"You will die on that world."
The ghost of a smile touches the Chapter Master's lips at his brother's words. He continues to gaze out of the armorglass viewing port, contemplating the hive world of Corillia as the pollution-shrouded sphere turns sedately in the void before him.
"Do you speak with the voice of prophecy, old friend?" he asks quietly, "or are you merely attempting to be humorous by pointing out the obvious?"
"I do not require our father's foresight to know we stand on the brink of a doomed undertaking, Argos. The Mortifactors have abandoned the people of this planet to the depredations of the Black Legion out of superstitious fear of the curse we are rumored to carry; the Chapter's combined strength will not be enough to repulse the warbands of the Despoiler and their daemonic allies. You know this. The captains know this. What need is there for prophecies or visions? We will die on Corillia."
The Chapter Master turns from the planet beyond and faces his Sanguinary High Priest. Flanked by two warriors of the Sanguinary Guard, the Voice of the Calix is fully armored and bears in one hand the Grail of Succession. Argos has not laid eyes upon the relic since the night he had drained it of its contents on the eve of his ascension to the command of the Chapter some thirty-six years ago. The blood of his predecessor had been warm upon his tongue as if freshly shed, and the rush of memories and knowledge the vitae had imparted upon him had been a weight on his mind and soul ever since. Now the time has come for the debt to be repaid.
"Are you so completely bereft of hope, Jalaqour?" Argos enquires as he steps away from the viewing port and discards the gray over-robe clothing his unarmored body, revealing a massive, heavily-muscled physique covered in old battle scars. Jalaqour approaches and kneels before him. The Sanguinary High Priest is helmed, his expression unreadable, yet even his vox-emitters cannot completely mask the rage and despair lacing his words.
"We have been forsaken, Argos. Hope is dead. Only hatred and wrath remain."
"Your melancholy has overmastered you, brother," the Chapter Master says mournfully as he extends his right arm, "there is always hope, even in the darkest hours; our father would not have wanted us to succumb to despair, regardless of the tribulations that lie before us." One of the Sanguinary Guards steps forward, holding a ritual dagger inscribed with the names and titles of each of the Chapter's former overlords, seven in all.
"Are you willing, lord?" Jalaqour asks.
Argos nods. "As I have been given, so do I now give; as I have drunk so, shall my successor also drink. In Blood we are born, and in Blood we are forevermore consigned. In the name of Sanguinius let it be so."
He clenches his hand and makes a fist. Veins and tendons stand out like cables across his arm. The Sanguinary Guard slides the dagger into his wrist, opening up his liege's veins with a killer's consummate skill. Jalaqour raises the grail; bright Astartes blood spurts into the golden chalice. "As you have been given, so now do you also give; as you have drunk, so shall your successor also drink. In Blood we are born, and in Blood we are forevermore consigned. In the name of Sanguinius it shall be so."
The Chapter Master's blood does not congeal as it fills the grail. By some technological artifice invested in the metal at the cup's creation the vitae within remains as warm and fluid as if it still flows within his veins. The grail is small and its replenishment does not take long. When enough blood has been added Jalaqour rises and covers the relic with a white cloth embroidered with crimson thread. The Sanguinary Guard withdraws the dagger and steps back with a bow.
As two of Argos' favored serfs come forwards to wash the drying blood from the already-healing wound and bind his wrist with strips of clean linen, the Lord of the Lamenters gazes levelly at the Voice of the Calix.
"If hope were truly dead, Jalaqour, you would not have come to me seeking to preserve my vitae for the sake of my successor; why concern yourself with the rite at all if there is no reason to safeguard our gene-line's future?"
"Some of us may survive the siege," Jalaqour allows, "and a Chapter must have a Chapter Master, even if his brotherhood has been reduced to the strength of a single squad. It is true hope has withered within my hearts; even so, I will not falter in my duties to see our legacy preserved. As you said, the primarch would not want us to succumb to despair, even in the face of certain extinction."
Argos bares his fangs at the thought of his Chapter's complete destruction at the hands of Abaddon's forces; such a fate has already befallen the Celestial Swords. With a suppressed growl the Lamenter strides back to the viewing port, his eyes fixating on the world destined to become his grave.
"Go, Jalaqour, and make your final preparations," he commands, "if the Chapter is doomed to extinction then we must ensure the Black Legion pays the highest possible price for daring to threaten the innocents under our aegis. The Mortifactors may have fled, but we are the sons of Sanguinius and we shall see this conflict through to the end, be it victory or annihilation."
The Voice of the Calix departs the Chapter Master's private chambers, taking the Grail of Succession with him. Argos flexes his genhanced muscles, his posthuman constitution unaffected by the ritual bloodletting. He gazes out upon Corillia. A resigned defiance settles deep within his soul.
"Then I will die on this world..."