On the Shoulder of Martyrs (Black Templars 40K Quest)

+THOUGHT FOR THE DAY+
Fear not what you see; that which hides from the Emperor's light is more terrifying still.
​

"Gottfried, Nimrod, provide covering fire. Bayard, with me. The road's wide enough here for you and I to fight shoulder to shoulder, just stay clear from the edge."

Already, Gottfried and Nimrod moved to firing positions behind a mound of rubble.

"Bayard and I will climb to a vantage point above their route. On my signal, open fire."

Click.

You and Bayard reached a balcony that overlooked the perilous street that the renegades were traveling. Bayard hefted his shotgun, you readied your chainsword, and together you awaited their approach. Close combat was the riskiest method, but with ammunition so low, any other plan would devolve into close combat anyway. Hopefully, what little fire you had remaining would even the fight.

The mob arrived, moving slowly so as not to slip off the side. You noted that they marched a good distance away from the traitor Astartes.

"Brothers," you voxed. "Open fire."

Amid the black mob burst clouds of red, your brothers' bolter fire bringing them to bloody ruin. The prisoners dove for the ground screaming, but Gottfried's oafishness belied his surprisingly good aim. Nimrod supported his brother with shots from his bolt pistol, bursting holes in traitor chests.

As you suspected, however, the withering hail of bolter fire almost immediately ceased - and from their firing positions, couldn't hit the traitor Astartes. Nevertheless, the renegade ranks were thinned significantly.

To their credit, the enemy returned fire. Their autoguns barked at Gottfried and Nimrod, riddling the street with holes and filling the air with the tang of gunpowder. Others drew clubs and knives, rushed in with mindless abandon.

The traitor Astartes charged past his addlebrained minions, knocking one off the edge with callous contempt, trampling a prisoner to a paste. You saw the moment.

"For the Emperor!"

You and Bayard leaped off the balcony in unison, landed on the traitor with such force that even your Astartes senses took a moment to reorient you. You rolled off of the prone traitor, Bayard twinning your movements.

The heretic's chainaxe roared for blood. You parried a lightning-fast strike with your chainsword, the impact of your weapons colliding resounding through your body. Bayard's shotgun thundered into the heretic's back. The traitor turned, kicked, sent Bayard flying.

With his back to yours, you struck. The teeth of your blade tore into his ceramite warplate, ravenously devouring his armor, but only for a moment before the traitor turned and retaliated.

You felt it before you saw it. His chainaxe had bitten deeply into your side. You roared in pain as it began to eat you, the whirring of its teeth slurred by your blood.

Suddenly, the ground no longer touched your feet. The traitor grasped you by the neck, lifted you to his height, planted his chainaxe into the ground. His other hand grabbed your leg, and your lower body was no longer attached to your torso.

"Brother!" you heard dimly. Your Astartes biology could deal with most injuries, but not being torn in half.

You fell to the ground as Bayard bulled into the traitor. He aimed his shotgun at the traitor's head, missed as the foe kneed him in the stomach. Bayard spat out blood and teeth as the traitor continued beating him, laughing as he did, too consumed by bloodlust to even pick up his chainaxe.

You looked in the distance, where Nimrod and Gottfried fought the remaining cultists. You thought they had it handled, until one of the cultists removed his robe, revealing a lattice of grenades and explosives strapped onto him. He screamed, his voice murky and soft to your ears.

"Blood for the Blood God!"

The explosion sent your broken body flying, sent your useless legs toppling down the spire. It had also allowed Bayard to recover, regained his ground and fought the traitor with his combat knife.

You saw a figure run towards you - a thin, shriveled man. At first you thought it was a cultist hoping to finish you off, but you saw it was the old noble, the rogue trader with the missing daughter.

"Anastasia! Anastasia, where are you?"

The little man was woefully out of place. Bored with Bayard, the traitor left him for new prey. The old man turned and turned, searching frantically for his daughter, before finding himself before an eight foot tall nightmare.

The traitor grabbed the rogue trader, crushing him as he lifted him up. The noble's arms flailed uselessly, his blows laughably ineffective. He extended his fist out to the traitor's exposed face, and one of his rings glowed. It spat a burning beam that bore through the traitor's eye. The noble then tried to arm a grenade he had presumably taken from a dead cultist.

His head was pulped long before he found the grenade's ring. The grenade fell to the ground, the headless noble fell a hundred meters further, launched by a raging berserker.

You crawled towards the fallen grenade.

Bayard launched himself into the traitor once more, black armor now scarlet from his own blood. You kept crawling. You heard your brother yell and the traitor laugh, and you kept crawling.

"When you die," you heard the traitor say, his voice as loathsome as he was, "see if your Emperor is in hell with you."

"Come with me," Bayard spat. "See for yourself."

Bayard headbutted the traitor, stunning him enough to free himself and gouge a hole in the traitor's armor with his knife. The traitor grabbed Bayard, roared in rage, and ripped your brother's head from his shoulders.

You screamed hatefully, tore the grenade's pin, and crawled. The traitor turned, eyes wide as you grabbed one leg and with the other held the grenade up and pressed it against him.

"For the Emperor."
​

---
​

You were home.

A woman sat by the fire, children huddled around her. A man entered the building, spear in hand, cheering. The children flocked to him, hugged him, begged him to tell them of the hunt. You were one of those children, you realized.

The man told his tale, but his voice was soft, indistinct, like a blowing wind. His face was featureless. You realized all their faces were featureless.

The woman called you, but whatever name she had called you, you couldn't make out. Rather, you couldn't remember.

Flash.

You answered your mother. Mother. That was who the woman was. The woman without a face, without a smile, and without a voice.

Flash.

You realized you had been here before. Every time you had undergone hypnotherapy, you would return here. These people might have had faces, years ago. Flash. They had had names and voices. Flash.

Then the flashing of the hypnomat had taken them away.

Flash.

"Reawakening successful," came a voice. "He's out of sus-an now."

"His wounds?" said another. "Have they sealed?"

"Yes, Marshal. Sigismund has lost both legs, his right arm, and most of his face."

"And the rest of his squad? Of Theobald?"

"Theobald is in recovery. The neophytes took him to the Governor's palace and contacted us with the communications array there."

The first voice recounted the deal you had with the Governor to the second voice.

"The initiates of Squad Theobald are all dead, save for Brother Reynauld. He is well, thank the Emperor. The neophytes Gottfried and Nimrod are heavily wounded from a bomb. Bayard is lost, we presume he is dead."

Your vision was blurry, but you recalled your brother's torn head with terrible detail.

"He awakens," the second voice said. You saw it was Marshal Reginherus. "The Emperor has preserved you, Brother Sigismund."

You tried to reply, but you realized you had no tongue.

"Apothecary Marcus has suggested you be given the Emperor's Peace, such is the state your body is in. But someone has intervened."

Someone else entered the room. With your remaining eye, you saw it was one of the prisoners you had attempted to rescue.

"This is Anastasia Anatoly, now rogue trader with the death of her father. She tells me you and your squad rescued her and her fellows. Normally, I detest foreign humans on board the Fury, but she has promised the use of her ship in our crusade."

"There's more," she said. She placed a soft hand on your mangled body. "I will personally finance the bionics to reconstruct you and the other heroes who saved us."

The apothecary grunted. "Absolutely not. I do not trust mortal chirurgeons with the Astartes anatomy."

"But you would have this hero put down! If you will not give him the cybernetics he needs to live, then I will."

Marshal Reginherus nodded to the apothecary, who relented. "Fine. I shall be present during all procedures. I do not want xeno technology anywhere near my brothers."

The young rogue trader swallowed, perhaps forgetting she was in Imperial space where Imperial law still applied. "Of course."
​

---
​

Anastasia Anatoly was now the captain of the ship Sonata, her father's warrant of trade passing down to her. You were in the medicae bay, where Anastasia's chirurgeons toiled as Apothecary Marcus watched.

Before the operation, they had given you an augmetic vox-caster that allowed you to speak, allowing the little woman to converse with you.

"Thank you again," she said. The rogue trader was what the serfs would have called beautiful, but you couldn't tell why.

You nodded slowly. "My brothers... are they... well?"

"Yes. The palace guardsmen were right behind my father, it seemed, and they finished off those wretched traitors."

So only Bayard was dead. You wondered if he had survived, fallen a hundred meters and without a head. Bayard was too stubborn to die. Grief choked your twin hearts.

The young rogue trader edged closer, whispered. "I know your apothecary detests alien technology, but I assure you my tech-priests have consecrated these implants. The Emperor Himself saw fit to give rogue traders our warrant of trade to allow us to deal with xenos. Believe me when I say their technology can help you! We've modified them so no one can tell they were alien in the first place."

She then presented you with the various cybernetics her father had procured in his dealings beyond Imperial space, asking which one you wanted, alongside standard bionics that would replace the rest of your body.

You chose:

[ ] A bionic arm.

Twice as strong as even Astartes bionics, this arm features nerve-emulators and neural-connectors to make it feel as if it were your real arm, and synthetic skin to make it look the part.

[ ] Bionic legs.

For bionics these large, they were surprisingly agile. The legs and waist could turn in any direction, and they ran with exceptional speed without ever tiring.

[ ] A digital eye.

Digital weapons are incredibly rare in the Imperium, and due to their small size are usually unusable to Astartes. This eye, apart from seeing in a plethora of spectrums, can fire beams of burning las.

[ ] To spit on her alien technology.

If the Emperor sanctioned her association with aliens, so be it, but you'll be damned if you let foreign filth be forever a part of your body.​