Ulan showed the death’s-head grin again as she saw the dead psykers. “I live to serve,” she hissed.
“Yes, you do,” the inquisitor agreed. “You will present yourself to Captain Ideon and inform him that you alone will fulfil the role of the choir from now on.”
Ulan replied with a sluggish nod.
“You are more than capable.” Stele added. “First, though, you will speak for me.” He dragged her to her feet and held her tightly, his muscular fingers finding ghost-metal contacts beneath flaps of plasti-flesh on her face. “Open the way, girl. I have a message of my own.”
The hunched woman stiffened as her mind expanded beyond the bone cage of her skull, out through the hull of Bellus, beyond the veil of the space outside and into the torrents of the Immaterium. Stele guided her like a rider, aiming Ulan’s telepathy into a core of black null-space lurking above them.
A dark and inhuman form lurking there saw Stele come closer, and it was happy to welcome him.
The stink of spent flamer fuel still hung in the air where the Blood Angels had torched the pennants and cursed banners of the Word Bearers, but aside from some ashen heaps in the corners of the room, the tabernacle was much as it had been when Falkir took it for his throne room. Arkio stalked the perimeter of the chamber and peered into the anterooms that split off from it, as if he expected to find some lurking Chaos lackey cowering in the shadows. He seemed disappointed that he did not, Sachiel noted.
“The spear should remain here, I think,” said Arkio. “This room is suited for defence. It will be safe.”
“Well chosen, blessed one,” the priest replied.
Arkio’s face twisted. “Why do you call me that, Sachiel? It does not sit well with me.”
“I cannot deny the truth of my own eyes, Brother Arkio. No one could look upon you after what you did today and not think you honoured by the primarch.”
“No?” Arkio studied him. “I have eyes and ears, Sachiel. I saw how my brothers changed their ways toward me after I touched the holy lance during the remembrance. Some looked upon me with bewilderment, and others…”
Sachiel’s smile froze. “There are no dissenters here, Arkio.”
He gave a humourless laugh. “I would guarantee that Koris would say otherwise.”
“The honoured sergeant will say nothing.” Sachiel frowned. “In his infinite wisdom, Sanguinius chose to take Koris to his heart and grant him power of the black rage.
“He and others.” Arkio said nothing and the priest continued. “Certainly, this is an omen. Those who welcome your sanctification are strengthened by the pure one and those who do not… The scarlet path beckons them.”
Arkio looked squarely at Sachiel, and suddenly he was the young Marine again, callow and untested. “What if I do not want such an honour, priest? What if I long to join my brothers once more, to stand with my sibling Rafen and fight the foe with blade and bolter?”
The Sanguinary High Priest placed a hand on Arkio’s back and gently guided him toward the glass window and the balcony beyond. “You have left those days behind you, my friend. Sanguinius has chosen a new direction for you, and we cannot doubt the insight of his choice.”
The two of them stepped out into the weak Shenlong daylight, into the sight of legions of people. Blood Angels stood side by side with tattered PDF troopers and haggard civilians, and with one voice they roared their approval.
Rafen shrugged off the hands of a child who stroked at his greaves with all the reverence of a holy icon. Beside him, Alactus and Turcio shook their bolters to the sky and joined in the battle cry of their Chapter. “For the Emperor and Sanguinius!”
“Sons of the Blood! Loyal servants of the Imperium!” Gripping his simulacrum of the red grail, Sachiel’s voice carried from the balcony above the plaza. “Hear me! This world sees the light of the Golden Throne once more, and the Lord of Baal casts his beneficent gaze upon it! Behold, the hero of the forge world, the liberator of Shenlong—Arkio the Blessed!”
Before, on other planets, Rafen had seen the masses of the Imperial people enraptured by the God-Emperor, but always from a distance. Now, among them, he was buffeted in the whirlwind of emotion that claimed his battle-brothers as easily as it did the commoners.
“Arkio held the Spear of Telesto!” continued Sachiel. “By his hand, the Word Bearers were destroyed! Your victory is his!”
The crowd began to chant his brother’s name and Rafen frowned. Sachiel spoke as if it were Arkio alone that had taken the fight to the Traitors, but what of the hundreds of other Blood Angels that had died this day? What of Koris and the Death Company?
“It is written in the book of the lords that those alone blessed by the Emperor may touch the holy lance and live; but it is only one whose living blood carries the essence of the great angel himself that may command its power!” Sachiel raised the grail high and turned it so that the crimson fluid inside anointed Arkio’s head. “We are all sons of the Blood, my brothers, but today the pure one walks among us once more! Here stands Arkio the Blessed, Sanguinius reborn!”
The force of the priest’s words was so strong that the congregation—for that was what it had become—came to their knees in supplication. Rafen found himself bowing without conscious effort, dropping in with Alactus and Turcio.
“Glorious,” breathed the other Blood Angel. “We are sanctified…”
Some part of Rafen’s mind shouted at the discord of the moment. This is madness! My sibling, the reincarnation of our primarch? Impossible! And yet, he was still captured by the divine power of the moment.
Then Arkio spoke, and the plaza fell silent. “People of Shenlong. Our battle is not yet ended. The corrupted still conceal themselves in your cities and we shall not be free until every last Chaos proselyte is found. I ask of you; where are the Word Bearers?”
A ripple of confusion flowed through the crowd, and slowly voices were raised, men hesitantly admitting that the whereabouts of the Traitors was unknown. Rafen saw Sachiel whisper something in his brother’s ear and Arkio gave a reluctant nod. “If you will not answer, then measures will be taken.” The crackle of a vox command sounded in Rafen’s ear, and as one a handful of honour guard Blood Angels came to their feet. “Those who hide the impure will be punished,” said Arkio.
Without warning, a dozen Shenlongi surged to their feet. Random figures raced forward as a strange madness seemed to sweep through the crowd. “Yes, yes!” cried voices. “Show us the way!”
“We are faithless!”
“Punish us! We are the lesson!”
On pure reflex, the Marines opened fire into the crowds, gunning down the people who rushed at them. To Rafen’s horror, the Shenlongi welcomed the bolter rounds with beauteous smiles and open arms.
In the utter silence of his reclusium, Commander Dante rose slowly to his feet as he formally ended his meditation with the last words of the vermillion catechism. Genuflecting to the two icons before him, he made the sign of the aquila to the largest of the pair, representing the God-Emperor on his Throne, and then the hand-to-hearts gesture of fealty to the statue of Sanguinius. The primarch of the Blood Angels stood before him rendered in the rust-red stone cut from Baal’s desert landscapes. The likeness showed him in hooded contemplation, his mighty wings at rest and the holy crimson cup grasped in his hand. Dante mirrored the aspect of his liege lord and bowed one final time. “On this day, as on every other, I ask you grant me wisdom and strength, great Sanguinius, so I may guide our Chapter to ever greater glory.”
Satisfied with his completion of the ceremony, Dante backed away from the altar and donned the long white robes of his office. His chamber stood at the apex of the fortress-monastery’s highest rooftop, set between a pair of towering steeples. One of the walls was given over to a window of invulnerable glassteel. Dante approached it and surveyed the environs of the abbey far below him. There in the parade grounds, legions of men in crimson armour drilled endlessly, not a single one of t
hem out of step or inefficient in his movements.
In the depths of his memory, the commander recalled a time when it had been he that marched there, daring to steal a look up at the distant towers and wondering what it would be like to walk their halls. But that had been more than ten centuries ago, and all the men he had called comrade then were dust now, their names cut into the obsidian glass of the sepulchre of heroes. Dante saw the shape of his own reflection in the window, his hawkish countenance marred by this small moment of introspection. The aquiline jaw and nose were the frame for eyes that missed nothing. He had the aspect of a predator at rest—but not at rest for long. He frowned. A sullen mood was upon him, and he could not pinpoint its source. Dante was no psyker, but millennia of living among the Blood Angels and commanding their path through history had given him a sense for the pitch and moment of the Chapter. He heard the approach of boots from the echoing hall beyond his chambers and instinctively knew something ill was at hand.
Hidden servitors opened the reclusium doors and Dante turned to see the man who served as his strong right arm stride forward. The chief Librarian bowed low, the filigree of skulls on the edges of his red robes pooling around his feet. “My lord, forgive this intrusion.”
Dante beckoned him to his feet. “Mephiston, old friend, no doors are ever closed to you.” The commander spoke truthfully, the Librarian’s psionic powers were formidable and if he so chose, there would be little that could bar his way within the fortress’ walls. Mephiston met his gaze easily. Dante did not demand, as some Chapter commanders did, that his men treat him as some avatar of the primarch’s divinity and avert their eyes. The master of the Blood Angels studied the warrior-psychic that the Astartes knew as the Lord of Death. Where Dante’s face was the mirror of Sanguinius’ patrician wisdom, Mephiston reflected the controlled malevolence that seethed beneath the thin veneer of their civility. Scholars spoke of the Librarian’s ability to transfix an enemy with the potency of his glance, and even Dante could sense the pressure of those burning eyes.
“A matter of delicacy and utmost concern has arisen, and we must address it with haste, commander.”
Dante bid Mephiston to sit with him on a bench before the altar, but the Librarian refused. Whatever had transpired had wound him tight with tension. The commander’s ill mood washed forward in a surge and Mephiston nodded, sensing the unformed thoughts in Dante’s mind.
“A signal came to us, relayed across the segementum from the Shenlong star system. Our astropaths confirm that the message originated aboard the battle barge Bellus.”
“Brother-Captain Ideon’s command,” said Dante. “Was he not ordered to remain at the war graves on Cybele?”
Mephiston nodded. “But this is no simple disobedience, lord. The wording was confused, and I suspect it was sent in a hurry, but it speaks of incidents on the battlefields at Cybele and again during an attack on Shenlong.” The Librarian took a breath. “It speaks of a brother wielding the Spear of Telesto as Sanguinius himself did, and of a growing belief that our angelic sovereign’s blessing is manifesting upon him.”
For a long moment Dante found himself robbed of words. He raised his eyes to the statue of Sanguinius for a moment, searching out guidance in the hooded face. “Repeat it to me,” he ordered, and with a nod, Mephiston drew the words of Rafen’s urgent entreaty from his eidetic memory and spoke them aloud.
Dante’s brows knit in concentration as he heard the Marine’s account of the Word Bearers’ assault on Cybele, the arrival of Bellus and the subsequent commands of the priest Sachiel and Inquisitor Stele. When the Librarian finished, the commander sat silently for a while.
“This Sachiel sees the touch of the pure one on the warrior Arkio.” Dante turned the thought over. “Such a conviction is fraught with portent and exigency, and much of it ill starred. What confirmation do we have that this fable is true?”
“The message bears the code-ident of a trusted veteran, Sergeant Koris of Captain Simeon’s company. I took the liberty of reviewing his chronicle. He is a man of exemplary courage, lord, yet he is given to occasional displays of scepticism. I would not doubt the veracity of his statement… Although there were some troubling anomalies in the voice-print trace.”
Dante nodded. “How many times has it been, Mephiston? How many Blood Angels have believed themselves impressed by the spirit of our lord and claimed to be the vessels of his power?”
“Too many, commander. And yet, are we not all recipients of Sanguinius’ eminence to some degree?”
“Indeed,” Dante agreed, “but we honour the primarch among all things and do not pretend to usurp him.” His eyes narrowed. “This business of the spear, that the relic should be used so blatantly and without my sanction… It is troubling. We placed our trust in Stele and honoured our blood debt to him, but if we were mistaken…”
“Such supposition wastes our energies, lord.” Mephiston said crisply. “The way forward is clear—we must isolate this Arkio, and bring him and the holy lance back to Baal without delay.”
“I order it so. You will charge Captain Gallio with this task. He has served me well among the honour guard and his loyalty to the primogenitor is unyielding. Grant him command of the cruiser Amareo and give him leave to select a force of men.”
Mephiston nodded. “If it pleases the commander, I will send Brother Vode also. He is one of my best acolytes and his second sight is unparalleled in seeking out the taint of corruption.”
Dante looked at him. “Is that what you suspect to find, brother?”
The Librarian’s hard face did not betray any emotion. “We cannot afford to step blindly into this matter.”
“Just so,” agreed the commander. “This message… It would not go well if the contents of Koris’ signal were to reach the rest of the Chapter. There would be confusion, at best. At worst, the seeds of a schism.”
“I have seen to this, lord. The astropath duct that accepted the transmission has been sequestered on my order. I will personally supervise the erasure of his memory engrams.”
Dante rose to his feet and walked back to the window. “Then send the ship, and we shall see the truth behind this ‘blessing’ for ourselves.”
Mephiston paused at the reclusium’s threshold, the doors yawning open before him. “My lord.”
Dante heard something in the Librarian’s voice that he had seldom encountered before: a hesitation alien to the Lord of Death’s awesome reserve. “What concerns you so, old friend?”
“We stand and speak of this Arkio as if he is already proven false… But what if the lad truly has been touched by the Deus Encarmine?”
To his dismay, the commander of the Blood Angels had no answer for his trusted comrade’s question.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The corridors of the fortress were choked with repentants, shabby in torn clothing and bloodied bandages. These pathetic souls were the survivors of the occupation, the ones who still had strength to walk, to petition the Blood Angels for succour. On the lower levels, Rafen had passed gangs of Chapter serfs under the supervision of a Sanguinary Priest as they divided the spoils from storehouses from beneath the tower. The cases of medicines and food were divided among the starving, sickened civilians. There was little to go around, as much of the perishables had been put to the torch by Falkir’s battalions. Like those swarming the plaza, the people who blocked Rafen’s way as he walked the building seemed to be subsisting solely on faith.
The Blood Angel was troubled. Over and over, the sight of the honour guard picking out and cold-bloodedly murdering civilians replayed in his mind, disgusting him to his core. Rafen did not shun hard deeds when they were needed, but that casual display of callousness made his gut tighten. The Shenlongi people had been liberated, and to squander their lives in order to make a point went against every moral fibre of the Space Marine’s being. But worse than the act itself was the doe-eyed acceptance of the non-combatants, the way they were almost joyful to embrace the
burning bolter rounds, as if their willing sacrifice was worthwhile.
Someone jostled Rafen and his temper flared. “Get out of my way!” he snapped, turning a stern face on the man who had touched him.
“Forgive me, lord, but I wanted to thank you…” He was thick with dirt and a patina of brick dust, but through it Rafen could still clearly make out the pattern of a tattered planetary defence force uniform. An officer, by the look of the sigils on his sleeve.
“For what? I do not know you.”
“Oh, no, it is not for myself, lord, but for my sister. Not only did your Chapter release us from the grip of Chaos, but your kinsmen granted her the murdergift.” He bowed his head as he spoke.
“Murdergift?” The strange word left a foul taste in Rafen’s mouth. “You thank me because your sister was shot dead by the honour guard? No, no—”
“Please!” The PDF soldier pressed closer to him. “You must understand, we were so close to cracking! If another day had passed without an answer to our prayers, many of us would have been sure that the Emperor had turned from Shenlong…” His voice dropped to a confessional hiss. “Some of us… We were almost ready to submit to the word of Lorgar…” Then he beamed at Rafen. “But you saved us from that! My sister gladly gave herself in payment.”
“Madness!” Rafen tore his arm away from the man and drew his combat knife in a bright arc of fractal-edged steel. “Tell me, if I told you to plunge this into your heart, would you do it?”
The officer tore open his tunic without hesitation and exposed his pale chest. “My life has value only by your command, lord!” He seemed ecstatic at the possibility that Rafen might kill him, then and there.
The Blood Angel’s face twisted in disdain, and he backhanded the man with the pommel of the blade. “Begone, craven fool!” Rafen stalked down the corridor, furious. Was this the state of the people he took an oath to protect? Were the men and women of the Imperium so weak of mind that they would spring on any edict, no matter how loathsome, and claim it as the divine word of the God-Emperor?
Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 21