The Returned - James Swallow Read online

  ‘You’re certain?’ asked Zurus. ‘It will be difficult. Some have been broken by less.’

  ‘Tell me,’ repeated Tarikus, glaring at the psyker.

  Thryn looked back at him with a level, even gaze. ‘There are rituals of purity. Rites of passage. You will be tested.’ The psyker turned to leave. ‘Tomorrow, at dawn–’

  Tarikus’s hand shot out and grabbed the Librarian’s forearm, halting him instantly. ‘No,’ said the Doom Eagle. ‘We will begin this now.’

  Thryn studied him. ‘You understand what you will face?’

  ‘Now,’ repeated Tarikus.

  They began with the Talons.

  A mechanism made of bright, polished steel, and as cold as polar ice, it wrapped around Tarikus and held the Doom Eagle in its grip. It resembled an artificer’s vice, scaled up to the size of a giant. A great oiled screw turned, bringing knurled blocks of metal towards one another in an inexorable approach. From each block grew a fan of wicked barbs, claws modelled on the talons of the great raptors that rode the thermals of the Razorpeak range.

  Tarikus stood between them, clad only in thin exercise robes. The muscles of his arms and legs bunched and became iron-solid as he settled in against the blocks. Only his strength and fortitude held back a crushing death. He breathed evenly, pacing himself, marshalling his strength rather than spending it all in a single effort.

  The Talons pressed in. They never tired. The slow-turning gears pushed against the Space Marine’s resistance, daring him to falter for just a moment; and there was the insidious thing about the trial. If the warrior relaxed, even for an instant, the blocks would lurch forward by a full hand’s span, reducing the space between by a good measure – but in doing so, giving him a moment’s respite from the struggle. Thus, the Talons preyed on fatigue and inattention. After hours, days between the blocks, a warrior might consider letting them close the distance a little, just to take a precious second of rest before they reached their stops and started to press in once again; but that was the route to failure. So it was said, Hearon himself once managed a lunar month in the Talons and never gave any quarter.

  Tarikus was there for days. With no windows in sight, he could only make the most basic reckoning of the passing hours. And unlike Hearon’s trial, Tarikus was not left alone with his struggle. From the shadows about the Talons, figures moved and called out to him, bombarding him constantly with questions and demands. They asked him to recite lines of catechism and Chapter rote, or they hectored him over every last point of the story he told of his confinement in Bile’s prison. The interrogation went on and on, without end, circling his thoughts until he felt his mind going numb.

  Thryn was among his questioners; perhaps he was only one of them, perhaps he was all of them, but as sweat dripped from Tarikus’s limbs and acid slowly filled his veins, the warrior did not give the answers the Librarian wanted. He told the same story over and over, he recited his hymnals and prayers as he should have, all the while resisting the constant, blinding pressure. Denied food, denied water, denied release, he stood his ground.

  Then without warning, a week into the trial, it ended. The Talons retracted, and Tarikus fell to the deck, his muscles twitching and cramping. It took him a moment to get back to his feet. Dimly, he was aware of figures in the cowled robes of Chapter serfs crowding towards him.

  He frowned. This could not be the end of it. He had not suffered enough.

  He was correct.

  Tarikus was stripped naked and put into the hold of a rotorflyer. The aircraft left the Ghostmountain with a sudden upward lurch, and almost as quickly it began a steep downward arc. The Doom Eagle had barely enough time to register the howl of winds over the hull of the craft before the deck beneath him parted and he fell.

  Tarikus landed hard on a shelf of icy rock, a harsh bombardment of sleet angling across it towards a sudden, sheer drop into the mist. He glanced up to see the flyer power away on flickering blades and caught sight of the Eyrie beyond it. They had deposited him on one of the nearby peak sides, little more than half a kilometre distant from the Ghostmountain as the eagle flew, but uncrossable without a jet pack or a wing-glider.

  He cast around, searching for something to shield himself from the punishing weather, and found only a canted slab of rock. Aching from the strain of the Talons, Tarikus made it into the poor cover and found mud and lichen in the lee. The fungus he ate, the mud he smeared over his flesh to hold in his body heat.

  He wondered if this was some kind of punishment. Had he failed the first test in some way that had not registered in his mind? Or had Thryn and those who sat in judgement of him tired of the game and made their choice, left him out here to die of exposure? Both seemed unlikely; a bolt shell to the back of his head would have ended him far faster than starvation or hypothermia, and the Doom Eagles were not given to cause suffering where it need not occur – there was enough of that to go around in the universe, without adding to the volume of it.

  As he half-dozed behind his rough shelter, Tarikus imagined the scrutiny of distant eyes, watching him from the windows of the fortress-monastery he thought of as his home. He felt darkness crowd in on him, a numbness spreading through his body. Still they questioned him, only now it was without words, now it was with the force of ruthless nature. Now it was Gathis itself, the voice of the Ghostmountain and the Razorpeaks, that challenged him.

  And still, the answer that was sought was not given. By the following dawn, Tarikus had died.

  Thryn sensed his master’s displeasure before he entered the observation gallery. It filled the space around him like a cold fog, present in everything and ready to become an ice-storm at a moment’s notice.

  Within he found Hearon at the heavy window, and off to one side the figure of Brother-Captain Consultus. The warrior was clad in his wargear, and he stood at stiff attention, eyes focused on a distant point beyond the far wall. Consultus looked like carved stone, immobile and rigid; but Thryn saw past that, reading the steady churn of emotions inside the captain of the Third.

  The Luckless Third, so the other company commanders called them, but never to their faces. Thryn considered this and saw truth in it; the return of Tarikus was just one more piece of ill fortune laid at the boots of Consultus and his men.

  Hearon threw a glance at the Librarian. ‘You have an answer for me?’

  ‘I do not, lord,’ he replied.

  ‘Where is he now?’

  The psyker gestured with a nod. ‘In the apothecarion. He was recovered before brain death could occur. He will live.’

  ‘For what that is worth.’ Thryn’s master made a negative noise. ‘Does your witch-sight fail you? Look into his soul, tell me what you see.’

  ‘I have,’ admitted the psyker, ‘and I can draw no conclusion. Resilient as he is, his psyche was tormented by imprisonment and suffering, but that is to be expected. But this is not a case of black and white. There are many shades of grey.’

  ‘I disagree,’ Hearon replied. ‘The question is a direct one. Is Tarikus to be trusted? Yes or no?’

  ‘He has endured the trials,’ ventured the captain. ‘Survived, once again.’

  ‘I know your opinion already,’ Hearon snapped. ‘Repeating it serves no purpose.’ He looked back at Thryn.

  ‘The captain is quite correct,’ said the Librarian. ‘His flesh withstands great punishment. He does not waver beneath chastisement that would kill a warrior of lesser courage.’

  Hearon grimaced. ‘That is a thing of meat and blood,’ he said, with a terse gesture. ‘And we know those can be controlled.’ The Chapter Master shook his head. ‘No, it is the question of Tarikus’s spirit that tasks me. His soul is where the question lies.’

  ‘His faith in the Emperor is strong.’ Thryn paused, framing his words. ‘His faith in his Chapter also.’

  ‘Even after we have done this to him,’ Hearon was looking at Co
nsultus as he said the words. ‘I don’t need Thryn’s powers to pluck that thought from your mind, brother-captain.’

  ‘It is so, lord,’ Consultus replied.

  ‘Let no man here labour under the mistaken belief that I take pleasure in this,’ Hearon grated. ‘But Tarikus is one man. My responsibilities are to a Chapter one thousand strong, to a heritage of ten millennia. The Doom Eagles are my charge, and if I must shoulder the guilt of persecuting a single kinsman in order to protect them, I will do so without hesitation. It is only a grain of sand against the weight of Aquila’s holy remorse.’

  Thryn was silent for a moment. He knew full well why he had been called to this meeting, and why too Consultus, as Tarikus’s former commanding officer, had been brought in as a witness. ‘There is word from the Council of Eagles?’

  Hearon nodded. Modelled after the High Council of Terra, the Doom Eagles encompassed a commission of men of highest rank who would draw together on matters of import facing the Chapter. The group would offer advice to the Chapter Master, and while ultimately Hearon held the sanction over all commands, he drew upon the knowledge and advice of all his company captains, his senior Chaplain, Apothecary, Forge Master and Librarian. ‘The greater body of my warriors question the need to prolong this matter. The risk outweighs the gain. The damage that might be wrought by a single turncoat among our number is huge when compared against the value of one veteran sergeant.’

  ‘Is it?’ Consultus said quietly. ‘Do we not damage the Chapter ourselves if we reject a warrior whose only crime was a failure to die?’

  ‘The others believe he is tainted?’ asked Thryn.

  ‘The others suggest that Tarikus be put down,’ said the captain, with no little venom.

  Hearon ignored Consultus’s interruption. ‘I… am not convinced.’

  ‘My lord?’

  The Chapter Master returned to the window. ‘The Doom Eagles have always been the most pragmatic of the Adeptus Astartes. We have no time for vacillation. That we may never again delay… Those words are etched on our hearts.’ He paused. ‘Some of our battle-brothers say we should excise this man and move beyond. End him, and confirm what has already been laid to stone; that Tarikus of the Third is dead and gone.’

  Thryn cocked his head. ‘And yet?’

  ‘And yet…’ repeated Hearon, glancing toward Consultus, ‘I cannot in all good conscience end this in so cursory a manner. When death comes to claim me, I find myself asking how I could go to the Emperor’s side and answer for this. That I would allow a Son of Gathis to meet the sword’s edge all because of an unanswered question?’ He shook his head. ‘That will not stand.’

  Thryn’s eyes narrowed. ‘There is another way, lord. A method I have yet hesitated to employ. A weirding, if you will. ’

  ‘Do what you must.’ The Chapter Master looked over his shoulder at Thryn. ‘You will bring me an answer, Librarian.’

  ‘Even if Tarikus is destroyed by it?’ said Consultus.

  ‘Even if,’ Hearon replied.

  Zurus exited the south range after morning firing rites, and found the three of them waiting for him. He hesitated, for a moment uncertain how to respond, then beckoned the Space Marines to follow him. They moved to a worktable in the far corner of the arming hall, and he took the only stool and sat upon it. With careful, spare motions, Zurus dismantled his bolt pistol and set about the work of cleaning the weapon.

  As he expected, it was Korica who spoke first. ‘Lord,’ he began, tension thick in his tone, ‘we have talked amongst ourselves of… of this matter, and we have questions.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Zurus, taking apart the trigger assembly. ‘Questions seem to be the matter of the day.’ From the corner of his eye, he saw the other two Doom Eagles exchange glances; one of them, his face dark and intense with old fire scarring, the other sallow of features with a single silver ring in his ear and the helix electoo of an Apothecary upon his neck. He read conflict in their aspects. It came as no surprise; he felt the same thing they did, to some degree.

  ‘There is much talk in the galleries,’ Korica went on, gesturing with his carbon-and-steel augmetic arm. ‘Rumour and hearsay. We would know the truth.’

  Zurus stopped and studied the pieces of his gun. ‘Would you?’ he said, a warning in his manner. ‘Tell me, brother, would you also have me go against the express orders of the Chapter Master?’

  ‘We would never disobey a legal command, brother-sergeant,’ said the Apothecary. ‘You know that.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye, Petius, I do.’ Zurus glanced at the scarred warrior. ‘Mykilus? As your kinsmen have spoken, I trust you must have something to venture as well?’

  The other Doom Eagle gave a slow nod. ‘Sir,’ he began, ‘you have commanded our squad for two cycles and we have been bound in blood and fire together. No disrespect to you is intended… but Tarikus was our sergeant for a long time. He saved each of our lives on one battleground or another. We thought him dead, and now we learn that he still lives…’ Mykilus trailed off, unable to find the right words.

  ‘Aquila’s remorse runs strong in us,’ said Korica. ‘We believed Tarikus had been killed at the hands of the Red Corsairs. We brought back his knife. We share the guilt at giving up on him.’ He shook his head. ‘We let him down. We should have done more. Searched longer.’

  Zurus looked up for the first time. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Do not torment yourselves. You could not have known.’

  ‘We want to see him, sir,’ said Petius.

  ‘Impossible.’ Zurus shot a glance at the Apothecary. ‘It is forbidden. He is to remain in isolation until he has been judged.’

  Korica’s face twisted in anger. ‘Tarikus is no traitor. We know the man better than any other battle-brother on the Ghostmountain! He is steadfast!’

  Zurus studied the faces of the three men. ‘Is that what you all think?’ He got a chorus of nods in return – and yet, the warrior could sense some tiny inklings of doubt lurking behind the hard eyes of his men. The very same hesitation he himself experienced. ‘I took on the mantle of Tarikus’s stewardship for one reason,’ Zurus went on. ‘Because of what I knew of the man whom I had succeeded. I did it because of what you told me of him.’ He didn’t add that in truth, Brother Zurus had always felt as if he could not measure up to the shadow of the squad’s former commander.

  ‘Then tell us what you think, sir,’ said Mykilus. ‘If we cannot speak to him ourselves, tell us your thoughts.’

  ‘Aye,’ added Petius. ‘You have looked him in the eye. What did you see?’

  Zurus sighed. ‘One of us.’ His gaze dropped to the disassembled bolter. ‘Or so it seemed.’

  ‘Chaos does not lurk within the heart of Brother Tarikus,’ grated Korica. ‘I would stake my life on that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Zurus returned to his work. ‘Trapped in the heart of madness, tormented every moment of every day by the foulest traitor-genius hell ever spawned? Could a man not be twisted under such pressure?’

  ‘A man, perhaps,’ said Petius. ‘But not a Doom Eagle.’

  ‘Not Tarikus,’ insisted Korica.

  Zurus was silent for a long time, carefully rebuilding the weapon. ‘It is no wonder you wish Tarikus to be found pure,’ he said, at length. ‘Each of you carry the guilt of speaking his death when in fact he had only been lost. But that remorse will pale into nothing if he is proven to be tainted.’

  ‘If that is so,’ Mykilus began, his voice leaden, ‘then we three will be the ones to send him into oblivion.’

  ‘But it is not,’ Korica insisted. ‘And we three will be there to welcome him back once this mistrust is swept away!’

  The gun went back together smoothly, and Zurus tested the action before returning it to his holster. Finally, he rose and walked away.

  At the threshold of the chamber door he paused and glanced back at his men. But not really my men,
he told himself. Tarikus’s men.

  ‘Are you coming?’ he asked.

  He was at peace.

  Sleep, pure and real. Tarikus struggled to remember the last time he had rested so well, free from nightmares and horrific recollections. Sluggish amniotic fluid swathed him, and he drifted in a tiny, warm ocean of his own. His fingers brushed the inside of a glassy orb. No sound reached him here.

  Peace. And all he had needed to do to find it was to die.

  He knew that what he experienced now was not true death; he had known that even as the cold had crept into his flesh, tightening about his bio-implant organs, pushing him towards nothingness. No, this was the little-death of the healing trance, the strange state between where the engines of his Astartes physiology were left to work their chemical magicks. He had been here before. After the battle for Krypt. After the narrow escape from Serek–

  Serek. Tarikus suppressed a shudder. Memory of that incident returned to him with harsh clarity. After Serek, he had been in a trance like this, repairing damage wrought by a forced teleport transition. And it had been inside a medicae tank such as this one that he had watched the Red Corsairs come to take him. It came back in hard punches of sense-memory – bolt shells cracking the glassaic, his body sluicing out with the liquid on to the deck, still broken, still unready. The renegades coming in to attack him. Blood mixed with the yellowish amnio-fluid. Fighting and killing; but ultimately, failing.

  A shiver ran the length of him. Suddenly the warm liquid was as cold as the mountainside.

  Tarikus took a breath of the oxygenated medium and felt the chill bore deeper. Out beyond the walls of the medicae tank shapes moved to and fro. They might have been other Astartes, perhaps come to observe this curiosity, this warrior back from the dead, this soul in limbo – or perhaps they were just servitors, going about their tasks, making sure Tarikus did not perish. Not yet.

  He did not have permission to die. Aquila had not granted it.