Hammer and Bolter - Issue 2 Read online

  Kolgo punctuated his final words by banging his armoured fist on the backs of the seats in front of him. He turned, faced the Justice Lord, and inclined his head in as much of a bow as an Inquisitor Lord would give.

  ‘Are you finished?’ asked Vladimir.

  ‘This statement is concluded,’ said Kolgo.

  ‘Pah,’ came a voice from the galleries. ‘One of a thousand he would give if he had leave. The Lord Inquisitor’s desire to hear his own voice borders on the scandalous!’ The speaker was Siege-Captain Daviks of the Silver Skulls. The Silver Skulls beside him nodded and murmured their assent.

  ‘You wish to make a counter-statement, siege-captain?’ said Vladimir.

  ‘I wish for the statements to end!’ snapped Daviks. ‘This creature in the dock before us is not deserving of a trial. This thing is a mutant! In what Imperium of Man is a mutant afforded the right to be bedded down in this nest of pointless words? Reinez was right. I have never known a trial granted to such a thing. I have known only execution!’

  Several Astartes shouted agreements. Vladimir held up a hand for silence but the din only grew.

  ‘Kill this thing, kill all the creatures you hold in your brigs, and let this be done with!’ shouted Daviks.

  ‘I will have order!’ bellowed Vladimir. He was not a man who raised his voice often, and as he rose to his feet the calls for violence died. ‘Apothecary Asclephin has borne witness that Sarpedon is to be tried as an Astartes. There the matter ends. You will get your execution, Captain Daviks, but in return you must have patience. I will see justice done here.’

  ‘A better illustration of power I could not have created myself,’ added Kolgo.

  ‘Your statement is concluded,’ said Vladimir. ‘Who will speak?’

  ‘We have not yet heard from the accused in the dock,’ replied Captain N’Kalo of the Iron Knights. ‘If we are to have a trial, the accused must speak in his defence.’

  Vladimir’s recent interjections kept the retorts to N’Kalo’s words to a minimum.

  ‘I would speak in my defence,’ said Sarpedon. ‘I would have you all hear me. I did not turn from the authority of the Imperium at some perverse whim. For everything I have done, I have had a reason. Lord Kolgo’s words have done nothing but to convince me further that my every action was justified.’

  ‘You will speak,’ said Vladimir, ‘whether those observing like it or not. But you cannot speak as yet, for further charges are to be levelled against you.’

  ‘Name them,’ said Sarpedon.

  ‘That by the machinations of your authority,’ said Reinez, ‘four Imperial Fists died on the planet of Selaaca, three Scouts and one sergeant of the Tenth Company. To the Emperor’s protection have their souls been commended, and to the example of Dorn have they measured themselves with honour. Their deaths have been added to the list of crimes of which you are accused.’ Reinez spoke as if reading from a statement, and the real anger behind his words was far more eloquent. He enjoyed pouring further accusations on Sarpedon, especially one that hit so home to the Imperial Fists on whose forced neutrality Sarpedon depended.

  The Imperial Fists around Vladimir made gestures of prayer. The other Space Marines gathered had evidently not heard of these charges, and a few quiet questions passed between them.

  ‘I know nothing of this!’ retorted Sarpedon. ‘No Imperial Fist died by a Soul Drinker’s hand on Selaaca. My battle-brothers surrendered to Lysander without a fight. The captain himself can attest to this!’

  ‘These crimes were not committed during your capture,’ said Vladimir. ‘Scout Orfos?’

  The Imperial Fists parted to allow a Scout through their ranks. In most Chapters, the Imperial Fists among them, a recruit served a term as a Scout before his training and augmentation was completed. Since he could not yet wear the full power armour of a Space Marine, and since a full Astartes’s armour was ill-suited to anything requiring stealth, these recruits served as infiltrators and reconnaissance troops. Scout Orfos still wore the carapace armour, light by the standards of Astartes, and cameleoline cloak of a Scout. He was relatively youthful and unscarred compared to the Imperial Fists around him, but he had a sharp face with observant eyes and he moved with the assurance of a confident soldier.

  ‘Scout,’ said Vladimir, ‘describe to the court what you witnessed on Selaaca.’

  ‘My squad under Sergeant Borakis was deployed to investigate a location that the Castellan’s command had provided to us,’ began Orfos. ‘In a tomb beneath the ground we found a place that the Soul Drinkers had built there.’

  Sarpedon listened, but his mind wanted to rebel. He had never heard of any Soul Drinker travelling to Selaaca before he had gone there to face the necrons. The planet was not mentioned in the Chapter archives. It could not be a coincidence that of all the millions of planets in the Imperium, he should stumble upon one where some forgotten brothers had built a tomb thousands of years ago. A tomb which, as Orfos’s evidence continued, had been built to keep all but the most determined Astartes out.

  Sarpedon felt a wrenching inside him as Orfos described the deaths of the other scouts. Orfos was well-disciplined and little emotion showed in his words, but his face and intonation suggested the effort he was making in bottling it up. Orfos had been trained to hate, hypno-doctrination and battlefield experience teaching him the value of despising his enemy. That hate was turned on Sarpedon now. Sarpedon felt, for the first time in that courtroom, truly accused. He felt guilt at the Imperial Fists’ deaths, though this, of all his supposed crimes, was the only one that he had not committed.

  ‘It was a Dreadnought,’ Orfos was saying. ‘The tomb had been built to house it. It had been kept frozen to preserve its occupant...’

  ‘Justice Lord,’ said Sarpedon. ‘My Chapter has no Dreadnoughts. The last was lost with the destruction of the Scintillating Death six thousand years ago. It is made clear in the archives of–’

  ‘The accused will be silent!’ snapped Vladimir. ‘Or he will be made silent.’ A glance from Vladimir towards Lysander suggested how Vladimir would go about shutting Sarpedon up. ‘Scout Orfos. Continue.’

  ‘The Dreadnought awoke,’ said Orfos, ‘and I voxed for reinforcements. A team of servitors and Techmarines made the tomb safe and disarmed the Dreadnought.’

  ‘Did it speak to you?’ asked Vladimir.

  ‘It did,’ said Orfos. ‘It placed itself in my custody, and told me its name.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Daenyathos.’

  Sarpedon slumped against the pulpit.

  Daenyathos was dead. The heretic Croivas Ascenian had killed him six thousand years ago.

  His mind raced. The impossibility of it stunned him.

  Of all the names he might have heard listed as a traitor, Daenyathos was the last he would have expected. Daenyathos had written down the Soul Drinkers’ way of war, and even after casting aside the ways of the old Chapter Sarpedon had still found infinite wisdom in Daenyathos’s works. Every Soul Drinker had read the Catechisms Martial. Sarpedon had fought his wars by its words. It had given him strength. Daenyathos was a symbol of what the Imperium could be – wise and strong, tempered with discipline but beloved of knowledge. Now the philosopher-soldier’s name had been dragged into this sordid business.

  And if he was alive... if Daenyathos truly lived still, as only a Space Marine in a Dreadnought could...

  ‘I swear...’ said Sarpedon. ‘If he lives... I swear I did not know...’

  ‘And by what do you swear?’ snarled Captain Borganor from the gallery. ‘On your traitor’s honour? On the tombs of my brothers you have slain? I say this proves the Soul Drinkers are not mere renegades! I say they have been corrupt for millennia, under the guidance of Daenyathos, sworn to the powers of the Enemy and primed to bring about some plot of the warp’s foul making!’

  Voices rose in agreement. Sarpedon’s mind whirled too quickly for him to pay attention to them. If Daenyathos was alive, then what did that mean? The Soul Dr
inkers had gone to Selaaca to stave off the necron invasion of an innocent world, and yet Daenyathos had been there all along. Sarpedon traced back the events of the last weeks, his capture, the assault on the necron overlord’s tomb, the battles on Raevenia and the clash with the Mechanicus fleet, and before that...

  Iktinos. It had been Iktinos who had suggested the Brokenback flee into the Veiled Region. The Chaplain’s arguments had made sense – the Veiled Region was a good place to hide. And yet he had led the Soul Drinkers straight to the tomb of Daenyathos. Iktinos must have known Daenyathos was there. And yet Iktinos had been one of Sarpedon’s most trusted friends, the spiritual heart of the Chapter...

  ‘Is he here?’ said Sarpedon, hoping to be heard over the shouting. ‘Daenyathos. Is he here, on the Phalanx?’

  ‘He shall be brought to the dock in time,’ replied Vladimir.

  ‘I must speak with him!’

  ‘You shall do no such thing.’ retorted Vladmir. ‘There will be no provision made for you to plot further! When your trial is complete, Daenyathos’s shall begin. That is all you shall know!’ Vladimir banged a gauntlet. ‘I will have order under the eyes of Dorn! Lysander, bring me order!’

  ‘Silence!’ yelled Lysander, striding across the courtroom. ‘The Justice Lord will have silence! There is no Space Marine here too lofty of station to be spared the face of my shield! Silence!’

  ‘This farce must end!’ shouted Borganor. ‘So deep the corruption lies! So foul a thing the Soul Drinkers are, and now we see, they have always been! Burn them, crush them, hurl them into space, and excise this infection!’

  Lysander vaulted the gallery rail and powered his way up to Borganor. The Howling Griffons were not quick enough to hold him back, and it was by no means certain they could have done so at all. Lysander bore down on Borganor, face to face, storm shield pressing against Borganor’s chest and pinning him in place. Lysander had his hammer in his other hand, held out as a signal for the other Howling Griffons to stay back.

  ‘I said silence,’ growled Lysander.

  ‘My thanks, captain,’ said Vladimir. ‘You may stand down.’

  Lysander backed away from Borganor. The two Space Marines held each other’s gaze as Lysander returned to the courtroom floor.

  ‘There will be no further need for calls to order,’ said Vladimir. ‘You are here at my sufferance. When my patience runs out with you, you return to your ships and leave. Captain Lysander is authorised to escort you. Scout Orfos, you are dismissed.’

  Orfos saluted and left the gallery, the Imperial Fists bowing their heads in respect to him and his lost brothers as he went.

  Reinez had watched the tumult with a smile on his face. Nothing could have pleased him more than seeing Sarpedon’s distress, except perhaps Sarpedon’s severed head.

  ‘Who will speak next?’ said Vladimir. ‘Who can bring further illumination to the crimes of the accused?’

  Varnica of the Doom Eagles stood. ‘I would speak,’ he said. ‘The court must hear what I have to say, for it bears directly on the nature of the Soul Drinkers’ crimes. I bring not rhetoric or bile. I bring the truth, as witnessed by my own eyes.’

  ‘Then speak, Librarian,’ said Vladimir.

  The courtroom hushed, and Varnica began.

  The Rat Catcher’s Tail

  Richard Ford

  The candle he kept by his bedside had long since burnt out and Hugo’s room was bathed in blackness. The shutters over his windows kept out any encroaching moonlight, the double bolts serving to lock him fast within his mansion fortress.

  He listened through the darkness, straining his ears for any sound. His eyes were wide as he peered over the top of his fine-stitched Estalian sheets, but could see nothing through the gloom.

  There it was again, as it had come every night for the past week – the incessant scratching and pattering of tiny feet. Hugo could no longer deny the fact that it was slowly beginning to drive him insane. They were in the walls, under the floorboards, crawling across the attic, and Hugo was powerless to stop them. He had spent the past two days crawling around his own home with nothing but a sputtering candle for illumination, waiting behind half-closed doors for sound of the vermin’s passing. When he heard it he would burst in, walking cane in hand, but the snuffling, chittering, furry beasts were nowhere in sight.

  Would he have no peace?

  Hugo Kressler was known throughout Talabheim as a well-respected, and very wealthy, merchant. His business had seen emperors come and go, had survived Chaos incursions and peasant uprisings.

  When he had accrued enough wealth, Hugo had commissioned the building of the largest private property in the Manor District and on its completion he could not have been happier. It was a triumph of architecture, sporting wood panelling bought in from Ostland, lancet archways carved by dwarf masons, and boasting the latest security guaranteed by the Locksmith’s Guild of Altdorf. Above all it satisfied Hugo’s requirements for total privacy. For two years he had been ecstatically happy in his new abode, walking his hallways and admiring the works of art from Tilea and Bretonnia, sampling his vast wine cellar and counting his hard-earned coin.

  Now all that was falling apart.

  He had not slept for days and his usually voracious appetite had all but vanished. Hugo was now a wan shadow of his former self, a bag of saggy flesh with red-rimmed eyes that stared from beneath an unkempt mass of shaggy grey hair. It was like being a prisoner in his own home. He dare not leave for fear of what state his beloved mansion would be in when he returned. What would the pink-eyed beasts do to his belongings in his absence? The filth they would leave behind, the teeth marks… the droppings!

  Wrenching back his sheets, Hugo leapt out of bed. He blindly felt around for his bedside candle and the single match he kept on the dresser in case he was caught short during the night. With the candle lit he strode across his bedroom, one hand shading the precious illumination. He opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the wide, panelled corridor.

  All the while the noise from within the walls seemed to get louder, the rodents seeming to mock him, knowing they were winning, knowing that Hugo’s wits would soon be frayed to nothing.

  ‘I know you can hear me!’ he screamed, his voice echoing along the pitch-black corridor. ‘You won’t win. Mark me! Do you know who you’re dealing with? I’m Hugo Kressler, the most powerful merchant in Talabheim!’

  As if in answer, the rats fell silent.

  Hugo stood in the dark, watching… waiting.

  Nothing.

  With a sigh of relief he stumbled back to his bed, climbing within the fine, smooth sheets and pulling them up to his chin. Within seconds the gentle mercy of sleep overcame him.

  Hugo was running.

  He found it curious – normally when he ran in dreams it was as though he were wading through thick treacle, his legs sluggish and listless no matter how he willed them to move. Now however he was speeding along, scurrying even, moving with all the stealth and snap of a wild animal. At first this thrilled him, his heart pounding like a taxman at the door, but soon he realised the reason for his alacrity… he was being chased!

  Something was after him, something big and mean and casting a long black shadow, and no matter how he tried to escape it he could not. He jinked left and right, over and under obstacles, but still he could not shake off his pursuer. It was a losing battle, the hunter was gaining, Hugo could hear its pounding feet at his back, and the stink of its hot breath…

  He awoke, breathless and panting. His fine satin sheets were drenched, his silken nightgown clinging to his clammy flesh.

  This would not stand – awake he was tormented by invaders in his home, asleep he was plagued by night terrors. He had to do something, had to rid himself of these torturous vermin.

  Hugo leapt from his bed, flinging open his door and tramping through the corridors of his house, which were slowly brightening in the dawn light. In the porch he donned his boar-skin greatcoat and the boots made especiall
y for him from Arabyan horsehide, then ventured out into the chill morning air.

  The streets of Talabheim were all but deserted this early in the day, particularly in the Manor District. It was inhabited by the city’s great and good, and only their footmen and domestics would be out of bed at this ungodly hour. Consequently, when he stepped onto the Avenue of Heroes and headed west to his destination, Hugo had only an endless row of posturing statues to keep him company.

  As he stamped through the streets they gradually became busier, and when he moved into the district known as Guildrow the bare cobbled road had become a hive of bustling activity. The Guildrow was a hub for Talabheim’s industry, with blacksmiths and brewers, tinkers and tanners all going about their business. It was here that Hugo would find what he was looking for.

  Eventually he located it and with renewed vigour Hugo marched to the front door of the trapmaker’s shop. The lintel had been painted black, and written on it in faded white script was the legend: Gerhardt Moller – Master of Traps, as appointed by Helmut Feuerbach, Elector Count of Talabecland. This on its own filled Hugo with some relief as he rapped on the door. Moller would clearly have the answer to the twitching, scurrying, defecating problem that was assailing his home.

  At first there was no answer, but after several successive, and steadily more frantic, knockings at the door it was hauled open. The man Hugo could only assume was the ‘master’ trapmaker stood staring from within the gloom, his hair dishevelled, his body encased in a tattered, furry robe of indeterminate origin.