wraiths that had nearly killed so many of them. Sarpedon’s armour
was there, battered by his struggle with the necron overlord. Luko’s
own armour, too, with the haphazard heraldry of his career as a
renegade painted over the dark purple of the Chapter’s livery.
Beside the armour were the weapons. Boltguns racked up as if in an
armoury. The Axe of Mercaeno, Sarpedon’s own weapon. Sergeant
Graevus’s power axe and Luko’s lightning claws, the huge armoured
gloves with their paint scorched and peeling by the constant
discharging of the claws’ power fields.
‘The evidence chamber,’ said Tyrendian with a smile.
‘Arm up!’ yelled Luko. ‘Tyrendian, check around and find ammunition
and power packs.’
‘Perhaps we can make a stand after all,’ said Salk as he saw the
arms displayed before him. Several Soul Drinkers were already going
for their armour, while Sergeant Graevus had gone straight for his
power axe. With the axe in the sergeant’s mutated hand he suddenly
looked more like a Soul Drinker, more like a warrior, and less like
anyone who could have been held captive.
Luko slid a hand into one of his lightning claw gauntlets. Its weight
felt tremendous, and not just because Luko hadn’t yet donned the
power armour that would help compensate for its size.
‘I used to dream,’ he said to Salk, ‘of all this ending peacefully. At
least, I told myself, an execution is not a battle. But there is one last
battle now. You would have thought I’d have learned by now that there
is always one last battle.’
‘Captain?’ said Salk.
‘I hate it,’ said Luko. ‘Fighting. Bloodshed. I have come to hate it. I
have lied about this for a long time, Sergeant Salk, but there hardly
seems much point now.’
‘I can barely believe you are saying these things, captain.’
‘I know. I disgust myself too, sometimes.’
‘No, captain,’ said Salk. ‘You don’t understand. You hate war, but
you fight it because you know you must. There is nothing to disgust in
that. Sometimes I take pride, or even pleasure, in it, and I take that
and carry it with me to bring me through the worst of it. But without
that, I do not know how I could fight. You are braver than I, Captain
Luko.’
‘Well,’ said Luko, ‘that’s one way of looking at it.’
‘Let’s make our execution a little more interesting, brother,’ said
Salk.
Luko clamped one of his greaves around his left leg. ‘Amen to that,
brother.’
The commanders gathered in the Crucible of Ages, safe from the
decompression zones around the Observatory. In the ruddy glow of the
forges they first counted off their surviving battle-brothers, appointed
officers to take note of the dead, and then turned to the task of
recapturing the Soul Drinkers.
There was no doubt that the Soul Drinkers had engineered their
escape, with the use of accomplices among the pilgrims who had
been allowed onto the Phalanx to observe the trial. Castellan
Leucrontas had been silent as the commanders discussed their
losses and the state of the Phalanx, for it was only a matter of time
before his decision to allow the pilgrims onto the ship was examined.
No Angels Sanguine had been lost, added to which Commander
Gethsemar and his Sanguinary Guard seemed completely
unblemished by the carnage. Howling Griffons had died. Imperial Fists,
present in the greatest numbers, had lost correspondingly the most.
One Silver Skull and two Doom Eagles were missing, presumed dead
and cast into the void by the explosive decompression. Crewmen in
void suits were already taking their first steps into the Observatory
dome, to hunt for the fallen among the torrents of scorched wreckage,
but hopes were not high that survivors would be found.
‘Brothers!’ came a shout from the entrance to the Crucible of Ages.
Reinez, severely battered and bloodied, walked in, dragging an
unarmoured Space Marine behind him. Reinez’s armour, which had
been in poor repair when he had arrived on the Phalanx, was now so
filthy with blood and scorch marks that the colours of the Howling
Griffons were barely discernible. ‘Are you looking for answers?
Perhaps a few explanations? I have done what you cannot do by
bickering among yourselves, and found you some!’
Reinez shoved the Space Marine into the centre of the Crucible. The
captive showed no resistance, and fell to his knees.
‘It is good that you are alive, Reinez,’ said Chapter Master Vladimir.
Siege-Captain Daviks stepped forwards and lifted the bowed head of
the Space Marine.
‘He’s a Soul Drinker,’ said Daviks, pointing to the chalice symbol
that marked the centre of the surgical scars on the Space Marine’s
chest. ‘What is your name?’
‘Apothecary Pallas,’ said the Soul Drinker.
‘One of the accused,’ said Vladimir. ‘You were to be executed. Why
did you not flee with the rest of the condemned?’
‘Because we are not free,’ said Pallas. ‘I do not know why we were
released, or who is responsible, but we did not seek it. I have been
manipulated before, by Abraxes when our Chapter first turned from the
Imperium, and I will not be used like that again. If I am to be executed
here then so be it. I do not care about that any more. But I will not be
a pawn in the scheme of another.’
‘Then who?’ demanded Daviks. ‘Who committed this outrage? My
battle-brothers died because someone set the Soul Drinkers loose.
Answer me!’
‘I don’t know!’ retorted Pallas. ‘Someone who benefits from a battle
on the Phalanx. Someone who wants a last laugh from the Soul
Drinkers before we are gone. Your guesses are as good as mine.’
‘They have left this one behind to sow confusion,’ said Daviks to the
other Space Marines. ‘Recall the strategies of cowardice, as
recounted in the Codex Astartes!’
‘There has been dissent in the ranks of the Soul Drinkers before,’
said Vladimir. ‘They turned on one another at Nevermourn. Reinez, you
witnessed that, I believe. That this Apothecary chose not to follow his
brothers in evading justice is not impossible.’
‘Dissenter or not,’ said Reinez, ‘we should get everything he knows
out of him.’ Reinez took a tool from the closest forge – its metal
prongs glowed from the heat. ‘I suggest we not delay.’
‘There will be no need for that,’ said Vladimir. ‘If he is here to
misinform us then he will be prepared to spread lies under duress. If he
is not, then there is no need for the infliction of suffering.’
‘Then what are we to do with him?’ sneered Reinez. ‘Give him a
commission?’
‘He is an Apothecary. He can help tend to the wounded,’ replied
Vladimir. ‘Apothecary Asclephin, you will oversee his work once he
has answered one question.’
‘Name it,’ said Pallas.
‘Where is Sarpedon?’
Pallas looked up at Vladimir. ‘The last I knew of it, he was in the
courtroom. You are in a better position to know his whereabouts than
I.’
‘Space Marines died in his escape’ said Vladimir. ‘You understand
that justice will fall on him sooner or later, and that your own manner of
death will depend on how satisfied we are with your part in that
justice.’
‘I barely care for life or death any more, Chapter Master,’ said Pallas.
‘I do not know where he is. Decide among yourselves if I speak the
truth, but I know that I do.’
‘Another question, with which our Soul Drinker friend may not be
able to help us,’ said Gethsemar smoothly, ‘is the location of Captain
N’Kalo.’
Instinctively, the Space Marine officers looked around the Crucible.
They were all there save for N’Kalo. His Iron Knights were present, but
not their commander.
‘He made it out of the dome,’ said Daviks. ‘I saw him.’
‘But he did not make it here,’ answered Gethsemar.
‘Then locating him is a priority,’ said Vladimir, ‘but not one as high
as locating Sarpedon and the Soul Drinkers who broke out of the cell
block. If they have a plan then it most likely involves them staying
together. If we are to break them with a minimum of losses, we must
do so quickly, before they dig in. Lysander!’
‘Chapter Master?’ said Lysander with a salute.
‘You will lead the hunt. You have our three companies at your
disposal. Officers, I ask that you cede command to Lysander in my
name, and that he send your battle-brothers as he sees fit. I need no
reminding of the protocols it breaks to request you place yourselves
under the command of another Chapter, but this is not the time to
dally over such things.’
‘I will kill Sarpedon,’ said Reinez.
‘You will not put the lives of my battle-brothers at risk,’ said Vladimir.
‘If it is expedient, another will eliminate Sarpedon, not wait for your
permission.’
‘My oath of revenge is more important than life.’ Reinez shoved
Pallas aside as he took a few steps closer to Vladimir. ‘Even the life of
a brother.’
‘And delivering Dorn’s justice upon the Soul Drinker is more
important than either,’ said Lysander, putting a hand on Reinez’s
shoulder pad. Reinez shrugged it off angrily.
‘For one who despises time wasted in talking,’ said Gethsemar,
‘Brother Reinez does enjoy his little speeches.’
Reinez gave Gethsemar a look that could have killed a star, as the
officers rallied their Space Marines for the hunt.
Captain N’Kalo forced off the slab of wreckage that pinned him down.
His ears rang and the world was painted in blotchy blacks and reds.
He was somewhere in one of the Phalanx’s tribute galleries, the deck
divided into displays of art, standards and captured arms evoking the
history of the Imperial Fists.
The ceiling had collapsed on him as he fled the dome. The galleries
had sealed behind him before they were decompressed, but the
shockwaves of the pilgrim ship’s suicide attack had caused enough
damage of their own. N’Kalo saw he had been trapped beneath a
spiderlike carapace, complete and preserved in a transparent layer of
resin, which had been mounted on the ceiling to give the impression it
was about to ambush visitors to the galleries from above. The
carapace was that of a creature with ten legs and a span of four or five
metres across, and still bore the charred bolter scars that had felled it.
It was the relic of a battle millions of miles and probably thousands of
years distant.
On one side of N’Kalo was a mural of Imperial Fists dragging the
enemy dead from sucking tar pits on a primeval world of volcanoes and
jungle. The enemy had the blue-grey skins and flat features of the tau,
xenos who had tried to expand into Imperial space and been fought to
a stalemate at the Damocles Gulf. On the other side were armour
plates torn from a greenskin vehicle, a strange, brutal majesty in the
savage simplicity of their skull and bullet designs and the blood that
still stained the lower edges of a tank’s dozer blade.
N’Kalo tried to get his bearings. He did not know if he was alone. He
looked and listened around him, trying to find crewmen or Space
Marines through the displays and sculptures.
The hiss of a nerve-fibre bundle reached his ears. The clicking of one
ceramite plate on another.
‘Brother?’ called N’Kalo. ‘Are you hurt? Speak to me!’
There was no reply.
N’Kalo tensed. Perhaps Sarpedon had survived the attack, and was
free. Perhaps the other captive Soul Drinkers were free, too. He could
not afford to think of the Phalanx as safe ground any more. For all he
knew, this was enemy territory.
N’Kalo drew his bolt pistol. He wished he had his power sword with
him, but he had stowed it in his squad’s cell-quarters when he had
exchanged it for the executioner’s blade in the duel.
On the wall next to the vehicle armour plates hung a bladed weapon
shaped like a massively oversized meat cleaver, with teeth and jagged
shards soldered to its cutting edge. A greenskin weapon. N’Kalo felt
distaste as he lifted it from its mountings and tested its weight. A
xenos weapon, and one that no Iron Knight should ever use, but
circumstances were extreme.
A shadow upon a shadow, through arches between the trophies and
N’Kalo ducked out of sight, behind the mural of the Imperial Fists’
victory over the tau.
‘I spoke for you,’ said N’Kalo. ‘No one else would. I spoke up for your
Chapter! Do what the court did not and listen to me.’
Something metal clattered to the floor. Ceramite boots sounded on
the tiles.
‘Give yourself up, brother,’ continued N’Kalo. ‘If you will not, if you
fight us here, your fate will only be worse.’
‘It is not my fate,’ came the reply, ‘with which you should concern
yourself.’
N’Kalo did not recognise the voice. It had an edge of learning and
confidence, a calmness quite at odds with its potential for violence.
‘Name yourself,’ said N’Kalo.
‘You will know my name soon enough,’ came the reply.
N’Kalo risked a glance past the mural. The muzzle of a bolt pistol
met him. He ducked back as the gun fired, blasting a shower of
wooden shards from the edge of the wall.
N’Kalo dived past the other side of the mural, head down, barrelling
forwards. He crashed through a display of captured standards, leaping
the plinth to close with his enemy.
The bolt pistol fired again. N’Kalo took the shot on his chest, feeling
blades of ceramite driven into his ribs. Not too deep. Not too bad. He
would make it face to face.
N’Kalo led with his shoulder and slammed into his assailant. He saw
not the purple armour of a Soul Drinker, but the skull-encrusted black
of a Chaplain. The chalice on one shoulder pad confirmed the Chapter,
however.
Iktinos. The Chaplain of the Soul Drinkers, and the man considered
the most likely moral threat among the captives until Daenyathos had
been dug up. The second man slated for execution after Sarpedon.
Armed and armoured, and free.
N’Kalo drove the greenskin blade up under Iktinos’ arm. Iktinos
wrenched his own weapon around quickly enough to lever the blade
away from him, throwing N’Kalo onto the back foot. N’Kalo realised
with a lurch that Iktinos carried the crozius arcanum, the mace-like
power weapon that served as a Chaplain’s badge of office.
Iktinos smacked his bolt pistol against the side of N’Kalo’s head.
N’Kalo reeled, one side of his battered helmet caved in again along the
cracks opened up by Reinez.
‘Kneel,’ said Iktinos, bolt pistol levelled at N’Kalo’s face. ‘Kneel and
it will be quick. Is that not what the Soul Drinkers were offered?
Submission for a quick death? Then that is what I offer you, Captain
N’Kalo of the Iron Knights.’
N’Kalo dropped to one knee and grabbed one of the standards he
had knocked onto the floor. It was an iron spear with a ragged banner
hanging from it, the standard of some rebellious Imperial Guard
regiment.
Another shot caught N’Kalo in the head. His helmet was torn open
and one eye went black. N’Kalo thrust the standard pole forwards with
everything he had, catching Iktinos in the hand and throwing the bolt
pistol off into the shadows.
N’Kalo fell back onto one knee. He wrenched the ruined helmet off
his head. He felt hot blood flowing down his face and his fingers
brushed wet, pulpy mass where one eye had been. His head rang, and
it felt like his skull was suddenly a few sizes too small.
A fractured skull, then. He had suffered that before. Not the worst.
He could fight on.
Iktinos strode forwards, crozius in his good hand. He swung it down
at N’Kalo, who deflected it away with the greenskin blade he snatched
off the floor at the last second. The blade shattered like glass and
N’Kalo was driven onto his back by the force of the blow. He reeled,
his good eye unable to focus, Iktinos just a black blur over him.
‘Iktinos!’ yelled Sarpedon. For a moment Iktinos thought that
Sarpedon was the man attacking him, that he was back in the
Eshkeen forests with his battle-brothers. Everything since then had