by Ben Counter
The blade cut down through Faraji’s leg at mid-thigh. Amhrad could hear Faraji cry out. The other two constructs aimed their staffs down at Faraji and fired point-blank blasts of particle fire into his face and chest. Much of the upper half of Faraji’s body was obliterated.
Metzoi followed Amhrad down from the walkway, landing with rather more grace than Amhrad had. Amhrad was aware he might have blacked out for a moment with the impact, and his mind’s eye was full of the memory of Chapter Master Derelhaan with his head split open by Masayak’s crozius.
Metzoi darted towards Amhrad. Amhrad had kept hold of both the Wolves of Keyherdos and brought them up into a crossed guard, trapping the blade that arced down at him and pivoting on his back foot far enough to avoid the second blade slicing up at his groin. Metzoi caught Amhrad with a backhand against the side of the head and Amhrad fell back, jumping the gap behind him to reach the next generator. He hit the edge of the generator chest-first and found a handhold only at the expense of letting go of Gestolo. The axe clattered into the opening and vanished among the turbine blades. Amhrad pulled himself up and rolled onto the generator’s surface.
The praetorians were battling the Astral Knights only one generator over. He saw Techmarine Sarakos using his servo-arm to hold one praetorian in a headlock as he blasted with his plasma pistol at another. The praetorians surrounded him like hunters holding a wounded quarry at bay. Amhrad did not doubt Sarakos would express nothing but concentration as the praetorians closed in. In the moments it took his pistol’s power core to recharge the necrons came within striking distance. One thrust at him with its staff and Sarakos turned the necron he was holding into its path – the bladed end speared right through the necron’s chest and the particle field shattered its chest, spilling smouldering components over the generator housing.
The second thrust hit home. One of the other praetorians had got around behind the Techmarine and impaled him through the back. The tip of the staff ripped out through the side of Sarakos’s chest. The necron twisted the staff and tore Sarakos’s body open, and for a moment the pulsing mass of lungs was revealed before blood welled up and cascaded from his chest. The rest of the praetorians closed in until Sarakos was hidden by their armour-plated bodies, their swords and staffs rising and falling as they completed the kill.
Metzoi was suddenly upon Amhrad, bringing both blades to slice through his neck. Amhrad brought up Jhozaan in a desperate block and the ancient axe’s haft was shattered, shards of it flying from his grip. The head of the axe clattered down over the edge of the generator, vanishing into the darkness.
A follow-up strike cut into the side of Amhrad’s chest. Another bit deep into his upper left arm. Amhrad dropped a shoulder and charged into Metzoi, trusting in the armoured weight of a Space Marine to drive back the Judicator.
Metzoi took two steps back and dropped into a guard, both blades hovering. Amhrad was unarmed now and the Judicator took his time weighing up his prey, determined the next blow would be the last.
‘When the necrons slumbered,’ said Metzoi in his clipped, too-perfect Low Gothic, ‘the praetorians watched. We saw mankind rise and fall. We saw it stagnate and rot. We have witnessed your past and mapped out your future. Borsis reaching its destination will be the start and after that it will not take long. Your death is among the first, and they will not end until all has been freed from the imperfection of humanity.’
More camouflage. Metzoi was waiting for the chance to execute a killing slash or thrust. Amhrad gave him that chance. He took a half-step back, like a nervous duellist shifting his weight for its own sake.
Metzoi lunged. Amhrad brought up his left arm and the obsidian blade cut right through it. Amhrad’s hand and half his forearm fell away, cleanly severed, but the blade was turned aside from his throat. The other blade swung down at him but Amhrad put his shoulder guard in the way and though the blade bit down deep into the bone, it did not have the weight behind it to shear all the way through the dense ceramite into Amhrad’s ribcage. Amhrad reached for Metzoi’s face with his remaining hand. He found a grip there, with one finger in the construct’s remaining eye and the thumb hooking into his mouth-slit. He hauled Metzoi off the floor – the construct was heavy, but not too heavy for a Space Marine. Amhrad grunted as he pitched Metzoi off the edge of the generator.
Metzoi hit the side of the generator hard, but jabbed out a blade that speared through the metal and arrested his fall. Of course it would take more than that to destroy the Judicator, but Amhrad didn’t have to kill him.
In every fight, whether it was a formal duel or an all-out war, each side had an advantage and disadvantage. It might be numbers, training or willpower, but every combatant had one edge on the others. The key to victory was discovering what that edge was and exploiting it. The Codex Astartes had enshrined that principle almost ten thousand years before, as the Primarch Guilliman created his great work on the Space Marine way of war. And just as Amhrad believed in the pursuit of duty above all things, in the human right to exist in this galaxy and in the honour of his Chapter, he believed in the Codex Astartes. Amhrad had few advantages in this fight, but there was one he had for certain. It was not an easy one to recognise, because it was not strength of arms or numerical superiority, or any of the other factors a mundane commander would rely on.
The advantage was that for Judicator Metzoi to win, he had to survive. The same was not true of Chapter Master Amhrad. Amhrad was weakening rapidly. His body had staved off the shock of the loss of his arm, but it was catching up with him. His hearts were hammering to keep him going and the corresponding blood loss was already severe. The blood coagulating around the stump of his arm would stem it, but not before a good deal of it had spattered out onto the generator housings. Amhrad leapt to the next generator, almost falling. He dragged himself with his remaining hand onto the housing.
Faraji had died before he had finished setting the melta-bombs. Three were clustered there, not yet wired together. Amhrad finished wiring two of them to detonate, twisting the handles to remove the safeties. When disturbed, they would detonate. The third bomb he carried with him as he stumbled to the edge of the generator and jumped across to the next.
Above him the projected galaxy swirled, as if demonstrating the paths of its stars in fast forward. Millions of years raced past as the spiral arms slid through space. The crystalline shape at its centre was darker now, a purple-black stain spreading through it.
Masayak was still up and fighting. Hyalhi was beside him. Masayak had claimed half a dozen praetorians, their skulls shattered from blows of his crozius. The weapon was a great equaliser against a skilled opponent, smashing through guards and parries. Hyalhi fought with his force staff as always, wielding it like a partner in a dance, moving with the grace and perfection that no mundane fighter could match. The praetorians backed off for a second, waiting for the opportunity to close again.
‘Hyalhi!’ voxed Amhrad. ‘It is time. Go.’
Hyalhi looked around to see Amhrad. The sight must have been dismaying – his Chapter Master disarmed both of his weapons and literally. ‘Go,’ repeated Amhrad. ‘You must remember.’
Masayak glanced around at the Chief Librarian and gave him a brisk nod. Hyalhi broke off from the combat and grabbed one of the pillars holding the walkway above the generators. He clambered hand over hand and reached the guardrail to pull himself up onto the walkway.
The praetorians closed on Masayak. The Chaplain shattered the leg of one with a blow that came under its guard, an unexpected direction, and the construct toppled backwards into the darkness. Amhrad removed the safeties of the three melta-bombs Techmarine Sarakos had set. Greyness flickered at the edge of his vision as he made it to the next generator and did the same to those Hyalhi had set.
Masayak was heading in Amhrad’s direction. Amhrad saw the Chaplain’s armour was scored and dented all over. The crozius was blackened with scorch marks from the
discharging power field. Masayak lept over to Amhrad’s position.
‘My charges are ready,’ said Masayak.
‘Hyalhi, are you clear?’ voxed Amhrad.
Before he could get a reply, Judicator Metzoi was on them. He loomed up behind Chaplain Masayak with his swords crossed like the blades of a pair of scissors. The construct swept them apart and sliced Masayak’s head off. The skull helm bounced against the housing and rolled over the edge of the generator. Masayak toppled to one side. Amhrad took a moment, no more than a fragment of thought, to honour Masayak’s memory. Without the Chaplain, the Astral Knights would never have survived Varvenkast. They would have fallen apart and been disbanded in dishonour. Masayak had prevented that, because he truly epitomised what the Astral Knights were.
We are the hand of tyranny. We are oppressors and destroyers. We are instruments of suffering we can never fully understand. But for all that we are, we honour our promises and we keep our word.
Judicator Metzoi stabbed Amhrad through the chest. The blade sliced through Amhrad’s secondary heart and out through his back. The second thrust to the chest destroyed Amhrad’s primary heart.
The necron had studied its enemy. It knew of a Space Marine’s physiology, and as a true executioner, it always made certain of its kill.
The melta-bomb was held in the crook of Amhrad’s elbow, his remaining hand on the handle. He twisted it as he felt his hearts stop beating.
Darkness fell over him, and he thought this must be death. Then, his world exploded into a billion shards of burning light.
Orbital Supply Station Madrigal 12
High Polar Orbit, Safehold
Varv System
Encryption Code Hemlock
Inquisitorial Eyes Only. Ref. Lord Inquisitor Quilven Rhaye
Scrivened: Medicae Obscurum Kalliam Helvetar
Following the successful recuperation from a comatose state, this functionary undertook a series of physical tests to assess the suitability for further contact. This functionary failed seven out of eleven of these tests. Lord Rhaye, who had arrived at Madrigal 12 during the period this functionary was comatose, ruled that given the importance of completing the autoseance process these failures were to be considered within acceptable tolerances. Prayer-cleansing rituals were performed while the servitors prepared the autoseance chamber and equipment.
During the comatose period this functionary experienced memory fragments, perhaps sensory echoes received during previous autoseance contacts but not consciously perceived at the time.
I look down at the stump of my severed arm. My Wolves are gone and so is my hand. And yet I cannot lose this fight, because my enemy has granted me a huge advantage of which he is not aware. In such a circumstance, the Codex dictates, victory requires no more than willpower and time. I feel victory rising within me, even as my blood pumps out onto the generator housing.
I watch the planets orbit with such grace I almost weep to see it. Mars is a rust-red orb, unstained by the spidery grip of its orbital dockyards. The moons of Saturn, tiny specks of illuminated stone, have yet to know the step of human feet. The majesty of the gas giants almost mesmerises me with their swirls of ever-churning colour. But it is Terra that truly arrests my eye. It is blue, with continents of green, streaked with high white clouds. The poles are capped with pure white. It is the cradle of my species, yet I have never seen a planet look so alien.
Blood and steel rains in the darkness. I have heard snatches of the call to arms, but the Astral Knights are fighting their battle above. I am cut off in this city of the dead and my battle is here. The flayed ones and wraiths are all around me, in the pitch dark. I can hear them approach. I have half a clip of bolter ammunition and my fallen sergeant’s chainsword. It is all I need to die a Space Marine’s death.
The doorway of the Cathedral of the Seven Moons yawns open and a phalanx of war machines strides out. Each walker fires its particle casters into the ranks of my battle-brothers. Beyond them I can see the interior of the cathedral, a vast monument to the arrogance of these aliens, a place of black crystal statues and the gigantic steel faces of long-dead necrontyr. It gives me such joy to know they will fall that I am not angered by the particle lash that slices deep into me. I feel no pain. I see only victory. I will die, but I have faith in my Chapter Master. My death is a cog in the machine of victory. I think on this as I fall.
The nature of these visions caused psychological distress and elevated cardiac and respiratory rates upon recollection. They were scrivened and added to the report of such visions for presentation to Lord Rhaye.
With the autoseance suite prepared this functionary made ready for further contact. Lord Inquisitor Rhaye was in attendance to observe the process, along with medicae from his personal retinue to assist with somatic stabilisation. Preparations for contiguous sensory relay were thereby completed.
Addendum Personal
I am glad that Lord Rhaye could be here. The subject is almost mined out. What remains is buried deep and I do not believe I can reach it without subjecting myself to the kind of stresses that left me comatose.
I think of my childhood and my family. Sometimes those thoughts come unbidden to me, even though I have left them all so far behind. All the time in between vanishes, all the strange and awful things I have seen and been a part of. In those times I am a child again. Amhrad’s death hit me hard. It was a good death, but a Space Marine can take appalling levels of pain and I cannot. I feel every moment of it. Even though I have been inside his mind, I still cannot fathom what it must be like to live as one of them. He can set aside fear and cage it inside his mind, while I am filled with it. He can take the loss of a limb as another reality of duty, when I am paralysed by the horror of it. And he welcomed his death, knowing his duty was done.
I wish I could look on death as he did. I wish it more than anything. But I cannot. I do not want to die.
FIFTEEN
Chief Librarian Hyalhi
The transit system still functioned. That was something of a surprise since the Astral Knights had used it to congregate at the Cathedral of the Seven Moons, but then perhaps Heqiroth had little reason to shut it down when he had the entire – or nearly the entire – Astral Knights Chapter brought to battle at last.
Hyalhi leaned against the side of the cavernous lightning rail carriage. The walls and ceiling were covered with racks where necron warrior-constructs could be carried for transit, hanging in their hundreds. Now it was empty. Perhaps they were all fighting at the cathedral.
The carriage rumbled along the lightning rail, Borsis’s hateful metal cityscape streaking by. For the first time since he had made it out of the Temple of Heretics, Hyalhi let himself feel the pain of the wound he had been dealt by the praetorians’ gauss fire. A deep burn had ripped out a good chunk of his neck and right shoulder, and though the coagulants produced by his additional organs had sealed the wound quickly he could barely turn his head.
Hyalhi focused inwardly, letting the physical pain drop away. Chapter Master Amhrad’s memories were almost bedded down in his subconscious, locked away in a mental void-safe where only the knowledgeable and skilled would ever realise they were even there. Hyalhi imagined the threads of Amhrad’s life, the psychic echoes of the Chapter Master wrapping around the scars the recent history of the Astral Knights had left on the substance of the warp. Hyalhi let those threads settle against his mind, winding them in and braiding them into the stuff of Amhrad’s memories.
Flashes of those memories reached the surface of Hyalhi’s mind – Amhrad battling Judicator Metzoi, arguing with the other Space Marine commanders on board the Tempestus, organising the chaotic aftermath of the spaceship’s crash. Hyalhi even saw a fragment of Amhrad’s confrontation with the former Chapter Master Derelhaan. Hyalhi had been there and he saw himself through Amhrad’s eyes, leaping in front of Derelhaan before he could execute Amhrad first. In all the time he had done this,
he had never got used to the feeling of another man’s thoughts in his mind. It made him feel vulnerable. It made him feel human.
Down in the depths of Hyalhi’s mind were the other memories he had snatched from the warp and locked away for safekeeping. Captain Sheherz, Chaplain Masayak, Captain Zahiros. The officers whose perspective would obviously be important. Brothers Kodelos and Ghazin, whose roles could so easily be forgotten. Sergeant Faraji, who had seen something so awful it could only be properly conveyed by seeing it through his eyes. All woven together from the threads of the warp into a tapestry of sensory information, filed away in the Chief Librarian’s brain.
Hyalhi was barely finished when the first explosion shuddered the lightning rail. He ran to the end of the last carriage and leaned out to see. On the horizon, a good distance across the cityscape, a plume of dust and smoke erupted into the sky, throwing a rain of torn metal across the city. It looked like a great dark serpent striking up at the clouds.
It had worked. Hyalhi allowed himself a moment of relief. It was not over and this battle was not won, but the Astral Knights had done everything they could on Borsis and their duty was done. Hyalhi himself still had one duty to do, of course.
In the centre of the debris cloud rose a burning ember, a mote of fire ascending from the darkness. It gathered matter and light into itself like a black hole pulling at the surface of Borsis. Hyalhi let the image of it burn into his brain, sinking in deep, because this would have to be remembered too.
