The First Heretic

Aquillon looked down at Cartik. One by one, so did the others.

‘Yes, Occuli Imperator?’ the man said.

‘Inform the Sigillite that we await his orders. The Astartes are resistant to exterior forces taking part in the coming battle, but we will be spread across the Word Bearers’ fleet, commanding four of their vessels.’

‘By your word,’ Cartik said reflexively. It would be a long night of pulsing so urgent a message all the way to Terra, and maintaining a link with an astropath on the distant home world long enough to carry a reply. ‘It will be as you wish.’

The Custodians left the room without saying another word.

Argel Tal shivered in his armour, cold despite the heat, icy sweat drenching his skin before it was absorbed into the layers of his armour and recycled back into his body.

The scraping of heavy ceramite on steel decking was a rhythmic rasp, screeching each time his body gave another shudder in time to his heartbeat. He’d tried to stand countless times. Each attempt met with failure, crashing back down to the floor of his meditation chamber, denting the deck and chipping paint from his armour.

An open vox-channel to the other Gal Vorbak brought him their curses and murmured prayers, but he could neither recall opening the link, nor remember exactly how to close it. They suffered as he suffered. Most didn’t sound capable of speech, either – their voices lost in feral, ragged snarls.

The door signal chimed once.

Argel Tal released a low growl, needing several moments to form a single word.

‘Who?’

The wall-speaker hissed. ‘It is Aquillon.’

The Word Bearer turned watering eyes to his retinal chron, seeing the digital runes counting up. He had forgotten something. Some... event. He couldn’t think clearly. Saliva stringed between his aching teeth.

‘Yes?’

‘You were not present at our sparring.’

Yes, that was it. Their daily spar.

‘Apologies. Meditating.’

‘Argel Tal?’

‘Meditating.’

There was a pause. ‘Very well. I shall return later.’

Argel Tal lay on the decking, shivering and whispering mantras in the language at Colchisian’s core, freed of its Terran and Gothic roots.

At one point, lost in a haze of pain, he’d drawn his combat blade. In a trembling grip, he used the sword to slice the palm of his gauntlet, seeking to release the burning from his blood. What dripped from the wound was like boiling oil, bubbling and popping, and it ate into the deck floor in hissing rivulets.

The slice closed the way a smile slowly fades. Even the cut in his armour resealed with disgustingly organic scarring.

He managed to haul himself to his feet after another hour had passed, composing himself enough to stand without trembling. Over the vox, his warriors were laughing, weeping, betraying emotion after emotion rarely heard from the throats of Astartes.

‘Xaphen.’

The Chaplain evidently needed several long seconds to reply. ‘Brother.’

‘We must... hide this from the Custodes. Spread the word. The Gal Vorbak are to be sequestered in meditation. Penance. Contemplation as we travel to Isstvan.’

‘We can just kill them.’ Xaphen barked the words over the vox-network. ‘Kill them now. The time has come.’

‘They die,’ Argel Tal swallowed a gobbet of acid, ‘when the primarch says they die. Spread the word across the ship. The Gal Vorbak is suffering penance, and refuses all outside contact.’

‘By your word.’

In the background, his brothers were screaming and howling. The sound of fists and foreheads crashing against walls transmitted over the vox in dull clangs. He couldn’t breathe. He had to get his stifling helmet off; even the ship’s warm, recycled air was better than choking in this ashes-and-ember reek.

Fingers clasped at his collar seals, but each tug jerked his whole head. The helm wouldn’t come free. Cold sweat, somehow, had cemented it to his face.

Argel Tal moved to the doorway, pressing the activation plate. Once the door was open, the Crimson Lord broke into a staggering, lurching run, moving down the corridors, seeking the one place of refuge his disoriented mind could focus upon.

‘Enter,’ she called.

The first thing she heard was the servo-snarl of armour joints with the booted thunder of Astartes tread. She opened her mouth to speak, but the smell silenced her. Aggressively strong, the potent chemical iron-reek of melting metal, with the ashen scent of burning coal.

The footsteps were uneven, leading into her chamber, and ended with a crash of ceramite on metal that shook her bed. In the wake of the crash, the door sealed again. She sat on the edge of her sleeping mattress, staring blindly where she’d heard the Astartes fall.

‘Cyrene,’ the warrior spoke. She knew him instantly, despite the strain in his voice.

Without a word, she slipped from the bed, feeling for where he’d fallen. Her hands brushed the smooth armour of his shin guard, and the tattered oath paper that hung there. With that as her frame of reference, she moved up, until she sat by the warrior’s shoulders, cradling his heavy helm in her lap.

‘Your helmet will not come off,’ she said.