The Devastation of Baal

by Guy Haley

  Onward,+ said the voice. +Do not tarry, son of blood. You must see before you are seen.+

  The pass opened out onto a plain that stretched on forever. Upon it two huge daemonic hosts fought, one of black and one of red. The foot soldiers of both hosts were arrayed in vast legions. Individual warriors lost all meaning, the two were opposing seas of different colours, crashing violently against one another. Arcane machines and bizarre armoured vehicles partly of flesh and partly of iron warred among the limitless multitudes, their guns sounding a constant thunder over the raucous cymbal clash of a billion blades. Most dreadful of all were the generals of the armies. Great bloodthirsters of Khorne flapped over their minions on leathery wings. Rage crystallised and given will, they fought wheeling battles in the sky against one another, crying hatred as loud as cannon fire.

  Mephiston’s heart responded. The curse he held subdued rose in him. Being there was pain. Being there was joy. Only the letting of blood would alleviate his suffering and intensify his pleasure. The thirst parched him, the rage tormented him, they fought for his mind, an internal struggle which mirrored that going on below, red versus black.

  He came to the centre of the clash, where a vast spearhead of the red-skinned daemons had penetrated deeply into the black forces. Giant, brass-clad towers ground daemon flesh into pulp as they rolled forward, their baroque cannon belching gun smoke.

  At the very tip of the formation the most monstrous bloodthirster of them all fought, one of the eight to the power of eight to the power of eight lieutenants of Khorne. So many were the multitudes of the bloodthirsters that no man could know every one of their number, but this creature clad in brazen armour, ape-faced and fiery-breathed, was known to all those of Sanguinius’ line permitted to learn the truth of the warp.

  ‘Ka’Bandha,’ whispered Mephiston.

  Do not speak its name,+ urged the eldar. +You put us at risk.+

  ‘Then why am I here?’ said Mephiston.

  As if in answer, Ka’Bandha threw back his head and howled with rage so potent the ground shook and the sky answered with peals of thunder. An avalanche of skulls rumbled off the mountain range, burying thousands of combatants alive. Mephiston’s fury burned high in his breast. He wanted to descend to rend and tear with them all.

  ‘I must leave here, or I am lost. Release me, xenos.’

  Not yet! Watch!+

  Mephiston’s attention was directed to the distance. A titanic axe of fire wounded the yellow sky. A slash opened the world from heavens to deeps. Through it shone the cold light of real space stars.

  The way opens. The Bane of Angels comes.+

  Ka’Bandha roared again, and his rage infected everything within earshot. Mephiston struggled to control himself. He forced himself to observe as the rising tide of fury swallowed his mind.

  Above the rift, an angel of scarlet fire ignited into being, his wings filling the sky. His outline shivered with heat distortion. His sword burned.

  The mellifluous voice of the eldar spoke in Mephiston’s ear, so close he could feel the thing’s breath.

  ‘Hold fast. Watch for the end. A lord of men returns. Do not fall, do not fall! Stand fast, two-souled Mephiston. Now is the time of ending, and of beginning.’

  A sheeting flash ended his vision and Mephiston fell for an age.

  The Lord of Death returned to life full of rage. He clawed mindlessly at the inside of his sarcophagus. Equipment broke to sparking wreckage. Velvet shredded. Soft ivory scored under his nails. The lid juddered on its mountings at his ferocious strength. Alarms peeped and whistled. The sepulcrum echoed to the tolling of a bell so large the sarcophagus vibrated as if struck by the clapper.

  Mephiston was oblivious to the havoc he had unleashed. Out out out! he screamed in his mind, though only incoherent snarls left his mouth. The machinery that held the coffin lid closed squealed with oppositional effort. Though the locks were powerful, they could not resist his warp-born strength.

  He lashed out with his mind, sending a scarlet tide of energy at the sarcophagus lid.

  With a crack, the ivory lid split in two and bounced onto the platform floor. One half hung from wrecked pneumatic closures, the other skidded through a slick of blood and fell from the platform, banging from the sides of the sepulcrum as it crashed into the indeterminate deeps of the librarius.

  Ripping at his own flesh, Mephiston fell forward, tangled in the feed lines and hibernation monitors still plugged into his black carapace’s neural ports. Blood squirted from tubes as he tore them free.

  Mephiston landed in the wreckage of the sarcophagus. Hot anger burned through him. He felt himself, whatever he was, slipping away. Mephiston, Calistarius – both were at risk. He was in danger of becoming something else again.

  This is not your rage, said a cold, impersonal voice. His voice, Mephiston’s voice, though it seemed to come from without. This is not Sanguinius’ sacred rage, it said. Cast it from you. It is impure.

  Rapid blinks shuttered over eyes rolled back into his skull. Mephiston convulsed and vomited a thin stream of bloody saliva. With a feral half groan, half shout, he pushed the anger out of his mind as if he were shouldering a physical object aside.

  The rage passed.

  Gasping from the depths of his soul, Mephiston got up onto his hands and knees. Blood pooled upon the platform around him. Nearby, Mephiston’s personal artificer waited stoically for death upon his platform. Mephiston sensed his anticipation; the wretch wished to die.

  ‘You live another day!’ gasped the Lord of Death.

  Agitated cyber-constructs shrieked down from their roosts and warily circled Mephiston. Precious vitae, spiced with chemical improvement, ran from the edge of his platform in a helical waterfall as the sepulcrum’s mechanism continued on its ceaseless course.

  The bell’s tolling summoned the Librarians of the Adeptus Astartes soon enough. Whether to aid their master or to contain a monster they did not know, but they came down the stairs to Mephiston’s platform in strength and armoured, the weapons of their minds and fists prepared for the worst.

  Epistolary Gaius Rhacelus arrived first. He was personally closest to Mephiston in the librarius, but most ready to do what must be done despite their friendship. The guardians of the spheres came after him, their huge swords at the ready. Rhacelus hurried through Mephiston’s strange study and onto the steps leading to the rest platform. When his feet were wetted by the pool of blood, Mephiston looked up at his equerry with burning eyes. He was naked, smeared in blood, his long hair sticky with it, savage in every aspect; he was nevertheless in control.

  ‘Stand down. I am not yet damned, Rhacelus,’ said Mephiston quietly.

  The wychlight shining in Rhacelus’ face faded, though it never died. His aged features were suffused always by power leaking from warp-damaged eyes. He held up his hand. The warriors behind him relaxed from their readiness for combat and began issuing orders, bringing mindless servitors in to repair the damage to the Sepulcrum Maleficus. Their labours would be slowly performed. Blood thralls under the direction of a Techmarine would have completed the work in hours, but only members of the librarius were allowed into this innermost sanctum. Few outside the Quorum Empyric, the librarius’ ruling body, were aware of its existence.

  ‘Mephiston! By the Blood, what has happened to you?’ said Rhacelus. He reached for his master. Mephiston pushed his friend’s hand away and sat back on his haunches.

  ‘It is the future that should concern you.’ Mephiston coughed.

  ‘Fetch Aphek!’ Rhacelus snapped over his shoulder. He looked over Mephiston again and his frown deepened further. ‘And Sanguinary Priest Albinus. We will have them both look you over, my lord.’

  The Lord of Death shook his head, sending his blood-thick hair swinging.

  ‘Not now. There is no time. Help me,’ Mephiston said. ‘Help me into the Chemic Spheres. I must have answers
. Quickly.’

  Rhacelus stood. He nodded, concern writ large upon his grey-bearded face. Mephiston could communicate much with few words. ‘Sheathe your swords.’ Rhacelus motioned to the guardians of the spheres. ‘Carry him.’

  Mephiston was half dragged down moist, crumbling corridors to the Chemic Spheres. The room was full of the light of the captive star Idalia. A milky dome occupied the centre. All was pure and white, until Rhacelus employed his blood key, injecting the dome with a shot of vitae, sending crimson circuits of psychic power all over its surface and opening the seamless door to the interior. Pale gloom turned pink as he entered, the tracery of activated psychic circuits racing out from his feet. A claw-footed throne materialised from the sanguine glow, and Rhacelus motioned that the Chief Librarian be placed upon it.

  Mephiston half fell into the throne, swallowing heavily. The guardians retreated, leaving Rhacelus alone with his master.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Rhacelus said.

  ‘I dreamed,’ said Mephiston wearily.

  ‘You do not dream. Not in the Long Sleep. You do not allow yourself.’

  ‘Dream I did,’ said Mephiston. ‘I had no choice. An eldar brought me the vision, I think. There are great forces at play.’ He took a deep breath, still weak. ‘Firstly, something is about to happen to the Diamor taskforce. I did not see, but I felt it.’ He struggled through his memories of his vision, but like all dreams they were fading. ‘I must focus! Help me, Rhacelus. The lives of a third of our Chapter depend upon it.’

  The epistolary gestured. His eyes flared. A second throne manifested from nothing. He took his place in it and closed his eyes, lending his power to Mephiston’s.

  Their souls entwined, and the two of them looked upon a fractured future. The dark stain of the shadow in the warp encroached upon the Baal system, blotting out the soul-light of stars in its wake and leaving nothing but hungering blackness that spread like ink through water. From the direction of Hivefleet Leviathan’s approach there was none of the psychic noise generated by the Imperium’s astrotelepathic network, no crackling pops as ships entered and left warp space, no susurrus generated by the multitudinous souls of inhabited worlds, no psychic screams of dying planets, no alien thoughts or psychic echoes from the past, only a blank and oppressive silence more forbidding than a storm front. When focused upon, the silence gave way to the chittering of the swarm. Random seeming at first, the horrible uniformity of innumerable minds working in synchronicity became apparent.

  There was something else, a thrumming tension to reality’s fabric that made all shake and vibrate like the skin of a drum lightly struck, though the rhythm it played grew more violent with every heartbeat.

  There is a disturbance in the warp greater than that of the Great Devourer,+ thought Mephiston. +It is what I felt. I saw Cadia in flames.+

  This is the danger to the Diamor fleet?+

  Maybe. That was something else. Something earlier. We must see!+

  Let us see if we can join with our brothers,+ said Rhacelus. +Epistolary Asasmael is with them. Let us call to him.+

  They flew through non-space to look upon the fringes of Diamor. Worlds moved in stately fashion around a blue giant. Unusually placid for a star of its kind, it bathed its planetary children with bright cyan light. Already the Angelic Blade and the Flame of Baal, the strike cruisers of the Fifth Company, were present with a small flotilla of escorts, their red livery black in the blue starshine. More Blood Angels were coming, Mephiston and Rhacelus could sense their approach, urged on to great speed through the warp as if some agency wished them to arrive with High Chaplain Astorath’s force.

  We will warn them,+ thought Mephiston.

  A sense of imminence afflicted them, and they looked on in anguish as a malevolent mind reached through the veil of realities. Spectral jaws formed around the Angelic Blade and snapped shut. A blood-red psychic storm wreathed the ships. A terrible scream resounded through the warp, blasting Mephiston with the anguish of dozens of warriors lost to madness together. The Angelic Blade listed, falling off its course. The Flame of Baal vented atmosphere from a dozen deep gashes in its flanks and steamed ahead, pulling away from its sister.

  All this would have taken hours in real time. Mephiston and Rhacelus watched as it happened, but they were divorced from the mortal realm, and time moved differently for them.

  Warp engines made bright tracks upon the psychic ­firmament as vessels forced their way into real space, arriving moments after the storm that assailed their brothers. The markings of the First, Second and Seventh Companies of the Blood Angels were displayed upon them. It should have been an uplifting sight, to see their ­brothers safe through the immaterium and heading to war, but other powers wished them stopped.

  The arriving fleet stood off from the Angelic Blade. Uncertainty coloured the warp. Seeing something was amiss, the vessels Dante had sent from Cryptus sped towards their beleaguered brothers.

  A sorrowing mind reached out to touch theirs, groping through the psychic backlash.

  I have Asasmael+, thought Rhacelus, his mind strained at the pain of making contact at such distances. He and Mephiston struggled to hear Asasmael’s voice. His presence was snatched away before he could impart a sense of what had happened. The drumbeat rippling of empyrical disturbance intensified. Fell intelligences noticed Rhacelus and Mephiston’s astral presences, and turned their attention upon them.

  Enough!+ said Mephiston.

  Mephiston’s eyes snapped open. Without pausing for breath he thrust himself from the throne, waved down a vox cherub and began issuing orders. ‘Marcello! Send word to the relay on Baal Secundus. Have our astropaths focus their attentions upon the Diamor system. Let the librarius aid them. Find Karlaen and the rest.’

  ‘My lord,’ said Epistolary Marcello’s voice from the silver lips of the cherub.

  ‘Something terrible has happened to the taskforce,’ he said to Rhacelus. ‘We must speak with Asasmael. We shall go to the relay on Baal Secundus, and enlist Master Leeter’s aid.’

  ‘There is worse on the way,’ said Rhacelus. He shut his glowing eyes, and rubbed behind his skull, scratching at the interface sockets of his psychic hood.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mephiston absently, his mind drifting back to the vision of Ka’Bandha. This element of his vision he would share only with the Chapter Master. ‘Far worse. Commander Dante must be informed.’

  Chapter Five

  Blade of Vengeance

  ‘Is it not glorious?’ said Erwin. His teeth pricked at his lips in anticipation.

  ‘As you say, captain,’ said Achemen.

  Erwin stood free of his throne, trusting to the Servile Locum to run the command systems for him. He and Achemen were fully armed for battle. Erwin wore a power sword belted to his side. A boxy storm bolter hung from a strap around his right shoulder, the gun being too big to mag-lock to his battleplate. Fifteen of his Tactical Marines stood at various points around the bridge, guns in their hands. They expected to be boarded. They wanted it.

  The Splendid Pinion cut its way through space towards a world shrouded in a cloud of tyrannic spacecraft. From fifty thousand miles out the aliens looked like a swarm of nocturnal insects mobbing a lumen.

  ‘Numbers!’ demanded Erwin.

  ‘Forty-seven thousand destroyer class and larger bio-ships, my lord,’ said the Servile of the Watch drily. ‘Or thereabouts.’

  ‘Imperial numbers?’ said Erwin.

  ‘Two battle-barges: the Blade of Vengeance, Blood Angels, and the Crimson Tear, Angels Numinous.’

  ‘The Blade of Vengeance itself!’ said Erwin eagerly. Achemen gave him a morose look. He lacked the proper enthusiasm.

  ‘Six strike cruisers,’ the Servile of the Watch went on, ‘and thirty-five escort craft.’

  ‘Is that it?’ said Erwin incredulously.

  ‘Those are impossible odds,’ said
Achemen. ‘We cannot win.’

  ‘Ah! Our brothers in the Blood are not seeking victory,’ said Erwin. ‘Look.’

  Bursts of light marked out battle in the encircling shroud of the hive fleet. The ships of the Imperium were invisible at that distance, but the destruction they meted out was not. Spheres of dazzling light enveloped alien craft, blasting holes in the swarm. Twinkles of an unleashed broadside sparked in the shifting clouds of xenos ships.

  ‘Impossible odds,’ repeated Achemen.

  ‘The tyranids are not the target,’ said Erwin.

  Shockwaves rippled through the atmosphere of Zozan Tertius. A circle of the sky turned black. Its expanding circumference crackled with violent electrical storms, and the centre glowed – the telltale sign of planet death by cyclo-nucleonic fire.

  ‘Exterminatus,’ said Achemen bleakly.

  ‘The Kryptmann solution,’ said Erwin. ‘Starve the horde. The situation must be desperate if a noble heart like Commander Dante would consider the death of worlds. Servile of Response, send them a message. Hololithic transmission,’ commanded Erwin. ‘Commit primary projector to the purpose. Maximum boost.’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said the Servile of Response.

  The strategic display winked out over the main hololith pit, and its stylised representation of the void was picked up by lesser tacticaria. In its place a pale sphere glowed, gradually coalescing into the ghostly shape of a Blood Angels fleet officer.

  ‘Greetings, my brother,’ said Erwin. ‘I am Cap­tain Erwin, Second Company of the Angels Excelsis and commander of the Splendid Pinion. We answer your call for aid.’

  ‘I am Brother Asante, fleet captain of the Blade of ­Vengeance.’ Noise spill from the Blade of Vengeance’s command deck crowded the audio channel. Interference from tyranid jamming beasts interrupted the visual, causing his face to momentarily freeze and jump apart into blurred image blocks. ‘Your presence is welcome,’ said Asante. His words smeared into one another. The sound of voices and ship’s guns swelled in the background. ‘We are preparing to fall back. Cover our… rrrrrr.’ Asante’s image flickered out.