CIRCLE OF HONOUR
Guy Haley
 
THE SETTLEMENT WAS a foreign object encysted in the forest, crowded by gigantic magenta gynosperms. The sky was a ragged hole two hundred and fifty metres above, heavy with the storm. Through foliage dying from exposure to the wind, the many storeys of the layered ecosystem could be glimpsed. Amid this profusion of xenos life, the homes of men were drab things of plascrete, entirely alien to their setting. This was Bornvel, a backwater outpost of the Imperium. A place of heresy.
Initiate Brusc of the Xereus Crusade stopped his finger on the trig¬ger of his boltgun. The clarity of the moment lent the slight friction of his gauntlet against the trigger an intolerable weight. He was intimately aware of the grains of dust from the white rain grinding between the metal surfaces. The tendons of his finger were tensed, the ending of an existence a fraction of a millimetre away. Such a small distance between life and oblivion.
'Please,' said the woman kneeling in the mud, her arms protectively around her children. 'Please.'
Pale rain pounded on Brusc's armour, running from its every curve in gritty rivulets. The rain plastered his hair to his scalp and ran into his eyes. It puddled in the hollow at the top of his cuirass, spilling from there in a fidgeting runnel. His tabard was heavy with the rain's silt load, the insignia whitened as if soaked in plaster. A finger of cold wormed its way downward across his chest, the sticky feeling of fresh foam seal¬ant creeping behind it. There was a tiny breach in the heavy plastek of his neckseal. A small wound inflicted on his wargear when his helmet had taken a hit had forced him to discard it.
All the universe telescoped inward. This world, this rebellion, his life, her life, all reduced to one fragment of time - a moment that hinged upon the mechanisms of his weapon, and the will that would set it into action.
Thick smoke rose from the settlement. They had hit the church of the Returning Emperor at the centre first. Other buildings had been tar¬geted and destroyed. They burned only briefly. The downpour put out the blazes, dousing the fury of the Space Marines and sending it out as black fumes to be lost in the towering forest.
The woman and children wore the plain robes of the cult. Only she looked up at the Space Marine, her offspring - a boy of around sixteen standard Terran years and a girl of about six - were bent double, pros¬trate in the mud. Hands over their faces, they appeared to be praying. Perhaps they were.
His hesitation encouraged the woman. She licked her lips free of the silty rain. 'We did not know we had done wrong, please. We repent! All we wish to do is follow the Emperor. If we honour him incorrectly, teach us,' she pleaded. 'You are an honoured Angel of Death! Have mercy, teach us. Please, please.' She clutched at her motionless children. The boy moaned.
Brusc kept his unwavering aim on the woman. His mind dispassion¬ately ran through what would happen to her should he perform his duty. The firing pin in his gun would detonate the initial propellant charge of the bolt in the chamber. This low-yield explosive would push the round from the barrel at sub-sonic speeds. Once free of the gun, the main pro¬pellant load would ignite, accelerating the bolt - in essence a miniature missile - twice the speed of sound over a space of half a metre. The momentum alone would blast the woman apart. After impact, the tiny machine-spirit of the munition would trigger the main charge upon the detection of a preset mass. That might be in her body - should enough of it survive the initial hit - if not, the ground. Either way, the woman would be split open, her innards spread between one point six and two metres around her. She would cease to resemble a human being. The shrapnel would probably kill her children instantly - he calculated sixty-three per cent likelihood for the boy, and seventy-four per cent for the girl. If not, they would die shortly after from their wounds. These probabilities were not good enough. Despite the preciousness of his ammunition, he would also spare a round for both of them, heretics though they were. He would not let them suffer. He was not a monster.
A flight of Land Speeders streaked overhead, grav-plates buzzing. Dis¬tant heavy bolter fire sounded from the edge of the town as they banked around. The lesser barks of bolt pistols blurted through the rain. Some¬where, someone was screaming.
Rain poured down his arm, running along the oath chain binding his bolter to his wrist. Drops pattered hurriedly from the links into the milky slur of the street, as if eager to be at one with it.
With one squeeze, he would turn that mud red. It was his duty. It was his oath.
And yet he did not fire.

THE HUMAN PRIOR of Majesty's monasterium bade Brusc halt before the door of the sanctum. He raised his staff, and intoned the ritual request.
'At this date of the year four hundred and twenty-six, millennium forty-one, Terran checksum one, in the tenth millennium of the most holy and beneficent Emperor's reign over the scattered scions of mankind at this time of the third hour of the second watch of the eighty-ninth day of the Madrigal Crusade and upon this, the most holy vessel strike cruiser Majesty, blessed be its name and purpose, Brother-Initiate Brusc of the Black Templars Chapter, rightful and most noble heirs to the Primarch Rogal Dorn, may his name ever be sacred, and his most holy cham¬pion Sigismund, makes a presentation for his inclusion to the most honourable Brotherhood of the Sword. He would take upon himself its responsibilities and its honours, its oaths and its vows.'
The prior rapped five times upon the doors to the Sanctum of the Maj¬esty. It was a broad entrance, peaked at the apex of the arch, wherefrom glowered the judging face of some long dead ecclesiarch. Brusc had been through that door thousands of times, but today it had a doomy signifi¬cance that made it novel and disquieting. The preacher was careful not to strike the bold red Templar's cross emblazoning the doors, though his staff made no mark upon the black-and-white checked plasteel that surrounded it. 'How does the temple answer?'
From speakers carried by cyber-cherubs fluttering overhead, a deep voice replied, 'Your entreaty is heard, Prior Godwine. Brother Brusc is expected. His presentation is accepted.'
Locks disengaged loudly and the doors parted. Air hissed with slight pressure difference as the seal was breached. Warmer air - redolent of incense, blood and sweat - blew from within.
Prior Godwine bowed, the lengths of the sacred maniple wrapped about his left arm brushed the floor.
'As you command, so I obey, Lord Chaplain Hrollo. Praise be.' The abbot stood and sketched the Templar's cross in the air before his face before turning to Brusc. The Space Marine bowed low and the prior dipped his forefinger and index finger into a silver vessel hanging at his waist. With sanctified rose oil, he drew the Templar's cross upon the crown of Brusc's head.
'You have the blessing of the Emperor, Lord Brusc,' said the prior. 'You may proceed. Praise be.'
Brusc rose, the servos of his armour whining on the edge of hearing. He towered over the human priest. The marks of failed second-stage implantation marred the man's skin. It was a wonder he still lived. 'Good luck,' said the prior.
Brusc nodded once. Ordinarily he might have a quip for the man; he was ever being reprimanded for his less than serious nature.
Not today.
He entered the Sanctum as solemn as a High Lord.

NEOPHYTE BRUSC GHOSTED over the moors under a mercilessly open sky, his light scout armour flickering with the false-image camouflage of cameleoline. Heather-like plants stretched off in every direction, heavy with small, tight blue flowers. Their twigs were slight but tough, closely packed and springy to walk upon. Brusc skimmed his feet carefully through them to avoid breaking the stems. He peered through the heather, avoiding the coarse sand or soft peat that would easily take a footprint. This manner of walking slowed the squad, but the xenos were fine trackers. Whatever the Black Templars could do to obscure their trail, they did.
The four neophytes and their initiate leader did not speak but moved cautiously, eyes watching for the xenos' avian spies when not search¬ing the ground.
Neophyte Parsival laid a hand on Brusc's shoulder. He pointed towards the sun. Hiding in its glare was a deltoid shape.
'You do it, brother. You are the better shot.'
Brusc lowered his visor over his eyes and raised his sniper rifle. The goggles adjusted and compensated for the sunlight, revealing a large, four-winged bird. Brusc zeroed in, and stroked the trigger. The gun's report was a gentle snap, generated by a needle-thin laser beam super¬heating the air.
The creature's wings folded and it plummeted into the heather. Blue flowers jerked and the avian was gone.
'Good shot,' said Parsival quietly.
'Well,' breathed Brusc. 'I think we can safely say they know we are coming.'
'That they will, neophyte,' said Brother-Initiate Amund, their mentor on this mission. 'Speed will serve us better now than stealth.'
The Templars covered the remaining three kilometres to the edge of the valley swiftly. They fell on their bellies ten metres from the brow of the hill and crawled to the brink.
Many unexpected valleys broke the moorland, steep-sided and deep. They were almost ravines, walled with crags of grey rock that sparkled with veins of quartz. Thin streams knifed along the bottoms, brown and swift. Trees gathered thinly round the boggy land that lined the streams, thickening into forest as the valleys deepened. This valley was no different.
Despite their earlier observation by the aliens' pet, the Black Tem¬plars had arrived unannounced. Spindly legged xenos went about their mysterious business. Their camp was split into three collections of tents, clustered on those rare patches of ground both flat and dry. Like their pets, the aliens were hexapods. They utilised all six limbs to propel themselves, rearing up their front third when they needed to bring their foremost paws - somewhat akin to hands - off the earth and into employment. Their throats sported crimson wattles, their skin was else¬where smooth and pink where it was not banded brown with natural, keratinous armour plates.
'Filth,' spat Parsival. 'I've not seen such degenerates before.'
'Oh,' said Brusc mildly. 'And your career in our order is already long and glorious.'
Parsival elbowed Brusc hard below the pauldron, where his arm was unarmoured. Once there were such amity blows, but rivalry had made them sharper. The longer they had been members of the Chapter, and the more their fellow recruits dwindled in number, the more they had grown apart in temperament.
'Silence,' whispered Amund. 'Concentrate on your task, or my report to your knights will not be favourable.' The initiate scanned the valley. 'Neophyte Lothic,' he asked. 'Give the squad a good course of action.'
'Assassinate their leadership and retreat,' Lothic replied instantly. 'We are ordered here on a disruption strike, and are well placed to execute our orders and be away before the xenos can respond.'
'Those are indeed our orders,' said Amund. 'You listened. Praise be.' Parsival disagreed. 'We should deploy two of us there.' He pointed at a crag whose top extended above the lip of the valley. 'One there and one there,' he said, indicating two other locations. 'I'd say work our way around the head of the valley, attack from two sides, but they have many of their eyes here.' A long perch was in the middle of the camp. The aliens' metre-high birds were tethered to it, hoods over their eyes. 'We risk discovery the longer we take.'
'If speed is of the essence, why then not attack from one place?' asked Amund.
'We will sow confusion amongst them. They are primitive, with little knowledge of firearms. They will locate us slowly if we are dispersed. Should one group attack, then the other pair may offer fire support. We can then withdraw once their leaders are dead. It is a balance. Expedi¬ency versus perfection.'
Amund pursed his lips and nodded. 'A not entirely foolish strategy, Neophyte Parsival. And what will my role be in this?'
Brusc spoke before Parsival could respond. 'Your role, brother, is to watch over Parsival, and ensure he does not slip and fall in his excitement.'
Amund scowled. 'Your levity is rarely welcome, Neophyte Brusc. You shall be disciplined for this when we return.'
Brusc's crooked smile vanished from his face.
'Now, perhaps you have something better to add? If not—'
'Actually, brother-initiate, I do,' Brusc interrupted. Amund motioned for him to continue. 'Parsival's split fire pattern is sound, although I would advise the placing of the second group further along the valley lip. The xenos will see us quickly enough, if they get their hawks into the air. Moving a little further out won't take much longer. I agree with Parsival that the further apart we are the better.'
'So you suggest caution?'
Brusc's smile returned. 'No, I advise that we finish every last one of them!'
'Those are not our orders,' said Amund reasonably. There was invita¬tion to disagree in his voice. 'Thirty-six of them and five of us. Are these good odds?'
'Thirty-six alien filth and five Black Templars, brother. We are a for¬ward group acting partly under our own initiative. This escalation of our goals is fitting, given the circumstances, and achievable.'
Amund nodded. 'See here, our sharp-tongued warrior might make a fool of himself, but he has the making of a true crusader. If presented with an opportunity to further the Emperor's plan, we should take it.
Recklessness is a fool's trait, and brings the fool's reward of death. But ours is not a timid order. Where it is possible to attack, to advance, without undue risk, then it is our duty to do so. Those are our ways. Brusc reminds us of them. Praise be.'
'Praise be,' responded the others, some more enthusiastically than others.
In five minutes the neophytes had worked their way into position. They waited, tense with expectation. Often in their impatience they looked from their gunsights to the place where their leader was hidden, indistinguishable from the heather in his cameleoline. Long minutes, then hours, saw the yellow sun track painfully through the sky. Small biting insects vexed them.
When the sun westered, shining from behind the Black Templars Amund finally gave the order to open fire.
The aliens were preparing their evening meal and were taken unawares. The first shot belonged to Parsival. The alien's head jerked back and it half turned, half reared as its left-hand leg set folded underneath it. With a sinuous motion, it toppled onto the short turf. The sound of the sniper rifle was a clack as quiet as a kicked pebble, and the fiend's death went unnoticed for vital seconds. Annoyed Parsival had beaten him, Brusc dropped two more in quick succession. 'He should have gone for the falconer,' he said, and cursed the lack of a clear line of sight to this most prominent target from his own position. By the time the second of his marks had died, the camp had erupted.
The xenos ran about, greatly agitated. They snatched up weapons slender, stone-tipped spears and atlatls to cast them, along with those few guns of low technology treasonously supplied to them by the Hamadad Collective. Their falconer whipped the hoods and leashes from his charges and had several of the large avians into the air before his brains were finally blasted out. The birds flew unerringly towards the neophyte's position. The aliens followed the line of their falcon's flight, pointing and hooting to the hilltop. Running on five limbs, the sixth holding their weapons free of the ground, the aliens galloped up the hill towards the Space Marines quicker than horses.
Brusc drew a bead on one heading right for him, and a dark shape blurred past his scope and his shot went wild. He rolled over to see the avian arresting its ascent to swoop down at him. Four wings buffeted the Scout, talons raking his face. He held his rifle crosswise over his chest as the bird scrabbled for his fingers with its claws. Brusc slammed it with his gun butt. The bird let out a piercing shriek and flapped away erratically, its wing injured. But the creature had bought valuable time for its masters. The xenos Brusc would surely have killed crested the ridge. A sweet stink came with it. Brusc discarded his sniper rifle and launched himself backwards, pulling his bolt pistol free. The things were as quick in their reactions as they were on their feet, and his opponent knocked his gun out of his hand with a slash of its spear. Brusc hurled himself at the alien. They grappled, Brusc's head pressed horrifically close to its broad face. They locked eyes, his clear brown to its widely set pupil-less black orbs. Hatred blazed equally from both.
The aliens were devilishly strong, and Brusc found himself grasped tight by its foremost two sets of limbs while it reared to its full height on its back legs. He shoved back, and they fell down the steep slope together. The creature rolled itself into a tight ball, its hooves and hands ripping at the Space Marine trapped inside the circuit of its body. They bounced rapidly to the valley floor, landing with a splash in the stream. Brusc wrenched out his combat knife and buried it to the hilt in between the thing's armour segments. It convulsed once, squeezing him pain¬fully, then flopped open. Brusc pushed the corpse aside.
A couple of the aliens had made the valley brink, where they duelled with Brusc's brothers, and many more littered the slopes. He watched one jerk backwards, a huge crater in its side leaking yellow fluid, felled by Amund's bolt pistol.
One came at him, feet splashing in the marsh. Brusc reached for his own pistol, but found an empty holster. His knife remained in the dead xenos. He searched the ground for a weapon as the alien came at him, brandishing a stone axe as big as a man's torso.
The mud dragged at Brusc's boots as he reached for the dead alien's spear. Both projectile and atlatl had fallen into the bog, but still he snatched the spear up. It was proportionate to the alien's size, too big for a human. Nevertheless, Brusc used it expertly, fitting the spear to the caster and hurling it with deadly force right into the alien's eye.
The creature tumbled over, skidding to a stop in front of Brusc.
The noise of battle was dying. Of the three dozen aliens, only ten remained, and half of these were running. Shots rang out uselessly from the creatures as they fell back. They were unused to such weapons, and they were of poor quality. Two more died from sniper shots before the xenos made it around a kink of the valley and to safety.
Victory was shouted from the valley sides, but Brusc was silent. His attention was fixed upon an amulet hanging from his second kill's neck; a piece of exquisitely carved amber. The work seemed too fine to have been made by such brutish hands. He bent forwards to pick it up, his hatred for the creatures replaced by curiosity.
'Hold there, brother,' said Amund, approaching from behind. He squelched into the bog. 'We do not take trophies from the likes of these. This is xenos work, unclean. Unfit to adorn a member of the Adeptus Astartes. Let the serf recorders take what they will for the Museum of Eradication. Brothers and neophytes shall not touch the work of the alien - that is the rule of our order.'
Brusc looked at his leader. He withdrew his hand.
'A good tactical choice, Neophyte Brusc,' said Amund approvingly. 'This world is closer to enjoying the holy tread of human feet, thanks to you. Soon these things will be extinct.' He gestured around the battlesite. 'Now aid your brothers in gathering this filth up. Burn them all.'

BEFORE HE WAS permitted into the chapel, Brusc was stripped of his armour. He was taken into a plain antechamber he had never set eyes on before. Monks from the Monasterium deep in the bowels of Maj¬esty waited for him within. They swarmed him, their faces pictures of furious devotion, and chanted the orisons of hatred as they tore at his oath papers, their fingernails scrabbling on his armour.
The tabard he had so carefully prepared for the ritual was wrenched from him, the fine embroidery of his name, crusades, worlds he had scoured and foes he had killed were torn to shreds. 'This is the mark of an initiate. You aspire to a higher order,' said the human preacher who ripped it free. Brusc kept his eyes ahead, emotionless.
Another took a sharp flint and gouged a scratch across the Templar's cross adorning his left shoulder pad. 'Black for the brothers, red for the Inner Circle!' The monk slit his palm open and smeared his blood over the cross.
From the other, his parchments of supplication were ripped.
'Kneel!' the lead preacher commanded. 'In the name of the Emperor, kneel!'
Brusc did so. Armoury servitors clumped out of alcoves, the fine keys and screwdrivers upon their multiple arms whirring. The servitors disen¬gaged his armour's bolts, unclasped the points, and the monks roughly took his battleplate from him. Then they scourged his bare flesh with whips, each serf naming a failing of Brusc's before he struck. He bore the stings of their weak blows without complaint or reaction.
When they panted from their exertions, they left. Shortly after, Brother-Chaplain Hrollo entered the room.
'Are you ready?' he asked gruffly. He wore his full war regalia: ornate power armour bedecked with skull and bones, some representations cast in plasteel or carved into the ceramite, the others relics of his honoured predecessors bolted to the larger plates. The cant of the Tem¬plars was chased into the burnished black surface in red gold. Brusc had never seen Hrollo's face, only and always the helmet cast in the shape of a skull.
Brusc stared ahead still.
'Yes, Brother-Chaplain.'
'Then I will begin,' Hrollo said, laying a heavy hand upon Brusc's head. 'In omnibus operibus tuis in conspectu Imperatoris,' intoned the Chap¬lain in richly rolling High Gothic.
'In the sight of the Emperor are all my deeds,' responded Brusc, his voice little more than a whisper.
'Imperatoris sunt verba audiente toto,' continued the Chaplain.
'In the hearing of the Emperor are all my words,' said Brusc.
'In cogitatione tua pietas Imperatoris,' said the Chaplain.
'My devotion is in the thoughts of the Emperor.'
'Tu quoque filius eius vindicem. Tu quoque filius eius militem.'
'I am his champion, I am his soldier.'
'Dignus es fides?'
'I am worthy of his trust,' said Brusc.
'Et vos accipere stabit?' asked Hrollo.
'I accept the challenge gladly.'
'Ita fiat. So be it. Praise be,' the Chaplain concluded. 'Brother Brusc, initiate of the Black Templars Chapter, son of Rogal Dorn, you may enter the Circle of Honour. Praise be to His name, and to His holy mission.'

'LEAVE HIM!' SAID Mekal. He tugged at Garsanhuk's sleeve. 'He has failed the test.'
Garsanhuk looked helplessly at his friend, Ketekehan. He had expected that not all of them would survive the trial, that they would die in the Forbidden Lands of Fergax. Seeing it was another matter entirely. Ket¬ekehan was unconscious, his leg swallowed by a pit in the sparse grass and impaled upon a gleaming spike of rustless metal.
'They left it here, the star warriors. He did not see it. It is a part of the trial. He is not worthy!'
'If we leave him, he will die,' said Garsanhuk. Already Ketekehan's skin had gone a ghostly white, and Garsanhuk's hands were red with his blood. 'His bleeding will not stop.'
'He will die anyway, even if we save him!' said Mekal. 'The star war¬rior said there was only death or success. No other way. He knew this as well as you or I do.'
Garsanhuk got to his feet reluctantly. The pit in the sandy soil was shallow and filling with blood.
'Come on now,' said Mekal, encouragingly. 'We are aiding each other. This is a rare thing. Do you think Jukal or Velatahan will help each other?' Garsanhuk shook his head slowly.
'See! I feel sorry for Ketekehan. He is my friend also. But we are differ¬ent, hey? We are as good as brothers. That's why we'll win. We're going, you and I. We're going to join the war in the stars! Brothers forever?' Mekal held out his hand.
Garsanhuk smiled wanly and grasped Mekal's forearm. 'Brothers forever.'
'Come on! It's getting late. If you feel sorry for him, offer him mercy.' He patted his knife.
Garsanhuk looked from Mekal to Ketekehan. 'I can't.'
'How many throats have you cut?'
Garsanhuk shrugged. 'Ten?'
'Then why not eleven?'
'Because this is Ketekehan, not some driftspinner from the woods!' Mekal shook his head. 'Gar, Gar, Gar! Always ready with some joke or other, but underneath the bluster you're soft. This is a kindness. The krossovore will get him. Do you want him to be eaten alive? Because I don't. If you won't, I'll do it.'
Mekal pulled out his own knife, a fine weapon forged by his father, its furniture carved from the tooth of one of the ferocious predators of Fergax. He slit Ketekehan's throat adroitly. The other boy did not wake. The pulse of blood from his neck was sluggish.
'Nearly dead already anyway,' said Mekal. He stabbed his knife into the ground to clean it before he sheathed it. 'But it is better to be sure.' He set off at a jog. 'If we hurry, we'll make the third marker by night¬fall!' he called back.
With a backwards glance for their dead friend, Garsanhuk set out after Mekal.

A PLAIN RING of sand fifteen metres across in a room of unadorned metal - that was one manifestation of the Circle of Honour. A single strong lumen globe shone directly above it, lighting the sand as bright as any desert, but leaving its margins in shadow. There in darkness stood hooded Black Templars. This was the other manifestation of the Circle of Honour - the Sword Brotherhood to which Brusc aspired. Here were the Crusade's mightiest warriors and officers, and they waited in judgement.
They parted ranks to allow Brusc into the ring. His and Hrollo's footsteps spoiled the perfect surface. The armoured Hrollo sank deep into the sand. Brusc less so, naked but for a loincloth.
Hrollo held up Brusc's hand. 'Here is an aspirant to the inner circle of our Chapter. Is he worthy of the challenge?'
'Aye,' said one.
'He is.'
'Yes,' said another.
One after another the Sword Brethren gave their consent. None bar the crusade's three Chaplains wore armour. Their faces were hidden by black hoods. Half-blinded by the harsh spotlight, Brusc struggled to pick out the individual heraldries embroidered upon the tabards below their red Sword Brothers' crosses. He knew them all, of course. Somewhere among them would be Brother Castellan Adelard, his one-time mentor, and the crusade's second-in-command. Only then did Brusc notice that there were twenty-three brothers there, not the twenty-two he expected.
'It is decided. He is worthy,' said Hrollo, when the last brother had spo¬ken. A Chapter-serf, one who had voluntarily undergone the removal of his eyes and ears so that he might serve this most august body with¬out betraying it, came into the ring. He knelt and held up a longsword in a rich scabbard. For a pommel, it had a Templar's cross cast in brass and was sized for the giants of the Space Marines, but otherwise it could have been a knight's weapon of ancient Terra.
'This is the Sword of Challenge, hallowed by the blood of failed aspir¬ants to our order. You will only ever hold its like within this circle. Be honoured. Now draw it, and test your mettle,' commanded Hrollo.
Brusc did so. He tested the weapon's heft and balance, and sighted down the plain steel edge. It was a very fine blade. He pressed the cross¬guard to his lips and kissed it, muttering a quick prayer to the Emperor. He took up a guard stance, blade gripped in both hands up by his right shoulder.
'Send in his opponent!' called Hrollo. He held up his crozius arcanum and let it fall, stepping to the side of the ring. 'To first blood! Praise be!'
The twenty-third brother stepped forwards, and pulled down his hood.
'We meet again, brother.'
'Parsival?' asked Brusc. His guard wavered.
'Surprised to see me, art thou?' Parsival said mockingly. 'The test must be completed to certain forms. Brothers forever, we used to say on Fergax. Who better to test a man than those closest to him?'
A pair of serfs came forwards and removed Parsival's robe. Under¬neath he was dressed as Brusc, naked but for his loincloth.
'They brought me here especially for this trial. I am one of them now, had you not heard? I am ahead of you now as I always was.' Parsival smiled. He had always been colder, more driven than Brusc, even when he had been Mekal. But an arrogance had bloomed in him that Brusc did not like. 'Twenty years it's been since we fought side by side.' Par¬sival took an axe and a spike-headed flail from the arming serf. 'Shall we see what you have learned?'
With that he launched himself at Brusc. He held the flail back, bring¬ing the axe down hard towards his one-time friend's head. Brusc parried it fluidly and circled back.
'I am the match of you, Sword Brother or not,' said Brusc. He was not as sure as he appeared. Who knew what Parsival had learned himself in the last two decades?
Parsival spun the head of his flail round until it whooshed noisily. 'I have outgrown your skill at arms.'
Parsival swung with the mace, entrapping Brusc's sword with the weapon when he parried. The axe followed. Brusc was ready. Taking a swift backwards pivot he yanked the flail from Parsival's hand, moved aside from the axe blow. Parsival was pulled forwards, leaving him at the mercy of a hard strike from the pommel of Brusc's sword.
Parsival fell down, stunned. Blood welled from his head, though the wound was quickly staunched by the blood-gift of the Emperor.
'You might be right. Perhaps you are the better Black Templar, dear Parsival,' said Brusc, looking down at his friend. 'But we both know I have always been the better warrior.'
'The test is decided. Brusc has triumphed, and swiftly,' said Hrollo. 'Praise be!'
'Praise be,' replied the knights of the Inner Circle.
Brusc reached a hand down to Parsival. After a moment's hesitation he took it. 'Well fought,' said Brusc. Parsival managed a grudging nod of acknowledgement.
'Long have we watched you. By your skill at arms here, you have proved our assessment of your abilities correct. Now, you have one last test to pass,' said Hrollo.
The Circle of knights parted and the Chaplain gestured to a slim door they revealed. It was as plain as if it were the portal to a prison cell.
Brusc looked to the faces of the Sword Brothers and war-priests around the challenge circle, but they looked away from him. Only Hrollo's ruby helmet lenses stayed upon his face.
Brusc took a deep breath and tipped his sword forwards. The flail rattled down its length and fell to the floor. The door opened at his approach and closed behind him, sealing him into a thick gloom.
The room on the other side was also circular and bare of adornment but smaller than the first. A larger door faced the small entrance. In front of it stood a Dreadnought, Ironclad class. The hard lines of its armour were picked out by the light of two flambeaux leaning out from the walls on chains. Otherwise, the room was unlit.
The Dreadnought was inert. His name was engraved deeply into scroll work upon the sarcophagus: Cantus Maxim Gloria. Honour scrolls and a prayer cloth were affixed all over the machine. The Templar's cross worked in the red and black of the Sword Brotherhood - repeated over and again upon his joints. The mounts for his carapace weapons gleamed bare, but his arms had been mounted for reasons of balance. On the left it carried a power fist and on the right a hurricane bolter, both lavishly worked with Cantus's deeds and name. The crusade honours that covered its shoulder plating were perforce rendered small, such was Cantus Maxim Gloria's honourable history. They referred not only to the cur¬rent occupant's accomplishments, but to those of the men who had been entombed within before him, stretching back to the dawn of the Imperium
Brusc dropped to his knees, his sword point down upon the floor. This was the crusade ancient, and one of the oldest living members of the Black Templars. Once a Templar was granted this ultimate respect, he gave up his prior existence. Thus, few knew who the warrior was interred within, but all were in awe of his wisdom.
With a rumble, the machine's engines started. With a jerk like a man emerging abruptly from sleep, Cantus came online. The chambers of his hurricane bolter clicked as internal systems checked its status. He rose higher as the hydraulic systems in his limbs pressurised and his fibre bundles contracted. It looked from side to side, then leaned forwards over Brusc, power fist whirring.
'You are the reason I have been awoken from my long slumber,' said Cantus.
'I assume so, crusade ancient. The mysteries of initiation are not revealed until they are undertaken.'
'Hrrrn.' Cantus's growl from his vox amplifiers might or might not have conveyed humour. 'I have been told of you, Brother-Initiate Brusc. You are light of tongue, if heavy in honour. It is your doom to be judged by me. Will you hear my verdict?'
'I will, brother ancient.'
'I fear you shall not like it, brother.'
Brusc's blood, still running hotly from his test in the ring, chilled instantly. He looked up at the Dreadnought. The armaglass slit in the sarcophagus glowed an eerie green, like the eyes of a dog in low light. 'What do you mean?'
'Heh, you forget your manners in your shock. You know what I mean!' said the machine. 'You are not worthy to join the Sword Brethren, not yet. Do not despair. You are strong of arm and will. But it is not yet your time.'
'But, why?' said Brusc. He felt no outrage, which surprised him. 'I beat Parsival… Is it my faith? Is it my—'
The Dreadnought shifted its weight, an unconscious movement that recalled Cantus's time as a man. The noise of his foot on the deck as he resettled himself rang loudly.
'It is not your faith. Your faith is strong, Brother-Initiate Brusc. Nor strength at arms the only qualification for acceptance to the Circle. Remind me of our motto, Black Templar.'
'No pity! No remorse! No fear!' shouted Brusc, the words pouring from him with pride and at full war volume. They boomed in the chamber.
'Yes, yes!' Cantus leaned back slightly. 'These words were not lightly chosen, initiate. Our creed is to pursue the enemies of the Emperor to the ends of the universe, to never cease in spreading the reach of His holy light. You are his instrument. Does a sword have a conscience? No! It is thrust where the warrior who bears it wills it to go. You are a sword in the hand of the Emperor. That is what it means to be a Sword Brother. Not only to be a master of the blade, but to be the blade of the highest, most holy master - the Lord of Mankind - and to act unthinkingly under his guidance. I have reviewed many of your battles, watch the pict captures of your helm. There is yet too much mercy in you. You! are not an arbiter, but the deliverer of judgement. Remember that, and your next admission to this room will prove more successful.'
The door behind Cantus Maxim Gloria squealed open.
'Now depart, Brother-Initiate Brusc. Wakefulness is taxing, and my sepulchre calls to me. I have been otherwise impressed by the deeds I have witnessed and if half what the others say of you is accurate, then I am proud to fight beside you.'
Cantus turned, an awkward manoeuvre for so noble a machine. One foot remained in place as the other stumped about in a half circle. He rocked from side to side as he moved. Once he had attained a half rotation, he walked from the room, his giant feet banging thunderously upon the deck. Brusc's face fell.
It took some time before he had gathered himself sufficiently to go back into the Place of Challenge and face the others.

THE WOMAN STARED into Brusc's eyes. As far as he could tell, this sect had done little to deviate from the norm of the Imperial Cult. He had seen far more divergent churches tolerated. Why were they here?
His conscience troubled him. He had taken an oath. There were to be no survivors. The heretics were to be expunged. At least these would have a clean death. Already the Ministorum preachers that dwelt aboard Majesty were building great iron fire cages to purify those who had strayed from the true path.
The credo of his order was that of crusade - the liberation of worlds and the expansion of the Emperor's realm. Instead, he was upon an Imperial world, about to execute frightened children in their mother's arms. Who was he to deliver their judgement? Let some other dirty their hands. His gun wavered. Gritting his teeth, he brought it back to bear on the woman, before giving up completely.
With an explosive exhalation, he put up his gun. His cheeks burned with shame.
'Get out of here,' he said hoarsely. 'Go on, repent. Be true to the teach¬ings of the one true faith until the end of your days, or as I stand here before you I swear I shall hunt you down and kill you all.'
The woman let out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. She pulled herself from the quagmire. With frantic, shaking hands, she pulled her catatonic children up after her.
'Thank you, thank you!' she said.
'I do not want your thanks!' said Brusc. 'Get out of here!'
They staggered into the sheeting rain, slipping in the mud and disap¬pearing out of sight around the side of a monolithic forestry machine.
With the weakness of his mercy leaden in his chest, Brusc returned to the fight.