No Space Marine should welcome death.
‘Your war is over, Legionary Kalimos,’ said Soulaka, placing a hand on the dead legionary’s shoulder. ‘And I will honour your memory with the promise that your gene-seed will live on.’
Soulaka carefully removed the dead warrior’s plastron to reveal a bodyglove wired with the electrical conductor pads from a defibrillator. An extruded scalpel blade cut through the toughened fabric, and he bared Kalimos’s wide, flattened chest, thick with the ridges of the ossified bone shield. Tattoos of writhing snakes engaged in what looked like either coitus or battle slithered across the bruised skin, and the inks glistened with strange hues that made Soulaka strangely unsettled.
He tapped a memorised code into his narthecium and it altered its configuration in a series of rotating, shifting panels to emit a puff of icy air. The reductor’s drill core snapped from the upper edges of his gauntlet as a series of glass tubes slotted home behind it. Soulaka sprayed sterilising solutions over the centre of the dead warrior’s chest and swabbed the area clear of contaminants.
Resting the flesh drill against Kalimos’s chest, Soulaka engaged the penetrating spectra of his visor to locate the implanted progenoid. Soulaka could extract a dead warrior’s gene-seed under battlefield conditions in less than thirty seconds, but it took him almost that long to locate the progenoid amid the confusion of biology he saw within Kalimos.
Organs and artificial trunkways threaded his body, linked to his nervous system in ways he had never seen or imagined were possible. A panoply of hybrid organs and unknown biological hardware packed the man’s chest, most of which had no business being inside a living being.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for – the small, plum-shaped organ connected to a host of mysterious fleshy tendrils as thin as hairs.
‘Now what might be going on here?’ he wondered as he engaged the energised edges of the drill and pressed down hard to break through the layered bone protecting the organs within. Laser cutters burned through flesh and bone as internal tubing siphoned the blood away, and Kalimos jerked as the laser sent pulses of electrical energy through the strange pathways of his body. Fresh blood leaked from his ruptured eyeballs, and an exhalation of what sounded like pleasure sighed from between his blue lips.
The drill clamped in place and the automated mechanisms of the reductor finished its work. Carefully, Soulaka withdrew the drill as the hollow tubes filled with blood and the squirming lump of the harvested organ. The blade self-sterilised and the reductor retracted into his gauntlet, sealing the precious gene-seed within.
‘Is that really yours to take?’ said a voice behind Soulaka, and he jumped in surprise, reaching for the bolt pistol at his hip. A hand flashed out, swift as thought, and clamped down on the butt of the weapon before his own could reach it.
‘Now, now, not so hasty,’ said a warrior with a face full of scars and an arrogant, cocksure glint in his eyes. ‘We’re all friends here, are we not?’
‘Who are you?’ asked Soulaka, slowly lifting his hand away from his holster.
‘Lucius,’ said the warrior, kneeling beside Kalimos.
‘Where are your Legion’s Apothecaries?’ demanded Soulaka. ‘There are legionaries dying here. They could be saved.’
Lucius ignored the question and freed the toothed whip from the dead man’s grip.
‘You won’t be needing this then, Kalimos,’ he said, relishing the feel of the barbed grip in his bare hand. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of it for you.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’ said Soulaka.
‘I heard,’ said Lucius, standing and hanging the coiled whip from a hook on his belt. Now that he took a moment to study this Lucius, he saw a man perfectly in balance with his physique, a killer with an intimate knowledge of his body’s limitations.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Where are your Apothecaries?’
‘Only one came aboard your iron ship,’ said Lucius. ‘And I don’t think he’s particularly interested in saving lives.’
‘Then what kind of Apothecary is he?’
Lucius leaned in close, and Soulaka could taste the sourness of his breath, the rank sweat of his unwashed body and the blood of fresh scarring.
‘The kind that’s standing right behind you,’ said Lucius.
Soulaka spun around and found himself face to face with a gaunt-featured cadaver of a man with thready white hair, the blackest eyes and a cloak of leathered flesh over his armour of purple and gold. A leprous form of servo-harness sprouted from his back, and he carried an elongated needle pistol in slender, mantis-like fingers.
Soulaka heard a tiny thip sound and felt a sharp sting at his neck, like an insect bite.
He reached up and tugged a sliver of hollow crystal from his neck. A droplet of blood hung suspended at the tip, like a ruby tear. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but his mind was suddenly fogged and sluggish.
‘Fabius?’ he said, his voice sounding as though it echoed from the bottom of a deep chasm.
‘None other,’ said the man, who reached out and lowered him to the ground as the strength poured from Soulaka’s body. He tried to speak, but Fabius hushed him with a finger placed tenderly over his lips.
‘The xyclos toxin thrives on resistance and will make your suffering much worse should you desire to die in pain,’ said Fabius.
Soulaka could no longer feel his limbs and he nodded, as though what Fabius was saying was the most natural thing in the world.
‘You took something that does not belong to you,’ said Fabius, expertly opening Soulaka’s code-locked reductor to remove the gene-seed he had taken from Kalimos.
‘No, I…’ said Soulaka, but whatever he had been about to say slipped away.
Fabius placed something heavy against his chest.
Soulaka looked down and though he knew he should recognise the device, its name and purpose escaped him. Fabius pressed hard and Soulaka grunted as laser-edged blades spun up to cutting speed, coring down through the layers of his plastron and the thickened bone of his chest. He felt the device boring deep into his body, but there was no pain. Which was good. He felt a tugging sensation inside him as an internal organ was cut free. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes, though he could not say why.
Fabius leaned in close to whisper in his ear. ‘Tell me your name.’
‘What–?’
‘Your name,’ said the white-haired angel of death. ‘What is it?’
That at least he did know.
‘I am Honourable Soulaka,’ he said, pleased to have remembered this fact.
‘Honourable? You are a mason master?’ asked Fabius.
‘I am,’ said Soulaka.
‘Interesting,’ said Fabius.
Soulaka looked down. A neat hole had been bored through his breastplate. Blood coated his armour with a glistening sheen, and a viscous froth of blood and bone fragments pooled in his lap. The Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children cradled a metallic vial, upon which the spidery arms of his bio-harness scratched two words: Honourable Soulaka.
With his last breath of life, Soulaka fell back on the one source of strength left to him.
‘From iron cometh strength. From strength cometh will. From…’
His words faded away.
‘Yes,’ said Fabius. ‘Your gene-seed should be ripe with potential.’
Fulgrim took his time in answering the summons, but Perturabo had expected that, and his humours were in balance when the layered doors swung open. The robots of the Iron Circle brought their threat sensors to bear, but Perturabo waved them down as Fulgrim swept inside with a tired, pained expression.
Perturabo’s attention was focused on a clockwork automaton: the working model of a Warhound Titan that was almost as fully functional as the real thing. Its upper carapace was hinged open, revealing a fiendishly complex latticework of gears, cogs and timing shafts. The metronomic beat of its mechanical heart tick tocke
d to a precise rhythm, and the miniature screwdriver Perturabo held was no thicker than a human hair.
Two of the Iron Circle moved aside to allow Fulgrim within, and behind him came two of his captains – Kaesoron and Vairosean – together with the limping form of his last Lord Commander, Eidolon. Behind them came his Trident, who moved to take position at the cardinal points of a triangle around him. Perturabo gave Forrix a slow nod.
Fulgrim glanced around, and seeing that little – if anything – had changed from his last visit to Perturabo’s sanctum, lost interest in surroundings that would have captivated Terran scholars for months. Fulgrim was clad in his battle armour, bearing a fresh coat of paint that was almost painfully vivid in its colouring. The amethyst and gold were somehow too real, too sharp-edged; as though painted on the surface of his retinas.
‘Sit,’ said Perturabo.
For a moment, he thought Fulgrim would refuse, the command too imperious, too demeaning in the presence of their subordinates. Though he knew it was a childish ploy that a narcissist like Fulgrim would see through in a heartbeat, he ignored his brother and continued working on the Warhound’s interior.
Just as he judged Fulgrim was about to speak, he said, ‘I summoned you five hours ago.’
‘I am aware of that,’ said Fulgrim, tight-lipped and bowstring taut. ‘But I just lost a warship, so my attention has been somewhat diverted.’
‘You needlessly lost a warship,’ pointed out Perturabo.
‘Is that why you summoned me to your tinker’s workshop?’ snapped Fulgrim. ‘To berate me for showing a measure of intrepidity? If you have brought me here to gloat or say I told you so, then you can save your breath. I will not apologise for wanting to learn more of those who would oppose us.’
‘And what did you learn?’ said Perturabo, finally looking up from his working. ‘What great revelations do your monsters bring us from so bold an expedition?’
Fulgrim said nothing and cast his gaze around the room, as though the paintings, anatomical diagrams and mathematical proofs were now of sudden interest to him. His gaze hardened as his eyes alighted on the sketches over Perturabo’s shoulder, and he knew exactly what Fulgrim was going to say before he said it.
‘How did you get those drawings?’
‘Which ones?’
‘The gruesome ones,’ said Fulgrim. ‘The ones showing what looks like…’
‘Primarch anatomy? You know how I got them.’
Fulgrim nodded and an ugly expression of bitter jealousy clouded his features.
‘I remember little of the time before our scattering,’ said Fulgrim with a dismissive shrug.
‘You remembered enough to pass on something to your fleshsmith.’
‘Fabius?’ said Fulgrim. ‘No, I gave him nothing except permission to explore to the furthest reaches of his knowledge.’
‘Really? You told him nothing?’
‘Well, I may have pointed him in certain directions,’ admitted Fulgrim, ‘but the work he has done is all his own. Admittedly, what he has manufactured so far leaves something to be desired, but no great art is ever achieved without effort and blood.’
‘It is wrong,’ said Perturabo.
‘Wrong?’ said Fulgrim, as though the word were anathema to him. ‘Haven’t you seen yet? There is no right and wrong. We are beings of will and desire, and only by exercising the former and indulging the latter do we move closer to ultimate perfection. Fabius’s imperfect science might be crafting monsters just now, but eventually he will create something godlike.’
‘All he will create are bastard hybrids, mongrel half-breeds that should be strangled at birth,’ said Perturabo. ‘You should stop what he is doing before it goes any further.’
‘I will not,’ stated Fulgrim.
Perturabo sighed and returned his attention to the clockwork model of the Warhound.
‘You are never so certain as when you don’t know just how wrong you can be,’ he said, picking up his tools and working on the machine’s interior once again.
‘Is it broken?’ asked Fulgrim.
‘The perpetual motion driver at its heart is losing time,’ said Perturabo.
‘I thought that was impossible.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Perturabo, tightening a screw no larger than a grain of sand. ‘A genius of Old Earth discovered the theoretical principles thousands of years ago, but he lacked the technology to manufacture a working prototype. I have many of his journals and secret papers in my library and was able to extrapolate what had been lost to draw up the schematics for Vulkan to build.’
Fulgrim nodded, already bored. ‘I would have thought Vulkan would have better things to do with his forges, like making guns and swords.’
‘Then you don’t know him at all,’ said Perturabo. ‘His love of the forge encompasses all things, from crafting weapons to fashioning miniature wonders of artifice.’
‘But that one isn’t working?’ asked Fulgrim. ‘Then he’s not as good as I heard.’
‘No, it was perfect,’ said Perturabo. ‘It was damaged during the fighting at Phall. It fell from a shelf and the mechanism was knocked out of alignment. If you listen closely, you can hear the variation in each cycle of its mechanical heart.’
Perturabo reached out and placed the Warhound on the workbench in front of Fulgrim.
‘I have no interest in your toys,’ he said.
‘Listen,’ insisted Perturabo.
Fulgrim sighed and leaned in close to the table, turning his head to listen.
Perturabo’s hand flashed out and gripped Fulgrim’s hair. With sudden force, he slammed his brother’s face into the Warhound. The wondrous automaton shattered into a thousand pieces as Fulgrim’s head crunched into the pitted surface of the workbench.
Bone broke and blood spattered. Cogs flew, tiny springs and gear levers spun off.
Fulgrim cried out in painful shock and his captains surged forwards.
The Iron Circle smashed them aside with wrecking-ball blows from their energy shields and before the Emperor’s Children could recover, the Trident were upon them. Perturabo hauled Fulgrim over the workbench, scattering drawings, fragile tools, schematics and half-finished sketches. Though Fulgrim was fully armoured, Perturabo lifted him by the neck with no more effort than lifting a mortal man. Fulgrim spat blood, and Perturabo slammed his fist into his brother’s face, snapping his head back with a crack of bone.
Fulgrim’s eyes blazed black and his face glimmered with reptilian malice.
He started to speak, but Perturabo didn’t give him the chance. Like a fist-fighter going for the kill, he battered his brother’s face with pistoning jabs until he had him backed up against an iron column. He pinned Fulgrim in place and drew back his free hand to reach for Forgebreaker.
The hammer rose, but Perturabo left the blow hanging.
Fulgrim’s perfect face was a wet meat wound, leaking blood, snot and tears. His breath was hoarse and clogged with phlegm and broken teeth, his eyes were swollen shut. He tried to speak, but Perturabo cut him off again.
‘No, brother,’ he said. ‘I am speaking now, and you will listen to me.’
Falk, Kroeger and Forrix hauled Fulgrim’s captive officers over, powerful arms wrapped around their necks and wide-bore pistols jammed in hard to their flesh.
‘I have bitten my tongue and allowed you to bring my Legion into this place,’ said Perturabo. ‘I have followed your lead in all things, I have listened to your tall tales and allowed you to set the pace of this expedition.’
Perturabo leaned forwards and said, ‘That ends now.’
He released Fulgrim, who held himself erect in the face of Perturabo’s cold anger.
‘Your warriors have no discipline, monsters fight your battles and you have allowed an entire vessel to be sacrificed in the name of vanity, but no more. From here onwards, I am in charge and for the duration of this mission, your Legion is mine to command. Your warriors will obey my orders, they will follow my lead, and they will d
o nothing except by my command. If you agree to that, then we will continue on into the Eye of Terror and finish this together. If you don’t, then I will take my Legion and leave you here. Do you understand?’
Fulgrim nodded and swallowed a mouthful of blood.
‘I understand, brother,’ he said, his voice a gargled, mangled mockery of its once perfect cadence. ‘I understand that you humble me and expect me to swallow my pride. To be your lapdog.’
‘I don’t need a damn lapdog,’ snarled Perturabo. ‘I need an equal.’
‘But I am not your equal, brother,’ said Fulgrim, grinning through his bloodied features, as though this outburst of violence was somehow amusing. ‘I surpass you in every way.’
‘And yet I’m the one holding the hammer,’ said Perturabo.
‘You say you want an equal, but where is the equality when you secure my assent at the end of a weapon?’
Perturabo lowered Forgebreaker and harnessed it across his shoulder once again. He turned to the Trident and said, ‘Release them.’
‘My lord,’ said Barban Falk. Kaesoron struggled in his grip, despite the pistol wedged under his stretched open jaws. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ said Perturabo. ‘Because the lesson of history tells me that the best way to get what you want is to make sure you give the other man something too.’
‘And what do you give me?’ said Fulgrim, coughing a wad of red-flecked saliva.
‘I let you live,’ said Perturabo.
‘That’s not much to give.’
‘It’s what I’m offering. Take it or leave it. Take it, and no one in the room will ever speak of this. You have my word on that.’
Fulgrim shrugged, as though the matter was of no consequence. He looked down at Perturabo’s chest and smiled with reptilian hunger.
‘I see I have misjudged you, brother,’ he said. ‘Do you know how long it has been since anyone has caused me real pain? No, of course, you don’t. But trust me, it’s been a while.’
The swelling around Fulgrim’s jaw was already fading. Shattered bones in his cheek and nose and jaw would be knitting, and the bruises around his eyes were yellowing. Primarchs healed fast, but Perturabo was impressed at the speed with which Fulgrim’s body was undoing the damage he had suffered.