Indomitus Bellum Chapter 36

The Undead were everywhere, covering every wall they passed by. The corpses hung limply in their shackles of mould, like horrifying fruit hanging from a tree. They lined the passages and corridors; they hung from broken mechanisms and piled high upon empty munition trains. At one point a vast chasm fell away into pitch blackness, crossed only by a narrow bridge and corpses dangled from its beams, swaying slightly in a faint breeze.

Arvael had tried to count the bodies but he had given up after he had passed several thousand. The Undead were everywhere and he was convinced there was yet more to this place they had not seen. The lingering auras of despair and horror weighed heavily upon his soul and he was forced to erect potent mental walls against the gales of raw anguish they conjured. Mundane as they were the other Space Marines subconsciously grouped closer together, weapons facing out to form a ring of defence, but so far they had been unchallenged. The Undead did not react to their presence and of their makers there was no sign.

As they headed deeper Orath muttered, "How Frakking big is this place?"

Imix was at the fore, scouting their path and he replied, "There is no way to tell, it may only be a few compartments or it may equal the size of the whole ship."

Smyth had the Sword of Thiel in his hands, warily checking their rear but he said, "The Macragge's Honour is festooned with wards, how can no one have noticed this place?"

Arvael answered, "The mirror world is isolated, any Warp energies released here would not be detectable from the other side. We were fortunate to find a location it intersected with the Materium or we would never have been able to gain access."

Fiett inquired, "You have seen such things before?"

Yet Arvael replied, "Not I, but the Imperium has. The Space Wolves encountered such a phenomenon on the world of Charys, when they battled the accursed Thousand Sons. The Sorcerers there duplicated an entire planet; one ship is no great feat in comparison."

They paused as they found a T-junction and the Intercessors pointed their bolt rifles down each route, yet all they saw were more Undead. Imix sniffed the air then turned right and led them onwards. As they walked Sergeant Yones asked, "How can there be so many bodies? Where did they all come from?"

Arvael pointed out, "These are low-ranking crewmen or scavengers, nobody who would be missed."

"But so many people," Yones muttered, "That must have drawn comment,"

However Smyth explained, "This is an Imperial warship, how many hundreds of people die every day in the bowels of even an average vessel? Accidents and misfortunes, old age, starvation, faulty life support systems, gang wars between scavengers and that's before one considers losses to enemy action. The Macragge's Honour has seen battle recently and nobody would comment upon another thousand missing personnel after a particularly vicious engagement."

Orath hefted his Thunder Hammer and asked, "What do we think all these Undead are meant to do?"

Arvael replied grimly, "This many Undead could only be intended for a huge offensive. Someone is planning to attack the Macragge's Honour from the inside."

Smyth sounded alarmed as he speculated, "They would materialize inside our defences, overrunning us before we could realise what is happening. If they did this mid-battle the results would be catastrophic, they could obliterate the High Command of the Crusade at its most vulnerable moment."

Suddenly Imix stiffened and held up a fist. Everybody froze as he ghosted forward, checking around a blind corner, then the Shade-Seer waved for them to advance. Arvael followed him around the bend and was surprised to see an ornate arch, surprisingly free of the fungal growths. It had once been marked with symbols of the Mechanicus but those had been hacked out and replaced with baleful icons that hurt the eye to look upon. Even with all his Librarius training Arvael averted his eyes, avoiding the corrupting influence as he followed Imix through the arch.

They found themselves emerging into a huge chamber, shaped like a seven-sided Heptagon. It was ringed with pillars that supported a high roof and various plinths and rotten pews, surrounding an elevated platform. Arvael instantly recognised a Mechanicus Forge-Fane, once a place for the Tech-Priests of Mars to practice their devotions to the Machine God but one that was defiled in every way possible.

The walls were coated in the same fungus as the rest of this mirror dimension, growing leafy fronds that waved and beckoned as if underwater. The floor was etched in mathematical formulas but these had been marred by clumps of mulch, changing the equations in ways that would drive any man insane were they to try to comprehend them. Black-iron lanterns hung from sconces, crackling with dirty flames that produced choking smokes. The pews were buried under columns of mould, growing upwards like stalagmites while the roof was overgrown with creeping vines. The air was thick with swollen black insects and darting flies, a veritable eco-system feeding upon the defilement of this place.

Around the platform a number of small plinths were topped with skulls, each one mutated in ways that were offensive to the purity of the human form. Some had horns arising from their foreheads or even three eyes instead of two or distended jawbones that almost made them resemble Ork skulls. All of them were facing away from the centre of the platform, where an altar squatted, a slab of stone about shoulder high to a human. It was encrusted with blood, thick black filth that ran down its sides to puddle on the floor.

Once glance made Arvael gag, the psychic aura of the altar hitting him like a bucket of excrement to the face. A foul brume gusted off the altar, filling the fane with torpid energy, a sense of lethargy and stagnation that was almost overwhelming. The entire place was drenched in the power of decay, making him want to lay down and never get up again. Everything about this place was designed to crush mortal spirits, to break the will and leave only apathetic shells. It took all Arvael's mental defences to keep the languorous aura at bay and he was shocked that the others could not sense it.

The other Space Marines were advancing into the fane, weapons held ready as Imix declared, "We have found the epicentre, the font of the corruption and it is far worse than we ever imagined."

Smyth looked about and said, "Yones, take your squad and secure the entrances, this place won't be left unguarded for long."

Arvael followed the rest deeper within and as he did so Orath remarked, "More bodies." Arvael glanced at the pews and realised what he had taken for columns of mould were in fact people, fixed securely to their seats by cocooning tendrils of fungus. Their faces were pale and their eyes were closed, as if sleeping, but he could see their chests moving and he exclaimed, "These ones are still alive!"

However Imix refuted that, "No, this is not life."

Smyth peered closer and said, "He's right, they're infected, just like the curse on Inerus. These people are doomed to become undead. This must be where they are converted, before being stuck to the walls outside."

"This is an abomination," Orath growled, "We should destroy it."

Imix led them to the platform as he said, "Truth, but first we must understand how to achieve such an end."

Arvael, Smyth, Fiett and Orath joined Imix at the very centre of the fane and looked upon the altar. Arvael wanted to wretch as the altar disgorged unclean energies and he was forced to look away. Even Imix seemed reluctant to touch it, keeping his hands well clear of the blood stains but he observed, "Many lives were stolen here, many sacrifices were made."

"But who did this?" Fiett "Who would dare?"

It was then that Arvael noticed something and he exclaimed, "Seven!"

Everybody looked around and Smyth said, "What?"

Arvael gestured around as he uttered, "Look, seven skulls and seven columns, seven torches and a seven-sided room. It's a repeating pattern and I'll bet there are more connections if we look for them."

Imix nodded and said, "Seven is the unholy number of the Lord of Entropy and Decay, a siren call in the Warp. The Daemons of Chaos heard the summons and were drawn here by the scent of sacrificed blood."

"So?" asked Smyth.

"It may be significant," Arvael answered, "The key to disabling this place's power may be found amongst such icons. Quickly, everybody look for more connections."

Everybody spread out, examining the raw filth all around them. Arvael moved to inspect the skulls on the plinths and he felt the essence of corruption flowing through them. The altar was the source of the foetid energies but the skulls channelled and shaped that power, like the focusing rings on a lasgun. They made his skin crawl but he forced himself to examine the patterns of energy and was shocked to realise that they matched the weave of the mirror plane itself. Arvael suddenly understood that whatever spells had been crafted here were being sustained by these skulls, they were the lynchpins of the pocket dimension which meant they could be the key to breaking it open.

Arvael was about to summon Imix but right then Orath called aloud, "By the Throne! Come look at this!"

Everybody started in surprise and hastened over to the Terminator, who had moved beyond the skulls to examine one of the seven great pillars. Arvael saw it was enveloped in funguses, making it look like a rotten tree trunk, but what was more shocking was that there was a body implanted into the waving fronds, a transhuman body that could only belong to a Space Marine. The unfortunate wretch was suspended off the floor, with his arms secured out in a cruciform shape. His armour was engulfed in slimy in tendrils but under that could be seen flashes of black plate, with grey pauldrons marked by a spiral in a starburst. His head was shaved bald and hung loosely, his chin buried in his gorget with only the slightest twitches to indicate that he yet breathed while his face was marked with black veins but the skin around them was a furious red, as if his gene-seed sought to drive the infection out.

Everybody gasped at the sight and Smyth exclaimed, "Megaro! It's Megaro!"

Orath stared upwards and hissed, "We found the Heretic but what's he doing up there?"

"Could…" Smyth wondered, "Could his co-conspirators have turned on him?"

Yet Imix declared, "No, corruption surrounds him but it is not within him. Look, it tries to claim his flesh but he fights it off, he still resists the poison of Chaos. We were wrong, all of us were wrong. Megaro is not the author of this travesty; he is a victim of it!"

Arvael was shocked to hear that and turned about as he said, "But if Megaro wasn't behind all this then who is?"

As he turned he saw something truly shocking, Fiett had not joined them but had stayed on the platform, standing by the skulls. His face was filled with glee and his eyes contained a mad fervour as he held his open palm over a skull and declared, "I thought you were never going to ask." With that his hand fell and the moment he made contact the eyes of all the skulls blazed with a fierce jade light and their jaws yawned open as they emitted a shriek so loud it became a blastwave of force.

Arvael felt the shockwave slam into him like a freight train, picking him up and throwing him away. His bones rattled from the impact and he saw all the others scattered like leaves in the wind. The force slammed them into the empty pillars and pinned them there. Arvael felt slimy tendrils swarming over him, binding his limbs and securing him to the stone as Megaro had been. The tendrils oozed torpid energies, washing over Arvael and dragging at his mind like lead weights. He tried to fight it but the power crushed his mental defences and forced unconsciousness upon him.

The world went dark as his eyes closed and the last thing he saw was Fiett, raising his arms to the ceiling as he cried triumphantly, "The Grandfather is pleased to invite you into his house! Be welcome, one and all into the embrace of Nurgle!"