Legends of the Smoke Jaguars chapter 214
Deep into his Shadow-path Vitcos sank, becoming a whisper in the midnight streets. None spied his passage, not the most alert sentry or penniless beggar. An eight-foot giant in Ceramite plate reduced to a piece of the night, come alive to stalk the gutters and alleyways. It wouldn't have made any difference if he had been seen, none gainsaid a Smoke Jaguar, but the people lived in a blissful dream that the Chapter came only as far as the sacrificial stones for their due, and no further. It suited the Smoke Jaguars to allow that delusion to persist.
Cities on Copan XII were compact affairs, built atop high mesas where the deadly predators and toxic plants of the jungles could not reach. Verticality was a fact of life for the average mortal, stepped farms climbing the flanks to where stone buildings hung on the edges of perilous drops. The air was cooler at altitude, away from the sweating heat of the underbrush and wind was a constant companion. The footage of the area was small, but the people had long learned to make the most of it, living atop each other from birth to death, the double-headed Aquilla on every street corner as a brand of ownership. It reminded Vitcos of some Hive cities he had seen, though far less technologically dependent and with a mere fraction of the population.
Vitcos stole along a filthy street, putting his back to the inky blackness of the jungle behind and below. Cobbles made no sound as he trod on them, his armour proof against such obvious signals. In truth a footstep would have been lost against the humming of the city's geo-spikes, drawing precious elements from the planet's core. Those shafts had been mined since the Dawning, providing raw material for the factories of Alar-Median and the bulk of the populace spent their lives either operating the ancient devices or shipping the refined ingots into orbit. Copan XII had once been a Mining World and, despite its title as a Chapter Homeworld, it still remained a respectable producer of mineral wealth.
Vitcos felt strange as he stalked down the streets, the eerie sensation of familiarity creeping over him. Many times as a Doan he had been sent into various cities to infiltrate and observe various people about their lives, the test being to track a target while remaining unseen, but never this city, never these streets. And yet he knew these roads, his feet took the turns without conscious thought, following routes ingrained in his mind. They said a Space Marine's memories of childhood were faint and few, wiped out by hypno-indoctrination, but Vitcos was surprised by how much he remembered. He played and fought and laughed on these streets and the echoes of those days lingered.
Finally he came to a familiar door and paused. The wooden panel was pitted by time, the paint long faded and yet it was the same door he'd run through so many times, followed by a mother's angry shouts. He could not recall her face, that memory was truly lost, but he remembered laughing as he ran wild, the act of disobedience bringing him joy. It seemed Tachna was right, Vitcos had always been a defiant one.
The Smoke Jaguar made not a sound as he entered, closing the door behind. Within lay a single-story apartment, bare of colour and drab in all aspects. A few rooms lay beyond another door, leading to bedrooms and an ablution chamber, but the living space dominated the cramped home. Kitchen, table, a small shrine to the Sun-Emperor, a rug made of dried weeds, a few cabinets of aged wood and high shelves. The family had been modest in wealth, but far from penniless.
A man sat at the table, head resting on the hard surface while snoring loudly. He was elderly, his hair a few wisps of white around his ears, liver-spots fighting for dominance across the scalp. He did not stir as Vitcos bent down, counting the lines on his face. Transhuman hearing detected no other breathing within the home, the man was alone at the twilight of his days. A fit ending for one who had made Vitcos suffer so much.
The First silently removed his helm, then took an oil-lamp off a shelf and lit it with a click of the igniter. Warm light filled the living room but the man did not stir. Annoyed Vitcos moved across the table, he did not sit for this flimsy furniture would shatter under his bulk, but he did tap the wooden surface. No response, a Space Marine would have been upright and shooting already, this would take more drastic means.
Vitcos reached across the table and prodded the man with a finger, prompting a slurred, "Orruk devour your toes..."
Vitcos' annoyance grew as he hissed, "Heart-foe at the door, the tanglevine growing under your feet!"
"Sleep, the abode of dreaming sought," the man shrugged off as his head rolled over.
Now the First was irritated and snapped, "Be awakened you oaf!"
The man shot upright, eyes watering. His vision must be swimming for he blinked several times before he could focus. The jaw fell as the dreamer realised a Smoke Jaguar was in his house, filling the space with awesome bulk, head nearly brushing the roof. He made to stand up but Vitcos' hand fell on his shoulder and forced him back down. No mortal could resist a Space Marines' strength and the man wriggled helplessly in a Ceramite vice.
"The flower of innocence, the sweetness of virgin sap!" the man protested.
"The executioner's axe has no mercy, your sins are known," Vitcos rejoined.
The man seemed to be more than familiar with Imperial speech as he switched to a nearly flawless Gothic-accent, "I did nothing!"
"You did it all, I was there, I saw it, I lived it."
"I never broke the laws, I swear it."
"Lie not, I have come for you... father."
The man froze as his eyes scoured Vitcos' face, seeing past the Genhanced gigantism and war scars. A flash of recognition passed and then the man let out an astonished laugh, "You have come seeking the wrong man!"
Vitcos was confused and let go, "You cannot deny our Kinship."
"I deny nothing, but you come too late. Ten years too late. Father passed a decade ago... little brother."
Now it was Vitcos who blinked, "Vi... Viruda?"
"I see that you remember me," Viruda snorted, "I knew you weren't dead, father said you would be, but I always knew you were too spiteful to die."
Vitcos was stunned, he thought often of his father and the crime of abandonment. All through his genforging and ascension he clung to that pain, always thinking of the injustice wrought against him. Now it seemed he'd come too late, his betrayer was dead ten years hence, passing into eternity without feeling the lash of justice. How unfitting. All that remained was his blood-brother, Viruda, the chosen of the pair.
Vitcos cast his eyes about, "Blood-brother... you live alone?"
Viruda shrugged, "The old man took a long time to die, and I was the only one who could care for him. Mother died five years after you were given up, cursing your name all the while. I had to manage the rest. There was no time for courting or raising sons. I worked the spaceport by day and tended the dying bitter wretch by night. And I was old before I knew it."
"You speak the heathen's tongue well," Vitcos remarked.
"Dock rules, spoken-gothic only, the Imperium demands it. I speak gothic more often than my own tongue, but you aren't here for idle chatter."
Vitcos eyed the man and counted his years. The blessings of gene-seed granted a measure of functional immortality, and warp transit had notorious time dilating effects, boons his blood-brother did not enjoy. Had Vitcos delayed another five years he may have found the last of his family long dead and the answers he sought would be lost. He had better speak quickly, there would be no second chance.
The Smoke Jaguar spoke softly, "I find myself at a conflux, past and futures at odds with each other. I know not my past, so find not my path to move forward. I have been places beyond your wildest imaginings, grown strong and defeated terrible foes, but all the while I remembered that accursed betrayal on the sacrificial stones. You were the Firstborn, the traditional sacrifice each family must offer, but when the time came our father chose to give me up. I thought it was because he despised me, that he cast off a weakling boy, but another has corrected me. A warrior I esteem greatly argued that I was chosen because I was the stronger, that I was sent because I could survive the trials, where you would not."
Viruda cocked his head, "And you want to know which version is truth?"
"I do."
"I... look may I stand?"
"You may not," Vitcos growled.
"As you will," Viruda grunted, "But you won't like it: your first thought was correct. You were sacrificed because you were a liability."
"You lie!"
But Viruda snorted, "No lies. You were a wild child, slovenly, ill-disciplined and feckless. You had not the strength to work the docks, nor commitment firm enough to support the family's need. You could not inherit our father's station, not ever. You were a diseased branch on the tree, so he cut away the rot."
A thousand denials ran through Vitcos' mind, followed by a thousand threats, but he spoke none of them. Arjax-lel had seen something in the First that was not there, perhaps merely a reflection of his own greatness. Vitcos was indeed a petty thing, fated to die, only remaining alive out of spite. There was no shining destiny for Vitcos, no grand plan for his future. Everything he was he had become by his own choice, which made things very clear to him.
Vitcos drew in a breath to say, "You have gifted me truth, and yet I crave another boon."
"How so?" Viruda asked.
"I find myself with a surfeit of fathers, too many calls upon my nature, justice and vengeance locked in a contest of wills. I have been told to embrace them both. As a Smoke Jaguar I have been taught the varied strands of justice, but vengeance I find myself lacking in. Cruelty, sadism, the embracing of darkness. You, my blood-brother, can help me embrace my fullest evil."
Viruda made to shoot to his feet but Vitcos was faster. A Ceramite fist locked about the man's throat, enclosing his neck entirely. With a gesture the Space Marine hauled the man into the air, then slammed his back down upon the table. Viruda tried to kick out but he was an old man, battling a Transhuman giant backed by power armour, a babe-in-arms could put up more of a fight than this. Vitcos slowly drew a Chakram and held it up in the lantern light, letting the surface glimmer with threat.
"No man..." Viruda gasped, "No man sheds kin-blood!"
"I am no mere man," Vitcos growled.
"You will be damned!"
"Damned I am already, by fate, by family, by bloodline. I have no lower hells to sink to."
"You don't have to do this!" Viruda pleaded.
"No... but I choose to," Vitcos hissed.
He savoured the look of terror in his blood-brother's eyes, then slid the Chakram from neck to sternum, parting skin and snapping ribs. Frenzied agony saw Viruda convulse but a closed fist on the windpipe choked any air, cutting off the screaming. Vitcos set his Chakram aside and worked fast, before consciousness faded. He drove his fingers into the wound and spread them, parting ribs with snapping pops. Then deeper, closing his grip around a glistening wet organ. With a heave he ripped his blood-brother's heart out and, before life faded, he lifted it to his jaws and began to eat.
Blood cascaded from the table, spreading in a pool around his boots and staining them with sin. Vitcos cared not, devouring the toughened muscles one bite at a time, swallowing the iron-tang with relish. Viruda was dead long before he finished but Vitcos held firm, taking his time, embracing the evil of his deed. The slaying of Kin-blood, what greater crime was there, Vitcos embraced his darkness and let it run wild.
He swallowed the last blood-soaked morsel and let go of the corpse, then took up the lantern. He opened the chamber and doused the body in oils, before sprinkling the remainder on the rug. Unchecked fire would spread quickly in the tight confines of the city, the neighbourhood would be ablaze in no time. A swift response would be demanded but by the time the fire was under control the body would be a charred husk. Nobody would care to look too closely and note the ravaging of flesh. Vitcos' crimes would not reach the Headsman's ears.
The First made to toss the lit taper but paused to whisper, "Corax be my guide by day, Curze my companion by night. A creature of the twilight am I, with a foot in both worlds. I shall embrace both aspects and so become Smoke Jaguar entire. With blood and murder I do troth it."