Fear to Tread

by James Swallow

  Raldoron grimaced. ‘More warp-spawned trickery?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ considered the primarch. ‘We must be cautious. We’ll put the fleet into a distributed pattern, and have the Navigators sound for the strongest psychic signal. After what we have encountered here, the Legion must be prepared for any eventuality.’

  They approached one of the Stormbirds and the crew saluted as the Angel climbed aboard. Raldoron followed Azkaellon and Sanguinary Guards, the drop-ramp rising behind him.

  He saw the primarch glance at his Guard Commander. ‘The full casualty reports have yet to be brought to me… I am saddened to consider Captain Redknife’s absence from our gathering. What fate befell his Wolves?’

  Raldoron’s report to Azkaellon about finding Stiel had been thorough and unflinching in its estimation of how the Rune Priest had perished; the captain waited for Azkaellon to cast a look in his direction, but he never did. ‘They died with honour, my lord,’ replied the commander.

  With a crash of engines, the Stormbirds lifted off from the desert and blasted upward at hypersonic speeds. They moved too fast for the cyclonic shockwave to reach them, but the First Captain caught a flash of brilliant white from the corner of his eye, reflected from a viewport.

  He turned away.

  The central atrium of the Red Tear had been a place of devotional artworks and battle trophies to laud the warship’s accolades, but after Signus, it had changed as much as the Legion. Many of the halls and corridors of the battle-barge had been sealed off after the damage the ship had suffered, compartments and chambers repurposed for more immediate needs. The changes to the atrium had come without order, though. It had been done through silent understanding.

  At the foot of a great frieze showing the Angel and his golden guards, brothers began a makeshift memorial for the lost. Small items such as sigils or honour-chains, personal chalices, even broken blades, formed a tapestry across the far wall. Rolls of digital parchment were fixed to the marble, and upon them there were names written in dozens of different hands. This would be the way they would remember, until the ceremony of mourning could be formalised.

  Sergeant Cassiel reached out and traced Meros’s name with his finger, his brow furrowing.

  ‘He is dead, then.’ A hollowness moved through the air around him and Cassiel knew it was the woman called Tillyan. She came to stand beside him, reading the parchment. The sergeant considered her; at first, when they departed for the strike mission against the cathedral, he had thought of Niobe as a liability. She would slow them down, reduce their reaction times and make the attack much more difficult. He had little regard for the common Imperial citizenry.

  But she had surprised him with her fortitude. This woman, who was not even a soldier, had walked with them into a place filled with terrors undreamed of by even the most seasoned veterans. She had not faltered. Cassiel saw a cast in Niobe’s eyes that seemed familiar, the same gaze he had seen in himself, in his kinsmen. Eyes that had gazed upon a kind of hell.

  He wasn’t certain if she was crying; the emotions of unenhanced humans were hard for him to gauge.

  She did not know the full detail of the Apothecary’s sacrifice, nor his ultimate fate. If truth were told, neither did Cassiel. Beaten, Tillyan Niobe had lain insensate on the floor of the bone temple while Meros had given his life. Or had he? Cassiel knew death, and that was not what had claimed his brother.

  ‘He will live on,’ offered the sergeant. ‘His gene-seed was recovered from the field of battle. It will become the genesis of future generations of Blood Angels. Meros’s bravery will be remembered.’

  ‘Is that all that is left of him?’ Cassiel didn’t understand the question. ‘What of his spirit?’

  ‘I have no knowledge of such things,’ he replied, after a moment. Niobe clasped a small, leather-bound book in her hand. It was careworn and scuffed, and he had not seen it before. ‘What is that?’

  She coloured slightly, clutching it tighter. ‘It belonged to Dortmund. I found it on his–’ Niobe swallowed. ‘I found it,’ she concluded.

  Cassiel had seen the remains of the civilian survivors, butchered by the harriers and furies. They had died because their presence had been revealed by Niobe’s departure, and it had not been swift for them.

  She opened the book and he saw pages of tiny red text in the local dialect of Gothic. ‘There is some comfort in it,’ she explained.

  Cassiel was about to leave, but an odd impulse came to him. He glanced at the parchment once again, then to the book.

  ‘Read some of it to me,’ he said.

  The drill hall was empty when Raldoron arrived, in hopes of finding the peace of meditation in the wide open chamber. Such tranquillity no longer came easily to him.

  When the sound of a fist ringing against the adamantium supports broke his focus, he did not begrudge it. The First Captain rose from where he knelt and turned. Without waiting for his permission, a hooded figure pushed past him into the chamber.

  ‘Amit.’ No other warrior of the Legion would be so bold. The Captain of the Fifth pulled back his hood and fixed his brother with a brooding, surly gaze. ‘I thought you returned to the Victus,’ Raldoron went on.

  ‘For a time,’ Amit said wearily. He opened his robes and there in his hand was the naked length of his battle sword, the barbed flaying blade that had earned the captain the name ‘Flesh Tearer’. He offered it like a trophy. ‘Take this from me. I no longer deserve it, nor my rank and status. I have dishonoured our Legion. The Wolves…’ His words faded.

  Raldoron’s blood ran cold as a missing piece fell into place in his thoughts. ‘It was you. Your legionaries. You were responsible for the deaths of Redknife’s squad.’

  ‘Take it!’ Amit shouted. ‘I must atone for what was done. I and my warriors have betrayed our Emperor. We murdered our allies! We lost control! The blood…’ His voice broke in a gasp of sorrow and anger. ‘It blinded me. I saw only enemies to be killed.’

  How could you do this? Raldoron wanted to shout the question, but he knew the answer. He had felt the power of the ragefire, barely been able to resist it himself even with the pariah woman at close hand. Amit and his legionaries had been granted no such protection. The fury in them, so close to the surface already, had smothered their reason.

  ‘I will take responsibility for what has been done,’ said Amit. ‘I forfeit my life, my rank and my honour.’

  ‘You will do none of that.’ Azkaellon emerged from the shadows across the chamber, his armour shimmering in the light of the electro-candles. ‘It will not be permitted.’

  ‘Following me?’ Amit snapped.

  ‘You knew,’ said Raldoron, eyeing the Guard Commander. ‘When I confided to you about Jonor Stiel, you knew then.’

  Azkaellon gave a curt nod. ‘The bodies of Redknife’s warriors were recovered by High Warden Berus. He understood the import of how they had met their end as well as I did. I took steps.’

  Confusion crossed Amit’s features. ‘What does he mean?’

  ‘He kept the truth of your… error… from the Angel.’

  Amit rounded on Azkaellon, brandishing his sword. ‘You had no right!’

  The warrior in gold surged forward and snatched at the tip of the blade, gripping it in his fingers. ‘I have every right!’ he snarled. ‘I am Master of the Sanguinary Guard and it is my duty to protect the primarch in all things!’

  ‘You lied,’ spat Raldoron. ‘To Sanguinius himself!’

  ‘I only kept a single truth, for the sake of the master and the Legion.’ He pushed the blade away. ‘I did it to protect us!’ Azkaellon’s moment of temper ebbed and he became cool and controlled once more. ‘And you will do the same, my brothers.’

  ‘No,’ Amit shook his head fiercely.

  ‘Yes,’ insisted Azkaellon. ‘Or you will damn us to greater division and bloodshed.’ He studied them both. ‘If Sanguinius knew how Redknife’s Wolves had died, what would he do? In his noble purity, he would never conscience keeping tha
t from Leman Russ. He would bear the blame himself, and what would be the result? A new schism between two Legions in a time when unity must be paramount. We are entering a civil war! Aye, the Space Wolves may never stand with the Warmaster’s rebellion, but still they must not be given cause to distrust the Blood Angels.’ He shot a cold look at Amit. ‘We cannot afford to assuage your guilt over actions committed while you were not in your right mind. Many horrors were unleashed upon us at Signus. Yours is only one, captain.’ He turned to Raldoron, a flash of regret in his eye. ‘You both know I am right.’

  ‘The point is well made,’ said Raldoron, the words ashes in his mouth. He hated the mendacity of it, but while callous, Azkaellon’s logic was sound.

  ‘You command me to silence,’ growled Amit. ‘But what will quiet the remorse in my hearts?’

  ‘The burden you must carry is a small price to pay,’ said Azkaellon.

  Zuriel’s glaive encarmine whispered from its scabbard as Kano approached the sanctorum, the sword dropping across his path. ‘You are not summoned, brother,’ said the Sanguinary Guard sergeant. ‘This day he speaks to no one.’

  Kano grimaced, much of it from the bite of his healing wounds, but more from a deeper pain not so easy to banish. ‘Perhaps the Angel will change his mind if he knows I have come to him.’

  Zuriel’s face shifted, and there was guilt there. It had not been said aloud, but Kano knew that at the heights of the brutal frenzy that had overtaken the Blood Angels, even the Sanguinary Guard had succumbed. None could blame them, but the warriors in gold had left their posts at the primarch’s side to fall into the grip of the blood-thirst. Each of Azkaellon’s legionaries bore the shame of that dereliction of duty, and Kano wondered how they would pay for it.

  Kano had been the only one who stayed; what Zuriel would think of him because of that, he could not guess at. For his part, Kano’s status was in flux. He had been party to the breaking of an Imperial edict, and while some spoke of reinstating the Librarius division, others called for the harshest censure.

  All of the Blood Angels were weary, even if they hid it well. It had been days since the grand flotilla had left the Signus Cluster and lit for the core worlds. Entry into the warp had not been easy: ethereal hyperstorms awaited them in the extradimensional realm, fogging their course and battering at the Geller fields protecting their ships. There were suggestions that the warp itself had been agitated into frenzy by the incursions of the daemon creatures. Whatever the cause, it made hard going for the fleet elements. Then there was the matter of the Astronomican. The guiding beacon, the psychic lighthouse on Terra that stood as the single fixed point in the otherwise malleable landscape of warp space, had become indistinct. A spatial disturbance of magnitudes not recorded since the Age of Strife rippled in the void, robbing the Navigators of their certainty. Now the fleet struggled on through the screaming abyss, searching for the strongest psychic glimmer, in vain hopes of pushing through to the Throneworld.

  The sergeant was about to shake his head and dismiss the adjutant more forcefully, but then a subtle indicator icon on the vambrace of Zuriel’s armour blinked red. His manner immediately changed, and the glaive returned to its sheath. ‘You may enter.’

  Kano glanced around, wondering if Sanguinius had been monitoring the antechamber through some hidden scrying device.

  Inside, the Angel’s chamber of solace showed some signs of damage and minor disarray, but it seemed insignificant. The primarch was in the centre of the room, seated upon a curule chair of gunmetal and red velvet. He was without any iteration of his great armour; along the far walls there were hemispheric capsules with crystalflex panels, revealing his battle plate contained within. Yet without the gold the Angel did not seem diminished. Rather, it was as if he had been released. His wings nestled above his back, Sanguinius wore ordinary robes of a cut that was identical to those of a first-ranked neophyte. They bore no marks of status beyond the Legion sigil and a thick black mourning band that circled the sleeve about his bicep.

  A tall, spindly servitor hunched over the primarch, a spider of delicate plasteel fingers tracing across his face. Kano smelled ink and blood.

  ‘Come,’ said the Angel, without turning. He raised a hand and beckoned Kano closer. ‘What ails you, my son?’

  As he opened his mouth to speak, Kano felt a weight descend upon his shoulders. ‘Master. I am deeply troubled. Each time I close my eyes, I see again what ranges out before us. Futures. Possibilities.’ His throat was arid and he swallowed. ‘Death.’

  ‘Those things were not meant for you,’ said the Angel. ‘I am sorry you had to witness them.’

  Kano came to stand at attention in front of the primarch, pausing to give a low bow. There, he could see that the servitor was at work at Sanguinius’s cheek, moving tiny probes over the surface of his skin. Dots of bright laser light flashed at the mechanical fingertips. He looked away. ‘Those visions. Those events. Is that what you see, my lord? In your dreams, the deaths of empire and Emperor? Of eternal war?’

  It was a long moment before the Angel answered. ‘I dream of many things, Kano. I dreamed of you, years before you became known to me. Meros. I saw him too. I saw you both in your acts of valour, saving my life. Saving our Legion. But only now do I realise the meaning I had glimpsed in those brief moments.’ He grasped a corner of his robe and held it up, running his fingers over the surface of the cloth. ‘This is time, my son. A fabric of possibilities, crossing and re-crossing one another. But it is the weave that makes the shape of it, not the threads. What may appear to be a seam of importance leads nowhere. And what is dismissed…’ He trailed off. ‘I can no more predict our tomorrows than I can command the motion of the stars.’ For an instant, Sanguinius’s gaze turned inwards, remembering something long past. ‘As much is unseen to me as is seen. Know that, Kano. What you shared with me is only the skein of the potential, and even in the act of observing it, you altered its path. We will know the future when it is upon us, and not before.’

  Despite himself, Kano gave a rueful smile. ‘That is little comfort, my lord.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Believe me, I know. You will find a kind of peace eventually, but when you came into the mindscape, you burned something of yourself to reach me. You will never have it back, just as Ecanus and the other Librarians will never live again but in our memories.’ He reached for a red grail at his side and raised it in salute. ‘I continue to be honoured by my Legion’s dedication. You have my gratitude.’ As the Angel took a sip, the servitor released a sigh and retreated, the spindly lengths of its arms folding back into its chest.

  There, upon Sanguinius’s face, a single black teardrop had been permanently tattooed into his cheek. The ebon mark marred the flawless form of his features, but he wore it proudly. ‘So none will forget,’ he explained, and offered the grail to Kano.

  He took it, surprised by the gesture. It held a fine, rich red wine, and the taste of it reminded him of Baal. The flavour kindled a moment of memory; another rich taste upon his lips, another thirst for something else.

  The primarch watched him, and gave a nod. ‘The curse is revealed. I had hoped it would never be so, and in my hubris, I tried to hide it. Horus used that against me. So many trusts he broke. Now every Blood Angel knows the burn of the red thirst, the shadow on their spirit… and the worst of it is, a greater darkness lies beneath that impulse. I will do everything in my power to hold that future at bay.’

  Sanguinius rose and walked to the tall windows across the sanctum. There was the slightest stiffness in his gait, the only outward sign of the near-crippling injuries he had suffered on Signus Prime.

  Glimpsed behind heavy curtains of crimson, beyond the armoured portal, the wild colours and non-space of the immaterium surged and churned. The Angel pushed a curtain aside to stare into the face of the warp.

  ‘But there are futures I am sure of,’ offered the primarch. ‘The creature Ka’Bandha who struck me down… We will have a reckoning. And there wi
ll come a greater battle beyond that, with the Warmaster himself.’ Bitterness filled his words. ‘I made a vow, Kano. I will see it to its bloody ending.’ The Angel turned away from the window and incarnadine light haloed his folded wings. ‘There may be a day, and sooner than we might wish, when you… when my sons will have to go on without me.’

  Kano found himself shaking his head. ‘No, my lord. You are eternal–’

  ‘No being is eternal,’ came the reply, ‘not even my father.’ Slowly, a proud smile crossed the primarch’s lips. ‘You and Ecanus and your fellows… Meros… every single one of you proved that the Blood Angels have the strength and the nobility to face any challenge. No matter how terrible. You did all this without me at your side.’

  The red grail fell from Kano’s nerveless fingers, thudding to the deck as he realised what he was hearing.

  Sanguinius’s gaze was strong and steady. ‘Swear this to me, Brother Kano. You will speak to no one of what we shared in those visions.’

  It seemed like an eternity before he could answer. ‘On my oath. I swear it.’

  The words had barely left his lips before the Red Tear’s deck lurched beneath his boots and the nightmare vista of warp space flashed brilliant white.

  Kano felt the sickly rush in the pit of his thoughts that always came with a translation from the immaterium. He looked up and through the portal saw unfamiliar stars patterned across the blackness of space, and what might have been starships.

  The Angel turned, and his eyes hardened. ‘This isn’t right.’

  Kano whirled as the chamber doors crashed open and Zuriel entered at a run, his brothers Mendrion and Halkryn a few steps behind. Belatedly, alert tocsins began to sound.

  ‘Master?’ said Zuriel.

  Sanguinius waved him away and strode to a hololithic display in the centre of the chamber. ‘Command,’ he snapped, ‘priority.’

  Immediately an image swam into definition, and Kano made out a three-dimensional representation of part of the Red Tear’s bridge. A figure hove into view: Captain Carminus of the Third Company, the officer chosen by the primarch to take the temporary office of Fleet Master after Admiral DuCade’s suicide.