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The Infinite Tableau – Anthony Reynolds

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A Black Library Publication

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The Infinite Tableau

Anthony Reynolds

One of them was about to die.

They stood at the epicentre of the battle, beneath a sky that was burning, and it seemed as though time stood still. The black-armoured paragon of humanity brought a golden-winged power sword around in a crackling two-handed killing strike. His pale face was twisted in hatred, and his eyes were tinged red with blood-rage. Despite the thickness of his enemy’s bull-like neck, the blow was perfectly timed, delivered with all his genhanced and armour-augmented strength.

His opponent was a hulking, green-skinned monster that stood over two and half metres tall. It lived only for battle and knew – nay, cared for – nothing else. It roared as it swung its chugging chain-glaive around in a brutal arc, a blow that could carve the Space Marine clean in two.

Either blow would be mortal if it landed. Both would land within a single heartbeat.

One of them was about to die.

His rage was a vile, black thing dwelling deep within him. His force of will kept it coiled and bound for now, but it was growing stronger day by day, year by year. He knew that there would come a day when it would overcome him. All that would be left was the beast within.

Today would not be that day.

He repeated it to himself silently, like a mantra. Today is not that day. He forced himself to unclench his fists, and took a deep breath. The anger always came when he felt trapped, or when he felt that his fate was not his own to direct.

The gunship shuddered, but not from incoming fire. The native-born called the scouring winds that whipped across the ice floes the skree-tha – the witch-howling. He could understand why. Even enclosed within the ceramite-reinforced shell of the gunship, the roar of the straining engines was drowned out by the screaming, banshee wail outside.

The winds buffeted them hard, slamming the craft from side to side as they hurtled over the vast, empty expanse of ice. It lifted them sharply, threatening to rip the gunship’s wings off, before pulling them down, dragging the nose towards the ice floe below.

‘Cassiel,’ said a voice behind him. It was Tanaka. ‘Will you not sit?’

Cassiel did not reply. Nor did he make to return to his restraint harness. He could feel the White Scar’s reproachful gaze upon his back, but he ignored it. Had he remained seated, his anger would have blossomed.

He filled the doorway of the gunship’s cockpit, his already oversized frame made more massive still by his black power armour. One shoulder pad was dull silver and bore the Inquisition’s iconography. The other was blood red, and had the heraldry of his Chapter – the Blood Angels – sculpted in bas-relief upon its curved surface.

Cassiel peered over the shoulder of the ship’s pilot, his expression dark. He had taken up the position as soon as they had entered the moon’s atmosphere. He’d been unable to bear being restrained any longer.

‘We are nearing the distress beacon, sir,’ said the gunship pilot, his voice crackling through into Cassiel’s earpiece. Despite their close proximity, the howling gale made the vox necessary.

‘How long?’ said Cassiel.

‘Two minutes.’

Cassiel looked over his shoulder, back into the red-lit gloom of the gunship’s hold. Twelve black-clad storm troopers were seated back there, strapped in tightly. They were elite soldiers, trained from childhood to serve the Ordo Xenos. Their bodies had been enhanced, making them bigger, stronger and faster than regular humans. Nevertheless, they were dwarfed by Cassiel and the other two members of his kill-team.

‘Two minutes to touchdown,’ Cassiel said, his words being relayed into the ear of every soldier onboard. ‘Be ready.’

‘We should be able to see the ship any moment now,’ said the pilot. ‘There.’

Cassiel leaned forward, brushing a strand of dark blond hair back from his eyes. The storm made it almost impossible to see anything at all beyond the ice-fogged cockpit. Everything was a swirling wall of white.

Then he saw what the human pilot’s augmented vision had picked out a moment earlier: a dark, bug-like shuttle crouched low on the ice. It was just a shadow at first, but solidified as the gunship drew in close. It was half-buried in ice and snow. Another few hours, and it would be completely hidden.

Beside the ship, he could see a dark fissure in the ice: a massive crack that extended out into the storm.

‘We’re here,’ Cassiel said.

Cassiel was the first to step onto the ice, his black armour a stark contrast to his surroundings. How many worlds had he set foot upon now? How many foes had fallen beneath the long golden-winged blade, Aruthel, that he wore slung across his back? He had stopped counting long ago.

His face was as pale and cold as his surroundings. He might have resembled a classical statue, carved from pale marble, but for the trio of parallel scars that crossed his face, twisting his lips and puckering his skin; a memento of his encounter with a chameleonic xenos beast two years past.

The gale whipped at Cassiel’s shoulder-length hair and the tabard draped across his armour. Ice slashed at his cheeks, and he was forced to narrow his eyes against the biting gale. He breathed in deeply. The cold was as sharp as a knife in his lungs. Without a sealed enviro-suit, an unaugmented human would have been dead within a minute in these conditions. Cassiel was far from unaugmented, however, and he made a point of breathing the air of every planet he visited, even if only for a moment.

A pair of large, black-clad figures clomped out onto the ice behind him.

Tanaka, hefting his heavy bolter, and Var’myr of the Mortifactors, his boltgun held across his chest. These were his adopted battle brothers, his kill-team.

He had fought alongside Tanaka for over a decade – they had both started their tenure with the Deathwatch at the same time. Var’myr was a newcomer, having joined the ranks of the Ordo Xenos fewer than six months ago. There had been others before him, but they were gone now: Svorgar of the Space Wolves had been decapitated by a clawed fiend on the nightworld of Jar’Mun’Gar; Ryzmor of the Carcharodons had been ripped limb from limb by the magicks of eldar witches in the ruins of Delthasur; Titus Constantine of the White Consuls had been released back to his Chapter with honour after the successful purging of Alanthus.

As much as Cassiel yearned to return to his Chapter, it was a privilege to fight alongside such esteemed warriors.

‘Var’myr, scan the area.’

A servo-skull hovered at the Mortifactor’s shoulder, its mechanical left eye blinking red. Once, that skull had belonged to one of his battle-brothers. They were a morbid Chapter, a fact reinforced by the bones strung across Var’myr’s armour.

‘Go. Seek,’ the Mortifactor said, his voice deep and sombre. The servo-skull swung out into the storm, as ordered. The winds buffeted it – Cassiel heard Tanaka chuckle at the sight – but the device compensated swiftly, gyros buzzing. It commenced a wide sweep of the area, scanning and recording.

He glanced at the White Scar. Tanaka met his gaze, his dark obsidian eyes glinting with humour. His face was gnarled and weathered, the colour of tanned leather.

‘I like this place,’ Tanaka said, shouting to be heard above the gale and the dying whine of the gunship’s engines.

‘I see nothing redeemable about it,’ said Var’myr.

‘Bah!’ said Tanaka. ‘You know nothing! This cold is good. It lets you know you are still alive.’

‘I know I’m alive because I am alive,’ said Var’myr. ‘I don’t need the cold to tell me that.’

Var’myr assessed the skull’s findings, reading from the auspex built into his left forearm. The entire arm was bionic from the shoulder down.

‘The scan is clear,’ he said. He snapped the data-screen back into his vambrace, and the armoured plate clicked into place around it like a shell. ‘There is nothing living within a hundred kilometres, nor any heat signature or radiation. This is a dead world.’

‘Lieutenant, secure a perimeter,’ Cassiel ordered over the vox, and the storm troopers who had been standing by moved out onto the ice, flowing around the three Space Marines with their hellguns at the ready.

As they took up support positions, Cassiel and his brothers marched towards the silent shuttle squatting upon the ice. It was a bulbous, ugly ship resembling a fat-bodied insect. Its six articulated legs clung to the ice, and a pair of large eye-like portal-windows were positioned at the front of its ‘head’. Through them, Cassiel could see three vacant seats, where the pilot, co-pilot and navigator would normally be seated. There were no lights inside.

With crisp orders, Cassiel directed Var’myr and a pair of storm troopers to search the ship while Tanaka checked the ravine.

Cassiel pulled on his helm; the slicing storm was stinging his eyes. Once he had worn a helmet of shining gold, but since his indoctrination into the Deathwatch he had worn nothing but their traditional black. Among the Blood Angels, the only warriors who wore black were the holy Chaplain-wardens of the Chapter, and the damned warriors of the Death Company.

He walked around the exterior of the shuttle, scrutinising it for signs of battle damage. The nose and wingtips were blackened, but this looked like charring from orbital entry; it had not been brought down by weapons-fire. Var’myr stepped down from the explorator vessel just as he finished his circuit.

‘Nothing,’ said the Mortifactor, shaking his head. His servo-skull had returned to him, and was once more hovering at his shoulder.

Var’myr fell in beside Cassiel, and the pair trudged into the wind to join the vague figure of Tanaka, standing some way off and staring into the storm. The White Scar was almost completely hidden by swirling ice that seemed to confuse even the advanced sensory arrays of Cassiel’s battle plate.

‘Speak your mind,’ said Cassiel. Var’myr was taciturn at best, silent and sullen at worst, but in the brief time they had known each other, Cassiel felt he was beginning to learn how to read those silences.

‘We should never have been sent here,’ said Var’myr. ‘We ought to have joined the other strike teams in the final assault. We earned that, at least.’

‘Watch-Commander Haldaron felt that our presence was needed here,’ said Cassiel, keeping his voice neutral. ‘It is no smear on our honour.’

‘It is,’ said Var’myr. ‘The greenskin warlord’s head should have been ours to claim. By now, someone else will probably have it.’

In truth, Cassiel tended to agree, but that was not helpful.

‘I would hope so,’ he said, ‘else the brute still lives. Put it from your mind, brother. We are here now, and we have been given our duty.’

They joined the heavy bolter wielding White Scar, standing on the edge of the immense ice fissure. Steam was rising from the gaping rift, making it impossible to gauge its depth. It was narrow, little more than two metres across at any point, and extended further than the eye could see.

‘You think they went down there?’ asked Cassiel.

‘Where else?’ replied Tanaka.

‘Then that is where we shall go too.’

Var’myr sent his servo-skull down into the crack, red beams of light from its sensors scanning and documenting.

‘Seismic activity opened this crack twelve days ago,’ said Var’myr, tapping his data-slate. ‘The whole area is unstable. There are… seventeen active volcanic rifts within an eighty-kilometre radius of this location.’

‘How deep is it?’ said Cassiel.

‘Nine metres, here,’ said Var’myr, reading the output upon his forearm screen. ‘Deeper… much deeper further along.’

‘Is the ground solid at the bottom of the fissure, just here?’

‘It is.’

‘Good,’ said Cassiel.

‘It is unstable, however,’ said Var’myr. ‘Another tremor could seal this crack at any moment. You are not thinking of–’

Before the Mortifactor could finish, Cassiel stepped off the ice floe, dropping silently down into the gaping fissure.

The sound of wind down in the narrow defile was even more unearthly than it was up on the ice floe, though it was out of the worst of the gale. The sheer walls of ice were a brilliant, luminous blue – the first real colour that he had seen on this moon – and almost completely transparent in places where the ice was near flawless. Steam vented up from narrower cracks underfoot.

A flurry of ice and snow fell down around him, and Tanaka landed in a crouch a half-second later. He grinned at Cassiel as he rose to his feet. Var’myr landed a moment later, amid a small avalanche of ice.

‘You took your time, brother,’ said Cassiel.

The Mortifactor did not deign to answer. Up above, the storm troopers were readying their rappelling lines.

‘They went this way,’ said Tanaka, pointing. ‘But they did not come back.’

‘Did your ancestors tell you that?’ said Var’myr.

‘The tracks on the ground tell me that.’

Cassiel led the way. In places the ice canyon was so narrow that their shoulder plates scratched deep furrows in the ice. Their progress was not swift, but after a time they came to a low opening in one of the canyon walls. Hot steam spewed from the gap.

Var’myr’s servo-skull disappeared into the steam. It reappeared a moment later, its red eye blinking impatiently. Tanaka scowled at it, and it darted back into the steam like a rebuked hound. It reappeared a moment later, hanging just behind Tanaka’s shoulder, and Cassiel smirked. The White Scar caught sight of it, and swore in his own, guttural dialect.

‘Irritating thing,’ he said, swatting at it. ‘Away!’

It darted back, just out of reach. Cassiel wondered how much sentience remained within the skull – it seemed to delight in taunting the White Scar whenever possible. ‘Var’myr, control your creature,’ he said.

‘It’s just a machine,’ replied the Mortifactor mildly.

‘Here,’ Tanaka muttered, pointing out the tell-tale marks in the ice. ‘They widened the entrance with chainblades.’

‘Not enough, though,’ said Var’myr. Though the aperture was large enough for a regular human to get through, there was no chance that any of the three Deathwatch brothers could pass.

‘Move aside,’ Cassiel ordered. He would not sully Aruthel’s blade with such a mundane duty, nor did he need to. With a grunt he struck the ice with his gauntleted fist, dislodging a massive chunk. Within the space of a minute he had cleared an opening that he and his team could negotiate, followed a few moments later by the storm troopers.

Cassiel once again took up the lead, ice grinding against his armour. The steam made rivulets of condensation run down the lenses of his helm. Some way on, the passage opened up into an irregular cave formation, its floor at a steep angle. Ice-crystals formed by the volcanic updrafts filled the space. It was easy to see which path the explorators had taken – they merely had to follow the path of crushed crystals.

There was a surprising amount of light within the caves, even as they clambered, slid and crawled deeper beneath the ice floe. It was a diffuse, cold glow, which seemed to radiate from the very ice itself. A rumble of seismic activity shook the ground underfoot, ice fell from the slanted roof, and spider-web cracks appeared in the walls around them.

‘We do not want to be here any longer than necessary,’ said Cassiel, brushing melt-water from his shoulders.

Eighty metres below the ice floe, having traversed more than a kilometre from their starting point, the Space Marines came upon what the explorator team had been sent to find.

Cassiel dropped down into a large cavern, ice crunching underfoot. He was decidedly conscious of the millions of tonnes of glacier hanging above him, even more so as another ice-quake rumbled. It was groaning like a ship in the void. The walls seemed to close in, shifting and altering their position as the ice floe shuddered, and fresh cracks inched their way across the walls, clouding their previously transparent surfaces. Cassiel forced himself to breathe calmly, controlling his inner rage.

Tanaka and Var’myr joined him, dropping down into the cavern after him. It was as large as the embarkation deck of a battle-barge. The floors were uneven, rising and falling at acute angles, almost meeting the jagged ceiling in places and falling away into sheer deadfalls that sank hundreds of metres further down in others. Traversing the chamber was slow, and a clear line of sight from one side to the other was difficult, for pillars of crystal linked floor to roof and clusters of needle-like ice fanned out from wall and floor.

The storm troopers descended into the cavern in the kill-team’s wake. At a silent signal from their lieutenant, they broke off into pairs, each advancing via a different route. Their training was obvious; they moved swiftly but silently, covering each other and scanning constantly for threats.

It was Var’myr who first saw it.

‘Cassiel,’ he said, drawing his sergeant’s attention.

It was located towards the back of the cavern, jutting some four metres from the ice. The exposed section was curved and gleaming black, as if made from obsidian: a four-sided arc, like part of a large, incomplete ring. Judging by the curve of it, Cassiel guessed that the whole thing could have a diameter of over twenty metres, most of which appeared to be embedded in the ice, a dark shadow that curved away beneath their feet.

The cavern darkened considerably around it, as if the black stone were absorbing the light. Strange symbols marked its surface.

Tanaka swore in his guttural tongue.

‘What is it?’ asked Var’myr.

‘I don’t know,’ said Cassiel. ‘A weapon of some kind, but not one made by any human hand. Who knows how long it’s been down here. Can you get a reading on it?’

‘No,’ said Var’myr, fingers sliding through the data relaying across his forearm-mounted auspex. ‘This glacier is more than one hundred and fifty thousand years old, however.’

Cassiel shook his head. Such a timeframe was unfathomable.

‘We know the Adeptus Mechanicus got this far,’ he said. ‘What happened to them?’

No answer was forthcoming.

The kill-team circled around the curved structure, keeping their weapons ready. There was something about it that made Cassiel’s skin itch. Its geometry was somehow abhorrent; its glossy surfaces made him uneasy.

‘There are some mysteries that humanity was not meant to know,’ said Tanaka. ‘This thing should have remained buried.’

‘The entire region is becoming increasingly unstable,’ said Var’myr. ‘It will probably soon be buried beneath another fifty million tonnes of ice, regardless of what we do.’

‘It is not enough,’ said Cassiel. ‘Even if it were buried at the centre of this moon, the Adeptus Mechanicus would come looking for it again, now they know it is here. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. We have to destroy it.’

‘Destroy it?’ said Var’myr. ‘It’s been down here for Guilliman knows how many tens of thousands of years. What danger can it pose?’

‘Where is the explorator team, Mortifactor?’ Tanaka asked, by way of an answer.

‘We have to destroy it,’ Cassiel said. ‘We cannot trust the Mechanicus to leave this undisturbed.’

‘Then let us do so, and be on our way,’ said Var’myr. ‘Those rumblings are becoming more frequent.’

‘I thought your Chapter did not fear death, Mortifactor,’ said Tanaka.

‘Death, we do not fear,’ said Var’myr, his voice cold. ‘That does not mean that we invite it. Dying pointlessly, before one’s duty is done, is a blasphemy.’

Cassiel opened up a vox-channel to the storm trooper lieutenant. ‘I need the melta-charges brought forward,’ he said. Even with his helm on, it was clear that Var’myr was glaring at Tanaka. And Cassiel knew the White Scar well enough to guess that he was smiling behind his own faceplate at having riled the Mortifactor.

‘Tanaka,’ Cassiel said. ‘Help me with the charges. Var’myr, determine where to place them. I want nothing to remain of this thing.’

Cassiel turned away, paused, and turned back. ‘And don’t touch it.’

The White Scar fell in beside Cassiel, and the two of them clambered down towards the storm troopers picking their way through the chamber.

‘Why antagonise him, brother?’ Cassiel said via a closed channel. ‘Is it really necessary?’

‘Mortifactors,’ Tanaka replied. ‘They take themselves so seriously. And this one’s ignorance offends me.’

‘We were young once ourselves, my brother,’ said Cassiel.

Tanaka laughed. ‘You sound like an old man,’ he said. ‘Me? I’m in my prime!’

Cassiel smiled. Tanaka was one hundred and twenty-two years older than him, and looked it, with his weathered face and grey-streaked hair. His smile slipped however, and he paused, narrowing his eyes.

The ice dropped steeply away to the side of the ridge they were traversing, disappearing into a hollow. Steam billowed up from below, obscuring his sight.

‘What is it?’ said Tanaka, suddenly serious.

‘Probably nothing,’ said Cassiel. ‘Go ahead. Collect the melta-charges. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

Tanaka shrugged, and continued on down to meet the storm troopers. Cassiel eased himself off the side of the ridge, and climbed down into the steam, finding adequate handholds in the ice wall.

The descent was short, and soon his feet met the ground once more. Steam billowed around him, and moisture that would turn to ice as soon as he was away from the volcanic updraft beaded upon his armour.

He advanced, stepping gingerly, ensuring that the ground would take his weight before moving forward. He squinted, peering through the fog and steam.

‘Blood of Sanguinius,’ he breathed as the vapours parted.

A dozen bodies were scattered before him, half buried in the ice. Each corpse had been skinned, exposing frozen, dripping musculature. It appeared as though something had fed upon them: chunks of flesh had been torn from the bone, and entrails lay scattered. It was clear to Cassiel from the tortured poses, silent screams and anguished expressions on skinless faces that these horrors had been enacted while these people were still alive.

He saw an iron cog-wheel embedded in the forehead of one of the tortured bodies – the holy symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus. He’d found the missing explorators.

That was when the screaming began.

Cassiel was up the sheer cliff in an instant, barely touching it. His long blade Aruthel was unsheathed, humming with power. He didn’t even remember drawing it.

Two detonations echoed through the cavern. Bolter fire.

‘Lieutenant, pull your soldiers back and regroup,’ he ordered. ‘Kill-team, to me.’

Another scream. Cassiel broke into a run, drawing his ornate bolt pistol as he rushed towards the piteous cry. He saw blood spray across an angled wall of ice. More than one of the storm troopers was down. Cassiel strained to locate a target as he ran.

There. Target lock.

A hunched thing of tortured flesh and blood, hands ending in half-metre talons slick with gore. It ripped open the throat of a storm trooper, unleashing a fresh torrent of red. It pressed its face into the gushing fountain – drinking, or perhaps just revelling in the sensation.

It was an easy mark, even at a run.

Cassiel’s bolt pistol barked. Two shots struck the target, one in the back, one at the base of the neck. Those detonations should have ripped the creature – man? – to pieces, but they did not. Its flesh was torn, exposing dark metal bones.

Sprawling, the creature righted itself and swung towards him with a snarl. Its face was a dull metal skull draped in dead flesh. Its eye sockets were hollow pits, dark and fathomless, but tiny pinpricks of light lay deep within them, like cold green stars glinting in the void. Gore caked its jaw. Viscera dripped from its hollow ribcage.

A necron warrior, then, but like none that Cassiel had ever encountered before.

More of the creatures were among the storm troopers spread throughout the cavern, ripping and tearing. Shouts and screams echoed in the gloom. Hellguns whined as they powered up, then barked as their power was unleashed, sending angry red beams cutting across the open space. He heard Var’myr open fire again, and Tanaka incanting a tribal war-chant before his heavy bolter ripped across the cavern in a ceaseless stream of fire.

Cassiel quickly closed the distance with his foe. It was edging towards him, moving on all fours like a beast. He fired on it again as he ran. The bolt slammed it onto its back – its chest was a blackened ruin, but its metallic ribcage still held. Cassiel sprang off an uneven ice-boulder, leaping high, Aruthel humming in his hands. He came down on top of the deathly creature, landing with one knee upon its chest, buckling it inwards. He drove his blade into the beast’s cranium, forcing it deep. It gargled a death rattle, and the pinpricks of light in its empty sockets faded.

A scream came from nearby and he spun, whipping Aruthel free. A storm trooper had fallen to one knee, and blood was pooling beneath him. Another of the skeletal creatures draped in dead, frozen flesh was hauling itself up from the ice beneath the Ordo Xenos soldier, its talons hooked into the man’s leg.

Sheathing his blade, Cassiel took two bounding steps and grabbed the bloodied necron around its neck, hauling it off the stricken trooper. It thrashed like a feral beast, lashing at Cassiel with its talons.

Using his forward momentum, Cassiel slammed it against an ice wall, sending out a spread of cracks across its surface. He forced the creature’s head back and sent a bolt from his pistol up into its metallic brainpan. He released his hold on it, and it flopped to the ground, broken, its skull a ruin of twisted metal.

He turned away, scanning for fresh targets.

He made to re-enter the fray when one of the creatures leapt onto his back, spitting and snarling, its talons slashing at his collar. While it could not breach his armoured plates, the flexible fibre-bundles at his joints – and his neck – were not so well protected. Razored claws sliced through to his flesh, carving deep into his shoulder.

Cassiel threw it off with a curse, warning icons flashing before his eyes. He didn’t feel any pain. All he felt was the urge to kill – the urge to taste blood, though the creature had none to shed.

It was the one that he had just put down: its ruptured skull was reknitting itself, flowing like liquid silver back into its original form. Cassiel gripped Aruthel in both hands and carved the blade in at its neck. It raised its bladed claws to ward off the blow, but all it achieved was to lose both hands, along with its head. Cassiel kicked the metal cranium away.

‘Beware,’ he said across an open channel. ‘They are self-repairing. Their fallen rise again.’

The foul creatures were setting upon the corpses of the storm troopers – and those who were not yet dead – ripping and tearing. Their talons eagerly sliced away the soldiers’ carapace armour, exposing the flesh within, and they tore into it with relish, expertly flensing skin from muscle and bone. Others buried their faces in stomach cavities and throats, snapping and jerking. They snarled and spat at each other, like wild animals fighting over the spoils.

Cassiel snapped off a pair of angry shots, smashing two of the feeding beasts back. The others seemed oblivious or uncaring of the danger, intent on gorging themselves… though they were creatures of little more than metal and malice, with no flesh to feed. Every chunk of meat they swallowed simply flopped, wet and glistening, from their hollow ribcages to the ice, yet they seemed driven by an insatiable, ravenous hunger. It was obscene.

The ice cracked beneath his feet, and a taloned hand shot up and locked around his leg. Swivelling Aruthel in one hand into a downward grip, Cassiel thrust the blade down into the ice, skewering the creature’s head even before it had emerged.

More of the creatures were appearing, and those that fell simply rejoined the savage attack moments later, their mortal injuries repaired. The storm troopers were being butchered. The survivors had formed a tight knot of defiance in the centre of the cavern, dragging the wounded with them. The storm trooper lieutenant was at their centre, barking orders and snapping off shots with her hellpistol. Cassiel saw her die a moment later, yanked to the ground with her throat torn out, and he cursed.

Cassiel felt torn. Part of him desperately wanted to pull his team out, to save those soldiers who still drew breath. Duty was his life, however. It had been built into his genes. The mission was paramount.

‘We must finish this,’ he barked.

The Blood Angels sergeant moved through the slaughter with a grace that belied his size. Spinning, wielding his blade in a two-handed grip, he cut the legs from beneath one of the deathly creatures rushing at him frenziedly. Still turning, he sliced the blade through the torso of another, carving it neatly in two. Aruthel sang a keening wail as it sliced through the air.

Briefly free of assailants, Cassiel joined the knot of storm troopers and took up a position at their fore. Tanaka joined him, walking steadily backwards, his heavy bolter coughing death. Each controlled burst of fire smashed the enemy backwards, and Cassiel saw metal limbs shorn from bodies, yet even that damage was being repaired.

‘Something is happening,’ said Tanaka, in between bursts.

‘I see it,’ growled Cassiel.

Beneath their feet, green light was glowing up through the ice. It was coming from the black xenos structure that curved underneath them.

One of the creatures leapt at Cassiel from a ledge above, talons extended to impale him. Before he could raise his weapon, a kraken bolt struck it from the side and its skull disintegrated into shards of metal. Cassiel looked up to see Var’myr staring down his smoking bolter from his position up at the curved black obelisk. He nodded his thanks, and the Mortifactor inclined his head in acknowledgement. Cassiel saw several fallen creatures around Var’myr’s position, and another pinned beneath his boot, thrashing wildly. The Mortifactor had not been idle.

Cassiel’s gaze was drawn to the black obelisk behind Var’myr. Green light was spilling from the glyphs and symbols upon its surface.

‘Var’myr,’ said Cassiel. ‘Fall back.’

The Mortifactor bent down towards the screeching, flailing creature trapped beneath his boot. He grasped its skull in one huge hand and, with a violent wrench, tore it loose.

‘A keepsake,’ he declared as he stood upright.

Then he shuddered, and the metal skull slipped from his fingers.

A glowing blade of green light emerged from Var’myr’s chest, transfixing him. Then the blade was sharply retracted, and Var’myr slid to his knees.

A towering being stood behind the fallen Mortifactor. It was as different from the hunched, flesh-wearing creatures as night was from day. Tall and broad-shouldered, it would have loomed over even Cassiel and the tallest of his Chapter brothers. Its skeletal limbs were a gleaming silver and it was decked in heavy plates of black obsidian. It carried a three-metre halberd ending in a humming blade of pure energy. With a swift motion, it brought the weapon around in a lethal arc, and took off Var’myr’s head.

‘No!’ bellowed Cassiel.

The air behind the deathly metal being shimmered and distorted, and more armoured figures materialised. The nature of the curved obelisk was now clear. It was not a weapon, as Cassiel had suspected at first, but something far worse.

It was a gateway.

Five of the elite, armour-clad beings stood up there now. They bore a mix of energy-bladed halberds and one-handed axes, though their blades were similar, made of nothing more than crackling energy.

Var’myr’s servo-skull hovered just above the Mortifactor’s corpse, its red eye flickering. Then it too was cut down, carved in two by an energy blade.

The air shimmered, like silver-dust catching the light, and a final figure appeared, materialising within their protective cordon. It was a creature of alien, yet undeniably regal, bearing.

This newcomer was stooped, and its protectors towered over it, yet it exuded a palpable aura of dominance. It wore a cloak of golden scales and a gleaming cowl, and its ribcage was armoured in polished ebony. Its skeletal limbs were bound in circlets of gold and obsidian and covered in xenos hieroglyphs, and it leaned upon a golden staff topped with a flaring winged icon pulsing with viridian radiance.

It stared around its surroundings, craning its neck one way then the other, like a vulture. Its gaze swept across the ice cavern before settling upon Cassiel. It held his gaze, eyes burning with deathless, pitiless fire. It croaked something indecipherable, speaking in a language that had already been dead a million years before the birth of humanity. It was the voice of the crypt, conjuring images of dust and dry sands. This was no unthinking automaton, Cassiel realised. This was an impossibly ancient being, filled with bitterness and anger, bound within a shell of metal.

The creature jabbed a skeletal finger in the Blood Angel’s direction, and spoke again in its dead language. Tall shields of glowing green light sprang to life upon the off-weapon arms of the axe-wielding guardians, and they stepped to the fore, forming a protective shield wall.

Then, as one, the necrons began to advance.

Cassiel’s rage was threatening to overwhelm him, and he struggled to control it. It would be so easy to give in…

His vision began to cloud, a reddish tinge over everything he saw, and the pounding of his hearts – his secondary beating now, too – drowned out all else. His lips curled back, and had he not been wearing his black-painted helm, his elongated canines would have been exposed.

Var’myr’s blood, spreading from his headless corpse, was almost painfully bright. Everything else was as nothing… except for his foes. He glared at the advancing xenos warriors, and a shameful, animal growl rumbled from his vox-grille. His grip tightened on the haft of his blade as he prepared to attack.

No.

He must remain in control. His duty demanded it.

He forced himself to breathe deeply, and forcibly loosened his grip on the blade. The red haze began to clear, though it hung around the fringes of his vision, ready to descend again at any moment. The black tendrils of his hatred recoiled, temporarily, and once more it retreated to its lair. Its time would come.

‘Storm troopers,’ he growled. ‘Be ready. My brother and I will hold them. Split, and get around behind them. Use the charges. Destroy that gateway.’

‘How do we hold them?’ asked Tanaka.

‘We kill them.’

‘Yes. That would do it.’

At Cassiel’s direction, the storm troopers divided into two groups, each carrying a case of demolition charges, and they peeled off to each flank.

Cassiel glanced over at his White Scar brother, the last of his kill-team.

‘Ready?’ he said.

In answer, the White Scar planted his feet wide and brought his heavy bolter around to bear, the built-in suspensors steadying his aim. Squeezing and holding the trigger, he unleashed a blazing torrent of fire. It was virtually a solid stream of large-calibre bolts he sent roaring across the ice cavern, and the sound was deafening.

Tanaka’s onslaught tore across the enemy, but their advance did not slow. The shield bearers at their fore tightened their formation, shields interlocking as the heavy bolter fire hammered into them. The shimmering barrier flashed brightly as each heavy bolter round struck, absorbing their energy, creating a flickering strobe as shot after shot rained upon them. Each shot rebounded off this seemingly impenetrable wall, hurled away with the same velocity as it was delivered. Heavy bolter rounds ricocheted across the ice cavern, filling the air.

One round skimmed just over the rim of one of the shields and took one of the foes in the head. The resultant detonation demolished its skull, and it fell heavily. Its brethren gave it no mind, simply stepping over the body to continue their relentless march. A moment later, it rose again.

The necrons altered the angle of their shields, and the warriors of the Ordo Xenos suddenly found Tanaka’s stream of bolter fire being redirected back at them.

Cassiel was struck in the shoulder, half spinning him, and other rounds screamed by him, missing by scant centimetres.

He turned his head instinctively, registering an incoming bolt a fraction of a second before it took him between the eyes. It still struck a glancing blow, and the resulting detonation ruined his vision in a haze of grainy static, and kicked his neck to one side.

He tore his helmet off. The whole left hemisphere was a mess of torn metal and fractured ceramite, and his left eye lens was shattered. He could feel blood trickling down his temple. He cast the ruined helm aside.

The head of one of the storm troopers disappeared in a red mist, and another was torn bodily in two as a stream of fire cut through his midsection.

Tanaka cut off his volley with an anguished cry, aghast at the carnage he had wrought. No storm trooper had been left standing. Their blood was sprayed across the ice.

One of the flesh-wearers took its opportunity, leaping upon the White Scar as he stared in horror at the dead. He tried to raise his weapon, but he was too slow and the creature too close. It thrust its talons into his faceplate. Two of the blades smashed straight through his visor lenses, driving deep into his brain. He died instantly, slumping to the ground.

Cassiel roared, his fury surging to the surface, and this time he made no attempt to quash it. He hurled his bolt pistol aside and hacked into Tanaka’s killer with his blade. His lips drew back in a snarl, exposing his dagger-like canines and he tasted blood on his lips. His blade rose and fell, hacking and slicing. Only when the creature was rendered into a dozen separate sections did he stop. Even then, those parts quivered on the ice, pulling themselves back together, but Cassiel gave it no more thought. He lifted his reddened gaze, breathing heavily, and focused on the xenos lord and his phalanx of guardians.

He closed the distance quickly, his fury lending him speed. Twenty metres. Fifteen. Ten. He gripped his long blade in a double-handed grip, drawing it back for a powerful strike.

He sprang lightly off one foot, angling his leap to take him slightly to the side and past the closest guardian’s shield. He turned in the air as he leapt, and rather than bringing his blade around in arc, he drove it down in a powerful two-handed thrust. It sank deep, driven down behind his enemy’s armoured ribcage. Cassiel swiftly withdrew the blade, pulling it free even before his feet had touched the ground.

He instantly threw himself into a roll as a glowing-bladed halberd swung out, humming through the air. It passed harmlessly above him, and he rammed Aruthel up into his would-be killer as he rose. The blade punched up under the ribcage, thrusting up through its body. The tip burst from the top of its metal cranium, green sparks dancing wildly along its length. He yanked the blade free and the creature collapsed.

He lifted the sword in a horizontal parry, sensing rather than seeing a blow coming at him from behind. His blade crackled and gave off the smell of ozone as it met the downward strike of an energy halberd. The force of the blow drove him to his knees, but he was up in a second, snarling and spitting, stepping in close.

Still holding his blade two-handed, he slammed its pommel up into his opponent’s skull twice in quick succession, jerking its head back but doing little real damage. It backhanded him across the side of his face, sending him sprawling.

With an animalistic snarl, Cassiel rose, swinging his blade around in a lethal arc. One of the warriors that he had already dropped was rising once more, its damage self-repairing. He chopped its legs out from under it and rammed Aruthel down into its skull as it toppled to the ground. An energy shield slammed into him, shocking him and sending him stumbling. An overhead blow came crashing down upon him. Cassiel took it upon his blade before ripping around in a screaming arc, neatly cutting the creature in two.

He stood before the xenos lord now, having fought his way in behind its guardians. It glared at him with its baleful green orbs. A burst of mechanised sound emerged from its throat. It took a moment for Cassiel to realise that it was laughing at him.

It stepped forward, thrusting its staff at his chest. Cassiel batted the blow aside and lunged, the move perfectly timed. His blade slid between the lord’s slit of a mouth, silencing its ugly laughter. With a roar, he pressed forward, using all his strength and weight to ram Aruthel home until the hilt struck its face, a full metre and a half of blade protruding out from the back of its neck.

Even as the light died in the xenos being’s eyes, its appearance changed. Its body grew larger in stature, heavy armoured plates appearing on its shoulders and chest, and the shape of its cranium altering. Before Cassiel’s eyes, its metal physiology had morphed into that of one of its bodyguards.

‘What–’ he began, startled by this unexpected transformation.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen, and there was a crackling sound behind him.

A blow struck him squarely in the back, accompanied by a sound akin to a thunderclap.

He was slammed flat, twitching involuntarily. Green-tinged lightning danced across his armour. He struggled to push himself to his feet, but his muscles were convulsing uncontrollably, and he could not rise.

The xenos lord stood behind him. It had taken over the body of another of its bodyguards and stood now in its place, looking down upon him, croaking its ugly laughter.

One of the guardians, newly reformed from the damage Cassiel had wrought upon it, stepped forward with its blade ready. The xenos lord barked something in its indecipherable dead language, and the guardian halted, warily. Hunched and cowled, the lord shuffled in, leaning over Cassiel, regarding him closely.

It was so close that he could see the intricate circuitry behind its armoured ribcage, and smell its repugnant stink, a strange mix of battery acid, oil and dust. Aruthel lay on the ice, just half a metre away. He could kill this abomination in an instant, he was sure, and he strained to regain control of his body. The convulsions were passing. His fingers twitched, and the veins in his neck bulged.

With a roar, he shot his hand out and grabbed the blade.

He was too slow, however. The ancient xenos placed its hand upon his chest, skeletal metal fingers spread wide. A pulse of energy passed into Cassiel’s body. He gasped, his eyes wide – in that instant, Cassiel’s twin hearts ceased to beat, and his breathing halted.

‘You… are… mine,’ the necron lord said, his hand still upon the fallen Space Marine’s chest.

One of them was about to die.

They stood at the epicentre of the battle, beneath a sky that was burning, and it seemed as though time stood still. The black-armoured paragon of humanity brought a golden-winged power sword around in a crackling two-handed killing strike. His pale face was twisted in hatred, and his eyes were tinged red with blood-rage. Despite the thickness of his enemy’s bull-like neck, the blow was perfectly timed, delivered with all his genhanced and armour-augmented strength.

His opponent was a hulking green skinned monster that stood over two and half metres tall. It lived only for battle and knew – nay, cared for – nothing else. It roared as it swung its chugging chain-glaive around in a brutal arc, a blow that could carve the Space Marine clean in two.

Either blow would be mortal if it landed. Both would land within a single heartbeat.

But that heartbeat would never come.

Trazyn the Infinite stepped between the two frozen combatants, inspecting his latest acquisition. He peered into the Space Marine’s eyes. Life blazed there, along with a frenzied, insane fury. He knew that the enhanced human creature could see him. He knew that its conscious mind still remained, trapped forever within the prison of its own body. If it were not so, then his display would be lacking.

Satisfied, he shuffled across the battlefield, past hundreds more frozen statues, each carefully positioned as per his grand design. Some were firing weapons or swinging blades. Others were dying, trapped forever in the moment of their deaths. It was glorious.

The holographic burning sky and the red-sanded earth flickered as he reached the edge of the display. Once again he stood upon the gleaming obsidian deck of his infinite gallery.

Trazyn strode away, his staff clicking sharply with each step. He walked his halls, past countless other displays with primitive creatures of every description, breed and race; all arrayed and carefully posed; all living, trapped until the end of time. He passed beings that had died out half a million years earlier – some whose loss was mourned by the galaxy at large, and others that had simply disappeared without note.

There were hundreds of displays on this deck alone, many of them far grander than his latest, humble effort. Thousands more decks lay above and below.

Trazyn gave them no more thought. His mind was already moving on to his next project.

He rubbed his metal hands in glee. It would be a masterpiece.

About the Author

Anthony Reynolds is the author of the Horus Heresy novella The Purge, audio drama Khârn: The Eightfold Path and short stories ‘Scions of the Storm’ and ‘Dark Heart’. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, he has written the novel Khârn: Eater of Worlds, alongside the audio drama Chosen of Khorne, also featuring Khârn. He has also penned the Word Bearers trilogy and many short stories. Hailing from Australia, he is currently settled on the west coast of the United States.

When an alien threat emerges that could spell humanity’s demise, Watch Captain Artemis leads the Deathwatch against untold billions of foes…

A Black Library Publication

First published in Deathwatch Xenos Hunters in 2012 and then Deathwatch: The Omnibus in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Deathwatch icon by Guangda Li.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-801-3

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