by Nick Kyme
Tsu'gan awaited them in the half-dark of the chamber, its halogen lanterns dulled, with just the ambient light to illuminate the bare room. One by one, they entered: Agatone and Ek'Bar were the first, dour and long-serving; quiet and pensive respectively. Both were Tactical squad sergeants like Tsu'gan. Then there came Vargo from one of the Assault squads, a campaign veteran. De'mas, Clovius and Typhos followed a short time after. Last of all was Naveem, who seemed the most reluctant to have been summoned. These Astartes, great Salamanders all, encompassed five Tactical squads and both Assault squads of 3rd Company. Only the sergeants of the Devastators were not present, those that had fought alongside N'keln on Stratos. Of course, Dak'ir was also absent. He had made his feelings very clear on the subject of the captain's recent ascension.
The brother-sergeants present had each removed their battle-helms - in fact Clovius and Typhos generally did not wear one - and the lustre of their eyes glowed deeply in the gloom. Tsu'gan waited until they were all settled, until the mutual greetings and respectful acknowledgements were done, before he began.
'Do not think me disloyal,' Tsu'gan said, 'for I am not.' He regarded each of the assembled sergeants intently as he panned his gaze around the room.
'Why are we here then, if not to speak of disloyalty, to renege on the vows we all made before the Chapter Master himself?' Naveem's anger was evident in his tone, but he kept his voice down all the same.
Tsu'gan raised a placatory hand, both to mollify Naveem and arrest any reprisals from Brother Iagon, who watched from behind his sergeant in the darkness.
'I seek only what is best for the company and the Chapter, brothers,' he assured them.
'If that is true, Tsu'gan, then why have us skulk in the shadows like conspirators?' asked Agatone, his hard face wrinkled with discontent. 'I came to this meeting to discuss the discord in our ranks, and the way we might mend it. All the talk I have heard prior to this gathering has been of dissension and of N'keln's unsuitability for the role of captain. Tell me now why I shouldn't just turn on my heel and go to Tu'Shan?'
Tsu'gan met his fellow sergeant's intense glare with honest contrition. 'Because you know as well as I that N'keln is not fit for this post.'
Agatone opened his mouth to respond, but clamped it shut in the face of indisputable fact.
Turning his attention back to the assembly as a whole, Tsu'gan spread his arms in a conciliatory gesture.
'N'keln is a fine warrior, one of the best amongst the Inferno Guard, but he is not Kadai and—'
'No one is,' scoffed Sergeant Clovius, shaking his head. His squat body, thick-shouldered and broad of back, made him seem as intractable as an armoured rock. The sergeant continued, 'You cannot hold a man to account by another's memory.'
'I speak only of his legacy,' Tsu'gan returned, 'and of his ability to lead us. N'keln needs a steadying hand, the support of a captain himself. He is like one component of an alloy; strong when bonded with another, but left alone—' Tsu'gan shook his head. 'He will surely break.'
Muttering from around the room intimated his audience was less than convinced. Tsu'gan merely pushed harder.
'N'keln inherits a fractured company, one requiring strength to rebuild. It is strength he does not possess. How else would you describe the folly of returning to the Hadron Belt?'
'Had we not, we would never had discovered the chest,' countered Vargo, his deep voice reluctant.
Tsu'gan faced him, his own voice an impassioned rasp.
'A fluke: one that very nearly added to the tally of ignominious dead and indebted us to mercenaries.' He spat the last word as the memory of the Marines Malevolent loomed in his mind. To deal with such honourless curs left a bitter canker in Tsu'gan's mouth.
'Another of N'keln's failings,' Tsu'gan went on, 'allowing Vinyar and his dogs to steal weapons and armour destined for another Chapter. No better than thieves, these Astartes in name only. Yet N'keln lets them go without pursuit or so much as a harsh word.' He paused, letting his damning rhetoric sink in.
'Do not think me disloyal,' he repeated, experiencing no small measure of satisfaction from the realisation dawning on the sergeants faces. Even Naveem seemed to thaw. 'For I am not. I serve only the will of the Chapter. I always have. I am proud to be Fire-born and I will follow my brothers unto death. But what I will not do is stand idle as a company is brought into ruination. Nor will I participate in baseless missions where a reckless death is the only reward. I cannot do that.'
Agatone articulated what the rest were already thinking.
'So what would you have us do?'
Tsu'gan nodded as if in approval of the decision he had garnered here.
'Ally with me,' he said simply, 'Ally with me in going to the Chapter Master and suing for the removal of N'keln as captain.'
After a few moments, Naveem spoke up.
'This is madness. None of these acts you've mentioned are charges enough for the captain's dismissal. Tu'Shan will punish us all for this conspiracy. We'll be up before Elysius and his chirurgeon-interrogators, our purity in question.'
'It is not conspiracy!' Tsu'gan snapped, then, composing his frustration, lowered his voice. 'I will bring our concerns to the Chapter Master, as is our right. He is wise. He will see the rifts in this company and have no choice but to act for its betterment.'
'And who will he install as N'keln's successor?' asked Agatone, meeting Tsu'gan's gaze. 'You?'
'If the Chapter Masters sees fit to appoint me, I will not reject the responsibility. But I don't seek to usurp N'keln, I want only what is right for this company.'
Agatone looked around the room, evidently undecided.
'What of Dak'ir and Omkar, Lok and Ul'shan? Why are they not at this meeting to relay their grievances?'
Tsu'gan maintained his imperious air, despite his fellow sergeant's pertinent questioning.
'I did not summon them,' he admitted.
Naveem leapt on the confession.
'Why, because you knew they would never agree to this, that they could not be trusted to keep their silence?' He waved away Tsu'gan's imminent protest. 'Save your answers, brother. I am not interested. Out of loyalty to my fellow sergeants I will keep my silence, but I cannot be a party to this. I know you think you act out of genuine concern for the company, but you are misguided, Tsu'gan,' Naveem added sadly and left the room.
'Nor can I, brother,' said Agatone. 'Don't speak to me of this again, or I will have no choice but to go to Chaplain Elysius.'
In the end, Sergeants Clovius and Ek'Bar went the way of Naveem and Agatone. The others pledged their allegiance to Tsu'gan's cause but without a majority, it stood little chance of succeeding. They left soon after their disgruntled counterparts, leaving Tsu'gan alone with Iagon.
'Why can't they see it, Iagon? Why can't they acknowledge N'keln's weakness?' He slumped down on one of the austere pallet beds that hadn't been used in decades.
Iagon moved slowly from behind Tsu'gan and into his sergeant's eye line.
'I do not think we have failed, sergeant.'
Tsu'gan looked up. His gaze was questioning. 'True, we have only three brother-sergeants allied to our cause, but that is all we really need.'
'Explain yourself.'
Iagon smiled, a thin empty curling of his down-turned mouth bereft of warmth or mirth. Here, in the shadows of the empty dormitory, his true nature could express itself. 'Take your grievance to Elysius. Ensure that N'keln is within earshot when you do, or at least hears of it soon after.' Iagon paused deliberately, inwardly applauding his own cunning. 'N'keln is a warrior of profound conscience. Once he knows about such a vote of no confidence amongst his own sergeants—' his narrow eyes flashed '—he will stand down of his own volition.'
Tsu'gan was suddenly torn. He sighed deeply, trying to exhale his doubts.
'Is this right, Iagon? Am I doing what is best for the company and the Chapter?'
'You are taking the hard road, my lord. The one you must travel if we are ever to be whole agai
n.'
'Even still—'
Iagon stepped forward to emphasise his point.
'If N'keln were worthy, would he not have taken up Kadai's thunder hammer? It gathers dust even now in the Hall of Relics, forgotten and dishonoured by one who is wary of the mantle he assumes by claiming it.'
Tsu'gan shook his head uncertainly. 'No. N'keln rejected it out of respect.' He didn't sound convinced.
Iagon adopted a look of absolute innocent neutrality. 'Did he?'
Tsu'gan had left the dormitory in silence, a slave to his own thoughts. Pain would settle his troubled mind. He had made for the solitoriums at once. And there in the darkness, with the eyes of his secret voyeur looking on, he had indulged in his addiction again and again, hoping, in vain, that with the next strike of the rod his conscience would be eased. It had not, and the guilt gnawed at him stid as he trod the long passageways of the Hall of Relics, dressed only in a simple green robe.
Honours and memories of heroes long-past filled the austere gallery of black marble. The hue of the rock, its smoothness and density, promoted a sombre mood, one entirely apt given the reverence felt for this hallowed place. There were shrines to Xavier, Kesare, and even ancient Tkell, chambered in anterooms or deep alcoves regressed into the rock. Artefacts, too precious to be burned, too venerated to be bequeathed, rested within them along with purity seals, medals and other tributes to their legacies. Reliquaries were made of the leg bones Brother Amadeus had lost in the Siege of Cluth'nir. If the mighty warrior should ever fall, they would be burned to ash with what was left animated with his sarcophagus and offered to Mount Deathfire. Tsu'gan passed them all, every step a painful reminder of the damage he had self-inflicted. It paled to the anguish in his mind and failed utterly, despite his sternest efforts, to assuage it. He wondered briefly whether he had urged the brander-priest too far this time. Tsu'gan crushed the thought.
Bowing his head, he stepped into one of the hall's anterooms and was swallowed by darkness. The stygian surroundings lasted only seconds as a votive flame erupted into incandescent life on one of the walls and threw a warm, orange glare across a sombre altar. It was shaped like an anvil, a pall of salamander hide draped across the flat head. Resting on the hide were the shattered remains of an ornate thunder hammer.
Tsu'gan was gripped by a profound sense of loss as he approached the altar and knelt before it in supplication.
'My captain…' The words were barely whispered, but conveyed his longing. He went to speak again, but found he could not, and closed his half-open mouth without further sound. Silence followed, deafening and final. Tsu'gan remembered anew the sight of Kadai's destruction. He recalled gathering up the remains of the beloved captain with N'keln. Warring with a sense of sudden grief and impotent rage, Tsu'gan had looked into the veteran sergeant's eyes and seen clearly what was held there.
What now? Who will lead us? I cannot assume his mantle. Not yet. I'm not ready.
Even then, through a fog of despair, Tsu'gan had witnessed the truth in N'keln's heart. Duty would not allow the veteran sergeant to refuse; prudence should have made him refuse. But it had not, and the lingering memory stung like a barb.
The brother-sergeant could bear it no longer and, averting his gaze from the solemn tribute to Ko'tan Kadai, he hurried from the shrine-chamber.
So consumed was Tsu'gan with his own troubled thoughts that he didn't notice Fugis coming the opposite way, and collided with him.
'Apologies, brother,' Tsu'gan rasped, wincing beneath the cowl of his robe as he made to move on.
Fugis held out an arm to stall him. Like the brother-sergeant, the Apothecary wore robes.
'Are you all right, Brother Tsu'gan? You seem… troubled.' Fugis's hood was down and his eyes were penetrating as he regarded the sergeant, some of his old sagacity returned.
'It's nothing. I only seek to honour the dead.' Tsu'gan couldn't keep his voice steady enough as the jabs of pain from the branding wracked him. He went to move on again, and this time Fugis stood in his path.
'And yet you sound as if you've recently been in battle.' His thin face accentuated a stern and probing expression.
'Step aside, Apothecary,' Tsu'gan snapped, gasping through his sudden anger. 'You have no cause to detain me.'
Fugis's cold eyes helped formed a scowl.
'I have every cause.' The Apothecary's hand lashed out. Debilitated as he was, Tsu'gan was too slow to stop it. Fugis pulled back the sergeant's robes and cowl to expose the hot, angry scars upon the lower part of his chest.
'Those are fresh,' he said, accusingly. 'You have been having yourself rebranded.'
Tsu'gan was about to protest, but denial by this point was beneath him.
'And what of it?' he snarled, teeth gritted both in anger and to ward off his slowly ebbing agony.
The Apothecary's expression hardened.
'What are you doing, brother?'
'What I must to function!' Tsu'gan's rancour swiftly waned, replaced by resignation. 'He was slain, Fugis. Slain in cold blood, no better than the wretches that lured us to Aura Hieron.'
'We all feel his loss, Tsu'gan.' Now it was Fugis's turn to change, though rather than soften, his eyes seemed to grow cold and faraway as if reliving his own bereavement.
'But you were not there at his end, brother. You did not gather the remains of his body and armour, wasted away and beyond even your skill to revivify in another,' Tsu'gan referred to the destruction of Kadai's progenoid glands. These elements of a Space Marine's physiology existed in the neck and chest. Harvested through the skill only an Apothecary was schooled in, they could be used to create another Salamander. But in the case of Kadai's tragic demise, even that small consolation was denied.
Fugis paused, deciding what to do.
'Youmust come to the Apothecarion. There I will tend your wounds,' he said. 'I can mend the superficial, brother, but the depth of the hurt you feel is beyond my skill to heal.' For a moment, the Apothecary's eyes softened. 'Your spirit is in turmoil, Tsu'gan. That cannot be allowed to continue.'
Tsu'gan tugged his robe back across his body and exhaled raggedly. A tic of discomfort registered below his left eye as he did it.
'What should I do, brother?' he asked.
Fugis's answer was simple.
'I should go to Chaplain Elysius, make you confess to him what you have been doing, and leave you to await his judgement.'
'I…' began the sergeant then relented. 'Yes, you are right. But let me do it, let me go to him myself.'
The Apothecary seemed uncertain. His searching gaze was back, as his eyes narrowed. 'Very well,' he said at last. 'But do it soon, or you'll give me no choice but to act in your stead.'
'I will, brother.'
Fugis lingered a moment longer, before turning his back and heading towards the anteroom where Kadai awaited him.
Tsu'gan went the other way, unaware of another figure tracking him in the darkened corridors of the Hall of Relics, the very same that had watched him break down at the foot of the anvil shrine and followed him from the isolation chamber.
Pain, grief, shame - they all dulled the brother-sergeant's senses as he came to a fork in the corridor. The light of the brazier-lamps seemed to cast it in an eldritch glow that Tsu'gan failed to notice. East led eventually to the Reclusium, where he would await the Chaplain and purge his heavy soul; west took him back to a small armoury where his battle-plate rested. He was about to turn east when he felt a light touch on his shoulder.
'Where are you going, my lord?' asked the voice of Iagon, 'Your armour is the other way.'
Tsu'gan faced him. Iagon was enrobed too. The hood was pulled far over his face so that only his sharp, angular nose and down-turned mouth were visible. The Salamander's slight form was exaggerated without his armour. It made him look small in comparison to his sergeant.
'I cannot, Iagon,' Tsu'gan told him. 'I must seek Elysius's counsel.' He tried to continue on his way, but Iagon reasserted his grip, stronger this time.
/> Tsu'gan winced with the pain of his earlier injuries.
'Release me, trooper. I am your sergeant.'
Iagon's face was a dispassionate mask.
'I cannot, my lord,' he said, and increased his grip.
Tsu'gan scowled and seized the trooper's wrist. Despite his wounds, he was still incredibly strong and now it was Iagon's turn to betray his discomfort.
'I am not strong enough to hold you, sergeant, but let me appeal to your better judgement…' Iagon pleaded, letting his brother go.
Tsu'gan released him, the scowl reduced to a displeased frown. It bade Iagon continue.
'Go to Elysius if you must,' he whispered quickly, 'but know that if you do, you will be stripped of rank and made to suffer penitence for what you've done. The chirurgeon-interrogators will probe and incise until they lay you bare. Our Brother-Chaplain will learn of your deceit—'
'I have deceived no one, save myself,' Tsu'gan snapped, about to turn away again, before Iagon stopped him.
'He will learn of your deceit,' he pressed, 'and act against all of your brothers who were in that room. Any chance of replacing N'keln will be gone, and the prospect of healing our divided company with it.'
'I don't want to replace him, Iagon,' Tsu'gan insisted. 'That is not my purpose.'
