatehouse.

  'Uriel, Pasanius.' said Lord Calgar.

  The two Space Marines stopped and bowed to their former master.

  'The Emperor go with you. Die well.'

  Uriel nodded as the huge doors swung open. He and Pasanius had stepped into the purple twilight of evening. Birds were singing and torchlight flickered from the high towers of the outermost wall of the fortress.

  Before the door closed, Calgar had spoken once again, his voice hesitant, as though unsure as to whether he should speak at all.

  'Librarian Tigurius spoke with me last night.' he began, 'of a world that tasted of dark iron, with great womb factories of daemonic flesh rippling with monstrous, unnatural life. Tigurius told me that savage morticians - like monsters themselves - hacked at these creatures with blades and saws and pulled bloodstained figures from within. Though appearing more dead than alive, these figures lived and breathed, tall and strong, a dark mirror of our own glory. I know not what this means, Uriel, but its evil is plain. Seek this place out. Destroy it.'

  'As you command.' said Uriel as he had walked into the night.

  The chilling vision of Librarian Tigurius could be anywhere in the galaxy, and though the thought of venturing into such a hideous place filled Uriel's soul with dread, part of him also relished the chance to bring death to such vile monsters.

  It had been five days since the bulk lifter had broken orbit with Macragge and used its conventional plasma drives to journey to the Masali jump point.

  All Uriel's enemies had been met blade-to-blade and defeated, yet here he and Pasanius were, aboard a vessel rammed to the gunwales with regiments of Imperial Guard bound for Segmentum Obscurus and the wars that had erupted in the wake of the Despoiler's invasion of Imperial space.

  'Courage and honour.' he whispered bitterly, but there was no reply.

  Pasanius pressed the point of his knife into the centre of his chest, the skin dimpling under its razor-sharp tip. The skin broke and blood welled from the cut, dripping down his chest before swiftly clotting. Pasanius pushed the blade deeper, dragging the knife across the bulging pectoral muscle on the left side of his chest and cutting a long, horizontal slice in his skin.

  He ignored the pain, altering the angle of the blade and cutting diagonally down towards his solar plexus, forming a mirror image of the cuts on the opposite side of his chest. Quick slashes between the heavy cuts formed the final part of his carving and Pasanius dropped the knife onto his bed, falling to his knees before the makeshift shrine set up on the floor beside his bed.

  Candles burned with a scented, smoky aroma, flickering in the breeze wafting from the recyc-units and long strips of prayer papers covered in Pasanius's spidery handwriting lay curled at their bases. Pasanius lifted a strip of gilt-edged paper with bloody fingertips, reading the words of penance and confession written there, though he knew them by heart. He raised his gleaming bionic hand, spreading his fingers and placing it palm-down upon his bloody chest, cut with the form of an eagle with outstretched wings.

  Pasanius dragged his hand down his chest, smearing the congealed blood across its gleaming metal while mouthing the confessional words written on the paper. As he finished the words, he lowered the paper into the wavering flame of the candle and held it there until it caught light. Hungry flames licked up the length of the prayer paper, greedily consuming the words written there and scorching the tips of his fingers black.

  The paper crumbled to flaking, orange-limned embers, disintegrating in his hands and drifting gently to the floor. The last ember fell from his hand and Pasanius slammed his clenched silver fist into the wall of his quarters, punching a deep crater in the bulkhead.

  He brought his hand up in front of his face to stare at the terrible damage. His metal fingers were cracked

  and bent by the force of the impact, but Pasanius wept bitter tears of disgust and self-loathing as he watched the tips of his fingers shimmer and straighten until not so much as a single scratch remained. 'Forgive me...' he whispered.

  Uriel ejected a spent magazine from his bolter and smoothly slapped a fresh one into the weapon as another enemy came at him from the doorway of the building before him. He rolled aside as a flurry of las-bolts kicked up the sand and rose to a shooting position beside a pile of discarded ammo crates. The movement so natural he was barely conscious of making it, he sighted along the top of his bolter and squeezed off a single round, blasting his target's head off with one well-aimed shot.

  Another shooter snapped into view on the building's parapet and he adjusted his aim and put another shell squarely through the chest of this latest threat. Pasanius ran for the building's door as Uriel scanned the upper windows and surrounding rooftops for fresh targets. None presented themselves and he returned his attention to the main door as Pasanius smashed it from its hinges in a shower of splinters.

  Uriel broke cover and ran for the building as Pasanius gave him covering fire, hearing the distinctive snap of lasgun shots and the answering roar of a bolter. As he reached the building, he slammed into the wall. Pasanius hurled a grenade through the door before ducking back as the thunder of the explosion blasted from within.

  'Go!' shouted Pasanius. Uriel rolled from his position beside the door and plunged within the smoke-filled hell of the room. Bodies littered the floor and acrid smoke billowed from the explosion, but Uriel's armour's auto-senses penetrated the blinding fog with ease, showing him two enemies still standing. He put the first one down and Pasanius shot the second in the head.

  Room by room, floor by floor, the two Ultramarines swept through the building, killing another thirty targets before declaring it clear. Since the door had been broken down four minutes had passed.

  Uriel removed his helmet and ran a hand across his scalp, his breathing even and regular, despite a training exercise that would have had even the fittest human warrior gulping great draughts of air into their lungs.

  'Four minutes.' he said. 'Not good. Chaplain Clausel would have had us fasting for a week after a performance like that.'

  'Aye.' agreed Pasanius, also removing his helm. 'It is not the same without his hymnals while we train. We are losing our edge. I do not feel the necessity to excel here.'

  'I know what you mean, but it is an honour to have the skills we do and it is our duty to the Chapter to hone them to the highest levels.' said Uriel, checking the action of his bolter and whispering the words of prayer that honoured the weapon's war spirit. Both men ha
d offered prayers, applying the correct oils and rites of firing before even loading them. Such devotion to a weapon was common among the fighting men and women of the Imperium, but to a Space Marine his boltgun was much more than simply a weapon. It was a divine instrument of the Emperor's will, the means by which His wrath was brought to bear upon those who would defy the Imperium.

  Despite his words, Uriel knew that Pasanius spoke true when he talked of losing their edge. Four minutes to clear a building of such size was nothing short of amazing, but he knew they could have done it faster, more efficiently, and the idea of not performing as well as he knew he could was galling to him.

  Since he had been six years old and inducted to the Agiselus Barracks, he had been the best at everything he had turned his hand to. Only Learchus had equalled him in his achievements and the possibility that he was not the best he could be was a deeply disturbing notion. Pasanius was right - without the constant drilling and training they were used to as part of a Space Marine Chapter, Uriel could feel his skill diminish with every passing day they travelled from Macragge.

  'Still.' continued Pasanius. 'Perhaps we need not be the best any more, perhaps we no longer owe the Chapter anything at all.'

  Uriel's head snapped up, shocked at the very idea and shocked at the ease with which Pasanius had voiced it.

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Do you still feel that we are Space Marines of the Emperor?' asked Pasanius.

  'Of course I do. Why should we not?'

  'Well, we were cast out, disgraced, and are no longer Ultramarines.' continued Pasanius, staring vacantly into space, his voice wavering and unsure. 'But are we still Space Marines? Do we still need to train like this? If we are not Space Marines, then what are we?'

  Pasanius lifted his head and met his gaze, and Uriel was surprised at the depths of anguish he saw. His former sergeant's soul was bared and Uriel could see the terrible hurt it bore at their expulsion from the Chapter. He reached out and placed his hand on Pasanius's unadorned shoulder guard.