Loyalty: 2/2

 

Three days ago. The sky was still a furnace, but the wind was up, blowing yellow dust up and out of the desert to stain the sky a pale green. All else was the same, apart from the box. 

Our wounds healed fast. There was a fused mass of new bone over my cracked ribs that already felt strong. Traeld’s face was blotchy with bruising, but it had already faded to a yellowy-green that nearly matched the sky. 

“Your second day of Xenos,” Caidacus shouted down to us. “But first, an honour.” 

A panel in the wall of the arena slid open, and a servitor rolled out. This one was particularly macabre, the rotting remains of a some long-forgotten criminal mounted on a heavy track. A heavy brass plaque that told of its crime covered the bottom of its skeletal face, the wording entirely obscured by years of corrosion. Six arms spidered out from its torso, one holding a pleasantly smoking censer, the other five each bearing a heavy sword, held blade downwards. I grimaced, and Quarvo noticed.

“Squeamish, brother?” he asked, smirking slyly.

“Criminals should be destroyed, not paraded about like this,” I said. “The sins of that… thing are a stain on the weapons it brings.”

“In this, you must yield to the Emperor’s wisdom,” Laidon said. 

“So I must,” I said. 

It seemed we had earned ourselves chainswords today. 

Each of us took one of the motorised blades from the mechanical corpse. Traeld hefted his thoughtfully, gaining its measure. Laidon and Durando dropped to their knees and gave thanks for their weapon. I watched the servitor leave, happy to see the arena wall sliding down behind it, and worried. Yesterday, pistols and knives. Today, a chainsword. This test would be even harder. 

 “Be faster than yesterday,” Caidacus shouted from above, and the container banged open. 

The tiled floor shifted as before, but this time into an uneven, stepped arena. No corridors or corners, but a treacherous floor full of curbs and edges ready to catch your feet. 

The xenos inside was almost a disappointment after the feral brutality of the Orks. Small, slight, a pale waspish face with hair bound in a tight bun behind the head. A female, I realised, clad in a tight-fitting singlet. She stood in the mouth of the container watching us with tired contempt.

“Aeldari,” Quarvo said, shifting to a defensive stance even as we spread out to surround her. 

“The Emperor’s wrath comes for you today, alien filth,” Traeld spat. “You face the Mantis Warriors!”

“You lie, savage,” she answered him, curling her lip. “You are pupils. Children. No, that isn’t the word. A mantis would have grubs, I think. That is what you are. Soft fat grubs, easy to pop.”

We still had our pistols, and Durando shot her then, impatient as ever. Or shot at her. She wasn’t armed or armoured, but Caidacus clearly thought her dangerous enough to be a test, and I could see why. Durando’s shots hit nothing, she stepped effortlessly out of the way and closed the distance with him in a flash, long legs flicking out as she kicked the gun out of his hand and hooked his arm down, stepping up and onto his shoulder to jump over him and knock him flat in the same movement. 

We looked like Orks in comparison as we tried to pin her down. She was always one step ahead, spinning behind us so we couldn’t get a clear shot, using our numbers against us so we seemed to fight ourselves rather than her. And where we stumbled and tripped on the treacherous courtyard floor, she skated across it like it was ice. 

We taunted her because that was what the Codex told us to do. Let her think we were unthinking primitives, shout our mantras and hymns. The Aeldari expect it of us, it blinds them to our tactical acumen. Let her feel superior, and strike when she dropped her guard, so we were taught. What the Codex didn’t explain was how much better at taunting they are. 

None of us kept our tempers in that fight. Were we playing as clumsy primitives? We were certainly committed to our roles, sweating, furious and maddened with rage by the time we finally managed to box her into a corner.Not a single shot we’d fired had connected, and we’d spent more than ten minutes fighting her to a standstill.  It was Traeld who buried his chainsword in her chest, screaming with fury as he did it. She’d somehow managed to damage mine, bending the trigger with a palm strike. Quarvo suffered a shattered tibia, Traeld’s left hand had three broken fingers and Durando wasn’t conscious at the end of the fight. Laidon was dead. In one way, it was a relief. The xenos had disarmed him, killed him with his own chainsword. His pride could never have outlived that fate, if Caidacus could even have allowed it to.

What was she, that alone she nearly outfought a combat squad of primaris initiates? We never learned. Foremost in my mind, however, as we stood on the sand and savoured our bitter victory, was Salixandrus’ question. Where was Caidacus getting these xenos from? What else was in his collection?

 

“My mind was clouded by rage,” Quarvo said. Caidacus still didn’t look up from his stool. “The aeldari used my anger against me. Just it as turned Laidon’s blade on him.”

“It is not disloyal to feel emotion,” Traeld said. “Or we would all be disloyal. Disloyal or servitors, without working minds beyond what the priests give them.”

“And a weapon cannot be disloyal, only the hand that holds it,” I added.

“Did your rage confound your purpose?” Caidacus asked, still as ever. “Did it shake you from what you needed to do?”

“No,” Quarvo admitted. 

“It was not easy, but you did not fail.”

“Is failure disloyalty, then?” Traeld asked keenly. 

Caidacus did look up at that, and one hand even flinched towards his blade. 

“Yes,” he said, with deadly calm. “When you or I fail, we fail the Emperor. His trust is in us, and to fail that is to fail the Golden Throne.” Traeld looked alarmed, more from the look on Caidacus’s face than what he said, although hearing our teacher admit that he himself might fail was bad enough. “Failure happens, like it or not. With luck, it will only happen once, and it will be no worse than your own death. Most of us survive our failures. You must be prepared for the shame when you do. 

"But we are not talking of failure, or indeed disloyalty, Traeld. We are talking of treachery, which is worse, a deliberate failure. Traitors choose to fail." His gaze fell again, and whatever went through his mind then took its time to pass. When he continued, his voice was steady again.

“Quarvo, you fought the Aeldari as best you could in the circumstances, and you defeated her together.” 

Quarvo let the breath he’d been holding go. He had passed the test. 

 

Two days before we sat in the Zuchu Room, he unleashed Tyranids on us in the courtyard. 

There was only one box, but no time whatsoever for tactical thought. The door slammed open on a wall of armoured limbs, shelled monsters with long, single claws in place of a forearm. They were packed inside like rounds in a bolt magazine, wrapped round each other so that no space was wasted. It didn’t slow them getting out at all, they seemed to move as one fluid, connected mass.

“Castle!” we all shouted at once. This was a drill we knew, keeping together in a circle and protecting each other in the absence of other cover, but one we’d have to excel at as never before.

Back-to-back we moved across the arena. Every time we made it to a raised area, we had to give ground as the floor shifted under us, our own bodies the only defensive bastion we had against a seething pack of shell-backed monstrosities. We were stronger than ever now, as though if Laidon had once been our unspoken leader, his death had somehow promoted us all. We fought as one, just as the Tyranids did, but unlike them we needed no leader to direct our efforts. We were the Codex manifest, a pure expression of tactical skill. 

Unguided as they were, the battlement of our flesh defeated them. Our pistols took down the front runners, our wazi blades slaughtered the rest. 

But it had been an extreme test even by Caidacus’s standards.

All of us were exhausted, slathered in healing unguents where bladed forearms had slashed us. Caidacus hadn’t joined us for Zuchu that night. He’d left the parapet without a word, clearly distracted. 

Where or how he had seized those swarming monstrosities was beyond me. It smacked of heresy, and I said as much as we lay in our cots in the barracks that evening. My questions couldn’t wait any more.

“It goes against the teachings of the Codex,” I stated flatly. 

“You say Koshi goes against the Codex?” Traeld challenged me angrily. A deep, burned sear across his face showed where he’d had to tear the jaws of one of the creatures from his cheek before it could bite too deeply, and he winced when he spoke.

“Tinq is right,” Quarvo said. “It is… not wise to capture Tyranids. They call to their own kind across the stars. Caidacus risks much having so many here.”

“No longer,” Traeld said. “We destroyed them all.”

“Then what of introducing the ork taint to the sands of Tranquility?” I asked. “A single spore from their kind could breed hundreds more.”

“He had the servitors purge the sands after the battle,” Traeld said. “I heard their flamers working earlier. Nothing remains of their foulness.”

“As far as we know,” I said. “For all we know, he may have more. Or more like that xenos assassin from yesterday. What if something like that got out? What havoc could it wreak across Tranquility?” 

“He must have a reason,” Durando said firmly. “We should have faith in him.”

“He is a veteran of the Badab War,” I said. 

There was a nervous silence.

“What are you saying?” Traeld said. 

“I’m saying nothing,” I said. “Merely observing. He said himself, failures occur.”

“That was centuries ago! The Mantis Warriors were tricked, we all know that. Their error was grievous, but they’ve made their penance and been forgiven!” Traeld said hotly. “Koshi told us this! The very fact that we’re becoming Primaris proves it!”

It was no secret to us, the Chapter’s ancient disgrace. Hundreds of years ago, they had been one of several chapters fooled into straying from the Imperial fold by a charismatic warlord who later revealed himself as a traitor and heretic. Such things could never be forgotten, especially here on Tranquility. 

“This planet still bears the scars of their original failures,” I pointed out. “It wasn’t a radioactive desert before the Carcharodons bombed the Mantis Warriors out of their defensive positions. Koshi was part of that. He might fail again, even with the best of intentions.”

“Especially then,” Quarvo said, nodding.

“We are the only aspirants at this monastery. There isn’t anyone else from the Chapter here. Do they even know what he’s doing?” I asked.

“Are you saying he’s gone rogue?” Durando asked, horrified.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe he thinks what he’s doing is justified,” I said. “Not that it could excuse such a lapse of judgement. But I’m not certain…”

“Then be certain! Be certain before a strike,” Quarvo said.  

“You would strike at Caidacus?” Durando said, even more horrified. “Our teacher and brother?”

"It may be he wants to be caught," Quarvo said. "To be punished, even. All traitors feel that, somewhere in their hearts. Perhaps our last test is to do confront him. If you're certain, Tinquando, then I will back you."

I held his eyes for a moment, then nodded.

Durando got out of his cot and paced anxiously across the barracks floor. I could feel Traeld’s eyes burning into me across the darkened room. But I had nothing else to say to them then, no sure proof to give beyond what I held in my heart, so we left each other to brood on our silent misgivings. 

 

On that final day, before Caidacus had gathered us in the Zuchu Room with such grave intensity, there was one final box to face. Exhausted, still not entirely healed after the battle the previous day, we’d stood before it in the deep shadows of morning, before the sun could pour its heat into the well of the courtyard. 

The box was as battered as we all felt. The Chapter heraldry was worn away to the metal underneath in places, and the design of the container was an old one, older than the ones on previous days. The locking bolts were exposed for one thing, and the design of the Aquilae felt archaic somehow, different edges to the wings of the eternal eagle perhaps? I wondered where it had come from. 

“What do you think it will be?” Quarvo whispered to me. 

I said nothing. I had my suspicions, of course. 

“Begin!” Caidacus shouted to us, and the locking mechanism whirred and clattered as it disengaged. 

The crate was empty. 

Caidacus left the parapet before Durando could ask him what was meant by this. We spent the rest of the day nursing our wounds in the chapel barracks, silently fretting over what new test was to come. 

 

We had been sitting in the Zuchu Room for several hours, now, silently for the most part other than the short bursts of conversation I have already described. And none of us knew what Caidacus was waiting for, just that he didn’t seem satisfied enough to let us go yet. 

Finally, Durando let out a long, angry sigh. “Koshi, enough! Please, tell us what it is you suspect. I have wracked my brain for any treachery in my own behaviour, or in my brothers,” Traeld scowled at that, “but there is none that I can see. We are not perfect in our execution of our training, but nor have we failed. Nor have you in departing from the Codex.”

Traeld gasped. “Who are you to judge our teacher?”

“I’m no judge, I merely share my opinion, as Koshi asked. Which is that there is no treachery here.”

“You are certain?” Caidacus asked. 

“Yes,” Durando said. 

“I see,” Caidacus said. His sword flicked out, faster almost than thought, and my fellow initiate toppled sideways. The strike was so fast it was nearly invisible, and the sword was back on Caidacus’ lap as though it had never moved. 

The silence was very long, broken only by Durando’s choking gurgles as his body attempted to deal with the gaping wound in his neck. None of us dared move.

“You killed him!” Traeld said. 

“No, he’ll live,” Caidacus said. “I know my work.”

“Why?” Quarvo’s voice trembled with rage. 

Caidacus sat perfectly still. “You know our Chapter’s history. You know how we once failed. It is taught in every village school here on Tranquility. Every parent passes on what happened to this planet when our betrayal was punished, how the Carcharodons devastated every world under our protection to draw us away from the frontlines of the war. 

“All of you know of our shame. Yet you all chose to come forward and aspire to our ranks. You choose to join us as we try to wipe clean the dishonour of our actions. It is not a stain that can be removed. It will always cloud us. Even when the Inquisition allowed us back to the Imperial fold, it was without the hard-earned support other Chapters can rely on. No Greyshields for us to replenish our ranks. 

“You are the first recruits who will become Primaris. You are already stronger, faster, harder to kill than even I, despite your initiate status, although I have served the Emperor for a long age,” he tapped the studs on his forehead, “but you are still fallible. Our Chapter cannot afford for you to fail. I must ensure you never do.”

His gaze was once more on his sword. His hand lay on the hilt and shivered slightly.

“Now, there are some amongst the villages who would see our Chapter destroyed for our old sin. They teach their children a different story to most. Where most praise our defence of this world against so many other threats, they preach on our one terrible failure to the exclusion of all else. 

“You might wonder why we tolerate such criticism from the very people we recruit from. Easily answered – it is deserved. We did fail.” And he leaned forward very slightly, weight shifting from his thighs to his crossed ankles. “But we will not fail again.

“I collect xenos to test our initiates, against the practices of the Codex, this is true. It is not all I collect.

“I also collect traitors.”

And at that moment, his eyes flicked up, and I knew that he had my measure. 

The others were frozen, still lost in the full impact of what Caidacus had said. And Caidacus himself was ready to strike and armed with his power blade. 

But I’d been waiting for this moment my entire life, and, as he’d said, I was faster than him. I threw myself across his lap before he could fully draw the blade, toppling him backwards and using every ounce of my Primaris-enhanced strength to gain control of it. 

As I rolled free, I brought the sword up and round, right at his head. I’d have had him too, if it wasn’t for Traeld. 

Traeld threw himself in the way of the blade, and it caught him mid-waist, cutting nearly half-way through him. His weight tangled the sword, threw me off-balance, and my moment was over. Before I could recover, Caidacus had his sword back and his foot on my throat. 

“Little viper,” he said, almost fondly. “I knew what you were from the moment I recruited you. I just wanted to see if the others would spot you for what you were too.”

“Murderer!” Quarvo said, almost sobbing. He sprang at Caidacus, trying to aid me as he said he would. But he was far too slow, and Caidacus cut him down without his eyes leaving mine. 

“Listen well, Durando, I know your mind attends.” Caidacus said. “Tinquandus is from one of those villages I just mentioned. A Son of the Sharks, isn’t that what you style yourselves? After the ruthless Carcharodons. He’s sworn to attempt to kill any veteran of the Badab War, avenge the deaths our mistakes caused here all those years ago. He’s been working on you over the last few nights, hasn’t he? Telling you I’ve gone rogue, that you need to turn on me.”

“The old debt will never be forgotten, betrayer!” I hissed at him. “Our teeth will find you, one day! You’ll never escape us!”

“Nobody ever escapes their old sins,” Caidacus said, and he looked tired. “But I doubt any of you will find me until I come again, looking for more recruits in your villages.”

“We’ll never serve your kind, betrayer! Never!”

“You’ve served me very well already, Tinquanus. You’ve shown me Durando was never ready to be Mantis. Too trusting, too blind to your treachery. A pity, he was a good warrior. But I shall not waste him. Indeed, I have use for all of you except Quarvo. He chose to aid you even after learning what you are, his death was earned.”

“What do you mean?” I squealed. “What use?”

“Durando’s throat will recover, although he will never speak again. He will serve amongst my serf retinue here at the monastery, a silent servant among the others. Traeld alone, of all of you, will join the ranks of my brothers as Primaris. He stayed your hand, so he passes my test. 

“Which leaves you.  You shall be the most loyal of all my new servants, Tinquando.”

“No! Never!” I shouted, trying to get up, but Caidacus merely reached down, jabbed his fingers twice into particular points at the nape of my neck and then, even though I was now paralysed, pinned me to the floor with his blade through my stomach. Then he turned to the door and gave a peculiar low whistle.

The servitor that rumbled slowly into the room was the same one that had brought us our chainswords. As its creaking pinions reached for me, I heard Caidacus say “When the Apothecary renders you to servitude, he knows to leave your memories of this night intact, traitor. As I live and serve with my failures, so shall you.”