‘Pray for yourself,’ replied Luko. ‘All the prayers that might help us were used up on Selaaca.’
‘You are not beyond hope,’ said Sennon, apparently unconcerned with the mix of pity and scorn with which Luko looked at him. Luko, compared to Sennon, was a chained giant, and the power held within every Space Marine was not lessened by the manacles that held him against the back wall of the cell or the bars that stood between the two of them. ‘There is none so close to the precipice that the Emperor’s grace cannot bring him back.’
‘And what of those who have gone over the precipice? What about them? To pray for them is a sin, is it not?’
‘I do not believe you are among them, Captain Luko.’
‘You know my name,’ said Luko.
‘I have read of the Soul Drinkers,’ said Sennon. ‘The Imperial Fists made available much of their information so that my sect might better observe the process of justice. The Blinded Eye we may be, but we do not do our duty by remaining blind when knowledge is available.’
‘The Inquisition passed a deletion order on us, you know,’ said Luko. ‘They could probably hang you for knowing we exist.’
‘It is the Imperial Fists who hold sway here,’ replied Sennon. ‘The Inquisition may have its due from us once we leave the Phalanx, but that is an acceptable price to pay to see justice done in so grave a case as this.’
‘It must be such a relief to see such a simple galaxy around you,’ said Luko, but the scorn was drying out from his voice. ‘Imagine knowing what is right and wrong. Imagine believing, completely believing, that one way was good and another was bad, and never having to think for yourself about it. I have such envy for you, pilgrim.’
‘Then you doubt that you have taken the right path? Doubt is a sin, Captain Luko.’
Luko smiled without humour. ‘Thanks. I’ll add it to the list.’
‘I shall pray for you.’
‘No, you will not. I will not be prayed for.’
‘You are in chains. You have no say in whether you are prayed for or not.’
That, at least, was something Luko had no stomach to argue. Sennon knelt before Luko’s cell, eyes closed and head bowed. His breathing became quieter, and for all Luko knew the young pilgrim might have died there before his cell.
‘I have such envy for you,’ said Luko, too quiet for anyone but himself to hear.
Sarpedon barely registered the journey back to his cell as the Imperial Fists marched him out of the Observatory of Dornian Majesty once again. The first couple of times he had sized up his guards and the route they took for the best time to attempt escape. His hands were manacled but he still had the use of his legs – the six he had remaining, at least – and he was faster and stronger than any of the four Imperial Fists flanking him.
But he could not take them all down. They were armed and armoured, Sarpedon was not. The inhibitor collar prevented his use of the Hell, which might have sown enough confusion for him to flee. From what he had gathered about the layout of the Phalanx, it would be difficult to put any distance between himself and the dome, crammed with hostile Space Marines, before the alarm was raised. The idea of escape was now all but forgotten, filed away in that part of an Space Marine’s mind where rejected battle plans lay waiting to be dusted off again.
Captain Borganor was ahead of Sarpedon and his Imperial Fist minders, at a junction of corridors where the science labs and map rooms surrounding the Observatory met the stone-lined corridors of the Atoning Halls.
‘Halt, brethren,’ said Borganor. ‘I would speak with the prisoner.’
‘On what authority?’ said the lead Imperial Fist.
‘On that of brotherhood,’ said Borganor. ‘I have no dispensation from Lord Vladimir, if that is what you ask. I merely wish to put the question to the defendant that every Space Marine on this ship has longed to ask. I shall not hold you long. As a brother, I ask this of you.’
‘We have all heard the outrages visited upon the Howling Griffons by the Soul Drinkers,’ said the Imperial Fist. ‘Ask if you will, but you shall not hold us long.’
‘My thanks,’ said Borganor. The Imperial Fists backed away from Sarpedon a little to give Borganor a semblance of privacy as he approached Sarpedon.
Sarpedon thought again of escape. Or, at least, of fighting. He had beaten Borganor before, as evidenced by the bionic leg Borganor sported. But attacking the Howling Griffon would not get him free. More to the point, it would not achieve anything. Sarpedon had no particular hate for Borganor. The Howling Griffon was a victim of the viciousness of the Imperium, in his own way. Sarpedon backed down mentally, and decided that he would not fight here.
‘What do you wish to know?’ said Sarpedon.
Borganor was close to him now. He had been as bellicose as anyone in the courtroom, but Borganor seemed to have calmed down a little since then. Perhaps the certainty that the end was close, that Vladimir and the other Space Marines were even now deciding how Sarpedon was to be executed, had cooled some of the fires in him.
‘What do you think?’ said Borganor. ‘I want to know why.’
‘Why?’
‘Why you turned on the Imperium. In all the debating and argument, no one has yet understood why you turned the Soul Drinkers renegade. Was it Abraxes? Did your rebellion start with corruption? Speak the truth, Sarpedon, for there is no use for lies now.’
‘We saw,’ said Sarpedon, ‘what the Imperium really was. I believe we had already known it, but that the weight of history and tradition muted that understanding in us. The Imperium is a wicked place, captain. How many citizens live free of fear and misery? I doubt you could name a single one. It is built on cruelty and malice. And in punishing its people and committing the evils it says are necessary, it gives a breeding ground to those enemies it claims to be fighting. The armies of Chaos do not materialise from thin air. They are made up of those who were once citizens of that same Imperium, but who were corrupted first by its horrors. That is what leaves them susceptible to the whispers of the dark gods. Were the Emperor able to walk among us still, He would look on what mankind has created in horror and seek to tear it down. The Imperium is not the last bastion against the enemy. It is the enemy.’
‘Then you claim what Varnica said is untrue? That Abraxes never led you down his own path?’
‘Abraxes used us, that is true,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘He took our anger at the Imperium and used it to manipulate us into destroying his enemies. But that anger was there before he got his claws into us, and we killed Abraxes for what he did. I am not proud of how blind he once made us. It was his touch that gave me these mutations, and I was ignorant of what they truly meant until Abraxes was gone. But he did not teach us to despise the Imperium. We managed that on our own.’
Borganor shook his head. ‘So deep your delusions cut that you see them only as truth,’ he said.
‘I am minded to say the same about you, captain.’
‘I begged of Vladimir the right to kill you myself,’ continued Borganor. ‘To pay you back for all my battle-brothers you killed. For Librarian Mercaeno, a man far better than any of your brethren.’
‘And did he grant you that right?’
‘He did not.’
‘You could do it now,’ said Sarpedon calmly. ‘These Imperial Fists would not turn their guns on you. You would finish me off before they could stop you, I have little doubt about that.’
‘No, Sarpedon. I wanted to do it slowly.’ Borganor was almost face to face with Sarpedon now. ‘To pull your legs off like a child does to a fly.’
‘Because I took your leg?’
‘Because you took my leg. But I wanted to understand what could drive a Space Marine as far as you have gone, before I did it.’
‘And do you understand?’
Borganor took a step back. ‘I understand that Abraxes warped your minds and implanted in you the belief that your rebellion was your own idea. There must have been something dark and heretical in your souls to begin wi
th, to let his influence in. You were the weakest of all your Chapter, which is why it chose you as its instrument. You are damned, and death is too merciful for you however it is administered. That is what I believe.’
‘What a comfort it must be, Captain Borganor, to have the Dark Gods to blame for anything you are too afraid to understand.’
‘Brothers!’ came a cry from down the corridor. An Imperial Fists Scout was running towards them. He paused to salute Borganor. ‘Captain! Lord Vladimir requests your return to the Observatory. A verdict has been reached.’
‘Already?’ said Sarpedon.
‘There can have been little debate,’ said Borganor with a grim smile. ‘Good.’
‘Then follow,’ said the Scout. ‘The accused must be present. Any sentence will be carried out immediately.’
‘Oh, I do not think anything will be immediate,’ said Borganor. ‘Remember, Sarpedon? As a child does to a fly?’
The Imperial Fists closed in around Sarpedon, shepherding him back towards the Observatory of Dornian Majesty. Sarpedon glanced back at Borganor, who followed. There was nothing in the Howling Griffon’s demeanour to suggest he had any intention but to pull Sarpedon apart piece by piece, regardless of what Vladimir decreed.
But he would decree execution, whatever form it was to take. There had been no doubt about that from the moment Sarpedon had squared up to Lysander on Selaaca. He had come to the Phalanx to die. He had taken comfort that his Chapter would be executed under the eye of Rogal Dorn, who at least would know that the Soul Drinkers were not the traitors the Imperium perceived them to be… But now, with Gethsemar’s revelation, even that was in doubt.
Sarpedon would die alone. The galaxy was too cruel, he supposed, to have expected anything else.
‘It is done,’ said Brother Sennon. He clambered to his feet, unsteady, his knees having locked up during his long prayer.
‘What did you ask Him for?’ said Luko. There was sarcasm in his voice, but Sennon didn’t seem to have picked it up.
‘I asked Him for what He promises everyone. He grants us, if there is any piety in our hearts, a second chance. In our final moments we can be redeemed, if we are pure of heart when our souls come to be weighed against His example.’
‘We must leave,’ said one of the Imperial Fists escorting Sennon. ‘Time in the heretics’ presence is rationed. They are a moral threat.’
‘My soul is steeled against such things,’ replied Sennon. ‘I am frail on the outside, but there is none stronger within than a follower of the Blinded Eye.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said the Imperial Fist, ‘we all have our orders.’
‘Of course.’ Brother Sennon looked up and down the corridor of the Atoning Halls. At one end was a complicated rack, where Imperial Fists in the past had mortified their flesh to atone for some slight against the honour of their Chapter. At the other was a pair of blast doors, sealed. ‘Is this where the Dreadnought is held?’ asked Sennon, walking towards the doors.
‘It is,’ replied the Imperial Fist. ‘We have no business there. Daenyathos, if it truly is he, will be dealt with separately when the judgement has been pronounced.’
‘To think of it,’ said Sennon. ‘He must be six thousand years old. He fought at Terra, you know, during the Wars of Apostasy. To us a time of legends, to him, living memory.’
‘Past deeds mean nothing when corruption rules the present,’ said the Imperial Fist. ‘Brother Sennon, we must leave.’
Sennon was right in front of the blast doors now. He placed a hand against them, as if feeling for a heartbeat. ‘Just a moment more,’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’
Sennon turned back towards the Imperial Fists, a smile on his face like that of a saint rendered in stained glass. He seemed about to speak again, and then Brother Sennon exploded.
The court was full, all the Space Marines in attendance to witness the condemnation of Sarpedon. After him the rest of the Soul Drinkers would be filed through here to receive their death sentences, but it was Sarpedon’s that really counted. In the eyes of those who wanted vengeance against them, Sarpedon was the Soul Drinkers, and his fate fell on them all.
Reinez stood, arms folded, waiting for the sentence as if he were in attendance as executioner. It was more likely that Captain Lysander would do the deed, standing as he was beside the pulpit with his hammer in his hand. Commander Gethsemar wore his weeping mask again, perhaps to remember the Space Marines who had died at Soul Drinker hands. N’Kalo wore his helmet again – presumably it had been hammered back into shape in the forges of the Phalanx, and N’Kalo’s twice-ruined face was hidden once more. Chapter Master Vladimir stood among the Imperial Fists, ready to pronounce his findings.
‘The accused will take to the pulpit,’ said Vladimir.
Sarpedon did as he was told. If there had been a time to fight back, save for the ill-fated lashing out in the Apothecarion, then it had long since passed. It would serve no purpose, either. He had no particular hate for the Space Marines who had gathered here to see him killed. He had been like them once, except perhaps a little more prideful, a little more arrogant. He did not even hate Reinez. A moment of pity, perhaps, but not hate.
‘Sarpedon of the Soul Drinkers,’ began Vladimir. ‘Words have been said for and against your conduct. The evidence gathered has been examined with criticism as well as zeal. I am confident that honour and tradition have been served in every action of this court, and that the conclusions we draw are true and just before the sight of Rogal Dorn and the Emperor Most High.’
‘May I speak?’ said Sarpedon.
‘Speak if you will,’ said Vladimir, ‘but our conclusions have been arrived at, and need only pronouncement. Your words will mean nothing.’
‘My gratitude, Lord Justice,’ said Sarpedon. ‘Space Marines, I call you brothers, though I know you think yourselves no brothers of mine. When I turned on Chapter Master Gorgoleon and took command of my Chapter, I did it because I saw in us a terrible corruption. Not the corruption of the warp, nor some darkness of the xenos, but a very human corruption of the soul. We believed ourselves to be superior, to be the shepherds of the human race, for we were ordained within the priesthood of Terra with the role of watchdogs and executioners. Yet that priesthood, and the Imperium it ruled, were the true enemy. For every human killed or made to suffer by the predations of the warp or the alien, a billion more are dealt the same fate by the Imperium. The Emperor is just a hollow figurehead now, an excuse for the cruelty the Imperium inflicts, yet when He walked among us He strove for the safety and glory of every man and woman. Would you have me grovel and beg for forgiveness, for leading my Chapter to do the will of the Emperor when it conflicted with the malice of the Imperium? The death of every Space Marine weighs on me. The Howling Griffons and Crimson Fists who died in our conflicts I feel as sharply as the deaths of my own brothers. But I will not say that I am sorry. I have done nothing wrong. And if the story of the Soul Drinkers causes any one of you to doubt the right of the Imperium to oppress and murder the Emperor’s faithful, then our deaths will not have been in vain.’
Reinez met Sarpedon’s words with sarcastic applause, slow hand claps that echoed in the Observatory of Dornian Majesty. Everyone else was silent.
‘Then I pronounce on you the sentence of death,’ said Vladimir, ‘to be administered by the Imperial Fists swiftly, as befits the death of another Space Marine, and the striking of the name Sarpedon and those of all the Soul Drinkers from any bonds of oath or honour. To carry out this sentence I appoint Captain Lysander as executioner and Apothecary Asclephin as overseer. Sarpedon, you will be taken from this place to the Chapel of Martyrs where you will be killed, your body incinerated and any remains jettisoned into space. Your battle-brothers will follow. That is the pronouncement of this court.’
Sarpedon bowed his head. It was as good as he could have expected.
A stirring in the assembled Space Marines broke his train of thought. Several of them were looking upwards, through t
he dome. The smeared lights of the Veiled Region silhouetted a form approaching rapidly – a spaceship, smaller by magnitudes than the Phalanx, its engines burning full thrust as it hurtled right towards the dome.
Fire spat towards it. The automated turrets of the Phalanx had activated in time and the shape exploded in the brief burst of flame that was sucked away by the vacuum a split second later. But the ship was not vaporised, merely blown apart, and a chunk of its hull still spun on its original course towards the dome.
‘The pilgrim ship,’ said Lysander. ‘Close the dome!’
The dome was protected by armour plates that began to close like the lids of a huge circular eye, but every Space Marine could see it would not close fast enough.
‘Everyone out!’ yelled Vladimir. ‘We are betrayed! Enemies abound! Brothers, flee this place!’
‘The condemned seeks vengeance!’ shouted Reinez over the growing commotion as the Space Marines left their seats and headed for the exits, the burning mass of the pilgrim ship’s hull looming larger through the dome. ‘His allies want to take us with him! I will not flee while this traitor yet lives!’
‘Damnation, Reinez!’ yelled Lysander. ‘Get–’
The hull segment crashed into the dome. The armoured shutters were halfway closed when it hit. The dome shattered, shards of thick armoured glass falling like knives. The air boomed out and a terrible half-silence fell, the shrieking of metal and the howling of flame muffled as if coming from beneath the earth.
Sarpedon’s augmented lungs closed his windpipes to preserve what air he had in his body. The disaster unfolded around him in slow motion. Space Marines were diving for cover from the chunks of burning metal raining down. In surreal slow motion, one Imperial Fist lost his leg at the knee, sheared off by a shard of the dome. Another, along with a Howling Griffon, disappeared under a torrent of twisted steel and fire. Space Marines were thrown aside as Vladimir’s honour guard fought to force him through the doors. Gethsemar’s Angels Sanguine leapt from the seats out through the entrances on the exhaust plumes of their jump packs.
Hammer and Bolter Year One Page 80
