The Death of Integrity Read Free

campaign markings, the honours of a Deathwatch kill-team veteran, crossed the brother’s chest. This gave Galt a start, he knew that sash. He knew it too well. He prayed it was mere coincidence; the Novamarines were an old Chapter, it was not impossible two brothers separated by millennia could have won identical badges.
    Not impossible, he thought, but unlikely.
    ‘Brother, what aid may the dead grant the living?’ said the figure, and Galt’s heart chilled. The voice was as familiar to him as his own. The figure stepped forward, pulling back his hood as he did so.
    Galt frowned. It was as he had feared, the spirit wore the scarred face of Veteran-Sergeant Voldo, the man who had overseen Galt’s training as a neophyte and his creation as an initiate, the man who was as good as a father to him.
    Voldo was heavily tattooed with scenes depicting important moments from his life. Some were crude and faded with time; those given him centuries ago by his human family before he was chosen by the gods to live in the halls of the dead and fight for the Sky-Emperor. Some were Chapter icons. Others were full images, glorious in their colour and artistry. There was little room left upon Voldo’s skin for more. Every millimetre of his bald head was covered with marks of honour. They covered his neck, and crept from the sleeves of his robes to wrap delicately around each finger of his hands. As with all of the brothers, the Chapter badge was tattooed upon his forehead. This was the first mark they received upon initiation, but in Voldo’s case each trough between the rays of the nova were filled with long-service studs, forming a secondary starburst of unyielding adamantium.
    ‘How can this be, brother?’ asked Galt. A complex mix of emotions troubled him, catching at his voice. ‘You live, I saw you not an hour ago.’
    Voldo rested a hand on the balustrade and looked out over the plain. ‘The dead are not subject to the laws of time as are the living, lord captain. This place is eternal. Time has no meaning here. I died a long time ago. Or yesterday. Or tomorrow. It matters not. We are all here, all the brothers past and all the brothers yet to be. You are here, as am I. Tell me, are you living, or are you dead? Do you know yourself?’
    Galt started to say something, but thought better of it. He fought to regain his poise. It was not wise to query the dead too closely. What was not openly displayed by the flesh art was not for other men to know. And so he too turned to the stony plains of Honourum, unreal and empty below him. Far away, a lone figure struggled across the broken stone pavements, fleeing the storm. He went up and down the peaks and ridges of the rock, as small and insignificant as an ant.
    Galt watched the man’s progress a while before speaking. ‘I am troubled by this. Honourum is illuminated as if the sun shines strong, and yet black storms wrack the sky. What does it mean?’
    Voldo ran a hand over his head and smiled wryly. ‘You know our world boy; storm and chill and golden light.’ No other would address Captain Galt with such familiarity. No one else had the right.
    ‘Not in the dream-place, not together, not like this.’
    Voldo put his other hand on the balustrade and leaned fully on it. His robe fell away from his straightened arms, revealing more tattoos. Here an ork died, there a city celebrated liberation; moments in time captured in ink on flesh. ‘Light and dark struggle together, First Captain. This is what the storm represents.’
    ‘Who prevails?’
    Lightning cracked. The void shields flared purple and green; oil on troubled waters.
    ‘Our kin down there will say the gods are fighting,’ said Voldo, nodding at the man in the distance. He had made his way to the edge of the plains of crazed stone, and was ascending a spur in the mountain carved into a lunging aquila. One head of the eagle looked down at the figure with an expression of avarice; the other looked away in dismay. Galt