“Aye,” agreed Rafen. “Caecus’ works were fouled by an agent of the arch-enemy. The renegade Fabius Bile. It disgraces me that I could not kill him before he vanished.”
“Fabius dared to set foot on our soil?” For an instant, Rafen sensed that Dante was on the verge of open fury, the same heartsick anger that he had felt on confronting the twisted primogenitor; then the warlord’s expression became icy. “He sent the Bloodfiends here. To sow anarchy and disorder throughout the fortress. To divide us at the very moment when unity is needed.”
“A gate to the Eye of Terror opened, a warp tunnel forced through our spirit-wards and defences,” hissed Mephiston. “Yes, it is clear to me now. He fled Baal and left this disorder in his wake.”
Dante nodded once, and again turned his iron-hard gaze on Rafen. “I will have a full accounting of things from you in due time, brother-sergeant. But for the moment, other issues press us to their resolution.”
“What would you have us do, master?” Rafen said stiffly.
“Fight,” Dante growled. “Fight until the Emperor claims you. The mutants are coming here, drawn to the scent of the greatest blood as moths to a flame. We know this. We set the line here, and kill them as they come.”
“Lord,” ventured Argastes, musing. “If we could obliterate these aberrants swiftly… Perhaps, we should employ one of the archeotech weapons in the armourarium—”
“The Spear of Telesto?” The name escaped Rafen’s lips and he glanced at Mephiston.
The psyker shook his head. “The Spear would not end these brutes, brother. Its brilliant fires are gene-locked by some manner of science from the Dark Age of Technology. Any Blood Angel who falls beneath it emerges untouched.”
“And the Bloodfiends are alike to us on a genetic level,” Argastes frowned, understanding. “The flames would be turned from them.”
Dante nodded again. “It will be force of arms, the will of the Sons of Sanguinius that turn this battle, not other powers. The fortress is sealed, brothers. There will be no reinforcements, no more men for these creatures to prey upon and bolster themselves. We alone will break them. We must.” He glanced around at the mix of crimson armours. “This is something only we can do. To prove the truth.”
“What truth?” said Corbulo tersely, forgetting himself for a moment as dejection clouded his face. “That we are being driven to the brink of extinction?”
The Chapter Master turned on him, his eyes flashing. “That we are worthy, brother! That is what we must affirm! To ourselves, as well as our successors, even to Sanguinius and the Emperor!” He drew in a breath, raising his chin. “In this place and this time, this ordeal, my brothers, it is the price that we are paying for our arrogance.” He glared at Rafen and the Blood Angel felt a moment of connection to his commander. “Look at what has befallen us. The machinations of Chaos, first through the ordos traitor Stele and his puppetry of good, loyal men; men whose failing was to be prideful to the point of blindness. The deaths at Sabien and the diminishment of our numbers. And now this, these twisted, freakish mirrors of our baser natures, given flesh and let loose in our most sacred places. What is the root, kinsmen? What sin opened the doorway to these attacks upon the very soul of our Chapter?” Dante’s temper was rising, his face darkening. “Conceit! And we can lay the blame nowhere but at our own feet!” He shook his head. “My cousin Seth did not lie. We have allowed ourselves to become arrogant. To rest upon our laurels as the First Founding, to believe that the name Blood Angel is protection enough!” Dante’s voice fell. “We reflect our liege-lord in so many ways, but we have allowed one of his greatest traits to run thin in us.”
“Humility,” whispered Rafen.
“Just so,” said his commander. “And perhaps this is the way the Emperor seeks to remind us. By pitting us against the beasts cut from the cloth of our own folly.” He turned and stalked away toward the great pit, drawing his Inferno pistol.
Dante drew himself up to his full height and held his gun in the air, a sullen glow playing around the barrel of the master-crafted weapon. All heads turned to give him their attention.
“Sons of Sanguinius! Heed me! We make our stand here, on the cusp of the sepulchre, in sight of the Emperor of Mankind and in the aura of our primarch.” He pointed down into the open chasm. “The Great Angel lies below us, sleeping in light, forever preserved. The beasts that come to savage his memory are as nothing we have fought before. Not daemons, not xenos, but a malform that shares our strengths, our will, and more than that, a dark and animal heart. Make no mistake; this will be a hard-fought battle. Some of us will not see daylight again; but know that if you die, it will be at Sanguinius’ side, and he will spread his wings to carry you to the Emperor’s right hand.” Dante fell silent for a moment, and in the quiet, the sounds of the enemy reached down the stone corridors to the assembled men, growing closer by the moment.
“These past days we have been consumed by words. Dissent and divisiveness have cast long shadows over this conclave, and to my chagrin not one moment of this has gone as I planned it.” He gave a rueful smile. “But then, as our staid comrades in the Ultramarines always say, no battle plan ever survives first contact.” The smile faded. “The time for words is over, kindred. Now our deeds must carry the day.”
Daggan’s scratchy vox-coder crackled. “For Sanguinius.”
“For the Emperor,” added Orloc.
Armis nodded. “For the future.”
Dante gestured towards the three doorways. “The Bloodfiends are on their way. Our reports on their numbers vary, but I suspect half-company strength, perhaps more. With each door to the sepulchre open, we will force them to divide their approach.” He glanced at the Dreadnought. “Lord Daggan? I ask you to take command of the men defending the penitent gate.”
“I offer the arms of the Blood Drinkers for the priest gate,” said Orloc.
Armis nodded again. “If the Lord Orloc will accept, my men will join his.”
“Gladly. And I will offer the Angels Encarmine a place at my side, if they will take it.” Orloc got a silent nod in return from the Master of the other Chapter.
“Lord Seth,” said Dante. “Will you stand with the Blood Angels at the great gate?”
“Never let it be said that Cretacia’s Finest refused a fight,” hissed the Flesh Tearer.
Rafen watched the groups of Astartes form up; the Blood Swords joined by the Angels Vermillion and the Flesh Eaters; the Red Wings, Angels Encarmine and the Blood Legion coming together in a moment of shared battle-prayer; and other squads from the rest of the successor Chapters forming into combat squads, bolters and blades at the ready. For each cousin-warrior, there were Blood Angel battle-brothers to stand with them, but once again, as he was in the Grand Annex on the first day of the gathering, Rafen was struck not by the differences in armour and livery, but by the similarity between the warriors. “We are all one cadre now,” he said aloud.
Rafen’s gaze went to each of his men in turn. “Brothers,” he began, “This one will test us hard, make no mistake about it. We are fighting ghosts in a hall of priceless mirrors.”
Puluo hefted his bolter cannon. “Ready,” he said simply.
Corvus forced a smile. “Of course we are.” He nodded at the youngest of their group, whose hand was still swaddled in a bioplastic bandage. “Look at Kayne, here. He’s fighting with his off-grip just to give the mutants a fair chance.”
The youth snorted with gallows humour. “I only need one hand to make a kill.”
Turcio was looking at the other Space Marines. “Where is Lord Sentikan?”
Ajir jerked his thumb toward the ceiling. “In orbit, behind the guns of his starship.”
“He has a different task to attend to,” said Rafen, shooting Ajir a warning look. “Let us pray we do ours well enough that he need not perform it. We will take to the line, and hold fast—”
“You will not,” said Mephiston without preamble, striding into the middle of the group with Brother Argastes
at his side. The Chaplain’s black wargear shimmered in the gloom, in stark contrast to the blood-coloured armour of the psyker. Rafen caught the play of faint electric blue sparks around the Lord of Death’s towering psychic hood. “Our Master Dante has charged me with a singular duty and I need men of courage to assist me.”
“We are yours to command,” Rafen said, without hesitation.
Mephiston beckoned the Blood Angels with an armoured hand. “Follow me.”
As one, Rafen’s unit fell in and made formation to do as they were ordered; but they had only taken a few steps when the brother-sergeant was compelled to speak. “My Lord?” Mephiston was leading them toward the pit, toward an arch of spun electrum and gold that marked the start of the spiral ramp leading down toward the heart of the sepulchre. “We cannot venture…”
The psyker halted and scanned the faces of the men. Rafen felt his penetrating gaze weighing each of them as if they were handfuls of sand in his grip. “Our orders are to stand as bulwark to the Golden Sarcophagus, brother-sergeant. If need be, to places our backs to it and defend it with tooth and nail.” He glared at the Blood Angel. “You would refuse? Do you think your men unworthy, or incapable of executing that edict?”
Rafen heard the rush of blood sing in his ears. “It will be our singular pride to give our lives in service to this command.”
Mephiston grunted. “Let us hope it does not come to that.”
Dante sighted down the barrel of his pistol. The weight of the ornate weapon felt right and proper in his hands. It seemed too long since he had used it in anger. The demands of authority have kept me away from the field of battle.
Seth was watching him, a plasma gun ready at his side. The screeching of the Bloodfiends was loud now. The mutant horde could only be moments away from them. “Are you prepared for this, cousin?” asked the Flesh Tearer.
“Nothing could prepare for this,” said Dante. “We can only meet the enemy as they come.”
“I hope you’re up to it.”
Annoyance flared in the Blood Angel’s eyes. “And still you test me, Seth. Even now, as battle is about to break upon us, you still seek to goad me. What do you hope to achieve? Answer me that!”
Seth sniffed. “For all your years and wisdom, you still do not know me or my brethren…”
“I know this! You deliberately challenge me at every turn; you oppose every word that falls from my lips as if it were your sole reason for living!” Dante fumed. “You foster discord, Seth. You thrive upon it!”
The Flesh Tearer smiled. “I stand corrected. You do understand my kind after all. You’ve cut to the heart of me.” His head bobbed. “We are disorder, that is true. But that is what we were made to be. The wild and the random.” Seth’s voice was gravelly. “If each successor embodies traits of the Great Angel, then that is what the Flesh Tearers are, just as the Blood Swords are his martial prowess, the Sanguine his secrecy, the Flesh Eaters his carnivore’s fangs!” He laughed in a short, harsh bark. “But the Blood Angels are the melding of all those things, and that is why I will always envy you, cousin. I challenge you because I must. How else can you be sure that you remain upon the primarch’s path?”
The Chapter Master felt a feral grin tighten his lips. “And so you justify yourself? You are my watchman, is that it?”
“We are all our brother’s keepers, Dante. The Emperor created us to be so.”
A cry came up from one of the Angels Vermillion; the mutants were in the corridors, boiling toward the sepulchre in a frenzied flood.
The Master of the Blood Angels took aim. “When we are done here, you and I will speak more of this.”
“I do not doubt it,” Seth allowed, the inductor coils atop his weapon glowing blue-white with power.
The Bloodfiends descended upon the vast, circular chamber in a storm of talons and fire. The blunt jags of development coursing through them pushed the mutants toward rough cunning and base intellect; for every two that attacked with claws or teeth or club-like fist, there was one with a looted weapon and the innate skill to use it. The clones carried the formation of an omophagea organ in the structure of their flesh. Almost identical to the function of the implant in the bodies of the Space Marines, the complex knots of nerve-sheath and organic bioprocessor keyed to viable elements of genetic memory in any ingested matter. The blood they consumed, still warm and raw from men drained dry, awakened locked muscle-recall and conditioned responses. The more they fed, the more they became.
But it also opened doors to fractured pieces of self, caught by the vagaries of evolution. Fragments of memories from the hundred-fold donors whose DNA formed Caecus’ zygote code emerged, conflicting, strident and unstoppable. The thirst of the Bloodfiends drove them to consume; but in that act they only intensified the insanity that churned inside them.
The first wave of them broke through all three gates at once, each torrent of ruddy flesh meeting bolter fire and energy beams. They could smell the great bounty lying just beyond the antechambers, and it maddened them beyond the point of self-preservation.
The beast that Corbulo faced inside the chapel was the oldest of them, if such a concept applied to beings force-grown in synthetic wombs, the furthest along through the tortuous process of its awakening. The pack alpha tried to form words, but they escaped it. Frustration heaped upon the anger that burned within it. The killing rage grew ever stronger, the lust for blood and directionless hate a wave that carried them forward.
Daggan spun in place, his drum-shaped arms slamming into a Bloodfiend’s torso, the mutant’s chest distending with the impact. The Dreadnought registered the hit, the power of which would have crippled an Astartes. These things were dense, though, as large as Terminators but as fast as a fleet-footed Scout. The Master of the Blood Swords discharged the assault cannon on his right arm and blew the clone off it, the point-blank impact tearing it apart.
His sensor suite registered one of the Flesh Eaters in the heavy, slow armour of a veteran assault warrior. A guttural cry escaped the Astartes as he was torn from his wargear by a cluster of Bloodfiends. His helm in pieces, the Flesh Eater was ripped out in rags through the neck of his black torso armour. Daggan granted him the Emperor’s Peace with a sustained burst of fire, laying shells across his attackers as he did. He cursed when only one of them fell dead, the others shrugging off glancing shots.
“Rot these freaks, but they do not perish easily!” Charging his chainfist, the Dreadnought lumbered forward and sliced into the mass of mutants pressing against the penitent gate. A pair of Angels Vermillion in shining Terminator armour kept pace with him; he registered them beating back smaller clones—those close to the size of a line Astartes—with thunder hammer and lightning claws. Daggan aimed his cannon into the cluster and fired again, a spear of muzzle flare roaring through the air. The reverent silence of the sepulchre was a dim memory. This sacred place was now another battlefield, a crucible of death.
One of the Angel Vermillion advanced, and took his hammer to a Bloodfiend larger than the rest of them. Daggan saw the creature emerging from the spitting, growling pack and measured its mass. This new enemy was almost the size of the Dreadnought, horribly inflated to gross proportions in a parody of brawn and strength.
It landed a closed fist upon the skull of the Terminator and Daggan’s audial scanners picked up the crunch of bone beneath shattered ceramite. The Angel Vermillion fell to the marble tiles, his life extinguished with a single blow.
A hissing crackle escaped Daggan’s vox-coder and he swung his ponderous mass toward the towering Blood-fiend, blocking its path toward the great mausoleum. His palette of sensing devices cast x-ray, preysight and sonic energies over the clone’s body, instantly pouring information to the twisted clump of meat and brain tissue that was all that remained of Lord Daggan’s flesh. The seasoned warrior’s mind interfaced seamlessly with the iron musculature of his machine-body, searching for points of attack. Bolt shells fired artlessly from the beast’s gun sparked off his armour-plated
facia, and through the veil of the Dreadnought’s synthetic senses, Daggan saw a very human smile spread across on the mutant’s face.
All other foes forgotten, the Bloodfiend screamed and leapt at him.
The spiral ramp fell quickly downward, describing a course around the inside of the conical chasm toward the circular stage at the heart of the great sepulchre. As was right and proper, the Chaplain Argastes led the way, intoning the ritual passages from the Book of the Lords at each arch they passed. The photonic candles flared into red flame upon the delivery of the Chaplain’s words; it was his duty to ensure that every spirit-ward and hidden trap was correctly addressed before they could proceed to the next. Rafen was behind Mephiston, who walked at Argastes’ back with his hand upon the hilt of his force sword. The pskyer’s face was set in an expressionless mask, but his eyes were stark and troubled. The sergeant wondered what ethereal energy might lurk unseen by him in such a place as this, a tomb where a demi-god lay in solemn rest.
Rafen was acutely aware of the thundering noise of his heartbeat rushing in his ears. He clenched his hands into fists to stop them from trembling and tried to keep his focus; but it was difficult to hold on to his warrior’s detachment. The Blood Angel looked straight ahead, not daring to let his gaze drop down to the resting place. His eyes found the intricate murals that followed the spiral path, the paintings and carvings in varicoloured stones, metals and gems; a mosaic that chronicled the life of Sanguinius from his creation at the Emperor’s hands to his death by the blade of the Arch-traitor Horus. Here, Rafen saw a depiction of the primarch at Signus, engaged in battle with a swarm of Furies, surrounded by battle-brothers under the command of the noble Chapter Master Raldoron.
For a moment, Rafen lost himself in the sapphire eyes of the man in the frieze. It was Brother Raldoron who had built this place beneath the fortress-monastery, and he, it was said, who alone had borne the Golden Sarcophagus down the spiral ramp on the day the primarch’s body had returned to Baal. Rafen tried to imagine the incalculable sorrow the man must have endured at that moment. To have lived when Sanguinius was alive, and then to have seen him struck down… What horror that must have been.
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