KNIGHTS OF MACRAGGE

by Nick Kyme

  He scowled, angry at the memory and not Daceus. ‘Of course I mean bloody Damnos.’

  ‘You came close to death. I thought you were dead that first time.’

  ‘I thought I had lost my edge, Retius,’ he said. ‘After I fell to him. I threw myself into the business of war with such abandon. Seems foolish now. I do not want recklessness as my legacy.’

  ‘You are hard on yourself, Cato. After what you endured… No Apothecary can heal a wound like that. Not truly. It sticks with you, like a brand under the skin, fused to the bone.’ Daceus’ eyes narrowed.

  Sicarius caught the look and knew the sergeant had realised what he drove at.

  ‘Several of the crew have reported seeing visions. Our brothers, too. Venatio and what remains of the mortal medicae is keeping a close watch.’ Daceus tapped his one good eye. ‘As am I. The warp… it has a way of twisting things, memories and half-truths.’

  ‘It’s important to remain vigilant,’ said Sicarius, meeting the veteran’s gaze again.

  ‘I agree, Cato.’

  ‘Thank you, Retius.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Your counsel and your brotherhood.’

  ‘I could withhold neither even if I wished to,’ Daceus replied. ‘Do you need me for anything further, captain?’

  ‘No, that’s all. I appreciate the indulgent ear.’

  Daceus made to leave. ‘Just don’t ask me for an eye. I have few to spare.’

  Sicarius gave a rueful snort. ‘Can Haephestus do nothing for it?’

  ‘It is fine as it is. The occulobe compensates for the lack of depth perception.’

  ‘I see. Well, just be sure to give fair warning when we’re next in a firefight,’ Sicarius replied with the suggestion of a smile. ‘I don’t want you shooting me by mistake.’

  ‘That’s low.’

  ‘Your aim, you mean?’

  ‘I shall take my leave now.’

  Sicarius smiled. ‘This crisis, Retius…’

  ‘Yes, my captain?’

  ‘I would have no other by my side during it.’

  Daceus nodded. ‘Cato…’ he said, just as he was about to leave, ‘you are not suffering, are you? Seeing visions of the past? You banished it. With a vortex grenade, no less.’

  ‘I am fine, brother. Go to your duties and have no concern for me.’

  Reassured, Daceus took his leave.

  The lights dimmed as soon as he had gone and Sicarius strayed again to the darkness at the edges of his quarters and the silver-faced skeletal creature that waited there, its emerald eyes aglow.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  THE RECLUSIAM

  Sicarius left his former quarters a short while later. He had donned a gilt-edged red cloak and light carapace breastplate over his training fatigues. Due to the energy bleed, he had to conserve his use of his power armour, like many of his fellow Ultramarines. Its reactor was charging, part of the measures Haephestus had put in place to keep the warriors functioning.

  The corridors of the ship were quiet, most of the crew on night cycle sleep rotations or attending to their duties elsewhere. Given the ship was becalmed, there was little value in him being on the bridge so he walked, keeping off the main arterials and finding a measure of solace in the less-travelled transitways. Those crew he did encounter saluted as they saw him, some even bowed or went to one knee. Sicarius acknowledged them all, from the patrolling battle-brother to the lowly maintenance serfs. He knew it was important they see him, their figurehead, the one they still looked to for salvation. He had revelled in this once, the renown, the adulation. He had once sought to turn honour and glory into advancement. Sicarius yearned for it, to pridefully hold aloft all the gilded laurels he could fix to his banner. But he had changed. The war had changed him. Damnos had been his crucible. Fighting against the necrons that first time. A machine race that fought without fear or restraint. Who never got tired or thirsty or hungry. Their metal bodies were as hard as ceramite and could self-repair, making them able to recover from the most grievous injury. Fighting an enemy like that… it had nearly killed him. He had survived, even triumphed, but it had taken something from him, something Sicarius had left behind in the ice.

  And now he had this burden, a ship and its thousands-strong crew his responsibility. Daceus might not see it, or the years of their friendship might have made his eyes kinder than they should be, but Sicarius felt a wearing of the thread. He should rejoice. He did. The primarch had risen, a son of the Emperor, an actual scion ten thousand years old, and he had brought with him a stronger Ultramarine. Primaris Marines. Strength when the Imperium needed it the most. But, partly hollowed already by his worst experiences, Sicarius had seen what many of his kind had seen – replacement. Obsolescence.

  He had spoken to his Lord Calgar of it, the old master of the Ultramarines, dwarfed now by the shadow of their long-forsaken father, returned from the edge of the grave.

  Calgar had said little.

  ‘It is the end and the beginning, Cato.’

  Anger, defiance, a desperate scramble to cling to meaning. Sicarius could have understood any of that. But acceptance? It was as if they had been defeated by an enemy they didn’t know they were fighting.

  He needed to purge himself of these dark thoughts, and knew in part it was the warp trying to have its way. Like the metal overlord that haunted the edges of his sight, its cold eyes burning balefire green, it was a falsehood, a manifestation, but one rooted in some small piece of truth.

  A voice intruded on his thoughts, but Sicarius had already heard its owner’s soft approach and did not react.

  ‘You should not walk these corridors on your own,’ said Gaius Prabian gruffly.

  ‘I hoped you’d leave me alone.’

  ‘I am still company champion,’ he said, coming in alongside Sicarius to walk in lockstep with his captain. ‘It is my duty to watch your side, especially when you are unarmoured.’

  ‘So are you,’ Sicarius replied, frowning.

  Prabian wore fatigues and light training armour like Sicarius, but he also had a small combat shield strapped to his left arm and wore a sheathed gladius at his left hip. A soft blue cloak with a silver trim swished in his wake.

  ‘I am not unprotected,’ he said. His dark eyes flashed as he faced forwards, as proud and regal as any of the Lions. They were a stark contrast to the scrub of white hair sticking up out of his scalp like a nest of spines. It was cut short, but was thick and hard like wire. A scar ran from the right side of his jaw, tracing a ragged fissure in his tough skin that stopped just short of his eye.

  Sicarius parted the left side of his cloak, revealing the sheathed Tempest Blade he wore there.

  ‘Neither am I, but what do you think I have to fear amongst these corridors, Gaius?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Prabian. ‘We know no fear, captain. Isn’t that right? But there is still danger on board this ship.’

  ‘It has been purged extensively.’

  ‘Do you wonder,’ said Gaius, ‘how they managed to get so many aboard so quickly?’

  ‘This is the warp, we are severely outnumbered. My only wonder is why there were not more.’

  ‘Perhaps…’ Prabian replied, his eyes on the middle distance, but Sicarius thought them farther away than that.

  ‘I value this time alone, Gaius,’ said Sicarius after a moment’s silence.

  ‘Pretend I am not here. I could drop back,’ he said, giving his captain a furtive side glance, ‘a few steps. It would be as if you were alone.’

  ‘Not really the point, brother.’

  ‘It is still my duty,’ answered Prabian, resuming his forward-looking vigil.

  Sicarius sighed, knowing it was pointless to argue. ‘A few steps back then,’ he conceded.

  Prabian nodded. ‘I shall be as silent as your shadow, captain,’ he said, and fell back.

  Only when they had reached where Sicarius was going did Prabian come to a halt.

  ‘I’ll await your retur
n,’ he said, straightening up into a guard stance, his back against the wall, his eyes on the gloomy corridor ahead.

  Sicarius did not have the heart to argue. He nodded. The door to the chamber before him parted, expelling the aroma of incense and votive candles. A lambent, flickering aura beckoned and he followed it inside.

  Sicarius might not have the solitude of his quarters to retreat to any more, but he still had the Reclusiam and she would still listen, as she listened to any who came to her adopted chambers.

  ‘Is that you, Cato?’ inquired a voice from the deeper darkness within.

  ‘Madame Vedaeh…’ he said, passing through a small entryway and into the modest chapel beyond.

  There were books here amongst the religious iconography, and Vedaeh had brought in two large leather chairs and a stubby table with an arched sodium lamp to one side. A shrine occupied an antechamber at the back of the room, a stone rendering of the Imperial eagle with the symbol of the ultima in the middle, sat upon a circular dais. Votive candles were set around it, their long trails of wax like frozen yellow tears. The heat fluttered the edges of purity seals affixed to the shrine. A shallow basin in front of it held a black war-helm, an ornate mace laid before it and a talisman with its gold chain curled around it. These were the trappings of Trajan, the previous incumbent of the Reclusiam. One of the helm’s eyepieces had a fierce crack down the middle and part of the crystalflex that made up the retinal lens was missing. This was the wound that had killed him.

  ‘Blade or bullet,’ said Sicarius, his gaze lingering on the helm as if it were a gravestone. He had barely realised he had crossed the room to stand before the shrine. ‘We still do not know. Venatio has been unable to identity the provenance of the wound. He was simply gone.’

  Vedaeh came alongside him. She was comically shorter than the captain, and ludicrously slighter across the shoulders and body. She walked with a cane, but was not particularly old by mortal standards. Her blonde hair was cropped short in the style of the schola progenium and parted down the middle to reveal the eagle tattoo inked upon her forehead. She favoured a little armour, a golden shoulder guard engraved with the icon of the Emperor upon His Throne and a ceremonial breastplate, underneath which she wore a loose-fitting surplice of green velvet.

  ‘You tell me that story every time we meet here,’ she said.

  ‘Because it bothers me. For a warrior like Trajan to fall so ignominiously with no story to mark his passing.’

  ‘And that is a warrior’s greatest fear, isn’t it?’ said Vedaeh. ‘To perish unremarked, to die an ordinary death. To be forgotten.’

  Sicarius looked down at her, his face stern at first but then softening.

  ‘Can we sit?’ she asked, grimacing. ‘I find I can’t stand for long before the bloody thing starts aching.’

  Sicarius regarded her leg, as if seeing it for the first time, and then apologised as he gently took Vedaeh’s arm and led her to the chair. He took the one opposite and they stared at one another for a few moments before Vedaeh spoke.

  ‘I am glad I can occupy this place,’ she told him. ‘That the Ultramarines have allowed me to. It’s important to observe remembrance, to have a place to talk. Trajan offered that too, as well as his warrior’s sword, did he not?’

  ‘He did, though your methods are very different to his.’

  ‘They have to be. I cannot seek to empathise with the fraternal experience of the Adeptus Astartes. I have no point of reference.’

  She leaned over to light another candle and the surplice slipped enough to reveal the augmetic she had in place of her left arm.

  ‘Ceramic casing,’ she said, when she saw Sicarius looking.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.’

  ‘It’s alright. I am fortunate,’ she added, ‘it’s a thing of beauty.’ It was bone white, and the servos built under the outer casing quiet enough that they were almost silent. Gold filigree caught the candlelight, describing lines of holy scripture and ornate detailing in reds and greens reminiscent of an illustrated manuscript.

  ‘And strong too, I imagine,’ said Sicarius.

  Vedaeh flexed her bionic fingers for show. ‘It helps when I’m reaching for books.’

  His attention turned to the many volumes stacked around the main part of the room.

  ‘Have you read them all?’ Sicarius asked.

  ‘Several times. Histories of ancient Terra, its cultures and nascent civilisations.’ She ran her fingers down the leather spine of a book, her expression wistful. ‘Do you know what they say about recorded history, Cato?’

  Sicarius bid her go on.

  ‘It’s how we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past,’ said Vedaeh. ‘Do you think our ancient historians would believe their work wasted if they saw what had become of us now?’

  Sicarius arched an eyebrow. ‘You think mankind has repeated its mistakes?’

  Vedaeh gave a sad smile. ‘I think we survive any way we can. Our repeated mistakes are immaterial in the face of perpetuating our species. It has become so… complex.’

  ‘You long for simpler times then?’

  ‘Perhaps. More peaceful times, certainly.’

  ‘It is simple for me.’

  Vedaeh turned from her books then and the candlelight caught the edges of her features, her eyes glinting and abruptly serious.

  ‘Is it, Cato? Do you truly think that?’

  ‘I am a Space Marine, my purpose is gene-wrought into my very bones. I can no more deny it than oppose the fact that night follows day.’

  ‘And is that all that you are?’

  Sicarius frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Why are you here, Cato?’

  ‘For some peace. I find your company… calming. It soothes my mind. And there is the chronicle to consider.’

  ‘And is it in turmoil then, your mind, when you step from this sanctuary and re-enter the ship and take up the mantle of captain?’

  ‘It is… not as free,’ he admitted, struggling to find the right words. ‘There are burdens, matters I must consider. Many rely upon me to–’

  ‘Save them,’ Vedaeh finished for him. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And a part of you worries that you cannot. That you have already failed in this.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That you and your fellow warriors will die here, unremarked and unremembered, just like Brother-Chaplain Trajan.’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘Do you have faith, Cato?’

  ‘Not your kind of faith, but yes.’

  Her eyes narrowed as if seeing more than her mortal perception could reveal. ‘I believe you. Cato, you are the greatest warrior and leader aboard this ship. I have seen living saints command less devotion than you do. It’s not a fear of failure that has you reliving the past, nor is it the fear that you won’t be able to lead us out of the warp, it’s that you will and you’ll still be unremarked and unremembered. You think you have seen the end, and it wears a familiar face.’

  ‘Damnos is in the past…’

  Vedaeh scowled, the irritated teacher in her coming to the fore. ‘I’m not talking about the soulless creatures you fought on that world, I mean your fellow sons of Guilliman.’

  Sicarius opened his mouth to protest but found the words would not come. He closed it after a few seconds, turning his face from her, and adopted a brooding posture, smoothing his beard.

  ‘Repeating the mistakes of the past,’ he said at length. ‘Is that what we’re doing?’

  ‘No,’ said Vedaeh. ‘We are surviving.’

  Sicarius looked at her askance from across the table. ‘Any way we can.’

  Vedaeh nodded. ‘Any way we can.’

  She reached for a journal. It was leatherbound, and the same blue as Sicarius’ power armour. As she leafed through the vellum, it fell open at a blank page and she asked, ‘Shall we continue then?’

  QUARANTINED

  Olvo Sharna stood before t
he sealed door of deck thirteen. It was a colossal thing of dense grey metal and pistons, and she gazed up at it like a stranger at a fortress gate seeking refuge. Except, there was no refuge beyond the gate, and its purpose was to keep people in not out.

  ‘How long have they been in there?’ asked the armoured Ultramarine standing next to her.

  He was a sergeant. Pillium, if she remembered rightly. Sharna had little to do with the Space Marines. As quartermaster, strictly speaking she was part of the Departmento Munitorum and responsible for the mortal crew aboard ship. That included equipment and weapons, and also rations, which were of chief concern during the current crisis. The Adeptus Astartes dealt with such matters internally. To be up-close to one was rare. She could count the instances of it on one hand, and that included the recent conference with Captain Sicarius. This one was different to most of the others she had met. More like Lord Helicos. A new breed, an evolution. Better at killing, she supposed. The Adeptus Astartes were conditioned to channel their emotions and keep them in check until they could be useful. This one, however, radiated irritation. She wondered if he considered this particular duty beneath him, or perhaps he considered it a form of punishment.

  ‘Twenty-three weeks,’ Sharna replied, her nose prickling at the heat stink of Pillium’s armour and the heady aroma of the lacquers and lapping powder he must apply to each plate as well as his weapons. One thing she did know about Space Marines, they were fastidious when it came to their equipment.

  ‘They are fed?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, instantly regretting the tone of her voice, which suggested the question was not a sound one, and the answer to it therefore obvious. ‘We also maintain regular contact,’ she added quickly, hoping to cover her mistake. Even without the helmet, she found Pillium unreadable. He had a fierce appearance, shaven-headed with a dark growth of beard concealing the lower half of his face. He appeared youthful, which was unusual for one of his kind, who in her limited experience were usually crag-faced, scarred and grizzled, but he had hard eyes. He looked uncompromising, she decided, and seemed oblivious to the fact that she had probably just insulted his intelligence. The other one, the one who waited a little way back in the shadows, had the rough, resolute features she had come to expect, but he wasn’t talking at present.