Dante

by Guy Haley

  ‘I understand,’ he said softly. ‘I am sorry to have raised these fears in you while you are at rest, but know you are never alone.’

  ‘I am never at rest,’ said Dante bitterly. ‘And I am forever alone.’

  Cowed, Arafeo departed. Dante barely noticed him leave.

  The Chapter Master returned to his reading. Confessing his fears to his equerry had done nothing to lessen them. He felt ashamed. He should not burden a mortal with such knowledge. By naming an evil, he had given it strength. The words of the scroll seemed to swim, and he bowed his head.

  A cry sounded deep in the stacks. Dante leapt to his feet.

  ‘Arafeo? Arafeo, are you all right?’

  A soft moan answered him. Dante strode past book stacks and scroll cases, went by towering crystal racks.

  The scent of blood reached his nostrils before he found Arafeo, hot and vital in the dusty atmosphere of ancient knowledge.

  Arafeo was kneeling on the ground, holding his wrist. The librarium was so quiet that Dante’s enhanced hearing had no trouble picking up the weak, erratic beat of his servant’s heart. Blood dripped onto the carpet.

  Dante hurried to him. Arafeo smiled. The smell of blood flooded Dante’s nostrils, arousing his thirst. He grabbed his servant’s hands and held them up. He had cut his wrists, his life fluid flooding from long vertical slits running from his hands to elbows.

  ‘Arafeo! Arafeo!’ he cried. ‘What have you done?’

  A smile slow as spilt blood spread across the equerry’s face. ‘Master, it is time I left you.’

  ‘Not now! Hold on, my friend. I am sorry. I should never have burdened you with my woes. It was not right. I did not mean to frighten you. I shall summon Corbulo himself to tend to you.’

  Dante reached for the vox-bead embedded in his collar, but Arafeo pawed at his arm with a feeble, paper-skinned hand until his weak fingers snagged themselves around Dante’s thick wrist. Dante was horribly conscious of the thick blood slipping around between their skins.

  ‘My lord, please do not. I am not frightened. You did no wrong. The Emperor is calling me to His side. My time is done in this world.’

  Dante reached for his button again. Arafeo gripped with surprising strength.

  ‘You are my master, but I beg you, allow me this one decision. My heart is old, and I am weary in my own way.’

  ‘You do not have to die,’ said Dante.

  Arafeo shook his head, so painfully slowly. His neat grey hair had come undone from its fastenings and hung about his head in a curtain. ‘We all have to die. Except you, my lord. You cannot.’

  ‘That is not true. I can die, and I will.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ breathed Arafeo. ‘But you must not yet. While you live, while the golden mask of Sanguinius is seen on the battlefields of this awful era, you can make a difference. My lord, do not give up.’

  Arafeo swooned. Dante caught him. Cradling his servant, he smoothed the old man’s hair. ‘I am weary, Arafeo, and worn down by ennui, but I cannot give up. I never shall. I swear. While I breathe, I shall fight, and no man shall know what troubles me again.’

  Arafeo closed his eyes happily. ‘That is good. You are hope, even if you feel little yourself.’

  ‘But why kill yourself? I do not understand.’

  ‘You do, my lord, though you say you do not. I have one last request.’

  ‘Name it, and it shall be yours, Arafeo.’

  ‘Take my life, my lord. Drink my blood. Grant me one last boon. Give me the angel’s kiss. This is why I have chosen to die now, so that you can take on the strength in my blood, so much greater than that in my body, and rise anew. Let me die knowing I have served you one final time. I offer my life, to you, so that so many others might live.’

  Weakly, he held up his bleeding wrist towards Dante’s face.

  ‘I will not.’ Dante moved back. Blood ran in rivulets and soaked into the carpet.

  ‘I have served you a long time. You have not known the taste of vitae from a living vessel for as long as I have known you.’

  ‘Longer,’ said Dante. His teeth were extruding from his gums against his will. His blood rushed around his skull. ‘I made an oath to myself never again to drink living blood.’

  ‘Then you must break it. To drink the stuff of life is the curse of the angels, but you need it. You are weak without blood – you are so old. I am dying anyway. Take it from me. Become strong.’

  ‘This should not be,’ said Dante. ‘I refuse.’ He recoiled. Arafeo’s blood covered his hands. He wanted more than anything to lick it off his skin.

  ‘Then you go back on your word.’

  ‘You use my honour as a weapon against me,’ said Dante. His resolve was dying. His fangs dug into his jaw. His face flushed.

  ‘There is no other weapon that might harm you,’ said Arafeo with a dry chuckle. He grimaced. His hands clenched. ‘Please. I do not have time. This blood of mine I bequeath to you. Drink your fill. Restore your strength for the wars to come.’ He stared into Dante’s eyes fiercely. ‘Now!’

  Again, Arafeo held his wrists up to his lord. Against his will, Dante opened his mouth wide. Saliva flooded his mouth as his lips brushed against Arafeo’s blood-slippery skin. Arafeo gave a little moan as Dante’s needle-sharp teeth slid into his wrists.

  Dante gulped greedily at the man’s blood, feeling its warmth flood his body, a rich, raw tingling that spread from his hearts to the tips of his limbs. With the flow of vitae came a rush of emotion from the dying man. Dante’s omophagea engorged itself with fragments of the man’s genetic lifecode, teasing his memory from the engrams graven upon their metaphysical fabric. A hard childhood, like his own. A brief moment of glory in making his way to the Place of Challenge. Crushing disappointment as the Sanguinary Priest’s testing device chimed angrily and flashed red. A ray of hope as he was sent to join the blood thralls. A moment of indecision when he was given the choice to return home or go to Baal – a choice revisited thousands of times in a life of grinding servitude.

  Arafeo swooned and toppled over. Dante followed, his mouth fixed to his servant’s arm.

  Arafeo’s life was tedious and short, and wholly lacking in glory. But his memories were suffused throughout with his sense of privilege at working for the Chapter, a satisfaction that what he did was necessary and appreciated, a service to the Emperor as important as wielding blade and bolter, and a genuine love for his master. Dante wept as he drained the man of life. In the last iron drops of blood to slide down his gullet came Arafeo’s gratitude.

  Arafeo’s heart fluttered under Dante’s hand and stilled. The lord commander sat back on his heels, leaving one hand on his dead servant’s chest. With the other he wiped the mixture of blood and tears from his face. Arafeo’s eyes were open, and though the soul-light had gone from them, his final expression was one of happiness.

  A complex mix of emotion coursed through Dante: satisfaction from his feeding, sorrow for his servant, revulsion at his thirst, and, most difficult to quantify, shame that he could not live up to the way Arafeo had seen him.

  He was calmer. The weight of years sat more lightly on his shoulders. He felt his skin tighten and the lines that marred his face shallow. He got to his feet, heavy with his meal, yet already feeling the first sting of renewed vitality. He depressed the tiny emerald that served as his vox-switch.

  ‘Grennius,’ he said, summoning his master of household. ‘Arafeo has left us. Send a mortuary team to my private librarium. And summon my armourium thralls. I need my armour.’

  Dante knew what he must do. The time for thought was done.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE PIRATE KING

  752.M40

  Odrius Freeport

  Mas

  Tivian System

  ‘Everyone down!’ ordered Dante.

  Squad Dante threw themselves into the heaved earth. Ceramite scraped on buried masonry. The booming chug of heavy bolter fire sent shrieking munitions past them.

  D
ante took shelter in the corner of a wrecked building. Blue paint still clung to the plaster in the angle of the walls, bizarrely bright in the grey-and-brown dust of the shattered city. A large-calibre mass-reactive blew a chunk from his cover, and he leaned back and reached for his auspex.

  The device supplemented his suit’s sensorium, projecting fine detail scans on its screen and into his faceplate simultaneously. His squad took opportunistic shots at the shadows flitting through the buildings on the other side of the street as he scanned the pirate strongpoint.

  ‘Heavy bunker emplacement at the crossroads,’ he said. ‘Anti-tank cannon, threat extremis. Keep the armour back.’

  ‘Let me take it, brother-sergeant,’ said Gallimus.

  Dante risked another look across the rubble-strewn road. The city had been so heavily bombarded it had become a wasteland of bricks and toppled blocks. The roads were evident as valleys amid hillocks of ruination. The bunker guarded a crossroads on the route to the palace, but the roads were choked with rubble and the bunker was buried to the vision slits in a plain of loose stone. Dante looked from Gallimus’ position to the bunker. The heavy-weapon trooper was in a poor position.

  ‘Stay where you are. They will bring you down before you have a chance to fire.’

  Gallimus nodded at him and slid back a little on his knees, the green glow of his plasma cannon lighting the wreckage around him.

  ‘Squad Dante! Stand ready for assault,’ ordered Dante.

  A cry sounded over the squad vox-net. Brother Thorael’s signum rune flickered.

  ‘Thorael?’

  ‘I have a crack in my armour, sergeant. It is sealing. I will be fine,’ said the warrior.

  It was not unknown for his men to fight on when they should head back for treatment, so Dante checked the truth of Thorael’s statement, bringing his status runes to the top level of his layered datascreed. Thorael’s vital signs held steady. His armour blinked from amber to green again as its sealant systems closed the breach, sealing it from the environment.

  ‘Lorenz!’ he called.

  ‘Dante,’ replied his friend.

  ‘You are in charge. I need to call in an artillery strike.’ Dante switched channels to the company vox. ‘This is Brother Dante. Captain Avernis?’

  There was pause. The vox jumped as another responded.

  ‘This is Duvallai, Dante. No one’s heard anything from the captain for ten minutes. There is an interference pattern over the western quadrant where he led the third and fourth squads. The Freeborn are jamming his communications.’

  ‘Then they are more stupid than we thought if they think that will stop us. I am going to push forwards. I could do with some support. Are you with me?’

  The crackle of weapons fire heard through the thick plating of Space Marine armour was Dante’s answer. Duvallai’s bolter coughed through the vox.

  ‘Sorry. Busy. I am with you. I am about a hundred and fifty yards behind your position. Let me clear these irritants out. We are nearly done.’

  Dante peered out from the ruin. He snatched his head back when his movements drew another burst of fire from the heavy bolters of the bunker. ‘Advance along the left,’ he said, forced to shout. Gravel pinged off his armour. ‘There’s a large rubble mound round the stump of the bell tower.’

  ‘I see it, brother.’

  ‘Stand ready to provide covering fire. I cannot discern if there is anything beyond the bunker, so this might be all we have to deal with here, but it will be good to have you watching our backs.’

  Another crackling eruption of fire. Shouts of triumph echoed in Duvallai’s helmet. His vox cut out for a second. Dante waited for him to return.

  ‘Sorry, sorry – taken by surprise. That is the last of them. We are moving up in support. Sanguinius guide us.’

  Duvallai’s feed went dead. Dante ran through his vox-codes for the Armoury net.

  ‘Brother Havrael? Can you hear me?’

  ‘The Armoury listens, brother-sergeant.’

  ‘I need a Whirlwind strike on this position.’ He adjusted the knobs of his auspex, homing its targeting matrix onto the bunker. ‘You will not be able to bring up the armour unless we deal with it. They have some kind of large-bore cannon in there.’

  ‘I am able to oblige immediately. Whirlwind strike incoming.’

  A fraction of a second later Whirlwind rockets screamed into the ground from the smoky sky. Multiple explosions detonated yards from their position. Dante huddled back into the isolated corner until they were done. He poked his head out. Smoke billowed from the bunker’s vision slits. The cannon barrel jutted impotently at the sky. No bolt-rounds responded to his appearance.

  ‘Duvallai?’

  ‘I am in position,’ voxed Duvallai. ‘Brother Damiano has a fine shot lined up on the bunker.’

  ‘Very well. Let us finish this. Squad Dante!’ bellowed Dante. ‘Forward!’

  ‘For the Emperor! For Sanguinius!’ his warriors responded.

  They rushed up from their cover, blood-red armour shedding sheets of dust. They roared through their vox-grilles. From the stump of the bell tower came a storm of bolt shots. The ruby stab of a lascannon blasted through the air, vitrifying the dust swirling through the ruins into a glittering fall.

  Dante was at the bunker first, bounding powerfully forwards. He kicked open the door, sending an avalanche of brick shards inside. He ducked within. A Freeborn corsair came out of the rear firing room, blood running down his dust-caked face. Dante shot him before he could bring his autogun up, blasting his viscera all over the wall. Dante sealed his suit mask, shutting himself off from the enticing smell of blood.

  Brother Emanuele slid down the bricks into the bunker. Dante strode forwards, flinging a frag grenade into the rear room. The entrance to the front was sealed tight. Dante plucked his melta bomb from his thigh. It was a waste to use the munition – the Freeborn in the firing chamber were probably all dead – but his patience was frayed from the delay and he wished to be done.

  He signalled Emanuele back and remotely detonated the bomb. It hissed as its fusion reactor went off and burned out, taking the door to the floor as a sheet of orange liquid metal.

  Dante approached along the wall. He had not seen the Freeborn wield much in the way of personal weaponry that could penetrate Adeptus Astartes battleplate – not the human ones, anyway– but his natural caution had never left him. He plucked another frag grenade from his belt and tossed it around the door. It banged loudly and he followed, bolter up.

  Wisps of blue fyceline smoke curled up from the floor. There were four pirates, three human and a reptilian sslyth. All of them were dead, their bodies opened up by shrapnel from the rocket strike. The vision slits were ragged with chunks of metal.

  ‘Clear,’ said Dante.

  ‘No enemy here,’ said Emanuele.

  ‘Duvallai, brother, any more trouble?’

  ‘Negative, the Freeborn are dead or fled. I count about fifteen – mostly men, a handful of eldar.’

  ‘There’s a sslyth here.’

  ‘A sslyth?’ cut in Lorenz. ‘I have not seen one of those for years. Make sure you get its skin. It is a pleasure to work with.’

  ‘You’re welcome to it, brother. Havrael filled it with holes.’

  ‘A pity,’ said Lorenz.

  Dante strode out. Emanuele stepped aside. When he exited the bunker, he put up his back banner. The pole emerged from his powerplant, the crossbeam opened out and the cloth unfurled into the dust-clogged breeze. ‘Squad Dante, form up on my position. Duvallai, are you joining us?’

  ‘Brother, you are senior sergeant of the Fifth. While Captain Avernis is absent, I will gladly follow you.’

  ‘Brother Havrael, this quadrant is secure. You are safe to bring up the armour.’ Dante walked up the shifting slopes of rubble. The strike cruiser had done a thorough job of flattening the city. He reached a ridge formed by a tower that had fallen across the street. It had come down whole, the masonry separating only as it la
id itself across the road. The stone and brick parted slightly in a way that gave it the appearance of a great skeleton.

  From his new vantage point, Dante had a clear view to the Pirate King’s palace. All of the freeport was cast down. The smell of corpses rotting under the broken buildings grew stronger every day. Only the palace stood, protected by its shimmering void shield. Beyond, green oceans glimmered.

  ‘This world will make a fine addition to the Imperium,’ said Lorenz as he joined Dante on the pile of rubble. ‘Once it is pacified.’

  ‘This nest of pirates has had its day. The time of the Freeborn is done,’ said Dante. ‘So shall all suffer who defy the Emperor of Mankind.’

  ‘Well said,’ said Lorenz. ‘A shame we had to devote a demi-company to clearing it out.’

  The howling thrum of grav motors overhead made them look to the sky. Three light eldar support vehicles zoomed past, weapons pointing backwards, firing rapidly at the Stormhawk pursuing them. Tracer fire blazed from the interceptor’s assault cannons, shattering one of the eldar skiffs. They raced away, lost to sight.

  The squeal of tank tracks on stone echoed up the street. Two Baal Predators, a Land Raider, a Vindicator and the Whirlwind advanced upon the crossroads.

  ‘The forces of the Armoury approach,’ said Dante. ‘We shall wait for the captain. He will most likely order a frontal assault.’

  ‘That is his way,’ said Lorenz. ‘What would you do?’