Trial by Blood

by Andy Smillie

  His visitor was neither.

  ‘You hold secrets, Chaplain.’ This time it was the second visitor who spoke. His voice was deeper than that of the first, and he struggled over the words as though unused to making their sounds. He bent down as he spoke, holding a long blade so that Appollus could see its blood-encrusted barbs. ‘Secrets that our master would know.’

  The man wore the mauve robes of the Brotherhood, though he wore no mask. Instead, the skin of his face had been dyed oil-black. Gleaming slivers of glass sat where his eyes should have been, sparkling even in the low-light of the chamber.

  Fratris Crucio.

  Appollus recognised his visitor from the numerous engagement reports and after-action accounts he’d studied. The Brotherhood’s master interrogators were infamous throughout the Khandax warzone. Tales of their atrocities drifted from foxhole to foxhole, hushed whispers that crept along the trench line. Fratris Crucio, a byword for terror. Storm-coated officers of the Commissariat had adopted the stories as their own. It kept the men of the Imperial Guard fearful, alert; vigilance along the watch-line absolute. To be captured by them was to suffer a fate far worse than simple death.

  Appollus spat in the torturer’s face.

  The man tumbled back screaming, clawing at his face as the acid saliva burned away his flesh. His companion knelt down over him but did nothing to ease his torment, simply inclining his head and watching as the acid ate into his brethren’s eyes.

  ‘Your strength will not serve you,’ the torturer said finally, picking up the fallen blade and pushing it into Appollus’s ribs. ‘It will not last.’

  The pain was excruciating but Appollus did not cry out.

  It was the least of his worries. Pain was temporary, ended by absolution or death; a slight inflicted upon his body and no more. But what the pain stirred in him – the anger, the bloodlust – that was terror. It thundered in his veins, threatening to drown his organs in a tide of red and rage. He would not allow himself to succumb to the curse; such a fate had no end.

  Appollus closed off his mind from the pain. He pictured the High Basilica back on Cretacia, his Chapter’s home world. Tens of thousands of candles burned along the stone edges of the basilica’s aisles. One flickering memorial for each Flesh Tearer who had donned the black armour of death. The red of the candle wax was used to seal the saltires and affix the litany parchments to the armour of every new Death Company Space Marine. As a novitiate in the Chaplaincy, Appollus had spent years tending to the candles as he recited the catechism of observance; a decade-long mass that armoured his mind and allowed him to walk among the damned of his Chapter, untouched by their madness.

  He lost himself in the memory, beginning anew the observance as his torturers continued to violate his flesh.

  ‘He has said nothing, lord. He will not speak.’ The Crucio bowed as he entered the chamber, keeping his eyes fixed on the black curvature of his master’s armoured feet.

  Abasi Amun, encased in full battleplate, sat on an immense throne wrought from the ore-rich stone of the cavern around him. He was still, unmoving, like a sculpture stolen from the grand halls of a monarch.

  ‘Nothing?’ Abasi Amun’s voice rumbled around the cavern. The metallic resonance of his helmet’s vox-caster sounded machine-harsh in the enclosed space.

  ‘He does not scream, lord.’

  ‘Then you have failed me,’ Amun said, standing.

  ‘No, no. Perhaps…’ the Crucio stammered, his mouth dry with fear. ‘Perhaps he knows nothing.’

  Amun shot forwards in a heartbeat, flowing like black water across the chamber’s expanse to lift the torturer by his neck. The Crucio gasped, his hands grasping in vain at Amun’s gauntlet.

  ‘He hides something, a truth.’ With a flick of his wrist, Amun snapped the Crucio’s neck. ‘I sensed it on the battlefield, he keeps something from us,’ Amun continued, talking to the limp corpse in his hand. ‘I will know his secret.’

  Amun brought the corpse closer and whispered. ‘I will know.’

  Pain. Appollus awoke with a start, expecting the sharp kiss of a blade or the cruel attentions of a neural flail. There was no trace of either. A lone figure stood before him, cloaked in shadow. The jagged light from the oil burners seemed to avoid the figure, flickering around the edges of his form but never quite illuminating him.

  Appollus bared his teeth in a growl. He needn’t see his enemy to know him. He could hear the figure’s twin hearts thump like an indomitable engine in his chest. The shadow before him was an Adeptus Astartes. Greatest among traitors, a true pawn of the Archenemy. A Chaos Space Marine.

  Blood rushed to Appollus’s muscles as he tensed against his restraints. The hatred locked into his genetic code willed him to rend the figure apart, to strike him dead. He bit down a growl. There was something else, something more. It clawed at his mind like a burrowing rodent. He could smell it. Hiding among the pungent, oleaginous balms the Traitor Marine used to maintain his armour was the foul, corrupting stench of the warp.

  ‘Psyker,’ Appollus snarled.

  ‘You are observant, for a puppet of a false god.’ The Chaos Space Marine paced forwards, throwing off the shadows the way a man might remove a cowl. ‘Where you look only to the blood of your crippled father for strength, I have embraced the power of the great Changer.’ The Traitor Marine flexed his arms. ‘His limitless majesty feeds my veins.’

  The warrior’s power armour was mirror-black, its edges rounded and its surface polished to an impossible sheen. Yet it reflected nothing of the chamber. Its smooth plates were devoid of Chapter insignia and symbols of loyalty. Appollus averted his gaze. The armour was hard to look upon. It was at once dark and formless, yet as solid as the rock walls surrounding them.

  Appollus looked again; he had seen its like before. ‘You were there, in battle.’

  The Traitor Marine dipped his head in mock deference. ‘I am Abasi Amun. How should I address you, Chaplain?’

  Appollus looked up at Amun’s breastplate, surprised to now see his reflection staring back at him, though the tortured figure he looked upon bore little resemblance to how he had last seen himself.

  The Crucio had been studious in their work.

  The master torturers had administered a potent mix of toxins that had retarded his Larraman’s organ and prevented his body from healing as it otherwise might. Hundreds of deep lacerations and patches of dark bruises covered his body. Several layers of skin had been shaved away from his abdomen, exposing the dermis. His face was gaunt, sapped of its chiselled sternness. Appollus met his own gaze, looked deep into his own eyes. They burned back at him with fierce intensity, reminding him of what he already knew – he would never break.

  Appollus focused on the darkness of Amun’s helm. ‘Have you come seeking repentance, traitor?’

  Amun laughed, a booming sound, incongruous with his subtle, insubstantial presence.

  ‘My Crucio have broken many of your kind. But you, you defy me still. So close to death and yet you will part with none of your secrets.’ Amun moved behind Appollus. The pressure seals around his gorget gave a popping hiss as he unclasped his helm.

  ‘If your body will not give me the truths I seek, then I shall take them from your mind.’

  Appollus snarled, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite him. ‘I warn you, traitor. To know my secret, is to forfeit your life.’

  Amun grabbed Appollus, his gauntleted fingers a vice around the Chaplain’s throat.

  ‘You are in no position to make threats, Chaplain.’ Amun relaxed his grip. ‘Save your piety. These are the final moments of your existence.’ Amun removed his gauntlets as he spoke. ‘I will find my answers. I will offer up your soul to my master and leave your body to rot, like the kingdom of your father.’

  Amun’s eyes crackled with eldritch lightning that leapt to his outstretched palms. He curled his fingers back. The energy coalesced into a flickering ball of white fire. The temperature dropped below zero as Amun muttered a prayer in an inh
uman tongue. Blood ran from Appollus’s orifices as frost began to rime his limbs.

  ‘I know… no fear,’ Appollus muttered, forcing his tongue to work through the viscous fluid filling his mouth.

  The fireball drifted from Amun into Appollus’s torso, breaking into a fulgurant web that coursed over his flesh then vanished beneath it.

  Appollus screamed.

  Amun ripped into Appollus’s mind. In an agonising instant, the mental barriers that had taken the Chaplain decades to erect were torn asunder. His way unbarred, Amun proceeded with more care. Haste or disregard would leave Appollus a dribbling husk, his mind ruined and his secrets lost forever.

  The chains binding Appollus rattled like weapons fire as his body jerked. His skin rippled like water as half-clotted blood slid in thick clumps from his nostrils.

  Amun cut deeper. He peeled away the surface thoughts that floated in Appollus’s conscious mind and prised apart the lies of memory. Blood ran from the Chaplain’s lips as they gave voice to a near constant stream.

  Alone in the inner reaches of Appollus’s mind, Amun snarled. The Flesh Tearer was close to death, but the truth still eluded him. Abandoning his earlier care, Amun burned to the Chaplain’s essence. He would know, he must.

  ‘There…’ Amun’s mortal body mouthed the word as his psychic tendrils found the truth he had been searching for.

  Even as he touched upon it, Amun knew he had made a mistake. The Chaplain had no knowledge of the wider Imperial forces, he knew nothing of troop dispersments or defence plans. His secret was far more potent, far deadlier. He concealed a rage, wrath in its purest form. A burning halo of fire that wrapped around his soul like a serpent. Amun tried to run, to withdraw his mind back to the safety of his body. But it was too late. The Rage had found a new home, a new vessel to enact its bloody will, and it would not be denied its prize.

  Abasi Amun screamed.

  The door swung open. Two of the Brotherhood burst in, their lasguns trained on Appollus.

  ‘Lord Amun…’

  Abasi roared and ran at the guards, knocking them to the floor. A panicked lasgun-round scored Appollus’s thigh. Another clipped his bonds, burning a deep score in the metal links.

  The guards screamed in desperate horror as Amun set about them. He was a starved creature, a cornered beast hunched on all fours. He growled, low and feral as he ripped the two cultists apart with his bare hands and sank his teeth into their flesh.

  ‘While I breathe, I am wrath.’ Appollus snarled with effort as he snapped the bonds holding his wrists and swung up to break the chains around his ankles. His shoulder crunched like split kindling as he hit the ground.

  Amun rounded on him, saliva and bloodied flesh-chunks dripping from his mouth.

  In full battleplate, the sorcerer was more than a match for the naked and battered Appollus. But under the Rage’s thrall, the Traitor Marine was frenzied, uncoordinated. Appollus had fought among such warriors for longer than most men lived. He could read Amun’s strikes before the warrior threw them.

  Slipping a right hook, Appollus spun the lengths of loose chain dangling from his wrists around his fists, and punched Amun in the face. Blood fountained from his ruined nose, spraying Appollus’s face crimson.

  The Chaos Space Marine struck back with a flurry of reaching swipes. Appollus rode their momentum, absorbing their impact on his arms, though a shooting pain told of a fractured humerus. He snarled, stepping inside Amun’s guard to deliver an uppercut. The sorcerer’s head jerked backwards. Appollus followed it, landing two consecutive blows, before grabbing the back of Amun’s head and pulling him into a head-butt.

  Amun roared as he staggered backwards, lashing out with his foot at Appollus’s legs.

  The ceramite boot cracked Appollus’s shin and knocked him to the floor. The Chaplain rolled to his feet, limping to keep the weight from his damaged leg and cursing himself for getting too close. He couldn’t afford to be careless, he had to keep his own bloodlust in check.

  Amun growled as he regained his footing, a stream of saliva washing from his mouth to hiss on the chamber floor. The smell of Appollus’s blood was like a knife in his brain. He needed to taste it, to devour the marrow in the Chaplain’s bones, to savour every last scrap of his flesh. Roaring, Amun charged.

  Pain ran like molten steel in Appollus’s veins as he darted forwards, turning around Amun to loop his shackles over the Chaos Space Marine’s throat. The movement brought him around and onto Amun’s back. He forced the chains tight, his arms burning with the effort as Amun fought to buck him.

  Amun dropped to one knee, a gurgling roar dying in his throat as his windpipe collapsed. He thrashed at Appollus in a mix of panic and rage as the beast within him struggled against death.

  ‘Die, traitor.’ The words ground from between Appollus’s bloodied teeth as he wrenched Amun’s head from his shoulders.

  Even in death, Amun’s body continued to fight, his adrenaline-soaked limbs twitching in denial as his corpse shivered on the ground.

  ‘Your place is at our enemy’s throat.’

  Luciferus’s words resurfaced in Appollus’s mind as he watched Amun grind against the stone of the floor in the last spasms of his death throes.

  ‘Your blood be cursed,’ Appollus snarled, bending to retrieve Amun’s blade. He would speak with the vulpine Librarian when next they crossed paths.

  Coated in blood, both the traitor’s and his own, Appollus was reminded of the crimson armour he’d donned before his ordination. ‘In blood we are one. Immortal, while one remains to bleed.’ Using his teeth to scrape a finger clean, Appollus guided a bead of saliva around his chest, burning the toothed-blade symbol of his Chapter into his breast.

  The iron lift rattled to a stop with a sharp grinding of gears. Appollus threw open the mesh door and stepped into the corridor, leaving the crumpled bodies of two Brotherhood to bleed out behind him. He felt his pulse quicken as he thought of the moment his fingers had closed around the first’s aorta, and remembered the satisfying snap of the second’s neck. They were the third patrol he’d come across since his escape. He hoped they would not be the last.

  ‘His blood is strength.’ Appollus mouthed the axiom as he stalked, a little unsteady on his feet, along the corridor. The exertion of his escape had forced the bulk of the Crucio’s toxins from his system, adrenaline washing through him like a cleansing fire; dark scabs of crusted blood covered his torso where his flesh had begun knitting itself back together. But he still ached to his bones; a pungent sweat clothing his body.

  Appollus touched a hand to his head, rubbing his skin-starved knuckles into his temples. The psyker’s touch still lingered in that pain. But pain wasn’t the only thing Amun had left him with. As he fought to stave off the Rage, the Chaos Space Marine had been careless. In his panic, he had let his surface thoughts spill out; a tumultuous wave of half-formed images that had bombarded Appollus’s untrained mind. The psychic noise had been like harsh bursts of static filtered through a howling gale. Yet Appollus had done more than hold on to his sanity. With iron-willed devotion and unyielding resolve, he had focused on his duty, on his brothers.

  Appollus stopped as he reached a bend in the corridor, recognising every glint of ore in the wall ahead. Zakiel, Xaphan, Herchel and Ziel; the four Death Company were alive. If what he’d gleaned from Amun’s mind was true then they were languishing in a cell at the end of the corridor. He pressed his back against the wall, feeling his muscles tense as the sharp rock tore into his skin, and listened.

  There were two of the Brotherhood patrolling the corridor. Appollus ground his teeth, feeling his anger grow with every thump of their traitorous hearts. He listened to the fall of their booted feet, to the clack of their weapons as they swung loose on straps. His pulse raced as the stink of their unwashed flesh drifted to his nostrils. A red mist mustered behind his eyes. A tremor passed through his hands, forcing his fists into balls of sinew. The urge to kill was great. He looked down at the Chapter symbol o
n his breast as he waited and let out a slow breath of calm. Rage was not yet his master.

  He waited. He counted. Focusing on the guards’ footsteps, he waited until the distance was right.

  ‘I am death!’ Appollus rounded the corner and threw his knife into the chest of the nearest of them. Running, he caught the body on his shoulder before it fell, and charged towards the second. The man spun round, startled, sweeping up his lasgun and opening fire. Appollus felt his corpse-shield shudder as a half dozen rounds cut into it, and snarled as a round sliced the flesh from his bicep. A second later he barrelled into the guard, tackling him to the ground. Appollus recovered first, pinning the cultist beneath him and thundering a fist into his face. He hit him again and again, deaf to the cracking of bone and ignorant of the visceral lumps of brain matter that dripped from under the cultist’s mask. Only when his fist struck rock, did Appollus stop.

  The reek of torture greeted Appollus as he entered the cell, hitting him as surely as any blow. He snarled in disgust, craving the air-filtering properties of his battle-helm. The four Death Company hung from the ceiling, chained in the same manner as he had been. He growled, angered by the extent the Crucio had violated their bodies. Ziel was in the worst state, the skin of his left forearm peeled back to reveal bone. Their eyes widened as he approached. They wanted to kill. Even over the stench he could smell their bloodlust. He wouldn’t keep them waiting. Raising the lasgun he’d stripped from the Brotherhood guards, he shot through their bonds.

  ‘Brothers.’ Appollus spread his arms. ‘I feel your thirst.’ He thrust an arm out, jabbing his blade towards the door, ‘The enemy are many, but they are flesh. We, are immortal lords of battle. We are wrath. We are death.’

  The Death Company growled, shaking their limbs loose, their fists opening and closing as they sought to rend.