The First Heretic

Staying alive was, but then, that was always a concern. He was forever aware of that fact, which was why he was so good at it. Still, he had to admit it had become a more pressing matter, and a more difficult aim to reach.

Ishaq had never been in a void battle before, and it wasn’t something he hoped to get into again. The ship shook as if in a storm’s grip, shuddering with a belligerent aggression that defied all expectation. Every two dozen steps he took found him thrown to the floor with knee-aching violence, and resulted in hisses of pain along with the creation of new swear words – the latter usually by melding three existing curses together in a stream of invective. When Ishaq Kadeen swore, he swore with feeling, even if not with sense.

Half of the problem was that he was lost, and the other half of the problem was that he was lost on what was jokingly-referred to as the monastic deck, where the Word Bearers and their Legion serfs went about the business of being heroes (and the slaves of heroes). Sneaking onto the deck had seemed a good idea at the time; he’d hoped for some panoramic views of Astartes training chambers, or discarded suits of armour awaiting repair, or immense weapon racks to show the scale of war waged by the Emperor’s Legions. All of these would have made for fine, private and personal images very rarely seen from the Great Crusade, and would have bolstered his portfolio immeasurably. Stealing the grey, hooded Legion robe had been no trouble at all. Even slaves with vows of silence had to do their laundry.

It had started well. Then the battle had started, and he’d got lost.

Luckily, no Word Bearers were on board, all of them committed to the world below. The Legion serfs he did see were hurrying along about their business, but even they were hardly a sizable population. Evidently they had other duties to perform when their masters went to war. What they might be, Ishaq had no idea.

‘Shields down,’ shouted a voice over the shipwide vox, accompanied by some truly horrendous shaking. ‘Shields down, shields down.’

Well, that wasn’t good.

He stumbled around a corner as the lights flickered above. Another long corridor awaited him, with various junctions leading off deeper into this never-ending maze. At the far end, he could see another bulkhead of dense, multi-layered metal. He’d come across several of these so far, and was almost certain that they led to the most interesting parts of the deck. Ishaq wasn’t about to attempt to gain entrance though – a single failed retinal scan would mark his location to the Army units on board, and he could look forward to a quick execution. Oh, yes. He remembered the penalties for coming here all too well.

The Euchar were proving to be a problem too. Squads of them patrolled the halls with their lasguns held diligently to their chests, and though he was immune to their gaze with his robe’s hood covering most of his face, they made it difficult to take any picts, even if he had actually come across anything worthwhile.

Ishaq was finally considering a tactical retreat when the ship shook with enough violence to send him sprawling off-balance, head banging off the steel wall. It hurt enough to stun him, and it stunned him enough that he didn’t even think of swearing.

That lapse was rectified several seconds later, when an automated voice declared a list of breached decks over the vox. The list came to a climax with the words: ‘Deck Sixteen, void breach. Bulkheads sealing. Deck Sixteen, void breach. Bulkheads sealing.’

In a moment of almost poetic disgust, Ishaq looked up to see the great, red ‘XVI’ emblazoned on the wall where he’d hit his head. It was even decorated with spots of his blood.

‘You’re kidding me,’ he said out loud.

‘Deck Sixteen, void breach,’ the crackling voice monotoned again. ‘Bulkheads sealing.’

‘I heard you the first time.’

The ship rattled again, with the definite booming of explosions only a few corners away. Smoke billowed from the far end of the corridor.

Ishaq’s world dimmed into the deep, unwanted red spectrum of emergency lighting. At best, it would ruin any picts he took. At worst, and much more likely, he was about to die.

Argel Tal drew back his claws. The blood lining them sank into the curling metal, drank as thirstily as desert soil drinks rainwater. He released a great howl to the sky as he waded forward, kicking aside wounded Astartes and carving out at the massed Raven Guard in range. Their blades broke against his armour, each strike hitting with a curiously muted sensation – he could feel the slices as if they were chopping into the skin of his armour, but they never bled, never caused any pain.

blade left danger kill