by Darius Hinks
Rhacelus stepped back as the winged servitor dressed Mephiston’s scarred body in plates of power armour, looping and diving in a series of graceful, carefully choreographed moves, still singing as it fastened the greaves and pauldrons into place.
Mephiston’s crimson battleplate was sculpted to resemble a skinned corpse, so by the time the servitor had finished, Mephiston looked almost as fearsome as he had when Rhacelus first entered the chamber.
Finally, the servitor swooped down from the shadows carrying another physical incarnation of Mephiston’s thought: his ancient force sword, Vitarus. Mephiston gripped it firmly, testing its weight and balance, delighting in the company of an old friend. He recited a litany, a prayer for the machine-spirit that fed the blade’s ancient circuitry. His pulse raced in answer to the weapon’s vitality, hearing its wordless voice, feeling the powerful, unbroken bond between warrior and sword, each feeding and amplifying the power of the other.
Rhacelus knelt before him, humbled.
Mephiston nodded, waving for him to rise. Then he frowned, sensing movement at the far side of the chamber. Vidiens was still beside the throne, cradling the salver, and there were no other servitors present.
Mephiston raised Vitarus and moved down the steps of the dais into the middle of the room, striding quickly past the gloomy alcoves that housed his books. The movement was coming from just inside the door. A puddle of fresh blood had appeared a few feet from the wall and it was spreading and flickering, reflecting a light that did not exist.
Mephiston circled in one direction while Rhacelus raised his sword and circled in the other.
The two Librarians were still a few feet away when the red pool exploded upwards, forming a column of whirling crimson that showered them both in blood. Mephiston shielded his eyes until the spray grew less ferocious, falling away to reveal a liquid, rippling likeness of a Space Marine.
‘Antros,’ said Mephiston, remembering that Rhacelus was not the only member of his Librarius travelling on the Blood Oath. Lucius Antros was his most trusted codicier and a Librarian of prodigious talent. As this gory, translucent simulacrum rolled wave-like towards him, Mephiston tried to recall their last meeting and found his memory still clouded.
Rhacelus stepped forwards, glowering at the blood effigy.
‘Where in the name of the Throne have you been?’ His eyes flashed blue with anger. ‘We are under attack. Why have you not reported to me since we translated to real space?’
Antros’ face formed and reformed as he tried to reply and all that emerged was a series of wet gurgles. He was clutching a staff, trying to perform an incantation, but each time he raised it, it collapsed into a torrent of blood. The effort of reaching them was clearly causing him great pain and he grimaced and jerked as he tried to speak.
‘I ordered him off the vessel,’ said Mephiston, his memory finally clearing.
Rhacelus shook his head. ‘When, my lord?’
‘Hard to say. I have been traversing several streams at once. My relationship with time has become complicated.’
‘It was when we first reached the Revenant Stars,’ said Antros, finally managing to form recognisable words. He washed across the floor towards Rhacelus, spilling blood as he reached out. ‘Forgive me, Lord Rhacelus.’ His voice had the distant, muffled quality of someone speaking underwater. ‘I have travelled to the edge of the rift. I have been trying for weeks to contact you but the storms are so fierce, until now all my signals have gone awry. I felt the presence of the Chief Librarian as he re-entered the materium and decided to make another attempt.’
‘The Great Rift?’ Rhacelus glanced at Mephiston. ‘My lord, was that really your order? To send him to the jaws of Chaos?’
Mephiston nodded vaguely, only half following the conversation. He was scouring his memory for anything he knew of necron technology that might be used to blind psychic powers. He waved Vidiens over and grabbed the salver, studying his design again, trying to ignore his battle-brothers’ conversation.
‘Return to the Blood Oath,’ said Rhacelus, staring into Antros’ blood mask. ‘What would possess you to venture out there alone? You are at great risk.’
‘I am about to return,’ said Antros, looking pained. ‘I swear to you, my lord. And I apologise again for failing to reach you. I have almost completed the mission I discussed with the Chief Librarian. I will return to the Blood Oath within days.’
‘Mission? What mission is worth your soul?’ demanded Rhacelus.
Even as a blood mirage, the passion in Antros’ eyes was unmistakable. He pointed his shimmering staff at Mephiston. ‘Lord Rhacelus, we cannot let the Chief Librarian continue like this. You know we can’t. Since the opening of the Great Rift his power is consuming him faster than ever.’
‘You will not help Mephiston by gifting your soul to daemons. Get back here before–’
‘My lord,’ interrupted Antros. ‘I may have found a way to harness Mephiston’s power. I spent the last weeks fighting alongside battle-brothers of the Sons of Helios Chapter. They have survived in the shadow of the rift all this time because they can inure themselves to the warp currents.’
‘Then they may be heretics, codicier. Have you considered that?’
‘Of course I have, but I do not believe they are. They are not even psykers, my lord. That is exactly why they are so fascinating. They follow a rigid, martial discipline that I have never seen before. I read of it when we were still on Baal but I had to see it for myself.’
Rhacelus shook his head. ‘This sounds worse the more you tell me about it.’
‘My lord, I understand your concern, but they are not what you think. These are warriors, not witches or mystics. They have simply honed their martial regimen until their minds are able to ignore the warp. I believe they tread a new path between the material and the immaterial worlds.’
‘That sounds exactly like mysticism to me.’
‘Far from it, my lord. They have lost their home world, their fortress-monastery and most of their battle-brothers, but not one of them shows any sign of losing their powers of logic or wavering in their devotion to the Emperor.’
Rhacelus began pacing, shaking his head. ‘This is exactly how you sounded when you dragged us to see that magos on Edessa, what was his name?’
‘Ferenc, the monogeneticist.’ Antros’ words became harder to understand as he grew more frustrated. ‘Those relics he showed us could have helped Lord Mephiston. They were able to separate one manifestation of the psyche from another. Mephiston could have used it to partition his mind and harness his power. You agreed with me at the time.’
‘Until I saw what became of his test subjects. You were suggesting we risk the Chief Librarian’s sanity on the word of a magos who had no grasp on sanity himself. The man was dangerous.’ Rhacelus jabbed his sword at Antros’ likeness. ‘As were the heretics you brought on to the Blood Oath, with their suggestions that we begin sacrificing our own serfs. What pompous name did they give themselves?’
‘The Ordo Oraculi. They were not heretics, my lord. Their practices were unusual but their creed has been sanctioned by the Ecclesiarch himself.’ Antros shrugged, splattering more blood across the floor. ‘As it turned out, their predictions were useless. I agree with you that they were charlatans. I still do not fully understand how they knew the things they knew, but they were not–’
‘But you had to get them off the Blood Oath before the Chief Librarian incinerated them. That is what I recall.’
‘This is not the same.’ Antros raised his voice. ‘The Sons of Helios are utterly devout. They carry themselves with a–’
‘Rhacelus,’ said Mephiston, losing his thread and looking up from the salver. ‘I gave the codicier permission to pursue his theory. I have heard the same tales as Lucius Antros and I wish to know more. Do not waste your time trying to countermand my orders.’ He looked at Antros. ‘How l
ong?’
‘A few more days at most, Chief Librarian. They suggested I escort them on one last mission. Their Chapter Master, Lord Dragomir, believes it will be a perfect chance for me to observe how they survive in close proximity to the Cicatrix Maledictum. I will record everything and then return to the Blood Oath to share what I have learned.’
Mephiston shook his head. ‘We will not be on the Blood Oath, Antros. Look for us at the heart of the necron forces.’ He traced his finger over the angular skull engraved on the salver. ‘Look for us on Morsus.’
Chapter Three
‘On my command,’ said Lieutenant Servatus, his voice booming through his helmet’s vox-grille. He trained his bolt pistol on a pair of blast shutters thirty feet down the corridor. The doors were warped and buckled, as though a massive weight had slammed repeatedly against them.
Servatus glanced back over his shoulder, checking to see if his men were all keeping pace. He had found them shortly after leaving Lord Rhacelus. The remnants of Agorix Squad approached, filling the corridor with their hulking, Tacticus armour – Primaris Blood Angels in full battleplate, their plasma incinerators primed and raised, waiting for the order to fire.
‘Take them down,’ he said to the nearest of them, Sergeant Agorix.
Agorix saluted and nodded to his men.
‘On my command,’ said Servatus, raising a hand. Behind him, plasma weapons hummed and rattled into readiness, filling the passageway with blue light.
Before Servatus could give the order, the doors exploded towards him, filling the air with shattered plasteel. Debris bounced off his armour and the corridor filled with fumes. His retinal display erupted with scrolling glyphs and targeting data, revealing what had happened. The doors had simply disintegrated.
A block of rigid, identical figures clattered towards him across the deck plating. Necron warriors, moving in perfect lockstep, trailing a mantle of pale smoke. They advanced with jolting precision, spilling hellish green light from their iron skulls.
Servatus sliced his hand down and Agorix Squad fired, unleashing a deafening volley of shots. Superheated plasma smashed into the necrons, tearing through their lines and filling the air with rent metal. Limbs, heads and chest-plates jangled across the deck plating.
‘Cover,’ snapped Servatus, unclipping a grenade and hurling it into the inferno.
White heat rocked him back on his heels, eliciting a chorus of integrity warnings from the cogitator in his armour. Then, as the reverberations faded, there was a brief silence.
Behind Servatus, Sergeant Agorix and his men held their positions.
With a hideous screeching sound, the shattered necrons began dragging themselves back togaether, clicking and snapping their mangled limbs into shape and rising unsteadily to their feet. Behind them, rows of pale lights jerked into view – lifeless eyes, staring blankly at the Blood Angels as they raised their weapons and advanced, lurching forwards like clockwork automata.
‘Break them apart!’ roared Servatus, striding into the fumes. ‘Leave nothing intact!’
The passageway exploded with light and noise as the Blood Angels fired again. Plasma ripped through the serried ranks of necrons, but the lifeless warriors hurled back salvoes of their own, shimmering green gauss beams that sizzled from their rifles, slapping against the Blood Angels battleplate.
One of the blasts thudded against Servatus’ shoulder, rocking him back on his heels. To his fury, he felt the pauldron disintegrating. Corpse light washed over the intricately worked armour and some of the ceramite crumbled, like sand snatched by the tide.
He dropped into a roll and came back up onto his feet, face to face with the necron that had shot him. The xenos was almost as tall as Servatus and its face was a pitted, lifeless mask of corroded metal. This close, he could see a spark of grim sentience in its eyes – a pale, guttering memory of life that had echoed down the centuries.
Servatus had only a second to notice these facts before he sheared the necron warrior’s head from its shoulders, swinging his power sword cleanly through its metal neck.
He was prepared for what would happen next. As the headless necron toppled away from him, Servatus strode forwards, raising his bolt pistol and firing repeatedly into the xenos’ shuddering form. Lumps of warped metal whined through the air, clanging off the bulkheads, but Servatus kept firing until his clip was empty. Finally the necron was still, its body so completely obliterated it could not reassemble. The wreckage pulsed with jade fire and began to vanish from sight.
Sergeant Agorix appeared at his side, swinging his power sword, slicing through the necrons in a blinding flurry of thrusts and slashes. The two officers were haloed by the wall of plasma fire coming from the rest of the squad – cerulean lances, filling the air with more shards of broken metal. It was glorious, for a moment, just to feel his body and armour working as they had been designed to. Every sinew, synapse and servo joined into a seamless weapon. He revelled in the nobility of the fight. In his ears, the Blood Angels’ gunfire thundered like the drums of a great symphony. The lines of necrons fell back, toppled by the ferocity of a Blood Angels close-quarters attack.
Servatus pressed his advantage and led the Blood Angels on into the next chamber. They sliced and blasted the necrons with superhuman speed. Every necron that fell tried to reassemble itself, but the undead mechanoids moved painfully slowly compared to the spring-heeled Blood Angels. Every necron that tried to crawl back togaether was met with a second barrage of plasma, then a third and a fourth, until their metal forms were mangled beyond recognition.
Servatus nodded with satisfaction as he saw that many of the necrons, rather than trying to rise again, were now blinking out of existence, leaving nothing more than scorched silhouettes on the deck.
He bounded up a set of sweeping steps onto a broad clerestory that reached out over the chamber. He leant out from the balcony and began hurling grenades over the clanking ranks below. Sergeant Agorix and the other three Space Marines were still fighting through the doorway into the chamber, so Servatus unleashed hell on the far side of the room.
The world turned white as his grenades detonated. There was a wrenching, grinding sound as even the bulkheads strained under the impact. When the glare faded, Servatus saw that he had torn a great hole in the enemy force.
The other Blood Angels charged forwards, hurling their own grenades and creating more deafening blasts. The necrons fell back, dazed and mangled, their body parts sparking. Servatus reloaded and sprayed bolter fire at their heads, pulverising the reeling figures.
Beneath the clerestory, Blood Angels smashed through into the smouldering gap left by the grenades. They formed a circle, dropped to one knee and fired plasma in every direction, taking down the necrons that were staggering backwards all around them.
Servatus drew his power sword and leapt back down into the battle.
He landed blade first. The humming power sword sliced straight through a necron’s chest and his momentum sent them both tumbling through the crowd. The necron locked its dead fingers around Servatus’ neck brace, but he drew his sword free with a scream of protesting metal and sliced the necron in two. As it crashed backwards onto the floor, juddering and whining, Servatus rained sword strikes on it, shearing off chunks of metal alloy and iron cabling until the body parts were still.
The Blood Angels had now carved a large space in the centre of the chamber. Broken androids lay everywhere, flickering and twitching, melted into the deck plating and warped into tormented shapes. Those that were still standing had been thrown from their regimented ranks into a confused scrum. The mindless necrons were struggling to cope with the disarray and their shots were now wild and inaccurate, disintegrating the chamber’s pillars and cornices rather than hitting Blood Angels.
Something big lumbered into the chamber from behind the necron vanguard, a towering, spider-like war machine, pounding through the smoke
towards Servatus. The lumen strips overhead were mostly shattered, but a few were still flickering fitfully and they revealed glimpses of a robotic behemoth. Its bulky, armour-plated abdomen was carried on six enormous metal legs and, as they hammered down into the deck, the chamber shuddered, dropping broken masonry onto the heat-warped metal.
The war machine trampled carelessly through the burnished ranks, unconcerned as it crushed its own troops to reach the Blood Angels lieutenant. As it passed beneath the lumens, Servatus saw that where its head should be there was a metal carriage, containing a proud-looking necron lord. The lord stared haughtily at him from across the battle, his posture revealing an intense focus that the other necrons lacked. It steered its metal arachnid towards him, filling the chamber with resounding clangs as the machine’s talon-legs punched through the deck.
Despite its callous disregard for their safety, the presence of the war machine had a galvanising effect on the rest of the necrons. They silenced their guns and formed back into orderly ranks, backing away from the Blood Angels that were crouched at the centre of the room.
In a few seconds, the Blood Angels were surrounded by a bristling circle of guns, trained on them with cool dispassion. As the chaos receded and the smoke cleared, dozens more necrons pushed into the chamber. The Blood Angels were now facing a sea of expressionless death masks.
Sergeant Agorix helped one of the other Blood Angels back to his feet and the squad looked around warily. They were completely surrounded. With solemn gravity, they straightened their backs and raised their plasma incinerators. ‘For Sanguinius,’ said Sergeant Agorix. ‘For Sanguinius,’ replied his men, with no trace of fear.
Servatus rushed to join them, but the towering war machine blocked his way.
The necron lord raised a weapon resembling a long-handled scythe and spoke. Its voice was like a drill grinding into metal, but it spoke in a disjointed approximation of Gothic. Servatus found it obscene to hear his own language issuing from the mouth of an ancient, mechanised corpse.