"War is unequivocal…"
My brother's blood spatters across my exposed face, bright droplets of highly-oxygenated Astartes vitae that dry as soon as they strike my skin. I do not fear. Lactic acid burns through the muscles of my arms as I increase the tempo of my blows; our sergeant's breathing is growing ragged – it is the only sound that matters apart from the impacts of our bare fists slamming again and again into his flesh. Still, the legionary does not cry out. We have driven him to his knees, yet he remains unbowed; his head is still held high – he does not fear. Resignation and acceptance lend him a strange air of peace that somehow serves to ennoble him, even as his body slowly breaks beneath our blows. He does not deserve to die like this – none of our brothers do, not even the ones who cry out as their comrades beat them to the ground and keep on beating them until every centimeter of rockcrete is darkened by their blood. Is this murder? Is this an execution? I do not know – all I know is that this is what he wants, this is what he has decreed; this is his judgment upon us, his unworthy sons: the determined punishment for our failings…
"War is uncaring…"
Our sergeant is dying a death devoid of all dignity and honor. He was not deliberately singled out; no personal crime, no failing of conduct or of character brought him to this end. It could have easily been any one of us – it could have been me. I almost wish it had been. The man we are killing has saved each of our lives at least once over the course of a hundred grueling campaigns. Both in victory and in defeat he always remained a bastion of strength and fortitude and we strove to the upmost of our abilities to be warriors worthy of his leadership. His last unspoken command was a faint consenting nod of his head as we surrounded him and stripped his battle-plate from him piece-by-piece, a gesture doubtlessly made in an attempt to absolve us of the deed we now commit. But he cannot truly absolve us; not even the Emperor, beloved by all, can absolve us now – only our primarch, only the iron-hearted lord of Olympia, can grant absolution; what we do on this day is the 4th Legion's first step in rising to its true potential. We are to be refashioned in his image, in accordance to his will. I do not fear; my brothers do not fear. We do not cry out; we do not weep as the blood of our sergeant drenches our armor. We are to be our father's iron-hearted sons, his unbreakable Legion of destruction, his peerless engine of war – as it is without, so shall it be within; as it is within, so shall it be without…
"War is unforgiving…"
No mercy is to be shown to the legionaries randomly selected for decimation. Strikes to the head and throat are forbidden, for that would bring about death far too quickly for the punishment to serve its purpose. We have lost track of both time and place. Our sergeant's reinforced bones shatter under the combined force of our repeated blows, the tapestry of battle-scars and Legion tattoos that decorates his flesh obliterated by our unrelenting fists. His eyes are wide and glossy with agony, yet his jaw remains clenched, his pain still unvoiced. How I wish he would die; how I wish our suffering would end. I do not fear – yet deep in the innermost core of my being there is a raw, raging still-human part of me that is screaming like a wounded animal. Is this the weakness our primarch seeks to expunge from our hearts, the root-cause of our failings? Is this what is keeping the 4th from rising to supremacy from amongst the Emperor's Legions? Our brotherhood has been given over to the command of a cold, ruthless and merciless master, and he has found us all wanting. One in ten legionaries must die so that the 4th might ascend to new heights. All must suffer, as all are equally guilty. Neither rank nor record nor ability is taken into account, for war is unequivocal, war is uncaring, war is unforgiving, war is…
"War is blind – and blind also will be the selection of those who will pay the blood-price for the greater failure of your record."
Our sergeant collapses at last and a violent shudder rips through his body. He convulses, and a torrent of blood gushes from his mouth in a fountain of crimson. His heels drum against the rockcrete and his head jerks back and forth, as if he is shaking it in denial. Still, we do not stop – we dare not stop. Our fists breach his fused ribs and our fingers tear into his internal organs. Had he been human he would have perished in under a second; but a legionary and death are not meant to be united so easily. It is as if we are laying siege to our commander, performing an experiment to see how long the genhanced body of an Astartes can withstand the raw brutality inflicted upon it by another. My vision begins to blur; is it the blood? – or treacherous tears threatening to spill from my eyes? In desperation I drive my gore-slick hand deep into the ruin of my brother's chest and close it about his primary heart. It is still beating. I am holding his very life in my grip. In that moment, I break. "Forgive me, Balathus," I whisper, as if he can still hear me, as if such words still have meaning in this pitiless new reality we must face. I crush his heart in my fist. His body spasms in its death-throes for a final time – then, at last, he is still.
I rise to my feet. My eight battle-brothers rise along with me. We stare at one another in horror and disbelief; equally covered in Balathus' blood we are just as united by his death as we ever were under his living leadership. A cold and bitter resolve settles over me like a cloak; some part of me has died, something weak and unneeded has been killed, no, has been executed, for the good of the 4th Legion. The screaming animal nestled within my core has been silenced. I am not the same. My brothers are not the same. It is as our primarch has decreed – we are to be his iron-willed, iron-hearted warriors, warriors who shall refashion the galaxy in accordance to his designs. Now that the death of a brother is on my hands, I know in my hearts that there is no act I cannot commit; there is no foe I shall not be able to overcome, there is no task I shall not be able to accomplish, there is no order I will not shrink from carrying out. I gaze down upon the brutalized body of brother-sergeant Balathus with newly opened eyes. He is just a corpse, another corpse to be added to the pile of corpses the 4th has heaped on high throughout the course of the Great Crusade. I do not fear – nor must I ever regret…
War is unequivocal, uncaring, unforgiving and blind. I shall be as iron: unbreakable, unstoppable – and above all, unmerciful. I will become the son Perturabo desires me to be – a son he can take pride in, a son he could even come to cherish – or I will be nothing.
