Silver Skulls: Portents

by S P Cawkwell

  ‘Tools,’ said the Prognosticator. ‘So that is how you see us. Like Isara Gall. Like Curt Helbron.’ Inteus said the words quietly and received a cold stare from Callis in return.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, defying him to question her lack of empathy. ‘Just like them.’ Her demeanour did not soften in the slightest and she stared at the Prognosticator without any emotion evident in her expression. Inteus could not help but admire the core of strength in this tiny woman; a strength that had no doubt been the root of her success.

  Inteus’s gaze shifted to Nathaniel, the psyker’s teary, dirty face evidence that he at least had some compassion in his soul. He recalled that Isara had been Nathaniel’s sister and for a moment, allowed himself the brief luxury of touching the kind of grief he experienced whenever a battle-brother fell to the enemy.

  ‘Why was it you wanted Sergeant Ur’ten to carry out this task?’ Daviks’s question was cool with an undertone of menace that for the first time caused a look of unease to ripple across her face.

  ‘I got to know the sergeant reasonably well during the journey here,’ was her reply. ‘I admire his honesty and his integrity. I trust him not to be economical with the truth, though I do not intend that as a slight towards you, captain.’

  ‘Then you did not get to know him as well as you think,’ said Daviks. His voice, altered by the helm’s modulator, was grave. ‘He bears more hatred towards the cannibalistic Xiz than any other warrior I have ever known and for good reason. If you had asked this thing of him… the insult would have been infinitely greater than that which you have offered me or the Prognosticator.’

  He was rewarded with a sudden shift of the inquisitor’s posture. Her composure cracked for just a second as she considered the consequences of insulting a Space Marine to such a degree. Without any difficulty or hesitation, she regained that self-control. ‘Then I ask this of you instead, Captain Daviks.’

  ‘No.’ Daviks’s reply was quite certain, and Inteus laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘The captain is correct. He will not do this,’ the sandy-haired warrior said. The inquisitor looked at him, disappointment and contempt flickering in her eyes. Inteus cracked a slow, humourless smile.

  ‘I will.’

  Daviks’s reaction was hidden by his helm and he passed no further comment on the subject. ‘I am ordering the Eighth and Ninth to converge on the Celebrant’s Square outside the palace. It is defensible and with elements of the Imperial Guard in support, will act as a staging ground from which to sweep the city of any further resistance. It will also allow you access to the palace and the grounds beyond.’

  With that, he turned his back on the inquisitor and pointedly returned to the logistics of war.

  The rain was now pouring down in a relentless torrent, and rising winds whipped it into sheets that battered continuously against the armour of the Silver Skulls patrolling the inner city and blasted earthworks. They met little further resistance from the rebels, who were now a broken force. Those who had not died in the onslaught were corralled together and now huddled tightly against the elements while they awaited the inevitable interrogation.

  As Captain Daviks and his command moved off to secure the palace, the Talriktug, with Kerelan at their fore, rejoined Gileas and his squad. The sergeant was flattered to receive praise from the first captain for his efforts in securing the highway, but had not allowed that gratitude to show beyond a polite acknowledgement. Even the ever-critical Djul had been unable to find fault with Gileas’s prosecution of the orders.

  Much of the city was dark, the subterranean generators either sabotaged or simply offline, and the inky blackness was punctuated only by the glowing red eye-lenses of the Silver Skulls warriors, gleaming like hot coals. Gileas’s own eyesight pierced the gloom clearly, even without his helmet, which was still in the hands of the harried Techmarine.

  Beyond the walls, the chemical lights of the Astra Militarum burned strongly. The mood amongst the Guardsmen had shifted from that of impending defeat to one of cautious optimism, but they all knew that there was still much fighting ahead of them.

  ‘So. The Oracles of Change,’ rumbled Djul. ‘It has been some years since we found ourselves confronted by those traitorous cretins.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Kerelan, sheathing his massive relic blade and turning to the other warrior. ‘And I am sure that the force defeated at the gates here today is barely a fraction of their presence on this planet. They always travelled in great numbers before. I see no reason to believe that is any different now.’

  ‘Then why are they not here, facing their retribution?’ Djul turned to stare up at the palace in silence. The trailing string of skulls that he wore at his waist were jostled by the motion and rattled against one another as he moved. His usually spotless armour was scored and dented from the battle with the daemon engine.

  ‘We will face them soon enough, I am sure,’ said Vrakos, who was checking the functionality of his storm bolter. He racked the slide, ejected a shell and then manually reloaded it before sighting along the barrel. ‘And when we do, they will answer for their crimes here.’

  ‘It will be difficult to answer anything when I am through with them,’ retorted Djul. ‘Dead men tend to have very little to say for themselves.’

  Gileas listened to the fast-moving exchange between two of the Chapter’s heroes and took a strange sort of pride in the realisation that they all had far more in common than he might have thought. Kerelan’s eyes remained on the sergeant.

  ‘What do you know of the Oracles of Change, Brother-Sergeant Ur’ten?’

  Gileas thought for a moment, rifling through the comprehensive knowledge he carried in his mind until he isolated the specifics. ‘A band of itinerant sorcerers, most likely to have splintered from the Thousand Sons and made up of disparate rogue elements whose power is considered appropriate.’

  ‘A textbook answer,’ said Kerelan. ‘And exactly right. We – my brothers and I – fought against a band of them some time ago. They believed they had a lot more in common with us than we were comfortable with.’

  ‘First captain?’ Gileas’s nose wrinkled in distaste at the thought of sharing anything with a band of Chaos-tainted sorcerers.

  ‘The Oracles of Change put great stock in prophecy and foresight,’ said Kerelan. ‘As do we. Just as we consult our Prognosticators to interpret the Emperor’s will and decide on the right course of action, they do much the same with their heathen gods. They are unshakable in their beliefs. From what we learned, even the least of them has some psychic affinity and working in concert they present a formidable threat. We have… far fewer countermeasures at our disposal.’

  ‘We have our faith in the Emperor,’ replied Gileas instantly. ‘We have our martial prowess and we will drive them from this world back into the twisted embrace of the Eye. That or we will slaughter them all in the Emperor’s name.’ Kerelan nodded his head, approving of the sergeant’s heartfelt words.

  ‘I hope that is true, sergeant,’ he said. ‘But we will have to track them down first. They aren’t going to attack directly again, not now that they know we are powerful enough to defeat their monstrosities.’

  ‘Within the palace, do you suppose?’

  ‘Nowhere so obvious,’ replied Kerelan. ‘From what’s been observed, many have the ability to translocate themselves at will, blinking through the empyrean the way we might employ the technologies of teleportation. Their next strike will come from an unexpected quarter, for they prefer deception over confrontation. They…’

  ‘First Captain Kerelan, this is Captain Daviks.’ Kerelan nodded and responded to the voice on his vox.

  ‘Receiving you, captain.’

  ‘Prognosticator Inteus is gathering useful intelligence about the enemy. You may wish to be present.’

  ‘That is pretty disgusting. Really? They eat people’s brains?’

  The words w
ere spoken by one of the Guardsmen who was close enough to watch as Inteus hunkered down by one of the mangled corpses of the Oracles of Change. It had been a simple enough matter to strip the traitor of its ornate helm, which had been cast carelessly to the side. The face beneath was a scaled horror of twisted features, with eyes that were wide and staring in death. Prominent veins traced the contours of the dead warrior’s face making the pale, translucent skin seem blue and anaemic.

  The Apothecary who had been tending to Daviks stepped forward, taking out his reductor. A tool more commonly utilised for the sacred recovery of progenoids from fallen warriors, this was not its only purpose.

  ‘No,’ said Inteus. He held up a hand to halt the Apothecary. ‘Wait. We need to move the body somewhere less visible. Ritual should be observed, regardless of the location.’ He shot a glance at the Guardsmen who were watching him with interest. Both of them feigned immediate fascination with a point somewhere over Inteus’s right shoulder.

  The Prognosticator and Apothecary were able to lug the bulk of the Chaos Space Marine between them and they retreated to the relative seclusion of a burned-out Administratum building that flanked the Celebrant’s Square. The body was dropped without care on the ground and Inteus knelt, closing his eyes as he focused on the many words he had read on the use of his omophagea. Words were all he had. This was the first time the Prognosticator had been required to utilise the organ in the field of battle.

  Crouching alongside the Prognosticator, the Apothecary positioned the reductor at the Oracle’s temple. He engaged the mechanism and the razor-sharp spike shot through the flesh of the face and into the enemy’s skull, straight into the prefrontal cortex.

  Inteus watched as the Apothecary carefully withdrew a cylinder of the Oracle’s brain matter. He dropped it into Inteus’s hands and although the Prognosticator couldn’t see the look on his battle-brother’s face, he felt the distaste radiating from him.

  Murmuring a soft prayer to the Emperor and a muted apology to any of his ancestors who might have been offended by what he was about to do, he opened his mouth and begun chewing on the meat of the dead Space Marine’s brain.

  The nameless soldier was right in his assessment, Inteus thought as he chewed grimly on the morsel. It was disgusting. It was also necessary.

  Inteus chewed the rubbery mouthful slowly, allowing it to be dissolved and broken down with the aid of a slight injection of acid from his Betcher’s gland. Nothing meaningful was forthcoming yet, but Inteus was patient. He knew it would not be instant.

  He swallowed. The genetic matter slid down his throat to his stomach, and it was gone. He pushed back onto his heels and took a long breath. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  ‘They may have breached the city, but the Silver Skulls will not leave this place without hunting us down, my lord.’ There was a certain smugness to the Unborn’s voice that incensed the leader of the warband. Striding the short distance between them, Karteitja moved to stand before his lieutenant, now clad in broken and bloodied armour. The Unborn held his head high and refused to break his gaze from that of his leader. Contempt roiled from him.

  The leader of the Oracles of Change warband brought up a fist. ‘Do you take me for some kind of fool, Cirth? Whilst you have been failing in your task to transcribe the First’s prophecy, we have been protecting our interests. Where were you when the Thresher fell? Your cabal were assigned the task of holding the gatehouse, yet they failed and you were not with them. Can you explain their inadequacy?’

  ‘My lord, you commanded me to divine the meaning of the prophecy. I was simply following that order. I was engaging the Silver Skulls and learning something of their style, of their ways. They are fools and they will fall under the final onslaught.’

  Karteitja hated him. It would be a matter of seconds to cut Cirth Unborn down where he stood and he would feel no regret, only satisfaction.

  ‘You were indulging your arrogance, nothing more. Return to the task that I set you on. Bring me the prophecy. Where is, it, Cirth? Still bound within the skeins of fate. You come here with the news that a dozen scribes are dead and you still do not bring me the words?’

  ‘My lord, the First has been acting erratically…’

  The two warriors stood within a shell of a hab block in the north-east quadrant of the city. Periodically, stone crumbled from the walls in a shower of dust and rock to add to the already choked atmosphere this deep into the warzone.

  Due to the transitory nature of structures during a state of war, the Oracles of Change had not chosen a sanctum on the planet since their arrival. It was not truly necessary; their ability to move through the warp made communications and redeployment swift and sure. But it had been important to find somewhere for the First to be restrained safely and the half-ruined chapel here in this quadrant had proven the perfect place for him.

  ‘I don’t want your explanations, Cirth. I want success.’ Karteitja turned away from his lieutenant and walked away. ‘In the meantime, assemble the coven. We need to begin preparations.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘You can manage that, can’t you?’

  As his master stepped out of reality and vanished, Cirth Unborn muttered beneath his breath before spinning on his heel and marching off to carry out his given orders.

  ‘I must state my position on this, Inquisitor Callis.’ Kerelan stood in front of the petite woman, his massive bulk an effective block to her passage. ‘I would sooner you did this thing with a guard of Silver Skulls.’

  The Space Marines had quickly and efficiently set up an armoured perimeter around the square before the palace, tanks and portable defence lines standing where statuary raised in praise of the Emperor once stood. The seat of the governor was a forbidding building climbing the northern face of the hive like a rash of buttresses and sculpted cherubim. The massive gates that had once stood tall, proudly displaying the Imperial aquila, now sagged open, blasted by demolition charges.

  ‘Your concern is duly noted, first captain. However, I would prefer to take my own retinue.’ The inquisitor’s eyes flickered from Nathaniel to Harild, who had rejoined them. ‘Or what I have left of them, at least. I know their strengths. There will also be a squad of Guardsmen coming with us. Don’t worry about our safety. Your task is far graver than seeking out the governor of Valoris City.’

  ‘Still, I would be made far more comfortable if you would take some of Daviks’s men with you.’

  ‘First captain, your concern is noted.’ The inquisitor repeated the phrase, then she sighed wearily. ‘I understand your worries and I respect them. But please stand aside and allow us passage into the palace. When your Prognosticator manages to find information about the Oracles, you will need all your resources to deal with them. I will keep in touch. We have done this before.’

  She was so determined, so strong and self-assured that eventually Kerelan nodded his head and stepped aside to let the small group pass by. A detachment of Imperial Guardsmen, looking battered and weary, followed her as she made her way towards the ominously silent palace.

  The rain was beginning to ease off a little and the darkness of the Valorian night was giving way to the grey reaches of dawn. The chill wind continued to blow and those Guardsmen who had spent the night drenched in rain and mud were shivering. Given the respite in the battle, they were able to rest a little and shared hot mugs of recaff that did little to warm the bones and less still to warm the spirit. In the washed-out light, the initial surge of triumph had evaporated. Looking around the muddied earthworks, littered with the bodies of the dead, they realised just how little there was to truly celebrate.

  Gileas’s helmet had been returned to him, functional once again although there was little that could be done in the field for the ugly dent in the back. The Techmarine had given the expected lecture about making sure it was properly attended to as soon as he returned to the ship and Gileas had nodded absently. Kerelan watched the
sergeant, assessing the young warrior’s attitude and capabilities as he had done since they had left Varsavia.

  The sergeant and his squad, unable to simply stand down, were lending their aid to the Imperial Guardsmen tasked with reinforcing the defences, while Nicodemus directed newly arrived armour into optimal firing positions. It was not exactly glorious work but, as Daviks was always quick to point out, it was necessary work. Kerelan watched them for a few moments longer, then beckoned Gileas over to him.

  ‘First captain?’

  ‘Something troubling you, sergeant?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Perhaps, first captain.’

  ‘Unburden yourself. Bearing doubts into battle leads to regrets in the aftermath.’

  Gileas nodded. ‘I know this to be truth,’ he said. ‘And yes. There is something troubling me, but it is… not really of consequence and I should not linger on it.’

  ‘It is to do with who you have been fighting, am I correct?’

  ‘You believe correctly, first captain.’ Gileas turned to look at the sight. Bodies of humans, some Imperial Guard, some rebels, still lay strewn amidst the ruins. Some were half-buried in mud, others lay broken and split apart. The grisly scene was a grim reminder to those amongst the Guardsmen of what became of traitors.

  ‘Continue.’

  ‘I have fought against illusions created to distract the eye. I have battled daemon-spawn and crushed the onslaught of the greenskin menace and never have I doubted my purpose. Yet every time I witness this… whenever I wage war against citizens of the Imperium who have fallen into heresy, I cannot help but linger over the waste. Some of those rebels were barely into adulthood and we crushed them as though they were things of glass. I feel… senseless. Did you ever feel that way, first captain?’