Dante

by Guy Haley

  Boltguns mounted on the bike fairings chattered, sending streams of bolt-rounds at the foe. The magnesium line of tracer rounds flared bright in the choking air. Orks exploded, bikes detonated. The orks fired back, but their weapons, though powerful, were shorter ranged than the Space Marines’ boltguns. Overpowered for their bikes’ small mass, the ork guns sent their vehicles slewing about, and their rounds went whining past. The battlefield was a roaring confusion of engine noise and airborne particles. Dante stole glances left and right. His squad mates maintained perfect formation. Then the orks drew near, and their guns came into effective range.

  Despite the unbalancing effect of the guns on the bikes, and the orks’ natural inclination to fire without aiming, the sheer number of bullets the xenos’ weapons put out meant some were bound to hit. Heavy slugs smacked off Dante’s bike’s bulletproof tyres and rang off the shield. His comrades ducked low, using their bikes’ considerable armour to shelter behind. Phaerist spat a guttural, nomad’s oath as a round nicked his shoulder, but none of the Scouts fell.

  The bikes roared past one another, like feral world warriors jousting on horseback. Dante ducked a swing from a madly grinning ork, its long tongue lolling from its mouth.

  ‘Spread!’ ordered Dante. The combat bikes opened up their formation. Heavier ork vehicles were coming towards the Scouts, a pair of heavily armed halftracks flanking a stripped-down transport crammed with whooping greenskins. Revane’s grenade launcher huffed twice, blasting a crater in the dust. The second smashed straight into the halftrack, reducing its driver to paste and blasting off its front wheel. The contraption snagged on the wreck of its front portion and flipped, becoming a tumbling ball of scrap and fire. Bolt-rounds punched orks from their handrails on the transport.

  ‘About!’ ordered Dante. In unison, the bikers braked, slammed their left feet down and turned sharply about, back towards the pumping station. They accelerated, gunning down the orks that had charged past them from behind, killing a dozen and causing them to scatter. Dante’s squad rushed through.

  ‘That should have made them sufficiently annoyed,’ voxed Gallileon.

  ‘To the tower, round and back!’ voxed Dante.

  They sped towards the pumping station, now a dark shape behind wreaths of sand and ash. Orks fired indiscriminately at them.

  Air cracked over Dante’s head, just audible through the rumble of engines and guns. Arael’s men had opened fire. Dante risked a look back. Orks were tumbling from their machines, neat holes punched in their manic faces.

  The pump station came close.

  ‘Single file!’ he ordered.

  The bikes closed up, rushing one after the other along a narrow predefined path back to the station. The orks maintained a wide formation, gaining as the Scout bikers decelerated to fall into single file.

  The ground bucked as the orks rode over the cluster mines the Scouts had planted around the tower. Dante’s squad jinked and wove through the minefield, the neophytes relying on their superlative memories to guide them through safely. The orks had no such chance. The brighter of them tried to follow the path described by the Scout bikes, but most ended in fiery ruin.

  The Scouts roared past the station’s buried reservoir tanks, and arced around the back. Giacomus’ bike group arrived a moment later. The Scout units crossed paths, blasting apart the few pursuing orks who had made it through the minefield. Lorenz whooped with laughter. Dante smiled. The plan, his plan, had worked.

  They emerged around the front to find the ash dunes dotted with smoking bikes and dead orks. The survivors were retreating at speed, falling from their saddles as Arael’s snipers calmly picked them off.

  Dante slowed and stopped, scanning the area for threats. Gallileon rode up beside him.

  ‘Arael! Get your Scouts down and mounted. We are moving on the front!’ bellowed Gallileon.

  The Scouts in the tower broke down their sniper rifles quickly and rappelled to the desert floor. Moments later, the first of them came roaring out of the pumping station on their bikes, joining Gallileon’s squad.

  Gallileon waited for both units to assemble, then nodded at Dante.

  Not bad, Dante, he signed with one hand. Not bad at all.

  The roar of battle reached the Scouts long before they crested the rise overlooking the plain: the thunderous reports of whirlwind rockets; the buzz-saw rattle of Baal-pattern Predators’ guns; the rippling, popping bang of exploding mass-reactive shells intermingled with the gruff chatter of ork stubbers and the weird singing of their energy weapons. A flight of Stormtalons rushed over the Scout bikes, tipping their wings in salute. They disappeared over the brow of a hill, which the Scouts summited shortly afterwards.

  Gallileon brought them to a halt at the top, Arael pulling up beside him. He shut off his engine, and the Scouts followed suit. A long, shallow declivity swept down to a plain of baked mud, so similar to parts of Baal Secundus that Dante could almost believe they were home. In the far distance the hollowed-out bulk of Rora’s Hive Quintus smoked. It was devoid of life now, and had been burning for three years. The air smelt of burned oil and blood. Dante’s eye-teeth twitched in his gums at the scent, and he had to swallow away a flood of saliva.

  Tanks billowing oily smoke dotted the hillside. The corpses of orks lay thick in clusters where smaller parts of the greater battle had been fought and decided, their apish limbs entangled. The fight had started on the hill before moving to the plain. A wedge of Blood Angels were driving deep into a sea of orks. The gunships unleashed streaking missiles at an ork heavy tank, destroying it in a spectacular mushroom of fire.

  Gallileon made a disapproving noise in his throat.

  ‘The position does not look good,’ said Dante.

  ‘It is not. You witness the effects of the rage of our lord, the greatest of angels. Look upon it. Ask yourselves, my Scouts, are you ready to control such fury and bend it to your will?’

  ‘They are in the grip of the thirst?’ said Dante.

  Gallileon nodded. ‘Our brothers are outnumbered, and close to being overwhelmed. They have felt the thirst call, and have answered.’

  ‘They may lose because of it,’ said Lorenz.

  ‘It may seem so,’ said Gallileon. ‘But at times such as these, the thirst can be our greatest weapon. They shall prevail.’ He pulled up his breathing mask and spat gritty saliva into the dust.

  ‘Surely it will not be enough,’ said Dante. ‘They will be slaughtered.’ The line of red was very thin, and the orks near numberless.

  ‘Have faith, young one,’ said Arael. ‘For wonders grace the sky.’

  The younger sergeant pointed to a golden figure streaking through the heavens. The figure wore a jump pack fashioned in the shape of spread white wings, a sword held out in front of it that glittered with the blue fire of a disruption field. It dropped like a hawk into a mass of orks. The Scouts held their breath, for the aliens piled onto it in their multitudes.

  A second later, the figure exploded out of the melee, leaving a crowd of dead orks behind.

  Dante gasped and leaned forwards, squinting. At that distance his enhanced vision gave him but the fleetest glimpse of the warrior’s mask, but he knew it.

  ‘Who is that warrior? I did not know any of the guard had come with us,’ said Ristan.

  ‘Not joking now, Ristan?’ said Gallileon. ‘That is no ordinary brother – that is the Sanguinor, the Herald of Sanguinius, the true angel. It appears when the sons of the Great Angel are sore beset, coming from nowhere, departing as mysteriously. The situation is dire indeed if we witness its presence.’

  ‘The Sanguinor’s real?’ said the Scout Lethael. ‘I thought it was a metaphor, Sanguinius looking over us from beyond the grave.’

  Gallileon would ordinarily greet such an utterance with a blistering remark, but he stared out over the battlefield, watching the lord of the hosts do its bloody work. ‘No, Scout, it is real enough. You will find there is a lot that is strange and terrible in this universe. The
Sanguinor is one of those things. Be glad it is on our side.’

  Gallileon turned his engine on. ‘Our brothers need our help as much as they need the Sanguinor. We are going into the thick of battle. Follow me. Do exactly what I say, and you will make it out alive today. Hit-and-run, short bursts, strafe the edge of the foe. Draw some off if we can, but do not engage in melee, no matter how strongly Sanguinius’ blood calls for you to fight close. You will slay many of them in your fury, but you will be swamped and cut down. This light armour is not good for protracted hand-to-hand combat against the likes of orks.’

  The Scouts readied themselves for the ride onto the plain, but Dante stayed rooted to the spot, watching the flashing of gold as the Sanguinor swooped low to strike at the orks.

  ‘Dante! Do not let success go to your head. Move out!’

  ‘Sergeant, I have seen it before,’ he said, pitching his voice so that the sergeant alone could hear him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Sanguinor. I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘I do not recall reports of a manifestation from any of your engagements. What’s this, your twenty-third?’

  Dante nodded.

  ‘It does not show up just like that, Scout,’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘This is a great wonder you bear witness to, not a commonplace happenstance.’

  ‘No, sergeant, before. I mean I saw it before I was chosen. On Baal Secundus. I was dying of… lack of water.’ He couldn’t bring himself to use the word thirst any more for something so prosaic. ‘On the way to Angel’s Fall. It appeared in a vision, and pointed the way to water.’

  ‘You are serious?’ said Gallileon. He looked at Dante with new eyes.

  Dante nodded. ‘I do not lie. I swear it by the Blood.’

  The sergeant shrugged uneasily and looked around to see if they were overheard. The other Scouts continued to prepare, too excited to pay attention to the conversation. ‘If that is true, then it means something. Best speak with the Chaplains. See what they have to say. It is their task to divine the meaning of such mysteries, not mine, thank Sanguinius.’

  ‘I have spoken with them. I was told not to speak of it.’

  ‘Then you have already said too much. The Chaplains do not make such bans lightly.’ He became thoughtful, and looked out over the maelstrom engulfing the plain. ‘None of that will matter one drop of blood if we lose this battle. Ready your steeds!’ Gallileon shouted. ‘The orks die today!’

  He twisted his throttle, making his bike roar off, drawing his chainsword as he sped at the foe.

  Gallileon leading the way, the Scout squads thundered down the hillside into the raging battle.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DUTY’S BURDEN

  998.M41

  Interplanetary space, en route to the Aegis Diamondo

  Cryptus System

  Ordamael finished his reading and snapped shut the Book of Sanguinius, the volume that contained the most profound epithets of their primarch. Music, beautiful but dolorous, played from behind the fretted screens either side of Sanguinius’ statue.

  He rejoined his Chaplain brothers and Dante took the podium. Rows of brothers in their full wargear, repaired and repainted after the events of Cryptus, looked up to him. Dhrost and Amity Hope were small figures at the front. The broad space before the podium was occupied by dozens of biers. On each one was the corpse of a fallen brother, shrouded in tight winding sheets from head to foot. Their necks were covered with white bandages pinned in place with gold blood-drop badges, covering the wounds where their progenoids had been excised. They lay like the ancient mummies of Old Earth, awaiting a resurrection that could not come. They were each as dead as their progenitor.

  Though every Space Marine in the strike force was present, Flesh Tearer and Blood Angel, along with all the mortal humans they had rescued and all the blood thralls not on duty, the chapel was only half full. Dante had never seen it fully occupied, not even back in his earliest days when the Chapter was mightier. Every turn he took in the ship confronted him with another truth of the failing Imperium. The days of the Legions were so immeasurably distant he could not imagine seeing the room full. In those days the assembled Chapters would have filled the hall fifty times over; there would not have been enough space on the Blade of Vengeance to accommodate them. He wondered fleetingly if the ship remembered those times, and if under the surging violence of its machine-spirit it regretted their passing.

  His thoughts remained his own. Not one trace of his exhaustion or his doubt entered his voice. Sanguinius’ mask amplified his words to fill the chapel in a way his warriors could not.

  ‘Brothers, brave soldiers of the Imperium. Sisters of the Ministorum orders. We ask you here today to share in our grief at the loss of so many brave souls. Yet do not despair! By their efforts, the progress of the Hive Fleet Leviathan has been slowed, and it might yet be turned away from Baal. We shall never relent in our defiance, not until every last drop of Sanguinius’ blood has been spilt from our veins.’ He looked down at the list of names before him. The tragedy of the losses at Cryptus gnawed at him. He was empty inside, tired beyond comprehension. War no longer fired his soul. If he could, he would lay down his burden and depart into the trackless wastes of the galaxy, but he could not.

  ‘We remember Brother-Sergeant Pharael,’ he intoned. ‘Sergeant of Squad Pharael, Tactical Squad, Second Battle Company. Hero of the Dirian Purge, master sculptor, beloved by his brothers, respected by his captain. Slain upon Aeros securing our victory. Brother Pharael.’ He held out a hand to the first corpse. Blood thrall bier bearers went to the slab Pharael rested on, and lifted the board bearing his corpse high onto their shoulders.

  The names were in no order, the intention not to raise the deeds of any brother over another. They were equal in death by dint of dying. Differences in rank no longer mattered.

  ‘Brother Moriar, Specialist Weapons for Squad Arias, Tactical Squad, Second Battle Company. A fine shot, and calmer of machine-spirits. Accomplished poet. Brother Moriar.’ Again he lifted his hand. Four more blood thralls came forwards and lifted up the corpse.

  The list went on and on. Slowly but surely the chapel emptied of the dead, and a small weight was added to Dante’s burden.

  He came to the name of Ancient Cassor, slain on Asphodex fighting alongside Karlaen. Dante’s memory was no longer perfect; there is only so much information a man can hold in his mind, enhanced or not. But he could recall the loss of every man he had ever fought alongside, their triumphs and failures, their habits, their faces and their prowess. How many Cassors had he known? Cassor was the name of the Dreadnought. Kezellon had been his original name, unbeaten until cut down by the eldar. There was another Cassor obliterated by the daemon Skarbrand at Pandemonium. He remembered both men, their lives separated by a hundred years. Four more warriors named Cassor he could bring to mind that he had known personally. Their deeds ran into each other, preserved in Dante’s recollections. Then there was the Cassor who had given his name to the machine when first it was activated. There were others in the records. It was of no consequence. The Blood was all, Sanguinius’ sacred vitae, and it had been spilt in tragic abundance.

  ‘Ancient Cassor of the Death Company, who died his second death in the service of the Emperor. Ancient Cassor, who was Kezellon before his first death. Sergeant in the Second Company in life. Sword champion. Thereafter in his first death, the fury of the Blooded. Many foes fell to his blade. Now he is Cassor no more, and he is Kezellon again in the second death. May his deeds be remembered under both his names.’ The corpse he gestured to was smaller than the others. Dante remembered his first death well. The captain had been cut in half and left to die. Sheer will kept him alive long enough to be interred in the Dreadnought. ‘He died his second death honourably,’ said Dante. His departure from the ritual made the Chaplains and Sanguinary Priests look to him in curiosity. ‘He was defiant to the end, as we shall all be.’ He pulled himself back, before he could reveal the true nature of
his feelings.

  The body was taken away. The next name awaited his utterance. Many others followed.

  When the last of the names were spoken and the bodies taken away, Dante bid his guests goodbye, and went with his captains and his priests of red and black to lay his men to temporary rest.

  Marmoreal silences greeted the Blood Angels as they entered the Sepulchre of the Fallen. Marble shelves waited for the bodies of the dead, to carry them home to Baal where they would be interred with the heroes of the ancestors. That could be decades hence, and the Sepulchre of the Fallen was chilled to a hundred degrees below zero to preserve their mortal remains for their burial.

  Carbon mists curled around their feet. The party did not have far to go down the shelves. The catacombs were mostly empty. The Blade of Vengeance had been at home often in Dante’s reign, for Baal had been threatened several times. The shelves stretched off in frozen quietude, with spaces for more bodies than there were Space Marines in the entire Chapter.

  Dante waited in silence as the warriors were laid into their niches. Ordamael and Corbulo carried out their brief ceremonies over each one, whispering words into ears that could not hear them. The bodies were sealed beside heavy glass screens that fogged immediately.

  Frost spidered the gold of Dante’s armour by the time they had finished. Ice cracked from the joints as he moved.

  ‘It is done, my lord,’ said Ordamael.

  Dante nodded in acknowledgement. He did not have the heart to say more.

  They approached the Aegis Diamondo not long after. Dante took to the command deck of the Blade of Vengeance as the wall of ice and rock approached. Asante and Bellerophon directed the efforts of the ship and armada. Most of the other officers had dispersed among the fleet to their own vessels and companies, leaving Dante to contemplate the barrier with Corbulo and Mephiston.

  The area was free of tyranid vessels. Occasional activity around the gunnery stations preceded the thrum of energy discharge or the muted rumble of a solitary cannon, barely audible over the constant vibration of the ship as it pushed its way through the void. Weapons fire grew rarer, and eventually stopped.