Heresy Ad Infinitum – Part II

Heresy Ad Infinitum – Part II

By Tim Sweeney

II

‘By the grace of the Phoenician, enough Cerck!’

The Night Lord paid Holcius no mind, kicking an iron shelving unit laden with ammunition, causing it to tumble over as though it weighed nothing. The frame crashed to the deck, accompanied by crunch of flakboard crates and a tinkling cascade of brass shells.

‘Let me up,’ Virhaddon muttered, his words barely audible over Cerck’s keening.

Dagmar, still squatting over his chest, did not acknowledge the words.

“Dagmar, I said let me up,” Virhaddon said, louder this time.  The Alpha Legionnaire tilted his head to the side, as though listening to a voice only he could hear.  Their eyes locked.

“Dagm-

-ar.

Virhaddon tried to close his eyes against the horrible nothingness he floated in, but they would not respond.

“I am Alpharius,” came the whisper from his left.

You are Vido Dagmar. The words were not spoken, so much as they tore a hole in his skull and gouged their way inside.

He shuddered, knowing, somehow, that he would be next.

“I am Alpharius,” still proud.  Still defiant.

You are Vido Dagmar.

“I am Alpharius,” a whimper this time.

You are Vido Dagmar.

“I am Alpharius!” An agonised scream.

You are Vido Dagm-

“-ar,” Virhaddon tore his eyes away from the Alpha Legionnaire’s as he repeated the other Marine’s name.  An impossible dizziness gripped him, unlike anything he had experienced since he had left mortality behind. 

After a heartbeat, Dagmar nodded, eyes flickering back to the Night Lord. The Alpha Legionnaire kept his wicked blade in his hand, hiding it in the folds of his robes.

Virhaddon pulled himself to his feet, resisting the urge to place a trembling hand on the shoulder of his brother Legionary; his brother traitor.

He felt weak. Slow, like the arthritic old man he would never become.

Cerck slashed his lightning claws down through a work bench, the metal screeching as it was torn in half.  Miniature blazes puffed into existence and were extinguished mere seconds later, wreathing the blood-red gauntlets in sputtering flame, the pools of lubricating oils and sacred unguents providing a fine fuel.

‘Brother,’ Virhaddon called, voice hoarse. ‘Please, calm yourself.’

The Night Lord spun upon him then, claws squealing painfully as he ripped them free of the steel bench.

‘I am not your brother, traitorous filth!’ he hissed, lank black hair hanging over his maggot-pale face.  He crouched low to the deck, shoulders hunched, his body arched as though he were in horrible agony.

‘According to the Sigilite, that is exactly what makes you brothers,’ Usker’s voice was as emotionless as always, but he still held Cerck’s boltgun in his mechanical hands, the weapon trained unwaveringly upon its owner’s head.

Virhaddon was disgusted when he noticed that Nu’kim, perhaps the only Marine present besides Holcius that he truly called friend, had joined with the Iron Hand, his own combi-weapon aimed squarely at the ‘traitors’.

Holcius stepped calmly between the two groups, hands raised. He looked almost serene, a friendly smile upon his face despite the galaxy shaking news of the past few minutes.

‘Please, my brothers, let us all be rational here,’ the Emperor’s Child said. ‘Whatever the truth, it does not change the weeks of friendship we have shared aboard this vessel. We are all trapped here togeth-‘

He cut off abruptly. Virhaddon watched, wide-eyed, as a small, perfectly-round hole appeared in the centre of Holcius’ forehead. The purple-armoured Marine went cross-eyed for a heartbeat, as though trying to look inward to see what had so rudely interrupted him.

Then, with the dull crump so familiar all members of the Legiones Astartes, the head of the Emperor’s Child detonated in a fountain of gore and bone.

Usker was still seated, the bolter in his hands smoking faintly.

‘This is the only truth,’ Usker stated as Holcius’ headless body toppled to the deck with a resounding crash. ‘By the decree of the Emperor’s right hand, you are all traitors. Surrender now, or be terminated.’

Virhaddon glanced at Nu’kim. A look of shock registered upon the Salamander’s normally taciturn features as he stared at the body of their friend. The obsidian-skinned warrior noticed his gaze and slowly, almost imperceptibly shook his head.

So, he would stand with the Iron Hand.  Virhaddon was not surprised; he was not sure if he would have acted differently had the situation been reversed.

‘So this is how it will be, then?’ spat Cerck, edging closer to Nu’kim. ‘Our loyal brothers taking the third-hand retelling of words attributed to the Emperor’s bloody secretary as the truth that determines whether we live or die?’

‘You murder one of us – a friend, no less – in cold blood, and yet we are the traitors?’ Dagmar added.  He barked a short laugh, face still hidden inside the hood of his robe, dagger secreted in the folds of his robe.

‘Yes, you are,’ buzzed Usker, unmoved. The pool of blood from the stump of Holcius’ neck had reached the Iron Hand’s boot, staining the black armour.

‘Your thoughts on this, brother?’ Virhaddon addressed Nu’kim. The Salamander was being too quiet.

‘Surrender,’ he said after a moment. ‘Even if what Malcador says is true, you three have not strayed. I am sure the Sigilite will show you mercy.’

‘Mercy?’ Cerck threw back his head, roaring with bitter laughter. ‘What cruel twist of fate saw the day arrive where the Legiones Astartes should beg for mercy, from a mortal no less?’

‘Please, brothers,’ said Nu’kim, a near-echo of the dead Emperor’s Child.

‘I grow tired of talk,’ said Usker, midnight-blue bolter grasped in mechanical hands.

‘Me too,’ hissed Cerck, once again activating his clawed gauntlets with a mind-impulse.

‘Is this how it has to be?’ asked Virhaddon, rhetorically; he knew it was; it always was. Even as he spoke, he reached behind his back, grasping for the holdout bolt pistol he kept mag-locked to the inside surface of his power plant.

In response, Usker and Nu’kim opened fire.

- – -

‘It is rare for the Loyalists to take first blood,’

‘And yet it always ends the same, does it not?’

And indeed, the Heresy always ended the same way.