"Caelid," Dante said.

Dante remembered how the air twisted and undulated when the warp writhed. How Ka'Bandha, the great bane of his chapter, had violated and raped his way into reality. His sacrilegious intrusion onto the sands of Baal had nearly cost the Blood Angels their sanity. Skies purple with Tyranid blight had turned a dark, bloody red.

Caelid's landscape was not nearly as hellish as Baal's had been during the Devastation. There still was a sense of wrongness, lingering like some foul aftertaste.

"This land is accursed," Dante said to Gowry.

It had not been a question.

"So you say," Gowry coughed. "The result of a great clash centuries past. There were no victors of that battle." The old man sounded… excessive, to Dante. His mourning was not false, but the space marine could not help feeling something about it was feigned.

"You said I was afflicted with the Scarlet Rot," Dante turned. "That is the same plague defiling this place?"

"That it is," Gowry said, folding his hands. "I am impressed. Most would be writhing and screaming in agony by this point; by the time the affliction reached their lungs. But you appear to be more resilient than most."

Dante loomed over the old man; his expression inscrutable behind Sanguinius' mask. "This plague… this rot. How can I cure it?"

The old man shot him a wry grin. As though he had been expecting Dante to ask precisely that. Gowry shrugged. "Some might call it a fool's errand. Most are already dead, or have succumbed to madness by the time they realize their fate. Perhaps you are only delaying the inevitable."

"But there is a possibility," Dante said, crossing his arms. Something about the old man set his nerves on edge.

"Indeed, there is some measure of hope. And I can offer you my meager assistance. But I require something from you in return."

Dante grunted, but waited for the old man to make his demands.

"My daughter, Millicent," Gowry began, sounding as though he were on the verge of tears. As far as Dante could tell, his grief was genuine. "She is afflicted as you are, only her condition is far worse. She lacks even the strength to stand. All she has known is pain. She was taken from me, and for now, she is trapped. She is guarded in the Church of the Plague, in the Far East of Caelid, by the Kindred of Rot. They worship her affliction as a deity."

Hearing of their devotions made Dante's stomach turn in disgust. He was glad there had never been a chance to negotiate with them. "Kindred of Rot?" Dante asked. "Are they white, chitinous, many-armed with human hands and feet?"

Gowry nodded. "Aye. I see you have already encountered them. I trust the encounter was not a jovial one?"

Dante did not need to answer the absurd question. He snorted. "How do I know you won't simply renege on our deal once I have helped you?"

Gowry shrugged. "That's just it. You don't know. Not for certain, at least. But I suspect you're willing to help me regardless. You hate the thought of leaving innocents to suffer, don't you? At heart you are noble, no matter the fearsome mask you wear."

Dante scowled. "I am no one's pawn, Gowry," he said, his voice grating. "If I find out this is some sort of trap…"

"Then I will meet a most unpleasant demise!" Gowry chortled. "At your hands, I do not doubt it. But first, you must retrieve something for me. It is most important to help Millicent." With a groan and strain of effort, the old man rose from his chair, and pointed to the southwest.

"There," he rasped, "lies the Swamp of Aeonia. It is where General Radahn and Lady Malenia clashed, ages ago." His voice quieted. "You will find a survivor at its heart; a warrior almost as large as you. Commander O'Neil. Embedded in his shoulder is a needle of unalloyed gold. I will need to… make some adjustments to it, most likely. When you return, of course."

"Why haven't you gotten it yourself, then? If you care so much for her?"

Gowry chuckled. "This old man isn't what he used to be, I'm afraid. I can't risk her having nothing to come back to, you see." His voice lost its strange joviality. "Please. She is the last of my daughters; all I have left in this world."

Dante remembered his own father, and how he had been all the old man had left. How he'd stolen away during the night, to become an angel against his father's wishes. His heart ached at the old pain, and he grimaced. He had never regretted his decision. Still, the thought of what had happened to his father afterwards filled his stomach with dread.

"I will slay Commander O'Neil for you," Dante said. "But heed my words. If this is a backhanded ploy to-"

"Your words are heeded, Dante," Gowry scoffed, cutting him off. He leaned back in his ancient wood chair. "I am not sending you to some ill-fated demise, for the Rot has imperiled you worse than I ever could. And I have too much to lose to risk betrayal. Now hurry, for there is not much time left."

Dante did not need to be reminded twice.


The Codex Astartes granted four hours of proper rest for Imperial space marines. Dante, however, had dwelt for the last few weeks in a mere half-sleep. His respites had seldom lasted more than an hour. The Catalepsean Node had permitted him some meager rest; whilst he remained alert to the world outside. Yet even Astartes biology had its limits. They could not go without proper rest forever, not without a cost.

Gowry had promised his shack and the land outside it to be a safe haven. Dante had remained for a few minutes in the Catalepsean half-rest, testing the old man. To his credit, he did not move towards Dante, or observe him. None of the proximity alarms Dante had set were triggered.

After four hours, not a second more or less, Dante's eyes opened. He rose to his feet, and began his march.

Dante had set out at the very break of dawn. The skies turned from dark pink to roiling crimson. He had seen the faintest outline of the Sun beaming through the oily red clouds before vanishing.

His armor calculated a day's journey to the swamp, at full stride. He had almost exhausted the last of his nutrient paste. His armor systems were marked out in his helm by faint yellow, rather than orange or red.

The world rotted around him, and his body, on the inside. The difference in his performance was infinitesimal, but he felt it. His multi-lung labored a fraction more; his blood pumped with more effort. His eyes swam with visions of decay; not just of the landscape around him.

Twenty hours marching, and Dante at last stood at the edge of the Aeonian Swamp. The new, foreign pain began to throb up in him. Deep in the heart of the primordial ulcer was the source of Caelid's corruption. He was sealed from the taint externally, but it already pulsed in his blood.

Dante took one tentative step into the steaming fluid, then another. His armor was proof against the vile red scum, but the poison in his veins soared. The space marine grit his teeth as the pain grew worse. He was old, and no stranger to suffering. He did not need yet another burden on his wary shoulders.

He focused. Geysers burst forth from the swamp like grasping fingers. He timed his steps, racing forth as he narrowly dodged an explosive eruption beneath him. He estimated the force would at least have incapacitated him, if not knocked him unconscious.

An hour in, Dante began to stride with greater caution; thumbing the Perdition Pistol's trigger. Amidst the wash of heat waves wafting from the swamp; he spotted occasional blurs of more intense, concentrated heat. His auspex became less reliable in these sorts of environments; and he relied on his keen eyes.

Clink. Clink.

He halted at the sound, his eyes tracking the source of the noise. Warriors in finely-wrought golden plate, trailing capes of crimson fur. They wheezed through grilled, twin-winged helms, using their scythes as crutches. Dante guessed they were a fearsome sight, once, in their prime. Now they looked at once pitiable and repulsive. Still, he was not arrogant enough to write them off as a non-threat.

One of their number, almost as tall as an eldar, halted. It had long forgotten its name; and the reasons why it served. It remembered but dimly its master's name; Malenia, the Blade of Miquella. Its memories of her were faded; like an image painted and lost after countless imitations.

It remembered little of the Blade of Miquella, but it saw her as she would be. It saw the final and glorious form she would inhabit after casting aside her mortal flesh; after she bloomed for the third and last time.

The knight could not remember its life, but it remembered war, and the instincts that came with it. Danger was in its midst. Behind it, armor servos purred, and the fallen knight turned. Its molding eyes widened.

The Axe Mortalis flashed; and an age of service came to a bloody end.

The headless corpse had not even toppled before Dante sprinted past. His auspex came to life with vital signs; once-hidden in the swamp's steaming putrescence. The relative quiet ended, and an army of dying warriors stirred. More of the golden knights began to trail him, with speed that belied their horrid decay.

The blows came swift and with overwhelming force. Dante saw fungal growths blooming from joins in their armor. Cordyceps sprouted amidst golden chainmail. He wondered if they were lucid enough to realize what they had been reduced to; if they felt horror at their fate. Or, if this was all they knew now. He did not know which idea disturbed him more.

Despite their feeble appearance, they lurched forward with the poise of trained killers. One of them, about a hundred meters away, drew back its scythe. A golden disc poured out from its blade as it slashed at the empty air. It streamed towards the Blood Angel, illuminating the swamp with brilliant golden light.

Dante rolled. The howling circlet of energy obliterated a vast, decayed tree not far behind him. He tracked the direction from which the blast had come, drew the Perdition Pistol and fired. The golden knight lurched forward, armor scorched, its fur-cloak ashes. Its body fell to the swamp which had first corrupted and rebirthed it.

Fifteen minutes became thirty as Dante's axe and armor became slick with spoilt blood and viscera. The swamp itself seemed to fight him every step of the way; each successive step being made on ground ever more treacherous and uncertain than the last. He would have fallen beneath the surface, if he was a lesser warrior.

And then, at last, Dante's boots found solid earth. Fungal and spongy, but it supported his weight. The advance of rotten knights lessened. It could only mean one thing: that he had reached into the heart of darkness; finding his objective. There came a strident boom of a voice that stilled the whole landscape.

"Stop!"

Commander O'Neil glowered at Dante, as tall as a man on horseback. His hand rested on an enormous halberd, its base embedded in reeking, fecund soil.

The space marine halted, breathing heavily. His muscles burned with lactic acid, his kidneys swam with filth. His skin poured sweat despite his severe dehydration. Nevertheless, he strode without fear, as he had for the last fifteen hundred years.

His body raged against the foulness inside him. The Rot was strong; but so was the Blood of Sanguinius.

Dante did not know why the attacks ceased. He did not know why the towering warrior before him had remained in Caelid for so long. The details were peripheral, meaningless. He knew what he had come for; and it was now all that mattered.

He saw the golden needle embedded in O'Neil's shoulder; and the whole world vanished to just the two of them.

The commander sneered, ringing a bell that hung from his wrist. Its chime was soft, yet sharp as broken glass.

Dante grimaced at the shrillness of the sound. Specters of dead warriors materialized in O'Neil's midst, brandishing ranged weapons; bows and crossbows. He counted at least a hundred of them. He doubted their weapons could pierce his armor, but sorcery did not obey the rules of regular warfare.

"Call off the ghosts," Dante thundered, raising the Axe Mortalis, "and I will make this quick, and your death honorable. Else you shall die a coward, at once decrepit and ashamed."

O'Neil snarled, baring teeth that sprung from black, rotten gums. The golden knights halted, in a strange moment of possible lucidity. Then, the commander grinned. He rang the small bell again; its chime setting a tingle to Dante's teeth. The specters disappeared, and he brandished his halberd.

Dante wetted his lips as the commander charged forth. His fangs protruded, almost piercing the inside of his cheek. He forgot the pain of the rot, his mouth watering. He met the commander with a strident roar of equal volume; amplified by Sanguinius' Death Mask. The Halo Mortalis emitted a psychic blast of raw terror. Still, O'Neil did not waver.

Two blades met; burnished gold against Imperial steel. A shockwave rippled the air around them.

Commander O'Neil stared at Dante in rage and triumph, then disbelief. His hulking body, taut with muscle, slackened against his will. The fight left him in an instant, confounding him.

Most clashes took a handful of blows to be resolved. Some, just a single strike. One clash, then another, before one warrior exposed some minute opening that doomed them.

The Axe Mortalis' power field had rent O'Neil's halberd in two. Its blade had then passed through his shoulder. Steel plate, rotted flesh and spoilt blood vaporized. The axe exited the other side of his enormous body, its edge crackling with lightning. Dante backed a small distance away from O'Neil, wary.

The top half of his body slid away at a diagonal angle, foul blood and viscera spilling out. O'Neil looked furious, even betrayed; but he could do nothing but perish, and bleed out; impotent.

To the commander's credit, he had landed a gash on the side of Dante's breastplate. It was yet another mark on his artificer-wrought armor. He let out a breath, approaching nearer. The light left O'Neil's eyes.

Dante knelt and retrieved the needle, granting Commander O'Neil's corpse a nod of respect. Around him the decaying, half-dead knights and spawn watched in silence.

Then the rotten warriors, seeing the fate of their commander, shambled towards him. Dante's hearts swelled with strain. He could not remember the last time he had drank clean water.

Exhaustion swept him. His armor's biometrics howled warnings. With the rotten and the pests closing in, he had but one recourse left.

He brandished the Axe Mortalis, calling out his primarch's name; and set about the art of killing his way out of the Swamp of Aeonia.


Dante approached the shack, staggered. All his muscles ached. Blood covered almost every inch of his armor and axe. The Red Thirst soared, sensing his exhaustion and renewed vulnerability.

"Back so soon?" Gowry asked with a smile.

"The cure. Give it to me. Now." Dante raised the Perdition Pistol. It hummed, its ancient machine-spirit hungry for destruction.

"You have my needle?" Gowry asked, unfazed by the space marine's hostility.

Dante extended his left arm, palm open, holding the broken golden needle. Gowry hummed as he took it, and pulled out something from beneath his chair. Some form of moss, gathered up from strands into a compacted ball. It was red and bulbous, its skin as hard as bark. The space marine's eyes narrowed in suspicion. The potential for poison remained.

He removed the Death Mask of Sanguinius, sniffing with his keen nose. He took a small bite. The taste was vile, bitter, but he could not detect any poison. His face twisted as he finished the rest of the foul bolus. Not in disgust at its scent, but by the fact that the old man had used him. Dante did not enjoy being a pawn in others' games; even if he sympathized with their motives.

"Do not take more than one each day," Gowry advised, handing him a pouch filled with more of them. "In that case, its effects will be reduced, if not redundant. I will have more ready for you when you return," he said, settling back into his chair. His fingers fiddled with the needle, binding its broken ends before handing it to Dante. Gowry muttered something about shoddy work, his expression concerned; annoyed with himself.

"I suspect we will meet again soon, Dante. Until then, Millicent awaits you. Now, an old man needs his rest." He shut his eyes, his body relaxing. "The church of plague is not far from here. North, if you take the path on the right, instead of going straight to Sellia." He was already close to slumber. "As I said before, her condition is much more advanced than yours, and the Kindred of Rot guard her. Tread cautiously."

"How long has it been? How long since you were first stricken from your daughter?" Dante asked. He had no tangible proof to justify his suspicion of Gowry. The old sage had upheld his word, and had not led him astray… yet.

Still, something about Gowry unnerved him. A sense of false kindness and treachery. Slipperiness. Not all was as he told. For now, though, Dante would not act against him.

"Too long," Gowry said cryptically.

"Why had you not sought help elsewhere?"

"Because the help died," Gowry snorted with a laugh. "Foolish Tarnished of no renown, as green as Limgrave and as wet as Stormveil. Charging forth into Aeonia like they were invincible. Not like you. You are a warlord, a killer and a survivor. And not one with an inflated sense of his own prowess. Else you would be too proud to ask me for help, I imagine."

In spite of the old man's praise, the glee in Gowry's voice irked him. The space marine had killed since he was a little boy, but he had seldom rejoiced in the suffering of others. He put his helmet back on. His worn, too-old face vanished beneath Sanguinius' furious visage once more. In his helmet's HUD, his armor was colored a pale orange, flickering at times to dark yellow.

"Now, warlord Dante," Gowry began to drift into sleep, "go save my daughter."

Dante mag-clamped the Axe Mortalis to his waist, and marched to the church of plague. To Millicent.

He moved slower, with greater wariness. Conservatively. He did not know when his next rest would be. His limbs burned. He did not know how many of the insectoid xenos would be present.

At last, Dante sighted the ruined chapel, where a dying girl dreamt.