Rafen’s expression soured. ‘I speak only the truth.’
‘As you see it,’ Astorath shot back. ‘I know what you think of me. You see this–’ he brandished his axe and spun it in his grip ‘–and nothing else! I do not want the blood of my brothers on my hands, but I accept it.’ For a moment, there was sorrow in the other warrior’s voice; then it was gone. ‘I know my duty and I will never shrink from it. I have my curse and I keep it.’ He pointed at Rafen once again. ‘You have spoken of responsibility, of obligations. What if yours is to die?’
Rafen’s blood ran cold. ‘Only in death does duty end, and my duty has not yet ended. I am certain of that.’
‘Indeed?’ growled Astorath, cutting through a heap of fallen masonry with his blade. ‘And who are you to make that choice? Other Sons of Sanguinius, veterans all and learned warriors with centuries of experience upon their shoulders, see things differently. There are those voices on the Council of Angels that would see the duty of Brother Rafen to come to an end. Your blood kinship with the corrupted one is reason enough.’
‘I…’ The words came hard to him, but Rafen persisted. ‘I will not walk the same path as my sibling. Arkio was flawed, he was led astray. If I had been there before it happened…’ He trailed off and took a breath. The air was different here. He tasted changes in pressure and temperature that indicated they were nearing the desert surface. ‘I am not him,’ Rafen said firmly.
‘Your word is not sufficient,’ Astorath told him. ‘And now the Chapter finds itself rising from the aftermath of what your sibling wrought upon it. We are wounded, and hard choices must be made if we are to go forward. Secrets kept… and truths expunged for the good of the Blood Angels.’
‘The Sons of Sanguinius have endured far worse,’ Rafen persisted. ‘This… this trial will not break us.’
‘We have endured, aye,’ Astorath admitted. ‘But how? Through insight and pragmatism, by strength of our blood and the willingness to do what we must. The primarch taught us that when he left us.’
Rafen shook his head. ‘And so, what is to be done? Shall we excise my sibling’s insurrection from our chronicles as if it never took place, wipe the minds of the men who witnessed it? You would have the Blood Angels strike this incident from history?’ His lips twisted in disgust. ‘We do not hold our honour so cheap!’
‘Our numbers are depleted, our forces scattered to maintain the illusion of strength. Worlds have been burned in the wake of this. Tell me, Brother Rafen. What would you have us do?’
‘I would not embrace silence instead of truth!’ he spat. ‘That is not what the Great Angel would wish! He knew the truth better than any living being!’
‘What truth?’ demanded Astorath.
‘That we are imperfect!’ Rafen dared the High Chaplain to deny him. ‘We are not like the whelps of Fulgrim, professing that we are faultless and infallible! To pretend we are incapable of error is a weakling’s way, it is foolhardy and arrogant.’ He nodded fiercely, his temper rising. ‘The insurrection must not be forgotten, the lesson of it must live with us forever so that it will never come to pass again. We are our history, the best and the worst of it. That is what Sanguinius knew!’
Astorath paused and gave him a long look. The High Chaplain’s dark axe glittered in the gloom, the wicked edge of the weapon still sharp despite the many rocks it had cut aside during their ascent. ‘You are exactly what I thought you were, Rafen,’ said the High Chaplain, at length. He turned away. ‘Now, come. We are close to the surface.’
Until that moment, there had been doubt in Rafen’s mind. The possibilities existed in a kind of half-state, a chance that his future would unfold in one way or another, the path of his life crossing here with that of Astorath the Grim. Until that moment, he had not been certain.
But no doubts shrouded the understanding now. The look in those fathomless, bleak eyes, the iron in the words. Whatever he may have said or done, Rafen knew in his blood and bones that the Redeemer of the Lost had come back to Baal and to the Regio for him.
Astorath was here to judge him.
It took both of the Blood Angels to shoulder the hexagonal grille up from the stays that held it in place. Rafen spent a bolt shell on the lock, the mechanism coughing out sparks. With a skirl of rusted, elderly hinges, the hatch came open and they finally emerged in the desert.
The High Chaplain’s estimate had been correct. The cold night sky was changing colour toward the distant Chalice Mountains, shading away from deep black toward purple hues. Eventually it would push toward orange-red as the Baalite sun made its slow advance, but that was hours away yet. Baal’s night was long and slow.
Seamless drifts of rusty sand ranged off in every direction, settled in dunes and wavelike patterns by the passage of the razorwinds. Like the night, the storm had passed and only the faint breath of its trailing edge could be felt. Rafen turned in place and found a smudge of grey on the opposite horizon. The storm cell was advancing toward the westerly canyons, where its lethal energy would be expended in the endless, echoing arroyos.
Still turning, he got his bearings and found the distant lights of the Regio. They had emerged several kilometres from the outer keep walls, at the very edge of the perimeter zone. He squinted, cursing the damage to his helmet’s optics. He wanted a closer look.
The sight seemed wrong – or more accurately, the sight seemed right, as if nothing were amiss at the Regio. Even at this distance, he expected to have seen plumes of smoke, weapon flashes. Rafen strained into the wind to listen, trying to pluck out the sounds of combat from the susurrus of desert noises.
He heard nothing, and went tense with concern. Had the enemy assault been so lethal, so swift that it had passed like the razorwind and left no survivors? Rafen took a step toward the distant complex. ‘The attack… The Word Bearers…’
‘Even they are not overconfident enough to attempt so gaudy a suicide,’ rumbled Astorath. ‘The Sons of Lorgar, spite curse them, are not here. They never were.’
Rafen rounded on him, all his suspicions ringing in his mind like a clarion. ‘You.’ He pointed at the High Chaplain. ‘You lied. There was no assault on the Regio.’
‘A ruse on my part,’ admitted the other warrior, watching him steadily. ‘A small piece of theatre so that I might have what I needed.’
‘The explosive, the inclinator… you did that yourself. The charge was enough to damage the platform but not enough to penetrate your armour…’ He shook his head. ‘Why would you do such a thing, executioner? You could have killed us both in the fall!’
Astorath’s dead eyes locked with his. ‘That was not your time to die, Rafen. I did what I did to isolate you. I wanted to learn your character… and it is easier to divine the nature of a warrior’s soul if his attention is elsewhere.’
Rafen’s expression soured, annoyance rising in him. ‘Is your little game concluded, then? Have you got what you wanted from me?’
‘I have made my decision,’ said Astorath, as his axe dropped into his waiting hands.
In the next second he was charging, a feral snarl splitting his lips.
Combat reflexes took over and Rafen drew his bolt pistol in a fraction of a second, his other hand snatching at the hilt of the battle knife resting in a sheath along the line of his spine. He fired a single shot at the High Chaplain, aiming low, aiming to wound, to slow him down.
But he might well have called out his intentions in a shout. Astorath swept his blade aside and intercepted the bolt mid-flight with a crack of sound, the round blasting harmlessly into the dirt. Rafen dodged to one side as the weapon’s fast, fluid arc bisected the space where he had been standing, and he rolled, tumbling over red dirt and half-buried rocks.
The High Chaplain lost no momentum at all, pushing off a broken boulder into a shallow leap, leading with the Executioner’s Axe. Rafen knew he couldn’t deflect the blow, and feinted away, desperately trying to extend his distance. Astorath’s axe split the rock where he had been standing in t
wo – and still the other warrior came, without missing a beat.
Rafen managed to cross the axis of his opponent’s blade with the battle knife and there was a grating screech of metal on metal as their fractal-edges met violently. The impact was so great it resonated up the bones of the Blood Angel’s arms and lit lines of pain through every joint.
He had the bolt pistol, and he had a shot to take. At close range, if he was clever and if he was lucky, Rafen might have been able to put a kill-shot into Astorath’s face – but he could not bring himself to do so.
‘Cease this!’ he spat.
The other warrior grunted and shoved the axe forward. The sickle-blade head smacked Rafen across the jaw and staggered him. He felt blood froth in his mouth and fragments of teeth in his throat.
Astorath finally paused, shifting his grip in an almost leisurely fashion. Preparing to strike the death-blow. ‘In a moment,’ he replied.
‘You have no right to do this,’ said Rafen, spitting out gobs of bloody spittle into the dust.
‘I have the right,’ Astorath replied coldly.
‘I will not die for the sake of those who doubt me!’ Rafen roared his defiance. ‘You may not share the weakness that tainted your sibling,’ said the High Chaplain, ‘but the rage lurks in you, as much as you deny it. I see it. I can smell it on you.’ He swung at the air, the axe humming. ‘Do not fear. I will make it swift. You will end with honour.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Rafen shook his head. ‘I am the master of my own will! The rage and the thirst do not command me!’
Astorath attacked again, cutting at him, a tornado of axe blows falling across him. Once again, Rafen could only react to the assault and try to stay alive for a few more seconds. His anger built inside him like a floodhead.
‘I see it,’ Astorath growled. ‘You cannot hide it from me, brother. Stop pretending you are in control and submit to the fury!’
And for a moment, that was all he wanted to do. It would have been so simple to release, to open the gates to the anger. To let the fire build and build until it consumed him. He wanted to fall into the fight.
But I have looked into that abyss and my future does not lie there.
Rafen raised his head and, very deliberately, he tossed the bolt pistol away. Then, with a flick of the wrist, he threw his combat blade into the sand, where it buried itself up to the pommel.
‘You want my anger, my rage?’ Rafen shook his head. ‘I will not give it to you, Astorath. I will not let you comfort yourself with the lie that you ended my life to save me from the gene-curse. If you want to end me, you will do it in cold blood.’ He dropped to one knee and adopted the position of a penitent at prayer, head bowed, hands crossed in the sign of the aquila. Rafen looked at the ground, losing himself in the myriad grains of red sand. Sanguinius, I put my trust in you as ever I have. My fate is yours to choose.
At first, silence, then the rush of the air as the axe fell towards the bare flesh of the back of his neck. Rafen did not close his eyes. He wanted to see, right to the very end.
The axe blade fell slowly, and by the prickling of his skin, Rafen felt the impossibly sharp edge touch his flesh, resting there. A line of icy cold as nerves were severed, then the hot pain of spilling blood – all this from just the merest touch of the Executioner’s Axe upon him.
A shadow moved across the red sand, and after a long moment Rafen dared to look up.
He was alone.
It took an hour or so for Rafen to walk the distance back to the walls of the Regio, and not once along that path did he see another soul. The wound on the back of his neck began to heal as the Larraman cells did their work, but the sting of it told him that from this day forward he would forever have a scar there, a perfect line of damaged flesh below his skull.
Dawn had come as the sentries saw him emerge from the desert, and it was Brother Krixos who met him at the Wanderer’s Gate.
‘Rafen!’ The expressionless eyes of the Techmarine’s helm studied him. ‘We feared you had perished in the accident in the inclinator shaft!’
‘The accident,’ Rafen repeated. ‘Yes.’
‘How did you survive?’
‘The old tunnel network, the catchshafts…’ He paused, thinking through what he would say next. ‘I was guided.’
‘Praise the God-Emperor and Sanguinius,’ said Krixos.
‘The primarch watches over me.’ He paused, glancing around. ‘The High Chaplain’s ship, the guncutter… Is it still here?’
‘The Fate?’ Krixos gave a nod. ‘The hangar dome was being opened as I left to come to the gate.’ He looked up. ‘It was about to lift–’
Rafen was already running for the iron spiral stairs that would take him up to the landing platforms.
He sprinted on to the elevated disc as the guncutter’s thrusters gave off a low thrum of power. Exhaust vents along the ventral fuselage chugged fire and a hot wash of spent promethium stink washed over him. The Fate rocked as the engine note shifted, rising as the motors gained power with each passing second.
Rafen raised a hand to shield his eyes, searching the portals along the sides of the ship, the cockpit canopy for signs of life but, like the dark-toned hull, all the windows of the guncutter were tinted black-red.
‘Astorath!’ he said, but his cry was snatched away by the noise.
Then the wound on the back of his neck prickled, and he spun around. The Redeemer of the Lost stood before Rafen, night-black wings rising up from behind him. His blade was still lined with crimson. ‘There are few who have felt the kiss of this weapon and lived to speak of it.’ The High Chaplain regarded him gravely, raising his voice so he might be heard. ‘But I have never once come to regret the moments when I pulled my terminal blow.’
‘I know the Black Rage and the Red Thirst lie within me.’ The words spilled out of Rafen’s mouth. ‘They are part of all of us. When and if that fury will return to me, I cannot know.’
‘It will,’ Astorath told him, and once again there was a moment of regret in his voice. ‘It always does.’
‘But I will not yield to it. This I swear, on our primarch’s name.’
The High Chaplain walked silently past him toward the guncutter, and from beneath the ship a ramp dropped down to accept him. Astorath paused at the foot of the gangway, and he pointed his axehead at Rafen. ‘You are not what I expected, brother. And so you live. For now.’ He sheathed the weapon. ‘But know this. After what happened on Sabien, you are being watched. And if you should give me cause, when we meet again I will not stay my hand.’
The Fate’s engines howled, and Rafen backed away as the guncutter’s hatch sealed shut. With a roar, the winged craft powered away into Baal’s sky, leaving the Blood Angel to watch it recede to a dark, distant speck.
He sensed Krixos approaching. ‘If you are ready, I have been informed that the rail transporter is cleared to depart the Regio for the return journey.’ The Techmarine looked up, studying the sky. ‘Now that the storm has passed.’
‘Has it?’ asked Rafen, staring into the distance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES SWALLOW is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author, who lives in London. His fiction from the dark future of Warhammer 40,000 includes the Horus Heresy novels Nemesis and The Flight of the Eisenstein; Faith & Fire, Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius (collected as The Blood Angels Omnibus); Black Tide, Red Fury, the audio books Red & Black, Heart of Rage, Oath of Moment and Legion of One; and short stories for Inferno!, What Price Victory, Tales of Heresy, Legends of the Space Marines, The Book of Blood, Age of Darkness and Victories of the Space Marines.
Among his other works are Deus Ex: Icarus Effect, Jade Dragon, The Butterfly Effect, the Sundowners series of ‘steampunk’ Westerns, and tales from the worlds of Star Trek, Doctor Who, Stargate and 2000AD, as well as anthologies such as Silent Night and Space Grunts.
His other credits include the non-fiction book Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher, writing for Star Trek Voyage
r, scripts for videogames and audio dramas.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Clint Langley
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ISBN 978-0-85787-556-3
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