James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

Not for the first time, Sendek found himself won­dering what would happen when the end came for the youth. In a way, Decius had become something of a symbol for them all, an embodiment of the resilient endurance of their Legion. He thought of the two of them matched over a regicide board on the Endurance and felt a pang of sorrow. For all of Solun's brashness and arrogance, the cocksure warrior did not deserve a

death of such ignominy. Decius should have perished in glorious battle instead of being reduced to fighting a war with his own body.

The smell was becoming stronger. Sendek's frown deepened. Iago, one of Hakur's squad and a deft hand with a plasma gun, took the watch before Tollen's, but he was overdue. It wasn't like Iago to be so thoughtless. Sergeant Hakur's hard training and battle drills burned that out of his men.

Then the unmistakable aroma of blood finally raised itself from the mix of scents and Sendek tensed. There was no movement anywhere along the infirmary corri­dor, and where the corner turned to the isolation ward the biolumes in the walls and ceiling had been doused. Only a faint red light showed him the vaguest outline of the corridor. He broke into a run, his senses taking in everything. For a moment, the Astartes thought that there had been some kind of accident, like the spillage of some great casket of oil across the floors and wall, but the charnel house stink overwhelmed him with the raw bouquet of fresh blood and rotted meat. Sendek realised abruptly that the biolumes had not been deac­tivated after all. It was only that there was so much blood, in thick, sticky layers, that it damped down the glow from them. His ceramite boots crunched on a paste of broken bone fragments and melted teeth. He made out a shape in the rancid gloom: a forearm end­ing in rags of torn meat, still partly sheathed in the marble armour of a Death Guard. Glittering black motes moved all across the severed limb.

Sendek went for the bolt pistol on his belt as the sound began. Around him the blackened walls flick­ered and hummed with the sharp, piercing scrapes of insect wings. The swarms grazing upon the effluent stirred, sensing the presence of the Astartes.

He saw into the isolation ward and felt his throat tighten. There was Decius's capsule, now little more than a broken glass egg torn open from within. Organs and fleshy objects were scattered about the tiled floor where servitors and other living things had been ripped apart. Sendek's hand went to the neck ring on his armour, as the buzzing grew louder, instinctively keying the battlefield vox channel that would tie him to his squad leader. 'Andus,' he began, 'alert the-'

The claw took him by the leg and yanked him sav­agely from his feet. Sendek cried out and lost the pistol at once, as his attacker threw him bodily into a glass cabinet filled with vials and bottles. He clattered through the storage compartment and rolled to the floor, hands and knees falling into puddles of thick fluid. The Death Guard tried to recover, but a hooked foot swung up and hit him in the face, spinning him over and down.

Sendek slid away, knocking aside remnants of what had once been the torso of Brother Iago, and gasped. The shrieking, roaring storm of flies hammered around the room like a cyclone, the beating of their wings sharp in his ears. He groped for something to use as a weapon and found a large bone saw among a tray of discarded chirurgeon's tools. The Death Guard launched himself forward, turning the bright rod of surgical steel in his grip. He would make this intruder pay for killing his kinsmen.

He had only fleeting impressions of the black figure. He saw the strange wiry hairs festooning the surface of the oily armour, he felt himself gagging at the monsuous stench of death that enveloped it. A head with too many eyes and a chattering spider mouth came at him, but beneath the corrupted, fly-blown

flesh there was a shape that seemed familiar to him. A terrible moment of recognition struck Sendek like a bullet.

'Solun?' He hesitated, the arc of the bone saw halted in his shock.

'Not any more.' The mouth moved but the voice came from the flies, rippling their wings and scraping their carapaces to create a droning facsimile of human speech. The claw came out of the dimness and punctured the meat and bone of Sendek's head, splitting the Death Guard's skull. The pink-grey con­tents gushed out across his armour, and the swarm dived upon the richness to feed.

'Nathaniel!'

The woman's cry tore through Garro's body in a shuddering wave that set his nerves alight. He gasped and the steel mug in his hand fell away from nerve­less fingers, a tongue of dark tea spilling across the floor of the exercise chamber. Voyen saw his reaction and reached out to steady him. 'Captain? Are you all right?'

'Did you hear that?' Garro said, tension running through him. He cast about. 'I heard her call out.'

Voyen blinked. 'Sir, there was no sound. You reacted as if you had been struck-'

Garro pushed him away. 'I heard her, as clear as you speak to me now! It was…' The import of it came all at once, the powerful, unfiltered jolt of fear projected into him. 'Keeler! Something is amiss, it was a… a warning…'

The chamber's hatch slid into the wall and Hakur was there, his expression one of deep concern. Imme­diately, Garro knew something was very wrong. 'Speak!' he snapped.

Hakur tapped the vox module built into the collar of his power armour. 'Lord, I fear Sendek may be in trouble. He started to send me an alert call, but his words were suddenly cut off.'

"Where is he?'

'He went to relieve Iago/ said Voyen, 'at the boy's side.'

Garro tapped him on the chest. Voyen, remain here and be ready for anything.' The battle-captain strode into the corridor. 'Sergeant, get the Luna Wolf and a couple of warriors to meet us at the drop-shaft.'

'Sir, what is going on?' asked Hakur. 'Have these women turned against us?'

Nathaniel closed his eyes and felt the echo of the cry still swimming through his spirit, a dark tide of emotion following with it. 'I don't know, old friend/ he replied, taking up his helmet and locking it in place. 'We'll know soon enough.'

The resonance of gunfire climbed up the shaft to them as Garro and the other Astartes rode the gravity disc down. Qruze shot him a look. 'This damn war's followed us here.'

'Aye,' replied the battle-captain. 'Our warning may have come too late.'

Hakur cursed under his breath. 'No signals from Sendek or Iago, not even a carrier wave. At this dis­tance, there is no way I could not reach them. I could yell and they would hear it!'

The disc slowed as it approached the infirmary level. The stink of new death wafted up to the plat­form and every one of the Astartes tensed. 'Weapons/ ordered Garro, unsheathing his sword.

He led them off the elevator and through the corri­dors, crossing through the dank, blood-slick passage.

They entered the infirmary proper and Qruze made a spitting noise. 'Sendek is here/ he said, leaning over a dark shape in the gloom, 'what remains of him.'

Even through his helmet filters, the odour of decay assaulted Garro's nostrils as he came closer. The spongy slurry of meat resembled a body exposed to months of putrefaction. It was undeniably Tollen Sendek, even though the remains of the dead man's skull were a ruined, bloated mass. He recognised the honour pennants and oaths of moment affixed to the armour. These too were discoloured with age and mould, and fingers of orange rust looped around the joints of the limbs.

One of Hakur's men choked back a gasp of disgust. 'He looks like he's been dead for weeks… but I spoke to him only this morning.'

The Luna Wolf leaned closer to the body. 'Iacton, keep your distance-'

Garro's words came too late. Thick white pustules on Sendek's body trembled as they sensed the close­ness of Qruze's blood-warmth and burst, throwing out streams of tiny iridescent beetles. The veteran rocked back and batted the things away, pulping great masses of them with his armoured palm. Agh! Filthy vermin!'