I get helmeted nods and a grim, ‘Yes, my lord,’ from Grodin and the Cicatricans.
‘Maintain communications,’ I say before leading Ione Dodona and three soldiers into the Penetralia.
Dodona isn’t wrong: the Penetralia is a labyrinth. Tunnels corkscrew, jagged slopes erupt before our lamps and the ceiling regularly slopes down to meet the tops of our helmets. Passages wind and bifurcate, riddled with grot holes and burrows. Blind corners open into vertiginous vaults and small caverns form sudden dead ends. The darkness is almost palpable, its viscid obscurity devouring the light from our illumination.
My suit lamps lead the way, the halo of light feeling its way across the angularity and sharp stone. Dodona’s helmet beam dances ahead, guiding me through the branching network of tunnels. Behind, the three Cicatricians – all former members of Tarxis Reserve – explore the holes and hollows with their barrel-mounted lamps. My shield scrapes around corners, while my blade stands ready and retracted, poised to sweep forward and take a Word Bearer’s head from his armoured shoulders or to cleave down through the torso of an unfortunate cultist.
Our reconnaissance reveals little, however, but the black emptiness of the Penetralia’s lonely depths.
‘Daesenor, what do you have?’ I vox.
‘This place is dead,’ he returns. ‘If Ungol Shax was here, I think we missed him.’
‘Phornax?’
‘The Word Bearers were here,’ my battle-brother informs me with confidence. ‘We’ve pushed on to a larger chamber at the heart of the tunnels. There are statues and iconography.’
I nod to myself. If Arcology Tantoraem was anything to go by, our betrayer-kinsmen and their cult followers are wanton idolaters, constructing temples and statues and worshipping at the stone feet of their otherworldly sponsors. I make a note of Phornax’s position from my optical-overlay. ‘Hold position,’ I tell him. ‘We’re coming to you. Brother Daesenor – meet us at this chamber.’
‘Affirmative,’ Daesenor replies. ‘But I’ve lost one of my men in the damned tunnels. Sergeant Grodin is looking for him now. We’ll be there shortly.’
Pushing on through the thick darkness and a knot of intersecting passageways, we step out into the open space of a larger chamber. I can see the beams of lamps ahead in the pitch blackness, cutting through the murk like blades. Phornax and his men are waiting near the centre of the cavern, but the light from their lamps blinks and breaks. As I advance, I come to understand why.
Phornax was right. There are statues here, but nothing like I’d seen in the dark chapels and reverence-dens of cultist-held arcologies. These statues are different sizes but humanoid in shape. Each is crafted from an obsidian-like substance – crystalline and angular. It absorbs the light from our lamps like a black hole. Even our reflections are absent from its glassy, midnight surface. There simply isn’t sufficient light. This material swallows it all.
‘Volcanic glass?’ Pioneer Dodona says with a frown. ‘Not on Calth, surely. Not in these quantities…’
I watch the dark material begin to wisp and curl under the light of our lamps. It dissipates and drifts away like a thin, black vapour. It is strange indeed.
‘It’s not obsidian,’ I say. ‘Touch nothing. Nobody touch anything.’
It is as though the statues were crafted from solidified darkness itself.
The representations are everywhere, obscuring the beams of Phornax’s lamps. The Ultramarine and a soldier of the Vospherus 14th are examining something at the heart of the rocky chamber. Statues, many in number, are clustered about them – a crowd of the crystalline forms, all facing inwards to a central point. It is decidedly unnerving.
‘What do we have?’ I ask my battle-brother impatiently.
Phornax is kneeling. He stands at my approach.
‘An unholy temple of some kind,’ he confirms, ‘seemingly used for ceremonies and communion with the monstrous beings of the empyrean.’
He gestures to the floor at my boots. The rough surface has been smoothed and polished, and there is a pattern etched into the bedrock. It bears dreadful glyphs, and symbols that make my eyes ache.
‘Cultist volunteers were brought here for sacrifice, Honorius, and a ceremony employed to commune with some beast or malignificant.’
I hear Phornax’s words, but I rarely understand his Librarius-talk. I am a practical warrior to the core. I’m not often interested in the ‘material or immaterial’ nature of the universe. I believe in one thing: my Legion. The Ultramarines have proved time and time again that they can kill whatever they encounter. All other considerations are pure theoretical.
‘So these were volunteers?’ Ione Dodona asks.
Phornax steps aside to reveal a grisly pile of scorched bones at the centre of the pattern. Sprawled across the blackened ribcages lays a more freshly-dead member of the Red Munion – a woman, with her slender fingers still wrapped around the hilt of a sacrificial blade embedded in her heart. Dodona’s lip wrinkles with disgust.
I swiftly tire of the macabre scene and my brother’s interest in it.
‘Is there anything here that points to Ungol Shax or his location?’ I ask.
‘Ungol Shax is here,’ Phornax tells me. ‘I think that’s him behind you.’
With my helmet on, Phornax cannot see the scowl that his ghastly revelation has brought to my face. I turn to find another statue at my back; it too is angular and crystalline. The idol matches me for height and brawn, and its arms are raised in some gesture of triumph or accomplishment. In one hand it holds a sceptre – nay, a crozius with a headpiece in the design of a portcullis, or a gate. An Exalted Gate.
Under my suit lamps, the abomination begins to smoulder, bleeding its lighter-than-air darkness into the faint, draughty breeze.
I look around at the other statues. It all becomes clearer to me.
Despite the angularity and lightlessness of their forms, many do bear similar features: helms, packs and the broad outline of Legion war-plate. Smaller idols in between appear to be midnight representations of cultists, caught in moments of jubilation and madness. I find my helm shaking involuntarily from side to side. What, in the name of the Five Hundred Worlds, has happened here?
I hear shouts from the rear of the temple-chamber. At first I take it to be a greeting – Daesenor arriving with his men. Then I realise then that it’s my men that are calling out, and I feel an unseemly dread descend upon our gathering.
‘We can’t find Olexander,’ Ione Dodona reports.
Names mean nothing to me. Numbers do, however, and our numbers are decreasing. I look to Phornax and his remaining Cicatrician.
‘Where are the rest of your men?’ I ask.
‘Checking the tunnels leading from the far end of the chamber,’ the former Librarian tells me, concern creeping over his features. ‘Soldier?’
The remaining Cicatrician has two fingers to the side of his helmet. He has no contact with the missing troopers. He shakes his head.
‘All units, report in,’ I call across the vox.
Squad members present within the temple-chamber swiftly acknowledge my request. A haunting static stands proxy for the rest. ‘Daesenor, report,’ I insist.
Nothing.
I stride to the edge of the statues.
‘The enemy are playing games in the dark,’ I hiss through gritted teeth, my gauntlets creaking about the hilt of my sword, and my combat shield. ‘Form up,’ I order. ‘Stick together. Phornax – take point.’
The Ultramarine gives me a lingering glance. That’s what Phornax does. Beyond the eerie nature of his former calling, he has a dislikeable habit of questioning orders without the forthright nature of actually doing so. He allows the silence to ask the questions. It is within the shallow soil of his breaks and pauses that the seeds of doubt take root. Then, like weeds growing up between marble slabs, his misgivings rapidly spread
to others.
But before I have to repeat myself, he has holstered his pistol and has his sword and shield ready. He replaces his helmet and strides away from the forest of statues. His optical-overlays lead him towards one of the chamber’s many craggy exits, taking us towards the coordinates of Brother Daesenor’s last vox-transmission. I motion Dodona and the troopers after him.
‘Name?’ I say to Phornax’s remaining Cicatrician.
‘Evanz, my lord,’ he replies. ‘Vospherous 14th.’
I can hear the fear in his voice. Like a fortification on trembling foundations, the soldier’s nerve will only hold so long. I have seen the common fighting men of the Imperium break under the fearful circumstances of explorative warfare and crusading. Facing the unknown enemies of the galaxy – technological abominations, deviant isolationists, or the horrors of the xenos – I have known soldiers lose control of their minds and bodies.
‘Evanz of the Vospherous 14th,’ I say. My voice comes at him like a wall, strong and unshakable. I attempt to lend him a little of my fortitude and fearlessness. ‘I want you to watch our rear. You see anything creeping up behind us, and I want to know about it. Understood, soldier?’
The Cicatrician makes a show of priming his fusil and bringing the weapon close in at his flak-armoured shoulder.
‘By my honour, Lord Pelion.’
As we negotiate the twisted darkness of the Penetralia, I feel the jagged passages closing in about me. My mind drifts to the millions of tonnes of rock above my helmet. Suddenly, the labyrinthine tunnels themselves seem threatening – twisting and turning, rising and falling. Several times we seem to double back on ourselves, and I imagine the passageways like a knot of writhing serpents. There are dead ends and cavities around every corner, necessitating routine forays through tight apertures and shadowy side tunnels.
Several times my hearts quicken at the announcement of supposed enemy targets. I hunger for our foe. Perhaps we had found the shadow-corpse of Ungol Shax… or perhaps not. If his Bearers of the Word still haunt the passageways of the Penetralia, then they shall be mine. I have pledged my blade to their ending. This is a task unfinished. A mission without completion.
But time after time, our enemy targets turn out to be shadows and silhouettes, cast by our own light – the very bedrock playing with us. The Cicatricians beg our pardon, but it is not difficult to see how the depths are rattling them. The scar tissue of their faces is taught with tension, their mouths unsmiling, their eyes peering through the slits of their helmets with dread expectation.
‘Lord Pelion!’ Evanz erupts. Such a warning had been sitting on the soldier’s sun-scalded lips since entering the tunnel complex.
I turn, half-expecting another false alarm, but like the Cicatrician, I catch the shadow and its movement. Rocks don’t move.
Before I can stop him, Evanz plucks off several las-bolts from his fusil. Light from the blasts ripples back down the passage, throwing more fleeting shadows along the rugged walls.
Something retreats.
Flushed with the validity of his sighting – his fear moment-arily forgotten and a tension-fuelled rage taking over – the soldier charges off after his shots with a roar.
‘Hold!’ I shout, but Evanz is already disappearing into the darkness. ‘Hold your positions!’ I bark back at the rest of the group before setting off after him.
It doesn’t take me long to catch up, my armoured strides taking me with confidence back down the rough passage. I find him at an uneven crossroads – one I don’t recall passing through. Evanz’s helmet is off. He’s young, but his flesh is sun-scarred, lined with age and anxiety. He holds his empty fusil slackly at his side and his chest rises and falls beneath his plas-fibre breastplate. He stares with hollow eyes, but each of the passages offer nothing but fearful gloom.
He stiffens as I move him to one side. I scan the rocky convolutions of each tunnel, cycling through different optic spectra. Nothing.
‘Back to the group,’ I order. Evanz stands transfixed by the empty obscurity. ‘Now!’ I growl.
The soldier turns, deflated, and starts trudging back up towards his Cicatrix compatriots. I give the crossroads a last long, lingering look. ‘I’m here,’ I announce to the darkness, my voice carrying further than I expected. ‘When you tire of your cowardice and playing games in the shadows, I am here.’
Back with the group, I exchange Evanz for one of the Tarxis Reservists on the rearguard and order Brother Phornax onwards.
It doesn’t take us long to find Sergeant Grodin. Like a crystalline outcropping in the rock, we find the Cicatrician – his back to the passage wall, his helmet turned up the tunnel and his fusil aimed back down it. I know little of the work of artists and remembrancers, but the sergeant strikes me as a sculptural study in panic and confusion.
We also discover the soldier he was searching for, a member of the Vospherous 55th, hiding in a small grotto. The trooper clutches his helmet to his breastplate and peers fearfully around a rocky corner, out into the tunnel. His scarred face remains aghast at the horror he must have beheld there, fixed in solidified shadow that smokes and steams under the glare of our lamps.
‘Pelion,’ Phornax calls.
The former Librarian had found Brother Daesenor. He could have been a statue from any compliant world, or one of the many depicting the noble and heroic exploits of the XIII Legion to be found across the worlds of Ultramar. For his lethal service on the fields of Komesh alone, Daesenor deserved as much. With his boltgun snug at his pauldron and his helmet optics lined up with the weapon’s mean sight, the Ultramarine still looks ready to fire. I examine his gauntlet. His digit is fully depressed. The trigger has been pulled. Daesenor has been petrified in the moment that it might have saved him.
I feel a curse, common and uncouth, escape my lips. A tightness creeps into my voice.
‘Phornax – surely the Librarius has something to say on these unnatural matters?’
‘Officially, the Librarius has nothing much to say about anything anymore, brother,’ Phornax returns dispassionately.
‘Unofficially, then?’
Phornax hesitates. ‘The Heralds-that-were have clearly developed their sorcerous interests,’ he tells me. ‘They draw outlandish powers from the immaterial plane that enhance their already considerable capabilities.’
‘Gifts like your own,’ I ask.
‘No, brother,’ Phornax continues warily. ‘Magicks and superstitious deviancies. Augmentations in the form of polluted artefacts and otherworldly bargains.’
‘Could these perversities be responsible for these dark deeds?’
‘Yes, brother.’
‘And what weapons do we have to combat such deviancy?’ I ask.
‘You have my bolt and blade, as you have always done.’
I stare at him, and he stares back. Dodona looks on with some trepidation.
‘I’ll take point,’ I tell him, pushing past. As our pauldrons scrape in the confines of the tunnel, I’m sure he can sense my frustration. He doesn’t have to be witch-kin to do that.
Leading with my sword and shield, I move from corner to craggy corner, peering around with lamp and optics. As my light reaches down the tunnel lengths and through rocky corkscrew paths, I feel doubt infecting my thoughts. The desire to bring my enemy to battle can be heard in the grit-pulverising economy of my steps, in the fluid caution of rehearsed manoeuvres and positioning. The creak of my gauntlet about my weapons. Muscle and plate hydraulics primed to strike.
I want my enemy dead. Such need burns with perfect execution. No mistakes. The enemy will not benefit from my silent vexation.
At the same time I cannot indulge untruths. Finding Daesenor was unnerving: if a battle-brother of his skill had nothing to combat the dread powers of our Word Bearer foes, then there is little that my blade has to offer. I drew blood, fast and first, from the cheek of Deucali
us of Prandium in a duel of honour. Draegal – the Cardinal-Crimson – lost helm and head to the seething sweep of my sword. The tentacular horrors of Twelve-Forty-Seven would have dragged me into their communal maw, had it not been for the snip and clip of my blade.
But if these monstrous bastards in the deeper darkness of the Penetralia took Daesenor in the instant before a bolt round could depart his barrel, then I fancy the flash of my blade might not be fast enough.
The junctions and intersections are the worst. At the dark nexus of adjoining passageways I feel the eyes of the foe upon me. The length of each holds the simultaneous, shadowy promises of an enemy acquired and latent doom.
I push on. There is little point in informing the others that we are now hopelessly lost. That is not the point. The enemy will find us. Of that, I am sure.
I hear a half – nay, a quarter-stifled scream, and something clatters to the rocky floor. I spin around to find Evanz staring down one of the passages I just passed. His finger is outstretched in inexpressible horror. The fear is washed from his face and replaced by the ugly contortion of dread and disgust, and then the Cicatrician flashes from living being to crystalline shadow. First his trembling finger, then his arm and armour before his fear-sculpted face, the soldier suffers some kind of sorcerous petrifaction. Like a flesh-eating darkness, the shadow takes him, turning Evanz into crystallised tenebrosity.
The passage echoes with shouts of panic and horror. The remaining Cicatricians back into the immovable wall of armour that is Brother Phornax, as the former Librarian looks on with cold interest.
I cannot let our tormentors escape. Charging forward, I smash aside the glassy darkness that was Evanz. The muzzle-lamp from his dropped fusil still shines its beam up the tunnel… but there is nothing there.
I advance steadily. It will take more than ‘nothing’ to stop me.
My steps take me up the tunnel at speed, my sword and shield held close to my body. My suit lamps reach ahead of me, revealing the crooks and chicanery of the Penetralia passages. Whatever killed Evanz must be retreating just as quickly, since my light reveals nothing but a dead end, though it soon turns out to be a tight corner.
Mark of Calth Page 24
