by C. S. Goto
“Three days, captain. Perhaps less.” The inquisitor turned to Brom for the first time and waved his hand dismissively. “Colonel Brom, would you be kind enough to leave us alone for a moment? The captain and I have some matters of faith to discuss.”
The Imperial Guard colonel stared back at Mordecai and then shifted his gaze to Gabriel, searching for an unlikely ally. “With all due respect, Inquisitor Toth, this affair involves me and the Tartarans as much as it does any of you. Tartarus is our home, and we know it better than anyone. I have heard stories of this warp storm before-legends speak of it visiting this planet once every three thousand years, bringing with it-”
“-that’s all very interesting, colonel,” said Mordecai, cutting him off and rising to his feet. “But perhaps I did not make myself clear? When I asked you to leave us, I expected that you would leave the Thunderhawk now.”
Brom’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes narrowed as he met the inquisitor’s gaze. “As you wish, Inquisitor Toth,” he said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. He turned to face Gabriel and bowed very slightly. “Captain Angelos, I take my leave.”
Gabriel did not stand, but he nodded an acknowledgement to Brom as the latter turned and strode rigidly down the boarding ramp. “Thank you, Colonel Brom,” he said softly, unsure whether Brom could hear him or not.
“This does involve him, inquisitor. He may well have some knowledge that could be of use to us-and knowledge is power, as you well know. You could have shown him more respect,” said Gabriel as Mordecai retook his seat.
“Captain Angelos,” began Mordecai, ignoring Gabriel’s protests on the behalf of Brom. “I understand that you uncovered deep-rooted heresy and the taint of Chaos on the planet Cyrene. That was your homeworld, was it not?”
Startled by this sudden shift in the conversation, Gabriel recoiled. “I fail to see how that is relevant to the present situation, inquisitor, even if I were disposed to discuss it, which I am not.”
“You should feel free to discuss such things with me, Gabriel,” said Mordecai ingratiatingly. “I may not be your precious Chaplain Prathios, but I am an agent of the Emperor’s Inquisition and nothing needs to be hidden from me.”
“Even so, Inquisitor Toth,” replied Gabriel formally, “I cannot see what Cyrene has to do with this situation on Tartarus.”
“That is why you are not an inquisitor, Gabriel,” said Mordecai, smoothly persisting with his familiar tone. “As I recall, you were the one who requested the assistance of the Inquisition in the performance of an exterminatus on Cyrene-the systematic annihilation of all life on the planet-genocide by another name.”
“Toth, I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here, but you are succeeding in trying my patience,” said Gabriel, anger tingeing his voice.
“I am not questioning your loyalty, captain. But I am concerned that your actions on Cyrene may have affected you in ways that even you do not fully understand.” Mordecai paused to take in Gabriel’s response, but the Blood Raven’s face was simply knitted in anger. “In particular,” he continued, “I must wonder whether your actions there might have affected your judgement here.”
With a sudden crack, the harness behind Gabriel whipped out of its fixings in the wall, sending a little shower of adamantium raining down over the two men. Gabriel released his grip on the straps as he realised that he had been pulling them unconsciously. He said nothing, but just stared at the inquisitor with burning green eyes. Mordecai held up his hands, as though signalling that he didn’t mean to be confrontational. He knew that he had gone too far, and he made a mental note of Gabriel’s limits.
“Perhaps that was a… poor choice of words, Captain Angelos,” said Mordecai, retreating into formality once again. “My fear, captain, is simply that you may have become oversensitive to the appearance of taints of Chaos following the ordeal on Cyrene. It would be quite understandable.”
“Are you suggesting that I am making this up? Have you seen the Marines in the clearing outside!?” asked Gabriel, his voice grating with volume and indignance.
“No, captain. I am merely asking that, as a loyal subject of the Emperor, you keep the interests of the Imperium in mind before your own… agenda.” The inquisitor was choosing his words carefully now, intending to make Gabriel think without being overly inflammatory.
“I suggest that you leave my Thunderhawk, inquisitor,” said Gabriel, rising to his feet and indicating the boarding ramp, “for the good of the Imperium.” Inquisitor Toth may have commandeered the vessel from the Litany of Fury, but it was still a Blood Ravens’ gunship.
Toth rose and stood directly in front of Gabriel, staring him in the face with deep brown, almost black eyes. He was shorter than the captain, and lighter. Gabriel’s power armour transformed him into a giant, superhuman warrior, but Toth faced him calmly. He had confronted Space Marines before and was not about to be intimidated by this captain. “Thank you for your time, Captain Angelos. We will talk again soon,” he said, before turning and making his way out into the forest.
Isador and Corallis found Gabriel still in the Thunderhawk. He was kneeling quietly, as though in meditation, and Isador could hear faint whispers questing through the air. The captain’s face was calm and his eyebrows were slightly raised, as though he were listening to a majestic symphony. A tear ran down his rough cheek, vanishing into the depths of an old scar, and a trace of light danced along its tail. In the shadows at the far end of the chamber sat Prathios, half hidden and perfectly silent. He nodded to the two Marines as they entered the chamber.
With a sudden gasp, Gabriel flicked open his eyes and stared directly ahead. His eyes were wide and burning, as though gazing on some distant horror. Then it was over and he seemed to return to himself; turning his head to face Isador he smiled faintly.
“Isador, it is good to see you. We have much to discuss,” he said, rising to his feet and gesturing for the Marines to join him.
“Are you alright, Gabriel?” asked his old friend, momentarily looking around the chamber for the source of the whispers, which seemed to persist even after Gabriel’s meditations ended.
“Yes, Isador. I’m fine. The good inquisitor gave me much food for thought, that is all,” replied Gabriel, still smiling weakly.
“Captain,” interjected Corallis. “The inquisitor had no right to speak to you in such a manner. And he has no reason to doubt you.” Corallis and Isador had already spoken to Brom, and they had a good idea what Toth would have said to Gabriel.
“On the contrary, sergeant,” answered Gabriel frankly. “The inquisitor has every right to speak in whatever manner he chooses. That is his prerogative. And he has his reasons to doubt me. He is wrong, but he has his reasons, and I cannot blame him for that. We must each serve the Emperor in our own ways, Corallis.”
“So, are we going to leave?” asked the sergeant hesitantly.
“Do you trust that the storm will deal with our enemies for us?” asked Isador, as though anticipating that Gabriel would have succumbed to Toth’s pressure.
“No, my brothers, we are not going to leave. We will not use this storm as an excuse to avoid our enemies or our responsibilities. The forces of Chaos are here for a reason, and I suspect that this fortuitous storm has some part to play in their plans. Coincidence is not the ally of fortune, only knowledge can overcome ignorance. We must stay and discover the truth.”
Isador and Corallis nodded and then bowed slightly. “We are with you, brother-captain. As always,” said Corallis, his voice full of relief.
“Sergeant Corallis, organise the remaining scouts into two squads and dispatch them to sweep the areas flanking the valley. We need to see why the Alpha Legion chose this spot to engage the Blood Ravens, if indeed it is they who are here on Tartarus.”
Corallis nodded and then strode off down the ramp to organise the scouts, leaving Isador and Gabriel together in the belly of the Thunderhawk, with Prathios still silently observing his younger battle-brothers.
&nb
sp; “What news from the librarium, Isador?” asked Gabriel, recalling the sight of the curator who had accompanied Mordecai.
“Interesting news,” replied Isador, checking back over his shoulder to make sure that they were not being overheard. “It seems that there are records of Imperial settlements on Tartarus dating from before the thirty-eighth millennia. However, the records themselves have been expunged from the Chapter archives. So, whilst there are references to them, the references lead nowhere-simply to empty shelf space.”
“I assume that your curators have pursued these missing files,” said Gabriel, encouraging Isador to continue.
“Of course, Gabriel,” replied Isador. “But their inquiries have been met with silence and the seals of the Inquisition. It seems that there is more to the history of Tartarus than we are supposed to know, captain.”
Gabriel nodded, unsurprised. “I agree, Isador. And what about this storm? Do the records say anything about a warp storm?”
“There are a few references to various legends about a warp storm that is supposed to visit the planet every couple of thousand years. Folk stories, Gabriel, nothing more. No mention is made of any verification,” said Isador hesitantly.
“Is there something else, Isador?” asked Gabriel, taking note of his friend’s tone.
“I’m not sure. However, when we tried to discover the details of the legends, we discovered that they had also gone missing from the archives. It does seem as though somebody has tried to eliminate all accounts of the pre-Imperial past on Tartarus-but this person did not do a very good job of covering his tracks,” conceded Isador.
“They did not anticipate an investigation by a Blood Ravens Librarian, clearly,” said Gabriel affectionately. “Have you spoken to Brom about this? He mentioned something about a legend when Toth started to talk about the warp storm. Perhaps the colonel will be of use to us after all, Isador.”
“I did see him,” said Isador, shaking his head slowly. “He came storming out of his meeting with you in an evil mood. I left him alone, and he went off with some of his men.”
“We need to find him. They may be only folk stories, Isador, but even fairy stories can reveal something of the truth, if you know how to read them. And I am confident in your skills in this regard, my friend,” said Gabriel with a faint smile. “If we can find out anything at all, it may give us the advantage we need. Make sure that your inquiries are discrete, Isador. It would not do for the honourable inquisitor to think that we did not trust him.”
The broken body of a mon-keigh soldier lay across the altar, and Farseer Macha inspected it with a mixture of disgust and despair. The human’s blood was still warm, dripping into little, vanishing pools on the earth. She shook her head in disbelief and prodded her finger into the cauterised hole in the man’s temple. The wound was clean and crisp, as though the las-shot had carefully parted each molecule of tissue as it had passed through. With a wave of relief, Macha realised that the mon-keigh had been killed before the sacrifice had been completed. Apparently, the pathetic humans couldn’t concentrate long enough to conduct a proper sacrifice. She praised Khaine for the stupidity of the mon-keigh-blood for the Blood God, indeed.
However, the mon-keigh’s blood was not pure. As Macha withdrew her finger from the man’s head, she noticed that something was growing up through its skull from the underside, as though rooted in the stone of the altar itself. She clasped the human’s hair in her hand and quickly tore its head away from its shoulders, pulling the head into the air. A rainbow of blood swept out of the body, dappling droplets into the already sodden soil. Sure enough, writhing in ungodly ecstasies under the man’s body was a bunch of snaking capillaries, growing directly out of the stone, drinking the man dry. They were discoloured and brown, hardly matching the man’s blood at all. Beneath them, as though trapped deep within the material of the altar itself, Macha could see the suggestion of a face, contorted in agony. It was just the ghost of a once human face-an immaterial representation trapped in the material realm, taunted and tortured by the gyrating sea of souls that made up the fabric of the altar.
“Flaetriu? Was this the first sacrifice that the humans made?” asked Macha, standing back from the altar in revulsion.
“We saw no others, farseer,” answered Flaetriu.
Casting her eyes around the crater, Macha realised that the little group of mon-keigh encountered by her rangers could not possibly have excavated the site. It would have taken them days, especially if their attention spans were really as short as suggested by the botched sacrifice.
“Something else has been here, Flaetriu. Something more powerful than the mon-keigh that you saw off.” She had returned to the altar and was running her delicate fingers through the wriggling capillaries, almost caressing them. “Something got here before the humans and before us.”
“The orks?” offered Flaetriu half-heartedly, casting his hand up towards the rim of the crater where a mob of the greenskins had been slaughtered by the eldar, as both had come to investigate the pit.
“No, ranger, not orks. Orks care little for such things, and they have not the wit for an archaeological dig. This is the work of the minions of Chaos. I sense the hand of the Alpha Legion in this, Flaetriu, and that is most troubling. It seems that the Chaos Marines are not here merely to war against the other humans.” She paused for a moment, letting the tiny tendrils tickle around her fingertips. “But their hand is dark and the future is confused. I cannot see their intentions. We must move quickly.”
“Farseer!” The call came from Kreusaur, standing dramatically on the lip of the crater, shuriken catapult held vertically into the sky. “The mon-keigh, they are coming. Do you wish us to execute them?”
No, Kreusaur, replied Macha, her voiceless words slipping directly into the ranger’s mind. The time for conflict with the red soldiers will come. But this is not the time, and this is certainly not the place. Distract them, ranger. We must press on before the other humans do something that we will all regret.
The thin breath of smoke eased its way into the air in front of Brom, its calm tranquillity belying the turmoil in his head. He stuffed the little roll back in his mouth, his hands trembling with agitation, and sucked a series of shallow draws. The smoke caught in his tense throat, making him cough and splutter, and he threw the little stick down into the grass and ground it into the mud with his boot.
The smoke seemed to hang in the air in front of him for a long time, keeping its coherence in the form of a small cloud. As he breathed, the cloud gently washed away from his face, only to be drawn back again when he inhaled. In annoyance, Brom lashed out with his hand, swiping his glove straight through the smoke, muttering to himself about the audacity of the inquisitor and the arrogance of the Space Marine. One day they would need his help, and then they’d see what their lack of respect had cost them.
Down on the valley floor, Brom could still see the carnage that the battle had wrought. He was sitting on a small rock promontory that stuck clear out of the tree-line about halfway up the valley wall, and even from there he could see the piles of ork corpses and the streaks of blood that ran across the river basin. The green, verdant land of Tartarus was slowly being transformed into a blood-soaked offering to the glory of the Emperor-and the Tartarans were celebrating his majesty with their own blood, mixing it with that of these filthy xenos.
How much blood had been spilt today? Enough to make the Lloovre River run red. For a moment he wondered whether the people in the capital city would see the red in the water before they raised it to their lips to drink. But the planet was soaked with blood in any case-it wasn’t as though the people hadn’t already consumed their fair share of produce from the tainted soil, thought Brom sourly, tugging out another smoke.
“People are so hypocritical when it comes to blood,” he hissed to himself, without really thinking.
The little cloud of smoke in front of his face had still not dissipated, and it seemed to be curdling into vague eddies as he t
ried to wave it away. It slipped and flowed around his hands, presenting no obstacle against which he could strike, almost enwrapping his limb with its weightless form. For an instant, Brom thought that he could see a face crystallise in the smoke, but it was just a fleeting moment and then it was gone.
A gentle breath of wind whipped through the valley and dispersed the smoke in a reverie of whispers, making Brom check quickly from side to side to ensure that he was alone. He was not.
“Colonel Brom. There is something that I would like to ask you.”
“Librarian Akios,” said Brom, standing awkwardly to his feet and turning to greet the Blood Raven. “How may I be of service?”
“Captain Angelos has asked me to question you about the local legends concerning the warp storm,” began Isador, realising his own clumsiness as soon as he spoke. He did his best to recover. “And I would be most interested to hear what you have to say on the matter, colonel.”
“There is not much to tell, Librarian. Mostly just folk stories, I’m sure. Nothing that would interest the Adeptus Astartes or the good Captain Angelos. Certainly, Inquisitor Toth showed no interest in what I had to say,” said Brom, almost poisonously.
Isador watched Brom closely as he spoke and noticed the particular way in which the colonel emphasised the inquisitor’s name. He paused momentarily, unsure about the meaning of Brom’s tone. Just then, Sergeant Corallis’ voice hissed into the vox unit in Isador’s amour.
“Librarian Akios, the scouts are back from their sweep, and Captain Angelos requests your company,” said the sergeant simply.
“I will be right there,” replied Isador, turning away from Brom immediately.
“Where is Brom?” asked Gabriel curtly, as Isador came up the ramp of the Thunderhawk. “This concerns him also.”
“He is smoking, captain, out in the forest,” answered Isador.
“I would have thought that he would have better things to do,” replied Gabriel. “His men need discipline and courage drilling into them, Isador. After the fiasco on the walls of Magna Bonum, there is worse to tell.”
