Black Tide

by James Swallow

  “Futile,” grunted Fabius, and with a swift grab he curled the fingers of the power fist about the sword and broke it along its length. The shock of the blow threw Rafen backward and he tumbled across the rooftop, landing badly.

  Bile laughed again and discarded the pieces of the shattered blade. “Will you dare to stand up again, Blood Angel?” he asked. “Come, I challenge you. Face me once more, if you can!”

  Rafen turned over, spitting blood. He could feel the edges of broken ribs grinding against one another inside his chest. The newly-scabbed wound on his breast had split open and he was bleeding there again. When he took in a breath, it felt like stones in his throat.

  “Nothing to say?” mocked the traitor. “No more battle cries or words of power? How sad. I’ll be certain to tell your battle-brothers how you died before I choke the life from them…” Bile’s hand went to his belt and closed on empty air. “The summoner…” He stiffened with surprise.

  Rafen produced the device from the sleeve of his robe, still gripped in the hand that had snatched it away during his attack. “Is this what you seek?” With effort, he dragged himself to his feet.

  The reply Fabius Bile gave was laced with invective of such venom and potency that Rafen wondered if it might be some sort of daemonic cantrip. “Give it to me, whelp!” he demanded.

  The summoner vibrated in Rafen’s hand and emitted a soft chime. He dangled it over the edge of the roof as Bile took a step closer. “I will drop it.”

  “You want me to die with you?” spat the traitor. “Is that it?”

  “No,” he replied. “I want something else.” Rafen nodded towards a pouch on Bile’s belt. “You know.”

  He heard the grin in his enemy’s words. “This, you mean? Your precious relic?” Bile drew the crystal vial from the pouch. “An exchange, is that it?”

  “Aye,” Rafen managed. “Then you may go and do as you will. Today or tomorrow, you will die. But the blood of Sanguinius is eternal. You cannot possess it!”

  The traitor nodded. “Very well. The vial for the summoner… Here!” Without warning, he threw the tube aside.

  Rafen bolted forward, the rod device falling from his fingers and forgotten. He went into a dive, arms reaching for the vial as it described an arc through the air. Emperor, guide me! The Blood Angel reached out and snatched the crystal tube before it could fall away into the madness below.

  Fabius’ harsh laughter rose and rose as the traitor stooped to gather up the summoner where it had fallen. “Pathetic,” he snarled. “Look at you, giving up your life for a few drops of liquid. It is worth so much to you, isn’t it? And yet you do not really understand the potentiality of it.” He walked away. “Take it! Take it and pray over it for as long as your life lasts, but know that your precious Sanguinius will not save you, nor will your silent, absent Emperor!” Bile glared at him. “I kept that relic only as a seed for the collection I will rebuild once I leave this place, but in truth it has no value to me. All the data I gleaned from that vitae is in here.” He tapped a finger against the brow of his helmet. “I have no need of it. It is useless.”

  The callous grin on the renegade’s face froze as he saw the look on Rafen’s face, a look that promised hate and fury. “You are so very wrong, turncoat,” he replied, drawing himself up. “Let me show you why.”

  Rafen twisted the vial about its length and from the silver detailing about its end emerged a short, thick needle. His eyes never leaving those of his enemy, the Blood Angel stabbed the vial into his chest and injected the contents into his heart.

  FIFTEEN

  Once before, on the field of battle at Sabien, when he had joined with the great Mephiston in the final confrontation of the Arkio Insurrection, Rafen had been granted the boon of an exsanguinator. Injectors loaded with the vitae of the high sanguinary priests of the Blood Angels, the fluid within them was a stimulant and strength-giver, said to grant the user a small measure of the power of their angelic primarch. On that day, the exsanguinator gifted to him by the Lord of Death and blessed by Corbulo, the keeper of the Red Grail, had given Rafen the strength to carry that fateful battle to its conclusion. He remembered with perfect clarity the sudden surge of power that had moved through him, the swell of his heart and his will.

  He knew now that what he thought to be a moment of communion with his long dead liege lord had only been a pale shadow of the true glory. The contents of the vial, the holy blood from the Red Grail itself, unfiltered and potent, kept alive for millennia by generations of clerics, coursed through his veins. It was gold and it was fire, it was lightning and sun; it was like nothing he had ever experienced before.

  Rafen’s body was wracked with spasms that went beyond pain. Every muscle went rigid, every nerve sang with the power. His very bones resonated like struck chimes, as the song of his primarch shot into his being. Light crashed about him in waves, bright as a supernova. The gene-matter threaded through his body, induced into him during his rise through the ranks from initiate to battle-brother, was awakened all at once. Every Space Marine carried within them the genetic markers of the primarch that had been their master, bonded to the flesh of the common man they had once been. Every Blood Angel had within them a kernel of Sanguinius’ great and majestic power; it lay in the depths of their soul, in the meat of their flesh, there to make them the unmatched warriors of the Emperor’s great armies.

  And now like called to like. The sacred blood coursing through him merged with Rafen’s own, and it echoed to the elements of the primarch’s legacy. A unity of power engulfed the Astartes as deep within him, blood mixed with blood as warrior-son and primarch-father were briefly connected across the barriers of life and time.

  For one fleeting moment, Rafen knew what it was to be a son of the Emperor; in a storm of sensation and blazing power, he experienced a fraction of that transcendent glory. He went beyond the cage of himself, and into the magnificence that was the bequest of the Great Angel.

  He experienced fear; so bright it was, so powerful that he became afraid he would be destroyed by the brilliance of it, like the Terran legend of Icarus voyaging too close to the sun.

  Oh fate, what a perfect death that would be. To reach out and touch the face of my primarch.

  But even as those words formed in his thoughts, Rafen knew that he could not allow himself to die. Not yet. In the turmoil of the golden, blazing glow, he sensed a truth that was so strong and so clear he could not deny it.

  I will not die here. My duty is unfulfilled.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw Fabius Bile before him, the traitor cowled in the armour of a good and noble brother, raising his hands to attack.

  There was no pain. He felt no wounds, no fatigue. There were no doubts or fears. There was only duty.

  “For the Emperor and Sanguinius! Death! Death!” Rafen attacked his enemy with a speed and a fury that were unmatched. Bile’s swing with the crackling power fist seemed clumsy and slow, and it was easy for him to drop beneath it and hammer heavy blows into the renegade’s torso.

  Time was thick and sluggish, warped through the lens of arrow-sharp senses and bullet-fast reflexes. Rafen felt as if he were speed and power moulded into the shape of a man, unstoppable and untouchable. His bare fists impacted upon the ceramite, each hit coming with all the force he could muster, slamming Bile backward. Cracks in the armour left by previous strikes widened and split, and from within sparks flashed as internal circuitry failed.

  Fabius roared with hate and crushed Rafen to him in a lethal embrace, grinding the Blood Angel’s head against his stolen armour. Rafen’s cheek was opened as it was torn by the sharp corners of the winged sigil across the wargear. The renegade triggered a surge of energy from the power fist and blue lightning crackled through Rafen’s flesh, threatening to draw a scream from his lips.

  Dizzy with the shock, arms trapped at his sides and his bones cracking with the crushing grasp, the Blood Angel gave a wordless shout and brought down his head upon the brow of the power ar
mour’s helmet. He felt the wet snap inside his skull as his nose broke, felt the hot gush of his own spilled blood; but with it came the crunch of shattering armourglass. One of the helm’s murder-red visor lenses shattered from the impact and Bile cried out as fragments pierced the soft jelly of his eye. The killing pressure all about him was suddenly gone as the traitor released him, shaking his head vigorously to dislodge the shard of glass.

  Rafen coughed up a heavy, dark gob of spittle, teetering. He knew that to hesitate would mean death, and so he attacked while he still could. Riding the power of the blood, he leapt up and grabbed the gorget of Bile’s stolen armour with one hand, hauling himself upward, his feet taking purchase upon the legs and abdomen of his enemy.

  Clinging to his target, Rafen punched the cracked, damaged facia of the helmet, over and over in rapid succession, blow after blow falling on the same point. Blood streamed from his knuckles and pain rippled along the nerves of his arm, but he went on, beyond reason, beyond endurance, his hand becoming a gory ruin.

  He felt the helmet snap and dislodge; driven on, his clawed fingers caught the lip of the helm and tore it free. Beneath, Bile’s face glared back at him, white hair now dark with crimson, one eye a torn and ragged pit.

  Rafen brought the damaged helmet down like a bludgeon and went on beating the traitor with the cracked orb of ceramite, beating him and beating him with hard mechanical strikes, one after another after another.

  Bile toppled and fell to his knees, clutching for the weapons at his waist and finding nothing. He swung at Rafen with the power fist, but the renegade was almost blind now, and could make out only hazy red blurs through his ruined vision.

  Rafen staggered backward, dropping the smashed helm. The power of the sacred blood was ebbing from him, streaming out through the hundreds of cuts and contusions scattered across his body. In moments, the strength that had driven him on would be gone, and he would at last succumb. He had only moments left to fulfil the duty.

  He had rescued the blood of his primarch and kept it safe. Now he would kill the thief who had dared to steal it.

  “No…” gurgled Fabius. “I am… Unkillable! You cannot… End me!”

  Rafen did not answer; instead he bent and gave all his strength to lifting the armoured figure off the blood-slicked roof, hauling him up over his head.

  With a last effort, every muscle in his body screaming in distress, Rafen pitched the renegade forward and threw him from the top of the stone tower. He collapsed to the parapet, hanging over the edge as he watched the figure in red drop away, cursing his name as he fell.

  The traitor Fabius Bile, sworn enemy of the God-Emperor of Mankind and the Imperium, fell into the ready, hungry claws of the swarming xenos massing far below.

  Rafen watched them rise up in a chattering, screeching wave, the black tide of hideous forms ripping his enemy apart.

  My duty… is done. Just to form that thought seemed to drain every last iota of his will. “Not yet,” said a grim voice.

  Had he spoken those words aloud? His body was in so much pain, he could barely be certain he was still breathing.

  Hands hauled him up from where he had fallen, turned him over. He saw a familiar pale face and dark, dead eyes. “Noxx.”

  “The same. Finished him then, did you?”

  He tried to nod.

  The Flesh Tearer did it for him. “At last.”

  Other shapes were moving around, casting shadows. He heard Puluo’s dour tone. “Throne of Terra. Is he still alive?”

  “He is.” That was Ajir. “Although there seems to be more of our esteemed sergeant upon the stones than in his veins.”

  “The tyranids are inside!” shouted another, unfamiliar voice. “They’re inside the laboratoria!”

  Rafen closed his eyes, listening to the reports of bolter fire. Not long now, then. “Only in death does duty end,” he rasped.

  “Not today.” Ceris’ words seemed to come from a very great distance. “Look here. Bile must have lost this in the melee.”

  He heard a strange, musical chiming. The summoner. The sound brought a smile to his lips.

  “Close ranks!” shouted Noxx. “To me! If you want to live another day, to me!”

  Warmth washed over Rafen’s flesh, and he let the darkness take him down.

  From the window of the chapel, through the panes of stained glass, he watched Dynikas V turning away from him, as if it were afraid to show its face. Nuclear firestorms the size of continents crossed the surface, shock-rings from multiple detonations boring down into the mantle and bedrock of the ocean world. The seas were already boiling into void as the atmosphere dissipated, the orbiting gunskulls consumed by the same fires. Within a day, perhaps less, the fifth planet would be little more than a scorched ember, and everything on it just a memory. The taint of Chaos and of the alien had been scoured clean.

  Rafen sighed, wincing slightly at the pain the deep breath caused him. So much had been lost down there. Noxx and Ceris and the others had recovered some small fragments of the trophies Bile had kept in his tower to add to the spoils taken from Zellik’s Archeohort—among them the plasma gun that had belonged to the hero Aryon—but so much had been lost. He felt a strong stab of remorse over the destruction of Brother Kear’s wargear; he would say a special tribute to the dead man’s memory in the Hall of Heroes when the Tycho returned to Baal.

  There was one loss that he would not mourn, however. The black pall of guilt that had shadowed him since the start of the mission had left him. His duty was done, and his conscience was clear.

  Looking away, he bowed and allowed the sanguinary priest to anoint him with the sanctified fluids from the replica of the Red Grail he held in his hands. All of the warriors who had returned alive from Dynikas V had undergone the rituals of cleansing and purgation to undo any lingering mark of the inhuman—but Rafen and those who had been prisoners had more to endure. Each of them had been implanted with one of Bile’s demi-daemon/tyranid hybrids, and the priests and chaplains of the Adeptus Astartes needed to be sure that no lingering stigma remained upon their souls. The brothers had already sworn a pact to keep their silence on the full scope of their imprisonment at the hands of the twisted Primogenitor; none of them doubted that the forces of the Imperial Inquisition would look most harshly upon each one of the Space Marines, perhaps even order their summary terminations. But this was not a matter for inquisitors to decide upon. They would be judged when they returned to their Chapters, by the only authority that mattered—their battle-brothers.

  At last Rafen stood, accepting a bow from the cleric. He made the sign of the aquila and stepped away, his robes pulled in tight around his body. Crossing the chapel floor, he paused in front of the altar where the statue of Sanguinius rose high towards the arched ceiling. There, a small brazier atop an iron bowl burned brightly, casting firelight upon the wings of the primarch.

  He took a step towards it, but halted as he realised another robed figure was approaching. He pulled back his hood. “Cousin.”

  “Cousin,” said Noxx. “Well met. I come to bid you farewell.” He jerked his chin up at the vast circular window over their heads; beyond it, out in the void the starship Gabriel was turning on spears of thruster fire, preparing to depart on a new warp vector. “The Thunderhawk is ready on the landing deck. My brothers and my passengers await.”

  Rafen nodded. The Raven Guard Kilan and some of the other escapees from Bile’s prison-fortress were to travel with the Flesh Tearers, to rendezvous with representatives of their own Chapters along the Gabriel’s course back to Cretacia. Tarikus and the rest were remaining aboard the Tycho, and the Blood Angels would do the same for them, quietly guiding them back to their home worlds. Rafen wondered if all of them would be able to recover the lives they had lost to the prison; he had no doubt that many of those captured by Bile’s agents had been declared dead. When they returned to their monasteries alive and whole, there would be questions and challenges. For them, their trials had only just begun
.

  He took Noxx’s hand and shook it. “You have what Lord Seth wanted,” he said. “In the chronicles of both our Chapters, it shall be written that our enemy was slain by the hands of Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers.”

  Noxx’s lip curled. “We both know that isn’t so. You killed him, Rafen. The honour is yours.”

  “If you wanted it, you could have taken that for yourself. You could have pitched me off that roof, told the survivors yours was the blade to Bile’s heart. No one would have known.”

  “It crossed my mind,” Noxx said mildly, before nodding towards the statue. “But he would have known. And as hard as it might be to believe, I am not without honour myself.”

  “I do not doubt that,” Rafen replied. “Without you and your warriors… your sacrifices… this mission would have failed. Thank you.”

  Noxx released his grip and took on a formal manner. “The deed is done. This duty is complete. Ave Imperator.”

  “Ave Imperator,” repeated Rafen, as the Flesh Tearer walked away. He stood for a long moment in the glow of the brazier before he realised he was being observed by another. He did not turn to face the figure in the shadows. “Are you here to try my patience once more, Codicier?”

  Ceris stepped into the light. “No. But I have questions.”

  Rafen smiled slightly. “Of course you do.”

  “The sacred blood…” The psyker nodded towards him. “Your task was to recover it.”

  “And I did, in a way. It exists still, in me.”

  Ceris frowned. “I fear Great Corbulo and the other High Sanguinary Priests will not see it that way. There will be consequences.”