Loyalty: 1/2

 ”If there is treachery here, it must be cut out,” Caidacus said. 

Our teacher sat in front of the four of us with his sword across his lap. None of us spoke. None of us moved, in fact -  a weight lay in my stomach like a frozen shadow. To even speak of treachery here was to invite its presence. That our teacher did so, and so coldly, was outright terrifying.

There was a stillness in his face I hadn’t seen before, something guarded. An intense focus that he gave to the mirrored blade before him. He rarely betrayed any sign of emotion, so it was hard to read what he might be thinking, but whatever it was, it was something important. 

The five of us sat in a star, Caidacus at the head, myself to his left, then the others. He sat on a stool, a leather sling over two curved bows of wood. Even without it, his seniority would have been obvious. He had three silver service studs embedded across his brow, his left arm ended at the elbow in a livid scar where flesh fused to his bionic forearm, and he was taller and heavier than the rest of us. Not stronger anymore, we were all catching up fast now, muscular adolescents rapidly becoming men. More than men. 

He also had the full black carapace. His shoulders and chest shone like polished stone, hard and unyielding. The rest of us, aspirants all, were still skin-clad. We sweated or shivered, depending on the room or our mood. Not Caidacus, our Koshi. Our teacher was Astartes, a Mantis Warrior. As we would be someday. 

If we made the cut. 

We sat silently and waited for him to speak more. The Zuchu Room was cool, lit by crystal lamps hidden behind the pale silk screen walls. Imperial iconography was printed discreetly into the corner of each panel, black aquilae against the white fabric that matched the black plasteel beams that ran along the corners. Hidden vents along the beams brought cool air into the cubic space, a welcome reprieve from the dry heat of our isolated fortress monastery here on Tranquility III. I had welcomed it at first, a day in the sun-blistered courtyard was always exhausting. But now I was starting to shiver. 

Zuchu was our ritual training every night. Normally, we went directly after our gruelling battle rehearsals to focus and learn from our mistakes in this room. Caidacus was the sole member of the Chapter here, if you didn’t count the silent and deferential serfs who maintained the place or the  grisly servitors who fetched and carried for him. Those hissing mechanical things, the mangled remains of ancient criminals peering pathetically out of them, made me deeply uncomfortable. I avoided them whenever possible. 

Caidacus was our parent, master and judge, all rolled into one. We lived, fought and learned under his watchful eye. Was he hard and unforgiving, perhaps somewhat extreme in his methods? Well, that was as it should be. Anything less, and we would never earn our place amongst the newest Primaris recruits. 

In this room, Caidacus usually gave us lessons from the Codex, tactical puzzles disguised as stories or on rare occasions, fast games of Dan-ko-ro to sharpen our wits. He would sit on his stool at the top of the square chamber, passing dataslates or stone game tokens to us for several hours. He was a sharp and engaging mentor. A vending servitor usually stood in one corner, providing a supply of tasty hardash crackers or an ice-cold beaker of sharp Lerro water on hand for any who wanted refreshment, a bowl and dressings to clean any injuries from the day’s work, perhaps even weapons to discuss and analyze.

Today, nothing. I’d even have welcomed the servitor’s rotting, skeletal face. But there was just the sword across his lap. At least it was still sheathed. 

For now. 

Durando broke first, which didn’t surprise any of us.

“Koshi, what do you mean? Why would there be treachery here?”

Caidacus didn’t look up, his hard grey eyes stayed fixed on his sword. “It is not a word I use lightly, Durando. You know the history that accompanies it, particularly for our chapter. What do you believe I mean?”

Durando’s big round eyes went wider than ever. 

“I… I don’t know. Has one of us betrayed you somehow?”

Traeld looked sharply round at Durando when he said that. Traeld had a broad face that tapered to a narrow chin. He always appeared angry, even when he wasn’t. You could tell when he was genuinely so because the perpetual frown on his wide forehead disappeared, as though his face could only relax when the rest of him was tense.

“Koshi didn’t ask us a question, Dura. He just made a statement. Don’t give him answers he didn’t ask for.”

“He wouldn’t talk of treachery without good cause,” Durando protested. “I can’t think of one, so I’m asking for more information.”

“Patience is always repaid,” Traeld said. “You know the mantra.”

“Patience pays for all,” Quarvo corrected him, then, unable to restrain himself, added the rest of the verse. “Waiting rewards all silence with the golden truth.”

Traeld rolled his eyes. “You should pause after ‘silence’ to observe the meter, wise brother. As I’m sure you know.”

“Line breaking is optional across the second two stanzas,” Quarvo said, with a polite smile. 

“Face-breaking is likewise optional,” Traeld growled, “but I choose to restrain myself today. We should stay silent and wait for the situation to unfold.”

“Durando already broke the silence,” Quarvo said.  

“That doesn’t mean we should continue to,” said Traeld.  

“Nor does it mean we shouldn’t. It means nothing. It was an observation,” Quarvo said.  

“I think we should be quiet,” Durando said anxiously. “Like Tinq.”

They all looked at me then. Traeld’s wide and angry face, Durando with his nervous eyes and Quarvo’s slight judgemental smirk. To outside eyes, we all looked alike with our shorn heads, loose green aspirants’ trousers and bare chests. Even the tiny scars from our gene-seed implantations were nearly identical, faded white lines in our skin that would vanish entirely in time once the final implant, the black carapace, was made. 

We all had our unique scars from four intense days of combat rehearsal. And we were all different in our hearts, of course. I nearly spoke then, but Caidacus cut in abruptly.

“Tinquandus is right to remain silent,” he said. “We are sure before we act. Uncertainty is a gamble. We are Mantis Warriors, not gamblers. We do not throw our lives away on the cast of a die.” He still hadn’t looked up from his sword. “We do not trust in an unproven weapon. And our chapter, more than any, will not rely on assumed loyalties.

“You are to receive your twenty-second and final implant tomorrow. You are the only group of aspirants under consideration this year. It is my duty to decide whether the procedure tomorrow will go ahead. The Apothecaries await my word. 

“You have passed your trials of combat and of faith thus far. But you hang on a knife edge. I have watched your progress these last few days particularly closely, and I am not satisfied. Not yet.

“If one of you believe that you have been less than loyal to the Throne, to the Mantis Warriors or to each other, I will know of it tonight. And I will not hesitate once I know the truth. If there is treachery here, it must be cut out. I will make the cut myself.”

The room felt distinctly cold now. 

 

Four days ago, six of us stood together in the monastery’s courtyard and faced the box. 

Although it was called a courtyard, it was more of an arena. Four sheer rockrete walls leading up to a surrounding parapet with only the clear blue sky above. No visible entrances or exits save for chain ladders that the chapter serfs lowered to let us in and raised behind us. The floor was sand scattered loosely over dull brown tiles, replaced from buckets that lay in the corners. The tiles hid mechanisms that allowed our instructors to set up various arrangements of platforms or trenches. 

Or, as today, they could bring in a box. 

Boxes were never good. Boxes contained surprises. A combat servitor with live ammunition to see if we had really taken in our defensive manoeuvres. A ten foot-bladesnake, captured in the rocky deserts outside and starved for a few days. Caidacus himself with a double-handed chainsword, ready to teach and punish in equal measure.

This box was already shuddering and rocking as whatever inside it tried to get out, and given that the box was a solid munitorum container, whatever it was in there was angry.

“These next few days are your final challenges before implantation,” Caidacus called down to us from the parapet. He was just a distant shadow against the blazing cobalt sky, the afternoon sun was full overhead. “You have mastered your combat doctrina thus far. But thus far, you have not faced a real foe.”

“Of course, that bladesnake was our friend all along,” Traeld muttered. The four of us stood in our training pants, naked to the waist as usual. We’d been given short curve-bladed wazi knives and a six-shot stub pistol. This was more than we were generally handed before a combat test, but it wasn’t much comfort to know we needed to be armed to face whatever was in there.

“Today you face xenos for the first time, aspirants. You have heard of them already. You know the relevant sections of the Codex.”

We exchanged glances. 

“Actual xenos?” Salixandrus muttered to me quietly. He looked worried. The oldest of us, he was naturally wary, and often questioned Caidacus the most closely on the teachings of the Codex.

Laidon shushed him, equally quietly, keeping his eyes on Caidacus. Laidon had a natural poise - he was an excellent fighter and a highly promising recruit, although he and Traeld didn’t get along. He wouldn’t want to miss anything Caidacus had to say.

“Which xenos, teacher?” Durando called up. Traeld rolled his eyes, but Caidacus ignored the question.

“I have taught you how to handle any threat.” The shadow above us paused. “Today I will see if you were listening. Begin!”

The scratched yellow-and-green face of the container burst open, revealing deep shadow. At the same time, the tiles began moving up around us with a deep grinding noise as the floor of the courtyard rearranged itself into a maze of slender fences. Traeld, Salixandrus and I stood our ground before the box, but Quarvo, Laidon and Durando were forced to move back as a wall slid swiftly up between us all, blank metal surfaces towering twice as high as any of us. 

Something moved in the shadow. It lumbered angrily out into the hard daylight, blinking its small, red eyes at us. It was humanoid, taller than any of us, than Caidacus even. Its small head jutted forward from under massively muscular shoulders, thickly covered in muddy brown-green hide. This was no thinker, you could tell from the tiny brainpan. It was a fighter – tusked teeth jutted out of a jaw wider than its face, the clawed hands were knotted with muscle and scarred over the knuckles from hard use. One of those hands clutched a rough length of metal, an internal strut torn from inside the box by the look of it. But the worst thing about it was the look on its face. 

It looked pleased. 

“Ork!” Traeld shouted as he and I raised our pistols and fired. 

“Orks,” corrected Salixandrus grimly, as a second brute came out of the box, chuckling and cracking its knuckles. 

“Keep them at arms’ length,” I heard Laidon shout. “Hit and run, tire them out! We are coming to your aid!”

It was easier said than done. The brutes weren’t fast, but we were right in front of them. The lead ork whirled the strut round in front of its face as it plodded forward. We shot at it, one bullet sparking off the metal, the rest thudding limply into its tough skin. They might have been pebbles for all the notice it took, and we were already up against the wall of a junction, triggers clicking uselessly on empty chambers.

“Those are long arms,” Traeld observed, ducking back as the jagged edge of the strut zipped past his face. 

“Split,” I whispered. 

He darted one way, Salixandrus and I went the other. The first ork growled in frustration, clearly wondering which one of us to chase, then Traeld threw his knife at it and made the decision for it. Pausing only to bat the blade out of the air, it roared and ran at him as he vanished round a corner of the maze. The other came straight for Salixandrus and me. He still had shots left, and fired at it, once more without effect, so we turned and ran, wazi blades held out down and ready in the Mantis style. 

“We’ve split up,” Traeld called. “One on me, one on the others.”

“Keep calling,” Durando shouted. “We are tracking you by sound!”

“I am not making…” Traeld’s sentence was broken by a grunt and a bellow from the ork, “…conversation out of politeness, brother!”

That was the last we had time to listen to. Our path was a dead end, and our ork was right behind us. Salixandrus gritted his teeth, wazi knife readied. 

“He set orks on us,” he said bitterly. “Where did he get such things?”

There was no time to answer that question. With a wordless battlecry, the xenos thundered towards us, clawed fists at the ready. 

We barked what instructions we could to each other, but the pent-up fury of the ork was astounding. The Codex taught us to strike at tendons or joints, cripple and dismember the creature where possible rather than attempt to damage its few vital organs. The Codex had little to say about how hard an ork would make those strikes, especially when all you had was a wazi knife. 

“We’re with you shortly, brothers,” Laidon called. “Hit and run, don’t let them pen you!”

“Flank past it,” I snapped at Salixandrus, ducking under one of the ork’s haymaker swings. But I realised he wasn’t listening. 

Salixandrus was as focussed as I’d ever seen him, almost crazed with his intense need to kill the creature. He didn’t hear me, just slipped under the ork’s raking fists and slammed his knife into its side once, twice, three times with fierce punches. 

Each of those hits could have finished a smaller opponent, and indeed, the ork even looked surprised for a moment as its brackish blood spurted out from the deep wounds. Only for a moment, however, then it grabbed Salixandrus with both arms, headbutted him full in the face, then bit deep into his neck as he reeled back, dazed. 

That moment would be the only one I had to strike, so I took it. Wrapping my arm round the Ork’s neck and using all my strength to try to pull its head back, I managed to slip the blade of my wazi in against its neck. When the ork tried to pull away, it was its own strength that did most of the cutting work, I merely had to keep the knife still. 

It was too late for Salixandrus, however. As the ork collapsed, head rolling free, I looked away from the ruin of his once-handsome face. He wasn’t the first initiate we’d lost, there had been ten of us at the beginning. If I stood here mourning, he might not be the last to go today. 

“One ork down. Salixandrus fell,” I shouted. 

“Understood, brother. Hurry to me, I’m hard pressed!” Traeld shouted. He wasn’t far, I could tell, and I sprinted to join him. The others were still lost in the winding passages of the maze, and although I heard their calls of support, I focussed on finding Traeld. 

Rounding the corner, I saw him ducking and rolling as the towering xenos swatted at him with its makeshift weapon. As fast as I could, I rushed in behind it. It had no awareness of its surroundings, it was completely taken up with trying to kill him, so it was easy enough to bury my blade in the small of its back, right where the kidneys would be on a man. 

It was a thoughtless strike. More annoyed than hurt, it seemed to me, it lashed backwards with appalling speed. I was glad it was its empty fist that connected rather than the one with the metal bar. I was too close to dodge, instead throwing myself backwards with the force of the blow, rolling as I hit the sandy tiles. Grazes, perhaps a fractured shin, nothing more, but my wazi remained lodged in the Ork’s flank. 

“Tinq has blooded it,” Traeld called out, slashing with his own knife at the beast’s knuckles as it continued to drive him backwards with windmill slashes. 

“They won’t bleed out,” Durando yelled. “They clot fast, like we do.”

“Try to sever the tendons in its legs,” Quarvo shouted back. I couldn’t tell if they were closer or not, the maze baffled the sound of our voices. 

“Would you prefer those of the knee or those…” another grunt, “of the ankle, wise brother?” Traeld shouted. 

“The ankle,” Quarvo called. “It will slow it down more.”

“And how deep should the cut be?” Traeld asked. 

“Between two and four… are you being sarcastic, Traeld?”

“Hardly at all,” Traeld growled, throwing himself backwards again to avoid another scything blow. 

I got to my feet and closed in. The pistol in my hand would do little, but I could distract the xenos before it cornered Traeld again. 

I was too slow. He ducked under one of the Ork’s swiping blows, reaching in for its legs a slash that should have done as Quarvo had suggested. But he’d overreached, and the brutal creature shifted its weight with surprising speed, kicked him in the face to send him flying backwards, stunned, and then thudded towards him, both hands on its massive shiv as it brought it up for an impaling strike. 

I leapt onto its back, using my wazi as a foothold and trying to grab it round the neck. It was like trying to hug the walls of the courtyard, I simply lacked the armspan, but I managed to get enough grip to hold myself there and smash the barrel of my pistol into its face. 

“I have it distracted,” I shouted. All I could hope was that it would take it long enough to dislodge me for Quarvo and Durando to arrive. The Ork grunted in surprise as I battered its mouth and eyes, then I felt one huge hand grab me round the shoulder. The sky spun around me, a dizzy moment of sickening spinning, and I found myself hanging off the tops of one of the walls, ribs aching at the impact of metal on skin. Before I could reorient myself, the Ork grabbed my leg and pulled me down again with the same contemptuous ease it had thrown me there in the first place. 

Then it fell over, landing on top of me and crushing the air from my lungs. 

“Good distraction,” I heard Traeld pant. This time, his blade had found the tendons, but the Ork was far from done. Bellowing with rage, it grabbed him, pulling him in with one colossal arm for a bone-breaking embrace. I was pinned and reeling, unable to move. 

But our brothers were there, at last. Sprawled on the floor, occupied with Traeld and myself, it couldn’t stop Durando unloading his pistol into its mouth at close range whilst Quarvo straddled its chest, plunging his wazi into its exposed guts and cutting from side to side until it finally stopped moving.

Laidon helped us up, Traeld and I both leaning on our brothers for support. The thick greenish sludge that passed for orkish blood was painted over everything – us, the floor, the walls. Traeld’s face was a bruised mass, I wheezed as my damaged ribs struggled to get air into my lungs. 

“Satisfactory, but a little slow,” Caidacus shouted at us from the parapet. “I have released a second wave into the maze. You will find reloads for your weapons in the original box. Proceed!”

 

Durando broke the silence in the Zuchu room again. “When we fought the Orks,” he said, hesitantly, “I was afraid.”

Caidacus’s gaze was back on his blade. 

“What did you fear?” he asked, softly. 

“I was afraid that we would not kill them all fast enough. And I was afraid for my brothers. I saw what the first wave did to them. How it killed Salixandrus. We aren’t full Astartes, I know that. And we weren’t fully armed. But they were lone Orks, not the fighting packs the Codex describes. I felt that we struggled, and that made me afraid.”

“That isn’t fear,” I said. “It didn’t stop you fighting. We destroyed those Orks. You felt the weight of your duty, and you knew the cost of failure. Neither is fear and neither is disloyalty.”

“So the Codex describes it,” Durando said, nodding. “But it didn’t feel that way. We shall not know fear, we bring the fury of the Emperor. I felt afraid, I think. That is disloyalty to myself, to the training the Chapter has given me.” His head hung low as he said that, it was easy to see his shame. 

“In that moment, you doubted yourself, yes.” Caidacus said. “Do you still doubt yourself now?” 

Durando thought for a long time, but then “No,” he said simply. “We killed the Orks. They couldn’t stand against our might.”

“You passed that test,” Caidacus said, still gazing at his blade. “Your loyalty is not in question.”

Durando’s spine straightened, his head lifted. 

The room still felt cold, however. 

To be concluded...