the Doom Eagles were not like those other Chapters. They wanted to
understand.
The Librarium’s scribe-servitors were still transcribing the complex
code-language into High Gothic, and filling ledger after ledger with the
ramblings that resulted. Varnica had one such book in front of him,
leafing through the parade of obscenity. Kephilaes had been a prophet,
in part at least, and the endless train of prodigies and omens filled
Varnica’s mind with images of stars boiling away and the galaxy
burning from core to rim.
‘Librarian,’ came a familiar voice.
Varnica looked up to see Techmarine Hamilca walking among the
small forest of servitors that chittered away as they wrote. ‘I had heard
tell I would find you here.’
‘Where else would one find a Librarian,’ replied Varnica, ‘but in a
library?’
Hamilca smiled. ‘Your levity need be a shield no longer, Librarian.
Not while you and I are the only ones to see it. The loss of Novas has
affected you more deeply than an Adeptus Astartes is apt to admit.’
‘One more trial on the path, brother. One more trial.’
‘What did Kephilaes have to say for himself?’
Varnica closed the tome he had finished scanning through. ‘At the
last count, Techmarine, seventeen million people died so he could tell
us that a great feathered serpent was going to swallow the sun. And
that a plague of cockroaches would devour a great empire. No details
on which sun or which empire.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Hamilca, ‘this is a task that could be shared?’
‘One mind, I fear, is better than two when it comes to such things. I
consider reading Kephilaes’s drivel a penance for losing good Doom
Eagles under my command.’
‘So be it, Librarian. I and my servitors shall be ready to assist you.’
Hamilca finished making a few adjustments to the scribe-servitors, and
the hum of their scribbling autoquills changed pitch slightly. ‘And so,
brother I leave you.’
‘Wait,’ said Varnica. Hamilca stopped just as he was turning away.
Varnica had opened another volume of the heretic’s writings. ‘Here.
And here. The same name. A daemon prince. This is a record of its
deeds.’
‘Kephilaes’ patron?’ asked Hamilca.
‘Perhaps. It was one of the most powerful of its kind, one of the
brood of the Change God. Throne alive, I fear I shall need the services
of the Flagellants’ Guild to purify myself after reading this. It was... it
was a plotter without compare. A manipulator. “There was not one
living soul without a flaw that he could not widen to a chasm into which
that soul would fall. A saint would be prey to this great cunning.”’
‘This daemon prince,’ said Hamilca, sitting opposite Varnica and
taking a book for himself. ‘It is active now? The Red Night was some
form of sacrifice to it?’
‘It is possible. There is more. Here – a record of its deeds. It polluted
the gene pool of a triad of worlds, so they became barbarians and
warred with one another. An obscene tale about Saint Voynara, who
before she died gave in to despair and called upon this prince to deliver
her. And its masterpiece, the crowning glory... by Terra, what foulness
I see before my eyes!’
Hamilca leaned forwards. ‘Librarian? What is it? What have you
seen?’
‘It took a Chapter of Adeptus Astartes,’ read Varnica, ‘and it found in
them a fatal flaw. It was their pride. That same sin we all commit,
brother. Our pride, our weakness. And it turned this Chapter into an
instrument of its will, through trickery compelling them to do its bidding
while they thought they were doing the Emperor’s work.’
‘What Chapter was this?’ asked Hamilca. ‘Many have fallen from
grace or disappeared. Is this the truth behind the fall of the Brazen
Claws or the Thunder Barons?’
‘No,’ replied Varnica. ‘This daemon prince, when its name was
spoken, was called Abraxes. The Chapter it commanded was the Soul
Drinkers.’
Chapter 5
‘It will not hurt, brother,’ said Sister Solace to Brother Sennon. In the
cramped cell, once the living space of an engineer among the
cavernous workings of the Phalanx, a few candles guttered, giving a
struggling yellowish light. In Solace’s hands was a wide-gauge needle
hooked up to a pump and an intravenous bag.
‘I do not fear pain,’ replied Sennon, who lay bare-chested on a
mattress. Sweat beaded on his face in spite of his words, and his
voice came from a dry throat. He had never looked younger. In the
shadows he seemed a child, defying the cowardice that his youth
should have brought him.
‘We need not make ourselves suffer now,’ replied Solace. ‘The time
for such things is over. Let the Emperor’s kindness soothe you, and I
shall make you as comfortable as possible.’
Sennon swallowed, and winced as the tip of the needle touched the
vein Solace had located on the inside of his elbow. The needle slid
under his skin, the pump began to work and the intravenous bag filled
up. Solace hooked up a second bag, this one filled with a clear bluish
liquid.
‘Speak to me, my brother,’ she said as Sennon’s eyes drifted out of
focus. ‘What can you see?’
‘I see you, my sister,’ said Sennon. His throat constricted and he
grimaced as he fought to breathe. Solace took his hand and
squeezed. ‘I see… this place is gone. There are no walls. The Phalanx
is gone.’
‘What is it? What do you see?’
‘I see… a battlefield.’ Sennon’s body relaxed and his eyes seemed
to focus on a point far off, past the ceiling of the cell with its rag-tag
collection of mementos from a life among the engines of the Phalanx.
Cogs and valves were piled up on a shelf beneath a metal icon painted
with the symbol of the Imperial Fists. A few ragged sets of protective
clothing were hung up above an alcove containing three pairs of
battered steel-toed boots. A paltry collection of religious verses and
children’s stories filled a small cupboard beside the mattress on which
Sennon lay, and on the ceiling a previous occupier had drawn images
of stars and crescent moons. Sennon saw none of it. Solace thought
for a moment that she could see an endless landscape of rolling plains
and mountains reflected in the youth’s eyes as his pupils expanded to
black pools.
black pools.
‘It goes on forever,’ said Sennon, his breath hushed. ‘They are all
there, all those who have died in the Emperor’s name. They are there
to join him in the battle at the end of time.’
‘Tell me,’ said Sister Solace. She adjusted the pump, which
hummed louder as the liquid coursed faster through Sennon’s veins.
Gauges on the side of the pump read various pressures and she tried
to keep them aligned. Too fast or too slow and the youth would die.
‘I see billions of them, the uniforms of the Imperial Guard,’ said
Sennon. A million regiments, bayonets f
ixed, stretching across a
world. And others too, ordinary men and women in a great throng. All
the pious souls that have ever died. And at the forefront are the
Adeptus Astartes, the Angels of Death!’
Solace looked up. A trickle of blood ran from Sennon’s nose. ‘As
Gyranar told us?’ she asked.
‘Yes! Oh, sister, they are beautiful! Their armour gleams, and they
have wings of gold on which to fly!’ Sennon’s face spread into a
rapturous smile, even as blood collected in the corner of his mouth.
‘Their eyes are aflame! Mighty blades shine in their hands. But… but
the Enemy is here also. The Adversary. All the foul tongues of the
warp have spoken into existence an army even greater!’
Sennon’s body began to shudder. Solace took the youth’s pulse
from his wrist: his heart was hammering, his face now showing an
awestruck fear.
‘Speak to me of them, brother,’ said Solace. ‘There is nothing to fear
in them. They cannot harm you. Speak to me.’
‘Monsters without form. Flesh turned liquid, bathed in fire. Legions of
the hateful warp-spawned, like regiments on the parade ground. Things
of living corruption, smothered under a blanket of flies, seething
masses of filth! Mountains of rot that vomit torrents of their progeny
onto the field! And worse… sister, worse things, so sinful and
lascivious in form that I cannot look away! Tear my eyes from them,
sister, before they infect my soul!’
‘Do not fear, brother. I am with you. The Emperor is with you. No
harm can befall you, for you are under His protection. Believe in Him,
believe, brother!’
‘And still more,’ continued Sennon, his voice speeding up into a
near-gabble. ‘The generals and the overlords of the Adversary. They
tower! Their shadows cast whole continents into darkness! Mighty
horned things, wielding blades wreathed in flame! I see a beast with a
hundred heads, crowned with laurels of entwined bodies. I see… I see
a creature red-skinned and immense, its wings blocking out the sun,
the axe in its hand oozing blood! I can see all the galaxy’s hatred in its
twisted face. But it cannot harm me. Though its eyes fall on me, it
cannot harm me!’
‘No,’ said Solace. ‘It cannot.’ She lacked the equipment to read
Sennon’s vital signs properly, so she had to do it by eye, reading the
youth’s pulse and the dilation of his pupils, the spasming of his fingers
and toes, the alternating rigidity and weakness of his limbs. The
Phalanx had some of the finest medicae facilities in the Imperium
within its apothecarion and the sickbays used by the crew, but Solace
had to do this work away from the eyes of the Imperial Fists and the
Phalanx’s crewmen. It had to be done this way.
And if Sennon died, there were others. She would go through the
whole Blinded Eye if she had to. If it came to it, she would do this to
herself.
‘I see the gods of the warp!’ gasped Sennon. ‘Saints take my eyes!
Faithful hands strip me of my senses! I see such things that creation
cannot contain! Talon and hateful eye, wing and feather, an ocean of
rotting flesh and the awful knotted limbs of the eternal dancer! And
yet… and yet they are in shadow, cast by a far greater light…’
Solace checked the gauges. Most of Sennon’s blood was gone. The
fluid that replaced it was pumping through him, but it might not be fast
enough. This was the most dangerous point, where the body hovered
between bleeding to death and being suffused with its replacement
blood.
‘The Primarchs stand ready to command the host. Sanguinius the
Angel paints his face with a million tears, one for every blood-brother
who stands by his side. Russ and the Lion are side by side, their
hatred for one another gone, the Wolves of Fenris and the Dark Angels
standing proud. Guilliman and his host, vaster than any other army
ever assembled. The Khan, the Iron-Handed One, and Vulkan, all
gathered exhorting their brothers to war! And Dorn, holy Dorn, sacred
Dorn, the greatest of them, I see the banner in his hands spun from
the starlight of every sun within the Emperor’s domain! He is the
Champion of the Emperor, the first to fight, the tip of His spear and the
lightning that shall be cast down among the enemy! He shines like
gold, such a blaze of fire that the enemy are blinded and they howl in
anguish at the presence of such holiness!’
Sennon gasped and his eyes rolled back. Solace grabbed his hand
and squeezed it tighter. ‘Brother! Keep talking, brother! Tell me what
you see! Sennon, tell me what you see!’
Sennon just gasped in response, spraying flecks of blood down his
chin.
Solace scrabbled in the meagre selection of medical gear that lay
on the floor around her. She found a syringe and tore its wrapping
open. The syringe was pre-loaded with a fat needle as long as a finger
and a steel cylinder of a body. Solace held the syringe point-down over
Sennon’s chest, muttered a prayer, and stabbed down.
The needle punched between Sennon’s ribs. The liquid inside
flooded into his heart and his whole body juddered as if hit with an
electric shock. Solace had to lean over him and put her body weight
on him to keep the needle from breaking off or tearing too big a hole in
the youth’s heart. Sennon gasped, sputtering more blood. A mist of it
arched, joints creaking.
Sennon slumped down again. He let out a long rattling breath from a
painfully dry throat.
‘I see the Emperor,’ he murmured. ‘He tells me not to be afraid. He
tells me to fight.’
Solace looked down at the gauges and readouts again. They had
stabilised. The exchange was complete.
She withdrew the needle from Sennon’s arm and placed a dressing
on the wound. She wiped the blood from his face with a wet cloth.
‘You will fight, my brother,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’
In the tumult following Librarian Varnica’s evidence, Chapter Master
Vladimir had called an adjournment to the trial. Sarpedon had been led
back to his cell, the Imperial Fists refusing any answer to his requests
to speak with Daenyathos. The alleged presence of the Philosopher-
Soldier still had his mind in a whirl. The dismay that he had felt to have
Abraxes’ existence revealed to the trial was a new counterpart to that
confusion. Piece by piece, everything he had been sure of was falling
apart.
He was grateful for the cell, though he had never thought he could
think so. Its cramped walls and deadening psychic wards, smothering
though they were, were preferable to the hatred that surrounded him in
the courtroom. He crouched against one wall, and stared for a few
minutes at the heap of crumpled papers, all that remained of his
attempts to pen final words to his battle-brothers.
What could he say? What would make any difference? He had
thought he would face this trial with dignity and courage, perhaps even
to make his execution, when it came, a reluctant act on the part of the
executioners. Now even that small victory felt very far away.
‘I will not kneel,’ he said to himself. ‘I will not despair. I am Adeptus
Astartes. I will not despair.’
‘I fear for your sake, Chapter Master, that whether to despair is not
your decision to make.’
Sarpedon’s eyes snapped to the opening in the cell door. It was not
the voice of a Space Marine – it was a woman. This one had a note of
familiarity to it, though.
Sarpedon scuttled up to the door. Beyond it, flanked by a pair of
Imperial Fists with bolters at the ready, was Sister Aescarion of the
Adepta Sororitas. She, like the Space Marines, wore her full armour to
the trial and still had it on now, a suit of polished black ceramite
emblazoned with the iconography of the Imperial Church. Her own
weapon was the power axe but it was strapped to the jump pack of her
armour now and she did not have it to hand. She was a full head
shorter than a Space Marine for she was not augmented like them,
and had a stern, angular yet handsome face with red-brown hair tied
back in a ponytail.
‘I recall you from Stratix Luminae,’ said Sarpedon.
‘An encounter I would sooner forget,’ replied Aescarion.
‘None of us wish to remember the sight of an adversary who departs
the battlefield alive.’
‘And you are still my adversary,’ said the Battle Sister. ‘Nothing has
changed on that score. You are a traitor.’
‘And yet,’ said Sarpedon, ‘you willingly exchange words with me. It
seems women are as a strange a breed of creature as men say.’
‘Not as strange as a condemned prisoner who makes light of his
situation,’ said Aescarion with a withering look that had no doubt been
the scourge of the Sororitas novices she had trained.
‘I trust you have not come here to swap insults, Sister,’ said
Sarpedon.
Aescarion glanced at the Imperial Fists flanking her. ‘If you please,’
she said to them. ‘A few minutes are all I ask.’
‘Stay in sight,’ replied one of the Imperial Fists. The two Adeptus
Astartes parted and walked several paces down the corridor outside
Sarpedon’s cell, out of earshot.
‘They run a tight ship, these sons of Dorn,’ said Sarpedon, As straitlaced