Ravenwing

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘Why no answer to our communications?’ asked Sammael.

  ‘Their array may have been damaged in fighting, or perhaps disabled by the Fallen whilst the garrison was absent,’ suggested Harahel.

  ‘There are too many questions to which we have no answers, brother,’ said Malcifer. ‘You are correct, we must avoid the entanglements of this insurrection, but we cannot avoid making a planetfall. I suggest we devise a strategy to segregate the Chapter Keep from threat and then proceed to see what we can discover.’

  ‘I concur,’ said Harahel. ‘The Tower of Angels is in transit to Piscina. If there is no resolution to the conflict by the time of their arrival, the intervention of the rest of the Chapter will settle matters. To that end, we must send warning of what they can expect to encounter.’

  Sammael turned away from the pair and considered his options. He had been chosen as Grand Master of the Ravenwing for his initiative, and his position always entailed balancing the needs of the hunt with the duty the Chapter owed to the Imperium. He did not have to think long before he turned back to Malcifer and Harahel.

  ‘The Fallen have already inflicted grievous injury on Piscina,’ he told them. ‘Our purpose must be to apprehend them before they can cause such harm again. At the moment there is no trail for us to follow, so we must secure the Chapter Keep and whatever intelligence it contains. We will launch overflights of the keep and have a perimeter secured by the rest of the company, while the Fifth Company creates a cordon between the orks attacking the city.’

  ‘And Colonel Brade? He will make further requests for aid.’ Harahel’s expression betrayed inner conflict at the decision, something Sammael could understand but not share.

  ‘We will give assurances that the Dark Angels will set to right the wrongs done to his people, and that is all. Brother-Chaplain, prepare the company for battle. We drop in three hours.’

  Strategic Precautions

  Pounding down the ramp of the Thunderhawk, Telemenus and the other members of Squad Amanael fanned out quickly, joining the other squads securing the landing site. The gunships had placed the Dark Angels amidst the ruins of abandoned entrenchments and bunkers; fortifications of cracked ferrocrete overgrown with vegetation. A stubby tree was growing up through the flak boards of a gun pit to Telemenus’s right, crawling plants spilled from the firing slits of a bunker directly ahead.

  Dust billowed as the gunships lifted off, the downdraught from their engines flattening wild grass and kicking up dead leaves that had gathered in the lee of the defensive wall. Through this litter the squad advanced, weapons at the ready though no enemy were expected. The constant ticking of negative returns from Apollon’s auspex sounded in Telemenus’s ear.

  ‘As expected, long abandoned,’ said Sergeant Amanael.

  Sergeant Seraphiel’s instructions split the force, despatching Squad Amanael to secure the south-western end of the defensive line with Squad Atleus. The twenty Dark Angels forged along the hill, their shadows long in front of them as a new day dawned over the isle of Kadillus. The morning light shone bright from the distant curtain wall of Kadillus Harbour to the west, but the sky above the city was dark with smoke. The Free Militia were defending the starport on the other side of Kadillus Harbour. The Space Marines heard the constant crack of artillery in the distance and a perpetual chatter of gunfire. The muted growl of tank engines resounded across the city and Telemenus thought of the battle raging only a few kilometres away; stark contrast to the peaceful surrounds that greeted the arriving Dark Angels.

  There was no threat here, and there were no signs of any impeding ork attack. As far as Telemenus could tell, the Fifth Company were nowhere near the fighting, for reasons he could not fathom. He wondered – hoped – that they were not simply being kept out of the way of their brethren in the Ravenwing, but he had suspicions. Yet if that was Sammael’s aim, it would have proven simpler to keep the Fifth Company in orbit.

  ‘Be aware of unexploded munitions and orkish traps,’ warned Seraphiel, breaking Telemenus’s train of thought. ‘We know these bunkers were occupied by the orks less than twenty days ago.’

  Following Amanael’s lead, Telemenus dropped over the lip of the trench, crunching onto fractured plascrete two metres down. There were holes in the wall where roots and plant tendrils had broken through, the years since the construction of the fortifications enough for the wilderness to begin healing the scar made upon it.

  The bleak landscape, endless kilometres of grassland and scrub leading up to the more verdant slopes at the island’s volcanic heart, reminded Telemenus a little of the barren plains of Bartia where he had been raised.

  It was warmer here, the wind not as icy; the sky darker from a more distant star.

  His memories of Bartia were little more than fragments. He could not picture his parents’ faces, nor the other children of the large family with whom he had shared a yurt for twelve years before the Dark Angels had returned to the midsummer hunt. Even his testing was a blur, of running and blood, and ultimately victory. None had run swifter nor slain more beasts than Telemenus that day; the youth he had been was more proficient with the short bow of his people than many four and five years his senior.

  He stopped as Amanael turned to check a bunker leading off from the trench line, his bolter covering the lip of the line ahead. It was instinct to do so, requiring little thought, especially with no expectation of enemy.

  One memory in particular did stand out though, a moment towards the end of the midsummer hunt when the gunships of the Dark Angels had descended like chariots on pillars of fire. The elders had crowed glories to the Emperor that the Dark Angels had returned and the competitors in the hunt, those with less than ten winters behind them, had been gathered for the inspection.

  Telemenus – he had not been named as such back then – had been slightly shorter than the other youths, and to him the giants that had marched down the assault ramps had been walking gods. He remembered the glint of the setting sun on dark green armour and bolters, and the image of the winged sword in red upon the white of a flag snapping from the banner pole of the captain leading the recruiting squad.

  Some of the boys had made fearful remarks when the Chaplain appeared, a skull-faced shadow that matched the ancient paintings of the Long Death that could be seen on the cliffs at Casoron Ford. Telemenus had not been afraid as he watched the deathly warrior approach; he had thought of a great-uncle – a name now forgotten with his own – who had been taken by the Dark Angels. It was a source of much pride and influence for the family to have such an ancestor.

  When the other boys had stepped back from the advance of the armoured giants, Telemenus had kept his ground. The Chaplain had loomed over him, seeming larger than the aridovores that roamed the taiga in thousand-strong herds. With the confidence and impudence that only a youth could possess, young Telemenus had looked up into that skull face and asked, ‘Are you my uncle?’

  Such was the way of the Chapter initiation – love of home and kin replaced with love of the Emperor and the Dark Angels – Telemenus had never found out if his great-uncle had survived the trials and been accepted into the Chapter. There were certainly other Dark Angels who hailed from Bartia, Sergeant Seraphiel being one of them, but there was no way to know who they were before they had become Space Marines; they could not remember and the Chapter records did not contain such details. If his uncle was indeed still amongst the ranks of the Chapter, he was a brother to Telemenus now, a brother of battle.

  Listening to the growl of the gunships prowling overhead and the sussurant whisper of the wind in the grass put Telemenus in mind of that day many decades ago, but it was a memory he recalled with intellectual detachment; something that seemed to have happened to another person, which he had later been told about. He no longer felt or thought the way that enquiring youth had felt and thought, his younger self as alien to him as any other human.

  ‘S
weep clear,’ announced Amanael as they came to a revetment at the end of the trench line, the glimmer of the sea visible many kilometres further down the sloping shore of the island.

  There were other reports and acknowledgements from the other squads, confirming that the maze of trenches and fortifications was deserted. Amanael and his squad were ordered to hold ground, while patrols were sent out to secure the land to the north.

  Watching thirty of his battle-brothers striding across the grasslands, the smoke and flame of the battle for Northport staining the air in front of them, Telemenus realised that something was not as he expected.

  ‘Sergeant, our patrols are heading the wrong way,’ he said. ‘They are advancing towards Kadillus Harbour.’

  ‘Your eyes are as sharp as ever, brother,’ replied Amanael. He pointed to the north-west, where the stone of the Dark Angels’ garrison citadel could be seen rising over the wall of the city, not far from where Kadillus dropped steeply down towards the port. ‘We are not here to guard the city, we are to ensure that the ork attack does not move from Northport around the city towards the Chapter Keep. Imperial Guard and planetary forces are already holding the city. Those are our orders from Grand Master Sammael.’

  ‘Curious,’ said Cadael. ‘I would have thought the Ravenwing better suited to patrol the open ground while we secure the citadel. Land Speeders and bikes are not ideal for urban conflict.’

  ‘I am sure Grand Master Sammael has good reason to position our force as he has,’ said Achamenon. ‘One does not rise to the position of Company Grand Master by making fundamental mistakes.’

  ‘I have the feeling we are somewhat redundant in the Grand Master’s thoughts,’ said Cadael. ‘I look forward to the day that I learn the intricacies of strategy so that I may understand what plan requires sixty Space Marines to guard an empty patch of wilderness.’

  ‘Watch your words, brother,’ said Amanael. ‘It is not our place to second-guess our orders, nor to doubt the decisions of superiors. Be assured that Grand Master Sammael set us here for a purpose.’

  ‘The Ravenwing do things their own way,’ said Telemenus. ‘Sometimes they act more like White Scars or Space Wolves than Dark Angels.’

  ‘And our current duty will be fulfilled with the dedication and decorum for which we are known,’ said Amanael. ‘Attend to your sectors and, while we have peace, reflect upon what we have witnessed today. It is evident that the Imperial Commander and her forces were lax in their scourging of the orks following the departure of the Chapter. That they have been able to multiply again, to grow to become a force that threatens the city once more, is a damning testimony to the peril of complacency. Be vigilant, as the Emperor stands vigil over us.’

  Knowing that his sergeant’s words forestalled any further debate, Telemenus nodded acquiescence and raised his bolter, his view telescoping through its targeter to magnify a stand of stunted trees half a kilometre away. He scanned left and right and saw only his battle-brothers continuing their patrol. Despite the battle raging for Northport only kilometres away, there were no enemies here and he would remain eleven kills short of his laurels for the time being.

  Arrival in Kadillus

  The streets of the city were eerily empty as the lead squadrons of the Ravenwing entered by the south gate, opened to them by Brade’s soldiers in the Free Militia. The returns from Black Shadow’s scanner showed that there were plenty of people around – several thousand in the immediate vicinity – but none showed themselves. Whether it was the ork warriors still prowling in other parts of the city or the presence of the Dark Angels that made the inhabitants hide, Annael did not know. The faces he glimpsed in windows were pale, expressions shell-shocked from a long, harrowing ordeal.

  Against a backdrop of cannons and mortars, tanks and smalls arms fire from the north of the city, the growl of bike motors and whine of anti-grav engines echoed back from the low buildings. Glass was scattered across the roads, little danger to the reinforced tyres of the Ravenwing’s machines, and in places narrower side streets and alleys between the grey tenements were blocked by improvised barricades made of piled furniture, tyres, ferro-

  crete slabs and overturned vehicles.

  There were bodies amongst the debris and draped over the obstacles. Vermin, furred and feathered, fought with each other over the spoils, though Annael noticed that the defenders of Kadillus had been wise enough to remove any orkish dead though they had not been able to do the same for their own kin. The bodies were almost picked clean, the fighting that caused them having passed to another part of the city some time ago; weeks more likely than days. From what the Dark Angels had gleaned from the planetary defence force commander, the city had been under incessant attack for some time, as the orks emerged in waves from their lairs in the wilderness, sometimes hundreds of them, occasionally a thousand or more.

  It seemed impossible to believe that this had once been a recruiting world for the Chapter. Ever since Ghazghkull the Beast had brought the green horde here, Piscina had never quite known peace. The Dark Angels had done all they could, hunting down the aliens on the flanks of the volcanic island, purging their hidden camps. Other concerns had taken them away; campaigns that required their strength far more than Piscina, leaving the planet’s defence in the hands of the local militia. Apparently they had not been as diligent as the Supreme Grand Master had expected. Annael was not surprised. The Piscinan soldiers were, after all, only human.

  Reaching a large intersection with the rest of his squadron, Annael came across the burnt out wrecks of two Chimera troop transports. The vehicles had been stripped of weapons, track links, running gear, hatches and even some armour panels. Across the junction, about half a kilometre away in the direction the wrecked transports were facing, a line of chassis of destroyed ground cars choked the road, evidently targeted trying to approach the position of the Chimeras.

  A bike squadron and two Land Speeder Typhoons peeled away to secure the far side of the intersection as the Ravenwing column turned left towards the Chapter Keep. More squadrons were despatched to secure the area around the citadel and Sergeant Cassiel passed on the order for Annael and the others to follow him into a wooded parkland.

  The trees were losing their blossom, scattering pink and white petals in the wind as the black-armoured bikers guided their mounts along a winding road that cut through the park. The grass was heavily trampled and Annael saw scorch marks on a rise to his left in a pattern he recognised.

  ‘Thunderhawk landing,’ said Araton before Annael could make the same observation. ‘Opposed, it seems.’

  Annael was not sure what these last words meant until he was almost level with the black marks on the flattened turf. There were charred bones in the grass, tatters of clothing still clinging to them. Magnifying his autosenses, Annael saw that they were definitely humans not orks, and the clothes were of different colours and fabrics; civilians not soldiers.

  ‘A gunship landed on them?’ Zarall’s voice was a whisper. ‘There must have been good cause for such an act.’

  ‘Let us concentrate on determining the present threat,’ said Cassiel.

  Annael tore his eyes away from the grisly tableau atop the hill. He had seen many corpses, human and alien, but there was something disturbing about the bodies scattered on the rise in the middle of the landscaped parklands. He could see no obvious damage to the surrounding buildings to indicate a battle had been fought here, though at the far side of the park he did see another destroyed Chimera at one of the gates in the wall surrounding the public gardens.

  ‘Nobody is coming out,’ said Sabrael. ‘I have a mass of signals but they are all inside the buildings. I was worried we would be swamped by citizens celebrating our coming.’

  ‘Perhaps they know better than to leave the safety of their homes during battle,’ suggested Annael. ‘The people of Kadillus Harbour know war very well.’

  ‘That must be it,
’ said Sabrael. ‘I would not like to contemplate any other reason why the Dark Angels would be shunned by loyal Imperial citizens.’

  Annael knew that Sabrael made oblique reference to the bodies on the hill, and what they might signify, but like his battle-brother he did not voice any suspicion openly. Ever since he had been informed that they were securing the city around the Chapter Keep, Annael had wondered at the nature of the mission. It was clear that there was heavy fighting around the space port – the boom of shells and crackle of gunfire on the edge of his augmented hearing testified to the continuing conflict – but Grand Master Sammael had made a priority of the Chapter’s citadel. Coupled with the deployment of the Fifth Company outside the city wall, it was a confusing situation.

  It was not in Annael’s nature to doubt the competence of his superiors, and he certainly trusted Grand Master Sammael’s judgement in all strategic matters, but he wished that the upper echelons of the company had better communicated the mission objectives. Context was an important part of any tactical understanding and Annael felt that he and his brothers in the squadron were under-prepared to make correct decisions if the current situation changed. There seemed to be an over-dependence on Grand Master Sammael to take personal command in all events.

  It was not a great concern, and Annael knew well enough he had a lot to learn about the Ravenwing despite his induction into some of the company doctrine. After Chaplain Malcifer’s remark, as good-natured as it had been intended, Annael was not going to get himself a reputation as a wayward spirit by voicing such opinion openly. It was the weakness in himself that gave rise to doubts, not some shortfall in the conduct of those around him; such was the teaching of the Chaplaincy.