She…
…was bleeding.
Brigitta tasted, for the first time in her life, a tremor of fear. It was seasoned with the coppery taste of her own blood as she bit her lip hard enough to put her teeth through the delicate skin. The flavour of her own mortality gave her enough strength to complete her fervent prayer.
‘Though it wanders wide, the light of the Emperor guides my – our – step.’ She slammed a fresh magazine into her bolter and, letting out a screaming roar of battle rage, unleashed her full fury at the encroaching enemy.
At her feet, dead and dying Sisters spilled blood and viscera across the courtyard stones. The image of their defeat burned itself onto her retinas and branded hatred on her heart. Tears of anger and terrible, terrible grief blurred her vision, but she did not – she would not – falter. Not now.
She continued to fire her bolter into the enemy no longer caring whether she hit them or not. It became an act of sheer venomous loathing.
After a few short moments, she became aware that outside her immediate sphere of awareness the sounds of battle had ceased. Only one weapon continued to fire and that was hers. It did not detract from her focus, however, and she poured ammunition at the enemy until the last bolter-shell clattered to the floor.
One of the enemy, bareheaded and terrible, moved from the pack to stand before her.
‘You are Sister Brigitta of the Order of the Iron Rose,’ he stated. It was not a question. She looked up into his inhuman face and drew in a rasping breath. She had seen unhelmed Space Marines before and was used to their exaggerated features. But this… creature… who stood before her was so far removed from anything even remotely human that she felt, against her will, the urge to scream in incoherent contempt. A poisonous air of evil came from him and she felt sick to her stomach.
She began to quietly recite litanies of faith to herself, never once taking her gaze from this augmetic monstrosity. She neither confirmed nor denied the accusation of her identity but instead ripped the combat blade from its sheath at her side and struck at the traitor’s throat. Blackheart sighed wearily before catching her wild lunge on the back of his claw. Then, with excruciating care, not wanting to kill her outright, he backhanded her into unconsciousness.
She was like a rag doll in his arms, limp and lifeless, and as he carried Sister Brigitta into the chamber, Huron Blackheart marvelled as he always did at the papery inefficacy of the human body. He wondered how it was they had any resilience without the enhancements that he shared with all his gene-bred brothers. Brigitta’s face where he had struck her was distorted. He had fractured her cheekbone at the very least, and purple bruising was swelling up around her jaw. Her braided hair had come loose and hung freely down.
Dengesha turned to study them. He had removed his helm, and Huron was struck once again by the wriggling sigils that marked the sorcerer’s face. ‘You did not kill her?’
‘She is merely unconscious. Allow me a little credit.’
‘Then lay her next to the vessel and I can begin the ritual.’ Already Dengesha had made the preparations for the rite that would bind the potent soul to the cursed vial. The green bottle lay on its side, an innocuous and inanimate object. Around the chamber, Dengesha had marked out a number of unreadable symbols, each one drawn at the point of what formed the eight-pronged star of Chaos. Members of his cabal stood at seven of the points, the top-most remaining free and evidently awaiting Dengesha’s leisure.
Huron moved forwards and dumped Brigitta’s body without any ceremony on the ground where the sorcerer indicated. He noted as he did so that the sigils drawn on the floor were marked in blood, most likely that of the dead soldiers.
‘You should step outside the borders of the mark, my lord. Once we channel the powers necessary to perform the binding, they will be potent.’
From beyond the broken walls of the temple, the distant sounds of shouting could be heard. The assistance that the temple guards had called for was finally arriving. Huron nodded to several of his warriors who moved wordlessly out of the chamber.
‘They cannot be allowed to enter this place whilst I am working. The balance of this work is delicate.’
‘My men will keep them away.’ Huron took several steps back. ‘Trust to their abilities to do that. I, however, will remain.’
‘As you wish.’
Huron Blackheart had witnessed many rituals of this kind in his life, but he had never seen one driven with such determination and single-minded focus. He watched Dengesha closely as the sorcerer moved back to take his point at the tip of the star, and listened intently to the words that he recited. It did him little good, as the sorcerer spoke in some arcane tongue that Huron did not understand, though the inflection was clear.
The seven other members of the Heterodox echoed his words, one at a time until the chant was being repeated with a discordant, impossible to follow rhythm. The sound grew and swelled, and all the while there was the underscore of the battle taking place beyond the temple walls.
A thick black substance, like tar from a pit, began to bubble up in the space marked out by the points of the star. It rose upwards, never spilling over the edge of its limits, and coated first the bottle and then the unconscious Sister Brigitta in a film of inky blackness. Dengesha’s chant became almost musical, as though he were singing. His eyes were fevered and his expression one of pure ecstasy.
As the thick, gelatinous substance became more and more viscous, Brigitta stirred from her unconsciousness. Realising that she was being smothered, she opened her mouth to cry out. The fluid rushed into her mouth and she began to choke on it, writhing desperately on the floor as she struggled to breathe.
Dengesha stepped forwards from his position and moved to stand above her. Huron watched, leaning forwards ever so slightly. This was it. This was the moment. He had made countless pacts and agreements to reach this point, and so had his followers. This was the point at which it would all pay off. Or the point at which it would fail.
Outside, the sounds of gunfire had stopped, but the Chaos sorcerer paid no heed.
Dengesha looked down at the wriggling human woman with a look of total contempt, then reached to take her arm firmly in his grip. He guided it to the glass vial and placed her hand upon it, wrapping his gauntlets around her tiny hands. He then spoke the only words that Huron could understand.
‘Be forever bound.’
The oily liquid began to slowly ebb away, draining until all that remained was the faintest slick on the ground. Brigitta, who was in tremendous pain and almost frozen with terror, stared at the green vial, then up at the sorcerer.
Summoning every ounce of strength and fortitude she possessed, she spat in his face. Dengesha began to laugh, a hateful, booming sound that bounced around the walls of the chamber and resonated across the vox-network.
Then, abruptly, the laughter stopped. A look of utmost dread crept slowly over Dengesha’s face. His fist, which had been ready to crush Brigitta’s skull, suddenly opened out flat. His face slackened, his posture changed and he slouched suddenly as though wearied.
Huron smiled at him.
‘What is this treachery?’ The sorcerer spun around to face the Tyrant of Badab, who stood watching him with an air of amusement. ‘What have you done, Blackheart?’
‘Ah, Dengesha. Your fate was sealed the moment you took the vial from me. You were quite right. I needed a potent soul. And my sorcerers found me one. Yours, in fact. And now, with the ritual of binding complete, your soul and the vial are united. You quite literally belong to me.’
‘This is not possible! There is no way you could have… Your sorcerers are nothing compared to the glory of the Heterodox!’
‘Arrogance has been the downfall of many a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes over the millennia, brother. My sorcerers may not be as powerful as you and your former cabal, but they are far more cunning.’
Seemingly bored of the conversation, Huron began to move around the chamber, occasionally turning over the body of a fallen soldier with his booted foot. He picked up a boltgun, empty of ammunition and dropped it back down with a clang.
Dengesha’s face was fury itself, and he reached out to the powers of the warp. But none of them answered him. His black, tainted soul was no longer his to command. He looked to each of his cabal in turn and for their part, they turned from him.
‘You all knew of this,’ he stated flatly. ‘You betrayed me to this cur…’
‘Come now, Dengesha. If you seek to wound my feelings, you will have to try a lot harder than that.’ Huron stooped and picked up a meltagun. ‘My agents have been dealing with your cabal for months. They agree that their prospects with me and my Corsairs are more interesting than a lifetime of servitude under your leadership. It has been vexing, true – but I think you will agree that the ultimate reward is well worth it.’
On the ground, Sister Brigitta was listening to the exchange without understanding it. All she knew was that these two traitors were speaking such heresy as was almost unbearable to be party to.
Dengesha stared at Huron’s back with a look that could have killed and perhaps once, before his soul had been plucked from his body, could have done.
‘So you see, Dengesha. In a way, my promise to you is truth. Now that your Heterodox are part of my Corsairs, they will help themselves to the spoils of this world. You, however…’
The Tyrant of Badab crossed the distance between them with uncanny speed and fired the meltagun at the sorcerer. His head was vaporised, and seconds later what remained of his body crashed to the ground. Brigitta gazed up at Huron and there was a look of serene understanding on her face. Her doom had come and it was clad in the desecrated armour of the Imperium of Man.
‘My faith is my shield,’ she said, softly. The words rang hollow in her ears.
‘No,’ said Huron, equally softly, as one of the claws of his hand tore through her breast and skewered her. He raised her to eye level. ‘It is not. And it never was.’
She let out a sigh as she died and slid free from his claw to the floor below. Without looking at the two corpses at his feet, Huron reached up and plucked the vial from the ground, reattaching it to his belt.
Sometimes, Huron Blackheart kept his word. But this was not one of those times. He did not care who he betrayed to reach his goals. Loyal servants of the Imperium or those who served the dark gods of Chaos. It made little difference to him. The end always justified the means.
‘Take what we need,’ he said. ‘And then we leave.’
‘It worked perfectly.’
‘Surely you did not doubt that it would, my lord?’ Valthex turned the vial over in his hand before handing it back to Huron.
‘The curse worked exactly as you said it would. Thanks to your efforts, my familiar now has the strength it needs to grant me the blessing of the Four beyond the Maelstrom. Well done, Armenneus.’
‘I live to serve, Blood Reaver.’ Valthex dropped a low, respectful bow and Huron stalked away. Straightening himself up, the Alchemancer absently rubbed at a sigil branded into the skin of his hand.
It was not just the Tyrant who made pacts. The Patriarch would have to wait to see when he would be called upon to deliver his side of the bargain.
We are One
by John French
Victory and defeat are a matter of definition.
– from the Axioms of War, Tactica Imperialis
I have grown tired in this war. It has eaten me, consuming everything I might have done or been. I have chased my enemy across the stars and through the decades of my failing life. We are one, the enemy and I, the hunter and the hunted. The end is close now. My enemy will die, and at that moment I will become something less, a shadow fading in the brightness of the past. This is the price of victory.
My fist hits the iron door with a crack of thunder. The impact shatters the emerald scales of the hydra that rears across their width. Inside my Terminator armour, enfolded in adamantium and ceramite, I feel the blow jolt through my thin flesh. Lightning crackles around my fist as I pull it back, the armour giving me strength. I bring my fist down and the metre-thick doors fall in a shower of splintered metal. I walk through their shattered remains, my feet crushing the scattered ruby eyes of the hydra to red dust on the stone floor.
The light glints from my armour, staining its pearl-white surface with fire and glinting from eagle feathers and laurels. The chamber beyond the doors is silent and creeps with shifting shadows. Burning torches flicker from brackets on jade pillars, the domed ceiling above coiling with smoke. Targeting runes and threat augurs swarm across my vision, sniffing for threats, finding only one. The shackled power in my fist twitches like a thunderbolt grasped in a god’s hand.
He sits at the centre of the chamber on a throne of beaten copper. Void-blue armour mottled with the ghost pattern of scales, swathed in spilling cloaks of shimmering silk; features hidden behind the blank faceplate and glowing green eyes of a horned helm. He sits still, one hand resting on the pommel of a silver-bladed sword, head turning slowly to follow me as I advance.
‘Phocron of the Alpha Legion,’ I shout, my voice echoing through the shadow-filled silence. ‘I call you to justice at the hands of the Imperium you betrayed.’ The formulaic phrase of accusation fades to silence as Phocron stands, his sword in his hand. This will be no simple duel. To fight the Alpha Legion is to fight on a shifting layer of deception and trickery, where every weakness can hide strength and every apparent advantage may be revealed as a trap. Lies are their weapons and they are their masters. I am old, but time has armoured me against those weapons.
He moves and cuts, his blow so quick and sudden that I have no chance to dodge. I raise my fist, feeling the armour synchronise with the movements of my ageing muscles, and meet the first strike of this last battle in a blaze of light.
Ninety-eight years ago – The Year of the Ephisian Atrocity
Knowledge can make you blind, some say, but ignorance is simply an invitation to be deceived. I can still remember the times when I knew little of the Alpha Legion beside a few dry facts and half-understood fears. I look back at those times and I shudder at what was to come.
The death of my ignorance began on the mustering fields of Ephisia.
Millions of troops stood on the dust plains in the shadow of soot-covered hives, rank upon rank of men and women in uniforms from dozens of worlds. Battle tanks and ground transporters coughed exhaust fumes into the cold air. Munitorum officers moved through the throng shouting orders above the noise, their breath forming brief, white clouds. Above it all transport barges hung in the clear sky, their void-pitted hulls glinting in the sunlight, waiting to swallow the gathering mass of human flesh and war machines. It was the mustering of an army to break the cluster of renegade worlds that had declared their secession from the Imperium. It was a gathering of might intended to break that act of folly into splinters and return billions to the domain of the God-Emperor. That was the intention, though perhaps ours was the folly.
‘Move!’ I bellowed as I charged through the crowd, shoving aside men and women in newly issued battle gear. Helena came with me, pushing people out of our way with her will. Grunts and oaths followed us, dying to silence as they saw the tri-barred ‘I’ engraved on my breastplate and the hissing muzzle of the inferno pistol in my hand. My storm cloak flapped behind me as I ran, the burnished adamantium of my segmented armour bright under the sun. Anyone looking at me knew that they were looking at an inquisitor, the left hand of the God-Emperor, one who had the power to judge and execute any beneath the Golden Throne. The crowd parted before me like cattle scattering in front of a wolf.
‘There!’ shouted Helena from a metre to my left. I twisted my head to see the dun colour of our quarry’s uniform vanish into a knot of troops. She was already moving be
fore I had changed direction, confused-looking Guardsmen twitching out of her path as she ran through the parting crowd. I could feel the back eddies of the telepathic bow wave that she projected in front of her as she ran, hard muscles flowing under flexing armour plates, dark hair spilling behind.
I saw our quarry a second after Helena. A thin man in the ill-fitting uniform of an Ephisian trooper, his skin pale from poor nutrition and lack of daylight. He looked like so many of the rest gathered on that day, another coin of flesh for the Imperium to spend. But this man was no raw recruit for the Imperial Guard; he was an agent of rebellion sent to seed destruction at this gathering. We had been tracking him for days, knowing that there were more and that our only chance to stop them all was to let one run until he led us to the others. That had been the plan – my plan. But there was no more time. Whatever atrocity they intended was so close I could feel the cold fear of it in my guts.
‘Take him down!’ I shouted. Helena was raising her needle pistol when the man jerked to one side with the agility of a predator. He rolled and came up into a shooting crouch, lasgun at his shoulder. Helena dived to the ground as the lasgun spat bursts of energy in a wide arc across the space she had occupied. People dropped in the crowd around us, shouts of pain spreading like a tide. Dead and dying troops lay on the ground while their comrades formed a blind herd, scattering without direction or order.
Our man was already up and moving, weaving amongst the panicked troops, using the tide of confusion he had created as cover. I felt a twinge of admiration at the man’s ingenuity. He was good, I had to give him that: determined, ruthless and well trained.
I came level with Helena as she pulled herself off the ground.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘We will not outrun him. I will handle this, master.’ She bit off the last word. I looked at her. She had a face that was too thin and pale to be pretty, and a Scholastica Psykana brand surrounded her left eye with a blunt letter ‘I’ and a halo of wings. She gave me a humourless smile. Helena was my interrogator, my apprentice in the duties of the Inquisition. We did not like each other. In fact, I was sure she hated me on some level. But she was a fine interrogator and a devoted servant of the Imperium. She was also a psyker, and a lethally powerful one at that.
Treacheries of the Space Marines Page 22
