Sabbat Crusade Read online

  ‘Don’t, Gol.’ Tona put the wooden spoon down and looked away.

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Gol–’

  ‘That’s why I stay apart,’ Gol said. ‘I was no father to them. Ever. I worked long hours, then the war came… You did all this, Tona. You built this, despite the circumstances. You know I need to stay away so as not to spoil everything you’ve done.’

  ‘Eat with us, once in a while,’ said Tona. ‘Be present. It doesn’t have to be like this for you. And they will benefit. After all, Dalin knows who you are.’

  ‘Dal’s a grown man,’ said Gol.

  ‘Yoncy will be grown, too, very soon,’ she replied.

  ‘I just wanted you to know that I appreciate everything. More than I can say.’

  He hugged her. It was involuntary.

  ‘Uncle Gol? Are you mum’s boyfriend?’ asked Yoncy from behind them.

  The embrace broke quickly.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said.

  ‘Of course he’s not,’ laughed Tona, turning back to the stove.

  III

  They were a third of the way down the amasec. Gol had just taken second helpings of the stew.

  ‘Swear to feth,’ he said. ‘This is the best food I’ve eaten in years.’

  ‘Told you,’ said Dalin.

  ‘It’s ’ummy,’ said Yoncy.

  ‘So I hear Gaunt has put you on companion duty with Meritous,’ Gol said to Dalin.

  Dalin nodded.

  ‘That’s a career advancement,’ said Tona.

  ‘Just doing my job,’ Dalin smiled.

  ‘Watching over Gaunt’s son?’ asked Gol. ‘There’s an advantage there. You should exploit it.’

  ‘Just doing my job,’ repeated Dalin.

  ‘You like him, though?’ asked Tona.

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘Opportunities don’t come often,’ Gol said, forking up another mouthful. ‘Use every chance you get. Be visible. Be conspicuous. Be vital. Felyx Meritous Chass is going to be a big noise in the Guard one day. Bloodline. Father and son. Use that to your advantage. Rising officers remember those who help them on the way up.’

  ‘Father and son, bloodline,’ Dalin nodded. ‘All right then.’

  Gol put his fork down.

  ‘Sorry, Dal,’ he said. ‘I… That was feth-dumb of me. I see the irony.’

  ‘No, it was good advice,’ Dalin smiled back, ‘for everyone to take.’

  Gol returned the smile.

  ‘I stand corrected,’ he said.

  ‘Here, here,’ said Tona quietly. She picked up her glass.

  ‘To bloodlines,’ she toasted. ‘To the fething bloody Guard and the family it makes for us.’

  Dalin, Tona and Gol clinked glasses.

  ‘Bloodlines,’ said Dalin.

  ‘Family,’ said Tona.

  ‘May the Guard guard them all,’ said Gol.

  They knocked the drink back. Yoncy watched them, then picked up her water glass, mimicked Tona’s toasting gesture, and guzzled a mouthful.

  ‘May the Guard guard them all,’ she declared, sing-song.

  Tona smiled. Gol poured more amasec.

  ‘Yon?’ Dalin said, looking over at her. ‘Where’s the medal I gave you? The badge of the Sabbat Beati? You always wear it.’

  ‘It got lost,’ Yoncy said. ‘When the nasty man attacked me. It got torn off. I never found it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dalin. ‘I’ll get you a new one.’

  ‘I don’t want a new one.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘It used to hurt me,’ said Yoncy, eating.

  Dalin frowned at Tona.

  Tona touched her fingertips to the hollow of her throat.

  ‘Yoncy sometimes got a rash,’ she said, ‘from the metal. Contact eczema, Dorden called it–’

  She went quiet. Gol and Dalin looked down at their plates. The casual mention of the old medicae’s name had reminded them of a loss none of them were yet used to. Yoncy kept eating, oblivious.

  ‘Contact eczema,’ Dalin said, anxious to break the silence. ‘Well, we can’t have that. I’ll find you something else, Yon. Something else to watch over you and keep you safe.’

  Yoncy paused and studied her food.

  ‘I have everyone to watch over me and keep me safe,’ she said, earnestly. ‘I realised that when I lost the medal. It’s like I woke up and remembered who I was.’

  ‘What, honey?’ asked Tona, frowning.

  ‘Like in the morning?’ said Yoncy. ‘When you wake up and remember who you are and where you are? Like that.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Gol.

  ‘I’m a ghost, aren’t I?’ the girl asked, looking at him. ‘We’re all ghosts, aren’t we?’

  Gol nodded.

  ‘Can I have seconds, mum?’ Yoncy asked. Her darting mind didn’t seem to stay on a subject for very long. ‘Can I, mum? I like the stew.’

  ‘Haven’t you had enough?’ smiled Tona.

  ‘I’m not full,’ Yoncy said. ‘I’m growing!’

  Tona grinned at Gol and went off to fetch the pot from the stove.

  Yoncy had gravy around her mouth. She tapped her spoon, then looked back at Gol.

  ‘Uncle Gol?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Yoncy?’

  ‘Are you my dad?’

  Gol looked at Dalin, who, with some effort, didn’t react. Tona turned from the stove with a fierce stare.

  ‘Why would you ask me that, Yoncy?’ Gol asked. He had a tight feeling in his chest.

  ‘Because people say you are,’ said Yoncy.

  ‘What people?’ asked Tona, coming forward and dishing out a ladle of food onto Yoncy’s plate.

  ‘The ghosts,’ said Yoncy. ‘The ghosts I hear around me. They say it all the time. Are you? Are you, Gol?’

  Gol Kolea took a breath.

  ‘No, Yoncy,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’

  She suddenly slithered off her seat and ran out of the room.

  ‘I forgot!’ she cried.

  ‘Yoncy! You wanted seconds!’ Tona called after her.

  ‘I will eat them all up! Just wait!’ Yoncy called back.

  She returned to the table with a crumpled sheet of paper and handed it to Gol.

  ‘I made this,’ she said. ‘I made this picture for you.’

  Gol took the paper and looked at it. Yoncy resumed eating, with great resolve.

  The picture had been done in coloured chalk. There were spiky things, several figures, and two sickle shapes in what Gol presumed was the sky. There was something else too, a triangle and a furious, heartfelt black squiggle inside it. The squiggle had been ground into the paper, and it was clear that the chalk stick had broken several times during the rendering. There was something filthy and malicious about it, as if the child had been trying to punish the paper.

  ‘Are these trees?’ Gol asked, pointing.

  ‘Muhm,’ agreed Yoncy, eating, mouth full.

  ‘Who’s this?’ asked Gol, pointing to the figures.

  ‘That’s you, silly. You and Uncle Rerval and Uncle Bask and Uncle Luffrey.’

  ‘What about this?’ Gol asked, indicating the sickle shapes.

  Yoncy shrugged, too busy eating.

  ‘And this?’ Gol asked, pointing to the squiggle.

  Yoncy pushed her plate away. It was empty.

  ‘I didn’t mean to draw that. I tried to scribble it out. I didn’t want it in the picture.’

  ‘What was it, Yon?’ asked Tona.

  ‘I was going to draw more trees, but I picked up black instead of green by accident, and it made a bad shadow shape, and I didn’t like it so I scribbled it out.’

  Yoncy shrugged. ‘Did I spoil the picture, Uncle Gol?’ she asked.

  ‘
No,’ said Gol. ‘It’s a great picture.’

  Dalin reached over and pointed to the squiggle.

  ‘How can a shadow be bad?’ Dalin asked.

  ‘It’s just a drawing,’ Yoncy replied, as if that were obvious.

  ‘Yes, but bad how?’ Dalin asked again.

  She wiggled her hands and picked up her dolly.

  ‘A bit like a monster,’ she replied.

  She leaned over on her seat and pointed at the drawing in Gol’s hands.

  ‘See? Look? You’re killing it. Those jaggy lines? Per-chew chew chew chew chew! You’re shooting it with your gun. Per-chew chew! I used yellow chalk.’

  ‘Is it dead now?’ Gol asked.

  ‘Silly Gol! It wasn’t ever alive. It’s just a drawing. I thought you’d like it. I drew it for you.’

  ‘I… I love it,’ he said.

  IV

  Tona put Yoncy to bed. She and Gol and Dalin sat up for a while afterwards, drinking the amasec.

  ‘She’s very creative,’ said Gol.

  ‘Always has been. Always drawing,’ said Dalin.

  ‘I ought to go,’ Gol said, rising.

  ‘There’s still amasec,’ said Tona.

  ‘I ought to go.’

  ‘You ought to come back again soon, too,’ said Tona.

  ‘The food was great,’ said Gol.

  ‘Hey,’ Tona said. She held out the drawing. ‘Don’t forget this. She’ll be cross if she finds out you left it behind. She drew it for you.’

  Gol took the drawing. He folded it up and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

  It stayed there until the day he died.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Tona.

  ‘Goodnight, Gol,’ Dalin smiled.

  Gol closed the door behind him. He was about ten steps down the companionway when the tears came.

  They weren’t necessarily bad tears.

  This is Rob Sanders’s first contribution to the Sabbat mythology, and he is a very welcome addition to this volume and the ‘Sabbat Worlds Writers’ Club’ (we have a club tie and a membership card and everything). I admire Rob’s work very much (his novels are superb), and he has written a terrific and grisly piece here.

  Rob came up with the premise without prompting or guidance, and I was delighted by the idea he hit upon. He also wanted to focus on the Iron Snakes, which suited both me and the context of this anthology just fine. I’m sure it will please all Iron Snakes fans out there too.

  Though not a Gaunt’s Ghosts story, Rob’s tale (for those of you who are keen on continuity) is very much a sequel to the story ‘A Simple Plan’ in Ghostmaker.

  Brace yourselves. A vanquished menace from the past has not gone away after all…

  Dan Abnett

  The Blood Bound

  Rob Sanders

  Valens 160, 780.M41

  (the 25th year of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade)

  I

  The Iron Snakes frigate Serpentra glided smoothly into the Valens System, the mean lines of its hull dusted with the frost of immaterial translation. A crowded arrangement of super-hot gas giants and secondary satellite systems, Valens was a quiet corner of the Sabbat Worlds – all but silenced by the thunder of old war. The void seemed to echo with the emptiness of horror long past. The Valens System was a ragged wound that refused to heal.

  As the frigate slid in-system with inertial silkiness, the wreckage of monitors, mining vessels and entry waystations was pushed aside. Nudging its way past derelicts and smashed orbitals, the Serpentra’s progress sent wreckage pirouetting off into the void. The Valens star burned like a dying fire, casting the churn of gas giants and clusters of attendant moons in a rusty light. In the glowering silence, the Space Marine frigate drifted towards the hive world of Valens 160.

  ‘Try voxmissions again,’ Porphyrian commanded. The Iron Snakes Space Marine stood like a statue before the bridge lancet screen, cutting a silhouette into the growing orb of the hive world. ‘Short-range capture.’

  The bridge serf complied with Porphyrian’s order.

  ‘Nothing, my lord,’ the Ithakan reported.

  As a member of the Adeptus Astartes, Porphyrian’s hearts knew nothing of the silent dread experienced by the lesser beings on the frigate’s command deck. Even Porphyrian had to admit that what they had found – and more importantly what they had not – in the Valens System was disquieting. He feared that was exactly what it was designed to accomplish: system and interstellar shipping hanging like abandoned ornaments in the blackness of space. Communication channels a deathly crackle. A hive world of billions, silent and still. He turned to Andromedes, the only other battle-brother present on the bridge. Only weeks before, Andromedes had been a petitioner. Now he was a battle-brother of Squad Orpheon. Andromedes gave his sergeant raised eyebrows above a mask of grim anticipation.

  ‘Take us in,’ Porphyrian commanded.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ a helmserf acknowledged.

  Under the gentle thrust of sub-light engines, the frigate ploughed its way through the abandoned vessels and wreckage. Silent expectation and the rumble of the Serpentra’s drives took them past the moons of Dralion, Vortigus Minor and Aeonara. Past great abandoned mining transports and bulk ore-freighters. Past the silent reef-stations and loose, broken belt of orbital installations that rotated slowly around the hive world of Valens 160.

  ‘There,’ the helmserf called out from the side of the command deck. He stepped forward, grasping the pulpit rail and pointing up at the lancet screen. ‘The Excommunicado.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Porphyrian asked. He peered at the free-floating vessel to which the helmserf was pointing, but even he couldn’t make out the vessel’s name or designations.

  ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ the helmserf said. He had spoken before he was certain. ‘From her lines she’s a penitentiary vessel.’

  The Commissariat corvette Excommunicado had left the world of Sapienca with its damned cargo – the captured heretic warlord Sholen Skara – bound for the Inquisitorial fortress on Khulan. It boasted a pair of escort vessels and a half-brigade selected from the 123rd Pontifical Strikes. It never reached its destination and neither did its escort of Falchion-class warships. The Ordo Hereticus blamed the loss on insufficient security provisions, while the Departmento Munitorum accused the Inquisition authorities on Khulan of failing to send ships to meet them en route as arranged. Porphyrian had come to view the loss of Sholen Skara as inevitable under such circumstances. It was a long trip from Sapienca in the war-torn Sabbat Worlds to Khulan and the relative safety of Imperial space. A lot could go wrong on such a journey. Especially transporting a dangerous heretic like Sholen Skara. A ruinous mongrel. A mass-murdering butcher of worlds with the blood of millions on his hands. What were a few more Officio Prefectus officers and storm trooper turnkeys?

  Now Porphyrian and his Iron Snakes had the duty to find the magister, to ensure he made it to Khulan. When Apothecary Nemertes had asked if Porphyrian agreed with the mission, the sergeant told him that the Adeptus Astartes didn’t have to agree with a mission in order to prosecute it. When the Apothecary pressed him he admitted that he thought that the Militarum Tempestus forces securing Sapienca had made a mistake, that Sholen Skara was too dangerous to be left alive and should have been formally executed. The Commissariat liaison at the mission briefing had confessed to the sergeant that he did not quite know why Skara hadn’t been processed in such a fashion, believing that the decision had been made by a superior – a Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt. Porphyrian had never met Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, but took him for a fool nonetheless.

  In truth the whole situation was a mess. In a region strangled by bureaucracy as much as scarred by war, it had taken years for Sholen Skara’s disappearance to be classed as worthy of investigation and forces assigned to such a duty. Astrotelepathic sile
nce from the Valens System and the disappearance of merchant shipping despatched to the hive world had led the Ordo Hereticus to discover the record of an echo, a brief mayday from the Excommunicado’s registered astropath. A miserable call for help cut brutally short.

  Porphyrian was honour-bound to answer the request of the Ordo Hereticus, but in reality had wanted little to do with such a duty. Sholen Skara was undoubtedly a monster deserving of death, or the worse fate waiting for him at Khulan, but the Iron Snakes Space Marine didn’t relish the prospect of the sons of Ithaka being employed as either a glorified escort or the firing squad for a wretched heretic. As he told Nemertes, such duties should have been beyond the Adeptus Astartes, but obligations between the Ordo and the Iron Snakes stood. Porphyrian told Squad Orpheon what Brother-Captain Cules had told him – that they all took their orders from somebody.

  ‘Confirmed,’ Brother Andromedes called, moving between a serf-station and a runebank manned by a Chapter servitor. ‘Designations identify vessel as Commissariat corvette Excommunicado, out of Sapienca.’

  Porphyrian nodded and looked back at the tumbling vessel. ‘Anything from the vessel?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Andromedes said. ‘Dead.’

  Porphyrian suspected that was all they would find aboard the corvette, but still the vessel needed to be searched. It was too much to hope that Sholen Skara would be among the bodies.

  ‘Brother Andromedes,’ Porphyrian said. ‘Squad status?’ Porphyrian knew that Brother Deucalion would have such matters in hand, but the sergeant was putting the former petitioner through his paces.

  ‘The Apothecary has met Brother Deucalion on the flight deck,’ Brother Andromedes said. ‘Brother Deucalion reports the squad battle-prepped, observances made and awaiting further orders. Brother Salames has assembled a flight crew: the gunship Ithakariad standing by.’

  ‘Very good, Brother Andromedes,’ Porphyrian said. ‘Summon the ship’s steward, if you please.’

  Leodocus, the ship’s steward, presented himself. As the senior Chapter bondsman aboard the Serpentra, and a failed initiate of the Adeptus Astartes, it was rumoured that Leodocus never slept, and that he made use of his cult indoctrination, training and conditioning to make himself available to his Ithakan overlords at all times.