Battle for the Abyss

by Ben Counter

  Then it was gone, replaced by the darkness, and so he had driven on.

  Here in the searing depths, he’d found some respite.

  It could have been days that he’d lingered in meditative solitude, listening to the pitch and pull of the vessel, marshalling his thoughts and his resolve so as not to give in to insanity. Way down in the stygian gloom, Skraal couldn’t hear the vox traffic, didn’t sense the patrols at his heels and so didn’t know if he was still hunted.

  Sheltering in a crawl space large enough to accommodate his power-armoured frame, within a cluster of pipes and cables, the World Eater snapped abruptly to his senses. Disengaging the cataleptic node that allowed him to maintain a form of active sleep, Skraal became aware of a shadow looming in the conduit ahead. He was not alone.

  The passing of menials was not uncommon, but infrequent. Skraal had listened to their pathetic mewlings as they serviced and maintained the ship, with disgust. Such wretches! It had taken all of his resolve not to spring out of his hiding place and butcher them all like the cattle they were, but then the alarm would have been raised and the hunt begun anew. He needed to think, to devise his next move. Not gifted with the tactical acumen of the sons of Guilliman or Dorn, Skraal was a pure instrument of war, brutal and effective. Yet now he needed a stratagem and for that he required time. Survival first, then sabotage; it was his mantra.

  That doctrine dissolved into the ether with the shadow. No menial this, it did not mewl or bay or weep, it was silent. It was something else, massive footfalls resonating against metal with every step, and it was seeking him. Skraal extracted himself from the crawl space and bled away into the darkness, eyes on the growing gloom he left behind him, and went onwards into the Furious Abyss.

  ‘THEY TAIL US ever doggedly, my lord,’ uttered Reskiel as he considered the reports of Navigator Esthemya clutched in his gauntlet.

  Zadkiel appeared sanguine to the fact that the Wrathful continued to follow them into the warp as he regarded the scrawlings on the cell wall of one of the ship’s astropathic choir.

  It was a spartan chamber with little to distinguish it. A narrow cot served as a bed, a simple lectern as a place to scribe. Function was paramount here.

  ‘Wsoric is with us,’ he said, emboldened enough in the surety that they had sealed their pact with the ancient creature to speak his name, ‘and once he reveals his presence, the pawns of the False Emperor will learn the folly of their pursuit. The horrors endured thus far will be as nothing compared to the torture he will visit upon them.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ Reskiel said humbly.

  ‘We are destined to achieve our mission, Reskiel,’ Zadkiel went on, ‘just as this one was destined to die for it.’ The admiral turned the corpse of a dead astropath over. It was lying in the middle of the cell in a pool of its own blood. The face was female, but twisted into a rictus of fear and pain so pronounced that it was hard to tell. Black, empty orbs stared out from crater-like sockets.

  Communications were difficult even for those who claimed the warp as an ally, and the messages of the Furious’s astropathic choir were proving ever more unreliable and difficult to discern. Zadkiel had some skill at divination, however, and carefully deconstructed nuances of meaning, subtle vagaries of sense and context in the symbolic renderings of the dead astropath. ‘Anything?’ asked Reskiel.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Zadkiel, sensing the desperate cadence in the sergeant-commander’s voice. ‘Once we reach the Macragge system we will have no further need of them,’ he added. ‘You need not fear us floundering blind in the immaterium, Reskiel.’

  ‘I fear nothing, lord,’ Reskiel affirmed, standing straight, his expression stern.

  ‘Of course not,’ Zadkiel replied smoothly, ‘except, perhaps, our intruder. Do the sons of Angron hold an inner dread for you sergeant-commander? Do you recall all too readily the sting of our erstwhile brother’s wrath?’

  Reskiel raised his gauntlet to the crude repairs of his face and cheekbone almost subconsciously, but then retracted it as if suddenly scalded.

  ‘Is that the reason that our interloper still roams free aboard this ship?’ Zadkiel pressed.

  ‘He is contained,’ Reskiel snarled. ‘Should he surface then I will know, and mount his head upon a spike myself!’

  Zadkiel traced a shape out of the dense scribblings on the wall, deliberately ignoring the sergeant-commander’s impassioned outburst.

  ‘Here,’ he hissed, finding the meaning he sought at last.

  The astropath had written the message in her vital fluids, the parchment pages of her symbol log overloaded with further crimson data and strewn about the cell floor like bloodied leaves.

  ‘The crown is Colchis,’ said Zadkiel, indicating a smeared icon. ‘These ancillary marks indicate that this dictate comes from a lord of the Legion,’ he added, a sweep of his gauntleted hand encompassing a range of symbols that Reskiel could not fathom.

  Astropaths rarely had the luxury of communicating by words or phrases. Instead, they had an extensive catalogue of symbols, which were a lot easier to transmit psychically. Each symbol had a meaning, which became increasingly complex the more symbols were added. The Word Bearers fleet had their own code, in which the crown was modelled after the Crown of Colchis and represented both the Legion’s home world and the leadership of the Legion.

  ‘Two eyes, one blinded,’ continued Zadkiel. ‘That is Kor Phaeron’s Chapter.’

  ‘He asks something of us?’ asked Reskiel.

  Zadkiel picked out another symbol from the miasma, most of which was eidetic doggerel coming out in a rush of mindless images and non-sequitous ravings, a coiled snake: the abstract geometrical code for the Calth system.

  ‘His scouts have confirmed that the Ultramarines are mustering at Calth,’ Zadkiel answered, ‘all of them. There are but a few token honour guards not present.’

  ‘Then we will strike them out with a single blow,’ stated the sergeant-commander confidently.

  ‘As it is written, my brother,’ Zadkiel replied, looking up from the scrawlings and offering a mirthless smile. He finished examining the astropaths message and brushed the flakes of dried blood from his gauntlets.

  ‘All is in readiness,’ he said to himself, imaging the glory of their triumph and the plaudits he, Zadkiel, would garner. ‘Thy Word be done.’

  CESTUS FILLED HIS time with training regimens and meditation, in part to occupy his mind whilst the Wrathful traversed the warp, but also to recondition his body after the brutal duel with Brynngar.

  Something had possessed the Space Wolf during the fight, Cestus had felt it in every blow and heard it in the Wolf Guard’s battle cries. It was not a change in the sense that the warp predators took on the form of the Fireblade’s crew. No, it was something less ephemeral and more intrinsic than that, as if a part of the gene-code that made up the zygotic structure of Leman Russ’s Legion had been exposed somehow and allowed free rein.

  Base savagery, that was how Cestus thought of it, an animalistic predilection let slip only in the face of the Space Wolves’ foes. Was the warp the cause of this loosening of resolve? Cestus felt its presence constantly. It was clear that the crew did also, though they appeared to be more acutely afflicted. Armsmen patrols had doubled over the passing weeks. Rotations of those patrols had also increased and prolonged exposure to the warp even whilst in the protective bubble of the Wrathful’s integrity fields took its toll.

  There had been seventeen warp-related deaths after the attack on the lance decks, the entirety of which had been fusion-sealed in the wake of the horrors perpetrated there. Damage sustained whilst in battle against the Word Bearers’ ship had rendered the weapon systems inoperable in any case, and no one on the Wrathful had any desire to tread those bloody halls again. Suicides and apparent accidents were common, one rating was even murdered, the perpetrator still at large, as the products of warp-induced psychosis made their presence felt.

  Of the Furious Abyss, there had been little sign. It con
tinued to plough through the empyrean, content to let the Wrathful follow. Cestus didn’t like the calm; trouble invariably followed it.

  A stinging blow caught the Ultramarine captain on the side of the temple and he grimaced in pain.

  ‘You seem preoccupied, my lord,’ said Saphrax, standing opposite him in a fighting posture. He twirled the duelling staff in his hands with expert precision as he circled his captain.

  The two Astartes faced each other in one of the vessel’s gymnasia, wearing breeches and loose-fitting vests as they conducted the daily ritual of their training katas. Routine dictated the duelling staff as the weapon of choice for this session.

  Cestus’s body was already bruised and numb from a dozen or more precise blows landed by his banner bearer. Saphrax was right; his mind was elsewhere, still in the duelling pit facing off against Brynngar.

  ‘Perhaps, we should switch to the rudius?’ Saphrax offered, indicating a pair of short wooden swords clutched by a weapons servitor, two amongst many training weapons held by the creature’s rack-like frontal carapace.

  Cestus shook his head, giving the battle-sign that he had had enough.

  ‘That will suffice for today,’ he said, lowering the staff and reaching for a towel offered by a Legion serf to wipe down his naked arms and neck.

  ‘I don’t like this, Saphrax,’ he confessed, handing the duelling weapon back to the servitor as it approached.

  ‘The training schema was not satisfactory?’ the banner bearer asked, unlike Antiges, unable to penetrate the deeper meaning of his captain’s words.

  ‘No, my brother. It is this quietude that vexes me. We have seen little in the way of deterrent from the Furious Abyss for almost two weeks, or at least as close to two weeks as I can fathom in this wretched empyrean.’

  ‘Is that not a boon rather than a cause of vexation?’ Saphrax asked, commencing a series of stretching exercises to loosen his muscles after the bout.

  ‘No, I do not think so. Macragge draws ever closer and yet we seem ever further from finding a way to stop the Word Bearers. We do not even know of their plan, damn Mhotep in his coma state.’ Cestus stopped what he was doing and looked Saphrax in the eye. ‘I am losing hope, brother. Part of me believes the reason they have ceased in their attempts to destroy us is because they do not need to, that we no longer pose a significant threat to their mission, if we ever did.’

  ‘Put your belief in the strength of the Emperor, captain. Trust in that and we shall prevail,’ said the banner bearer vehemently.

  Cestus sighed deeply, feeling a great weight upon his shoulders.

  ‘You are right,’ said the Ultramarine captain. Saphrax might not possess the instinct and empathy of Antiges, but his dour pragmatism was an unshakeable rock in a sea of doubt. ‘Thank you, Saphrax,’ he added, clapping his hand on the banner bearer’s shoulder while nodded in response.

  Cestus wrenched off the vest, sodden with his sweat, and donned a set of robes as he padded across the gymnasium to the antechamber, where Legion serf armourers awaited him.

  ‘If you do not need me further, captain, I shall continue my daily regimen in your absence,’ said the banner bearer.

  ‘Very well, Saphrax,’ Cestus replied, his thoughts still clouded. ‘There is someone else I need to see,’ he added in a murmur to himself.

  BRYNNGAR SLUMPED FORLORNLY onto his rump in the quarters set aside for him by Admiral Kaminska. He was alone, surrounded by a host of empty ale barrels, his Blood Claws isolated to the barracks, and belched raucously. He had come here after losing the honour duel, speaking to no one and entertaining no remarks, however placatory, from his fellow Space Wolves. The old wolf’s demeanour made it clear that he wished to be alone. Not everyone got the message.

  Brynngar looked up from his dour brooding when he saw Cestus enter the gloomy chamber.

  ‘Wulfsmeade is all gone,’ he slurred, impossibly drunk despite the co-action of the Space Wolf’s preomnor and oolitic kidney. The beverage, native to Fenris, was brewed with the very purpose of granting intoxication that overrode even the processes of the Astartes’ gene-enhanced physiognomy, albeit temporarily.

  ‘You keep it, my friend,’ Cestus replied with mock geniality, despite his apprehension.

  Brynngar grunted, kicking over his empty tankard as he got up. The old wolf was stripped out of his armour and wore an amalgam of furs and coarse, grey robes. Charms and runic talismans clattered over his hirsute chest, the nick from the chain tooth still visible, though all but healed.

  ‘You seem well recovered, Ultramarine,’ grumbled the Wolf Guard, irascibly. Brynngar’s belligerence had not dimmed with the passage of hours in the warp.

  In truth, Cestus still felt the ache in his jaw and stomach in spite of the larraman cells in his body speeding up the healing process exponentially. The Ultramarine merely nodded, unwilling to disclose his discomfort.

  ‘Now it is done,’ he said. ‘You are an honourable warrior, Brynngar. What’s more, you are my friend. I know you will abide by the outcome of the duel.’

  The Space Wolf fixed his good eye on him, pausing as he hunted around for more ale to quaff. He snarled, and for a moment Cestus thought he might instigate another fight, but then relaxed and let out a rasping sigh.

  ‘Aye, I’ll abide by it, but I warn you, Lysimachus Cestus, I will hold no truck with warp-dabblers. Keep him away from me or I will visit my blade upon his sorcerer’s tongue,’ he promised, drawing closer, the rustle of his beard hair the only clue that the Space Wolf s lips were actually moving. ‘If you stand in my way again, it will be no honour duel that decides his fate.’

  Cestus paused for a moment, matching Brynngar’s intensity with a stern expression.

  ‘Very well,’ the Ultramarine replied, and then added, ‘I need you in this fight, Brynngar. I need the strength of your arm and the steel of your courage.’

  The old wolf sniffed in mild contempt.

  ‘But not my counsel, eh?’

  Cestus was about to counter when Brynngar continued.

  ‘You’ll have my arm, and my courage, right enough,’ he said, waving Cestus away with his clawed hand. ‘Leave me, now. I’m sure there’s more to drink in here somewhere.’

  Cestus breathed in hard and turned away. Yes, Brynngar remained in the fight, the Ultramarine had gained that much, but he had lost something much more potent: a friend.

  CESTUS DID NOT have much time to lament the ending of Brynngar’s friendship as he made for the bridge. Down one of the Wrathful’s access corridors, he received a vox transmission that crackled in the receiver node on his gorget.

  ‘Captain Cestus,’ said Admiral Kaminska’s voice. ‘Speak admiral, this is Cestus.’ ‘You are required at the isolation chambers at once,’ she said.

  ‘For what reason, admiral?’ Cestus replied, betraying his annoyance at the admiral’s brevity. ‘Lord Mhotep is awake.’

  ONCE CESTUS HAD left, Brynngar found a last barrel of Wulfsmeade and guzzled it down, foam and liquid lapping at his beard. He cared little for the revival of the Thousand Son and slumped back into melancholy, their passage through the warp affecting him more than he would admit.

  A haze overtook his vision and he could smell the scent of the cold and hear the lap of Fenrisian oceans.

  Brynngar wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and remembered standing atop a jagged glacier with nought but a flint knife and a loincloth to cover his dignity.

  This was not a punishment, he recalled, recognising the place from his past, it was a reward. Only the toughest Fenrisian youths were considered for the test. It was called the Blooding, but so rarely did a Space Wolf speak of it that it barely needed a name at all.

  Faced with the bleak white nightmare of the Fenrisian winter, Brynngar had found the bone of a long-dead ice predator and had fixed his knife to it to make a spear.

  He had stalked patiently, following the short-lived tracks of the prey-beast across the ice and tundra.

  When he had killed it, it h
ad put up a mighty fight, because even the most docile of Fenrisian creatures were angry monsters. After consuming its flesh, he had skinned it, and worn the skin as a cloak as if part of the beast’s essence lived on within him. Without its fur and flesh, he would have died during the first night. He had then sharpened its bones into more blades, in case he lost his knife. He wove a line from its tendons and made a hook from a tiny bone in its inner ear, using it to pull fish from the sea. He split its jawbone in two and carried it as a club.

  Brynngar trekked his way back towards the Fang, using faint glimpses of the winter sun to show him the way as he descended the glacier. Upon a rugged place of razor shards, the ice collapsed to pitch him into a sickle-tooth den. He fought his way free of the scaly predators with his jawbone club. Onwards he pressed, and a frost lynx ambushed him, but he wrestled the writhing feline to the ground and bit out its throat, saturating himself in gore. The journey was long. He had killed a skyblade hawk with a thrown bone knife. He had scaled mountains.

  When, finally, he saw the gates of the Fang ahead, Brynngar understood the lesson that the Blooding was supposed to teach him. It was not about survival, or fighting, or even the determination required of an Astartes. Any prospective Space Wolf who made it to the Blooding had already shown that he had those skills and qualities. The Blooding’s message was far harder to learn.

  ‘We are all alone,’ Brynngar muttered, having drained the last of the Wulfsmeade.

  Briefly, his mind wandered back to the Blooding. He remembered that an enormous, shaggy, black wolf had appeared on a crag overlooking the path he was to take. It had watched him for a long time, and he had known that it was a wulfen: the half-mythical predators said to be born from the earth of Fenris to winnow out the weak. The wulfen had not approached him, but Brynngar had felt its eyes watching him for days on end. He wondered if the creature’s gaze had ever left him.

  The same wulfen was now sitting before him, regarding Brynngar with its black eyes. The Wolf Guard returned its gaze and saw his face mirrored in the beast’s pupils.