tanks. The glass broke and the thick, cold nutrient fluid washed out over him, lapping around the feet of
the orderlies who cowered against the far wall. 'How many enemies of man have fallen to the Soul
Drinkers? How many catastrophes have we averted?'
'And how many Space Marines have fallen to you?' retorted the Apothecary. 'Our brethren in the
Crimson Fists and the Howling Griffons could attest to that. If you had lost as many of your own to an
enemy as mankind has to you, you would not hesitate to seek that enemy's death!'
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Sarpedon tried to get to his feet, leaning against the wall behind him to force himself up. He tried to
find a weapon among the debris around him, a shard of glass or a medical implement, but his head was
swimming and he couldn't focus.
'If you had seen,' he said, 'what we had seen, then you would cross the galaxy to join us, though a
legion of your own stand in your way.'
'Had I my mind, traitor,' said the Apothecary, 'I would have had you executed as soon as Lysander
had brought you in, as a mercy to the human race so that you would be excised like the cancer you are.
But the Chapter Master has said you must stand trial. He has more mercy in him than I, or any
battle-brother I know. You should be sobbing your gratitude to us. Enough of this.'
The Apothecary operated a control on a unit attached to the waist of his armour. A white, dull
sensation throbbed through Sarpedon's head, conducted from temple to temple by the inhibitor. Then
Sarpedon was falling, his mind ripped free of his body. His sight failed and everything went white as he
fell, and he did not stop falling until he could feel nothing at all.
THE FIRST TO arrive to take their part among a jury of the Soul Drinkers' peers were the Crimson Fists.
On their strike cruiser Vengeance Incandescent, the whole Second Company attended their
representative to the Phalanx. The Crimson Fists, a brother Chapter to the Imperial Fists just as the
Soul Drinkers had once been, claimed a special place in the forthcoming trial, for they had suffered more
than most at the hands of the renegades.
Chapter Master Vladimir had left his usual place among the tactical treatises and fortification maps of
the Librarium Dorn, to welcome Captain Borganor as he boarded the Phalanx. Attended by the ninth
company's honour guard, Borganor descended the embarkation ramp of his shuttle with a slight limp
given him by the bionic with which his right leg had been replaced. His quartered yellow and red was
swathed in the deep blue cloak embroidered with his personal heraldry, an image in gold and black
thread of a Howling Griffon with his head bowed in shame and his hands at prayer. Borganor was as
blunt and crude as his gnarled features suggested, and with a clap of his hand against his gilded
breastplate he acknowledged Vladimir's salute.
'Chapter Master, it is an honour,' said Borganor. 'Would that I stand in your presence on a
happier occasion, and without the stain of failure that still lies upon my Chapter.'
Vladimir Pugh of the Imperial Fists nodded sagely. He was, above all other things, a master
tactician, a man of solemn and slow manner with a habit of dissecting a situation as cold-bloodedly as he
weighed up potential recruits. The golden yellow of his artificer armour was polished to a mirror finish,
and the red closed fist symbols on his shoulder pads and breastplate shone as if they were cut from
rubies. The intelligent face beneath his close-shorn hair suggested something more than a mere soldier.
'Long have I lamented the loss of Lord Mercaeno at the hands of the renegades,' he said to Borganor. 'It
is an ill that will surely be repaid when justice is pronounced upon them.'
Discomfort broke through Borganor's features for a moment. Librarian Mercaeno was the
greatest Howling Griffon hero of the current age, the slayer of the daemon Periclitor and avenger of
Chapter Master Furioso's death. Mercaeno had fallen in battle with Sarpedon, and a thousand oaths had
been sworn to see Sarpedon dead before the pain of his loss could begin to subside. Borganor, who had
taken over the depleted company, bore no little responsibility for Mercaeno's death and the escape of the
Soul Drinkers.
'No doubt,' said Borganor. 'I wish to request one favour from you, however, before
proceeding on.'
'Name it, brother-captain,' said the Chapter Master.
'That before Sarpedon is executed, I am first given liberty to remove his limbs, and leave him
with a single leg, as he left me.' Borganor's eyes flitted to his bionic leg. 'Mercaeno's death is shared by all
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Sons of Guilliman, by every Space Marine, and so vengeance for it shall belong to us all. But my crippling
was Sarpedon's doing, and I would repay him for it as a personal debt.'
'We are not here to execute your petty vengeance, captain,' replied Vladimir. 'A far greater
vengeance must be satisfied. If it is decided that the traitor Sarpedon is to suffer greatly before death,
perhaps you can have a part in deciding the exact manner in which that suffering is to be inflicted. Until
that decision is made, make justice your only goal.'
Borganor bowed before Vladimir. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'Such hatred burns in my heart for
all those that would befoul the name of Rogal Dorn.'
'That such hatred should have its voice,' said Vladimir, 'is the reason you have your place at
this trial.'
Borganor led the seventy Space Marines of the Howling Griffons Ninth Company onto the
Phalanx's docking bay. Three companies of the Imperial Fists, numbering more that three hundred Space
Marines, were already stationed on the Phalanx - the Howling Griffons would be the next biggest
contingent on board. But they would not be the only visitors to the Phalanx for the trial. Sarpedon and
the Soul Drinkers had tangled with many Imperial servants, and every one wanted his voice to be heard.
IN A GOLDEN orbital yacht launched from the Inquisitorial escort ship Traitorsgrave, Lord Inquisitor
Kolgo made his entrance into the Phalanx. Ahead of him danced a troupe of acrobats and musicians,
enacting in elaborate mimes and song the greatest achievements of their master's long career hunting the
enemies of the Emperor. Kolgo himself, in jet-black Terminator armour bearing the 'I' of the Inquisition
proudly on his chest, was flanked by several battle-sisters of the Adepta Sororitas. They were led by
Sister Superior Aescarion, who had requested the duty of accompanying Kolgo so that she, too, could
witness at first hand the trial of the renegades whose deeds she had personally witnessed. She had
previously been assigned to Inquisitor Thaddeus, and she had no doubt that the Soul Drinkers were
responsible for his death since he had disappeared hunting down evidence of their activities.
The Adeptus Mechanicus, who had more cause than most to despise the Soul Drinkers, were
present in the form of Archmagos Voar. Voar had been instrumental in the capture of the Soul Drinkers,
in doing so helping to set right an age-old debt owed to the Mechanicus by Sarpedon and his renegades.
Alongside Voar was a ceremonial guard of gun-servitors, marching precisely in time. Voar's legs had
been lost on Selaaca and so he moved towards the engine sections of the Phalanx, where he had been
given quarters, on a set of simple tracks he had fashioned to use until more suitable replacements could
be found. There was none of the hatred in him that the other attendees flaunted, for Voar was an
analytical creature for whom emotion was an inconvenience.
The word had spread beyond those who had personally encountered the Soul Drinkers after they
had turned renegade. The Killing Shadow of the Doom Eagles Chapter and the Judgement Upon
Garadan of the Iron Knights dropped out of warp near Kravamesh and demanded that they, as loyal
Space Marine Chapters, also take part in the trial. Shortly after this they were joined by contingents of
Angels Sanguine and Silver Skulls, both Chapters who had heard of the Soul Drinkers' capture and
found they had officers stationed close enough to Kravamesh to have a presence at the trial.
Chapter Master Vladimir listened to their petitions. It was down to his judgement whether or not
these Space Marines would be welcome. He accepted that the existence of renegade Space Marines
was an affront to the whole Adeptus Astartes, and that the crime of any one renegade Chapter was a
crime against them all for it blackened the name of Space Marines, their primarchs and even the Emperor
Himself. So Vladimir gave the order for the Chapter representatives to be welcomed on board the
Phalanx, and quartered among the monastic cells usually used by Imperial Fists who were on operations
elsewhere in the galaxy.
Amid the pageantry of so many Chapters all announcing their presence and bringing their own
officers and honour guards on board, the existence of a band of ragged pilgrims in the forward cargo
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sections was all but forgotten.
IN THE DUSTY, long-empty cargo hall, Father Gyranar knelt and prayed. Decades before this place
had been crammed with supplies of ammunition, food and spare parts long since used up, and it remained
only in the memories of a few crewmen who recalled it when asked if there was somewhere the pilgrims
of the Blind Retribution could be quartered. Those pilgrims now knelt on bedrolls or attended to their
holy books, preparing their souls for the solemn duty of overseeing the great trial to come. No one had
thought to tell them when the trial was expected to begin, but the pilgrims did not care. They would
always be ready.
Father Gyranar, who had spoken with Castellan Leucrontas, was the oldest among them, and few of
them were young. His own prayers were so familiar to him that he had to stop and think about the words,
to stop them slipping through the well-worn channels of his mind. When he murmured that the Emperor's
will was his will, he forced himself to pause and consider what that actually meant. That he had no will of
his own, that he was the vessel for a higher power, that his own wishes and desires had long since
withered away to be replaced with what the Emperor wanted for this particular instrument.
Gyranar carried a prayer book, but he had not opened it in thirty-seven years. He knew it by heart.
His evening prayers complete, Gyranar stood. 'Advance the standards,' he said.
The other pilgrims did not expect this. It was not a part of their normal routine. After a few moments
of confusion the standards of the Blind Retribution were unfurled and held aloft.
'This place is now holy ground,' said Gyranar. His voice was brittle and frail, but the other pilgrims
listened so attentively that he could have been no clearer with a vox-caster. 'The time for confession has
come.'
'Confession, father?' said Brother Akulsan. He was the Blind Retribution's deacon, who oversaw the
few permanent places of worship they had established on the worlds where they had settled for a while.
On a pilgrimage such as this he became a second leader, a check to Gyranar's authority.
'Indeed,' said Gyranar. 'A confession most vital. There is in us all a sin. The task we undertake here is
of such import that I would have it spoken aloud by all of us.'
'Many times have I made confession,' said Akulsan. 'Indeed, the very pride of confessing has itself
become as a sin, and required yet more confession. I feel there is little in me that is still dangerous and
unspoken, prideful though that thought may be.'
'Sister Solace?' said Gyranar.
'Every night I beg forgiveness for my failures,' replied Sister Solace, in a voice hoarse with endless
prayers. Those not familiar with the Blind Retribution sometimes expressed surprise that Solace was a
woman, for she had the dusty voice of an old man and beneath her robes it was impossible to tell gender.
Most people never suspected there were women in the Blind Retribution at all. 'I yearn to be free of
them. What confession can I make now that I have not in every moment before?'
'You know,' said Gyranar, 'of what I speak.' He had been kneeling but he now stood. He had never
been a big man and now he was bent and drained, but still the pilgrims looked down or shied away a little
as if he had the presence of an Astartes. 'Though the greater part of your soul may deny it. Though you
beg the Emperor that it not be true. Though you have forced yourselves to forget all but its shadow, yet
all of you know of what I speak.'
The pilgrims were silent. The only sound was the distant hum of the Phalanx's engines and the
pulsing of the air recyclers overhead.
'Then I shall begin,' said Gyranar. 'O Emperor, I speak unto you the darkness of my deeds, and the
poverty of this spirit so unworthy to serve you. My confession is of a time long ago, when first I wore the
habit of the Blind. In the night as I lay in cloisters, a shadow came to me, clad in darkness. I am sure he
was another brother of this order, though I know not his name. Perhaps it was that same father who
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counselled me in your ways. He said nothing, and did no more than place a chalice beside the slab on
which I slept. Tell me, brethren, is there some confession in you that begs to be released, that has some
of the same character as mine? Is there some echo of recognition that tugs at you, though from your
memory it be gone?'
The pilgrims said nothing. So rapt were they by Gyranar's words that the Imperial saints could have
descended in that moment and not broken their concentration on what the old man had to say.
'Then I shall continue,' he said. 'In this chalice was a liquid dark and cold. The shadow bid me drink
with a gesture, and I did so, for I was afraid. And then into my mind there flooded a terrible waterfall of
knowledge. I saw destruction and suffering! But I saw also the good that would come of it, the sinners
that would be purged and the dead flesh of this bloated Imperium burned away. And I saw this time,
