Extremus Fors Chapter 3
Planet Lujan II
Third Company's Barracks normally rang with the endless preparations of an Astartes force readying for war. Day and night Transhumans would hone their skills, seeking to whet their combat edge to the finest degree possible, and the barracks would thunder with shooting and the clash of arms in brutal sparring. Yet for a brief window a different racket filled the corridors, the strange noise of merriment instead of aggression.
In the largest meeting hall a feast was taking place, nearly a hundred Space Marines sitting at long tables, as platters of bread loaves and vegetables were brought forth. Fish fresh from the oceans were laid steaming upon silver platters and ewers of Ceremonial wines were drained repeatedly, only to be rapidly refilled. Lines of serfs hastened to refill the tables as fast as possible and laughing Space Marines made boasts and raised cups to toast the victorious fallen.
Such a strange sight, the regular life of a Space Marine was one of toil, prayer and war. Occasions to celebrate were few and far between, but Third company had much to celebrate. The Indomitus Crusade was aboard in the Storm Herald's protectorates and for the first, and possibly last time, the Saint Karyl had a surfeit of defenders. Third company had been broken up to attend diplomatic and training duties in the brief respite, but now were reunited as one. That alone was reason to feast, but also the recent union of Primaris and Firstborn had been tested in battle and found to be a strong alloy. This feast was as much to welcome new Brothers as toast the fallen.
Sitting at the head table the Command squad shared their recent adventures, regaling each other with tales of desperate battles and impossible victories. Absent of armour their many scars were visible, the plain shrifts they wore not covering brutal marks upon their limbs and heads. Captain Toran sat proudly at the centre, his augmetic eye gleaming. Chaplain Furion was at his right hand, stern and watchful as ever, but with a twinkle in his eye as he let the Brotherhood be happy for once. Jediah's many scars made him seem to be always scowling, but his dark eyes were firmly fixed on the platter before him as he put piles of bread rolls and vegetables away. Smyth, the newest addition to their ranks, seemed intimidated by the merriment but the Primaris Marine did his best to keep up with the toasts. Meanwhile Persion's round face was flushing red as he drained ewers of wine, seemingly trying to overcome his physiology's immunity to alcohol.
Champion Novak by comparison was regaling the table with his many feats. His face was a mass of burn-scar tissue and his scars many. Near all were to the fore, as befits a ritual duellist, and there was nothing feeble about his hands as he thrust and parried with a butter knife, playing out his tale with many flourishes. There was an animated energy about him, contentment that belonged to one who was among trusted brothers and good friends.
"There we were, locked in single combat. I with my trusty sword, Janus with his chain-mace. The Emperor's Storm beating down upon our heads and taking the feet from under us. He came at me, Iron wroth embodied, left, right, left, faster than you came believe. Whum-whum-whum, went his mace as Janus drove on. The Steel Confessor was unyielding but I wove around his blows with grace and elan. Ha, a dodge to the left, yah, a feint to the right. He couldn't touch me! Then when I saw my moment, the smallest moment you can imagine, I pounced and chopped his augmetic leg clean off!"
Novak lapsed back, grinning from ear to ear as he watched the effect on his friends. Captain Toran nodded his head sagely and remarked, "Well Brother, it seems you earned great honours in the Feast of Blades."
"T'was glorious," Novak crowed, "Chapter Champion Novak, you have to admit it has a nice ring to it."
Yet Persion lowered his cup as he grumbled, "I smell Grox-dung."
Novak feigned indignity as he protested, "Why Persion, do you doubt my word?!"
"Always," Persion scoffed, "You probably crushed him to death under your giant head, swollen as it is with ego."
"It's true, it's all true," Novak protested, "Smyth you tell him."
Smyth rolled his eyes and groaned, "It's true, unfortunately. Just don't ask him about opening the impossible door, he won't shut up about that one."
Novak sat straight up and exclaimed, "Thank you, that's an even better tale! You see Chapter Master Phalros and Cato Sicarius..."
Furion cut in to say, "Tell us later, my ears are starting to hurt."
"What's got your goat?" Novak quipped.
"I..." Furion began, "Nothing..."
He trailed off, making Novak frown but the Champion covered quickly by saying, "Then let me tell you more. Truly the Feast of Blades was a time for glory!"
"You still placed second," came the grumble of Jediah, not looking up from his platter.
Novak was given pause, for there was a lot of the Feast he wasn't disclosing, some things out of choice, others out of tight security. Intrigue, mystery, murder and madness had nearly undone the glorious celebration, and turned the contest for a place in the Victrix Guard into a bloody conflict. Rivalries born out bloodshed, a conspiracy among the ranks of the Crusade and a demented Dreadnought to boot, Honourable Ajax saved from madness by the slimmest of margins. Novak had been disabused of any wish to leave his Chapter; his heart revealed to dwell among his Brothers. Novak had chosen to throw the last match to allow another to win, though he would never admit it. He was only going to relive the best parts of his adventure, leaving the carnage and the dead to rest in peace.
Novak covered his gaffe by grabbing a bread roll and hurling it at Jediah's head. Jediah didn't bother to look up as his hand flashed, snatching the roll out of the air then stuffing it into his mouth. Novak chuckled at his grim Brother's refusal to engage in merriment and taunted, "Come Jediah, tell us your tale. What happened at Pascum?"
"We went there..." Jediah muttered around chews, "Some genestealers turned up... we killed them... we came back..."
Novak lolled back in his chair and lamented, "A story to set hearts ablaze, reduced to being spluttered around breadcrumbs."
Persion however leaned in and elaborated, "It was a damned close thing. We weren't expecting them, and nearly got our heads chopped off at the outset. I almost got eaten by a Patriarch, till Memnos turned up, drunk on Primaris' hormones and fighting like a madman. Iron bar in one hand, broken chainsword in the other and trying to bite its ankles when that didn't work."
"Yes, where is our Apothecary?" Novak pressed.
"Still nursing it," Toran explained, "Messing with Astartes biology is unwise but he's fascinated by the experience. Says the Primaris paradigm hold many secrets to be discovered."
Novak didn't really listen as he looked back at Jediah and remarked, "I hear you're in charge of the Reivers now?"
"I took them in hand," Jediah muttered, "I'll make real killers of them in time."
"Emperor save them," Persion scoffed, "They'll be mini-Jediahs, or they'll be dead."
"Not the only ones," Smyth sighed, "I was heartbroken to hear about Sergeant Yones."
That brought the mood down and Persion said, "Yones was caught up in a web of Inquisitorial intrigue, but he went out fighting Xenos monsters. There is honour in that."
"I'd still rather have him back."
Toran cut in to say, "We shall miss him and all who passed in these days, but they would not want us to despair. To die in glorious battle is our duty. To be missed by our Brothers is our hope. I propose a toast, to Yones and all the fallen!"
The table lifted their cups and drained them. Novak tasted sweet wine pouring down his throat, rich and crisp. He savoured every last drop, then plonked the cup down. Moments later a serf began refilling from a silver ewer, as another laid out platters of white fish. A breed native to the artic shoals of Lujan II, steaming from the ovens and cooked to perfection. Novak took a portion on a fork and it was the freshest catch he had ever tasted, so fresh it could have been caught that morning, briny but not overpowering, even for a Space Marine's genhanced senses.
Novak quipped, "I wish we could get drunk. Still better eat up, tomorrow it's back on the Synthi-gruel."
"Urgh not that wallpaper paste again, can't I just eat the table instead?" Smyth lamented.
Persion laughed aloud, "Not with us two months and already complaining about the food. He sounds like a proper Storm Herald already!"
Every chuckled, except Jediah, and set to. Novak hastily cleared his plate and then wiped his chin and asked, "So Brother-Captain... I hear you fought off a Psybrid invasion?"
Toran nodded sagely and said, "Third must share the glory with Sixth Company, but yes. The foul Xenos invaded during our training. We repulsed them with alacrity."
"Ahh... the old enemy," Novak sighed, "Two thousand years of skirmishes and incursions, two millennia of raids and sniping across borders. How many times have we beaten back the Xenos to their nest, how many times did they slink away with their tails between their legs?"
"Psybrids don't have tails," Smyth noted.
"Figure of speech Smyth," Novak sighed waving a hand, "Figure of speech."
Surprisingly Jediah spoke up, "Now all that is over. An Exterminatus fleet presses into the heart of their nest, to wipe it out utterly. The Living Primarch will suffer not one to survive, scouring their stain from the stars forevermore. Whole worlds of Xenos set to burn in Cyclonic fire, billions to die under the touch of Virus bombs."
"Careful," Novak laughed, "You'll start drooling if you go on!"
Jediah glared but Furion cut in, "Our gene-father's will is singular in the galaxy. He orders and the Crusade obeys. He demands threats long-tolerated be obliterated, that the galaxy be made anew, as a fit place for mankind to flourish. Truly an inspiring vision of monodomination, a galaxy where man exists alone among the stars. Any Space Marine should swell with pride to be led by such a commander!"
Toran stood up at that, drawing all eyes. He lifted his cup and declared aloud, "I toast to the vision and clarity of our shared gene-father. Primaris and Firstborn alike, we are all his sons and are proud to fight and die at his command. Long may his crusade endure and may he bring the Emperor's Imperium back to the glory and splendour it was always meant to own. To the living Primarch, to Roboute Guilliman!"
Loud cheers greeted the praise, those who had been born in an age without Primarchs and those ten-thousand years in stasis, equally elated to have their gene-father back. Novak drained his cup and reflected it was odd to look to a future with hope. For most of his life the Imperium had looked backwards, seeking to preserve and protect a glorious past. The future had been bleak and dark, the best they could dream being to stave off the inevitable collapse for another day. Now everything had changed, new ideas, new paradigms of Transhuman, new weapons, tactics and technologies. Under the Primarch's leadership mankind was beginning to progress again, a notion deemed heretical mere years before, made fact.
Novak knew some Firstborn resented change, hated the newcomers, but he had seen where such blinkered thinking led. The Primaris and the Firstborn must unite, it was the only path that led to victory. Novak didn't mind, he had learned to accept the fusion of old and new. Genic tinkering aside they were all Brothers and he wanted nothing more than to dwell among them. To live and die at their sides, share danger and triumph and glory was the best life he could envision. And the occasional feast didn't hurt.
Novak set his cup down as Toran took his seat, then asked, "So... where's Arvael?"
"Don't know," Jediah muttered, "Don't care."
Toran rolled his one eye and said, "Arvael attended a Librarius Conclave, such affairs are not for us to know."
"Very hush-hush," Persion added, "But I heard there was an upset, Chief Librarian Echeb came back with a cloud over him. Scuttlebutt has it he's locked himself in his tower and refuses to come out."
"I wonder what happened," Novak mused.
But Furion admonished, "Our esteemed Librarian is not a member of Third Company, battle-psykers stand apart for a reason. Such matters as they deal with are not for upstanding Astartes to sully themselves with."
"This day is for the Third alone," Toran affirmed, "Let us eat, drink and be merry."
But Jediah growled, "Too late."
Novak turned to follow his eye line and saw a disturbance among the long tables. Striding up the hall came Librarian Arvael, clade in full armour and bearing his weapons. His plate was marked with esoteric runes and his shoulder bore a horned head bisected by a falling sword. His once-youthful face was darkened by sights no man should ever witness and his eyes by horrors that would unmake the sternest heart. Novak could remember a time when Arvael had been a boy, but no longer. This was a warrior harrowed by strife, whatever horrors he had endured in his training forging a will of steel.
Silence fell as Arvael approached the head table, then bowed and said, "Brother-Captain, may I humbly request forgiveness for the intrusion."
Toran nodded in reply and then hazarded, "It is uncommon for a Company's revels to be disturbed. I take it grave matters are afoot?"
"Indeed," Arvael confirmed, "Chief Librarian Echeb has a task for our Chapter Champion."
"Me?!" yelped Novak in surprise, "What for?!"
"I cannot say," Arvael replied, "Save that it requires the most skilled blade in the Chapter."
"Can't it wait till morn?"
"No," came the stern response.
"You wanted to be Chapter Champion, you got it!" Persion quipped, which brought no smiles at all.
Toran continued anyway, "I trust the Chief Librarian would not trouble us over nothing. Novak, you must go. Emperor be with you Brother."
Novak sighed, knowing he'd miss the end of the feast. He pushed himself upright as Arvael turned away explaining, "We must collect your armour and weapons first, there will be no time afterwards."
Novak could only trundle along in his wake, leaving his curious Brothers behind. He followed the Librarian out of the hall and under his breath muttered, "I really, really wish we could get drunk."
