Blood Rite - Rachel Harrison

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘That is what truly concerns you,’ Darrago’s brother says. ‘There is a part of you that seeks a noble death. That dreads watching a brother become something dark and hateful. This isn’t about the mortal, not really. It is about the Flaw and the pull of it. It is about the fact that she saw a glimpse of it in the five of you, and that makes you feel ashamed.’

  Insight is another of his brother’s masteries. He uses it as deftly as he does a blade and with just as much certainty.

  Darrago shakes his head. ‘There is already so much for them to fear,’ he says. ‘Xenos. Traitors. The lost and the damned. They should not need to fear us, too.’

  ‘There are few things in this galaxy that are assured. Death is one. War is another. For mortals, fear is just as certain. I said it before. It is why we are made.’

  ‘To endure what they fear until the day that we become it ourselves,’ Darrago says, before he can stop himself. ‘Tell me, brother, what does that make us?’

  His brother, as always, does not look away when he answers.

  ‘Angels,’ he says.

  THE SHRINE OF SANGUIS GLORIA, THEN…

  ‘How did you know?’ Darrago asks. ‘You knew before Sahbal turned what had become of him.’

  Sanyctus blinks. That scar tissue flickers. The damage looks deep in the half-light of the pilgrimsway as they keep moving towards the Angel’s Heart.

  ‘It made me think of Perdicia,’ Sanyctus says.

  Darrago remembers every battle. It is one of the gifts that comes from ascension, though where battles like Perdicia are concerned, remembering sometimes feels more akin to a curse.

  ‘The cult of masks,’ Darrago says, softly.

  He remembers what the cult had done. What his brothers did, too, to make it right. He remembers standing beside Sanyctus to protect a cathedral full of innocents who had taken sanctuary from the sins of their neighbours. He remembers in the aftermath, how the families had come to thank them. They had pressed their hands to Darrago’s armour as if in reverence and he had not known what to do, or what to say. He remembers Sanyctus dropping to one knee as the innocents took to their prayers, taking the time to speak good words for their lost.

  ‘A cruel day,’ Sanyctus says. In the moments between battles, he sounds more as Darrago remembers him to, more like his old friend, who spoke with the people of Perdicia. ‘Every ninth mortal in the city tier crowned with molten silver in the name of something false.’

  ‘I remember,’ Darrago says, and he can smell the silver and the burning. ‘But I do not see what that has to do with what became of Sahbal.’

  ‘They gave themselves up to it willingly on Perdicia,’ Sanyctus says. ‘I could see the choice on them. In their eyes. They all had the same look. The same madness.’

  Darrago thinks of the once-pilgrim and his wide, dark eyes. The intensity of them. He thinks of the cultist he killed earlier and the words he spoke.

  ‘Devotion,’ Darrago says. ‘That is what you saw in them. A devotion to darkness.’

  Sanyctus nods. ‘They chose the easy path,’ he says. ‘They chose to give in, instead of fighting it. I saw the same madness in Sahbal.’

  ‘The pilgrims and the priests chose to follow heretics,’ Darrago says. The idea is unthinkable to him. His mind fights it. ‘They chose Zalak and his coven.’

  ‘Out of weakness or fear,’ Sanyctus says. ‘Perhaps they did not fully understand the choice that they were making, or what they were truly becoming, but they made the choice nonetheless. They still had to answer for it.’

  He looks at Darrago. For a moment, he almost looks serene beneath the blood and the ashes and all of his scars, then he takes his helm and locks it back in place. Darrago just sees himself reflected in the jade eye-lenses.

  ‘As we all will, in the end,’ Sanyctus says.

  The approach to the Heart is filled with candles. Thousands of them, still lit and flickering, two or three times Darrago’s own height. New ones have been affixed over the old ones, and over time they have melted and combined to create grand, twisted stalagmites of wax crowned with those tiny flames. Flames that endure despite the sawing breaths of dry, stale air that push and pull through the shrine. Despite the candlekeepers who lie dead at the feet of each of the red wax monoliths. They burn on heedless as the Archangels tread through puddles of softened wax, leaving heavy, pressed footprints behind them. There are other footprints in the wax, too, crossing over one another as if made in panic. Most of them were made by boots or soft shoes. Some by bare feet, that look misshapen and distorted.

  ‘They should have gone out,’ Maeklus says.

  He is looking up at one of the candles. It is so large that the candlekeepers have carved hand and foot holds into the face of it in order to reach the top and tend the flames.

  ‘There is something to be said for light that can endure in a place this dark,’ Victorno says.

  Maeklus frowns. ‘They should have gone out,’ he says, again.

  Sanyctus stops moving. ‘Quiet,’ he says, the combat-edge made by adrenaline turning his voice sharp. ‘Do you hear that?’

  Darrago listens. He hears the burn of candles. The drip of wax. The snarl of his own Terminator plate.

  The whispers in reverse, growing louder.

  ‘Ready yourselves,’ Victorno bellows.

  At his words, every candle in the corridor roars to new life. The flames grow to reach the ceiling, then as one they blow out. Everything but the pilot light on Maeklus’ flamer. Darrago’s eye-lenses adjust instantly to compensate for the darkness, and to reveal spiked, horned shadows peeling away from the walls, wielding jagged blades. The daemons’ eyes glow balefire red and Darrago’s world becomes a handful of instances, lit by gunfire. The daemons are only part-born, not truly corporeal, and they flicker like the candles did, disappearing and reappearing and trailing smoke. They roar like working engines without needing to take a breath, a constant assault of noise. Where they are hit by bolt-shells, or by power weapons, the daemons discorporate and burst, scattering ashes. But there are many. One of their jagged blades strikes Darrago’s armour at the waist and goes through. It goes through him, too. He roars in pain, coughing blood onto the inside of his faceplate. Darrago fires his storm bolter until the daemon’s balefire eyes gutter out. Beside him, Ebellius shatters marble and daemonstuff alike with his power fist. Victorno’s hammer lights the corridor with every strike. Sanyctus’ claws cut and rend as the daemons shift and swarm and move on him as one. They seek his blood, too, just like the Devoted.

  ‘Adiccio!’ Darrago shouts, as he loses sight of his brother.

  ‘Burn them!’ Sanyctus roars.

  ‘Aye,’ Maeklus says, and he turns his heavy flamer onto the daemon-tide.

  The corridor ahead of Darrago lights, hot white and red. The flames roll over the daemons, and over Sanyctus too. For a moment, he is lost to it. Consumed by it. But Terminator armour is built to withstand the worst of punishments.

  And so are those who wear it.

  The flames go out and the daemons are dust, but Sanyctus remains. Fire clings to his armour, burning his oath seals away. Wax runs over and off the plates. They are blackened by ashes now too, save for those red wax trails. Sanyctus’ eye-lenses have cracked with the heat of it. He tears his helm free and locks it to his belt. He is breathing deeply and raggedly.

  Maeklus does not speak. He just approaches Sanyctus and thumps his closed fist against his shoulder. Sanyctus nods in answer.

  ‘Blinded all over again, brother,’ Ebellius says. ‘There is such a thing as wanting too much for glory.’

  Ebellius laughs, because Ebellius always laughs, especially when things are dire. Sanyctus doesn’t join in. His one good eye is dark and furious. The firelight reflects in it.

  ‘Glory,’ Sanyctus says. ‘No. Not glory.’

  Then he turns away and moves off up the corridor, and for a moment to Darrago the red wax trails on his brother’s armour look just like saltires.

  Red on b
lack.

  The closer they get to the Angel’s Heart, the darker it becomes. There are no more candles. No more pennants or banners. No more murals or gilded glories. They have all been torn away and replaced with eight-pointed stars and inverted chalices and those same words that the cultists keep saying.

  Blood for the Blessed.

  It is painted in great, angry strokes that flake and smear and smell like iron. It is dizzying, that smell.

  Overwhelming.

  Darrago crushes devotionals underfoot just as he crushes the cultists holding the cloisters of the pilgrimsway. The heretics. The once-priests that have painted red trails down their faces and the fronts of their robes. He breaks their bones with his gauntleted fist. His breathing is loud and ragged inside his helm. Beside him his brothers fight and break and kill too. They are unstoppable.

  Blood.

  The word echoes for Darrago as the cultists roar it at him.

  Blood.

  But then he breaks and he kills until all of the cultists are dead, but still the roar does not stop.

  Because the roar is his own.

  Darrago stops. Staggers. He plants the company standard to keep from falling. His limbs tremor and his fangs ache up into his head. He blinks. Sees his brothers kill in what seems like half-time. The cultists still do not scream, but some of them laugh as they die. The golden thread sewn into the company standard catches Darrago’s eye. The glories, and the lessons learned.

  ‘In this,’ he shouts, through the pain and the darkness and the want to give into the roar. ‘We are angels!’

  His words echo back at him from his helm’s emitters and off the walls of the pilgrimsway as his brothers falter and stop their snarling. Their shaking.

  All save for one.

  ‘Sanyctus!’ Victorno shouts.

  Sanyctus has left a trail of the dead and a thick slick of that black blood. It takes much of Darrago’s strength not to let it unsteady him. Overwhelm him.

  ‘Adiccio,’ Darrago says, between breaths.

  At the sound of his name, Sanyctus turns. His one good eye is wild. A thick stripe of blood paints its way down his chin and the front of his Terminator plate. He drops the cultist that he is holding in his gauntlet and his lightning claws snap live. He lunges for Darrago, and Victorno blocks it with his storm shield. The power fields clash together with a boom of pressure.

  ‘The lesson!’ Darrago shouts. ‘Adiccio!’

  Sanyctus finally falters. Finally stops.

  ‘The lesson,’ he slurs through his teeth. ‘I remember.’

  Victorno pushes Sanyctus back and lowers the shield slowly. Sanyctus looks down at the marble floor. At the bodies and the blood.

  ‘This place,’ he says, and his voice is less slurred. More like his own. ‘We mean to save it. To make it clean. Yet there is already so much ruin.’

  ‘We will save it. We are the only ones who can.’ The pause Victorno makes is deliberate. Weighted. ‘We are the only ones strong enough.’

  After a long moment, Sanyctus nods slowly. ‘The Heart, then the Crown,’ he says. ‘Then it is done.’

  Darrago is unsure in that moment whether Sanyctus is talking about the task that lies ahead, or about himself. He does not get the chance to ask because his brother turns away and the five of them set to moving along the pilgrimsway. Into the darkness and towards the Heart. This time Maeklus leads, with Ebellius walking beside Sanyctus. Victorno stays at Darrago’s side.

  ‘He barely saw you, this time,’ Victorno says, over a private vox link. ‘It is getting worse with every fight.’

  Darrago shakes his head. ‘It is just this place,’ he says. ‘That is all.’

  ‘This place is vile,’ Victorno says. ‘That is true. It presses at the edges of my mind. Feeds the curses we carry. But he meant to fight you, Thaneod. He meant to kill you. That is more than a moment of weakness. That is failure.’

  Darrago lets out a slow breath. ‘The words brought him back,’ he says. ‘It is not failure yet.’

  ‘The lesson,’ Victorno says. ‘Remember the lesson. Why does it bring him back? What does it mean?’

  Darrago tightens his grip on the company standard.

  ‘The lesson comes from Kalatar,’ he says. ‘From the war with the orks.’

  Victorno grunts. ‘Those that took his eye,’ he says. ‘Damn near took my head. I remember. But what is the lesson?’

  Darrago watches Sanyctus, keeping half an eye on his brother’s vital signs. The heartbeat monitor is more steady now, but it is always a pace quicker than the others.

  ‘We fought furiously on Kalatar,’ Darrago says. ‘But Adiccio most of all. When the battle turned, he would not fall back. He meant to kill their warlord in vengeance for the death and destruction they had wrought on that world, but he got cut off from the rest of us. I lost sight of him amongst the hordes and I only found him again by the trail of greenskin dead. There was not a glimmer of gold left on his plate for the blood and the damage. I thought that he could be dead too, he was so still.’

  Darrago shakes his head. It makes the servos in his armour whine.

  ‘I called out his name, and he moved. He looked at me with the eye left to him and put his hand to the ruin of the one that he’d lost and told me that was the price for his failure. That his rage truly had blinded him. Then he asked me to remember it. To never let him forget the lesson.’

  ‘And when he cannot be reminded?’ Victorno asks. ‘When the words no longer work?’

  Darrago feels a pull of grief on his hearts, just as when he saw Arthemio lying amongst the timeworn dead.

  ‘You know the answer to that question, Dio,’ Darrago says. ‘We all know the price for that kind of failure.’

  THE SANGUINE TEAR, NOW…

  ‘Then you had considered the fact he might fail? That the Flaw might claim him?’

  Darrago has set about folding the banner now, leaving his work half done. He will return to it later, when his head is not so clouded and he is not so troubled. When the questions are done, and judgement passed.

  ‘It would be ignorant not to,’ Darrago says. ‘There is an inevitability to it. It is a decline that cannot be denied. The path leads only downwards. It is what you do on that path that you can control. How surely you can slow the descent.’

  Darrago’s brother nods. ‘Meditation. Training. Craft or creation. Mantras, like your own.’ He pauses. ‘In this, we are angels.’

  When the mantra is spoken by Darrago’s brother, the inflection is different. More sombre.

  ‘Those words remind me what I am,’ Darrago says. ‘What I should be.’

  ‘And where do they come from?’

  Darrago finishes folding the banner. He pushes out the last of the creases.

  ‘Adiccio,’ he says. ‘He spoke those words to me on Solace, long ago.’

  The memory of that day comes back to him now, as it does often, and he catches the chill that comes from shame. Darrago pushes it aside with effort and tries not to think of that blissful blindness and the euphoria that came with the taste of blood. That is why those words became a mantra, because they ease the pain of that memory and keep him from making any more like it.

  ‘It is another thing I owe him for,’ Darrago says. ‘More so than the deaths denied, in truth.’

  Solace was the moment that truly bound the two of them together. A singular instance of terrible vulnerability, the likes of which Darrago had never known before that day, and has not known again since, thanks to that handful of words given to him by a brother.

  ‘It would have been ignorant not to consider the Flaw, or how it circled my brother,’ Darrago says. ‘But that does not mean that I doubted Adiccio, or that I believed he would fail. He has always been selfless, as I said, but he has always been strong too. Capable of arresting that descent, no matter the pull of it. He always returns to us.’

  ‘And after the chalice? Was that truly Adiccio Sanyctus who returned to you then?’

  Darrago thinks
about it a moment. About golden fire and the screams of warp-sent horrors. About the look in Sanyctus’ remaining eye, beatific.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I believe it was.’

  THE SHRINE OF SANGUIS GLORIA, THEN…

  The Angel’s Heart was once a hall of worship, grand and arched. There are smooth furrows in the marble floor from the passing of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. From where they have knelt to speak the words of worship carved into the floor before another representation of Darrago’s father. This one is three times Darrago’s size and made from gold. It is sculpted with a beneficent smile and a hand outstretched as if it means to offer something.

  Instead, the offerings have been made before it.

  The bodies of pilgrims and priests have been dragged and moved and heaped to make that same eight-pointed mark on the floor at the foot of the statue. It burns, that mark, with blue fire that dazzles Darrago even through his helm’s lenses. In the centre of the circle, surrounded by the dead and the fire, are five kneeling figures, clad in crimson armour trimmed with silver. They are chanting unwords. The same unwords that carry on the cold air as whispers.

  ‘Heretics.’

  The five Word Bearers stop their chanting and get to their feet. They trail smoke as they turn as one, their armour plates swelling and shifting as curves of bone push through the ceramite. They grow horns and claws and jutting spines, their eye-lenses glowing balefire red.

  ‘Warp-kin,’ Victorno snarls.

  Darrago and his brothers fire on the possessed Word Bearers without hesitation, but the shells burn up when they hit the ritual circle, burst by tongues of blue flame.

  The first of them laughs, in a twinned, asynchronous voice.

  ‘Hail, angels,’ he says. ‘Come to make an offering, have you?’

  He turns his head with a creak of ceramite and metal, and looks to Sanyctus. The five balefire lenses set into his helm flicker.