Skin Deep

S P Cawkwell

After any battle, there was a period of observed silence. A time to remember the fallen. A time to take pride in a hard-fought victory. Most Silver Skulls retreated to the chapel on board whichever ship had brought them to the warzones. Some remained in their own cells, meditating or scribing accounts of the battle. This time, there was something else that required Lord Commander Argentius’s attention.

He strode through the corridors and walkways of the ship, his heavy footfalls muffled by the soft leather boots he wore when he was not armoured. Wherever he walked, subordinates bowed and crossed their hands over their chests in respect. He commanded the awe and might of not only his Chapter, but all who served the Silver Skulls unto death.

He reached his destination, ducking his head to pass in beyond the threshold of a door that he could barely squeeze through. The room’s occupant looked up, grunting a greeting. He did not bow before the Chapter Master. Instead, the Chapter Master bowed before him.

‘Away with you, boy. Stop all that bowing and scraping.’ The wizened husk of a man moved slowly with the aid of a silver-tipped cane, settling aching bones down on the chair beside the inking bench.

At seventy years old, Ignatius had been Cruor Primaris for more than five decades. Gifted beyond any artist on Varsavia, examples of the man’s work were carried on the bodies of Silver Skulls warriors across the galaxy and admired by many. Denied ascension in his youth, Ignatius fought the wars of the Imperium through exquisite pieces of art that told stories he yearned to be a part of. More slowly now, though. Argentius knew that it hurt the man beyond measure to hold the beautifully hand-crafted inking needles for any length of time in his arthritic hands, but the work remained exquisite.

‘Sit down, boy. Get that tunic off. Let’s see the damage.’

Boy. Only Ignatius could get away with that kind of insubordination.

Argentius tugged off the heavy linen tunic, sitting down. Ignatius’s rheumy eyes scanned the broad, muscular back. The olive complexion was marred by countless battle scars that sketched unsightly valleys and mountains across the flesh. The ridges caused Ignatius’s lips to purse. Not because of the evidence of injury, but because they distorted the otherwise perfect imagery he had already drawn and re-drawn countless times on the living canvas of Argentius’s back.

‘Turn around. Let’s see the rest.’

Argentius shifted position until he was facing the Cruor Primaris. The flat, fused ribcage of his chest was smooth and hairless and the tattoos from his back curled around his sides and across the stomach. There was not much room left, but a patch remained. All the Silver Skulls left a patch for their last story, the one which would recount their final battle and go to the mausoleums of Pax Argentius with them, were they fortunate enough to be returned for interment.

‘How is it looking, Ignatius?’

Ignatius smacked his lips together as he considered his answer. ‘I can cover the worst of it,’ he eventually replied. ‘Alas, I’m afraid that the moment you triumphed over that ork warboss may now have to feature a few additional orks. To cover the new scars here…’ He traced a finger across the Chapter Master’s back, ‘and here.’ His fingers ran lightly across the depiction, a beautiful rendering of a great battle that captured perfectly the moment Argentius’s flail wrapped itself around the neck of the warboss.

‘Telling the world that I destroyed more greenskins than I actually did? Lies, my old friend?’

‘Not lies, my lord!’ Ignatius’s indignation was palpable. ‘An artistic liberty. Besides, more orks is probably closer to the truth.’

‘Flattery, old man?’

‘Truth.’

A comfortable silence fell across the room as Ignatius began the task of restoring the masterpiece to some semblance of glory. The needle whirred softly, injecting ink rapidly beneath Argentius’s flesh, bringing to life the faded distortion of the great battle.

For years this relationship had existed, master and servant, and it was built on mutual respect. But Ignatius was an old man, while Argentius was functionally immortal. The tattooist’s life was a flash in the grand scheme of a Space Marine’s existence. The Chapter Master sighed softly, making no sound.

‘Is your mind troubled, boy? Unburden your load.’

‘I fear that I cannot, Ignatius. Not this time.’ Every sitting was the same. More than receiving a tattoo, these sessions were a soothing balm in the tempestuous turmoil of Argentius’s war-filled existence.

‘There may be precious few times more that you can,’ said Ignatius. He pursed his lips, leaning back to study his progress. ‘This is going to take more than one session. Three, maybe four sittings. Ryall will complete it if I am unable to.’

‘You will complete it, Ignatius. That’s an order.’ Something cold ran down Argentius’s spine.

‘Now then, boy. You may be great and powerful, but even you can’t order a dying man to keep living.’ Ignatius let out a wheezing laugh and slapped a hand against Argentius’s back.

The painful nakedness of the truth was glaring and Argentius felt a keen pang of separation spear him. The disease that ate Ignatius away from the inside was in its final stages, so Apothecary Malus had told him. There was little that could be done for the old man other than to keep the pain at bay. He’d refused rejuvenat treatments. ‘I was not destined for the honour of ascension,’ was his calm argument. ‘I will accept the destiny my mortality brings.’

So he bore tests, diagnosis and treatments with astonishing grace, humbling others with his strength and pride. In Argentius’s eyes, the mortal exemplified all that the Silver Skulls stood for. This tattoo would be his last piece. It was fitting that it should be on the Chapter Master’s skin.

‘Now, can I finish?’ Ignatius steadied himself, focusing on the ridges in the skin, concentrating and dragging ink through the needles into the big warrior’s back. With the deft ease of a true artist, he turned unsightly scar tissue into ork flesh. Argentius knew that when he finished, there would be a superb recreation of his great triumph there for the world to see. In that image the battle would live on, recounted for all time by a man who had assured his immortality amongst the warriors of the Silver Skulls.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S P Cawkwell is a north-east England based freelance writer. Her work for Black Library includes The Gildar Rift, Valkia the Bloody and a plethora of short stories. Sarah’s hobbies include reading everything and anything, running around in fields with swords screaming incomprehensibly and having her soul slowly sucked dry by online games.

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