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Location unknown
743M32
Darkness surrounded him. Its cold embrace blanketed his mind, silencing his thoughts. Even the beating of his hearts had succumbed to the all-encompassing quiet.
Was he dead, then ? Was this infinite blackness death ? He felt … he felt there should be more.
+++Awakening of the machine-spirit+++
+++Initiating encephalic connection+++
+++Scanning of the frontal lobe+++
+++Vestigial activity confirmed+++
+++Begin resurrection protocols+++
'Chapter Master, can you hear me ?'
A voice pierced the dark, shattering the silence. With it came a renewed awareness, and with that awareness came pain. Agony ran through every fiber of his being, a million fangs tearing at him as the ruin that was his flesh reminded him of its existence.
'Chapter Master Raguel,' said the voice. It was … insistent, now. What did it want ? Why had it disturbed his peaceful death ? 'I know you can hear me – but you must listen. There is little time.'
Raguel ... He knew that name. Was it his ? Yes, yes it was. Raguel Alastores, Chapter Master of the Heirs of Sanguinius. The name was his, and the other words were important too, even if he could not remember their meaning.
'Focus, Chapter Master,' the voice urged on. 'Think back on what happened before. You must remember what happened on Silberstadt.'
That word – Silberstadt … He knew it too. Hearing it brought pain, and anger, and sorrow, stabbing at his consciousness without mercy, bringing torment worse than even the pain of being.
'You must remember,' the voice insisted. 'Your duty demands it. We must know what happened if we are to stop the heretics' attack on the Emperor's dominion.'
The mention of the Emperor triggered his fragmented memory. In flashes of images and sounds, he remembered what had happened. He …
… He stood on the bridge of the Blade of Righteousness, watching Silberstadt grow in the primary occulus as the ship returned from her patrol the system's edge. For now, the world was barely more than a speck, but Raguel's mind could easily conjure the details from memory. The fortress world was a grey pearl, its many towers and keeps shining with the light of the system's pale star. The only difference with his previous visit to the system was the number of ships orbiting Silberstadt and patrolling the system looking for any sign of the enemy they had been gathered here to fight. Of course, the differences with Raguel's first visit to the system were much more pronounced, as were those of the Chapter Master himself.
When he had first journeyed to Silberstadt, more than two hundred years ago, it had been aboard a battered and limping Imperial Navy cruiser, reclaimed from the Orks and sent to purge the last of the greenskins' presence in Azarok by taking part in the burning of the system's sole world to the ground. The ship had been put out of commission mere months afterwards. By contrast, the battle-barge of the Heirs of Sanguinius was a mighty vessel, born in the shipyards of distant and hallowed Mars and bearing the silver and red that formed the Chapter's colors. It had been gifted to the Chapter upon the day of its Founding, and had served as their flagship ever since. But her strength still paled compared to the combined might the fleet that had marshalled at Silberstadt.
An armada had gathered around the planet, the likes of which Raguel had not seen in many, many years. More than half of Battlefleet Azarok was already gathered, and he knew there were entire battle-groups still in transit. Warships of the Adeptus Mechanicus were also here, behemoths of blessed iron surrounded by flocks of lesser vessels like avatars of the Machine-God attended by their priests. Even a couple of Rogue Traders were present, their vessels garish by the standards of the Adeptus Astartes, but no less deadly for all their ornaments.
Raguel himself knew that he was not really different from these ships. He was wearing his Terminator Armor, bearing the full regalia of his rank as Chapter Master. A massive thunder hammer hung from his back, mag-locked into place, its machine-spirit slumbering. The weapon's name was Ellestrios, which meant "Heaven-Forged" in the dialect of one of the tribes whose children had made up much of the initial tithe of aspirants that had formed the Heirs of Sanguinius.
Hundreds of merchant ships were still passing through the system, despite the imminent threat, the needs of the Imperium not stopping for war. Even the planet's moon, of which more than a tenth was dedicated to a giant structure filled with Administratum's tax offices and data centers, was still bustling with activity. Raguel wondered if the Administratum's officials even knew that war was coming to their preciously ordered kingdom of forms and regulations. In truth, he doubted they did, or would until the moment traitors stormed their offices' very gates. He had met servitors with more awareness of their surroundings than the drones of the Adeptus Terra. More imagination, too.
'My lord,' called out one of the serfs manning the bridge, 'Captain Terion is here.'
Raguel turned from the occulus just as the gate to the bridge opened, admitting Captain Terion of the Fifth Company. He strode in, having come from the Call of Retribution strike cruiser by Thunderhawk to answer the summons of his liege lord. Like Raguel, his power armor was painted red and silver, with the emblem of the Chapter – a red tear-drop on silver surrounded by a gold ring – on the left shoulder pauldron. An ornate bolter and an elegant power sword completed the Captain's panoply, displaying the image of a warrior-prince, both terrible on the battlefield and a paragon of nobility outside of it. Like all officers of the Chapter, Terion strived to embody the ideals of Sanguinius that had been passed on to the Successor Chapters of the Blood Angels.
Terion's helm hung from his belt, revealing his face. His skin was ebony dark, like that of many Heirs of Sanguinius who had been taken from across Azarok at the Chapter's Founding. A single crimson tear was tattooed beneath Terion's right eye, marking his century of service into the ranks of the Chapter. In the Chaplains' sermons, these were the tears they shed for Sanguinius, who gave his life in heroic sacrifice against the Arch-Traitor Horus to defend his father the Emperor.
Would the Angel want us to mourn him like this, when so much else has been lost ? wondered Raguel. So much of the lore concerning Sanguinius was either lost or shrouded in myth.
The tradition was one of several new ones, made to honor the ties that bound the Heirs to their slain Primarch and the Chapter who still bore his Legion's name on distant Baal. In time, these traditions would evolve, become sacred within the Chapter – a chain that would bind the younger recruits to the veterans of the Chapter and its honored heroes. Other traditions included the gold ring worn by each officer and engraved with the name of each warrior who had carried it before, and rituals inherited from the Primogenitor Chapter revolving around ceremonial blood drinking. For now, though, just like the Chapter itself, these were still in their infancy.
We are so young, all of us, thought Raguel, though he let none of it show on his face. I am barely two hundred years old, but to him and most of my brothers, I am an ancient, a veteran. A source of wisdom, to provide guidance to my younger brethren as we sail into these troubled times.
The Heirs of Sanguinius were a young Chapter, founded in the aftermath of the War of the Beast. Entire Chapters from the Second Founding had been wiped out in that galactic conflict of apocalyptic proportions, and the Lords of Terra had ordered the creation of many new Chapters to both replace the losses and expand the reach of the Adeptus Astartes.
Partly due to their short existence and party because of their own origins, the Heirs of Sanguinius held a deep fascination for all traces of the past. The Chapter's fortress-monastery was filled with all manners of records, to the point that the Inquisition had started, if not to investigate, at least to politely cough and raise eyebrows whenever the matter was raised.
The Chapter Master could understand the Inquisitors' discomfort, even if he did not agree with the ruthless suppression of Imperial history that the Ordos had enacted over the course of the centuries since the Emperor had stopped speaking. Order had to be maintained in the Imperium, and sadly, Mankind had proved time and again that it could not be trusted to act in its own best interests. For instance, there were stories, hinted at in the Chapter's archives, that the High Lords had had to be forced into allowing the Fourth Founding by the heroes who had slain the Great Beast and severed the head of the greenskins' menace, though Raguel did not know if they were true or apocryphal.
Other, darker stories, spoke of events that had occurred during the War that had been kept secret from all the Imperium, up to its highest-ranking members. No one had ever spoken them aloud : they were more of an impression, a vague sense of malaise in the days that followed the victory at Ullanor that had nothing to do with the cataclysmic losses the Imperium had suffered. That malaise had ran its course across every Space Marine Chapter, and Raguel, in his moments of darkest doubts, thought he knew what its source had been. Of all the Successor Chapters, there had been one who had not been present at the victory celebrations, one whose every trace had suspiciously vanished over the following decades. He felt that he knew what it meant, and though his Astartes heart knew no fear, he still dreaded the implications. After all, there was only one reason he could think of for an entire Chapter to vanish and not be commemorated for his members' sacrifice against the Orkish threat. The possibility was terrible to contemplate, treacherous almost, but it remained within his mind, haunting him like the ghost of a dead foe promising to return to visit yet greater horrors upon those he was sworn to protect.
And if he were right, then he could understand why those who did know had done all they could to keep it secret. But how long could it last ? How long until whatever tragedy had been hidden away happened again, and this time no one could conceal it before it became widely known ?
And what would the consequences be, once the lords of the Imperium knew that even the sons of the Nine True Primarchs could be turned away from the Emperor's Light and into darkness ?
So many questions, and so few definitive answers. Despite all the regard younger members of the Chapter held for him, the Chapter Master's knowledge of the past was still bitterly limited. Raguel had been alive for the entirety of the Heirs' existence, and while he and his brothers had proved their worth many time fighting to protect the Azarok Sector, he understood all too well how short two centuries were compared to the older Chapters, especially the Progenitor Chapters, whose legacy reached all the way back to the fabled days of the Great Crusade, when the Emperor had marched among mortals. For two hundred years, after the purge of the Orks from the Azarok Sector had been completed, they had fought against pirates, renegades, and the occasional xenos raider or cult uprising. Even in this period of relative galactic peace, there was still plenty to occupy the blades of Space Marines, always another call for assistance to answer.
Yet the threat that had brought them to Silberstadt was unique. According to the Inquisitors who had issued the call for muster at Silberstadt, it would come from the Wailing Storm, the Warp anomaly whose existence had plagued the Azarok Sector for hundreds of years. The Abyssian Marches' name had been changed after the eruption of that storm, which had engulfed the entire Trebedius Sector during the time of the Scouring. Much of the evil the Heirs of Sanguinius had battled over the years could be sourced to the malevolent presence that stained the void with its baleful light. Pirates hide in the storm's edge, sheltered from Imperial justice but twisted by the malignant energies of the Immaterium, while men and women across the Abyssian Marches with barely a sliver of psychic sensibility were driven mad by its influence and became Chaos cultists. That corruption had been the storm's "only" danger, but now another, much more dangerous threat was supposedly about to emerge from it.
As a Chapter Master of the Adeptus Astartes, Raguel had received much more detailed information than the regiments of the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy. Like both of these organizations, he knew that the Ordos believed that a Black Crusade was coming from the Wailing Storm : a tide of the Lost and the Damned, accompanied with the spawn of the Ruinous Powers. But he also knew that there would be Chaos Marines leading these slaves to darkness, ancient traitors from the dawn of the Imperium who had lost their honor and their souls during the distant Horus Heresy. He also knew just how the Inquisitors had come to that particular knowledge, and what it had cost them. It couldn't have been easy for the Lord Akhaman to admit that the Ordos' presence in Azarok had been decimated before the war had even truly begun, but the Lord Inquisitor had wanted to impress the magnitude of the threat upon Raguel, and it had worked.
Still, Raguel thanked Sanguinius that the threat had at least allowed him to meet one of his favourite brothers again. Space Marines sacrificed much in the name of Mankind, but the one thing they received in return, the one gift to all Astartes who served the Golden Throne, was brotherhood.
'Terion,' Raguel called out in greeting, before walking toward his brother and embracing him in a warrior's greeting, the two of them locking their forearms together.
'Chapter Master,' replied Terion, not calling Raguel by his given name while they were in the serfs' view.
'I only wish it were under happier circumstances,' replied Terion, also smiling, though Raguel could sense the tension in his brother's humours.
'We are Space Marines, brother,' he laughed, leading his brother toward the occulus. 'These are the circumstances for which we were made what we are. Now,' he continued, his expression growing more serious, 'tell me about what your Company encountered on Zethirion Alpha. I read your warriors' reports, but you debriefed them yourself. Is there anything you did not mention in them ?'
Terion hesitated for a second, before starting to speak :
'Everything I was told by the squad that escorted Inquisitor Borlan to the surface was in the reports. My Librarians scanned their memories for additional information, and found nothing of note. They confirmed that the sigils found in the arch-magos' chamber were summoning runes, but that is all. No other facts were uncovered … but …'
'Go on,' pressed Raguel. 'Do not be afraid to sound ridiculous, brother. We are about to face the agents of the Archenemy, and must not assume any foulness to be beyond them.'
'Our astropaths have not been well on our way here,' Terion admitted. 'And they aren't the only ones : many of my ship's crew have also suffered from nightmares and hallucinations, more than usual when sailing the Immaterium. They all dreamt of the same thing : a horned daemonhead, surrounded by burning chains and laughing at them. Even some of my warriors have suffered from the same visions, though it was difficult to get them to admit it to the Chaplains. The Librarians didn't leave their sanctum for the entire trip, but I doubt they had it anymore pleasant than the astropaths themselves. We have all had bad journeys through the Warp, but this … this was something else entirely. I have seen things, brother, even when I am awake.'
Raguel nodded gravely. He could see how the confession pained his brother – no Space Marine, no matter his lineage, liked to admit to weakness. But only a fool pretended to be impervious to the Warp's pressure. That way lay only damnation.
'I understand. We have suffered the same difficulties, as has the rest of the fleet,' he said, gesturing to the distant dots of the Imperial warships orbiting Silberstadt. 'The preachers and the Commissars are working double time to keep order among the Imperial Guard and the Navy. Lord Admiral Del Baranthir has ordered discipline to be maintained no matter the cost until the Inquisitor Lord arrives to prepare for the next phase of the operation. He shouldn't be long now.'
'Good. We will need whatever guidance the Holy Ordos can provide in the coming war.'
The sound of the bridge's gate opening again turned the attention of the two Astartes officers away. A single figure was entering, dressed in white hooded robes and leaning heavily on a staff decorated with the emblem of the Astra Telepathica. The figure advanced toward them, marching slowly, as if every step was a trial. The Heirs guarding the bridge did nothing to impede her advance, for she was known to them, and fully authorized to come onto the bridge at any time she chose. As for the human crew, they sent fearful glances in her direction before going back to their consoles, acting as if she were not here. For her part, she completely ignored them, her full attention on Raguel.
'Mistress Euclidia,' greeted the Chapter Master. 'What tides do you bring us ?'
Euclidia was the Blade of Righteousness' Mistress of Astropaths, responsible for leading the choir of void-singers who received and sent the Chapter Master's correspondence across the void. Though she was only thirty years old, she looked like a crone, her body ravaged by the demands her service to the Chapter put upon it. The journey to Silberstadt had been harrowing to the members of the choir, and Raguel had ordered them to rest, with only a few of them kept awake at the same time to maintain the lines of communication. But if Euclidia had rested herself, she certainly didn't look like it. If anything, Raguel thought, she looked even more exhausted now. Considering the effort it took simply for her to walk, she must have important news to deliver indeed not to trust them to simple vox. Though his face remained calm, Raguel's body tensed within his armor.
'I hear the echoes of a scream yet to come, my lord,' said the astropath, her voice trembling with fear and exhaustion. 'It tears through the void, and the Immaterium ripples around its power.'
'I … I see,' said Raguel, though he most certainly did not. 'If that is all, you should go back to your chambers, mistress, and take what rest you can. We …'
Before he could finish his sentence, the Mistress of Astropaths collapsed on the spot with a shriek of agony, the smell of her witch-blood filling the Chapter Master's nostrils as it flowed from her sightless eyes. A fraction of a second later, the psychic scream she had foreseen just too late for the warning to be useful hit the rest of the ship, then the rest of the fleet, and madness descended.
+++Error – Lethal levels of stress detected+++
+++Heartbeat failing+++
+++Losing connection …+++
The blood … the blood called to him. He could sense its proximity, now as then, hiding under soft, frail skin, pumping through veins and arteries, filled with sweet, sweet life. He wanted it, craved its sweetness and warmth, craved the sensation of it flowing down his throat as his fangs bit through flesh. He could almost taste it : young blood, but charged with power, so close to him. Was it real, or merely a trick of the mind, the ghost of memory taunting his pain-wracked senses ?
'Stay with me, Chapter Master ! Focus on my voice !'
With the voice came a painful clarity, as it pushed back the madness. It slowed his racing thoughts, cooled his mind with its focus and serenity. It did not bring peace, for it had taken the peace of slumber from him, but it banished the call of the blood, sent it back to the darkness of Raguel's mind. It brought calm, order, control. Then came the question, and with it, remembrance.
'What happened when the scream hit you ?' asked the voice, and Raguel could not help but think back to that dreadful moment when the scream …
… the scream pierced through the Chapter Master's skull, and he heard the madness of the Warp booming and echoing in the darkest chambers of his soul. He heard the Sea of Souls cry out, speaking in tongues no mortal should ever hear. It spoke of a warlord, his soul as black as his armor. It spoke of the destroyers he led, come to build an empire of ruin upon the ashes of hope and reason. And amidst the screams, amidst the fragments of terrible revelation, there was the sound of laughter, ignoble and monstrous as it called out to the dread rage that dwelled within all sons of Sanguinius. Raguel had to fight to remain in the here and now, to prevent his mind from falling into the darkness. He could not succumb to the Black Rage – not now of all moments. He fought, but the laughter still reminded him of Horus' own mockery as he rose the Blade Encarmine in futile defiance, duelling his brother on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit while Terra burned …
'No !' Raguel thought, only realizing afterwards he had shouted the word out loud as well. 'No,' he repeated, speaking through gritted teeth. The word, the affirmation of his refusal, helped to anchor him into the here and now, and he rose to his feet, calling out across the vox to all Heirs of Sanguinius aboard the Blade : 'Brothers ! Fight it ! The madness shall not claim us today !'
A chorus of affirmations mixed with howls and pained screams replied to him, and he continued :
'For though we walk through the valley of death, and the shadow of evil falls upon us forevermore, we shall know no fear !' he said, reciting words that had been ancient when he had been a newborn on that distant, lost feral world. 'The Angel's strength is within us, and through it, the darkness shall find no purchase upon our souls ! Such is our duty, and such is our oath, in Sanguinius' name !'
'In Sanguinius' name !' came the answer, echoing from hundreds of transhuman throats.
The chorus of madness, both psychic and physical, went slowly, grudgingly silent, though Raguel could still feel the abyss of the Black Rage waiting, a gaping maw into which the slightest mistake could cast him without any hope of ever emerging again. He forced his thoughts away from doom, and turned his mind to the situation at hand. Several of the bridge crew were rampaging, screaming wordlessly in agony or spouting prophecies of doom and words that belonged to no human language and caused their teeth to explode. As gently as possible, Raguel and the other Heirs on the bridge caught them and neutralized them, though there were still a few bones broken in the process.
'Brothers,' he spoke once more over the still-open vox-link as he worked, 'the crew may have been compromised. Ensure that the ship remains under control.'
Slowly, order returned to the bridge, as crew members either shook off the scream's effects or endured them through sheer force of will. Some were unable to do either, and they were dragged off the bridge, either in restraints to prevent them from hurting themselves further, or in bags to be tossed into one of the ship's morgue, which Raguel had little doubt would receive many more before the day was done. One of them was carrying Euclidia's body – Raguel couldn't hear the beating of her heart anymore. While he had been fighting the grip of madness, she had died in service to the Emperor; that was all any of them could hope for. That, and vengeance.
'Auspex,' he heard the voice of the Blade's human shipmaster call out. Despite the shock Raguel could smell in the human's sweat, his voice was clear and confident, its strength and familiarity helping the rest of the crew fight back the scream's lingering effects. Through the five decades Captain Jacques Simmerian had never once lost his cool. His bionic eyes, replacements for those he had lost in a bridge fire years before when fighting against a band of Ork pirates, glinted in the light of the alarms as he took in the reports streaming directly into his mind through the augmetics. He was bleeding from his temple, but was completely ignoring it.
'Give us a clear picture of what in the Emperor's name is going on out here,' commanded Jacques.
'Warp breach detected at the edge of the system !' answered one of the crew after a few seconds of frantic activity. 'Re-routing auspex readings to the main hololith !'
The display on the bridge's central projection wavered and blinked, before turning into a representation of the Silberstadt system. The most glaring feature of the new projection was the vertical wall of errors and imaginary numbers near the Mandeville Point, which Raguel assumed was the result of the cogitators struggling to render the concept of a breach into the very fabric of reality into understandable data. Across the projection, green dots and icons represented the gathered Imperial fleet. And right next to the Warp rift, far closer to the Blade of Righteousness that the ship herself was to the bulk of the Imperial armada, dozens of red dots where popping into existence as the vessel's auspex readings were interpreted by the cogitators. Numbers streamed next to each dot, indicating estimated tonnage and energy readings. One projection in particular caught Raguel's attention : a ship of immense size, sailing at the head of the new fleet.
'This one,' the Chapter Master ordered, gesturing toward the image. 'Get me an id on this one !'
As the officers confirmed his order, every vox on the bridge began to speak the same words, with a voice Raguel had grown familiar since his arrival at the muster. It was confident, smooth, charged with the utter certainty of victory that comes from a life of training and generations of breeding.
'All ships, this is Lord Admiral Francesco Del Baranthir. The enemy has come, using foul sorcery to try and gain the advantage before battle is even joined. All ships are to coordinate and advance on the enemy position and prepare for battle !'
'Understood,' replied Simmerian, before giving new orders to his crew to set the ship on course toward the enemy fleet, slowing the engines so that the rest of the Imperial armada could catch up to them before they encountered the foe. Judging by the auspex, it would still be several hours before the battle truly began.
'Lords, we have an identification on the enemy's lead vessel ! It's the Hand of Ruin,' called out the auspex officer, before gulping as he read further down the length of parchment his station had just spat out. He paled visibly before continuing : 'it was last seen during the Siege of Terra, retreating from the system after the death of the Warmaster. And … my lords, it's a Sixteenth Legion ship !'
Sixteenth Legion. The Sons of Horus. The thrice-damned spawn of the Arch-Traitor.
It took a deliberate effort of will for Raguel to avoid showing his teeth, and he saw Terion struggle against the same urge – and not quite succeed as well as his Chapter Master. Raguel caught a flash of pearl-white fangs before the Captain reasserted control, forcing down the rage the two of them shared at the mention of the traitors' origin. No matter how much had been forgotten down the centuries, among the descendants of Sanguinius, the blood remembered. Flashes danced before Raguel's eyes as memories that were not his own tried to replace the reality surrounded him – a ship, grand and corrupt, its walls running with transhuman blood; the screams of the damned echoing in his mind and hearts; the pull of unavoidable destiny toward his doom …
No, he told himself again, forcing the visions away. Not now. He forced himself to focus on the here and now, and was pleased to see that Terion had also managed to resist the lures of past nightmares. Vengeance would be theirs, but it would not come through giving in to rage. The true strength of a Space Marine wasn't in his enhanced muscles or his transhuman endurance. It was in his discipline, his fearlessness. To lose that would be to lower himself to the traitors' own level.
'Thank you,' he managed to say to the officer. According to Imperial law, the man shouldn't have known that the Legions had ever existed as anything more than myth, but the serfs of the Space Marine Chapters had, by necessity, access to knowledge forbidden to common Imperial citizens.
Of course, the traitors hadn't come alone, just as they hadn't been alone when they had brought death and fire to Terra at the command of the Arch-Traitor Horus. As the fleet came closer, more details became visible. The armada that had emerged from the Warp rift was a gathering of vessels of wildly different patterns, united only by the marks of their damnation. Twisted hulks of flesh and metal, bearing unholy runes and bristling with weaponry, along with dozens – hundreds – of transport crafts. If they were filled, then that raised questions as to where the traitors had found so many slaves. The Imperium had assumed the Wailing Storm to be devoid of life, but it seemed that, in fact, they had repeated the mistake made with the Eye of Terror a thousand years ago.
'Chapter Master,' came a voice on a private vox-channel. A look at the identifying rune told Raguel who his caller was.
'Lord Admiral,' saluted Raguel. Del Baranthir had no official authority over him, but the Chapter Master knew the importance to follow protocol in such join actions. Imperial Navy officers did not rise to their positions of command over tens of thousands of soul by being humble.
'I assume you have already learned about the flagship of the heretics ? Good. It's the greatest threat we have yet to identify among the enemy fleet. I would like nothing more than to blow it to pieces with the full might of the fleet, but the Inquisitors want us to at least try and capture it so that they can learn the plans behind this incursion.'
The frustration in the Lord Admiral's voice was obvious, and Raguel couldn't blame the man. Based on the ancient records and extrapolating where the new, heretical technology of the ship was concerned, the Hand of Ruin was indeed the most powerful vessel within the Chaos armada. Trying to capture it rather than destroy it would cost many lives, as its guns would be able to fire longer before being silenced. It made the reason behind Del Baranthir's call all the more clear to Raguel.
'This is a Legion vessel, Lord Admiral,' he said, knowing he was speaking the Lord Admiral's own thoughts. 'Your men will stand no chance within it. Taking it is a job for Space Marines.'
'Indeed. I want you to take the rest of your Chapter's ships and cripple that abomination. Leave it dead in the void so that the Inquisitors can pick at its corpse after we are done here. Can you do this, lord Raguel ?'
'With pleasure, Lord Admiral,' replied Raguel, a predatory smile on his face. 'With pleasure.'
'For the Emperor, then, Chapter Master. Baranthir out.'
'For the Emperor,' Raguel said as the link went dead. He turned to Simmerian and nodded, and the human immediately opened transmissions to the other ships of the Chapter, coordinating their approach.
'You should go back to your ship, Terion,' said Raguel, but the Captain shook his head.
'With respect, Chapter Master, I know you intend for this ship to be the vanguard of our attack. You will need every bolter you can spare, and my second-in-command can take care of the Call of Retribution.'
'Very well,' conceded Raguel.
'Bring us about to 164.468 degrees starboard,' he heard the shipmaster order the crew. 'Weapons at the ready, to open fire on the enemy flagship as soon as we are in range.'
'We have a transmission from the enemy flagship,' reported one of the vox officers.
'Patch it through to my armor,' ordered Raguel. Let's hear what the heretics have to say.
Once, he would have commanded the words of his foe to be broadcast on the bridge, that all the trusted human officers could hear it. It would have filled their hearts with rightful hatred, and his own words to the enemy would have strengthened their resolve even further.
But that had been before he had hunted down Jeryiss Tekt, the self-proclaimed "Daemon Queen", a heretical pirate queen whose ships had harassed Azarok for years before the Chapter had tracked the location of her headquarters. Jeryiss had hailed the Heralds' ships as they approached the asteroid she had made into her fortress, and Raguel, then a mere Captain, had ordered the transmission be heard by all. He had expected taunts, or a plea for mercy – what he had got instead was a mind-wracking scream that had decimated the bridge crew. There had been more to Jeryiss' title than self-aggrandizement, and the serfs had paid for Raguel's assumption. Even the Captain had been reduced to a mindless, drooling husk, forcing Raguel and his brothers to assume the functions of the crew in order to salvage the situation.
The Imperium had still claimed victory that day, of course : Raguel had killed the pirate leader himself. He had ripped off her arms with his bare hands and cast her into her own pits of infernal horrors, to be devoured by the unholy things that dwelled there, and then he had watched as the asteroid fortress detonated, obliterated by strategically placed charges and lance fire. But it had not brought the dead crew members back, nor healed the minds of those who had survived the ordeal. The last time Raguel had been on the Chapter's homeworld, there had still been two of them left in the hospital, trapped in a catatonic state, kept alive by machines as they had been for decades. He should have ordered them released long ago, but some part of him felt that would be a grave fault on his part, an attempt to erase the evidence of his failure.
Considering the power, cunning and cruelty already displayed by the heretics he now faced, Raguel wasn't going to take the risk. In this case, however, his caution was unwarranted, for all that came through the vox-link were words – hate-filled, bitter words, but merely words nonetheless. There was static on the link, but the meaning was still clear, as was the fact that it was an Astartes speaking. The voice was too deep to belong to a human.
'Hail, sons of the Angel. Know, before the end, that as you live trapped in your father's shadow, so too shall you die like him : alone, broken, weeping, and in vain.'
'It is you who will die in vain, traitor,' spat Raguel, keeping his voice low. 'For you have broken your oaths to the Emperor, and only darkness remains for your kind.'
A cruel laughter came from the other side of the vox-link :
'It was He who betrayed us first. He who took us from our families and forged us into weapons, to bleed and die so that He could conquer the stars. He who planned to discard us all from the very beginning, who never saw us as anything more than tools for His own ambitions. But we are more than weapons, cousin : after all, here we are, about to kill each other because of our own drives and desires, long after He has become nothing more than a silent corpse sitting atop a throne of lies. He watches, but He can do nothing except send dreams and whispers into the minds of His deluded followers. And He will watch as we burn His deceitful empire to the ground, unable to stop us. Even in failure, Horus accomplished that much, at least.'
'The Arch-Traitor's Heresy accomplished nothing but damn him and all who followed him in his betrayal,' growled Raguel. 'I am Raguel, Chapter Master of the Heirs of Sanguinius, and I would know the name of the traitor we are about to kill.'
A dark chuckle came across the link, followed by words still tainted with cruel amusement :
'I will tell you my name when we meet in person. It won't be long now, cousin.'
The link went dead, but Raguel didn't care. Once more, it was taking all the strength of his will to not succumb to the pull of the past. The taunts and heresies of the traitor had set his blood aflame, and he was gritting his teeth, his elongated fangs cutting into his lower lips and filling his mouth with the taste of his own transhuman blood. He forced himself to relax his jaw, before he succumbed to one of the most easily avoided pitfalls of Sanguinius' gift.
As the hours passed and the two fleets drew ever closer, Raguel Alastores remained on the bridge, his eyes closed in meditation, waiting for the battle to erupt. Terion went to his side and joined him, reciting words of duty and honor under his breath, calling for the Emperor and the Angel to watch over him and his brothers on this day as they did Their work.
'What's happening ?'
The voice called out, but it wasn't speaking to him this time. The recollection had been shattered, but not because of any spike of emotion on this part like the previous time. Raguel didn't understand what was happening – the pain of his flesh made focus impossible – and then he heard another voice, distant and utterly devoid of any inflection.
'There has been a malfunction. The device is shutting down.'
'Dammit, get it back on ! We are losing him !' shouted the voice he recognized, before once more turning to him : 'Raguel ! Raguel, listen to me ! What do you remember about the Hand of Ruin ?'
The Hand of Ruin … a leviathan of black steel and mutated fleshy growth, bearing the mark of the chained daemonhead. He remembered the warships of the Chapter coming upon it as the vanguards of the two fleets finally met. He remembered giving the order to board and neutralize it. He remembered …
… the boarding torpedoes hit the traitor flagship mid-section, and disgorged its payload of transhuman killing machines into a waking nightmare. Sergeant Alther of the Fourth Company led his ten-men squad into dark corridors whose walls were made of metal and flesh, and the first thing they killed was no renegade but a mutated beast of pale scales and poison-dripping fangs. Had any of the Heirs gone un-helmed, they may have tasted a drop of its ichor and learn that it was seventeen generations removed from the mutant escaped from the Fleshmasters' labs that was its ancestor. This was the first monster they encountered, but not the last.
The goal of Alther's squad was the enginarium deck. Not as prestigious a target as the bridge, but an equally important one. Any competent shipbuilder would have contingencies in place in case the bridge was taken : secondary command centers from which the vessel could still be controlled, if less effectively. The sergeant's helm-display showed him an estimated plan of the vessel, with the positions of the other eighteen squads who had managed to board. Alther noted the absence of his brother Lucen's rune : his torpedo had been destroyed before reaching the hull. That only one in twenty torpedoes had failed to reach its goal was nothing short of a miracle – the Angel was smiling on this mission. Lucen and his squad would be mourned, of course, but only after this was over.
As the squad moved deeper into the ship, contact with the other squads grew erratic. Something – or, more likely, a combination of many things – was interfering with the vox, causing static and bursts of random noises on all frequencies. Demented laughter and horrified screams were prominent among the latter, causing Alther to wonder if their degenerate cousins had truly fallen so low as to expect such cheap tactics to succeed at unnerving Space Marines. Or perhaps this was the result of the ship's own corruption and not a directed effort.
More tangible obstacles soon rose in the squad's path. The Hand of Ruin was a mega-city in space, packed to the brim with mutants and heretics of a thousand kinds. A similar-sized Imperial vessel would have been unable to sustain such a massive population, but creative genetic engineering and the gifts of the Dark Gods had kept the slaves from suffocating or starving until the Black Crusade began. These were the enemies encountered by Alther and his brothers. They cut a path through them with bolter and chainsword, barely slowing as they stormed primitive barricades and slew would-be champions, who hoped to gain the favor of their distant overlords. But the Heirs were Sanguinius' wrath, angels of retribution unleashed within the foetid pits of Hell, and none could stand against them.
Yet eventually, amidst the fervor of battle, it dawned on Alther that they were lost. The ship's layout was unlike anything he had ever encountered, with corridors looping back on themselves in impossible ways. The radio interference made it difficult to gauge whether or not they were truly closer to their goal. Even following the noise of engines was an unreliable method, as sounds echoed in strange ways throughout the metal; and the cables and pipes that would have led the way on an Imperial vessel were impossible to distinguish from the more organic conduits here. The squad had kept track of its advance, their armors' machine-spirits noting every turn, but Alther was fairly certain that, should they retrace their steps, they wouldn't be able to find their way back to the boarding torpedo, which was their only way out of the ship.
So be it. They had all known the odds of survival were slim. Death was the reward of duty, but failure was unacceptable. They had to find their target before even their inhuman stamina started to fade from the relentless killing of worthless chaff, for surely the enginarium would be defended by better forces – Traitor Astartes, if the warlord leading this gathering of the lost and the damned had any strategic sense at all left in his diseased mind.
The squad reached an ornate portal, once a bulkway leading into another section of the ship. Sorcerous markings covered its surface, and piles of skulls and other bloody morsels had been laid before it like offerings to some ruinous shrine. Looking at the symbols and devotions made Alther's head hurt, and he could feel the Thirst growing stronger.
'We should not stay here,' said Neros, turning away from the portal to stare back the way they had come, bolter at the ready for any sign of pursuit.
'I agree,' replied Alther, 'but as best as I can tell, our only way forward is ...'
He stopped, as a rumbling sound began emanating from the gate. Slowly, as if struggling against a great force, the door opened, splitting many sigils in two as it did so, their inner light flickering and dying with a sigh. The stench of blood flowed out of the confined space beyond, overpowering the filters on Alther's helmet. The smell was a mix of old and fresh vitae, from a great number of sources – human, mutant, xenos, and Astartes. It made Alther's throat go dry even as his stomach lurched in repulsion, an all too common reaction to abattoirs among the sons of the Angel, and he invoked the mantras of the Chaplains, drilled into his head back when he was only an initiate feeling the first touch of the Red Thirst. By fighting an eternal battle against the monster within, the Heirs proved their worth of Sanguinius' legacy of nobility and devotion to the Emperor.
Still, it took several seconds for Alther to fully control himself, and a look at his squadmates' bio-readings told him that some of them were still struggling against the curse. He opened his mouth to chastise them, but was interrupted again by a deep, bellowing roar from the darkness ahead.
Bolters snapped toward the opening as thunderous, quickening footsteps followed the roar, accompanied by bestial snarling. The sensors of Alther's armor could detect the source : it was big, vaguely humanoid, and radiated the heat of a furnace.
'Open fire !' he shouted, and as his squad obeyed, the creature became visible, illuminated by the light of muzzle flares.
It was tall, nearly four meters high even when stooped as it was. In its right hand, it held a giant axe, whose edge was covered in sharp, ivory teeth dripping acid onto the deck. Bone spurs rose from its back like the roots of lost wings, carved with blasphemous runes. The remnants of crimson and bronze ceramite that clung to its skinless muscles were barely identifiable enough to recognize that the creature had once been a Space Marine. Its face was a vision of hell : the jaw was canine-like, except all the teeth were sharp fangs, and the upper half was still clad in a twisted helmet whose eye-lenses glowed with infernal light. Alther could make out silhouettes in that blaze, twisting in agony as they consumed eternally within it.
Bolt shells hammered into it as it charged, bursting muscle and spilling gallons of blood, but doing nothing to slow it down. The wounds healed as soon as they appeared, unmade by the daemonspawn's unnatural vitality. The monstrosity opened its mouth, and two voices emanated from between blood-dripping fangs :
'BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD ! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE !'
The axe flew with a speed that belied the thing's size and caught Brother Killios mid-section, severing him in two without slowing. The Heirs scattered before the return blow, still firing focused bursts at the abomination.
Thousands of kilometers away, on the bridge of the Blade of Righteousness, Raguel swore as his brother's pict-feed was cut at the same time as his thread. Andros' feed had been but one of his brothers whose progress through the traitor flagship he had been monitoring - but it had also been the last still open. For the last hour, the Chapter Master had watched nearly two hundreds of his brothers spend their lives in the belly of that infernal vessel. And while no one would question that they had died as heroes, in the end they had failed in their objectives. The Hand of Ruin remained perfectly functional. A fifth of the Chapter was lost, but the attempt had to be made. Space Marines were designed to be the spear, aimed at the heart of the foe, their individual might doing what mere numbers could not.
Raguel vowed that his brothers' death would not be in vain. The footage of the ship's insides, and the monsters that dwelled there, was already being prepared for transmission to the rest of the Sector, heavily encrypted and sent to one of the courier ships of the fleet. There was too much data to risk it to the vagaries of astropathic transmission, and the Warp-singers were too shaken to send anything anyway. The Inquisition, who had known of the coming attack but whose leaders had yet to arrive – and Raguel wasn't sure what to make of that - would doubtlessly find much to learn from the records.
But that was a concern for later. Right now, all that mattered was the void battle, and while the traitors had the advantage thanks to the disorder caused by the unholy scream, the Imperial fleet was still far from done.
'My lord ! We have new Warp signatures inbound on the Mandeville point !'
'More traitors ?' he shouted to be heard above the dim of alarms.
'No, my lord ! We have their identifications : it's the fleet of Admiral Von Kriegerich !'
There was exaltation in the officer's voice, and after a glance at the updated tactical hololith, Raguel could see why. The new arrivals were in perfect position to flank the Chaos armada. Von Kriegerich would be the hammer to the main battlegroup's anvil. As soon as the ships' auspexes had recovered from Warp transit, they would open fire. The Admiral had been smart – or paranoid – enough to have his ships travel in combat formation and emerge from the Empyrean with shields raised and guns at the ready. With any luck, he would get over the shock of the invasion's scope quickly. He had to attack before the traitors could react, cripple them before they could launch boarding actions of their on. Already commands from the Lord Admiral were coming in, the Imperial fleet moving to engage the hated foe.
Any moment now, the Blade of Righteousness's auspexes would report the first shots being fired from Kriegerich's battle-group toward the traitor armada. Any moment …
But the moment passed, and Raguel frowned in incomprehension. Why hadn't the ships opened fire yet ? The traitor fleet had just entered optimal range for their lance weaponry. With each passing second, the Imperial vessels risked being subjected to return fire. Why …
Then the reason behind that inaction was revealed, painted across the void in blood and fire.
The recollection shattered as a crimson haze descended upon the warrior who should be dead. Rage filled him, black and hot, and he felt his pain redouble as he struggled in his fury to move, to strike, to do anything. He wanted to crush, to destroy, to vent his anger onto something, anything …
'Stay with me ! Raguel, you must stay focused ! What happened ? What did Kriegerich do ?'
Kriegerich ! That name, that name brought pain and fire ! That name made the anger even worse !
'Raguel ! Your anger is killing you ! Stay focused !'
Kriegerich ! Worthless, honorless cur ! A thousand curses upon his name and his wretched soul !
'Raguel ! In the name of the Emperor, I command you ! REMEMBER !'
Kriegerich …
… Kriegerich had betrayed them. The cold weight of realization warred with fury's raging inferno in Raguel's breast as he watched the new ships open fire, not on the Chaos armada, but on the Imperial fleet. The Blade of Righteousness shook as shells fire from Imperial guns impacted first her void-shields. The battle-barge's place in the vanguard and her allegiance marked her as a priority target. But Raguel knew the enemy would not simply blast them apart, even before the Hand of Ruin began its course toward them. No, they were going to do to the Blade what the Heirs had tried to do to the Hand. They were going to try to board them, to capture the ship and kill her current masters. Then they would twist her in their own corrupt image with their foul techno-sorcery, and use the hollowed revenant that would be left in their war against the Emperor.
Not as long as I live, vowed Raguel, before turning to his vox-officer. With the battle for space so utterly lost, trying to hold Silberstadt itself was a fool's errand. They must evacuate the planet and regroup elsewhere. But just retreating from the Chaos fleet would only lead to slaughter.
Lord Admiral Del Baranthir had come to the same conclusion. His face taught with contained fury, he gave the order to the fleet to withdraw, giving commands to groups of ships to remain in orbit long enough to evacuate the forces mustered there and shouting directions. The fleet could not simply retreat together to another system – the Warp would not allow for such a precise and coordinated withdrawal. They must scatter the fleet, to fight back another day. It clearly galled Del Baranthir to give such orders, but Raguel only admired him for it. A flicker of bitter amusement passed through his mind when he noticed that the Administratum drones on Silberstadt's moon had finally started to act, calling in private vessels to evacuate the higher-ranking officials and the most important archives – and the amusement turned to anger when he realized that they were abandoning most of the thousands who laboured there to save data-stacks instead.
But there wasn't anything he could do about it. He had another duty.
'Inform the Lord Admiral that we are volunteering to stay back and hold the enemy in order to cover the retreat,' Raguel commanded the vox-officer. 'If he protests, tell him that while we accept his concern with gratitude, there is no way the Blade can disengage without excessive sacrifices from the rest of the force. Then call the rest of the Chapter's fleet and tell them to join the retreat. The Heirs of Sanguinius will not die today, and if any of them protest, tell them that it is an order and that we haven't time for any discussion.'
The four other ships of the Chapter began to turn almost at once, staying on the back fringes of the withdrawal – Raguel could ask them to run, but their captains would not be the first to flee. They would keep any Chaos ships that reached the fleet off the troop carriers.
'Terion,' Raguel called out to his brother. 'You should go back to your ship at once. The Chapter will have need of leaders to fight the war against these heretics.'
'I will not leave you to die, brother,' grunted Terion in response. 'And I will not turn my back on these traitor !br0ken! I have already spoken to my second-in-command. He will lead the Fifth as well as I could while I stand alongside you here.'
Despite the gravity of the situation, despite the fury burning in his breast, Raguel couldn't help himself. He chuckled. Brotherhood. No matter what the Archenemy or any of the other countless threats to Mankind threw at the Space Marines, they could never truly destroy that one thing.
'Very well. So be it, brother. I will handle the bridge – you go join the rest of our brothers.'
Terion and Raguel locked arms in the manner of warriors, both knowing that this would very likely be the last time they ever saw each other. Then Terion turned, locking his helmet in place on his way out of the bridge. Raguel closed his eyes for a few seconds, silently reciting a mantra of focus and devotion. Then he raised his hand and triggered the Iron Halo that replaced his armor's helmet – one of the few artefacts the Chapter had inherited from those who had come before.
'Brothers', he began, speaking on a general frequency that would be heard by every Heir of Sanguinius aboard. 'Our foe is bringing the battle to us. They think they can kill us and take what belong to the Emperor, as they have done for centuries. But they will find in us an adversary ready to face them ! Though we may all kneel at the foot of the Golden Throne before the day is done, we shall reap a tithe of traitors' lives such than we need not be ashamed of our service to the Angel !'
Once again, his brothers answered with a battle-cry of their own, more reserved and determined this time. Raguel knew all of them were ready to give their lives for the Imperium – they had been since the day they had taken the first step on the path that had made them Astartes. But he had not just sentenced them all to their death : he had also deprived each of the one-hundred Space Marines aboard the Blade of Righteousness from the enduring legacy which was every Astartes' right. Their progenoid glands would not be harvested and used to create the next generation of Heirs of Sanguinius. In fact, if the gene-seed wasn't abandoned to rot, there was a very high probability that it would be desecrated by the Chaos Marines. Such was the true sacrifice Raguel had asked his brothers to make when he had commanded the Blade to stay back.
Sanguinius forgive me. Angel, let their sacrifice not be in vain.
The Blade shook as her shields trembled with the focused fire of the traitor fleet. Her own guns fired back, destroying several smaller crafts – Simmerian knew they wouldn't be able to take down the Hand of Ruin's shields without the support of the fleet, and instead focused on inflicting as much damage as possible on the Chaos armada, facing his own death and that of his crew with all the stoicism and determination Raguel could possibly ask for.
Though this was precisely the result sought by the orders he had given, Raguel couldn't help but think that his plan was working a little too well. The bulk of the Chaos armada had stopped, with only small groups breaking off and passing by the engagement to pursue the retreating Imperial fleet. Was the rest unwilling to go before their flagship and risk offending their dark master ? Did they fear that the retreat was just an elaborate feint, and feared being caught and destroyed piecemeal if it turned back ? Or …
Raguel's train of thought was interrupted as the Blade's shields finally collapsed in a shriek of protesting consoles and feedback into the generators that caused every on-board light to flicker for a few seconds. The battle-barge trembled as a few last volleys struck into her hull, but the traitors had good fire discipline and the attacks stopped soon. They were replaced on the auspex by a flow of boarding torpedoes, assault boats, and fighter crafts. With the shields down, the Chaos Marines and their minions were coming to seize the Blade of Righteousness.
Soon, battle began aboard the corridors of the battle-barge as squads of Chaos Marines and a veritable army of mutated beasts and corrupted soldiers poured in. For several minutes, Raguel listened to the sound of war, and then it came to the bridge itself, as he had known it would.
Warp-born lightning cracked along the deck, cooking the flesh of servitors and destroying consoles before gathering into the open space before the bridge's main entrance, where it coalesced into a bright light that blinded Raguel for a few seconds. He had seen teleportation before, but this was unlike any of the manifestations preceding it he had witnessed. He could not fathom the vile and forbidden dark tech that had gone into this, nor did he care to.
As his vision returned, all of the Chapter Master's attention was focused on the silhouettes that had appeared in the spot where the sorcerous un-light had gathered. There were ten of them, all radiating malevolence and clad in bulky, corrupted Terminator armor. The wargear of the renegades was painted black and gold, the colors of the infamous Black Legion that had led the way of the Traitor Legions during the Black Crusade that had poured out of the Eye of Terror centuries ago. But the emblem on the Legionaries' shoulders and breastplates was different from the Eye of Horus surrounded by the Chaos Star that was the symbol of Abaddon's mongrel army. It was that of the chained daemonhead that the Inquisitors had encountered across the Azarok Sector prior to the destruction of their Conclave. In time, the Inquisitors would investigate the history of this off-shot of the Traitor Legions, but Raguel did not care for the origins of these renegades.
Tusks and horns rose from the traitors' helmets, giving them the aspect of daemons to match the corruption of their souls. Unholy sigils glowed upon their ancient war-plate and the power weapons they brandished. The air around them rippled with leftover Warp energy, and Raguel thought that he could see the screaming faces of the traitors' previous victims in the fell illumination. They were the first Chaos Marines Raguel had ever seen with his own eyes, and they were exactly as vile as he had imagined them to be. They were twisted parodies of the Chapters' true strength, warped by their devotion to unholy powers into walking avatars of corruption and ruin.
Then Raguel saw the one the Terminators escorted, and all thoughts of these lesser warriors' evil faded away. The lord of the Terminators was a giant, taller even than his brothers in damnation and filled to bursting with fell energies. His bare head was bald and scarred, his eyes glowed with unholy fire, and the image of a chained daemonhead was carved in tarnished gold upon the chestplate of his armor, which was an unnatural blackness that seemed to swallow all light.
Raguel raised Ellestrios, not in salute, but in an overhead two-handed grip, and charged, Sanguinius' name on his lips. The warhammer flew, and smashed into the head of one of the Terminators. The helmet's horns shattered under the blow, then its black ceramite and the skull and brain it contained followed suit, the tainted brain-meat sizzling as it was cooked by the weapon's power field. An axe slammed against Raguel's flank, but the blow failed to penetrate his blessed armor, and he barely stumbled before bringing his weapon back for another swing. Corrupted war-plate cracked under his blow, and the traitor fell, leaking blood, oil, and other, fouler fluids.
The Chapter Master kept moving, charging toward the Chaos Lord. Other Terminators clashed across the bridge as the elite of the First Company engaged the renegades. More of the traitors tried to block Raguel's path, but their master waved them aside with a gesture, his claws glinting in the emergency lights, his face twisted in a malevolent sneer. Raguel's warhammer came down, only for the weapon to be caught by its haft mere centimeters from the heretic's bald skull. Raguel struggled with all the strength conferred to him by his gene-forged body and his Tactical Dreadnought armor, but the grip of the Chaos Lord was unrelenting. The creature's smile widened, pale lips parting to reveal fanged, engraved teeth.
'Chapter Master Alastores,' he said, and Raguel recognized the voice with which he had spoken before the void battle had begun. But the voice was more than mere sound carried across the air – it burned within Raguel's mind, every word causing the beast in his blood to rise and rage, crying out for the blood of Horus' son. 'I am Arken the Awakened, lord of the Forsaken Sons.'
'I care not what you call yourself, traitor,' Raguel spat through clenched teeth. Drawing upon the strength granted unto him by his rage, he ripped his warhammer free of the traitor's grip and pivoted for a circular strike at the renegade's chest.
'Oh, but you should,' replied Arken, dodging Raguel's blow by less than a millimeter, the weapon's power field scorching the golden daemonhead on his armor, causing the sculpture to reveal itself as disgustingly alive as it snarled in response. 'For one should always know the name of one's killer.'
'You will not be my killer. I shall be the one to end your miserable life !'
'Do you expect this to be some heroic duel between commanders ?' mocked Arken. 'Do you think you will kill me in honorable single duel before being gunned down by my guards ? Do you think your name will go down in Imperial history as a martyr to the False Emperor ? You are wrong.'
At the precise moment the Chaos Lord finished speaking, something struck the bridge with the strength of a titan. The armourplas panel of the main occulus shattered, and the atmosphere of the bridge fled into the void, taking many serfs and servitors along with it. Raguel stumbled under the pull before his armor's magnetic boots activated, locking him to the deck. None of the traitors, he noted, had been taken by surprise – they had known the attack would come.
Before Raguel could regain his footing, Arken was on him, moving far more quickly than he had before. With a single swipe of his claws, he cut off both of Raguel's arms at the wrist, and Ellestrios was sucked into the void along with the hands still clutching its shaft. The Chapter Master raised his stumps, trying to block the onslaught, but Arken continued to strike, tearing at the blessed ceramite until Raguel was forced to his knees, his entire body burning with pain.
'It seems I was wrong. You are not going to die like your father. After all,' he continued, his face twisted in contempt, 'for all his many faults, Sanguinius was never as pathetically weak as you !'
The warlord raised his claws, ready to deliver the death blow, but then, suddenly, he stopped, and cocked his head, the motion making his warped Terminator armor whine in protest as its joints tried to follow it. Arken stared at Raguel with something like curiosity gleaming in his cold, inhuman eyes. His lips curled in a cruel parody of amusement, revealing rune-marked teeth.
'I see you, Inquisitor.'
Then he struck, and the lightning-shrouded talons pierced through Raguel's chestplate and into his flesh, tearing at organs and blood vessels, but missing both of his hearts. Still the warlord was smiling, his words no longer addressed to Raguel, but to someone else, someone who wasn't here. Through the pain, Raguel wondered if he was about to be slain by a deluded madman.
'Know this, little slave of the Corpse-God : I have come to bring death and fire to Azarok, and there is nothing you and your allies can do to stop me.'
Arken raised his arm, lifting Raguel off the ground. Then, with a mighty heave, he threw the Chapter Master through the broken occulus and into the airless void, his blood – Sanguinius' blood – flowing from terrible wounds as his physiology strained to close them in the less than optimal conditions. Raguel tried to reach, to cling to something, but he was too weak, and soon he was floating in the void, the burning silhouette of the Blade of Righteousness diminishing in the distance. Cold bit into him as all air and heat fled his torn armor. As darkness closed in, the last thing he saw was the silhouette of the Chaos Lord who had brought the Black Crusade to Azarok, still standing amidst the ruins of the battle-barge's bridge, immobile as a statue while he watched Raguel fly away. And the last thought to cross the Chapter Master's mind before unconsciousness took him was a curse aimed at his killer, calling the Emperor's wrath upon the foul, ancient traitor.
Lord Inquisitor Elydeos Akhaman yanked his hand away from the preservation casket, face pale and eyes wide. For several seconds, he simply stared at the mangled, ruined body within, hooked up to dozens of cables linked to the priceless archeotech devices that had dragged the Chapter Master back from clinical death and allowed for the psychic communion.
He could easily fill in the blanks after Raguel's loss of consciousness, and went over the story one more time. From what the tech-priests had been able to tell, after the bridge was lost, the remaining Heirs of Sanguinius had gathered in the Enginarium. There, they had made their last stand, buying time for the Techmarines and enginseers to set the generators of the battle-barge into overdrive. According to psychic readings of ceramite fragments, the Forsaken Sons had nearly all fled before the explosion, but at least the ship had been denied to the traitors. A small victory, but an important one : the Chaos fleet was powerful enough without adding the might of such a vessel to it.
Perhaps Elydeos' agents would be able to spine a nice bit of propaganda from the whole affair – the noble Angels, fighting the Archenemy until the very end, sacrificing their lives in service to the God-Emperor. The Imperium would need every moral boost it could get in Azarok, after this disaster. And it was a disaster, that much couldn't be questioned.
In the end, Raguel's decision to sacrifice the Heirs of Sanguinius' flagship hadn't been quite enough, and Del Baranthir had led the volunteer force that had bought the remaining time needed to evacuate the forces on Silberstadt. The Lord Admiral had died with his ship, conveniently erasing the dishonor his defeat had brought upon his lineage and dumping the job of finding a successor on Elydeos' lap. With the Navy scattered as it was in the aftermath of the retreat, choosing a new Lord Admiral was going to be a nightmare, tactically, logistically, and politically. Things would have been much simple if Del Baranthir had been a more typical Imperial high-echelon official and had run to save his own life. Then Elydeos could have kept him in charge and then execute him for cowardice once the Black Crusade had been dealt with.
Silberstadt, once the jewel of the Azarok Sector's defenses, was now a smoking ruin. The Black Crusade's armada had pummelled the fortress-world from orbit until nothing was left of its mighty strongholds but rubble. Even their great void-shields had not been enough, and the chemical residues of the planet's purge centuries ago had ignited under the excessive heat, leaving entire landmasses charred black. With its loss, the Imperium's best chance to the stop the Black Crusade at its gates had slipped between their fingers. Analysis of the battle's logs had confirmed the instincts Elydeos had found within Raguel's recollection : it had indeed been the betrayal of Admiral Kriegerich that had turned the tides.
We were blind again, thought Elydeos. By the Emperor, this has to stop.
Questions filled his mind, one of them dominating all the others : why ? Why had the Chaos Lord, Arken the Awakened, spoken to Elydeos in such a way ? How wasn't that difficult : the monster was filled with the power of the Warp, and time meant little to the Empyrean. But the mind that had engineered the crippling of the Conclave, the gathering of a Black Crusade, the treachery of Von Kriegerich – such a mind did nothing without a purpose. Mere gloating at an enemy in disarray was not reason enough, so why ? To sow doubt and confusion as to his motives ? To make them underestimate him, thinking that he was just one more blood-crazed warlord ?
Elydeos took a deep breath, and calmed his swirling thoughts. Focus, he told himself. Wild speculation would achieve nothing at this stage. Chapter Master Raguel Alastores needed his help. The entire Azarok Sector needed his help, the hubris of the thought be damned. It would need every single one of its very few Inquisitors left, and every single one of its ships and soldiers.
The small, heavily modified Gladius-class frigate Judgement's Will floated hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from the Silberstadt's system's Mandeville Point, in the depthless abyss that truly separates stars from one another. Its run into the system had been extremely risky, but Akhaman had insisted, and no one had dared to question the new Lord Inquisitor and master of the Azarok Conclave, such as it was. At least not in public. In private, Alphon had been more than willing to explain to his lord how foolish the idea was at excruciating lengths. But Akhaman had maintained his decision. The astropathic messages that had come from Silberstadt in the aftermath of the disaster were too imprecise and tainted by the terror of their senders to be of any tactical use, while the scattered forces of the Imperium were still being accounted for and gathered back together. They needed hard, trustworthy intelligence.
Alphon hadn't objected to any of that, of course. The mysterious Inquisitor knew better than anyone the value of information. He had objected to the fact that Akhaman, who was, for better or worse, the effective leader of the Imperial defense in Azarok, should be the one to risk his life to obtain that information. Elydeos agreed with his advisor, but they had already been on their way to Silberstadt when the astropaths had perceived the psychic echoes of the disaster.
Thankfully, most of the Black Crusade's fleet had already departed from Silberstadt, leaving in separate groups that had sailed into the conduits leading the rest of Azarok. It reminded Elydeos of a plague, pouring into an open wound and using the body's own arteries to spread. The Lord Inquisitor wondered how much flesh would need to be excised to defeat that particular infection.
The remaining ships, including the Hand of Ruin, were undergoing minor repairs, salvaging the battlefield, or plundering Silberstadt's shipyards. Soon they too would be gone. Elydeos had no idea what foul plots they would unleash upon the Sector, but what had already been revealed to bait the Conclave into gathering left him with little doubt that the Forsaken Sons would have plenty of cells left in Imperial space, awaiting their coming to rise against their rightful masters.
More worlds would burn before the end. That was inevitable. As had been done before, so would it be done again to keep the secrets that Mankind could not be trusted to know.
Such pride, whispered a treacherous voice in the back of his head. Such confidence in your inevitable victory, in your own importance. But what if you lose ? What if this is the Black Crusade that ends the Imperium once and for all, and ushers in the Age of Chaos ?
He crushed that thought under his iron will. Defeat was impossible. He may perish – for that matter, the entire Azarok Sector may perish if he failed utterly in his duty. But the Imperium would endure. The Great Beast, Abaddon, Horus himself, they had all failed to bring it down. What hope did this Arken have ?
The Lord Inquisitor turned from the still form of Raguel and left the sterile, warded chamber where the Chapter Master and the machine that had returned him to half-life were kept. A trio of figures awaited him : Alphon, his face as carefully neutral as always, a tech-priest whose entire visage had been replaced by knots of cables and glowing eye-lenses, and a bare-headed, grizzled Space Marine in red and silver armor who towered over both.
Captain Medele of the Heirs of Sanguinius' Tenth Company had been delayed on his way to Silberstadt by Warp turbulences, which had resulted in him and the Scouts under his guidance being spared from the slaughter. Elydeos had found him and his cruiser skulking at the system's edge, searching for their chance to go examine the wreckage of the Blade of Righteousness without drawing the attention of the traitors remaining in the system. The Judgement's Will had been far better suited for that task, and had delivered Medele along with a mixed squad of his Scouts and the Inquisition's operatives aboard the biggest pieces of the battle-barge to uncover what had happened.
'He was dead when we brought him aboard,' said the Heir of Sanguinius, going straight to the point Elydeos had known he would make from the beginning. The Captain was making an admirable effort to hide his unease, but Elydeos was an Inquisitor, and had spent his life dealing with individuals far more gifted at deception than the Space Marine. 'A cold corpse, claimed by the void. I thought you were going to cut him apart to learn how he had died, and I endured the thought of such desecration because after this disaster, we need to know everything we can. But this … What manner of witchcraft is this, that brought him back to life from such a wretched state? And how can you be sure it really is him in there ? I have heard stories of such necromantic devices being used on the galactic fringes, or among the blackest of hereteks.'
'Oh, it is him,' assured Elydeos. 'And the only witchcraft that took place here was that which allowed me to commune with him. It is the machine that brought him back, the machine and the Emperor's gifts. No one but an Astartes of his strength could have been rescued from such extensive damage.'
'I wouldn't call it "rescue",' Medele almost spat. 'Have you seen what he has become ? What remains of him ? There is almost nothing left of the warrior he was before.'
'He is not the first Space Marine to undergo such traumatic injuries, nor shall he be the last,' replied the Lord Inquisitor before turning toward the tech-priest. 'Is the shell ready ?'
'It is, Lord Inquisitor,' replied one of them. 'The conditions are … highly irregular, as you know. But we have performed the rituals, and I believe the Omnissiah will allow our endeavour to succeed.'
'Then begin at once. The device brought him back, but it cannot help him anymore, and we will need the Chapter Master in this war. Fear not, Captain : lord Raguel shall walk again.'
With these words, Elydeos departed, followed closely by Alphon. Medele remained in the medical bay, determined to watch until his Chapter Master either awakened or slipped into death one last time. They passed other Space Marines laid down upon operation tables. The Judgement's Will had found a handful of escape pods that had escaped the notice of the traitors, containing warriors wounded nigh unto death that their brothers had placed in the crafts in the hope that some of them might endure. Only one of them had still been alive when they had found him, identified by Medele – and now Raguel's recollections – as Captain Terion of the Fifth Company.
It was yet to see if Terion would live. From what the medicae could tell, he had taken several chainsword blows to the gut. Before they had found the Chapter Master's body, Elydeos had been about to use his communion device upon him. That wouldn't help now : several of the machine's components had burned out returning the Chapter Master to the very edge of life, and Elydeos doubted he would ever have the opportunity to replace them. Perhaps that was for the best. Medele's discomfort actually echoed his own at using such means, though he had concealed it well.
The two Inquisitors walked alone for a couple of moments before Alphon asked the question Elydeos had been waiting for him to ask since they had arrived in the system :
'What do we do now ?'
'We fight back. We gather everything we can – every Regiment, every ship, every ally. Our enemy has made one mistake in his moment of triumph : he had has spread his forces across Azarok. If we can gather enough troops, we can go after their divided forces and destroy them one by one. There are still billions of the Emperor's soldiers in this Sector, and reinforcements are coming from beyond. It is not a question of if we will win, my friend,' said Elydeos, trying to convince himself as much as the other Inquisitor,' but when, and how much it will cost us to do so.'
'Nice speech. Do you actually believe that ?'
Elydeos laughed, a bitter, dry laugh entirely devoid of amusement.
'No. This Awakened One … He has a plan beyond mere carnage and ruin. He seeks something in Azarok, and for the love of the Emperor I do not know what. We must find out, Alphon. I feel as if all of this, this entire Black Crusade, is a smokescreen to mask his true intention.'
'He wouldn't be the first one,' replied Alphon.
AN : Aaaaand we are back ! You know, there is something ironic in the fact that this chapter was told from the perspective of a warrior being brought back from quite literal death through questionable means, because writing this chapter was hard. It has been in a state of half-completion for months, but now it is at last complete. The Black Crusade of the Azarok Sector has begun openly, and the stars themselves will bleed before the end. I have been able to get a good writing rate with my new job, but not all that I write is fit for publication here, which is why actual chapters have been scarce in recent weeks. Between the Roboutian Heresy and this story, I can only focus on one at the same time, since they both have now reached quite an epic scale and require to take into account a lot of stuff whenever I write on them.
I think I will write one or two chapters for The Fifteenth Ascendant now, to relax a little. Then, I will finish the next chapter of the Roboutian Heresy, which is currently at about 40% completion. Then, I will go back to this story.
As usual, please leave a review to tell me what you thought of this chapter. After so long, I may actually need the feedback to ensure this is still good.
Zahariel out.