Misericorde powered forward, the screaming mouths of its drive bells vomiting flame. Lance fire connected the ship with Europae, green and red threads of coherent particles stringing between them, then gone. Spherical explosions opened like puffballs into the vacuum, spilling iced gases and spent men into the dark. As the Chaos and Blood Angels ships crossed the distance toward one another, Ideon brought Arkio’s flagship up in Misericorde’s shadow, allowing the powerful bow guns to rip past the ruby-coloured cruiser and strike Europae’s glittering void shields. The barge’s ephemeral energy screens flickered and deformed under the onslaught, shedding the might of her attackers like rain, but already the enigmatic field generators in the barge’s heart were reacting to the pressure, sending waves of sympathetic panic into the tech-priests that ministered to them. Europae was strong, to be sure, but she would not resist so barbaric an assault for long.
In the depths of space, such fights took place at ranges that would swallow a star system, ships hitting ships beyond each other’s visual ranges. The close-in fighting of near-orbit engagements was an entirely different game. If one was a fencing match, full of elegant moves and pinpoint strikes, then the other was a dirty street brawl, punches being traded with ferocity and killer intent. Europae leapt forward without warning, a plume of fusion fire nova-bright and blinding erupting from her stern. She veered to port in a savage turn that stressed the hull beyond its tolerances, popping out thousands of ancient, giant rivets. The brutal manoeuvre bled speed and gravity away, pushing Europae on to a different tack and ending the lives of dozens of luckless crew caught in the wrong sections of the hull spaces.
The turn came out of nowhere and it was near suicidal. Ideon’s surprise was enough that he hesitated a second too long as Mephiston’s ship presented itself in passing. By the time the command to fire the bow guns had been relayed, Bellus was carving at empty air like an addled punch-drunk. Europae’s crew was prepared, however.
Secondary batteries, laser cannons with great quartz lenses broad as the eye of a kraken, spat a killing glare over Bellus’s starboard flank. The battle barge moaned under the impact, and Ideon felt the screech as the machine-spirit’s pain analogue ripped into him. The simple, animal mind of Bellus hissed and spat; it lacked the intellect to understand why another Blood Angels ship would attack it.
Europae extended her turn, coming about on a course that would allow the ship to enter Bellus’s rearward arc. Even with the acres of armour and double-projected void shielding that protected it, a captain would be courting suicide to allow an attacking vessel the freedom to throw shells and las-fire into his drive nozzles. Ideon spat curses and bellowed out orders, his hands twitching into angry claws in a rare moment of physical reaction. The two barges turned into one another, matching speed for speed as they became caught in a deadly waltz. They continued to trade fire as Misericorde came about, sighting the bores of her lethal hellguns over Bellus. A human captain might have waited; a human captain might have evaluated the consequences and held his fire until Europae became the clearer target. But, like his ship, Misericorde’s captain had long forgotten his human origins and any form of fealty to weak abstracts like fidelity or compassion.
The red dagger freed its weapons to do their worst, and Misericorde’s starboard armaments blazed in one cascade of hot murder. Many of the shots found their true target, striking vitals all across Europae’s hull, but just as many punctured Bellus, firing through the loyalist ship as if it were some cursory piece of cover to be disintegrated.
Ideon’s primary heart stammered with shock as laser fire tore turrets and minarets from the deck of Bellus. His head jerked on old, unused muscles in his neck, the tiny motion the first he had made with it in decades. The captain made eye-contact with Solus and saw the mute accusation in his second’s gaze, then a plasma conduit burst behind him and Ideon watched Solus become a shrieking human torch.
“Return fire,” he roared above the din, the shout running into distorted crackle through his implanted voxcoder.
“Which target?” asked the gun-servitor, the dull voice at odds with the violent emotions of the battle.
“All of them,” Ideon demanded, and Bellus fired every gun at once, growing spines of laser light and missile fire.
Rafen’s skill with the jump pack was hardly a match for the trained battle-brothers of the assault squads, but it was enough to guide him over the dense heart of the fighting, skipping him off the ground in steep, loping arcs of orange flame. He twisted nimbly in mid-air, avoiding the bright streaks of missiles and red bolts of laser fire. At the zenith of a leap from a broken battlement, his sight captured a glint of shining gold and brilliant white.
He skipped off the ground, sparing a moment to shoot dead a helot soldier, then powered back into the air. He spun and turned, became a guided missile himself. Rafen let the thruster pack spew flame and aim him at the cored remains of a cathedral. Only the stone walls remained, the places where great arcs of stained glass once stood now open, wailing mouths. The roof was gone, swept away by some long-faded detonation shock wave, and the endless rush of the rain cascaded over broken teeth of stone. Statues headless, bisected and shattered lined the aisles and transepts. In places, the mosaic floor had collapsed into the crypts below.
Rafen landed in a hiss of sparks from his boots and there, half-cloaked in the shadows of a huge granite altar, he saw a white spread of wings.
“Arkio.” His voice carried the length of the ruined hall. “This must end now.”
With deliberation, his brother turned to face him, the golden armour emerging from the darkness. Where he had been wounded, a creeping purple-black bloodstain flowed like living oil across his torso. There were tiny pearls of dark matter disfiguring Arkio’s face and neck. “Yes,” he intoned. “It must.”
And suddenly the dark was banished by a violent surge of yellow lightning as the Spear of Telesto shook into life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bile rose in Rafen’s throat as he laid eyes on his brother. The alabaster skin of his face, the noble patrician lines were distorted in subtle and cruel ways. “What have you become?” he asked his sibling.
Arkio eyed him coldly. “Your better, Rafen. The superior to all living things.” The rain spattered around him as he walked out of the shadows and across the church’s ruined nave. “I have banished all doubts.” He threw a cursory gesture at the altar behind him.
Sheet lightning flashed and illuminated the transept. Rafen gasped as he saw the remains of a statue of the Emperor, beheaded by a single stroke of the Holy Lance. “Does your blasphemy know no bounds?” he said, shaking with anger, “It is not enough that you go against your kin and your Chapter, but now you turn your back on the God-Emperor himself?”
Arkio made a lazy gesture with the humming spear. “What need have I for gods when I am one myself?”
“You are deluded.” Rafen stabbed a finger at Arkio’s side, where the sword cut he had inflicted still festered. “If you are a god, then why do you bleed like a man? Or perhaps, not a man… Perhaps a warp-touched thing, a pawn of Chaos.”
Arkio threw back his head and laughed. The bitter humour echoed off the broken walls. “Chaos?” He threw the word aside. “A childish label for something you could never understand.”
“I understand enough.” Rafen shouted back at him. “My brother, my blood kinsman has been poisoned by the warp. Stele led you to this.” He brandished his sword. “Recant, Arkio. While there is still time.”
The golden figure spread his arms wide and the wings on his back flowed open in a rush of wind. “This is not heresy, and I will not recant,” he snarled. “My eyes are open, brother. I know it all now… Men and monsters, order and Chaos…” He pointed the spear at the sky. “Just words. There is no right and wrong, no black and white. Only the strong… and the weak.”
“And what am I?”
Arkio ignored him. “I will not bend my knee to the Golden Throne or the Dark Gods. I p
ay fealty to no one!” He cocked his head, the metallic sun-shaped halo behind his head glittering in the spear’s glow. “This galaxy will fall to me… I will be the master.”
“It will not.” Rafen grated. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword.
Arkio’s eyes flashed. “Then I will burn it to ashes, blind every star, cull every life that defies me.”
There was no hesitation in his brother’s face, not an iota of doubt within him. The ironclad certainty of Arkio’s words took Rafen’s breath away. “You are mad.”
“Am I?” He drew the words out into a sigh. “We’ll see.”
Red flame exploded from Rafen’s jump pack, blasting him forward, fire licking at the walls of the shattered chancel. Arkio moved so fast he faded into a yellow-white blur, both of them closing the distance down the aisle in heartbeats.
They collided with such force that the impact blew down an ornate colonnade, both of them spinning away from the point of impact on headlong trajectories. Arkio’s wings unfurled and he skipped off a broken column, thundering back at Rafen. His brother clipped a wall, and used a hissing jet of thrust to mimic his opponent’s manoeuvre. They met again in mid-air over the nave and flashed past each other, blades glittering.
Rafen let out a roar of pain as the hot apex of the lance ran a slice through his thigh, drawing a fan of blood. Arkio wobbled and broke through an obelisk as Rafen’s power sword severed the linkage cables on his right shoulder pad, but missed his flesh. The gold hemisphere of metal and ceramite armour spun away and clattered into the shadows. Thin processor fluids leaked down his arm and the cut plastiform musculature twitched.
Rafen landed hard and opened fire with his bolt pistol, thumbing the selector to full automatic fire. Shells crashed from the muzzle of the gun, shedding spent casings in a fountain of gleaming brass. The hot casings clattered to the stone floor, buzzing as they struck the gathering puddles of rainwater. Arkio swooped and looped between the remnants of columns and arcing roof supports, Rafen’s shots chewing chunks of ancient masonry from the frame of the church. He bracketed his brother with a hail of bullets, a few lucky rounds kissing his armour and keening away in orange gouts of sparks.
Arkio closed the distance, swinging the spear in a figure of eight that left bright after-images on Rafen’s retina. The Blood Angel deftly changed tack, dropping back the pistol to present the power sword. He stood his ground as Arkio dove down at him, waiting for the moment of change when the winged figure would telegraph his attack.
Arkio’s face opened in a snarl and he rode the lance like a jousting knight, aiming it directly at the centre of his brother’s torso. Rafen bit back a grim sneer and faded into the move, turning, spinning, clashing the sword’s bright blade against the adamantium tip of the spear. The blow pushed him back, striking grit and sparks from the stones under his feet, darts of bright light blazing where blade kissed blade. Arkio followed through on the strike with a reversal, sweeping the blunt end of the spear around to catch his legs and trip him. Rafen squeezed the thruster pack control in the palm of his glove for a fraction of a second and let a spurt of flame throw him clear. He flipped in a somersault and landed on a ledge, presenting the bolt pistol again. Rafen emptied the rest of the ammunition clip toward his brother, and Arkio skipped to the side, dodging between the low bulks of burial crypts and monuments.
The golden figure let out braying, harsh laughter as the rounds harmlessly spent themselves on stonework and pavement. Arkio turned on his heel and thrust the Holy Lance at Rafen, willing the weapon to release the powerful energies humming inside it. For the briefest second, the spear seemed to obey him, glowing brightly as a ball of honeyed lightning gathered at the end of the teardrop blade. Rafen sprang from his ledge, skipping off a fallen granite eagle to another naked support beam. Arkio followed him and goaded his weapon to unleash its killing force, but once more the Spear of Telesto shifted in his grip, rolling about its length. It jerked through his fingers as if it were trying to escape him.
“No!” Arkio spat, and in his anger he swung the errant weapon around him in an arc of light, slashing through two support columns and a broken statue. The spear moaned and shuddered. “You cannot deny me.” Arkio thundered. “I am your master!” Thick, poisoned spittle flew from his lips in his fury, and his regal face contorted. Scars emerged from his cheeks and forehead, weeping thick oil, bringing with them the hard pearls of black mutation. Arkio seemed unaware of them as they wriggled and moved beneath the surface of his skin, shifting like burrowing beetles.
His instant of rage brought distraction with it, and Rafen exploited the error to the fullest. Slamming home a fresh sickle magazine of bolt-rounds, Arkio’s brother threw himself off the stone stanchion and dropped, unloading the gun in a roaring blaze of gunfire. The reports of the bolt-shells came so close together they merged into a ripping snarl of noise. Arkio brought up the spear to deflect them a heartbeat too late, and the discharge struck him in the chest. The white-hot impacts staggered him backward in jerks of motion, the thick bolts ripping long shreds of golden armour from him. Ceramite fragmented and plasteel broke away, crazing the coating of precious yellow metal.
Arkio reacted with a growling shout of annoyance and shook himself, discarding bits of spent armour clinging to his arms and his chest. Through holes cored in the plates, dusky liquids bubbled and flowed. The mark of Stele’s taint was no longer concealed within the prison of his flesh. Released by the wanton hate that churned in Arkio’s mind, the changed aspect of the Space Marine was revealed.
Rafen felt physically sick at the sight of his brother. The foetor of him strangled the Blood Angel’s senses, and the revelation of a body irredeemably tainted by Chaos was an affront to everything he stood for. Rafen willed himself to forget that some last piece of his blood brother’s soul might still survive behind that warped face, and attacked again.
Arkio was ready for him. The winged figure spun the lance and met Rafen’s sword with a thunderous strike, shattering the blade of the power weapon. Rafen snarled as he felt his wrist dislocate in the impact. The shock threw him back against a fragmented piece of stained glass as Arkio reared up before him.
The flash of lightning reflected Arkio’s twisted face in the age-worn glass. “Look at yourself!” Rafen shouted. “Look at what you have become!”
Arkio swung the spear and shattered the glass forever. “Fool,” he bellowed. “I know what I am! I AM SANGUINIUS!”
Rafen tried to dodge the blow he knew was coming, but it hit him like a falling meteor. One cut slashed across his chest, striking his armour; the second came from the blunt pommel and it sent him crashing to the ground. The Blood Angel struck the mosaic floor with a crash of sound and the stonework gave way beneath him.
He tumbled into a black void and landed hard, the breath singing out of his lungs. Air wheezed through his chest accompanied by rips of pain and his vision fogged. Is this death, he wondered, at last? His fingers traced the shapes of something familiar, and in the dimness he glimpsed the forms of skeletons. Hundreds of them—but not human ones. These were larger, stockier. With a start he understood: Arkio’s blow had thrown him into a crypt for Sabien’s war dead, where the Blood Angels who died defending the planet had been interred. About the walls of the sepulchre were stone carvings of Space Marines. In the shadows they towered over him like a granite honour guard, mute and strong.
Rafen scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain. All about him were his brethren, dead for centuries in this desolate, lonely place. A single thought burned in his brain: I will not join them! The fury of it raced through him, igniting an inferno in his veins. The broken sword dropped from his fingers and he clenched his fist, feeling hot anger pour into him. From the edges of his vision came something bright and powerful, a glow of infinite perfection. For one moment, he thought Arkio had followed him into the crypt, but the light of it outshone even his brother in his most omnipotent moment. Rafen looked up and saw the true face of
his liege lord filling the air before him, the gene-kindred in his blood manifesting itself to him. The vision overwhelmed him, blocking out all pain, all hesitation. Sanguinius!
A rage so pure it burnt white-hot swelled in Rafen’s heart, and the red thirst overtook him.
A fresh wave of hooting, horned monstrosities joined the mad throng of the ground battle, blades and guns shouting in the clash. The square was a seething ocean of red shades, crimson fighting against ruby, incarnadine versus scarlet, moving and shifting in bloody tides. Mephiston and his troops ranged in a tight crescent about the remains of their Thunderhawks, pressing forward their attacks with grim determination and cold, cold rage. They faced the wild zealots of Arkio’s slave army, and although the Shenlongi helots carried weapons that were mere toys in comparison to the arms of the Adeptus Astartes, the sheer weight of their numbers and the mad passion of their fervour were staggering. The warriors would not surrender or retreat. Only attrition would thin their thousand-strong horde into defeat.
The adherents of Arkio’s church stood by Space Marines loyal to the Reborn Angel, but in this small number of red-armoured men the seeds of doubt and misgiving grew large. Many of them found themselves hesitant to fire on their own kind, and they became lost in the sea of conflict. Worse still, the men who had bent their knee to take Arkio’s oath were shocked by the arrival of a new force of allies upon the battlefield, ruby-coloured figures who seemed to be fighting not against them, but with them. Word Bearers.
Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 47
