The Cost of Command Read online

  Twisting the trapped arm, Lanthus prepared to strike down with his shard, but Aldwyn was too quick. Just as the razor-sharp crystal kissed his flesh, raising an amber welt across his ribcage which burst through the rent in his tunic, he grabbed Lanthus’ leg and threw him. Lanthus crashed to the ground and rolled away, making distance from his opponent. Both men scrambled to their feet, their shards glittering in the diffuse glow from the stars above.

  ‘You were wise not to accept first blood,’ Lanthus taunted, then hurled himself back into the fray.

  Goaded, Aldwyn charged again, all caution forgotten, intent only on bringing down his enemy. Lanthus evaded easily, feeling Emperor and primarch alike at his back, sure now that their judgement would be with him. He kicked out, shattering Aldwyn’s nose, and sending him sprawling, then moved in for the coup de grace. His shard was in his hand, and he raised it, bringing it down in a short, terminal arc, burying it to the hilt in Aldwyn’s throat.

  This time, the collective gasp of his battle-brothers was louder; no enemies of the Emperor, or horrors of the warp, could dismay these hardened warriors, but the spectacle of fratricide struck at the heart of all they believed in. Numb disbelief overtook Lanthus, at the sight of a fellow Astral Knight’s life blood pouring over his own fingers. Then pain flared as his kneecap shattered, and he fell heavily, the mortally wounded Aldwyn lashing out with the last of his ebbing strength. Before Lanthus could block it, Aldwyn stabbed his shard into the exposed nerve point he’d tried to attack before. White agony coruscated through Lanthus, paralysing his left side, and he fell heavily to the sand.

  ‘The judgement of Emperor and primarch is clear,’ the Chapter Master said, his voice carrying easily across the silent arena. ‘Brother-sergeant Lanthus is exonerated.’

  Feet crunched on the carpet of blood-flecked crystals. Lanthus turned his head, expecting to see the Apothecary approaching to tend him, but to his surprise he looked up into the shadowed eyes of Chapter Master Amhrad himself.

  ‘My lord.’ He tried to rise, but his shattered body refused to obey him. He looked round. Beves, Prius and Kurtin, the last survivors of the squad he’d inherited, were waiting on the fringes of the arena, though whether to tend to him or mourn Aldwyn, he couldn’t tell. But no one would approach the fallen combatants while the Chapter Master wished to have words with the survivor.

  ‘Your first taste of command has cost you much,’ Amhrad said quietly. ‘Half your squad. And the taint of fratricide can never be expunged.’

  Lanthus was silent for a moment. ‘We beat the greenskins,’ he said at last. ‘Any sacrifice is acceptable if the stakes are high enough. Aldwyn should have realised that.’

  ‘Indeed.’ For a moment the Chapter Master seemed lost in thought. ‘And your honour?’

  Lanthus didn’t hesitate. ‘An acceptable loss,’ he replied.

  About the Author

  Sandy Mitchell is the author of a long-running series of Warhammer 40,000 novels about the hero of the Imperium, Commissar Ciaphas Cain. The most recent book in that series is The Greater Good, and there is also the audio drama Dead In The Water. He has written a plethora of short stories, including 'The Last Man' in the Sabbat Worlds anthology, along with several novels set in the Warhammer world. He lives and works in Cambridge.

  A Space Marine Battles novel – The Astral Knights Chapter take on an apocalyptic necron super-weapon.

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  Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78572-175-5

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