Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 5

"So this is Deliverance, what a crap hole," Sedaxus muttered sullenly.

"I suppose you'd redecorate it with human skins and hanging skulls," Nolaro scoffed.

"It would add some colour, I never expected the Ravenspire to be so… grey."

Engar retorted, "It's an old prison complex, decoration was low on the builders' priorities."

"And you didn't think to add some flourishes after you seized it from your gaolers?"

Damolos sniffed, "There was the small matter of a Legion to support, we've been busy."

Sedaxus looked about the hanger, seeing troops of workers tending to cooling Shadowhawks. A dozen transports rested in the bay and yet it was barely half-full, the capacity of the facility greater than the depleted Company could boast. Fuel bowsers were dragged forward by servitors as artisans dove into complex mechanisms, loudly cursing damage and wear to the systems. The labourers ignored the Transhumans disembarking, more concerned with the ailing machines than the passengers.

Sedaxus could not help but be struck by the difference to his native Legion. These people walked without fear, in total confidence that they were not about to be struck down by an irate Space Marine. If anything they seemed to regard the Astartes as an obstacle to their duties, as if their work would be easier without lines of trooping giants getting in the way. Sedaxus had spent a decade and a half among the Ravens but had assumed such frank regard was a war-footing, subservient respect worn thin by constant battle, it seemed it was in fact the normal way of things for the Sons of Corax. The slaves of the Night Lords could not be more different, cowering wretches who shied away from their overlords, the bravest among them barely reaching the level of weary resignation to their fates. Skilled hands were valuable commodities to the VIIIth, but that was no guarantee of safety and for those without value... well the bowels of Night Lord ships rang daily with the screams of prey caught by unseen hunters.

The hanger itself was drab and plain, bare Ferrocrete walls marked only by girders and atmo-shield generators. Heavy servitors plodded along on mindless tasks and cranes hung from gantries, waiting to lift engines and battlecannons off the waiting gunships. It was located near the summit of the Ravenspire, far above the domed habitats of the local populace. Here the depleted Company had landed, leaving Implacable Justice in an orbital drydock for a long-needed refit.

Sedaxus saw many mortals cast wary eyes his way but ignored them, his helm's fierce mask giving them only a bestial leer. His plate was perfectly restored, but still bore the colours of treachery. He'd worried that bringing the human heads attached to his hip would be provocative, but then figured if he was to be damned, he might as well be damned for something worth it. With Corax's meeting looming over him already his situation could hardly get any worse.

Nolaro set his jaw as he stepped forward and addressed the waiting squads, older veterans and new recruits alike numbering a mere two hundred, "I won't waste words with pretty speeches and pontificating about glory. You know what you've done, you know what you're worth and you don't need me harping on like some Ultramarian quill-pusher. Get to the barracks and tend your gear. We'll be off to the stars again before you know it. Dismissed!"

The squads moved off with an eager step, filing out of the hanger at a rapid clip. Damolos frowned, "Are we really heading out again so soon?"

Nolaro sighed, "I don't know, but they need to think we are. Come, we have to report."

They followed the vanishing troops, heading into a complicated maze of tunnels and corridors. Junctions came and went at random, seemingly lacking logic or pattern and without his Transhuman knack for situational awareness Sedaxus would have been hopelessly lost. It was driven home to him that the Ravenspire had once been a prison complex, a place for the worst sinners on a moon full of criminals to be punished. The entire place was designed to confuse any prisoner who attempted escape, leaving them lost in a featureless maze. He doubted any mortal who was dragged into this place would have left, he'd heard rumours of the Red Levels, and whispers they weren't as shut as the Raven Lord proclaimed.

They passed a couple of Raven Guard, who gave him stern glares, but relented when they saw Nolaro at his side, yet Sedaxus was surprised how few they were and commented, "Awful quiet around here."

"You do realise who you're talking to," Damolos scoffed.

"Not my point. This is a Legion Fortress; it should be bustling. Even a fraction of a Legion should keep this place frantically busy, where is everybody?"

Engar sniffed, "Maybe the rest of the Legion is on deployment."

Suddenly Damolos exclaimed, "Look at that! What are they wearing?!" Indeed, a pair of passing Astartes were clad in an unfamiliar make of power armour. The lines were clean and swept, like the smooth contours of Mark VI but extra plating had been added around the power cables and any bonding studs had been removed from the pauldrons. The helm was the biggest difference, shorter snouted and rounder, with an open grill for a mouth, giving it a snarling mastiff appearance.

"A new armour mark?" Engar asked, "Must be... Mark VII."

"I don't like it," Damolos muttered as his hand brushed his archaic Mark II helm.

"Don't reject it simply because it's new," Nolaro chided, "This is a good sign, with the Legionary War ending the Imperium is restarting technological progress. We advance again, leaving the Traitors in the dust. Soon we will eclipse them entirely."

"I'm glad you approve!" a hearty voice projected. All turned and saw a heavyset warrior bearing down on them, his plate subtly marked with the icons the Raven Guard used to denote high rank. His bearing was fierce and belligerent and his eyes hard. They recognised him of course, no survivor of Istvaan V could fail to name Agapito, commander of the Legion's talon formation and Corvus Corax's right-hand man.

Agapito drew to a halt before them and barked, "Nolaro, where the hell have you been?!"

"Busy killing Traitors," Nolaro retorted.

"Skulking more like," Agapito snorted, "Never around when there's work to be done."

"You'd know all about skiving off," Nolaro hissed.

They paused for a moment, then both Marines chuckled softly and clasped wrist to wrist in the warrior's fashion as Agapito said, "Damned glad you're back."

"Good to be back," Nolaro replied.

"I genuinely thought you'd bought it tussling with Requius and the damned IIIrd at Heredan, had to conclude the Jade Falcon had struck again. We were sorely relieved when you turned up eight months later, calling for reinforcements."

"You can thank Damolos for that, he took the head of the Jade Falcon, after months of skirmishing in the Hive slumps."

Agapito blinked as he released his grip and remarked, "That was you? But Requius was one of the best swords in the IIIrd, how did you beat him hand to hand?"

Damolos grinned and explained, "He was fast and he was skilled... but I had an axe."

Agapito chuckled as he looked at Engar and asked, "Still lugging that custom rifle about?"

"Always," Engar replied.

"Don't let the Cogboys see it, they've got really uptight about Doctrinal matters."

"They can prize it from my cold dead hands," Engar hissed.

Finally Agapito looked at Sedaxus and uttered, "Night Lord."

"Crow master," Sedaxus stated coolly.

Agapito didn't look pleased and snapped, "You saved a lot of Raven Guard lives, but that only buys you so much grace. Don't push it."

Nolaro stepped in to ask, "Agapito, what's going on around here?"

"Everything," Agapito sighed, "Great reforms are afoot. The Imperium is stabilised at last; the fires of the Heresy are dying and the time to rebuild has come."

"Heresy?"

"You have been isolated, haven't you?" Agapito blinked, "The Legionary War, that's what we're calling it now: the Horus Heresy. The Traitors have been beaten back, the centres of Imperial power secured and there's a new government on Terra. The High Lords of Terra are set upon reforming root and branch, at the urging of Roboute Guilliman."

"That pompous jackass," Sedaxus snorted then switched to Nostramean, "V'shak gor, m'she undanth."

"I'd like to wipe... my boots with his... tongue?" Engar hesitantly translated.

"Not boots," Sedaxus corrected, "It loses something in translation."

Agapito snapped, "Anyway! The new government has decreed the Imperium shall be reorganised. The army has been split into a separate Navy and Guard, civil authorities redrawn and the Legions divided. Henceforth the loyal sons of the Emperor will be reduced to Chapters of no more than one thousand brothers apiece. The old Legions are being spilt up and isolated, logistically and institutionally separated from each other. They are calling it a Second Founding."

There was a long pause as all dwelled upon this then Damolos exclaimed, "Frakking what?!"

"You can't be serious," Nolaro gasped.

"I am very serious, its already happened. The Raven Guard have dispatched three Successor Chapters already. They've taken their fill of our ranks and equipment, the Ravenspire hasn't been so empty for years."

"This is insane," Damolos gasped, "What is Guilliman playing at, you can't win a war with a mere thousand Marines!"

"We do," Sedaxus pointed out, "We've been operating with only three hundred for years."

"We're different," Engar hissed, "You can't expect the other Legions to do what we do."

"Then they'll have to adapt," Sedaxus sniffed.

Agapito held up a hand and said, "There are other concerns. The possibility of treachery remains too great. It has been argued, convincingly, that no man should wield the dread power of a Legion. Also, there are problems with our gene-seed..."

"Gene-seed," Nolaro gulped, "Does that have anything to do with the incident at Ravendelve and the Raptors?"

Agapito snapped, "Don't talk about them, there were troubles before you left but the situation has become a lot worse since. The accelerated Zygote harvesting techniques caused unforeseen problems and our stocks suffer diminishing returns with every cycle. We teeter on the brink of genic collapse, trying to rebuild a Legion of tens of thousands is simply beyond us. Frankly the Second Founding was a mercy, we can screen our stocks far more stringently and take our time with recruits. No more pumping out an Astartes in two years, the process will take at least a decade from now on."

"But..." Nolaro protested.

Yet Agapito snapped, "We've had these arguments a million times but the decision has been made. This is happening, it has happened, all the loyal Legions have bowed to the inevitable."

"Even Leman Russ?" Sedaxus needled.

"In his own stubborn fashion. So long as he can pretend it was his idea, he concedes to limit his son's numbers to an acceptable degree."

Engar shook his head and said, "I can't believe they browbeat Corax into this."

"They didn't, he supports it. The Second Founding has his firm endorsement."

"Never, he wouldn't."

Agapito sighed, "You didn't see what happened on Terra, the way people looked at us when we returned. The Traitors shattered any trust the populace has for Space Marines, of any stripe. They looked at us like monsters, warmongers and oppressors, they loathed us."

Sedaxus snorted, "Welcome to my life."

Agapito ignored that, "Corax... it hurt him to be treated so. After all he's done for the Imperium, to be seen as a tyrant was more than he could bear. He's fought every day to rid the galaxy of injustice, only to find himself lumped in with them. He blames himself, going over every mistake and failure we've had. He saying it's time to step aside and let others lead... I'm not sure what he means by that but he's locked himself in his eyrie and barely talks to us anymore. The Second Founding was the only thing that could draw him out, since then... well he's not been seen in months."

Nolaro stated, "We're on our way to meet him."

Agapito urged, "See if you can entice him out, the Legion... the Chapter needs him."

"What can I do to change his mind?"

"Anything you can," Agapito whispered, "I haven't seen him this way since Istvaan V. I worry if his mood doesn't improve, he might do something dangerous."

Wonderful, Sedaxus thought to himself, not only was the Ravenlord vengeful and ruthless, now it sounded like he was stewing in bitter recriminations. They were about to go and interrupt a Primarch during an epic brooding session. This meeting kept getting worse by the second.