Chapter 20: The Web
Soft darkness gathers in the corners of the imperfect room, but a pair of candles lit on the ends of the stone pews lining the walls cast glittering tendrils across the rough uneven walls. Footsteps echo in the deep, drawing up before the doorway.
Serghar Targost had been listening for almost half a minute. Every move down that corridor could be heard within the secretive niche found only in the strategium. The captain of the 7th company licks his lips and takes a breath, nerving himself up as the door sweeps open with a groan of weight. And sure enough, the stale pong of medical disinfectant stole away some of the herbal incense lingering among the leering skulls. Targost's twin hearts thunder in his chest as the sure but wary voice of Timmult Vaddon pierces the oppressive thrum from a power conduit's undulating whine somewhere beneath their feet.
"Captain Targost, I take it you have a good reason for this." One sentence and Vaddon had already cut it to the quick.
Targost half turns, seeing the Chief Apothecary staring impassively through crystal blue eyes. Vaddon was short for an astartes, only a hair above seven feet, and relatively gaunt. The off-duty grey fatigues and white shirt was embossed with a small red patch depicting the Prime Helix, the legion's medical division. Targost didn't fail to notice the bolt pistol secreted away in the waistband of the astartes' field fatigues.
"Vaddon, please, come in. I have a matter of legion business to discuss with you." Targost's arm unfolds from his black cloak as he waves the Apothecary over with a single lazy gesture.
"I'm still putting legionnaires back together in medical, Logaan can't handle it all himself. So cut to the chase, why am I here... in a space hidden in plain sight?" The tension, Targost had been an assault commander and a diplomat long enough to nearly hear the tightening of ligaments and tensing of muscles primed to action.
Targost lofts a brow, "You haven't been invited to the lodge?"
"My duties keep me busy, and that's not an answer, captain." Vaddon remains stock still as far away from Targost as possible.
A long breath passes Targost's lips as he slowly closest the book in front of him and holds it up over his head. "I was gifted this book, it has knowledge. Knowledge that will save us. Vaddon, the soul of the legion is in our hands."
"Our hands?" Vaddon asks reflexively. "I deal with bodies, Targost, not some figment of pagan imagination."
"That's just it," Targost sighs and turns, cowl still drawn and cloak completely enfolding his massively muscled frame. "We're going to save Horus Lupercal."
"How? Abaddon nearly choked me half to death when we brought the commander back to my surgical theatre. But what does a book have to do with anything?" he rubs his neck, the marks certainly not apparent but the memory was almost certainly there.
Targost stalks over, feeling the slight ease of tension ebbing away back to wariness. "The book speaks of things, of destinies, and of malignant sicknesses. Tell me, did you find a blade made of flint or some kind of stone, about the size of a longsword?"
The crystal blue eyes of Vaddon's flash for an instant, and suddenly he takes a step back, one hand on his throat but the other tensing at his side. "Serghar," he says cautiously, voice thin, "Only four people know about that sword. How, exactly, did you come to hear about it?"
Feeling the flinty stare, Targost holds out the book. "Look." A few steps forward, but the Apothecary's cold glare connected as readily at the leather bound tome. Snapping its pages open, the book looks blank before lines of black slowly form on its surface as if traced by invisible claws. A thick pall of black green mist seeps from the sockets of the skulls looking down at the meeting.
"Targost, what have you been delving int-" hollow footsteps from the corridor behind him spurs the apothecary. His hand shoots to the concealed pistol, snapping it up and out as he swing it sharply to the door, then refocuses on Serghar Targost.
The captain darts forward , hands under the cowl fumbling for what he hoped he wouldn't need. A needle like silver blade finds its way into his hands even as Vaddon wheels on him. The pistol barks deafeningly in the small chamber, blasting a hole through the black fabric as Targost lurches almost drunkenly to the side. The shot slams into the wooden altar, detonating a leg in a shower of splinters. A second shot rings in the deep as the silver blade flashes in a wide arcing sweep.
The bolt fires wide, clanging off the rough metal wall and ricocheting into the floor. But Targost's blade struck true, slamming into Vaddon's wrist and punching monomolecular sharpened adamantium through his hardened bone. The pistol drops from his nerveless hands and clatters on the ground.
With a snarl of surprise, Vaddon reels and swings his weight into a vicious hook. It would have shattered a mortal's arm, but Targost deflects it wide as he comes to grips with the Apothecary.
"Vaddon, Vaddon STOP!" Targost bares his teeth as he grips the apothecary's forearm.
Vaddon's vicious headbutt smashes into the captain's face, shattering his nose in a fountain of blood and rocking him back in surprise. Shoving the captain away, he stoops down, fumbling for the bolt pistol. Clutching it in one good hand, he looks at the surprised face of Serghar Targost and flashes his bared teeth.
"Damn it! Just hear me out!" The lodge master snarls as the weapon flicks up to round on him again.
"How do you know about that sword, Serghar?!" The apothecary's flinty eyes lock on the bulkier warrior. "I have served Horus Lupercal for sixty five years, and not once has a weapon been able to bring the Commander down. Whatever it was that was on that blade was made to kill a primarch, it was made to kill Horus Lupercal. And we don't know what it is... now, here we are, and he's on deaths doorstep because of some primitive secret poisoned blade wielded by a madman commanding hordes of some parasitic living dead? That doesn't strike you as deeply suspicious? There's just four people on board that know about it, and you're not one of them." He steals a glance at the book, "So, how did you know about the stone sword, and where did you get that book?"
"Y-you told us in the medical theater, it was a blade that pierced the Warmaster's side." Targost stares down the snub nosed barrel, knowing that a twitch in the wrong direction would see him dead. Vaddon couldn't miss, not from this distance.
"No one said anything about a stone blade. And I know you didn't hear it because, Serghar, you weren't there! Apothecary Logaan, Abaddon and Aximand were there, and so were Loken and Targaddon. But not you. So, how did you know? Answer me: where did you get that book from, Serghar?" Vaddon's voice slips deeper and deeper, the accusation dripping like venom from his lips.
"It... it doesn't matter." Targost snarls, heart beating as the adrenaline makes his ears ring and fingers flex, " I'm here to help. The blade-"
"Two kinds people know about it: the three that brought it to me, and those that planned to murder the Warmaster. Serghar Targost-" Vaddon's tone plummets, eyes flickering with barely concealed rage, "are you complicit in the plot to murder Horus Lupercal?"
"NO!" Targost balks, "I want to help him. We brought him to the temple to heal him, Erebus said we just need-"
It was too late to take it back. "Erebus." The Apothecary's hand shakes, "Erebus... of course he'd know. He was the only one who could have arrived before us. That's who Loken and Torgaddon suspected. That's- Targost, back up. Don't you dare move. If you're in league with anyone to kill or threaten the Warmaster, I will kill you."
Slowly, the captain raises both his hands, "Easy, easy Vaddon. We can work this out."
"No, Serghar, we can't. I'm going to leave this room. Then, I'm going to fetch Loken, Torgaddon, and Maloghurst, and you're going to tell them exactly how you came by that information. And you will tell them." Vaddon's level voice echoes an icy sureness.
"I can't let you do that, Vaddon. Things are on a knife edge, Sedirae is just outside. You wouldn't make it ten meters." the captain starts to circle only for the apothecary to hiss a warning, getting him to stop.
Then twitch.
Targost weaves to the side far too late, and even as the pistol blazes away a shooting pain flares through his arm as if thrust into a kiln. A savage kick bats the pistol well away from the apothecary, sending it spiraling from his grasp and clattering behind the stone pews.
Falling right back on him, Targost wasn't exactly surprised when a raised left fist reveals only ruined meat and splintered bone where his hand had been. He still brings the bloody stump crashing down into Vaddon's eye, bursting it like a grape. The Apothecary snarls, rolling back as Targost's weight bears him to the ground. The assault captain returns the favour with a vicious headbutt that bounces the apothecary's skull against the metal. He pauses for barely an instant, spitting into Vaddon's face with a sickly hiss. Flesh bubbles and blisters as the apothecary's skin starts to sizzle as the astartes' betcher gland turned the saliva corrosive.
"Serghar, you treasonous bastard!" Vaddon blindly gropes for the blade impaling his wrist while thundering his knee into the captain's side, cracking ribs but the vicious sneer on Targost's face barely flinches. The blade is yanked free by the Assault captain, ruined limb pinning Vaddon down as the blade plunges down and cracks into his chest only to bite into the interlaced weave of hardened bone. With a rasp, it rakes free, scoring bloody furrows in his shirt before a second, third, and forth ruinous stab cracks the apothecary's chest open while carving through the skein of hardened plastek carapace underneath. Targost's twin-hearts thunder as he plunges the blade down with all his genhanced might.
Targost's mind slips into the blood-hazed fugue. It had to be half a minute, maybe more, before the apothecary stopped moving, both hearts pierced and chest a ragged map of ruin. Still, Vaddon's raking nails had bit into the captain's cheek, seeking soft eyes to gouge out. The war cries of 'Lupercal' that had echoed in the chamber were long since silenced by the time Targost slumped aside and took in a breath of air. He breathes heavily, gasping, feeling the ringing stabs of pain coursing up through his arm as the last reserves of adrenaline drain from his shivering frame.
"Damn it, Vaddon. Why didn't you listen to me?!" His voice wheezes out hoarse and gasping, but Vaddon's shaking breaths had stopped. "Where's the sword Vaddon!" he calls, rolling over to see the apothecary's misty eye and ruined socket staring blankly at the ceiling, his lips flecked with spattered pink and chest unrecognizable with the blade jutting from it like a mast. "Damn your stubborn streak, where is it?!" He reaches over with his good hand and seizes the apothecary. "Tell me!"
But there was no answer, no movement, nothing at all. Even hauled upwards, the apothecary was limp in Targost's weakened grip, and slumps to the floor with a squelching thud when released. The Assault captain rises to his knees and yanks the blade free.
"Fine, if you won't tell me..." With a sickly breath, he mops his lips, staring at the corpse. Serghar Targost knew a way but it had never come up, never been intended for this. At least, not to his knowledge. He'd done this on mortals, on xenos, on gangers back on Cthonia though for different reason, but never an astartes. Taking the blade, he pries the apothecary's mouth open, twists it, and shoves the blade into the soft pallet on the roof of his mouth before carving the cavity open.
Gulping back his distaste, he tears the blade free and lets it clatter to the floor.
Wordlessly, swiftly, before he could rethink his plan, he reaches into the ruined mouth to drag out the pink-grey brain meat and before shoving it into his own mouth and swallowing. Pink gristle dribbles down Targost's lips, and he waits for the omophagea to do its work. He swallows a few more times before unsteadily caressing the apothecary's ruined skull, combing through the grey flecked mop of black hair.
Flashes of memories assail him the last few hours. The image of a decontamination chamber in stark white. He flicks a wooden casket open, looking at the crushed red velvet cushioning a simple grey and black flecked blade. The wooden lid snaps closed, and the whole thing is hidden in a small cryostasis capsul, non-descript and deep within the genevaults in the heart of the Vengeful Spirit. A place only accessible by the chief apothecary or the Primarch himself.
"Oh... you clever bastard..." Targhost gasps and holds his ruined limb up in front of his face, cringing at the damage. "Damn it, Erebus" He rolls onto his backside, reaching shakily for the esoteric tome with a grunt of effort. "How in the hells do I explain this?"
