Scythes of the Emperor, page 6
Thracian trudged slowly to the chamber’s armoured viewports. Beyond the scorched glass, he regarded the great sweep of Miral Prime’s horizon stretching away into the void’s night, and saw the first of Brimelow’s drop-ships breaking from the fleet to begin planetfall. The pain in his side had been reduced to a dull throb, but the emptiness in his hearts was as great as ever. He caught sight of his own reflection in the port, and looked away.
‘I remain hopeful, forge master,’ he murmured. ‘Hopeful that the Scythes of the Emperor are not already a spent force in this new war.’
He turned back to face Sebastion, forcing himself to resolution.
‘We will continue to send our astrotelepathic summons, and we will draw all our surviving battle-brothers here to await the return of Master Thorcyra. Under his command, we might yet teach the tyranid race a thing or two about cold, righteous Sothan fury, if they have it within their feeble minds to comprehend such a thing.’
Sebastion nodded, and rose from his seat. ‘Just so. Direct me then, Captain Thracian. My Techmarine cadre is at your disposal.’
Thracian drew up at the forge master’s side, and swept a hand over the table’s polished surface. A hololithic projection of the Miral System leapt into being over it, with the fleet’s disposition marked with myriad runes and sigils denoting each ship’s current status.
‘The work you carried out on board the Nova Prospectum was exemplary. I need your adepts to extend the same to the most heavily damaged vessels at anchor – these six in particular. Divide them into four teams of three. Liaise with the Adeptus Mechanicus enginseers wherever you can. They are few, but they know our ships well.’
With a series of keystrokes on his data-slate, he inloaded the forge master’s own ship inventory to the hololith.
‘The munitions and technical supplies you brought up from Mount Pharos should be split between the bastion at Giant’s Coffin, and our magazines and workshops here on the Heart. Thirty-seventy. Have our serfs ship the Predators, the Razorbacks and the Rhinos down to the surface too.’
Sebastion blink-clicked his ocular array, capturing the lists for later reference. ‘Do you have the capacity to transport them directly? Drop-ships, or bulk-landers perhaps?’
‘Brother, we have aerial transports enough,’ Thracian replied. ‘It is armour and ordnance that we are lacking. We were forced to abandon so much before we departed – there simply wasn’t enough time to throw the civilians out of the cargo holds, to make room.’ He sighed, thinking back to those last, desperate hours. ‘We even had to leave the Venerable Ancients behind, to cover our escape.’
‘I understand. It all happened so quickly, did it not.’
The forge master’s words hung in the air for a while, as Thracian continued to scroll through the materiel inventory, marking specific items of interest. If Sebastion had anything more on his mind, he left it unsaid for the time being.
‘With your adepts so tasked,’ Thracian said, finally, ‘I would charge you with a more solemn duty, in my stead. Forgive the formality, but it will require an oath to be spoken before you leave.’
Sebastion looked at him, narrowing his one organic eye slightly.
‘Name it, brother.’
From the folds of his robe, Thracian produced an encrypted data-wand and held it out before him. Cautious of being overheard, he spoke more softly.
‘Though I hold Zebulon’s command of the fleet in trust, I am still Master of the Arsenal by rights,’ he said. ‘I hold the keys and cipher-codes to a score of Chapter weapons caches across Sothara, but were I to leave now then my absence would surely be noted. I need you to requisition a single astropath from the Militarum outpost, along with a dozen cargo servitors – you will take the Nova Prospectum and plot a series of short-range warp jumps through these marked systems.’
Nodding slowly, Sebastion took the wand. Thracian continued.
‘Approach each of the locations carefully, and deactivate the auto-defences. Leave nothing behind. Tell no one, not even the crew of your vessel, of the true purpose of your search. Whether we need it or not, I would not have such devices left unguarded as a second Tyrannic War threatens to engulf the segmentum.’
‘Of course, brother-captain. I will deliver it all back to you, here, and none shall learn of it who do not need to.’
Satisfied that the forge master understood the gravity of his request, Thracian deactivated the hololith and went to pour himself a goblet of water. Soon, he was sure, his appetite would return.
Sebastion stood silently, watching him.
‘Was there something else, forge master?’ Thracian asked, raising the goblet to his parched lips.
‘There is. If you don’t mind me asking, brother – what do you plan to do with the civilian refugees from Sotha?’
Thracian let his gaze drop to the polished floor of the chamber. He took another cold sip of water.
‘In our darkest hour, it seems that we traded our Chapter’s strength for their deliverance. Those who wish to remain must earn their keep. They belong to us now, as surely as any serf or bonded retainer, and their lives must be spent in service to the Scythes of the Emperor.’
Sebastion folded his arms across his chest. ‘Those who wish to remain. What of those who do not wish to remain, under such a condition?’
Setting down the empty goblet, Thracian looked back at the resplendent mural of Mount Pharos. He remembered the cultural freedoms that the common people of Sotha had enjoyed for thousands of years, even when there were those in the Imperium who openly decried such reckless, wanton liberty.
And he realised that he had no answer to Sebastion’s question.
Chapter Three
HONOUR’S MIGHT
In the pale dawn light, the mists rising from the jungle gave the place an eerie, spectral quality. The cries of predatory birds echoed up from the canopy, though no movement stirred the leaves for as far as Culmonios could see.
Given his genhanced vision, that was a long way indeed.
He took a deep breath of the strangely scented air. The jungle was like a great ocean that lay calm and flat, spreading all the way to the horizon with only a handful of rocky mesas standing as islands amidst the green. At the most elevated point of the Giant’s Coffin, the promontory’s sides were almost sheer cliffs, dropping away to scree slopes that plunged down towards the treeline, while the plateaued top was a more gradual climb crowned by the bastion’s somewhat dilapidated keep and perimeter walls. From there, Culmonios and his companions looked out over the otherwise seemingly featureless expanse of the death world of Miral Prime.
‘It smells foul,’ he muttered, and spat upon the rocks at his feet. Several of his brother-veterans chuckled.
Nimeon looked at him, his boltgun slung over one shoulder. ‘That’s the primal jungle, brother. It smells of trees, and moss, and beasts, and orchids, and rotting leaf mulch. As one would expect.’
Scowling, Culmonios covered his nose with the back of his gauntlet. ‘And feculence, and sweat. It stinks of unwashed bodies. I can smell those trog-savages from here.’
Back at the outer line gates beyond the bastion walls, the first group of Mirali aspirants stood in loose ranks under the eyes of the Chapter’s training sergeants. They were a motley bunch of youths, clad in rags and scale-hide, and daubed with white tribal markings. Some wore their hair in loose topknots, while others appeared to have recently been shaved, presumably by the same serf-menials who had confiscated their slings and spears in preparation for an official accounting. An Apothecary, accompanied by two medicae adepts, made his way from youth to youth, taking measure of their height, weight and muscle tone.
‘Have a care, Culmonios,’ said Nimeon. ‘You mock their appearances, yet you do not look so noble yourself, of late.’
Culmonios rounded on him, the sudden movement rattling the xenos bones hanging from his pauldrons. Though he had not brought the improvised skull-crest shield out with him, he knew that, beneath his gauntlets, his hands were still stained red from its flensing – an act that had already earned him the reprimand of his superiors.
‘Call me a savage, you hive world bastard,’ he growled, ‘and I’ll cut your throat.’
The venom in his words evidently took his battle-brothers by surprise; especially Nimeon, who took half a step back. For a few tense moments, the two of them sized one another up as the rising sun bathed the mesa in its reddish glow.
Then Culmonios blinked, checking his bitter fury. He forced his twin hearts to slow, and felt the swell of hyperadrenaline as he quelled his reflexive combat response.
‘Forgive me, brother. I am not myself.’
Nimeon moved slowly towards him, warily extending a hand. ‘Well, whoever you were just then, I don’t like him.’ His face flickered with a hint of a reconciliatory smile. ‘Perhaps we can leave him behind when we depart this world again?’
Feeling vaguely foolish, Culmonios took his brother’s forearm in a warrior-handshake.
‘Aye. Maybe.’
Behind them, the emplaced interceptor cannons cycled up, their ammunition feeds clunking noisily as the heavy mounts began to turn. The Space Marines were in the shadow of the third of nine such batteries, this one positioned to command the eastern facing of the promontory. The guns would be running automated programs, tracking the unseen approach of another drop-ship from orbit.
‘That’s nine more, in the last six hours,’ Brother Keltru muttered. ‘It’s like they’re emptying the fleet.’
Nimeon laughed. ‘Quite the opposite, brothers – they’re filling it. From what the adjutants told me, we’re being sent out in pairs to meet with the local clans. The recruits stationed here at the Coffin are just those who have begun their formal induction, but there are many more that have already been branded by the training sergeants for future cycles.’ He gestured to the gates. ‘Like Culmonios’ new friends over there, for example. Captain Thracian has ordered a full recruitment operation, to begin replacing our losses.’
‘So we’re going to be sharing our barrack-space with trogs, and not just in the short term.’ Culmonios sneered at the thought. ‘Who put Thracian in charge, anyway? Our orders came from Old Man Brimelow in the Tenth, not Thracian. I just want to be clear who it is I’m supposed to voice my objections to, when we get back up to the carriers.’
Nimeon raised a hand again. ‘Captain Thracian is… adjusting to his new role. I understand that he is taking counsel from the remaining officers, on account of his relative inexperience at cross-company command.’ He nodded to Keltru. ‘Your Sergeant Angeloi is amongst them, and Kalos too, so our worthy Fourth Company is well represented. It seems that we are to be the future of the Chapter, brothers. Angeloi is easily the most experienced – I’m sure he will be appointed to replace good Captain Zebulon in command of the fleet, once the Chapter Master returns.’
‘And what if Thorcyra doesn’t return?’ Culmonios muttered. ‘Where does that leave the Chapter’s future?’
Wordlessly, they followed the interceptor cannons’ bearing, catching sight of a Stormraven gunship and her smaller escorts as they broke through the thin cloud cover. The three craft banked low overhead, circling to approach the bastion’s landing pad. As they watched, Culmonios considered his five battle-brothers, and then those from the other companies who were already preparing to move out into the jungle.
His brow furrowed.
‘Wait. We’re being sent out in pairs? Blindly?’
Nimeon and the others turned to him. He pointed out into the wilderness.
‘How are we supposed to find these trog clans, beyond those that live in the vicinity of the Giant’s Coffin itself? Our auspex isn’t managing to distinguish the natives from all the other life form readings. None of us has ever set foot on Miral Prime before, and there are virtually no geographical landmarks mapped to our cartography indices. It is classified as a death world, and with good reason, from what I’ve read – great tree serpents, land sharks and territorial herbivores bigger than the largest phantines. We’ll be constantly on the defensive, and every battle-brother we lose to the jungle is a poor trade for a handful of potential neophytes.’
No one spoke for a moment. Nimeon pursed his lips.
‘That is an excellent point,’ he murmured.
The six of them picked their way around the mesa’s outlying defences, making for the bastion gates on the lower slope. Culmonios stared hard at the feral aspirants as he approached their group, cowing any who would meet his fierce gaze. Until the day came that one of them might prove himself worthy to bear the Chapter’s full heraldry in open battle, he would not even consider them worthy of his limited respect.
Sergeant Brimelow, in his Scout carapace and camo-cloak, trudged up the incline to hail the Space Marines. Not being of Sothan blood, he met them with the sign of the aquila rather than the reaper’s salute.
‘Brothers, you’re going to be doing us a great service. Report to the bastion armoury – the serfs have established a quartermaster’s office for field provisions while you are away from the Coffin.’
Nimeon nodded, deferentially. Always so calm, Culmonios brooded, still clenching his fists at the thought of their earlier altercation.
‘Of course, brother-sergeant,’ Nimeon replied. ‘But we have a concern over the specifics of our mission.’
‘Speak it.’
‘Very well, then I shall be frank – we do not know the local terrain, and we are unfamiliar with the ways of the clans. They are apparently adept at remaining hidden when it suits them to do so. How are we to find and bring back the marked recruits without suffering losses along the way? Are our numbers not ravaged enough by the Kraken that we must let the jungle take a bite out of us, too?’
Brimelow looked agitated. He rubbed at his beard with a leather-gloved hand.
‘Afraid to get your boots dirty, brother? It’s not like we’re sending you out there alone. This is essentially a potential-combat courier mission.’
Culmonios sagged. He realised what was coming.
‘Pair up,’ Brimelow ordered. ‘Each of you will be assigned a local guide from the existing aspirants. These lads do know the local terrain, and I’m sure they’ll keep you safe out there.’ He caught Keltru’s dismayed look, and scoffed. ‘The original idea was to have our veterans show them a thing or two about how the Chapter operates, and to help whittle their numbers down some more. As it is, it looks like they’re going to be teaching you how to hunt a clawgibbon before the day is out.’
Though it was not communicated to Thracian at the time, the renewed summons sent by the astropaths on Miral II had been far from a hopeless vanity.
At his instruction, the Astra Militarum outpost had first begun to transmit the message, just as he had dictated it to his serf attendants. It had been recorded and encrypted, and relayed by trusted couriers under the Chapter’s seal, so that no outsider could interfere. Beyond several nonsensical linguistic dead-ends, the principal content was conveyed in symbolism that would be clear enough to any battle-brother, initiate or thrall of the Scythes of the Emperor.
Sons of Sotha, the mountain has fallen. Do not follow the light. All forces rendezvous at the Giant’s Coffin, to await the warden’s return. The Kraken shall reap the whirlwind.
In the interests of maintaining what little human morale remained, he had taken great pains to avoid any notable similarity to the general recall that had brought them all back to Sotha only a few weeks earlier. He had also tried to avoid inadvertently drawing the attention of others who might scent weakness in the bloodied Chapter, like circling carrion-shrikes following a wounded quarian of the herds; under the circumstances, he recognised that the tyranids were not the only foe that could seek to deliver them a killing blow. But after many days of restless anxiety, and once Sebastion had departed on his clandestine mission to the hidden caches, Thracian began to find that he simply did not have the time to personally request updates from the Militarum commanders, especially since there never were any updates to speak of. Other issues intruded upon his attention, all of the myriad duties and responsibilities that came with the unsought command of a fleet crewed by tense, weary men and women who had lost everything that their masters once held dear.
Then, from out of the eerie silence of the void, from beneath the chilling nightmare-shadow cast by the xenos across whole sectors of the Eastern Fringe, there had come a return transmission.
No. More than that. In hindsight, it was a direct reply.
Thracian would come to wonder, in the months and years that followed, if events might have unfolded differently had news of this been relayed to him straight away. If he had known what was yet to come, would he have stepped up the immediate consolidation of the Chapter and marked a new rendezvous point? With more confidence and decisiveness in those early days, could they have been spared so much more misery afterwards?
As it was, he was lost between procurement requests, security sweeps and repair orders. Since the evacuation from Sotha, his world had grown smaller and smaller with each passing week. The graveness of their situation aside, he questioned whether such matters were even a worthy use of a Space Marine captain’s time – it was, therefore, little wonder that Thracian’s thoughts had been so preoccupied of late.
Moreover, the relevance of the return transmission had been somewhat misinterpreted by the outpost’s astropaths. It was received, documented and filed for later review without a second glance, along with every other half-heard psychic echo buzzing out from the encroaching alien presence.
‘The mountain has fallen,’ the message seemed to repeat. ‘Await the warden’s return.’
Accordingly, it should have come as far less of a surprise when the Honour’s Might – great battle-barge and flagship of the Scythes of the Emperor – forewent the usual protocols and translated directly into the heart of the Miral System. Her immaterial bow wave scattered the fleet’s patrol vessels, though they recognised her colours and livery in an instant.
