Lords of Blood, page 103
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?’
Sergeant Dolomen gave a hard bark of laughter. ‘Oh, it’s passed on by the gene-seed all right, brother.’
‘Silence, Dolomen,’ said Astorath coldly. ‘This is the first time you have witnessed the curse?’
‘It is. I do not know what to make of it.’
‘I have seen it in Primaris Space Marines before,’ said the sergeant attending Lamorak. He stepped forward around his Priest.
‘Who speaks to the Lord Redeemer?’ asked Dolomen.
‘Sergeant Bedevoir, Third squad, Ninth Company,’ said the sergeant.
‘Explain what you mean to the Lord Astorath,’ said Dolomen.
Power tools whined. Artemos undid the bolts of Gawin’s breastplate. It came away with a squelch, trailing ropes of bloody matter.
‘I saw this once, on the crusade, before Baal,’ said Bedevoir. ‘We didn’t know what it was. We thought it was some trick of the enemy’s. Three brothers of our gene-line went mad, raving about the arch-traitor.’
‘Three of the Blood,’ corrected Dolomen.
‘Why did you not report this?’ said Artemos.
‘I did. Nobody else knew what to make of it either.’ Bedevoir took a further step into the room. ‘We were fighting daemons, sorcerers, foes that I could not comprehend. What happened to those others was nothing compared to some of the things I saw, some of the things I killed. They were…’ He struggled to find the words. ‘This knowledge of the flaw you have given us, it was a secret before, kept from us who share your heritage.’ It was an accusation. Astorath stared at him with hard eyes.
‘But why not report it now?’ pressed Artemos. ‘Now you know of our curse?’ He had taken off the warrior’s left arm plates, exposing skin covered by branching dark veins.
‘Because I did not know the signs,’ said Bedevoir. ‘I did not think it remarkable at the time. Only now, when I have seen the Rage with my own eyes, did I make the connection.’
‘A disappointing lack of vigilance,’ said Astorath. ‘You should have known.’
‘From imperfect descriptions? Even after we arrived at Baal, we were told so little – a few briefings, nothing in depth. Ares was a captain. We are warriors, not medicae.’ Bedevoir turned to Dolomen. ‘Brother, there are only handfuls of the original Red Wings left, and they are scattered. We continue their traditions as best we can, we have taken names according to their custom, but we are not them, not yet. You saw Ares. You saw his hair, the white hair of their Chapter. None of us have that. We are Primaris. We do not look like them. We do not carry their unique genetic markers.’
‘Be glad of that,’ said Artemos. He was shining his backpack light into the chest cavity of Gawin. ‘The distinctiveness of each strain of the Blood is often connected to a worsening of the flaw. The more extreme the divergence, the more violent the curse.’
‘That might be so,’ said Bedevoir, ‘but then what do we know of the flaw? We know little of the Thirst, how it manifests, how to manage it, how to channel it. We know nothing at all of the Rage. Ares was the only one of the original breed of Space Marine stationed here. Seven warriors from his company survived the tyranids. Only seven. They were split up and assigned to other groups of Primaris like ours who were attached to the Red Wings. They were supposed to help us become what they were.’
‘You have failed. You have ceded the planet to the enemy,’ said Astorath.
‘There is less than a demi-company of us here,’ said Lamorak, indignation overcoming some of his awe. ‘We are a scouting force, that is all. We did not expect this. We do not have the manpower to deal with the Rage or the xenos, and we have the population to consider.’
‘The capital is safe,’ said Bedevoir. ‘The majority of the population is located there. We have it under control.’
‘But you have lost the world,’ Dolomen said.
‘We will take it back.’
‘Listen to your sergeant, Brother Lamorak. He displays true mettle. Be calm. You are hard-pressed,’ said Astorath, ‘but remember what you are. Do not dishonour yourself by saying you cannot accomplish the tasks which have been entrusted to you.’
‘This manner of war is new to us,’ said Lamorak. Shame made his words leaden.
‘Then learn it,’ said Astorath.
‘We do not need your help,’ said Bedevoir.
Astorath inclined his head and stared at Bedevoir until he looked away. ‘I will be the judge of that,’ he said.
There was a clatter as Artemos dropped surgical tools into a silver bowl. Blood spattered onto his armour.
‘Harvest his gene-seed,’ said Artemos. ‘Honour his memory.’ He turned to Astorath. ‘It should be safe. This is a simple case of the Rage manifesting. There is nothing new here.’
‘Only the nature of the sufferer, that is sufficient cause for us to be cautious,’ said Astorath. ‘Test his gene-seed thoroughly before you use it for implantation. We will take a sample back to Corbulo.’ He addressed this last comment to Lamorak. It took a moment for the Red Wings Priest to realise Astorath was asking permission.
‘Yes, of course. If you so command it, Redeemer.’
‘It is good you agree. I would not wish to compel you.’ Astorath rested a fatherly hand on the dead warrior’s arm. ‘Gawin is the first confirmed Primaris Space Marine to fall to the Black Rage, Brother Lamorak. We in this room stand at the threshold of a new era. The hopes of all our bloodline are proven false, and we need to find out why. You will tell me everything – of the flares, the xenos, the psykers, and the coming of the Rage. Start from the beginning. Start now.’
CHAPTER ONE
FAR FROM
THE HIGH TOWERS
The warp, three weeks ago [nominal]
They were things of the warp as much as they were things of the worlds of dust. In that, maybe they were unique. Maybe they were not. Once, perhaps, there had been more life forms that straddled the barrier. They survived where these others were gone, and even that did not matter to them. They lived. They were. They survived the great storms of the past and they would survive the storms of the present, for as much as the turmoil of the empyrean battered at them and winnowed their numbers, it granted opportunity. As storms clear the ocean bed of debris, as fires scorch the forest of dead wood, the rift opened new opportunities for the strong to prosper.
They drifted in the raging currents of the immaterium. Against all the odds, they remained whole in the vortexes of unmaking, bulbous air sacs crusted over and their tentacles wrapped tight against their bodies within the confines of their bio-fields. In the warp they were scavengers, siphoning shreds of soul energy from the recently devoured, darting away when threatened by the daemonic things they shared their feeding grounds with.
In the materium they preyed on flesh.
Solitary, alone, racing along currents from one part of nowhere to another, Third One lived a life no human mind could comprehend. It thought, but its thoughts were alien to any sentient being. It felt, but its emotions had no analogue. It had no name or age or identity as a being of the materium would recognise it. Third One was not its name. Third One was not what it was, but it knew, in its alien way, that Third One was what it must be, and soon.
It was time to breed.
Instinct drew Third One towards the great roar of the warp-materium interface. The Great Rift resembled an endlessly breaking wave seen from within. Souls and half-beings and things that never were rolled over and over in its curl. Light flashed and sounds howled. The pull towards it was irresistible. Worlds from the materium fell into the maelstrom and were torn apart. Vessels traversing the warp were dragged to their doom. Yet Third One knew where to stop. It knew where to wait. It drew to a halt at the edges of the interface, where the conflicting currents of reality and unreality were at their weakest, and a creature of its sort might best profit.
It waited eternities. No time at all passed. Seconds and centuries meant nothing there, and so they meant nothing to Third One.
Second One was already there. Second One arrived after Third One. There was one, there were two. They approached one another, colours racing over their gelatinous bodies. Tentacles rose up in elaborate threat displays. Their float sacs pulsed angry reds and blues. They poised on the edge of battle, there at the soul-falls at the end of the world, their bio-fields shimmering.
Third One reached out a pseudopod. Second One recoiled, then reached out in turn. Colours of aggression changed to appeasing pinks and yellows. Nests of eyes regarded one another, and shimmered assent.
Their tentacles twined, the hooks upon the underside piercing the other’s tendrils to drag them closer. Lesser tentacles waved forward. Their bio-fields merged, becoming stronger, shutting out the daemonic, making them an island of reality.
More of their kind gathered and formed their own binaries of Second Ones and Third Ones. Last to come were the First Ones, the largest sort, and they descended into the growing swarm. Violence broke out as First Ones vied with one another for the most promising binaries and binaries fought off First Ones they rejected.
Third-Second One repelled two First Ones’ attempts to join. One they killed, and ate its remains while they showed their colour songs to more suitable suitors, until, finally, one approached they did not reject, and with complex patternings of welcome they came close to each other.
The agreement was made quickly. Third-Second One further integrated with themselves and First One, until the three were an indivisible triad.
Other ones, twos and threes merged. The unsuccessful washed back and forth in the shallows of the warp. The last First Ones joined, or fled, or died, and then all were triads.
With many eyes directed by conjoined souls, First-Second-Third One peered through the rift and watched the shores of reality.
Lights shone on the far side. Prey light. Food.
The enslavers started to move.
Far from the high towers, Esmera felt a fight coming.
‘Give me that.’
Esmera followed the youth’s pointing finger to her bread. She gave him a mild look.
‘Why?’ she said.
They were walled in by crowds. By then the news had spread, and everyone was in the main square looking eagerly to the skies. Dulcis was a hard place to live. No one paid the street people any attention. The youths could knife her right there, and no one would care.
‘Because if you don’t I’ll smack you into the dirt, then I’ll let my friends have a go at you,’ said the youth.
