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The first thing Seth did, before he could even see, or hear, was swing out with a fist. The first thing he felt was that grim satisfaction as that fist made contact.
And then sound happened, and then sight returned and he was lying on a slab in the Apothecarion, and Nisroc was doubled over, cursing. Seth stopped himself from the kick that was halfway forming to follow through on his blind strike, as Nisroc managed to straighten himself, coughing, one palm resting on the exam slab.
“A little unnecessary, Chapter Master.”
A part of him wanted to apologize, knew that an apology would be the right thing to do. But a larger part of him, the part that was the Flesh Tearer, scorned that. As a compromise, Seth offered a grunt, as he tried to swing his legs down off the slab.
Only to have that movement stopped and he realized his right thigh was held in some sort of metal cage, that lanced him with pain as he tried to move it.
“Get this off,” he demanded.
Nisroc shook his head, words coming a few seconds later as he recovered his breath. “That needs to stay on.”
“The absolute hell it does.” Seth’s hands were already reaching for the metal rods that circled his thigh. He could crush them, surely, or at least snap them.
“It does.” Nisroc’s hand stopped him, his reflexes almost as fast as Seth’s own, clamping around the wrist. “I had to excise a considerable amount of contaminated bone.”
“Contaminated.”
“The genestealers had a strong venom.”
Seth remembered, like a flash, teeth like a clamp crushing his leg, one fang slicing up under the back of his cuisse, and then a hot, acid burn. He grunted, conceding with as ill grace as possible. “How much longer?”
“Another day before I can check the grafts to see if they took.” Nisroc seemed wary, probably still struggling from the blind fist to his gut.
Seth scowled, dragging his weight back to sit up, around the medicage. “The mission.”
Nisroc’s face flattened, sour. “I wouldn’t know. I was kept back.” And resented it, clearly. He had work here, and a recon of a genestealer hulk was the work of others.
“It went fine.” A voice from the shadow, a large shape around the partition, that resolved into Harahel, sporting a new scar blazing down the side of his head. “One death, but we retrieved his armor. No one fell.” Seth knew what he meant: none had their armor blackened, howling, as their soul and mind were buffeted by the winds of the Black Rage.
“I assume you are the reason I’m here.”
“I won’t take all the credit.” But he probably deserved it. There had been a time Harahel had been hungry for renown, clawing his way up to the top. But once he had reached it, he had directed all his energy to combat, perfecting his craft for its own sake. He had earned his title of Champion and then spent years growing into it, and the scars on his body wrote the tale of his effort. Harahel’s teeth flashed. “It did provide a worthy challenge.”
“I’m glad you had a good time,” Seth retorted, sourly.
“I did.” Harahel inclined his head, before settling down on the bench next to the exam slab. It was a ledge for medicae servitors, for the rare medicae serfs, but it held Harahel’s weight just as well. “And better: because I am here, the cleaning of my armor falls to the servitors.”
Knowing how Harahel fought, Seth did not envy the armor servitors or Techmarine Amaru’s work. The Champion was as hard on his armor as he was on himself. Seth nodded, something almost like a grin flitting across his face. Harahel was more than a fearsome fighter, who had earned and more than earned his relic armor and weapons; he was also as stolid and immovable as they came. When Harahel fell to the Rage–and it was an eventuality for all his Chapter–he would be nearly impossible to control.
Seth prayed for a worthy enemy for that future Harahel, so he could earn a death that honored his legacy. And he prayed that he would be on his feet himself, and not stuck in the Apothecarion at the time. If anyone had to get injured quelling Harahel, it would be Seth himself. He was owed that much. They both were.
The grin was something like a ghost, flitting from vision. “Who?”
“Puriel.” Harahel knew what he meant. Who was the one death? Who had they lost? Seth was the Chapter Master. He should know, and remember. “He died covering the retreat of the Scouts.”
A chuff of relief. At least it hadn’t been during his retrieval, a traded life for his.
“Balthiel brought him back, but the venom was….” a shrug, head tilting toward the medicage on Seth’s thigh.
He would check on Balthiel later, Seth thought, just as Harahel said, “Balthiel’s fine.” Harahel smirked as he held out a pict slate. This long as his Champion, Harahel prided himself on knowing his Chapter Master well.
Seth expected the pict to hold tallies–ammunition, casualties, refit and resupply estimates, all the requisite tedium of his office. Instead, the screen held a wiregraph of the tyranid ship, webbed with blinking red icons. Explosives, rigged by Amaru, through the area they had come across the biotitan nest. It had been that that had forced their precipitous retreat.
That was when Seth had been most concerned–Flesh Tearers did not like to retreat. It was anathema to them, bitter like old blood in the teeth. But they had fallen back, under his command, orderly and ferocious by turns.
“Figured you would like the honor.”
His mouth curved into a scimitar smile, his memory serving up the sight of the bloated, pustulent sacs, each larger than a Stormraven, the monstrous death of hundreds in each sac, if it were allowed to hatch.
They would not allow it. He would not allow it.
"Amaru," he said, into the voxmitter on the pict.
"Chapter Master." Amaru's voice was brisk, clipped, as though he had been waiting till the ragged edge of his patience for this.
"Call up a view of the hulk and then detonate." He wanted to watch, he wanted to watch the white heat of the melta charges scythe through the hull of the ship, he wanted to watch the jetting fluids freeze in the ice of space, wanted to see the death throes of the ship and all within it. For his injured leg, for Nisroc's frustration, for Puriel's life. All of it to be balanced out in the hot flash and cold frost of pyrotechnics.
"As you command, Chapter Master."