Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx Read online

  On the altar stood a chalice cut from black stone,

  studded with emeralds. Borakis kept his shotgun levelled

  on the altar as he approached it. The Scouts spread out

  behind him.

  The altarpiece’s rendition of Rogal Dorn was in gold

  with diamond eyes. Dorn was twice as tall as the gilded

  Astartes battling alongside him. The enemy were aliens, or

  perhaps mutants, humanoid but with gills and talons. Dorn

  was crushing them beneath his feet. It was a passable

  work. Dozens of higher quality could be found in the

  chapels and shrines of the Phalanx.

  ‘Sergeant?’ said Orfos. ‘Anything?’

  Borakis leant closer to the altar. The chalice was not

  empty. Something shimmered darkly inside it. In the dim

  light it was impossible to tell, but it looked like blood.

  Blood could not remain liquid down here for the length

  of time the chapel had evidently been sealed. Borakis

  knew the smell of blood well enough. He put his face close

  to the chalice and sniffed, knowing his Astartes’ senses

  would confirm what the liquid was.

  Borakis’s breath misted against the polished stone.

  He noticed for the first time the thin silvery wires covering

  the chalice in a network of circuitry.

  The warmth and moistness of a human breath made

  filaments move. Expanding, they completed a circuit, wired

  through the base of the chalice to the mechanism behind

  the triptych.

  Rogal Dorn’s diamond eyes flashed red. A pencil-thin

  beam glittered across the chamber.

  Sergeant Borakis fell, twin holes bored through his

  skull by the pulse of laser.

  ‘Back!’ shouted Laokan. ‘Fall back!’

  Kalliax darted forwards to grab Borakis’s body by the

  collar of his armour and drag him away from the altar. The

  panels of the triptych slid aside, each revealing the veiny

  flesh of a gun-servitor supporting double-barrelled

  autoguns. Green and red lights flashed over Kalliax as he

  tried to scramble away, hauling Borakis’s corpse with him.

  The autoguns opened up, the gunfire filling the

  chamber to bursting. Kalliax almost made it to the hole

  leading to the tunnel. His armour almost held for the extra

  second he needed. Bursts of torn ceramite, then blood and

  meat, spattered from his back as bullets hit home. Kalliax

  fell to the floor as a shot blew his thigh open, revealing a

  wet red mess tangled around his shattered femur. Kalliax

  dropped Borakis’s body and returned fire with his bolt

  pistol. His face and upper chest disappeared in a cloud of

  red.

  Laokan and Orfos broke back into the tunnel, its walls

  still wet with Caius’s blood. Orfos saw Kalliax die, and he

  felt that same instinct that must have seized Kalliax – grab

  the body of his fallen battle-brother, carry him back to the

  Chapter, see him interred with honour alongside the rest of

  the Chapter’s venerated dead. But Orfos choked down the

  thought. That was what had killed Kalliax. Orfos would

  leave him to be entombed in this place. That was the way

  it had to be.

  The back wall was falling in, showering the altar with

  rubble. The gun-servitors, one with a gun arm hanging limp

  thanks to Kalliax’s bolter fire, lumbered out of their hiding

  place towards the surviving Scouts.

  ‘Don’t look back!’ shouted Laokan above the gunfire,

  and pushed Orfos into the carved corridor.

  The walls shifted again. Orfos made a decision with

  the quickness of mind that years of hypno-doctrination and

  battle training had given him. He could go for the entrance

  of the tunnel, to escape back into the valley. But Caius

  had died in that stretch of tunnel – Orfos knew that way

  was certainly trapped. That certainty did not exist for the

  other direction, deeper into the structure built into the

  hillside. It was not particularly compelling logic, but it was

  all he had.

  Orfos broke into a sprint towards the darkness at the

  far end of the tunnel. Laokan was on his heels, and the

  racket of the gunfire was joined by the grinding of stone

  and stone. The tunnel was closing up again, the ripple of

  shifting panels accelerating towards them from the tunnel

  entrance. Chunks of Caius’s body were revealed, tumbling

  around the vortex of stone. A severed hand, a battered and

  featureless head, Caius’s bolt pistol warped out of shape.

  Orfos was fast. In the tests after each surgical

  procedure, he had always been. The sergeants of the

  Tenth Company had suggested his aptitude was for the

  Doctrines of Assault due to his speed and decisiveness of

  action.

  Laokan was not so fast. He was a marksman. A

  trailing arm was caught between spiked panels and

  Laokan was yanked back off his feet. Orfos heard Laokan

  yell in shock and pain, and turned long enough to grab

  Laokan’s boot, pulling his fellow Scout free of the chewing

  throat.

  Laokan’s arm came off, bone and sinew chewed

  through. Laokan collapsed onto Orfos and tried to propel

  himself forwards, buying time for them both. Orfos grabbed

  Laokan’s remaining arm and dragged him behind him as

  he carried on running.

  Laokan snagged on something. Orfos hauled harder

  and dragged Laokan along with him, every nerve straining

  to keep his battle-brother free of the fate that had claimed

  Caius.

  There was no light now. Even the Scout’s augmented

  vision, almost the equal of a full Space Marine’s, could

  make out nothing but dense shadow.

  The floor gave way beneath Orfos’s feet. The lip of a

  stone pit slammed into the side of his head as he fell, and

  teeth cracked in his jaw. He was aware, on the edge of

  consciousness, of his body battering against the carved

  sides of the pit as he and Laokan fell.

  ORFOS WOKE, AND realised that he had been knocked

  out. He cursed himself. Even if only for a moment, he

  should fight for awareness at all times. He had no bolt

  pistol in his hand, either. He had dropped his weapon.

  Borakis would assign him field punishment for such a

  failing. But Borakis, recalled Orfos with a lurch, was dead.

  Orfos could still see nothing. He fumbled with the

  tactical light mounted on the shoulder of his breastplate.

  The light winked on and fell on the face of another stone

  Space Marine, far larger than in the alcoves above – twice

  life-size. Orfos read the inscription on the storm shield

  carried in the statue’s left hand, a counterpart to the

  chainsword in its right. It read APOLLONIOS. Orfos

  recognised the trappings of a Chaplain among the

  weapons and armour of an assault-captain. Beside the

  statue was another of a Chaplain, this one inscribed with

  the name ACIAR.

  ‘Brother,’ said Orfos. ‘Brother, what of this place?

  What have we found?’

  Laokan did not reply. Orfos looked for his brother, who

  mus
t have also been knocked out in the fall.

  Laokan lay a short distance from Orfos, next to

  Orfos’s bolt pistol. Laokan’s body was gone from the midtorso

  down, and trails of organs lay behind him in bloody

  loops. Laokan was face down, nose in the dust.

  Orfos knelt beside Laokan’s corpse. ‘Forgive me,

  brother,’ he said, but the words seemed meaningless as

  they fell dead against the chamber walls. ‘I can pray for

  you later. I will, brother. I promise I will.’

  Orfos picked up his bolt pistol and let the light play

  around the chamber. A third statue was mounted high up,

  above the lintel of a doorway framing a pair of steel blast

  doors. This statue, again of a Space Marine Chaplain, bore

  the name THEMISKON. Orfos recognised the chalice

  symbol on the statue’s shoulder pad, echoing the statues

  in the alcoves above. It was the symbol of the Soul

  Drinkers.

  Another crime laid at the feet of the Soul Drinkers –

  this death trap, laid out to claim the lives of good Imperial

  Fists. Orfos spat on the floor. Whatever holiness this place

  might have had for the Soul Drinkers, Orfos wanted to

  defile it. Whatever it meant to them, he wanted it made

  meaningless.

  Orfos looked up. The walls of a shaft rose above him.

  The carvings were probably deep enough to climb, but it

  would not be easy, and another fall might break a leg or an

  arm and render him unable to escape that way. He turned

  his attention to the door.

  The metal was cold, drinking the warmth from Orfos’s

  hands and face from a good distance away. A control

  panel was set into the stone. Orfos was not in enough of a

  hurry to press any of the buttons. He put a hand to the

  metal – it was freezing, and this close Orfos’s breath

  misted in the air.

  The doors slid open. Orfos jumped back, bolt pistol

  held level. Beyond the doors was darkness – the light on

  Orfos’s armour glinted off ice and played through freezing

  mist that rolled from between the doors.

  Orfos stepped slowly away from the doors. ‘Whoever

  you may be,’ he called, ‘whatsoever fate you may have

  decided for me, know that I will fight it! I am an Imperial

  Fist! Die here I may, but it is as a Fist I shall die!’

  The doors were open. The lump of ice inside, hooked

  up to the walls by thick cables hung with icicles,

  shuddered. An inner heat sent cracks blinking through its

  mass. Chunks of ice fell away. Orfos glimpsed ceramite

  within, painted dark purple under the frost.

  The ice crumbled to reveal a shape familiar to Orfos. A

  massive square body on a bipedal chassis, squat

  cylindrical legs supported by spayed feel of articulated

  metal. The blocky shoulder mounts each carried a weapon

  – one a missile launcher, the other a barrel-shaped power

  fist ringed with flat steel fingers.

  It was a Dreadnought – a walking war machine. All the

  Dreadnoughts of the Imperial Fists were piloted by Space

  Marines who had been crippled in battle, who were kept

  alive by the Dreadnought’s life-support systems and

  permitted to carry on their duties as soldiers of the

  Emperor even after their bodies were ruined and useless.

  The Dreadnought’s sarcophagus was covered in purity

  seals and the symbol of a gilded chalice was emblazoned

  across the front.

  Orfos’s bolt pistol would do nothing to the

  Dreadnought’s armoured body. The power fist could crush

  Orfos with such ease the pilot, if there was one, would

  barely register the resistance provided by Orfos’s body

  before his armour and skeleton gave way.

  It would be quick. An Astartes did not fear pain, but

  Orfos did not see the need to pursue it as some Imperial

  Fists did. He had made his stand. He had not run, he had

  done his best to keep his battle-brothers alive. His

  conscience was clear. He told himself he could die. He

  tried to force himself to believe it.

  The Dreadnought shifted on its powerful legs and the

  fingers of the power fist flexed. Flakes of ice fell off it. The

  cables unhooked and fell loose, showering the chamber

  floor with more chunks of ice. Lights flickered as the

  Dreadnought’s power plant turned over and the chamber

  was filled with the rhythmic thrum of it.

  ‘All this talk of death,’ came the Dreadnought’s voice,

  a synthesised bass rumble issuing from the vox-units

  mounted on the hull. ‘Such morbidity. I have no wish to

  disappoint you, novice, but you will not die here.’

  Orfos swallowed. ‘What are you?’ he said. ‘Why lie

  you here, in a place designed to kill?’

  ‘Your obtuseness has not yet been trained out of you,’

  said the voice again. Orfos looked for some vision slit so

  he might glimpse the pilot inside, but he could find none.

  ‘My tomb was built to ensure that none but an Astartes

  could make it this far. So sad the Imperial Fists chose to

  send Scouts to do the work of a full battle-brother. But you

  have made it, and I have no intention to see you go the

  way of that unfortunate brother who lies behind you.’

  ‘That is an answer to only one question,’ said Orfos. ‘I

  asked you two.’

  ‘Then I shall introduce myself,’ said the Dreadnought.

  ‘I am Daenyathos of the Soul Drinkers.’

  Chapter 2

  'GREETINGS, GREAT ONE,' said the lead pilgrim, his

  head bowed. Behind him snaked a chain of fellow pilgrims,

  decked out in sackcloth and jangling with the symbolic

  chains around their wrists.

  'I am Lord Castellan Leucrontas of the Phalanx,'

  replied the Castellan. The cavernous docking bays of the

  Phalanx were Leucrontas's domain, just as the brig decks

  and Pain Glove chambers were his, and in spite of the high

  ceilings and enormous expanse of the docking chamber

  his stature still seemed to fill the place. 'Wherefore have

  you come to this place? You have not been asked, nor has

  your arrival been announced beforehand. I must warn you

  that accommodating your ship was a courtesy extended

  only in the light of it not being armed, and such a courtesy

  is mine to withdraw.'

  The pilgrim's head seemed to bow even lower, as if his

  spine was permanently bent in an attitude of prayer. 'I

  would ask forgiveness, great one,' he said, in a rasping

  voice shredded by years of thunderous sermons, 'but it is

  not mine to offer apologies in the Emperor's name. For it is

  to do His work that we have come to this place.'

  Castellan Leucrontas regarded the pilgrims emerging

  from the airlocks. Their ship, a converted merchantman,

  was a sturdy and ancient vessel, essential qualities for a

  craft that had evidently made it to the Phalanx's isolated

  location at short notice. Nevertheless, there had been

  great risk in taking them so close to the Veiled Region,

  with its pirates and xenos, in an unarmed ship. The

  pilgrims had
clearly been willing to court death to make

  this journey, and still more to risk the chance that the

  Imperial Fists would refuse them a berth and leave them to

  drift.

  'Then you represent the Church of the Imperial Creed?'

  said Leucrontas. 'That august congregation has no

  authority here. This ship is sovereign to the Imperial Fists

  Chapter.'

  The lead pilgrim pulled back his hood. The face inside

  was barely recognisable as a face - not because it was

  inhuman or mutilated, but because the familiarity of its

  features was almost entirely hidden by the tattooed image

  of a pair of scales that covered it. The image was an

  electoo, edged in lines of light, and the two pans of the

  scales flickered with intricately rendered flames.

  'We come not to usurp your rule, good lord Castellan,'

  said the pilgrim. 'Rather, we are here to observe. The

  standards, my brothers, if you please.'

  Several other pilgrims jangled to the front of the crowd.

  Altogether there must have been three hundred of them, all

  hooded and chained like penitents. Several of them

  unfurled banners and held them aloft. They bore symbols

  of justice - the scales, the blinded eye, the image of a man

  holding a sword by the blade in a trial by ordeal. Other

  pilgrims were bent almost double by the loads of books

  strapped to their backs, each one a walking library. Still

  others had spools of parchment encased in units on their

  chests, so they could pay out a constant strip of

  parchment on which to write. Some were writing down the

  exchange between their leader and the Castellan, nimble

  fingers scribbling in an arcane shorthand with scratching

  quills.

  'Our purpose,' said the pilgrims' leader, 'is to follow the

  course of justice. The Emperor Himself created the

  institutions that see justice called down upon His subjects

  and His enemies. We are the Blind Retribution, and

  whenever the process of justice is enacted, we are there to

  observe. It has come to the notice of the Blind that a

  Chapter of Astartes is to be tried here, for several charges

  of rebellion and heresy. And so we are here to watch over

  this process and record all the matters of justice therein.

  This is the will of the Emperor, for His justice is the most

  perfect of all and it is to His perfection that we aspire.'

  The Castellan gave this some thought. 'It is true,' he

  said, 'that the Phalanx is to see these renegades put to