Dante

by Guy Haley

  ‘I would order a full frontal assault, brother,’ said Dante.

  Lorenz chuckled.

  ‘Brother-Sergeant Dante.’ The urgent voice of Veteran-Brother Strollo cut into their conversation.

  ‘Brother,’ said Dante. ‘You have dealt with the pirate’s jamming devices?’

  ‘We have, but that’s the only good news I have. We need you here, now. Captain Avernis is slain.’

  Avernis lay twisted on the rubble, his battleplate gaping with ugly, half-melted breaches, his neck bloody where his progenoids had been removed.

  ‘Eldar?’ said Dante. The five sergeants of the demi-company were gathered together around their fallen leader.

  ‘Eldar,’ said Strollo. He pointed to a collection of bloody rags in the corner. ‘I killed it the second it shot the captain. Multi-shot melta weapon, burned him from the inside out. Cursed luck.’ Strollo was a phlegmatic man. If he sorrowed, he did not let it show.

  Techmarine Havrael knelt at the captain’s side. Sanguinary Initiate Viscomi stepped away to allow him space to work. He slid out the reductor pod carrying Avernis’ gene-seed and placed it into an armoured case. ‘I have salvaged his progenoid glands,’ he said. ‘His line will live on.’

  ‘But his armour is ruined,’ said Havrael. ‘Where is the rest of his wargear?’

  Strollo pointed back to his squad mates. Havrael went to them and took the captain’s weapons.

  ‘The Pirate King is looking to behead us,’ said Duvallai.

  ‘He has succeeded,’ said Sergeant Horael.

  ‘No, no, he has not,’ said Sergeant Malthus. ‘They think removing our leader will stop us. I do not think they have fought Space Marines before.’ His blue helmet looked around the circle of Space Marines. ‘They are wrong, are they not, brothers?’

  ‘They could not be more wrong,’ agreed Sergeant Kalael. ‘Victory is within our grasp. Who shall lead us?’

  ‘We should ask Chaplain Fernibus to come down from the ship,’ said Horael.

  ‘He is injured, and waiting would delay our attack,’ said Malthus.

  ‘Dante is senior in the demi-company,’ said Duvallai.

  ‘Then I shall lead,’ said Dante. ‘Do any of you object?’

  ‘No,’ said Horael.

  ‘Nor I,’ said Kalael.

  ‘We shall verify this with Fernibus,’ said Malthus. ‘But as far as I am concerned, you are our captain for now, brother. Congratulations. I can think of none better.’

  Dante nodded curtly and looked to the archaic stone castellum of the palace. A modest structure by Imperial standards.

  ‘Then let us plan our attack,’ said Dante. ‘We shall add vengeance to our mission objectives.’

  The corridors of the castellum echoed with the sound of boltgun fire. They were narrow, wide enough for only one Space Marine to walk, so Dante went at the forefront of his squad, his bolter spewing explosive death at anything that dared show itself. Humans, eldar and aliens of lesser races died at his hand. They went into a long gallery. Shurikens hissed through the air, spat by the guns of bounding aliens. Humans fought alongside them, firing from behind barricades made of toppled statuary.

  The Blood Angels fanned out, their armour shrugging off the worst of the enemy fire.

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Lorenz. ‘I have never seen eldar working with humans.’

  ‘It is a wonder we could do without,’ said Dante. Three shurikens thunked into his armour, their monomolecular edges protruding from his chest. He blasted apart a pirate lurking behind a pillar in reply. He ran into a storm of las-bolts and shurikens, his squad with him. Brother Cherael went down. The rest of them thundered into the barricades, kicking them over and making short work of the men behind. They caught a handful of the eldar, but several raced away, disappearing deeper into the palace. Lorenz made to chase them.

  ‘Leave them. This place is small. They will not go far.’ Dante reached down and hauled a dying man to his feet. ‘The Pirate King, where is he?’

  The man gurgled, choking on his own blood. ‘The Freeborn will never submit.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Dante. He broke the man’s neck with a twist of his hand and dropped the corpse. ‘We’ll try the throne-room. These xenos are arrogant enough that he’s probably sitting in there waiting for us. Brother Gallimus!’

  The squad heavy-weapon trooper moved to the front.

  ‘Sergeant.’

  ‘Stand by me. Prime your weapon.’

  ‘Yes, sergeant’ said Gallimus.

  ‘Ortiel! Bring your flamer up. Cleanse the rooms as we pass. Do not stint on your fuel. I do not care if we burn this place to the ground. This ends today.’

  The Pirate King was indeed in the throne-room. He lounged in his throne, sipping at a tall glass full of purple wine. His angular alien face teetered between boredom and anticipation. When Dante entered he unhooked his legs from a throne arm and saluted with his glass.

  ‘Hail to you, angel of blood!’ he said in mellifluous Gothic. ‘I am Prince Hellaineth, the so-called Pirate King. Welcome to the heart of my kingdom, all that is left, alas.’

  The eldar made no move. Dante scanned the room for hidden threats. His helm outlined possible hiding places for weaponry. False colour highlighting flickered off as it discounted them one by one.

  ‘Oh, there’s no need for that,’ said Hellaineth, guessing what Dante was doing. ‘I didn’t bother fortifying this room. It didn’t really seem necessary. I reasoned, and I do like to think quite a lot – and, excuse my conceit, I am rather good at it – that by the time anyone got this far, a laser array or lance hidden behind the paintings wouldn’t do me much good. Besides, such alterations would destroy the character of this castle. It is so delightfully… crude.’ He waved his arm at the dark stone walls, showing them off.

  Squad Dante filed into the chamber, crowding it with their blood-red forms. At a command from Dante, they levelled their guns at the alien, their slides racked back in mechanical unison.

  ‘Xenos! You have enslaved the human populace of this world and used it as a base to commit gross crimes against the Imperium of Man. Do you have anything to say for yourself before I kill you?’

  ‘I enslaved nobody. All were freeborn here. My people were free of the path of my kind, your people liberated from your soul-sucking Emperor. I doubt you can understand the concept of freedom, though. No more than a sword of dull iron could. You are a tool. Tools are not free. What a pity. You destroy that which you cannot understand.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dante, not interested in the least in the eldar’s words. ‘Squad!’

  Hellaineth stood, his face darkening. ‘You think you can kill me? Your arrogance almost matches that of the eldar! They could not contain my ambition. You will fare no better. This world was a haven! Look at how many kinds of creature lived here in harmony. Do you not think before you destroy?’

  ‘They were all thieves,’ said Dante.

  ‘And why should they not be? The galaxy gave them nothing.’ The eldar smiled wickedly. ‘It is the duty of the weak to take from the strong, so they themselves may be strong. The strong dislike to be dispossessed, so? It is good to make people see things from the other side. Life is too precious to experience from one standpoint alone.’ He looked at Squad Dante. ‘Though I suppose my philosophy falls on deaf ears here. You engineered creatures were never particularly flexible of thought.’ He took another sip of his wine.

  ‘Your ships are taken, your city is levelled,’ said Dante. ‘Your followers are dead. You do not appear overly concerned. I know your kind, xenos. You do not care. This is a game to you.’

  Prince Hellaineth shrugged. ‘Perhaps. These last fifty years as ruler have been a distraction from despair. This galaxy was once so bright and vital – now horror walks where joy danced. I do need a distraction from all that. What’s your distraction, adept of the stars?’ His face lit up. ‘Isn’t it drinking blood then feeling sorry for yourselves?’

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Dante.
He drew his chainsword and thumbed it to life.

  ‘Ah well,’ said the eldar. He drew no weapon. ‘I tell you what – if you can kill me, we’ll say you win. That’s a fair wager.’

  ‘Silence!’ Dante said. He advanced on the prince and swung his sword at him. Hellaineth made no move to block it, but stepped around the blow liquidly.

  ‘You must try better,’ he said.

  Dante attacked in earnest, directing a flurry of blows at the eldar. The prince slid around them, pulling mocking faces at the sergeant, until Dante tricked him with a complicated reversed attack. His sword cleaved through the eldar, chopping him from shoulder to hip. There was no resistance. He cursed as the teeth of the blade jarred on the flagstones with a spray of sparks. Hellaineth shattered into a thousand dancing pieces of light that recoalesced.

  The eldar mimed a choking death and swooned to the floor, then sprang to his feet and bowed.

  ‘This has been most edifying, but I must bid you farewell, Sergeant Dante.’

  ‘Fire!’ roared Dante.

  His men opened up on fully automatic fire. Dozens of bolt-rounds streaked past him, the frantic candles of rocket-burn lighting up the dim chamber. The bolts smashed into the walls, blasting rock splinters everywhere. Hellaineth stood in the middle of the firestorm, his laughing outline breaking apart and reforming as bolts rushed through him.

  The Space Marines’ magazines ran out. They clattered on the floor as the warriors ejected them from their guns and slammed fresh ammunition home. Dante held up his hand.

  ‘Cease fire!’ He stormed over to the throne and kicked it over. The wood broke on the floor. He kicked it to splinters as he hunted for a projection device, but found none. ‘Search the chamber!’ he commanded. ‘Short-range hololith doppelganger. He can’t be far away.’ The Space Marines ripped tattered tapestries from the floor, prised stones from the wall, smashed out the windows and ripped up the floor. In minutes, the chamber looked as if it had taken a direct hit from heavy artillery.

  ‘Spread out! Check every chamber!’ Dante said. He ran for the roof, scraping his stabilisation jets on the walls of a narrow spiral staircase. He emerged onto a primitive roof sheathed with lead. Isolated gunfire crackled in the ruins, but the battle was over.

  ‘There’s no sign of him,’ voxed Lorenz.

  Dante growled deep in his throat. Later, after the company standard was raised on the parapet of the ancient keep and victory proclaimed, Dante searched one final time, but no trace of the prince was to be found.

  Before they left, they demolished the keep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LORD OF THE FIFTH HOST

  753.M40

  The Arx Angelicum

  Baal

  Baal System

  The Council of Bone and Blood met to choose Avernis’ replacement. A convocation of the Chaplains and the Sanguinary Priests, only they had the right to select the captains of the Chapter.

  Dante waited on their judgement. He stood upon the high parapets of the Arx Angelicum, looking out over the desert. Both moons were in the sky; Baal Primus waxed full, Baal Secundus at half. A chain of black craters marred the surface of Baal Primus. Every time Dante saw that, he was reminded of his father and the stories he used to tell of the taking of Baalind’s necklace. His recollections of life before were fading, three hundred years on, but those that remained were precious to him.

  The dunes of Baal receded to the limit of his vision, timeless in their ever-changing movements. They were always different, but forever the same. He learned early in his life as a Blood Angel that Baal had always been a world of deserts, with precious little life. The moons, though… They were a different story. Lush, paradises – before the Dark Age of Technology had ended and night descended across mankind’s first empire. War between them had reduced their landscapes to ashen desert and toxic waste.

  Home, he thought. What is home? As a boy it was Baal Secundus; as a man it is the Arx Angelicum; as a human being it is Terra. He wondered if all men felt the shiftless sense of dislocation he felt, and if men were ever meant to travel the stars at all.

  His encounter with the Pirate King made him thoughtful. The eldar had ruled a large part of the galaxy for millions of years; their technology was strange but advanced. They had a highly developed sense of the aesthetic, and yet there was one living in comparative squalor for amusement, surrounded by creatures most of its kind despised. He had seen the eldar’s worlds. He could appreciate the beauty of the things they made.

  He drew strength from mankind’s superiority. The eldar had not recovered from their fall. The Emperor had lifted men high again. They were the true masters of the galaxy.

  Unbidden, his eyes rose to the moons. If mankind is so wise, a treacherous voice whispered, why did Sanguinius leave the moons as wastelands, when he could have restored them? Leaving one’s own people to suffer so that their strife-hardened children might be recruited. Is that the action of an angel?

  Dante shook the thought away. It was the way it was, because it had to be that way.

  A cool wind blew over the dunes. Streamers of sand undulated from the crests of each, the banners to the desert’s imperceptible march. Four hundred miles to the north was the remains of the greatest city on Baal, buried in the sand. A colony of the moons in the era of mankind’s supremacy, it had died when Secundus and Primus had turned on each other. On buried streets preserved under impacted sands were the bones of millions of people. He had seen them, where the indecisive movements of the dunes covered and recovered them.

  He bowed his head.

  Sanguinius, he thought. Guide me. Through the link I share with you. Help me be the best that I can be.

  Thoughts blank, head bowed, he let the wind tug at his robes and carry his sense of time away, until he felt a presence beside him.

  He looked up with a start. Staring at him, his golden mask carved with sorrow, was the Sanguinor. Dante blinked furiously, but the golden figure remained. It reached out a golden hand and rested it upon Dante’s shoulder. Wellbeing flowed from the Herald of Sanguinius into Dante. Heavy with melancholy though it was, it steadied him.

  ‘Sergeant.’

  Reality blinked. The Sanguinor was gone. Another figure in gold stood behind him, Brother Demetrean of the Sanguinary Guard.

  ‘The council has gone into recess, brother.’

  ‘Have they reached a decision?’ said Dante.

  Demetrean shook his head. ‘I have not come to deliver their verdict to you. Chaplain Malafael wishes to see you.’

  As Malafael received Dante in his private chapel, Dante tried to guess, not for the first time, what he looked like. The brothers of the Chaplaincy never removed their helms in front of any but the captains, Chapter Master and Sanguinary Priests. To the brothers-of-the-line, they were aloof, mysterious figures. And yet Malafael had taken it on himself to mentor Dante, and Dante had come to regard him as a friend.

  ‘Brother Dante,’ said Malafael. He occupied the skull throne before the chapel altar.

  ‘Lord Malafael.’ Dante bowed.

  Malafael gestured to a ewer of wine and silver goblets, beautifully engraved by the Chaplain’s own hand. Surprisingly, the images on them were all of life, not of death.

  ‘Take wine. You probably need it. Waiting is taxing on the nerves.’

  Dante gratefully poured the wine and drank it down. ‘It would be good to share this with you,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you will soon. The Council of Bone and Blood will make their decision tomorrow,’ said Malafael. ‘I am permitted to reveal my face to a captain. But we shall see. I have voted for you, Dante. You are a good commander. Your men find you inspirational. Your strategies are sound, and you exhibit the Five Graces and Five Virtues in much of what you do. I believe you to be suitable.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Dante sipped the bitter wine. The grapes of Baal seemed to draw on the tragedy of the system. Little sweetness was found there.

  ‘Do not thank me. My judgement is foun
ded on fact, not affection.’

  ‘I saw the Sanguinor again,’ Dante said.

  Malafael sat forwards.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Bare minutes before I came here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Upon the Sanguis Wall.’

  ‘And what were you doing there?’

  ‘Taking the air. Thinking,’ said Dante.

  ‘Did anyone else see him?’

  Dante shook his head.

  ‘Then how can you be sure it was there? The Sanguinor is a material being. If it was not seen, it was not there.’

  ‘I saw it,’ said Dante. ‘I have seen the Sanguinor four times now, my lord Chaplain. Each time it has appeared at some important point in my life. It saved my life on Baal Secundus. Sergeant Gallileon, I am sure, more closely paid attention to my leadership training after Rora. It pulled me from the depths of the Red Thirst on Tobias Halt. And now, today, it came to me on the wall.’

  Malafael dipped his skull helm and took hold of his throne’s armrests.

  ‘Dante, do not speak of this before the judgement is delivered.’

  ‘But why? Should not this manifestation be recorded in the Days of the Herald?’

  ‘It should, but you must be careful. We are noble servants of the Emperor, but our blessed status does not make us immune to envy. There will be those among the higher ranks who see your claims of these visions…’

  ‘But they are real!’ protested Dante.

  ‘All solo experiences are claims, Dante, because subjective experience cannot be verified by anyone other than the observer,’ said Malafael patiently. ‘Our Chapter above others must be especially circumspect. Every brother has his visions. We cannot make decisions based on every one – we would tear ourselves apart.’

  ‘This is different.’

  ‘I believe you, but not everyone will. I advise caution, that is all. If you are to speak of your visitations, then in all other areas of your life you must be above suspicion.’

  ‘Suspicion of what?’ demanded Dante angrily.

  ‘We are an order of warriors, Dante. Do not be so naive as to think that others do not covet the position of captain, or would not resent you for taking it.’