Mephiston’s piercing gaze crossed the broken ridges of the skyline. The Thunderhawks had landed in the city square, in the place where the last great engagement of the campaign had taken place. The open space was littered with fallen masonry as far as the eye could see, shattered spars of rusted iron laid down upon the crumbling remains of columns. The remnants of architecture created in the ancient styles of Old Terra were everywhere. Long halls and cloisters mingled with cathedral towers that once had cut the sky with their magnificence. Now, Sabien’s streets were filled with drifts of fallen stone and the towers were humbled. Only a single construction still remained in the middle of the echoing square. Canted at an angle by eruptions of some long-silenced shell fire, a statue on a stone plinth kept watch on the dead city. Somehow, the figure of an angel had never once been struck in all the madness of the fight for Sabien. It remained here now, its features worn to vague shapes, as a symbol of human will.
The Librarian rested one hand on the hilt of his sheathed force sword and closed his eyes. Gently, he summoned the energy of the Quickening that coiled inside his mind, moulding it and absorbing it into his senses. The exhilarating rush of potency ran through him in a shiver, and Mephiston allowed his mind to slip free of its sheath of meat and bone. Gentle blue glows hovered around the horned skulls that decorated his psychic hood and the Lord of Death reached out, searching for life. The ghost of his psy-self slipped through the ravaged streets, a breath of mental power shifting and flowing in a gust of wind.
The dead had left their mark on the psychic landscape of Sabien. In the ruined city there was no place where the scars of violent death could not be found. Anguish and raw pain were burnt into the stonework, as clear to Mephiston’s senses as the scorched shadows of human figures left by a nuclear flare. The faded screams of Blood Angels hung about the edges of his esper perceptions, the phantoms crowding him. A nerve twitched in the Lord of Death’s jaw. Even for a Librarian of his awesome discipline, it was difficult to sift through the white noise of the haunted city and search beyond. He frowned. There seemed to be something out there at the very edge of his mind-sight, but it was ephemeral, hidden in the clutter of the war dead. Perhaps…
Mephiston’s head jerked around in a swift motion, and the Techmarine froze, startled by the action. The Blood Angels psyker looked up into the sky. Evening stars were slowly emerging from the darkening blue, and one steady dot of brightness showed the position of the Europae. ‘They’re coming,’ he whispered to himself, his voice too low for anyone else to hear. Like a new constellation flaring into life, Mephiston’s inner sight could see the cluster of glowing minds approaching the planet at high speed, and among them he could read the strange flickers of a mentality like none he had ever encountered before.
There was a mumbling crackle of communication from the Techmarine’s helmet vox, and he glanced up at Mephiston. ‘My lord, word from the Europae. The battle barge Bellus has arrived.’
He nodded. ‘I know. I can taste him.’
Bellus presented her hammerhead bow to her sister ship as she slowed. The vessels were almost mirror images of one another, the huge slab-like hulls beweaponed with cannons and missile tubes. Each displayed a huge disk with the Chapter sigil beneath a golden crest of the Imperial aquila, but the similarities ended at the surface. Across the gulf of Sabien’s orbit, the crews of both ships eyed one another with suspicion and doubt. It was a rare sight to see two ships of this class in the same place. Such deployments were usually the prelude to war on a huge scale, and there were many Blood Angels aboard Bellus and Europae that wondered if war was what would soon follow.
On the command deck, Captain Ideon scrutinised the other vessel with all the tactical acumen he would have given an enemy warship. ‘Solus,’ he crackled. ‘Detector pallets on the port forward quarter read what looks like a fluctuation in her drive coils.’
Ideon’s aide nodded from his post at the primary cogitator. ‘Agreed, captain.’
‘Log that information with the gunnery servitors. It may prove useful if we are required to engage.’
At the observation window, Stele turned away from his conversation with Sachiel to face the captain. ‘It saddens me that such precautions must be taken, but after the Amareo incident…’
‘You may rest assured, the crew of the Europae are planning the same for us,’ Arkio snapped. He was wound tight with tension, and in long strides he pushed his way past the Sanguinary Priest to face the command dais. ‘Ideon. Do you detect any other starships in the area?’
The captain blinked as he addressed the eyes and ears of Bellus. ‘No, Blessed,’ he answered after a moment. ‘No contacts at this time.’
‘It appears that Dante kept his word,’ said Sachiel. The priest seemed muted, his usual bluster quieted. ‘Perhaps we may yet see a peaceful path out of this cha–’ He stumbled over the word. ‘This… This disorder.’
Stele threw him an arch glance. ‘Indeed. But I respectfully suggest that our watchword should be vigilance. If Commander Dante decides–’
‘Dante is not here,’ Arkio broke in, steel in his voice. ‘I know it in my bones. He has sent his second, the psyker Mephiston.’ The golden-armoured Space Marine looked Stele in the eye. ‘Do you not sense him, inquisitor?’
Gingerly, Stele extended the smallest of mental feelers toward Sabien’s surface, and just as quickly he jerked it back, like a hand too close to a naked flame. ‘The Blessed is correct. The Lord of Death awaits us.’ For the briefest of instants, a glimmer of concern crossed the Hereticus agent’s face.
Arkio approached Ideon and nodded a command to him. ‘Set war conditions throughout the ship, captain. These are my orders – the Warriors of the Reborn will attend me on Sabien. Launch transports and Thunderhawks. I will meet Mephiston at the head of my multitude.’
‘I have selected a company of Space Marines, Blessed,’ added Sachiel. ‘Your army will truly be a glorious sight.’
Arkio nodded. ‘Attend me, priest – and you as well, inquisitor. We go to make history.’
Stele gave a shallow bow and followed the Reborn Angel from the room. Entering the echoing corridors, he hung back a few steps and spoke urgently into a concealed vox in his collar. ‘Ulan, listen to me. Come to the landing bay and prepare for planetfall. I will have need of you on the surface.’
‘Mephiston?’ came the reply.
‘With haste,’ he retorted, quickening his pace.
Elsewhere aboard the Bellus, the cargo lighters were accepting their loads, each of the bullet-shaped ships sealing shut with a warshot of armed, zealous men. Ideon’s orders crackled through the air on every deck of the ship, calling the vessel to arms and preparing the troops for a landing. In the days that had passed between their departure from Shenlong and the arrival here, the Warriors of the Reborn had grown restless and impatient for release. Each group was wired with anticipation as they filed into the transports, their eagerness to prove their worth to Arkio far outweighing their fears.
Rafen carefully joined the rear of a trailing group of helots, keeping as far as he could from the other Space Marines herding the rag-tag army into their troopships. Hidden in the lower decks, the journey had passed quickly for the Blood Angel as he dipped in and out of trance-sleep, his brain’s catelepsean node keeping one half of his brain awake while the other slumbered. Rafen was thankful for the capability of the implant. He suspected that the dreams true slumber brought would not have pleased him.
The slave-soldiers marched up the boarding ramp in a loose, undisciplined group, the very antithesis of the finely drilled formations of the Adeptus Astartes. As they entered the cargo lighter’s interior, a figure pushed through them, giving out terse orders. Another Space Marine.
Rafen licked dry lips; this would be the moment of truth. If his subterfuge failed now, he would never make it down to the planet alive. He gave the other Blood Angel a cursory nod as if nothing were amiss, and strode past him, up the ramp toward the ship.
‘Brother,
’ said the Space Marine. ‘You are overseeing this group? I thought that I was to accompany…’ His voice drifted off, confusion in his tone. Rafen recognised him as he stepped into the light, the biolume glow illuminating his face. Alactus.
Rafen kept walking, and made an off-hand grunt that he hoped would be enough.
‘Wait,’ Alactus continued. ‘I know you, do I not?’ His brow furrowed. ‘What is your name?’
How could he not know me, Rafen asked himself. We have served the Chapter together for decades.
‘Brother!’ The shout halted Rafen at the top of the ramp and he half-turned to glance over his shoulder. Alactus had his hand at the grip of his bolt pistol. ‘I asked you a question.’ The Space Marine stepped closer, suspicion clear on his face. ‘Take off your helmet.’
He glanced at the transport; the helots were secure inside now, and none of them could see what was going on outside. Rafen turned to face the wary Alactus. There were no other men around this high on the launch cradles, just the two Blood Angels.
‘Take off your helmet,’ Alactus repeated, and the bolter was in his hand. ‘I will not ask you again.’ The warning in his voice was needle-sharp, the Space Marine would shoot Rafen dead if he did not respond.
Rafen nodded and descended the ramp, unlatching the connector ring on his headgear as he did so. He halted in front of Alactus and turned the helmet off his head. When he met his battle-brother’s eyes he saw shock there.
‘Rafen!’ husked Alactus, ‘but you’re dead…’
‘No,’ he replied, and in a single sharp movement, Rafen swung his helmet at the other Space Marine, rushing at him. He smothered the sick feeling in his gut that welled up as he assaulted his former comrade; to do such a thing made Rafen feel soiled, but he knew that there was no choice here. If he did not kill Alactus, then he would perish in his stead.
Alactus was caught by the surprise attack, and the ceramite helmet struck him hard, knocking the pistol from his hands. The gun clattered away as Rafen hit out again, knocking the other Space Marine to his haunches.
‘Traitor!’ spat Alactus, whipping his combat blade from its sheath. ‘Sachiel told us what you did, what you tried to do. You murdered Lucion.’
‘I didn’t want to–’
‘Liar! You craven wretch, you turned on your own brethren. You tried to destroy the fortress – you would have killed us all, you would have murdered the Reborn Angel.’
Anger boiled up inside Rafen. ‘You fool. It is not I who is the turncoat, it is you. You and everyone who follows Arkio’s misguided insanity!’
‘No.’ Alactus shook his head, ‘I will not hear your falsehoods! He is the Pure One returned–’
‘He is nothing of the kind,’ Rafen retorted. ‘Open your eyes, man. Open your eyes and see the truth, Arkio is just a pawn. Stele is behind this, that ordos mind-witch is clouding everything for his own ends.’
‘Lies!’ Alactus dived at him, the blade glinting. Rafen blocked, but the knife bit down and cut into his armour. ‘To think I trusted you,’ hissed the other Space Marine. ‘To think we fought together in the Emperor’s name when all along you were an agent of Chaos.’ He forced the blade deeper and Rafen bit off a cry of pain. ‘I will kill you as a gift for the Blessed.’
Rafen’s hands snapped up and found Alactus’s neck. Ceramite-encased fingers bit into his skin and squeezed. ‘Forgive me…’ he hissed, the two of them locked together in a death-grip. Rafen felt the knife slashing and cutting, but still he would not release. Blood bubbled from his battle-brother’s lips and bone in his throat cracked.
‘Damn… you…’ Alactus choked and died in his arms, his body turning limp.
Rafen dropped him to the deck and tore the knife from his wound, snarling at the pain of it. He stared at his hands; blood coated them with thick, accusing stains. He remembered the Word Bearer he had killed on Cybele in the same manner, his breath catching in his chest. ‘Sanguinius,’ he asked aloud. ‘Where will this madness end?’
But no answer came to him. Carefully, Rafen replaced his helmet, pausing to recover the bolt pistol before he marched aboard the transport ship. The hatch slammed shut behind him, leaving his comrade’s corpse to vent to the void as the shuttle shot away toward Sabien.
‘The scouts report no contact along the outer perimeter,’ said the sergeant, ‘the landing zone is devoid of life.’
The hint of a sneer tugged at the corner of Mephiston’s thin lips. ‘Just because they have not found anything does not mean that it isn’t there. Be watchful, sergeant.’
The Blood Angel gave a grave nod and pointed into the sky. ‘Look there, lord. Ships.’
A rain of transports and cargo craft descended, touching down on the clearer part of the square in the north-west corner. ‘Prepare yourself,’ Mephiston told his men. ‘Be ready for anything.’
Figures in shabby, makeshift uniforms emerged from the shuttles along with the red dots of Blood Angels. The sergeant frowned, scrutinising the warriors with his long-range optics. ‘What’s this?’ he said in a low voice. ‘The pretender has brought an army of commoners with him?’
Through an ornate set of magnoculars the Librarian watched the figures moving into a poor approximation of a parade line. ‘Ah,’ he said after a moment. ‘Their eyes, sergeant. Look at their eyes. Tell me what you see.’
The Blood Angel did as he was told. ‘They seem… manic, perhaps.’
‘Yes. Those men have the fire of belief kindled in them. And those of their number who do not have ill-temper enough to compensate.’ Mephiston’s fingers drummed on the grip of his plasma pistol. ‘Watch them. Their kind are unpredictable, given the right circumstances.’
The sergeant pointed again. ‘There, lord, do you see him? I can’t be sure–’
The Lord of Death did not need to be told where to look; floating like a mellifluent seraph among a throng of vagrants, Arkio approached them. His armour caught the red-orange glow of Sabien’s setting sun and it glimmered off the gold ceramite like liquid fire. Broad white wings formed arcs above his shoulders.
‘Emperor’s blood…’ breathed the sergeant. ‘He could almost be–’
‘He is not,’ Mephiston grated harshly. ‘Allow yourself to believe that and you are useless to me.’
‘Forgive me, lord, it’s just that… I have never seen the like.’
The Librarian could sense the same thoughts on the surface of the minds of all the Blood Angels in his guard. He set his jaw hard and lightly touched the psychic reservoir of his Quickening. Gently, Mephiston used the power to reinforce the will of his men, erasing any germ of doubt before it could grow larger.
Rafen used rough gestures with the bolter to make the slave-soldiers go where he wanted. Hidden in the mass of the procession, he was far enough apart from Arkio’s loyalist Space Marines that he would not be recognised again. He frowned beneath the visor of his helmet. There, a way ahead of him, marched his brother, and at his side the priest Sachiel, Stele and the inquisitor’s retinue. He saw the shambling lexmechanic, the floating shapes of Stele’s servo-skulls and a hooded female whose features were invisible beneath a voluminous cloak. Rafen elected to bide his time. His plan, such as it was, was taking shape on the fly. Perhaps, if the opportunity presented itself, he could approach Arkio unseen, and then – would he dare to shed the blood of a brother again? And this time, the blood of his own kinsman? He had been unable to do it back on Shenlong, and as he searched his feelings, Rafen could not be sure if he would do it now.
At the foot of a Thunderhawk, Rafen could see another figure, an unmistakeable form that seemed cut from a history book. He recognised Dante’s Chief Librarian immediately, the most powerful psyker in the entire Chapter – and some said, the whole of the Legion Astartes – watching the approach. Rafen recalled his stony aspect from a statue in the cloisters of Angel’s Fall: Mephiston, the Lord of Death. His name was well-earned, for it had been he alone that had looked into the unknowable void of the Blood Angels gene-curse and survi
ved. Only through an incredible force of will had Mephiston passed through the punishing trials of the maddening red thirst and lived to tell of it. Men said that to look the Lord of Death in the eye was to see a window to the black rage and the dark places that waited beyond the realm of life. Mephiston’s burning gaze had been known to stop enemies in their tracks and leave them broken and weeping.
As befitting a man of such stature, the psyker wore a crimson cloak inlaid with a profusion of bone skulls, the death-head symbol large on his shoulder pads. The twin rails of a powerful psychic hood extended above his head, and the armour across his torso resembled skinned flesh, glistening red bunches of muscle crossed with death marks and jewelled blood droplets. He was the darkest end of the spectrum when compared to Arkio’s golden, mirror-bright form.
‘Lord Mephiston,’ Arkio said, inclining his head in greeting, ‘you honour me with your presence here. Thank you for coming.’
The psyker studied the youth. The sergeant had been correct, Arkio’s resemblance to the Great Angel was uncanny. It was almost as if a statue of Sanguinius had shaken off its coating of stone and stepped down from a chapel plinth. Yet, as much as the image matched the legends that had shaped his devotion for so many years, Mephiston could already sense the taint of something foul and corrupt in the air, lingering like spent tabac smoke. He was very careful not to give even the slightest hint of obeisance to the man in the gold armour. This was the one who had ordered Mephiston’s protégé Vode destroyed and Captain Gallio’s crew executed in cold blood, something the Librarian would not soon forget.
But still… There was some small voice inside Mephiston’s mind, some last fragment of his old self as Brother Calistarius, that was awed by what Arkio had become, this perfect living avatar of great Sanguinius. He silenced the discord within him and drew his psy-essence into a single place.
Deus Sanguinius Page 15
