aside with the haft of his hammer and cracked the butt of the weapon
into the side of N’Kalo’s head. N’Kalo reeled and Reinez closed,
driving his shoulder into N’Kalo’s midriff and hauling the Space Marine
off the ground.
Reinez hefted N’Kalo into the air and threw him. N’Kalo tumbled over
the bank of the river and into the water, the powerful stream foaming
around him. Reinez jumped in after him, dragging N’Kalo to his feet.
The water came up to each Space Marine’s chest. Reinez slammed a
headbutt into the face of N’Kalo’s helm, denting the ceramite
faceplate.
N’Kalo drove a knee into the inside of Reinez’s thigh. Reinez
stumbled back a step, feet slipping on the stones and mud of the
artificial riverbed. N’Kalo crunched an elbow into the back of Reinez’s
head and pulled his sword from the water again, slicing left and right.
Reinez deflected each blow with his hammer or glanced them from his
shoulder pads.
N’Kalo paused, having created the space he needed between the
two combatants. He shifted his footing to plant himself more firmly on
the bed of mud and rocks. Behind him, rapids rushed around several
large boulders, plunging down a low waterfall. The branches of
overhanging willows almost brushed the river’s surface. If it were not for
the two Adeptus Astartes struggling to shed one another’s blood, it
would have been a tranquil and beautiful place.
N’Kalo’s breath was heaving. Reinez looked like he had barely
broken a sweat. N’Kalo had not yet managed to draw blood from the
Crimson Fist.
‘Do you think this will be over?’ said Reinez as he forged through the
waters, trying to force N’Kalo back towards the rapids. ‘If the galaxy
turns upside-down and you beat me, how long do you think your
victory will last? You think you will have any brothers here? They will
turn their backs on you.’
‘They are not so consumed with bitterness as you, Reinez,’ replied
N’Kalo. ‘They have not let failure make them less of an Adeptus
Astartes.’
Reinez’s face darkened. He spat a wordless syllable of anger and
charged – not at N’Kalo, but at the closest tree that clung to the
riverbank. Reinez wrenched the tree free of its roots, showering dirt
and loose stones across the water.
Reinez’s anger gave him strength. N’Kalo had barely the time to get
his sword up before Reinez slammed the shattered tree trunk into him,
throwing him backwards into the water. The impact was enough to
knock him senseless and his heavy armoured body thudded onto the
riverbed, waters rushing around him.
Reinez pounced from the bank into the water, one knee pounding
square into N’Kalo’s solar plexus. Reinez hauled the Iron Knight over
his head, out of the water, and slammed him down into one of the
massive boulders making up the rapids. The boulder shattered under
the impact and N’Kalo sprawled against it, water foaming white around
him, unable to move.
Reinez planted a foot on N’Kalo’s midriff. Both hands free now, his
hammer holstered, he grabbed the lower edge of N’Kalo’s helmet and
wrenched it halfway around, forcing it off N’Kalo’s head.
The helmet came free with a shower of sparks. Reinez was looking
into a face severely burned, every blister and scour looking like it had
just been inflicted, red and weeping. N’Kalo’s lips were pale streaks in
the blackened skin, his eyes kept open only by artificial surfaces of
milky glass that made them look blind. His jaw and back teeth showed
through the tears in his cheeks, and segments of cranium glinted as if
polished between the stringy remnants of his scalp.
‘When I am finished with you,’ spat Reinez, ‘you will look back and
remember how handsome you were.’
Reinez shouldered N’Kalo over the rapids down the falls. The Iron
Knight was barely sensible as he plunged into the pool formed by the
waterfall. Reinez stood on the rapids, hauling another rock up from the
riverbed. He hurled it down at N’Kalo, who got an arm up to ward off
the worst of the impact but who was crushed down into the pool,
trapped by its weight.
N’Kalo was not quite beneath the surface but little more than his
ruined face could be seen above the water. Reinez stood and took his
hammer off his back, holding it with both hands, the well-worn head of
the weapon aiming down at N’Kalo’s face.
Reinez drove the hammer down at N’Kalo. N’Kalo forced his sword
out from below the rock and slashed the hammer aside. Expecting an
impact and off balance Reinez fell forward, landing face to face with
N’Kalo.
The other Adeptus Astartes had by now gathered on the bank of the
river and they watched as the two Space Marine wrestled in the water,
Reinez trying to force N’Kalo’s head below the surface, N’Kalo trying
to wriggle from under the rock and bring his sword to bear. The thunder
hammer lay in the water, abandoned, as Reinez went at N’Kalo with
his bare hands.
The watching Space Marines parted as Vladimir joined them. He
stood on one of the flat rocks that made up the rapids, no expression
on his face.
N’Kalo hurled the rock away. Reinez had to jump back to keep his
own legs from being trapped under it. N’Kalo slammed the pommel of
his sword into Reinez’s side and kicked out at him, trying to drive him
against the stone wall carved by the waterfall. Reinez spun, locked
N’Kalo’s sword arm in the crook of his elbow and ripped the sword
from N’Kalo’s hand. Reinez threw the sword aside and it disappeared
under the foaming water.
Both Space Marines were bleeding now. N’Kalo’s armour was
dented from the impacts, to the extent that it was as much a
hindrance to his movement as protection. Reinez’s nose might have
been broken, judging by the blood spilling down his chest, black
against the dark blue of his breastplate.
When the two closed in and locked up in a wrestler’s clinch, every
Space Marine watching knew it was for the last time. N’Kalo was a
fine combatant, but his wounds, more severe on the inside than the
outside, drained the strength from his limbs. Reinez had been fighting
for the last few years without any battle-brothers at his side, learning
to survive by his wits alone, with fists and teeth if need be. Reinez
pushed N’Kalo down onto one knee, wrenched one of the Iron Knight’s
shoulders out of its socket, and dropped into a shoulder charge that
smashed N’Kalo into the riverbank.
N’Kalo could not raise his free arm into a guard. Reinez slammed
his fist into N’Kalo’s face.
‘They will cast you out!’ roared Reinez, his fist hitting home again.
‘They will banish you! You will know my pain!’
Reinez punched over and over. Ultra-dense Adeptus Astartes bone
fractured. N’Kalo’s cheekbone caved in, then his jaw. One eye socket
was stove inwards, half-shuttin
g his eye. Bloody skin clung to
Reinez’s knuckles.
‘Outcast! Pariah! You shall be no man’s brother!’
‘Stop,’ said Vladimir.
Reinez did not stop. Another half-dozen blows rained down. Broken
teeth clotted the blood that oozed from N’Kalo’s shattered mouth.
The boot that cracked into Reinez’s face belonged to Captain
Lysander, who had stepped out of the watching crowd at a signal from
Vladimir. The blow caught Reinez by surprise and he fell backwards off
N’Kalo, sprawling in the water.
‘I said stop,’ said Vladimir.
Reinez scrabbled to his feet, wiping the back of one gauntlet across
his face to remove the worst of N’Kalo’s blood. ‘You see?’ he gasped.
‘The Emperor lent me strength. Dorn has spoken. The duel is over.’
‘It is,’ said Vladimir. ‘My brothers, the apothecaries among you
attend to Captain N’Kalo while the Phalanx’s own medicae staff are
summoned. I must have him conscious to present his evidence.’
‘Lord Vladimir!’ protested Reinez. ‘He was defeated! The duel was
won! I demand N’Kalo’s silence as is my right by victory!’
‘The duel is won, Reinez,’ replied Vladimir, ‘but you may claim no
victory. We are not at war, and Captain N’Kalo is not your enemy. In
victor, you abandon all semblance of honour. In an honour-duel, that is
as good as a physical defeat. You have forfeited the duel, and Captain
N’Kalo is the winner.’
Reinez stood speechless in the rushing river as the Space Marines
on the bank picked up the winner and carried him off to the
apothecarion.
The first thing Sarpedon noticed as he was led to the dock again was
the Iron Knight without his helm. He had encountered the Chapter
once before but there had been no way of telling, beneath the feudal
helm, if the Iron Knights’ commander was the same Adeptus Astartes
he had spoken with on Molikor. Now, there could be no mistake. It
was the same man.
Half of N’Kalo’s face was still hidden, this time by medical dressings
covering fresh wounds. The rest, however, was that familiar mask of
burn tissue, and the one visible eye was the same glassy prosthetic.
Sarpedon tried to hold N’Kalo’s gaze, but he was shoved into the
accused’s pulpit by the Imperial Fists who had escorted him from his
cell, and found himself looking at Lord Vladimir.
‘Justice Lord,’ said Sarpedon before anyone else could speak. ‘I
would know of my brothers.’
‘They are safe and well,’ said Vladimir.
‘And Daenyathos?’
‘He is captive, like them. And like them, he has not been harmed.’
‘I know that I am to die here, Lord Vladimir. I wish to speak with my
battle-brothers before that happens. And I must have leave to speak
with Daenyathos, even if only to ascertain that the dreadnought you
hold indeed contains him. My Chapter thought him dead for thousands
of years. I must at least see for myself that he lives.’
‘What you ask is a luxury that cannot be afforded to the
condemned,’ replied Vladimir. ‘The nature of your crimes means that
you cannot be given the chance to conspire further with your fellow
accused. Such requests are denied.’
Sarpedon did not argue. It was a motion he had to go through. He
had to show that he had not given up, not completely. It was a feeble
gesture among so many warriors, but it was made.
‘Brethren,’ began Vladimir. ‘During the last adjournment the matter
of the Soul Drinkers’ defence was decided. Commander N’Kalo?’
Sarpedon realised that among the assembled Space Marines, he
could not see Reinez.
N’Kalo stepped forwards. ‘Brothers,’ he said, and Sarpedon
recognised the grating voice of an improvised vox-unit. It was hooked
up to N’Kalo’s dented breastplate, amplifying the voice that struggled
to get past his shattered jaw. ‘I must speak to you of a world called
Molikor.’
Chapter 6
Molikor’s endless expanses of broken delta, islands of swampy
grasses and gorse separated by the sludgy children of the planet’s
great rivers, were a good place to hide. An entire nation hid there
among the rotten trees and root cages, the odd chunk of rock eroded
clean by the passage of the shifting waters. They had their strongholds
among the mangrove swamps closer to the shore, where the biting
insects swarmed so thick they could pick a man up off the ground,
and the waters were infested with a thousand different forms of sharptoothed
creature. That nation, which called itself the Eshkeen, was as
much a part of the landscape as the dour grey-streaked clouds
overhead and the way the soft ground threatened to swallow up a
power armoured foot. That nation had risen up in defiance. That nation
had to die.
Commander N’Kalo took the magnoculars from the eyeslit of his
armour. His augmented vision was enough to tell him that the foe had
no intention of making itself seen, and a closer look had confirmed it.
Behind him the strikeforce of nearly forty Iron Knights Space Marines
was forming a perimeter lest the enemy close in from an unexpected
angle, the bolters of Squads Salik, K’Jinn and Tchwayo scanning the
indistinct horizon for targets. Sergeant Borasi’s Devastator squad had
left its anti-tank weapons behind and sported a complement of heavy
bolters, perfect for chewing through forested cover and ill-armoured
enemies. Though the delta could have been deserted for all the Iron
Knights could see, the Devastators were still ready to deploy,
weapons loaded and shouldered.
‘They give us good sport,’ said Sergeant Borasi, standing just
behind N’Kalo. ‘It disappoints me so when the enemy show
themselves too early.’
‘Would that this was mere sport,’ replied N’Kalo. ‘The Eshkeen
revolt against the rule of the Imperium. Books of atrocities have already
been written about their campaigns of violence against the Imperial
cities of this world, and if Molikor falls the whole of this frontier could
follow.’
‘Nevertheless, captain, I am reminded of the best hunting grounds of
Seheris. Below the equator, where the great rivers of the Zambenar
meet the oceans. I lose count of how many reapermaw tusks my
bolter has won for me down there.’
‘Then the hunting will be good,’ brother,’ said N’Kalo, stowing the
magnoculars in a belt pouch, ‘if it is a hunt you see unfolding here.’
On Seheris, the home world of the Iron Knights Chapter, the
unforgiving deserts and plains bred a thousand hardy peoples divided
into tribes that treated the land as an adversary to be conquered. The
Iron Knights were drawn from such people, and their wish to test
themselves against an environment, as much as against a foe, never
left them. They took pride in the fact that they fought in warzones
which would have been deadly whether any enemy waited there or not
– radioactive rock deserts, carnivo
rous jungles, archipelagos scattered
across an ocean that seethed with sea monsters, and every other
Emperor-forsaken place that a man could imagine. When the
Parliaments of Molikor had requested help against a foe bent on
exterminating the Emperor’s presence on their world, the Iron Knights
had seen not only a task to be achieved to keep the Ghoul Stars
Frontier intact, but the chance to test themselves against Molikor’s
own dangers.
Too often, thought N’Kalo, his brother Space Marines treated war as
a sport. The fact that he could see beyond that had marked him out as
commander material. That was why he had been sent here to Molikor,
to oversee his eager battle-brothers as they killed every Eshkeen on
the planet.
Mile after mile, the Eshkeen drew the Iron Knights in.
It was clearly their tactic. Even as he walked the paths laid out for
him through the winding delta paths, N’Kalo knew that the enemy had
laid on Molikor a trap to cut off, surround and butcher anyone the
Imperium sent to fight them. He read the landscape like a book, like
any Iron Knight would, and he saw the thinking behind every dammed
stream and felled copse.
The easiest path into the delta forests and swamps, where the
Eshkeen surely waited, passed through two towering forests separated
by a stretch of swamp where the shallow waters rushed over the
sodden grassland. The soft-edged shadows, cast by a sun hidden
behind the overcast sky, rendered this gap dark and its footing
uncertain. The ways on either side were deep and difficult to traverse,
and N’Kalo’s magnoculars had picked out the log dams on the distant
highlands that had helped flood those regions to force any attackers to
take the path between the forests.
N’Kalo’s strikeforce reached the first shadows cast by the tallest
trees. The forest was dense and tangled, an unmanaged mass of
broken branches and diseased trunks, clustered around rocky hills
that broke the surface of the marshes and trapped enough soil for the
trees to grow. N’Kalo could see no sign of the Eshkeen, but he knew
they were there as surely as if they were standing there in front of him.
‘You cannot trap a Space Marine,’ said Sergeant Borasi over the
strikeforce’s vox-net. ‘You can shut yourself in a room with him, but it
is not he who is trapped.’