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Templar – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Templar

John French

‘The value of a warrior can be seen in their deeds, and in their deeds alone.’

– Khârn the Bloody

Sutaris
990.M30

The water danced on the curved blade. Sigismund watched it run from the perfectly still edge. Above him, the iron clouds rolled wet curtains of rain across the broken landscape. Fires still burned close by, clinging to wrecks and rubble, fighting the downpour. Ten thousand warriors stood on the slopes of the macro-crater, blood and battle marking their armour. All were looking down at him, their faces a wet blur on the edge of sight.

He was barely aware of the silent throng. The legionary opposite him was the only thing that was real now. Every twitch of the White Scar’s pale armour, every breath between his sharpened teeth, every raindrop upon the silver smile of the guan dao blade – Sigismund saw and felt them all.

He began to wrap a chain around his wrist. The White Scar tossed his head, and pointed the tip of the guan dao at the iron links.

‘Why do you do that?’

Sigismund held his gaze steady on the curved blade and kept winding the chain tighter. Tighter.

The other legionary smiled, eyes dancing in a hawk-proud face. He spun the glaive, armoured hands blurring around the weapon’s haft, droplets scattering as it sliced the rain.

‘Are you afraid of losing your sword?’ the White Scar asked, laughter dancing in the words. ‘A blade is freedom, son of Dorn. It is the wind and storm flash. Chain it, and you chain yourself.’

Sigismund was not listening. The world was closing in around him, narrowing to a point that held only the flicker of the blade, and the instant after it. This was his realm, as much a part of his life as the air that filled his lungs, and the iron in his blood.

The chains rattled as he wrapped another loop around his wrist. His pulse slowed with the coiled links. The flow of time became heavy, like oil spreading over ice.

He had not wanted to do this, but the White Scar had insisted. It was not enough that two Legions had bled and died together fighting the same enemy upon the same battlefield. The White Scars had not expected the Imperial Fists to be there. They had not expected to share the victory, and that left something unresolved.

A champion had emerged from their lines and thrust his blade into the ground at Sigismund’s feet. He had looked from the blade to the warrior’s smile, and known that there was no choice.

There was never a choice.

Sigismund fastened the chain to his vambrace. He flexed one hand upon the hilt of his sword, feeling its weight shift in his grip. In the decade he had carried it to war, it had never failed him. He raised it above his head. He felt the muscles in his shoulders settle, listened to the slow rise and fall of blood in his veins.

The White Scar spun his weapon, then snapped it to stillness. Dirty rivulets of water streamed down the creases of his face. ‘Do you not want to know my name?’

Sigismund looked up into the grey of his opponent’s eyes. Jubal Khan – Lord of Summer Lightning, and the Death that Comes with Laughter – was still smiling at him.

‘I know your name,’ he replied.

‘Good.’

Jubal looked into Sigismund’s eyes and nodded. The White Scar held his glaive low at his side, the edge facing back. Sigismund watched him, weighing the rhythm of his stillness, listening to the instant stretch out.

A single droplet of water formed on the blade’s point.

His pulse was still in his chest. His hearts paused between beats.

The drop of water fell.

Jubal whirled forwards. Sigismund cut down, and his opponent spun back, his blade a blur around his body. Sigismund swung again and again, his sword like a smear of steel and scattered rain. He was scything low and high, blade whistling, and the White Scar laughed as he ducked a cut and leapt into the air. The guan dao’s edge winked as it arced down.

Sigismund froze. Jubal’s eyes were wide above bared teeth as his blow fell.

Sigismund jerked aside, the curved razor-edge sighing as it passed his head. His sword flashed out. Jubal pulled back, snake-fast, his glaive rising, and for the first time the two blades clashed with a ring of steel.

Sigismund came forwards, hammering blows down one after another, feeling the sword shuddering in his grasp as the rain streamed past his eyes.

The White Scar’s face was locked into a snarling mask, his smile gone. Soaking hair whipped above wide eyes as he ducked and spun aside. The guan dao was a razor blur, the play of weapons a spiral of slices and parries.

‘You are everything they say you are…’ Jubal called out. Sigismund saw the slight twitch at the corner of his eye, and slid past a sudden thrust. ‘…and you are more.’

The words washed over Sigismund. In his mind there was only the feel of his own sword, only the play of cuts and angles and balance that flowed through him like blood and breath.

Like life.

Jubal leapt again, twisting like a bladed hurricane. He was fast, so very fast. ‘But you are missing something, for all your skill!’

He flicked his blade out and cut down, and Sigismund raised his sword to turn the glaive. He felt a blow ring against his forearm, and then Jubal was stepping back, sodden, topknot flicking to the side. Sigismund glanced down at his arm. The links of the chain binding the sword to his wrist had been severed.

Sigismund lunged. Jubal swayed like a tree in the wind, and the sword sliced through empty air. An armoured heel flashed out and snapped Sigismund’s head back with a crack of bone and a spray of blood. Rainbow explosions detonated in his vision.

The cries of the watching White Scars roared into the deluge.

Sigismund reeled, his own blood blinding him, thoughts raging inside his skull: anger, and pain, and doubt, and…

Everything was still.

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A Black Library Publication

First published as an audio drama in Great Britain in 2014.
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.

Templar © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. Templar, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78572-438-1

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