Brothers of the Snake Read online

  'It's not a matter of stoicism, brother-sergeant. It's about dignity. Did my slab weigh thirty kilos?'

  'No.’

  'Then I'll see you again in three hours.’ Khiron shook out his arms and began to run. Priad watched as the lone figure tracked away down the river of ice.

  Priad crunched across the glacier to the snow bank where the men were digging in. Most had untied their frost-shawls, and draped them around their shivering bodies as they curled up into the insulated dens they had scraped out of the drift. Priad had a habitent, a single-occupancy module with a thermal cell. He got inside without a word, took off his mailed gloves, and chafed his hands beside the glowing heater.

  Outside, a wind began to stir.

  He had been in a self-induced catalepsean state for an hour or so, sleeping yet awake, allowing portions of his mind to close down and rest in sequence while his forebrain stayed alert. All the while, he had controlled and conditioned the flow and exchange of blood in his system, preserving and distributing heat. All of Damocles was doing the same, though it was easier for him in a secure habitent with a heater source.

  Priad snapped sharp at a sound outside that the rising moan of the wind couldn't disguise. He took up his blade-pole and left the tent. There were snow bears in these latitudes, massive creatures that could shear a man in two. He scanned the area, sniffing the cold air for scat or odour.

  The men were dormant in their burrows. The moon was still huge, but it had fogged and blurred, as if a dust was in the sky. The wind was stronger, gusting slightly, winnowing snow down the slope and rippling the loose flakes out across the surface of the glacier like eddies of fine sugar.

  Something was here. Something close.

  Pole in hand, he climbed to the top of the slope, from where he could see the ice storm rising in the distance, still two hundred kilometres away, a ghost shroud across the lower sky.

  'Mine was a gold figurine of Parthus.’ said a voice behind him.

  Priad wheeled, his pole raised. He lowered it slowly. Facing him was a huge Ithakan male wrapped in a cloak of snow bear skin.

  Petrok.

  "What are you... sir, what are you doing here?'

  Visiting. Observing training. How goes it?'

  'Well.’ Priad said, still off-guard and confused. 'The men are fit. A few rough edges.'

  Petrok nodded. 'That's good. You'll knock the roughness off with a winter regimen like this. How long have you been drilling?' 'Eight days.' 'And you'll keep at it?' 'For another eight. Then twenty days in the dune wash, basic endurance.'

  Petrok smiled. 'They really must have pissed you off.’ he said.

  'Regimen is necessary. So the Codex states. Even the best must work to preserve their edge.'

  'Eight days?' Petrok mused. 'So you missed the embarkation, then?'

  'Yes.'

  'A splendid sight. The like we hadn't seen in decades. Seydon was so damn eager to taste war again. Like a boy warrior. Sharpening his own blades, oiling his own hair. He had to blow the cobwebs off his armour.'

  Priad snorted, but felt ashamed at the disrespect.

  'Don't worry, brother.’ Petrok said. 'Seydon made the joke himself. "Come help me with these cobwebs, Petrok," he said. "I'm sure there's armour in here somewhere." War, my brother. It was good to see his appetite back. Advancing out, at the head of his Notables.'

  Petrok looked up at the occluded stars. 'Not all his Notables, of course.’ 'It is only right the Master is served by the best and the ready.’ said

  Priad.

  'He was disappointed, you realise?' replied Petrok. 'When he found you hadn't voted, he asked for it to be checked. Thebes, Veii, Parthus and Skypio in his front rank, and no Damocles. What would Raphon have made of that?'

  'He would have made the same decision, I believe.’ said Priad.

  'Of course, brother. Or he wouldn't have named you his heir.’

  'I still don't understand why you're here, sir.’

  'Petrok, remember? I thought we'd cleared this up. Eidon, wasn't it? You call me Petrok, unless I tell you otherwise.’

  'I understood you'd been left in command, in the Master's absence.’

  'I have. Locum master of the Chapter House Karybdis. You know how dull that is? No wonder Seydon was itching for war. It takes me away from my other work. Mandates to approve, parades and exercises to observe, petition selections, all manner of inventory to consider. The equerries, by the Throne! They'd drive a man mad with their fussing and their lists. I can't bear them. I've killed four or five of them already'

  Priad said nothing.

  'It's all right, I've hidden the bodies well.'

  Priad blinked.

  'Funny, you can spot a tracer round flying at your head in time to duck it, but a joke...'

  'That was a joke?'

  'I haven't killed any equerries. It's frowned upon.'

  Priad smiled.

  'There, you see? And they say the Astartes has no place for humour.'

  'Why are you here?'

  Ah, we're getting philosophical now, are we?'

  'Sir... Petrok... please.'

  Petrok shrugged his heavy shoulders under the furs. 'I was bored. I fancied a taste of unprocessed air. Rodos told me that Damocles had gone down to Ithaka for some winter training, so I thought I'd run an inspection. There's nothing sinister or devious about it. Besides, this is good bear country. I fancied I might claim myself a new pelt.'

  He pulled something out from under his furs. Priad expected a bolter, or at least the mighty blade Bellus. Instead, he saw Petrok was holding a stabbing knife with a saw-tooth edge. It glittered in the darkness.

  You think we'll find one?' Petrok asked cheerfully.

  'I hope not.'

  'Ah, well.' Petrok looked west and sniffed the air. 'Storm's rising. A bitter one. Where's your tenth man?'

  'How did you-?'

  'One tent, and eight burrows. One less than I have fingers. Who is it?'

  'Khiron. He's repeating the block drill.'

  'Poor bastard,' Petrok said. 'Overdue?'

  'Not yet.'

  'Let's take a walk and see how he's doing. If the storm catches him, he'll be dead. You don't want the bother of finding a new Apothecary, do you? I mean, after the trouble you went to getting this one?'

  Petrok slithered away down the snow bank. Pole blade in hand, Priad followed him.

  VI

  They trudged along the flatness of the glacier, side by side in the filmy moonlight.

  What did you mean, a gold figure of Parthus?' Priad asked after a while.

  'My offering.’ Petrok replied.

  'Offering?'

  'To the trench. I was young, foolish. I believe only the second of those two things is a requirement, but the first helps.'

  'You dived the trench?'

  'During my first year, with Parthus squad. On exercise. It was all the fashion back then, more than it is today. Positively encouraged by the upper ranks, but discreetly, of course. You weren't of the phratry unless you'd taken a wyrm and done the trench. A test of personal skill and fortitude. Customs change, I suppose. The frequent deaths didn't help.'

  'So you're a trencher?'

  Petrok shook his head. 'Not me. I dived down, the figure of Parthus in my fist. I chose Parthus because he was my squad-founder. I never made it. Missed my count, ran out of breath. Barely got back to the surface alive. I was sick with the narcosis fever for days. My brothers covered up for me. It's a hard dive. But you know that. You're a trencher too.'

  'No, I'm not.’ said Priad.

  'You went into the trench...'

  And I didn't bring any glory back. Just a dead boy.’

  'I've heard about it. I read the lexicania report. And I spoke to Khiron. He told me what had been left out of the report.’

  'He never said anything to me.’

  'He wouldn't. He's a proud man, diligent. He told me how every last man in Damocles had owned up to diving the trench at some time or other. He told me ho
w horrified you'd been to hear it. I guess that's why you didn't vote, and why you're driving them so hard now. Penitence.’

  'Atonement. We have rules for a reason. Guilliman didn't compose the Codex for his own entertainment. I am ranking squad officer. It's my duty to punish and admonish.'

  Petrok was silent for a while. 'Priad, have you not thought why they told you? Why they all confessed to you, there on the beach?'

  Priad didn't answer.

  'They didn't want you to dive and risk your life. They didn't want to lose you. For all the dishonour they knew their confession would bring upon them, they wanted you to know that every one of them was ready, willing and able to take your place. You know what I think that is?'

  'They openly admitted to breaking the Chapter rules.'

  'I think it's called loyalty. But I make bad jokes about murdering staff, so what do I know?'

  The wind was picking up again, abrading their cheeks with its touch, and leaving a dust of ice crystals in their hair and the furs they wore.

  'This is why you've come, isn't it?' Priad said. 'To counsel me and show me my error.'

  'You've made no error, brother. Work them as hard as you like. Break their backs. Whatever glory they get to take in their lives, it's yours to determine. If you'd let them off, you'd have weakened your command. What you're doing here is right. I just wanted to make sure you appreciated the whole picture.'

  They strode on.

  'By the way, that's not why I've come here.'

  Petrok stopped short. He pointed. Far away, a kilometre or more, they could make out a tiny figure struggling towards them along the glacier. It wasn't running so much as stumbling.

  'Khiron.’ said Priad.

  'On his way back. Throne, look at the size of the block he's humping. You won't need your scales.'

  Priad didn't reply. He was looking up at the snow bank to their left. Three hundred metres distant, something had moved, white on white. Priad touched Petrok's arm and pointed.

  They stood for a minute, still as kouros statues in the fortress atrium, until it moved again.

  'Oh, that's a big one,' Petrok whispered. 'A big female, I'd bet. She doesn't make us, we're up wind of her. But she's hunting.'

  'She's hunting my Apothecary.’ Priad whispered back. 'They like stragglers. When they chase a herd of long horn, they target the weak and the slow. She's upwind of Khiron as much as we're upwind of her.’

  'You've hunted snow bear before?' Petrok asked.

  'No. Raphon used to, for sport. He had a necklace of claws. He told me of the ways.’

  'She's leading Khiron all right, staying ahead, choosing her moment. Terra, look at her move! Ah, lost her again. Behind that ridge.’

  'What do we do?'

  Petrok smiled and drew his knife.

  They moved up into the snow banks, low and quiet. Priad turned his pole around so that the metre-long, single-edged blade was slung forward, like a sea-lance.

  Petrok stopped and stripped off his boots, motioning Priad to do the same. The cleats were crunching in the brittle, crisp snow, but bare feet would make no sound. They both scrubbed their hands, faces and armpits with handfuls of fresh snow to mask their pheromones.

  The wind stilled again, sudden and ominous, letting go of the particles it was carrying. Ice shards settled like smoke around them.

  They climbed the ridge, keeping the moon at an angle to minimise their shadows. Priad caught traces of animal warmth and breath-stink on the air.

  Petrok signalled Priad to go left, and disappeared from view along the right-hand edge of the drifts. The air was so clear. The stars seemed to tremble with the distant booming of the storm.

  Priad came to a halt, his feet ankle deep in the snow. The moon glow lit the whiteness all around. He was close now, surely? It couldn't have moved away so fast.

  A snow drift rose up and assaulted him.

  Ice-white, the skulking bear had been invisible until it moved. It let out a huge, shuddering roar as it came up. Priad glimpsed the yawning red cavity of its mouth, the massive yellow teeth. He smelled rank breath, polluted by saliva and seal blubber, and saw two diamond-black eyes.

  He tried to raise his pole but it flew out of his hands as the gigantic fore-paw struck him. Claws the size of fingers ripped through his mantle and cut deep gashes in the flesh of his left tricep.

  The impact was stunning. He felt like he'd been run down by a land raider. The arctic world turned over and over, dazing thump after dazing thump. He realised he had rolled clean down the slope onto the face of the glacier, limbs flailing.

  Winded, bruised, he tried to rise. He saw spatters of his own blood glistening like rubies on the face of the ice. He looked up. The she-bear was coming for him.

  She was gigantic. Two thousand kilos of rippling muscle and fat, coated in white fur. Forepaws the size of power-claws. A muzzled skull as massive as a thirty-kilo ice block. A gaping mouth as broad as the dish of the Strategoi's ballot kylix.

  Priad rolled. The colossal predator crunched down on the glacier top, cracking the surface sheet beneath it. She began to turn, bellowing again.

  Petrok landed on her, straddling her hunched back. The knife flashed and the bear whined in pain. She thrashed around, throwing Petrok off. The locum master cartwheeled across the ice, bouncing hard.

  The bear was lunging at him before he'd even slithered to a halt.

  Priad's pole was gone. He groped for a weapon, any weapon, and found the sling scales. He ran forward, feet slipping, lifting the scales like a huntsman's noose. The bear was mauling Petrok, pressing him into the ice as she tore at his furs.

  Priad got in behind her and threw out the canvas loops of the scales. He got one of them down around the bear's throat, and began to drag back with every shred of his upper body strength, drawing the loop tight into a choking collar, yanking the bear's head backwards.

  She writhed up, clawing at the constriction, and almost crushed Priad by sitting on him. He dragged tighter, scrambling away and tugging at the scale's hook. The bear began to make a deep, gurgling rasp as her windpipe closed.

  Priad maintained his grip, pulling even tighter, his powerful arms quivering with the effort. The bear shook again, trying to find him with her paws.

  He jerked the loop tighter, ever tighter. The bear tried to rise onto all fours.

  Petrok appeared in front of her, his face and chest smeared with blood. As the bear reared again, Petrok rammed his knife up between her front limbs. It stuck fast in the bone. Blood steamed like boiling water as it poured out onto the ice.

  The bear flicked a paw and swatted Petrok aside. She fell forward, Priad still cinched around her throat, dragging him off his feet. He pulled again, trying to wind the loops now to constrict them further, frantically holding on.

  She wouldn't die. She simply wouldn't die. Nose down on the glacier, crawling forward, her inhalations stuttering and clamped, she fought on with impossible vigour. She dragged him twenty metres, like a rider clinging to the reins of a bolting mount, and left a dark stream of blood behind her.

  There was a brutal, crushing impact. Priad heard bone break, and the bear went still.

  Slowly, he relaxed his grip and slid off the sprawled monster. She was dead, or at least in the final, fluttering seconds of life, inert, broken.

  Her skull had been half-crushed by a thirty-kilo block of ice that had been driven into her head from above with inhuman force. Bent down, hands braced against his thighs, Khiron stood nearby, panting hard and trying not to be sick from the effort.

  'Sit down,' Priad said. Khiron nodded, and curled up in a heap to recover his breath and his wits.

  With a last whimper of escaping gas and fluid, the animal expired, a hoarse, phlegmy rattle issuing from its ruptured throat.

  Priad limped across the ice to where Petrok lay in a puddle of blood. The great warrior looked as dead as the bear, but he roused as Priad bent over him.

  'Where are you cut?' Priad asked.

 
'All over,' Petrok replied, lisping through a sliced lip. Still, he managed to grin. 'But it's worse than it looks. Fine sport, eh, my brother?'

  Priad shook his head and laughed. He gazed back at the bear's corpse, fascinated by the sheer size of the jaws and teeth, now exposed by the rictus of death that pulled the pink lips back in a snarl.

  'The bite on that thing.’ he muttered. 'So damn big...'

  'A massive set of jaws.’ said Petrok, rising slowly to a sitting position and holding a deep laceration on his chest together. Priad realised he wasn't talking about the bear.

  'There was a reason I came here tonight.’ he said slowly, his respiration ragged. 'Beyond the reasons I gave you before. I had a dream. I get them from time to time. It's part of my nature, and I've known enough of them not to ignore them.'

  'A dream?'

  'When a Chapter Librarian dreams, brother, you pay heed. Especially when they dream of you.’

  'You dreamt about me?' Priad said, gingerly testing the gashes on his arm to check they were already healing.

  'Yes, Priad. I dreamt about you. I don't know what it means yet. I was hoping you might help. I dreamt a scene. A place. A woodland. You were there. Others too, but I haven't remembered that part properly yet.’

  'Damocles?'

  'I don't think it was. But you were there. And there was a massive set of jaws. As big as the bear's. But the teeth weren't sharp. They were blunt. Does that mean anything?'

  Priad shook his head.

  'Think on it. It's important.’

  Priad nodded. He looked back over his shoulder to find Khiron. The Apothecary was walking away from them.

  'Where do you think you're going, old man?' Priad called.

  'To repeat the drill.’ Khiron replied. 'I lost my slab.’

  'It was thirty kilos. You pass, you old fool.’

  'I lost my slab.’ Khiron repeated.

  Priad helped Petrok to his feet. The wind was picking up again, raising powder snow in swirling loops from the facing bank. The storm was inbound now, closing fast.

  'Khiron?' Petrok called out above the rush of the wind. The Apothecary turned. 'Drill's done.’ Petrok said.

  VII

  Ganahedarak had suffered miserably at the hands of its invaders.