Battle for the Abyss:The Horus Heresy Book 8 Part 4/6

AUDIOLIBRARY

Transcript

00:00:00Stratagem.

00:00:01Stepping out from behind the altar, the sergeant-commander allowed the diffuse torchlight to bathe him

00:00:06in its glow.

00:00:07He was young, but highly decorated, judging by the honour studs and medals on his crimson

00:00:12armour.

00:00:13The trappings of heroism and glory warred with strips of parchment and leaves of tattered

00:00:17vellum scripted in wretched verse.

00:00:20A squad of word-bearers emerged into the cathedral behind him, their bolters trained on the shadows

00:00:25where Antiges and Skrull were in cover.

00:00:28"'Show yourselves and let us speak brother to brother,' said Reskiel, allowing his guardians

00:00:33to move in front of him.

00:00:34"'You are no brother of mine!' shouted Skrull.

00:00:38"'Get ready!' Antiges hissed to his ally as Reskiel raised a hand.

00:00:43The ultramarine knew, with an ingrained warrior instinct, that he was about to give the order

00:00:47to open fire.

00:00:49He trained his bolt-pistol on a cluster of word-bearers at the front of the advancing

00:00:53guards.

00:00:54Skrull roared, surging out of cover and throwing his chain-axe.

00:00:58He thumbed the activation-stud as it left his hand, and the weapon shrieked through

00:01:02the air.

00:01:03With a scream of ceramite on metal, the axe bypassed the guards and sliced clean through

00:01:07Reskiel's wrist, embedding itself in the altar.

00:01:11Shield upraised, a war-cry on his lips, the world-eater charged.

00:01:16Antiges cursed the son of Angron's impetuous battle-lust, and triggered the bolt-pistol,

00:01:21running forward as the muzzle-flare gave way his position.

00:01:25Bolt-rounds hammered into the approaching word-bearers, and three of the warriors collapsed

00:01:28in a heap against the fury.

00:01:30Bedlam filled the cathedral.

00:01:33Skrull covered the distance between him and his enemy so fast that none of the opening

00:01:36bolter-shots hit him.

00:01:38Antiges followed, acutely aware that he had foes behind as well as in front.

00:01:42An errant shot clipped his pauldron, another chipped his knee-guard, and he staggered briefly,

00:01:47but kept on into the maelstrom, the name of Gilliman, in his furious heart.

00:01:52"'This is sacred ground!' wailed Reskiel, clutching the stump of his arm as blood spurted

00:01:58freely from it.

00:02:00Skrull battered the word-bearers in his path aside, and when he reached the sergeant-commander,

00:02:05back-handed him across the face with his shield by way of reply, and wrenched his chain-axe

00:02:10from the altar.

00:02:11He spun and slammed the head of the axe into the head of a red-armoured warrior charging

00:02:15behind him.

00:02:16The word-bearer was thrown off his feet and skidded along the floor on his back, his face

00:02:20a red ruin of bone and shattered ceramite.

00:02:24The ambushers from behind the two Astartes fell into the fray.

00:02:29Skrull fought as if possessed by the spirit of Angron, slaying left and right as a terrible

00:02:33bloody rage overtook him.

00:02:35He embraced the cordon of fury within and used it to kill, to ignore pain.

00:02:41Word-bearers fell horribly before his onslaught, so fierce that those surrounding the assault

00:02:46gave ground and retreated to the cathedral door.

00:02:49The one who called himself Reskiel was dragged out by one of his battle-brothers, the blood

00:02:53clotting on the stump of his wrist as he screamed his collar.

00:02:57Bolter-fire was hammering away towards the rear of the cathedral.

00:03:01Antigues could hear it echoing loudly inside his helmet as Skrull turned from the carnage

00:03:06he was wreaking to look at him.

00:03:08A line of pain sketched its way down the ultramarine's back, and he realised he had been hit.

00:03:14This time the shot pierced his armour.

00:03:17Something warm welled in his chest, and Antigues looked down to see a wet, ragged hole.

00:03:23As his mind suddenly made the connection to what his body already knew, he slumped against

00:03:27a pillar, spitting blood.

00:03:29Lungs heaving, he tried to force his augmented body back into action and cranked another

00:03:34magazine into his bolt-pistol.

00:03:36One hand clamped over the wound, the other triggering the bolter, Antigues resolved to

00:03:40go down fighting.

00:03:42In the distance, vision fogging, a shadow fell.

00:03:46White spikes of pain were flashing before his eyes as he turned to look back at Skrull

00:03:51amidst the bloodbath of the altar.

00:03:53"'Go!' gasped Antigues.

00:03:56The World-Eater paused for a second, about to run back in and rescue the ultramarine.

00:04:00A thrown grenade exploded near the pillar, and Antigues's world ended in a billow of

00:04:06smoke and shrapnel.

00:04:10Skrull didn't wait to see if the ultramarine had survived.

00:04:13One way or another, Antigues was lost.

00:04:16Instead he ran from the cathedral, storm-shield warding off the worst of the bolter fire hammering

00:04:21across the cathedral towards him.

00:04:23As he flared into the endless darkness, the shifting of the vessel's hull echoing as if

00:04:27venting its displeasure, a thought forced its way into his mind in spite of the battle-rage.

00:04:34He was alone.

00:04:37Zadkiel watched the battle unfolding through the docking-pictures mounted along the hull

00:04:41of the furious abyss.

00:04:44Elanus had fallen, yet his inert body had been recovered and lay in the laboratorium

00:04:48of Magos Guryod.

00:04:50He would serve the word yet.

00:04:52Elanus's dedication to the word was that of a soldier to his commander, and he had never

00:04:57appreciated the more intellectual implications of Lorgar's beliefs.

00:05:01Nevertheless, he was a loyal and useful asset.

00:05:04Zadkiel would not throw him away cheaply.

00:05:07Elanus was doubtless buried beneath the rubble of Baca Triumvirum XIV.

00:05:11In that, Elanus had served Zadkiel too.

00:05:14It was another fawn removed from his side—the potential usurper dispatched.

00:05:20Yet for that deed you will receive eternal service to the legion."

00:05:24"'Where breached?'

00:05:27Sergeant-commander Reskiel's voice came through on the vox, down where the engines met the

00:05:30main body of the battleship.

00:05:32"'How many?'

00:05:33"'Only one remains, my lord,' Reskiel replied.

00:05:37"'They made it in through the coolant-venting ports open for the resupplying.'

00:05:40"'Hunt him down with my blessing, sergeant-commander,' Zadkiel ordered.

00:05:45'But be aware that you will be making your pursuit under take-off conditions.'

00:05:49"'Another fawn,' thought Zadkiel.

00:05:52"'Sire, there are still warriors of the legion fighting on the dock,' countered Reskiel,

00:05:57at the news of their imminent departure.

00:05:58"'We cannot tarry.

00:06:01Every moment we stay to fight is another moment for the wrathful to reach strike range, or

00:06:05for our stowaway to damage something that cannot be replaced, not to mention the fact

00:06:10that the dockyard's defences might be brought to bear.

00:06:14Sacrifice, Reskiel, is a lesson worth learning.

00:06:16Now, find the interloper and end this annoyance.'

00:06:20"'At your command, admiral.

00:06:22I'm heading into the coolant-systems now.'

00:06:26Zadkiel cut the vox and observed the view-screens above his command-throne.

00:06:30A tactical map showed the furious abyss and the complex structure of the orbital docks

00:06:34around it.

00:06:35Warriors and icons represented the word-bearer forces still fighting and dying for their

00:06:40cause.

00:06:41Zadkiel reached back for the vox and gave the order to take off.

00:06:48Altiss watched from the rubble of the collapsed observation-platform as the furious abyss

00:06:52began to rise.

00:06:54The engines of the battleship threw burning winds across the dockyards.

00:06:58Docking-clamps and supply-hangars melted to slag.

00:07:02tankers exploded, blossoms of blue-white thrown up amidst the fire-storm.

00:07:08Fiery gales whipped around the open metal plaza, cooking cohorts and astartes alike

00:07:12in the burgeoning conflagration surging across Baca, Triumvir and Fourteen.

00:07:17Scalding winds singed his face, even shielded by the wreck-chunks of ferrocrete.

00:07:22He saw the crimson paint on his armour blistering in the backwash of intense heat.

00:07:27The maelstrom engulfed the bodies fighting outside it, and they became as shadows and

00:07:31ash before it, as if frozen in time, eternally at war.

00:07:37This was not the future he had envisaged for himself as he watched the furious abyss rise

00:07:41higher from the deck with a blast from its ventral thrusters.

00:07:44He had been betrayed, not by the word, but by another on-board ship.

00:07:50A shadow eclipsed the stricken word-bearer, prone in the rubble.

00:07:54"'Your friends desert you, traitor whelp!' said a voice from above, old and gnarled.

00:08:01Altus craned his neck around to see, vision hazing in and out of focus, dimly aware of

00:08:06the blood that he had lost.

00:08:08A massive astartes in the armour of Lehman Russ's legion reared over him like a slab

00:08:13of unyielding steel.

00:08:15Bedecked in trophies, pelts, and tooth-fetishes, he was every inch the savage that Altus believed

00:08:20the space-wolves to be.

00:08:22"'I serve the word,' he said defiantly through blood-caked lips.

00:08:27The space-wolf shook the blood out of his straggly hair and grinned to display his fangs.

00:08:32"'The word be damned!' he snarled.

00:08:36The space-wolf's gaunt-treated fist was the last thing Altus saw before all sense fled,

00:08:43and his world went black.

00:08:45CHAPTER XI SURVIVORS

00:08:51AFTERMATH

00:08:52I WILL BREAK HIM

00:08:56Buoyed upon hot currents of air vented by the furious abyss, what was left of the assault

00:09:00boats carrying the astartes' strike-force made their escape from Bacchatriumbaran XIV,

00:09:05and back to the Rothville, held in orbit around the moon.

00:09:09Cestus was waiting for the atmospheric craft in the tertiary docking-bay when a single

00:09:13vessel touched down.

00:09:15Its outer hull shielding was badly scorched, and its engines were all but burned out as

00:09:19it thunked to an unwieldy stop on the metal deck.

00:09:22"'One assault-boat,' thought the ultramarine captain, waiting with Saffrax and Miradus,

00:09:27the apothecary ready with his narthesium-injector, "'how many casualties did we sustain?'

00:09:34Engineering deckhands hurried back and forth, hosing down the superheated aspects of the

00:09:38boat with coolant-foam and brandishing tools to effect immediate repairs.

00:09:43One of the officers stood at a distance with a data-slate already compiling an initial

00:09:47damage-report.

00:09:50Cestus was oblivious to them all, his gaze fixed on the embarkation-ramp as it ground

00:09:54open slowly with a hiss of venting pressure.

00:09:57Bryngar and his blood-claws stepped out of the compartment.

00:10:01The ultramarine greeted him cordially enough.

00:10:03"'Well, Matt, son of Russ!'

00:10:06Bryngar grunted a response, his demeanour still hostile, and turned to one of his charges.

00:10:12"'Roogevelt, bring him out!'

00:10:15One of the blood-claws, a youth with bright orange hair, worked into a mohawk, and a short

00:10:20beard festooned with wolf-fetishes, nodded and went back into the crew-compartment.

00:10:25When he returned he was not alone.

00:10:28A pale-faced warrior was with him, his hands and forearms encased by restraints linked

00:10:32by an adamantium cord, his face fraught with cuts and a massive purple-black bruise over

00:10:38one eye the size of Bryngar's fist.

00:10:41Bent-backed and obviously weak, he had a defiant air about him still.

00:10:45He wore the armour of the Fifteenth Legion, the armour of the word-bearers.

00:10:50"'We have ourselves a prisoner!'

00:10:53Bryngar snarled, stalking past the trio of ultramarines without explanation, his blood-claws

00:10:58with their prize in tow.

00:11:00"'Find me an isolation cell,' Cestus overheard the wolf-guard say to one of his battle-brothers.

00:11:06"'I intend to find out what he knows.'

00:11:10Cestus kept his eyes forward for a moment, striving to master his anger.

00:11:14"'My lord,' ventured Saffrax, the banner-bearer clearly noticing his captain's distemper.

00:11:20"'Son of Rus',' Cestus said, leverly, knowing he would be heard.

00:11:26The sound of the departing space-wolves echoing down the deck was the only reply.

00:11:30"'Son of Rus'!'

00:11:33He bellowed this time, and turned, his expression set as if in stone.

00:11:37Bryngar had almost reached the deck-portal when he stopped.

00:11:40"'I would have your report, brother,' said Cestus, calmly.

00:11:44"'And I would have it now.'

00:11:46The wolf-guard turned slowly, his massive bulk forcing the blood-claws close by to step

00:11:51aside.

00:11:52Anger and belligerence were etched on his face as plain as the Legion symbols on his

00:11:56armour.

00:11:57"'The assault failed,' he growled.

00:12:00"'The furious abyss is still intact.

00:12:02There, you have my report.'

00:12:05Cestus fought to keep his voice steady and devoid of emotion.

00:12:08"'What of Antiges and Skrull?'

00:12:11Bryngar was breathing hard, his anger boiling, but at the mention of the two captains, particularly

00:12:17Antiges, his expression softened for a moment.

00:12:20"'We were the only survivors,' he replied quietly, and continued on through the deck-portal

00:12:26to the passageways beyond that would lead eventually to the isolation-chambers.

00:12:32Cestus stood for a moment, allowing it to sink in.

00:12:35Antiges had been his battle-brother for almost twenty years.

00:12:38They had fought together on countless occasions.

00:12:40They had brought the light of the Emperor to countless worlds in the darkest reaches

00:12:44of the known galaxy.

00:12:45"'What are your orders, my captain?' asked Saffrax, ever the pragmatist.

00:12:51Cestus crushed his grief quickly.

00:12:53It would serve no purpose here.

00:12:55"'Get Admiral Kaminska.

00:12:57Tell her we are to continue pursuit of the Furious Abyss at once, with all speed.'

00:13:01"'At your command, my lord,' Saffrax snapped a strong salute, and left the dock, heading

00:13:06for the bridge.

00:13:08Cestus's plan had failed, catastrophically.

00:13:11More than sixty per cent casualties were unacceptable.

00:13:14It left only the Ultramarine's honour-guard, still stationed aboard ship by way of contingency,

00:13:20and Bryngar's blood-claws.

00:13:22The space-wolf's continued defiance was developing into open hostility.

00:13:27Something was building.

00:13:29Even without the animal instincts of the Sons of Rus, Cestus could feel it.

00:13:33He wondered how long it would be before the inevitable storm broke.

00:13:38Here they were, at war with their fellow-legions.

00:13:41Guilliman only knew how deep the treachery went, how many more legions had turned against

00:13:45the Emperor.

00:13:47If anything, the loyal legions needed desperately to draw together, not to fight into Nessine

00:13:52conflicts between themselves in the name of petty disagreements.

00:13:56When the final reckoning came, where would Bryngar and his legions sit?

00:14:01Guilliman and his Ultramarines were dogmatic in their fealty to the Emperor.

00:14:05Could the same be said of Rus?'

00:14:08Cestus left such dark thoughts behind him for now, knowing it would not aid him or their

00:14:13mission to dwell on them.

00:14:15Instead, his mind turned briefly to Antiges.

00:14:18In all likelihood, he was dead.

00:14:21His brother, his closest friend, slain in what had been a fool's cause.

00:14:26Cestus cursed himself for allowing Antiges to take his place.

00:14:30Saffrax was an able adjutant.

00:14:31His dedication to the teachings of Guilliman was unshakeable, but he was not the confidant

00:14:36that Antiges had been.

00:14:38Cestus clenched his fist.

00:14:41This deed will not go unavenged.

00:14:45"'Leradus, with me,' said the Ultramarine captain, marching off in the direction that

00:14:49Bryngar had taken.

00:14:51The apothecary fell into lockstep behind him.

00:14:53"'Where are we going, captain?'

00:14:55"'I want to know what happened on Bacchatriumuron, and I want to find out what our word-bearer

00:15:00knows about his legion's ship and their mission to Macragge.'

00:15:06By the time Cestus and Leradus reached the isolation cells, Bryngar was already inside,

00:15:12the door sealed with Roosevelt's standing guard.

00:15:15The isolation cells were located in the lower decks, where the heat and sweat of the engines

00:15:19could be heard and felt palpably.

00:15:23Toiling ratings below sang gritty naval chants to aid them in their work, and the resonant

00:15:27din carried through the metal.

00:15:30It was a muffled chorus down the gloom-drenched passages that Cestus and Leradus had travelled

00:15:34to reach this point.

00:15:36"'Step aside, bloodclaw,' ordered Cestus without preamble.

00:15:40At first it looked as if Roosevelt would disobey the ultramarine, but Cestus was a

00:15:45captain, albeit from a different legion, and that position commanded respect.

00:15:49The bloodclaw lowered his gaze, indicating his obedience, and gave ground.

00:15:55Cestus thumbed the door-release icon as he stood before the cell portal.

00:15:59The bare metal panel slid aside, two thin jets of vapour escaping as it did so.

00:16:05A darkened chamber beckoned, barely illuminated in the half-light of loom-globes set to low

00:16:10A bulky shape stood within, with two shrivelled-robed forms on either side.

00:16:16Bryngar had stripped out of his armour, aided by two attendant legion-serfs.

00:16:20The menials kept their heads low and their tongues still.

00:16:24The wolf-guard was naked from the waist up, wearing only simple grey battle-fatigues.

00:16:29His torso was covered in old wounds, scars and faded pinkish welts creating a patchwork

00:16:35history of pain and battle.

00:16:38Standing without his armour, his immense musculature obvious and intimidating, and

00:16:42with a great mass of his hair hanging down, Bryngar reminded the ultramarine of a barbarian

00:16:47of ancient terror, the kind that he had seen rendered in frescoes in some of the great

00:16:51antiquariums.

00:16:53The wolf-guard turned at the interruption, the shadow of another figure strapped down

00:16:57in a metal restraint-frame, partly visible for a moment, before the space-wolf's bulk

00:17:02took up the space again.

00:17:04What do you want, Sestos?

00:17:05I'm sure you can see that I'm busy."

00:17:09Bryngar's knuckles were hard and white as he clenched his fists.

00:17:13As he had stormed from the tertiary dock after the space-wolf and his battle-brothers, Sestos

00:17:17had thought to intervene, the idea of torturing a fellow legion-brother abhorrent to him.

00:17:22Now, standing at the threshold of the isolation-chamber, he realised just how desperate their plight

00:17:27had become, and that victory might call for compromise.

00:17:32Just how far this compromise would go, and where it would eventually lead, Sestos did

00:17:36not care to think.

00:17:38It was what it was.

00:17:39They were on this course now, and the word-bearers were enemies like any other.

00:17:43They had not hesitated when they destroyed the waning moon, nor had they paused to consider

00:17:47their actions during the slaughter on Baca Triumviron XIV.

00:17:51"'I would speak to you again, Bryngar,' the ultramarine captain said.

00:17:55"'Once this is over, I would know the details of what happened on Baca.'

00:17:59"'Aye, lad,' the space-wolf nodded, a glimmer of their old rapport returning briefly to

00:18:06his features.

00:18:07Sestos glimpsed the prone form of their prisoner as Bryngar turned back to his work.

00:18:12"'Do only what is necessary,' the ultramarine warned, 'and do it quickly.

00:18:17I am leaving Liradis here to assist you, if he can.'

00:18:22The apothecary shifted uncomfortably beside Sestos, whether at the thought of partaking

00:18:26in torture, or the prospect of being left alone with Bryngar, the ultramarine's captain

00:18:30did not know.

00:18:31Bryngar looked over his shoulder, just as Sestos was leaving.

00:18:35"'I will break him,' he said, with a predatory gleam in his eye.

00:18:42"'We hid behind Baca Triumviron to keep the furious abyss from sending torpedoes after

00:18:47us.

00:18:48We're heading on course for a warp-jump vector as we speak.'

00:18:53Bryngar was as ever on station at her command-throne on the bridge.

00:18:57Saffrax was there also, straight-backed and dure as ever.

00:19:01Sestos had headed there alone after leaving Liradis with Bryngar in the isolation-chamber.

00:19:06In the scant reports he had received from the admiral regarding information gleaned

00:19:10from the assault-boat pilot, Sestos had learned a little more of what had happened at Baca.

00:19:15They had lost the other two assault-boats during the extraction, swallowed up by the

00:19:18fire of the Furious's engines that had turned much of Baca Triumviron XIV into a smoking

00:19:23wasteland of charred and twisted metal.

00:19:27The tactical readouts aboard ship had disclosed precious little, save that it was chaotic

00:19:31and not to plan.

00:19:33One of Gilliman's edicts of wisdom was that any plan, however meticulously devised, seldom

00:19:38survives contact with the enemy.

00:19:41The Primarch spoke, of course, of the need for flexibility and adaptation when at war.

00:19:46Sestos thought he should have heeded those words more closely.

00:19:50It appeared also that the word-bearers had been forewarned of the Astartes' attack, a

00:19:54fact that he resolved to discover the root of.

00:19:57He considered briefly the possibility of a traitor in their ranks aboard the Wrothful,

00:20:02but dismissed the thought quickly, partly because to countenance such a thing would

00:20:05breed only suspicion and paranoia, and also because to do so would implicate the Astartes'

00:20:10captains or Kaminska.

00:20:12"'What of our prisoner, Captain Sestos?' asked Kaminska, after consulting the battery

00:20:18of view-screens in front of her, satisfied that all necessary preparations were under

00:20:22way for pursuit.

00:20:23"'He is resting uncomfortably with Bryngar,' the ultramarine replied, his gaze locked on

00:20:29the prow-facing viewport.

00:20:31"'You believe he knows something about the ship that we can use to our advantage?'

00:20:36Sestos's response was taciturn, as he thought grimly of the road ahead, and of their options

00:20:41dwindling like parchment before a flame.

00:20:44"'Let us hope so,' Kaminska allowed a moment's pause before she spoke again.

00:20:49"'I am sorry about Antiges.

00:20:52I know he was your friend,' Sestos turned to face her.

00:20:56"'He was my brother,' Kaminska's vox bide chirped, interrupting the sentiment of the

00:21:01moment.

00:21:02"'We have reached the jump-point, Captain,' she said.

00:21:04"'If we hit the warp now, Orcadis has a chance of finding the Furious Abyss again.'

00:21:09"'Engage the warp-drives,' said Sestos.

00:21:14Kaminska gave the order, and after a few minutes the Wrothful shuddered as the Integrity Fields

00:21:18leapt up around it, ready for its re-entry into the warp."

00:21:25Zadgiel prayed to the bodies in front of him.

00:21:28The word-bearer was situated in one of the many chapels within the lower decks of the

00:21:32Furious Abyss.

00:21:34It was a modest, relatively unadorned chamber, with a simple shrine etched with the scriptures

00:21:40and lit by votive candles set in Baroque-looking candelabras.

00:21:44The room, besides being the ship's morgue, also offered solace and the opportunity to

00:21:49consider the divinity of the Primarch's word, of his teachings, and the power of faith and

00:21:54the warp.

00:21:56Prayer was a complicated matter.

00:21:58On the crude, fleshly level it was just a stream of words spoken by a man.

00:22:03It was little wonder that Imperial conquerors, without an understanding of what faith truly

00:22:07was, saw the prayers of primitive people and discarded them as dangerous superstition

00:22:12and a barrier to genuine enlightenment.

00:22:14They saw the holy books and sacred places and ascribed them not to faith or a higher

00:22:18understanding, but to stupidity, blindness, and an adherence to divisive, irrelevant traditions.

00:22:26They taught an Imperial truth in the place of those simple religions, and wiped out any

00:22:31evidence that faith had once been a reality to those worlds.

00:22:36Sometimes that erasure was done with flames and bullets.

00:22:39More often it was done with iterators, brilliant diplomats and philosophers, who could re-educate

00:22:44whole populations.

00:22:47Zadkiel's belief, the root of his vainglorious conviction, was that the throne of Terah would

00:22:52be toppled not by the strength of arms wielded by the Warmaster, nor even by the denizens

00:22:57of the warp, but by faith.

00:23:00Simple and indissoluble, the purity of it would burn through the Imperium like a holy

00:23:05spear setting the non-believers and their effigies of science and empirical delusion

00:23:09alight.

00:23:12Zadkiel shifted slightly in his kneeling position, abruptly aware that another presence was in

00:23:16the chapel morgue with him.

00:23:18"'Speak!' he uttered calmly, eyes closed.

00:23:21"'My lord, it is I, Reskiel,' the sergeant-commander announced.

00:23:27Zadkiel could hear the creak of his armour as he bowed, in spite of the fact that he

00:23:30could not see him.

00:23:32"'I would know the fate of Captain Belanus, sire,' Reskiel continued, after a moment's

00:23:37pause.

00:23:38"'Was he recovered?'

00:23:41Doubtless the ambitious cur sought to supplant the stricken assault-captain in Zadkiel's

00:23:44command-hierarchy, or manoeuvre for greater power and influence in the fleet.

00:23:50This did not trouble the word-bearer-admiral.

00:23:53Reskiel was easy to manipulate.

00:23:54His ambition far outweighed his ability, a fact that was easy to exploit and control.

00:24:00Like Altiss, whose youthful idealism and fearlessness threatened him, Zadkiel was sanguine

00:24:05about Reskiel's prospects for advancement.

00:24:07"'Though mortally injured, the good captain was indeed recovered,' Zadkiel told him.

00:24:13"'His body has gone into its fugue state in order to heal.'

00:24:17Zadkiel turned at that remark, looking the sergeant-commander in the eye.

00:24:21"'Belanus will be incapacitated for some time, captain.

00:24:25This only strengthens your position in my command.'

00:24:28"'My lord, I don't mean to imply—'

00:24:31"'No, of course not, Reskiel,' Zadkiel interjected, with a mirthless smile.

00:24:36"'That you have suffered for our cause.

00:24:39And such sacrifice will not go unrewarded.

00:24:42You will assume Belanus's duties.'

00:24:45Reskiel nodded.

00:24:46The world-eater had shattered the bones down one side of his skull, and his face had been

00:24:50reinforced with a metal web bolted to his cheek and jaw.

00:24:54"'We have lost many brothers this day,' he said, indicating the Astartes' corpses laid

00:25:00out before his lord.

00:25:01"'They are not lost,' said Zadkiel.

00:25:05Each of the slain word-bearers was set upon a mortuary slab, ready for their armour to

00:25:09be removed and their gene-seed recovered.

00:25:12One of them lay with his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

00:25:16Zadkiel closed them reverently.

00:25:17"'Only if the word had no place for them would they be lost.'

00:25:21"'What of Altiss?'

00:25:25Zadkiel surveyed the array of the dead.

00:25:26"'He fell at Baca,' he lied, "'and the scholar-coven with him.'

00:25:32Reskiel clenched his teeth in anger.

00:25:33"'Damn them!'

00:25:34"'We will not damn anyone, Reskiel,' said Zadkiel sharply, "'nor even will Lorgar.

00:25:41The Emperor's gundogs will damn themselves.

00:25:44We should turn about and blast them out of real space.

00:25:47You, Sergeant-Commander, are in no place to say what this ship should and should not do.

00:25:52In the presence of these loyal brothers do not debase yourself by forgetting your purpose.'

00:25:57Zadkiel did not have to raise his voice to convey his displeasure.

00:26:00"'Please forgive me, Admiral.

00:26:02I have—I have lost brothers.

00:26:05We have all lost something.

00:26:08It was written that we would lose much before we are victorious.

00:26:12We should not expect anything else.

00:26:14We will not engage the Wrothful in a fight, because to do so would use up time that we

00:26:19no longer have to spare, and our mission depends on its timing.

00:26:24Corferon will not be late, so neither will we.

00:26:27Besides, we have other options when dealing with the Wrothful.'

00:26:31"'You mean Wussorik?'

00:26:34Zadkiel clenched his fist in a moment of unsuppressed emotion.

00:26:36"'It is not appropriate for his name to be spoken here.

00:26:40Make the cathedral ready to receive him.'

00:26:42"'Of course,' said Reskiel.

00:26:44"'And the surviving Astartes?'

00:26:47"'Hunt him down and kill him,' said Zadkiel.'

00:26:51Reskiel saluted and walked out of the chapel mortuary.

00:26:55Certain that the sergeant-commander was gone, Zadkiel gestured to the shadows from which

00:26:59a clandestine guest emerged.

00:27:01Magos Guriod shuffled into the light of the votive candle slowly, mechadendrites clicking

00:27:06like insectoid claws.

00:27:09"'You have received Velanos?' the Admiral asked.

00:27:13The Magos nodded.

00:27:15"'All is prepared, my lord.'

00:27:19"'Then begin his rebirth at once.'

00:27:23Guriod bowed and left the chamber.

00:27:26Now truly alone, Zadkiel looked back at the bodies lying arranged in front of him.

00:27:32In another chamber, together with the many crew of the Furious who had died, were the

00:27:36enemy Astartes, slain in the engine-room and the cathedral.

00:27:40They would not receive benediction.

00:27:42They would have refused such an honour, even if it could be given, because they did not

00:27:46understand what prayer and faith meant.

00:27:49They would never be given their place in the word.

00:27:52They had forsaken it.

00:27:54Those Astartes, the declared enemies of Lorgar, were the ones who were truly lost.

00:28:02An hour after the Wrothful had entered the warp, Cestus went to the isolation chambers.

00:28:07Upon his arrival he found Roosevelt still dutifully in his position.

00:28:11This time, though, the blood-claw stepped aside without being ordered, and offered

00:28:14no resistance, it being ostensibly clear that the ultramarine would brook none.

00:28:20The gloom of the isolation-come-interrogation chamber was as Cestus remembered it, although

00:28:24now the air was redolent of copper and sweat.

00:28:28"'What progress have you made?'

00:28:30the ultramarine-captain asked of Laeradus, who stood at the edge of the room.

00:28:34The apothecary's face was ashen as he faced his brother-captain and saluted.

00:28:39"'And?' he hissed.

00:28:41"'Nothing?' asked Cestus, nonplussed.

00:28:43"'He hasn't yielded any information whatsoever?'

00:28:46"'No, my lord.'

00:28:49"'Bringar?'

00:28:50"'Your apothecary has the strength of it,' grumbled the Space-Wolf, his back to Cestus,

00:28:56body heaving up and down with the obvious effort of his interrogations.

00:29:00When he turned, Bringar's face was haggard, and his beard and much of his torso were flecked

00:29:04with blood.

00:29:05His meaty fists were angry and raw.

00:29:08"'Is he alive?' Cestus asked, concern creeping into his voice, not at the fate of their prisoner,

00:29:14but at the prospect that they might have lost their one and only piece of leverage.

00:29:18"'He lives,' Bringar answered, "'but by the oceans of Fenris he is tight-lipped.

00:29:25He has not even spoken his name.'

00:29:29Cestus felt his spirit falter for a moment.

00:29:31Time was running out.

00:29:33How many more warp-jumps until they reached Macragge!

00:29:36How many more opportunities would they get to stop the word-bearers!

00:29:40It was irrational to even comprehend that one ship, even one such as the Furious Abyss,

00:29:45could possibly threaten Macragge and the Legion.

00:29:48Surely, even the mere presence of the orbital fleet above the Ultramarine's home world would

00:29:52be enough to stop it, let alone Gilliman and the Legion mustering at nearby Calth.

00:29:58Something else was happening, however—events that as of yet Cestus had no knowledge of.

00:30:03The Furious Abyss was a piece of a larger plan.

00:30:06He could sense it, and one that posed a very real danger.

00:30:10They needed to break this word-bearer, and quickly find out what he knew and a way to

00:30:14stop the ship and its inexorable course.

00:30:18Bringar was possibly the most physically intimidating Astartes he had ever known, aside from the

00:30:23glory and majesty of the noble Primarch.

00:30:25If he, with all his bulk and feral savagery, could not break the traitor, then who could?

00:30:32There is but one avenue left open to us, said Cestus, the answer suddenly clear, even

00:30:37though it was an answer muddied with the utmost compromise.

00:30:41Bringar held Cestus's gaze, his eyes narrowed as he fought to discern the Ultramarine's

00:30:45meaning.

00:30:46"'Speak, then,' he said.

00:30:49"'We release Motep,' Cestus answered simply.

00:30:54Bringar roared his dissent.

00:30:58Motep sat in quiet contemplation in the quarters made ready for him aboard the Rothfull.

00:31:03As ordered, he had not left the relatively spartan chamber since his incarceration after

00:31:08he had vanquished the Fireblade.

00:31:10He sat, naked of his armour, in robes afforded to him by attendant legion serfs long since

00:31:16departed, in deep meditation.

00:31:19His gaze was fixed upon the reflective surface of the room's single viewport, pouring into

00:31:23the unfathomable depths of psychic space and communion.

00:31:28When the door to his cell slid open, Motep was not surprised.

00:31:31He had followed the strands of fate, witnessed and understood the web of possibility that

00:31:36brought him to this point, this meeting.

00:31:39"'Captain Cestus,' muttered the Thousand Sun, with an air of prescience from beneath a cowl

00:31:44of a million.

00:31:45"'Motep,' Cestus replied, taken a little aback by the Thousand Sun's demeanour.

00:31:50The Ultramarine wasn't alone.

00:31:52He had brought Excellinor, Amrix, and Liradis with him.'

00:31:57"'The assault at Bacchatriumboron failed, didn't it?' said the Thousand Sun.

00:32:02"'The enemy obviously had prior warning of our intentions.

00:32:05It is part of the reason I came here to meet with you.'

00:32:08"'You believe that I can provide an answer to this conundrum?'

00:32:12"'Yes, I do,' Cestus replied.

00:32:15"'It is simple,' said Motep.

00:32:17'The word-bearers have made a pact with the denizens of the warp.

00:32:21They forewarned them of your attack.'

00:32:23"'There is sentience in the Imperion?' the Ultramarine asked in disbelief.

00:32:29"'How is it we do not know this?

00:32:32Are the Primarchs privy to this?

00:32:33Is the Emperor—'

00:32:34"'That I do not know.

00:32:36All I can tell you is that the warp is beyond the comprehension of you or I, and things

00:32:41exist in its fathomless depths that are older than time as we know it.'

00:32:46Motep paused for a second, as if in sudden contemplation.

00:32:50"'Do you see them, son of Gilliam?' he asked, still locked in his meditative posture.

00:32:56"'Quite beautiful.'

00:32:59Cestus followed the Thousand Suns' gaze to the view-port, and saw nothing but the haze

00:33:03of the Integrity Fields and the bizarre and undulating landscape of the warp.

00:33:07"'Don't make me regret what I am about to do,' Motep he warned, glad of his battle-brother's

00:33:13presence behind him.

00:33:14The Ultramarine captain had already dismissed the arms-men guarding the door, and ordered

00:33:19they responded to with no shortage of relief.

00:33:22It was a moot gesture, really.

00:33:24Motep could have left at any time, irrespective of their presence, the fact that he had not

00:33:28somewhat mitigated what Cestus was about to say.

00:33:31That was, before Motep pre-empted him.

00:33:34"'I am to be released?'

00:33:37It wasn't a question.

00:33:39"'Yes,' said Cestus carefully.

00:33:42"'We have a prisoner aboard, and precious little time to find out what he knows.'

00:33:47"'I take it conventional methods have already failed?'

00:33:51"'Yes.'

00:33:52"'Small wonder,' said Motep, "'of all the children of the Emperor, the Seventeenth Legion

00:33:57are the most fervent and impassioned.

00:34:00Mere torture would not prevail against such ardent fanaticism and zealotry.

00:34:04We require a different tack, one which I do not relish undertaking, but which I am compelled

00:34:09to employ.'

00:34:10Motep stood, setting back his hood, and turning to face Cestus.

00:34:15"'Ultramarine, there is no need to convey your reluctance to me.

00:34:19I am sure the account of this day, if such records ever come to pass, given our current

00:34:23predicament, will state that you acted under the most profound duress,' he said smoothly,

00:34:29the trace of a smile appearing on his lips, before it was lost in the mask of indifference.

00:34:33"'I do not know what powers you possess, brother,' said Cestus.

00:34:37"'I had thought to make you stand trial and answer that question for me.

00:34:41It seems, however, that events have overtaken us.'

00:34:44"'Indeed,' answered Motep, "'I am as moved by my duty as you are, Ultramarine.

00:34:50If I am freed, then I will fight as hard as any, and pledge my strength to the cause.'

00:34:56Cestus nodded.

00:34:57His stern expression gave away the warring emotions within him, the abhorrence of flouting

00:35:02the Emperor's decree, matched against the needs of the situation.

00:35:06"'Gather your armour,' he ordered.

00:35:08"'Brothers Excellinor and Ambrix will accompany you to the isolation cell.'

00:35:13Cestus about turned, and was walking away with Liradis, when Motep spoke again.

00:35:17"'What of the son of Ross?

00:35:20What does he make of my emancipation?'

00:35:23The bellowing and violent protests of Bringar were still ringing in the Ultramarine's ears.

00:35:27"'Let me worry about that.'

00:35:32Cestus and Liradis were waiting when Motep, with Excellinor and Ambrix in tow, reached

00:35:36them at the isolation cell.

00:35:40had already stormed off in the wake of the Space Wolf Captain's explosive discontent.

00:35:45Cestus nodded to his battle-brothers as they approached.

00:35:47The two Ultramarines reciprocated the gesture, and fell in beside their Captain.

00:35:52"'The prisoner is within,' the Ultramarine Captain told Motep, who had reached the door

00:35:56and stood before it calmly.

00:35:58"'Will you require Liradis's assistance?' he added.

00:36:01"'You can have your Chirurgian go back to his quarters,' replied the Thousand Sun, his

00:36:07gaze fixed upon the sealed portal as if he could see through it.

00:36:11Cestus nodded to his apothecary, indicating that his duty was done.

00:36:15If Liradis thought anything of the slight that Motep had delivered, he did not show

00:36:19it.

00:36:20Instead, he snapped a sharp salute to his Captain, and left for his quarters as directed.

00:36:25Motep thumbed the activation icon, and the portal slid open, showing the darkened cell.

00:36:31"'Once it begins,' he said, "'do not enter.'

00:36:35Motep turned to face the Ultramarine.

00:36:37"'No matter what you hear or see, do not enter,' he warned, and all trace of superiority vanished

00:36:45from his face.

00:36:47"'We will be outside,' Cestus replied, Excellinor and Americks grim-faced behind their Captain.

00:36:53"'And watching everything you do, Thousand Sun.'

00:36:56The Ultramarine Captain indicated a view-port that allowed observation into the isolation

00:37:01cell.

00:37:02"'I see anything I don't like, and you'll be dead before you can utter another word.'

00:37:06"'Of course,' said Motep, unperturbed, as he entered the chamber, the door sliding shut

00:37:12in his wake.

00:37:16Motep stepped carefully into the gloom, surveying his immediate surroundings as he went.

00:37:20Dark splashes littered the floor and walls.

00:37:23Even the ceiling was not devoid of the evidence of torture.

00:37:26A suit of armour had been thrown into one corner, together with a body-glove that went

00:37:30beneath it.

00:37:31This was not considered disrobing by a coterie of acolytes—no, this was frenzied, an attempt

00:37:37to get to the soft meat of the flesh and exact pain and profound suffering.

00:37:42Motep's expression hardened at such barbarism.

00:37:44Implements, crude and brutish to the Thousand Sun's eyes, lay discarded on a silver tray,

00:37:50also speckled in blood.

00:37:53Some of the devices even bore traces of meat—doubtless rent from the unfortunate subject when his

00:37:58tongue failed to loosen under the fists of the Space Wolf.

00:38:02The Chirurgian's methods, then, had been equally ineffective.'

00:38:05"'You are quite tenacious,' Motep said.

00:38:11There was a trace of menace in his calm inflection as he approached the metal cruciform frame

00:38:16to which the prisoner was affixed.

00:38:19The Thousand Sun ignored the rapacious bruising, the cuts, gouges, and tears that afflicted

00:38:24the subject's battered body.

00:38:26Instead, he focused on the eyes.

00:38:30They were still defiant, albeit slightly groggy, from the beatings the prisoner had been given.

00:38:35"'What compromise you force us to endure?' he whispered to himself, drawing close so

00:38:40that their faces almost touched.

00:38:43"'Tell me, what secrets do you possess?'

00:38:47The response came stuttering through blood-caked lips.

00:38:51"'I serve only the word.'

00:38:58Motep reached for the scarab earring and removed it.

00:39:01He manipulated the small object with his thumb and forefinger and placed it upon his forehead,

00:39:06where it stayed affixed in the shape of a gold eye, the symbol of Magnus.

00:39:10"'Do not think,' he warned, placing his fingers against the prisoner's skull and pressing

00:39:16hard, "'that you can hide from me.'

00:39:19When Motep's fingers penetrated the flesh, the screaming began."

00:39:29CHAPTER XII SIRENS, SCREAMS, AND SILENCE

00:39:33HERE BE MONSTERS

00:39:34Sestas's teeth clenched at the horrific noises emanating from within the isolation-chamber.

00:39:43Exselinor and Amrix followed their captain's example, stoically bearing the sounds of psychic

00:39:46torture, secretly glad that they were not the subject of Motep's attentions.

00:39:52Through the view-port the isolation-cell was shrouded in shadow.

00:39:56Sestas could see Motep from the back only.

00:39:58The Thousand Sun moved almost imperceptibly as he stood before the prisoner, who by contrast

00:40:03spasmed intermittently as his mind was ransacked.

00:40:07On several occasions, when the screaming was at its height, Sestas had wanted to go in

00:40:12and end it, abhorred at the mental damage being inflicted on what was once a brother

00:40:16of Starty's, but he had stopped himself every time, even warning off Exselinor and Amrix

00:40:21from taking action.

00:40:23Instead, the two battle-brothers had turned away from the view-port, leaving Sestas alone

00:40:27to observe the imagined horrors of the word-bearer's torture.

00:40:32Twice already he had angrily ordered worried arms-men away after they had come to investigate

00:40:37the sound, fearing another warp-attack as they patrolled the decks.

00:40:41As the shipboard-vox crackled, issuing a warning obliquely, they were right.

00:40:46Captain Sestas, come to the bridge at once.

00:40:49We are under attack.

00:40:52Loath as he was to leave Motep, albeit with Exselinor and Amrix, Sestas had little choice

00:40:57but to do as bidden.

00:40:59He reached the bridge quickly, and Saffrax quickly apprised him of the situation.

00:41:03The alert had come when several unknown projectiles had been expelled from the vicinity of the

00:41:08furious abyss, and were snaking across the warp towards the Wrothful.

00:41:12At first it was believed that the missiles were, in fact, torpedoes launched in a punitive

00:41:17attempt to dissuade pursuit.

00:41:19That assumption was crushed in the moment when Admiral Kaminska's helms-mistress, Venkmire,

00:41:24had identified their erratic trajectory, and the truth had been revealed.

00:41:29Sirens!

00:41:30Kaminska breathed, looking up at the tactical display before her that showed the inexorable

00:41:34advance of the creatures.

00:41:36A dark atmosphere seemed to pervade the bridge, and the admiral looked uncomfortable because

00:41:40of it.

00:41:41Her uniform was in slight disarray.

00:41:43She had clearly been roused from quarters when the alert had come in, and only added

00:41:48to her apparent sense of unease.

00:41:50I had thought such things were void-born myths.

00:41:53They are the denizens of the Imperium, Sestas told her, the disquieting mood affecting him

00:41:58less acutely.

00:42:00Something was awry.

00:42:01The ultramarine captain put it down to the sudden appearance of the warp-beasts.

00:42:06Can we avoid them, admiral?'

00:42:08Kaminska's face was grave as she considered the path of the warp-creatures on the tactical

00:42:12display in front of her command-throne.

00:42:14Admiral, Sestas said sternly, snapping Kaminska free of the dark mood that had suddenly ensnared

00:42:20her.

00:42:21Yes, captain, she gasped, face pale and unsteady in her command-throne.

00:42:26Can Orcadis find a way around these creatures?

00:42:29Kaminska shook her head.

00:42:30We are on the collision course, Sestas turned to Saffrax.

00:42:35See the honour-guard, and have them gather on the assembly-deck at once—Amrix and Excellinor,

00:42:39too.

00:42:40He didn't want to leave Motep alone, but the warp-creatures threatened the safety of the

00:42:44ship, and he would need all of his battle-brothers to defend it.

00:42:47On balance, it was a risk worth taking.

00:42:50Captain, said Kaminska, as the ultramarine was leaving.

00:42:54Sestas turned and looked at her, noticing that Helm's mistress Venkmire had moved to

00:42:58her aid.

00:42:59Kaminska warned off her second-in-command with a glance.

00:43:02What is it, admiral?

00:43:03Sestas asked.

00:43:04If these creatures are indeed native to the warp, how are we to stop them?

00:43:10I don't know, answered the Astartes, and then left the bridge.

00:43:17Quite what the warp looked like was a question that could never be answered.

00:43:20The human mind was not designed to comprehend it, which was why only specialised mutants

00:43:25like Orcadis could look upon it, and even then with a third eye that did not truly perceive

00:43:30it, merely filtering out the parts that would otherwise drive him mad.

00:43:34Certainly there was something Ophidian or shark-like about the creatures that closed

00:43:38in on the Wrothful.

00:43:39In truth, they neither intercepted nor followed it, but stalked it from all directions at

00:43:44once, creeping up from the past and gliding in from the future to converge on the point

00:43:49of fragile space-time that held the Wrothful in its bubble.

00:43:53They had eyes, lots of eyes.

00:43:55Their bodies were writhing strings of non-matter, which could take on any shape, because they

00:44:00had no true form to begin with, but there were always eyes.

00:44:05They had wings, too, which were also claws and fangs, and masses of pendulous blubber

00:44:10to keep them warm against the nuclear cold of the warp's storms.

00:44:14They burned and shimmered with acid, and shed daggers of ice from their scales.

00:44:19They had been born in the abyss, and had never been forced by the tyranny of reality into

00:44:24one form.

00:44:25To stay the same from one moment to the next would have been as alien to them as the warp

00:44:29was to a human mind.

00:44:33Lamprey mouths opened up.

00:44:34The predators made themselves coterminous with the Wrothful, forcing themselves into

00:44:38unfamiliar frames of logic to avoid annihilation by the protective energy-fields that surrounded

00:44:44the ship.

00:44:45The minds inside were brimming with the potential for madness, delicious insanity to be suckled

00:44:50upon.

00:44:51The predators fed normally on scraps, moments of emotion or agony powerful enough to bloom

00:44:57in the warp and be consumed.

00:44:59Here there were lifetimes' worth of sensation to be drained, enough for any one of the wraiths

00:45:04to become bloated and terrible, a whale drifting through the abyss big enough to feed upon

00:45:09its own kind.

00:45:11Thousands of bright lights flickered in the ship, each one both a potential feast and

00:45:16a gateway for the non-physical predators.

00:45:19None of them found an unprotected mind, and, easing itself painfully into the rules of

00:45:24reality, forced its way in.

00:45:29The screams were the first signs that anything was wrong on the lance-deck.

00:45:33The lances, immense laser-cannon hooked up to the plasma-reactors in the ship's stern,

00:45:37had been silent since the duel with the Furious Abyss outside the solar system.

00:45:42The gun-gangs still tended to them because lasers were temperamental, especially when

00:45:46they had to funnel the titanic levels of power that could surge through a laser-lance,

00:45:51and the gun-gangs were constantly busy hammering out imperfections in focusing lenses and cleansing

00:45:56the laser conduits, which could misfire if any blemish refracted too much power in the

00:46:00wrong direction.

00:46:02One ganger fell from his perch high up on the inner hull, where he had been aligning

00:46:07one of the huge mirrors.

00:46:08He hit the ground with a wet crump that told the gang-chief that he was most certainly

00:46:13dead.

00:46:14It was a sound he had heard many times before.

00:46:17The gang-chief was in no hurry to see what had become of the fallen ganger.

00:46:21Deaths meant hassle.

00:46:22The gang would be won short, so someone would have to be drafted from somewhere else on

00:46:26the ship, and the Rothwell had lost plenty of men already, and they were in the abyss.

00:46:31For a man to die in the abyss was bad luck.

00:46:34Some said, if you died in the warp you never got out, and even with the suppression of

00:46:38religions in the fleet you couldn't stop a void-born superstition like that.

00:46:44The dead man, however, was not dead.

00:46:47When the gang-chief reached the body he saw it mewling like a drowning animal, writhing

00:46:51around on its back, with its wrists and ankles shaking, as if it was trying to right itself.

00:46:57The gang-chief expressed displeasure that the man was still alive, since he would undoubtedly

00:47:01die soon, and carting him off to the sick-bay was another inconvenience the gun-crews didn't

00:47:06need.

00:47:07The dying man's body distended with a cracking of ribs.

00:47:11One side of his body split off from the other, organs separating as his pelvis split.

00:47:16His sternum snapped free, and false ribs pinged against the laser-housing beside him.

00:47:21His body rippled up from the floor into a writhing, pulsing arch of flesh and bone,

00:47:27drizzling blood onto the gun-metal deck.

00:47:30The crewman's head lolled to one side, its jaw wrenched at an angle, its eyes still open.

00:47:37The space within the arch twisted and went dark.

00:47:40The predator forced its way through, spilling out onto the floor like the contents of a

00:47:44split belly, feeling blindly, eyes blinking, as they evolved to absorb light.

00:47:51Then the screaming started.

00:47:55It was carnage in the lance-deck's absolute carnage.

00:47:59The warning-icons had blazed through the ship, coupled with a frantic vox-chatter about monsters

00:48:03and the dead coming back to life, before it cut off ominously.

00:48:09With his battle-brothers on the assembly-deck, Cestus had led the honour-guard, fully armed,

00:48:13to the lance-decks, and there they stood to bear witness to the horror.

00:48:18The ultramarine captain wondered for a moment whether he had been wrong all along, whether

00:48:22the imperial truth itself was wrong, and that the hells of those primitive faiths really

00:48:27did exist to be given form in the lance-decks.

00:48:30He dismissed his doubts as heretical, crushing them beneath his iron-hard resolve and his

00:48:35loyalty to Raboot Gilliman.

00:48:38Even still, what he saw warred with what he desperately tried to believe.

00:48:42Bodies were painted across the walls in ragged smears of skin and muscle.

00:48:46The faces of the gang-ratings were ripped open in expressions of horror, and stared

00:48:50out from heaps of torn limbs.

00:48:53Flesh and viscera were draped across high girders ahead, or over the massive workings

00:48:57of the lances themselves.

00:48:59The focusing-mirrors and lenses were sprayed with blood.

00:49:02The living writhed in a single mass, smearing themselves with gore and sinking their teeth

00:49:07into one another.

00:49:09Spectral threads of glowing black wrapped around the spines of the bleeding revellers.

00:49:14The threads led up to the ceiling of the lance-deck, where a titanic mass of darkness squatted,

00:49:19a seething thing of eyes and mouths, gibbering and chuckling as it manipulated the lance-deck's

00:49:24crew into further depths of suffering.

00:49:28Cestus was an Astartes.

00:49:29He had seen extraordinary horrible things, amorphous aliens that consumed their own to

00:49:35be ready for battle, insect-things that broke up into swarms of seething, biting horrors,

00:49:40whole worlds infected or dying, whole stars boiling away in the death-throes of a species.

00:49:46But he had never seen anything like this.

00:49:48"'Weapons free!' he raged.

00:49:51A brutal chorus of bolter-fire rang out to his order, puncturing the mass of flesh and

00:49:55exploding it from within.

00:49:58Thestor swung his heavy bolter around and added his own punishing shots to the salvo.

00:50:03Horrible screeching filled the tight space and resonated in his battle-helm, auditory

00:50:07limiters struggling to modulate the horrible keening of the damned ratings.

00:50:12The dangling threads held by the warp-creature began to sever one by one as the munitions

00:50:17of the Astartes struck and detonated with fury.

00:50:20It snarled its displeasure, revealing row upon row of fine needle-like fangs and a slathering

00:50:26spectral tongue that appeared to taste their essence.

00:50:30Like a lightning-strike the tongue lashed out and speared Thestor through his cuirass.

00:50:35He bellowed in pain, heavy bolter-fire flaring as he triggered the weapon in his death-throes.

00:50:40The honour-guard scattered as the errant shell strafed the deck, and Thestor shook and went

00:50:44into spasm as he was lifted into the air, impaled on the warp-spawn's tongue.

00:50:49"'Burn it!' cried Sestus in desperation.

00:50:51"'Burn it all!'

00:50:53Mora stepped forward with his flamer and doused the tunnel in roaring, white-hot promethium.

00:50:59Thestor and the creature's transfixing tongue were immolated in cleansing fire.

00:51:03The warp-spawn reeled, shrieking in anger as it recoiled from the attack.

00:51:08Mora swept the cone of intense heat downward, cooking the conjoined mass of the dead ratings.

00:51:14As the warp-spawn gave ground, Sestus noticed patches of ichorous fluid spattering the deck

00:51:19in its wake.

00:51:20"'If it can bleed,' he thought, "'we can kill it.'

00:51:24"'Advance on me!' cried the ultramarine captain.

00:51:28"'Courage and honour!

00:51:30Courage and honour!' his battle-brothers bellowed in reply."

00:51:36Brooding in the temporary barrack-room afforded to the space-wolves on board the Rothwell,

00:51:40Bryngar had heard the alert screaming through the ship, and had mustered his warriors.

00:51:45Tracking the commotion to the lower lance-decks, he and his blood-claws were unprepared for

00:51:49the sight that greeted them as they descended into the gloom.

00:51:52It was a charnel-house.

00:51:54Greed-flesh lined the walls, and blood slicked the floor.

00:51:58Bones, still red with gore, lay discarded in mangled piles.

00:52:02Screams were etched upon the visages of skulls, locked in their last moments of agony.

00:52:07The bloody massacre was not, however, what gave the space-wolf captain pause.

00:52:12It was the nightmare creature tearing at chunks of flesh with its teeth.

00:52:16At their approach the beast, a luminous shark-like horror, turned, its lipless maw smeared with

00:52:23blood, its swollen belly engorged.

00:52:25"'Here be monsters!'

00:52:28Bryngar breathed, and felt a quail of something unfamiliar, an alien emotion, trickle down

00:52:33his spine.

00:52:35He found his courage quickly, bearing his fangs as he howled.

00:52:38The space-wolves launched at the creature, blades drawn.

00:52:44Motep staggered from the isolation-chamber, not surprised to see that he was alone.

00:52:49He had broken the traitor, though it had not been easy.

00:52:52He felt the sweat of his exertions beneath his helmet, and was breathing heavily as he

00:52:55stepped into the adjoining corridor.

00:52:58Of the subject known as Ultus, for he had given his name before the end, there was precious

00:53:02little left.

00:53:03A drooling cage of flesh and bone were all that remained.

00:53:07His conditioned defences, ingrained by years of fanatical indoctrination, had been tough

00:53:12to break, but as a result, when they had fallen, they had fallen hard.

00:53:17Only a shell remained, a gibbering wreck incapable of further defiance—incapable

00:53:22of anything.

00:53:23Exhausted as he was, Motep groaned when he detected the rogue presence on board the ship.

00:53:29Mustering what reserves of strength he had left, he made for the lance-decks.

00:53:35Morar was dead.

00:53:36His bifurcated body lay in two halves across the deck.

00:53:40Amrix was badly wounded, but alive.

00:53:42He slumped against an upright beneath a metal arch, a chunk of flesh ripped from his torso.

00:53:48A dark mass was boiling down the corridor behind Sestos, even as the honour-guard faced

00:53:52off against the first warp-predator, torrents of semi-liquid flesh bursting through doorways

00:53:57in a flood, eyes formed in the mass, focusing on the Astartes.

00:54:03The ultramarine swivelled his body around, barking a warning before his bolter blazed,

00:54:08the muzzle-flare lighting up the dark around him.

00:54:10A long tongue of dark muscle thrashed blindly past him from the creature's gaping mouth,

00:54:15and Sestos threw himself out of its path.

00:54:18Leradus, desperately ministering to the wounded Amrix, was not so lucky.

00:54:22The membrane lashed around him, sending spines of pain throughout his body.

00:54:27The apothecary screamed as the flesh suddenly dried and split open, fist-sized seeds spilling

00:54:32from the fibrous interior.

00:54:35The seeds burst into life, tiny buzzing wings shearing through the shells, and long, sharp

00:54:40mandibles splintering out.

00:54:43Leradus was eviscerated in the storm in a bloody haze of bone, flesh, and armour.

00:54:49Sestos cried out and swung his bolt-pistol back around.

00:54:52He picked off the insectoid creatures with precise shots as they buzzed towards him,

00:54:56letting out his breath to steady his aim.

00:54:59He caught the last with his free hand.

00:55:01Leradus mashed it into the wall before it could chew through the ceramite of his gauntlet.

00:55:06With the two warp-creatures on either side, the ultramarines were being crushed into a

00:55:10tight circle.

00:55:12Even as he continued to pummel the second warp-fiend with bolt-pistol fire, he heard

00:55:16Saffrax bellow the name of Raboot Gilliman, punctuated by the retort of his weapon.

00:55:22The burning flare of expelled plasma hit the side of his face, and the ultramarine captain

00:55:26knew that their other special weapon-bearer, Piteron, was still with them.

00:55:31Metal flashes blazing, Lexenil and Excellinor continued to fire their bolt as war-cries

00:55:36on their lips.

00:55:38The chorus of battle raged as the warp-predators closed, weaving and twisting impossibly from

00:55:44the worst of the ultramarines' fusillade, shrieking and screeching whenever they were

00:55:47struck and forced back.

00:55:50Sestos checked the ammo-reader on his bolt-pistol.

00:55:53His remaining rounds wouldn't last long.

00:55:56Divided as they were, he and his battle-brothers would be unable to destroy either creature

00:56:00like this.

00:56:01With little recourse left, he made his decision.

00:56:04"'All guns with me!' he cried.

00:56:06"'In the name of Gilliman, concentrate fire!'

00:56:10With no hesitation, the ultramarines turned their combined fire onto one of the warp-creatures.

00:56:16Not expecting the sudden storm, the beast was caught unawares.

00:56:20Desperately trying to weave and jink out of harm's way, it was struck by a barrage of

00:56:24bolter rounds.

00:56:27its flank, and a precise salvo from Sestos struck it in the eye.

00:56:31A keening wail emanated from the dread creature as it shuddered out of existence, expelled

00:56:36from the bubble of real space within the wrathful.

00:56:39However, the victory proved costly as the second creature surged unhindered to the ultramarine's

00:56:45position, suddenly buoyed by the presence of three more of its kin.

00:56:49Sestos and his battle-brothers turned as one, defiant war-cries on their lips, as they prepared

00:56:54to sell their lives dearly.

00:56:56The rending of flesh as their bodies were torn asunder, the stench of blood and the

00:57:00sound of shredding bone, failed to materialise.

00:57:03Poised, with jaws outstretched, ready to devour the Astartes, the warp-creatures were assailed

00:57:09by a blazing crimson light that bathed the corridor in an incandescent luster.

00:57:14The beasts recoiled and shrank before him, snapping ineffectually at the air as the building

00:57:19aura seared them.

00:57:21"'Warp-spawn filth!' spat a voice behind Sestos, echoing with power.

00:57:26'Flee back into the abyss and leave this plane of existence!'

00:57:31Shielding his eyes against the brilliance of the light, Sestos saw Motep striding towards

00:57:36them, a cerulean nimbus of psychic energy coursing over his armoured body.

00:57:41He held a golden spear in his outstretched hand.

00:57:45"'Down!

00:57:46Now!' he cried, and the ultramarines hit the floor with a crash of ceramite.

00:57:51The spear arced over their heads like a divine bolt of lightning, and pierced the first warp-beast,

00:57:57tearing through its slithering flank and slathering the deck with dark-grey spilling gore.

00:58:02Its death-cry reverberated in the confines of the vaulted tunnel, the metal upright screaming

00:58:07before it.

00:58:09Then it was gone, leaving an actinic stench in its wake.

00:58:14The kindred beasts came at him, enduring the furious energy that the Thousand Sun had unleashed,

00:58:19but were driven back as Sestos and his honour-guard crouched on their knees and delivered a punishing

00:58:24salvo.

00:58:25"'Blind them!'

00:58:27Motep cried, plucking his spear from the air as it returned to him as if magnetised to

00:58:31his gauntlet.

00:58:32The ultramarines obeyed, aiming for the hideous black orbs that served the shark-like predators

00:58:37as eyes.

00:58:38More screeching filled the corridors as the shots found their marks, rupturing the glassy

00:58:43orbs.

00:58:44Motep cast his spear again, and another of the creatures was thrust back into the immaterium.

00:58:50The last predator turned in on itself and reformed.

00:58:54It grew fresh eyes, dripping with glowing eichel.

00:58:58It extruded a frill of tendrils from what Sestos assumed was its head-end, and they

00:59:02became tough jointed limbs tipped with claws, snake-like tongues whipped from its mouth.

00:59:08A hail of fire struck it, and it was blasted into a gory mess upon the deck.

00:59:14Curious ringing silence filled the void where the eruption of bolters and the bark of shouting

00:59:19had been.

00:59:20Red-tinged gloom from the emergency lights drifted back into focus after the monochromatic

00:59:25battle-flare of muzzle-flashes and psychic conflagration.

00:59:30Sestos surveyed his battle-brothers.

00:59:33Amrix lay still against the upright, injured but alive.

00:59:37The service of Lairadis and Moravo had ended, their final moments awash with blood and pain.

00:59:43The rest had survived, a weary nod from Saffrax confirmed it.

00:59:48Breathing hard, a strange subdued exultance at their victory sweeping over him, Sestos

00:59:53looked back around at Motep.

00:59:55The Thousand Sun, staggered, the crimson light, extinguished.

01:00:00They are gone, he breathed, and fell hard onto the deck.

01:00:09Chapter 13 Legacy of Lorgar

01:00:13Proposition

01:00:14Honour Duel

01:00:16As Skrall delved deeper into the furious abyss, the world around him got stranger.

01:00:22The ship was the size of a city, and just like a city it had its hidden corners and

01:00:26curiosities, its beautiful clean-cut vistas, and its dismal bordellos of decay.

01:00:32Though supposedly newly fashioned, the vessel felt very old.

01:00:36Its concomitant parts had spent so many decades being built and rendered in the forges of

01:00:41Mars that they had acquired a history of their own before the battleship was ever finished,

01:00:45let alone launched.

01:00:47It had a presence, too, a kind of impalpable sentience that exuded from its steel walls

01:00:53and clung to its corridors and conduits like gossamer threads of being.

01:00:58Skrall passed under a support beam, his chain-axe held out warily in front of him, and saw the

01:01:02signature of a mechanicum shipwright inscribed in binary.

01:01:06The passageway of steel looked like an avenue and a wealthy spire-top, the low ceiling supported

01:01:11by keratids and columns.

01:01:13A nest of shanties, perhaps the lodgings of the menials who had once laboured to build

01:01:17the ship, their ramshackle homes abandoned between two generatorium housings.

01:01:24The vessel was intricate and immense.

01:01:27The world-eater-sort chambers, he could only assume, were for worship, with altars and

01:01:31rows of prayer-books etched in the word of Lorgar.

01:01:34A temple, half wrought in stone and symbiotically merged with deep-red steel, was housed in

01:01:39a massive false amphitheatre, its columned front and carved pediment providing a medieval

01:01:44milieu.

01:01:46The wide threshold was lit by braziers of violet fire.

01:01:50Skrall thought he had seen something moving inside, and took care to avoid it.

01:01:55The world-eater had no time for distractions.

01:01:58The denizens of the furious abyss hunted him, and, even in a ship as vast as it, the chase

01:02:03would not last indefinitely.

01:02:05Melter-bombs and belts of crack-grenades clanked against his armour as he moved, reminding

01:02:09him of their presence and the urgency with which he needed to put them to some use.

01:02:14In a fleeting moment, when Skrall had paused to try and get some kind of bearing, he thought

01:02:18of Antiges.

01:02:20The ultramarines believed themselves to be philosophers, or kings, or members of the

01:02:25galaxy's rightful ruling class.

01:02:27They did not appreciate the purity of purpose that could only be found in the crucible of

01:02:31war, as did Skrall's legion.

01:02:34They were most concerned with forging their own empire around Macragge.

01:02:38Antiges had demonstrated his warrior spirit, though, fighting and dying in the cauldron

01:02:42of war, driven by simple duty.

01:02:47Skrall mourned his passing with a moment of silence, honouring his valorous deeds, and

01:02:51in that moment he made a promise of revenge.

01:02:55A great set of double doors, carved from lacquered black wood, blocked the world-eater's path.

01:03:01Skrall could not turn back from the barrier, incongruous like so much of what he had witnessed

01:03:05on the furious abyss.

01:03:06Instead, he pushed the door open.

01:03:10There was light inside, but still the silence persisted, so he entered into what was a long,

01:03:15low chamber.

01:03:16Beyond it was a gallery full of artefacts.

01:03:19Tapestries lined the walls, displaying the victories and history of the word-bearers.

01:03:24He saw a comet crashing down to their native earth of Colchis, and a golden child emerging

01:03:29from the conflagration left from its impact.

01:03:32He saw temples, their spires lost in a swathe of red cloud, and lines of pilgrims trailing

01:03:37off into infinity.

01:03:39It was a world stained with tragedy, the gilded palaces and cathedrals tarnished, and every

01:03:44statue of past religious dynasts missing an arm or an eye.

01:03:49In the middle of this fallen world, like a single point of hope, was the smouldering

01:03:53crater of their Saviour's arrival.

01:03:57The ceiling was a single endless fresco depicting Lorgar's conquest of Colchis.

01:04:02Here it was a corrupt place cleansed by the Primarch, whose image shone with a light of

01:04:07reason and command as robed prophets and priests prostrated themselves before him.

01:04:13Armies laid down their arms, and crowds cheered in adulation.

01:04:17At the far end of the museum the story ended with Colchis restored, and Lorgar a scholar-hero,

01:04:23writing down his history and philosophy.

01:04:26This epilogue ended with a truth that Scrawl knew—the Emperor coming to the world to

01:04:31find Lorgar, just as he had come to the world-eater's forgotten home-world to install Angron as

01:04:36the Legion's Primarch.

01:04:38The paintings, frescoes, and tapestries gave way to trophies displayed on plinths and suspended

01:04:44from the vaulted ceiling.

01:04:46Scrawl ignored them and pressed on.

01:04:49"'You look upon the soul of our Legion, brother,' boomed a voice suddenly through the vox castas

01:04:55in the gallery.

01:04:57Scrawl backed up against the wall, which was painted with an image of Lorgar debating with

01:05:01a host of wizened old men in a Colchian amphitheatre.

01:05:04"'I am Admiral Zadkiel of the Word-Bearers,' said the voice, when the world-eater answered

01:05:10with silence.

01:05:11"'You are aboard my ship.'

01:05:12"'Traitor whoreson, does your entire Legion cower behind words?'

01:05:18Scrawl snapped, unable to contain his anger.

01:05:21"'Such a curious term, world-eater,' the voice of Zadkiel replied, ignoring the slight.

01:05:27"'You dub us traitors, and yet we have never been anything but loyal to our Primarch.

01:05:33"'Then your lord is also a traitor,' Scrawl growled in return, hunting the shadows for

01:05:39any sign of movement, any hint that he was being stalked.

01:05:42"'Your own lord Angron calls him brother.

01:05:46How then can Lorgar be regarded as a traitor?'

01:05:50Scrawl cast his gaze around, trying to locate the Pictor observing him or the vox casta

01:05:55broadcasting Zadkiel's voice.

01:05:57"'Then he has betrayed my Primarch, and in turn his Legion.

01:06:02Angron was a slave,' said Zadkiel.

01:06:04"'The very fact shames him.

01:06:07He despises what he was, and what other men made of him.

01:06:11It is from this that his anger—that the anger of all world-eaters—stems.'

01:06:15Certain that there was no one else in there with him, Scrawl started moving cautiously

01:06:21through the gallery, looking for some way out other than the double doors at either

01:06:25end.

01:06:26He would not be swayed by Zadkiel's words, and focused instead on the hot line of rage

01:06:30building inside him, using it to galvanise himself.

01:06:34"'I saw the echo of that anger at Baca-Triambaron,' said Zadkiel.

01:06:39"'It was enacted against the menials that drowned in their own blood at the hands of

01:06:44you and your brothers.'

01:06:47Scrawl paused.

01:06:48He had thought no one knew of the slaughter he had perpetrated at the dock.

01:06:52"'Angron sought to bring his brothers closer to him in that aspect, did he not?'

01:06:57Scrawl was relentless, his words like silken blades penetrating the world-eater's defences.

01:07:03"'It was the Emperor's censure that forbade it—the very being that holds you and your

01:07:08slave Primarch in his thrall.

01:07:11For what is Angron if not a slave?

01:07:15What accolades has he won that the angel or Gilliman have not?

01:07:19What reward has Angron been given that can equal the empire of Ultramar or the stewardship

01:07:25of the Imperial Palace granted to Dorne?

01:07:29Nothing.

01:07:30He fights for nothing save by the command of another.

01:07:34What can such a man claim to be, other than a slave?'

01:07:39"'We are not slaves!

01:07:41We will never be slaves!'

01:07:43Scrawl cried in anger, and carved his chain-axe through one of the museum's stone pillars.

01:07:48"'It is the truth,' Zadkiel persisted.

01:07:52"'But you are not alone, brother.

01:07:55Yours is not the only legion to have been thus forsaken,' he continued.

01:07:59"'We word-bearers worshipped him—worshipped the Emperor as a god.

01:08:06That he mocked our divinity with reproach and reprimand, just as he mocks you!'

01:08:13Scrawl ignored him.

01:08:14His faith in his legion and his Primarch would not easily be undone.

01:08:18This word-bearer's rhetoric meant nothing.

01:08:21Duty and rage—these were the things he focused on as he sought to escape from the chamber.

01:08:26"'Look before you, world-eater,' Zadkiel began again.

01:08:31'There you will find what you seek.'

01:08:34Despite himself, Scrawl looked.

01:08:37There, within an ornate glass cabinet, forged of obsidian and brass, and once wielded by

01:08:43Angron's hand, was a chain-axe.

01:08:46Decked with teeth of glinting black stone, its haft wrapped in the skin of some monstrous

01:08:51lizard, he knew it instinctively to be brazen-tooth, the former blade of his Primarch.

01:08:58The weapon, magnificent in its simple brutality, had taken the head of the Queen of the Scandrain

01:09:03Xenos, and cleaved through a horde of greenskins, following the arch-vandal of Pasiphae.

01:09:09A feral world, teeming with tribal psychopaths, had rebelled against the imperial truth, and

01:09:15of the mere sight of brazen-tooth in Angron's hand, they had given up their revolt and kneeled

01:09:20to the world-eaters.

01:09:22Until the forging of Gorefather and Gorechild, the twin axes Angron now wielded, brazen-tooth

01:09:29had been as much a symbol of Angron's relentlessness and independence as it was a mere weapon.

01:09:35"'Gifted unto Lorgar, it symbolizes our alliance,' Zadgiel told him.

01:09:41Angron pledged himself to our cause, and with him all the world-eaters.'

01:09:47Skrull regarded the chain-axe.

01:09:49Thick veins stuck out in his forehead, beneath his skull-helmet, exacerbated by the heat

01:09:54of his impotent wrath.

01:09:55"'It is written, world-eater, that you and all your brothers will join with us when the

01:10:01fate of the galaxy is decided.

01:10:03The Emperor is lost.

01:10:05He is ignorant of the true power of the universe.

01:10:08We will embrace it.'

01:10:11"'Word-bearer,' Skrull said, his lip curled derisively, 'you talk too much.'

01:10:18The world-eater shattered the cabinet with a blow from his fist, and seized brazen-tooth.

01:10:23Without pause he squeezed the tongue of brass in the chain-axe's haft, and the teeth whirred

01:10:28hungrily.

01:10:29The weapon was far too heavy and unbalanced for Skrull to wield.

01:10:33It would have taken Angron's own magnificent strength to use it.

01:10:36It was all he could do to keep the bucking chain-blade level, as he put his body-weight

01:10:40behind it and hurled it into the nearest wall.

01:10:44Brazen-tooth ripped into a fresco depicting Lorgar as an educator of the benighted, thousands

01:10:49of ignorant souls bathing in the halo of enlightenment that surrounded him.

01:10:53The image was shredded, and the weapon, free of Skrull's hands, bored its way through,

01:10:59casting sparks as it chewed up the metal beneath.

01:11:02"'You're doomed, Zadkiel,' bellowed Skrull over the screech of the chain-blade.

01:11:07"'The Emperor will learn of your treachery.

01:11:11He'll send your brothers to bring you back in chains.

01:11:14He'll send the War-Master.'

01:11:17The world-eater hurled himself through the ragged tear in the museum wall, and fell through

01:11:21into a tangled mess of cabling and metal beyond.

01:11:26Zadkiel's laughter tumbled after him from the box-caster.

01:11:31Zadkiel switched off the picked screens adorning the small security console at the rear of

01:11:36the temple.

01:11:37"'Tell me, chaplain, is everything prepared?'

01:11:41Ikthalon, decked in his full regalia, including vestments of deep crimson, nodded and gestured

01:11:47towards a circle drawn from a paste mixed with Colchian soil and the blood that had

01:11:51been drained from the body of the ultramarine Antiges.

01:11:56The Astarte's inert body lay at its nexus, his cuirass removed, and his chest levered

01:12:01open to reveal the congealed vermilion mass of his organs.

01:12:06Symbols had been scratched on the floor around him using his blood.

01:12:09His helmet had been removed, too, and his head lolled back, glassy-eyed, its mouth open,

01:12:14as if in awe of the ritual it would facilitate in death.

01:12:18"'It is ready, as you ordered,' uttered Ikthalon, the chaplain's tone approaching

01:12:25foolish.

01:12:26Zadkiel smiled thinly, and then looked up at the sound of shuffling feet.

01:12:31An old bent figure ascended the steps at the temple entrance, and the candles on the floor

01:12:36flickered against its cowl and robe as it entered between the pillars.

01:12:40"'Astropath Curzan,' said Zadkiel.

01:12:44The astropath pulled back his hood, revealing hollow sockets in place of his eyes, as inflicted

01:12:50by the soul-blinding.

01:12:52"'I am at your service,' he hissed through cracked lips.

01:12:57"'You know your role in this.'

01:13:00"'I have studied it well, my lord,' Curzan replied, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane

01:13:06of dark wood as he shuffled towards Antigus's corpse.

01:13:10Curzan knelt down and held his hands over the body.

01:13:13The astropath smirked, and then looked up at the temple entrance.

01:13:18Curzan knelt down and held his hands over the body.

01:13:21The astropath smirked as he felt the last wreaths of heat bleeding from it.

01:13:26"'Anastartes,' he muttered.

01:13:29"'Indeed,' added Ithkalon.

01:13:31"'You'll find his scalp has been removed.

01:13:35Then we can begin.'

01:13:37"'I will require what is left after this is done,' added Ithkalon.

01:13:44"'Don't worry, chaplain,' said Zadkiel.

01:13:47"'You'll have his body for your surgery.'

01:13:49"'Curzan,' he added, switching his gaze to the astropath, "'you may proceed.'

01:13:54Zadkiel threw a book in front of him.

01:13:57Curzan felt its edges, ran his fingers over its binding, the ancient vellum of its pages,

01:14:02and breathed deep of its musk, redolent with power.

01:14:06His spidery digits, so sensitive from a lifetime of blindness, scurried across the ink and

01:14:11read with ease.

01:14:12The script was distinctive and known to him.

01:14:17"'What's—what secrets?' he whispered in awe.

01:14:22"'This is written by your hand, admiral.

01:14:27What was it that dictated this to you?'

01:14:30"'His name,' said Zadkiel, "'is Wussorik, and we are about to honour the pact he has

01:14:38made with us.'

01:14:41In the hours that followed, the warp was angry, it was wounded, it bled half-formed emotions

01:14:48like something undigested, hatred that was too unfocused to be pure, love without an

01:14:54object, obsession over nothing, and gouts of oblivion without form.

01:15:00It quaked, it thrashed as if being forced into something unwilling, or trying to hold

01:15:04on to something dear to it.

01:15:06The wrathful was thrown around on the towering waves that billowed up through the layers

01:15:10of reality, and threatened to snap the spindly anchor-line of reason that kept the ship

01:15:15intact.

01:15:17The quake subsided.

01:15:19The predators that had homed in on the disturbance scented the corpses of their fellow warp-sharks

01:15:23in the wrathful, and hastily slunk back into the abyss.

01:15:28The wrathful continued on its way, following Eddie's left by the wake of the furious abyss.

01:15:35"'Has there been any change?' asked Cestus, as he approached Zafrax.

01:15:41The banner-bearer stood outside the medical bay, looking in at the prone form of Motep,

01:15:46laid as if slumbering on a slab of metal.

01:15:48None, sire, he has not stirred since he fell after the battle.

01:15:53The ultramarine captain had recently been tended to by the wrathful's medical staff,

01:15:58an injury sustained to his arm that he had not realized he had suffered making its presence

01:16:02felt as he had gone to Motep's aid.

01:16:06In the absence of a dead Liradis, the treatment was rudimentary, but satisfactory.

01:16:11The bodies, what was left of them of the Astartes, two of the blood-claws included, had been

01:16:16taken to the ship's morgue.

01:16:19Cestus's mind still reeled at what he had witnessed on the lance-decks, and the powers

01:16:23that the Thousand Sun had unleashed.

01:16:25Truly, there was no doubt as to his practicing psychics.

01:16:29That in itself left an altogether different and yet more pressing question.

01:16:34Bryngar.

01:16:35The wolf-guard had also been down in the lance-decks, though Cestus was not aware of it until the

01:16:40battle was over, and had banished three of the warp-spawn with his blood-claws.

01:16:45The artifice of the Fenrisian rune-priests in their fashioning of fell-tooth was to thank

01:16:50for it.

01:16:51For once, reunited at the centre of the deck, Bryngar had curtly disclosed how the creatures

01:16:56parted easily before the blade and fled from the space-wolf's fury.

01:17:01The ultramarine believed that some of the account was embellished, so that it might

01:17:05become worthy of a saga, but he did not doubt the veracity at the heart of Bryngar's words.

01:17:11It mattered not.

01:17:12Whatever the wolf-guard intended to do about Motep, and, indeed, Cestus, he would do regardless.

01:17:18Right now the ultramarine captain had greater concerns, namely, that the traitor had been

01:17:23broken, for Saffrax had discovered his shattered body in the isolation-chamber, but that whatever

01:17:28secrets he had divulged were denied to them while Motep was incapacitated.

01:17:34It felt like a cruel irony.

01:17:36"'Do you know what we do with witches on Fenris, ultramarine?'

01:17:42Cestus turned at the voice, and saw Bryngar standing behind him, glowering through the

01:17:46glass at Motep.

01:17:47"'We cut the tendons in their arms and legs, then we throw them in the sea to the mercy

01:17:53of Mother Fenris.'

01:17:55Cestus moved into the space-wolf's path.

01:17:57"'This is not Fenris, brother.'

01:18:00Bryngar smiled mirthlessly, as if at some faded remembrance.

01:18:03"'No, it is not,' he said, locking his gaze with Cestus.

01:18:08"'You give your sanction to this warp-dabbler, and in so doing have twice besmirched my honour.

01:18:15I will not let his presence stand on this ship, nor will I let these deeds go unreckoned.'

01:18:22The space-wolf tore a charm hanging from his cuirass, and tossed it at the ultramarine's

01:18:27feet.

01:18:29Cestus looked up and matched the wolf-guard's gaze.

01:18:32"'Challenge accepted,' he said.

01:18:37Bryngar waited in the duelling-pit in the lower decks of the Rothville.

01:18:41The old wolf was stripped down to the waist, wearing grey training-breaches and charcoal-coloured

01:18:46boots, and flexed his muscles and rotated his shoulders as he prepared for his opponent.

01:18:52Arrayed around the training-area, commonly used for the arms-men to practise unarmed

01:18:56combat routines, were what was left of the Astartes—the ultramarine honour-guard, barring

01:19:02Americks, who were still recovering from his injuries, and a handful of blood-claws.

01:19:07Admiral Kaminska, as the captain of the ship, was the only non-Astartes allowed to attend.

01:19:12She had forbidden any other of the crew from watching the duel.

01:19:16The realisation that the Astartes in the fleet were turning on one another was a sign of

01:19:20the worst kind, and she had no desire to discover its effects upon morale, if witnessed by them

01:19:25first-hand.

01:19:27She watched as Cestus stepped into the arena, descending a set of metal steps that retracted

01:19:32into the wall once he was within the duelling-pit.

01:19:35The ultramarine was similarly attired to Bryngar, though his training-breaches were blue to

01:19:40match the colour of his legion.

01:19:42At the appearance of his opponent, Bryngar swung the chainsword in his grasp eagerly.

01:19:48The assembled Astartes were eerily silent, even the normally pugnacious blood-claws held

01:19:52their tongues and merely watched.

01:19:55"'This is madness!' Kaminska hissed, biting back her anger.

01:20:00"'No, Admiral,' said Saffrax, who towered alongside her.

01:20:03"'It is resolution!'

01:20:06The ultramarine banner-bearer stepped forward.

01:20:09As the next highest-ranking Astartes, it was his duty to announce the duel and state the

01:20:13rules.

01:20:14"'This honour-duel is between Lizzie Marcus Cestus of the Ultramarine's legion and Bryngar

01:20:21Sturmbring of the Spacewolf's legion,' Saffrax bellowed, clearly like a carrion call.

01:20:27"'The weapon is chainswords, and the duel is to blood from the torso or incapacitation.

01:20:34Limb or eye-loss counts as thus, as does a cut to the front of the throat.

01:20:39No armour, no firearms!'

01:20:44Saffrax took a brief hiatus to ensure that both Astartes were ready.

01:20:47He saw his brother-captain testing the weight of his chainsword and adjusting his grip.

01:20:52Bryngar made no further preparation, and was straining at the leash.

01:20:56"'The stakes are the fate of Captain Motep of the Thousand Suns' legion.

01:21:01To arms!'

01:21:03The Astartes saluted each other and levelled their chainswords in their respective fighting

01:21:08stances.

01:21:09Bryngar two-handed and slightly off-centre, Cestus low and pointed towards the ground.

01:21:15"'Begin!'

01:21:18Bryngar launched himself at Cestus with a roar, channelling his anger into a shoulder-barge.

01:21:24Cestus twisted on his heel to avoid the charge, but was still a little sluggish from the earlier

01:21:29battle, and caught the blow down his side.

01:21:31A mass of pain numbed his body, resonating through his bones and skull, but the ultramarine

01:21:36kept his feet.

01:21:39Blows fell like hammers against Cestus's defensive stance, his chain-blade screeching as it bit

01:21:43against Bryngar's weapon.

01:21:46Teeth were stripped away, and sparks flew violently from the impact.

01:21:49Two-handed, the ultramarine held him, but was forced down to one knee as the space-wolf

01:21:54used his superior bulk against him.

01:21:56"'We are not in the muster-hall now,' he snarled.

01:22:00"'I shall give no quarter.

01:22:03I will ask for none.'

01:22:05Cestus bit back and twisted out of the blade-lock, using Bryngar's momentum to overbalance the

01:22:10space-wolf.

01:22:12The ultramarine moved in quickly to exploit the advantage with a low thrust, intending

01:22:16to graze Bryngar's torso, draw blood, and end the duel.

01:22:21The old wolf was canny, though, and parried the blow with a flick of his sword before

01:22:25leaning in with another shoulder charge.

01:22:28It lacked the sudden impetus and fury of the first, but jolted Cestus's body all the same.

01:22:33The ultramarine staggered, and Bryngar swept his weapon downward in a brutal arc that would

01:22:39have removed Cestus's head from his shoulders.

01:22:41Instead he rolled, and the blade-teeth carved into the metal floor of the dueling-pit, disturbing

01:22:47the streaks of old blood left by the World-Eater's earlier contest.

01:22:52Cestus came out of the roll and was on his feet.

01:22:55There was a little distance between the two Astartes gladiators, and they circled each

01:22:58other warily, assessing strength and searching for an opening.

01:23:03Bryngar didn't wait long, and howling, hurled his body at the ultramarine, chainsawed, swinging.

01:23:09Cestus met it with his blade, and the two weapons came apart with the force of the blow,

01:23:14chain-teeth spitting from their respective housings.

01:23:17Bryngar cast the ruined chainsaw half to side, and powered a savage uppercut into Cestus's

01:23:22chin that nearly shattered the ultramarine's jaw.

01:23:25A second punch fell like a piston and smashed into his ear.

01:23:29A third lifted him off his feet, hammering into the ultramarine's gut.

01:23:34The sound of Bryngar's grunting aggression became dull and distant, as if Cestus were

01:23:38submerged below water as he fought to get his bearings.

01:23:42He was dimly aware of falling, and of a vague sense of grasping something in his hand as

01:23:46he hipped the hard metal floor of the dueling-pit.

01:23:48Abruptly, Cestus found it hard to breathe, and realised suddenly that Bryngar was choking

01:23:55him.

01:23:56Strangely, the ultramarine thought he heard weeping.

01:24:00With a blink he snapped back into lucidity and smashed his fists down hard against Bryngar's

01:24:05forearms whilst landing a kick into his sternum.

01:24:08It was enough for the space-wolf to loosen his grip.

01:24:11Cestus head-butted him in the nose, and a stream of blood and mucus flowed freely after

01:24:15the impact.

01:24:17Landing the ground beneath him again, Cestus ducked a wild swing and lashed out beneath

01:24:21Bryngar's reach.

01:24:23The ultramarine wasn't quick enough to avoid a backhand swipe, and took it on the side

01:24:26of the face.

01:24:27He was reeling again, dark spots forming before his eyes, hinting that he was about to black

01:24:32out.

01:24:34Yield, he breathed, sinking to his knees, his voice groggy as he pointed to the space-wolf's

01:24:39torso with a chainsaw-tooth clutched in his outstretched hand.

01:24:44Bryngar paused, fists clenched, his breathing ragged, and looked down to where Cestus was

01:24:50pointing.

01:24:51A line of crimson was drawn across the space-wolf's stomach from the tiny diagonal blade in his

01:24:57opponent's grip.

01:24:58"'Blood from the torso,' Saffrax announced with thinly-veiled relief, "'Cestus wins!''

01:25:10CHAPTER XIV HUNTED

01:25:12A SINGLE BLOW

01:25:14WE ARE ALL ALONE

01:25:18Time has little meaning in the warp.

01:25:20Weeks become days, days become hours, and hours become minutes.

01:25:26Time is fluid.

01:25:27It can expand and contract, invert and even cease in those fathomless depths of infinite

01:25:32nothing, endless everything.

01:25:36Leaving the gallery and Zadkiel's echoing laughter behind him, Scrawl had fled into

01:25:41the pitch dark.

01:25:43Crouching in the blackness with naught but the groans of a furious abyss for company,

01:25:46it felt like the passage of years, and yet it could have been no more than weeks or as

01:25:51little as an hour.

01:25:52Heaving, shifting, baying, venting, the vessel was like some primordial beast as it ploughed

01:25:58the imperian tides.

01:26:00Sentience exuded from every surface, the moisture of the metal, the blood, oil, and soot in

01:26:05the air.

01:26:07Heat from Generatoria became breath, fire from blast furnaces anger and hate, the creak

01:26:13of the hull dull moans of pleasure and annoyance.

01:26:17Perhaps this awareness had always existed, and lacked only form to give it tangibility.

01:26:23Perhaps the skeleton the adepts of Mars had forged provided merely a shell for an already

01:26:28sentient host.

01:26:30The World-Eater decided that his thoughts heralded the onset of madness at being hunted

01:26:35for so long, the thin talons of paranoia pricking his skull and infecting his mind with visions.

01:26:42After his discovery in the gallery he had gone to ground, questing downwards through

01:26:46the inner circuitry and workings of the furious abyss in some kind of attempt at preservation.

01:26:51It was not cowardice that drove him.

01:26:53Such a thing was anathema to the Astartes.

01:26:55A World-Eater was incapable of the emotion.

01:26:58Fear simply did not have meaning for them.

01:27:00No, it was out of a desire to regroup, to plan, to achieve some petty measure of destruction

01:27:06that might not at least escape notice, that meant something.

01:27:10Into the heat and fire he had passed arches of steel, vast throbbing engines, and forests

01:27:16of cables so thick that he needed to cut them down with his chain-axe.

01:27:20It was in this manufactured hell that he had found refuge.

01:27:25Pistons lay on the lower decks, pounded to dust by pistons, though some were intact.

01:27:30They were the forgotten dead of the Furious's birth, sucked into machinery, or simply lost

01:27:35and left to starve or die of thirst in the ship's labyrinthine depths.

01:27:40During his flight into this cauldron Scrawl had seen things.

01:27:44The dark had played with him, the heat, too, and the endless industrial din.

01:27:49Glowing eyes would watch the World-Eater, only to then melt away into the walls.

01:27:54A landscape had opened up before him, its edges picked out in darkness, a vast land

01:28:00of bloody ribs and palaces of bone, with mountains of gristle and labyrinths carved down into

01:28:05planes of rippling muscle.

01:28:08Humanoid shapes danced in rivers of blood as the whole world swelled and fell with an

01:28:13ancient breath.

01:28:15Then it was gone, replaced by the darkness, and so he had driven on.

01:28:22Here in the searing depths he had found some respite.

01:28:26It could have been days that he had lingered in meditative solitude, listening to the pitch

01:28:30and pull of the vessel, marshalling his thoughts and his resolve, so as not to give in to insanity.

01:28:36Way down in the Stygian gloom Scrawl couldn't hear the box-traffic, didn't sense the patrols

01:28:42at his heels, and so didn't know if he were still hunted.

01:28:47Sheltering in a crawl-space large enough to accommodate his power-armoured frame within

01:28:51a cluster of pipes and cables, the world-eater snapped abruptly to his senses.

01:28:56Disengaging the cataleptic node that allowed him to maintain a form of active sleep, Scrawl

01:29:01became aware of a shadow looming in the conduit ahead.

01:29:05He was not alone.

01:29:07The passing of menials was not uncommon, but infrequent.

01:29:10Scrawl had listened to their pathetic mewlings as they serviced and maintained the ship with

01:29:15disgust.

01:29:16Such wretches!

01:29:17It had taken all of his resolve not to spring out of his hiding-place and butcher them all

01:29:21like the cattle they were.

01:29:23But then the alarm would have been raised, and the hunt begun anew.

01:29:27He needed to think, to devise his next move.

01:29:31Not gifted with a tactical acumen of the Sons of Gilliman or Dawn, Scrawl was a pure instrument

01:29:36of war, brutal and effective.

01:29:39Yet now he needed a stratagem, and for that he required time—survival first, then sabotage.

01:29:46It was his mantra.

01:29:49That doctrine dissolved into the ether with a shadow.

01:29:52No menial this.

01:29:53It did not mew or bray or weep.

01:29:56It was silent.

01:29:57It was something else, massive footfalls resonating against metal with every step, and it was

01:30:02seeking him.

01:30:04Scrawl extracted himself from the crawl-space and bled away into the darkness, eyes on the

01:30:09growing gloom he left behind him, and went onwards into the furious abyss.

01:30:17"'They tail us ever doggedly, my lord,' uttered Reskiel, as he considered the reports of Navigator

01:30:22Estemia clutched in his gauntlet.

01:30:25Zadkiel appeared sanguine to the fact that the Wrothful continued to follow them into

01:30:28the warp as he regarded the scrawlings on the cell-wall of one of the ship's astropathic

01:30:33choir.

01:30:34It was a Spartan chamber, with little to distinguish it.

01:30:37A narrow cot served as a bed, a simple lectern as a place to scribe.

01:30:42Function was paramount here.

01:30:44"'Warsarik is with us,' he said, emboldened enough in the surety that they had sealed

01:30:50their pact with the ancient creature to speak his name.

01:30:53"'And once he reveals his presence, the pawns of the false emperor will learn the folly

01:30:58of their pursuit.

01:30:59The horrors endured thus far will be as nothing compared to the torture he will visit upon

01:31:04them.'

01:31:05"'Yes, my lord,' Reskiel said humbly.

01:31:08"'We are destined to achieve our mission, Reskiel,' Zadkiel went on.

01:31:13"'Just as this one was destined to die for it.'

01:31:17The admiral turned the corpse of a dead astropath over.

01:31:20It was lying in the middle of the cell in a pool of its own blood.

01:31:24The face was female, but twisted into a rictus of fear and pain so pronounced that it was

01:31:29hard to tell.

01:31:30Black empty orbs stared out from crater-like sockets.

01:31:36Communications were difficult even for those who claimed the warp as an ally, and the messages

01:31:39of the Furious's astropathic choir were proving ever more unreliable and difficult to discern.

01:31:46Zadkiel had some skill at divination, however, and carefully deconstructed nuances of meaning,

01:31:51subtle vagaries of sense and context, in the symbolic renderings of the dead astropath.

01:31:57"'Anything?' asked Reskiel.

01:32:00"'Perhaps,' said Zadkiel, sensing the desperate cadence in the sergeant-commander's voice.

01:32:05"'Once we reach the Macragge system we will have no further need of them,' he added.

01:32:11"'You need not fear us floundering blind in the immaterium, Reskiel.'

01:32:15"'I fear nothing, Lord,' Reskiel affirmed, standing straight, his expression stern.

01:32:21"'Of course not,' Zadkiel replied smoothly.

01:32:25"'Except, perhaps, our intruder.

01:32:28Do the Sons of Angron hold an inner dread for you, sergeant-commander?

01:32:33Do you recall, all too readily, the sting of our erstwhile brother's wrath?'

01:32:39Reskiel raised his gauntlet to the crude repairs of his face and cheekbone, almost subconsciously,

01:32:44but then retracted it, as if suddenly scolded.

01:32:47"'Is that the reason that our interloper still roams free aboard this ship?' Zadkiel pressed.

01:32:53"'He is contained,' Reskiel snarled.

01:32:56"'Should he surface, then I will know, and mount his head upon a spike myself.'

01:33:01Zadkiel traced a shape out of the dense scribblings on the wall,

01:33:04deliberately ignoring the sergeant-commander's impassioned outburst.

01:33:08"'Here!' he hissed, finding the meaning he sought at last.

01:33:12The astropath had written a message in her vital fluids, the parchment pages of her symbol-log,

01:33:17overloaded with further crimson data, and strewn about the cell-floor like bloodied leaves.

01:33:23"'The crown is Colchis,' said Zadkiel, indicating a smear-icon.

01:33:29"'These ancillary marks indicate that this dictate comes from a lord of a legion,' he added,

01:33:35a sweep of his gauntleted hand encompassing a range of symbols that Reskiel could not fathom.

01:33:42"'Astropaths rarely had the luxury of communicating by words or phrases.

01:33:47Instead, they had an extensive catalogue of symbols, which were a lot easier to transmit,

01:33:52psychically. Each symbol had a meaning which became increasingly complex the more symbols

01:33:57were added. The word-bearer's fleet had their own code, in which the crown was modelled after

01:34:02the crown of Colchis, and represented both the legion's home-world and the leadership of the

01:34:07legion.'

01:34:09"'Two eyes, one blinded,' continued Zadkiel.

01:34:13"'That is Cor Fearon's chapter.'

01:34:16"'He asks something of us?' asked Reskiel.

01:34:19Zadkiel picked out another symbol from the miasma, most of which was eidetic doggerel,

01:34:24coming out in a mush of mindless images and non-sequitous ravings, a coiled snake,

01:34:29the abstract geometrical code for the calf system.

01:34:33"'His scouts have confirmed that the ultramarines are mustering at calf,'

01:34:37Zadkiel answered.

01:34:38"'All of them. There are but a few token honour-guards not present.'

01:34:44"'Then we will strike them out with a single blow,' stated the sergeant-commander confidently.

01:34:49"'As it is written, my brother,' Zadkiel replied,

01:34:53looking up from the scrawlings and offering a mirthless smile.

01:34:56He finished examining the astropath's message, and brushed the flakes of dried blood from his

01:35:01gauntlets.

01:35:02"'All is in readiness,' he said to himself, imaging the glory of their triumph and the

01:35:08plaudits he, Zadkiel, would garner.

01:35:11"'Thy word be done.'

01:35:14Cestus filled his time with training regimens and meditation, in part to occupy his mind

01:35:22whilst the Wrothful traversed the warp, but also to recondition his body after the brutal

01:35:27duel with Bryngar.

01:35:29Something had possessed the space-wolf during the fight.

01:35:32Cestus had felt it in every blow, and heard it in the wolf-guard's battle-cries.

01:35:37It was not a change in the sense that the warp-predators took on the form of the Fireblade's

01:35:41crew.

01:35:42No, it was something less ephemeral and more intrinsic than that, as if a part of a gene-code

01:35:47that made up the zygotic structure of Leman Russell's legion had been exposed somehow,

01:35:52and allowed free reign.

01:35:55Base savagery—that was how Cestus thought of it, an animalistic predilection let slip

01:36:01only in the face of the space-wolf's foes.

01:36:04Was the warp the cause of this loosening of resolve?

01:36:07Cestus felt its presence constantly.

01:36:10It was clear that the crew did also, though they appeared to be more acutely afflicted.

01:36:14Armsmen patrols had doubled over the passing weeks.

01:36:18Rotations of those patrols had also increased, and prolonged exposure to the warp, even whilst

01:36:24in the protective bubble of the Wrothful's integrity-fields, took its toll.

01:36:29There had been seventeen warp-related deaths after the attack on the Lance-decks, the entirety

01:36:34of which had been fusion-sealed in the wake of the horrors perpetuated there.

01:36:38Damage, sustained whilst in battle against the word-bearer's ship, had rendered the

01:36:43weapon-system inoperable in any case, and no one on the Wrothful had any desire to tread

01:36:47those bloody halls again.

01:36:49Suicides and apparent accidents were common.

01:36:52One rating was even murdered—the perpetrator still at large—as the products of warp-induced

01:36:57psychosis made their presence felt.

01:37:01Of the furious abyss there had been little sign.

01:37:03It continued to plough through the Imperion, content to let the Wrothful follow.

01:37:09Cestus didn't like the calm.

01:37:12Trouble invariably followed it.

01:37:14A stinging blow caught the ultramarine captain on the side of the temple, and he grimaced

01:37:18in pain.

01:37:20"'You seem preoccupied, my lord,' said Saffrax, standing opposite him in a fighting

01:37:25posture.

01:37:25He twirled the duelling-staff in his hands with expert precision as he circled his captain.

01:37:31The two Astartes faced each other in one of the vessel's gymnasia, wearing breeches and

01:37:36loose-fitting vests, as they conducted the daily ritual of their training carters.

01:37:41Routine dictated the duelling-staff as the weapon of choice for this session.

01:37:47Cestus's body was already bruised and numb from a dozen or more precise blows landed

01:37:52by his banner-bearer.

01:37:54Saffrax was right.

01:37:55His mind was elsewhere, still in the duelling-pit, facing off against Bryngar.

01:38:01"'Perhaps we should switch to the rudius,' Saffrax offered, indicating a pair of short

01:38:06wooden swords clutched by a weapon-servitor, two amongst many training-weapons held by

01:38:11the creature's rack-like frontal carapace.

01:38:14Cestus shook his head, giving the battle-sign that he had had enough.

01:38:18"'That will suffice for to-day,' he said, lowering the staff and reaching for a towel

01:38:23offered by Legion's serf to wipe down his naked arms and neck.

01:38:27"'I don't like this, Saffrax,' he confessed, handing the duelling-weapon back to the servitor

01:38:33as it approached.

01:38:34"'The training-schema was not satisfactory?' the banner-bearer asked, unlike Antigui's,

01:38:39unable to penetrate the deeper meaning of his captain's words.

01:38:43"'No, my brother.

01:38:45It is this quietude that vexes me.

01:38:47We have seen little in the way of deterrent from the furious abyss for almost two weeks,

01:38:52or at least as close to two weeks as I can fathom in this wretched imperium.

01:38:56"'Is that not a boon rather than a cause of vexation?'

01:38:59Saffrax asked, commencing a series of stretching-exercises to loosen his muscles after the

01:39:04bout.

01:39:05"'No, I do not think so.

01:39:08Macragge draws ever closer, and yet we seem ever further from finding a way to stop the

01:39:13word-bearers.

01:39:15We do not even know of their plan.

01:39:17Damn Motep in his coma state!'

01:39:20Cestus stopped what he was doing and looked Saffrax in the eye.

01:39:24"'I am losing hope, brother.

01:39:26Part of me believes the reason they have ceased in their attempts to destroy us is because

01:39:30they do not need to, that we no longer pose a significant threat to their mission, if

01:39:35we ever did.'

01:39:36"'Put your belief in the strength of the Emperor, captain.

01:39:39Trust in that, and we shall prevail,' said the banner-bearer vehemently.

01:39:43Cestus sighed deeply, feeling a great weight upon his shoulders.

01:39:48"'You are right,' said the ultramarine captain.

01:39:51Saffrax might not possess the instinct and empathy of Antiges, but his duer pragmatism

01:39:56was an unshakable rock in a sea of doubt.

01:39:59"'Thank you, Saffrax,' he added, clapping his hand on the banner-bearer's shoulder while

01:40:03nodding in response.

01:40:06Cestus wrenched off the vest, sodden with his sweat, and donned a set of robes as he

01:40:10padded across the gymnasium to the antechamber where legion surf-armourers awaited him.

01:40:15"'If you do not need me further, captain, I shall continue my daily regimen in your

01:40:19absence,' said the banner-bearer.

01:40:22"'Very well, Saffrax,' Cestus replied, his thoughts still clouded.

01:40:26"'There is someone else I need to see,' he added in a murmur to himself."

01:40:33Bryngar slumped forlornly onto his rump in the quarters set aside for him by Admiral

01:40:38Kaminska.

01:40:39He was alone, surrounded by a host of empty ale-barrels, his blood-claws isolated at the

01:40:44barracks, and belched raucously.

01:40:47He had come here after losing the honour duel, speaking to no one, and entertaining no remarks,

01:40:52however placatory, from his fellow space-wolves.

01:40:55The old wolf's demeanour made it clear that he wished to be alone.

01:41:00Not everyone got the message.

01:41:02Bryngar looked up from his dour brooding when he saw Cestus enter the gloomy chamber.

01:41:08"'Wolf's-mead is all gone,' he slurred, impossibly drunk, despite the co-action of

01:41:15the space-wolf's pre-omnor and ulytic kidney.

01:41:18The beverage, native to Fenris, was brewed with the very purpose of granting intoxication

01:41:23that overrode even the processes of the Astartes' gene-harnsed physiognomy, albeit temporarily.

01:41:29"'You keep it, my friend,' Cestus replied, with mock geniality, despite his apprehension."

01:41:35Bryngar grunted, kicking over his empty tankard as he got up.

01:41:39The old wolf was stripped out of his armour, and wore an amalgam of furs and coarse grey

01:41:44robes. Charms and runic talismans clattered over his hirsute chest, the nick from the

01:41:49chain-tooth still visible, though all but healed.

01:41:53"'You seem well recovered, Ultramarine,' grumbled the wolf-guard, irascibly.

01:41:58Bryngar's belligerence had not dimmed with the passage of hours in the warp.

01:42:03In truth, Cestus still felt the ache in his jaw and stomach, in spite of the laryman cells in

01:42:08his body speeding up the healing process exponentially. The Ultramarine merely nodded,

01:42:13unwilling to disclose his discomfort.

01:42:17"'Now it is done,' he said.

01:42:18"'You are an honourable warrior, Bryngar. What's more, you are my friend. I know you

01:42:24will abide by the outcome of the duel.'

01:42:26The space-wolf fixed his good eye on him, pausing as he hunted around for more ale to quaff.

01:42:32He snarled, and for a moment Cestus thought he might instigate another fight, but then

01:42:37relaxed, and let out a rasping sigh.

01:42:41"'Aye, I'll abide by it. But I warn you, Lizzie Mac, or Cestus, I will hold no truck

01:42:48with warp-dabblers. Keep him away from me, or I will visit my blade upon his sorcerer's

01:42:54tongue,' he promised, drawing closer, the rustle of his beard-hair, the only clue that

01:42:59the space-wolf's lips were actually moving.

01:43:02"'If you stand in my way again, it will be no honoured duel that decides his fate.'

01:43:10Cestus paused for a moment, matching Bryngar's intensity with a stern expression.

01:43:15"'Very well,' the ultramarine replied, and then added,

01:43:18"'I need you in this fight, Bryngar. I need the strength of your arm and the steel of

01:43:23your courage.'

01:43:24The old wolf sniffed in mild contempt.

01:43:27"'But not my counsel, eh?'

01:43:30Cestus was about to counter when Bryngar continued,

01:43:33"'You'll have my arm and my courage right enough,' he said, waving Cestus away with

01:43:39his clawed hand.

01:43:40"'Leave me now. I'm sure there's more to drink in here somewhere.'

01:43:46Cestus breathed in hard and turned away.

01:43:49Yes, Bryngar remained in the fight—the ultramarine had gained that much—but he

01:43:54had lost something much more potent—a friend.

01:44:00Cestus did not have much time to lament the ending of Bryngar's friendship, as he made

01:44:04for the bridge.

01:44:05Down one of the Rothwell's access corridors he received a vox transmission that crackled

01:44:10in the receiver node on his gorget.

01:44:12"'Captain Cestus,' said Admiral Kaminska's voice.

01:44:15"'Speak, admiral, this is Cestus.'

01:44:17"'You are required at the isolation chambers at once,' she said.

01:44:21"'For what reason, admiral?' Cestus replied, betraying his annoyance at the

01:44:25admiral's brevity.

01:44:27"'Lord Maltep is awake.'

01:44:29Once Cestus had left, Bryngar found a last barrel of wolf's-mead and guzzled it down,

01:44:35foam and liquid lapping at his beard.

01:44:37He cared little for the revival of the Thousand Sun, and slumped back into Melancholy, their

01:44:42passage through the war perfecting him more than he would admit.

01:44:46A haze overtook his vision, and he could smell the scent of the cold and hear the lap of

01:44:51Fenrissian oceans.

01:44:52Bryngar wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and remembered standing atop a jagged

01:44:56glacier, with naught but a flint knife and a loincloth to cover his dignity.

01:45:01This was not a punishment, he recalled, recognising the place from his past.

01:45:06It was a reward.

01:45:07Only the toughest Fenrissian youths were considered for the test.

01:45:11It was called the Blooding, but so rarely did a space wolf speak of it that it barely

01:45:16needed a name at all.

01:45:17Faced with the bleak white nightmare of the Fenrissian winter, Bryngar had found the bone

01:45:22of a long-dead ice-predator, and had fixed his knife to it to make a spear.

01:45:27He had stalked patiently, following the short-lived tracks of the prey-beast across the ice and

01:45:31tundra.

01:45:33When he had killed it, it had put up a mighty fight, because even the most docile of Fenrissian

01:45:38creatures were angry monsters.

01:45:41After consuming its flesh, he had skinned it with his own hands, and it had become a

01:45:47had skinned it and worn the skin as a cloak, as if part of the beast's essence lived on

01:45:51within him.

01:45:52Without its fur and flesh, he would have died during the first night.

01:45:57He had then sharpened its bones into more blades, in case he lost his knife.

01:46:02He wove a line from its tendons and made a hook from a tiny bone in its inner ear, using

01:46:07it to pull fish from the sea.

01:46:09He split its jawbone in two and carried it as a club.

01:46:13Bryngar trekked his way back towards the Fang, using faint glimpses of the winter sun to

01:46:18show him the way as he descended the glacier.

01:46:21Upon a rugged place of razor-shards, the ice collapsed to pitch him into a sickle-tooth

01:46:26dem.

01:46:27He fought his way free of the scaly predators with his jawbone club.

01:46:31Onwards he pressed, and a frost-lynx ambushed him, but he wrestled the writhing feline to

01:46:36the ground and bit out its throat, saturating himself in gore.

01:46:41The journey was long.

01:46:42He had killed a sky-blade hawk with a thrown bone-knife.

01:46:46He had scaled mountains.

01:46:48When finally he saw the gates of the Fang ahead, Bryngar understood the lesson that

01:46:53the blooding was supposed to teach him.

01:46:55It was not about survival or fighting, or even the determination required of an Astartes.

01:47:00Any prospective space-wolf who made it to the blooding had already shown that he had

01:47:05those skills and qualities.

01:47:07The blooding's message was far harder to learn.

01:47:11We are all alone, Bryngar muttered, having drained the last of the wolf's mead.

01:47:18Briefly his mind wandered back to the blooding.

01:47:21He remembered that an enormous shaggy black wolf had appeared on a crag overlooking the

01:47:25path he was to take.

01:47:27It had watched him for a long time, and he had known that it was a wolfen, the half-mythical

01:47:31predators said to be born from the earth of Fenris to winnow out the weak.

01:47:36The wolfen had not approached him, but Bryngar had felt its eyes watching him for days on

01:47:41end.

01:47:41He wondered if the creature's gaze had ever left him.

01:47:44The same wolfen was now sitting before him, regarding Bryngar with its black eyes.

01:47:50The wolf-guard returned its gaze, and saw his face mirrored in the beast's pupils.

01:47:56"'You're alone,' he said.

01:47:58"'We're pack animals, all of us.

01:48:01But that's just—that's just on the surface.

01:48:06We cling to the pack, because if we did not, there would be no legion.

01:48:09We are alone, all of us.

01:48:11There might as well be no one else on this bloody ship.'

01:48:15The wolfen did not reply.

01:48:18"'Just you and me,' said Bryngar huskily.

01:48:23The wolfen shook itself like a dog drying its fur.

01:48:26It growled powerfully and stood up on all fours.

01:48:29It was the size of a horse, its head level with the space-wolf's.

01:48:33The wolfen bowed down and picked something up off the floor with its jaws, with a flick

01:48:37of its head.

01:48:38He threw it at Bryngar's feet.

01:48:41It was a bolt-pistol.

01:48:43The grip was plated with shards of the bone-knife that Bryngar had been carrying when he arrived

01:48:47at the fang after his blooding.

01:48:49His fish-hook hung from the butt of the gun on a thong made from animal tendon.

01:48:54Sky-blade talons and Frostling's teeth decorated the body of the weapon in an intricate mosaic

01:48:59depicting a black wolf against the whiteness of a Fenrisian winter.

01:49:04"'Ah,' said the wolf-guard, picking the weapon up,

01:49:07"'that's where it got to.'

01:49:11Fate was a lattice of interconnecting strands of potential realities and possible futures.

01:49:17Eventualities flowed in bifurcating lines and paradoxes.

01:49:21Destiny was unfixed, existing purely as a series of outcomes, and even the most infinitesimal

01:49:26action had consequence and resonance.

01:49:30Motep regarded the myriad strands of fate in his mind.

01:49:34Focusing on the silence and solace of the isolation-chamber, vision sprang unbidden

01:49:38to his mind.

01:49:39Glorious mountains of power rose up before him.

01:49:43Galaxies boiled away in the distance, points of burning light on an endless silver sky.

01:49:49Infinite layers of reality fell, each one teeming with life.

01:49:53Motep's concepts of history and humanity saw endless cities springing up like grass

01:49:58and withering away again, to be replaced by spires greater than those on Prospero.

01:50:04Motep's memories flared up against the sky and became whole worlds.

01:50:09Subsumed completely within the meditative trance-state, he saw the magnificence of the

01:50:14Emperor's palace, its golden walls resplendent against the Terran sun.

01:50:19He saw the finery and gilded glory torn down, artistry and mosaic replaced by gun-metal

01:50:25steel.

01:50:26The palace became a fortress, cannons like black fingers pointing towards an enemy burning

01:50:31from the sky above.

01:50:33Driven earth and waves of blood tarnished its glory.

01:50:37Brother fought brother in their legions, and changeling beasts loped out of the dark at

01:50:42the behest of fell-masters.

01:50:45War-machines soared, their titanic presence blotting out the smoke-scarred sun.

01:50:49Thunder boomed and lightning split the blood-drenched sky as their weapons spoke.

01:50:55Laughter pealed across the heavens, and the Emperor of mankind looked skyward, where

01:50:59shadows blackened the crimson horizon.

01:51:02Light so bright that it burned Motep's irises flared like the luminance of an exploding

01:51:07star.

01:51:09When he looked back, the battlefield was gone, the Emperor was gone.

01:51:14There was only the isolation-chamber and the escaping resonance of purpose drifting out

01:51:18of Motep's consciousness.

01:51:21"'Greetings, Cestus,' he said, noting the Ultramarine's presence in the room as he

01:51:26shrouded the disorientation and discomfort he felt after leaving the fate-trance.

01:51:31"'It is good to have you back with us, brother,' said Cestus, who had lingered at

01:51:35the threshold, but now stepped fully into the chamber to stand in front of his fellow

01:51:39Astartes.

01:51:40Motep turned to face the Ultramarine and gave a shallow bow.

01:51:44"'I see you still do not see fit to offer better accommodations.'

01:51:49Prior to the Thousand Suns' revival, Cestus had ordered that as soon as he awoke and his

01:51:54vital signs were confirmed, Motep should be taken at once to the isolation-chamber.

01:51:59There existed no doubt of his abilities.

01:52:01It meant that he had defied the edicts of Nicaea, and it meant that he had a connection

01:52:06to the warp.

01:52:07Whether it was one he could exploit or would need to sever, Cestus did not yet know.

01:52:13"'You come to learn of what I gleaned from brother Altus,' Motep stated, content to

01:52:17guide the conversation.

01:52:19The Ultramarine found his prescience unnerving.

01:52:22"'Don't worry, Cestus, I am not probing your mind,' added the Thousand Sun, sensing

01:52:27his fellow Astartes' unease.

01:52:29"'What other possible reason could there be for you to have been summoned to my presence

01:52:33so urgently?'

01:52:35"'Altus, that is his name?'

01:52:37"'Indeed,' Motep answered, parting the robes he wore to sit upon the bunk in the

01:52:42chamber.

01:52:43The Astartes' armour had been removed during his time in the Medibay.

01:52:47There it lay still with the rest of the Thousand Suns' accoutrements.

01:52:51Cestus noted, however, that Motep still wore the scarab earring, glinting in the depths

01:52:56of his cowl from the ambient light in the room, and remained hurried throughout the

01:53:00exchange.

01:53:02"'What else did you learn?

01:53:03What do the word-bearers plan to do?'

01:53:06"'Formosca is where it begins,' Motep answered simply.

01:53:10Cestus made an incredulous face.

01:53:13"'The second moon of Macragge?

01:53:15It's a barren rock.

01:53:16There's nothing there.'

01:53:17"'On the contrary, Ultramarine,' countered Motep, lowering his head.

01:53:21"'Everything is on Formosca.'

01:53:24"'I don't understand,' said Cestus.

01:53:27Motep lifted his head.

01:53:29His eyes were alight with crimson flame.

01:53:32"'Then let me show you,' he said, as Cestus recoiled, lunging forward to thrust his open

01:53:37palm against the Ultramarine's head.

01:53:44Chapter 15 Desecration

01:53:47Communion Visions of Death

01:53:50Scrawl surged through the dark and the heat, rising now, exploiting conduits and pipes,

01:53:55and using any means he could to secrete his ascent up the decks of the furious abyss.

01:54:00Finally he arrived, incredulously, at the place where weeks before he had fled, leaving

01:54:05Antiges to his death.

01:54:07He had returned—to the temple.

01:54:10Scrawl found that Antiges remained, too.

01:54:13Dismembered in his armour, the dark blue of the ceramite almost hidden by the red sheen

01:54:19of blood, the world-eater could only tell it was Antiges by his chapter symbols.

01:54:24Little more than a collection of body parts existed now.

01:54:27What lay before him on a pall, attended by silent acolytes, could barely be considered

01:54:33a corpse.

01:54:34Antiges's head was missing.

01:54:38Scrawl had heard of the inhabitants of feral worlds who dismembered their foes, or sacrificed

01:54:43humans to their heathen gods.

01:54:45The world-eaters had their own warrior traditions, most of them bloody, but nothing to compare

01:54:50to the religious mutilation he had seen among the savages.

01:54:53To see Astartes, especially the self-righteously sophisticated word-bearers, doing thus, shocked

01:54:59Scrawl as much as the moment that the furious abyss had turned on the imperial fleet.

01:55:04The galaxy was changing very quickly.

01:55:07The words of Zadkiel, spoken so many days ago in the gallery, echoed back at him.

01:55:12The world-eater shrank deeper into the shadows as he saw Astartes entering the chamber.

01:55:17One, the warrior he had fought earlier in the temple during his escape, he recognized.

01:55:22It was not with a little satisfaction that he saw the metal artifice attached to the

01:55:27word-bearer's face, where Scrawl had broken his jaw and shattered his cheekbone.

01:55:32A darkly armoured chaplain accompanied the warrior rescue.

01:55:36One of the demagogues of the legion, the chaplain wore a skull-faced battle-helm with conjoined

01:55:41rebreather apparatus, worked into the gorget, and carried Acrosius, the icon of his office.

01:55:47Silently Reskiel gave the acolytes orders.

01:55:50As if understanding on some instinctive level, they bowed curtly and proceeded to lift what

01:55:55was left of Antiges on a steel pole.

01:55:58Together they raised him up onto their shoulders, and, led by the chaplain, left the room.

01:56:04Reskiel lingered in their wake, probing the shadows, and for a brief moment Scrawl thought

01:56:09he was discovered, but the word-bearer turned eventually and followed the macabre procession.

01:56:16Loosening the grip of his chain-axe, the world-eater went after them.

01:56:21Trailing the enemy at a discrete distance, Scrawl was led down a pathway lined with

01:56:25statues that flowed towards what he assumed was the prow of the ship.

01:56:29He had previously steered clear of the vessel's forward sections, preferring to hide himself in

01:56:34the industrial tangle of the sternwood engine-decks.

01:56:37But a greater understanding of his enemy was worth the risk.

01:56:41Continuing his pursuit, the world-eater found himself in darkness, lit only by candles

01:56:46mounted in alcoves.

01:56:48Watching intently, Scrawl witnessed the pole-bearers saying a prayer to set of blast-doors.

01:56:53The exact words were indiscernible, but their reverence was obvious, before continuing into

01:56:58a dim chamber beyond.

01:57:00Using the shadows like a concealing cloak, Scrawl moved into the room.

01:57:05As he got further inside, he realized that it was an anatomy theatre.

01:57:10A surgeon's slab dominated the centre of the room, surrounded by circular tiers of seating,

01:57:15though they were not occupied.

01:57:17Whatever ritual or experiment was to be performed here was a clandestine one.

01:57:22The chaplain, the vestments he wore across his armour fringed with black trim, beckoned

01:57:27the acolytes forward.

01:57:28The debased creatures, hunchbacked and robed, slunk to the table as one.

01:57:33Sibilant emanations pierced the silence softly, as they took the disparate sections of Antigues's

01:57:39corpse and laid them out on the slab.

01:57:42Obscene and profane, the gorge in Scrawl's throat rose, and his anger swelled at the

01:57:47sight of the act.

01:57:48Taken apart like that, it was as if Antigues was no more than a machine to be stripped

01:57:53down, or meat cleaved at the butcher's block.

01:57:56Coldness smothered the anger and bile within Scrawl, as if his blood had been poured on

01:58:00him.

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