Space Marine Legends: Azrael

by Gav Thorpe

  Upon a dais some twenty metres distant the largest of the displays loomed over the macabre exhibition. Great loops of intestinal ropes hung down from the walls, glistening with fluid. Where they joined, a robed figure squatted on all fours, bat-wings furled upon its back. Its startlingly youthful face was a picture of ecstatic joy, eyes uplifted, mouth slightly parted.

  With a screech like metal tearing, the figure stood, not a statue at all. Its wings stretched out with a drawn-out creak.

  Vermillion eyes regarded Azrael from an impassive face as the Dark Summoner seemed to continue to uncoil, robes billowing like a cloud boiling from an abyss.

  ‘You have destroyed so many of my toys.’ The voice came from all around the chamber, issuing from the mouths of gargoyle figures set into the walls several metres above Azrael. ‘Now I will destroy you, vulgar one.’

  ‘Here you die, spawn of the night,’ Azrael declared. He advanced with the Sword of Secrets held ready for the attack. ‘Your unholy existence ends now.’

  The Supreme Grand Master felt a pulse of energy emanate from the sorcerer – nothing he could see or hear, just a sensation that jagged along his nerves and made his bones itch.

  A babble of groans, gargling and moans swelled up around him. Uttering piercing shrieks and plaintive wails, the things he had taken to be sculptures roused from their dormancy and threw themselves at him. A bronze golem with shards of ice for fingers tried to seize his throat while a crow-faced satyr pounced upon his back, wrapping a cold metal arm across his face.

  Sword in hand, Azrael punched the golem in the face, cracking open the cast metal. He hacked his blade into the monstrosity that followed it, before throwing himself backwards into the wall to smash apart the thing that clawed across his back.

  Ezekiel appeared, Traitor’s Bane burning as though pure white flame, parting every creature it touched. At his shoulder advanced Maldarion; forks of purging lightning flared from his fingertips. An inhuman shriek boiled out of the speakers above and the animated figurines turned from Azrael to fall upon the psykers.

  Azrael knew better than to waste the opportunity bought by the attack of his battle-brothers. Sword in hand, he set off down the hall, intent on the sorcerer.

  The Night Lord warlock sensed his approach and turned his head. Closer, Azrael realised that the face was in fact a mask, the ruddy light coming from behind a smoothly fashioned visage.

  With a contemptuous flick of a hand, the sorcerer hurled a bolt of blackness at the Dark Angel. It caught him full in the chest, but rather than the concussive impact he expected, instead he found himself entangled with strands of solid shadow that multiplied and lengthened, pressing against the joints of his armour as they sought ingress. Hooked tendrils flailed outwards, latching onto the walls and floor, and then constricted rapidly, trying to drag Azrael down.

  He pulled and slashed, parting a few of the dark strands but others took their place, splitting and growing from the knot burning into his plastron. He glanced down and swallowed hard as a single lidless red-pupiled eye regarded him from the centre of the black mass.

  Choking back his disgust, Azrael let Lion’s Wrath drop and seized hold of the warp-spawn. His fingers slid into the amorphous mass, which seethed and congealed, spreading up his arms to engulf the vambraces of his armour.

  Questing tendrils sought out his face, probing at his eyes, slipping loops about his head and throat. Tearing free a fist was like pulling his arm from set ferrocrete. The puckered wound quivered for a moment, revealing ichor-slicked innards before sealing.

  Azrael snatched a frag grenade from his belt and primed it in his fist. Teeth gritted, he plunged his hand back into the monstrous creature.

  The thing’s otherworldly form contained most of the blast, though Azrael felt the heat and shock reverberate through his trapped hands. The warp-leech thrashed in pain and Azrael tensed, pulling his arms apart at the moment of its greatest spasm.

  Ragged remains came away in his fists and he swung hard, pulping them repeatedly against the floor with relentless hard blows, smashing its flowing form against the metal again and again. The creature’s tentacles melted away into oily trails, releasing Azrael from their grip.

  He took up his weapons, turned on the Dark Summoner and opened fire.

  Plasma splashed across the sorcerer, a fountain of white and blue droplets of fire sprayed across the dais. When the glow of the impact dissipated the sorcerer remained, unharmed.

  Azrael had expected as much and was already running, a stream of bolts roaring from Lion’s Wrath. Under the cover of this distraction, bolts exploding harmlessly across the torso of the Night Lords psyker, he leapt up to the dais, the Sword of Secrets already swinging.

  A clawed, jointed appendage lashed out from within the folds of the sorcerer’s robes. The limb caught Azrael’s elbow, turning aside his blow.

  A second extra arm speared into the softer joint material exposed under Azrael’s shoulder, driving deep into the flesh. Shock coursed through him and blood poured out of the wound from the severed axillary artery within.

  Azrael staggered back, his sword arm numb. His heel missed the edge of the dais and he toppled backwards, a fresh spray of blood exiting the wound as he fell free of the puncturing limb.

  It felt like an age, the gleam of the sorcerer’s eyes bright in his vision, before he crashed onto the deck and everything went black for a moment.

  Shaking his head, clawing for the Sword of Secrets with his left hand, Azrael stared in disbelief as the sorcerer seemed to grow. As well as the additional arms, four arachnid legs pushed out from beneath the robes, lifting up the inhuman warrior.

  Rolling to his feet, gasping and panting, Azrael glanced away to see Ezekiel bursting free from a crowd of puppet-statues, Traitor’s Bane pointed at the sorcerer. Maldarion lay unmoving at the Chief Librarian’s feet, his robes torn to shreds, armour split open in dozens of places.

  Azrael lifted his blade to deflect a scything claw as the sorcerer stepped down from the dais. The force of the blow almost knocked the Sword of Secrets from his weakening grip. The tendril-cables detached from the Dark Summoner’s body, pouring filthy effluent and dark bile into pools across the deck.

  ‘Kill it!’ he bellowed to Ezekiel, hoping that with the death of the sorcerer the creatures it animated across the ship would also cease.

  Ezekiel hacked the head from a troll-like assailant made of fired clay and threw out a fist. White fire pulsed across the hall to envelop the sorcerer. The Night Lord let out a screech from the speaker-gargoyles and scuttled backwards.

  One arm hanging uselessly, sword in his other fist, Azrael advanced with deadly purpose. His superhuman blood had stemmed the bloodflow, though a thin trickle continued to drip down his armour and spread a crimson stain across his off-white robe. A fork of emerald lightning flared past to crackle across the sorcerer’s body. Its robes had burned away, revealing chitin-covered abdomen and thorax. The wings flapped ineffectually, not large enough to lift its bulk.

  ‘I am the beacon,’ said Azrael. ‘I am the light.’

  He thrust the Sword of Secrets into the burning breast of the Dark Summoner. Sparks flew as the blade shrieked across its infernal hide, leaving nothing more than a ragged scratch.

  He slashed with the edge of the blade, but a raised arm deflected the attack, at the expense of nothing more than a shallow notch in the sorcerer’s armoured exoskeleton.

  A barb-footed leg lashed out, catching Azrael in the gut, hurling him back several metres. He kept his footing this time, but before he could counter-attack, another spider limb cracked against his wounded shoulder to send sparks of pain burning through his mind.

  Together. Ezekiel’s voice was like the cool of a stream, cleansing the pain and hurt, calming and familiar. We strike together, brother.

  Azrael held aloft the Sword of Secrets. A moment later a flash of power engulfed it, setting the silver blade gleaming along its length.

  He lunged, spearing the tip of the
shining blade into the point where a human’s heart would be. The sorcerer twisted to avoid the blow, but the enchanted sword lanced through chitin and muscle, driving deep into the Dark Summoner’s thorax.

  Strength ebbed from Azrael as he pushed harder and harder. The combined blow of two spider-arms threw him back again, his plastron almost broken in half, chest burning with fresh pain. He kept his grip tight on his sword as he fell, pulling it free from the sorcerer’s wounded body.

  The seer’s stone. Its touch will scorch the daemon within.

  Azrael could hear the screech and pound of fists and claws against the Chief Librarian’s armour and knew his companion was about to be overwhelmed. His near lifeless fingers fumbled at the pouch.

  The Dark Summoner loomed high on its many legs, two limbs upraised, a crackle of black power pulsing between them.

  The pouch snapped open, dropping Walker on Grey Path’s gem into his palm. He almost dropped it, ducking as a rush of black sparks erupted from the eye holes in the sorcerer’s mask.

  With his left hand Azrael swung the Sword of Secrets at the Night Lord’s head. The sorcerer flinched, but not quickly enough. The tip of the blade shattered its mask, revealing a nest of writhing maggots where its face should have been.

  But the blow was just a feint. Azrael punched his right hand into the wound opened up by his earlier blow, sinking his fist deep into the thick tissue within.

  He felt the otherworldly warmth of the spirit stone growing stronger until it started to burn his fist. He kept his grip tight as sparks of gold erupted from the wound. Silver and green light pulsed, while motes of red and purple started to flash across the sorcerer’s chitinous shell.

  The Dark Summoner froze, immobilised by the pulse of power thrust into its heart. Azrael thought his hand would be consumed, flesh and bone charred by the burning of the spirit stone, but still he did not pull away.

  Cracks appeared in the armoured skin of the Night Lord, each erupting with a faint silvery gleam. Like glass fracturing, the sorcerer fell apart, collapsing into tiny shards at Azrael’s feet.

  Azrael found himself standing with fist out-thrust, flakes of blackness fluttering around him like ash. The clatter of metal and crash of stone accompanied the collapse of the Dark Summoner’s animated minions.

  The Dark Angel’s hand was cold. He opened his fist and a trickle of silver and gold dust spilled between his fingers. Of the stone, nothing remained.

  He turned, hand still outstretched, and looked to Ezekiel. The Chief Librarian stood among a pile of twisted metal, stone pieces and broken pottery, his robe torn away, ceramite chipped and scratched from many blows.

  Ezekiel shook his head to the silent question.

  ‘The eldar told me only that the stone contained a portion of his energy,’ said the Librarian, ‘anathema to the powers of darkness and the spawn of the warp.’

  Azrael accepted this without further question, somewhat dazed by the turn of events. He looked back to where the Dark Summoner had been. A ring of charred black stained the dais and deck where the possessed sorcerer had been immolated, but there was no other sign of its existence. Even the meat tendrils that had linked it to the ship had withered away.

  He realised the pain in his arm had gone. He flexed his shoulder, feeling a dull ache. Whatever power had destroyed the daemon-kin had also partly healed his injury.

  ‘We shall not leave our dead in this damned place.’ Ezekiel’s softly spoken words snapped him from his fugue. The Librarian stooped and picked up Maldarion’s body. ‘Lead on.’

  They found Asmodai guarding the door. Beside the shattered ruin of the two Night Lords Terminators lay several more power armoured bodies contorted by violent demise. One side of the Chaplain’s skull-helm was cracked and he had lost his right pauldron. He kicked a body out of the way to clear the footing for Ezekiel.

  ‘This whole ship should be purged,’ said the Chaplain.

  ‘We do not have the time, brother,’ replied Azrael. ‘We must return to Rhamiel as swiftly as possible.’

  They rejoined Dalgar, Cathas and the Terminators, and retrieved the body and weapon of Garvel on the way back to the eldar threadway gate. Belial moved with the support of his squad-brothers as they continued back to the chamber by which they had entered.

  The corpses of the puppet-slaves littered the chambers and hallways, swiftly rotting now that they had been released from their unnatural animation. If any living warriors of the Night Lords survived on the ship, they were willing to allow the Dark Angels to depart without further molestation. If Azrael knew anything of their kind, it was likely they had already started murdering one another to establish dominance.

  They reached the point of ingress and waited.

  ‘Can you send a signal or something?’ Cathas asked the Librarians. ‘Tell the witch that we are here?’

  ‘She knows,’ replied Ezekiel.

  As though in confirmation of his words, the far wall started to shimmer. Like water disappearing down a plughole, the air swirled as the gate opened, revealing a white-gold flicker of power that expanded to encompass the entire wall.

  Blade of Winter Tears emerged, sword at the ready. She gestured once, an insistent wave of the hand.

  ‘Hurry, warriors of the Emperor! We have destroyed our foe, but uneasy peace holds on the world below.’

  Azrael was not sure how long he had been away from the surface, but by rough reckoning he knew it had to be close to sundown – the deadline for his order to attack the eldar.

  ‘Tarry not,’ he told the others. ‘We have no time to waste.’

  Date Ident: Unknown

  Azrael ran along the endless tunnel, with the Librarians and Chaplains close behind. The Terminators followed after as quickly as their massive suits allowed, bearing the bodies of the dead.

  Unlike the trek to the sorcerer’s ship, he felt no dislocation or confusion. A thought burned in him, kept him focused as the seemingly timeless journey continued. A single desire carried him through the fatigue and aches that gripped his body. Azrael was possessed by urgency. He cared little for the lives of the eldar, or any expectation they might have for coexistence, but if his brothers attacked there would be casualties amongst the Chapter. Needless casualties.

  If he was to prosecute the Hunt as best he could, Azrael needed every warrior fighting fit, every commander and member of the Inner Circle all striving for the same aim. He would not start his time in command of the Dark Angels by throwing away the lives of his warriors.

  The eldar warlock kept an effortless pace beside the Space Marines, seeming to float along the infinite passage. It was impossible to guess at the thoughts of such a strange creature, but Azrael had to think that Blade of Winter Tears shared his concern, only hers was for the lives of her kind. And, he suspected no small measure of self-preservation, for she was surrounded by a dozen of the Emperor’s finest warriors, whose wrath would be swift if they discovered battle had broken out on Rhamiel.

  Without ceremony or word, Blade of Winter Tears darted ahead, blade flashing once before she disappeared through the cloven veil of reality.

  Grunting, Azrael sprinted after, one moment racing along the immaterial threadway, the next pounding across the dark ground of the battlefield almost exactly where he had left. His boots skidded in the dust and grit as he came to a halt.

  Date Ident: 114940.M41#1745

  Azrael looked left and right, letting out an explosive breath when he saw his warriors arrayed along the walls of the aegis-line, tanks prowling back and forth before them while gunships circled overhead. Bright scarlet-and-black eldar grav-tanks swept majestically past, emitting barely a noise, weaving around each other in complex formation manoeuvres while jetbikes raced alongside.

  One of the giant eldar walkers had survived the battle and stood half a kilometre away, its long cannons trained at the central command tower. Azrael had no doubt that in orbit Dark Angels ships had precise firing solutions locked into their targeting systems, to unlea
sh a deadly bombardment the moment hostilities began.

  Rhamiel’s star was three-quarters set, a dull purple arc on the horizon, the shadows long.

  Blade of Winter Tears stopped a short distance ahead. The other eldar psykers gathered around her protectively, a nimbus of energy gleaming from their swords in the twilight. Azrael heard the wheeze of Ezekiel’s armour just behind and the deep growl of Asmodai.

  ‘Stay your weapons,’ Azrael warned them. His swift assessment of the situation left him with no doubts. Though the Dark Angels held a strong line, the eldar’s skimmers would swiftly negate any advantages of the defences. On a personal note, battered and weary from his confrontation with the Dark Summoner, and a similar toll doubtless taken on his companions, he was not sure of victory against the cabal of eldar psykers close at hand.

  He felt a momentary relief when Walker on Grey Paths stepped out of the group, staff in hand, blade sheathed. The farseer approached at a stately walk, eye lenses fixed on Azrael. Unease quickly returned when he remembered what had happened to the spirit stone the farseer had given him. Would there be retaliation?

  ‘The Dark Summoner has been destroyed, Azrael of the Dark Angels,’ said Walker on Grey Paths. ‘The banishment of the Painted Count has been fortified and the servants of the Dark Powers will assail this world no more. A catastrophe for my people has been averted.’

  ‘Your... The stone...’ Azrael slid the Sword of Secrets into its scabbard and held out his hands, empty palms up. ‘I used the power of the gem to destroy the sorcerer. It... It is no more.’

  ‘I know.’ The two words were simply said, but carried a plethora of meanings – of expectation, of foreknowledge, of an understanding deeper than he would ever achieve. And accusation, reminding him of his demands for a sacrifice.