Angel of Fire

by William King

  Little did they know, I thought. Now I suspect that perhaps they did. There is more than one kind of revelation and certain souls are as drawn to the darkness as to the light.

  The sense of power around us was great. The air shimmered with it. It was like in one of those old religious paintings where the primarchs stand by the body of the fallen Emperor. There was the same sense of imminence of the immaterial, of the onrush of the transcendent.

  There were bodyguards within the chamber. They knew at once that there was something wrong. I could see just from the way their postures changed that they were immediately on guard. I opened fire with the shotgun. Fast as I was, Macharius was a long way faster. He shot the nearest, clubbed down a second with the butt of his pistol and blasted a third. With a motion almost too fast to follow he picked up one of the fallen heretic’s chainswords and slashed it through the knee of another. He was among them now, moving too fast for the eye to follow, killing everything within reach, almost as deadly as a Space Marine. The rest of us followed in his wake.

  We charged deeper and deeper into the sanctum of evil. It was a titanic chamber whose vaulted ceiling rose far above us. Enormous banners fluttered. Gigantic tapestries depicting yet more scenes of angelic triumph dripped from the walls. In the centre of the chamber was a huge altar above which loomed the inevitable metal angel. This one was only twice the size of a man but somehow it seemed larger, more pregnant with life and energy and mystical meaning. This one was somehow different, more life-like. The ominous flicker of its wings hinted at small movements as if it was somehow coming to life. There were fires in its inhuman eye-sockets which seemed to study the room. In the shadow of its wings, standing behind a massive metal lectern a man led the chanting. He was garbed in red, and his head was cowled. A metallic mask glittered from beneath the cowl. It was a perfect replica of the face of every angel I had seen in the city. On his chest was a convoluted holy symbol, the badge of his office. In his hand he held a ceremonial sword which reflected the flames so well it seemed to be afire itself.

  Rows and rows of chanting priests, hundreds of them, knelt in the open space around the altar, genuflecting towards their masked leader. My heart sank when I looked upon them for I remembered the havoc that but a single one had wrought on our old company. I paused, fully expecting to be burned alive in a firestorm of evil magic, but the robed mages merely kept intoning ritual words. All of their gazes were focused on the distant figure of the chief cultist. All of their voices echoed one vast evil chant.

  All of these psykers were wrapped up in some dreadful ritual, one that was coming close to its conclusion. I followed their gazes towards the centre of the chamber. I knew somehow, without needing to be told, that he was the focus of all this adoration, that all of the wicked power swirling around the room was flowing towards him and that his was the guiding intelligence behind the evil magic being worked here.

  Macharius obviously came to the same conclusion at the same time. He raced forwards like a champion running towards a confrontation with his ultimate foe. Drake followed him. Anna went with them, her movements a fluent dance. She shot and kicked and chopped with her bare hands and every movement was deadly. Wherever she went, men died.

  Voices shouted warnings. The heretics still did not quite understand what was going on. It was the only advantage that we had but we took all we could get from it. Macharius fought like one of the Emperor’s chosen. Everything that got in his way, he killed, using the chainsword with the ferocity of a daemon and the skill of a master swordsman. His pistol spoke again and again and every time it shot, a heretic went to join the damned souls in the warp.

  Drake was almost as effective. From his hands, deadly blasts of cold blue light emerged. The heretics screamed and fell over dead with no mark upon them. I found that even more frightening than the spells of the psykers. The rest of us blasted, stabbed and shot our way through the enemy ranks by whatever means we could.

  I put my shotgun to the head of the nearest pyromancer and pulled the trigger. His head exploded in a waterfall of brains and blood. It splattered the psyker beside him. I would have thought that would have got their attention but the chanting never even slowed down. They paid no attention to me. They just kept right on with their ritual. Behind me, I heard weapons go off and grenades explode and I realised the others were doing the same as I was. Perhaps it was not very chivalrous to kill those helpless men but they were involved in the work of daemons and I felt like we were doing the world a favour by ridding it of them.

  As more grenades exploded and more psykers died, a few of them emerged from their trance. When I looked into their eyes all I saw was flames. I knew things were going to get bad then but I did not care. I was wrapped up in killing, filled with a wild, mad rage and a lust to slaughter that was every bit as daemonic as the one that possessed these evil magicians.

  I shot and smashed heads with the butt of my shotgun. I kicked as well. I looked around and saw Macharius approach the High Priest of the Angel of Fire. He chopped at the man, who was clearly reeling, and not from the blow that the general had launched but from the backlash of his disrupted spell. Macharius slashed again with the chainsword. The pyromancer parried with his holy symbol and lost the head of it. He chopped back with his own weapon, knocking the pistol from the general’s hands.

  Drake extended his own arms and gestured and the blue light ravened out at the heretic leader. Nothing much seemed to happen. Macharius reached out for him and grabbed the glittering chain of office that dangled from his neck. He attempted to use it to hold the High Priest in place while he brought the chainsword to bear.

  The arch-heretic leapt backwards, twisting away from the incoming blow, the force of his movement breaking the chain and leaving the remnants dangling from Macharius’s hands. The High Priest fell over and scrambled away. More and more psykers were coming awake and aware now but there was something strange about them. They moved like automatons, as if their souls were still floating in some distant hell and only dimly connected to their bodies.

  Corporal Hesse took a bullet through his chest and then a hail of them through his body but somehow he kept moving, still shooting. Ivan staggered as a shell ricocheted off his metal cheeks. Macharius looked around for his prey, failed to find him and then jammed something in the body of the metal statue with blazing wings. He dived to one side as it exploded and only then did I realise what he had done.

  He had set a grenade into the gas-tubes and started a chain reaction of explosions within it. A huge gout of flame erupted, setting fire to the ceremonial hangings. The air began to fill with the stink of smoke and flame and burning flesh. Drake stood outlined by some aura that protected him and Macharius. I gestured for the others to follow me and we scrambled towards them. I have no idea why I did that.

  We seemed to have run out of options.

  Casualty List Hesse

  Corroborative Evidence Cross-Reference 42K9- Cross-Reference J6. Under seal.

  Extract from Record of Deaths, Battlegroup Sejanus, Karsk Campaign 05.07.40012

  Quota Record Form 6a

  Approved: Varisov, L, Colonel 7th Belial

  Compiled: Parzival, K, Captain 7th Belial

  Forwarded to Battlegroup HQ, Karsk

  Section 124: Record of Deaths in Combat

  Site: Irongrad.

  Hesse, O, Corporal, Imperial Baneblade Indomitable.

  Cause of Death: Enemy Action.

  Notes: Recommended for Order of Merit, Gates of Irongrad, Approved Pending Investigation.

  Twenty-One

  Flames tore through the chamber. The robes I was wearing started to smoulder. The backwash of heat made my eyes suddenly dry. The smoke made me cough. Most of the heretics were untouched by the flames. The heat and the fire did not seem to affect them. I kept moving towards Inquisitor Drake and Macharius and Anna. I felt sure that the inquisitor’s shield would offer some protection but I was not certain that it would enable any of us to survive once the heret
ics decided to extinguish our lives.

  Anton and Ivan were right behind me and the Understudy was with them. I looked around to see if I could see Corporal Hesse. I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye and wished that I had not. He was still alive. His uniform was ablaze. He was screaming and his flesh was starting to melt and run. Large chunks had been torn off by the explosion and blackened skin stood out against white bone. I was going to turn back and help him but the crowd was already starting to close around him as more and more of the heretic bodyguards entered the great chamber.

  I dived within the bubble of energy surrounding the inquisitor. I landed with one arm on Anna’s shoulder and withdrew it swiftly before she could break it. It was stupid. She had already decided I was not an enemy or she would have killed me. Immediately the air felt cooler and the sound of explosion and fire and screaming was dulled as if heard through a thick armourglas window. We glared around, desperate, at once seeking escape and sure of the fact that we would not find it. Macharius looked at Drake.

  ‘Is there anything you can do?’ He did not look defeated. He was simply asking if there were any options. There was no fear written on his face. I’m sure it was inscribed on mine.

  I looked around. There was no sign of the High Priest. He seemed to have disappeared into the fire and smoke. I wished we could do the same. Drake gestured for us to follow him and began to move towards the wall. I’m guessing that he had some sense other than sight to guide him, because I could see nothing through that fearful blaze.

  Behind us, the kneeling heretics began to stir from their trance. Possibly the bodyguards were trying to fight their way forwards through the flames – I could not see them, so there was no way to tell. I simply tried to keep close to the inquisitor because I had no idea what would happen if I stumbled outside the sphere of protection that he currently radiated.

  Ahead of us, I saw an archway. We passed through it and down a flight of stairs, moving as fast as we could, trying to put as much distance between ourselves and any pursuit as was possible. We had no idea what we were doing now, not even Macharius, I am sure. Our plan had been to disrupt the ritual and kill the High Priest if we could.

  He had escaped us even though Macharius still held his chain of office clenched in his fist. I was not sure why he still had it. Perhaps he was planning on keeping it as a souvenir if ever we got out of this place.

  We raced downstairs and encountered more guards coming up. We must have been quite a sight. Our robes were burned and smouldering and we were surrounded by a halo of power. We did not give them any chance to react. We did not pause to bluff. We gave no thought to the fact that there might be hundreds of them coming towards us.

  We simply leapt into battle. Macharius was in the lead, chopping with the chainsword that he still held, shooting with a pistol that he had picked up somewhere. Nothing short of a Space Marine could have stood against him at that moment. He fought like a berserk ork, full of terrifying fury with no regard for his own safety.

  At least, that’s the way it looked. I’m sure that within his calculating brain he had already worked out the odds of survival and attacking with such passionate fury was simply what he thought to be the optimal strategy. In any case, he cut his way down to a landing, leaving a trail of dead and dismembered bodies behind him, painting the walls with blood and entrails. We raced along in his wake, shooting survivors, putting the wounded out of their misery and occasionally, when we got a clear shot, aiming over his shoulders and taking out some of the enemy ahead.

  I fought almost back to back with Macharius. A screaming heretic dived towards him, aiming the butt of a lasgun at the back of the general’s head. Macharius turned a fraction of a second too late to stop him. I could tell from the expression on his face that he knew the heretic was going to connect. I pulled the trigger on the shotgun. The force of the blast knocked the heretic backwards even as it sprayed Macharius with his blood. The general nodded to me in acknowledgement of what I had done and returned to killing. I saved Macharius’s life there but it’s certain he saved mine a dozen times simply by killing the enemy near me. Under the circumstances it seemed impolitic to keep score although I am certain, in this, as with so many things, Macharius forgot nothing. His nod was in recognition of a debt between us, one that would eventually be repaid.

  When I was not there to cover his back Anna was, moving gracefully, precisely and with eye-blurring speed. She seemed as inhuman as a Space Marine as she kicked and clawed and shot. She had the same terrifying speed and grace.

  I’ll say one thing for the heretics – they were brave. Even in the face of Macharius’s terrifying rampage they stood their ground and were killed to a man. Maybe they simply had no choice. Maybe they did not have time to realise what was happening. To me, everything seemed to be happening with the slowness of a nightmare, which is often the way things happen when you’re in combat. Taken by surprise, perhaps they simply did not have time to react and what I think of as courage was simply a stunned lack of response.

  Suddenly the fight was over. The heretics were all dead. We stood on a huge landing that looked out over one side of the cathedral. Beneath us an army of fire-winged angels stood poised for flight. Above us, in the central sanctuary, explosions still raged.

  ‘At least we’ve disrupted the ritual,’ said Drake. ‘And bought ourselves some time.’

  ‘How much?’ Macharius asked.

  Drake shook his head. ‘Perhaps a day, if we are lucky.’

  Looking around I could see the same look of disappointment on every face, except that of Macharius. After the carnage we had wrought, we had hoped for more.

  ‘The High Priest is still alive. He is the locus of all this,’ said Drake. ‘The vessel of all the power. He will be able to bring the psychic backlash under control. I am sure of it.’

  ‘It looks like we need another plan,’ Macharius said, obviously not a man to let a little adversity discourage him.

  ‘What are we going to do now, sir?’ I asked. He turned and stared out the window for a moment, looking at all of the aircars flying below us.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Macharius said. ‘There’s nothing more to be done in the city. We won’t get another chance at the High Priest of the Angel of Fire. They’ll be on their guard now.’

  Drake shook his head wearily. He was tired and pale but you could see that a formidable will still drove him onwards. He was not going to admit to any weakness in front of us. I doubt very much that the man had admitted to any weakness even to himself. He was that sort. ‘We still need to stop them. We’ve delayed the ritual for a while. They’ll start again soon and their daemon-god will manifest himself on the surface of this world.’

  ‘We need an army to break through,’ Anton said, scratching his face with one long, claw-like hand.

  ‘Precisely,’ Macharius said. ‘We need an army. Fortunately we know where to find one. And at least we have located the exact point at which we must strike.’

  I was astonished by Macharius’s definition of good fortune. Apparently, as far as he was concerned, all we needed to do was make contact with our forces on the surface of Karsk and the problem would be solved.

  From the look on his face, you could tell that the general thought that this would prove no insuperable obstacle. Drake nodded agreement. Under the circumstances, I don’t suppose there was anything else he could do. Macharius did not look mad. He looked like a man in full possession of his senses. I suppose in a way he was. He had decided that there was only one way to save the situation and that we needed to proceed accordingly, and there was nothing that I could really disagree with in that. So even if hundreds of leagues separated us from our army, we were going to have to make contact with it.

  ‘We will have to do it soon,’ Drake said. ‘We’ve done no more than buy ourselves a little time.’

  ‘Then we’d best get going,’ Macharius said in a tone that brooked no dispute.

  Macharius had already decid
ed the best way out of the city. His brain never stopped calculating, even when the odds against him seemed insurmountable. ‘We need to get to the airfield and we need to get our hands on a flyer.’

  He had it all worked out in his mind you see, and he could say things like that as if we were not on our own in the middle of a hostile city. And for all the self-evident madness of his words, there was a confidence about him that made you believe it was possible. We walked through the cathedral as if we were flanked by Chapters of Space Marines, with Macharius in the lead and Drake just behind him and the five of us, the Understudy, Anton, Ivan, the New Boy and myself swaggering to the rear.

  Fortunately for us everything in the cathedral was in chaos. The surviving prisoners must have put up an epic fight against the heretics and it seemed as if the sheer boldness of our attack on the High Priest had stunned them.

  I could understand why. If I had been in their position I would not have believed that so small a group of men would have assaulted so strongly held a position myself.

  In any case, it worked to our advantage. We raced through the chaos, just one more group of uniformed men, apparently dithering as the heretics tried to reassert control of the situation. We did our best to keep to the emptier ways of the cathedral but when we had to, we shouldered our way across packed corridors and massive naves with all the confidence that Macharius inspired.

  No one questioned us and soon, by devious ways, we found ourselves on an emergency walkway, looking down over one of the massive gas pipes that fed the fires of the cathedral. We raced across it. It was as broad as a military highway. I caught a clear view of the roiling crowd below us. The vast open space around the cathedral was filled with people. They screamed and chanted the name of the Angel of Fire. Obviously, they knew that something was going on within the cathedral and it had stirred them to the edge of the abyss of fanatical madness.