Blood Rite - Rachel Harrison

by Warhammer 40K

  In this, we are angels.

  Darrago opens his eyes.

  His brothers are pushing up the pilgrimsway, leaving a trail of the dead. Torn by claws. Crushed by hammer blows. Broken and mangled and sundered. He hears hoarse shouts. The flat bangs of bolter-fire and the crack of power fields as they go about their duty. Because that is what this is. Duty. They swore an oath to liberate the shrine. To take back the chalice. They can only go forwards, never back. There is no retreat. No respite. He must go forwards. He must endure.

  So Darrago pushes on, too. Through the Devoted and their blades. The enemy are swollen by their new allegiances, made fast and strong and deadly. They grin and whisper and sigh as Darrago tears and crushes and breaks. Jagged edges score his battleplate and snag the soft joints. Bloodied hands trail down his faceplate. He breathes in, and the smell hits him again. It hurts more than any of the physical blows ever could. Darrago sees the others in stuttering glimpses.

  Then he catches sight of another figure, and he freezes.

  The primarch Sanguinius looks down at them, hands outstretched. His face is mournful. Tears glitter on his cheeks. Darrago finds he cannot catch a breath at all.

  ‘Father,’ he manages to say, though the word threatens to clot in his mouth.

  Those tears catch the light as if they are moving. They are cut gemstones. Sanguinius’ skin is marble. His eyes are painted in gold leaf. It is another statue, but it does not feel that way to Darrago. He looks around again, and now he sees more than just glimpses. The pilgrimsway has become a slaughterhouse. It is like a channel cut for blood to flow through. His brothers are painted red on red, still tearing and crushing. Still breaking. Darrago’s purpose is violence. His duty is death. But he knows the difference between duty and darkness. He knows the pull of the Flaw when he sees it, but never has he seen it afflict so many, so completely.

  ‘Violence,’ Talina Orako says. ‘Such violence.’

  They are the same words as before, but Orako is not looking at the cultists. She stands at the heart of the storm and the darkness and looks at Darrago and his brothers now, with that same horror in her eyes.

  As Darrago watches, she opens her hand and drops the blade she carries. It hits the floor with a clang like a struck bell, and Sanyctus turns to face her at the sound. He snarls. His claws are lit and hissing. Darrago sees Orako’s eyes widen and he smells her fear, even through his helm’s filters.

  ‘Adiccio,’ he says, urgently.

  Sanyctus’ hands curl inside their gauntlets and the claws deactivate and go dull. Darrago hears him take a ragged breath.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ Sanyctus says, but his voice isn’t so well modulated this time. ‘We mean you no harm. We are Angels.’

  Darrago catches the way Orako’s eyes flicker to the wreckage at their feet. He remembers again what it is that mortals see when they look upon the Adeptus Astartes. Angels, in more than name. But that is not the whole of the epithet that he has heard uttered on so many worlds since his ascension.

  ‘Angels of Death,’ Orako whispers.

  The climbward approach of the pilgrimsway is once again pinned with the dead. Dozens of blank and staring eyes follow them as they approach the spinal climb, but this time they are not picts or drawings. They are bodies. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies.

  Darrago looks to the walls as he follows his brothers through the pilgrimsway. The bodies are pinned there like prey caught by a butcherbird, as if they have been mounted on thorns to make feeding easier. The arms of the dead are wound with linens torn to resemble wings. The false feathers move in the stale air. Darrago sees pilgrims and priests. Thralls and retainers.

  ‘No.’

  The word comes from Orako. He has heard her murmur it infrequently the deeper they go. The more they see. Now, though, she hisses it and Darrago sees why. Pinned amongst the dead are those dressed in marble-white, with the icon of the golden chalice pinned to their tunics.

  The Militia Gloria.

  Orako goes to the closest of them and puts out her hand. She stops just short of touching those once-white robes.

  ‘They are gone,’ she says. ‘My brothers and sisters.’

  Darrago sees her hand close into a fist hard enough to make the knuckles turn pale.

  ‘They have been bled.’ Sanyctus has stopped. His voice is a hollow echo. Darrago stops too and looks at the closest of the sacrifices. A priest, by his robes. Darrago puts out his hand and turns the man’s head and sees the mess of his throat.

  A mess made by teeth.

  Darrago pulls his hand away.

  ‘They drank from them,’ he says, and his voice is hollow too.

  Unbidden, a memory wells up from the depths of his mind. One that he has tried for the longest time to forget. The day that he succumbed for an instant to the Red Thirst. It presses at Darrago in every waking moment, but especially now, in this place. Especially with all of the blood spilt and with that hateful whispering that never stops. Darrago’s fangs ache at the thought of it, and his hearts do too.

  ‘This is blasphemy,’ Orako says.

  ‘Blasphemy.’

  The word is a ragged gasp. An exhalation. It comes from Darrago’s left, from the sacrifice that is hanging closest to Victorno. This one is not dead. Not a priest either, but one of the shrine militia. He is breathing quickly now that he has awoken. Darrago can hear the thready movement of his mortal heart.

  ‘Sahbal,’ Orako says. ‘Oh, Throne. Sahbal.’

  She goes straight to him. The militiaman’s eyes open and a wide, rapturous smile spreads over his face at the sight of Darrago and his brothers.

  ‘Angels,’ he slurs. ‘You brought angels.’

  Orako sets about trying to free Sahbal, but she cannot do it alone. The iron spikes pinning him in place are driven too deep into the stone.

  ‘We have to get him down,’ she says, and she looks at Victorno. ‘Please, brother-sergeant.’

  Victorno nods. He slings his hammer and Ebellius maglocks his storm bolter. Each of them takes hold of one of the metal spikes pinning Sahbal to the wall.

  ‘Deep breath, now,’ Orako says to Sahbal.

  The militiaman’s eyes go wide, and then he screams as the Blood Angels pull the spikes free. Victorno takes his weight and lowers him to the ground. Sahbal has been bled, too, like the others. Just not enough to kill. When Victorno lets Sahbal go, he falls to his hands and knees and Orako crouches in front of him.

  ‘What happened?’

  Sahbal looks at her. His eyes are wide and dark and the pupils are fixed.

  ‘The storm came,’ he says. ‘It brought the truth with it.’

  Orako frowns. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘All this time standing in the Angel’s shadow,’ Sahbal says. ‘Looking up. I didn’t understand.’

  ‘This is delirium,’ Maeklus says. ‘He is dying.’

  ‘No,’ Orako says. ‘He is not going to die. He is going to be fine.’ She puts her hands on either side of Sahbal’s face. ‘We are getting you out of here. Get on your feet.’

  ‘I cannot leave,’ Sahbal says. ‘None of us can leave. We swore ourselves to the Angel.’

  ‘Make him leave, or leave him,’ Victorno says. ‘Whatever your choice, make it quickly.’

  ‘You cannot stay,’ Orako says to Sahbal. ‘There is violence here, Sahbal. Violence and darkness, and if you stay, then it will take you too.’

  Sahbal blinks slowly. He allows Orako to drag him to his feet. The movement is awkward and stilted.

  ‘Violence,’ Sahbal says. ‘And darkness. Yes. But those things were here before the storm. They are just plain to see now. That is the truth, brought by the storm. By the true angels.’

  Beside Darrago, Sanyctus’ claws flicker live.

  ‘He is not what he appears to be,’ Sanyctus says.

  Orako shakes her head, and moves to block Sahbal with her own body.

  ‘You would kill him as if he is an enemy. He is not. It is this place, making us
see enemies where there are none. The whispers mean to make monsters of us.’ She pauses and looks at her own hands. Takes a breath. ‘I feel it, worse with every moment, and I think that you feel it too.’

  A heavy silence falls at Orako’s words. She looks ashamed to have said them, but she does not move aside. Darrago feels shame then too, because he knows that there is truth in what she says. That they should be above such things, but they are not. He puts his hand on Sanyctus’ shoulder guard to pull him back.

  ‘I would kill this creature because he is an enemy,’ Sanyctus says, shrugging him free. ‘Can you not see it? Can none of you see it? He is one of them. The Devoted.’

  ‘Devoted,’ Sahbal says absently, and he looks to Sanyctus with those wide, dark eyes. ‘Of course I am devoted.’

  And then Sahbal collapses back against the wall. His limbs thrash. Orako turns to hold him still as he seizes and his eyes roll back.

  ‘Sahbal!’ she shouts.

  ‘The truth,’ Sahbal says, through his gritted teeth. ‘You will see.’

  And then, before Darrago or any one of his brothers can act, Sahbal moves with preternatural speed, taking Orako’s blade from her belt and burying it in her chest. She cries out and staggers backwards, her bloodied hands wrapped around the blade’s hilt. Victorno catches her as she falls. As the militiaman’s bones break and reshape. They grow longer and bend back on themselves. His jaws distend and the once-militiaman laughs in many voices like the song of a tuneless choir. Sanyctus roars and charges, and buries his crackling claws in the creature’s chest. Sahbal screams again, this time in that terrible, multiple voice, and a pressure wave rolls out from the two of them like the detonation of a frag missile. It is enough to knock Darrago reeling, and tear thread and cloth from the company standard. Sanyctus is thrown backwards with a pained yell. The once-militiaman grows and swells and becomes something horned and blackened that laughs all the while without needing to breathe. Wings unfold from its back and snap wide, trailing smoke. As one, Darrago and his brothers fire on the once-militiaman, wreathing it in fire and tearing welts from its smoking flesh with bolt-rounds, but still it laughs. Still it stands.

  Then it moves.

  Darrago sees his brothers disarmed and sent reeling. Hears them bellow and breathe ragged over the vox connection. Their heart rates waver in his helm’s display even as the once-militiaman comes for him and tears his storm bolter from his grasp as he fires it. It slams him against the wall of the pilgrimsway and Darrago feels his ancient, inviolable armour creak and break. Something breaks inside him too and he grunts in pain, the sound of his own pulse filling his ears as he falls to one knee. The creature turns away from him and snaps its wings, propelling itself at Sanyctus. It pins him to the floor with a clawed hand as Darrago tries to get to his feet.

  ‘And you,’ the once-militiaman says to Sanyctus, through distended and dislocated jaws. The laughter undercuts every one of its words. ‘You will be the last and the greatest sacrifice. Blood for the Blessed.’

  Darrago hears his brother roar in defiance and sees the flare of light from Sanyctus’ claws as he plunges them once again into the creature’s chest. It howls, and it sounds like singing. Darrago finds his weapon, raises it and fires. The shells tear holes in the creature that was once Sahbal. Darrago keeps firing on it, bellowing old words dredged up from memories he cannot quite grasp. The creature relinquishes its grip on Sanyctus and is forced backwards, still howling. It tries to use its shadowed wings to protect itself, but even that does not last, because Darrago’s brothers are back on their feet. As one, they surround it. They fire at it and strike it with blade and hammer and claw, snapping bones and shredding its wings to smoke. Crushing its jaws, and breaking its chest open to the air. Only then does it finally stop its infernal laughing, allowing the pilgrimsway to fall silent save for the creak of weapons cooling and that whispering that never ceases.

  That, and the sound of Talina Orako dying.

  The shrine-sergeant is propped against the wall of the pilgrimsway. As Darrago watches she lowers her lasgun and it falls to the floor with a clatter. The barrel glows from repeat firing at the thing that Sahbal became. Orako is shaking uncontrollably now. Blood runs from her nose, and her eyes are wild with fear. Sanyctus approaches her. He goes to one knee and removes his helmet again.

  ‘They made a monster of him,’ Orako stutters, through her teeth. ‘Such a monster. Wings and teeth and those eyes. Those terrible eyes.’

  ‘It is a choice,’ Sanyctus says. ‘Always a choice. Do you understand?’

  ‘He let the whispers hurt him,’ Orako murmurs.

  Sanyctus nods.

  ‘I did what you said,’ Orako says. ‘Held close to my name. My oaths. Myself.’ She exhales, and that is a stutter, too. ‘I am dying, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sanyctus says.

  Orako’s head rocks forwards in a nod.

  ‘But I didn’t give in, though it would have been easy to. So easy. I think perhaps I can be proud of that.’

  Sanyctus blinks. Darrago sees the scar tissue on his face flicker.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ he says, softly.

  Orako shifts, and blood wells from the wound in her chest.

  ‘I am Talina Orako,’ she says. ‘Once a daughter. Now an orphan. Once a trader. Now a soldier.’ She lifts her hand and holds it out. In her palm glitters the symbol of the golden chalice. Sanyctus holds out his own massive, clawed hand and allows the icon to fall into it.

  ‘But always a loyal servant of the God-Emperor of Mankind,’ Sanyctus says.

  Orako smiles at the sound of her own words given back to her, then she shudders and her eyes become flat and fixed. Sanyctus closes his gauntlet around the icon and gets to his feet.

  ‘To the Heart, then,’ he says, still looking down at his closed hand.

  Victorno nods. ‘To the Heart.’

  ‘After the daemon’s words?’ Maeklus says. ‘Do not be a fool.’

  Darrago can see where the creature’s clawed hand pressed into Sanyctus’ chestplate, leaving a mark that looks almost like a bruise. He thinks of what he saw in the moment of transit. Of the chalice spilling over with angels’ blood.

  ‘The last and greatest sacrifice,’ he says, slowly. ‘The blood they want is yours.’

  ‘Let them try and take it,’ Sanyctus says, a snarl twisting his face.

  ‘Think clearly, Sanyctus,’ Maeklus says. ‘We cannot take you with us.’

  ‘Well, we cannot leave him behind,’ Ebellius says. For once, he is serious. ‘We are few enough as it is. We need his blades.’

  Maeklus shakes his head. ‘If they were to capture him–’

  Ebellius snorts a laugh. ‘Let them try, like Sanyctus says. They will soon see what happens when they do.’

  ‘This is not something to take lightly, brother,’ Maeklus says.

  Ebellius flinches as if Maeklus has struck him. ‘I know that. You know that I do.’

  ‘Stop.’ Darrago does not raise his voice, or clash the standard pole on the stone. He just speaks clearly and evenly, and they fall quiet. ‘It is not your decision what we do – any of you. Nor is it mine.’

  He looks to Victorno. The sergeant is still looking at Talina Orako’s unmoving form, resting one hand on the haft of his thunder hammer. Victorno shakes his head.

  ‘There is no way out other than victory. No extraction. We will not give them what they seek, because Sanyctus will not fall. None of us will fall.’

  Victorno looks up from the shrine-sergeant’s body and hefts his thunder hammer.

  ‘The only thing that we will give to the Devoted and to Tur Zalak and his coven is death.’

  THE SANGUINE TEAR, NOW…

  ‘The Devoted fed upon the faithful.’ There is a change in the face of Darrago’s brother then. The shadowed hollows of his eyes seem to grow darker. ‘It is a perversion of our own rites,’ he says.

  Darrago thinks about that. About drinking from the Red Grail all of those years ago when he ha
d but a mortal heart. He cannot remember it clearly, but he remembers the dreams that followed during the Angel’s slumber. Dreams of feathered wings and a voice like choirsong. Dreams of warmth, but not the warmth of a rad-desert, or a blazing sun. It was a golden kind of warmth, a pure kind. Drinking from the Grail is what granted him and every one of his brothers ascension. It is a sacred rite. Pure, like the warmth from the dream. What he saw in the shrine does not conjure images of that rite, but images that he would sooner forget.

  ‘They tore out their throats,’ Darrago says, absently. ‘Like animals.’

  He feels a change in himself as he speaks the word animals. He thinks of the lone watch-station of Solace, so long ago now. Of catching his own reflection in fire-lit steel and glimpsing an animal there, baring bloody fangs.

  Darrago blinks and lets out a breath.

  ‘It was not so much a perversion of our rites, as a reflection of our failures. Something meant to expose us, not only to ourselves, but to those who had built Sanguis Gloria in our father’s image. To those who consider us angels.’

  He thinks of Orako’s words as she stood against them.

  The whispers mean to make monsters of us.

  I think that you feel it too.

  ‘You feel sorrow over the mortal’s death.’ There is no judgement in the way his brother says those words, just a cold curiosity.

  ‘All deaths are sorrowful in one way or another,’ Darrago says. ‘It means a life cut short. One less loyal soul to fight and live and defy everything set against us. We are few, in a vast galaxy.’

  ‘Mortals live short lives, Thaneod. They die easily, in great numbers. That is why we are made. To fight where they cannot. To stand where they fall. To endure what breaks them.’

  Darrago nods. ‘But Orako did not break,’ he says. ‘She endured the whispers. She endured her once-brother turning into something dark and hateful that she could not hope to understand. Despite all of that, she kept to her name and her oaths, and died without losing herself.’