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“You!” Sigismund roared from across the strategium of the Phalanx. Guardsmen and servitors looked up at the thundering approach of the Imperial Fists’ First Captain and made themselves scarce. The target of his ire didn’t bother looking up from where he lounged against a table, studying the hololithic starchart of the Cheraut system.
“Look at me when I address you,” Sigismund said with a growl as he halted so fast, so close, that a skull resting on Sheng’s shoulder paldron was knocked off by the wind. Sheng turned his head languidly and looked up at Sigismund.
“Were you addressing me? It was hard to tell, seeing as my name isn’t ‘you’,” Sheng said. He smirked as Sigismund coloured red in fury and embarrassment. “Equerry Sheng, if we’re being formal. But we don’t have to be so formal, do we?”
Sigismund took a step back to collect himself. “Sheng,” he tried again. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I’m afraid I’m not following, I don’t have --” Sheng tapped his temple and winked. Sigismund gritted his teeth, loudly enough that Sheng felt a twinge of concern for the apothecary who would be fixing that later. Sigismund picked Sheng up under one arm and stormed out of the strategium. Sheng was in a lighter, stripped-down version of his power armour, but this was still quite a feat under the circumstances.
The decks of the Phalanx flashed past Sheng’s eyes as Sigismund strode angrily through the ship. When he halted, there was snow on the ground. Sheng was even more impressed. Sigismund had carried him for an entire day by ship time, past crew and Astartes and an entire migration of localized animal life that had sprung up in one of the Phalanx’s many environments.
Sigismund threw Sheng into a snowdrift with all the respect of a discarded sock. Sheng grunted.
“You broke my hip,” Sheng said accusingly.
“What?”
Too easy. Sheng swept his leg to trip Sigismund, thinking how ridiculously serious the sons of Dorn were. Then found out why, when Sigismund reacted faster than Sheng had ever seen for an Astartes. Sigismund hopped back, Sheng’s sweep barely kissing him as his feet touched the ground again. He stood, surefooted and ready, watching Sheng with narrowed eyes.
“I still don’t know what this is about,” said Sheng, rolling up into a low crouch.
It was a fight that should’ve been over in seconds. For all that they were both Astartes, trained and gene-bred to be mankind’s most potent weapons, there was no comparing the martial prowess of First Captain Sigismund of the Imperial Fists, acknowledged throughout the legions as one of the best fighters in service to the Emperor, to Equerry Sheng of the Night Lords, known more for his guile and the mystery surrounding how he had been selected for what was a position of honour. Trickery would be of little deterrent to a consummate warrior such as Sigismund.
There were, however, several factors that made the fight last an entire minute.
For one thing, Sigismund was, despite his temper, an honourable Astartes -- especially as it reflected on his primarch. He followed the rules of engagement governing the actions of an Astartes toward their fellow legionnaires in matters of challenges and protocol. Though they were both captains in their respective legions, Sheng had a slight edge in standing by being his primarch’s personal attendant.
For another, it had been a moment’s impulsiveness that brought them to this improper duel. Sigismund had needed to speak to the Night Lord alone, immediately, and had little time or patience for Sheng’s prevarications. Upon realising the various problems with the impromptu kidnapping, he had bulled ahead while he thought of a way to salvage the situation. Sheng himself had been strangely compliant throughout the whole thing.
It confused Sigismund, and his confusion was so unnatural to his regular state that it caused him to hesitate rather than engage. Sheng, no stranger to taking advantage of an opening, used Sigismund’s distraction to scramble through the snow at haste.
Sigismund lunged after Sheng. A snowball hit him in the face. Relentless, Sigismund stepped on Sheng’s trailing breechcloth, and then leaned down and grabbed one of the chains flying from Sheng’s paldrons. The paldron and breechcloth tore off as Sheng planted a foot on Sigismund’s greave and launched himself further away.
“Stand and fight, you dog!” Sigismund shouted.
Sheng was on his feet again and he lobbed another unerringly accurate ball of ice between Sigismund’s eyes. It grazed Sigismund’s cheek instead, as Sigismund tilted his head to the side disdainfully. He stepped forward again.
And tripped, as it turned out, what looked like Sheng crawling around on the ground was actually his crawling around on the ground and laying traps with fallen branches.
There was a reason Sheng had made equerry.
Sheng hadn’t accounted for Sigismund landing on his legs in full battle armour, however.
“Oh, good job,” Sheng said as he stared at his broken legs. “Tell me to stand and fight now, Sigismund.”
Getting up, Sigismund only frowned. “That’s barely a crippling injury,” he said disdainfully.
Sheng stared at Sigismund. Sigismund crossed his arms and continued to frown down at him.
“A quick trip to the medicae and we can continue,” Sigismund said, tapping his vox. His brows knit and somehow his frown deepened. He tapped his vox again, shook his head, tapped. “Huh. Out of range.”
“How is that even possible?” asked Sheng. He activated his vox as well. A crackle of static greeted him.
“It’s a big ship,” Sigismund said, shrugging. “No matter, we’ll just...” His voice trailed off as he looked around. Snow had started falling at some point, obscuring their tracks. The sky was a blank grey expanse instead of the more familiar arched ceilings of the rest of the ship. It appeared they were in one of the many immersive environments used for training. Hololithic projections contributed to the illusion. “Hm,” Sigismund said as he stared at the mountains in the distance.
The Night Lords preferred to stay on their own ships as much as possible during their current campaign, in part because the ships of the Imperial Fists and Emperor’s Children were much too bright for their Nostraman eyes. He was, therefore, not as familiar with the Phalanx as he would’ve liked, but reading the expression on Sigismund’s face, he had the sinking feeling that the stories he’d overheard as he lurked in the shadows of the ship were true.
Stories of entire regiments going missing and subsequent rumours of villages appearing on the ship; of ratings turning corners and reappearing years later with tattoos and children in tow; of an entire empire of discarded servitors waging war against each other in forgotten corridors and chambers in the fringe sectors. Sheng had tried several times to secure schematics of the Phalanx under the pretense of needing to know the ship’s layout in order to best serve his primarch’s needs while they were on board, but in the end, he’d given up trying to remember or even grasp the vast and contradictory number of blueprints. Dorn’s hobby, when not waging war in the name of the the Emperor was, apparently, making adjustments and additions to his legion’s floating fortress. Thus, only Dorn knew every inch of the ship.
“You’re lost,” Sheng accused Sigismund. He used some of the broken straps and chains of his half-armour to fashion makeshift splints for his legs. His accelerated physiology was already at work healing the breaks, but it would be irritating to rebreak them if they were to heal crooked.
“I’m not lost,” Sigismund said cheerfully, “we’re lost.”
“That’s so much better,” Sheng said.
“Maybe if you hadn’t sent your primarch after mine, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Sheng grimaced. He’d had his reasons, but he wasn’t about to reveal them to Sigismund. Especially not now.
He wondered if anyone would notice he was missing. Sevatar, probably not. Vandred or Malcharion might, perhaps, though only if they thought of something to bother Curze with. It was rather depressing to realise that he didn’t think anyone would bother sending out search parties. Still, he thought brightly, the Fists seemed the type to want someone like Sigismund around to drill them endlessly and frown at things disapprovingly. If he read the character of the legion correctly, there was already a whole company dedicating themselves to finding their missing captain right now.
In the meantime -- Sheng yelped as Sigismund picked him up. “You wouldn’t throw an invalid around, would you?” Sheng said. He casually grabbed onto Sigismund’s sword belt just in case. At least this time he was being cradled comfortably, as opposed to slung like a sack.
“Why would I do that?” Sigismund gave Sheng a withering look. He scanned the landscape, which was beginning to lose all identifying features under the barrage of snow that had been steadily building while they bickered, and started marching.
“Tell me you know where you’re going and didn’t chose a random direction,” said Sheng.
“Yes and no,” Sigismund replied.
“I thought you were the pragmatic, uncreative, humorless, brickheaded straight-man of your legion?”
“You’ll find out, won’t you,” said Sigismund with a maniacal grin.
Weeks later, Dorn and Curze returned from their side trip to assist in the cleansing of the space hulk, The Canadian Shack. Search parties had been sent out, but had become embroiled in a pitched territorial land grab between two of the lost regiments. All the participants in that minor war had put down their arms and slunk back to their proper positions after Dorn had sighed loudly and crossed his arms at them.
Imbued with an uncanny knowledge of where everything on his ship was, Dorn, with Curze shadowing him, then located the wayward Astartes captains and ventured forth to retrieve them. They found Sigismund and Sheng in an ice shack in the northern quadrant of the Phalanx, in a compromising position. Dorn sighed and crossed his arms once more, though with Curze commandeering half his cloak due to the snow, it was less impressive than it typically was. Sheng failed to wipe the smug smile off his face regardless, and Sigismund’s satisfied smirk was little better.
The expedition fleet continued on its path to the Cheraut system.
THE END