A lascannon.
“It is impossible,” Kergis said quietly. “I don’t want to believe it, but I must accept the evidence of my own eyes. It is Borchu. Still, I cannot believe he would turn against us. It was his nature to be loyal.”
“He may not have turned on us,” the Khan replied. “Despite appearances, Borchu may well have died on Nephis-Ra. We have fought enemies who have been possessed by Chaos daemons in the past. Normally, the daemons can only possess a living body, but all things are possible for the creatures of the warp. Perhaps Borchu’s body was recovered by the enemy after he died and a daemon now uses it. Or perhaps Borchu’s body really was destroyed and a daemon or some xenos creature has shifted its appearance to resemble him. Whatever the truth, it is an abomination. Our Chapter is dishonoured as long as a creature of the enemy wears the face of one of our fallen brothers.”
“Then, the dishonour must be avenged,” Kergis said, lifting a hand to indicate the figure in the pict. “I will seek him out. Whether it truly is Borchu, or a daemon using his appearance, I will kill him. The Chapter’s honour will be restored.”
“You understand the full ramifications of what you are saying?” Jurga Khan asked him. “I have already agreed, on behalf of our Chapter, that we will lead the assault on Chaldis. I have also agreed to send a mission to sabotage the power complex on the Ignis Mons. I agreed to both these tasks before I saw these picts and spotted Borchu, but that hardly matters. As Khan my words must be iron. If not, if we fail in either mission, our company will be dishonoured. Similarly, whatever his true nature may be, we will also be dishonoured if we fail to act against this ‘Borchu’.”
“I understand,” Kergis said, his voice hard and unyielding. “And I know there may be a price to be paid. But no matter the price or what it costs me, I promise you I will kill Borchu—whoever or whatever he may be.”
“Hello, arban,” the thing wearing Borchu’s face said. “What, no smile of greeting? No warm words of welcome for a comrade you had thought lost? I am disappointed.”
Somehow, it had gotten behind him. Kergis had been sure he had checked every corner of the room before advancing, but the creature that was not Borchu had managed to find a hiding place all the same.
Cautiously, Kergis turned to face it. The room was gloomy, with few sources of illumination, but even as he stared at the armoured figure half-hidden in the shadows he knew at once it was not his former comrade. The face and the armour were the same, but the skin held a blue-white pallor Kergis associated with the recently deceased. At the same time, the creature’s eyes rippled with seething and unearthly energies as though its physical form was barely able to contain the maelstrom inside it.
Even without these signs, Kergis would never have mistaken it for Borchu. In life his friend had been a good-natured, hearty fellow, always laughing. The creature before him now might wear Borchu’s likeness but it was unable to copy his bearing.
“What is the matter, arban?” the thing said, taking a step forward. “Don’t you know me? Don’t you recognise your old friend?”
“You are not Borchu,” Kergis replied, his expression severe. “You may wear his face, but I know your real nature. You are a daemon, some carrion thing that stole his body. Nothing more.”
“Yes,” the creature smiled. For the moment it stayed where it was, not moving closer, but Kergis saw it carried a power axe in its hands. “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d fool you by pretending to be Borchu. But I had to try. Really, you’d be surprised how often even the clumsiest pretence will work. There is something weak in the heart of man. Show them the face of a friend, even one thought long dead, and they will believe almost anything. But you are stronger than that. Aren’t you, Kergis?”
In response, Kergis was silent. He knew better than to be lulled by the daemon’s words. His senses were alert, carefully reading the thing’s stance for any sign it was about to attack. The magazine of his bolt pistol was full, but he was aware it would take almost a miracle to kill the thing with that weapon. His best chance would be to take the head from its shoulders with his power sword, but to do that he would need to move within range of the axe. He watched for an opening, waiting for the moment to strike.
“Aren’t you curious as to how I knew your name?” the daemon’s mocking smile grew broader. “You must have wondered? Ordinarily, I’d tell you I learned it from Borchu himself. I’d explain I captured his soul as it was leaving his body, a split second before I entered his physical remains and made them my new home. It would be a lie, of course. But, again, you’d be surprised how often such simple untruths are effective.”
Under cover of its words, the daemon had moved one of its feet fractionally forward of its partner. Recognising the change as evidence it was preparing to attack him, Kergis waited for the daemon to shift its weight from one foot to the other. Once it did so, he knew the attack would not be long in coming.
“It is all a matter of how you play it,” the daemon continued. “Typically, I’d say something like ‘Borchu always hated you, you know’. And you’d wonder whether I was telling the truth or not. It is the nature of human beings to always wonder whether their fellows secretly despise them. If I told you Borchu really did hate you, it would only confirm your worst suspicions. I would not even have to sell the lie too hard. You would convince yourself I was telling the truth. Humans are such easy marks.”
For all Kergis’ watchfulness the daemon nearly killed him then. Even as the White Scar waited, it attacked suddenly without having to shift its weight first.
Too late, Kergis realised his error. He had let the fact the daemon was wearing Borchu’s body gull him into thinking it would act like a mortal opponent, not a daemonic one.
Leaping effortlessly across the room towards him, the daemon brought its axe down in a deadly arc. Kergis barely managed to dodge the blow in time. Unbalanced, he struck out with a sideways slash of his blade. The daemon parried it easily, before delivering a counter-blow with the butt of his axe-shaft that sent Kergis staggering backward.
The daemon charged forward to press home its advantage, but Kergis was ready. He lashed out once more with his sword. The daemon blocked it, but by doing so it had left the repaired section on the chest plate of its armour exposed. Even as the sword and axe locked together, Kergis lifted his bolt pistol and fired a salvo of shots into the daemon’s chest at point-blank range.
The daemon screamed in rage and pain. Striking again with the butt of its axe it hit the bolt pistol and knocked it from Kergis’ hand. It tried to follow the strike with another attack from the blade of the axe, but Kergis saw it coming. He leapt backward, landing with catlike agility as he put several metres between himself and his enemy.
“You know, that actually almost hurt me,” the daemon said, lifting a hand to inspect the damage.
The salvo of bolts had blown away the patchwork repair to the armoured plate, revealing a dark wound in the chest of the daemon’s host body. Instead of blood oozing out, Kergis saw sparks of eldritch fire leak from the hole. For an instant, the sparks played around the daemon’s probing fingers. Then, they were gone.
“Still, there’s no real damage done,” the daemon grinned insidiously. “Not like the last time we met. You think of it often no doubt, Kergis. The good old days, eh?”
Kergis found he was beginning to hate the creature’s smile, not to mention its habit of making insinuating, viperous asides every time it spoke. At the same time, he realised he might be able to play the daemon at its own game; using words to distract it in the same way as it was evidently trying to distract him.
“We have met before?” he asked.
“Surely you’re not trying to claim you don’t remember?” The daemon’s grin deepened as his Astartes opponent took the bait. “Granted, it was decades ago. But really, I thought you’d remember. Of course, my name was different then. I called myself Nullus.”
“Nullus?” Despite his awareness that the daemon would say anything to tri
ck him, Kergis felt a shock run through him. “I encountered a possessed Traitor Marine on Quintus who called himself by that name. He served as a lieutenant to the daemon prince Voldorius.”
“Indeed, I did,” the daemon said. “Of course, I did look different in those days, so I can understand that you were slow to recognise me. You remember, Kergis? You killed my host body on Quintus. Sometimes, it feels like it took an eternity for me to find another one. It can be a difficult business finding a suitable body. Which is why I was so happy when I came upon your dear, departed former comrade.”
“And that’s why you stole Borchu’s body? Revenge?”
“It was part of the motive, I’ll grant you.” The daemon’s voice was like a satisfied oily purr. “I had already attached myself to the invasion of this world, close to Chogoris. It occurred to me if I made myself visible enough it was bound to bring the White Scars to me. Naturally, I had no way of knowing it was you they’d send. That was an unexpected bonus.”
“And you did this because I cut you down on Quintus?”
“Hardly.” The daemon rolled its eyes in a curiously human gesture. “Oh, I’d hoped I would get to settle accounts with you one day. But my aim here goes far beyond any such petty annoyances. I have been an enemy of the White Scars for thousands of years. Does that surprise you, Kergis? I have stalked your Chapter from its earliest days. I was there in the very beginning, on the plains of Chogoris, even before the Emperor came. I know your planet of old, and I knew your primarch.”
“Now I know you are lying,” Kergis told the daemon. “If you really were such a formidable enemy, I would have heard of you. You forget, the White Scars have their own way of dealing with their foes. If you truly ranked as an ancient enemy of the Chapter, you would have been targeted long ago by the Masters of the Hunt for destruction. You would have been killed and your skull would be sitting on a pike along the road to Khum Karta. Your name would be known from the roster of the hunt.”
“My name? You don’t know my name. Not my true name, at any rate. I didn’t always call myself Nullus. I’ll admit you won’t find me mentioned in the annals of your Chapter or in the tales the Chaplains tell, but everything I have told you is true. I am an old enemy of the White Scars, perhaps the oldest. I fought against Jaghatai Khan on Chogoris, just as I had fought against many other petty chieftains on your home world. In the old days, the days before the Imperium, your people knew me, Kergis. They called me Kagayaga. You know that name, I’m sure.”
Again, Kergis felt a shock run through him. The daemon was right. The name was familiar to him, although he had not heard it for over a century.
Kagayaga. It was a word from the old Chogorian dialect. Literally, it meant “the whisper in the darkness”. It was a name to conjure nightmares. In the ancient folklore of Kergis’ home world, Kagayaga had been the title given to a mythical monster. According to the tales he was an invisible, bodiless horror; a malicious spirit who haunted the plains and sometimes stole into the hearts of men while they were sleeping in order to compel them to perform evil acts.
Even today, it was still common for mothers on Chogoris to warn their offspring that Kagayaga would come for them if they did not behave themselves. Kergis had heard the same tales himself in his own childhood at his mother’s knee.
Kagayaga. It was impossible. Kergis did not know how the daemon had come to know the name, but he did not believe the creature’s claim for an instant. Kagayaga did not exist. He was a fictional figure used to frighten children. A figment of his people’s ancient imaginings.
It was clear the daemon was trying to trick him, to frighten him by evoking the terrors of his childhood. It would not work. Kergis was a White Scar. He was Astartes. He was beyond such fears.
“I see you know the name,” the daemon said. “I thought you would.”
“You are lying,” Kergis replied coldly. “Kagayaga is a name to frighten children, nothing more. He does not exist.”
“By all means tell yourself that if you find it gives you comfort.” The daemon’s smile had grown even more smug and insufferable. “But, really we both know the truth, don’t we? I am Kagayaga. But then, I have used so many names it hardly makes a difference. I am Borchu. I am Nullus. I am no one. I am the voice inside your mind. The whisper in the darkness.”
The daemon moved a step closer to him, shifting the great weight of the axe lightly from hand to hand as though making a game of it.
“For reasons of my own I have a need for the body of a White Scar,” the daemon said. “Poor Borchu’s body is so badly damaged I won’t be able to use it for much longer. If only you knew the effort I have to expend just to hold it together and stop his damaged organs from spilling all over the floor like rotten fruit. No, I need something fresher. Not too fresh, naturally. It’s true I can possess a living host, but it is difficult. One has to find the moral flaw, a chink in the victim’s soul, in order to gain entrance. No, what I really need is the body of a recently killed victim. Your body, for example.”
Without warning, the daemon suddenly leapt forward to attack him again.
Kergis was ready for it. He dodged the first blow, counter-attacking with a low strike towards his opponent’s legs. The daemon sidestepped it easily, responding with an axe-head strike aimed at Kergis’ chest. The fight continued, the blows raining back and forth only to be blocked or eluded as they struggled without either being able to best the other.
They were evenly matched in terms of skill, but Kergis realised the odds were stacked against him. The daemon held all the advantages. As yet none of its blows had connected, but Kergis did not need to feel the force of them to know the warp-abomination was physically stronger than he was. At the same time, it was tireless and seemingly immune to pain.
Kergis was Astartes, with all the benefits it entailed. At the root, though, he was only a mortal man, while the daemon was something darker, ancient and more powerful. Given enough time, he knew it would wear him down.
The monster had shown him its weakness, though. While it baited and mocked him, Kergis had seen the daemon’s arrogance. Experience told him it was a flaw he could use to create an opening.
“I believe you are getting slower, Kergis,” the daemon said as the duel between them continued. “That last parry was hardly of the standard I’d expect from an Astartes. You’re getting tired, aren’t you?”
“I am feeling a little extended, it is true,” Kergis replied, trying to keep the strain from his voice as he blocked another strike from the axe. “But it is only to be expected. I had a bike beneath me last time I killed you. The extra running involved in this battle has taken its toll.”
“The bike was the only reason you won last time,” the daemon commented acidly. He might be immune to physical pain, but evidently Kergis’ words had struck a nerve. “This time, it will be different.”
“I agree,” Kergis came back at him. “This time, I am not part of a larger White Scar army. I am not accompanied by the best part of a company of warriors, most of them on bikes. I am on my own, on foot, at a disadvantage. Yet still, I am holding my own against you. I see now my Khan was right in sending me here alone. It would have been a waste of resources to have sent a bigger force after you, when one sergeant on his own is equal to the task.”
Kergis let his barbed words hang in the air for a moment before twisting the knife.
“Perhaps you are Kagayaga, after all. A bogeyman whose name is invoked to frighten children. Scaring children would seem to be all you are good for.”
His words provoked an immediate response. Its face a mask of rage, the daemon swung its axe in a powerful two-handed strike intending to cut Kergis in half. Expecting the reaction, the White Scar dodged the clumsy blow and responded with a low, rising cut while the daemon was still off-balance.
His blow caught the daemon’s host body in the midriff, slicing through armour and exiting just below the shoulder. Showing the first real sign of pain, the daemon briefly lost its balance and fel
l to its knees. Trying to regain its feet, it lifted its axe to defend itself. But, as it looked up, it saw the bright flash of Kergis’ sword arcing towards it as the White Scar prepared to deliver the coup de grace.
“For Borchu,” Kergis said, as he brought the sword down and took the daemon’s head from its shoulders.
It felt like a benediction.
Afterwards, Kergis would never know how long he stood over the headless corpse. With the destruction of its host body, the fell light of the daemon’s eyes had been immediately extinguished. Nullus, or Kagayaga, had been banished back to wherever it was daemons went when their physical forms were destroyed. Kergis was left alone with the body of a friend.
Ordinarily, Kergis would have felt pride or exultation in the aftermath of victory. This time, he felt only sorrow. He had defeated the daemon, but though he had driven the thing from Borchu’s body he was acutely aware of a loss to his Chapter.
Unlike Osol or Doshin, Borchu’s gene-seed would never be used to create new White Scars. For all Kergis knew, the progenoid glands inside Borchu’s corpse were still intact. But that same body had been possessed by a daemon, a thing of Chaos. It did not matter that the daemon was gone. Borchu’s body was irredeemably tainted.
Similarly, Kergis suspected the record of Borchu’s deeds would be quietly purged from the tales the Chaplains told to remind the White Scars of their fallen brethren. No one would want to be reminded of Borchu now. Whatever his achievements in life, his body had suffered ignominy and dishonour after his death. It did not matter that Borchu himself had been innocent of that dishonour. The tales the Chaplains told were as much lessons as anything else. There seemed no good lesson to be learned from Borchu’s post-mortem disgrace.
It could not be helped, but to Kergis it felt like he had lost his old comrade a second time.
Legends of the Space Marines Page 11
