‘To force an audience with the Chapter Master, possibly,’ Balshazar said, his deep voice finding its way to an accusatory edge. ‘He’d been formerly denied one. His act could be one of Chapter politics. The corpus-captain’s reasons are best known to himself. I know only this – if our passage had been easier and swifter here, then we might have faced the terrible odds evidenced about us as brothers, the Sword of Sebastus, thousands of years on, still bringing the sons of Rogal Dorn together.’
Quast leant in. The stink of gore rising from the Scourge’s plate made the approbator recoil slightly.
‘Corpus-captain, I am here representing the interests of the Holy Ordos. I must know what happened here. These are strange happenings indeed and explanations must be sought.’
Kersh moved suddenly, causing the approbator to retract further. In an agonising movement, and with fresh blood gushing from his ripped plate, Kersh dropped his neophyte’s inception blade and reached for the gravestone behind him. It was torment to watch. Both Balshazar and the approbator wanted to assist the wounded Space Marine, but had little idea what he was doing. Slowly, the Scourge’s ceramite fingertips reached for the sculpted stone of the grave marker. The stone was inscribed with a name: Erzsebet Dorota Catallus. At its heart, like the thousands of gravestones surrounding them across the necroplex, was a small bell. Quast frowned, assuming the instrument to be part of some Ecclesiarchy ritual or cemetery world custom. With an effort-trembling fingertip, Kersh prodded the bell, sending out a tinny chime across the steaming burial grounds. He did this a second and a third time until suddenly, and surprisingly, the bell began to ring of its own accord.
Quast and the Santiarch looked at one another. About them, bells started ringing everywhere, each of the gravestones peeling with chimes of urgency and insistence. The approbator moved in closer to examine the grave marker. He saw the openings for air supply and the wire running from the bell and down into the earth. He turned back to Balshazar.
‘The dead are rising, Santiarch. Miracles indeed.’
‘Approbator!’ the Ranger Pelluciad sergeant called, standing next to a vox-pack-carrying storm trooper. ‘Dig teams report knocking from beneath the ruins of the Memorial Mausoleum. The new pontifex has begged assistance from the ordo and the Adeptus Astartes in excavating the survivors and the relic-remains of Umberto II.’
‘Inform the pontifex that we are going to need shovels,’ Quast called back. ‘Lots of shovels.’
As the chorus of bells rang across the killing fields, the approbator’s eyes settled on an object, half buried in the bloody earth. Picking it up and wiping it off, Quast discovered a crystalline wafer bearing a name and illustration. He had seen astropaths use such cards to divine possible futures – a tarot card. On the bottom of the wafer it stated Deus Imperator and pictured their corpse-lord, sat on his Golden Throne, amongst ancient apparatus of gold, steel and brass.
‘God-Emperor…’ Quast mouthed.
Looking down, the approbator saw another tarot wafer, and another – both amongst the carnage, sitting on the earth of newly dug graves. Burial plots all about were marked with the cards and each bore the holy image of the God-Emperor. Quast shook his head. He had seen Guardsmen drop playing cards on enemy dead as a signature of their success – a practice of certain regiments – but never wafers deposited on the living; on battle survivors. Returning to the wounded Excoriator, the approbator showed him the cards.
‘What happened here?’ Quast asked the Scourge. He held up the crystalline wafers. ‘I must know. Tell me everything.’
‘…or the teachings of our lord-founder, Demetrius Katafalque. I know not what I saw on Certus-Minor. I’m not sure that I’m the best instrument of elucidation. I have lived a warrior’s life. A simple but essential existence of death and darkness, so that the light of the Imperium might shine brightly. What I experienced, others have known. Brothers who bear witness to a Legion of the Damned. An intervention from beyond. Aid unexplained, yet offered in silence and with the fury of ethereal vengeance – vanishing as swiftly as it appeared. I shall let Imperial scholars and the sophists of the Holy Ordos assign an explanation to this strange but welcome phenomenon, whether that be brothers lost on the Sea of Souls, a corruption beyond our understanding or the manifestation of a divine Will. I think that another Chapter – I forget which one – said it best. Their motto was In dedicato deus imperatum ultra articulo mortis: For the God-Emperor beyond the point of death. Perhaps these damned legionnaires had pledged themselves as such. Perhaps one day I shall know. There are worse fates in the galaxy for a battle-brother, intent on serving one’s God-Emperor into eternity.’
From Damnation’s Calling
By Chapter Master Zachariah Kersh, of the Excoriators Space Marine Chapter