Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow

by Warhammer 40K

  After the procession of names, deeds and honours, the priest’s litany came to a close and Sachiel shut the book with grim finality. As Rafen watched him, the Space Marine remembered his thoughts in the graveyard. He wondered when his name would be read aloud to such a gathering. With a blink, he brushed the distracting thought away, just as a new voice rose to fill the chamber’s stillness.

  “Comrade Brother Sachiel, I wish to address these brave warriors.” Stele stepped forward from the back of the pulpit and surveyed the assembled men. The lamplight glittered off the intricate working of threads on his cloak. The complex letter-string design was similar to the tent-cloth Rafen had seen down on Cybele. No doubt they were psionic wards or some such arcane magick against the enemy’s mind-witches.

  Sachiel gave a shallow bow to the inquisitor and allowed Stele to take the stage. “Blood Angels, hear me,” he said, in rich stentorian tones. “Know that the Lord of Man has worked through us in this challenging engagement with the archenemy. It was by His will that those of us on board the Bellus intercepted the cry for help from the Celeano and came to Cybele. It was by His will that we were able to drive back the hordes of the hated Word Bearers, on the surface and here in the void. In His eyes and in those of His most trusted warrior Sanguinius, we are blessed.” Stele grew rueful in his expression. “Here, so far from their birth world, the brothers who fought and died might have fallen unremembered by those who remained on Baal, but we will never forget them.”

  Rafen’s eyes narrowed as a ripple of agreement slipped around the chamber. The inquisitor was being careless with his choice of words—such a statement might be thought by some to cast doubt on the Chapter’s dedication to distant, less important missions, such as the Cybele garrison.

  Stele continued. “And now the choice faces us, warriors. Do we remain and bury the dead without taking vengeance? Or do we bring the wrath of the Imperium and the Blood Angels to the Chaos filth on Shenlong?” Dark light glinted in his eyes. “You’who have served and fought with me these ten long years will know my heart on this concern!”

  Many of the assembled Marines growled and spat at the name of the enemy. For a moment the hall was a jumble of voices. Rafen heard Koris give a cynical grunt. The veteran’s earlier prediction was coming to pass.

  “Lord inquisitor.” Sachiel said quietly, his voice barely audible beyond the confines of the pulpit. “I would of course endorse you in this action, but the matter is unresolved. If we were to leave Cybele without sanction from Lord Dante—”

  Stele smiled thinly. “The commander will see the merit in my orders, Sachiel. You know that to be true.” Before the priest could answer, the inquisitor raised his hands to call for silence. “Blood Angels! There is no doubt that your primarch turns his beneficent gaze toward us! We are the soldiers of the Bellus, and we bear the very weapon that Sanguinius was granted by the God-Emperor himself!”

  There was movement behind the pulpit and a gaggle of shrouded servitors from Stele’s retinue came forward. They carried a lengthy case cast from solid titanium, the surface intricately worked with symbols of the Chapter, the Imperium and the Ordo Hereticus. Rafen felt a physical shock as he realised what the container was for.

  By the Throne! The spear!

  “Our victory on Cybele was our sacred duty,” the inquisitor glanced down at the assembled Marines before him, “but there is one among you who excelled, who showed the true power of the birthright that sings in your blood, even when defeat was upon us!” Stele’s eyes locked on Rafen’s sibling. “Brother Arkio! Come forward.”

  Arkio did as he was ordered and stood up, climbing into the pulpit. Stele’s servitors halted before the young Blood Angel and presented him with the metal case.

  “Open it.” Stele ordered him. “In recognition of your daring, yours shall be the honour of presenting the Spear of Telesto.”

  Arkio reached out and with trembling hands turned the latches that sealed the container closed. Behind him, Sachiel gripped his grail and uttered the words of the litergus integritas.

  A joyful warmth infused the metal as Arkio laid his hands upon it. When he slid the clamshell container open he saw inside an object as bright as a shard of the sun.

  The radiance from the weapon swept across the length of the grand chamber in a wave of pale golden light. Below the pulpit Rafen stifled a gasp as the glow caressed the bare skin of his face. From the corner of his eye, he saw Turcio avert his gaze; he was overcome by emotion. But Rafen could not look away from it. There, before him was the Spear of Telesto in all its mellifluent glory. The Riga tapestries did not even come close to the majesty of the sacred lance.

  The blade itself, an elongated tear cut with a hollow in the centre, represented the single drop of blood that Sanguinius shed when he swore fealty to the Emperor. Glittering with an inner light, it rested atop a sculpted haft that showed the angel of blood, clad in the monastic vestments of a Sanguinary High Priest. His perfect face was lost in a voluminous hood and his mighty angel wings spread against the air; and below that, a single purity seal that bore the personal mark of the Emperor himself. It was the most incredible sight Rafen had ever seen, and his heart ached with it.

  Once more the words rang out across the hall, this time from Arkio’s lips. “For the Emperor and Sanguinius!” Rafen’s brother felt the nerves in his arms tingling as his blood surged with adrenaline. The gene-template of the spear’s ancient technology could sense his closeness and the fragmentary elements of the Sanguinius’ stock that sang though his veins. Unbidden, Arkio broke protocol and touched the ageless lance.

  “No-!” Sachiel blurted, starting forward to grab the Blood Angel’s hand. He advanced barely a half step before Stele snared him and held him back. The inquisitor shook his head once, eyes cold with menace, and the priest was suddenly cowed.

  Arkio’s limbs seemed to work mechanically, and he removed the weapon from the case, raising it in his left hand in a mirror image of the Riga artwork’s last panel: Sanguinius victorious over the corpse of Morroga. The spear vibrated in his grip like a live thing, a streak of amber lightning frozen into physical form. Uncanny energy lit the teardrop blade from within and, like a supernova, a pulse of white light flared.

  Rafen saw the colour wash across his brother’s body and Arkio’s flesh seemed to melt into the features of his liege lord. His crimson battle armour turned gold and white wings flared from his shoulders. Then, just as quickly the spear grew quiescent again and the vision was gone.

  The silence that followed was so complete that for a brief instant Rafen feared he might have been struck deaf. But a moment later every Blood Angel in the chamber erupted in full voice, calling out the name of their primarch until the very walls seemed to shudder with the sound of it. Blood’s oath! Did I truly witness this? Could my brother be touched by the angelic sovereign himself? The questions hammered at the inside of Rafen’s mind, rocking him to his core.

  In the pulpit, where Sachiel stood transported by the sight and Arkio’s face was wet with tears of joy, the Inquisitor Stele watched the young Blood Angel with satisfaction. Despite himself, he was unable to keep a thin, icy smile from his lips.

  Word of the “miracle” in the grand chamber spread like wildfire throughout the decks of the Bellus, to every Space Marine and serf in the service of the Blood Angels’ Chapter. Arkio’s moment in the pulpit was replayed over and over on devotional screens dotted throughout the battle barge, and the effect was electric. Believing their mission ended, the morale of the Marines abroad the Bellus had dipped once they had set course for home. Each of them had been proud to have completed their task and they were looking forward to seeing Baal again, but a subtle melancholy was stalking the ship all the same. The Bellus crew knew their odyssey was nearly at an end, and it saddened them.

  But no longer. Arkio’s presentation of the spear rekindled the bright fury of the Blood Angels and for the survivors on Cybele it became a rallying point. Men who had stood wit
h Rafen and been ready to welcome death with open arms changed overnight. Suddenly they became fierce and blood-hungry. During firing rites and maintenance duties, even in the midst of daily battle drills, conversations turned towards the battle-brother the men called “the Blessed”, and the burning need for vengeance on the denizens of Shenlong.

  Bellus remained in orbit of the mausoleum planet for several days as work on the engine repairs approached completion, and it came as no surprise to Rafen when Sachiel ordered an increase in tactical ground assault drills. He tried to find Sergeant Koris, but the aged veteran was elusive. Change flashed through the air aboard the battle barge, and in its wake a need for war resonated in the hearts of every Space Marine. If blood was not soon shed, he reflected, the men would go wild.

  Rafen’s mind was a storm of conflicts. He had not laid eyes on his sibling since the end of the ceremony for the fallen, but Arkio had constantly remained at the forefront of his mind. Try as he might, he could not shake the indelible image of his younger brother cast in the guise of Sanguinius. The vision in the grand chamber echoed the brief moment of dislocation he had experienced on Cybele during the Word Bearers’ assault. At the time he had thought himself fatigued and distracted by the turn of events, but now the incident had taken on another, more troubling quality.

  Rafen was no psyker, nor some mind-witch cursed with aberrant sight, and yet the brief visions had been clear as day. In other circumstances, he might have suspected that the flaw was exerting its insidious influence on him, but the taint of the black rage was a maddening, berserker force and never so subtle. Turcio, Lucion and Corvus all spoke of the pulse of light and the silence that followed it. Their voices were reverent with awe when they mentioned Arkio’s name, and Rafen soon grew weary of Blood Angels he did not know pestering him with inconsequential questions about his brother. He kept his own counsel, but in truth, Rafen was not sure what to make of Arkio’s so-called “blessing”. He loved his brother, and he knew him as well as only those bound by family could, but something rang ill in his mind. It lurked, faint and dim in the corners of his thoughts, colouring his every waking moment. With such doubts in his soul, he went searching for Koris.

  Inquisitor Stele had made good use of the interrogation chambers on Bellus throughout the duration of its mission to find the Spear of Telesto. Many were the victims that had passed through the brass iris hatch to gaze upon the last thing they would ever know in life: the engines of inquest, the tables with fans of sinister blades and the chair bolted to the deck. Over the years as Bellus had moved from world to world, Stele had ordered his retinue to alter the basic mechanisms used by the Space Marines to hold prisoners. They had gradually crafted an inquisitorial tool that resembled the great siege perilous in the Schola Hereticus where he had studied. Stele ranged his gaze around the chamber as he entered, taking in the dark metal stanchions, the wreaths of incense and the shadowed deep beyond the floating glow-globes. It was a fine stage for a player such as he.

  Removing his cloak, he brushed a little dust from his fingers before crossing to the torture chair. The Word Bearer, the heretic that called himself Noro, was restrained there. He was bloody and pallid, but he still lived. Stele gave the bullet wounds on his torso a measuring gaze. They had scabbed over with flecks of black matter, but continued to weep pus and thin fluids. It would be a while yet before he would die.

  “Eminence,” said the lexmechanic, announcing itself with a grind of leg-irons. “I have continued to transcribe every utterance of the Traitor. He has done little but bombard me with foul language and unholy curses.”

  The inquisitor nodded, his gaze flicking up to the servo-skulls that orbited around him in languid circles. “Seek penance once your duties here are complete, then,” he ordered. “Cleanse yourself of exposure to such apostasy.”

  “Your will.” The servitor bowed.

  Stele approached the Word Bearer and with great effort, the enemy soldier raised his head. He had to smother a flicker of pleasure when he saw the fear ignite in Noro’s eyes. Nothing excited Stele more than the certainty that he instilled terror in others. He put on a mocking face. “Does it hurt, little traitor?”

  Remarkably, the Word Bearer summoned some strength and threw him a defiant grimace. “Death to you and your corpse-god, maggot excrement!”

  A smile crept across the inquisitor’s face. “Ah, good. You still have some fight left in you. There is no challenge in draining the mind of one utterly broken, I have found. Such easy tasks dull one’s skills.”

  “Begone!” snapped Noro, his voice cracking. “Leave me and take congress with animals, man-filth!”

  The lexmechanic twitched as if the insults were a physical blow. “Lord, what purpose is served by keeping this specimen alive? I intuit that it is an inferior heretic, not privy to any information of value beyond what you have already extracted.”

  “No, I beg to differ,” said Stele, glancing at the servitor. Then he looked away and in an utterly different voice he said a single word. “Somnus.”

  The statement hung in the air like coils of smoke, and it made the lexmechanic twitch. Then without warning, the bondsman’s eyes rolled white into his head and he lolled in a nerveless slump. Behind him, the three servo-skull monitors settled gently to the floor and fell silent. The utterance triggered a post-hypnotic suggestion that Stele had long ago planted in the lexmechanic’s mind, and in the brains of the centuries-dead servants whose skulls were now his mechanical guardians. Until the inquisitor chose otherwise, he and his victim were alone in this place. Every monitor and sensor that studded the interior of the rest of the Blood Angel’s battle barge was diverted from this room. It had been one of the first things that Stele had done after boarding Bellus ten years earlier.

  Noro was fully aware of what was happening around him, and confusion crossed his face. Stele spared him a look and then stepped very close to the Word Bearer. Noro tried to avoid the inquisitor’s touch, but with his body held to the chair by thick iron rods, there was little that he could do to stop him. Stele cupped the Traitor Marine’s head in his hands and for one terrifying moment, Noro thought the bald man was going to kiss him. “What… What are you doing?”

  “You will tell me all you know of Shenlong’s defences, creature,” he whispered.

  “I’ll give you no more. You took the planet’s name from me, and for that alone I have failed my covenant…” He took a shuddering breath. “Go to Shenlong, human, go there and meet my brothers! They’ll devour you raw!”

  The inquisitor pressed his jaw shut. “Soon enough, but first we must sit a spell and talk, you and I.”

  “No—” the Word Bearer forced out a denial. “I’ll die first.”

  “In time.” Stele agreed, the aquila electro-tattoo on his forehead glinting, “but before you do, you will show me all.”

  Noro’s face went cold as the heat from his feverish skin was sucked away by the inquisitor’s icy fingertips. He felt his rough, diseased flesh shift and melt. Stele’s digits merged into his epidermis and then through it like soft clay, into the bone and brain matter inside. The Word Bearer tried with all his might to force out a scream, but Stele closed his throat with a slight gesture of pressure.

  Just as before on the surface of Cybele, the inquisitor filled the Traitor Marine’s vision, but this time he grew and grew, flowing like liquid to fill the empty vessel of Noro’s perception. With him came an ink-black shroud of silence that suffocated the heretic; it was an immutable shade, the colour of terror. The Word Bearer had served the lords of Chaos all his life and revelled in the dark ways of the eightfold undivided, but now what he saw uncoiling from the man-thing’s mind struck him as the absolute purity of evil. Noro had never dared, never in his most savage and murderous moments, to believe that something so utterly abhorrent to life could exist. This was no human psyker phantom; it was the undistilled taint of hatred, clinging to the man like a parasite. As Noro’s sanity came apart inside him, the Inquisito
r Lord Ramius Stele began the slow and deliberate rape of the Traitor’s mind.

  The lexmechanic had been correct: the Word Bearer was no more than a line soldier, a Chaos Marine with nothing other than the will to fight and die for the word of Lorgar. A higher-ranking veteran would have direct knowledge of military dispositions and troop concentrations, but Noro could only offer fleeting memories of the invasion of Shenlong—flashes of atrocities and bloodletting that lodged in the killer’s mind.

  “Nothing—” Noro managed to shove the word from his lips.

  Stele’s eyes narrowed, and he marshalled the dark around him, coiling it into razored ribbons of psi-stuff. Then, with abominable precision, he flayed open the heretic’s memories. Noro began to shake and twitch as the floodgates of experience opened in him. Suddenly everything that had ever happened to him was recalled at once, and his mind shrivelled under the weight of it. Casting through the ocean of recall, Stele trawled for the smallest of incidents, patterning them and weaving them together against the black. He took sideways glances, momentary snatches of conversation overheard, and blinks of remembrance. Stele discovered a myriad of fragmentary sights that not even the Word Bearer was aware he had seen and laced them into a whole. There, in jigsaw-pieces, were the approaches to Shenlong, the paths along the ever-shifting corridors between the minefield blockade that encircled the forge world.

  Swiftly he withdrew from the heretic’s flesh and mind and stepped away. A thin sheen of sweat coated his brow. “Ah,” Stele croaked, dry-throated. “Thank you.”

  Noro vomited explosively, throwing up bile and blood. “What…” The Marine’s voice was a hissing shriek. “For hate’s sake, what are you?”