Master of sanctity, p.16
Master of Sanctity, page 16
As the thing rose up, threatening to carry his weapon away, Asmodai wrenched the crozius arcanum free. The effect was like pulling open an effluent pipe as a streaming gush of maggots, half-solid blood and putrescence poured out onto the Chaplain. The sticky mess clogged the seals of his helm and dried in a crust over his left eye. He struck again before the creature flew out of range, once more the head of the power weapon sinking deep into the unnatural body. With a grunt he hauled back, pulling the flying beast toward him. He fired his combi-weapon, the plasma gun pressed up against the daemon-steed’s lolling head, incinerating it in a moment.
Even as its mount ploughed into the ledge with a wet explosion of filth, the daemon lashed out again. Its entropic sword cracked against the casing of the Chaplain’s combi-weapon. The plasteel cover bent unnaturally and then fell away, leaving the mechanical innards of the weapon exposed. Wires started to fray and metal parts coated with rust.
Tossing the useless weapon aside Asmodai seized the creature’s wrist in his now-free hand as the decaying thing tried to stab him in the face. He pulled the daemon out from the foul wreckage of the flying creature and dashed it against the wall once, the rents in its body opening wider to spill out broken shards of bones and exploding organs. Utter disgust welled up inside the Chaplain as he smashed the daemon’s head to a pulp with the flat of the crozius arcanum.
More daemonflies and their filthy riders appeared over the rim of the ledge. Asmodai knocked the first back with a punch and decapitated the second with a swing from his crozius arcanum. Something grabbed his right arm; a fly-thing had managed to punch one of its clawed feet through the seal at the elbow. More limbs closed around the Chaplain as he swung his blazing weapon back and forth. His blows cracked open daemonic chitinous hides and rent gory trails through immaterial flesh, but there were too many foes.
A rider slid low on the back of its mount and drove the broken point of its blade into Asmodai’s chest. The rusted sword shattered, but where the oxide shards touched ceramite the armour crumbled like dust, exposing the secondary adamantium plates beneath. Mandibles lacerated gouges along his left thigh as another fly-beast latched on. Five of the creatures now had him. Asmodai felt the ground slipping away as they tried to lift him from the ledge.
For a moment he swung out over the chasm and was dangling right above the huge mass of the hive-like thing far below. Through a miasma of urine-coloured fog and the blots of flies crawling across his face he locked gazes with the immortal, enormous entity.
Its voice was in his head, he realised, and had been the whole time. It was a comforting feeling, not like the anger and despair he felt, but the warmth of paternal concern. It wondered why he fought so hard against the inevitable. Did he not realise that there was no triumph? All life ended in death. All civilisations fell to ruin. Even planets and stars, the galaxy itself, would one day be no more, claimed by the inevitable power of entropy. There could be no lasting victory against such fate.
Had not his own actions ushered in decay, in the bodies of the slain? He and his brothers were nothing more than hives for the billions of microscopic creatures that inhabited them, much like the citadel he had riled with his attack. Life was a temporary state of affairs, and filled with loss and pain. But death was an explosion of new life, fuelled by the fresh rush of mortal creatures.
He could enjoy that bounty too, if he but released himself from the pain that he craved so much. Life was torture, and for none more than Asmodai. He knew that every waking minute the thought of what had been taken from him, the innocence and purity he had known, gnawed at him, refusing to be forgotten. He might hunt for a hundred lifetimes and never bring Malvine Rhemell to account. What if he had that time? What if, rather than struggle futilely here and die in misery and solitude, he lived to fight on, not just for a hundred lifetimes but for a thousand, a million? Only the end of existence would end the Hunt. In his heart he knew no Dark Angel alive today would know peace; the true peace that would come when the last of the Fallen had been stricken from that long list. But if he ceased his struggles, allowed the destroyer hive to take him and be reborn, he would see that day, he would live long enough to bring freedom and honour back to the sons of the Lion.
Thinking of the Fallen normally brought rage, but now the appearance of the traitor’s visage, the patronising sneer Malvine Rhemell had shown when he had seen the confusion written on Asmodai’s face, the effect was of a cold waterfall washing over Asmodai like a cleansing balm. He could not die without knowing that his tormentor had been brought to justice.
But it was not in Asmodai’s nature to surrender. The pain was his shield, the agony of shame and loss was the fire that burned in the furnace of his soul. It was a reminder that the universe was unfair, that good men could be brought low by their intentions, no matter how pure.
And this was the iron, the true armour of righteousness that protected him. Ceramite, plasteel and adamantium encased his body but his soul was layered with hatred, rage and disgust; more for himself and his own weakness than any other being, living or daemonic.
This would be a pathetic way to die, he thought. Swallowed by a daemon-beast on some Emperor-cursed world, unremembered and pointless.
And then it returned to him, the flame of anger.
Like a single spark in the whole firmament of his black soul, the rage shone bright, growing in strength as he fought back the influence of the daemonic fiend. The fact that it had considered him vulnerable to such an offer, the insult such belief brought to the Chaplain, fanned the flame. It had questioned his righteousness. Only he had that right, for there was no being purer in purpose than Asmodai. He would not be judged or swayed by a conjuration of fear and despair, born out of the self-loathing and blind hope of weak mortals.
He was the judge, not the judged. He was Asmodai, Master of Repentance.
‘Die, filth of the abyss!’
Only a moment had passed though it seemed like an eternity to the Chaplain. Though his Terminator armour was not agile, it was strong. He flexed an arm, dragging himself back over the ledge even as he lashed out with his crozius. The flying creatures scattered from his rage, dropping him in their dread. He twisted his shoulder as he landed, ungainly but keeping enough impetus to turn the fall into a roll that gave him enough momentum to get to his feet again.
‘Do not relent!’ he roared to his battle-brothers, seeing them being pushed back along the ledge in places, surrendering the advantage of the chasm edge. ‘With bolt and blade, with flame and fist, purge the unclean!’
He put into practice what he preached, stomping after the fly-creatures that had tried to capture him, his crozius making a red mess of the first, sweeping the rider from his perch on the second. A heavy flamer burst incinerated another. Storm bolter fire hammered into a fourth and fifth, turning them to shreds of flapping flesh and shattered cartilage that dropped back into the gorge. Asmodai saw Sergeant Daeron striding through the cloying flies and gore, reloading his weapon.
‘Are you well, Brother Asmodai?’
‘I am unhurt,’ the Chaplain replied. For a moment memory of the encounter with the destroyer hive threatened to overwhelm him, but recalling the daemonic entity’s attempts to corrupt him only outraged Asmodai even further. ‘Burn and blast your way through. Get the battle-brothers off this ledge, and find the creator of this cursed place.’
‘What of that?’ Daeron gestured towards the beast at the bottom of the chasm.
‘It will wait, and we will be back for a reckoning.’ More daemon-things flopped into view, slug-beasts that crawled down the wall and over the lip of the crevasse, their fronded-ring mouths gnashing, emitting piercing, almost joyful whistles as they slumped and slid their way towards the Deathwing.
Asmodai thought of the Lion, and how the daemons had thought to persuade him to betray the primarch. It focused the Chaplain’s mind on the Fallen; those detestable souls that had listened to such urgings ten thousand years ago.
TRAITOR!
He thought of the Lion, dead at the hands of the traitors, of a world destroyed by hubris and a dream of greatness and eternal deliverance quashed. He thought of what the Fallen had done and looked at the daemons clambering and flying out of the chasm.
TRAITOR! TRAITOR!
He would prove his worth. He was no coward. The enemy would not escape this time.
TRAITOR! TRAITOR! TRAITOR!
What followed came easily.
Corruption
‘Can anybody hear me?’ a non-stop succession of colourful phrases and curses followed, confirming to Telemenus the identity of his fellow Terminator.
‘Daellon?’
‘Emperor damn me! Telemenus?’
The citadel had become a labyrinth and Telemenus was sure that he had walked in circles for nearly an hour, except that the circle was changing every time he took a turn, so that even if he crossed his path a hundred times more he would never recognise the exact same layout of tunnels and chambers. He had quickly succumbed to the depressing thought that he would die alone in this awful place, until he had picked up the distant echo of a shout.
‘Wait while I configure my audio pick-ups,’ Telemenus called back. He stopped walking and adjusted the sensitivity of his auto-senses, hoping to detect the direction of Daellon’s bellowing. ‘Configuration complete. Call again!’
‘Telemenus!’ Daellon’s shout almost deafened the Space Marine, erupting from the vox-link inside his helm. Feedback squealed close at hand, masking any location he might have picked up.
‘Brother, your vox is on,’ Telemenus replied quietly over the open channel.
‘And working again, it would seem. A damn joyous moment for you to hear my voice again, I am sure.’
Both of them spent thirty seconds trying to contact anyone else, switching between squad, personal and company frequencies but with no success.
‘It must be range interference,’ said Daellon. ‘At least that means we are close to each other. I’ll use the external system again.’
Telemenus listened intently, the stereoscopic detectors of his auto-senses turned up to maximum sensitivity. He heard his name rebounding from a passageway behind and to his left. He backtracked and called down the oval-shaped corridor, which like much of the maze resembled nothing so much as an artery clogged with fatty tissue and rank black residue. He told Daellon to call again and by these means was able to navigate his way through two more turnings until he came up on his battle-brother from behind.
‘A perturbing location,’ admitted Telemenus as they raised their power fists to each other in salute. ‘I assume you have seen nothing of our brothers?’
‘You are the first,’ said Daellon. ‘I was right behind Sergeant Arbalan when we teleported, but the moment we arrived… nothing. Not that I would have noticed if he was right in front of me at that moment. I thought I was going to puke out my lungs and my brain would fall out of my arse.’
‘Quite,’ said Telemenus, who had never really come to terms with Daellon’s unique capability for colourful language. He skirted on blasphemy at times but, oddly enough, seemed perfectly capable of keeping his tongue in order whenever Chaplain Asmodai was within earshot.
‘Not tried the sensorium since I switched it off, have you?’ Daellon said. Without any spoken consent, the two of them started heading in the direction Daellon had been facing. ‘I shot holes in the wall as a means of keeping track.’
‘Good idea,’ said Telemenus. ‘And no, I have not reactivated my sensorium. I hate to think what would happen to it if we created a scanner net between us.’
‘Damn good point. And do you see any holes here?’ He waved a hand to encompass the gently flexing corridor walls.
‘No,’ said Telemenus. It took a moment for his companion’s meaning to sink in. ‘Oh. That would mean we are both lost.’
‘So it damn well appears, brother. At least we have company now.’
As well as endlessly branching left and right, the corridors also went through dips and rises, so that the pair were never sure if they were still on the same level or not after a few minutes. Telemenus had a niggling feeling that they were making their way somewhere and though he had disabled his sensorium and did not have a perfectly accurate auspex-generated map to rely on he was also becoming more convinced that his surroundings had some kind of vaguely familiar pattern.
‘Did you hear that?’ Daellon’s question snapped him from his thoughts.
‘No, brother, what did you hear?’
‘A moan, perhaps.’ The two Terminators lifted their weapons. Neither had seen any sign of enemy and it was easy to forget that they were in the heart of hostile territory. ‘Or a groan.’
Daellon indicated the direction of the noise with his storm bolter, pointing down a narrower tunnel to their right. He led the way, power fist casting a blue glow across the organic walls, highlights shining from slivers of sinewy tissue that were expanding and contracting between ridged lines of cartilage.
‘Is there a difference?’ said Telemenus.
‘A difference? What?’
‘Between a moan and a groan?’
‘No idea, now that you ask.’ Daellon stopped. Without the whine of servos and the clump of their footfalls, Telemenus could hear the sound too now. It was a loud wheezing, rising and falling steadily. It seemed to be close.
They rounded the next corner side by side, storm bolters aimed, power fists raised. What confronted them was more disturbing than any foe they might have imagined.
There was something trapped within the tissue of the wall: a Terminator. The ivory of his armour was a stark contrast to the deep, fleshy red and the bluish veins that surrounded him. Tendrils of tissue-like creepers were already investigating, crawling into cracks between the plates, slowly but visibly expanding along limbs and torso. There seemed to be a dim haze surrounding the warrior. Magnifying his vision Telemenus saw thousands of tiny lice-like creatures covering the Space Marine like a fine film. The back of each tiny mite was marked with three overlapping pale green circles.
‘Damn! Sergeant Arbalan!’
Catching up with Daellon, Telemenus could see the warrior’s livery and heraldry clearly now and realised it was true. Arbalan had his power sword drawn but the upper part of his arm was melded with the stuff of the wall.
‘Stay away from the walls, we could get drawn in too,’ warned Telemenus.
The sergeant’s helm was cracked down the front; the wheezing was his laboured breathing whistling out of the shattered ventilator grille. The back of his head was as stuck as the rest of him. Fingers flexed in the depth of a spider web of veins encasing his left arm.
‘Helmet…’ The sergeant sounded hoarse and weak. Daellon moved to comply, powering down his fist to twist free the sergeant’s helm. It came loose with a sucking sound, the wall relenting its grip with a wet slurping noise. Daellon let the helmet clatter to the floor, preoccupied by what he had revealed. Arbalan’s face was almost white, drained of all pigment. His hair was too and his eyes were pale with cataracts. As well as its pallor, his flesh was wrinkled and leathery like the hide of some large beast, gathered in folds around the eyes and under his chin. There was no fat between skin and muscles, leaving just bone at cheek and brow.
‘Damn…’ said Daellon.
‘We will cut you free, brother-sergeant,’ promised Telemenus, gauging the thickness of the fleshy folds encasing parts of the Space Marine. ‘A few minutes work.’
‘No point.’ Arbalan coughed and then winced with pain. ‘It is inside me as well.’
‘How?’ Telemenus was shocked. What sort of creature, what kind of attack could overcome a warrior of the Deathwing so completely? ‘What did this to you, brother-sergeant?’
‘Teleport misadventure, you idiot.’ The sergeant moved his gaze to Daellon. ‘Matter detection systems warped out by this place. Materialised inside this wall. I can feel those things, those bugs, burrowing into me, trying to make me part of the city. They are in my legs at the moment, and my stomach. I want to be dead before they reach my lungs or heart. I do not think they mean to kill me, but to pervert this physical form for their own ends.’
‘There must be some way…’ Telemenus looked around for some clue as to how they might rescue the Space Marine. There was nothing. However, inspiration came in a different form. ‘Lungs! That is what this place reminds me of. Bronchial passageways. We must be in the fortress’ lungs, or something similar.’
‘How does that help?’ snapped Daellon. He began pulling away chunks of flesh and gristle, freeing some of the sergeant’s sword arm.
‘Do not make me beg,’ growled Arbalan, staring at Telemenus from his flesh cocoon.
‘Perhaps if we found a Librarian, he could cleanse the taint from you,’ Telemenus suggested, though he knew it was a hopeless situation.
‘Telemenus, come closer.’ The Space Marine complied with Arbalan’s request as Daellon stepped away. When the sergeant spoke his voice was a whisper. ‘There is more to being a great warrior than shooting straight. You have been a disappointment to me and to the Grand Master since you arrived. It is not patience or skill that you lack, it is humility, and that is why we have been scrutinising you so closely.’
‘You think that I show promise?’ Telemenus was confused, unsure whether Arbalan was praising him or criticising. ‘The Grand Master pushes me harder than the others because he senses what I could offer?’
‘No.’ The sergeant’s lips were almost non-existent and his skin all but a mask but he still managed a dissatisfied expression. ‘With training and armaments like yours, any warrior can serve with distinction in the First Company. Remember, you are not special.’
