Lords of Blood, page 71
‘My lords,’ Guilliman said to the others. ‘If you might give me a few moments alone with your Chapter Master, I have a few matters I would like to discuss with him.’ Guilliman impressed Dante with his knack for command. His orders sounded more like invitations.
The others left Dante with the primarch. Last to go was Mephiston. Of all the surviving lords of the Blood Angels, he had changed the least, perhaps because he had already drifted furthest from them. He shared an inscrutable look with Dante, and departed, his cloak sweeping the air behind him.
The primarch did not speak immediately, but leaned on the parapet and looked out at the troops in the desert. The parapet’s height relative to Guilliman’s own meant he had to hunch to rest upon it. Huge muscles bunched under his clothes.
All his life Dante had been told tales of the primarchs. The stories did no justice to the being that stood next to him, not in terms of his power or stature, for Dante was wise enough to know the stories had exaggerated these attributes of the primarchs beyond belief. The real surprise was that the stories did no justice to the primarch’s humanity. He was completely human, concentratedly so, as if the essence of mankind had been distilled a hundred times and poured into a giant’s body. Beyond human, but more human for being so. He was a perfect exemplar of sacred mankind in every way, excepting the thick rope of a scar that ran lopsided across his throat.
The primarch swept his gaze across the desert, nodding approvingly to himself. When his eyes met Dante’s again, Dante felt a common bond instead of the imperious gaze of a demigod. In Guilliman’s eyes were sorrow and ambition, impatience and humour, loss and resolve. They were sentiments Dante knew only too well, although despite this openness of feeling, Guilliman could not help but be commanding.
‘Are you sure I am not disturbing your conference with your warriors?’
‘We had nothing of import to discuss,’ said Dante. ‘We merely took a moment’s rest from our labours to observe the work here, and reflect on our salvation.’
‘You deserve rest. You have fought hard for a long time.’ Guilliman tapped the data-slate. ‘My historitors have struggled to create a concise history of your life, so numerous are your deeds.’
‘There is no rest, not while one enemy of the Imperium lives,’ said Dante.
‘True. Neither primarch nor Legiones Astartes were made to be idle,’ Guilliman said. He drew in a deep breath as a precursor to changing the subject. ‘My work here is almost done. The remnants of the tyranids are all but extirpated from Baal and Baal Secundus. They are a terrible enemy. They would be difficult to defeat without our other foes to distract us. This time has a plenitude of horrors to show me. You have done well.’
‘Whatever victory I won, and that is debatable, Lord Regent, it is not enough,’ said Dante.
‘It is as well as can be expected,’ said Guilliman. ‘This hive fleet, the Leviathan, it has been dealt a powerful blow. This tendril has been wiped out. You have saved billions of lives through your sacrifice. I would say that is enough. I leave this sector in capable hands.’
‘You are leaving then, my lord?’
Guilliman nodded. ‘Soon enough. I am glad to have arrived here in time to save you. It will make my task a little less impossible.’ He smiled. They shared the joke. The task was impossible. ‘I will see your worlds secure before moving on.’ He looked out again; finding what he saw satisfactory, he turned his back on the desert and lavished his full attention on Dante. It took all the commander’s will to hold his gaze.
‘The genesis machines are operating correctly. You will be able to begin creating Primaris Space Marines of your own within the week, and put all these new neophytes you have created to use. I trust my warriors are settling in to their new quarters?’
‘They are, my lord,’ said Dante. It was he that needed to adjust, not they. The Arx no longer felt like his home. The older generation Space Marines were in a decided minority.
‘Good. There are enough of them to bring all the Sanguinian bloodline Chapters back to full strength. I appreciate the adjustment for you will be difficult, but they are experienced warriors, and mighty. I am in the process of establishing a number of new Chapters, also of your gene-father’s bloodline.’
‘We will extend to them the same friendship we do to all of the Blood, my lord,’ said Dante.
‘I know you will, and it is good that it is so, for before I go I shall formalise the obvious influence you have over your brother Chapters.’ He became distant a moment. ‘Now is the time for great leaders.’
‘My lord?’
Guilliman’s eyes refocused. ‘To that end, my Mechanicus have begun the work to recover the wreck of the Blade of Vengeance. It can be salvaged, and it will be rebuilt.’
‘The effort to take it into the void alone will be monumental, my lord,’ said Dante.
‘I have the resources, Dante. I will expend them as I see fit.’
‘I thank you. It is a fine gesture.’
‘It is no gesture. You will need it.’
Guilliman placed a hand upon Commander Dante’s shoulder and smiled sadly.
‘Listen, son of my brother. You have witnessed much, I sense in you your weariness. The Emperor never told me how long the Space Marines were supposed to live, but I suspect he never envisaged any living quite so long as you.’
‘I am weary, my lord, it is true, but I shall not stint in my service.’
‘I do not think you will. As I understand it from these records, you have carried the mantle of Imperial hero for a very long time. I am here now, my son. Be no longer afraid. Put aside your weariness. You need not masquerade as my brother any longer, for a real primarch walks among men again.’
‘I meant no deception or pridefulness, my lord.’
Guilliman smiled and squeezed Dante’s pauldron. The metal creaked at the pressure his bare hand exerted. ‘I know plenty about men being worshipped when they would rather not be. The error is a common one, and it is not yours. You have nothing to feel shame for. I offer you relief, not condemnation. Remove your helmet.’
Dante took off Sanguinius’ mask, exposing his aged features to Guilliman’s scrutiny. The primarch had seen him without armour while Dante recovered, but he felt naked before Guilliman’s gaze in a way he had not before.
‘I must soon leave this sector,’ said Guilliman. ‘My mission here was to reinforce you and your Chapter’s successors, to shore up the defence of the Imperium in this segmentum. To…’ He let his words die in his mouth, and began again. ‘Dante, I am afraid I am going to add to your burdens. The Blood Angels and their successors are needed more than ever. You need no longer allow men to see you as my brother, but I cannot let you retreat from the role of hero. I am going to name you Warden and Regent of Imperium Nihilus, commander of all Imperial forces north of the Great Rift. I must return over the Cicatrix Maledictum soon. Now I have found someone who will strive in my stead, I may. The situation here, though dire, is not as bad as I feared, while that in the Imperium remains parlous.’
‘I understand. I will do my best.’
‘Your best is more than I could wish for.’ Guilliman looked overhead. Baal Primus and Baal Secundus continued their slow waltz around Baal as they always had, only Baal Primus was now dead, and upon the southern hemisphere the daemonic rune of Ka’Bandha’s name leered in bright white bone. The skulls of millions of tyranids, from void ships to vermin gatherers, had been stacked to create the sigil.
‘Look at that,’ said Guilliman. ‘The arrogance of the Neverborn remains as great as it ever was. But it is we who remain, and it is we who shall prevail. Dante, there is a lesser task I will set you.’ He lifted his hand up to encompass three worlds. ‘These planets were hells. For generations we have recruited the strong over the weak, in the belief it makes our warriors better. I do not think this is so. Cruel men make cruel warriors make cruel lords. We need to be better. We need to rise over the need for violence and recognise other human qualities in our recruits. Your Chapter has ever understood this. If we do not, then we will fall prey to our worst excesses, the kind of thing that that represents.’ He pointed at Ka’Bandha’s name. ‘It has long been in your capability to transform these worlds. Baal Primus is dead, but you need not let your remaining people suffer unnecessarily. Will they fight any better for dwelling on a world that kills them? By sacrificing their children to the Emperor’s service, they have earned a better life. Once you have torn that blasphemy down, raise up the population of Baal Secundus. Teach them what we are fighting for. A line must be drawn between what is good and what is evil, for if the Great Enemy comes with offers of power to a wretch, what reason does he have to refuse hell if he dwells in it already?’ Guilliman was tense. Dante had not expected that in the Lord of Ultramar. Guilliman was impatient to change things. He was angered by what he had found upon his rebirth, and he was not hiding it.
‘You must find the strength to continue, Commander Dante,’ said Guilliman. ‘There are very few warriors like you in the galaxy any more. I need every exemplar of heroism I can find. Please do not disappoint me.’
‘I will not, my lord regent.’
Guilliman smiled at him again, and reached out to Dante. Dante extended his hand. The primarch’s fingers engulfed his hand, gauntlet and all.
‘I know you will not. I am counting on you to prove me right.’
Fourteen weeks later, the Indomitus Crusade pulled away from the Baal system. Behind it left the skeleton of new orbitals and shipyards over the prime world, and multiple ships of Mechanicus fleets attending to their construction. Dante waited for every engine stack to burn bright on the ships before sending the order to his own fleet to open fire on Baal Primus. Bloodcaller symbolically loosed its torpedoes first.
The day was clear. Baal Primus was large in the sky. Dante could track each flaring cyclonic torpedo as it fell towards the dead moon. The assembled fleets of the Blood were a shadow of their former selves, but mighty enough to kill a world nevertheless.
Roboute Guilliman went to a fiery salute. Rings of flame burst on Baal Primus’ airless plains, gone as soon as they were made, but potent enough to render Ka’Bandha’s monument to bone dust. Macrocannons joined the demolition, and lances, until all the force of the Space Marines warfleet was employed in erasing the daemon’s name.
Guilliman’s ships rapidly receded into twinkling lights, leaving Dante an insurmountable task. Dante looked down from the top of the Sanguis Corpusculum. Chapters in liveries old and new looked back.
‘My lord warden,’ said Adanicio, kneeling and offering up the Axe Mortalis to Dante. ‘The Chapters of the Blood await your command.’
Dante took the haft of his weapon in silence. Slowly he raised it over his head.
‘For Sanguinius and the Emperor!’ he roared.
‘For Sanguinius! For the Emperor!’ tens of thousands of Primaris Space Marines roared back.
DARKNESS IN THE BLOOD
CHAPTER ONE
STORM CALLED
Bloodcaller was an ancient ship. Its keel was laid down in ages so distant there were none alive who remembered them, at least none with noble hearts. A battle-barge of the Adeptus Astartes, masterfully built and furnished with technologies now forgotten, it stood the test of voyage and battle with indomitable strength. It had fought the length and breadth of the galaxy. It had caused the end of worlds. It had witnessed the death of suns. It had defied warp storms that saw lesser ships founder. It had pierced psychic tempests to bring the deliverance of angels to planets thought doomed. It had sailed true through daemonic attack and the dread shadow of the hive mind. Such glory it had won, such renown for its Chapter, there was little its vigilant machine-spirit had not witnessed.
But this storm was something new. Bloodcaller had never seen the warp so disturbed.
Hurricanes of souls roared through the empyrean. Where one died away, fury spent, another was already rising. Vortices of raw emotion drew to themselves coalescences of energy so intense they verged on attaining consciousness, before melting to nothing, stillborn gods.
Only a ship so indomitable as Bloodcaller could pass unharmed through the warp. Currents raced between storm fronts, tearing ships from their courses. Daemonic beasts assailed everything that dared their realm, breaking Geller fields open to feast on the souls inside where before they had been confounded.
To brave the warp in those times was to leap knowingly into insanity. So many vessels were lost without trace, or emerged light years and centuries away from their destination, or they came out void of the living, their halls crowded with ghosts and their machine-spirits supplanted by diabolical beings.
Many did not come out at all.
This was the legacy of the Warmaster Abaddon; the Cicatrix Maledictum, the Great Rift that tore across the galaxy’s middle and gutted the stars and threw the Sea of Souls into bedlam.
Few dared to travel in the aftermath of the Great Rift’s opening.
Bloodcaller dared. The Blood Angels dared. War was everywhere. The Adeptus Astartes would not shirk from their calling.
Through towering waves of raw pain and eddies of loss, Bloodcaller forged a path for other ships, leading an armada of vessels gathered from far-flung stars. Alone, the ships were lost, isolated, impotent. Together, they would be strong, the basis of a fleet to save an empire.
In Bloodcaller’s wake the flotilla plunged and rolled. The ships yawed hard in countercurrents. Whirlpools of screaming faces threatened to pull them into the depths of agony. Bloodcaller’s metal moaned in pain. Its reactors howled. Its Geller generators spat smoke and sparks, but on it went, on for the sake of mortal men, its steely soul undaunted.
Each moment in the warp risked disaster, but the Imperium was beset on all sides. The ships had to get through. At a time when every gun in every pair of hands counted, a warship was a precious thing indeed.
In the time of the Cicatrix Maledictum, ancient traitors strode the cosmos. Planets burned across the realm of man.
Commander Dante, lord of the Blood Angels, had sworn to put an end to that.
High up on Bloodcaller’s command spires there was a chamber as richly decorated as any king’s. In that chamber, there was a sarcophagus.
The chamber was black in all aspects. The floors, walls and ceilings were clad in black marble veined with darker blacks. All its numerous carvings and statues were worked from the same black stone. The artworks depicted noble heroes bearing the arms and armour of the Blood Angels Chapter. They were protectors of humanity, but in the light of the firebowls the sculptures appeared entirely sinister. Flickering flames lent their features a semblance of movement that would have disquieted the sturdiest of hearts. There was but one occupant in the room, and he was deep in slumber within the sarcophagus. He was Dante, the greatest-hearted of all mankind’s heroes, and in that moment he saw nothing.
His sarcophagus stood upright. A sculpted face covered the upper portion. Through its eyes of red crystal murkier red could be perceived. Though made principally of ivory, the sarcophagus was covered in ornamentation and inlaid gemstones that made it glitter. All were hues of red: rubies, carnelian, red sapphires, blood diamonds, topaz, garnet and jasper. About the flat, broad head was a coronet of the rarest of all: bloodstone from Baal. It was an idol garlanded in crystallised blood.
Blood was everything to Dante. The blood of his gene-father shaped him. The blood of humanity called to him for defence. The blood of the alien, heretic and traitor demanded to be spilled.
The pounding of twin hearts filled his hearing with a river’s torrent, torrents of red, torrents of black, twined forever inseparably. Hot and sweet, the darkness in the blood spreading through his veins was enough to poison, but never enough to kill. Blood brought him torment and joy. It damned him. It renewed him. Blood was his saviour and his damnation.
Dante floated in vitae. The stolen life of innocents filled his mouth, his nose, his stomach and his lungs. It bathed his unseeing eyes, it stoppered up his ears. The temperature of the liquid and his body were precisely matched, so he could not tell where his body ended and the blood began. He was deep in the renewal phase of the Long Sleep, but all was not as it should be. The machines embedded in the sarcophagus exterior blinked uncertainly. There was an admixture of Dante’s own blood in the suspension mix, and most dilute, a touch of the divine: Sanguinius’ own essence mixed into Dante’s.
Dante’s body was covered in cuts, many deep, some not healed. Huge, crescent wounds overlaid the scars of ancient wars. He was a Space Marine. The wounds were inflicted months before. They too should be pale marks now, healed shut by his enhanced physiology and become only memories of pain. It was not so.
Dante bled.
Shifts in the voidship as it ploughed on through the storm pushed his slumbering body about. The feeds plugged into his brachial and femoral arteries tugged. He did not feel their sting. Dante was absent from his body, lost in the healing coma, and his soul wandered the halls of recollection, remembering a battle fought long ago.
Another time, another war, and Bloodcaller suffered. Atmosphere bled from a thousand cuts. Its armour was shattered. Its weapons broken. Systems wept power from ruptured conduits. Yet it persisted, and its great reactor heart laboured to keep the few who remained living alive.
The battle was over, but a new struggle had begun.
‘He is not worthy!’ Chaplain Keshiel rose from his seat in the Great Basilica and slammed the head of his crozius onto the ground. The power field was active, and the crack of it contacting the paving reverberated around the hall in electric thunders. The four-sided head buried itself in the deck.
