by Gav Thorpe
Lanval acknowledged the salutes with his own blade and then sheathed his weapon before striding to his place at the grand table, to the gap between Azrael and Sammael. He received more informal congratulations and support on the way, and accepted the praises of his companions with dignified nods.
All present paid honour to Azrael once more before settling their weapons again. Only Azrael remained with his sword drawn. He looked at each of his councillors in turn.
‘The accession of a new Supreme Grand Master is never a cause for celebration, for in the elevation of one is counted the fall of another. I come before you to swear that I will discharge the duties of Chapter Master to the best of my skill. Formal declarations of command transfer have been broadcast for the attention of the Adeptus Terra. So it is that I assume without hindrance, by the traditions of our Chapter and the requirements of Imperial Law, leadership of the Dark Angels Chapter of the Emperor’s Space Marines.’
Azrael held the Sword of Secrets at chest height and gripped the blade in his other hand, drawing blood from his palm. He let his life fluid run down the runnel of the blade and offered up his wounded hand to his companions.
‘I swear my first oath here. We shall avenge ourselves against the rebels and Night Lords that robbed us of Naberius and continue to slight our honour with their resistance. Rhamiel is cursed. We shall deliver it.’
Date Ident: 237744.M41
He shivers and clasps the rough woven tunic tighter. He knows he should not feel the cold. The draughty corridor is nothing compared to the bitter winds and snow of his home. But it is not the temperature alone that chills him. The stones leech the warmth from the air, from his skin, as though feeding on it, sustained over an age by the life of mortals.
The others feel it too and press close together for comfort.
‘In line,’ growls the towering giant in the skull-faced mask. His robe is black, stitched with a silver hourglass on the left side of his chest. His hood covers his head, and all that identifies him are the dark grey eyes behind the eyeholes of the skull. ‘In step.’
In one hand he carries a rod tipped with the symbol of the winged sword – the icon of the Dark Angels, the young aspirant has been taught. The master chides and goads with it but never strikes. His presence alone, his gruff remonstrations are enough to have the half a dozen aspirants falling into single file again.
They walk, leather slippers following the track down the corridors worn smooth by unknown previous generations, until it leads them to a square chamber with eight archways. Through each they see more rooms, and within the rooms rows of lecterns and shelves. Youths from their own age up to those on the verge of adulthood work at the lecterns, buzzing electroquills in hand.
‘You, in there.’
It takes him a moment to realise he is being addressed. He sees that the master is pointing to the closest arch. The rest are sent to different chambers.
None of the inhabitants look up as he enters. He loiters at the threshold until an ageing serf dressed in black overalls and a dark green shirt notices him and beckons him closer.
At the serf’s direction he stands at an empty lectern. There is blank parchment upon it and beside is a thick-bound tome open to a colourful page depicting a monstrous green humanoid with lines of small symbols all around it.
‘Your past ends here.’ He looks up in shock as the master looms over him. ‘Nothing that came before exists in this place. Your home, your parents, your friends. You are dead to them and they to you. Your name is gone, left behind on that planet. The Rock is now your whole world.’
The master draws a slab of metal from the folds of his robe and a shining plate springs into life on its surface. The youth stares in fear at the sorcery on display in this place – lights that need no flame and other dark marvels.
‘You shall be...’ The master’s finger flicks the plate a few times. ‘Azrael. Your name is Azrael now.’
‘Az-ray-ul.’
‘Azrael. Yes.’ The master puts away his magical slate and pushes back his skull mask to reveal a broad face, the left side heavily scarred with a burn, the skin thick and leathery. The look in his eyes is stern but not cruel. ‘Azrael, you are to become a Space Marine of the Dark Angels Chapter. The tests you have undergone, the trials we submitted you to, are just the beginning. Only the bravest, fiercest, fastest and most loyal warriors become battle-brothers of the Chapter. If you do, if you are amongst the one-in-a-hundred novitiates that survive and prove your worth, you are committed to a lifetime of service to the Emperor and unending battle.’
These statements are made clearly, slowly, without accusation or softening. They are simply facts laid before him.
He nods his understanding, though he grasps only the most basic concept of what has happened.
‘I will...’ he looks around the room. ‘I will learn here? To be a Dark Angel?’
The master nods and gestures to one of the nearby youths.
‘Daethus, this is Azrael. Fetch the Roll of Honour.’
The boy nods and dashes off through another doorway. He returns quickly with a scroll and offers it to the master. The Space Marine declines it with a shake of his head and points at the other novitiate.
‘These are the deeds of all that came before who bore the name of Azrael. Daethus, read out the Roll of Honour.’ The master picks up the pen beside the lectern and presses it into Azrael’s hand. ‘You will make a new copy, on here.’
Azrael looks at the blank sheet and at the electroquill. He puts the pen down on the lectern and looks at the master with tearful eyes, believing he has already failed.
‘I cannot... I cannot make the symbols.’
‘Writing,’ Daethus tells him. ‘It is called writing.’
‘I cannot make the writing, master.’
The master pulls down his mask and his voice becomes a harsh growl again.
‘Of course not. Your ignorance is your virtue. But we will unmake you, and with the flesh and bone and spirit that is left craft something far greater. Say not that you cannot read nor write. There is nothing a Dark Angel cannot strive towards. Say instead that you cannot read and write yet.’
Azrael picks up his stylus.
Date Ident: 032940.M41
Vengeance. To most, vengeance is little different from justice. To them vengeance is a balancing, a restitution against those that have wronged. A proportionate act. To the Dark Angels vengeance was a master to be obeyed, a demand, not to right wrongs or address slights, but to eradicate all threat and knowledge of the injury.
To the Dark Angels vengeance was a blade whetted by the bodies of their enemies for ten thousand years, and they were both precise and relentless in their pursuit of it.
The purging of Rhamiel began with the extermination of the Iron Stalagmite. While Naberius had been hobbled by the suspicion that the Fallen were involved in the rebellion of Rhamiel, Azrael no longer harboured such illusions. If they had been present, they were long gone. All that remained was to excise the cancer they had nurtured in the flesh of the Imperium.
At the command of the Supreme Grand Master, the Rock moved into low orbit above the enemy stronghold. Naberius’ previous assault had destroyed all but the most basic anti-orbital weapons and these were easily dealt with by pinpoint strikes from Dark Angels aircraft and bombardment from their escort vessels.
Ancient power grids blazed into life at the intervention of the Master of the Forges. Cybernetically nestled within the framework of the Rock itself, the lord of the Techmarines redirected the output of plasma reactors and poured forth his ire into the batteries of cannons that bristled upon the walls of the Tower of Angels. Serf teams laboured in the depths to bring forth the huge macro cannon shells from the magazines and toiled with the massive torpedoes that would sow Azrael’s wrath upon the surface of Rhamiel.
Maintaining position just at the edge of practical orbit, the Rock appeared as a blot against the noon sun, the shadow enough to cause a chill to pass over the defenders t
hat manned the walls of Rhamiel’s greatest stronghold. Rebel and heretek looked up in awe as it seemed an early twilight settled upon them.
Through the miracle of scanner datafeeds from circling aircraft and vox-net communications, from atop a stepped dais at the centre of the strategium the Supreme Grand Master viewed the scene on the world kilometres below. On screens five metres high he observed the unfolding spectacle from the centre of the Rock’s command spire.
The command deck situated halfway up the main tower was an octagonal hall, its high ceiling held up by broad columns. Blue light spilled down from huge lanterns mounted in the high vaults, merging with the gleam of monitors and vid-screens from a hundred workstations arranged about the hall’s main deck and on galleries and mezzanines above. Though there was a company of attendants and Space Marines alert to the orders of their Supreme Grand Master, the bulk of operations were handled directly by the Master of the Forge. It was to him that Azrael issued his command.
‘Burn it,’ he said simply.
The fire command blared out through the gun turrets and cannon batteries of the fortress-monastery and the Techmarines of the Dark Angels responded. Laser fire speared down through the skies and plasma bombs rained.
From the ground it was as though the heavens wept fire. Beams of light pierced the walls while the fury of artificial stars fell upon the citadel. In their wake screamed shells built to break the spines of starships and warheads that exploded with vortices of flaring energy that swallowed everything they touched.
Into the devastation swept a flight of Dark Talon fighters, their rift cannons tearing punctures through the walls of reality to rip asunder the foundations of towers, to crack open bunkers and magazines.
Black-painted Land Speeders of the Ravenwing swept and soared through the smoke and flames of the Iron Stalagmite’s death, assault cannons and heavy bolters slashing through any that had survived the onslaught from the heavens. Like vultures preying upon a dying behemoth, the gunships of the Dark Angels circled the summit of the fractured mountain. The thunder of battlecannons and the streaks of blacksword missiles heralded the end for scores of hereteks fleeing the ruination of their city.
Azrael watched the unfolding termination without comment or emotion. It would be too easy to take satisfaction from the event, to see the destruction of the Iron Stalagmite as the end of one road and the start of the other. To take joy from that moment would be an invitation to repetition, to seek destruction for its own sake.
He knew there were some amongst his fellow Chapter Masters who might glory in the crushing power unleashed against the enemies of the Emperor. There were likely some even amongst his predecessors as Lords of the Rock. Not for Azrael the aggrandisement of annihilation. The destruction was not a victory; it was a condemnation of the failure of Naberius.
Azrael did not see an enemy stronghold laid to ruin, he saw a citadel of the Emperor lost. He would bring fire and death to Rhamiel and would wage the terrible war required to expunge the taint in the world’s soul. Thousands had already died. Many thousands more were still to be slain. Millions perhaps, depending upon the depth of heresy and the scale of resistance.
As he watched a tower collapse under the combined pummelling of two Thunderhawk gunships, Azrael reminded himself that this might have been avoided. Naberius had hoped for a clean strike, a decapitation of the rebel movement that would allow the rest to be vanquished without resort to full-scale intervention.
It was a laudable aim, and spoke of Naberius’ moral quality more than his strategic acumen. The avoidance of collateral deaths was desirable but not of paramount importance. The Imperium had countless numbers; even the loss of billions barely registered in the calculations of the Adeptus Terra. The practicalities of such losses were inconsequential.
But Azrael knew why Naberius had delayed the grand stroke, and hoped to win by capitulation what Azrael was now forced to extract with decimation. The power of the Rock and of the Dark Angels that were its far-flung children, might be intoxicating to a lesser commander. Even as Grand Master of the Deathwing, leader of one of the most destructively elite companies in the Imperium, Azrael had known but a fraction of the power that he now wielded.
And the temptation to unleash that power, the lure to put right all wrongs with its overwhelming force already nagged at Azrael’s thoughts. Already he was re-examining his decision to crush Rhamiel, to bring the full force of the Dark Angels Chapter to bear against the rebel world.
Vengeance. The shade of Naberius demanded it. The honour of the Chapter was salvaged by it. Duty to the Emperor, the example to others, allowed no alternative.
For all that, Azrael knew there was another possibility, another more personal reason for the extremity of his reaction.
The site of Naberius’ death was being eradicated, torn down to its decayed roots, but that did not absolve Azrael of what he had done. None had mentioned it, but the fact remained that Naberius had been alive when they had found him. Though sustained by the machines of the hereteks, the Supreme Grand Master had been alive and it had been Azrael’s act that had ended his predecessor’s existence.
‘Supreme Grand Master?’
The questioning tone broke through his thoughts, and Azrael realised the attendant had addressed him twice before to gain his attention.
‘Yes?’
‘Grand Master Sammael requests permission to lead investigatory teams into the ruins.’
Azrael knew immediately the subtext to the Ravenwing commander’s request – to hunt for any Fallen that may have been in the citadel. That had been Naberius’ fear, that destruction alone would not root out the traitor Dark Angels he thought responsible.
‘Declined,’ Azrael replied. ‘The scourging will continue at distance. Ravenwing squadrons to remain enforcing the perimeter.’
The attendant nodded and returned to the vox desk. The sound of boots on the deck announced the arrival of another Space Marine behind Azrael.
‘You keep the leash tight on Sammael, my lord,’ said Ezekiel, stepping up beside Azrael.
The Supreme Grand Master said nothing immediately, but watched the unfolding controlled cataclysm on the many displays arrayed about the command deck. He saw both from a great distance and at first hand the force he had unleashed. Orbital scans highlighted the plasma residue and cyclotronic scarring as clinical lines of data. Conversely, the cockpit feed of a Ravenwing gunner brought stark contrast – the mute, screaming face of a silver-scaled heretek ripped asunder by heavy bolter rounds, his arm and leg missing as he flailed across bloodstained rubble.
Azrael looked directly at Ezekiel.
‘There is nothing to be found in the ashes of the Iron Stalagmite. The manner of the Night Lords’ arrival during our assault stands testament to a technology, or other power, capable of spiriting them through an active force field. I do not expect them, or any others of rank, to have remained long in the stronghold once the bombardment started. There is no reward in a quest for something that does not exist.’
Ezekiel’s eye narrowed at this answer, sensing Azrael spoke of something deeper than this particular mission.
‘On occasion we do not know the true nature of the quest until we undertake it,’ the Librarian replied. ‘The goal is often simply enlightenment.’
‘Wisdom without action is empty,’ Azrael replied. ‘The Iron Stalagmite is no more. One by one we shall find the rebels’ dark holes and bring the light of battle to shine upon them. Though we may do so for the memory of Naberius, let us not forget that a world of the Emperor has been taken from His kingdom.’
‘There are others that can restore it to His Imperial grace,’ Ezekiel replied.
‘The Astra Militarum? By the time they arrive, a year hence perhaps, the whole world will be damned. We have a chance here to thwart the growth of heresy before it takes deeper root. Whatever misgivings we may have about coming here, what untruths lured Naberius to his doom, we should not forget that we have been granted an opportunity.�
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Ezekiel said nothing, leaving Azrael to wonder if his silence was acquiescence or accusation. It was hard to believe the Master of the Librarius’ odd behaviour towards his new commander was related to the outburst in Azrael’s study. That suggested a pettiness beneath even a newly promoted Scout, never mind a Master of the Chapter. Azrael knew there was no point in asking directly. Ezekiel seemed intent on trying to teach the Supreme Grand Master a lesson, and like the Watchers during Azrael’s trial was equally determined to force him to discover the nature of the lesson himself.
‘Strategic control, hierarchal report,’ he called, turning away from Ezekiel. ‘What is our next target based on population density and Adeptus Mechanicus presence?’
‘The city of Ixxios, Lord Azrael,’ came the reply. ‘Widespread forge facilities and Adeptus Mechanicus work force.’
‘Good. Have the Intolerant and escorts move to attack position and notify Master Belial. We will leave no haven for the hereteks. We shall scourge Rhamiel until the populace will grant them no succour.’
Azrael watched for a few seconds while the order was relayed. With the next step along the path resolved, he turned to address Ezekiel. The Chief of Librarians had departed, leaving Azrael with an uncomfortable number of questions.
Date Ident: 113940.M41#0734
‘Do you think they’re ready for a fight?’ asked Sammael.
Smoke from burning cities cast a twilight pall across the ashen waste that had been the heartland of Rhamiel’s northern hemisphere agrizone. To the north west the flanks of shallow mountains were awash with promethium flame from three days of relentless firebombing. When Azrael had promised to burn the rebellion from the face of Rhamiel he had not been using metaphor.
The Dark Angels had been relentless and merciless in their prosecution of the scouring. In areas identified as harbouring large rebel forces, the Ravenwing and battle companies drove millions from their homes, before the gunships and star vessels of the Chapter razed the cities and levelled farmlands and sprawling manufactoria.
