Speculum Enigmate Chapter 45

…And tried to press into his hearts but Memnos grabbed the clawed hands and heaved them down his breastplate as his helm drove into its face. The Purestrain staggered back, a glazed look in its black eyes but Memnos held it upright by the arms and drew his head back, then powered forward once more. The second impact broke the ridged bone over its forehead, causing black blood to run down its face and chin but Memnos was relentless and headbutted it a third time. Finally shards of bone were driven into its skull, slicing the brain within to pieces and the Purestrain collapsed. Memnos was left with blood and brain decorating his faceplate but he spun about as another Hybrid came at him with a bayonet and…

…staggered as the bullet tore through the back of his knee but in return his blade shot forth, stabbing the Hybrid through the throat. She fell next to her abominable kindred and Memnos looked up to see another Purestrain turn its gaze upon him, its… The walls blurred by as Memnos dropped into the plaza, landing feet first on the Heavy Weapons team. Their fragile bones shattered as the weight of a Space Marine hit, crushing them into paste. Ahead lay the walls, shattered and broken, and Memnos knew… the slope slipped under his feet as he raced up the crumbling breach, desperately trying to reach the top before it was too late. His Brothers were ahead and he had to… the weight of the pack nearly bowled him over but he fought on, breaking the Hybrid's skulls with the shorn plasteel bar in his hand, bludgeoning them to death with raw savagery. He laid many low but then a Purestrain loomed before him, rending claws reaching out to…

He leaned against the wall and gasped for air, feeling his body burning. Something was wrong, something was very wrong, but Memnos couldn't understand what it was. His muscles cramped as he had never known, his bones ached and his implanted organs burned hot in his body as they fought the foreign chemicals coursing through him. Memnos couldn't form a coherent picture of what was happening, his mind was a swirling fog and images rose from the mist only to vanish again, leaving no trace of their passing. Places and faces swam before his eyes, images of him fighting Genestealers under the ground and then in the broken streets. Were they real or were they imagined, he could not tell the difference. His recollection of time and places was choppy and broken, snipets that spilled from his fingers as he tried to grasp them.

Memnos forced his mind to focus as he tried to pin down hard facts. He was covered in Genestealer blood, so he had been fighting someone, that part had happened. His plate was rent and torn in many places, so it hadn't been an easy struggle. In one hand he gripped a spar of plasteel, ripped from Emperor-only knew where, and in the other was a notched cleaver he didn't recall picking up. Across his shoulders was a satchel of demolition charges that he had no recollection of finding and by the piles of dead Hybrids around him the Apothecary had been fighting to protect.

Another fact intruded into his consciousness. The walls around him were a delicate pink marble and the corridor was lined with graceful arches from which hung potted plants. That wasn't right, he had been heading towards the Monument to Reunification. Yes, that was it he had been part of a mission to bring the tower down. So why was he back in the Jade Citadel, surrounded by Genestealer corpses? Had he been injured and carried back to the palace. It didn't sound right and didn't explain why his blood was burning and his head swimming.

A memory surfaced in the swirling morass of his mind. Being buried in a tunnel, dragging himself out and then… His mind seized up as he recalled siphoning the Primaris' Furnace and injecting himself. A cold shiver ran through his soul as he understood his body was flooded with foreign chemicals, a stimulant his Genhanced frame wasn't designed to process. Few things could affect an Astartes' physiology but the secrets of the Primaris went beyond any of them. His implants couldn't clear the strange cocktail and every organ in his body was forced into a state of agitation, working well beyond their intended tolerances.

Suddenly there was a distant noise of gunfire and Memnos' world dissolved into red mist. His thoughts fell apart as his body moved of its own accord, seeking out the source of the noise. Hostile faces appeared and disappeared, leaving no impression on his memory. All he could recall were flashes of fighting and bloodshed and the rage, the pounding rage filling his veins and forcing him to move. His body knew only one way to cope with the drug-induced mania, by fighting and killing. Expending the rushing torrent of hormones in a frenzy of slaughter.

He saw a Purestrain looming, fangs exposed as it tried to rip his throat out… three Hybrids firing desperately, their las-shot pinging off his Ceramite as he charged straight through their barrage and dove upon them. His blade plunged into the first's eye while his plasteel bar dashed the brains out of the other. The last one tried to back up but Memnos turned to give chase and… The Frag Grenade fell from clawed fingers as the Hybrid grinned in vindication but Memnos snatched it from the air as his other hand clenched around the jawline. The jaw dislocated with a pop and Memnos forced the grenade into its mouth, before he hurled the Hybrid from him. The Genestealer barely had time to open its eyes in terror before the grenade detonated, spraying fragments of skull all over the delicate walls.

Memnos struggled to hold onto any sense of where he was and who he was fighting. They came and went in a torrent of flashing images. His body was bleeding in scores of places but he did not feel it, too lost in his frenzy. His muscles ached with exertion but he could not stop running. He was swept up in the rush, killing mindlessly like the insane Berserkers of Chaos. A Primaris would have been depleted long ago, their extra organs countering the effects of the Furnace before it became dangerous, but Memnos could only ride out the rush for as long as it lasted.

He had no idea how long the swirling madness continued but he was brought up short when a Ceramite fist rammed into his faceplate. His head snapped back and his vision swam as he saw Jediah glaring at him, barking, "Memnos, snap out of it!"

The Apothecary had no idea where the Lieutenant had come from, or how he had appeared in the Jade Citadel. Memnos tried to say something but all that came out was a feral snarl. Behind the Lieutenant a gaggle of mortals and Reivers lurked, along with Sergeant Gotram who hissed, "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know," Jediah snapped, "Memnos, why are you here? Have you seen Yones or Persion?"

Memnos' only reply was to hammer the length of his plasteel bar into Jediah, forcing him back a step, more out of surprise than injury. Jediah rallied in moments but the Apothecary pushed past him and sprinted down another passage. The sound of gunfire and the smell of blood drew him like a magnet to a lodestone and he raced towards it as fast as his feet could carry him. Behind shouts and running boots heralded Jediah and the Reivers following but Memnos paid them no mind, the thunder of his heartbeats in his ears drowning out their cries and only the prospect of more killing held his attention. Even the weight of the demolition charges on his back did not slow him down, their bulk meaningless to his addled mind.

Memnos turned a corner and emerged through an archway into a vast courtyard. The scale of the arena and the shape of the nearby buildings were blurs to him. All he could understand was that there was a battle raging. Everywhere he looked streams of Hybrids and Purestrains were pouring into the courtyard, setting up weapon positions or running towards a distant line of blazing gun emplacements. Memnos could see piles of dead being trampled underfoot by heedless boots, and hear the screams of the dying as they bled out their last. Death and carnage lay in all directions as the madness of war swept over all. It was glorious.

Memnos spied a pair of Hybrids loading a missile nearby and wasted not a moment to fall upon them from behind. They looked up at the last moment, mouths opening in shock before the Apothecary beheaded one with his cleaver and the other he clubbed to the ground with his bar of metal. Nearby Genestealers screamed in alarm but Memnos was upon them in moments, hacking and stabbing with vicious blows. He slew many with his mad charge and the filthy Xenos fell to his fury.

Behind he heard the shouts of Jediah's team as they emerged into the courtyard, racing to keep up with his charge. He heeded them not, seeing only foes waiting to be killed. Reality began to slip again and he saw faces blurring as he hacked at anything that came near him. A face was cleaved in two by his blade, a body fell with a broken neck as he struck with his bar. A Hybrid's skull squished under his boot as he crushed its brains out on the cold, hard floor. Nothing was making any sense anymore, all he could do was fight and kill as the red mist descended.

A Heavy Bolter crew turned his way but he stabbed a Hybrid with both weapons and hefted the body aloft, using it as a shield against the first shell. The body burst as the bolt round detonated, spraying Memnos with… The bodies fell to the ground, spilling entrails and Memnos kicked over the Heavy Bolter before… shooting agony run through him as the claws sank into his guts and the Purestrain hissed evilly into his face. Yet it was cruelly surprised when Memnos' blade slammed under its jaw, punching through the mouth to penetrate the braincase. He forced it away and hissed in pain as the claws pulled free but he had no time to celebrate for… They outnumbered him twenty-to-one but just as they came in for the kill a harsh cry went up as black-clad Arbites fell upon them from behind. Riot shields rebuffing all attacks as shock-mauls struck. Marshal Gunnah smote enemies left and right with cries of Imperial retribution upon his lips. His arm was strong and relentless but he failed to see the Purestrain rising behind him. Rending claws struck and the Marshal went down, frothing blood from the gaping wound where his throat had been. Memnos roared a denial as he threw himself at the… Memnos stood upon the piles of his slain foes and the valiant Arbites, locked in their death grapples, bellowing his fury at the next wave to come at him. He was alone, but live or die he had paved the road to hell with the bones of his enemies.

Memnos was lost to all bounds of sanity, he knew only the red mist of rage and the thundering of his hearts. Then the fog parted and he beheld a sight that cut through his madness. Before him a giant monster loomed, its shadow alone casting its kin to shame. A hunch-backed spine was covered in chitin and a black tongue hung from its jaw as claws as long as a mortal's leg lashed about. It was the Patriarch, the heart and soul of the cult and the most dangerous creature among them.

Set against it were the burning remains of a pair of tanks, a Leman Russ Punisher and a Repulsor. Both cast to the ground and rent by terrible wounds in their armour. A third Repulsor was edging around the hulks of its kin, trying to hold back the waves of Genestealers trying to overwhelm it while its turret spat defiance at the Patriarch. Yet that was not what shocked Memnos out of his frenzy.

Standing on the burning remains of the first Repulsor was Persion. He was battered and bloodied but he fought on, his burning Friction Axe fending off blows from black talons. The Patriach loomed over him but he would not yield, he stood his ground in the face of death, fighting with every fibre of his being. The Lieutenant's last stand was at hand and it was a deathmatch as glorious as any in the Chapter's history.

From not too far away Memnos heard Jediah shouting something but the Apothecary did not look for him. Persion was hopelessly outmatched and before he knew what he was doing the Apothecary's feet were moving. He ran for all he was worth towards the duel, scrabbling for every last morsel of speed. The cocktail of drugs in his system still burned within his veins, the mysterious elixir not yet run its course. He could only trust it would last long enough to give him the strength to intervene. He was going to need it. Then the red mist descended once more and Memnos threw himself at the Patriach's back, a cry of raw savagery upon his lips as he joined the fray.