At the front of the group was the delicate, shapely and lithe figure of Ptolemea, moving easily and confidently in her asphalt and red body-glove, a scarf tied carefully around her hairless head and her limbs speckled with holsters and straps. Flanking her on both sides, marching magnificently in her wake, were the breathtaking Celestians of the Order of Golden Light, their polished armour shining brilliantly in the startling beams of light.
“Chaplain Prathios,” said Ptolemea formally as the glittering group stepped out of the light and into the shadows before the great doors to the chapel. “We desire to speak with the captain.”
“He is indisposed at present,” replied Prathios, resolutely not looking back over his shoulder in the direction of Gabriel. “He is administering to his armour and preparing for battle.”
Ptolemea stared at Prathios for a moment, holding his even gaze with her fierce dark eyes. Her pale jaw clenched slightly and then her eyes flicked towards the closed doors. In fact, they were not fully closed. A crack of darkness seeped out of the middle, where the doors had not been pulled properly shut. In the interior beyond, a single javelin of light from the crack caught the kneeling figure of Gabriel at the altar, holding him in a weak spotlight as he appealed to the icons above the altarpiece.
In the dark depths of Ptolemea’s eyes, Prathios saw the reflected figure of his captain kneeling in supplication, held there as though contained as much in Ptolemea’s thoughts as in the chapel behind him. He took a step to the side, blocking Ptolemea’s view and watching the image of Gabriel blink out of her eyes. “I am sure that he will be pleased to receive you, if you would have the grace to be patient.”
“I understand that the battle has already begun,” replied Ptolemea, tilting her head slightly and looking deeply into the chaplain’s face. There was a challenge written somewhere in her thoughts. As though to underline her point, a loud explosion resounded in the distance. It was followed by a series of smaller detonations and the commencement of the general, muffled rattle of distant combat. In their pristine, golden helmets, the Celestians behind her turned their heads as one, instinctively turning to face the sounds of war outside the walls of the monastery.
“Indeed it has,” said Gabriel, pulling open the doors and stepping out from behind Prathios. “We have no time to lose. How may I assist you, Sister Ptolemea?”
“Captain Angelos,” bowed Ptolemea, her manner changing completely. “As you know, the Order of the Lost Rosetta is non-militant, but the Celestian Sisters of the Golden Light wish to fight at your side.”
Gabriel looked down at the top of Ptolemea’s bowed head for a couple of seconds; something had definitely changed in her manner towards him. She did not look up until he lifted his own gaze to the Battle Sisters behind her.
“Battle Sisters,” said Gabriel, looking from one to the other since he could find no indication or markings that might differentiate their ranks on their armour. “You do the Blood Ravens a great honour.”
The four Celestians bowed efficiently, and for a moment there was silence.
“They will not speak, captain,” explained Ptolemea. “The Order of Golden Light requires a vow of silence from their Celestians—in honour of their lost and fallen brethren.” She met his eyes, finally.
Gabriel nodded. He had heard of the ferocious piety of the order, but had never encountered any of their elite Celestian warriors before. He understood that they used no insignia to stipulate their ranks and provided nobody with their names—believing that all the Sisterhood was equal before the Emperor, equally devoted and utterly selfless. For such devout servants, there was no need for the differentiations of name and rank. They did not care for personal identities, but thought only of in whose name they would die.
“This is no time for talk,” smiled Gabriel, nodding a bow to the Celestians. “It is time for death.”
The eldar line burst through the immense dune that obscured the horizon, leaving the wreckage of the automatic gun emplacements out of sight in their wake. Columns of smoke and jets of flame that aspired towards the sun from the blindside of the dune lay testament to the ruined defences and to the few eldar craft that had fallen.
The bladed prows of the Wave Serpents cut through the base of the dune and punched out onto the smoother stretch of desert that approached the foothills and the imposing form of the Blood Ravens monastery. Huge clouds of sand were thrown up into the air, temporarily hiding the speeding, alien vehicles as they pressed on towards the waiting Marines. It was as though the desert itself was rising against them.
As soon as the first vehicle broke the dune, a volley of fire erupted from the line of Terminator Marines dug into the sand between the two Land Raiders that held the most advanced position in the Blood Ravens’ defensive arc. A torrent of shells lashed through the sand-riddled air before exploding into lethal shards of shrapnel as they impacted against the armour on the front of the eldar vehicles.
Only a fraction of a second later, the Land Raiders themselves opened up with the twin-linked lascannons housed in each of their side sponsons, streaking the dusky air with strips of brilliance. The Wave Serpents returned fire with a constant spray of tiny black shuriken, visible only because of the incredible numbers being unleashed—like clouds of night whining towards the Marines, blackening the sandstorms into a lethal menace.
As the impacts thudded into the sleek form of the eldar craft, they seemed to slow and pitch forward, driving their dual-pronged prows into the sand and half burying themselves, like a row of gravestones in the desert. The twin barrels mounted on their roofs pitched upwards, counterbalancing the unusual angle of the transporters themselves, and permitting them to continue firing relentlessly.
“Topheth,” said Tanthius, the vox bead in his ear whistling with feedback. “Get your bikes round behind them—they’re digging in.”
“Understood,” hissed the reply through the vox, but it was almost drowned out by the blast of sound that erupted as the attack bikes roared forward of the line and prowled out into the desert, curving round to the southeast.
“Necho. Let’s see what a little height will do,” suggested Tanthius, his storm bolter beginning to smoke from the constant stream of shells that was ripping out of it. He looked along the line of his battle-brothers in the Terminator squadron and he nodded to himself with pride—a relentless and formidable sheet of fire was ploughing out towards the aliens, like the Emperor’s fury made manifest. Not even the slippery and treacherous eldar could stand against the righteous ferocity of Blood Ravens Terminators.
This time there was no verbal response from the sergeant, but his reaction was rapid, obvious and dramatic. The roar of engines from the north reassured Tanthius and made him grin as he imagined the Assault squadron lifting majestically into the air from behind the furious line of Hilkiah’s Devastators, which was alive with the discharge of heavy weapons, filling the rapidly shortening killing zone with gouts of flame, pulses of melta and streaks of bolter shells.
“Your strategy seems sound, sergeant,” said Gabriel, striding up to the Terminator’s shoulder from the direction of the monastery behind the line. “I approve.” He nodded his helmet, communicating his admiration efficiently.
“Thank you, captain.” Tanthius turned to greet his captain, finding him at the head of a startling group of Battle Sisters, accompanied by Prathios and Father Jonas, all in full combat armour—a glorious and inspiring sight, even for a Terminator Marine. “The theatre is yours.” He bowed crisply.
Gabriel stood for a moment, staring over the rim of the long sand bunker that Tanthius had constructed in a crescent around the monastery. It wasn’t rockcrete and it certainly wasn’t an adamantium barrier, but it would serve its purpose. The eldar assault appeared to have stalled, and their transports had pitched themselves into the ground. From the north and south of the Blood Ravens tanks, vicious and relentless salvoes of fire lashed against the downed vehicles from the Devastator and Tactical squads, chipping away at their armour a
nd blowing great eruptions of sand out of the desert around them. The gun turrets on the roofs of the Serpents were still active, but the clouds of monomolecular projectiles being released were largely being absorbed by the sand banks around the Marines.
“Is this it?” asked Gabriel, disappointed. He had come to expect more from the eldar; they didn’t appear to be trying. “Where is the witch?”
As he spoke, the sand in the bunker wall started to tremble and shiver, as though something vast and heavy were approaching from the distance. Fine cascades began to slide and shift down the bank, drawing Gabriel’s attention from the eldar force in the desert. Gradually, the shuffling sands started to crackle with friction, sending little sparks of static arcing between the grains. After a few moments, the sparks had begun to coalesce and merge into pools of flickering energy, dark and shimmering. As Gabriel watched, the pools were drawn into streams running up the bank against gravity, merging and blending with others to form rivers and veins of pulsing darkness, spidering out across the desert towards the eldar like a great web.
Looking out into the desert, Gabriel could see that similar tendrils were being emitted from the eldar barricades, pulsing out towards the centre of the battlefield.
Suddenly, the sky seemed to crack and open out into space, as though some terrible god had reached down and ripped a gash into the planet’s atmosphere. A great javelin of darkness spiked into the contested desert between the Marines and the eldar, merging with the black lattice of tendrils in the sand, superheating and crystallising it instantly, rending the shifting tides suddenly solid and impenetrable.
As one, the Blood Ravens and the eldar stopped firing, all eyes turning up to the heavens to find the source of the unearthly blast. High up in the mesosphere there was a small, black starburst, like a jagged hole in the atmosphere itself. Beyond it seemed to glimmer an impossibly distant light, as though it were a window to the stars themselves.
When Gabriel looked down from the mysterious phenomenon, he saw dozens of eldar warriors emerging from behind the barricades of their pitched Wave Serpents, as though responding to this incredible signal. A stream of jetbikes hissed off towards the south, heading to intercept Topheth’s column of attack bikes, while neat formations of green and white troops went sprinting over the suddenly glassy, rocky ground, heading directly towards the Blood Ravens. In the centre of the vanguard was an elegant, female form that Gabriel found instantly familiar, surrounded by a coruscating sphere of blue energy that seemed to encompass the dark, shrouded figures at her side.
“For the Great Father and the Emperor!” yelled Gabriel, striding past Tanthius and vaulting up onto the crest of the artificial sandbank as he drew his chainsword.
A volley of fire rippled out of the Blood Ravens’ line, tearing into the advancing eldar forces, before the Marines clambered up out of their trenches with a resonating war-cry and charged forward in support of their captain—the golden Celestians storming forward with them like brilliant jewels in a wave of blood.
At exactly that moment, two jet-black vehicles slid into view on either side of the green and white wall of pitched Wave Serpents, spilling scores of shimmering black-armoured warriors into the desert, who immediately braced their long, heavy weapons and loosed a hail of projectiles into the charging line of Marines. Simultaneously, the strangely elongated gun turrets on the vehicles themselves erupted with light, sending spikes of brilliance searing through the gathering fury of battle, punching into the sheer, black walls of the Blood Ravens monastery itself. As the pulses of light faded, a glittering and magnificent eldar warrior appeared in the smoke on the roof of one of the Wave Serpents. He was taller than all the others and his armour shone with an eerie light as the elaborate crests around his ornate death mask fluttered in the desert winds. He braced a cannon in his hands and threw back his head, letting out a dark wail.
“This is more like it!” yelled Gabriel, rattling off bolter shells as he pounded across the desert.
“Yes,” agreed Tanthius, spying the magnificent foe on the distant dune. “This is much more like it.”
* * * * *
Her eyes were twitching, flickering erratically under her eyelids as though trying to trace the movement of a dream. The skin of her face was slick with perspiration, but it was cold as Ptolemea pressed her fingers against the older Sister’s cheek. Her loose, grey hair was matted and clumps clung to her forehead, soaked in the exertions of her nightmares.
“Meritia,” whispered Ptolemea, leaning her face down towards the Sister Senioris and pressing her lips against her ear, breathing her words against the clammy skin. “Meritia—what do you see?”
There was no response. The older woman’s arms lay limp by her sides, and her legs were stretched straight out on the tablet, unmoving. There was the faintest trace of breath, as though she were lost in a deep meditation.
Straightening up, Ptolemea looked away from her unconscious Sister, inspecting the little cell that had been her home for the last few years. It was neatly kept, as she had expected, with tightly packed shelves full of manuscripts, books and scrolls.
On the small desk, bathed in the light reflected from the mirror on the back of the chamber’s door, was a crisp adamantium tube with its seal broken and its lid discarded casually. Next to the tube was a rolled manuscript, clearly ancient but exceedingly well preserved. Meritia had apparently been consulting it recently, and Ptolemea unfurled a short section with mild curiosity. The script was cursive and elegant—some form of archaic High Gothic—and it appeared to be a folk tale of some kind.
Ptolemea unrolled a little more of the story, reading the unusual yet familiar script with ease. She nodded, accepting that this was exactly the kind of artefact that she should have expected to find in Meritia’s chambers, given that the older woman was charged with co-operating in the Blood Ravens’ investigation into their shadowy history. She lifted her hand from the desk and let the scroll roll back into a tube as she looked around the rest of the room.
To her mild surprise, Ptolemea found a weapon rack in an alcove cut into the window nook. It contained a pair of ornate bolt pistols with elaborately decorated handles, each inscribed with the chalice and star-burst insignia of the now disbanded Order of Lost Light. The alcove was covered by a rough, discoloured tapestry bearing the image of Canoness Silentia—one of the founding mothers of the Order of Lost Light—kneeling in supplication before the Golden Throne of the Emperor of Man.
Holding the tapestry back like a curtain, Ptolemea looked back over at Meritia and smiled slightly, silently impressed by this unexpected twist in her older Sister’s personality. There were agents back on Bethle II that would consider such a tapestry heretical on a number of different grounds: firstly, the canoness appears in the company of the Emperor himself, which was almost certainly an apocrypha, or at the very least a blasphemous crisis of narcissism; and secondly, the Order of Lost Light was disbanded and split into the non-militant Lost Rosetta and militant Golden Light for a good reason—any allegiance to such an unsanctioned institution would be frowned upon by the Ordo Hereticus, no matter how romantic the stories about it might be. And to possess artefacts from that organisation, particularly in the form of weapons, would certainly not be condoned; whilst the tapestry might conceivably be part of a research project, the ancient bolt pistols would be much harder to justify.
Perhaps I have underestimated the venerable Meritia, thought Ptolemea, intrigued. She made a mental note to report the pistols on her return to Bethle II, and then walked back over to the unconscious body of her Sister, stretched out on the stone tablet against the far wall. Gazing down at her face once more, she watched her hidden eyes twitch and flutter blindly. For a moment, she wondered whether the older woman’s nightmares would be anything like her own—they did seem to have more in common than she had thought.
As she turned to leave, pushing open the door and striding out of the chamber, heading down towards the dig in the foundations, an abrupt impact rocked t
he tower, knocking her off her feet and sending her stumbling against the cold, stone wall.
The eldar witch was alive with furious power, streaks of purple and blue flame pouring out of her fingertips. Surrounding her were a clutch of other psykers, bedecked in sinister black robes that fell in heavy folds, billowing as their smooth movements turned the cloaks into whirls. Flanking the psychic inferno were loose squadrons of warriors, each armoured in the familiar white and green of the Biel-Tan. Gabriel had seen those colours so recently, and his soul thrilled and shuddered simultaneously to see them again so soon after Tartarus. He had known that the farseer was there.
The fleet-footed eldar had rapidly closed the gap on the Blood Ravens’ line and engaged them at close range, capitalising on whatever distraction had suddenly rent the sky and petrified the ground. But the Marines had risen to the challenge, charging out of their positions with bolters blazing and their chainswords spluttering with thirst. Before long, the charge had splintered and fragmented, and Gabriel had found himself in the middle of a frenetic battlefield, surrounded by a crescendo of blades as the eldar and the Marines met each other in intimate ferocity.
Meanwhile, Topheth’s attack bikes were struggling to outflank the eldar jetbikes to the south, attempting to get around behind the killing zone to take on the pitch-black Wave Serpents and the sinister dark warriors that continued to blast away at the monstrous walls of the Blood Ravens monastery, firing salvo after salvo of thunderous light. But the jetbikes were too fast, and Topheth had been forced to change tactics and attempt a frontal assault.
Sergeant Necho had also identified the threat posed by the heavy weapons, and he too had angled his squad towards the jet-black eldar craft. His Assault Marines were already airborne, and they were striving to engage the Serpents from the north, spraying hails of bolter shells and capturing the enemy vehicles in a lethal rain of grenades. But they were being held at bay by the macabre-looking, black-armoured warriors that had spilled out of the transports, who had set up tiers of firing lines and were returning the fierce brutality of the Marines shot for shot, unleashing banks of projectiles from their unusual weapons. The magnificent warrior that had appeared on top of one of the Wave Serpents—presumably the leader of this dark force—had vaulted down from the vehicle and was running forward into the heart of the fray, howling with what might have been pleasure.
[Dawn of War 02] - Ascension Page 16