by Guy Haley
‘Captain Aresti,’ said the Fifth Company commander. ‘What can I do for you, brother?’
‘We have had an… incident, here. Fifty plus xenos have escaped the perimeter. I request permission to mount a search and destroy mission.’
‘As do I,’ said Alanius as he and Tarael strode into the room. ‘Chapter Master Caedis, lord, allow me this mission.’
‘Lord Caedis is occupied, cousin,’ said Aresti. ‘You are to take direction from me, by his order. All elements of the Hammer strikeforce are under my command.’
‘Lord captain,’ said Alanius. ‘Then it is you I humbly petition.’
‘You fought with us bravely on our first mission, Sergeant Alanius, but it is your abandonment of your position that leads us to this pass,’ said Voldo.
‘Your brothers live because of it,’ countered Alanius. ‘And their mission is fulfilled. You cannot criticise us for success.’
‘I am sure they could have held their own, which is more than I can say for the lone brother left here.’
‘Do not test me, cousin…’ growled Alanius.
‘Enough!’ interrupted Aresti. ‘Sergeant Voldo, I grant your request, and that of Cousin Alanius. If he truly is at fault – and his efforts did aid our brothers, do not forget that – then what better way to atone? You may detach yourself from our drive and head into the deeper hulk. Fifty genestealers loose is unconscionable. Destroy them.’
‘Yes, lord captain.’
‘Captain Aresti out.’
Voldo and Alanius faced each other.
‘There you have it,’ said Alanius. ‘We fight together once again.’ His breathing and voice returned to normal. ‘And I for one recognise this as an honour for my brothers. Do you?’
Voldo remained suspicious. ‘I have fought with others of the line of Sanguinius before, Sergeant Alanius. It did not end well.’
‘Which Chapter?’
‘The Knights of Blood.’
‘Ah,’ said Alanius. ‘Our Chapters are brothers, true, but brothers can be different.’
‘They fought without consideration.’
‘With valour?’
Voldo paused.
‘Yes, with great valour.’
‘Then that is the least you can expect from us.’
Azmael spoke, calmer now. ‘Could the genestealers have drawn us off purposefully? Did they mean to escape?’
‘You learn the ways of this foe quickly,’ said Voldo. ‘One cannot discount the possibility, which suggests this corridor has more value than we assign it. Brother Estrellius! Inform Brother-Sergeant Crastus that he and his might return to the strikeforce. You will seal this door behind us! Do not let any other pass. Then return to the strikeforce yourself.’
‘Yes, brother-sergeant,’ said Estrellius.
Next Voldo sent a message across the Space Marine’s linked comms net. ‘All brothers, be wary when passing door ninety-one, sector five. There is an entry way there which we were unaware of.’ He gave a brief description of the action his squad had been embroiled in. ‘Can it be sealed, Brother Estrellius?’
‘A ventilation shaft, I think,’ said the Techmarine. ‘I am sure I can render it useless.’
‘Good, good,’ said Voldo. ‘And now,’ he said, dropping his vox-channel to the two squads, ‘we hunt.’ Voldo walked through the door and into the cramped corridor beyond. His suit light shone from radioactive mist.
‘We go into the dark once more,’ said Alanius joyfully. ‘Look to your brothers. This will be a hard fight.’
At the beachhead, Aresti’s aides counted in the returning Terminator squads and their Techmarines and directed them to their allotted places. They would soon be all back, then the venting of the genestealer roosts’ atmospheres could begin, and so Aresti was deep in conversation with First Captain Galt.
‘Lord Caedis has gone, brother-captain,’ said Aresti.
‘It is not unexpected,’ said Galt. ‘As I told you, he intimated to me this might happen. But gone where?’
‘I do not know. He and his squad, and their Reclusiarch. Squad Vinctus saw them depart the beachhead.’
‘His other men all remain as he promised?’
‘Yes, brother, all bar his bodyguard. The Blood Drinkers look to the Novamarines for guidance and command. Lord Caedis himself ordered them to follow our lead, then I lost contact.’
‘Where did he go, I wonder?’ said Galt thoughtfully. ‘He spoke of a rite, surely one of combat.’
‘I do not know where he went, brother. To the nominal north and then down. They must be deep in the hulk. Their locators no longer show, even with the aid of the booster relay.’
Galt paused. ‘If the other Blood Drinkers remain, then you have enough brothers to fulfil your objective. There is some strangeness to the actions of Caedis, but he is Lord Chapter Master of a loyal and glorious order. We must trust that he has his reasons, and that they are sound reasons. No doubt he has some objective in mind that will benefit us all. Put him from your mind, you must prepare. Captain Mastrik and Captain Sorael are nigh to their positions. Atmospheric venting will begin soon.’
‘Then matters proceed smoothly, and to timetable,’ said Aresti.
‘We have not won the war yet, brother,’ said Galt. ‘I urge a time of caution, later there will be time enough for valour, and we will slaughter the foe in the name of the Emperor.’
‘So let it be,’ said Aresti.
‘I will be in touch before I order the charges detonated,’ said Galt. ‘Look to your wargear, for in it lies the salvation of humankind.’
Chapter 14
The Ascent of Holos
Caedis and his companions forged onward, far out from the beachhead. Guinian guided them, taking an unerring course to the north pole of the hulk, before directing them downwards toward the heart of the Death of Integrity.
Caedis’s mind fractured as the effects of the Calix Cruentes wore off. His sense of place grew unreliable, and he found himself lost between two worlds once more. He looked to his feet, and the ground beneath them changed. One minute he strode, Terminator shod, the hard deck-plating of the derelict vessels under his feet, the next power armour boots traversed the stone-strewn ground of San Guisiga. He wore a helmet, then he did not, only the mask grille of the helm in place feeding him oxygen, as the hot suns of his home world beat down on his unprotected head. The suit of power armour he wore in this other place was unfamiliar to him. And then it was unfamiliar no more, as Caedis’s mind was subsumed into that of the long-dead saviour of the Blood Drinkers.
Holos was cut free from time, for he stood upon the brink of the Black Rage himself, and was thus dimly aware of Caedis, as he was dimly aware of the others that had accompanied him before and accompanied him now. This was the first time he had made the ascent of Mount Calicium, and it was the nineteenth. Holos was only as aware of this as he was aware of the souls of the brothers who accompanied him; a vague sensation of déjà vu, nothing more. This perturbing sensation was only one among many.
Holos/Caedis left the rough road he had followed since he had left the fortress. He turned eastwards, toward the rising of San Guisiga’s second sun. There was no path, for none dared try the climb that his dream had told him he must attempt.
The volcano was slumped in on itself. An eruption had brought much of the mountain down, leaving one side as the peak. The summit jagged up over the collapsed cone, giving it the appearance of a broken tooth. Foul vapours issued from fumaroles and rolled down the slopes. Mount Calicium radiated a dangerous heat.
Holos/Caedis stared at the volcano for a long time, until both suns were high in the sky. Realising he could wait no longer, Holos began his ascent of Mount Calicium once more.
The wind of San Guisiga was hot. His power armour did its best to cool him, but his bare face was tortured by it. Holos’s skin’s glands were atrophied, many of his pores closed. This change to the epidermis was not one originally sought by the Emperor when he crafted the gene-seed of the Adeptus Astartes. It was a m
utation of the Weaver, the mucranoid gland, unique to the Blood Drinkers, turning a gift that should have helped to a hindrance. There was no treating it, it was their own particular quirk of the Flaw. Lacking sebum as well as sweat, Holos’s brothers all bore its mark; the dry, insufficiently nourished skin of the Blood Drinkers.
Holos stumbled, he felt hands upon him, phantom limbs that he could not see. He pushed them aside angrily. He must complete his climb alone.
San Guisiga’s suns burned bright. Noon came. The red giant, Krov A, was a baleful presence, washing the world with angry red light. Its white dwarf companion, Krov B, was a point of light the size of a fingernail, many times smaller but brighter by far than its dominant partner. At this time of year the two suns were close in the sky, a handspan between them. The warmth they gave was negligible. San Guisiga’s ferocious heat was provided by the tidal forces of its large moon, Haemos, pulling at its guts.
Churning geology wracked the planet with endless earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The planet was phenomenally active, its surface was remade once every ten thousand years, sheeted over by fresh rock spewing from its many volcanoes, volcanoes like Mount Calicium.
The mountain shuddered. Rocks pattered down its steep flanks. Holos stopped and looked up, watching for the first signs of avalanche. There were none, and after a time he began again.
Holos clambered upward. One hand in front of the other, power armour and enhanced muscles working as one.
Periodically he looked up into the burning orange sky, wary of the astorgai who made their eyries in the crags above.
Caedis was Holos, and he thought Holos’s thoughts. Caedis lived in Holos’s mind. Caedis was aware of the hero’s memories and his thoughts were shaped by them, but they remained frustratingly distant, for Holos had experienced them, not he. As Holos settled into the rhythm of his ascent, he drew into himself, and he remembered with the sharpness that only a Space Marine can experience. Caedis went with him, seeing the fabled dream Holos had had of a cowled, winged figure on the night-time surface of San Guisiga. It raised a skeletal arm, and pointed to the pinnacle of Mount Calicium. The volcano blew no fire, but others did; drops of molten rock spewing upwards and dropping down in fountain arcs all along the horizon. The clouded sky burned with their wrath, but Mount Calicium was silent, hard black against the inferno torrents of its brothers.
The figure had said nothing to Holos, but his message was clear – the answer to the troubles that gripped the Chapter lay at the peak of the volcano.
Caedis saw blood and slaughter as Holos remembered the times before the rite became established. The savagery of the Chapter’s large Death Company, the constant desire for death and sacrifice to sate the Thirst that bedevilled every brother, their stoic resistance. Their lapses. Holos’s own lapse.
Again and again the woman’s terrified face loomed large in Holos’s mind, a loop of fear that ended with teeth tearing flesh and the hot gush of blood.
Holos felt shame, and Caedis felt it with him, as did the other shades of men not yet born who accompanied the hero. Shame for her death and excitement, and redoubled shame at that excitement. Round and round Holos’s head, on a poisonous Möbius strip of memory that had no beginning or end, shame and excitement chased each other.
Caedis saw other fragments of Holos’s life: the onset of the Thirst that would not be alleviated, the first tremblings of the Rage; the Chapter Council’s ban that denied Holos’s request to climb the mountain. The collusion of Reclusiarch Shanandar in Holos’s escape and secret journey. Some of these things Caedis had long imagined himself, hoping to capture them in glass or stone. Many instances formed the subjects of his glass panels. Caedis had not seen things truly, how could he? He had not been there. Now he was, and he saw how much lesser the reality of it was. He saw how Holos doubted himself, how furtive his escape.
Memories of confrontation and furious words in the Chapter council chamber dissolved, the deep dishonour of Holos’s dismissal from there by Ganlan Sang, the Chapter Master in those dark days. This troubled Holos even more than the face of the terrified woman and the taste of her blood.
Holos turned his concentration to climbing. Will was the greatest weapon against the Thirst, concentration the expression of will.
On Holos went, recreating his climb, this moment in time two thousand years in the past reinvigorated and played anew through the medium of Caedis’s soul. The suns grew hotter. Then came the First Period of Shadow, as Haemos dragged its apricot body across the sky, blotting out the sunlight in its twice-daily eclipse of the suns. Hot winds blew hard when this happened, drying Holos’s meagre sweat to salt on his face. The shadow was welcome, and Holos went on with renewed determination. He reached the top of a bluff of rock, a harder protrusion in the unstable slag of the volcano’s cone.
Atop the rock he encountered his first astorgai. It attacked him without hesitation, swiping at him with its pinion-talons.
The monster was small, a fledgling, although its pinion-talons were still deadly. It had yet to grow its dexterion-claws, those small maniples that grow from a pubescent astorgai’s chest. It hopped forward on its single foot, and slashed its hardened feathers at Holos. They hissed through the air toward his face.
The Space Marine snatched his power sword from its scabbard. He dodged backward, bringing himself dangerously close to the edge of the outcrop. The astorgai laughed and cursed in a tumble of words, some of which were recognisably human. The astorgai were curious creatures. No one was sure if they were truly sentient, or animals keyed into the psychic space of the warp. How many of them there were, where they nested, how they bred – all was unknown. There were certain ruins on Haemos’s forbidden, poisoned surface that hinted that the astorgai might be the devolved remnants of a civilised xenos species, but that was hotly disputed by the Chapter and Adeptus Mechanicus xenologians both. All that was certain was that they had been on San Guisiga longer than men, and had defied every attempt to exterminate them. To the Space Marines who made their home on San Guisiga they were a nuisance, to the small baronies the Blood Drinkers drew their recruits from they were a deadly menace.
Holos ducked a pass of the astorgai’s wing, the razor-sharp keratin of its pinion-talons rattling as they whisked overhead. With the economy of long practise, Holos stepped inside the arc of the weaponed wings and skewered the astorgai child upon his power sword. The weapon passed into its flimsy body with minimal resistance. Smoke issued from the wound under its prominent breastbone. The thing’s beak clacked once, its hard, forked tongue hissing alien words of hate at him, then its three eyes slid shut, its wings folded, and it died.
The creature slipped from Holos’s sword. He did not spare it another glance.
Caedis shoved at the arm gripping him. The astorgai lay behind him. He had triumphed. He had to climb!
‘My lord! My lord! It is I, Reclusiarch Mazrael.’
Caedis’s eyes refocused. The mountain was gone. He was no longer Holos. He wore his Terminator armour. Gladius Rubeum was in his hand, holographic scenes of old victories playing on the faces of its blade. At his feet a genestealer lay dead in a nest of leaves, the point of his sword through its heart. He glanced up. A riot of blue-black foliage crowded him.
‘Brother? Mazrael?’ Caedis’s voice sounded wrong to him. His throat was dust-dry and the words that had come from it similarly so. But it was more than that. Caedis had expected to hear the voice of Brother Holos, not his own. ‘I dreamed, brother, a waking dream.’
Mazrael gripped Caedis’s shoulder guard. ‘I know, lord.’ The vox clicked as Mazrael shifted their conversation to a private channel. In his confused state, it did not seem significant to the Chapter Master.
‘Why do I see the trial of Holos? Why not the travails of Sanguinius? I do not understand.’ He said.
‘The Black Rage blesses you, my lord,’ said Mazrael. ‘Those great heroes of our Chapter do not see what the other scions of Sanguinius see. They are few, but they are gloriously bless
ed!’
‘To see Sanguinius’s final moments is not a blessing?’
Mazrael shook his head, his voice cracked with emotion; tears, and laughter. ‘No lord – do you not understand? While our brothers see the cause of our damnation, we witness the moment of our salvation; the climb of Brother Holos, the very thing that set us free! This is why we, lord, among all of the sons of the Blood Angels, feel hope. This is the greatest hope of all, and you are party now to its final mystery. Rejoice lord, rejoice as you witness the events that saved us!’
Caedis looked around the room they were in. His Terminators stood easy, the gravity here was functional and only slighter higher than Terran norms. They were in a domed garden room. The glazing of the roof was all broken, part of the framework pushed in by the ruined hull of another ship. But somehow the room’s miniature sun glowed still, water flowed through a recycling loop, and the garden’s plants had run wild. To waken to this strange oasis from Holos’s climb was doubly disorienting.
The plants had twined into one another, stems merging and forming hollow, cell-like compartments of wood. The room was crammed to half its height with thicket. The Terminators had forced their way through. Signs of combat scarred the place, flames guttered in the foliage, and many dead genestealers lay on the floor or caught among the branches.
‘How long will I remain with you? How long until I rejoin Holos?’
Mazrael shifted his grip upon Caedis’s armour. ‘I do not know, brother. Since Holos’s time, only a few brothers have relived his climb. Of those brothers who succumb to the Black Rage in our Chapter, the majority see things as all of Sanguinius’s sons do, they might get a glimpse of the living Sanguinius, or feel the pain of his death. Others more favoured might relive the whole of his death combat against the Warmaster. But for the most part, they feel only his anger, or his rage at Horus’s betrayal of their father, nothing more. But there have been those who have not witnessed the ruin of man’s dream, but trodden in the footsteps of hope, climbing with Holos to the source of our salvation. You are the eighteenth, the eighteenth in two thousand years, lord. You are privy to the ultimate mystery of our Chapter.’