Dante

by Guy Haley

  Malafael stared down at Dante.

  ‘I believe what I saw,’ said Dante.

  Malafael regarded him a moment longer. ‘There is something else I wish to show you.’

  They went to the side of the great altar. In a niche in the side was a tall brass cylinder worked with marvellous fretwork of beasts and angels intertwined, hunting one another through the foliage of an alien forest. ‘This is the Reliquary of Amit, forged by the founder of the Flesh Tearers, one of Sanguinius’ most favoured sons. Our brotherhood extends beyond this Chapter, remember that. All of Sanguinius’ descendants are close.’

  ‘It is beautiful,’ said Dante.

  ‘Study hard, and you might craft the like. However, it is but a housing for the greater glory within.’

  The Chaplain lifted the crux terminatus badge hanging on a chain around his neck, and pressed it to a lock-stud hidden in the fretwork. The flicker of an energy field played over the reliquary as it shut off. A soft illumination shone through the holes in the metal, and the doors opened silently. Floating in a stasis field was an enormous feather, as long as Dante’s leg.

  ‘This is one of the pinions of our lord Sanguinius. It was dropped into the stasis field as it was activated. It has, in effect, been falling for nine and a half thousand years. It is said that as long as it remains suspended and touches not the unclean floor, the sons of the Great Angel shall never fail. See here these flecks of blood, red as the day they were spilled?’ He pointed. ‘That is his blood, the same blood that now flows in your veins. It is immeasurably precious. There are only two sources of our father’s blood that have not been adulterated by inclusion in the living vessels of the Sanguinary Priests. That contained in the Blood Ruby of the lord commander’s mask, and that upon this feather here.’

  ‘It is enormous.’

  ‘This is one of the smaller ones, a secondary from his left wing. Sanguinius was a towering figure. I have visited the mausoleum of Roboute Guilliman on Macragge, where the body of the Ultramarines primarch sits in stasis. The primarchs are past our understanding, Dante, as far beyond us as you are beyond the boy you were. They were beings beyond mortal comprehension, and they had many gifts.’ He regarded Dante again. ‘Among our lord’s abilities was the power of foresight, inherited from his own father, the Emperor, Lord of Mankind. The size of our Librarium attests to our primarch’s psychic might, for we are shaped by him as much as we were by our birth fathers. His second sight exhibits itself sometimes in our ranks, even in those who are not in other ways considered to be psychic. So tell me, have you had any other visions, Dante?’

  Dante hesitated. ‘There are the dreams, my lord, of strange battles,’ he offered.

  ‘We all share those, the death pangs of Sanguinius and fragments of his recollections. You will grow used to them, or they will destroy you. I speak of foretelling only. Do you have dreams that come to pass? Or waking visions like the one of the Sanguinor?’

  ‘None, my lord.’

  ‘There is nothing more you can tell me of the encounter with the Sanguinor?’

  Dante shook his head. ‘It seemed… sad. And caring.’

  ‘There are certain writings in the Scrolls of Sanguinius…’ Malafael trailed off into reflection.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  Malafael took in another deep breath, and his voice quickened. ‘It means, neophyte, that I shall be keeping an even closer watch on you. Have you told anyone of this?’

  ‘No,’ said Dante.

  ‘Good. I forbid you to speak of it with anyone else. Such knowledge would be dangerous, in the wrong hands. Now you are dismissed. May the Blood flow vital in your veins.’

  ‘But, my lord–’

  Malafael cut him off with a chop of his hand. ‘No more questions. Be content with what I have told you, and that you have laid eyes upon one of our most holy relics. To ask too much suggests a lack of humility. Pray that tendency does not undo you. Now return to your lessons.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FIRST COMMAND

  467.M40

  Ash Wastes

  Rora

  Eudymimous System

  Dante pushed the bike as hard as he dared, sending it hurtling over the ash plains of Rora. Dust hung on the air behind him, showing his position as clearly as a banner, but the time for discretion had gone.

  He gunned the engine, sending the bike up the side of an ash dune. His breathing mask made a warning chime; its filters were beginning to clog. He glanced at the combat bike’s rune display in case the engine intakes were suffering the same. Dante seemed to spend all the time he wasn’t fighting on Rora cleaning air filters, reciting prayers to the machine-spirit of his mount. Thankfully, today it was breathing clearly.

  He half jumped the ridge at the top of the dune. The wheels spun on the slipface of the dune, the vehicle skiing down the loose ash. He checked a skid, dropped gears and accelerated as he hit the bottom. Waves of ash slumped behind him, burying his tracks.

  Lorenz was on lookout by the abandoned pumping station, Dante’s keen Space Marine eyes picking out his camouflaged position from hundreds of yards away.

  He pushed the combat bike hard up the slope. The ground around the station was firmer, and his mount growled with pleasure as it surged to the base of the pumping tower. Dante brought it to a halt by his friend and shut off the engine.

  ‘You’re late,’ said Lorenz, slipping his magnoculars back into their case.

  Dante dusted ash off the combat bike’s faring. Its red livery was covered in a thin layer of grey. ‘I had company,’ he said. He got off the combat bike and genuflected in thanks to the machine. ‘Ork scouts.’

  ‘Were you followed?’ said Lorenz. The bike’s engine ticked as it cooled. Loose plates of rusted metal banged forlornly on the pumping tower.

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ said Dante. ‘We don’t have much time.’ He grabbed the combat bike’s handlebars and pushed it past the tower towards the station interior. The strength gifted him by the Emperor’s arts astounded him still. Massive with armour plates and an enormous engine, the bike weighed nigh on a ton, but he could move it without difficulty.

  Water had once been pumped up from the aquifers of the hills by the station. They had been sucked dry millennia ago, their replenishment ceasing as Rora made its sure and sorry progression from living planet to Imperial hive world. The vast reservoir tanks that surrounded it had collapsed, leaving faint ring-shaped outlines in the sand. The control complex was barely more sound: it was choked with fine ash, jagged holes corroded into its sides. In empty, crumbling machine halls the Scouts camped, their bikes and bivouacs out of sight of prying xenos eyes.

  There were two squads. Sixteen neophytes and two brother-sergeants to guide them through the last stage of their training. Sergeant Gallileon was the senior, a warrior with half a millennium’s experience in training Scouts. He was a grizzled man with a biting sense of humour, his angelic face scarred by centuries of battle. Sergeant Arael was his second in this campaign, young enough to remember the trials of Scouthood and quick to form bonds with his charges as a consequence.

  Gallileon seemed to sense Dante before he saw him. He was explaining something to five of Dante’s comrades, sketching in the grey dust burying the floor, but he stood as soon as Dante came into the room, and beckoned to him.

  Dante had liked walking through the Scouts barracks as they made their way to the hangars of the Arx Angelicum a few weeks before. The unassigned neophytes looked on jealously, a feeling Dante was glad not to have to endure any more. The younger Scouts had years before they would come anywhere near a battlefield. Dante and his intake were near the end of their journey. All they lacked was the black carapace and the power armour to go with it. The full panoply of war would soon be theirs. Over all things, Dante yearned for a jump pack, to fly like a true angel. He tingled with anticipation thinking of it. But this deployment had been the longest and most gruelling yet, and Dante had come to miss the spartan comforts of the tr
aining halls.

  ‘Dante,’ said Gallileon. ‘What news from Captain Rodrigo?’ The sergeant led the Scout into an adjoining room, far enough from the others that they could not eavesdrop.

  ‘The orks are moving on the primary hive, brother-sergeant,’ said Dante quietly, aware of his brothers’ enhanced hearing. ‘The lord captain asks that we rejoin the main force. This is to be the final blow. Our covert operations are to end immediately, and we are free to abandon vox silence.’ He withdrew a message tube from his combat webbing and handed it to his superior. ‘It’s all in there.’

  ‘He told you all this?’

  ‘Yes, brother-sergeant.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Gallileon, opening the tube and removing the scroll inside. He read the contents with one glance, and rolled it up again. ‘Well, that’s it, all as you said.’

  ‘There’s more, brother-sergeant. The area around Rodrigo’s forward post was swarming with ork outriders. I was seen.’

  Gallileon cocked an eyebrow. ‘Unavoidable, I suppose?’

  Dante nodded. Gallileon’s gaze bored into him, releasing Dante’s excuses. ‘This time, yes, brother-sergeant. I had to ride for my life. I lost them, but they will have picked up my trail.’

  Gallileon was displeased. ‘Be more careful in future. Tell me at least that you exacted a heavy soul tally from them.’

  ‘Four dead, at least,’ said Dante.

  Gallileon placed a hand on Dante’s shoulder and guided him back into the main hall. Murmured conversations ceased. All eyes went to Dante and Gallileon.

  ‘Scouts of the Tenth Company!’ shouted Gallileon. ‘Prepare for battle. The orks are approaching our position, and we must fight free of them. We have been ordered to rejoin the strike group. Today we shall destroy the ork threat. Soon we will depart and return to Baal.’

  The Scouts smiled. They were tired of food that tasted of ash. They were tired of hiding for days at a time. Each and every one of them had dreamed of war’s glory. The campaign had been a taste of its tedium. They began to talk excitedly.

  ‘Silence now!’ Gallileon scowled. ‘There is more I must say. For many of you, this is to be your last mission under my tutelage. If you survive this, you shall be ready to wear the blessed battleplate that is every full brother’s right and burden. You will be neophytes no more, but warriors of the stars. You shall be the angels of the Emperor, and every man shall fear and love you. I can teach you no more.’

  The Scouts’ eyes gleamed with excitement and they started speaking again. Gallileon held up his hands, palms down, to quieten them. ‘That is if you can shut up for five minutes! You have to survive first. More importantly, you have to impress me. That is the harder task. Dante, give the order of battle.’

  Dante’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, Dante, I want you to present a plan of attack. You do realise that part of my role is to assess what function you might fill in our Chapter when your training is complete. I’m testing my opinion of you right now. I suggest you hurry, or you’ll find yourself guarding munitions trains for the next hundred years.’

  Dante cleared his throat. Ristan smirked at him when Gallileon wasn’t looking. Lorenz nodded encouragingly. ‘Ork outriders are inbound. We’ve been ordered to regroup with Captain Rodrigo and the Ironhelms, but we’re going to have to fight our way through. Mount up?’ suggested Dante.

  Gallileon looked at him incredulously.

  ‘Sergeant?’ asked Dante.

  ‘That is an edification? You will never be more than a line warrior with powers of leadership like that! I am not often mistaken, but it looks like I have misjudged you.’

  Dante flushed red. ‘I… I’m sorry. It’s my first one. I–’

  Gallileon shut his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples. ‘By the powers of foresight my gene bond with our sire Sanguinius grants me, I predict you will…’ He screwed up his face. ‘Be a woeful officer, neophyte. Pitiful.’

  The Scouts laughed.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what I am supposed to say!’ snapped Dante, now deeply embarrassed. He could deliver plans – he had done so before – but Gallileon made him bashful, so anxious of making a mistake he could do nothing but. ‘Ork speed cultists usually attack en masse, screens of bikes in front of light transports. Their weaponry is heavier than ours. Attacking them front-on would be counterproductive. We should divide ourselves into a number of groups – maybe three, try to split them up. If we stationed a small squad in the pumping tower with sniper rifles and set a field of cluster mines about the base, we could cut them apart before they can reorganise themselves. We’d avoid fighting them all at once, where they’re strongest and…’ Dante slowed down. Gallileon was watching him carefully.

  ‘And?’ said the sergeant.

  ‘We can scatter them and ride through. We can’t kill them all.’

  Gallileon nodded and pointed at Dante. ‘Now that, young warriors, is a proper plan. Get to it. Brother-Sergeant Arael, if you’d be so good as to assign groups.’

  Arael nodded and waved his Scouts to him.

  ‘Be confident, young blood,’ said Gallileon. ‘You are a Space Marine, the chosen of the Emperor of Terra. Feel it when you speak.’ He slapped Dante hard on his pauldron. ‘Now ready yourself for combat.’

  Lorenz scanned the horizon, intent on the blur where Rora’s grey deserts met its blank sky.

  ‘He is in love with those magnoculars, I think,’ said Ristan sotto voce. The others in the squad laughed.

  ‘Shut up, Scout,’ growled Gallileon. ‘Let him perform his task. The Emperor has a use for good eyes, and none for a jester.’

  The Scouts laughed harder for that.

  ‘They are coming,’ said Lorenz. ‘Dust plumes on the horizon.’

  ‘Numbers, boy!’ said Gallileon gruffly. ‘Always give as much information as you can. Information can mean the difference between victory and death.’

  ‘A hundred, maybe. Not a lot, but not a little.’

  ‘Now he sounds like an ork.’

  ‘I’ll not say “shut up” again, Neophyte Ristan,’ said Gallileon. ‘Next time I shall shut you up. You will find it hard to exercise your wit with a broken jaw.’

  ‘Sorry, sergeant.’

  ‘Well then?’ asked Gallileon of Dante. ‘Stop looking so surprised. It is your plan.’

  Dante nodded and activated the vox-set attached to his ear. ‘Diversion group two, are you ready?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ voxed their leader, a Scout called Giacomus from Baal Primus. Dante and he had been in different training cohorts, and he was only just beginning to get to know him.

  ‘Sergeant Arael?’

  ‘We can see them, Scout Dante,’ said Arael. ‘Lorenz guesses right. We count seventy-two attack bikes, and twenty ork warriors in three transports.’ As part of the equipment they had to monitor the Scouts, Gallileon and Arael had complete control over the neophytes’ vox-sets. They could hear everything the younger Space Marines said at all times, if they wished. ‘What are your orders?’

  Dante hesitated. They’d all run command-and-control exercises, but he had never been given command in a combat situation. ‘Maintain silence until they close? Open fire at medium range, to make sure of high kill ratio? As soon as they see you they’ll come for you… We need to split them up – get them angry so they won’t notice they’re dying. Sergeant?’

  Gallileon crossed his arms and shrugged. ‘That is not my problem to solve.’

  ‘You are the one giving the orders this afternoon, Scout,’ voxed Arael. ‘But you know, if they were bad, Brother Gallileon or I would let you know. A word of advice – stop phrasing commands as questions. The Blood Angels do not operate as a committee. Arael out.’

  Gallileon sat across his bike, his arms crossed, staring at Dante.

  ‘Sergeant?’

  Gallileon goggled his eyes at Dante. ‘Neophyte?’ he mimicked Dante’s voice. ‘So, do you think we have all day here?’

  ‘No. Serge
ant,’ said Dante. ‘Let’s ride up the ridge, close formation. Revane, keep on the inside of the formation. Stand ready to fire your grenade launcher when I order.’

  ‘Yes, Dante,’ said Revane.

  ‘Let us keep it slow, lure them in. We should split them closer to the tower than further out.’

  ‘Why?’ challenged Gallileon.

  ‘Greater concentration will provide a more target-rich environment for our snipers, sergeant, and they are more likely to ride straight onto the mines.’

  Gallileon nodded approvingly. ‘It sounds like you have learnt something after all. Well then, what are you waiting for? You heard him, Scouts. Move out!’

  Engines coughed into life and roared out white exhaust.

  Dante led the way towards the approaching dust cloud, feeling proud yet nervous to be put at the head of the group. The bikes fanned out around him, Revane and his heavier weapon protected by the rest. Gallileon rode beside him, scrutinising his every move.

  ‘Make some dust of our own – get their attention and bring them in.’ Dante glanced to the far side of the pumping station. Four hundred yards away, their brothers rode out away from them.

  Skidding his bike purposefully from side to side, Dante sent up a cloud of dust. His comrades copied him, and soon a column of it was lifting skywards.

  ‘You have their attention,’ voxed Arael. ‘Half have broken off. They are coming towards your position.’

  ‘Everyone, forward half a mile, double back. Goad them into the chase. Group two, prepare your envelopment.’

  The other group of Scout bikers accelerated obliquely towards the ork outriders. The orks saw them late, making them peel further away from the main line of the ork reconnaissance group’s advance.

  Dante’s group moved forwards, approaching the wall of ash and oily smoke thrown up by the orks’ half-tracked bikes. Dante got a fleeting glimpse of silhouettes in the smoke. Huge, brutish creatures hunkered over the handlebars of crude machines.

  ‘Fire!’ he ordered.