The Chapters Due

by Graham McNeill

  Yet for all its horror, the starship was paradise compared to the sweltering hell of the cavern. He toils day and night in this charnel house of corpses, feeding mangled limbs and bloated bodies to the grinding machines that howl for blood and sift the valuable morsels from the gruel of flesh. His masters whip him and chastise him with razors, flensing the skin from his back and licking the blood from their blades.

  They tower over him: hideously warped creatures with skeletal bodies so mutilated with surgery that they are little more than patchwork creations of their own making. They stalk the cavern on blade-like limbs, their heads encased in brass armatures, rasping in their broken dialect of machine-hash and fragmented Gothic.

  Their eyes are cold and to attract their notice is death.

  They call themselves the Savage Morticians.

  He knows they will kill him soon, just as he knows he will welcome that day.

  He pushes a heavy gurney loaded with bodies towards the churning machines. Other boys have been dragged into the machines and killed, and he thinks that some jumped in deliberately. He thinks of doing the same. Anything would be better than this nightmare.

  Another boy pushes the gurney beside him, but he doesn’t know his name. He thinks he might have known it once, but nothing now remains of his memory beyond this blood-soaked existence. They push the gurney towards the chute above the grinding pits and lift it until the body parts slide off and vanish into the pounding hammers of the machines. Flesh explodes and bone splinters and the manglers growl in pleasure at the feast.

  The other boy turns to look at him and says something, but he’s too numb to hear it.

  “Samuquan,” says the boy.

  Samuquan? Is that his name?

  Thinking it might be, he turns to the boy, seeing a mirror of his own numb desperation in his eyes.

  “What?” he says.

  “Come on,” says the boy, nodding to the chute. “I can’t take this no more.”

  “What?” he says again, his brain too slow to process the words he’s hearing.

  “Let’s do it together,” weeps the other boy, holding out his hand.

  He looks at the hand dumbly, not really seeing it, and unable to grasp the other boy’s meaning. The boy looks at him pleadingly but he can’t move, he can’t do anything.

  Then, over the grinding of meat hammers there comes the sound of stabbing steps, the clanking, metallic grinding of spidery legs. The boy looks up in terror and takes a step towards the chute.

  “They gonna put you in this time,” says the boy and jumps into the grinding pit.

  He watches the boy fall, feeling nothing as he hears the monstrous noises of a human body being ground up by daemonic machines. He knows this should horrify him, but he can feel nothing but irritation that he will have to push the gurney back without help.

  A shadow envelops him, all angles and blades and hissing breath that reeks of rotting insides. He looks up, though he has been warned many times not to do so, and meets the gaze of a creature with a face swathed in blood-soaked bandages and bronze eyepieces. Robed in black, and with a misshapen skull icon sewn into its exposed flesh, its mantis-like limbs sway above him, a multitude of rusted blades scraping together like broken fingernails.

  A vicious slash of a lipless mouth filled with needle-like teeth and exposed gums leers down at him. A black tongue emerges from behind the teeth and tastes his fear on the air.

  “Flesh-thing make new body,” it said, its words like chittering insect noise.

  He doesn’t answer, hoping against hope that it means the other boy. Tears spill down his cheeks as he prays that they will take the other boy. Shame and fear burn in his heart. Please, he thinks, please take him and not me. Then he realises that the other boy is gone. He is alone, and there is no one else to take.

  He drops to his knees, terror of this new fate overtaking the automatic reactions that have allowed him to keep putting one foot in front of the other all this time. Bladed pincers reach down and lift him from the ground, and he is carried, almost tenderly, through this vision of hell, all molten lakes, chained daemons and howling machines that feast on flesh.

  He senses the presence of others nearby, but all he hears are his own strangled sobs.

  The claws lower him to the ground, but he cannot move. He has no energy to run, to even pick himself up. Something huge and reeking of weeping, ulcerated sores looms over him, and he hears a sopping wetness spill onto the floor as blades slice flesh. He turns his head and sees a vast body, grossly swollen yet familiar in its original shape. It has a woman’s face, a bloated and hideously disfigured woman, but a woman nonetheless.

  He thinks it is his mother and he cries for her as the claws reach for him and lift him towards her. Blood stink fills his nostrils, nothing new in this place, but this is warm, fresh, and wet. Hot, moist flesh enfolds him and he hears a contented sigh from the woman’s blubbering mouth, as though she welcomes this addition to her daemonic womb. She needs this child to nurture and develop, though he knows there will be no wondrous birth for him.

  He has seen the wretched offspring of these womb creatures. He has flushed their mutant corpses from this hall many times, sweeping their mewling, twisted carcasses from the fortress like garbage. This will be his fate; he will become a monster, and everything he was will be perverted into something dreadful.

  Heavy sheets of ruptured flesh are lifted over him, swaddling him in darkness, and he finally gives voice to the scream that has been building within him for the last six months. Stinking amniotic fluid fills his mouth, rank and frothed with corruption. His lungs fill with it and he struggles as he feels himself drowning.

  But he does not drown, and he floats in the warmth of the daemon’s belly for what seems like an age. He is alone. With every passing moment, his body is changing and growing as his vile mother feeds him the hideous brew that will transform his body into a thing to be hated or a thing to be thrown away in disgust.

  He is alone, his bones lengthening and his physique swelling, but there is something missing, some essential element yet to be added to his pupating form to make it complete.

  Then, as the daemon mother’s body is opened once more, that element is added and he is no longer alone.

  The new flesh fights as it is implanted, and he wants to tell it not to bother.

  Death will be swifter that way.

  But they do not die.

  “SO HOW ARE we supposed to get through that?” asked Cadaras Grendel as another barrage of shells impacted on the earthwork mantlets. Debris rained down upon Honsou’s makeshift command post, but this far back from the shelling it was simply dust and pebble-sized fragments of marble. “Even Perturabo would have his work cut out to break open that gate. And where does it even go? Through the mountains?”

  “It leads below the surface,” said the Newborn, sweeping the dust from the highly detailed map it had drawn on a sheet of wax paper. “The population of Calth live in vast, underground caves. They are so enormous they have their own weather patterns, and some are so verdant that you could wander for days in their ecologies and forget you were underground.”

  Honsou already knew that, but it was unnerving to hear the Newborn talk as though it had walked beneath their stone ceilings and lived a life within them. The map it had drawn them showed the layout of the cave systems beyond the gate, as thorough as any drawn by precise measurement. This was better than any such map, as this was drawn from personal experience, albeit experience inherited from another. Though the Newborn had perfect recall of the terrain, Honsou had made the creature draw it out, preferring the reassurance of a map he could hold in his hands.

  The ground shook as another pounding barrage slammed down. The guns on Guilliman’s Gate hammered the end of the causeway, but the Iron Warriors were experts in withstanding such fire. Three shots from the Black Basilica’s great cannon had cratered the end of the causeway enough for the Iron Warriors to bulldoze the rubble into a series of earthworks behind w
hich a heavily armoured pontoon roadway was extending over the chasm beneath the guns of the gateway’s angle of fire.

  “Are there any other ways in?” asked Ardaric Vaanes, looking up from his careful study of the wax paper. “Something you missed off this map?”

  “There are other ways in, yes,” nodded the Newborn.

  “Then why can’t we use them to get below?” asked Grendel, ever the warrior of direct action. “Be a damn sight easier than trying to blow these bloody doors off.”

  The Newborn sneered, and Honsou caught the flash of the pain and madness simmering behind its eyes. Magos Cycerin’s last round of tortuous mental interrogation had stripped away more of its control, and it was only a matter of time until the continual pain of its existence drove it utterly insane.

  “You think the Ultramarines would make it that easy to bypass their greatest defence?”

  “You tell me,” hissed Grendel, his hand reaching for the pistol at his hip.

  “Can you two stop fighting for two seconds?” snapped Vaanes. “I can’t think with your incessant nonsense.”

  The renegade Raven Guard was looking up at the immense gates as he spoke, and Honsou knew he was plotting angles of approach, dead zones and a hundred other stratagems other than going head on into the gateway.

  Grendel glared at him, but the Newborn simply nodded. “There are other ways in, but none that would allow the Bloodborn army to pass,” it said, missing the threat in Grendel’s words and the exasperation in the Raven Guard’s.

  “Don’t use that word,” snapped Honsou. “Bloodborn. Don’t use it.”

  “Why not?” chuckled Grendel, his animosity towards the Newborn forgotten. “Don’t you like it? I think it sounds good.”

  “That’s M’kar’s name, not mine,” said Honsou. “This war is ours and I won’t have it co-opted by some damn daemon just because it decides to give the warriors waging it a name.”

  “To name something is to have power over it,” said the Newborn.

  Honsou put his fist down on the map table and said, “Then that’s another good reason not to use it.”

  “I have no name,” said the Newborn absently. “Though I think I did once.”

  “You don’t remember it?” asked Vaanes.

  “No,” it said, before slumping its shoulders. “I am not sure I want to. If I remember who I was, what will I make of who I am now?”

  “Who cares?” said Grendel. “You don’t need one. You are what you are, and nothing will change that, name or no name. Now, like I said, how the hell do we get through that gate?”

  “Don’t worry, Grendel,” said Honsou. “This gateway won’t be a problem.”

  A COLD WIND funnelled down the length of the Valley of the Sun, sweeping over the flood plains and bending the newly-planted saplings on its sloping sides. A wide river flowed from the head of the valley where the seat of Imperial power rested on Espandor, the marble-spired city of Herapolis.

  A curved wall of pale stone ran the width of the valley, its towering height rounded out by silver-capped towers, projecting ramparts and gun batteries. Yet for all its formidable appearance, it was a city of great beauty, like a vast glacier of silver, gold and marble set forever at the end of the valley. Enduring and immovable.

  It had survived one invasion in recent times. Now it would have to survive a second.

  Praxor Manorian and Scipio Vorolanus climbed the steps cut into the rear of the wall towards the ramparts, giants in brilliant blue armour edged with gold. Behind them came Iulius Fennion, and Scipio saw his gaze continually drawn to the soldiers drilling in the wide training grounds behind the city’s defensive wall.

  “Better than the ones at Ghospora,” said Iulius, approvingly.

  “This is Ultramar,” said Scipio, which was explanation enough. “You’d be down there with the Chaplain breaking heads if it were not so.”

  “True,” agreed Iulius. “Gallow has done his duty adequately.”

  “Steady, brother,” said Scipio. “Be sure not to shower the man with too much praise.”

  Iulius Fennion grunted and shook his head. “Always room for improvement, especially with mortal forces. I’ll fight alongside them, but don’t leave them behind me.”

  “Then perhaps you should assign the Immortals to the defence of the city,” said Praxor Manorian, trying and failing to keep the self-interest from his voice. Both Scipio and Iulius shared a look that took them back to Black Reach.

  “That’s not up to me, brother,” said Iulius diplomatically, and Scipio was surprised, for the sergeant of the Immortals was not known for his sensitivity. Blunt and pugnacious, Iulius Fennion was a plain-speaking warrior whose devotion to duty and the Chapter were well known. “That’s for the captain to decide.”

  Praxor nodded, but said nothing, knowing that to antagonise Fennion would only begin another argument. Scipio had seen the melancholy settle upon Praxor’s shoulders like an ever-increasing weight since Black Reach. Never mind that nearly half a century had passed since that great victory, or that a score of campaigns had been fought since, always Praxor Manorian’s mind was mired in his slighting during that brief war. Ordered to defend Ghospora instead of following Sicarius to glory, Praxor had never forgotten the moment he had been left behind, a garrison soldier instead of a crusader.

  “As you say, Brother Fennion,” said Praxor. “As the captain wills it.”

  A bellowing roar, like the drakes’ said to inhabit the seas of Talassar, boomed overhead, and Scipio looked up to see one of the 2nd’s Thunderhawks pass overhead, banking around the high towers of the Domus Invictus, the palace of the Imperial Governor, as it came in to land.

  “The Gladius,” said Iulius proudly, for this was the assault craft of Captain Sicarius.

  “Look how the sun shines on the gold of her wings,” said Scipio. “As though she is afire.”

  “Aye, like the Firebird of the Old Earth,” agreed Iulius.

  “Firebird?” said Praxor.

  “Yes, a legendary bird that would be reborn from the ashes of its own death to rise again and be even more glorious than before. ’Tis a good omen, brother.”

  “If you say so,” replied Praxor as the gunship vanished from sight.

  The 2nd Company’s Thunderhawks were berthed in hardened shelters within the Domus Invictus, but their battle tanks and transports sat in ordered ranks to either side of the wide gate that led within the killing ground of the inner courtyard.

  Only eight Rhinos were present instead of ten, for two had been lost in the race to cross the Actium Gorge. Traitor forces had almost cut them off from the bridge and a short but brutal firefight had erupted as the Ultramarines fought their way across the gorge. Though the warriors within had escaped with their lives, two vehicles had been lost in the fighting, much to Techmarine Lascar’s chagrin.

  They climbed the rest of the way in silence, finally reaching the ramparts, where they found Captain Sicarius and the Lions of Macragge gathered on one of the out-thrust barbicans above the gateway. Sicarius’ command squad was a gathering of heroes that had amassed a legacy of victories the envy of any such squad in the Chapter.

  From this high vantage point, the Valley of the Sun was well named, for golden light streamed down its length as the sunset blazed on the far horizon. The valley sides were bare stone, the forests stripped by the invading greenskins to feed the furnaces of their ramshackle war machines. Careful cultivation was bringing the trees back, but the taint of the xenos was in the earth, and it would take time to restore the valley’s former glory.

  Sicarius turned as he heard them approach, and the three sergeants snapped to attention as they stood before him, hammering their fists against their chests.

  “Greetings,” said Sicarius, returning their salute. “There’s not a moment to be lost.”

  Iulius spoke first. “Has something happened? Did the Gladius bring news of the Corsair Queen?”

  “No,” said Sicarius with a smile. “Not as such, but if you an
d your warriors are up for some action, then I think we shall have her soon enough.”

  “Always,” said Praxor Manorian, a little too swiftly.

  “We stand ready to serve the Chapter,” said Iulius.

  “And you, Scipio?” asked Sicarius. “Will you join your brothers on this mission?”

  “It might help if I knew the nature of the mission, my lord.”

  “Ah, Scipio, you always were the cautious one,” said Sicarius, making it sound like an insult. “But that’s why you are so good at what you do.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Scipio. “I live to serve the Chapter, and whatever the mission, I will join my brothers.”

  “Good man,” said Sicarius, beckoning them to join his command squad. In the centre of the barbican was a wide table, upon which was a map of Espandor’s western continent, showing the main agri-settlements and centres of habitation. They were few and far between, for Espandor was not a populous world.

  “Here we are,” said Sicarius, pointing towards the icon representing Herapolis. “The largest settlement on Espandor, and centre of Ultramarines rule. If this city falls, Espandor falls, so we are not going to let that happen. The city’s wall is high and strong. Even the portions knocked down by the gargant during the last war appear to be as strong as before.”

  “With respect, my lord, a siege?” said Scipio. “We are all ready to serve, but skulking behind the walls is not the warfare we were built for.”

  “Exactly!” said Sicarius, jabbing his finger down on the map. “We are the Adeptus Astartes. We do not wait for the enemy to come to us, we take the fight to him and rip out his throat before he even feels our hands at his neck. Look at this map, study the dispositions of the Bloodborn forces and tell me what you see.”

  Scipio’s eyes ranged over the map, seeing a dashing flair for manoeuvre warfare that Sicarius so loved. He glanced up and saw an expression on his captain’s face that wasn’t exactly admiration, but wasn’t exactly loathing either. Could it be that he was actually glad to be facing a foe this cunning?