He had to find Horus. He had to stop his brother.
These thoughts were the only thing that ran through his mind. He had to end this madness. He had to kill the being that he had once considered his closest friend, a brother who he could stand beside against the horrors of the galaxy. Now, he moved through the corridors of his brothers flagship, the vessel that had once brought Imperial compliance to hundreds of worlds, but had become the very horror they had fought to stop.
Dark liquids dripped from the ceiling, its very surface pulsing and contorting like the skin of a beast. Walls that once bore the proud imagery of the Sons of Horus, and the Imperium of Man, were hidden behind layers of grime and crudely drawn symbols. The floor beneath his armored feet squelched with each step, gripping at him before he tore his feet free. Eyes formed at random through the corridors of the Vengeful Spirit, staring down at him as he passed in their cruel, unblinking gaze.
He had struck out at them in the beginning, the eyes shriveling in agony with each blow of his golden spear, but he had given that up after the first hour. No matter how many of them he destroyed, more came. They were a permanent mark on this ship, the Eyes of Horus that would always be watching, observing, and urging him forward towards his final, climactic battle against the Warmaster.
He would die. He knew this, and had known it for a long, long time. Even though, the visions played through his mind, his broken body at the foot of Horus's throne, and his blood dripping from the talons on his brothers hand. It was an inevitable fate, the fate he feared, but knew he had to face. There was a purpose in his death, of that he was certain. He could not see the future beyond his death, but to try and avoid it, he knew, would lead to a darkness far greater for all mankind than the one that waited to embrace him in death.
He came to a stop at a junction of corridors, each path branching off into another path of degeneration and horrors. He heard the sound of combat in the distance; bolters barking their familiar roar, chainblades screaming their defiance. The cries of the dying. The battles sounded so close, yet no matter which way he went, they never drew any closer, or distant. His sons were among them, the proud Blood Angels fighting against their fallen comrades. His sons were dying, yet he could not find them. They fought alone against the darkness here, while he was lost in its depths.
A light, dim in this realm of shadows, glinted at him from the distance. He narrowed his eyes, watching it for several moments before it vanished. It had happened many times before. The light would come, and he would feel a presence trying to draw him towards it, but, just like the sounds of combat, he could never get to it. It was always gone before he reached it, and the darkness would try to swallow him, pushing him further into the ever winding corridors of this nightmare ship. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, before he set out once more.
Time passed; minutes, hours, days? He was not certain. Time was relative in a place so corrupted by the powers of the Warp. Each step could last a lifetime, or a single second. The Siege of Terra being fought below could come to an end by the time he reached the end of this corridor, or it could drag on for all eternity. The thought of the Siege seemed to change the ship around him, and moments later, he came face to face with a viewport. His reflection stared back at him, the golden helmet that inspired hope in so many trillions across his fathers Imperium. The ruby eyes at its center were cold and lifeless, taking in everything, and showing nothing, as he watched the homeworld of all mankind burn beyond.
Dark clouds clung to the throne world, great billowing masses that crept across the skies, torn apart by the detonation of weaponry in great pillars of fire. The great traitor armada hung in the void above Terra, lance batteries and macro cannons firing down their wrathful hatred at the world they thought had betrayed them. Return fire rose to meet them, as as he watched, a warship in the purple and gold of the Emperor's Children was torn in two, secondary explosions rippling along its hull and erupting from bulging bulkheads. The reactor of the doomed ship erupted, and he had to turn his head away as his helmet systems did not automatically filter out the sudden change of light.
When he turned back, the viewport was gone, replaced by an eyes twice his own height. The purple iris regarded him callously, a green pus ringing its outer edges and pooling on the floor. Rage, rage flooded through him in a flash. He snapped the spear in his hand forward, piercing the membrane in a single strike. The eye convulsed, an inhuman scream echoing from the walls and ceiling all around him as the eye shriveled, shrunk, and vanished into the wall. The rage did not abate. He turned, slashing the spear through another pair of eyes forming on the ceiling. He struck, and struck, and struck. Screams and ichor painted his reality, blocking out everything but the rage, accepting it, embracing it.
Then there was the light.
He was abruptly bathed in a golden light. It emanated from behind him, spreading out past him and illuminating the walls and ceiling around him. Everywhere the light touched, the darkness recoiled. Living walls seethed, eyes were vaporized in sizzling blasts, and the once pristine beauty of the Vengeful Spirit was returning. The rage melted away from him, and his senses returned in a rush. He felt a presence behind him, and he spun on his heels, bringing the spear up to strike…
Only to be confronted by a mirror. The Vengeful Spirit was gone, and he hung in a dark void. The golden light seemed to be coming from the mirror, a perfect circle of reflective glass. He saw himself in the reflection, standing ready to deal a death blow to himself. Only, it was not himself. As he watched, the reflection moved of its own accord, lowering the spear. The red lenses within the golden helmet looked at him, and he saw in them a life and presence that he lacked. The frozen features of the golden mask contorted, and the mouth that had forever been sealed, spoke.
"My son," the reflection said, its words warm and comforting. "This is not your fate. My curse, the genetic legacy that I have passed on to you and all of my sons, has taken hold of your soul. The rage you feel…it will never go away. You cannot deny its existence if you wish to conquer it. You must accept its place in you hearts. To turn your back on it, is to turn your back on me."
The reflection took a step forward, the mirror morphing and bending as if it was a liquid. The reflection took another step forward, and its golden leg emerged from the mirror. Another step, another, and another. The reflection, now no longer a simple reflection, stood before him. They were eye to eye with one another. He blinked. He was not looking up at the figure as it looked down on him. It reached out a golden hand and rested it on his shoulder. Warmth flooded through him, touching every corner of his being in a wave.
"Thale, you must awaken." With those final words, the golden giant brought the spear in its hand back, and thrust it forward. He felt the blade pierce his chest, the rush of agony melding with the warmth in his veins. He opened his mouth to scream out in joy and pain…
He awoke.
Sepheros walked with careful steps down the hall. Flames set in alcoves along the walls cast dancing shadows across banners draped on the walls. Beneath each banner was an iron door, barred and latched. The screams of the tormented echoed from each room as Sepheros passed, his eyes lingering on the name plates placed beside each door. He knew each one, knew the torment and nightmares that they faced, and pitied them. Their screams echoed in his heart each day he made his solemn march through the Hall of the Lost. It was his duty as Death Company Chaplain, and he had never wavered in his duty.
He came to a halt, the two servitors trailing behind him coming to an unstable rest behind him. He turned his head, the servos in his armor whining in the din of the hallway as he locked his eyes on a single door. Ruby lenses in his obsidian black helmet stared at the door in silence, unwavering. He Sepheros heard nothing from within. A quick eye movement in his helmet focused his armors sensory equipment, muting the screams of the damned around him and focusing on the single door before him. There were no cries of rage and pain from within, no roared curses against traitors long dead, or the vow to avenge fallen brothers that the warrior within the room had ever met.
He approached the door, each step loud, the beat of his hearts roaring in his ears. He lifted a black gauntlet up and rested it on the cold iron of the door. There was nothing. "Open it." His words barked out from his helmets vox unit, and the two servitors at his back stepped forward. Sightless eyes stared ahead as the servitors stepped into recesses cut into the stone of the floor. Mechanical locks secured the servitors in place, and eight openings appeared on the wall, four on either side of the door. The servitors extended their arms, four each, and inserted them into the openings in the wall.
A low deep, resonating horn began to sound in the corridor. Steam hissed from the four corners of the door as locks began to slide into the wall, and mechanisms hidden within disengaged. It took five minutes for the door to final open, each second an eternity of trepidation that Sepheros endured in silence. He could hear the sound of other astartes approaching, their armored steps rushing to the location of the horn. Sepheros did not wait for them. The door opened before him, sliding up into the ceiling, and he stepped through the doorway.
His helmet adjusted to the sudden darkness within the room in an instant. Green outlines appeared along the curved walls of the roof, rising up into a dome ten meters in height. Cables hung down from a machine in the roof of the dome, curving and crossing one another and locking into place in the only object in the room. A table jutted out from the stone floor of the room, two meters long and wide. The cables from above were locked into sockets spread at regular intervals along the table, steam pouring from vents and grills along its surface. The steam shrouded the figure that was on the table, connected to it by yet more cables and restraints.
Sepheros walked forward, his eyes never leaving the still form on the table before him. The super human warrior on the table turned his head to look at Sepheros, and the Death Company Chaplain froze. Eyes peered at Sepheros from within the cloud of steam, and Sepheros could see the cold, calculating intelligence of one of the Adeptus Astartes, not the maddened eyes of one of his charges. Sepheros took another step forward, coming to the edge of the table, and looking down at the warrior held there.
"What," Sepheros began, his words tinged with the the barest hint of hope," is your name."
The warrior looked up at Sepheros for a few moments of silence, and the Death Company Chaplain began to wonder if he had been wrong. Would he scream out that he was Sanguinius as so many others had? Would he believe himself to be a Blood Angel of old? His doubts were dashed when the warrior finally spoke.
"My name," the warrior said, his voice raspy from countless decades of screaming, "is Thale Roan, Sergeant of the Angels Sanguine."
Sepheros nodded his head. He brought his hand up, a curved metal claw extending from his gauntlet. He reached down, placing it in a device on the side of the table. He twisted it, and the restraints holding Thale Roan retracted into the table. Wires connecting him to the device that had been his prison for decades snapped off as Thale sat up, liquid pouring from the cables for several moments before emptying. The cables connecting the table to the device on the ceiling broke off next, ascending back into alcoves in the roof.
Sepheros took a step back, turning his head away from Thale as the steam dissipated, removing the cover that had hidden his Chapter brothers face. "Rise from the Tablet of Lestrallio, Sergeant Thale, and return to your brothers in the Angels Sanguine."
Sepheros turned to look at the door as two warriors in the halved red and black of the Angels Sanguine appeared. They turned their heads away, lowering their bolters, and giving their returned brother his privacy, and allowing the Sanguinary Priest with them to step into the room. The white armored Astartes carried a golden cloth in his hands, and he extended it to Sepheros. The Chaplain took it, draping it over his outstretched arms, and passed it to Thale.
"Clothe yourself in the Shroud of Lemartes, brother. Return to your Chapter as an equal once more."
Thale took the offered cloth, finding the opening in it and slipping it over his head. The golden cloth rested around his shoulders, and with a quick movement, he pulled it up to cover his face. Properly shrouded, the Angels Sanguine took their first proper look at Thale Roan. Sepheros reached out, clasping Thale's arm.
"Welcome back, brother."
Hello! This is a small passion project of mine for one of my favorite successor chapters in the warhammer universe. I hope you all enjoy.