The ramp began to close. Karlaen stood, watching until the last moment, hoping to see the beast lurch from hiding, wreathed in flame. Hoping that it would make a final, futile assault, and give him leave to finish it off for good. Instead, it remained hidden. He could feel it watching him, watching the Stormraven, calculating the distance and the odds, and he knew that it was not so foolish. ‘Next time, beast,’ he said.
The last thing he saw before the ramp clanged shut and the Stormraven took flight were two red eyes glaring at him through the smoke.
Epilogue
Port Helos, Asphodex
The Stormraven reached Port Helos, the largest of Phodia’s many space ports and the only one currently in Imperial hands, just as the twin suns reached their height, bathing the embattled world in deadly radiation.
The desperate Imperial defenders had built a makeshift moat between the port and the city, flooding the streets with millions of litres of promethium and lighting it. Now a barrier of crackling flame, almost a hundred metres high, rose above the streets.
Dante himself had led the Blood Angels in securing the port after a savage battle in which Mephiston, the Chapter’s Chief Librarian, had contested with the Hive Mind itself and survived. Though the enemy had been driven back, swarms of tyranids massed outside the flames, waiting for them to die down.
The Stormraven touched down with a heavy thump that was muffled by the roar of artillery. As the boarding ramp descended, the stink of burning promethium and the omnipresent odour of the bio-swarms washed over the passengers.
Karlaen stepped down from the ramp and onto the landing platform, a fog of exhaust fumes coiling about him. He said nothing as the others began to disembark behind him. He carried his hammer loosely in one hand and, as he stepped onto the softly vibrating surface of the platform, it slid through his grip. The head crashed against the ground as he closed his eyes.
The rage had dwindled to embers, but he could still feel its heat within him. Once stoked, such fires never truly died. He had come far closer to the edge than he cared to consider, but the thought lingered. He longed for the peace of the Chapter’s fortress-monastery, and his pursuits there. Some place where he could go to find a new centre, and douse the fires that had been stirred within him.
He heard an intake of breath, along with the rattle of armour, and opened his eyes. A golden figure was approaching through the fog of exhaust, and the others had all dropped to their knees. Karlaen began to do the same in reflex, instinct taking over for his too-weary mind.
‘Rise and report, Captain of the First,’ Commander Dante said. Corbulo stood behind him, a flock of Chapter serfs and white-armoured Sanguinary Priests gathered about him. Karlaen briefly met the Sanguinary High Priest’s calm gaze as he rose and removed his helm, but said nothing to him. He looked at Dante.
‘Mission accomplished, commander,’ he rasped, his throat raw. In short, precise sentences, he explained what had befallen him and his men in the ruins from the time of their arrival to their extraction. He said nothing of his unease, or of how close he had come to not coming back at all. Dante could tell regardless. Karlaen knew that his Chapter Master could read it in his face and hear it in his voice, but he said nothing.
‘The creature,’ Dante asked, when Karlaen had finished, ‘is it dead?’
‘I do not know.’ The words rankled. He wanted to demand leave to hunt the aberrant beast down, and finish it for good. But he held his tongue.
Dante gazed at him for a moment. Then the golden helm twitched, and he said, ‘You have done well, Shield of Baal. As I knew you would.’ He reached out and clasped Karlaen’s shoulder, startling him. ‘You have never failed me, brother. I have said that you are the rock upon which the First is built, but you are more than that.’ He gestured to the hammer that Karlaen held. ‘You are the aegis that defends us, and you are the hammer blow which crushes our enemies. Though I would give you the respite I know you crave, I have need of you still.’
Karlaen bowed his head. ‘Speak your will, my lord, and I will see it done.’
Dante lowered his hand. ‘I will, but not yet. Rest, regain your strength. This war has only just begun, I fear.’ He turned to look at Corbulo, who was watching as the Chapter serfs led a bewildered and groggy Augustus Flax away. ‘Well, Corbulo?’
‘He will live. And may prove as useful as I hoped,’ Corbulo said, turning to look at them. Karlaen wanted to ask about Flax’s relationship to the beast, but said nothing. He had told them everything that Flax had shared. If Corbulo was dismayed by such revelations, he did not show it. Indeed, he seemed satisfied with his prize.
Dante nodded brusquely. He looked at Karlaen. ‘You will attend me, when you have rested.’ He hesitated, as if there were something else he wanted to say. But instead, he turned and departed. As the Chapter Master left the landing platform, Alphaeus and the others rose to their feet. Karlaen waved them away. Let them rest while they could. The First’s part in this war was not yet over.
Soon only he and Corbulo remained on the platform. Crimson clouds rolled past, eddying and billowing around the port. Karlaen did his best to ignore the other Space Marine. Corbulo stood quietly, as if waiting for an invitation to speak. They stood in silence for some time. Finally, Corbulo cleared his throat. ‘Discipline is the armour of a man’s soul, it is true. But armour must occasionally be removed, so that it might be tended and made strong again. So too with discipline. It must be tested, and then strengthened where it is found lacking.’
Karlaen grunted. He did not wish to speak about it, and especially not with Corbulo. He stared at the clouds and tried not to see the faces of his fallen brothers there. More names added to the tally of his debt. More men dead because they had followed him into battle. His grip on the hammer’s haft tightened. Corbulo waited. Whether he was waiting for a reply, or simply waiting, Karlaen couldn’t say. Eventually, the Sanguinary High Priest made to depart.
‘I asked you before if you wanted to know what those whispers in your mind said of you, brother,’ Corbulo said, as he turned away. Karlaen said nothing. Corbulo stopped, then smiled sadly, his face half-turned away. ‘They said that they forgive you. But that you cannot forgive yourself,’ he said. ‘And that it will be the death of you.’
Karlaen did not reply. He turned away, and looked out beyond the port walls, towards the burning city below. He heard Corbulo leave, but said nothing.
He simply stared at the conflagration far below, and thought of two red eyes, glaring at him from the smoke.
About the Author
Josh Reynolds is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt, all three featuring the White Scars, and the Blood Angels novel Deathstorm. In the Warhammer World, he has written The End Times: The Return of Nagash, the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen, and the novels Neferata, Master of Death and Knight of the Blazing Sun. He lives and works in Sheffield.
The might of hive fleet Leviathan bears down on the worlds of the Imperium. As the xenos threat approaches, the elite soldiers of the Militarum Tempestus are charged with a vital and deadly mission by the agents of the Inquisition.
For my father, who bought me my first Space Marine
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