by C. S. Goto
The immense wave of flagstones broke over the defiant, crimson form of the Blood Raven, exploding into a tremendous fountain of masonry and crumbling debris. The street was filled with a mist of dust and steam, as flagstones crashed down all around, shattering into fragments and throwing up plumes into the air.
As the dust finally settled, Matiel wiped the debris from his visor and surveyed the ruin of the street. There, exactly where he had been before the storm had hit, Tanthius stood proudly in the middle of the road, his blood-red armour radiant in amongst the speckling rain of debris. All around him was broken masonry and the remains of ruined flagstones. And, only a metre in front of his feet, the road had simply vanished; it had dropped away completely, swallowed up in a colossal chasm that seemed to have split the entire city in two along a line that bisected the street just in front of Tanthius’ feet.
On the far side of the chasm, about a hundred metres away from Tanthius, Matiel could see the Alpha Legionaries spilling back into the street, staring back over the destruction that had rent the road asunder. They looked as surprised as I feel, thought Matiel, watching them turn their backs and head off into the distance. Instinctively, he reached for the ignition switch for his jump pack, but then realised that he had jettisoned it already.
Whining slowly to a halt at the edge of the chasm, Gabriel peered over the lip. The bottom was about fifty metres down and, even in the fading light of the dusk, Gabriel could see that it was flooded with blood. For a brief moment, the Blood Ravens captain wondered whether the entire city had been built atop a lake of blood-it seemed to seep through everywhere when a hole appeared. He shook his head, dismissing the thought and drawing the bike back away from the ledge.
“What happened here?” asked Gabriel, addressing his question to Matiel and Tanthius, as Isador clambered out of the Rhino that ground to halt before the group. “I felt the earthquake from the plaza, but this is not quite what I expected to find here.”
“The chasm has split the entire city in two,” reported Isador, joining the group after peering down into the ravine. “Early signs are that it has cut off the Dannan district completely, isolating the Temple of Dannan at the centre of a virtual island.”
Gabriel nodded his acknowledgment to Isador, but kept his gaze on the other two, waiting for their explanations.
“We were pursuing the Alpha Legionaries, captain. They set a trap for us in this street, forcing us down onto the ground and pinning us in defensive positions,” reported Matiel. “When Brother Tanthius arrived, we drove the enemy back down the street together. They were on the point of breaking when the quake struck, ripping the street in two and cutting us off from the cursed Marines of Chaos.”
“Brother Tanthius, what happened to the eldar forces near the main gates?” asked Gabriel, keen to keep abreast of the situation throughout the city.
“There was a tremendous shrieking noise, like a scream, emanating from deeper in the city. When they heard it, they simply stopped fighting and disappeared, darting through those Emperor-forsaken warp-gates once again. The eldar are slippery creatures, captain,” replied Tanthius. “Before they fled, we inflicted great damage on their forces-they will not be so keen to tackle Terminators of the Blood Ravens again,” he added with satisfaction.
“Isador, do you have any idea where the sorcerer will take the key?” asked Gabriel, furrowing his brow as he tried to keep track of the complicated events of the day.
“Not really, Gabriel,” replied the Librarian. “I suspect that he will need consecrated ground and a controlled atmosphere to perform any rituals that he may have in mind.”
“Consecrated ground?” asked Gabriel. “What would that entail in this case?”
“It would depend upon the nature of the artefact. Judging by the markings on the altar we found in the valley, I imagine that we are dealing with a Khornate artefact here-so the ground may have to be consecrated with blood,” said Isador.
“How much blood?” asked Gabriel, walking back towards the chasm and looking down into it again. “Would you say that a lake the size of Lloovre Marr might be enough?”
“By the Throne, Gabriel!” said Isador, stepping onto the rim of the abyss. “If this blood really stretches out under the entire city, then Lloovre Marr itself would constitute ground consecrated for the Blood God, Khorne. The power of a cultist ritual here would be immense.”
“It seems that there was some measure of truth hidden in the riddles of the eldar witch,” said Gabriel, thinking of Madia’s warnings and the pool of blood that had gathered in the crater below the ruined monument. “We must get to the Temple of Dannan and stop the foul ceremony of the heretics before it can begin.”
The others nodded in agreement, but Gabriel remained motionless for a moment. His mind was racing with the other words of the eldar woman-she had said that Inquisitor Toth knew more than he was revealing and, if he was honest with himself, Gabriel had known this from the start. Rather than putting his mind at ease, this insight made his soul shrink from his consciousness, hiding from the articulation of the idea that he may possess unsanctioned psychic abilities. This was not the time to confront his own daemons-there were real daemons to slay on Tartarus, and it was up to him to see it done.
“Get a bridge built over this chasm, and get it done now,” he barked to Matiel, delegating command of the logistics to the sergeant, and cursing inwardly that all of the Thunderhawks were in use in the evacuation at the spaceport. Matiel nodded sharply and hastened off to organise the emergency construction.
“And Isador, get a message to Toth-tell him… tell him that we respectfully request his presence in the capital city,” said Gabriel, considering how best to phrase it.
As Isador’s face cracked into a faint smile, a gunshot pinged off his shoulder plate. A flurry of activity instantly erupted behind them, as the Blood Ravens organised themselves for battle, fanning out across the street to form a bristling barricade.
Turning, Isador saw crowds of people pouring out of the side streets into the main road. They were human-or had once been human. Their flesh was melted and disfigured, and they loped and staggered through the street in vulgar lurches. They each bore the touch of Khorne-mutating them into the minions of the Blood God-and there were hundreds of them. And they just kept coming, spilling out of the side streets and stumbling along from the other end of the main road, as though there was no end to their number. Perhaps there were thousands. They pressed down the road, trapping the Blood Ravens between that sea of cultists and the chasm of blood, hurling crude projectiles, and snapping off shots with shotguns and pistols.
“The people of Lloovre Marr?” asked Gabriel, a nauseating sickness dropping into his stomach as he braced his bolter. “Living on the consecrated ground of a daemon can have unfortunate effects on people,” he added, his thoughts dizzy and spiralling with images of Cyrene.
“Brother-captain,” said Tanthius, stepping forward in his massive Terminator armour and placing a firm hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Allow your blessed Terminators to cleanse these aberrations in your place. Your attentions are needed elsewhere.”
Gabriel looked up into the visor of his long-serving sergeant and smiled weakly. “Thank you, Tanthius,” he said, “but this is not a responsibility that I can shirk.”
He appreciated his sergeant’s concern and his unspoken understanding, but there was no way that Gabriel was going to hide from his responsibilities just because of events on his homeworld. If anything, he was buoyed by a violent sense of justice for all-if the heretics on Cyrene had to die, then so too did the vile mutants of Tartarus. There could be no exceptions.
Nonetheless, Gabriel’s stomach churned with nausea as he drew his chainsword. But then, just faintly in the back of his mind, the gentle tones of the silver choir started to wash across his soul once again, reassuring him that his direction was correct and his purpose firm.
“We will fight together, Brother Tanthius,” he said, striding towards the Blood Ravens
’ barricades with his chainsword held high and his bolter braced in his hand.
The Thunderhawk roared over the street, strafing fire through the throng of cultists, overshooting them and coasting over the Blood Ravens as they retreated across their makeshift bridge. The gunship pulled up dramatically, soaring vertically into the sky and arcing back on itself. It rolled to level out and then dived back down into the street, its guns pulsing with fire as its strafing run ripped through the cultists a second time. But the thinning crowd did not disperse, and the cultists pressed on towards the temporary bridge over the chasm, walking relentlessly into lashes of fire from the retreating line of Blood Ravens and falling in droves.
As his Marines filed over the narrow bridge, Gabriel stood shoulder to shoulder with Tanthius and Isador, blocking the path of the cultists and cutting them down with bursts of bolter fire and hacks from his chainsword. The three of them held the crowd at bay until the rest of the Blood Ravens reached the other side of the chasm, where they peeled left and right, lining the opposite ledge of the ravine. As one, the line erupted with fire, sending a hail of bolter shells flashing across the chasm, leaving glittering trails as the sun finally dropped below the horizon and the street was cast into darkness.
The disciplined volleys of fire punched into the cultists, dropping dozens at a time, driving them back through sheer pressure of fire.
“Isador. Tanthius. Time to go,” said Gabriel, as a shredded cultist fell at his feet. The supporting fire from the far bank had given them a little breathing space.
Loosing a couple of final blasts with his storm bolter, Tanthius turned and sprinted across the bridge, with Isador close behind. Gabriel hesitated for a moment, listening to the pristine chorus that still echoed in his head as he stepped forward into the throng, carving his blade through limbs and cracking skulls with the butt of his gun. Then, as though suddenly changing his mind, he turned and ran towards the bridge-the cultists being sucked into the fire-vacuum left by his departure.
From the far side, shots flashed through the night, picking off the cultists that tried to run after the sprinting captain, knocking them wailing into the depths of the chasm itself. Repeated splashes could be heard as the corpses dropped into the river of blood that filled the bottom of the ravine.
As Gabriel ran, the Thunderhawk swooped in for another run, dragging its fire through the crowd but then dumping a whistling projectile towards the bridge itself. Gabriel threw himself headlong as the bomb smashed into the apex of the bridge, detonating in a great ball of flame. The flimsy structure buckled and collapsed, free-falling into the chasm together with the cultists who had managed to evade the fire of the Blood Ravens.
A strong arm reached out and caught the grasping hand of Gabriel as the bridge fell away from under him. For a moment, the captain was held dangling precariously over the bloody chasm, but then he was pulled clear and deposited on the flagstones.
“Thank you, Isador,” said Gabriel, climbing to his feet. “My apologies, Tanthius-thank you,” he corrected himself when he saw that it was the sergeant who had saved him.
Another explosion erupted behind him, and Gabriel turned to see the Thunderhawk dump more explosive charges into the cultists on the other side of the ravine. The brief fireballs shed sudden bursts of light in the darkness, highlighting the grotesque and contorted agonies of the cultists as they were blown apart. Then the Thunderhawk stopped its raids, and the remains of the road fell into abject darkness. Gabriel could only assume that the cultists were either all dead, or that they had finally fled.
***
Plumes of fire jetted against the flagstones as the Thunderhawk lowered itself gently onto the road. The hatch opened, and a shaft of light flooded out, silhouetting the impressive figure of Inquisitor Toth in the drop chamber within. He stood for a moment, his ornate warhammer slung over his shoulder in the image of a barbarian warrior, and then strode down the ramp, his boots clanking solidly.
The dramatic gesture was wasted, as Gabriel and Isador were deep in conversation. The inquisitor made his way into the midst of the Blood Ravens, most of whom were busily securing the area.
“How could I not have seen this, Isador?” asked Gabriel. “How is it that I am most blind when it matters most?”
Isador looked at the pain in his friend’s green eyes, the faint light of torches dancing in them in the darkness. “Your intuition was right about Tartarus, old friend-that is why we stayed on this planet… Or, are you not talking about Tartarus at all?”
“I should have seen the rot before it started to spread-I was blind for too long. I put my own world to the torch, Isador-our world. How many innocents died on Cyrene, so that the heretics would burn? And yet… here I am again, at somebody else’s doorstep, flourishing the executioner’s blade so righteously…” Gabriel trailed off, unable to finish his thought.
“Blessed is the mind too small for doubt, Gabriel,” said Isador, managing a faint smile for his friend.
“I have no doubts!” snapped Gabriel, a little too sharply “I still believe in the purity of the Imperium… in the sovereign might of the Golden Throne… even in the guidance of the Astronomican itself,” he added, almost as a confession. He looked around for a moment, wondering where Prathios was.
“It is in yourself that you have lost faith, my friend,” said Isador, finally giving voice to a concern that he had harboured ever since Cyrene.
“No, Isador. Not in myself, only in what I see,” replied Gabriel, his eyes still searching for the company Chaplain in the night.
“And what is it that you see, captain?” asked Inquisitor Toth as he strode in between the two friends, cutting off their conversation.
Gabriel twitched visibly, shaken a little by the sudden arrival of the inquisitor. But he recovered quickly and drew himself up to his full height as he addressed Mordecai.
“I see conspirators and liars more concerned with their own agenda than with the will of the Emperor, inquisitor,” he said, making no attempt to hide the venom in his voice.
“And you expect me to break down and confess to being such a heretic?” responded Mordecai with a snort and a brief laugh. “I am not so easily cowed by your accusations, Marine, and I have nothing that I must confess to you.”
“You lied to me!” shouted Gabriel, stepping closer to the inquisitor and making Isador reach for his shoulder to restrain him. “You lied to me, and many good Marines are dead because of it.”
“They are better off dead with pure hearts than caught in this warp storm, captain. If you really feel that accusations are an appropriate subject of conversation with an inquisitor, then I might accuse you: their deaths are all on your head, captain, for I warned you to leave this world and you ignored me. I told you about the storm, but you had to go looking for the taint of Chaos, as is your wont, it seems,” said Mordecai, calm and calculating as usual.
“Your words still ring untrue, inquisitor,” countered Gabriel, although he had to acknowledge the literal truth of them. “I know that you are not new to Tartarus-I know that your masters at the Ordo Xenos have been here before.” Isador withdrew his hand, evidently shocked at the risk Gabriel was taking-confronting an inquisitor with the knowledge of an eldar witch.
For the first time in their acquaintance, Gabriel saw Mordecai flinch. “I am not in the habit of explaining the affairs of the Emperor’s Inquisition to Space Marines, captain. But yes, you are right, the Ordo Xenos has been watching Tartarus for longer than you might imagine.”
“What are they watching, Toth?” asked Gabriel, his contempt fired by Mordecai’s confession.
“They are watching for signs of unspeakable horror, captain,” replied Mordecai, his tone softening even as Gabriel’s hardened.
“Would these be the same horrors pursued by the Alpha Legion?” he asked, almost spitting as he recalled that the inquisitor had claimed to feel no taint of Chaos on Tartarus.
“There are no coincidences on Tartarus,” began Mordecai, almost to himse
lf. “There is only the storm that winnows the faithful from the heretic.”
“And are we faithful men, Toth? Are we good servants of the Emperor?” bit Gabriel, challenging the inquisitor.
Mordecai looked down at his feet for a moment, hefting his heavy warhammer from one hand to the other, swinging it like a metronome, as though trying to keep pace with his thoughts.
“This world is cursed, captain,” he began, as though he had reached an important decision. “Three thousand years ago an artefact of ancient and evil power was lost here. The forces of Chaos seek this artefact-they have sought it for centuries, but they have never been in possession of all the pieces of the puzzle.”
“Until now,” offered Gabriel, encouraging Mordecai to continue.
“Secrets are hard things to keep, captain, as the Blood Ravens themselves know well. The events of that day three thousand years ago drew the attention of many eyes, some of which have not aged as rapidly as our own. For them, it has simply been a matter of waiting for the right time to return to this world. Not long ago, an Imperial excavation team accidentally uncovered a marker-the first of a series of coded markers. I’m afraid that the Inquisition was not quick enough to silence news of this find, and it quickly found its way into ears that should not have heard it. This marker indicated the location of the altar that you yourself discovered in the valley. From then on, it was a simple matter of following the trail.” Mordecai was on a roll now, evidently relieved to be getting this off his chest.
“And this artefact, what is it?” asked Gabriel, trying to cut through the irrelevant details-time was short.
“It is a stone-a small gem called the Maledictum. Inside is contained a daemon of great power-a daemon prince, born of the forces of Chaos itself,” replied Mordecai with sinister force.