Chapter war, p.4
Chapter War, page 4
Croivas’s whimpering was barely audible as Iktinos put his shoulder to the side of the coffin and pushed it back into the water.
Iktinos glanced back down at the readouts, made a few adjustments to the air mix and sustenance regimens, and then walked back out of the sanctum and towards the cave entrance. As he did so he pulled his helmet back on and his face was replaced with the grimacing Chaplain’s skull.
Iktinos had served well and never given up where even stout-hearted Space Marines, even fellow Chaplains, had chosen to discard the sacred word and turn their back on the traditions of their order’s foundation. Now Iktinos would be rewarded – not with riches or peace, but with the chance to play a part in the greatest work all mankind had ever known. Space Marines, and the Soul Drinkers in particular, were immensely proud, but Iktinos had gone beyond that and it was not pride that swelled his heart as he went to do his duty among his fellow Soul Drinkers.
It was the knowledge that when he was done, nothing in this galaxy – in this universe – would remain unchanged.
Chapter Master Sarpedon of the Soul Drinkers took to the centre of the auditorium, watched by the hundreds of fellow Soul Drinkers. He was a horrendous sight. From the waist up he was a Space Marine, a psychic Librarian, with his purple power armour worked into a high collar containing the protective aegis circuit and the golden chalice symbol of the Chapter worked into every surface. He was an old man by most human standards and his shaven head was scarred by war and sunken-eyed with the things he had seen. From the waist down, however, he was a monster – eight arachnid legs, tipped in long talons, jutted from his waist where human legs should be. One of his front legs was bionic, the original having been ripped off what felt like a lifetime ago.
‘Brothers of the Chapter,’ he began, his voice carrying throughout the auditorium. ‘We have come so far it is difficult to imagine what we once were. And I am glad, because it shows how far we have left that time behind. Some of you, of course, have never known the Chapter other than as it is now. And I am glad of that, too, because it shows that in spite of everything the galaxy has thrown at us we can still recruit others to our cause. We have never given up, and we never will. The new initiates, and those who have now earned their armour, are proof of that.’
Sarpedon looked around at the assembled Soul Drinkers. There were faces he had known for a long time, back into the earliest days of his service in the Chapter before he had led it away from the tyranny of the Imperium. Others were new, recruited by the Chapter in the days since the schism.
The auditorium had once been a xenobiology lecture theatre on an explorator ship that had become lost in the warp. Large dusty jars containing the preserved bodies of strange alien creatures were mounted on the walls, and Sarpedon himself spoke from on top of a large dissection slab with restraints still hanging from it.
‘We have been apart for some time,’ continued Sarpedon. ‘Captains, make your reports. Karraidin?’
Captain Karraidin was one of the most grizzled, relentless warriors Sarpedon had ever met. A relic of the old Chapter, he wore one of the Soul Drinkers’ few suits of Terminator armour and had a face that looked like it had been chewed up and spat out again. He stood with the whirr of both his massive armour’s servos, and the bionic, which had replaced his leg after he lost it in the battle on Stratix Luminae. ‘Lord Sarpedon,’ said Karraidin in his deep gravel voice. ‘Many of the novices have earned their full armour in the Suleithan Campaign. They intervened in the eldar insurgency and killed many of the xenos pirates. They have done us all proud.’
‘What are your recommendations?’
‘That Sergeant Eumenes be given a full command,’ replied Karraidin.
Sarpedon spotted Eumenes himself among the Soul Drinkers – he knew Eumenes as a scout, one of the new recruits of the Chapter, but now he wore a full set of power armour and he seemed perfectly at home among its massive ceramite plates.
‘Sniper Raek has distinguished himself in scouting and infiltration duties,’ continued Karraidin. ‘I recommend that he remain a scout and take command of other novice forces. Given our current situation I believe the Chapter would benefit from veteran scouts like Raek.’ The slim-faced, quietly spoken Raek was the best shot in the Chapter – as good, some said, as the late Captain Dreo.
‘Then it shall be so,’ said Sarpedon. ‘And of the latest recruits?’
‘The harvest has been bountiful again,’ said Karraidin with relish. ‘They are born soldiers, every one of them.’
The Soul Drinkers recruited new members from among the oppressed and rebellious people of the Imperium and turned them into Space Marines as the old Chapter had done, but without such extensive hypno-doctrination – Sarpedon wanted to ensure their minds were as free as the Chapter itself. For the last several months Karraidin’s novices had been earning their place in the Chapter, intervening to fight the Emperor’s enemies around the scattered worlds of the largely desolate Segmentum Tempestus.
‘Then we are winning our greatest victory,’ said Sarpedon. ‘The forces that deceived once wanted us broken and desperate, whittled down one by one, reliant on those forces to keep us from sliding into the abyss. We have clawed our way out and built ourselves a future. Some of our best have been lost to win this victory, and I have no doubt there are those who will still try to stop us. As long as we take new novices who believe in our cause, and those novices earn their armour fighting the Emperor’s foes, our enemies will never win.
‘But those enemies never tire. Ever since Gravenhold we have had to rebuild ourselves and now I believe we are ready to fight as a Chapter again. The Eye of Terror has opened and Abaddon has returned, it is said. More and more of the Imperium’s military are diverted to countering the tyranid fleets. The underbelly is exposed and the Imperium is too corrupt to defend itself. We are sworn to do the Emperor’s work, and that work is being neglected in the galaxy’s hidden and isolated places.’
‘Such as the Obsidian system,’ said a voice from among the assembled Soul Drinkers. It was that of Iktinos, the Chaplain, distinguished by his black-painted armour and the pale grimacing skull that fronted his helmet. He was surrounded by his ‘flock’, the Soul Drinkers who had lost their sergeants and gone to Iktinos for leadership. They accompanied him in battle and often led the other battle-brothers in prayers and war-rites.
‘Chaplain?’ said Sarpedon. ‘Explain.’
‘The Brokenback picks up many signals from across the galaxy,’ said Iktinos. ‘We are far from the Imperial heartland but nevertheless there is chatter, transmitted from ship to ship. I have been sifting through it to find some indication of the Emperor’s work remaining undone.’
‘And I take it you have found somewhere?’
‘I have, Lord Sarpedon. The Obsidian system, in the Scaephan Sector, to the galactic south of the Veiled Region. The planet Vanqualis has been invaded by the greenskin scourge. The people there have begged for assistance from the Imperium but as you well know, the Imperial wheel is slow to turn and the orks will surely devastate their world.’
‘So there is the Emperor’s work to be done?’ asked Sarpedon.
‘They are people of an independent spirit,’ said Iktinos. ‘They have resisted the Imperial yoke and remained true to their own traditions. They have survived for a long time alone, and we may find adherents to our cause there. Certainly there are many billions of Emperor-fearing citizens who will perish without help.’
‘We are not a charity,’ said Librarian Tyrendian sharply. Tyrendian was a lean and handsome man, seemingly too unscarred and assured to have seen as many battles as he had. Like Sarpedon he was a powerful psyker – unlike Sarpedon his power manifested as devastating bolts of lightning, like psychic artillery, hurled at the enemy. When Tyrendian spoke his mind it was with a self-important confidence that won him few friends in the Chapter. ‘There are countless worlds suffering.’
‘This one,’ said Iktinos, ‘we can help.’
‘We should be at the Eye,’ continued Tyrendian. ‘Chaos has played its hand.’
‘The whole Inquisition is at the Eye,’ retorted another voice, that of Captain Luko, the Chapter’s most experienced assault captain. ‘We might as well hand ourselves over to our enemies.’
‘It is also the case,’ said Iktinos, ‘that our Chapter is not rich in resources. We are lacking in fuel and ordnance. The Brokenback cannot go on forever, and neither can we. The Obsidian system has a refinery world, Tyrancos, from which we can take what we please. Tyrendian is correct, we are not a charity, but we can both help secure our future and help an Emperor-fearing world survive without being ground down by the Imperial yoke.’
‘And it’s better,’ said Luko, ‘than sitting on our haunches here waiting for battle to come to us.’ Luko was known throughout the Chapter for the relish with which he approached battle, as if he had been born into it, and Sarpedon could see many of the Soul Drinkers agreed with him.
‘Lygris?’ said Sarpedon, looking at the Chapter’s lead Techmarine.
‘The Chaplain is correct,’ said Techmarine Lygris. Lygris’s armour was the traditional rust-red and a servo-arm mounted on his armour’s backpack reached over his shoulder. ‘Without significant re-supply soon we will have to reconsider using the Brokenback as a base of operations. We would have to find ourselves another fleet.’
‘Then I believe the Obsidian system may be our next destination,’ said Sarpedon. ‘Iktinos, assist me in finding out whatever we can about Vanqualis and its predicament. Lygris, prepare the warp route. We must be ready for…’
‘Let them rot,’ said yet another voice from among the Soul Drinkers.
It was Eumenes who had spoken, the sergeant who had recently earned his full armour. He pushed his way to the front, close to the anatomy stage at the centre of the auditorium. He was a brilliant soldier and looked it, sharp intelligent eyes constantly darting, face as resolute as it was youthful.
‘Scout Eumenes,’ said Sarpedon. ‘I take it you disagree?’
Eumenes grimaced as if the idea being discussed left a bad taste in his mouth. ‘The people of Vanqualis are no better than any of the rest of the Imperium. They will be as corrupt as the rest of them. You say you have turned your back on the Imperium, Sarpedon, but you keep dragging us back into its wars.’
‘On the Imperium,’ said Sarpedon darkly. ‘Not the Emperor.’
‘The people are the Imperium! These vermin, these murderers, they are steeped in the corruption we are fighting against! If we have to bring the whole damned thing down, if we have to set worlds like Vanqualis aflame, then that is what we do! The Imperium is the breeding ground for Chaos! The Emperor looks upon this galaxy and weeps because none of us have the courage to change it.’
‘Then what,’ said Iktinos darkly, ‘would you have us do?’
Eumenes looked around the assembled Soul Drinkers. ‘The underbelly is exposed. You said so yourselves. We strike while we can. Break it down. The Adepta, the bastions of tyranny. Ophelia VII or Gathalamor. Imagine if we struck at Holy Terra itself, blotted out the Astronomican! This tyranny would collapse around us! We could help rebuild the human race from the ashes! That would be the Emperor’s work.’
‘Eumenes, this is madness!’ shouted Sarpedon. ‘If the Imperium fell the human race would follow. Destroying it is not the way to deliver its people.’
‘If what I say is madness, Sarpedon, then a great many of us are infected with that same madness. Do not think I am alone. And we could do it, Sarpedon! Think about it. The Imperium has been on the brink for thousands of years. We are the best soldiers in the galaxy, and we know what the Imperial vermin fear. We could bring it all down, if we only made the choice!’
‘Enough!’ Sarpedon rose to his full height, which on his arachnoid legs put him a clear head above the tallest Space Marine. ‘This is insubordination, and it will cease. I am your Chapter Master!’
‘I have no master!’ Eumenes’s eyes were alight with anger. ‘Not you. Not the Imperium. No one. You cling to the ways of the old Chapter so dearly you are no more than a tyrant yourself.’
No one spoke. Sarpedon had fought the Chapter before – he had led the Chapter war when he had overthrown Gorgoleon and taken control of the Soul Drinkers, he had battled adherents to the old Chapter’s ways and even faced one of his own, Sergeant Tellos, who had become corrupted by the dark forces against which the Chapter fought. But a conflict like this had never come into the open so brazenly.
‘I see,’ said Sarpedon carefully, ‘that the Chapter does not unite behind me and cast down the rebel.’ He cast his eyes over the assembled Soul Drinkers, reading their expressions – anger and offence, yes, but also apprehension and perhaps some admiration for Eumenes’s boldness.
‘Then you cannot ignore me,’ said Eumenes. ‘As I said, I am not alone.’ The young Soul Drinker smiled and stepped forward into the centre of the auditorium, face to face with Sarpedon himself. ‘They used to say that the Emperor would give strength to the arm of His champion. That Rogal Dorn would counsel victory to the just. Do you believe He will lend you strength, Sarpedon, if we settle this in the old way?’
The old way. An honour-duel. One of the Soul Drinkers’ oldest traditions, as old as the Imperial Fists Legion, the Legion of the legendary primarch Rogal Dorn, from the ranks of which the Soul Drinkers had been founded almost ten thousand years before.
‘First blood,’ said Sarpedon, with a steely snarl on his face. ‘I would not grant you anything so noble as death.’
In the heart of the Brokenback lay the dark cathedrals, the baffling catacombs and ornate sacrificial altars that once adorned the Herald of Desolation. Nothing was known of the Herald except that it had at some time in the distant past been lost in the warp and become a part of the ancient space hulk, and that its captain or creator must have been insane. Hidden cells and torture chambers, steel tanks scarred with acid stains, tombs among the catacombs with restraints built into the stone coffins – the purpose of the Herald of Desolation was lost amid the hidden signs of madness and suffering, smothered by the dark, ornate magnificence that blossomed in the heart of the Brokenback.
The dome that soared over Sarpedon’s head was crowded with statues, locked in a painful, writhing tableau of contortion and violence. Below the sky of stone agony was a thigh-deep pool of water broken by oversized figures that had been sculpted to look as if they had fallen down from above, and reached up towards the figures of the dome as if desperate to return. The dome was vast; easily the size of the Chapel of Dorn in which the last honour-duel among the Soul Drinkers had taken place.
The Soul Drinkers, stood observing around the edge of the circular pool, seemed distant and dwarfed by the strange majesty of the place. In the centre, Sarpedon and Eumenes stood, armoured but unarmed. This was their fight, and theirs alone – when it was done the results would affect the whole Chapter, but for now it was a matter between them.
‘Why have you brought us here, Eumenes?’ said Sarpedon. ‘You could have come to me earlier. There was no need to bring the whole Chapter into this.’
‘It’s not just me, Sarpedon.’ When Eumenes spoke there always seemed to be a mocking note in his voice, as if he couldn’t help but scorn those around him. ‘There are dozens of us. And you can’t hold out forever.’
‘Are you just here to threaten me, Eumenes, or to decide this?’
Eumenes smiled. ‘No witchcraft, Sarpedon.’
‘No witchcraft.’
Eumenes darted forwards. Sarpedon ducked back and raised his front legs to fend off Eumenes but Eumenes was quick, far quicker than Sarpedon anticipated. Eumenes drove a palm into Sarpedon’s stomach and though the impact was absorbed by his armour Sarpedon tumbled backwards, talons skittering through the water to keep him upright. Eumenes jumped, span, and drove a foot down onto Sarpedon’s bionic front leg. Sparks flew as the leg bent awkwardly and Sarpedon, off-balance again, dropped into the water and rolled away as Eumenes slammed a fist into the floor where his face had been. Stone splintered under his gauntlet.
Eumenes had learned to fight twice. Once, among the brutalised outcasts amongst whom he had grown up – and again with the Soul Drinkers, under the tutelage of Karraidin. He was dirty as well as quick, brutal as well as efficient. And he really wanted to kill Sarpedon. Sarpedon could see that in his every movement.
Eumenes followed up but Sarpedon was on his feet, backed up against a huge broken stone arm that had fallen from above. Eumenes struck and parried but Sarpedon met him, giving ground as Eumenes tried to find a way through his defence. Sarpedon’s front bionic leg dragged sparking in the water as he skirted around the fallen arm, watching Eumenes’s every flinch and feint.
‘What do you want, Eumenes?’ he said. ‘Why are we here? Really?’
Eumenes ducked under Sarpedon’s remaining front leg and darted in close, spinning and aiming an elbow at Sarpedon’s head. Sarpedon grabbed him and turned him around, using the strength of Eumenes’s blow to fling the young Soul Drinker over his shoulder. Eumenes smacked into an oversized sculpture of a contorted figure, his armoured body smashing its stone head into hundreds of splinters. Eumenes slid down into the water on his knees but he leapt up immediately. His face had been cut up by the impact and blood ran down it as he snarled and charged again.
This time Sarpedon reared up, bringing his talons down on Eumenes and driving him down so he sprawled in the water. Eumenes struggled under Sarpedon’s weight as Sarpedon reached down to grab him.
A stone shard, sharp as a knife, stabbed up from the water. Sarpedon barely ducked to the side in time as Eumenes tried to stab him in the throat. Eumenes swept his legs around and knocked Sarpedon’s talons out from under him, and now Sarpedon toppled into the water.
Suddenly he was face to face with Eumenes. Eumenes had the knife at his throat, Sarpedon gripping his wrist to keep the weapon from breaking his skin. He was looking right into the youth’s eyes and what he saw there was not the emotion of a Space Marine. Eumenes might have been implanted with the organs that turned a man into a Space Marine, and he might be wearing the power armour so emblematic of the Astartes warriors – but Eumenes was not a Space Marine. Not in the way that the old Chapter understood it. Sarpedon had not understood what he was doing when he began the harvest anew and made Eumenes into the man fighting him now.
