Festum Gladius Chapter 23

Hevostan inched through the darkness with a wary tread, alert for the smallest hint of noise. In his hands the Transonic rifle hummed quietly, its coils charged and ready to fire and over his left shoulder a Servo claw hung in readiness. His helm scoured the pitch dark with ease, the faint illumination of stablights more than enough to let him see but for the artisans cowering behind the midnight depths were cloying and threatening. Hevostan could have moved far faster than they, had he chosen, but he needed their numbers for what was to come. If he was to run into Ajax then he would need their haywire-nets and shock-staves to slow the Dreadnought down long enough for him to have a chance, the odds of any mortal surviving the encounter were not a factor in that equation.

Hevostan scoured the walls as he walked, looking for signs of the Contemptor's passing. They were smooth and glassy in texture, the remains of an ancient magma tube left behind from the island's formation and converted into a thermal vent. Hot air blew over the party as they advanced, causing the mortals to drip with sweat but barely noticeable to Hevostan. He was far more concerned with what the hunting parties would find down here. The Fortress-Monastery of the Storm Heralds was but the tip of the iceberg for the island was riddled with ancient tunnels and buried secrets. Arcane technologies long lost to the imperium ticked over in unknowable processes, indifferent to the passing of millennia. There were vaults for dead heroes, storehouses that hadn't been touched in ages, storm drains and wave baffles and even a derelict dock for submersible vessels.

That was merely the mundane artefacts. Each order of the Chapter had its own demesnes. The Techmarines' Forges and archives extended deeply into the earth. The Librarians had their black vaults and repository of forbidden lore: the Bibliotheca Damnatorum where no man may pass and expect to live. The Chaplains had their Hall of Tempests, stinking gaols for the interrogation of Heretics and sealed Reliquaries, where honoured weapons and banners of antiquity rested in stasis until the day came when they would be called forth to war. Even the Apothecaries had shrouded Laboritorums down here, though a few years ago someone had taken a flamer to them. Truly the depths of the islands were a warren of secrets and it was into this labyrinth Ajax had withdrawn.

The thought that Ajax was roaming around down here chilled Hevostan. It still horrified him to know the ancient warrior had gone insane, had he not seen it with his own eyes Hevostan would have decried it as Heresy. Ajax had been a pillar to the Chapter for five millennia, always there and always watching. Yet the signs of his dementia had been growing for decades, his rages and lapses ever harder to conceal from the line brethren. The Techmarines had long known something was going to give sooner or later but Hevostan was forced to admit he had trusted Ajax would get himself killed in battle, long before the matter came to a head. He had been wrong.

Suddenly he spied marks on the smooth walls, the long gashes of a bulky mass scraping along as it tried to fit through the tunnel. His hearts beat faster and his grip tightened on his Transonic rifle as he saw they had found Ajax's trail. Hastily he waved the mortals on, leading them deeper into the heart of the island. The air grew oppressively hot and a red glow emerged in the distance as faint scratching noises emerged, signs they were approaching something important. Hevostan increase his pace, knowing attempting stealth was pointless against a warrior of Ajax's experience, their only chance was rush him and trust to overwhelming numbers.

Suddenly they burst out into a spacious cavern. It was broad enough to fit a dozen Land Raiders end to end and almost as high. A dozen tunnels led into the room, each one filled with darkness beyond a few metres. The walls were lined with ancient devices and mummified servitors, long dead and withered to uselessness. Yet in the heart of the room stood a column of pure Adamantium. Three times as broad as a Space Marine, emerging from the floor and touching the roof. Through small viewing blocks spilt red light, the crackle of magnetic fields holding back immense power. It was a geo-spike, a lance driven into the extinct volcano at the centre of the island to draw raw magma from the planet's core. Through that spike flowed enough raw metals and precious minerals to feed the Storm Herald's Forges indefinitely and for five millennia it had done just that.

Hevostan slowed his pace as he beheld not the expected sight of Ajax but more mortals, idling around the forms of Techmarines Geryon and Sigas. The primaris Marine was holding his photonic axe in both hands, his stance belligerent and accusatory. The Historitor and keeper of the Archives had twin grav-blasters held aloft on mechandrite mountings, and they loomed over his pauldrons like rearing snakes as he faced off with the other Techmarine.

"What is this?!" Hevostan barked as he strode up to them.

Geryon's eyes didn't waver as he hissed, "I was demanding to know how you could all be so irresponsible as to let a deranged Dreadnought roam free!"

Sigas growled back, "And I was explaining that the Sodality does not have to explain itself to the likes of him!"

Hevostan was stunned as he gasped, "You choose to argue, now of all times?!"

Geryon snapped, "You have looked down your noses at us since we arrived yet it is your decrepit protocols and narrow interpretations of the Universal Laws that have led to disaster!"

"No one questions the Cult Technis!" Sigas shouted.

Hevostan couldn't believe his ears and yelled, "Shut up the pair of you or I'll kill you both!"

Sigas turned to stare in bewilderment and said, "What?!"

Hevostan hissed, "Rusty Cog, look at where we are, look at what we have come to. Our order is in disarray, our most venerable hero is lost to madness and still we find time to bicker! Is it not enough that we are disgraced, is it not enough we have sent the majority of our acolytes and every Techmarine we can spare to hunt down Ajax and kill him?! Phalros himself is sending envoys to snoop into our affairs. Our efforts to control our situation have failed utterly, whatever we sought to hide has been exposed. Now we must kill our most honoured Brother before he destroys everything."

Sigas hung his head in shame as Hevostan turned to Geryon and continued, "And you, do the credos of Mars extend to disrespecting a hallowed device? Do your broad interpretations of the universal Law permit you to sully a blessed mechanism or speak ill of the warrior within? Ajax was a Dreadnought of our Chapter and we were sworn to support him, no matter the state of his mind. If one of your Redemptors was to show signs of deterioration would you summarily rip the pilot out like a faulty servo-joint or do everything in your power to ease his pain?"

Geryon held his gaze for a moment then lowered his eyes and said, "You cut to the iron core of me. Yes, we would tend to the pilot's woes... we often do. The Redemptor is a harrowing pattern to operate, burning out the pilot with the extreme demands it generates."

Hevostan accepted their contrition and said, "We must be as one in our purpose. I was following Ajax's footprints and they led me here, what did you find?"

Sigas sighed, "Nothing save withered servitors and forgotten devices."

Geryon added, "I found a nest of cyber-rats, leeching off power cables. I exterminated them but of the Dreadnought there was no sign."

Hevostan looked about and remarked, "No further tracks are evident, the ground is sullied. He could have gone anywhere. We must widen our search, send the artisans wider and deeper. Flush the tunnels and force Ajax into the open."

Sigas lowered his voice so no other's could hear as he whispered, "That is suboptimal. Vox is choppy and the depths uncharted. We struggle to hold a cohesive net as it is. A man could wander for weeks down here and never see a route to the surface. I calculate we will lose fifteen percent of the mortals in these tunnels, leaving them to wander aimlessly until they starve to death."

"Then so shall it be," Geryon affirmed, "And when we find Ajax I have a surprise for him."

Hevostan looked about as a heavy clomp rang forth. He spied a looming shape emerging from the tunnels and at first took it for another Dreadnought, but it wasn't, it was the Invictor warsuit. Driven by a Primaris driver it stepped into the wan light, its arms and legs eerily similar to a Dreadnought's but its systems far different in purpose.

"That may shift the equation in our direction," Hevostan mused, "But can the pilot match Ajax in skill?"

"He's only a Contemptor," Geryon scoffed, "The way you all talk of him I expected a Leviathan pattern or greater. He is nothing special."

But Sigas argued, "It's not the pattern or the armament, its the pilot that counts. Ajax is five millennia old, he has fought more battles than we can imagine. He has forgotten more of warfare than we will ever know. Do not underestimate him."

"We're wasting time," Hevostan declared as he set off into a random tunnel. The others followed him, the Invictor going last. Soon they reached a branch and Hevostan sent a small party down the new tunnel. He did the same at the next tunnel and the next, spreading their search party over a wider area. He knew with every division they were thinning their numbers, making the chances of bringing down Ajax smaller but also increasing the odds of someone running into him. They had to locate him or he could disappear into these tunnels forever, lurking in the depths until the day he broke out on the surface and wreaked havoc. Hevostan couldn't let that happen, the physical damage would be immense but the blow to the Chapter's morale would be dire. For the line brethren to see Ajax's insanity would shatter their fighting spirit. Hevostan had seen it firsthand and still barely believed it.

To distract himself he eyed Geryon and asked, "You say the Redemptor pattern is perilous to use?"

"Aye," Geryon sighed, "Too perilous, many say. The drain on the pilot is overwhelming and their lives short. Some whisper Belisarius Cawl misstepped with this design, that he rushed a flawed device into service. It was the source of much contention, the Static Tendency tried to have him declared a Heretek and his inventions Maletek Incarna over the issue."

"The who?" Sigas asked warily.

Geryon sighed, "A theological-political faction in the body Imperial. They resist any notion of reform, invention or reconstitution of the Imperium. A group of them tried to overturned Lord Guilliman's reorganisation of the Imperium after he departed Terra. They got nowhere but they have adherents in the Administratum, Ecclesiarchy, Inquisition and Mechanicus. Their efforts to thwart Guilliman failed but Cawl is a target they can defeat... Or so they thought. A shame, to think the factionalism of the High Lords infects the Adeptus Mechanicus."

Hevostan was surprised to find himself saying, "We are no strangers to such schisms. The Cult Technis has had many of its own strifes. The Moirae Schism, the Nova Technis League, the Sons of the New Cog and the Lazarus Progression. Why our own Sodality has such a debased individual once. Obeck, whose artefacts are still held in abhorrence. He was swept up in a doctrinal schism, corrupted by the fallen Archmagos of Crux Lapis, and joined the Lazarites wholeheartedly."

Sigas growled, "Can we not talk about Obeck at this time?"

"As you will," Hevostan demurred.

But Geryon said, "I am surprised to find we share the same sorrow. Doctrinal schisms will be the death of us. Perhaps when this is over we can discuss the matter further."

"When this is over," Hevostan allowed. And with that they sank into the dark, heading into danger and death. Terrible was the woe awaiting them and before this was over Hevostan would know sorrows he had never dreamt of. But that was the future and in the present he kept walking, his hearts crushed under the weight of duty as he went forth to kill a Brother.