Angron's Monolith - Steve Lyons Read online

  Its artefacts, those few that the Relictors had managed to gather since the old ones had been taken from them and destroyed, were stored in glass cases or wooden chests, some warded with arcane sigils, some wrapped in heavy iron chains.

  Decario lit a taper from one of the torches outside. He touched it to the wicks of a row of stubby, black candles, which filled the large chamber with flickering shadows.

  The centrepiece of the Vault was a carved pedestal, chest-high to an armoured Space Marine, crowned by a glass dome. Decario was drawn to the dome, as always. Nestled in the folds of a crushed-velvet bed beneath it was a twisted scrap of obsidian.

  It didn’t look like much – about a third of a metre long, with no particular shape, chipped and half melted along one edge – but it was the Relictors’ most valuable possession.

  He remembered when de Marche had brought it to them. The inquisitor hadn’t known what the shard was, then, but he had sensed the power within it. When Decario had sensed it too, he had pleaded for it to be destroyed.

  ‘Such power is nothing to be feared,’ de Marche had scoffed.

  He had begun to protest. ‘But a malevolent power such as this–’

  ‘Is still a tool in the hands of its wielder. Have I taught you nothing? Must you remain as blind as the high priests and grandmasters of my order?’

  ‘Our enemies wield this power,’ Decario had recited, ‘so we must learn to wield it too. But what if the power is stronger than he who wields it?’

  ‘Then we must make the wielder stronger,’ de Marche had countered.

  ‘Such power drives our enemies to madness,’ Decario had reminded him.

  A spark had flared in the inquisitor’s eyes, then, and the corners of his mouth had twitched. His words still echoed in the Librarian’s head now, across the intervening decades: They say that there is strength in madness.

  Bardane had stridden to the far end of the Vault. A high, narrow table had been pushed up against the wall. A large, gilded chest – a reliquary, engraved with images of gods and daemons at war – sat squarely in its centre. Bardane removed a gauntlet. His bare hand traced the outlines of the carvings, until something inside the chest clicked.

  He snapped open its latches and lifted its lid.

  ‘Is my honour guard assembled?’ The Chapter Master didn’t turn to look at Decario. His gaze was fixed on the reliquary’s contents.

  ‘Awaiting your orders, sir.’

  ‘And do we have transport to the planet?’

  ‘A Thunderhawk, on standby. As soon as we hear from Inquisitor Halstron.’

  ‘I see no reason to wait for him.’

  ‘As you wish. Artekus… With your leave, I would join you on this mission.’

  Bardane did turn at that, with an eyebrow half raised in surprise. He asked no questions, however; he knew his fellow conspirator too well to ever wonder at his motives. He nodded his assent to the request and returned to his artefact.

  Decario crossed the chamber to join him. He peered over Bardane’s shoulder, at the weapon they called the screaming flail – or the Artekus Scourge.

  It resembled a simple flail, upon first glance – larger than most, admittedly – with three spiked chains trailing from a well-worn grip. As Bardane’s hand hovered over it, however, its chains began to twitch. By opening the chest, he had disabled the stasis field inside it, and now the flail was stirring from its long slumber.

  ‘We never saw Dante’s message,’ he proclaimed. ‘It must have been lost or scrambled in the warp. See to it.’

  ‘He won’t let it rest there,’ said Decario.

  ‘I know, but he won’t take any action against us without proof.’

  The ends of the flail were beginning to glow, little sparks of energy flaring and bursting around them. Decario thought he could see fleeting shapes in those sparks: twisted, anguished faces. He tore his eyes away from them.

  ‘There was no other option,’ he assured his Chapter Master.

  ‘I know,’ said Bardane, but his jaw had tightened further and the furrows in his brow had deepened. He had spent two weeks in isolation, ridding his body, mind and soul of impurities. If he doubted himself now, if he allowed his shield of faith to crack, it would all have been for nothing. He needed the strength the ritual gave him.

  ‘We do the Emperor’s will,’ said Decario, ‘and those who would condemn us for it – it is only because they are too fearful and too weak to share His confidence. They would see us engulfed, every world of man drowned in Chaos and blood, before they opened the shutters on their minds.’

  ‘Ignorance is blessed,’ Bardane muttered.

  It took a certain kind of man to command the Relictors.

  Decario had nominated Bardane for the position himself. He had come up through the ranks, not just accepting but embracing every facet of their mission as it had been revealed to him. The Chief Librarian, however, had seen something else in him too, something more than merely blind devotion. In the young Bardane, he had seen a measure of arrogance, a steadfast belief in himself. He will need that arrogance, he had thought. He would need to do more than just believe in his Chapter’s holy purpose; he would need to shoulder the ultimate responsibility for it.

  Bardane took a breath. He plunged his hand into the reliquary and seized the wooden handle of the screaming flail. Without another word, he turned and marched out of the chamber. It was left to Decario to snuff out the black candles and follow him.

  He cast a final glance at the pedestal as he passed it. Its twisted black shard pulsed with a faint inner light of its own, as if in answer to the flail’s unveiling.

  In that light, he could see the impression left in the velvet beside it, where a second shard had, until recently, lain.

  Eight

  The two survivors made as good time back through the jungle as they dared. They were mindful of the risk of springing another trap, or walking into another ork ambush. Their pursuers, they were only too aware, were impeded by no such concerns. Indeed, they had already been attacked once.

  Without warning, a trio of feral orks had sprung out of the undergrowth alongside them. Tarryn and Baeloch had hastened to deal with them, knowing just how quickly three could have become many more.

  They were sending out vox-signals every minute, hoping to find another squad within range. At the same time, they were struggling to process what Sergeant Juster had told them, the secret he had revealed to them.

  ‘If there is a monument to Chaos here…’ Baeloch began.

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Tarryn.

  ‘Angron’s Monolith. It sounds an ill enough name to me. Angron was–’

  ‘I know who Angron was.’ The Red Angel, primarch to the World Eaters Legion. He joined the traitor Horus in his rebellion against the Emperor and reaped his sordid reward from the Ruinous Powers.

  ‘A daemon prince of the Blood God,’ said Baeloch.

  Angron had ignited the First War for Armageddon, invading with an army of the Lost and the Damned behind him. The Space Wolves defeated him and banished him back to the warp – but what might he have left behind here?

  And what could a loyal servant of the Emperor ever want with such an artefact?

  ‘To question is to doubt,’ muttered Tarryn, ‘and doubt is the bane of faith.’

  They heard stirrings in the jungle behind them, ahead of them, around them. Their auto-senses were picking up multiple heat signatures. Their pursuers knew this environment better than they did and were more cunning than they had grown to expect. Their numbers also seemed to be increasing.

  Occasionally, the Space Marines heard a ragged howl as the feral orks summoned more of their kind to join them. They’re in league with the jungle, thought Tarryn, and they will kill us to protect its secret. The Relictors had made it over halfway back to their base camp, but still had far to go. Had Sergeant Juster and the others died for nothing?

  Baeloch came to a halt and drew his chainsword. ‘We’re surrounded,’ he announce
d. He was right, and the feral orks were closing in slowly around them.

  They were going to have to fight, after all.

  Suddenly, there was a crackle in Tarryn’s ear and the ghost of a half-familiar voice. He could only make out a few words, but it was enough. Their distress calls had finally been answered. Too late, he feared.

  Another howl was raised ahead of them, but it spread like wildfire in a too-tight circle around them, building in intensity and volume. For the second time, they turned their backs to each other, Tarryn facing to the north, Baeloch southwards along their trampled path.

  For the second time, they braced themselves as the feral orks – more of them than they had ever encountered at once before – came swarming towards them.

  ‘–your situation? Repeat, what is–’

  Tarryn recognised the voice. It belonged to Divolio, a veteran sergeant in the captain’s command squad. He told him that Sergeant Juster had fallen, and two other battle-brothers besides. He struggled to get the words out and defend himself from the orks at the same time. He was being assailed from all directions, all but from behind, where his remaining brother protected him.

  The primitive weapons of his attackers rained down on his armour like hailstones; it was almost more than he could do to parry half of them. He told Sergeant Divolio that they couldn’t endure for much longer.

  ‘–on our way–’ said Divolio. Then, more clearly, ‘–this vox-channel open and we’ll home in on your signal.’ He was at the very edge of vox-range. There was no way he would make it here in time.

  Tarryn feinted, making two of his opponents overconfident, causing one of them to stumble into the other. He made use of the breath he had bought himself. ‘Sergeant Juster entrusted us with a message, for the captain. He said–’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Baeloch interrupted him, over their squad channel.

  Tarryn didn’t answer him. He slashed a feral ork’s throat with his chainsword and hugged the heavy, wet corpse to him, using it as a shield. Tell the captain and the inquisitor… They have to know…

  ‘We found it,’ Tarryn voxed. ‘We found…’ It didn’t feel right, speaking the name, especially over an open channel. ‘…the monolith.’

  Silence greeted his pronouncement, but for a faint splutter of static. Then, another voice sounded in his ear, and he recognised the gruff tones of Maegar himself. ‘We’re sending help.’

  The orks were falling away in front of him. Tarryn didn’t know why. He had slain a fair few of them, but that hadn’t discouraged them before. Then, suddenly, he saw something else behind them, a huge, slobbering beast with a rider, and he realised that they had been clearing the way for it to charge him.

  The beast was a fully grown squig, known as a squiggoth – the first he had seen on Armageddon. It had the oversized head and squat body of its stunted brethren, but it also had a powerful-looking horn and giant tusks. It had a rickety wooden howdah on its back, containing its ork rider and an attendant group of smaller, weaker gretchin.

  Tarryn fired his bolter at the rider. It would likely die more easily than the mount, and if it did die, the mount might veer off. He only had time for one shot, but he made it a good one. Blood blossomed from the rider’s sneering brow and it tumbled backwards, but the beast had been worked up into a frenzy and it kept on coming.

  The gretchin were squealing in panic, baling out of the howdah desperately. Tarryn couldn’t dive for cover; there were too many feral orks around him, hemming him in. He yelled a warning to Baeloch about what was coming.

  Then the squiggoth bowled into them both. Tarryn barely twisted out of the way of the beast’s horn, else it would have gored him. He couldn’t resist its hurtling weight, however, and the world went spinning, ground over sky, around him.

  Baeloch was jarred too, but he kept his footing.

  Tarryn was down and the feral orks were piling on top of him, as they had with Nabori, as they had tried to do with Juster. The squiggoth reared over him, its massive jaws stretching into a roar, and all he could think was that he hadn’t done as Sergeant Juster had asked him. He had failed in his duty.

  Then, the squiggoth erupted into flames.

  It was thrashing about, screaming. The feral orks were scattering as well. They were wailing in terror – of being similarly burned or stamped upon? A bare few clung tenaciously to Tarryn, few enough that he was able to hurl them off and scramble out from beneath the burning beast as it toppled towards him.

  A new presence had joined the skirmish. It took him a moment to focus through the smoke and the mayhem, twice as long to accept what he was seeing.

  A slight, pale man stood among the feral orks, but was untouched by them. His striking blue eyes met Tarryn’s astonished gaze coolly.

  He recognised Inquisitor Halstron’s aide, his prisoner. His dark robes had fallen open to reveal the chains that enwrapped him. But how could he be here? How could he have fought his way to where he stands, and without my seeing it?

  Where was the inquisitor and the rest of the command squad?

  The feral orks were panicking, fleeing from the chained man. Tarryn felt an almost physical fear passing over him and had to steel himself not to flee too. A handful of greenskins likewise girded themselves and set about the chained man with their axes and clubs. They may as well have battered at the walls of the sky fortress itself, because their strongest blows glanced off their target, ineffectually.

  He almost seemed bored.

  He waved the feral orks away from him and, although he didn’t touch them, some invisible force followed the sweep of his arm, lifted them off their feet and sent them flying. As they picked themselves up, the chained man closed his fingers into a fist and his bright eyes flashed. First one, then another, then a third feral ork exploded into flames as the squiggoth had before them. It was the last straw for those few that remained, and they ran for their lives.

  A fusillade of bolts thudded into the chained man’s torso.

  Baeloch was firing at him, coldly squeezing off round after round – and wasn’t that the right thing to do, the dutiful thing, because the chained man stank of Chaos?

  Tarryn’s armour was scratched and dented, but he hadn’t been injured. Baeloch’s bolter was hurting the chained man, making him jerk and twitch, although one wouldn’t have known it from his expression. He regarded his attacker with a distant curiosity, and he reached out towards him and began to curl his fingers.

  Tarryn snapped up his gun and sighted at the chained man’s head.

  ‘Hold your fire!’

  A grey and black juggernaut burst out of the jungle beside them. Captain Maegar had reached them, two members of his command squad behind him. Inquisitor Halstron was here too, in his onyx and blood red cloak. He weaved between his bulkier allies and barked a few sharp words at the chained man, who lowered his hand.

  Tarryn lowered his gun, likewise, as did Baeloch, albeit with a measure of reluctance. ‘He isn’t what he seems, sir,’ the older Relictor protested. ‘He… It is some manner of warp-spawned daemon that has–’

  ‘This isn’t the time, brother,’ the captain growled. Remember, to question is to doubt. His voice softened. ‘I know you must have concerns,’ he allowed.

  His remaining squad mates joined them. One was Sergeant Divolio; the other, Tarryn didn’t know well enough to identify from his armour’s markings. They had run into a bunch of fleeing feral orks and had stopped to deal with them. Their chainsword blades were dark red with ork blood.

  ‘Did I serve you well, master?’

  Tarryn was close enough to the chained man to hear his whisper and the inquisitor’s reply: ‘You served me well.’

  ‘You will sever another link of the chains that bind me.’ This time, it wasn’t a question. A cloud scudded across Inquisitor’s Halstron’s rude features, but he inclined his head and confirmed that, yes, he would honour his promise.

  The chained man’s eyes flashed again, and Tarryn detected the ghost of a smile o
n his lips. ‘Then, today I am content, with the knowledge that one day I shall be free of this prison of cloying flesh.’

  The words sent a chill down the Relictor’s spine.

  Priority level: Magenta Alpha

  Transmitted: Imperial Command HQ, Hive Helsreach, Armageddon Secundus

  To: Adeptus Astartes battle-barge Blade of Vengeance, Armageddon High Orbit

  Date: 3025999.M41

  Transmitter: Astropath Prime Childessa

  Receiver: Astropath-terminus Xhian-Ji

  Author: General Vladimir Kurov, commander of the Armageddon Steel Legion and head of the ruling military council

  Thought for the Day: Honour your Chapter.

  Lord Commander. It dismays me to learn that a distress call from my 93rd Regiment, stationed at Hive Infernus, appears to have been disregarded by you. I am assured that, without the urgent reinforcement of the Adeptus Astartes, the city will likely fall. I trust that this is merely an oversight on your part and that the matter will be hastily rectified. I am sure you will agree that naught else takes precedence over the defence of our population centres. Cordially yours.

  Nine

  They found Sergeant Juster where they had left him.

  His weapons, including his venerable chainsword, had been stripped from him. The feral orks had tried to take his armour too, but had only succeeded in hammering it out of shape. They had killed him, of course.

  Baeloch led the way from there to the ambush site. He went a little way ahead of his battle-brothers, scanning for more traps before each step.

  Nabori and Kantus were also dead and their bodies picked clean. The orks had managed to pry off Nabori’s helmet, though it would do them little good on its own.

  ‘This is wrong.’

  The voice in Tarryn’s helmet startled him. Baeloch had used their combat squad’s frequency, however, so the others – the captain and his command squad – couldn’t hear him. At least, he hoped they couldn’t.

  He reminded his brother of what Maegar always said. ‘To question is to doubt and doubt is the–’