Astorath: Angel Of Mercy, page 1
More Warhammer 40,000 from Black Library
DARKNESS IN THE BLOOD
A Blood Angels novel by Guy Haley
DANTE
A Blood Angels novel by Guy Haley
• MEPHISTON •
by Darius Hinks
Book 1 – BLOOD OF SANGUINIUS
Book 2 – REVENANT CRUSADE
Book 3 – CITY OF LIGHT
• DARK IMPERIUM •
by Guy Haley
Book 1 – DARK IMPERIUM
Book 2 – PLAGUE WAR
Book 3 – GODBLIGHT
BELISARIUS CAWL: THE GREAT WORK
A novel by Guy Haley
THE DEVASTATION OF BAAL
A Blood Angels novel by Guy Haley
ASHES OF PROSPERO
A Space Wolves novel by Gav Thorpe
WAR OF SECRETS
A Dark Angels novel by Phil Kelly
OF HONOUR AND IRON
An Ultramarines novel by Ian St. Martin
APOCALYPSE
An Imperial Fists, White Scars and Raven Guard novel by Josh Reynolds
FIST OF THE IMPERIUM
An Imperial Fists novel by Andy Clark
Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer 40,000
Part One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Darkness in the Blood’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind. By the might of His inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.
Yet, He is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so that His may continue to burn.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.
This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.
There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
PART ONE
INFESTATION
PROLOGUE
ON RED WINGS
Now
‘Death comes on red wings.’
The Chapter’s motto was emblazoned across the fronts of their tanks and their gunships. It decorated their banners. It adorned plates of exotic red metals tens of feet high, bolted to the hulls of their voidships. Their foes had learned to dread those words. To hear them shouted by a hundred vox-amplified voices was to know the end was nigh. Rebellious worlds had been pacified by that slogan alone. Broadcast to the sound of trumpets and the songs of victorious angels, it stilled wrath. It broke rebellion. It routed xenos.
The Red Wings were implacable in victory, imperturbable in defeat. They were Space Marines, born of the line of the Archangel of Baal, most perfect and sublime of all the Emperor’s sons. They were the Angels of Death and they knew no fear.
So the emotion they felt as the Eminence Sanguis came towards the Joyous Garde? Afterwards, Sanguinary Priest Lamorak drily referred to it as ‘consternation’.
Klaxons sang all over the orbital fortress. Not the harsh, electronic squawking of lesser forces, but the silver tones of trumpets, played by servitor constructs embedded in the walls. Perfect faces peered from apertures in the plasteel, where their hideous bodies lay hidden. Behind filigree panels, dirty white skin joined to oiled metal, veins to bubbling jars of preservative fluid. Within the walls their exposed spines twitched over the pumping of mechanical lungs. But on the outside there was only beauty, where shining faces pursed their lips and blew and blew upon their instruments, the same three notes over and over in a stepped rise. Alarm! Alarm! Alarm!
Ten of the Red Wings ran towards the Night Dock behind Sanguinary Priest Lamorak. Their boots boomed on the deck. They went fully armoured, their gear polished to a parade-ground shine, but at haste as if to meet an enemy. Their armour was the blue-white of arctic snow. Upon the right-hand shoulder guard, the Chapter badge – a wing tipped with a reaching talon – was rendered in blood red. Lacquered ruby coloured their left pauldrons, poleyns and coulters. Gold they bore in small amounts, the majority of their decoration and battle honours presented in black and silver. Braid, chains, parchment and all the adornments favoured by the Adeptus Astartes jingled and rang as they ran to the dock.
The Red Wings gleamed. They shone. An angelic host fit for the Emperor’s wars raced to meet their most feared friend.
Lamorak’s armour was all white and bore specialised equipment unique to his office. At that time, he was their leader, and he raised his fist in signal to his warriors as they reached the Gate of Night. The party slowed to a march, bolters held across their bodies.
The gate opened upon the stars, a void bridge linking the outer wall to the primary dock. Lamorak led them onto the way beneath the blue shine of an atmospheric field.
Though fantastically decorated, the Bridge of Night was made to be defensible. Its parapet consisted of armoured battlements. A word would collapse the atmospheric field. Heavy guns covered the three hundred-yard length, operated by vigilant machine-spirits and slaved human brains. They could sense the threat approaching and were currently locked on the void.
The bulk of the Joyous Garde blocked the view of Dulcis, but the planet’s soft green albedo shine bathed the bastion of the Night Dock, lighting up the great cannons jutting from the fortress’ sides. The Garde’s walls cast crenellated shadows on the dock. Out to the Garde’s left was a darker light. The Great Rift was near, and it rose high there to wall off half the sky. Ahead, to the galactic north, the Red Scar lay refulgent with energy stolen from the warp where it was closest to the rift, or so it seemed to Lamorak.
Lamorak and his guard passed along the bridge and headed towards the principal pier. Like the bridge, the dock was open to the void, screens of energy fields holding the air in and the void out. The principal pier was the central one of three, and led furthest out into the black. Its warding light blinked a mile away, far beyond the last of the atmospheric screens.
The Eminence Sanguis was closing. Liveried in red, black and gold, on one side these shades were turned a soft yellow by the light of the world the Garde orbited; on the other, the combined light of the rift and the scar bruised it.
Lamorak’s vox-bead peeped.
‘Eminence Sanguis, four minutes to dock,’ one of the mortal bridge crew informed him. ‘Identity verified. Voice prints, genetic printing and data signature are all matches for the High Chaplain.’
‘Give them the final permission codes. Stand down all weapons,’ said Lamorak. The ship was approaching fast. He struggled to keep the tremor from his voice. ‘Into position!’ he ordered his men. They moved quickly and smoothly, in perfect formation. They displayed no fault, but Lamorak was nervous one would make itself apparent, and was therefore harsh with them.
‘Now! Quickly!’
The squad lined up in two ranks of five. Lamorak stood in front of them. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He debated removing his helmet, decided against it, then changed his mind. He fumbled the neck seals and cursed to himself.
‘Steady, brother.’ Sergeant Bedevoir’s tone was softly mocking.
‘I could do without your commentary today, brother,’ said Lamorak. He placed the helm under his left arm, positioning it so the medicae helix of the Sanguinary Priest’s calling faced forward.
Bedevoir made a small noise that his voxmitter rendered as a click.
‘I’m as unhappy as you. They say he brings the Rage with him. We could have handled this ourselves. We should have done.’
‘I didn’t call him,’ said Lamorak. ‘He came. Does that not tell you that this is beyond us?’
The Eminence Sanguis didn’t slow until the last moment. Just when it seemed the ship would spear into the orbital, its braking thrusters activated. Jets opened up all around its blunt prow, washing off the atmospheric fields in frozen circles of gas before dissipating into the vacuum. The ship coasted down the length of the pier towards the dock, still too fast, until its main plasma drive vented forward through the engine block thrusters and the ship came to a determined halt, like a sword thrust into its scabbard.
The prow towered over the Red Wings, its huge fore-shields bright red, bearing the black blood-drip emblem of the Red Wings’ parent Chapter, the Blood Angels. The motif was repeated elsewhere on the hull in precious red stone.
‘Salute,’ Lamorak said through gritted teeth.
The Space Marines clashed their fists against their chests.
‘Now, follow me.’
In lockstep they marched down the pier. Waste gases burst periodically from the Eminence Sanguis as it rebalanced its inner workings. It wasn’t a large ship, but it was forbidding. Between the blood drips, black panels carried the skull badge of the Reclusiam of Baal.
‘Here,’ Lamorak said. They took up formation in front of an airlock bearing a painting of a skeletal angel. Its whole face, save for its bony jaw, was obscured by a hood. In its left hand it held an hourglass whose black sands were on the verge of running out. In its right it carried an immense axe.
Such skill had gone into a painting that few eyes would ever see, and those that did would wish they had not. The image had been eroded by years in the void – debris impacts, high energy particles and combat all having taken their toll – and yet it remained sinister, the angel so realistic it looked like it would step down from the metal and judge them all.
A light blinked over the door. It dropped with a loud clunk and extended outwards on a corridor of nested rectangles, pushed through the meniscus of the energy field, then lowered with a further heavy noise to the deck of the pier.
‘That’s it. He’s coming,’ said Bedevoir.
The skeletal angel split. The doors opened. Red light escaped from inside and air hissed as atmospheres equalised.
With the ratcheting of chains and a final, echoing boom, the airlock doors parted fully.
Two figures waited on the other side.
Lamorak was ready to kneel to greet their guest, but he stopped before he made a fool of himself, for on the other side of the door were Space Marines of lesser rank than the one he’d expected. On the left was a Sanguinary Priest, like Lamorak himself, wearing the same gear in subtly differing shades of white, and on the right was a sergeant. Both were helmed and armed.
‘Veteran-Sergeant Dolomen,’ said the sergeant by way of introduction. He stepped out of the ship, bringing with him the scent of the interior: oil, blood, wine and incense. ‘This is Sanguinary Priest Artemos.’ He waved casually at his companion.
The Priest followed the sergeant out. The pair saluted Lamorak by banging their fists against the aquilas on their chests.
‘I announce our lord to you,’ said Dolomen. He turned to face the door. ‘Astorath the Grim,’ he intoned, ‘High Chaplain of the Blood Angels Chapter, and Redeemer of the Lost, the Bringer of Mercy to all of the Blood.’
It could not have been so, but to Lamorak it seemed that the red light in the airlock deepened. The heavy, slow tread of a third power-
armoured warrior came towards them, turned a corner inside the ship and entered the open airlock.
Lord Astorath stepped onto the Joyous Garde, and the light of Dulcis grew colder.
Ceramite thudded as Lamorak and all his men got down on bended knees. They bowed their heads.
‘Rise, Keeper of the Blood,’ said Astorath. ‘Time is short. My tasks are many.’
Lamorak struggled to look up into Astorath’s stern face. His hair was raven black, his skin pale as a corpse. His armour was gorily styled to resemble flayed muscle. All those descended from the blood of Sanguinius knew who and what he was. All hoped never to meet him.
‘I am grateful you are here, my lord. I welcome you to the Joyous Garde, void-castle of the Red Wings, and sentinel of–’ Astorath cut Lamorak dead with a raised hand, leaving the Sanguinary Priest fearing he had misspoken in front of his guest.
‘I received this information when we left the warp. You do not need to repeat it. We have no time to waste on ceremony.’
‘I am sorry, my lord.’ Lamorak stood. He felt unsure. He had been immune to fear since his elevation to the Adeptus Astartes, a claim he could no longer make. ‘May I ask, how did you know to come here? We did not call you.’
‘Nobody calls Lord Astorath,’ said Dolomen. ‘He goes where he is needed.’
‘I am needed now, yes?’ said Astorath. His black eyes gleamed with a reptile’s cold mercy.
Bedevoir stiffened. Astorath glanced at him.
Lamorak’s throat was dry. He nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said simply.
‘Then show me. Tell me,’ said Astorath.
‘You will know from our records that there have been many problems here. Psychic phenomena, xenos incursions–’
‘The Black Rage,’ said Astorath. The words were cannon shots of misery. ‘Tell me about the Rage first. That is my concern. Take me to your dead. We begin there.’
Lamorak bowed his head. ‘This way, my lord,’ he said, and gestured back to the Garde.
‘Captain Ares rests in here,’ said Lamorak. He and his aide stood aside to allow Astorath’s party into the mortuary chapel.
The captain’s body lay upon a block of granite. Methalon pipes climbed the sides and went into the stone, cooling it so deeply it radiated a fearsome chill.
Ares’ face was half bashed in. Someone had tried to clean the blood from his hair, but clots of it clung to the roots and the white was stained pink. His armour was broken in several places.
‘By the red tears of the Angel,’ intoned Artemos. ‘I come to you so that you may serve in death.’ He went to the bier side and activated his instruments, playing his bioaugury over the ruined body.
‘I have all the data you might need, brother,’ said Lamorak.
‘Brother Artemos prefers to harvest his own,’ said Dolomen.
‘Massive tissue trauma, multiple broken bones. His skull has been crushed.’ Artemos looked up at Lamorak. He had removed his helm. One was a Primaris Space Marine and the other not, and from different gene-stock. Yet they were both of Sanguinius’ line. ‘These are no weapon marks.’
‘Lieutenant Jadriel killed him with his bare hands,’ said Lamorak.
‘Emperor,’ said Artemos. ‘He tore through ceramite?’
Lamorak nodded. ‘Nothing could stop him.’
‘This occurred on the surface?’ said Astorath.
‘Yes,’ said Lamorak. ‘When the Rage came on Jadriel we could not contain him. He fled before he could be brought down.’
‘What of the other departed?’ Astorath went to examine the body himself, leaning his knuckles on the stone bier, unaffected by the cold.
‘All of them but one.’
‘How many fell into the black?’
‘Six, in total. Five remain at large, including Jadriel. Brothers Bors, Dindran, Ulfius and Peilin. All are unaccounted for.’
‘And how many did they kill?’ asked Astorath. He moved aside to allow Artemos access to the lower part of the body.
‘We do not know,’ said Lamorak. ‘Two of our brothers, Safir and Fedor, Captain Ares, a number of the local populace, but we were fighting the Dulcites too. They turned on us as soon as the xenos emerged. It was chaos.’
Astorath leaned over Ares’ face and took a deep breath of the chill air. He closed his eyes. ‘Show us the one you killed.’
‘Brother Gawin. He’s in the next room.’
They left the chapel and went into a second, identical room. Another body lay on another bier, this one different in size and gear.
Astorath paused by the door for a long moment, staring at the body. He studied it with an impassive face. Lamorak observed him surreptitiously, wondering what thoughts troubled that noble, terrible mind.
‘Primaris,’ said Astorath. ‘It has happened, then, as I knew it would.’
The warrior’s face was still ruddy and distended with blood. The whites of his eyes had turned red. Sharp teeth showed behind drawn lips. He was the very image of a monster in Imperial plate, but he was dead. His breastplate was shattered, exposing the pulped ruin of the organs beneath.
Artemos commenced scanning this second corpse. ‘You have not harvested his gene-seed. Why?’
‘I was not sure if it would be safe,’ said Lamorak. ‘The Red Wings were nearly annihilated at Baal. We are mostly Primaris now. We of Cawl’s Gift have had no training or consultation with those wise in the Rage. Even I know very little, despite my office. How could I know whether or not the madness would be passed on to any aspirants blessed with Brother Gawin’s seed?’
