Beyond them, Rafen threw his shoulder into a wooden doorway and it splintered under his weight. He dashed inside to be greeted by a forest of warheads ranging back through the building. Hellstrikes built for the wing roots of Lightning fighters and Marauder bombers were bound like cordwood. There were the fat cigars of Manticore missiles, mounted on wooden stays ready to be loaded on firing platforms. The shells of incomplete Atlas-class megaton bombs stood vertically on their aerofoil fins, the unfinished warheads almost scraping the supports holding up the corrugated iron roof. Rafen shouldered his bolter and wove through the inert steel trunks, slipping deeper inside.
Sachiel would never stop hunting him, that much was certain. Rafen had taken his chance to end this madness once and for all in the reactor core, but his spur-of-the-moment plan had collapsed. He had stood for long seconds on the roof of the Ikari fortress, waiting for the eruption of fusion fire to consume him, but it never came. Once again, he found himself running, and this time there was an entire planet of zealots at his heels. Rafen needed to gather his wits, to plan his next move, but as long as the golden-helmed troopers chased him he would be forced to stay on the defensive. Sachiel would only rest when Rafen was dead—and so he would have to find a way to die… for the moment.
There was a rattle of metal above, and the Blood Angel froze, for a moment believing that the honour guard were coming across the roof for him; but then the sound grew into a rushing, chattering roar and he realised it was the rains. Shenlong’s rust-brown skies opened, releasing a downpour of polluted water that clattered off the metal roof of the manufactorum. Runnels of thin, russet liquid penetrated through breaches in the corrugated iron, pooling on the stone floor. Rafen caught the noise of heavy boots splashing through shallow puddles.
Sachiel’s men followed him into the warehouse, holstering their guns as they entered. A gesture from the veteran sergeant commanding them was the only order they required, and as one they drew their close combat weapons and spread out to search the building. None of the Blood Angels would dare to discharge a bolt or beam in here. A single stray round could end all their lives in a heartbeat if it struck a live warhead.
Rafen moved. On a raised catwalk he located a set of unfinished and skeletal Manticores on a cradle. With a rough jerk, he ripped free the metal petals protecting the inner detonator unit, exposing it to the air. Like most of the other missiles in the store yard, the half-built Manticore munitions were empty of their volatile promethium fuel and still lacked the dense explosive matrix that would give them their murderous power—but the detonator rods were in place, and those alone were the equal of a dozen krak shells. Rafen tore fibrous wires from the missile’s innards and used them to tie a quartet of frag grenades in place. His makeshift bomb was almost complete when the drumming of the rain was joined by a new sound—the ripping snarl of a chainsword.
Rafen reacted instantly, barely dodging the blow from the melee weapon. The honour guard’s strike flashed past him with a blare of tungsten-alloy teeth, cleaving the wood of the cradle into a whirlwind of spitting splinters. He rolled back as the Space Marine struck out again, rebounding off a stanchion. In the confines of the catwalk gantry, Rafen had little room to manoeuvre and the tip of the chainsword blade cut into his armour, skittering off the chest plate and away. The blow left a finger-wide channel in his wargear.
“Filthy apostate,” snarled a voice from inside the gold helmet, “You’ll bleed for your perfidy against the Blessed!” Rafen parried a third lunge with an ironwood rod he snatched from the cradle, but the shimmering chain-blade bisected his substitute weapon. The Blood Angel pressed his free hand to his helmet, initiating a vox link to the other hunters in the warehouse. “I have him. Form on me—”
Rafen sprang forward before he could finish the sentence, hands clawing into the shoulder pads of his opponent. With a sudden downward motion, Rafen butted the honour guard across the bridge of his helmet’s nose, cracking the optic lenses. The shock of the blow staggered the Marine; Rafen was too close for the attacker to turn the sword on him, and he stumbled backwards. The honour guard’s right foot slipped back along the decking and into space where the gantry ended. His balance fled and the Blood Angel fell away from Rafen with an angry howl, the chainsword tumbling from his fingers.
The other Marine collided with a nest of tool racks and slammed into the stone floor with a flat crash of sound. Winded, he still had enough impetus to draw and fire his bolt pistol, sending a spray of shots back up at the catwalk, in his fury ignoring the risk of a ricochet. Rafen recoiled and grabbed at a knife-switch set on the gantry, yanking it downwards without conscious thought. The release opened a set of clamps holding a drum of Hellstrikes above them, and the canister fell the height of the warehouse, flattening the honour guard beneath it like the blow of a steam hammer.
Rafen shook off a dizzy, sick sensation as he watched the Space Marine twitch and die under the tonnage. It had all happened so fast. “Primarch forgive me,” he whispered, his blood running cold. “I have killed a battle-brother…” He had always known this moment would come, from the very instant that he had heard Sachiel decry Dante and exhort the Blood Angels to turn on their heritage, but nothing had prepared him for the physical shock it brought with it. The blood of a Blood Angel was on his hands. And he will not be the last, Rafen admitted to himself.
A voice cried out from below him, and Rafen glimpsed red armour and gold masks flashing between the featureless greys of the rocket fuselages. “There!” came the shout, Above. “Close in on the traitor and take him.”
Traitor. Rafen felt dislocated from reality to have that hated brand turned on him, but in his beating heart he knew the reverse was true. He stooped, dialling the fuse setting on his grenades, and yanked the firing pin. Bolt-rounds hissed past his shoulders; the honour guards had clearly thrown caution to the wind after he killed one of their number.
Rafen ducked behind one of the inert Atlas bombs and pressed his shoulder into it, rocking the tubular fuselage on its pallet. The tall metal pipe wallowed and shifted dangerously. He threw himself at it again and the weight of the Atlas shifted suddenly, tilting away from him. Rafen staggered back along the gantry as the hollow tube fell against another of its kind, in turn knocking another off its base. The Atlas hulls rang like bells as they impacted each other, and they tottered like giant ninepins, ripping through stanchions and scattering Sachiel’s men beneath them.
In the confusion, Rafen grabbed a chain dangling from the support beams and swarmed down it, swinging to land in a ready stance on the stone floor. He threw a last look at the gantry where his jury-rigged time bomb lay counting down the seconds and sank to his knees. There was a circular grate in the floor, surrounded by small rivers of rainwater pooling from every part of the building. Digging his fingers in the metal grid, Rafen let out a cry of effort and pulled at it. Aged bolts gave way in snaps like breaking bone.
Any moment now. Tossing the grate aside, Rafen pitched forward into the murk of the drainage channel, where fast-flowing floods the colour of tilled earth raced by, swelled by the sudden downpour. He fell into the grip of the sewer water and let it drag him away, scraping his armour across muck-encrusted walls.
The honour guards were reaching for him even as the igniters in the frag grenades burnt down to nothing. The explosives blew apart in a ball of orange thunder, catching the detonators inside the Manticores in sympathetic annihilation. In a tenth of a second, the missiles detonated, rippling fire into cases of battle-ready rockets. Flame set flame, fire birthed explosion, and the entire manufactorum ripped itself to pieces in a blood-red hellstorm.
Kilometres away in the Ikari fortress, a wall of noise cracked the ancient glass of the chapel window in a dozen places.
Sachiel pressed on through the corridors of the Bellus, his stride never slowing as Chapter serfs scrambled amongst themselves to get out of his way. The news boiled inside him; the Sanguinary High Priest was wound so tight with the message h
e carried that he thought he would blurt it out at any second. Space Marines came to parade ground attention as he passed, mailed fists tapping their chest plates in salute, while servitors and serfs bowed low.
There had been a time when Sachiel would have chastised himself for enjoying the veneration of the faithful. In the Credo Vitae there were edicts and oaths the Sanguinary Priests were required to avow, dedicating themselves to the sacred Blood of the Chapter, foreswearing any glory for themselves, but those old, weak words seemed so distant and removed now. Sachiel’s heart swelled at the notion.
Since Arkio’s Ascendance a moment had not passed where the priest did not think himself blessed to bear witness to such a miracle—and more, to be called by the Reborn Angel to serve as his adjutant and loyal commander. A smile crept across Sachiel’s face as he entered the cavernous cathedral deck, making his way through the cloisters toward the inner sanctums. Since his youth, he had never doubted that he was touched by greatness. Many of his contemporaries had called him arrogant for daring to voice such notions. Let them have their petty jealousies, he thought, because he had been proven right. Great Sanguinius, to whom Sachiel had dedicated his life, had rewarded the priest beyond his wildest dreams. To be present at an event of such magnitude showed the lie of all those who had upbraided him. Sachiel was no mere priest now; he was the hand of the Blessed, and it was glorious!
His fingers fell to the velvet bag at his belt, and the replica of the Blood Angels chalice he carried there. Not for the first time, Sachiel imagined the moment when he would take the true Red Grail in his hands and accept the role of High Priest over the entire Chapter. The thought of it made his blood rush. Power, naked and beautiful, was within his reach.
The priest walked on alone into the sanctum sanctorum, where only the chosen of Arkio were allowed to tread. Normally there would have been Marines on guard here but the devastation wrought by the traitorous Rafen had required the recall of all available troops to the planet. A brief flicker of displeasure crossed his thoughts, but he banished it. Sachiel had hoped that he would be able to present his news to the Blessed in person, but Captain Ideon had informed him their high lord was at rest in his chambers. Sachiel accepted this with a nod, even a god-prince rich with a primarch’s potency would need repose on some occasions. Instead, Sachiel would attend Inquisitor Stele and reveal what had taken place on Shenlong. The explosion of the missile store yard had obliterated six square blocks around it. Some of the priest’s most loyal men had been turned to ashes in the conflagration, but their sacrifice had been worth it to end the life of the thorn in his side, the faithless and deceitful Rafen. He would swear upon it; nothing could have survived the catastrophic blast.
“You are dead, Rafen.” Sachiel said to the cool, still air of the cloister. Just uttering the words lifted a huge weight from the priest’s heart. Ever since they had first laid eyes upon one another, Sachiel and Rafen had brought the worst traits in each other’s character to the fore. Now the Blessed’s brother was dead, the last tie holding Arkio and his loyalists to the old codes of the Blood Angels was gone, and with it Sachiel’s hated antagonist. He could admit it now and release the feeling that had built up inside him. Sachiel loathed Rafen’s quiet strength, the manner in which he would sneer at every utterance from the priest’s mouth as if he were the holder of ordained office, not the priest. He hated the easy way that Rafen had earned the respect of men he served with, while Sachiel remained aloof and indifferent to the Space Marines he outranked. The pleasure he would take in announcing Rafen’s end would be as sweet as a fine amasec liqueur.
The Sanguinary Priest paused before a stained glass window showing Sanguinius at the Conclave of Blood, and something in the turn of the primogenitor’s face suddenly brought Rafen’s final words back to him. Piety alone will blind you.
“Fool.” Sachiel spat out the insult automatically, but even as he did there came a nagging irritation in his mind. He hated himself for admitting it, but the deserter had stirred up doubts with that damning utterance. Sachiel looked into the eyes of the primarch, searching for clarity, and allowed himself the indulgence of hesitation. Arkio’s path had broken with the tradition of his Chapter, shattering old codes of conduct that before had seemed inviolate. As the Reborn Angel had said himself, they were now writing a new chapter in the history of the Sons of Sanguinius, and the laws laid down by aged and passionless warriors like Dante were too confining, too limiting. On some deep level, the indoctrination of decades of Blood Angels dogma and training rebelled at the thought of Arkio’s Blood Crusade and his Emergence—but Sachiel had seen Arkio’s divinity shine through, he had felt the divine radiance of the Spear of Telesto upon him. This was proof, not the dusty words of long-perished men from millennia past.
His moment of weakness gone, Sachiel resumed his passage to Stele’s quarters. Brother Solus had informed him that the inquisitor had left orders that he was not to be disturbed, but Sachiel waved him away. Such commands did not apply to the High Priest of the Reborn, and besides, Sachiel knew that Stele would be as pleased as he was to hear of Rafen’s death. That his body had yet to be found was merely a formality; after such a detonation, all that would remain of Arkio’s brother would barely be enough to fill a drinking goblet.
Stepping past the empty sentry alcoves, as Sachiel approached the door to Stele’s chambers he tasted something strange in the air. A faint, almost undetectable whiff of brimstone and dead skin. Shaking the sensation away, the priest opened the doors and stepped inside. The atmosphere within felt thick and greasy with dark potency. He heard voices; some seemed to be coming from an impossible distance, others made up of rustling and whispering sibilance. Amid all of them he heard the inquisitor murmuring a gruff entreaty. Without waiting to announce himself, the priest pushed through the voluminous folds of black curtains enveloping the doorway and emerged in the chamber.
What he saw there made a wordless cry of shock erupt from his lips, and Sachiel groped for his pistol in self-defence.
Stele’s sanctum was an arched chamber big enough to house a Thunderhawk dropship with its wings at full spread. Stands of photon candles gave weak, yellowish light that died fighting the heavy shadows that wreathed the room. There were a few biolume globes drifting about on anti-grav impellers, but they too were strangled by the arcane, liquid dark that enveloped everything. To one side was a twitching, steaming sculpture cut out of fast-decaying human flesh. Sachiel knew the smell of putrefaction all too well from hundreds of battlegrounds. It was misshapen and ugly as sin, a parody of life warped by the hand of some crazed sculptor. Bones and cartilage in the body had been reordered to present the shape of a hunched, muscular form. It bore the most striking resemblance to the armour of the Word Bearers that they had executed on Shenlong. The flesh-thing opened a wet orifice in its head and let out an angry moan; and with his back to the door, Stele craned his neck around to spy the stunned priest there behind him. The inquisitor was pale and damp with perspiration, the normally hard and unyielding lines of his granite face soft and pallid.
The priest was only aware of them in the most peripheral of ways, however, his gaze was captured by the thing that towered over all of them, writhing and fluttering in an immaterial breeze. It looked like a pict-print of a hurricane, a frozen tower of wind and storm wreckage that had somehow taken on the aspect of a living creature. His mouth agape, Sachiel understood all at once that the shape was made of paper. All about the walls of Stele’s chamber, books lay open, spines broken and covers discarded, their pages torn free to make up the matter of the daemonic creature that rustled and crackled like dead leaves.
“What is this?” Irritation bubbled out of the fleshy avatar, steam popping from blisters all across its skin.
Stele gulped air and turned to face Sachiel, shrugging out of the restricting cloak about his neck. “You conceited imbecile,” he hissed, the effort of anger trying him to the limit. “I said no interruptions.”
Sachiel tried to
make his mouth work, but nothing seemed to come. He could not look away from the intricate folds of parchment across the daemon’s heartless, monstrous face. In a crushing blow of realisation, the priest suddenly understood what he had stumbled into—Stele, the trusted servant of Arkio, was in league with the Ruinous Powers. The thought galvanised him into action. He had to escape, to get away and warn the Reborn Angel that a viper far more venomous than his errant brother lay in their midst…
“Kill it,” rippled the daemon, the words hidden in the sound of fanning pages.
“No.” Stele grunted. “I need him alive… He is useful to me.”
The priest brought his gun to bear and his finger tightened on the trigger, but he made the mistake of meeting Stele’s baleful gaze and abruptly all function in his muscles ceased. “Nnnnnn—” Sachiel’s mind flashed to the moment on Cybele, when the inquisitor had held a Word Bearers sniper in a similar mind-lock. With every gramme of his will, the priest pushed against the pressure in his mind.
“Ah.” Stele managed, eyes watering. The effort was hard on him, coming so soon after spending his abilities on the Blood Angels mere days earlier. He wavered, and felt the phantom grip begin to slacken.
Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 39