N’Kalo halted the strikeforce at the head of the forest gap. On the
other side was a stretch of open marsh, tempting for any force making
for the coastal strongholds with nowhere for the enemy to use as an
ambush. N’Kalo imagined the Parliamentarian commanders who had
fallen for such a trick, before Molikor had requested the assistance of
Imperial forces, and how they must have decided that it was
acceptable to risk this one ambush spot to ensure they had a clear
run at the enemy. How many of them had the Eshkeen killed,
moulding the landscape into their ally? How many cavalry forces had
wheeled in panic on just such a path, stuck with thousands of arrows
and, later, riddled with bullets from captured guns, fired from an enemy
so well hidden it seemed the forest itself wanted them dead?
‘Salik, Tchwayo, take the fore,’ voxed N’Kalo. ‘K’Jinn, cover the rear.
Borasi, up front with me.’
The strikeforce took up position in the mouth of the trap. Borasi’s
Devastators knelt, heavy bolters covering their front arc.
To an observer unfamiliar with the Space Marines, it would seem the
Iron Knights were pausing in trepidation, making up their minds
whether to continue down the narrow path laid out for them.
‘Open fire!’ ordered N’Kalo.
The heavy bolters hammered out a dreadful cacophony as their fire
shredded the edge of the right-hand forest, splintering tree trunks and
sending clouds of spinning shards through the air.
‘Advance!’ shouted N’Kalo, his voice just audible over the din.
‘Advance and engage!’
As the Devastators reloaded, the three Tactical squads ran for the
forest, bolters spitting fire as they headed onwards. N’Kalo had his
power sword in one hand and his plasma pistol in the other, and as the
last splinters of tree trunk fell he caught the first sight of the enemy.
The Eshkeen were heavily scarified, and wore strips of coloured
cloth and leather wrapped tight around them to ward off the spines and
stingers of the forests. The ridges of scar tissue that ran across their
faces and bodies were high enough to be pierced with bones and
thorns, and spikes were implanted under the shorn skin of their
scalps. They resembled the figures from some primitive world’s visions
of hell. Perhaps they modelled themselves after Molikor’s own myths,
delving into their images of damnation to put fear into Parliamentarian
hearts.
The Eshkeen returned fire as best they could as they dragged the
wounded and dead from what remained of the treeline. Autogun and
lasgun fire spattered down at the Iron Knights, hissing in the damp
ground or ringing off ceramite. The Space Marines did not slow and
headed straight for the enemy.
The ambush plan relied on the Space Marines staying in the open,
thinking themselves unable to make any headway through the forest.
Unfortunately for the Eshkeen, that plan, which would work
horrendously well against the armies of the Parliamentarians, fell apart
when confronted with an armoured Space Marine whose weight and
strength could force him through the forest as fast as he moved in the
open. Squad Salik reached the trees first and they did not slow down,
shouldering their way between the tree trunks, rotten wood crumbling
under their weight. The Eshkeen screamed war-cries as the Iron
Knights were among them, streams of bolter fire criss-crossing
through the forest and slicing Eshkeen in half.
N’Kalo felt, in spite of himself, a faint disappointment. None of the
Eshkeen would get close enough for him to use his power sword.
Already Squad Tchwayo were into the rapidly thinning forest. Men
were dying among the twisted roots and falling tree trunks. N’Kalo
would not take any heads today.
N’Kalo himself had reached the trees. Bodies lay twisted and broken
among the fallen branches. One was still alive, moaning as he tried to
force himself to his feet, apparently ignorant of the fact he had lost one
of his arms at the elbow. Others had huge ragged holes in their torsos,
cut down by bolter fire aimed at the central mass. Another had the
side of his head crushed by a bolter stock. N’Kalo stepped over them,
glancing around for targets as Borasi and K’Jinn advanced behind him.
Suddenly, N’Kalo could not hear the heavy footsteps and bolter fire
of the battle-brothers behind him. He looked back, not wanting to slow
his own advance, but he could not see them.
‘Squads report!’ said N’Kalo into the vox. Blank static was the only
reply. ‘Report!’ he repeated, but got nothing.
The forest was seething. It was alive. The Eshkeen were barely
recognisable as humans now, slipping in and out of tree trunks, their
flesh merging with the mossy wood. They slithered along the ground
like snakes, limbs as flexible as liquid, and slid into the ground before
N’Kalo could take aim. They flitted overhead, birds on the wing.
‘What witchcraft is this?’ demanded N’Kalo. His power sword
hummed into life and he slashed about him, felling the trees on either
side as he pushed on. ‘A Space Marine fears not such devilry! He
knows no fear!’
The forest warped around him. Trees bowed in and hands reached
out of the earth to snare his ankles. N’Kalo fired at movement, his
plasma pistol boring a glowing orange channel through the foliage, but
he could not tell if he had hit anything. Everywhere he cut left and
right, forging on through the path he hacked. He called for his battlebrothers,
but there was no reply. Faces were leering from the trees
now, blood welling up from the ground. The sky, where he glimpsed it
through the writhing branches overhead, seemed blistered and burned,
as if some malignant energy was forcing its way down towards him.
N’Kalo slammed into an obstacle that did not give way to his weight.
He stumbled back a pace and saw another horror. A Space Marine
from the waist up, a mutated monstrosity below, insectoid legs tipped
with vicious talons, reared up to spear N’Kalo’s torso. The Space
Marine was no iron Knight – his armour was painted purple, with a
gilded chalice on one shoulder pad, and the high aegis collar of a
Librarian.
N’Kalo slashed at the apparition with his sword. The mutant brought
up the haft of an ornate axe to turn the blow aside. Without seeming to
move the mutant was upon N’Kalo, its weight bearing down on him,
legs forcing him back onto one knee. One insect leg snared his sword
arm and the other batted his plasma pistol aside.
The forest was shifting again, this time back to normal. N’Kalo could
hear his battle-brothers’ voices filling the vox-net.
‘Fall back!’ came K’Jinn’s voice. ‘Regroup at the far side!’
‘I have brothers down!’ shouted Salik. ‘Forming defensive!’ Bolter fire
hammered away over the vox-net, volley and counter-volley shearing
through the trees.
The mutant kicked N’Kalo’s sword aside.
‘What are you?’ gasped N’Kalo. He struggled to get free, but the
mutant was stronger even than a Space Marine.
‘I am the truth,’ replied Sarpedon.
The fortresses of the Eshkeen were cunningly wrought so as to be
invisible from the air. The finest siege-wrights of the Imperium could not
have strung out fortifications of wooden stakes and pit traps with such
subtlety, seeding the approaches to the dense coastal forests so that
attackers on foot would find their numbers thinned out well before they
came within bowshot of the fortress walls. The fortresses themselves
were built on two levels, the first hidden trenches and murder-holes on
the ground, the second walkways and battlements in the trees
overhead. The canopy was thick enough to hide them, and the short
distances between them were made deadly with tangles of cured
razorvine, layers of dried earth concealing stretches of sucking mud,
and even nests of forest predators herded into position by the
Eshkeen. Two Parliamentarian forces had driven this far into Eshkeen
territory and none of them had been seen again, save for a couple of
messengers permitted to live so they could explain that the Eshkeen
were not impressed by the glittering cavalry regiments and sumptuous
banners of the Parliamentarian armies.
The fortresses backed against the sea, although it was difficult to
tell where the sea began. Mangroves formed layers of root canopy over
the murky waters, infested with Eshkeen fishermen who found their
harpoons were as adept at picking off soldiers wading out of landing
boats as they were at spearing fish. The shallow waters and hidden
reefs were enough to dissuade all but the most glory-hungry admiral
from attempting a landing there. Unfortunately for the Parliamentarians
they had once possessed such an admiral, whose ships now lay a few
hundred metres from the shore where they had foundered, their men
trapped there for months before starvation and Eshkeen snipers had
seen to the last of them.
These defences, as formidable as they were, would not have
stopped a force of Space Marines determined to enact justice on the
Eshkeen. The Iron Knights, however, had not been given that chance.
The first N’Kalo saw of the Eshkeen stronghold was a ceiling of
wooden planks and plaited vines. He struggled to move and found that
he was not bound. He was high up in the air, the structure around him
built into the thick, gnarled trunks of the mangroves. The humid air had
a faint tang of decay, the smell of fallen plant matter turning to watery
sludge, mixed in with the salt breeze off the sea. Eshkeen were
everywhere at watch, eerily still as they scanned the approaches with
their bows or guns to hand. N’Kalo saw, for the first time, their women
and children. Some of the sentries were women, and a gaggle of
children crouched in a doorway watching N’Kalo with a mix of
fascination and fear. They were scrawny in a way that only growing up
outside civilisation could explain, tough and sinewy, with painted skin
echoing the scarring of their elders.
N’Kalo sat up. The children squealed and scattered. He was in a
barracks or communal living space, full of empty beds. He could not
see his weapons, but his armour had been left on.
He touched a gauntlet to his face as he realised his helmet had
been removed. No wonder the children had fled. The burns he had
suffered long ago, which he had chosen to hide under the knightly
helm of his Chapter’s commanders, must have made him look even
more of a monster than any other Space Marine.
‘Commander N’Kalo,’ said a too-familiar voice. N’Kalo jumped to his
feet as the mutant from the forest entered.
‘Where am I? What of my brothers?’ demanded N’Kalo.
‘They are safe. I cannot permit them their liberty yet. They will go
free soon, as will you.’
The mutant Space Marine was armed with his power axe and a bolt
pistol, and N’Kalo had not been a match for him when he had his
power sword. Unarmed, he did not fancy his chances against the
mutant. Better to talk and wait for the right time than to throw his life
away trying to fight here, when he was bound to fail. ‘And you did not
answer my question. What are you?’
The mutant shrugged. It was seemingly too human a gesture for
such a grotesque creature. ‘I am a Space Marine, like you. Well, not
exactly like you.’
‘You are a witch.’
‘I am, if you prefer that term. I am Librarian and Chapter Master
Sarpedon of the Soul Drinkers. And we are similar in more than just
bearing the arms of the Adeptus Astartes. We are both, Commander
N’Kalo, students of justice as much as of war.’
‘Justice? My brothers have fallen at your hand!’
‘Fallen, but not dead. My Apothecary is seeing to them. Two have
bolter wounds and another was felled by a chainsword. Though they
will not fight for a while, the three will survive. They are being held at
ground level, below us, watched over by my battle-brothers. Sergeant
Borasi gave us a great deal of trouble. He should be commended for
his spirit, misplaced though it is. He owes us several broken bones.’
N’Kalo had heard of the Soul Drinkers. Like the Iron Knights, they
were successors to the Imperial Fists, with Rogal Dorn as their
Primarch. N’Kalo had never met any of the Soul Drinkers but he
recalled they were famed for their prowess in boarding actions and that
during the Wars of Apostasy. N’Kalo and Sarpedon should have been
brothers, not just as Space Marines but as sons of Dorn.
‘Why do you oppose us?’ said N’Kalo. ‘We are here doing the
Emperor’s will!’
‘The Imperium’s will,’ replied Sarpedon. ‘Not the Emperor’s.’
‘And I suppose you, a mutant, one who has raised arms against my
brethren, is the one doing the Emperor’s will?’
‘Looking at it that way,’ said Sarpedon, ‘I can understand your
doubts. I do not believe, however, that you know the full story of what
is happening on Molikor.’
‘And you are going to tell me?’ spat N’Kalo.
‘No. I am going to show you.’
N’Kalo saw his brothers guarded by a ring of Soul Drinkers. The Iron
Knights had been disarmed but, as Sarpedon had said, few of them
were hurt. A Soul Drinkers Apothecary was operating on the wounded
leg of one sedated Iron Knight – all the rest were conscious and, led
by Borasi, started up a chorus of plaudits for their commander and
insults hurled at Sarpedon as soon as they saw N’Kalo. A couple of
the other Soul Drinkers were mutants, although not as dramatically
malformed as Sarpedon. One had an enormous mutated hand, and
N’Kalo wondered what other mutations were hidden beneath their
armour.
It was a strange feeling to be led, not quite a captive and not quite
an equal, through the Eshkeen forest by Sarpedon. N’Kalo’s soldierly
mind sized up every chance to attack Sarpedon, drag him down to the
ground or stab him in the back with a fortuitous
weapon snatched from
a nearby Eshkeen, but Sarpedon had his own warrior instinct and
every opportunity was gone before it began. If he had a weapon, N’Kalo
thought, he could kill Sarpedon and, if not complete his mission, at
least rid the Imperium of this enemy – but even with a bolter or a power
sword in his hands, could he beat Sarpedon when he had been
defeated before?
The Eshkeen watched curiously as N’Kalo moved through their
domain. They walked paths almost hidden in the forest, avoiding traps
and dead ends sown liberally throughout the forest. In places N’Kalo
could see the waters of the ocean between the roots underfoot, and
glimpse Eshkeen walking there, too, wading through the waters to fish
or keep watch over the coastal approaches. In other places the ground
underfoot was solid, with tunnels and bunkers dug into it. The Eshkeen
themselves wore patchworks of body armour and scraps of captured
uniform, the most colourful belonging to those who looked the most
experienced and deadly. The right to sport the captured garb of the
enemy was evidently a privilege that had to be earned.
In the heart of the stronghold was a fortification of stone instead of
wood, concentric circles of jagged battlements forming a huge granite
maw around a pit in the centre. Sarpedon followed a complex path
through the fortifications, leading N’Kalo through them even though he
could probably have scrambled over them with ease thanks to his
arachnid limbs. The trees did not grow here so an artificial canopy had
been stretched out overhead, a lattice of vines and ropes woven with
leaves, to keep it hidden. There were no Eshkeen keeping watch
among the fortifications, but many of them had gathered in the trees
around the clearing to watch the two Space Marines descending to the
pit.
‘Like you,’ said Sarpedon, ‘we heeded the distress call from the
Parliaments of Molikor. But we have learned to be circumspect. A little
more suspicious, perhaps, of our own Emperor-fearing citizens. We
arrived here without informing the Parliaments of our presence, and
spoke instead to the Eshkeen. When we hear only one side of the
story, I find we inevitably miss out on the more interesting half.’
The pit was a shaft lined with carved stones, forming a spiral frieze
winding down into the darkness. The frieze depicted an endless tangle