Trial by Blood

by Andy Smillie

  ‘Kill until killed. Leave none alive.’

  Appollus watched them go, surprised by how much effort it took not to follow them. He ached to join the Death Company in slaughter. The Brotherhood had wrought a terrible injustice upon him, and he vowed he would see it drowned from his memory by a river of their blood. But he had gleaned more than his brothers’ location from Amun’s mind, and he had another task to attend to first.

  The cavern was immense. The largest by far that Appollus had encountered. Banks of luminators hung on racks of chain, suspended from the ore-rich rock of the ceiling. Plasteel panels had been bolted down over the rock of the floor to create something resembling a functioning hangar. Rusted supply crates were heaped in small clusters around the walls. At the far end of the chamber, an antiquated Stormbird drop-ship sat locked to the deck. Its oil-black flanks were polished clean of insignia. The armour on one of its wings had been peeled back, exposing the plasteel frame beneath. Fuel cables and pressure hoses hugged its sides like creeper-vines. Beyond it, a flickering energy shield kept out the infinite void.

  Appollus stared through the electro-haze of the shield. The surface of the asteroid stretched as far as he could see, a pitted landscape of undulating rock and trenched gullies. If what he’d learned from Amun was correct, the damaged Stormbird was the only transport off this rock.

  Shouldering his stolen lasgun, he moved towards the drop-ship. The weapon was lighter than he was used to, like a child’s toy compared to the reassuring weight of his bolter. The lasgun followed his eyes as he scanned for targets. A trio of Brotherhood cultists rounded the Stormbird. Appollus fired, killing them without breaking stride. He ground his teeth. He missed the reassuring bark of his boltgun; the clinical snap of the lasgun was far removed from the visceral booming of mass-reactive rounds.

  Klaxons screamed from what sounded like every surface. Strobing red light filled the cavern and cast wicked shadows among the rock. The resounding thud of booted feet warned Appollus of threats to his left and rear. The Brotherhood were spilling into the chamber from every angle.

  He snarled as weapons fire began competing with the klaxons, las-rounds cutting the air around him. Firing in blazing streams on full-auto, Appollus cut down the forerunners. He grinned darkly as the familiar tang of blood filled the air, and continued moving towards the drop-ship. The remaining Brotherhood approached with more caution, ducking back behind what little cover they could find. He counted at least sixty of them as he panned his weapon around, slamming in a spare powercell as the charge counter flashed empty.

  To his left, an arm reached up to throw a grenade. He shot it off at the elbow. Its owner cried out an instant before the explosive detonated. Gobbets of flesh and bloodied robe fountained into the air. Fifty-seven. Appollus updated his mental tally as he ducked under the tangle of fuel feeds.

  The Brotherhood stopped firing.

  Appollus used the moment’s respite to assess his options. The Brotherhood had formed a firing perimeter. A few had unsheathed blades and were edging towards him. He smiled. They were waiting for him to break for the Stormbird, but he had never had any intention of boarding the vessel.

  Appollus opened the intake valve in the nearest fuel hose and lifted the locking catch. Choking promethium vapour wafted out, forcing a cough from his lungs. Appollus ejected the powercell from his lasgun and struck it hard with the hilt of his knife.

  ‘He is my shield.’

  Appollus dropped the sparking energy cell into the fuel pipe and ran. He ran with all the speed his enhanced physiology could muster. He ran like a man racing to the side of imperilled loved ones. He ran in the only direction the Brotherhood hadn’t refused him. He ran towards the energy barrier.

  Shutting his eyes to protect them from the shield’s glare, Appollus threw himself through the barrier and out into the void.

  Less than a heartbeat later, the Stormbird detonated, the promethium in its fuel tanks exploding outwards in a halo of fire.

  Too late, the Brotherhood realised what Appollus had done.

  The nearest of them were incinerated in the initial blast, vaporised where they stood. The others fled as best they could. Flaming shrapnel chased them across the chamber, tearing through flesh and bone with all the care of a maddened butcher.

  Appollus watched as the rolling carpet of flame pushed out through the energy shield and vanished, its ire stolen by the airless void. He followed the fire’s retreat, diving back through the barrier and rolling to his feet.

  Shards of burning metal littered the chamber. The broken and torn corpses of dozens of Brotherhood cultists were strewn about like discarded dolls. Some of the traitors were still screaming, thrashing around as their faceplates seared their skin, the thin metal superheated by the blast. The smell of cooked blood hung in the air, as tangible as the ground beneath Appollus’s feet.

  Fire and the flickering, red light conspired to recreate the Hell described in ancient Terran myth. Appollus smiled as he strode through the carnage: that made him the Daevil.

  The remaining Brotherhood staggered from cover, their robes singed and ragged. They moved without purpose, staring at the smouldering wreck of the drop-ship, gripped by disbelief at what had transpired. Appollus paced towards them. Smoke drifted in wistful columns from his limbs, his void-frozen skin singed by the heat of the energy shield.

  A bleeding Crucio, his face knotted in confusion, glared at Appollus. ‘Fool. That was the only ship.’ The Crucio indicated a smouldering crater filled with tangled ceramite and plasteel plating. ‘You are trapped here with us.’ He spread his arms to indicate the rest of the Brotherhood who had recovered enough to ready their weapons. ‘When I’m done with you, all the pain you have suffered thus far in your miserable life will seem like an eternity of ecstasy. On your flesh I shall redefine the art of my sect. I will hear you beg for death, Chaplain.’

  ‘No, heretic.’ Appollus stopped ten paces from the nearest cultist. He took a breath and looked down at the knife in his hand. Pulling back his broad shoulders, he straightened to his full height and raised his knife towards the Crucio. ‘You are mistaken.’

  At the rear of the chamber, a lift rattled and bucked to a stop, its iron grate swinging open.

  ‘It is you who are trapped here with us.’

  The Crucio looked over his shoulder.

  Behind him, Zakiel, Xaphan, Herchel and Ziel paced into the cavern, bloodied blades grasped white-knuckle tight in their murderous hands.

  Appollus smelled the torturer’s fear and smiled.

  ‘Fear not, torturer,’ Appollus snarled. ‘You will not have time to beg.’

  death’s shepherd

  Four hundred million lie dead.

  The world reeks of blood.

  I can smell it over the ash-rich fires that light the horizon, over the putrid stench of the dead. It permeates the stale musk of the still-living, the last of the Zurconian Regulars who are gathered around me, poised for one final charge. Like a murderous siren it calls me back to war. My pulse speeds with every breath. I inhale the copper tang of a world soaked in arterial fluid, relishing it like a starving man might savour a meal. It has been almost an hour since I killed.

  ‘Children of the Emperor.’

  I turn to face the Regulars. Their breath fogs the night air as they summon their courage, hearts thumping in their chests. The Guardsmen no longer resemble the soldiers I had joined a year ago. The fire in their eyes is no longer born of hope. Instead, it is a murderous ember, flickering with malice. The freshly spilled blood daubed on their faces, echoing the Chapter symbol adorning my pauldron, is neither their own nor the enemy’s. When the rations were exhausted, I had only been prepared to lead the strong.

  ‘Sons of Zurcon.’

  Starved of ammunition, the Regulars wield their lasguns like clubs. Most have fixed knives and blades to the barrels, binding them with boot laces, webbing and belts stripped from the dead. Others clutch farming implements and improvised weapons. I move to sta
nd at their head, and raise my crozius to the sky. The heavens are as coal-black as my armour, the light from the neighbouring stars secreted behind kilometres of choking cinder, a blanket of darkness thrown up by the magma warheads and apocalypse missiles used to prosecute this war.

  ‘My battle-brothers.’

  Behind my skull helm, I grimace. The Zurconians are not of the Blood. They are not Flesh Tearers. They are no more my brothers than the enemy we face. It is a necessary lie. Courage will grant them far more protection than any flak-vest. It will keep them advancing when instinct screams at them to retreat. General and standard bearer. Warlord and preacher. I am both shepherd and slaughter master. Where I lead, few will survive, and so I armour them with falsehood.

  ‘Today, you redeem your world in the eyes of the Emperor.’

  Downhill, across the plateau, a war-ravaged expanse of agri-soil scarred by artillery and churned to mulch by blood-stained boots, the Zurconian Royals are spread out before us. Heretics, mistaken in their belief that the old families deserved to rule in place of the Emperor-appointed governor. Trench lines, dugouts and gun pits cut across the landscape like a tortured mosaic. Piles of our dead pave a way through the minefields and razorwire. I smile. War is the greatest of all levellers, granting even the weak and the dying a chance to serve their Emperor. The previous dawn, I marched our wounded downhill to draw out the enemy positions and waste their ammunition. By my estimate, less than two hundred souls stood before us, only a fraction of which still had rounds for their weapons. The battle will not last long.

  ‘Today, you will prove yourselves worthy of a freedom bought with Cretacian blood.’

  Centuries ago, Master Amit expunged the taint of the Archenemy and liberated the Zurcon system. Yet the nobles of the royal houses had chosen to repay our sacrifice with treachery. It was an error none of Zurconian blood would live to regret.

  ‘Bring them death!’

  I charge. The fifty remaining Zurconian Regulars echo my roar and break into a run. It will take us three minutes to reach the trench line. Pinpricks of light stab towards us as the enemy open fire. Two men scream as they are cut down.

  ‘Spread out,’ I growl.

  The Royals are battle-hardened. These are ranging shots, an attempt to find us in the darkness. They will save what remains of their solid-shot ammunition until we are close. Las-fire patters over my armour, as ineffectual as rainwater. I continue onwards, counting muzzle flashes, sprinting towards the largest concentration of enemy. My helm’s autosenses dim, protecting my eyes from the sudden bursts of light as the Royals open up with heavy bolters and autocannons. The ground churns up around me, whipped into the air by explosive rounds. The Regulars are dying. Their anguished cries compete with the bark of gunfire as they are torn apart, blasted to fleshy gobbets by high-calibre shells. A burst of rounds slam into my breastplate and pauldron, spinning me to the ground.

  ‘Kill until killed!’ I roar as I recover my footing. The attack must not falter.

  An instant later I am among the trenches. I am fury is my only thought as I kill a Royal, crushing his head between my elbow and the trench wall. I kill another, driving my fist through his chest. Another dies to my crozius, his torso shorn in half by an upwards blow. I grin as bone snaps and men scream. Gore splatters my armour, pooling in the lacerations and bullet holes, cleansing me of war’s touch. I kill and I kill, cutting and bludgeoning, snarling in the torturous moments between kills.

  Seven minutes. Seven short minutes and I am forced to stop. Forced to slow my pulse, to drive the rage from my veins. The enemy are dead.

  Three of the Regulars remain: Troopers Cesan and Booy, and Sergeant Artair. They stumble towards me, exhausted. They are all that remains of Zurconian blood.

  ‘We are saved,’ Cesan mutters, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  I growl. I am no saviour. I am a destroyer.

  I smash my crozius into the side of Cesan’s head. His skull bursts under the impact, showering Booy in clumps of brain matter. My reverse stroke kills him before he can react. Sergeant Artair drops to his knees.

  ‘W… why?’ he croaks, his voice as frail as his ruined body.

  ‘Why?’ I bark, lifting him up by his neck so that his face is level with my helm. ‘A man who sins in ignorance is twice damned, a fool who lacks the strength of mind to determine his own fate. I came here to honour Amit’s victory and remind you of the debt you owe the Emperor. Yet I find you have squandered your freedom and become weak with opulence. You have allowed the proud and the corrupt to take hold of your world.’

  ‘But we… we have won. We have taken vengeance on the Royals as you said we would.’

  He is right. The Royals are dead. All of them. But vengeance, vengeance was never enough. I remove my skull helm, letting the terror in his eyes find the hatred in mine.

  ‘I am wrath,’ I snarl as I tear out his heart.

  immortalis

  I am dying. But this is not my first death. I have died twice before.

  Blood. Blood was everywhere. It coated my armour like a second skin and hid the serrate symbol of my Chapter. It clogged the blunted teeth of my chainsword, silencing its adamantium roar. My brothers’ weapons had fallen silent too, their wrath extinguished on the bodies of the enemy. The greenskins lay waist high, a torn wall of corpses heaped around gore-filled craters. They had met us head-on, braying like maddened hounds as their crude weapons barked in their hands.

  But they knew nothing of true fury. Nothing of the bloodlust that drives all sons of Sanguinius to war.

  My own blood still thrummed in my veins, burning like the smouldering husks of the ork war-engines that studded the plain. A cloud of battle-rage hung over me, boiling my brain. Untempered anger wrenched a growl from my lips, demanding I kill again.

  I obeyed without pause, slaying the nearest human in a heartbeat. The sodden plates of his carapace crumpled under a hammer blow of my sword. His body broke and tumbled. The pulse in my head quickened like a gleeful child as I slew another Guardsman. I killed another, then another and another. Humans die all too easily, I thirsted for righteous murder. Discarding my weapons, I began to bludgeon the fleeing weaklings with my gauntleted fists. Ignoring the beads of desperate las-fire that stung my armour, I wrapped my fingers around a head and squeezed. The tang of blood was like ambrosia. I bathed in the smell, relishing death’s visceral facet.

  Something hard thundered into my helm. I felt my jaw snap. My vision swam. I stumbled, falling as I was struck again.

  I had long believed that in death, darkness would claim me. Instead, I awoke to find that I was the darkness.

  Clad in night-black armour, I stood mag-locked in place, trapped in a plummeting drop pod. Red saltires daubed my pauldrons and greaves, marking me out as one of the damned. A polished Chapter symbol was the only sign that I had once stood among the Flesh Tearers. Nine of my new brothers were with me. Their optics slashed crimson holes in the gloom. They growled in sympathy with the rumbling drop pod. A vicious snarl guttered from my own throat, a bestial noise I did not recognise. I felt my muscles bulge beneath my armour, swelling with the urge to rend, to maim, to kill. The altimeter above my head spun down towards zero. For an instant I saw it spin in reverse, counting upwards. Faster and faster, it tallied the lives I had taken and those I surely would.

  The pod shuddered as its ferrite petals slammed to the earth. Released from my bonds, I rushed forwards, driven by my thundering hearts, down the ramp and out into the jagged light of battle.

  The enemy were everywhere. Lithe warriors in porcelain armour fought with swords that crackled with azure lightning. Others, in thicker, segmented battleplate as dark as my own, fired explosive volleys into the distance. The porcelain aliens shrieked a battle-cry and charged towards us. I snarled, hatred bursting from my throat in rumbling waves. I could smell their fear, taste their dread at our arrival, and hear the weak thrum of their alien hearts. My sword arm rose and fell, rose and fell, possessed of its own murderous m
ind as I cut and hacked with a vigour I had never known. Orphaned limbs and broken torsos rained against me like a fleshy storm as I ripped through their ranks. My wrath was unceasing. They would all die. I would kill them. I–

  Blood. Blood pooled in my mouth as a crackling sword speared my primary heart.

  Darkness took me. Yet I was not dead. I was reborn, gifted a new life as death incarnate.

  Tortured fragments seared my mind as I awoke entombed. Nightmare remembrances of neural drills, bonesaws and sacs of bio-fluid that had hung above me like a puppet’s strings. The Chapter’s Sanguinary Priests and Techmarines had interred me within the adamantium womb of a Dreadnought. A burning memory haunted me, the impotent horror I’d felt while strapped to their workbench. I screamed. A metallic roar sounded in place of my voice. My mortal form was shattered, my vocal cords long since atrophied. My world had been reduced to snatches of data bundles, fed to my brain through the sarcophagus’s sensoria. My actions were left to the interpretation of consecrated machine-levers and vox-amplifiers. I screamed again, smiling as I listened to the distorted roar.

  I was steel and I was wrath, and nothing more.

  A thousand klaxons wailed. Their incessant screeching roused my ire, drawing me from my slumber to a vaulted corridor. The broken bodies of Flesh Tearers and the savaged remains of human auxiliaries coated the floor in a sickly flesh-paste. Weapons fire thundered from every possible direction. I growled in response, slamming the massive power fists attached to my adamantium torso into the wall. I powered into an adjoining corridor, crushing the protruding vertebrae of a dozen creatures beneath the ridged plates of my feet. I roared, elated, as my audio-receptors replayed the snap of xenos spines, looping the sound into my cortex. A fresh horde of creatures leapt towards me. I caught one in my fist and pulped it with a thought, while flame spat from my other, washing away the rest of the brood and cleansing the corridor of their sickening taint.