The company chapel was empty. That was the way Maximus Thane preferred it. His Fists Exemplar — from his captains and masters, to his battle-brothers and their Chapter serfs — were all were too busy with preparations for dusk. Thane’s desperate strategy had saved many Space Marine lives but had cost the
It was Thane’s function to decide which strategy would best ensure the survival of Eidolica. Which strategy would inflict greatest damage on the invader. Which strategy — if any — could possibly combine both.
Even the Second Company’s chapel hadn’t escaped the damage and desolation. Without the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners that the star fort would have benefited from in the void, the chapel — like every other hallowed chamber in the fortress-monastery — had been turned almost on its side. Minor Chapter relics lay smashed on the floor about their cases. Statues had toppled and tapestries had fallen across the altar. Placing his helmet to one side, Thane cleared up as best he could.
Thane’s favourite artefact — one of the reasons he frequented the tiny chapel as much as he did — had also been damaged. Set in a shallow central column, between the altar and the narrow entrance archway, was a small stained-glass window. It depicted Rogal Dorn — not in battle or during the desperation of the Great Heresy, but at deliberation. The window pictured Dorn deep in thought, still clad in his golden armour.
It was the moment Dorn decided to break up his beloved Legion and embrace the Codex Astartes, creating numerous successor Chapters from his stalwart and loyal Imperial Fists. Thane loved the window not least because the Fists Exemplar had been created in that moment. Like all of the Imperial Fists Second Founding Chapters, their character came from the individuals making up their ranks. The Chapter crusaders and zealots gravitated to Sigismund, while to Alexis Polux went the younger, more impressionable brothers. Many of the attrition fighters that would make up the Excoriators had held the Palace walls during the siege of Terra and had found brotherhood with Demetrius Katafalque.
It was well known that the primarch and his genetic sons struggled with the decision to break up their Legion. There were some, however, that came around to Guilliman’s wisdom — as Dorn himself did at last — swifter than others. Captain Oriax Dantalion had spoken for the sense and necessity of such drastic action among the Imperial Fists early in the process. This had initially earned Dorn’s disappointment, and some said enmity. When Dorn himself searched his soul and reached the conclusion that the window illustrated, he remembered Dantalion’s earlier wisdom. He rewarded the captain with a Chapter of his own — made up of progressive battle-brothers not unlike himself. They were deemed exemplars of the new order, and named the Fists Exemplar by the primarch.
Looking at the window, Thane discovered that some of the fragile glass pieces had fallen free of their leadwork. Dorn’s depiction was now marred with hollows and missing sections. Many of the pieces had smashed on the flags of the small chapel during the firing of the engine column. Thane discovered, however, that one piece had survived intact. A section of yellow glass, representing a piece of the primarch’s sacred, golden plate. Picking it up and turning it about in the tips of his gauntlets, Thane slipped it delicately back into place.
As the archway door rose beyond, light from the corridor lamps blazed through the window. The illuminated window, bringing Rogal Dorn’s depiction to dazzling radiance, held Maximus Thane’s attention — so much so that he hardly noticed Brother Zerberyn enter the company chapel.
‘My lord,’ Zerberyn said, taking to his knee before the altar and kissing the ceramite knuckles of his gauntleted fist one after another.
‘Brother?’
‘My lord,’ Zerberyn said, getting up, ‘sentries report a strange disturbance at the east barbican lock.’
‘What kind of disturbance?’
‘Impacts on the outer doors,’ Zerberyn said, ‘like something trying to get in.’
‘No greenskin survives the attentions of Frankenthal’s Star,’ Thane averred.
‘The alien invader is much invested in terrible new technologies,’ the honorarius said. Thane nodded.
‘Have Sergeant Hoque meet me at the barbican with a squad,’ Thane said. ‘Then lock off the section interior bulkheads surrounding the barbican. If it is the invader, we’ll see to it that he won’t get far.’
