[Grey Knights 01] - Grey Knights

by Ben Counter - (ebook by Undead)

  A single large desk dominated the room, and a scribe-servitor sat hunched over a large open book. The book was new, only recently bound, its pages white and blank. The servitor’s quill arm hovered over the page.

  Chaplain Durendin and Inquisitor Nyxos stood towards the back wall of the room. Durendin had led Nyxos down to this place, because it was on Nyxos’s insistence that the chamber had been built. Nyxos was recovering from the injuries he had suffered at Valinov’s execution but he still looked weak and drawn, aged even beyond his advanced years, his every movement supplemented by the servos of his exoskeleton.

  “You may begin,” said Nyxos, and the scribe-servitor began scratching a title onto the page.

  Second Book of the Codicium Aeternum, it began in perfect flowing script. Being a description and naming of Daemons, the Dates and Durations of the Banishments and Details thereof that the Enemy might be known before his Machinations are complete…

  Inquisitor Nyxos began to dictate the details of the report Alaric had given in the apothecarion, about Ghargatuloth’s elaborate plans to create a fallen saint to act as the centrepiece for the ritual that would revive him, to use the Grey Knights to deliver the weapon that had first banished him, and to suborn unnumbered cultists and demagogues to cover his tracks. Those same cultists were even now being purged from the Trail of St. Evisser in an operation commanded by Inquisitor Klaes and Provost Marechal, and it would not be finished for decades, if ever.

  He made sure to mention Inquisitor Ligeia, and how Alaric was the only one who trusted her in the end. He mentioned the many, many Imperial citizens that died, and the many that were still to die as Ghargatuloth’s influence was scoured from the Trail.

  Finally, the scribe-servitor noted down that Ordo Malleus research and readings of the Imperial tarot had suggested the duration of Ghargatuloth’s banishment. He would be able enter real space again in one thousand years. But this time, the Malleus would not give him the chance to succeed.

  “Note this exactly,” dictated Inquisitor Nyxos, “for every syllable must be pronounced perfectly lest the banishment fail. Know that the True Name of the daemon Ghargatuloth is Tras’kleya’thallgryaa…”

  For several minutes Inquisitor Nyxos forced the syllables out of his throat. When it was done, the servitor-scribe was taken away to be destroyed to ensure that hearing the True Name had not implanted some corruption in its biological brain.

  Then Inquisitor Nyxos left Titan for Iapetus, to head for the Eye of Terror and continue the Emperor’s fight. One chapter of Ghargatuloth’s story was done, and by the time the next one began, Nyxos and all those who had fought the Prince would be long gone.

  When it was done, when the bodies recovered had been buried beneath Titan, the reports had been made to the Ordo Malleus and the survivors had been thoroughly purified, Alaric was granted a few days of convalescence to himself while it was decided if he should retain his rank of brother-captain.

  He was given permission to make the short journey to Mimas, and there he was guided by the interrogator staff to the place where Inquisitor Ligeia had died.

  There was nothing left. The cell had been dismantled—only the clamp remained bored into the rock where the cable had once been fixed to the surface.

  Ligeia’s body had been cremated and scattered in orbit, to ensure there would be nothing left of her. All Alaric could do was say a prayer for her passing, but it was still more than anyone else had done—Ligeia had died a traitor, so no one had seen to it that her soul was commended to the Emperor’s side. It wasn’t much, just a few sacred words pitted against the horror of heresy. But it was enough.

  So many had to die, thought Alaric as he looked out over the barren surface of Mimas, the huge glowing disc of Saturn overhead. So many had to suffer.

  But sometimes, the fight was worth it. That was why the Grey Knights existed. The fight would never be over, but sometimes, it could be won.

  Scanning and basic

  proofing by Red Dwarf,

  formatting and additional

  proofing by Undead.