Blood Gorgons

CHAPTER TWO

GAMMADIN WAS DEAD.

Those were the words that echoed aboard the Cauldron Born. From the fortress‐ship’s hammerhead prow, word spread quickly of their champion’s death. Cries of alarm could be heard in the ship’s temple bowels, and sorrow radiated out into thousands of chambers and connective corridors of the floating fortress. The daemon bells were tolled and the ship fired broadsides in salute. Many did not believe the news. It should not, nay, it could not have happened and some refused to accept it.

Lord Gammadin had been their master when the Gorgons were first created in the 21st founding. He had been their shepherd when the Imperium declared them renegade –

Excommunicate Traitoris – mere centuries later, and it was he who parted the warp‐sea to lead them into the Eye of Terror. The Blood Gorgons knew no other commander.

Even the ship itself strained in mourning. As an artefact of Blood Gorgons biological experimentation – pseudo‐surgery and daemonology – all eight kilometres of the vessel seemed to tremble. It was said that the floating fortress had been grafted with the flesh of a daemon prince and that organic matter had been cultivated to merge with the ship’s engines, spawning a spirit that inhabited the circuitry. Gammadin was its master and the ship was his steed.

Panic and disturbance accompanied the news of his passing. The captains of the companies, nine in all, retreated to their lairs within the labyrinthine depths, drawing around them their most trusted warriors. None knew what the following days would bring, but they knew well enough not to act in haste.

Sabtah the Older, Chapter Veteran, slipped into a berserk rage. He had been Gammadin’s blood bond, having exchanged excised organs and blood with him in the Rituals of Binding. The death of his bond drove Sabtah insensate with grief and fury.

It was recorded in history that when Gammadin had first begun to experiment in daemonology and the rituals that would form Blood Gorgons custom, Gammadin had been bound to his most trusted lieutenant, Monomachus. Utilising the superhuman constitution of an Astartes, Chirurgeons had transfused blood and nurtured organs from excised tissue into prospective bonds. Using Gammadin’s knowledge of arcane lore, rituals of the forgotten text were followed, creating an almost supernatural connection between those who survived the procedure.

Together, Gammadin and Monomachus led the Blood Gorgons to raid and terrorise the shipping lines of the Segmentum Obscurus. So attuned were they, that in battle the pair could orchestrate intuitive tactical decisions without communication. During the War of the Wire, Gammadin had sensed Monomachus’s beleaguered disposition and sent reinforcements from two star systems away, despite the oceanic gulf of distance.

For four centuries they fought as parallel twins until Monomachus angered the gods and his form was corrupted into that of a spawn. It was said that Gammadin was greatly shamed by this and slew Monomachus himself, an act that would have caused him considerable physical pain. By now, Gammadin was a warrior so great, with blood so rich 13

and vibrant with the power of Chaos, that no mere aspirant could hope to be blooded to him.

Following Monomachus, numerous unsuitable aspirants were killed by the rich blood of Gammadin. Rituals of Binding were dangerous, both through the traumatic shock of surgery and the whims of daemonic spirits. Although Gammadin’s experience was vast, he could not share it, for dozens of aspirants died or went mad in the rituals of transfusion and excise.

It was not until Sabtah – an inductee from the legion plains of Symeon – that a bond showed promise. The aspirant endured months of torture on the operating slabs, his body sent into shock by the process of plasma binding, until he emerged as a young charge of the great Gammadin. For the next three thousand, six hundred and fifty‐one years, Sabtah the Older had become Gammadin’s brother, growing stronger and wiser through their synergy.

And now Gammadin was dead.

THE MAZE OF Acts Martial, a sixty‐hectare section of interior combat facilities set beneath the engine decks of the Cauldron Born, was littered with corpses. Narrow ossuaries meandered into charnel houses where the bones of slain ‘training prey’ filled the walls. These macabre displays formed neat lattices, while bare skulls of all species formed low pyramids. Even the floors were snowy with a build‐up of bone powder. Each time prey was released into the maze, the Blood Gorgons interred them where they fell, and in the preceding centuries, the Blood Gorgons trained often.

‘Push to the left. The prey is on your left, at thirty degrees,’ Sargaul whispered into his vox‐link.

But Barsabbas didn’t need to hear the command. He could already judge by the way Sargaul stood, the angle of his helmet and the urgency in his voice, that their prey was on his left. Such was the shared experience of a blood bond that Barsabbas fired before he took aim through his bolter scope, so sure was he of Sargaul’s warning.

The termagant was shredded by the salvo of shots. The plates on its forehead crumbled away as its frontal lobe exploded. Its bulbous hind legs loosened out from underneath it and the creature collapsed, its thick tail straightening. As it died, its thigh muscles continued to work, twitching and kicking the last of its life away.

A kill counter chimed in the corridor, signalling a successful training shot. ‘Perfect,’

Sargaul said, slapping the back of Barsabbas’s bulky power pack. ‘But next time, do not wait. Aim your shot if you can spot it. Our blood bond allows us to kill efficiently together, not through some rigid singularity.’

Barsabbas nodded intently as his blood bond spoke. Bond‐Brother Sargaul was an experienced warrior with almost six decades of service to his trophy racks and although Barsabbas had been bonded to him since his early days as a neophyte, they were markedly different. Barsabbas was young, at least for a Traitor Marine. He had been plucked from his family as a child and survived the test and ordeals required to become a neophyte. At the cusp of adulthood he had been selected to bond with Sargaul and survived the ritual of excise that transplanted their major organs and homogenised their blood. Since then, he had only served as a fully fledged bond‐brother on two major tours and a dozen minor raids.

Physically too, Barsabbas differed from his bond. Where Sargaul reached almost two hundred and fifty centimetres tall in bare feet, Barsabbas was short for a Traitor Marine, 14

topping out at two metres thirty in plated height. While Sargaul was long in the hamstrings and forearms, Barsabbas was wide and thick in the legs. Although their differences would go unnoticed among humans, who viewed all Astartes as uniform giants, a Space Marine perceived such subtle differences in stature and interpreted accordingly. Theirs was a martial culture and Barsabbas had often felt the lesser of the bond. The pair were anything but the same.

‘That was sharp, brothers,’ said Sergeant Sica. ‘Gather on me for post‐training evaluation.’

The six Traitor Marines of Squad Besheba took a knee and began to break down the entire training session, from movement formations and firing patterns down to the finite details of xenos psychology and communications theory.

As the youngest of the squad, Barsabbas scribbled notes on a data‐slate while the others listened with the casual confidence of experience. There was the pair Hadius and Cython, impetuous and helmet‐less, both displaying knife scars on their cheeks and nose bridges, mirror images that perfectly aligned. There was stern Sergeant Sica with his chainaxe slung across his shoulders. Crouched next to him was Sica’s bond, Bael‐Shura, clacking his metal jaw, an augmetic replacement that had been purposely left jagged and rough‐cut. The downward point of his stalactite chin cemented Bael‐Shura’s face into a morose, forlorn grimace.

The sirens in the ossuary blared again, signalling the end of the session. Having dispatched the last of their prey, the six members of Squad Besheba picked their way down the corridor towards the caged exits.

They followed the trail of dead, the remains of those they had felled that day. Most had been lower organisms of the tyranid genus, smaller wiry animals that had been herded from the slave pens into the maze. The Chapter had recently procured a large quantity of such creatures from xenos slave drivers on the Edge Rift Worlds, and it seemed as if every training drill since then had involved using the captured tyranids. In truth, Barsabbas had grown bored of killing them. At first, the flocks of skittering, agitated little creatures had been a challenge. They leapt and bounced in defiance of the ship’s artificial gravity, running vertically up walls and racing across the ceilings like paper debris ejected from a venting pipe. But it had not taken Barsabbas long to recognise their patterns of movement and adapt his bolter drills accordingly. Soon, the challenge of shooting them became a chore, a mere series of ‘trajectory calculations’ to be hard‐wired into Barsabbas’s muscle memory through repetition.

The trail of dead was kilometres‐long. The Maze of Acts Martial needed to be large in order to accommodate the training requirements of the Blood Gorgons Chapter. Only in these rambling tunnels could the Blood Gorgons simulate the violent claustrophobia of a ship boarding action. A system of concentric corridors, murder holes and dead ends, it was perfectly adapted for the ship boarding actions of the piratical renegades.

The maze was so vast that slaves released into the labyrinth could hide for days, if not months, before Blood Gorgons squads found them again. At times, the slaves would be supplied with weapons and rations, so they could better mimic enemy action. It was not uncommon for slaves of higher intelligence to survive for periods of time, subsisting on fungus and condensation. They often converged into groups for survival, leaving behind the unmistakable remains of food scraps and refuse. Some lost their sanity and were driven to 15

cannibalism. Humans and orks were especially susceptible to such madness, prowling the maze in ghoulish packs.

BARSABBAS LED THE way as the maze sirens barked again, more urgently this time. The corridors were unlit and lined with porous granite that seemed to soak up light as well as it did blood. Relying only on the dimmest vision setting, Barsabbas probed the way with his chainsword. The persistent tolling of the bell swelled into an imperious clanging. This was no longer a signal that the training drills were over, Barsabbas realised. Somewhere, deep within the Temple Heart of their ship, a call had been issued for Chapter formation.

Barsabbas did not know why, but he knew Sargaul echoed his confusion. The temple bells were never rung, except in the event of Chapter‐scale war or calamity.

Quickening his pace, Barsabbas slashed away at a solid, gossamer curtain of spider webs through a passage that had been disused for centuries. Barsabbas was not sure what was happening. Stomping through the carcass of a termagant, he threaded his way towards the ship’s Temple Heart.

DEEP WITHIN THE ship’s core, the bells were sounding again and again. The twin bells swayed ponderously in their chancel arches, pounding out Gammadin’s swansong. Carved from ore stone, each bell was fifty metres from crown to lip and their echo could be heard clearly in the furthest points of the fortress‐ship. The Blood Gorgons knew the sound as the Apocalypse Toll – a herald of calamity.

For the past several days, the bells had been sounded at the passing of each ship cycle.

Now they were hauled with a climactic urgency to mark the Summoning. Gammadin’s death song would end only with the invocation of the Chapter’s patron daemon – Yetsugei.

Their peal woke the Dreadnoughts from their rusting slumber. The sixteen Dreadnoughts of the Blood Gorgons shifted sleepily as servitors anointed their machine joints. They were old bondsmen – some four thousand years old – locked in their coffins of war. They had earned their rest and did not wake for petty foibles, but even they recognised the apocalypse tolls.

The knells radiated outwards and down to the ship’s bowels, where the Blood Gorgons berthed the few rare armoured machines they still maintained. These Rhinos and Land Raiders from the ancient past were now hollow shells inhabited by dormant spirits. At the crack of the bells, the engine daemons started, their motors throaty with promethium-phlegm. Some of the armoured carriers jolted forwards, pulling against the shipping chains that lashed them to the decking. They growled and revved, suddenly excited, like leashed dogs straining towards bait. The Cog’s Teeth, a Rhino‐pattern armoured carrier, broke free of its moorings and crashed into a far wall, crumpling the bulkhead. Servitors rushed forwards to calm the daemon spirit within, splashing its tracks with blood to satiate its rage.

All throughout the Cauldron Born, from the central barracks to the most crooked of forgotten passages, all were summoned to the temple at the core of the cruising leviathan.

The temple matched the bells in their size and grandeur. The ribcage of a dead beast ridged the domed ceiling; intercostal spaces were filled with personal shrines, each maintained daily by one of the nine hundred Blood Gorgons. Some were tall and narrow, like grandfather clocks, while others were squat cubbies brimming with offerings of spent bolter casings, ears, teeth and baubles.

16

THE TEMPLE.THE Pit.Daemon’s cage.

Muhr and his coven were painting the geometrics onto the marble floor with careful strokes of their ash brushes. The Chirurgeon‐witches, nine in number, were barefoot and clad in loose black robes. They appeared as ants against the wide, featureless expanse of the marble dais, yet they painted with tiny brushes, tracing precise triangles and interconnected pentagrams. These wards had been inscribed on the domed walls too, painted via scaffolding that swayed gently in the gravitational lurch.

The pit smelled of sorcery – incense, braziers, oil and acidic paint. Of slow, focussed intensity. Muhr and his witches could make no mistake. The slightest error in the wards would be unthinkable.

Elusive and ever clandestine, the Chapter knew to leave the witches to their own rituals.

The coven were not blood bonded like their brethren, and from this there grew a rift between the witches and the companies. It was a respectful rift but a rift nonetheless.

Unseen by others, the witches had cleaned themselves first, a ritual cleansing that washed away all their scent. The skin files and dermabrasion had left them pink and newborn, which would not give away their musk to the warp ghosts, or so the ritual claimed.

Once the last wards were laid, and the bells finished tolling, the Chapter would gather for summoning.

YETSUGEI WAS AN old daemon. Older than the Imperium, than Terra, old even when men still fought with sword and shield. He was known by many names, and had appeared under many guises throughout the history of man.

But he was not strong. Not strong in the way a greater daemon, or even a warlike daemon prince, was strong. He was a mischievous daemon, a trickster.

He was also a patron. He had chosen the Blood Gorgons, for they, much like him, were rogues. They came to him for his prophecies and his knowledge, and he chose to humour them for he yearned for human company. Yetsugei enjoyed the petty foibles and insignificant dramas of their short lives.

When they summoned him, as they had done so for the past three thousand, six hundred and fifty‐one years, Yetsugei roared. As his avatar materialised on the prime worlds, Yetsugei spread his arms and shrieked. In truth he would have preferred a quiet summoning, but the humans responded well to theatrics.

There was a maelstrom of warp fire, coalescing into a spiralling column. With a clap of crashing air it disappeared and Yetsugei found himself in the familiar Temple Heart.

Pentagrammic wards criss‐crossed his vision like the interlaced bars of a cage. They sprouted from the wide marble floors and lanced down from the domed ceiling. Beyond the dais he could see the souls of the assembled Blood Gorgons. Patron or not, Yetsugei could not deny his daemon hunger. Given the chance, he would devour them all.

‘You intrude upon my slumber again?’ Yetsugei cawed, feigning shrill indignity. In truth, he had grown tired of the warp and a glimpse of the prime worlds was a welcome respite.

The Blood Gorgons psyker he knew as ‘Muhr’ stepped forwards and onto the dais, stopping shy of the external pentagram. ‘Yetsugei – the most grave and reverend. Baron of the Reef of Terror, what deeds you soon must hear! What sorrow you must behold, for we mourn the passing of our Great Champion.’

17

Yetsugei rolled his ropey shoulders. ‘Most dreadful to hear and even more so to see. But first, loosen my bonds, they are too tight.’ Yetsugei pretended to contort his daemonic form in discomfort.

Muhr crouched down and brushed a line with his hand. Pigment came away from the marble onto his palm. On his hands was a tiny smear, almost imperceptible considering the immense size of the marking, but it broke an external seal. It was a calculated risk, and a dangerous one at that, but Yetsugei knew the humans needed something from him and Muhr did not dare to antagonise him. He had other plans.

Yetsugei felt his confines loosen ever so slightly. Their souls grew brighter to him.

The daemon stretched languidly. ‘Ah. How these bonds make me weary.’ He yawned and opened one eyelid coyly. ‘Perhaps you can loosen another?’

‘So you say,’ Muhr replied coldly. He stepped back from the dais.

The witch was no fool, and he knew better than to trust a daemon. Although Yetsugei was their chosen patron, he was a deity and they his mere humans. He appeared to Muhr as a leaping shade, narrow‐waisted and smoky, with horns that formed an intricate crown atop his head – a towering pillar of unreality – a thing from another existence. They trusted him for his prophetic knowledge but not with their lives.

‘Amuse me, then. What favour would you crave of me?’

Muhr cleared his throat. ‘Lord Gammadin is dead.’

Yetsugei yawned. ‘How did Gammadin die?’

Muhr lowered his head solemnly. ‘Lord Gammadin and his warrior few embarked across the warp‐sea to claim a new slave world for harvest. But the pirates of the eldarkind had long ago colonised this world in secret. They were prepared and the battle was their theatre, their stage. We were ambushed and fought on their grounds. I was the only survivor.’

Yetsugei steepled his fingers and fixed his eyes on the witch. Muhr was a good liar, and it was clearly a story he had rehearsed and no doubt recounted many times. But a daemon could see deception against the fabric of reality. Although this was the story Muhr had told the Chapter, Yetsugei knew the witch was hiding his own involvement.

‘Yes, so you spake of his demise, that is not your present plight,’ the daemon purred. ‘It matters not the death of an old champion. Merely that you present a new one to the gods.’

‘Gammadin has appointed me sole guardian in his stead,’ Muhr recited.

The daemon knew this to be a lie too. There were other factions at play here and Muhr was simply one such cog in the machine. But Yetsugei did not reveal Muhr’s lie. He would enjoy whatever plot was to unfold.

‘Tell me, witch. How did he die?’ the daemon asked, baiting the witch to reveal more.

‘Slain by treachery,’ Muhr responded.

That was the truth this time. Yetsugei smiled.

‘I challenge that claim!’ said a low voice. ‘The witch has no proof.’

Yetsugei knew that voice. Sabtah! The daemon clapped with glee. ‘The bond of Gammadin! Come forth! Come forth!’

Sabtah stepped onto the dais from the audience. Yetsugei could see raw aggression rippling from the old warrior. ‘The wardship is mine to hold,’ he stated boldly.

‘So it should be!’ Yetsugei agreed eagerly, straining against the circle of ash and paint.

As he writhed, paint faded from the walls and several of the wards disappeared from the marble. His constraints were breaking. Souls grew closer, brighter.

18

‘Then denounce this man as a liar,’ Sabtah said, stabbing his forefinger at Muhr.

Yetsugei cocked his head. ‘I sense this witch has some power. A foreign power. Perhaps Gammadin has given you this power… or perhaps another…?’

Yetsugei could tell Muhr was beginning to wither under his attention. The witch was being influenced by greater powers, a rival patron perhaps? There was something more to this tale. Gammadin had not simply been slain by the dark eldar in an accident, leaving the witch a sole survivor.

Muhr’s eyes narrowed defiantly, as if sensing Yetsugei’s intent. ‘Gammadin chose me.’

Biding his time, the daemon leaned forwards and smiled at the witch and the old wolf.

‘You must enthrone an Ascendant Champion. Hear me this – do not displease the gods or there will come bad spirits. They will snatch good fortune from your grasp.’

Yetsugei was cracking the seals now. He strained against his weakening confines. He hungered for their souls. Reaching out with his hand, Yetsugei beckoned Muhr closer.

‘Daemon, begone!’ Muhr shouted suddenly, as if angered. He dispelled the coven’s bindings and unravelled the daemon back into the warp. There was a swirl of cold and the wards blackened to ash.

19