With its gear on the ground, the Gauntlet’s tactical bay ramp lowered and Squads Cicatrix and Castigir filed out with weapons drawn. They fell to immediately securing the area around the Thunderhawk. Kersh had ordered vigilance upon arrival. With knowledge of damned monuments to dark gods and cultist activity on the cemetery world, the corpus-captain wasn’t taking any chances. For all the Excoriators knew, heretics could have possession of the space port and be waiting for the Space Marines in ambush. Nobody in the Fifth Company wanted a repeat of Ignis Prime and the Kruger Ridge.
Kersh stepped out onto the level rockrete. The dizzying heights of bethel towers and cathedrals surrounded the landing plaza, extending upwards on a steep incline like a miniature hive. Kersh looked back down at the pict-captures he was holding. As Ezrachi followed, the Apothecary’s leg sighing in hydraulic rhythm, he too held a capture in his ceramite fingertips.
‘What am I looking at?’ the aged Excoriator asked.
‘Psyoccular image captured from the Empyredrome,’ Kersh replied as the pair of Space Marines strode across the plaza. ‘Aft orientation. Censor-cropped by Chaplain Shadrath, in the interests of spiritual licentiousness. Rendered to full magnification.’
Behind them, the Chaplain himself, Epistolary Melmoch and Techmarine Dancred followed. Ezrachi passed the pict-capture to the Librarian and took another from Kersh. From the tactical bay rumbled the tracks of a mobile weapon. The quad barrels of a Thunderfire cannon emerged, followed by the chunky brutality of its itinerant chassis. Its armour plating bore the colours, scarring and annotations of the Excoriators Chapter, the Cog Mechanicum and a name: Punisher. Following the Techmarine like a hunting dog, the cannon’s machine-spirit drove the heavy metal beast on down the ramp. Dancred gave both it and a miserable servitor-loader an instruction in lingua-technis, prompting both drone and weapon to follow.
‘This can’t be a vessel – not if these reticles are anything to go by,’ Ezrachi commented.
‘Bartimeus’s Navigator thinks it is,’ Kersh said.
‘Could this not be some great beast of the warp?’ Melmoch asked. ‘They, for example, look like wings to me.’ He passed the pict-capture to Brother Dancred. The Techmarine’s gearface formed a clockwork scowl and the Space Marine slowed to a stop.
‘That is a vessel,’ he confirmed. ‘Something ancient, abominable and glorious. The Imperium hasn’t made vessels of this size and design for thousands of years.’
‘Again, Bartimeus’s Navigator concurs. It’s probably some mangled hulk that’s been lost in the warp for an eternity. I’ve despatched the Impunitas to observe our translation point from a dwarf moon on the edge of the system. They will inform us of any new arrivals.’
Brother-Contego Micah moved past with heavy, purposeful steps. Micah was the Fifth Company’s freshly promoted champion. His predecessor had lost his life defending Corpus-Captain Thaddeus on the Kruger Ridge. Micah was young for his position but a cool, impassive Excoriator. He was a gifted marksman and took the responsibilities of company champion seriously. Micah seemed just as unhappy about Kersh’s promotion as everyone else in the Fifth, but had studied his corpus-captain’s orders and their mission brief and had volunteered practical propositions regarding the company’s caution and security on Certus-Minor. Like many of his brothers, he was determined that the Excoriators would not fall to the predations of the Alpha Legion again – even if that meant keeping Zachariah Kersh alive. Micah held his combat shield out in front of him, resting it on a cradle attached to the chunky barrel of the champion’s boltgun. Leading the way with the gun shield and the muzzle emerging from its ceramite cleft, he assumed position on point, putting himself squarely between his corpus-captain and possible enemies.
‘The hulk is not our concern,’ Chaplain Shadrath hissed from behind Kersh.
‘How I wish that were so, Chaplain,’ Kersh said, stopping and turning. The Excoriators came to a halt on the landing plaza. ‘Like you, I am eager to be on to Rorschach’s World. Company protocol is clear on this, however. We are bound by reclamation treaties with the Adeptus Mechanicus and Ordo Xenos Carta Contagio. Any hulks appearing within Imperial space must be investigated.’
‘There are priorities…’
‘There are,’ Kersh agreed with an edge, ‘but I have reports of pirate attacks from the sprint trader Avignor Star, an astrotelepathic blackout and Alpha Legion activity in the region to consider. And that on top of the prospect of a space hulk and the taint of Chaos on this Ecclesiarchy world. Our talents are superhuman, Chaplain Shadrath – not supernatural. We cannot be everywhere at once.’
‘Corpus-captain,’ Brother Toralech interrupted. The Space Marine brought a ceramite finger to the side of his helm. ‘The Gauntlet has relayed a vox-message from the Angelica Mortis. Corpus-Commander Bartimeus requests permission to take the cruiser out of low orbit to commence battery practise.’
‘Denied,’ Kersh answered simply. ‘The Angelica Mortis will hold her position.’ The Scourge glowered at Shadrath before turning and striding across the plaza. The towering Toralech relayed the response, resting the shaft of the billowing company standard against the rockrete and the long barrel of his flamer against a battle-scarred pauldron.
As the Excoriators strode across the landing plaza, hearsiers paused in their unloading of sarcophagi from mortuary lighters to watch the giants go by. A delegation of priests and their accompanying honour guard of defence force Guardsmen approached from the Memorial Space Port gate.
‘Salutations, great warriors,’ the priest announced, his eyes to the ground. He bowed his mitre, his vermillion robes flapping in the breeze. ‘I am Vasco Ferreira, the Pallmaster General. We received word – the last in a long time – from his grace Cardinal Pontian of St Ethalberg that assistance was coming. We had not dared hope that the Emperor’s Angels themselves would–’
‘Pallmaster,’ Kersh stopped him.
‘My lord?’ the priest replied fearfully.
‘You have a superior?’ the corpus-captain asked.
‘I answer to the pontifex,’ Ferreira said, ‘as all God-Emperor-fearing people do on Certus-Minor.’
Kersh softened his words with a vague smile. ‘Take us straight to him, please.’
‘Of course, your magnificence. A thousand apologies,’ Ferreira said.
With the Pallmaster General leading the way, the Excoriators were flanked by members of the Certus-Minor Charnel Guard, dressed in flak, robes and feather bonnets. They were sombre figures, all in black and carrying long, ceremonial lasfusils. The solemnity continued as the Adeptus Astartes were escorted out of the gate and up through the winding alleyways and steep steps of the cemetery world city. About them walls reached for the ivory skies and the incline became increasingly precipitous. In adjoining naveways and alleys, as well as at archways and fenestra, the Excoriators encountered gathered Certusians. The cemetery worlders looked on with sober reverence and wonder. They remained a silent sea of gaunt faces, the Ecclesiarchical baseborn: vergermen, foss-reeves and vestals. Occasional preachers punctuated the torturous route, making the sign of the aquila and offering blessings.
Across a small square, at the top of the city, the Excoriators were confronted with the colossal archway-barbican of the Umberto II Memorial Mausoleum. The pillars of the stately sepulchre were thick and tall, and the darkness of the threshold beckoned pilgrim and cleric alike. Two Sisters of Battle, garbed in the midnight-blue sheen of ceramite and hugging belt-fed heavy bolters to their breasts, flanked the entrance. Standing tall before the arch was a baroque nightmare, a penitent engine housing a wretched, emaciated repentant. Crucified across the walker, the unfortunate seemed at peace. Kersh shuddered to think of the carnage the reformite could wreak, with its caged limbs, mounted chainfists and heavy flamers.