Blood of Asaheim

Epilogue



The chamber was carved from a dark, glossy stone that reflected the light strangely. It wasn’t even clear where the light came from; it seemed to spin out of the air between ebony pillars, each one rough-cut and many-faceted, just like the walls and floor. The place looked like it had been carved from the heart of an asteroid.

Which it had: the room was a single node within Clandestine Station U-6743, operating under the auspices of the sub-adjutant proximal command group Theta-Lode-Frier, one of several thousand outposts placed at the disposal of Deathwatch kill-teams and scattered throughout the galaxy.

Seven Space Marines stood in the centre of that eerie, echoing space. Callimachus of the Ultramarines, Leonides of the Blood Angels, Jocelyn of the Dark Angels, Prion of the Angels Puissant, Xatasch of the Iron Shades and Vhorr of the Executioners had already received their skull pendant, the mark of their service during the incident in the Dalakkar Belt in which forty-six billion souls had died. They remained silent, their unmoving armour-shells as black as the stone that enclosed them. The atmosphere was one of resigned stoicism. None of them had enjoyed seeing the results of their last mission, not even Xatasch, whose humours were dark.

Only Ingvar remained. He stood among his brothers, his left shoulder guard as grey as dirty snow and bearing the insignia of Berek Thunderfist’s Great Company.

Callimachus, helm-less like the rest of them, approached him. The Ultramarine tried to smile reassuringly. It was hard for any of them to smile after Dalakkar, but he did so for the sake of form. His Chapter placed much store by the manners of occasion.

‘Last of all, the Son of Russ,’ said Callimachus, holding the pendant before Ingvar.

When he had joined Onyx, a mortal lifetime ago, Ingvar would have resisted bowing his head to anyone, let alone a Space Marine of another Chapter. Now such inhibitions had melted away. The long years, each one filled with strange horror-breeds and murderous missions in the dark, had changed him. He had studied the Codex with Callimachus. He had learned the beauty of sword-craft from Leonides. He had learned advanced void-war tactics from Jocelyn, the use of battle-shield variants from Prion, ancient methods of infiltration from Xatasch and close-range bolter techniques from Vhorr.

Like all of them he had become an amalgam, a lethal mix of different martial orders. At times that made him feel stronger than he had ever felt; at times it felt like he had lost his soul.

So he bowed before the Ultramarine, ready to receive the mark of his duty, and, as he saw it in his darkest moments, his shame.

Callimachus placed the pendant around his neck.

‘You have had the longest journey,’ he said.

Ingvar felt the iron chain settle on his flesh. Once he had been used to bearing all manner of totems and charms on his battle-plate, such as the soul-ward he had given to Baldr as a token of their unbreakable friendship. Now, like so much else, adorning his sable armour seemed strange, like rehearsing the moves of a half-forgotten dream.

‘We have all travelled,’ he replied. Little difference existed between his voice and that of Callimachus; even their spoken Gothic, once thickly differentiated by accent and idiom, had merged into similarity.

‘And now we must travel again, but apart,’ said Callimachus. ‘I grieve to lose your friendship. When we first met I thought you nothing better than a barbarian. Now I know you have a warrior’s heart and a scholar’s mind. I learned a lesson from you, Ingvar, one I will take back to Macragge.’

Ingvar bowed. ‘Our paths may cross again.’

Callimachus smiled. ‘If they did, we would be honour-bound to say nothing. I would look on you with haughty eyes, and you would snarl at me with contempt, and our brothers would approve.’

‘Because they are ignorant.’

‘Because they are pure.’

Callimachus looked solemn and regretful. He always looked solemn and regretful, like a statue carved from pure-grain nobility.

‘We have become mongrels, forever destined to bestride two worlds. It will be hard to return. It will be hard to become what we once were.’

‘But we will.’

Callimachus gave him a hard look. ‘Will you, Ingvar? Will you forget what you have learned when you tread once more on the cold plains of Fenris?’

Ingvar held his gaze. ‘I intend to forget nothing.’

‘Do not expect to find your home world as you left it. Do not expect your battle-brothers to be the same as they were. You may never tread in the same river twice.’

‘So you said to me before,’ Ingvar said. ‘But you forget, brother, I am still a Son of Russ. We are the arrogant ones, the boastful scions of a boastful primarch, and we do not respond well to being told what we may or may not do.’

Ingvar smiled then too. It was a warped smile, one that reflected the infinite horrors he had witnessed, one that still betrayed a certain guilty pride.

The onyx skull hung against his breastplate, dark against the sable ceramite. Already it felt like a repository of secrets.

‘With us,’ he said, ‘anything is possible.’