The Relic - Jonathan Green Read online

  The Black Templars land speeder squadron had decimated the ork bikes and trukks, the Rhinos and Razorbacks finishing off what Typhoon and Tornado had started, while the Space Marines bike squadron and two-manned attack bikes had harried those orks that attempted to flee the battlefield.

  The bark of a storm bolter firing echoed across the ice field like the retort of a heavy artillery piece. It had a number of the Black Templars raking the mounds of debris and bodies with boltgun and flamer, seeking the source of the sound, ready to bring the fight to the enemy once again. Instead they found Brother Jarold, blue smoke coiling from the muzzles of his heavy storm bolter – a weapon so large it would not look out of place mounted on one of the fleet’s precious Predators or Vindicators. The body of a greenskin Jarold had targeted spasmed as it was blown in two by the mass-reactive rounds.

  Techmarine Isendur approached Jarold. The Dreadnought dwarfed even the crimson-armoured Techmarine, whose twitching servo-arm – which seemed to move with a life all of its own – made him appear even taller than the average superhuman Space Marine. Behind him, Isendur’s servitor team were making repairs to superficial damage sustained by the Razorback in the battle, or keeping an unstinting watch over those working on the machine, depending on their designation and degree of sentient programming.

  Sensing the Techmarine’s presence before he had a chance to speak Jarold asked, ‘Are our brothers ready to move on the objective again?’

  ‘Affirmative, brother,’ the other replied in that familiar emotionless way of his, that was so out of character when compared with the passion and zeal exhibited by the rest of the crusade’s fanatical warriors. ‘At your command.’

  ‘How far do you judge us to be from our target?

  ‘Twelve point zero-seven-six kilometres,’ the Techmarine intoned. It had been remarked upon on more than one occasion that Isendur was more akin to the machines to which he ministered than his brother Space Marines.

  ‘And the nature of the signal,’ Jarold said. ‘Is it still as it appeared from orbit?’

  ‘More so,’ Isendur said. ‘As hypothesised, the anomalous readings detected from orbit are indicative of some form of primitive teleportation technology.’

  Grim satisfaction warred with Jarold’s overriding sense of guilt and barely-supressed rage. The memory of the moment Jarold witnessed the mech-enhanced greenskin warboss teleport out of the devastated mekboy’s lab blazed within his mind as hot and red as the moment when he had been cut down by a rusting cybernetic claw, that had earned him the privilege of being encased within the Dreadnought shell that had formerly been the living tomb of Ancient Brother Dedric.

  The moment Emperor’s Champion Ansgar had been taken from right in front of him replayed itself through his mind for what seemed like the thousandth time…

  He saw himself closing on the alien tyrant again, a sphere of crackling emerald light surrounding the ork and his unconscious prisoner. He watched again as the green glare of the crackling shield intensified.

  And then, just as his crashing steps brought him within reach of the xenos brute, with a sub-sonic boom the sphere of light imploded, plunging the ruins of the laboratory into sudden darkness. Only a retina-searing after-image remained, trapped within the sensor-linked optic nerves of Jarold’s physical body, but of Emperor’s Champion Ansgar and the alien warboss Morkrull Grimskar there was no sign…

  ‘Then the command is given,’ Jarold said simply.

  Wherever the orks were using their wildly unpredictable teleportation technology, there was the possibility that the reconstructed Grimskar, nemesis of the Solemnus Crusade, would be there too. And if the greenskin warboss was there, there was also the possibility that they would find Ansgar too.

  Isendur made an adjustment to the signum he held out before him in one crimson gauntlet. Servo-motors whined as the Dreadnought turned to observe the Techmarine with its faceless sarcophagus front. ‘Brother Isendur? Is there something else?’

  ‘I am picking up another signal,’ the Techmarine said.

  ‘Another teleport signal?’ Jarold asked.

  ‘No. It is weak, like a resting pulse.’

  ‘What is its source?’

  ‘Bearing zero six-seven point three.’

  ‘And what would you hazard is the nature of this signal?’

  ‘There is a fifty-two per cent probability that it is electromagnetic interference caused by isotopes buried in the bedrock beneath the glacier,’ the Techmarine explained. ‘But there is also a twenty-three per cent probability that it is interference caused by the disruption of the planet’s magnetic field by the teleportation matrix. One way or the other, probability tells us that it probably is not worth pursuing.’

  ‘But what of the other twenty-five per cent?’ Jarold enquired.

  ‘There is a possibility that it is a signal from a dormant power source. But it is unlikely.’

  ‘What sort of power source?’ Jarold pressed.

  ‘Like that of a dying power cell.’

  ‘As might be found inside a Deathwind automated weapons system. Or a Dreadnought.’

  ‘It is increasingly unlikely but still a slim possibility,’ Isendur persisted, not prepared to have his logic refuted. ‘If our mission is to find the source of the teleport signal I would recommend that we move on that target forthwith and ignore this weaker signum reading.’

  The knowledge that there was a possibility – no matter how slim – that the signal was the last sign of a lost brother Dreadnought, whether Templar or otherwise, played on Jarold’s mind. Dreadnoughts were potent weapons of the Astartes Chapters and revered relics. An entire battleforce would willingly fight to reclaim a fallen Dreadnought brother. Only in the direst circumstances would a Space Marine commander abandon such a sacred relic to the field of battle.

  To recover such a potent treasure, whatever Chapter it might belong to, would be of incalculable value to the war effort. Just one Dreadnought could help bolster the Astartes forces on one of Armageddon’s numerous war-fronts, and who knew what impact that could have in the long term on the struggle for the contested planet.

  ‘I respect your opinion, Brother-Techmarine, you know that. You and your brethren of the Forge have tended to me on numerous occasions, but you see only the logic of variables and algorithms. I have the benefit of experience and the wisdom of years and I disagree. We shall investigate the source of this other signal and then, when we have resolved what it is, we will press on towards our primary objective.’

  ‘Very well, brother,’ Isendur conceded. ‘As you wish.’

  The Dreadnought turned to survey the re-ordered ranks of the Black Templars’ strike force.

  ‘Brothers,’ he declaimed, his voice booming over the burning battlefield, flurries of snow hissing as they melted in the licking flames of the promethium fires. ‘The word is given. In the name of the Emperor, Primarch Dorn and Lord Sigismund, move out.’

  ‘Is this the place?’ Jarold asked, scanning the blizzard-scoured ice valley. The ice sheet rose up before them to meet the frozen slopes of a ridge of razor-edged peaks beyond which curious green corposant flickered and danced across the sky.

  ‘Affirmative,’ Techmarine Isendur replied, consulting the signum in his hand once more.

  The hulking black Dreadnought and the crimson-armoured Techmarine stood before a wall of blue ice as solid and as impenetrable as rockcrete.

  ‘So where, precisely, is the source of the signal?’

  ‘Six point eight-nine metres downwards. If we are to discover the source of the signal we are going to have to dig.’

  ‘Then we dig,’ Jarold stated bluntly.

  ‘Leave it to me, brother,’ Isendur said. The Techmarine signalled the waiting column. ‘Brothers Larce and Nyle,’ he said, summoning those two crusaders. Jarold understood what it was he had in mind.

  Larce, flamer in hand,
and Nyle, bearing his thrice-blessed meltagun, joined them before the wall of blue ice.

  ‘Brothers,’ Jarold said, ‘let the Emperor’s holy fire cleanse these xenos-blighted lands.’

  Techmarine Isendur directing their fire, Larce and Nyle hit the glacier with everything their weapons could muster.

  Initiate Tobrecan brought his bike up to join them and directed a series of searing blasts from the plasma gun mounted on the front of his machine at the glacier. When the steam and mist cleared, Brothers Larce and Nyle stepped up again, while Initiate Isen drove his attack bike forwards, Gunner Leax turning his multi-melta on the metres thick ice.

  The Space Marines’ flamers and plasma weapons swiftly melted a shaft through the ice to the source of the signal Isendur had located via his signum. Steaming geysers of cloud rose from the hole in the glacier as the boiling water bubbling at the bottom of the pit re-condensed as it came into contact with the cold air.

  ‘Now then, Brother-Techmarine,’ Jarold said, standing at the edge of the cone-shaped shaft, ‘let us see what lies buried here.’

  Using his servo-arm to assist him in his descent, Techmarine Isendur clambered into the steaming shadows of the ice pit. The rest of the strike force waited in tense anticipation to see which would be proved right; the Techmarine or the Dreadnought.

  Bracing himself within the shaft Isendur looked down at the shadow still locked beneath one last remaining layer of ice.

  ‘You were right,’ his voice rose from the bottom of the pit. There was no hint of annoyance or praise in its tone.

  ‘I was right,’ the Dreadnought rumbled with righteous satisfaction.

  ‘Do we wake him?’ the Techmarine asked, something like awe tingeing his words, as he stared down at the statuesque creation of frost-rimed adamantium beneath him. A faint red glow pulsed weakly behind the ice, and yet as regular as a heartbeat.

  ‘He is a brother Space Marine.’

  ‘He is a Crimson Fist,’ the Techmarine testified.

  ‘But our brother nonetheless. So we wake him.’

  He remembered…

  Thunder rumbled over the ice fields and frozen, broken peaks of the Dead Lands. It was the crack and boom of heavy artillery fire. The iron-hard ground shook with the force of an earthquake, more so than it did at his own wrathful steps.

  He remembered…

  Rank upon rank of Space Marines, squad after squad of his fellow battle-brothers, marching against the enemy, their Chapter banners flying proudly above them. Magnificent in their regal blue power armour, their left hands blood-red – recalling the ceremony conducted at the initiation of new Chapter Masters in the former Imperial Fists Legion – their battle-consecrated boltguns cinched tight to their chest plates ready to deliver the Emperor’s ultimate justice to the enemy.

  And he remembered…

  The war machine. A stompa, the rank and file troops of the Armageddon PDF had called it. A mobile war-altar dedicated to the hated greenskins’ brutal heathen gods. An icon to thoughtless bloodshed and mindless destruction.

  He remembered…

  Marching to war across the bitter wastes, shoulder to shoulder with his battle-brothers, the ork host charging to meet them, the glacier’s surface fracturing beneath the greenskins’ advance, the freezing wind as sharp and as cold as a blade of ice slicing the air between them.

  He remembered…

  Faced with insurmountable odds, a new strategy had to be formed, shaped within the heat of battle.

  He remembered volunteering, proud that he should be the one to bring an end to this conflict. He remembered sound and heat and light. He remembered dying a second time.

  And then, amidst the clamour of battle and the cataclysmic roar of destruction, he heard a voice.

  ‘Brother,’ it said. ‘Awake.’

  The dull red glow behind the visor of the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus helm pulsed more brightly with every word the Dreadnought spoke. Its voice was phlegmy and cracked from age and lack of use.

  ‘I am sorry, brother, but what did you say?’

  A sound like vox-distorted coughing crackled from the ancient. Then the Dreadnought tried again.

  ‘You are on Armageddon, brother,’ Jarold replied. ‘You are here, within the Dead Lands.’

  The coughing resumed, rose to a crescendo and then subsided at last.

  ‘No. When is it?’ the venerable asked. ‘My internal chronograph appears to be malfunctioning.’

  Techmarine Isendur answered in terms precise to three decimal places.

  The Crimson Fist was silent for several long moments.

  ‘How long have you been here, brother?’ Jarold dared to ask at last. ‘Since the conflict began?’

  ‘You mean to tell me that Armageddon has been a contested world all this time?’ the venerable said with something like disbelieving incomprehension.

  ‘Yes, since the abomination Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka fell upon this world for a second time.’

  ‘A second time?’

  Jarold regarded the ancient suspiciously.

  ‘Tell me, brother, how long have you been trapped here, entombed within the ice?’

  Several moments more passed before the venerable was able to speak again. ‘Fifty years, brother Templar. I have been trapped here, lost, for fifty years.’

  The vehicles had been parked up and the massed force of Brother Jarold’s avenging angels had formed a circle of unbreakable armour. All were included, from the newest neophyte to the oldest initiate. The formation of the praying Space Marines served as a barricade against the biting winds that swept across the Dead Lands, stabbing at any exposed flesh with knives of ice. It affected the neophytes – Gervais, Feran, Eadig and Galan – worst, for they were yet to earn the right to wear the full power armour as worn by their brethren and their heads were exposed. But if the freezing wind caused them any discomfort they didn’t show it. Weakness of the flesh was not permitted of a Space Marine.

  Brother Jarold stood on one side of the circle and opposite him loomed the Venerable Rhodomanus of the Crimson Fists.

  The latter’s crimson and regal blue paintwork was in stark contrast to the predominantly black and white power armour of the Templars – although some of the older, more ornamented suits worn by those veterans among the battleforce were traced with gold and red as well.

  The moaning wind whirled flurries of snow around them but over the voice of the blizzard, Brother Jarold’s booming prayers could be heard quite plainly.

  ‘We shall bring down His almighty wrath and fury upon the xenos and drive the greenskin from the face of this planet!’ Jarold bellowed. ‘For the Emperor and the primarch!’

  ‘For the Emperor and the primarch!’ his battle-brothers responded with fervent zeal.

  ‘For the Emperor and the primarch,’ Venerable Rhodomanus echoed.

  Brother Jarold had not needed to ask the ancient whether he would deign to join the Templars on the continuation of their mission. To awaken to a world fifty years into his future and so unchanged despite the passage of time, and yet finding his brother Crimson Fists with whom he had fought shoulder to shoulder against the greenskins gone, the prospect of fighting alongside the Templars had given him a noble purpose. Here was a chance to finish what he and his brothers had started.

  For what purpose could there be for a Space Marine, other than eternal service? If he were denied the right to serve Him Enthroned on Holy Terra, a Space Marine’s long life, and all the battles he had fought, everything he had achieved in His holy name would count as naught.

  The Black Templars and Crimson Fists – two Chapters formed in the aftermath of the Heresy ten thousand years before – were both successor Chapters of the original Imperial Fists Legion, created from the very genetic material of the Primarch Rogal Dorn. Templar and Fist owed their very existence to the lauded Rogal Dorn, so there h
ad never been any question as to whether Rhodomanus would join the Black Templars of the Solemnus Crusade. They were brothers-in-arms; that was all that mattered.

  Brother Jarold surveyed the assembled Templars, the ancient Fist and the ice-clad vista beyond.

  ‘It is time,’ he said, scanning the ridge of sickle-shaped peaks on the horizon. ‘Whatever the source of the anomalous signals detected by the fleet, it lies beyond that ridge.

  ‘Today we show the greenskins why they should fear us. We let them see why we are fear incarnate. Today we take the fight to the enemy. Today we purge the Dead Lands of the xenos plague that blights this world.

  ‘Move out!’

  Their act of worship concluded, with renewed steel in their hearts, shielded by the armour of their faith as much as by the ceramite of their power armour, the circle broke up as the Space Marines returned to their vehicles. With a roar of mighty engines, like the wrathful prayers of Brother Jarold himself, Ansgar’s Avengers moved out.

  The force progressed slowly, so as to never leave the Dreadnoughts far behind. Brother Jarold had deployed into the heart of the Dead Lands by drop pod and the Templars had not anticipated having another ancient join them in their quest to find the source of the anomalous readings. There was no means of transporting them, other than for them to continue under their own propulsion.

  But it still did not take them long to climb the icy slopes of a pass between the jagged obsidian-black peaks. Initiate-pilot Egeslic took his land speeder on ahead, to scout out what lay in wait for them on the other side of the ridge. He returned presently, guiding his speeder deftly over the ice, compensating for wind shear as he descended from the crest of the pass, and brought the vehicle to a hovering halt beside the clumping Dreadnought.

  ‘Brother Jarold,’ Egeslic said, ‘you should see this for yourself.’

  ‘That,’ said Techmarine Isendur, pointing into the heart of the crater that had been dug into the ice, ‘is the source of the anomalous readings.’