He looked out to the east, where the thousands of the enemy were marching ever closer to the Bastion, the black smoke of the burning sea roiling behind them.
If they retreated inside the Bastion and closed the hatch, the forces of Sybaris would make short work of it, burning and blasting their way in with little trouble. But with the numbers of Roaring Blades, Emperor’s Children and daemons now advancing on them a strategy such as they employed in the night, locking down the open hatch to create a narrow defile and then picking off the enemy as they approached, was simply not feasible. There were simply too many enemies that could be thrown into the breach, and with only six Imperial Fists on hand to stand against them it was only a matter of time before Taelos and his Scouts were overrun.
For the hundredth time since he had been left in charge of the Bastion, Captain Taelos again wondered why it was that Captain Lysander had given him the order to stay and defend the refugees. Why had Taelos and his Scouts been handed an assignment so far outside the bounds of normal Space Marine activity? What had been Lysander’s reasoning?
Of course, Taelos could find some small measure of satisfaction in the knowledge that he had been correct, and that a larger force of the enemy had remained behind on Vernalis. And the fact that the arch-traitor Sybaris had been lured out of hiding to deliver the killing blow to the Imperial Fists in the Bastion did at least serve to confirm that the war-band leader was on the planet.
It would come as little comfort, though, when Sybaris overran the Bastion and sacrificed all within, Imperial Fists and civilians alike, to the greater glory of Slaanesh.
The howls and hymns of the approaching army were now all-but-deafening.
“Brother-Sergeant Karn. Scouts,” Captain Taelos said, turning his eyes to the others. “You have fought well, and with honour, and have brought glory to the Emperor and the Chapter alike. I am proud to have served as your commanding officer. If only—”
Taelos’ words were cut off by a screaming sound that came cutting across the sky, then another that came in answer a split-second later.
“Dorn, be with us,” Taelos said, and looked up to see a flight of Thunderhawk gunships streaking across the sky overhead, the black-fist icon of the Imperial Fists emblazoned on them.
“Captain Lysander transmitting!” came a voice crackling over the vox. “Brothers respond!”
From the black clouds which gathered overhead a hail of drop-pods came plummeting down, too fast for Sybaris’ forces to hit with anti-aircraft fire, retro-rockets blooming like newborn stars as the pods gradually slowed their descent.
“Captain Taelos receiving,” he voxed in reply, feeling a swell of pride from within, combating a mounting sense of annoyance. “What is your position?”
“The full body of Task Force Gauntlet is on hand, captain,” Lysander replied over the vox-channel. “And Quernum?”
“We never went,” Lysander answered. “We have been waiting on the edge of the Vernalian System for this very moment.”
Taelos paused, considering his response. “Sybaris is leading the warband,” he finally voxed back.
“We have him in our sights,” Lysander answered, as the Thunderhawks unleashed a firestorm of turbo-lasers and missiles on the Chaos army, and the drop-pods disgorged entire squads of veterans in Terminator armour into the heart of the enemy forces. “Stand fast, and let us take care of Sybaris.”
Taelos gripped the edge of the hatch’s jamb, so tightly that his gauntlet left the faint impression of fingers in the metal. His suspicions had been correct, then. Captain Lysander had left Taelos and the Scouts of the 10th Company on Vernalis as bait, to lure the main body of Sybaris’ warband out of hiding. And the force that had attacked Quernum had clearly been a diversion, too small a force to have been the full warband that had overrun Vernalis.
“Acknowledged,” Taelos replied over the vox.
He turned his gaze back to Karn and the Scouts. Of all of those who had followed him from the Phalanx to Vernalis, only this six remained. The rest had been lost, and for what?
Objectively, Taelos understood Captain Lysander’s decision. It was a sound tactic, to use the Scouts as bait. And Lysander must have known that the Scouts had the training and the armament to hold their own against the enemy. But while Lysander sat at the edge of the Vernalian System waiting for the warband to emerge from hiding, nearly two dozen of the Scouts under Taelos’ command had given their lives in the needless defence of the Bastion. Sybaris had been drawn into the open, yes, but at what cost?
These were questions that would have to plague him on another day. At the moment, he had Scouts waiting for his command.
Captain Taelos straightened as best he could, one shoulder still leaning against the jamb. “Stand fast, Scouts. We have done our part. Now it is time for our brothers to do theirs.”
EPILOGUE
In one of the countless exercise halls which dotted the interior of the Phalanx, dressed only in a sparring chiton dyed golden yellow, Captain Taelos worked his way through the sword-forms, trying to focus his thoughts.
Nearly two dozen of those under Taelos’ command had been lost, Scouts and sergeant included. Nearly two dozen more names to add to the list of those deaths for which he would one day atone, when Chapter Master Pugh finally gave him leave to depart on his warrior pilgrimage. But held in the balance were the lives of the Vernalian civilians who had survived the final assault by the forces of Chaos, huddled with the mountain Bastion. The Imperial Fists had sacrificed their own, but in the end victory had been theirs.
There was no way of knowing whether the arch-traitor Sybaris had been among the fallen on the grey dunes of Vernalis, or if he had once again slipped through the Imperial Fists’ fingers. But the fact that the warband had been thoroughly routed was not in doubt. By the time Task Force Gauntlet had finished its relentless attacks, there had not even been enough enemy elements left standing to trouble the handful of Scouts who’d waited the battle’s end in the Bastion, much less the hundreds of fully armed and able-bodied Space Marines of the 1st and 5th Companies who had descended from on high.
Taelos’ reverie was interrupted by a soft chime sounding from the entrance on the near wall. He had sealed the exercise hall when entering, to ensure that there would be no unexpected disruptions to his meditations.
Sighing, Taelos lowered his blade. He had got nearer to finding focus in this session than he had in a considerably long time, but still his thoughts wandered. Still the ghosts would not leave him be.
But no matter. He expected the three battle-brothers to join him shortly, so the session was soon to end, anyway.
Setting his blade in a rack, Taelos tugged a towel from the railing and stepped over to the entrance. He keyed the door to open, towelling the sweat from his face and neck as he did.
“Master,” said the Chapter serf at the door with his eyes respectfully lowered to the floor. He held up for Taelos’ inspection a long, narrow case in his hands, and behind him in a single file stood two other Chapter serfs, each carrying an identical case.
“Ah, yes,” Captain Taelos said, and stepped aside to allow the Chapter serfs to enter. He pointed towards the sword rack along the wall. “Set them there, and then you may go.”
Taelos had set the Chapter artisans to work shortly after Task Force Gauntlet had returned to the Phalanx, and he had hoped that the modifications would be completed in time. That the cases were delivered to him now, shortly before the battle-brothers arrived, made his decision seem something like fate.
Once the Chapter serfs had placed the cases and retreated, bowing as they went, Taelos opened the first of them and inspected the contents. The artisans had done their typical work, he was pleased to find, making the Chapter proud.
Taelos closed the case, and retrieving his sword from the rack returned to the middle of the hall. He began again the catechism of the sword, reflecting on Rhetoricus’ words about the place where the soul of an Imperial Fist could be found.
 
; As he completed one form and moved gracefully into the next, he was interrupted when the door chimed again. Taelos’ first thought was that the Chapter serfs had returned, perhaps having forgotten something. Suppressing impatient irritation, he keyed the door to open.
“Yes?” Taelos asked as the door slid open.
But it was not three Chapter serfs who stood before him, but a trio of newly minted battle-brothers, their gold power armour gleaming and bright.
“Brother-Captain Taelos,” Battle-Brother Zatori Zan said with a slight incline of his head. “You summoned us?”
Behind Zatori and to either side Brother Jean-Robur du Queste and Brother Taloc s’Tonan stood at attention.
“Yes, brothers,” Captain Taelos said, and motioned for them to enter. “Come.”
Taelos walked back to the centre of the floor, his blade held in a loose grip at his side. As the three Imperial Fists arranged themselves in a line facing him, the captain resumed his stance and completed the form that had been interrupted by their arrival, his eyes closed. Only when he had finished, and found something like a still centre to his thoughts once more, did he open his eyes and turn to regard the three who stood before him.
Though they had been badly injured in the siege of the Bastion, the three neophytes had remained on their feet and fighting, more than could be said for Captain Taelos himself. When the task force had returned to the Phalanx, it had been with pride that Taelos had recommended them for induction as full Initiates of the Imperial Fists, along with the pair of Scouts from Squad Vulpes who had survived under Veteran-Sergeant Karn’s command. The two Vulpes Scouts were still in the care of the Apothecary, recovering from the injuries they received from the daemons that Taelos and his team had eventually wiped out, but Zatori, du Queste and s’Tonan had recovered onboard the strike cruiser Titus en route, and when they arrived at the Phalanx had been sent to the Apothecarion for a quite different purpose.
“You wear the power armour well, brothers,” Captain Taelos remarked, glancing from one to another. Repaired and refurbished after the previous armour-bearers no longer had any use for them, the three suits of power armour gleamed as if they too were new and freshly forged.
“And I thank you, brother-captain,” Brother du Queste said, acknowledging the compliment with a courtly wave of his gauntleted hand.
“I trust the implantation of your Black Carapaces has been without incident?” Taelos asked. “Is it as you had been led to expect?”
“It is like nothing we could have expected,” Brother s’Tonan said, an undercurrent of wonderment to his words. “The armour we wore as Scouts was a mere shell, lifeless and unfeeling. But this…” Taloc raised his arms before him, clenching and unclenching his gauntleted hands into fists, marvelling at the action. “With the Black Carapace, the power armour acts and feels like… like…” He broke off, struggling to find the words.
“Like a second skin,” Brother Zatori finished for him, and Brother du Queste’s expression made plain his agreement.
Taelos nodded. It had been centuries since he himself was in their position, having made the transition from neophyte to full initiate and battle-brother, but he still well remembered the sensation of walking around in his power armour for the first time, revelling in the way that it augmented his strength and speed, responding to his barest thoughts.
“You have received your new postings, I take it?” Taelos asked.
The three glanced to one another, and shook their heads.
“You are to report to Captain Khrusaor of the 5th Company,” Taelos answered, “as soon as we are done here.”
On hearing his words the three battle-brothers seemed to tense, with Zatori flashing a momentary glare at Brother du Queste, while s’Tonan stared daggers at the back of Zatori’s head.
“All three of us, sir?” Brother du Queste asked.
“Yes,” Taelos answered. “I have spoken with Brother-Captain Khrusaor of your service to Emperor and Chapter as Scouts, and of your actions on Vernalis in particular. You have brought honour to the 10th Company, and are to be commended. And on a personal note, I must offer you my own thanks, as I doubtless owe my very life to you.”
Still the captain could sense the tension between the three, and what he could only assume was some level of disappointment that they would not be posted to three different companies.
“Brothers, I do not know the root of the disagreements or animosities that separate you three,” Captain Taelos said, “but their effects have not escaped my notice. Whatever these personal tensions might be, however, it is clear that they do not impinge on your ability to fight as allies. Had it not been apparent from your actions on Tunis and elsewhere, it was evident in those moments I watched you three stand together before the main hatch of the Bastion on Vernalis. You complement one another, brothers in action as well as name, and the three of you are stronger together than the sum of any one of you individually. Whatever your grudges, one to the other, never forget that you are all Sons of Dorn, and that on the field of battle you have only your brothers to rely upon.”
The three battle-brothers averted their eyes, chastened somewhat.
“But I did not summon you in order to criticise, but to commend.” Captain Taelos gestured with the point of his blade towards the three cases arranged against the wall. “There you will find three cases, each with the name of one of you inscribed upon it.”
The battle-brothers glanced from the captain to the cases and back, and it occurred to Taelos that he had not yet given them leave to move.
“Go,” Taelos said with a faint smile, gesturing again to the cases. “See what waits for you within.”
Taelos strode over to the wall and returned his sword to the rack while the three Imperial Fists found their respective cases and opened them. From his vantage a few paces along the wall, Taelos was able to see the look of surprised shock on each of their faces, their mouths hanging open in disbelief as they lifted the weapons from the lined interior of the cases.
“I have kept them all of these years, to remind me what courage truly is. Looking at those blades called to mind the image of three Triandrian youths, all but defenceless and little more than children themselves, who stood their ground against a fully armed and armoured member of the Adeptus Astartes. With only those swords in hand, you three were willing to stand side-by-side against me, and the odds against you be damned.”
Scout du Queste raised his slender duelling sword, admiring the blade. “My falchion,” he said, all breathless wonder.
“Father Nei’s tachina,” Scout Zatori said, drawing the curved sabre-like sword from the case reverentially, as though it were a holy relic of some fallen hero.
“The ironbrand Thunderbolt,” Scout s’Tonan said with pride, brandishing the simple iron blade in a two-handed grip.
“They are not simply the mundane weapons you remember, though,” Captain Taelos hastened to explain. “At my request, they have been reinforced and enhanced by the Chapter artisans here onboard the Phalanx, rendered suitable as Astartes weapons. Though you should prize and cherish them, these will not simply be keepsake heirlooms of your forgotten childhoods, but are combat blades which you will carry proudly onto the field of battle.”
The three battle-brothers found the artisan-crafted sheaths which accompanied each of the blades in the cases, and at Taelos’ direction sheathed their blades and hung them at their sides.
“Captain Khrusaor awaits, brothers,” Captain Taelos said. Then he stood to attention, balling his right hand into a fist and crashing his arm against his chest. “In the name of Dorn.”
The three battle-brothers snapped to attention and returned the salute, then replied with the antiphonal response. “And Him on Earth!”
“Dismissed,” Taelos said.
As the three newest initiates of the Imperial Fists Chapter filed out of the open door and went off to meet their destinies, Taelos stood alone in the exercise hall with his ghosts. Twenty-three new names for his list
, held in the balance against three new battle-brothers to fight for Chapter and Emperor.
A slight smile curved up the corners of Taelos’ mouth. The honour of locating and training candidates for the Chapter might not carry the same glory as leading a company onto the front lines, but it was an honour he now felt privileged to bear.
He was not ready just yet to depart on his warrior pilgrimage, it appeared. He knew the day would someday come, but if Taelos was still able to recruit such as these three and train them to be true Sons of Dorn, it seemed that there was still a service he could perform for the Imperial Fists.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Roberson is a respected SF author whose novels include The Dragon’s Nine Sons (Solaris, 2007) and Set the Seas on Fire (Solaris, 2007). Roberson has been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, twice for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and four times for the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Short Form (winning in 2004 with his story “O One” and in 2009 with his novel The Dragon’s Nine Sons.) He runs the independent press MonkeyBrain books with his partner and spouse Allison Baker.
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[Warhammer 40K] - Sons of Dorn Page 29