by Ben Counter
rapidly backwards towards an archway leading into an elaborate stonelined
bath house, with a deep caldarium, a cold-plunge pool and a
Space Marine-scaled massage table. Mosaics of Imperial heroes lined
the walls and valet-servitors stood ready. Voar’s inferno pistol was out
in front of him, ready to fire.
Iktinos was not within his frame of vision. The archmagos’s logic
circuits fought to create new tactical scenarios. He should have been
feeling panic, but instead his altered mind was generating a burst of
useless information, a confused tangle of targeting solutions for a
target that suddenly wasn’t there.
Iktinos’s armoured mass slid out from under the enormous massage
table, crashing into the lower half of Voar’s body. Voar was thrown
against the archway. He fired, but Iktinos was moving too rapidly and
the shot grazed him again, carving a molten channel along the side of
his helmet. Iktinos slashed at Voar with his heavy powered mace. The
archmagos cut his motivator units and dropped to the floor, and the
crozius sliced through the stonework of the arch.
Iktinos’s other arm grabbed Voar’s gun wrist, spun the archmagos
around and slammed him against the wall, his forearm pinning Voar’s
back.
‘I am not here to kill you,’ said Iktinos. ‘Your life means nothing to
me. Give me the Soulspear.’
‘Take it,’ said Voar. A small manipulator limb emerged from the
collar of his hood. It carried the haft of the Soulspear, a cylinder of
metal with a knurled handgrip.
Iktinos took the Soulspear and turned it over in his hand, keeping
Voar up against the wall.
‘To think,’ he said. ‘Such a small thing. Even now I wonder if it was
this that set us on our path. Many of your tech-priests died over this,
archmagos. Many of my brothers, too. It is right that it be delivered
into the hands of Daenyathos.’
‘You have what you came for,’ said Voar. ‘Let me go.’
‘I made no promises that you would live,’ said Iktinos.
Emotions that had not been felt for decades clouded Voar’s face.
‘Omnissiah take your soul!’ he snapped. ‘May it burn in His forges!
May it be hammered on His anvil!’
Iktinos lifted Voar into the air and slammed the tech-priest down over
his knee. Metal vertebrae shattered and components rained out of
Voar’s robes. Iktinos plunged the crozius arcanum into Voar’s chest,
the power field ripping through layers of metal and bone.
Senior tech-priests could be extremely difficult to kill. Many of them
could survive anything up to and including decapitation, trusting in their
augmentations to keep their semi-organic brains alive until their
remains could be recovered. A few of the most senior, the archmagi
ultima who might rule whole clusters of forge worlds, even had
archaeotech backup brains where their personalities and memories
could be recorded in case of physical destruction. Voar did not have
that level of augmentation, but Iktinos had to be thorough nevertheless.
Iktinos tore open Voar’s torso completely and scattered the
contents, smashing each organ and component in case Voar’s brain
was located there. He finished destroying the spine and finally turned
to Voar’s head. He crushed the cranium under his boot, grinding logic
circuits and ocular bionics into the floor with his heel. Quite probably,
Voar died in that moment, the last sensory inputs gone dark, the final
thoughts flashing through sundered circuitry.
Iktinos finished destroying Voar’s body, then took up the Soulspear.
It was a relic of the Great Crusade, found by Rogal Dorn himself during
the Emperor’s reconquest of the galaxy in the name of humanity. He
had given it to the Soul Drinkers at their founding, to symbolise that
they were sons of Dorn as surely as the Imperial Fists themselves.
That was the story, of course. In truth, the origin of the Soulspear,
like the rest of the Soul Drinkers history, was as murky as anything
else in Imperial annals. The Soulspear was gene-activated and would
only respond to someone with a Soul Drinker’s genetic code, so
whoever had created or found the artefact, it had not been Rogal Dorn.
The Soulspear, like the rest of the universe, was a lie.
That did not mean it did not have its uses. Daenyathos understood
that. Just like the Imperium, the Soulspear might be founded on lies,
but it could still become a part of the plan.
Daenyathos’s transformation of the Imperium would not be a
pleasant process. Nothing worth doing ever was. But in spite of the
blood, in spite of the suffering and the death, the universe would thank
Daenyathos when it was done.
Iktinos left Voar’s remains scattered on the floor of the diplomatic
quarters, and headed towards the Predator’s Eye to witness the
Imperium’s future unfold.
Gethsemar and Daviks charged into the heart of the library labyrinth at
the same time, charging in from two directions to catch Sarpedon offguard.
Sarpedon was never off-guard. Silhouetted in the flames that ran
across the bookcases behind him, he turned to face the Angels
Sanguine and Silver Skulls warriors as if he had been expecting them.
Daviks opened fire. Sarpedon’s reactions were so fast that the bolter
shots burst against the blade of the Axe of Mercaeno as the mutant
flicked it up to defend himself.
Gethsemar erupted towards Sarpedon on a column of fire from his
jump pack. Sarpedon’s left-side legs flipped the reading table behind
him into Gethsemar’s path and the heavy hardwood slammed into
Gethsemar, throwing the Angel Sanguine into a bookcase which
buried him in a drift of burning books.
In the middle of the fire and slaughter, it was almost poetry that
unfolded as the fight continued. Daviks parried the Axe of Mercaeno
with the body of his bolter, only to be thrown to the floor by Sarpedon’s
lashing legs. Gethsemar jumped to his feet and lunged with his glaive,
Sarpedon ducking the blow with impossible grace and barging the butt
of the axe into Gethsemar’s abdomen to throw him off-balance.
Captain Luko vaulted through the flame to crash into Daviks before
the siege-captain could join the assault again. The two warriors of the
Adeptus Astartes traded blows as fast as a man could see, Luko’s
lightning claws lashing in great arcs of blue-white power, batting aside
Daviks’s bolter before Daviks could get a shot.
Gethsemar launched himself into the air and dived down out of the
flames overhead. Sarpedon reached up and grabbed Gethsemar,
hauling him in close where the Angel Sanguine’s blade could not be
brought to bear. Gethsemar and Sarpedon wrestled, Sarpedon using
his mutated physiology to grapple from unexpected angles and drag
Gethsemar to the floor. He forced the Axe of Mercaeno down, the edge
of the blade pressing against Gethsemar’s throat. Gethsemar fired his
jump pack but Sarpedon was stronger, and his taloned legs dug into
the floor to keep himself upright.
‘Fall back!’ came
an order over the Imperial Fists vox-channel. It was
Lysander’s voice, transmitted to the Howling Griffons, Silver Skulls and
Angels Sanguine. ‘All troops, fall back to rally points! Disengage
immediately!’
The moment’s confusion this caused was enough for Sarpedon to
drive a fist into Gethsemar’s faceplate. The death mask of Sanguinius
dented and blood spurted from the carved mouth. Gemstones pinged
out of the gilded surface and Gethsemar juddered as the impact ran
through his whole body.
Daviks saw that Gethsemar was going to die. He ducked Luko’s
swinging claw swipe and charged into the Soul Drinker’s legs, hauling
Luko off his feet and ramming him right through the bookcase behind.
He threw Luko and, using the moment of distance he had opened up,
brought his bolter around and sprayed a volley in Luko’s direction. The
Soul Drinker rolled out of the way, putting hardwood shelving and
millions of burning pages between him and Daviks’s gunfire, but that
was what Daviks needed.
Daviks sprinted to where Gethsemar lay, the shadow of Sarpedon’s
axe cast over him by the light of the flames. Daviks grabbed
Gethsemar’s wrist and dragged him out of the way as Sarpedon’s axe
came down, ripping a deep gash in the deck.
‘We leave, brother!’ gasped Daviks. ‘Lysander has ordered us back!’
‘The fight is not done,’ replied Gethsemar, his voice thick with blood.
‘The enemy still stands.’
‘Lysander has command! We fall back! Muster your brothers and get
back to the choristers’ chamber! We will cover you!’
The two Space Marines dropped back through the smoke and
wreckage. Sarpedon watched them go, not eager to pursue them when
their battle-brothers must surely be just behind them.
Luko emerged smouldering from the wreck of the bookcase he had
been thrown through. ‘Damnation, I will have your hide!’ he yelled after
Daviks.
Sarpedon put a hand on Luko’s shoulder. ‘Stay, brother,’ he said.
‘Something is wrong.’
Graevus dared a glance over the barricade. The last volley of bolter fire
the Soul Drinkers had kicked out had not been replied. He saw the
shapes of the Howling Griffons receding through the smoke, a few
kneeling to fire while the majority fell back.
Graevus stood and took aim, firing off a few shots snapped into the
half-seen shapes through the smoke. Salk was beside him now,
echoing Graevus’s own fire.
‘They’re retreating,’ said Salk as he paused to swap magazines.
‘We haven’t hit them that hard,’ said Graevus. ‘I thought they would
be on us.’
‘Then something else has happened,’ said Salk.
‘Don’t be too thankful. They could be mustering for another push.’
‘No,’ replied Salk. ‘Not when they had us pinned in place. Not the
Howling Griffons, not here. They would have pushed on until either they
or we were all dead. This… this is no plan of theirs.’
‘Maybe logic prevailed,’ said Graevus.
With the gunfire reduced to sporadic shots, the roar of the flames
and the clattering of armour became like another form of silence, as if
the library were in the eye of a storm that had just passed over and
now everything was still. Behind the barricade lay two fallen Soul
Drinkers, brought down by bolter fire and shrapnel – one was dead,
both Graevus and Salk could see that, his torso split open and blood
already congealing in a crystalline mass around the enormous spinedeep
wound. The other was still but the wound to his leg, severe
though it was, should not kill him.
‘We need Pallas,’ said Graevus.
‘We do not have him,’ replied Salk. ‘Soul Drinkers! Bring the fallen
and retreat to Sarpedon’s position! Brother Markis, Thessalon! Cover
us!’
Other Soul Drinkers, the survivors of a dozen Howling Griffons
assaults, were moving through the smoke. They looked like the ghosts
of some long-distant battle hovering just on this side of reality, clinging
on as they enacted the same bloodshed night after night. Most had
survived with bearable wounds, but there had been no doubt that the
numbers and fury of the Howling Griffons would have soon prevailed.
But now the Griffons had fallen back, and in their place was surely an
unknown enemy no more inclined to give the Soul Drinkers any
respite.
‘No,’ said Graevus. ‘On second thoughts, there is no reason here.’
‘Bring me everything you know,’ said Chapter Master Vladimir.
‘Of course,’ replied Castellan Leucrontas. ‘We know little, but I can
confirm that the starboard dorsal cargo section has been lost.’
Leucrontas had been summoned to the Forge of Ages, which had
become Vladimir’s command post. Pict-feeds from the battle site
showed little more than screens full of smoke and the vox-channel was
full of barked orders and the confusion that the sudden order to retreat
had brought about. In spite of that, the Howling Griffons were falling
back in good order and even now mustering around the crew mess.
That was not the issue.
‘Lost?’ said Vladimir. He leaned forward on the steel throne from
which the Imperial Fists techmarines usually oversaw the work of the
forge-crews.
‘It is gone. Full breach and depressurisation. Any crew in the area
are dead, no doubt.’
‘Any Adeptus Astartes casualties?’
‘I do not believe so.’
‘What caused it?’
‘The psychic wards built around the librarium contemplative
chambers reacted,’ replied Leucrontas. ‘And the readings so far
obtained are esoteric.’
‘A psychic attack?’ said Vladimir.
‘If so, my lord, it is a vast and destructive one, well beyond the
capacity of an Adeptus Astartes psyker.’
‘Then,’ said Vladimir, his chin on his fist, ‘a moral threat? An assault
from the warp?’
‘Librarian Varnica’s testimony did suggest the Soul Drinkers had
daemonic allies,’ said Leucrontas. ‘And there is… something…
happening to Kravamesh.’
‘Kravamesh? The star? What has the star around which we orbit to
do with the Soul Drinkers?’ Vladimir held up his hand before
Leucrontas replied. ‘No, Castellan, I ask not for an answer. I merely
muse upon it. We must see to the security of the Phalanx before we
seek the origin of this new threat. Once the assault on the archives
has been withdrawn, we must redeploy our strength around the dorsal
cargo bays to keep them contained. A smaller force can maintain the
cordon around the archives. Draw up the battle stations and see that
Lysander has access to them. Nothing must get in or out of either
area without running a gauntlet of bolter fire.’
‘Yes, my lord. And the crew?’
‘Order them to arms. Protect the critical areas of the ship. I had
hoped that even after the escape this would be limited to Space
Marine versus Space Marine. It seems events have compelled us to
think beyond that.’
�
�It will be done.’
‘Keep me apprised of everything, and…’
Vladimir’s voice was interrupted by the bleating of an alarm. From
the armrest of the throne slid a pict-screen that shuddered in to life.
‘The tech-adepts must have got dorsal security back online,’ said
Leucrontas.
The screen showed a view of a corridor, bulkhead doors standing
open along its length. Mist clung to the floor and rolled through the
doorways.
Shapes were coalescing. Tentacles, eyes, mouths, malformed
limbs, writhing masses of entrails that moved with an impossible
impression of intelligence and malice. Teeth, blades of bone, tides of
filth, all wrapped into dimensions that refused to fit into reality. Like a
stain the madness was spreading out, a tide of filth and insanity that
warped the fabric of the Phalanx as it advanced.
‘Daemons,’ snarled Vladimir. He looked up at Leucrontas. ‘Bring me
the Fangs of Dorn.’
In the smouldering ruins of the archive, Sarpedon and his officers
convened. The smoke that still clung to everything made it look as if
they were wanderers in dense mist who had come across one another
by accident. They gathered around one of the few intact reading
tables, where the ground was knee-deep in charred pages and gutted
spines.
Graevus and Salk joined Luko, Tyrendian and Sarpedon where they
waited. ‘The dead have been counted,’ said Graevus.
‘What is the tally?’ said Sarpedon.
Salk stepped forwards. ‘Fifteen,’ he said. ‘Those who remain number
forty-seven.’
‘Was it ever true that there were once a thousand of us?’ said
Sarpedon.
‘No,’ replied Tyrendian. ‘The old Chapter boasted a thousand
warriors. We are not that Chapter.’
‘Then they died,’ said Sarpedon, ‘as we surely shall. Now is not the
time to bar that truth from our souls. Many times a Space Marine
facing death refuses to allow it into his mind, for by defying the
inevitable we can sometimes rob it of victory. But not here. I think I
accepted our deaths here when the Imperial Fists first faced us on
Selaaca, but if any of you still rage against our fate then I ask you to
abandon it. Take the certainty of death into yourselves, welcome it,
and make peace with it. It is not an easy task, but now, it is the right
path to take.’
‘If we fight not to survive,’ said Luko, ‘then why? Why not simply
